Cultivating Assurance

To say it as simply as possible. If you spend little time alone with God and little time alone with His Word, You shouldn't expect large dosages of growth in assurance. Because you're not using the book. that the Holy Spirit uses to grow you. For every believer, there are times we can feel distant from God.

we begin to lag in our spiritual life. We start to lose interest in spiritual things. And if it goes on too long, We can even wonder if we were ever saved to begin with. This week on Renewing Your Mind, Joel Beeke joins us to help us think through the question of assurance. How can I truly know?

that I'm saved. These messages are from his practical and theological series, Assurance of Faith. And we'll send you the entire series on DVD, along with digital access to the messages and study guide, when you make a donation today. at renewingyourmind.org.

So how can we cultivate assurance in our lives? Here's the Chancellor and a professor at Puritan Reform Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Joel Beeke. I'm reading from the Westminster Confession of Faith. Chapter 18. Yeah.

This infallible assurance Doth not so belong to the essence of faith, but that a true believer may wait long. and conflict with many difficulties, before he be partaker of it. Yet, being enabled by the Spirit to know the things which are freely given him of God. he may, without extraordinary revelation, In the right use of ordinary means. attain thereunto.

And therefore it is the duty of everyone to give all diligence. to make his calling in election sure, that thereby his heart may be enlarged in peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, in love and thankfulness to God. and in strength and cheerfulness in the duties of obedience. the proper fruits of this assurance.

So far is it from inclining men to looseness.

Well, obviously, the text I'm going to read with this, because it's embedded in 18, paragraph 3. Is 2 Peter One verse ten. Brethren, give diligence. to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you shall never Fall So CHAPTER eighteen, Paragraph three of the Westminster Confession really deals with five things right in order.

It deals with the relationship. of faith and assurance. It deals with the time involved. In attaining assurance. The means To attain assurance.

The duty A pursuing assurance And then the fruits. Produce buy assurance. You have an opening line about the relation of faith to assurance, then followed by. Timing? means Duty.

and fruits.

So first then, the relationship of faith to assurance. This opening line of 18.3 has caused a lot of ink to be spilled by scholars. And it says this. This infallible assurance. Doth not soul belong to the essence of faith?

but that a true believer may wait long and conflict with many difficulties, before he be partaker of it.

So here's the debate. Does 18.3 mean to say that assurance is altogether separate from faith. Or does it mean to say? That full assurance is something different. from the seed.

of assurance that is in faith. And I would argue the latter. when it says this infallible assurance doth not So belong to the essence of faith. but that a true believer may wait long. before he be partaker of it.

Isn't saying that in faith itself there's not the seed of assurance. There is. Faith never doubts.

So, faith has a seed of assurance in it. It's like a. Acorn. And that's the way one of the Puritans compared it. Actually.

He said, when you look at an acorn, Is that an oak tree or is it not?

Well If you're Meticulous. You're going to look at it and say Yes, in a sense, it is an oak tree because everything in the oak tree. is in that A corner. But someone else will come along and say, you know, come on, that's ridiculous. I know an oak tree when I see it, that's not an oak tree.

So the Puritans wrestled with this, and what they said was this. In every exercise of faith, There is the seed of assurance, like a little acorn. But that acorn is not yet an oak tree.

So, assurance. belongs to the well-being of faith because assurance is like the full tree.

So there's not a total separation there? But when the Puritans spoke about assurance of faith, they were talking about the full oak tree. Not about the little acorn. That's the simplest way. Explain away.

that debate without falling into heresy on one side. or on the other.

Now what about the time involved? The time involved. in attaining assurance. 18.3. A true believer may wait long and conflict with many difficulties before he be partaker of assurance.

Now remember. We're talking about the full oak tree now. We're not talking about Incipient insurance in the beginnings of faith. All believers have that.

So what they're saying is. that ordinarily Before a believer Is a robust believer with full assurance of faith and all those fruits we heard about at the beginning of this course. That usually takes some time. An infant does not usually grow up in one day.

So grace usually grows with age. And as faith increases. Other graces increase. as well.

Now that's not to say. That's not to say that in the Bible and in Puritan thinking Some Beginning believers don't display a lot of zeal. When you first find Christ, you're full of what the Puritans used to call first love. And you have all kinds of zeal, and you may have a certain excitable kind of assurance at the beginning. And as you move along in your spiritual life and you realize that indwelling sin still remains in you.

you may actually lose some of that. Excitable zeal. And so The more we grow in strength and stableness in the faith, said Richard Sibbs, And the more we are refined in the faith, The more our assurance will normally grow.

So, in the ideal form of the Christian life, we should be growing in assurance all our life long.

So that when we become older, we be seasoned Christians. Full of assurance. of faith. Thomas Brookes said, Assurance is meat for strong men. few babes, if any, are able to bear it and digest it.

Charles Spurgeon. said that some young believers make a great mistake by expecting ripe fruit. upon a tree in early spring. And because that season yields nothing but blossoms. they conclude the entire tree to be barren.

And you see, that's a mistake that can bring barrenness on our soul. when we don't have seasoned assurance right away, We can conclude, oh well, It must not be the work of the Lord when it really is. You remember the blind man that was healed in John 9. At first, he didn't see things clearly. Did he?

