Reasons People Lack Assurance, Part 3

If anybody questions your claim to your eternal inheritance, if anybody questions that you are a child of God, there is a witness who was there at the moment of your adoption.

Who was it? The Holy Spirit. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. There is no deception with bigger consequences than to think you're a Christian when the truth is you're not. So where do you stand? How can you know for sure that your faith is real, that your sins are paid for, and that your eternity is certain? John MacArthur helps you answer that today on Grace to You as he highlights eight reasons people lack assurance of their salvation, and he'll show you how the Holy Spirit can help you overcome that doubt. So here's John now with his lesson titled Reasons People Lack Assurance. If anybody questions your claim to your eternal inheritance, if anybody questions that you are a child of God, there is a witness who was there at the moment of your adoption.

Who was it? The Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit will step forward and bear witness that you indeed are a child of God by adoption and have a lawful claim to your eternal inheritance. So it is the ministry then of the Holy Spirit to bear witness to the legitimacy of my adoption into God's family and my right to claim an eternal inheritance.

Isn't that a marvelous truth? You say, how does the Holy Spirit do it? How does He bear witness?

A number of ways. Look with me at 1 Corinthians chapter 2. 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 9, it is written, things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard and which has not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.

All right? Scripture promises immense blessings for those that love God. Those are taken out of Isaiah. Now verse 10, for to us God revealed them through the Spirit. The first way in which the Holy Spirit affirms our salvation is through illumination. In other words, the Spirit illuminates the Scripture. He makes the Word live. As we study the Word of God about these promises, the Spirit illuminates them to our hearts.

That's what that text is saying. The Holy Spirit allows us to think and comprehend with the mind of Christ. So the first way the Holy Spirit witnesses to me of my sonship and inheritance is by illuminating the Scripture.

Let me show you a second way the Holy Spirit witnesses. 1 John chapter 4, verse 13, this is what John writes, By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us. How do we know that?

How do we know that? Because He has given us of His Spirit and we have beheld and bear witness that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world and whosoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in Him and He in God. And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love and the one who abides in love abides in God and God abides in Him.

You say, what's He talking about here? What He's saying is this, the Holy Spirit came, verse 13, and showed us the gospel. The second way the Spirit witnesses to us is through salvation.

When the Spirit convicts you of sin, righteousness, and judgment, when the Spirit reveals to you that God sent His Son to be the Savior of the world, verse 14, when the Spirit reveals to you that if you confess Jesus as the Son of God, God will come and abide with you and you in God. In other words, the first way the Spirit bears witness to us that we're God's children is by illuminating the Scripture. The second way is through the whole matter of salvation, where we believe in Christ, where we love God, where we love Christ, that's all the witness of the Spirit.

That's an ongoing thing. As we continue to study the Word of God, the Spirit will bear witness to it by illuminating the Word. As we continue to walk with Christ, the Spirit will bear witness to our childhood in the kingdom of God, as it were, by faith and love which grows. There's another way in which the Spirit bears witness. In Galatians chapter 4, it says in verse 6, And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Listen, the very fact that Scripture is illuminated to me, that I understand it, is the Spirit bearing witness that I'm a child of God.

Why? Because if I wasn't a child of God, I couldn't understand the Bible, right? The natural man, what?

Doesn't understand it. So the very process of illumination means the Spirit is in me and that's a confirmation that I belong to God. The matter of loving Christ. What made me hate sin and love Christ? What made me all of a sudden realize God had sent His Son into the world to die from my sin and if I put my faith in Him, God would live in me and I would live in Him? And what caused me to love Christ and to dwell in the love of God and the love of Christ, the work of the Spirit? That puts me in touch with the Holy Spirit's work in me and that's how He witnesses to me that I'm a child of God. Unbelievers don't have that.

The unbelieving world does not love God, does not love Christ, does not turn to Christ as Savior because the Spirit's not working in them, because they're not God's children. The third thing here, the Spirit does in us is draw us into fellowship with God. Abba, Father, this term of intimacy, the Spirit produces prayer, the Spirit produces praise, the Spirit produces worship, all that's bound up in Abba, Father. The Spirit produces a petition, a crying out to God as our Father. All of that is the Spirit's witness. Turn to Galatians chapter 5, one chapter beyond where you are, verse 22. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Against such things there's no law. Now you know this passage very well, but let me just mention that the next thing that the Spirit witnesses through is fruit. The Spirit produces in your life a supernatural love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. And when those things are being produced in your life, you know they're not produced by your flesh, right? The flesh knows how to lust, but not true love. It knows how to be happy, but doesn't know settled joy.

