Just saying those words out loud
grips my heart with fear. I wouldn't imagine, not imagine,
I know beyond a shadow of a doubt there's nothing that I fear more
than hearing those words from our Lord. This is one of the
most sobering, frightening verses in all of God's Word. Verse 23,
and then while I profess unto them, I never knew you. Depart
from me, ye that work iniquity. Now this morning, I want to give
you the true meaning of these verses. And then I want to apply
them to us. You'll see that the problem with
these folks is that there must have been some presumption. They
did not know they didn't know the Lord till that day of judgment. And I'm talking to Hurricane
Road Christ Church this morning. I'm not talking to all the religious
world out there. I'm talking to us, and I don't
want us to be presumptuous. I want us to, these verses, to
be applied to our hearts so that we seek and know the Savior.
Verse 21, our Lord says, not everyone that saith unto me,
Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he
that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will
say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied
in thy name? And in thy name have cast out
devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then
will I profess unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye
that work iniquity. Now right off the bat, these
verses tell me that everyone is not saved. And more strikingly,
it tells me not every religious person knows the Lord. As a matter
of fact, many religious people do not know the Lord. Many religious
people will go to hell. That's right, that's what the
Lord says. He uses the word many. Many religious people. Salvation
is not an outward show of religion. Salvation is a heart work that's
done in the hearts of God's people by God himself. The salvation
of the soul of a sinner is God carrying out his eternal will
and his eternal purpose of grace in Christ Jesus. Salvation is
a work of God. It's a work that is so wonderful,
it's so mysterious that man cannot understand it, man cannot believe
it unless God does a work of grace in their heart and gives
them faith in Christ. And I want to give you three
ways that salvation is not in our outward acts. It's not an
outward show. And these are three reasons that
the Lord says, depart from me. Number one, salvation is not
mere lip service. If all our religion is, is just
lip service, the Lord will tell us, depart from me. Salvation
is received through faith in Christ. He says, verse 21, read
it again. Not everyone that saith unto
me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he
that doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven. Now these
people the Lord's speaking to in judgment, they're religious
people. They got the jargon down cold, don't they? They say, Lord,
Lord. They called the Lord, Lord. Now you know this is not teaching
that we shouldn't cry out, Lord, Lord. In prayer, you're not teaching
us we should not cry out, Lord, help me. Lord, save me. Lord,
hear me. The Lord's not teaching that
at all. This is what our Lord told his disciples to do. He
said, you call me Lord, Master, and you say, well, for so I am. We should call the Lord Master
and Lord, shouldn't we? But to these people, the Lord's
name was just words on the lips. It was just the right religious
jargon. The words didn't come from the
heart. And as I mentioned a minute ago,
this is the scary thing to me. They didn't even know it. Apparently,
all through their life, they didn't know that this was just
religious jargon to them. You and I cannot be saved by
using the right religious words. We have an example here of people
who said the right words. They called the Lord, Lord. They
weren't wrong in calling Him that. They knew the right words,
but they were not saved. It's not good enough for us to
say Lord, Lord from the lips if we haven't bowed to Him in
the heart. Because God looks on the heart. It's not good enough
to say, Lord, Lord, if Christ is not first our King, the Savior
must first be our King. The one to whom we bow, He doesn't
have to do anything for me. I bow to Him pleading His sovereign
mercy. He don't have to show mercy on
me, but I'm begging Him for it. God's not going to save us until
He's our King first. That we're bowing, begging Him.
and then He'll be our Savior. If we have not bowed to Christ,
if we have not submitted to Him, if we have not submitted to His
righteousness, then when we say, Lord, Lord, we're no better than
those Roman soldiers who mockingly cried, Hail, King of the Jews.
Both of them are mocking words, even though they're the right
words, even though that's true. Hail, King of the Jews. They're
mocking words if they're not from the heart. Saving faith
is in the heart. Obedience to God is not in the
lips. Obedience to God is in the heart. And our motive matters
a whole lot more to God than what we actually say. I hope
I say the right thing. I hope I do the right things.
But what matters more to God is the heart, the motive in the
heart. And saving faith doesn't just talk about the will of God,
you know, religious people. Calvinists, I'm not even talking
about people that have utterly no idea what, you know, anything
about what the Bible says. Calvinists and these religious,
religious, religious people, they love to talk about the will
of God. What is the will of God in this?
