1 John, chapter 5, and I'd like to
read verse 13.
1 John, chapter 5, verse 13.
These things have I written unto you that
believe on the name of the Son of
God, that ye may know that ye have
eternal life.
And that ye may believe on the name
of the Son of God.
The subject of our message this morning is
assurance.
Assurance of salvation.
How can a person know that he's saved?
I don't mean how can he know 20
years later, I mean how can he know
at the very moment that it takes place
that he is saved?
I'll tell you a little secret.
Every preacher has some favorite subject.
Dr. Ironside's favorite was, charge that to my
account.
He really loved that story of Philemon and
Onesimus.
And when he gave it, I mean the
whole thing came to life.
You could see Philemon out there sitting on
his front porch with his wife and gabbing
away and looking down the dusty road and
seeing a familiar gate coming up and it
was Onesimus.
And, I mean, he just, with a little
sanctified imagination, he just painted the whole picture
in front of you so that you never
forgot it.
That was his favorite.
My favorite is assurance of salvation.
You know why?
Because that was such a crisis in my
own life.
Maybe I could just engage in a little
biography at first.
I was brought up in a good Christian
home.
And I knew the gospel from my earliest
days.
I can remember my brother and I witnessing
to kids in our neighborhood and we weren't
even saved ourselves.
Crazy, isn't it?
But we did.
We were telling others the way of salvation
and we weren't saved ourselves.
I had very wise parents.
They wore out their knees praying for us,
but they never buttoned hold us.
Some of the preachers did and I did
not appreciate it one bit.
You know, when the preachers would come and
button hold me and say, Well, are you
saved yet, Bill?
I won't tell you the thoughts that went
through my mind.
You know what it was?
It was pride.
That's what it was.
Rotten, stinking pride.
And during my early years, I was really
fighting against the Lord, literally fighting against the
Lord.
I can identify with that poem that says,
Against the God who built the sky, I
fought with hands uplifted high, despised the mention
of his grace, too proud to seek a
hiding place.
You know, I believe it's pride that keeps
most men and women from the Lord.
Fear of going back and letting your friends
know that you're saved.
That's what bothered me.
I didn't want to go back to high
school, tell them that I was saved.
They'd think, What kind of a weirdo is
he?
I didn't want them to think that of
me.
But when I was a senior in high
school, the Spirit of God started to convict
me of my sins.
Now, this might strike you as being strange,
because I had really never committed any of
the gross sins.
I had never been to a dance, even.
I had never been inside a theater.
I was brought up by a Scottish Presbyterian
mother, and she was determined that we would
never go into a theater.
And she was.
I've never been in one yet.
I had never committed adultery.
I had never committed murder.
I had never committed any of those gross
sins.
But, during that last year in high school,
the Lord showed me that what I am
inside was a lot worse than anything I
had ever done.
That's a good revelation for any of us,
huh?
Did you know that?
What you are inside is a lot worse
than anything you've ever done.
The potential for evil there.
And the Lord really barbecued me, and I
say that reverently.
I could take you back to a church
in Central Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
I could take you up to the balcony
of that church where I sat one night
when the gospel was being preached.
I had to get out.
I did.
I left.
Left my family there just to get out
in the fresh air.
I was so brought up.
And what was it?
It was the Spirit of God convicting me
of my sin.
Telling me, Bill, somebody like you could never
get to heaven.
You've got to be born again to get
to heaven.
And I knew it was true, too.
Sometime during that period, I yielded to the
Lord.
Honestly, it was such a time of emotional
turmoil that I don't know the first time
I trusted Jesus Christ as my Lord and
Savior.
I don't.
If my getting to heaven depended on knowing
a day and an hour, I'd never make
it.
But I often say, I don't know when
I first trusted Christ, but I know I'm
trusting Him now.
But that's really what counts, isn't it?
Well, what really happened is that I trusted
the Lord during that time.
I bowed the knee.
I repented.
I took sides with God against myself.
I really did.
