Lord, Lord, Did We Not…?

Dan Chase

Midland SDA Church

May 26, 2018

I would like to talk about three chapters of the Bible:  Matthew 7, 2nd Peter 2 and Romans 12.  The key verse to what I want to discuss is Matthew 7:21, where Jesus says, “’Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”

Matthew 7 is a gold mine of instruction from Jesus, starting with the forbidding of unjust criticism, to encouragement to pray, stating the golden rule, advice to enter through the narrow gate, and finally, the topic verse of this talk concerning those who call on him.  If we read the rest of that paragraph and delve into the next, which ends the chapter, we have more light shed on what Jesus is telling us.  Jesus continues in verse 22, “Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’  Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you.  Away from me, you evildoers.’

This last paragraph was important enough that its theme is repeated in Luke Chapter 13, verse 24.  While on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus states, “’Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.  Once the owner gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading ‘Sir, open the door for us.’

“’But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’

“’But then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’

“’But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.  Away from me, all you evildoers!’”

Jesus ends his sermon in Matthew 7 as follows:

“Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who builds his house on the rock.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against the house, yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.  But everyone who hears these words and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against the house, and it fell with a great crash.”

As I said, this chapter is a trove of great advice and it is hard to find a place to begin talking about it.

First, it shows that there will be a final reckoning—that not everyone will make it into the kingdom. Secondly, it talks about a time after which the doors are closed and no one can enter.  The Book of Revelation (22:11) also notes the same thing, which we 7-th Day Adventists call the close of probation.

It is interesting to see that in Chapter 13 of Luke where Jesus reiterates the idea that the master of the house will not know some who try to enter, after some Jews warn Jesus that Herod is looking for him and he responds, “…surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem,” Jesus laments over Jerusalem, saying he wished he could gather her children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but they were not willing, and thus, “…your house is left to you desolate.”

This may be the first time that Jesus mentions Jerusalem being left desolate and he has made his meaning quite clear—that after giving Jerusalem’s children many chances to accept him and his gift of grace, they reject him, Jesus Immanuel, God with them. They search the Bible for him and don’t see him when he knocks on the doors of their hearts. He is a stranger in his hometown. He literally stands in front of them and they don’t recognize him. Pilate asks Jesus, “What is truth?” and then turns away from truth in the flesh.

They have made his house a den of thieves and now he is pulling up stakes so to speak and is taking his Shekinah glory with him and leaving, just as he did when he left the first temple. Those who wait for the third temple to be built and for the daily to begin again and for the savior of the Jewish nation to appear are going to have a long and fruitless wait. Jesus has been there, done that and has the scars to prove it.

Even if the temple was to be rebuilt and the daily reinstated, what purpose would it serve? The last, perfect and final sacrifice has been made. Any more sacrifices are superfluous, but, of course, the Jews and many others don’t seem to understand that.

False prophets

You may wonder how someone who prophesied, cast out demons and performed many miracles could be a false prophet or a worker of iniquity. Sometimes a preacher starts out as a true man of God, but then strays from the path. 

I think of Jim Jones, who preached the Gospel and was a man of God, but gradually he substituted his own ideas for the Word of God, until there was a point where he told his followers they needed to listen to him more and the Bible less, and he literally threw the Bible down on the floor.  David Koresh of the Branch Davidians did much the same.    

Most, when you look at how they went wrong, were ensnared by their own vanity.  They think their knowledge is better than God’s.  2 Tim 3 says, “…There will be terrible times in the last days.  People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers  of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power.”

They are like the Church of Ephesus—they’ve lost their first love.  They no longer remember Jesus whom they first loved.  They no longer hear his voice, nor do they follow him.  They have deceived themselves into believing their own desires are the will of God and that their own knowledge is a greater than that which is in scripture.

You can see televangelists who have made names for themselves, now, supposedly while under the influence of the Holy Spirit, rolling around on the floor, laughing hysterically or barking like dogs.  Note that I said they made names for themselves.  Look at how many of these preachers have ministries named after themselves.  Their ministry has become a money-making industry and they have sold themselves for the world, and have forsaken Jesus and his kingdom.