It knows a moment of calm, but not a deep peace, and so forth and so forth. And so when that's produced in your life, when those attitudes exist in your heart, that's the work of the Spirit producing those, and you ought to say that's the evidence, the Spirit's evidence that I belong to God. And one last note, Acts 1-8, you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses. Service, ministry, evangelism, that's the product of the Holy Spirit in me and in you.

Now what am I saying? The Holy Spirit living in you as a believer is constantly bearing witness to the fact that you belong to God. And when accusers come along and say, nah, that adoption never took place. Nah, he's an illegitimate son or an illegitimate daughter.

No, it isn't real. The Spirit says, I was there, right? You were born of the Spirit. I was there and I affirm that this person is indeed the child of God. And how does He bear that witness to us? By illuminating the Word of God, which He doesn't do for an unbeliever. By leading us to a greater faith and love for God and Christ. By drawing us into an intimate fellowship with God in prayer, petition, praise, worship. By producing in our lives those graces that are characteristic of a redeemed nature. And by making us effective in service. So when you talk about the Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we're the children of God, don't wait for some little voice in your head to say, yes you are, yes you are, you really are a Christian.

No. No, the Holy Spirit isn't going to whisper between your ears. He uses those means to illuminate your mind as to the reality of your spiritual condition. I love what Thomas Brooks wrote, the Spirit is the great revealer of the Father's secrets.

He lies in the bosom of the Father. He knows every name that is written in the book of life. He is best acquainted with the inward workings of the heart of God toward poor sinners. He is the great comforter and the only sealer up of souls to the day of redemption.

If you grieve by your willful sinning, He that alone can gladden you, who then will make you glad? Finally, some lack assurance because of strong convicting preaching of the Holy Standard. Some lack assurance because of their inability to accept forgiveness for their sins or their failure to comprehend the richness of the gospel of grace, or their inability to remember the time of their salvation or the remaining power of their unredeemed flesh, or the difficult trials in which they fail to see the hand of God. And I'll promise you, some lack assurance because they fail to walk in the Spirit, which may encompass everything else I've said before that.

But there's one more thing that is obvious, patently obvious. Some lack assurance because assurance is the reward for obedience and they are willfully disobedient. Assurance is the reward for obedience and they are willfully disobedient. I'll promise you this, Galatians 5, 16 to 21, if you walk in the lust of the flesh and fulfill the desires of the flesh, you will never know the fruit of the Spirit, right? Purity and assurance go together. Psalm 84-11, no good thing does God withhold from those who walk uprightly. If you walk uprightly in obedience to God, He gives you assurance. Boy, what a glorious promise. Hebrews 10, I think in verse 22, strongly points this out. Let me just read it to you. Let us draw near...listen to this...with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our body washed with pure water.

Well, what a statement. The only way to have a full assurance is connected to purity. Sinclair Ferguson writes, high degrees of true assurance cannot be enjoyed by those who persist in low levels of obedience.

High degrees of assurance are not enjoyed by those who live at low levels of obedience. If you live in sin and disobedience, you will not enjoy assurance. Sin will cancel it out. There is a gulf between sin and peace, sin and joy, sin and assurance.

To live in sin is to live in doubt. When you sin, coming alongside of it is doubt about your spiritual condition, and the Spirit of God withholds the good gift. Often the psalmist, when he got himself into sin, would cry out as if the Lord didn't know him. Thinking of Psalm 31, 22, as for me, I am cut off from before thine eyes. He felt abandoned by God.

His sin had taken away his assurance. Psalm 77, 7, will the Lord reject forever and will He never be favorable again? Has His loving kindness ceased forever? Has His promise come to an end forever? Has God forgotten to be gracious?

Oh, it is my grief that the right hand of the Most High has changed. How did the psalmist get himself in that mess? Sin. When you fall into sin, you fall into doubt. To live in sin is to live in doubt. So we need to deal with sin in our lives.

And I'll tell you, I'll give you a little secret. If you deal with a major sin, the rest will follow along. It's kind of like when Goliath was killed, the rest of the Philistines fled.

