And number four, unsaved people cannot get someone saved.
This should be obvious, but unsaved people cannot get anyone saved.
Look at Matthew 23 verse 15, woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,
for you can pass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he's made, you
make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
Now what is a scribe?
The word scribe has to do with someone who writes things down, and in this context the
scribes are people who are copying scripture, okay, copying scripture, copying scripture.
Now this is before the printing press, right, because the printing press is a more modern
invention.
In ancient times, in the Bible days, there was no printing press.
Every document is handwritten.
Every copy of the Bible was handwritten.
And so you have these guys called scribes who write out the Bible.
Now look, if you've ever tried to write out your own copy of scripture, who's ever
written out like multiple chapters of the Bible?
You've done that either as a school exercise or just as a personal exercise.
It's a lot of work.
It's incredible.
Okay.
So I started copying the Greek New Testament because I wanted to create my own Greek manuscript
and then I could bury it and dig it up and it could be, you know, codex, codex tempi
or something.
So basically, you know, catalog it and whatever.
You know, James White has the Greek New Testament tattooed all over his arm like
a cannibal, so after he dies, he's going to be skinned and that's going to be entered
into the textual record.
But anyway, that's another sermon which I'll be preaching at another time.
So the bottom line is that writing down scripture is very tedious and laborious to copy the
Bible by hand.
But throughout history, it's been done millions of times.
I mean, people, I mean, just even what still is extant today, there are tens of
thousands of handwritten manuscripts of the New Testament.
Not all in Greek.
You have about, what, 5,000 some manuscripts in Greek, but you've got, of course, Latin,
Georgian, Syriac, etc.
So you've got all these handwritten copies of scripture that describes our guys.
This is what they do.
And by the way, throughout the Middle Ages, you had Roman Catholic monasteries, right,
where these guys in the monastery are just copying and copying and copying.
Now let me ask you this.
Are those guys in the monastery saved?
These Roman Catholic monks, are they all saved?
No way.
I don't think any of them are saved if they're devout Roman Catholics.
Oops.
Sorry.
But it's true.
So anyway, the bottom line is you've got these guys that are copying the scripture.
Now let me ask you this.
Are they copying out copies of the writings of Buddha?
Are they copying out the Vedas for the Hindus?
Is that what they're copying?
No, what are they copying?
Is it the right Bible or the wrong Bible that they're copying?
Are they copying the Tao Te Ching or what?
They're copying the Old Testament scriptures, the right Bible.
So the scribes here that he's referring to are guys that are copying the inspired
word of God, delivered by God to the Hebrews, and they are taking the word of God into
a foreign country, but they're not saved.
So well, the power of God's word to just get people saved, you know, don't underestimate
the power of God's word.
Hold on a minute.
God's word is very powerful, but you know what it also needs?
An explanation from someone who's actually saved so that the Holy Spirit can do it.
I'm not saying that the sword isn't sharp.
I'm just saying somebody's got to wield the sword.
I'm not downplaying the power of the sword.
And here's the thing.
You're not going to get anybody saved without the sword.
You can't get anybody saved without the Bible.
But the Bible can't get anybody saved without you because it takes both.
Just like it takes a mother and a father to produce a child.
You got to have the word of God and you got to have the Holy Spirit present in the person
who's explaining it so that the penny can drop and someone can be saved.
And so here we see that they can pass sea and land and they get precisely zero people
saved even though they are compassing sea and land with a copy of the word of God
because they are scribes that are taking a trip.
I'm sure the scribes get on a boat and take the word of God to a distant land and
don't give out any copies of the Bible or don't read any copies of the Bible to people.
Really?
No.
They're taking the word of God across sea and land and yet they get precisely zero saved
according to Jesus.
This is what the Bible actually says.
It says they can pass sea and land to make one proselyte and when he's made, hey,
they got somebody saved.
Nope.
You made him twofold more the child of hell as yourself because everything brings
forth after its own kind and since you're not saved, your convert isn't saved.
Look at Luke.
Actually stay in Matthew.
Go to Matthew chapter 15.
Matthew chapter 15 and I'll read for you from Luke 639 and he spake a parable unto
them.
Can the blind lead the blind?
Shall they not both fall into the ditch?
Look at Matthew chapter 15 verse 12.
Then came his disciples and said unto him, knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended
when they heard this saying?
Oh man, whoops.
I'm sorry.
Notice how not that the Pharisees were offended after they heard this saying?
And then he answered and said, every plant which my heavenly father hath not planted
shall be rooted up.
