Today, our subject is the assurance of salvation, with Jeffrey Johnson from Conway, Arkansas. Every pastor and most believers have had to answer earnest questions from themselves or others struggling with doubt about their salvation. We will be discussing some of the points made in Chapter 18 of the Second London Baptist Confession of 1689 on assurance.

Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Church and Family Life exists to proclaim the sufficiency of Scripture, and today we want to talk about the sufficiency of Scripture particularly in the matter of assurance for salvation. Many people, many true Christians struggle with assurance And every pastor I know has engaged people sometimes for many years about their assurance or lack assurance of salvation. And to help those who are struggling to understand what the Bible says so that they have biblical grounding in it. And so, hey, Jason, here we go.

We're going to do it again. Hello. Good to see you. All right. And we also have Jeffrey Johnson here with us.

Hi, Jeff. Hey, it's great to be back with you guys. It's so good to see you. Jeff is the pastor at Grace Bible Church in Conway, Arkansas. And he also operates Free Grace Press.

Go get his books. He has great books at Free Grace Press. I just bought five of them today. The ones I didn't have, I had most of them and then I gobbled up a few more today. But he also operates a seminary there out of his church in Conway, Arkansas.

So we're here to talk about the realities that some have full confidence and others do not, sometimes, you know, for years. And it's a temptation to try to heal the wound lightly and to give people confidence when we shouldn't or the other way around. And so it's a difficult thing. So we're going to be discussing some of the points in the Baptist Confession of 1689, Chapter 18, on assurance of salvation. Now we won't be able to cover everything here, but we have several resources on our website.

If you go to the Church and Family Life website, you know, Google assurance of salvation and you'll see an article by me of Objective Test for Salvation. Joe Beeke has a message about it. Jason, you have a message called, Should I Take the Lord's Supper If I Have Weak Assurance? That's on our website. My father actually reads this chapter out in one of the audio resources.

I have a sermon on it. Tom Askell has a video dealing with doubt. So go ahead and you can search around if you want more information. I Really want this to be helpful particularly to young people Who've grown up in the church and they wonder if they're Christians, you know these are the kind of people who, they believe in the gospel, they want to follow the Lord, they have measures of fruit in their lives, but they're not sure if they're saved. And so I'd like for us to talk about that.

And my experience is that young people that grow up in a church, they're often waiting for an electrifying moment, salvation by electrification. They might be looking for some massive change. They saw the serial killer slasher, you know, he gets converted and there's such a dramatic change, but they haven't seen a dramatic change in their life, or they don't think they're holy enough, or they're not remorseful enough. It's, you know, salvation by remorse. And, you know, how do you know, you know, if you're saved, is your faith deep enough?

How deep does your faith have to be to be saved? And so these are just some of the questions. And so I just want to run through these four paragraphs, or at least the heading, or at least the way that I'm heading these four paragraphs in the Baptist Confession, and let's just talk about them. In the first paragraph, there's an answer to the question how people deceive themselves in their assurance and then also how they are rightly assured. So let's talk about that first.

How do you see people being deceived about their assurance? Well there are two realities that Scripture acknowledges and anyone who's been in the faith for a period of time has seen this probably over and over again. One is the person that is perfectly assured, so convinced that they're in the faith, but they're actually not in the faith at all. Jesus talks about this in Matthew chapter 7, in the Lord, Lord, did we not? So this is someone who calls Jesus Lord and has a list of things that they're doing that they set forth as fruits.

And yet Jesus says, I never knew you'd depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. So there's a person with perfect assurance. They go through life feeling that they're in the faith, but in the end Jesus actually casts them out. The other reality is actually sort of the opposite of that, someone who really is born again and has made some progress. But as we discover, the more progress you make, the more aware of your remaining corruptions and your weaknesses you become.

And it can make you very discouraged. You actually thought you were going to feel more holy as you got more holy, but that's not how it works. As you grow in holiness, in separation to the Lord, you actually feel less holy and it can sort of Shake your confidence that you're actually in the faith. Yeah, you know Assurance of salvation we know is not 100% attached to saving faith, right? Some people could have saving faith and not have assurance and some people couldn't have assurance and have no saving faith.

