The primary ground of assurance is rooted in the promises of God, but those promises must become increasingly real to the believer through the subjective evidences of grace and the internal witness of the Holy Spirit.
Focusing on Christ, Reformation 21, April 21, 2020. Used by Permission.
Love in Scripture is never defined as taking advantage of another’s care, abusing their trust, or imposing on their generosity. If we knowingly continue in flagrant wrong under the presumption that “It won’t matter, because God always forgives His children,” we must question our commitment to Him. There is no human assurance that His love covers us when there is no evidence of our love for Him.
The Power of Mercy by Bryan Chapell taken from Holiness by Grace by Bryan Chapell, copyright 2001, Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton Illinois 60187, www.crosswaybooks.org. Page 195.|The Power of Mercy by Bryan Chapell taken from Holiness by Grace by Bryan Chapell, copyright 2001, Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton Illinois 60187, www.crosswaybooks.org. Page 195.
It is crystal clear that a mental assent to the Gospel will save no one, nor will a mere empty profession of faith in Christ. So many flatter themselves that they are born again because they have been baptized, joined some “church of their choice” received the Lord’s supper who do not have a keen and humbling sense of sin. Professing to be Christians, they are filled with a vain and presumptuous confidence that all is well with their souls, deluding themselves with hopes of mercy while continuing to live in a course of self-will and self-pleasing.
Accepting Christ.
There is nothing in the world that works such satanic, profound, God-defiant pride as false assurance; nothing works such utter humility, or brings to such utter self-emptiness, as the child-like spirit of true assurance.
The biblical order is: Facts > Faith > Feelings. Feelings are the responders of the soul or heart. They are to follow and respond to our understanding of Scripture, but they are never a safe guide to what we should believe or of the state of our salvation.
Assurance of Salvation, www.bible.org, Copyright ©1996-2005, All rights reserved.
Many professed Christians – and even many true Christians – hold a false doctrine of assurance. Often it is because the person who witnessed to them told them that all they had to do was make a profession of faith, walk an aisle, raise a hand, say a prayer, and never doubt what the Lord had done in their lives. Perhaps they have been taught that to ever doubt their salvation is to doubt God’s Word and integrity. Unfortunately, many evangelists, pastors, and personal workers attempt to certify a person’s salvation apart from the convicting work of the Holy Spirit and the evidence of fruit with continuance in obedience to the Word (John 8:31). But we have no right to assure a person of something we cannot be certain is true. God’s own Holy Spirit will witness His reality to those who truly belong to Him (Rom. 8:14-16). Peter makes clear that one’s calling and choosing are made secure by increasing qualities of fruitfulness that demonstrate the genuineness of salvation and eliminate stumbling over doubt (2 Pet. 1:3-11). And our Lord teaches that some people appear saved, but are not (Matt. 13: 20-21). Quick and easy assurance can deceive.
Matthew 1-7, Moody, 1985, p. 475-476.
There is a kind of cavalier attitude toward our security today. There is little trembling. Little vigilance and earnestness and caution and watchfulness over our souls. There is a kind of casual, slack, careless attitude toward the possibility that we might make shipwreck of our faith and fail to lay hold on eternal life. We have the notion that security is a kind of mechanical, automatic thing. We prayed once to receive Jesus. We are safe and there is no place for “working out your salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12).
When Is It Dangerous to Look at Jesus? June 15, 2005, Fresh Words, Used by Permission, www.DesiringGod.org.
If our lives do not reflect the fruit of following Jesus, then we are foolish to think that we are actually followers of Jesus in the first place.
Taken from Follow Me by David Platt. Copyright © 2013 by David Platt. Used by permission. Website: Radical.net. Page 16.
Where there is no sanctification of life, there is no real faith in Christ. True faith works by love. It constrains a man to live unto the Lord from a deep sense of gratitude for redemption. It makes him feel that he can never do too much for Him that died for him. Being much forgiven, he loves much. He whom the blood cleanses, walks in the light. He who has real lively hope in Christ, purifies himself even as He is pure… The faith which has not a sanctifying influence on the character is no better than the faith of devils.
Taken from Holiness by J.C. Ryle, Moody Publishers, copyright 2010, p. 49.
I declare I know no state of soul more dangerous than to imagine we are born again and sanctified by the Holy Ghost, because we have picked up a few religious feelings.
Taken from Holiness by J.C. Ryle, Moody Publishers, copyright 2010, p. 62.
The vague and tenuous hope that God is too kind to punish the ungodly has become a deadly opiate for the consciences of millions.
