Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - Am I Saved or Self-Deceived? with Jonny Ardavanis

Episode Date: September 2, 2025

Are you truly saved, or are you deceived about your standing before God? In this powerful episode, we dive deep into John Chapter 8 where Jesus confronts religious people who thought they were saved but weren't.Key Topics: False assurance, true salvation, Christian faith, biblical assurance, John 8 commentary, spiritual deception, children of God vs children of the devil, religious but lost.This isn't about being a "bad person" - it's about the difference between religious activity and genuine faith in Christ. Many people assume they're saved based on church attendance, family heritage, or moral behavior, but Jesus reveals the heart condition that matters.Perfect for: Christians questioning their salvation, pastors, Bible study groups, anyone seeking biblical clarity on assurance of faithBible Passages Discussed: John 8:12-59, Romans 10, 1 John 3:10, Ephesians 2:3

I'd like to ask people a question, if they're unsure of their standing before God, do you actually love the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you spend time with them? Do you know them as a friend? Do you love them? It's very possible to have the right answers, the right knowledge, the right doctrine, the right outfit at church, the right smile, but have no real love for God. And so in this episode, I want to walk through this passage in John 8 and just

provide five signs of the falsely assured. A person that says, I'm of the father. And Jesus says, no, no, no, you're of the devil. And we're back, Hank, how you doing? Doing fantastic, Johnny. How are you doing? Good. Ready for football? Very excited for football.

Actually, I fulfilled kind of a bucket list item this past week. What? So growing up... Did you buy a bear's jersey? I bought three. Oh, wow. So I bought one for me, and then two for two of our children. What player?

That will go unnamed. Mike Dicca. Okay, maybe it was Mike Dicca. Okay, come on. Just nothing like a two-X. Hank and I, if you're listening, we are both Chicago Bears fans. You guys can be praying for us. You know, one of the things that we did want to mention on the podcast as we get going

here is just to be mindful of us as we head into another season with high expectations. That'll inevitably be crumbled. Yeah, inevitably be crumbled. It's one of the trials that's refining us. You can actually see an episode on suffering prior. Yeah, being a Bears fan. Well, we're diving in the John Chapter 8 in this episode, and in John 8, you can follow along in your Bible if you're seated down,

seated down, or if you're in the car listening. We're in John 8, and in John 8, we're in the midst of a long and heated discussion that Jesus is having with the religious leaders. In John chapter 8, verse 12, Jesus gives one of the I am statements. He says that I am the light of the world, and the implication is that, we live in a world of darkness and corruption and pollution, and he is the only one that can guide us into our eternal promised land. We live in a world that is tainted by sin. And this is quite a claim, you know, just to think about it from a guy that was five foot five and looked like every other Jewish individual that came from Nazareth. But he substantiated and validated those claims with his unique power to cast out demons, cleanse lepers, heal. the blind, tell paralytic, rise, pick up your palate, and walk. And yet one of the interesting things as we approach John chapter 8 is that in spite of

the mounting Everest evidence that supported the claims of Jesus Christ, the people that should have been most ripe to receive him were the people whose hearts were very hardened and callous and calcified towards the message of the gospel. And this is what we see in the prelude of John. It says he came into his own, but his own did not receive him and they rejected him. But one of the things as we come to John 8 that we see is Jesus continues to plead with people. And I don't know if we often think about this. Where do you have your Bible right now? Yeah, I'm in John 8. Yeah, just even read verse 24 for us. I always find that this is fascinating

coming from the mouth of Jesus, that he cares enough in spite of just their rejection and they're scoffing and their mocking. He continues to plead with them. Verse 24. Verse 24. He says, Therefore, I said to you that you will die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins. Over and over again throughout this context, we see Jesus saying, unless you believe that I am he, you're going to die in your sins. And he's going to say in verse 31 that if you come to the truth, the truth will set you free. But what's interesting about this passage is that in verse 30, there is at this great festival of lights, there's hundreds of thousands of people. Jesus stands up, I presume, at the climax of the feast and says, I am the light of the world. And in verse 30, it says, as he spoke these things, many came to believe in him.