When the general is killed, the troops are scattered. And so it is in the life of a believer that by the means of grace, when he slays the sins that are most powerful and most compelling, those pet sins, those strong temptations that constantly come, when you deal with those, the rest will fall. Put a spear through the heart of Absalom and all the rest of his rebels are gone. Deal with those besetting, familiar sins.

The others will disappear. But where there is sin, there will be a tremendous struggle for assurance. Listen to the personal testimony of Charles Spurgeon. Whenever I feel that I have sinned and desire to overcome that sin for the future, the devil at the same time comes to me and whispers, How can you be a pardoned person and accepted with God while you still sin in this way? If I listen to this, I drop into despondency. And if I continued in that state, I should fall into despair and should commit sin more frequently than before. But God's grace comes in and says to my soul, Thou hast sinned but did not Christ come to save sinners? Thou art not saved because Thou art righteous for Christ died for the ungodly. And my faith says, Though I have sinned, I have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And though I am guilty, yet by grace I am saved and I am a child of God still.

And what then? Why the tears begin to flow and I say, How could I ever sin against my God who has been so good to me? Now I will overcome that sin and I get strong to fight with sin through the conviction that I am God's child.

If you fall into sin and you resolutely say, I will conquer that sin, Satan may pound you with these kinds of questions. You fall back on the forgiving grace of God and it will strengthen you from the battle. Whatever the cause for the loss of assurance, whatever makes you doubt, whatever causes you to lose your joy and to become useless in Christian service, empty in worship, cold in praise, passionless in prayer, vulnerable to false teachers, whatever the problems are, there is a cure. The cure is to walk in the Spirit.

The cure is to walk in obedience. I was reading a book called The Christian's Great Interest written by Thomas Guthrie. And as I read through it in his typical catechetical style of question and answer as he teaches, I began to track with his thinking and some of my own. And so, I put together a little catechism, a little question and answer process, and we're going to work through this little catechism as we bring things to a conclusion. This is how everybody learned in ancient times through a catechism, and some of you probably were raised on one in your spiritual life and background. But this will pull together and summarize what we've been saying about assurance. All right, let's embark upon our little catechism together.

I'll ask the question and you give the answer, okay? Question, what is the essential duty a person has in this world? To consummate a saving relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ which is to recognize His work on the cross and His resurrection from the dead as the satisfying atonement for sin and to walk in accordance with that relationship? Question, do not all members of the church have such a saving relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ? No, only those who are truly saved.

Question, how can I be certain that I have that saving relationship? The Lord will have done in your soul His own sovereign will, that of effectually calling you to Himself through a work of conviction and humiliation so that you will have discovered your sin and misery and been so seriously agitated and threatened by it that you long for the Savior. Question, how can I know if I have a sufficient discovery and admission of my sin and misery? By the fact that you will take salvation to your heart above any other pursuit in life so as to seek it above anything else. It will make you disclaim any real relief from sin and guilt even in the best of times. It will make Christ who is the Redeemer very precious to your soul.

It will make you fear sin, repent, and seek to be saved on God's terms. Question, by what other ways may I discern a saving relationship to Christ? By a strong and serious affection that reaches toward Christ as He is made known in the gospel.

This love is saving belief. Question, how shall I know if my heart's affection for Him is genuine and my faith is true saving faith? When your heart goes after Him in true saving faith, your soul will be pleased with Christ alone and above all else and in all His offices to rule and teach as well as save and is content to cling to Him no matter the cause. Question, are there other marks of a saving relationship with Christ?

You are truly saved when you have been made a new creation, graciously changed and renewed in the whole person. And that is best known by the desire to shun sin and pattern your life toward obedience to God's righteous demands. Question, what if I find sin prevailing over me? Although every sin deserves eternal vengeance, yet if you regularly confess your sins with unfeigned repentance and shame before God, fleeing to Christ for forgiveness for all known and unknown iniquities, He will grant you mercy and pardon because you stand in grace and your salvation is forever secure.

