God’s Provision for the Security of our Eternal Life

This is the first lesson in this course: God’s Provision for the Security of our Eternal Life. Let’s pray and ask God’s Holy Spirit to help us understand His word. Father, thank you for your Word. Thank you for revealing to us all that you have accomplished in order for us to be secure in our eternal life. And Father, I know that there are many people who struggle with doubts, and so I pray that you would help us to clearly understand your Word as we study it today. If we have those doubts, I pray that you would use your Word to take care of those doubts. If not, we need to be sure about this content so that we can share it with those who do struggle. And so, I pray that you would use this to help us in a mighty way. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Well, again, in this first session of this course, we want to look at God’s provision for the security of our eternal life. In other words, what has God done to make certain that you and I are secure eternally? Let’s talk about the condition of salvation. Now, if you were with us with the last course, we talked about this. The only condition for justification is faith, faith in Jesus Christ. A great verse for that is Act 16:34. This comes at the end of the Philippian jailer story where Paul and Silas have been in prison overnight. They’ve been singing praises. There’s an earthquake. The chains all drop off. The prison doors are open. The jailer wants to commit suicide because he knows that his life will be taken if any prisoner escapes. And so, Paul calls out to him and says, “Don’t harm yourself, we’re all here.” He comes in and checks. He realizes the tremendous significance or supernatural, really, situation this is, and the jailer asks them, “What must I do to be saved?” And they answer, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you’ll be saved, you and your household.”

If he believes, he’ll be saved. If his household believes, they’ll be saved. “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.” You cannot have a more clear statement than that. It is believing in Jesus Christ, faith alone, for us to be saved eternally. Now, you might say, “Well, what is faith?” Faith is believing something is true. If I tell you something, it is going to rain tomorrow, you will either choose to believe that or not believe it based on your credibility that I might have in forecasting weather. You choose to believe a statement to be true or false. That’s what believing is. And so, faith resulting in justification, eternal life, is believing the truth of the proposition that anyone who believes in Jesus Christ for eternal life receives that eternal life. That is what the Bible stated over and over again. That is what Jesus presented over and over during His time here in ministry.

“I am the Messiah. Will you believe in me for your eternal life?” And those who believe in Him, and now we look back on His death on the cross for us to pay the penalty for our sin, we know what He’s done for us. If we believe in Him, that He is the only one who can provide that eternal life to us, the Bible promises we have eternal life. The Bible does not teach that there are different kinds of faith. Now, you may hear some Bible teachers teach that, that there’s just faith to believe some facts are true, but then there’s a deeper, saving faith, and you have to know which one you have. The Bible does not differentiate in faith. We just read Acts 16:31. Doesn’t say you have to believe to a certain degree or a percentage or depth. You just believe in Jesus. We’ll look at some other verses here quickly about that as well. Not different kinds of faith, the Bible focuses not on the kind of faith, it focuses on the object of our faith. What are you believing in to get you to heaven?

Most people before they put their faith in Jesus Christ are believing in good works, or maybe a church ritual, a baptism, or a confirmation, or something. Maybe they’re believing in a heritage. Maybe they’re believing in that their parents are Christians. Maybe they’re believing in the good that will outweigh the bad if there’s a scale at heaven’s gate. They’re believing in something else, themselves, that they can do or be, but not Jesus Christ. The Bible makes the important difference of what is the object of our faith. Your faith must be in Jesus Christ alone for eternal life. He alone died in the cross. He alone provides it for us.

The biblical condition for justification we say is faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. We can’t add to it. Now, again, we’ve looked at Acts 16:30 and 31 already. Let’s read a favorite verse, John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” There’s a wonderful promise. Whoever believes in Jesus Christ, God’s Son, will have, notice it’s not future, it’s have, present tense, it’s not might have someday or will hope to have, it’s that person should not perish but have, present tense, eternal life. The moment that you put your faith in Jesus for eternal life, you have that eternal life.

