Empty Words
Matthew 7:21-29
 
Text
 
We are almost at the conclusion of this study. All through The Sermon on the Mount, in chapter 5, 6, and 7 the Lord has been setting forth the divine standards of His Kingdom. As the anointed Messiah, the Christ, the King, He has certain principles which He has demanded of those who desire to enter the Kingdom.
 
Now those principles occupy the thrust of this sermon, but they can all be summed up in one word. The requirement for entering the Kingdom is that you be righteous.
 
Therefore the whole sermon is summed up in chapter 5 verse 20.
 
The Kingdom of heaven is God's world, God's dominion, salvation, eternal life. And entrance into that Kingdom is dependent upon righteousness.
 
Now how righteous are we to be? Well, we're to be more righteous than the scribes and Pharisees. How righteous were they? Well they were as righteous as a man could get, on his own terms. They had come to the epitome of human achievement in religion. They were obsessed with religious function.
 
As far as the people around them knew they were exceedingly righteous. They seemed to do all the right things like praying and giving alms and fasting.
They seemed to have all the right standards like not murdering and not committing adultery and making sure they maintained every minute element of the law. It seemed as though they were the ones who were exceedingly righteous and yet the righteousness that Christ demands far exceeds theirs.
 
In fact our Lord is requiring a righteousness that is beyond man's capacity, a divine righteousness that comes from God, a standard that man himself is utterly unable to attain.
 
In fact if you want to know how righteous all you have to do is look at chapter 5 verse 48, and here our Lord says, "Be ye, therefore, perfect," how perfect? "even as your Father, who is in heaven, is perfect." We are to be righteous, how righteous? More righteous than the most righteous. We are to be perfect, how perfect? As perfect as God is.
 
Now if you really hear that message you're going to face a fact and that is that you can't live this standard. You cannot be more righteous than the most righteous people, on your own. Because the most righteous people are as righteous as people can be on their own, you can't be more righteous than that.
 
And you cannot be as perfect as God is perfect because you're a human being. And so all through the sermon Jesus is endeavoring to show men the inadequacy of their own human resources, to deal with God's Kingdom. They can't make it.
 
 
Therefore the whole idea of the sermon is to bring them to the very point at which our Lord started, "Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn; blessed are the meek; and Blessed are they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness."
 
In other words the Lord said at the very beginning that the people who enter My Kingdom are the people who know their own righteousness doesn't make it, that the standard of perfection is way beyond their capacity, and so they are beggars in their spirit, they can't earn it they have to beg for it, they mourn because of the total sinfulness that they see in themselves, they are meek and humble because they know they fall so short of the standard of God, and they hunger and thirst for a righteousness they know they can't attain.
 
The purpose of The Sermon on The Mount then is identical to the purpose of the law of God in the Old Testament. When God gave the law on Sinai, the law was not given in order to show man how good he must be, the law was given to show man how good he couldn't be, how bad he was, how short he came.
 
And Paul summed it up when he said, "For all have sinned and come (what?) short of the glory of God." And Paul says that "The law was our schoolmaster to drive us to Christ." The law was what whipped us.
 
And that is essentially what is going on in The Sermon on The Mount, Jesus is upholding the law of God. In fact He says at the early part of the sermon, "Not one jot or tittle shall in any wise pass from the law. I didn't come to remove the law, or to destroy the law, but to fulfill the law."
And Jesus is reiterating the law of God and saying the standard hasn't changed and you must see how short you come, and therefore beg in your spirit as a mourner, meek before God hungering and thirsting for His righteousness.
 
Now that leaves men with two options, you either live your life, you either invent your religion or you come God's way. You either come on your terms or His terms and that is precisely where the sermon climaxes in chapter 7 verses 13 and 14.
 
Jesus says, there are only those two ways, there is the broad gate, leads to the broad way, ends up in destruction. It is the way of easy religion, it is the way of human righteousness, it is the way of the scribes and the Pharisees and those who think they're good enough on their own.
 
On the other hand there's the narrow gate and the narrow way that leads to life and that is the way of those who come with a broken heart, with a contrite spirit, those who come and know they can't make it, they can't keep God's law, they can't meet His standard, they can't live up to His righteousness, they can't be as perfect as God is, and they cast themselves on the mercy of Jesus Christ who imputes to them His own righteousness. There's only those two ways and that is the climax of the sermon.
 
Now having stated that great invitation to enter at the narrow gate, and we've covered it in detail, the Lord then shows how difficult that really is. It is not easy. Don't believe anyone who says it's easy to become a Christian, it cost God everything including His own Son and it'll cost you the same thing including yourself. It's not easy.
It is difficult to come to God on God's terms. First of all, it is difficult because you must recognize your own total inability and that means the death of pride and that's difficult, because we are constantly told that we're the most important thing to ourselves.
 
The Lord points out the difficulty of entering in the narrow gate right in verses 13 and 14 when He says “few find it”. You have to search for it, and it’s not found by many.
 
It implies a hard diligent search and a tough decision. Everyone else is going the opposite way, and it’s a narrow gate and you have to enter by yourself, and you are so inadequate and imperfect, and you don’t measure up and it’s a difficult decision.
 
Jesus also said you have to beware of false prophets who are leading people astray. They're the ones trying to divert everybody for Satan's purposes and Satan's ends. Telling people they can go through the wide gate with all their sin and selfishness and they can flop from side to side and wander all over a great big wide road and there's little price to pay.
 
And so the Lord offers a choice and a verdict, a decision. But He says the right decision is to enter the narrow gate and it won't be easy, and He says, "Few there be that find it."
 
There's one other reason why the few is only a few. Not only the deception of the false prophets, but self‑deception.
 
A lot of people deceive themselves.  And that is the issue the Lord takes up in verses 21 to 27.
 
And what a fitting climax it is to the sermon, having stated all the principles and having warned about the false prophets the Lord says, now let Me warn you one other thing: make sure you're not kidding yourself about being a part of the Kingdom of heaven.
 
And the Lord warns us about two categories of self‑deception.
 
Number one is a mere verbal profession, and number two is a mere intellectual knowledge.
 
In verses 21 to 23 it is a verbal profession, verse 21, "Not everyone that says. . ." verse 22, "Many will say to me," now these are the people who make the verbal profession, they say they're Christians.
 
And then in the second paragraph it is the ones who have only an intellectual knowledge, they hear. Verse 26, "Everyone that hears these things."
 
Or think about it like this: in verses 21 to 23 you have the people who say and don't do, and in verses 24 to 27 the people who hear and don't do.
 
On the one hand it's empty words and one the other it is empty hearts. And so to close this series, I want to deal with those two things this week and next time.
 
 
Now you will notice that at the end of verse 21 you have a key word there, "but he that doeth the will of my Father, who is in heaven." It is not the ones who say and it is not the ones who hear it is the ones who what? Who do. In other words the Lord is saying, if you do not live a righteous life I don't care what you say or what you hear, You're deceived.
 
Now both of these closing paragraphs, verses 21 to 23 and 24 to 27 contrast a right and a wrong response to the invitation of Christ, and they show that our eternal destiny is determined by the choice we make. One deals with what you say over against what you do and the other what you hear over against what you do.
 
Now keep this in mind, the Lord is not speaking to irreligious people, He is speaking to people who were literally obsessed with religious activity. They're not apostates; they're not heretics; they're not anti‑God;  they not atheists or agnostics; they are utterly religious people but they're damned because they're on the wrong road and they are deceived. 
 
And I really believe this is a message that needs to be spoken today because I am convinced that the Church of Jesus Christ is literally jammed full of people who aren't Christians and don't know it.
 
We hear statistics today that something like two billion people in the world are Christians that means a third of the earth’s population is saved. Listen: that doesn’t square with the Bible. When Gallup says something like 75% of Americans claim to be Christian, that doesn’t fit Scripture. I wonder who in the world has established the criteria.
The Bible says many and few.
 
And here we find a text that says there's going to come a day when people are going to expect the door to be open and it's going to slam shut forever in their faces. "I don't know you." What a fearful thing. So many people think they're saved, think they're safe and judgment for them is going to be a shock.
 
Now our Lord warns these people in verses 21 to 27. The Lord says in this passage that these people are the deceived. These people think they are on the right road but they are not.
 
We're loaded with people who are filled with empty words, they say, they say, they say, they say, but they don't do God's will. Now there's nothing wrong with saying, I mean, "If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you'll be saved." So you've got to say, confession is necessary but confession without obedience is a sham.
 
Now look with me for a minute, very briefly at their confession in verse 21, they say, "Lord, Lord," verse 22, they say, "Lord, Lord".
 
This is an interesting phrase. The first time they say Lord it could be their respect, the word means Master, Teacher, Sir, it's a term of dignity, respect, recognition. They're saying, Lord in, in a sense that we respect You.
 
The second time, "Lord, Lord," may emphasize the orthodoxy of their claim for the word Lord, Kurios is the word translated in the Septuagint of the Old Testament for the name of Jehovah.
They're saying, we know You're God, we know You're Jehovah, we accept all that Your deity involves, Your virgin birth, miraculous life, substitutionary death, powerful resurrection, intercession, second coming, they are respectful, they are orthodox, they use the right terms, the right attitudes.
 
And then notice, "Lord, Lord," the fact that they say it twice indicates their zeal and their passion and their fervency and their commitment and their strength of devotion.
 
And by the way if this is occurring at the great white throne judgment and they're saying this at the great white throne judgment, if this is the day of which He speaks when He says in that day, then it's very possible that those who come there have already spent centuries in a place of judgment and punishment, and that even adds to their fervency, "Lord, Lord," what have we been doing being where we've been. And so there is a fervency and an orthodoxy and a respectfulness.
 
And then in verse 22, they say three times, "in thy name, in thy name, in thy name." I mean they aren't even so self‑centered in that sense, we've been doing it for You, we've been preaching for You, and we've been casting out demons for You, and we've been doing miracles for You.
 
Now it's an amazing claim, it is respectful, it is orthodox, it is fervent, it is zealous. They proclaim and they do works. Boy that sounds good. And we say, these got to be Christians, I mean they are respectful, they're fervent in their private devotion and in their public ministry of word and work.
It sounds so good.
 
But, verse 21, "Not every one that says that is going to enter." Why? Because not everybody who says that has been doing the will of the Father who is in heaven. And so the Lord will confess in verse 23, here's My confession, "I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity." What a shock.
 
He says, I want to give you a confession, and by the way this is taken right out of Psalm 6:8, 1 want to confess this to you, "I never knew you."
 
Well you say, what do you mean, you mean God doesn't know who they are? No, of course He knows who they are He knows everything. They're not talking simply about an awareness, not talking about mental comprehension. The word “know” is used in the Bible to speak of an intimate relationship.
 
For example in Amos 3:2 God says of Israel, "You only have I known among all the nations." Does that mean the only people He knew about were Jews? No. It meant that He had an intimate relationship with them. "My sheep hear my voice and I know them."
To even put it more intimately I think this will help you understand it, in the Old Testament it says, "Cain knew his wife and she bore a son."
 
When Mary was pregnant with our Lord, Joseph was shocked because "he had never (what?) known her." You see the word know embodies an intimate relationship. And Jesus says, I never had any intimate relationship with you. Oh, you were around the fringes but I never had that intimacy with you.
 
And then He says, "depart from me," get out of My presence forever, why? Because the end of the verse 23, you do always continue to work lawlessness.
 
That is a present participle. Instead of doing the will of My Father, and by the way that is a term that picks up all of the rest of The Sermon on the Mount, instead of living by these righteous principles you do always continue to do lawlessness.
 
You know what it means to profess Christ? Absolutely nothing, if your life doesn't back it up. That's why Peter said what he said, if you can't add to your faith, virtue, then you're not going to know you're really redeemed. That's what James meant when he said, faith minus works equals zero. It's dead.
 
Empty words! Profession is valueless, in fact I believe that to profess Christ and to claim Christ invalidly is taking the Lord's name in vain in the ultimate sense. I don't think taking the Lord's name in vain is limited to saying, Jesus Christ or God out on the streets. That's one way. But the epitome of violating God's name is to claim Christ when He isn't yours.
 
G. Campbell Morgan has well said it, "The blasphemy of the sanctuary is far more awful than the blasphemy of the slum." It is a Judas kiss to say, Lord, Lord, and then disobey. We are to be consumed with doing the will of God. That's why the prayer says, "Thy will be done, not only in heaven but in earth." And that means through me. 
 
 
You say, well what about if I fail? The prayer goes on to say, "Forgive us our trespasses, (our debts,) as we forgive those who trespass against us."
 
Yes, we know that we're going to fail but that's where we come for forgiveness, and that's part of the righteous act. The righteous standard Jesus speaks of assumes we'll fail but when we fail we'll be there confessing.
 
That's why First John 1:9 says, if we are the ones continually confessing our sins, we give evidence of the ones that are being forgiven. In other words the ones being forgiven are the ones confessing. You see, He's not saying, here's the perfect standard, if you ever fail you're out.
 
He's saying here's the perfect standard, and part of the perfect standard is that when you fail you deal with it. That's God's standard. And I would dare say that if The Sermon on The Mount is not the direction of your life, I don't care what confession you've made, I don't care if you've been baptized or whatever, you're not a Christian.
 
You remember in John 6 they said to Him, well what do we do to work the works of God? And He said, this is the work of God that you believe on Him that sent Him. Where do you start with the will of God? Believe on Christ. The only thing acceptable to God is a righteousness that is the product of repentant faith in Jesus Christ, and that produces good works. And if that's not there no matter what you say it doesn't matter.
 
 
And so the Lord says in verse 23, if I can paraphrase, not for one single moment have I acknowledged you as My own or known you intimately, you are forever expelled from My presence because you continue to work lawlessness.
 
Now what makes this so shocking is that the claims they make are amazing. Look at verse 22, Lord, Lord, we've prophesied, cast out demons, done wonderful works. Three words, prophecy, exorcism, and miracles. It sounds like much of what's claimed in the Charismatic movement today.
 
Now the question always comes up and I want to deal with it just briefly, did they really do this, did they really preach, prophesy, did they really cast out demons, did they really do mighty works?
 
There's three alternatives:
 
Number one they did, by God's power.
 
Number two they did, by Satan's power.
 
Number three they didn't, they just faked it.
 
All three could be true.
 
If you think back through the Old Testament, you’ll remember that God has actually worked His work through unbelievers.
 
For example, in Numbers 23:5 it says, "And the Lord put a word in Balaam's mouth." "And Balaam (says Peter) loved the wages of unrighteousness." He was an unrighteous evil prophet for hire but God used his mouth.
There have been times when God has even worked through unregenerate people. I suppose you would have to say the crucifixion of Christ was one of the most monumental ones.
 
So it's possible that some of these people were actually used by God, did actually speak God's truth. I mean that's within the realm of possibility.
 
Secondly, it is possible that they may have done wonderful things, cast out demons and preached under the power of Satan. Satan can express his power.
 
In Acts 19 you find the sons of Sceva that went around casting out devils. Jesus even acknowledged that the Jews had this ability when Jesus said, If I cast out demons by Beelzebub, who do you cast demons out through? He was recognizing that perhaps they had even done that.
 
Matthew 24:24, tells us false christs, false prophets will come and do signs and wonders, Second Thessalonians 2 verses 8 to 10 that the Antichrist is going to come and do false signs and wonders. Satan can do some amazing things.
 
And then there's the whole area of just plain fakery, and I think that's what was cooking up in Egypt, I think the, the magicians of Egypt who were trying to mimic the miracles of Moses were just pulling off fake things. When they reproduced what Moses did I think it was just smoke and mirrors. 
 
 
 
Now the point is this: These people are going to say, we preached and we cast out demons and we did mighty works, but all of that is not the essence of Christianity. 
 
No matter what they say, no matter what they claim and no matter what miracles and wonders and stuff they've said they've seen, Jesus says, you are not qualified to be in My Kingdom.
 
And that's the shock, because they never came through the narrow gate.
 
To make a mere verbal profession is not enough. It’s just empty words.