If you are not a disciple of Jesus Christ will you go to heaven?
Hi welcome to Little Lessons, thanks so much for joining me.
We've been talking about discipleship and some of the more important points to consider
about what Jesus said about discipleship.
We've looked at not only the great commission where Jesus said go make disciples and He
helps to define disciples by saying teach them to obey all that I commanded, "you after
you baptize them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit"; looked at John chapter
8 where he told a bunch of believers, "if you are truly my disciples you'll abide in
my word and you'll progressively be set free from sin"; then we looked at Luke chapter
14 where Jesus laid down three requirements to be His disciple.
One of which is we have to hate our loved ones, we talked about that.
Another one is that we have to be willing to embrace hardship and suffering for His
sake, take up our cross.
And thirdly, have to give up all our possessions.
And you see again in the Book of Acts, the people in the Book of Acts, again, there's
no dichotomy in Book of Acts believers and disciples.
No, it just talks about the disciples and all those who believe were disciples and it
affected what they did with their money.
They began caring for widows and people who had a lot started liquidating their assets
to meet pressing needs to those within the body of Christ.
And so, these are things to be thinking about as we consider, am I a disciple?
Now the question that I posed at the beginning of this episode is can you be a disciple of
Christ or if you're not a disciple of Christ will you go to heaven?
Because some people think well I'm not a disciple of Christ, I'm a believer in Jesus.
Well you know I think we've pretty well proven that they're just one in the same.
If you're not a disciple, you're not really a believer.
So to answer the question that I posed at the beginning of this episode, the answer
is no.
If you're not a disciple of Christ, you're not on the road to heaven.
You're ... a goat who thinks that he or she is a sheep.
So, let's look at the last thing that Jesus said in Luke chapter 14.
After He lists these three requirements to be His disciple, He finishes out what He says
with these two very significant verses that maybe are a little bit difficult for us to
grasp but I think we can grasp them.
Luke chapter 14 and verse number 34.
"Therefore, salt is good."
Well, okay I agree with that.
Do you agree with that?
Salt is good.
Now we're used to salt pretty much as a seasoning.
Sprinkle that salt on the steak.
But in Jesus day salt wasn't so much of a seasoning as it was a preservative.
You rub salt on the meat and that keeps it from rotting because you don't have refrigeration
so this is the best they got going at that time.
So salt is good, you better believe it's good.
It's preserving a lot of things although making those things taste pretty salty.
Below he says, "But if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned?"
Now you could say well [inaudible 00:03:37] [David 00:03:38] he's talking about seasoning
here.
Well yes, because you can tell salt is salt by its taste, it has a seasoned flavor, right?
Sure.
So if you put your finger in a little pile of salt there and [inaudible 00:03:53] on
your tongue, if it doesn't taste salty ... pretty good chance it's not salt.
Right?
That's the conclusion you'd come to.
And I've never heard of salt being unsalty and maybe there's an explanation for something
that in Jesus' day that was some kind of a seasoning that had salt in it and they just
called it salt and on occasion salt wasn't mixed with the other stuff and so the seasoning
became or was unsalty.
I don't know.
It doesn't really make a lot of difference for the sake of our understanding what he's
saying here.
But, because salt cannot become tasteless, salt itself.
If it doesn't have the salty taste, it's not salt.
And maybe that is the point.
The impossibility of salt not being salty.
Because if you're a believer, if you're a disciple of Jesus Christ, there's going to
be absolute evidence for it.
You're going to fit what Jesus listed as what characterizes a disciple.
This is a person that loves Jesus supremely, even more than the people their loved ones.
This is a person who's willing to embrace suffering and does sacrifice for His sake.
This is a person who their check book reflects that they are a disciple of Christ.
If you don't have that, the salt isn't salty.
It really isn't salt, it's pseudo-salt.
"If even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned.
It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile."
And I don't understand why you'd be putting salt in either soil or a manure pile but there
must have been some reason in Jesus' day.
But, again, we don't have to understand that.
And if you understand that please write to me and tell me, I'd love to learn that myself.
It's useless for these purposes, it's not good for anything.
It's even these purposes it's useless for.
It's thrown out.
It's good for nothing, it has no value whatsoever.
It's worthless.
Can you understand what Jesus is saying here?
That if we are not His disciples, we're good for nothing.
Throw it out.
Serves no use to God.
So you can see the huge danger there is when folks buy into the lie that you can be a believer
in Jesus and not be His disciple.
Oh my goodness.
This is so sobering and ... you have those people whom Jesus warned about in the future
judgment of the sheep and the goats who, "Lord, Lord when did we see you hungry or thirsty
and not feed you or give you drink?
When did you see you naked and not clothe you?
When did we see you sick and in prison, didn't visit you?
Because if we had seen you Lord, we'd have done it.
We care about you."
"Depart from me, I never knew you."
You didn't do it to the least of these, it shows you didn't care about me.
You're good for nothing.
Jesus wants disciples and I would say that's the major problem in the body of Christ today.
We've got a lot of people who have head knowledge, they think it's saving faith.
Or they acknowledge some truth, some theological truth, Jesus died for everyone's sins or the
Devil believes that.
That's not it.
It's Jesus, I believe Jesus is Lord.
And so I've repented and every day I take up my cross and I try to follow Him.
Okay, thanks so much for joining me on this little lesson.
God bless you.