The scripture says that you'll know that you're his because
you'll love one another. Well, you proved it.
That's enough. Sit down.
Let's go. It's a lot of love.
Just oozed everywhere. We're going to have it.
Take us a week to clean it out of the pews.
I'll tell you if you got your Bibles, turn with me to Matthew
Chapter 7. It's my privilege to be with you
this morning. It truly is a privilege to be
back. I've been preaching.
I don't know, I don't think I've been here in a week, in a month.
And so it's it was really good to sing.
Good to hang out with Hallie. We it's good to see everybody
missed you. I know a brother that once stood
in front of his church and said today I will preach to you the
greatest sermon ever preached. And he read the Sermon on the
Mount and he sat down and it was hard to argue with him.
This is the greatest sermon that we have.
Jesus. In this sermon He sets forth His
Kingdom. He told us exactly what His
Kingdom was, but at the same time, he wasn't just outlining
the Kingdom of God. He was attacking and condemning
a Kingdom that's built by man. You see, there's really just two
religions in the world. You can boil it down to that.
Two religions. Now each one will teach that
there is a path to God, there's a path to heaven.
Each one will teach that they have a way, and Jesus here
admits to that. He says just before this, in
context, there's two ways, one's broad and one's narrow.
There's two gates, one is narrow and one is wide.
And he says ultimately though, there are two destinations.
One actually leads to God and the other one doesn't and then
even admits that there's two crowds.
There are the many that follow the Broadway and they go through
the wide gate, but there are only a few that will go through
the narrow gate that will take the narrow way.
You see, one religion is going to teach you that you get to God
through your work, through your effort and your righteousness
and your goodness. But the other one says that you
have none of those things and the only way to get to God is by
God saving you. The first religion is a religion
that we would call the religion of human achievement.
The second one is the religion that we would call the religion
of divine accomplishment. You can do nothing.
God has done it all. Just two types, 1 you contribute
to your getting to heaven and the other you don't.
Either you bring your righteousness to God and
accounts for your salvation or all you have are filthy rags and
it contributes nothing to your salvation.
You understand there cannot be 1/3 type right?
There's just one or the other. You either have some ability
within yourself to please God or you don't.
Only two options, the religion of human achievement or the
religion of divine accomplishment.
Only one leads to God. Only one is the true gospel.
And I submit to you that the the religion of divine
accomplishment is the true gospel.
The majority of the people, Jesus says many are people that
will subscribe to the religion at least in in Word.
They subscribe to the religion of divine accomplishment and yet
they still subscribe in their heart in truth to the religion
of human achievement. They're self-righteous and they
sit among us. They trust their religious
activity. They've joined us maybe today in
our religious activity that where we bring nothing of our
own, they bring their merit. They though they may in their
words say it's all of grace, but they really believe that the
grace of God needs some help and they are going to bring their
goodness to help make that effective for their salvation.
In this sermon on the mount, Jesus outlines the religion of
divine accomplishment and he attacks the religion of human
achievement. He destroys it.
The way he starts his sermon is he says blessed are the poor in
spirit. That totally goes against the
religion of human achievement. Blessed are the poor in spirit.
Those who are bankrupt, those who are destitute, those who
have no merit, no righteousness and admit fully they have
nothing to offer. Those are the ones that are
blessed. It sounds backwards, and the
truth often sounds backwards to those who believe the lie, he
says. Blessed are those who mourn, and
they mourn over their horrible, horrendous spiritual condition.
Those who see their helplessness and their hopelessness and they
have an total inability to save themselves.
Those are the ones that don't boast about their own works.
They mourn. They're humble.
Twice as blessed are the meek. Course they are.
They're not subscribers to the religion of of human
achievement. And so they mourn in their meek.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, those
who recognize they don't have it in and of themselves, but they
need it. They're looking for an alien
righteousness, something that's righteous outside of themselves
that they could possibly have credited to their account, which
is found only in Christ. Only in Christ.
These beatitudes are reserved for those who have given up on
their own achievement and they've rejected their works for
the works of God in Christ. Jesus continues his attack.
He does not. I love this.
