A podcast listener named Jacob writes in to ask a really tricky pastoral question, Pastor

John.

How do you approach people in your life who believe they are saved, but you have a feeling

they are not?

I understand the dangers of being judgmental in a situation like this, but being in the

Bible belt, I feel like I am in this situation all the time.

Pastor John, what would you say to Jacob?

I would say this is a huge concern.

It is now.

It always has been.

And of course, it's not just in the Bible belt.

Every church has nominal members, yes, they do, every one.

The mainline churches are just as plagued as the Bible belt by people who think they

are Christians when they are not.

Good grief.

I live in Minnesota and to be Minnesota and is almost to be Lutheran or Catholic.

And those churches, just as much as any Baptist church in the Bible belt, are shot through

with people who think they are Christians when they are not.

And it always has been a huge concern already in the New Testament.

They went out from us because they were not of us.

But for a long time, there they were, there they were in the church, just like everybody

else.

...