Articles
Are You Really Saved?
Many people go through life unconcerned about eternity, assuming that they and most everyone else will just automatically be saved at the end of time. But we can learn the truth of this from Jesus. Someone once put this question to Him: “Lord, are there few who are saved?” (Luke 13:23). Jesus answered in part: “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able” (verse 24).
A sad scene of Judgment Day is presented to us by Jesus in Matthew 7:22-23:
“Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness”.
It would be horrible to be lost and to know that you’re lost, but it would be even a worse tragedy to go through life thinking you’re saved when actually you’re lost. That’s the situation with these people Jesus describes. They had the marks of being religious, and they expected to go to heaven. But they were woefully mistaken, and they discovered it too late.
For this reason the Bible urges us: “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves” (1 Corinthians 13:5). This can only be done diligently studying God’s word and comparing our lives with what the Bible tells us to be and do. All of us who expect to be with the Lord for eternity must take this admonition seriously. It might be that we have only thought we are saved when actually we are lost.
