Examine Yourselves Whether You Be in the Faith, Part 2

God is patient. God is kind. God is good. God is gracious. in Scripture. There, Jesus warns that some people who believe they're going to heaven will one day hear Jesus say, I never knew you.

Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. How do you know if those words might apply to you? You may believe God exists. You may read your Bible regularly, serve your local church faithfully. But is any of that proof that you're truly saved?

Bottom line, how can you be sure you're a Christian? Consider that today on Grace To You as John MacArthur gets to the heart of this issue of genuine salvation in his series titled, Examine Yourself. And now here's John with today's lesson. Look with me for a minute before we examine the book of Hebrews to John chapter 12. In John chapter 12 and verse 32, our Lord said, And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me.

This He said, signifying what death He should die. The people answered Him, We've heard out of the law that Christ abides forever and how sayest Thou the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is the Son of Man? In other words, we've heard that the Messiah will live.

What are you talking about that He would be crucified? What Son of Man is this? Then Jesus said unto them, and listen, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you. For he that walketh in darkness knoweth not where he goeth. While ye have light, believe in the light that ye may be the sons of light. These things spoke Jesus and departed and did hide Himself from them.

What an illustration. He says, You better believe while you can believe. And then to illustrate that, He went and hid where they could never find Him so that they might comprehend what it would mean not to have Him around. And verse 37 says, Even though He had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on Him, that the saying of Isaiah, The prophet might be fulfilled which he spoke, Lord, who hath believed our report?

And to whometh the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore they could not believe because that Isaiah said again, He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their heart that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart and be converted and I should heal them. Now notice, Jesus says, You better believe when you can believe.

You better enter the light while the light is available for the time will come when it isn't around. And then He illustrated it and the prophecy of Isaiah came to pass. They wouldn't believe, therefore they couldn't believe and God closed out the day of grace.

That's what Isaiah is saying. This was Jesus' last appeal, by the way, a one last invitation in the gospel of John. The day of grace was passing and in the very next chapter He meets with His disciples the day before His trial and ultimately His death. This is His last invitation.

He says, I'm not going to be here very long. You better act while you can act before you are confirmed in the sovereignty of God in your unbelief. In John chapter 8, and He here says the same thing at least three times. In verse...well, look at verse 12. Then spoke Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world. He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life.

That's the first invitation. He's saying if you follow Me, you can walk in light. But then He says in verse 21, I go My way and ye shall seek Me and shall die in your sins. Where I go, ye cannot come.

This is the second invitation, really, because it's a warning that if they don't accept the light while the light is available, there will come a day when the light is not available. And then in verse 24, He repeats the warning a third time. I said therefore unto you that ye shall die in your sins, for if ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins. You see, Jesus was always extending His love but always telling them there was a limit. Go back to chapter 7, verse 33. Then said Jesus unto them, Yet a little while am I with you, just a little while. And then I go unto Him that sent Me. Ye shall seek Me and shall not find Me and where I am there ye cannot come.

It's the same idea. You know, before God sent the flood in Genesis chapter 6 and verse 3, God said, My Spirit will not always strive with man. In other words, there comes a time when God runs out of patience. And then came the flood, and the whole wide world was destroyed. In Isaiah chapter 63, we find it illustrated in verses 7 to 10. The prophet Isaiah says, I will mention the loving kindness of the Lord and the praises of the Lord according to all that the Lord hath bestowed on us and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which He hath bestowed on them according to His mercies and according to the multitude of His loving kindnesses. What a verse.

It talks about the loving kindness and the praise and the goodness and the mercy of God. For God said, Surely they are My people, children that will not lie. So He was their Savior. What a picture of God. He was so loving. He was so merciful. He was so kind.

He was so gracious. He was their Savior. And verse 9, In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them. In His love and in His pity He redeemed them, and He bore them, and He carried them all the days of old.

Oh, what a picture. What a loving Savior. But verse 10 comes like a shock, like a lightning bolt out of the blue to shatter the peace of the scene. But they rebelled and vexed His Holy Spirit. Therefore He was turned to be their enemy and He fought against them.

Can you believe that kind of change? In one little three-verse section, God is patient. God is kind. God is good. God is gracious. God is merciful. God is long-suffering. God is not willing that any should perish, but God's mercy has limits.

You better come to the light while the light is available. That's the message. Now the book of Hebrews gives us a graphic look at this wonderful truth, this wonderful warning invitation of God. I want you to look at Hebrews, and we're going to look at what it has to say.

