Are You Certain of Your Salvation?

In this regular feature Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call.  Here’s this week’s question:  “Dear Dave and Tom:   I’ve been a believer for about ten years, and recently I’ve been going through rough times physically and spiritually.  The result has been that I’ve begun to doubt my own salvation.  I’m aware that the Bible teaches that I can have assurance of my salvation, but the troubling things I’m going through have left me confused.  Can you guys help me out here?

Dave:

Well, Tom, help him or her out.

Tom:

Well, first of all, Dave, I think we can empathize and the Lord loves us and we don’t know everything, but we can know, and we ought to know the basis for our salvation.  It’s very simple.He did it all, we couldn’t do anything except receive the gift of salvation that He provides—, and He promises it to us.  So if somebody asks me and I’ve been low in the faith and struggling sometimes, but it always comes back to—wait a minute—Jesus promised this is what He did, “for God so loved the world, that He sent His only begotten Son,” and I put my trust in Him, and if He’s true, and He is true, and we know we can be encouraged, we can have that reinforced just by reading God’s word, by seeing fulfillment of prophecy,

I’m talking about the first coming, absolutely, and then if all those things came to pass, we can look forward to the rest of prophecy being fulfilled.  So, there are great encouragements, and I would add one thing, Dave, I know in my own experience about getting low spiritually, and even physically and spiritually, my focus was on me.  I’m not saying that’s everybody’s problem, but that was my problem.  As soon as I got back to the truth of God’s Word, and its promises, boom, there was a change.

Dave:

Or, Tom, there are we can face difficult times.  I’ve faced some difficult times.  I’m sure not as difficult, perhaps, as what this person is going through, although we don’t have details.  On the other hand, this person could be comforted by the fact that probably he or she is not facing anything nearly as difficult as Job faced, or as those heroes of the faith in Hebrews 11.  They were sawn asunder, they were sawed in pieces, they were hated, persecuted, they wandered about Scripture says in sheep skins and goat skins, they were destitute, tormented, naked, they dwelt in caves of the earth, pursued by those who wanted to kill them.  I’ve just been reading some accounts of what is happening right today in Indonesia of Christians who are being hacked to pieces with machetes, who are being killed, slaughtered by Muslims.

Tom:

Or we can think about Afghanistan— 

Dave:

Well, what’s been happening in Afghanistan—

Tom:

To those missionaries— 

Dave:

Or the Sudan where millions have literally been killed.  They’re being tortured, they’re sold into slavery, there is an active slave market in Sudan today, and that slave market is patronized by other Muslim countries.  Gaddafi buys many slaves, and you can imagine women who breasts are being cut off so they can’t nurse their children, I mean, I don’t even want to talk about this sort of thing.So, this person’s trials, I don’t think, are as great as theirs.  Read what Paul says about what he suffered.  He says, “in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft,” he’s comparing himself with other Christians, “of the Jews five times received I forty stripes, save one,” in other words, I got thirty-nine lashes—forty would kill you—“thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck,”  the Bible only tells us about one of those occasions, “a night and a day I’ve been in the deep,”  the book of Acts did not give us the details of that “in journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in the sea among false brethren, in weariness, in painfulness, in watchings, often in hunger and thirst, and fastings often, in cold and nakedness,” etc., and yet this Paul, 2 Corinthians 4, could say, “our light affliction,” he writes from prison, to the Philippians, and he says, “my God will supply all your needs.”  He encourages them.  And, in 2 Corinthians 4 he said, “Our light affliction,” which is what he called it, “is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.  While we look not at the things that are seen, but the things that are not seen, for the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal.”  I have a little saying, Tom,  I’m sorry, I’m going on too long, but I’ll give you a moment here, I have a little saying, but I’m in the dentist chair, I don’t like Novocain.I come out with a fat lip, so, I generally, unless it’s for something really bad, I don’t take Novocain, I just endure the pain or, I’ve had problems, you know, in some overseas situations, etc., I just remind myself  “this, too, shall pass. This, too, shall pass.”  And it always does, but this whole life is but a moment — it’s going to pass, and we want to honor our Lord by trusting in Him in His promise.

Tom:

Dave, either what you read about Paul, and what you’ve said on your own behalf, in your own situations, either that’s just delusion, you guys are just talking to yourselves, or it’s reality, that there are no circumstances that can steal, really steal the joy that you have in the Lord.  And, that’s the reality that Christ has overcome—He is our Overcomer—in every situation and every circumstance, as long as we’ll look to Him and trust in Him, and know and really experience the joy that He has provided regardless of our circumstance.

Dave:

Scripture says, “In everything” it doesn’t say “give thanks for everything” — but in every circumstance give thanks.  This is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.  And, it does help to thank the Lord for His love, for the redemption we have in Him.  That lifts us up no matter what the circumstances.

Tom:

Dave, I have to add one thing to this well, not add, but his question was salvation, he’s doubting his salvation.

Dave:

Right.  No reason to doubt.  You either believe in Christ, or you don’t.  It’s all up to Him, not us.