Two Roads Two Destinies 04 Ireland st.chapel — Worth Ellis

Lord God, our Father, we come in Jesus' name, with thy word only for us, we claim the promise thy faith that the entrance of thy word gives light and understanding. We ask thee, Father, that in this hour thy word is well and spoken.

You, this blessed word, will bring the light of salvation to some, for Jesus' sake. Amen. Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they'll have a deal of God, but not according to knowledge.

For they being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law, the righteousness to everyone that believes it.

The Narrow Road and the Absence of Neutral Ground

Mary, I met you this morning in the 11 o 'clock hour when I talked here. We took up a subject in the nature of a comparison, a contrast between the narrow road and the broad road, and we showed from the word of God that there is no middle path, no neutral ground, which simply means that at this present moment every one of us are either saved or lost.

That there is no such thing as being either for or against. The Lord Jesus said, he that is not for me is against me. He that gathers not with us shall not progress. And so, the Bible teaches at this very moment where we are, every individual in this building is saved by the grace of God having received Christ, for we are still lost in this sin and the way, so in this destruction.

Humanity's Natural Depravity and Enmity Against God

We learned this morning in our study on this subject here that all of us by nature are born lost, dead in trespasses and in sin. We found out in Romans chapter 3 that the entire record of the word of God gives to us a very dark description of the human heart.

We learn there that there is none but two, there is no not one. We're all together to become a part of it, and we're all going out of the way. The word of God distinctly convicts all of those who are in this building this morning that by nature we make our entrance into this life lost, dead, spiritually with no life from God, alienated from the life that has been God, and by nature we are enemies of God.

This is not a delivery, I am sure, and neither is it possibly acceptable with the natural man, but the Bible reminds us in Romans chapter 10 and verse 9 that if we know we're enemies, we will reconcile to God by the death of his son.

We will reconcile to God by the death of his son, lest we have been reconciled and shall be saved by his life. And so, we are taught in the word of God that as financial gods, we are born enemies of God.

We are lost, and this is the way all of us make our beginning or entrance into this life. Now, the message we're going to take up tonight is entitled, The King's Footpath or Satan's Five-Foot Narrow Road.

Proverbs' Warning About the Way That Leads to Death

The text that we ought to remember tonight is Proverbs 16 and 25, where the Bible says there is a way that is right for no man, but the end of life are the ways of death. As we learn this morning from the Bible, that we are all born by nature on the broad road, we shall learn tonight that the word of God that brought all of us are born on the broad road that leads down to death and destruction, that all unsafe people do not live on the same side of the broad road.

Who's remoting the artist who's seeking to impress upon us here with this narrow segment of the broad road? Remember this entire area here is seeking to put forth the imbolical truth of natural depravity that we are all lost in the need of salvation.

Let me do this narrow line here in this section and call it the to distinguish between good, moral, righteous, free-living people as contrasted to the broader section of the broad road where the wicked and the ungodly can live.

Do you understand the fact that all those others are bright citizens and people who are very respectful of the things of God? So, here, grace has taught you many other basic habits and vices that these people here are afflicted with on this part of the broad road.

Justification by Grace Through the Redemption of Christ

Now, tonight we have our objective to see what the Bible teaches us about the clean footpath. You see, my friends, what other believers Jesus died for is upon the cross, and this is what we shall show this morning from Romans chapter three, that God has faith in Jesus Christ when we trust him as our savior.

He declares that we are righteous in his sight. We have criticized and have held back the hard deal. Bible teaches like this in Romans 3 and verse 24, being justified or declared right to strip lives by the grace of God through the redemption that is in our Lord Jesus Christ.

And, remember, you and I believe in the Son of God, and we accept his death as payment for our sins, and we receive him by entering in through this door. He himself said, I am the body of heaven and earth, and he shall be saved.

The moment we do that, immediately God in heaven declares that we are now justified. We are the quickest, we are the powerful, we are now given a right standing in the presence of God, and this on the basis of the infinite value of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Not the value of our faith upon the death of Christ, but this is salvation, but it's the practical death of Christ that will ever satisfy the righteous demand of God against me. You see, it is God for whom the satisfaction has been made, and it is God, rather, for whom the sacrifice was given.

Christ died for God in order to make it comfortable, as we read in Romans 3, for the church that God should be just in the justifier of them that believe in Jesus. Now, you see, the only way God can save sinners without becoming a sinner himself is that someone must die and pay for sin.

