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

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, real quick, before we get started, I have a small request.

00:00:03.420 If you've been blessed by our content and you like this show,

00:00:06.420 would you take just a brief moment and leave us a five-star review?

00:00:09.760 This is quite possibly the most effective thing that you can do

00:00:12.860 to ensure that this content gets out to as many people as possible. Thanks.

00:00:21.280 All right, this is from Ben Q.

00:00:23.700 How can I know God's promises are true for me?

00:00:26.560 emphasis on for me, not one, but two asterisks. I appreciate that. I write like that sometimes.

00:00:33.900 How can I stop believing like a demon, but know the gospels for me? And well put Ben,

00:00:39.480 right? Because I know, have no doubt you're referencing the book of James. It says,

00:00:43.300 you believe that God is one good, but even demons believe that and shudder. All right. So

00:00:49.400 you're completely on it and I'm going to get to that, but let me, let me set the framework real

00:00:53.600 quick, Ben. Okay. So, uh, reform theology and really just Christian tradition has always held

00:00:58.420 that there are three primary components of faith, genuine, true, saving faith, right? Number one is

00:01:06.160 knowledge. Number two is assent. And number three is trust, personal and implicit trust. Now that

00:01:13.700 third piece is what you're asking about then, right? Um, the personal aspect that how, how can

00:01:19.780 I believe that the gospel is not just a real objective historical fact, but that Jesus died

00:01:30.440 for me, right? So saving faith, true faith, three primary components, knowledge, assent,

00:01:36.560 and trust, right? Knowledge is, well, that one hopefully we don't have to spend a lot of time

00:01:41.660 on, but that's just, you know, you have intellectual awareness that something in fact

00:01:46.720 happened. The only reason I mentioned knowledge is because it almost seems like there would be

00:01:51.220 two components, right? Knowledge and trust. And so I think sometimes people get confused on that

00:01:56.060 second piece, assent, which is to agree. It's agreement. And the reason why assent and knowledge

00:02:03.200 both need to be mentioned, that it's not just redundant knowledge and knowledge. Assent is

00:02:09.220 distinct from knowledge in the sense that you can have knowledge of something that you don't agree

00:02:14.080 with, right? So I have knowledge of the prosperity gospel, but I have not given the prosperity

00:02:19.840 gospel my ascent. I have knowledge of Molinism, but I have not given Molinism my ascent. I have

00:02:29.040 knowledge of all kinds of different heresies, Arianism and Docetism and all these different

00:02:35.880 things, you know, the Eutychian heresy and the Nestorian heresy, but I have not given them my

00:02:41.460 assent, meaning you can know something that you actually believe is false, that you do not

00:02:49.160 assent to. But then beyond that, you can also know something and agree that it's true. You have

00:02:57.700 knowledge of something and have given your agreement, your assent, that this thing of which

00:03:04.220 you know is also a true thing and yet still reserve personal trust, right? So you can have

00:03:12.180 knowledge of an event and assent, agree that that event is not just mythology, not just legend,

00:03:20.020 but it's historic and true and real, but still not trust in the implications of that event and

00:03:29.320 bet your life on that. And that's that third piece that you're asking about, Ben, right? The implicit

00:03:36.060 and personal trust. I always think of Galatians, I believe it's chapter two, if not, it's chapter

00:03:40.960 three, but I'm almost positive it's chapter two, where Paul says of Jesus, you know what, let me

00:03:46.840 just go ahead and look it up so that I'm not just paraphrasing here. This is Galatians chapter two.

00:03:54.720 let's start there. See if that's right. Galatians chapter two.

00:04:15.040 Yep. Here it is. Chapter two, verse, let's start with verse 20 through, yeah, just 20 Galatians

00:04:22.800 chapter two, verse 20. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who

00:04:28.120 lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the son of God,

00:04:35.360 in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Meaning that, Ben, you're not alone.

