Mike Bickle emphasizes the critical choice between the narrow and broad paths as Jesus concludes His Sermon on the Mount. He warns that many who profess loyalty to Christ may be following a distorted message that neglects the requirements of true discipleship, leading to spiritual destruction. Bickle highlights the importance of genuine obedience and relationship with Jesus, contrasting it with the false assurance of those who claim faith without true commitment. He calls believers to examine their lives and teachings, urging them to embrace the narrow way that leads to life, despite its challenges. Ultimately, he encourages a deep, loving relationship with God that reflects true faith and obedience.

Father, we come before you in the name of your glorious Son, and we ask you, Lord, to release the light of your countenance on our heart by the Holy Spirit. We love your Word. We ask you to teach us the Word, Holy Spirit, in Jesus' name, Amen. Well Jesus is concluding His most famous message, the Sermon on the Mount, in this passage. From chapter 7, Matthew 7, verse 13 to 27, He's bringing to conclusion what He's been saying throughout chapter 5 and chapter 6. Now this is a very sober declaration that He makes, that we do well to take time with this passage in our personal lives and to meditate on it. It's very weighty, very important. What Jesus is doing is He's defining two contrasting messages that are being proclaimed by the body of Christ across the world. I'm going to say that again. He's contrasting two messages that are both being proclaimed by believers, or proclaimed I'd rather say by people who profess their loyalty to Him. Some are not true believers, but they don't even know that. He says here, He begins this weighty exhortation, this contrasting these two messages here in verse 13. He says, Enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction. There are many who go that way. It's a very popular message is what He's saying. Verse 14, But go by the narrow gate, but know this, it's difficult, but it does lead to life. It has glorious results and consequences and promises, but it's not very popular. Only a few, a small percent of those that profess their loyalty to Jesus will actually go that way. Now, again, I want to emphasize, He's not comparing Christianity to an Eastern religion or to New Age. He's comparing two messages that are being proclaimed by people within the professed body of Christ. Now the true message, the one that He loves, is the message of the narrow way. The distorted message, the one that's most popular, is the message of the broad way. Now they're similar in this regard, both the broad and the narrow. They're similar in this way. They emphasize Jesus' promises of blessing. Both of them do that. But where they're opposite, and they're diametrically opposite, is that the narrow message proclaims the blessings and the requirements and the warnings. But the message, the distorted message of the broad way, only speaks the messages, only the promises, but neglects or even puts down the requirements and the warnings. Therefore it makes it a false message, though there is truth, and quoting Jesus' promises all the way through it. Now at this point in time, the broad message, the distorted one, is far more popular even within the body of Christ. Though I'm encouraged to say there are millions worldwide that are embracing the narrow message, the true message. There's millions in all the different streams in the body of Christ. There are people who are holding fast faithfully to the true Word of God, though there's a vast number, I mean hundreds of millions in the other camp, in my opinion. The Holy Spirit is raising up those that will be faithful witnesses of the true message. And again, we're talking about millions, not a small little group over here or a small little group over there. Let's look at paragraph B. Now let's look at the broad way, the broad road, as some translations say. Now many, again, that profess their loyalty to Jesus and their relationship with Him, they argue for the broad road. I mean they have energy, they've got a lot of arguments why there are not requirements and the warnings, well, they're technically there, but let's not focus on them. Now the broad message is very popular because there's few restrictions. There's room for everything on that road. There's all kinds of room for compromise, different views about morality, what's okay, what's not okay. It's a road of tolerance, permissiveness, very permissive. A lot of people applaud it. I mean people that say, in verse 22, they call Jesus Lord, Lord, and they are proclaiming this message. Paragraph C, the narrow way, again, it's similar because it preaches the promises as well, but it puts alongside the promises the requirements and the warnings because what Jesus is after is relationship with His people, that's what He's after. And there are requirements for that relationship to be cultivated and made strong. He's not after just forgiving people so they don't go to hell and they go to heaven, they get fire insurance. He doesn't want to be just a dispenser of blessings, a sort of heavenly Santa Claus where I'll get you out of hell and I'll make your life easier and I'll see you when you get to heaven. That's not what He's after. He's after a dynamic and deep and meaningful relationship and therefore there are requirements in the relationship so that relationship will grow. But the narrow road, only a few go. Again, I believe it's millions, but compared to a billion who confess the name of Jesus or more, some say two billion. It's hard to say for sure how they're counting. It is, it's a small percentage, but the road's narrow