I know you don’t understand or comprehend or, for sure, enjoy all of the benefits of that. Someday in heaven, we will when we’re with God for eternity. But we have that eternal life. That’s what the Bible says. Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” We are saved by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. Now, we mean by that not faith plus works or plus church membership or plus a good life or plus anything. Jesus Christ provided everything we need when He died on the cross for our sin. Sometimes people add faith to Jesus Christ to something else they already have in an attempt to cover all the bases. We call that syncretism. So they might say, “Well, I’m working hard to get to heaven. I’ve done things going to church. I’ve tried all this stuff. I’ve been through some rituals. Add Jesus Christ to that? Sure, why not? That’ll just make it that much more sure.”

No, it’s not Jesus Christ and something else, it’s Jesus Christ alone. We use an illustration of flying an airplane. You cannot get on an airplane unless you totally trust that airplane alone and that pilot to safely take you to your destination. You cannot say, “Well, I’m going to keep one foot on the ground at all times. I’m going to flap my arms inside the plane to help the plane fly.” No, it is just trust in that airplane and pilot period, nothing added to it. And this is what the Bible is saying. Our faith must be in Jesus Christ alone. We need to know that nothing else I can do will ever affect me getting to heaven. It is only what Jesus Christ did for me. And He did it all, I can’t add it to it. I simply believe that what He did has accomplished it for me.

Now, it is not the kind of faith that then requires works as a further evidence. We’re going to talk a lot more about this later on because you hear a lot about that today. “Well, yes, it’s faith alone, it’s by grace, but it has to be the kind of faith that results in a certain level of obedience in your life. Well, I don’t read that in John 3:16 or Ephesians 2:8-9 or any place. We’re going to talk about that because that is something that you hear taught today.

Let’s look now at the provision of Jesus Christ. What did Jesus Christ provide for us so that you and I can know we have eternal life? Well, there’s a number of things, and I just want to look at some of them. First of all, redemption. Ephesians 1:7, “In Him,” Jesus Christ, “we have redemption through His blood.” Now let’s stop right there. It’s talking about to be redeemed, the price was paid to take us out of sinful slavery. We talk going to a market. If you go to a slave market and you want to set one of these slaves free, you would have to bid and buy Him and pay the price to redeem Him and then say, “I bought you for a purpose, not so that you could be my slave, so I can set you free.” That would be redemption, and that’s what Jesus Christ did by shedding His precious blood on the cross. I believe it’s Peter that tells us that we were redeemed not by gold and silver, but by the precious blood of Jesus Christ.

So, the next thing we see is forgiveness, and it’s in this same verse, Ephesians 1:7, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses.” He’s forgiven us our sin. That is necessary. Heaven is a perfect place. God is perfect, He’s holy, He can’t stand sin. And so our sin really demands and deserves His wrath. So Jesus died and paid the penalty for our sin so God can forgive us because the penalty’s been paid.

Another thing is substitution. That’s a big word. It simply means in our place. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “For our sake, He made Him to be sin,” He made Jesus to be sin on the cross, “who knew no sin,” Jesus was perfect, He had never sinned, “so that in Him,” Jesus Christ, “we might become the righteousness of God.” When Jesus Christ went to that cross and He said, “Father, why have you ever shaken me?” God the Father had laid all of the sin of the world, including yours and mine, upon Him so that He, Jesus Christ, could die and pay the penalty for that sin by shedding His precious blood. That’s a transfer, substitution. You and I might use the term charge like our credit card, charge my account with this certain price of the item I’m buying.

God charged your sin and my sin to the account of Jesus Christ on the cross so that He could pay the penalty for us because we could never pay it. That is substitution. Imputed righteousness, we see that in the same verse. “For our sake, He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” Well, now, the substitutionary redeeming, shed blood of Jesus Christ brings my debt up to zero. It pays the debt. But now God transfers or charges the righteousness of Jesus Christ, His own Son, to my account when I believe in Jesus Christ so that when God looks at me He sees not me, He sees the righteousness of His Son. That is imputed or charged or transferred righteousness to you and to me.

