Lost Assurance
A friend of ours has cancer. Doctors have told him he may live until October. They have taken him off the experimental drugs that they hoped would extend his life. In an email recently he indicated that he is virtually paralyzed below his waist. He has a problem keeping food down. I wish I could do something to ease his health problems, even extend his life, but I feel helpless in those areas.
In my church, my friend would be described as “a sound, faithful, gospel preacher.” I’m not sure why “gospel preacher” isn’t sufficient, but he is worthy of all those descriptive terms.
Yet, in spite of his faithfulness, being sound in the faith, and a preacher of the good news, when my friend does pass on, some who would preach his funeral will be hesitant to say he went to heaven. I find that strange.
Recently one of our members, a great Christian lady, passed away after several years of sickness. Later I was talking to a member from another congregation of like faith. He mentioned this lady and praised her noble, Christian life. But, he ruined it all by saying, “We can hope that she went to heaven.” It occurred to me that a lot of folks in my church do not believe in the promises of God. They, like the brother just mentioned, may deny that, but their speech betrays them.
Why are some hesitant about believing a deceased saint went to heaven? I believe it stems from the view that God gave us the Bible and we are on our own. Although the Bible is our guide, no where are we told that we are on our own and to go into the presence of God, we must live a sinlessly perfect life. It doesn’t tell us that we must live an almost perfect life. It tells us that we must be obedient, but it never requires perfection in that obedience.
Somehow we have arrived at the conclusion that we must be our own savior. We believe we must somehow reach perfection before God will welcome us. We have left the impression from our pulpits that the slightest deviation from perfection will damn us to hell. Like the Pharisees, we have created unwritten, but well defined laws, on what soundness or faithfulness is. Our man made laws have pushed us away from any hope of entering heaven.
What person believes he has accomplished enough works to merit such an entrance? That’s our problem. We believe we must succeed in that accomplishment, but recognize we don’t. We have created our own dilemma. We have been so brainwashed on the subject of works or obedience, that we cannot accept passages on assurance because they do not harmonize with our indoctrination.
You see, we must be perfect in doctrine and practice or we will never enjoy eternal life. Since we realize we can’t or don’t reach that perfection, we have devised the idea that our only hope is to die while praying for forgiveness. A sudden heart attack, an explosion, a battle death, or any sudden demise where there is no possibility of a last prayer, sinks all hopes. This position has caused some to give up the faith because they felt they were going to hell anyway.
Paul dealt with this works salvation idea a long time ago. He told the Galatians,
“Yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law” (Galatians 2:16).
When we pervert the law of Christ by turning it into a system of justification based upon keeping law perfectly, we create another gospel. Justification has never been by law keeping. It is by faith. A faith, based not upon my ability to accomplish perfect obedience, but a trust in what Jesus did for me upon the cross. My faith must be in what he did, not in how close I come to perfection. Regardless of how hard I try, I will never reach it. Any effort on my part that sets Christ aside as my Redeemer and substitutes my works as my savior, is doomed to failure.
I fear that is the reason that so many have no confidence nor assurance in their salvation. They have put their trust in themselves and experienced their failure. Why not go back to the “good news,” which teaches who the real Savior is, and put our trust in him? When we do, we will find a peace, confidence, and assurance that has eluded us in the past.