Doctrine For Difficult Days

[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Salvation: Part 2

Paul and Silas said to that Philippian jailer:

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. (Acts 16:31)

There are 150 passages in the New Testament that make salvation dependent on believing and believing alone. In the Gospel of John and in the Epistle to the Romans, it is faith and faith alone. Repentance is not there.

“But,” somebody says, “isn’t repentance necessary?” Yes, it is. But it is included in saving faith. Paul, when he was writing to the Thessalonian believers, said:

For they themselves declare concerning us what manner of entry we had to you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God. (1 Thessalonians 1:9)

Obviously, Paul, when he came to Thessalonica, found the people worshiping idols. He probably said to them the same thing which he later said in Athens. Let me paraphrase, “When I came, I found an idol to the ‘unknown God.’ You worship every kind of god here, and you’re afraid you’ll miss one of them, so you put up an idol to an unknown god. Well, I’m going to tell you about an unknown God. And that One is the living and the true God.” And then these people heard about Christ. They heard that He would save them from sin, and they turned to God. But when they turned to God, they turned from idols. And when they turned from idols, that was repentance. Metanoeo means “change of mind,” and that’s in faith. You could not turn to Jesus Christ in faith without turning from something.

For this reason I keep repeating that these people today whose lives have not been changed, although they say they trust Christ, are deceiving themselves. The apostle James makes it very clear:

Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. (James 2:18 )

In other words, “I want to see something,” James says. He is not talking to them now about being saved by works. He is saying that you are saved by faith, but the faith which turns to Christ turns from something, so repentance is there. And we need lots more of it today.

Repentance is not just shedding tears nor just being sorry. Repentance means a change of mind. It means right-about-face and turning to God. When we turn to God, my beloved, we certainly turn from something. Believe me, people will know when you have been converted because your manner of life changes. And if it doesn’t change, there is something radically wrong.

May I say that repentance is a word that’s primarily in the New Testament, and it’s used for believers. When our Lord wrote to the seven churches of Asia Minor (Revelation, chapters 2 and 3), He used the word repent frequently. And that’s His message to every church in our day: “Repent.” That’s His message to every believer: “Repent.” This is something that we as believers need to do a great deal more of, since repentance is changing our minds and our direction about sin and indifference. How many of us are really convicted about being cold and indifferent? I don’t find many.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Salvation: Part 2

Are you satisfied to keep going along in an indifferent way? Are you satisfied to be a nominal Christian in these difficult days? Are you satisfied doing nothing for God? Well, what our Lord says is, “Turn around, and start in the other direction.”

“Remember,” He says, “and repent.” That was His message to the church in Ephesus. “Remember.” Do you remember when you were converted? Do you? Do you remember what a thrill it was? I never shall forget that Christmas holiday conference in Memphis, Tennessee, when Dr. Harry Ironside and Dr. Louis Sperry Chafer spoke. I had never heard anything like that before, and I would get down to the church before they even opened the doors. The caretaker said to me, “You’re a funny fellow, coming this early!” I said, “I don’t want to miss a thing.”

Remember? I even go back to God today and say, “Oh, restore unto me those days. And give me the thrill I had at that time.” Remember, and repent. Start in the other direction.

Oh, may I say, there needs to be repentance for the sinner, but there is repentance for the believer also. The believer needs to do a great deal of repenting. We need to see more tears in church than we are seeing today. We need to see more of these cold hearts of believers stirred and sorry and turning to God with a full purpose of, and an endeavor after, a new obedience to Him. Beloved, how we need to repent!
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Eternal Security and Assurance

Many of you will remember the definition of eternal security in your catechism as “the perseverance of the saints,” although actually they do not persevere very much. But the concept, the eternal security of the saints, is one of the great doctrines of the Word of God.

Now the doctrine of election is the broad doctrine, and there is a close relationship between election and eternal security. Eternal security rests upon election and the grace of God.

