With the end near, one of the most (if not the most) important topics and doctrines for us to understand and to get straight and to also teach and encourage and witness to others is that of salvation and the order of salvation. What does it mean to be able to live forever and to not be “cut off,” as we heard in the earlier study this morning? What does it mean to be able to have eternal life and to live in the new heaven and the new earth?
The Scriptures have a phrase that comes up over and over again: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.” This is one of the phrases and one that I do, in particular, want to take a look at today.
We can never over-emphasize this. We can never un-do or out-do anything that God has written about His salvation and change it and switch it or to un-organize the way in which God has said this in Scripture and the certain order in which He has given us concerning how salvation occurs in a human soul.
So we want to take a look today at a couple of Scriptures and re-emphasize, re-educate ourselves, and re-familiarize ourselves with what it means to really have eternal life and whether or not we can know that we have eternal life.
You may be sitting there today thinking, “I am saved,” or you could be sitting there today saying, “I do not think that I am saved.” And there could easily be a third option in which you are sitting there today and thinking, “I hope I am saved. I do not know for certain, but I surely hope that I am saved.”
No matter which of those three conditions you are in right now, whether you are a young person, a young adult, or an older person, it does not matter your age, you can have this question in your mind and not be certain and not be sure.
But what do the Scriptures say? When speaking about salvation, probably the most important word that we need to understand is “believe,” because we read about believing on the Lord Jesus Christ over and over again.
So let us take a look at our first reference today in Romans 10:9-10. It reads:
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe…
Here is the word “believe.”
…in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
We see “believe” twice in this passage, so we have to figure out what this means:
That if thou shalt…believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness…
And what does God mean by “the heart”? We need to study this today to understand more of what this means when we see this in the Scriptures in order to get the definition that God has in view of what “the heart” really is.
If I am a surgeon, I know what the physical heart is. When a surgeon has to do open-heart surgery on someone, that is one thing. But what does God really mean by the word “heart”?
In the phrase, “believe in thine heart,” the word “believe” is the verb form of the noun “faith.” You probably know that there is a faith that we can exercise. In the Scriptures, it talks about our faith and our believing and how we have faith and that our faith is a work.
As we heard in the earlier study today, there is nothing that we can do in regard to salvation. We cannot work for or earn our salvation. But as Greg told us, we can cry out to God for mercy, that He might save us and give us eternal life. We know that our faith, my faith, is faith that comes out of me, but this is something different.
So I want us to look in 1 Thessalonians 1 to reiterate the fact that this is a work that I do when I am the one who is generating belief within my own being. In 1 Thessalonians 1:3, it says:
Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love…
This defines the faith that these people had as a work, the work of their faith.
The best verse, though, if you ever need to really understand what your faith ultimately is, is Ephesians 2:8-9. These verses are quoted over and over again, but let us pay special attention to what it says about faith here. Remember, “believe” is the verb form of the noun “faith.” So let us understand what is being said here in Ephesians 2:8:
For by grace are ye saved through faith…
Somehow the grace that saves me comes through faith, and the rest of the verse gives us the definition of faith:
…and that not of yourselves…
So it cannot be your faith that is going to generate the grace of God to save you. It says:
…it is the gift of God:
This is contrasting your faith—which is something that you do—with God’s gift. So “your work of faith” is in contradistinction to “the gift of God,” as it goes on to say in verse 9, Ephesians 2:9:
Not of works…
So verse 9 reiterates that your faith is a work. We just read this in 1 Thessalonians 1:3, and Ephesians 2:8-9 reiterates this point. It is “not of works,” because the faith that is of yourselves is work, plus it says here:
…lest any man should boast.
This is because if it was due to your faith, then you could boast, “I understood this. I read. I have an intellect. I am strong. I am spiritual. I am religious,” or whatever. But God does not want any boasting, so it is not your faith. Your faith is not what is in view when the Bible talks about believing with the heart unto righteousness, as we read in Romans 10.
So what does it mean then to “believe in thine heart”? The first passage that we looked at was Romans 10:9-10. Remember, we saw there:
That if thou…shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness…
What does it mean to “believe in thine heart” then? Is that not me? Is that not my feelings, my emotions, my everything?
Well, the Bible tells us something in Jeremiah 17:9 that most of us are probably familiar with. If not, I am going to read it and you can look this up yourself if you would like. The book of Jeremiah is shortly after the Psalms, and Jeremiah 17:9 says:
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
So if I believe with my heart, can I really trust in that? Does this give me hope and confidence or something that I can trust in? It cannot, because my heart is “desperately wicked” and it is “deceitful.” So my heart deceives me.
What is sin? It is deceit. My heart feels like I want to do something or that I want something; but if I do it and it is sinful, then I will find out later that I was deceived.
