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Contact Us 		Full Assurance of Faith October 3, 2004

October 31, 2004

Mural Worthey

Cawson St. Church of Christ

Hopewell, Virginia

 

Full Assurance of Faith

 

Introduction

 

   Here are several wonderful expressions of Christian confidence:

 

   “Having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”  (Heb. 10:22.)

 

   “That by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us, which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast.”  (Heb. 6:18-19.)

 

   “And we desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end.”  (Heb. 6:11.)

 

   “He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.  These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God.”  (1 John 5:12-13.)

 

   “And this is the promise that he has promised us, even eternal life.”  (1 John 2:25.)

 

   “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and truth.  And hereby we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him.  For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our hearts and knows all things.  Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.”  (1 John 3:18-21.)

 

   The New Testament classic on assurance or confidence of salvation is first John.  Other letters also are significant on this theme.  Among them are: Hebrews, Romans, Galatians, and the Gospels.

Two Major Problems with Assurance

 

   There are two major difficulties with presenting this subject.  I have tried to be consistent in giving solid hope to fellow Christians in my preaching.  But, I must say, it has not been an easy task.

 

1)    One problem is whether a person really wants to be fully assured of going to heaven.  You cannot give assurance to someone who does not want it.  Some seem to refuse it!  I am shocked by that response.

 

2)    A second problem is one of too much confidence.  I have a tract that I recently received in my mailbox.  The title is, “How to Know For Sure, 100%, You’re Going to Heaven.”  At the bottom, the words In Four Easy Steps are written.  Some seem to be over-confident without carefully considering Scripture.  In contrast, Paul wrote this about those who were judging him, “But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment.  Yea, I judge not mine own self.  For I know nothing by myself.  Yet am I not hereby justified.  But he that judges me is the Lord.  Therefore, judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the heart.  Then shall every man have praise of God.”  (1 Cor. 4:3-5.)

 

   The major job is to understand the biblical basis for our hope.  With so many things being taught about salvation, many are confused.  The goal is not just to give confidence to people, but to give a biblical foundation for real confidence.  One can be too confident.  It seems to me, though, in the church, most people suffer from a lack of assurance that they are going to heaven.

 

   Hope is a choice.  Since Paul wrote that we are saved by hope, it is essential that we have hope.  (Rom. 8:24.)  Hope, like faith and love, is something that you choose to possess or not to have.  John wrote: “When he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.  And every man that hath this hope in him, purifies himself, even as he is pure.”  (1 John 3:2-3.)  There is great value in having hope.  “Knowing in yourselves that you have in heaven a better and enduring substance. . . Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward.”  (Heb. 10:35.)

   I want to show that hope is a choice, just as to believe and to love.  Abraham staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith.  (Rom. 4:20.)  But note that Abraham also “against hope believed in hope that he might become the father of many nations.”  (Rom. 4:17-18.)  Abraham choose to have hope just as he choose to believe in God.  We are saved by hope, just as we are saved by grace through faith.  It is important to live by hope.  Hope or assurance gives to us patience (Rom. 8:24-25), purity (1 John 3:2-3) and provides salvation (Rom. 8:24). Hope anchors the soul.  Love hopes all things (1 Cor. 13:7); faith is the substance of things hoped for (Heb. 11:1); Abraham against hope believed in hope (Rom. 4:17).  Hope is intertwined with faith and love.  If our hope is weak, then something is wrong with our faith and love. 

  

Hopeless Words

 

   Here are some sad words that I have heard from fellow Christians:

 

   “Father, after we have done all that we can, maybe by your grace, you will see the way to allow us into gloryland.”  (Prayed by a fellow preacher in TN, leading the prayer during a Gospel Meeting, Aug. 2004.)

 

   “I just don’t feel that I am doing enough.”  (Said by an elderly widow, an elder’s wife, who at the time was in her 80s.  She told me and another preacher that she sent out tracts through the mail to encourage people.  She wanted them to become Christians.  But she did not say those words joyfully, but sadly thinking I am not doing enough to go to heaven.  A good question is, How many tracts did she need to send out before she could go to heaven?)  This statement is not a rare one.  It is most common among Christians.

 

   “It is so hard to feel forgiven.”  (Said by someone after committing sin.)  But why is it hard to feel forgiven?  We will try to answer that in a moment.  One of my Bible teachers gave us an assignment.  It was to visit four terminally ill members of the church where we worshipped and try to understand their level of assurance and hope.  I thought at first how difficult that assignment was going to be—to get them to talk about it.  But when the door was opened, they burst forth with expressions reflecting their present state of hope and faith.  One by one they told me about their lack of hope of going to heaven.  And I wondered why they had such little hope.