For the time of the church makes it clear that the way to the sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. The only payment God accepts for sin is death, and that's why, indeed, that we are justified freely by the grace of God's truth and redemption.

That means that by that, by paying a price, through the redemption of Christ Jesus whom God has set forth, let's say to me openly displayed, crucified, resurrected, and ascended into God's inherent God right then as a satisfactory sacrifice by his death, and the only thing God requires in your part in mind is pay.

The Gospel and Satan's Counterfeit Narrow Way

Now, this is what salvation is. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ that is the power of God unto salvation. But, you see, whatever Christ did throughout, whatever God provided, the narrow ways that lead to heaven, the law that shall be in the door, and that is heaven itself, and with the Lord's love, in order to deceive people and to faithful for Christ's eternity, the devil can bring himself a counterfeit narrow way.

You see, my friends, the Bible teaches that the devil, and we'll see that later this Sunday night, but our pre-message is on Satan, and we'll learn that Satan primarily is a religious being. His main way of deceiving people is not through denial of the Bible, nor through gospel of Jesus Christ, but through imitation.

That's the reason I call him a counterfeit. Christians in the world today who know all the right answers, who carry the Bible in their arms like real believers, who have been baptized and joined the church and received in the church fellowship, many of them in new and ancient homes, they can defend their position.

There are those who can tell you why I am this and why I am that, ecclesiastically speaking, for I have allowed to this particular persuasion, and there are those who can tell you why I don't take sin in me like people here at Northgate Chapel.

It is one thing to have one's head filled with the knowledge of proper and correct doctrine, and another thing to have the heart filled with Jesus Christ. And, you see, my friends, a great weapon that the devil uses is to deceive people into believing they are saved.

He can give you something so like the real thing that you may go on for years and years and years and not even know that you are not a real Christian. This is why, tonight, I would like to publicly go on record that I have not one grip of confidence in my preaching, nor the powers of human effort, nor persuasion of personality, but only in five words of God.

The essence of God's word gives light and gives understanding. If you are here tonight, and you believe that you are saved, and you are really on the clean footpath, the way that seems that to a man is ended up in the ways of death.

I shall never, if I live to prove forever and each day of the day before eternity, I could never persuade you nor show you that you are wrong. Only the word of God can do that. That's why we must stick right to the book.

And, so, I do know what the Bible teaches regarding the devil. He is a master counterfeiter. Well, have you claimed the church of God today? Have you looked at the congregation you find and literally riddled with false professors who look, and act, and walk, and talk like real Christians, but who have never had a real experience of conversion to Jesus Christ?

False Professors and the Need for Genuine Conversion

Now, we know this is true for the simple reason, in twenty-some years of traveling throughout the southeastern United States of America preaching the gospel, that rarely ever do we take up this section of the chapter of what some Christian got saved.

Some Christian, you know what I mean? Somebody who has passed as a Christian, somebody who has spoken in his faith. It happens to people that you would be absolutely dumbfounded if you knew them. I knew one lady in the city of Greenville, South Carolina, whose husband for years and still does write gospel tracts, the leaflets that Christians give out, and witnesses for the love, and she, for 30 years, patiently gave the tracts out to her husband Francis.

And, when we went there for meetings in Greenville, we were there, and she was one of the nicest, most generous, kindest women and ladies you've ever met in your life, and a real Christian in her own eyes, and everybody else's eyes.

She was one of those unusual outstanding Christians. Now, about the second night, as we reached on the left of the Greenfield path, Brother Bertha and I came into the meeting. She was sitting there with her husband, and she said, Ms. Ellis, I'd like to speak to you.

And, I went over, and she said, you know, it may be, but I have just gotten paid since you have been here with this child. And, I said, after 30 years of giving out gospel tracts and being in church fellowships, she said, yes.

The next evening, she said, Ms. Ellis, come over here. And, I went over there, and she said, I am absolutely frustrated that I've just gotten paid. And, after I left there, she wrote me a spiritual letter telling me the difference between a canopy and a genuine believer.

To the truth, for 30 years, I've driven out the tracts of my husband, Trina, because of the fact that it was my duty to do so as his wife and as a professing Christian. But, she said, now that I have been delivered from the Greenfield path, she said, praise the Lord of the glory that I've practiced, because my heart is full of gratitude to God, and love for Jesus Christ.

