You've shown both my son and me, since
we have been here, it's been a great,
great joy.
Great joy for both of us.
I would that you would open your Bible
to Matthew chapter 7, verse 13.
Matthew chapter 7, verse 13.
You may stand if you like for the
reading of God's word.
Matthew 7, verse 13.
Enter ye in at the straight gate, for
wide is the gate and broad is the
way that leadeth to destruction.
And many there be which go in thereat.
Because straight is the gate and narrow is
the way which leadeth unto life, and few
there be that find it.
Beware of false prophets which come to you
in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening
wolves.
Ye shall know them by their fruits.
Do men gather grapes from thorns or figs
from thistles?
Even so, every good tree bringeth forth good
fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil
fruit.
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit,
neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good
fruit.
Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit
is hewn down and cast into the fire.
Therefore, by their fruits ye shall know them.
Not every one that sayeth unto me, Lord,
Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven,
but he that doeth the will of my
Father which is in heaven.
Many will say to me in that day,
Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy
name, and in thy name have cast out
devils, and in thy name done many wondrous
works?
And then will I profess unto them, I
never knew you.
Depart from me ye that work iniquity.
Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and
doeth them, I will liken him unto a
wise man which buildeth his house upon a
rock.
And the rain descended, and the floods came,
and the winds blew, and beat upon that
house, and it fell not, for it was
founded upon a rock.
And everyone that heareth these sayings of mine
and doeth them not shall be likened unto
a foolish man which built his house upon
the sand.
And the rain descended, and the floods came,
and the winds blew, and beat upon that
house, and it fell, and great was the
fall of it.
Let's go to the Lord in prayer.
Father, I pray that these words would be
a reality, not only in the heart of
the novice, but in the heart, Lord, of
those who have walked with you many days.
Not only in the heart of the hearer,
but in the heart of the proclaimer, that
these words would regain the edge they once
had when old preachers walked the face of
the earth.
Regain, Lord, the blade that has been dulled
by boys who carry a mantle, but know
not its meaning.
God help us.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
You may be seated.
Yesterday I spoke about many things, one of
them being regeneration.
And that the work of God in salvation
is a supernatural work, but in the United
States of America and among Baptists, it's been
reduced down to a few evangelical hoops that
if we can get someone to jump through,
we declare them popishly to be saved.
And if Jesus Christ were to come back
today, He would not cleanse the temple, He
would cleanse the pulpit.
Because it has been the pulpit sending more
people to hell than every liberal organization on
the face of the earth, and it's just
the truth.
Not a liberal Methodism, not a liberal Episcopalian,
but a Baptist who claims to know God's
Word, and yet does not understand the gospel
of Jesus Christ.
When we will take people down a Roman
road that does not lead to heaven, but
straight into hell.
A Roman road that will ask them, do
you believe that you're a sinner?
And if they say yes, we go to
the next question, not realizing that it does
not matter if they believe themselves to be
sinners or not.
The question is, has God done such a
supernatural work in their heart that they now
hate the sin they once loved?
And it is not a question of whether
or not they want to go to heaven
because everyone wants to go to heaven.
They just don't want God to be there
when they get there.
The question is not, do they want to
go to heaven, but do they now desire
the Christ that they have spurned and ignored
and hated?
Has God done such a supernatural work?
And the evidence that a person has repented
unto salvation at some past time is that
they continue repenting today.
And the evidence that a person is truly,
is truly one who has believed unto salvation
is that they continue believing until today.
And the evidence that a person is saved
is not that at some point in time
in their life they prayed and asked Jesus
Christ to come into their heart.
The evidence that someone is saved is that
they continue walking in the narrow way.
And this is the fault of preachers.
This is the fault of preachers who have
done a gospel reductionism.
We talk about the Germans of the 20th
century that brought on their higher criticism.
It is not near as dangerous as conservative
Baptists with their gospel reductionism.
How dare we, all these stupid evangelists walking
around telling men after they've made some little
prayer that they need to write their name
in the back of their Bible and put
the date and if the devil ever comes
to them, they need to show them that.
That is Roman superstition.
It is not the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And this passage has much to do with
that.
Pastors of old were considered soul doctors.
They were discerners of the thoughts of men.
Their intent was to know the hearts of
men, help men to discover true biblical assurance,
or help men to uncover that they're believing
a lie and their faith is vain because
it is not true faith.
And these words before us this evening are
some of those words that were used by
preachers of old to help men discern.
But we have taken them and dulled them
to mean nothing.
If they are preached, they are not preached
rightly.
One of the things I always warn young
preachers is this.
There is much talk today about expository preaching
and the only type of preaching you ought
to do is expository preaching, but you can
do a perfect exegesis of the text, preach
it with all the expository expertise of a
master, and not preach what it says.
You can dull it in such a way
that it has no blade with which the
spirit can work.
Let's look at this text.
Enter ye at the straight gate, for wide
is the gate and broad is the way
that leadeth to destruction.
And many there be which go in thereat,
because straight is the gate and narrow is
the way which leadeth unto life, and few
there be that find it.
Now, as Baptists, one of the things that
most, if not all, conservative Baptists agree on
and preach wholeheartedly is this, that there are
not many gates to heaven.
There are not many doors to heaven.
You will hear that in every Baptist church
that claims to believe the Bible.
And it's true.
There are not many doors to heaven.
There is only one, and His name is
Jesus Christ.
His name is Jesus Christ.
We preach that.
We preach that truly.
I applaud men for preaching that.
But, as I always say, it is better
to preach an out-and-out, full-blown
lie than it is to preach half the
truth.
And the same men that preach that Jesus
is the only door, the only gate whereby
men might enter in and go to heaven,
are the same men who fail to preach
about a narrow way.