What is the will of God in this? And they always seem to know,
you know, what's God doing in this? They want to just get the
debate to find points of scripture that just are clearly not revealed
to men. I'd like to talk about those
things. Faith, saving faith, does the will of God. Let's just
talk about it. It does it. Well, what is the
will of God? You know, people say, I want
to know what God's will is in my life. Well, I can tell you,
this is what God's will is. This is God's will for your life
and my life. The will of God is for us to
believe on the name of His Son. That is God's will. Look at 1
John chapter 3. The will of God is for us to
quit trying to keep the law and trust Christ to be all of our
righteousness and all of our salvation. That is God's will
for our lives. 1 John 3 verse 23. And 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. Now this is the
will, this is the commandment of God, that we believe on His
Son. Salvation is by grace, through
faith in Christ, without any of our works added to it. And
those who obey God, They come to Christ. They seek salvation
in Christ alone without any of our works being added to it.
And that's in the heart. It's in the heart. It's not religious
words on the lips. It's not just talking a good
game. It's faith in the heart, not just on the lips. All right,
number two, salvation is not in being a preacher. It's not
in being the best kind of believer you know, some sort of super
Christian. If that were so, that would be trusty works, not grace,
wouldn't it? So that's not it. Salvation is not in what we do
for God. God's people ought to serve God,
ought to. But salvation's not in what we
do for God. Salvation is in what God does for us and what he does
in us. Verse 22, back in our text, Matthew
7, many will say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not
prophesied, preached in thy name? You know, I have no doubt that
these men were sincere. They did indeed preach, they
were sincere. But salvation is not in our sincerity. Salvation is in the grace of
God. Salvation is in God's integrity, not ours. And it sounds like,
and I don't know, but it sounds like these men could have preached
sound doctrine. They said, Lord, we preached
in your name. And the Lord didn't say, no, you didn't. They may
have preached sound doctrine. Sounds to me like they did. And
this is what I just think, I bet you. I bet they defended right
doctrine. I mean, they got down to just
points of doctrine that just people never thought of that
before, never heard of that before. And you know why they never thought
of it or heard of it before? Because it don't matter, but
they want to appear smart to people. They come up with all
this, this doctrine that just, you just got to have a PhD to
be able to understand. I mean, I bet they were straight
down the line. I bet when they preached, you
couldn't pick out anything they said and say, that's wrong. But
I'm just as also sure of this, they are twice as mean as a striped
snake. Because everybody I know like
that, that is so just concerned with just, everybody's gotta
have the right doctrine and they can tell you how everybody else
in the whole wide world is wrong. Every one of them is just mean
as can be. The problem is this, salvation
is not in knowledge. Salvation is not in being a preacher.
Salvation is in the one whom we preach. Salvation is in the
one who to know is life eternal. It's in Him. It's in Christ.
Two illustrations, Balaam and Caiaphas. Both of them preached
good, solid messages. You couldn't pick anything wrong
in anything that they said. Matter of fact, you could take
what Caiaphas said and preach a mighty good gospel message
from it. But neither one of them knew the Lord. Neither one of
them. And like I said a minute ago, there's no question that
believers work in the service of our Savior. We work in preaching,
we work at supporting the gospel, supporting the ministry, this
building that we pray for it, we pray for one another, we attend
the services, but you know, doing all of that, we ought to do those
things. I mean, you know, people do those
things and we're amazed. Well, you know, if we know the
Lord, we ought to do those things. But doing those things without
faith in Christ makes those not works of righteousness, not good
works. Our Lord calls them works of
iniquity. That's what he called them. So
salvation is not in the right doctrine. Doctrine never saved
anybody. It's Christ who saved sinners.
And if you know Christ, your doctrine will be straight. I
have no worries about your doctrine if you know Christ. And you don't
have to know all these ologies that men make up. You just don't
have to know them. The one we have to know is Christ. Know Him and believe Him. Then
thirdly, salvation is not in miracles and wonderful works.
Verse 22, he says, many will say unto me in that day, Lord,
Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name
have cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful
works. Well, all right, what about these signs and miracles?
Are they evidence that the Lord is really with somebody? Is that
true? Now let me start out by saying this, miracles have ceased. That's not something that the
Lord uses or is needed in our day. When the New Testament was
being written, the Lord gave the apostles and some other men,
gave them the gift to work miracles. So that when they did these miracles,
they spoke in tongues, they healed the sick, they raised the dead. These are mighty miracles. They
did cast out demons. They did those things. And when
they did those things, people would see that and know this
man's from God. No man could do these things
except God be with him. They would know those things
and they would listen to them preach. But we don't need that
today. We don't need somebody to do
miracles today because all that happened while the New Testament
was being written. Well, it's written now. It's written. There's
no more new revelations. And so we want to know if a man
sent from God, we want to know if a man is preaching the truth. Is he preaching the gospel? All
we got to do is check God's Word on him and see does his message
match with all of God's Word. He may pick out a verse and preach
from it. Do you want to know is that the true meaning of it?
