Eternal Life Test

I appreciate Brother David and the work up there in Rutherford County, one of the fastest growing areas in America actually, so we praise the Lord for that. One of the ways that Anchored in Truth Missions works is as partnership churches have been with us a while, then they begin to take ownership of the church plants and we stand behind them financially and we've got it. So with John O'Simms, that's his church plant out of Shelby Mills, but we're partnering with him to support that and actually Trevor Davis at Great Commission Church in Olive Branch, Mississippi was kind of being the primary mentor for Chris Twilley's church. Good stuff there Trevor and praise the Lord for the good things God's doing there.

Maybe that's something you'd like to get done. Here's what I want to tell you brothers and sisters, brothers mainly, planting one church will kill you. It's overwhelming and that's why the Apostle Paul had networks of churches helping and we need each other and it's come a day where we can't just simply go by denominational lines, we got to go by truth lines.

Those who are committed to the truths we're committed to and partnered together. Acts chapter 2, go there real quick and I'm going to spend about 30 minutes. We've already talked, we've had two sessions from Hebrews 6, 4 through 11 on unmasking false regeneration. I hope that's as helpful to you as it has been for me to study it.

It's just opened the door and turned on some lights for me. I know brother David Brown's committed this as much as anybody on the earth but when he said you know pray that the Holy Spirit's working on some, well you know how you find those the Holy Spirit is working on? You just witnessed everybody. You urge everybody to repent and believe and we don't know who's associated with the Spirit and who's going to be associated then regenerated. We just we're supposed to appeal and plead with all men everywhere to repent and believe. If they do get saved we know sovereign God did it but he wants us to do that part.

You know Spurgeon used to say that he didn't know who the elect are. He said if God had put a yellow stripe on their back we could just run around pull the shirt tails up and see who had a yellow stripe and we could witness to them but we don't know so we're going to urge all men everywhere to repent and believe and the warrant of faith is the gospel. We're going to tell them if you'll repent believe God will save you. All right is that good balance? No hyper-Calvinist in the Anchored in Truth fellowship.

All right just Spurgeon, we're five-point Spurgeonist. All right this session we're going to talk about those the Lord adds discerning the fruit of regeneration and this is something we began to do years ago here and I just want to kind of go over it with you how we approach this. We've had wonderful teaching from Tom Askel about the new birth the work of the Spirit. We've been thoroughly through that now in Hebrews chapter 6 but when you're counseling a seeker what might that look at like?

Well a Puritan that I believe was Thomas Boston I gleaned some things from some of his writings years ago and developed most of from him what I'm going to share with you this afternoon about 30 minutes. But in Acts chapter 2 verse 37, no not verse 37, verse 39, I'm sorry, Peter's preaching and he says, for the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off Jews and Gentiles as many as the Lord our God will call to himself. Then look at verse 47, praising God and having faith with all the people and the Lord was adding to their number day by days those who were being saved. So our job as the under shepherds of Christ's church not our church we must be faithful to the chief shepherd we are the stewards of another's property so we're only to allow into his church those he adds and he's given us good scripture to guide us in that process. 1 Corinthians 3 6 and 7 reminds us Paul writing to the Corinthians said I planted Apollos watered but God was causing the growth so then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything but God who causes the growth. So how can we discern those that God is bringing into his church that God has changed that God has saved that God indwells. I've got a little phrase that I like to use and that is if you're going to die and live you must live you must live before you die you better have possessed new life here if you expect to keep dying or living rather after you die. John 5 12 and 13 he who has the son has the life and he who does not have the son of God who does not have the life these are things I've written do you believe the name of the son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. Now we're not talking now we're not talking about a new approach to life out of the energies of the flesh we're talking about possessing a new life a new birth. John 4 23 but an hour is coming and now is this is talking about those who are spiritually dead when true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and in truth the holy spirit must come in must make his residence in a life and only then can a person begin to grasp the truth and be a true worshiper of God if you add those who have not been born again who the spirit does not dwell and you're adding false worshipers into your congregation so this is an important thing for us pastors to labor over and pray over you know in my early years as a pastor I was told the easiest simplest hoop jump nonsense I was troubled by it but I didn't know what else to do should not the entrance into God's church be a primary concern of ours does it not merit weighty study and wrestling and praying and discerning and learning nothing is more important than God's church therefore if any man be in Christ he's a new creation a new creature he has new life and on and on we can go but we've all talked about this Colossians 1 10 tells us as Paul is speaking about the Colossian believers so