So, there's a difference. Now, you see, my friend, what we have to be able to validate in the teaching of the gospel of Christ, we must not only work many, many more than girls to flee from the wrath of God, to believe in Jesus and in the Lord, but we must also want to beware of Satan's counterfeit, complete prepash.

You see, a person here, for example, in a Christian home, and in an evangelical environment such as here, and other places that are fundamental to Bible belief, including churches, a child is brought up in such an atmosphere just because it learns all of the language.

As I said before, it's because the language is not apparent. They can look good in the face. Others have led others to Christ who have never been saved. I had the joy of meeting a young man, the Lord, in the city of Augusta, Georgia, less than three years ago, who led his wife to be to the Lord, and he wasn't even saved himself.

Now, he led his own wife to the Lord, and she was greatly saved, but he had not yet been saved, but he had not yet discovered this. But, he did shortly after, he led his own wife to be to the Lord. Nine years ago, next month, here in the city of Burlington, we had this church up, and we were speaking there.

That was a wonderful time of blessing when the Lord came in. We saw 26 or so professors be saved, among them a couple of medical doctors, school teachers, nurses, and so on. It was one of those wonderful movements of the Spirit of God.

What a time of blessing it was from the presence of the Lord. But, let me show you how God was working. In this meeting was a young couple by the name of Trent and Marjorie Mayer. Now, Trent practically operates an egg factory with 70 ,000 layers.

That's an immeasurable program to fill up 85 right out of nothing. He and his wife had met at Bryan University in Dayton, Tennessee, and a permanent love came of marriage. Bryan University is a fundamental Bible school, and there they had gotten married.

And, after they left there, they came back to Burlington and went into the church in the midst of a traditional rave, which he was. He was from a very fundamental, conservative magistrate in the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

She had two brothers on the mission field. The pastor of her church, when she was a girl, was Dr. Carl Van Gorder's father. He was a very close friend of Dr. Van Gorder on that wonderful broadcast that you hear on the radio to listen to the day of discovery, and also a radio Bible class.

Well, they had gone back to the traditional church of his background in which he had been raised, and liberalism began to creep in, and, in contrast against liberalism, he looked like a group in the church, Prince of Ireland Street, and associated with the assembly, or the church that gathers like this.

The group had become firmly established in the church. He would be up on the platform giving out the verses in the Bible to us. He was meeting with the men in the men's meeting, conducting the meetings of the assembly.

He was teaching Sunday school. They were both happy, very, very happy in their new clothes. On the evening, they preached on the same footpath the following night. Mr. Von Bergen was standing by the door talking to this young lady, and her husband standing there with a very small lady in his arms, and then he looked at Mr. Von Bergen and said to me, he said, did you know that Marjorie Mann got saved last night?

I said, I don't even know Marjorie Mann. He said, well, this is Marjorie. She got saved last night, and then she told me a little bit about it. Her husband Kent was standing there, and I looked at Kent with a baby in his arms, and he was absolutely dumbfounded, and I said, Kent, did it ever occur to you that your wife Marjorie was not really saved?

He said, Miss Ellis, it never crossed my mind. You believe it or not, I went home that night and checked that place by the grace of God. Now, there are two people who met in the marriage of Eastern University, who came home and protested against liberalism, left the church and went and joined the Ireland Street Chapel, and were actively for the love.

Three months after this was over, I went up for a Sunday, and they invited me home for lunch, and I said, do you remember the lunch table up there? I said, well, now that everything is quieted down and the spirit of the revival is over, everything's back to normal.

I said, what really happened? Why, you were saved when you were children, like you believed, and what now actually happened God expected to you, and you've had another experience, and now you've been a deacon, and you've opened up up to Jesus Christ.

And, then you listened to her first time, and you said, no, no, we've got to stop praying. We've just got to pray. So, I wouldn't argue with you about it. We're back by there three years later, and I'd had plenty of time to think it over, and I said, I'll check them out just one more time.

So, I carried them through the same routine. I said, shut up now. You had more time to think it over. You were really saved, weren't you? Weren't you? And, they spoke again in unison, and said, absolutely not.

They said, look, I would personally ever convince you what we have to do to prove to you that we have not been saved before. What's the matter? Don't you believe them? I said, of course I believe you.

I just wanted to be sure you knew what it was all about. And, you know what? He spoke up, and he said, I'll tell you this, even when I was unstable in the fellowship of the church, I had rather be with a graduate than any other people on the earth.

