Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Amen.
[00:00:02] Please be seated.
[00:00:08] So today we get to kind of continue our conversation that we started at the beginning of the year, talking about the influences in our lives.
[00:00:17] I don't know about you, but it's interesting how many times I. Hey, guys. Welcome in the back. Good to see you guys. It's an interesting how many things in my life I find that my decisions have been influenced by something else or somebody else. And if you think about your life, maybe that's the same way we have a tendency to make our decision based processes on people we trust, information we trust, input we get from other things. I mean, I just fixed the drain under my sink, and I trusted a total stranger to tell me how to do it on Google. Never met this guy before in my life, but he was right, and I did everything he told me to do. And all of a sudden, now I am an official plumber.
[00:01:06] It's interesting to me how many things in my life I take advice from other people, input from other people, and that has kind of almost created me into the person that I am today. Let me give you some statistics that might actually ring in your ears for some reason or another. Some of these actually might surprise you.
[00:01:29] The question is, where do you get the input in your life to make decisions, plan your future, fix the drain under your sink? Where do you get all that information from? And especially, where do you get that information from when it comes to you navigating the gray areas of life, the areas of life you're not used to, you've never gone through before. Where do you go to get your information? In a recent poll, 50% of their advice, people say, comes from their friends or life partners. Not terribly surprising. 50% is pretty good. However, 28% that say that they deliberately avoid professional input, professional advice for the sake of their family and friend advice. In other words, they'd rather get advice 28% from friends and family than they would from a professional. Now, this is the shocking part. In the last five years, that realm of friends that people tap into has grown to include friends they have never actually met over the Internet.
[00:02:40] Scary.
[00:02:41] People are taking advice from people that they trust on the Internet, never having actually met them. In fact, four in ten millennials say that their favorite Internet influencer understands them more than their friends do.
[00:02:57] Information has never been more available than it is today. Right? Would you agree with that? Every one of us can access information. I don't know about you, but let me just betray my age here a little bit. When I needed information, I had to get on a bus. I had to go downtown. I had to go to this thing called a library. Has anybody heard of those things before? I had to go in. I had to learn the Dewey decimal system to figure out one book out of a million books. And then I had to find it. And then you pull it out and you read it and then you think to yourself, where did I get this book from? And then you got to go find it and put it back. And most librarians would say, just put it in the bin. We'll take care of it for you. You remember those days? Now I can sit down on my computer and I can type in any abstract word I want. And then boom, I've got a million people telling me their view of whatever it is that I typed in. Can I ask you this question?
[00:03:54] If information is more available to any of us than ever before, why in the world is our. That's funny. Why in the world is our world more confusing than it's ever been before? I thought information was power. Isn't that true? If information is power, we are confused about so many different things to the point where I'm thinking to myself, maybe information isn't power anymore.
[00:04:23] Here's what I think actually might be happening a lot of these days.
[00:04:30] God is the author of faith, love, peace, all of those things. In fact, God said, I am love. Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth and the life. I'm peace. My peace I give to you. Jesus is saying, all of these things belong to him. But Satan is the author of lies and confusion and deceit.
[00:04:52] Maybe what we're getting is a lot of information that doesn't originate with the people that we are trusting online. Maybe that information is coming from places we don't even know about. This is what I want to explore with you today. Because 2000 years ago, before the Internet was ever a thought in Al Gore's mind, there came a point of time when God told us where some information would come from. So take your bibles if you would, or your social device, whatever you have. First Timothy, four, verse one. If you don't have that, we're going to throw it up on the screen for you here and you can follow along.
[00:05:31] First Timothy is a letter that Paul the apostle writes to Timothy. Timothy is a pastor in Ephesus. Timothy actually was led to the Lord by Paul the apostle, and he has watched him grown up in the faith. Now he is ready to take on a church. And Paul writes two letters that we have to Timothy, first Timothy and second Timothy. That's creative isn't it first Timothy and second Timothy written to Timothy about how he should pastor and what he should look for warning signs in the church. And here's what it says in one Timothy four, verse one.
[00:06:04] Now the spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits. And the teaching of what church?
[00:06:20] Teaching of demons.
