Assurance: Beyond the Shadow of a Doubt?

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Tonight we come to the issue of assurance. Many of you have read the biography of John Wesley or you have read parts of his journal. John Wesley was the founder of Methodism. It was on May 24, 1738 that John Wesley listened as someone read the preface to Luther's commentary on Romans. As a result of that reading, he writes in his journal, "about a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death." That's a wonderful testimony, isn't it? But it was less than a year later, the following January, that Wesley wrote this, "I am not a Christian now. I feel this moment I do not love God which there I know because I feel it again. Joy in the Holy Spirit. I have not, though I have constantly used all the means of grace for 20 years. I am not a Christian." Twenty-five years later, Wesley wrote to his brother, "I have no direct witness. I do not say that I am a child of God."

How can that happen? How can a man who has been so committed to Jesus Christ over a lifetime waiver and vacillate on the reality of whether or not he is truly in Christ? Well, I have to say that on a personal level, I certainly understand that kind of struggle. Early in my own Christian life, I struggled with, sometimes periodic and at other times fairly consistent doubts about whether or not I was in Christ. I've counseled many over the years who've struggled with the same question. And this is not an unimportant issue. In fact, I would argue, and I've read many others who argue, that assurance is vital to your spiritual growth and to your effective ministry. No less than Hugh Latimer, the English martyr wrote, "when I live in a settled and steadfast assurance about the state of my soul, then I am as bold as a lion." Bunion, if you're familiar with Pilgrims Progress, John Bunyan portrays Christian in Pilgrim's Progress as sleeping when he lost the role of assurance. And then he writes, "but who can tell how joyful this man was when he had gotten his role again for this role was the assurance of his life and acceptance at the desired haven. Oh, how nimbly now did he go up the rest of the hill."

That's exactly right. When we have that assurance, we can climb the hills of difficulty that come before us in life when we know that we're accepted in Christ. Charles Spurgeon wrote, "it is one thing to hope that God is with us and another thing to know that He is. So, faith saves us, but assurance satisfies us."

So, this is an absolutely crucial issue for us to address together. I want to begin this evening by looking at the presuppositions that lie behind assurance. Some basic presuppositions that you need to understand as to why this is an issue for us to discuss.

First of all, because it's possible to think you're a Christian and not be. Last week, we studied the number of warning passages together and this was exactly the circumstance. Those passages in scripture address people who have convinced themselves that they're Christians when, in fact, they aren't. In this case, they have a false sense of assurance. This makes understanding assurance very important because you can think you're a Christian, you can have assurance, and really not be. By the way, an important note: when you're talking about people like this, it's not that they have genuinely compared themselves to scripture and simply come to the wrong conclusion. There is almost always some crucial fruit or evidence of genuine salvation missing and if they had sought out what the scriptures really teach, they would have been shown that their profession was false. But it's still possible to think you're a Christian and not be.

Secondly, it's possible to be a Christian and seriously doubt that you are. In this case, of course, the lack of assurance is stealing your joy, weakening your spiritual growth, undermining your effective ministry, but nevertheless, you can get to heaven and not enjoy the trip.

Thirdly, God wants us to know that we are truly believers. There's a passage that I love from the book of Hebrews. Hebrews 6 says:

God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which is it impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge (that is, in Christ) would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.

God, even swore by an oath not because He needed to but because He wanted us to be certain that He was going to do what He promised He would do.

Another presupposition is: it is possible to know with certainty that you are a Christian. There are some who teach this isn't true, but the scriptures are absolutely clear. Romans. 5:1, Paul says, "therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God." Paul was absolutely confident that he'd been justified, and he was absolutely confident that he had peace with God. Therefore, as a result, and that he stood in grace. Romans chapter 8, Paul says, "I am convinced that (none of these things) will be able to separate us (who are in Christ) from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 2 Timothy 1:12, "I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day." He says, "listen, until the day that Christ returns, my future is settled. I know it." There are other passages that drive home the same point as well. 1 John 2, "by this we know that we have come to know Him." We'll come back to some of these references a little later. 1 John 3:14, "we know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers." 1 John 4:13, "by this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit." And 1 John 5:13, "these things I've written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life." There's no question that we can be confident of the reality of our salvation. It is possible to know this and, in fact, we are commanded to pursue it. In 2 Corinthians 13:5, Paul says, "test yourselves to see if you're in the faith," and the clear implication is you can find out, you can come to a true conclusion. Examine yourselves. "Or do you not recognize this about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you unless indeed you failed the test." And then in 2 Peter 1, "therefore brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you." Peter commands us to arrive at a point of certainty about the reality of our salvation.

