You'll take your Bibles and turn
with me to John chapter 8. John chapter 8. I know it seems daunting. But we
shall be looking at verses 30 through the remainder of this
chapter. We'll be picking out several
verses in these texts. The title of my message is, Seven
Marks of a True Believer. Seven marks of a true believer. And these marks are laid out
for us not just by anyone, but rather the Lord Jesus Christ
Himself. And then this chapter is very
remarkable. This chapter begins in such a
remarkable way as the Lord displaying His great gospel in the forgiveness
of the woman taken in adultery. You remember those Pharisees
brought her to the Lord in order to trap Him. and said, this woman
has committed adultery, she's worthy of death. The law says
she should be stoned. And yet Jesus was preaching mercy. He was preaching forgiveness.
And so then, how then can these two meet together? How can God
be just and justify the ungodly? Here it is, only in the person
of Jesus Christ, which He displayed. Jesus, by His actions toward
the Jews and this woman, testified that He alone is where these
two meet together. And as Jesus stooped the first
time, you see Him pictured as writing the law. He stooped down
the first time in justice, and He wrote the law of God. And
then He stoops the second time as a witness of His coming as
the sinner's substitute. Jesus came into the world for
this purpose. To represent a people. To be a representative man of
all those that the Father gave Him. This is evident in John
chapter 6 when Jesus said, All that the Father giveth me shall
come to me. and him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out, this is the will of him that sent me,
that of all he hath given me I should lose nothing, but raise
it up again at the last day. Jesus came as a representative
man and he did so in order to obtain both righteousness and
redemption. Righteousness and redemption
by his obedience to the law and by his death upon the cross So
then in him God did not unjustly pass by the sin of that woman. When Jesus forgave that guilty
woman, He did not pass by the law, He did not wink at the law,
He did not just excuse her sin, He came to actually pay for that
sin. He said, I am going to forgive
her because I will bear the blame. I will bear the sin. I will die
for it. Therefore, I set her free. That's what he was teaching.
And now Christ is risen from the dead and poured out his spirit. And listen what he says in verse
12 of himself. He says, Then spake 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. Sinners. Because that's who the gospel
is to, isn't it? Sinners. No one else. If you're not a sinner, the gospel
is definitely not for you. Jesus said, I came not to call
the righteous, but sinners. So if I'm talking to sinners,
are you sinners groping in the darkness? Are you blind to the
salvation of God? Are you groping in the darkness
trying to establish your own righteousness? Are you trying
to make some unholy alliance between the death of Christ and
your religious works? If you are, you're blind. You're
blind. You do not understand the gospel. The gospel is not a cooperative
effort between you and Christ. The gospel is Christ. The gospel is Christ. And it is my heart's desire this,
that the light of this gospel, the light of Christ, should shine
so brightly in your hearts that every one of you would see. that
Christ is the light of the world. He is the light of life. That he would reveal himself
to you. That's my hope, my desire, that
he reveal himself. Now what's the purpose of light? It's to reveal, isn't it? The
purpose of light is to reveal, it's a revelation. It is to scatter the night. It
is to expose what is true. We were to cut out all the lights.
I know this room is not going to be dark enough. You put yourself
in a room, you cut out all the lights. And in pure darkness,
in pure darkness, you could not see the furniture, nor the walls,
nor the doors. But as soon as the light is on,
what happens? You see what's in the room. Man by nature is blind and dead. He does not understand or know
God. He cannot know God by nature,
by intellect, by education. No man can know God. Man knows
there is a God, but he can't know how to know Him, and he
can't know how to please Him. So what is he doing? This is
a picture he's groping about in the dark, trying to build
up a righteousness to a God he doesn't even know. Man by natures are in darkness
or sinners and cannot know God, cannot please God, nor will we
please God. For the carnal mind is enmity
against God. For it is not subject to the
law of God, neither indeed can be. But when God comes to the sinner, when God comes to the sinner,
He commands the light to shine out of darkness. Now, all you
and I have is darkness. That's all we've got. There is
no light in us. By nature, there's no light until
the light is commanded to shine out of darkness. And when the
light shines out of darkness, it shines in our heart. To reveal
the knowledge, what I tell you light does, it reveals, reveals
the knowledge of the glory of God. What's the glory of God?
