Hope for Those Who Doubt Their Salvation/Program 3
By: Dr. Erwin Lutzer; ©2003 |
Why There are still some people who have a tough time in having confidence in their salvation. What do those folks need to do? |
Contents
Introduction
Welcome. I have just one important question that I want to ask you today. I believe itās is the most important question anyone can ever ask you. It is this. Whenever the time comes for you to die ā do you know for certain that you will spend eternity with God? The Bible says , you can have absolute assurance in your heart ā right now ā that you are one of Godās children, and whenever you die , you are saved today , saved tomorrow and saved forever. My guest will be Dr. Irwin Lutzer, who is senior pastor of Moody Memorial Church in Chicago , Illinois. To help you answer the important question of how you can be certain that you will spend eternity with God, we have come at this question many different ways. So I hope you will listen carefully.
- Ankerberg: Welcome to our program. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever doubted your Christian faith? If youāve never doubted, then just turn the channel right now. But if you have doubted, this program is for you. My guest today is my friend, Dr. Erwin Lutzer, the pastor of the great Moody Memorial Church in Chicago.
- And Erwin, a lot of Christians have doubted. Can we say basically at some time maybe all Christians have doubted?
- Lutzer: Have you doubted, John?
- Ankerberg: I have doubted. I know you have. And the fact is, there have been people in history ā youāve got a great story, tragic story, of a believer, we think, that doubted. Tell us about him.
- Lutzer: His name was William Cowper, and many of us know him because he was a friend of John Newton who wrote āAmazing Grace.ā And the night that William Cowper wrote these words, āGod moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm,ā that night, he tried to commit suicide. As a matter of fact, Cowper tried to commit suicide four times, and he even wrote a poem, which I have listed here in my book, āLines Written During a Period of Insanityā. What happened is, he tried to kill himself. When he couldnāt pull it off, he believed that he was damned more than Judas.
- Now, all of that wonāt be a surprise to people until they discover this. Heās the man who wrote, āThere is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuelās veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains.ā Evangelicals around the world will remember that song. And then thereās that other stanza, āThe dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day, and there may I, though vile as he, wash all my sins away.ā That man doubted and died doubting.
- Was he saved? Well, if you talk to his friends and those who knew him, theyād say, āAbsolutely! This man was a lover of God. This man was concerned about his salvation. This man wanted to do all that he possibly could to make sure that he was saved.ā But for some strange reason, possibly because he was abused as a child ā thereās some evidence of that ā he simply could not accept Godās love. He struggled with the whole business of the unpardonable sin, which we really ought to talk about because some people think theyāve committed the unpardonable sin. The good news is that anyone who thinks he has almost assuredly has not, because if you commit the unpardonable sin, youāll have no desire for God or for forgiveness. I receive letters all the time from people who think that theyāve committed the unpardonable sin.
- But hereās a man so mightily used of the Lord and whose poetry we love. I have all of his poems or almost all of them in my library. I remember he says, āRegarding all that God has done for us in Christ,ā it was Cowper who wrote those beautiful words, āHow thou canst think so well of me and be the God thou art, is darkness to my intellect but sunshine to my heart.ā Now the question is, why did he doubt?
- Ankerberg: Yeah. Letās hold Cowper for a moment, but one thing that stands out that you said in your book, āThere is no despair that goes so deep; thereās no depression that is so dark as the belief that one cannot, for whatever reason, be saved.ā
- Lutzer: Yes.
- Ankerberg: And thatās what we want to talk about. What are the āreasons people doubt? One of the things you brought up in the book was this. People say, āI canāt remember when I made the decision. I canāt remember saying the prayer. So am I saved?ā
- Lutzer: Right. Letās tick off some reasons for doubt and then we will have to get back to Cowper because we canāt just simply leave him there.
- Ankerberg: Right.
- Lutzer: Because we have to help people who are chronic doubters and he was a chronic doubter.
- First of all, the time of their conversion. Absolutely. Most Christians can remember when they were saved. I remember there out in the farm where I knelt at a chair and received Christ. Many people donāt remember that. But let me say to you, it isnāt necessary to know the day or the hour or what dress you were wearing when you were saved. The question is, is your faith in Christ now, exclusively in Him?
- Letās look at another one: faulty teaching. We covered that in previous programs. Here we only mention it ā that you can lose your salvation whenever you sin or somewhere along the way.
- Ankerberg: Yeah. Thatās just wrong teaching. Let me throw another one to you: we must accept Jesus into our hearts.
- Lutzer: Yes. Now many people have been saved by āaccepting Jesus into their hearts,ā but thatās bad terminology, too, John, because the real issue is whether or not we are accepting Christ as our sin-bearer by faith. So thatās also faulty teaching.