He does not just attack the scribes and the Pharisees.
He doesn't just attack their, their, their sin.
He does. He talks about their adultery.
He says you may not have done this on the outside, but you've
looked upon a woman with lust and you've committed adultery in
your heart. So he attacks them in their sin.
He attacks them about their murderous hearts.
They, though they won't admit to having done this, they've never
killed someone outwardly, but inwardly they've murdered.
So Jesus attacks their sin, but he also attacks the things that
they feel like they've done right, This human achievement.
You can ask a scribe, Well, hey, how are you at praying now?
Oh, we knocked that out of the park.
We're we're like the best prayers ever.
And Jesus in this sermon goes, you guys pray wrong.
He says you pray to be seen. You pray in a way that you're
trying to gather some righteousness to yourself.
And that doesn't work like that. He attacks the religion of human
achievement. He attacks the way they give.
Hey, do you guys give good? Yeah.
We're the best givers. No, you're not.
Jesus exposes what they consider their righteousness and what
they consider their works. And he shows them they're not
working for you at all. They actually work against you.
It's these things because you're trusting in them that will end
up in your destruction. They're condemning you and you
think you're earning favor in God's sight, but you're not.
You're being condemned. So Jesus continues and just
attacks all of this. He never gives them credit with
the God who they thought that they were giving getting credit
with. Jesus preached the sermon to
dismantle their confidence and self.
No one gets to heaven by the religion of human achievement.
No one. The only way to heaven is
through the religion of divine accomplishment.
It is what God has done to save sinners through the work of
Jesus Christ in and through the cross and in and through
resurrection. That doesn't.
No one apart from Jesus Christ will get to heaven.
He is the way, the truth of life.
No one comes to the Father but through Him.
Neither is there salvation in any other.
There's no other name under heaven whereby we must be saved.
It's the only truth. And so Jesus contrast this false
religion with the truth. And so at the AT here in our
text today in Matthew Chapter 7, start in verse 15.
We've come to the end of Jesus's sermon, but we're not at the end
of my sermon yet. You only wish, OK, it's the end
of Jesus's sermon. And so let's stand and we'll
read from Matthew Chapter 7. And my text this morning is
verses 15 through 23. But for context, I want to start
in verse 12, Matthew Chapter 7, verse 12.
This says this. So whatever you wish that others
would do to you do also to them. For this is the law, and the
prophets enter by the narrow gate.
For the gate is wide, and the way is easy that leads to
destruction, and those who enter by it are many.
For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life,
and those who find it are few. Beware of false prophets who
come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous
wolves. You will recognize them by their
fruits are grapes gathered from thorn bushes, or figs from
thistles. So every healthy tree bears good
fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.
A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruits, nor can a diseased tree
bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear
good, good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.
Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord will enter the
Kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father
who is in heaven on that day. Many will say to me, Lord, Lord,
did we not prophecy in your name and cast out demons in your name
and do many mighty works in your name and then will I declare to
them, I never knew you depart from me, you workers of
lawlessness. This is the word of the Lord.
Let's pray, Father, we're grateful for your word.
We're thankful for this sermon got for the truth that has been
expounded from from Jesus Christ the Son God.
It's this that we recognize goes against the religion of the
world and and father, we gather here today not as those who seek
the Broadway, not as those who seek the wide gate.
But father, I I pray that we've gathered here today asking for
directions to the narrow gate and for truth that will help us
to walk the narrow way. God, that you would protect us
from the evil one, that you would protect us from these
false prophets that seek to deceive.
God, that you would guide us and, and, and help us to discern
our hearts to, to determine whether or not we are one of
these false professors. Lord, we know that the gate is
open. Thank you Jesus for being the
narrow gate. Help us, Father, to agonize in
order to find the way, for I ask this in Christ's name, Amen.
You may be seated for context. I want you to see that Jesus
ends his sermon with this command in verse 13.
Enter by the narrow gate. It's a command.
He said here that there are two religions.
There's two gates, there's two paths, there's two crowds.
One claims to be right but is actually false.
Do you understand that? There's nobody that is actually
out loud selling hell. There's nobody that shows up.
