In "Sunday Sermon - For Those Doubting Their Salvation," the speaker uses 1 John 5:18-21 to distinguish salvation from assurance, arguing that objective signs like loving the household of faith, obeying God's law, and confessing Christ's incarnation outweigh subjective feelings. He critiques modern evangelical misinterpretations of "the least of these" regarding LGBT individuals and contrasts Protestant reliance on internal conviction with Roman Catholic sacraments, asserting the latter lack scriptural roots while the former face Satan's ministry of despair. Ultimately, the sermon warns that assurance fluctuates with sanctification and announces a November 11th-12th conference on "the household and the war for the cosmos." [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Distinction Between Salvation And Assurance00:13:12
Today, our text is going to be 1 John 5, verse 18 through 21.
These are the final verses of John's first epistle letter.
1 John 5, verse 18 through 21.
Would you join me now in standing for the reading of God's word?
When I finish reading the text, I'm going to say, This is the word of the Lord, at which point I would appreciate very much if you would respond by saying, Thanks be to God.
One final time, our text for today is 1 John 5, verse 18 through 21.
The Bible says this.
We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him.
We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true.
And we are in him who is true, in his Son, Jesus Christ.
He is the true God and eternal life.
Little children, keep yourselves from idols.
This is the word of the Lord.
All right, please be seated.
Let's go ahead and begin.
By way of introduction, I've written the following throughout 1 John.
This is a major theme that you need to understand.
There is a massive emphasis on what we as Christians can know for certain.
John writes multiple times, here's a few examples By this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments.
We can know that we have come to know him if.
We keep his commandments, 1 John 2 3.
John writes to the fathers, that is, fathers in the faith, those who are spiritually mature, because they know him who has been from the beginning.
That's 1 John 2, verse 13.
John writes to the children, because they know the Father.
That's 1 John 2, verse 14.
Then John says, We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brethren.
That's 1 John 3, verse 14.
We can know.
We've been born again.
We can know that we have been granted eternal life if there's a condition we love the brethren.
That's not just loving your neighbor, but specifically your brother, your brother andor sister in Christ.
And at the conclusion now of John's letter, he drives home this theme of certainty again by saying, These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know.
That you have eternal life.
That's 1 John 5, a few verses earlier, verse 13.
Now, there's a striking connection, a correlation between the end of John's gospel and the end of John's first epistle.
In John's gospel, chapter 20, verse 30, he says this I had it, the wind blew.
When I say wind, I mean artificial wind, AC.
Here we go.
John chapter 20, verse 30.
Now, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
This is what John, inspired by the Holy Spirit, says at the very end or near the very end of his gospel.
He's saying these are all the signs and wonders and miracles which Jesus performed in his earthly ministry.
This is his life.
This is his death.
This is his bodily resurrection.
This is his glorious ascension to the right hand of the Father.
His appearance to over 500 witnesses, eyewitnesses, after his resurrection.
This is the testimony of Jesus Christ.
All that he did, all that he said.
His promises are sure.
And he has fulfilled all of these prophecies, messianic prophecies, spoken by Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the prophets of old.
And these things have not just been committed to the oral tradition, but rather written down so that you might believe.
So, the Gospel of John, its pinning, being inspired by the Holy Spirit, was for many purposes, but we can argue a chief purpose is so that future disciples of Jesus might believe.
That you might believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that he is the Christ, the anointed one, the promised Messiah.
However, similar, but with one major distinction, what John writes at the end of his first epistle is.
These things have been written not just that you might believe, but these things have been written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you might know that you have eternal life.
To sum it up, in short, at the end of John's gospel, he says, I've written these things so that you might believe.
But at the end of his first epistle, which was written later, he says, These things have been written so that you might know that you believe.
Brothers and sisters, there is.
A connection and yet also a strong distinction, a massive difference between believing in Jesus and knowing that you believe in Jesus.
The difference is the difference between salvation and the assurance of salvation.
That's the difference that we're going to be looking at today.
There is a distinction between salvation and the assurance of salvation.
A man can have salvation.
And yet, have little assurance.
It's quite possible.
It is quite possible for someone to have genuine, bona fide salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone, and yet possess little certainty, confidence, or assurance that he has salvation.
It is also quite possible for a man to possess an abundance of assurance of salvation, but for that, in the end, to prove to be a false assurance.
That he is assured of a salvation that he does not actually possess.
So you can have assurance of salvation without having salvation, which is terribly frightening.
And you can have salvation that is genuine and true, but without having much assurance.
And John, between his gospel and his first epistle, again inspired by the Holy Spirit, so deeper than just John, God wants us as his children to not only possess salvation, to be his children.
