If you’d make your way to that text of Scripture, we’ll be in several texts here this morning. And we’re going to be dealing with the assurance of salvation debate. Okay, the word debate’s not in there, but it needs to be. Okay, the assurance of salvation debate, and in I’d say the last 15 years,

it has been a debate within our circles. Okay, so this is not one of those debates that’s in evangelicalism and does not touch fundamentalism. This is a debate, whether you know it or not, that has certainly been in our ranks. Now, I recognize that this morning, the material I’m going to present, that there’s going to be

several of you that perhaps will take the other side. I recognize that, and I’m going to try to be very careful in my presentation to not unnecessarily, and I don’t want to provoke anybody, and I’m certainly not out to have an argument, but I am out to do this, to challenge your thinking. Okay, so that’s my burden, to challenge your thinking.

And the reason I’m very burdened about this is I took the other position a few years ago. I have not always held this position until someone sat me down. I won’t say who, but someone who challenged my thinking for about three hours.

I bring up a passage, and he challenged my thinking. Bring up another passage, he challenged my thinking. Bring up another passage, challenged my thinking.

And that day there was a turning point. And it’s been a pilgrimage from that point to where I am now on this particular issue. But I’m going to prove the need of this, okay?

And I’m going to ask you to be dead honest with me because I’m going to tell you right up front that I am raising my hand. But how many of you would admit that in your Christian pilgrimage at least once, if not more, at least once you’ve had a fairly serious bout with doubting your salvation? You might even be in it.

Of course, we’re not going to ask that. But for those of you that have had that occur at least once in your life, would you with me raise your hand? Just raise them high and hold them there for a moment.

Okay? You can put your hands down. you see that I think this is an important issue, don’t you think? Now, although there’s obviously very different reasons of why people doubt their salvation, this may surprise you, I’m convinced that one of the main reasons, hang on,

people doubt their salvation is because of poor preaching. So what I want us to look at here, that’s why I’m challenging you, and I’ve had pastors, I remember one time I presented this material, and my brother John happened to be there, and he walked into the restroom after the session, And there was a pastor there and said, boy, I’ve been preaching it wrong. So his thinking had been challenged, okay?

And that’s a good thing. Isn’t it good when our thinking is challenged from the Word of God? Because we’ve got to go back to the Word of God and say, I want to make sure I’m getting this right.

Because, folks, it’s like this. We are spiritual obese, Pastor. Really, all of us are.

And it is important that we’re accurate. And so that’s my burden in this presentation. Now, my burden would be something like this. I have a young man who’s in the audience here, works with our ministry, and he knew a young

man who had been saved five times. I think he took the song, Save, Save, Save, literally. You know what I’m talking about?

So let me just put it here. Here’s my burden. When I preach, I mean this from the bottom of my heart, I want every lost person to walk out and know I’m lost. but I want every saved person to walk out and say I’m born again if somebody walks out who’s saved doubting their salvation when I preached I’ve got to reevaluate things and if people walk out who

are lost saying I’m saved and something’s wrong there too but I’m convinced if we will be precise scripturally that saved people can walk out rejoicing their salvation and lost people can walk out realizing I’m not saved okay that’s where we’re after and even the other side of this debate That is their goal too. In fact, many of them are my friends. They are good people. We have had many good discussions with different friends of mine,

different ones over the years. But this is within our ranks. Now, there’s two particular positions. The notes are, I’m going to bounce around somewhat,

but we’ll try to stay a little bit with the notes here. But there are, this is called the get lost issue. And this was coined back, I’m guessing, in the 70s, this terminology, get lost preaching.

How many of you have heard the terminology, get lost preaching? Raise your hand, okay? Get lost preaching, there was a very well-known in the 70s, I won’t mention the name, but there was a youth type of program. And in that program, I remember when I was a youth pastor for a short time, opening up their notebook, and the very first thing that the guy said is,

you’ve got to get your youth group saved. Well, I totally agree with that. He said, so before you get them saved, you’ve got to get them lost.

Well, I don’t have a problem with that if they are lost. but if they’re saved i don’t want to get them lost okay and so uh so i began to look through that and at that time i bought totally into that thinking and uh so the get lost had several messages there that would get lost preaching now get lost preaching is preaching that will try to get

saved people or excuse me lost people to believe they’re lost now again we have no problem with that goal but in the process if saved people doubt their salvation something’s wrong okay so this particular preaching will generally use all kinds of different tests plural or evidences plural and of course on the negative side which is the get lost side and of course get lost preaching’s

goal is to get people to doubt now have no problem if you doubt a salvation you don’t have okay we have no problem with that but again if you doubt a salvation you do have something is wrong so the first angle of this debate is looking at from the negative side preaching that gets people to doubt and again lost people that’s what we’re after but certainly not to get saved people

so if you look at the notes view number one we’re going to come back to the introduction in a moment but view number one get lost negative viewpoint goal doubt one perspective concerns how you get a person who thinks he’s saved to realize they’re lost it has been called the get lost issue because the idea is to get lost people to realize they are lost obviously have no problem with the goal

the issue is how you get there and whether or not your methodology calls to save people to doubt so There’s the two methodologies, preaching tests, plural, of salvation to show you’re lost. And my position would be preaching one test of salvation to show you’re lost. We’ll get to that in a moment.

Key, this is, I think, a methodology we’d all agree with. Your methodology should only give doubt to those that are lost. Do you agree with that?

Everybody has to. You have to. Okay.

So that’s where we’re going. Okay. That’s my heart in presenting this material.

Now look at view number two, and don’t turn the page because we’re coming back to the introduction. But assurance is the positive viewpoint. In other words, another perspective is from the viewpoint of assurance.

The goal here, obviously, is giving assurance. How does one know he is saved? Is it through multiple tests or is there one infallible test?

Two methodologies are the same. The key here is your methodology must only give assurance to true believers. Is that true?

Yeah. That’s our goal. Now let’s go back to the introduction because I want you to see something here. crossing the red sea is a picture of salvation and crossing the jordan river is a picture of entering the revived life or the rest life however you want to phrase it the life of restful battle when people are wandering in the wilderness some want to say that they need to be saved

when in reality they need to cross the jordan river to misdiagnose this condition and cause saved people to doubt does not help their pilgrimage toward revival you cannot cross the Jordan River if you have not sure you’ve crossed the Red Sea. Now folks, if you don’t believe that, get a map out of the Middle East. Because if you’re wandering in the Sinai Peninsula and you think you need to cross the Red Sea, you’re going the wrong direction.

Okay, so let’s just look at it from a geographical perspective. Now you can turn your page. Now there are two factors that I have noticed that have caused this issue to become prominent In the short time I’ve been in the ministry, 26 years, and that seems like a short time for you preachers my age and older.

It’s amazing where time goes. But here’s the problem, a couple of the problems. Number one, the problem of the recent rise in popularity of Calvinism.

Now, I want to be extremely careful here. I’m not out just to bash a system of theology because there are men who lean toward Calvinistic thinking who do not go this direction in the Get Lost issue. In fact, I was thinking this morning of three men who are well-known theological professors in our movement who hold my position on this issue and on the issue of sanctification.

Two of the three, all three are well-respected, two of the three would be more Calvinistic in their soteriology. So I recognize, I want to be careful not to broad brush, but on the other hand, largely so, this system of theology produces these quotes from well-known, these are well-known Calvinists, And I want you to see what they say. Neither the members of the church nor the elect can be saved unless they persevere in holiness.

And they cannot persevere in holiness without continual watchfulness and effort. Charles Hodge. I hope you caught that quote, folks.

It’s stunning. Charles Hodge, I don’t know if this is fact or fable, but I did read this in a book that you sometimes wonder. but that the story one day Charles Hodge at his academic institution asked one of the students what do we believe about salvation the student got up well we believe that you’ve been chosen before the foundation of the world and God chooses some to be saved and some not to be saved and he

said okay and he said what does that other school believe and it was the other school of thought and the student said well that other school believes for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life but anyway okay i will just leave that one alone okay that’s charles hodge okay aw pink those who persevere not in faith and holiness

love and obedience will assuredly perish okay so there’s obviously this course comes from the fifth point of calvin uh calvinism which is the p which is what we call perseverance of the saints now Perseverance of the saints, we obviously many times think of it as eternal security. Obviously, we believe in eternal security. But perseverance of the saints means far more than eternal security. It means that in a certain sense, I’m going to prove this in a moment with another quote,

sanctification, certain aspects of sanctification are inevitable. And so what it does is it minimizes the faith decision in the Christian pilgrimage. Are you with me? Of course, it does that in salvation, so it does it as well, sanctification is the issue so in other words it’s like this if there’s going to be certain inevitable evidences in a christian’s life if the evidences are not there then the obvious

conclusion is the person was never saved okay that’s where they’re coming from that’s their thinking okay so that’s the one problem now i will say there are many people in our movement who are not calvinistic at all and yet they preach get lost preaching okay that’s that’s You say, well, what are you talking about in Get Lost Preaching? Okay, let me just give you a couple examples. It’d be things like maybe in a camp.