And there's no false prophet that shows up and is like, hey
guys, anybody want to go to eternal torment?
No, they would have nobody looking for that path.
What they do is, is they sell that the road to hell is
actually, they call it the road to heaven.
It's deceptive. It's deceiving.
They do this on purpose. They don't sell hell openly, but
they sell hell by deceiving us and by pushing it as a saying it
is a path to heaven. Enter by the narrow gate.
Jesus says this is the command preachers often times today try
to to woo sinners and they say things silly like oh please, oh
please come accept Jesus. That's not the command of the
Scripture that God gives us as prophets to preach.
We are to command people to repent and believe in Jesus
Christ. You stand condemned.
You have you, you, you don't get to to negotiate with that.
You stand condemned. There's one way out.
Enter by the narrow gate. So Jesus opens this ending of
his sermon with this great command and the gate is open.
Jesus is the gate. Now in order to help us guide
ourselves away from the wide gate to Jesus gives us some very
fearful truths here in verse 15 through 23.
They ought to these verses ought to raise some searchings inside
of our hearts in the minds of all who listen.
We should be asking ourselves, which way am I going on?
What Rd. am I traveling? There are two ways described and
on everyone. Every one of us in here can be
found on one of these roads. There's no third Rd.
You're on one or the other. May God give us a self inquiring
spirit and show us exactly where we are and what direction we're
headed to what destination we're headed.
We have. Let me encourage you, no reason
to be discouraged if we find ourselves with a religion that
is not popular. If you find yourself with a
religion that is popular, I would be greatly concerned if I
were you. The words of our Lord Jesus in
this passage says the gate is narrow, the way is narrow.
Few there are that find it, and I I hope you understand that it
is better to enter into eternal life with a few than to go to
destruction with the great crowd.
JC Rowles says we may well tremble and be afraid if our
religion is that of the multitude.
Now it's with this command that Jesus begins to draw his sermon
to a close and he continues with this theme of, you know, two
options. There's 2 paths, 2 gates.
Verse 15 through 20, there's two trees, there's good and corrupt,
there's two fruits, there's good and bad.
So we've seen this false path, but now this is a section on
false prophets. And in the next section, 21
through 23, we're going to see a section on false professors.
So if I understand this correctly, and I, I believe I
do, what Jesus is doing here is steering us clear of the
Broadway. If we're going to stay out of
the false path that many people are selling us to try to go on
the path that leads to destruction, then one of the
things that we need to do is beware of false prophets.
Now I want to get you to get rid of an excuse right now.
So many people believe that if my my minister is trying and he
makes a mistake, then God can't hold me accountable for
following his path. But Jesus tells us if the blind
leads the blind, they both end up in the ditch.
You can't say I'll just believe whatever this guy says and
follow him and if he's wrong it's not my fault.
Oh yes, it is your fault. You willingly chose to remain
blind. You willingly chose not to
search the scriptures. That excuse, excuse just simply
doesn't work. So what I want us to see in
these first few verses here is I want you to see the danger of
false prophets and then the disguise of the false prophets.
And then Jesus tells us how we can discern them.
And then he tells, if it tells us of their damnation, OK, to
start, we're going to see the danger.
Jesus tells us in verse 15, beware of false prophets.
Again, this is a command. Beware of false prophets.
Now there's two things William Perkins says it takes to make a
false prophet. He says the first, they must
maintain or hold to some error that overturns true faith.
That one we probably had, right? We probably understood that
required in a false prophet. The secondly, he says they must
be a seducer and a deceiver, someone who will labor to create
a faction. OK, it takes both in order to be
a false prophet. Now let's look at the text of
Scripture. There are many texts in
scripture that describe false prophets, and I would just want
to let the scripture be the best commentary on the scripture
because that's what it is. Second Peter 2 verse one says
this. But false prophets also arose
among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you
who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even
denying the Master who brought them, bringing upon themselves
swift destruction. And many will follow their
sensual sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be
blasphemed. And in their greed they will
exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago
is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.
I want you to see that there's both of those in this passage.
There's this maintaining and holding to false truths,
destructive heresies, Peter says.
