STRANGERS to full assurance may be divided into three classes:—
1.Those who rather despise than value it.
2.Those who would be glad to have it, but do not consider it possible.
3.Those who, believing it possible, have been disappointed in their efforts to reach it.
In the first class are found not only men of the world, openly godless and profane, but so-called “church members,” unconverted and self-satisfied. The secret of their dislike is not hard to find. Satan is behind it. He hates the possibility of assurance. It makes too much of Christ and of the grace of God, and is too closely bound up with the real secret of holy living to serve the enemy’s ends. He knows full well that to admit the possibility of one person possessing full assurance might seriously disturb his neighbor. Hence he craftily whispers into every willing heart, “Don’t you be such a Pharisee as to say you know for certain! Only fanatics and hypocrites talk like that! Absolute knowledge is impossible!”
If one man may know,
Then why not another?
Say, “No one can know;
You’re as good as your brother.”
Consistently labor,
And hope for the best;
Be just to your neighbor,
And leave all the rest.
This dangerous counsel—the devil’s gospel—has done much for his cause in this world, and possibly it was never more popular than today.
But it ignores two great facts: first, that redemption has been accomplished; and second, that God has spoken concerning it.
Deny Christ’s sacrificial death, ignore its necessity, claim the right and the ability to stand before God in your own righteousness, and Satan’s gospel may suit you admirably.
But if Christ has died, and that death was a necessity for sinful men, it sweeps away with one stroke all hope in man’s ability to meet his own case. On the other hand, if God has expressed His righteous satisfaction in the work of Christ; if He has plainly declared His love in sending Him to do it; if with unmistakable clearness He has pronounced the blessedness of those who believe on Him (and He has), who shall stand up in the presence of such witnesses and seek to set at naught the possibility of assurance? Such men, alas, are to be found! But as the Lord once said by Jeremiah the prophet to the lying leaders of a gainsaying people, “They shall know whose words shall stand, Mine or theirs” (Jer. 44:2828Yet a small number that escape the sword shall return out of the land of Egypt into the land of Judah, and all the remnant of Judah, that are gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, shall know whose words shall stand, mine, or theirs. (Jeremiah 44:28)). The higher a man’s position as a religious leader, the greater must be the condemnation of his unbelief (read Luke 12:45-8; 2 Kings 7:1919And that lord answered the man of God, and said, Now, behold, if the Lord should make windows in heaven, might such a thing be? And he said, Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof. (2 Kings 7:19)).
But some honest reader may say, I think it is taking far too much upon oneself to speak with anything like definite certainty respecting such a momentous matter. It looks too much like proud presumption and vain conceit.
We reply, You would be perfectly right in your conclusion under certain conditions; while, under other conditions, the presumption would not be on the side of him who speaks with certainty, but on his who speaks with hesitation.
Take one or two illustrations from Scripture.
Previous to King Hezekiah’s sickness, say in the days of his most buoyant feelings of health and vigor, no one could fail to call it audacious presumption had he said, “I any certain I shall live one year longer.” Would it not rather have been far more becoming to say, “Surrounded by disease and beset with danger as I am, I cannot say for certain that I shall be alive another hour”?
But not so after his illness. It was no presumption then to say, “I shall live fifteen years longer! I know it for certain. GOD HAS SPOKEN.” Nay, it would have been the most daring presumption to fix anything less than that which God had fixed as the future term of his years on earth.
Once more. Take the case of the penitent thief (Luke 23). If, when the soldiers first placed him on the gibbet, that hardened, dying robber had spoken of heaven as his certain destination, it would have been rightly pronounced as the most unwarrantable presumption. A little later on the same day he crowns his life of unbearable wickedness by casting insult upon the Son of God Who was hanging by his side. But here a marvelous change takes place. Full of self-condemnation, he turns to Jesus in simple confidence and gets the well-known gracious answer. Now he can tell you, without the smallest misgiving, that he is certain of being in Paradise that day, and you cannot, you dare not, call it presumption! To do so would be to offer to the suffering Saviour a grosser insult than that by which the malefactor himself taunted Him. The word had passed the holy lips of Jesus that it should be so, and who dare gainsay it? It is very evident that the penitent heart of that dying robber had taken it in: he had not another question to ask on the subject.
Be careful, therefore, to learn the foundation of a man’s assurance before you brand him with the charge of presumption. GEO. C.