Many people are assured of their salvation when they are not actually saved. Today, R.C. Sproul warns about false assurance. Get R.C. Sproul’s book Can I Be Sure I’m Saved?, his teaching series The Assurance of Salvation on DVD, and lifetime digital access to the messages and study guide for your donation of any amount: https://gift.renewingyourmind.org/3610/assurance Meet Today’s Teacher: R.C. Sproul (1939–2017) was known for his ability to winsomely and clearly communicate deep, practical truths from God’s Word. He was founder of Ligonier Ministries, first minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew’s Chapel, first president of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine. Meet the Host: Nathan W. Bingham is vice president of ministry engagement for Ligonier Ministries, executive producer and host of Renewing Your Mind, host of the Ask Ligonier podcast, and a graduate of Presbyterian Theological College in Melbourne, Australia. Nathan joined Ligonier in 2012 and lives in Central Florida with his wife and four children. Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts
Full Episode
Jesus talked more about hell than he did about heaven, and he frequently warned his hearers that on that last day, every idle word would come into judgment. But if there's anything that we want to repress psychologically, it's that threat, because none of us wants to be held accountable for our sins.
The reality of that coming judgment is a sober reality. People can try and suppress it or ignore it, but that day will come for each of us. So it is a tragic thing for someone to falsely believe that they are saved, when in reality they will face the just judgment of God. This is the Saturday edition of Renewing Your Mind. I'm your host, Nathan W. Bingham. It's such a serious matter.
Eternal life and eternal death hang in the balance. So why is it that there are some who believe they'll be saved when they won't be? People who have false assurance. Here's Dr. Sproul to explain.
Again, we're going to continue with our series on the assurance of salvation. In our last segment, we looked at the four different groups of people in the world, those who were not saved and know that they're not saved. We looked at those who were saved and know that they're saved, those who were saved and don't yet know that they are saved,
and then the one that messes everything up, the fourth category of those who are not saved, but who have the assurance that they are saved. And so what complicates our quest for the assurance of salvation is we see that there are two categories of people here who are sure that they're in a state of salvation. The only problem is one of them is in fact not in a state of salvation.
And so those who are in a state of salvation now have to ask the question, how can I be sure that my assurance is not like the false assurance of those who think they're being saved but are not? And again, that takes us right back to the first lecture where we looked at Jesus' warning in the Sermon on the Mount where He said that many would come to Him
and the last day saying, Lord, Lord, didn't we do this, and so on. Obviously, these people come to Jesus fully assured that they belong to Him, and He rejects them. thereby exposing their assurance as counterfeit, as false. So what I want to do in this segment is to ask the question, how can it be possible, or what different ways are there that lead to a false sense of assurance?
I'm going to look at several different problems that we encounter, but they all reduce basically to two things. The first one is people have a false sense of assurance of salvation because they don't understand the requirements for salvation. They have a misunderstanding of what salvation entails. And so if you have a bad theology of salvation, that can lead you to a false assurance.
And then the second big problem is that if you have a correct theology, then you have to see that it's also possible for a person to have a sound theology, a sound grasp of what it is that is required to but they are mistaken in terms of whether they personally have truly and authentically met those requirements. So this complicates matters doubly.
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