- Guilt. Now hereās a Christian who comes to know Christ as Savior and yet he does something wrong, maybe even something immoral, and what does he think? Youāre a Christian?
- Ankerberg: Yeah. The devil probably put the thought in his mind, āIf you were a real Christian, you wouldnāt have done that one.ā
- Lutzer: Right. So, as a result of that, what happens is, doubts begin to come into peopleās minds.
- Confusion between faith and feelings. You know, Luther was once asked, āDo you feel saved?ā and he said, āNo, I donāt feel saved, but my confidence in Godās Word is stronger than my feelings.ā And that was some good advice. At the end of the day, what we need to do is to understand that we are based on fact and it has to do with the facts of Godās Word and the promises of Godās Word, and not our feelings. I think feelings are important and they usually follow the facts and the faith, but it isnāt as if we always feel saved. It is a matter of faith.
- Let me give you another one and that is, of course, the chronic doubter. Here weāre talking about Cowper again before we begin to turn to helping him. But again, I quote Luther. Luther said, āIf Iām holding a purse full of money, I can hold it with a trembling hand or I can hold it with steady confidence. Either way, it does not change the contents of the purse.ā And the simple fact is, as weāve emphasized in this series, it is much better to believe in Jesus, trembling with doubts, than it is to believe in something wrong with absolute confidence. Because at the end of the day, it isnāt faith, it is the Object of faith that is important and we need to emphasize that for people.
- Ankerberg: Go one step further. Contrast those who have chronic doubt with volitional doubt.
- Lutzer: Well, the reason that itās important is that there are people who choose to disbelieve. And they will think of any excuse imaginable. Well, thereās nothing you can do with people like that except to encourage them to read Godās Word and to get into Godās Word because they are predisposed to not believe, and nobody can be coerced or argued into belief. Thatās very different from someone who is a real truth seeker, who says, āI donāt know the truth but Iām open to it and Iām open to its implications. If I read the Bible and am convinced that Jesus is the Word of God and the Son of God, I will accept that, even though it humbles me, even though I donāt like the cross.ā Thatās a different kind of doubt. And the Christian who wants to believe in Christ and to trust Christ but wonders about his faith, thatās very different from someone who says, āI will not believe.ā
- Ankerberg: Yeah, then go to the next one: a weak faith versus a wrong faith.
- Lutzer: Again weāre back at that very important point that needs to be made, that no matter how weak your faith is, you know, Jesus said, āIf you have faith like the grain of mustardā a little mustard grain (Matt. 17:20), thatās okay. As long as your faith is in the right person, it doesnāt have to be great. But you can have all the confidence and the faith in the world in an object that cannot save you and therefore be lost forever. So we canāt stress too often that it isnāt the faith, itās the Object of the faith that is important.
- Ankerberg: Alright, switch hats and letās give help to those who are the doubters out there. What do you say to the person who has an over-sensitive conscience?
- Lutzer: You know, we have people like that in our congregations. I remember counseling a man who, everybody knew he was a Christian because, you know, he had the fruits of faith. He loved Christ. And he had every reason to believe, and yet, you know, because of psychological reasons ā he was another Cowper. A sense of distrust; a sense of saying, āI donāt know whether or not Iāve believed enough. I believe in Christ but.ā And you know, I worked with him over a period of time and I tried to get him to see something.
- I donāt think we help these people by trying to minimize their sins. There are some people who say, āOh, well, you know youāre saved. Itās true you sin, but, you know, your sins arenāt that great.ā I donāt do that. What we have to do, John, is to magnify grace. You know, thereās an interesting thing historically. A friend of Lutherās wrote to Martin Luther and said, āLuther, I canāt forgive myself for what I have done, (he had given some wrong counsel to somebody), so Iām led to despair.ā Luther didnāt say, āNow, Spalatin, your sin isnāt that big. Donāt get too excited about it.ā But he said, āSpalatin, you have to get used to something. We have a real Savior for real sins.ā He said, āJesus just didnāt die for nominal, small sins. Oh, no, Spalatin! He died for damnable iniquities.ā
- And when this man comes to me and he says, āYou know, Iām a Christian but look at the sins Iāve committed,ā I donāt say, āWell, those sins arenāt too great.ā What I say to him is, āWell, you know what? Godās grace when Jesus died was so complete that it includes all sins, even yours.ā And you keep helping them to look in the direction of Christ. You keep helping them take confidence in the promises and to grow in faith. Thatās the way in which you help people to overcome doubt.
- But you know what the good news is? Well, first of all the bad news. The bad news is that Cowper apparently died with lack of faith. The good news is, itās okay, if his confidence was in Christ alone. He shall be saved despite his doubts. So, let me simply say that faith does not necessarily exclude doubt. Maybe after the break I can give some examples of that even from the Scriptures.