And it's it. There's this deception, someone
who's trying to create this faction, many will follow their
sensuality. Because of them, the way of the
truth will be blasphemed. Do you see it?
Both of these activities are occurring.
Romans 16 verse 17 and 18 says, I appeal to you, brother, to
watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles
contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught.
And he says very plainly, there, avoid them, OK, avoid them, for
such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own
appetites, their own bellies. It literally means, and by
smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive.
Matthew 2424. Jesus I think says it the most
clear for false Christs and false prophets will arise and
perform great signs and wonders so as to lead astray if possible
even the elect. I need you to understand that
Jesus has said there's going to be false prophets.
We have not just had false prophets 2000 years ago, we have
false prophets today. This beware is not something
that the apostles needed to hear only it's this beware needs to
go to every generation of Christians following them and we
need to hear today beware of false prophets.
They still labor among us. They still try to hold to this
destructive doctrines that cause division and they try to cause
the faction. They try to bring reproach upon
the cause of Christ. They will do everything they can
to distort the truth. Jesus is saying that we will be
troubled not sometimes with fault with false prophets, but
all the time with many false prophets, and they will bring in
many false doctrines. It's a dangerous thing to not
know your doctrine. There's so many people that want
to do this thing as haphazardly as possible.
I just have my Bible. That's all I need.
I could just read this every now and then.
It's it's fine. You are setting yourself up for
destruction. This Bible is something you need
to learn. This is the tool of your trade.
You need to know how, what it says, how it works, you need to
be in it, and you need to allow it to have full authority over
your life, submitting yourself to the scriptures in your heart
and in your lifestyle. The question comes, why does God
allow this to continue? Why does God allow for false
prophets to be so many, to be so deceptive, to cause so many
factions? First Corinthians 11/19 For
there must be factions among you in order that those who are
genuine among you may be recognized.
Do you know why God allows false prophets is so that those of us
who are true can watch and weep as you be LED astray?
Because you were naming the name of Christ, but you were not of
him. And we can watch, and we can
weep, and we can plead for you to return that.
We can see just exactly how destructive, deceptive this and
deceptive sin is. We can watch it, and we can
again take care to our own souls.
And we can hold fast to the trustworthy word as taught.
And we can maintain the true religion, meaning we can
maintain obedience to Christ in all things because we can look
and see many, many examples of those who do not follow him.
It is hard to read that text and say there must be factions among
you so that we can tell who's genuine.
It's one of the hardest things that elders have to do is when
one of us who's here and if named the name of Christ and has
said they want to join with us, when they prove that they're not
really one of us. And the elders have to go and
with love, seek to restore, seek to pursue their soul.
And you have to tell them out loud, you're not a Christian.
You say that you are, but there's no fruit of that.
The fruit in your life is wicked.
It's a great blasphemy. We we always think blasphemy is
just taking the Lord's name in vain.
In the Hebrew, the word name and the word reputation is the same
word, just saying the Lord's name in a bad way.
Yes, it's wrong and yes, it's bad, but how much worse is it to
claim that you're a Christ but you live as if you're living?
Excuse me. I want you to see.
Secondly, the the disguise of false prophets.
I'm I'm sorry, let me finish this.
The danger is not only be aware of them, but recognize who they
are. They're ravenous wolves, OK?
That's their danger is who they are, who they are and what they
intend to do. You know what a ravenous wolf
wants to do and wants to eat sheep?
Look at the disguise of false prophets.
They are deceptive in their appearance.
Now, since I was a little kid, I got to be honest with you, since
I was a little kid, I've, I've heard this idea, this
phraseology of like these wolves come in sheep's clothing.
And I always pictured, and I think you probably do too, that
they dress up like a sheep. And I think there, there may be
aspects of that in, in my, in the history I've had in
ministry, I've watched many times people come in and they'd
be one of us. They'd be a sheep among us.
And they cause factions. Sometimes it's over a doctrine,
sometimes it's over the color of the carpet.
I mean, you, you've watched this, right?
You've been in church longer than 15 minutes.
