Church of Christ on Kelly Spring Road Podcast

Series: N/A

Service: Sun AM

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Allen Dvorak

The following transcription is computer-generated and may not accurately reflect the contents of the audio. Please verify the content before quoting.

(Transcribed by Congregate. Always check document for possible errors and inaccuracies in automated transcriptions.)

If you'd like to follow along, be reading the first eight verses of the final chapter of Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 34.

Chapters 31 through 34 seem to all be Compressed.

It almost seems like it's a single day there where Moses turns 120, but then the commission to, to Joshua to, to take over leadership and, and God even tells Moses that he's gonna die, but he won't get to go into the land and, and so in chapter 34, we pick up with what God, even though God said he couldn't go into the land, he said that he would get to see the land of promise.

Starting in verse one, then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo to the top of Pisa, which is opposite Jericho, and the Lord showed him all the land.

Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtala, the land of Ephraim and Manassa, all the land of Judah as far as the western sea, the Negev, and the plain, that is the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, as far as Zohar.

And the Lord said to them, This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, I will give it to your offspring.

I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there.

So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord, and he buried him in the valley in the land opposite Beth Pior, and no one knows the place of this burial to this day.

Moses was 120 years old when he died, his eyes undimmed and his vigor unabated.

And the people of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab 30 days.

Then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended.

This morning I want to begin by telling you a story about a family, a father, a mother, and their, their child.

And as parents often wish to do, they wanted to uh show their child some of the delights of Walt Disney World.

And so this young child is being told about the various things that you can see and that you can do uh at Walt Disney World, how beautiful it is and how impressive things are there.

And of course, the child listens with rapt attention and And is anticipating the day that they have said this is when we're going to Walt Disney World.

But when the time comes, The parents are so sad because Due to some unforeseen expenses, they really can't afford to go to Walt Disney trip.

Walt Disney World.

Is there anybody who can relate to that?

The idea that it takes a little bit of cash to get in and even to do the things at Walt Disney World.

And so they have to tell their child, I promised, we promised this, we promised we would take you there.

But we can't.

And so the best that we can do is that we can show you some of the things that you would have seen and talk about the, the delights of Walt Disney World.

Well, that's a fictional family.

Well, maybe it is.

But at any rate, at least to some degree or in some sense, it illustrates that story does, what happened with Moses and the Promised Land.

You're looking at a map that I'm going to now enlarge so that you can see it a little bit clearer.

And on that map, there's a red circle that indicates where Mount Nebo was located.

Actually still located there today.

And it was also known as Pisa.

That's the mount, as you heard from the scripture reading.

That's the mount where God allowed Moses to ascend and to look and see the breadth of the land of Canaan.

In Deuteronomy chapter 34, verses 1 through 393.

The scripture reading we're told that Moses was informed by God that he could see the land of Canaan, the land that had been promised, that Abraham's descendants had waited for to possess, that he could see that land, but he wouldn't be able to go in.

I want you to notice that it appears that neither Moses or Aaron died as a result of old age or illness.

Note the description uh in Deuteronomy 34 in verse 7, that Moses was 120 years old when he died.

His eye was undimmed and his vigor unabated.

I'm only about half that age, and often my vigor is abated and my eye is sometimes dim.

But what the Bible is telling us is that Moses didn't die because he was weak or his health was poor.

He was still in the vigor of life.

He died because God said, you will not enter this land and the people are on the very precipice of entering into the promised land.

Aaron would likewise die as a result of the very same sin for which Moses was not permitted to enter the land, and we'll say more about that as we go along.

So this morning, I want to talk a little bit about looking to the promised land.

That's what Moses was enabled to do as he stood on top of Mount Nebo.

I Read from one source that prior to the days of industrial pollution, that you could stand on the top of Mount Nemo and on a clear day, you could see all the way to Mount Herman.

Mount Herman way up in the north, a tall mountain up there.

But from Mount Nebo, Moses could survey the entire land of Canaan.

And so let's talk a little bit about looking to our promised land that is our reward in heaven.

I want to accomplish 3 things today.

I want to talk a little bit about the backstory of Deuteronomy chapter 34.

Why is it?

What did Moses do that was so important, so critical that he wasn't allowed to go into the land of Canaan with the rest of the nation as they would do in the book of Joshua.