It's His righteousness, His holiness, His justice. Now His holiness,
justice and righteousness was always there, we just didn't
know what it was. And once we found out who God
is, we realized this right quick, we'll never please Him. That's
what light reveals. Has the light shined out of darkness
into your heart so that you would give up all efforts of trying
to merit God's favor? Because if you're still trying
to merit God's favor, you still, blind, don't know who God is.
Because you can't. There's not enough you can do.
There's never enough you can do. But when God reveals the
righteousness of God, where does He find, where do we find the
righteousness of God? in the face of Jesus Christ. That's where we find it. Oh,
there it is! There's God and His righteousness,
and there's the only one who satisfied God. Christ. We see
that when the light shines. See it in the face of Christ.
And we who have seen our sin, and Christ the only Savior for
sinners, what happens? We believe on Him. We believe on Him. He gives us the light of life. See, I'm no longer groping in
the dark. I know God. I'm not trying to tell you about
somebody I don't know. I'm not trying to even tell you
what I know. What I am telling you is who
I know. I know Him. And if you have His light, you
know Him. And so when I tell you of Him,
I'm not teaching you anything new, am I? Isn't that the promise of God?
They shall all know Me. from the least of them to the
greatest of them. So what am I doing? When I tell
you of Christ, all you're doing is saying, yep, that's Him. Yep,
that's Him. Oh, I know that. I know Him. That's right. I know Him. All
you're doing is identifying with Him. When the light shines in
your heart, it's the same light in my heart. So all we're doing
is talking about the same person. Same person. This is salvation. To believe on Jesus Christ. On Him alone. We who were dead
are now made alive. We are born again of the Spirit
of God and we follow Christ by faith. We follow Him by faith.
We trust Him completely, wholly, leaning on Him as the rock and
arm of our salvation. He is all my hope. He's everything
I've got. I have nothing else. And yet, we who believe on Him,
We who have the light of life shined in our hearts, we also
know this. When that light shines in, it
not only reveals God and His Son, but it also exposes me for
what I am. It does. It exposes me for what I am. A wretched, vile, guilty, hell-deserving
sinner. That's what it exposes me. I
see in myself no good thing. No good thing. Not in me. Not of me. We still have this sin nature
hanging about our necks like a rotting corpse. The light reveals
this, exposes this old man. And we say with Paul, in my flesh
dwelleth no good thing, O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver
me from the body of this death? I'm so thankful for God's Word
and No other religious book does
this with its patriarchs except the Bible. Complete honesty. It deals with all the saints
of God in complete honesty. God exposes their good things
as well as their evil works. Their doubts, their fears. Why? Because this is the experience
of every believer in Christ. Because of the old man, because
of the new man, we love God, we believe on Christ. But the
old man, always sinning, always bringing us down. So, we like
Asaph, at times are so prone to unbelief. You read Psalm 73
and see if you can identify with that. He said, I know God's good
to Israel. I just don't know if he's good
to me. Why? Because I was so envious of the
wicked. He was envious of the world.
