The NXR Podcast - October 29, 2022


QUESTIONS - How Can I Know If I’m “Elect”？

Topics
saving faith
Hosted by
Joel Webbon Harrison Smith Antonio Griffith Dale Partridge Wewsley Todd Calvin Robinson
Mentioned
Kosti Hinn Paul John Bunyan Jamie White Joel Webin Doug Wilson Joseph Boot Gary DeMar Bent Key Abba
QUESTIONS - What Is Your Position On Lordship Salvation？ ｜ John MacArthur SUNDAY SERMON - Enduring Criticism & Betrayal ｜ An Introduction to Psalm 42

Episode Stats


Length

16 minutes

Words per minute

157.27

Word count

2,661

Sentence count

179

Harmful content

Toxicity

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

How can I know God's promises are true for me if I don't know the gospels? How can I believe that Jesus really did die for me in the Garden of Gethseman to save me from the world and was raised again on the third day? How do I know that the gospel is true? What does it mean to know that Jesus died for me?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 Hey guys, real quick, before we get started, I have a small request.
00:00:03 If you've been blessed by our content and you like this show,
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00:00:21 All right, this is from Ben Q.
00:00:23 How can I know God's promises are true for me?
00:00:26 emphasis on for me, not one, but two asterisks. I appreciate that. I write like that sometimes.
00:00:33 How can I stop believing like a demon, but know the gospels for me? And well put Ben,
00:00:39 right? Because I know, have no doubt you're referencing the book of James. It says,
00:00:43 you believe that God is one good, but even demons believe that and shudder. All right. So
00:00:49 you're completely on it and I'm going to get to that, but let me, let me set the framework real
00:00:53 quick, Ben. Okay. So, uh, reform theology and really just Christian tradition has always held
00:00:58 that there are three primary components of faith, genuine, true, saving faith, right? Number one is
00:01:06 knowledge. Number two is assent. And number three is trust, personal and implicit trust. Now that
00:01:13 third piece is what you're asking about then, right? Um, the personal aspect that how, how can
00:01:19 I believe that the gospel is not just a real objective historical fact, but that Jesus died
00:01:30 for me, right? So saving faith, true faith, three primary components, knowledge, assent,
00:01:36 and trust, right? Knowledge is, well, that one hopefully we don't have to spend a lot of time
00:01:41 on, but that's just, you know, you have intellectual awareness that something in fact
00:01:46 happened. The only reason I mentioned knowledge is because it almost seems like there would be
00:01:51 two components, right? Knowledge and trust. And so I think sometimes people get confused on that
00:01:56 second piece, assent, which is to agree. It's agreement. And the reason why assent and knowledge
00:02:03 both need to be mentioned, that it's not just redundant knowledge and knowledge. Assent is
00:02:09 distinct from knowledge in the sense that you can have knowledge of something that you don't agree
00:02:14 with, right? So I have knowledge of the prosperity gospel, but I have not given the prosperity
00:02:19 gospel my ascent. I have knowledge of Molinism, but I have not given Molinism my ascent. I have
00:02:29 knowledge of all kinds of different heresies, Arianism and Docetism and all these different
00:02:35 things, you know, the Eutychian heresy and the Nestorian heresy, but I have not given them my
00:02:41 assent, meaning you can know something that you actually believe is false, that you do not
00:02:49 assent to. But then beyond that, you can also know something and agree that it's true. You have
00:02:57 knowledge of something and have given your agreement, your assent, that this thing of which
00:03:04 you know is also a true thing and yet still reserve personal trust, right? So you can have
00:03:12 knowledge of an event and assent, agree that that event is not just mythology, not just legend,
00:03:20 but it's historic and true and real, but still not trust in the implications of that event and
00:03:29 bet your life on that. And that's that third piece that you're asking about, Ben, right? The implicit
00:03:36 and personal trust. I always think of Galatians, I believe it's chapter two, if not, it's chapter