And then secondly, I want to contrast That event that we'll talk about in Numbers 2 against the, the overall life of Moses.

I think we need to look at what happens in Numbers 20 in the context of Moses' entire life of service.

And then finally, of course, I'd like to make a little bit of application to what To God's response to Moses as it might pertain to our lives.

I think there are other lessons that we could talk about, but I'm gonna talk about 3 this morning that I think are helpful for us as we strive to serve God acceptably.

The backstory of Deuteronomy chapter 34 has to do with an event that took place in Numbers 203th chapter.

In Numbers chapter 20, beginning in verse 2, we're told that the people were complaining about the fact that they didn't have any water.

This was not by any means the first complaint of the people.

They had complained virtually from the time that they left Egypt.

But now in Numbers 2, we're told that they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and the people quarreled with Moses and said, would that we had perished when our brothers perished before the Lord.

Why have you brought this assembly of the Lord into this wilderness that we should die here, both we and our cattle?

And why have you made us come up out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place?

It is no place for grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, and there's no water to drink.

I have to tell you, I think the question they asked, or the exclamation that they made, I guess, would that we had perished when our brothers perished before the Lord is a pretty bold statement because God had punished these people on numerous occasions by taking the lives of those who were in rebellion.

But Israel never seems to learn from the past.

In Numbers 11, the people complained in the hearing of the Lord about their misfortunes.

Verse 1 tells us, and the Lord's anger was kindled against these uh complaining people, and it says, the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outlying parts of the camp.

In Numbers chapter 11, a little bit later on in verse 33, the people had complained that all they had to eat was this manna, this, this light bread that the Lord would provide each day with the exception of the Sabbath day, and they wanted some meat to eat.

And so God provided meat.

Uh, even despite their complaining, and the text says in verse 33, that while the meat was yet between their teeth before it was consumed, the anger of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord struck down the people with a very great plague.

They got their meat that they were complaining for, but God punished them for their rebellion, for their disbelief.

You may recall that in Numbers 1412 spies sent into the land of Canaan to see what kind of land it was, and, and 13 of those spies came back with a bad report.

Only 2, Joshua and Caleb said, we can take this land.

These people will be our bread, they'll sustain us.

We can conquer this land with the Lord's help.

But 10 spies said, Too much.

Cities are fortified, the people look like giants in comparison to us.

We can't take the land.

And all 10 of those spies died by the plague from the Lord.

There was another group of individuals who rebelled against God in Numbers 16th chapter.

You may recall Cora and a couple of his companions who complained that Moses was taking too much upon himself.

Are we not all the people of the Lord?

And so the Lord punished Cora and all of those who were allied with him, including 250 men.

Who were offering incense, not something they were entitled to do, but just like Cora, they wanted more importance before the Lord.

And so the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up Cora and everybody associated with him, and the 250 were killed with fire from the Lord.

Oh, would that we had perished before the Lord like our brethren, the people say in Numbers 20.

The people want water.

And so God instructs Moses, as was read a little bit earlier, to take his staff in verse 8 and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron, your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water.

So you shall bring water out of the rock for them and give drink to the congregation and their cattle.

And Moses took the staff from before the Lord as he commanded him.

Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, Here now, you rebels.

Shall we bring water for you out of this rock?

And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with the staff twice, and water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank and their livestock.

Well, success.

The people get water.

But in the process of this water being delivered to the people, Moses disobeyed the instructions of the Lord.

You know, there was an occasion earlier in Israel's history as they come out of Egypt in Exodus 17th chapter, where Moses was instructed to strike a rock to provide water.

And so on that occasion, he followed God's instructions, but on this occasion, God's instructions were different, and Mosses failed to follow those instructions.

Now what's interesting is that the Lord identifies what the problem was.

It wasn't just hitting a rock with a stack.

But rather the, the bigger problem, as the Lord would explain there in verse 13 of Number 20, because you did not believe in me, to uphold the people, uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel.

Therefore, you shall not enter the land, the promised land.

God said, you didn't hold me up as holy, as sacred.

Before the people.

Here now, you rebels, shall we bring water for you out of this rock.

It's almost as though Moses is cooperating with God and that in somehow, Moses is the one who's actually uh involved in this.

It was entirely God's grace, entirely God's power.

Moses failed to give glory to God.