And it's a beautiful doctrine, especially how the confession words it, because it unites the objective reality that's in the mind of God. God knows who is and who is not among his sheep. He knows objectively. But on our end, there's a subjective side to assurance, something subjective. Am I a true Christian?

And as the Confession says, there are some evidence and there's some reasons to have assurance. There's a basis for assurance, but also there are some things to be aware of to cause us to make our election sure, or calling election sure. So we have both truths and it's connected to the fact that you can have saving faith and not have assurance, and you're gonna have assurance, but not have saving faith. So both of those things are true. So how do we know if we're saved?

That's ultimately the question I think we're asking. And you know, in that first paragraph, they address three things. First true belief, second sincere love, and thirdly a clear conscience. Those are the three things that are suggested as evidences, you know, internal evidences, subjective evidences. So in Philippians chapter 2 verse 12, Paul exhorts the believers in Philippi to work out their salvation with fear and trembling.

So there is this reality that a person passes from death to life. Salvation is real and salvation is permanent once it comes. But Paul, kind of the disciple maker, doesn't want us to walk through life presumptuously with no marks that that's an objective reality in our lives and yet feel like we are and then come to the last day and be announced by Jesus that we never were. And so Paul wants us to guard against the presumption, especially when we're walking in times of stubbornness and disobedience, Paul would want us to ask that question. God is actually driving us to ask the question, am I really saved based on the things that are happening in my heart?

Yeah, we're supposed to make our calling and election sure to examine ourselves. We do that at the Lord's Supper. Every time we engage in the Lord's Supper, we examine ourselves. So self-examination is a normal and really helpful thing, but it can also be a discouraging thing as well, you know, when we come to those places. And you know, I found myself, you know, talking particularly to young people and saying things, well, how deep does your faith need to be?

Well, the truth is, faith is something that grows. You know, how complete does your obedience have to be? Well, obedience is something that's designed to grow. It starts immature and then it matures over time and you should expect that also emotions go up and down we're emotional creatures we go up and down and we're not getting we might not feel exactly the same about our salvation every single day of our lives. That's normal because we live in the flesh.

We're not disembodied souls. Our bodies affect us. There are lots of things that affect our bodies and they affect our emotions. So, having a salvation by a personal sense of emotional stability is really, it's a wrong, it's a wrong test. Yeah, I like the first paragraph and the second paragraph kind of works off of that, that faith, love, clearing, clean conscience.

Then the second paragraph talks about how there are basically three things that gives us assurance that correlates to faith, love, and a good conscience. And that's the objectivity of the death of Jesus Christ. Faith has to have an object. You have to have love, which is the foundation of all good works to change life. And then, you know, the assurance of the Spirit, the Spirit speaking within our spirit, have a father that we are indeed a child of God.

So it's like the Lord's given us a threefold witness, a threefold testimony to give us assurance and I kind of always looked at it as a three-legged stool. If you take one of the legs off the stool, you're not going to stand up, the stool is going to fall off. God is good to us because he's given us multiple witnesses, about two or three witnesses, let everything be established. And so God has given us multiple witnesses for us to go, am I a Christian? Let's look, let's look at the testimony.

So well, there's three of them to look at. And if you just have one of them, maybe it doesn't mean you're not saved because we can be, well, maybe I don't have enough love. Maybe I don't have the good enough life. All that could lead us to wonder. Maybe I don't know if I have the testimony of the Holy Spirit.

That's still somewhat subjective. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. Well, what about faith? And so I think all three of them put together gives us a strong, strong testimony. And for some people, you know, they're internally focused and they're always looking inside, do I believe?

And they're looking at the quality of their faith. Do I have faith? Boy, that can tear you up really quickly. And then it's like, do I have good works? Do I really love God?

Well, I think I do, but how do I know? And it's also subjective that they never can find rest. And I think that's where, for those who are struggling with just looking internally is to remind ourselves that faith doesn't look at faith. It's like your eyes. Your eyes don't see themselves.