David, a man after God's own heart, committed adultery and
murder to cover it up. Lot forsook Abraham and the Word
of God and pitched his tent toward Sodom. Noah got drunk and uncovered
his nakedness before his own sons. Believer, do you not feel
this same struggle and warfare in your own heart? Paul says that there is. In Galatians
5, he said, "...the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit
against the flesh." So, do you not feel so inclined to sin as
these saints? Now I'll tell you this, for the
most part, God's people may not go out and commit open adultery
or murder. But I'll tell you this, you've
at least thought about it. You've at least thought it. So
are you not as guilty? You bet you are. These thoughts and evil things,
if it doesn't happen in exercise, it's probably because we didn't
have opportunity. God kept us from it. God stopped
us from doing it. It's the only reason we haven't
done it. We fight with this flesh constantly. And what does this cause? This
struggle. What does it cause you? It causes
you to doubt your salvation. This fight is an ongoing struggle
and it brings doubts and fears into the hearts of every believer. in our text before us. Listen,
look at this in verse 30, and as he spake these words,
many believed on him. That sounds good, doesn't it? It does until you get to the
back of the chapter Look at what happened to these men that believed
on Him. And they took up stones to cast
at Him. They wanted to kill Him. By the
end of Jesus' message, they believed on Him, and then He started preaching. And when he started preaching,
they got mad, and they got angry, and they got upset, and their
true colors came out. So anyone can say, oh, I believe
in Jesus. I believe in Jesus. Really? Let's see. You want to know? Do you really want to know? I
do. I want to know. Is my faith real or am I just
pretending? Do you want to know? Come on. Let's find out. Let's find out. Our Lord Jesus Christ here, in
this text of Scripture, gives us seven distinguishing marks
of true believers in Christ. True believers in Christ. Believer
in Christ, you that struggle with sin and doubt and fears,
it is here we should come And you who do truly believe, this
will comfort you. And you who do not, may God even
by His grace use this to give you faith to believe. So first
of all, let's see this. Verse 31. These, they believed
on Him. And Jesus said to those Jews
which, quote, believed on Him, He said, If you continue in My
Word, Then are you my disciples." Here's a mark of everyone who
has true faith in Christ. They continue in His Word. These were some Jews who professed
to believe. Now, Jesus knows His sheep. He
knows who believes on Him and who doesn't. For it was He who
created faith in His people. And all who are true believers,
Jesus says this, you will continue in my word if you're my disciple. It was by the word of God that
we heard of Christ. It was by this chosen means of
preaching the gospel we heard. This is the means God has chosen
to save His people through the foolishness of preaching. Whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How shall
they call on Him in whom they have not heard? How shall they
believe on Him in whom they have not heard? And how shall they
hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except
they be sent? So then, faith cometh how? By hearing, and hearing by the
Word of God. This is the means God chose.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 1, 1 Corinthians chapter 1, Paul said this, Christ
sent me not to baptize. Well, Paul, isn't baptism important?
Yeah. It's an ordinance of Christ. But that's not my purpose. Remember,
I told you, keep the main thing the main thing. Baptism, not
the main thing. That's good. I'd love to, when
somebody believes they should be baptized, that's not the main
thing. Here it is. He sent me to preach the gospel,
not with wisdom of words. He's saying, not with man's wisdom.
I'm not here to tickle your intellect. I'm not here to spit out man's
wisdom. lest the cross of Christ be made
none effect, for the preaching of the cross is to them that
perish foolishness." See? Those who will not continue in
the Word of God. Those who will not continue to
hear the Word of God. But to us, it is the power of
God unto salvation. To everyone that believeth. It
said, for it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save
them that believe. It was by the incorruptible,
undefiled Word of God that you were born again of the Spirit.
If you have true faith, it was by this Word you were converted,
you were saved. And because of the new nature
of righteousness in you, we desire this Word. A true believer cannot
live without this Word. We must have this Word. I must
hear this Word. Why? Because I'm in constant
struggle. I'm in constant need of forgiveness
and mercy. And where can I find it? In the
Word. That's the only place. It says,
what God has chosen to feed us is by His Word. And what is it? If you believe on Me, you will
continue in My Word. And you know another word just
don't have any taste to me. I don't have any desire to hear
any other word than that word right there. I don't want to
hear man's opinions. I don't want to hear man's feelings.
I don't want to hear man's visions. I don't want to hear man's miracles. I want to hear this man, Christ,
from this book. If you've come to hear me, I'm
sorry for you. If you've come to hear Him, You've
come for the right place. This is where he's gonna be heard
right here in this book through the preaching of this gospel
You love him you believe on him Then you will continue in his
word That's good because I desire
the sincere milk of the word that we may grow thereby we desire
this word Now sometimes we do grow cold We do become indifferent
to God's Word. One thing about God's people
is that He will not leave us there. Will not. Didn't leave Lot and Sodom, did
He? Wasn't long, He burned the whole place down to get Him out.
