Introduction.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus speaks of «the narrow way» and asks his listeners to go through the narrow gate: Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide [is] the gate, and broad [is] the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in there at: Because strait [is] the gate, and narrow [is] the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. (Matthew 7:13-14). Here Jesus points out that if we do not follow the teachings of the Bible fully we will get into trouble. As humans, we tend to choose the path of least resistance when given a choice. An example; You are out for a walk in the forest. You come to a place where you have to choose between two paths. One road appears to be difficult to walk, with many nooks and crannies, roots and rocks lying in the path, the other looks like a highway. Both roads seem to lead you to your destination. Which path would you choose in this case? In 99 out of 100 cases, we humans would choose the road that looks like a freeway.
This is also the case in our life of faith. Every day we are faced with thousands of choices, estimated to be more than 35,000 choices every single day. Some are trivial, such as what kind of clothes we should wear, what we should eat and the like, while others are more significant and can ultimately determine where we will spend eternity. Jesus says that we should choose the road that is full of nooks and crannies, roots and stones that lie in the path, because this road leads to life, and ends this exhortation by saying that it is difficult to find it.
When Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount, there were people from all walks of life who were listeners, the Pharisees and the scribes were also represented.
In the next paragraph, Jesus gives a warning about who is to be trusted and who is not. The principle Jesus uses is the same in both passages, and here the same message is implicit in what Jesus says. It is still the same crowd that is present, and now Jesus warns against false teaching, and without saying it directly, Jesus compares the religious leaders with those who come in sheep’s clothing, thorns, thistles and corrupt trees, and the conclusion is that «false prophets shall be known by the fruits». Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither [can] a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them, (Matthew 7:15-20).
It is certainly not wrong to assume that there were many who understood what Jesus meant, and that He primarily addressed this message to the «ordinary» listeners, and that He compared the religious leaders to wolves in sheep’s clothing, thorns, thistles and corrupt trees.
The Sermon on the Mount ends with Matthew 7:28-29, where Jesus says: 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.
This was said to those who listened to the Sermon on the Mount, but it is at least as relevant today, as there are still many religious leaders who have introduced many unbiblical traditions and man-made laws and rules that they want the people to follow.
The power that has become the world’s religious leader wants to gather all people in the world under its umbrella, and to achieve this, ecumenical cooperation is a good tool for the papal power. When the individual denomination, the individual church or the individual member is put to the choice of following the ecumenical cooperation, this is the same as coming to the crossroads in the forest. If we choose wrongly and follow ecumenical cooperation, we choose the broad road.
One of the arguments that the Catholic Church uses to promote ecumenism can be found in what Jesus says in John 17:11: And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we [are].
It is beyond any doubt that we Christians should be one. We are to be one in Christ, and the way we are to gather and be one is found in Acts 1,14: These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren. All of these were the 11 disciples together with some women, Mary, and Jesus’ brothers, that is those who made up the first church, or the first congregation. In the Acts of the Apostles 2,1 we find this text: And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
As we see, the whole congregation of God was gathered in the same place, with one accord, and held together in prayer and invocation. Before the day of Pentecost in the year 31, according to tradition, there were only about 120 people who made up the first church. These were no more than they all could gather in the «upper room» mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles 1:13. In our time, God’s end-time church lives and resides in all countries and regions throughout the world, and consequently cannot be physically present in the same place, but spiritually we must be in the same place. We must also have the same mind which means having the same goal and meaning with our lives, which is to do God’s will. See also Isaiah 59:13: If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, [from] doing thy pleasure on my holy day (implicit in this is doing God’s will); and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking [thine own] words:
The papacy’s ecumenism lays down guidelines for the churches to gather around the few points of faith that are common to all the churches, and then they must ignore all points of faith that separate them from each other. A legitimate question then arises: How does this fit with a coherent mind, to be with one accord? It does not at all fit into a coherent mind as long as there is not full agreement, when crossing out what doesn’t fit. Or perhaps rather choose only what is edible – what is agreed upon – a form of cold table theology.
All Bible texts are from King James Version 1622/1769 unless otherwise stated.