I acknowledged that what the Spirit of God
was saying to me was true.
What I was inside was rotten.
If I looked inside myself, I saw nothing
but a cesspool of iniquity.
And sometime during that time, I did.
I bowed the knee to the Lord Jesus.
Now, I had been brought up under the
sound of the gospel.
In fact, I used to go down with
my father to the gospel mission on Skid
Row, and I would hear some of these
dramatic testimonies of people who were saved from
lives of depravity, and their salvation was a
great emotional experience.
It was dramatic.
It was spectacular.
And I expected that to happen to me.
But when I trusted Christ as Savior, nothing
happened.
It was just the quiet acceptance of a
quiet offer.
And so I guessed I was not saved.
All down those years, I had convinced myself
that when you trust the Lord Jesus as
your Savior, you know it by your feelings.
Because I had heard so much about feelings.
I trust the Lord as my Savior, and
no feelings came.
And I can remember many times, you know,
for years I didn't want to be saved.
I wanted to be left alone.
Now I really wanted to know I was
saved, but I couldn't know it.
And I'd go to meetings, and I'd bow
my head, and I'd say, Lord, if I'd
never trusted you before, I trust you now.
And wait for the feelings.
The feelings didn't come.
You see, I expected the bells to ring.
I expected the lights to go on.
I expected to feel electrical impulses in my
nervous system to tell me I was saved.
I didn't get any of that.
And I went on for months, and they
were months of darkness.
I believe if I had died during that
time, I would have gone to heaven, because
I had trusted Christ as my Savior.
But I certainly wasn't enjoying my salvation, because
I didn't have assurance of salvation.
And you know why I didn't have assurance
of salvation.
I was looking for it in the wrong
place.
Then I got a hold of the writings
of a man.
I don't know.
The Lord did this, really.
I got a hold of the writings of
a man called George Cutting.
He wrote a little tract called Safety, Certainty,
and Enjoyment.
And he also wrote a book called Light
for Anxious Souls.
I think he wrote it for me, because
I read that book.
I'll never forget the peace that just swept
over.
It's as if all the clouds went floating
away.
You know what he said?
He said, It's the blood that makes us
safe.
It's the Word that makes us sure.
That was the key to my problem.
It's the blood of Christ that makes us
safe.
He died on the cross as a substitute
for us.
We receive him as Lord and Savior, and
we're saved.
But how do you know it?
Through the Word of God.
And not through your feelings.
That was marvelous.
That's why when I think of my conversion,
all I think of is that time when
I got assurance of salvation.
And it was really wonderful.
So, we should ask ourselves the question today,
Have I ever been convicted of the fact
that I'm a sinner?
Have I ever known that barbecuing process of
the Spirit of God?
I tell you, when you're convicted by the
Spirit of God, you really know it.
You really know it.
You say, well, I've never had that.
What can I do about it?
Go home and get down on your knees
and ask the Lord to convict you.
I can't do it.
But if you're here today and you're not
a decided Christian, and you've never been convicted
of the fact that you're a guilty, lost,
hell-deserving sinner, you ask the Lord to
convict you.
And he'll do it.
I thank God for John 7, 17.
It says, If any man will do his
will, he shall know of the doctrine.
If you really are interested, God's more interested
than you are.
You just show him you're interested and he'll
show you.
Number two, have I given up all hope
of saving myself?
You've got to do that.
You've got to give up all hope of
saving yourself.
And then, by a definite act of faith,
you have to receive the Lord Jesus Christ
as your only hope for heaven.
And I want to tell you something today.
If you've been convicted or are being convicted
by the Spirit of God, and you renounce
all help from man or from yourself, and
you bow the knee and receive Jesus Christ
as your Lord and Savior, you're as saved
as God can make you.
Then you can know on the authority of
the Word of God that you're saved.
I'm so glad for that today.
I'm so glad that God doesn't rest assurance
of salvation on our feelings.
Because, you know, today I might feel quite
well.
Tomorrow I might have a sick headache.
