Biblestudy: Matthew (Part Eleven)

Matthew 7:13-29
#BS-MA11
John W. Ritenbaugh (1932-2023)
Given 09-Dec-81; 80 minutes

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Please go to Matthew 7:13. I have understood better than I ever did before how logically everything is arranged here. Sometimes we tend to look at things as not being arranged very well, or not having too much relationship to one another. But I see in the book of Matthew that he has arranged things very logically. I want to go back to verse 13 because what He has to say there actually provides an introduction for the remainder of this chapter. I think it is very important to get this in its context.

Matthew 7:13-14 “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

What Jesus is saying, in more modern terminology, is that life consists of a multitude of choices. He is admonishing us here about the choice that we ought to make most of the time, that is, the difficult choice, the strait one. It is a very plain and clear teaching, He says, enter by the strait gate, the difficult gate.

The way I see it, every choice has two aspects to it. Either we can choose to do what might be inviting and pleasurable or pressure-relieving at the moment, or we can choose what might seem to be more difficult, almost daunting and overwhelming.

I want you to go back to a scripture that I used the last time that I was here, back in the book of Hebrews. I think we will be able to see very clearly how this principle occurred or used in the life of Moses. Jesus said life consists of choices so He admonishes us, most of the time when we are confronted with a choice, the hard choice is really going to be the right choice.

Hebrews 11:24 By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.

We all know the story. He was a Hebrew, but he was reared in an Egyptian household. In fact, he was reared in the Pharaoh's household. As the course of events worked out, he was, according to Josephus, very likely to be the one who would be the next Pharaoh. Right at this critical juncture of his life, God stepped in and began to work toward using Moses to be the one that was going to liberate or be the leader of his people whom God was going to liberate. Moses was confronted with a choice that very, very few people have ever been confronted with.

Pretend I am Moses. Am I going to stay here in Egypt, be ruler over a very wealthy nation, over a vast number of people, have all the adulation and praise and honor and respect that can be given to the head of state, to have great power over the lives of maybe millions of people, maybe go to my death and be honored in death? Or shall I leave this country as the head of a group of people that were nothing more than slaves, a people who had no money, almost no future, and were headed out to a wilderness area where there was very little or no food and water, and heading into an area that was already occupied by another country, Canaan, and face the warfare and all the privation that that would bring upon a people?

You can see so plainly and easily how easy it would be for him to take the easy way out, the broad way, the pleasurable way, the inviting way, which would have been to stay in Egypt. Something had to motivate him to go the other way. And by faith he did that.

Hebrews 11:25-27 Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible.

Obviously, Moses took the difficult way. It must have been a daunting, overwhelming responsibility to be the leader over a ragtag group of maybe four or five million people, who had very little food with them, and seemingly little or no future. They had all the armies of Egypt behind them, and maybe a very long journey, as it turned out, 40 years before them. He took that step by faith because he believed what had been told him by God.

Try to put yourselves into similar situations, because we are confronted with maybe situations not as daunting as that was, but nonetheless we are faced with decisions every day about which way we are going to go, either with our thinking or with an action. Am I going to allow these thoughts to continue? That is a choice. Stop it, get rid of it, put something else in my mind. Am I going to watch a television program which might be entertaining, it might be pleasurable, but on the other hand it might be nothing more than fluff and a great big time waster.

Should I spend time communicating with my God? Or spend my time reading something that might be far more worthwhile, fill your mind up with ideas, concepts, principles, that are of far greater value? We are constantly confronted with choices like that. Which way are we going to flop? That is where character is built. God is hoping that you will use your faith.

There are other decisions that we have to make that are far more serious, maybe even entail a great deal of discomfort, maybe at a very great cost. Some of you have had to face some of these things especially coming into the church, where maybe you had a job that entailed working on the Sabbath and you had to make a decision. Am I going to give up this job in which I already have twenty years seniority, and if I give up this job I will lose a great big pension plan that I have been putting money into for twenty years, and after retirement I could collect it, but if I leave right now I will lose the whole amount?

I have run into people who have faced that. I have run into people who have been in the Army 17, 18, 19 years, and unless they completed their hitch they lost out on the pension. Should they get baptized and give it up? Leave the Army? Or should they stay in the Army fighting their faith? Fighting their conscience the whole time, and wait out the twenty years? That is a decision only those people can make.

