Please turn to Matthew 7, verses 21 through 23 for a second sermon on these verses. Martin Lloyd-Jones said of these words of Jesus in verses 21 through 23 that they were the most solemn and solemnizing words in all of the Bible. Now, that's a similar note on which we began last week and saw that, indeed, these are words that are frightening to us. They are terrible words, that one day Jesus would say to those who say, Lord, Lord, who claim to have faith in Him and are even claiming it with urgency and fervency, who are Orthodox, calling Him Lord, who have some passion about it. That's what's implied by the double use of the name, who are making a public statement about that faith, who are involved in very religious works. They're doing wonderful things. They, in verse 22, are prophesying in His name. And presumably, if it's in his name, it's with his approval and by his power. And in his name, they were casting out demons. And in his name, they were performing miracles. And yet, it says in verse 23 that he will say to many who are making that kind of a claim, to many of them, not a few, but to a host, he will say, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. And the common attribute that he that He gives to those who are going to make this false claim and hear these terrible words are that they say one thing, but they do another. It's verse 21, it's not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father. The problem is they're not doing the will of the Father. This is a verbal claim that they're making, a verbal affirmation, but it's not accompanied with the doing of the will of the Father. It's not accompanied with change and transformation. And so Jesus issues this stern warning that there are those who, in verse 23, practice lawlessness, who are making these claims, but He does not know them, and they do not know Him. And so this is why Jesus is speaking these frightening words. He's saying them not so that He would undermine our peace and rob us of any hope of comfort from the Scripture or deprive us of assurance of our salvation, but because the same Bible that promises assurance and peace and confidence also labors to warn us of the dangers of self-deception. Some of you mentioned last week that the sermon was disturbing to you. Your cage was rattled. And I think that that's part of the intent of these words, is that we should have our cages rattled, that we should examine ourselves. I think it's also the intent of these words that we should be comforted. And I want to draw that out some this morning. We began to touch on a couple of areas of application last week, and I want to draw that out now. There's comfort in these words as well, as well as being this very disturbing element that we need to look at very closely also. There is also comfort here. And I hope that we'll see that as we examine this more carefully now. Number one, Jesus' warning helps us to understand the weaknesses of the church. And I think that this itself can be reassuring to us because what we observe when we look at the church is that the church can be very disturbing. We see hypocrisy, we see inconsistency, we see division, we see carnality, we see even apostasy. We know of people, surely you can recall in your own mind people who at one time or another once believed and then fell away, no longer believe, no longer are professing Christians. And that can be very, very disturbing to us. and unnerving to us, and that can rob us of our confidence and of our peace and of our assurance. Because when we see them fall away, we wonder, are the promises of God true? Can the Holy Spirit maintain and retain us in the faith? Are we too in danger of slipping away? Might we too, like they, fall from grace and fall from the Christian faith? Why do these kinds of things happen? And Jesus is providing for us, in part, an answer to that. The reason why they happen is because there are those who are in the church who say, Lord, Lord, who prophesy, cast out demons, and do works of wonder, and yet do not know Him. They're able to talk the talk. They're able to say all the Christian things. They're able to identify themselves with the Christian community. They have the appearance of being the real thing. They're able to play the game and say, did we not? They look real. They're orthodox. They're fervent. And yet, Jesus is saying there's going to be some among them who, in fact, are frauds. They are not real. They are false professors. They appear to be real, but they are not. So why do bad things happen in the church? Well, partially because there are bad Christians. There are Christians who do bad things. That's part of the reason we can't shift all the blame to false professors as the Puritans would have called them. There's also Christian people who fall, who stumble, who fail, who backslide, and who are real and legitimate, and then who are later restored. So we can't shift all the blame, but Jesus clearly is saying here, there are also among the believing people of God, there is also within the church many who are saying, Lord, Lord, but they're not the real thing. They are not credible. They are hypocrites. They are frauds. In other words, the church is what Jesus later will describe in chapter 13 as being a place in which the wheat and the tares grow up together. Yes, there's wheat. Yes, there's legitimate fruit. But there are also the tares. There's also that false fruit, that false crop, that especially initially looks like the real thing. It's indistinguishable when it's still underground. It's indistinguishable even when it first begins to grow up. And it's only later that it becomes obvious that there are weeds or tears that have been sown there amongst the wheat. And the Kingdom of God will forever be a place in which, that is forever in this world, a place in which there are both wheat and tears together, the real and the false, the credible and the incredible. the genuine and the fraudulent, they will always be together in the church. That helps us to understand, doesn't it, why you have division in the church? That helps us to understand, doesn't it, why there is carnality in the church? Helps us to understand, doesn't it, why there are cruel and mean people in churches who do mean and cruel and destructive and terrible things? Helps us to understand, because some of the