Well, the best commentary on scripture is scripture. Go see
and find out, does that, his take on that verse, does that
match all of the rest of the word of God? If it doesn't, it's
not the truth. If it does, it is. We don't need
miracles. We have something so much better
than that. Peter said, we got the word of
God. Something so much better. But, let's suppose for a moment,
just for the sake of argument, that someone really does work
miracles. Now, we know they have them,
but just for the sake of argument, suppose that they did. And what
if they really did? By what spirit did they do them?
I guess that's another issue, but suppose just for a moment
they did. Does that prove anything? I mean, does it? Does that prove
that they know the Lord? Does that prove that the Lord
is with them, that they are approved of God, does it? Judas worked
all the same miracles James and John did. He's the son of perdition
from the beginning. So apparently the difference
is not miracles. Is that right? Judas cast out
devils just like all the other apostles did. But he's a son
of perdition. So the difference is not miracles. Now look over at Acts chapter
8. In Acts 8, we've got a story about Simon the sorcerer, who
appears to have been saved. The Lord saved him. He was baptized.
He made a profession of faith. He'd been a sorcerer before he
heard the gospel, and then after he's baptized, he saw the miracles
that the apostles were doing, and he tried to give them money
so they'd give him the gift, that he could work these miracles,
and he's more interested in the miracles than Christ. You see
that? That's what he wanted. He wanted
to be able to do these miracles. Sounds like these men in the
judgment, they worked these miracles. But look what Peter said to him
in Acts 8, verse 20. But Peter said unto him, thy
money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift
of God may be purchased with money. Thou hast either part
nor lot in this matter, for thy heart, this is the issue, thy
heart is not right in the sight of God. Repent therefore of this
thy wickedness and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine
heart may be forgiven thee. See the miracles and wanting
to do these miracles and seeing these miracles. That made his
heart wrong because he's looking at the miracles, not Christ.
You see that? Matthew Henry wrote this. He
said, grace will bring a man to heaven without working miracles,
but working miracles will never bring a man to heaven without
grace. See, that's the issue. It's grace
in the heart. And there is a miracle I'm interested
in. There's a miracle I'm interested in. It's a miracle only God can
do for us. I need God to choose me, even
though I would never choose Him. That's the miracle of Christ
I need. I need Christ to, in a miracle, shed His blood and
put my sin away, wash me white as snow. I need Him to obey the
law for me and make me righteous in Him. That's the miracle that
I need. I need this miracle that men
cannot understand. I need the Holy Spirit to come
make me be born again and give me life and faith in Christ.
That's the miracle that I need. So those are the things, but
if we're just interested in miracles and showing signs and wonders
so people are impressed with us, that's not salvation. The
Lord will tell us to part from me. So here's the fourth thing. This is what salvation is now.
Salvation is not by man's will. It's not by man's works. Salvation
is by the will and by the doing of God. Verse 23, the Lord says,
and then while I profess unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work
iniquity. Now here, this is a serious,
sobering statement. The Lord tells these people to
depart from his presence into hell. He didn't deny everything
they did. He didn't say, no, you didn't
do that. They did preach apparently. They were orthodox. They did
work miracles. But those works without faith
in Christ were works of iniquity. Now salvation is by the will
of God. It's not by the doing of men
and the will of men, it's by God's will. And it's by doing
God's will. And we saw a minute ago, what
is God's will? What is doing God's will? It's
believing Christ. See, here's God's will. It's
God's will. This is what it pleased him to
do. To choose a people to save out of Adam's fallen race. It
pleased him, that's his will, to choose a people to save and
put them in his son. It is God's will that His Son
be sent into this earth incarnate as a man to redeem those people
by His obedience to the law for them, by His sacrifice that pays
for all of their sin. That was God's will. It's God's
will that those people that He chose, those people for whom
Christ died, it's His will to call those people to faith and
life in Christ through the preaching of the gospel, the preaching
of the word, to use that word as the seed that the Spirit uses
to give life and the new birth. That's the work of the Holy Spirit.
That's God's will that that happen. If you look in John chapter 6,
I can show you that. John 6, verse 38. For I came down from heaven,
not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me.