Depart from me.
Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name? And then will I declare to them, I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness, (Matthew 7:21-23; English Standard Version).
This is a strange paragraph. Here Jesus says that not everyone who calls on His name will be saved. Is there a contradiction in relation to what is written in Joel 3:5; And it shall come to pass, [that] whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call. Luke quoted this verse when he wrote the Acts of the Apostles: Acts 2:21 And it shall come to pass, [that] whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved … // … and Paul when he wrote the letter to the Romans. Romans 10:13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Many people will argue that this is a contradiction, but then they do not take the Biblical context into account when they read these verses. The Biblical context tells us that we must obey God, keep God’s ten commandments and do His will in order to remain saved.
Now many will probably claim that this is not correct, and that it is an idea the Adventists have invented and refers to the thief on the cross and that Jesus told him that he should be allowed to go to heaven (see Luke 23,35-42) . It is true that the thief was saved, but he died on the cross without having the opportunity to show his faith in Jesus in the form of good works (works of love). This is also the case with thousands of people who accept Jesus as their saviour on their deathbed every year. These are also saved without proving their faith in the Saviour. But for all those people who live (for a time) after they have been saved, it is not enough to simply invoke the Lord’s name.
The people who call themselves Christians but who do not live by what God commands them through the Bible are the ones mentioned in Matthew 7:21-23. These are people who have not had their relationship with God in order. They call themselves Christians, they preach the gospel, they heal people, they cast out evil spirits and do other great miracles. With them one thing is missing. They have not fully surrendered to God.
A while ago a woman from Jehovah’s Witnesses approached me and wanted to chat. She asked me if I knew what would happen in the future, and I replied that I do, adding that the Bible says that the time ahead will only get worse and worse. To this, she said that there is hope for better times. I replied that the Bible also tells us this, and we have this blessed hope that Jesus will return and collect his faithful people sometime in the near future and added that this only applies to those who have everything right with God, such as keeping all of God’s ten commandments. Then she replied that the commandments were not required by law to be kept but they were given as recommendations. Imagine that. Then I asked her to go home and read the Bible and especially what is written about the commandments, Matthew 19:17; 2 Kings 17:13; Proverbs 4:4; John 14:15; 1 John 2:3-4; Revelation 12:17 and Revelation 14:12 to name a few verses. Then she became mute and left. As we can see, there are many who do not take God’s commandments seriously, but God himself spends a lot of time explaining to us the importance of keeping the commandments both in the old testament and in the new testament, and then it must be important that we comply what God says.
Many also say that there is no one who can keep God’s commandments. This is a lie that comes from Satan, for he accused God right from the very beginning being strict and rigid and had given commandments that were impossible to keep. My questions are simply these:
Why does God ask us to keep the commandments if it is impossible?
Is God playing with us when He says Keep the commandments?
Was Satan right when he accused God of being a tyrant?
Why does John, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, write this in Revelation 12:17: And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ, if it is impossible to keep the commandments? Or as in Revelation 14:12 where he writes Here is the patience of the saints: here [are] they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus, if it is not possible for us to keep all God’s commandments?
I leave it up to you to find the answers to these questions.
Before we go any further, there is a word we need to look at a little more closely, and that is the Greek word anomia. In the English Standard Version anomia is translated as lawlessness. This word has of course been changed in the most recent Bible translations. In Contemporary English Version they use evil people, in International Standard Version they use practice evil. This is wrong translations, and is a deliberate change, done on purpose, and the purpose is precisely to make it harmless to break God’s commandments. In other languages, for example in Norwegian, injustice is used.
To me, lawlessness and injustice are two very different things. Dealing with lawlessness is the same as breaking God’s law – those who deal with lawlessness therefore live without taking into account part of or all of God’s law, while those who commit injustice can, for example, make a difference between two people by paying one less than the other for exactly the same work. Then they commit injustice, and they are unjust, but this is not lawlessness. There is therefore a big difference between lawlessness and injustice, it is a sky wide difference. Doing wrong is a more vague term that does not describe lawlessness. Injustice describes favouritism, error, discrimination, partiality and the like. To engage in lawlessness is for me to break God’s law, and to put oneself above it: Lawlessness is without a doubt the strongest word for sin and injustice that we can find in the Bible. Lawlessness is something more than breaking the law. Lawlessness is the same as abrogating God’s law. All those who are considered lawless act just as if there were no laws, rules or norms. In practice, everything is then allowed.
