Spiritual Assurance Vs Carnal Presumption

Now, my subject is spiritual
assurance versus carnal presumption. Assurance of salvation, confidence
of our interest in the kingdom of God is not difficult to find. Actually, if you took a poll
of everybody in Ashland in the tri-state area, I'm confident
that you'd find more optimism than doubt, you'd find much more
confidence than you would fear. For every one person who fears
that he may meet God at the judgment and be turned away, for every
one person who fears that he may not be saved, You'll find
ten who are confident that when they die, they're going to heaven. So assurance is not difficult
to find. It's everywhere. It's everywhere. Of course you'll find assurance
among those who really know the Lord. The Apostle John says,
we know we have passed from death unto life because we love the
brethren. We know that we're in the kingdom
of God. We know that we're in the fold
of Christ. The Bible talks about full assurance
or confidence of our interest in the Redeemer. Job was very
emphatic when he said, I know that my Redeemer liveth. And
though this body some day shall go back to the dust, be eaten
of the worms, yet in my flesh with these eyes I'm going to
see the Lord." The Apostle Paul said, I know whom I have believed. I am persuaded he's able to keep
that which I've committed unto him against that day. So among
the believer, the faithful, you'll find assurance, you'll find confidence
of their interest in Christ. But amazingly, you'll also find
this same assurance among the religious but lost. Just a few days ago I was having
supper in a home. The conversation was on this
vein. Many people in the churches today
are not saved. Many people in the churches today
do not know the Lord. And finally the statement was
made, there is no perfect church. Around the table were three ministers
and several people whom I believe really knew the Lord. Not one
of them said a word. The man at the table whom I suspected
through his own rebellion against the gospel of substitution and
the gospel of grace, who gave no evidence whatsoever of being
a child of God, the one person who spoke up and said this, Well,
if I were the only member of a church, you'd have a perfect
church. That's the only person that spoke up and said, I know
that I'm all right. You'll find that assurance among
the religious but lost. The Pharisees said that. One
of them stood in the temple and said, God, I thank you I'm not
like other men. Why, I fast, I tithe, I give
alms to the poor. I'm not an extortioner, I'm not
an adulterer, I'm not an unjust man, I'm not like the publicans,
I thank you God, I'm not like other men. You'll find that confidence,
that assurance among religious people who haven't the slightest
knowledge of how God saves a sinner. I heard a song on the radio not
too many weeks ago that went like this, Build me a mansion
next door to Jesus. Now that's confidence. and tell
the angels, alert all of the angels in glory, Gabriel and
Michael and all the rest of them, that I'm coming home. You won't
find any more assurance than that. That is the height of presumption. Don't build me a mansion down
the street somewhere, put it next door to Jesus Christ, that's
where I belong, and notify all the angels that I'm coming home. That doesn't sound like the songs
of old that go like this, Here I raise mine Ebenezer, hither
by thy help I am come, and I hope by God's good pleasure safely
to arrive at home. You'll find assurance among the
carnal religious lost people. We sing that song when we all
get to heaven. Well, you know and I know we're
not all going to heaven. And then you'll find assurance.
It's not hard to find. You'll find it among the faithful.
You'll find it among the religious, but the lost. And you'll find
it even among the wicked. Back many years ago, they arrested
Adolf Eichmann, the man who was responsible for the death of
six million Jewish people. According to the papers and according
to the trial, according to the reports and so forth, he carried
out the orders of his superiors and destroyed, by way of torture
and other methods, six million people. And when he was in his
prison cell, a minister asked permission to talk with him about
his soul. And this minister came into the
cell, and this was reported in the newspaper. The minister came
in his cell and asked him if he would be interested in hearing
about Jesus Christ, our Mediator. To which Eichmann replied, I
don't need a Mediator. I can go to God myself. I don't need anybody between
me and God. Here was a man whose hands were
dripping with the blood. pain and torture and death of
billions of people, and yet in his carnal presumption, in his
wicked confidence, I don't need a mediator. Why, I can go directly
to God myself. The Samaritan woman who had been
married five times and was living with a man who was not her husband,
a very carnal person, outwardly in every way, When she spoke
to the Lord Jesus at the well, she began to argue with him about
the place a person ought to worship. She said, now you Jews say that
we ought to worship in Jerusalem. We worship in this mountain. And our Lord said, you worship,
you don't know what you worship. We had a young man come here
to this church several years ago. He was from Georgia. I was sitting here in the chair,
and one of the men came up. Don was leading the singing,
or Ronnie, and one of the men came up and whispered for me
to come to talk to him, and I went up here and walked up to the
front. He said, ìThereís a fellow back
in your study who wants to see you.î Well, I said, ìTell him
to wait after church.î He said, ìWell, I told him that, and he
said he wants to see you right now.î So I left the platform,
went back there, and there stood a pretty nice-looking fellow
in his thirties, and I said, what can I do for you? He said,
well, I figured a fellow from Georgia would help another fellow
from Georgia. But I said, I'm not from Georgia,
I'm from Alabama. And I said, what's your problem?
