The Biblical Concept of Assurance

Biblically speaking, assurance represents “security of the soul and true inner peace – a blessed assurance.” (Paul Sain) It comes from the Greek, plerophoria , which means “ full assurance, most certain confidence..” (Thayer’s Greek Definitions) In English, the word “assurance” comes from the verb “assure.”  Webster’s defines assure, “to make safe; to give confidence to hearts; to make sure or certain: convince; to make certain the coming or attainment of: i.e. a guarantee”

Assurance then is, according to Webster’s Dictionary, “The act or action of assuring: as  a : pledge, guarantee” God has pledged, “I will never leave you, nor forsake you…” (Hebrews13:5). By the same Word in which He conveyed to us these great and precious promises, He also gave us all things that pertain to our receiving of these promises. “As His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” (2 Peter 1:3-4)

Along with the pledge to never forsake us,  God has given us the Spirit as a guarantee or earnest of that pledge. The guarantee or earnest of the Spirit helps to instill confidence of salvation in us, even though, “we who are in this tent groan, being burdened…”  (2 Corinthians 5:2). The Holy Spirit is God’s earnest or guarantee (I.e. the “down-payment”) whereby He gives us assurance that everything He has promised us is true.

Again, Webster’s dictionary states that assurance is, “The state of being assured: i.e.  A being certain in the mind or confidence of mind or manner, freedom from self-doubt or uncertainty.”  Although he does not use the word “assurance”, the apostle Paul defines this  very beautifully in 2 Timothy 1:12,  “For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, 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.”

Assurance is closely connected to faith. Our assurance comes from a deep faith or trust in the promises that God, through His Son, has given us. If we have faith in the promises of God – we can be assured that He will fulfill His promises.

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Souls

Jesus saw souls!

We usually see what we are looking for. We tend to get focused on a single matter and fail to see all that is happening around us. Determined to purchase a special item in a store often makes us bypass items of even greater value. We see what we are focused on.

This is what happened in John chapter four when the disciples returned from purchasing food in a Samaritan village. They saw Jesus talking to the Samaritan woman, but their focus was on the food they had purchased. Jesus had seen the woman’s soul while the disciples were seeing food. Is it possible that we make the same mistake in our lives? Are we so focused on our own lives that we fail to deal with those things which really matter?

We need to see souls. This is what Jesus did. We deal with cash at the register in the stores, but fail to see the person behind the register. We speak to those around us about every topic except the one that focuses on their souls. We have hundreds of “friends” on Facebook, but rarely ever see their souls and never address what they really need to hear from us. Are we really their friends?

What about visitors to our services? We may see them and even realize we do not know them, yet never think about their souls. They come into our lives and provide great spiritual opportunities, yet we never see their souls. Imagine the impact on visitors if scores of individuals greeted them!

We must love souls. Until love—“agape love”—is manifested, others will never know that it exists. It was God’s love that prompted Him to give His Son. It was the Son’s love that caused Him to see the soul of the adulterous woman at the well in Samaria. Think again of visitors to our services. They will never see Palm Beach Lakes as a place where troubled souls are loved, until we show that love to them.

We must lead souls. Not every Christian is equipped to have a one-on-one study with a lost visitor, but there are actions all of us can take in leading visitors to the Lord. We all can speak to visitors. We all can sit with visitors. Welcome them to sit with you, or leave your “assigned” seat and go sit with them. We all can write visitors. The addresses from their registration cards are readily available at our Sunday night meetings. Take time to write to those you met and those you sat with to remind them who you are, where you met them and how glad you were they came. We all can pass visitors on to others. After you meet a visitor, introduce them to other members who can also welcome them. We all can tell others about visitors. Let others know who you met, what you learned of them, so further contacts can be made.

Let us all see souls. Let us all love souls and show it to them. Let us all lead souls in every way we can. Jesus did!

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The Sacrifice of Christ: Is it enough?

When the Sacrifice of Christ Is Just Simply Nowhere Near Enough!

“Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:4-8).

Both God and Jesus knew long before They ever made man or even the universe that would house him (Ephesians 1:4, 3:8-11), exactly what man would do to sinfully sever his relationship with Them (Isaiah 59:1-15a). They also knew exactly what it would take to fully and finally fix and re-establish that relationship forever (Isaiah 53:1-12, 59:15b-21) – the absolute and all-out sacrifice of no less than the sacred and sinless, only begotten Son of almighty God Himself for the sins of all mankind from Adam forward (Romans 5:6-8).