They are most certainly not transformed but are conformed to the pattern of this world.  And through their preaching of error—such as the prosperity gospel and other confusion, they lure others into the same boat, often mixing in a little truth with copious amounts of falsehood.  They use the gifts of the Holy Spirit they may have, such as the gifts of healing, as circus side-shows to draw in more rubes they can fleece so they can make more money.  The gifts of the Spirit may well be real, but these men sell their inheritance for pottage.

There are several televangelists whose “thing” is “slaying in the spirit.”  I have not seen this mentioned in the Bible, but it usually involves laying on hands to cause the recipient to faint.  One evangelist is scary in his use of this—almost as a weapon--and I remember videos where he takes off his expensive silk suitcoat and uses it like a scythe to mow down rank upon rank of the audience while shouting “Holy Spirit for you!” 

It didn’t seem like the Holy Spirit to me at all—a spirit, yes, but something more satanic.

Another evangelist gets puffed up and while supported by two deacons, wades to the front of the audience and huffs and puffs and lays hands and slays people in the spirit.  But there is no call for healing or any evidence that those affected by these demonstrations are healed of anything.  It seems to be only a demonstration of the power of the man wielding the “gift” and nothing more.  Any connection to God seems to be lost in the confusion.

When I see this man perform in this way, I think of the verses in 1 Timothy talking about novices being puffed up with pride or in 1 Corinthians talking about how knowledge puffs up, but love edifies, or how some were involved in sexual immorality and were not mortified at being seen sinning in this way, but were actually “puffed up” to be doing it.

Some deceivers are even so bold as to make up doctrine based on what benefits them and then find a few Bible verses to support it, twisting their meaning as necessary.  In last quarter’s Sabbath School quarterly there was a quote from Mrs. White where she said how much grief we would be spared if only people would pray for the inspiration of the Holy Spirit before they opened their Bibles.  This is so sadly true.  However, we would have to pray that the preachers who find their own doctrines in the Bible, doctrines not supported by scripture, would take time to ask the Holy Spirit for guidance and would follow it if they did receive it. The major points of contention seem to be the following:

1) Is there really a struggle between good and evil—or, does evil even exist?

2) If evil does exist, will everyone or only some get into heaven (what I sometimes call “the Kingdom”)?

3) If evil exists, are there emissaries of evil, such as devils and demons?

4) A re there other gods—good or evil?

5) Are there other prophets besides those mentioned in the Bible—for example, are there prophets of any other gods who may exist?

6) Are all religions basically the same, and aren’t all religions paths to the same “god”?

I think most of you here, being 7^th-day Adventists, can easily see the answer to the first point of contention is yes, evil exists and there a war going on between good and evil.  If you have trouble believing that, I refer you to the book The Great Controversy written by Ellen White.  You could also refer to Genesis chapters 1-3 and the Book of Revelation, especially from Chapter 12:7 to the end.

The war between good and evil is indeed real.  Some people either don’t see that, or they don’t want to see it, so they go through life with eyes wide shut, ignoring the ample signs of the existence of evil and the warfare going on around them.

My friend, Jim, was walking in New York City one night and three guys approached him and one asked for a cigarette, and then punched Jim in the face.  Jim is a peace-lover and asked the guy why he did that.  One of the other guys said, “Let’s take him in the alley and kill him.”  Jim, realizing this was no longer a time for diplomacy, punched the guy in front of him as hard as he could and took off running, managing to escape.  But he just didn’t want to believe evil was real until it was going to kill him.

To answer question 2, (will everyone get into heaven?) the Bible weighs heavily against the idea that everyone will get into the Kingdom.  Many preachers these days are Universalists—meaning they believe anyone, even those who don’t believe in God, will get into the Kingdom.  They base this on part of one verse; 1 Timothy 2:4, “[God our Savior], who wants all men to be saved…”  And then they add, if God wants it, then it will happen because God is God, and what God wants, God gets (Conveniently forgetting the whole free-will thing).