What does that do to my salvation?
God loves us too much to base assurance
of salvation on something as fickle as our
feelings.
He wants to base our assurance of salvation
on the surest thing in the universe, and
I'm holding it in my hand, the Word
of God.
And that's what I see when I read
1 John 5, 13.
These things.
Now, actually, there are two ways of interpreting
this verse, I know.
John may be saying here, I've written this
letter giving you the tests of life so
that you can know whether you really are
saved or not.
But I prefer to use it in another
way.
For the person who has just trusted Christ
as Savior, these things have I written unto
you.
Think of God as saying this.
God's saying to you today, these things have
I written unto you.
Who?
Everybody?
No.
You that believe on the name of the
Son of God.
Have I really believed on the name of
the Son of God?
Yes.
As best I know how, I have believed
on His name.
And incidentally, to believe on His name means
to believe in Him.
The name stands for the person.
And that means you've committed yourself to Him
completely to save you from your sin.
These things have I written unto you that
believe on the name of the Son of
God, that ye may know.
Oh, thank God for that word, know.
That you may know that you have eternal
life.
God is saying to me, Bill, I wrote
that Bible to you so that you could
put yourself in, and knowing you've trusted in
the Lord Jesus, can know that you have
eternal life.
I often think of the thief on the
cross.
First he was blaspheming the Lord Jesus, and
then all of a sudden he had a
change of heart, and he said, Lord, remember
me when thou comest into thy kingdom.
And Jesus said to him, Verily I say
unto thee, today thou shalt be with me
in paradise.
You don't have to wait till I come
into my kingdom.
You'll be with me in heaven today.
Okay?
You and I are standing in front of
the cross.
And I'm looking up at that thief, just
a minute later.
And I say to him, Are you saved?
What would he say?
He'd say, Yes, I'm saved.
I say to him, How do you know
you're saved?
Do you feel saved?
He'd say, All I feel is pain.
What would he say?
He was crucified.
All I feel is pain.
How do you know you're saved?
What would he say?
Because Jesus said so.
That's what he would say.
Because Jesus said so.
I heard Jesus say so.
Now, Jesus doesn't tell you in an audible
voice today.
He tells you through the Word of God,
doesn't he?
When you come, bow the knee to Jesus
Christ.
He tells you through the Word of God.
How does he tell you?
John 5, 24.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that
heareth my word, and believeth on him that
sent me, hath everlasting life.
Have you heard his word?
And incidentally, hearing there doesn't just mean hearing
with the ear.
It means hearing and receiving.
It means hearing and believing.
Have you done that?
He that heareth my word, and believeth on
him that sent me.
Who sent him?
God sent him.
Why did he send him?
He sent him to be your Savior.
Do you believe that?
Believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting
life.
Do you have everlasting life?
Well, Jesus said you have, if you've done
that.
Acceptably, and believe that God sent him to
be your Savior.
And the best way you know how you've
received him as Lord and Savior, God says,
hath everlasting life.
Shall not come into judgment, but is passed
from death unto life.
How do you know when you've accepted a
gift?
By your feelings?
Well, you say, don't be silly.
I know when I've accepted a gift because
I took it.
How do you know when you're married?
By your feelings?
No.
You know you're married because you heard him
say, I pronounce you husband and wife.
Listen, Jesus pronounces you saved when you trust
him as your Savior.
That's what I'd like to emphasize this morning.
It's not by feelings.
I believe there's so many people today going
on in torture, looking for feelings.
And God loves you too much to send
the feelings, till first you believe his word.
Somebody said to Martin Luther, Mr. Luther, do
you feel that your sins have been forgiven?
He said, no.
But I'm as sure of it as that
there's a God in heaven.
For feelings come, and feelings go, and feelings
are deceiving.
My warrant is the word of God.
Not else is worth believing.
Boy, I'll never forget the first time I
read.
I got that right at the time I
needed it.
I thought, boy, if Martin Luther didn't feel
his sins had been forgiven, there was hope
for me.
