The Damning Delusion of Presumption

Introduction: The Unique Liabilities of the Second Generation

0:02 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday evening, February 17th, 2002, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now we come tonight to the fourth in a series of messages which I have entitled, The Blessings and Privileges Along with the Dangers and Liabilities of the Second Generation. I've been looking out over the congregation to see if there are any who are with us tonight who are not here at least this morning, and I'm not sure there are. If there are, you forgive me if I try to distill into five minutes more than three hours of preaching.

0:44 This is the fourth in this series of messages. The heart, the central burden of this message is to seek to bring some timely words from the Scripture and from pastoral experience in the light of a unique situation that in the providence of God is preeminent. Presently, our experience here in this assembly, in our 40 years of life together, this is the first time when the vast majority of applications for an entrance into membership is coming from second generation Christians. That is, young men and women on the threshold of adulthood who have been reared and nurtured by the ministry of this church and by the lives of those who have been shaped by this ministry. The homes in which they've been reared are homes in which there has been an honest effort to implement biblical standards of a Christian home, of husband, wife, parent, child, and educational perspectives, and this is something new for us. And this demands that those of us in leadership think through this new situation, seek to capitalize. On the benefits and blessings of it, and seek to warn concerning the peculiar dangers and liabilities of it.

2:12 And so we've identified two major categories of the blessings and privileges that come to you who are part of this second generation. Those of you in the second generation have blessings and liabilities with reference to your personal religious experience and general maturation, and you have blessings and liabilities with reference to your ecclesiastical perspectives and experience. And then sitting on that first category of blessings and liabilities, I sought to identify the blessings last Lord's Day under two major headings, and they are these, you of the second generation have been saved. Sovereignly and graciously surrounded with the God-appointed means of saving grace. The knowledge of the word of God, exposure to authentic Christians, clear, earnest, biblical proclamation of the gospel, and the fervent prayers of parents and the people of God. And the second category of your blessing is that you've been lovingly and carefully nurtured in a body of God.

3:31 And that's the second category of your blessing is that you've been lovingly and carefully nurtured in a body of God. And that's the third category of your blessing is that you've been lovingly and carefully nurtured in a body of God. And you have known a nurture following the pattern of the nurture of our Lord Jesus as described in Luke 2, 51 and 52. Then this morning we began to isolate and identify the peculiar liabilities of these blessings that God has graciously granted you.

4:00 And we focused on the first category of blessings. just one, and I stated it this way. You of the second generation will be especially susceptible to agonizing struggles with the assurance of your salvation. And I don't know how many of you came by me at the door this morning saying, in essence, Pastor, you described my experience.

4:23 And I'm grateful that many of you found the things I was saying resonating from your own experience as part of the second generation. Now, I said this morning I hope to cover a second and the third liability or danger in this area, but as I thought through the matter this afternoon, I said, no, just one more is sufficient. Now I want to identify a second of these liabilities that grow out of your great privilege of being surrounded with the God-appointed means, of grace from your infancy, a liability that grows directly out of your continual exposure to the Word of God, your exposure to authentic Christians, your exposure to clear biblical preaching, and your exposure to the fervent prayers of your parents and the people of God. And that danger is this. You of the second generation will be especially susceptible to the damning delusion of presumption concerning your salvation. Not only are you peculiarly liable to agonizing struggles with the assurance of your salvation, you are especially susceptible

Defining Presumption and Its Roots in the Second Generation

5:50 to the damning delusion of presumption concerning your salvation. Now, let me define what I mean by this. Now, let me define what I mean by this. Now, let me define what I mean by this. Now, let me define what I mean by presume or presumption. The dictionary definition is, To take for granted, to accept as true lacking evidence to the contrary. Our whole judicial system is based on the principle that a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty, and

6:24 not guilty until all reasonable doubt dispenses upon him the ability to prove guilty. Yet, with one's innocence. So, to presume is to take something for granted when there is no overwhelming evidence contrary to the thing that we take for granted. Now, what is it that will be presumed or accepted as true? Well, it will be that you are saved, that you are a child of God, that you are a true disciple when in reality you are not. And I want you to think with me now as we trace out how this presumption, this damning delusion of presumption, settles into the soul of men and women, boys and girls, who are blessed by the sovereign, gracious activity of God in surrounding them with the knowledge of the Word of God. With exposure to authentic Christians, with biblical preaching, and with the prayers of God's people.

7:33 How does presumption take over the soul of those blessed with these means of saving grace? How can such wonderful commodities be turned into such a wretched produce? Well, think with me. One is born in this Christian context.

