These pastors say that if you add anything else to the gospel, such as works or baptism, then you are a dog,you are a liar, you are a hypocrite, and you are prideful. But what these pastors leave out is the part of the Gospel that Jesus taught about denying yourself, picking up your cross, and doing the work to follow Him.
Jesus taught this. This is not my opinion; these are not my words or my thoughts. But this is what Jesus taught. I want to read it to you.
This is what Jesus said in Matthew 16, starting in verse 24:
Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself"—which is work—"and take up his cross"—which is work—"and follow Me"—which is work.
"For 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?"
What will it help you if you look like a good Christian in church, keep up your church attendance, pay your 10% tithe every week, and adhere to biblical teachings?
What will that help you if, at the end of your life, Jesus says, "Away from Me, you who commit sin; I don’t know you"?
It won’t matter if you believed your pastor’s lie at that moment what will matter is what you did with the words of Jesus.
Did you believe His words right here in Matthew 16? Or did you deny His words to receive the lying pastor’s words?
Then Jesus goes on to say this:
"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"—not his belief, not what just he thought Jesus did in Bible times, but according to his works.
If your works are done in righteousness, then you will receive the reward of righteous deeds.
But if you had unrighteous deeds—if you were working the works of wickedness—then you will be rewarded with hell and damnation. You will be punished.
So don’t believe the devil’s lie that is preached from the pulpits in the church—that all you have to do is believe, but you don’t have to deny yourself, you don’t have to pick up your cross, and you don’t have to leave worldliness behind. All you have to do, according to them, is go to church, pay your 10%, believe the pastor, and you’ll be saved.
Where is your faith today?
Do you really believe in the words of Jesus?
Or do you believe in the lying pastor and these gatherings that are full of hypocrisy?