Because if I were to look at most
Baptist preaching and most Baptist congregations, I would
have to re-translate this entire passage and
say that there is only one gate.
The gate is small, but the way is
broad.
Because basically, we have congregations, carnal, unconverted, unregenerate
congregations that all claim to have passed through
that wicked gate, all claim to have passed
through that gate that is Jesus, and yet
when you look at their life, they live
in the broad way.
And no one touches them because of the
Baptist doctrine of the continuously carnal Christian.
What we need to realize, it's not Baptist.
More importantly, it's not biblical.
There is no such thing in the Bible
as a continuously carnal Christian.
A Christian sins, a Christian can fall into
sin, and a Christian can fall into carnality,
but a Christian cannot stay there.
It is absolutely impossible because salvation is not
a work of man.
It is not a cooperation between man and
God, but it is a work of God
for His own glory, and His reputation rides
upon the fact that it's going to get
done.
We need to realize something.
Many of the denominations that believe that someone
can fall away from salvation and be lost,
that belief springs forth from them watching Baptists.
You Dutch?
The Baptist idea, once saved, always saved.
Things like security of the believer.
Now, I believe in once saved, always saved,
and I believe in the security of the
believer, but I don't believe in the security
of the unbeliever.
You see, we have turned the gospel into
a flu shot.
Every preacher that's ever gone door-to-door
visitation has run across this type of person
frequently.
You start talking to a person about the
state of their soul, they don't go to
church, they don't walk in godliness, the Word
of God means nothing to them.
Fellowship with believers is nothing that ever enters
into their mind, but when you begin to
talk to them about salvation, they say, don't
worry about me, preacher, I've already done that.
Like it was some flu shot that they
took that got themselves inoculated from the judgment
of God.
And where came such doctrine?
From where?
From the Baptist pulpit.
No one told that person when they came
forward and professed faith in Christ that the
evidence that this profession is true is that
He that began a good work in you
will finish it and continue on, and if
nothing happens, there's no change.
When you walk out these doors, you've got
nothing here today.
That's the problem.
The old preachers looked at it in this
way.
A lost man is standing here, unregenerate, without
Christ, damned, condemned, on his way to hell,
and he hears the preaching of the gospel.
Through a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit,
his heart is regenerated, it is granted unto
him both repentance and faith, and with that
repentance and faith, he believes unto salvation.
And in believing unto salvation, he is justified
before God, he is sealed with the Holy
Spirit.
But what will happen?
Salvation is such a supernatural work of God
whereby everyone who is truly in Christ becomes
a new creation that the evidence that He
has truly passed through that small gate is
now He begins to walk.
Yea, albeit with all baby steps, He begins
to walk in the narrow way.
And it might be two steps forward and
three steps back at a time, but you
will begin to see a change in the
direction of their life and they will begin
to walk in the narrow way.
And when that believer, if that believer steps
off the narrow path, this all-loving, all
-knowing God, this perfect, compassionate Father will come
running to discipline them and put them back
on the path.
But the old preachers would say, if you
have made the good profession, if you claim
to have passed through the gate, if you
have received baptism in a public declaration of
your faith and you begin to walk, it
doesn't matter how long it appears you're walking
in that path, if you step off that
path and there's no discipline and you continue
off that path, you can have no assurance
whatsoever of your salvation.
And it is not that you lost your
salvation, it's that you're showing now that you
never had it.
If we would only preach these truths, you
realize that everybody in this county thinks they're
saved.
And it's the fault of preachers.
I would not send my child to a
vacation Bible school in 99.9% of
the Baptist churches in America.
Have some teacher that doesn't even understand anything
about the gospel of Jesus Christ ask those
little children, how many of you want to
go to heaven and damn most of them?
Harden their heart to the gospel with some
silly profession of faith because it was a
silly proclamation of the gospel.
It brought no genuine repentance.
It brought no faith.
It's no different than the Roman church who
baptizes every infant that is born.
It's true.
We've departed from the old path.
Young men, you want some advice?
Don't read any book unless it's at least
a hundred years old.
It was not always this way.
It is not a prophecy, but it is
my prediction that if things keep going as
they were going, there will be no Baptist
distinctives left on the face of the earth.
But more important than that, no biblical distinctive.
Oh, my dear friends, we are to treat.
What is this thing?
As I said, men wanting to build kingdoms
and they build them on the bones of
unconverted church members.
A person comes forward, possibly genuinely under conviction.
They sit there for about two minutes and
some counselor knows nothing about the gospel, runs
them through a few hoops and then gets
them to sign a card.
How can we be that way?
We have to deal with souls.
Sometimes it takes hours.
Sometimes it takes days.
Sometimes it takes months.
We've got to go to Denny's and we
don't have time.
Oh, how God works so differently in the
hearts of men.
I have seen after preaching the gospel, young
boys, eight and nine years old, just gripping
their seats, crying out as though they were
murderers.
God, can You have mercy on a man
like me and be saved just like that
by calling on the name of the Lord.
But I have seen others that I've had
to say to them, just go home.
Go home.
I'll give you an example.
I was preaching several years ago up in
upstate Missouri and a girl who had really
just destroyed her life.
She was in her young thirties and her
parents were very godly and she had done
all manner of things to twist and torment
her own life.
And after preaching, she came forward and she
said, just crying, I'm lost, I'm lost.
And I said, what do you want me
to do for you?
She said, I'm lost.
I said, you heard the gospel.
What more can I do for you?
And she just looked at me complex, just
confused.
And I said, I could pray with you
right now.
You could ask Jesus to come into your
heart right now.
She said, OK.
And I said, how many times have you
done that already?