Faith has to have an object outside of itself. And as long as you're just altogether looking internally, you're gonna be questioning yourself. And that's why you need the objectivity of the death of Christ, that he has paid the price of my sin and all the condemnation I feel has been taken care of in something outside of myself. And I struggled with assurance for two or three years, long, long time. And I finally come to the conclusion on the day of judgment, God's going to throw me out, he's going to have to break his promise because that's the only hope I have is this gospel promise.

And once I clung to that and realized I had no other hope, I realized that that's enough. That was enough for me to rely upon the objectivity of the Word of God, the promise which is based upon the sufficiency of Christ's death. But at the same time, if I don't have a changed life, that's where you can have what you think strong faith, but be going to hell because it's a carnal Christianity idea that salvation doesn't change us. So I think we need that verification. Do I love God?

Is that reflected in my life? Then I think that third testimony with the Spirit speaking to us, that we are the child of God, that we pray and there's something, there's an internal witness that verifies this. It's like, the Lord is good to give us these threefold testimonies. Yeah, both internal and external, so the people who tend to become preoccupied with internal only things have something else to measure against that's outside of themselves and vice versa. And in some way, and the matter of faith, in some ways it's kind of simple.

Faith is to believe. Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God? Do you believe that He's the Savior of the world? Do you believe He's the Bread of Life? Do you believe He's the light of the world?

And if you do, the authors of the Confession are saying this is one of the infallible tests. You really do believe, I mean, you genuinely do believe that He's the Son of God. And this matter of the Spirit, your heart really does cry, Abba Father. You really do want God. You want him to lead you.

You want him to come for you. You need him. And you cry out, Abba Father. You recognize you have a need for God. So let me just read that verse, it's also found in Romans, but I'll be reading Galatians 4 verse 6, where Paul writes, and because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying out, Abba, Father.

So God is so gracious when He saves someone to give them this internal impulse that recognizes that God has ceased to be just a frowning judge because of the sin that we find in our lives, but has actually become our Father and is tenderhearted towards us. He gives us this internal impulse. You shouldn't conclude then that there means there's never any ebb and flow to that. Of course, that can ebb and flow, but there ought to be something in the heart of the Christian that acknowledges that my state with God has changed, fundamentally changed. He's now my father.

Yeah, and I think this paragraph just makes it clear that our faith is not founded on our feelings. It's founded on what Jesus Christ has done. Right. And do you believe he has done it? Not how you feel about it, but do you believe that he's done it?

So then in the third paragraph, the authors address the matter that assurance is progressive, but they don't just stop there, they tell you how to make it grow progressively. I really like this paragraph because it's very practical. So let's talk about that. How is assurance progressive and how do you make it grow? Well we've already talked about how faith is one of the marks of assurance.

You could have faith and not be 100% assured, but you can't have faith without having a bit of assurance because one of the methods of assurance comes from faith itself. Faith is the evidence of things not seen. So I think that the apostles were right when they say, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. So, in us who are Christians, we have doubt mixed with our faith, and therefore we're all gonna be doubting Thomas's to some degree. And as we grow and experience Christ and that doubt slowly by God's grace and the Word of God, it starts decreasing and faith grows.

It's there, and just the smallest amount of faith is enough to save us. My wife and I was going over this swinging bridge, and I was shaking it around, and she was scared to death, and she said, stop it, stop it, stop it. And I was like, man, I know we're not going to fall. And I'm pretty confident that she's scared, but we're equally, equally safe. You know, we're equally safe because it's not the Mount of faith that saves us.

It's the object of our faith that saves us. But it's, it lives, we live happier if we have more faith. The more secure we have, we can walk across that bridge and we can sing and whistle, skip along in life knowing that we're secure. And I think that's what we should aim for. And, and, And in part, that's not the full answer to your question, but in part, it's by growing in faith, we grow in assurance.

You know, one of the striking things about this paragraph is that it talks about the fact that some believers may wait a long time and have conflict with many difficulties. And I've known people who've struggled for a long time. How do you engage, how do you guys engage people who have had a long struggle with this? So thankfully for pastors in some ways this is simple. Whether a person is or is not in the faith, the message of a faithful pastor is repent and believe.