But also to be assured children, confident children, certain children, that we are not sitting in a field surrounded by flowers, picking the petals, saying, God loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not.
But that we would be able to say with confidence, not confidence in ourselves or confidence in the flesh, but confidence in Christ, he loves me.
And that that would be the end of the story.
And this is one of the great differences between Roman Catholicism and the Protestant Reformation.
The Protestant Reformation, the reformers, argued that a man can indeed have assurance that he belongs to Christ in this life, that he doesn't have to lie on his deathbed wondering whether or not he's truly been born again.
Wondering what his final destination might be, but that he can rest with assurance and confidence that he belongs to Christ.
Now, notice one other thing before we move on.
Every single time that John writes in his first epistle, that you might know, that you might know, that you might know, in every one of these cases, he cites something that is objective as the condition for knowing.
It's not subjective.
This is where I think, unfortunately, some Protestants have gone too far.
So don't get me wrong, it's way too close to October 31st for me to say anything good about Roman Catholicism.
And yet, at the risk of saying something good about Roman Catholicism, the one nice thing that Rome did, there are a few, but I'll name one.
The one nice thing that Rome did, Is that they made some tangible touch points, handles that can be held on to when it comes to the faith.
Now, the problem is that the handles they provided, these objective signs and seals that they provided, did not have scriptural root.
That was the problem.
But again, at the risk of now forfeiting my Protestant card, I think that Protestants placed too much emphasis.
On the subjective inward feelings of assurance and not enough emphasis on outward objective signs and seals of assurance.
What I'm saying is that within Roman Catholicism, you have seven sacraments.
Protestants, we have two.
Protestants are right.
You have seven sacraments.
But here's the idea with a Roman Catholic, you get baptized in the church.
And they would hold to baptismal regeneration.
So it would take you from mortal sins and put you on the right track.
And inevitably, you're going to fall.
And so you're going to need to be rewashed and set back on the right track again and again.
But it would start with your baptism as an infant, as a baby.
Baptismal regeneration, they actually believe that baptism saves in the literal sense.
So it causes the person to be born again.
So baptism, that is a sacrament.
And after that, you would have confirmation, that would be another sacrament.
At that point, you would begin participating in the Eucharist, the Mass.
The Eucharist, which would include both the bread and also the wine, transubstantiation, literally turned into the flesh and the blood of Christ, which is wrong.
But that would be another sacrament.
They believe that grace is infused, not imputed, that is accredited, accounted for righteousness through faith alone, like the scripture says of Abraham, but rather infused.
And it's infused, grace is infused through sacraments.
And in other cases, perhaps relics and rituals.
But certainly, sacraments and certainly baptism and the Eucharist.
So, you have baptism, then confirmation, then the Eucharist, then you have confession, which would also be a sacrament.
That you would go periodically before the priest in a confessional booth.
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.
It has been this long since my last confession.
You would then begin to recount the sins that you have committed against God and your fellow man.
The priest would then prescribe to you some form of penance, which is distinct from repentance.
This many are fathers, this many Hail Marys.
If you perform these outward objective signs, if you do what the priest says, then again, you have handles that you can hold on to.
So you have confession as a sacrament.
Marriage would also be a sacrament according to Roman Catholicism, not within the Protestant faith.
Again, we have two baptism and the Lord's Supper.
But you make sure that you're baptized in the Catholic Church.
You make sure you get married in the Catholic Church.
You make sure you're confirmed in the Catholic Church.
That you go and you confess your sin to a Catholic priest from time to time.
You take the Mass in a Catholic church and you have your last rites read to you on your deathbed by a Catholic priest.
And the seventh sacrament would be, in the case of the priesthood, becoming a priest, ordination.
There are handles, very objective outward signs and seals.
Biblical Standard For Loving The Least00:06:25
There's something there.
And Protestants, unfortunately, a lot of the assurance that we rest in, ironically, Is feelings that you feel saved, that you feel the love of God, that you feel Christ's work is for you.
But when you read John's epistle, his first epistle, that's just not the way it reads.
And so, and being faithful to the true Protestant tradition, I'm gonna go with scripture alone and not mere traditions, whether they be Roman traditions or Protestant traditions for that matter, but there's scripture alone.
And in the scripture, John, inspired by the Holy Spirit, says again and again and again and again, you can know, you can know, you can know.
And then he gives very tangible, outward, objective signs.
You can know that you're a Christian if you love the saints.
You can know you're a Christian if you obey Christ's commandments.
And you can know you're a Christian if you have both a biblical and personal confession of Christ.
Every single one of John's spiritual tests that you find in 1 John can be categorized in one of those three primary categories the love test, the obedience test, and the doctrinal test.