I want to look at several different aspects of salvation. You may have been noticing I’m using the term justification because, again, that is the biblical term that is more specific for putting my faith in Jesus Christ and receiving eternal life. But salvation is a general word. We’ve looked in the last course at the fact that saved, you have to look at the context to say, “Saved from what?” And really, a majority of the time, it’s not even used in a spiritual sense. Saved from physical death, saved from drowning, saved from danger. And many times in the Bible, it’s just used like that. But when it’s used for a spiritual sense, it could be used for one of three aspects which are all part of the process of salvation.

Salvation is a more general word. So justification is first of all… If you’re seeing this chart, that’s the red section of the pie there. Justification is when you and I put our faith in Jesus Christ and we were saved from the penalty of sin. That is when we’re given as a free gift eternal life. That’s by grace, through our faith, and what Jesus Christ did for us. That’s justification. Then sanctification. The Bible talks about setting us apart, saving us from the power of sin, and that comes in two different halves. You see, first of all, there’s a positional part to sanctification where positionally I become a saint. Paul could write to the first Corinthians, although he had much to correct in their church and their lives, and still call them saints. Because you and I have the righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed to us, we are saints from God’s viewpoint. So there’s a position that we have of being set free from the captivity of sin. We’re no longer controlled by sin; we have freedom.

Then the second part of sanctification is experiential. Here’s where you and I live every minute of every day. I am trying, and you should be trying, to have my experience, my life of how I obey and how I allow the Holy Spirit to control me and my attitudes and all of that to become more and more sanctified, more and more like Jesus Christ, more and more saved from the experiential daily effects of sin, more and more victorious. That is experiential sanctification, and many times the Bible talks about that.

Now, the third part is glorification. We look forward to that in the future, to be glorified, to get a brand new body that will no longer physically die and no longer have sickness and sorrow and all of that. We will have a glorified new body like Jesus Christ, and we will be free from the presence of sin, safe from the sinful world, from the flesh that affects us today, creates the battle in us to have victory over sin. We will be free from that. That’s glorification. Now, it’s interesting, when we read the word save or salvation or save in the Bible, we need to look in the context to see saved from what. We will even see when saved or salvation is used in a spiritual sense, it’s going to be one of these three. Generally, if the Bible’s talking about you and I were saved in the past tense, it’s talking about justification. Back when you and I put our faith in Jesus Christ, you were saved. And because of that, there’s continuing results. You have eternal life. That’s settled. That’s taken care of.

When the Bible talks about that you and I were sanctified, that’s positional sanctification. But many times it’s talking about the present tense, us being presently saved, and that the context will show us that it’s we are presently saved from the daily power of sin. We can have victory sin if we choose to cooperate with the Holy Spirit to have that victory. Present tense. And then there are times that the Bible talks about salvation in the future tense, “You will be saved.” That’s speaking about glorification that is coming in our future. If I had time, I could show you versus that would be examples of all of those. But you need to put up your antenna from now on as you study the Bible. If you see the word save, save, salvation, look carefully at the context, “What is this talking about?”

Let’s look at a verse that I think has several of these aspects in it. Romans 8:29-30 says, “For those He whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom He predestined He also who called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified. Now, you see all three of these aspects in this one passage. You see the justified near the end, and you see the glorified near the end there. And in the middle, you see that He’s conforming us to the image of His Son. That’s experiential sanctification. And so, all three of these things, yes, we start out with justification, and we move then to experiential sanctification, and someday we’re looking forward to moving to glorification. And really what God is saying is when you and I have put our faith in Jesus Christ, we become God’s child, and God will take us through this process of salvation.