You've seen this stuff happen. OK, People can cause these
factions all the time. And I think sheep 'cause these
factions of they can maybe get 1020 people, maybe more if
they're more popular. But but they do this from that,
you know, there could be a wolf dressed up like a sheep.
And I read a commentator on this text and he said a sheep's
clothing is wool. He said, do you know what
shepherds well wear? They wear wool.
They wear what their sheep produce.
It's not just that these false prophets are coming in and
dressing like sheep. Some will come in and dress like
shepherds, and I've seen those come and they've LED away
thousands. They're far more deceptive and
far more able to create factions when they do that.
I think of a man named Alexander Campbell, who's a young
preacher, and he started teaching a false doctrine and
now there's an entire an entire denomination who believes that
salvation is dependent upon whether or not they get dumped.
And he's one of about 50 I can name.
It's destructive. People will come in, false
prophets will come in and dress like a shepherd.
They dress like sheep, they wear the dress.
A wolf can dress like a sheep in order to get close to sheep, but
a wolf can dress like a shepherd in order to get close to sheep.
To the whole point is he's ravenous and he wants to destroy
them. I have good news.
Jesus tells us that we, you and I, true believers of the gospel,
can discern a false prophet. Now that's good news.
You guys are looking like I'm beating you up and I'm really
not just fighting for you. Jesus tells us in verse 16, you
will recognize them. Because when I hear this, I'm
like they're dressed like a shepherd or they're dressed like
sheep. It's really hard.
Somebody wears a sheep dress and comes in, I'm like, hey, look a
sheep. That's hard, that's a challenge,
but Jesus very kindly, very lovingly says you'll recognize
and look again, verse 20, thus you will recognize them.
How He says same thing by their fruits.
You'll recognize them verse 16, by their fruits.
Verse 20, He reminds us again, guys, it's OK, you can recognize
them by their fruits. Now here's something that we've
got to be very watchful of because unfortunately fruit
doesn't grow all the time. We, we have some trees.
We, we just bought a house. You guys know this, it's in
Waldo, right? Which I still find funny.
I've been saying that for two years now and it's still
hilarious. But we have some trees on the
property that I have no clue what they are.
There's some sort of fruit tree and I am waiting, have been
waiting since we bought the house for fruit to show up.
There's some fruit that can show up and we will keep that tree.
There's some fruit that can show up and I will cut that tree
down. And that's the truth.
Candy wants me to cut them down already and I'm like, wait,
wait, wait, 'cause if it's this, I want to keep it.
I've no clue what it is. I'm, I'm not a tree guy.
If you're a tree guy, I'll send you a pic.
OK. This is hard because people will
come in and you can't see fruit right away.
This is something that we must discern over time, but we can
recognize them by their fruits. Jesus says our gapes, our grapes
gathered from thorn bushes. Answer is no, they're not our
figs gathered from thistles. No, they're not.
Everybody say our figs gathered from thistles real fast.
I've distressed over that sentence the whole time and I
made it. No, figs are not gathered from
thistles, OK, They're not. That's not where they grow.
Now, the dangerous thing is, is somebody can take a grape and
walk up to a thorn and squish it onto a thorn.
And you can look at that Bush and go, hey, look, that's a
great Bush. You can take a fig and you can
go smash it onto some thistles, and it's going to appear that
that fig grew from the Thistle. But once you begin to press in
and you get close and you begin to examine, you're going to look
and go. That thorn didn't produce that
grape. That Thistle didn't produce the
fig. There's no way it did.
But it takes inspection, doesn't it?
From a distance, it may appear right.
It may appear good. From this, I have something to
tell you. I think you should beware of
living heroes, that there's a danger of tying yourself to
somebody, especially really quickly.
And I'm going to speak to the men here.
Men, sometimes we do this on a guy that we heard a podcast of
once. We recently had this young man
listened to a podcast and he started believing all these
things that you couldn't be back up with Scripture, but he heard
it once and he tied himself to it.
He didn't examine the fruit. He didn't look to see if there's
a grape smashed upon a thorn and it's dangerous.
Men, you need to protect yourself and your family from
podcasters. I'm not saying avoid them
altogether. I'm saying beware.