He saw men as trees walking. But yet he said, I know I was blind But now I see. But as he became a little more seasoned in the further dialogues. You could see already the maturity coming. in his thinking.

Now, that does not mean to say, however, that age and experience. Guarantee assurance. Nor is it impossible. For God, in rather unusual cases, to give large dosages of assurance. To beginning believers.

We're speaking. Not about exceptions here, we're speaking about the general Rule of thumb. Normally. Believers grow in assurance as they Season In grace. Then, Westminster addresses the means of assurance.

This is a very important. Point. He goes on to say this: being enabled by the Spirit. To know the things which are freely given to him of God, the believer may. without extraordinary revelation, That's again against Roman Catholicism.

And then here come the keywords. in the right use of ordinary means. Attain to assurance. The right use. means.

Now what are they?

Well, they're the spiritual disciplines, of course. And There are probably about 15 of them if you want to detail them all. But in the Puritan mind, There are four major. Means or spiritual disciplines that we must use. to grow in assurance.

The first is, of course, as you would expect. The Bible. God's word. Both law and gospel. precept and promise.

The Bible read, the Bible heard, the Bible believed and obeyed, the Bible memorized and meditated on. The Bible prayed and sung. is God's primary road to holiness, to spiritual growth, to assurance of faith. That's why Peter Says? Desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow.

Thereby.

So if you would grow in assurance, you need to read the Bible. habitually. Memorizing it. searching it, meditating upon it, living it, loving it. Listening to sermons based on it.

You need to compare scripture with scripture. Proverbs 2 verses 1 through 5 sets before us several principles for personal growth, Teachability. Receiving God's words. Obedience. Storing up God's commandments.

Discipline. Apply to the heart. Dependence. Trying out for knowledge. Perseverance Searching for hid treasure.

To say it as simply as possible. If you spend little time alone with God, and little time alone with his word. You shouldn't expect. Large dosages. of growth in assurance.

Because you're not using The book. That the Holy Spirit uses to grow you. Let me give you a poignant example of that in my own life. My bags were packed once. I was going to do a conference in San Francisco, about to leave in 10 minutes for the airport.

And one of my elders called me. And he said, I've got a real problem. He says, God. has abandoned me. I'm a reprobate.

I fear I'm a hypocrite after all. and my very prayers are an abomination in his sight. I need to come and see you. I go, oh, brother. I'd love to see you right now, but I'm just leaving.

I'll come and see you as soon as I get back, three days from now.

Meanwhile, In those three days, I want you to spend a half an hour alone with God. Ten minutes reading the Bible. Then move to meditation. The Puritans called meditation the halfway house, by the way. The halfway house between Bible reading and prayer.

10 minutes meditation. And then 10 minutes in prayer. Oh, he said I can't do that. I said, you must do that. He said, no, I can't.

It's an abomination to the Lord. I said, if you don't do it, it's a double abomination to the Lord. You need to do this. When I got back three days later, there was a little note on my chair. That said, no need from the secretary, no need to talk to Mr.

So-and-so. All is well with his soul. He just needed to get back in the word. I never even had to visit him. If the Bible is to get into us.

and grow our assurance, we must get into it. Spurgeon said it the best. Backsliders begin with dusty Bibles. and they end with filthy garments. To neglect the word is to neglect the Lord.

But when you read the word, as Thomas Watson put it, as a love letter sent to you from God. Normatively. You will grow. In assurance. Especially, said Watson, When you think in every line you are reading that God is speaking to you these particular words.

The Spirit will bless it. To warm you, to transform you. And to assure you. with his power. And so there's a difference, isn't there, between just reading the word, as in our Dutch circles we do.

We read the word after every meal. There's a difference between reading five, ten verses after every meal. and studying the word. I think the Dutch custom is good, don't get me wrong. But to really meditate on the word, digest it, chew it, ruminate on it.

That's what's important. That's what helps us with growth. in grace. And so it's good to have a A good Bible. With good notes.

I use the Well, the one that we produced, the Reformation, Heritage KJV study Bible. All solid, good reform notes. And as I read it, I look at the notes and I meditate on it. And the notes helped me. Reflect more.

And then Each chapter ends with a section on thoughts for personal and family worship. I read those and I think about those and and well Then when you go to pray, you can pray better and you. You've got the main takeaways from the chapter. You can digest those and chew on those.

So, a good study Bible like that will help you immensely. In growing, in assurance. Richard Greenham, one of the Puritans, who wrote an entire book. It's a short book, to be sure. on how to read the Bible.

said we must read the Bible with more diligence than men are digging for hidden treasure. And he says that diligence makes rough places plain. the difficult, easy, and the unsavoury. Tasty.

Now then you need to meditate. You need to meditate. To help augment assurance, meditation helps prevent vain and sinful thoughts. It helps provide inner resources. from which you can draw It serves as a weapon against temptation.