In Matthew 7:21-23, Jesus deals with the lukewarm state many Christians find themselves in. Unfortunately, many are completely indifferent to how they live in relation to God’s ten commandments, despite the fact that they call themselves Christians. Most of Christendom are only «Christians when they are in the church». Then they are pious and have a high confession and they like to shout Lord, Lord louder than those they stand next to, but as soon as the service is over it is about getting out of God’s house and continuing with their worldly deeds.
What is Jesus really saying?
Let’s look at this and analyse the text bit by bit.
Matthew 7:21 (English Standard Version): Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
In this verse the words not and but are set up as a sharp contrast between the one who only preaches the word and the one who really does God’s will. A lofty confession is worthless in itself if it is not followed up. Anyone who claims to know God but still does not do His will is a liar, and the truth is not in him (see 1 John 2:4), regardless of whether there is anything to the contrary.
The one who does. By this is meant the one who carries out God’s will.
Matthew 7:22 (English Standard Version): On that day many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?
The form of the question in Greek, did we not prophesied in thy name, indicates that the speakers expect a positive answer. They preached in the name of Jesus, didn’t they? But they have forgotten that their form of worship of God is only apparent, and that it is based on human traditions and is therefore futile.
That they have cast out demons was probably the most difficult of all miracles. We see this from the text in Luke 10:17, where it says that even the devils are subject unto us through thy name.
Many mighty works. In this is also a current day deeds done in many denominations all over the world. The Bible is clear that being able to do powerful works does not necessarily come from God. In Egypt, Pharaoh’s sorcerers imitated the signs and wonders performed by Moses to make Pharaoh bow to God’s will. The signs and wonders the sorcerers did came from Satan. However, the greatest miracle is a life changed by the Holy Spirit. Those who claim to be prophets must be tried by the fruits they bear, and not by their alleged miracles.
In verse 22 it says: on that day. With on that day, Jesus points towards to the final judgment that he will carry out when he returns. We have many references to this judgment in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. The great question that arises for each of us is whether we are prepared to meet the ruler of the universe on that day! In Revelation 6:17 the question is asked: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?
In Malachi 3:2 it says: But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he [is] like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap.
Matthew 7:23 (English Standard Version): And then will I declare to them, I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.
According to the form of the Greek verb, this really means I have never recognized or been acquainted with you. This is proof that their teaching (preaching) and the miracles they have performed had not been done in the name of God. That they must depart from the Lord means the final and eternal separation from God.
Lawlessness comes from the Greek word anomia and describes a life without God’s law because they have refused to live their lives in accordance with the perfect pattern set by God’s Ten Commandments. 1 John 3:4 states that sin is lawlessness (anomia) and Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 2:7 that the mystery of lawlessness (anomia) doth already work in his time.
Paul writes in Romans 2:5 the following: But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;.
Does the Bible give us any answers as to who will stand on the great day of the Lord’s wrath, how we will be able to stand on that day?
Of course, we find answers to these questions, and they tell us pretty much the same thing about who these people are and what qualities they have. These are … which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ, (Revelation 12:17) … and they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus, (Revelation 14:12).
In Proverbs, God tells us through the wise Solomon: … Let thine heart retain my words: keep my commandments, and live, (4:4); Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye, (7:2); He that keepeth the commandment keepeth his own soul; [but] he that despiseth his ways shall die, (19:16).
In Leviticus 18:5 the Lord says: Keep my commands and my judgments, for a son of man who does them lives in them; I AM LORD JEHOVAH, (Aramaic Bible in Plain English).
In John, Jesus says: If ye love me, keep my commandments, (14:15).
In Matthew 19,17 Jesus says: … And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? [there is] none good but one, [that is], God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.