[00:06:24] Let me just clarify what Paul is saying here. Paul is saying, timothy, I want you to know as pastor of a church, some people are going to leave the church. They're going to leave the faith. They're going to leave what they believe, what they held onto for any length of time, and they are going to abandon that and they are going to follow teachings that originate from where? Church.
[00:06:44] The demonic realm, if you're wondering. Well, Craig, that's a little crass. That's a step into the unknown here. Let me just define some of these terms for you. Teachers will depart from the faith. Do you know what the word depart there actually is in the Greek? Nobody knows, nobody cares. But you might when you hear the actual word. The Word depart from the faith is actually apostomy. Does that sound like any word you know? How about apostasy?
[00:07:17] Some will apostasize. They will apostomize from the faith. They will abandon these. These people will abandon their faith in Jesus. They will abandon their trust in the gospel. They will abandon their faith in Christ. They will abandon what God has revealed. It will be an intentional thing, and they will do so in order to follow the teachings that originate from demonic realm.
[00:07:42] Some will depart. These are in the group of people that are followers of Jesus. They would be like the people that you'd expect to see in church.
[00:07:51] But when confronted with the truth in some difficult way, some challenging way, instead of changing, instead of letting God's word change them, their desires will change God's word and they will apostomize. They will leave the faith.
[00:08:09] Other teaching will be easier to follow than following what God says in his word.
[00:08:15] I'll give you a verse that we talked about, we kind of alluded to last week. Here's a verse in one John two. It talks about this as well. Children, it is the last hour and as you have heard that Antichrist is coming. So now many antichrists have come. We talked about this last week. You remember this like, the big guy will show up at some point, he will give out a lie and everybody's going to buy into it. Unless you're a follower of Jesus, you won't buy into it. But you can listen last week if you want to catch up. But it's interesting, the lead up to him, the appetizer is a lot of antichrists along the way, a lot of people who abandon the faith along the way. And here's why I say that, because he says, therefore we know that it is the last hour. Look at verse 19. They went out. Where did they go out from?
[00:09:01] They went out from us.
[00:09:06] They went out from us. Who went out from us? Antichrist.
[00:09:12] That's crazy, isn't it?
[00:09:14] You don't come to church and usually hear stuff like this. And yet there it is, right in scripture. Antichrists have come. They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us, but they went out that it might become plain they were not of us. Does that kind of spook you out a little bit?
[00:09:36] In other words, I think the devil has an agenda. And by the way, the devil is real.
[00:09:44] The greatest ploy that the devil ever pulled was convincing us he doesn't exist.
[00:09:48] The devil is real. He has an agenda. His agenda is to stop truth, to confuse truth, to make a world of confusion. So we cannot say what is the truth anymore. Instead, we say stuff like my truth or your truth.
[00:10:04] The devil will come in and he will make us doubt truth, and he will attack the last line of defense, the last line of defense, which should be the church proclaiming the truth from the word of God.
[00:10:21] Now, don't feel bad. People did this to Jesus, too. Did you know that? Ever heard of six six six? You'll remember this. John six six. You want to know what it says after this? After this teaching that Jesus gave? Look what happened. Many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. They were with us, but they were not of us.
[00:10:49] It got too hard. Life got too hard. Life got too confusing. The things of life just kind of sucked us down. And instead of following what Jesus said and what we know we should do, instead of doing that, we kind of go, it's just a little easier to do this thing over here.
[00:11:06] They've been doing this ever since Jesus had disciples, because they abandoned him, too. By the way, if you want to read the greatest verses in the Bible, they are after John six six, because Jesus looks at Peter and the rest of the disciples and he says, are you going to leave me, too? These are the twelve.
[00:11:23] Jesus had more than twelve disciples. You know that. He had a ton of disciples. But Jesus looks at his twelve and he says, are you going to leave me too? And Peter says some of the greatest words of scripture, and I didn't put them up on the screen, but he says, where else can we go? You alone have the words of life.
[00:11:43] Satan is not satisfied with just duping the world. Satan wants to control churches as well. Church is the last line of defense. The place where we love above anything else, the place where we serve, where we get into our communities, the place where we preach the gospel. We don't change it. We preach the gospel. We make it as plain as we can. We baptize people in front of the church. This is where truth happens, where we suck it in. It's the last line of defense.