And, she, bless her heart, I never will forget it. Margaret woke up and said, and I had to know I was separated too. A separated, sanctified, sinner on the way to hell in the fellowship of the church.

This is a clean-for-past. Oh, my spirit, may the spirit of the living God penetrate your heart tonight and show you whether you are on the now-going, having received Jesus Christ, or whether you are on the clean-for-past, having learned and with an intellectual knowledge of Jesus Christ.

You are an intellectual believer in this powerful Jesus. I see a young man in this world burning tonight, and I remember when I used to go in his father's body shop, and his dad would cut hair to teach him his scripture verses.

And, I remember the rest of this young fellow had memorized about 300 verses before he got the first burning update of his passage. My friends, I'll tell you that heaven is in the countenance of Jesus.

The Deceptive Green Footpath and Religious Sincerity

May God touch our hearts tonight. Remember this text, and listen. It is a praise that seems right to a man at the end of all the ways of death. And, you see, my friends, there's a reason. Sometimes, if I ever have the chance to revise again your letters and your books, and I've left out some stuff here because it's too crowded, I may as well, if I can get all these scripture texts on this mailing list, on the mailing section, and I have the verses of this same book that's down here, make it this loud, because there are more people on the green side of the road than there are on this side.

Right? He said, I believe there are more people on the way to hell on the green footpath than there are here, and the reason is because the devil has deceived them into believing they're right. Do you think for one moment that the Jehovah's Witnesses, those zealous miscreants, God's so-called good, can deliberately deceive you and others and take you to hell?

They do not. They are absolutely sincere. They're either sincere or they are fools to work as hard as they do, and the reason they have so many followers, and the reason the Mormon church and others are going such phenomenal growths is because they have that devil to enlist their members for them by his out of this section.

He deceived the souls of sinners. The green footpath, the way that things reign, that's the end of the way. Now, listen, I believe there are two reasons why if you're on the green footpath. One is because an exercised soul is concerned about the relationship to God, and they're rather being given up on a steer by the devil.

When you get concerned about whether you're with people or not, the devil will be the very first one to say, you want to switch your meaning? You got to put this and that straight. I can do right over here, but just enough to listen to make you decently respectable, but look out for this dog, because once you get in there, you'll be, you'll be a fanatic.

They're warning you not to go in the dog, because when you're in here, you're one of those fanatics. You're always walking around sticking little papers on the people's noses and asking if they're safe.

They're warning you, don't do that. Once you're in the devil's eyes and ears, if you put your meaning, when you go to church and you're baptized, you go to college and seminary and get to be a preacher, a theological professor, the devil will say, amen, praise the Lord, go ahead.

That's exactly what you ought to do. For the moment, the very moment of the poor, guiltless killing, you realize you're lost and you never have really been saved, and this darkness will fill this issue every inch of the way.

That's the reason some of you young people tonight, and some of you older people as well, have never yet gotten up the courage to admit that you are lost and on your way to hell. The devil is taking you every breath, every inch of it, every step of the way.

He is determined to take you to hell. Straight religious training, I believe, was the primary reason the Baptist is prohibited on the clean footpath. Now, the people of whom we were meeting tonight were on the clean footpath, and they were there because of very strict religious training.

Romans 10 and the Danger of Self-Righteousness

As you look at this passage we read in Romans chapter 10, I want you to notice quickly that there are certain things said of these people here, until when we found two of everyone tonight was on the clean footpath.

Now, the Jewish people were exceedingly religious, especially the Pharisees. Do you know why it was so difficult for a Jew to get saved in the days of the Apostles? Number one, Judaism is the only God-given religion the world has ever known.

I repeat, Judaism is the only God-given religion the world has ever known. Christianity is not a religion. Christianity is Christ. Religion is a code of ethics and a moral, a system of ritual and ceremony.

That was to the end. But, we read here in verse 4 of chapter 10 of Romans, notice, Christ is the end of the lawful righteousness to everyone that believes. Now, the reason it was so hard for a Jew to get saved is because he had a God-given religion, a God-given feast, a God-given sacrifice, and a God-given ceremony.

For, whenever the Lord Jesus was rejected by the Jews and died upon the cross, God set the law aside and set the Jewish nation aside, and both Jew and Gentile are saved today by faith and faith alone in Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ is the end of the lawful righteousness to everyone that believes. But, you see, the Jew had a problem understanding this, and that's why the hardest people in the world today believe. What about those who are resting on a false foundation?

