False Professions

By: M. S. Shiflett

This message was preached at Calvary Independent Baptist Church in Bloemfontein, South Africa.

"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, 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?  And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." Mathew 7:21-23

After reading these verses, there is a thought that comes to mind.  Why do people make false professions of salvation?  This has to be without a doubt the most tragic portion of Scripture in our Bible.  This is a group of people standing before God who have already died.  Their life is over, they are standing before God thinking they are going to Heaven, but they are not.  Why do people profess to be saved when they are not?   I can think of several reasons why people would profess to be saved when they aren't.

Years ago before I went into the ministry, I hired many men while operating my construction company; men that professed to be experienced carpenters.  They would call me and say, "I'm looking for a job." I would say, "Can you do this and can you do that?" and they said, "Yes! I'm the best."  After hearing this, I would hire them right then and there.  We would arrange a salary.  They would come and they would start working for me only for me to discover that they had no idea what they are doing.  They had lied!

Now I can understand why somebody would profess to be a carpenter if they needed a job.  People will tell you anything just to get a chance to make some money.  People will profess anything.  But why do people say, "I'm a Christian?" when they are not?  Why do people say, "I'm going to Heaven" when they are not?  You might not like to think about, but neither do I?  However, I would be a fool to say that everybody that says they are a Christian is really a true Christian. I would be a fool to say that everybody that says they are going to Heaven, is going to Heaven.  The Bible says "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven." Mathew 7:21

Verse number 22 says many. Not just one or two, not ten or fifteen; not just a couple hundred people, but many.  There are over 6 billion people on planet Earth today.  That is not counting all the people that have already died.  At some point in the future, every person that has been born will stand before God and they will either go to Heaven or they will go to Hell.  The Bible says in Verse 22 that many people will say "Lord, Lord!".   The sad truth is that Jesus Christ was NOT their Lord.  They were false professors. Before we look at the reasons people make false professions, I want to point out a couple of important truths about these verses.  We need to notice first of all God's will.

1. God's Will

Look at Matthew 7:21.

• "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven..."

So who DOES enter into the kingdom of Heaven?  What is the secret?  He answers that question in the latter part of the verse.

•·      " ..he that doeth the will of my Father which is in Heaven." Mathew 7:21

"Oh, so now we have to work our way to Heaven. Is that what it is saying, Preacher?" No, that is not what it is saying!  The emphasis is not on the 'doeth' but on the "will of my Father".  If you look in your Bible at 2 Peter 3:9, you will find out just what God's will is.

•·      "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise," (That means he keeps his word; that he does not break his promise) "as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

So what is the will of God in Mathew 7:21?  The will of God is for every man, woman, boy and girl to repent of their sins and be saved.  That is the will of God. So in essence, they were saying, "Lord, Lord, what did we do wrong?"  It is quite simple actually.  They didn't repent of their sins! They did everything else but they failed to repent.  They did everything but get saved!  How tragic!

2.  Good Works

In verse 22, we see good works.  They were saying Lord, Lord. They were calling Him their Master, they were calling Him Lord.   They were standing before God saying "Have we not prophesied, preached and proclaimed the word in your name?"  All across the country there are men standing behind pulpits that will one day hear God say these awful words to them.  Imagine the horror of these people standing before a holy and a righteous God defending themselves; trying to convince Him of their sincerity and their false profession. "Have we not prophesied and in thy name cast our devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works? But Lord!! We have done so many things for you, we can't even think of all of them.  We are just going to lump it all together and say that we have done many wonderful works!  We did them all for you Lord!  We did them in your name, Lord!" And he is going to say in verse 23"...I never knew you..."

He is not going to say, "I knew you but I forgot you.  I knew you but you sinned and I scratched your name out of the Lamb's Book of Life." No, He is going to say, "I never knew you! You never were a child of God.  You never were one of mine.  I did not give you the authority to do all of those things. I was not with you when you did them.  You did all those things in your own flesh.  You did those things in your own power and your own ability.  I never knew you."  And then He is going to say, "depart from me, ye that work iniquity."  How awful for that multitude of people that were clinging to their 'wonderful works' to realize that in the sight of God, it is 'works of iniquity!!  How devastating that will be!  How sad!