[00:12:13] And Satan wants you to abandon what he has given, what God has given as our most solid footing in this world today. In fact, that's his preferred context.
[00:12:23] Listen what it says. By devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons. Don't be deceived. The origin of ideas that twist us to question the authority of God or manipulate God's word comes from somewhere. It's not just a thought somebody has in their head. It comes from somewhere. This kind of activity originates from the demonic realm. And the question is, who is following these deceitful spirits, these demonic teachings? Who is doing that? And God's word said, be aware, people in church, people who claim to follow Jesus.
[00:13:02] In fact, when Jesus approached the people who went to church in his day, he said they were sons of their father the devil. Did you know that? This loving Jesus who loves everybody and wouldn't hurt a flea.
[00:13:18] How do these people get in verse two?
[00:13:22] Listen, it gets worse through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared. These people are not like, these are not deluded like we talked about last week. They don't get deluded and caught in a snare unawares. These are people who know the truth and said, that's too hard. I'm choosing something else. And they teach it to others.
[00:13:44] They're looking for disciples.
[00:13:46] They are insincere liars. Have you ever met a sincere liar?
[00:13:53] These are insincerity. This is like a liar that is truly having an agenda to get other people to abandon the faith. They know full well what their conscience says to do. They choose to do the opposite. In fact, in this verse, it says their consciences are seared. You know what that word is there? Seared. It's Coterizo. What does that sound like? Cauterize. Isn't that great? You all going to want to be greek scholars after this, aren't you? Cauterize. It simply means they sear flesh so that there's no longer any feeling they know the truth. They sear it so that there's no longer any feeling there at all.
[00:14:40] Now, I don't know about you, but you might be thinking about a dozen different people online or on the television that you think to yourself, yeah, these people are in the church, and they're definitely.
[00:14:49] We could say that they are teaching as liars with insincere goals.
[00:14:56] But I want to tell you, it might be a little bit more than that.
[00:15:00] There are lines. When you cross them, you are no longer pricked in your mind about them. You probably have experienced this, like, I would never do that. Given enough time, you end up doing that thing.
[00:15:11] There are lines that you cross when you do it. You're no longer pricked in your conscience. And what's worse is they wear a form of godliness, but they cauterize the truth so that they will take what they want and leave behind what they don't. They sear their mind into submission. Their minds are branded by Satan to do his will.
[00:15:33] Now, I need to tell you, between the writings of first Timothy and second Timothy, a lot of people are out on this. Like, how long it is. I'm thinking it's between three and four years.
[00:15:43] Paul writes first Timothy to Timothy. And then he writes second Timothy. Both of these are in your bibles. A second letter to Timothy. I'm thinking there's about three to four years in between the two. From the research that I've done in that amount of time, Timothy has experienced church leaders who were in the church, but who have abandoned the faith. And they are trying to make disciples in the church, people who seared their consciences from truth. After he reads this in one Timothy, and Paul says, be aware there are these people around. In three to four years, they walked into Timothy's church.
[00:16:21] And if you read second Timothy, listen to what these words say. This is kind of scary. Second Timothy. This is the second book. Three or four years afterwards, this is what Paul the apostle writes to Timothy. The Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach patiently, enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance and lead them to a knowledge of the truth, and they might come to their senses and escape. Look at what it says here. Escape the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will. Whose will? Church.
[00:16:59] There are people in some churches who have seared their consciences so much so that they choose to do this and not what God says, and they believe they're doing the right thing, they are captured by Satan and they are no longer doing the will of God. They were in church doing the will of the enemy.
[00:17:27] How does somebody get to this point? How could somebody be so wrong?
[00:17:32] Last week we talked about delusions. People get caught up in these things. They don't know the truth. They're blind to the truth and they fall into the traps of the devil all the time. But in the church where the truth is taught, where people say, like Caleb is going to say at the end of this service, he said, I'm giving my life to follow Jesus Christ, right? This is my decision. I want to make everybody aware of that.
[00:17:54] In these kinds of churches where God's will is being done, where people have following Jesus, where they're declaring their faith in Jesus, in some of these churches, there are groups of people, there are individuals who want their will so bad that they abandon the will of God.
[00:18:10] They know they're wrong, but their personal agendas overcome their agenda to follow God's will. And they themselves believe they are doing the right thing.