because it's restrictive. It says no to a lot of things. We have to leave certain things behind to walk on that road, therefore it's narrow. And Jesus said it's difficult. What He meant by it being difficult, it's difficult on our fleshly desires. We have desires in our fallenness that we want things that are contrary to making the relationship strong in love. We want things that are contrary to love according to God's definition of love. And He says no, I can't permit those into the relationship. Now the broad message is a cheap grace message. It's a distorted grace message. It promises forgiveness without repentance because it boils down to get free from your shame, get a ticket to heaven, but you don't have to repent because relationship with God right now isn't really the main point. It's really getting free from the shame of your failure. It promises easier circumstances and blessings and the Lord does bless us in circumstances, but that's not the core part of what the kingdom of God is. There's a relationship that He loves us with all of His heart and He calls us to love Him with all of our heart. That's what He's after right there. And yes, He forgives us unto that. And He does bless our circumstances this way and that way, but not always the way that we expect because He's so generous and He's so good, but He always keeps the focus on growing the relationship of love. He loves us with all of His heart. We are to love Him with all of our heart. That's what He's after. Partnership that lasts forever, begins at this age and lasts forever. So the cheap grace message is forgiveness and blessing, no repentance because no focus on a mature relationship in love. Paragraph D. Now Jesus is calling His servants to be faithful witnesses of this true message. It's a glorious message. I mean to connect with God, to obey God, to connect with His heart in that way. And that's the only context in which Jesus receives His inheritance from us. I mean the reward of His suffering is that the Father would be magnified above all and His people would be joined to Him in mature, perfect love. That's what He died for. That His supremacy would be declared and magnified in context of that relationship of love with His people. So it's very glorious. It leads to life and life includes all of those things I just said and more. But it's a very unpopular message, therefore there's a lot of opposition. And if you are true to the message, if you are a faithful witness to this message, you will be called a fanatic. You will be called extreme. People don't want to feel conviction for their sin. They don't like that. They want to feel comfortable in their compromise. They don't want to feel sorry for compromise. They want to feel comfortable in it. And if you are a witness of the truth, the true grace message, not the distorted one, it will make people uncomfortable in their lifestyles. And that's the point because we say no to wrong things that we could grow in love and in the right things. Now paragraph E, Jesus makes another statement about our relationship with Him. In chapter 7, verse 13 and 14, He says it's a hard and difficult road. But here in Matthew chapter 11, verse 30, He calls it an easy yoke. So which is it? Is it a difficult road or is it an easy yoke? It seems like there's contradiction. I assure you there's none. Both of them are true. Jesus says here in Matthew 11, Take my yoke upon you for I am lowly in heart. Lowly in heart, another translation says I'm meek or I'm humble. He says if you do that, if you yoke yourself to me and my meekness, to walk out meekness, which means walk out the sermon on the mouth, the eight beatitudes. He says your heart or your soul, you'll find rest. The burden will be lifted off your heart. It will be easy on your heart. Your spirit will be liberated and vibrant. Your heart. So it's difficult on our fleshly desires, but it's easy on a vibrancy of our heart and our heart being liberated. So it's true. It is difficult and it's easy both at the same time. One on our flesh and the other on our heart and our spiritual life. Roman numeral two. Now Jesus is continuing on the same theme. He's not changing subjects from Matthew 7, verse 13 to 27. He's on one continuous theme. And he's building the theme line upon line. Now the main promoters of the distorted message of the broad way, verse 15, are false prophets. He says here in verse 15, they come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they're ravenous wolves. You'll know them by their fruits. Then verse 20 again, you'll know them by their fruits. Now the idea of a false prophet or a false teacher is very similar in the New Testament. There are some distinctions you could make, but for today, for our purposes, a false prophet, a false teacher, it's somebody who is a messenger for God. At least that's what's in their mind. But they're giving a false message is the idea. Now don't have the idea that these false prophets have horns or that they're real mean. They don't have horns. Many of them are excellent communicators. They're very charming personalities, very convincing. And Jesus said, be warned because they will come to you in sheep's clothing. They will look like a born-again believer, and they in fact believe they are born-again believers. In verse 22, we find out more about them. They cry out on the last day, Lord, Lord. And he says, I don't even know you. And they say, what do you mean you don't know me? I've proclaimed you for years. I've had supernatural power in my ministry. He says that in verse 22 and 23. I'm getting ahead of myself. Not only do they come in sheep's clothing, they themselves are convinced they're of the flock of God. And Jesus