Is this not what happened with Adam and Eve? They were deceived. They thought that they were doing something that was going to be good for them, that they would be like God and that they would know more. But as soon as they took the fruit, that was it. They were deceived and it wound up being the opposite of what they thought.
This is because sin always and all of the time produces the opposite of its intended effect; always. So our hearts are deceitful and for me to believe with my heart is not something that I am going to be trust, because I have a deceitful heart.
Jesus told us in the New Testament in Mark 7 another thing about the heart that is important to recognize before I start putting any trust or faith in my heart and what I do with it and how I believe and what I think. In Mark 7:21-23, Jesus said:
For from within, out of the heart of men…
In other words, your heart is inside. It is what is in you. It is not the physical heart that beats and pumps blood.
For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed…
Here is what comes from your heart:
…evil thoughts…
Here is that deceit again.
…adulteries, fornications, murders, Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit…
These things are really summed up as deceit.
…lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.
So we are defiled by our own hearts. To believe with my heart, the one that is my emotions and thoughts and feelings, is deceitful and wicked. Jeremiah said that it is “desperately wicked.” So it is not something that is trustworthy.
But the Bible says that somehow “with the heart man believeth unto righteousness.” It says that if we “believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”
So what does this mean? I have just said that your heart is deceitful. My heart is deceitful; therefore, I cannot believe or trust it.
Well, the Bible says that we have to believe “with all thine heart,” and so now there is a qualifier; now there is something a little bit more distinct. I need to believe with all my heart.
Let us go back to the book of Jeremiah in the Old Testament and look at Jeremiah 29. In Jeremiah 29:11-13, God says:
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me…
When?
…when ye shall search for me with all your heart.
So this is when you are going to find God. It is when you seek Him “with all of your heart.”
Now, what does this mean? Is it only in some of my heart if I think that I am saved or if I think that I accepted or received Christ or I believed on Him? I intellectually believe Him, I read the Bible, I understand it, maybe my parents teach me or I listen to programming, is that what does it? What does it mean “with all your heart”? And what does it mean, as it says here in Jeremiah 29:12:
…and I will hearken unto you.
And then in Jeremiah 29:13, what does this mean:
And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.
Let us go to Deuteronomy 4 to learn more about “all thy heart.” Deuteronomy 4:29 says:
But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him…
Here we are again reading about seeking God and finding Him:
…if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.
The Bible is telling us that we can find God if we seek Him with all of our heart.
So how is this different than me just believing with my heart, whatever that means? Is it possible to believe with less than all of my heart? Can you think of anyone in the Bible who believed with less than all of his heart?
Let us go to Acts 8. Do you remember Simon the sorcerer? You are going to see here with this individual that you can make a distinction between believing your self versus believing with all of your heart, because this is the huge difference between having eternal life and not. So listen up. This was when Philip was in Samaria doing miracles and where we read about Simon the sorcerer. We read in Acts 8:9-12:
But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery…
Which is witchcraft.
…and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one: To whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is the great power of God. And to him they had regard, because that of long time he had bewitched them with sorceries. But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.
Listen to what we read in verse 13, Acts 8:13:
Then Simon himself believed also: and when he was baptized, he continued with Philip, and wondered, beholding the miracles and signs which were done.
Looking at verse 13, can someone pick out the operative pronoun that tells us what Simon believed with? It was something other than all his heart. Did anyone pick that out? It was “himself.” “Himself” is a pronoun. “Simon himself believed.” Notice how that was emphasized.
What did Ephesians 2:8 say? It said:
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
But here it emphasizes that Simon believed himself. It really looked like he was saved. He even got baptized. However, later on in the chapter we read that he was not saved.
In Acts 8:18-21, we read:
And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, Saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost. But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter…
In other words, he was “cut off,” as we heard earlier from Greg’s study. It continues to tell us why:
…for thy heart is not right in the sight of God.
So he did not believe with all of his heart. His heart was “not right.” It was deceitful. It had even deceived himself.
Then we read in Acts 8:22:
Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee.
Then Peter said to him in the next verse, Acts 8:23:
For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity.
These are phrases that mean that you are unsaved. If you are “in the bond of iniquity,” you are still a slave of Satan.
So Simon himself believed with less than all of his heart. He was not saved, even though he thought that he was.
A lot of people today “believe.” They call themselves “Christians” and they believe themselves to be saved. In the world’s population, let us say that there are six and a half billion people and about two billion profess to be Christians. Yet Jesus said that only “a remnant shall be saved.” One-third is really not a definition of “remnant.”
When you go to a carpet shop and you get a remnant, you are not getting one-third or one-half of a roll of carpet. You are getting just a small section. A remnant is a small piece.
Jesus said, “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name…and in thy name done many wonderful works?” He will say what? He will say, “I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”
The four billion who do not profess to be Christians are not the ones who are going to be saying, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name?” It is out of the two billion who profess to be Christians but who are not saved, because they are believing with their own hearts, which is half the heart and not the “whole heart.” They are the ones to whom He is going to say, “I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”
So if the heart is so deceitful, how can you know that you are saved? Can you know this?
