When I first started to read about my Lord Jesus in the Gospels of the Holy Bible I was startled to see written in its pages that he had so many enemies from among those people who were supposed to be His Father's Leaders.

I noticed that it had been the same in the Old Testament, where the Prophets opponents were often Jewish leaders.

Then when the Apostles started their ministry after Pentecost, the same thing happened again, many who were supposed to be leaders in the church of Christ were actually bitter enemies of those personally chosen by Jesus to build it up in the faith. In a very short time, all sorts of heresies and schisms broke out and Christians were persecuted from place to place. The glory had soon gone from the church because of false doctrine, lukewarmness and worldliness.

Today it is just the same and I can truthfully testify to you that those who are and have been my most ardent enemies have been Christian church leaders.

So there it is, People claiming to be "Christians" but acting "un-Christian", and with no spoken or written testimony of Christ Jesus knowing them.
John 14:23. Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him."

John 14:23-24, is the Secret of Christianity. True Christians love and obey Jesus, false Christians do not.

True Christians are a people who are different in their character than the unsaved that they want to see saved. A people who love Jesus; who do not carry on sinning; who show evidence of the Holy Spirit's power in their life; a people who do not brazenly go against the Holy Spirit as he seeks to do good. False Christians are enemies of the Lord Jesus, and of his true ministers!

Your Choice
In the Holy Bible, the Lord Jesus Christ speaks of two gates that everyone has to make a decision over which one to go through. One gate is Narrow and the other is Wide. Each of these gates leads onto a road that represents your life here on earth and likewise they are the same as their entrance gate.
Matthew 7:13 "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

No Neutrality
Do you want to go to heaven when you die? Then quite clearly, God has offered you his only Son in order that you can make thoughtful choice in this matter. He does not offer you a neutral path. You will have to make a choice, if not the narrow then the wide. You will have to bear fruit in your life, if not good then bad.

Matthew 12:30 "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.

Mark 9:40 for whoever is not against us is for us.

Luke 11:23 "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters.

Luke 16:13 "No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."

Luke 9:62 Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."

Matthew 4:10 Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.'"

Luke 16:13 "No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."

John 12:26 Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honour the one who serves me.

Mark 16:20 Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it. ----------

Matthew 7:21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' 23 Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'

Psalm 111:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise.

Life or Death
If you choose to enter through the narrow gate, you will find real and abundant life. Your life will have that inextinguishable and indestructible quality that is self-existent in God and shared with those human beings he created. Us! For we are not animals. It is God's gift to man animating him both physically and spiritually and making him an eternal being; "the absolute fullness of life...which belongs to God."

Danger, False Teachers
Be on your guard for many false teachers are about. Not only is the correct gate that leads to eternal life hard to find there are also people who are dedicated to tricking you into entering the wrong gate that leads to destruction. Danger! Beware, Jesus says, of false prophets who will be out to deceive you onto the road to destruction. Religionists who preach dogma a religious belief or opinion held to be absolute truth; a point of view or alleged authoritative tenet put forth as dogma without adequate grounds. They pray for revival, a supernatural visitation from God which awakens hearts and produces joyful obedience, while at the same time rejecting the truth that Jesus and his Father are in here in Christ's disciples. Avoid them, for they are dangerously stupid!
Matthew 7:15 "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognise them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognise them.

Law Breakers
These false teachers are living in deliberate defiance of the moral law for personal gain, without regard to the pain or suffering brought to others by it. Law is a rule established by authority. The letter of the law is dealing with the outward keeping of the law. The letter of the law is the literal meaning without regard to the motive or principles behind the law. Moral law is a universal unchanging rule proceeding from divine intelligence. To which moral beings ought to conform. That will protect the basic rights of all and bring happiness to all. A rule for action with certain resultant consequences for obedience or disobedience. A moral law without sanctions is not a law, but advice. The law is a fence to show not only ownership, but also protection.

Corrupters of Others
You will see their selfish greed that makes them not only content to perish in their own corruption, but are not content unless they are corrupting others as well. Get Smart! You will know them! As your relationship with these prophets develop you will come to a fuller, clearer, and more thorough knowledge of their fruit. It will be either good or bad! You will see they are inexorable, unyielding, inflexible, relentless, Not to be persuaded or moved by entreaty or prayer. They are licentious hostile or offensive to accepted standards of conduct; marked by the absence of legal or moral restraints. Indeed, I have found that the toughest mission field in the entire world is that place where unsaved people call Jesus, Lord. They are truly children of the devil, of whom I have met many.

The Impossible
It is totally impossible for good people to be bad or bad people to be good. Yes, good people can do bad things, and bad people do good things. However, they are still inherently good or bad people. Therefore, you will know them, for they will give you a taste of what they are like.

The Good
They will be good willing, both good in action and appearance. They will be inwardly good; of a good constitution or nature; hence, that which produces benefit and genuinely good effects and results; has its focus on the inward character and thus carries the idea of morally or inherently virtuous or brave; worthy of admiration and respect. They will be good in appearance; beautiful; aesthetically satisfying and pleasing; that which evokes admiration and a sense of the lovely and beautiful; praiseworthy; good as having the perceived value and out ward impression of charm and attractiveness; useful; excellent in its characteristics therefore well adapted to its ends.

The Bad
They will be bad willing, both bad in action and appearance, though camouflaged. They will be rotten; corrupt; of poor quality; used of over-ripe fruit that is useless and to be discarded, no longer fit for use. For all their outward garb, they will show a deliberate defiance of the moral law for personal gain. Without a regard to the pain or suffering brought to others by it. Selfish greed often with malevolent and criminal intentions. The active outworking of evil nature and purpose which is not always outwardly expressed. They are not only content to perish in their own corruption, but are not content unless they are corrupting others as well. Just like their leader, Satan.

Spiritual Blindness
Oh how blind these sinners are that they are surprised when the Lord Jesus rejects them on the day of judgement. How terrified the are going to be when the shocking truth bites home. All that religion that they did in the name of Jesus was futile regarding their eternal salvation. Be warned!

They are Everywhere
You will find many like these in the church today who have the concept that faith alone, without obedience to moral law, is all that is necessary for salvation. (Considered by sound theologians to be erroneous doctrine based upon a misconception of what salvation really is.) They openly state we cannot criticise others who sin because we humans, even Christians, cannot fulfil our moral obligations and obey God. Others deny original sin. They assert that each individual has freedom of the will to choose not to sin (what man ought to do, he can do) and the avowal that each person's freedom of the will includes the unassisted initiating power to move toward salvation and to appropriate the divine grace necessary thereto. They believe in the total world-wide ultimate salvation of each and every individual, and deny there is a hell.

They are unregenerate, not renewed in heart remaining or being at enmity with God, and living out a life based on loony religion. You will also find others in your community who once saved fell away or abandoned their beliefs; renouncing their faith after a backsliding of heart; a final and unchanging return to a selfish ultimate intention of life.

Please Listen to Jesus
In order to avoid their fate you must learn that only the Lord Jesus Christ can teach you the way to salvation, proper Christian living, and an eternal life with God in heaven. Ardent disciples like me can help you, but only by turning you to His teachings and companionship. God the Holy Spirit is powerful enough to do all that is necessary to bring you through to salvation. All you have to do is ask the Lord Jesus for help and await the wonderful experience of having God enter you.
Matthew 7:24 "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."

Trust Jesus
Please believe me when I say, "You can trust the Lord Jesus Christ!"
Matthew 7:28 When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, 29 because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.

A Mighty Saviour
The people alive in His day had an advantage over us in that they could see many of the wonders he did before their very eyes. This what the apostle John, a very close friend of the Lord Jesus, had to say at the end of his gospel in the Holy Bible.
John 21:24 This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true.
25 Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.

Grabbing the Nettle
In order to be saved you must certainly be won away from yourself. Realising this may cause you a great deal of pain but it just has to be. Many people remain lost for failure to be honest with themselves.

Morality
You are a free moral agent of course. A creature created by God and capable of right and wrong action, being endowed with the ability to perceive what is right and proper conduct in your various relations with the power of free choice and thus able to be governed by truth addressed to your intelligence. That is why God has given you a free choice regarding which gate to enter. You have not been created an animal; you have a spirit and a soul.

Moral
Moral is having to do with right and wrong; relating to, dealing with, or capable of making the distinction between right and wrong actions of conduct; pertaining to the discernment of good and evil. The concept of absolute morality presupposes an absolute set of standards as to what is right and what is wrong. Without these absolute standards morality becomes meaningless, or can be made to mean whatever anyone wants it to mean.

Moral Character
Moral character is a continuing state of activity or conduct that takes place in the experiences and consciousness' of moral beings. Moral character is moral action or personal action. It is not something back of the will causing action, but is the action of the will itself. It is the thoughts we think the attitudes we have the things we say the actions that we take that constitute our moral character. Moral character must be a voluntary choice of the person involved, as distinguished from a constitutional trait or natural attribute. If moral character is something fixed or something that controls the will in one direction or in another, then virtue or blame disappears, the law of cause and effect takes over, and moral action ceases to exist.

