Assurance of Salvation and The Word of God

I read the following story recently. It’s from Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ book Joy Unspeakable: Power and Renewal in the Holy Spirit. If you struggle with assurance of your salvation, you may find it helpful – as MLJ explains that one of the signs of a true believer is an understanding and love for the Word of God.

“Do you know the story about William Wilberforce and his close friend, William Pitt the Younger, one of the great Prime Ministers of this country? Wilberforce was a very fine Christian man and he was deeply concerned about his friend William Pitt, who was a nominal Christian, but no more. Wilberforce was always trying to speak to him about these things. He was particularly anxious that Pitt should go with him to listen to a famous evangelical preacher, called Richard Cecil. So Wilberforce worked on Pitt for weeks and months. At last Pitt promised that the next Sunday morning he would go with him to listen to this preacher, so Wilberforce was praying, full of anticipation, and they went to the service and sat together. Richard Cecil preached and expounded the glories of the kingdom of God and the relationship of the child of God to the Father, and Wilberforce was in ecstasy, rejoicing, reveling in this glorious truth, and he was wondering what happened to Pitt.

“Now Pitt was, I suppose, an abler man than William Wilberforce – he was the Prime Minister. At the end of the service they walked out and Wilberforce wondered what this had all meant to Pitt. He did not have long to wait. Just as they got outside the vestibule, Pitt turned to Wilberforce – who had been so ravished by the exposition of the truth of God – and said, ‘I didn’t understand a word of what that man was talking about, what was it?’

Now that is how we get assurance, is it not? If these things move you and ravish your heart it is because you are a child of God. You have a nature than can receive ‘the sincere milk of the word’ and it gives you assurance.”