But in the verses that follow, this is really interesting. If the chapter ended at that point, many believes in him, great. We see this in chapter six as well. Many believed in him. But Jesus is never ecstatic or excited about spurious or superficial faith. If the chapter ended here, you'd go, great, many believe in him. But what's interesting about this chapter is in verse 44, Jesus is going to look at that same group of people that believed in him

and say, you are of your father, the devil. And in verse 59 of this same chapter, that group of people that had previously believed in Jesus, they are going to pick up stones to crush Jesus. This is interesting, right? You have a group of people, and Jesus is going to look at this group of people, and he's going to speak some harsh words that are intended to wake them up to their true spiritual condition. And he's going to say, you are of your father, the devil.

Hey, thanks so much for taking time to listen to this resource. I want to make you aware of a few things before we continue on in this episode. First of all, I want to thank those of you who are monthly supporters that make the production of this content and the ministry that Dialin does possible. If you sign up today for a monthly gift, you'll receive a free dial-in mug on the house, it makes even bad coffee taste good. Secondly, if you haven't already, you can sign up for our thrice weekly devotional, which is a three to five minute devotional read to ground your day in God's word. If you head to our website, dial in ministries.org, you can just enter your email and you'll start receiving those on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning. Third thing is, I just want

to thank those of you who have reached out and offered encouragement regarding my recent book consider the lilies finding perfect peace in the character of God. It's been really neat to see both individuals and church small groups walk through this book, which is essentially a book on the character of God and how it functions as the catalyst to peace and trust in a worried and anxious world. And then just last thing, we are always talking through different ideas for content that would be, Lord willing, a benefit to you to encourage you, to potentially challenge you. So if you have any ideas for future episodes or for future series, you can drop a comment in the section below.

Thanks so much. Now, let me just ask you, what do you think of when someone says, you're the devil? Yeah, I think, one, it just strikes me like, that's extremely harsh language. It's convicting, and it's coming from a guy that also identifies as gentle and lowly. Yeah, completely. I mean, it's shocking. It's one of those things that it would be easy to say, like, oh, Jesus wouldn't talk like that. But we have a case in front of us where Jesus is quite literally speaking those exact words.

And maybe just two observations, and then we'll dive in here. One, we've reflected on this in prior episodes, but it's just worth pointing out again that sometimes we can, common culture will throw these things out there that make it sound like the Bible or Jesus' teachings aren't clear. And I think this is one of those examples where Jesus is actually going to be extremely clear. I mean, you can pick it up and you can read for yourself. And then, two, just to echo again, the thrust of your point there, in verse 30, again in verse 31, we have this group of people that believe in Jesus. And it's one, 100%. And so the conversation is going to continue and we're going to end up in a place we didn't expect. And just to your point, if you're kind of diving in and cherry-picking verses, you might miss that really, really important context of who is the audience he's speaking to and maybe the implication or application for us.

Yeah, and Jesus is going to say, harsh words that provide a continental divide. And we aren't culturally fond of the binary. You know, we love gray. But Jesus says, you're either a child of God or you're a child of the devil. You're either a citizen of the kingdom of light or a citizen of the kingdom of darkness. There are wheat and there are tears over and over again. And when we think of child of the devil, he's not referring to anybody that is a particularly bad person or a person that wakes up in the morning and puts on a dark hood and lights a candle and worship Satan.