You might call it the truth test.
Love, obedience, and truth.
The love test is love for the saints, it's not just love for your neighbor, but love for your brother.
It's important for us to remember that we have a universal neighborhood.
What I mean by that is all 8.2, 8.3, whatever it is, billion people on the planet right now, they are all our neighbors.
They are not all our brothers.
The Bible teaches, when it comes to humanity, a universal neighborhood that stems from the universal creatorhood of God.
God is a universal creator.
There's not one person that God is not their creator, and there's not one person that is not our neighbor.
But the Bible, while teaching universal creatorhood of God and neighborhood of humanity, the Bible teaches particular fatherhood and particular brotherhood.
God is creator of all, but father of some.
And everyone is my neighbor, but not everyone is my brother.
And John is actually just echoing the words of Jesus Christ himself, who taught.
That whatever you do for the least of these, here's the key phrase my brothers, you have done for me.
We have so taken the words of Christ in that particular place out of context.
We say, whatever you do for the least of these, you've done for Jesus.
So, how do you love Jesus, who is at the right hand of God the Father?
How do I love Christ?
Well, I can't go to heaven, not now.
But the way that I can feed Christ is I can feed the least of these.
I can clothe Christ by clothing the least of these.
I can visit Christ when he's oppressed and imprisoned by visiting these.
That's what Jesus says.
That if you even give a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in my name, you've done it for me.
How do you love Jesus?
Well, you love the least of these.
But again, the key phrase is the least of these, my brothers.
We've taken that out of context because what we've done with evangelical Protestant churches today is we've just said the least of these and we've removed that phrase, my brothers.
And then we think that it's our own decision, that we have our own creative license and authority to determine who are the least of these in society today.
And so we'll say, well, the least of these are LGBT community.
And I would say, well, no, it's the least of these, my brothers.
These people are living in impenitent sin, therefore, there is no sign that they are brothers.
Secondly, even by the standard of neighbors, these are not the least of these.
These would be equivalent to princes and kings.
There is no higher status you could have in our God hating society today than being LGBT.
They're not oppressed.
3% of the population is oppressing 97%.
These are not the least of these by any metric of being the least of these.
Much less a biblical metric.
So let's go ahead and remove that one.
Well, maybe the least of these isn't, you know, LGBT, LMN, OP, whatever, but maybe the least of these are immigrants.
We've heard that one.
Maybe it's immigrants.
I mean, they have no rights.
What do you mean?
They do have rights.
Our taxes go to them, whether they do anything or not.
They're given checks.
They're paid.
In some places, they can vote depending on that city and that county.
No, no, no.
They're not the least of these.
And that's, again, by a universal neighborhood standard.
But again, that's not the biblical standard.
Whatever you do for the least of these, my brothers.
When Jesus says, whatever you do for the least of these, my brothers, the person who's imprisoned, you know who he's talking about?
The person who's imprisoned as a Christian for preaching the gospel.
The person who's wrongfully imprisoned.
When you clothe those who are naked, my brothers, he's talking about Christians who have been plundered and robbed and persecuted for their faith in Christ.
Those who are hungry, who are Christians.
Prioritizing The Household Of Faith00:04:35
The one who welcomes a prophet receives a prophet's reward.
The one who welcomes an evangelist, a missionary, receives a missionary or an evangelist's reward.
What we see again and again in Scripture is this we are called to love everyone as our neighbor, but there is an order of loves.
There is an order of rightly ordered affections.
We are called to love some more than others.
A man is called to love his wife more than other women.
He is called to love his children more than his neighbor's children.
And as Christians, we are called to love the household of faith as a priority above all others who are outside of the faith.
Galatians chapter 6, to cite more scripture, the Apostle Paul says this.
As often as you have opportunity, do good to all, but especially the household of faith.
That is, but prioritize the household of faith.
Christ, who is God and therefore infinite, works through his body, the church, which is finite.
Christ is infinite.
But the church here on earth, the body of Christ, is not infinite.
The church is finite.
It has a set amount of people at any given point with a set amount of resources, a set amount of gifts and talents and treasure.
And therefore, because the church is not infinite but finite, as all finite creatures must do, we have to learn when to say yes and when to say no.
We have to learn what to prioritize, who to prioritize, and what to guard against.
As often as you have opportunity, do good to all, but especially the household of faith.
That is, prioritize the least of these, my brothers.
The church.
So John gives three major tests for not just being saved, but here's the key knowing that you're saved.
The Gospel of John, I write to you that you might believe.
The First Epistle of John, I write to you that you might know that you have believed.
There's a distinction between salvation and assurance of salvation.