Whatever you're holding up against God and you're not hearing His
Word, God's gonna burn it down if you're His. If you're not,
He'll just leave you alone, let you go. He's going to let these
people go on in their sin. They're not His. His people,
they desire to hear His Word and they will hear His Word. Even because He soon puts His
hand to the hole of our hearts. You know, we're like that Shulamite
bride at times, aren't we? He comes to the door of our hearts
and He knocks. And He says, open to Me, My love,
My dove, My undefiled. And what are we? Busy with the
things of the world, sleeping again. And we turn and we say,
oh, come back another time. This is just too inconvenient
for me. I've got too much to do. Oh,
the mercy of the Savior to His people. He puts His hand to the
hole of the door and the scent of His grace flows and fills
the room. And the Scripture says, My bowels
were moved within me. And she could not restrain herself
until she got up and He was gone. Did she turn around and go back
to bed? She went out into the highways.
She went out into the streets. Where is my master? Where is
my husband? Where is he? And the thoughts
of Him filled her mind. Oh, my beloved, there's none
like my beloved. Where is my beloved? She wouldn't
leave her alone until she found her beloved. And if you're a
disciple of Christ, I know this, you will continue in His Word. Second of all, believers, know
the truth, and are set free of Christ. Look at this now in verse
32. Go back to your text. Verse 32 it says, and you shall
know the truth, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall
make you free. And they said to him, We be Abraham's
seed, we're never in bondage to any man. How sayest thou you
shall make us free? And Jesus said, Verily, verily,
I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is a servant of sin. The
servant abideth not in the house forever, but the Son abideth
forever. If the Son therefore shall make
you free, you shall be free indeed. True believers know the truth. Only prisoners need freedom. Only prisoners need freedom.
These men who believed on Him didn't have any need of freedom.
They didn't have any bondage. But my people shall know the
truth of their bondage. I know the truth of my bondage,
don't you? I know the truth of my nature. I know the truth that
I was from birth a sinner, guilty and vile. I know that I need
freedom, that I cannot free myself. I know that truth. Do you know
that truth? I could never have freed myself. These false believers had no
need of it. But we who know Him, who believe on Him, we know our
need of freedom. We are bound to sin, servants
of sin, and only the Son is free. Do you get that? Only the Son
is free to make you free. The servant abideth not ever,
but the Son abideth ever. And if the Son shall make you
free, you shall be. There's nobody else to make you
free. I know that truth. I know this. I can never free
myself and I can't free you. I can't free my children. Only
the Son can free us. And I know this. He has made
me free by His death. He has made me free from the
penalty of sin. By His Holy Spirit, He has made
me free from the dominion of sin. And I tell you this, one
day by His grace, I will be free from the very presence of sin.
Why? He's the truth. He's the truth
that sets me free. He's all truth. We know and believe
on the Son of God alone. True believers know the truth
that our freedom was accomplished only by Jesus Christ And we rest
on Him, rest our souls on Him alone. Now, thirdly, true believers
do the works of Abraham. Go back and look at your text
again in verse 39. They were talking about being
Abraham's seed, and he said, yeah, if you're Abraham's seed,
I know you're the physical descendants. Verse 39, they answered and said
unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus said unto him, if you were
Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham. So every
true believer does the works of Abraham. What does that mean? Does the works of Abraham. Scripture
says Abraham believed God. And it was counted to him for
righteousness. So if you are a true believer,
you will do the same thing. You will believe God and it will
be accounted to you for righteousness. Listen, in every work of Abraham,
was it not done by faith? God said to Abraham, Abraham,
get out of your country. And Abraham said, yes. And he left. He said, Abraham, go and deliver
Lot from those five wicked kings. Yes, I'll go. Abraham, I'm going
to give you a son, and in him is going to be the heir of all
things. Christ shall come from your son
Isaac. Now then, take your son Isaac
and go offer him as a burnt offering. Yes, Lord. You not see the works
of Abraham? They're all done by faith. Faith is the work of Abraham. Do you believe on Jesus Christ? Believers in Jesus Christ, we
follow God by faith. Abraham believed the promise
of God, which was Christ. And so, this is the mark of a
true believer. Do you believe in every part
of your life? Or are you just believing while
you come to church? No. We believe Him all the time. In every circumstance, we trust
Christ in everything. That's a mark of a true believer.
