London Baptist Confession 17,18

I would encourage you, if you don't already have a copy of the confession, you can get it for free. I would never encourage anybody bu on their phones during church, but you can just Google the confession and get it right, right on your phone for free. The place where I think I got the PDF file was on Monergism, the M O N E R G I S M. And got that copy there. So we're in chapter 17 and 18. And then these two chapters deal respectively with perseverance and or assurance.

And I asked this morning, I'll give you the answers to those questions in a little bit what the difference is between the two or the relationship between them. It primarily deals with the effects and the things associated with what we usually call eternal security. Years ago, more than 10 now, because this. This is 10 years old, this my preparation material, I visited a church. I had a friend who started going to a local church in Modesto, and he asked me to come and visit their church.

They had a Saturday night evening service to see what I thought of it, because he was essentially using me as sort of a barometer. And it was an easy test because that night the sermon was about grace. It was. The subject was grace. And he.

This specific subject was sustaining grace. Okay, that will come into play here in a moment in our. In our confession. But he put up on the PowerPoint that Pastor did. Sustaining grace is.

And then the very next words were, if you believed sincerely with all your heart. And I'll tell you that it doesn't matter what comes after that.

Because if you start off by saying grace is when you do something, there's already a problem with it. Grace is when God does something. And as simple as that seems, I told my friend that. I said I because the overall service was fine. It was just fine.

It wasn't. I didn't have a lot of terrible criticisms or anything, but I did tell him afterward, I said, if you're going to start a sentence with grace, is that sentence better? The very next word better be when God does something, God is the next character. Or when you do nothing. If you say when you have absolutely nothing, that's what definition of grace is.

So now the question for tonight is, do we believe in sovereign grace? I don't mean our church. I mean in the doctrines of sovereign grace having an effect. What is actually sustaining grace if it isn't when you really believe with all your heart? But the Bible does say, right, if you believe, you have to believe.

But what we're saying is the thing that saves you is. And the thing that maintains you and the thing that keeps you going is something that God does. That's the emphasis. And you'll hear it a lot in the confession tonight. I have a ton of notes.

I'm sorry in advance if it's long. We this is one of those areas where the discussion of human responsibility and God's sovereignty comes into play. And I always have to say, I don't have to, but I always want to say, just make sure you are aware in any discussion dealing with works and the behavior and the obedience of Christians that you at least have it in your head that there's a difference between the works of God, the law of God for a Christian, and an unbeliever. That's always the fundamental thing, is that the second you start talking about works and perseverance and obedience and carrying on and overcoming and sanctification, when you start talking about those things, people automatically blend works with salvation. And they always miss the fact that we're not talking about for salvation, we're talking about from salvation.

Right. So this is a night where you need to hear that, because we will get to the point here in a little bit with the concept or the idea that the perseverance idea comes from God doing his work in the life of people, not us continuing. But you're going to hear language of endurance, you're going to hear language of perseverance. So it's important to see that both are at work. But we're not talking about humans having the strength to persevere.

It'll all make sense soon. But I just want to make sure we're clear that how you end up, if you end up in glory, if you end up in heaven, if you end up before the throne of Christ, it will not have been something you did, it will be something God did. That's the really important part of that. And he will get all the credit. But that does now beg the question, well, then what about us and our obedience?

What impact does it have? What importance does it have that we persevere, that we obey the Lord, that we honor the Lord with our lives? So we've already talked about in this confession. We already handled it, actually. The doctrines of sovereign grace.

Before this, we've already talked about the grace of salvation. So remember when you open the confession in chapter 17, that there were 16 chapters before it, and they already talked about salvation and those things. So now we're talking about what comes next after sanctification and good works. Where do those fit? That was last time now we're talking about continuing to the end and what Baptists and the particular Baptists of the 1689 confession held to or believed.

So we'll look at that together. Let's pray. Father, it's really important, especially if folks can be discouraged and fall into sin or fall away from fellowship with you. It's very important that we understand the ultimate truths related to that, that we cannot lose our salvation. But also, Father, that we're supposed to persevere.

We don't want to make the mistake of cheap grace and thinking. We don't have to think about our obedience at all. We want to get the balance right. But also, Father, for anybody that's discouraged, for anybody that's struggled or suffering or fallen into sin, this is a great lesson to encourage us to persevere and to continue and to move toward you. Maybe, Father, there might be even something we say tonight that we can take into the lives of other people, maybe other people who are in trouble or wayward or have not yet returned back to you.

And maybe something we hear tonight would help us help them. And we'll thank you for that. In Jesus name, Amen. Chapter 17. In the confession of perseverance, the first thing we will talk about is the fact.

