One of the reasons it [Matthew 7:13-23] was on my mind is because there is a lot of misinformation about this chapter. And we need to correct that. And the other one is that this is the most solemn thing you could consider. This has got to be the most important thing. Jesus told the Pharisees, you have omitted the weightier matters of the law. And one of those was judgment. judgment. And so I've entitled today's message, We Must All Appear Before Christ, or more simply, The Judgment Seat of Christ.

Let me read a couple of verses of scripture to you that speak of this. In Romans chapter 14, and this Scripture in Romans 14 is a quotation from Isaiah 45, but in Romans 14, it says in verse 7, "For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself..." This is opposite of the way that the world thinks. The world: We do live to ourselves, and we do die to ourselves. But that's not true. God says it's not true. None of us live to himself. No man dieth to himself. And here's the explanation. "For whether we live, we live unto the Lord, and whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. For to this end, Christ both died and rose and revived that he might be Lord, both of the dead and the living. But why dost thou judge thy brother? Or why dost thou set it not thy brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written," and this is from Isaiah 45, "as I live, saith the Lord, the Lord Christ, every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God."

This is a prophecy of what's going to happen in the future. And prophecy is always future history. You can't change history. Can you change the fact that President Lincoln was assassinated in history in the 1800s? No, you can't. Can you change the fact that Jesus Christ lived and suffered and died and rose again and ascended to heaven? No, you cannot. It's history. You can't change even the less significant history of your own life, when you were born, what happened when you were young, and even yesterday. The history God is speaking about here hasn't yet come to pass, but it's certain. God's word tells us things that have not yet been done, and God talks about them as though they're already done. He calls those things which be not as though they were, from Romans 4, verse 17. So we must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. And he says, every knee shall bow to Christ and every tongue shall confess to God. So that's the first scripture I wanna show you about this.

But also look where we are studying as connected to Colossians. Look at 2 Corinthians 5. And I intend to go through this more carefully in this verse and what follows next week. So this is part one of this topic, The Judgment Seat of Christ. But notice here, he says in verse 1, 2 Corinthians 5, "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle...", he's talking about his body as a tabernacle, were dissolved, were to die,"...we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." This is something we know. We know it because God has said it. It's certain, therefore, because God has said it. And this is where our faith lies. There is no such thing as faith unless God has spoken, and faith is always believing what God has said. Saving faith is believing what God has said concerning Christ and my own salvation.

But he goes on in 2 Corinthians 5, he says in verse 7, "...we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and willing, rather, to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord." In other words, when we die, we will be with the Lord. we're not going to die and be in some state of limbo, we'll be immediately with the Lord.

He says in verse 9, "...wherefore, we labor, that whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him." And the word really means well-pleasing to him. Not accepted in the sense of judicial approval, but accepted in the sense of our Master. He's the One we seek to please!

"For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ." There it is. That's the verse I wanted to point out. We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, just like Romans 14 said that we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. We must all appear there. And he goes on, "...that everyone may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men and we are made manifest to God, and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences." We will be set before Christ, before at his judgment seat and will be made manifest, openly set before Christ and the onlooking universe. But in this place, the apostle Paul says, "I trust even now we're made manifest in your consciences."

All right, so this is the topic. This is the topic of our consideration this morning, the judgment seat of Christ. But it comes to us in the context of something. The judgment seat of Christ is in the context of the gospel. And this is very important. When we consider the judgment seat of Christ, we need to understand that Christ is going to judge men according to something. What is that? What will be the standard? What will be the basis of the judgment that's performed by the Lord Jesus Christ in that day?

Well, in 2 Corinthians 5, immediately after making this statement, knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men, he goes on to describe what? The gospel. Look at verse 14. He says, "...For the love of Christ constraineth us because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead." So this is saying that Christ died. He's the one. And all for whom he died are dead. There's no denying it. It says it plainly. If one died for all, then we're all dead. So we have to conclude that all for whom Christ died, died in his death.

And Romans chapter 6 says that those who have died to sin, (which is what happened when we died in Christ), have been justified from sin. Verse 7 of Romans 6. So I say this in order to show you that the gospel is what Paul is preaching to them because of the future history of standing before Christ in judgment. And also because it's the gospel that God (Christ) is going to use as the basis in that judgment.