And in this category of the assurance of salvation throughout the entirety of 1 John, three main tests are listed.
The love test, that's what I've been espousing these last seven minutes love for the household of faith, love for the brothers, love for Christians.
The obedience test, obedience to Christ's commandments, beginning with the moral law of God, which we find in its summary in Exodus chapter 20, the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments.
Love for God and neighbor, not creatively defined by you.
But immutably defined by God in Scripture.
Love for God, have no other gods before me.
Do not make for yourself any graven images.
Do not take the Lord's name in vain.
And remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
Love for neighbor and particularly fellow brothers in Christ.
Honor thy father and mother.
Do not murder.
Do not commit adultery.
Do not steal.
Do not bear false witness.
And do not covet.
This is how we love our neighbor.
The first four commandments teach us how we love the Lord our God.
So, the obedience test, obedience to the moral commands of God, as we grow in outward obedience, it's tangible, it's objective, it can be witnessed, not just by you.
Here's the beauty not just by you, but it can be co discerned as we grow in obedience and our outward obedience to the commands of God is witnessed by others, namely, again, the household of faith.
So that I can have others, not just myself, not just dependent on my own subjective, fleeting feelings of confidence and assurance in the love of God for me, but I can look when I'm lacking assurance to my wife, to my parents, to my friends, to my church, and they can say, Brother, you're lacking in assurance right now.
Testing Love Through Obedience To God00:04:49
I understand you've confessed that to us, that you're struggling with insecurity and fear, doubting the love of God, but this is what we've seen, this is what we've heard.
This is what we know, and you should know as well.
The love test.
Do you love your neighbor?
And more particularly in 1 John, do you love your brother?
The obedience test.
Are you outwardly, tangibly obeying the commandments of God?
And lastly, the truth test or the doctrinal test.
Do you have a proper confession of faith?
Do you have a proper confession of faith in Christ?
And a proper confession, I would say, two main elements.
For it to be proper, it must be a biblical confession and it also must be a personal confession.
Biblical and personal.
Biblical, we see in 1 John.
Anyone who confesses that Christ has come in the flesh, or stated in the negative, he says, anyone who does not confess that Christ has come in the flesh is the Antichrist or an Antichrist.
Many Antichrists have gone out into the world, and one of the ways that you can know them.
Is that they deny that Christ has come in the flesh.
They deny the incarnation.
And that might seem so general, as though it's not specific enough, but there is much that inherently comes with that one statement of Christ coming in the flesh.
One of the things that comes with it is that it presupposes, it assumes that Christ existed before his incarnation, before he came in the flesh.
Meaning what?
By necessary inference, that Christ has come in the flesh, that he pre existed before coming in the flesh, that he is eternal, that he is God.
And not only that he is God before the flesh, but he is the God man, fully God, fully man.
That statement includes with it the hypostatic union, that he is the second member of the Trinity, it includes the incarnation, it includes his deity, it includes a lot.
So, you must have a biblical confession of Christ, but also a personal confession.
For this, I'll reference Galatians again, the Apostle Paul.
He says, I know this, I'm confident of it, that Christ loved me and gave himself up for me.
Brothers and sisters, the biblical confession is absolutely vital, but it is not sufficient in and of itself.
It must be a biblical confession of Christ, that is what you confess about Jesus, aligns with the scripture.
It's not build a Jesus, right?
Build a bear, remember that store in the mall?
You go and I'll take a little bit of this, a little bit of that.
We're gonna make our own custom teddy bear, right?
A lot of churches, a lot of evangelicals are playing Build a Jesus on Sunday.
Some people like Hippie Jesus.
He hugs trees.
He's got dreadlocks.
He's really concerned with world peace.
He wouldn't hurt a fly.
Everybody's got a different Jesus.
I'm not endorsing this, okay?
So do not take me out of context.
Don't go home and watch this movie.
But once upon a time, because I too am a sinner, I watched Talladega Nights.
There we go.
Some confession.
We're confessing our sin to the Lord.
We've already heard the assurance of pardon.
There's forgiveness in Christ.
But I did, I confess, I have once upon a time watched Talladega Nights.
Ricky Bobby, right?
Two first names.
There's a scene in that movie where they're going back and forth, arguing about which Jesus is best.
Well, I like the figure skating Jesus.
You know, I like my Jesus to be like a lead singer of Led Zeppelin, and I'm sitting on the front row, and they say some other things.
Or I like my Jesus to be the baby Jesus, you know, a little dear, little eight pound, six pound.
And it's a blasphemous scene.
Don't get me wrong, it's terrible.
