Are You Going to Heaven?

Real life presents the Jack Hibbs Podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture. Hey, what role does repentance play in the fact that you are going to heaven? Or are you going to heaven? There's something required before you can get there. Let's find out. You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhibbs.com slash podcast. Today, if this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, then make sure you leave us one of those five star ratings. To us, that's like saying, amen or yes, then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now, open your hearts to what God's word has to say to you. Here is Jack Hibbs. We're everybody. Welcome back to our podcast and we're continuing on. It kind of seems like without much planning on our end that if you joined us last time in our previous podcast and we look at what we're going to be looking at today, we're actually talking about something. Again, we didn't design it this way, but it's coming out this way to where these are really profound essentials for your discovery as like an illegal term discovery in your discovery of really fulfilling what the scripture says to examine yourself to determine whether you are in the faith or not. That was Paul's admonition to Timothy and of course, Timothy, first and second, Timothy speaks to all of us being the word of God, examine yourselves to determine whether you are in the faith or not. Notice that it's saying that or it's not saying, examine yourself. In other words, take stock, take your pulse, take an honest assessment of yourself, of yourself, not not somebody else, yourself to actually come to the conclusion that you are a true believer. And so what's important about this is that when we say true believer, a true believer is somebody who's living a life of faith, we can talk about being believers all we want. It actually means nothing. And we need to get this under our belt once and for all, oh, I believe in Jesus means literally nothing because it's always been true, but it's more needed now more than ever. And that is you have to define to me, I have to ask you, what do you mean by belief and what do you mean by Jesus? Who are you talking about? So what I want to just look at right now, in light of the fact of last time we were talking about, do backsliders go up in the rapture? For that matter, do backsliders go to heaven? Do only the pure at the moment of the rapture go up? Are those that are backslidden? Are they left behind? And then it comes down to the debate, Kenbacks, I've had, I'm not going to get too much in the details, but I had a pastor say to me one time, I'm not even sure if backsliders go to heaven at all, that backsliders are in fact non-believers. And I was shocked to hear that because that person must believe that they themselves never backslide. You know, what about backslidden? Being backslidden, you can look perfect, but be backslidden in your heart. To be backslide, as we talked about last time, go ahead and check it out, is to not be walking with the Lord and it doesn't even have to be on the outward side. It can be inward. But today we're going to be talking about the fact of repentance. What role does repentance play in the life of a real child of God? So there's about three things I want to look at today and our brief time together. But listen, I'm going to read it to you. This is coming out of Matthew, chapter three, and we'll start it about verse four. Listen to this carefully everybody. Now, John himself was clothed with camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist and his food was locust and wild honey. John was a wild man in looks and in message. You know, in theological terms, John the Baptist technically was the last Old Testament prophet. If you think about it, so verse five, then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region around Jordan went out to him and were baptized by him in the Jordan, that is the Jordan river, confessing their sins. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and the Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come. Therefore, bear fruits worthy of repentance. So that is an awesome declaration. John is preaching that the kingdom of God is about to arrive. He's going to make that clear as you keep reading in Matthew chapter three and chapter four. But notice that John's ministry is all based upon repentance. And so when the Pharisees and the Sadducees come to even witness, hey, what's happening? Everybody's going out to see this guy. What is the message he's preaching? John preached the message of repentance. Okay. And in those days, if you were baptized by John, it meant this, that you were immersed in the waters of baptism because you were proclaiming that you identified with his message, which was, I am a sinner and I need repentance. What's interesting about John's baptism is nowhere in John's baptism doesn't say that he baptized anyone unto salvation. His baptism was a baptism into you acknowledging me, acknowledging they acknowledging that they needed salvation. That's why John, while he's in the water, announces there's one coming whose sandals, the straps of his sandals, I'm not even worthy to tie. He's the one. So John was that forerunner that preceded the public ministry of Jesus, fulfilling, in fact, Jesus put it this