[00:18:22] This is what happened. By the way, if you study about the reformation, any of you heard about the reformation. So the Roman Catholic Church kind of ruled the planet for a long time. But over a time period, the Roman catholic church became very, very corrupt. Middle ages, it wasn't pretty. Read historical books, you can read about all of this.
[00:18:43] During that time, there was a group of people that would always rise up and they would say, yeah, this isn't right. We shouldn't be doing this. I don't think this is right. The church is teaching us wrong and the Roman catholic church would kill them.
[00:18:55] One guy rose up and started what we call the Protestant Reformation. You remember what his name was? Martin Luther. Martin Luther stood up against the Roman Catholic Church, something that was never done before. He was teaching at a college. His students were the ones that were going, yeah, Martin's right. He's got something here. And they were the ones that almost kind of pushed Martin Luther into a reformation of the church. Martin Luther did not want to start a new church.
[00:19:23] He wanted to reform and fix what was happening because he saw the inconsistencies with what he read in scripture and what the church was doing. So he posted his 95 thesis. You know the story, right? Posted his 95 thesis, said, the church is hungry for money. They're promising people get to go to heaven if they give them more money. They're sending people into these charges, these armies they're putting children into because they're telling the kids grandmothers are going to get to go to heaven. And they were just abusing the people.
[00:19:57] Martin Luther wouldn't stand for it. Posted 95 theses started reformation, and we celebrate that every year. Right in October, actually.
[00:20:08] After him, the ball started rolling. And if you're wondering, I do a class on this, I'd love to, if you're interested, do another class on this. But this kind of tells you about how all the other denominations came to be. It wasn't his desire. He just wanted to reform the church. But what happened is the church actually splintered. And it all happened because there was insincere liars doing what they wanted to do in the church at the time. And Martin Luther fell head over heels in love with Jesus and God's word. And he said, whatever it takes, whatever it takes, whatever it takes, I will do what's necessary to keep the truth.
[00:20:49] I didn't mean to keep on going. Like the Roman Catholic Church, they called him in, they called the diet of worms. You remember this? The diet of worms? They called him in and they said, okay, recant, recant. And he said, I can't recant. I read God's word. I'd see what you're doing. You're going to Rome, you're having these. Anyway, it was really bad.
[00:21:08] He said, I can't recant.
[00:21:11] And they said, okay, we'll give you one night. You consider what you want to do. You come back tomorrow and you recant or we're going to kill you. That's what they did.
[00:21:20] He goes home and he sweats all night. He comes back the next morning and he gives this amazing speech. In fact, they don't let him give a speech. He only is able to get a few words out. And basically what he's able to say is, my conscience is my guide. God help me, here I stand.
[00:21:38] He got out of there and he was miraculously saved. It's a great story, but all of that to kind of tell you it's never changed.
[00:21:50] Satan wants to attack the last line of truth defense, and that is here. That is why when we talk from God's word, we say, listen, I'm really sorry that this is landing maybe difficult for you to hear, but you have to know my life with Jesus has been difficult too, because there's stuff that I want to do. And I read in God's word, it says, I have to do this and I'm going, okay, I got to die to self, and I got to live for Christ. And every time I do it, even though it seems to really be a hard thing, every time I do it, God rewards me in ways I can't even imagine.
[00:22:20] And I have to tell you, church, if you follow God's plan for your life, it is better than your plan.
[00:22:27] It is more joyful. It is more peace giving.
[00:22:31] You never lack good information.
[00:22:35] Demons are spreading a twisted teaching of God's word in the churches even today.
[00:22:41] But they don't show up in front of the platform with their little wings and their red eyes.
[00:22:46] They show up as people, people who stand up and tell you something that is not according to God's word.
[00:22:56] That's why I'm so grateful that God has preserved his word. He's kept it. He's kept it pure. And if somebody tells you the Bible that it disagrees with itself, they've got an agenda, because I've had those conversations. The Bible does not disagree with itself. It is true. It is preserved, and it gives us the way to salvation. It is the truth.
[00:23:19] Paul warned us that this was going to happen.
[00:23:22] In fact, he said in acts 20, verse 29, he said, listen to the early church. I know that my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And from your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them. An agenda.