He said, well, I need some help. I said, well, it'll have to wait
till after church. Now, you go on in the auditorium. a sermon
to preach, and I'll talk to you later. Why did you interrupt
the service?" He said, well, I figured you'd want to tell
your people about me and ask them to help me. So I preached
that morning after the service. Some of the men met with him,
and to make a long story short, our church just went out on the
limb for him. Our men helped him, and some
of them gave him clothes and food and pots and pans and paid
his apartment and sent him groceries and did all his wife was expecting.
And he was the son of a preacher and all this sort of thing, and
finally wanted to borrow a hundred dollars. So I began to try to
find out who he was. And I called the chief of police
down in his hometown, and the chief police told me he was a
crook, that he made his living by going around over the United
States conning churches, just like he was conning us. And Paul
Williams and I went down to his apartment. We were pretty upset,
and we went down to tell him to leave town. and do it pretty
quickly. So we went down and told him
we knew who he was and what he was up to, and he asked if we
had the police, and we told him no, but we'd give him the opportunity
to leave town without calling the police. But if he didn't,
we would call them. And I made the statement, I said,
young fellow, I said, if I was you, I'd seek the Lord. I tell
you, this thing you're doing is a great, great sin and error,
and if I was you, I'd ask God to save me. He said, save me. I am saved. I said, you can't
tell me I'm not a Christian. Brethren, if you're looking for
assurance, it's not hard to find. You find it everywhere. Everybody's
got assurance. Everybody's saved. Everybody's
on his way to heaven. Our Lord said, even at the judgment,
they're going to stand there and argue with the Lord. Even
at the last judgment, in that great day of condemnation, they're
going to stand there and say, Lord, you can't condemn us. We preached in your name and
cast out devils in your name, and we have done many wonderful
works in your name. Even at the judgment. Look at
our text, Isaiah 28. In verse 15, they said, We have a covenant with death. We have a covenant with death. The problem is not assurance.
The problem is this. Do I have a genuine foundation
on which to base my assurance? Do I have a genuine spiritual
interest in Christ Jesus? Do I have a genuine reason for
believing that I'm going to heaven? that I'm a child of God, that
I'm numbered among the redeemed. Or is my assurance like the carnal
presumption of the Pharisee who said, we have Abraham to our
father, we have Moses and the prophets? I thank you, God, I'm
not like other men. I'm so holy, I'm so good. There's no doubt that I'm a child
of God. There's just no question about
it. Do we have a reason? We have made a covenant with
death. Most men are not afraid to die.
I find most people die pretty easily or with the aid of drugs
and with the aid of a soft, cool hand of a loving wife who says,
I'll see you in heaven, dear, should you go first and I remain.
You wait down the lane and I'll join you. And that soothes and
comforts the unsaved religious man. Men aren't afraid to die. They're not afraid of who's out
there, and they're not afraid of what's out there. Or they
receive their carnal presumption from some pastor who comes to
them and says, I know you're saved. I know you're a child
of God. Oh, you've lost the joy of your
salvation. You're a carnal Christian. Or
maybe you don't know all that you need to know, but I know
you're saved. Christ may not be your Lord,
but I know you're saved. We have made a covenant with
death. Look at the next line. And with hell are we at agreement. We know there's a hell. We believe
there's a hell. We think there ought to be a
hell. We're in agreement with hell. There ought to be a judgment.
