False Assurance
2 Thessalonians 2:13
(Have YOU) been chosen by God to be saved by the sanctifying work of the Spirit and belief in the truth?
1 Peter 1:2
Have (YOU) been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled (cleansed of sin - 1 John 1:7) with his blood...?
Are you born again?
Do you know God a Father; Jesus as Savior, Friend and Brother; are you filled with the Spirit?
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones on John 3:1-8 "You Must Be Born Again"
https://www.mljtrust.org/sermons/book-of-john/you-must-be-born-again/
"There is nothing more dangerous than to attempt to proceed in the Christian life without being absolutely certain that you have the Life of the Spirit within you."
"The Conversion Experience"
https://www.mljtrust.org/sermons/book-of-john/the-conversion-experience/
"Are You A Christian"
https://www.mljtrust.org/sermons/other-sermons/are-you-a-christian/ (Acts 24:26–29)
https://www.mljtrust.org/sermons/other-sermons/are-you-a-christian-2/ (Luke 2:44)
"Knowledge of the Truth" ("What is saving faith?" on Romans 10:3)
https://gracetruth.org/2016/04/what-is-saving-faith-dr-martyn-lloyd-jones/
Andrew Gray ((1634-1656) A Door Opening Into Everlasting Life, Third Treatise, “The Characters of a True Believer”, starting page 126
A true believer enjoys duties as well as privileges. He would not only enjoy the blessings God has promised, but his heart is bent to the duties God has commanded. He loves not only the privileges of God's children, but their work also. He loves not only the advantages of religion. Many do the easy duties of religion, and yet leave the difficult duties undone. They will hear, pray, read, come to the Lord's Supper, but as for the severer duties of mortifying their corruptions, combating and fighting against temptations, they do not know or practice them. They will pray, but not fervently; walk, but not swiftly; strive, but not wrestle and combat. They will do some duties, but not all, where the true believer makes his answer as large as God's call.
Jonathan Edwards “Religious Affections”
https://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/affections.iv.xi.html
If we do but consider what the hearts of natural men are, what principles they are under, what blindness and deceit, what self-flattery, self-exaltation, and self-confidence reigns there, we need not at all wonder that their high opinion of themselves, and confidence of their happy circumstances, are as high and strong as mountains, and as violent as a tempest. For what should hinder, when once conscience is blinded, convictions are killed, false affections high, and those forementioned principles let loose? When, moreover, these principles are prompted by false joys and comforts, excited by some pleasing imaginations impressed by Satan, transforming himself into an angel of light?
When once a hypocrite is thus established in a false hope, he has not those things to cause him to call his hope in question, that oftentimes are the occasion of doubting to true saints;
First, he has not that cautious spirit, that great sense of the vast importance of a sure foundation, and that dread of being deceived. The comforts of the true saints increase awakening and caution, and a lively sense how great a thing it is to appear before an infinitely holy, just, and omniscient Judge. But false comforts put an end to these things, and dreadfully stupify the mind.
Secondly, The hypocrite has not the knowledge of his own blindness, and the deceitfulness of his own heart, and that mean opinion of his own understanding, that the true saint has. Those that are deluded with false discoveries and affections, are evermore highly conceited of their light and understanding.
Thirdly, The devil does not assault the hope of the hypocrite, as he does the hope of a true saint. The devil is a great enemy to a true Christian’s hope, not only because it tends greatly to his comfort, but also because it is of a holy, heavenly nature, greatly tending to promote and cherish grace in the heart, and a great incentive to strictness and diligence in the Christian life. But he is no enemy to the hope of a hypocrite, which above all things establishes his interest in him. A hypocrite may retain his hope without opposition, as long as he lives, the devil never attempting to disturb it. But there is perhaps no true Christian but what has his hope assaulted by him. Satan assaulted Christ himself, upon this, whether he were the Son of God or no: and the servant is not above his Master, nor the disciple above his Lord. It is enough for the disciple, who is most privileged in this world, to be as his Master.
Fourthly, He who has a false hope, has not that sight of his own corruptions which the saint has. A true Christian has ten times so much to do with his heart and its corruptions, as a hypocrite. The sins of his heart and practice appear to him in their awful blackness; they look dreadful: and it often appears a very mysterious thing, that any grace can be consistent with such corruption, or should be in such a heart. But a false hope hides corruption, covers it all over, and the hypocrite looks clean and bright in his own eyes.
George Whitefield “Marks of a True Conversion”
https://www.ccel.org/ccel/whitefield/sermons.xxv.html
There are many likewise, who go on in a round of duties, a model of performances, that think they shall go to heaven; but if you examine them, though they have Christ in their heads, they have no Christ in their hearts.
C.H. Spurgeon, “The Prayer of Jabez”
https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/the-prayer-of-jabez/#flipbook/
Can you give any spiritual reasons for believing that Christ has set you free from sin? I am afraid that some have got a hope that has not got any ground, like an anchor without any fluke—nothing to grasp, nothing to lay hold upon. They say they are saved, and they stick to it they are, and think it wicked to doubt it; but yet they have no reason to warrant their confidence.
