Article 32 - Perseverance

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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August 25, 2021

00:00: Alright, greetings, salutations, good to see you again.
00:06: Let us begin as we continue to go through the First Lenten Confession.
00:17: We are moving through it and we've come to Article 32 and then Brother Keith will take Article 33 and 34.
00:31: So, we've got a little bit more to go but at some point we'll come to the end and that will be the end.
00:40: Very serious thought.
00:43: Alright, as we begin let's take a moment and open up with a word of prayer and then we'll go to our article.
00:53: Alright, let's pray.
00:56: Our Father in God, again we thank you for who you are, Lord, that you are the true God, the living God and the everlasting King.
01:04: You are the one who created us, that you are the one who watches over us.
01:09: You are the God of all the earth, you are the judge of all the earth, Lord.
01:14: We pray tonight that as we meet as your people that you would bless us, that even just a few minutes in your word and considering what your word teaches us that we would grow in grace, that we would grow in knowledge, experimental knowledge, Lord, not just head knowledge but heart knowledge, knowledge that changes us and transforms us.
01:36: Lord, we know Lord without you we can do nothing so be our teacher tonight and may our thoughts and our words and our prayers be pleasing in your sight and we ask it all again and again in Christ's name, Amen.
01:51: Okay, so Article 32 which is Perseverance and remember now that the words that are in parentheses have been added or inserted as those who put this confession, not the authors of it but the ones who reprinted it in this format have added to it to kind of give us some thoughts of what the article is speaking about.
02:20: So we're talking about perseverance and I thought about this because if you think about it as of lately as a body of believers we spent a lot of time on perseverance.
02:30: We've talked about it in our conference, we had a conference based on Perseverance of the Saints and then more recently if you remember we had a series of messages on the Doctrines of Grace and one of those certainly is the pea in the tulip or the Perseverance of the Saints.
02:49: And as I thought about it, I thought about this and I hope you would agree that as much as we trust that God directs our lives and the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord and that God watches over us as his people, as sure as we believe that I think it's important for us to believe that even the spiritual food, if you will, that God presents to us is ordained.
03:14: So I know we spoke about perseverance a number of times but again under the sovereignty of God we believe not just in a doctrine but in the reality that God orders all things and that even in this whether we have considered it once, twice, three times or whatever that it is the food that God would have us to take.
03:35: So with that I want us to just, if you will, dip into the well again as far as Perseverance of the Saints and the article is on page 18 if you have your little confessions with you and what I'll do is I'm going to read it and then hopefully just in a few minutes we'll take it apart, put it back together again and see if it's true.
03:55: And you know as another point whether or not we've adopted this confession as a statement of faith, as a body of believers, but we still need to test, right, we need to even as the scriptures say we need to test the spirits whether we're of God or of man.
04:11: And so let's take it, we'll read it, take it apart for a moment, put it back together and hopefully we will come to a conviction that yep it is true.
04:22: So article 32 says this, the only strength by which the saints are enabled to encounter with all oppositions and trials is only by Jesus Christ who is the captain of their salvation being made perfect through sufferings who has engaged his faithfulness and strength to assist them in all their afflictions and uphold them in all their temptations and to preserve them by his power to his everlasting kingdom.
04:56: Well that's a whole lot of thought right there and it's a wonderful thought and again we need to see if it's so.
05:07: And so let me just take us through a couple different thoughts, you have some thoughts to add in that's great, but here's one of the things that I thought of.
05:20: We really believe, at least I hope we really believe, that the perseverance of the saints is true, that he who began a good work in us will continue it until that day.
05:35: We believe it to be true, but do we really walk in that truth? And that's something that I think many times, again as I said even as we open in prayer, many of the truths that we hold, we hold in our heads, not necessarily in our hearts.
05:56: And the reality is it really has to progress, not only from taking it in and understanding it but then to assimilate it into our lives and then to see the fruit of it in the outworking of our lives.
06:11: So it's something that we really need to understand and if we think about the perseverance of the saints, one of the first things that comes to my mind when I think about the perseverance of the saints is this, I think about my own weakness and inability.
06:29: Now you might not think that that's a thought that would immediately come to you, but I think of it in that sense because if I truly believe in the perseverance of the saints, and as I'll show you very quickly how the brothers laid it out, then we must really believe that we are unable and too weak to take care of ourselves.