And God says, that's the problem.

That's why you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.

Well, as we read in Deuteronomy 34, and even here in, in chapter 20 of Numbers, Moses will not enter the promised land because of what happens here at Kadesh.

That's where this, uh, this event in Numbers 20 took place.

But we find out that Aaron likewise will not enter the promised land.

He is going to die and be buried on uh Mount Hore, H O R, and we're told this in Deuteronomy 32.

Moses is told by the Lord, go up this mountain of the Abari, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of I'm sorry.

Uh, I want to drop down to verse 50.

Let's start there.

And die on the mountain.

Aaron is going to die on the mountain which you go up and be gathered to your people, as Aaron, your brother died in Mount Horen was gathered to his people.

So Moses is going to die on Nebo.

Aaron has already died on Mount Whore and was gathered to his.

People, because you broke faith with me in the midst of the people of Israel at the waters of Marrabesh Kadesh, Meraba Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin and because you did not treat me as holy in the midst of the people of Israel.

So God says you're not going into the land just like Aaron didn't go into the land.

He died at Mount Hore.

There's something interesting about this.

While there's some similarity here, both men are basically going to be uh not permitted to enter the land because of what happened in Numbers 20.

Aaron will not get to see the land.

Mount Horace down south.

It is down by the border of Edom, and Aaron is not given the privilege of seeing the promised land.

He will die before the people come close enough to enter on the east side of the Jordan River.

And so in Deuteronomy chapter 32, uh we're told that uh Aaron dies on Mount Horn was gathered to his people.

We need to see Moses' life, or I should say Numbers 20 against the backdrop of a life of faithful servants.

There are numerous passages in the Old Testament that talk about the faithfulness of Moses that illustrate that he was a faithful servant of God. God.

Fortunately, by the movie of the 33 Commandments, we now know that Carlton or Charlton Heston looked exactly like Moses and so that's why I put his picture up there.

He's the one who plays the part of Moses in that movie.

The Bible says that Moses was very meek, more than all the people who were on the face of the earth.

That's pretty high praise when you consider how many people live on the earth.

The Bible also says in Numbers 12, the Lord says, hear my words.

If there's a prophet among you, I, the Lord, make myself known to him in a vision, I speak with him in a dream, not.

So with my servant Moses.

He is faithful in all my house.

With him, I speak mouth to mouth, clearly and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the Lord.

Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?

I speak with other prophets indirectly.

In riddles But not with Moses.

Moses is different.

And so, uh, the Lord says in Deuteronomy 34, and there has not arisen a prophet since, since in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.

This is, of course, just a summary of Moses's life, but it's the Lord's record.

None like him for all the signs.

And the wonders that the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and all his servants and all his land.

And for all the mighty power and all the great deeds of terror that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.

Face to face, I speak with Moses.

He's not like the other prophets.

There's no other prophet like him.

Again, very high praise.

Jeremiah is instructed by the Lord in verse 1 of chapter 15, though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my heart would not turn toward this people.

Send them out of my sight and let them go.

That passage is interesting because I believe that he's talking about Moses and Samuel.

And their intercession on behalf of the people of Israel.

Because Moses on numerous occasions interceded on behalf of Israel.

The same people who at times had gathered to assembled together to complain or quarrel with Moses, and even on one occasion, in Numbers 14, they're, they're preparing to stone Moses.

And yet, Moses would intercede on their behalf in Exodus chapter 32, when the people were breaking the commandments that they had just been given from Mount Sinai by worshiping this golden calf that Aaron had made.

And Moses implored the Lord.

Oh Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?

Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people.

God said, I'm just gonna destroy these people.

Now I'll start with you, Moses, and make another nation.

And Moses said, Please, Lord, don't do that.

A little later on in the chapter, in verses 31 and 33, he pleads again with God on behalf of the people.

Moses says, Alass this people have sinned the great sin, they made for themselves gods of gold, but now, if you will forgive their sin, but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.

And the Lord said, no.

Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book.

But listen to what Moses says, I would give my spiritual safety in exchange for the safety of these people.

Who have worshiped this idol, this golden calf.

In Numbers 14th chapter.

When the spies came back and gave this, this bad report, and the people are rebelling, and they're complaining against the Lord, Moses says, please pardon the iniquity of this people, according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have forgiven this people from Egypt until now.