He goes on in verse 15 of 2 Corinthians 5, he says, "And that he died for all that they which live should not henceforth live to themselves, but to him which died for them and rose again." And so he goes on and he talks about this and of course at verse 21, he tells us how God reconciled his people. He said, God the Father has made him, Christ, sin for us. Christ knew no sin and this is why he made him sin for us: that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

All right, turn with me to one verse of scripture in Romans chapter two. I want to read this to you because this is really going to anchor what follows here. It's very significant, and I didn't even consider it this way until I was studying for this sermon. I've read this verse at least 100 times, but it just didn't occur to me, perhaps for the first time, until I read it just this weekend. He says in Romans 2, And he says, verse 16, "In the day, in the day,..." this is the day we're talking about, the judgment, the day of judgment. "In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel."

What is the basis of judgment? How will Christ proceed in his judgment of all secrets of men? According to this verse. According to the gospel. According to the gospel.

Now, we need to understand that when God speaks about the gospel... (and you can turn to Matthew 7 right now)... When God speaks of the gospel, we always must understand the significance of the gospel. First, the significance because it was a message in scripture, but it was not known until God made it known. The mystery of the message of [OT] scripture is the gospel. The unfolding of that mystery is the gospel.

What we had before the gospel, at least what we had clearly, was the law. The gospel reveals God's New Testament. The old covenant is the law. And what does the law deal with? Well, the law deals with us. And if you remember, Adam began in the garden innocent. God created man upright, but he has sought out, man has sought out every invention. Ecclesiastes 7:29.

So the law came to the human race in Adam before he ever sinned. And the law really only required one thing. Don't you eat of that fruit of that tree. Every other tree, eat all the fruit you want. But God joined this one commandment with death, if he were to break it, was that don't eat of that tree, that tree, eating the forbidden fruit of that tree will bring death upon you.

And we understand from Romans 5 that that act of Adam was a transgression against that one law which required death for failure, for disobedience, and that one transgression of Adam brought sin on all those who would be born to Adam, which means everybody without exception. And with that sin came the penalty of breaking that law, which was death (Romans 6:23).

And so the law dealt with a man who had no sin. But because of the requirements of the law, and that man was obviously mutable; he was changeable, being a creature. He was subject to change. He transgressed that law. He came under the guilt and the condemnation and the curse of that law. And so did all of his children. So the law dealt with an obedience required, a justice of punishment that it demanded and that was it. It dealt with required obedience and justice on account of disobedience. There would be justice and death for transgression. And that was it. That's all the law said.

Now the law was given in that instance in the garden but then later God pretty much gave no laws until Moses [to Noah, the one who kills a man, by man shall he be killed]. The law God gave to Moses applied to every person. Romans 3.19 says, "...we know that whatsoever the law says, it says to those who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God."

So the law, in contrast to the gospel, dealt with us before we had sin, then it It laid out the requirements for our obedience, and then it also brought the consequences for our disobedience in the form of death. And then it goes on to continuously accuse us of our sin: it convicts us of our corruption, our sinfulness. It continuously shows us our failure to fulfill the obedience required. And it also continuously holds over us the promise of the punishment of eternal death as the wages of sin. That's the law. Paul didn't say in Romans 2:16 that in that day when God shall judge the secrets of men according to Jesus Christ **by the law**. He didn't say that, did he? No. He said, according to my gospel. Well then, what is the gospel? When we talk about the gospel, we talk about the gospel coming into the context not of a man who hasn't sinned, or an entire race of people who haven't sinned, but it comes in the context of an entire race of fallen, sinful, rebellious, and corrupt sinners. So that in the case of the gospel, unlike the law, the gospel came where sin abounded. It began with one man, sin entered into the world by one man, and death by sin, and that death passed upon all men because all have sinned. But unlike that law, when Christ came, there were many sinners and there were many offenses by each one of them. And out of the many sinners and the many offenses of those many sinners, something happened. Righteousness. The righteousness of God was revealed in the obedience of Christ. When He took their sins, the many sins of the many sinners, and in his own obedience yielded his life in substitution to fulfill the obedience of the law and to answer the justice that that law required and to suffer the punishment for the sins that those for whom he died had committed against God. That's the gospel. And the gospel also says that Christ fulfilled that will of God, that by his one offering he sanctified by that will, he sanctified -- by the will of God --those for whom he died. Hebrews 10, verse 10. And in Hebrews 10, 14, he actually perfected forever by his one offering all those that were sanctified by God the Father and given to him to redeem. And therefore, in Hebrews 10 and verses after verse 14, he says that, therefore, as the Holy Spirit had spoken of in the Old Testament, God would remember their sins no more. What Christ did when he offered himself to God and sanctified his people, when he offered himself and by that one offering perfected them forever, when he did that, where were we? We hadn't appeared on the scene of history. What Christ did was done in a history before our history. It was outside of our experience. It was something that Christ did in offering to God. He offered himself according to the will of God, but he did it on behalf of and for a people for their sins. It says in Ephesians 5, verse 2, that Christ also had loved us and given himself an offering and sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor. He offered himself in sacrifice to God for our sins. It was His offering given -- God's will given to Him to perform. He offered Himself to God for our sins, and by that offering sanctified and perfected His people, He obtained for them eternal redemption. And because He obtained that eternal redemption, Hebrews 9 verse 12, God has sent forth His Spirit to sprinkle upon our conscience, to sprinkle our conscience with the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that in our conscience now, we think, we agree with God that what Christ did is all sufficient to cover all of my sins and to fulfill all the obedience that God's law required but which I failed to give because of my rebellious, sinful, corrupt nature. That's the gospel. That's the gospel. And because, and let me read this to you in Hebrews chapter 9, because it's important that we see this connection here upon the conscience of every person and what the Lord Jesus Christ did for them, the application of what Christ did by the Spirit of God. He says in Hebrews 9:12, "...neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, He, Christ, entered once, entered in once into the holy place [this is heaven itself], having obtained eternal redemption for us."

