Shocking Message-Part 5

Listen to me. If everyone in this town believes themselves saved, and we know that’s not true by Scripture because the Bible says that few will enter in, how do you know that you’re saved?
How do you truly know that you are saved? Because someone told you? Because you prayed a
prayer? Because you believed? Well, let me ask you a question. How do you know you believed? Because everybody says they believe. How do you know you’re not like them? Do you know how the Bible teaches you that you know you are saved? Do you know how Baptist theology, up until about 50 years ago, would have told you how you know you have been saved? You know you have been saved because your life is in the process of being changed, and your style of life is one of walking in the paths of God’s truth.

And when you step off those paths in disobedience, as we all do, God comes for you and puts you back on the path. One of the greatest evidences that you have truly been born again is that God will not let you talk as your flesh might want to talk. God will not let you dress as the sensual world and the sensual church allows you to dress. God will not allow you to act like the world, smell like the world, speak like the world, listen to the things that the world listens to. God will make a difference in your life.

He says here, as we go on, verse 16: You will know them by their fruits. How will you know a false prophet? In the wider application here and all of Scripture, how will you know if someone is a genuine Christian? By their fruit. By their fruit, my dear friend. Look at your life. Look at the way you walk. Look at the way you talk. Look at the passions of your heart. Is Jesus in there somewhere? Or is He just some accessory that you add on to your life? Is He just something that you do on Wednesday or Sunday? Is He something that you give a mental assent to? Is He an accessory or is He the very center of your life? And what is the fruit that you’re bearing? Do you look like the world? Act like the world? Do you have and experience the same joys that the world experiences? Can you love sin and relish it? Can you love rebellion and relish it? Then you know not God. You will know them by their fruit. God has the power to change them.

Let’s imagine for a moment Jesus teaching this passage, and you’re sitting out there listening.
And He looks at you. He says, “Thistles, thistles. Do you find thistles on fig trees?”

And you respond, “Of course not, Jesus. I mean, you’re not an agriculturalist; you’re not a
farmer. I mean, you’re a carpenter. But everybody knows, Jesus, you don’t find thorns on fig
trees.”

“Well, then, let me ask you another question. Do you find figs––good fruit––on thorn trees?”

“Why, no, Jesus. That’s absolutely ludicrous. I mean, you’re never gonna find thorns on a fig
tree, and you’re not gonna find figs on a thorn tree, Jesus. To say that could be possible––anyone who tells you that, Jesus, you can mark it down . . . they’re either crazy or they’re a liar.”
And then Jesus responds to you. “Well then, those who call themselves my disciples and bear
bad fruit, would not it be the same to say that they were either lying or out of their mind to make such a statement?”

Let me take it a little further. Let’s imagine that I show up late and I run up here on the platform, and all the leaders are angry with me and say, “Brother Paul, don’t you appreciate the fact you’re given an opportunity to speak here and you come late?”

And I’d say, “Brothers, you have to forgive me.”

“Well, why?”

“Well, I was out here on the highway, and I was driving and I had a flat tire and I got out to change the tire, and when I was changing the tire, the lug nut fell off, and I wasn’t paying
attention that I was on the highway and I ran out and I grabbed the lug nut, and as soon as I
picked it up in the middle of the highway, I stood up and there was a 30-ton logging truck going
120 miles an hour about ten yards in front of me, and it ran me over and that’s why I’m late.”
Now, there would only be two . . . I know no one studies logic anymore, but there would only be
two logical conclusions. One, I’m a liar or, two, I’m a madman. You would say, “Brother Paul,
it’s absolutely absurd. It is impossible, Brother Paul, to have an encounter with something as
large as a logging truck and not be changed.”

And then my question would be to you––What is larger? A logging truck or God? How is it that
so many people today profess to have had an encounter with Jesus Christ, and, yet, they are not
permanently changed? Let me give you a few things to think about. You know I’m telling you the truth. How many times do you go and rededicate your life over and over and over again? How many times do youth groups go to things like this and get fired up and go back to the
church, and it lasts about a week and a half? And yet, “Oh, it was a great move of God.” No, it
wasn’t. If it doesn’t last, it wasn’t a great move of God. It was emotion. It was so many things,
but it wasn’t a great move of God. Has God worked in your life? Is God working in your life?
You will know them by their fruit. You will know them by their fruit.

Now, we go on, verse 19: Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into
the fire so you will know them by their fruit. Look at this. You need to understand something
about Hebrew literature. When you and I want to emphasize something, do you know what we
do? We raise our voice. If we’re writing, we put it in bold letters, or we capitalize it. But to a Jew, it’s different. When he wants to emphasize something, he repeats it and he repeats it.

That’s why you find Hebrew parallelisms in the Book of Proverbs. The wicked shall not live in the land. The wicked shall be destroyed. He’s saying the same thing, just in a different way to
give greater emphasis. That’s what Jesus is doing over and over again here. You will know them
by their fruit. You will know them by their fruit. You will know them by the path that they walk
in. You will know them by their fruit. You will know them by their fruit. And He says, Anyone
who does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. What is He talking about? My dear friend, He is talking about the judgment of Almighty God that will one day fall upon the
world, that will one day fall possibly upon you.

Oh dear friend, I cannot look into your heart. I am so easily deceived by my own heart, but there is One who is not deceived. There is One who is not deceived, and He is not deceived by a
contemporary Christian culture. He knows. You will know them by their fruit.

And He goes on and He says this, verse 21: Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter
the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my father who is in heaven will enter. Do you know what your profession of faith in Jesus Christ is worth? Absolutely nothing. Yes. Did you read that passage? Study it. Not everyone who comes to me and says, Lord, Lord . . . not everyone who professes, Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of heaven. There are many
people who are going to profess, “Lord, Lord,” but they are not going to enter into the kingdom
of heaven. My dear precious child, are you one of them? “Lord, Lord.”

Now, again, let’s go back to Hebrew literature. He said, Lord, Lord. He didn’t say, Lord. What
does that mean? This fellow who is making this profession, he is not someone who just all of a
sudden decided, “It’s judgment and I better profess Him to be Lord.” This is a person who
emphatically declares to other people that Jesus Christ is Lord. He walks around saying, “Lord.”
He dances up in front while the musicians are playing, saying, “Lord.” He sings the songs,
“Lord.” But Jesus said to him, Depart from me. I never knew you.

Do you know, Billy Graham is one of the kindest, lovingest men; yet, Billy Graham has said he
believed that a great majority of people who attend Bible-believing churches are lost. He said
that he would be happy if even five percent of all the people who made professions of faith in his
campaigns are even saved.

When I’m in Nigeria . . . I was there last year visiting a mother whose son was in our church and
was martyred by the Muslims. In Northern Nigeria, when someone professes faith in Jesus
Christ, you pretty much know they can die because of that profession. But in America, oh,
consider the cost. Think. Examine your life in light of Scripture. Do you know the Lord? Do you know the Lord? Because not everyone who says to him, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but what does it say here? Look what it says. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

What is the sign that someone has become a genuine Christian? I wish that we would start
teaching this again. What happened to our theology? What happened to our doctrine? What
happened to our teaching? It went right out the window. No one wants to study doctrine
anymore. They just want to listen to songs and read the back of Christian tee shirts. What
happened to truth? Truth tells you this. The evidence––the way that you can have assurance that you are genuinely a born-again Christian––is that you do, as a style of life, the will of the Father.