False Security: Another Cause of Apostasy
By John Fast
For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God, and put Him to open shame. – Hebrews 6:4-6 (NASB)
The divinely inspired author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, after delivering a stern and sober warning to his readers of the danger of apostasy (Hb 6:4-8), the warning which forms the foundation for this series of studies, and a danger that was all too real due to their neglect of the gospel (Hb 2:1-3), and from their having “become dull of hearing” (Hb 5:11), and from having been Christians long enough so that they “ought to be teachers”, yet were in “need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food” (Hb 5:12), encourages his readers by affirming, “But beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and the things that accompany salvation,” (Hb 6:9). There are things which the Bible teaches always accompany, and that are essential to, and that are inseparable from true salvation, and in the absence of these things, there is no true salvation. All true Christians possess these things in one degree or another. They may be weaker in some believers and stronger in others, but the nature and principle of these things are the same in all true Christians, because, “one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills” (1 Cor 12:11), and because, “God has allotted to each a measure of faith” (Rm 12:3). Some, like the disciples, have little faith (Mt 16:8), while others, like the Centurion (Mt 8:10), and the Canaanite woman (Mt 15:28), have great faith. This is why those who are strong in faith are to strengthen those who are weak (Hb 12:12). Among true Christians, the degree and strength of faith may vary, but the nature and fruits of true faith are always the same. Nothing, therefore, is more important than to understand the nature of saving faith, and to be able to discern the evidences of saving faith, that is, the things which always accompany salvation, in our own lives. After all, a tree is known by its fruit. Therefore, it is critical that we are not deceived about the nature and work of saving grace within us. To be wrong here is to be wrong for eternity, and to be among the innumerable multitudes who have been and currently are deceived, and who, despite all they have trusted in for their salvation, will hear those most awful words, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness” (Mt 7:23).
The Most Essential Thing
It is not only possible, but sadly very common, for someone to possess and experience some of the things which always accompany salvation, yet still lack the most essential thing, without which there is no true salvation and no true Christianity, just as the text which forms the basis for this series of studies plainly teaches (Hb 6:4-6). Judas was one of the twelve disciples to whom Jesus gave “authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness” (Mt 10:1). Jesus Himself tells us that “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?” (Mt 7:22). Yet despite having these extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, such people still go to hell. The New Testament is exceedingly clear; the one Christian virtue most insisted upon by Jesus and His apostles above all others is that of love. Not just any love, however, but the love that is the fruit of the Spirit. Contrary to the popular notion that “love is love”, true Christian love is of a totally different nature. It is a love that is supernatural, not natural; it is very different in nature and principle from what people usually mean by the word “love”, and how they use the word in their ordinary conversations. It is very different from the love championed by, admired, and practiced by most of modern Christianity. Those who casually throw around the word ‘love”, like an entertainer who “loves” all his fans, typically have no conception of the nature of true Christian love. Those who imagine it is loving to condone, affirm, except, defend, legitimize, celebrate, and institutionalize behaviors and lifestyles which God clearly condemns and abhors must seriously pervert and degrade the meaning of love beyond all recognition and divest love of all of its true meaning and attributes, thereby giving the greatest evidence possible that they have no true love in their heart and life. True Christian love is the most essential and distinguishing characteristic of a true and living faith. It is the life and soul of all truly practical and saving faith, without which there is no true faith, and without which all other things that are done in the name of Jesus and bear the name of Christian virtues are empty and vain. “If anyone does not love the Lord, let him be accursed” (1 Cor 16:22). ‘Accursed’ is a strong word. It means devoted to destruction. Paul could have said, ‘If anyone does not have faith in Christ, let him be accursed’. Instead, he makes love for Christ the one essential criterion, the alternative of which is eternal damnation.
This love that is the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22), and which is formed by God in the heart of all true believers (1 Th 4:9; 1Pt 1:22), is the foundation of all devotion, obedience, faith, and obligations toward God and man (Mt 22:37). Love is “the perfect bond of unity” (Col 3:14) among true believers, and “is the fulfillment of the law” (Rm 13:8-10). It is painfully self-evident that the practice of this grace has been shamefully lost by the bulk of those who call themselves Christian, to the great dishonor of Christ and His gospel. Instead, “they all seek after their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:21). Today, every truth and doctrine of Scripture that does not serve a person’s self-interests, or is contrary to self-interests, is rejected or explained away as not being relevant for today, or is twisted so as to make it serve their worldly and carnal self-interests. This is the nature of natural self-love; it turns everything, even God, His Word, His worship, and His church into the service of self, and all that is contrary to self is ignored, corrupted, or rejected. Every petty and perceived personal offence or dissatisfaction is seen as justification for leaving a pastor and ministry that faithfully preaches and teaches God’s Word. Let the Scriptures be mangled beyond recognition, let the grace of God be turned into licentiousness, and let the ideologies of man be integrated with Scripture, this they can well tolerate, but let them be touched by one petty personal afront, discontentment, or disappointment, or let them once be lovingly rebuked for sin, or told that what they believe is not what the Bible teaches, or be held accountable to the authority of Scripture, then they see themselves as victims of the greatest injury. The “church of the living God” is no longer regarded or respected as “the pillar and support of the truth” (1 Tm 3:15), but instead is regarded as a self-serving religious community center and social club, a place to make business contacts, a dating service, a humanitarian organization, a commercial enterprise, a daycare facility, a place to have our imagined goodness and self-importance affirmed and flattered, or a voluntary association one may drift in or out of at will when it does not suit their personal preferences, meet their felt needs, or for no cause at all. The sole purpose and value of the church for most who profess to be Christian is to improve and promote a person’s self-interests and life in this world, not the glory of God. God and His church exist for us, not we for God. Love for God, His Word, His holiness, His righteousness, His commands, and love of the brethren is today disgracefully rare, and has all but vanished from those who profess to be Christian.
The Apostle Paul makes it extremely clear in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, that we can have the most exceptional gifts of the Spirit, and have them in the highest degree, and we can engage in great acts of benevolence and humanitarianism which involve the greatest self-sacrifice, and yet, if we do not have true Christian love, we are still nothing. All the other gifts of the Spirit are no sure mark that someone possesses true saving grace. If there were something saving in these other things then they would be something without love, but without love they are nothing, and a hope and assurance that is based on anything other than the evidence of this work of God’s grace in the heart is an uncertain and unstable hope. This love that is the fruit of the Spirit, unlike other spiritual gifts, is common to all true Christians, and it is the only sure evidence of a saving work of God in the soul. Satan can and does counterfeit every other spiritual gift, “so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect” (Mt 24:24; cf. 2 Th 2:9), but Satan cannot counterfeit true Christian love in the heart and life. The world and false religion can redefine it, and substitute its own versions and ideas of love, but it cannot duplicate true Christian love. It was evidence of this love which the author of Hebrews gives as the reason for his being “convinced of better things concerning you, and the things which accompany salvation,” (Hb 6:9); and that reason is, “For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, and in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints” (Hb 6:10). In this apostate age in which we currently live, love for the name of God, that is, God as He has revealed Himself only in His Word – His true nature, attributes, holiness, doctrines, truths, commands, and His glory – is exceedingly rare.