- Ankerberg: Yeah. I think that what youāve said is good news. Before we go to the break, letās stick right there because youāve got folks that have listened to you preach on your radio program while theyāre in jail. Weāve got people that tune in and write us letters that are listening right now and they are the child molesters, the rapists, the murderers. Or thereās many people today that have just divorced, had a messy divorce; theyāre just feeling in the pits. Okay? Listen, they can know that God loves them and really has forgiven their sin, placed it all on Christ. Say a word to those people before we go to the break.
- Lutzer: John, if Hitler had received Christ before he died, he could have been saved. I told that to someone once, and he was absolutely angry. He said, āWhat kind of a God is that who would save a man like that, who was that wicked?ā Do you know what the answer to that is? God thinks so much of what Jesus did when He died on the cross that He could forgive a Hitler or a child molester who would receive Christ as his sin-bearer. Thatās how wonderful and complete the work of Jesus Christ was. But God cannot forgive a good, tax-paying, decent person who rejects His Son. It all has to do with Jesus and the completeness of His work.
- Ankerberg: Well, you got my attention on that one, Erwin. Thatās fabulous and itās true. Weāre going to take the break now, and when we come back, we want to talk about some of the great people in the faith, people that are even in the Bible that had doubts. You can be a Christian and doubt. Letās talk about that when we come right back.
- Ankerberg: Weāre back. Have you ever doubted your Christian faith? Good. Not good that youāve done it, but Iām saying, if youāll admit that youāve done it, this is for you. Erwin, we want to help those that are doubting out there. And youāve got a great story about what Christ has done for us. Illustrate it.
- Lutzer: Yes. I hope I can tell it well, John, because itās really a long story but Iām going to summarize it. The story is, a man went into a room and he saw all of these card files and he realized that they were really the story of his life. For example, there was a file cabinet filled with āpeople Iāve knownā or āpeople Iāve prayed with.ā But there were other file cabinets such as ālustful thoughts that I have hadā ā a huge file on that; āvarious sexual sins I have committed.ā Maybe there was another file cabinet entitled, āInternet sites I have visited.ā So the man was so overcome by shame, he had only one desire and that is, to lock the door of the room, throw away the key.
- Suddenly, as heās weeping, somebody is standing there. He canāt believe it. He looks up. āOh! Not Him. Anyone but Him. Anyone but Jesus.ā Jesus comes and puts His arm around him as the man is burning with shame. Jesus is sad also, but then Jesus begins to go through all of these card files ā and there were hundreds of them ā very, very quickly. And Jesus is going through these cards, and the man is just overcome by that sense of guilt and shame because Jesus is looking at all of the details of his life.
- When Jesus is finished, He shows the man one of the cards, and on each of the cards under the sin Jesus had written His own name, signed with His own blood. And then Jesus came over, put His arm around the man and said, āIt is finished.ā That, John, is the Gospel. There are people who are listening today who are so overcome by shame, overcome by their sin, they have to know that when Jesus died and said, āIt is finished,ā that they can participate in the forgiveness of Christ if they are willing to come to Him.
- Ankerberg: Yes. Thatās tremendous. Letās talk to people and encourage them that some of the great men in the Bible had doubts.
- Lutzer: Yes.
- Ankerberg: Talk about John the Baptist.
- Lutzer: John the Baptist. Here he is. Heās a cousin to Christ, basically. Heās in prison. He expects Jesus to get him out of prison. Just like people expect miracles today, he was expecting one. And he sends a delegation to Christ and politely asks, āAre you the One that we should look for or should we look for another?ā (Matt. 11:3 and following) What he was saying is, āJesus, I thought that you were the Messiah. So are you or arenāt you?ā And Jesus sends back and says, āTell John the dead are being raised, the blind are seeingā and so forth and then Jesus said this, āBlessed is he who is not offended because of me.ā I like to give it my own Lutzerian paraphrase: āBlessed is he who does not stumble over the way in which I run my business.ā āBlessed is the person who does not doubt simply because I donāt do what they think a good God should.ā āBlessed is the person who does not doubt because I donāt answer prayer or do a miracle that they are expecting.ā āBlessed is the person who goes on believing no matter what.ā
- Now, as far as we know, John the Baptist probably died with his doubts and yet Jesus said that āamong those who were born of women, there is none greater than John the Baptist.ā (Luke 7:28) So I would say to people today that, if youāre having doubts, thatās not so bad, as long as your faith, however small it is, however wavering it is, as long as your faith is in Christ alone, thatās the important thing. And if your faith is in Christ alone, your faith will take you all the way from this earth, all the way to Heaven.
- Do we have time for another story, John?
