In this sermon, Scott Brown discusses the doctrine of assurance of salvation. He emphasizes the importance of believers making their calling and election sure, drawing from 2 Peter 1:10. Brown also examines the purpose of John's letters, highlighting the distinction between belief and knowing that one believes. The sermon explores three personal assurances: true belief, sincere love for God, and a clear conscience in obedience. Additionally, three infallible assurances are discussed: the blood of Christ, the changed life, and the spirit of adoption. These infallible assurances provide objective evidence of salvation and bring about confidence, hope, and rejoicing in believers.

Please open your Bibles to 2nd Peter chapter 1 and find verse 10. Find verse 10. This is the inerrant, all-sufficient, holy, sweeter than honey word of God. First Peter, or second Peter one, verse 10. Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure.

For if you do these things, you will never stumble. For so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and then also turn to 1 John chapter 5, 1 John chapter 5. In 1 John chapter 5, John explains the purpose of his writing, his letter, his letter, 1 John. 1 John 5, verse 13. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.

Would you pray with me? Oh, Father, we thank you for your great and precious promises, promises to uphold the believer his whole life long. Lord, I also pray that you would confirm the joy of salvation to all of your children today and that you would also convict any who have not loved you from the heart and that you would take this time oh Lord and thrill our souls with the truth of your word and hold us by it amen please be seated so as as you know we've been dealing with the doctrine of assurance of salvation and from what I've just read I think it should be plain that the Bible tells us that we have a duty to make our calling and election sure. And I pray that the effect of our time in the next few minutes would do such a thing. That it would settle in your mind, that you would have strong confidence, that you would affirm your belief, that you would declare your sincere love for the Lord, that you would admit that you have a clear conscience before God, that you've desired to walk with God with all of your heart to cast away all doubting and I I know that it is a malady of of some to be pining away over their weaknesses and things like that and I I pray that today might be an end of that, at least for today, to be overly sorrowful for lack of passion or the shallowness of repentance, but to rejoice in the glory of salvation that God has provided and to rest in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Rest, brethren, and sister in rest. And we'll be studying the scriptures on this. Now, we're continuing our study on the body of Christ, the church is the body of Christ, and we've been doing a takeoff for weeks on Ephesians four, four through six. There is one body and one spirit. In other words, it's an exclusive faith.

There are some who are in Christ, and there are some who are not in Christ, and so we're defining these things. And here this morning to really do what Peter issues as a command in 2 Peter 1 10, give diligence to make your calling and election sure. And so my goal here is to encourage you to take up what the Bible calls strong consolation. And it's very interesting that you have John writing the way that he does. The gospel of John and the letters of John are actually specifically written for two different purposes.

In the Gospel of John, John states his purpose and in John 20 verse 31 he says, these things are written that you may believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that in believing you might have life in his name but when John writes his letters he writes for a completely different purpose He doesn't write that you might believe. He writes that you might know that you believe. And that's why he says, these things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. So we're a local church here. I pray that we're a local church thrilled, thrilled that they know that they have eternal life.

Confident, so happy in Jesus, not walking around, you know, as Charles Spurgeon said, you know, as if your chin was in the bottom of a vase. But happy in the Lord. So I'm really here to extol the blessings of walking in full assurance of faith. And you know, you've been with me here in these messages. A few weeks back, I started speaking about assurance of salvation, addressing what it means, and I was asking several questions, and I wanted to make it plain that you know a person is not saved by having dramatic moments we're saved by grace we're not saved by being holy enough by repenting deeply enough by having faith deep enough we're not saved by having enough passion.

And these are the things that we worry about as Christians. We worry that we're not, we don't have the passion we wish we had. We don't have the repentance as deep as we wish we had. We want more faith. We're like the disciples who said, Lord, give us more faith.

That's what a Christian is. And, you know, I've had, as you know, many conversations with people just considering this matter of their own assurance of faith. So we started with dealing with this matter, is salvation as a result of the depth of your passion? And you're not saved because You were electrified. You're saved because Jesus Christ suffered and died for your sins, and you believe it.

