Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices (2 Corinthians 2:11 KJV).

What do you do when Satan tries to undermine your assurance of salvation?

John Wesley addressed this common pastoral problem in his sermon, “Satan’s Devices” (Sermon 42). I think Free Grace readers will appreciate his analysis and solution.

Here’s the problem. Even if Satan can’t destroy believers, he can still frustrate our Christian walk. Wesley identifies one of Satan’s major strategies as dividing “the gospel against itself, and by one part of it to overthrow the other.” What he means is that Satan uses our lack of sanctification to get us to doubt our justification, which then can stall or derail our Christian walk.

The challenge is that while we are justified in the moment of faith, spiritual growth takes time. We partake of some salvation benefits right now, and have some fruit of sanctification, but we’re not all that we can be, and there are greater blessings to enjoy:

“Every babe in Christ knows we are made partakers of these the very hour that we believe in Jesus. But these are only the first-fruits of his Spirit; the harvest is not yet. Although these blessings are inconceivably great, yet we trust to see greater than these.”

Wesley had a very high view of what to expect in sanctification. He believed it was possible to habitually walk in holiness. But that creates a gap between our present experience and what is possible to grow into.

Refreshingly, for Wesley, it’s normal to rejoice in the work that God has done in our lives, even if we’re not perfect yet. But Satan exploits that by showing you how far you fall from perfection, to make you question whether God has done anything for you at all:

“that subtle adversary often damps the joy we should otherwise feel in what we have already attained, by a perverse representation of what we have not attained, and the absolutely necessity of attaining it. So that we cannot rejoice in what we have, because there is more which we have not. We cannot rightly taste the goodness of God, who hath done so great things for us, because there are so much greater things as yet he hath not done.”

Wesley says that Satan will attack your peace is by tempting you to think that justification is by works:

“Thus will he endeavour, not only to shake your peace, but even to overturn the very foundation of it; to bring you back by insensible degrees to the point from whence you set out first: even to seek for justification by works, or by your own righteousness; to make something in you the ground of your acceptance, or at least necessarily previous to it” (emphasis added).

Satan will (mis)use Scripture to convince you to look for evidence of holiness in your life, telling you that “the tree is known by its fruits,” and pressing the question, “And have you the fruits of justification?” Of course, any honest person looking at their life would have to admit they are a mixed bag of good works and sins, and the “fruit” we have, such as it is, will seem relatively small. Satan will emphasize the smallness of that fruit to lead you to doubt your salvation:

“And then, comparing the small fruits we feel in our souls with the fullness of the promises, we shall be ready to conclude: ‘Surely God hath not said that my sins are forgiven me! Surely I have not received the remission of my sins; for what lot have I among them that are sanctified?”

I think that we have all experienced this type of temptation. I think Free Grace people who are highly introspective and given to all-or-nothing thinking, who think any appeal to “fruit” is hopelessly subjective, will be very susceptible to this demonic scheme. Through long struggle, I side more with Wesley—that we can and should rejoice in the sanctifying work we see that God has done in our lives, while also humbly but hopefully recognizing we have far to go.

What is Wesley’s pastoral solution?

Take your eyes off yourself and fix them on Jesus:

“And thus, if your eye is not steadily fixed on him who hath borne all your sins, he will bring you again under that ‘fear of death’ whereby you was so long ‘subject unto bondage’; and by this means impair, if not wholly destroy, your peace as well as joy in the Lord” (emphasis added).

The more Satan attacks your peace by pointing out your sins, the more you should hold fast to the truth that what counts in salvation is not your personal righteousness or unrighteousness, but your justification through faith in Christ and acceptance in Him:

“take the more earnest heed to hold fast that, ‘not by works of righteousness which I have done’ I am ‘found in him.’ I am ‘accepted in the Beloved,’ ‘not having my own righteousness’ (as the cause either in whole or in part of our justification before God), ‘but that which is by faith in Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.’”

If you find that you’re habitually susceptible to this kind of Satanic attack, you should internalize the good news that justification comes absolutely freely and entirely by His grace:

“O bind this about your neck; write it upon the table of thy heart; wear it as a bracelet upon thy arm, as frontlets between thy eyes: I am ‘justified freely by his grace, through redemption that is in Jesus Christ.’”

“Value and esteem more and more that precious truth, ‘By grace we are saved through faith.’”

The more Satan attacks your assurance, the more you should remind yourself of God’s “free grace”:

“Admire more and more the free grace of God in so loving the world as to give ‘his only Son, that whosoever believeth on him might not perish but have everlasting life.’ So shall the sense of the sinfulness you feel on the one hand, and of the holiness you expect on the other, both contribute to establish your peace, and to make it flow as a river” (emphasis added).

I agree with Wesley’s pastoral insights here. The best way to resist Satan’s attacks on your assurance is by being grounded in the truth of salvation by grace, through faith, apart from works. The more grounded you are in that, the more joy, peace, and love for God you will have, which is also the best motivation for growing in holiness. Grace is for both salvation and transformation. As Paul told Timothy:

For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age (Titus 2:11-12).

Send your questions or comments to Shawn.