00:03:40 three, but I'm almost positive it's chapter two, where Paul says of Jesus, you know what, let me
00:03:46 just go ahead and look it up so that I'm not just paraphrasing here. This is Galatians chapter two.
00:03:54 let's start there. See if that's right. Galatians chapter two.
00:04:15 Yep. Here it is. Chapter two, verse, let's start with verse 20 through, yeah, just 20 Galatians
00:04:22 chapter two, verse 20. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who
00:04:28 lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the son of God,
00:04:35 in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Meaning that, Ben, you're not alone.
00:04:46 I personally have been where you are, and I know countless others who have both knowledge and
00:04:54 assent. They believe that Jesus really did live, die, and was raised again on the third day and
00:05:02 ascended to the right hand of the Father, and that he did all this not just as a moral example
00:05:08 of sacrificial love for others, but he did it as a substitute, penal substitutionary atonement,
00:05:15 the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world, Jesus lived and died and was raised again
00:05:20 to absolve sinners of their moral guilt before God, to reconcile sinners with a holy God,
00:05:27 and to impute to them by faith his own righteousness. There are a lot of people who
00:05:34 believe that, that Jesus did that, that Jesus loved someone, someone, somewhere, but not them.
00:05:44 There's a lot of people in the church, even.
00:05:47 They're in the church because they adhere to Christian doctrine, but they wrestle on
00:05:52 a frequent, even daily basis, personalizing the faith, right?
00:05:58 They're like, I know that Jesus is real.
00:06:00 I know he came to earth.
00:06:02 I know that that's not just myth or legend.
00:06:03 This is a historical fact.
00:06:05 And Jesus lived and died and was raised again for someone somewhere out there.
00:06:12 But how do I know he did it for me?
00:06:14 And the reason why a lot of people fall into this category, right, they're struggling with
00:06:18 the personal trust aspect, that third component of faith, is because there's not a verse in the
00:06:23 Bible that says, you know, John 3.16, and then right next to it, you know, there's, you know,
00:06:28 John 3.17, John 3.18 that says, you know, for God so loved Joel Webin that he gave his, like,
00:06:36 It doesn't say that. My name is not in the Bible. It's not explicit in scripture that I
00:06:44 emphatically and definitively am included in the elect. And so that is something that only
00:06:52 the Holy Spirit can do. But that is one of the chief roles of the Holy Spirit. That's one of
00:06:59 his chief ministries. It's the Holy Spirit who bears witness within us that we are, in fact,
00:07:07 the children of God, that we are adopted. He reminds us of the spirit of adoption crying out
00:07:13 within us, Abba, Father. Abba, Father. It's the spirit who convicts us of sin, conviction being
00:07:22 one of the evidences and one of the signs of being born again. It's the spirit of God that gives
00:07:28 new hearts, regeneration that removes the heart of stone and gives us a new heart that has
00:07:33 affection for God, that's malleable and softened and receptive to God's word.
00:07:40 And so it's the ministry, the personal indwelling ministry of the Holy Spirit reminding us of our
00:07:45 adoption, convicting us of sin, softening our hearts first and foremost by giving us
00:07:51 new hearts that are actually receptive to God, where we previously would have hated God. We now
00:07:56 have a love and zeal and affection for God. And in all these ways, we are able to say with faith
00:08:03 that Christ did not just simply die for someone somewhere out there, but that Jesus, in fact,
00:08:12 died for me personally, because he granted to me personally the gift of his Holy Spirit.
00:08:20 That's an inward work. That's something that simply has to be confirmed by the personal
00:08:26 indwelling ministry of the Holy Spirit. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit,
00:08:30 whom you have received from God. You were bought with a price, therefore honor God with your body.
00:08:37 The problem with assurance, because that's what we're talking about, assurance of salvation,