So then we turn to the Baptist Confession to give some greater clarity to delve a little bit more deeply into the subject. And we cover the first paragraph in the Baptist Confession and that first paragraph really is about how people deceive themselves and how they are either temporary believers like the parable of the soils explains, or whether they're actually do many works for God, but they really don't love God. Jesus says, I never knew you, depart from me. You who practice lawlessness. In other words, they don't love the law of God.

So we started there and now we're gonna begin to deal with assurances, true assurances of salvation. In times ahead, we'll probably deal with the rest of the paragraphs in the confession which speak of how assurance is progressive. It's meant to grow over time and we're told how to make it grow you want it here we want your your assurance to grow here's how to make it grow we'll get to that later at another time and then how you can in the final paragraph how your assurance can be shaken how you can do damage to your assurance and have very little assurance because there are things that you can actually do to to really dampen your sense of assurance before God. But we're here today to Take up the command of Peter. Give diligence to know that your calling and election are sure.

And there are, as you see if you have an outline in front of you, there are three personal assurances in the last sentence in the first paragraph of our confession, and then there are three infallible assurances, and we're gonna try to cover those here. Why is this important? It's so important to the church. You know, when the Apostle Paul told Timothy to do the work of an evangelist, the immediate application for him was that he would make sure that his local church was evangelized, that that local church in Ephesus where he was a pastor, that everybody in that church would know whether they are in the body or they are not in the body. This is the most important function of the preaching of the word of God, so that people would know whether they have eternal life.

And so it's always right for us to ask the question, are you in the body of Christ or are you in the ways of the world? And so It's very important that we ask these questions. And yet we know that true Christians often struggle with assurance of salvation. And so the Bible helps us with these things. And so that's what we're doing here now.

So I want to begin with these three personal assurances. There are signs that you can discern in your own soul. Discern these in your own soul as to whether you are in the faith. And there are three personal assurances. That you truly believe first, that you secondly have sincere love, and third, that you have a clear conscience that you desire to walk in obedience.

So those are the three personal assurances. So I want to take them one by one and then move to the infallible assurances. The first assurance is belief, true belief. Those who truly believe in the Lord Jesus. It's the same thing as saying, I believe what the Bible says.

The Bible testifies to Jesus Christ. Do you believe the words of the Bible? Do you believe the whole counsel of God? Do you believe the narrative of the Bible that describes reality? And the narrative of the Bible describes reality as coming from an eternal God and a creation and a fall and redemption and glorification That is the narrative of the Bible.

That's the picture of the reality that the Bible speaks about. Do you believe that? Do you believe the narrative of the Bible about reality? The salvation message of the apostles is so clearly communicated. In Acts chapter 1631, we read this.

So they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. If you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, it means that you must believe on everything that the Bible says about him. In Romans 3.28, the apostle tells the Roman church how to think about this. He says, therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. Justified by faith.

Well, that's the word for belief. That word belief appears 600 times in the New Testament. Go look, go study all of them. It's amazing what you learn about belief. In 1 John 3, in John 3.15, we learn that believing, this kind of believing is proof of salvation.

Notice most of the uses in the Gospel of John of the word belief or faith, they are verbs. It's something that you do. It's not a passive thing, it's something that engages your whole life. It's a belief that takes you somewhere. It's not just an intellectual ascent.

It's not just theology. It's something that's reaching down into the innermost being. And that's why John speaks of it this way in his gospel that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved. He who believes in him is not condemned. Let that sink in.

Not condemned, not condemned. Praise the Lord. Now, John 1-12 gives us some clarifying language to understand what believing is and He uses the word receiving in Connection with the word believing they are the same kind of thing but as many as received him to them he gave the right to become children of God to those who believe in his name who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God so in in the in the act of believing there is a receiving of him and and what does it mean to receive him it means to embrace him it means to welcome him if you want to know if you're a Christian ask if your heart receives him if you're if your heart welcomes him, and when your heart welcomes him, your heart says things like, He's my Savior, He's my my sin-bearer. He's my advocate He's my comforter. He's my prophet.

He's my priest. He's my king He's my lawgiver he's my preserver. As David said in Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd, the Lord is my shepherd. I have everything that I need. To believe is to say, I receive him, I am his, and he is mine.

I want everything of him. That's what it means to believe. There's no reluctance in true belief. It's to say I want to be a disciple of Jesus. I want to learn from him.

Jesus said, learn from me. Why? For I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls." The heart of the believer says, Lord I need rest for my soul. I'm so thankful that you are gentle and humble in heart and that you want rest for my soul, because I want rest for my soul too. So to believe is to receive, to want, to delight in his things, in his ways.

Romans 10, 10, the apostle instructs the Roman church on this whole doctrine of belief. He says, for with the heart one believes unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation for the scripture says whoever believes on him will not be put to shame did you see the connection between the heart and the mouth The heart believes and then the mouth confesses, but the mouth just doesn't use words. The mouth doesn't just simply make a verbal statement. The mouth speaks something that is true in the heart. That's true belief.

Saying that you believe is not this kind of belief. Saying that you believe is not the kind of belief that receives and that desires him. So the first mark of personal assurance is believing. Do you believe like that? Give diligence to make your calling and election sure.

And then the second assurance is sincere love. And the authors of the Confessions use this language of love him in sincerity. And I think that it's reflective of Matthew 22, 37, and 38 where the Lord Jesus Christ quotes the Old Testament. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and the first commandment to love him.

You know, John in 1 John 4 19, he said that we love him because he first loved us. In John 8 42, Jesus says to the Pharisees, if God were your father, you would love me. And then in John 5 42, he says, I know that you do not have the love of God in you, and you do not receive me. In John 14 15, Jesus told his disciples in the upper room, if you love me you will keep my commandments. In Matthew 10-37, Jesus said, whoever loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me.

Whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. So these are definitions, These are handles on what it means to love him. There isn't a single person in this room, the holiest man or woman or child in this room, cannot say that They have loved God every moment of their lives with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their strength. There's not a person in here who can say, I have never loved father or mother or child more than you or this world or money or anything else. This is the inflexibility of the law.

No one can keep the whole law. James said that if you break one law, you've broken them all. So he's not speaking of perfection, He's talking about the direction, the inclination of your heart is to keep the law of God. Sincere love is a fruit of faith. It is not of faith, but it is a fruit of faith.

It's the fruit of faith that says he's the sinless son of God. He's the word of God. He is savior, he is Redeemer. To love him is to say he is friend. He is living bread.

He is a fountain of water. He is my light. He is the light of the world. He's my refuge. He is the power and the wisdom of God.

He is my helper. He is my teacher. He is my king. And when you think of Him that way, it makes you want to love Him even more. When you think that He is your helper, your heart warms.

When you hear that he is your teacher, you want to say, oh Lord, speak oh Lord, your servant is listening. When you want to do what you want to do and you hear someone say, but no, he is your king. You say, oh Lord, be my king. Even in the midst of straying momentarily, you want Him to be your King. He's talking about what you love, and the truth about us is that We can know what we love by the things that we treasure.

And Jesus said that loving him is like finding a treasure. In Matthew chapter 13, in midst of all those parables, Matthew 13, 44, again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in the field which a man found and hid and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. He goes and gets a whole new life because he's found treasure. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine, seeking beautiful pearls, who when he has found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. To love something is to treasure it and to want to protect it.

You know, in John 21 verse 17, there was this conversation between Peter and the Lord Jesus. He said to him a third time, Simon son of Jonah do you love me? Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time do you love me? And he said to him, Lord you know all things, you know that I love you, You know that I love you. You know that I love you.

The Lord knows if you love him. And it's most normal. It's most blessed in the Christian life that you would know that the Lord knows that you love him. Do you know that the Lord knows that you love him? He does know.

Give diligence to make your calling and election sure. The third personal assurance is a clear conscience before him. And the authors of the Confessions speak about where you are endeavoring to walk in all good conscience before Him. In other words, the intention of your heart is a clear conscience that you do desire to walk before Him in obedience. You know that when you, you want to turn away from sin, it grieves you when you sin, and your sin bothers you.

Does your sin grieve you? Does it grieve you when you're dull to the Lord? Does it grieve you when you forgot about Him in the midst of a conversation? When you're disciplining your children? When you're doing your work?

When you're talking to a friend? Does it does it pang your heart when you realize, oh I was just speaking out of my own self? That's your, that's a conscience, own self. That's a conscience. That's a clear conscience in operation.

You know David spoke of it in very vivid language in Psalm 69, 5. He said, Oh God, you know my foolishness and my sins are not hidden from you. Oh God, you know, you know my foolishness. Why am I so foolish? The Lord knows.

To have foolishness doesn't mean that you're not saved. But it does mean that You know your foolishness and you take it to the Lord. And then the authors speak of the effects of knowing these three things, Assurance, hope, and rejoicing. And then the authors of the confession turn to three infallible assurances. The first three are ways for you to search your own heart, the internal meditations of your heart, and the way that you really think about things.

Do you really believe? Do you sincerely love Him? Do you have a clear conscience that you want to walk with God? If you do, rejoice. Rejoice in hope.

Set it aside. Be done with pining away. Ah, but there's more. Infallible assurances. And there are three.

First, the blood of Christ. Second, the changed life. Third, the spirit of adoption of sons. Now these are different Now these are different than the previous three. All these are things which Christ has done for us, not what Christ has done in us.

These are the things that Christ has done for us. That's why they're called infallible assurances. And The authors use this really remarkable, it's kind of complex language, that this certainty is not bare conjecture. It's not a probable persuasion. It's not hanging in the air.

It's rather grounded. It's grounded on an infallible assurance. I love the use of the word grounded. It's fixed. It's not based, It's not grounded on fluctuating emotions.

It's not grounded on fluctuating passion, fluctuating hope, fluctuating patience, fluctuating anything. It's grounded in something that is immovable. And that's why they are called absolute objective proofs. And the first infallible assurance is a fact of history. The shedding of the blood of Christ.

Founded on the blood and righteousness of Christ, revealed in the gospel. You know, we just sang about it. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. And then he says, I dare not trust the sweetest whatever, but only lean on Jesus' name. In First Corinthians 6, 19 and 20, we learn that salvation is spoken about in terms of a transaction.

It's a completed transaction. It's a deal that's been done and it's irreversible. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price. You were bought.

The deal is done. There's no more dealing, no more haggling, no more payments. It's done. Done. Salvation is done.

In Hebrews 6, 17, we learn that our salvation is unchangeable. Nothing can reverse it. It's based on a promise. Thus, God determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of the promise, the immutability of his counsel confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, that we might have strong consolation, fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. Now, the writer of Hebrews is referring to Genesis 15, where God makes a promise on his own name.

He promises salvation based on his name. His reputation is at stake in the salvation of souls. But you have these words, Immutability, immutable things confirmed. Oh, let's learn a new word, immutability. Are there any five-year-olds that know what immutability means?

Oh, I'm gonna tell you now. What does immutability mean? This is a really important word. It's one of the most important words you will ever learn about salvation. Immutable means unchangeable.

Immovable, our hope remains. Those shifting sands before us lie. Immutability is unchangeability. This is also spoken of in verse 19 in Hebrews 6. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the presence beyond the veil.

It's immutable, it's unchangeable, it's an anchor, it's an everlasting unmovable anchor. The blood of Jesus Christ, that's what you rest your soul on. You know, we have a swimming platform in our lake and for the last several months, it was just floating all over the lake and north wind would blow and it would blow 300 feet that way, and then a south wind, it would go back, a west wind would go. Well, the anchor was weak, was small, was too small. And many people's faith is like that.

Their anchor is not the anchor of the blood of Jesus Christ. So we fortified that anchor and now it's not moving. But this is an anchor for the soul. You're not blown around by every wind of doctrine. You're not blown around by every feeling.

You're not blown around by every fluctuation in your life. You have an anchor for the soul. We have an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the presence behind the veil." You know that song that we've sung, My Anchor Holds, It holds, my anchor holds, that's what holds you. It's the blood of Jesus Christ. It can't be based on fluctuating emotions.

It can't even be based on times where your faith is weak. By the way, if you remember correctly, in this series on the church we learned that faith is given by God. A little bit of faith to one person, a little bit more faith to another person, and a lot of faith to another person. God did that. We should not despise weak faith.

We should always say, Lord, increase my faith. But we shouldn't despise the one who has weak faith. Because it's based on an immovable, immutable anchor of the soul, immutable. Don't forget that word, kids. It's a great word.

This is your savior, Jesus Christ, who holds you in the midst of every storm. Hebrews 10, 14 explains it like this, for by one offering, he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. One offering perfected forever. Your life is not in play. You can't lose your salvation.

The devil can't take you from his arms. He's powerless to do it because one offering was given that you might be perfected forever. Even in the fluctuations of your life, hey, people go through seasons in their life. That doesn't mean that they're hopelessly lost. The Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 11, paragraph 2 says, 11, paragraph 2 says, faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and his righteousness is the sole instrument of justification.

The blood of Jesus Christ. And then they continue, which will take us to our next point. Yet it is not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with other saving graces and is no dead faith but works by love. So the Bible teaches that you are justified by faith alone. You're justified as a result of the finished work of Jesus Christ alone, but your faith does not stay alone.

And that brings us to the next, that while there are no works necessary to bring us to salvation. Faith always produces works. That's what the Bible teaches. So the second infallible assurance has to do with outward evidences of a changed life. Outward evidences of a changed life.

And, you know, all of us should ask, what outward evidences are there of this life that I claim to have or am struggling to claim to have? And these are graces inward, evidences of those graces that are based on the promises of God. In other words, the things that God has promised would happen when you're saved. And the graces of the Spirit are the kindnesses of God in changing you in different ways. It's an objective reality.

You know you're different. You know you're not the same person as when you first confessed Jesus Christ. You don't wanna stay right where you are, but you're not the person you used to be. You're just not the same person. Praise the Lord.

You should rejoice in that. You know, This is the basis of a happy church. That people really understand what God has done and they rejoice in whatever grace has allowed them to change in any way. For all of us, the changes are too slow. They are for me.

My sanctification is so stinking slow, I can't believe it. But I want more. But I'm so thankful. You know, I'm not the person I was when I was 16, praise the Lord. That's why Hebrews 11, eight says, by faith Abraham obeyed.

He had faith he believed and therefore he obeyed. That's the sequence. The faith comes first. We talked about this in the good soil in the parable of the soils in the Gospel of Matthew. In the good soil he received seed on the good ground as he who hears the word and understands it and indeed bears fruit and produces some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

He understands the meaning and he begins to take action on it. And he begins to bear fruit. Now, these promises and these principles of salvation, many of them are found in John's letter in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, particularly 1st John. There are, well, I can count 16 objective tests of salvation in 1 John. And there are actually more than that.

If you look at the 40 uses of the word belief or believe in 1st John, you'll find lots more. But there are objective tests of salvation that have to do with your life. In 1st John 1, 5 through 7, this is a message which we have heard from him and declared to you that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin.

And objective evidence is that you walk in the light. 1st John 1 8 through 10 you have the matter of confession of sin. Are you confessing your sin? If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If we say we've not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. In 1 John 2, three through four, it's the matter of obedience. Now by this we know that we know Him if we keep His commandments. He who says I know Him and does not keep His commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him. He's obviously not talking about perfectly keeping commandments.

He's talking the inflection point, the direction point of your life. It's where you're going, not where you've arrived. In 1 John 2, nine through 11, love for the brethren is a test. If you don't love the brother, and how can you say you're a Christian? He who says he is in the light and hates his brother is in darkness until now.

He who loves his brother abides in the light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. But he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes. Love for the brethren is a test. Do you love the brethren? Do you like to be around the brethren?

I recall distinctly not liking being around the parties and the activities when they were pursuing the world when I was young. I didn't like that anymore. I didn't want that anymore. I wanted to be with the brethren. I wanted to go to church.

In 1 John 2, 15, the test is, love for the world. Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world. So has your life changed?

Are you walking in the light? Are you confessing your sin? Is the inclination of your heart toward obedience? Do you want to love the brethren? Are you pursuing the world or are you pursuing the Lord?