God promises and gives us promises in His Word of assurance of eternal life. There are many, but let’s just look at a few. These are great verses to memorize. Satan does not want us to be victorious. He doesn’t want us to have assurance. The only way to fight him, or the best way to fight him is with the sword God has given us, God’s Word. You notice Jesus when He was being tempted out in the wilderness always answered the devil, Satan, with God’s Word. That is our ammunition against him. So we ought to memorize some of these verses and use them often. John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Now, we need to ask ourselves, “Have I believed in Him? Have I believed that I can get to heaven only because Jesus Christ died for me? Yes.” So then this verse says what is true of me, I have eternal life. Wow, that’s powerful. John 5:24, “Truly, truly I say to you.” Let me stop right there. Anytime Jesus started something with that phrase, it’s like, “Sit up, take notes, memorize this, write this down, this is a key statement.” “Truly, truly I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes in Him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” Wish I had time to preach a whole sermon on that. I have many, many times. Whoever believes in Him who sent me, God… sent Jesus Christ. What does God want us in the context, what does God want us to believe about Jesus Christ? That He’s the Savior of the world. That He’s going to die on the cross for our sin.

For us that’s passed, He already has done it. That person who believes in Jesus has eternal life, present tense, there’s God’s promise, does not come into judgment, don’t need to fear judgment. Don’t need to fear facing God and having Him reject us someday, but has passed from death to life. A major change has taken place. We are no longer on the road to death, we’re on the road to life. 1 John 5:11-13, “And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.”

This is the record the way it is. God gave us eternal life, it’s a gift. It’s in His Son. Very easy to know whether you’re on the road to heaven or not, whether you have eternal life or not. Whoever has believed in Son, Jesus Christ, has life. Whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may hope, wish, wonder. No, so that you may know that you have eternal life. God wants us to know for sure we have eternal life. In other words, He wants us to have assurance. That’s important to know.

Then Romans 8:31-39, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not with Him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died, more than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are regarded of sleep sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

You see, scripture tells us we are secure. Here’s a big list of huge things that we might see as dangers. Nothing can separate us from the love of Jesus Christ once we are His children. This is the testimony of scripture. Let me say one more thing about the testimony that scripture gives us. There is not one single example in scripture of a believer, a person who put their faith in Jesus Christ for eternal life, who then lost that eternal life. Not one. Now, someone might say, “Oh, but Ananias and Sapphira Acts 4 or 5, God killed them right there because they lied to the Holy Spirit.” Yes, but they were believers. They were part of the church. That’s why they could come to the apostles and give their gift. The apostles accepted that. However, the Holy Spirit pointed out to the apostles that they were lying, that this was not the total amount of the gift.

And God in discipline took their physical lives of Ananias and Sapphira not only as discipline to them but as really an example, a disciplinary example to the rest of the church about lying to God, lying to the Holy Spirit. But nothing says that lying is too big a sin, Jesus didn’t die for lying. No, they went to heaven even though they went earlier than they had planned. Demas can be brought up. Paul said, “Demas has left. He’s gone the way of the world.” Nothing to say that Demas was going to hell because of that. He just was not living, serving, and ministering Paul any longer. Other things in the world were attracting his attention, have become priorities.

Some might bring up Judas Iscariot. Judas is one of the only individuals in the Bible that we’re fairly certain went to hell because he’s called the son of perdition. But never is there any evidence that Judas ever put his faith in Jesus Christ. In fact, there’s evidence to the opposite. If you go through the Book of John, you will find out that when Jesus is washing the disciple’s feet, Judas is in the room, in the upper room, and Peter, of course, kind of reacts and says, “Jesus, I don’t want you to wash my feet.” Jesus said, “No, no, I need to wash your feet. This is a lesson you need to learn to continue to follow me.” Then Peter said, “Well, then wash all of me.” And Jesus said, “No, I don’t need to wash all of you, Peter, you are washed, you are cleansed. I’m simply washing the dirt off of your feet. All of you are cleansed except one.” John interprets that saying that Jesus knew that Judas had not put his faith in Jesus Christ.