way. Jesus said to the disciples, if you can receive this, if you guys were thinking, if you are understanding my first coming versus the second coming, if you can get this, it is true that Elijah must come first before the kingdom is established. But if you can receive this, John is ministering in the spirit of Elijah. That's important. So Christ was coming to first deal with sin and Christ's second coming is to establish his government. That's the second coming. So regarding this doctrine or preaching or teaching of repentance, this is absolutely essential for salvation. You cannot have, listen, you cannot be going to heaven, you cannot have salvation, you cannot have a relationship with God unless you understand what repentance is. And so let's put it to you this way. The first word of the New Testament preaching of the kingdom of God, of the gospel, the good news. Listen, did you know that the good news, that is the evangelical, the gospel? Did you know that there must, there must, in theological, biblical terms, there must be a preceding or an advance announcement to the gospel. What is the gospel? For God so of the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him or on him will not perish, that is, will not see the flames, the damnation, the corruption of hell. But will have everlasting life. Did you know that there's something that preamps that, there's something that preamps John 316. And what is it? Well, we don't have to guess. It's the first word out of the mouth of Jesus regarding the gospel. It's the first word out of the mouth of Peter regarding the gospel. It's the first word out of the mouth of Paul regarding the gospel. It's the first word out of the mouth of the disciples when Jesus sent them out to preach. It was that very same word repent. Metanoia, change your mind, repent, change your mind. Think about God or Jesus Christ again. Here's another words we would say today. Hey, you've heard about Jesus? Yep, you heard about God? Yep. Well, we want you to think about God again. How so? Repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. Notice what's missing here, but it's not missing. The Bible says that the the just shall live by faith. But I haven't mentioned the word faith yet. The just shall live by faith. Abraham was justified. Listen, Abraham was justified not by believing in God. Abraham was justified by faith in God. Big difference. Why do I say it this way? Because you can be a believer in Jesus Christ and actually wind up in hell because you've never come to faith in Jesus Christ. This is extremely common. So again, back to that challenge at the beginning, examine yourself to determine whether you are in the faith. Notice, he didn't say examine yourself to determine if you believe or not. In Matthew 13, Jesus is giving the parables about the sower in the seed and Jesus referenced one of the hearts that are lost who he says these are they who believe for a while. But when difficulties are persecution or the temptation of riches come, they give up. They go back into the world. They never lost their salvation friends. They never lost their salvation because they never had salvation. They only believed and the trials and the difficulties of life proved that they only had belief and no faith. So, you know, I wasn't thinking about this, but I should have brought a prop. And that prop would have been a little, I would have brought like a little hot wheel or a matchbox car, a toy car. And I would have taken you like a Lego. And I would have put you in the Lego car or the truck, whatever it is. And in this moment is the moment that you profess belief in Christ. And then I would push the car along the way. Okay. And I would be shooting squirt guns at the car throwing rocks, maybe shooting a BB gun at it, spitting on it, turning on the fan, throwing dust on it. And here's this little Lego car with you in it going along the way. And you might be you might be soiled and you got spit on you and you're all messed up looking. But you're still in the car and you're on your way until you've reached the finish line. And the finish line is when you when you go through that that gauntlet of fate of your belief being tested. Listen, when you come through your belief being tested, so to speak, it proves that your belief is actually faith. A lot of people believe, as Jesus said, these are they who believe for a while, but they give up, but they never had faith. He never once said that they had faith. He said that they believed. Okay. So for example, I just got back from Washington DC. I just got back from literally touching touching with my own hands, even without gloves. It's kind of cool. Touching my touching with my own hands, original documents of Thomas Jefferson of George Washington, I got to hold some writings and letters from John Adams with my own bare hands. You get it's cool about that? That what they stood for, what they did, what they accomplished, who they were, what they achieved, unlike any other people ever on the face of the earth. In light of all of their great achievements, I do not depend upon John Adams or George Washington or Thomas Jefferson for my citizenship. I believe in them because there's overwhelming evidence that they existed. I don't have faith in them. I don't have my faith in them regarding my citizenship. You see that? You can say, I believe