And this is the Father's will which has sent me, that of all
which He hath given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise
it up again at the last day. Now there's the work of the Father,
all which He hath given me. That's the Father's work and
will and election. Here's the work of the Son, that
of all which He has given me, I should lose nothing, but I'll
make them righteous by my sacrifice. I'll put away all their sin,
give them eternal life. And here's the work of God the
Holy Spirit, verse 40. And this is the will of Him that
sent me, that everyone would see of the Son and believeth
on Him may have everlasting life, and I'll raise Him up at the
last day. So here's the work of the Spirit. How is it that
someone can see the Son and believe on Him? Well, the Holy Spirit
reveals Christ to us, so we see Him. He gives us faith to believe
Him. That's the work of the Holy Spirit, and all of those people,
this is the Father's will, all of those people will come to
Christ. Verse 37, all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. So if you have any will to be
saved, if you have any desire to be saved on God's terms, in
Christ alone, without any of your works being added to it,
I can tell you how you got that will. God gave it to you. God
gave you that will that matches His will. See, that's why you
came to Christ in the first place. God gave you a will that matches
His will, and then He drew you to Christ, and you came willingly. and he'll never catch jail. That's
God's will in salvation. Now our Lord tells these folks
in our text, I never knew you. I never knew you in this work
of salvation. God's work, the work of the Godhead
in salvation. I never knew you in divine election. I never knew you to be given
to me of the Father. I never knew you when I went
to the cross. When Christ went to the cross, he bore the names
of his people on his heart, just like the high priest of old with
that breastplate that would cover his heart, had the names of the
12 tribes of Israel. When he went into the Holy of
Holies, he wasn't representing the Philistines and the Amalekites
and the Hittites and the Amorites. Who was he representing? Those
12 tribes, those 12 names on his breast, over his heart. When Christ died, who was he
dying for? all those people on his heart, the people that the
Father had given me, so I never knew you to be in me. When I pray in John 17, I pray
not for the world, but for them that thou hast given me. I never
knew you in that prayer. When I pray, glorify thy son,
that I may give eternal life to as many as thou hast given
me. I never knew you in that prayer, that prayer of intercession.
After I was resurrected, went back to the Father, sat on His
right hand to ever live, making intercession for my people. I
sat there as king and mediator. I never knew you as your mediator,
making intercession for your sin. Now, the Lord said, I never
knew you. He meant that in divine salvation,
in election, in his death, in his intercession. Of course,
he knew these people. He knew who they were. He knew
what they had done. He couldn't judge them otherwise,
could he? What he's saying, I mean, if you're gonna judge somebody,
you gotta know what they've done. He said, I did know you in covenant
love. I didn't know you in a vital,
intimate relationship, a vital union with Christ, like a husband
knows his wife and a wife knows her husband. I didn't know you
that way, that vital union with Christ. I never knew you, he
says. I never knew you to believe on
me. I never knew you to trust me.
I never knew you to love me, to depend upon me. You were depending
on your own words, not me. Isn't that so? You notice every
plea these people make is dependent upon what they did for God. We
preached in your name. We cast out devils in your name.
We did all these many wonderful works in your name. Their plea
never started out, Lord, you died for me. Lord, you were my
only hope and it's all what I've done for God. Well, all right,
that's thee. That's those to whom the Lord
will say, depart from me. Now, I want to apply this very
sobering passage to our hearts. I don't want to just be presumptuous
about this thing. I want these verses, I want the
Holy Spirit to apply these verses to our hearts so that we seek
Christ, so that we seek Him. I'm not trying to fill anybody
with a thousand fears now. My aim in this is that people
who know Christ, if you know Christ, I want you to know that
you know Him. If you believe Christ, you're
resting in Him, I want you to know that you're trusting in
Him. And I also want people who don't know Christ, I want them
to know that they don't know Him, and they seek Him right
now. I want to deal, this is a frightening
passage of scripture, but I want to deal with it openly and honestly
because I'd a heap rather know today that I don't know the Lord
than wait to find out in that day, wouldn't you? Now, the problem
here was the heart, wasn't it? The problem, what they'd done,
the problem was what was in the heart. That's why the Lord told
them to depart from me. So what's in our heart? I want
us to answer that question. What's in our heart? What is
it? that motivates you to come to these services? What is it
that motivates you to put money into offering and to give your
time and efforts and talents to this ministry? What is it
that motivates you to help one another? I mean, is it so other
people will see what a great person you are helping, you know? What's the motive of your heart?