She said, six.
I said, didn't do any good, did it?
She said, no.
I said, OK.
She said, what do I do?
I said, you have two choices.
Seek the Lord until you are found by
Him.
And He saves you and He tells you
you're saved.
Or forget about all this and just go
to hell.
She went home that night.
Came back the next evening.
She looked as though she had just been
to a funeral.
I said, woman, how is it with you?
She said, I cried out to God all
night.
I passed out asleep.
I have no assurance.
I feel like I'm hanging over hell.
She says, what do I do?
I said, you have two choices.
Keep seeking the Lord until He find thee.
Keep seeking the Lord until He tells you
He has saved you.
Or stop and go to hell.
The next night, we were praying in the
front, her father and I, and the music
started.
So he went back into the pew and
I continued praying.
And then I sat up in the seat
with my eyes closed.
And all of a sudden I felt someone
sit down beside me.
And I looked and she was there glowing.
And I said, what's happened to you?
She said, I cried out to God all
night and fell asleep in utter desperation.
But when I woke up this morning, God
spoke to me and He said, you're saved.
And He shed abroad His love into my
heart.
She said, all the preachers could get together
and tell me I am lost, but I
know that I am saved.
Another example, I was up preaching about 30
kilometers south of Alaska.
And when I got up in the pulpit,
a mountain of a man, a huge man.
He was in his 65 or 70 years
old.
He could have whooped every man in this
building.
He came and he sat down on the
front pew and I preached the gospel, the
saddest face I've ever seen in my life.
And when I was done, I went down
and I said, sir, what's wrong with you?
He pulled out a manila envelope and pulled
out an x-ray.
He said, I'm going to die in three
weeks.
He goes, I've lived in the bush all
my life.
To get to the ranch I work on,
you either have to go by float plane
or ride days by horseback.
I've never been to a church.
I believe there's a God.
And one time I heard somebody talk about
some fellow named Jesus and I'm going to
die and I'm scared to death.
And I said, sir, you heard the gospel.
And he said, yes, I did.
I said, did you understand what I preached
to you?
He said, yes, I did.
Now, most evangelists at that point would have
got him to pray some silly prayer and
then write him up in a newsletter.
And I said, sir, you understood it?
He goes, I understood it, but that's all.
Who couldn't understand this?
It's a small thing.
It makes sense.
I mean, I understand it, but that's all.
Isn't it amazing that we think that's enough
today?
Just mentally understand it and be willing to
pray a prayer.
Now, I have known men at the moment
they've heard it, they've cried out for salvation
and been saved.
Don't get me wrong.
I'm not saying everyone gets saved this way.
But I said, sir, you're going to die.
I'll cancel my plane trip back tomorrow to
the United States.
We have to stay here three weeks until
you're dead.
If you're willing, we'll seek the Lord.
He said, what can we do?
I said, we can read God's promises.
That's what we can do.
Every promise He's ever given with regard to
salvation and His Son, we can start tonight
and we can keep reading until we collapse
here in this church or you're saved.
So we began.
An hour goes by, read promise after promise
in the New Testament.
I said, sir, do you understand it?
Yes, I understand it.
And is that all it's supposed to be?
I understand it with my mind, but I
just feel dead inside.
He had better theology than most Baptist preachers.
And so we started again.
And each time we pray, we start it
again.
And finally, we get back to John 3
.16. John 3.16. He'd read that passage,
I don't know how many times.
And I said, sir, let's just read it
again.
And he says, all right, for God's love,
the world that I'm saved, I'm saved, I
have eternal life.
My sins have been forgiven.
I'm going to heaven.
I said, sir, how do you know?
He said, haven't you ever read this passage
before?
What happened?
Something that must happen.
The Holy Spirit regenerated his heart, illumined his
mind, gave him sight.
Oh, that we'd put most evangelists on a
boat and send them to some island somewhere
and sing the doxology as it's taking off
from the beach.
My goodness, what a circus is out there.
But this is not the way.
Someone comes to a preacher basically today and
says, preacher, I don't know if I'm saved
or not.
Every time that preacher will say, well, was
there a point in time in your life
when you prayed and asked Jesus to come
into your heart?
If the person says yes, of course they
did.
They're in the South.
If they say yes, then the preacher says,
well, were you sincere?
Well, I think so.
There is a way that seems right unto
a man, leads to death.
And that heart is so deceitful, who can
know it?
You think so?
You think you were sincere?
That's what you're going to base everything upon?
Or shall we not get into the Scriptures
and take all the tests that are given
to us by the Holy Spirit from the
book of Matthew to 1 John into even
the book of Revelation?
Things that can open up a man's mind
to know whether or not he is saved
or not.
We don't even know how to use those
passages anymore.
The entire book of 1 John was used
by old preachers to either give assurance to
believers or take false assurance away from unbelievers.
And we don't even know what the purpose
of the book is for anymore.
The passage is like this.
Now, here's the question for you.
Is this a reality in your life?
Those of you who have claimed to walk
through that narrow gate, that straight gate, that
small gate, you claim to know Christ.
Is there a reality in your life?
Is the narrow way, the narrow path, the
path marked out by the precepts, commands and
wisdom of God, is it a reality in
your life?
So that you sense God's blessing when you
walk in His way and you sense God's
discipline and others can even see it when
you set your foot off the path.
Is there a reality in your life that
God guards you zealously and jealously?
Because if there's not, be afraid.
Be afraid.
Now, I want us to notice something here
that's very, very important.
He says in verse 14, he says the
last few words, few there be that find
it.
Few that be.
Now, here's the modern interpretation of this passage,
out of context totally.
