How to Recognize Counterfeit Faith #1

Welcome to the Truth Palpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Hello, I'm Bill Wright. Thanks for joining us as we continue teaching God's people God's Word.

Don begins a new message today, so without further delay, let's join him right now in the Truth Palpit.

Today, as we come back to the sermon on the Mount, we come to what I consider to be the most unsettling passage in the entire Bible.

It is a passage with great eternal significance filled with warning, filled with caution to everyone who would name the name of Jesus Christ.

In the final section of the sermon on the Mount, Jesus is warning against the dangers that would keep us out of heaven.

You will remember that in verses 13 and 14, He commanded His hearers and by extension those of us here today to enter through the narrow gate.

Seek for the narrow gate that leads to heaven, He says, because there is a wide gate, there is a broad way that leads to eternal destruction, and that is where many people travel.

You, He says, look for the small gate, the narrow way that leads to eternal life, because there are few who find it.

Jesus is giving us matters of great eternal significance. You could not possibly.

If you spoke for a thousand years, you could not overstate the importance of what He is saying in this passage, because the consequences are eternal, and the consequences apply to every man who has ever lived.

Now, what He does here, having given us that exhortation to go through the narrow gate, He starts to give warnings against the dangers that would keep us out of heaven.

Last week in verses 15 through 20, He warned us against false teachers, those who look like servants of righteousness but are actually angels of the devil.

You have to discern those teachers and turn away from them as you seek the welfare of your eternal soul.

You have to strive to enter through the narrow gate, and there are these false teachers who are calling you to turn away all in the name of righteousness, these men, and these women are wolves in sheep's clothing, Jesus says.

Now today, we're going to turn to a different kind of danger. Jesus is going to focus on a different danger that would keep you out of heaven.

This one is more personal. This one is more searching. It is the danger of self-deception about the reality of your salvation.

A danger to which, He says, many will succumb.

And my prayer is that God would use this time to awaken many of you who may be slumbering in sin, thinking that things are okay when things are not okay.

That is what is on the mind of Jesus as we come to this passage, beginning at verse 21, Matthew chapter 7, verse 21.

Sobering words, Jesus says, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven.

But He who does the will of my father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name cast out demons and in your name perform many miracles?

And then I will declare to them, I never knew you, depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.

Jesus in this passage is looking forward to the day of judgment. He is looking forward to that time when men will stand before Him and He will declare their eternal destiny.

He had said in verses 13 to 14 and we talked about this just recently, He talks about the ultimate outcome of life, the ultimate outcome of your eternal soul.

He says there is a way that leads to destruction and there is a way that leads to life, one of two destinations, there are no other alternatives, there is no third way.

It is either destruction or it is eternal life, it is so stark, beloved, it is so very, very stark and Jesus says men will stand before Him and He will declare their eternal destiny to them.

And He goes on to say that judgment is going to turn out differently than what many people are expecting.

Many people, not just a few, not just a tiny handful, many multitudes of people will be shocked as they are turned away from heaven and banished to eternal destruction in hell.

Judgment will not go as they had expected.

They are going to stand before God, stand before the Son of God, thinking that they were going to be entered and welcomed into heaven only to find that they were turned away.

And their first step into eternal destruction will only be the beginning of an eternal punishment for their rejection of Christ and their sin against God and they will be shocked at the outcome.

It is one thing to go to hell knowing that you have chosen to go there, you hear people talk that way, just recently I was counseling with someone who was in the process of abandoning their spouse and they said I know this is going to send me to hell and I don't care.

Oh, how trivial. How can anyone be so superficial and flippant with their eternal soul, Beloved? It cannot be so with you that are here today.

No, God has brought you here today to hear how you can avoid that self-deception and know that you are on the road to eternal life.

This is the only question in life that matters, Beloved. I mean, honestly, and we've said this so many times, but life could be rotten here on earth, but if you enter into eternal life, it all comes out well in the end.

And all of a sudden nothing in life has mattered, but it goes the other way as well. Everything can go well in this life, but if you end up in eternal destruction, nothing in life matter.

Jesus says, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul? We have to take this seriously. We have to take these things to heart.

Beloved, it is essential for you not to be numbered among the many whom Jesus turns away.

So I want to give you three keys to avoiding spiritual self-deception so that you can know that you will be not numbered in those who God turns away.

Numbered among those who said, Lord, Lord, and heard him say, depart from me. I never knew you.

This might be the most important passage in the entire sermon on the mount if you could be so crass as to compare one part of God's word to another.

Point number one, the first key to avoiding spiritual self-deception is to understand this.