There is also a sharp difference between eternal security and assurance. Nevertheless they are two sides of the same subject. It’s like two sides of a door. Eternal security is the exterior — that’s the outside of the door. Assurance is the inside of the door, and that’s internal. Eternal security is objective — it depends on that which is on the outside of us. It doesn’t depend on anything inside of us. Assurance depends on the inside. It is subjective. Eternal security is not an experience at all. Assurance is experienced. And eternal security is theological, while assurance is psychological.

Every believer is eternally secure. But it is possible for a person to be saved and not have the assurance of it. May I say that a believer who is saved and does not have assurance is a subnormal or an unnatural believer. Certainly he can be a believer, but God does want us to have the assurance of our salvation.
 
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Eternal Security

To clarify this, we need to look at this great doctrine of eternal security and the perseverance of the saints. Actually, the perseverance of the saints is not their perseverance at all, as we shall see.

May I make some distinctions now, and they are rather sharp. I’d like for you to follow them very carefully. There is actually no difference between salvation and security. Will you notice this? The only salvation God is offering is eternal salvation. He’s not offering any other kind. The kind of life that God is offering is eternal life. This is quite simple, and yet it is so important to see. We could select, as you know, a dozen Scriptures to illustrate, but let’s use the most familiar:

He who believes in the Son has everlasting life. (John 3:36)

Now if a believer loses that life in ten years, it was not everlasting life that he had, was it? It was ten-year life — sort of like a ten-year life insurance policy. But it was not the kind of life God gives to us.

When you say to me, “I knew somebody who for ten years was a very active Baptist deacon, and then he went off into sin. What about his eternal security?” Well, it simply means either the fellow is a prodigal son and will eventually return to the Father or that he had a ten-year, make-believe life and never did have eternal or everlasting life. The one peculiarity about everlasting life or eternal life is that it is everlasting and eternal. And if it’s anything short of that, then it’s not that kind of life.

The only kind of salvation God is offering today is eternal salvation. So if you get saved, you get eternal life. And if you get eternal life, then it’s going to last. And if it doesn’t last, you’ve got something else. You did not have eternal life, my beloved.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Eternal Security and Assurance

He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. (John 3:36)

Jesus says, “He who believes in the Son has” — what kind of life? Everlasting life. You see, there is actually no difference between salvation and the security of the believer, because the only kind of salvation God is offering and has ever offered is an eternal salvation.

Now will you notice something over in John 17, the great high priestly prayer of our Lord. Jesus is praying to His Father:

You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. (John 17:2)

What kind of life? Eternal life.

Listen to what He says in this prayer. Because He knew that you and I would be considering it, He gave an explanation of eternal life:

And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. (John 17:3)

What kind of life is it? It’s eternal. This is eternal life. My friend, if the believer is not secure, then this matter of eternal life means nothing at all. It may have other aspects, but we know there is one thing that is true: God is giving only eternal life to those who are saved.

Now I recognize that there are objections, and I’m going to consider them in just a moment, but I think I ought to take another Scripture that is very familiar to you. It is found in John’s Gospel, where our Lord is answering the religious rulers, His enemies. They had challenged Him when they said, “If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.”

Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in My Father’s name, they bear witness of Me. But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep, as I said to you. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.” (1 John 10:25-28 )

Now if they perished, our Lord was wrong.

Neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. I and My Father are one. (1 John 10:28-30)

The picture is this: Both are hands of Deity. Christ says, “No created thing can take them out of My hand, no created thing can take them out of My Father’s hand.” These are the two hands of Deity. You can’t get to the sheep that are in those hands. You just can’t!

“I give them eternal life. They shall never perish. Nothing can snatch them out of My hand.” That’s a tremendous statement, is it not? It’s an audacious statement!
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Eternal Security and Assurance

Foreknown and Foreordained

Now let’s go over to the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans.