 

   “Father, thank you for giving us your Son so that we might have a chance to go to heaven.”  (Said in prayer at the Communion table.)  Maybe, the prayer was not well expressed, or just said without careful thought.  But, Bible writers do not talk about a chance to go to heaven, but an opportunity that is founded upon solid truths.  What we say in our prayers often reflect our lack of assurance.

 

   Recently, in a brotherhood paper, I read a story about a preacher’s family going on a  mission trip.  The father, mother and two daughters were going.  When they got to the airport and to the counter to check their luggage, the attendant rejected one of the daughter’s passport because it was out of date.  The way the date was printed, it was confusing which number was the day and the year.  It had expired earlier this year.  The article then warned religious people that they may be like his daughter.  They may be found there trying to enter heaven and be turned away.  It is true, of course, that some may have too much confidence not based upon biblical evidence.  But this is a poor illustration of that.  No one will be turned away because of a technicality.  No one will be lost because they misread a number or date.  No one will be lost because they misread a passage of Scripture.  It will be for much larger and more important issues than that!  The Gospel is repeated over and over.  We have four accounts of Jesus’ life and repeated admonitions and teachings in the rest of the New Testament.

 

   On earth there are many who get off on technicalities.  And there are those who are penalized because of technicalities.  No one will go to heaven or be lost eternally because of a technicality!  That is an insult to the Gospel, to the Lord who died for us, and to the goodness of God.

 

   I am convinced that many Christians lack assurance and hope because of the preaching that they have heard.  In my home congregation in MS, some research was done by the elders.  They wanted to know what the members felt about their hope of going to heaven.  This is what they found out.  The oldest members expressed the greatest confidence; next were the middle-aged members; then the young adults, and last were the teenage members.  The percentages from oldest to youngest in the four groups were 75%, 60%, 40% and 20%.  This means overall that less than half of the membership of that church of 240 members feel assured of their salvation.

 

Things That Will Not Give Assurance

 

1)    Punishing or neglecting the body.  (Col. 2:20-23.)  The commandments of men are touch not, taste not and handle not.

2)    By giving a lot of money to the church.  (Isaiah 55:1.)

3)    By being a baptized a second time.  (Eph. 4:5.)

4)    By hearing many sermons on how sinful mankind is.  (Rom. 3:20; 7:1-4.)

5)    By hearing a lot of sermons on how wrong other religious bodies are.  This may cause you to loose whatever confidence that you have.

6)    By having impossible demands put upon you—“a yoke that neither they nor their fathers could bear.”  (Acts 15:10.)

7)    By hearing loud arguments and debates.  (Psalm 46:10.)

 

   The word gospel by definition and content means good news.  We will have assurance only when we are fully immersed in the good news of redemption in Christ Jesus.  Peter preached, “Unto you first, God, having raised up his Son Jesus sent him to bless you, in turning away everyone of your from his iniquities.”  (Acts 3:26.)

 

Locating the Problem

 

   If assurance or hope is a by-product of the Gospel, then a lack of confidence is a by-product of something else.  There are many things, in fact, that contribute to a lack of assurance.  Here are some of those:

 

   A general atmosphere of tension and confusion.  In every home, there is an established tone or atmosphere in which the family members live.  If there are loving relationships and warmth expressed, everyone will enjoy being at home and they will be happy.  James wrote about “bitter envy and strife in churches.  He said that it comes not from above, but is earthly, sensual and devilish.  But the wisdom that comes from above is first pure, then peaceable, gently, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good works, without partiality and without hypocrisy.  The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.”   (James 3:14-18.)

 

   There is little wonder then that Jesus taught that we should love one another as he loved us.  By this, he said, shall all men know that you are my disciples if you love one another.  (John 13:35.)

 

   In whom you trust.  Faith means in large measure that you trust in Another, not in yourself.  The problem with assurance is because of the one in whom you trust.  No real confidence can be possessed by trusting in man (yourself or another man).  Genuine hope is based upon your trust in the Lord.

 

   “Thus saith the Lord, Cursed is the man that trusts in man and makes flesh his arm and whose heart departs from the Lord.”  (Jer. 17:5.)  “Blessed is the man that trusts in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.”  (Jer. 17:7.)  “And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others.”  (Luke 18:9.)  “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding.  In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths.”  (Prov. 3:5.)

