Safe But Sound pt.4
How can we be absolutely sure…
In these days of great crisis, it is all too easy to feel unsafe. ‘COVID 19’ has unsettled us and many people view the future with a good deal of scepticism, not to say downright fear. Will things ever again return to ‘normal’ or do we face a state of permanent uncertainty as waves of pandemics, locusts, natural disasters, cosmic events, political unrest and economic collapse come crashing in? I frankly admit that I cannot imagine how folks without a living faith in Christ can function: to be hopeless as well as helpless must be distressing beyond imagining. It is a mystery how they remain sane.
Whilst we believers have always regarded passages of Scripture like Matthew 24 as riveting, we have viewed them as if through a hazy lens: clarity was lacking. And because they lacked crystal clarity, we have not given those passages our close attention. Current events are focusing our vision. We are in the Last Days, well and truly, and we’d best wake up to the fact. It is time to open our eyes to the glorious truth: Jesus is at the door! How wonderful! Be ready!
Telling it like it is
As a preacher who lives by his ministry, I shrink from gaining a reputation as a “Doom and Gloom Merchant”. After all, who wants to hear sermons that make them miserable? But if we live by the maxim, “We must obey God rather than men”, we ain’t got no choice! We must speak the truth without fear or favour and, as my Dad would have said, ‘if folks do not like it, they will have to lump it!’ Being popular is not a luxury that faithful preachers can afford. Speaking the truth in love is our business … but it is speaking the truth! That is to say, the revelation of the whole Word of God, affront or please.
The glory of the gospel is that we have good news to set against the bad news: and the good news is astronomical when compared with the bad! Because of Jesus we have a future and a hope, and both are as secure as the promises of God! In a time of national crisis, the prophet Jeremiah wrote to reassure exiled Judah (Jeremiah 29:11), For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
If that was true for Judah in exile, how much more so for the invisible Church, the Bride of Christ, set down as we are in an alien world? As we look with dismay at the degeneration of society, hope burns ever brighter as the day of our Bridegroom’s coming becomes imminent. We are not to become depressed by developments in the world, we are to look up, because the day of our redemption draws near! (Luke 21:28 KJV).
Look up, brothers and sisters!
The purpose of our “looking up” is beautifully expressed by Doctor Luke in Acts 7:55-56. As Stephen, we are to look up to our enthroned Saviour in Heaven! There and only there, is the ground of our confidence. It is ever and always our glorified Jesus, who has finished the work of salvation! We have eyes for no-one else! That keeps us focused … and sane!
To be confident concerning our present status as God’s children and to have the assurance of our future with Him in glory, is to know the peace of God. No wonder our Lord (through Paul) says it is peace that passes understanding (See Phil 4:7). We do not need to work out the fine detail (even if we could), we simply take it by faith and rest in the joyful consequences.
In my last article, I quoted from Romans 8. In verses 28-30, Paul makes a very great statement concerning assurance of salv-ation. There were no doubts in his mind!
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that He might be the first born among many brothers. And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified. (Romans 8:28-30).
If we ever feel we are under attack by the devil, and are being persuaded by deceiving spirits that our salvation is in some kind of doubt, this astonishing passage of absolute truth should lift our spirits into the highest levels of reassurance! We note the deliberate use of the Greek past tense in verse 30: Those He foreknew, He predestined; those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified.
The use of the past tense is remarkable and states clearly that the way God brings salvation into our lives is anchored in eternity past. It is, to use a modern phrase, “a done deal”! Paul shows there is a definite order of blessing, but once begun that order leads uninterrupted from one stage to another. The guarantee of being glorified is made secure at the moment of being predestined. Being called and justified are in fact, intermediary stages that bridge the two. To have been predestined by God is the sure guarantee of our glorification! Nothing can thwart His purpose.
To seek to undermine that remarkable sequence is to say that Almighty God was at fault when He predestined us. It is to say that He could not be sure how we would “turn out”: it rested upon our performance. This must surely be the devil’s suggestion in that, if true, it would completely undermine God’s sovereignty and show Him capable of making mistakes.
When you and I, as truly born-again children of God, consider our position before our Father in Heaven, there is no room for doubt. He predestined us before the foundation of the world and in that act, He guaranteed to call us, to justify us and ultimately to glorify us in His dear Son and with His dear Son.
It is so vital that we maintain our confidence in the almightiness of our Eternal God. He is unchangeable (He does not change, but we do). He is omnipresent (He is everywhere present at the same time, but we are present in only one place at a time). He is immutable (He never changes, but we do). The old hymn, “Immortal, invisible, God only wise”, written by Walter Chalmers Smith in 1867, catches it very well:
Immortal, invisible, God only wise,
In light inaccessible hid from our eyes,
Most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,
Almighty, victorious, Thy great name we praise!
To know God is to be at rest in His almightiness. When we trust our faithful, unchangeable Friend we can rest in His salvation plan. Nothing can change it. Born-again sons of God are utterly secure.
Knowing God
When we have that certainty, which is given us by the Holy Spirit as a guarantee of our inheritance, we cannot be shaken. We know God and so whilst counter arguments can supposedly be put up to undermine our assurance, each must yield to the greater revelation of His absolute faithfulness to His promises. That is the solid ground on which we stand.
Lindy and I love Israel. The Lord has filled us with that love. If some person told me that Lindy had been making antisemitic remarks I would automatically deny them and brand them lies. Why? Because I know Lindy and I know her love for Israel is unbounded. She could never deny herself. I read of a famous Methodist Minister, a son of the Manse, who when a young boy went off to a Boys’ Brigade Camp. It was his first taste of being away from home. After a very few days the boy ran out of pocket money and in desperation sent a Telegram home to his father: “Dear Father. SOS. LSD. RSVP.” Concise and to the point!
Nothing happened. There was no response from his father and yet the boy had made it known to his friends that his father loved him very much. The other boys ridiculed him for his trust in his dad, gleefully suggesting that this lack of response showed his father did not love him as much as he had thought! His only response was to say, “Well, I cannot explain why Dad hasn’t sent any cash to help me out, but one thing I know: my father does love me and when I get home he’ll explain it all to me.” The over-arching and unshakeable fact was his father’s love, and all else – every challenge – was viewed in the light of that.
Problem passages?
There is no doubt that the Bible contains certain passages that appear to challenge the fact of our assurance of salvation. That is how they appear. But all must be seen against the backdrop of the total sovereignty of God. It is within that sovereignty – the unshakeable, unchangeable plan and purpose of God – that our faith is planted and from which it grows and flourishes.
When Paul wrote Romans 8:28-30 and stated his case in the Perfect Tense, it is as if he wrote with us in mind. Paul had not the slightest doubt that his salvation was secure! This – as they say – was the “bottom line”. We have been foreknown and predestined to be redeemed. That decision was made before the foundation of the world, and the end-result will be our glorification. Be very sure of that, regardless of what men may say or write to the contrary. Never allow doubt in the keeping power of your Father to undermine you. Joseph Hart (1712-1768) wrote,
This, this is the God we adore, our faithful, unchangeable Friend;
Whose love is as great as His power, and neither knows measure nor end.
‘Tis Jesus, the first and the last, Whose Spirit shall guide us safe home;
We’ll praise Him for all that is past and trust Him for all that’s to come.
Remember Paul’s Spirit-led use of the Past Tense and kick your heels in the air! Hallelujah! We are safe and such confidence does not make us unsound!