Four Ways to Miss Heaven

Charles Spurgeon, the renowned British pastor, said this, He said, I want you to just go through the way going through this and read worldly, be earthbound, another guarantee. Be preoccupied with the world. Live for the world. Live for the temporal system.

Live for the ideologies of this world system. What does he mean when he says, you are of this world? World is a very important word in John's gospel, used repeatedly. And it's used with several different meanings. Sometimes it refers to people, sometimes it refers to ideologies. Here it has to do with those ideologies which engulf the minds of people, of course. But when he's talking about this world, he's talking about the invisible spiritual system that dominates the world. It is a system of evil. Satan is the god of this age, the prince of this world.

He is the one who has orchestrated a system of belief, a system of morality, a system of religion, a system of ideologies, a system of behavior, a system of materialism and all of that that is opposed to God. It's like 2 Corinthians 10, it's everything lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God. It's the whole cosmos, the whole invisible spiritual system of evil. We use the word world in that way. We talk about the world of politics, the world of business, the world of medicine, the world of sports. And what we mean by that is the environment or the sphere in which those things dominate.

And there is a world in which we live as human beings. It is the organized system of satanic lies and deception raised up against the knowledge of God, Satan's system opposing Christ. And in Luke 16 8, Jesus calls all the unbelievers children of the system.

They buy into the ideology somewhere. The system is hostile to God. It's hostile to Christ. It is dominated by materialism.

That is to say, a preoccupation with that which passes away. It is dominated by humanism, the worship of man and the elevation of man's mind, even to the place where he can redeem himself. It's dominated by sex, by physical fulfillment and pleasure, by carnal ambition, by pride, by greed, by self-pleasure, by self-desire. Its opinions are wrong. Its aims are selfish. Its pleasures are sinful. Its influence is demoralizing. Its politics are corrupt.

Its honors are empty. Its smiles are fake. Its love is fickle, etc., etc. That's the world system. It is a lot of philosophies and psychologies and religions and ideologies that make up unregenerate, ungodly, unbiblical thinking. And it is a world that will be destroyed.

The world and all that is in it will pass away, John said. And that's why he said in 1 John 2 15, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. For anyone who loves the world can't love the Father. Where there is the love of the world, the love of the Father doesn't exist. Jesus points out here this great contrast. He says to them in verse 23, you are of this world.

I am not of this world. We have two competing ideologies, two competing systems of thought. If any man loved the world, the love of the Father is not in him. And friendship with the world, James 4 says, is enmity with God. These Jewish leaders, though they would say they were religious and that they were spiritual, were genuinely caught up and trapped in the satanic system of evil by which he rules the world. Sinful, selfish, earthbound souls who lived out a system controlled by the prince of this world and were separated from God and from Christ by an infinite gulf. For a man to die in his sin, all he needs to do is just be earthbound, just believe the lies of Satan that are in the system. Just love the system and all that is in it and that will guarantee you will die in your sins. Sometimes the gospel penetrates that kind of mind and heart a little while, like in the parable of Matthew 13, but because of the love of this world and the deceitfulness of riches, it dies.

There must be a breach and a break. Jesus is not of this world. He said to Pilate, my kingdom is not of this world. 1 John says the whole world lies in the lap of the evil one. We believers don't.

We've made that distinction. James says we are even to keep ourselves unspotted from the world, uninfluenced from its satanic ideologies. There's a third way and this is the crux of the passage that you can guarantee to die in your sins. First of all, to be self-righteous and think you don't need a Savior, you can save yourself or make some contribution to saving yourself, any contribution.

Secondly, by being earthbound and that is being enamored with the world system and unwilling to let it go. And thirdly, verse 24, I said therefore to you that you shall die in your sins for unless you believe that I am He, you shall die in your sins. Here's the third guaranteed way to be certain you will die in your sin, be unbelieving. Be self-righteous, be earthbound, and be unbelieving.

That's really all it takes. Be unbelieving. The only way to escape hell is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And John again, quoting his thesis in chapter 20, verse 31, these things are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ and believing you might have life through His name. No one has to die in his sins or her sins. But the one who persists in rejection will die in sin through unbelief. Now what do we have to believe?

Well, he says it right here. Unless you believe that I am He. What he's saying here is the name of God. Unless you believe that I am God, that I am the one sent from God, the great I am Himself. He uses really what is the Hebrew tetragrammaton, the name of God, the I am that I am. Unless you believe that I am, well what does I am mean? It means all that He is.

Unless you believe fully the truth about me, that's what he's saying. How does one become a Christian? By believing the truth about Jesus Christ.