There are a lot of decisions that we face that are pretty costly, or at least potentially quite costly. Which way are we going to flop again? Do you know what it is that makes it so difficult for us to make the right decisions? It is one of the major things that is different between us and God.

Turn to Isaiah 46. We see here in different words why Moses made the decision that he did. When we get near the end of chapter 7, you will begin to see how Jesus ties this all together and how building upon the Rock has something to do with making the choices that He is talking about in verses 13-15.

Isaiah 46:5-7 “To whom will you liken Me, and make Me equal and compare Me, that we should be alike? [Can God be compared to a man or to an idol that man would make?] They lavish gold out of the bag, and weigh silver on the scales; they hire a goldsmith, and he makes it a god; they prostrate themselves, yes, they worship. They bear it on the shoulder, they carry it and set it in its place, and it stands; from its place it shall not move. Though one cries out to it, yet it cannot answer nor save him out of his trouble.”

We, of course, in the United States do not literally bow down to an idol. For the most part that is a thing of the past. It was something that was common to their time so they wrote about it. However, idolatry is not something that is of the past, it is something that we are confronted with every day. Our god is the one that we obey. God explains this clearly in the book of Isaiah, chapter 7. He accuses Israel of worshipping the things that they make with their hands. Not just statues, but manufactured goods, things like automobiles. We worship the things that our hands make.

We are a very materialistic, money-oriented society, we do in practice through the conduct of our lives worship the things that our hands make. Those things cannot answer your prayers. In fact, they have to be moved about, that is how weak they are in comparison to God. They cannot hear, they cannot speak, they cannot give commands, no directions, nor respond to your pleas. This maybe a simplistic example but that is how man is in comparison to God. That is how man’s power is compared to God.

Isaiah 46:8-10 “Remember this, and show yourselves men; recall to mind, O you transgressors. Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure.’”

The thing I want to pick out of there is this: God knows the end from the beginning. He knows the consequences of action. He knows what fruit will be produced by a certain line of thinking, or activity. He is the Ancient of Days, His life is limitless in every direction. He has experienced life from every different angle, and He is our Creator.

Most only live till the time we are 70 or 80 years old. That is just a moment in comparison to God’s life. In that period of time we really do not have very much time to get much experience. When God calls us, maybe 30, 40 years of into our lives, we have even less of life left by which to make decisions and build character.

Here is the whole crux of the issue. You see, we do not always know the end from the beginning. We do not always know the consequences of what we are going to do, the decisions we are going to make. What God has done is, He has called us, He has given us His Spirit, He has given us a measure of faith, in order that we might use that faith to trust what He says.

Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

We might be involved in the making of a decision, the consequences of which particulars of it we do not understand, or maybe unable to foresee. So what do we do? We have to learn to trust Him. Because He does know the end from the beginning. We have to trust what He said there in Romans 8:28. Regardless of how things look, God says men are guided by appearances, we look on the outside, but those who are living by faith do not look on the outside. They walk by faith, not by sight. Those people are learning to trust God.

That is what Moses did. He forsook Egypt because he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. He looked ahead as through the eyes of God, and though he could not see the immediate effect of the decision that he was going to enter into—he did not know they were going to be forty years out in the wilderness, he did not know that he was going to have to be striking rocks or speaking at rocks, to have water gush forth. He did not know that manna was going to come down from heaven. This was all before any of that occurred. He did not know he was going to be involved in wars out there, that he was going to have to wave his staff and see the waters of the Red Sea part. He did not know any of those things. But he walked by faith, and He trusted God that the decision that he would make would work out right.

That is what Jesus is talking about here in Matthew 7:13-14. Probably 99 times out of 100, if you are involved in a decision in which faith is an element, you better choose to go the hard way. It will probably be the right one. That is His advice.

Matthew 7:13-14 “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

If Jesus Christ said it, it is going to be overwhelmingly correct. That is going to provide an entrance way into what comes to the rest of this chapter.

He is talking about making decisions. What do we make decisions based upon? We talked about the element of faith. That is one factor in making a decision. The next factor He is going to cover is teaching, teaching that we receive.

