Deliverance: From Error to the Truth, Part 2 B

So in this brief series, we have been looking at the matter of who is a Christian by examining this issue of deliverance, and in particular that element of deliverance which relates to the change in our person, the real change that takes place in a believer. Welcome to Grace To You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. It's been said that all wrongdoing is done in the sincere belief that it's the right thing to do. And you know, it's probably true that many false ideas about God and salvation are promoted in the sincere belief that they are right.

The thing is, sincerity doesn't save anyone. John MacArthur looks at that principle today as he answers the critical question, what do you need to believe about God to be a Christian? John's current series is helping you recognize the telltale indicators of genuine salvation, core beliefs that anyone who follows Christ will have. The title of his study, Delivered by God.

And with a lesson now, here's John. Let me say in a general way, salvation is a great subject. The subject of God's work in the lives of sinners is the great theme of redemptive history, and it is the great theme of Scripture.

It is not to be understood any way you want to understand it. It is to be understood the way God has revealed it. There are so many rich elements to the great truth of salvation, but they are divided, I would say, into two categories. There are those non-experiential realities in salvation and then there are those experiential ones. There are those realities with regard to salvation that occur on the divine level. Things like justification, redemption, ransom, adoption, reconciliation are ways in which God changes His relationship to us by the application of the work of Christ on our behalf through grace. They are not experiential and they are not manifest as such.

But accompanying those are some manifest experiential realities in salvation. They change not our status. They change not just what God thinks about us or how God views us, but they change us not just legally, but actually. They make a difference in our lives.

They are manifest. They change our nature. They change the way we think. They change our will. They change our desire. They change our speech.

They change our behavior. Now these spiritual realities in that second category are what make up the understanding of the great truth of deliverance. And to understand the doctrine of deliverance in its fullness, we need to understand the dramatic change that is manifest in the life of a delivered soul.

This is the most critical matter in the life of the church. There isn't anything more important in the life of the church than being able to distinguish between who is a true Christian and who is a false one. So in this brief series, we have been looking at the matter of who is a Christian by examining this issue of deliverance, and in particular that element of deliverance which relates to the change in our person, the real change that takes place in a believer.

We should be able to look at someone and see manifest characteristics of deliverance. Go back with me to John chapter 8 and I will remind you of a very notable and important chapter, John chapter 8. By the way, this matter of who is a Christian and who is not was a very significant and important truth in John's mind.

And by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he pays a great amount of attention to it in his gospel as well as in his epistle. But in John chapter 8, verse 32 says, you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. Back to verse 31, if you abide in My Word, which is synonymous with the truth, then you are truly disciples of Mine.

A true, a mathetes alethos, a true disciple of Christ abides in the Word because it is the truth that has set Him free from error. It is truth that is at the very heart of deliverance. The truth is the divining line. Nobody is a child of God who doesn't believe the truth about Jesus Christ. That is the initial definitive line to draw between a believer and a non-believer. It is not a matter of sincerity, it is a matter of truth.

Now let's take it a step further. Go to John's epistle, 1 John chapter 4. Now in verse 5 of 1 John 4, John speaking of unbelievers says, they're from the world, therefore they speak as from the world and the world listens to them.

And the world has its own frequency and all of the antenna are set to that frequency and the world understands itself and it listens to itself. We, verse 6, are from God. He who knows God listens to us.

That's really not the end of it. Go to verse 7 and we take it to another step. Beloved, let us love one another for love is from God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who doesn't love doesn't know God. Drop down to chapter 5 verse 1. Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him, loves the one born of Him.

Now follow the thought here. John is saying if you're born of God, first of all, you're going to listen to the apostles. You're going to believe what the apostles have written because the Spirit of truth is going to convince you of that and you're going to embrace apostolic teaching and apostolic truth. And one step further, you're going to love those that are born of God.

That would, of course, include Jesus Christ, but it goes beyond that. You're going to love the brethren. You're going to love because you've been taught to love by God and because you know God, you're going to love those who also know God. It is that manifest love of the brethren. He's talked about it a number of times back in verse 14 of chapter 3. We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brethren and he who doesn't love abides in death.

Now look at it. First of all, if you've been delivered from error to truth, you now believe Jesus Christ to be that truth and you believe in the true Christ, His true work and the true salvation He provides. You also believe the truth written in Scripture by the apostles and you also not only embrace Christ and embrace apostolic doctrine, listen, you embrace the people of God. You embrace those who love God. That's where your home is.