Jesus says in many places that not everyone will get into the Kingdom—in some places naming those who will be excluded by the sins they commit, and in other places telling parables about wedding guests who cannot get into the wedding feast or whom are thrown out of the wedding feast for not being prepared properly.  And, right there in Matthew 7, Jesus states that not even all those who call on the Lord will get into the Kingdom.

In this week’s Sabbath School lesson in the Quarterly, there is a good point by author John Baldwin in “Further Thoughts.” It is quoted as follows: “Assuming divine intentionality behind the phrase ‘fountains of water,’ why does Jesus have the messenger [in the Book of Revelation] break the parallel listing of things mentioned in Exodus 20:11? Why does the angel mention ‘fountains of water’ and not some other class of created thing, such as trees, birds, fish, or mountains?”

“Perhaps the reference to ‘fountains of water’ in the context of a divine announcement of the arrival of a unique time of divine judgment seeks to direct the reader’s attention to a previous period of divine judgment…Perhaps God intends that the possible allusion to the flood by the word ‘fountains of waters’ should underscore the truth that He is indeed a God of judgment, as well as a God of everlasting faithfulness and graciousness (both evidenced by the narrative of the Genesis flood). If so, the personal and spiritual implications of the flood connotation triggered by the phrase ‘fountains of water’ might be to encourage the reader to take seriously the momentous arrival of a new end-time process of individual divine judgment now announced by the first messenger of Revelation 14.”

In Matthew 7:18, Jesus says you will know a tree by its fruit and that a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. He goes on to say in verse 19, “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” Jesus himself withered the fig tree when it hadn’t produced figs. He didn’t give it a second chance or another year or a good talking to. He blasted it.

Please turn to 2 Peter 2: 1-22. Here Peter warns there will be false prophets and false teachers among the people. Starting in verse 4, he says, “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness and seven others; if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly;…and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment. This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature and despise authority.”

If this sounds like everyone will get into heaven regardless, please talk to me after the service because I have totally misapprehended what the text says, or I have a bad translation or something!

Just the other day we had a member of Congress talk about how everyone has a spark of divinity—even M-13 gang members. While I believe that we are all children of God, if one of the M-13 gang members needs a place to live, I’ll let them live with that member of Congress rather than offer them my home. What people seem to be failing to consider is free-will. Gang members generally have free-will to join that gang and I feel that if they join a gang that requires blood in and blood out, they have made a choice to serve Satan.

Considering the question of whether there are evil entities such as demons, the Bible is full of them—and Jesus deals with them on several occasions, driving them out of people whom demons have possessed. Nowadays we are more inclined to believe that people have a mental disorder than we are to believe they are possessed by demons, but if you have ever seen a person under the influence of the drug called “bath salts,” you may be ready to go back to believing in demonic possession more than the influence of chemicals on the brain.

As for the existence of other gods, in 1 Kings 18:38, Elijah met the prophets of Baal in a contest to see whose god would send down fire in answer to the offering of a bull as a sacrifice. As you may recall, the God of Elijah, our God, sent fire from heaven that not only consumed the bull, it consumed the stone altar and the wood the sacrifice was placed on, even though everything was soaked with water.

Throughout history, there have been battles between our God and false gods or idols where the Great I Am has consistently shown himself to be the faithful and true God.

Today there is a prominent religion, having more adherents than any other, called Islam, which claims to worship the same god as Jews and Christian, only they call this god Allah. The followers of Islam, called Muslims, also claim that their religion grew from the same roots as Judaism and Christianity and is based on the same Old Testament scriptures. Indeed, Muslims call the followers of all three religions “People of the Book” because of their basis in the Old Testament. Furthermore, Muslims will tell Christians that their Jesus is the same as the Muslim’s Issa, who they also agree was born of Mary, whom the call Merriam.

But there are several problems which Muslims generally do not tell Christians about. First and foremost is that Muslims do not believe that Jesus is the Son of the Father, nor that he is God in the flesh. They do not believe that Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins—for that matter, they do not believe that Jesus died on the cross at all. They believe that Jesus was just a prophet, but that Mohammed was a greater prophet and that it is the duty of Muslims to emulate the life of Mohammed, who lived the exemplary life. Mohammed received their holy book, the Quran, from the Angel Gabriel and that the Quran takes precedence over the Bible. Muslims believe in “abrogation”—the belief that the verses written later in the Quran take precedence over conflicting verses written earlier and that Allah is so far above men that he can lie or change his mind and that he does not have to be, nor is he, consistent.

