When I was a young man, I would read Matthew 7 and I thought that verses 21-23 were talking about false prophets/teachers. Now that I'm older, and have been a pastor for more than 30 years, I have to say that I interpret or understand these verses differently. To remind you, that passage says, "Not everyone who calls me their Lord will get into the kingdom of heaven. Only the ones who obey my Father in heaven will get in. On the day of judgment many will call me their Lord. They will say, “We preached in your name, and in your name we forced out demons and worked many miracles.” But I will tell them, “I will have nothing to do with you! Get out of my sight, you evil people!”
Yes, it could definitely be false teachers or prophets, but I now see this as the lukewarm, pleasure seeking person who calls themselves a Christian yet knows little to nothing of what it means to serve God. So many "church goers" attend so infrequently that if you added all their time in corporate worship up over a years time, they actually spend less than the equivalent to one or two days out of 365 in worship. (2 hours, 1 time per month for a year is 24 hours. Double that for a person who comes twice per month.) Outside of those hours attending worship, they do not spend time in the Word, they do not witness, nor worship. In fact, little, if anything about their life has changed since they supposedly got saved, other than they now spend a few hours per year in church. I think this is exactly who Jesus is talking about in that passage.
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