Number four, true believers love Christ. Verse 42, Jesus said unto them,
if God were your father, you would love me. True believers love Christ. Believer we know that God is
our father even because he loved us. I Know this God's not my
father because I loved him God's my father because he loved me
and He chose me before the foundation
of the world. He gave me to Christ. Christ came into the world to
die for my sins. Christ rose again for my justification. And all this before I ever even
thought of loving Him. All that love was His. He loved
me with an everlasting, unchangeable, immutable love that never goes
away. I've only come to realize this
in this short period of time we call life. I've only come
to realize that in just a matter of years. I've come to realize
that. And that is a revelation of God.
I didn't know He had all this love for me. Matter of fact,
all I had for Him was hatred. All I said to Him was, I'll do
my own thing. Stay away from me. and yet he
in love pursued me and caught me and now given me such a heart
that I do love him. John says we love him because
he first loved Do you love Christ? Easy to say, isn't it? Do you love Him above all things? You remember when Simon Peter
betrayed our Lord, he denied him. When the Lord came to Simon,
he said, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me
more than these? Yes, Lord, you know I love you.
No, no, Simon, lovest thou me more than these? Yes, Lord. Yes, I love you. No, no Simon
Love is thou me more than these? Lord you know all things You know I Don't love you like I want
to I don't love you like I should I But I surely do love you above
this wretched, filthy love and everything in it. That's what
it is to love Christ. It is to love Christ above everything
else. Set Him above everything else. We confess that we love Him.
Jesus said this of His disciples, He that loveth father and mother
more than Me is not worthy of Me. He that loveth son and daughter
more than me is not worthy of me. He was even more bold in
Luke's gospel when he said, He that hateth not his father, and
his mother, and his wife, and his sister, and his brother,
and his own life also. He cannot be my disciple. Why? Because his disciples set
him I know that many times, some
believers, at times, we have our pleasant plans. We plant foreign seeds in the
soils of grace and we expect them to grow and to yield joy
and peace. We plant the pleasant plants
of our children. We plant the pleasant plants
of our family, the pleasant plants of our business, the pleasant
plants of self-righteousness. All types of plants that are
to be rooted out and we plant them anyway. And we nurture them
and they grow up. And you know what God says? He
says they won't amount to anything. They'll be nothing but grief. And God does this to draw us
closer. He allows you to plant those
pleasant plants and watch them evaporate in your hands. And
when they're gone, what happens to the true believer? We love
him more. John Warburton, man of God, he
had this little daughter. She was precious in his eyes. And John knew that he had loved
her too much. That he had set her above everything
else. And in his heart, he knew that
God would soon take her away. And he did. His precious flower. He set her to be an idol above
his God, and God said, I will not have anyone above me. He
took her. Did that draw John away from
God? No, it drew him closer to God. This is someone who loves God,
who believes Christ. He sets Christ above everything
else. even his own life. Is that you? Fifth, believers hear the words
of God, verse 47. He that is of God, heareth God's
words. True believers in Christ set
God's word above every other word. His words are no mere myth. They are truth. And so when they
are heard, we believe them with all our
hearts. They are true, not because we
have heard them from some man. They are true because we've heard
them of God. When I preach to you, I preach
to you the word of God. And that word that I'm preaching
to you is true, not because I said it. The Word of God is true because
God said it. And the only way you'll believe
that is if God speaks to you. If God causes you to hear His
voice in your heart, you believe His Word and you throw away every
other word of man. I don't care what it is. I've had many men come to me
and hear the gospel and they go, well, that my, my grandma
said, I don't care what your grandma said. Why is that? Am I cold or indifferent or hard
towards? No, because if it's against God's
word, it's not true. And I don't care who said it.
Let God be true and every man a liar. This is the foundation
upon which the saints of God are built. This is our cause
for faith and practice is this word. And I'm not an eyewitness
of Christ, I'm an earwitness of Christ. I've heard His voice.
He that heareth the voice of the Son of God shall live. And that's exactly what happened.