And anybody that is not a child of the father is a child of the devil. That's not saying they, again, wake up and worship Satan. It just means that they wake up and they serve themselves. And in doing so, they fulfill the purposes of Satan. In 1 John 310, it says, by this, the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious. Meaning it's one of the two. Anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. It says in 1 John 519, we know that we are children of God and that the whole world is under

the control of the evil one. Now, as we seek, and I was just thinking about this, as we seek to be good students of God's word, there is a mass of people in John 8 that if they were to die, they would have been like, we have a right standing and our right relationship with God, and we're good with Jesus. And if they stopped at verse 30. Yeah, it stopped at verse 30. And yet here, Jesus is going to say, through the power of his word and the power of his spirit, no, no, you're falsely assured. Your assurance is errant. And so in this episode,

I want to walk through this passage in John 8 and just provide five signs of the falsely assured. A person that says, I'm of the father. And Jesus says, no, no, no, you're of the devil. The first of those signs is that you do not listen to the words of God. In this passage, let me just read it for us. says in verse 37, I know that you are Abraham's descendants and he's talking to them. He says, yet you seek to kill me. Why? Because my word has no place in you. In verse 43, he says,

why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear my word. In verse 45, he says, but because I speak the truth, you do not believe me. In verse 47, it says, he, Jesus says, he who is of God, hears the words of God. And he says, for this reason, you do not hear them because you are not of God. Bivocally speaking, we need to understand the distinction and the difference between hearing the words of God and hearing the words of God. Sounds like the same thing, obviously, but in Matthew 13, 13, Jesus says, hearing they do not hear. And I think, obviously, what Jesus is drawing our attention to here is not that what he's saying is particularly difficult to understand. It's that the group of people he is addressing have

no real desire to submit and obey to what God's word says. I don't know. And do you have Deuteronomy 6 handy? Yeah, I can get there quickly. Can you read that for us? Yeah. So it begins, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your

might. How far do you want me to keep going? No, that's great. It starts off by saying, here, right? That is the Shama. That's what Shama means. It means to hear. But when it says to hear, it means more than just to let truth go in one ear and out

the other. It means to listen to, submit, and to obey the truth. And so one of the questions that the word of God is prompting us to ask is, have you ever heard? Jesus says, you do not hear my word. So we have to ask the question, do I really hear God's word with our heart? This is a sign, if you're not hearing God's word, that God has never done a work in your life. In Ezekiel 36, when speaking of the new covenant, God says that he is going to send his spirit, and a spirit is going to give a new heart to you that provides new affections and that as a

result you are going to hear, walk, and observe his statutes and his commandments. One of the first hallmarks that someone has been saved and changed by God is that their attitude towards the word of God is changed. In John 8, verse 37, when Jesus says, I know that you are of Abraham's descendants, yet you seek to kill me because my word is... It says it has no place in you in the NASB. That word for no place is Correo. It means that my word makes no progress.

God's word makes no progress in the individual that still belongs to Satan. Now in the life of a believer, it says in Isaiah that God's word never returns void. You're a finance guy. It means that God's word always pays dividends, it yields fruit, it changes, it convicts, it transforms. for the person that does not belong to God, they can hear the truths of God, but that doesn't change anything. Jesus gives the example, right? It's like the seed that fell on what? Yeah, hard soil. Hard soil. It doesn't, the seed doesn't penetrate and consequently it doesn't germinate. That's why Jesus says in Mark chapter 4 verse 9, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. It's an interesting

like preface. Yeah, right? Because he's, I think he's just drawing our attention to the reality that one of the most dangerous, you and I both grew up in the church, one of the most dangerous places you can be is hearing the words of God with your ears but not hearing them with your heart. And this point is just so poignant. Teaching and youth group over the last couple of years,

I think people who have taught or tried to disciple or even parented kids, this is one of the clearest realities that you see firsthand of standing in front of a bunch of students and preparing to teach them from the Bible and speaking out and knowing it requires a total work of God, speaking it out to them.

There's students who are listening and there's students who aren't listening. And you can almost see with students it fall, actively falling on deaf ears. And it's one of the scariest, I think, warnings to your point of just hearing or growing callous to the word of God and not letting it really penetrate our hearts and souls. Yeah, and it brings us, I think, to the second sign of false assurance.

It's in the same passage, and it's kind of on the heels of what you're saying. First of all, you don't hear the words of God. And second, you cling to spiritual ancestry rather than spiritual transformation, meaning that this group of religious people, they're going to respond in verse 33, we are Abraham's descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone. Because Jesus had said, you're a slave of sin. And they're saying, we're Abraham's descendants. We're not a slave of anything.

