The purpose of this website is to provide free sermon manuscripts and sermon videos to pastors and missionaries throughout the world, especially the Third World, where there are few if any theological seminaries or Bible schools.

These sermon manuscripts and videos now go out to about 1,500,000 computers in over 221 countries every year at www.sermonsfortheworld.com. Hundreds of others watch the videos on YouTube, but they soon leave YouTube and come to our website. YouTube feeds people to our website. The sermon manuscripts are given in 46 languages to about 120,000 computers each month. The sermon manuscripts are not copyrighted, so preachers can use them without our permission. Please click here to learn how you can make a monthly donation to help us in this great work of preaching the Gospel to the whole world.

Whenever you write to Dr. Hymers always tell him what country you live in, or he cannot answer you. Dr. Hymers’ e-mail is rlhymersjr@sbcglobal.net.

ABRAHAM'S CONVERSION

Genesis 15:6

INTRODUCTION:

    1. Dr. Hymers has oftentimes told me that he likes to travel with Dr. and Mrs. Houk, and he likes to travel with me, because we tell stories and relate past experiences as we drive. And he likes hearing those things.
    2. I don't know how Dr. Houk got this penchant for telling stories and relating incidents, him being from Pennsylvania and all, but he may be a story teller because he's old. But I've always been this way, and I think it's because my people are from the southern states, and people from the south are story tellers.
    3. Being a story teller can be an advantage to a preacher, because a story teller is oftentimes a fellow who likes to bring people in on his thought processes. A story teller likes to walk people down the corridors of his mind, so they will see how he arrived at the conclusions he has drawn, and why he believes what he believes.
    4. But there's also a drawback to being a story teller. People who are not story tellers, people who are impatient, and usually people who are from big cities, get tired of beating around the bush after a while and want you to get to the point. But if you're like me, the quickest to actually get to the point is by meandering with me and letting me tell you how I got to where I am taking you. So, please be patient with me tonight.
    5. In the inquiry room last night, while I was dealing with one person, and listening to Dr. Cagan dealing with another person just a few feet away, Dr. Hymers walked over after he had finished with one person, and stood between us just as God, I believe, illuminated my understanding about something.
    6. Now, I want you to listen to me tonight, you who are unconverted, because a number of you are struggling with exactly the same issues. Just like a Jew who wants some confirming sign, you want some kind of proof, above and beyond the clear declaration of the Bible, that if you believe in Jesus He will save you, that when you believe in Jesus He has saved you.
    7. When considered very carefully, what you want is some kind of instantaneous assurance of salvation. And the error you are making when you think like that, the mistake you are making that would never be exposed as error in any decisionist Church, where sinners are not carefully and cautiously listened to by experienced and seasoned personal workers, is to confuse salvation with what we call assurance of salvation.
    8. Let's get something very straight in your thinking. Salvation is something Jesus does for the sinner. And when Jesus saves a sinner it's a done deal, once and for all, finished, complete. It's an irreversible fact that cannot be undone. It just is. But assurance of salvation is different than salvation. Whereas salvation is a fact, is something Jesus does once and for all, assurance of salvation is very much a feeling that can change back and forth.
    9. To illustrate: Anna, how old are you? Anna is 11 years old. That's a fact. But what if Anna feels like a big girl tomorrow? What if she suddenly feels more mature, like girls her age are prone to? Or what if she feels, tomorrow, like daddy's little girl, which is also okay and is something girls of all ages go through? The fact is that she is 11. The feeling, how old she feels, changes with her mood and with circumstances.
    10. Some of you here are lost. That's a fact. If you die you will go to Hell and face the unending fury of God's wrath. If you come to Christ He will save you. And if you get converted your salvation will be a never- changing fact. But that's not good enough for some of you. 11. Some of you want a guarantee from God about how you will feel about your salvation, and that, my friend, is not part of the package. Assurance of salvation is not a necessary part of being saved. How you feel about the fact of salvation, should you get saved, is not something you need concern yourself with at this time. 12. So, the issues before us tonight are two. There is salvation and there is assurance of salvation. There is salvation and there is how you feel about your salvation, to phrase it in a slightly different way. Let's look at these two issues in two ways:

1A. FIRST, LET'S CONSIDER PEOPLE WHO HAVE ASSURANCE WITHOUT SALVATION

    Please turn in your Bible to Matthew 7.22-23. When you have found that passage in your Bible please look up. "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." This passage clearly shows that, come judgment day, there will be a whole host of individuals who feel, very strongly, that they are saved. That is, there will be a great many people with assurance of their salvation. Their only problem will be that they have assurance of salvation without salvation. Now, don't get me wrong. Assurance of salvation is a wonderful thing, so long as you are really saved. But there is false assurance of salvation and there is proper assurance of salvation. Let's briefly consider the two kinds.
    1B. False Assurance Is The Assurance Of Salvation That Many Unsaved People Have. It Is The Feeling A Person Has That Everything Is Just Fine Between Him And God, The Feeling That He Is Truly Converted, Even Though He's Not Converted, Just Like Those Jesus Mentioned In Matthew 7.22-23. How in the world does an unsaved person come to have this false assurance? There are three ways:

    1C. First, it's possible that a reckless and irresponsible pastor gave him this assurance. My friends, it is not at all uncommon for decisionist pastors to feel that it is their duty to give assurance to someone who claims to have trusted Christ. Now, I don't know how the decisionist pastor is supposed to know the sinner is actually converted, since he doesn't ever listen to anyone's testimony of how they supposedly got converted. He just assumed that someone who says he's converted really is converted, and he takes him to First John 5.13, or some other passage, to give him an assurance that is completely unfounded. This is very common among decisionists.
    2C. A second way an unsaved person can get false assurance that he is saved can occur here in this Church and in the Church that I pastor. Your pastor works very hard, and is very cautious to warn people, as am I, that just because you get passed and eventually get baptized, does not mean you are actually converted! What it means is that your pastor thinks that it is likely that you are converted. But he doesn't know for sure that you actually came to Christ, and neither do I. When we pass someone and then baptize them it's because we think they might be converted, not because we know they are converted. But there will always be someone who gets assurance of his salvation from the fact that his pastor passed him. He will think to himself, "I must be a Christian, or my pastor would never have passed me." Such thinking is wrong.
    3C. As well, many people get a false assurance of salvation from looking way into the past, at some experience they had long ago. He hasn't attended Church in several years, and he lived with his wife for four years before they got married, but he's been a Christian the entire time because he remembers asking Jesus into his heart. Right. Assurance that is completely unfounded.
    4C. My friends, these are three ways people get false assurances of a salvation that isn't real.

    2B. A Proper Assurance Of Salvation Comes To A Genuinely Converted Person In An Entirely Different Manner Than False Assurance Comes.

    Let me just briefly mention some of the characteristics of a real assurance of a genuine salvation:

    1C. First, Biblical assurance of salvation is a feeling that comes after a person is genuinely saved. In other words, assurance and feelings about salvation should not even be considered by an unsaved person, since assurance of salvation is not salvation, and is not a part of salvation.
    2C. Second, assurance of salvation should not be something that any person gives you. Verses dealing with assurance show that assurance comes about as a result of the Holy Spirit bearing witness with the Christian's spirit that he is a child of God, Romans 8.16, as well as from a confidence that results from a Christian conscientiously obeying and serving God, First John 2.3. And there are others. But assurance is something a Christian should let God give to him.
    3C. And thirdly, assurance of salvation is rightly a feeling about salvation, an enjoyment of a Christian's relationship with Christ, that always has to do with what is going on presently in your life. Assurance that is based on some event of the distant past isn't Biblical assurance.
    4C. "But you and Dr. Hymers ask people about their conversion a long time ago." Yes, we do. But our purpose in doing that has nothing to do with assurance of salvation for that person. It has to do with our responsibilities as pastors.
    5C. The point that I want to leave you with before moving on is this: Assurance of salvation is different than getting saved. And no one has any business insisting on assurance of salvation before he is saved. Assurance of salvation is something that should be left to those who have already come to Christ. After all, you don't want to end up like those who had assurance, but who were lost, do you? The ones Jesus told us about in Matthew 7.22-23?