However, here's the saddest part it's not just sad that Will Ferrell, who is pretty funny, is blaspheming Christ in this movie for millions of people to watch.
The saddest part is that it is almost synonymous with what evangelical churches do on Sunday morning.
At least Will Ferrell meant it as a joke, at least he recognized that this is laughable.
Whereas a bunch of evangelical pastors, they do it and they are completely serious.
Well, we like our Jesus to be like this.
Tangible Objects Of Divine Love00:03:10
We like our Jesus to be like.
And the Jesus that they begin to describe in their 20 minute TED Talk sermon has nothing to do with the Jesus of Scripture.
So, first and foremost, the truth test, it must be a biblical profession, a biblical confession of Jesus.
But secondly, in line with the Apostle Paul in the book of Galatians, his letter to the Galatians, it must also be a personal confession of Jesus.
What I mean is this.
It is not enough to confess that Christ came in the flesh and died for someone somewhere out there.
But you must be able to echo the words of the Apostle Paul in saying, I am convinced that Christ loved me and gave himself up for me.
So our confession must be biblical and personal.
Three tests of assurance, but notice all of them tangible tests objective, outward, witnessable.
The test of love.
And when John begins to spell out the test of love, he's thinking about the words of Christ.
And he's also thinking of James.
And what James says about love do not just merely say to your brother, be warm and well fed, but give him nothing and send him on his way.
James, echoing Christ as well, says, this is what love looks like.
Love can be witnessed, love is visible.
What does love look like?
It looks like cash a lot of times.
What does love look like?
It looks like clothes.
It looks like water.
It looks like food.
It looks like a visit to prison.
This is what love looks like.
Love can be witnessed.
Love is tangible, it is not a mere theoretical love.
It is a love in deed, it is a love in function, in practice.
There's a particular object of love.
If the object ultimately is Christ, Then the object on the horizontal plane in the life that we live here and now is the people of Christ.
So, how do I know that I love Jesus?
I love the people of Jesus, and how do I love them?
Not just who do I love, but how do I love them?
I love them in tangible ways.
I love them in deed and in action and not merely word or in theory.
The love test, the obedience test.
How do I know that I love God?
That's what was said to Jesus, his disciples.
We love you.
If you love me, keep my commandments.
Tangible, witnessable, outward obedience to both tables of the law.
The first four commandments, love for God.
The next six of the Ten Commandments, love for neighbor.
With a priority on love for brothers.
Love test, obedience test, truth test, a profession of Christ.
Increased Assurance Through Christ's Work00:15:13
Notice perfect doctrine is not what I'm speaking of.
No one has it.
Not in this life.
I don't.
But understanding the doctrine of Christ and the salvation that he freely offers by grace through faith in him alone.
The person and work.
This is what I'm speaking of.
The person and work of Jesus.
Have you ever heard that phrase?
Trusting in the person and work of Jesus.
This is what that phrase means in its simplicity.
Because there's a lot of things that get thrown around, platitudes, and sometimes we'll go 50 years without something being defined.
And everybody's doing the what, but they've forgotten the why.
And then all of a sudden, the church begins to slide and compromise because we stop teaching the why.
And we get mad about the laser lights and the smoke machines, you know, in Sunday worship.
But pastors, a long time ago, long before the smoke machines made their way into the Sunday service, pastors were going through the liturgy, but not explaining to the congregants why they did so.
And their children forgot.
And their children began to reject.
They began to kick against the goats.
And they thought they were doing it even in a passion and zeal for Christ.
Because it just seemed like the traditions of men, because the traditions had no longer been explained.
So, what's the person and work of Jesus Christ?
In simplicity, the person speaks to the fact that he is the God man.
So, when we say trusting in the person and work of Jesus, we're saying we trust that Jesus is fully God, fully man.
We're speaking of the incarnation, we're speaking of his deity and his humanity.
We're speaking that he is eternal, that he's eternally begotten, not made.
Jesus is not the first among creatures, but he is the creator who is to be forever praised.
Amen.
That for him and by him and through him all things that have been made were made.
And in him all things that have been made are being held together.
Hebrews 1 says this, Colossians says this.
Jesus is God, creator God, eternal God, second member of the Godhead.
But he is also man, not partially man, but fully man.
So that he is able to represent man.
In his Godness, he could pay the infinite penalty of the sins of his people.
In his manness, he is able to accurately represent people fully God and fully man.
And he is forever the God man.
Still, in now the glorified human flesh at the right hand of the Father, resurrected.
Not just revived, but truly resurrected and glorified as a first fruits of what all those who trust in Him will one day receive.
The glorification and resurrection of our own bodies, these bodies, not new bodies meaning another body, but new bodies meaning this body made new.