[00:23:40] This kind of conversation goes all the way through the New Testament because it's a warning to us. Listen, when you are in church, when you listen to teaching, make sure it aligns with God's word with the truth. And by the way, if you're new to our church, I just want you to know we have great oversight here because we want to make sure that that's happening here as well. If you walk out of here going, yeah, it doesn't sound right, then we need to have a conversation, because either I'm wrong or not informed like I should be. But we're all growing together these days. Times have changed to make attacks easier. In Paul's day, you got, like, Jimmy and Jerry and Sally coming into church, and then word spreads. Hey, Jim, Jerry and Sally are telling us false things. This isn't right. And then Paul goes, hey, yeah, he sends a letter and he says, pastor of that church, you need to talk to Jim, Jerry and Sally and kind of correct them. It looks like they're going astray.
[00:24:36] That was easy because you could go home and find a thousand different pastors to tell you a thousand different views, and it's impossible to catch them all.
[00:24:52] You need to find a church that preaches the truth, and you need to align what you're hearing, what you're receiving. In 2024, multiple attacks are happening at all times. Television, Internet, social media constantly bombards us with heretical, daily insanity pumped out by demonic forces spoken through individuals that you may have trusted at some point in your life. Listen, Satan is not called the prince of the power of the air for nothing.
[00:25:21] If your information is coming from the airwaves, maybe that's his realm.
[00:25:28] Now, I'm going to give you these two quick things. The church at this period of time, Timothy. They were dealing with two major heresies in first Timothy that had creeped into the church. So Paul tackles them head on. First one was marriage, and the second one was abstinence from certain foods. You can throw the verse up there. I'm not even going to read it. Paul says, listen, you can't listen to the people that are telling you, don't get married and only eat certain foods because they have an agenda. And the agenda was, you can read this. Historically, it's called the Essenes. It's no big thing. They were around when Jesus was around. But anyway, they were creeping into the church. They had an agenda. They're trying to get disciples.
[00:26:08] Paul says, no, verse four, for everything was created by God and is good. Nothing is to be rejected if it's received with thanksgiving.
[00:26:17] So Paul quickly shuts us down. Marriage is good. It's created by God. It's a wonderful, holy thing. Foods. Eat all you want, within reason, declaring things to be right and wrong.
[00:26:31] And remember, we are to remember that this is a war. In this day, there are two fronts. They were challenging the idea of marriage. They were challenging the idea of what you could eat. The goal of heretical teaching is to feed our desires, scratching our itching ears at the expense of God's truth.
[00:26:48] But what are we challenged with today? Throw the next slide up there, would you, Kelly?
[00:26:55] What are the things that we are challenged with today?
[00:26:58] There's no huge discussions on whether we should eat barbecue ribs, not that I know of.
[00:27:06] The topics have changed. So I'm going to give you a couple of different slides that I think are the Frontline challenges in our churches today. You may go to a church and you may hear one of these things, and I'm here to tell you, these cannot be backed up with God's word. I'm going to give you, I think, what the top five are, and maybe you have a different one, and that's great. I'll continue to make this list, but these are the five that I think are weeding their way into our churches today. Number one, here's the first one. God wants me to be happy, healthy and wealthy.
[00:27:38] I don't know if you've heard this one before, but that is garbage. As we say in French, God just wants me to be happy, healthy and wealthy.
[00:27:48] The reason somebody would tell you that is because they want your money.
[00:27:52] And they have seared their consciences to the point where they are not timid about getting much more money from you so that they can have a jet to fly on themselves.
[00:28:05] What does my heart want here? Simple. A comfortable life centered around my perceived needs. Escaping, explaining God's purpose and suffering. Listen, it would be very difficult for you to give me any character in the Bible that had a happy, healthy and wealthy life. Followers of Jesus. You know the one thing they did have in common? They all suffered.
[00:28:29] They all were stretched in their faith.
[00:28:34] Read scripture. I mean, name anybody in scripture. David, Adam, Abel. Yeah, he was killed. Noah, New Testament. Peter, Matthew, Paul. Every one of them has this story. And the theme that connects them is the fact that God has crafted their faith through suffering. So if anybody tells you God wants you to be happy, healthy and wealthy, they're after whatever's in your wallet, and they don't care how poor it makes you, they'll use your credit card for free.