Now, who is it that perseveres? We're talking about Christians. It isn't people who start, you know, you hear people say success is a journey, right? It's not a destination or. Well, that's not true of salvation.

Salvation is a moment. But our growth and our perseverance is indeed a journey. But it is Christians persevering, not potential Christians. Not people who will persevere long enough to eventually become Christians. No, people who are saved by the grace of God, covered in the blood of Christ.

Their sins are on the cross. His righteousness is counted to them. They're declared righteous, justified before God. Those are now Christians. Their names are in the book of life.

They are now free from sin. They. They are now obedient slaves of Christ. So they are identified now with Christ, no longer identified with sin or with Satan or the world. So I say all that to you because when you leave Adam to be in Christ, you have a new identity.

You are a brand new thing. You're a new creature. And now we're talking about what happens next for the new creature. We're not talking about how to continue, how to make yourself a new creature. That becomes so important because so many people get discouraged.

So listen to what the confession says. Those whom God hath accepted in the Beloved, effectually called and sanctified by his, and given the precious faith of his elect unto, can neither totally nor finally fall from the state of grace. So Baptists, and particularly the Baptists that held to this confession, believe that you cannot fall from grace. We do not believe you can lose your salvation. You hear people all the time say, once saved, always saved.

Well, you know, my preferred way of saying that is if saved, always saved, right? If somebody has actually been born again by the Spirit of God and they've been redeemed, we have to say it strongly that you cannot lose your salvation. You cannot. When God does a thing, you can't undo the thing. And it goes on to say, but shall certainly persevere therein to the end and be eternally saved.

It says it so clearly. If God does everything in salvation and saving you, he also does everything in keeping you, right? That's the idea. As you see that the one who began the work, that's a Philippians idea, right? If he began the work, he.

He continues the work. So we're also, we're just stating it out of the gate that you cannot fall from grace, but will absolutely persevere. Paul says something like this in First Corinthians 1, which is amazing that he says it in First Corinthians 1 in the book of the messed up church. He starts that book by saying, God will confirm you to the end in verse eight of chapter one. So Paul is telling a messed up church with people in all manner of disobedience, abusing communion, sexual immorality, factions, all that stuff happening at that church, suing each other, right?

All the things that are mentioned in that church, abusing the gifts, the spiritual gifts, everything that church was doing. And Paul still says to that group of people, God will confirm you to the end. So it's a strong evidence that you will persevere. There are warning type verses too, like where Jesus says, but he who endures to the end will be saved. So endurance does sound like it depends on us.

I understand that sounds like it's effort on our part, and it is, but it's grace fueled effort. That's the way I like to say it. Grace fueled obedience. That's the fuel for your obedience and the motivation and the power that you are given by God through his Holy Spirit can make you obey. They tell the jailer, Paul and Silas tell the jailer, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.

It doesn't say you might be, doesn't say you have the potential to be it says, you will be saved. So going on to the confession, it talks about the cause and it says, seeing the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. If you sometimes see the older English when it says repentance, it doesn't always mean what it sounds like. It means like that God did a sin and had to repent of it. That's not what it means.

It means the gifts and calling of God are the way you could say it is irrevocable, like God will not change his mind without that. If he gives a gift, he will not change his mind on that gift. That's the idea whence he still begets and nourishes them in the faith, repentance, love, joy, and all the graces of the spirit of unto immortality. So this is what God is doing. He's doing it himself.

He doesn't change his mind. He will beget them. He will get them to the finish line. And it goes on to say, even though there's obstacles and though many storms and floods arise and beat against them, that, by the way, that's a theme of the confession on perseverance and assurance. The theme is you're going to get thumped.

And there's a lot of talk about the difficulty of persevering. So our confession is very honest about the human condition. But it goes on to say, through many storms and floods arise and beat against them, yet they shall never be able to take them off that foundation and rock by which by faith they are fastened upon. Nobody will ever knock us off of the rock of Jesus. No one can ever undo what God started.

And you might want to in your heart say amen. Because I know people who have been very, very low and wondered about their salvation. And wondered. And maybe someone you love, you've seen them have an apparent walk with the Lord and then see very difficult times and wonder if they're going to persevere. Well, our confession says if they're on the rock, they're on solid ground.

And even though there are setbacks, they will be okay. He goes on to say, the confession goes on to say sorry notwithstanding, through unbelief and the temptation of Satan, the sensible sight of the light and love of God may for a time be clouded and obscured from them. In other words, you can go through things, you can cause things, you can sin enough, you can have enough difficulty that you can't see the hope, you can't see ahead, you can't see victory. I love this next language. Somebody needs to write a song with these Lyrics.