As Philippians two above assures, that would require Jesus voluntarily giving up, or emptying Himself, of some of His “God-attributes” for a time (such as being beyond being tempted – James 1:13; Hebrews 4:15); leaving His heavenly home in glory behind; being squeezed into human flesh and becoming more vulnerable to Satan’s reach (Matthew 4:1-11, 16:23; Luke 22:53); and being maligned and mistreated, beaten and rejected, scourged and spat upon, and finally crucified and separated from His Heavenly Father for the first, last, and only time in all of eternity (Matthew 27:46) as He did not just “carry our sins on His shoulders” as it were, but as the Scripture would indicate in what is a much more intense and invasive manner, “For He (God) made Him (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (II Corinthians 5:17; underlining mine – DED).

And that sacrificial redemption story of Jesus, “according to the Scriptures” (Luke 24:44-47; I Corinthians 15:1-4), was all the message the apostles needed. It was with that one, simple, single, straightforward gospel message that they went armed into all the world (Mark 16:15-16; I Corinthians 2:2); attracted and converted untold thousands – and more likely tens of thousands – of lost sinners to saving and obedient faith in Jesus Christ (Acts 2:22-47, 4:4, 5:14, 11:19-24, etc); and turned their entire world entirely upside down (Acts 17:1-6), taking that one gospel message to their entire world in just one generation (Colossians 1:21-23).

And that sacrificial redemption story of Jesus was also enough for even the almighty God and Father in heaven Himself! “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11).

But apparently that sacrificial redemption story of Jesus is no longer enough today – and in fact, is believed and portrayed to be pretty near worthless, having been relegated to the trash heap of obscurity in many places. Apparently there are many man-made and originated elements that many so-called “churches” consider to have a far greater value, worth, and “pulling power” than either the story or the name above all names – according to God – of His Son Jesus!

Just consider this for a moment. Many churches today are suffering a general decline in attendance, and so are “pulling out all the stops” as it were, to attract and maintain a crowd as they compete for congregants. People in this position, whether in the secular world or the world of religion, will therefore put out before the general public what they believe will attract the most people – and the vital, spirit and truth, soul saving, grace laden gospel is nowhere to be seen in many places. Instead, countless churches are using games, gimmicks and giveaways to get people into their buildings. I was recently made aware of a story wherein a large metropolitan church was going to be giving away free, large screen television sets to the first I-forget-how-many visitors to their Sunday services. Apparently, large screen televisions are now worth far more than Jesus’ sacrifice, which is no longer powerful enough to pull in people – or it would have been put out front and center instead…

And then of course, there is the “Clowns, Cowboys, and Entertainment Crowd,” wherein everything from rodeos, to hayrides, to haunted houses are incorporated and utilized by churches, because of those things’ being perceived as being more valuable and powerful than the once all-important and exclusive New Testament gospel – which has therefore, in reality, whether they will admit it or not, been rendered and relegated to a far less powerful and prominent position in these places than their present, man-pleasing and appeasing ploys.

And lest we think that the Lord’s church is immune from such immense and incredible blasphemies: Our little congregation recently received an invitation from a congregation of the “church of Christ” in a nearby city, to come and purchase tickets and attend a concert by some instrumental music playing, world-imitating, religious “boy band” they were holding at their church building…

And; as to Jesus’ God-given “name that is above every name,” apparently there are those who think it powerless, worthless, and in deed and practice think it worth far less than “guts,” “community,” and “life,” or the phrase “on the move,” as well as the entire gambit of other faithless replacements they replace Christ’s name with. Instead of being referred to as “churches of Christ” the way the divinely-inspired record instructs and insists upon in Romans 16:16 for instance, they insist on replacing His name when they refer to their group, culminating in identification phrases such as “Guts Church,” “So-in-So Community Church,” “Life Church,” “Church on the Move,” and a thousand other lesser names that all move the Name above all names – and the only one under heaven in which there is salvation (Acts 4:12) – down into the basement of their belief system.

When exactly is the name and sacrifice of Jesus just simply not enough? The answer is simple: Whenever you see men and women willing to replace either of them with other names and worldly things that they must apparently therefore feel are worth more and are more important, as evidenced by their replacing them with worldly – and what they apparently must also therefore perceive to be more important – things!

 

 

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Education, Freedom, and Religion

“In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). One can imagine how this verse would have stood out to the early American settlers as they began to form an independent government. Having been educated at Cambridge University, many of the first settlers were intelligent men who knew the Bible. But they recognized that without proper training in God’s Word, the new colonies would quickly deteriorate into a slothful nation given to debauchery. These early settlers also had vivid memories of the civil abuse that could take place (the Inquisition, the Crusades, etc.) when the common man was not biblically literate to accurately discern right from wrong. They knew they had to educate men, or their new society would fail.