Let's look at warning passages very briefly and see what they say. Chapter 2 verses 1 to 4 is the first one. Chapter 2 verses 1 to 4. Therefore, therefore, what does therefore mean? It takes us back to chapter 1, and that's all about the majesty of Jesus Christ, all about the glory of Jesus Christ, all about the One who is ascended to be, the One at the majesty, the right hand of the majesty of God, the One who is better than the angels, Jesus Christ Himself.

Because we've learned what we've learned about Jesus Christ, because we now know who He is, because we now know how God has exalted Him, because of who He is in His majesty. Therefore, we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them...what?...slip. 4 verse 2 says, If the word spoken by angels was steadfast...now what was the word spoken by angels? That was the Old Testament law. That was the law of God given by God at Mount Sinai.

That law was ministered by angels. So if the Old Testament law, if the Mosaic law, if the Ten Commandments spoken by angels was steadfast or binding on people, and every transgression and disobedience of the Mosaic law received a just recompense of reward, in other words, if God gave the Mosaic law and demanded absolute obedience and judgment on everybody who disobeyed, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation as that which is in the New Covenant in Jesus Christ, you see? If the people under the Mosaic economy never escape the judgment of God, what makes you think you will? If the people who lived in the Old Testament before Christ didn't escape God's judgment and God was more tolerant then, what makes you think you'll escape because you reject the great salvation in Jesus Christ?

That's what he's saying. And the us here, we ought to give, he uses the word we, and he uses it again in verse 3, how shall we escape if we? The idea...this plurality is Jewish in the context.

It's national. If we who are of Israel, who have heard the gospel, if we know that those under the old economy didn't escape when they denied God's Word, what makes us think we'll get away if we deny God's Word? It's a powerful passage.

Certain judgment will result. It says in verse 2, every transgression and every disobedience received a just recompense of reward and it's a negative reward. Do you think you can turn your back on Jesus Christ? Do you think you can neglect so great a salvation as He offers and still escape?

No. They couldn't even escape under the old covenant, let alone under the new. Let's look at the second warning in Hebrews chapter 5 and 6. Hebrews chapter 5 and 6.

We don't have time to go into all of this in detail. Let me just...let's just look at chapter 6 and we'll skip some of the earlier part. But he's saying to them, verse 12, this is a warning, when for the time you ought to be teachers, you have need that one teach you the first principles of the oracles of God. By the way, the oracles of God are the Old Testament laws. In other words, he says, you people, you ought to be teachers of the gospel. You have enough information to be teachers of the gospel, but instead of that, somebody needs to teach you the Old Testament laws again.

You are primitive when you should be advanced. You haven't responded to what you've heard. Now go over to verse 4 and he warns them.

It is impossible...do you see that word? It is impossible for those who were once enlightened, have tasted of the heavenly gift, were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, have tasted the good Word of God and the powers of the age to come if they shall fall away to renew them again unto repentance, seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to an open shame. Now listen, this is a warning again. This is not to Christians and this is not to flagrant, blatant non-Christians. This is to the fence-sitter.

This is to the person who says, I know it's true but I never have made the commitment. And what he's saying is this, look, if you have been enlightened...in other words, enlightenment is a mental comprehension, mental understanding. If you have tasted the heavenly gift and who is the heavenly gift but the Spirit of God and how had they tasted the Spirit of God? Because the gospel preached to them had been confirmed by signs and wonders and gifts of the Spirit, it says in chapter 2 verse 3 and 4. So they had had the Spirit of God working in their midst. They had tasted of it. They hadn't really eaten and partaken. They had tasted of it.

And in a full sense they needed to partake but they were sort of partial partakers and partial tasters. They even tasted the Word of God. They tasted the power of the age to come. You see, the miracles that were done in the early church and in the miracles that were done in the apostolic time were like a forerunner to the miracles to be done in the Kingdom and the miracles, of course, that Christ will do when He returns. And so He says to them, you've had your mind enlightened.

You've had a taste and you've been in on what the Spirit has done. And you know, many Jews had why the Holy Spirit was the power through Christ that fed the five thousand and everybody that ate the fish and the bread that day when Jesus fed them was taking in what the Spirit had done. They had partaken of His miracles.

They had partaken of His teaching. They had partaken of His Word but they never made it their own. And what He says is, if you've had all of this revelation and you've tasted and you've heard and you've seen it and the power has been displayed and you turn your back on it and you fall away, it's impossible to get you saved. The point being this, if you reject when you have full revelation, you're hopeless because what else can God do, right? By the way, no term in verse 4 or 5, not the term enlightened, taste of the heavenly gift, partakers of the Holy Spirit, taste of the good Word, or the powers of the age to come. None of those terms is ever used anywhere, anytime in the Bible for salvation. They are not salvation terms. They are terms talking about exposure to the gospel and exposure to the power of God and exposure to the life of Christ. And they had seen enough and heard enough and if with all that information they would fall away, they could never be saved because, listen, beloved, if you don't accept Jesus Christ when you have full light, you'll never accept Him because He can't do any more than that.