The hardest people in the world get saved are those who are securely roped to sleep by the devil, who have been lulled into a state of stupor. They are relaxed and content that, I'm all right, my mother and father are fine Christians, I've known this ever since I've been able to understand anything on the world of God.

I believe everything that Jesus said. So, does the devil. So, does the devil, that's right. And, you see, people, the hardest people in the world today who have a false foundation. Give me a man that believes nothing, and he'll get saved just as simple as a man who believes everything.

Give me a man who has no hope, and a man who gets saved ten times sooner and quicker than a man who has a false hope. Now, I want you to notice how the Spirit of God shows us the problem that confronted these people, and you'll find that this problem is exactly how I greatly prefer the problem confronting all of the same people today on the days that pass.

First of all, what I like about Paul is that he keeps finding those good to say about you. He says that verse, and then he lets you have notice in verse two, speaking of his earthly people, because I bear them record that they have a deal of God that is not according to knowledge.

Now, I'll tell you, I believe one of the most commendable things in the world is deal. First of all, give us a deal of the soul. God give us a deal of our Christian faith, and then I would not get much done without it.

I guarantee you that. If we're not enjoying our own salvation, if we're not enthusiastic about going to heaven where it's likely to make other people want to go with us, if it's not real to us, nobody else is going to be interested in it.

Perhaps you see the problem with the Jews, well, that they have deal, but they didn't have knowledge. Now, deal without knowledge is like a wood fire without a governor. It gets out of control, and I don't want to cut up the log, but it cuts up the logger, and knowledge without real faith, without knowledge of deal rather, without the control of Bible knowledge is most distraught.

But, it's good to be zealously affected in a good thing, says the apostle, but it's not good to be zealously affected in that which is error or which is wrong. So, he commends them for their deal, and then he tells them what the problem is, and step one, two, and three, there's exactly the progression of error.

The first problem produced the second, second produced the third, and the third sealed their doom. This is exactly the order of progressive error into which all people in Poland who live on the clean footpath.

Now, look at verse three. After commending them for their deal, and in two thousand in the Jewish religion, he says in the third verse of Romans 10 concerning the Jews, for they being ignorant of God's righteousness.

Now, that was the first problem that you had. Now, all of this was ignorant of, and twelve times it's found in the New Testament, and not one of the twelve does it ever mean mentally deficient. Not one of the twelve times the Spirit of God uses in the New Testament does the word ignorant ever refer to a person who is mentally tired or short of brain.

It always is when a word means uninspected, not knowledgeable. They do not have knowledge, and what the Spirit of God is saying to the inspired apostles, the first problem of the Jews and everyone like them on the clean footpath religious and moral and kind is that they haven't invoked religion on the wrong road is that you are without knowledge.

You see, the problem is the man or woman on the clean footpath does not really understand just as God said the same. This is the problem with the Jews. Can you imagine what it is like for a race of people, the Hebrew nation, who for a couple of thousand years or so or longer has been taught that ritual and sacrifice and the priesthood and the temple and the obedience to the Mosaic law was the way to heaven, and now comes along a man and turns the world upside down and throws the whole thing out the window.

It's equivalent to asking a Protestant congregation or fundamental believer to take elements from the communion table and go out and put them in the gutter and truffle them with their feet. This is the problem in getting the message across to the Jews.

They were not instructed. It's not that they weren't aware of the fact that God was righteous, but the very fact that they were still offering animal sacrifice broke evidence that they had not lost sight of the truth that God was holy.

So, you've got a person who depends upon the way of sacrifice. So, what they did not know is that not only is God righteous, but if they were ever to be righteous, God had to make them that way. You didn't need your help from them.

This is what they have not learned. You see, when they say they were ignorant of God's righteousness, it means that they did not really understand. They did not have a proper knowledge as to how God saves a man, a woman, or a boy or a girl through faith in Jesus Christ and the care of that one to be righteous in his presence.

The righteousness of God that they were ignorant of wasn't the character of God, but the salvation of God they did not understand. Step number one. Now, notice the logical sequence in exactly what follows.

As a result of a lack of knowledge as to how God saved people, they were going about to establish their own righteousness. So, my friends, it could have been written in 1976. It would not have been in what today.

