The Paradoxical Sayings of Jesus
Jesus’ Chilling Warning
Matthew 7:21-23
As paradoxical sayings go, we’ve come to one of the very hardest of all the sayings of Jesus this morning, a saying, which “paradoxically” comes near the very end of what most people regard to be the greatest sermon ever preached.
So, in a sense, it’s hard to imagine why this saying doesn’t get more attention. It absolutely demands our attention if we’re concerned about our eternal destiny; it assaults with grave spiritual realities, and since it comes from Jesus, it lovingly begs for our sobered attention, and so this morning we shall give it just that.
What is that saying? Matthew 7:21-23: “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. 22 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?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS’” (NASB)>
First, you might wonder what is so paradoxical about this statement, which is clearly a prophecy about what will happen on Judgment Day. So let me count the ways for you this morning in which there seem to be apparent contradictions between this and other things either Jesus or the Bible clearly says, and then let me note the sobering realities that it forces us to face, for our own welfare.
The first paradox is this: 1. Romans 10:13 clearly says that “everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” But here Jesus says that not everyone who says to Me, “Lord, Lord, will enter the Kingdom of heaven. More than that, he says that many will come to Him on Judgment Day and call Him Lord, but will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. So what gives?
2. Second, Jesus and the New Testament especially clearly indicate repeatedly that going to heaven, being saved, inheriting salvation comes by faith or belief alone. Jesus said this in everyone’s favorite verse: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Ephesians 2:8-9 is emphatic that salvation comes not by good works, but by faith: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works that no one should boast.” But here Jesus clearly says that only those who do the will of God will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. What gives here?
3. Jesus clearly indicated in John 14:11 and other places that His miracles testified to the fact that He was the Messiah, and that if people did not believe for any other reason, they should believe on the basis of His miracles alone when He said, “Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.” And yet here He indicates that miracles done in His name are not infallible signs that Jesus is behind them. Because He says many will come to Him on Judgment Day saying, “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.’” Again, what’s going on here?
4. And then, one of the joys of being a Christian is knowing you’re going to heaven—the joy of absolute assurance you are right with God. Many passages indicate you can know this. One of the favorites is found in I John 5:11-13: And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.” But these words of Jesus are clearly designed to make those of us who think we are sure we are saved to think again—to not be so sure. Why is this?
And then there’s the sobering, chilling aspects of this saying. First, the concept that many, not a few, will come before Jesus on Judgment Day who sincerely believe they have known and served Jesus all their lives only to find that they are dead wrong, to their eternal regret, and will be shocked at the outcome. And the very sobering question that Jesus clearly intended each of us here to ask ourselves, “Could I by any chance be one of those people who will face this greatest nightmare of all eternity?” And finally, “how can I avoid this terrible mistake; how can I and all those whom I know and love come to know better?”
Well, we have our work cut out for us this morning don’t we. In fact, we’ve got too much too do for one message. So we’ll answer our first couple questions this morning, and the next couple in Part II of this message.
Before we go further, I think it’s important to note that Jesus, the one who said this, desires for all men to be saved. II Peter 3:9 specifically says, “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” So Jesus says this with the motivation of making sure people who aren’t saved, who aren’t going to heaven think again, and consider how they might be sure they’re going to heaven, and he’s giving everyone time, plenty of time, 2000 years now since He came the first time, for everyone to come to this knowledge of how to be saved. And second, it’s also important to note that Jesus did everything He possibly could have to ensure our salvation—He gave His life for us on the cross to save us from our sins, came back from the dead to demonstrate He was the Way, and Has given us this miracle, many others and His Word, the Bible to show us how. Now, it is simply up to us to consider these sobering words, which Jesus stated in such a way that we would think and think hard about, in order to be sure we’re going to heaven. And that is His point this morning—Think very hard and very Biblically about whether you’re going to heaven—whether you really know and do God’s will.
It’s also important that we put this statement in its context. The God-man comes to His people at a point in history when almost the entire religious establishment, almost all of the Jewish religious leaders, are entirely corrupt. He comes to them at a time when the very people who are supposed to be leading other people to salvation are leading them astray, making their disciples twice as much a son of hell as they themselves are, and don’t have a clue about how to get to heaven, and for the most part don’t care. In fact, they will crucify the One who has come to tell them how precisely because they don’t want to know and don’t care that their people don’t know—a shocking testament to the evil of this world and just how badly even we need to consider seriously what Jesus said about this matter today.
And so we come with this question this morning: How can so many be so sincerely deceived into thinking they know Jesus and are sure of going to heaven? Well, because they haven’t thought hard enough about it, and because they’ve been led astray.
The first clue is found in the preceding context. After telling the many gathered on that green hill above the Sea of Galilee on that day that unless their righteousness exceeded that of the scribes and the Pharisees, their religious leaders, that they would not enter the Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus words become much more sobering as He concludes His magnificent sermon.