7:56 The four means of grace are the very atmosphere of the mind and of the soul. And as that boy or girl comes into young adulthood, he or she reasons this way. As I reflect upon my relationship to all of the things that have been the native atmosphere of my very existence, these four God-appointed means of grace, I have no fundamental controversy with revealed truth as given in the Bible. In other words, this young man, this young woman reasons in a context of seeking to be honest, I really have no serious intellectual problems with the Bible. I have no real subtle controversy with the stuff of revealed truth. I have been surrounded with the knowledge of the Bible all my life. all my life, I now come to the threshold of my adult life, and I have no known deep controversy with the contents of the Bible. Furthermore, I have no obvious moral deviations from the ethical

9:14 standards of the Bible. I have been reared in a setting where my conscience has been enlightened by the Ten Commandments as a distillation of God's moral law, and I have no real, fervent, passionate rejection of any of those precepts. I'm reasonably respectful of my mother and father. I attend church. I treat the Lord's day as a different day. My mouth is not filled with oaths and curses. I have not fallen into the wretched pattern of one's of America's crowning sins, the profaning of the name of God. Everyone is saying, oh God this, oh God that, oh God the other thing, from the Price is Right to Antique Roadshow when you found out a piece of junk is worth 50,000. God's name gets invoked with this profane and light thing, and as Dr. Buma or Bauma indicates, the most horrible indication

10:19 of the religious state of a people is when God is so trivialized that His name is used in that careless way. But you say, that's not true of me, and I am not fornicating, I am not an adulterer. I am honest with my stuff and the stuff of others, and so as you review your life in the light of the Ten Commandments, you can say, I have no obvious moral deviations from the ethical standards of the Bible. So, you add to the fact that you have no intellectual problems with the stuff of the Bible, you have no serious moral problems that you know with the standards of the Bible, furthermore, you say upon self-reflection, I have no great aversion to the plan of salvation taught in the Bible. Yes, I have heard Bible-based, earnest, passionate preaching of the Gospel, that Christ is the only Savior of the world, that Christ is the only Savior of the world, that Christ is the only Savior of the world, that Christ is the only Savior of the world, that all who trust in Him are forever saved from the guilt and penalty of their sin, and really, I have no great aversion to that plan of salvation. In fact, I feel rather comfortable with the notion that Jesus took the rap for me, and I do not have any disposition to treat

11:40 that with disdain, with scorn, with ridicule. I feel rather comfortable and safe in the sense that my sin has been resolved by another. And then furthermore, as I think of my association standing on the threshold of my adult life, I really kind of like the people of God. I have no deep dislike of the people of God. I find myself relatively comfortable among them, because their moral and ethical standards are my moral and ethical standards. I don't feel as comfortable around the crassly, profane, and wicked, and profligate. I don't feel comfortable in the office when the guys come in on a Monday morning and brag about how many women they've hit on over the past weekend. I don't feel comfortable when I hear the talk that goes on in the locker room and in the men's room or the ladies'. No, I really feel at home with the people of God. And so, this young man, this young woman,

12:48 having had the sovereignly, graciously provided blessing of being surrounded with the God-ordained means of saving grace from their very infancy, they consider and reflect upon the influence of those means upon them. And in all honesty, they have to say of themselves, I have no fundamental controversy with revealed truth. I have no fundamental controversy with revealed truth. I have no fundamental controversy with revealed truth. I have no fundamental controversy with revealed truth, as been in the Bible. I have no serious intellectual problems. I have no obvious moral deviations from the ethical standards of the Bible. I have no great aversion to the plan of salvation taught in the Bible. I have no deep, deep disliked to the people of God. Therefore, and here's the great unwarranted

13:45 and beautiful 상황, I must assume that I am wrong when it comes to on my life, or an unbelieving, false believer, who has no shred of faith to Nichts being, or to online corruption. By the way, I'm br domination by And she said, in some sense, in the end, I was sinning and insufficiency about singing Chiropractic and the Bible. She felt unikuismo before the meeting of my in which all I was drawn to. But what I heard was, Yes, come in now was what that I am a child of God. Furthermore, here's a kicker, I would not want a life partner taken from the world where the views of marriage and of husband-wife relationships and the sanctity of marital commitment and the nature of a family and standards of rearing children would cause me to add to the mess that I see all around me. Undisciplined kids, unfaithful husbands, discontent wives, I want nothing to do with that. And furthermore, I know the only way to get the kind of wife or husband that would meet my standard is among the people

14:34 of God. And since I have no compelling evidence that I'm not a Christian, I presume that I am a Christian. Remember what presumption is? It's assuming something to be a fact where there is no compelling evidence to the contrary. You see, if the person surrounded with those God-appointed means of grace comes to the threshold of adulthood and says, look, I've got serious intellectual problems with the Bible. I cannot accept miracles, the notion that a whole nation came down to a seaside and Almighty God blows on it and splits the waters and holds them apart while a nation falls. I can't swallow that. You see, that person is not going to presume that he is a Christian because he now has compelling evidence that he is not a Christian. He has intellectual

15:48 pride that keeps him from embracing the Word of God that Jesus incarnate truth said by word is truth. So you see, there is compelling evidence. So you will not find the person who has serious so-called intellectual problems with the content of that Bible, the knowledge of which has surrounded him all his life. You will not find him presuming that he is a Christian. Or furthermore, that person has been a Christian for a long time. He has been a Christian for a long time. He has been a Christian for a long time. He has been a Christian for a long time. He has been a Christian for a long time. He has been a Christian for a long time. He has been a Christian for a long time. He has been a Christian for a long time. He has been a Christian for a long time. He has been a Christian for a long time. He has been exposed to authentic Christians who are prepared to say, oh, they are all a bunch of psychologically weak people who need to lean upon their God and their Jesus as a crutch and I don't respect them. I don't believe there is anything substantive to it. It is all a matter of a psychological ploy. Well, you see, that person is not going to presume that he is a Christian. And you go down through these four areas and if there is

16:49 some obvious rejection of any facet of that context of the God-appointed means of grace, of saving grace, that person is very unlikely to presume that he is a Christian because there is compelling evidence to the contrary. You follow me? Are you with me? This is crucial.