"For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctify it to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God,..."

He lived a perfect life and he was sinless in thought, in motive, in word, in deed, in every way, in his character, in his person, in every way. He never committed sin. He was spotless. And then he took our sins. He was the fulfillment of that picture of the lamb without spot or blemish in the Old Testament. And then God laid our sins upon him.

And so he says in verse 14, "...how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God." The Holy Spirit, it really means here (I believe), the Spirit of Christ, His eternal, divine nature is the altar on which He offered His human nature, His body and soul and all that He was as a man, bearing our sins and therefore dying. That one person in two natures offering himself to God, the altar of his divine nature and his human nature, bearing our sins in his own body up to the tree (1 Peter 2:24; 3:18).

And here he says, "...how much more shall he who offered himself to God by that eternal spirit purge [notice], purge your conscience..." (conscience...the way you think, the way that you think towards God. the way in your mind where God convinces you of sin by his law and of Christ by the gospel, convinces you of your record as cleansed from your sin by Christ's offering of Himself in blood substitution, and has fulfilled all of the obedience that the law required by the obedience of Christ in righteousness! He says that's what God does with the blood of Christ when He applies it to our conscience. He purges your conscience...) "from dead works to serve the living God."

Dead works are works done that bring death. Dead works are works that are done that have no efficacy to remove sin. that have no fulfillment of obedience for righteousness. They're dead works. And that includes everything we do to make happen what Christ alone accomplished, but most especially, it includes that effort that we perform in order to obtain from God the life, the reward of obedience, which we could never render, but which only Christ could and did fulfill in his own death.

And so Christ's blood is applied to our conscience, and the obtaining of eternal redemption in the blood that Christ offered to God, to God, for us, in history, accomplished outside of our experience, outside of the timeline of our life. It's done. And that's applied to our conscience. The finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the gospel. And this is the basis...how God is going to judge people. This is how Christ is going to perform judgment in that day, "according to my gospel."

And what does the gospel do? Well, the gospel, as I said, comes to us in the context of sin. Read Romans 1:18-3:20. It proves all men are under sin. "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." "There's none righteous. No, not one." There's none that understandeth. There's none that doeth good. No, not one. None that seek after God, none that do good! And so we see that the purpose of the law was to prove us and expose us as sinners against God, both in guilt and corruption. And the purpose of the gospel was to come to us in the context into which the law required from us and demanded from us, requiring our obedience and fulfillment of obedience required by the law, and in the justice demanded in punishment--the curse, death, and that eternal ('Depart...ye that work iniquity!'). And the gospel comes to us that, in that context, the many sins of the many sinners Christ bore in his own body on the tree and he obtained for them eternal redemption. Sanctified them by that one offering, perfected them forever and God therefore says what? I will remember their sins no more. NO MORE! That's the message of the gospel. Christ has obtained eternal redemption by his blood. It's the will of God. Scripture has spoken this. Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.