Of course, the bulk of our teaching in spiritual, moral, and ethical areas is going to come from the ministry of the church. We have a responsibility that is very important that He is going to talk about here, at least it is implied. He is warning us that not everybody that comes to you in the name of Jesus Christ is going to be a true representative of His. You have to be careful about this because the decisions in your life are going to based upon the teaching that these men give you. What makes it more difficult is that sometimes these men are going to be right in the church.

Matthew 7:15-20 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them."

For you and me it is not difficult for us to look out over the length and breadth of the United States, and be able to say that Oral Roberts, Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham, are false prophets. Jesus is not talking about those people, because that is obvious to us. To us, those people are not even disguised. It is so obvious because they teach you do not really have to keep the commandments, and these people tell you you are going to go to heaven, they believe in the Trinity, in the immortal soul, they believe in heaven and hell, in keeping Sunday, they believe in keeping Christmas and Easter. There are dozens and dozens of doctrines that they openly preach, things that they are deceived about, and you can spot them from a mile away. What do you do, though, whenever somebody is so close to the truth, or maybe you think he has the truth? You see, it becomes more difficult to spot those people, does it not?

Turn to Acts 20:28. I want to show you that the apostles either prophesied or showed very clearly that they were dealing with false prophets within the church. Paul here was on his way back to Jerusalem from one of his journeys, the time that led to his arrest and eventually got him shipped over to Rome. He is making his last trip through Ephesus, so he called all the elders that were in the area, and they held a meeting there. The meeting was about to break up and in verse 28, Paul says,

Acts 20:28-30 Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves.

He was speaking right to the elders, that of that group he was prophesying that some of them were going to turn away from the truth. You can see what that would do to a congregation that already had a deep element of trust in a man who had been teaching them for years, a man they respected for his knowledge of the Word of God, and looked to him as somebody that could answer some of their questions, give them advice regarding the making of decisions in their lives. That kind of a person would find it fairly easy to lead people astray, because he has people trusting him.

Turn to I Corinthians 11, verse 17. The Corinthian church was split up into all kinds of cliques.

I Corinthians 11:17-20 Now in giving these instructions I do not praise you, since you come together not for the better but for the worse. For first of all, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you, and in part I believe it. For there must also be factions among you, that those who are approved may be recognized among you.

The truly converted people who are living by faith.

What God is saying here so plainly through Paul is that God is going to indeed allow false ministers to preach in the church. He does it to test His people. He needs to find out who in that congregation is really loyal, who is really thinking, or who is there to just be entertained. So there must be factions among you in order that those approved may be made manifest. A fulfillment of the wheat and the tares right within the church.

Turn to II Corinthians 11. There is no reason for Paul to say this except that the Corinthian church was being bothered by ministers from within.

II Corinthians 11:4 For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you may well put up with it!

II Corinthians 11:13-15 For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.

We have tasted some of this in that some who have been among us have turned out not to be true ministers of God, but they preached, and they have led people aside, away from the truth. You can go to almost every book in the New Testament and find elements of false ministry somewhere in that book.

Galatians 1:6-8 I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.

II Thessalonians 2:1-3 Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition.

Someone was circulating letters and signing Paul’s name to them. That may yet occur, somebody prints up a bunch of letters and signs Mr. Armstrong’s name to it, sends it out to the brethren, and it contains information in it that would be misleading. Are you going to be prepared to discern the truth? Are you going to be prepared to be able to perceive lies that are subtly given? We may not, we may be deceived, as we already have been.

But these warnings are in here so that we might know just how subtle Satan is. He has a fifth element working for him that is better than anything that the KGB or Nazi SS group, or anybody like that could come up with.

II Peter 2:1-2 But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed.

I John 2:18-19 Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were with us.

They were in the church, then they went out of the church and began preaching in public. Does that sound familiar? Lots of men have done that, foremost of which is Garner Ted Armstrong, who went out from us and now has his own work going. How many dozen other men have done the same thing? In a way this is comforting, because there is still hope for those people. They never were converted.

Jude 4 For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.

There was a type in the Old Testament constantly. A constant battle between the true and the false. And more often than not, the true prophet of God was rejected by Israel and put to death and the false prophet was the one that was accepted. But this principle extends out into much broader areas. It begins to reach into government, economics, education, science, all kinds of other areas.

