Growing in Assurance: The Journey of Faith

"This infallible assurance doth not so belong to the essence of faith but that a true believer may wait long and conflict with many difficulties before he be partaker of it: yet, being enabled by the Spirit to know the things which are freely given them of God, he may, without extraordinary revelation, in the right use of ordinary means, attain thereunto." [00:00:36]

"So, here is the debate. Does 18.3 mean to say that assurance is altogether separate from faith, or does it mean to say that full assurance is something different from the seed of assurance that is in faith? And I would argue the latter, when it says, 'This infallible assurance doth not so belong to the essence of faith, but that a true believer may wait long before he be partaker of it,' isn't saying that in faith itself there's not the seed of assurance." [00:03:43]

"So, the Puritans wrestled with this and what they said was this, 'In every exercise of faith, there is the seed of assurance like a little acorn, but that acorn is not yet an oak tree. So, assurance belongs to the well-being of faith, because assurance is like the full tree.' So, there's not a total separation there?" [00:05:07]

"Now, what about the time involved, the time involved in attaining assurance? 18.3, 'A true believer may wait long and conflict with many difficulties before he be partaker of assurance.' Now, remember, we're talking about the full oak tree now. We're not talking about incipient insurance in the beginnings of faith, all believers have that." [00:05:54]

"An infant does not usually grow up in one day, so grace usually grows with age, and as faith increases, other graces increase as well. Now, that's not to say, that's not to say that in the Bible and in Puritan thinking, some beginning believers don't display a lot of zeal. When you first find Christ, you're full of what the Puritans used to call 'first love.'" [00:06:39]

"Normally, believers grow in assurance as they season in grace. Then Westminster addresses the means of assurance. This is a very important point. It goes on to say this, 'Being enabled by the Spirit to know the things which are freely given in the name of God, the believer may without extraordinary revelation,' that's again against Roman Catholicism, and then here come the keywords, 'in the right use of ordinary means attain to assurance,' the right use of ordinary means." [00:09:36]

"Well, they're the spiritual disciplines, of course, and there are probably about 15 of them if you want to detail them all. But, in the Puritan mind, there are four major means or spiritual disciplines that we must use to grow in assurance. The first is, of course, as you would expect, the Bible, God's Word. Both law and gospel, precept and promise." [00:10:27]

"To say it as simply as possible, if you spend little time alone with God, and little time alone with His Word, you shouldn't expect large dosages of growth in assurance because you're not using the book that the Holy Spirit uses to grow you. Let me give you a poignant example of that in my own life." [00:12:13]

"Prayer is the most valuable gift in all the world. My dad sat me down when I was nine years old one day, and he said to me, 'Son, do you know the difference between a believer and an unbeliever?' And I said, 'No, Dad,' because I learned to say, 'No, dad, to all his questions because he always said something more, and he said, Well, a believer has a place to go.'" [00:19:44]

"You see, prayer is far more important than anything on this earth. You have the ear of the God of the universe when you're a believer and you go to Him in prayer. This is amazing! This is amazing! Do you realize the value of the gift of prayer? When my parents died, they had very little possessions in this world." [00:20:41]

"Assurance is the fruit of strengthened and seasoned faith. When I ask people, God's people, 'When did your assurance grow the most?' Most of the time they tell me it was just when they were in the midst of affliction. Now, the Confession goes on and speaks about the duty of assurance, the duty of pursuing it." [00:22:48]

"Those fruits are various. We can speak of spiritual peace, joyful love, humble gratitude, cheerful obedience, heartfelt mortification of sin, the stimulation of service, earnest evangelism. All of these things are involved. Assurance transforms our trials. It produces contentment; it heightens our holiness and it makes us aspire to heaven to be with Jesus forever in sin-free, Immanuel's land." [00:23:39]