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?
What has happened in the American Church is that of the Laodicean Church in Revelation 3:17. We go to church and think that’s what it’s about, so we want to be entertained and enlightened. We want to know how to be religious but don’t want to be confronted with sin. We are lukewarm, indifferent.
‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! 16 So, because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. 17 For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. (Revelation 3:15–18)
Arrogance
The second of these characteristics of those who are deceived goes along with the first but in a different way. They are not only ignorant, they are also arrogant. Looking back at verse 17 in Jesus’ message to the Laodiceans underscores this:
For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. (Revelation 3:17)
Jesus said in his Sermon: "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?’ (Matthew 7:22)
If you feel good about God, have some emotional attraction to God, if you believe in Jesus, wear a t-shirt, and just pray a prayer, you are in the club. You feel good about Jesus and your high-tech, entertainment-based church; you're okay.
The message that surrounds this kind of deception is, ‘God loves you unconditionally. God is your BFF, and Jesus is your homey. And all God wants to do is give your every heart’s desire. You are going to be blessed if you just put on that fake smile.’
At the root of this is the prosperity gospel. The worst of Americanized Christianity. Name it and claim it. Joel Osteen, who leads the largest crowd in the United States, wrote this in his book ‘’Your Best Life Now’: “We have to conceive it on the inside before we’re ever going to receive it on the outside… You never will if you don’t think you can have something good. The barrier is in your mind. . . . Your own wrong thinking can keep you from God’s best. . . . To experience [God’s] immeasurable favor, you must rid yourself of that small-minded thinking and start expecting God’s blessings, anticipating promotion and supernatural increase. You must conceive it in your heart before you can receive it. In other words, you must make an increase in your own thinking, then God will bring those things to pass” (from Your Best Life Now, chapter 1).
There is no positive thinking in the gospel for a better life. In fact, Jesus said in Luke 14:33, “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.”
Negligence
If someone were to come up to you and say, ‘I’m not sure I’m a Christian.’ Most people would say very kindly and reassuringly, “Well, of course you are! You go to church. You put money in the offering. You go to a small group. Remember when you were 5, you prayed a prayer?” I would respond to that: "Well, we need to examine your life and make sure that you are truly following Jesus, and if there is anything in your life that is preventing you from following him, then you need to repent and forsake that immediately.”
I don’t mean that people should be neurotic or living in fear, but when you are a Christian and living for Christ, there is no doubt in your heart! In fact, the presence of the Holy Spirit testifies that you are a child of God.
The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God (Romans 8:16)
If you are doubting your faith, examine your life and faith. When Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, he was writing to the church! Now, you might say, “What about eternal security?” That’s all good, but if you are under the deception that salvation is saying a prayer and walking away and continuing to live the same way you always lived, then you are being negligent and deceived.
I’ve had people get mad at me because I told them to take a spiritual inventory of their life. “What? Are you calling into question my salvation? Who do you think you are?” Friends, that is not my message; that the Master’s message. We are so grace-oriented that we do people a disservice by not confronting sin and calling into question their spiritual walk. We want them to feel happy; we don’t want to offend, but that’s not biblical.
Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test! (2 Corinthians 13:5)
Religiousness
There’s another idea of deception is that we just need to be religious enough. This can also be called self-righteousness. There are people who are fixated on religious activity but are devoid of the Spirit. They follow all the rules they can muster up and then look down on everyone else who breaks them. These are the very people Jesus was talking to here in the sermon.
And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men, (Isaiah 29:13)
On the flip side of that coin, there is the church centered around entertainment instead of teaching Scripture. They do everything they can to appear not to be religious, but they end up being blasphemous.
Rick Warren built his church on the idea of asking the goats what they didn’t like about the church.
In a church in Oklahoma, a pastor entertains his congregation with a sermon of him climbing in bed with a blow-up doll. Another church hosted a huge Christmas party as part of their grand entertainment for their Christmas worship. A pastor from the Bethel cult told his followers that Jesus was going to bless him when he gained 50,000 followers and earned a special place in heaven. (show videos). What is most scary isn’t that false teachers like this exist; it’s that people who call themselves Christians flock to them!
These people who call themselves pastors aren’t interested in the spiritual welfare of their congregation; they want to attract followers for themselves. They want their social media platform to be popular. They don’t want a church; they want a circus.
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. (Colossians 2:8)
Moralism
There is another deception that people find themselves in moralism. This is more than just doing good work, it is living a life that says, “I’m a good person. I pay my taxes. I love my children. I go to the most popular church in town. I don’t cheat on my wife. I haven’t committed any felonies. So I think I’m good enough to get into heaven based on those qualifications.”
That, of course, is the biggest lie, but it is always preached in churches. We call it Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. This is Christianity without the Christian worldview. These people see themselves as Christians but live a water-down counterfeit Christianity that looks more like the culture around them than biblical Christianity.
This may also appear as a hybrid between Biblical Christianity and Eastern mysticism. The beliefs of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism are “moralistic” in that they place a high value on “being good.” Good is really defined by popular culture rather than the moral imperatives of the Bible. So, tolerating behaviors the Bible calls sin might be seen as “good,” while calling those behaviors “sin” might be seen as intolerant or hateful, which is bad. (Got Questions)
That all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. (John 5:23)
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, (Romans 3:23)
He bore our sins in his body on the tree so we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds, you have been healed. (1 Peter 2:24)
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:14)
Being culturally good may likely be reprehensible to God. “The gospel does not offer to sinners what sinners want naturally” (John Piper). What does the sinner want? Good feelings, entertainment, blessings, happiness, riches, success, etc. The gospel does not promise any of that; it may be just the opposite.
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. (Matthew 16:24)
“What our blessed Lord wants above all is ourselves, what Scripture calls our hearts. He wants the inner man, the heart; He wants our submission. He does not want merely our profession, zeal, fervor, work, or anything else. He wants us. God does not want our offerings. He does not want our sacrifices; He wants our obedience. He wants us. It is possible for a man to say the right things, be very busy and active, achieve apparently wonderful results, and not give himself to the Lord. And that is, finally, the greatest insult we can offer to God. What could be a greater insult than to say, ‘Lord, Lord,’ fervently to be busy and active and yet to withhold true allegiance and submission from Him to insist upon retaining control of our own lives and to allow our own opinions and arguments rather than those of Scripture to control what we do and how we do it. This is the greatest insult of all to the Lord.” (Martyn Lloyd-Jones)
The results of these deceptions are disastrous. Matthew 7:23: “And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness."
So, how do you avoid hearing those words? We’ll find out next week.
If you are here this morning and what I’ve said has given you pause. There is a check in your heart. There is an urgency about your soul that things are not well in your spiritual life. You feel as if you are devoid of the hope of eternity. I have good news. The key to understanding the gospel is to know why it’s good news. To do that, we must start with the bad news. When we understand the bad news, then we are ready to start a spiritual journey that one day you will hear the words, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”
ABC’s of Salvation