- Ankerberg: Yes. Please.
- Lutzer: A few years ago I was in Washington, DC, giving a seminar in a church and a secret service agent was there. He said, āWould you like to go into the White House?ā And he said, āThe President is at Camp David over the Memorial Day weekend. Iāll get you into the Oval Office.ā Oh! Would I say āNoā to that, John?!
- So I showed up with two of my daughters and thereās guards there. And my daughter begins to open her purse to get her ID, and the guard said, āArenāt you with him?ā
- She said, āYes.ā
- āOh, just go on in.ā We get to the door of the White House. More guards. They looked at him and then they looked at us and they said, āYouāre with him? Just go on in.ā
- Inside the hallway more guards. They do the same thing. Then I look around the corner and I could already see the Oval Office through the corner of the eye and along the hallway and thereās just one guard standing there and he sees the agent and he sees us. And he said, in effect, āGo on in.ā We couldnāt go to the Presidentās desk but we could step into the Oval Office.
- Now letās pretend ā letās use our imagination ā that we all die together, and since 9/11 thatās been easier to comprehend. Jesus meets us on the other side of the curtain to take us all the way to the Heavenly City. And along the way there are sentries, angels, stationed. We get to the first group of angels. They look at Jesus and they look at us and they say, āYouāre with Him? Go on in.ā
- We get to more angels along the way and they look at Jesus and they say, āOh, youāre with Him? Go on in.ā And then suddenly we see God in unapproachable light, the Bible says, and we see the holiness of God and the beauty of God and He is more beautiful and more holy than we ever imagined on this earth. And we say, as we look into our hearts, we have a flashback: āI canāt go in!ā because among us there are women who have had abortions, there are men who have been immoral, there are people who before their conversion lived a homosexual lifestyle. I mean, we are one messy bunch of sinners! And we say, āWe canāt go in.ā But the angel says, āYouāre with Him? Go on in.ā
- And after we are gathered together, the Father says to the Son, āThank you so much for bringing my children home because I love them very, very much and I want to be with them. And I want you to know that I have inspected them very carefully, and I find no fault in them.ā
- Thatās why we sing, āClothed in His righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne.ā And among us are some doubters, John, but their faith was in Christ alone and they joined the rest of us in the Heavenly Kingdom.
- Ankerberg: Charlotte Elliott.
- Lutzer: I believe that when Charlotte Elliott wrote a poem that has become so famous, I believe her brother was right who said, āI, as a minster, have not had an impact that that poem has had.ā This is the way it is: āJust as I am without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me, and that thou bidst me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come, I come.ā And this is the most important thing now, John, everybodyās listening: āJust as I am, though tossed about, with many a conflict, many a doubt. Fightings within and fears without, O Lamb of God, I come, I come.ā John, I say to every doubter, donāt wait until your doubts are resolved to come to Christ! You come with your doubts, but you come, to the only one qualified to save you.
- Ankerberg: I think they want to come. We need to pray for them. We need to even pray for those that would trust Christ. Maybe they wonder if they ever did it, they said it right, so this is an opportunity for them to settle it. Would you pray for them?
- Lutzer: Yes. Father, I ask in the name of Jesus that hundred who have been listening might right at this moment transfer their trust to Christ, however haltingly, no matter how many doubts they have. May they come to the One whoās qualified to lead us all the way into the Fatherās presence. And may they pray a prayer something like this: āFather, I know that Iāve sinned. I know that I am unworthy, but at this moment, I cleave to Christ. I trust Him. I trust Him as my sin-bearer to forgive me, to reconcile me, to take me all the way home.ā Grant them that ability, we ask in Jesusā name. Amen.ā
- Ankerberg: Thereās one verse that meant a lot to you in resolving this issue. What was the promise in Godās Word?
- Lutzer: I think it was the promise in John 10 where Jesus was so clear in saying that āMy sheep are held in my hand.ā In fact, āMy sheep also are in my Fatherās hand.ā (John 10:28-29) When I was a new Christian, it was that promise that assured me that I was in the hands of a Shepherd qualified to take me to the Father.>
- Ankerberg: Yeah. The one that helped me was, āWhosoeverā ā that meant me the day I called ā āshall call upon the name of the Lordā ā thatās what I did, and many people prayed with you ā that last three words is what God says He will do: āshall be saved.ā [Rom. 10:13] Not hope so, not if He gets around to it. āShall be savedā when you call. And the day that I trusted Christ, that promise made sense to me. So folks, I hope that you think about these things and you have joy in your heart realizing that God loves you. Heās not trying to have a legal loophole to lose you. Itās the other way around. Heās got His hand on you. Heās got His hand around you to protect you and take you all the way to Heaven. Trust Him and have joy in your heart.