00:04:46.820 I personally have been where you are, and I know countless others who have both knowledge and

00:04:54.220 assent. They believe that Jesus really did live, die, and was raised again on the third day and

00:05:02.320 ascended to the right hand of the Father, and that he did all this not just as a moral example

00:05:08.980 of sacrificial love for others, but he did it as a substitute, penal substitutionary atonement,

00:05:15.360 the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world, Jesus lived and died and was raised again

00:05:20.180 to absolve sinners of their moral guilt before God, to reconcile sinners with a holy God,

00:05:27.860 and to impute to them by faith his own righteousness. There are a lot of people who

00:05:34.080 believe that, that Jesus did that, that Jesus loved someone, someone, somewhere, but not them.

00:05:44.940 There's a lot of people in the church, even.

00:05:47.120 They're in the church because they adhere to Christian doctrine, but they wrestle on

00:05:52.840 a frequent, even daily basis, personalizing the faith, right?

00:05:58.900 They're like, I know that Jesus is real.

00:06:00.900 I know he came to earth.

00:06:02.220 I know that that's not just myth or legend.

00:06:03.940 This is a historical fact.

00:06:05.300 And Jesus lived and died and was raised again for someone somewhere out there.

00:06:12.020 But how do I know he did it for me?

00:06:14.240 And the reason why a lot of people fall into this category, right, they're struggling with

00:06:18.320 the personal trust aspect, that third component of faith, is because there's not a verse in the

00:06:23.400 Bible that says, you know, John 3.16, and then right next to it, you know, there's, you know,

00:06:28.600 John 3.17, John 3.18 that says, you know, for God so loved Joel Webin that he gave his, like,

00:06:36.200 It doesn't say that. My name is not in the Bible. It's not explicit in scripture that I

00:06:44.460 emphatically and definitively am included in the elect. And so that is something that only

00:06:52.700 the Holy Spirit can do. But that is one of the chief roles of the Holy Spirit. That's one of

00:06:59.220 his chief ministries. It's the Holy Spirit who bears witness within us that we are, in fact,

00:07:07.100 the children of God, that we are adopted. He reminds us of the spirit of adoption crying out

00:07:13.640 within us, Abba, Father. Abba, Father. It's the spirit who convicts us of sin, conviction being

00:07:22.140 one of the evidences and one of the signs of being born again. It's the spirit of God that gives

00:07:28.340 new hearts, regeneration that removes the heart of stone and gives us a new heart that has

00:07:33.880 affection for God, that's malleable and softened and receptive to God's word.

00:07:40.680 And so it's the ministry, the personal indwelling ministry of the Holy Spirit reminding us of our

00:07:45.840 adoption, convicting us of sin, softening our hearts first and foremost by giving us

00:07:51.300 new hearts that are actually receptive to God, where we previously would have hated God. We now

00:07:56.820 have a love and zeal and affection for God. And in all these ways, we are able to say with faith

00:08:03.960 that Christ did not just simply die for someone somewhere out there, but that Jesus, in fact,

00:08:12.100 died for me personally, because he granted to me personally the gift of his Holy Spirit.

00:08:20.580 That's an inward work. That's something that simply has to be confirmed by the personal

00:08:26.440 indwelling ministry of the Holy Spirit. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit,

00:08:30.540 whom you have received from God. You were bought with a price, therefore honor God with your body.

00:08:37.480 The problem with assurance, because that's what we're talking about, assurance of salvation,

00:08:43.120 the problem with the connection or the relationship between sanctification and assurance,

00:08:48.900 is it, is it, you're really going to be bottlenecked and, and almost really castrated

00:08:57.600 in your sanctification. If you don't have at least a baseline of confidence, assurance that

00:09:05.600 you've been saved in the first place. Think of what Paul says. This is first Corinthians chapter

00:09:09.340 six, just in regards to, um, to putting to death the sin of sexual immorality, right? I've already

00:09:15.900 quoted it, but to quote it again, um, you are not your own. You were bought with a price. Therefore

00:09:20.660 honor God with your body. So the commandment, right? The imperative is honor God with your

00:09:26.900 body. The indicative, the incentive, the motive for obeying that command to honor God with your

00:09:32.020 body, not joining your body with a prostitute, but rather honoring God with your body and sexual

00:09:37.740 purity. What's the motive for obeying that you, not someone else out there, but you were bought

00:09:44.380 with a price. Another way we could say that is God loves you personally. Jesus died for you.