One other presupposition, and that is that we must seek, as with everything else, this assurance in the scripture alone. I quoted just a moment ago 1 John 5:13. Notice what John says carefully, "these things I have written (what we have on the pages of 1 John) in order that you may know." How is it that we can know whether or not we're in the faith, whether or not we're in Christ? It's through the word of God. And John 14:20 says it's through the Spirit of God. "In that day (when the Spirit comes) you will know that I am in the Father and that you are in Me and I in you (through the work of the Spirit)." Now, how does the Spirit work? Our assurance comes from the Spirit of God who works, listen carefully, by and with the word.

Now what exactly are we talking about when we talk about assurance? Let's look briefly at the definition and, I thought of several that I could share with you, but I don't like any better, really, than this one even though it's a bit on the long side, so bear with me. The Westminster Confession of Faith, puts it this way, "Although hypocrites and other unregenerate men may vainly deceive themselves with false hopes and carnal presumptions of being in the favor of God, and estate of salvation (which hope of theirs shall perish): yet such as truly believe in the Lord Jesus, and love him in sincerity, endeavoring to walk in all good conscience before him, may, in this life, be certainly assured that they are in the state of grace, and may rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, which hope shall never make them ashamed." And then it goes on to say that this assurance doesn't belong to the essence of faith. In other words, you can truly savingly believe in Christ and yet not be absolutely certain that you are. "But that a true believer may wait long, and conflict with many difficulties before he be partaker of it: yet, being enabled by the Spirit to know the things which are freely given him of God, he may, without extraordinary revelation (in other words, God's not going to tell you in your ear. You're not going to get a feeling in your gut) in the right use of ordinary means (in other words, through scripture and prayer)" he can come to a full confidence that he is, in fact, in Christ. The work of the Spirit by and with the word. It's a wonderful thing that we can in this life be certainly assured that we are in the state of grace and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. That's what assurance is all about.

Now, how do you get there? What is the path to assurance? I want to begin as, you know I often like to do, by talking about the wrong paths. Let's see if we can clear the path so that we can eventually build on it a Biblical foundation. There are, in our day, many different paths to assurance that are absolutely wrong.

The first that I want to highlight for you tonight is finding assurance that your truly saved in religious ritual. Roman Catholics, for example, teach that your confidence - to whatever degree you can have confidence, Roman Catholicism doesn't believe you can be ultimately sure until after death - but to whatever degree you can have confidence the Roman Catholic Church says you find that in the sacraments. There are a lot of Protestant denominations who say you find this assurance in baptism. You look back to your baptism and that's where you find that confidence. "I was baptized and, therefore, I know I'm a Christian." That is the wrong path to assurance. There are a lot of people who headed through the baptistry who've only gotten wet. I got wet several times before I was truly baptized.

