Assurance Of Salvation

Assurance of Salvation

Sometime when you’re in an airport, observe the difference between passengers who

hold confirmed tickets and those who are on standby. The ones with confirmed

tickets read newspapers, chat with their friends or sleep. The ones on standby hang

around the ticket counter, pace and smoke, smoke and pace.

The difference is caused by the confidence factor. If you knew that in fifteen minutes

you would have to stand in judgment before the Holy God and learn your eternal

destiny, what would your reaction be? Would you smoke and pace? Would you say

to yourself, “I don’t know what God’s going to say--will it be ‘Welcome home,

child,’ or will it be ‘Depart from me; I never knew you’?

Do you doubt, or are you unsure of your salvation? Why?

Is it because you continue to make mistakes?

We can self examine ourselves to determine our relationship with God and to know

with certainty weather we are saved or not by displaying Three attitudes that Jesus

Himself gives us.

In fact we call them Beatitudes

Attitude 1--- We must display an attitude of humility.

MT 5:1 Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down.

His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them, saying:

5:3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Now 1st thing is first in this study. May I say, and I say it boldly, there are only two

groups op people here that this is in reference to. The blessed and the not blessed.

The blessed are the ones going to heaven, i.e. saved, and the not blessed, well, their

headed for hell, their the unsaved.

Blessed , (GR.- Makarios - MAK-AR-EE-OS) The word literally means happy, its

where we get our word bliss or blissful.

Jesus is describing the divinely-bestowed well being that only belongs to the faithful.

Blessed “Happy” are the poor in spirit. “emphasize Happy”.

This seems opposite of what it should be to us, we would seem to think that it should

say “ Happy are the rich in spirit” not poor in spirit.

Poor in spirit-- Jesus is saying that this is the opposite of self-sufficiency.

It speaks of those who realize their total helplessness and lost state apart from God.

When we think we are OK because we are a “GOOD PERSON”, , work hard, go to

Church--don’t steal, don’t drink, don’t chew and don’t date those that do.

This is self-righteousness, and it won’t get you into the Kingdom of heaven.

Apart from God we are totally lost and going to hell, it is by His Grace and His

grace ALONE that we are saved.

LK 18:10-14"Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other

a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: `God, I thank

you that I am not like other men--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this tax

collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

13 "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven,

but beat his breast and said, `God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

14 "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God.

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will

be exalted.

"ISA 64:6 All of us have become like one who is unclean,

and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;

Take the word CHRISTIAN, and remove CHRIST, all you have left is IAN, which

means without CHRIST I AM NOTHING.

STORY OF SHEEP

In the Highlands of Scotland, sheep would often wander off into the rocks and get

into places that they couldn’t get out of. The grass on these mountains is very sweet

and the sheep like it, and they will jump down ten or twelve feet, and then they can’t

jump back again, and the shepherd hears them bleating in distress. They may be

there for days, until they have eaten all the grass. The shepherd will wait until they

are so faint they cannot stand, and then they will put a rope around him, and he will

go over and pull that sheep up out of the jaws of death. "Why doesn’t the shepherd

go down there when the sheep first gets there? You see they are so very foolish they

would dash right over the high edge and be killed if they did!" And that is the way

with us, when we try do save ourselves thinking that we are a good person, kind ,

generous, honest, we are foolish and deceive ourselves, which leads to our eternal