Yes, sirree. Well, we believe there's a hell.
Don't we tell everybody to go to hell that we don't agree with?
We're in agreement with hell. And look at this. When the overflowing
scourge, when the judgment of God when the piercing, revealing
eye of God shall pass through. It won't come unto us. That's
what that carnal, religious, presumptuous man said to me a
few days ago. Not me. Not me. Peter said, Lord, these other
fellows might deny you, but not me. He was the only one who really
did. It won't come unto us. We have a refuge. It's a refuge of lies, but it's
a refuge. It's a refuge of lies, but at
least it's a refuge. We have a refuge. It's a religious
refuge. And under falsehood, have we
hid ourselves? We have a hiding place. We'll
hide from God's wrath. We'll hide from God's judgment.
We'll hide in our decision. Didn't we make a decision? Mom,
don't you remember when I was nine years old and was having
that revival down in the old country church and the preacher
gave the invitation? You remember I went down? That's
my hiding place. Oh, when the overflowing scourge
shall pass through, I'll just hide in my little profession
of faith. I'll hide in my decision. I'll hide in my doctrine. I'll
hide in this, my morality. I'll hide in my good deeds. I
remember when I did this and this and this for somebody. We've
got a hiding place. But oh, verse 17, God says, Judgment
also will I lay to the lion. Now, I'm not a good carpenter,
but I've done a little carpenter work, and I know one thing, if
you're going to do carpenter work, there's one thing you've
got to have, and that's a chalk line. It's just almost impossible
to get along without a chalk line. And if you try to saw a
line or draw the boards without a line, you may eye it pretty
good. You may think you've got it pretty straight, but if you'll
stretch that chalk line and snap it, you'll find out it's just
like this. just like this. And God Almighty says, one of
these days I'm going to lay judgment to the lion. I'm going to put
the chalk line on every son of Adam. And we're going to find
out that we have sinned and come short of God's perfection. of
God's straight glory. Read on. And he said in verse
17, and righteousness, your righteousness, I'm going to submit to the plumb
bob. I'm going to drop the plumb bob.
And while you look at it and it looks pretty good, when God
puts the plumb bob of His holiness up against it, you're going to
see how far off it really is. It's going to be a terrible time.
Going to be a terrible time. When God stretches the line,
When God Almighty drops the plummet, these money-loving, glory-seeking,
gospel butchers called preachers are going to be exposed. They're
going to be exposed. When God drops the line, the
plummet, when God Almighty stretches the line of His righteousness,
not what we think, not what we've been told, these Bible-quoting
bigoted Negro-hating, church-going, deacons and Sunday school teachers,
North and South, are going to be exposed. When God stretches
the line, when God drops the plumb bob, these Sunday morning
religionists, who spend Sunday morning singing all hail the
power of Jesus' name, and the rest of the week lying, cursing,
cheating, robbing, are going to be exposed. God Almighty said,
in that day, I'm going to put it to the line. In that day,
I'm going to put your profession to the plumb off. And the hail
is going to sweep away your refuge of lies, and the water is going
to overflow your hiding place. Your sins and shortcomings are
going to be exposed. And that cold, pious legalist
who called Jesus Christ Savior with his lips, While his heart
was far from him, who cleaned up the outside, appeared beautiful
unto men, but on the inside was full of corruption and hatred
and malice, going to be exposed. The doctrinalist, the denominationalist,
the theologian, who had God all figured out and the ways of God
all charted, while he never had a humbling personal experience
of grace with the living God in his heart, going to be exposed. And some of these, I told Doris this morning, turn
that television off, I can't bear to watch another minute
of these hot-shot, flashy quartet singers and religious hucksters.
They entertain sinners on their road to hell. They never had
time to study this book and seek out God's way of redemption.
They're going to be exposed someday. They're going to be exposed.
