My sermon text this morning is Matthew 7, verses 21 through 23. During the first great awakening, Jonathan Edwards wrote a book entitled Religious Affections, in which he painstakingly described the differences between true and false Christians. And his burden was to separate the wheat from the chaff. during a time of revival when great numbers of people were coming forth and claiming to have been born again. And this wasn't in his church alone, but across all of New England when the spirit of God was stirring in men's souls. And his burden was to ensure to the utmost of his ability, and there are limits to it, that professed converts were resting their faith on a solid foundation and not a rotten one. and that the religious experience and feelings proceeded from a changed heart and not a temporary and moral reformation. And some might say, well, what does it matter? But the answer should be really self-evident. If you think that you've been saved, you want that assessment to be true, don't you? Not false. And you don't want to be deceived about the state of your soul. You don't want your family to be deceived about the state of their soul. You don't want your friends to be deceived. As a pastor, you don't want your congregation members to be deceived about the authenticity of their conversion. No one wants to be deceived. So this burden that there be the utmost clarity on the state of the soul was widely held by Puritans. John Owen once said that the greatest burden in his preaching was to convince those who are saved that they are and those who are not that they're not. And widely read Puritan books on the subject included The Almost Christian Discovered by Matthew Mead, An Alarm to the Unconverted by Joseph Eilean, also known as A Sure Guide to Heaven, The Christian's Great Interest by William Guthrie, and others. And if you've ever read any of those books, and I would recommend you at least read one of them, you will be astonished at just how far Christian morals, discipline, and religious experience can be mimicked in the flesh with the help of the devil. Just how good an unbeliever can look. And while it's true that the difference between Christians and non-Christians is the difference between light and darkness, between Christ and Belial, And while it's true that in the world, the differences between Christian and non-Christian are often quite obvious and pronounced, that it's not that hard to tell who the Christians are and who they aren't in the world, the church is a more complicated matter and requires a lot more care and discernment. When it comes to the world, Satan has an interest in enslaving people to lusts and pleasures, and debauchery. When it comes to the church, Satan works through morality. And he often sends in those who are outwardly moral, disciplined, good citizens, hard workers, etc. In 2 Corinthians 11, 13 through 15, Paul said of false apostles there, for such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore, it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds. So like father, like son, like master, like servant. If Satan disguises himself as an angel of light, and he considers that an effective strategy, then so will his servants. Speaking of false prophets, they are taught by him after all. That's what it means that they are his servants. They do his bidding. In Matthew 7, Jesus tells us to beware of false prophets who are wolves in sheep's clothing. As I said, they don't look like a wolf. They are a wolf, but they don't look like one. They look like a sheep in some fashion. And that sheep's clothing consists of things like outward morality, professed allegiance to doctrinal statements, feigned interest in kingdom matters, principles, and priorities. Satan is not an idiot. He knows how to deceive people. That's his job description. He knows that if he wants to get a false prophet in the pulpit of a church, that prophet is going to have to look like a Christian to a considerable degree and sound like one to a degree. It's not going to be a casual glance at the man that uncovers the masquerade. It has to be a long look. And Edwards observed that the same thing happens in revival. Satan is restrained for a time and considerable numbers of people are brought into the kingdom. But then Satan is let loose, he strikes back, and he deludes a great number of people into thinking they are saved by religious experiences which he gives them. And no genuine man of God wants to fill his church with false brethren who feign conversion or who are simply deceived about the state of their souls. So we come to Matthew 7, 21 through 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. 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. And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. So let's consider. those things that are often taken for indicators of genuine faith, but which are not necessarily so. And the tricky thing is that each of these things are essential characteristics of the Christian life. That is, if you don't do these things, at least several of them, it's doubtful that you are a Christian. But if you do them, it's no guarantee that you are. And such is the complexity of the matter, because these things can all be mimicked in the flesh. So the first thing that we see is that there's an insufficiency of righteous words. In verse 21, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. Is it good to call Jesus Lord? Yes. It certainly is, and every Christian will confess him as Lord. Matthew 10, 32 through 33 says, therefore, everyone who confesses me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven. So you see there how essential it is to confess Christ, that merely acknowledging Christ as Lord is not alone decisive. For our text tells us, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. By which it is apparent that there's a difference between confession and what the Bible means by that word and mouthing certain words. Confession means literally to say