For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified. (Romans 8:29-30)

It’s very important to see what is being said here. Four things occur: People are predestined first, then called, and those called are justified, and those who are justified are glorified! Those are the four steps.

You see, it begins with predestination. People say, “That’s an awful doctrine, it means you are predestined to be lost!” May I say to you, beloved, nowhere in the Word of God is predestination ever used in connection with the lost. Nowhere! Then what does predestination mean? It simply means, as stated here, whom He predestines He calls, whom He calls He justifies, and whom He justifies He’s going to glorify. It means that when God starts out with a sinner whom He saves, He’s going to take that person all the way home to glory. That’s all in the world predestination means. In other words, God is going to see him through, and these are the steps.

Let’s put it like this: He predestines one hundred sheep. How many sheep does He call? One hundred. How many sheep does He justify? One hundred. How many sheep will He glorify? Ninety-nine? Well now, He gave a parable, didn’t He? Let’s look at it. A shepherd had a hundred sheep, and one of the little sheep got lost. Pretty good percentage, don’t you think? When He starts down here with a hundred sinners, and He gets to heaven with ninety-nine, isn’t that pretty good? Ask these sheepmen who begin on the range with the sheep and start to the market in Chicago with them. If they start out with a hundred and get through with ninety-nine, they say it’s excellent. In fact, they would be delighted to be able to get through with that many.

But what about this Shepherd in the parable? One of His little sheep got lost. Don’t miss that — he got lost. One little sheep didn’t make it. What did the Shepherd do? He went out and looked for that sheep until He found it, then He put it on His shoulder, the place of strength, and He brought it to the fold. And when He brought it into the fold, He had one hundred sheep. He started out with a hundred; He got through with a hundred.

All predestination means is that God is able to get them through to glory. And He’s been in the business now for about two thousand years, calling out the sheep.

All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6)
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Eternal Security and Assurance

Remember that the Shepherd calls. Do you remember when you were called, when you heard the gospel and believed it? What did God do? He justified you. Then He is going to glorify you.

Somebody says, “Oooh, from here to there is a big, big leap! It’s too far for me.” God knows that.

Someone else says, “I may get lost.” You probably will, but it won’t depend on how far and how high the sheep can jump. The question is, will the Shepherd be able to get each of the sheep into the fold? My friend, the real question is what kind of Shepherd you have, not what kind of sheep you are. He has already said that you are a sheep, which means you’re dumb and stupid and weak. That’s what a sheep is, and it’s what He calls us. I think He smiles when He says that. He starts out with a hundred. He gets through to heaven with a hundred. That’s the picture before us here, and that’s all that is before us.

Don’t say predestination is a terrible doctrine. It’s a comforting doctrine for me because, honestly, there have been times when I’ve wondered about Vernon McGee. And I’ve always felt I would be that little sheep that got lost. Well, thank God, He will go out and look for the sheep until He finds him, and He won’t stop until He has a hundred in the fold. What a Shepherd! I praise the Shepherd. There is no praise to the sheep, friend — no use to brag on the sheep. Let’s brag on the wonderful Shepherd they have.
 
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Enduring to the End

Now there are those who do not accept this truth, as you well know. And they have certain Scriptures on which they base their objections. We will deal with key verses, because we want to be very fair with these dear folks. The verses are merely samples of certain classifications. In other words, there are certain Scriptures which all can be answered by a single explanation — this one, for example:

But he who endures to the end shall be saved. (Matthew 24:13)

Many folks say, “Oh, I don’t think I’ll be able to endure to the end!” You won’t. “Well, it says then I won’t be saved!”

Friend, let’s look at this verse in context. It has application to the Great Tribulation period. It has no application to us who live before the Tribulation. Matthew 24 was given by Jesus as He was teaching on the Mount of Olives. It is part of what we know as the Olivet Discourse, which has reference only to the Great Tribulation period and the Kingdom that will follow. It will be a brief period.

Our Lord said in Matthew 24:22:

And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved [that is, nobody would survive]; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened.

