You say, “Oh, you’re talking about works.” No, I’m not. I’m talking about evidence of faith, and it goes like this. Your profession of faith is no proof that you’re born again because everybody in this whole country professes faith in Jesus Christ. Barnard tells us that 65 to 70 percent of all Americans are saved, born-again Christians. The most Godless country on the face of the earth. Kill 4,000 babies a day but, bless God, 70 percent of us are born again. How do you know that the faith you have is not false? A style of life that is concerned about doing the will of the Father, that practices the will of the Father, and when you disobey the will of the Father, the Holy Spirit comes and reprimands you either personally through the written Word of God or through a brother or sister in Christ, and God puts you back on the path again. If you’re a genuine Christian, you cannot escape Him.
Let me give you an example. If I was your pastor and you were, let’s say, 14 years old and I came back from preaching at one o’clock in the morning and I saw you standing out there in a
park or on a corner with a bunch of hoodlums, doing things you shouldn’t be doing and you’re a
member of our church, I would tell you, “Get in the car.” I would take you home to your father.
I wouldn’t be mad at you. I’d be mad at your father. I would tell him, “Sir, you are a derelict
father that you would allow your child to be out in such circumstances.”
I want you to know something. God is not a derelict father. If you can play around in sin, if you
can love the world and love the things of the world, if you can always be involved in the world
and doing things of the world, if your heroes are worldly people, if you want to look like them
and act like them, if you practice the same things they practice, oh my dear friend, listen to my
voice. There’s a good chance you know not God, and you do not belong to him.
Now, we bring this to a close, verse 22: Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not
prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in your name perform many
miracles. Then I will declare to them, I never knew you.
You say the most important thing on the face of the earth is to know Jesus Christ. That is not
true. The most important thing on the face of the earth is that Jesus Christ knows you. I’m not
going to get into the White House tomorrow because I walk up to the gate and tell everybody I
know George Bush, but they will let me in if George Bush comes out and says, “I know Paul
Washer.”
You can profess to know Jesus, but my question for you . . . do you know Jesus? Does Jesus know you? And look how he describes the lost man here. He said, Depart from me you who
practice lawlessness. In Greek, anomia––a negative particle, a, “not”; word nomos, “law”––“no
law.” And this is what it means. Let me give you an accurate translation of this. Depart from
me––Listen to me, if I could come out there and hug you while I was telling you this, I would.
Listen to me. He says, Depart from me those of you who claim to be my disciples who confessed
me as Lord and, yet, you live as though I never gave you a law to obey.
I just described a great majority of North American Christianity. If anyone starts talking about
law, if anyone starts talking about Biblical principles on what we’re supposed to do and not
supposed to do, how we’re to live and not supposed to live, everyone starts screaming,
“Legalist.” But Jesus said, Depart from me those of you who live––you called me Lord, but you
lived as though I had never given a law.
In American Christianity today, pass through the gate. Praise God. Live like the rest of the
world and it’s okay. You’re just carnal. Maybe one day you’ll come back. Do you know what
happens because of our bad evangelism? We have gazillions of children saved in vacation Bible
school, and when they hit 15 years old, they enter into the world and live like demons, a great
majority of them. And then when they’re around 30, they come back and rededicate their life.
Maybe they just got saved. Because, folks, it’s more than just telling someone you’re saved
because you acknowledged that Jesus is Lord. Satan acknowledges that Jesus is Lord. Is your
life in a process of change?
And then He drops down and He talks about two people––two foundations. Do you know what
this passage in contemporary . . . See it’s important to study theology and it’s important to study
history. The contemporary interpretation of this passage about the rock and the sand is basically
like this. If you’re a Christian, you need to build your life upon the rock because, if you build
your life upon the sand, you’ll be an unhappy Christian and your life won’t go right. That is not
what Jesus is teaching and history backs me up on it. It was hardly ever interpreted that way.
Do you know what the interpretation is? It goes like this.
There are two ways. There’s a narrow way and a broad way. Which one are you on? There are
two types of trees. There is a good tree that bears good fruit, and it’s going to Heaven. There’s a
bad tree and you know it’s bad because it bears bad fruit, and it’s going to hell. It’s going to be
cut down and thrown into the fire. There are those who profess Jesus is Lord and they do the
will of the Father who is in heaven, and there are those who profess Jesus Christ is Lord and they do not do the will of the Father who is in heaven, and they go to hell––not because of a lack of works, but because of a lack of faith demonstrated by the fact that they had no works.
And then he goes on. He says, not two Christians building their house on two different
foundations. No. This is a saved man and a lost man. The lost man hears the Word of God
preached but he lays no foundation. You cannot see in any way in his life how the Word of God is forming and building and sustaining his life. His life is not––how many people in the Southern Baptist Convention, regardless of all our numbers, regardless of everything we say, if we were to simply take this passage and compare the people to this passage and say––Are you building your marriage on the Word of God? Are you raising your children on the Word of God? Are you doing your finances on the Word of God? Are you living, separating yourself from the things of this world based upon the Word of God? How many would be able to answer positively?
No, none of that. “I profess Jesus. He’s my Savior. My Sunday school teacher told me so.” Oh. I know, like Leonard Ravenhill, an acquaintance of mine before he passed on, used to say, “I preach in a lot of Baptist churches once.” I preach in a lot of places like this once. I could have got up here today with a vocabulary that would have astounded you and preached you things that would have lifted you up and floated you around this room. I could have told you stories that would have made you laugh and stories about dogs and grandmas that would have made you cry, but I love you too much for that. I know . . . I know, because the Word of God is true, that there are people who believe themselves to be saved and they are no more saved. They’re not.
I know that there are some of you who look around and you think, “Well, I’m saved. I mean,
look, I look like everybody else in my youth group.” What makes you think your youth group is
saved? “Well, I’m like my parents”; or, “I’m like the adults in my church or the deacon or the
pastor.” What does that matter? You won’t be judged by them on the day of His coming. My
question for you, beloved, my question for you, little child––I mean, you could be my children,
and I pray someday when my little boy grows that there will be a preacher who will stand before
him and say, “Enough of this!”
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