The gospel deals with sin, and it deals with sin placed on, laid on, made to be, Christ's (2 Corinthians 5:21). The gospel deals with obedience fulfilled in fulfillment of the law and in satisfaction to the justice of God, all by Christ alone, bearing away the punishment due our sins! And the gospel declares this too: that everyone who looks to Christ, everyone who looks to Him, seeing what He has done and believing Him, believing Him -- I mean, this is a personal, "My Savior," my salvation, everyone who thus comes to the Lord Jesus Christ -- they will not be turned away, not cast out!

Jesus said this in John 6, verse 37, "...all that the Father giveth me shall come to me," and notice these words carefully, "and him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out." Do you hear that? Now use all of this as the context because as I said, Romans 2.16 tells us this is the way judgment will proceed. And that helps us, doesn't it? That helps us to understand this text of scripture here in Matthew chapter 7.

Let's read it together. In verse 13 he says, "Enter ye in at the straight Gate, strait here, S-T-R-A-I-T means narrow and compressed, very small, hard to find. In fact, seldom found. He says, enter ye in at the strait gate, for wide is the gate and broad the way. It's a wide highway and at the end the gate is wide. And what's at the end of that? What do you receive when you pass through that wide gate that you entered through on the broad way? Destruction. He says here, for broad is the way that leads to destruction and many there be that go in there at. Many. This is the popular way. This is the majority. This is where most people go. In fact, apart from the grace of God, all of us would go this way. All of us by nature are in this way.

And then in verse 14, he says, because straight or narrow, hard to find, is the gate. And narrow is the way which leads to life, and few there be that find it. So the strait gate is the narrow, the unpopular, the seldom found way.

In Luke chapter 13, the same event is spoken of in Luke 13:23, but listen to the introduction to that event here that Christ is speaking of, the judgment seat of Christ. In Luke 13, 23, one of them said to him, "Lord, Are there few that be saved?" And he said to them, "Strive to enter in at the strait gate...", the narrow one, "...for many, I say to you, will seek to enter in and shall not be able."

All right, so here we see that this gate and this way in Luke 13, 23 is the way of salvation. Those who are saved enter this way. And here in Matthew 13:14, he says, it's the way that leads to life. So it's the way and the gate that lead to life by way of salvation. This is very important here. This is what the gospel deals with, doesn't it?

What does the law deal with? It deals with sin, the sin of those who began as not sinners, and now they are sinners and therefore they're damned! The law continually pounds on them and says, "Meet these requirements!" You're just heaping up transgression and judgment to yourselves! Come on! And it provides no help. It provides no hope. But the gospel says into that context here, there's a way, a narrow way, and it is the way of salvation and it leads to life. And verse 15 of Matthew 7 says, he's going to explain in this way, this narrow way and this broad way, he's going to give us a warning, a warning. Because as people go this broad way, They're going to be, or even on the narrow way, they're going to be encountering these false prophets. And so the Lord warns them. And beginning at verse 15, He describes them. But in verse 21 and through verse 23, the Lord not only describes them, but He foretells their end, what's going to become of them. And it's the same people spoken of beginning at verse 15, righteousness . Look at verse 15, and all who follow them, by the way. Verse 15 says, beware of false prophets. Now, a false prophet is one who speaks about God, but lies. They don't tell the truth. And what is the truth? Well, Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father, but by me." And in Acts 4, verse 12, he says, there's only one name. There's no other name given under heaven among men whereby we must be saved. So Christ is not only the way, the truth, and the life, but he's our salvation. Christ. So here we see then that the narrow way must be Christ. And how is Christ the way, the truth, and the life? He's the way, the truth, and the life in his sin-atoning death, in his obedience. In other words, in his deliverance of his people from the sin that the law charges them with, and bringing them under the sentence of God, not to condemnation, but to justification because of righteousness, And then not only justification, but because of that justification, life. So Christ is the salvation because he offered himself to God, as we spoke about from Hebrews, in order to save his people from their sins. And he accomplished that outside of our experience in history. So the object of our faith is who? Christ. On what basis? God's word. Where is it revealed? In the gospel. So we trust God's word concerning Christ revealed in the gospel. And that word of God concerning Christ in the gospel is that Christ bore the sins of his people and fulfilled the obedience required of God's holy law. So what are the false prophets teaching then? They're teaching another Jesus. The apostle Paul says in Galatians chapter one, if anyone comes to you, preaching another gospel, which is not another, it's false, but if they do come to you preaching another gospel, it doesn't matter if they're an apostle or an angel from heaven. The apostle says, let them be accursed. And that's precisely what's happening in Matthew 7, verse 15 and following. These men are going to be false prophets, therefore they're bringing a false gospel, preaching another Jesus, they're messengers of Satan, disguising as angels of light, and they're going to be accursed. So we see then, the character of these prophets in verse 15, he says, beware of false prophets which come to you He doesn't say wolves clothing, does he? They come looking like sheep. They look like God's people. They use the words that God's people use. In fact, they perform works that you would attribute to God's people. Let's read it. He says, beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. They appear one way, but inwardly they're different. They have a, in their heart is an evil treasure and they bring forth evil things out of that evil treasure in them. They're ravening wolves, devouring. Verse 16 says, you shall know them by their fruits. A question here, what fruits? What fruits? Hold the thought, we'll get to that.

