I want you to listen to this
inspired declaration of the full assurance of faith. It's found
in our text in Romans chapter 5, verses 1 and 2. Here is an inspired declaration
of the full assurance of faith. Therefore, being justified by
faith, We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein
we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. What blessed
confidence, what blessed assurance those words express were justified. We have faith in Christ. We have peace with God. We stand in grace, having access
to all grace by faith in Jesus Christ our Lord. My subject today
is assurance. Happy are those sinners saved
by the grace of God who can confidently sing with Fannie Crosby, blessed
assurance Jesus is mine, oh what a foretaste of glory divine. Air of salvation, purchase of
God, born of his spirit, washed in his blood. Almost everyone
here sings those words. Probably one of the first songs
I learned as a young believer Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. How few are they who sing those
words with confident assurance. Confident assurance. When I think
about this matter of assurance as a believer, as a pastor, as
a preacher of the gospel, there are two problems I'm faced with,
two facts I have to deal with. The first is this fact, and it
is a fact. The scriptures make it clear
it is a fact. There are many in this world,
probably some sitting here, many in this world, and very probably
some I'm looking at right now, who enjoy the assurance of salvation,
or say they do, who've never experienced the grace of God
in Christ Jesus. You claim peace, but you have
no grounds of peace, and because there's no real grounds of peace,
you only pretend to have peace. You fake it. You wouldn't let
anybody know how disturbed you are when you think about these
things in reality. You struggle, and you're in turmoil
all the time. Because all the peace you have
is the peace of a religious profession made sometime yesterday or 20
years ago, and that's it. Your assurance is altogether
without basis in the Word of God and without basis in experience. You delude yourself with false
peace. Multitudes live and die, being
persuaded they are saved, only to wake up in hell under the
wrath of God. Read the seventh chapter of Matthew
and see if I'm not telling you the truth. Most people, most
people who go to church Sunday after Sunday, sometimes twice
on Sunday, sometimes three times a week and more, Most people
who go to church regularly, who take up a profession of faith,
walk in the broad way that leads to destruction, and they are
confident they belong to God, but when they wake up in eternity,
they wake up in hell, tormented under the wrath of God. They
base their assurance on something in the past, a time. a place, an event, an experience
when they began to believe and they're convinced they're saved. I used to go regularly over to
Federal Penitentiary in Lexington, visit the sister of a couple
of brothers I know who are dear friends. She was in prison for
hiring a man to murder her husband. She was raised in a gospel church,
just like this one, under the sound of a faithful gospel preacher,
well instructed in all the doctrine of the gospel. She understood
it clearly. And as I sat and talked with
her, hour after hour after hour after hour, she never expressed
these two things, not one time. She never expressed the least
doubt that she is a genuine child of God headed to heaven, or the
least remorse for what she had done. As cold and hard and calculated
as it can be, the plot scheme and search out and find somebody
and pay him money to murder your husband. Blessed assurance Jesus
is mine. Oh what a foretaste of glory
divine. Multitudes have assurance or claim to have who have no
basis for it. But there's another problem.
There are some who are saved by God's grace who lack what
God calls the full assurance of faith in Christ. Perhaps some
of you, perhaps some of you now find faith in your heart, faith
in Christ Jesus, repentance toward God, love for the Savior, but
you've never confessed Christ as your Savior because you lack
assurance. You just presume that your faith
can't be real because it is not unwavering, because it still
has questions that plague your mind, because your repentance
doesn't have the fervor you think it should have, because you don't
have the burning love for Christ you know you ought to have. You
presume your faith is not real. And so you lack assurance. You've
had no climactic experience that you can point to like others
can and say, there, I know Christ is mine because I experienced
this. Salvation does not always involve
a Damascus Road experience like the Apostle Paul had. Sometimes,
more often than not, I would say, it's a gradual thing. We
don't all come to experience the grace of God alike. That's
the reason I read for you those three incidences in the Gospels
of our Lord graciously healing blind men. The need of grace
is always the same. And the grace we receive from
God is always the same. But the experience of grace varies
remarkably from one child of God to another. You remember
those blind men we read about? There was one blind man in Mark
chapter 8 that men brought him to the master and said, Lord,
we want you to put your hands on him and heal him. And I'll
tell you what I've discovered in these years I've been endeavoring
to preach the gospel of his grace. God never does things the way
I prescribe. and rarely does them the way
I think they'll be done. So rather than laying his hands
on the blind man so these fellows could see what the Lord was doing,
he takes him out of the town privately and spit in his eyes and then touched his eyes with
his hands and said, do you see? And he said, well, I can see
a little, but not much. I see men as trees walking and
the Lord touched his eyes a second time. He said, now what do you
see? And he looked up and he saw every man clearly. And then
going out of Jericho in Mark chapter 10, there was a man by
the name of Bartimaeus. He was blind, just as blind as
the fellow in John chapter 8. Bartimaeus, however, sat by the
highwayside begging, and nobody bothered to bring him to the
Savior. In fact, when he heard that the master was coming back,
he cried, Jesus of Nazareth, thou son of David, have mercy
on me. And the Lord's disciple said, shut up, don't bother the
man. He wasn't encouraged at all. And the master heard him,
and he stood still and said, bring him to me. And they said,
the master's calling for you. And they brought him to him,
and the Lord said to him, said, what would you like me to do
for you? He said, that I may receive my sight. And the Lord
Jesus said, Your faith has made you whole. And he opened his
eyes and could see perfectly. And then in John chapter 9 there's
a fellow born blind. And the Lord's disciples said,
who sinned, this man or his parents? Somebody's responsible for this.
