Sermon On The Mount

False Faith

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 23-25

Genre:

Track: 23

Dictation Name: Sermon on the Mount – 23

Location/Venue:

Year: 1980

Almighty God our Heavenly Father we thank Thee that Thou art He who is Lord of heaven and earth, ruler of all nations, able to turn the hearts of princes to do Thy will. And we pray our Father that Thou wouldst work in the hearts of men in high places in this country, in the courts and legislative assemblies to give freedom to Thy church, to Christian schools everywhere and to deliver those who are oppressed and convicted by the courts and to give them freedom to do Thy work and to teach Thy children. Bless this morning as we give ourselves to the study of thy word. Give us joy in Thy government, joy in Thy truth and joy in Thy so great salvation. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Our scripture is Matthew 7:21-23 and our subject: False Faith. We are coming to the climax of the Sermon on the Mount and here our Lord deals with false faith. Matthew 7:21-23.

“Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”

We are told by Matthew at the end of this chapter:

“And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine:

29 For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.”

How shall we understand that statement? The scribes very definitely had authority, They were the trained expositors of the bible. They were recognized as the religious leaders of Israel. What Matthew means by that is that our Lord taught them not as the scribes but one having much higher authority.

Our Lord clearly taught not as one having authority to expound the law but as the one who gave the law. Again and again He says ye have heard that it hath been said of old but I say unto you, and He corrects the interpretation given or the false impressions given concerning the law. And when He says I say he declares that He himself is very God. Moreover, He says that He is the door, that none shall enter into the kingdom of heaven apart from Him.

““Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.”

He says also that He is the great judge at the last judgment.

“22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?”

So our Lord speaks very clearly, very plainly, as God, as the great judge, as the one who gave the word who interprets it and who is the door to eternal life. Now in terms of this when we look at His words in this passage we find certain things very clearly in focus in what He has to say. First He says:

““Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.”

The duty of obedience takes precedence over everything else. This means that man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. It means that we obey His law word. It is not enough to say I believe the doctrine or I believe in the Lord because faith is more than a simple assent. Faith really means faithfulness. That we believe, and we obey. Our Lord’s brother James makes this point clearly also in what he says in James 2:14-17 as well as 26 when he said:

“What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?

15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,

16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?

17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.”

“26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”

Our Lord is here saying the same thing. It is judgment day and these people have presented themselves to Him as He taught also later in the parable of the judgment, they expect to be blessed by Him. And He says depart from me I never knew you and they cry out, when, these are people who claim to be Christian, when saw ye the poor, naked, thirsty, hungry, in prison, and as much as you did it unto the least of these and as much as ye did it not unto the least of these ye did it to me or ye did it not unto me. Moreover the duty of obedience is to do every word of God, it is obedience. These people come forward and say we have done mighty things, Lord have we not prophesied in Thy name, which means either foretell the future or preach, basically, and in Thy name cast out devils and in Thy name done many wonderful works. Rather impressive record is it not? And there are no doubt men today, leaders, who say we have preached for Thee Lord, we have put up five churches in our ministry. We’ve been a tremendous person in this or that way for Thy church and Thy kingdom but our Lord is very clear. It is faithfulness, not doing mighty things that counts. Today there are many church builders and there are many seminary professors who can tell you a great deal about verse after verse and live by none of it who fit this category. Lip service is condemned by our Lord.

But even more what does our Lord say about these people who have prophesied or preached in his name and they are not charged with false preaching, cast out devils in His name and in our Lord’s name done wonderful works.

“23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”

Now the word iniquity in the Greek of the New Testament is anomia which some of you will recognize, lawlessness, lawlessness. Have you obeyed me? That’s the test. You are workers of lawlessness and none of these impressive works count when you have not kept my law. If you believe me keep my commandments, if you love me keep my commandments. Yet men regard these three things that are cited here by these workers of iniquity very, very highly. But our Lord applies the term iniquity to good works which are not in obedience to the word of God. They may be impressive before men but not before God. One of the great men of the Middle Ages, St. Abelard who was one of the figures who inspired the reformers fought against the rationalism of the day and he said Lord, I believe in order that I might understand. [unknown] said I will seek to understand in order that I may believe, he was a rationalist. He said I will believe nothing unless I can first of all understand it. But Abelard said I believe in order that I might understand it. Now, our Lord says in John 7:17:

“17 If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.”

Ye shall know the doctrine. How do we know the Lord better? By obeying Him, obeying Him. And what child knows his father best then the obedient one because they are brought closer and closer together by that obedience.

“Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.”

In other words we are faithful, we are obedient, in order that we might grow in faith. The more we obey the Lord, the more we know Him, the greater our faith becomes. Our Lord says to all such who will not: depart from me ye that work iniquity. Our Lord uses this sentence twice, He uses it here and in the parable of the last judgment. He quotes it from a song of David, Psalm 6:8. David there appeals to God and he declares in faith:

“8 Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity; for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping.”