The Damning Delusion: True Faith Does More Than Negatives

17:14 Are you with me? Now, what's wrong with this? Well, what's wrong is that this is a presumption is a damning delusion. And why is it a damning delusion? For this simple reason, that according to the Bible, a true believer, one who is born of the Spirit of God, is marked by far more than those mere negatives which I have described, which are the basis of this person's presumption that he or she is a Christian. There is a wonderful passage which illustrates this in a very graphic way in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5, and that's all I'm attempting to do, is to illustrate this principle that the Christian is known and marked not by the things that are negated,

18:14 but by those things which only grace can implant within his soul and work out in his life, his life. 1 Peter 11, 5. life. In Matthew 5, our Lord Jesus says in verse 43, you have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies and pray for them that persecute you, that you may be the sons of your father who is in heaven. For he makes his son to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the just and unjust. For if you love them that love you, what reward have you? Do not even the publicans the same? And if you salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? Do not even the Gentiles the same? And there's the question that I want to fasten upon. What do ye more than others? He says the Gentiles, the pagans,

19:17 they love their own kind. There is a natural love in God's common grace among sinners. He says the Gentiles love their own kind. They do love, but they love their own kind with a love that is not supernatural, but is a love imparted in God's common grace. But he says of the sons and daughters of the kingdom, they do more than this. In other words, their dispositions, their attitudes, Their relationships and their actions are of a positive nature and in such a manner that show that only God could produce that in them. Now let's go back over these things that comprise the stuff of this presumption and see the stark contrast of the disposition implanted by saving grace.

20:17 And I want to underscore again, whether it is implanted dramatically and suddenly, cataclysmically, as some of you have had it implanted when God took you out of the universe of paganism and planted you into the universe of biblical religion. Some of you spoke to me this morning and said, that illustration, Pastor, described me. I was an outright pagan. My whole universe was skewed.

20:45 And when God brought me into the universe of paganism. Biblical truth and biblical Christianity. For me, it was night and day. I can no more doubt the reality of it than I can doubt my own existence.

20:57 Well, whether God does it dramatically, whether He does it like the rising of the sun, where does night become day? Where does dawn overtake the night? And where does day overtake the dawn? I don't know and you don't know.

21:15 And so the work of God's grace in some. Is such that we don't know where night was dispelled and day broke. What was dawn? What was the beginning of dawn? What was the ending of the night?

21:29 But one thing is clear, if they're true Christians, it's noonday in the soul. The sun of righteousness has risen upon that soul. And though they cannot point to the day, the hour, the week, the month or the year, they know that they are in Christ. And this is true regardless of.

21:48 How they have come into a saving union with Christ, regardless of whether it was dramatic, cataclysmic, gradual, imperceptible, it does not matter. Now, let's go back over those four things that are the stuff of this delusive presumption, this damning delusion of presumption that one is a Christian simply because of these four negatives. First of all. The.

Positive Love for God's Word vs. No Controversy with Truth

22:18 True child of God not only has no controversy with the truth of the Bible, he has a positive love for that truth. You see the difference? The true Christian not only has no controversy with the Bible, he has a positive love for the truth of the Bible. Let's look at several passages that make this abundantly clear.

22:48 Psalm 1. Psalm 1. The opening verses of the Psalter, contrasting the righteous and the wicked. The righteous man or woman, boy or girl, whatever his or her age, who has come under the canopy of God's blessedness.

23:09 God's canopy of covenant love and mercy. Blessed is the man perfectly happy, contented, fulfilled with covenant blessings. Blessed is the man, the woman, the boy, the girl. Here's the negative.

23:26 That walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. But, it goes on from the negative to the positive, his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law doth he meditate day and night. He has delight in God's truth. And that delight is manifested, not because he occasionally gets a goose pimple when he hears good preaching.

23:59 That delight is manifested in this affinity of his soul for the word of God. He delights in it, and his delight is manifested in the fact that he fixes his mind upon it day and night. That is, whenever his mind is free from other legitimate, God-imposed responsibilities of mental activity, he has no greater delight than to have the stuff of his mental energy intermingling with and interacting with the truth of God. He has a positive delight.

24:33 He does not merely say, well, I have no controversy with God's revealed truth. He can say, I have a delight in the law of the Lord. And that delight is not occasional and ephemeral and merely emotional, but as a principle of the soul, it regulates me, and my relationship to the word of God. Several texts from Psalm 119.

24:57 These could be multiplied from this psalm, but I give you just a few samplings. Verse 97, Psalm 119 and verse 97. Oh, how love I thy law! It is my meditation all the day.

25:16 You see, the affection and the activity. I love thy law, and because I love it, there is an affinity of my soul in the direction of it, and as I am able to, throughout the day, my mind is fastened upon God's truth, here called His law. Look at verse 129. Your testimonies are wonderful.

25:43 Therefore does my soul keep them, treasure them. The opening of your words gives life. It gives understanding to the simple. I opened wide.

25:52 I opened my mouth and panted, and I longed for your commandments. What a picture of something far more than the mere negation. Well, I have no controversy with the word of God. I have no intellectual complaints with the word of God.

26:07 Here is a man who says, I opened my mouth. I was panting. I was panting. I longed for your commandments.

26:16 Here is a positive love expressed in a felt desire to know more of and to assimilate in greater measure the truth of God's word. Verse 139. My zeal has consumed me because my adversaries have forgotten your words. Here is the other side of love.

26:41 When I love someone or love something, I cannot stand to see it abused and be unmoved emotionally. You say you love your wife. Could someone chew her out in the supermarket because they thought she did something unkind to them, and you stand there and not be moved emotionally when someone chews out your wife? She could see you stand there amused by it all.

27:07 She'd have every reason to question your love. And likewise, the psalmist says here in verse 129. I'm sorry, in verse 130. Where are we? I lost my place.

27:20 139. My zeal has consumed me because my adversaries have forgotten your words. He sees people indifferent to the word of God and his zeal is stirred within him. Do you feel anything when you hear the commentators spewing out their opinions about social problems and international problems and they totally ignore and bypass the light of Scripture?

27:49 Does it do something in your gut? I ask you, does it do something down here, stirring within you a frustration? Why does God not have his say when you know that Scripture gives us infallible and absolute insight into these issues? Back to verse 104.

28:19 Verse 104. Through your precepts I get understanding. Therefore, I hate, every false way. You see, it's one thing to say, I have no controversy with the word of God.

28:33 It's another thing to say, I have a positive, passionate hatred to every false way. Everything that would contradict and contravene what Scripture says. Or we could go to a passage such as Jeremiah 15, 16 where the prophet says, Your words were found and I did eat them and your word was unto me. And I'll give you the joy and the rejoicing of my heart.

29:03 Do you know anything of that? Do you know anything of that? I'm not saying is that true every time you pick up your Bible and have your devotions. I'm not saying, is that true every time you come and sit under preaching?

29:15 Is it always true to the same degree? No. No, that would be unrealistic and unbiblical, but I'm asking you do you know anything of that? Can you say, when I hear the words, Thy words were found, and I did eat them, and Thy word was unto me the joy and the rejoicing of my heart.

29:38 Can you sit there tonight and say, yes, I know what that is. Oh, God, that I know it more. Lord, I know what it is. Thy words were sweeter than honey.

29:46 Lord, I know what that is. I want more. I know it. Do you know?

29:49 Or am I like a raving madman? Do you know experientially what the psalmist is saying?

29:58 See all the difference? Here's the person surrounded with the knowledge of the word of God all of his or her life. Comes to adult years and says, where am I spiritually? Says of himself, to himself, well, I have no real intellectual controversy with the Bible.

30:16 I have no real problem that it is the word of God. Therefore, I must be a Christian. No, no, my friend. No, no, not at all.

30:24 Not at all.

Consequences of Presumption: Erosion of Biblical Preaching

30:26 For the true Christian has a spirit implanted. Positive love for the truth of God. Now, listen to me carefully. And here's where the burden of the second generation comes to very sharp focus.

30:40 You listen to me. You of the second generation. If this church begins by degrees to have its membership role filled up with those held in this delusive, damning grip of presumption, you see what will happen? People who have a mere, intellectual acceptability in their relationship to the word of God.

31:08 But no real love for that word. No open mouth panting for the word. Will very soon grow weary of painstaking, careful, substantive, consecutive, expository preaching.

31:30 They go weary of it. This trafficking in word. Words and phrases and Biblical concepts that make intellectual demands upon me. You see, it's when the church rolls begin to be swollen with second generation, quote, Christians who have come under this damning delusion of presumption that the appetite for solid, substantive, Biblical preaching.

32:03 Goes. And when it goes, people begin to be more concerned with how it's served up than what is served up. And then what once was a delight to people in these pews that a man of God filled with the spirit who's done his homework, who comes to teach you out of the book and time was irrelevant? Suddenly, it's looking at the watch after 20 minutes.

32:35 Breathing and sighing after. thirty, looking to the ceiling after thirty-five. My friends, it doesn't happen overnight. It happens when the ranks of the membership begin to be swollen with those who've come under the damning delusion of presumption about their salvation. Presuming I must be saved because I have no intellectual controversy with the Word of God, but who know nothing of a genuine spirit-wrought hunger and thirst and delight in the truth of God. Then the words of Hosea come to pass. Hosea 8.12, I have written unto him to ten thousand things of my law, but they are accounted as a strange thing. And my friends, this is not holding

33:37 up. Some bogeyman. This is the reality of churches all around us throughout our country. If you've ever gone with Mr. Burkett to his Princeton tour, you say, how could that place where Warfield taught and preached and the great men of God who once filled that place with truth, how could it be where it is today? Today, it didn't happen overnight. It happens when this damning delusion of presumption is allowed to take the field. Let's take up the second thing. The person coming to the threshold of adulthood says