God Almighty says, I'm going to stretch the line. I'm going
to drop the plumb bob. And these Hollywood evangelists
who are touring the churches, touring the nation, robbing churches,
and living off the fat of the land while they compromise the
Word of God and give false hope to sinners, are going to be exposed. Verse 18, and your covenant with
death is going to be disannulled. Your agreement with hell is not
going to stand. When the overflowing scourge
shall pass through God's judgment, God's righteousness, you're going
to be trodden down by it, he said. I dreamed that the great
judgment morning had dawned and the trumpet had blown. I dreamed
that the nations had gathered for judgment before God's great
throne. From his throne came a bright
shining angel and stood on the land and the sea, and he swore
with his hand raised to heaven that time no longer would be. The moral man came to God's judgment,
but his self-righteous rags would not do. The men who had crucified
the Savior had passed off as moral men too. The rich man was
there, but his riches had melted and vanished away. A pauper he
stood at God's judgment. His debts were too heavy to pay. The man who had put off the gospel. Not today. I'll believe by and
by. No time right now to think of
the judgment. At last he found time to die. And oh, what a weeping and a
wailing. Look down here at verse 19, the
last line. It'll be a vexation just to understand
the report. It'll be a vexation just to hear
the report of it. Not talking about taking part
in it, not talking about being exposed by it, not talking about
being separated from God by it, not talking about being sent
to hell by it, just to hear about it about that day. Oh, what a weeping and wailing,
as the lost were told of their fate. They didn't know it before. It's going to be a surprise.
It's going to come in upon them as a surprise. They were deceived. A man who knows is not deceived. A man who is aware is not deceived. But they're told of their fate,
and they cried for the rocks and mountains, and they prayed
But prayer was too late, too late. Judgment, I'm going to
put to the line, my line. Righteousness, I'm going to put
to the plumbob, God's plumbob of holiness. And then, your covenant
with death is going to be disannulled. Your refuge of lies is going
to be swept away. your hiding place where you have
hid safely and sufficiently, deceiving everybody and yourself
too, God's going to flood that hiding place and you'll be flushed
out. Flushed out. And it'll be a vexation
just to hear about it. It'll be a vexation just to understand
the report of it. But brethren, verse 16, There
is a safe refuge. There is a hiding place. There is a firm hope. There is
a sure foundation. There is a place where we can
hide, and hide from the wrath, the judgment, the penalty of
God's justice. But it's not in the law. It's not in our own experience.
It's not in our works. It's not in our morality. It's
in the foundation and the hiding place God laid. Look at verse
16, Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I lay in Zion. This work of building a refuge
is God's work. This work of laying a sufficient
foundation is God's work. I lay it. I lay in Zion for a
foundation of stone. Now this stone, who is it? This
stone is not a religious system. This stone is not a religious
ordinance. I don't stand here this morning
and say, now you need to be a Baptist, or you need to be a Methodist,
or you need to be a Presbyterian, or you need to be a Catholic.
Those names aren't in God's Word. They never existed until man
started establishing his own way of life, and his own religious
systems, and his own way of salvation. This foundation is not a church,
this foundation is not a system of morality that differs with
the country where you're living. This foundation, this refuge,
this hiding place is a person. Now if you'll think back at the beginning
of this message, I said there was assurance, there was assurance
found among the faithful. And I quoted some men of God
whom we know are saved. David said, the Lord is my shepherd. Job said, I know my Redeemer
living. Peter said, we are redeemed not
with corruptible things but with the precious blood of Christ.
Paul said, I know whom I have believed. Now you hear all those
testimonies? Every one of them who says that
he knows he's saved, He's basing that knowledge and that confidence
on what? On Christ, on a person. Now listen to the Pharisee. I
thank thee, Lord, I'm not like other men. What's he basing his
hope on? What he is. His difference from
other people, his religious morality, his religious profession, his
religious holiness. I know I'm saved because I'm
not like other men. Lord, I tithe, I fast, I give
alms. You see the difference? Paul
said, I know whom I have believed. This man says, I know what I
trust. Job said, I know my Redeemer
liveth. This man says, I know my works
are good. The people at the judgment, what
did they say? They didn't say, Lord, Christ
died for us. Lord, our faith was in thy Son. Lord, Christ obeyed the law.