He said, feelings come, and feelings go, and
feelings are deceiving.
My warrant is the word of God.
Not else is worth believing.
And then I remember reading dear old H
.A.I. again, Ironside, and he said, I
don't know I'm saved because I feel happy,
but I feel happy because I know I'm
saved.
That statement made me realize I was putting
the cart before the horse.
Let me say it again.
He said, I don't know I'm saved because
I feel happy, but I feel happy because
I know I'm saved.
Let me say it again.
He said, I don't know I'm saved because
I feel happy, but I feel happy because
I know I'm saved.
And how do you know you're saved, Dr.
Ironside?
Because the Bible tells me so.
Yeah, we sang that this morning.
Jesus loves me, this I know, for my
feelings tell me so.
That isn't the way you sang it, John.
Jesus loves me, this I know, for the
Bible tells me so.
That's how you know he loves you, and
that's how you know you're saved when you've
trusted him as Savior.
But I think the thing that outside the
Bible that helped me most was a statement
that Dr. Scofield made, C.I. Scofield, who
edited the notes of the Scofield Bible.
He said, think about this.
He said, justification takes place in the mind
of God and not in the nervous system
of the believer.
What does that mean?
Well, it means that when a sinner down
here on earth bows the knee, repents of
his sins, and receives Jesus Christ as only
Lord and Savior, God in heaven reckons him
to be righteous.
It takes place in the mind of God
and not in the nervous system of the
believer.
See, I was looking for electrical impulses flowing
through my nervous system, but they never came.
And I thought, there's hope for me.
I'd like to ask you a question.
What made Noah safe?
His feelings or the ark?
Well, there's only one answer to that question.
It's the ark that made Noah safe.
It didn't make any difference what his feelings
were.
If he was inside the ark, he was
safe from the flood of judgment.
The ark is a picture of Christ, isn't
it?
Just be in Christ and you're safe, and
you can know it by the Word of
God.
It's not by signs that we know we're
safe.
It's not even by dreams.
A dream might only mean that you ate
cheese before you went to bed at night.
So don't depend on things like that.
People say, if I could only hear Jesus
saying to me in an audible voice that
I was saved, then I'd be happy.
Listen, there are too many audible voices in
the world today.
You couldn't be sure it was Jesus.
It might be the voice of a demonic
spirit.
Jesus speaks to us through the Word of
God, and that's what we want to be
careful to listen to.
But somebody says to me, just a minute,
Brother MacDonald, the Bible says if we are
saved, we have the witness of the Spirit.
And you know, the devil can really use
passages of Scripture to upset people.
I remember years ago I was preaching in
Chicago, and there was a young girl there
in the meeting, a very sincere, dear young
girl, and she wanted to be saved, and
she wanted to know that she was saved,
and she'd go home and she'd say, Mother,
I've trusted the Lord.
And the mother said, Well, dear, surely if
you've trusted the Lord, you'd have the witness
of the Spirit.
And the poor girl thought, the witness of
the Spirit must be some mysterious feeling or
something.
And she would look inside herself, and I
guess she didn't feel that she had the
witness of the Spirit.
And she was plunged into deep despair, looking
for the witness of the Spirit.
What is the witness of the Spirit?
Well, I'd like to suggest something to you.
It might be a help to somebody here
today.
The Spirit of God witnesses through the Word
of God.
It's not some mysterious feeling that comes to
you.
Listen, I don't deny that the emotions are
involved in salvation.
Praise God, of course they're involved.
The happy feelings come after you know you're
saved.
The emotions are involved.
But don't make the witness of the Spirit
in Romans chapter 8 to mean something it
doesn't mean.
It's not something mysterious.
It's not some efflatus that comes upon you
from heaven and you glow with a holy
radiance or something like that.
The Spirit of God witnesses through the Word
of God.
And when I read Romans 10 and 9,
that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth
the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine
heart that God hath raised him from the
dead, thou shalt be saved, the Spirit of
God witnesses to me, have you done those
things?