He says, do men gather grapes of thorns You don't go to a thornbush to pick grapes, do you? Or figs of thistles? No. They have star thistle in our area and it's bad. It pokes in through your clothes and stabs you in the leg or the feet or something. You don't look for figs on those, do you? No. Why? Because thorn bushes don't bring forth grapes. And thistle bushes don't bring forth figs. Where do you go for grapes? To the vine. Where do you go for figs? To the fig tree. And so he uses that analogy, he says in verse 17, even so, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A corrupt tree in this case would be the thorn bushes and the thistles.

A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Fig trees just don't bring forth thorns, do they? And grapevines don't bring forth thistles and bad fruit. Verse 19, every tree that brings not forth good fruit is what? Cut down, hewn down. And cast where? Into the fire. Now he's talking about false prophets here. And we can see that what he's saying here in this comparison of the trees and their fruit and these things that are not good trees, which would be thorn bushes and thistle bushes, he's saying that those who by their fruit prove themselves to be thorn bushes and thistle bushes are going to be cut down and cast into the fire. And that's what's happening here in verses 21 through 23.

He says in verse 20, wherefore by their fruits you shall know them. Now, the question is, is what are these fruits? I know you're probably thinking, well, it's the things you do, because people look at what you're doing and they can see whether you're a real Christian or not. Isn't that the way you think? So what do you look for? Well, does he tell lies? Not so much. Do they attend church? All the time. Do they give their offering? Sure, sure, very faithfully. What else? Well, just name any number of things. They're really good employees, a great mother and father. These people are exemplary in their lives. That's good fruit. Is that what Christ is talking about here? No, he is not.

He's not talking about the things you do, which men look at and say, see, that's a good person. You know why? Because the fruit here spoken of comes from a good tree, a good heart. And no one has a good heart, no one is a good tree unless they've been born of God. And men cannot produce good fruit unless they've been born of God.

So this fruit here is not just the behavior that you see because I've lived long enough to see that people of different religions who deny Christ have exemplary lives. It can't be that. Anybody can produce that. At least a lot of people can. Many do. But they're on the broad way, because why? They're not in Christ who is the Way. They've not been delivered by Christ, who is the salvation by His shed blood and His obedience? They don't have that life that He gives to those who come to Him, like the woman who had, for 12 years, had an issue of blood and laid hold in His garments. They don't come to Him, laying hold on the virtue of His righteousness and drawing virtue from Him. He never knew them in that way. They don't bring forth good fruit.

But look at Matthew chapter 12. Here the fruit is described. He says in Matthew 12 in verse 33, notice carefully. Set aside your biases now and just read it as it says. He says in verse 33, either make the tree good and his fruit good, or else make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt. In other words, make the conclusion here. Draw the conclusion, whether it's good or bad. For the tree is known by his fruit.

Look at verse 34. "O generation of vipers...", clearly bad trees, right, or bushes. They can't bring forth good fruit. He says, "O generation of vipers, how can you, being evil..", do what? "Speak good things. For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh."

You know what Romans 10 says? If you believe in your heart, the Lord Jesus, and confess with your mouth..." he says, "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth...", this is what you say, right? Have you ever thought about confession? When you stand before Christ in judgment, you're going to be afraid for your life, won't you? You know what you're going to say then? Whatever you really believe.

