Matteo 7:23

And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from Me, ye that work iniquity.

In that day, in the great, dread Day of Judgment, when the thoughts and desires of mind and heart will be revealed, there will be many, a large number, that will make a plea in their behalf. They will point to all kinds of notable deeds that have the appearance of miracles. But whether this be prophecy, or whether it be the casting out of devils, or whether it be some other wonderful work; also whether the miracles were expressly made in His name and ostensibly in His power, all this will avail them nothing.

Though they repeat the phrase "in Thy name," clinging to it as to a forlorn hope that might soften the heart of the Judge, that very expression will prove their undoing. For He, on His part, also has a profession to make. Perhaps they are sincere in thinking that He ought to own them, acknowledge them, but He is of a different opinion. He finds it necessary to expose the hollowness of their confession.

Never, during their whole career, while they were deluding themselves and leading others into delusion, while they were using His name in vain in the attempt to promote their gain, has He known them. They have never become His intimates, their hearts were always far from Him, they had no faith. To Him, therefore, all their works prove them to be workers of iniquity, having used His name without right or warrant in carrying out something which He had neither commanded nor sanctioned.

Their sentence is brief, but terrible. "Depart from Me," Matthew 25:41; be separated forever from the salvation, the glory and beauty which intimacy with Me implies. For in blessed union with Christ all is heaven; in separation from Him there is nothing but damnation.