in Jesus. Big deal. Listen, the cults believe in Jesus. Many Jews believe in Jesus. The Encyclopedia of Britannica believes in Jesus. The Smithsonian Institute believes in Jesus. But they're not looking to Jesus to save them. They don't have faith in Jesus. To have faith in Jesus is to repent of your sins and then take those sins that you're repenting of and give them to Jesus. Hand them to Jesus. In that moment of believing on Him, you exercise faith in placing your weight upon Him. I know this gets somewhat technical and some of you are going to say, I don't get it. Just get this. Belief doesn't save. Belief is the vehicle that takes you to faith. Your profession of believing in Christ will be tested. And when it's tested, it will prove if you are truly a man or a woman, a boy or a girl who has faith in Jesus. That's why the believer goes through fiery trials to prove to ourselves and to others that we just don't have belief, but we truly have faith. This is vitally important. That cannot happen in your life unless you repent of your sins. So somebody may go forward or raise their hand or fill out something online or read a Gideon Bible at a hotel and send a note to the Gideon Bible people and say, I've come to faith in Christ. Well, we're not really sure yet to be honest with you. We're happy that you made this commitment, but we all know that over time, time will tell. How does that happen? Well, as I said, difficulties come. But also, do you know what comes at the exact same time? The moment you profess belief in Christ, if it's for real, we're going to know over time and we're going to be able as a church and as a as brothers and sisters, we are going to be able to begin to detect indicators, signs that you are truly one of us. And that is by watching the fruit that comes forth from your life. John said, you heard it a moment ago, John said, bring forth fruit worthy of your repentance. John says, bring forth a changed life that bears witness of the fact that you are professing your repentance. So you got wet. So I held you under water. So you got up and you dried yourself off. And you said, you believe in Jesus. How have you walked since then? Now, remember, last time together, we talked about those who are backsliding. Notice, remember, backsliders hate themselves. They hate the world that they're playing with. They're miserable. They can't, they're, they're just an absolute disaster. They can't even sin good anymore. A person who's not a backsliding Christian, but a person who says that they believe in Christ, but goes back into the world, they love it. They have no problem with it. Their, their conscience aren't troubled. They're not being convicted. They went forward at the crusade or they came forward at church or they raised their hand. And there was just no change. The backslidden and the child of God walking with the Lord is somebody that has this in common. To some degree, some 30, some 60, some 100-fold have fruit. A believer will produce fruit. And that fruit will be obviously from Scripture in what is known as expositional constancy, meaning that this is always the way. And this is always the meaning. That when the Bible says fruit, regarding the believer, it's talking about the fruit of the spirit of God. And here's the second thing, the fruit of obedience. So when somebody says, I believe in Jesus, the very first thing that all of us should begin to watch in your life is obedience to Christ. We should see it happen. So example, you profess faith in Christ. You say that you're born again. And so you've been living with your girlfriend and you've been having sex with your girlfriend. And you have no conviction whatsoever. In fact, you're even just, you're saying, but we love each other. It's all good. We talk to God about it. It's all good. There's a real high probability that if you are spoken to according to the Bible where we say to you, that's not possible for you to continue like this. You guys should be convicted sick of your sin. That's the spirit of God. That's what he's doing, John chapter 14. He's convicted of your sin. You should be miserable with yourself. And so you guys should abstain from sexual relationship and we should get you married as soon as possible as we seek to affirm and confirm your walk with Jesus. It's vitally important to do that. Once you hear the truth and you realize you're in sin and you claim to be a believer, the correction of that is found in 1 John 1 9. If we confess our sins, he's faithful to just cleanses of our sins and to forgive us of all unrighteousness. That's written to the Christian, not the non-Christian. That's not a verse for a crusade. That's a verse for the church. He's writing to believers. The moment you're convicted, you're to bring that sin to Christ and in obedience, walk away from it. That's why Jesus said to the woman that was caught in the act of adultery. He said to her, go now. He says, neither do I condemn you. Go now and send no more. That means she was offered new life. And Jesus said, now go live out your new life. Obedience. God blesses obedience. Obedience is awesome, liberating and free to and absolute freedom. But listen, it's obedience to the observable eye among the family of God and it's obedience to God himself that by you obeying the Lord Jesus Christ doesn't save you. It's visible evidence that