Assurance and the Wrath of God

Today we will encounter two ideas that we would not choose to place together — assurance and the wrath of God. By the way, these ideas don't appear together only here, but repeatedly throughout the book of Hebrews. Assurance and apostasy are not mutually exclusive. The Christian faith teaches both. The book of Hebrews teaches both. The half-dozen verses we're looking at together this morning teach both. You cannot use one to cancel out the other. The idea that you cannot know for sure that you're saved is a Roman Catholic error. In the name of apostasy, they deny assurance. Its mirror image is the hyper-Calvinist error. They deny that you can apostatize. In the name of assurance, they deny apostasy.

Both assurance and apostasy are real things. You should enjoy assurance that you are really saved. You can be a Christian without assurance that you are one, but ordinarily, you will know whom you have believed, and you will have good confidence that He will bring you safely through. That said, do not imagine that apostasy presents no danger to you. Assurance is not presumption. Assurance is not a license to provoke God. Assurance is God's gift to His people, but He is angry with those who abuse it.