00:08:43 the problem with the connection or the relationship between sanctification and assurance,
00:08:48 is it, is it, you're really going to be bottlenecked and, and almost really castrated
00:08:57 in your sanctification. If you don't have at least a baseline of confidence, assurance that
00:09:05 you've been saved in the first place. Think of what Paul says. This is first Corinthians chapter
00:09:09 six, just in regards to, um, to putting to death the sin of sexual immorality, right? I've already
00:09:15 quoted it, but to quote it again, um, you are not your own. You were bought with a price. Therefore
00:09:20 honor God with your body. So the commandment, right? The imperative is honor God with your
00:09:26 body. The indicative, the incentive, the motive for obeying that command to honor God with your
00:09:32 body, not joining your body with a prostitute, but rather honoring God with your body and sexual 0.96
00:09:37 purity. What's the motive for obeying that you, not someone else out there, but you were bought 0.96
00:09:44 with a price. Another way we could say that is God loves you personally. Jesus died for you.
00:09:51 You're among the elect. You're a Christian. You're saved, right? So the motive for sexual purity, 0.98
00:09:57 according to 1 Corinthians 6, is the assurance of personal salvation. Personal assurance of
00:10:04 salvation is the fuel for sexual purity. And that's just one example, but we could do this
00:10:10 all over the scripture. And so the irony in terms of the relationship between assurance and
00:10:15 sanctification is that sanctification, because multiple other scriptures speak to this principle,
00:10:22 sanctification is one of the leading signs that we actually have been saved. When you look at
00:10:29 someone's sanctification, the way that they're growing in holiness, the way that they are growing
00:10:34 in Christ likeness. That's one of the clearest signs that you can point to, to say that because
00:10:40 this person is visibly being sanctified, we have a great degree of assurance to say that they have
00:10:46 been justified. So sanctification is one of the clearest signs of justification. And yet an
00:10:53 assurance in regards to our justification, aka assurance of salvation, is the fuel for
00:10:58 sanctification. I'll say it again. Assurance of salvation fuels sanctification, but sanctification
00:11:05 works as the lead evidence of justification. So, by looking at sanctification, we grow in
00:11:12 assurance of salvation. And as we have more assurance of salvation, we have more of the
00:11:18 indicative, more of the incentive for being sanctified. What we would call this in common
00:11:25 terms is a catch-22, a catch-22, or a vicious cycle. But because the Lord is not cruel, I believe
00:11:35 that it's the Lord's intention in this relationship that I'm describing, that it not be a vicious
00:11:40 cycle, but be a self-perpetuating, beautiful, victorious cycle. Not a vicious cycle, but a
00:11:49 victorious cycle. But the question is, where do you start? Right? Because if you have no assurance
00:11:55 then you have nothing driving you in sanctification, which means a lot of
00:12:00 sanctification won't happen. And if sanctification doesn't happen, you don't
00:12:03 have much evidence to be assured of justification. However, if you have not
00:12:09 perfect assurance, but just some assurance that Jesus didn't just die for someone
00:12:16 somewhere out there, but that Jesus died for you, that he died for you and loved
00:12:22 you. As the apostle Paul says in Galatians chapter two, verse 20, if you have some assurance
00:12:27 of that, then you're going to have some fuel in the tank for being sanctified. And as you're
00:12:32 being sanctified, you'll have even more evidence to be more assured. And then the more assurance
00:12:38 will be more fuel in the tank to be further sanctified, which gives you further evidence
00:12:43 and further science to believe that you've been assured. And so it's compounding, right? Don't
00:12:49 view it as a vicious cycle like like it's it's the two in this relationship are emptying one
00:12:55 another no they're filling one another but but the way that they fill one another the only hope that
00:13:01 you have is you have to at least start with with one tiny little ounce of gas in one of these tanks