Secondly, another wrong path that assurance is sought is assurance in assurance itself. What do I mean by that? Well, this takes a variety of forms. Let me give you a couple of them. First of all, there's the person who says, "I know I'm saved because I'm sure I'm saved." I've dealt with people like this. "Well, I just know it. I just know it because I have the sense of assurance that I really am a Christian, then I must be a Christian." This is, of course, a form of circular reasoning. It doesn't make any sense but there are more people than you would like to think who embrace this path to assurance. "Well, I just feel sure. So that must mean I really am saved." Listen to Deuteronomy 29:19, Moses, speaking in the context of concerned that after the people go into the land of Israel that there are going to be defections into idolatry and that those people who defect into idolatry will still be confident that they have a right relationship to the Lord, listen to what he says. "It shall be when he hears the words of this curse (the curses that are pronounced there in Deuteronomy) that he will consider himself fortunate in his heart, saying, 'I will do well though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart." How many people have I talked to who take exactly that path? They may be walking in the absolute path of rebellion against the word of God and they may have walked in that path for year after year after year. There was a man that I dealt with at Grace Church who had lived a double life for ten years without his wife's knowledge. Wife called me one morning in my office and said, "I have to meet with you right away," that, "I found in my husband's briefcase a little black book." She came and met with me in my office and, sure enough, it was a little book filled with names and phone numbers and other lurid details about his encounters with a series of prostitutes. And when I went to this man's office where he worked and confronted him that day, I'll never forget his response when I said and laid the evidence before him and said, "look at what you have done. Tell me and tell the Lord what you have done." And it came out. Detail after detail poured out. All of his life had been a lurid affair then generating into prostitution and even homosexual behavior. And when I pressed him about the reality of his faith, when I simply urged him to examine his heart, his response was, "I know I'm saved. I'm confident of it." And I said, "brother, even if you are, how can you be confident?" But this is how many people get their assurance. "I know I'm saved because I know I'm saved." He will boast saying, "I have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart." There's another form this assurance in assurance itself takes, and that is: "I know I'm a Christian because somebody told me I was." Usually, it's an evangelist or a person who shares the gospel with them. They have the person pray to receive Christ and then they tell them after they lift their heads in prayer. "Now, you just prayed a prayer. You just asked Jesus to forgive your sins. Therefore, you are a Christian. Let's together write this date in the front of your Bible and you are now a Christian." This is the form of easy believism and it's rampant in modern evangelicalism. And it teaches that you can be assured of salvation, and you can assure others based on a simple syllogism. This is the way it works. They say a minor or major premise. "Anyone who believes in Christ is saved." - minor premise that person believes in Christ. Conclusion: That person must be saved. Now, on the face of it, that appears to be airtight logic. But it's not. There are two serious problems with that little syllogism. First of all, you have to define what it means to believe because there are different kinds of faith in scripture. Remember, we just studied James 2. There is a living, saving faith and there is also a kind of faith in Jesus that is a dead faith that won't absolutely damn a person to hell. It's the kind of faith that Jesus says, "many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord,' and I'll say to them, 'I never knew you. Depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness.'" So, you've got to define what it means to believe. There's another problem, however, and that is, you do not know - in fact, you cannot know - if the minor premise here is true, if that person actually believed in Christ. All you know is that they said they believe. You know that they prayed a prayer but you do not know and you really cannot know if they truly saving we believe in Jesus Christ. And yet so many people have built their confidence and faith on, "somebody told me I was a Christian after I prayed a prayer."

There's a third wrong path to assurance. Not only assurance in religious ritual, assurance in assurance itself, but also assurance in experience. I've talked to people who've had visions, often accompanied by a near-death experience when Jesus showed up and spoke to them. And now, they just know that they're Christians because they've had this experience in which Jesus spoke to them. Or there's the person who, when they were seven, prayed a prayer with a parent and that experience is what they always go back to for their assurance. "I remember when I prayed that prayer." Or it's walking an aisle, signing a card, talking to someone, going to a prayer room, and they always go back for their assurance to that past experience. That's the wrong path to assurance.

So, what is the Biblical path to assurance? Essentially, there are two forks in this path. Two aspects or parts of the Biblical path to assurance.

First of all, we find our assurance by resting in the promises of the gospel. Ian Murray in his excellent book The Old Evangelicalism writes, "We gain assurance not by looking at ourselves or anything within ourselves, but by looking to Christ alone and to Christ as He has revealed to us in the promises of scripture." This, by the way, is why someone who's only been a Christian for five minutes can still have assurance, real assurance. Sinclair Ferguson in his book The Doctrines of the Christian Life writes, "lack of assurance is often caused by being too taken up with ourselves but our assurance does not lie in what we are, be we great or small, it lies in what God has done in His plan of salvation, to secure us to Himself." The puritan Samuel Rutherford writes, "believe God's word and power more than you believe your own feelings and experiences." I love this. Listen carefully. "Your Rock is Christ, and it is not the Rock which ebbs and flows, but your sea." You see, part of assurance is resting ourselves in the clear testimony of the word of God. We are called to believe the simple promises of the gospel as in John 3:36, "he who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him." John 6:35, "Jesus said to them, 'I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger and he who believes in Me will never thirst." Acts 10:43, Peter says, "of Him (that is, of Christ), all the prophets bear witness that through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins." For me, a text that my mind often went to was a passage we looked at last week in John 10, where Jesus says, "I give them eternal life and they shall never perish." We rest our souls in the promises of the gospel. Again, Ian Murray says, "the Christian will never get beyond the promises of Christ as a surer ground of peace."