Here he says, "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth...", this is telling what you truly believe. That's what a confession is. It's not a pretense. This is what is in your conscience. (Hebrews 9:14) And what is put in your conscience if the Lord has made your heart a heart where good treasure is? Well, he's put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. So he says, if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, the Lord Sovereign, Jesus the Savior, "...and shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead...", that he accomplished by himself for his people, All that God gave him to do, and God justified him, and with him justified his people. One died for all, all are dead. Justified from sin. He says, if you do that, "...you shall be saved!"

Now, that is something no one can do, apart from the grace of God. And so back in Matthew 12, in verse 34, he says, to these men, these who would be the false prophets, O generation of vipers, how can you being evil bring or speak good things? You can't confess good things because why? It's not in your heart. He says, for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh.

Verse 35, a good man out of the good treasure of the heart, which would be Christ in us. persuaded of this. We believe Him, don't we? We believe His work. In fact, we believe Him only. We don't trust a combination of what Christ has done and our own doing. That would be to deny Christ. If you're justified by the law, Christ died in vain. But no, a good man out of the good treasure, that persuasion that comes from the gospel that Christ is all in all of his life and death and resurrection and ascension and intercession. He's my all. That good treasure brings forth good things. We speak, we confess, we say what? The gospel. We say what we believe about Christ.

You remember the tract we like to quote of the poor man who said, "I'm a great sinner and nothing at all...". That's a true confession, isn't it? He believed that. "...But Jesus Christ is my all in all." That is faith in the heart. It has to do with what the gospel has to do with sin, and yet the removal of sin and the fulfillment of righteousness in the death of Christ.

So here he says in Matthew 12:35, a good man out of the good treasure of the heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. You can't say what you don't believe and you don't know it if you don't believe it. But he says here in verse 36, notice, But I say to you, every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment, for by thy words shalt thou be justified, and by thy words shalt thou be condemned. Do you see this?

So the fruit then of the false prophet is what? His doctrine. In Deuteronomy 13, I'll read this to you: the doctrine of a false prophet. Notice this in Deuteronomy 13, he says, the Lord says, "If there arise among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass. whereof he speak unto thee." Now this is a man who says something and it actually comes to pass. Notice, and he says this because that sign or wonder came to pass, "...let us go after other gods which thou hast not known and let us serve them..." There's something wrong here. He's performing good works and yet he's saying something that's opposed, it's idolatrous.

And the Lord says in verse three of Deuteronomy 13, "...thou shalt not hearken to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God proveth you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul." So in Matthew 7, Christ is saying these false prophets say the wrong thing. They teach and preach false gospels. You see that? In 2 Corinthians 11, he says the same thing about them. They're ministers of Satan. They appear as angels of light, but they "preach another jesus." They try to woo you away from Christ to another gospel, sometimes subtly by saying, Christ is good. Yes, he's good. He's the Lord. No doubt about it. No doubt about that. But you need this other stuff too. You need to do something in order to make what he did work for you. You need to decide, or you need to exercise your will, or you need to perform these works in order to "finalize your justification" or to, you know, you aren't really justified by faith alone, but by your faith plus your works. But that's false. And that's why the Lord says what they say is wrong. They're false.

And so he says, you know them by their fruits. You know whether they speak true because they either don't speak the gospel and speak false or they do speak the gospel and therefore they speak truth. The gospel is the standard. It's faith in Christ, isn't it?

But notice in verse 21 now. He says, not everyone that says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. So this way, this narrow way is the way of salvation to life and entrance into heaven. It's Christ. Christ in him crucified.

"Not everyone..". Sometimes we would think, well, that means a few people are going to mess up. But look at the next verse. Verse 22, "...many will say to me in that day." So this is the popular opinion. This is the majority of people. It's not just a few, it's most. But read it again in verse 21, not everyone that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven. So that's the crux of the matter right there, isn't it? That's the issue. Doing the will of my Father, which is in heaven.

Look with me at John chapter 5. I want to show you a few verses and then draw the conclusion here. In John chapter 5, he says this in verse 22. John 5, 22, he says, the Lord Jesus is saying, he says, for the Father judges no man, but has committed all judgment to the Son. For this reason, that all men should do what? honor the Son, even as they honor the Father, because the Son is equal with the Father. He that honoreth not, he that does not honor the son, does not honor the Father which sent him.