[00:29:07] The antidote is this. God wants me to be like him more, period. Even in suffering.
[00:29:14] That's the truth of God's word.
[00:29:18] Number two. I can't take the Bible literally.
[00:29:23] I can't take the Bible literally. There's some parts of God's word that just. We can't take it literally. After all, God is love. How would he ever judge?
[00:29:32] Again, I encourage you, just crack it open. Stop listening to these telecasters that claim to be theologians. They only parrot what they've heard already.
[00:29:43] God's word does not back up this idea. God. In fact, Jesus himself would say, man cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, almost every psalm, 150 of them, almost everyone, proclaims the greatness of God's word and how we need it.
[00:30:05] We can take the Bible literally.
[00:30:07] Why would I say that we cannot take the Bible literally? Simple. I want a guilt free sin lifestyle, married to a non accountable journey.
[00:30:17] In other words, the reason I would say God does not.
[00:30:23] We don't have to take the Bible literally. God is judging love and would never judge is because I have an agenda to live a certain kind of life and I don't want to be held accountable for it.
[00:30:34] The antidote to that is simple. We read the Bible literally. What God says, he means number three.
[00:30:44] God told me blank, this is a dangerous one. I've had people actually tell me know, Craig, God told me the other day, you should do a.
[00:30:57] That gets on my nerves because what you're doing is you're breaking the fourth command. You're literally saying, I think you should do this. And I'm going to grab God's name and attach it to what I'm telling you I want you to do.
[00:31:12] It's taking the Lord's name in vain.
[00:31:15] What does my heart want? Wants power and authority over others. Justification for my own actions, for manipulating the highest power I know. I want to take God and make him do what I want him to do. And God told me to do this. Now listen, God may tell you to do something and you should really do it.
[00:31:32] You should really do it.
[00:31:35] The danger is being so sure that God told me to tell you to do this.
[00:31:41] God leads us in our lives and we should listen with open ears. But the antidote to this is simply this. Get into your word. Get into God's word. Read the Bible. Scripture teaches this and I will practice what scripture teaches.
[00:31:56] Number four. I think this is one of the other teachings in our churches that is very dangerous. I can impress God to gain his favor.
[00:32:08] You couldn't impress God if you defied gravity.
[00:32:14] I can impress God to gain his. This is a workspace theology. This is the idea that I can do stuff and God will be pleased with me more.
[00:32:25] Listen, can I tell you something? God can't love you more than he does now. Do you know how I know that? He killed his only son for you.
[00:32:34] He doesn't need to be impressed by your actions because truth be told, you may be impressive on Monday, but on Tuesday you really stink.
[00:32:47] Or Wednesday, whatever day you choose, God is not impressed with our actions. He is impressed what Jesus has done on our behalf. That is what impresses God. And the only reason we are saved is not by works, it is by grace. Through faith.
[00:33:02] We are saved because he simply chooses to love us. What does my heart want through this? I want the right to sway God's choices and control my insecurity about my own behavior and destiny. And you'll have people in churches and they'll say, okay, you need to do this. You need to do this and you need to do this. And then God will accept you forget that. That is so. Nowhere in scripture is that ever taught. In fact, the opposite is taught.
[00:33:28] I mean, name a hero of scripture. Name a hero.
[00:33:31] Moses. He killed people. Had an anger issue, too.
[00:33:36] What? David Dalter. Give me what? Peter. Liar. I mean, come on.
[00:33:42] God doesn't sit back and wait for us to impress him. He is impressed with the actions of his son on our behalf and he chooses to love us. That's the only way we have an access to the father. The antidote is God cannot love you more than he already does because he chooses to. Salvation is by faith in his work on the cross, not our works added to it.
[00:34:02] You want to see the greatest sinner of all? Look at the person next to you.
[00:34:07] Look at this person up here. The Bible says one sin is enough to separate us from God for eternity. Jesus applies his blood to our lives, covers the sin. When God sees us, he sees his son. In the Bible it says we wear the righteousness of Jesus. I went golfing with a guy once and he said, you know, craig, I'm not very.
[00:34:32] He said, yeah, I'm not. I do know. I smoke once in a while and I say bad words and I'm going, yeah, gee, you're really not righteous. Neither am I.
