Remember the parable of the five wise virgins compared to the five foolish virgins. One of the things that the foolish say is that your works don't matter or count, and that all God looks at is his son's death on the cross. While it is true that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and he atoned for us, we also have a cross to carry that the foolish don't want to carry because they only want to see what Jesus did. I hear these foolish pastors on the radio often. They're always speaking about God's grace, about what Jesus did on the cross, his finished work on the cross, but they never talk about our cross that we have to carry. They never talk about our works.
In fact, they call all the works of righteousness filthy, and they say you're adding to the gospel if you talk about works as if that will save you. Now these foolish, these five foolish, which happen to be most every pastor in church, most all Christians in church, they think that they're saved by grace alone, by faith alone, and they believe that if you preach about the works, you're mixing a works gospel with the true faith gospel, which in fact, these Christians are mixing up the works of the law, which the apostle Paul spoke about would not save anyone, and what the Judaizers would preach, which is that you will be saved by keeping your self from eating certain meats and circumcision. So they mix that false gospel with the gospel that Jesus actually taught of true repentance and having works of righteousness. No one can be saved without works of righteousness and by belief only, and sadly, the foolish have said in their heart that you can be saved without works of righteousness. They say that's adding to the gospel, and it will be to their own demise when they find themselves in hell, and God says away from me you who commit sin, and he will hold them accountable to their works, which they believed they wouldn't be judged by.
This is what it says in James chapter 2. “What does it profit my brethren if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, depart in peace and be warm and filled, you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say you have faith that I have works. Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God, you do well, even the demons believe and tremble. But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ And he was called the friend of God. You see then that a man is justified by works and not by faith only.”
This is the big scripture that Christians in church do not like. In fact Martin Luther wanted to take this passage out of the Bible. Christians don't like the fact that Jesus will hold them accountable to their works, they like to say by faith alone. But their faith is worthless because they have no oil in their lamp, they have no works of righteousness. So this is an important verse to learn and to memorize, it's James chapter 2 verse 24, which is “You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only. Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”
The foolish say in their heart, I don't have to have works of righteousness, that's adding to the gospel, they will find themselves in hell. Jesus also taught this. If you want to look at Matthew chapter 16 with me, I'll read to you what Jesus said about this. This is Matthew 16, I'm starting in verse 24. Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. ”
Taking up your cross is a work, it's not the work of the law, but it is the work of righteousness. You have your cross to bury as a Christian. And then Jesus says, for whoever desires to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. So how do you do that? You lose your life by taking up your cross, not by being foolish and thinking you're saved by just believing alone, but you're saved by this gospel that Jesus is teaching right here, by picking up your cross. “Whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? Now listen to what Jesus says next. For the son of man will come in the glory of his father with his angels, and then he will reward each according to his works.”
These are the important passages that the Christian church that has grown foolish and blind and deaf and hard of hearing refuses to preach, because they believe in the easy grace gospel. They want people to give them money. They want to get warm bodies in pews and in seats in their church. So they refuse to teach the full gospel. It's only half of the gospel to say Jesus died on the cross and that Jesus loves you. The other half of the gospel is that God is just. He brings about his judgments, and that every man also has a cross to carry, and you will be judged according to your works.
So do we have works of righteousness? Are we putting the old man, that is the man of sin that we once were, into the grave? Are we putting down the flesh and letting righteousness arise in us? Are we picking up our cross and carrying it for the Lord, or are we living like the foolish Christians that don't have oil in their lamp but think that because they know what Jesus taught that they're going to heaven? Don't be deceived by the pastors that are lying on the radio or the pastors that are lying on the internet. We need the works of righteousness in us. This is the gospel that Jesus gave.
This is what the early apostles taught. We have to have the works of righteousness, and we can't confuse that with the works of the law. Some people are confused, and they say, well, how did the apostle Paul preach one gospel that we're saved by faith alone, but then James teaches this works thing? And what people are getting confused is what Paul was speaking is about the works of the law, which no man will be saved by. You're not going to be saved by keeping yourself from eating pork. You're not going to save yourself by trying to go to church on Saturday. You're not going to save yourself by slaughtering animals.
