Good morning.
I’d like to begin by reading just a few verses. I think all these verses you’re probably familiar with, but you will be—at least, I hope, by the time we finish—more familiar with them.
Of course, every believer knows Hebrews 11:1. I’ll read from the New American Standard Bible:
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for,
The conviction of things not seen.
I’ll read that again. It is so important:
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for,
The conviction of things not seen.
I would also like to read Colossians 2:2. You may not be as familiar with this, but it starts out in a wonderful way. Here was the whole purpose in Paul writing this to the Colossian church:
To the end that your hearts may be encouraged, being united together in love, and unto all the riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the full knowledge of the mystery of God.
Then, back to Hebrews—Hebrews 6:11. I think most of you know this:
But we desire earnestly that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end, that you be not sluggish, but imitators of those who, through faith and patience, have inherited the promises.
Let’s pray.
Father, we thank You for Your Word. Your words, again, we have to say, are spirit and life. How we need Your words to penetrate into the deepest part of our spirit this morning. Without Your words, we don’t have anything to say of value, and we gladly tell You how dependent we are on You to speak.
Speak, Lord; Your servant heareth. We just want to call upon the name of the Lord to release what is in Your Word, that it may do that full work in us as Your people. We ask this all in Your name and for Your glory. Amen.
I thought I was done with this matter of divine assurance. Apparently not. So I do promise this is the last message I’ll share on divine assurance—at least for now. It still resonates in my heart.
You remember those three phrases. I shared them once in a testimony time. They speak of the height, the depth, and the length of divine assurance: God with us. God for us. God in us.
God with us—can there be any more assurance? God for us—Romans 8:31: “If God is for us, who is against us?” Then, of course, you think of that marvelous, beyond-imagination assurance that is so tremendous you could hardly conceive of it with any human thought: that God would be in us.
These are the far reaches of divine assurance in all of their glory. I thought maybe there was yet something else we needed to say to apply to our lives: the necessity of divine assurance. I want to look at that, if we can, just a little bit today.
Now, I’m not talking about human assurance—you know, me coming up and saying, “Well, you’re swell. You’re my best friend.” Or you coming up and saying, “Well, you’re a pretty good guy,” although that’s rare indeed. But that is not divine assurance.
We do not need divine insurance. Some people say, “Oh, we just need little kindnesses.” We do need kindness, but how much more important divine assurance is.
Neither do we need more government assurance. Be afraid when the government comes to you and says, “I’ve got what you need.” A little word of advice—I think Ronald Reagan said something like that one time.
As a matter of fact, I was thinking about that, and I did not know there was a federal-wide program for assurance. I found it out. Can you imagine? It is called the Federalwide Assurance for Protection of Human Subjects. Health and Human Services has this. I did not know about it.
But we are not talking about that kind of assurance. The government, unfortunately, is not your answer. What our answer is, is God Himself. We heard that this morning.
This is the burden. I have already shared on some of the deepest, highest, fullest assurances in His Word. This divine assurance is eternal, everlasting. It is God Himself. How much deeper can it be?
Today, I would like to speak on the necessity of divine assurance. There is nothing more important for you as a Christian, as a believer, than knowing in reality divine assurance. You cannot live without it. There are a lot of things you can live without, but this is one thing you cannot live without.
There is nothing more important for us as the church of God—that corporate testimony—than divine assurance. Without it, we will never be the testimony of God in a corporate way. It is altogether important.
That is why this burden came to me when I thought I was finished with this series: this word, necessity. The necessity. I would like to say the absolute necessity of divine assurance. You know my affection for adjectives.
When you look at the Bible, I think you have to conclude that the Bible is a book of divine assurance. It is many things, but I think, in fact, it is a book of divine assurance.
This divine assurance makes us strong in our faith. Without it, we have no faith. This divine assurance manifests in us a testimony that we are God’s children, and a testimony together that we are God’s people in that corporate sense.
How important is this divine assurance? Today we will look at a few things: the necessity of assurance, the full assurance, and the testimony of assurance. This assurance produces something—it produces a testimony.
The testimony of assurance is what defined the people of God in the Old Testament. It defines the people of God in the church age, in the age of grace. And it will define us for all eternity.