Make this into lyrics. It says, yet he is still the same. I like that. Yet he is still the same. And they shall not or.

And they shall be sure to be kept by the power of God unto salvation, where they shall enjoy their purchased possession. They being engraved upon the palm of his hands and their names having been written in the book of life from all eternity. Those are essentially just paraphrases of passages of scripture that the confession says that you. Your names are in the book of life. You're stamped, you're imprinted on his hands.

They will. Even through setbacks. Even though there are obstacles, even though there are difficulties. There is a confidence that we get from Scripture that He will indeed rescue us in the end. I just love that he is still the same idea, by the way.

I just love it. It jumped out at me, the grounds. And assuming that's God that it's talking about, it might be that we are the same because we're saved. We can't be on the same. But you can look at that yourself.

The grounds. Now, let's talk about this. I can't say the next statement like these are the kind of times where I wish I had a voice like Pastor Heinrich or these like strong preachers that got a. Like a voice that lands. Because I feel like sometimes like Elmo or Muppet, you know, like I'm kind of.

I'm a normal guy and I don't speak with the weight. I wish I could. I want to speak with weight. And this next phrase from the confession, I wish I could say so that it landed with firm, strong importance to you. So I'm just telling you.

I wish I could make it sound like that. And since I can't hear it that way anyway. But this is very important. What we believe as Baptists who hold to this confession, this perseverance of the saints, the depends not upon their own free will. That is very good news for us.

If you're listening, that it does not depend on your will. Because if it did, we would fall. And we could fall and never be found again. Thankfully, it is not dependent on our will. It's dependent on the will of the Lord.

It goes on to say, but on the immutability of the decree of election flowing from the free and unchangeable love of God the Father. And we know in Romans 9 when it says that the purpose of election may stand. You remember that part where Jacob and Esau neither having done good or evil. We always talk about the unconditional ness of the election, meaning there was nothing they could do to earn it. But one thing we don't emphasize enough is that it says that the purpose of election might stand.

So it's not just that it's unconditional and there's nothing that we can do to earn it. It's also that once it's done, an election has happened and God has chosen you and written your name in the book of life, you can't undo it. So these are very, very strong and to me, foundational thoughts and especially if somebody's struggling. And I've man, over the years, I've counseled so many people who. I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say, I don't even know if I'm a Christian.

I wish I could tell you how many times people have said that to me. It's dozens, maybe hundreds. And these passages fortify me and I hope they do you too. These, the confession and the verses related to it. And then it goes on to say, upon the efficacy of the merit and intercession of Jesus Christ and un with him.

I talked about that in Sunday school. Union with Christ, where you are joined with Christ, the oath of God, the abiding of his Spirit and the seed of God within them. These are all the things that God has done to tie us to his grace and that it can't be changed. So in other words, in order for you to be lost, let's say you're saved. In order for you to be lost, God has to break an oath.

That's what our confession is saying. In order for you to be lost, the abiding power of the Spirit has to back off and fail. In order for you to be lost, your union with Christ has to be broken. So all of these things that confession is saying, those are all happening and they are the things that give you the confidence that the unshakable work of God is going to continue in you so that you don't lose heart and you don't lose hope. And then it also mentions the covenant of grace and the nature of the covenant of grace.

I told you that we don't hold to that like the Westminster folks do. But it is a covenant of grace. And we would definitely say the new covenant, infallible, that if God saves you, you're saved. You can't undo what he does in salvation. So this we're answering the question, why will the believer persevere?

Or back to what I said earlier, what is sustaining grace? Why is it that you can say with confidence, Christian, that you Will persevere? Isn't that arrogant of you to say that? Isn't it proud of you to say that? To think you're so strong that you could persevere?

Well, no. You're in here going to say, no, no, no, no, it's. I'm not. I've never said it was me. I'm telling you all along it was God and he started it and he's going to finish it.

So, yes, I'm going to persevere because God keeps his promises and God's decree is unchangeable and I'm counting on him to deliver. So that's. This is the idea. That's why it's good to talk about it. Well, let's talk about the difficulty.

I told you it's going to be here and in the next chapter that we deal with difficulty. Because what do you have to ask the question? What does it mean when you see somebody profess faith? I think everybody in here understands what I'm about to ask. We've all been there.

Somebody that professes faith, somebody that shows on the outside some version of what looked like repentance and changed life, and then they completely go back into the world and go back into sin and no longer serve the Lord. We all understand what that looks like, and it makes us wonder, okay, what does that say about perseverance? What does that mean about this doctrine? Well, let's listen to the confession. I'm still in chapter 17, chapter or paragraph three.