The whole section here is built on this reality and yet it is somewhat just beneath the surface here. It's the structure. It's the foundation of everything that Jesus says here.

Point number one, understand this. Jesus Christ rules over eternal judgment. Jesus Christ rules over eternal judgment. Look at verse 21 with me again.

Jesus says, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my father who is in heaven will enter.

Understand this. There's two aspects of this. Jesus ruling over eternal judgment that I want to bring out for you.

Number one, understand that Jesus Christ defines the conditions of eternal life.

Jesus Christ defines the conditions of eternal life. He says this is what it takes to get in and this is the people that will be turned away.

Who is this man of Nazareth that assumes the prerogative of defining who goes into eternal heaven and who gets set off into eternal hell?

Who is this man that walked on the face of the earth?

And says, I'm going to tell you who's going to heaven and who's going to hell. Jesus Christ rules over eternal judgment.

He says, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, Jesus says in this passage, these people enter into heaven and these people don't.

He is asserting sovereign prerogative over the eternal destinies of every man who ever lives.

That is a statement of absolute sovereign deity.

He speaks from his own authority, the gate to heaven goes through him and no one else.

Jesus said in Revelation 118, he said, I have the keys of death and of Hades.

So Jesus Christ defines the conditions of eternal life. It is up to him.

Now, along with that, a corollary point. Secondly, Jesus Christ rules over eternal judgment because He delivers the final verdict.

He delivers the final verdict. Look at verses 22 and 23. We're going to pass through these verses again in a few moments.

But I just want to highlight the centrality of Christ in this passage because we get so wrapped up in the fact that all these people are going to be surprised and isn't that tragic that you lose sight of who the central figure in this passage is. It's the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus says in verse 22, many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord in verse 23 and then I will declare to them. They're saying one thing and Jesus says something different back to them.

I will declare to them, I never knew you, depart from me. You who practice lawlessness.

And so Jesus, for all of the way that He has been dumbed down over the years through poor teaching and weak teaching and turned into someone soft and cuddly and all of that.

Jesus here makes it clear that the time is coming when He is going to sweep away many people with the condemnation.

I never knew you, depart from me. I find you unfit for the kingdom of heaven.

Six times in these three verses, He uses the singular first person pronoun. I, me and so on. It's Jesus Himself who is rejecting their appeals.

Understand this, beloved, just to clear away a little bit of confusion. We're not going to be meeting Peter at the pearly gates.

This verse alone, this passage alone, is a death blow to Catholicism. We're not going to go through the pope. We're not going to go through Mary.

We're not going to go through any of their other saints or anything like that. It is Jesus Christ who rules over eternal judgment.

And He has not delegated it. You can see this in other parts of the book of Matthew. Turn over to Matthew, chapter 25, Matthew 25.

The whole point here, beloved, is we need to take Jesus seriously. We need to tremble before Him. We need to fear Him.

Speaking again of judgment, Matthew 25 verse 31, Jesus says, when the Son of man comes in His glory and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. He's talking about Himself in the third person here.

He says, all the nations will be gathered before Him and He will separate them from one another as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

And He will put the sheep on His right and the goats on the left. And then the king will say to those on His right, come, you who are blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

Skip over to verse 41. You'll see echoes of what He said in His opening sermon in His ministry that we're looking at this morning, verse 41 of Matthew 25.

Still speaking of Himself, He says, then He will say to those on His left, depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and His angels.

Verse 46, actually verse 45, you know the story about how He was a stranger and they didn't invite Him in. He was hungry and they didn't feed Him.

Verse 45, He says, and He will answer them truly. I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.

These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

Jesus Christ speaking on His own authority, not appealing to anyone else, says these will go into eternal life, these will go into eternal judgment.

Jesus Christ beloved rules over eternal judgment. That is very clear.

Now here is a point of discernment for each one of you. Here is a point of self-examination for every person who would contemplate seriously the reality of their own eternal destination.

My friends, do you in the depths of your heart in your most fundamental convictions of life?

See Jesus Christ as the judge before whom all the world will one day stand.

You have to recognize that in order to be able to understand Him for who He truly is.

If you don't see Him as a judge, you have not understood Him to begin with.

Do you see Him as the focal point of the eternal destiny of your own soul?

Jesus said, no one comes to the Father, but through Me.

No other name in heaven has been given to Me by which we must be saved. Acts chapter 4 verse 12 says,

and so beloved, if you would avoid the self-deception that leads to eternal hell, you should not take Jesus lightly.

You should not take Him for granted. Jesus here is teaching for keeps. Jesus is ruling over eternal matters by His own sovereign prerogative.