Without a doubt, these are some of the most tragic verses in the Bible.  Multitudes of men and women and boys and girls standing in front of God wondering "What did I do wrong?"  They did not repent!   They did everything else.  They went to church. They had a Bible. They read their Bible.  They even took their Bible with them to church. Everybody saw them going to church, but they did not repent. They never were born again!  Because of this one mistake, they will hear God say "depart from me." I can not imagine the pain, the frustration and the anguish that is going to be experienced at this moment when the time comes.  There will be evangelists, missionaries, preachers, and pastors who have been pastoring churches for years asking themselves,  "What did I do wrong?"  Well Pastor, you did not get saved! That's what you did wrong!  Why do people make a false profession?  Why do people profess to be saved when they are not? There are a couple of reasons that came to my mind of why people would just so casually say, "I'm a Christian." when in truth they are not.

I. Wrong Assumptions

Assuming is a bad thing to do.  Many times, we get in trouble because we just simply "assume".  Once I told my wife that I was going out to the township to preach at a church after our morning service one Sunday.  She replied, "But I've invited guests over for lunch.  I assumed that you were going to be here."  I told her that they would have to either eat without me or wait until I got back.  I had made plans to go preach, and she had made plans for lunch; both of us assuming our plans wouldn't cause a problem for the other.  She assumed I was going to be there for lunch, and I assumed she would accompany me to the meeting.  Because of our assumptions, different arrangements had to be made.  Simply "assuming" can be a bad mistake.

A. About Our Status as Sinners

People make too many assumptions when it comes to their soul.  When it comes to the things of God, they take things for granted.  They just assume things.  "Oh, I'm not a sinner, I'm not that bad." See there!  That is a wrong assumption.  There we go assuming again.  "But Preacher, I'm not that bad!"  Everybody tells me that.  I pass out tracts, I knock on doors, I talk to people and ask, "If you died right now, where would you go?"  They say something like this.  "Well, I would go to Heaven."  I say to them, "How do you know that?"  They say "Because I'm a good person.'"  That is definitely the WRONG answer.  Hell is going to be full of 'good people'.  Hell is going to be full of nice people.  Friendly people.  People that would give you the shirt off their back.  They are going to be in Hell. Romans 3:9-19 deals with this matter of us being a sinner.  You should not assume that we are saved.  You should not assume that we are right with God.

•·      "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one" Romans 3:10

Friend that would include you!  Let's read on.

• "There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one."

"Oh, I'm doing good. I am a good man; I am a good woman."  No you are not! The Scripture says that there is none that ‘doeth good'. The crowd that will stand before God in Mathew 7 will say, "Lord!  Lord! We did many wonderful works."  He will say, "You do works of iniquity."  He called their good works iniquity. No friend, there I none that doeth good.

•·      "Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit;" Romans 3:13

"Well, I'm a Christian. I'm a good man, I'm a good woman, I'm a good person." You are lying. You are deceiving yourself. The Bible says plainly that none of us are good. 

•·      "And the way of peace have they not known:" Romans 3:17

No peace. They did not have peace; they had a profession.  They had an image that they portrayed.   They did not have any peace.  There is no fear of God before their eyes. 

• "that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God." Romans 3:19

Friend, I don't know how good you think you are, but it is not good enough.  Wrong assumptions about your status as a sinner can land you in Hell with all the rest of the false professors!!  The Bible says that if we commit one sin, we are guilty of all of them. (James 2:10) Surely there is no one that would have enough audacity to say that they have never sinned.

B. About the Seriousness of Sin

In case you did not know this, let me serve notice on you.  God hates sin.  God hates all sin.  Little sins, big sins, black sins, white sins, gray sins.  He hates them all.  Have you ever heard somebody say, "Well, that was a white lie."  Does anybody care to tell me the difference between a white lie and a black lie?  A lie is a lie and God hates all of them.  "But it is really not that bad."  Oh really?  I suppose that is what Eve thought when she took a bite of the fruit in the Garden of Eden.  "But Adam! I was just going to take one little bite. I didn't think anything would happen." All of a sudden, the human race was plunged into sin because of it!  It wasn't just taking a bite of some fruit.  No, it was disobedience to the commandment of God.  Just like Eve, we wrongly assume that our sin is not that serious.