people are tares. Some of the people aren't real. Remember also the parable of the sower. Do you remember of that parable? There were four soils, and two of the soils received the Word, but not completely. One is good soil, one is soil in which the seed does not penetrate at all, but then there's the shallower, rocky soil, and then there's the seed that's sown among the thorns. Two of them actually do receive it. One of them receives the Word with joy. Do you remember Jesus saying that? But then one gets scorched. It's in the shallow soil. The seed never takes root. So it begins to grow up, grows up fast, receiving the word with joy, but then it's scorched. Affliction, persecution, Jesus interprets the parable. Come along. And this plant that isn't rooted scorches. It dies. It's destroyed by the affliction. For the other, it's among the thorns, and the thorns then choke out that which appeared to be a thriving plant, the real thing at one point, but it's choked out by what Jesus says are the concerns of the world and the deceitfulness of riches. The point here is that there are those who appear to be the genuine thing, who look real, who act real, and yet who are not, and consequently, we should not be surprised when Christian people act like pagans, when Christian people are greedy and unbelieving, when there's calamity and division and hate and worldliness within the Church, and even when there is apostasy, when some fall away. and no longer believe, and renounce Christ, and renounce the Christian faith, and we're shaken by that, we're disturbed by that. We don't know what to do with that. We know the promises of God. We know the promise that He'll preserve His people, that He'll never leave or forsake them. And then we see this one fall away. What does that mean? John says in 1 John 2, 19, they went out from us because they were never of us. They appeared to be of us. We once thought they were of us. But the fact that they went out, that they now deny Christ and have abandoned the Christian faith, means only one thing. It means that they were never authentic. They only appeared to be. They only seemed to be. They were saying, Lord, Lord. They were doing these religious things. They were all involved and excited and active in the life of the church. But it wasn't real. In Acts 2, or rather Acts 20, verses 29 through 31, the apostle Paul there warns the Ephesian elders that savage wolves would come into the church and that these wolves, who would devour the flock, would arise, he says, from among your own selves. from among the leadership, from among the elders even. There would be wolves who would come and try to destroy the church, from among the elders themselves. In other words, men who once gave a credible profession of faith, once who seemed to be devout, once who were devout enough to be elected as officers in the church. Get this one too, Galatians 4, verses 11 through 16. There the apostle Paul describes Galatian believers who had received Him at one point as an angel of God, as Jesus Christ Himself, and about whom, he says, they would have plucked out their own eyes and given them to Him." And by the way, this is one reason why we think Paul perhaps had an eye disease or eye trouble and wrote with large letters. He refers to it in another passage. that in order to relieve this affliction, there were those who were so devoted to the gospel that Paul preached, that in order to relieve him of his pain and promote his ministry, they would have plucked out their own eyes. You talk about a level of devotion. You talk about a level of loyalty to the Paul and the gospel that he was preaching. That is it. He is saying they were devoted at that level, and yet he says of them that he fears that he has labored over them in vain. It's just to say they no longer were credible. He fears they're not real believers. Those who had, at one point, been that devout, that sold out, that zealous for the kingdom of God, had gotten to this point where Paul says, you now regard me as your enemy. How can that be? He also refers in 2 Timothy 4.10 to Demas, who, having loved this present world, has deserted me. Demas, who once traveled with the apostle, but whose love for the world and the things of the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life and all the goodies and pleasures and delights that the world has to offer, they were just too important to him. And so he fell away. So what are we saying? We're just saying this. Don't let that unnerve you. Don't let that shake your faith. Don't be surprised by this kind of thing. There are so many people who don't go to church because they say the church is full of hypocrites. You see what I mean? That undermines their faith. That shakes them. Don't let it shake you. Don't be surprised. Don't have utopian expectations for the church. Don't entertain unrealistic expectations. Don't be naive about the church, the wheat and the tares. grow up together. There are many among us, says Jesus, who will say, Lord, Lord, who are not the real thing. They're not authentic. They're not genuine. They're here. They seem to be, but they're not. And this explains a great deal of what goes on in the church that is disappointing and potentially disillusioning and potentially damaging to our faith, but we must not let it be. And this, in part, is what Jesus is doing for us, to reassure us, so that our confidence is not shaken when we see these kinds of things happening, so that we'll not make that mistake of saying, oh, the church is nothing but hypocrites, I'll never go back there. He's warning us ahead of time that this is the case. Now, the second area of application is this. Again, we just touched on this last week. We want to look at it in more detail. Jesus' warning is a call to self-examination. Self-examination, self-evaluation is not a very popular theme today. It's a necessary thing, I believe, but it's not one that is popular. We view it today as introspection. We see it in a very negative light as being morbid and depressing and so forth. But given the danger about which Jesus is warning here, and the subtlety of it, and the universality of it, and the potential of destruction that goes with it, can we avoid this call to self-examination? Can we do anything but respond by looking carefully in our own hearts, primarily there, but