06:50: That the reality is if the perseverance of the saints is true, which it is, then you and I are to be humbled by that thought that we in and of ourselves are not able to take care of our own welfare.
07:06: That's a humbling thought.
07:08: I think most of us would like to say well I can take care of myself and certainly I would hope that that's true, but the reality is if the perseverance of the saints is a reality in our life, then what it does is it causes us to become more dependent and less proud of our actions, our strengths, our abilities, our steadfastness, because it really is the grace of God that's what? Working in us.
07:38: He who began a good work in us will continue it.
07:43: What is that saying to us? That we couldn't continue it? Because we don't have the strength.
07:48: We don't have the spiritual strength.
07:50: We don't have the spiritual mind in order to make that a reality.
07:55: So that must be a continual thought when you think of perseverance of the saints, think about that, that as Jesus said, without me you can do nothing, and I thought it was true in the sense that I want to just read this.
08:09: It's short enough for me to read it again, but I want you to focus in on two words.
08:13: One of the words is only and the other word is all.
08:16: Just listen to what they said again.
08:19: Would you mind thinking about that? The only strength by which the saints are enabled to encounter with all oppositions and trials is only by Jesus Christ, who is the captain of their salvation, being made perfect through sufferings, who has engaged his faithfulness and strength to insist them in all their afflictions and to uphold them in all their temptations and to preserve them by his power to his everlasting kingdom.
08:50: There's not much I in this, is there? There's a whole lot of him and there's a whole lot of all and only and again, that's one of the realities that you and I, if we truly believe in the perseverance of the saints that we will continue on and that we will see him face to face, that we realize it's only by his grace and he is the preserver of all our lives.
09:19: Every moment, every second, every hour, both the things we realize and even the things we don't realize, and one of the things that I think we sometimes lose sight of because of the things of this life and how things of this life kind of fill our cup up so often, whether it be sickness or situations or families or relationships, finances, there's a whole gamut of things that kind of suck our time away from us, and I mean our time to consider right, but how often we forget what Paul says in Ephesians 6, and remember what he says that we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and against powers and against the rules of the darkness of this age, and you and I must believe that God is the preserver of our standing before him, our walk before him, and our safety before him because even beyond all the scope of the things of this world, we wrestle against principalities and powers, things much bigger and in that sense much higher than us, and things that are invisible, and those things become tragic at times because we neglect them.
10:37: So just something to think about, and again, the more you think about that, and you add the things of this life, and you add the enemies that we face, and you add all the difficulties that life in and of itself because of sin brings, the more we understand, I hope we understand the magnitude of this truth of the perseverance of the saints, that if God were not for us, then we have no hope, but if God be for us, who could be against us? Again, the perseverance of the saints is not something just to know, it's something to, if you will, feed on, trust in, depend on, rely on, find comfort in.
11:20: I always think of the verse in, I believe it's Psalm 94, 17, it says in the multitudes of my anxieties, in the multitudes of my anxieties, your comforts are my delight.
11:37: That's a great verse, in the multitudes of, because I got them, I know you got them too, we all have anxieties, and if we're going to find comfort, it's got to be that we delight in God, who is the author and finisher of our faith.
11:51: He's the author, the finisher, and it's the way they present it, I believe, stresses that, and certainly it says that.
11:59: The only strength by which the saints are enabled to encounter with all oppositions and trials is only by Jesus Christ.
12:07: You see, the perseverance of the saints really finds its strength not in a thing, but in a person, and I wonder sometimes if we lose sight of that, that we trust more in something than someone.
12:24: It's not something that's preserving us, it's not this force out there like the Star Wars episodes, it's the person of Christ.
12:34: He is the captain, and the captain, the captain started, leave no one behind long before any armed services did.
12:46: Think about that.
12:47: He will not leave any of us behind.
12:51: My father who gave him to me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my father's hands.
12:56: And I thought about this, and ask you to think about this, not only is it not something, but someone who is the preserver and is the strength of the perseverance of the saints, but if you think about the depth of the last three words on the cross, what were the last three words on the cross? It is finished.
13:22: If you think about that, you think about the depth of those three words, to me those are the three greatest words that have ever been spoken.
13:30: It is finished.
13:34: Then the perseverance of the saints becomes even more glorious to us.