said, beware because these are the main promoters of this distorted message. And the reason you need to be warned is because they will bring great harm to the body of Christ. It's not that they will be mean to the body of Christ. Every now and then we hear of somebody like a James Jones, where 800 people commit suicide. There are those examples in history. But most of these guys, they're not mean, hostile personalities. The way that they are destructive and dangerous is they convince the body of Christ to buy into the broad message, the broad road. And that actually brings their spiritual life into destruction. So they're very dangerous spiritually. They don't think they are, and the people receiving their ministry don't think they are. They think they're very popular, they're positive, they're fun, they're charming. Jesus says, you have to know this. They look one way when you see them, but inside they're ravenous wolves. And again, that doesn't mean that they're vicious and attacking. That means a wolf in this context is among the sheep in order to extract something from the sheep. That's the point. They are serving, and they have the dream of their heart. Inwardly, the dream of their heart, the thing that moves them is they want a crowd. And they want the benefits of the resources of that crowd. So they will say whatever they need to say to keep the people happy, and then the people provide from finances and a number of other ways as well their own personal self-indulgence of these false leaders. They have appetites that they want to be fed, and they're using their ministry to feed those personal appetites that aren't known publicly many times. Jesus said they're ravenous, they're hungry. They want to take something from the flock. They're not in it to bring the flock into deeper relationship of the first commandment in love with Jesus, and that dynamic relationship that begins at this age and goes to the age to come. Now what they do, their most destructive thing, besides they take things, from the flock in terms of the resources, etc., they convince the flock that the broad road, the broad message, is really the narrow one. They preach the broad one, but they call it the narrow one. They call it the uncompromising message, though it is in fact the broad message. And it produces a lifestyle of confidence and compromise. Because if we only speak Jesus' promises, but we don't speak Jesus' requirements for the relationship or the warnings, we end up with people confident to be loose in their lifestyle, and they're confident before God. They think things are great when in fact it's a disaster for them that they will find out when it's too late on the last day. It's very disastrous. Page 2, paragraph C. He says, now, how are you going to know them because they look like sheep? They claim to be born again. They talk the language of Jesus. Again, the positive promises, the few that they focus on. Mostly forgiveness without repenting, and circumstantial blessing and honor in this age. The truth is, most of Jesus' promises, not all of them by any means, are actually about glory in the age to come, but that's hardly ever mentioned, that dimension. And that's a significant omission when we talk about the promises of God. Because in a minute, we're all going to be on the other side. In a few years. And we're going to find out how glorious and how real those promises really are. I mean, they are amazing. Paragraph C, Jesus said you'll know them by their fruit. That's how we test a ministry or a leader in the body of Christ. By their fruit, by their words, and by their deeds. Now, their words are both public and private. The message they preach. Is it only the easy stuff, the promises, or is it the full message? Because quoting Jesus here and there, but not in the full context of what he's saying, produces, again, this confidence for a lifestyle of compromise, which is spiritually disastrous. To have confidence to live that way. To think things are well. So, we know them by their words, what they preach and what they say publicly and privately. But we also know them by their deeds. But most of their deeds, in the negative sense here, are done in private. And many times they're never known by the people. One here, one there, but Jesus says in time their deeds will be exposed. See the fruit of what they're doing. Now, we don't know them by their popularity. We don't know them by their charm or their glorious stories of the power of God in their life. We know them by fruit. That's how we know them. The reason I say that, some people think, if a guy's got a big TV ministry, he must be right. If he's got a lot of money, a lot of favor, a lot of charm, and a lot of stories, it must be right. We have to evaluate by the fruit of their words and deeds. Do their words line up with the message of Jesus? The whole message, not the piecemeal, not just the part that is satisfying to people who don't repent. Everybody wants free forgiveness without repentance. I mean, who doesn't want forgiveness without repentance and the promise of blessing no matter what you do? Well, there's another point I want to make here in paragraph C that's important, and I'm not going to go into a lot of detail on it, but we can't know a false person that has a, I mean, they profess to be walking with Jesus, but it's not truthful when it comes right down to it, though they, again, themselves do not know that it's not truthful. They think things are going great. We cannot evaluate them in a negative way based on somebody's discernment. What I mean is over the years, I've had many examples of this where someone will come to me and say, see that lady over there? The Lord showed me prophetically she's off. I go, okay, I appreciate that. Let's keep it between you and me. But what you're supposed to do with that now is go pray for that lady on a regular basis. If God gave you the discernment that they're off before the fruit is evident, that is a commission to pray for them. And more times than not, you should seek to be helpful to her to help her find the right way. But that's not really what they want. They want me or whatever leader, and I'm just talking about my own example. Let's set her down. Let's put her aside. Let's put restrictions on her. Let's put her in probation because God told me she's got a wrong spirit. And the answer is no, we can't do that. You can't put restrictions on people that you do put on people that are negative and proven it. You can't do that until the fruit is shown to be bad. You can't do it based on somebody's prophetic word. Probably a week doesn't go by where I don't get a note, an email, or a conversation where somebody in the body is telling me about somebody else in the body that's wrong, but there's no evidence, but they know in their spirit. And I don't have any doubt some of it's actually true. But I say no, until there's fruit, we can't move on it, but you can pray. That's a commission to pray. And you can invest in them and try to minister to them and see if you can be helpful to correct them of their error. Normally that's not what they want. They want them to be set down. Now the reason the Lord puts this restriction that you can't judge except for by fruit, that's to protect the body of Christ so that we don't end up with a culture of slander and accusation. Because if we could go by what everybody's discernment was against one another, it would just be the body of Christ would be a civil war continually. So the Lord says no, for the sake of love, you have to judge by fruit. Paragraph D, I'll say it again. It's my opinion that most false teachers don't know they're false teachers. That's why the problem is more serious and the people receiving from them don't know they're false teachers. You think, wow, this is alarming. It's supposed to be alarming. That's why it's in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is ending His most important sermon with this exhortation to get the right message and the right lifestyle that flows out of the right message. And it's only contrasting two major ones. Most folks are somewhere kind of leaning towards one with a little bit of the other still kind of in them. That's kind of when I look at it, that's kind of how it normally goes. Because these are two extreme positions of this extreme or radical faithfulness to the true message and lifestyle or radical compromise, a lot of folks are somewhere pointing one of those directions, but they're still in journey more times than not. Now the reason these false teachers don't know they're false teachers, they don't read the Bible enough to know the air. They get a couple of messages, a couple of verses to develop messages, and they hammer on those positive things, free forgiveness, no repentance, free blessing, nothing to do with it. And Jesus is like a heavenly Santa Claus raining in heaven to make our life happier on the earth. Now nobody just says it that way, that's what it comes down to. And they're so locked into it, the people are excited, the crowds are getting bigger, the applause is louder, let's keep going in that direction. And the Lord would say, wait, you're not even reading my Bible. Therefore you're not making clear the whole message, and I mean the whole message in the major of the mainstream major points is what I'm talking about. But again, paragraph E, there are millions of believers that are faithful, all over the world in different streams and denominations in the body of Christ, but the Bible does require us to identify false messages, false trends, that are injuring the body of Christ and they're hindering the love within the body of Christ. Paragraph 2, Jesus identified five of the seven churches and pointed out what was hindering their walk, therefore their love. And so it is an expression of love to identify the things that are false, but we want to address them with humility, with tenderness, with the knowledge that there's millions of people in many places that are doing it right, even though you might have insight on something that's wrong. Paragraph F, I have a couple of very simple points on how to avoid the false prophet. They're simple things, you could just read that on your own. Let's go to Roman numeral 3. Now Jesus is bringing it up a notch. He's moving from false prophets to false believers. He's shifting the application of the narrow and the broad road. At first He talked about false leaders, now He's talking about false believers. Both of them are expressions of the broad way, the wrong way, the distorted message and the distorted lifestyle. He says in verse 21, now this is a description that Jesus is giving of these people. He goes, not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but it's the one who does the will of My Father in heaven. So He's describing people that boldly, and no doubt with some admiration or seeming admiration, they with enthusiasm call Jesus Lord. They call Him Lord publicly, they call Him Lord privately, they preach on Him, they talk about Him. And the doubled phrase, Lord, Lord, denotes their verbal enthusiasm about Him. Very enthusiastic. They're fully associating with Jesus. This is not a false religion, an Eastern religion type thing. But He says they don't do the will of God. That in their heart, in their private life, they're not seeking a life of obedience to the Sermon on the Mount. They're caught up