And though they may, through the temptation of Satan and of the world, the prevalency of corruption remaining in them, and the neglect of means of their preservation, fall into grievous sins, and for a time continue there. And whereby they incur God's displeasure and grieve the Holy, grieve His Holy Spirit, come to have their graces and comforts impaired, have their hearts hardened and their conscious consciences wounded, hurt and scandalize others, and being temporal and bring temporal judgments upon themselves, yet they shed, yet shall they renew their repentance and be preserved through faith in Christ Jesus to the end. I'm sorry for the reading. Even though all that happens, it still says they'll be preserved through Christ to the end. Even though all those things happen, the temptation, the failure, the shame, the reproach, the fellowship of God broken, all that happens.

I love that the proof text in the confession is Psalm 32 and 51. Those are the best texts to use for somebody in those conditions. Talk very much about being far away from God, your bones breaking within you because you trying to hide your sin from the Lord. And just like somebody being as low as you could be, I don't know how much lower you can be than David was when he had Uriah murdered and cheated with his wife. I mean, how much lower can you be?

Right? But read Psalm 51 and you will see what he thought of the Lord and repentance. So the confession is very, very clear. And we hold to it with. I hold to it dearly, the idea that man chastened but never lost, never.

He will never give up on his.

We have to be forthright about sin. That's one of the things that I think some people like. I've heard it too, where people don't want to push people away. Like they have a fear that if I, if I say too much about the Gospel, that then they'll close their doors and not want to talk to me anymore. And so you're walking that line.

Do I tell them they need to repent? Do I ask them where they're at in their walk? Do I challenge them on, you know, renewing their faith and getting back right with the Lord? And I know that, by the way, I promise you, I know it. I might know it more than you, which is when somebody is in that condition and you feel like they're teetering, right?

They're teetering on the brink. And if I say the wrong thing, I might push them away for good. Well, I have a saying in my family, I've been saying it for years, is that we never let sin tell righteousness what to do. We never let sin tell righteousness what to do. Meaning when sin is telling me, hey, if you tell me the truth, I'm going to be angry and I might run away.

I don't let that be, as the kids would say, the boss of me. I tell the truth, tell it with love. I tell it as straight as I can. Not because I need to be right or I need to beat anybody up. But you're not doing anybody favors by hiding the potential restoration from them.

You got to do it if you can. And I know it's hard, folks. You, especially you, the people who have been through things. I know you and your families and things you've been through. And it's hard to look your children in the eye and call them to repentance.

I know it is, but John says it, whoever is born of God does not sin. He says it. And if people are sinning, it's okay to challenge them and ask, are you born of God? Because God's people hate sin. I told you before about the friend of mine who said, if I'm elect, God will come and get me.

And I said no elect person would ever say what you just said. No elect person would happily disobey God and then say, if I'm elect, he'll come and get me. You're tempting God, you're testing him. Don't do that. And you need to repent.

And he hasn't still in contact with him. But I just say that to you because you don't want to test God. You don't want to presume grace. It says, yet they shall renew their repentance and be preserved through faith and in Christ Jesus to the end. I mean, I just love that language.

Okay, so that's preservation, to persevere, Perseverance of the saints has the idea that God will empower everybody. That is his who has been called, who has been saved, who has been indwelt by the Holy Spirit. He will empower them. I haven't talked about it here, but you can also add that to that, that if you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, you can never be indwelt by a demon. Right?

That's good news. I don't know if you're worried about demon possession, but if you were, you don't have to worry. If you have the Holy Spirit, you're protected and preserved. So you are now the Holy Spirit being given to you as a guarantee, stamped name in the book of life. It's as good as already done.

The idea that you will persevere. So take that with you. That not just for you, but remember, keep the confession in your reach because you're going to meet people who are going to ask you. I thought I was saved. What happened?

What happened to my life? I was moving along there and I was serving God. And then all of a sudden everything, the bottom dropped out and I don't know what happened. And you can use the confession to say, let's read this together and let's read these verses together and let's read Psalm 32 together and let's see if there's something we can learn and find out that maybe I always remember. I think I've told you this before about my professor.

It's so humbling to hear him say it because I love him. He's like my other pastor, you know? And I remember him getting up in front of our class and saying, I'm going to tell you what my professor told me, that even if I abandon the Lord, you have to continue. And the idea of that humility is saying that I'm capable of abandoning the Lord, I'm capable of turning away. And he was humble about that.