Let us look at Acts 16:31. Do you remember the jailer at Philippi? In Acts 16:31, the apostles are answering the jailer:
And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.
So we have already seen that his faith, his believe is not going to get him saved, but the Scripture in this verse does not qualify that. If you just read this verse out of its context, you can have a preacher in a stadium or in a big gathering announce from the pulpit, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ! If you believe, walk up the aisle today and receive Christ.”
Do you see how people can read this verse and then think that? Because it says that if you do this, “thou shalt be saved.” But, you see, you have to study Scripture and compare Scripture with Scripture to understand that this is only part of it. You have to believe with your “whole heart,” not your self. Something has to happen where it is your “whole heart”; it is with all of your heart.
So now for the $64,000 question, how do I believe with my “whole heart”? Let us turn to Ezekiel 36 and read about what God says about the “whole heart.” This is the key. The operative key to unlocking the mystery of belief with my “whole heart”—not just my own belief and faith and intellect and feelings and emotions—is found in Ezekiel 36:25-26. It says:
Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean…
We are finding language hear that indicates being clean from sin, so we need to pay attention.
…from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you…
Alright. Let me ask a question before I continue reading. Believing with my “whole heart” then is synonymous with what kind of a heart? Can you think of an adjective for this heart that is now going to be my “whole heart”? New. It is a “new heart.” So the word “new” is the synonym that I need for my “whole heart.” Believing with my “whole heart” is now necessitating a “new heart.”
Look at Ezekiel 36:26 again:
…and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh…
The “stony heart” is the deceitful heart, the one that deceives me.
Then He says here in Ezekiel 36:26-27:
…and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
So you see here, that “new heart” comes with what? You have been given a “new heart,” but what is it made of? It is fleshly. What constitutes this “new heart” then? It is not the organ that is inside of me where I can receive a “new heart” through a heart transplant. It is what? It is God’s Spirit. This is the key. It is God’s Spirit that is in you that is the “new heart” that you get.
So if you believe with that heart, then you are saved because this is God’s Spirit within you. It is the work of God, not of you, “not of works, lest any man should boast.” It is a faith that is not of yourselves; it is “the gift of God.” The “gift of God” is His Spirit that He puts within you.
This is what Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3. This is the same thing. Do you remember what He told Nicodemus in John 3:3? He said to him:
Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
To not see the Kingdom of God means that you are “cut off,” which means that you are not saved and that you do not have eternal life. In order to have eternal life means that you have to be “born again.”
So how can I define what being “born again” means? Obviously, I am not a baby again. I am not physically changed at all in any way, shape, or form. To be “born again” means that I have a “new heart.” I have a “new heart” and that means that God’s Spirit is within me now. This is my “new heart.” This is what it means to be “born again.”
John 1:12 is where a lot of temporary Christian thinking goes wrong. So let us take a look at John 1:12 to re-emphasize the “new heart” and what it really is:
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
Does this not sound like you are to receive Christ? “Believe on Christ. Receive Him. Come down the front aisle. We will pray for you.” Right? Is this not what they say? Then they announce publicly, “These people are new Christians now.” Then they give you a hand and some literature to take home and read.
But let us look at verse 13 now. How were these people “born”? Remember what John 3:3 says, “Except a man be born again.” This is referring to being “born again” in other words. So how were they “born”? John 1:13:
Which were born, not of blood…
This means that if their father or mother were Christians, it does not automatically mean that they are.
…nor of the will of the flesh…
Remember when “Simon himself believed”? That pronoun “himself” was referring to his own emotions and spirit and thoughts. So we are not born “of the will of the flesh.” You cannot will salvation by saying, “Today I am going to do it. I am going to walk down that aisle today. Today I am going to receive Christ. Today I believe. Today I know that I am saved.” Salvation is not of your will. You cannot dictate the terms of when you believe.
…nor of the will of man…
It cannot be a Bishop or a Cardinal who touches you on the shoulder with a scepter and says, “Receive the Holy Ghost,” in confirmation, for instance. This is like when I was in seventh grade and got confirmed in the Catholic Church. I was thought to have received the Holy Ghost in that instance, but I did not; it was false.
So here it tells us that it is not “of the will of man,” because a man cannot cause you to receive and believe. However, it tells us that it is:
…but of God.
So here we go again. “Belief” and “faith” and the “whole heart” is of God. It is His Spirit in you that only He can put in you. You cannot dictate when it comes, and this is the same for everybody. The belief needs to be of God. It is His faith that saves you.
It says in Ephesians 2:8:
For by grace are ye saved through faith…
But then, whose faith is it?