It’s particularly prevalent in Christian schools and camp. Okay, that’s where it really goes. It’d be like this. Hey, teenager, hey, if you’re out here and you’re out in the weekends drinking and you’re out messing around and you’re out, you know, doing drugs,

you’re going to hell. You say, well, Richard, I don’t know if I have a problem with that. Well, I’m going to tell you something, friends. If you’re out in the weekends drinking, messing around and involved in drugs,

you may go to hell, but it’s not because you’re doing those three things. because you’ve never put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. See, that’s the bigger issue. Okay, so that’s the idea, and I’ve overstated the case to help you get it,

so please understand that. But the second problem, and this would involve people who are not Calvinistic in theology, but nonetheless preach this way, and that’s the problem of worldly Christian school students who claim to be saved. See, this was really not an issue before the Christian school movement.

Now, I remember the early days of the Christian school movement. I went to a Christian school in seventh grade when the very first year was seventh through twelfth. My dad started a Christian school seventh to twelfth grades in one fell swath.

I mean, we had a huge school, too, huge. And I’ll never forget that first year. You know why?

Because the students were absolutely thrilled they were in a Christian school. I mean, there was excitement. There was, man, this is great.

We love it. You know, because why? Because we’d all come from the public school.

We knew what that was like. We were excited. But you know what?

Next year, a little more apathetic. Next year, more apathetic. Next year, more apathetic. And it wasn’t long in the Christian school movement before we obviously all recognized had a bunch of kids who were meeting the rule book

but had no heart for God. And so preaching began to be developed. These kids must be lost.

Okay? And it really never, I think, for some of us, I don’t know that it ever occurred to us that there was another option, and that is they were wandering in the wilderness. Now, certainly some needed to cross the Red Sea, but some which looked like they needed to cross the red sea really were in the wilderness and needed to cross the jordan river see when you’re in need of revival there’s a fine line between that

and somebody who’s dead and trespasses and sins see there’s a real fine line and it’s not always perceptible to our eye or our perspective and so certainly that that pragmatic pragmatic approach Now, you’ve wondered why we went to 2 Corinthians 11, and again, we’re going to walk through this. Right here, it gives us a passage of Scripture that I hope will kind of help us through this particular issue.

I’m going to try to be very careful because I know there’s good men out here who do not see it my way. My, again, thought is not to provoke your spirit, to provoke you to think, okay, so that this can be a help. And so now there’s one pitfall we need to avoid.

Look at this verse. It’s just phenomenal. but I fear lest by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety so your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ now I’m just going to say this folks Satan has one very important goal and that is in his agenda he must corrupt what is simple in Jesus Christ and I’ll be honest with you I think he’s done a

pretty good job I think the Lord it can be wiped away and that’s what a week like this is all about is for us to realize we’ve got to keep it simple. I won’t say that next word that’s usually put there. But anyway, keep it simple.

But we need to keep it simple. In other words, folks, it’s like this. We all know this.

Salvation is simple, isn’t it? Aren’t you glad it’s simple? Aren’t you glad a little child can get saved?

Salvation is simple. You know why? It’s Christ. And I’ll be honest with you, in preaching to teenagers,

it’s really not that complex. You preach that sin is black, that hell is hot, and Jesus Christ crucified, risen is the answer. That’s it.

There it is. It’s simple. but not only is the christian life simple friends i want to tell you i mean excuse me salvation simple the christian life is simple you heard that a moment ago the christian life is simple it’s jesus christ and personal revival is simple it’s christ and revival is simple it’s christ and how about this one assurance of salvation is simple it’s you got it it’s like this folks ego-centric

salvation is always erroneous we all agree with that no no debate there i’m going to submit to you egocentric assurance of salvation is also erroneous you must keep it christocentric your sanctification model should be christocentric your revival model should be christocentric your salvation model should be christocentric we all agree with that but i’m submitting to you your assurance model should be christocentric so let’s make sure as we go through this that we do

keep the focus where it’ll be so part one i’m going to go through and again it’s hard when you situation like this because everybody’s going to be a little bit different and so i’m kind of taking a lot of different get lost things that i’ve heard meshing them into one and it’s not saying that any one person would hold it this way so there’s different you know angles of it but we’ll put

them all together but the get lost person okay if this is the get lost preacher he comes into a christian school he sees worldliness he sees kids that don’t sing you know i’m talking about song leaders up there singing you know and a couple other nerdy kids and you know that’s it and everybody else is just you know hardly moving their lips and you know that most get lost preachers will

say man 90 of these kids are going to hell okay now i’m not debating whether or not that’s true i’m just simply saying that’s the thought process so he’s going to come in and say i got to get these kids lost they think they’re saved i’m going to get them lost so he preaches tests plural okay so number one if you’re going to be get lost preacher you got to preach the tests plural okay

this position would preach tests of salvation and evidences of salvation so that the sinner would realize he had never been saved on the other side of the issue assurance of salvation that would come as a result of passing a series of tests or exhibiting a series of evidences these tests are often presented on a level playing field so that one is not more important than another is now i’m

going to point out that every single one of these tests are what i’m going to call secondary evidences because they all have what i’m going to call fallibilities when it comes to assurance now in a moment i’ll try to help you understand what i’m talking about here but they are certainly not the test and they don’t even come close okay now here’s an example this comes from john macarthur who’s now up in our day i do believe

without apology that real salvation cannot and will not fail to produce works of righteousness in the life of a true believer. I want you to see this because it’s important for us to see us. God’s work of salvation includes a change of intent, will, desire, and attitude. Now here’s

the key that inevitably produces the fruit of the spirit. Did you catch that? That minimally really takes out human responsibility. The very essence of God’s saving work is the transformation of the will that results in a love for God salvation thus establishes the root that will surely produce the fruit and of course the emphasis is mine I want you to see the explanation I put in here the real issue is inevitability and the whole issue here what is inevitable in the life of the believer

is the fruit of the spirit inevitable and my point would simply be this we’ve all I think come to recognize already in this conference that the fruit of the spirit comes as a result of responsible decisions of faith okay so we’re dealing with what’s inevitable you say preacher do you believe when a man gets saved that inevitable things happen absolutely if you’re saved i will tell you inevitably god will will be discipling you the rest of your christian

pilgrimage will you always respond to that discipleship and the answer is obviously tragically we don’t at times so the inevitability issue is the real issue what’s inevitable see the issue is folks is this you’re going to have two you’re going to have either two really sides to the issues of sanctification really when you’re dealing with perseverance of the saints you are dealing with your doctrine of sanctification in other words you’re either going to see the

reformed thinking in sanctification is going to be that sanctification is inevitable and the Non-reformed thinking in sanctification is that sanctification occurs when we take, obviously there’s positional sanctification, we’re not denying that, but sanctification occurs when you take responsible steps of faith. Okay, so those are the two different models. Now, many times in reformed thinking, they put little difference between positional truth and practical truth.

In other words, what you are in position automatically comes out in practice. There is no, what we heard about a moment ago, decision of appropriating what you already have. In fact, to prove this, Romans chapter 6 is an example of what we’re talking about, isn’t it?

It says, listen, when you got saved, you were put into Jesus, baptized into Jesus Christ. You’re dead to sin. You’re alive unto God.

And so the apostle Paul goes along and says, likewise, therefore, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed in the sin and alive unto God. That is a responsible choice of faith. I read one Calvinist, Reformed sanctification professor, who called the word reckon, hang on, a reflex act.

You know what he’s saying, don’t you? It’s inevitable. That minimizes your responsibility to reckon it.

It’s inevitable. If you’re saved, it’s inevitable. So the real issue is inevitability. because if you believe positional and practical truth are automatic, you put little difference between them,

then you have an inevitable model. But let me just simply, and I’m going to say a lot of different things here. I hope I’ll get them in order here. But those of you that have studied some in Greek, I have a little habit when I come to, especially an epistle,

a Pauline epistle, I will mark the moods in a book. And you know what I found in Pauline epistles? The first few chapters, you know what mood dominates the book?

