Word of Salvation – Vol.12 No.32 – August 1966
Assurance Of Faith
Sermon by Rev. T.E. Tyson on Psalm 125
Scripture Reading: Psalm 125; 2Peter 1:1-11
Psalter Hymnal: 225; 11 (after Law); 410:1,2,3; 281; 467
Beloved Congregation,
If you are a Christian, you can be sure that you are a Christian. You can be glad to know that you belong to your Faithful Saviour. How do I know this? Because the Bible tells us to, “Give diligence to make your calling and election sure,’ in 2Peter 1:10. Now, the Lord wouldn’t tell us to do that if it were not possible for us to do it. And He not only tells us to give diligence to make our calling and election sure, but He also has given us “exceeding great and precious promises” to help us to do just that. One of them is the 125th Psalm, wherein the Psalmist celebrates, or extols the abiding security of the true people of God. Let us see, in the first place:-
I. The Ground of This Security.
The ground, or the basis of the Christian’s security is none other than the Lord Himself. God’s people are safe because He does two things:
- The Lord “keeps the place of His name” vs.1: “They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth forever.” Mount Zion was the place that the Lord chose to dwell – in the midst of His people. He came down. there unto them. And true Israelites went to Zion to meet their Lord. Our Mt. Zion, however, is not an earthly place, but a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He is the Mt. Zion of the Church, whom God the Father keeps as the place where His name and honour is found. That is why Jesus is the “way, the truth, and the life,” the place alone where we can meet the Father. And thus Paul writes, “Ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” When we see this, then we can also see how the Christian, united to Christ, also becomes the place where God chooses to dwell. Because you are in Christ, God’s name is placed in you – therefore you are called a child of God. And the point of our text is just to assure God’s covenant people – people called by Him to bear His name before the nations that they are safe. They cannot be anymore taken away or removed than can Mt. Zion, than can Christ our Saviour. That is just to say that the Christian is safe precisely because God keeps the place of His name. And when Jesus has taken up residence in your heart, God keeps that place of His Name safe and secure. It cannot be removed. It can no longer be taken away. It can no more be removed than could those mountains upon which earthly Jerusalem was built be shifted into the sea. For the stability of God’s temple on earth was to the Israelites a sign of the stability of the heart that God keeps for Himself. “Remember these, O Jacob and Israel; for thou art my servant, I have formed thee; thou art my servant: O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of me.” “My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. “He that hath begun a good work in us will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” Wherein lies your security, Child of God? Not in yourself, surely but in the victorious power of the God who does not relinquish the place of His Name, who does not give up the place where His glory dwells.
- The Lord protects His people vs.2: “As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people from henceforth even forever.” Or, as the Proverb puts it, “The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.” The Lord is a wall of fire, a broad river, for his people to protect them from being kidnapped by the enemy. The important thing for us to remember is that the Lord is there protecting His people from being snatched away, even when we forget this wonderful thing. Mt. Ruapehu is there, even when we can’t see it from the Desert Road. The ground of our security is God, not us. We are safe because He not only keeps the place of His name, but He is round about us. Brothers and Sisters, we are safe because He not only keeps the place of His name, but He is round about us. Brothers and Sisters, we are safe even from our own doubts! Now, this doesn’t mean immunity from doubt, or tribulation, however, so let us observe, in the second place:-
II. The Means of This Security.
The Lord delivers His people, but not by taking them out of the world. We are in the world, but we are not of it. Those Israelites were often oppressed by the wicked but they were still God’s people, and He was always in charge.
- He delivered them through oppression, Because they were His children, when they were disobedient, He often allowed, yay, commanded, tribulation to fall upon them. But it was medicine. It was sent to help them, to heal them not to destroy, or hurt, them. Now, notice the sovereignty of the Lord, in vs.3: “For the rod of the wicked shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous: lest the righteous put forth their hands into iniquity.” Give Him glory, for He knows our breaking point! He never tests beyond endurance. Praise be to him, for His great wisdom and love! If He were not the God that He is, then the righteous would surely perish, because they would succumb to temptation that was beyond their ability to endure. But God does not want us to fall, only to grow stronger!
- He separated them from the wicked. vs.5: “As for such as turn aside unto their crooked ways, the Lord shall lead them forth with the workers of iniquity.” Is there any sense to the striving of the righteous? Yes, for the Lord is the Judge – and He will vindicate His own in due course. Not just now, perhaps, but surely at last. He will drag the hypocrites out into the light, you cannot doubt that. Maybe now the wheat and the chaff lie together on the Lord’s threshing-floor but the time is coming when God will winnow. He will separate the grain from the husk. And this surely points out the truth of our theme, namely the abiding security of the true people of God. For if God can separate the wheat from the chaff, then you can be sure that He knows which is the grain and which is the chaff. You can be sure that God knows the righteous and He knows the wicked, too. Therefore, the Child of God is safe in the arms of Jesus, because the Righteous Judge knows righteous judgment, and will at last make all things plain. Thus we see that God knows who His people are. But can we know that we are? Well, we’re not left in the dark on this matter, for our text tells us – and we notice in the third place:-
