Follow the wrong spiritual teacher at your peril

Religious terrorists are hidden in our safe places: Churches, mosques, cathedrals.  And they masquerade as teachers, preachers, priests, clerics, imams, gurus, rabbis, theologians, bishops, apostles, cardinals, and popes.  Their desire is to make us feel safe in those environments.  But the truth of the matter is these are religious terrorists whose deadly lies are hidden under superficial morality, under religious ceremony, and they are more destructive than terrorists who can kill the body because their kind of terrorism destroys the soul forever.  They kill people eternally.

The subject of the sermon is true discipleship. And Jesus is defining a true disciple. You remember, first of all, in verses Luke 6:20-26 He defined a true disciple as a repenter, remember that? Somebody who sees his own sin, and realizes he’s poor, and hungry, and sad, and alienated. And so we’ve already looked at the fact that a true disciple of Christ is overwhelmed with his own sin, not overwhelmed with his own righteousness. That was true of the Pharisees and scribes and those who followed them. They were thrilled with their own righteousness. But a true kingdom disciple is in despair over his sinfulness. So the first characteristic, then, of a true disciple is repentance.

In Matthew 23:15 He says, “You travel around on sea and land to make a proselyte;”  You want followers to follow you as the spiritual teacher.  “And when he becomes one – ” of your proselytes “ – you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.”  You just make him worse.  You damn him to a greater damnation.

Most people, you know, in sort of a benign attitude think that the religious people are doing good in the world.  They’re spiritual terrorists.  They’re destroying the souls of people in safe places, places that appear safe.  You can drive down Roscoe Boulevard around the San Fernando Valley and you can find some of them, where the people go in every weekend and breathe spiritual anthrax.

They’re just making twice as much sons of hell.  They don’t know the way and they can’t show the way to anybody else.  ~ John MacArthur

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