It provides relief in afflictions. And it glorifies God. And then, of course, you need to put into practice what you read. By praying about what you're reading and by sharing with. with others about what you're learning.

and by pursuing Consciously. Holiness A second means is of course the sacraments. They're designed to assure us God's sacraments complement His word. It's interesting the Puritans often speak of sacramental assurance. not because it's a different kind of assurance.

Then we get from the word. But just because we get that assurance through the sacraments.

So each sign in the sacraments, the water, the bread The wine. All three direct us to believe in Christ and His sacrifice. On the cross.

So the sacraments are spurs. to Christ's likeness. and therefore to holiness. And two. Assurance.

Now, Robert Bruce, one of the very early Puritans. Put it this way. While we do not get a better Christ in the sacraments than we do in the Word. There are times when we get Christ better.

So, what he meant by that is, we get the same Christ in the Word and the sacraments, but because in the sacraments, God comes peculiarly low to us. It involves all five of our senses.

So we smell. The wine, we Taste. The wine, we Touch the bread, we see the elements, we hear the word that comes to us. As the elements are being distributed, all five of our senses are involved. And God comes so low and He says, As surely as you eat this bread, as surely as you drink this wine, so surely.

When you put your trust in my son alone, I will. Wash away. All your sense. And when we believe that promise as we sit at the table of the Lord. Our assurance can grow.

And then Thirdly, is prayer. Prayer. Prayer is the most valuable gift in all the world. My dad sat me down when I was nine years old one day, and he said to me. Sun Do you know?

The difference between a believer and an unbeliever. I said no, dad, because I learned to say no, dad to all his questions, because he always said something more. And he said, well. A believer has a place to go. And he took out his wallet.

I can't remember how much money he had in it, but he laid that money in front of me and he said. All the money in the world. is not worth as much as an open throne of grace. that you can go to. And he said, I wish I could write that with an iron pen on your heart.

And he did. I still remember it today. You see, Prayer is far more important than anything on this earth. You have the ear of the God of the universe. When you're a believer and you go to him in prayer, this is amazing.

This is amazing. Do you realize the value. of the gift of prayer. When my parents died, they had very little possessions in this world. I had a sister who had to divvy it all up, and she organized it all.

We had to all meet together, and we'd take this and we'd take that. And there was no bickering, there was no fighting in our family. For one thing, there was hardly anything to take. But my parents left behind. A treasury of prayers.

And as Matthew Henry said. Far better to leave. behind for your children. a treasury of prayers and a treasury of gold and silver. And how true that is.

You see, when you're a praying man, you're a praying woman, praying teenager, praying boy or girl. This is communion with God. back to him who communes with you through his word. All communication is a two-way street. And so God comes to you through his.

His word, you go back to Him through prayer. And when you have that real communion going back and forth, It's natural that assurance grows because you have a relationship. If you have no communion with someone, you wonder after five, ten years, don't you? Do they like me still? Do they love me still?

Do they even know me still? But if there's daily communion There's assurance. And then fourthly, afflictions. Afflictions. You may say that's not a means.

Technically, no, it's not a means of grace. But God tends to use afflictions to grow assurance. In the lives of his people. Assurance is the fruit of strengthened and seasoned faith. Faith.

When I ask people God's people. When did your assurance grow the most? Most of the time, they tell me. It was just when they were in the Midst of Affliction. The confession goes on and speaks about the duty.

of assurance, the duty of pursuing it. And I can't put that any better than 2 Peter 1, verse 10. You've got to. Pursue it. By using these means, you've got to humbly walk with God, use the means, pursue it, and not rest until you have it.

and have more of it. And then finally, it speaks of the fruits. produced by Assurance. Those fruits are various. We can speak of Spiritual peace.

Joyful love? Humble gratitude? Cheerful obedience? Heartfelt mortification of sin. Stimulation of service.

Earnest evangelism? All of these things are involved. Assurance transforms our trials. It produces contentment. It heightens our holiness.

And it makes us aspire. to heaven. To be with Jesus. Forever. in Sin Free.

The manuals Land. Pursue Assurance. Cultivated. It's worth every effort. you make.

With practical help for cultivating assurance, that was Joel Beekey. This week on Renewing Your Mind, you're hearing messages from his series, Assurance of Faith. As we heard today, assurance is a critical part of the Christian life. It brings us peace, gratitude, obedience, and so much more. We'll send you Dr.

Beekey's complete series. It's eleven messages. Simply request a copy of the DVD and lifetime digital access when you donate today at renewingyourmind.org. or when you call us at 800-435-4343. Work through this series in your Bible study or with your family when you use the study guide.

It'll be waiting for you in the Ligoneer app, along with all the messages when you donate this week at renewingyourmind.org or by using the link in the podcast show notes. Based on the number of questions we receive at our Ligonier conferences and for the Ask Ligoneer podcast, I'm so glad that this series is part of our library here at Ligonier. and that we can feature it on Renewing Your Mind and make the DVD and digital access available to you. If you live outside of the US and Canada, Don't forget to respond today. at Renewing Your Mind dot org slash global.

Do you remember how confident you were that you were saved? when you first trusted in the Lord. What if you lose that confidence? How can that confidence be renewed? That'll be our topic tomorrow, here on Renewing Your Mind.