And so, of course, you know what happened in that supper. Jesus said, “Someone’s going to betray me.” Disciples: “Who could that be?” And then He says, “Well, I’m going to dip this bread in this liquid, and the person I offer it to is that person.” He offers it to Judas Iscariot. Then He says to Judas Iscariot, “What you need to do, go do quickly,” and he leaves. Then Jesus begins to talk to His 11 remaining disciples about all of us, and He prays to His Father, “God, these are all the children you’ve given me, and you will not lose them.” He prays for their unity and so on. Jesus gives us evidence that Judas never put his faith in Jesus Christ. I think Judas was following Jesus because he wanted a military conqueror over Rome. And when he saw that Jesus was talking about a cross, Judas decided, “Well, I need to help this confrontation start so Jesus will cause the uprising that we need.”

When that didn’t happen, Judas, of course, realized he was wrong, and he went out and hanged himself. Nothing in the Bible says that Judas ever put his faith in Jesus. In fact, Jesus gives evidence to the opposite. So the testimony of scripture does not give us any single example of a person who puts their faith in Christ and doesn’t end up with eternal life.

Now, there are ministries that God is conducting for us, His children, on an ongoing basis. Very quickly, the guarding of God the Father, John 10::28-29 says, “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” Both Jesus Christ and God as Father guarantee us safety as believers, because once we become their children by putting our faith in Christ, no one, not even Satan, can snatch us out of their hand. The ministry of the Holy Spirit. If you study the Holy Spirit, you realize that there are many things that He does in the life of a believer, and many of them are done right away when we put our faith in Christ, first of all, indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

When we put our faith in Christ, we become the temple of the Holy Spirit. He moves in, He lives within us, and He never leaves us. Old Testament, He came on a temporary basis, he could leave. But New Testament, He never leaves us. In fact, Romans 8:9 says, “You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact, the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him.” There are some people that say, “Well, I put my faith in Christ, but I don’t know if the Holy Spirit lives in me or not.” God’s Word tells you the fact is He does. If you put your faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit’s living in you. That is truth. We know that based on God’s Word right there.

Adoption. The Bible says when you and I put our faith in Jesus Christ, we’re adopted into God’s family. Ephesians 1:5, “He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will.” God chose in His will, when we put our faith in Jesus Christ, He adopts us into His family as His sons. Do you think God whom we’ve already read nothing can get us out of His hands, that God is not going to lose any of His adopted children?

Romans 8:15-17, “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear.” Paul says, “Don’t go back to trying to base your spirituality or your eternal life or anything on how you’re living. Don’t go back to that, that’s slavery.” “But you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in the order that we may also be glorified with Him.” There’s a lot in this verse, I can’t take time right now to unpack it all. But it’s basically telling us we’re through adoption His sons. We’re the kind of sons that can call, “Father. Daddy.” Really. We have that personal relationship with Him, and the Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

Now, some people try to use this verse and say, “Well, if the Holy Spirit isn’t speaking to you and you’re not feeling along with your spirit that you’re really a child of God, then maybe you need to doubt it.” That’s not what this passage is saying. This is not talking about some subjective proof that we have eternal life. This is telling us we’re adopted as sons. That’s positional, we have that. We can call God the Father our daddy. “The Spirit itself bears witness,” notice, when we pray, when we cry out to the Father, “the Holy Spirit himself bears witness along with our spirit,” not to our spirit. He’s not bearing witness trying to give us evidence subjectively somehow that, “Well, yeah, okay, you are a child of God afterwards.” No, He is bearing witness along with our spirit that we’re children of God.

We’re in the day of computers and all kinds of apps on our phone and everything takes usernames and passwords. The Holy Spirit, when you and I pray and we address Father, God, the creator of the universe is our father, the Holy Spirit is also bearing witness along with us that we are children of God. He’s our password. He’s part of the Godhead and says, “This is one of your children, Father, listen to this prayer.” And so, let’s not confuse that verse.