Doesn't that make sense? If I sent my Son to you and said, you know, "Rick said to tell you this...", and you said, "No way!" He's my son! I sent him to you to tell you that message. You disrespected my son! What does that mean? Well, according to Jesus, you've disrespected the Father. But the converse is also true. Honoring the Son is honoring the Father. And what Jesus said here is, you must "do the will of my Father." Only those who do the will of my Father, which is in heaven, shall enter into heaven.

But we already know that the way and the truth and the life and the salvation is Christ alone. We already know that it was by the will of God that His one offering sanctified His people and perfected them forever according to the Scriptures which said, their sins and iniquities I will remember no more. And so to do the will of God in this context here now, in the narrow way, which is Christ and Him crucified, what does it mean? It means to honor the Son. And how do we do that? (see John 5:24, hear Christ's words, believe on Him who sent Christ, the Son!)

Everyone who comes to Christ shall not be cast out, remember? John 6:37, look at John chapter 6. John chapter 6:37, Jesus said, "All that the Father giveth me, all that the Father giveth me, all that the Father giveth me shall come..." Had they come? When the Father gave them, had they already come? Did He give them because they believed? NO. The Father gave them to Christ before they knew Him, before they came to Him. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me. And in verse 35, he defines coming as believing. He says this, he that cometh to me shall never hunger. He that believeth on me shall never thirst. So we know that coming to Christ is a verb that means believing on Christ.

We come to him for what? Well, we come to him for everything. But most especially, we come to Him for the forgiveness of our sins. The law accuses us the law is right, the law requires our damnation, the law will get its due. How can we come to God if the law tells us we're sinners and under the judgment of God? How? How can we come? The gospel says this, "It is Christ that died. Yea, rather, who is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us!" The One who died is our Advocate. The answer God's law required for our sin is an answer Christ gave in his death. What God required, Christ fulfilled. What God's law demanded, Christ answered to satisfaction. Christ crucified is the answer God gave to what He required to save His people and to give them life.

And so when the Lord Jesus says, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me, we're coming to Him for what the Father gave Him to do, which is to lay down His life for the sheep. and to bring those sheep without fail to the Father and keep them and give them eternal life. I came to give them life and life more abundantly. "Whosoever heareth my words and believeth on him that sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death to life." (John 5:24). That's what he's talking about. Coming to Christ for life through the blood of Christ. It's the blood that justifies and it's life given because of the justification by that righteousness(Romans 5:9, 15-21)! Justification unto life. We come to Christ for this. He says, everyone who comes to me, are you coming to him? Am I in our heart? In our conscience, has God persuaded us that the truth He declares concerning Christ, and His salvation, and His life, and the truth concerning Him, all this that is in Christ, that that's all? And Him alone? And I have nothing else? Is that burned into my conscience? by God himself, so that now I have a good treasure in this heart God has created in me. And out of this good treasure comes the confession that's in that heart, that confession of faith in Christ by the gospel.

You see, the gospel is what deals with both sin and righteousness, resurrection from death and eternal life. The gospel does that, not the law. And so that's why Paul says that Christ is going to judge men according to my gospel. All that come to me, what is it to do the will of the Father? Come to Christ, honor the Son. This is the work of God that you believe on him whom he has sent. John 6:29.

And notice in 1 John. Notice in 1 John 3. I want to read a couple of verses there. 1 John 3, he says this. In verse 23, "this is His commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son..." This is the Father's commandment, isn't it? What is it to do the will of God? It's to do the commandment. This is His commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son, "...Jesus Christ, and love one another as He gave us commandment." (1 John 3:23).

Believing Christ, we have life. Believing Christ, we have passed from death to life. We've already received the life. We've been given an inheritance. Condemnation is passed because judgment fell on the Lord Jesus and the curse was removed in his redeeming death. He answered God's law. He answered it in a way we could never answer with our life because he fulfilled the obedience of it to the honor of the law and to the glory of God in all of his perfections, in his faithfulness and justice and righteousness and mercy and grace and truth and his power to save sinners.

And so what does it do? What does it mean to do the will of God? It's to see Christ and believe the Son. That's what Jesus said in John 6 verse 40. "This is the will of Him that sent me that everyone who seeth the Son and believeth on Him shall not perish but have eternal life." This is the truth, right?