The third infallible assurance is the spirit of adoption as sons. Now I'll just read the way the confession speaks of it and on the testimony of the spirit of adoption witnessing with our spirits that we are the children of God. There's another test just like this in 1 John 4.13. By this we know that we abide in him and he is in us because he has given us of his spirit. We have a different spirit now.

And we know there's a different spirit alive and working in us Because our attractions have changed and our actions have changed our relationships have changed We want something different Galatians 4 6 Explains that there's actually there's something going on in your spirit. Your spirit, this thing that you can't even see, is crying out. Isn't that interesting? The spirit is crying out? What?

There's this thing that you cannot see. It is your spirit and it is crying out. Galatians 4 6, and because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying out, Abba, father, therefore you are no longer a slave but a son and if a son then an heir of God through Christ this is an infallible assurance you have the Spirit of God crying out oh father you cry out I have a father I need a Father. In Romans eight, the apostle instructs the Roman church, Romans eight 15, for you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the spirit of adoption by which we cry out Abba Father. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.

And you can just ask that question, does your spirit bear witness that you're a child of God? Does your spirit connect with a father, your father in heaven? The spirit is a guarantee of our inheritance, theologically in terms of the whole doctrine of the Holy Spirit. In 1st Corinthians 2, 12, we're told that a Christian has received the Spirit who is from God. It's a person, he is a person and he says this, now we have received not the Spirit of the world, do you have the Spirit of the world dominating your life?

But the Spirit who is from God, that we may know the things that have been freely given to us by God. Paul tells the Corinthian church that they can know if they're Christians by the way they talk about Jesus in 1 Corinthians 12 three. Therefore I made known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus a cursed. In other words, no one can say, Jesus, I reject you. And no one can say that Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit.

And he's not just saying the words, Jesus is Lord. Anybody can say that. He's talking about a genuine, heartfelt cry of your heart that says Jesus is Lord. And you can't say that with a sincere heart unless you're a Christian. Jesus is Lord.

Jesus is Lord. Give diligence to make your calling and election sure. Job said, I know that my Redeemer lives. You can have full assurance. I pray that assurance would run high in this little local church here.

That the joy from it, the freedom from it, the happiness in Jesus and his infallible assurances would fall upon this church, and that every person would know whether they are a son of God. David said, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me. That's an infallible assurance. Paul said that he had confidence And he wasn't ashamed to say it to Timothy. He says I know whom I believed and I'm persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed until that day Paul had assurance and So ought we Paul said I am persuaded that neither life nor death nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.

That's assurance. You can have assurance. It's not some holy thing to say, oh, I just have all these doubts. I'm here to say, take your assurance. Hang on to that immovable anchor.

God is able to give assurance. It's very interesting how this paragraph ends that the fruit of these infallible assurances are that they are keeping the heart both humble and holy, humble and holy. I suspect that sometimes in the humility of your heart, you feel so poorly about your salvation that you doubt it but God is he's humbling you but he's humbling you to rest in him to be satisfied with what he's done that he's gentle and humble in heart and he's got rest for your souls. Keeping the heart both humble and holy. I was listening to my audio Bible this week and I somehow ended up in Psalm 132.

Me. Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with his mother. Like a weaned child is my soul within me." Ah. To know that you have infallible assurances and that you have certainty of the personal assurances makes a person both holy and humble and therefore happy. This is the doctrine of the assurance of salvation.

Give diligence to make your calling and election sure. Would you pray with me? Father, your word is so helpful to take us out of our own spiraling thoughts about ourselves and the world around us. And I pray, oh Lord, that you would do two things in this room today. That you would give the true believers such unshakable and happy assurance that they would never wonder again.

And if they do, they would come back to these scriptures and they would hold on to the anchor of their souls and to declare their assurance, that they have an assurance in heaven, assurance founded on the blood of Jesus Christ and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit and the fact that they're not the same people that they used to be. And also Lord that you would also lure and woo and draw the person who has no biblical assurance and that you would save their souls, that you would reach in and turn the switch in their hearts to love you and to receive you in believing that you are the Savior of the world. Amen.