00:13:10 the assurance tank or the scientific and my argument is the tank that you need at least
00:13:15 something in, in order for this, this relationship to kickstart and these two pedals on the bicycle,
00:13:21 I'm changing the analogy now, but these two pedals to start working is what you want to
00:13:26 start with first is assurance. You don't start with sanctification first. You start with some
00:13:32 measure of assurance first that leads towards some sanctification, which brings about further
00:13:38 assurance that leads towards more sanctification. And I wrote a whole book on this. It's my book
00:13:44 called Am I Truly Saved? It's a study on 1 John. And one of the big focuses of the book is the
00:13:51 relationship between assurance of salvation and sanctification and why assurance comes first. If
00:13:56 we were to ask the question, you know, the proverbial question, what comes first, the chicken
00:13:59 or the egg? Well, in this case, if assurance is the chicken and sanctification is the egg, then I
00:14:04 would say the chicken comes first. Assurance comes first. Not perfect assurance, but at least some
00:14:11 measure, even a small measure of assurance that leads to a small measure of sanctification,
00:14:16 but that increases your measure of assurance, which increases sanctification. So Am I Truly
00:14:21 Saved? A study on the assurance of salvation. There it is. Thank you, Nathan. It's forwarded
00:14:27 by Costi Hinn, which is funny. Costi Hinn came out against Doug Wilson recently, and you guys
00:14:32 heard me last week address that, but Costi Hinn's still a good dude. But yeah, Am I Truly Saved?
00:14:38 a study through 1 John. It's all about the assurance of salvation and included as a major
00:14:43 concept in the book is that relationship between sanctification and assurance. The problem is when
00:14:49 somebody gets, well, just when they get hamstrung because they don't have anything in the tank of
00:14:55 assurance and they also don't have any visible signs of sanctification and they just feel like
00:14:59 both tanks are empty and they just feel pigeonholed and stuck. And there they are on Sunday morning,
00:15:05 still with the knowledge and assent piece of faith, but with a complete lack of the personal
00:15:12 implicit trust piece, right? They really believe Jesus is a real person. He's the real God, man.
00:15:18 He came to earth. He lived. He died. He rose again. They believe all these things and they
00:15:22 believe that Jesus did all those things in love for someone somewhere out there, but it doesn't
00:15:27 include them. That's a difficult spot to be, but have hope. John Bunyan was there for seven years
00:15:32 and God granted him assurance, brought him out of it.
00:15:36 And he used this relationship of assurance and sanctification.
00:15:40 I've been there.
00:15:41 God has brought me out of that.
00:15:42 And if you want to hear more thoughts on that,
00:15:44 check out the book, Am I Truly Saved?
00:15:46 A Study Through First John.
00:15:48 You can get it at rightresponseministries.com.
00:15:52 Rightresponseministries.com.
00:15:54 Oh, hi, I didn't see you there.
00:15:55 Thanks for sticking around.
00:15:56 I've got an important announcement to make.
00:15:58 That's the Theonomy and Postmillennialism Conference.
00:16:01 It's 2023, May 5th, 6th, and 7th,
00:16:05 the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday,
00:16:07 theonomy and post-millennialism.
00:16:09 We've got the speakers that we've already had lined up.
00:16:11 That's Dr. James White, Dr. Joseph Boot,
00:16:14 Dr. Gary DeMar, non-doctor, Pastor Joel Webin,
00:16:17 but we also have a bonus speaker,
00:16:19 and that is Dale Partridge from Real Christianity.
00:16:22 Perhaps you've heard of him.
00:16:23 If not, you should start listening to his podcast.
00:16:25 It's fantastic.
00:16:27 Dale Partridge is going to be joining our team.
00:16:29 We're going to have live panels on Friday night and Saturday night where you'll be able to write
00:16:34 in questions and get them answered. We're also going to have a catered barbecue, Texas-style
00:16:39 barbecue meal on Friday that's a part of your registration fee. All that is covered. So you
00:16:44 need to get that. This is how you do it. Go and register right now at rightresponseconference.com.
00:16:50 Again, that's rightresponseconference.com. God bless.