And the master made a remarkable statement. He said, nobody sinned. Neither this man nor his parents
have sinned. Man, folks jump on that. Sometimes the scriptures
are written in such a way as to give goats something to jump
on. They totally deny what the scriptures teach about man's
sin. The Lord was saying, nobody's sin is what caused this. Not the man's nor his parents.
Adam's, but not his or his parents. And the Lord Jesus took that
man and spit on the ground. and stirred up some mud and put
a mud compact like you've seen on TV these days, put it on their
faces, put it right on his eyes. And said, now go wash in the
pool of Siloam, go wash in the place that's called Sint. And
he went and washed, washed the mud off his eyes and came back
seeing clearly. Now just suppose these three
fellas meet up somewhere down the road and they get to talking
about, you know, I met Jesus of Nazareth. I was blind and
he calls me to see. Is that right? He spit in your
eyes? Do what? Spit in my eyes? No. No. He didn't spit in your
eyes? No, he didn't spit in my eyes.
And the fella there in John 9, he says, Barney Mason, did he
spit on the ground and make some mud and put it in your eyes?
What on earth are you talking about? No. He just said your
faith has made you whole and I received my sight. But the
fella in Mark 8 looks at Bartimaeus and the fella in John 9 looks
at Bartimaeus and looks at the fella in Mark 8 and says, ah,
he don't know what's going on. He never met the master. Or they
start at two different denominations, mudden-eyed Baptist and non-mudden-eyed
Baptist. Because we all like to measure
everybody by ourselves. And we all like to measure our
experience by someone else's experience, rather than looking
to God's Word for instruction. I've said all that to say this,
if you trust Christ, if you repent of your sins, if God has opened
the windows of heaven and dropped faith in your heart, given you
love for the Redeemer, No matter when or where you began to do
so, if you trust Christ, you're born of God. An heir of God,
you have eternal life. But Brother Don, how can you
say that? I didn't. I didn't. God did. Whosoever believeth that Jesus
is the Christ is born of God. Whosoever believeth that Jesus
is the Christ is born of God. There's got to be more to it
than that. You try making more to it than that, and you push
yourself right out of the kingdom of God. You add something to
it, and you push yourself right out of the kingdom of God. If
God the Holy Spirit has given you faith in Christ, I urge you,
confess Christ this day. I hope this message will be used
of God to give you the full assurance of faith that speaks peace to
the hearts of God's people. It's so sad, people spend so
much time debating and arguing about who's saved and who's lost. Who knows God and who doesn't
know God? John Newton expressed it very
well. He said, when I get to heaven,
I'm sure there'll be, I'll be greatly surprised by three things.