that you may walk in a manner worthy of Lord to please him in all respects bearing fruit in every good work and here's the phrase I want to focus on increasing in the knowledge of God or more and more should you be experiencing the things of God the knowledge of God what God's doing in the earth and what God's method are we that's not a good word what God's provision of salvation is and what it looks like more and more so if I'm counseling with someone I'll use this outline and I'll look as we're counseling this is very careful that we stay balanced here I'm not looking for a full bloom or fruit I'm looking for the seed of these things and and I want to tell them do you sense in your soul at least the seed of this kind of desire in you and I'll show them the scripture because I want them to tell me God has done this because in conversion it's not what you've done it's what he's done so more and more number one more and more I asked him do you see and feel the way you do the weight of your sin more and more do you see and feel the way to your sin the bible promises the holy spirit will come to those who are gods and will help them and when you're converted the holy spirit comes in and he begins to reveal the holiness of God and in contrast he begins to reveal the sinful wretched condition of your totally depraved soul now they're not going to be able to define sin and find depravity but trust the word of God show them the scriptures one things I urge pastors all the time and you ask my church members we preach a strong and weighty doctrine of sin in this church you know what I found the more I labor on weighty thorough preaching on the doctrine of sin the more my people love their savior you know people love their savior keep telling them how much you saved them one of the first conferences I went to decades ago was Rick Warren's purpose-driven something I think his purpose was to ruin the church you can tell him I said that by the way because one of his main points in that whole conference was quit telling people they're sinners why don't you just say quit preaching the gospel I don't care how big his numbers are in California just don't matter to me it's a false gospel that leaves out a weighty presentation of the doctrine of sin and you want that new believer to be able to tell you yes pastor as you read that text that's me you won't at least see the germ of the reality of an increasing of their feeling the weight of their sin they should be seeing more and more of the darkness of their hearts how many times have you seen a young Christian saying I must not be saved you just wouldn't believe what the thoughts I have sometimes the difficulties I said well that kind of makes sounds to me like you have been saved you knew they were wrong before because you had a natural conscience and the law of God is in your heart but it seems to really trouble you now that's the germ of conversion in there they should be seeing their ever-present lust to disobey Paul said I practice the very thing that I do not want they should see that their burden their sins are a burden and they're beginning to loathe them that's what Jesus was referring to in Matthew 11 28 when he said come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I'll give you rest the psalmist said behold I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin my mother conceived me Paul again says wretched man that I am who will deliver me from the body of this death and I told you just briefly in an earlier message how in my conversion in my automobile listening to the radio I immediately sensed I just can't the only way I could describe it was like a beam of light shown through the top of that 72 cutting souls mobile and just love from God flowed through the top of that car that's the way I felt I was overwhelmed with the love of God through Jesus Christ but in the following weeks I can't even describe to you how heavily I sensed my sin and wretchedness before him so much so I had a good godly Sunday school teacher and she meant well that she said quit talking about how bad you are I said but I am but I am but I know Christ has forgiven me so don't expect a in a capacity to be able to define or explain but just the evidence there's a seed of realization that yes I I'm see and feel the weight of my sin number two more and more there's kindled in me a flame of love for Christ now this takes a while they you do love Christ but brothers and sisters a person's got to know who he is before they can love him faith comes by hearing hearing the things about Christ that's why preaching is so important and I meant to mention this before I even started the outline but brothers and sisters here I'm not saying we do it exactly the right way but here it's almost inconceivable to us that we would receive you by baptism if you haven't set under the preaching of the Word for a good season that's really our major seeker counseling is hearing the preaching of the Word of God and things start going off in their hearts what I call it the Holy Spirit's doing this work it's the amen of the Holy Spirit though here's something the Spirit in the heart says amen that's true and those amens keep affirming the truth of the Word of God in all of these areas I'm talking about now I'm not saying it's required that a person attend for so long not saying we require so many sermons be listened to I mean we would best have somebody right away if they could from an open bible tell us yes pastor that's happened to me that's where I am we've just found that it almost always takes some time Jonathan Edwards I guess humanly in the last several centuries it's one of the few men who saw a real special awakening or work of God and Jonathan Edwards would tell you that in an unusual outpouring of the Spirit you may be able to discern quickly if someone is truly converted as a pastor but he said that would be rare and unusual typically it's process now my folks