John MacArthur - Assurance of Salvation

yes thank you thank you for uh answering my questions my name is joy hi it's answer to prayer to be here so here they are three real quick questions a little complicated how do i know if i am saved if i have blasphemous thoughts should i be taking communion if i am not sure if i am saved if i am not chosen would i even care about being saved really good questions joy you have a wonderful name but sometimes it's hard to live up to isn't it i mean how would you like to be named joy and have to always be assumed to be possessing all of that i can i can hear the cry of your heart joy i i want to make it as simple as i can um the fact that you are asking these questions is evidence of the work of god in your heart it is evidence of your desire for him and for salvation and to know him that that is evident there the fact that you would stand up in front of all of us and and unbear your heart in such a sweet and honest way is evidence of the of the hunger of your heart to know him and i think that's what you're essentially saying [Music] the way you know that you are saved is by your desire do you desire to know god yes do you desire do you desire that he would know you and love you yes do you desire to love him yes do you desire to honor him yes do you desire to obey his word i do but i i can't do it on my own strength well of course not join the club and that's why we're all here [Music] this is the same with all of us it's all of grace isn't it it's all of grace the apostle paul in romans 7 helps us because this is the apostle paul this is the the one that we would elevate as the supreme example of of a christian and he says um well he calls himself a wretched man because he says i do what i don't want to do and i don't do what i want to do he said there is a there is a principle in me that loves the law of god but i see another principle in me warring against the principle of my mind and it's the principle of my flesh and it causes me to do the very opposite of the things i want to do and he says oh wretched man that i am who will deliver me from the body of this death and that's that's a very interesting illustration one of the ways that murderers were punished in the ancient world was that the victim that they had murdered was was strapped to their body and eventually the decay from the corpse would destroy them paul feels even though he's a believer that he's got the dead body of his of his sinful nature still tied to him so what you're saying to me is essentially the same cry that came out of the noblest of all christians and that very cry is evidence of the work of god in your heart that that you desire to know god to be loved by god to love god to honor god to obey god and that you know you can't is a statement of a genuine believer because you recognize that you aren't everything you should be and you are utterly dependent upon god himself and upon the holy spirit that's true of your salvation you can't save yourself and you can't sanctify yourself so you're you're where all honest christians live you you're saying i'm not what i what i want to be but i know what i want to be i'm not what i ought to be but i know what i ought to be it's it's about direction it's about affection it's about love and we've talked about that recently when jesus was restoring peter in john 21 he said three times do you love me do you love me do you love me and peter had been caught in disobedience again and yet he said lord you know you know me you know i love you then feed my sheep he accepted the failing life of peter the tendency to be disobedient and even maybe to have ungodly thoughts which is just part of that remaining sin nature but he accepted that man and he accepts all of us if we love him and calls on us to love him more so you don't you don't want to evaluate the character of your salvation by your failures you want to assess the genuineness of your salvation by your desires by what you love what you long for what you want and you're here and that that says everything this is not a a place for people running from god this is a place for people running to him but asking the question is important the the purest joy to kind of play on your name a little bit the purest joy in the christian life comes when we are obeying him loving him serving him worshiping him that's when we enjoy the most assurance security is one thing security means that i am saved and he will keep me until i see him face to face i'm secure in him that's not assurance assurance is the confidence i have in my mind of my salvation many people are saved they're secure secured by god in that salvation but they don't always have the assurance why do we struggle with assurance because we know our weakness because we know our temptations because we know we're not what we ought to be sometimes because we fall into a pattern of sin and we lose our assurance sometimes because perhaps we have been taught wrongly that um you might do something cause you to lose your salvation and that generates a certain amount of fear but to go back to the main point the very desire of your heart is the evidence of the work of god in your life because unregenerate enemies of god don't have those desires okay does that help thank you thank you joy [Applause]

Channel: Ben Trowbridge

Views: 344,806

Keywords: John MacArthur, Gospel, Salvation, Assurance, Q&A, Bible, Questions, Answers

Id: iHivtfyUmMc

Length: 7min 10sec (430 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 03 2017