The indicative. It’s the mood of reality. Do you know what mood dominates the second part of the book?

The imperative. In other words, what the Apostle Paul is saying, this is who you are, live like it. In fact, you see it, for time don’t turn, in a book like Ephesians chapter number 5, there he says, you were formerly darkness, but now are you light in the Lord. You used to be in darkness, the kingdom of darkness,

now you’re light in the Lord. You know what the next words are? Walk as children of light.

There it is. Here’s what you are. And because you are this, live like it.

Appropriate it, as we heard. Take it by faith and act on it. Okay, so that’s where we’re coming from.

That’s the core issue that we’re dealing with here is the inevitability issue. Is it not? Okay, so that brings us to these tests, okay, that are often preached.

Number one, the test of change. Okay, in other words, a faith that has not changed your life is a faith that has not saved your soul. Anybody ever heard anything like that?

I used to say it. Some of you may have heard me preach it 15 years ago. We say, preacher, don’t you think if somebody gets saved, there’s change?

Absolutely, there’s change. God says, if any man be in Christ, he’s a new creature. Old things are passed away.

But I will tell you, God never intended change to be the test. You know why? It has fallibilities. I’m not denying change I’m just saying it’s not the test it’s a secondary way secondary we’ll see in a moment exactly what that is oh I lost my microphone thank you oh yeah I thought something was wrong okay all looking at me a lot nice okay

if you’re a bunch of teenagers some little junior high kid was hey that guy’s lost his microphone but I love junior high kids absolutely love them I always tell junior high kids your brain will fully develop it’s coming it’s coming okay about ninth grade it starts to you know form you know it’s it does real well about sixth grade then something happens to the brain it starts to change but anyway now let’s look at the example

here it says reader if there this is pink pink again reader if there is reserve in your obedience you are on your way to hell now i’m going to be just dead honest with you folks if that is true i’m lost i’m just going to be dead honest with you because you know you know do you know you do you know you i know me do you know you unless you’re schizophrenic you probably know you okay

but the truth is i know me you know the point is you know this when i used to hear this get lost preaching i’d get lost i really would man i need to get saved i’m a bum man i need to get saved i’m a bum you know those guys won in the wilderness were bums actually the ones going to the promised land were bums they just got access into the the one who is the enabler okay so let’s look at this

does change occur when a man gets saved absolutely however god did not ensure intend for change with its result and obedience to be the primary focus of assurance why you say why change in of itself cannot be a primary foundation for assurance because change can be counterfeited i remember one time i was preaching in hickory north carolina when i was done a war one of the wars those of you that may not know it’s a youth evangelistic outreach and i walked up to this kid

afterwards had a long ponytail down his back and um i said man it’s glad to have you here tonight i said got a question for you you saved he said yeah he said i think i am i said oh could you tell me why you think you’re saved he said well you know he said i’ve been depressed all my life he said about a year ago some guy came to me and gave some some saying of confucius and he said ever since

that time i’ve not been depressed i think i’m saved so what do you think i did hallelujah brother welcome to the family is that you think no i took out my bible i said could i show you these verses of scripture i said look at let’s read john 3 16 let’s read john 3 36 let’s read john 6 47 and when i was done i looked at him i said brother according to these verses are you safe he said no

see change can be counterfeited folks so we got to recognize that danger in fact matthew 7 which is often used as a get lost message or excuse me matthew 13 let’s go there first don’t turn for time we’re going to have to keep moving Matthew 13 the parable of the wheat and the tares Okay the wheat and the tares grow up next to you Have you ever heard wheat and tares message Hey some of you kids out there are tares

You’re out drinking on the weekends You’re out living it up you’re messing around You’re tares wait a second Tares don’t drink Tares don’t mess around on the weekends Tares don’t cuss Tares go to church every service Tares even go soul in here you see you can’t even tell any difference between wheat and tares i mean it’s so much so the what’s the difference between wheat and tares and i’m gonna tell you

what the difference is essence if you could take a tare open it up and stick it under a microscope you could say this is not wheat this is a tare why because i see essence and i’ll tell you what determines a tare a tare is an unbeliever and wheat is a believer that’s the difference they look the same. In fact, many times I’ll come in and the youth pastor will say, man, we got some unsaved kids. This kid I think is lost.

This kid’s lost. This kid’s lost. This kid’s lost. And you know,

it’s interesting. At the end of the week, those kids get revived and kids that were really, he thought were saved, get saved. You know what that means, folks? You and I can’t see essence

in somebody else that is. We can’t in our own hearts, but we can in other people’s hearts. so see that that and then matthew 7 it says those in matthew 7 um they look good didn’t you know matthew 7 is another one of those hey look at these guys depart from me i never knew you we’ll think look what these guys were doing they weren’t drinking on the weekend they were casting out

devils they were preaching they were doing wonderful works they look good and yet they were lost why because they were unbelievers that’s why okay now let’s go to the next side the absence of change cannot in and of itself be a primary foundation for lack of assurance because change is not measurable okay i want to ask you a question just look up for the notes for a moment

i want to ask you a question okay here’s a guy claims to be saved but he’s really not okay how long can a person who claims to be saved but really is not uh how long before we can tell by their life that they never were saved in the first place how long do they have to live in sin before we know with assurance that guy’s lost how long and the answer is we don’t know

see i’m not minimizing change i’m just saying god never gave us a measuring stick which means he never intended it for it to be a primary issue when it comes to assurance of salvation david was in sin for one year i’m convinced some of our preachers today would say that guy david he’s as lost as they come wouldn’t they and there in fact there would even be some theologically

you say oh he’s lost okay because we don’t know god didn’t give us a measuring stick in fact in galatians 5 it says walk in the spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh you know what that means the galatian christians were doing they were fulfilling the lusts of the flesh you read the book it’s obvious by the way this is a little side note galatians teaches us this flash

dependence always always gives birth to flesh indulgence you give me a person who tries to live the christian life and i’m all for don’t get me wrong i’m all for the standards and taking the bible and apply it to life don’t get this wrong but if that’s what you’re doing in dependence upon yourself you know what i’ve seen people do they pitch the standards and embrace embrace indulgence

and if they don’t their kids do and then they change their theology to accommodate their kids now we’ll get back to galatians but that that’s what galatians is dealing with flesh dependence always leads the flesh indulgence because it doesn’t work okay so you pitch the standards that must be the problem no the problem wasn’t the standards the problem was the enablement of

the spirit okay so so we see the test of change and some of the issues there and i’ve heard all kinds of statements as you have about change you say well preacher what if you see a teenager who claims to be saved and there’s there’s no change in his life i’d say you better get go back and you better analyze the test but i’m going to spend my time at the test and we’re going to get there

in a moment because my point is there’s only one test there’s only one and we’re going to deal with that in a moment any of these are so secondary i hate to even use the word secondary because i really don’t even in my mind think of them that way i’m just trying to simply say that if you don’t what about that the issues they may it’s my point is this if they don’t pass the test you see many

people say, well, if they don’t pass the test, they’re lost. I’m saying, no, no, there’s another option. They may be in Egypt, but they also may be in the wilderness.

Two options, not one. Which means we’ve got to go to the real test to tell which option they’re in. That’s why these are all secondary, and to me, really not even a part of my thinking. Okay, which brings us to the

next test, the test of chastisement. Do I believe God chastens His children? And the answer is, absolutely. However, someone does not primarily get assurance or lack of assurance from chastisement or its absence because chastisement or its absence could be misinterpreted in fact hebrews chapter 12 is just often used i deal with in the end of the notes which i probably don’t have time to get to but let me just simply says hebrews chapter 12 was written to people who are saved it was written to

basically say if lost people don’t get chastised save people do so just recognize that’s what happens to save people don’t despise it that’s what it’s teaching us to do you can look at those later in the time if you want to investigate Hebrews 12 a little bit more but look at the first bullet here an unsafe man could misinterpret guilt the natural uh and uh let me see could misinterpret guilt the natural consequences of sin or just difficult circumstances as chastisement

when it is not okay let me give you an example a friend of mine one time told me a young evangelist was preaching and he preached the message on the tests of salvation and many young evangelists do okay this this this this this this and uh so he’s preaching that and out in the audience was a unsaved catholic man and he knew about it and he was so burdened which was good that the man would

get saved so he finishes the message the catholic man comes up to him shakes his hand and said young man i appreciate that message now i know i’m saved because god chastens me i’m gonna just tell you friend never give anybody hope of salvation outside of the blood of jesus Christ. See, chastisement can be misinterpreted. Do bad things happen to lost people?

Yes or no? Absolutely they do. Sure they do. A saved man could misinterpret chastisement as something other

than chastisement. We recognize there’s a subjective element there, and although there’s an objective part of chastisement, realize that sometimes there’s misinterpreted. It’s like this. Sometimes

when people think about chastisement, you know what they think of? Chastisement is being in a body cast you know getting in a bad wreck being in a body cast that’s chastisement that is chastisement but it’s a lot more than that god has a lot of different belts some of you here at falls he has a lot of different glue sticks but anyway okay some of you from the outside don’t know what we’re talking about

inside joke here okay but anyway mr elmer okay so now i’m going to be just dead honest with you i am thankful i am absolutely thankful that god chastens me i’m going to be honest with you i don’t enjoy the woodshed but i can tell you all about the inside of the woodshed i’ve been there many times have you god’s woodshed you see god chastens us and i’m thrilled for i’m not minimizing that i’m just simply saying

that god as chastisement is completely a secondary issue it is not the test you say well what about a kid who sows no change and doesn’t seem like God’s chasing him well sure I’d say okay go let’s let’s talk about the test but friends that that again there’s two options here he could be in the wilderness or he could be in Egypt but the issue is which where is he okay well we’re gonna have to

go to the test in a moment we’ll tell you what the test is if you haven’t figured it out now that brings us to see the test of confidence this would be subjective confidence the feeling of being saved we do not primarily have assurance of salvation or doubt our salvation because of our confidence or lack of confidence because the confidence or lack could possibly be false years ago i love

oliver green i really do i i i have a guy travel in 1989 with me he loved oliver green brought all his tapes and i fell in love with the preaching of oliver green i really do appreciate the man and i would probably say of everything i’ve ever heard him say i’ve never heard anything i would debate but this one statement one time i was hearing him preaching he said this friend if

you doubt your salvation you don’t have any salvation was that true I I although I love Oliver Green I think he was wrong on that one and the reason is look at first John chapter 3 and hereby I know we we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him we’re obviously talking about assurance here for if our heart condemn us God is greater than our heart and

knoweth all things aren’t you glad God’s greater than your heart aren’t you glad that you can go in here’s some get lost preacher you know you’re out there you yell at your wife and and you know you treat your kids like the dog and you’re going to hell and you start down on your salvation you get in your car and you can’t think straight and you go right through a a four-way stop you get

t-boned you go out into eternity aren’t you glad god’s greater than your heart now so there’s the possibility of false doubts listen i’m convinced that a lot of the bouts of the doubts of my salvation i’m convinced were false doubts i believe i was saved four years old and uh but i had a lot of false doubts and again part of it didn’t come from my father’s preaching but you know i was other places too and so we got

to be careful here now again i know we’re on a fine line let me just simply say i know some of you dear people out here you say man i’ve never heard this this is totally contrary to my thinking Again, please, I’m not at all, even with humor, I’m not trying to be sarcastic. Please forgive me. Sometimes when you work with teenagers, you say before you think, which can get you in trouble.

So I’m not trying to do that, but I do want to challenge your thinking. And I really mean that. Now let’s look at false assurance.

Let’s go to the other side. Can false assurance occur? Okay, let’s look at this. Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter in the kingdom of heaven,

but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in the name, and in thy name cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works and then i will profess unto them i never knew you depart from me ye that work iniquity now this is quite a stunning passage i remember back as a kid

being really thinking oh man this is terrible how can you know you’re saved i mean look at these guys they preached they did wonderful works they cast out devils oh how can you know you’re saved and then one day it hit me and i have rejoiced over this passage ever since folks if you were standing before God and he said, I never knew you. What would be your appeal? Oh, Lord, I was in evangelism. I was a pastor and I did this

and I went to Sunday school. I never missed the time the church was. Is that what your appeal would be?

I’ll tell you what my appeal would be. Lord, my only hope was the blood of your son who died on the cross. That’s my only hope.

Their answer was wrong. Their answer betrayed works reliance. that’s why they had false assurance don’t miss this false doubts always come because you’re looking at the wrong object for assurance false assurance always comes because you’re looking at the wrong object for assurance both sides come from the wrong object you say what’s the wrong object us that’s the wrong object in either scenario i remember a few years back i was in the state of

virginia and um i was introduced the very first sunday to this couple just been engaged the boy was from the church he was a baptist the girl was catholic i thought well this is different so i started talking to the girl and i said how do you know you’re saved and she ever had people give you the right words and you’re thinking ah this doesn’t ring right something’s wrong that

was what happened so i’m preaching through the week it was wednesday they were out there coming every night and god burned my heart preach a gospel message preach a gospel message and as soon as that was over all i can say is the lord constrained my spirit you gotta go talk to that catholic girl so i’m off the platform go down to her and i was so stirred i probably you know it was like a bull

in a china shop but i remember walking up to her and i said young lady i just got to tell you this i don’t believe you’re saved i believe you died to go to hell i’m gonna tell you why because i believe in some measure you are trusting your works to get you to heaven. And if you are in any way trusting your works to get you to heaven, you will die in your sins and go to hell. By the way, is that

true? Yeah, I know it’s blunt. I know that.

You say, well, preacher, did she start weeping? Was there a wonderful salvation? No, she was livid.

She was so mad at me. She walked out. She called the pastor.

Pastor calls me. You know, I started to second guess myself and said, no, I know I’m supposed to do that. Left the church.

That was August. After the meeting, the pastor, I think, stood with me. You know, he understood the issue. And it was about January, I got an email and said,

you know, the pastor gave me your email address. He said, I just want to know, I was really mad at you when you did that. But she said, I just want you to know that God showed me that you were right. And she said, I just want you to know that I have come to trust

only Jesus Christ and what he did on the cross. You know, that young lady had false assurance. You know why?

Because she was looking here. Brings false assurance. so you got both sides of the issue so the test of subjective confidence the feeling of being saved could be false on either side of the coin and it always comes the reason you know you have false doubts and the reason you know you have false assurance is because you’re looking at the wrong object for assurance or doubt that’s always the reason okay which brings us to another test the test of love for the brethren

okay this will get most of you in the auditorium lost okay here we are we’ll get you lost on this one this is a good one don’t want to get your church lost preach this one on Sunday morning they’ll all be lost every one of them we do not primarily receive assurance of salvation by our love for the brethren or doubt our salvation because we lack love for the brethren because our love for the brethren, hang on, can be intermittent.

Now, this little poem, I know it’s not Scripture, but doesn’t it relate? Oh, to live above with saints of old. Oh, won’t that be glory?

To live below with saints we know. Now, that’s a different story. You know why we’re laughing?

You know why we’re laughing? Because we all know there’s times, I could just wring that guy’s neck. That guy must be lost.

We need to get him out of here. you know what I’m talking about okay well you say we’re some Bible basis on this well Galatians 5 22 says the fruit of the spirit is what love you know you and I cannot love the brethren without the power of the Holy Spirit you believe that so if the spirit quenched can you love the brethren I don’t think they believe you can not at least biblically whatever you have is syrupy sentimentality

you know what that is don’t you back in the 80s all of us who lived in the 80s we know what syrupy sentimentality is all you had to do was watch some TV preacher and you saw the fake stuff it was about as fake as their makeup you know we love you know what they really need to say is we love your money you know i’m talking about i mean you remember back to those days okay but um it’s

interesting that in galatians it said where it’s same chapter it says the fruit of the spirit is love it also says that if you’re walking after the flesh you may bite and devour one another he’s not talking to lost people he’s talking to the church well i don’t think you can love one another and bite and devour one another at the same time

amen okay so we’re seeing this okay same book for brethren you’ve been called on liberty only lose not liberty for an occasion to the flesh but by love serve one another okay he was getting to the core issue here the verse in galatians 5 indicates it is possible for brethren to be selfish and not love serve one another uh in love okay we understand that okay but we’re seeing then that the test has

fallibilities if you don’t love the brethren it it indicate two possibilities you’re either in the wilderness or you’re back in egypt okay test of love for the bible okay now this one is a little more subtle but i’ve heard things like this if you do not love your bible you’re lost i’m gonna just be dead honest with you i’m not trying to really be overly funny but i’m gonna just tell you that

means i’m lost because there are many mornings i wake up and i’ll be honest with you i don’t love my bible when i’m not right with the lord you can’t love your bible when you’re not you know why because your flesh doesn’t love the bible now maybe you’ve got better flesh than i do some of you looking real spiritual right now oh preacher i always love the bible you know friends when you’re

not listen after you have a spat with your wife i guarantee you sir you’re not down to let me read ephesians chapter 5 no you don’t want to do that if you know what’s in ephesians chapter 5 you don’t want to read see my point is you grieve the spirit when you grieve the author you don’t love his writings. So that’s, you know, I heard this one. I’m dead serious.