They said, no, here's what they said, we prophesied in your name,
we cast out devils in your name, we did many wonderful works in
your name. We did it! We did it! Peter said, Christ did it! We
are redeemed not with corruptible things, but with the precious
blood of Christ. He died for us. Isaiah said he
was wounded for our transgressions by his stripes. Will he or she
see the difference? If I can't make you see the difference,
God help you. The believer is a believer in
Christ. Christ is that rock. Christ is
that Passover. The Lord showed us that all the
way through the Old Testament when the Jews were down in Egypt
and God would deliver them out. He told them to put blood on
the door. And He said, when I see the blood, I'll pass over you.
Now every year after that, they observed what they called a Passover
feast. And they ate the lamb. And He
said, this Passover commemorates your deliverance. Now the Word
of God says Christ is our Passover. Christ is our Passover. And when
we come to the Lord's table, we eat the bread and drink the
wine. The bread represents His body and the wine represents
His blood. And we're showing His death till
He comes. It's a person. God was manifest
in the flesh. God in Christ reconciled the
world unto Himself. Christ Jesus is our substitute,
Christ Jesus is our advocate, Christ Jesus is our life. And
when you go to measuring a person to find out whether or not he's
a saved person, you can't measure him by his outward walk and his
outward deeds and his outward talk. You've got to cut into
his heart and find out if he loves Christ. You've got to cut
into his mind and find out if he believes in Christ. You've
got to cut into his will, into his desire, and see if there's
a desire there, a motive, an attitude for the glory of God. God says, Behold, I lay in Zion
for a foundation, a stone, and other foundation can no man lay
than that which God laid, Christ Jesus. Now brethren, words can
mean anything at all, and I don't know how to make them plainer. He said, you've got a hiding
place, but he said, I laid a hiding place. He said, you've got a
refuge, but he said, I gave a refuge. He said, you've got a foundation,
but he said, I lay a real foundation, a stone. Now read on. A tried stone. What does that
mean? Christ is a stone. He's a tried
stone. Well, number one, As our representative,
Christ was tried by the law. The law tried him. He was tried
in all points, as we are, and he never sinned. How else was
he tried? He was tried in the courts of
men. Pilate said, I find no fault in him. How else was he tried? He was tried in the presence
of his Father who said, This is my Son in whom I am well pleased. In the believer's life every
day he's tried, and he never fails. He is my confidence, he
is my assurance, he is my comfort, he is my peace, he is my rest,
he is my refuge. He never fails. I fail, but he
never fails. He's the same yesterday, today,
and forever. And by his stripes I'm healed.
He was tried. Read on. A tribestone, and he's
a precious cornerstone. Now brethren, let me tell you
this. The believer who has a genuine foundation, that foundation is
Christ. He's a believer in Christ. Secondly,
he is a believer in Christ who is his substitute, his representative,
the tribestone. But now listen to this. Christ
to that believer is and always will be precious. Precious. Christ is not only precious to
the Father, he's not only precious to the angels, he's not only
precious to the heavenly hosts, but he is so precious to the
believer that Christ Jesus to that believer
is more important than his mother and father, more important than
his wife and children, more important than his brother and sister,
More important than his job, more important to him than his
own life. That's how precious he is. Precious. Precious. Precious. Christ said,
if you love mother and father more than me, you're not worthy
of me. You cannot be my disciple. John
Newton wrote it this way. How tedious and tasteless the
hour when Jesus no longer I see. sweet prospects, sweet birds
and sweet flowers have all lost their sweetness for me. The midsummer
sun shines but dim, the fields strive in vain to look gay, but
when I'm happy in him, December is as pleasant as May. Content
with beholding his face, my awe to his pleasure resigns. No changes
of season or place would make any change in my mind. While
blessed with a sense of His presence, a palace, a toy, would appear. And prisons would palaces prove
if Jesus would dwell with me there. Now I know there's a lot
of phoniness going on in this day about sweet Jesus this and
sweet Jesus that. You can tell phoniness when you
see it. I can recognize it 150 miles off. This phony religious talk and
phony religious vocabulary. But I'm telling you this, to
the believer, the Lord Jesus Christ is precious. He's precious. He is his life. And no human
blood tie can compare with that tie which we have with him. No