And I believe the same doctrinally for this earth, for that matter.
Not annihilated, disintegrated, and burned up in a literal sense, but this world made new.
That all creation cries out with groans and eager expectations for the sons of God to be revealed for in their restoration.
The cosmos will be restored as well.
That the creation is not crying out with eager groans and expectations for a mercy killing to be taken out back behind the woodshed and put down by God so that the sons of God can now replace the creation, but rather as the sons of God are restored and renewed, so too mountains and rivers and trees will be renewed as well.
That we will live in heaven with God, but one day at the final culmination of human history.
That the new heavens will come to this earth made new, and that we will see things that are strikingly familiar to us, but now glorified.
I know that mountain range, but it never looked like that.
Now I see it in its true majesty.
I know this river.
I used to fish in it when I was a kid.
Now look at it.
Jesus is the God man, the person of Jesus.
His work, life, sinless.
And not only an absence of sin, but a presence and fulfillment of all righteousness.
Not only avoiding sin, but obeying all the commandments of God his Father.
This is what Jesus says to John the Baptist.
When John says, I can't baptize you, I'm not worthy.
And Jesus says, You must to fulfill all righteousness.
It is not only Jesus' passive obedience, his willingness to die as a substitute on the cross for you and I, but also his active obedience.
As John Owen and the Reformers would argue, that he actively obeyed and fulfilled all the commandments of God in his life.
Not only was his death obedience to God, but he lived a life of obedience.
So his life, his death, and his death not as a mere example of sacrificial love, but his life as payment.
Atonement, propitiation as penal substitutionary atonement.
He died as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
He died in our place.
His resurrection, not as a mere metaphor speaking to the power and the triumph of the human spirit, but his literal bodily resurrection from the dead and his ascension in glory and majesty and power and authority.
That he is raised before people's very eyes and then hidden behind the clouds.
As he enters into heaven to be seated, to sit down at his Father's right hand.
And right before he does this, he says, All authority, not just in the 17th dimension, but on earth and in heaven, has been given to me.
So you will go in obedience to my commands, making disciples, and you will be successful.
And you will disciple nations.
And in discipling them, you will not only preach the gospel for conversion and their baptism, but then you will teach them theonomy to obey all my commands.
And this is not separate but included in the Great Commission.
This is the work of Jesus and the work which He still does, that He intercedes on our behalf, is praying for His own, and promises one day to finally and physically return.
The person and work of Jesus, who He is, the God man, what He's done, life, death, resurrection, ascension, and promised return.
This is the person and work of Jesus.
This is the truth test.
Do you believe the truth?
In these issues, you can be wrong about other things.
We should strive to be right in all things.
To believe the sufficiency of Scripture in all things.
Not only sola Scriptura, but tota Scriptura.
Not just some of Scripture, not just red letter Scripture, but all of Scripture, which is part of the problem in the evangelical Protestant church today.
We believe what Jesus says about salvation, but little about what the Bible says for life in this time.
We think that the Bible speaks to marriage and family and the church and eternal life, but certainly it has nothing to say about culture, society, the civil realm.
Oh, but it does.
And those things matter.
But what must be there, those things matter, don't get me wrong, but you could be wrong on some of those issues.
But what must be there is rightly, biblically, accurately professing the person and work of Jesus.
And not only a biblical profession, but also a personal confession.
This Jesus did not just give himself up for someone, somewhere out there, but he died for me.
The love test, the obedience test, and the truth test.
By this, you might know.
You might know.
And not just you, others can know.
Because all of these things are tangible.
A profession is something that you confess with your mouth.
You must believe in your heart, but also confess with your mouth.
And we do it every Lord's day.
We confess both the person and work of Jesus in the creeds each Lord's day.
And we do it not only privately, but publicly, corporately with one another.
Obedience to Christ's commands is something that has physical, outward, witnessable implications.
Your wife will be able to tell you whether or not you are obeying Christ's commands.
And she will helpfully remind you when you are not, most likely.
And hopefully, do so in a respectful manner, but also do so.
And love, as Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, as James says, as Paul says, as John says, love for the brothers is a tangible love indeed and not mere word or theory.
And all these ways we can know that we belong to Christ.
Now, notice the ways you know you belong to Christ is not by eating the literal flesh and drinking the literal blood of Jesus.
In a Roman Catholic church.
And it's not by having a priest come and read you your last rites on your deathbed.
It's not through confirmation.
It's not through their joke of a baptism.
And I don't mean it's a joke because they do it with babies.
I'm saying it's a joke because they believe that it literally causes you to be born again, baptismal regeneration.
And I'll throw Lutherans in there for good measure, just to be fair.
Now, this is not how grace is imputed, or as Rome would say, infused.
But there are ways in which grace is imputed, it is imputed by grace through faith in Christ alone.
But there are ways in which grace that is imputed by faith alone can be seen.
It can be confirmed so that you can be confident and know that you belong to Christ.
God is a father.
And it is not the will of our loving Heavenly Father that His children should think on a regular basis that their Father does not love them.
It is not the will of God that His children should constantly be tossing and turning, unsure of whether or not God loves them, will keep them, has saved them.
And we can know.
Now, this knowledge, assurance, one more thing that should be added it is not a pass fail system.
It doesn't work like that.
Assurance of salvation is not something that a switch is flipped to where you have 100% assurance or 0% assurance.
Assurance, instead, can fluctuate.
You can have less.
And at times you can have more.
Now, again, that's not the goal.
It's the very thing that John is writing against.
But assurance does fluctuate, especially in times of living in unrepentant sin.
So that you may actually be a Christian and actually possess salvation, be saved by genuine grace through genuine faith in Christ alone.
But for whatever reason, you've been sinning and hiding your sin, not confessing your sin one to another that you might pray for one another, that you might be.
Healed, and therefore, although your salvation is not lost because you did nothing to earn it, you can do nothing to lose it.
And yet, in the subjective sense of feeling salvation, the knowing of salvation, the assurance of salvation, the assurance can wane.
The salvation is pass fail.
Let me make this plain salvation itself is all or nothing.
A man either stands wholly justified before Christ or wholly condemned, there is no partial justification.
There's no partial salvation.
And once you have been granted salvation, you cannot lose that which you did not earn.
You will be secure in Christ.
But what you can lose, or at least decrease in, is confidence of salvation, assurance of salvation.
The Puritans called this God's fatherly, so it's for the Christian who God is their father, his fatherly displeasure.
There is such a thing as having God as your enemy, as for the unbeliever.
But there is another thing as being an adopted child of God and yet knowing, in some sense, he's your father, but being underneath his fatherly displeasure for a time, for a season, because of unrepentant sin almost all of the time.
That's the reason.
And therefore, during this season, being weighed down heavy.
David says this as a Christian, heavy was your hand upon me.
We see that there are people in the scripture who were born again that have seasons where the weight of God's conviction and his displeasure, fatherly albeit, but displeasure, fatherly displeasure, is upon an individual.
And during those moments, they toss and turn in their beds, often fasting and going without food.
There's no sense of peace, no sense of comfort.
The Christian can have a lack of assurance.
But the Christian can also have increased assurance.
And this increased assurance comes by Christ's work through you.
Now, listen, this is where the objection will come from Protestants.
Distinguishing Grace From Human Effort00:03:02
They'll say, well, you're making assurance of salvation about the work of man.
You're saying that if you're more obedient, you can be more assured.
That's right.
I'm saying that.
That's right.
But here's the deal it is all Christ's work.
Justification, I can say it most simply like this Justification is Christ's work for you.
Sanctification is Christ's work through you.
But it's still Christ's work.
Good works which He predestined for us to walk in.
Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that it is He who wills and works in and through you that which is good and pleasing in His sight.
Justification, salvation itself, is Christ's work for you.
But sanctification, Growing in love for the saints, growing in obedience to Christ's commands, and having a biblical and personal confession, a doctrine that is true.
Sanctification is Christ's work through you.
So that it's all grace, it's all Christ's work, but we must be able to distinguish between the two.
It is the prerogative and the sole duty of a theologian to make distinctions.
One God, three persons.
Distinguishing between essence and personhood.
We don't divorce, but we also don't mix and blend.
We distinguish.
So too, when it comes to justification, salvation itself, and sanctification, Passing these three tests that John gives us in his first epistle, that we might know the assurance of salvation, these two things are distinct.
Connected?
Certainly.
But distinguishable nonetheless.
Justification from sanctification.
Justification, Christ's work for you.
Sanctification, Christ's work in and through you.
And as Christ's work in and through you grows and is tangible, not just a work in theory, but a work that can be witnessed and seen by you and Others, you should grow in assurance.
And if, for whatever reason, you choose to live in a prolonged season of unrepentant sin so that obedience begins to wane, sanctification seems to stall and stagnate, Christ's work through you seems as though it is minimal, then in those seasons you should have less assurance.
You should.
All right.
That's the introduction.
We'll pick it up later, huh?
I guess.
There you go.
So, yeah, we'll pick it up.
This is what I want to do next, not next week, two weeks from now.
In our text today, John uses the word no three more times at the beginning of verses 18, 19, and 20.