Beware, I pray thee, of presuming that thou art saved. If thy heart be renewed, if thou shalt hate the things that thou didst once love, and love the things that thou didst once hate; if thou hast really repented; if there be a thorough change of mind in thee; if thou be born again, then hast thou reason to rejoice: but if there be no vital change, no inward godliness; if there be no love to God, no prayer, no work of the Holy Spirit, then thy saying “I am saved” is but thine own assertion, and it may delude, but it will not deliver thee.
A.W. Pink Exposition of Hebrews
https://www.gracegems.org/Pink/hebrews.htm
The writer has met many people who profess to be Christians, but whose daily lives differ in nothing from thousands of non-professors all around them. They are rarely, if ever, found at the prayer meeting, they have no Family Worship, they seldom read the Scriptures, they will not talk with you about the things of God, their walk is thoroughly worldly; and yet they are quite sure they are bound for heaven! Inquire into the ground of their confidence, and they will tell you that so many years ago they accepted Christ as their Savior, and “once saved always saved” is their comfort.
There are thousands of such people on earth today, who are nevertheless, on the Broad Road, that leadeth to destruction, treading it with a false peace in the hearts and a vain profession (of faith) on their lips.
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
https://www.mljtrust.org/sermons/book-of-ephesians/true-and-false-assurance/
Darkness and Light, Exposition of Ephesians 4:17 to 5:17, on Ephesiasn 5:5
What is the ultimate object of this Christian faith? It is to make us holy. We can never emphasise this too much. In Scripture the first thing, the great thing, the central thing, is that we be made holy. . . In the first chapter of his First Epistle John says: “If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and know not the truth”. And again in his second chapter: “He that saith, I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him”. In the very last book of the Bible, as if to remind us, just at the very end, of a thing we are so prone to forget, we find it written, “There shall in no wise enter into it (the holy city) any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life . . . Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie” [Revelation 21:27; 22:14-15].
Oh! this is an eternal distinction — without! there they are, the people that John is talking about, that have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God, they are without, and outside eternally, and there they remain. They have no entrance into this holy city. Our Lord Himself said the same thing in the Sermon on the Mount: “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” [Matthew 7:21]. This is New Testament Christianity. Scripture speaks about holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they” — and nobody else — “shall see God.”
(We must understand) that God justifies the ungodly, not the godly. Justification is by faith alone. It was while we were yet enemies that we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son; it was while we were ungodly, while we were sinners. There is no question about that; it is a cardinal doctrine, a first great principle. But justification is only one step, an initial step, in a process. And the process includes not only justification but regeneration and sanctification and ultimate glorification. Justification and forgiveness of sins are not ends in and of themselves; they are only steps on a way that leads to final perfection. And that is the whole answer to the problem. Some Christians persist in isolating these things, but they are not isolated in the Scriptures. “Whom he called, them he also justified and whom he justified, them he also glorified!” “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption!”
There is the whole process. And the truth is, that if you are in it at all, you are in at every point. We cannot divorce justification and forgiveness from other parts of truth. And the remaining steps are put very clearly before us in the First Epistle to the Corinthians: “Such”, says the Apostle, having given his terrible list of sins — “Such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” [6:11]. It means that God does not justify a man and leave him there. Not at all! If God justifies a man, God has brought that man into the process. If you can say that you are justified, I say about you that you have been washed, that you have been sanctified, that you have been taken out, you have been removed from the old, and you have been put into a new realm, into a new kingdom; you are in this process of God that is leading to your ultimate, entire perfection.
I remind you again of the words of the Apostle John in his First Epistle: “Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure” [3:3]. Of course, a man may say glibly, “I want to go to heaven, I have got this hope in me”. “You have not!” says John.
Here is the test. If you have really got this hope in you — the hope of entering the holy City at the end, and of spending your eternity in it — every man that really has this hope in him, “purifieth himself” — of course he does, he is bound to — even as He is pure. But the man who has only got the hope on his lips and not in his heart does not purify himself, he goes on living the old life; and the truth about him is that he has no inheritance at all in the kingdom of Christ and of God. He does not belong there. He says, “Lord! Lord!” but speech is cheap and easy.
The question is, Is the hope in our hearts? If it is, we recognize the truth; we say, Yes, we do know this, that people who cleave to sin obviously cannot have any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. There is no contradiction between these statements and the doctrine of free grace and justification by faith only, for the God who justifies goes on with the process. And unless we are giving evidence of being in the process and of being perfected by it, there is but one conclusion to draw — we have never been in the kingdom at all, we must go back to the very beginning, we must repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, on Matthew 5:20
Our Lord is teaching that the proof of our having truly received the grace of God in Jesus Christ is that we are living a righteous life. You know the old argument, of course, about faith and works. Some say the one is all important, some say the other. The Bible teaches that both these views are wrong: it is faith showing itself by works which is the mark of a true Christian.
