How to be Sure You’ll Go to Heaven

Tomorrow, June 6, marks the 50th anniversary of D-Day. The invasion of France by the Allies marked the beginning of the liberation of Europe from the Nazis. That great invasion, involving 2.5 million men, was code-named Operation Overlord.

But what you may not know is that there was another operation, code-named Operation Fortitude, which made the success of Operation Overlord possible. You see, the Germans knew that an invasion of Europe was imminent; they just didn’t know where it would take place.

Operation Fortitude was a clever campaign of deception and misinformation aimed at convincing the German High Command that the invasion of France was going to take place at the narrowest part of the English Channel at the Pas de Calais, not on the coast of Normandy where it did take place.

To deceive the Germans, the Allies created a phantom army. They called it the First U.S. Army Group. They constructed realistic-looking tanks and vehicles out of wood and parked them all over the English countryside near the Straits of Dover. German reconnaissance aircraft took pictures of them. Eisenhower’s officers talked about the First U.S. Army Group in their radio transmissions, which they knew the Germans were monitoring.

The crowning touch was that General George Patton was named “commander” of this imaginary army. In the spring of 1944, Patton could be seen charging around Southern England in his jeep, ostensibly making preparations for the First U.S. Army Group to invade France at the Pas de Calais. Meanwhile, the real preparations for D-Day took place in secret.

The masquerade worked. Intercepted German radio transmissions indicated that the Germans took the bait. They thought the First U.S. Army Group was indeed a real army which was going to lead the invasion across the narrowest part of the English Channel.

On June 6, 1944, when the real invasion started in Normandy, the Germans held back their reserves, convinced that the landings in Normandy were only be a bluff.

Just as the Germans were deceived on D-Day, many people are deceived spiritually when it comes to knowing where they’re going when they die. They’ve been gathering the wrong intelligence, forming the wrong conclusions, and staking their lives on a lie.

Today, we want to examine how you can be sure you’ll go to heaven when you die. Our source of intelligence is going to be the Bible, and we’re going to look at 1 John 5.

One of the most important words in the book of 1 John is the word “know”. It appears 41 times in these five chapters. That’s because the book of 1 John is a book about being certain. God wants us to know the answer to the most important questions of life. He wants us to be sure about spiritual matters.

As we’ve studied this book, we’ve seen how we can know what a real Christian is. There are a lot of spiritual counterfeits out there - people who claim to be Christians, but whose lives betray what they really are. We’ve seen that a Christian is a person whose life is characterized by three things:

1. He believes that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God and the Savior of the world.

2. He loves other people

3. He obeys God’s Word

Now, we’re going to see how we can be certain about our eternal destiny. John begins the discussion by focusing our attention on who Jesus Christ is. That is highly appropriate, because eternal life for you and me depends on who Jesus is. Let’s look at v.6-8:

1 John 5:6-8 This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.

Now this is a rather strange passage. Perhaps you’re wondering what John is talking about. In order to understand it, you have to know a little bit of background.

In John’s day, there was a group of people who began to infiltrate the church. They called themselves Christians, but they combined Christian teaching with the principles of Greek philosophy. In other words, they mixed Biblical truth with the popular ideas of their day. Sound familiar? The same sort of thing happens today.

These people fancied themselves to be spiritual authorities. They came to be known as Gnostics, because the word “gnosis” means “to know”. They thought of themselves as “people in the know”, people with spiritual insight.

The Gnostics had some interesting ideas about who Jesus Christ was. They separated the Jesus part of him from the Christ part of him. They said that Jesus was merely a man, the son of Joseph and Mary. But at a certain point in his life - they said it was at his baptism - the Christ descended upon him and enabled him to do all those great things that he did.

But the Christ left him before he died, because, according to the logic of Greek philosophy, someone who is divine cannot suffer death.

So what they were saying was that when Jesus was born, he was merely a man, and when he died, he died as a mortal man.

Now that should sound familiar to you, because there are many people who believe this about Jesus today. They believe that Jesus was only a man. A great man, but only a man. A man who was divinely inspired, but just a man.

But the Bible says that no matter how common and popular and plausible that idea might be, it isn’t true. Jesus wasn’t just a man. He was the Christ, the anointed Son of God who came from heaven.

Jesus didn’t become a god-like being at some point in his ministry. Jesus already was divine. He was God when he was born, God when he was baptized, God when he died, and God when he rose again. Verse 6 tells us that.

He came by water and blood. The water refers to his baptism and the blood refers to his death on the cross. At his baptism, God spoke from heaven and said “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased.” God declared who Jesus was at the beginning of his ministry, and he did it again at the end.

In Romans 1:4, Paul writes that Jesus “was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead.”

He came by water and blood. Jesus was the Christ at His baptism, and He was the Christ at His death on the cross. He didn’t start being the Christ at his baptism (as the Jehovah’s Witnesses claim) and stop being the Christ at his death. He came to us as the Christ, fully the Son of God, through the water and the blood.

Now you may think that this is theological hair-splitting. But this is really important, because if Jesus wasn’t the Son of God hanging up there on the cross, then his death wouldn’t have done you and me any good at all. If Jesus were only an ordinary man, then he could only have died for his own sins, not yours and mine. His death would have had no substitutionary value at all.

The water of His baptism and the blood of His crucifixion are like witnesses in a court of law that Jesus is really the Son of God. But there is a third witness in that court: the Holy Spirit.