It is shown throughout the Bible that it is not enough to call on the Lord’s name. Confessing to Christ is not sufficient, something more than a high confession is needed to «find» the narrow way.
In other words, these two verses (21 and 22) contain a serious warning to us all. It does not help them to raise their voice and confess that Jesus is Lord if they engage in what the Bible calls anomia or lawlessness. It doesn’t matter how glowing they are with excitement. It is of no use if they are explained as lawless, that is, to be living without God’s law – God’s ten commandments. No matter if they perform miracles by casting out demons, and other powerful miracles in the name of Jesus, and no matter how much they prophesy in His name, this will be a waste.
What these people have done, and not done, will judge them on the last day. In 2 Kings 17:13 we find this text: Yet the LORD testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets, [and by] all the seers, saying, Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep my commandments [and] my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets.
But don’t all Christians keep all of God’s ten commandments and His regulations?
So far from it. Some keep all of God’s ten commandments, others keep up to 9 of God’s commandments, others again say that the commandments were nailed to the cross together with Jesus and argue that we live under grace not under the law.
What does the Bible say about this? The apostle of love, John, wrote his three letters more than 60 years after Jesus died on the cross. In 1 John 5:3 the apostle says this: For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous. Why does John point out that because of God’s love for us, we keep all of God’s ten commandments? Didn’t John know what had happened to the commandments, that Jesus took the commandments with him on the cross so that they are no longer valid, or is it the Christians of our time who do not know that the commandments are of eternal validity?
If we ask the Christians who claim that the commandments have been cancelled by Christ if it is okay to steal, kill or covet, the answer will be a loud and clear NO. Is this in harmony with their claim that Gods ten commandments no longer being valid? Of course not, this is an inconsistent and confusing position. However, there is a very special reason for this inconsistent and confusing attitude to God’s ten commandments, and that is that most Christians do not want to relate to the Sabbath commandment, God’s fourth commandment. This commandment lays down guidelines that the seventh day of the week – our Saturday – is the day God blessed and sanctified during creation, and this is something they will not accept, and therefore all means are used to avoid keeping the Sabbath holy as God wants us to do, including confusing themselves by claiming that the commandments have been abolished by Jesus, while at the same time they doubt up to nine of them.
In 2 Kings 18,12 we read this: Because they obeyed not the voice of the LORD their God, but transgressed his covenant, [and] all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded, and would not hear [them], nor do [them].
What is a covenant?
First, God has made many covenants with men. The first covenant we read about in the Bible is found in Genesis 6:18 when God makes a covenant with Noah and his family. But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons’ wives with thee.
A covenant is an agreement between two parties, such as between a man and a woman who get married. These two enter into a bilateral marriage pact. Then we have those covenants where God makes a one-sided covenant with people, as in Isaiah 56:6: Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the LORD, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant.
Now many will point the finger and claim that what Moses said to Israel does not apply to the Christians, and at the same time they doubt many of the ordinances Moses gave them through what we call the purity laws and ceremonial laws. They will also deny that God’s Sabbaths apply to all Christians in our time and claim that this was a day given explicitly to Israel at Sinai. But as we see in Isaiah 56:6, this also applies to the sons of the stranger, that is to say to all those who are not fleshly descendants of Abraham.
What was it that Moses commanded Israel?
We find this in Deuteronomy 30:1-2 where it says: And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call [them] to mind among all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath driven thee, And shalt return unto the LORD thy God, and shalt obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul … …
In other words, it is a condition that we repent of our evil deeds and listen to God’s voice in all that He commands us, which, among other things, involves keeping God’s ten commandments, all of God’s ten commandments, not just those that some people find good to abide.
Jeremiah addresses another general problem we Christians have; we tend to fall away from sound doctrine. If we do that, the prophet says in chapter 3 verse 7 the following: And I said after she had done all these [things], Turn thou unto me. But she returned not. And her treacherous sister Judah saw [it].