So unbelievers repent and believe. Believers keep repenting, keep believing. And so, you know, our exhortation to a person who's struggling like that is to cling to Jesus with all your might and keep, you know, keep doing it, and assuring them that the feelings will follow, but don't idolize. I think one of our exhortations to them should be not to idolize our sense of these things, but to trust what the Bible actually says about what saves a person and to pursue those things. Yeah, I 100% agree.

I've given that same counsel to people sitting across from me in my office and I'm like, I can't tell you if you're a Christian or not. I don't know. I'm not the Holy Spirit. I'm my God. But I don't have to know, I know the answer.

This is what you do if you're a Christian or non-Christian, it's the same thing. Because I have to continue to believe, and I have to continue to repent. So it's constant for all of us is to make sure there's no idols in our life. There's nothing that we're holding back from God. A lot of people lack assurance because they're living in sin.

And it's a good reason they don't have assurance because they're holding onto something and that needs to be uncovered and confessed before God. We all pick up idols along the way and we always have to reconfess them and drop them off. And then we have to believe every day. We're saved by faith that's living and ongoing, not just a had faith in the past. If we ever had faith in the past, we currently have faith in the present, and we'll continue to have faith in the future.

So, I think that's the way I answer it as well. So, Scott, you had asked about how do you grow assurance? What are the things you can do to grow assurance? Here's a verse in 1 Thessalonians 2.13 that's worth considering. Paul writes this, 1 Thessalonians 2.13, for this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the Word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the Word of man, but as it is in truth, the Word of God which also effectively works in you who believed.

So Paul is acknowledging that when the Word of God was preached to the people in Thessalonica, that they had actually had the grace of God to recognize that it wasn't just the words of man, it was the words of God. That's why he's thanking God for it. It was because he's essentially saying God did that. And I think that's both cause and effect when we think about assurance. The disposition towards the Word of God as being revelation from heaven and pure truth from heaven helps grow our assurance and is the effect of it as well.

What do you say to the person who says, I just don't have hunger for the word of God. It's just as flat to me and I don't have motivation. I don't have much motivation. What do you say to that person? Yeah, that happens a lot actually.

Got young people that they'll tell you, I just don't know if I love the Lord or not. I don't hate them. I've come to church. I read the Bible, but only out of obligation, and I don't enjoy it. I want to ask, do you feel bad that you don't enjoy it?

Are you frustrated with yourself because you're indifferent? Are you satisfied and content with being indifferent? Because we all go through stages of life where we become blah and lukewarm. Can we live in that state? Or do we hunger and thirst for the joy of our salvation to return to us?

And I think God sometimes allows us to go through dry periods. Does it necessarily mean we're not a Christian? But can we be content and satisfied in dry seasons? Are we crying out to God? Lord, I don't desire you, please help me desire you.

I mean, we have to begin sometimes at the very bottom. And that's the question I typically ask those who are in those scenarios. You know, and it's interesting you bring that up because in the last paragraph of this, how your salvation assurance can be shaken. One of the one of the ways is that God withdraws the light of his countenance. And Hezekiah is a really good example of that.

God was testing him, and so he actually withdrew a sense of his presence from him. So that can also be happening as well. But this last paragraph speaks about how it can be shaken. And the stability of the assurance can be disrupted. The intensity can be disrupted.

And it can even flee. That's what the authors are acknowledging. Assurance can flee. And this isn't the only thing that can shake our assurance, but certainly when we grieve the Spirit, which the New Testament speaks of, and when we quench the Spirit, which the New Testament speaks of, that internal impulse that the Holy Spirit is actually there to give us becomes dim or non-existent. And Jeff had already referenced that.

Jeff, when you said that, it made me think, what a mercy of God that He doesn't just let us continue with assurance unabated through these times in our lives where we're living in disobedience, but he actually uses this as a tool to bring us back. Yeah, there's exhortations for us to make our calling and election sure. Even for us seasoned saints that have been pastoring for years, we can't just take it for granted. We can have good assurance. I don't think we could have good assurance if we're living in sin or if we've gone cold or lukewarm in our affections.