Many times, in the early years of my faith in Christ, I found myself on the seas of doubt and my Rock of Gibraltar was those great promises where Christ says, "the one who comes to Me, I'll never turn away and I'll never cast out." The promise of Psalm 9:10, where we learn that He never forsakes those who seek Him. The thing about doubt is often it comes at the very time we're most seeking Him and yet there's the promise He never forsakes those who seek Him. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, whom you know I love dearly, put it so beautifully. He says, "it is grace at the beginning, grace at the end, so that when you and I come to lie upon our deathbeds, the one thing that should comfort, and help, and strengthen us, there is the thing that helped us at the beginning. Not what we have been, not what we have done, but the grace of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. The Christian life starts with grace, continues with grace, and ends with grace."

The first step on the path to assurance is to rest yourself in the clear Biblical promises of the gospel, but there's a second step on the path to assurance. It is: examine the evidence in your life.

We already looked at 2 Corinthians 13:5. Test yourselves. Examine yourselves. In Romans 8:16 we looked at the several weeks ago there's an interesting expression. It says, "the Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are the children of God." And what is this witness of the Holy Spirit? Turn there for a moment because this speaks to the very issue I'm trying to present here. Romans 8:16, "the Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are the children of God." What is this Witness? It's not merely the scripture nor is it an inner mystical voice. There's some people who believe that this verse means that the Holy Spirit is going to speak to you somehow outside the scriptures in your soul and give you this rock-solid assurance. They say that this is the highest kind of assurance in which the Spirit speaks directly to the heart convincing the Christian that he's truly in Christ. But, what I want you to see is this verse says exactly the opposite. Notice how it is that the Spirit bears witness that we are in Christ. Notice verse 14, "for all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God." This "being led by the Spirit of God" means that our desires are led after obedience. If we had time, I would take you through this passage and show you how Paul unfolds that reality. So, in other words, the Spirit bears witness with our spirit through our own obedience to the Spirit of God. And verse 15, the Spirit bears witness with our spirit by our calling upon the Father in our need. He says, "we have not received a spirit of slavery, leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption." And here's what sons do, they, "cry out." This crying out, as we learned several weeks ago when we studied adoption, is not the crying out of a nice, warm, "hello, Daddy." This word "cries" is the same word that's used of Christ on the cross when He cried out. It's the cry that's used in another context of a woman in labor. This is a cry when you find yourself in trouble and there's nowhere else to turn. What do you do? What does a child do? "Daddy!" When the trouble's too big for Mom to handle, it's, "Daddy!" And that's what he's saying here. He's saying we have been adopted and that adoption expresses itself whereby when we find ourselves in trouble we cry out, "Abba, Father." And we are being led in the path of obedience. We are receiving desires, holy desires in our soul, being led by the Spirit. So, the Spirit bears witness through our obedience and through our calling upon the Father in our need. Now, why is that so important? As we saw, being legally adopted and feeling like you're part of the family are two entirely different things. That's how we know that we're truly adopted.

Now, as we look at this second step examining the evidence in your life, understand that not everyone agrees with this. In fact, there are some professors and graduates of Dallas Theological, for example, who argue that to introduce evidence of change into the life to assurance leads to legalism. I spoke with a man by the name of Bob Wilkin who is here locally who would absolutely embrace this reality but in a moment, we're going to look at 1 John and what I want you to realize is that most of the tests that John lists call for this examination. It calls for us to examine whether or not we love the brothers, whether or not we're obeying the commands of God. So, this aspect of examining oneself is absolutely part of the path to assurance because John said in 1 John 5:13 that he wrote that book so that we may know and the knowledge comes from those tests.

Now, when we say that we need to examine the evidence, what does that look like? Well, really, when we talk about examining the evidence in our lives, we're asking ourselves two basic questions. The first question is: is your life characterized by obedience to the word of God? In Matthew 7 - we've looked at this passage many times because it's so foundational. Let's turn there together, though, I want to just remind you of it.