And so what we're saying is no true believer can turn away. No true believer denies the Lord ultimately. But they will persevere. Now that gets us to the attitude side of the deal. The action side of the deal is perseverance is maintaining.

And even in the spite of challenges and difficulty and obstacles and sin and the devil, there are a ton of things. Even though you might not see hope, you know, see heaven, see glory, see a way out. It's one of the. I've told you this before, but I'm asking you to take these things. I'm not just trying to be repetitive.

Take them with you. Where if you're counseling with somebody and somebody's hurting, a friend or family member, somebody that you know has had a real walk of faith in the hurting, ask that question I've asked a hundred times. When no one's looking, when no one's around, when you're by yourself, just you and the Lord, do you want to please the Lord? Do you have a desire to please the Lord? I ask that question because I genuinely believe that sometimes people can think they're lost and they're in such agony and they're struggling with sin so much that they may truly have think that they're lost.

But deep in their guts, deep down, God had changed their heart. They were born again. They have a new heart that wants to please the Lord. They're just broken. They get so far away and so backslidden and so entrenched in sin.

And they would probably tell you. And they have told me, I hate it. I hate that I'm sinning. Why can't I overcome it? So when people are talking like that, I feel happy.

Not happy they're going through difficulty, but happy to say, God's not done with you yet. You sound like somebody that God has a hold of. And so let's now look at what repentance looks like and get you back on the road to perseverance. So that is the action side of it, perseverance. Now let's go to the attitude side of it, the assurance.

It's possible, first, I want to say, to have false assurance. First of all, you can have assurance of your salvation. I don't know if you've ever shared the gospel with a Roman Catholic, but if you do and they actually know their Catholicism, you will find out that very often they do not have assurance. They don't know. If you ask them point blank, what if you died right now?

Would you go to heaven or not? They will. Very rarely. I don't know that I've ever met a Roman Catholic says, oh, for sure I'd go to heaven. I've never ever met that person.

It's always, oh, I don't know. You know, I don't know where I'm at right now. So we who believe what we believe are supposed to have a level of confidence and assurance that we're secure in the Lord and that our future is secure. So that's why the confession talks about assurance. But before it talks about it positively, negatively, you can have a negative assurance.

So listen to what the confession says in chapter 18, paragraph 1. Although temporary believers. Temporary believers, maybe I might use the language apparent believers, right? Temporary believers and other unregenerate men may vainly deceive themselves with false hopes and carnal presumptions of being in the favor of God and the state of salvation, which hope of theirs shall perish.

So if you have false hope, if you're fake, if you're saying you're Christian, but you're not, those are the people that John talked about, right? People who don't walk in truth, but say they are what they are, it's very possible to be a hypocrite. And if you're a hypocrite, you should have no assurance. You don't. You should not have.

If you have self assurance, you should not have God assurance. God does not approve of people who are self assured. So there are false ones. And this is those people that Jesus talked to, Lord, Lord, didn't we do many wonderful works in your name? And he says, I never knew you.

So the question here would be, what do we do with that? Do we try to give people assurance or do we try to keep people humble? Do we try to talk people into heaven and say, you're fine with the Lord, or do we tell them, hey, I don't know how you're doing and I'm not sure. And we'd be skeptical. I don't think that's ours to do.

Maybe that kind of. We talked about that in Sunday school. It's not mine to judge, but we can talk about these things. We can talk about, are you one of his? And if you are, are you obedient to him?

And if you're obedient to him, do you have confidence that he's pleased with your obedience? Goes on to say, yet such as truly Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ says truly and love him in sincerity. That also sounds like that sustaining grace definition. So even the Baptist got a little of that in them. Endeavoring to walk in all good conscience before him.

May in this life be certainly assured that they are in a state of grace and may rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, which hope shall never make them ashamed. There is the difference between assurance and hope. If you didn't know the difference, assurance is present tense, hope is future tense. Assurance is confidence. Now, hope is confidence for the future.

And so what the confession is saying is when you are walking right with the Lord and you have a clear conscience and you know who you are and you're in a state of grace, you can have absolute assurance. The reason this comes becomes important is because what I said is not only true of Roman Catholics, that they don't know for sure if they're going to be saved, but they also tell the people that they shouldn't be sure. Meaning it's held over your head that you depend on the sacraments and you depend on the Church to get you saved. So you would be considered arrogant if you said, of course I'm going to heaven. You'd be considered a proud person who thinks you're good.

And that's of course not what we're saying. We're saying it was by grace that we're saved and that it's by grace that we'll be in glory. We've read this and when we did, went through first John, he writes that you may know you have eternal life. And of course he writes the first four chapters so that you know you have eternal life. But it is important.