He spoke to my dead bones and I lived. And now I stand upon
this rock. I stand upon His Word. True believers,
we don't tolerate anything else but God's Word. Back here, you
will not see any confessions of faith for a reason, because
usually a man takes a confession and he'll try to twist the Word
of God to meet his confession. I don't do that. I won't take
the Word of God as the Word of God, as it is written and as
it's spoken to my heart. I'll give it to you. Why don't
I spend time telling you about things I don't know? I'll just
tell you what I do know, who I do know. And you who believe,
identify with this word. You believe it. And six, true
believers shall never taste death. Look at this in verse 51. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
if a man keep my saying, he shall never see death. They said, Abraham, he's died. The prophets are dead. What are
you talking about? Never taste death. I'll tell you this, we will,
most of us, die physically. Solomon said there is no discharge
in this war. Put it off as long as you want
to. Try to get away from gluten,
sugar, whatever. We postpone it. We try to feel
as good as we can. That's okay. Nothing wrong. But
I'm just saying there's no discharge. We're all gonna die. Except Christ
come back, we're all going to the grave. So that's not what Christ is
talking about because many believers die. What is he talking about?
He's talking about the second death. He's talking about hell. None of us shall ever taste the
judgment of God. Why? Hebrews chapter 2 and verse
9, Christ made a little lower than the angels for suffering
of death, crowned with glory and honor. For what purpose?
That he should taste death. I'm not going to taste death
because he tasted death. False prophets, there are some
false prophets who say that that Christ died for every man
without exception. If that's true, then why are
they tasting death in hell? Why are there some men in hell
today tasting death if Christ died for them? That's not true. That's blasphemy. No, Christ
tasted death for everyone the Father gave Him. Who is that? You who believe on Him. That's who. You who are given
faith and life by God Himself. You who continue in His Word.
You who know the truth. You who do the works of Abraham. You who love Christ. You that
hear His Word. You shall never taste death.
Why? He tasted it for you. He swallowed
it up in victory. When he tasted, he swallowed
the whole thing, down it's gone. No more to be seen in you. Hear
the joy of this believer, that you shall never die. And lastly,
true believers believe that Christ is God. Look at this in verse 56. Your father Abraham rejoiced
to see my day, and he saw it, and was glad. Then said the Jews
unto him, Art thou not yet fifty years old, and hast seen Abraham?
Jesus said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before
Abraham was... Two words. I am. Is that not astounding? What is
if you understand what he meant? These Jews knew exactly what
he meant. I am God. That's what he meant. How do
I know that? Look at the very next verse.
And they took up stones to kill him. He made himself equal with
God. Why? Because he was God. He was God. There were two brothers. One of them was a true preacher
of the gospel. One was a Unitarian. Didn't believe in the Trinity.
One time the Unitarian man couldn't preach. And he asked his brother
to preach. And he said, all right, I know we differ on a lot of
things, but you cannot preach anything controversial. And his brother thought, he said,
okay, I swear, I will not preach anything controversial. Took
his text from 1 Timothy 3.16, without controversy. Great is the mystery of godliness.
God was manifest in the flesh. You see, I believe in Jesus Christ,
the eternal Son of God. Jehovah, this one Jehovah's Witness
called me and after 10 seconds I cut her off and I just said,
is christ god or is he not? after about ten minutes of shuffling
she finally said no i just said i want you to understand we worship
two different gods my god is the true god and yours
is not Jesus is the Christ, the Son
of God. He is God, manifest in the flesh.
And every true believer rests in that. Because he was God,
he was able to obtain righteousness as a man. Because He was God,
He could not sin. Because He was God, He was able
to endure the wrath of God in our stead. But because He became
a man, He was able to die and represent us to God. Then behold
the God-man, the only mediator, the one that can touch God and
man, Jesus Christ. And I believe in Him alone. What then do we have to fear?
If God is my Savior, what then do I have to fear? Are these marks yours? Do you
continue in His Word? Do you believe, do you know the
truth of yourself, that you're a sinner, that Christ alone is
the Savior and made you free? Do you believe and do the works
of Abraham, which is faith in Christ? Do you love Christ? Do
you hear his word? Then you shall never taste death,
for Jehovah, the Son of God, is my Savior.
That should give you comfort. I identify with every one of
those things. I do. Those are the words of Christ.
Those are the marks of His people. Is that you? I pray if it's not,
that God Himself would give you such faith. I pray that God would take away
you pretenders and reveal Himself. May God bless His Word. Let's
stand and be dismissed in prayer.