How are you saying that we'll become free? Because Jesus said, if you come to the truth, the truth will set you free. And they're going, we're not slave to anything. anyone. We're of Abraham. And in verse 39, they answered and said to him, Abraham is our father. They're clinging to where they come from. Now, I grew up in a home, a godly home. Some of you listening or watching may have godly heritage in your family that goes back a number of different years. That is a rich blessing from God, right? However, one of the things that we see in scripture is that while godly heritage is of much value, it can also be a

curse when it is used as a crutch that displaces personal affection and allegiance for the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus responded to the people that based and banked their standing with God on their familial pedigree and says, you're lost. You're of your father, the devil. And they say, no, we're of Abraham. And he says, no, if you were of Abraham, you would do the deeds of Abraham, meaning that you would what? Have faith. You would have faith, you would obey, Abraham welcome God, you reject God, and just a couple obvious points is that familial pedigree never got a single person into the family of God. National pedigree has never made one person righteous before God. I think one of the ways that the devil works in the church today is by making the next generation complacent, by placing their confidence in their environment, their upbringing, their family, their knowledge, their experience.

rather than ever coming to grips with their own need for the Savior. They cling to ancestry, familial pedigree, but in the Bible we see that the people that were most ripe to receive this truth grew up in the godliest homes are the ones that not only reject God. In verse 41, they mock God. They say, we were not born of fornication, meaning that they look at when Jesus says, don't place your faith on, you know, you're standing before God

on the way that you were born, and they look at him and say, wasn't your whole birth a scandal? And so they mock him. Yeah. The third sign of false assurance is that you do not love the Lord Jesus Christ. Read verse 42 for me. Jesus said to them, if God were your father, you would love me. For I proceeded forth and have come from God.

For I have not even come of myself, but he who sent me. You can't get any more foundational than this. one of the surest ways that you know you have no saving relationship with God is if you have no personal affection for his son, Jesus Christ. I'd like to ask people a question if they're unsure of their standing before God. Do you actually love the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you spend time with him? Do you know him as a friend?

Do you love them? It's very possible to have the right answers, the right knowledge, the right doctrine, the right outfit at church, the right smile, but have no real love for God and his son, Jesus Christ. And at its core, this is what the Christian life is all about. This is the greatest commandment. You already read it.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And this is the ultimate and supreme test of your faith. Do you love Jesus? And no one can answer that question for us. Yeah, you just hit it on the head, but that's a deeply personal question that in your heart of hearts, it's one of those questions that when you lay your head on the pillow at night, no one will ever know what's truly written on your heart other than you being brutally honest with that real question. In many ways, it's like, that is the question

of one's life. And it's such a divide. Paul says in 1st Corinthians 1622, if any man does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed. If anybody doesn't love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be a cursed. One of the hallmarks of the falsely assured is that they claim to know God, but they do not love his son. And if you do not love the son, you do not know the father. The fourth sign of the falsely assured is that we've already examined this in brief, but you belong to the wrong father. Read verse 44 for me. It says, you are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie,

He speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. This is, as we began, one of the most offensive things that Jesus could ever say to a group of people that were just so religious and so... Pride they're standing with God. Yeah, exactly. And you can't get any more offensive than this. Jesus has already alluded to this in verse 41 when he said, you are doing the deeds of your father. You know, I was watching the inauguration last year and the prayer at the inauguration began a familiar way, our father. And I want to acknowledge this as common language when people are learning to pray.

They pray our father. But it needs to be understood. God is not everyone's father. God's fatherhood in creation is much different than his fatherhood in redemption. When someone is born, they are not a child of God. They are Ephesians 2,3, a child of wrath. They do not follow the prince of peace. They follow Ephesians, the prince of the power of the year.