It would be really strange if John says, I am writing to you so that you know that you have eternal life. And then us come along and say, no one can know they have eternal life. That would be a contradiction of John, be a contradiction of the certainty we're supposed to have in Scripture. So we are supposed to be certain. And yes, there is obedience and perseverance before this assurance side that we should only be confident and assured when we have walked in the light.

Right? That's where the confidence comes from. And it's not our walk that does it. It's that we're in the light. It's that we see the light and we walk in the light.

Paragraph two says this. Certainty is not a bare conjecture and probable persuasion grounded upon a fallible hope like before. Perseverance is not of free will. Here. Assurance is not a fallible hope, like us trying to generate assurance.

Like, if you're the kind of person that tries to feel confident about your salvation, you're going to be disappoint yourself. Don't rely on your feelings. Go back to the idea, am I living for the Lord? What does he say to do? And am I doing it?

Am I showing the fruit of the Spirit? Am I showing that I am being conformed to the image of Christ? Yes. I'm not all the way successful. I haven't arrived yet.

But I am definitely further down the line of perseverance and sanctification than I was yesterday. It's the idea of some progress. And if I can say it, now is a great time to say this. Man, I want to say this way more than I ever say it. But I want you to know that in the fight of the gospel, this is going to sound a little weird to you, but you don't go back to go.

Sometimes when people fall into sin after they've been saved, they think everything they learned and all the sanctification that happened up to that point before the fall is lost. Like, none of that counted. But it absolutely counted. All of that obedience counted. God was pleased during all of that.

It's important that you know you don't go back to go like a monopoly. You don't start from zero. You, you have all that experience now. That doesn't mean you're okay. It doesn't mean you say okay, I'm just going to pick up where I left off.

And I know I destroyed my family and I know I've lied to my boss, and I know I've ruined my health with drugs and alcohol. I'm just going to start fresh right now. No, there's scars from your disobedience for sure. There's damage done. But it is important that Christians know they can reclaim lost ground.

It's important that you know that you don't ever start back at zero, that you're never. You're never going to be what you were when you were lost. You're never going back to Adam. So I think that's really important, that when you fall and you will, and you fall on your face, that you get up and recognize this is where I fell. I didn't just wake up back at the beginning again.

I have to start all over again. No, I have had victory. I have grown. I have learned some things. I have been through some difficult times and came out stronger on the other end.

Those were all true life experiences, that I have skills I've developed as a Christian to trust the Lord. And now, yes, I fell today, but I got up here with all that experience still in my satchel, right? I still have those times with the Lord, those times of renewal, those times of repentance. I say that because so many people think that if you're doing great and you're cruising along in your Christian life and you fall on your face, that that's all there is. It's like he's got to start all the way over again.

You don't start over. All that work that God did with us was real work that God did with us. And you don't want to shortchange him. You don't want to dismiss the things he did with you. Now again, you can lose your fellowship with him, you can lose your closeness with Him.

But it is important to know that it is not fallible, he says, but an infallible assurance of faith founded upon the blood and righteousness of Christ revealed in the Gospel, and also upon the inward evidence of those graces of the Spirit unto which promises are made, and on the testimony of the Spirit of adoption, witnessing with our spirits that we are children of God. This is all practically scripture again. And as a fruit thereof, keeping the heart both humble and holy. Humble and holy. Okay, I already said before, he is still the same.

It could be a song. Humble, Humble and holy could be a T shirt if you're looking for marketing. Humble and holy is a great way of saying that the hope of the righteous will be gladness, but the expectation of the wicked will perish. The Proverbs say so. It's not based on a fallible hope that you should have assurance.

You shouldn't base your assurance on how you're feeling, on your thoughts, on your opinions. Because you might be feeling mountaintop today, but you'll be feeling valley tomorrow anyway. So instead of trusting your feelings, you trust the realities. Do I love the Lord? Am I obedient?

And if I'm lacking assurance because I'm disobedient, the answer is not to try to feel obedient. The answer is to get obedient. And then now know I'm right with the Lord. I've repented, I've confessed, I'm back in fellowship with Him. I took down the barriers that were between me and him, and now I'm walking with him again.

It's important to see the language, though. Like the Bible says, we don't no longer. What does Paul say? Here I have it. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear.

Your Christian walk should not be a walk of fear. Now, yes, if you're in disobedience, you should sense the chastening of the Lord. But you should be understanding that God's there with his arms open, ready if you fall, to welcome you back. Always. That's important, like the prodigal.

And that's the way we see the Lord. We don't see the Lord as saying, see, See what you did? See how far you fell? See how much you messed up. You've covered all that ground and now look at you.