 

   The reason that we cannot have strong confidence by trusting in our own righteousness is that we know the weakness and corruptness of man.  We want to believe in ourselves that we are righteous because of human pride.  But in the end it fails us because we know better.

  

   What we believe about forgiveness.  It is evident the way we pray that we are confused about the forgiveness of sins.  We have a conscience of sins that the Hebrew writer said that we should not have.  He wrote, “The worshippers once purged should have no more conscience of sins.”  (Heb. 10:2.)  He did not say that we should not be conscious or aware of any sins, but that we should not have a conscience of sins.  That means that we should understand the power of the one-time sacrifice of Jesus and trust fully in it.

 

   Here are some false views concerning forgiveness: 1) That God reluctantly forgives us,  2) That baptism washes only your past sins away and after that you must maintain your state of non-alienation between you and God, 3) That you must wait until Sunday and respond to the invitation before you can be forgiven, 4) That God imputes every sin to you every time you sin (Rom. 4:8; 8:1), 5) That justification and salvation is merely about the forgiveness of sins.  The story of redemption is about coming home and living in fellowship with God.  The whole story does not consist of just the day the prodigal came home, but the life at home with his father and brother.

 

   False thinking about salvation.  Assurance is all but destroyed by this false notion: that Jesus provides part of your salvation and you provide the rest.  This is another doctrine of Limited Atonement.  Calvin taught a doctrine of limited atonement concerning how many could be saved by Jesus’ death.  Many others have taught another limited atonement doctrine by how effective Jesus’ sacrifice is for our salvation.  They limit the amount of salvation provided by Jesus.  The believer must provide the rest.  We must believe in a full atonement or we dishonor the death of Jesus, making it vain.

 

   Whether we are serious about our salvation.  We cannot have full assurance of faith if we doubt God’s Word or if we have not broken off our fellowship with the world.  All that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.  These are not of the Father, but of the world.  (1 John 2:15-17.)  We are commanded to repent.  (Luke 13:3-5.)  But you are not saved by how gloriously you repented.  You are saved by the Lord.

 

   If you are serious, and I am convinced that most members of the church are, then you should embrace the promises of God with confidence.  Our weak assurance insults God and His Gospel!

 

Conclusion:  The Jews had too many rules and regulations self-imposed.  They could not decide which commandment was the greatest one.  Jesus told them that the first and second greatest commandment was to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself.  (Matthew 22.)

October 3, 2004

 

Cawson Street Church of Christ

October 31, 2004

Mural Worthey

 

Full Assurance of Faith

 

Introduction

 

   Here are several wonderful expressions of Christian confidence:

 

   “Having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”  (Heb. 10:22.)

 

   “That by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us, which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast.”  (Heb. 6:18-19.)

 

   “And we desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end.”  (Heb. 6:11.)

 

   “He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.  These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God.”  (1 John 5:12-13.)

 

   “And this is the promise that he has promised us, even eternal life.”  (1 John 2:25.)

 

   “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and truth.  And hereby we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him.  For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our hearts and knows all things.  Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.”  (1 John 3:18-21.)

 

   The New Testament classic on assurance or confidence of salvation is first John.  Other letters also are significant on this theme.  Among them are: Hebrews, Romans, Galatians, and the Gospels.

 

Two Major Problems with Assurance

 

   There are two major difficulties with presenting this subject.  I have tried to be consistent in giving solid hope to fellow Christians in my preaching.  But, I must say, it has not been an easy task.

 

1)    One problem is whether a person really wants to be fully assured of going to heaven.  You cannot give assurance to someone who does not want it.  Some seem to refuse it!  I am shocked by that response.

 

2)    A second problem is one of too much confidence.  I have a tract that I recently received in my mailbox.  The title is, “How to Know For Sure, 100%, You’re Going to Heaven.”  At the bottom, the words In Four Easy Steps are written.  Some seem to be over-confident without carefully considering Scripture.  In contrast, Paul wrote this about those who were judging him, “But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment.  Yea, I judge not mine own self.  For I know nothing by myself.  Yet am I not hereby justified.  But he that judges me is the Lord.  Therefore, judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the heart.  Then shall every man have praise of God.”  (1 Cor. 4:3-5.)

 

   The major job is to understand the biblical basis for our hope.  With so many things being taught about salvation, many are confused.  The goal is not just to give confidence to people, but to give a biblical foundation for real confidence.  One can be too confident.  It seems to me, though, in the church, most people suffer from a lack of assurance that they are going to heaven.

