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Transcript 338D — What Does it Mean to "Believe in Christ"?
CALLER: I believe what the Bible says, that God is love and that if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ you will be saved, believing even on His Name. There are a lot of people I come in contact with in my lifetime in whom I feel a spirit that is not really right with the Lord. But yet I'm not one to judge them. I ask them if they know the Lord Jesus as their personal Savior, and they just kind of nod, and they say, "Yes, I know Him." But my spirit is troubled, seeing that I know the Savior and yet I have a burden for these people. These people, if they believe on His Name, do you believe that they will be saved?
HC: The question is raised concerning what is salvation? What does it mean to believe on His Name? What does it mean to believe in Christ? We read in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." What does it mean to believe?
Satan believes that Christ is God. Satan believes that Christ is going to judge him and cast him into hell. Satan believes that Christ came in the flesh and rose from the grave. Satan believes all these things, and yet he's not saved. There are all kinds of people who believe all these things. They believe the Bible is true, they believe that Christ rose from the grave, they believe they're sinners, they believe Christ came to die for sinners. They believe that the blood of Christ is required to free them from sin. They believe all these things, and yet they're going to end up in hell.
What does it mean to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? It means that I have hung my whole life on Christ. I have accepted as a fact everything that the Bible declares, even though I may not understand large portions of it. I have accepted it as a fact, and I am ready to cast my eternal lot with what I read in the Bible. I've hung my whole life on the Lord Jesus Christ. I've entrusted myself to Him.
Now Satan has not entrusted himself to Christ. There are all kinds of intellectual people who believe intellectually all these things about Christ, but they haven't hung their life on this. They go about their own path of trying to live out their lives to satisfy the self. They're not ready to surrender their wills to Him.
The evidence of salvation is repentance. The evidence of salvation is a childlike trust in Him. The evidence of salvation is that we read the Bible with a view to being obedient to what we find there, not because we're trying to get rewards, not because we're looking for some kind of wages. That is antithetical to salvation. We are obedient because this is the desire of our heart. This is the earnest desire of our life because we have become born again. This is believing on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thank you so much for that good call. Good night.