That's where your heart is. That's where you belong and the Spirit of God has wonderfully placed you into the body of Christ so that you have a love for and a devotion to the church, the true people of God. People always ask me, you know, can you be a true Christian and be in a false religion? I suppose it's possible to be a true Christian and attend events or services there, but if you're in a false system, you can't be a true Christian if you believe what they believe. And you certainly can't be a true Christian if that's the fellowship that you cherish, if that's the fellowship you seek, if you're comfortable in that fellowship. The people who love Christ and love the truth in Christ, the people who love sound doctrine also love the people who love Christ and love sound doctrine.

That's their people. That's the work of the Spirit to build the body together. Now look at 2 John. I can't say again everything I want to say, but I think you're starting to get the picture here. In 2 John, verse 9, this is very important as a perspective and I made a few comments, but I need to make a few more. Anyone who goes too far, actually goes beyond is the idea, gets outside the fence. There's a certain fence around the truth.

There's a certain body of truth. There's a...there's a certain commandment from God, the true commandment, that is the revelation of God, the truth about Jesus Christ. Anybody who goes beyond that and doesn't abide in the teaching of Christ, that doesn't mean in the teaching that Christ taught, but the teaching about Christ, okay? Anybody who gets outside the truth about Christ that is taught in Scripture, anybody who gets outside of that doesn't have God.

Boy, is that straight? They don't have God. Why? Because if there's anything the Holy Spirit does, it is that the Holy Spirit leads us into all what? Truth. And you will have the truth about Christ. That's the work of the Holy Spirit of God. So if you don't abide in the true teaching about Christ, if you have a skewed view of Christ, you don't have God. If you don't believe that Jesus is God, if you don't believe Jesus is the second member of the Trinity, virgin born who lived a perfect sinless life, if you don't believe the facts about Jesus' death and resurrection and exaltation, then you don't believe the truth about Christ. So the question is, are you being taught by the Spirit of truth, or are you being taught by the Spirit of error?

John makes this very understandable for us. Now, he says, if anyone doesn't abide, verse 9, in the teaching about Jesus Christ, the true biblical teaching about Jesus Christ, which was, of course, laid out in the New Testament by the apostles and those associated with Him who wrote under the inspiration of the Spirit, if anyone doesn't believe that, then he does not have God. On the other hand, the one who abides, I love that word, this isn't a fringe thing, this isn't somebody marginal, this is somebody who is settled down in the true teaching.

He has both the Father and the Son. You have the fullness of God in Christ when you settle down to the truth. And then comes a warning in verse 10, if anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, that is something that's not biblical, something that's not true about Christ, something that's beyond, outside the fence, outside the pail of orthodoxy, if somebody comes and brings you this teaching, do not receive Him into your house. What that means is, don't strike up any association whatsoever with that individual and don't put yourself in a position to accommodate that person as they go on their way.

You know, traveling teachers and traveling speakers would seek to stay with people and by accepting those people in, they would be affirming their ministry. This is a separation issue here. Don't let Him in your house and don't give Him a greeting. It doesn't mean don't say hi to Him, it means don't wish Him well. You certainly don't invite them in and give them a platform and say, aren't they wonderful, I don't have a problem with them, I just want to embrace them and love them and, you know, I'm sure they'll all end up in heaven with us. If you do receive them and wish them well, verse 11 says, then you have participated in their evil deeds. You have aided and abetted the spirit of error.

You have aided and abetted the deception. So when a person is delivered, they are delivered from error to truth. That means that the Spirit of God has gone inside and the natural man who understandeth not the things of God, they are foolishness to Him because they are spiritually discerned and He's spiritually dead. The natural man who is dead in trespasses and sin and hopeless without God in the world, the natural man is literally transformed by the Holy Spirit to awaken to truth and all of a sudden the person believes the Scripture and the Spirit of God quickens the heart so that they believe the Scripture to be true and they believe that the Scripture gives the way of salvation. They believe the Scripture is able to make them wise unto salvation.

