There are many professors of Christ today whose profession are undone by the lives the live. Many are excellent Christians in the Sunday meeting, or when amongst believers, but how do they fare in secret? Oh, how lamentable is this fact in the lives of many. Better they be openly unbelieving than heap condemnation upon their heads by heralding a false profession, a false faith.
But we should take leave from examining others and take heed in examining ourselves. What a tragedy would it be to be overly-critical of our neighbor but be left deceived in our own person concerning the state of our own souls! God’s Wrath is Coming, dear reader. Are you Ready?
I pray you, consider it close to your heart. If you are unsure this day to any degree, labor with all your might in prayer and meditation in the Word to be sure! And if perhaps you find yourself to be truly lost and on the broad way to eternal damnation, repent and believe the gospel, that you may be brought from death to life! The God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ is a perfect Savior. Though your sins are as red as scarlet He can make you as white as snow.
The great majority of those who read this will, doubtless, be they who profess to be in possession of a saving faith. To all such we would put the questions.
Where is your proof?
What effects has it produced in you?
A tree is known by its fruits, and a fountain by the waters which issue from it; so the nature of your faith may be ascertained by a careful examination of what it is bringing forth. We say “a careful examination,” for as all fruit is not fit for eating nor all water for drinking, so all works are not the effects of a faith which saves. Reformation is not regeneration, and a changed life does not always indicate a changed heart.
Have you been saved from a dislike of God’s commandments and a disrelish of His holiness?
Have you been saved from pride, covetousness, murmuring?
Have you been delivered from the love of this world, from the fear of man, from the reigning power of every sin?
The heart of fallen man is thoroughly depraved, its thoughts and imaginations being only evil continually (Gen. 6:5). It is full of corrupt desires and affections, which exert themselves and influence man in all he does. Now the Gospel comes into direct opposition with these selfish lusts and corrupt affections, both in the root and in the fruit of them (Titus 2:11, 12).
There is no greater duty that the Gospel urges upon our souls than the mortifying and destroying of them, and this indispensably, if we intend to be made partakers of its promises (Romans 8:13; Col. 3:5, 8). Hence the first real work of faith is to cleanse the soul from these pollutions, and therefore we read, “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts” (Gal. 5:24). Mark well, it is not that they “ought to” do so, but that they have actually, in some measure or degree.
It is one thing really to think we believe a thing, it is quite another actually to do so. So fickle is the human heart that even in natural things men know not their own minds. In temporal affairs what a man really believes is best ascertained by his practice.
Suppose I meet a traveler in a narrow gorge and tell him that just ahead is an impassable river, and that the bridge across it is rotten: if he declines to turn back, am I not warranted in concluding that he does not believe me? Or if a physician tells me a certain disease holds me in its grip, and that in a short time it will prove fatal if I do not use a prescribed remedy which is sure to heal, would he not be justified in inferring that I did not trust his judgment were he to see me not only ignoring his directions but following a contrary course?
Likewise, to believe there is a hell and yet run unto it; to believe that sin continued in will damn and yet live in it—to what purpose is it to boast of such a faith?
Now, from what was before us in the above section, it should be plain beyond all room for doubt that when God imparts saving faith to a soul radical and real effects will follow.
One cannot be raised from the dead without there being a consequent walking in newness of life.
One cannot be the subject of a miracle of grace being wrought in the heart without a noticeable change being apparent to all who know him.
Where a supernatural root has been implanted, supernatural fruit must issue therefrom. Not that sinless perfection is attained in the life, nor that the evil principle, the flesh, is eradicated from our beings, or even purified. Nevertheless, there is now a yearning after perfection, there is a spirit resisting the flesh, there is a striving against sin. And more, there is a growing in grace, and a pressing forward along the “narrow way” which leads to heaven.
One serious error so widely propagated today in “orthodox” circles, and which is responsible for so many souls being deceived, is the seemingly Christ-honoring doctrine that it is “His blood which alone saves any sinner.” Ah, Satan is very clever; he knows exactly what bait to use for every place in which he fishes.
Many a company would indignantly resent a preacher’s telling them that getting baptized and eating the Lord’s supper were God’s appointed means for saving the soul; yet most of these same people will readily accept the lie that it is only by the blood of Christ we can be saved. That is true Godwards, but it is not true manwards. The work of the Spirit in us is equally essential as the work of Christ for us. Let the reader carefully ponder the whole of Titus 3:5.
Salvation is twofold: it is both legal and experimental, and consists of justification and sanctification. Moreover, I owe my salvation not only to the Son but to all three persons in the Godhead. Alas, how little is this realized today, and how little is it preached.
First and primarily I owe my salvation to God the Father, who ordained and planned it, and who chose me unto salvation (2 Thess. 2:13). In Titus 2:4, it is the Father who is denominated “God our Saviour.”
Secondly and meritoriously I owe my salvation to the obedience and sacrifice of God the Son Incarnate, who performed as my Sponsor everything which the law required, and satisfied all its demands upon me.
Thirdly and efficaciously I owe my salvation to the regenerating, sanctifying and preserving operations of the Spirit: note that His work is made just as prominent in Luke 15:8-10, as is the Shepherd’s in Luke 15:4-7! As Titus 3:5, so plainly affirms, God “saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit”; and it is the presence of His “fruit” in my heart and life which furnishes the immediate evidence of my salvation.
“With the heart man believeth unto righteousness” (Romans 10:10). Thus it is the heart which we must first examine in order to discover evidences of the presence of a saving faith. And first, God’s Word speaks of “purifying their hearts by faith” (Acts 15:9). Of old the Lord said, “0 Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved” (Jer. 4:14).
A heart that is being purified by faith (cf. 1 Peter 1:22), is one fixed upon a pure Object. It drinks from a pure Fountain, delights in a pure Law (Romans 7:22), and looks forward to spending eternity with a pure Saviour (1 John 3:3). It loathes all that is filthy—spiritually as well as morally—yea, hates the very garment spotted by the flesh (Jude 23). Contrariwise, it loves all that is holy, lovely and Christlike.
“The pure in heart shall see God” (Matt. 5:8). Heart purity is absolutely essential to fit us for dwelling in that place into which there shall in no wise enter anything “that defileth, neither worketh abomination” (Rev. 21:27). Perhaps a little fuller definition is called for. Purifying the heart by faith consists of, first, the purifying of the understanding, by the shining in of Divine light, so as to cleanse it from error. Second, the purifying of the conscience, so as to cleanse it from guilt. Third, the purifying of the will, so as to cleanse it from self-will and self-seeking. Fourth, the purifying of the affections, so as to cleanse them from the love of all that is evil. In Scripture the “heart” includes all these four faculties. A deliberate purpose to continue in any one sin cannot consist with a pure heart.
—A. W. Pink, Studies on Saving Faith: It’s Evidencesi
Read more of “Studies on Saving Faith” here.
Footnotes
- Pink, A. W. (19). The doctrines of election and justification. “… materials found herein were first published in 1932, 1933 and 1937 …”; Includes indexes. Swengel, Pa.: Reiner.” [↩]