The modern interpretation of this passage is, is
that we've got the world over there, Hollywood,
Mohammed, all the secular people, pagans, heathen, everything
else, this huge group of secular people.
And they're all on the broad road.
And then over here, we have this small
group of professing Christians.
And that's what Jesus is talking about.
That there's this small group of professing Christians,
but on the broad way, there's all these
wicked atheists and Christ deniers.
That's not what this passage means at all.
Not at all.
The few that find it.
He's saying this, of those of you who
profess me to be Lord, Lord, few of
you will find it.
That's the context of the passage.
And we will prove that before this evening
is over.
The context of the passage is this, of
all those who profess me emphatically to be
Lord, few of them who claim to be
my disciples will enter into the kingdom of
heaven.
Because not everyone who says to me, Lord,
Lord, shall enter therein.
Now, I want us to look at verse
15.
Beware of false prophets which come to you
in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening
wolves.
Now, an old preacher told me one time,
your best friend is the one who tells
you the most truth.
And that is the truth.
What does a man gain from preaching like
this?
Except the feel of God's pleasure upon him.
Because he'll gain nothing else.
Have you ever wondered why the old preachers
that I knew when I was a little
boy, walked around so ragged and tagged and
beat up cars and everything else?
Because they preached the truth.
Men of whom the world not worthy.
They were not civilized men.
They were not respectable men.
They were men of God.
What we need today is truth out of
the Baptist pulpit.
Notice I keep saying Baptist.
It's not because I believe Baptists are the
only thing on the face of the earth.
But it's because that's what I am and
that's who I'm talking to.
And we need not to look farther out
than ourselves to find much heresy.
But another thing, this is for the young
men.
A wise surgeon can take a scalpel and
save a life.
A fool can take the same scalpel and
destroy life.
Sometimes I preach very hard.
Sometimes I have preached hard in the flesh.
And God has severely rebuked me.
The people are not your enemy.
We battle not with flesh and blood.
The powers and principalities and mights and dominions.
Error.
We fight error.
And young preacher, be very, very careful, because
if your knees are not bleeding, be very,
very careful to stand in a pulpit with
a hard word, with a hard word.
Now, in the immediate context here, beware of
false prophets which come to you in sheep's
clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
They look pretty.
They look pleasant.
Men applaud them.
But if you have all of the favor
of all the men, God says you can
count on it.
You have not His favor.
The only thing that matters, young men, is
that in the night when you look up,
when no one else is around by your
bed, that God is looking back down.
That's all that matters.
To hell with the success of this age,
because that's exactly where it's going.
To hell with the accolades of men.
To hell with whatever this world can give
us, because that is where it's going.
The world and everything about it is passing
away.
Being pushed out, seek only His favor.
We will be utterly astounded on the day
of judgment when we see who the true
princes of God are.
Oh, my goodness.
When janitors who were prayer warriors are raised
above the mightiest preachers.
When some man struggling in a lumber mill
in Iowa by a vocational missionary can barely
put food on the table in order to
preach the gospel somewhere other than the South,
will be raised up above men with their
mega churches.
It is being pleasing to God.
Care not for anything else except to be
pleasing to God.
And it is not necessarily...
Do not think that I'm saying these things
because I'm humble and because I'm just a
broken man and I'm so godly.
It's the only reasonable thing.
Why waste your life on that which is
not bread?
Serve Him, honor His Son, and He will
honor thee.
Now, He says, you shall know them by
their fruits.
In the immediate context, He's talking about false
prophets.
That is true.
But we can broaden the horizon here.
And in general, it speaks a word to
all those who come with a profession of
faith in Jesus Christ.
And yet, it is not a true profession.
How do you know genuine Christianity?
By the fruit that someone bears.
You see, when I'm preaching this, someone will
say, Judge not, lest ye be judged.
And I always say, Twist not Scripture, lest
ye be like the devil.
Because that's exactly...
That is the most twisted Scripture in all
the Bible.
Because the same Lord who spoke that Scripture,
He spoke it in this chapter and goes
on and talks about judging.
When He says, Judge not, lest ye be
judged, He's talking about this critical, pharisaical hatred,
this judging religiously in order to claw your
opponent apart, to climb upon him in the
religious world.
But it is the job of the elder,
of the pastor, to discern the fruit of
men and women and children in his congregation,
and to go to them when he thinks
it not be well with them.
To go to them in love, to go
to them humbly.
My wife is not from this country.
The first thing she said she noticed when
she came to America was this, These American
Christians are so thin-skinned, you can't tell
them anything without them leaving the church.
I look for a church that if my
little boy, when he hits 16, if he's
made, let's say at a young age, a
profession of faith in Christ, both of them
made a profession.
But when they hit 15 or 16, begin
to walk in arrogance, begin to do things
that their father cannot see, but others see,
the pastor sees, that he will come to
me and say, I do not believe it's
well with the soul of your children.
We need to go to them.
I fear that they're on the path to
hell.
Praise God for a man like that.
But most church members would hate that.
They would leave the church when they should
be disciplined from the church, and they would
go right down the street to another Baptist
church.
These are bad days, but these are good
days.
Good days for God to get glory for
Himself.
Oh, my friend, we do no service to
men.
And I want to tell you something.
I heard an old man say, when you
do not discipline your children, it is not
because you love your children, it's because you
love yourself, and you don't want anyone to
think bad about you.
In the same way, when you see a
brother and sister in Christ that appear to
be walking in a way that is not
Christian, and you do not go to them,
it is not out of their care or
care for them.
It is out of care for yourself and
your own self-preservation.
And that is an idol among most preachers.
I have found that all men are cowards
in some way or another.
And I have found that particularly among preachers.
Must secure their livelihood.