This is essential to saving truth. You have to believe the Scripture. You have to believe the gospel recorded in Scripture. Then when the Spirit of truth is working to deliver a person from darkness to light, the person believes themselves to be a helpless sinner. You believe that you are helpless, lost, hopeless, doomed, damned and there's a certain distress about that, that you are under a divine curse and judgment. And then the person believes that Jesus Christ is God come in the flesh, a member of the Trinity, the eternal Trinity, the Godhead who came into the world virgin, born, becoming the eternal God-man, believing that Christ has come in the flesh. He believes that Jesus lived a sinless, perfect, holy life, never committed a sin, never was guilty of any sin ever, that Jesus spoke only the true words of God, that Jesus had all of the attributes of God, that Jesus did miracles and demonstrated His creative power over the material world, that He did miracles with regard to demons and demonstrated His tremendous authority and omnipotence over the spiritual world of demons as well as holy angels, which He could have called legions of had He wanted. Now if you believe, then you believe what the Spirit prompts you to believe, that Jesus died on the cross as an innocent substitute, as a spotless Lamb, one who never did any evil at all, but only pleased God. He died there as a substitute in your place and that He rose again from the dead the third day, ascended to heaven where God seated Him at His right hand, that He sent the Holy Spirit to establish the church and indwell it, that He is now interceding for us and someday will return to establish His eternal kingdom and glory. We also believe that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone, that justification is by faith, and we have no righteousness of our own, but God's perfect righteousness is imputed to us by faith in Christ so that the Lord Jesus is our righteousness. That's what we believe. Those who come to understand that, believe that, embrace that, singularly commit to that, and love the Lord Jesus Christ willingly, eagerly calling Him Lord, they submit and obey Him, those are the delivered.

Those are the delivered. And we are the ones who obey Him. In chapter 4, verse 15, he writes, whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in Him.

You have to confess the fullness of who Jesus is, what He did, and how it is that salvation in Him is applied to us. Back in chapter 3, verse 23, this is His commandment that we believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another. So what is a true Christian? He believes in the truth about Christ, which Christ Himself spoke and which the apostles as well wrote about.

And He also loves those who love Christ. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, to exalt the Word of God, and in that, the Son of God. Being delivered from darkness to light is synonymous with being delivered from the domain of Satan into the kingdom of God's beloved Son. Light, truth, synonymous with Christ. If you're in the light, in the truth, if you have had the mighty work of the Spirit of truth within you, you believe the truth, you love the truth, and you love the people of the truth. I'll close with some comments from the masterful work by Jonathan Edwards called The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God. Edwards' monumental mind had a grasp on what it meant to be a true believer. And he understood the matter of truth. He wrote, would the spirit of error in order to deceive men produce in them a high opinion of the infallible rule, that is Scripture, and incline them to think highly of it and be very familiar with it?

Question obviously implies a no answer, so wherever you go, the people are questioning the Bible, manipulating the Bible, adding to the Bible, subtracting from the Bible, that's not the spirit of truth, that's the spirit of error. Further Edwards writes, would the prince of darkness to promote his kingdom of darkness lead men to the sun? The devil has always shown a deadly spite and hatred toward that holy book, the Bible. He has done all in his power to extinguish that light and draw men away from it. He knows it to be that light by which his kingdom of darkness will be overthrown. He has for many ages experienced its power to defeat his purposes and baffle his design.

It is his constant plague, writes Edwards. It is the main weapon that Michael uses in his war with him. It is the sword of the Spirit that pierces him and conquers him.

It is that sharp sword that proceeds out of the mouth of him who sat on the horse with which he smites his enemies. Every text is a dart to torment the old serpent. He has felt the stinging smart thousands of times, therefore he is engaged against the Bible and hates every word in it.

We may be sure that he never will attempt to raise person's esteem of it or their affections for it. If you see people who are committed only to the Word of God, solely to the Word of God, wholly to the Word of God, that's the work of the Spirit of God. And when they take from the Word, add to the Word, elevate themselves higher than the Word, they say, well there's this revelation, that revelation, this counsel, that edict, this document, there's this vision, this revelation, this intuition that elevates itself above the Word.

Whenever they say there is light somewhere else, they are demonstrating the Spirit of darkness. And then Edwards wrote, the true Spirit confirms people in things that are agreeable to sound doctrine. The Word who works thus operates as the Spirit of truth. He represents things as they truly are. He brings men to the light, for whatever makes truth manifest is light.

As the Apostle Paul observes, but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is the light that makes everything visible. And then says Edwards, the devil's kingdom is a kingdom of darkness. His kingdom is upheld and promoted only by darkness and error. Satan has all his power and dominion by darkness. Thus we read of the power of darkness and demons are called the rulers of the darkness of this world.

Whatever Spirit removes our darkness and brings us to the light, undeceives us. The Spirit who convinces us of the truth does us this great kindness. If I am brought to a site of truth and am made aware of things as they really are, my duty is immediately to thank God for it, I like this, without standing first to inquire by what means I have such a benefit, end quote.

You know why you shouldn't stand and inquire? Because there isn't any answer to the question as to why you have such a benefit other than God's grace. And Edwards then closes this little section by saying, when the operation, any spiritual operation, raises people's esteem of Jesus, it is sure a sign that it is from the Spirit of God. When they get it right about Jesus, who He is, why He came, what He did, and how we trust Him for salvation, that's of God. The absolute truth about Jesus is the only thing the Holy Spirit ever promotes, understand?