Many will be there I never thought would be there. Many will not
be there I was sure would be there. And most surprising of
all is old John Newton will be there. It is not my business to examine
your faith. And it is not your business to
examine my faith. It is my business to examine
my faith. It ought to be my concern to
make my calling and election sure before God. It is your business
to examine your faith. It ought to be your concern to
make your calling and election sure before God. The admonition
of scripture is examine yourselves whether you be in the faith. Prove your own selves. Know ye
not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except
ye be reprobate? Examine yourselves, whether you're
in the faith, that faith that confesses that Jesus is the Christ. Jesus of Nazareth actually did
accomplish all that God in his word declared that the Christ
would accomplish by his obedience unto death as the sinner's substitute. Whosoever believeth that Jesus
is the Christ, he's born of God. Some think if you doubt, you're
damned. Others think if you don't doubt,
you're damned. What does God say? If it's possible for a person
to have assurance, I want to have it. And God declares it
is possible. In fact, in fact, there is no
reason for believers, any believer, not to enjoy that which God the
Holy Ghost calls the full assurance of faith. Turn back to 1 John
chapter 5 for just a minute. 1 John chapter 5. I want you
to see this. when I was preaching to you through
this blessed epistle, I reminded you a number of times, almost
all the commentaries that you read on this, almost all the
sermons you hear on 1 John, folks are going through 1 John, you
get a commentary on 1 John, they introduce the commentary by telling
you that John is writing this commentary to cause people to
question themselves and question their salvation. No, John didn't
write it for that purpose. In fact, he says exactly the
opposite. Look here in 1 John 5 verse 10.
He that believeth on the Son of God hath. Is that what it says? It doesn't
say he ought to have, he should pray to have. It says he that
believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. Inside
here He that believeth not God has made him alive because he
believeth not the record that God has given of his son And
this is the record that God has given to us eternal life and
this life is in his son Now he that believes on the Son of God
has the witness in himself. God's given me life. This life
is in his son He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath
not the Son of God hath not life Well now John, why did you say
that? What's all this written for? Well, you need to look inside
yourself and search and see if you have any reason to believe
that Christ is in you. Do what? Do what? Now, I'm telling you the truth.
I know people, you're going to think I'm stretching it a little.
But I'm telling you the absolute truth. Many, many, many years
ago, there were some very pious monks. You know, monks, those
fellows who wear ugly robes, and they serve those fellows
who dress in dragon robe. Monks. They live in idiot houses. They call them
monasteries. Idiot houses. And they all have
their little cells, and they have certain disciplines. Some
monks have a vow of silence. And if you don't make any noise,
It proves you're godly. Well, all right. And some monks do chores and
they do good works and some monks help the poor and they have all
kinds of reasons for doing various things. And they go to their
cells and they have their disciplines and they will take quips and
beat themselves. This is an order of monks that
had a very unique spiritual discipline. Now, this is what they did when
they really wanted to get close to God. They'd go to their cells
and pull up their robes and sit down and bend over and stare
at their navels. They'd stare at their navels,
looking inside themselves, as it were. And looking in themselves
to see what hope you have. That's just about the kind of
assurance almost all religion teaches. Look in yourself and
see if you can find a reason to think that Christ is in you.
That's not what God says. God says, He that believeth on
the Son hath everlasting life. The issue is, are you in the
faith? Look what it says, 1 John chapter
5, verse 13. These things have I written unto
you, that believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may
know, that you may know, that you may know, that you believe,
that you have eternal life, and that you believe on the name
of the Son of God. Well, how can that be? How can
that be? Surely, surely you've got to
There's got to be some things you do. Surely there's got to
be some things you feel. Surely there's got to be some
things that you can point to as experiences of grace. Well,
let's see. David had murdered Uriah and stole
his wife and had many others murdered
to kill Uriah so it didn't look like he murdered Uriah. Is that
right, Larry? That's exactly what the book
tells us, isn't it? That's David. And he spent a year covering
it up. And you know what he wrote? You know what he wrote? Lord,
restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. He spoke with confidence that
God's is. For Nathan said to David, when
he said, I have sinned, Nathan said, the Lord has put away your
sin. And David said, oh, blessed is the man. Blessed is the man
to whom the Lord will not impute sin. How could he say that? He
believed that Jesus is the Christ. That's how he could say that.