Question, what if my sins are serious and repeated? Whatever they are, Jesus Christ has paid the price for them so that if you sincerely and earnestly have turned to Him in repentant faith, you will never enter into condemnation. Moreover, His gracious provision for those who believe includes power to overcome sin and live righteously. Question, is faith alone the requirement for salvation? Faith is the response upon which God offers peace and pardon to men. But faith, if it is genuine, will not be alone in the soul, but will always be attended with true repentance and an eager desire to conform to God's will and way. Question, how can I be sure I have settled my eternal destiny with the Lord Jesus Christ? Express with your mouth to God what the Holy Spirit through Scripture has led you to believe in your heart.

Question, how do I do that? Consider your sin and lost condition and the remedy offered by Jesus Christ. Yield your heart to be pleased with and to desire that remedy and speak to God that you receive the Lord Jesus Christ and His gift of salvation and give yourself up to Him to be saved in the gospel way without reservation. Question, what is the consequence of such a relationship? Union and communion with God here and blessed fellowship and glory hereafter.

Question, how can I come to full assurance that I have such a relationship? By affirming the attendant promises of God as revealed in Scripture by the internal witness of the Spirit and by the manifestation of real and righteous fruit born out of love for the person of Christ and a desire for His glory and honor. Very good, class. We want you to enjoy the assurance that our Lord has given us of our eternal salvation. You're listening to Grace to You and John MacArthur's message called Reasons People Lack Assurance, a lesson that explains how you can know for certain that you're saved.

Along with teaching on this radio station, John is a pastor, author, and chancellor of the Master's University and Seminary. And John, on this issue of the believer's assurance, every now and then I'll run into someone who just can't seem to gain assurance of his salvation, and there's nothing in his life or beliefs or behavior that would cause me to doubt his salvation, but he just can't get to that point of assurance. And so I'm wondering, how do you counsel a person like that? Well, I have counseled many people like that, and I always start at the most extreme level and say, well, let's talk about whether you're even a Christian. Maybe you're doubting because you have a reason to doubt. You're not really a genuine Christian.

So tell me what you believe. And I let them articulate to me the gospel, and if it's accurate, then that's a starting point. Then the next thing I would say to that person is, explain to me your desires.

What are the things that you desire most of all? Because true salvation changes your desires. It changes your affections. It changes what you long for. It changes what you desire to do, what you want to obey. So that's the second point. So once you've affirmed that they understand the gospel and say they believe the gospel, and their desires are consistent with a transformed person, and that includes desires like being in the Word and being with God's people and loving the preaching of Scripture and loving worship and loving to commune with the Lord in prayer, if those are the marks of a Christian, then you say, look, you're a believer.

So now we're down to a couple of other things. The third thing I would say is, is there something in your life that's a sinful pattern? Maybe nobody knows about it but you. Maybe it's a pornographic preoccupation, or maybe it's a root of bitterness, or maybe it's hostility or hatred, or maybe it's a vindictive attitude towards somebody. Something is sucking the assurance out of your life because it's sinful.

If that tends to be a prolonged thing in your life, you need to really deeply look into your life and see if there are things there that cause you to forfeit the assurance that the Spirit of God gives. We can help you with this in a more direct way. I know doubt is a reality for people, so let me suggest that you contact Grace To You and ask for a free booklet titled A Believer's Assurance.

It's free to anyone. We want to help you with this. There's no reason for you to continually doubt. In fact, continual doubt is most likely an evidence that you're not a true believer. So you need to know where you stand with the Lord. Get a copy of A Believer's Assurance free to anyone who asks. And maybe you've read some passages that seem to say believers can lose their salvation, or you've struggled with doubt for years and you wonder if you'll ever defeat it. If so, A Believer's Assurance can be a big encouragement. To get your free copy, contact us today.

You can call our toll-free number, 800-55-GRACE, or go to gty.org. You don't have to struggle with doubts about your salvation. You can know if it's real. This booklet shows you the difference between a genuine Christian and a spiritual phony.

It can also help you show others the difference between false conversion and real transformation. Again, to get a free copy of the booklet, A Believer's Assurance, call 800-55-GRACE or go to our website, gty.org. And friend, if you're looking for another resource on assurance, let me recommend John's book Saved Without a Doubt. It will help you respond to your doubts with biblical truth, and it will show you how to rest securely in the salvation Christ achieved on the cross. The cost is affordable, and shipping is free. To purchase your copy, call 800-55-GRACE or order online at gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson, encouraging you to watch Grace to You television this Sunday on DirecTV channel 378, or check your local listing for Station and Times, and then be here next week for another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.