I quoted verse 21 just a few minutes ago and then, after that verse, Jesus says in verse 23, the reason He's going to turn these people away who claim to know Him is that they, "practice lawlessness." It is their practice to not walk in keeping with the law of God. And then, Jesus tells the story that you learned as a child about the wise man who built his house on the rock and the foolish man who built his house on the sand. I won't bother to tell the story because you know it well. The question is: what's the rock? The common answer is Christ. And that sounds good on the surface, but that's not the point Jesus is making. Notice the difference He makes. Verse 24, "everyone who hears these words and acts on them may be compared to a wise man who built on a rock." Verse 26, "everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand." You know what Jesus is saying? The life that professes to belong to Jesus Christ will be demonstrated by its obedience to His word. Is your life characterized by obedience to the word? You may be building a house that looks a lot like your neighbor's house but if you're not building on the foundation of obedience to Christ, then it won't stand the test of judgement. John 8:31, Jesus was saying to those Jews who believed Him, "if you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine." And, by the way, if you read on in chapter 8, you'll discover that, at least for the most part, these people did not continue in His word. In fact, they engage Him immediately in an argument and end up, at the end of the chapter, wanting to stone Him. Is your life characterized by obedience to the word of God? John 14,

Jesus answered and said to him, "if anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words."

And then, in 1 John 5:13 - I mentioned before that the epistle of John is given to us so that we may know that we have eternal life - and John proceeds to set forth a series of tests to help us identify whether or not we are Christians. Let me give them to you in simplified form. Essentially, the tests he presents can be reduced to three.

First of all, there is the theological test. Do we believe the truth about Christ? Do we believe in His deity? Do we believe in His humanity? Turn over the 1 John, and just note a couple of these passages with me. 1 John 3. We have to believe that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God, according to verse 23. Over in 1 John 5:5, "the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God." Verse 10, the one who does not believe in the testimony that God has given in His speech concerning His Son is a liar. God has made him a liar. You have to believe Jesus is who He claimed to be. You also have to believe His humanity. Look at 1 John 4:2, "by this we know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus the Messiah has come in the flesh is from God." There is a theological test of to whether or not we're believers. It's not enough to say you believe in Jesus. So do the Mormons and so do the Jehovah's Witnesses. The problem is: it's a different Jesus. It's not the Jesus that we love, the Jesus of the Bible.

John says there's also a moral test. Do we practice righteousness and keep God's commands? Look at 1 John 1:6, "if we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth." Listen, you live in a different realm, he's saying, if you say you're in a state of fellowship with God and you're walking in darkness. He puts it positively in 1 John 2:4-5,

The one who says, "I have come to know Him," and does not keep His Commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him.

There is a moral test. Are we practicing righteousness? Are we obeying the commands of God?

John says there's also a social test. Do we love other Christians? Again, this is simplified. We could take a lot more time going through 1 John, but this gives you sort of an overview of what John lays out. Do we love other Christians? 1 John 4:7,

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love, does not know God, for God is love.

Down in verse 20, "if someone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen." Love is a package. If you love God, you're going to love His people too.

So, those are the tests. Is your life characterized by obedience to the word of God? And in the Epistle of John, it's brought down to a fine tune edge. What is it that's to characterize our lives? We're to be right about Christ. What a practice righteousness and keep God's commands. And we're to love other Christians.

There's a second question, as we examine the evidence, we should ask and that is: is your life characterized by the fruit of the Spirit? Galatians 5 says that where the Spirit is He's going to produce, as byproduct of His presence a certain fruit. And that fruit is detailed there. It's love. It's joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. If you're in Christ, then you have the Spirit. And if you have the Spirit, then these qualities are in your life. Not in perfection, perhaps, but they're clear, they're obvious to others. There is no indication anywhere in scripture that suggest that the fruit of the Spirit can be consistently faked by an unbeliever. So, ask yourself: am I committed to obedience? Am I obeying the word of God? Am I serious about that? And is my life characterized by the fruit of the Spirit?