I heard this at a camp. Teenager, if you don’t have your devotions every day, you’re going to hell. Whoa. You know, that’s the wrong

object. I’m not the object. Listen, friends, if it’s up to me to see, I’m saved. I do this,

this, and this. I will never have assurance of salvation. See, so we recognize, yes, we do not primarily receive assurance of salvation by our love for the bible because our love for the bible could be quenched you’ve heard the quote either the book will keep you from sin or sin will keep you from the book so when sin comes to your life it quenches the author it quenches our love for the

bible now i’m not saying it’s good not to love the bible don’t get me wrong it’s just that when when we when the when the flesh is in control you can’t love the bible these are spiritual issues and if your flesh works up a love for the Bible, it’s fake. You can’t do it. You can’t do it.

I don’t care who you are in this room. If you’re walking by sight and not walking in dependence upon the Holy Spirit, you cannot love the Bible. You can’t love God. You just can’t do it, and you have to take a step of faith

because the fruit of the Spirit is love. Now, okay, after the tests are preached, then this is, again, the get lost progression. Again, the next thing that happens is they preach the gospel.

Now, this is good. Okay, you preach the tests, then we go to the gospel. And all the get lost thinking that I’ve heard of, this is where they go, and this is a wonderful thing.

And you know what happens? People get saved. You know why?

The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. I’m telling you that you can be in this get lost thinking and you see people saved. You know why?

Because the gospel works. Wherever the gospel is preached, and it’s preached in some really, you know, for some of us some really bothersome situations but the gospel has power it does and so uh so we recognize that so they preach the gospel that’s a good thing now what’s the problem now with this methodology okay here it is if a person is already saved they may now get re-saved because now they

don’t look at it that way i’ve never was saved you know okay because they have looked at themselves and begun to doubt instead of resting in the finished work of christ in other words oh i don’t of the Bible, or I haven’t really changed, or whatever, whatever, whatever. And so they’ll get resaved. Okay, so that is a problem, isn’t it? Okay, you say, well, what do you do if a person

really comes to you and says, Jim, I’m not sure I’m saved. And we go through this, and I’m getting ahead of myself, but let me just say it, make sure it gets said. I’ll go through it, and then they’ll say, I don’t know if I’m saved or lost.

You say, preacher, what do you do? I’ll do this. Because I want to be extremely accurate with truth.

I’ll say, well, here’s what you need to do. You need to profess your faith in Christ. Okay, let’s not get re-saved because truth sets free. And if we’re not sure you’re saved, you’re not sure you’re lost,

let’s just profess, you think you might be saved. Yeah, I think it’s a possibility. Okay, let’s just, why don’t you profess your faith in Christ?

Okay, tell God you’re a sinner that you deserve hell. You don’t know about it, but you deserve it, which went where you’re going, but you deserve it. And the only one that can save you is Jesus. And that you are confessing that you’re trusting and resting in only the finished work of Jesus,

And he’s the only hope you’ve got. I said, if you confess your faith in Christ, if you’re already saved, that’s not a bad thing to do, is it? And if you’re not saved, you just got saved.

My point is not to do damage to the truth. Okay, so there’s that possibility. The B, the real need for one who is saved and doubts may be personal revival.

If they get saved again, the real problem is not addressed. And here’s the point. Nothing happens. Listen, if you’re under conviction of sin and you’re wandering in the wilderness

and you get saved again, you know what happens? Nothing. That’s what happens.

And you know what a lot of teenagers I say do? That didn’t work. That didn’t work. And I come back and many times I deal with teenagers who have been damaged

because they’ve gotten saved and nothing happened. Well, if you’re already saved, nothing’s going to happen. see the real issue is need to get them over the jordan river they need to start taking steps of faith so misdiagnosis and the reason i’m on this folks is because a misdiagnosis is a problem now again i want you to understand we do have kids raised in christian homes that are saved but the

the reason they get saved is because they’ve never trusted in the finished work of jesus christ so i’m not saying that this could not occur i’m just saying the accuracy of diagnosis is essential all number c or letter c if you doubt a salvation you have you are doubting god doubting god is never good you know i’ve heard evangelists say this man i’d rather have a saved person doubt than a lost

person think they’re saved and i’ll say i don’t i don’t believe that i don’t believe that at all i don’t want anybody saved to doubt because you give me a doubting christian and i will tell you he is completely powerless he will not win other people to jesus christ and it has just as many eternal consequences as the kid who thinks he’s saved and my point is you can preach the gospel

clear enough so that saved kids know they’re saved and lost kids get saved in fact this may shock you when i come into a christian school i want every backslidden worldly carnal uh christian teenager who’s away from god i want them all to know they’re saved you say preacher why because that is my very appeal to step over Jordan and get in the promised land. I’m going to say, listen to you kids who are treating your parents like trash.

Listen to you kids who are jamming out on junk. Listen to you kids who are wasting your time on video games. There’s inside of you Jesus Christ.

And if you’ll depend upon him, he’ll change your life. You know what that gives them? It’s called hope.

See, I want to diagnose it correctly. Listen, I have seen Gothic teenagers who listen to Marilyn Manson get revived when everybody thought they were lost. They didn’t need salvation.

They already had it. They’d just gotten way away from God. Man, when they got revived, I’ve seen God’s heaven fall. The power of God rests on a kid whose countenance has been changed because his need was Jesus Christ

in sanctification. He’d already been saved. Okay, so the diagnosis is important.

Doubt is always bad. This is what I want you to see. Doubt is always bad. So there’s some way we’ve got to be able to preach the gospel to a room full of kids,

some saved, some lost. There’s some way we’ve got to preach it so the lost kids know it and the saved kids know they’re saved too. So that’s where we’re going to go in a moment. D, the Galatian error or the heteros gospel, we’ll see in a moment what that means,

is works-oriented, not faith-oriented. I believe in assurance by faith. I do not believe in assurance by works. now in a moment we’ll if you see this little chart here uh i’m going to have you go to the book of galatians now we’ll have turned a few places galatians in chapter number one you’re only a few pages away galatians in chapter number one i want to read you the purpose statement of the

book of galatians it’s verses six and seven is the purpose statement of the book of galatians and i want to read it and then we’ll look at the chart it says paul says i marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel. That is the word heteros. It means another gospel of a different kind, okay? Which is not another,

that’s a different word another, it means another of the same kind. But there be some which trouble you and will pervert the gospel of Christ. And let me put those two another’s in, let’s read it again, just helping us understand the two another’s. I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another of a different kind of gospel,

which is not another of the same kind. But there be some which trouble you and will pervert the gospel of Christ. Now, what I want us to see here, folks, is the word another, the gospel of the Galatians, the heteros gospel, is a different kind of gospel.

It’s not another of the same kind. In fact, the word pervert has the idea of turn to the opposite. So a heteros gospel is an opposite gospel.

Do you see that? Now turn to the chart. The true gospel, you see the aspect.

Look down the middle. You might have to study this later. The passage you can look up later that gives us the contrast between the two. With the true gospel versus the heteros gospel, the divine means,

the true gospel’s divine means is grace. The heteros gospel’s divine means is the law. Anybody have any comment on that? the true gospel the power is the spirit the heteros gospel the power is what the flesh now the human means are the human responsibility perhaps is a better way to put it the true gospel is faith the heteros gospel is what works and the result of the true gospel is liberty

and the result of the heteros gospel is always bondage now the thing i want you to see is The thing that helps us as human beings determine which gospel we are operating on is that little line that we call human means or human responsibility. That is the trigger point. That is the one that helps us realize which gospel we’re operating in.

If you meet somebody who says, man, I’m a good guy. I’m trusting my good works to get to heaven. We immediately know they’re in the false gospel, don’t we?

