Note: the “parts” to this message are not based on logical breaks in the notes below. The message is broken up into sections (parts) based on the amount of time I had to teach for each segment. So it one part may end and another start at an odd place in the outline.
Peace with God, War with God
We need assurance because unless we are SURE we are saved, we fear that God is at war with us, and we are His enemy.
The Bible is abundantly clear on this and yet it is rarely taught. If you are not saved, YOU are God’s enemy, He is furious with you and He will pour out His wrath on you in eternal judgment.
- Doesn’t matter if you believe it, care about it, ignore it or reject it.
- You are God’s enemy if the blood of Jesus has not paid for your sins on God’s terms (repentance & faith).
We need assurance that God is at peace with us and we are no longer the target of His wrath:
- Exodus 22:24 “And My wrath shall wax hot and I will kill you with the sword and your wives shall be widows and your children fatherless.” [because of their sin and idolatry]
- Deuteronomy 32, “They have moved Me to jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked Me to anger with their vanities and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people. I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation, for a fire is kindled in Mine anger and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.” God is furious with sin and sinners.
- Joshua 28:l8: “When you have transgressed the covenant of the Lord your God which He commanded you and have gone and served other gods and bowed yourself to them, then shall the anger of the Lord be kindled against you and ye shall perish quickly from off the good land which He hath given you.”
- II Kings 22:l3: “Great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us because our fathers have not hearkened to the words of this book to do according to all that is written concerning us.”
- Isaiah 5:25: “Therefore is the anger of the Lord kindled against His people and He has stretched forth His hand against them and has smitten them and the hills did tremble and their carcasses were torn in the midst of the street. For all this His anger is still not turned away but His hand is stretched out yet.”
- Isaiah 13:9: “The day of the Lord comes cruel with wrath and fierce anger to lay the land desolate and He shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. Therefore,” it says in verse 13, “I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place and the wrath of the Lord of host and in the day of His fierce anger.”
- Nahum the minor prophet: “God is jealous, the Lord revengeth, the Lord revengeth and is furious. The Lord will take vengeance on His adversaries and reserveth wrath for His enemies.”
- Ephesians 5:6 (NKJV) 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
- Revelation 19:15–16 (NKJV) 15 Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. 16 And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS
People may not be angry with God or care or believe it or even think about it but God is very, very angry with them because of their unrepentant sin.
Salvation Brings Peace
Romans 5:1 (NKJV) Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ
- Romans 5 comes after chapters 3 & 4 four which tells us how to be saved by faith.
The word “therefore” connects to the truth of “salvation by faith” and says because of that salvation “therefore… we have peace with God”.
- PEACE is foundational to assurance.
- It’s not tranquility or fellowship or comfort with God.
- We are at peace with God because before we were saved we were at war with him. We were his enemy.
- Once saved we are forever at peace with God. Once we were at war and His enemy now we are at peace with God, or more accurately GOD is at peace WITH US!
- There can be no clearer statement of the assurance of salvation than this. This is not a statement about subjective emotions/feelings between us and God. This is an objective statement about our position with God.
I’ve Never Been at War with God!
Many will say “I’m not at war with God, I’ve never hated God, I’ve never gone against God, I don’t even have anything to do with God“ but that doesn’t matter.
- It’s not that you are not at peace with God, or you are at war with God, or that God is your enemy, it’s the other way around. God is at war with you. You are his enemy.
- He is not at peace with you because every sin that you commit is a violation of his holiness and cost His only Son His life by a torturous death on our behalf.
God is not at peace with you. When you are saved you are once and for all at peace with God not because of what you did or what you continue to do but because of what Jesus did.
- There is not a word in the Bible that states it matters how the sinner feels about God or in what position the sinner puts God.
- The only thing that matters is in what position God puts the sinner and that is a position of the enemy who is at war with God and will be subject to His fury and wrath and judgment.
- We cannot save ourselves by our own effort from our
standing with God nor once God declares a new position (salvation) can we
change that either!
- Once saved, we are at peace with God
- We are never again subject to this fury or wrath, or not at peace with Him because that peace or standing is not based on anything we did, it’s based on what Jesus did.
- To say that that peace falls short of “forever” and “eternal” and “secure” and “assured” is to diminish the value and the effectiveness of Christ payment for the sins that you are now forgiven for.
Now do you understand why it’s so important to be at peace with God?
Because a clear understanding of one’s salvation is so vital, Scripture encourages true believers with the promise of full assurance, while making false professors uncomfortable by seeking to destroy their false sense of security.
- A true believer’s sense of assurance should not ebb and flow with the emotions; it is meant to be an anchor even in the midst of life’s storms.
- But a false professor has no right to assurance.
PETER: “Be all the more diligent to make certain [assurance] about His calling and choosing you.”
“These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you know that you have eternal life” 1 John 5:13
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That is my opening statement, telling you the end up front, the conclusion at the start… now I’m going to show you from Scripture why everything I’ve stated is simply and undeniably true with this final warning:
- Many people who have a hard time with this will have a hard time truly considering what I’m saying, continually thinking “yeah, but what about the verses that seem to imply salvation can be lost?” being distracted from point after point after point that EXPLICITLY says salvation cannot be lost.