So by the works of the law, no man will be justified. But what they get confused is with the works of the law versus righteousness, the works of righteousness, which we need to have if we want to enter the kingdom of God. And if we have faith in Jesus, if we love Him, we will pick up our cross, we will deny ourselves daily, and we will have these works of righteousness because the Holy Spirit is working in us. I hope this encourages someone to put on the full armor of God to start resisting Satan and overcoming temptation and all the evil that's in the world. And I want to pray for those of you that do want to overcome in Jesus' name and believe the gospel and pick up your cross. “Lord Jesus, I pray that more people will be added to the body of Christ, that more people will come to believe in you, that they will pick up their cross, that they will put down the old man, that they will bury the old, and that you will remove it from them as far as the east is from the west.I pray that people can be set free from demons, from bondage to sin, from bondage to false religion and false ideas. I pray that the ungodly teachings will come out of them, that they will just be set free from these things, these shackles. I pray that more will just be receiving your true gospel, picking up their cross, and living by the Holy Spirit, that they will be indwelled by you. The only spirit that we want in us is your Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost. We want to speak in our new tongues. We want to be baptized in your spirit. We want your wondrous works to be in us so that more people may hear the gospel being preached and that they also will be saved by your wonderful arms of love. So, we love you, Lord Jesus. We pray for your true church, and we pray for more people to be saved in your name. Amen.”
If you want to know what the works of righteousness are, you need to go back and look what Jesus taught. I'll read one thing that Jesus taught on that. In John, I'm turning there, Jesus says this in John chapter 15, which have to do with the works of righteousness. This is not the works of the law, but the works of righteousness that you need if you will be part of the five wise virgins. John chapter 15, starting in verse 1.
“I am the true vine. My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, He takes away. And every branch that bears fruit, He prunes that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. That is, if you believe in the words of Jesus, abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine. Neither can you unless you abide in me.”
This is another big problem in the Christian church. They are not abiding by the words of Jesus. They're abiding by their doctrines. And as soon as you join yourself to a church, you follow that church where that church is going. If you want life, you need to be connected to the vine so that you can follow the vine where the vine is going. Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. So don't connect yourself to a church. Connect yourself to Jesus Christ.
So Jesus says, “abide in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit. For without me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered, and they gather them and throw them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you.”
Here's another problem. These foolish Christians ask for all sorts of things that are not in the will of the father and they never get their prayers answered. And so that's why they get deceived thinking, well, I guess maybe God isn't real. They're always praying in their own will, the will of their organizations, the will of their churches, but they don't know Jesus. So they can't have their prayers answered. They can't possibly hear from God or hear their or get their prayers answered without having the oil in their lamp.
And then Jesus says, ‘by this, my father is glorified that you bear much fruit. So you will be my disciples. As the father loved me, I also have loved you abide in my love.” And here's what Jesus says about abiding in his love in verse 10. “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you that my joy remains in you and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment.”
So what is Jesus talking about? Is he talking about the 613 laws of Torah? Is he talking about you'll be saved if you just keep the 10 commandments? Because that's not what Jesus told the rich young ruler. The rich young ruler was still on his way to hell, even though he kept all 10. Jesus said, “come and follow me”. So what is Jesus? What is his commandment? He says, “this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you”. It sounds simple enough, but to actually learn how Jesus wants you to love him and how Jesus wants you to love others will take your lifetime and it will take your whole life being laid down in order to learn this. You can't possibly learn it by keeping Torah. That is why the Pharisees who kept the Torah and who kept the 10 commandments also were able to murder Jesus thinking that they were doing it in the name of God.
They had no love from the father. They did the works of their father, Satan. And most of the Christian pastors and organizations today are following their father, the devil, and they don't have the commandments of Jesus, even though they keep the law of Moses. They keep the 10 commandments. So Jesus says, “this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this to lay down one's life for his friend. You are my friends if you do whatever I command you”. Here is another problem. You can't know what Jesus is commanding you if you are one of the foolish virgins with no oil in your lamp. You'll run around all day spinning your wheels in religion, trying to do religious things to appease your conscience, and you won't have a word from God. So if you don't know what Jesus is saying, you can't be his friend. You're not obeying him. And the five foolish couldn't obey Jesus because they had no oil in their lamp. They could never hear the Holy Spirit. So what wisdom says is, if you want the truth, you need to seek out Jesus Christ and receive his spirit so that then you will know the truth. Truth is Jesus Christ. If you hear truth, you'll hear his voice. If you don't hear the truth, you will not hear his voice, and you'll probably be just like the Pharisees who were ready to murder the messenger.