Then baptism of the Holy Spirit. The moment that we put our faith in Jesus Christ, we’re baptized. I’m not talking about water baptism, that’s an act of obedience that follows, that we do to publicly show that we’ve put our faith in Jesus Christ to people here in this world. We’re not talking about the act of water baptism, we’re talking about Spirit baptism. Baptism means to identify. Baptism the word comes from taking a white cloth and dipping into red dye, pulling it out, and its red. The white cloth has been baptized and has taken on the identity of the red dye. And so, 1 Corinthians 12:13 says, “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and all were made to drink of one Spirit.”

We were all baptized into one body. We are identified with Jesus Christ and identified with the other believers on earth, the body, the church. Baptism. Ceiling of the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 1:13-14, “In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory.” Oh, this is a good verse to memorize. Understand this concept. The Holy Spirit in your life, which God’s Word says you have, is a seal. This verse tells us that it was promised, the Holy Spirit is that promised seal, who is the guarantee of our inheritance.

Now, a seal can mean two different things. We know that back on the tomb of Jesus Christ, Pilate put a seal protecting it, guarding it, saying, “This is now property of the Roman Empire. Anybody who messes with this tomb will die.” That’s identification. The other idea of a seal is a down payment. If you want to go buy a house or a car or something you don’t have all the money for, you need a loan. You’re going to go in and apply for a loan, and they’re going to ask for a down payment. You’ve got to have some skin in this game. You’re going to have to put down a down payment that you might lose if you don’t pay the rest of this loan. So a seal is also like a down payment. The Holy Spirit is your seal, my seal, a guarantee of our inheritance to come with Jesus Christ until we acquire the actual possession. In other words, glorification.

The Holy Spirit in your life as a believer is your guarantee that God will glorify you. That’s what this verse says. And so what a precious truth of security you and I have. God is not going to not be able to pay and glorify everybody. He’s not going to run out of room in heaven. He’s not going to say, “Well, sorry, I made a down payment of the Holy Spirit, but I don’t have room in heaven for you anymore. Sorry.” Never going to happen. So the Holy Spirit is our guarantee of glorification.

And then the Holy Spirit helps us pray. We already saw that in Romans 8:15-16, “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you’ve received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit, that we are children of God. Later on in the chapter, verses 26 and 27, “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weaknesses. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And He who searches hearts knows what is on the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

And so even in our prayer life and our communication on a daily basis with God about our experiential sanctification in our life, the Holy Spirit is there to help us, to help us to pray, understand from God’s Word what His will is so we can pray accordingly, and we can trust Him for the answer. We have seen all that God has provided. Jesus Christ did everything on the cross that needed to be done to pay the penalty for our sin. We saw the aspects of salvation and how God is just taking us through those. We saw how the Holy Spirit, all of His ministries and that He is a guarantee that whoever believes in Jesus Christ has eternal life and will be glorified, will enjoy all of that eternal life. So there is no reason for us to doubt. God’s word wants us to be sure about our eternal life and know it based on what God’s Word teaches us. This is important to know. This is important to be able to communicate to others.

Father, thank you for your Word. Thank you again for revealing all of these mighty details and promises. Thank you that you sent your Son to die on the cross to pay the penalty for our sin. Thank you that He did it all. There’s nothing we need to add to it or can. Thank you that it’s by faith alone in Christ alone, some faith that simply believing what God says is true, something a little child can accomplish easily. Father, thank you for the simplicity of that. Thank you for the promises in your Word then, that we have eternal life. And thank you for all the ministries of the Holy Spirit that prove that, that keep us secure. Father, help us when we doubt to go back to review some of these precious truths and help us to be able to explain and help others who are struggling with their assurance. You do not want them to struggle and have these doubts. And so, you’ve given the remedy in your Word. Help us to use it. In Jesus’ name. Amen.