Here it is Israel, the ten-tribe kingdom or the Northern Kingdom the prophet is talking about, but as Abraham’s spiritual descendants it concerns us to the highest degree to this day. If we look closely at the text, it tells us that Israel did not repent, but fallen Israel committed adultery with false gods, which most of Christendom also does today. Despite the fact that Judah saw what happened to Israel, Israel was, as known, conquered by Assyria, and those who survived the war were taken into captivity beyond the Euphrates, Judah also managed to fall so deeply that God had to put an end to the apostasy by let Judah be conquered by Babylon about 100 years later, (verse 8).
I claim that the majority of today’s Christians, through their denominations, are no better than Israel and Judah were 2700 years ago. When Luther started the Reformation in 1517, this was a new beginning for God’s church on earth. The Catholic Church had fallen so deeply at that time that the whole world was shrouded in her darkness. Together with Luther, searching Christians began to find their way out of misery, and old truths were rediscovered. The Catholic Church could not stand this, and the Counter-Reformation was started with the aim of bringing the defectors back to the mother church. It was exactly 500 years to the day before the Reformation was «put to death» through ecumenical cooperation when virtually all the Reformed churches signed the document From Conflict to Community. Joint Lutheran-Catholic commemoration of the Reformation 2017. Report of the Lutheran-Roman Catholic Commission for Christian Unity. This document was penned by Catholics and only them, but the Lutheran-Protestant churches have accepted, approved and signed it, along with the Catholic Church.
This is as great an apostasy as the one Israel and Judah were guilty of 2,700 years ago. It also appears from the text in Jeremiah 3:7 that it is possible to turn around, and that God’s people who fall from the faith can return, but as the prophet Hosea says in chapter 11 verse 2, they would not listen to God and His prophets when He called them. [As] they called them, so they went from them: they sacrificed unto Baalim, and burned incense to graven images. In other words, they continued with their sins, which we can classify as habitual sins. A few questions then arise:
Do we have habitual sins, and what about them?
What have we made of our private gods?
What sins do we cherish and which we do not want to let go of?
When the majority of the Christian churches and their members are no better than Israel and Judah were at that time, can we expect God to be lenient with them? Is it any wonder that Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount: depart from me, you workers of lawlessness? (verse 23; English Standard Version).
How must we live our lives not to hear «Depart from me»?
The answer that the Bible gives is at least threefold.
We must keep all of God’s ten commandments.
We must keep all of God’s ten commandments as we find them in Exodus chapter 20 without compromising on what the commandments impose on us. It’s really funny that the only commandment that begins with «REMEMBER» is the commandment that everyone seems to want to forget. See what Jesus says in John 14:15: If ye love me, keep my commandments.
The works we do must be done in love for the Savior, Jesus Christ.
These must be genuine acts of love that spring from a desire to do something for the people who are struggling. See what Jesus says in Isaiah 58:7: [Is it] not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?
We must unreservedly confess our faith in Jesus.
We must tell others what He has done for us when He died on the cross. We must use every opportunity we get to preach the gospel of salvation. See what Jesus says in Luke 12:8: Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God.
During the three and a half years that the disciples were with Jesus, He taught them the importance of keeping the commandments, preaching the gospel and doing good works that come as a result of salvation, and this together developed into an eternal and strong faith in the disciples which manifested after the day of Pentecost when they were transformed from a group of fearful people into the bold and fearless apostles they became.
Now many will claim that good works cannot save us, but that such works are necessary we find support for in the Bible. Jesus himself points this out in Matthew 25:31-46, where the essence of the passage says: Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did [it] not to one of the least of these, ye did [it] not to me.
It is, as we see, an absolute necessity to do good deeds. In Isaiah 58,13-14, God says through the prophet: If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath (which is to abstain from work), [from] doing thy pleasure on my holy day (here it is implicit that we shall do God’s will on the Sabbath) and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking [thine own] words (which means we must guard how we speak), Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken [it] (then we will live our lives according to God’s will and please Him).
How should we live our lives so that Jesus will not tell us that He has never known us?
I would like to highlight seven principles:
1) We must follow Jesus because He is the only way to salvation.
Although the Catholic Church claims that only this Church can give people salvation, this is not the case. The Catholic Church says that the seven sacraments administered by the Church are necessary for salvation. In the Bible we read in John 10:9: I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture, (see also John 11:25; John 14:6; Ephesians 2:18 and 1 John 5:12). The Bible is therefore clear that salvation is only attainable through Jesus Christ, and here the fallen churches are on a collision course with God’s word.
2) We must remember that our words and actions flow from the love we have for Jesus.
We must be careful what we speak so that it does not become a shame for us. We should always try to honor God with our speech. We know from the Bible that the tongue is said to be a problem for us. In James 3:8 we read: But the tongue can no man tame; [it is] an unruly evil, full of deadly poison, (see also 1 Corinthians 14:9; James 3:5 and James 3:6). If we do not think about what we say to our neighbour, this can cause major problems for the person we are talking to and for us.
3) We must always be obedient to God’s word.
Throughout the Bible, God tells people to «keep My commandments«. The first time God says this to humans is on the sixth day during creation, when God had created man: And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die, (Genesis 2:16-17). Later, God repeated this time after time, but we humans have an inherent urge to rebel against God. That is why God repeats this throughout the Bible, and He uses the following expression:
Keep My commandments: (2 Kings 17:13; Proverbs 4:4; John 14:15).
Keep the commandments: (Matthew 19:17)
My commandments: (Genesis 26,5; Exodus 16,28; 20,6; Leviticus 22,31; 26,3; < Leviticus 26,15>; Numbers 15,40; Deuteronomy 5,10; 5:29; 11:34; 1 Kings 6,12; 9,6; 11,34; 11,38; 14,8; 2 Kings 17,13; 2 Chronicles 7:19; Nehemiah 1,9; Psalm 89:32; Proverbs 2,1; 3,1; 4,4; 7,1; 7:2; <Isaiah 48:18>; [John 14,15]; John 14,21; 15,10).
These verses are just an excerpt of all the verses that ask us to keep God’s commandments, or God’s law. We also see that God throughout the Bible asks us to keep His commandments. Also in the other books in the New Testament that are not mentioned we find verses that ask us to keep the commandments/law.
4) We must realize that evil behaviour originates in the heart.
The first time we see this described in the Bible is in Exodus 9:7. It says: And Pharaoh sent, and, behold, there was not one of the cattle of the Israelites dead. And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people go (see also Exodus 14:5; Hebrews 3:10). We see that when our intentions are not in accordance with God’s plan for us, this is something that springs from the heart. It is not only pagans who can harden their hearts as Pharaoh did in Exodus 9:7. God’s own people can also find themselves in this situation, as for example Nahum 9:16 describes. See also Ezekiel chapter 8, which is called «The vision in the temple«. Here it is the congregation’s leaders who turn their backs on God and harden their hearts and worship the sun god.
5) We must understand that the authority of God’s kingdom and the authority of the world community are often opposites.
In Mark 12:17, Jesus puts this problem on the agenda when He says: And Jesus answered and said to them: And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. And they marvelled at him. With this verse, Jesus makes a clear distinction between the kingdom of God and world society. In our time, we are about to enter a totalitarian society where freedom of expression is crumbling away. It is claimed that we have full freedom of expression, but that only applies to those who are politically correct. If you are not politically correct, you will at best be silent to death. There are many who have lost their jobs and had their lives destroyed because they have not allowed themselves to be dictated by what the politically correct mainstream leaders want us to think. This is in stark contrast to how God rules his kingdom. The Bible says the following about freedom: But whoever looks into the perfect law, the law of freedom, and continues with it and does not become a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the deed, he will be blessed in all that he does, (James 1:25). In John 8:32 the apostle says: And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Who is the truth? It is Jesus, something He says himself in John 14:6. If we stick to Jesus, who is the truth, we will be set free from all our worldly problems, we will be set free from our slavery, and what we previously considered freedom we will see was unfreedom and coercion. I myself have experienced this transformation in Jesus.
6) We must realize that people’s actions can in most cases be a better indicator of personal motives than what one says or expresses.