Since the unregenerate heart is by nature hostile to God (Rm 8:7; Col 1:21), and a hater of God (Rm 1:30), it is utterly impossible for it to have any true love for God in the heart. Any love for God which it professes and manifests in the life will be for a god of its own imagination, not the God who has revealed Himself only in the Scriptures. The Jesus it loves is a Jesus of its own or someone else’s imagination, which is why they love him, because he is so much like them, because they invented him. All the good works it performs in the name of Jesus will be from some motive other than a true love for God. Such a love will never persevere to the end in a universal love, obedience, and trust in all of God’s Word. True love for God is always rare, but in times of apostasy when people are “lovers of self” (2 Tm 3:2), and when that self-love is encouraged and fortified not only by the culture, but also by most of what professes to be Christian, it is even more rare. It is not within the scope of this study into the nature and causes of apostasy to give a full treatment of the doctrine of Christian love. If the Lord permits, I will, perhaps, make it the subject of the next series of studies. However, as Jonathan Edwards wrote in what is probably the best exposition ever given regarding this doctrine, Charity and Its Fruits,
“All the fruits of the Spirit, which we are to lay weight upon as evidence of grace, are summed up in charity, or Christian love; because this is the sum of all grace. And the only way, therefore, in which any can know their good estate, is by discerning the exercises of this divine charity in their hearts; for without charity, let men have what gifts you please, they are nothing.”[1]
Presumption vs. Assurance
If there is one thing worse than no hope it is a false hope. In fact, no one who has not renounced all hope in their own righteousness for salvation, or who trusts in something in themselves, no matter how small, for their salvation, or who insists on attributing their salvation to something they themselves have done, cannot be saved. The damnation of such people will be truly awful when they see all that they have trusted in for salvation – all their good works, all their religious activity, all their external professions, all their mystical experiences, all their spiritual gifts – rejected by God and regarded as having no more value than dung or filthy rags. Our heart is by nature “more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick” (Jer 17:9). It is by our natural self-love, self-confidence, and self-flattery that we persuade ourselves of salvation that does not truly exist in us or in those we love with a natural love. Such an assurance is not a biblical assurance based on the things which always accompany true salvation, but carnal presumption. As long as a person is unregenerate, they will be in love with themselves, and the ultimate motive for all they do in the name of Jesus will be love of self. It was carnal self-love, not love for Jesus, which motivated the multitudes to search for Jesus, “you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves, and were filled” (Jn 6:26).
There is probably no better description in the New Testament of a presumptuous faith than that of the church in Laodicea. They were neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm (Rv 3:15,16). They did not have a cold disinterest in the gospel; they were not totally devoid of feeling for the things of God, nor were they openly hostile to Jesus Christ and His gospel. They had some warmth to them, but it was a lukewarm, tepid, room temperature warmth. They had enough Christianity so as to have a very good opinion of their spiritual condition, but not enough to make them unpopular and uncomfortable. They were self-confident and self-sufficient (17), which made them utterly blind to their true spiritual condition. All their spiritual warmth was self-generated, as is most today, by the music, by self-affirming and emotionally manipulating messages, by good deeds and religious activities designed to make us feel good about ourselves, by emotional and mystical experiences, not from a true love for God, His Word, and fellowship with Him, but from self-love. Their presumptuous self-confidence and self-love left them totally ignorant of their true spiritual condition, “you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked” (Rv 3:17). Nothing will more effectively blind a person to their need for Christ than a presumptuous faith and false assurance. They love themselves too much to see and feel themselves to be the wretched, vile, wicked, helpless, and hopeless sinners they really are. It is this presumptuous false assurance which today comprises the “faith” of most professing Christians; they have faith that they have faith; they believe that they believe. Satan will use his instruments, namely, pastors and spiritual leaders who are themselves under the influence of a false faith and presumptuous assurance, to promote, instill, and fortify a false assurance in others, thereby “deceiving and being deceived” (2 Tm 3:13). Writing of Satan’s deception of spiritual leaders, David Harrell described it like this:
“Mislead him into believing man’s only problem is his will, therefore a sinner can be induced into making a decision for Christ by argumentation. Delude him into believing that regeneration can be proven by physical effects like approaching an imaginary altar and repeating a sinner’s prayer. Make him believe that the Spirit’s work in regeneration is to merely persuade the sinner to resolve to become a Christian. Make him skilled in manipulative techniques to get unbelievers to make a decision to accept Jesus into their heart. But to do this, you must make him reject the biblical doctrine of total depravity – that man’s nature is so corrupt that God must first renew a sinner’s mind and nature before he can respond to the gospel in repentant faith. Convince him that fallen man is not spiritually dead, but only sick, and he is therefore able on his own to cooperate with God in salvation. Fool him into thinking regeneration is not the whole work of the Spirit that raises a sinner from spiritual death to life, but a combined effort of the sinner and the Spirit. He must be convinced that God’s will to save is ultimately subject to man’s will to believe, therefore man, not God, is sovereign over salvation. This will prevent God from being accurately depicted as the omnipotent Sovereign actively drawing to Himself sinners He has elected by His grace to worship Him forever. Instead, God will be portrayed as a frustrated and helpless deity pacing the throne room of heaven, biting His nails, hoping sinners will hear Him knocking on the door of their heart and let Him in. Through ‘decisionism’ he will trivialize heartfelt repentance and replace the Spirit’s work of regeneration. This will then widen the narrow gate and broaden the narrow road with an ‘easy believism’ gospel that bears no resemblance to genuine repentance and saving faith. Moreover, by confusing emotionalism and mere professions of faith as works of God, false professions will be the norm; and without genuine saving faith, churches will be populated with people who are Christian in name only, incapable of truly understanding the Word of God or living for His glory. Better yet, they will perish in their sin.”[2]
True assurance is not simply believing you will go to heaven, or to “a better place”, when you die; rather, it is based on what Jesus did two-thousand years ago and on the sanctifying work He is doing in your life here and now. The standard and rule by which we test and examine the basis of our assurance are the character and signs which Scripture gives of true faith. True faith is a faith that works, therefore Paul describes saving faith as a faith that works through love (Gal 5:6), that is, all the works of true faith are motivated by love for God. Such faith, love, and assurance are very rare. Having abandoned the scriptural marks of true salvation, and invented their own, most who profess to be Christians have fallen into a ditch. Ever since mankind’s fall into sin, men and women have not ceased to invent their own objects and definitions of faith, love, and every other spiritual virtue. Because of the deceitfulness of our own hearts and our inordinate love of self, it is our innate tendency to not only mistake, but to substitute a false faith and assurance for the true. Any semblance of spiritual life is maintained only by artificial and man-made means, thereby showing there is no true spiritual life. The great nineteenth-century Scottish pastor and author, Horatius Bonar, was correct when he wrote,
“Religion in a soul or church must be sick and ready to die, when it requires the use of stimulants to restore it, – the stimulants of music, and dresses, and postures, and ceremonies; or the stimulants of speculation and mysticism, and the ‘enticing words of man’s wisdom’. Rather, we may say, that it is dead; and all these are galvanic appliances to make a dead man look, and stare, and roll his eyes like a living one.”[3]
There are two things which the New Testament insists always accompany true salvation. The first are the evidences that a person’s faith in Jesus Christ is a true, living, persevering faith, and the second is the insistence that this faith is always accompanied by and is the fruit of a new life. Regarding the first, there is such a thing as a false faith (Jn 8:31), and a dead faith (Jm 2:17), and a temporary faith (Mt 13:21). There are many who “receive the grace of God in vain” (2 Cor 6:1). The New Testament is full of examples of people who “believed”, but ultimately proved to be “false brethren” (2 Cor 11:26; cf. Jn 2:23-25; 8:31-37; 2 Tm 4:10). Genuine faith, that is, the faith that is the gift of God and the fruit of regeneration, is a faith which receives, embraces, approves, trusts in, and loves God’s plan of saving sinners declared in the gospel, through the person, mediation, obedience, blood, righteousness, and intercession of Jesus Christ alone, apart from any human works, merit, contribution, or cooperation. True faith sees God’s way of saving sinners as that which most glorifies God in all His holy attributes, and most satisfies and delights the regenerate heart and mind. Where this faith is lacking, there is no true salvation. A synergistic system of religion which makes salvation contingent upon the free will of men and women to give the grace of God its efficacy, is not the Christianity taught by Jesus, the apostles, and the New Testament. In a synergistic system of religion, where man provides the determining factor in salvation, namely, his free will, it is by his own free choice that he is in Christ Jesus, but in God’s plan of salvation, it is “by His doing you are in Christ Jesus,” (1Cor 1:30). An atonement which only makes salvation possible, provided someone deigns to make the right choice and to receive it, instead of one that actually accomplished salvation for all who are chosen of God before the foundation of the world, is not the atonement taught by the Bible. A faith which produces an assurance that God has forgiven our sins even when we willfully continue to live in and practice them will suit the pride and self-love of men and women, but it is not saving faith. A faith which excludes or redefines or separates repentance from faith is not saving faith. A Christianity in which everyone goes to heaven, even if they lack all the things which always accompany salvation, is a false, deceitful, and self-flattering Christianity. As long as the heart and mind remain unregenerate, the nature and glory of God and His gospel will either be misunderstood, or hated in proportion as it is understood.