I think the Lord's just trying to get our attention. You can't have the benefits of zeal without actually being zealous. And I think there is a role that we have to play to the Lord is getting our attention. I know what church discipline works because they departed from us because they never were of us. If you can live outside the presence of Christ and God's people and the things of God and be quite content and happy.

That's a very warning sign that there's something wrong with my soul and I need to take this serious. I need to make my calling election sure. I need to make sure I truly am born again. I cannot continue to think I've got this ticket to heaven, but I have no desire for the things of God. That's not helpful.

So Scott, if I could give one parting shot, it would be from Luke chapter 16 verse 16. Here's what Jesus says in Luke 16, 16. The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time, the kingdom of God has been preached and everyone is pressing into it. So just an exhortation to anyone who's struggling with assurance of salvation, don't become preoccupied with that.

Press into it. The word of the kingdom has been preached to you. Press into it. We should be like Jacob in Genesis chapter 32, where he just clings to God and says, I will not let you go until you bless me. That is always the spirit that God honors.

And instead of being preoccupied with, am I or am I not, like beg God for his blessing, Cling to him until he blesses you. And he's given us so many commands to inflame our assurance, commands to seek him. I think so many of the commands of God are just to take us out of our current state into a way better state. And in this last paragraph, you know, they talk about neglecting to preserve your assurance. You neglect to preserve your assurance by not reading the Word of God, by not worshiping God, by not gathering with His people.

Your assurance is going to go down. You fall into some besetting sin, you're not going to have the same level of assurance. And so the authors of the confession end with this matter of how it can be shaken, but also, you know, by implication, how it can not be shaken. And that's by seeking the Lord, just keep seeking the Lord. Maybe that's the best thing that we can say is, you know, keep seeking the Lord and inflame the things that would assure you.

So there you have it. I know we all want to be full of assurance, but assurance does sometimes flag in people. I've typically had strong assurance, but not all the time. And so, and I come back to, do I believe that Jesus is the bread of life? Yes, I do.

And do I believe that I can only be saved by the justifying work of Jesus Christ on the cross? And do I think, do I really think with all my heart that the kingdom of heaven is the best kingdom. Do I believe that Satan is a stinking rotten snake? Yes, I do. And I don't want to have anything to do with him.

I want to have something to do with Christ. So to me, however I feel, that's what I believe. I believe every one of those things. And I believe that God created the world, too. And I believe that God created me.

And I believe that He is going to take his people to heaven. Yeah. So that's what I believe. That's my assurance for salvation. It's not how I feel.

It's what I believe with my heart. I think the confession was great to put faith first, then good works or love second, then your feelings third. Because it's in that order at the beginning, the foundation of everything is the faith objectivity of Jesus Christ. I believe that. And if you really believe something, it changes your life.

You seek God. You may not feel like you love God. You may not feel like he loves you, but feelings sometimes have nothing to do with this. Like, I believe I'm doing. And then the feelings is what we're really looking for in assurance.

And that's the caboose, if you would, that comes at the end. And if we don't have the caboose, we still need that engine. The engine is faith in the objectivity of Jesus Christ's death and resurrection. And we believe that pushes us forward. We read the Bible if we feel like it or not.

We go to church if we feel like it or not. We're pursuing God. We're pressing in. Like you said, we're pressing in to the kingdom of God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and maybe the Lord. And the Lord does give those emotions that aid us and help us.

Amen. Well, thank you, brothers. Really appreciate the discussion. So if you're struggling with assurance for salvation, seek the Lord while he may be found. And, you know, ask yourself what you really believe and do you really believe it with all of your heart your emotions are gonna go up and down But the most wonderful thing that you can say in this life is the Lord is my salvation.

And I pray that that's what you'll be able to say as you properly examine your heart to see if you are saved. Hey, thanks for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening to the Church and Family Life podcast. We have thousands of resources on our website, announcements of conferences coming up.

Hope you can join us. Go to churchandfamilylife.com. See you