Positive Love for God's Law vs. No Obvious Moral Deviations

34:30 now, who am I? Where am I? Am I a Christian or am I not? And this one says, well, I have no real controversy with the ethical principles of the church. I have no real controversy with the ethical principles of the church. I have no real controversy with the ethical standards of the word of god i have no desire to throw out the lord's day to become a cursor and a swearer profaning the name of god i have no real desire to fiddle around with the god of the jehovah's witnesses who is not the god of the bible or the god of islam who is not the god of the bible i have no desire to treat my parents with disrespect and disdain i have no desire to start shacking up on the weekends no i feel comfortable with the ethical standards of the

35:19 word of god therefore i must be a christian no the true child of god not only has no controversy with the ethical standards of the word of god he loves them in all their lengths and breadth not only does he have no controversy with them he loves them in all their length and breadth paul could say in romans 7 23 i delight in the law of god with my inward man i delight in the law of god after the inward man and in this context when he says the law of god he's thinking of the law of god not merely regulating external conduct and relationships but as he confessed in his own experience the law of god that touches

36:27 the deepest springs of thought and of motive and of desire he said i had not known sin except the law said you shall not covet and that commandment pressed home by the holy spirit opened up as it were the cesspool of my heart and i the proper moral upright pharisee who would have declared i am very comfortable with the ethical standards of the word of god i must be a true son of the covenant he said i saw when that commandment cast its shadow back over all the others i found myself slain by that law i saw myself a foul wretched sinner my heart a veritable cesspool of evil passions and desires and yet he said i've come now as a regenerate man to delight in that very law in all its breadth and in all of its length why is that so because that's what god does whenever he brings us into the blessings of the salvation purchased by jesus that salvation that is called the new covenant in hebrews chapter eight and again in hebrews ten quoting from the prophet jeremiah listen to what god says in

37:51 jeremiah in in hebrews ten and verse fifteen quoting from jeremiah concerning the salvation christ is procured by his once for all sacrifice the writer to the hebrews says and the holy spirit bears witness to us for after he said this is the covenant i'll make with them after those days says the lord i will put my laws on their heart and upon their mind also will i write them then said he and their sins and iniquities will i remember no more in the new covenant when sinners come to jesus mediator of that covenant he promises two great realities one internal and subjective one external and objective he says i will put my laws on their heart in upon their mind when i write them i will give them an internal disposition of love tool many in woody for my holy wall and all the breath in all yo and i will exciting news with that internal work at the spirit i will block out their sins there is no reason ubiquities well i remember noisy so do the true child of god not only has no comparison with a ethical status

39:14 ethical standards of the word of God. He loves them in all of their length and in all of their breadth. And his constant prayer is, search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. See if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.

39:40 You see, that young man or woman who presumes that he or she must be a Christian because surrounded with the opening up and the application and the outworking of those ethical standards says, well, I have no real controversy with them. That person is guilty of damning delusion, to assume, to presume, I must be a Christian. There is no compelling evidence to the contrary ethically. Ah, yes, there is.

40:09 For if indeed you have been united to Christ and come under the blessings of the covenant purchased by his own blood, you not only have the full, irreversible pardon of all your sins you have had implanted within you, a love for his holy law, as well as a graciously imparted ability to walk not perfectly but really and truly in the light of that law. Now you see, there is no compelling evidence to the contrary ethically. Ah, yes, there is. Now you see, there is.

40:39 Now you see, there is. see how applicable this is to the second generation if this is not understood and if this is not regulative of what we do in presenting ourselves for baptism and membership and for those of you upon whom the burden of leadership will fall in the coming years if the lord tarries if you do not understand this in overseeing the doors of entrance and dismission from christ church what will happen when you have a people who have nothing but external formal morality who do not have an internalized relationship to the law of god in all its length and breadth and they love it in its length and breadth they love it when it stings and wounds and searches them to the depths of their being their prayer is search me oh god and know my heart they love pointed applicatory preaching they love it as i've said so many times i marvel that you dear people have come back some of you decade after decade knowing you're going to get your conscience ripped open with the scriptures the searchlight of the word of god is going to go into the dark bat-filled corners of your heart and it's not pleasant to hear the fluttering of bats in your own breast

42:05 i've never found it pleasant i call it the sweet pain of conviction because you know it leads you fresh to the fountain open for sin and uncleanness and as your conscience is cleansed your communion with christ is deepened and refreshed and you'll love him all the more because you've seen all the more sin he died to atone for or to whom little is forgiven the same loves little to whom much is forgiven the same loves much and you know your love for christ is nurtured by a searching applicatory ministry you know that but you only know it if your heart loves the law and in the church where the ranks begins to be filled with mere formalist those who've come under this vanning delusion of presumption who reason well i have no great controversy with the ethical standards of the bible therefore i must be a christian they do not love opposed applicatory searching ministry of the word of god they're very offend it but also church discipline, that the church would put out of its number, by its back door, those who refuse to walk in gospel holiness, you will find their favorite doctrine becomes

43:29 the doctrine of Christian liberty. No longer a funding with a checklist, can't do this and can't do that and can't do that. Christian liberty, a skewed, perverted, devil-doctored doctrine of Christian liberty is their great rallying point. They want to prove their liberty by indiscriminate theater attendance. Prove their liberty by swilling down their booze in immoderate measures. They want to prove their liberty by insensitivity in the way they dress. You can go down the line, and I see the shadows of that in our own souls. And it scares the liver out of me. When you and I understand the biblical doctrine of

44:33 Christian liberty, we will live a life far more strict than our fundy friends. But we'll do it with the liberty of the sons and daughters of God with joy unspeakable and full of glory. And people will wonder, how in the world can you be so happy living so strictly? And we'll be a mystery to them.