And so it's a severe warning, certain judgment. Then He gives an illustration in verses 7 and 8. For the earth, He says, which drinketh in the rain that cometh often upon it and bringeth forth herbs, fit for them by whom it is tilled, receives blessing from God.

Isn't that a beautiful thing? He says the earth drinks in the rain that comes often on it and brings forth herbs fit for them by whom it is tilled. In other words, the crop is produced and it's a blessing from God when the rain falls.

And you know what the picture is? It's the picture of a ready heart and the rain of the gospel falls and the ready heart takes in the rain and it brings forth the fruit of salvation. But verse 8 says, But that which bears thorns and briars is rejected and is near unto cursing whose end is to be burned. The rain is spiritual truth. The rain is the gospel.

The rain is spiritual enlightenment. One piece of ground produces good herbs. One produces thorns and thorns are the fruit of religious effort.

You see, it's a works righteousness system. They don't produce nothing. They produce the wrong thing, you see. They're very busy, very productive. But it isn't herbs to eat, it's thorns and all you want to do with thorns is stay out of their way.

They're useless. Religious self-effort is cursed. And so he says to these Jews, listen, you can stay in your Judaism and you can crank out your self-righteousness and when it's all said and done, you're going to have thorns. Or you can take in the rain of this enlightenment, you can hear the gospel and you can believe it in your heart and let it go into the soil of your life and produce the thing that God wants it to produce. The choice is yours.

The choice is yours. That's another warning. Let me take you to the third warning in the tenth chapter. The third warning is in the tenth chapter in verse 26.

And here's the same thought. He's going to hit these fence sitters again, these people who keep coming but never make a commitment, these people who hear it all but never do anything about it, these people who say it's all wonderful and I believe it and I'm going to do it someday, I'm going to do it...he hits them again and he says, look, for if we sin willfully...and the sin here is the sin of rejection...if you willfully reject after you've received the knowledge of the truth, you haven't received salvation, you've received the knowledge of it, you know what it is, you understand it. And if you willfully reject it, then there is no more sacrifice for sin. He's saying to the Jew, you can kill all the lambs you want, you can slaughter all the goats you want, you can kill all the bullocks you want, you can slay all the turtledoves you want, but there is no more sacrifice for sin if you reject Jesus Christ. There's nothing. If you know the truth and you turn your back on Christ, you do nothing about Christ.

There is no other thing that you can do. There is no other sacrifice. And you see these Jewish people, they didn't want to come to Christ. They were afraid of being un-synagogued, you know, put out of the synagogue and losing all their friends and all their family and so they would go on in their Judaism and they wouldn't come to Christ, but they'd keep up their sacrifices.

And he says, that's ridiculous. If you turn your back on Jesus Christ, if you sin willfully after the knowledge of the truth, you're damned because nothing can do for you what only Christ can do. And what will happen, verse 27 says it, a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries. In other words, God is going to come down on judgment. Now you say, well you know, I think that God will probably be easier on the people who really knew the most and came to church the most and got the most information. You want to know the truth?

He'll be harder on them. The less you know, the better it will be for you in eternity. And if you have exposed yourself by God's grace to the fullness of God's truth, you are the most responsible of all. And the fiery judgment is waiting for you if you reject Jesus Christ. And that's exactly what he says, verse 28, 29. He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses. Listen, if you just despise the Mosaic law, the law that was given on the earth, the law that came from Mount Sinai, if you just despise the tables of stone, you were slain.

Why, of how much sorer punishment? Suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy who has trodden underfoot the Son of God? If you violated Moses and you died, what do you think is going to happen if you violate the Son of God?

You see, that's the point. If you have counted the blood of His covenant, some unholy thing, if you've done despite to the Spirit of grace, you see, to disobey law was to die. To treat that covenant with disrespect was to die.

To violate that law was to die. Oh, how much more severe is the punishment for the one who turns his back on the Son of God and counts the blood of His covenant an unholy thing and despite...does despite to the Spirit of grace, for we know that He hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense the Lord. And then verse 31, It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Boy, that's pretty strong stuff. That's a warning that if you know the truth and you turn your back onto it, vengeance is mine, I will repay. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Such a serious problem. And so he warns again that if you know the truth and you don't receive it, there's a deeper and greater responsibility because you're trampling under your feet the Son of God.