The New Testament, however, does not identify a true Christian based solely on what truths they accent to, or what they profess to believe. Orthodox belief alone does not qualify anyone to enter into the kingdom of God. Love is no part of a merely intellectual, academic, historic, and speculative faith, for such faith is no better than the faith of devils. Nor does the Bible identify a true believer by their great, self-sacrificial, and altruistic good works and acts of humanitarianism, because unbelievers can and have done all these things. Many unbelievers have given away vast sums of money in support of worthy charitable causes, but this does not make them a Christian. Many who adhere to a false religion and false gospel have dedicated their entire life, at great personal sacrifice, to alleviating human suffering, but this does not make them a Christian. Many who have professed to be Christian yet taught and propagated a false gospel have suffered martyrdom for their false faith because the mind hostile to God makes no distinction between a true and false gospel or the true and false Christian. Martyrdom in the cause of a false gospel does not make someone a Christian. A person must first be born again, that is, they need to be given a new nature which the Holy Spirit gives to all the elect, and which all true believers share in common experience, whatever words they use to describe it. Iain Murray stated it this way,
“A true experience of salvation includes two things: a change of status in the sight of God – Christ for us; and a change of nature – Christ in us. One of these things without the other is no salvation according to Scripture, and so the second, a change of nature, is to be seen as confirmation of the reality of the first. A ‘believer’ without a Savior who is transforming his life is no believer at all …. It has been argued that to introduce subjective evidence of grace in the life as a basis for assurance leads straight to legalism, because it turns attention from Christ to self, from his work to our own …. Legalism means obeying God’s law in order to move him to love us and accept us. Such aberrant teaching leads to putting sanctification in the place of justification. But the obedience of which John speaks, and which confirms the reality of grace, is not of that type at all. It is obedience springing from love. ‘We love him because he first loved us’ (1 John 4:19). The love of God, rightly believed, leads to holiness and it does so in a way which is the very opposite of legalism.” [4]
Similarly, Thomas Scott, an eighteenth-century English pastor, once wrote,
“Our conduct also must show men what we mean by conversion, a new creation, being born of God, etc. We must embody such subjects, and be living examples and illustrations of them …. If we be evidently humbled when we have done wrong, and ready to acknowledge the offense we have been drawn into, those among whom we live will see the difference between us and such as do wrong, persist in it, and excuse it …. I will not pretend to say, nor do I think any man can say exactly, how much explicit knowledge of divine truth is essential to salvation … But this I will say, that, whatever darkness there may be in a man’s understanding, unless he feels and behaves as a sinner justly condemned for breaking a righteous law, and expects salvation of mere grace in God’s way, and is reconciled to God, as loving His service, and longing after holiness – that holiness which the law requires, – and so living holily in sincerity and truth, he cannot be saved, according to the Bible.”[5]
In his second epistle, the apostle Peter listed eight Christian virtues, the last of which is love, which always accompany, and are inseparable from true saving faith (2 Pt 1:5-7), adding, “For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble; for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you” (2 Pt 1:8-11). It is this way, and no other way, by which “entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you”. A Christianity that lacks, ignores, redefines, rejects, waters down, and denies the things which the Bible declares always accompany true salvation, or that invents and substitutes things other than what the Bible teaches always accompany true salvation, is a false Christianity. The Apostle Peter addressed his second epistle to those “who have received a faith of the same kind as ours” (2 Pt 1:1), clearly implying that there are professing Christians who have a faith different from the faith received and taught by the apostles. There are different Christs and different gospels which people teach and believe (Gal 1:6), “For many deceivers have gone out into the world,” (2 Jn 7). We are commanded by Scripture to “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). An inclusivism that would affirm as Christian all that professes to be Christian, and make no distinction between the saved and the unsaved, or between the true and the obviously false, or even worse, calls the true false and false true, is just as unbiblical and un-Christian as an exclusivism that would, like the Pharisees, exclude all who do not conform to its own system of man-made rules and standards, unbiblical doctrines, twisted interpretations, and man-centered teachings, gospels, and ideologies.
Any assurance of salvation that is based on things other than those things which the Bible teaches accompany true salvation is a false and deceptive assurance. It is this false assurance which today is instilled, fostered, affirmed, and lived in by the vast majority of professing Christians. It is no mere coincidence that, in His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus followed-up His warning against holding to and trusting in a false assurance with His parable of the wise and foolish builders (Mt 7:21-27). There is no end to the sandy and unbiblical foundations which modern Christianity has laid for itself and on which the faith and assurance of most professing Christians is built, but there is one thing they all have in common, and that is they possess no authority from Scripture; they are not the things which the Bible teaches always accompany and are inseparable from true salvation. Paul’s admonition to the Corinthians for them to, “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves!” (2 Cor 13:5), and Peter’s exhortation to “be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you;” (2 Pt 1:10), implies that there is an objective rule and standard, taught in the Scriptures, by which we are to test and examine ourselves. It was by testing and examining themselves against this scriptural rule and standard that the Corinthians were to “recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you – unless you fail the test” (2 Cor 13:5), namely, that you are not a Christian. In a false assurance and false Christianity no one fails the test, because the standard is not the objective, unchanging, authoritative, and rock-solid rule and standard of Scripture, but the shifting and subjective sand of some human standard and opinion. For Christianity to be economically, commercially, and culturally popular and successful it must be defined in terms so broad so as to include even those who are obviously not Christian.