[00:34:44] But when God looks at you, he doesn't see your works. If you accept Christ as your savior, he sees Jesus.
[00:34:52] When you stand before God, someday he's going to look at you and he's going to say, did you accept Jesus as your savior? And if you did, he won't see you. There's no big screen that's going to play all your faults.
[00:35:04] Instead, he sees the righteousness of his own son.
[00:35:08] Number five. I think the thing taught in script in churches today, that goes against scripture. The big one is God adjusts to a changing world. I still remember Time magazine in 2000 and it said, God for a new millennium, God will change.
[00:35:26] Some religions, they wait for the head guy to tell them how they're going to change tomorrow.
[00:35:31] God never changes. That's the point. What does my heart want from this? I want the ability to adapt my faith to the worldview I choose. I want to live this way. I want to believe this way, I want to do these things. So I'm going to adapt God. God will adapt to this. God will adapt to this and God will adapt to this. Can I just tell you, God is never changing. The world may change, but his truth never does. His character never does. His attributes never do. They are always the same.
[00:35:59] So, Craig, how do I know that I'm in a good church. How do I know demonic things, stuff coming from the demon realm are not being taught well. I would say this. It's up on the screen. Biblical teaching points always to Jesus Christ.
[00:36:14] And biblical teaching always points you to Jesus Christ.
[00:36:19] Find a church like that.
[00:36:22] Teaching of demons always points the opposite way.
[00:36:26] You want to create a hubbub in your conversation. When you're having a normal conversation with somebody just start talking about the gospel. You'll isolate yourself faster than any other thing you could say. I mean, you could say really perverted things and people will laugh. But when you drop Jesus name, it'll clear the room. That's after 2000 years. This guy's been around for 2000 years. Longer than Muhammad, longer than Buddha, longer than Gandhi. This guy's longer than any of them. You drop his name, you'll clear the room. Why is that? Because Jesus claims to be the way, the truth and the life. That name changes everything is a name above all other names.
[00:37:08] The teaching of demons always points to everything else, but it'll never point to him.
[00:37:13] Insincere belief is that your desires determine your belief. Sincere belief is that your belief confronts and changes your desires.
[00:37:23] So what does God want?
[00:37:26] Listen to this. This is backing up one chapter in one Timothy instead of verse four. Look at the end of chapter three instead of chapter four. We're backing up. This is how first Timothy three finishes verse 16. The church of the living God is a pillar and buttress of the. What? Church. The church of the living God is a pillar and buttress of the.
[00:37:52] Do you love the pillar and buttress idea? It's like a fortress kind of thing, right? The church of the living God is a pillar and buttress of the truth. Great. Indeed, we confess, is a mystery of godliness. What is the mystery of godliness? What should we be preaching in the church? What should you be hearing in the church? Simply this. And it goes right to talk about Jesus. He was manifest in the flesh, God made flesh, deity. Absolutely, completely God, completely human. He was manifest in the flesh, vindicated in the spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed in the world, taken up into glory. He is not dead, he is risen. That is the mystery of godliness and church. If you want to go to a church where your goal is to become godly that is what they should be talking about all the time, constantly. That's the gospel.
[00:38:42] All of the Old Testament points to the gospels. All of the New Testament points back to the gospels. What is the gospel? It is the good news Jesus has come. He has lived a sinless life. He has died a death where his sin will cover the sins of the world if you accept it. And he has risen from the dead because he kicked the devil's butt.
[00:39:04] He has conquered death and the grave. And if you want to go to heaven, you should find the guy that never was overcome by death. He holds the keys to sin and the grave.
[00:39:16] The mystery of godliness is rooted in the purity of the simple gospel.
[00:39:22] So what? I leave you with just two. So what's here? They are ready.
[00:39:26] Training with the right equipment extinguishes heresy. Training with the right equipment. The reason I say that is because verse six says, being trained in the words. This is Paul talking to Timothy. Being trained in the words of faith and of the good doctrine you have followed. Paul talks to Timothy and he says, listen, in the church you got to get teachers who are trained in the words of faith and the good doctrine that you have followed. Now when I go to the gym, there's like a new piece of equipment every time I go. And some of these equipment like that they put out in the gym, they're cool. They might be fun to play around with, but they just don't do a whole lot. There's other pieces of equipment. If you use it right, you can really gain some mass. You can lose weight. Whatever your goals are, the equipment's there, but you got to find the one that gets you the furthest, the fastest.