Not when God can feed you with ravens.
Not when God can give you water out
of a rock.
You don't have to worry about securing your
livelihood.
You preach.
God will care for you.
You wake up one morning and an army
of a hundred thousand men, all with hatred
on their lips for you.
And if God does not ordain it, they
will not touch a hair of your head.
You preach the gospel.
Worry not what you will eat.
I know preachers of old who lived six
months on bread and goat's milk.
But they lived.
And they preached.
Now, he says, you will know them by
their fruits.
Do men gather grapes and thorns or figs
from thistles?
Jesus was a master.
He's the personification of the book of Proverbs.
He is a master.
He is clever.
You never want to get into a debate
with this.
This son of God.
He'll capture you, catch you before you even
know you've been caught.
He's like a snare in the forest.
He knew how to gather men.
It's like he was sitting there in rabbinic
fashion.
A rabbi would teach seated.
He'd say grapes.
Now, I won't find grapes on a thorn
tree.
No.
And the crowd responds, well, Jesus, you know,
you're only a carpenter.
You're not a farmer, but you're on the
right track.
Jesus, if anyone comes to you and says
that they've got a thorn tree that produces
grapes, they've got something to sell.
They're either lying or they're absolutely out of
their mind.
Well, then, if I will not find grapes
on a thorn tree.
Then I will not find thorns on a
grapevine.
Is that true?
Now you're going, Jesus, you're understanding the process.
No one's going to deceive you now.
If anyone comes to you with a plant
that has thorns on it and they tell
you it's a grapevine, don't believe them.
They're either lying or out of their mind.
And Jesus stands up well than any one
of you who say you're my disciples and
you do not bear fruit that looks like
me.
You're either out of your mind or you're
a liar.
He could capture men.
It is impossible to even conceive, except in
the mind of devils and the hearts of
carnal men.
It is impossible to conceive that God could
regenerate a heart and dwell within that heart
through the Holy Spirit and that life externally
not be changed.
It is a total impossibility.
He goes on.
He says, and this is very, very important.
Look at verse 16.
You shall know them by their fruit.
Look at verse 20.
Wherefore, by their fruits you shall know them.
This teaching is sandwiched in with two statements.
And what is he trying to say?
If you do not look like my disciple,
you're not my disciple.
The old saying, well, you can't judge a
book by its cover.
Jesus didn't say that.
As a matter of fact, Jesus said that
you could judge a book by its cover.
He says this, even so every good tree
bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree
bringeth forth evil fruit.
Now, I mentioned last night talking about ontology
and philosophy, the doctrine of being or ontos,
and how important that is that we have
lost this idea.
Men have this idea.
Well, they've done a lot of bad things,
but they're not really bad.
No, the only way you can do bad
things is to be bad.
Bad fruit indicates a bad tree.
This is much more than just having to
be healed from a certain erring practice.
This is much more than just we discovered
a wrong way.
This goes down to the very core of
a man.
If a man produces evil deeds, it is
because he is evil to his core.
And here we go back to the lost
doctrine of depravity.
That men are truly wicked.
They truly are.
Now, he says this.
One of the most important passages in the
Bible with regard to the nature of men,
verse 18, a good tree cannot bring forth
evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring
forth good fruit.
Now, here's another instance in which preachers preach
half-truths.
They'll preach the second part of this verse.
Corrupt tree, it says, neither can a corrupt
tree bring forth good fruit.
We're always telling lost men, you're lost.
You can't do anything to save yourself.
You're lost.
You can't do any good work until God
saves you and indwells you with the Holy
Spirit.
You can not do anything good until God
saves you.
That's being taught well.
But you've got to teach the first part
also.
And look what the first part says.
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit.
Now, that does not mean that someone genuinely
regenerated by the Holy Spirit will never sin.
But what it does mean is this.
When you look at the whole of their
life, you will see sound and healthy fruit.
But if you're looking at something whose fruit,
by and large, as a practice, as a
style, in its wholeness, is bad, it's because
the tree is bad.
A good tree cannot continuously bear bad fruit.
Now, why isn't that preached?
I'll tell you why.
Because we would be condemning three quarters of
the average congregation in North America.
You see, it is this thing that you
cannot.
Why is it, my dear friend, that our
churches are so divided in this sense?
In an average church in America, there is
a group of people in that church that
cannot get away with the smallest sin before
God.
And there's another group of people who can
live in out-and-out prostitution against His
will, and He never intervenes.
Why?
Because we're seeing the wheat and the tares.
Light and the darkness.
And men must be warned.
Now, I realize that tonight I'm basically preaching
to the choir, so I can preach with
this passion, with this flame.
But when I go into a place, a
megachurch or something like that, I'd have to
deal with the hearts of these people as
slowly and compassionately, but bring them to see.
How can you say such a thing?
You do not bring forth fruit.
But what about the carnal Christian?
He doesn't exist.
You say, are ye not carnal?
Again, do not twist God's Word.
That's not what it means.
Now, the reality is your life marked by
good fruit or bad fruit.
I'm not talking about what you feel in
your heart.
I'm not talking about the number of hallelujahs
that come from your mouth.
One question.
If some neutral observer was looking at your
life, would they see Christian fruit?
And would they see enough of it to
deem that you're Christian?
Or would they see a Christian profession, but
basically a lifestyle that is worldly?
Now, you might even have a set of
morals, but morals can be as worldly and
grotesque as anything on the face of the
earth.
I tell you, I have nothing wrong with
the Ten Commandments being put on walls, but
if you think that's going to fix this
country, you've got another thought coming.
The only thing that's going to fix this
country is the regenerating work of the Holy
Spirit bringing men to Christ.
