But He says there's also the possibility that you'll go up in smoke, or your work will go up in smoke and He said, notice what it says here, Verse 15; if anyone's work is burned He will suffer loss, so it is possible and the Bible speaks very clearly, that you can suffer the loss of the things God intended you to have in eternity. If any man's work be burnt He will suffer loss. Will he be saved? Yes, he will. He will be saved. The Bible's very clear. He will be saved. Probably the best way I could describe it is like this; you spent your life building a house and having done all and worked and spent this and that, then one day there's an electrical problem and the house just burns to the ground. Fortunately you get out of it and you're smelling of smoke and your garments are burnt with smoke, but you're saved! But what is there? There's no house left! Your whole life went up in smoke! Whoa! Life is too precious to let it go up in smoke! Life is far too precious. If you're over 60 it's even more precious!
Isn't that true? That's the truth isn't it, so there's three reasons why it's important to maintain good works. See? Okay, now here we're onto the foundations for the works. I want you to come with me to Matthew 7:21. This is a bit of a shock but I woke up this morning, the Lord just was pounding this verse into me and I thought oh my, so I had to change what I was going to do. That's alright. I don't mind - so He gave me some better ideas than I had. That was very helpful. I like that, very helpful. Okay, here it is, Matthew 7. Now you know these verses, now verse 21; 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, haven't we prophesised in your name, cast out demons in your name, done many wonders in your name and I'll declare to them I never knew you depart from me who practise lawlessness.
Now here's the first thing is to see the context. This is part of Jesus' teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, so He's teaching His disciples and followers and he's talking about the culture, attitudes and values of the kingdom of Heaven and what it requires to live as a citizen of that kingdom and bring Heaven to earth. That's what this is all about, so now He's come to the very end of His message and He's about to draw some conclusions. Here's first of all a warning He gives and secondly a conclusion. The first thing He tells us, He said not everyone who says Lord, Lord shall enter the kingdom of Heaven, so to enter the kingdom of Heaven is the key issue at stake.
Now, notice this. He's not talking about getting saved. You have to understand that. If you try to approach it from the point of view about salvation you're going to miss it altogether, because He's saying - notice what He's saying - He said not everyone who says Lord, Lord shall enter the kingdom of Heaven. But He says many shall say to me in that day, so what day is He talking about? He's not talking about the day He's talking. He's talking about that day. He's talking about the day of His return. The day of the Lord, and so many will say on that day. In other words, when He comes there's a lot of people going to say Lord, Lord, we prophesied. We cast out demons. We did miracles - and He will say I didn't know you. You worked inequity.
Now that's a real hard thing to handle. So He's talking about to Pentecostal people particularly, because they tend to focus on prophesying and praying in tongues and doing things like that, and He's talking about spirit people really. Now I want you to have a look at what He says there, He says on that day so it's the day of His coming. Now what He's saying, many will say Lord, Lord. Now these are obviously believers. How do we know they're believers? Because He said they prophesied, they work miracles and they cast out demons. You cannot cast out demons by methodology. Acts 19, they tried to copy the method. It didn't work. They were not saved. They couldn't do it. You can't do these things of prophesying and casting out demons and miracles in the name of Jesus unless you are a believer. So let's re-read it.