[00:40:20] And in this case, I think we are to be trained in the words of faith and the good doctrine that we have followed. What equipment are you using to achieve your goals in life?
[00:40:33] What equipment are you using? What information are you listening to that will guarantee you eternity in heaven someday? Where do you get your information from? Who are you listening to and where did they get their information from?
[00:40:49] Who are you getting your life skills from? Who are you listening to for decision making? Who are you following in your belief systems? Again, this is so important for Paul that he actually writes it again in verse 15, one Timothy four. Later on in verse 15, he says, listen, timothy, for God's sake, practice these things. Immerse yourself in them. What does it mean to immerse yourself in something? We're going to douse the living daylights out of Caleb in about 2 seconds here, but we're going to douse him. What does it mean to immerse yourself? Sink your teeth into it so that all may see your progress. Keep, Paul says to Timothy, keep a close watch on yourself and on not your teaching, but what does it say? On what?
[00:41:33] On the teaching. Your teaching doesn't matter. The teaching is what counts. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this so that all may see your progress.
[00:41:49] Because what's at stake, verse 16. Persist in this. For by doing so. Listen, church, you will save both yourself and your hearers.
[00:42:03] You want to know why I would die for this truth that I'm talking to you about today is because it is the only thing that guarantees me eternal life and guarantees you eternal life if you accept it.
[00:42:15] It doesn't matter the amount of candles.
[00:42:19] It doesn't matter the amount of money you give.
[00:42:22] God is not impressed with anything we do like that. You know what impresses God? For us to bow humbly and accept his offer of salvation because we simply love him that much.
[00:42:40] Lies can send a soul straight to hell.
[00:42:44] Our battle is to elevate truth, to eliminate lies and save souls.
[00:42:52] Number two, guarding from heresy is an all church endeavor.
[00:42:59] At village church east, you should probably know we don't spend a lot of time dealing with heresies because we have so many different accountabilities. And Jim and Jerry and Sally might sneak in here, maybe you read them over the Internet, but it's not a regular thing for us to be challenged by these heresies because we preach truth and we have a relationship with people and they come and they go. Craig, I heard this in my theology class. I heard this online, and I was wondering if you could give me some insight on this. And we have conversations like this all the time because there's so much input from so many different areas.
[00:43:32] Instead, at our church, we provide so many different opportunities for you to grow. We provide community groups and who's your one? And church. Like we do here on Sunday mornings.
[00:43:42] We deal with these kinds of topics on a regular basis because I know you're in a world of confusion. Phil Collins, did you catch that? We live in a world of confusion and we need the truth to give us stable footing. So don't be afraid. You can trust that you are standing on solid ground. Don't maneuver the truth of God to adjust to your lifestyle.
[00:44:06] Adjust your lifestyle to God's truth.
[00:44:10] Let it control your behavior. Let it control your thoughts, not the other way around. Because some people are so snared that they actually might end up thinking they're doing the will of God when they are actually doing the will of the devil.
[00:44:26] Stick humbly to the word of God and remember the words of our Lord when he was faced with the greatest temptations in his life. The greatest demon of all.
[00:44:36] Do you know what he said to Satan in the wilderness when he was being tempted by the devil? Same thing I've been saying to you, Matthew four four. Jesus answered, as it is written, man shall not live by bread alone.
[00:44:52] But will you say this with me, church? But by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
[00:45:01] If it's good enough for Jesus, I'm guessing it's good enough for me.
[00:45:08] Live by it. Persevere in it. Douse yourself in the truth of God's word. Let your plans reflect God's best. Stop listening to bad advice from teachers who keep asking you for money or do stuff or have a hidden agenda. Go back to God's word. Correct the people around you that are not listen. If you go back and you find something that I said false today, please talk to me. Let's have a conversation.
[00:45:35] Because the thing that makes us, the thing that we have in common here is that we are under all, under the authority of God's word, your foundation. If you do, this will not fail and your future will not falter.
[00:45:50] We have a young man today.