That is not the tone of the Lord. The tone of the Lord is, I love you, son. Daughter, get up. Take my hand. Let's keep going.

He's a gentle, loving father. That's why Paul says, because you are sons, God sent forth his spirit and the spirit of his son into your hearts. Crying Abba. Father. Yeah, all right.

How do we attain assurance? First of all, it's difficult. Here's what the confession says. Paragraph three. This infallible assurance, okay.

Starts off so good. This infallible assurance sounds so strong, okay? Then it goes on to say, doth not so belong to the essence of faith, but that a true believer may wait long, in conflict with many difficulties, before he be a partaker of it. The idea is it's infallible. It's for sure you should have confidence.

But, man, it's hard to get, and it's going to take a while. It is hard. The Christian life can be hard. It can be your legs feel a thousand pounds each trying to obey the Lord and move forward. Right?

So that's the idea, is that it's hard, but you are going to get it. That's the point of the confession. It says, yet being enabled by the Spirit to know the things which are freely given him by God, he may. Without extraordinary revelation. This is important.

Without extraordinary revelation. Hold on to that. In the right use of means attained thereunto. What is he talking about, extraordinary revelation? Have you ever met anybody that says, man, how could Israel have been so stupid?

Didn't they see the C part? They watched the Red Sea part. They witnessed that. How could they be so stupid? In the.

In the garden to. I mean, in the. In the desert. I said garden out in the desert. To be disobedient to the Lord.

They saw the Red Sea part. Or those people saw Jesus risen from the dead. How come we're seeing those people fail? You know, Peter needed to be rebuked again in Antioch by Paul. How could those people see Jesus Face to face and still fail.

Well, I have something for you. How about Adam, who didn't have sin nature at all and failed? In other words, Adam had it perfect, walked with the Lord, no barriers, no sin, no shame. How did he do with that scenario? So don't ever be that person that says, maybe like you, like Pastor Heinrich or me essentially testing God and say, I need you to write something in the sky or I won't believe in less or I'm going to need somebody tell me, or give me extra revelation or extraordinary revelation that I'm okay with God.

No, you just need to trust the Lord and trust what he says in His Word. You need to take him at His Word and not, not think you need some. Like sometimes people pray and it's okay if you pray this. I just, I don't to pray that people will be brought down. You know, people, Lord, put them in the gutter if you have to, to get their attention.

No, no, no, save them now. Don't let them go to the gutter. If you could stop them from hitting the gutter, that would be fine. Pray now. So in other words, don't ask for God to do some amazing miracle thing.

Just ask him to do what he does and change a heart and draw people to Himself. And people who need assurance to remind them of their first love, to remind them that repentance and confession is right there. And we can look for reasons to not turn to the Lord and take those reasons away and trust him at his word. Not say, well, if God would do something, then I'll go back to him and I'll have confidence. Nope, just go back.

And therefore it is the duty of everyone to give all diligence to make his calling and election sure. Again, that's scripture. That thereby his heart may be enlarged in peace and joy and in the Holy Spirit, in love and thankfulness, and in strength and cheerfulness, in the duties of obedience. The proper fruits of assurance so far it is from inclining men to looseness. So in other words, strap up, go, go get right with the Lord.

He's given everybody the ability to make their call and election. Sure. He's given a spirit. He's given his word, he's given his people, he's given his son. He's done everything so that you can have success.

So the confession is essentially saying, don't make excuses, go get right with the Lord. He's there, he's ready, arms are open. Goes on to say that again, we're back to the difficulties. I told you there was a lot in here about honesty. True believers may have the assurance of their salvation in diverse ways.

Shaken, diminished, intermitted as by negligence and preserving of it by falling into some special sin which woundeth the conscience and grieveth the Spirit by some sudden or vehement temptation, by God's withdrawing the light of his countenance and suffering, even such as fear him to walk in the darkness and have no light. He's saying it's possible to lose your assurance, not your salvation, can't lose your salvation, but you can lose your assurance and confidence. And it is given some reasons that might grieve a sin, the Holy Spirit pulling his countenance back from you. These are all things that can cause a lack of assurance. And.

But, but it is important that though there may be a lack of assurance, listen to what the confession says confidently. Yet there are net they are never destitute of the seed of God. That means the seed of God that God planted in our heart. You're no matter how far, how low, how lack of, lacking confidence you are, they are never destitute of the seed of God and life of faith, that love of Christ and the brethren, the sincerity of heart and conscience of duty, out of which by the operation of the Spirit, this assurance may in due time be revived and by the which in the meantime, they are preserved from utter despair. It's so strong.