If we go out and do good deeds, this may be due to selfishness on our part. Our motives are not always noble when we help others. It could be thought that we have an ulterior motive with what we do. We may want to be seen when we do good deeds, we may want to be honoured by people because we extend a helping hand, sometimes we touch an object around the wrist or on the clothes we wear to show that we have supported someone charitable organization with money. Yes, there are many different options that can be selfish that underlie what we do. Jesus also says something in this connection, and although He says this explicitly to the scribes and Pharisees, this also applies to us in our time. Let’s look at what Jesus says in Matthew 23:
Verse 13: But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in [yourselves], neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.
This verse alludes to all the rules and regulations that were supposed to regulate the daily life of God’s people, but which made it more difficult to keep God’s commandments. In Luke 11:52 we read: Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.
Verse 14: Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.
Here Jesus criticizes the way the religious leaders treated widows, by usurping what little these widows had. In addition, the religious leaders loved to show the congregation that they were pious by reciting long rehearsed prayers when there were many people around. Paul says in Romans 2:21 the following: Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal?
Verse 15: Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! For you travel both by sea and land to win a successor, and when he is won, you make him a child of hell, twice worse than yourselves.
Here Jesus says that the religious leaders did not go out of their way to make an effort to gain followers. After all, they were teachers in the form of being scribes, and also liked that the man in the street called them «rabbi», which means lord or master. It is not wrong to be called Rabbi in itself, Jesus was also called Rabbi, and He had many followers. But the difference between Jesus and the scribes was that Jesus led his followers on the right path, while the scribes led their followers away from God. In Mark 7:6 Jesus says the following about this: He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with [their] lips, but their heart is far from me.
Verse 23: Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! For you pay tithes of peppermint, anise and caraway, but have neglected that which weighs more heavily in the law: justice, mercy and faith. It is absolutely necessary that this be done, without the others being neglected.
Now the law states that we must pay tithe, it is not the tithe in itself that is the problem. In 1 Samuel’s book 15,22 the prophet says: … Hath the LORD [as great] delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey [is] better than sacrifice, [and] to hearken than the fat of rams. Sacrifices without a humble heart have no value to God. The best offering we can give to God is a humble heart, but He did not find that in the religious leaders. Both are necessary, but all types of sacrifice are worthless if obedience to God is absent. Therefore the Lord says: … Forasmuch as this people draw near [me] with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:, (Isaiah 29,13).
Verse 24: Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and devour the camel!
Here Jesus criticizes the scribes and Pharisees for being meticulous in carrying out the small and insignificant things the law imposes on the church, while they completely ignore the big and important things. Strain out the gnat alludes to the fact that the Jews used to strain the wine so that nothing impure would enter the body, and that they devour the camel is well inserted as a contrast to the gnat that they are straining away to illustrate that great matters do not was watched with equal eagerness. In Matthew 5:20, which is part of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says to his listeners: For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed [the righteousness] of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.. This applies to us as much as it did to the Jews in Jesus’ time.
Verse 25: Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! For you clean the outside of cups and dishes, but inside they are full of rapacity and sick of pleasure. Verse 27: Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs that may look beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.
The religious leaders made the cleansing of the exterior a big deal. In the story of the Good Samaritan, it is the priest who cannot help the poor man who is lying half-dead on the ground because he could become religiously unclean by touching him (Luke 10:25-37). They were very careful about this, but they were not interested in doing a daily cleansing of the heart. How the religious leaders operated and treated other people is clearly visible in Acts 23:3 where Paul is standing before the high priest Ananias and the Council to be judged. He says: … God shall smite thee, [thou] whited wall: for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law?
7) We must not judge ourselves and our progress by human standards. Remember that popularity and human favour do not necessarily mean that God approves of a situation.