This is the son question and this is the big issue. It's astonishing to me. The question being asked, what must someone believe in order to genuinely be saved? There really needs to be no muddy water in regard to that. It is crystal clear in Scripture. I can sum it up very simply by what Jesus said here. You must believe that I am He.

What does that mean? You must believe that Christ is who He is. Well what does that encompass? I'll give you what I call the drive train of gospel truth, the absolute necessities of gospel truth.

Here's where they start. If you're going to believe the truth about Christ, here's what it includes. First of all, you have to believe in an eternal Trinity because Christ said He was one with the Father and that He was eternal and before Abraham was ever created He existed. So you must believe that He is part of an eternal Trinity. Anything less than a Trinity makes Christ something other than who He is.

So the heart of evangelical faith, the heart of gospel truth is Trinitarian, that God is three persons and yet one. To say anything other than that is to misconstrue who He is and He says you must believe that I am who I am. So you start with believing the Trinity. Those who deny the Trinity don't understand who Jesus Christ is.

They do not believe that He is who He is. Secondly, you must then believe that He is incarnate in human form, that this member of the Trinity entered into human history in time and space in a human body. You must believe then in the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ and that encompasses the virgin birth which is God's definition of how this incarnation took place so that the Christ could be born into this world sinless. And so you must believe that He is God, that He is eternal, that He is a member of the eternal Trinity, that He was incarnated into the world through the virgin Mary. Then you must believe in His sinless life because that's true of Him as well, that He lived a sinless life.

He couldn't be born like normal people were born or He wouldn't be the God-man and He could not have a sin in His life or a weakness in His life or a failure in His life or He would not have fulfilled all righteousness which righteousness is imputed to those who believe in Him. So you must believe in a Trinity. You must believe that the eternal Trinity, that Jesus Christ, a member of the Trinity, was incarnated, born of the virgin Mary, came into the world and lived a sinless life which in fulfilling perfect righteousness became the righteousness that can be imputed to those who believe. And then you must believe that He died on the cross as a sufficient substitutionary sacrifice and atonement for sin and that He died there and paid the penalty for the sins of all who would ever believe because that's indeed who He is, the Lamb of God. You must believe that His death satisfied God completely and that full atonement was made and that that's why God raised Him from the dead the third day and then took Him and seated Him at His right hand where He sits as Lord. He gave Him a name above every name which is the name Lord.

He sits at the right hand of the Father, interceding for His own and ruling and someday will come again and establish His kingdom on earth and bring eternal glory to His own beloved redeemed people. That's the heart of Christian faith. Take anything out of that and you've got some other Jesus. And Paul said, if anybody preaches any different Jesus, let him be anathema, any different gospel, any different message. Paul told the Corinthians, in 2 Corinthians, I don't want you to be removed from the simplicity of devotion that you have toward Christ. If somebody preaches another Christ, they do not preach the truth.

How do we have any difficulty understanding that this is the Christ whom we must believe? This is the truth and this is what Christians believe. If you don't believe that, you're not a Christian. You say, well, what about people who believe in God? They're not Christians. They will die in their sins. Well, what about people that believe all of that about Jesus but also believe that they have to do some works, get baptized or do some ceremonies or keep some laws in order to add to their salvation? They won't get to heaven either. They'll die in their sins and go eternally to hell.

Why? Because they will not recognize that Christ alone and Christ completely is the sacrifice for sin to which nothing can be added. It is by grace through faith alone.

And any attempt to add anything to it negates it. Grace is no more grace. Anything you try to do to earn any part of your salvation misunderstands the sacrifice of Christ. And any misunderstanding of the meaning of Christ and His sacrifice is something less than the gospel.

Believe it, Christianity or Christendom as such is full of people who have a lot of information about what I've just said regarding the gospel but who do not have that total trust in Jesus Christ alone being who He is and being the only and the complete sacrifice for sin, therefore trusting in nothing of their own efforts or works. Sad to say many, many who name the name of Christ and say, Lord, Lord, we did this, we did that are not known to Him and will die in their sins and where He has gone they will never come. So Jesus says to them, unless you believe in verse 24, unless you believe that I am who I am, you shall die without your sins being forgiven and you will therefore eternally pay the penalty. There is one final guaranteed way that you can die in your sins and they exhibit this obviously. Be self-righteous, be earthbound or be unbelieving.

Fourthly, be willfully ignorant or obstinately ignorant. Verse 25, this is so amazing, so they were saying to Him, who are You? This is absolutely unbelievable that they would say that after all they had seen, after all He had done, after all they had heard. Jesus said to them, what have I been saying to you from the beginning?

Talk about thick. I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you, but He who sent Me is true and the things which I heard from Him, these I speak to the world. He says, I've been speaking and speaking and what I've been speaking is the very Word of God. And to show you how thick they were, verse 27, they didn't realize He had been speaking to them about the Father. Even though He said that over and over again, I and the Father are one.