A heretic who tenaciously holds to a damnable heresy or false gospel may be just as confident of their salvation as a true Christian, because their assurance is based on self-love and self-flattery, not on the things which always accompany salvation. A Muslim may be just as confident they will go to the Muslim’s paradise as a true Christian is of inheriting the kingdom of God. The same can be said for the Catholic, the Jew, the Mormon, the Jehovah’s Witness, and those in apostate denominations. Like unbelieving and self-assured Israel, they are confident that “calamity will not come upon us” (Mic 3:11). What makes such people think that their assurance has any greater grounds than that of those who are now in hell who had a similar assurance? The standard set by the Bible is clear: “By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother [i.e. his fellow Christian]” (1 Jn 3:10). It is these false securities and baseless assurances which betray men and women into an apostasy from the gospel, because, as Jonathan Edwards wrote in his Religious Affections (probably the most perceptive and discerning book ever written on the true and false Christian), “they who maintain the contrary, must throw away what we have been wont to own for our Bible, and get some other rule by which to judge of the nature of religion.”[6]
Clear Differences
There are great differences between true assurance and presumption. First, the difference is evident in how we live, “Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth” (1 Jn 3:18). True assurance tends to a life of holiness, love of the truth, obedience to God’s revealed will, and the avoidance of all known sin, while presumption nullifies God’s clear commands when they conflict with a person’s self-love, their own lusts and desires, self-interests, pride, and assumes they are right with God despite living in obvious sin and disobedience. A presumptuous person willfully engages in known sin and either denies it is sin, or presumes upon God’s forgiveness even when they continue to live in sin. They are confident of God’s love for them and of their own salvation, yet at the same time willfully live in and practice what the Bible forbids and condemns as sin, and will then justify themselves in the sight of men, thereby showing that all their professed love for God is nothing but words, not in deed and truth, and that all their assurance of forgiveness is nothing but presumption.
Secondly, a presumptuous person will always have low thoughts of God and of sin. They have no serious thoughts of God’s greatness, holiness, righteousness, purity, hatred of sin, justice, severity, but imagine He is just like them, “You thought I was just like you” (Ps 50:21). Whatever thoughts they have about sin, they imagine God has the same thoughts. If they imagine some good deed will compensate for some sin, they imagine God will not punish them. If they believe being baptized and doing good works makes them a Christian and acceptable to God, they imagine God believes the same thing. They imagine it is an easy thing for God to forgive their sin; in fact, it is His job, that is what He is for. Those who have slight thoughts of sin, or who redefine sin, will give sin respectable names, psychologize it out of existence, make themselves a victim of sin rather than a guilty perpetrator, turn sin into a virtue or into a disease from which they need to be cured, not a sin from which they need to repent, thereby showing they never had any great and high thoughts of God. Minimizing and denying the sinfulness of sin arises from a person’s contempt of God. God is not feared or reverenced, sin is but a trifle, forgiveness, if it is ever needed, is to be had merely by the asking. The presumptuous person has a general notion of forgiveness, but not a true experiential understanding of forgiveness. For them salvation consists purely of forgiveness of sin without any deliverance from the power, practice, and love of sin. They have been told, and they have often heard that Jesus loves them and died for their sins, so they simply presume Jesus loves them and they are forgiven. They have general thoughts of God’s love and forgiveness which they use as the occasion requires. They take it for granted that God has and will forgive them, although for what they are not quite sure, without ever giving any serious thought as to how He is able to forgive them. They have never felt the sinfulness and guilt of sin in their conscience, nor seen themselves under the just wrath of a holy and offended God because this has been prevented by their opinion of forgiveness, not removed. They have a peace while living in sin, not the peace of having been forgiven of sin and freed from its power. Their persuasion of forgiveness has produced in them a benumbed, not a burdened conscience. The first may be more comfortable, but it is exceedingly deadly. Their forgiveness never produces any true love, fear, and reverence for God, no holiness of life, no obedience to His Word, no love of the truth. Mary Magdalene loved much because she was forgiven much (Lk 7:47). Great love will be the fruit of great forgiveness. “But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared”, so says the psalmist (Ps 130:4). No unbeliever can ever truly know and experientially understand the truth expressed in this verse. To all this they are totally indifferent, just as long as they can be assured they are forgiven and will go to heaven when they die. Concerning the danger of a false persuasion of forgiveness, the great Puritan John Owen once wrote,
“The reason why the most of men are not troubled about their sins to any purpose, is from a persuasion that God is merciful and will pardon; when indeed none can really, on a gospel account, … have that persuasion, but those who have been troubled for sin, and that to the purpose. So it is with them that make this discovery by faith. They have had conflicts in their own spirits, and, being deprived of peace, have accomplished a diligent search whether forgiveness were to be obtained or no. The persuasion they have of it, be it more or less, is the issue of a trial they have had in their own souls, of an inquiry how things stood between God and them as to peace and acceptation of their persons. This is a vast difference. The one sort might possibly have had trouble in their consciences about sin, had it not been for their opinion of forgiveness. This hath prevented or stifled their convictions; – not healed their wounds, which is the work of the gospel; but kept them from being wounded, which is the work of security. Yea, herein lies the ruin of most of them who perish under the preaching of the gospel. They have received the general notion of pardon; it floats in their minds, and presents itself to their relief on all occasions …. before their convictions can ripen or come to any perfection, before it draw nigh to its perfect work, they choke it, and heal their consciences with this notion of pardon …. There are none in the world who deal worse with God than those who have an ungrounded persuasion of forgiveness.”[7]
Third, a presumptuous person will not tolerate having their professed faith examined by the light of Scripture. They will not subject their beliefs and practices to the authority of Scripture (Rm 8:7). Rather, they will bend Scripture to their own beliefs, practices, and human reasonings, and substitute other things for the things which the Bible declares always accompany true salvation. They will “measure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves with themselves,” (2 Cor 10:12), but they will not abide having their professed faith measured by and compared with the standard of Scripture. In other words, they have the wrong standard. As long as they are not as wicked as the culture in general, then they imagine themselves to be right with God, but they cannot abide being tested by the light and standard of Scripture. It is their good opinion of themselves, not that of Scripture, which is their authority, “For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed” (Jn 3:20). By contrast, a true assurance which is based on the things which always accompany salvation loves to be deeply searched by the light of Scripture, and to submit themselves to the authority of Scripture, “But he who practices the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God” (Jn 3:21).