C.  About God's Demands

What are God's demands?  I can tell you this; they are pretty rigid.  In Leviticus 22:21, He gave the requirements for the lamb that had to be brought and He said that it had to be without blemish.  It had to be perfect.  As I was driving through town one day, I noticed that they had these little pens with the goats and the sheep to sell to the people that are having funerals. I noticed that there were clean sheep, dirty sheep, white ones with black heads and I noticed this man walking around the pen, looking closely at these sheep.  He was about to pick one out.  I don't really know how you pick out sheep.  Correct me if I am wrong, but surely in that pen with thirty sheep, all of them are going to taste more or less the same! Nevertheless, this guy was walking around in there, picking one out.  He would look at one, and then he would push it away and look at another. I thought to myself, what is he looking for?  One with a tattoo that says, "I'm tender; buy me" ?  He was being very particular!

In the old days, they could only bring one sacrifice, it had to be perfect; it had to be spotless. Jesus was the Perfect Sacrifice.  God is very rigid; He is very narrow-minded in His expectations.  Jesus said in John 14:6

• "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

That's pretty narrow wouldn't you say?  Only one door in the sheep fold and it is Jesus Christ.  If you do not go through him, you do not get in.  It does not matter who you are, it does not matter what you think you have done.  He is the Door, not you and not me.  In Acts 2:12, it says:

• "Neither is there salvation in any other:"

"But Preacher, I am a Muslim! I'm a Hindu. I'm a Buddhist!"  Let's read the rest of the verse:

• "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."

I don't think that we understand God's demands.  God demands salvation through Jesus Christ!  There have been some wrong assumptions!  No wonder there are so many false professions!

D. About the Penalty for Sin

It's almost as if some people think that when they stand before God, He is just going to slap them on the wrist and say, "Go right on in; I know you did the best you could!"  That is not the way God operates.  He said clearly in Romans 6:23 "The wages of sin is death..."  God told Adam and Eve in the garden, "The day that you eat thereof, you shall surely die."  Death is the only penalty for sin that God has.  He doesn't slap people on the wrist.  He doesn't even take into consideration their good works so that when they die, they might have a chance to go to Heaven.  Even people that have hard times can't use that as their payment for sin.  God might be using that to back you up in the corner.  He might be using that to get you into a place where you can realize that you only have one option.  Just because you have had a hard life, just because you have had some tragedies, just because some things have not gone your way doesn't mean that you have paid your dues.  The penalty for sin is death. 

E. About the Inadequacy of our Righteousness

Isaiah 64:6 very clearly says:

• "...all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags."

Once when I was preaching a tent meeting out in the township, I took a clean handkerchief out of my pocket and I wiped off my forehead, I blew my nose, and I dropped it into the mud.  Then I tramped on it and spat on it and then I picked it up and held it up for everybody to see and said, "This is what your righteousness looks like to God. Do you honestly think that you are going to use this disgusting, dirty, filthy, repulsive rag as your ticket to Heaven?"  Needless to say, the point was well taken!  Just as the people were repulsed, so is God repulsed by our 'righteousness'.  It doesn't impress him at all!  It stinks to Him.  I don't think that we realize the insufficiency of our righteousness.  Our good works are not good enough. Let me give you an illustration of what I am talking about:

Once I sent my oldest daughter out to wash the car.  It was a mistake, because she was way too young, but I needed it washed and I didn't have time to do it. I got her a little bucket, gave her some soap and a wash cloth and everything else that she needed.  I told her that she must wash it well.  She went outside and ten minutes later she came in and said, "I'm finished."  I said, "But I can't even wash the car in ten minutes, you are not finished."  She said, "I am."  The poor girl was sweating from washing and scrubbing the car.  I walked outside to survey her work.  She had missed big spots where she couldn't reach.  She could not wash the top of the hood, the windows and the windshield.  She had worked as hard as she could and come in and proudly announced that she was done, but it was insufficient. 

There are going to be a lot of people that will stand in front of God one day and say, "I'm finished!  I did everything I was supposed to do!" And God is going to say, "You are not finished. You have not even begun."  We are inadequate. There is no way that we can do it.  Righteous deeds and living right and being a good neighbor and following the Ten Commandments is simply not going to get the job done.  Why do people make false professions?  Many do because of wrong assumptions. Secondly, we see that people make false professions because of wrong motives.