He believed on the Son of God, the Apostle Peter. He denied the Lord three times in Pilate's judgment hall when the Lord warned him plainly
he was about to do so. And he protested and said, not
me, I won't do that. And then he said to the disciples,
Fellas, it's all over with me, I'm going back fishing. And the
Lord Jesus met him at the Sea of Galilee and he said, Simon,
now this is just me and you talking. Just me and you. Nobody else around here, just
me and you. Lovest thou me? And he said,
Lord, you know all things. You know that I love you. In
the teeth of all that I've done, in the teeth of all that I am,
you know that I love you. The Apostle Paul said, I know
whom I have believed. And therefore, he writes with
confident assurance, being justified by faith. we have peace with
God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by
faith into this grace wherein we stand. And standing here,
we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. I want what God alone
can give, an assurance of hope, assurance of confidence, assurance
of faith, built upon and arising from this book, the Word of God. Now let me try to give you this
message in three or four points. First, understand that there
are three things essential to knowing God. Three things essential to entering
the Kingdom of Heaven. Three things essential to being
saved by God's grace. First, we've got to have a new
nature. Our Savior said, you must be
born again. You must be born again. And this new birth is not something
you can do. You must be born again. This aspect of God's salvation
is something about which and in which man is totally passive. I shouldn't say that. No, no. No, when God said, let there
be light and there was light, everything was passive. But in
you, everything is opposed to God. There is a continual corruption
in your nature and in your heart. So if you're born again, it is
something that must be done to you and in you by someone outside
you, and that someone is God the Holy Ghost. Except a man
be born of the flesh, born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot
enter into the kingdom of God. This new birth, the work of God
the Holy Spirit giving dead sinners life in Christ Jesus barely barely
I say unto you except a man be born of the water and spirit
he cannot enter the kingdom of God why is that that which is
born of flesh is flesh and that was born of the Spirit of Spirit
marvel not that I said unto you you must be born again well how
Lord how the wind bloweth where it listed Thou hearest the sound
thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth. So is every one that is born
of the Spirit. God the Holy Spirit comes sovereignly
upon whom he will and gives life to dead sinners. He is not dictated
to by you or by me. He gives life to whom he will.
It is the Spirit that quickeneth. The flesh profiteth nothing. I presume that baby is downstairs
with Grandma, and there he is related to all of us. That dear
little baby, related to all of us, doesn't give it one thing
up toward God. But surely, surely being related
to a preacher, being related to believers, being related to
faithful men, surely that'll make a difference. Oh, no. Oh,
no. Oh, no. Mm-mm. Oh, no. No, no. You see, all are by nature
born corrupt and corrupted. And God alone gives life. And that new life is a new creation. It is Christ in you, the hope
of glory. You've got to have a new nature.
Not only that, but you've got to have perfect righteousness. Brother Cody brought that message
Sunday night on Matthew 5, 20 on one righteousness. Our Savior
said, except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness
of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into
the kingdom of heaven. Righteousness? Righteousness
better than the scribes and Pharisees? Perfect righteousness. God will
not accept. God will not embrace. God will not take to himself
anything less than perfection. It must be perfect to be accepted. If you and I are to be received
and accepted of God, blessed of God in eternal salvation,
we must have a perfect righteousness. That righteousness is Christ
our Lord. It's called the righteousness
of God in Christ. Our Lord Jesus Christ, by His
obedience, brought in everlasting righteousness in the room instead
of His people. perfectly obeying God for us. And it is this righteousness
that God freely gives to all who trust His Son. Righteousness
God will accept. You bring God what you want to. You bring God whatever you want
to. Whatever you want to. Your faith and your good works.
Your faith and your experience. Your faith and your knowledge.
Your faith in your repentance, your faith in your change of
life, your faith in your Bible reading, your faith in your warm
feeling of love, your faith in your love for your brethren.
Bring God whatever you want to, whatever it is. Whatever you
bring to God, I promise you, whatever it is, will not give
you peace. Some of you have been struggling
for peace for years and you can't get it. You can't find it. It's
out of your grasp, because you keep trying to bring God something
along with Christ. That's just fact. And you know
it's fact. And your conscience keeps saying,
not enough. Not enough. Not enough. And your conscience torments
you. You have no peace. You keep pretending. I know the
Lord, yes, I've been saved for a long time, but your conscience
keeps telling you you're a liar. You know that's not so. Well,
pastor, what do you bring to God? I bring God perfection. Perfection. I bring God what
God himself can't refuse. Clean hands and a pure heart. and the life of a man who's never
lifted up his soul to vanity are sworn deceitfully. I bring
God the very righteousness of God. God accept me through Christ
my righteousness. If any man sin, we have an advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ. What's it say? Jesus Christ the
righteous. and He is the propitiation for
our sins. Do we then make void the law
through faith? Oh no! Everybody else by their
false faith makes void the law. We establish the law because
we bring the law what the law requires, perfect righteousness.
Now I'm beginning to shrink so I can't use the same illustration
I used to. Y'all notice I've, man I'm down, I have to jump
around the shower to get wet and get some skin in. That particle
sun, When he came home, his daddy said, bring forth the best robe
and put it on him. The best robe. He went and got
it. Put him on him. Perfect fit. Look at that. Just down to a
52 now. 52. Look at that. It fits perfect, doesn't it?