Fourth, presumption justifies the means by the end; it separates the means from the end. Presumption works to obtain the ends of love, faith, and obedience, but is unwilling to perform the works of love, faith, and obedience; rather, it is a faith without works (Jm 2:20), and a love without the fruits of love and obedience in the heart and life (1 Cor 13:4-7; 1Jn 3:18; 5:2, 3). In other words, the priorities of a presumptuous faith are all wrong. It wants and values the perceived blessings of being Christian without having any idea what it is to be Christian. It desires that all people should love their neighbor as themselves without ever first having any love for God in the heart, which is of course an absurd impossibility. It places the second greatest commandment before the first (Mt 22:37-39), and the interests of man in general and of self in particular over and above the interests of God and His glory. In other words, it is man-centered, not God centered, showing thereby that its priorities are all wrong. Instead, presumption invents, pursues, and justifies its own means to achieve the desired ends. If the end is church growth, then whatever means produce that end must be good. If the end is to produce “decisions for Christ”, then whatever means elicit these “decisions” must be legitimate. If the end is to make Christianity commercially viable, popular, and culturally relevant, then presumption justifies any means that produces these ends. Success, what works, pure pragmatism, become the measure of what is right and good. If the ultimate end of the Christian life is our personal and temporal happiness and life in this world, then whatever makes us happy, promotes our own self-interests, and prospers our life in this world, must be God’s will for us, and whatever makes us unhappy, requires us to deny ourselves, is contrary to our own self-interests, and is injurious to our life in this world, cannot be God’s will. Presumption hopes for a good end, but shows little or no concern for the means to that end. They hope Christ will be their Savior, even though they never have any love for Him in their heart, never repent of sin and forsake its ways, never strive after holiness and obedience, nor forsake trusting in their own works and righteousness for salvation. The presumptuous person says, “Let us do evil that good may come” (Rm 3:8), yet are utterly blind to the evil of the means as long as the end is perceived as being good. It is the age-old deception that the ends justify the means (1 Sm 15:19-23). Thus, presumption separates the means from the end. It always has the wrong priorities.
Fifth, presumption is based in self-deception, self-love, pride, and self-flattery. It is based in false reasoning and in trusting in our own understanding, whereas true assurance is a knowledge produced by a work of the Holy Spirit within us (Rm 8:16). Presumption attributes the cause and evidence of salvation to what is not the cause and evidence of salvation. It presumes salvation and being Christian is something other than what it really is. It says, “I know I am a Christian because I asked Jesus into my heart, or because I had a mystical experience, or because I have been baptized, or because I’ve forsaken some self-destructive sin and made some moral reformations”, or many other reasons which the Bible never teaches are the things which always accompany true salvation. It will identify the ‘witness of the Spirit’ with some emotional or mystical feeling and experience, and imagine that feeling and experience is evidence of the assurance of salvation. Or else they are simply ignorant of what it means to be Christian and of the things which always accompany true salvation, for these things go to the heart of the true nature of assurance.
Sixth, a presumptuous faith will not persevere to the end. Because it is not rooted and grounded in a true love for God, it will never overcome our natural love of self, sin, and the world. A presumptuous faith will cling to the false doctrine of “eternal security”, namely, that once a person has made a profession of faith, “invited Jesus into their heart”, gone through a religious ceremony, had a religious experience, then they are eternally secure, even if they never evidence any true love for God in their heart and life. The false doctrine of eternal security is a cheap perversion of the biblical doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. A presumptuous confidence in our own salvation may prevail for a time, but when we are called to suffer the loss of all things for the sake of Christ, things that are as dear to us and our self-interests as our right eye or hand, then this bubble bursts. A presumptuous faith cannot survive the violent storms of life because it is not built on the solid rock of Christ. It will always shrink back to destruction. Dross will be consumed by the fire, but gold will be purified. The wind blows away the chaff, but the wheat is preserved and purified. Ease, comfort, self-gratification, self-love, false assurance will fill the church with hypocrites, but affliction, persecution, self-denial will drive them from it. Demas failed to persevere because he loved this present world more than He loved God (2 Tm 4:10). Many of the Jewish rulers who “believed” in Jesus “were not confessing Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God” (Jn 12:42,43). A presumptuous faith is willing to profess faith in a Jesus that is approved, popular, and loved by the world, a Jesus who is very much like us only better, but not in the Jesus who has revealed Himself exclusively in the Bible; not the holy, righteous, divine Son of God who “will judge the world in righteousness” (Ac 17:31), for fear of losing the approval of man. A presumptuous faith fears man but not God; it fears losing its life in this world but not losing life eternal. It would rather sin than suffer for the name of Christ, and then presume they will still inherit eternal life. It will profess to believe the Bible, just not all of it, especially those truths and doctrines that conflict with their own beliefs, human wisdom, presuppositions, popular opinion, and worldly self-interests. It will go to the Bible to find support for and bend it to its own opinions, but not to see if the Bible supports those opinions, thereby showing that what they love is their own opinion, not the Word of God. True assurance, however, is a bold assurance that would rather suffer than sin. It would rather stand alone and suffer for the sake of the truth and be regarded a fool, or worse, for Christ’s sake than compromise, corrupt, or reject one jot or tittle of Scripture. Like Moses, a true assurance will choose “rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God, than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin; considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt;” (Hb 11:25, 26). A truly assured Christian has never been known to be a coward and traitor in the face of suffering, opposition, hardship, trials, and persecution.
Seventh, Satan does not tempt and test a presumptuous faith, or try to drive the presumptuous out of their false assurance. Rather, he, by means of his human instruments, false churches, false gospels, false doctrines, and false marks, encourages, nourishes, and fortifies them in it, for this is his primary means of blinding the minds of the unbelieving to the true gospel of Jesus Christ. The devil only targets those who have a true assurance of faith in order to drive them from it. He even tried to tempt Jesus to doubt that He was truly the Son of God (Mt 4:3, 6). True assurance and the biblical marks of true salvation are vigorously opposed by the devil, false religion, and by the unbelieving heart of man. This is why Roman Catholicism and Arminianism deny true assurance is possible, and is even dangerous; that it will lead to antinomianism. But this is a gross misunderstanding of the nature of true assurance. The broad and easy way which leads to eternal destruction is crowded with people who have a false assurance, but very few travel the narrow and hard way which leads to eternal life. True assurance is hard to obtain and hard to retain, but presumption is easily gained, easily retained, and almost impossible to divest from those who have been affirmed in it, trusted in it, and have lived under it for any period of time.
Warnings
Warnings are given for a purpose, and we ignore them to our peril. The New Testament provides abundant and sufficient warning that there would be defections of various kinds from the truths and doctrines of the gospel among those who make a profession of it. Numerous examples of such people, some of which are named by name, are given to us in the New Testament. These are people “who cause dissensions and hinderances contrary to the teaching which you learned,” (Rm 16:17), and who “went out from us, but they were not really of us” (1Jn 2:19), or who “turn the grace of God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” (Jude 3), or who “profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient, and worthless for any good deed” (Tit 1:16), and who “distort …. the Scriptures, to their own destruction” (2 Pt 3:16), and “who have gone astray from the truth” (2 Tm 2:18). We are warned that “many deceivers have gone out into the world” (2 Jn 7), who do “not abide in the teaching of Christ,” (2 Jn 9). Jesus Himself warned His own disciples again and again against the danger of being deceived and misled. Over and over again in His teaching and parables, Jesus warns against having a false security. The parable of the two foundations (Mt 7:24-27); the parable of the soils (Mt 13:3-23); parable of the landowner (Mt 20:1-16); the parable of the marriage feast (Mt 22:1-14); the parable of the ten virgins (Mt 25:1-13); in all these and more Jesus warned of the danger of having a false assurance in a false faith. The core reason for Jesus’ severe condemnation of the scribes and Pharisees was “because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from men; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in” (Mt 23:13). They themselves rejected God’s way of salvation, invented their own way and taught this as the one true way, then taught and affirmed people in a false assurance in a false faith. Those who are converted to a false hope based on a false profession of faith in a false gospel are made twice as much a son of hell as those who converted them (Mt 23:15), but those who are converted and born again by the power of God are renewed in the spirit of their minds by a supernatural operation of the Holy Spirit.