This need for biblical literacy spawned one of the very first laws providing for public education in the United States. Known as the “Old Deluder Satan Law,” this unusually named law served one very strong purpose: it demonstrated not only the need for people to be educated, but also proposed how it was to be accomplished. The law noted:

It being one chief point of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of Scriptures, as in former times, by keeping them in an unknown tongue, so in these latter times, by persuading them from the use of tongues that so at last the true sense and meaning of the original might be clouded by false glosses of saint-seeming deceivers, that learning might not be buried in the graves of our fathers, in church and commonwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavours…

The law continued: “It is therefore ordered… [that] after the Lord hath increased [the settlement] to the number of fifty households, [they] shall then forthwith appoint one within their town, to teach all such children as shall resort to him, to write and read…. And it is further ordered, that where any town shall increase to the number of one hundred families or householders, they shall set up a grammar school…” So with the “Old Deluder Satan Law” in place, public education in the United States was born. This would be far from the last indication that public education was centered on the Bible and the ability of the public to read it.

In 1690, Connecticut passed this country’s first “no child left behind” act- the literacy law of 1690. In this law the early settlers stressed, “This [legislature] observing that . . . there are many persons unable to read the English tongue and thereby incapable to read the holy Word of God or the good laws of this colony . . . it is ordered that all parents and masters shall cause their respective children and servants, as they are capable, to be taught to read distinctly the English tongue.” In 1918, Arthur Raymond Mead commented on the enforcement of this law in a book titled The Development of Free Schools in the United States. He observed, “To enforce this order, the grand jury was required to visit  families suspected of evading the law, such visits were to be made once a year, and evasions to be reported by the jury to the ‘next county court where the said masters or servants shall be fined 20 shillings for each child servant.’”

Proficiency in the Scriptures and morality were the driving forces for public education. In fact, fifty-four years earlier Harvard University had recorded in their rules and precepts:

“Let every Student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life, John 17:3 and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and Learning. And seeing the Lord only giveth wisdom, Let every one seriously set himself by prayer in secret to seek it of him Prov. 2,3. Every one shall so exercise himself in reading the Scriptures twice a day that he shall be ready to give such an account of his proficiency therein.”

Consider that similar rules and precepts were laid down by well-known universities such as Yale, Princeton, William & Mary, Rutgers, etc. Clearly, the basis for education was to teach and further propagate the fundamentals of the Christian religion. Even the Supreme Court held a strong religious view toward education, ruling all the way until 1844 that:

Christianity…is not to be maliciously and openly reviled and blasphemed against to the annoyance of believers or the injury of the public…. It is unnecessary for us, however, to consider… the establishment of a school or college for the propagation of Judaism or Deism or any other form of infidelity. Such a case is not to be presumed to exist in a Christian country. (Vidal v. Girard’s Executor’s, 1844)

Yet, consider where the educational system rests today. A system created to teach and promote Christian values is now discriminating against those very values. The God public education was designed to teach children about has been effectively banned from the classroom. One wonders how much longer our current generation will fall under the spell of the Old Deluder, Satan.

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Beverage Alcohol

There is nothing right about beverage alcohol.  As reported by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, 12,998 people were killed as a result of “alcohol impaired” drivers.    By comparison, the number of U.S. Casualties in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is 4,955 and this is for the entire time that our forces have been there.  We hear the outcry in regard to our fallen soldiers.  Where is the outcry in regard to the fallen related to drunk driving?  Our soldiers died fighting for an ideal; victims of drunk drivers die as a result of one selfish person’s “pleasure.”  This nation has absolutely no excuse for the loss of these lives.  Shame on us for allowing the beverage alcohol industry to perpetrate its lie!

Drinking beverage alcohol is irresponsible.  By its very nature, when alcohol is consumed, it reduces the responsibility of the individual.  Responsibility is affected by brain activity.  Brain activity hinges upon a small gap found between nerve cells (neurons).  This gap is called the synapse, and alterations here affect all brain activity.  Any alteration to brain activity affects responsibility.  Alcohol certainly affects brain activity because it affects the gap between nerve cells.  One researcher writes, “The behavioral effects of alcohol are produced through its actions on the central nervous system (CNS) and, in particular, the brain. Synaptic transmission—the process by which neurons in the CNS communicate with one another—is a particular target for alcohol actions that alter behavior. Intoxication is thought to result from changes in neuronal communication taking place while alcohol is present in the brain” (Emphasis added, KRC).  The same researcher concluded, “Extensive research has shown that many aspects of synaptic transmission are altered by alcohol at doses and brain concentrations encountered during drug ingestion.”    This research upholds the old saying, “When you take one drink, you’re one drink drunk!”