I don’t want this talk to turn into a diatribe against one religion, so suffice it to say that the Bible plainly states that anyone who does not believe that Jesus came in the flesh is an antichrist (1 John 4: 2). Further, Paul states in Galatians 1 that he who preaches a gospel that differs from the gospel he preached be eternally condemned, “even if he (Paul) or an angel from heaven preach that gospel.” In fact, he considers that point to be important enough to make it twice in one paragraph.

Jesus states that you know a tree by its fruit. Mohammed himself, supposedly the best and brightest that Islam ever produced, was a slave trader, a warlord, a rapist, pedophile and a killer.

As for the idea that other religions are just different paths to the same god, Jesus plainly says in John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one come to the Father except through me.”

There is another controversial point I would like to address and that is this: Is it okay to read books or listen to talks or sermons that we know are not totally true? To put it simply—we know there will be no rapture, is it okay to read books about the rapture? We know that the dead sleep until the resurrection. Is it okay to talk to spiritualists who say they can get in touch with our dead loved ones?

The answer is: “How much error are you willing to accept mixed in with your truth? How many drops of hog urine are you willing to accept in your glass of lemonade? Also, what you as a more experienced Christian can read and use your judgment and discernment to separate wheat from tares is one thing, but what about a so-called baby Christian who perhaps hasn’t developed this judgment or discernment?

Jesus says at least twice that in the time of the end, he may tell us that he never knew us, saying that not everyone will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father.” So, what is the will of the Father? 1 Thess 4: 3-6 says this: “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him.”

Romans 12: 2 may shed some light on this: “I urge you, brother, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

So, we have answers, though, not easy ones. Let’s look at the rest of  Romans Chapter 12 because it talks about what it means to be transformed and not conformed and what it looks like when people do God’s will.

First, Paul cautions his listeners not to think too highly of themselves. (Good advice, seeing as how pride was the devil’s downfall.) He then talks about how we are all members of the body of Christ, each having different gifts and different functions. His advice for Christians dealing with those within God’s family starts in verse 9: “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God’s people who are in need.

“Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.”

Paul’s advice for Christians dealing with those outside God’s family starts with verse 17: “Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge—leave room for God’s wrath.”

This boils down to the words of Micah (6: 8) concerning what God requires of man and that is: “To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

I would like to add a little warning here about familiarity breading contempt. It is certainly desirable to be friends with Jesus and to know him, know his voice, and for him to know us, but this can be taken too far. I used to do hospice spiritual care and now do volunteer chaplain work at a hospital and I sometimes ask people about their relationship with Jesus. I often get the replies like, “Oh, Jesus and I are best buds,” or “I talk to him every day...” and I’ve heard of Pastors on a Sunday telling their congregation that “The big guy is in the house!”

That’s ok, I suppose, but I’ll just tell you that one of the people who said he and Jesus were best friends and he talked to him every day, when he learned he was dying got very upset and asked, “What do I do now!” The friendship was superficial and the man hadn’t prepared for really meeting Jesus “in the flesh” so to speak.

Some people tend also to think of Jesus as their personal servant –sort of like a Santa Claus in the sky who is there to fulfill their every wish. I would venture to say that people who view Jesus as their best buddy or their genie to grant wishes, will find out that in the end, they really didn’t know Jesus and Jesus did not know them.

Conclusion

Jesus has knocked and it is up to us, of our own free-will to open to him and invite him in. We must establish a relationship with him. We need to pray to the Holy Spirit daily for the renewing of our spirit and the transformation of our minds. We do not want to be left desolate in the end.

If you want to know Jesus and want to invite him into your heart, please pray with me:

Please Jesus, come into my heart and be the Lord of my life. Amen.

I urge you to follow up by asking Pastor Thompson or any of the elders about being baptized if you haven’t already taken that step.