Salvation Made Sure
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
Taking stock is a very important thing with the business man. Laying a good foundation is a very important task with the builder, Feeling the. pulse and making a general physical examination is altogether vital to the physician. Of course, if we are saved, we are saved whether we know it or not. However, where is he who wants to risk on an uncertainty, the greatest issue of all issues whether one is saved or is not saved?
Would any one care to risk a great business, without one penny of insurance against fire? Would he be satisfied to simply hope he had some good assurance?
Eternity is too long, and the issues of eternal life with God in Heaven, or of eternal death with the wicked in hell, are too great to be cast aside without a thought.
Now, brethren, for our part, we believe that we may know, we believe that we should know, yea, we believe that it is imperative to know that we are saved, and to know it now.
He who says, I hope I am saved, is entering life for evermore on a "guess" platform.
He who never passes beyond a "hope so" faith, casts insults on the more sure promises of God. God says, "He that believeth on the Son HATH everlasting life"; then shall we who believe, say we hope we have, what God says we have?
God speaks of salvation as a present experience. God says, "Hath passed from death unto life," shall we say, "We hope some future day to pass from death unto life"?
Christ said, "Rejoice that your names are written in Heaven." Shall we grieve, fearing that they may never be written there?
If God speaks with a period, shall we speak with a question mark? If God says. It is done, shall we hope it is done? If God says, hath, shall we say may have ?
To place an "if" over against God's certainties, is to cast doubt on the integrity of God's Word. To say "I hope so," where God says, "It is so," is to cast reproach upon the Almighty.
I. WE MAY KNOW WE ARE NOT SAVED IF WE TRUST IN OUR OWN WORKS (Ephesians 2:8-9)
There is a very large class who are going religiously to hell. They think that they are saved, but they are lost. They are members of churches, they have been baptized, they attend church, they help pay the preacher, they do many things, and yet they have no real salvation.
It is not pleasant to tell one that he is not a Christian, when he thinks that he is a Christian. Yet, it is better for the unregenerate to discover his lost estate now than to discover it at the great white throne.
We may know we are not saved when we build our hope of salvation on the works of our own hands. If our only hope is what we do, we cannot be saved, because the works of the unregenerate are no more than filthy rags before God.
Well has the poet expressed it:
"Could my tears for ever flow.
Could my zeal no respite know.
These for sin could not atone,
Christ must save, and Christ alone."
How can we be saved by our works when they fall so far short of the worth of salvation? If we desire to bargain with God and make Him an offer for the exceeding riches of His glory, we had better offer more than our paltry good deeds. Were the whole realm of nature, the sun, the moon, and the stars all ours, they could not buy Heaven.
II. WE MAY KNOW WE ARE NOT SAVED IF WE ARE BASING OUR HOPE ON THE WAY WE LIVE (Titus 3:5)
Shall a man who is ever prone to do evil, seek entrance to God's presence chamber by the goodness he does not possess? God has said that the heart of man is corrupt according to deceitful lusts. He has told us that there is none good, no, not one. He has told us that they that live after the flesh cannot please God. How then can a sinner dare to plead a righteousness which is unrighteousness with God?
Do good? Can a bitter fountain yield sweet water? Can a thorn bear figs? We therefore thus judge that by the deeds of the Law, no flesh shall be justified in His sight.
Those who go about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.
God sees no righteousness in a heart of sin. That heart is full of evil. It holds within its throbbings the seed of sin in all of its hideousness. When God says, "the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked," how can men be saved by their own righteousness? When God says, "There is none that doeth good, no, not one," how can men be saved by their own goodness?
Let us not seek to weave the spider's web of good works from our own inner selves, for it will be swept away. We dare plead no righteousness but that of our Lord.
III. WE MAY KNOW WE ARE NOT SAVED IF WE LOVE THE WORLD. (1 John 2:15-17)
God has spoken, let man keep silent, God says, "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in Him." If the love of the Father is not in us, we are not saved, because He that loveth is born of God, but he that loveth not God is not born of God.
Christ said to certain of Israel, "Ye have not the love of God in you." If then, our love is centered in the world and in the things of the world, and not in God, how can we boast of being saved?
The unregenerate are given over to fulfilling the lusts of the flesh and of the mind. They are led along by the "lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life"; for this cause they are not of the Father, but are of the world.
When God called Abraham, He commanded him to get out of his father's house, out of his own country, and into a land that He would show him. For this cause Abraham was called an "Hebrew," which means a "come outer."
When God called Moses, He commanded him to leave Egypt. And Moses, obedient to the Divine Call, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He esteemed the reproach of Christ as greater riches than all of the treasures of Egypt; he preferred to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.
When God saved Paul, he no longer sought the fellowship and favor of the Sanhedrin; he the rather sought to annex himself to the Christians. He counted all that had been gain to him, but dung.
Let not that individual who loves the world, vainly imagine that he is born of God. Christ said, "Ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you."
IV. WE MAY KNOW WE ARE NOT SAVED WHEN WE REFUSE TO FOLLOW CHRIST (Luke 9:23)
Men who love darkness rather than light, dare not say that they are the children of light. If we say we are of the light and walk in darkness, we He, and do not the truth. He that loveth the light, cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest.