You know this principle is true in education. All you have to do is think of evolution. Here are people teaching theories as though they are fact, unproven things as though they were truth. In principle they are false prophets. Ezekiel 22:27 describes an attitude of mind of the leadership of His people. This book is written to Israel, not to Judah, it never got to Israel because it was not written until long, long after they went into captivity. It is a book that is intended for the Israel of today, the people who do not know that they are Israel.

It says,

Ezekiel 22:27 Her princes in her midst are like wolves tearing the prey, to shed blood, to destroy people, and to get dishonest gain.

What he is saying is, everybody is out to get as much as he can, while giving as little as he can. In principle, this wolf in sheep’s clothing is at work in other areas besides religion. In many cases, the idea in manufacturing is to give as little quality and get as great a price as possible. In labor, the idea is to give as little in terms of work and get as much in terms of pay. This principle is one of destruction from within that is being caused by one of the major principles of sin. Jesus points it out as the flaw that shows whether or not an idea, a principle, is true.

Zephaniah 3:1-4 [Much of this book is pronouncing judgment against the very people who have destroyed Israel.] Woe to her who is rebellious and polluted, to the oppressing city! [Jerusalem] She has not obeyed His voice, she has not received correction; she has not trusted in the Lord, she has not drawn near to her God. Her princes in her midst are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves that leave not a bone till morning. Her prophets are insolent, treacherous people; her priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law [the law of God].

I Kings 19:13 So it was, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. Suddenly a voice came to him, and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

I Kings 19:19 So he departed from there, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he was with the twelfth. Then Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle on him.

I want you to see that ordinarily a prophet in this time of physical symbols, would wear an article of clothing that would distinguish him from the rest of Israel. Even today, the priests of the Catholic church wear a uniform, all black, collar turned around, and anybody who sees them know immediately that they are a priest. So it was back in ancient Israel, that the prophets of God wore a mantle, a cloak, that clearly distinguished them from other people. Distinguished as a prophet. Elijah was not the only one, Samuel wore a cloak, etc.

II Kings 1:7-8 [describing Elijah] So they answered them, “What kind of man was it who came up to meet you and told you these words?” So they answered him, “A hairy man wearing a leather belt around his waist.” And he said, “It is Elijah the Tishbite.”

It was not that Elijah himself was hairy; it was the mantle that he was wearing that was hairy. Apparently, it was a leather mantle that did not have the hair stripped from it. Fur was turned to the outside, that is part of the garb that they wore.

Zechariah 13:4 [this is a prophecy talking about the ministry] “And it shall be in that day that every prophet will be ashamed of his vision when he prophesies; they will not wear a robe of coarse hair to deceive.”

Anybody who wanted to think of himself as a prophet, whether God had appointed him or not, he wore the same article of clothing that the true prophet wore.

It is very clear that, whether a person is in government, education, business, ministry, there is strong likelihood that they are going to bear a superficial resemblance to the truth. It is especially true, and difficult to discern, when this principle is at work right within the church of God. How do we tell the difference between the true and the false? It is usually not something that can be done very quickly, oftentimes most of us never do catch on. God Himself has to take a hand to straighten things out through a bit of difficulty within the church.

The principle of discerning the truth from the false is that, you shall know them by their fruits. What he is saying is, under ordinary circumstances it is going to be so difficult to tell the true from the false that it is going to require a great deal of discernment, insight, understanding, patience, real thoughtfulness, meditation, comparing scripture with scripture, and understanding the way of God to tell the difference. But eventually the fruits will tell you.

John 10:12 “But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees because he is a hireling, and he cares not for the sheep.”

What is the flaw in the false prophet, in the princes? Self-interest. If you compare that answer with what it says in Ezekiel 22:27 and what it said in Zephaniah 3:3, that is why God called them evening wolves. That is why He called them roaring lions. Self-interest is their bag.

They care not for the flock is the way Jesus said it, but rather they are just a hireling. That is what our politicians are, they are hired to represent us. There is so much self-interest in their representation, there is so much self-interest in a democracy, it is a miracle that it works at all.

There are at least three ways in which a false minister will show his self-interest. It will begin to be fruit that will be produced.