You say, well, he can use the law.
Yes, he can.
Praise God.
Put it on the wall, but don't think
that's enough.
Morality sends more people to hell than immorality.
Men love to feel fine.
Satan would be glad to put every law
of God on every hill and every wall
and every post in this world if men
just set upon themselves to be good.
Now, it goes on.
Every tree that bringeth not forth fruit is
hewn down and cast into the fire.
I am aware tonight that I am not
filled with the Holy Spirit as I ought
to be, and I am aware that you
are not filled with the Holy Spirit as
you ought to be, because at the reading
of those words, we should have all collapsed
in our seats in tears and anguish, laying
on the floor and crying out to God.
There are days when I preach this in
tears.
There are days when I do not.
Oh, that a whitfield would rise up among
us.
Oh, that God would be gracious.
To send a prophet, to even raise up
a John Wesley.
You say, well, he's a Methodist.
Yeah, well, those Methodists were more Baptist than
Baptists are today.
Oh, that God would send men who don't
spend all their time apologizing for God, but
preach hell.
And not with amazement that God would send
men to hell, but with an amazement that
God would send them to heaven.
All these men today, the Robert Shulers and
the lot of them, they are so...
But listen, it is all over us as
Baptists.
It's all over us.
When was the last time in one of
these big churches that have a national pulpit,
a national platform, did you hear a man
weeping and screaming out, don't go to hell?
And I hear so many places, these preachers,
if that's what you can call them, and
these people, intellects and academia and everything else.
And they're all saying, well, you know, we
don't want to be in our church that
Pauline, the Apostle Paul.
We want to just preach the words of
Jesus.
How many times have I heard Robert Shuler
say, when someone talked about hell, he'd say,
well, you know, we just want to preach
the words of Jesus.
We want to preach what Jesus said here.
And I want to ask him a question,
if I ever get the opportunity.
Dr. Shuler, are you aware that if it
were not for the words of Jesus Christ,
we would know almost absolutely nothing about hell?
Are you aware, sir, that if you were
to go through the Old Testament, it is
very hard to find a solid doctrine of
hell in the entire Old Testament?
I mean, it's there, but it's hard to
discern.
Do you realize that if you go into
Paul's letters, you don't hear much about hell?
Do you realize that almost everything we know
about hell, we know from Jesus Christ?
Now, isn't that amazing?
Saying, oh, I don't want to teach on
hell.
I just want to teach on the love
of Jesus.
It was the love of Jesus that caused
him to preach on hell.
Preach on hell.
Men are in hell.
That our family members are in hell.
And many of them will go to hell.
And it is a reality.
And yet, God is still God.
I remember when my little boy was born,
and I was out walking down this old
gravel road and I, by side of my
mom's house, and I, I prayed out, oh
God, save my son.
Get glory for yourself out of my son.
And I was impressed upon my heart this.
Paul, I will get glory out of your
son.
He'll either be a trophy of my God.
I'll get glory out of him as a
demonstration of my mercy.
Or I'll get glory out of him as
a demonstration of justice in hell.
But I will get glory out of your
son.
People hear that and they become angry with
me.
God will get glory.
And on that day, if he pronounces condemnation
upon my two sons, it will be their
own father that stands up and says, the
judge of all the earth has done right.
You say, I've never heard of such a
thing.
Then listen, because I'm sure it's been preached
from this pulpit before.
And you talk about God being the center
of everything.
God being worthy of everything.
You carry that out to its logical conclusion.
You'll have real Christianity.
Yea, if he were to pick me up
and dash me against the rocks, what is
left of me would have to raise whatever
it could raise and cry out that he
is worthy.
As I have said before, I tell people
many times that have no assurance of their
salvation.
You need to repent even if he sends
you to hell because he's worthy of repentance.
You need to believe in him even if
he sends you to hell because he's worthy
of your faith.
And you need to serve him even if
he sends you to hell because he's worthy.
Because he's worthy.
And he goes on and he says, therefore
by their fruits you shall know them.
Oh, let me say something about this.
And just don't throw a stone until you
let me finish.
Because I love to do this.
People often ask me, is hell literal?
And I say no.
I love to say no.
Because when I say no, the liberals are
as happy as they can be and they
don't know what I've planned for them.
When I say no, the fundamentalists and conservatives
are so mad that they do not know
what's going to follow.
There is a sense in which I do
not believe hell is literal fire.
And I'm going to tell you why.
Angels can walk through fire.
Fire doesn't affect an angel at all.
But the devil and his angels are going
to be cast into hell fire.
And they are going to suffer.
If a liberal comes to you and says,
hell is not literal because it's not that
bad.
That's heresy.
But if a preacher like me comes to
you and say, hell fire is not literal
because whatever you can imagine about fire, it's
infinitely worse.
That is true.
You would only wish that fire was there.
What is there?
It is fire enough for our Lord to
call it fire.
But let me tell you this.
It is far worse than any fire you
could ever know on this planet.
It is the perfection of God's righteous indignation.
It is the perfection of his holy, righteous
wrath, his hatred against sin and those who
commit it.
And don't think that heaven is heaven because
God is there and hell is hell because
God's not there.
Hell is hell because God is there in
all his wrath.
We have such strange ideas about things today.
And they're all done in the name of
protecting God's reputation because we don't want carnal
men to be offended at our God.
Oh, my dear friend, there is a hell
and there is fire, but it goes so
far beyond anything.
Have you not heard that heaven, we are
told, goes beyond the ear to hear, beyond
the eye to see, shall not hell be
the same way?
Yes, it is fire, but it is far
worse than fire.
It goes beyond ear.
It goes beyond eye.
And if a man could hear it and
a man could see it, he could not
communicate it.