Yes, I have.
Well, you're saved.
He witnesses through the Word of God.
That's the most practical thing in the world,
isn't it?
Truth is what God says about a thing.
That's what truth is.
That's what God says about a thing.
And no Word of God can ever fall
to the ground.
And I'm so glad for that day when
I just accepted the testimony of the Word
of God that because I had, by a
definite act of faith, received Jesus Christ as
my Lord and Savior, I was saved.
I want to tell you something.
I've never doubted my salvation ever since.
And that's no credit to me.
Jesus did all the saving.
I did all the sinning.
So when I say that, it's no boast.
It's just I've trusted the Word of God.
I believe the Word of God.
I have assurance of salvation.
Now, as you go on in the Christian
life, there are other ways in which you
can get assurance of salvation.
I was talking about assurance the minute after
you've trusted Christ.
You can have it.
But as you go on in the Christian
life, there are other ways in which you
know you're saved.
You know one of them?
You have a love for the brethren.
And that's real.
I tell you, before I was saved, I
liked to avoid the Christians.
I thought they were creeps.
And I didn't want to be with them.
It all changed when I was saved.
I thought, man, these people are the excellence
of the earth.
And I still think that, you know.
With all our faults and failures, I really
believe the Christian people, God's elect, the excellence
of the earth, in whom is all my
delight.
That was real in my life.
A new love for God's people.
They didn't annoy me anymore.
They didn't bother me.
In fact, when they asked me now if
I was saved, I was only too glad
to tell them.
It was wonderful.
Then, a new love for the Bible.
That's a good sign when a person's saved.
When a person's saved, there's an instinctive love
for God's Word.
Look, if you love the Lord, you're going
to love His Word, too.
Doesn't mean you're going to understand everything in
it.
But you'll love it just the same.
And you can go to it and get
food for yourself.
A desire to pray.
Listen, when you're saved, there's a divine, the
Spirit of God comes into your heart, and
you know the first word you'll probably say?
Father.
It says that in Galatians.
It says the Spirit of God is coming
and crying, Abba, Father.
I think back to my time in the
Navy in Honolulu, and stayed after the Bible
class one.
It was a fellow that wanted to get
saved.
At that time, we had a blackout in
Honolulu.
All the windows at night were blackened.
There was not a crack of light to
get out in case some Japanese bombers came
over.
Or a submarine, for that matter.
And this fellow trusted the Lord.
We got down on our knees, and he
trusted the Lord as his Savior.
And I said, OK, now you pray, and
I'll pray.
You know what he prayed?
I thought it was beautiful.
He said, Father, I've been on a blackout
up until now, but now I see the
light.
But the first word out of his mouth
was Father.
I don't know whether that fellow had ever
prayed before in his life.
That wasn't a bad prayer, was it?
Father, I've been on a blackout up until
now, but now I see the light.
A desire to pray.
There'll be a cleaning of your speech.
Maybe beforehand you were profane.
You used the name of the Lord in
vain.
Gene Gibson and I visited a dear young
lady dying of cancer in Oakland one day,
and we said, well, how is it?
And she said, well, I've never spoken in
tongues.
And she said, it says that those that
are saved will speak with new tongues.
I said, really?
I thought you had spoken with a new
tongue.
And she said, what do you mean?
I said, when you were saved, was your
speech clean?
She said, oh, it was far.
When you were unsaved, she said, it was
far from clean.
I said, what happened when you got saved?
She said, it got clean.
I said, your tongue.
You were speaking with a new tongue.
And she said, that's right.
And she died in peace.
And that's true.
That's true.
Cleans up our speech.
Increased purity of life.
I noticed this in my life, that when
I was saved, I had a new hatred
of sin and a new love for holiness.
I haven't arrived.
Believe me, I haven't.
I don't want to stand here today and
let you think that I'm a paragon of
virtue.
You know, it's like Lazarus, when he came
out of the grave, he came out bound
hand and foot with grave clothes.