We do not affirm that "joining the church" will save any one; nor do we teach that "confessing Christ" in any way, whether by word or act or religious rite will save, What we do teach and affirm, is, that all who are truly regenerate will come forth to follow the Lord. They will seek to do His will, and to walk His way in obedience to His commands.
If one should say, I have faith and yet he has no works to manifest his faith, his faith is dead being alone. True faith is indissolubly linked to obedience. Salvation is linked to confession. For this cause we read, "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe with thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." Why? Because, it is with the heart that "man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."
V. WE MAY KNOW WE ARE SAVED WHEN WE BELIEVE IN THE SON OF GOD (1 John 5:13)
Many are the Scriptures which press this statement home to our hearts. Christ said, "As many as received Him, to them gave He the [right] to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His Name." He added that such "were born, * * of God."
Paul told the jailor, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved."
There are, however, some who will solemnly say that they believe in God, and in Christ, when they do not believe at all in any Scriptural sense. There are but a comparatively few among the unsaved who do not intellectually believe in Christ. In truth, even, "the demons believe and tremble."
Bible faith is far more than mere assent to a fact, A man who does not believe in the fact of God. is a fool; and a man who does not believe in the historicity of Christ, and accept His claims as to His Deity is almost as big a fool.
Bible faith is synonymous with trust. To believe in Christ is to trust Him, That is the reason that Paul wrote, "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." How can one who believes in sins forgiven, worry over sins as though they were unforgiven?
Bible faith is synonymous with receiving Christ. To believe Christ involves receiving Him. Receiving Him involves the. opening of the heart and letting Him in. He who has Christ under his feet, is lost; but he who has received Him into his heart, is saved. This may seem too "easy." However, it should be remembered that the Lord Jesus came into the world, and the world was made by Him, but the world knew Him not; "He came unto His own, and His own received Him not." The attitude of the world toward Christ has never changed. The world may believe in the claims of the Christ of God in a way that He was not believed in, in His own day. but the world has no more room for Christ in its inner heart-affections than it has ever had.
Christ is still the hated and the despised; the rejected and the crucified Son of God.
When one believes in Christ, when one opens his heart to receive Him, when he crowns Him Lord of his life, when he takes His yoke upon him, when he steps forth to follow Him, then he is saved and safe.
VI. WE MAY KNOW WE ARE SAVED WHEN WE LOVE GOD (1 John 4:7)
Where our heart is there will also our treasure be. The saved may not understand God, but they love Him. All saints may not love God as they should, yet they love Him. Their love becomes more and more real as they know more and more, of the Lord. Yet, they love Him.
There is a love in the believer's heart that will not let Him go. He may grieve the Lord, but he loves Him. He may for a moment turn aside, but he loves Him. Love is the first pulsings of the new life. No child ever clung to its mother more naturally than a child of God clings to Him. The first impulse of the Christian is to cry, "Abba, Father."
Peter wandered away from the Lord, he even cursed and swore, saying, "I know not Him of whom ye speak"; yet, Peter loved the Lord. When, after His resurrection the Lord Jesus dined with the disciples by the seashore, He turned to Peter and said, "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me more than these?" Peter, from the very yearnings of his heart, said, "Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee." The Lord knew all things He knew about Peter's perfidy, but He also knew how Peter had gone out and wept bitterly; He knew how Peter had said, "I know not the Man," but He also knew how Peter had rushed into the tomb upon Mary's announcement of the resurrection and had believed, Jesus knew that deep down in Peters soul there was a love that never wavered, never ceased. He loved Jesus when he swore: he loved Jesus when he followed afar off.
Let everyone be honest with themselves. Let them examine into the recesses of their heart. Do you, each of you, all of you, love God?
VII. WE MAY KNOW WE ARE SAVED WHEN WE LOVE THE BRETHREN (1 John 3:14)
The Epistle of John makes this plain. It says, "We know we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren."
He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love the Lord whom he hath not seen? If we love God, we will love our brother also. This is easily understood. The question is not a love to some of the saints but a love to all of the saints. The question is not a love to saints who may have done us some favor; the question is a love to saints because they love God.
In all of the wide work! there is no love so sincere, and no fellowship that glows with so great a fervor as the love of saints for saints.
John said we know we have passed from death unto life, if we love the brethren. Christ said, "By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another."
Brotherly love is a foretaste of the love that will fill Heaven for evermore.
AN ILLUSTRATION
A. B. Earle wanted to join the Baptist church in the old days, when they demanded an "experience." He frankly admitted that he had had no dream, nor had he heard any voice. Nothing startling had occurred when he accepted the Lord, but said A. B. Earle, "I love the brethren, and God has told us that we know we have passed from death unto life, if we love the brethren." The old deacon who stood the strongest for "seeing things" arose and said something like this: "Brethren, you know that I am a stickler for a big experience, but, my brethren, I cannot go against the Word of God. This young man says that he loves the brethren, and something must have happened somewhere, sometime. I move we take him in."
Let us examine our hearts and see if we have a love for the assembling of saints.
Are you saved? Yea, are you, saved, and do you know it?