‘It is no use saying, “Lord, Lord,” unless you do the things that I command you’, says Christ.
It comes to this, that unless my life is a righteous life, I must be very careful before I claim that I am covered by the grace of God in Jesus Christ. For to receive the grace of God in Jesus Christ means not only that my sins are forgiven because of Christ’s death for me on the cross on Calvary’s hill, but also that I have been given a new life and a new nature. It means that Christ is being formed in me, that I have become ‘a partaker of the divine nature’, that old things have passed away and all things have become new. It means that Christ is dwelling in me, and that the Spirit of God is in me.
The man who has been born again, and who has the divine nature within him, is a man who is righteous. He is no longer living for self and his own attainments; he is no longer self-righteous and self-satisfied. He has become poor in spirit, meek, and merciful; he hungers and thirsts after righteousness; he has become a peace-maker.
His heart is being purified. He loves God, yes unworthily, alas, but he loves Him and longs for His honor and glory.
His desire is to glorify God and to keep and honor and fulfil His law. The commandments of God to such a man ‘are not grievous.’ He wants to keep them, for He loves them. He is no longer at enmity against God; but now he sees the holiness of the law and nothing so appeals to him as the living of this law and the exemplifying of it in his daily life.
The most vital questions that can be asked, then, are these:
Do you know God?
Do you love God?
Can you say honestly that the biggest and the first thing in your life is to glorify Him
and that you so want to do this that you do not care what it may cost you?
Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, Chapter 19, “Righteousness Exceeding the Scribes and Pharisees”, p.237
There is a real possibility of our deluding and fooling ourselves. The Pharisees and the scribes were denounced by our Lord as being hypocrites. Yes; but they were unconscious hypocrites. They did not realize it, they really thought all was well. You cannot read your Bible without constantly being reminded of that terrible danger.
Chapter 28, "Rock or Sand"
What are the characteristics of the merely nominal or pseudo-Christian? We can divide them into general and particular. In general, they are obviously the very things which we observed in the foolish man who built his house upon the sand. That is to say, he is foolish, hasty and superficial. He does not believe very much in doctrine, or in understanding the Scriptures; he wants to enjoy Christianity without much trouble. He is in a great hurry, indeed, generally impatient of all true knowledge; that is his chief characteristic according to our Lord’s picture of him.
But turning now to the particulars – what are the characteristics of the ‘false professor’?
(1) The first thing about him is that he is a man who is out to please himself.
Analyze all he does, and listen to what he says, and you will find that it all revolves about himself. Self is at the center of his life, and self controls his outlook and all his actions. He desires ease and comfort and certain blessings.
(2) Secondly, he picks out what he likes, and concentrates on what appeals to him.
For instance, he likes the doctrine of the love of God, but not the doctrine of the justice of God. The does not like the idea of God as a holy God, and a righteous God.
(3) He thinks he knows all about John 3:16, but he does not even read that properly.
He emphasizes a portion of it, but he does not like the idea of ‘should not perish’.
He does not go to the end of that same third chapter where it says, ‘The wrath of God abides on him’ – that he does not believe and does not like.
(4) He is interested in the love of God and in forgiveness.
He is only interested in that which gives him the feeling of comfort, happiness and joy and peace within. So, whether consciously or unconsciously, he picks and chooses as he reads the Bible. There are many people who do that.
We should examine ourselves constantly in the light of the Word. And if we are not reading it in such a way as to be examined by it, we are not reading it correctly.
We must face these things. Do I take the whole message of the Scriptures? Am I taking the whole counsel of God? Do I accept the teaching concerning the wrath of God as I do that concerning the love of God?
Am I as ready to believe in the righteousness of God as in His mercy; in the justice and holiness of God as well as in His compassion and long-suffering? That is the question.
(5) The characteristic of the false believer is that he does not face it at all; he just picks out what he wants and likes, and ignores the rest.
In other words, his outstanding characteristic always is that he never faces completely and honestly the nature of sin, and the effects of sin, in the light of the holiness of God.
“Characteristics Of A New Life”
A man who is born again is a man who sees that revelation is An Absolute Necessity. How does he see it? Well, he sees it like this: he sees the truth about his old nature; he sees that he was blinded by sin and by the ‘god of this world’, and in that condition he could never believe. Of course, these things were foolishness to him, but now, he knows that this Operation of God has taken place in his Soul. He doesn’t argue about Miracles because it has happened to him. Miracles are a fact, the Supernatural, the Miraculous. He doesn’t argue about them. He knows they are true. He’s in the miraculous; he’s been lifted to the Realm of the Supernatural himself. So, he doesn’t argue about these things.
He says, ‘I was blind, I could not see; I could not move my lifeless soul to Thee.’ He knows that nothing but the Revelation of God can give him the knowledge that he is in need of. So, this is a Very Good Test.
R.C. Sproul
https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/false-sense-assurance