And Jesus Christ says I am here as that judge and I now declare to all that work iniquity depart from me. Christ speaks now as that judge and the self-righteous are judged. Notice these that people whom our Lord casts out assumed they were the saved. Why it’s so obvious, Lord have we not prophesied and done this and that and the other thing, isn’t it obvious to you? We belong in heaven. And He says to them depart from me. They expected an affirmative reply but our Lord casts them out because as the prophet said these people speaking the word of God obey me with their lips but their hearts are far from me. Our Lord here is very obviously dealing with false followers within the kingdom. A point that Calvin, centuries ago, in commentating on this text brought out very clearly and he says and I quote:

“Christ extends his discourse farther :for he speaks not only of false prophets, who rush upon the flock to tear and devour, but of hirelings, who insinuate themselves, under fair appearances, as pastors, though they have no feeling of piety. 1 This doctrine embraces all hypocrites, whatever may be their rank or station, but at present he refers particularly to pretended teachers,2 who seem to excel others. He not only directs his discourse to them, to rouse them from the indifference, in which they lie asleep like drunk people, but also warns believers, not to estimate such masks beyond their proper value. In a word, he declares that, so soon as the doctrine of the Gospel shall have begun to bear fruit by obtaining many disciples, there will not only be very many of the common people who falsely and hypocritically submit to it, but even in the rank of pastors there will be the same treachery, so that they will deny by their actions and life what they profess with the mouth.3 Whoever then desires to be reckoned among the disciples, must labor to devote himself, sincerely and honestly, to the exercises of a new life.” Unquote.

And Calvin’s words should comfort us, he is right. As soon as the gospel was proclaimed and began to grow the truth of it is so obvious to the heart of all men because God made all men and men hold down , they suppress the truth, Paul says, in unrighteousness. They know it is the truth. And what do men do? They seek to imitate that which is the truth so that their lie can pass as though it were the shining truth. There was a very clever ad on television a while back and on radio as well. It was a butter ad and the point it made was that the olio ads claimed theirs taste like butter but no one who advertises butter ever says ours tastes like olio [laughs]. Of course not. Olio is an imitation of butter. Every imitation or substitute is going to try to claim to be as good as the real thing. And so it is that this is a tribute to Christianity that there is so much hypocrisy around, there is no hypocrisy in Buddhism, what is there to be hypocritical about? Or in Islam there are no hypocrites, because in Islam what you do doesn’t count as long as you go through the regular ritual of bowing towards Mecca three times a day and so on. Mohammad did say after all in direct contradiction to Paul who said ‘he is an Israelite, that is a true covenant man, belonging to the redeemed, the chosen people of God, who is one inwardly’. And what did Mohammad say? He is a Muslim who is one outwardly. Well you can’t have a hypocritical Muslim because it’s all just appearance. It’s all just show. And this is true of all the other religions of the world in varying degrees.

Hypocrites, imitations always imitate the truth. And so our Lord is warning us, don’t be surprised, don’t be dismayed that there is going to be hypocrites, and false teachers, after all here is the truth and men are going to be pretenders to the truth. But do thou stand faithful. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God we thank Thee that Thou hast called us to be Thy people and hast redeemed us and made us a new creation in Jesus Christ. Give us grace day by day to believe and obey Thine every word, to rejoice in following Thee. To depart from iniquity, lawlessness, and to be faithful members of Thy Son our Savior Jesus Christ. Bless us to this purpose we beseech Thee in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson, yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes there are many who reduce the bible to John 3:16, that’s the starting point, salvation, but we are saved to serve, saved to do His will, lo I come in the volume of the book it is written of me to do Thy will, oh Lord, thus spoke our Lord and so are we all to speak. The best way to deal with people who want minimal Christianity, that’s what’s been called, minimal or minimum Christianity, just enough to get under the wire and to get into heaven you know, which amounts to saying they want Jesus as life and fire insurance salesman. The best thing to do is to point them to the Sermon on the Mount, by their fruits shall ye know them.

““Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.”

Now Aaron Tempas in his little book the Lordship of Christ for which he has paid a price because he was fired for writing that book a few years ago has called attention to one man whose said, and he’s one of the more famous preachers, all you have to do is to go forward and say I believe in Jesus as my Lord and Savior and then you become an atheist, and then you can become an adulterer or a murderer but you are still saved because the Lord has to keep His contract. Well it’s a two way street, the Lord will not keep it if you despise it, you see. There is too much of that antinomianism among people. Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Well you make your witness and then go on, such people work finally to destroy themselves. The man that I cited, that Aaron Tempas cited is...what is his name? Bob Thieme, Houston Texas. And he is destroying himself with the very incredible things he does, the way he talks, no Christian should talk and use language such as he does. Let them alone, if they are not going to hear you, they are going to destroy themselves because it’ll be obvious they do not have the Spirit. Twenty years ago Thieme was a big name across country but increasingly he has lost a great deal of his audience precisely because how long can you follow a man whose behavior is as flagrant as his? Or who tells you that you can commit any sin you want once you’ve sad you believe in Jesus and you are still going to be saved. Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Well, there enough sinners in this world who want a cheap substitute that you can always get followers. The point is, what do you do with them. Any other questions or comments?

Well next week we shall, or two weeks from now we shall continue with the Sermon on the Mount with the concluding passage. The wise and the foolish builder.