So Jesus says, “you are my friends if you do whatever I command you”. So you need to learn what Jesus is commanding. “No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends for all things that I heard from my Father I have made known to you”. And Jesus will still make known to you his truth. All the truth that God ever wanted to speak to you is not recorded in the scripture. He wants to have a living relationship with you for all eternity. That is why there is an eternity, so you can be with God. We are not climaxing by just reading the Bible, as Christians think. Too many Christians think that the very crux is the Bible.
They think that God only wants their nose stuck in the Bible, and they continually go back to Bible study, and they are ever learning, without coming to the knowledge of the truth of Jesus Christ. These sorts of Christians think when they die, they will stand before the Bible, and the Bible will judge them, and that the Bible will have a relationship with them. They think God is the Bible. How sad and deceived these Christians are with no oil in their lamp and no love in their hearts. Jesus says, “you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. These things I command you, that you love one another”.
This is Jesus speaking his commandments to us. So the question is, do you have the commandments of Jesus in your heart, or are you deceived by the Judaizers and false Christians and the false gospel that says one or the other? Either you are saved by faith alone, that you don't have to do anything for Jesus, or on the other side that says you're saved by the works of the law of Moses, that you're saved by circumcision, that you're saved by keeping the Torah, that you're saved by all of these rites and rituals and practices. The law could never save anyone.
That's why Jesus didn't come preaching the law as salvation. He came preaching his gospel. He came preaching about his death and his resurrection and the new covenant. We need to come into the new covenant if we want to receive him, which is that Jesus died on the cross, he resurrected, and if we put our faith in him as the perfect sacrifice, then we will be saved. But we need to endure with him to the very end. All of the kingdom parables that Jesus taught, these are to point us to him and what will happen in the end times and how to know him in the end times.
But Jesus did not come preaching that you will be saved by keeping the commandments alone, or that you would be saved by keeping the law of Moses, that is the 613 laws of the Torah. Salvation comes by Jesus Christ. So get to know the kingdom parables, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven. Learn what he means. Go back and read the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Pay attention to what Jesus actually said and learn what Jesus's commandments are.
If you live on Jesus's words, if you eat his flesh and you drink his blood, then you'll partake in the new covenant and you'll be saved. There'll be life running through your veins. Life will be running through you and that living water will be in you bubbling up to everlasting life. But if you believe in the false gospel, you'll end up getting more depressed, more confused, you'll be allowing more demons into you, you'll be hearing more demons, and you'll be working yourself into the grave. I had this thought the other day of two men carrying a burden. One man was carrying the burden of his cross. The other man was carrying the burden of the world, carrying this burden on their back. But the man carrying the burden of the world, the more he carried it, the more the world on his back drove him into the grave. The man with the cross on his back, the more he walked, the more he approached the kingdom of God and he entered into everlasting life.
Jesus talks about his burden being light and that is because if we follow him, even though we're picking up our cross, he sustains us to the point where we walk into everlasting life with him holding his hand. But if you have the burden of the world on you, which is sin and doubt, accusations from satan, all of the burdens of the guilt of sin, those things will weigh you down all the way to the grave and bring about everlasting damnation. So which are you carrying? Are you carrying the burden of the world on your back, or are you bearing the cross on your back? As for me, I want to be taking up my cross daily, having the works of righteousness that Jesus calls me to do, and not believing anything false because if you start to pick up the burdens of the world, you're in big trouble. But if we carry our cross and we walk with Jesus and eat his flesh and drink his blood, we know that we have everlasting life. I hope this encourages someone today in the Lord to walk by faith and bear their cross, to deny themselves daily, pick up their cross, and follow the Lord Jesus because he is the only truth, he's the only way, and he is the only life.