don't want it to go quick like my parents they would rather us spend time and pour the Word into that child before we baptize them but again there's no time thing here there's no thing of well we got to have eight meetings or three meetings it's very possible you meet one time with a church elder and you have clear evidences of the new birth and we would schedule you for bad now we would do more studies because we want them to study what baptism means so to have the fullest meaning to them when they get in the Baptist Baptist water so it's possible after one session but typically it's several and sometimes it's several months and sometimes it's several years there's kindled in me more and more there's kindled in me a flame of love for God the love of God Romans 5 5 again has been poured out within our hearts when I first came to this church and it would have been 40 years ago because I attended a while before I came on staff as the youth guy and the associate pastor the pastor at that time was Bob Pittman and he was an expository preacher and he was preaching through the Gospel of John now I'm a brand new Christian and I mean I had far more zeal than I had common sense or wisdom you probably couldn't tell that by my personality can you when I preach but boy of the blunders I made I called Nicodemus Nicodemus I didn't know anything I honestly didn't know anything and I was so excited and I was so glad to be saved and I sit out there and Bob Pittman would preach John and he would preach Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus and brother John oh I'd sit back there and say well that's good but you need to teach us these principles for make our life successful I'd love Joel Osteen or somebody that day because I'm a baby Christian but you know what he kept preaching Jesus Jesus Jesus and months rolled by and pretty soon I've seen I got to get back to church I want to hear more about Jesus Jesus Jesus I had the seed of love for him but it's got to grow under the word guys are you getting what I'm saying that's why we are pulpits have to be true to the word of God so that we're presenting the Jesus the spirit what caused them to love they can't love him if they don't know him if they're going to know him they need to hear him preached faith comes by hearing and how shall they hear without a preacher I just thought about this the other day of course loving God includes our Christ includes loving the word of God of course and I got to thinking I was converted at age 19 and I would guess in the 19 years before I was converted I might have spent 30 minutes reading the bible I mean over the whole 19 years in the last 41 years I've probably averaged that every day because there was kindled in me a love for God in his word now I'm my job is to study and preach so don't don't sit out there and be legalistic well I only got 12.5 minutes a day so I might not be saved yet no don't do that that's not what I'm talking about I'm talking about there's kindled in you a love for the word of God and a love for Christ number three more and more I see my need for Christ my total and desperate need for Christ I need him as prophet I need his word his wisdom I need him as priest I understand he's the only intercessor and connector with me to God the father and salvation I need him as king I see the need to bow before him let me read to you from our confession of faith we have the New Hampshire confession of faith here and we've added a little bit more in the areas of sovereign grace but this is a great statement but I want to talk about it and I want you to hear this on repentance and faith article 8 we believe that repentance and faith are sacred duties and also inseparable graces wrought in our souls by the regenerating spirit of God whereby being deeply convinced of our guilt danger and helplessness and the way of salvation by Christ we turn to God with unfeigned contrition confession and supplication for mercy and at the same time hardly receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as prophet priest and king and relying on him alone as the only and all sufficient Savior my brothers and sisters that is a wonderful statement on repentance and faith but you can't use that in counseling a new believer I just understood all of that a few months ago and you know the truth about it I'm still understanding more about it but if you explain to them in counseling from the scripture Jesus is our prophet and he's revealed his wisdom his truth from the word now say yeah I know I need more of that and Jesus is our our priest in other words he connects us to God and only through his death for us on the cross can we be forgiven pastor I know that's true and Jesus is our king and and we ought to bow before him as Lord of all I fail at that so much but boy I want to be that way see what I'm saying they get the doctrine as you teach it to them and understand it they see their need for Christ I think one of the things that we ought to look for is they they run to him this is all under I more and more I see my need for Christ they run to him in time of trial he's just the one we run to when Christ just comes now that we've come to know him it's it's amazing how how we grow in things but at the beginning we don't have them I try to discipline myself to pray about my material stuff this way God you own my farm well you in the bank you own my cars you own my house you own my clothes you own the fern it's yours now I enjoy it and I'm grateful I get to enjoy it but it's yours can I be transparent with you I leak I find myself some days not quite there and have to humble myself and kind of fight my way back there and as a young believer I remember distinctly I couldn't really pray that I just kind of wasn't there but if you ask me brother Jeff is that is that in your heart why I want to be like that that's where I want to be so you're looking for the seed of it not the full blossom of it or the full