So how can you gain assurance? Basically, there's a two-step path. Rest in the promises of the gospel - those clear promises that are set forth - and examine the evidence in your life. Now, let me tell you, there's a real danger if you fall off of either one of these ends. If all you do is stress the first of these - that is, resting in the promises of the gospel - it leads easily to a superficial assurance, a kind of easy believism in which case the fix is to examine your heart, examine your life, see if you're living a life of obedience, see if you're committed to displaying the virtues that the Spirit produces. On the other hand, if all you do is emphasize the second of these and all you do all the time is examine the evidence in your life then you develop an unhealthy subjective form of legalism. Personal holiness, then, almost becomes the basis on which we are accepted by God and joy disappears. You can't go too far in either direction. As the Puritans used to say, and I love this, "For one look at self, take ten looks at Christ." Archibald Alexander writes, "in its essence, the evidence that shows a real Christian is eminently simple." Here it is. He says, "entire trust in Christ for justification and the sincere and universal love of holiness with a dependence on the Holy Spirit for its existence, continuance, and increase." There it is. It's just that simple. And yet, some people doubt. Perhaps you're out. There're a lot of different reasons that people doubt their salvation who are genuinely Christians. Some people doubt because they're not real believers. It's important that, if you doubt, you take that as a possibility. It may be true but even Christians can often doubt their assurance. Why? Well, there are a myriad of reasons, but let me just give you some of the most common, very briefly.

Disobedience is number one. If you're living in a pattern of disobedience - we've already seen that the path to assurance is examining your life - and if you're living a pattern disobedience, then you're not going to have assurance. It's going to be stolen from you by your sinful choices.

A second cause of doubt of assurance is feelings of guilt about past sins. People who perhaps committed horrible sins in their past - I encounter this with ladies that have had abortions in their past, men who've been unfaithful, various horrific kinds of sins or patterns of sin in your past - can unsettle and create doubt. Feelings of guilt about past sins.

Thirdly, ignorance of the full truth about the salvation that Christ accomplished for us. You see, assurance grows where there is an intelligent understanding about all that Christ has done. Let me encourage you to do something. If you're here tonight and you doubt and you weren't here for our full study of salvation, go back, go online, listen to the series, understand what Christ has accomplished in salvation. And as you begin to understand that, if you're genuinely in Christ, it will begin to build a foundation of assurance.

Some people struggle with doubt because they're uncertain about when they were saved. They can't point to a given day. You know, that's not really the issue. The question I ask people like that when they come to me with that concern is: let me ask you another question, where is your faith and trust and confidence right now? You don't need to go back to some past experience to build your hope, your assurance. The question is: do you rest right now on the promises of Christ in the gospel? And right now, is your life characterized by a pattern of obedience and the fruit of the Spirit? If those things are true, you don't need to go back and find a date somewhere. There are many people, by the way, who can't point to a date. One I know and love, well, my mentor, John MacArthur, doesn't know when he was saved. That doesn't matter. In the end, the question is: what about now? Where is your faith placed today? And what does your life look like today?

Some people doubt their salvation because of the presence of temptation and reoccurring sin in their life, because there's some pattern of sin.

So, what do you do? Well, let me give you some very basic application of points, as a result of our study tonight.

First of all, don't provide assurance to the person who is living in sin. I don't know how many times I have encouraged parents not to go to a child who is living in a pattern of rampant rebellion against Christ. I've urged them not to keep assuring that child that they made a profession when they were seven and, therefore, they must be a Christian. Talk to people whose child made a profession when they were six years old. Now, don't get me wrong, there can be genuine professions of faith as children, but if a person says they come to faith in Christ and then lives for twenty years without any evidence that there's any interest in spiritual issues, there's no pattern of obedience, there's no love for Christ, there's no love for the brothers - those things we looked at earlier - then don't give them assurance. Robert Raymond in a Systematic Theology writes, "what pastors must understand is that the criterion of true discipleship is continuance in Jesus words, and that the test of a true faith is perseverance and true piety to the end. Where that Godly walk and true piety is not forthcoming, no professing Christian has the right to assume that he is in fact a Christian, and no pastor has the right to assure him that he is simply a 'carnal Christian.' To the contrary, he must be counseled to examine himself to see if he's in the faith, and if he insists that he is, then he must be counseled that he must renew his repentance toward God and his faith in Jesus Christ. For him to refuse to do so is to falsify his profession and should make him subject to the church's discipline." Exactly right. What do you do? What do you do with somebody - a friend or family member - who says, "I'm a Christian," and for twenty years and has lived like the devil? You don't assure them they're Christian because they have a date written in the front of their Bible, because they drove a stake in their backyard, because they have a card or a baptism certificate. You tell them to do what Paul urged them to do: examine your heart. You may be in Christ, but you may well not be because of how you are living.