So anything other than that is from the Spirit of error. True believers then believe all the claims of Jesus. They believe all the writings of the apostles. They love the truth in Jesus. They love the truth in Scripture, and they love the people who love the truth because the truth is our domain. The light is where we live.

Those people who are content to sit in a system of darkness, they don't know the truth, or they don't love the truth, and they don't love the people of the truth. That's the first area of deliverance. Pray with me. What can we say, Father? As Jonathan Edwards put it, we can't just stand around to try to figure out how it was that we came to the knowledge of the truth. All we can do is fall on our face and thank You. Thank You that once we were darkness and now we are light, that once we knew only error and now we know truth, the truth about Christ, the truth of apostolic doctrine, and we love the people of the truth because we are subjects of the King of truth who dwell in the kingdom of light.

Oh, how glorious it is. Father, if there are people here who are in error, people who are in association with error, may they understand the serious, serious plight of being captive to the devil, of being children of the devil who is a liar from the beginning and a deceiver and who sends out lies and deceptions through all of his demons. Lord, bring us to the truth, the truth of Scripture as made clear to our hearts by the Spirit of truth. We see and we glorify the Holy Spirit in His mighty work of transforming us, of delivering us from darkness to light. That is His true work, and we praise Him for it and we thank Him for it. That's John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, showing you what it means to be delivered by God. That's the title of his current study on Grace To You. Now, John, as you've been talking about the work of Christ in a believer's life, I imagine there are listeners out there who wonder about how God took hold of your life and how you came to Christ.

So let me ask you a question that I rarely ask you. Just give us your testimony. Well, I was raised in a pastor's home. My mom and dad loved the Lord.

There's no question about that. My dad had integrity in the ministry. He was a godly, good, and faithful pastor my whole life.

I never saw anything in his life but consistency. What he preached is what he lived, and the same with my mom. And so I saw a model of Christianity, and I would add to that I was loved. I was deeply loved.

I was loved, I suppose, as well as any parent could love a kid. And so I felt like everything that I received from my parents in terms of modeling Christianity and loving me the way they did validated the work of the gospel in their lives. So I never resisted the gospel. I never fought against it.

I never had a time of unbelief. But there was a time when I needed to come personally to Christ. And as I remember, I was about nine or ten, and I had done something that was wrong, and I knew it was wrong with some other kids. And it just struck me that with all the influence, with all the love that I had received from my parents and how much I loved them, something was wrong in my life, that I would do what I did. And so I went to my dad at one point, and I said, I really need to be saved.

I see the sin in my life. And at that point, I believed the Lord saved me nine or ten, something like that. And I felt like through my teenage years I was being blessed by the Lord. I was experiencing the Lord in my life. I loved the preaching of the Word, but there were lots of battles in my life because my faith was still weak and because there were temptations that I was struggling with. Later on, after my freshman year in university, I had a car accident that almost took my life, and that catapulted me to a level of commitment to Christ that was really life-changing. I realized that I wasn't in control of my life, and I needed to make sure that I was living it to His glory. So I don't have a testimony about some dramatic change, but that's okay.

I don't need that kind of testimony. The Lord protected me from that because I often think that in the ministry that I'm in now, I wouldn't want to have some kind of past that could be dragged up and discredited me. So the Lord was in some ways faithfully protecting me for what He would want me to do, and that protection even extends into my life now because people can't say, Well, I knew Him when this and this happened and this. So the Lord was very protective in my life.

Right, that's encouraging. I love the way God drew you to Himself. So thank you, John, for your testimony. Speaking of how God draws people to Himself, friend, if God has used grace to you to bring you into His kingdom, would you let us know?

Tell us your story when you contact us today. Write to Grace To You, Post Office Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412, or email us at letters at gty.org. Again, if John's Bible teaching helped point you to Christ, let us know.

That's a great encouragement for us. Our address again, Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412, and our email, letters at gty.org. Also let me take some time to highlight one of our free Bible study tools. It's called the Study Bible app. It's a free app that gives you the text of Scripture in the New American Standard, King James, and English Standard versions, along with instant access to thousands of free study aids. That includes blog articles, devotionals, and more than thirty-five hundred of John's sermons. And for a nominal price, you can add the notes from our flagship resource, the MacArthur Study Bible.

To download the app, again it's called the Study Bible, visit our website, gty.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Be watching for Grace To You television this Sunday and then join us Monday when John looks at how you both enjoy the blessings the world offers and keep yourself free from the world's corruption. Don't miss another thirty minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You!