way. No way, no ambitions on this
earth can compare with the ambition to see Him, to be like Him, to
partake of His glory. No way, no way. And this is the refuge, this
is the hiding place. I lay in Zion a foundation, a
stone, a tried stone, and He's a precious stone. He's precious. He's so precious to that man,
He's as precious as that rock out there in the middle of the
troubled sea when the ship has gone down and he's clinging to
that rock and all around him is lightning and wind and rain
and darkness and great waves, he clings to that rock. That
rock is his refuge. Now look at the next line. He's
a sure foundation. Now you can have a lot of doubt
about your decision You say, brother man, let me tell you
about my experience. Back when I was 16 or 18 or something,
I made a profession, and I came down the aisle, the preacher-priest,
and you think I'll say, what difference does it make? What
difference does it make? You go back and prove it, it
doesn't make a bit of difference in the world. What counts is
right now. Right now. Do you know Christ? Is he your hope? Is he your confidant? We are being saved. I believe the Bible teaches that
we are saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved. Faith is
not an isolated experience. I don't have to carry a birth
certificate around to prove I'm born. Pinch me and I'll holler. I've got life in here now. I'm
not interested in what happened 49 years ago. I'm interested
right now. And I'm really not interested
in people's professions and their decisions and these things. Actually, faith is not an isolated
act. Faith is a state of being. I
have believed, I am believing. And brother, ten years from now,
I hope to know more about Christ than I do now. I hope for Christ
to be more precious then than he is now. Let me ask you, do you think
I'm saved? I believe the Bible is God's Word, and I believe
Christ died on the cross. Do you think I'm saved? The issue here is do you know
Him? That's the issue. Do you trust
Him? Do you believe in Him? It's not a question of whether
I think you're saved or anybody else thinks you're saved. Is
Christ your foundation? The psalm writer said, This swift
to its close ebbs out life's little day, Earth's joys grow
dim, earth's glories pass away, Change and decay all around me
I see, O thou who changest not, abide with me. God hath a sure foundation given,
and firm as his throne in heaven, on this foundation, Christ Jesus,
let your faith and hope rest, and with his saints in glory
you will be forever blessed." A little boy came running in
one day and he said, Mama, Mama, Mama, a beef stung me. He was
just crying, tears running down his eyes. hand began to swell,
and Mama ran and got the tweezers and plucked out the stinger and
kissed it, you know, make it well. Put a little curacroma
iodine on it and told him to go back out and play, and a few
minutes he came running back in, Mama, Mama, that old bee's
after me again. She said, now you get on out
and play. He said, he can't hurt you, his stinger's gone. He lost
his stinger. And brother, I tell you, death
and judgment and condemnation may be on my trail, but I'm not
afraid because The sting of death is sin, and the sting of death
was planted in the heart of my Lord at Calvary's cross. And
death has lost its sting, and judgment has lost its sting,
and condemnation has lost its sting. Not because I pressed
down an isle, not because I shook a preacher's hand, not because
I went through the motions of baptism, not because I came down
and had a wafer slapped on my tongue by some fellow dressed
up like a monkey. I'm saved, I'm a child of God,
I'm on my way to glory because the sting of death was planted
in the heart of my Lord. He bore my sins, He paid my debt,
He satisfied God's justice, and that's my foundation. You say,
what's your confidence, preacher? My only hope, my only plea, is
when Christ died, He died for me. And there is no other foundation,
and there is no other hope. And you hang on to whatever you
want to, but God says I'll disannul your covenant with death. I'll
expose your agreement with hell. I'll rout you out of your refuge
of lies. I'll flood your hiding place,
and you'll be trodden down by it, and just the report of it
will scare you to death. But if you're on him, if you're
on him, there is therefore now no condemnation to them who are
in Christ. And I'm not trying to be pious.
I can say with Paul, I'm the chief of sinners, less than the
least of all the saints, but I can say this, Christ died for
my sins, and he's my hope. Our Father in Heaven teach us
the gospel, expose our false refuges before judgment exposes
them, flush people out of these false hiding places before they're
driven out by the you

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Spiritual Assurance Vs Carnal Presumption

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