It's so strong. Our confession is essentially saying on the perseverance side, it can look like and feel like and be like. Everything is stacked against you to the point where you are looking out there and not seeing any hope at all that you're right with God. But if God has saved you, you're on the rock and he's not done with you and he will continue to call you back to Himself. I've seen it so many times over the years where somebody turned away from the Lord and later in their life, after years of disobedience, they went back to the Lord.

Lord. And yes, you celebrate that. But I'll just tell you in this room right now, if you're, especially if you're young, just don't go away from the Lord. Don't walk away from the lord, and then 15 years later come back and wish you had those 15 years to serve Him. Don't do that.

So there's any number of reasons that we might not think we can persevere, might be worried that we will not make it, but we will persevere. If God started that work in our hearts and changed us and, and then the other side of that is your assurance shouldn't be dependent on your feelings. You shouldn't be asking for lightning bolts from above. You should just go and use what the old reformed guys and puritans would call the means of grace, the things that God has put in our life so that we can have assurance. His word, his spirit, his people, prayer, just the spiritual disciplines that we would turn to the Lord.

And I actually really believe, and this is going to sound terrible, forgive me for being judgy, but I'm going to be judgy. I think that many people choose not to walk with the Lord and not to continue with the Lord because the simplicity means that it isn't their strength. And they like the excuse of saying it can't be that easy. No, no, no, no. You don't understand.

You don't understand my level of addiction. You don't understand my family's history. You don't understand how bad they treated me. You don't understand, right? This is what people do.

And when you come along and say, well, do you know that God's sitting there with open arms, right? He's ready to receive you back. All you have to do is humble yourself. And then I think that's the catch. It's that part that hurts.

It's that part that people say, I don't want to humble myself. I don't like that part. I don't like that part where I have to depend on him, where I have to stop doing what I'm doing, stop thinking what I'm thinking, stop being what I'm being. I don't like the fact that God wants to be the main character. I want to be the main character.

So I'll tell you, if you're the person that doesn't get right with the Lord and doesn't have assurance because of ego, just repent of the ego because of pride. Repent of it. Humble and holy. But on the other side, if you're the person who genuinely in your guts, and I think I know the people in this room, even had many conversations with the people in this room who want to please the Lord but have struggled, maybe you didn't have assurance or confidence that you were right with God, just ask yourself the question when no one's looking, do I want to please him? Do I want him to smile at me?

Do I love what he's done? Do I love his son? Do I love the word not? Am I the best student of the word not? Am I the most faithful person?

No. Are My desires and affections, are they such that it's clear that I have a new heart and that my new heart loves the one who gave me a new heart? Like, I want to make God happy. The thought, I can make God happy. There's nothing better than that.

Then you should be moving toward him, moving close to him. If there's areas of your life that need to be checked, check them. Don't have regrets. You don't want to spend a lot of your life. There's too many regrets, too many opportunities for regret.

If you got areas of your life that need to be brought in line so that you can persevere well and have assurance, do it. Use. Use tonight to do it. And then remember, take this with you. There's people in your life.

There's people who you could actually put an arm around and say, let's talk about it. Let's talk about continuing. Let's talk about maybe why you got seized up and why you're not serving the Lord. Let's talk about what I might be able to do to encourage you to press on toward the Lord so that you can have confidence and assurance. Not long ago, I met with a person who believe was saved, but they didn't have the assurance that they were saved.

And we had a conversation. And I remember being kind of uncomfortable at the end of that conversation because that person was so happy that they understood that they were saved, that it seemed fake to me. Like, my skepticism was like, why are they so happy? They were weeping 10 minutes ago, and now they're happy. And I had to tell myself, no, this is what you want to tell somebody, that God loves them, that they're right with him and that they can persevere.

This is exactly what you want. And then for them to be happy, I shouldn't be questioning it. Hey, why is he so happy? I should be happy. He's happy.

And I was. And we had a conversation after that. And I told him what I just told you. Like, I was iffy about that. I didn't know what was going on there because you were a little too on the cheery side afterward.

He's like, because I was happy, because I was so happy to find out, you know? And then he said, that makes so much sense. I don't know why I was thinking what I was thinking. Let's pray. Father, thank you for giving us everything we need to persevere, to be obedient, to stay faithful, to move forward in our Christian walk.

But then also, Father, this other idea of the attitude and the confidence, the assurance that we should have that we should be hopeful for the future, but also confident in the present. Would you help us with that? Maybe us in the room and then also those in our sphere that we might be able to encourage somebody to hang in there and to persevere and maybe to have assurance. Help us with that, please. In Jesus name, amen.