44:59 And we'll tell the world. We don't need to feed at your fountains to find our joy. We have springs that flow out from under the throne of God and of the Lamb. We don't need to go to your polluted streams that have their origins in Hollywood. God have mercy when God's people are saying by their actions they need Hollywood to find fulfillment. What does that say about Christ? What does that say about the things God offers in the gospel? Well, let's take up the third one.

Positive Love for the Savior vs. No Aversion to the Plan of Salvation

45:34 Now you see why I say it can only get to a second thing tonight. The true child of God not only has no aversion to the plan of salvation, but he loves the Savior. Here's that young man and that young woman, again, surrounded with the means of grace. Earnest, clear, biblical preaching of the gospel. Christ is the only way of salvation.

45:57 Christ is a willing and an able Savior. He is an inviting, receiving Savior. And this and comes to the threshold of adult years and says, well, I've got no controversy. In fact, I feel rather comfortable with the plan of salvation.

46:10 I kind of like the notion that Jesus took the rap. And if in some way or another I'm trusting in Him, then I must be a Christian. No, no, my friend. For a Christian, a true child of God, not only has no aversion to the plan of salvation, but he loves the Savior Himself.

46:33 I Peter 1 in verse 8. As Peter's describing all of those Christians dispersed throughout Asia Minor toward the end of the first century or two-thirds through the first century A.D. This is how he describes these Christians in chapter 1 in verse 8.

46:54 Whom having not seen you love, on whom, though you see him not, yet believing, you rejoice greatly with joy unspeakable and full of glory. He says all Christians have this two-fold relationship to Christ. He's the one on whom they believe. You see that in the text?

47:16 On whom believing. Christ is the resting place of their souls. We sang about it tonight. I dare not trust the sweetest frame.

47:29 That is not someone else's frame, but my sweetest frame of mind and heart. When I feel most spiritual, most heavenly, most close to Christ, most desirous to please Him, I don't trust my sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On whom believing. Beautiful picture of the true Christian.

47:54 He rests upon Christ. Christ Himself. Christ alone. Christ as revealed in the Gospel.

48:01 But then Peter says, there's a second dimension of every true Christian's relationship to Christ. He not only believes upon Him, but he says, whom having not seen, you are loving. You love Him, you believe on Him. There is no true Christian who does not first of all believe on Him.

48:24 There's no one who truly believes on Him that doesn't love Him. Whom having not seen, not you ought to love, you may eventually love. Some of you do love, but whom having not seen you love, on whom believing. We believe upon Him, and we love Him.

48:43 This is so true that Paul can say, the only place I know in the New Testament where you have a Gospel curse. A Gospel curse. The Gospel brings blessing in its train. And that's true.

48:57 But here's a Gospel curse. In 1 Corinthians 16 and verse 22. If anyone loves not the Lord, let him be anathema, let him be accursed of God. If anyone does not love the Lord, let him be accursed.

49:17 Well, Paul, what about that person who's been reared, surrounded by those divinely appointed means of saving grace. And they've come to mature years and they say, look, I'm very comfortable with the plan of salvation, and I have no controversy with it. Paul says, does he love, does she love the Lord? If not, let them be accursed.

49:47 If any loves not the Lord, let him be accursed. Now granted, as John says in 1 John 4, 19, we love because He first loved us. Our love to Him is not self-generated. It is the fruit of His love.

50:06 Being brought to our hearts, received in faith, under the illuminating, transforming work of the Spirit, we love Him because He first loved us. Granted, according to Galatians 5, 6, in Christ, neither circumcision or uncircumcision avail anything but faith, working by love, it will be a love that works, but a love that has its taproot in faith. We'll have more of that in subsequent messages. But that being true, our love is reciprocal.

50:44 His love moves us to love Him. Our love is the fruit of faith, not the root of faith. At the end of the day, it's still true. Whom having not seen, you love.

50:54 A true Christian is not one who can merely say, I'm comfortable with the plan of salvation. He can say, in embracing the Savior, I've come to love Him. And love to Jesus is not a passive grace in the soul. It's not an emotional twitch that you feel when you sing your favorite hymn, or when you hear one of your favorite contemporary artists singing something very repetitive and sentimental, and you feel a kind of queasy, woozy, nice feeling about Jesus.

51:32 It is a powerful, active principle of grace. Paul could say in Scripture, Paul could say in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 14, For the love of Christ constrains me, literally holds me in its grip. And when it held him in his grip, he said, I do things at times that people think I'm wacko. Whether we be beside ourselves, it is unto God.