A Depraved Rebel
Until you are saved you are in rebellion against God, wholly alienated, intensely prejudiced, and committed against Him. You are committed to self-gratification as the end of your being.

This committed state is moral depravity, the fountain of sin within you, from which flow by a natural law all your sinful ways. That state of constitution and faculties by which it is easier to sin or gratify ourselves than to do what our enlightened mind declares to be right and proper. Depravity is a strong tendency toward gratifying certain kinds of indulgences which our constitution and environment has fostered. Our depravity at a given instant must be the sum total of that within us which resists and becomes an impediment to right moral action. The great mass of this depravity is what we have developed for ourselves by persistent and ever-deepening gratification. These aggravated tendencies to self-indulgence have become a part of us and are not to be thought of as a separate entity lodging somewhere in our personalities. Our depravity has permeated our entire personality. No part of us is unaffected.

Physical depravity is our weakened and unbalanced physical condition constitutes what we call physical depravity and contributes to the development of moral depravity. Physical depravity is not to be thought of as a loss of the ability of free will, or as a moral depravity, which must always be voluntary, but as introducing a bias or tendency toward self-gratification-an obstacle which must be overcome by right moral action.

Total depravity is the theological theory that man is born with a sinful nature and is spiritually dead. This is Augustinian philosophy and Calvinistic theology. Depravity means "very crooked." The Biblical concept is that man is born with a physical depravity that influences but does not cause moral depravity. Man is not born sinful or virtuous, but innocent and acquires his sinful nature by his choices.

This committed voluntary state is your "wicked heart." The heart is the seat of the affections, desires, and appetites. That which influences the will in making moral choices which in turn directs the mind to institute the chosen action. The ability to choose. The ability to know what to choose. The control centre of one's life. The motivating purpose of one's life. This it is that needs a radical change.

God is Perfectly Right
When the going gets tough, it is to easy for us all to blame God. God is infinitely benevolent, good willing; a good act; disposition to do good; a disposition to promote the happiness and well-being of others from a purely unselfish motive.

Love
Whereas, unconverted sinners are supremely selfish, regarding one's own interests above the welfare and happiness of others, so that they are radically opposed to God. Your committal to the gratification of your appetites and propensities, living supremely to gratify the five senses (worldly), is known in Bible language as the "carnal mind"; or, "the minding of the flesh," which is enmity against God.

Flesh
The Holy Bible speaks of FLESH: human or bodily attributes not spiritual, but physical. Sensibilities are the five senses. (Not inherently evil in themselves.) Many people fall into the error of regarding flesh as something wicked where in fact it is the overindulgence that is a problem.

This enmity is voluntary, and must be overcome, if at all, by the Word of God, made effectual by the teaching of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus the Perfect Teacher
Let us remember the manner in which Christ concludes His memorable Sermon on the Mount. After spreading out those awfully searching truths before His hearers, and demanding that they should be perfect, as your Father in heaven was perfect, He concludes by assuring them that no one could be saved who did not receive and obey His teachings. Instead of attempting to please our people in your sins, we should continually endeavour to hunt and persuade them out of your sins. Brethren, let us do it, as we would not have our skirts defiled with your blood. If we pursue this course and consistently preach with unction and power, and abide in the fullness of the doctrine of Christ, we may joyfully expect to save them and ourselves that hear us.

Listen to Jesus
What is the key to their destruction? They could not deceive him as they had those whom they harmed. Though they called him by his proper title they did not do the will of God. Despite their great works in his name that must have generated a great deal of praise from those they deceived, he rejected them for their lawlessness. He did not know them.

No Personal Relationship
Jesus had not been in union with them. He had known them through experience; or perceived them through the senses; no subjective knowledge; a knowing that comes from an active relation between himself and them; there had been no first-hand or personal interaction; no personal acquaintance or some relationship of intimacy or connection. The Lord Jesus knew of them but no more than that.

Wise People
Wise indeed are they whom hear his words written so clearly for us in the Holy Bible. They are people characterised by a practical wisdom that sees what must be done and what must not be done in any given situation; with quick and correct perceptions, hence discreet, circumspect; as of one who is in practical touch with life and reality. During the tough times that come to us all they stood firm in Him their protector.

Foolish People
But not so the false ones rejected by the Son of God at the time of judgement. If they were churchgoers they would have had a Holy Bible therefore they would have read these words in Matthew's Gospel. Yet they had not put them into practice else they would have been right with him because he would have known them. What fools they had been to reject the words of Christ. They lacked the maturity to be discriminating; infantile; mentally or psychologically immature; easily deceived. People with a low development or deficient use of reasoning abilities.