the same thing. and it connotes agreement from the heart. That's the implied meaning. Because the heart assents to Christ and resonates with him and with his commandments, the mouth speaks from that which fills the heart and it confesses Christ as Lord. Then merely calling Jesus Lord is not the same thing. One might do that and not be saved, as is apparent from the text. There are those who say, Lord, Lord, and they will not enter the kingdom of heaven. So what do we make then of a passage like first Corinthians 12, three, where Paul says, therefore, I make known to you that no one speaking by the spirit of God says Jesus is accursed and no one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit. Paul is definitely talking about words and what a man says. And he's telling us what the Holy Spirit will cause a man to say and what he will not cause a man to say. So when someone says Jesus is accursed, you can be sure it is not coming from the Holy Spirit that he says that thing. And conversely, when he says Jesus is Lord, and he believes it and relishes it, I think is the implied meaning, he does so by the Holy Spirit. and that it must mean more than a mere parroting of formulaic words is self-evident. The demons did this, after all. The demons, when they saw Jesus coming, would fall down, the man in whom they dwell would fall down and say things like, we know who you are, you're the Holy One of God. So they said it. But were they speaking by the Holy Spirit when they did so? Did they relish the fact that he was the Holy One of God? I don't think so. And because of an oversimplification of that verse, and also a passage like Romans 10, 9 through 10, church roles have been filled with false converts. And consequently, the name of Christ has been blasting. Romans 10, nine through 10 says that if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart, a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth, he confesses, resulting in salvation. And based on a naive oversimplification of what it means to confess with your mouth, thousands upon thousands of people have been pronounced Christian who can offer, as evidence for their conversion, only a few words that can be uttered in the flesh. The evangelist goes forth. walks the lost person through the following steps. Step one, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Step two, because we have sinned, there's a separation between you and God. Step three, Jesus died for you to eliminate that separation. Step four, say this prayer after me, and it's something like this. Dear God, I'm a sinner, and I don't want to be separated from you. I want to go to heaven to be with you. Please forgive me for my sins. Thank you for sending Jesus to die for me. I now ask Jesus to come into my heart and be my savior, amen. And after the person repeats that prayer, he's pronounced a born-again Christian on the basis of 1 Corinthians 12, three in Romans 10, nine through 10. Multitudes of unregenerate, unchanged, worldly people have thus been brought in to the church, or on church rolls, or just simply given the title of Christian. But they have no change of heart. They can't and don't live the life of the Spirit of God and bear the fruit of the Spirit of God. And that gives ammunition to the worldly charge that Christians are just a bunch of hypocrites who make great claims of righteousness but actually live no differently than the rest of society. And then they don't know that they're actually shooting at their own when they say that. The hypocrites they're talking about are unregenerate people who belong to the kingdom of Satan, the same kingdom that the blasphemers belong to. They're shooting up on their own, but because they're called Christian, they think they're insulting the church. And they are insulting the church. They are insulting the name of Christ with the help of many so-called evangelists who go around with this naive idea of what it means to be a Christian and what it means to confess Christ. Making verbal claims of salvation is also no sign that one is actually saved. Now, any true Christian will profess to be a Christian and will profess to have experienced the transforming grace of God. But deceivers and confused lost people will often make the same claims. 1 John 1.6, if we say that we have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, We lie and do not practice the truth. So a person can say, I have fellowship with God. The modern day way of saying it is, I'm a Christian. And yet if we walk in darkness, we're lying and not practicing the truth. In 1 John 2, 4 through 6, the one who says, I have come to know him. and does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him." Well, it doesn't there mean keep them perfectly. We know that from other verses of scripture. But in a predominant way, the dominant thrust of their life is, yes, keeping the commandments of God. Whoever keeps his word in him, the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in him. The one who says he abides in him ought himself to walk in the same manner as he walked. You see, it's not just words. 