FULL ASSURANCE.

I speak affectionately to the weaker ones, who cannot yet say that they know they have believed. I speak not to your condemnation, but to comfort you. Full assurance is not essential to salvation, but it is essential to satisfaction. May you get it-may you get it at once, at any rate, may you never be satisfied to live without it. You may have full assurance. You may have it without personal revelations, it is wrought in us by the Word of God. These things are written that you may have it, and we can be sure that the means used by the Spirit are equal to the effect which He desires. Under the guidance of the Spirit of God, John so wrote as to attain his end in writing. What, then, has he written with the design of making us know that we have eternal life? Go through the of his whole epistle, and you will see that it all presses in that direction.
He begins thus, " Whosoever believeth that Jesus is The Christ is born of God." Do you believe that Jesus is the anointed of God? Is He so to you? Is He anointed as your prophet, priest and king? Have you realised His anointing so as to put your trust in Him? Do you recieve Jesus as appointed of God to be the mediator, the propitiation for sin, the Saviour of men? If so then you are born of God. "How may I know this " Brethren, our evidence is the witness of God Himself as here recorded. We need no other witness. Suppose an angel were to tell you that you were born of God, would that be a more sure testimony than the infallible scripture? If you believe that Jesus is the Christ, you are born of God. John has thus positively declared the truth, that you may know that you have eternal life. Can anything be more clear than this?
The loving spirit of John leads him to say, " everyone that loveth Him that begat, loveth Him also that is begotten of Him." Do you love God? Do you love His only begotten Son? You can answer these two questions surely. I knew a dear christian woman who would sometimes say, " I know that I love Jesus, but my fear is that He does not love me." Her doubt used to make me smile, for it never could have occurred to me. If I love Him, I know it is because He first loved me. Love to God in us is always the work of God's love towards us. Jesus loved us, and gave Himself for us, and therefore we love Him in return. Love to Jesus is an effect which proves existence of the cause. Do you love Jesus? Do you feel a delight in Him? Is His name as music to your ear and honey to your tongue? Do you love to hear Him praised? Ah dear friends! I know that to many of you a sermon full of His dear name is as a royal banquet, and if there is no Christ in a discourse, it is empty and void and vain to you. Is it not so? If you do indeed love Him that begat and Him that is begotten of Him, then this is one of the things that is written, " that ye may know that ye have eternal life."