And Jesus said, loose him and let him
go.
Well, when we're saved, we're bound hand and
foot.
Oftentimes with grave clothes.
And the process of getting rid of them
is kind of a lifetime process, isn't it?
But that's all right.
It's a process.
And it's going on.
And then the breaking of old habits.
And this is a gradual thing.
Some people break immediately.
But most of us, it takes a while
to break some of those old habits.
And then you do have the inner witness
of the Spirit through the Word of God
that you have passed from death to life.
And a desire to share the good news
with others.
That's a good sign of new life, isn't
it?
When you really have a deep concern for
the souls of those about you and you
want to share the good news with them.
Well, say, I have assurance of salvation.
Well, look, the devil's going to come and
he's going to raise all kinds of...
Do you ever have this experience where you
think a thought or maybe even say something
and the devil says, Look, if you were
really saved, you wouldn't have thought that thought.
You wouldn't have said what you just said.
You wouldn't have acted the way you've just
acted.
The devil comes.
He tries to upset us.
What do you do?
I'll tell you what I do.
I quote the Word of God to him.
That's what Jesus did in the temptation in
the wilderness.
He quoted the Scriptures.
But that's what I do with the devil.
I say, Look, John 5, 24, hath everlasting
life, shall not come into condemnation, is passed
from death unto life.
Whom shall I believe, Jesus or you?
And he takes a powder.
He really does.
He leaves me alone.
Quote the Word of God.
When doubts come to your mind about this
whole...
And I don't doubt that they might.
Quote the Word of God and he'll leave
you alone.
Assurance of salvation comes first and foremost through
the Word of God and not through feelings.
Don't look to your feelings to tell you
you're saved.
Look to something of which the Lord Jesus
could say, Heaven and earth shall pass away,
but my Word will never pass away.
Shall we bow our heads in prayer?
While our heads are bowed, I'm very conscious
of the fact that there might be somebody
here in the audience this morning who does
not have assurance of salvation.
And maybe you'd like to.
Maybe this has whetted your appetite.
I'm not going to ask you to raise
your hand.
I'm not going to ask you to come
forward.
But right there in your seat, the Lord
knows all about it.
Bow your head.
Say, Lord Jesus, if I've never been saved
before, I want to receive you right now
as my Lord and Savior.
I believe you died for my sins on
the cross of Calvary, but I believe that
you will save me through your merits and
not my own.
And then trust the Word of God that
because you have committed yourself to him, you
have everlasting life.
And then go out from this conference and
see the changes in your life.
They'll thrill you.
You'll be a new person.
You'll be even surprised at yourself.
And if there is anyone here, and God
has spoken to you today, and you'd just
like to talk to us, feel free to
come down afterwards.
We'd be thrilled to sit here in the
front row.
I know Carl would be delighted, and John,
and Earlene, and John, too.
And just feel free to come down.
But wouldn't it be wonderful to leave and
know that you'll never come into condemnation, but
you have passed from death unto life.
Do feel free to box a tide going
out and just come down and get the
whole matter settled.
Father, we just thank you for your wonderful,
wonderful Word.
I thank you personally today for saving my
soul.
I know there are people in Spokane with
better characters than mine, better personalities than mine,
and yet you've wonderfully, graciously saved my soul.
Lord, you might be speaking to somebody in
our meeting today, somebody who's just on the
borderline, wants to cross over, fearful, fears without,
and doubting.
Pray, Lord, that you'll give grace to any
such a one to say, yes, Christ for
me.
I don't care what my friends think.
They'll all be gone a hundred years from
today, but Christ will still be there.
Pray that they might step over the line,
receive the Lord Jesus, and receive assurance of
salvation.
Lord, there may be somebody here who really
has trusted you and is not enjoying his
or her salvation because they've been looking to
their feelings instead of to the Word of
God.
Pray, Lord, that today this person or persons
might really enter into full assurance of faith.
Dismiss us with your blessing.
We ask it in Jesus' name.
Amen.