Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter (2)

Albert N. Martin

We will be taking up one of those texts that I have gathered together under the title of “Simple Signposts to the Celestial City.” Texts which highlight fundamental gospel truths; texts which point us to the way of life and salvation in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Our signpost will be taken from a section of Matthew’s Gospel somewhere between Matthew 7:13 and the end of the chapter. If in your mind you thought that the signpost would be comprised of the words of verse 21, you made the right guess. For the simple signposts to the celestial city—to which I direct your attention—is the Word of our Lord Jesus in verse 21, “Not everyone that says unto me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven.” Who’s going to Heaven? Jesus said in this simple contrast, “Not those who simply say, ‘Lord, Lord,’” who by one means or another have claimed an attachment to Jesus Christ in faith and love, but those whose claim is expressed in doing the will of the Father who is in Heaven. The beginning place of doing the will of the Father is coming as a helpless, hell-deserving, undone, needy sinner who owns his sin, turns from it, and throws himself into the arms of the compassionate and an almighty Saviour who alone can do sinners good.

But, my friends, hear me, as clearly as the Bible says that’s how you begin to do the will of the Father, if that professed casting of yourself upon Christ is real, it will never stop there. It will expand into a heart response to the Father’s call given through the Lord Jesus to a life of universal obedience to the revealed will of God. This is why Jesus can go right on in this context after saying, “Not everyone who says, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom, but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven.” Verse 24, “Everyone therefore who hears these words of mine and doeth them.” For, you see, it is in the words of Jesus that the will of the Father in Heaven is made known unto us, and Jesus made it abundantly clear in every call to discipleship that if our attachment to Him is real, it will be expressed in these simple words: following Him. “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.”

He describes His sheep in John chapter 10. Here I would ask you to turn to the text with me, to see these very clear words. Who are those for whom the Saviour sheds His blood whom He joyfully owns as His flock of sheep with all of their ignorance and vulnerability and stupidity and periodic waywardness, with all of the nettles and the burrs of the remaining sins stuck to the wool of their existence? Yet, He owns them. How does He describe them? Look at John 10:27. “My sheep are hearing, [present tense verb], they are hearing my voice, and I know them, and they are following me; and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand.” Oh, but a place of safety is here described for His sheep. Known by Him, preserved and protected by Him, but my friend, listen, there are two indispensable marks of all these sheep. From the weakest to the strongest, the youngest to the oldest, the most inexperienced to the most seasoned of them, these are the two marks of all of these sheep, look at them: “My sheep are hearing my voice.”

That hearing does not mean that they simply allow my voice to fall on the outer vestibule of the ear, it means they hear with a view to receiving all that I say, because he then goes on to say, “And they are following me. My voice that called them when they were still burdened and bowed down and bent over with the load of unforgiven sin, and my voice came to them in the gospel, ‘Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.’ My Spirit that enabled them to respond to that call has given them a new heart. My Spirit now has put My fear in their hearts, so that the prevailing, fundamental disposition of their hearts is to hear my voice not only when it calls to rest and when it sets forth consolations and comforts, but when it calls to such things as these: ‘If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee. For it is better for thee to enter into life maimed than having two hands to go into Hell.’”

In this very Sermon on the Mount He is speaking of the commitment of all the sons and daughters of the Kingdom to obedience to the Law of God in all of its length and breadth and spirituality, touching attitudes and dispositions of the heart. “If He forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive you.” “If you say, in the spirit of hatred, ‘Thou fool!’ You shall be in danger of hell fire.” “Whoso looks with a view to lust hath committed adultery already.” These are the words of Jesus, and He says, “My sheep hear My voice.” Not only when it calls to rest, but when it calls to mortification that has analogies in the brutal self-mutilation of cutting off one’s own hand and with the other hand casting it far away with no thought of ever rejoining it by a kind of demonic spiritual neurosurgery, and gouging out offending eyes and plucking them away.

Are you hearing His voice calling you, young man, to cut off the right hand of lust indulged in the chambers of your mind with magazines and books that you’ve hidden from mom and dad and perhaps wife? You, women, mental fantasies nurtured by your television set in your daytime soaps with their sordid, tawdry, vile, filthy, adulterous, laced plots? Are you taking every step necessary to stop feeding your lust?! Or do you just occasionally have a little whimper in the closet when your conscience gets so active you can’t live with it? Do you whimper and cry and ask God for a little help and then go right back with your hand and your eyeball firmly attached? Oh, yes, once in a while you take a dull paring knife and scratch your hand and occasionally you scratch around your eyeball, but you haven’t begun to cut off and pluck out! You better listen to the words of Jesus, “Not everyone who says, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter, but he that does the will of my Father in heaven.” “If he, by the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the flesh, he shall live; if you live after the flesh, you’ll die.”

What about in this sermon, chapter 6, where He talks about the believer’s prayers and is giving in His self-denial? Are you doing the will of the Father? When Jesus talks about our relationship to food and to drink and to things and to goals, are you doing what Jesus—who speaks the words of the Father—are you doing what He says?! “Seek first the kingdom of God.” Are you seeking big bucks, big name, big house, big closet full of fancy clothes?! I’m not asking, “Do you have these things?” I’m saying is that what your heart is set upon? Jesus said, “Do not set your affection on these things.” Are you taking that seriously? Come on, be honest. In the language of contemporary teenagers, “Get real,” because if the Day of Judgement is anything, folks, it’s getting real. It’s getting real.

It won’t do to say, “Well God, you know I tried.” Do you tell God you tried? How hard did you try? When all your spare time is reading the literature that feeds avarice and greed and covetousness and ambition, you tried? When all your spare time is spent reading pulp novels and watching game shows, instead of praying and reading some of the good books that are in our own bookstore, you tried? If you can’t buy them in our library, listen to tapes, flood your mind with the Word of God! God will tell you, my friend, you didn’t try! You had an occasional, wispy, filmy-like wish. That’s all you had, but my Bible says, “Those who enter are those who do the will of the Father.” I didn’t say it, Christ said it! They don’t have an occasional desire and whimpering yearning to attempt, to begin, to try. They do the will of the Father! “My sheep hear my voice, and they follow Me.”