He will be able to keep His own, His elect. But how will He keep them? In Ephesians 4:30 we’re told that believers are sealed by the Holy Spirit for the day of redemption, so that they are eternally secure in God’s hand. In fact, in Revelation 7 we are introduced to a great multitude which no one could number of all nations, tribes, peoples, and languages, standing before the throne of God, whose faith endured during this awful period of the Great Tribulation. And they will endure, not because they are wonderful but because He has put His seal upon them. He is the One who will enable them to endure to the end.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Eternal Security and Assurance

This explanation will answer any number of questions that have to do with Matthew 24 and have application to the Great Tribulation period. Be alert to the fact that there are other passages of Scripture that also have applications which are dispensational and do not refer to conditions today at all. You have to put these verses back in their context to make an accurate application.
 
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The Fallen are the False

In 1 Timothy 4:1-3 the apostle Paul refers to false teachers, and they are the ones he is talking about:

Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron. (1 Timothy 4:1-2)

Somebody says, “Well, they will depart from the faith, which means that there are some believers who are going to fall by the wayside.” No, all of that has to do with false teachers. And may I say that the false teachers are those who have never been saved at all.

You may remember that many years ago word got around that Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, an influential crusader for liberal theology, had become what we would call today a conservative, Bible-believing Christian. And it’s on record that he got up and denied it — oh, he was vitriolic in his denunciation of it. This man, who had been brought up under sound biblical theology, said that he never did believe it. You see the point.

The Word of God warns us that there will be those who are false teachers, and their numbers have increased dramatically in the twentieth century until they dominate most seminary faculties in our day. They are men and women who have never accepted the truth, although they may profess to believe it. In Dr. Fosdick’s day he had to profess to accept it to become a Baptist preacher, and that’s what Dr. Fosdick was. He was tried by the presbytery of New York also because he was a Presbyterian for a while. May I say that these men and women who come in under the category of false teachers are people who actually have never been saved at all. Yet they pastor churches and use their pulpits to propagate other ideologies.

I’m convinced that there are many men in the ministry today because Mama and Papa put their hands on their heads and persuaded them to go in that direction. In fact, I was in seminary with several boys who have since fallen by the wayside. Each one of those boys was studying for the ministry to please his parents.

There is one, by the way, living in Southern California, and I’ve had lunch with him on a couple of occasions. He was a “mama’s boy,” and she made two or three trips down to the seminary to make sure he was still studying for the ministry. But he very candidly told me that he never believed the Bible was the Word of God nor what was being taught at the seminary, and he doesn’t believe any of it today.

So you see that this passage in 1 Timothy 4:1-3 is one which has application to false teachers. It has no application to a believer who has backslidden or fallen away, none at all.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Eternal Security and Assurance

Faulty Translations

Let’s come now to another category which has to do with a faulty translation. In English, as in other languages, the meaning of certain words changes just a little over the years. I suppose that I’ve heard 1 Corinthians 9:27 quoted to refute eternal security as much as any other verse. Let’s first read it in the 1611 King James translation: “But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.”

This verse is used to prove that even this great apostle Paul was afraid that he would become a castaway, that is, lose his salvation. Well, unfortunately, the word castaway means something today it didn’t mean at the time of the 1611 translation. The word in the Greek is adokimos, and it simply means “disapproved” or “disqualified.” This problem has to do with translation, which is clarified when we see it in context:

And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. (1 Corinthians 9:25-26)

Let’s continue reading the passage in question from the New King James Version in which the word castaway has been properly changed to disqualified:

But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified. (1 Corinthians 9:27)

Paul is not talking about salvation; he’s talking about working for a crown, a reward. In other words he says, “I do not want to come into the presence of Christ and hear Him say to me, ‘I’m sorry, Paul, you do not get the blue ribbon for being first, because you didn’t finish your course.’”