in the enthusiasm of who I am, but they're not personalizing it to where it has, they're enriching the relationship between them and the Lord is what He's talking about. Because obedience and love to Jesus are synonymous. He makes that point a number of times. Do you love Me? Do you obey Me? If you obey Me, you love Me. He's not looking just to command people and just get a workforce. He wants a relationship of mature love, and obedience and love are synonymous to Him. He says not only, verse 21, do they have verbal enthusiasm for Me, verse 22, they have supernatural ministry. They have evidences of the Spirit's power and the gifts of the Spirit in their ministry. He goes, this is not an isolated situation in a remote part of the world. This is a very common thing. Many of them, I mean it's millions, on the last day, that's when it's too late to make a change, they will say, wait a second, we boldly talked about you when we were on the earth. We called you Lord, Lord in private and public. Not only that, we prophesied your name. We cast out devils. We did many wonders. We healed the sick. Now again, this isn't a New Age movement. They're doing it in conscious association with Jesus and His words. Jesus will say the most terrifying and shocking words they will ever hear in their life in time or eternity. Nothing could possibly be more shocking or terrifying than these words to somebody who grew up in the ministry or in the church. Grew up in the church or they were even involved in full-time ministry. He'll say, depart from me. I don't know who you are. I never knew you. You are a worker of lawlessness. No, I'm a professor. I profess openly who you are. I'm a worker of miracles in your name. He says, really the truth is you're a worker of lawlessness. In the privacy of your heart, that's where you live. That's the dream of your heart. It's not to get free from sin, but to get away with sin. That's what you're after. Now, paragraph B, let's focus on this issue of obedience. Again, love and obedience are synonymous. The Bible's clear. Obedience does not earn us salvation. But it is the evidence of genuine faith. Obedience does not earn us salvation. But if you are saved, you will overflow in obedience. There will be an overflow. There will be fruit of obedience. It says in James chapter 2, if someone says he has real saving faith, but he doesn't have any works of obedience that follow his saving faith, James says, does that guy really have saving faith? No, that's a rhetorical question. He's deluded. That faith isn't real. He says faith by itself, if it does not have works of obedience, is dead. It's not even real. It's empty. It's dead. He's deluded. It's not saving faith. Now, we express our faith by works of obedience. Again, we don't earn our salvation by works, but we give evidence to our salvation. I want to read a couple more sentences here. To exalt works as that which earns God's love, that undermines the grace of God. Anyone that exalts works as a way to earn love, that undermines the whole message of the grace of God. But equally true, to exclude works undermines the message of the grace of God as well. It denies its empowering force and influence in our life. Salvation by works robs Jesus of His glory, but salvation that doesn't lead to works also robs Jesus of His glory. Let's look at the top of page 3. Well, these many, they profess their religion. Again, verbal enthusiasm. But they don't back it up with a lifestyle of obedience. Now, when I talk about obedience, it's important that I make this point. I'm talking about seeking to obey. I'm not talking about the measure of our maturity. I'm talking about the sincerity of our intention. And I believe that the testimony of Scripture distinguishes those two realities. That the sincerity of our intention is what we're talking about here. That in our private life, when we sin, we're grieved by it. It's not casual like, so what? It troubles us that we've come up short of the light that God has given us in that season of our life. And as we mature in the Lord, the light increases. I'm not talking about the measure of our maturity of our obedience, but the sincerity of the intention to obey. Because all of us, our obedience is weak, our obedience is flawed. And there's abundant grace for weak and flawed obedience. Or none of us would have a chance. But I'm talking about when we sin, we don't rationalize it and make light of it. But it grieves us, and we're troubled, and we're trying to find a way not to do it again. And we, in fact, may do it many more times, but not without sorrow and grief in our heart. Whereas many people that profess loyalty to Jesus when they sin, they're very comfortable and confident to continue to sin. They're not troubled at all by it. They just claim the grace of God. So it's important that we're talking about seeking to obey, and a sincerely seeking to obey in the privacy of our life. In our private life where no eyes are at, that's the measure of love. That's the relationship that Jesus is locked into. That's what salvation is about. It's about our relationship to Him in love and Him to us. Paragraph D. Well, these guys, some of them have spectacular results in their ministry. And they assume that their ministry is popular. I mean, miracles will always make your ministry popular. That it's powerful and popular. They're assuming that's sufficient to prove their genuine faith. And Jesus is saying no. The gifts of the Spirit or verbal enthusiasm, neither of them prove the genuineness of your faith. Now people ask, well, how could they move in the gifts of the Spirit and not have a genuine relationship with the Lord? And there's three or four different answers to this, different theories of what this means. But I don't want to go into that to digress at this time to give you a couple of those theories. Because that's not the point He's making. The point He's making is that verbal enthusiasm or evidences of power in your ministry are not sufficient evidence of a genuine relationship. A lot of folks are real interested in just power. And we want to see power because power is a part of the kingdom. But power, it's not power separated from a lifestyle seeking to obey the eight beatitudes. Because the eight beatitudes in chapter 5 is really the core part of the Sermon on the Mount. The rest of the sermon just elaborates on how to give expression to those eight beatitudes. Paragraph E, most shocking and terrifying words they'll ever hear. They're shocked. They are completely convinced. They're born again believers. They've been in the church for years. They've been in ministry for decades. Now they're standing before the Lord and He says, No, no, you were in, you were verbal and you were really focused on ministry, but you did not cultivate your heart with Me at all. That's not even what you were interested in. I don't even know you. I'm into that. That's what this is about. Paragraph F, He says you practice lawlessness. Now just like the false prophets, they don't have horns. They're normal people, many of them charming, good communicators that know Bible verses. They just don't know that many of the Bible verses. They know the positive stuff. Those who practice lawlessness don't have them in some category where they're mass murderers. That's not what we're talking about, although mass murderers are lawless. That's not the point. These are everyday people in life. That's the point of what Jesus is saying here. They simply embrace lifestyles of immorality, of drunkenness, of lying, of financial lack of integrity, and it did not trouble them that they stayed with it. And it isn't that the sin itself is what disqualified them when they stand before God. It's the fact that their relationship with God was not, they were not troubled in their heart doing that, which indicates their relationship with Jesus wasn't really real. If you get involved yourself in immorality and not repent and you're okay, I want to assure you your relationship with Jesus is possibly nonexistent, probably nonexistent, or possibly so weak you're just on the edges. I'm not saying if you stumble in immorality, but if it's okay for you to carry on in immorality as though the grace of God, that's okay. Jesus is saying, no, that's lawless. Declare war against it, stumble in it. Yes, we stumble in many things, but when we stumble, we're grieved and we declare war on it. We receive His forgiveness and we have the confidence of His pleasure in our relationship while we're going, growing. If we stumble again and again, we still have confidence of His pleasure because we're warring against it. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about people that said, well, you know, what about the grace of God? I can do some immorality anytime I want to, and the answer is absolutely not. 1 Corinthians 6, verse 9, Paul said, don't be deceived about this. Fornicators, adulterers, homosexuals, sodomites, thieves, covetous, drunkards, he throws revilers in there, extortioners. They will not inherit the kingdom no matter what they say about their supernatural ministry or what they say about their enthusiasm for Jesus. They will not inherit the kingdom. Somebody says, what's immorality? Immorality is all sexual activity outside the covenant of marriage between one man and one woman. I'm going to say that again. Immorality, from the biblical point of view, which is the accurate point of view, is any sexual activity outside of the covenant of marriage between one man and one woman. All the rest of it is immorality. And we can stumble in immorality, repent of it, be forgiven, and the Lord enjoy our relationship while we're growing, but we cannot camp out in immorality and claim grace. That's cold deception. But Paul adds a few more things. He goes, revilers. Like, what? Revilers are people that speak in a harsh and mean way towards other people. They're abusive. They're disgraceful in their speech. And a point, it's not that if you do that, you cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven, but if you do that and it doesn't trouble you, it's indicating that your relationship with Jesus isn't really real. I mean, we do these things, but we're troubled by them when we do them. And the Lord says, I can work with that. There's grace for that. But we're warring on them, extortionists. Those are people that are dishonest in financial dealings. They put spin on their deals where they present something one way that isn't truthful. And the world is called being clever and crafty. Paul says, I assure you, if you're okay doing that, you don't really have a relationship with Jesus that's going to hold up. It's not, again, the sin itself. It's the sin that is overtly committed without repentance is an indicator the relationship is not in place. Paragraph G. Just note the number of times where Jesus talks about many, meaning this is not an isolated problem or a remote problem over some far remote part of the world. This is a very common problem. Many will say that on the last day. Many go the broad way, embrace that distorted message. Many are deceived by false messengers. I mean, again, these false messengers, they quote Bible verses, they're charming, and they're great communicators. They don't have horns. They're winsome. They're convincing. They have huge crowds. And they're deceived by them. Roman numeral four. Now Jesus comes to the