Despair Versus Deception In Sin00:06:19
What we see is this from our text Christians are kept from sin.
We can know that we'll be kept from sin, and that's going to require some distinguishing.
Some discerning, because it doesn't mean that Christians in this life will reach a state of sinless perfection, but it also means that Christians will not be slaves to sin.
And there is a difference between the two.
Number two, non Christians belong to Satan and are deceived.
That's something we can know.
We can know that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
In what way is John using the word world?
I've got to define that so that once again it's become a weekly duty to crush dispensationalism.
So, I'm going to crush that and say this is what I mean by world.
Does not mean necessarily the majority of human beings, but the world, that which is underneath the demonic system, that Satan has some sense of dominion, even though he is now currently bound, that world does lie in the power of Satan.
And the word there actually can be translated lie.
It can be translated, some translations say they lie in the arms of Satan.
And the picture is not that they're being held by Satan and they're frantic trying to escape, but they're lying like an infant baby peacefully.
In the arms of Satan.
And the reason why they're peaceful is because they have affection for Satan, because Satan is their father.
Because if you do not have God as your father, according to John chapter 8, your father is the devil.
And you love him, and you lie in his arms, and you are deceived.
So we'll go into more detail about that.
We can know that Christians are kept from sin, not sinless perfection, but we are kept from slavery to sin.
We can know that non Christians, in contrast, belong to Satan and are deceived.
And thirdly and lastly, we can know that Christians belong to Jesus and that we are not deceived, but that we have been given understanding.
And that one of the signs and seals and marks of a Christian is that the Christian knows and understands and sees the truth.
And as I did in the opening, our call to worship in my prayer this morning, I pray that God would deliver us from despair.
In a nutshell, I would say this.
Unbelievers are given to deception.
Christians, according to Scripture, according to this text, are not.
Again, that doesn't mean they'll have perfect theology, it doesn't mean they can't be wrong on something.
But on the whole, Christians are not deceived.
Satan has two primary ministries.
With his own children, the unbelievers, Satan's ministry is a ministry of deception.
But for those who now see, have been given spiritual eyes to see, have been born again, and are children of God, Satan's ministry is no longer chiefly a ministry of deception because it won't work.
So then he shifts to a ministry of despair.
For the unbeliever, it is deception.
For the Christian, it's despair.
That we know the truth.
The Christian, for lack of a better terminology, the Christian has taken the red pill.
So what Satan loves to do is follow up the red pill with a black pill.
The world is bad, and it'll always be this way, and there's nothing you can do about it.
And that ministry of Satan, his despair is strong.
In the church, these last 150 years.
I'll let you figure out what happened 150 years ago.
Schofield, there you go.
Christianity, it takes the red pill.
We call that total depravity, doctrines of grace, Calvinism, but then it follows it up with a white pill.
We call that the post millennial hope.
We're able to say, no, people are bad.
I know people are bad.
I go to conferences entirely dedicated to the badness of people.
I'm a Calvinist.
Things are rough.
But Christ is greater.
He's the light of the world, and the darkness has not overcome it.
The light is advancing.
Shout on, pray on, we're gaining ground.
Glory, hallelujah.
And so we'll look at that the ministry of Satan, deception with his own, the unbeliever, but seeking to cause despair with the Christian.
He knows he can't deceive us.
So instead, he causes us to despair.
I'll probably pull in some Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan, Doubting Castle.
The Christian, he knows the promises.
And the whole time, here's the thing he's not deceived, he's not enslaved, he's not in prison, not truly.
The whole time, at any moment, he could get out of the prison.
But he has so been taught to despair by the giant in Doubting Castle.
Giant Despair is his name, that he's forgotten that the entire time he has a key in his breastplate pocket.
The key is called promise.
All he has to do is take it out, and he can open the gate to the prison and escape.
Many Christians have the key.
They're not deceived, they're not enslaved.
We have the key of promise in our pocket.
But many Christians have not been deceived, but taught to despair to such a degree that although the key is near our heart, we don't use it to break free of the prison.
We'll talk more about these things, like I said, two weeks from today.
Next week, one important announcement we have Chris Wiley and Jared Longshore with us.
We're going to have our full day conference from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, November 11th, on the household and the war for the cosmos.
And then that Lord's Day, November 12th, I'll be doing the liturgy, and Pastor Jared Longshore will be preaching the sermon.
And so we hope that you guys will join us for that.
If you have not registered for the conference, just show up and we'll just see what happens.
Hopefully, the weather's good and we can open up the doors.
And if not, it'll be a great time, but it'll feel kind of like Christian.
Pilgrim's progress that we're trapped in a doubting castle.
It'll be uncomfortable, but the content will be good.