Now, when we look at verse 44, we get the idea that Satan, the devil, is a real embodied being. He is powerful, he is personal, and it says here that he is a murderer and a liar. When Jesus says, and I think it's just sometimes, and we did previously an episode on Satan, a couple episodes, when Jesus says you are of your father, the devil, he's not referring to an idea. He is referring to a real evil being that rules the world. And one of the reasons that Jesus came in 1 John 3.8 is to the Son of God, it says, appeared for this purpose to destroy the works of the devil. It says in 1st John 519 that the whole world lies in the lap of the evil one. And so here Jesus says, you belong to your father, the devil.

What's the difference between Jesus and the devil? Well, the devil is a murder who takes life. Jesus comes and he gives life and life abundantly in John 1010. It says here the devil is a deceiver and a liar. It's the first thing that he did to dupe the entire world and the sin. He deceives. He casts suspicion and doubt on what God has said, right? Did God really say? But Jesus cannot lie. We have a God who cannot lie. He speaks the truth. Much more could be said. But I think it's necessary to understand that it's not just the hardened Jewish leaders that were a part of Satan's spiritual family. It is anybody that does not belong to God is a child of the devil. First John 3.8. I just, maybe to hop in, just kind of re-underscore, again, we mentioned at the beginning, we've mentioned it multiple times, but that's incredibly direct language.

But again, to your point, if Satan is actually not an allegory, if he is a being that's deceiving people, then it is not kind or loving or just of Jesus to sugarcoat or hide the ball on the state of things. Yeah, to dismiss that in any way or downplay it. And there's an element to which, like, our own theology, our own lives need to reflect that very core, very clear truth. Yeah. And it produces a level of urgency. That's what Jesus keeps on saying in this very passage, do not die in your sins. Do not die in your sins.

The fifth sign of the falsely assured is in verse 45, he says, but because I speak the truth, you do not believe me. The fifth sign here is that you do not believe Jesus. The fact that Jesus speaks the truth, he says, because I speak the truth, you do not believe. do not believe me. That is the reason they do not believe him. Mankind has a natural aversion to the truth. They are trapped in lies. That's what Satan does in Second Corinthians. He blinds the minds of the unbelieving to keep them from seeing the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So they're trapped in lies and they do not believe Jesus. And we've talked about this before, maybe in a church context, but people go to hell not for something they do do, but for something

they don't do. And what they don't do is believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, just as we conclude, if we are born children of wrath, if we are born children of the devil, what do we need more than anything else? Yeah, this is, this is like the primary question, right, is if you are totally a child of wrath, I'm thinking of John 3 when Jesus is talking to Nicodemus, then what do we need? We need to be reborn. And part of this is so necessary. Also, just to understand our natural condition because what understanding our natural condition does is it strips and it grinds away at any sort of boasting in our own religiosity or familial pedigree because you could be here in this passage buttoned up goody two shoes at a religious festival

here they are and a child of the devil now the question is how do we become a child of god well john begins this way in john 112 he says but as many has received him to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name, who are born not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man. And if we want to be Abraham's children, we need to do what Abraham did, which is look with faith on a spotless, sinless substitute. You asked a question at the beginning of, you know, what if someone just continues and they're perpetuating in their own lack of assurance? Yeah, or if someone's listening to this and saying, like, man, I struggle to know, like, do I love Jesus?

Do I believe in Jesus? Maybe what would you say to him or her? I would say, I think we can pick it up here next week in our next episode and just talk through the hallmarks of assurance. Obviously, we know in Romans 10, whoever calls in the name of the Lord will be saved, whoever confesses with the Mount, Jesus, Lord, we know those truths. But then if you've grown up in the church, you're going, well, how do I know if I've really believed?

How do I know if I really love? How do I know if my heart's really been changed by God? I don't remember the moment. I don't remember the day. and I still struggle with sin. And so in the next episode, let's just walk through those hallmarks of what provide validation and evidence

to the transformation that God has brought about in our hearts. That's awesome. I look forward to it. All right. Thanks, Hank. Thanks, Johnny.