00:09:51.280 You're among the elect. You're a Christian. You're saved, right? So the motive for sexual purity,

00:09:57.140 according to 1 Corinthians 6, is the assurance of personal salvation. Personal assurance of

00:10:04.000 salvation is the fuel for sexual purity. And that's just one example, but we could do this

00:10:10.080 all over the scripture. And so the irony in terms of the relationship between assurance and

00:10:15.680 sanctification is that sanctification, because multiple other scriptures speak to this principle,

00:10:22.020 sanctification is one of the leading signs that we actually have been saved. When you look at

00:10:29.340 someone's sanctification, the way that they're growing in holiness, the way that they are growing

00:10:34.320 in Christ likeness. That's one of the clearest signs that you can point to, to say that because

00:10:40.560 this person is visibly being sanctified, we have a great degree of assurance to say that they have

00:10:46.960 been justified. So sanctification is one of the clearest signs of justification. And yet an

00:10:53.120 assurance in regards to our justification, aka assurance of salvation, is the fuel for

00:10:58.120 sanctification. I'll say it again. Assurance of salvation fuels sanctification, but sanctification

00:11:05.100 works as the lead evidence of justification. So, by looking at sanctification, we grow in

00:11:12.500 assurance of salvation. And as we have more assurance of salvation, we have more of the

00:11:18.360 indicative, more of the incentive for being sanctified. What we would call this in common

00:11:25.940 terms is a catch-22, a catch-22, or a vicious cycle. But because the Lord is not cruel, I believe

00:11:35.600 that it's the Lord's intention in this relationship that I'm describing, that it not be a vicious

00:11:40.880 cycle, but be a self-perpetuating, beautiful, victorious cycle. Not a vicious cycle, but a

00:11:49.180 victorious cycle. But the question is, where do you start? Right? Because if you have no assurance

00:11:55.620 then you have nothing driving you in sanctification, which means a lot of

00:12:00.100 sanctification won't happen. And if sanctification doesn't happen, you don't

00:12:03.460 have much evidence to be assured of justification. However, if you have not

00:12:09.820 perfect assurance, but just some assurance that Jesus didn't just die for someone

00:12:16.040 somewhere out there, but that Jesus died for you, that he died for you and loved

00:12:22.260 you. As the apostle Paul says in Galatians chapter two, verse 20, if you have some assurance

00:12:27.000 of that, then you're going to have some fuel in the tank for being sanctified. And as you're

00:12:32.320 being sanctified, you'll have even more evidence to be more assured. And then the more assurance

00:12:38.880 will be more fuel in the tank to be further sanctified, which gives you further evidence

00:12:43.880 and further science to believe that you've been assured. And so it's compounding, right? Don't

00:12:49.620 view it as a vicious cycle like like it's it's the two in this relationship are emptying one

00:12:55.940 another no they're filling one another but but the way that they fill one another the only hope that

00:13:01.120 you have is you have to at least start with with one tiny little ounce of gas in one of these tanks

00:13:10.420 the assurance tank or the scientific and my argument is the tank that you need at least

00:13:15.660 something in, in order for this, this relationship to kickstart and these two pedals on the bicycle,

00:13:21.020 I'm changing the analogy now, but these two pedals to start working is what you want to

00:13:26.060 start with first is assurance. You don't start with sanctification first. You start with some

00:13:32.720 measure of assurance first that leads towards some sanctification, which brings about further

00:13:38.380 assurance that leads towards more sanctification. And I wrote a whole book on this. It's my book

00:13:44.520 called Am I Truly Saved? It's a study on 1 John. And one of the big focuses of the book is the

00:13:51.340 relationship between assurance of salvation and sanctification and why assurance comes first. If

00:13:56.220 we were to ask the question, you know, the proverbial question, what comes first, the chicken

00:13:59.880 or the egg? Well, in this case, if assurance is the chicken and sanctification is the egg, then I

00:14:04.780 would say the chicken comes first. Assurance comes first. Not perfect assurance, but at least some

00:14:11.120 measure, even a small measure of assurance that leads to a small measure of sanctification,

00:14:16.400 but that increases your measure of assurance, which increases sanctification. So Am I Truly

00:14:21.840 Saved? A study on the assurance of salvation. There it is. Thank you, Nathan. It's forwarded

00:14:27.600 by Costi Hinn, which is funny. Costi Hinn came out against Doug Wilson recently, and you guys

00:14:32.980 heard me last week address that, but Costi Hinn's still a good dude. But yeah, Am I Truly Saved?

00:14:38.880 a study through 1 John. It's all about the assurance of salvation and included as a major

00:14:43.120 concept in the book is that relationship between sanctification and assurance. The problem is when

00:14:49.160 somebody gets, well, just when they get hamstrung because they don't have anything in the tank of

00:14:55.000 assurance and they also don't have any visible signs of sanctification and they just feel like

00:14:59.780 both tanks are empty and they just feel pigeonholed and stuck. And there they are on Sunday morning,

00:15:05.900 still with the knowledge and assent piece of faith, but with a complete lack of the personal

00:15:12.340 implicit trust piece, right? They really believe Jesus is a real person. He's the real God, man.

00:15:18.220 He came to earth. He lived. He died. He rose again. They believe all these things and they

00:15:22.460 believe that Jesus did all those things in love for someone somewhere out there, but it doesn't

00:15:27.980 include them. That's a difficult spot to be, but have hope. John Bunyan was there for seven years

00:15:32.700 and God granted him assurance, brought him out of it.

00:15:36.920 And he used this relationship of assurance and sanctification.

00:15:40.100 I've been there.

00:15:41.160 God has brought me out of that.

00:15:42.820 And if you want to hear more thoughts on that,

00:15:44.860 check out the book, Am I Truly Saved?

00:15:46.860 A Study Through First John.

00:15:48.180 You can get it at rightresponseministries.com.

00:15:52.140 Rightresponseministries.com.

00:15:54.040 Oh, hi, I didn't see you there.

00:15:55.920 Thanks for sticking around.

00:15:56.960 I've got an important announcement to make.

00:15:58.920 That's the Theonomy and Postmillennialism Conference.

00:16:01.520 It's 2023, May 5th, 6th, and 7th,

00:16:05.500 the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday,

00:16:07.840 theonomy and post-millennialism.

00:16:09.760 We've got the speakers that we've already had lined up.

00:16:11.900 That's Dr. James White, Dr. Joseph Boot,

00:16:14.400 Dr. Gary DeMar, non-doctor, Pastor Joel Webin,

00:16:17.020 but we also have a bonus speaker,

00:16:19.260 and that is Dale Partridge from Real Christianity.

00:16:22.440 Perhaps you've heard of him.

00:16:23.360 If not, you should start listening to his podcast.

00:16:25.720 It's fantastic.

00:16:27.200 Dale Partridge is going to be joining our team.

00:16:29.760 We're going to have live panels on Friday night and Saturday night where you'll be able to write

00:16:34.380 in questions and get them answered. We're also going to have a catered barbecue, Texas-style

00:16:39.020 barbecue meal on Friday that's a part of your registration fee. All that is covered. So you

00:16:44.420 need to get that. This is how you do it. Go and register right now at rightresponseconference.com.

00:16:50.920 Again, that's rightresponseconference.com. God bless.

The NXR Podcast - October 29, 2022

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

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript