Assurance: Overcoming the Difficulty of Knowing Forgiveness

Exposition of Psalm 130

How can I be sure that God has forgiven me? In this volume, essentially an exposition of Psalm 130, John Owen pinpoints the causes of such spiritual distress, not merely with the clinical skill of a spiritual diagnostician, but also with the understanding of someone who had profound experience of those 'depths'. And Owen does not stop with diagnosis. He maps out a biblical path of faith and obedience for distressed believers who long to say with full assurance, 'God has forgiven me.'

Table of Contents:
1.Out of the Depths
2.Lord, Who Shall Stand?
3.But There Is Forgiveness With You
4.'There Is Forgiveness' - The Evidence
5.Forgiveness and Unbelievers
6.Rules for Finding Gospel Peace
7.Causes of Spiritual Disquiet
8.My Soul Waits
9.He Shall Redeem Israel

Author:

John Owen (1616-1683) is amongst the best known of the Puritans. His writings continue to be widely read and greatly appreciated to this day.

Endorsement:

 We are impatient with the laws or principles that govern the spiritual life. It is here that Owen teaches us to slow down, think, understand, and apply. Owen thus provides us with an extended exposition of the wonder of forgiveness, where and how we can discover it, and how it is revealed to us in Christ. He then takes us through a series of eleven 'rules' which serve to guide us safely in this area of experience. We live in an antinomian age which honors the rules of the sports more than the rules of God's word. Perhaps it is as well, therefore, to point out that these are not an expression of a legalism that will lead us into bondage, but an exposition of the basic principles of God\'s word and gospel grace which will deliver us from bondage into spiritual liberty. - Sinclair B. Ferguson ~ Associate Preacher, St Peter's Free Church, Dundee