you are saved. You see that? You don't straighten up your life and get saved because your life is so messed up. You give your life to Christ, you get saved. That happens in an instant, but you, but we don't know that about you. As you walk with Christ, fellowship with Christ, as you grow in Christ, that's how we over time, as brothers and sisters conclude, and by the way, vice versa, that we are actually in the household of God. We're in the household of faith. And so to repent is to walk away from what the Bible says is sin. No ifs or buts about it. The moment you start to justify your situation, well, you know, we love each other just to piece of paper. You need to go and obey God and you need to be married. Well, you know, we did our own thing. God knows our hearts. Well, it depends on where you live in the world, but in the Christian context, where you are in the world, whatever the procedures are of marriage, you should go through those procedures of marriage. Some of you, I mean, I'm probably not, but I'm thinking right now, somebody running around. I don't think this is happening. Somebody running around in South America in the jungle with a spear. I don't think he has his headphones on listening to this podcast right now, but they have their procedure of marriage, don't they? It's pretty amazing. By the way, virginity in those pagan cultures, it's a big deal. Is that something? Uh, but they go through their own ceremonies. That's the top of for some other day, but you guys are vitally important that you understand. There is no heaven without repentance. When we live in a world today, like we do right now, that there's pulpits that you can go to a sermon and never mention, they'll never hear the word repent. Listen, when Lisa and I moved to Chino Hills from Costa Mesa, we moved to Chino Hills and we went to a church that was supposed to be getting started up here in this area. We went eight weeks in a row. Never once heard the pastor mentioned the word repent. And I remember this because they had a, they had a chalkboard in the schoolroom. And they, they on the chalkboard, it said last week's attendance, 68 people. And then the week after they would have, and when we showed up, there was 68 people in attendance. In eight weeks, 300 people were attending that, that church. And we had to stop attending. And we sat down with the pastor and told them why I told them a flock of people had been coming. You don't know if they're saved your night because you haven't once given the gospel as this group has grown. And you haven't once mentioned the word repentance, which tells us that you're not at all in tune with the Holy Spirit because the preaching of the gospel is the preaching of repentance from sin and righteousness towards Christ. This is so critical, so important. Listen, I'm at a time. You guys, as always, we believe that it's time for you and I to live out what we believe in. It's time for real life. That is what we're all about. Listen, if you believe that this has been a blessing to you, of course, this helps us so much. I hit the like button, the share button. Give us a five star rating if you care to do that. We're not asking for your money. We're asking for your participation by giving us a thumbs up and give us a rating. And so, listen, if this message has struck true to your heart, if you're right now thinking yikes, I don't know where I'm at right now with this. You want to fix that right now? You want to repent of your sin? Let's do this. Dear Lord Jesus, I'm asking you to receive my confession that I believe that Jesus Christ died in the cross for my sins and that he rose again from the grave exactly as the Bible says he did. And I believe in doing that, Lord, I put my faith in you now for having been my sacrifice on the cross that you died for my sins and I receive your righteousness. And so, Lord, I put my faith in you. I am not going to attempt to save myself. I am not going to attempt to somehow manage good works and self-righteousness. I quit, I surrender, I yield to your righteousness fully and I trust you to save my life as I receive you now. As written, Lord, risen Lord and Savior, I trust in you. I lean on you. I put all of my souls weight upon you. I put my faith in you completely and I pray this in Jesus' name. If you've prayed that prayer, let us know. We'll send you a Bible. We'll get information out to you. But if you prayed it and if you meant it, you understood that. Then from this moment on, watch how your belief now in faith in Christ takes you to faith in Christ that from this moment on, God's sanctifying work will go to work in you for its Christ, it's God who works both in you to will and to do of His good pleasure. God bless you until next time. This Jack Hibbs podcast as well as all the broadcast outreach opportunities are listener supported. Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to jackhibbs.com to learn more and stay connected. See if you could save when you switch to progressive. You'll feel good about making a savvy choice. Visit progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a little extra cashback. Progressive casual tea insurance company and affiliates. National average 12 month savings of $946 by new customers surveyed who saved with progressive between June 2024 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary.