Empty Hearts B

Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. It's been said that the easiest person to deceive is yourself, and there is no deception with greater consequences than to think you're a Christian when truth is you're not. That's a deception that not only affects your life today, it determines your eternity.

So where do you stand? John MacArthur is helping you be certain about your relationship with Christ in his current study on Grace to You. He calls it Salvation Survey. So get your Bible or open the Study Bible app on your mobile device and turn to Matthew chapter 7.

Here's John MacArthur with today's lesson. Matthew chapter 7. Beginning in verse 21, our Lord climaxes the sermon by saying, And everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven.

Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name have cast out demons, and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you, depart from me that work iniquity. Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man who built his house upon a rock. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock. And everyone that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man who hath built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it. And it came to pass when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Now in verses 24 to 27, the Lord again reminds us that the standard of righteousness is required for entering the kingdom of God.

And unless your life is built on that standard, no matter what it looks like, and no matter what you know in your head, and no matter how feverishly you conduct your spiritual activity, when the flood comes, you're going to get washed away. If all you have is ahead knowledge. Let me look more deeply into this delusion that's presented here. We've seen the similarities. Let's see the differences. Now watch this. One built the easy way, the other built the hard way.

Are you with me on that? It's very easy to build on sand. You don't have to dig. You don't have to do anything.

It's just like going on the broad road. You just go on with all your garbage. Have a great old time. Lots of room.

Do anything you want. Plenty of tolerance. And this is the way it is with a fool. A fool does it the easy way for two reasons. Number one, fools are always in a hurry. The Bible says in the book of Proverbs that fools make haste.

I've learned a little bit. I'm not any good with my hands and building things, but I've learned one thing through the years, and that is if you do it right the first time, you don't have to do it again. The fool is always in a hurry. It's easy to build on sand. You don't have to dig. You don't have to prepare.

You just slap it up. The fool always wants a shortcut. Quick results. Quick evangelism. Keep it moving, man.

Jump on the bandwagon because we're not slowing down. No time for soul conviction. No time for building a deep sense of God. No time for teaching the doctrine of sin. No time for building a sense of conviction.

No time for coming to grips with your soul before God. It's just here we go. We're on the move.

If you want to jump on, hit it, fella, because we're not going to linger. Shortcuts. Quick results. Quick evangelism. And we got that today.

We got the super canned fast approach to everything. That piles up fools more than wise men. Nobody builds a tower until he counts the cost. No wise men. Second thing about a fool, he builds the easy way, not only because he's in a hurry, but because he's basically superficial.

You know, how many people do you know who proclaim that they believe in Christ, who said they heard the gospel and accepted it, and there has been absolutely nothing in their life to give evidence of that? Superficial. And I believe we live in the age of superficiality. We're all in a big mad dash.

I mean, if you don't get your hamburger in three minutes at McDonald's, you start having apoplexy. And we're so superficial. Millions name the name of Jesus, but it is a shallow, shifting sand. And when they don't get their instant upper from Jesus anymore, and they don't get the jollies and the kicks they thought they were going to get, their house begins to collapse, and they look for another sandy place to build another house that isn't going to stand either. Christianity has become so superficial, it just galls me to hear some of the presentations of Christ that are supposed to be legitimate.

Sermons that have absolutely nothing to do with the gospel, and then you give an invitation at the end, and people are accepting who knows what. There's no deep plowing. There's no spadework. There's no foundation. There's no brokenness of heart. Arthur Pink says, if I have never mourned over my waywardness, then I have no solid ground for rejoicing. On the other hand, while a foolish man is in a big hurry, the wise man is not. In fact, in Luke 6 47 and 48, the parallel passage, it says that the wise man, I love this, dug deep.

Ooh, that's good. Dug deep to the foundation. He went for the rock of the word of God. He blew the sand away. The sand of human opinion and self-will. And he went for the rock of obedience to God's word. And what does it mean to dig deep? First of all, it means you're not in a hurry.

No quickie conversion. No light confession. One writer has said, there are some people who say they are saved before they have any sense that they're even lost. And I have said in the past that some people present the gospel so poorly that even the non-elect don't know enough to reject it.

Those who claim Christ as their own are willing to dig deep. They have thought out the responsibility. They don't rush into some profession later to rush out of it again or be thrown out in final judgment. They count the cost. They consider what they're doing. There's a digging deep.