Paul said that he wanted to so live that when he came into God’s presence he would receive the blue ribbon, the crown, for being first in the race. And, friend, when Paul came to the end of his life he could say, “I have finished my course — I made it, I’m coming in first!”

Obviously, he is not talking about salvation, but he’s talking about receiving the crown.

Rewards are one subject and salvation is another. After we’re saved we run our race for rewards, which come as a result of good works. But salvation is a gift, and you cannot work for that at all.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Eternal Security and Assurance

Reformed Versus Regenerated

May I say that Scripture does say a great deal about our lives. Here is an example:

When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he says, “I will return to my house from which I came.” And when he comes, he finds it swept and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. (Luke 11:24-26)

This parable is easy to explain. Our Lord gave this parable about a demon possessing a man, and the demon went out of the man, then the man was swept clean and put in order. Meanwhile the demon wandered around dry places but couldn’t find a place to land, so he came back to his original launching pad, and he brought seven of his friends with him. Our Lord’s comment is, “The last state of that man is worse than the first.” The thing our Lord is talking about here is moral reformation. This man was not regenerated. It is not suggested that he ever became a son of God. He only got cleaned up. He was nothing but an empty, vacant house. He never was indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God. He was just a cleaned-up house. And a great many people today think that’s what it means to be a Christian.

By the way, I heard a man make that statement on television the other night. He had lived a clean, moral life, and he considered himself a Christian. Well, he wasn’t, according to the Bible’s standard. The devil could move in with seven demons anytime he wanted to and take over that man. For some reason he hasn’t done it. But a great many of these folks will fall, as you well know, when all they have is moral reformation. And that’s what Jesus is referring to.
 
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Proof of Profession

There’s also another set of Scriptures where the Word of God talks about our profession of faith being proven by our fruits. John 15:6 is an example. Today the demonstration that you and I are genuine believers is by the fruit of the Spirit — that is, love, joy, peace, and so on — which can be seen in our lives. That’s the way the world is going to know our faith is genuine. The Lord Jesus said:

If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. (John 15:6)

May I say, that has to do with fruit. It hasn’t anything in the world to do with a person’s salvation, but it has to do with the production of fruit that’s in his life. And fruit is to be tested. Our Lord said, “By their fruits you will know them” (Matthew 7:20). Our lives, you see, are to be tested.

James is talking about faith when he writes:

Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. (James 2:18 )

That is, “I’ll show you that my faith is a living faith because a living faith produces works.” Seeing fruit is the only way you and I can know that another person’s profession is genuine. “By their fruits you will know them.” James is saying that a genuine, saving faith will produce good works. And it has to, my beloved. But that has nothing in the world to do with the eternal security of a true believer. It will show only that a great many people do not have genuine fruit.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Eternal Security and Assurance

As you know, we’re living in a day when folks can produce flowers and fruit that look more real than the real article. I see artificial flowers being made today, and they’re better looking than the flowers I grow. I told my wife, “No use my bringing in flowers anymore. You can buy them.” They’re not genuine, though. I am told that some of this man-made fruit looks so real the birds come and pick at it. But it’s not real. And a great many professing believers today look like believers, but they are not. They are not producing fruit. Genuine fruit will be in the life of a true believer, one who is really saved.
 
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What Do We Have to Lose?

Paul did talk about the fact that we can lose our reward, but losing our reward doesn’t mean that we can lose our salvation. Will you notice what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 as he talks about having one foundation and then building on it. The foundation is Christ — He is the only foundation you and I can build on. Now you can put up a great big straw stack, but what happens? Every man’s work is to be tested by fire. Well, a straw stack goes up like all these homes did out here in Bel Air. They immediately went up in smoke, and nothing was left.

But you can also build on the foundation with gold and silver. It was interesting to see that quite a few of those people who lost their homes searched through the ashes to see what they could recover. And I noticed one of the movie actors had found a gold plaque which he had received years before. The fire hadn’t touched it, but it had touched everything else. It will burn up the straw, but gold will stand the fire. Every man’s work is to be tested by fire.

