In Matthew 7:15-23 Jesus prophesied about a category of people who, when they appeared before Him on Judgment Day, He would declare to them: “I NEVER KNEW YOU.” Notice who will constitute the “you” to whom He was referring. These will be people who will remind Him that they had preached, cast out demons and done many other wonderful things in His name. Understand that preaching and the performing of miracles can be done by people who have never and will never stand in a pulpit. Faith is faith–it works no matter who has it. I had healed the sick and cast out demons before I answered God’s call to His apostleship. Recall that Stephen was a food distributer when he began to perform miracles. He became so famous that the Jews killed him (Acts 6-8). Jesus said that with faith all things are possible (Mk. 9:23). He did not say that the faith-filled believer had to be a God-ordained minister.

Concerning the ordination of ministers in the Lord’s church, we must not confuse His ordination to man’s ordination in man’s churches. Those who are ministers in God’s church neither need nor want man’s approval. If very many church people agreed with me I would have to take a long, hard look at what I was saying and writing for something would obviously be wrong with my message. After many years of doing what I do, only six people have physically joined me in the area where I live. I have been on local radio and have published many articles in the local newspaper. Many thousands of people have heard my radio broadcasts and read my newspaper articles over the past 40 years. And yet only a half-dozen have come with me. Why? Because God, not man, made me His, not Satan’s voice in this geographical area. He makes all ministerial appointments within His church. He does not need a committee of men who would hire leaders who would tell them what they already know. God assigns as ministers in HIS CHURCH (1 Cor. 12:28). He is the same yesterday and forever (Heb. 13:8). He is the Lord Who does not change (Mal. 3:6). He chose church leaders in Paul’s day and continues to do so today.

Now we will delve into the “knowing” versus “KNOWING” issue relative to our direct relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. A good place to begin is Genesis 4:1 where it is written that “Adam knew His wife Eve and she conceived.” Obviously, since Eve was created out of Adam’s body and he had spent much time with her he “knew” her in a social sense. As we all know, it takes more than a simple knowing of a person to create a pregnancy. Obviously, Adam “knew” her in a much more intimate way which caused the conception. We must have a spiritually intimate relationship with the Lord in order to become His children.

In the spiritual realm, God “knows” every human being ever born because He created every human being ever born. This is the same “knowing” by which He “knows” us throughout our lives. However, there is another level of “knowing” that involves Him being intimately and internally involved in our lives in the form of His Holy Spirit which abides in and leads the true, justified, righteous, converted saint. Read about the justification, righteousness, conversion, salvation process using the key word–Conversion.

In Matthew 25 we find the PARABLE of the ten virgins (true saints as described in the previous paragraph). At one time all ten had been intimately involved with God. Each had a lamp, fuel and wick–everything needed to produce light that, if allowed to burn until the Bridegroom (Jesus) arrived, would have enabled them to marry Him and live with Him forever. However, five of the virgins had become foolish (had returned to sinning). Notice that though they had become sinners, they were still called “virgins” because they were still in the church, still posing as obedient believers and still being viewed as such. However, Jesus knew what they were and said something extremely important when they finally arrived at the door where the marriage feast would take place. He opened the door and, upon hearing their request to enter, said: “I KNOW YOU NOT.”

Unlike those whom He will address as written in Matthew 7:23 whom He had NEVER “KNOWN,” He had at one time “KNOWN” these five people who had secretly returned to the ways of the world. As a result, Jesus had stopped “KNOWING” them. To Him, they were no different than those in the world around them. Obviously, only those whom He “KNOWS” intimately will marry Him upon His return to earth.

The Scriptures tell us that whether He “KNOWS” us or merely “knows” us is determined by our relationship with the world in which we live whose god is Satan (2 Cor. 4:4). The Lord tells us that, though we are IN the world we are not to be OF the world. We must have no more dealings with the world than are necessary for normal life. This world-rejecting, God-obeying life, He tells us in First Peter 2:9, makes us appear “peculiar” to those of the world, including the church world. Why? because, as the apostle tells us, we are “a chosen generation (group), a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people” who have come out of the world’s darkness and into God’s marvelous light.

Understand this, if you are a true, Very Elect saint, everyone around you, including your relatives and friends, ARE THE WORLD BECAUSE THEY ARE OF THE WORLD. I deal with this “in the world but not of the world” issue daily. We cannot leave the world and therefore must deal WITH the world while not becoming a part OF the world. The five foolish virgins knew this and yet allowed Satan to pull them back into his worldly domain from which, in the past, had escaped. Today the vast majority of church people are OF the world IN which they live. Television, newspapers, magazines, radio, the internet, etc. are all of the world and are used by Satan to draw God’s saints back into it. And he is succeeding in 99% of the time. For every minute church people spend in prayer and Bible study, they spend multiple hours in front of a screen or involved in other sources of worldly nothingness. Trust me, I know how difficult it is to cast off all of the worldly lures that surround us and call out to us. Then to immerse ourselves in the things of God while everyone around us is going in the opposite spiritual direction makes it doubly difficult. However, IT MUST BE DONE IF ONE IS TO SPEND ETERNITY WITH THE LORD. Jesus did it and tells us that we must do it in order to join Him in paradise (Rev. 3:21). Let no false prophet tell you that believing in Jesus and taking Him as your personal Savior has saved you. This is a lie straight from the heart of Satan and through the lips of his servants.

We are given only a short time to prepare for eternity. God’s true saints use as much of that time as possible learning about His requirements for spending eternity with Him, then fulfilling those requirements. God has separated me from all sources of worldly junk. The only dealings I have with the world is in the conduct of my family life and doing the physical things a man is expected to do. For that reason God “KNOWS” me and I “KNOW” Him. It doesn’t get any better than that. L.J.