1. He may show an attitude of really only being interested in material things, money, what he can get.

If we look at this principle at work outside of church of God, we can begin to see more clearly. Being a preacher can be lucrative; Billy Graham is not a poor man. My wife and I are reading a biography of Billy Graham and that man has received so many gifts! Automobiles, that is a big gift. There is a dealer in Charlotte [NC] that supplies him with a new car every tear. Golf clubs, he has golf clubs coming out of his ears. He has to hire a hall to hold all the gifts he receives. Finally, the IRS got on his back. Oral Roberts, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and on and on. The record is very clear. We can see that at work in the world, but that does not work too well in the church of God. We are not getting rich, there is no chance. But it is part of the principle of self-interest.

2. Prestige. Mr. Armstrong has mentioned this several different times. There were some of those men who are no longer with us that all they wanted was to be recognized as important within the work. They did not really believe but they saw it as a means of getting people to recognize them. I know of one man who said, “I know why I'm in the position I am in; it is because I'm a good speaker.” He was an evangelist and he is no longer with us.

3. This is the one we are most likely to see, and that is, for the transmission of his ideas. That will be part of his self-interest. This is why John warned back in I John 4:1, “Test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets [many Antichrists] have gone out into the world.” That is part of our responsibility, this is why I am bearing down on this hard. We are not through this testing and trials yet. I mean the testing and trial of our faithfulness to God. It is part of our responsibility to try to discern as much as we possibly can and not be caught, and to look to Jesus Christ through Mr. Armstrong. So, that has been the one that has affected us the most. Mr. Armstrong calls it liberality, liberal doctrines or whatever.

These men were attempting to transmit their own ideas, we saw the depths or the lengths to which they would go in this makeup thing. They waited until Mr. Armstrong was out of the country, they got a communication from him concerning one scripture, in which he conceded that they were right, Isaiah 3:16. But that one scripture would not have changed the doctrine, so what they did is they took his signature, printed what Mr. Armstrong said, and then added on other things that he had not said. They presented it to the ministry as though Mr. Armstrong had said it.

Is that not a fulfillment of II Thessalonians 2:1? You better believe it is. Signing Mr. Armstrong’s name to something he had not written. We were all deceived in that. We showed a good attitude in being willing to respond to Mr. Armstrong, but we were deceived in it, including the ministry. That is the kind of thing that we have had to face mostly, transmission of ideas.

This false teaching will tend to produce a variety of ways of thinking or conduct that will help you to understand what will occur whenever this false teaching gets into somebody’s mind. These are some of the fruits that will be produced.

1. They will produce a way of life or conduct that will consist mainly in observance of externals. An example is the Pharisees. To them religion consists of perfect obedience to the ceremonial law—external things. Jesus constantly had conflict with those people over this. To us, we could get into a habit of keeping the Sabbath but not understanding it or using it properly.

That is what the Pharisees did. We could tithe by rote, merely as a requirement, and not have our heart involved in the principle that God is trying to get across to us. Generosity in giving, sharing what one has with his Creator and with his fellow man, giving to people the greatest blessing that it is possible to receive, that is, the knowledge of the purpose of life. That is what tithing is for. It is an opportunity for us to give something to the world, and share with them this knowledge that we have.

But you see, this could be something that we do because it is a law. That is not the way God wants you to look at His law. They all contain within them the principle of giving. And that is what true religion consists of. It is not a matter of just adhering to externals.

2. This is a shading of the first one and that is it will produce a fruit, a way of life, by simply obeying prohibitions. There are some religions that do not go to dances, movies, no drinking alcohol of any kind. It is always “do not do.” That is a negative approach. Jesus made it very clear in Matthew 7 it is what we do that counts, not what we do not do. Do you realize that the law of God are the requirements? Jesus said if you just meet the requirements, you are an unprofitable servant. That is something that is required of everybody, just the keeping of the Commandments.

Please go back to Colossians the second chapter. This way of life was being preached to those people there.

Colossians 2:18-21 Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God. Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations—“Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle.”

A negative approach. The way of life that God is teaching us is very positive. He says, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” If you are thinking on the things that you cannot do, maybe you have missed the point.

3. They will produce a religion that consists of liberality. That is what Mr. Armstrong has chosen to call it. This is the kind that has been the one that has confronted us.