May the Lord help us as we begin to venture into these few thoughts and give us some light.
First of all, the necessity of assurance. You know my affection for the writer of Hebrews. I wish I knew who he was, but I cannot think of anything but to call him that anointed, anonymous writer.
He sensed something among the Jewish believers in the first century. They began to turn away from divine assurance, and they began to turn back to shadows instead of realities. They actually began to turn away from God Himself.
So the whole point of the writer of Hebrews was to bring them back to that divine assurance, to make it real to them, and to make them know that it was a secret they needed.
He appealed to them with that word of exhortation. It ends in that book: “Bear with the word of exhortation.” It is full of warnings—“lest.” I think of Hebrews 3:12, which we will talk about in a moment: “Lest there be found in you a wicked heart of unbelief.”
This is to believers he is talking about. Some people like to take the hard parts of Hebrews and say he is talking about the unsaved. He is not talking about the unsaved. He is talking about the saved.
That warning—“lest there be in you a wicked heart of unbelief”—accompanies most of the warnings in Hebrews. Then there is that other encouragement in Hebrews: “Let us.” “Let us,” again and again. “Let us come near to God. Let us draw near,” in what does it say? “With a full assurance.”
This is how we are to approach the living God. He was trying to convince them of where they had turned from and bring them back to the secret. He was encouraging them and warning them with the deepest and strongest warnings.
I think Hebrews has some of the hardest Scriptures to understand, Scriptures people wrestle with. Their relief is, “Well, he is speaking to the unsaved.” I hate to tell you: he is not.
If you turn from Christ—which is the one that makes most people so fearful—what hope do you have? What hope is there? There is no hope. To the believer, that is the only hope.
This matter of the necessity of divine assurance is so important. I want to read to you Hebrews 3:12. We just talked about it. He said something to those dear ones:
See, brethren, lest there be in you a wicked heart of unbelief, in turning away from the living God.
Strong words, right? They had a serious disease. It could be a fatal disease. They had a heart condition—a terrible heart condition. They had heart disease.
We often talk about different diseases, and heart disease, I think, at least for men, is number one. Well, for Christians, it is number one. Do we have a heart disease? Do we have a wicked heart of unbelief? Those are strong words.
Is there any cure? Thank God, there is a cure. Is there any vaccine? Thank God, there is a vaccine. Thank God, this pandemic—we can get over it. Now, if you think I am talking about COVID, you have missed everything I have been trying to say.
There is something more important, something so debilitating: a wicked heart of unbelief that can turn us from the living God. This was a warning, the most stern of warnings, I believe.
Thank God, there is an answer. That answer is divine assurance. It can heal a damaged heart. It can take away the deadliest disease of unbelief.
Do you believe unbelief is a sin? It is. Do you believe unbelief is a disease? It is a disease of the worst kind. It can take you out. It can ruin your walk.
God’s antidote, God’s cure, God’s strong medicine, is always His divine assurance. That is the necessity.
I think of the apostle Paul. You remember when he was talking about the gospel one time? He said, “A necessity is laid upon me.” Do you remember that? When he was talking about preaching, he said, “If I do not preach the gospel, a necessity is laid upon me.”
Dear brothers and sisters, how a necessity of divine assurance needs to be laid upon us. It will deliver us from all of our ills in the Christian life and cause us to overcome and triumph in the Christian life. I think this is the secret.
Now, in Hebrews 11:1—we already read that, but I want to spend a good bit of time on this—Hebrews 11:1 shows us the necessity of divine assurance:
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for,
The conviction of things not seen.
Very important verse. Very important verse. If you are going to understand faith, and if you are going to understand divine assurance, you must understand this verse.
It was at the heart of what that anointed, anonymous writer was telling those Hebrew believers. It was, in fact, the cure.
Darby uses the word “substantiating.” It is substance. Divine assurance is so powerful—it is substance. He went on to say that the substance is assurance. That was what he revealed.
You remember the King James Version talks about the substance of things hoped for. People do not think of faith as substance. They think of faith as something etherial, a thought, a wish, a hope. Brothers and sisters, divine assurance is the greatest substance there ever was.