 

   Hope is a choice.  Since Paul wrote that we are saved by hope, it is essential that we have hope.  (Rom. 8:24.)  Hope, like faith and love, is something that you choose to possess or not to have.  John wrote: “When he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.  And every man that hath this hope in him, purifies himself, even as he is pure.”  (1 John 3:2-3.)  There is great value in having hope.  “Knowing in yourselves that you have in heaven a better and enduring substance. . . Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward.”  (Heb. 10:35.)

   I want to show that hope is a choice, just as to believe and to love.  Abraham staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith.  (Rom. 4:20.)  But note that Abraham also “against hope believed in hope that he might become the father of many nations.”  (Rom. 4:17-18.)  Abraham choose to have hope just as he choose to believe in God.  We are saved by hope, just as we are saved by grace through faith.  It is important to live by hope.  Hope or assurance gives to us patience (Rom. 8:24-25), purity (1 John 3:2-3) and provides salvation (Rom. 8:24). Hope anchors the soul.  Love hopes all things (1 Cor. 13:7); faith is the substance of things hoped for (Heb. 11:1); Abraham against hope believed in hope (Rom. 4:17).  Hope is intertwined with faith and love.  If our hope is weak, then something is wrong with our faith and love. 

  

Hopeless Words

 

   Here are some sad words that I have heard from fellow Christians:

 

   “Father, after we have done all that we can, maybe by your grace, you will see the way to allow us into gloryland.”  (Prayed by a fellow preacher in TN, leading the prayer during a Gospel Meeting, Aug. 2004.)

 

   “I just don’t feel that I am doing enough.”  (Said by an elderly widow, an elder’s wife, who at the time was in her 80s.  She told me and another preacher that she sent out tracts through the mail to encourage people.  She wanted them to become Christians.  But she did not say those words joyfully, but sadly thinking I am not doing enough to go to heaven.  A good question is, How many tracts did she need to send out before she could go to heaven?)  This statement is not a rare one.  It is most common among Christians.

 

   “It is so hard to feel forgiven.”  (Said by someone after committing sin.)  But why is it hard to feel forgiven?  We will try to answer that in a moment.  One of my Bible teachers gave us an assignment.  It was to visit four terminally ill members of the church where we worshipped and try to understand their level of assurance and hope.  I thought at first how difficult that assignment was going to be—to get them to talk about it.  But when the door was opened, they burst forth with expressions reflecting their present state of hope and faith.  One by one they told me about their lack of hope of going to heaven.  And I wondered why they had such little hope.

 

   “Father, thank you for giving us your Son so that we might have a chance to go to heaven.”  (Said in prayer at the Communion table.)  Maybe, the prayer was not well expressed, or just said without careful thought.  But, Bible writers do not talk about a chance to go to heaven, but an opportunity that is founded upon solid truths.  What we say in our prayers often reflect our lack of assurance.

 

   Recently, in a brotherhood paper, I read a story about a preacher’s family going on a  mission trip.  The father, mother and two daughters were going.  When they got to the airport and to the counter to check their luggage, the attendant rejected one of the daughter’s passport because it was out of date.  The way the date was printed, it was confusing which number was the day and the year.  It had expired earlier this year.  The article then warned religious people that they may be like his daughter.  They may be found there trying to enter heaven and be turned away.  It is true, of course, that some may have too much confidence not based upon biblical evidence.  But this is a poor illustration of that.  No one will be turned away because of a technicality.  No one will be lost because they misread a number or date.  No one will be lost because they misread a passage of Scripture.  It will be for much larger and more important issues than that!  The Gospel is repeated over and over.  We have four accounts of Jesus’ life and repeated admonitions and teachings in the rest of the New Testament.

 

   On earth there are many who get off on technicalities.  And there are those who are penalized because of technicalities.  No one will go to heaven or be lost eternally because of a technicality!  That is an insult to the Gospel, to the Lord who died for us, and to the goodness of God.

 

   I am convinced that many Christians lack assurance and hope because of the preaching that they have heard.  In my home congregation in MS, some research was done by the elders.  They wanted to know what the members felt about their hope of going to heaven.  This is what they found out.  The oldest members expressed the greatest confidence; next were the middle-aged members; then the young adults, and last were the teenage members.  The percentages from oldest to youngest in the four groups were 75%, 60%, 40% and 20%.  This means overall that less than half of the membership of that church of 240 members feel assured of their salvation.

 

Things That Will Not Give Assurance

 

1)    Punishing or neglecting the body.  (Col. 2:20-23.)  The commandments of men are touch not, taste not and handle not.

2)    By giving a lot of money to the church.  (Isaiah 55:1.)