Can you imagine that? You say, I would never do that. I just haven't made up my mind yet. No, that's not how the Bible looks at it.

You may see it as not making up your mind. God sees it as treading underfoot the Son of God. There's a fourth warning in Hebrews chapter 12, verse 25, and it sums up basically the same thought.

It's the same thing. It says, See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh. By the way, that's God. That's God.

He's the main speaker in this chapter. You better refuse not God. Now listen, for if they escaped not who refused Him that spoke on earth, much more shall not we escape if we turn away from Him that speaketh from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth. But now He hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only but also heaven. You know, when God spoke from the earth at the giving of the law and God uttered His voice from Mount Sinai, right, on the earth. God spoke from the earth and the mountain shook and rocked and reeled. And He says if they didn't escape when they refused the one that spoke on earth, what makes you think you're going to escape when you speak the...when you refuse the one who speaks from heaven?

You say, Who is that? That's God. God said from heaven several times and the voice came out of heaven saying, This is My beloved Son, hear ye Him.

You see that? In the Old Testament God spoke out of an earthly mountain and said, Do this law. In the New Testament God spoke out of heaven and said, Hear My Son.

And if they didn't escape when they refused the voice of God on earth, what makes you think you'll escape if you refuse the God who spoke from heaven? He sums it up in verse 29 by saying, For our God is a consuming fire. He is a consuming fire and someday He'll shake not only a mountain but He'll shake the very heavens in His judgment.

That's a warning. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur. Thanks for being with us. Along with teaching each day on this radio station, John also serves as Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, and his current study is looking at the biblical command to examine yourself. Now you know, John, thinking about what it means to examine yourself, we received a call on our Q&A line that I'd like you to address. I imagine this is a question that lots of Christians struggle with, and in fact maybe all Christians do at one point or another, so let me play this question and then you respond. Hello, John. My name is Thomas.

I live in the St. Louis area. If a person is a believer that keeps going back to similar sins, they repent, repent, repent, constantly repent, read the Word, study the Word, pray, but they keep falling short of the glory of God. They keep falling. There's not a lot of victory, and I want to know, do they have salvation? Thank you. God bless you. God bless your ministry. Well, thank you, Thomas, and yeah, that's a hard question, and I understand it, because it can be so discouraging to have those, I guess what the Bible calls, besetting sins, those common sins that you go back to.

Could I help you with that by saying this? Do you remember when Jesus was speaking to Peter, and Peter asked Jesus if he should forgive somebody three times, and Jesus said no. Forgive them seventy times seven.

And there's even indication that it could be seventy times seven a day. So the Lord understands that sinners repeat their sins, and if the Lord says to Peter, you need to forgive seventy times seven, then that's the kind of forgiveness that the Lord himself offers. It's discouraging to us, I know, to fall back into those sins, and we ought to not get into places where those things can happen, and we need to keep our minds set on the Word of God and be in prayer to fight against those things. But even the Lord knows that we need a lot of forgiveness and that we need to be forgiven maybe seventy times seven a day. So I think the grace of God is great enough to cover those sins. It's your desire to be delivered from them that is the evidence of your salvation. It's your hatred of that sin that shows that you're a new creation. It's your desire to honor the Lord.

It's your affection for Him. It's your weariness with your sin. Look, Paul said that, I do what I don't want to do, I don't do what I want to do, wretched man that is in me.

When you see it as wretchedness that is in you, that's the view of a person who's been redeemed. So I hope that helps encourage you, even in the battle. Yeah, thank you, John.

That encourages me. And thank you, Thomas, for your call. Now, if you have a question for John, I encourage you to call our Q&A line. You can just leave a message with your question and you may hear John answer it. Contact us today. The number for the Q&A line is 661-295-6288. Again, you simply leave a message with your question and you may hear John answer it on a future broadcast. Our number one more time, 661-295-6288.

You'll also find that number, that's the Q&A line, at our website, gty.org. And friend, a reminder that when we air John's lessons, we're not just teaching the content of a Bible passage. We're teaching Christian men and women how to approach God's Word on their own and how to evaluate what others are teaching. This vital ministry is possible because of the support of listeners like you. And if you want to have a part in equipping people with biblical truth they need, mail your donation to Grace To You, Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412. Or you can call us at 800-55-GRACE or go to our website, gty.org.

That's gty.org. And thank you especially for your prayers. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace To You staff, I'm Phil Johnson, encouraging you to be here at the same time tomorrow when John helps you determine from Scripture where you stand with God. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on Grace To You.