I don't speak of My own self. What the Father shows Me, I speak. All of that He had been saying, all up to chapter 8. They'd heard it all.

They heard who He was many, many times. They saw ample evidence of it, but sin produces unbelief and unbelief produces obstinate ignorance. So they refused to know because they loved their sin. You want to die in your sin? Be self-righteous. Be earthbound. Be unbelieving.

Be obstinately and willfully ignorant and you will die in your sin. Jesus says in verse 29, He should have known, He who sent Me is with Me. He's not left Me alone. I always do the things pleasing to Him. You should have seen God in Me. You should have known, you should have heard, but you didn't.

It ends on a good note. Verse 30, as He spoke these things, many came to believe in Him. That would be my prayer that as I have spoken these things to you, as I have reiterated these words of Jesus, that many would come to believe in Him. Want to die in your sins? Just continue in your course.

Just believe you're good enough the way you are. Just carry on with your love affair with human ideologies. Just refuse to believe the great truths concerning Christ. Love your sins so much that you choose the darkness and are willfully ignorant. But to do this, you're going to have to stumble over the cross.

That's right. You're going to have to heartlessly, irreverently trample Christ's blood because you know the gospel. So you're going to have to stumble across the cross.

Inconceivable, really. Why will you die when you can live? Why will you not be like those many who believed and didn't want to die in their sin? Why will you not accept an atonement for your sin? That's the all-encompassing question. And the answer is you're self-righteous.

You're good enough the way you are. You love the world too much. You refuse to believe or you love your sin and you cherish the darkness and the ignorance that comes with it.

In any case, the price is eternal. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur. Thanks for being with us. Today John showed you four ways to miss heaven as he put the finishing touches on his study called The Sinfulness of Sin. Along with teaching each day on the radio, John also serves as Chancellor of the Master's University and Seminary in Southern California. Well, John, here's a good question to end with. What do you hope people will take away from this look at the sinfulness of sin, this issue of seeing and taking our own sins seriously? Why is this so important? Well, for two reasons.

One sort of secondary reason and then one primary reason. I would hope that people would take from this an understanding of how profoundly gracious the Gospel is. If we understand how wretched and sinful we are, then we understand how wonderful the Gospel is because the Gospel comes and says you can be fully and completely and forever forgiven of all sin, past, present, and future. The grand reality of saving grace finds its beauty, finds its magnificence and its magnanimity in the understanding of how sinful sin is because grace overwhelms even the sinfulness of sin.

That's sort of a secondary reason. The primary reason is that so then subsequently you can give glory to God. You are limited in your ability to worship God as he ought to be worshipped if you have a limited understanding of the Gospel. And you have a limited understanding of the Gospel if you have a limited understanding of sin.

If you understand the massive horror and extensiveness of sin, then you understand the glory of the Gospel. Then you understand the glory of God and you become a fully trained worshiper, you might say. So it leads ultimately to our ability to worship and praise God.

And that's the reason we exist. We are those whom the Father seeks as true worshippers and we want to worship him in spirit and truth. That is with all of our faculties, but according to his truth, it is his truth basically built into the Gospel is the foundation of our worship.

So the more you know about the Gospel, the better you are at worshipping. Now it's important for you to get a copy of this series, The Sinfulness of Sin. I would say the whole evangelical church needs to hear this because they have such a meager understanding of sin, and this culture believes that man is basically good, and that is the lie of all lies. We'd love to get the series to you.

It's on six CDs, affordably priced. You can write, contact us, order The Sinfulness of Sin on six CDs, or you can download it at GTY.org. Yes, and friend, this series will help you see how impossibly high God's standard for holiness is, and how he graciously provides a way for sinners to meet that standard. It's a great study to review at your own pace, so pick up John's series on The Sinfulness of Sin when you contact us today. Call toll-free 800-55-GRACE or go to our website GTY.org.

Again, The Sinfulness of Sin comes in a six-CD album, price for the CDs is affordable and shipping is free, or the MP3s along with the transcripts can be downloaded free of charge at our website. In fact, all of John's sermons, 3,500 total messages are free at GTY.org. And thanks for letting us know how grace to you is helping you grow spiritually. If you've never written, or if it's been a while, jot a quick note to share your story, and be sure to include the call letters of this station when you write, that's a big help. Our mailing address is Grace to You, Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412, and our email, letters at GTY.org. That's letters at GTY.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson, reminding you, watch Grace to You television this Sunday, check your local listings for Channel and Times, and then be here next week when John begins a series that will help you know for certain you are God's child. It's titled, Salvation Survey. Don't miss another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.