Six Word You Never Want To Hear Series

Dr. Bradford Reaves

CrossWay Christian Fellowship

Hagerstown, MD

www.mycrossway.org

We are in the last few messages of the Sermon on the Mount. Just two more after this message, but if there was a message I would want to send to everyone I know, it would be these verses. This week is a dire warning from our Great Shepherd to all who hear and study Jesus’ sermon. They are stunning words that should shudder the heart and cause everyone who hears them to seriously self-examine their relationship with God, repent, and follow after him with more urgency.

The American Church, for many years, was at the frontline of evangelism around the world. We sent missionaries all over the world, and we still do. There are stories of missionaries who would head off to the mission field by packing their belongings into a coffin because they knew they would not ever return home, and it was very likely they would die taking the gospel to the corners of the world.

But something changed in the American Church over the last few decades. Instead of the American Church taking the best hope to the world, we sell a watered-down, feel-good, self-serving, corrupted message. What happened? I’m not saying all churches are like this, but sadly, many are and may not even know it. I’m not here to put people down, but I am here this morning with an urgent message to you and the American Church. Wake up!

“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. 22 On that day, many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ (Matthew 7:21–23)

For me, this is the most tragic text in the Bible. Here, Jesus brings a grim reality that one day, there will be people who thought they were going to heaven, only to be told by our Lord they are on their way to hell.

Over the past couple of weeks, we've learned that the road to salvation is narrow, difficult, and hard to get through. It is described by Jesus as narrow because following Jesus as our Lord means self-denial, repentance, turning away from anything in our lives recognized as sin, with full submission to Christ, no matter what the cost. The true way to heaven isn’t to follow the masses. It isn’t popular, it isn’t easy, it isn’t entertaining, it is against the flow, against the crowd, and it is narrow.

Immediately, some will say, ‘Wait, what about grace? What about salvation not being about works? What about eternal security? All those things are part of the gospel but do not replace it. First, I want you to know that Jesus was speaking to a crowd of ardently religious people who thought they could earn their way into heaven through self-righteousness without any relationship with God. They had a tainted view of true faith. That is no different than the false doctrine being taught today.

Jesus warned his disciples over and over again in Matthew 24 not to be deceived. Man, in general, is obsessed with religion - worldly idols - and they will do anything to bow down to those idols, be it religious activities, organizations, charities, entertainment, sports, clubs, all the way to their child’s travel ball league. Anything you put before your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ is an idol. You might say, “Well, that doesn’t sound much like fun.” That is the response of the crowd going through the broad gate.

I am sure that most people aren’t intentionally allowing themselves to be deceived. Some are. However, I can’t get past the word ‘Many’ in verse 22. Many will say to me on that day...” So, as a pastor who cares about those the Master Shepherd put under my charge, I have to ask myself, “Are there people here today that are being deceived? What lulls people into deception?” I have several ideas I will share with you today.

Ignorance

The first thing I see is that many are ignorant of the meaning of the gospel. There are so many in churches today that have a weak, shallow, superficial, emotionalized, psychological understanding of the Gospel. I fear that many churches today are devoid of the Spirit or mistake the Spirit for charismatic, emotionally driven mania. Most in the church today have no idea what the doctrine of justification means. So, for the sake of argument, let me tell you.

Justification is the legal act of God whereby He pronounces a sinner to be righteous because of that sinner's faith in Christ - evidenced in his life by righteous living. “the root idea in justification is the declaration of God, the righteous judge, that the man who believes in Christ, sinful though he may be, is righteous—is viewed as being righteous because in Christ he has come into a righteous relationship with God” (Ladd, G. E., A Theology of the New Testament, Eerdmans, 1974, p. 437). Does that describe you?