Folks, the unsaved false teachers, false prophets, the scribes and Pharisees were
weeds.
They're weeds and guess what?
They're not going to produce good fruit.
You're not going to go out to the weeds and the thistles and the thorns and briars
and collect grapes and figs.
It's trash.
And so he says here, every plant which my heavenly father hath not planted shall be rooted
up.
Let them alone.
They be blind leaders of the blind.
And if the blind lead the blind, well, the word of God, you know, can still do it.
No.
If the blind lead the blind, they both shall fall into the ditch.
And these people are all using the correct Bible, but yet they're leading people into
the ditch.
Look, the Mormons have the King James version and you know what they're doing with it?
Leading people into the ditch.
You know what they do when they go on their little tricycles and name tags?
They're leading people into the ditch because they're blind.
They're leading the blind.
Go to Matthew chapter seven, Matthew chapter number seven.
The Bible says in verse 15, beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing,
but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
Ye shall know them by their fruits.
How do we identify false prophets?
You should know them by their fruits.
Now some people try to twist this and say, well, that's just, you'll know them by what
they say.
Really?
Cause I've heard a lot of false prophets who say the right things and they know how
to talk the talk.
And guess what?
There are people who pretend to believe one thing, repeat things that they've heard.
That doesn't mean that it's coming from their heart, okay?
And so the Bible says you will know them by their fruits.
Why?
Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles?
Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth
evil fruit.
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit.
Watch this.
Neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
Every tree that bringeth forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire, wherefore
by their fruits ye shall know them.
Now look my friend, you're not going to gather oranges from an apple tree, okay?
It's not going to work.
It's not going to happen.
Well guess what?
You're not going to gather saved converts from an unsaved preacher, an unsaved teacher,
an unsaved.
It's not going to work.
It's impossible.
In fact, this is a way to identify false prophets by their lack of good fruit.
Now here's the thing.
Not every person will bring forth any fruit.
You know, if you think about it, there are people who go to the grave without having
any children.
There are animals that die without having any offspring.
There are plants that never reproduce.
Does that mean that they were not human?
Does that mean they were not an animal?
Does that mean?
If I go buy an apple at the store and I eat it, that apple didn't produce any apples.
It did not multiply because I ate it.
Does that mean it wasn't an apple?
No, it was still an apple.
But let me tell you something.
If that apple brings forth fruit, it better be apples or that wasn't an apple, right?
This isn't really that tough to understand here.
Jesus is making this simple.
And he says, look, when you see somebody bringing forth fruit, multiplying, having converts,
the Bible says you'll know the false prophet by his fruit.
He said, when you see somebody with a bunch of good fruit, you know what?
You can know that he's a good tree.
And when you see somebody with a bunch of evil, corrupt fruit, you can know that's
a bad tree, okay?
So the Bible says the tree is known by its fruit.
You shall know them by their fruits.
I don't know about you, but I don't know enough about plants to just start identifying
trees in an orchard if the fruit's not growing on it.
I don't know what that is.
I can tell the apple from the orange, from the pear, you know what I mean?
I wouldn't really know.
Now some people could be that kind of an expert, but in general, the tree is known
by its fruit, isn't it?
I mean, how do average mortals tell what an orange tree is?
Only because you saw oranges growing on it, otherwise you have no clue.
You know, if I gave you a paper and a pen and said, okay, now draw the leaf of a cherry
tree, draw the leaf of a apple tree, draw the leaf of, none of us would be, but if
I said draw an apple, draw an orange, you'd be able to draw it, you know?
Okay, you could probably draw like a marijuana leaf and a maple leaf and that's about
it, okay?
But you're not going to be able to draw anything else because the tree is not known
by its leaves, the tree is known by its fruit.
Now we look at the leaves of the tree and it's beautiful and it's nice, but typically
we're like, man, I don't know what that is until it, oh wow, look what's growing on
it.
It turns out it's a grapefruit.
Turns out it's a pomegranate.
Turns out that's what that tree is because the tree is known by its fruit and he's
saying, look, when you're looking at a false prophet versus a true prophet of God, behold
his fruit, right?
Why?
Because the one thing an unsaved person can't do is win people to Christ.
That's the one thing that they can't do.
Can they copy copies of the Bible?
Can they run a printing press or a printing ministry?
And look, they can get up and preach sermons and say a lot of the right things.
Why?
Because they're wolves in sheep's clothing.
They're in sheep's clothing.
And by the way, the Bible even says that the antichrist will be so convincing that
if it were possible, he would deceive the very elect, right?
But of course it's not possible for the people to believe in a false Christ once they're
saved.