Christians ought to have nothing to do with beverage alcohol because we are called to sobriety and responsibility.  1 Thessalonians 5:7-8a states, “For they that sleep, sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober.”  According to the research above, it would curtail our efforts to bring “into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).  Consuming beverage alcohol, in and of itself, is the epitome of a fleshly lust that wars against the soul and something from which we are commanded to abstain (1 Peter 2:11).

The problem of social drinking simply exacerbates the problem of beverage alcohol because it compounds the error by one’s example.  Jesus was speaking of example when he said, “But whoso shall cause one of these little ones that believe on me to stumble, it is profitable for him that a great millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be sunk in the depth of the sea. Woe unto the world because of occasions of stumbling! for it must needs be that the occasions come; but woe to that man through whom the occasion cometh!” (Matthew 18:6-7).  The same judgment awaits the social drinker for his bad example and influence as awaits the drunk driver for his criminal negligence.  Does society not hold those who encourage murderers equally responsible for murder?  My mother-in-law once sat on a jury in which a person was on trial for murder.  The person had not done the act himself, but knew of it and failed to prevent it and was found guilty of murder.  So also God will hold those who participate in social drinking guilty.  Romans 1:32 seems appropriate here: “who, knowing the ordinance of God, that they that practice such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but also consent with them that practice them” (ASV).

Typically, some will object with the thought, “But Jesus drank socially” or “social drinking is done with God’s approval in the Bible.”  Various passages will be cited to support the argument.  No one is questioning whether Jesus drank wine.  The question is whether Jesus drank beverage alcohol.  He did not.  Such would have implicated him in some of the worst sins in Biblical history.

The problem is clarified when we appropriately recognize that the word “wine” in the Bible is used for both intoxicating and non-intoxicating beverages.  Ancient literature attests to this fact.  An ancient Roman agrarian, Columella, stated that some wine did not intoxicate.  He describes one of these “wines” in book three of his twelve-volume work “On Agriculture.” He says regarding a particular good wine, that he calls “Inerticulan,” that it was inert, non-intoxicating, not harmful, and ineffectual on the sinews or nerves.  He categorized both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages as “wine.” Moreover, even “good wine” can, according to the ancients, refer to something that is non-alcoholic.

But doesn’t grape juice naturally turn into wine when left alone to ferment?  When left alone, grape juice will most likely become vinegar due to the naturally occurring wild yeasts on the skin of the grape.  In order to produce the kinds of alcoholic beverages that are socially consumed today, one must introduce cultivated yeasts that break down the sugars into alcohol.  The product must then be preserved in that state through additional artificial processes.  Yeast cultivation is a product of modern science.  Ancients made alcohol through the manipulation of naturally occurring yeasts but did not know the types used today.

Preservation of non-alcoholic wine, however, was done through various processes.  Grape juice would be boiled and reduced to a syrup which could be preserved; it would be reconstituted in water as a beverage at a later time.  Sometimes the juice was preserved in cold water or buried in the ground.  Wineskins could also prevent fermentation by cutting off oxygen to the naturally occurring wild yeasts.

In Matthew 27:34, we read that soldiers gave Jesus wine to drink that was mingled with gall.  Wines were often mixed with spices like gall.  This was likely alcoholic wine (Proverbs 23:30).  Even though he was suffering on the cross, Jesus refused it.  There is no excuse for a Christian to be a social drinker.  Beverage alcohol is a dangerous drug which results in the deaths of thousands of people each year on our highways.  This does not even take into consideration other social effects of alcohol: child abuse, spousal abuse, wastefulness of financial resources, crimes committed by those under the influence, etc.  Were alcohol to cease in our society today, many evils would disappear overnight and we would be a better nation for it.

[1] National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. “2007 Traffic Safety Annual Assessment” DOT 810 791. Washington DC: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, July 2008. http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811016.PDF

[2] Lovinger, David M.  National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.  “Communication Networks in the Brain: Neurons, Receptors, Neurotransmitters, and Alcohol.” Bethesda: National Institutes of Health. http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh313/196-214.htm

[3] Columella. De Rustica.  Book III.  P.247.  http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Columella/de_Re_Rustica/3*.html See also Pliny, N. H. XIV.31 and Isidore, Orig. XVII.5.24 which are referenced in footnote 30 of the Columella text.

[4] Bacchiocchi, Samuele. Wine in the Bible: A Biblical Study on the Use of Alcoholic Beverages.  Berrien Springs: Biblical Perspectives. 1989.  Online at: http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/books/wine_in_the_bible/3.html.

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