However, this has nothing to do with salvation, as verse 15 makes clear:

If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. (1 Corinthians 3:15)

As we have said many times, there are going to be folks in heaven who will smell like they were bought at a fire sale — and they were! They will be in heaven because they are saved, and they are on the foundation. But everything they put on that foundation was nothing in the world but a straw stack. And it will not stand the white light of Christ’s presence, the One whose eyes are like a flame of fire, because He will ferret it all out. Everything we did for self and everything we did for show and everything we did because of pride will be revealed at that time. Only what we have done for our Lord will be rewarded.

This passage, you see, has to do with rewards. It has nothing in the world to do with a person’s salvation. In fact, we have just read that though all our works may be burned up, we ourselves will be saved. The straw stack will go up in smoke, but you will be saved through the fire. You are saved! Thank God for His mercy!
 
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Grace Is Greater

Now there’s only one other passage of Scripture we are going to consider. I’ve taken up, as far as I know, an example of every other objection to eternal security that I’ve ever heard. Of course, there are many other Scriptures we could have cited, but they fall under one of these classifications. The last one is Galatians 5:4:

You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Eternal Security and Assurance

Paul speaks of falling from grace. What does it mean to fall from grace? Paul, speaking to the believers in Galatia, is saying they were at one time under the Mosaic Law, but now no longer are they under Law. Instead they have been brought to a higher plane, and that’s the plane of grace. To paraphrase, Paul says, “Now that you have been saved by grace, you are to keep on living by grace. If you attempt to come down to the lower plane of living by the Law, you are falling from grace.” He does not say you are losing your salvation, but he is saying that you are going down to live on a lower plane than God intended.
 
The Father’s Work of Grace

May I say to you, eternal security rests upon something very real. First, it rests upon the Word and work of God the Father: The sovereign purpose of God is expressed in this familiar verse:

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)

This is the covenant He made. It is His purpose for our lives.

Second, eternal security rests on the power of God. (My book on Romans goes into much more detail.)

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31)

Friend, if God is for you, who could be against you? Who could? No one, no created thing at all, could be against you.

Third is the love of God.

For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:7-8 )

Do you think, if God gave His Son to die for you when you were a rebellious sinner, that having saved you and put into your heart a desire for Him, He would ever let you go now? No, my friend, He would never let you go. Since God loved you enough to give His Son, why would you doubt the love of God?

Then the fourth is, the Father hears the prayer of the Son. If you doubt your salvation, take time to read the entire Lord’s prayer — I mean John 17 — and listen to the Lord Jesus as He prays to the Father:

I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours. And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them. Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are…. I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. (1 John 17:9-15)

Do you think Christ has a prayer that has never been answered? His prayer is that God the Father will keep you. Do you think that prayer is not being answered? He is praying, “Those whom You have given Me, those who have believed on Me, I pray You will keep them.” God will keep you because Christ has asked for you.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Eternal Security and Assurance

 
The Son’s Work of Grace

Notice what God the Son did. First was His substitutionary death. We turn to Romans 8:34 to get all of this in one verse of Scripture, though there are other verses we could quote:

Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.

God the Son died a substitutionary death for us. And He was raised from the dead.

He is our advocate in heaven, He is our intercessor. He died down here to save us; He lives up there to keep us saved. You see, our salvation doesn’t rest only on a work He did some two thousand years ago with no continuing involvement. He has not gone off and left us. He is keeping His own who are in the world. He has prayed that the Father would keep them, and He is there to make intercession for His little born-again ones. I think that’s the most wonderful thing imaginable. What a comfort that ought to be in these difficult days.

Friend, I’ve got an Intercessor up there who is going to take care of me, and that doesn’t mean that I won’t be blown up by a bomb or a nuclear explosion. But if I go that route, it will be because that’s the way God wanted me to go. And I’m not going to worry too much about that.
 