Doesn't it? That's the robe. the robe of
Christ, perfect righteousness, and it fits every sinner perfectly,
perfectly. What is it you've got to have
to have acceptance with God? You've got to have atonement
for sin, complete satisfaction for the justice of God. Somebody's
got to pay. Justice demands it. Without the
shedding of blood is no remission. It is the blood that maketh atonement
for sin. Turn one more time to that blessed,
blessed passage in 2 Corinthians chapter 5. I'll come back to
the same subject again tonight, if the Lord will it. 2 Corinthians
chapter 5. God demands satisfaction. God
demands satisfaction. And they say that so you get
it. God demands satisfaction. God's going to punish your sin.
You understand that? God's going to punish your sin.
He's going to so thoroughly punish your sin, He says, all right,
that's enough. That's enough. He's going to
punish your sins until he says, OK, that pleases me. That satisfies me. And if he
doesn't find satisfaction, hell will go on burning in you forever. Bless God, there's one place
where he found satisfaction. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. And when the Lord God made His
Son sin for us. He punished His Son with all
the hell there is. With all the hell there is. With all the fury and fire and
anger and indignation of his holy wrath until it was all gone. God said, that's enough. And
justice was satisfied. Let's see if that's what God
says. 2 Corinthians 5, 21 or 5, 17. Therefore, if any man
be in Christ, he's a new creature. Old things have passed away.
Behold, all things have become new. And all things are of God,
who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and given to
us the ministry of reconciliation, to wit that God was in Christ,
reconciling the world unto himself. reconciling his elect scattered
through all the world, not imputing their righteousnesses, their
trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of
reconciliation. Now then, we're ambassadors for
Christ. As though God did beseech you
by us, we pray you in Christ's head, be you reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin
for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. Back in our text in Romans 5. Believing on Christ. Believing
on Christ, we receive this blessed atonement. Paul said we're justified. We have peace with God. We have access by faith into
this grace. This is where we stand and rejoice.
Now watch this, verse 11. Not only so, but we also joy
in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received
the atonement. with joy in God, through our
Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. Believing God, we receive unto
our souls. We receive into our hearts. We receive unto our consciences
to the cleansing of our souls by the sprinkling of the blood
of Christ. Cleansing us from evil works to serve the true
and living God. And now these consciences that
once were tormented with guilt and tormented with sin and tormented
with the law have peace. And joy in God. Embracing the atonement, embracing
complete, perfect reconciliation in and by Christ Jesus the Lord. Brother Don, what is your assurance? How can you speak so confidently? Jesus Christ is my assurance. That's all. That's all. But you told us about some of
your experiences. That's nothing. I had no experience like Judas
had. Did you? Man, Judas had a great experience. He walked with and touched and
handled and ate supper with the Son of God in human flesh. Did
you? I never had an experience like
Balaam had. Did you? I didn't. Well, doesn't experience
mean anything? Nothing. Nothing. Well, but you've
been pastoring now for over 40 years, preaching the gospel since
you was just a boy. Yeah, I have. I have. Not near as well as others who
never knew God. But you spent your life studying
the Word. Oh, if I could tell you what goes on when I'm studying
the Word, you wouldn't count much for that. No? No, my works don't count for
anything. They don't give me one thing. But people speak well
of you. Most of the time, most of the
time they do. I'll agree with that. But Merle
Hart, your good opinion of me these 35 years doesn't give me
any peace with God. Because you're a man just like
me. And it's easy enough for me to
impress you. That's not hard to do. But Lindsay, impressing
God, that's something else. Impressing God. What will impress
God? God will impress God. His son impresses him. He says,
this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Christ is
my assurance. Brother Lindsey has often told
the story of Charles Wesley standing in a balcony in a hotel many,
many years ago. And there's a storm coming up
and he's standing there and a bird flew in, flew right into Wesley's
coat or his robe he had on. And he went in and wrote a song.
Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly. That's my shirt. That's it. Whatever the storms arise within
or without, let me fly to Him who is my Redeemer, who alone
is my Redeemer. Yes, I'm justified by faith,
having peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And I
have access by faith into this grace. And here I stand rejoicing
in hope. of the glory of God, because
my name, from the palms of his hands, eternity will not erase. Impressed on his heart, it remains
in marks of indelible grace. And yes, I, to the end, shall
endure. I, to the end, shall endure,
as sure as the earnest is given. More happy, but not more secure,
the glorified spirits in heaven. Oh, may God give you faith in
his son. Even that faith, that faith,
which is the full assurance of faith, whereby we draw nigh to
God with full confidence of hope. everlasting glory in Christ Jesus. Amen.