bloom of it I'm asking the Lord now as I've just turned 60 my prayer is God I want to be effective for you in my old age I want to be effective for you in my old age now I'd like to have good health if you'd see fit I'd like to enjoy my grandkids for two three decades if you'd see fit I'd like to have some more good vacations with my wife my kids my grandkids if you'd see fit but if you don't see fit if you just let me be effective for you that's the main thing I hadn't always been able to do that and sometimes today if I haven't stayed up to date in humbling myself and seeing the things that matter I'll get I'll it'll leak out and I got to get it back in again so don't look for full-orbed maturity you're looking for the seed of these things number four more and more I hate what God hates well I think this is an important one more and more I hate what God hates I'm growing in my contempt for the world this is evidence of spiritual life I'm talking about increasingly you see this world system is just vain and worthless and you see the values and the pleasures of this world you're burdened about the shallowness out there in this world and all the pride and the idolatries and just the overall vanity of it all there ought to be a seed of that in a person who's received new life first john 2 15 says do not love the world nor the things in the world if anyone loves the world the love of the father is not in him now the love the world here doesn't mean that occasionally you have too much enjoyment and things that don't matter for eternity and by the way God intends for us to enjoy common grace gifts sometimes guys just try to act too spiritual and it's obnoxious I'd rather a guy enjoy a common grace gift greatly but praise God for it than a guy that sits around and looks like he's been sucking on a percent green persimmon and just you know just you know just well I don't do that I'm too holy but there's not a settled pattern of love for this world in the child of God did you get that a settled pattern of love for this world and it grieves us I'm a Tennessee volunteer football basketball you name it that's what I am amen I heard an amen out there I don't I don't get many of those around here I've never gone to kneeland stadium God is my witness now you're not less spiritual if this doesn't happen to you okay I've never gone to kneeland stadium to a football game when two or three times during the game I look around and don't say is this not the stupidest thing in the world all of this money commotion stuff it's true about the Aggies too Tom says it's not true about Texas A&M he graduated from there and here's what I'm saying there's something in you that says thank God we can enjoy these things but thank God this isn't my joy there's a seed of something and look for that seed that evidence of more and more I hate what God hates I'm not saying God hates a clean football game but there are things in the world God certainly does hate and that's the world's system of dishonoring God and putting the seed of the God and living for excuse me living for pleasure psalm 119 113 the psalmist said I hate those who are double-minded but I love your law hate there's an indignation that begins to grow as we grow closer to God we get an indignation toward those especially those who give fiend obedience to the things of the Lord psalm 101 verse 3 I will set no worthless thing before my eyes I hate the work of those who fall away it shall not fasten its grip on me wow pretty strong isn't it but I think that's the righteous hate it's a righteous anger you ought to be troubled about those who who play and toy with the things of God psalm 69 verse 9 zip for the zeal for your house has consumed me we uh my daughter played college basketball and there were several lesbians on the basketball team and by the way I had them stay in my home not sharing a bedroom but we loved them we hugged their necks and especially Anna Claire faithfully shared the truth with them and they loved her for it you know you see all this stuff about they're gonna hate you but we respect you if they know you're genuine and then one of the the girls just put on social media that she has broken up with her girlfriend and repented of that sin and she said we can't we can't if we're Christians we can't say all these other things are sins now I'm amplifying what she said here but God only whispers about this she said that was wicked in sin too but Tom asked how much danger is being done when men of high influence in Christendom tell us to minimize the wickedness of sins that little girl might not have been saved if she heard that kind of testimony I know God's sovereign and salvation but we have a responsibility but she's come out now and repented of that and you can see in her heart I'm beginning to love what God loves and I'm beginning to hate the things God hates you should see a seed of that in a person who's born again well number five more and more I do love what God loves and of course we've said enough about it I'll not belabor it but we love his church brothers and sisters you just gonna have to get it in your heart and mind he loves his church so much more than anything else as far as it's possible we're to do good to all men but especially the household of the faith you should see a seed of love for the church when I was first converted I lived in Lawrenceburg Tennessee and I was baptized at the first Baptist church of Lawrenceburg I'm thankful for some good and godly people that encouraged me there but on Wednesday night nobody went to church but I did on Wednesday night I went to church with about 18 senior adult ladies I just had something in my heart I wanted to be at church I wanted to be with God's people there ought to be a seed of that in there Roman numeral six more and more the Spirit helps me in Bible study and prayer more and more the Spirit helps me in Bible study and prayer in other words have you ever