Where do you find people today who do not understand just how God saves sinners? And, if they are concerned about the relationship with God, do you think you'll find them in the pool house? Do you think you'll find them drinking some broth from an oven?

No. If they are concerned about the relationship with God, they're only in the church, going back to their bedsides and serving the Lord. You see, because they are concerned, and yet not knowing how God saved people, they are going about trying to save themselves, and this is exactly what the Jews were doing.

When they accepted the righteousness of God, the free girl who came to Jesus Christ, they were rigidly going about trying to establish a righteousness of their own to make it acceptable with God. Notice the third step, which is that, as a result of that, they have not submitted, and the better word is subjective, they have not subjected themselves unto the righteousness of God.

Now, here is a statement that tells us that the righteousness of God, the salvation, the sanctification, the sacrifice, that God gives to those who trust Him as Savior, comes not by the way of activity, but by submission, by subjecting themselves to this righteousness.

The Two Kinds of Religious Activity

So, you see, I believe I am perfectly correct when I say this, that there are only two kinds of people who attend church regularly, who are active in church work, and who give money to the Lord on the churchly call.

Only two kinds. First of all, there are those who do that because they are saved by the grace of God, and they, out of appreciation for God and gratitude, seek the service and the fellowship of the local church in some capacity, ever give up their material means.

The other kind of person who gives to God and serves God and is faithful in the church is that person on the painful path whom the devil has deceived into believing that these three things, generally speaking, are a part of that which makes him acceptable to God.

This is what the Bible calls self-righteousness. Righteousness that runs on for justice. It's the effort of a sinner trying to make himself right with God, and there's only one thing known that all this religious activity and good works and politics is what he is inside of three times.

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he has saved us. Not by works of righteousness. Now, I want you to notice. Let's look at it again. They did not really understand how God saved a person.

As a result of that, they were trying to save themselves, and so busy trying to save themselves, they never took out time to just stop and let God save them. The hardest soul in the world for God to save is a poor sinner who's busy trying to save himself if he don't give the Lord a chance.

God's Provided Righteousness in Romans 3 and Matthew 5

Oh, my friend, about our wonder, what about the king's footpath? Are you saved? Goes to the kitchen home, nothing there, paper to God, paper to the church. And, I ask you, why? Why is it you have so little and almost no interest in the things of God?

And, I'll tell you the thing that starts a note of terror in my heart is that the people on the king's footpath don't know that they're there, and if God doesn't show you through his word you're never there.

All I can do is tell you what the book says and warn you to be sure. Ask God to show you, open your heart to the Lord, be honest with God, and say, Lord, show me. I'm out on the king's footpath. I'm out on the narrow way to teach you how.

I want you to turn to the third chapter of Romans, Romans chapter three, and we're just talking about the righteousness of God, and this will remind you of this in closing. Right in the Roman epistle, sometimes the righteousness of God refers to the character of God, an attribute of God.

Other times, the righteousness of God in the Roman letter refers to the salvation of God. Sometimes it's called justification, sometimes it's called being justified, sometimes it's called righteous. The context of this tells you that it's in reference to the character of God or the salvation of God.

Now, what we're going to see here is the righteousness that God has provided for us, and I want to give you a verse of Scripture in Matthew chapter five and verse 20. In the Scripture, it appears right here in Romans chapter three.

In Matthew five and verse 20, Jesus says to the Pharisees, listen, I say unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of hell.

Now, he was addressing people of Pharisees and Among Us, but he tells them this. Except you have a righteousness that is superior to, the word exceed means superior to, over, above, in character, I mean quality, not quantity, but it's a kind.

He says to these people, except your righteousness is superior to, over, above, in character and quality to the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of hell.

Now, here is a solemn promise from Jesus Christ that, if I do not have a righteousness superior to that of the scribes and the Pharisees, I can never get to heaven. Now, very briefly, those of us who are familiar with the New Testament right away will know that the main strength and the platform of righteousness upon which the religious Pharisees stood, and this platform was comprised of a number of things, but the two main boards and the platform of simple righteousness upon which the Pharisees stood, hoping to be accepted with God, the two main boards, there must have been about ten like the other, standing right in the middle of the platform, was obedience through the law and participating in good works.

Whatever else they add through the law, and never forget that the Pharisees added hundreds of things to the law that you don't find within the law. They made laws to themselves, but the two main laws was obedience to the command and participating in good works.