The Holy Spirit’s Work of Grace

Now God the Holy Spirit does a number of things to make sure that you are saved. First He regenerates you (Titus 3:5); then He indwells you (1 Corinthians 6:19-20); He baptizes you (1 Corinthians 12:13); and He seals you until the day of redemption (Ephesians 4:30). When is the day of redemption? When He presents you to Christ at the Rapture. May I say, friend, you are saved for sure up to the moment the Holy Spirit presents you to Christ up yonder. You are sealed until the day of redemption. Certainly the Lord Jesus will be able to take over from then on and will be able to keep you after He gets you to heaven.
 
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Assurance

We come now to the doctrine of assurance. Assurance rests upon an intelligent and spiritual comprehension of the Word of God. That’s one reason we do not believe you can have the assurance of your salvation and be ignorant of the Word of God. In fact, that is one of the reasons many Christians do not have the assurance of their salvation. They simply do not know what the Bible really says. Paul longed for the Colossians,
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Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Eternal Security and Assurance

that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Colossians 2:2-3)

Here Paul talks about the full assurance of understanding and knowledge, which means, again, that we should have an intelligent and spiritual comprehension of the Word of God.

It is also a recognition of what God has done for us, which we enter into by faith. Isaiah has said it well:

The work of righteousness will be peace,
And the effect of righteousness,
quietness and assurance forever.
(Isaiah 32:17)

The child of God who has entered into this wonderful doctrine of justification by faith knows that the righteousness of Christ has been made over to him! That person, Isaiah says, can have quietness and assurance. It’s an assurance that only the Holy Spirit can give to us. The believer — each and every one of us — ought to be able to say with Paul, without boasting or pride and without any presumption:

For I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day. (2 Timothy 1:12)

“I know whom I have believed” is something that God wants His children to be able to say. He wants us to be saved; He wants us to know that we are saved, that we might have joy and assurance of salvation.

That’s the reason John wrote his Gospel. He said:

And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name. (1 John 20:30-31)

The apostle John wrote his gospel record that we might be saved. He wrote his first epistle so we might know that we are saved:

These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. (1 John 5:13)
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Eternal Security and Assurance

God wants you to know that you have eternal life.

There are many reasons why some believers do not have the assurance of their salvation. First let me say that if you are a carnal believer who is governed by your human nature rather than by the Holy Spirit and yet you do have assurance, it is merely presumption on your part. God has never made any arrangement for a carnal believer to have assurance, as 1 John makes clear.

There are certain bases that cause a great many people today to lack assurance of salvation, and I’m going to mention them briefly.

First, some people have the gospel presented to them only partially. And this is the reason that I myself have to say I do not know whether or not I was saved when I went down to that altar underneath a brush arbor behind a Methodist church in southern Oklahoma. Nobody explained anything to me. I was only a little towheaded boy, ignorant as I could be of spiritual things. I didn’t know anything about the Bible. And yet, as I think back, the preacher that night spoke on the prodigal son, and he told about how the father loved that boy like God loves sinners. And my heart went out to this God who loved bad boys like me. But nobody explained to me what it all meant, and before many months had gone by my chum and I were caught stealing peaches. He and I had both gone down to that altar, and we both were caught stealing together. When I got him alone I said, “Do you reckon we are saved?” And he said, “I don’t know.” And we guessed we’d lost it. The gospel had not been presented to us thoroughly at all.

That’s one reason when I give an invitation to receive Christ, a counselor is provided to sit down with those who respond. We want to make sure that they not only have accepted Christ, but that they know what they’ve done. And, friend, God wants us to know.

Notice how the apostle Paul felt about this when he had been in Thessalonica less than a month:

For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance. (1 Thessalonians 1:5)

Paul says that when he preached the gospel over there, he made it clear. And when they came to Christ, the Word came to them in power and much assurance.