Secondly, don't rely on your feelings to tell you whether or not you're a Christian. Remember: true believers may and false believers may feel confident that they are Christians. Your feelings don't matter. Begin by dealing with any issues in your life that are creating doubt. For example, I gave you that list. If you're living in a pattern of disobedience, then the first step to take is to go home tonight, find a quiet place, pour out your heart in repentance toward God, confess your sin and be willing to forsake it, get on the path of righteousness. That's the first thing that you have to do. Confess and forsake your sin and pursue obedience. As we read in 1 John 2:3, assurance comes, "we know," John says that we're in Him if we're walking in obedience. So, get on the path of obedience. If your problem is ignorance of the great doctrine of salvation, then do as I urged you. Study this. Go listen online or listen to the CDs that we've gone through.

For the rest of us, let me urge you to simply cling to the promises of God as your source of strength and confidence. Examine your heart regularly, as Paul urges us. By the way, you should be doing this at every celebration of the Lord's table. We may even start putting in the bulletin to remind you that part of what's supposed to happen in preparation for taking the Lord's table is for us to examine our own hearts, to look again afresh, to confess the sin that's in our lives, to deal with those issues. And if we would do that regularly and faithfully, we would gain greater assurance. But in the end, all we can do is cling to Christ.

I find myself still, from time to time, praying, "Lord, I have nowhere else to turn. You're my only hope I throw myself on the promises You have made in Your word. I don't deserve it. I'll never deserve it. I deserve exactly the opposite. I deserve only Your wrath and curse forever. But if I ever enjoy Your presence it'll be solely because of the good news of Jesus Christ and because the grace You've extended to me in Him and I cling to Him and Him alone." Charles Spurgeon, in a little book that I read when I was struggling greatly with assurance of my own salvation, a little book called The Providence of God, a collection of sermons by Charles Haddon Spurgeon, one of those sermons was called "When I See the Blood." It was a reminder of what happened in Egypt with the Passover. And at the end of that sermon, Charles Haddon Spurgeon called me as a young Christian still in college, he called me to think like this and I call you to the same thought. He said, don't look at your faith. Don't look at your repentance. Don't analyze your spiritual naval, as it were. Instead, he said, think for a moment about an actual person named Jesus Christ who actually lived two thousand years ago, who actually lived a perfect life for thirty-three years and who, at the end of that life was placed on a real cross. Picture that cross, for a moment in your mind, that place where a real person died, and He died for sins of those who would believe in Him. If that is where your hope is, if your hope is in the death of Christ for sins, for your sins, and in His resurrection for your justification, as Romans chapter 4 says, then you have confidence. You have confidence in Him.

Let's pray together.

Father, I pray that You would use our simple study tonight. I pray for those here who struggle deeply in their hearts with assurance. I pray that You would help them to sort through the scriptures that we've looked at tonight. To weigh their own hearts. To examine themselves against the clear teaching of Your word. And Lord, I pray that for those who do the examination and by Your Spirit find themselves coming up short - having an empty profession, perhaps a false assurance – Lord, I pray that You would give them no peace, no rest. I pray that Your Spirit would pursue them like the hound of heaven until they come to genuine faith in Jesus Christ - when they turn away from everything else, turn from their sin, turn from every other hope and cling to Him. Father, I pray for those here tonight who are in Christ and who, as they rest on the promises of the gospel, and as they examine their own hearts and ask if they're walking in obedience and if they're demonstrating the fruit of the Spirit, find that while those things are not there perfectly, they are there. Lord, I pray that tonight and in the coming weeks and months that You would give them great confidence and assurance as they remain faithful to You. And Lord, may all of us having that assurance, having that confidence based on Your word and what it teaches, Lord, may we march forward. May we, like Christian in Pilgrim's Progress, having our role of assurance be able much easier and with much stronger determination ascend the hill of difficulty that You've placed before us. Father, I pray that You would grant the grace of assurance to all of those who are in Christ and who are on the path of obedience. I pray it in Jesus name. Amen.