It is probably very easy to be dazzled by human praise and bragging, and by others talking nicely about us. But is there really anything to stand for in human praise? According to Jesus, such praise is not worth anything. Jesus says in Matthew 23:5-7: But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments, And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.. By taking in people’s praise and bragging and letting this go to our heads, this is the same as hoarding up treasures on earth. The deeds we do and for which we are praised are in many cases only eye favours and will not be recorded in the heavenly annals. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says that we should store up treasures in heaven, which is the same as doing works to please God. These are deeds that spring from pure and genuine love for God and our neighbour. These are the deeds we have not planned before we do them, and which we do not think about doing. That is the essence of the message Jesus gives us in the parable of the «The Judgement», which we find in Matthew 25:31-46. In verses 37-39 we read: Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed [thee]? or thirsty, and gave [thee] drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took [thee] in? or naked, and clothed [thee]? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
These questions clearly show that the righteous are not aware of the deeds they have done. This is truly laying up treasures in heaven. In verse 44 we read the opposite of the righteous: Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? It is obvious that this group has done many and certainly great deeds, but He who knows us better than we know ourselves can read our innermost thoughts and see where our hearts are. These must be deeds done to gain recognition, praise and good publicity from the people of the world. In Mark 7:6-7 Jesus says this to the scribes and Pharisees: … Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with [their] lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching [for] doctrines the commandments of men.
These three verses in Matthew 7:21-23 are so absolutely relevant in our day. A common denominator for all the fallen churches is that they are not very careful about keeping God’s ten commandments. The fallen churches that were once faithful to God and followed the Reformation have now cast off Luther’s teachings and run back to the mother church, the Catholic Church, and instead keep the Pope’s Ten Commandments which have been dramatically changed by omitting the second commandment, completely destroyed the fourth commandment where the papacy has removed almost all the text and is left with the following: remember that you keep the Sabbath holy. It must also be added that when the second commandment was removed, the third commandment became the second, the fourth commandment became the third, etc.
The tenth commandment is divided in two so that the pope’s commandment will also contain ten commandments. In addition, the fallen churches have adopted all the new things that have come from Rome, and made the environmental struggle a religious issue, and have completely submitted to the Pope’s ten commandments for the environment that were raised and exalted at Sinai in November 2022. Heads of state from almost all the world’s countries were gathered here in Egypt under the leadership of Pope Francis and UN Secretary-General António Guterres. The purpose of this gathering, COP 27, was to introduce the «Ten Commandments for the Environment«. As we see, the papacy does not give up its attempt to pulverize God’s law. This could be one of the alternative packaging’s a Sunday law can get, because a restriction on the use of cars through a car ban y closed shops and other businesses on Sundays will be included in the «environmental commandments».
When denominations, individual congregations and individual members quite obviously go against God’s commandments, one cannot expect that God will recognize these people in judgment. They have distanced themselves from God. God’s desire for man is that everyone turns from their evil ways and turns to God, repents their sins and begins to live according to God’s law. According to Matthew 7:23, they practice lawlessness, and this is the reason why God says, «I never knew you”.
This principle applies to all areas where we approach God’s ordinances in a way which is not in accordance with God’s law. if you want to play handball, you don’t join a football club and demand to catch the ball with your hands. You wouldn’t be allowed to do that, because they have laws and rules that must be followed and that cannot be broken. This is also the case in the kingdom of God. God’s ten commandments apply as they are reproduced in Exodus chapter 20. If you make adaptations to the commandments, you also break the commandments, and thereby you engage in lawlessness. Take, for example, the fourth commandment, the Sabbath commandment. Many Christians say we do not know which day of the week is the seventh, but still they say that Sunday is the seventh day of the week, and they think are keeping God’s commandments by keeping Sunday «holy». We know with 100% certainty that our Saturday is the seventh day of the week, despite our almanacs and calendars placing Sunday as the seventh day of the week. Up until and the 31 December 1972, Saturday was always placed as the seventh day of the week, but this was changed on 1 January 1973 across large parts of the world.
The question is, after all, who can sanctify something. Can you and I sanctify anything or is it God who by his presence can make a day holy. During creation, God blessed the seventh day, our Saturday, and sanctified it (Genesis 2:2), because God himself is especially present on this day to bless all those who respect all God’s ten commandments.
I gave them my laws and teachings, so they would know how to live right. And I commanded them to respect the Sabbath as a way of showing that they were holy and belonged to me, (Ezekiel 20:11-12; Contemporary English Version).
The conclusion must be: Keep the commandments, as God has given them in the Bible, then you will enter into life, (Matthew 19:17).