My personal experience has been that a great many people who think they get the assurance of their salvation really get saved. A couple came to me one Wednesday night when I was a pastor in Pasadena. They were newcomers, and they were just glowing. They said, “We got the assurance of our salvation tonight.” I congratulated them, and the next Wednesday night they came up to me and said, “Correction, please. We didn’t get the assurance of our salvation last Wednesday night. When we got home and talked it over, we realized that we had never really been saved before.”

Friend, if you do not have assurance, maybe you aren’t saved. Honestly, I mean that. The gospel is to come to you in power and in much assurance. You see, our Lord offers only one kind of salvation — eternal salvation. So you must have gotten another kind if you don’t have assurance.

Sometimes justification by faith is not presented in its fullness and so people don’t have assurance. But God wants them to have assurance. I thank God for the pastor who, when I was a teenager, talked to me about justification by faith and about how you could have peace, the peace of God.
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[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
Eternal Security and Assurance

Sitting on the porch swing one day, Dr. Albert Allen said, “Vernon, do you know how God justifies a sinner?” I did not know what he was talking about. I didn’t even know what “justify” meant, but I knew it was what I needed. And Dr. Allen led me to Christ.

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:1)

Oh, I never shall forget that. It was the most wonderful thing I had ever heard. You could have peace with God, being justified by faith.

The second reason for lack of assurance is that some people are psychologically fearful and uncertain, and a lot of things enter in — heredity, environment, or any number of religious backgrounds. My background was Methodist. When I was a boy the only people in west Texas and Oklahoma who were preaching the gospel were the Methodists. That is not true today, but it was true then. And I thank God for them. But there was no assurance taught. And that’s the reason I didn’t get it in those days, you see.

Many people have a similar background. But God wants us to enjoy our salvation and to be assured of it.

May I use an old and familiar illustration: As you may know, I don’t like to fly. I just don’t enjoy it at all. But when I do fly, I sit there miserable for the entire flight. During the first years of Youth For Christ when the planes didn’t go over 10,000 feet up, I flew often over to Phoenix for Youth For Christ rallies. One morning we all started talking to each other because the turbulence got so rough. One man said to me, “I’ve flown around the world, and this is the roughest trip I’ve ever taken!”

I thought the plane was hitting bottom several times. Somebody tried to tell me that planes don’t fall. That one fell! I don’t know how far it went down, but it went way down, and I was frightened. I held onto the seat in front of me — I just grabbed it and held onto it with an iron grip! That was crazy, because the seat in front of me was falling just like the one I was sitting in, but it felt good to hold onto it.

Sitting across from us was a fellow sleeping! We finally woke him up. He said he was a pilot and had flown fifty-seven missions over Germany. That explained why he had been dozing during the entire trip. The turbulence never bothered him a bit. He thought we were silly to be even uneasy about it.

May I say to you, that plane offered me as much security as it offered him. If that plane went down he would go down just like I would. If that plane landed safely, which it did, I would land just as safely as he would. The difference was, he had assurance and I didn’t. There are a lot of people today who are saved, but because of their backgrounds or because of their psychological makeup they just don’t have the assurance of their salvation. But God wants all of His children to have it.

There are also believers who are out of the will of God. I do not think you can have the assurance of your salvation if you are out of the will of God. Unconfessed sin in the life of a believer cancels out whatever assurance was there. And, friend, if you have unconfessed sin, you know that robs you of assurance of salvation.

And then there are those today who are anticipating some great emotional experience. A man in my church in Pasadena has never had assurance to this good day. He is an old man now, ready to pass over. He’s saved, but he doesn’t know whether he is or not. I have gone over this ground with him a hundred times, and he says, “Well, it looks to me like I’d have a great emotional experience.” Then he says, “Now that man Paul on the Damascus Road — look what happened to him. And nothing has happened to me. You just presented Christ and I accepted Him, and nothing has happened. I’ve had no great emotional upheaval.”
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