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 who is a Christian.

And with the lesson now, here is John. 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, and there are those that occur on the human level. There are those which affect the way God views us, and there are those which affect the way we view God. There are realities in our salvation that are not experiential. That is, you can't feel them, you can't see them, you don't manifest them. There are realities in our salvation that we could say are divine perspectives or divine directives or divine adjudications or verdicts or decisions or choices or acts. As such, they are not manifest in our lives, such as justification, which is God declaring us righteous by virtue of the application of the righteousness of Christ to us because our sins have been paid for by Him on the cross, such as redemption, an act by which God buys us back from sin and death and hell.

That encompasses the idea of the ransom. There is also the idea of adoption. The Bible tells us that in salvation we are adopted into the family of God.

That is an official new legal status. And then there is the great truth of reconciliation, that the sinner has the enmity between himself and God removed so that he is suitable for God's presence and eternal life. 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 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, 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 them 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. 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 is 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 hearts 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 some day 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 Spirit 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. It 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. And 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, how you came to Christ.

So let me ask you to take a couple of minutes here and give us your testimony. Well, like many people, I had the privilege of being raised in a Christian family. I was the firstborn son, followed by three sisters, and I was born into the family of a pastor and an evangelist. My dad, Jack MacArthur, was a seminary graduate who came to Southern California after his seminary training with my mom, settled here, pastored churches in Southern California, and also was an evangelist and traveled across the United States preaching in evangelistic meetings. So from the time of my birth, all I ever knew was the exposure to the things that concerned the gospel and the Lord Jesus Christ. I always say about my parents, of course, they weren't perfect.

No one is, but they were consistent. I was blessed with the privilege of having a dad who preached the truth and then lived it. He was never anything at home that he wasn't in the church. He was the same man everywhere, and what he preached, he endeavored to apply in his own life. He had great joy in his relationship to Christ, and so did my mom.

It wasn't burdensome to them. It was joyous to them. He loved the Lord. He loved the Bible.

He never could get enough of it. He loved the church. He loved to preach. He loved to evangelize the lost. He loved to write books even, and he wrote some commentaries on Matthew and John and other books.

He loved to take on the cults and those who taught false doctrine. So that was the environment in which I was raised, and it wasn't just the message my dad preached. It was what he loved that had such a strong effect on me. Somewhere along the line in my life, I came to realize my own sin. I remember, as I recall, I was either nine or ten years of age, and I sat down on the steps with my dad and kind of confessed openly to him that I was a sinner and that I needed to be forgiven and I needed to be saved. I think it may well have been at that time that the Lord really saved me, and it was some years later after my freshman year in college that I survived a horrific automobile wreck that should have killed me because I was thrown out of a car going 75 miles an hour. And out of that experience, I came to grips with a much more serious view of life. You know, when you're 17, you think you're invincible until you survive something like that. And coming out of that experience, I really knew God had his hand in my life, and I said, look, Lord, life is fragile.

I want to do what you want me to do. And it comes out of that experience that I accepted what I, I guess, had known before that was likely the call of God in my life to prepare for ministry. I'm so grateful for those experiences. One good godly parent, one very difficult, an accident, but God used them both.

And we're thankful for both of them. It's encouraging to hear how God drew you to himself. So thank you, John, for that. And speaking of how God draws people to himself, friend, if God has used Grace To You to bring you into his kingdom, we would love to hear more about that. Tell us your story when you contact us today. You can write to us at Grace To You, post office box 4000, Panorama City, California 91412. Or you can simply email us at letters at gty.org. Again, if John MacArthur's Bible teaching has helped point you to Christ, let us know, because that's a tremendous encouragement for us.

Our address again, box 4000, Panorama City, California 91412, and our email, letters at gty.org. Also, let me take a moment 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 3500 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 Grace To You television this Sunday, and then join us Monday when John looks at how to enjoy the blessings the world offers while keeping yourself free from the corruption of this world. Don't miss another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on the next Grace To You.