final four verses. Now he's coming to the crescendo of this final section, this verse 13 to 27. He's challenging the two messages that are in total opposition, though they're both similar in that they quote Jesus' promises. That's the only place they're similar. Two lifestyles that are diametrically opposed. Now he, in these last four verses, he's ending his most important sermon in the Bible. Sermon on the mount. And he's urgently calling them to obey the sermon on the mount. Because if we don't obey it in this life, when we stand before him, it will be too late, and there's no going back. And Jesus will never change his opinion about the things he said here. There will be no excuse. I was so enthusiastic about you verbally. I was operating in supernatural ministry. I preached on you for a long time. Now Jesus will say, I will never change the importance I have for obedience that characterizes our relationship in love as being the premier thing this is about. Nothing can substitute for consistent obedience. And what I mean by that, seeking to obey. Again, our obedience is flawed and it's weak. But the sincere seeking is what we're talking about. Paragraph B. Now Jesus contrasts two types of professing believers. These are two groups. Again, it's the same conversation. He's not changing the conversation. From verse 13 all the way to 27, he's talking two believers the whole time. Again, he's not comparing Christianity to an Eastern religion. He's talking about the two different approaches to Christianity in their extreme expressions. Again, a lot of folks are somewhere in the middle. I want to be faithful. I want to understand and push myself. I'm talking about really give myself is what I mean to say into being faithful to understand the message, to say the message, and to live the message. When I look back over the years, I want to be more faithful. I want to get it more clear than I have it now. I got a little bit of clarity. I need more. I want more follow through. I want more faithfulness. I want to press in. And the Lord says, if you have that heart, that's wisdom. That's good. That's a good way to preoccupy yourself. Now he talks paragraph C. This is my favorite part of the message. He goes, whoever hears these sayings of mine, and he does them. Again, he seeks to obey in his private life. We're talking about the Sermon on the Mount, particularly the eight Beatitudes, which are, again, elaborated on and expressed through the rest of the Matthew 5, 6, and 7. He goes, I compare this guy to a guy who has wisdom. And on the last day, he will actually declare the wisdom of your life if you do this. Can you imagine on the last day when you stand before Jesus? He says, you lived with wisdom on the earth. Wow! Verse 25, he goes, the authentic faith that you have will be manifest when storms come. See, when pressures come, he describes here in verse 25, this makes many people back away from the Sermon on the Mount relationship with Jesus. When the storm comes, they go, hey, wait a second, Jesus. I thought you were supposed to make my life easier, my circumstances happier. You're supposed to make me feel good. I feel horrible. The money's not coming. My body feels rotten. My ministry's nowhere. You know what? I'm changing in for another religion. But the man that's wise, or the woman that's built their life on the rock, which means these teachings, meaning they relate to Jesus according to these teachings. When the troubles come, instead of being offended and quitting, the troubles create a dynamic where they actually discover deficiencies in their relationship with Jesus and they repair them in this life before they stand before him in the age to come. Beloved, when troubles come, I mean the devil sends trouble, some of the troubles we cause in ourselves, there's a number of ways troubles come. But Jesus said the man with authentic love for me, the trouble will cause them to discover deficiencies in their love and they will correct them even in this age. That's called wisdom. Top of page 4. Now in earlier in the sermon initially, he used this phrase, he that does these things. He just got through saying the man that does these things is called wise, but he says something more earlier on in the sermon. Initially, Matthew chapter 5, 19, he says, if you do them and if you teach them, not only will you be called wise, we find that in chapter 7, you will be called great in my sight. Can you imagine, you stand before Jesus on the last day, he calls your life choices and your heart response to him great? I mean, imagine standing before Jesus and he calls your name and he says, wise, that's chapter 7, and chapter 5, great. You not only did it, but you defended, you promoted, you charged others to do this. Now I thought that doing the Sermon on the Mount was challenging, and it is, to our flesh. But some years ago I started teaching this, and I tell you, I get the shock of my life, there's so much opposition to this in the church I'm talking about. I go, oh, I get this if you teach it thing. That's heavy. If you'll take a step, many people in the body of Christ actually argue against the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount under the name of grace. They argue against hungering and thirsting for righteousness, and they say, well, Jesus did it all for me, he hungers for righteousness for me, or something. It's really goofed up. But goofed up, that's too minimal, it's serious deception. Jesus says, anybody can be great, unrelated to what you accomplish in this life, unrelated to how big your ministry is, it's how big your heart is, he will call you great. I mean, that is the most liberating thing I can imagine. If you teach