The same is true in sanctification. hey i’m you know i’m struggling man i’m doing the best i can i’m working hard and we immediately say that person is operating in the heteros gospel and his christian life is one of bondage how many of you have ever been in bondage as a christian operating in the heteros gospel when it comes to sanctification would you raise your hand with me we all have we understand that my point friend is

simply this then that means assurance whether you’re in the heteros gospel or the true gospel is all contingent upon which responsible means you’re looking to to get assurance or to keep assurance and the answer for me friend it is not by my works it is by my dependence on what jesus has already done hallelujah that is the line that triggers which gospel you are operating in and if you are operating this morning in the false gospel looking to yourself for assurance

no wonder there’s bondage it doesn’t work okay now let’s go to part two which is the methodology of the other position which would be uh the position that i’m arguing for here which would be uh the methodology of the other position which is mine what do you do when someone claims to be saved but shows very little evidence that they are saved you say okay what do you do okay here you go

into this christian school there’s a bunch of these worldly kids principal tells you how bad they are shipped a bunch of kids last week for whatever, and you come into this Christian school, and you want to get these lost kids to realize they’re lost because they think they’re saved. So what do you do? This is going to shock you.

It’s going to blow some of you away. Some of you are going to be extremely angry at the answer. But here’s what I do.

This is going to shock you. I preach the gospel. You know why, friends?

I’m going to tell you. Because I believe that the gospel has enough power to make lost people realize they’re going to hell and make saved people, hallelujah, glad they’re going to heaven. That’s where the power is. See, we as evangelists have made the mistake, and I’m talking, I’m broad brushing, but we as evangelists have made the awful mistake

of thinking somehow we’ve got to get them lost. I don’t get them lost. The gospel does.

The Spirit of God does. My dependence is not on me. It is preaching a simple message that if you’ve never depended upon the finished work of Jesus Christ, you’re lost. that’s the dividing line that is the test what you’ve done with jesus christ the death burial resurrection what we call the finished work that is the test look if you would please back to the notes this position believes the way you get a

sinner to realize he is not saved as a preach of the gospel conversely assurance of salvation comes as a result of examining the object of your faith it comes from realizing you’re resting in the finished work of Jesus Christ. Now Hebrews chapter 3, I’m going there in light of the conference overtones. There’s two verses of Scripture that surround a verse of Scripture. And I want to look at the explanations at the

bottom of the page, then go back and read Hebrews 3, 12 through 19. Explanation. It is on the whole, and again, I know that Westcott is a bad word for some in the room. It’s not a real good word for me, but

I thought he had a good point here. Okay, so we’ll say that right here off the bat. But anyway, somebody say amen.

Okay, so I can look up. Okay, here it is. Because I know some of you are thinking that guy’s a heretic.

He quoted from Westcott. He’s got to be a heretic. I understand Westcott’s got issues.

Okay, so let’s go on here. But here’s the point. It says, it is on the whole most natural to connect the quotation, verse 15, with verse 13.

According to this view, verse 13 is parenthetical. Okay, this is a legitimate view, which I think is very helpful. Understand Hebrews chapter 3.

So let’s go. Let’s look at the next explanation. The writer of Hebrews is challenging Hebrew believers, brethren, who have crossed the Red Sea, to not draw back an unbelief from crossing the Jordan River.

Okay, so what he’s doing is in his appeal to cross the Jordan River, he goes back and he establishes assurance. Okay, based on these emboldened words, which is verse number 13. Okay, here’s what it says.

Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. He’s addressing saved people.

For we, isn’t that interesting? For we, he’s assuming the readers are we, part of the we. You know who part of the we is?

Saved people. For we are made partakers of Christ. How do we know this?

If we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end. And, of course, it goes on and continues to address the we. But he establishes, here’s how the we know that you’re in union with Jesus Christ.

How do you know that? If you hold the beginning of your confidence steadfast to the end. That’s how you know.

Okay, so let’s go and continue on. Let’s think about this for a moment. This word, you say, okay, what does that mean?

We are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end. What does that mean? Okay, it all centers around the word confidence, which is the same word translated in Hebrews 11 and verse 1.

Now, faith is the substance. Okay, substance literally means that which stands under. Okay, so God says we know we’re made in union with Jesus Christ. We know we’re made partakers with Christ if we are holding fast

the beginning of our that which stands under. Okay, so this teaches us the one inevitable proof of salvation. If you’re saved this morning, from the day you save to the day you die, you will hold fast the beginning of your confidence. And if you’re holding fast the beginning of your confidence right now,

it means you will. It’s an evidence that you have and that you will. You say, what does that mean?

Okay, that which stands under. Let me help you with that which stands under. Let’s imagine you were driving on the road, And all of a sudden, some police car lights come in your rearview mirror.

No, I won’t ask you for that. Do you get that? Universal sinking feeling in your stomach thinking.

Hopefully, you’re thinking, what did I do? Hopefully, you’re not thinking, he caught me. But anyway, you pull over to the side of the road.

Policeman gets out, comes up. You roll your window down. He says, you’re in a stolen vehicle.

You say, officer, there must be some mistake here. You reach into your glove compartment. You pull out the deed to your car that has your name on it.

And you say, oh, no, oh, no, officer. here’s my hupostasis, my that which stands under. This deed stands under my claim, this is my car.

Did you get it? Okay, let’s imagine you’re going to watch the Green Bay Packers on a Monday night play football. And you go down, you get good seats on the 50-yard line, and you’re sitting there.

It’s halftime. You go to buy yourself a $7 hot dog, and you come back, and somebody’s sitting in your seats. And so you say, oh, this can’t be.

So you pull out your ticket stub. You walk up to an usher. You put the ticket in front of the usher and say, usher, see that seat over there?

That’s my seat. I’m going to prove it. Here’s my hupostasis.

This ticket stands under my claim. That’s my seat. Now I want to ask you a question.

What is your hupostasis for heaven? I’ll tell you what mine is, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And you know what?

That was the same hupostasis when I got saved. The beginning of my hupostasis. It’s like this.

A true believer in Jesus. That’s why we’re called believers. Now don’t get me wrong as we’ve already called an unbelieving believer.

As a believer we can doubt many different promises in the word of God. But there is one thing a believer never doubts. And that is that his only hope and his only confidence and his only sure foundation is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

My faith has found the resting place. Not in the vice and the creed. I need no other argument.

I need no other place. It is enough that Jesus died and that he died for me. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.

I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name. On Christ the solid rock I stand. All other ground is, and it is. Do you know that no believer would ever say,

you know, I think works has something to do with it. Do you know no believer would ever say that? You know, when a believer is doubting their salvation, you know what their problem is?

They’re looking at the wrong object. No believer would ever say, well, no, Jesus doesn’t say it. No believer would say that.

A believer might say, well, I don’t think I’m saved. But yeah, Jesus is the only way. Yeah, what he did on the cross.

Yeah, that’s it. No other way, just Jesus. You got it?

You know how I know I’m saved? I was saved at four years old. You say, preacher, I bet you know you were saved at four because you can go back and you can remember everything.

I can remember a lot, but I can’t remember everything. You know, I’ve studied the Bible. I’ve never seen one passage of Scripture that tells me to get assurance from the past.

It tells me to get assurance from the present. You know why I know I’m saved as a 49-year-old man? I’ll tell you why I know I’m saved, because I’m a sinner, and I’m trusting the blood of Jesus Christ to cleanse me from all my sin.

And the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, that’s the only hope I’ve got. You say, well, preacher, you’ve been a preacher for 26 years. You’ve seen people saved.

So did the disciples, and one of them was lost. And they came back all rejoicing, and what did Jesus say? Oh, no, don’t rejoice about that.

Rejoice, your names are written in the book of life. Why? Because one of them wasn’t.

I don’t get assurance by what I do. I get assurance by who I’m resting in. He’s my hupostasis, and he will be to the day I die.

It’s like this, folks. If you look right now and say, my only hope is Jesus. He’s my only trust.

That means from this point on, you will. That’s what believers are. That’s what we will be.

That is the mark of a believer. He is a depender on Jesus and what he did on the cross for his hope of heaven. He has no other hope.

He never will have any other hope. He will not stray from it. That is the mark of a believer, and it never changes.

Now, I don’t know about you. That’s pretty exciting stuff. I may fail.

I may blow it. I may walk out to the flesh. I may, tragically, and we all have wandered in that wilderness.

But hallelujah, the one thing, my friend, that’s a foundation for going over the Jordan River is I’m one of his. I’m resting in the finished work of Jesus Christ. That’s why this is such important.

So you say, okay, preacher, you preach the gospel. That’s great. Okay, you preach the gospel. But then what do you do if this really worldly kid comes to you and says,

I’m safe, preacher. Yeah, yeah, I listen to my stuff. I do my, yeah, I’m safe.

I’m trusting Jesus. So what do you do? Okay, number two, I clarify the gospel.

Do we have an enemy that wants to confuse the gospel, do we? Absolutely. So I’m going to clarify the gospel.