There's not a hurry. When the Lord sowed the seed in the parable in Matthew 13, he says, But he that received the seed in stone he places is he that hears the word and immediately with joy receives it. But he has no root, so he endures for a while. And when tribulation and persecution arise because of the word, immediately he is offended and he runs away.

Just think of it. Oh, I've seen it so many times. Oh, I professed Christ. I'm a Christian. And as soon as you start laying on them the word of God and what it demands, they're gone.

They don't want it. Well, that's not the way it is with one who digs deep. He digs deep to the rock bed of God's word in order that he might obey. It's not superficial.

Secondly, those who dig deep show a desire to give a maximum effort. Men are always drawn to the easy path, the easy way. And I think sometimes we make the gospel so easy that it's no gospel at all and it's no conversion at all. You know, we've always went, oh, how it's so hard to follow up new converts. It's so hard to follow up those that, you know, we've had so many say one large church in America. This was a very large church. In one year had 28,000 conversions on paper. Baptized 9,600 people and had 123 added to the church. And the man who was on the staff of that church said, I knew right then something was wrong.

And that's when I left and said, God, show me how to do it right. There weren't 28,000 people saved if there were only 123 added to the church. The problem is not the difficulty of follow up. The problem is the difficulty of conversion.

That's the problem. And we are trying to follow up people who never were redeemed to begin with. You say, oh, you know, if we don't get them into the follow up, we'll have to just leave them to the Holy Spirit. And that doesn't usually work. You know, if they're really converted, God's going to do his work.

It's just that trying to follow up the unconverted is a little tough. Listen, the person who digs deep desires to strive to enter in. He takes the hard things.

He disdains the labor. He minimizes the travail of soul in order to build on the rock. Sure, it's a lot easier to go the way of the flesh. Sure, it's tough to restrict yourself to go God's way. But his commandments, beloved, are not grievous, are they? They're blessed and we fulfill them not out of law, but out of love.

Another thing about the man who digs deep, he wants to do it right. And he's teachable. The Pharisees weren't teachable. You couldn't tell them anything. They didn't even want to hear it.

There's so many people like that. They profess Christ, but they don't want to hear what that demands. They don't want to hear what that requires. They don't want to count the cost. They don't want to learn the right way to build their life.

They want to go on their own ideas and their own goals and their own self will and their own designs and their own purposes and go down their own little channel. And when you go to them and try to teach them what is right to do, they don't want to hear that. It's not because they're unteachable Christians.

It's because they're sham Christians. That's what our Lord is saying. Dig deep. The one who digs deep empties himself of self-righteousness, empties himself of self-sufficiency, knows he has nothing, knows he's not commendable, overwhelmed with his sin. He makes the maximum effort to strive to enter in. He makes the maximum effort to place the Word of God in his heart that he might not sin.

He is interested in a genuine love relationship with Jesus Christ, not a routine of spiritual activity. He does not build on visions. He does not build on experiences. He does not build on supposed miracles. He builds on the Word of God. And he builds for God's glory, not his own. Listen, many people want spiritual power. Look at Simon in Acts 8. He wanted to buy the power of the Spirit of God.

And Peter says, your money perish with you, you phony. Many people want the power. They just aren't interested in living according to God's standards. They're a sham.

They're building on sand. They want to know what Jesus can do for them. They want the goodies. Chasing signs and wonders, not committed to Christ at all. And what happens ultimately? Well, according to verse 25 and verse 27, the day of reckoning is going to come. Now, this just sums up the whole of judgment. I don't think you can say, well, the rain was so and so, and the flood refers to so and so, and the wind refers to so and so, and the beating on the house is such and such.

You can get carried away on that stuff. What it's simply saying is, is one day a storm came and it was obvious what house was on the rock and what house was on the sand. And someday there's going to come a divine accounting.

That's what it's saying. God is going to blow the wind of judgment and rain the rain of judgment and send the flood of judgment. And when he does, some are going to stand, some are going to fall. Whether your religion is true or false, it's going to be tried. And whether your chaff or wheat is going to be found out. Someday the chief winnower is going to come and he's going to separate the chaff and the wheat. He's going to blow the wind of judgment.

And those who have built their lives on the rock are going to stand. And what a wonderful promise it is. I always think of 1 Thessalonians 1 where it says that Jesus has delivered us from the wrath to come.

Why? Because our faith is genuine. That's what he said to the Thessalonians. Your faith is genuine, so you'll be delivered from the wrath to come. There is going to come a judgment time. It tells us in Revelation chapter 20 specifically how that's going to happen. And I saw a great white throne and him that sat on it from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead small and great stand before God and the books were opened and another book was opened which is the book of life. And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works and the sea gave up the dead that were in it. And death and Hades delivered up the dead that were in them. And they were judged every man according to his works. And death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. That's the final great white throne judgment. And I believe that is the day when there will be echoing through the corridors of that judgment hall, Lord, Lord, and echoing back the reverberation of his reply, depart from me, I never knew you. People are deluded. Listen. Satan is a liar.

True? Satan is a deceiver. And his ultimate deception beyond any deception is to make someone believe they're a Christian when they're not.

Because if you don't know you've got the problem, you're not looking for the answer anymore. The day of judgment is coming. You better look at your life. Not everyone, back to verse 21, not everyone who thinks they're in is in. Look at the foundation. They may be respectful of Christ. They may be orthodox. You may be fervent. You may be active in private devotion.

You may be active in public proclamation. You may be busy with spiritual activity. You may be building a religious life right in the same community with true believers. And your little house may look exactly like their house, but when the judgment comes, it'll be devastated because it's on sand. It's on the sand of your own will and your own whims and your own wishes and your own way rather than the rock of obedience to his word.

Beloved, I only can tell you out of the heart of love that I have that you should go back and check the foundation. So Jesus' unequaled, unparalleled masterpiece of oratory ends with a devastating warning and it ends with judgment. The final word of the sermon is at the end of verse 27, and great was the fall of it. Listen, if you want to know how to present the gospel, the gospel every single time must end with a warning of doom to the one it rejects. It has to end that way.

It's not, well, if you don't come to Christ, you're certainly missing a lot of nice things. It calls for a decision. You say, well, I choose Christ. I choose the right way.

Are you sure? Are you sure you've chosen the right way? You see, in Proverbs 30, verse 12, it says, there is a generation that are pure in their own eyes but are not washed from their filthiness.

They just think they are. Say, how do I know? See what your life is built on.

See if you're in this list. 1 Corinthians 6, 9. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived. Again, he says it. The thing is that this is always a deception. People say, oh, well, I believe and I've made a statement and I've made a profession. Don't be deceived. If you are a fornicator, committing sexual sin, an idolater, an adulterer, if you are a feminine, if you are a homosexual, if you are a thief, if you are covetous, a drunkard, a reviler, an extortioner, you will not inherit the kingdom of God. Look at your life.

You see, we've made it far too easy, haven't we? Maybe you're not in those lists. See if you're in this list. Galatians 5, 19. Now the works of the flesh are manifest. What are they? Fornication, impurity, lasciviousness.

That means without restraint sexually. Idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousy, wrath, self-seeking factions and seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, wild parties, and the like of which, as I have told you in time past, that they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Don't be deceived. Don't be deceived. In Revelation 21, verse 8, tells us this, but the fearful and unbelieving and the abominable and murderers and idolaters and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

You see yourself in any of those lists? Now listen, we all sin. We're not talking about that. But if those are the pattern of your life, those are the things which characterize your living, you're not in the kingdom.

I don't care what you think. That's the word of the word of God. You say then, who then is saved? Who is saved? And you're right back to the end of verse 14.

What is it? Few there be that find it. Now beloved, when you give your life to the Lord at that point, I believe that's when He takes over. That's when everything begins to unfold. And from there on, He begins to take over and empower you and change you. Paul put it this way. He that hath begun a good work in you will what?

Perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. So our Lord confronts the empty words and the empty hearts of those who profess to be in the kingdom but were not. What was the result of the sermon?

What was the response this day? Great revival? Tremendous conversions? No. Verse 28 came to pass when Jesus had ended these sayings. The people were converted.

No? No, they weren't converted. They were astonished.

For He taught them as one having authority not as the scribes. All they did was analyze it. They were astonished. We could use a lot of words for that. It means they were awed, they were amazed, they were dumbfounded, they were bewildered. But I looked it up in the Greek text and it literally means they were struck out of themselves. Or they were struck out of their senses. In the vernacular, it blew their minds. It blew them away.

That anybody could stand up there and say all of those things with such power, exousia, authority, such power, such dynamic. And not do it like the scribes. And how did the scribes do it? They just quoted other people. They were fallible and they stacked up a lot of other fallible people as their source.

Jesus just flat out said it. And it blew them away. They had never heard such wisdom. They had never seen such depth. They had never understood such scope. Every dimension of human life was touched in an economy of words that was breathtaking. They had never heard such deep insight into the law of God or the sin of man. They had never heard such fearful warnings about hell, hellfire, and judgment. They had never heard anybody who so confronted the religious leaders of the time.

They were utterly shocked that he didn't use anybody else as an authority but seemed to stand upon his own authority. And that's where it ends. They were shocked.

But that's not the way it ought to end for you. You should be more than shocked. More than amazed. You should be converted. That's what Jesus is after. They never heard anybody speak the truth like he did. They never heard anybody speak of divine matters with such clarity. I mean, they couldn't believe that a man would say he was the fulfillment of the law. That a man would say he was the determiner of righteousness. That a man would say he was the corrector of the scribes and Pharisees. They couldn't believe that a man would claim to be the way of life. That a man would claim to be God Jehovah. That a man would claim to be judge of all, the one who could come and make judgment on everybody. They couldn't believe that a man like this could say he was the king. And all they got was astonishment.

What's your response? Your eternal destiny depends on it. The hymn writer says, In every high and stormy gale my anchor holds within the veil. When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay. On Christ the solid rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand. Your life is either built on rock or sand, On disobedience or obedience, And therein is the only available verifier of the legitimacy of your faith. I pray to God that your faith is in Christ. So, do you know Christ, or are you self-deceived? John MacArthur has been helping you answer that crucial question in his current series on Grace to You, titled Salvation Survey.

Well, one more point to make here. If it were not possible to misunderstand the gospel and to be self-deceived about the reality of your faith and your salvation, then the Bible wouldn't provide such a careful test for evaluating your faith. I guess you could say, John, that self-deception is a reality that all of us should take as seriously as the Bible does.

Yeah, it's really well put, Phil. The Bible assumes self-deception is going to be a huge issue. Look, we're back in Matthew again, thinking about Matthew chapter 7.

This is the first sermon our Lord preached that's recorded in the New Testament in the Gospel of Matthew. You're five chapters in, and here comes this sermon, and it winds up with many saying, Lord, Lord, and he says, Depart from me, I never knew you, you workers of iniquity. You're not entering the kingdom of heaven, no matter what you think. So, this isn't something that's sort of down the list of things that concern the Lord. This is right out of the blocks in the New Testament. You're just slammed with the reality of false salvation, false hope, deception. This was a concern to our Lord. It was a concern all the way through his life and ministry, and it was picked up as well by the Apostle Paul, and it was a huge concern with the Apostle Paul to speak about the essence of genuine conversion and genuine transformation. So, the New Testament makes much of this reality. And again, as I said earlier this week, every time you go to the Lord's table, you're told to examine your spiritual life, because this deception can be so strong.

That's why we've been mentioning the book, Is It Real? It's a booklet that we will send free to anyone who requests a copy. And it basically comes to grips with this question, Is my salvation the real thing, or am I deceived? That's the heart of the booklet. It gives you 11 test questions to answer that will help you evaluate whether your salvation is the real thing. It includes some discovery and application questions, prayer, suggestions, and even an assignment. Again, the booklet, Is It Real? And we'll send it to anyone who asks.

And by the way, I recommend that you get this study we wrapped up today. It's called Salvation Survey. You can download the MP3s or get the two-CD album to put in the hands of people that you know and love. The CDs are reasonably priced.

Right, you can be wrong about a great many things, and it's no big deal. But salvation is not one of those things. The booklet, Is It Real? and John's audio series, Salvation Survey, can help you avoid the deadly error of being deceived about your salvation. To pick up your copies, contact us today.

Call toll-free 800-55-GRACE or go to gty.org. As John said, Is It Real? gives you 11 biblical tests that can help you know if you're truly saved. It's excellent reading for someone who is struggling with assurance.

And again, Is It Real? is our gift to you. All you have to do is request a copy. Just go to our website, gty.org, or call 800-55-GRACE. You can also pick up Salvation Survey. That's the study you heard part of today. When you call 800-55-GRACE or visit gty.org, the two-CD album is a great resource to put in a friend's hands.

It's reasonably priced, shipping is free, or you can download this study on MP3 free of charge at gty.org. In fact, all of John's sermons, that's 3,500 total messages, are available to download at no cost to you. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson, encouraging you to be here tomorrow as we break from our normal schedule to bring you a time of Bible questions and answers. Tune in and see if John answers a question that you have. It's sure to be a practical half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You.