Verse 13: He says, “Enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
Whoa, so much for the concept that most people are going to heaven. This goes against the grain for most Americans. A 2003 Barna Group survey showed that 76% of Americans believe in heaven, but only 1 percent believe they’re going to hell. Another 2016 survey shockingly shows that among evangelical believers—and I count myself as evangelical—64 percent believe that all people go to heaven when they die. This is a pretty clear indication that 64 percent of people who are in churches like ours are not reading their Bible and have little or no regard for what Jesus said right here. Enter through the narrow gate, because most folks will take the broad road that leads to destruction. Few will take the small and narrow gate that leads to life. Let’s state this soberly and clearly: The Lord Jesus Christ, the God-Man, the Living Word of God, who alone came from heaven and would know, says this; Most people are going to hell. Relatively few people are going to heaven.
Now I don’t like this anymore than you do. But it is clearly what Jesus said. And if you believe in Jesus you must believe He told the truth, that He would not lie to you and I about such a serious subject.
Once that awful truth has sunk in, we’ll be asking another question. Why? Why is it that most people are taking the broad road that leads to destruction?
The answer is in the very next verse, Matthew 7:15: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”
Well, there a big part of the answer, right there! Jesus is both answering our question, telling us why many will go to hell, and also telling us at the same time that what we must do about it if we would save our souls. “Beware of the false prophets.” False prophets are perhaps the very biggest reason why people are headed to hell. They mislead most people. False prophets, mislead most people—they mislead them to hell. Wow! That’s a revelation we’ve got to think hard about!
Why are they so good at their deceptions that they lead many people to hell? Verse 15 provides the answer to that question as well. Why, oh why are they so good at what they do? Here’s the answer: “who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”
In Scripture, Jesus always characterizes true believers, the saved, real Christians, as sheep. Sheep follow their master most of the time. They’re helpless without their Shepherd. But there is a terrible, monstrous reality we all need to be aware of and beware of; Wolves, the eternal enemies of the sheep, come to us in sheep’s clothing. They pretend to be sheep and infiltrate our lives with this terrible deception, and if we’re not careful, we will believe they are real sheep and be deceived and devoured spiritually—spiritually eaten alive, by their lies. What you see is absolutely not what you get.
Not a pretty picture! A tragic, horrendous, nightmarish reality that we indeed face in this world according to no less an authority than Jesus Christ Himself. Here’s His point: Be sure you’re not following a false prophet. Be sure you’re not following a false prophet. You need to be sure of that even with respect to yours truly—me. You better check me out, because if you don’t, you could eternally regret believing and following me.
So how are you going to know? How can you tell who is a false prophet and who is not? This is a vital question—one you need to know the answer to in order to save your soul—your life depends on this. Point two this morning: Examine a spiritual leader’s fruit. Examine a spiritual leader’s fruit. Examine the so-called prophet’s fruit. In other words, check out his works—are they ultimately good or evil? To do this, you’ve got to go beyond the surface—you’ve got know what they’re really about—what their real motives are for what they do.
Jesus, speaking to Jewish folks who knew the difference between a fig tree and a thorn bush in an agricultural community, knew where to go to find good food—not a thorn bush, but a fruit tree. Verse 16: “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. (A not so gentle reminder about their destiny—it’s hell, and if you follow them without checking them out, you’ll end up there too.) “So then, you will know them by their fruits.”
That last statement should be echoing in your minds until eternity: So, then you will know false prophets by their fruits . . . “So then you will know false prophets by their deeds. So then you will no false prophets by their bad works, their evil deeds and self-centered motives. You will know false prophets by their fruits . . . “
As one of my professors, Norm Geisler, once said, “Apostasy—falling away from Christ—begins in the heart, and spreads to the head.” Once a spiritual leader begins to desire to do evil, He will begin justifying his deeds by adjusting his beliefs and his teaching to conform to what he wants to do. It has been borne out through history over and over and over again.
Joseph Smith, false prophet of Mormonism was a serial adulterer and a court-proven pathological liar who justified his multiple adulteries—he had “spiritually married” 50 wives, some as young as 14, and at least 11 married to other men—by the time he had the revelation on polygamy—that polygamy was required in order to get to heaven (Doctrine and Covenants 132). This was a revelation that came in response to his wife Emma’s complaints about his unfaithfulness. Interestingly, when she decided she wanted to give polygamy a try, he ultimately had a revelation that Emma should be kept to himself alone. What hypocrisy!
Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science, plagiarized much of her book Science and Health from other authors, took morphine most of her life for the very physical ills and pains her religion denied even existed.
Charles Taze Russell, founder of Jehovah’s Witnesses, was proven a liar about his knowledge of Greek in a courtroom and often lied about the number of followers he had.