In a Jewish court of law, it was necessary that a matter be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. And that testimony had to agree - it couldn’t be contradictory testimony. Remember when Jesus was tried before the Sanhedrin? False witnesses came forward, but the Gospel of Mark tells us that though…”Many testified falsely against him, … their statements did not agree.”

But here, we have three witnesses who do agree: the water, the blood, (both of which were historical facts which John saw with his own eyes), and the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the one who takes those historical facts about Jesus Christ and makes them live. He’s the one who shows us that these things are true. When you come to the point in your life when you are willing to put your trust in these facts about Jesus, it is because the Holy Spirit has been at work testifying to you about the truth of these things.

And that 3-fold testimony is a very powerful testimony, because it’s the testimony of God. Look at verses 9-10

1 John 5:9-10 We accept man’s testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son.

If you say that Jesus was just a man - albeit a great man - you reject the testimony of God about him. You’re saying that God perjured himself on the witness stand.

And if you do that, you make it impossible ever to be certain about your own eternal destiny. Because your eternal destiny, and my eternal destiny, is inextricably linked with who Jesus is. If he isn’t who God says he is, then you and I can never be sure of where we’re going when we die.

1 John 5:11-12 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

It is important to remember that eternal life is in the Son of God. It is not in the church. It is not in a creed or in a doctrinal statement. It is not in a certain code of moral conduct. Eternal life is in the Son.

In the world of business, it is often true that in order to get ahead, it isn’t what you know, it’s who you know. Well that principle is absolutely true when it comes to your eternal destiny. It isn’t what you know, it is who you know that determines whether you have eternal life.

Do you know the Son of God, Jesus Christ? Not do you know of him, or about him, but do you really know him in a personal way? If you do, then the Bible says that there is something you can be sure of:

He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

There are many people today who, if you asked them the question “Do you know that you’ll go to heaven when you die?” would say in response…

“Well, I hope so.”

“I think so.”

“I’m trying hard to make sure that I do.”

But they’re really not sure. They have no certainty because they think that eternal life depends on them. They think that they have to live right in order to get to heaven. They think that they have to somehow earn their way there. And if that’s your basic assumption, then you’ll never be sure that you’ve done enough to get there.

Listen, if heaven were something you had to earn by being good, then heaven would be empty, because none of us is good enough to make it. Eternal life isn’t a do-it-yourself project.

God says that eternal life is a gift. Eternal life was purchased by the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross.

A few years ago, they interviewed one of the Apollo astronauts. They asked him, “What were you thinking about as you stood on the moon and looked back at the earth?”

He replied, “I was thinking about how our spacecraft was built by the lowest bidder!”

I’m glad that the work of securing our eternal destiny did not go to the “lowest bidder”. It was performed by the Son of God Himself. He did the work, and there will never be any deficiency in it. When he said “It is finished” just before he died, he was saying that the work of salvation is done. There’s nothing more needed.

If you are a father with young children, Christmas can be a dreadful time of year for you. Because usually your child will receive a gift that will have, printed in large letters on the outside of the box, those awful words that all fathers learn to hate: SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED.

Well let me tell you that eternal life is not like that! When God gives you the gift of eternal life, he gives you the finished product; there’s no assembly required.

That’s because when God gives you eternal life he’s giving you his Son. Eternal life is in His Son. If you put your trust in Jesus Christ, then you have eternal life. It is as simple as that. No strings attached, no performance clauses that you have to fulfill, and no assembly required.

Eternal life is not a contract. It is not an agreement between you and God. It is an unconditional gift from Him to you in the person of His Son.

And because it is a gift, you can be sure that you have it. Suppose that somebody were to give you a lovely birthday gift, something that you really like. But then a few weeks later, they came to your house and took it back because they said that you hadn’t really been nice enough to them in the meantime.

Was what they gave you really a gift? No, it was a performance bond. You do your part and you get to keep it, but if you fall down on your end of the bargain, you’ll lose it.

Eternal life is not like that. That is why we can be sure that we have it. Because it is an unconditional gift from God. He gave it to us to keep. That is why John wrote…

1 John 5:13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

It isn’t arrogant or presumptuous to say that you know that you have eternal life as a Christian. In fact, it’s just the opposite! Because eternal life doesn’t depend upon your performance, then it isn’t boasting to say that you have it. Being sure of your salvation brings glory to Jesus Christ, because it focuses on His trustworthiness and on His accomplishments.

A Christian who’s sure of his salvation isn’t bragging on himself; he’s bragging on Jesus.

Are you sure that you have eternal life this morning? There’s only one way to be sure. Have Jesus in your life.

1 John 5:11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life

In a world where there seem to be no absolutes, where so many people have been deceived by the enemy of our souls, you can hang on to this one thing for sure. You can know where you’re going when you die if you know who you’re trusting as you live.

Prayer:

You can receive Jesus right now by simply telling Him, in the quietness of this moment, “Lord, I believe these things. They make sense to me. I believe your testimony about Jesus. I’m ready to take you at your word. I want Jesus to be my Savior and my Lord.

I’m not going to pretend anymore that I can live a good enough life to make you accept me into your heaven. The only one who can take away my sin and take me home to heaven is your Son Jesus. I’m going to start right now trusting Him for my salvation.”

If you prayed that prayer, I’d like to know about it, so that I can pray for you. And as we continue to pray, I’d like to ask you to slip up your hand and put it down again. The Bible says that when we receive Jesus, we need to confess Him openly. There’s something about letting someone else know what you’ve done that seals the decision for you. Will you tell me if you’ve made that decision this morning?