The New Testament epistles are filled with vehement warnings to “watch,” to “be on guard,” “to test the spirits,” to “stand firm,” to “not be moved away,” to “not be deceived,” and many other similar warnings. If the Bible is to be believed, then nothing but a serious, diligent, and vigorous attention to all gospel truths, words, commands, and duties will prevent us from having our minds “led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ” (2 Cor 11:3). We, like the Hebrews, “must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it” (Hb 2:1). It is this slow, imperceptible drift and gradual dry rot and decay, which allows people to maintain a false assurance of salvation even when they no longer know, accept, or believe the truths and doctrines of the gospel. Having left the paths of uprightness, they walk in the ways of darkness (Pv 2:13), and those who walk in darkness “do not know over what they stumble” (Pv 4:19). They are unable to see any relation between their sin and error and the evil consequences of their sin and error. They see no connection between a false faith and assurance and the evidences of a false faith and assurance. They believe they believe even though they can give no reason for their hope and they deny by their practice what they profess to believe in principle. When truth is lost and rejected it is not replaced with a different kind of truth, but error rushes in to take its place. What else but darkness comes in when the light of day recedes? Their assurance is rooted in a system of religion that still calls itself Christian but has substituted its own things for the things which the Bible teaches always accompany salvation. This is why most of what professes to be Christian today thinks it is un-Christian to think and live as a Christian, and that it is unloving to practice true Christian love. Jesus was the most loving person who ever lived, but He was also the most despised and hated, especially by religious people who professed to love and serve God.
We are also foretold and forewarned of times and seasons when not only will professing Christians “not endure sound doctrine …. and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths” (2 Tm 4:3, 4), but also, “there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies …. And many will follow their sensuality,” (2 Pt 2:1, 2). These false teachings and teachers are not always obvious; rather, they “have crept in unnoticed” (Jude 4), and “disguise themselves as servants of righteousness” (2 Cor 11:15). They are wolves who disguise themselves in sheep’s clothing (Mt 7:15). Many a mind has drifted and been led astray by means of unbiblical terms, or by giving biblical words new meanings. Words such as justification, sanctification, repentance, faith, hope, love, grace, mercy, and a host of others, are too deeply imbedded in the Bible to be totally discarded. Instead, they continue to be used, but are given new meanings which divest them of their scriptural force and significance. We are warned that such times and seasons, when the ways and means which betray people into apostasy are so numerous and popular, will be times of great danger for those who make a profession of the gospel. These means will be so outwardly persuasive that many will be deceived, and if it were possible, even the elect would be misled (Mt 24:11, 24). Thomas Scott, the afore mentioned eighteenth-century pastor, stated it well when he wrote,
“Many of these expressions would be harmless enough, if men were more simple, teachable, and upright: but the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; and Satan is continually employing all the deceivableness of unrighteousness, in order to impose upon men with the semblance of truth. He is ever aiming to mix poison with our food; and, according to the prevailing sentiments of the more religious sort of person, he accommodates his devices, making some damnable heresy palatable and unsuspected, by grafting it on, or infusing it into, the doctrine that most currently passes with apparently serious people: just as an artful destroyer of vermin mixes his poisons with the very food of which they are most fond.”[8]
The New Testament also clearly indicates that these times and seasons when a defection from the truths and doctrines of the gospel is so prevalent, will be times of great security among the generality of professing Christians, even among those whose lives and beliefs are obviously not Christian. Even though they are “wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked”, they imagine themselves to be “rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing” (Rv 3:17). No matter how much their sin, error, and false security is exposed by the clear truths of Scripture, no matter how much they are shown that their faith is a false faith and that the gospel in which they trust is not the gospel taught by Jesus and the apostles, and that the Jesus they trust in and worship is not the Jesus revealed in the Bible but of their own or someone else’s imagination, and the Christianity they practice is not the Christianity taught by the Bible, they remain securely intrenched in their myths and self-deceptions. Like Israel, “you felt secure in your wickedness” (Is 47:10). Instead of being grateful to those who expose their false beliefs and assurances and speak the truth to them in love, they are offended by them, and despise and hate them, “Have I therefore become your enemy by telling you the truth?” (Gal 4:16). The reason Jesus gave for why the world hates Him is because He testifies of it that its deeds are evil (Jn 7:7). Not that its obviously evil deeds are evil, but all that it trusts in for salvation, all its own righteousness, good works, and man-made religion, is evil; it falls far short of what God requires.
We are told by the Holy Spirit that if the true “gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor 4:3, 4). The presumptuous hopes which people have of salvation while they remain unregenerate shows that their minds have been blinded to the true gospel by Satan. What better way for Satan to blind the minds of people to the true gospel than with a veiled and counterfeit gospel. What better means can his servants use to blind the mind to a true salvation than to foster and instill and affirm a false security and groundless assurance in a false salvation; an assurance that is based on things other than the things which always accompany true salvation. Such things include, but are by no means limited to, telling people that once they have prayed a prayer, made a “decision”, “invited Jesus into their heart”, had some conviction and remorse for sin, felt some affection for Jesus, had a mystical or emotional experience, “rededicated” their life to Jesus, have been baptized, supposedly spoken in “tongues”, and many other things which the Bible never teaches are marks of true conversion, that they are now a Christian, and then are instructed, “Don’t let anyone ever tell you that you are not a Christian”. What better way to entrench a false assurance than to represent as unloving all attempts to undeceive people, or to represent conviction of sin as a lie of the devil. People who instill, foster, affirm, and encourage a false assurance simply show their minds have been blinded by Satan to the true nature of saving faith, and have no true love for the souls of men and women, and therefore, no true love for Jesus Christ and His way of salvation. They are motivated by self-love, self-interest, and selfish ambition, not love for God and their fellow man. Like the false prophet Hananiah, they have “made this people trust in a lie” (Jer 28:15), thereby placing themselves under the same condemnation Jesus pronounced on the scribes and Pharisees (Mt 23).
People who become entrenched in a false security under a profession of the gospel, become virtually impervious to the true gospel. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than to try and convince someone who has lived for any period of time under the persuasion of a false assurance, even though they lack all the things which accompany true salvation, yet are self-confident they are Christian. No one has higher barriers to overcome than a self-deceived professing Christian, because no one is more unwilling to see their need for Christ and His righteousness. A disease that resembles health is often the most difficult to cure. Those who believe themselves to be healthy see no need for a physician. Those who truly believe they are rich and have need of nothing will find it impossible to believe they are really wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. Likewise, the task of undeceiving a professing Christian and separating them from their steadfastness in a false assurance, especially when that assurance is reinforced by the church, is a virtually impossible task, because two things must be done. First, they must be convinced that the righteousness in which they have been persuaded to trust is filthy rags, and secondly, they must be convinced of their need for the righteousness of Christ which alone gives true salvation and true assurance. Those who cling to a false assurance must first be untaught their false beliefs and opinions, and admit to themselves that they have believed and trusted in a lie, before they can be taught the true way of salvation. Such people are scarcely ever truly humbled and undeceived because of the pride and self-love that clings to them. In other words, they are unwilling to deny themselves their good opinion of themselves and their false assurance to which their self-love is wedded. They are unwilling to expose themselves to the hostility they may face from family and friends who see their conversion as a renunciation and condemnation of all they have ever believed and trusted in for salvation. As Jesus told the self-righteous and self-confident Jews, “you are unwilling to come to Me, that you might have life” (Jn 5:40). Instead, they will search heaven and earth for other self-assured and self-deceived professing Christians who will affirm them in their false assurance. Wrong belief and doctrine will not only seek support from a wrong interpretation of Scripture, but is, to an extraordinary degree, dependent on it, and is even derived from it. The self-assured will always affirm others in their self-assurance, for they cannot call into question the basis of another’s assurance without calling into question the basis for their own.
All of the teaching and sermons of the Old Testament prophets, all the sermons and warnings of John the Baptist, and all of the preaching and parables of Jesus which exposed the false teaching, beliefs, practices, and security of the Jews and their spiritual leaders, could not shake their rotten foundation because of their self-love, carnal self-confidence, and vain trust in themselves that they were righteous. Nothing could strip them of all their vain hopes and carnal confidences that they had truly kept the law of God, and that they were righteous in themselves. They saw no need for God’s plan of salvation when they were self-confident and secure in their own way. In fact, God’s plan was a stumbling block to them (1 Cor 1:23). Even though Paul, after his conversion, was “confounding the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that this Jesus is the Christ” (Ac 9:22), and Apollos “powerfully refuted the Jews in public, demonstrating by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ” (Ac 18:28), they were still unwilling to see the errors by which they had deceived themselves. It is like trying to reason with the Roman Catholic Church which says the true church cannot be wrong, and then says it is the only true church. It is one thing to be converted by the true gospel and another to be converted by a false gospel to a system of religion that calls itself Christian. Those whose hope and assurance are welded to a false faith in a different gospel think it is the only true gospel, or at least one of many other ways by which a person may be saved and go to heaven instead of hell when they die. Such people are virtually incurable, because, “Their deeds will not allow them to return to their God. For a spirit of harlotry is within them, and they do not know the Lord” (Hos 5:4). True conversion is rare, but among such self-assured people it is even more rare. Edward D. Griffin, a faithful nineteenth-century American pastor, emphasized the great danger inherent in a false assurance when, in a sermon entitled Tokens of Perdition, he numbered the “display of character which betrays a false hope and a false profession”, as one of these tokens, stating,
“I believe there is no instance recorded in the Bible of a sinner’s being rescued from a false hope, unless it was founded on the belief in a false religion …. A false hope, fortified by a false profession, is the most effectual battery against the artillery of the Gospel …. I would rather undertake to convince ten infidels, than to demolish one false hope intrenched behind the pale of the Church. It is easy to shake the hope of a humble Christian, who has learned the deceitfulness of his own heart, and is always prone to distrust himself; but to tear away the confidence of one who, instead of making God his hope, makes hope his god, this is a task too mighty for an arm of flesh. A thousand to one that the hypocrites in the Church will die hypocrites still.” [9]
Therefore, we have no excuse, nor has God left us without adequate warning of the dangers inherent in a false assurance. He has provided sufficient rules and standards in His Word by which we can “test the spirits to see whether they are from God” (1 Jn 4:1), and by which we can test and examine ourselves, and distinguish between false faith and true, between what is and is not Christian, and by which we can make our calling and election sure. It is self-love, not the humbling, self-denying love which is the fruit of the Spirit, that keeps people entrenched in a false assurance. If we do not test ourselves we can be certain that God will test us, “that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pt 1:7). An untested faith is at best an uncertain faith. A false faith and assurance can never stand being tested by fire. We are sufficiently warned of the certainty of this test, the greatness of our concern to be diligent to prepare for it and guard ourselves against it, and the great danger of this false security; and yet, notwithstanding all these explicit warnings, rules, and examples, it is evident to anyone who has eyes to see how desperately negligent and secure are the generality of professing Christians with respect to this danger and the eternal consequences of it. Nothing is able to divest and undeceive them of this false assurance and awaken them to a serious self-examination of their true spiritual state. Instead, they remain entrenched “in their discipline of delusion” (Jer 10:8), nor are they able to say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand” (Is 44:20). All attempts to lovingly undeceive people of their false assurance are met with accusations of being unloving, intolerant, narrow-minded, legalistic, and judgmental. Self-love, love of the world, love of success, love of the approval of man, love of prosperity, comfort, and ease, on the one hand, or the cares, worries, business of the world, and the desire for other things on the other, so occupy the minds of people that the generality of professing Christians and churches are totally oblivious to their great danger. They are fast asleep and nothing can arouse and awaken them from their presumptuous false assurance. In order to better appreciate the danger of a false assurance, let us briefly consider some of the ways by which this security is so successful in predisposing professing Christians into an apostasy from the gospel once they have been ensnared by it.
Various Ways Presumption Leads to Apostasy
A false assurance predisposes people to apostasy by instilling and overpowering them with a proud, careless, and apathetic negligence of their own souls. They assume and flatter themselves that they will go to heaven when they die, or at least that they will not go to hell. No one grows negligent and weary of hearing the Word, or negligent in their knowledge of the Word, until they first grow negligent and weary of practicing the Word. People hear of, and are perhaps warned against the danger of a false assurance, but in their negligence they imagine these things do not apply to them, nor do they see any need to examine and test themselves. Perhaps these things apply to others who are obviously wicked, but not to someone as outwardly religious, morally conservative, and basically good as themselves. If anyone should ever suggest that they may not be Christian, or shine the light of the scriptural marks of true faith on their professed faith, they are quick to quote the only Bible verse they know, “Do not judge lest you be judged” (Mt 7:1). Had not most of the Christian world been fast asleep and negligently ignorant of the truths, commands, and doctrines of the gospel, it would not have been possible for Christianity to have been so totally corrupted by the Papacy, as it was for over a thousand years, until the Protestant Reformation. Occasionally God raised up a few witnesses for the truth who not only proclaimed the true gospel, but also exposed the unfruitful deeds of darkness, and who sealed their confession with their own blood. Yet the generality of professing Christians were so far from having any concern for their own souls, or were so fearful of being identified with these faithful men, that they joined in opposing and persecuting them as heretics and social agitators. So it is today. Had not most of modern Christianity been so willfully negligent and ignorant of the truths and doctrines of the gospel, it would not have been possible for the gospel of Jesus Christ to have become so totally corrupted as it has at this time by those who now profess to believe and teach it. Instances of such gross apostasy as the name of Christianity is capable of are now commonplace and openly practiced among us, and are even defended as being compatible with biblical Christianity, but yet how few are there who see their danger.
Secondly, this false assurance effectively works by means of an appalling laziness and indifference to all sound doctrine. People who are under the power of a false security can neither see, nor will they understand, nor can they be made to see the difference between truth and error, truth and almost truth, true Christian experience and mysticism, true piety and superstition, what is instituted of God and what is of the mind of man, what is of God and what is of the world, so as to value one and avoid the other. It is a matter of complete indifference to them if they are obedient to the Word of God or not, if they are spiritually-minded or worldly-minded, if they are living lives of holiness or living in habitual sin and worldliness, if the church they attend or denomination they belong to teaches and practices the truth or is apostate, if the pastor is faithful to the text of Scripture or if he (assuming they even care whether the pastor is a he or a she), ignores, avoids, edits, veils, twists, distorts, waters down, and butchers the truths and doctrines of Scripture, and secretly introduces and integrates human ideologies and human reasonings with Scripture. The shaping and formulating of churches (such as the church of Rome, the seeker church, in fact, most of modern Christianity) according to the minds, imaginations, opinions, traditions, business models, wisdom, and interests of man, and not according to Scripture, is a matter of complete indifference. They become so indifferent to sound doctrine that they develop an aversion to and intolerance for the dogmatic and uncompromised teaching of the truths and doctrines of Scripture, and exhibit a preference for an indefiniteness, ambiguity, and vagueness with respect to teaching, and a readiness to tolerate the new and novel ‘insights’ and different views of others. They can easily hop, skip, and jump from one church to another, or from one denomination to another, without any regard for the doctrines they teach or reject. They are totally indifferent if the church they attend denies in practice what it professes to believe in principle, or if it reflects more the character, standards, and priorities of the world than those of Christ. As long as there are activities, programs, entertainment for themselves and their children, as long as their self-interests are being met, and they hear nothing that convicts their conscience, then they are totally indifferent to what is preached, taught, or practiced. They may profess a desire to be instructed in sound doctrine, and, like those who were initially attracted to the teaching of John the Baptist, “were willing to rejoice for a while in his light” (Jn 5:35), that is, in the truths and doctrines he taught, but when the novelty of it wears off, or when it no longer suits their tastes, tickles their ears, meets their felt needs, when it makes demands on their life, is no longer in accordance with their own lusts, desires, opinions, beliefs, preferences, religious traditions, and own human reasonings, or hits too close to home, then they will remove themselves from under it and justify themselves with some spiritual sounding reasons. They will cloak their indifference and aversion to sound doctrine behind a false love and humility which claims it is arrogant and unloving to be so dogmatic and inflexible about the truths of Scripture. After all, so we are told, we wouldn’t want a truth or doctrine of Scripture to become a stumbling block to the gospel. That would be unloving. Such convoluted reasoning simply betrays a mind blinded by Satan. How can truth be a stumbling block to truth? How can light be a hinderance to light? In addressing this temptation to spiritual indifference, John Murray once stated,
“There are so many temptations to allow the claims of truth to become secondary. Mental laziness is one of these temptations. We have become accustomed to a certain pattern of thought and conduct. It may be surrounded by the halo of sanctity derived from an established family, social or ecclesiastical tradition, and we are not willing to bring this pattern or conviction to the test of those criteria which the truth demands. Or perhaps after persuasion to the contrary by the evidence of truth, we are not willing to let truth have its way, just because it means a breach with the convenient and the conventional. The temptation may come in the opposite way. Convenience or opportunity may dictate the renunciation of former conviction, and the renouncing is dictated by convenience rather than by the claims of truth.” [10]
It is a sad, shameful, self-evident, and undeniable fact that most of what professes to be Christian today regards the claims of truth to be secondary to the wisdom of man, popular opinion, and worldly success. It is unwilling to bring all it calls Christian “to the test of those criteria which the truth demands”. It has renounced truth and former conviction for the sake of convenience. It not only tolerates to an extraordinary degree, but even affirms and defends as being consistent with biblical Christianity, beliefs, teachings, and practices which a hundred years ago would not only have not been tolerated, but would have been denounced as heretical and demonic by even the most apostate of liberal churches, all because of its shameful indifference and aversion to all sound doctrine.
Third, a false assurance works in a person by instilling a vain and false confidence in themselves, just as it did in the Laodiceans. Most professing Christians like to believe, as did Peter, that even if all others should forsake Jesus Christ and the simplicity and purity of the truths and doctrines of His gospel, they themselves never will (Mt 26:33), not realizing that for the most part they already have. They do not know that their minds have long ago been led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ (2 Cor 11:3). This is because they have no true understanding at all what it is to be preserved by the power of God in a time of temptation and trial, nor what is required of them in order to persevere to the end. They abhor the idea of falling away, and are confident they are eternally secure, but at the same time they neglect and scorn all the means by which they may be preserved from falling away. Tell them that they need to put on the full armor of God and not take it off, that they stand in need of the power of God and the intercession of Christ, of the constant supplies of the Spirit, to have the Word of God richly dwelling in them and to understand its true meaning, of a true spiritual experience of the goodness and efficacy of the truth, of a steadfast trust in the nature and promises of God, of an unwavering conviction that all of Scripture is the authoritative, inerrant, and sufficient Word of God, of pursuing a life of holiness and self-denial, and for this end they must watch, pray, and live in a sincere obedience to all gospel commands and duties, and they will despise them all because of their pride and self-love, or neglect them because of their spiritual laziness and presumptuous self-confidence. Such people as these, if they encounter anything that upsets and overthrows their self-confidence, which they rarely do, will at once succumb to the power of the next temptation that assaults them.
It is no wonder then that in a time when the vast majority of professing Christians, to one degree or another, are under the power of this false assurance, that their minds are so easily led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ (2 Cor 11:3), and “are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel” (Gal 1:6). Possessing and treasuring this false confidence that they are rich and have need of nothing, and even if all others should fall away, they never will, they are not even able to see that they have already deserted Christ and His gospel for a different Jesus, a different gospel, and different Christianity than that taught by Jesus, the apostles, and the New Testament. Having left the ways of uprightness, they do not realize they walk in the ways of darkness. Like the Laodiceans, they do not know they are utterly blind and self-deluded about their true spiritual condition, and like the Pharisees, while being blind, they think they see (Jn 9:40, 41). “But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves” (Jm 1:22).
In the next study I will examine a final cause of apostasy, namely, love of this present world, by which multitudes have been led astray and fallen away from the truth. It is self-evident to all who have eyes to see that modern Christianity has been thoroughly converted to the world.
[1] Jonathan Edwards, Charity and Its Fruits: Christian Love as Manifested in the Heart and Life (Lawton, OK: Trumpet Press, 2014), 32.
[2] David H. Harrell, Warrior Preachers: A Spiritual Call to Arms in an Age of Militant Unbelief (Shepherd’s Fire Media, 2023), 37-38.
[3] Horatius Bonar, The Life of John Milne of Perth (Edinburgh, Banner of Truth, 2010), 16.
[4] Iain Murray, The Old Evangelicalism: Old Truths for a New Awakening (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2005), 178, 179.
[5] The Life, Letters, and Papers of the Late Rev Thomas Scott, ed. John Scott (Nathan Whiting: New Haven, 1827), 398, 400, 408-409.
[6] Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwqrds, Vol 1 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2005), 239-240.
[7] John Owen, The Works of John Owen, Vol 6 (Edinburg: Banner of Truth, Reprint 1967), 395-396.
[8] Letters of Thomas Scott, 407.
[9] The Life and Sermons of Edward D. Griffin, Vol 1 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, Reprint 1987), 360-361.
[10] John Murray, Collected Writings of John Murray, Vol 1 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1976).