Tangled Web Perilous Path

Many men lay in danger of damnation and hell and live unaware of this danger because they are tangled in a web of self-deceit and that travel a perilous path to destruction. Some believe there is no life after death, that when you die all is just a blank void. Some believe in a false god of only mercy who would never send them to hell and judgment.

Others believe that their good works will outweigh their bad and this in itself will gain them heaven. Some rest on rotten plankboards of an empty religious profession which is ready to give way at any moment. There are many byways that give men a false hope of heaven but do not lead to heaven's shore.

The horde is very deceitful and many are self-deceived, believing they can have a surety of heaven when it is certain if they continue in their natural condition they will just go down to hell. Many are baptized individuals who dutifully attend church and serve there faithfully but live tangled in a web of self-deceit and this web must be unraveled before them, before they can see the badness of their heart and be brought off these false byways of carnal security. The title of my message today, friends, is Tangled Web, Perilous Path, which I fear many travel upon.

I want to bring before you several truths today, friends, in regard to unraveling these webs of deceit and uncovering these byways which lead many astray, for few possess genuine saving faith. God demands perfection to get into His holy heaven, and no man is perfect, Jesus said, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. The bar is set high, the reality is, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Men lie in a false opinion of their safety, as they're tangled in webs of deceit, and men must be brought out to safety by showing them their danger. There are certain truths that a preacher of the gospel can bring before his hearers to pull them out of their jeopardy. The terror of the law must be made to ring in their ears.

The law must be held up as the standard which God will judge men by, that every mother's son will one day be held up against that strict and severe law of God. And if you stand there in your own merits, friend, you will fail that test. You must stand in the merits of another.

The law must speak terror to the conscience of sinners and awaken them to their great peril and show them the dreadful miseries they are in danger of. They must see their own guilt and feel the dread of the sentence upon them, for that just judge must carry out the sentencing of the law upon all guilty lawbreakers. God declares, for I will by no means clear the guilty.

Sinners must see the terribleness of damnation and their certain ruin, and they must hear that the law is strict, as Jesus declared in Matthew 5, 18. Not one jot or tittle shall pass from the law, but all shall be fulfilled. They must hear how severe the law and how hard it is, the strictness and severity of it.

They must be shaken off of these byways to make a way for men to come to Christ. Galatians 3, 24 declares, the law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. Men must be made to see they are justly damned for breaking God's law, that they deserve hell for their treason against a sovereign.

They must be made to see their utter certainty of their ruin, if they remain in that natural condition. Job declares the badness of the heart, that man drinks iniquity like water. He is totally depraved with a bent toward sin, an inherent hatred of all things holy.

Jeremiah declares the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it? And there is the danger, friends. The web that tangles men up in false security is the human heart.

Self-love and human pride aren't self-righteousness, or byways of false hopes that men rest upon, but their hope of heaven is only a hole in the wall. These bypass to hell are like a siren song across the sea that steers many ships off course and into the reefs of destruction. These false hopes are merely a refuge of lies.

Men decide to make themselves a Christian because, I fear, many today have taken salvation out of the hands of God and placed it in the hands of men. We must ask ourselves, are we saved by merely making a decision? Or are we saved by the work of the Holy Spirit upon the heart and regeneration? Many lie in this tangled web of deceit and rest upon rotten plankboards and take Church membership for salvation. Sinners must be pulled out and brought to safety.

They must see that Jesus is the only way. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me.

Well, let's take a look at these byways, friends, as we continue. Many will say to me, 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. Then I will profess unto them, I never knew you, depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Jesus distinguishes between a false convert and a true follower of him. And then he goes on to say that a true follower, that his words would be the rule of their life, for mere professors just built upon sand. Therefore, whoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock.

Then Jesus talks about how that person's life would be tested. 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.

Listen, friends, that rock is Jesus. All others are false foundations. Listen, friend, you are not a sinner because you sin, rather you sin because you are a big sinner.

I know I am a sinner, and I need a substitute for sin in the person of Jesus Christ. And so do you, friend, so do you. You must get to Christ, friend, if you want to pass mustard on that day of testing and review.

You must get Christ's robe of righteousness, and you must get under his blood, for Jesus is the pearl of great price. He's worth selling off for and losing off for to gain him. Christ is the only refuge and remedy for sin.

You must get to him before it's too late. Let us pray.