It would take his breath away.
It would tie his tongue.
Oh, this is a horrible thing.
You say, how can hell be that way?
Most people have this idea that God is
this cruel deity that somehow gets pleasure in
torturing people in hell.
But you need to understand, hell is not
torture of a perverted deity.
Hell is perfect justice against those who have
offended the One who is worth more than
all things, infinitely worth more than all things
put together.
Hell is a terrifying thing because men who
go there have committed crimes against deity.
Why is hell eternal?
Because those men never repent.
They continue gnashing their teeth against Him.
They continue hating them.
There is a real sense that even the
door to hell is locked from the inside
because men hate God so much they would
rather grind their teeth in hell than to
go through an open door and bow their
knee.
That is why, preacher, if anyone is going
to get saved, they are going to get
saved from that hostile God-hating heart only
by a regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.
That is how much men hate God.
He goes on, verse 21, Not everyone who
saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into
the kingdom of heaven, but he who doeth
the will of my Father which is in
heaven.
John MacArthur says this, and I agree wholeheartedly
with him.
He says, you want to know what your
profession of faith in Jesus Christ is worth?
Absolutely nothing.
Because many will profess Him on that day
and say, Lord, Lord, and He will say,
depart from me, I never knew you.
Notice here, it is a Hebrew parallelism.
Hebrew parallelisms are so very important.
When a Jew wants to emphasize something, he
repeats it.
He iterates it and reiterates it.
Such as, holy, holy, holy.
Here it is, Lord, Lord.
He is not saying, not everyone who secretly
is a disciple of mine will enter into
the kingdom of heaven.
He says, not everyone who emphatically and publicly
declares me to be Lord will enter into
the kingdom of heaven.
But what is the evidence that someone has
entered in?
Now, you can twist this scripture around as
some have done, and they say that doing
the will of the Father is the means
by which you get into heaven.
That is not what Jesus is teaching.
Jesus is teaching that the evidence that you
are going to heaven is that you are
about doing the will of the Father.
Now, here is the question.
Is your life marked by that reality?
Is your life marked?
Do you concern yourself with the things of
God, the will of God?
Do you seek to submit your life to
the Lordship of Jesus Christ?
Are you marked as a man who is
intimately, really, practically concerned about doing God's will?
Because other than that, you can have no
assurance that you were ever born again.
So many people live as practical atheists in
our Baptist churches.
They profess faith in Jesus Christ, but through
their daily lives, God, no thought of God
enters into their mind.
No thought of God with regard to his
will.
And why is that?
Because they know not God.
Now, he goes on and he says this,
verse 22.
Many will say to me in that day,
Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy
name?
And in thy name cast out devils and
in thy name done many wonderful works.
Now, I want you to think about this
for a moment.
Imagine, it's hypothetical, it cannot happen.
But imagine for a moment that a genuine,
true believer in Jesus Christ is before the
throne and God looks down at them and
says, depart from me, I never knew you.
Now, that's never going to happen.
But I want you to imagine this for
a moment so you can understand this passage.
Jesus has just told these people, you will
not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
And they begin their argument as to why
they should be allowed in.
Lord, we prophesied in your name.
Lord, we did miracles.
Lord, we, we, we, we, we.
If there ever was the case that a
true believer came before Jesus Christ and Jesus
Christ said, I know ye not, depart from
me.
Would that believer stand up and give as
his case everything he's ever done?
No.
That true believer would stand there and go,
Lord, in sin I was conceived.
In sin I have walked.
I have broken every law that you have
ever, ever given.
I, I, I know that.
I, I, I humble myself in dust and
ashes.
But Lord, nothing in my hands I bring.
Simply to your cross I cling.
You see the difference?
How many religious people, when I talk to
them, as old preachers taught me to talk
to them, when I sit down and cut
through all the religious language and I just
talk to them, how many of them end
up demonstrating that they're hoping in their works?
And how many have a true understanding?
Nothing in my hands I bring.
Simply to the cross I cling.
How many church members, when they hear a
preaching on the radical or total depravity of
the human heart, they become angry.
And how many of them begin to rejoice
and cry out, Hallelujah!
He saves!
That's the difference.
Hallelujah!
Ah, the real believer desires no respectability.
Not unto us, O Lord.
Unto thee be the glory.
Lord, paint my life as black as pitch
that the diamonds of your grace might shine
upon it.
And they rejoice in their humiliation because Christ
becomes all in all.
And the church member, respectable and civilized, marches
out the door of heaven.
And he goes on and he says, And
then I will profess unto them, I never
knew you.
My dear friend, let me share with you
something.
It is not so much important that you
say you know him.
I hear so many preachers say, Oh, it's
just the most important thing is that you
know him.
No, it's not.
If I went up to the White House
this evening and went to the guard gate
and I said, I need to come in.
I know George Bush.
I'm not going in.
Not in a million years.
But if George Bush walks out of the
White House and points to me and says,
I know Paul Washer.
I'm going in.
So my dear friend, it's not so much
that you think you know him.
The question is, does he know you?
You say, but he knows all.
Yes, he knows all.
But know here all throughout Scripture defines and
communicates an intimate relationship.
Let me ask you a question.
Does he know you?
You say, oh, yes, he's always there when
I have problems.
That's not the question.
The question is this.
Has Jesus Christ entered into a personal, intimate
relationship with you?
And have you entered into a personal, intimate
relationship with him?
Does he walk with you and talk with
you?
Does he wound you and then?
Heal you.
Does he correct you?
And then comfort you?
Is he your only hope?
Your only banner?
I was preaching in a church in Texas
a while back, and the pastor was just
a wonderful, wonderful man.