In Acts chapter 6:7 it says that there were many who were obedient to the faith. Obedient to the faith. Obedient to the faith, to the truth revealed by God in scripture concerning Christ and His salvation of sinners chosen in Him by the will of God. To the satisfaction and the glory of God!!

In Romans 1:5, Paul writes to the Romans, he says, I'm writing these things unto you for the obedience of faith. And in the end of Romans, chapter 16, verse 26, "25 Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, 26 But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith: 27 To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever. Amen" (Romans 16:25-26). And in Acts chapter 15:9, Peter says God was purifying their hearts through faith, through faith. "put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith" (Acts 15:9).

And in 1 Peter chapter one, and around verse 21, he says, having purified your hearts in obeying the gospel. It's not exactly the way it's worded there, but let me read it to you so I get it right. 1 Peter chapter one. It's the obedience to Christ in the faith of God. of the gospel, the gospel declares to us the truth, that's the faith of the gospel, the truth of Christ and him crucified.

It says in verse 21 of 1 Peter 1, "Who by him do believe in God that raised him up from the dead, gave him glory that your faith and hope might be in God, seeing then you have purified your souls in obeying the truth." That's what it means, it's obeying the Father, he gave us his commandment.

So that judgment then is a discerning of whether or not our confession and our heart aligns with the truth of the gospel, isn't it? And what are you going to say? According to the truth of the gospel, what would you say in that day?

I want to read to you a text of scripture in the book of Micah along this line, and I'll close with this because of time. In Micah chapter seven, Listen to these words. These men in Matthew 7 were pleading. They were pleading in their own defense. They were the defendants. They were not the judge. They were the defendants. They were on trial. And they were pleading in their defense. And what they pleaded was, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? They were Christians, or so-called Christians. And in your name cast out devils? And in your name did many wonderful works? Look and check the records. You be the witness. based on what we did. They were pleading in their defense what they had done. They asked Christ to consider what they had done and recognize that as worthy of entering life in heaven.

But listen to the way Micah speaks in Micah chapter 7. He says, verse 7 of Micah 7, "Therefore I will look unto the Lord. I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me. Rejoice not against me, O my enemy. When I fall, I shall arise. When I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light to me. I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him until he plead my cause. and execute judgment for me. He will bring me forth to the light, and I shall behold His righteousness."

The one who sits on the judgment seat, appointed to sit there as judge over all, is Christ. and he's the one who pleads the cause of his people even now at the right hand of God. You see, judgment occurs in the heart of a believer continuously throughout their life. God has so impressed upon their conscience the work of Christ that they have no other plea and they do what the publican did, God. Consider the propitiation of Christ's shed blood and be merciful to me, the sinner." The publican asked God to make the judgment based on the blood shed. And based on that blood shed by Christ, be merciful to him, the sinner!

The publican, unlike the men in Matthew 7, talked about his sin. And he talked about the fact that only God could provide to God what God would require to remove his sin and that's what he pleaded. He pleaded what God provided and what God required and what Christ sacrificed to God for his people. And that's what the gospel teaches. That's what's in the heart of those who believe Christ. And all those who believe Christ shall not be cast out in that day. They have already passed from death to life. The evidence is they look to Him.

Now, do their works not matter at all? Of course not. Their works do matter, but what was the commandment of the Father? That you believe on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and do what? Love one another, because love fulfills the law. And so Christ will prove on that day by their works that they did what they did to Him when they did it to the least of His brethren.

Let's pray. Father, we pray by Your grace that You would find us in Christ alone, in all that you require of us, in all that we have done to sin against you, Lord, we have no excuse. The fault is all ours. The sin is all ours.

And yet, You have declared your eternal purpose to redeem your people in the death and by the blood of your own son, by his obedience that actually fulfilled the requirements your law required, and met the justice that your law demanded in the curse, and gave the life that no law could give us by our own obedience. and to make us your children, which none but you could do because of the redeeming work of your Son and the Spirit of God given to us by his redeeming work.

Lord, we pray for this in our hearts. We know that the Spirit of God in us is that down payment, that earnest of our inheritance. Christ in you, the hope of glory. And we know, Lord, that the Spirit of God in us causes us to look only to Christ Him alone and Him all-sufficient, and to rest our case by Your will and Your Word on Him. Help us not to look to ourselves or to look to another, but to look to Him only.

In His name we pray and for His glory. Amen.