51:59 Whether we do what you judge to be sober, it's for your sake. Paul realized that the constraining love of Christ was such a powerful motive and motivation. It moved him to do things at times that people thought he had something less than a full load upstairs. They thought that of our Lord.

52:18 His own relatives thought the Lord was having a mental breakdown when he was skipping meals to minister to needy people. You look at the Apostle Paul in fasting, in hunger, imprisonment, all of this, people say he's a madman. Yes, he's mad with the most wonderful madness any human soul can experience. Passionate, overwhelming, driving, compelling love to Jesus.

52:44 So I say to you of the second generation, beginning to conclude, well, I must be a Christian. I must be a Christian. I've got no controversy with the plan of salvation. I feel comfortable with the idea that Jesus took the rap for me and I'm perfectly willing to accede to that.

53:09 Ah, but my dear young man or woman, do you love Jesus? Do you love Jesus? That's the question. Now, do you see the practical implications of this for a church in the next generation?

Consequences of Presumption: Stagnation and Lack of Sacrifice

53:23 With all of my sins and all of the sins of my fellow leaders, elders and deacons, with all of our sins as a church, by the grace of God, we've been willing to take some risk for Christ and make a few sacrifices for His truth. The fact that our brother and sister sit here, in this church, without all of the machinery of modern missiology, are committed to see a church planted there in Pakistan, the land of Islam, the bastion of Islam. It's love to Christ that drives my brother and sister to get on that plane again tomorrow. It's love to Christ that will put our dear Pastor Smith and Pastor Barker on a plane to go over and join in the matters related to the constituting service. It's love to Christ that has caused us to do foolish things. In the early days, when we didn't have a dime in a savings account as a church, and we saw a need out 120 miles from here in Pennsylvania and a young man ready to go and people pleading, can you send someone and help us start a church? We poured thousands of dollars into the support of that man and the building of a church.

54:46 And we're still meeting in schools. And I had people look at us like we had a few bricks less than a full load. We did some wacky things. But it was love to Christ that drove us, that Christ would have a people, that Christ would have a living temple of His presence.

55:04 And I say to you, dear young men and women of the second generation and some of you of the third, are you going to be a risk-taking, entrepreneurial people looking for new ways to press back, new frontiers for Christ? Or are you going to settle in and have a night comfortable, Jesus will take me to heaven when I die, religion? That's one of the great burdens of my heart at this stage of my life in ministry. I know I'm coming around to my last lapse, folks.

55:41 And if God gives me the privilege of lying on a deathbed, I want to be able to say, Oh God, I did everything in my power legitimately to seek to set before the rising generation. There is much more ground to be taken. The work of Christ is broader than our little circles of awareness of that work. Wouldn't it be wonderful to believe that the best days are yet to come?

Positive Love for God's People vs. No Deep Dislike

56:10 That those of you that have been surrounded with these means of grace and with that godly nurture, that you'll be able to stand on our shoulders, be further along, by the time you're 25, than any of us were, and take the people of God forward for Christ's sake, for Christ's honor. But I tell you, the day, the day this church begins to have its ranks swelled with people who are accepted as Christians, because they have no controversy with the way of salvation, they can spit it out very nicely and give you the gospel text, but they have no love for Jesus. It's all over. It's all over. And fourthly and finally, the true child of God not only has no deep dislike for the people of God, he has a peculiar, godlike, active love for the people of God. The true child of God not only has no fundamental dislike for the people of God, but he has a peculiar, godlike, active love for the people of God.

57:26 Here's that young man or woman again saying, well, where am I? Who am I? What is my state? Well, I've had no real dislike for the people of God.

57:33 In fact, I kind of like their company. If I've got to choose a life partner, boy, I want it from those ranks. I don't want to go out in the world in that jungle and think I'd have a decent marriage. So you have an affinity.

57:44 There's kind of a social herding with which you feel very comfortable. Ah, but that's light years from having a positive, peculiar, godlike, active love for His people. And what did Jesus say in John 13, 35? By this shall all men know that you are My disciples if you have love one for another.

58:09 And I said it is a godlike love because of the language of 1 John 3. There are many passages in 1 John we could turn to, but I want to turn to just one in the interest of time. 1 John 3. Hear the words of John.

58:29 Verse 7. Beloved. No, I'm sorry. Chapter 3, verse 13.

58:33 Marvel not, brethren, if the world hates you. We know we have passed out of death unto life because we have no animosity to the brethren. No, it's not negative. It's positive because we love the brethren.

58:47 He that loves not abides in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer. And you know no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. Hereby know we love because he laid down his life for us.

59:01 We know of his love because it was an active, outgoing, tangible love that gave himself for us. We know his love because he laid down his life for us. And we ought, we are under solemn obligation to lay down our lives to the brethren. But whoso hath the world's goods beholds his brother in need, shuts up his compassion from him.

59:25 How does the love of God abide in him? God's love moved him in compassion to send his son. The love of Christ moved him to lay down his life. And we say we are now in the orbit of that dynamic of God-like love.

59:41 And here's a brother that a few shekels from our pocket will help his need and we shut up our bowels of compassion. How does God-like love dwell in us? God-like love is not a sentiment. It is an outgoing principle that moves to meet the need of the needy at great cost to itself.