You need to spend time examining their fruit before you really
begin to tie yourself to that and following it.
You need to do that with these brothers and here who lead.
Kyle's been here 11 years. You get to see fruit by God's
grace. Examine it closely.
Keep examining it. If if Kyle starts growing
thorns, you let him know, hey, this ain't right.
We always have to do that. Beware of living heroes.
That doesn't mean forsake them, doesn't mean abandoned them.
It just means pray like crazy that they make it, pray like
crazy that they endure to the end and they persevere with
faithfulness because I followed guys and I've loved guys who 40
years in the ministry and they run away with their secretary.
So examine them. Let's talk a little bit about
what they do. I think I can help you discern
some in the short amount of time.
I have 1. They have their own calling and
their own content. A false prophet will come with
his own calling and will come with his own content.
God's prophets are called by God and they speak the content that
God gives them. God's man has God's message upon
his lips, right? The false prophet has neither of
those things. Jeremiah 1414 says The Lord said
to me, the prophets are prophesying lies in My name.
I did not send them, nor did I command them to speak to them.
They are prophesying to you a lying vision, a worthless
divination, and the deceit of their own minds.
If they come bring in their own content, Mark and avoid #2 I
believe they mishandle scriptures.
So many false prophets will talk about the Bible, but they don't
talk from the Bible. Do you understand the
difference? I've been in churches when I
grew up in a church that I was told every week that they were
preaching the Bible, but they never preached the Bible.
But they thought by saying they preached the Bible that it
counted. It doesn't.
It does not. Can't speak about it.
They must speak from it. They will leave out parts that
go against their point. They will pick and choose what
they want and it'll never be in context.
The actions of the false prophet is that they seek to skew or to
pervert. To pervert means to twist, to
take something that's good and to twist it for evil. 6th grade
boys, that's what you're doing when you're pervert.
You take something that God has given that is good and beautiful
and you twist it. Don't be like Satan.
That's what he does with the Word of God as well.
False prophets will work for their glory and their renown.
You understand? You can't push for the glory of
God and the glory of self at the same time.
Christ came not to serve. No, sorry, Christ came to serve
and not to be served. Christ's servants do the same
thing. Christ's servants are sent to
serve, not to be served. If a man wants his way and
pushes for his own title, he pushes for his own advancement.
This stands in contrast to the true prophets of God.
This means they will often forge a counterfeit humility that can
easily be seen through because they want to appear that I'm
here for God. But you can watch their actions
as they work for themselves. Again, Romans 16 says they serve
not the Lord, but their own bellies, their own appetites.
Watch me. Some of you are trying to find a
way to check out don't. Yet another thing that false
prophets will do is they may do many mighty works in the name of
Christ. Verse 22 tells us this.
Verse 22, on that day many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we
not prophecy in your name and cast out demons in your name,
and do many mighty works in your name?
Many false prophets will do all of these.
They'll prophecy, they'll cast out demons.
So many people are deceived by works.
I don't understand it. I think it's because so many of
us are people who are longing for works.
We want to see some mighty power.
And that makes this very easy to deceive because there's a false
power out there. There's a fake power there.
If you don't think that in order to deceive someone, Satan will
set up a demon to show up and be like, hey, pretend like you're
casting this demon out. And this demon will walk away
giggling, going ha ha, ha. We deceive some more.
If you don't think that's happening, you're crazy.
That happens all the time. They're they're in the business
of deception. I want to tell you something.
I want to let the Scriptures tell you something.
OK, number one, hear this, please.
Many true works of God have no sign, no sign of power.
John 1041. Please write it down.
John 1041 Many came to him and they said John did no sign.
But everything that John said about this man was true.
Let's talk about John the Baptist.
John the Baptist was a faithful prophet of God and he chose to
do no sign. Why?
Because he didn't need to. His job was to proclaim, to be
the forerunner of Christ, to prepare the way of the Lord,
proclaim repentance in the name of Christ.
He did no sign, but everything he said was true.
