Hebrews 6:4-12 & Assurance

For the outsiders who read this blog please excuse me while I write pastorally.  I have counseled with many of you whose assurance is shaken, and I am desirous that you come to a full assurance of your standing in Christ.  There are others of you who seem absolutely confident, and I pray that for a moment your confidence may be shaken, because I am concerned that your confidence is not something rooted in the word of God, evident fruits of salvation, and the testimony of the Spirit.

Assurance does not grant liberty to make little of sin; rather persistent sin and a casual attitude toward sin should cause doubt, not assurance of our salvation.  Or to say it another way, assurance is not a doctrine that allows me to treat sin lightly, rather the biblical doctrine of sin is such that if persistent and casual sin is present in my life I should question my assurance.  When you sin, do you easily comfort yourself, or do you find no peace except in His word, promises and the inner testimony of the Spirit that they are real to you?  Do you look for the presence of fruit in your life bearing witness to God’s saving work in your life or do you easily gloss over sin?

A man who is in the act of secretly cheating on his wife is a fool to convince himself that his wife will never leave him.  In a similar way the “Christian” who continually and apathetically lives in sin is a fool to convince himself that he knows God savingly.  The streams of assurance flow into the Christians life not while they are living in darkness, but while walking in the light.   A man’s wife may indeed remain faithful, and an individual in sin for a season may be truly saved, but this is not when the streams of assurance flow.  If assurance flows at such a time is a false stream with a limited supply.