…and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
So if it is not my faith that saves me, whose faith is it? My “whole heart” is now having God’s Spirit in me, but the faith that saves me is Jesus’ faith.
Look at the language in Galatians 2:16 and pay attention to the grammar in this verse. Galatians comes after the book of 2 Corinthians. Galatians 2:16:
Knowing that a man is not justified…
When you are “justified,” it means that you are cleared of guilt. You are pronounced “innocent,” so you are not a sinner anymore in God’s sight.
Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ…
This is in the genitive case and it is possessive. The faith is of Jesus Christ, so it is His faith. This is how we are justified. Listen to the next phrase:
…even we have believed in Jesus Christ…
This is my faith now. It continues:
…that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law…
So we see here that the faith that saves me is “of Christ.” This is in the genitive possessive case, so it is Christ’s faith, as in Ephesians 2:8, that I am saved by.
And here it says in Galatians 2:16:
…but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ…
Concerning the words, “we might be justified,” listen to verse 16 again. Galatians 2:16:
…we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified…
This phrase is in the subjunctive passive mood in the Greek and in the English, too, as it is written here:
…that we might be justified…
What does the subjunctive case mean? Do we have any English experts? What does subjunctive mean? Let me read you the definition of subjunctive: it is a verb form that represents an act or state not as fact but as contingent or possible. So if something is in the subjunctive mood, it means that it is something that is possible or that it is contingent upon something.
So when you look at this and you see the phrase, “even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ,” and you know that you are justified by His faith, it means that you are hoping that the possibility exists that you might be justified when you believe. Do you see?
When you believe yourself, it comes from when you read the Bible and you say, “I believe this,” but then you do not know for sure if God has put His Spirit in you. The fact is that you may not know this at the time and even today you may be sitting here not sure, but God says here:
…we have believed in Jesus Christ…
Why?
…that we might be justified by the faith of Christ…
So this mean that this is possible. This is why I “strive to enter in at the strait gate” and I “labour therefore to enter into that rest.” It is because only He can give this to me.
So in this verse, we find that it is possible that we “might be justified” if we believe. So I hope, but I do not just automatically proclaim that I am saved because I believe. That would be my faith and it is not a guarantee.
As we draw to a close today, what am I left to do? I have to believe with the “whole heart” to be saved and to have eternal life. My heart is deceitful and will deceive me and, therefore, it does not guarantee me anything. I can believe like Simon and not be saved or I can believe like Galatians 2:16 says and hope that I might be justified by His faith. So what am I left to do?
Let me read two verses. One is found in Zephaniah in the Old Testament. Zephaniah is after the book of Habakkuk. Zephaniah 2:3 says:
Seek ye the LORD, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness…
So we are seeking God. We are seeking the righteousness of God that will save us. It continues:
…it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the LORD’S anger.
So we are encouraged to seek after God, to seek His righteousness, to seek meekness, to seek Jehovah that:
…it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the LORD’S anger.
When is that anger going to be poured out with unbridled fury? It will start on May 21, 2011. So seek Him! Seek His righteousness! It may be that “ye shall be hid in the day of the LORD’S anger.”
Do you see? This is a possibility. It is a subjunctive mood again, which means that this is possible. It is not a guarantee that when you seek God that you will receive salvation, but you try and desire this. You seek this by prayer and by reading the Word, because this is how faith comes, which is His faith.
What does Lamentations 3:26 say in the Old Testament? This is a great verse. When you pray and ask God, “O Lord, have mercy on me! Save me!,” remember this verse in Lamentations 3:26, which says:
It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.
Let me repeat this because this is so important:
It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.
Do you see? You can hope for it and wait for it, but His Spirit has to give you that born-again experience where His Spirit is now in you and you now have a “whole heart” that is godly because it is His and now you seek Him.
So harmonizing these difficult passages with “believe” and “faith” is not easy; but when we do carefully follow God’s rules of comparing Scripture with Scripture, we can come to some truth. Therefore, perhaps, as you believe in God and you ask Him for this “new heart,” perhaps He may save you. Hopefully, He will.
In closing, let us read John 6:28-29. This will be our closing passage for today. John 6:28-29:
Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
You see, it has to be God; it is His work. This is because you cannot do this. You can work and have your own faith and believe intellectually with a little bit of your heart or some of your heart, but doing this with the “whole heart” is only when He makes you born again with His Spirit in you. So this is the work of God, “that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.”
You see, it has to be His work. It cannot be you. You cannot determine this or dictate this and say, “This is the day that I am going to be saved” or “I believed and, therefore, this is when I was saved.” It is “the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.”
So there it is. May God be pleased to do this work in each of your hearts, my heart, and any and everybody you witness to for the rest of your days on this earth, and may God be pleased to put His Spirit in your soul making you born again so that you now have the Spirit of God and a “whole heart” that believes in Him unto righteousness that you might be saved. Amen.