What are you looking for? Are you looking for truth or are
you looking for a sign? So #1 Many true works of God
have no sign #2 Many false works will have a sign and yet still
be false. Deuteronomy 13 verse one says,
if a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and
gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he
tells you comes to pass. And if he says, let us go after
other gods which you've not known, and let us serve them,
you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that
dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing
you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your
heart and with all your soul. God has told us there's going to
be many that come doing signs. Note the damnation of the false
prophets, verse 19. Every tree that does not bear
good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
False prophets will be damned. They will be.
They will be cut down and they will be thrown into the fire.
Let this serve as a comfort to us, brothers and sisters.
Though we are told by Jesus that we will walk amongst false
prophets, we'll be troubled by these false prophets for our
whole life. It will only be for a little
while. There's a time coming when it
will not be so. Factions and those who create
them will soon cease. God will surely on that great
day, cut them down by the power of his Word and we'll cast them
out, cast them out of God's dwelling, cast them away from
God's people and away from any opportunity to deceive.
Again. There's a term limit on how they
get to serve now. False prophets, Jesus tells us
to beware of false prophets because he knows that there are
many that are trying to deceive us to take the Broadway.
And unfortunately, I have to tell you it it they're pretty
successful. They're pretty successful.
Let's look again at verse 21. Not everyone who says to me,
Lord, Lord will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but the one
who does the will of my Father who is in heaven on that day.
Many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophecy in your
name, and cast out demons in your name, and do mighty works
in your name? And then will I declare to them,
I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of
lawlessness. I want you to see that there is
a deception of the false professors.
Jesus says what has to be one of the most frightening words to
religious people, one of the most frightening things that
could ever be said. He says many will say on that
day, that day means the day of judgment.
Many, He said many starting in verse 13, and he's talked about
many the whole time. Many there are that take the
broad path. Few there are that take the
narrow path. One path leads to destruction,
one path leads to God. He says, I will declare to them,
I never knew you. Now where are the false
prophets? They're in the church.
They're among us. False prophets are here.
Where all there? Where are the false professors,
those that claim to have God as their God and yet really do not?
They're in the same place, they're right here, they're
among us. There are some in this room who
claim that God is their God, but she'll never enter into the
Kingdom of heaven. There's some in this room that
believe they're fine and yet on that great day God will say to
them, I never knew you depart from me.
Now I know that may make make some of you guys mad because I
said there's some in this room. I want you to understand that's
not the word Jesus used. He said many.
Hell will be filled with people who claim to have a relationship
with Jesus, but Jesus will not make the same claim.
He will say, I never knew you. The temptation is to immediately
think that this doesn't apply to us.
The temptation is to quickly go, I'm glad that's not me.
You remember what signs they put over the road to hell, the road
to heaven, this way. So many of us are deceived.
We're on the wrong path. So many of us understand the
facts of the religion of divine accomplishment, but we're still
ultimately trusting in the religion of human achievement.
We come and we sit and we check the box on our religious
activities and we go, haha, no win.
Another one for the Gipper. That's a good one.
We never look, we never examine. We never take the time to look
at the path that we're on. You understand that you
constantly carry around a false prophet with you.
It's your flesh. Your flesh is going to
constantly try to get you to be as comfortable as you can.
He's going to say relax. Don't worry, This is talking
about other people. We are told to strive in Book of
Matt Mark. We're told to strive to enter
into the narrow gate. That literally means to agonize
over it. When John Bunyan, the man who
wrote Pilgrims Progress in his book Grace Abounding to the
Chief of Sinner Sinners, he wrote that upon his conversion
he agonized over his sin for 18 months as he fought and he
battled with himself. Joel Beeke talks about agonizing
over his sin for 13 months. There was 8 months that I was
inconsolable in college, could find nobody to help me answer
the question of my heart, which is how can I know the Lord?
So many of us want to take A and make a 5 minute decision and
then go along our happy way and we've been fed this lie.
Just believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and you're fine.
False prophets, Let's quickly get you through this broad gate
so you can be on your merry way on the Broadway.
The Scriptures call us to examine ourselves.
The Scriptures call us to agonize, to seek for Him and
seek for Him with all our heart. Have you ever done that?