13:41: His suffering is our glory, it's our confidence, it's our assurance, it's, it is finished.
13:48: And you think about it, what was finished? Everything that was past is finished in Christ.
13:55: Pain, the price.
13:58: The present, it's finished.
14:01: He will preserve us, even in the situations, past, present, and future, that you and I can trust in the perseverance of the saints because of the captain of the saints, not merely in the reality of the saints themselves.
14:17: Because if you trust me to persevere, I'm going to disappoint you in a heartbeat, and don't get too lofty with your thought because you're going to disappoint me.
14:27: Jesus is never going to disappoint us.
14:30: And that's something that you and I can rest on and enjoy.
14:34: Remember what Paul says, he says, I, what? I know whom I believed in.
14:42: I think I know? No.
14:44: I hope I know? No.
14:46: I know whom I believe in and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day.
14:59: Isn't that great? Isn't that glorious? Isn't that something that you and I, I mean, especially in today's world, and we were watching the news for a while today.
15:06: I'll tell you what, you watch the news for too long.
15:09: It just, it just unrattles your mind in all the different viewpoints and people say this and this thing and that thing, and whoo, I know whom I believed in.
15:22: And that's how I come from myself.
15:23: I was watching something the other night, they were talking about UFOs.
15:27: Oh, and they, you know, the United States government's been lying to us since 1958 over there, 1951.
15:32: They got the flying saucers and the Martians in the jar with the maldehyde, and the whole bit.
15:39: And I, and this absolute scientific proof, we got the pictures, and I said to myself, I know whom I believed in.
15:47: I'm persuaded that he's able, I don't care where they got the jar, it's probably a frog anyway.
15:52: But just think about it, the perseverance of the saints is a, it's sustenance, it's spiritual food for our soul.
16:02: And I'll say this, those who struggle with assurance, this is my own conviction, but I believe I could support it by the scriptures, and that would be the only support I could offer.
16:16: Those that struggle with assurance, struggle with the cross.
16:22: Those that struggle with knowing that they will see God face to face, I don't believe they've actually settled the cross.
16:35: Because if you really settled what took place on the cross, and that it took place on your behalf, then I believe assurance becomes a settled conviction.
16:49: And I've talked to many over the years in different situations that will say things like, you know, I know Jesus came, and I know Jesus died on the cross, and I believe God's word, but you know, I'm just not absolutely sure that I'm going to make it all the way.
17:10: And I really believe, and that's what I usually say, go to the cross.
17:15: Because if you settle the cross, you will settle your assurance.
17:18: Because you had nothing to do with the cross.
17:21: You had nothing to do with its work completed, and therefore, you and I can rest in that truth.
17:31: And again, I really believe that.
17:34: I really believe many people struggle with assurance because they've not really settled the cross.
17:38: And if they've settled the cross, they haven't settled the cross themselves.
17:42: Because again, those three words, it is finished, should constantly be on our minds.
17:49: I want to read just a couple of scriptures to help support this.
17:53: And this one, and if you want, you can turn to it, it's in Hebrews chapter 7.
17:57: But just to think about it, we ought to read this probably 10 times a day, just if we rightfully understand what it's saying.
18:06: But I just wanted to read this, Hebrews chapter 7.
18:09: And again, a very familiar portion of the scripture, but sometimes the most familiar portions of the scriptures are the ones that we kind of don't get the riches from that we ought to get.
18:22: So I'm just picking up in verse 20 of Hebrews chapter 7, it says, And as much as he was not made priest, speaking of Christ, made priest without an oath, for they have become priests without an oath.
18:35: But he with an oath by him who said to him, the Lord has sworn and will not relent.
18:39: You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.
18:43: By so much sure, Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant.
18:48: And there were many priests because they were prevented by death from continuing.
18:52: But he, because he continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood.
18:59: Therefore, there's a therefore.
19:01: What is the therefore? It's therefore what he has just said and what he's about to say.
19:05: Therefore, he is able to save to the uttermost, those that come to God through him, why he ever lives to make intercession for them.
19:19: Again, it is finished.
19:21: Isn't that what Jesus said in Revelation? Behold, I was dead, I'm alive forevermore.
19:28: But he ever lives to make intercession for us.
19:33: That is, it is such a glorious truth.