What it amounts to is this: A principle, that any way of life, any teaching, that makes one think lightly of sin is false teaching. There is an example of this in the New Testament of where this occurred. You can see this in Romans 6, I John, and Jude. They negated the grace of God. The argument they had was, “Isn’t God’s grace one of His greatest gifts?” Naturally you would have to say yes. From this position they would come to this conclusion: the way to glorify God is to sin more in order that He has more opportunity to forgive sin, to give you grace, and therefore He is glorified. This may sound weird to you but that is what Paul was talking about in Romans 6. He said, “Should we sin that grace may abound? God forbid.” Why would he write a thing like that unless he was having to deal with that principle of false teaching?

This is what we have had to deal with, where people who are in high positions within the church made light of sin. They did it because they did not understand sin themselves. They did not understand, really, the depth, the breadth, the costliness of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. They did not understand the depths of their own sinfulness.

4. This has occurred to some limited extent within the church, and that is it will produce a way of life that divorces itself from the reality of life. This principle produced monasteries, monks, who cloistered themselves off on the top of a mountain, out in deserts, and sat there copying the Bible, or studying the Bible, living a very ascetic life but completely separated from the reality of living. Of having to earn a living, rear a family, give birth to children, training children, holding a job.

The Bible never disconnects itself from the reality of life and we will see this in just a couple of minutes. That kind of approach will produce a people who are arrogant, separatists, narrow, and exclusive. I just thought of something, in one of Bill Dankenbring’s books, the one about the end of the world, he encourages people to store up food, does he not. Why? To get separated from the world. To be able to ride out the Tribulation. We have not been hit very hard by that fruit but nonetheless there were some who did that to quite an extent.

There are a couple of verses you can use beside that fourth point, Matthew 5:14 and Philippians 2:15, where both Jesus and Paul said we are to be the light of the world. God wants us in the world, not of the world, but He wants us to where the world can see us. We are not to be exclusivists, separatists, narrow, in any way, shape, or form.

In Matthew 7 He is still continuing the same thought. Remember, the reason he gave this is because, in the making of decisions we are going to have to make them based upon the teaching that we get. That is going to be a major element. In receiving the teaching, there is the responsibility on our part to try to discern and understand where this person who is teaching us is heading. Is he really giving us the truth? God does not want us to be people who just accept something without thinking on it.

If you are a person who just accepts then this is not going to be deeply embedded within you. When trouble comes, you are going to waver.

Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”

In addition to there being a superficial resemblance to the truth, He also says that these people are very likely going to be able to do impressive things. Just like this man who was an evangelist who was heard to say, I know why I am in this position, because I am a good speaker. He could do impressive things with his tongue and his mind. I am sure that he affected the lives of many people by the things that he said in his sermons. This man could give good sermons, he had a very fine mind. But he did not have any character when it comes to loyalty. When the chips were down he really did not have it. What it comes down to is, having love for the truth.

II Thessalonians 2:9 [He is talking about the false prophet] The coming of the lawlessness one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.

What he is saying there is, if you really love truth you will dig for it, think about it, meditate on it, compare scriptures. You are going to have it so deeply ingrained in your mind, with the help of God, that you are not going to be able to be deceived. That is what saves us, a love of truth. We love it so much we are willing to die for it. If a person does not have that he will be deceived. If you really love gold, you will look for it. Whatever you love that is what you give your devotion to. If a person loves truth he will not be deceived.

Matthew 7:15-16 “Beware of false prophets, who come in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. [Ultimately, their lies, deceit, is going to be revealed by the conduct of their lives.] You will know them by their fruits.”

Matthew 7:23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”

They are not going to be commandment keepers; they will not submit themselves to God. That eventually is going to show.

I Timothy 5:24-25 Some men’s sins are clearly evident, preceding them to judgment, but those of some men follow later. [Anybody can see their sins, going before judgment, they are obvious.] Likewise, the good works of some are clearly evident, and those that are otherwise cannot be hidden.

This is a portion of that principle of whatever one sows that shall he also reap. Eventually what a person is will be displayed before all. No matter how good a hypocrite, an actor, no matter how hard a person tries to hide what he is, he cannot hide it forever, it will come out. This is one of the great things about having God as the Head of the church. He cannot be deceived. Men, through the working of Satan, can deceive other men, they can be very subtle, they can be so deceitful and tricky in the manipulation of the English language, and deceive us and lead us astray. God is not fooled, and those people might be able to get away with that, even within the church, for years. But there is a promise from God that it cannot be hidden. He is faithful, He will bring it out.