Or have you just been riding somebody's coattails?
You know, the narrow gate is narrow enough that only one can
fit at a time. You can't take somebody with you
and you can't take your baggage with you.
The gate is narrow because you can't take in any of your own
self righteousness. It doesn't fit.
It's a turnstile. It will click, click, click.
One goes at a time. I don't know if that made sense
to anybody else, but that was a great picture for me right here.
It's narrow. If if you go through that gate,
you go in with an empty hand, meaning you have nothing to
offer. You go in recognizing all I had
and I left them out there was filthy rags.
If you let me in, it's only going to be on your
righteousness, on divine accomplishment.
There's no achievement in this human.
That's the way through the turnstile of the narrow gate.
We must not flatter ourselves about our supposed gains in the
faith. We can so quickly become devoted
again to the religion of human achievement.
Our self righteousness will encourage us.
We're fine. The fruit of true faith comes by
hearing the Word of God, especially the gospel preached.
True faith is a change of the whole person, both in heart and
in life. True faith is seen in resting
wholly upon God. You are converted to the
religion of divine accomplishment, and repentance
is seen every single time. Our devotion to that true
religion waivers every time we sin, every time we stumble,
every time we become unhumble, every time we repent and we
believe again upon what Christ accomplished on our behalf.
That's the true faith. There's no hope of heaven for
those who do not believe the gospel of Jesus Christ.
There's no gospel. There's no salvation.
If there's no Christ, there's no salvation.
This is a critical passage for those of us in our day and time.
There's so many people in our in our culture that call themselves
Christians. It's a popular thing to do here.
It's in such an important thing for us to hear the teachings of
our Lord. You see, there's a false path
that so many are on. They're false prophets that are
deceiving so many. They're false professors that
show up don't even realize they're deceived on the broad
path to hell. False path, false prophets,
false professors. And I want you to see their fate
is perishing. Depart from me, for I never knew
you. You see, there's two
destinations. There's a broad Rd. that leads
to destruction and the narrow that leads to life destruction.
Here I want you to understand does not refer to annihilation.
It's not that just that you're wiped off Note it.
It refers to an everlasting torment where there's weeping
and wailing and gnashing of teeth forever and ever and ever
and ever. It leads to hell and those
selling tickets to it keep saying it leads to heaven, but
it doesn't. The entrance to the road to hell
reads the road to heaven. That's Satan's great lie.
But there is a narrow Rd. that leads to life.
There is a road that leads to a heavenly life, eternal,
everlasting joy and bliss with God.
Ask yourself this morning, where are you?
What Rd. are you on? Have you agonized and sought
with all your heart to find the narrow gate?
Or are you relying upon yourself righteousness and deceiving
yourself of your helplessness? This passage makes it clear the
Lord hates those who name His name and yet don't know Him.
He will cast them out. But the passage also makes it
very clear there is a gate, and though it is narrow, it is open.
Jesus is the gate. If you find yourself on the
wrong path, I want you to know the gate is open.
Christ can save. Ask and it shall be given to
you. Let's pray.
Father, I'm thankful for your text.
I'm thankful, Lord, that your word is alive and active and it
cuts us in two. Lord, as the psalmist praise we,
we ask that she would just examine us to to search us and
to know us and to let us know if there's anything wayward here.
Father, I pray that you would cause the souls in here to pray,
to seek your face, to determine what Rd. they're on.
And Father, that if there be any here that have been deceived,
that have been following the broad path, God, that you would
call them, call them to the narrow gate.
God, there are many false prophets.
I pray that you'd shut their mouth for just a second.
There are many in here whose flesh is screaming.
You're fine, Don't worry, It's comfortable here.
God, I pray you'd shut that up and help him to seek the truth.
God, I'm so grateful that there is a narrow gate that you and
your great love and mercy have sent your Son, that you so loved
the world that you gave your only begotten Son, that
whosoever believes in him will not perish, that will have
everlasting life. Father, as you've said in your
word, enter command, enter the narrow gate.
Father, I pray that you would help command the sinners here
this morning to enter in the narrow gate to repent and
believe.