noticed when you start praying you can start out so cold you can start out so lifeless but if you'll stay at it the Spirit warms your heart and it becomes a joy John 14 26 reminds us but the helper the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I've said the Holy Spirit helps those who belong to the Lord so talk to that seeker and say do you find that you don't want to pray sometimes but if you start praying your heart gets warm only a child of God gets that the seed of that ought to be in there in the same way the Spirit helps our weakness Romans 8 26 we do not know how to pray as we should but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words can I be just transparent to you with you sometimes preparing to study to preach is a woeful drudgery it's hard because I have an OCD idolatry problem I'm prone to over study I'm prone to just I have a joke with all the guys who do the screens and stuff around here they said why don't you get it to us earlier I said because I never get a sermon finished I just run out of time and honestly I get some of the best insights in the last couple of hours I can literally have 20 hours in it and the best insights come together again I don't want that outline already set I want the outline to be last but I'm telling you if you do that for a while you gotta have a break thankfully my elders in my church allows me to take breaks when I need them but sometimes studying is just a woeful drudgery because you know I don't care how tired I am how worn out I am brother john if I open that book and pray and study that text it's not long before I'm saying praise god this is good stuff praise the lord this is wonderful stuff and you know how sermon preparation is it's got to be born in the study then when you preach it needs to be born again well roman seven more and more I look forward to his return there should be the seed of that in a child of god as he grows it's going to get stronger but there ought to be a seed of that I long to be stripped of my own righteousness and be clothed with his again wretched man that I am who will set me free from the body of this death thanks be to god through jesus christ our lord one day he'll return and save me from me he'll save me from me don't you get sick of you we get sick of each other sometimes but I get sick of me more than I get sick of you all praise god when he'll clothe me in his righteousness it ought to be the seed of that in a new child of god who's experienced a new birth blessed are those matthew 5 6 blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied and hebrews 11 10 for he was looking for the city which has foundations whose architect and builders god he's looking for something more I'm telling you it's great to enjoy the stuff god gives us and at the same time know that we've got something far better than this stuff on my farm there's a creek it's called may branch it runs down the edge of the property there and may branch never runs dry it'll get a little less in the late summer but may branch never runs dry and that's kind of a picture of of the indwelling presence of god he's the fountain head of our soul it may get a little bigger a little bit it's always there now there's a hillside coming down into may branch and I have many freshwater springs that come out and they flow into may branch and this time of the year they're all flowing they're all flowing in there flowing they're all flowing in there but for the child of god the many springs that flow into the major spring in the valley of our soul they're polluted once polluted with pride and once polluted with conceit and once polluted with lust but praise god they minimize at times and they lighten up at times and they go dry at times but there's one main stream that never runs dry the fountain head of jesus christ the indwelling presence of god and as we mature in christ those other little tributaries that are polluted should get drier and drier brother john you know what i found about the time i think they're getting dried up good want to start gushing again and i have to follow my face and say wretched man that i am but thank god thank god thank god the fountain head of god always flows down the main valley it never runs dry that's what you're looking for in a child of god now here's what's going to happen in counseling they're going to put all their attention on one of those streams like i must not be saved because this stream of conceit or this stream of pride this stream of lust is there well it's the stream of god's presence there though now i've given you seven things to look for and let me tell you and let me say this don't make this a mathematical type equation like they got to get four out of the seven they may only have two i don't know and be really saved all i'm telling you is the bible didn't give us enough to make this some little formula but this has helped me greatly because it's a joy beyond joys when that man or that woman that teenager whoever it is looks at me and says pastor that's me and they tell me from the word of god they have truly been born again and have new life well hope these things have been a help to you as we do the best we can for the glory of god in his church to unmask the tragedy of unregenerate church members now there is a absolute essential balancing truth and that's called corrective church discipline because you can't keep them all cleared out on the front end it's going to happen and and you make a mistake if you think you're going to be a hundred percent there but god has a provision for removing from his church those who in effect remove themselves by open brazen unrepentant sin but john o'sim sims is going to deal with that and he's uniquely qualified because for the 20 years he's passed or he has been totally faithful in this discipline his church and his church and he himself had received the blessings of faithfulness there so he'll preach that for us tonight all right