Now, I want you to see two attacks the enemy that I see has. Number one, Satan attacks the gospel by adding to the gospel. That’s A, and I’m going to give you B because I want to see them both, and we’ll come back and work through these.

B, Satan attacks the gospel by subtracting from the gospel. Does he do that? Absolutely.

Okay, so let’s look at the addition. Okay, number one, preaching repentance in a way that inadvertent, and it is inadvertent, adds works. You ever heard people preach repentance and you’re getting nervous like, it sounds like works. Of course, if you believe in a theology where you get born again

and then you believe you can add works because you’re already born again. You know what I’m talking about? They call that regeneration before faith.

And that’s where that all the time that thinking comes from. Okay, so you say, preacher, here’s the point. I had a guy come to me one time and said, you know, you don’t preach repentance.

And I thought to myself, that guy doesn’t even understand repentance because everything I’m preaching is repentance. When you preach sin black, here’s what irks me. If some guy gets up, he preaches the gospel, and he kind of tags on repentance on the end.

And I’m thinking, man, that guy never preached on sin. He thinks he preached on repentance. You don’t preach the devil out of sin.

You haven’t preached on repentance. the very foundation of repentance is that you have just preached on sin as god the word puts it out there it’s wicked it sends you to hell it’s bad stuff you know what i do when i preach to teenagers i do preach try to preach on the sins they’re committing i think i’ve said this before when i preach to teenagers this may shock you but i don’t preach on robbing medicare i don’t do it

i save that for the old folks home man now we go after it then some of you out there you’re robbing medicare you’re rocking home sam you know you think you’re gonna die and they’ll bankrupt on your grandkids no i don’t see i don’t do that but my point is you go after your crowd so um you preach on sin brother and you preach on hell and you point them to jesus you preach

repentance holy spirit starts convicting listen i’m convinced a lot of times our whole theological wrangling comes because we’re trying to make something work without the Holy Spirit. Now we all give assent to it, but I’ll tell you, Holy Spirit’s convicting somebody and he turns to Jesus, he gets saved. That’s what happens. So Mark 2, to give you some thinking here, I want you to think

about this. When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, they that are whole have no need of a physician but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. Now I’m going to be honest with you, friend, I’ve studied the Bible, I’ve never seen the phrase repent of your sin in the bible now don’t get me wrong i believe repentance

has a lot to do with sin but i’ve never heard that phrase i so so the problem is sometimes people take that phrase and they spin an unbiblical definition to it it’s called semantics accuracy is absolutely essential and many definitions of repentance are extremely egocentric and it bothers me because i believe the gospel should be christocentric it’s not about what i do it’s what about I’m trusting him to do? Now, let me give you this because Jesus makes an analogy

that is divinely inspired. He makes an analogy of a sick man. Okay, if you look at the analogy, the sick guy is the sinner.

The sickness is the sin and the physician is obviously himself. It is Jesus. Now, let’s ask a question. When does a male, an average common male, when does a male go to the doctor and the answer is yeah well that’s not always true you ruined my illustration almost never brother you’ve been to the doctor okay here it is okay we’re gonna preach on hypocrisy here for a few moments for brother rich okay okay now the point is you got the answer

we men there’s no way we are going to a doctor i’ll tell you when a man goes to the doctor when he’s sick of his sickness. Now, when you’re sick of your sickness, you don’t say, you know, I’m done with this sickness stuff. I’m going to turn from my sickness.

No, you know what he says? I’ve tried to heal myself. I can’t heal myself. So I’m going to the doctor

to deliver me from the sickness. Keep it physician-oriented. Keep it Christocentric.

Repentance, friend, is not me trying to turn from my sickness. It’s me going to the doctor to deliver me from my sickness because the Holy Spirit’s torn me up about my sickness. See, that’s it.

That’s why we preach on sin. You know why? So the sinner gets sick of his sin. But I can’t make him sick of his sin,

but the Holy Spirit can make him sick of his sin. And when he gets sick of his sin, the answer is not him turning from his sin. The answer is him turning to Jesus to deliver him from his sin.

That’s the answer. I’m all for preaching hard on sin. But the answer, friend, is not egocentric.

It’s all about Jesus. And my friend, you say, well, preacher, what do you do if a kid comes to you and says, I want to get saved, but I’m not going to stop listening to my music. Had that happened one time.

Kid comes and says, yeah, I want to get saved, but I’m not stopping listening to my music. You probably told him, you’re going to have to get rid of music to get saved. No, here’s what I told him. don’t you think that the same Jesus that you’re going to you could trust to keep you out of hell don’t you think that same Jesus could deliver you from your filthy music you know what he said yeah

well don’t you think that I’m gonna keep it Christocentric friend I won’t tell you when a guy says I’m gonna keep drinking I’m gonna keep living up okay friend I’ll tell you but I’ll tell you don’t you think the same Jesus that could die died on the cross to keep you out of hell don’t you think he could deliver you from your drink and your wild living you get to jesus he’ll deliver you

now i’m again all for preaching on sin but friend the answer is jesus it’s not me and so it’s very important in repentance i’m all for repentance i’m just saying got to be clear now repentance repentance obviously deals with sin we just dealt with it you got to preach on sin and then the answer when they’re sick of their sin is to point them to jesus to deliver them from

their sin certainly we understand that but i want you to understand there’s a second aspect to repentance, and that is, Hebrews says repentance from dead works. In other words, before you can get saved, you have to say, this won’t save, Jesus will. See, really, it’s in the sickness analogy, too, because the guy never goes to the doctor while he thinks he can heal himself. He’s got to say,

this won’t, Jesus will. So repentance has two angles to it. Okay, so hopefully it helps us recognize we got to obviously not add by inadvertently adding works obviously adding works baptism etc to the object of faith would be adding to the gospel now let’s look at b satan attacks the gospel by subtracting from the gospel redefining belief to make it acknowledgement only john has referred this to a couple times down south those of you that minister down south do

ever meet people say oh i’m saved and you realize that they do know the gospel but you know you can know the gospel and die lost and go to hell do you know that you can even agree with the gospel you can say yeah that’s true you don’t get saved until you depend on the gospel okay so clarify it so look at a kid and say listen you are you you’re not depending on jesus you’re hellbound to loss

not enough to know you can walk an aisle fill out a card but if you’re not depending on jesus you’re lost okay we all know that okay so we got to make sure we don’t redefine the believe to make it an algement only we keep it in dependence and then of course rejecting some aspect of christ’s deity that’s more of what liberalism did i won’t go into that right now it’s not a prevalent issue today

but it was an issue you can’t trust to jesus you don’t believe was virgin born you don’t can’t trust to jesus you don’t now you don’t you may not know he’s you may not even that many you can’t reject the virgin birth and be saved we all understand that because that’s not the Jesus of the Bible. Okay, so we understand the subtracting aspects. You say, okay, preacher, okay, I see that.

So we clarify the gospel. What if this really worldly kid still says, I’m saved? You got a problem, preacher?

I got you now. What are you going to do? Okay, what I’m going to do is I’m going to preach the gospel to the saint.

In other words, now I’m going to challenge you with this kid, do you realize who you are? Do you know who you are? Let me illustrate it this way.

This is not original with me. Many preachers have used this. Now, this did not happen.

It probably could have, but it did not happen. Let’s imagine I’m 10 years old. I’m with my father. I think I’ve said this before at the conference, but my dad passed at the Market Matter Baptist Church,

and they’re in the suburban location. Often I’d go home with my dad. Now, he was always the last one out of the church, always.

And he’d turn the lights off, and everybody would be gone. And you say, why would you, as a kid, a 10-year-old kid, you want to go home with your dad? Well, there’s two reasons.

Number one, I don’t know why I was as a kid. I just want to be there at the end. I didn’t want to miss out on anything.

I thought something goes on. I don’t want to miss it. You say, what were you expecting?

I don’t know. I just didn’t want to miss whatever it was. Okay, I wanted to be there. And then number two, and this may have been the more compelling answer,

Dad was far more likely to stop at McDonald’s than Mom. Okay, so that probably was the more compelling reason. Some of you understand that.