And I'm saying this to me first and then to everybody else. Every
person here, is religious. You've got at least some reference
and respect for God. You know that, I mean, you live
in the Bible Belt, for goodness sakes, you know where you ought
to be on Sunday mornings. Everybody knows you ought to be, you know,
Sunday morning in church. You've got a pretty good idea
God's hiring us, don't you? You've got a pretty good idea
of that. We know God should be worshipped. We cry, Lord, Lord. We do that. But this is the question. Is that attitude just lip service?
Is it just a good religious show for our friends and for our neighbors?
Is it just, we know that's what we ought to say in public? Or
is that a result of the heart work of God? Is it? I would say everybody here is
doctrinally straight. You're a pretty good Calvinist,
you know. But you know, being a Calvinist, that's no big deal.
Really and truly, that is no big deal. Our children are Calvinists. It's real easy to educate somebody
into being a Calvinist. You all can point out error most
places that you see it. Our children can do that. Our
children can. I was at a funeral one time and
sitting kind of at the back and several of our children, children
from this congregation, were sitting in front of me And I'm
telling you, that preacher, buddy, I mean, he couldn't have missed
it further if he closed his eyes and turned around backwards.
He couldn't have missed it. And I watched our children look at
each other. They knew error. They knew error
when they heard it. But now let me ask you this question.
Are you trusting that? Are you trusting that you know
right doctrine? Or are we trusting Christ? And we need to answer
that question. I don't want to be straight as
a gun barrel and twice as empty. Do you? I want to work in the
heart. I want to know Christ. I want to know Him. I don't want
to just know the doctrine of total depravity. I want to know
I am the sinner. So I cry out, God be merciful
to me, the sinner. I don't want to just know the
doctrine of election. I want to know that I need God to choose
me. I don't want to just know the
doctrine of limited atonement, to be able to go around telling
everybody, God didn't die for everybody. I'll tell you what I want to
know, that God died, that Christ died for me on purpose. I need
Christ to die for me on purpose. Not to give me a chance to be
saved, but to save me by His death, by His blood, before I
ever knew anything about it. That's what I need. I don't want
to just to know about the irresistible call of the Spirit. I want to
know God the Holy Spirit has come and given me life and faith
in Christ. I need the Holy Spirit to call
me to Christ through the preaching of the gospel. Because if he
doesn't, I'll go to hell. I want to know that. I want to
believe that. Do I just know about the perseverance of the
saints? Or do I need God to keep me by the power of his love and
the power of his grace? And if He doesn't, I'll be the
son of perdition just as much as Judas ever was. I need that. See, knowing the right doctrine
ain't good enough. I must know and trust Christ
to whom all doctrine points. It's not just enough to know
what the will of God is from Scripture if I don't do it. I've
got to do it. So I need God to give me faith
in Christ so that I'll do His will and believe Christ and rest
in Him. I must do that and you must too. Now what motivates you to do
all these religious things that you do, for lack of a better
term? I mean, are you trying to do something so God will accept
you? Are you trying to do something so your friends here will be
impressed with you? Or are you serving God of a thankful heart?
Are you seeking Christ? Are you? Why are you seeking? Are you
seeking Him because troubles and trials of this life, sadness
and being heartbroken, is that what's driving you to Christ?
Because you're just sad right now and you're seeking a shelter
that's been built in a storm. If so, you're going to abandon
it as soon as the sun comes back out. Or are you seeking Christ? Because you're a sinner who needs
a Savior. Are you seeking Christ as His
child? You need Him to keep you. You need to hear about Him. You need to feed on Him. Because
if you don't, you'll starve to death. Why is it you're seeking
Him? Do you feel better about yourself because you're different
and you're out there in the world and you don't want friends from
out there in the world? You just want friends from right in here.
Good church people. Good Calvinists. Those are people
are my friends. Do you feel better about yourself because you're
hanging out with those who know the Lord? Or do you enjoy their
company because both of you have a friend in Christ that sticks
closer than a brother? Now which is it? The gospel of
God's free and sovereign grace is the only gospel that doesn't
give you anything to do. This is the only gospel that
commands you to quit doing. Just quit and rest in Christ. That is the only grounds of acceptance
with God. And I pray that the Lord will
truly work that miracle in our hearts. Not make it lip service,
but make us know that we know Him. So we don't presume upon
His grace, and we find out now, do I trust Him? Do I believe
Him? That He'll make it so in our
hearts. All right, I hope the Lord will bless that to you.