No one questions the importance of faith in the Christian life. Without faith, there is no Christian life. You remember what this same writer told them in Hebrews 11:6:
But without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that draws near to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him out.
This is absolutely the importance of faith. He knew it.
I thought back when I was preparing on Habakkuk, one of the last books of the Old Testament. In Habakkuk, a secret is given that extends into the New Testament era and opens to us the key.
You remember Habakkuk was wondering before the Lord, and the Lord spoke to him. He was wondering in Habakkuk 2:1 what the Lord would speak to him, and then the Lord spoke to him.
Brothers and sisters, what assurance that is. We do not have to wonder if the Lord will speak to us. We do not just have to hope the Lord would speak to us. He will speak to us.
Right away, the Lord said to him, “Write the vision, and those that see it will run after it.” He concludes by saying, “The just shall live by faith.” That is the vision. That is the vision.
The apostle Paul thought so much of that word. In that wonderful classic, that spiritual masterpiece, Romans, chapter 1, verse 17, when he was talking about the gospel, this is the phrase he quoted: “The just shall live by faith.”
It meant so much to him. He wrote to the Galatians about the curse of the law, and he told them once again—Galatians 3:11—“The just shall live by faith.” The writer of Hebrews, in Hebrews 10:38, once again quoted this verse: “The just shall live by faith.”
This is the vision. This is the secret. How wonderful. You cannot doubt it when you read it. It is the vision that was coming and never will end: this is how we must live—by faith.
Now, in case you think I am getting away from assurance, I am not. This is so important: divine assurance defines faith.
You remember this phrase in Hebrews: “Now faith is the assurance.” These two things—faith and assurance—are conjoined twins that can never live apart from one another. They are, if you want to put it that way, opposite sides of the same coin, though I do not like that analogy very much.
Without assurance, there is no faith. Without true faith, there is no assurance. But faith is the assurance. That was the secret that the one who wrote this book of Hebrews was trying to communicate.
Faith is absolutely important, but there is no faith apart from assurance. I used to believe, as so many people do, because somebody I respected told me, that there is no definition in the Bible about faith. I do not think that is true any longer.
I love what William Newell says in his commentary on Hebrews. He uses the word in all capital letters: there is a description and there is a definition of faith. This phrase in Hebrews 11:1 is that description and that definition: “Faith is the assurance.”
How wonderful that is. Without it, it is impossible. Without it, there is no faith. Without assurance, whose faith is it?
You remember when the apostle Paul wrote that wonderful verse—one of my favorite verses. I think you know that by now. We have it framed in our home: Galatians 2:20.
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.
Can there be more assurance than that? That is the secret: God in us. Christ lives in me. Then he said, “The life that I now live, I live by faith.” What if he stopped there? Thank God he did not stop there.
He said, “The faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” He understood something so marvelous that every believer needs to understand: it is not your faith. It was not Paul’s faith.
It is not faith you can pump up. It is not something that, if you say the word enough times in some ritualistic way, automatically turns into faith. It was the faith of the Son of God.
Something was put into Paul. That something, which made it possible for him to live the Christian life, was the assurance that comes from God Himself. That transformed his faith. His little faith became the faith of the Son of God, who loved him and gave Himself for him.
I think that is beautiful. That may not be your understanding of Galatians 2:20, but it is my understanding. What a secret. What a secret it is. Thank God for it.
This phrase, “Faith is the assurance,” is so beautiful. It solves the mystery when we try to live by our faith and walk by our faith. We know the secret.
The secret that this writer was trying to communicate is that it is assurance. It is something put in you that changes you. It is something divine that comes upon you—a deep assurance in your spirit. All you can say is like John said in his epistles: “I know.”
Nine times, that wonderful phrase is in the epistles of John—perhaps just in 1 John: “I know,” or “we know.” “We know” is the phrase.
Divine assurance makes your testimony, “We know.” We do not guess. We do not hope. We do not wish. Some people’s idea of faith is our hoping in God, our wishing in God. That is not the secret.
The secret is altogether that assurance that comes upon us, and we know it because we know it is true. This assurance is real substance. There is substance to it.
We do not think of faith as substance. It is sort of in the air, hard to lay hold of. That is why people say there is no definition. “What is it?” It is substance. The writer of Hebrews had assurance for them. He said, “This is the greatest substance there is.”