19:35: And again, the perseverance of the saints can only find its strength in that person and in his work.
19:46: And I am, I will say this too, I am against giving out false assurance, right? We don't want to give someone false assurance.
19:56: But at the same time, I don't want to hold back giving someone assurance when they show the marks of salvation.
20:05: Now, how you discern between the two takes a lot of prayer.
20:10: It takes a lot of discernment.
20:11: And we probably have made a lot of errors along the way.
20:14: But the reality is we ought not to give false assurance, but we ought not to hold back giving someone assurance if they demonstrate, if there is the fruit of salvation in their life, even in seed form, we should give assurance.
20:30: Why? Because assurance is a, to me, it's a stabilizer.
20:37: It's a staple of the Christian life.
20:40: And I will say this, and I don't believe my son is listening to me on the internet right now, but my son, when he came to faith, and I told you all about my son, the fireman who was all his life brought up in a Christian home, the rest of my kids, and decided when he was old enough to have his own thoughts of God.
21:03: And I told you probably about two or three years ago, or maybe two years ago, one day he called me up and he said he couldn't sleep.
21:11: And anyway, he came to Christ, 38 years old.
21:20: And almost from the beginning, I had no doubt that it was true because I know what he believed before.
21:28: And since then, I've had many conversations with him about this very thing, about his assurance.
21:35: And his assurance's issues are, what if I'm deceiving myself? And I've always tried to counsel him and say, you know what, the very fact that you're concerned about being deceived and losing your salvation, to me, is a mark that you have your salvation because that wasn't something he had before.
21:59: And so there's so many examples of how we should use the perseverance of the saints to both instruct the unbeliever or the professor and comfort the believer.
22:11: So something to think about.
22:12: It's by his power, by the power of the spirit of God.
22:18: And again, the perseverance of the saints finds all its strength in his powerful.
22:26: And that's what it says, right? It's who is the captain of our salvation, be made perfect through sufferings, who has engaged his faithfulness and strength.
22:40: And again, I'll remind you again what it says, assist them in all their afflictions and upon and uphold them in all their temptations.
22:50: I'll tell you what, that's, that's a savior that will uphold me in all my afflictions and all my temptations, who will uphold me when I don't uphold him.
23:06: The perseverance of the saints is, is a wondrous truth.
23:09: And so as I finish up my time, just the final thought, as they say it, it says to uphold them in all their temptations.
23:16: And then it says, and to preserve them by his power to his everlasting kingdom.
23:25: How easy for us to say he's coming again.
23:29: Yet, how often when we are faced with the slightest bit of adversity, our trees shake in the wind.
23:39: I don't know, maybe it's just me.
23:41: I'm just the one that's struggling with, because I could one minute, it's so amazing to me.
23:47: One minute I could be, I feel as if I'm dwelling in the heavenlies.
23:53: And then I get a splinter and I'm crying, Lord, save me.
23:57: And, and again, he's going to preserve us not for now, but forever until he presents us as his bride to that day.
24:10: And I'll end it with, I had a couple of verses, but I'll just end it with this.
24:15: I want you to just, you're in, in Hebrews.
24:17: So go to Hebrews 12 for a minute.
24:20: Like I said, there's a couple of other verses I want to present, but I think this presents enough of a, a support for what the brothers have said in this.
24:29: In Hebrews chapter 12, I want to pick it up in verse 25.
24:42: See that you do not refuse him who speaks for if they did not escape who refused him who spoke on earth, much more we shall we not escape if we turn away from him who speaks from heaven.
24:58: Whose voice then shook the earth, but now he is promising yet.
25:02: Once more, I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.
25:07: Now this yet once more indicates the removal of the things that are being shaken as the things that are made, that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.
25:20: Therefore, there's no one else.
25:22: Therefore, therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom, which cannot be shaken.
25:30: Why? Because of his power holds it.
25:34: It holds his kingdom.
25:35: It holds us.
25:36: Let us have grace whereby by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear for our God is a consuming fire.
25:48: Perseverance of the saints will carry us through all eternity.
25:53: And may God may God comfort us.
25:55: May God bless us.
25:56: May God grant us assurance and may God grant us the ability to live a life that is nailed to the truth of the word of God.
26:11: Okay.
26:12: And I tried to say my last word loud so you would hear me.
26:22: Thank you.