Following the Wrong Jesus

There is a path of discipleship that the Christ of the Bible has laid out for all who follow him, but I fear many today tread a different path of religion, following a different Jesus than the one found in my Bible. They have convinced themselves that their brand of Christianity is all right in God's sight, and that God has done away with the demands of discipleship by doing away with his commands. And these deceived religionists have convinced themselves that there is no longer a cause to be considered, nor a cross to be taken up in following Christ, but their brand of religion exists mainly in their own fallible interpretation and their own love of their sins and preservation of self.

Because these religionists travel in large herds, they put their security in their numbers, for they mistakenly believe that there is strength in numbers. I guess they never read the story of Gideon's 300. What has taken place today, friends, in many of our churches are popular religious movements that place self at the center of Christianity, and self-gratification has replaced the cross of discipleship.

Liberty and grace are the new catchwords for a license for licentious living, where self rules on the throne of the heart because God is more accommodating today in regard to what we used to call sin. But this contradiction of scripture can only make progress when the church has moved away from the holy God of the Bible, and many have fallen into deep spiritual declensions that are so gross and misleading they make the angels blush and the seraphims to take their wings and cover their face at the sad spectacle that is the modern church. Many, I say unto you, friends, are adhering to a gospel not found in my Bible, living for a God that only exists in their own imagination, and following the wrong Jesus on a broad road of deception and destruction.

The title of my message today, friends, is Following the Wrong Jesus, and my text can be found in the Gospel of Luke in chapter 14. You can turn in your friends. We will be in verses 25 through 27.

And let me read you, friends, what Jesus has to say about following him along the narrow way in a life of discipleship that has both a cost and a cross. And it is my prayer that the Spirit of the Lord will attend the reading of his holy word and bring conviction and change. Here now is the word of God, and there went great multitudes with him, and he turned and said unto them, If any man come to me, and hate not his father and his mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. I will pause here, friends. Jesus just disqualified most of the church membership today from going to heaven.

Our trouble is we have our Bible as a rule of life, but we want Jesus without his rule over our life. So we compromise and say, God isn't like that anymore, and that's not for our day. Listen to me, friends.

Don't let some deceived false shepherd sell you his gods. They are idols of self. They'll be burned up at the judgment.

I visited a church where the blue-jeaned, t-shirt-wearing pastor had his Bible class meet in a cigar lounge where all the men of the church smoked cigars. This particular pastor quoted popular religious heretics throughout his message, and even though he was a graduate of a conservative Baptist seminary, he promoted loose living and preached a broad way of salvation, and a gospel that had no blood in it, and a Christianity that had no cross in it. He kept saying his favorite pastime was to watch Keepin' Up with the Kardashians.

And the young man who was his assistant, who led the opening prayer each Sunday, never took off his ball cap to pray. Their brand of Christianity had no reverence for God, and no fear of God, because their God was not the God of the Bible. Now I have a fight on my hands with that one.

A lot of religious people who claim to have liberty will come after me for saying that. But listen to me, friends. If you're in a church where sin is not preached against, and holiness is not promoted, and repentance is never mentioned, and hell is a forgotten word, then run for the doors.

It doesn't matter what their theology is if their lives don't mirror the Lord Jesus. I want you to hear a voice from years past when preachers weren't afraid of men, and preachers of old still knew the gospel as it's found in my Bible. I believe with all my heart that if a man like Rolf Barnard could come back today and take a look at the church, and see the spiritual ruins of what we call church and Christianity today, he would rebuke the entire lot of us.

I want to read you a sermon extract from one of Barnard's sermons called The Narrow Way, for I feel I can't preach it any better than Rolf Barnard as to a word to the church of our day. Listen to his words, friends, and see how far we have removed ourselves from what true Christianity is, and how doomed we are as a church and nation if we don't return to the Christ of the Bible. Here now are the words of Rolf Barnard.

Multitudes had rather be a nice little church member than to be a real Christian. The broad way is pleasant, for according to what they call salvation now, you can have this world and the next one too. But according to our Lord Jesus, you have to make a choice.

You have to die to this world to get to the other one. If you have all of this, you will have to go to hell. You have to say goodbye to all of this if you would have heaven.

The broad way is easy. Anybody can walk it. All you have to do is make a profession of faith, join the church, put a little money in the plate every once in a while, and live to please your sinful flesh.

And the preacher will preach you into heaven at the funeral while you are in hell. The narrow way is hard, but it must be traveled. Jesus said, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

There is no such thing as God failing to bring Christian perfection to everybody he saves. The evidence that you are a Christian is that you walk in this narrow way. Some people say, I am a Christian, but I'm not living for the Lord.

That is not true. According to the Bible, people like that are sincere, but they are deceived. Salvation is to be joined to a living Lord.

You can't walk with a living Lord without living for him. And if you are not walking with him, you don't know him. I will stop there, friends.

I don't think we know what biblical Christianity is anymore because we are so far removed from it and the God of the Bible. We pattern our churches after popular man-centered movements that catch on, that scratch or itch, and we get us pastors who don't disturb our conscience or pastor our little idols. Listen to me, friends.

Popular religious movements come and go like the wind. Eternity is forever. Don't let a false shepherd lead you down the wrong path of religion in following the wrong Jesus along a broad road that leads to hell and destruction.

Get to Christ savingly and live under his rule as Lord of your daily life. Let us return to him. Let us pray.