You PKs out there, you understand this. Okay, so let’s imagine I’m sitting there, I’m waiting for my dad to come out of the building, and I’m picking up stones off the parking lot of the Marquette Matter Baptist Church, and I’m just winding up, particularly I’m Ferguson Jenkins. Okay, you 69 Cub fans know what I’m talking about. And so here it is, I’m picking those stones up, and I’m just, you know,

you know, practicing my curveball against the brick wall with the stones off the PL, and my dad walks out, and he says, Jim, what are you doing? Don’t throw stones at the church. Van Geldrens don’t throw stones at churches. and then all the way home i’m thinking i must not be a van gildren they adopted me never told me i must not be a now i want to ask you a question do you think that’s what my dad meant now this

didn’t occur but do you think that’s what he meant no he meant jim you’re a van gildren and if you know what’s good for you you’re going to stop because you are do you know friends that’s what god does to us all throughout the bible walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of Don’t you know who you are? For you formerly darkness, now you lighten the Lord. Walk as children light.

Listen, teenager, jamming out on filthy music. Don’t you know who you are? Listen, Father, who’s out here who’s got an anger problem.

Don’t you know who you are? Don’t you know who is inside of you? Don’t you know it?

You see, the appeal of the gospel to the saint is who you are in Christ. Listen, if you’re trusting in the finished work of Jesus Christ and you’ve gone through all this, I am telling you friend you don’t need to get re-saved you need to realize who you are in Jesus Christ and as you just need hurt you need to possess your possessions and find out the great reality of the Christ who lives within. Hey listen teenager

you don’t have any joy and you know it. You don’t have any peace and you know it. Those of you not right with God hiding junk behind your parents back you don’t have any peace and you know it but I got good news for you inside of you is the Prince of Peace.

You see the point? That’s how I preach it. Don’t you know who you are?

The gospel of the saint starts with who we are in Jesus. The gospel of the saint ends with what we do through Jesus. Now, this is just a few final thoughts.

The gospel of the saint is not due to prove that you are. The gospel of the saint is not due and you will be. The gospel of the saint is because you are due.

Hey, friends, it’s good news. Aren’t you glad that in Jesus you’re dead to sin? That in Christ you’re alive under God?

Aren’t you glad of what you have in Jesus Christ? Perhaps some of you this first session, God began to open your eyes of what you have, your great and glorious inheritance of what you have in Christ. You’re seated in the heavenlies far above all principalities and powers. And I’m telling you, friend, I’m not sure I’ve come to understand a fraction of what I have in Christ,

but I’ve come to realize this. That’s the mother load, friend. That’s where the truth is.

What we have in Jesus Christ. So you cannot tell people the inheritance they have in Christ if they’re not sure they’re in Christ. So my whole burden in preaching this, folks, is to lift up Jesus Christ. And even if you walk out theologically and disagree with me, and that’s between you and the Lord,

you’re going to have to wrestle through this. But I’m telling you, friend, I want you to understand. I hope you understand my burden. The reason I’m preaching this is because I’ve seen many teenagers circumvented from personal revival

because they’re caught in the wilderness trying to figure out which way to go. which body of water do I need to go over so I want as I mentioned backslidden worldly teenagers to know they’re saved because my friend when you know you’re saved and preaching starts the Holy Spirit somebody starts preaching the Bible the Holy Spirit says that’s who you are cut it out don’t you know stop Christian stop

throwing rocks at the church you know my friends that Christians don’t look at pornography Christians don’t get angry Christians don’t get irritated Christians don’t look at dirty internet sites Christians don’t get bitter Christians don’t harbor an unforgiving spirit you say wait a second Christians do all those things and that you know what God’s saying cut it out don’t you know who you are don’t you know who lives in you

I remember I’ll conclude with this please don’t pack up I remember back a few years ago I was in winter garden Florida for a meeting and I knew that my great uncle lived in that town and I decided that I’d like to go see him I knew he was old I knew he’s probably was very short time before he passed away and so I asked some of the people in the church you know Floyd Jacobs

and they said oh yeah Jake yeah well Jake he walks down every day in front of the church down to Burger King every day I’m sure you’ll see him so I kept my eye out for an elderly gentleman walking down the road sure enough one day I saw an elderly gentleman I got in my van of course I didn’t have

to go very far it was going too fast and and so I I pulled in a parking lot and I got out and sure enough, all I had to do was look at him. I’d only seen him one other time in my life, but he looked just like my grandmother, her brother, and I knew that this was Floyd Jacobs. So I said, are you Floyd Jacobs? He said, he looked at me, and I realized very clearly that already in his elderly

years, my grandmother had the same kind of a dementia, Alzheimer’s type of condition, and it was Florida, and he had about, I don’t know, three or four layers of clothes with his pajamas being the first layer. So I knew something was a little different, and I tried to explain who I was. I’m Took him down to Burger King, and we’re in line with him, and we’re talking with him.

Like, we know him. Of course, I kind of knew him. He was my uncle.

And the lady at the cashier is just staring at me because he comes there every day. She just, and of course, nobody knows him. I’m kind of a loner type guy.

She’s staring at me. She finally says, you know him? I thought to myself, yeah, he’s my uncle.

One day I’m going to be like that. So, okay, I mean, just wait. That’s the way it goes.

So I said, yeah, I know him. He’s my uncle. great uncle actually but anyway so we um he got us the usual they said the usual he said yes and he had his change ready exact change you know and and he and we sat down and and uh i tried to talk to him but he kept repeating stories some of you have had older ones you understand try to repeat

stories and he talked about things a long time ago 30 years ago like they were yesterday and it was extremely difficult and i’m trying to frame questions you know how do you know if you die you go to heaven all these different questions and it’s just like you didn’t even hear them just kind of going over it and finally toward the end of the conversation I can’t remember

how do you know if you died you go to heaven something like that and he finally got through and he looked at me like I had asked him the dumbest question on planet earth and he looked back at me and he said it’s the blood brother it’s the blood and I said hallelujah your mind can be 90% gone you can have Alzheimer’s and dementia and you can still know hallelujah it’s the blood brother it’s the blood.

My hope’s built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. That’s a sure foundation, friend. My uncle died two weeks later, and I will tell you, I knew he was in heaven. Because he was resting in the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses us from all

sin. My friend, if you’re here and you do not have that rest, I’m telling you, if you’ll get to Jesus and trust Him, He’ll give you that rest in what He’s done. And if you’re doubting your salvation, I can tell you right now, here’s what you need to do. Look into your heart and say,

Am I trusting Jesus and him alone? Because if you are, whosoever believes in him should not perish but have a everlasting life. Can I ask every head bowed, please, and every eye closed?

Heads are bowed and eyes are closed. Just ask a couple of questions here. How many would say, Preacher, this morning, I’ll be honest with you, the message has confronted my paradigm in some degree, but I am willing to get in the Bible and study this out because I do want to be accurate when it comes to the gospel and to assurance.

And you say, Preacher, I’ll be honest. The message has provoked me with my thinking. I’m not sure.

You may not agree with everything. That’s not the point. But you say, I am willing to really investigate this because I see the importance of the issue.

If that’s you, would you lift your hand? Anybody at all like that? I’m not really looking for anybody.

Amen. God bless you. That’s wonderful.

You can put your hands down. So anybody would say, Preacher, I’m going to be honest with you. I came into the service doubting my salvation. And I realized this morning I was doubting my salvation because I was looking for assurance from something from myself,

something I was doing or feeling or whatever. And I realized that was a mistake, that false doubts come from looking to the wrong object for assurance. You obviously realize the only object that can bring you salvation is the finished work of Jesus Christ. You’re going to be resting in that for salvation or trusting that for salvation

and doubting because you’re looking the wrong thing for assurance. And I’m going to say, Preacher, I’ll be honest with you, this has helped me because I have doubted because I am resting in the finished work of Jesus Christ, but I’ve had doubts because I’ve looked at the wrong object. Would you raise your hand?

As an indication of God’s work in your heart. Amen. God bless you and put those down as well. So anyone here say, Preacher, I’m not sure that I have ever, ever put my faith and trust in Jesus Christ

and what he did on the cross to keep me out of hell. As I sit here and examine it, I realize that I cannot look into my heart and see a rest and trust in what Jesus did on that cross to save me. And I am concerned about where I’ll spend eternity.

Is there anyone like that? I’m not sure. I’m saved because I cannot look and see that I’m resting or leaning or standing on the foundation of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Anybody like that across the room? Anybody at all? Oh, Lord, we thank you for truth.

May it set free. And I pray that God’s people be helped. And that, Lord, you would help all of us just to, whatever you want us to learn from it, Lord, we certainly pray that your spirit would illumine and clarify.

Lord, we want just everything to point to you, Lord, and be completely accurate. That’s our burden. And we couldn’t deal with every angle.

But I do pray that God’s people would be encouraged and helped and blessed. And in the spirit of God, illumine and help us, I pray, to have understanding even as we study your word in these matters. In Jesus’ name, amen.