1 John 2, 9, the one who says he is in the light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now. So he says he's in the light. But he's not, actually, because he walks in darkness, hates his brother. Titus 1, 15 through 16, to the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. But both their mind and their conscience are defiled. They profess to know God, but by their deeds, they deny him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed. So it's clear that being a real Christian is much more than just saying you are a Christian and making claims to godliness. And yet, sadly, nothing is more common today than for Christians to be identified as those who say they are. Nearly every statistic you have ever heard regarding how many Christians there are in America, how many Christians there are in the world, what is it? One point something billion, supposedly? is based merely on profession and a claim, a verbal claim. Somebody claims to be a Christian, they're counted as one, and they're part of the statistics. And yet scripture is very clear, that's not the basis. Saying so is not the basis. Another verbal thing that is no sign of genuine salvation is affirming biblical doctrines. You can recite various creeds, sign your name as affirming a doctrinal statement, or simply say, yes, I believe that, to a number of doctrinal points. The deity and humanity of Christ, the exclusivity of Christ for salvation. He's the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through him. The gospel is the power of God into salvation and essential for salvation. All the soul is of the Reformation, all five of those. the Trinity and so forth. One can say, I believe those things and still not be saved. For one, you can lie about believing them or you can simply not understand what they're saying to such a degree that you might think you believe them, but really only agree with your mistake and understanding of them. Prophesying and speaking in tongues is no indicator that you know the Lord. Jesus says, 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. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? What does it mean to prophesy? One meaning is to foretell the future. or things that are known only to God. God gives you certain secret information concerning the future, you prophesy it, and it comes true. Another meaning is to proclaim biblical truths. That's a more generic and general meaning. And is it possible for unbelievers to prophesy? Or are the people that Jesus is here speaking of in the text simply lying about their prophesying? or just mistaken about the fact that they prophesied. Now it's possible for unbelievers to prophesy and it's happened on a number of occasions and probably happens with some regularity in the more general sense. Judas is exhibit A. Was he not sent out to preach and teach the kingdom of God? In Mark 3, 13 through 15, it says, and he went up on the mountain and summoned those whom he himself wanted, and they came to him. And he appointed 12 so that they would be with him and that he could send them out to preach and to have authority to cast out demons. And then the following verses after that, the disciples, including Judas, are mentioned by name. as those who did this. And in Mark 6, 7 through 13, we likewise read, and he summoned the 12 and began to send them out in pairs. And he gave them authority over the unclean spirits. And he instructed them that they should take nothing for their journey except a mere staff, no bread, no bag, no money in their belt. but to wear sandals. And he added, do not put on two tunics. And he said to them, wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave town. Any place that does not receive you or listen to you as you go out from there, shake the dust off the soles of your feet for a testimony against them. They went out and preached that men should repent. and they were casting out many demons and were anointing with oil many sick people and healing them. Judas was one of the 12 doing all of those things. We have other examples of unbelievers prophesying. Balaam, no friend of God, prophesied. Saul, no friend of God, prophesied. Caiaphas, no friend of God, prophesied. They proclaimed true things that the Spirit gave them to say, but they were not regenerate men. In John 11, 49 through 51, we read of Caiaphas. One of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, you know nothing at all. You know they're arguing about what to do about Jesus. You know nothing at all, nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man die for the people and that the whole nation not perish. Now, he did not say this on his own initiative, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation. It's an unbelieving man, no friend of Christ, happy to have him crucified, and he's prophesying. Speaking in tongues is a form of prophesying. It is to prophesy in a language you don't know. The spirit giving miraculous ability to speak in a language you don't know, but it is prophecy. A spirit, the spirit can likewise come upon an unregenerate person, causing them to speak in tongues, even though they do not have the fruit of the spirit, the chief of which is love. In 1 Corinthians 13, 1 Paul says, if I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. So much for righteous words being an all sufficient indicator of genuine salvation. It's not. Secondly, miracles performing miracles is no indicator. Many will say to me on that day, verse 22, 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. Now, if you cast out demons and you perform miracles, even many miracles, you might be saved or you might not be. As we already noted, Judas did those things. And yet Jesus said of him, you are a devil from the beginning. Judas was given power to prophesy. He was given power to cast out demons, power to perform miracles. The Holy Spirit can come upon any person he wishes and equip them for certain things without dwelling in them to make them his temple. God can use you and me to do righteous things, though we may hate him and be a practitioner of lawlessness, just as Judas was. And so if you are a Christian, God will use you to do good things, but being used is no indicator that you are indeed saved. The insufficiency of knowledge. Going back to first Corinthians 13, one through three, if I speak with the tongues of men and angels, but don't have love, I become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, But you don't have love. I'm nothing. So can an unregenerate person have extensive knowledge, even theological knowledge? Oh, yeah. Indeed, he can. As I was graduating from seminary, they brought in a man who was respected around the world for his knowledge of Hebrew. He was a scholar par excellence. Yet a few years after moving there, he was recorded, back in those days it was still on tape, bemoaning the reluctance of the Christian community to accept evolution as a fact. And thereby, he thought, discrediting Christianity as a religion of ignorance. That recording was released to the public online, and I can't remember if he was fired or forced to resign. But here was a man whose knowledge of theology would greatly exceed that of most Christians. And yet in his heart, he believed the lie of evolution and cared more about what the world thought of him than what Christ thought of him. Likewise, you can read the Bible and have lots of verses memorized. You can know where things are found. You can answer many hard questions posed by atheists. You can be an extensive reader of classic works of theology and not have Christian love, without which you are nothing but a bankrupt false Christian. Then we have the insufficiency of the gift of faith. That's the next thing Paul mentions there in 1 Corinthians 13. And if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. Faith? Well, by this, he obviously does not mean saving faith, for scripture everywhere establishes salvation by faith in Christ, that it is an indicator. But there's another kind of faith, referenced in scripture, which is not saving. Theologians call it different names, historical faith, notional faith, intellectual faith, and temporary faith. All those terms are used to describe the same kind of carnal faith. It's the kind of faith referenced in the following passage, John 12, 42 through 43. Nevertheless, many of the rulers believed in him But because of the Pharisees, they were not confessing him for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue, for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God. Rather than. And they were not confessing him. Remember, you've got to confess him. So in what sense did they believe? In an intellectual way. They believed him to be the Messiah by the various indisputable proofs he gave of that fact. but they did not savingly trust their souls to him. In the parable of the sower, Jesus delineates four kinds of soil. And the rocky ground soil is the heart of one who springs up with joy over the word, but then it withers in the heat of the sun. And Jesus, when he gives the interpretation of that parable, describes such people as those who believe for a while, but then they fall away because of persecution. They had a temporary faith, not an enduring and saving one. Perseverance of the saints is still true. Those who are genuinely converted do indeed persevere to the end. But then there are those who have a temporary faith. I don't think Paul actually, however, is indicating either one of those kinds of faith in 1 Corinthians 13, because there's yet a third. in kind or instance of faith in scripture, the kind of faith that moves mountains. That is, it's the kind of faith that considers the power of God to do something, believes that he can and will do it, and acts upon that faith. George Muller, who, of course, fed thousands upon thousands of orphans all by faith, trusting in God to provide, made it very clear that the kind of faith he had was the grace of faith, not the gift of faith. That is, the gift of faith is an extraordinary gift God gives for you to believe something he has not said in his word that he'll do. And for some reason, he persuades you that he's going to do it. You have this faith that it's going to happen, and it does happen. The grace of faith, he said, is simply the ordinary faith that every Christian has to take God at his word. He said that's the faith he was exercising all those years in caring for all those orphans and seeing miraculous provisions come through. But can an unbeliever have this gift of faith whereby he can move a mountain? I think he can. I believe that the list of things Paul gives here in 1 Corinthians 13 are all things that can be done by the Spirit in an unbeliever. And I think Judas very likely had this kind of faith given to him. When he went and cast out demons and he performed miracles and healed people, I think it was through the gift of faith that empowered him to do so. He didn't just go out and do them. He actually believed, because what he'd seen Jesus do, now Jesus is commissioning him to go out and do it, he actually believed that Christ could be taken at his word and that Judas was going to be able to do those things based on Christ's promise. Rather than just out of a vacuum, he believed it. That a person can have great faith, according to 1 Corinthians 13, to move mountains, and if they don't have love, it's nothing. Then there's the insufficiency of self-denial and great sacrifice. Example one is giving away money. 1 Corinthians 13, three, if I give away all my possessions to feed the poor, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Unbelievers can be quite generous and self-sacrificing. They can sell their possessions. They can give their money away to the poor and live in poverty. They can leave the comforts of their homeland and go to a third world country dwelling in squalor and disease and in primitive conditions. They can also be consistent and scrupulous tithers. For Jesus said to the Pharisees in Matthew 23, 23, note the Pharisees. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you tithe mint and dill and cumin and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness. But these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. So Pharisees did that. They were very scrupulous in their tithing. One can give away their life and not be saved, become a martyr for the cause, Converts to false religion have done so, whether Mormonism, Jehovah Witnesses, Buddhism, Islam, Catholicism, et cetera. There's martyrs across the whole spectrum, surrendering their body to torture, to flames, to drowning, to the chopping block. Today in China, we have Falun Gong practitioners. We have Uyghur Muslims. And they're being persecuted. And they're not giving up their faith. And they're dying for it. but they're not saved. And likewise, false converts to Christianity can do the same thing and not have love. And not having love, it profits nothing. It's of no spiritual benefit whatsoever. You can become a zealous evangelist and not be saved. You can be indefatigable in your evangelism and not be saved. Jesus said to the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23, 15, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte. And when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. But look how evangelistic they were. You travel around on land and sea. You go to great effort. You spend a lot of money. You sacrifice your time all to go find a convert and make one. Unfortunately, you don't know the gospel and the convert you make is just your false system that leads people to hell. This is just simply to say that being evangelistic is also no indicator that you know the Lord. Fasting is also no indicator. Jesus said the hypocrites fast and they put on a gloomy face. So everyone will notice when he described the proud Pharisee in the temple. In his parable on prayer, he described him as, I fast twice a week, and I give tithes of all that I get. So it's no indicator of genuine salvation. True believers will often fast to some degree, but unbelievers do it too. Then there's an insufficiency regarding the reverence for heroes of the faith. In Matthew 23, 27 through 29, Jesus said this, woe to you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. So you too outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for You build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous. So the Pharisees were showing reverence for the prophets of old by visiting their graves and adorning them and building up their headstones or whatever, dropping flowers around on top of them. They might have genuinely believed that they were the spiritual heirs of the prophets. The truth of it was that they were of a contrary spirit. Had they lived in the days of Jeremiah, they would have sought to put him to death, just as people did in Jeremiah's day, or Isaiah, or Ezekiel. They thought to themselves, we love those men. Those were the courageous, bold prophets of old. Let's go lay some flowers on their grave. The truth is, had you lived in their day, you would have been of the conspiracy of people trying to kill them. Because the same thing that made them bold in condemning sin, they would have been condemning yours. No prophet is popular in his day. They're only popular when they're dead. And then people come and want to throw flowers all over their grave. Yeah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Moses. But if you lived in the days of Moses, you would have been part of that rabble that was constantly grumbling against him. revering the heroes of the faith is nothing. And likewise today, there are all kinds of people who make much of revered dead Christian heroes, but would not, I suspect, like such men if they lived in their day or sat under their preaching. There's a number of professing Christians who like to drop flowers on the graves of John Calvin and Martin Luther and Jonathan Edwards, but would probably despise such men had they lived in their day. Probably would have been of those voting Jonathan Edwards out of his own pulpit if they had sat in his church. People that laud the sacrifices of great evangelists and missionaries like Adoniram Judson, Hudson Taylor, Henry Martin, David Brainerd, George Whitefield, William Carey. But you have nothing spiritually in common with these men. by which it proves that revering great Christian men or women of the past is no sign of saving faith. There is practically a cult following with respect to Jonathan Edwards. It's like societies that emerge with people that go around and they shave all this off their little soul patch and they've got the dark glasses and their skinny jeans and their latte and they're sitting around reading Edwards because it's some sort of intellectual society and they love the aura of the intellectual respectability that surrounds his writings. But I suspect they would not care for the man if they sat in his church. Speaking very broadly and without knowledge of each individual soul, of course. The insufficiency of physical nearness to Christ. Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. Once the head of the house gets up and shuts the door and you begin to stand outside and knock on the door saying, Lord, open up to us and he will answer and say to you, I do not know where you are from. Then you will begin to say, we ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets. And he will say, I tell you, I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves being thrown out. It's Luke 13, 24 through 28. You see how they relied on physical nearness and proximity to Christ. We ate and we drank in your presence. The same is true for proximity to the Bible, proximity to the truth, to the church, to the fellowship of believers. One can have all of that physical proximity be in the church every time the doors are open and be lost in the end. So to sum up, if you have many righteous words that you have spoken, if you have called Jesus Lord, if you have made a profession of faith in him, if you have affirmed good, sound biblical doctrines and said that you believe them, if you have prophesied and spoken in tongues, of course you know I don't believe those gifts continue today, But even if they did, and you did them, if you had performed miracles and had been the instrument through which God demonstrated his mighty power, if you have extensive theological knowledge and know lots of theological vocabulary, and your mind can process and categorize all the various complexities of the faith, and if you can ably debate the matters with scoffers, if you have the gift of faith so as to move mountains, If you tithe, if you give away all of your money and your possessions to the poor, and if you live in poverty, if you suffer great things for the cause and even surrender your body to the rack or the