2A. NOW LET'S CONSIDER A MAN WHO HAD SALVATION WITHOUT ASSURANCE

    I speak, of course, of Abraham. Last night it suddenly came to me, while we were dealing with the lost, that Abraham is never shown in God's Word to have had assurance that he was saved. Jesus told us of those who had assurance, but who are not saved. Abraham is a man who was saved, but who had no assurance. Who is better off?

    1B. Consider Moses' Record Of Abraham

    1C. Remember, Moses was a descendant of Abraham. Moses lived some four hundred years after Abraham. So, Moses knew some things about Abraham that even Abraham didn't know while he was alive on earth.
    2C. Turn to Genesis 15.6: "And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness." This is the verse that describes the moment when Abraham got saved, when he was justified by faith, when he believed and it was counted to him for righteousness.
    3C. But notice something, if you will. The first half of the verse tells us what Abraham did. "He believed in the LORD." But the second half of the verse tells us what God, without any indication that Abraham ever knew that God did it. God "counted it to him for righteousness," but insofar as we can tell from anything Moses writes about Abraham, Abraham never knew that God counted his faith for righteousness.
    4C. Read the entire book of Genesis very carefully on your own sometime. There were a number of things God did communicate to Abraham, but you will find that the fact that Abraham's faith was counted for righteousness is not one of those things. So, from Moses' record it seems Abraham did not have the assurance of his salvation, as we understand it today.

    2B. Now Let's Consider Paul's Explanation Of Moses' Record

    1C. It's in Romans chapter 4 and Galatians chapter 3 that the apostle Paul explains the implications and the ramifications of what Abraham did when he believed in the Lord.
    2C. In those two chapters Paul points out that Abraham's faith was an example for others to follow. And from those two chapters we understand that if you want to be justified by faith, if you want to have Christ's righteousness imputed to you, given to you, transferred to you, you have to come to Christ with exactly the same kind of faith that Abraham displayed.
    3C. But you will notice, also, in those chapters, that there is no mention of anything related to what you and I would call assurance of salvation. Abraham did not seem to have obtained from God any information that his faith had been counted for righteousness. It seems that God did it without ever informing Abraham that He had done it, and it is left to Moses and then to Paul to inform God's people and the unsaved centuries later.

    3B. Let Me Now make Some Concluding Remarks, Since I Always Have An Opinion About Just About Everything.

    1C. It seems very strange to the modern mind that Abraham would have faith that was counted for righteousness without ever knowing it, without ever having been told. But it wasn't at all strange to Abraham and it wouldn't have seemed at all strange to the Puritans.
    2C. You see, the modern mind has such a low view of God and such an exalted view of self that even salvation is thought of in a very man-centered way. But Abraham's religion was a God- centered religion. And the Puritan's religion was a God-centered religion.
    3C. Do you want to be saved? Do you want to have a salvation that is truly Christ-centered and truly God-honoring? Then your focus and your attention should not be on you, but on Christ. And your concern should not be your own feelings, but God's will.
    4C. God wants you to come to Christ. God has commanded you to obey the Gospel. And He has said nothing about any feelings you may have that are associated with your faith.
    5C. You are a human being. Being a human being, you will have feelings. You will always have feelings about various things. But what God wants is for those feelings to not govern you, for those feelings to not dictate what you do, for those feelings to not stand in the way of you getting converted.
    6C. Set aside your insistence on knowing that when you place your faith in Christ something will happen. Abraham had no such insistence. He simply, and in obedience to God, exercised faith.

CONCLUSION:
    1. We've considered two kinds of people tonight, those who have assurance without salvation and a man who had salvation without assurance.
    2. I want you to be like Abraham. Paul said you had to be like Abraham in this respect. And God wants you to follow the example of Abraham. Come to Christ tonight. And come without any expectation or consideration beside the certain knowledge that this is what God wants you to do.