3)    By being a baptized a second time.  (Eph. 4:5.)

4)    By hearing many sermons on how sinful mankind is.  (Rom. 3:20; 7:1-4.)

5)    By hearing a lot of sermons on how wrong other religious bodies are.  This may cause you to loose whatever confidence that you have.

6)    By having impossible demands put upon you—“a yoke that neither they nor their fathers could bear.”  (Acts 15:10.)

7)    By hearing loud arguments and debates.  (Psalm 46:10.)

 

   The word gospel by definition and content means good news.  We will have assurance only when we are fully immersed in the good news of redemption in Christ Jesus.  Peter preached, “Unto you first, God, having raised up his Son Jesus sent him to bless you, in turning away everyone of your from his iniquities.”  (Acts 3:26.)

 

Locating the Problem

 

   If assurance or hope is a by-product of the Gospel, then a lack of confidence is a by-product of something else.  There are many things, in fact, that contribute to a lack of assurance.  Here are some of those:

 

   A general atmosphere of tension and confusion.  In every home, there is an established tone or atmosphere in which the family members live.  If there are loving relationships and warmth expressed, everyone will enjoy being at home and they will be happy.  James wrote about “bitter envy and strife in churches.  He said that it comes not from above, but is earthly, sensual and devilish.  But the wisdom that comes from above is first pure, then peaceable, gently, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good works, without partiality and without hypocrisy.  The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.”   (James 3:14-18.)

 

   There is little wonder then that Jesus taught that we should love one another as he loved us.  By this, he said, shall all men know that you are my disciples if you love one another.  (John 13:35.)

 

   In whom you trust.  Faith means in large measure that you trust in Another, not in yourself.  The problem with assurance is because of the one in whom you trust.  No real confidence can be possessed by trusting in man (yourself or another man).  Genuine hope is based upon your trust in the Lord.

 

   “Thus saith the Lord, Cursed is the man that trusts in man and makes flesh his arm and whose heart departs from the Lord.”  (Jer. 17:5.)  “Blessed is the man that trusts in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.”  (Jer. 17:7.)  “And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others.”  (Luke 18:9.)  “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding.  In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths.”  (Prov. 3:5.)

 

   The reason that we cannot have strong confidence by trusting in our own righteousness is that we know the weakness and corruptness of man.  We want to believe in ourselves that we are righteous because of human pride.  But in the end it fails us because we know better.

  

   What we believe about forgiveness.  It is evident the way we pray that we are confused about the forgiveness of sins.  We have a conscience of sins that the Hebrew writer said that we should not have.  He wrote, “The worshippers once purged should have no more conscience of sins.”  (Heb. 10:2.)  He did not say that we should not be conscious or aware of any sins, but that we should not have a conscience of sins.  That means that we should understand the power of the one-time sacrifice of Jesus and trust fully in it.

 

   Here are some false views concerning forgiveness: 1) That God reluctantly forgives us,  2) That baptism washes only your past sins away and after that you must maintain your state of non-alienation between you and God, 3) That you must wait until Sunday and respond to the invitation before you can be forgiven, 4) That God imputes every sin to you every time you sin (Rom. 4:8; 8:1), 5) That justification and salvation is merely about the forgiveness of sins.  The story of redemption is about coming home and living in fellowship with God.  The whole story does not consist of just the day the prodigal came home, but the life at home with his father and brother.

 

   False thinking about salvation.  Assurance is all but destroyed by this false notion: that Jesus provides part of your salvation and you provide the rest.  This is another doctrine of Limited Atonement.  Calvin taught a doctrine of limited atonement concerning how many could be saved by Jesus’ death.  Many others have taught another limited atonement doctrine by how effective Jesus’ sacrifice is for our salvation.  They limit the amount of salvation provided by Jesus.  The believer must provide the rest.  We must believe in a full atonement or we dishonor the death of Jesus, making it vain.

 

   Whether we are serious about our salvation.  We cannot have full assurance of faith if we doubt God’s Word or if we have not broken off our fellowship with the world.  All that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.  These are not of the Father, but of the world.  (1 John 2:15-17.)  We are commanded to repent.  (Luke 13:3-5.)  But you are not saved by how gloriously you repented.  You are saved by the Lord.

 

   If you are serious, and I am convinced that most members of the church are, then you should embrace the promises of God with confidence.  Our weak assurance insults God and His Gospel!

 

Conclusion:  The Jews had too many rules and regulations self-imposed.  They could not decide which commandment was the greatest one.  Jesus told them that the first and second greatest commandment was to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself.  (Matthew 22.)
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