III. The Object Of This Security.
That is, just who are the people who can have this glorious assurance that the Lord is keeping them safe from spiritual accident or death. In our Psalm, the Lord makes a distinction between the true Israelite and the false Israelite, in order that no hypocrite may apply this promise to himself. That distinction is clearly drawn in two places:
- Vs.1, “They that trust in the Lord…!” Trust. Trust characterizes the person who the Psalm is talking about – the person who is safe. You can know that you are a Christian, you can have this abiding security – but only if you trust in the Lord. That is because trust looks outside of itself. Faith is outstretched open hands. And the person who truly trusts God relaxes upon the grace and strength of Another. That is what trust is – ceasing to strive for self-salvation (such people are never safe!). And the assurance of faith comes after. It is the wagon that faith pulls! In other words, a person cannot have true faith without having some measure of assurance. Now, we are not here saying that the true believer is doubt-free. David wasn’t. Otherwise he would never have said, “Restore unto me the joy of my salvation.” He didn’t ask the Lord to restore his lost salvation because David knew that he never lost that. But he did ask the Lord to restore his lost joy. He was always a possessor of salvation, but he wasn’t always a possessor of full assurance. And it is a good thing that the Lord doesn’t require us to be fully sure of our faith before it can be said that we have any faith at all! But that is not to say that assurance is divorced from the faith we needn’t have full assurance of our faith to be saved, but we must have faith to be saved. You may not be sure of yourself but you can be sure of your Saviour. And He promises that when you truly trust him, then a root has been planted in your heart. That root will assuredly bring forth fruit, and one of the fruits is called assurance. It comes. It will gradually come. More and more, as the believer lives the life of faith, he will grow in assurance of his faith. But that fruit won’t come when the root is absent. That’s why the Psalmist is talking of people who do trust in the Lord.
- Vs.4, “those that be good.”
What’s that? Are we here reading about a works righteousness? Of people who save themselves because they somehow drum up goodness in their hearts? Well, if you know anything about the Bible, you know what the answer to that question is! “Those that be good.” There aren’t any do-gooders around at all! – only be-gooders. They are people whose hearts are changed, not their activities only. They are the upright in heart. Now, that phrase, ‘upright in heart’, wouldn’t fit someone who supposes himself to have done a good deed or two. And no man can ever do good unless he has first become good. And that can happen only when the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ is put to our account. You see, the question is, are we alive or dead? Have we hearts of flesh or hearts of stone? Are we justified by faith, or lying yet under God’s just sentence of condemnation? Are we evil, because we are alone in our sins, or does God call us good because He has joined us to Christ, whose goodness is enough for us all? If you belong to Jesus, and have truly accepted Him as your Saviour, then you are good, and to you then belongs the promise of security of which our text speaks. Thus Brothers and Sisters, we can rejoice to hear, in the fourth place what is…
IV. The Blessing of This Security.
And that is that God sends His people peace. Vs.5, “Peace shall be upon Israel. There was safety in Goshen. Peace when the death-angel came around. There was safety behind the blood-marked door. There is peace of mind and heart for the Christian who knows and is sure that he is secure in God’s love and grace. “The Lord will bless His people with peace; great peace have they which love thy law; thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee; therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” This doctrine of assurance of faith, or the security of believers, cannot lead to looseness of life. “God forbid that we should sin that grace may abound” cried Paul! There is peace in security. But there is no peace in sin. If you like to sin, and feel no remorse, then you will have strife within, not peace. But if you repent of your sins, then you will have prepared the way for the entrance of peace because your very repentance is God’s gracious gift. And He doesn’t give that gift away to those who don’t belong to Him!
In Galatians 6:16, the church of Jesus Christ is called the Israel of God. And therefore, the promises of our Psalm apply to us too. The assurance of salvation is ours too. It is one of the most precious gifts of God, and one that ought to be highly desired by all believers. Never regard the assurance of which the Bible speaks as a false security, as a pretention of peace when there is no peace, and as a sure sign of self-righteousness and arrogance. It can be that, it is that, in hypocrisy. But assurance can be real. Whatever we do, let us never regard a state of constant doubt as a wholesome state of affairs in our spiritual life! Let us never reckon that lack of assurance is commendable somehow. As though it were a sign of humility. Doubt is no mark of piety, is nothing of which to be proud.
Rather the Lord commands the believer to strive to attain assurance, to possess it. And how do we do that? Only by a sincere appreciation for the promises of God, and a sincere struggle to obtain those promises by using the means of grace.
Now, although assurance of faith is not necessary to us being Christians, as we have already noted, let us be sure of this: it is very necessary to our well-being as Christians. The Christian is duty bound to lead a life of true gratitude to the Lord for His gracious redemption. Being redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, he must ask:
What shall I render to the Lord
For all his benefits to me?
How shall my soul by grace restored
Give worthy thanks, Lord, to thee?
But that question will hardly rise, if you are not certain that you have been redeemed, that your sins are pardoned. You won’t wonder how you can show your gratitude to God if you don’t know that He has done anything for you. And if you don’t know that God has done anything for you, then you will hardly be in a position to reply to the Psalmist’s question, and cry with his resolve to take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord.
Christian, you are a soldier of Jesus Christ, engaged in earnest battle with the Prince of Evil. And you need all the spiritual strength at your disposal in that fight, especially the strength that comes from a living and active faith, and from the assurance of faith. If you are lacking in confident trust, if your heart is always filled with doubt, then you are hardly prepared to do battle with Satan, are you? And remember, no matter how little of the joy of salvation you might possess at home tomorrow, you have the Lord’s promise: “If you give the more diligence to make your calling and election sure: you shall never stumble; for thus shall be richly supplied to you the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” Praise be to His Faithful, Covenant-keeping, Name!
Amen.