Renewing Your Mind — “Renewing Assurance”

Podcast: Renewing Your Mind (Ligonier Ministries)
Host: Nathan W. Bingham
Guest Teacher: Dr. Joel Beeke
Date: October 14, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode focuses on the often challenging topic of Christian assurance—why believers sometimes lose it, how it can be renewed, and the biblical and pastoral wisdom available for those struggling with doubt. Using Psalm 51 and the Westminster Confession of Faith as foundations, Dr. Joel Beeke explores the causes and cures for a diminished assurance of salvation.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Nature of Spiritual Backsliding and Assurance

• Backsliding often begins with neglect of prayer and reliance on the Holy Spirit. Renewal comes through repentance, confession, and sincere longing for God.
• Assurance is precious but can become “shaken, diminished, and intermittent” due to both internal and external factors.

Causes Within the Believer (03:04)

• Negligence in maintaining spiritual disciplines.

• Falling into sin or succumbing to temptation.

• Hypocrisy and carelessness in one’s Christian walk.

  • “Backsliding is a God dishonoring, Christ-rejecting, Spirit-grieving, law-trampling, gospel-abusing sin.” (Dr. Beeke, 06:31)

• Decline in private prayer, study of scripture, listening to God's Word, Christian fellowship, evangelistic zeal, and self-examination.

• Spiritual laziness, increased worldliness, and tolerating unrepented sin foster a “double life”.

Causes From God’s Perspective (16:46)

• Sometimes, God Himself withdraws the light of His countenance for wise and loving reasons—not as punishment, but as discipline or for growth.

  • “God may have his own wise reasons why he sometimes withdraws from his people… We shall know hereafter the reasons why.” (Dr. Beeke, 18:58)

• Pastorally, the Puritans acknowledged that even committed believers can experience desertion or a “dark night of the soul” without obvious cause. This is neither the norm nor a sign of lost faith.

2. Pastoral Wisdom from Puritans

• Anthony Burgess and Thomas Brooks provided lists of reasons God may withhold assurance:

  • To make sin more bitter.
  • To keep believers humble.
  • To make us esteem assurance more highly.
  • To test our obedience and bring God greater honor.
  • To equip us to comfort others.

• “Afflictions are like medicines for us. When we lose assurance… they awaken us to what we’ve lost, and we cry out to God.” (Dr. Beeke, 21:15)

3. The Means of Renewing Assurance (21:50)

• Returning to spiritual disciplines: renewed prayer, confession, forsaking sin, and seeking the Holy Spirit.
  • Citing Psalm 51:11-12 as a model prayer in times of lost assurance.
• Assurance is restored as it was first received: through repentance, faith, and renewed reliance on God’s promises.
• Dr. Beeke quotes William Cowper’s hymn “O for a closer walk with God” to capture the longing for restored fellowship and assurance.
• The path is summarized in the message to the Church at Ephesus: “Remember, return, repent, and do the first works.”

4. Encouragement For the Struggling Believer (24:00)

• Believers who temporarily lose assurance have not lost their sonship nor the Spirit’s work in them.
  • “You may have lost your assurance, but you’ve not lost your sonship, nor have you lost the Spirit’s commitment to continue working in you.” (Dr. Beeke, 23:44)
• Even the very awareness of spiritual loss is God’s grace initiating restoration.
• The loss of assurance here is only temporary; perfect assurance awaits in “the eternal celestial city.”

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Dangers of Backsliding:
  “Backsliding is a God dishonoring, Christ-rejecting, Spirit-grieving, law-trampling, gospel-abusing sin.”
  — Dr. Beeke (06:31)

• On The Twin Sisters:
  “Fear to fall and assurance to stand are twin sisters.”
  — citing Thomas Fuller (08:53)

• On God’s Fatherly Purposes:
  “Your Father knows best, and he may be exercising fatherly discipline, fatherly sovereignty, fatherly wisdom towards you. Don’t despair. Soon, your Heavenly Father’s face will shine in favor upon you again.”
  — Dr. Beeke (22:20)

• On Restoration:
  “You may have lost your assurance, but you’ve not lost your sonship, nor have you lost the Spirit’s commitment to continue working in you.”
  — Dr. Beeke (23:44)

Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|---------------------------------------------------------| | 00:00 | Backsliding and renewing assurance: introduction | | 01:18 | Psalm 51; Westminster Confession on assurance | | 03:00–08:00| Causes for loss of assurance: focus on sin, backsliding | | 08:53 | “Fear to fall and assurance to stand are twin sisters” | | 16:46 | God’s role in withdrawing assurance | | 18:58 | Divine reasons for withdrawal of assurance | | 21:15 | Afflictions as medicine | | 21:50 | How assurance is renewed (prayer, repentance) | | 22:20 | Fatherly discipline, sovereignty, wisdom | | 23:44 | Encouragement: sonship and assurance | | 24:00 | Summing up: hope and future assurance |

Summary & Takeaway

This episode offers compassionate biblical wisdom for Christians wrestling with doubt and uncertainty. Dr. Beeke demonstrates that assurance can weaken for many reasons—most commonly our own spiritual neglect, but sometimes for reasons known only to God. The remedy is always the same: return to God through prayer, confession, use of spiritual means, and trust in His steadfast love. Even in darkness, believers are kept by God’s unfailing grace and are assured of an eternal, unshakeable assurance to come.

For further study, listeners are encouraged to consider the full series on assurance available from Ligonier Ministries.