60:02 Now you see the implications of that for a church. When the ranks begin to be swelled with people who are under the mesmerizing, delusive power of this horrible delusion of presumption. And there is no active principle of love. There is not that thing that moves them to be forgiving one toward another.

60:31 We are to walk in love as Christ loved us. The love that bears no grudges, the love that's quick to forgive, that delights to show mercy. What happens to a church when that love is absent? When that love is absent in the face of one another's needs, one of the greatest joys to this day is to have a trickling all the time of different ones that in one way or another make it known that they had a need here or there.

61:01 And the people of God the minute they became aware of it were like metal filings around a magnet. We get a list of meals sent in for weeks in advance. We didn't ask for any meals. It's like that fountain of love is an artesian well in the breast, the corporate breast of this congregation.

61:25 And when need is made known it drives a pipe into that well and out gushes. That expression of love and it validates who we are. For by this shall all men know that you are my disciples if you have love one toward another. Where that love goes we'll no longer be faithful in wounding one another with godly exhortation.

Call to Flee Presumption and Seek Genuine Grace

61:48 For faithful are the wounds of a friend but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. There will not be those manifold expressions of love which validate our identity. Well, I come around full circle to where we began tonight. The second great danger and liability of being surrounded from birth with the God appointed means of saving grace is susceptibility to this damning delusion of presumption.

62:21 I come to my final application. If there's some of you sitting here who say God's found me out tonight. Pastor, when you described that young man or that young woman you kept pointing to him or her over here. You were describing me.

62:38 I've been presuming. Because there's been no compelling evidence to the contrary I've been presuming I'm a Christian. But I've seen tonight I do not have or I'm not sure that I have more than the negatives that I have by the grace of God a genuine love for the word a love for Christ a love for the people of Christ a love for the laws and ways of Christ What do I do, Pastor? Don't go trying to start do those things that a Christian does.

63:19 You go to Christ and say, make me the real thing, Lord. Lord, make me the real thing do in me and for me what I cannot do for myself. Lord Jesus, mediator of the new covenant work in me so that I will have a delight in your word. I'll actually love your word more than the movie all the other kids in my grade at Christian school are talking about on Tuesday.

63:48 That's what I'm talking about, kids to where you get more excited about the Bible than about the latest movie that everyone else is watching. That goes on in this place and it disturbs me. And I think it should. Is it wrong to get excited about this or that movie?

64:10 Maybe not. But is it wrong never to get as excited about something you found in your Bible that has thrilled you and you want to share it? You go to the Lord Jesus and say, Lord Jesus, you put in me that love for your word. Put in me that love for yourself that love for your law that love for your people.

Exhortation to the Rising Generation and Prayer

64:34 Lord Jesus, you do for me what I cannot do for myself. And then for you who will be the backbone of this church in years to come should the Lord Jesus tarry. I pray God that what you've heard tonight the Spirit of God will write upon your heart. I plead with you to go home tonight and say, Lord, pastor's not infallible.

65:01 He's never claimed to be. He's honest about his own sins and his own ignorance and failures. But, Lord, I believe the burden of his heart is rooted in the Bible right upon my heart. You want to give an old man comfort when he lies on his deathbed, you come by and squeeze my hand and look me in the eye and say, Pastor, I'm determined, God helping me, that whatever influence I have, this church will, by the grace of God, not be given to the dogs because we accept the delusive, damning presumption of people thinking they're saved because they've just got the negatives. It's a serious thing, dear people, to think about the future. Knowing a little church history is a very humbling thing. And people ask me, will we know anything, what's going on on earth when we're up in heaven?

66:10 I think that would be turning heaven into hell for a lot of people. Some of those worthies at Princeton, if they knew what was going on in the classrooms and in the chapel, it would turn their heaven into a little bit of hell. I believe God mercifully spares them. As the Spirit of God pressed these upon your heart tonight, dear rising generation, you children, young people, then take the time to pray it in.

66:46 Take the time to exhort one another. Find ways in your free times, when you're together at school, in your social times, talk about these things. You're not too young to talk about them. Set your standards and your goals and do what the writer to Hebrews says, provoke one another unto love and unto good works.

67:09 Well, I'm done. Let's pray. Our Father, we have trafficked in very sobering issues tonight. And we thank you that you've answered our prayer and made us conscious that we were not merely dealing with ideas and concepts.

67:34 But with you, the living God. And we beg of you, our Father, to cause some who have been exposed and stripped this night, not to stay in their present state, but to flee to Christ, to find in him those things that he is willing to impart to all who come to him in penitent faith. We pray for your people, especially the second generation in this place. Lord, have deep and lasting dealings with them, that in the days to come these issues would be issues that regulate thought and life and involvement in the church and its ministry. We pray for the honor of Christ that you would perpetuate the testimony of this place until the voice of the Archangel sounds, the trumpet of Christ and the trumpet is blown and the Lord Jesus comes in glory and power. Thank you for your presence with us. Seal your word to our hearts, we pray, and dismiss us with your blessing.

68:47 In Jesus' name. Amen.