ASSURANCE OF SALVATION

In my fifth post, May 11, 2017, I said "I struggled throughout my teen years with the assurance of salvation."  I don't know whether any of you reading this have struggled with the same.  It can and was spiritually painful. In previous posts I have said that I was raised in The Salvation Army.  I never ever heard a message on eternal security in The Salvation Army, but rather the opposite was taught that through wilful sin one could lose their salvation.  Being exposed to that teaching I lacked the assurance.  Was I saved or not?  Had I sinned and lost my salvation?  Also seeing that I responded to the invitation on a night when I thought we were going home and Dad headed to the altar instead of going home, was I truly saved?  I knelt down beside Dad and Mr. Jones shared the gospel with me and I prayed to receive Christ.  Did God know that I was sincere?  Oh, the struggles that I experienced, lacking the assurance of salvation.

I've previously written about all the good times in my youth - DVBS, summer camp, Blue Water Bible & Missionary Conference, Youth For Christ, etc. and the spiritual growth.  In many of these gatherings, I knew that I was a Christian.  Yet in times when I was alone in my thoughts I battled with the lack of assurance.  I remember the night that Dad took some of us kids to hear Billy Graham in Detroit, I wanted to go forward when the invitation was given, but I reminded myself that I was a Christian.  On and on, up and down, this battle would come and go.

Finally, I believe it was my first year at Prairie Bible Institute that one Sunday night, Leo Janz, a member of the Janz Quartet and the preacher in the quartet, preached a sermon on the assurance of salvation.  It was powerful, clearly presented and just what I needed.  Following that service, I went back to my room, knelt down at my bed with my KJV Bible opened to John 3:36.  "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." That night, there on my knees, I settled it once and for all.  God had given me eternal life some years before and He would never take it away.  It was ETERNAL life!

The Prairie Tabernacle where Leo Janz preached
his sermon on "The Assurance of Salvation"



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