And your soul, beloved, is under His authority. For good or for ill, Jesus Christ rules over your eternal destiny.

Now, the starting point of Christianity is that we are all guilty sinners who have broken God's law.

We face His eternal punishment in hell as the consequence of our disobedience.

Beloved, people will talk about, oh, I accepted Jesus or I asked Jesus into my heart.

What does that mean? If you don't have a concept of Jesus being the judge and that we face judgment because of our guilt,

you cannot be saved until you understand that you have something to be saved from.

And what you and I need to be saved from is the wrath of God at the final judgment, the judgment where Jesus Christ rules.

And so we respect Jesus. There is a proper sense in which we fear Him because of His great authority.

We don't treat Him lightly. We don't take Him for granted because He rules over eternal judgment.

Now, secondly, many will say, but Jesus is my Lord. I'm okay. Jesus is my Lord. Surely I will not be rejected.

Now, that is a crucial point for the possibility of self-deception.

Those words, Jesus's Lord, Jesus is my Lord, contain within them a possibility of self-deception that we need to look at very carefully.

And that's the point of our second. That's our second point here this morning.

Jesus rejects empty words. Now, follow me through this point because this is just so crucial.

Jesus rejects empty words. Look at verse 21 with me.

Jesus says, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but He who does the will of my father who is in heaven will enter.

In other parts of the Scripture, the Bible exposes the possibility of empty words.

In 1 John 2 verse 4, the Bible says, the one who says, I have come to know Him and does not keep His commandments as a liar and the truth is not in Him.

There is a very real danger of taking the name of Jesus on your lips in an empty way that is divorced from your heart reality.

And because you are saying Jesus is Lord, you think everything is okay with your eternal soul.

Jesus here in this verse disabuses us of that false notion.

Jesus describes the time when He will be standing as it were at the door of heaven and people are appealing to Him for entrance.

In that glorious time, in that awesome time, that all filled time, and people are calling Jesus Lord, they are ascribing to Him deity and the highest authority.

In the throne room of God, no one is going to be using that word, Lord, to say anything other than He is master and sovereign.

Now, beloved, listen. Jesus is Lord, and it is absolutely right and proper to call Him that.

The Bible says in Philippians 2 that every knee will bow and acknowledge that He is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

It is not a question of whether He is Lord or not. The question is what do you mean when you say that?

That is the point of potential self-deception, because there is obviously something missing in the lives of these people in verse 21,

because they are calling Him Lord and yet Jesus Christ sends them away.

Oh, this is awful. Beloved, this is just awful in its consequences. This is awful to contemplate.

What is the problem here? Well, first of all, understand this. We are going to make a distinction between what their lips say and what their lives say.

Basically, when we consider the fact that Jesus rejects empty words, these people who are going to be sent to hell, Jesus tells us that their lips affirm Christ.

Their lips affirm Christ. That is the first subpoint under point number two. Jesus rejects empty words. What do the words say? Their lips affirm Christ.

Now listen, Beloved. Basically, there are two kinds of people in the world. You can just break it down. This is just reality. On the one hand, you have a whole mass of humanity who does not acknowledge Christ at all.

Those people are going to hell. There is no question about that. These people who do not acknowledge Christ in any form are going to hell.

Now, on the other side here, you have a group of people who name the name of Christ, who name Him as Lord. There is a distinction here. Jesus is speaking to this group over here in this passage, not addressing those who do not know His name.

Now, in this group over here, what you have to understand is that there is a breakdown into two subsections of these people who name the name of Christ.

There is a section who truly know Him as Lord. And then there is this other section where it is just an empty word to them.

There is no true spiritual reality to their naming the Lordship of Christ.

Jesus is addressing and showing that there is a separation even among those who call Him Lord. That is key to understanding this passage.

Those who do not confess Jesus as Lord will most certainly go to hell. But what about the people who call Him Lord?

Well, my friends, before we go, I just want to say a word of thanks to you for listening to the truth, pulpit, and for the words of kindness and support that we get from so many of you, and also for your support.

We have been doing this broadcast now for some 10 years or so, and the Lord has provided our every need through friends just like you.

And so I thank you for all that you have done. Thank you for your interest in our ministry, for your prayers, for your gifts that help us to continue in this way.

And we just want you to know that our interest in you, our love for you, is genuine.

And sometime if you want to drop us a note, you can find a contact us link at thetruthpulpit.com.

Drop us a note and let us know what the teaching means to you. That would be a great encouragement to us. In the meantime, we'll see you next time on The Truth Pulpit.

That's Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Thank you so much for listening to The Truth Pulpit. Join us next time for more, as we continue teaching God's people, God's Word.