II. Wrong Motives

       A. To Get Out of Trouble

We sometimes call this "jailhouse religion" in America. When somebody lands in jail, he is ready to listen to the Gospel. "Yes preacher, I know that I am a sinner, I just need to saved so I can get out of here!"  The truth is, you are in worse chains and worse bondage than you realize if the only chains and bondage that you see is the jail!  People make professions of salvation because they want to get out.  Maybe a family member or a dear friend dies. All of a sudden, you realize that you do not have a clear line of communication to the God of Heaven.  So, you make a plan.  Here is what you are going to do. You are going to get religion.  You are going to go to church. You are going to join the church. You are going to do whatever you have to do to deal with your problem.  If it means praying a prayer or becoming a Christian to solve the problem, then that's what you will do.  My friend, it does not work that way.  God is not an insurance agent that you call when you have a problem.  He didn't come to save you out of your problem. He came to save your never-dying soul from the eternal lake of fire.  That is what He came to do. (Luke 19:10) Using God for a spare tire will not get you into Heaven.

B. To Please Someone

Maybe your wife or your husband or your children have been harassing you to give your heart to the Lord.  Maybe somebody has been harassing you to get saved.  Could it be that you said "Okay, I'll get saved just so that they will shut up and leave me alone."  It does not work that way.  Do you honestly believe that God cannot see your heart better than that?  Simply going through the motions and just saying words or praying a prayer without meaning it will get you nowhere but Hell!

C. To Enjoy the Benefits

There are a lot of benefits of being in the church.  I am so glad that I am part of the church.  There are those on the outside that would like to get in on these blessings.  One of the greatest benefits is that we pray for one another.  I know many unsaved people that want you to pray for them.  They have no plans of serving God, they have no plans of living for God. They have never truly been born again, but they will tell you, "Please pray for me, I have a problem." They want you to pray for them.

What about fellowship?  As church members, we enjoy each other's fellowship.  The world envies that! They want to belong and feel accepted. A lot of people come to church because they want to get in on the fellowship, but that is not getting saved, that is not repentance. It definitely will not get you into Heaven on Judgment Day.

Another benefit is the helping hands in the church.  As brothers and sisters in the Lord, we help one another.  I have many people come to me and tell me they want to join the church, and almost in the same breath, they are asking me for something.  They want money, or a job, or clothes or help paying a bill.  When I tell them no, then they don't want to join the church.  That is not what it is about, but there are people who profess to be saved and profess to be a child of God so that they can get in on the benefits of the church.  They just want to belong. 

I have asked many people, "If you died right now, where would you go?" They invariably say "I'd go to Heaven."  I ask them, "Why do you say that?"  They answer, "Because I go down there to the so-and-so church..."  Time out!  Hold it! You just changed subjects on me!  I was not talking about where you went to church.  I was talking about where you are going to go when you die.  That is two totally different things!  If you are a church member somewhere, that's great, but that has nothing to do with your salvation! When you stand before God, He is not going to ask for the church clerk to see if your name is on the roll of the church.

A few weeks ago, one of our ladies in the church stopped by and she said, "I am not sure whether my name is on the church roll. I wanted to join the church, but I am not sure whether my name has been put on the roll and if it is not, I want you to put it on the roll."  I told that we had put her name on the roll when she was baptized.  She laughed and said "Great! I just wanted to make sure."  We thought it was funny, we had a laugh about it.  She wasn't all that sure if her name was on the church roll and wouldn't it have been a shame for her to die and stand before God and hear Him say, "Oh Ma'am, I'm sorry!  They just forgot to write your name down." That's not how it works.  Enjoying the benefits of a church family does not guarantee that you will enjoy the benefits of Heaven! 

D. For Fear of Hell

Most people would agree that they do not want to go to Hell.  Nobody in their right mind wants to go to Hell.  I've actually met a few people that wanted me to think that they did not mind going to Hell, but I noticed that the same people usually put their cigarette out right before it gets to the end.  They don't mind going to Hell, but they don't want to burn their lips with the cigarette!  Not wanting to go to Hell is a good reason to get saved, but there is more to it than that.  A lot of people say they are saved when they are not saved because they don't want to go to Hell. Why would they make a false profession?  The only person that they are hurting is themselves.

Let us look at some reasons why people do not get saved.

1. Pride

You may be reading this right now and in your heart you know without a shadow of a doubt that if you died right now you would go to Hell.  Sadly, many have too much pride to admit it.  Many shall say on that day, "Lord, Lord."  And He will say, "Depart from me, I never knew you."

• "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." Prov. 16:18

2. Selfishness

• "...we have gone every one to his one way." Isaiah 53:6:

Multitudes will go to Hell saying "I want my way, I don't want to surrender to God's way.  I don't want to repent of my sins, because I like my sins, I enjoy my sins." Well guess what?  You need to go ahead and enjoy it because that is all the enjoyment that you will ever have.  Jesus loved you enough to die on the cross for you.  If that love for you doesn't stir your heart enough for you to repent and be saved, it is probably because you are too selfish to see it.