- I encourage you to put aside those “what about” verses for now and open your heart and mind to God’s Word. We will study those “what about” verses too.
You cannot build a doctrine on one verse, or a handful of verses especially to the detriment of or while completely ignoring an entire collection of verses that declare something different when taken as a whole.
The Bible interprets the Bible. All 33K verses declare the meaning of any one verse. Many false, incomplete or weak Bible doctrines are created by snatching a few verses out of the Bible to stand alone.
Eternal Security in Scripture
1 John 5:10–13 (NKJV) 10 He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son. 11 And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. 13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.
Eternal security is the Bible confidence that every born again believer has perfect, complete, eternal salvation in Jesus Christ.
- We cannot gain our own salvation, so we have no ability to lose our salvation which we gain in the first place by our own effort
- We are SAVED BY GRACE “not of ourselves”… can we then lose that grace-granted salvation by violating God’s Law?
- So you have to understand HOW and WHY you are saved to understand why it cannot be lost
- The Bible is very clear, very thorough and very emphatic about HOW TO BE SAVED… if you could then lose that salvation once truly gained, don’t you think the Bible would equally as clear, thorough and emphatic about how your salvation can be lost?
- Dozens of verses clearly state that salvation once granted is guaranteed and secure… but those are ignored for a few verses that “seem to imply” salvation can be lost.
“So what you’re saying is ‘you can get saved and go out and live however you want, right?’” NO!!! That’s not what I’m saying. That’s not what I mean. I cannot control what people THINK I mean, I can only control my own words to communicate what I mean.
So at any time you find yourself thinking “so he means you can just walk the aisle, then go out live it up in sin, and you’re still saved” remind yourself that is a conclusion YOU are coming to about my words, not something I’m actually saying.
- As soon as a sinner receives Christ, he possesses full, unending salvation.
- To have Christ is to have a secure position before God (1 Jn. 5:10-13).
- Though the Bible does not use the term “security” to describe the believer’s relationship in Christ, it leaves no doubt that the child of God is eternally safe in Christ.
- Eternal security refers only to those who are born again through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.
- It does not refer to hypocrites or to those who are merely dabbling in the things of Christ. “Tares” “Lord, Lord… look what we did.”
- IF the above is true then: those who permanently fall away have never been born again.
How We Can Be Sure True Christians Are Eternally Secure.
Because of the terms used to describe salvation.
- “eternal life” (Jn. 3:16; 1 Jn. 5:11);
- “full assurance” (He. 6:11; Col. 2:2);
- “strong consolation” (He. 6:18);
- “hope … sure and steadfast” (He. 6:19).
Because of what we are. All of the following are spoken of in the present tense; this is the present condition of each true believer
- Forgiven (Ro. 4:7; 1 Jn. 2:12).
- Justified (Ro. 5:1,9; Tit. 3:7). (3) – Paid in full, account satisfied
- Reconciled (Ro. 5:10). – God is no longer AT WAR with us (our enemy)
- Risen with Christ (Ro. 6:3-6; Col. 3:1,2).
- We have a new eternal spirit…
- Can that spirit now be taken away, returned to the old? Can our new spirit become sinful again and we now have need for yet another new spirit?
- A child of God forever (Ro. 8:15; Ga. 4:4-7; 1 Jn. 3:1).
- Sanctified in Christ (1 Co. 1:2).
- Made holy in Christ, even though we still sin because our body has not yet been redeemed
- Can we out-sin the holiness of Christ?
- If God sees us now as He sees Christ, can we sin to some degree that Christ’s holiness is overshadowed?
- New creation (2 Co. 5:17).
- Accepted in the beloved (Ep. 1:6).
- Saved (Ep. 2:8,9; 2 Ti. 1:9).
- Made fit for Heaven (Col. 1:12).
- Fit for Heaven even though we still sin
- How much sin makes us UNFIT for Heaven at that point? One sin? A thousand?
- Complete in Him (Col. 2:10).
- When God says “complete” He doesn’t mean potentially complete, or complete with conditions…
- Citizens of Heaven (Ph. 3:20).
- Children of light (1 Th. 5:5).
- Elect (1 Pe. 1:2).
- Born again (1 Pe. 1:2,23).
- Sanctified once for all (He. 10:10).
- Hebrews 10:10 (NKJV) 10 By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
- … “for now until we sin too much or back slide then we have to be sanctified AGAIN ‘once for all’
- Does “once for all” not mean “once for all”?
- Perfected forever (He. 10:14).
- Hebrews 10:14 (NKJV) 14 For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.
- “Being sanctified” starts at the moment of salvation and is completed when our sin cursed flesh is traded for our incorruptible new body
- We are perfected FOREVER when we are being sanctified… who is “being sanctified”? Those who are saved.
- Are they “perfected” with conditions, or potentially perfect? NO, perfected FOREVER
- The “perfected” is once and forever… for those who are in the process (on their way to being) sanctified
- So our “perfection” is already done even though our sanctification is ongoing
- God saved us, and will complete our salvation as we live our life in a process of sanctification – becoming more holy
- Passed from death unto life (1 Jn. 3:14).
- Life back to death? Back to life? Back to death? NOT A CONCEPT YOU FIND IN SCRIPTURE
To be continued next week…