The Roman Catholic Church’s recent problems characterize much of its history which include the murder of true believers in the Inquisition, as well as many others, the sexual abuses of popes who were at one time so beholden to their lusts that a family of prostitutes decided who would become pope.
And we could go on, but we don’t have time.
But, you shall know false prophets by their fruits. Are you watching? Are you aware. “Beware?” Jesus said.
And now finally we come to the saying itself. And what verse 21 plainly says is this: Not everyone who professes Jesus, even on Judgment Day, much less in this world, will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. So Jesus here tells us to watch out for false professors of Christ and false professions. Just saying you believe in Jesus, or calling Him Lord does not cast the final verdict regarding someone’s salvation.
So, what does? Verse 21 gives us the plain answer: The one who will enter the kingdom of heaven is “he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven.”
For a moment here, it appears that good works, namely the one who works the will of God the Father in heaven, do count. In fact, we might think that good works result in salvation. But what about all those sayings of Jesus and the Bible that tell us it’s by grace through faith, and faith alone.
Well, let’s take a little harder look at them. Let’s take that emphatic one—Ephesians 2:8-9. Well, let’s go a little further—let’s read verse 10 this time: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, that no one should boast,” Verse 10: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” What this passage is clearly saying is that faith alone is the means of salvation, faith in Jesus, but the result of salvation will be good works. It follows the psychological principle that what you believe determines what you do.
What about John 3:16? Guess what. The context follows the same progression. A little later in that same chapter John the Baptist is quoted in verse 36 as saying: “He who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on Him.”
James elucidates the principle even further, essentially saying that true saving faith will always produce good works—not perfect, but good works. He says in James 2: “The demons believe and shudder.” “And faith without works is dead, being by itself.” So true saving faith is the faith that works, that does good works.
And then there are repeated warnings by the Apostle Paul, the Apostle of salvation by grace through faith alone, that warn us that professors who continue in sin will not enter the Kingdom of God: I Corinthians 6:9-11: “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 10 nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”
Galatians 5:19-21: “Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, 21 envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
Ephesians 5:5: “For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.”
And then there’s Paul’s testimony before King Agrippa in Caesarea Philippi, Acts 26:19-20: “So, King Agrippa, I did not prove disobedient to the heavenly vision, 20 but kept declaring both to those of Damascus first, and also at Jerusalem and then throughout all the region of Judea, and even to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate to repentance.”
Suddenly, I have a clue as to why 64% of self-proclaimed evangelicals believe everyone’s going to heaven. It’s easy to point the finger at others with respect to this passage. But I believe the finger turns around and points to us on this issue—and at me, in particular. We evangelicals have so emphasized that salvation comes by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus, that we have forgotten to emphasize that the faith that saves is a repentant and obedient faith—a faith that if it’s real, turns from sin to God and generally, but not perfectly, obeys God. This is the testimony of Scripture from the time of at least Abraham forward, the spiritual forefather of us all—that it is an obedient faith that saves.
And I wonder why a couple I “led to the Lord” a year ago went back to living together and stopped coming to church—after I assured them of their salvation on the basis of a prayer and faith. Are they saved, I don’t think so. But I didn’t emphasize repentant, or obedient faith.
When I was in Alaska I was witnessing to a 40-something young man who was smoking pot, and living with his girlfriend. He thought he was okay with God because someone had told him to invite Jesus into his life, and he did! When I talked to him, he said he thought he was going to heaven because he was a good person. Well, I told him something different—that he needed to put his trust in Jesus alone, not in His good works, for eternal life. I asked him if he wanted to pray to do that. He said yes. But then it occurred to me how he was living. So I stopped and said if you pray this prayer, you can’t go on doing all the things everyone else is doing. He understood exactly what I meant, and all of a sudden, he wasn’t willing to pray.
Whoa! It has occurred to me that maybe we are preaching some form of false gospel ourselves when we don’t properly emphasize a faith that always results in good works, a faith that turns from sin and follows Jesus. For even Jesus Himself said here in this passage that every tree that does not produce good fruit is thrown into the fire.
Well, this morning, we haven’t answered all the questions that this paradoxical saying begs us to answer. But we have answered some of them. And essentially, we’ve come to this—we have to pay much closer attention to the things we say we have heard and learned. We need to think hard on this subject of salvation. We need to think very hard about whether we really know and do God’s will—because Jesus’ chilling warning here was not intended just for us to point the finger at someone else. It’s intended to make us think about our own lives—whether we both practice God’s will and preach an accurate version of the Gospel by which people may truly be saved.
So this morning, I’m going to invite you to do just that. Are you merely a professor of Christ, or a possessor of Christ and a follower of Christ. Have old things passed away for you because you are a new creature in Christ? Have you believed and repented? Let’s bow in prayer.
