4 Test of a Christian

So you have a choice. All sinners have a choice. You can cover up or you can confess. And here John shows us that people who belong to God confess. People who don't, cover up. In our passage then, confession of sin becomes a test of salvation. And as I have been saying to you, there are a number of tests in this epistle. There is the test of doctrine, right doctrine about Christ which we mentioned was in the first four verses and will appear again. There is the test of obedience, which we'll come to very soon. There is the test of love, which we'll also address. And then there is this test of a proper view of sin. John says you can always tell a Christian by their view of Christ, their view of sin, their view of obedience, and their view of love. And if they do not have what the Bible says is a sanctified attitude toward those things, then they're not Christians no matter what they claim.


Citation:
MacArthur, John . "The Certainty of Sin, Part 2." Grace to You . GTY.org, n.d. Web. 7 Sept. 2011. <http://www.gty.org/resources/Sermons/62-6_The-Certainty-of-Sin-Part-2>.




1 John 1:5-2:1 May 26, 2002 62-6

Christianity today is so gullible

You know, I think about this...Christianity today is so gullible...so gullible. The evangelical world is so gullible. We see...we look at the world and this is what we see...we see abortion, that's always the big issue, we see homosexuality, we see immorality, we see the breakup of the family, we see pornography, we see euthanasia, we see a lot of those kinds of ethical, cultural, moral issues. We see that the Women's Liberation Movement fracturing the fabric of the home and devastating children. We see the external materialism of the culture around us robbing people of the real values of life. And so we all get exercised and upset about what is patently obvious to all of us. I mean, nobody is...nothing is subtle about the attack on unborn babies, is there? I don't think it's very subtle when the Supreme Court passes a law to make it legal...not very subtle. Pornography is not very subtle. You can pick up any magazine and it's all over the place. You can turn on television, it's everywhere. You can drive down the street, you see it all over the place...not subtle.

Homosexuality isn't subtle. Once it was, not subtle now...blatant, flagrant, defiant, in-your-face along with all the other immorality in our culture, it's right there staring you right in the eye all the time. Nothing subtle about this.

So the church in its gullibility gets concerned about all this stuff and it's all sin and you have to have a biblical view about it. I agree with that. But the church gets all concerned about that and say...We've got to defeat this abortion thing, we've got to defeat this homosexual thing, we've got to defeat this deal over here with pornography, we've got to do all this stuff on the cultural level, we've got to win all these great battles out there to save the cultural morality and in order to do that, do you know what we have to do? We have to all get together. Now in order for all of us to get together, we've got to make something not an issue. What's that? Truth. So we win this little obvious battle and we're totally defeated at the same time because we just gave up the only thing we have...the truth. This is the gullibility of the church.

And so we say, "Well, if we're going to win this battle, we can't be quiveling about whether...whether the Catholics have a different gospel than we do, we've just got to accept them as brothers and sisters in Christ, we can't worry about that." And as Peter Kreep(?) says in his book Ecumenical Jihad, we've got to realize that Muslims are going to heaven too and Confucianists are going to heaven too, and Buddhists are going to heaven too, and even orthodox Jews who believe in the same God we believe in and they'll find out what they didn't know about Christ once they get there. And even atheists, he says, who are seeking for truth are seeking for God they just don't know that God is truth and so they'll get there too. And if we keep fighting with these people we'll never win the cultural war, so what we need to do is win the cultural war and we just need to all get together and not make these doctrinal things an issue.

And what have we done? We have literally been eaten by the roaring lion, just got swallowed. How gullible are we? We've abandoned truth for the sake of this tolerance thing. Let's not question any...and then we're not allowed, especially in this sort of this television environment thing, we're not allowed to question any of the so-called apostles of Christ who come along with their divine messages for us and who bear all this supposed divine power, we can't question anything they say. So we've taken truth and set it aside, we're going to try to win this big cultural war, try to get everybody on the same page all agreeing and we'll sweep all of these social issues aside and in the process lose the Christian faith.

Let me tell you, it can get lost. It got lost for...it got lost for a thousand years between 500 and 1500, there were just vestiges of a remnant left. I mean, we have to know where the battle is, you can't be that gullible.

Citation: MacArthur , John. "Marks of a False Apostle." Sermon. Marks of a False Apostle. Grace Community Church, California. Grace To You. 23 Nov. 1997. Web. <http://www.gty.org>.

Rejecting Christ leads to spiritual damnation.

Therefore, its value is for you who have faith, but for those without faith: "The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone," and "A stone that will make people stumble, and a rock that will make them fall." They stumble by disobeying the word, as is their destiny. 1 Peter 2:7-8

Israel was a unique nation, chosen by God to be the guardian of His Word and the proclaimer of His Kingdom. The Old Testament records His miraculous and providential care for her throughout the centuries, and the prophets told of One who would come as her great Deliverer. Israel eagerly awaited the promised Messiah.

But the story has a surprise ending. In the person of Jesus Christ, the Messiah finally came and presented Himself to Israel. The religious leaders examined Him carefully, measuring Him in every way they could. But He didn’t fit their blueprint. They expected a reigning, political Messiah who would instantly deliver them from Roman oppression. They felt no need for a spiritual deliverer, so they rejected Him and tossed Him aside like a worth-less rock.

That rejected cornerstone is precious to believers but remains “a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense” to unbelievers. A “stone of stumbling” was a stone on which someone tripped while walking along the road. A “rock of offense" was a rock large enough to crush a person. 'The point is, rejecting Christ brings spiritual devastation of enormous proportions.

All who reject Christ do so because they are disobedient to the Word. Rebellion against the written Word inevitably leads to rejection of the living Word. Of such people Peter said, “To this doom they were also appointed" (v.8). They weren’t appointed to reject Christ but to receive the judgment that their rejection demands. That’s a frightening reality that should motivate you to take every opportunity to evangelize the lost.

MacArthur, John. Drawing Near. Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2009. Print.