also in our conduct to see whether or not our behavior and our character matches what we profess? How can we avoid that, given the stakes? Given that we are dealing with eternal issues of eternal weight, with eternal consequences, how can we do anything but look into our own hearts? and examine what's there in light of our character and conduct to see whether or not we might be numbered among those who are self-deceived. That's the question I think that every one of us has to ask when we encounter verses like these. If there are those who are going to say, Lord, Lord, and say it with fervency and publicly, and with orthodox intent, and meaning, and conviction, and yet he's going to say about them, depart from me, I never knew you. And there are going to be many such, then all of us who name the name of Christ, and who are involved in the work of the church, and are involved in religious and spiritual activities, must pause, at least today, and ask the question, am I a fraud? Am I self-deluded? Am I self-deceived? Do I have false peace, false hopes, false comfort, false convictions that one day I will be in heaven and in the presence of God? You see, our time is a time of easy believism and cheap grace. It is also a time of easy security and cheap assurance. Here's what we assume, generally speaking today, that everybody has the right to immediate and permanent assurance and eternal security. Every believer, this is what we say, every believer, that's their birthright, that you should be assured of your salvation and that you should be eternally secure. You should have it now, you should have it always, you should have it immediately, you should have it permanently. But I think when that's claimed, I think that there's a complicating question that's being overlooked, and that question is this, but who is a true believer? You see, it's a half-truth. The true part of it is that, yes, every Christian should have the assurance of their salvation, and they should be eternally secure. I believe that that is the birthright of every Christian. And the New Testament labors that point and says it over and over again. Romans 8, 35 through 39, where the Apostle Paul says, there is nothing that can separate us from the love of Christ. That's security. Nothing can come between us. Nothing can overpower that grip that he has upon us. Jesus in John chapter 10 says that there's no one who can pluck us out of his hand. And then speaks of the Father's hand and says, none can pluck us out of the Father's hands. That's security. Romans 10, 13 promises, whoever will call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. We don't minimize this, we teach it, we believe it, we exalt in it. This is one of the great privileges of the gospel is that we should know that we have eternal life, that we should know that we're saved, that we should be comforted in that knowledge, that we should have peace in knowing that there no longer is for us any condemnation. So how is it that Christians have assurance? All right, let's just outline that briefly, three points. Number one, believe the promises of God. God says in his gospel, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Do you believe? Well, what do you know then? You know you'll be saved. It's that simple. A whole lot of the Christian life just comes down to faith, doesn't it? You either believe these things or you don't. God says you believe in the gospel, you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be saved. I need to process that. I need to contemplate that, meditate upon it. I need to believe that, seize that, hold on to that. Believe the promises of God. Number two, examine your life for the signs of grace. If you have been born again, it's going to show. If you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, it's going to show. Your life will be transformed. You'll be a new creation in Christ Jesus. The old will pass away. All will become new. You've been raised up with him in newness of life. These are all biblical statements, and that's going to show. You're not going to be the same old person you were. You'll have different priorities. You'll be obedient and want to be obedient. You'll love God and love His people, and so forth. There's going to be signs, and by those signs we argue back. God is at work. I couldn't work this up on my own. I couldn't change myself. I couldn't develop a love for God's people by myself, in my own strength, in my own power. These are all signs that I have credibly professed faith in Christ. I am indwelt by the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit are present and growing, that means that God is at work. And so we test the merely verbal by that which happens in life, the signs of grace, that's what the Puritans called them. And then thirdly, internal testimony of the Holy Spirit. This is the one that's the most difficult to define, the most experientially oriented, but Romans 8, 16 says, his spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. So it's these three things together, not just an internal testimony, that might be delusion, but not just a claim of faith, that might be self-deception, but faith, and the internal testimony of the Spirit, and signs by which we test the credibility of that. On these terms that the Bible offers to us, commends to us, expects of us, that we be assured of our salvation, that we enjoy eternal security. It's taught, it's emphasized, 1 John 5, 11, these things were written, that you might know that you have eternal life. All right, the same Bible that promises all that then says things like this. That there are going to be many who are going to say, Lord, Lord, who will not enter the kingdom of heaven. That there will be many who are able to talk about prophesying and casting out demons and doing miracles, and He's going to say, depart from me, I never knew you. The same Bible that promises to us peace and assurance and confidence and security also warns us over and over and over again of the dangers of self-deception, self-delusion, false peace, false confidence, false assurance. And because of that, it can be a struggle to get to the point that I do have full assurance and confidence. Listen to several of these passages. Now, 1 Corinthians 6, verses 9 through 11. There the Apostle Paul warns those who were involved in heinous acts of sin. He says this, do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. See, there's the point. The unrighteous have a capacity for self-deception. There you are, you see. Do not be deceived, he said. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But it better be the past tense. If it's still the present tense, you are deceived, because the effect of the gospel is to break the bondage of those sins and set you free from them and change you. What's the danger about what he's warning? The danger is that of self-deception, of thinking you are something you are not, continuing in your sin, unchanged, unregenerated. You're not born again. You're not being transformed. You're not a new creation in Christ Jesus. You've not been raised up in newness of life. He says the same thing in Galatians chapter 5, verses 19 through 21. He says there, the deeds of the flesh are evident. They are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousings, and things like these," and now here he goes, "'of which I forewarn you just as I have before forewarned you that those who," what? Practice. You practice such things, you will not inherit the kingdom of God. He's warning. Why is he warning him? Because there's this danger of self-deception. There's this danger of false confidence, false hope, false assurance. The Old Testament is absolutely full of this, of people who are believing false prophets who say, peace, peace, and there's no peace, who say in the words of Isaiah 30, prophesy illusions to us, speak to us comfortable words, in 2 Timothy chapter 4, who want to have their ears tickled. Jeremiah chapter 7 talks about a people who say, about whom he says, rather, do not trust in lying words saying, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. The same problem. See, you're trusting you've got this temple. And so you have this false confidence. Here come the Babylonians. They're approaching your city. And you're trusting. Your judgments of God are falling upon you. And you're trusting in this temple. You have false confidence, false hope, false peace. And you're listening to prophets who are promising peace when there is no peace. What's the problem there? The problem there is the problem of self-deception, the problem of self-delusion, of false hope, false peace, false security. We have a whole book of the Bible written about this subject, 1 John. These things were written that you might know that you have eternal life. But how do you know by this? We know that we have come to know him. First John two, three, if we keep his commandments change. And that's what the theme is carried throughout the book. If we do this, then this. It's based on what you practice, on what you do. This is how you know whether or not you're genuine, whether you know you're authentic. You will know them by their what Jesus said, by their fruits. That's not just true of the false prophets. That's a comprehensive religious test. You can be known by your fruit. And false claims are known. If we say this and we do that, then it's not credible. The one who says, John says, 1 John 2, 4, and 5, that I've come to know him, and doesn't keep the commandments, he's a liar. We can be tested. And what does John conclude in his epistle? That it's those who believe, and who love, and who obey, who have those signs and evidences of authentic and genuine and credible faith, they are the ones who can know. Here is what we can know. Based upon what has happened within our hearts, in our character, and in our conduct. And so what's the Bible say to us? And what's Jesus saying to us? In the words of 2 Corinthians 13, 5, examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith. Have you ever read that verse before? Let me read it again. 2 Corinthians 13, 5, test yourselves to see If you are in the faith, examine yourselves, or do you not recognize this about yourself that Jesus Christ is in you, unless, indeed, you fail the test? In other words, there are some who would not pass that test. They would examine themselves, they would test themselves, and they would find out they weren't what they thought they were. They would fail. Or this one, 2 Peter 1, verses 10 and 11, where Peter says that we're to make God's calling and choosing us sure. and then points to the practices, that which would verify and legitimize the claim of having been chosen by God, having been elected, having been called, having been sanctified by God. It has to be tested. We have to examine. So where does that leave us? I think it leaves us, on the one hand, more sure. I've got a handle now on why the church doesn't live up to its ideas. I can see why. There's just lots of folks around who are saying, Lord, Lord, and they're not real. And they gum up the works. They muddy the waters. And so I'm more confident, more assured because of that. On the other hand, I've really got to examine my own heart. I've got to look into my own soul, test, examine. Make sure there's a consistency between what I say and what I do, because Jesus says there's these folks out there who say, Lord, Lord, and they practice lawlessness. They say, Lord, Lord, they don't do the will of my Father. And so I need to ask myself, am I real? Am I genuine? Have I been changed? Am I authentic? Peace, comfort, assurance, confidence, these are all God's gifts to us. They are, in one sense, the height of the gospel. This is it. These are the psychological blessings that God promises to His people. And yet, because there is also great potential for self-delusion, self-deception, false peace, false hope, I've got to test it. Test and see whether or not I am authentic. And if I pass the test, and I am, then I can walk on in the confidence that all of the promises of God are to be fulfilled in me. through Christ Jesus, our Lord, as we pray together. Our Father in heaven, we have contemplated these very sobering words and have sought to deal with them faithfully and honestly. And oh, Lord, we pray that we might believe your promises. Oh, Lord, we pray for the internal testimony of your spirit-bearing witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And we pray, our Father, as well, for signs by which we might test the credibility of that which we profess in order to reassure our hearts that we might know that we have eternal life. In Jesus' name, amen.