it, now most of the teaching in the body of Christ is one-on-one. Most of the teaching is it publicly with a microphone. I believe the greatest disciples in the body of Christ today and all through history are moms training their children in their home. That's one of the most effective teaching ministries in all of church history, is moms in the home. So don't think you need a microphone to take a hold of this promise that if you will teach us, if you will defend these, if you will promote these, if you will not back down under the opposition of this lifestyle, Jesus says, I'll call you great. Paragraph F, he says, now the other guy that stood before the Lord that claimed Lord, Lord, under the pressure of the storm, he totally backed away. And his house fell, meaning he quit even pursuing the Lord. He got offended. He says, wait a second. You know, I thought you were a heavenly Santa Claus. You're supposed to forgive me, make me feel better and give me stuff. It's not working that way. I'm cashing you in for somebody else. That's really, in essence, what people do. And Jesus said, the genuineness of their faith, the lack of it, was exposed by the pressure. Now, the reason we want to have our faith tested, because when we stand before him, it's permanent. Whatever is true on that day can't be changed. Let's end in paragraph L. Just a question. What kind of message and what kind of lifestyle are you committed to? What will you stand for? What will you bear reproach for, even by other members of the body of Christ? The true message of the narrow and even the hard way, he called it, or the distorted message of the broad and the wide way. Which one? Because nobody can decide that for you. But I assure you this, Jesus will never, ever change his zeal about these things. Amen. Let's stand. I want to encourage you to have the worship team come up. These next few weeks are just, well, I mean the rest of your life, really. But since we're on this subject and we've gone through the whole Sermon on the Mount, to take it and review this stuff. It's not enough that you heard it and you've got to set your notes or talk about it a few times. You want to be able to teach this. You want to be able to live this in your private life. I mean, I'm contending to understand this better. I'm putting energy into it. I'm like, Lord, I've got to understand this better. I've got to do this better. I've got to say it better. I've got to present it more faithfully. And I believe that the Lord looks down on that and he says, those are good things to be contending for in your life. Let's pray. Father, we come before you, even now. We say that we want to be fully devoted disciples. We want to be fully devoted disciples. We want to be faithful witnesses. I'm going to ask the Holy Spirit just to highlight an area or two that he's been talking to you about in your private life. He says, I know you fail in it, but if you will repent of it, we can work on it together. And my joy and my pleasure will be with you. He's not telling you to clean your life up and come to him. He says, come broken, but just war against it and we'll be good together. I want to invite anybody that would like prayer along these lines, or you want prayer for anything else in your life. You just say, you know, my body's sick. I came here. I want someone to pray for me. I want to just open up the ministry area up here and have you come on up. And others of you, the Lord wants to talk to you for a few moments as well. So just stay connected. Say, Lord, how can I do this? Where am I going with this message? Lord, here I am. Lord, here I am. I'm yours. Lord, I want to love you with all of my heart. This is the message. I say yes to Lord. I will say this to individuals. I will teach these things. I'm going to invite others to come up and pray for folks, if you would. I'd like everyone to be praying for at least twice. Lord, I want to live before your eyes. I want to live before your gaze. Just keep me steady here for all my days. I want to live before your eyes. I want to live before your gaze. Just keep me steady here for all my days. I want to live before your eyes. I want to live before your eyes. I want to stay before your gaze. Just keep me steady, and I want to be found faithful. I want to be found steady. I want to be found faithful until the end. I want to be found faithful. I want to be found faithful, I want to be found steady, I want to be found faithful until the end. I want to be found faithful until the end, I want to be found faithful, I want to be found steady, I want to be found faithful until the end. I want to follow you, I want to love my day, I want to hear those words and you call me faithful. For I know that you're goodness, and I know that you're mercy. The days are good to do what I see you doing, With trees planted by the streams. I want to follow the lamb where I get mercy. I know you are following me with goodness and mercy, with goodness and mercy. I wonder who are following me with goodness and mercy, with goodness and mercy. I want to follow you, you are following me with goodness and mercy, with goodness and mercy. I want to follow you, oh you're following me with goodness and mercy, with goodness and mercy. I want to follow you, you are following me with goodness and mercy, with goodness and mercy. With goodness and mercy, and I want to be faithful until the end. To make it my aim to live holy, to be fully pleasing, to walk with God, to walk worthy of His calling. To make it my aim to live holy, this is my worship, this is my worship. And let it be said of me, well done, I'm a good and faithful servant. Let it be said of me, well done. Enter into the joy of your Father.