For you and me, we have to be patient. We have to be faithful too. God will protect you in your innocence. Just like Mr. Armstrong said in this article about makeup, because we were deceived God does not hold the sin against us. To him who knows to do good and does it not, to him it is sin. We were deceived, and we did not know that we were sinning, so God quickly forgives something like that. So our conscience is not defiled, our minds are not destroyed, because in our sincerity we thought we were doing right. Once the truth is revealed to us then it becomes a responsibility to obey it.

Now if we do it, it becomes sin. It will begin to destroy character. So if someone is leading us astray, a false minister within the church, we are protected in that our minds are not being defiled, and God knows that we are deceived so He does not hold it against us. He does hold it against the false minister. Once God moves to reveal that person as a false prophet, then it becomes our responsibility to get rid of the teaching that he put into our minds and get back to the truth once again.

Mr. Armstrong is working to uproot all that those men put in our minds those four or five years that they were in there.

Because God loves the church, He will bring the truth out. Those things cannot be hidden, He will make them manifest.

Matthew 7:24-27 “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock; and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”

Think of house in terms of a family, like the house of David, and we are building a building, and we are part of that building. We are building a temple of God, and we are part of that temple, and we are building that temple.

Let us think about what Jesus said in a practical way, Jesus was a scholar, the greatest biblical scholar who ever lived. But scholars have a history of being people who deal in theories and not practicalities. They are not all that way, that is a generality. You have heard of the absent-minded professor whose mind is out here in a real specific area, and he devotes all his time and energy to that area, and all the rest of the world is out here, and he gets narrowed into one segment of life. Now, Jesus never allowed Himself to get into that way. Even though He was a brilliant biblical scholar, He was also a practical craftsman who worked with His hands. So He saw life from its more grubby end and He was not a theoretical person.

If you are going to build a house, what is the first thing you have to do? Even before you build the foundation you have to plan. You have to have some kind of an idea of the direction you are headed. Is that not right? You have got to look ahead.

Now, Jesus is concluding about how to make decisions, how to make good decisions.

1. You are going to make these decisions based upon your teaching. He says you have got to be very careful of the teaching. That is part of our responsibility. You have to think about it. That is why He admonished and warned in regard to false ministers. You have to be a biblical scholar! You cannot just accept what people say, even within the church. It is your responsibility to search these things out. That is what it says in Proverbs 2. To what man is God going to give wisdom and understanding? The person who really digs.

2. You are to have foresight. It says of Moses that he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. Moses had vision; he looked way beyond his time, beyond the wilderness. He looked way beyond the Red Sea, way beyond Canaan. He tried to get an idea in his mind of the very end of everything, and of being in the Kingdom of God. You cannot exclude that from your thinking in regard to every decision. You have to think ahead. If you build a house, do you not think ahead of what you want that house to look like? Where you think it ought to sit? What kind of views you want to have from what windows? Where the kitchen is going to be? You think ahead!

That is why Solomon said, without vision the people perish. If you do not think ahead your life is going to be undisciplined, you are going to have nowhere to go. If you build a house without thinking ahead, it is going to be like the "house that Jack built." A room here, a room here; just a mess. You have always got to think ahead! That is why He talks about the person who built the house. Maybe to you and me this would not be quite as vivid as it would be to a person living in a semi-arid area, like they did in Palestine, where it was very easy to pick out a nice level area to build a house, where it does not rain for most of the year. And then in the winter it rains and you find out where you built your house is really a stream bed. That happened to people. He is counseling people, you and me, that if we are going to make decisions, and we can go the easy way or the broad way, we better check our teaching and be a biblical scholar. We better think ahead.

3. The next thing He said was, "Therefore whoever hears these sayings." This has to do with listening very carefully. Included in this could be added Bible study, prayer, things of that nature. Thoughtfully digging into the truth.

4. Finally, He said, you must do, step out in faith, like Moses did. By faith he forsook Egypt. Do not think he did not think about it. You better believe he thought about it. I think there is some indication that he might have thought about it for the forty years that he was out in the desert before God finally decided he was ready. So he thought about it very deeply but then he stepped out in faith using the knowledge that he had.

JWR/cdm/drm