Skip to main content

The Saddest Words in the Gospels

Matthew 7:21-23 – “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”

            Perhaps the saddest words in the Gospels are recorded in Matthew 7:23, “depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.”  Hell will be a place of departure.  I heard someone say some years ago, “Hell will be a place of continually going away from the presence of God.”  Our cry today should be the same as Moses in Exodus 33:15, “If Your presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here.”

            We cannot live without the presence of the Lord.  His presence brings joy, peace, and comfort.  There is healing in the presence of the Lord.  Without His presence there will be no joy, peace, comfort or healing.  Hell will be place of separation.  Dr. Herschel Ford writes, “Hell means separation from God’s presence and from God’s blessings.  Hell means separation from our loved ones who are at home with God.[i]

This is the individual who rejects God.  This is the one who chooses a life of sin.  This person refuses to yield to the convicting power of the Holy Spirit, and has learned to tune out the voice of those who love them and desire to see them saved.  The Lord takes no pleasure in the words, “Depart from Me.” He is a loving God.  II Peter 3:9 says, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”

Our loving Father has provided a means for our salvation. I Timothy 1:15 says, “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”  Jesus spoke more about Hell than He did about Heaven.  He doesn’t want us to go to this horrible place.  What must we do to be saved, so we can spend eternity in Heaven?  Psalms 145:18 gives these instructions, “The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth.”



[i] Ford, Herschel, Simple Sermons on Great Christian Doctrines, Baker, 1953, Page 114.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rebuilding the Broken Altar of Prayer

In Matthew 21: 12-13 , “ Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. 13 And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’” Jesus made this declaration, “My house shall be called a house of prayer!”  I believe that God is calling us back to the altar of prayer.  For several weeks the Lord has dealt with me about rebuilding the broken altar of prayer in our personal and corporate lives.  If we are going to see spiritual breakthrough in our churches and communities then we must rebuild and return to the altar of prayer. Wayman Rogers writes, “The ministry of prayer is the most important of all ministries in the church.  Prayer creates the atmosphere and binds the powers of darkness so the gospel of Jesus can go forward and the church can prosper....
Post a Comment
Read more

The Fourth Month - The Month to See

  In   1 Chronicles 12:32   we learn that the Sons of Issachar had an understanding of the times and knew what Israel ought to do.  Like the sons of Issachar, we need to have an understanding of the times.  We are in a time of uncertainty and fear, therefore we need prophetic insight into what God has for us and desires to do in our lives. For some time I have been praying and asking God to give me insight into how He moves in time. The Sons of Issachar were masters of the calendar.  In  Exodus 12:2  the Lord establishes the Hebrew calendar.  “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you.”  The Hebrew calendar begins at Passover.  This is the calendar that God ordained and introduced in the Bible.  To better understand how God moves in times you can study the Hebrew calendar and the patterns that have been established in the Word of God.  Our Gregorian calendar is on a differ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Fifth Month - Av - The Month to Hear

--> The Fifth Month – Av The Month to Hear For a number of years I have been studying and praying for insight into how the Lord moves and works in time. We learn in 1 Chronicles 12:32 that the Sons of Issachar had an understanding of the times and knew what Israel ought to do.  They were masters of the Hebrew calendar.   In Exodus 12:2 the Lord established the Hebrew calendar. “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you.” The Hebrew calendar begins at Passover in the month of Nissan.  This calendar was God ordained and introduced in the Bible.   To better understand how God moves in times you can study the Hebrew calendar and the patterns that have been established in the Word of God.  Our Gregorian calendar is on a different time cycle than the Word of God. The Bible refers to the month of Av as the fifth month counting from Passover.  It corresponds to the months of ...
Post a Comment
Read more