And he says, I want you to come
and I want you to preach on salvation
because I think a great majority of the
people in my church are lost.
And I said, why do you believe that?
He said, because they're homeschoolers.
And I said, excuse me?
He said, they're homeschoolers.
And I said, pastor, what's your point?
I mean, some of the godliest Christians I
know are homeschoolers.
He said, no, this is the point.
The banner under which they all rally, their
claim to righteousness, their boast and everything else
is that they homeschool their children.
And he said, I am fearful for any
people that stand under any banner other than
Jesus Christ the Lord.
Now, I'll probably homeschool my children.
I'm not against homeschooling, but the point I'm
making, I will not think that that will
lead my children to salvation.
It will be the blood of the Lamb.
And if we put any hope in our
ability to raise our kids the right way,
we could be damning their own souls.
Because the only hope that my child has
is that God's electing grace will regenerate his
heart and make him new.
No claim, no handle do I have upon
deity.
Now, he says, and then I will profess
unto them, I never knew you.
Depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
The idea here is lawlessness.
And I want to let me just give
you a free translation of this text.
Just want you to listen.
And I will profess unto them, I never
knew you.
Depart from me, those of you who claim
to be my disciples, but you lived your
life as though I never gave you a
law to obey.
Because that's what it means.
I just described three quarters of American Christianity,
if not more.
People come to me and say, I have
a new relationship with God.
I say, do you have a new relationship
with sin?
Because if you don't have a new relationship
with sin, you don't have a new relationship
with God.
I have a new relationship with God.
Do you have a new relationship with God's
Word?
Because if you don't have a new relationship
with God's Word, you don't have a new
relationship with God.
Depart from me, those of you who claim
to be my disciples, emphatically claim to be
my disciples, but you live as though I
never gave you a law to obey.
I never gave you a command, a precept
or a piece of wisdom to follow.
You did what was right in your own
eyes.
And you dangled a cross around your neck
or put one in your pocket.
Now, just to finish, the passage that follows
about the house built on sand and the
house built on rock is one of the
most misinterpreted passages in the entire Bible.
Because people will take it and say, now,
if you're a Christian, you need to build
your house on the rock so that your
life will be stable.
Because if you build your house on the
sand, it's not going to be stable.
And when trials come, your house is going
to fall.
Now, even though there can be a far
reaching context to preach it that way, that
is not the primary passage.
That's not the primary interpretation of this passage.
What he's talking about is this.
The man who hears this word and does
not obey it is like a man who
built his house on the sand and when
the judgment of God comes, he's destroyed.
Like Achan, he and all his household.
And the man who hears these words and
does them is like a man who builds
his house upon a rock and when the
judgment of God comes, he stands.
Because God has made him stand.
Now, just to prove my point, look at
the context.
First of all, starting in verse 13, it
is indicated to us that there is a
gate and then many other gates.
That one gate leads unto eternal life.
All other gates lead unto death and destruction.
There are two ways.
There is a broad way that leads unto
death and destruction.
There is a narrow way that leads unto
life.
Then there are two types of trees.
A good tree that bears good fruit unto
eternal life and a bad tree that bears
bad fruit and is cut down and thrown
into the fire.
Then there is a group who profess Christ
as Lord and they're busy doing the will
of the Father.
Another group that profess Christ as Lord and
they're busy doing their own will and their
own works in hopes of saving themselves.
And then we go on and there is
a group who hear and build their house
on the sand and are destroyed in judgment.
And another group that hear and build their
house on the rock and are saved when
judgment comes.
You see, my friend, this is not about
how you can be a Christian and be
healthy, wealthy and wise.
This is about how you can save your
soul.
Isn't it amazing?
You go into any Christian bookstore in America,
you will find every amount of books on
self-esteem, on health, wealth, everything you can
imagine.
You can count on one hand the number
of books written on the attributes of God
and dealing with the salvation of a soul.
And preachers, they preach the gospel as though
it was the tiniest, most insignificant thing.
And once you get someone with that little
message to jump over the threshold, then the
real stuff begins.
There is nothing greater than the gospel of
Jesus Christ.
And there is nothing more important throughout all
the life of the believer than to hear
messages on how to be saved and what
it means to be saved and how to
be secure in salvation.
You can tell what all these American Christians
esteem to be most important.
It is this life and not the next.
I care not whether you have self-esteem.
I care not whether your checkbook is balanced.
I care not about any of those things.
I care for the day when you stand
in that granite hall before God naked and
you are judged and either cast into hell
or delivered unto glory.
Nothing else is going to cause me to
lose sleep tonight but that one thing.
Oh, we ought to be to some a
saver of life, us preachers.
And to others, we ought to be a
stench of death.
We ought to be a sign in Israel,
a spectacle to angels that men will either
literally almost kiss the hands that delivered the
Word to them or stone the body.
They'll hate us so much.
A dividing line in the sand.
Eternity on our eyeballs.
To preach as dying men to dying men
and to preach each time as though we
shall never preach again.
Young men, there are old fools, old foolish
preachers who know nothing.
But they are outnumbered by the young preachers
who know nothing.
But there are some men that are old
in their days, latch on to them and
learn from them.
Learn not from organizations, learn not even from
the academic.
But learn the true Word of God.
Study your Greek, know your Hebrew, do whatever
you have to do, but mainly be men
saturated by this Word and filled with the
Holy Spirit.
And what most of you need is not
more knowledge because you can't even obey the
knowledge you now have.
You need to go up on a hill
somewhere and cry out to God for a
week without eating, with a dew on your
head like a wild man throwing rocks at
heaven until the power of God rests upon
your life.
Because that's the only thing that will separate
you, the men from the boys.