The interpreters who wrote the King James Version said, “It is evidence.” It is evidence of things hoped for. Our whole judicial system is not built on hoping; it is built on evidence.
God gives us evidence—evidence that is unassailable, incontrovertible, rock-solid. That is what we have in Christ through His assurance that He gives us.
I remember studying a little bit about our jurisprudence and our judicial system. Our judicial system is built on this thought: beyond a reasonable doubt. Now, that means there can be doubt, okay? You understand that. It says beyond a reasonable doubt.
But the assurance of God erases all doubt. It is not merely beyond a reasonable doubt; it erases the doubt.
Faith is the assurance: rock-solid evidence; indisputable, undeniable, unquestionable, incontrovertible, unassailable evidence—the evidence of things hoped for. You have the evidence. How wonderful. How clear that is. Faith is the assurance. That is what it means.
The evidence of things not seen—isn’t that a tickler? You never stand up in a court of law if you did not see it. Wouldn’t it be hearsay? Think about it.
You cannot come in and say what you did not see. You are a witness. You have to tell them what you saw. If you saw it, and if the jury believes it, maybe there can be a resolution to the dilemma of the trial.
But this is the evidence of things not seen. How wonderful. I think that is terrific. You do not have to see it.
We always like to use that terrible phrase in the world: “Seeing is believing.” I think that is terrible. With Christians, it is just the opposite: not seeing is believing.
When that assurance is embedded in your being, you do not need to see. You remember the classic case of doubting Thomas—poor fellow. I wonder if he will lose that name in eternity, and we will just call him dear Thomas instead of doubting Thomas.
When the Lord allowed him to put his hands into His side and touch His hands, He said, “Thomas, you believe because you see.” Then the Lord said those wonderful words:
Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed.
Assurance is the evidence of things not seen. How wonderful that is.
I think sight can be a terrible curse for us. We need to see things. They say sight is our keenest sense—some may argue—but at least Cicero thought so, that famous Roman statesman and philosopher. He said the keenest of all our senses is the sense of sight.
But how different the Word of God is. We have in us proof that is beyond sight. We have in our hands spiritual evidence that is beyond that which you can see.
Praise the Lord. That, to me, is the most encouraging assurance that could be given to these believers. Divine assurance is so powerful that it eclipses all of our senses.
“Seeing is believing” is not the secret. Believing based on divine assurance is the secret that makes things real. We need to see something before we can accept it—that is what “seeing is believing” is all about. But no, we do not.
You need the Lord to show you something of Himself that is so real, it is more real than any substance. That chair in front of you—you would agree that is substance. You can handle it. You can grab it. That hymnbook you can pick up—you would agree that is substance.
But do you agree that the highest of all substance is divine assurance? Do you believe the greatest of all evidence is divine assurance? That was the message to the Hebrew believers.
Listen to what Peter said in 1 Peter 1:8-9. I know you know this, but I will read it anyway:
Whom having not seen, ye love;
On whom, though not now looking, but believing, ye exult with joy unspeakable and full of glory;
Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.
Look at that. Without sight, you can love Him. Without sight, you know He is real because you have seen Him in the spirit. What a difference it makes.
Do you think sight is the answer? It is not. Assurance is the answer.
I remember when I was in high school, I liked magic, by the way. I do not know. Thank God He saved me; I no longer like magic. But magic is deception. I do not know if you know that. Magic is sleight of hand.
The whole trick of magic is trying to convince you that what you see is real, and it never happened. I really got into it in high school. As a matter of fact, I wrote one of my big papers on Houdini because I thought he was so cool. Now I know he was so dark.
Think about it. The whole thing is trying to convince you that what you see is real, and it never happened. Do you really think they saw the lady in half? If they did, there would be a lot of magicians in prison.
But they let you think they do. It is deception. It is delusion. It is sleight of hand.
Now think about it, brothers and sisters. God is no divine magician who tricks us into believing. He gives us the highest assurance, and we cannot help but believe. It becomes the very fiber of our being. It is the secret of our life.
I think this is so clear: we have to see the necessity of assurance. Do you see it? Do you see? That is what the writer of Hebrews was trying to convince them of, step by step.
He started out by saying, “You have this heart condition that looks incurable.” But there is a cure. Then he began to bring them back out of the shadows and back to reality, to show them the source of all things. This was the secret.
There is a second thing that is of equal importance. You need to understand the depth of assurance in the Bible.
First of all, the word assurance is only translated six times in the Authorized Version, the King James Version. The first time is in Deuteronomy, and it is terribly negative. It is about having no assurance at all. That is the Old Testament. It is a terrible, bleak thought.
But then you look at Isaiah 32:17, the only other place in the Old Testament where assurance is used:
And the work of righteousness shall be peace;
And the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance for ever.
Brothers and sisters, the context of this is the coming King. The context is this One who is righteous comes. The context is that water in a dry place, who is the Lord Jesus. The context is the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land.
The result will be quietness and assurance forever—not just temporary, but forever. I think that is tremendous.
When you come to the New Testament, you begin to understand what divine assurance really means. First of all, Acts 17:31 says that assurance is granted to all men through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
That is how we get assurance. It is His work, all that He has done. Through the resurrection of the Lord Jesus from the dead, we are granted the highest assurance. He has overcome. He has paid for sin. He is risen from the dead. He has ascended to the throne.
At that throne, we come to a great High Priest who offers us the highest assurance. This is the secret of assurance: He has given assurance to all men in that He has raised Him from the dead.
We have already covered Hebrews 11:1, but there are several verses you need to know because they give an emphasis about assurance that the Bible makes clear.
First of all, Colossians 2:2 says—remember, I read this:
To the end that their hearts may be encouraged, being united together in love, and unto all the riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the full knowledge of the mystery of God.
Notice that phrase: “unto all the riches of the full assurance of understanding.”
Look at another place. In 1 Thessalonians 1:5, it says:
For our glad tidings were not with you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance.
Notice that phrase: “in much assurance.”
The last two are found in Hebrews. Hebrews 6:11 says:
But we desire earnestly that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end.
Did you notice that phrase? “The full assurance of hope unto the end.”
Hebrews 10:22, the last occasion, says:
Let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith.
Notice the emphasis in the New Testament. There is only one emphasis. It is not just assurance. It is not partial assurance. It is not some assurance. It is much assurance, one of the verses says. But the others say something more profound than that: they speak of the full assurance.
Thank God for that. That is the most encouraging thing we can know: the assurance we have is the fullest of any assurance possible.
Do you understand my point? I do not want you to think I am straining at a gnat here. The only thing the Bible teaches is the full assurance. That is what divine assurance is.
What a word that was to those Hebrew believers, and what a word it should be to us. This is what the New Testament reveals: the full assurance of faith captures the inexhaustible riches of divine assurance.
This assurance is so full, brothers and sisters, we can be fully convinced. It is the one thing that will convince you. When that divine assurance comes into your heart by the Holy Spirit, something happens. You are fully convinced.
I like what Newell said. He said, “Full assurance does not mean we hope for it or wish for it. It means we have it.” Do you know the difference? We have it. It is ours.
I think this is so convincing. We become fully persuaded. You remember that phrase—in 2019, before COVID hit the whole world and turned the world upside down, I shared on that phrase, “fully persuaded.” Some of you may even remember it.
I think that is such an important phrase. Only divine assurance can make us fully persuaded. It is a secret that is in the Bible.
It says of Abraham in Romans 4:21:
And being fully persuaded that what He had promised, He was able also to do.
He was fully persuaded. Here is a man—as a matter of fact, he is the father of faith, right? He was so much so fully persuaded.
It was not just for him alone. Two verses later—thank God for verse 23. If there were not verse 23, we might think, “Oh, this is this great man of faith, this great patriarch. This is not for me. It cannot be true for me. It may be true for Abraham, but never for me.”
But it says in Romans 4:23-24:
Now it was not written for his sake alone, but for ours also.
You are to be so convinced by this divine assurance that your testimony, like Abraham’s, is that you are fully persuaded. That is the end.
Then, at the end of the book of Romans, Paul reinforced it more: “Let each man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” This is a secret. This is what changed those Hebrew believers from stumbling to walking again in faith.
In 2 Timothy—this is important because it was the last letter of the apostle Paul—he said to his beloved son in the faith, Timothy, this description that I will never forget. It is embedded in my heart:
Thou hast been fully persuaded.
It was not just because his mother and grandmother, and all the teaching he had heard from youth, that he was fully persuaded. It was because this God of full assurance put in his heart something so deep that he was fully convinced.
This is the point. Remember, Paul said, “I am persuaded,” a number of times. “I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him against that day.”
The question is, have we been so taken by this divine assurance that we are one of the persuaded? That we are like William R. Newell said: we have it, we know it, it has laid hold of us.
I believe this is what the Lord is after. Then I think of the last thing: this full assurance of faith, this faith that is the assurance, produces in us a testimony.
If it does not produce in you a testimony, then there is no real assurance. Think of it. If it does not produce in you a testimony, there is no real faith—the faith of the Son of God.
But when it produces in you a living testimony, there is the difference. Those are the ones who have known this full assurance, and it has changed them.
As a matter of fact, Hebrews 11—the chapter we often refer to as the hall of faith—was about those who were fully convinced. They did the impossible. Think of it. These were ones who had assurance, and that assurance so changed them that their testimony was they could overcome every obstacle.
That is the power. That is the necessity of divine assurance.
If you begin in Hebrews 11:2, it says:
For in the power of this, the elders have obtained testimony.
That is a very important verse. That was the result.
I know some use the New American Standard Bible, and I used it to begin with. I think it talks about the men of old, but it was the men and the women of old, thank God. They had living testimony. They were transformed.
How? I wish we could see this so clearly. I think chapter 11 makes it absolutely clear. Verse 4 says:
By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained testimony of being righteous.
He had a testimony—a living testimony, a powerful testimony. Hebrews 11:1 is not just a teaching. Hebrews 11 is the demonstration of those who were so convinced, who so knew the full assurance, that they had a living testimony.
I believe it is what God is after in you: this testimony. By it, he obtained testimony. Testimony is something you have to obtain.
It is not something that is simply granted to you. When the full assurance comes into you and you believe it, you respond to it, and you obtain testimony. It affects your life.
Not only does it affect your life, it affects those you live with. Not only does it affect those you live with, it affects those who know you. This is the secret of the people of God: the people of divine assurance.
This was their testimony. I think this word is so tremendous. In Hebrews 11:5:
By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation, he had the testimony that he pleased God.
Have you just read over that verse? This is the result of divine assurance. Do we have that testimony? Notice: he had the testimony. I think that is very, very important.
This phrase, “by faith,” occurs again and again. But now, every time I read it, it will always be “by faith,” which is the assurance. They did remarkable things.
You can think, “Well, that is true for these heroes of faith—Samson and David and Abraham and Jacob and Isaac and Enoch and all of these. It is true for them, but it is not true for us. We are just ordinary people.”
I think it is marvelous that that hall of Hebrews ends in verse 31 with Rahab the harlot. Isn’t that marvelous? Has that ever dawned on you, how wonderful that is?
Hebrews 11:31 says:
By faith Rahab the harlot did not perish along with the unbelieving, having received the spies in peace.
I am not just picking on harlots. If you are here and I have offended you, forgive me. You ought to be encouraged. By faith, we are all harlots, by the way, until we come to know the Lord.
How wonderful this is. Here is the least likely, but here is the one this writer concludes with: even Rahab the harlot. It is a wonderful story.
I think that ought to give some encouragement to you and to me. You may not be an Abraham. You may not be a Jacob. You may not feel like you relate to an Enoch who walked with God and was not. But certainly all of us can relate to Rahab.
God’s word is this: this one—the last one—she had a testimony. She had a testimony. I think that is so encouraging.
When I read it and read over it and read over it again, I thought, “Lord, there is something wonderful here.” Then you look at Hebrews 11:39:
And these all, having obtained witness…
This is the way the chapter ends. That is the same word as testimony. Something happened to these people. They saw something. It laid hold of them. They could not shake it any longer. It made them a living testimony in a dying world.
The same can happen to you and to me.
Even the Bible ends with this thought. You know, the most important word in the last book of the Bible, Revelation, is the word testimony. It is the most important word.
If you just gloss over that word, you are going to miss it. You are going to see wars, plagues, vials, bowls, suffering, and tribulation, but you will not see the secret.
The secret is those who have testimony. It is very clear.
When John began to write, he made no bones about it. He began to say in Revelation 1:2:
I testify for the word of God, and the testimony of Jesus.
That was what he was doing. That was the whole purpose of the book of Revelation. In Revelation 1:9, he said, “I am here on the isle of Patmos for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus.”
He was a living testimony in a dark world, and this was his secret through the assurance that God gave him.
It goes on and on. You look at Revelation 6:9. We think of the martyrs under the altar, and we feel so sorry for those martyrs under the altar. We say, “Thank God, I am not a martyr under the altar.”
But it tells us something beautiful about them. It says they had a testimony—a real testimony. This is the secret of Revelation: the testimony that they held. They were martyred.
You may not be a dying martyr, but let me tell you something: you are called to be a living martyr.
Do you know when the Lord said, “I will make you witnesses,” in Jerusalem, Judea, and the uttermost parts of the world—do you know what that word means? Read it differently: “I will make you a martyr.”
One that has testimony. One that has seen something. It has transformed them to the degree that they make a deep impression forever. That is what the book of Revelation is about.
Of course, we know about the overcomers. They overcame in Revelation 12:11. They overcame by the blood of the Lamb, and what does it say after that? “By the word of their testimony.” What else does it say about them? “They loved not their lives even unto death.”
It is not just the end of Hebrews 11; it is the end of the Bible. This matter of testimony—that is what He is looking for in us.
We speak of the remnant in Revelation 12:17, and it says they have the testimony of Jesus. Has that word ever stuck in your throat, and you realize there is something to that word?
The difference is, they have the testimony of Jesus. The question before us is, do we have the testimony of Jesus? This is what God is looking for in the end.
This is why He gave us such high assurance: that we would be His people of testimony.
Of course, the last time—you remember the scene. I cannot imagine seeing the things John saw. Yet the angel appeared to him in Revelation 19:10. He fell on his face to worship the angel, and the angel was so gracious. He did not rebuke him.
He said, “See that you do it not. I am a fellow bondservant, and like your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus.”
What a wonderful word. To me, this is what divine assurance is to produce in us—not just in the men of old, not just in the elders, not just in those Hebrew believers who had turned away and for whom God had a word of divine assurance, but in us now, in our lifetime.
This is what He is after. This is what the necessity of divine assurance can produce in us: a people of testimony; a people of testimony that will bring back the King; a people of testimony that will bring in the kingdom.
A people of testimony that are different from the whole world. I do not think it is too great a stretch to say this is what He is after.
What a glorious power this divine assurance is. What a glorious work it does in a people. What a testimony of faith it produces in those that have it. Do we have it?
Campbell Morgan says something that always encourages me. Remember that phrase: “To the end that your hearts may be encouraged.” That was what Hebrews was about.
Morgan, speaking of Hebrews 11, said, “But waiting in the perfect assurance of final victory, then we are called upon to rest in His assurance.”
I think we heard something about rest this morning:
Come unto Me, all that are burdened and heavy laden, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. Learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart.
It says that you shall find rest unto your soul.
Brothers and sisters, to me, this is a clear word on the necessity of divine assurance. May we be those who have it. May we know it to such a degree that it changes us.
Without it, you cannot live the Christian life. But with it, like these ones in Hebrews 11, you can do the impossible and the greatest exploits, because this was their secret.
This was the secret of those at the end, and this is to be our secret: the necessity of divine assurance.
Father, we come to You in the name of Jesus. Lord, we want to ask that we would see something deep—something that is real substance.
See something that is real evidence, that would forever change us. We do not want to spend our days hoping and wondering. We want to spend our days knowing.
And being those captives that have the testimony of Jesus. Would You do that deep work in us? We ask You to do it.
Open our eyes that we may see—truly see—with the eyes of our heart, this great divine assurance that has been made available to us in Christ Jesus.
If You do that, we will be forever changed. We will be those who have the testimony. We will be that people of testimony You are looking for.
May You do that in Your precious name. Amen.