flames, if you fast, if you pray, if you read the Bible, if you are regularly in church, if you are active in evangelistic endeavors, if you show reverence for the heroes of the faith, if you do all of that, But no more, you are but an almost Christian. Hebrews six, four through eight sums up the subject well. For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come and then have fallen away, It is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put him to open shame. For ground that drinks the rain, which often falls on it, and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God. But if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned. You can be intellectually enlightened. You can taste the heavenly gift. Gifts of the Spirit is likely what is meant. You can be made a partaker of the Holy Spirit, not by regeneration, but that is, he's come upon you and equipped you and empowered you for some good work, like he did Saul and Judas. You've tasted of the good word of God, that is, you've been made sensible of its truthfulness and its majesty. And the powers of the age to come, likely miraculous powers, and you fall away in the end, you're lost. And it's impossible to renew you to repentance at that point. Meaning, even that state of temporary repentance that you have rejected. This is a fearful thing, is it not? If this alarms you, I'm glad it should. This is an alarming subject. It means you're listening. But I hope you can see how important it is to examine yourself, to see whether you are in the faith. I hope you can see the danger of resting your faith on a rotten foundation. So what is the reason for the hope that is in you? How would you answer that question? Is it your profession of faith, your frequency in church, your prayers, your tithing, your knowledge, your sacrifices, your evangelistic endeavors, your sufferings, your goosebump experiences, your usefulness to the kingdom, And so on? If so, then you're resting your hopes on those things that God can and has done in unbelievers as well as you. And you're in danger of hearing him say, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. So if all of those things, if that considerable list is a rotten foundation as far as hope and trust, then what should your hope be in? Christ. Christ and his righteousness imputed to you that you can say all my righteousness is in him. It's all His glory, all His goodness, all His holiness, all His righteousness, which I have received by faith because it's been imputed to me through faith. His perfect life, His death on a cross as a substitute for you, His atonement and the sufficiency of that to wash away your sins, that is your trust and your hope. When you trust then in Christ, and in Christ alone, faith then works itself through love. Galatians 5, 6, which is why there is this emphasis in scripture upon works. Ephesians 2, you're dead in sin, he made you alive in Christ Jesus, and then, by grace you are saved through faith, not of yourselves, this is the gift of God, lest anyone should boast, and then there's these good works that God has prepared in advance for you to do. And Titus, I want the people to be zealous for good deeds and good works. And even in our text, what did Jesus say? It's not those who do these things and say these things, but the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven. Who is justified, who enters the kingdom of heaven, the one who does the will. Well, the way Paul puts that in Galatians 5, 6 is with love, because love sums up all the commandments and all the duties. Faith working itself through love in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love. Satan counterfeits just about everything as we've seen, and he counterfeits love as well. But he can't quite counterfeit the biblical love nearly so well as he can with respect to all those other things we've considered. It's one thing for Satan to counterfeit fasting, I know, two people fasting and it looks the same. They're both doing the same thing. They're both denying themselves food for a given time. Kind of looks the same, although the hypocrite likes to let you know about it and boast in it and get attention for it. Satan counterfeits love, but that is kind of easy to detect. What is love for God, after all, and Satan's children? Love only for those aspects of God that aren't offensive to proud sinners, which is not love at all, but rather idolatry. Satan cannot counterfeit the kind of love that accepts and delights in all the character of God as revealed in the Bible. Words, yes, but substance, no. There's nothing like that in the heart of an unbeliever. What about love for a neighbor? Love your neighbor as yourself. Satan's counterfeit of love is love those who love you. And Jesus said, what good is that? Even the tax collectors do that. But the Christian has a genuine desire to see others blessed and even saved, even with respect to their enemies. Unbelievers never have that. Love the brethren. Unbelievers hate Christians, and it's very difficult for Satan to convincingly counterfeit this. So salvation is based on the solid foundation of faith in Christ alone, working through love, and of a biblical kind that Satan has a hard time counterfeiting. That is the solid rock upon which we stand. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word and how you show us what we need to know and knowing true from false. Help us as we examine ourselves and seek to apply this. Lord, none of us wants to be deceived, I'm sure. And pray, Lord, that you would help us to know the truth and help us to be able to assess ourselves accurately. I pray that if there's anything that we've been trusting in, apart from Christ and his work, that you would expose that to us and enable us to put it away like an idol is put away and broken and smashed. There would be nothing in the way, nothing competing, only Christ. And that we would be able to see the evidence of that genuine faith working itself out in our lives through