3. Fear

Many will never be truly saved because they are scared of being laughed at by family and friends.  You know in your heart that you have a false profession of salvation, but you don't want to face the humiliation of admitting that you are a phony.  I imagine your friends saying "But you said that you were a Christian already! What do you mean you just got born again.  What is this all about?  I can't believe you! Why don't you make up your mind?"  And so in order not to hear that, you are just going to go to Hell.

That doesn't make a whole lot of sense does it?   Many people I have talked to said, "Someone is going to laugh at me."  Big deal! Who cares?  I can't think of a single person worth dying and going to Hell for.  Not one.  I'm not going to Hell for anybody.  You can laugh at me from now on, but I'm not going to Hell for you or anybody else.  How tragic it would be to refuse to be truly saved because of what others might say or do!

I've heard church members say, "I am afraid that if I get truly saved and admit that I have been holding to a false profession, then it is going to embarrass my family and it is going to make them look bad." I don't think that you realize how bad Hell really is. Many shall say that day, "Lord, Lord we tried everything, we did everything that we knew."  And He will say, "Yes, but you didn't repent. You never got born again, you tried everything except the one thing that I told you was the only way."

•·      "...now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." 2 Corinthians 6:2

You might be reading this and saying, "I need to think about this for a while."  If you are not careful, you are going to think just a little bit too long.  You are going wait until it's too late.  You are not guaranteed another day.  You are not guaranteed another hour.  David said, "There is one step between me and death."  One step.  You can go to the graveyard right now.  There are short graves, medium size graves and full-sized graves.  There are babies, there are young people there are teenagers, young married people, middle-aged people, senior citizens, respectable people.  They died of all ages.  I beg you not to put it off.  Can you remember a time when you gave your life to Jesus Christ? Can you remember when you accepted Him as your personal Savior.  Can you remember when He made you a new creature and forgave you of all your sins?  If you cannot remember when and where it happened, it probably never happened!  Somewhere along the way, you started telling yourself and others that you were a Christian, but you aren't!  You are one of those false professors.    

I was born the first time in Tift General Hospital in Tifton, Georgia.  I was born the second time in Tifton, Georgia at the Faith Baptist Church on the right-hand side of the church as I knelt down by the organ.  That's where I was born the second time. I can take you to the spot. Where were you born again?  Can you remember the place?  Can you remember the time when you passed from death into life?  If you can't, today is the day of salvation.  Don't hold on to your false profession any longer.  Get truly born again today!  Repent of your sins and turn to Jesus.

Repentance simply means a change of heart, a change of mind, a change of will.  If you are sick and tired of your sinful heart and sinful ways, then God wants to save you today.  Jesus preached "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish."  If you love your sin so much that you are not interested in repentance, then you can't get saved!  You have to be willing to leave your sinful life and become a NEW CREATURE in Christ Jesus!  The Bible says;

• "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." II Corinthians 5:17

I John 1:9 says

• "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Being honest about your sin and getting forgiveness for them is very important.  Until you do that, you can't be saved.  You can't come to God with hypocrisy and deceit.

It is our prayer that by reading this message, the Holy Spirit of God has convinced you that you are a sinner and in need of salvation.  Christ is the only way.  He was born of a virgin, lived a sinless, perfect life, was crucified for our sins, was buried, and three days later rose from the grave.  He's alive today, sitting at the right hand of God and He wants to give you the gift of everlasting life and He wants to forgive you of ALL your sins and adopt you into His family.  Don't wait.  Don't procrastinate.  Don't doubt Him or His love for you.  Trust and accept Him before it is too late.

You have just read the one of the most important messages that you will ever read.  It is a message of salvation, love and hope.  If you realize that you have never been saved, why don't you do so now?  Why don't you get on your knees right now and humbly admit to God that you are a sinner and that you need to be saved.  Ask him to come into your life and make you a child of God.  Let Him know that you are not trusting in your works, but instead you are trusting in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus for your salvation.  Repent of your sins and ask him to save you, and He will.  Don't put it off.  Ask Him today!

If you accept Jesus today, please let us know so we can rejoice with you and help you become a strong Christian.  We have some great literature to send you if you will simply write to us and let us know.  If you have a question or need help getting your life right with God, please contact us.