So Moses once again pleads that God will not destroy the nation.

In chapter 43, verses 6 and 7 of Numbers, uh, God sent fiery serpent, uh, serpents among the people, and people were dying from the bites of these serpents.

And God then gave a, a means by which people could uh be relieved of that poison based on the intercession of Moses.

In the New Testament, Moses, life is summarized by such passages as Hebrews the 3rd chapter, verse 2.

Moses, who was faithful to him, excuse me, Christ, who was faithful to him, who appointed him just as Moses also.

was faithful in all God's house.

Comparison made between Christ and Moses, Moses is faithful in all of God's house.

Verse 5 repeats the same thing.

Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant.

That's kind of a summary of Moses' life.

I think it's important for us to look at that summary in light of Numbers to cha chapter 20 and what Moses did there.

In Hebrews the 11th chapter, Moses in verses 24 to 28 is grouped with others who by faith, obeyed God in various ways.

What I want you to see is that Moses' disobedience in Numbers 23 was not characteristic of his life, at least by the record that we have, both Old Testament and New Testament.

This seems to have been the exception to the way that Moses lived.

And we'll come back to that when we get to the application section of this sermon.

And so now in application.

I want to make 3 quick lessons from Numbers 20 from this event uh in Moses' life.

And the first one is that details matter.

Speak to the rock.

Rather than strike it.

God didn't say rather than strike it.

He said, speak to the rock, but what difference does it make?

Whether you speak to the rock or whether you strike the rock, in both cases, it's God's power that brings the water out of the rock.

It's obvious to anybody who's paying attention that this is God's favor being shown toward the people.

It's not Moses who can bring water out of the rock.

So what difference does it make?

Well, ask Naab and Abay you if it makes any difference, whether you obey the Lord or whether you just change things a little bit.

Because in Leviticus 10, the first couple of verses there, we find that Naab and Abahu had offered fire to the Lord, fire which he had not commanded them.

Seems like a fairly small problem.

They were trying to worship God.

It was in the context in the early chapters of Leviticus of the dedication of the tabernacle.

What difference does it make?

God struck those two sons of Aaron.

I think clearly to make a point in the very beginning of the sacrificial system.

Of Israel, of the law of Moses, that people need to listen to what God has to say.

Details matter.

And when we don't follow the precise instructions of God, we don't obey God, even if we do some things in the name of God.

Details matter.

Ask Uza.

David is, is bringing the ark of the Lord into Jerusalem.

And he's got it on a new ox cart.

That's a failure on David's part.

That's not the way God had instructed the people to carry that ark, but that wasn't the only problem because as the ark goes over a threshing floor, which would be uneven because of the travel of oxen.

So the cart must have uh done this a little bit and, and so as it puts, put out, put out his hand and touched the ark of the covenant.

Obviously, to steady it, it's sacred furniture, don't want anything to happen to it.

But according to the instructions of the law, all of the things that were involved in the sacrificial system, nobody touched the ark.

Not even the high priest on the day of atonement.

He went in and he sprinkled blood on the ark and before the ark, but he didn't touch it.

And even when it was carried from place to place, they had staves that went through the four rings on the four corners of the top of the ark and on the bottom of the ark, and they would carry that ark.

With those staves.

Nobody touched the ark.

That's the way God intended us it reaches out and With the apparently all good intentions, he touches the.

What difference does it make?

Well, the difference is details matter.

When God says this is the way it should be done, then that's the way it should be done, or God is displeased, we're not obeying Him.

What does that have to do with us?

Well, don't touch the ark.

I guess that doesn't have a whole lot of application for us, does it?

But if God says, what I want you to do is sing and admonish one another.

Use your voices that I've created to praise me and to teach one another as he has done in Colossians 239:220 and Ephesians 21:21.

Does it make any difference if we just decide, you know what, it would be nice if we could add a piano or an organ or a guitar or a harp or some other musical instrument to our singing.

Wouldn't that be better?

Wouldn't it help us worship?

Details matter.

God said, sing.

And if we're gonna give glory to God, if you're going to acknowledge Him as the one who has the power to command, if we're trying to please Him, then we need to do exactly as he has instructed and not add anything, not take anything away.

Why do I have to be baptized?

What's the big deal with getting wet?

Someone pushes me under the water and I come up, and I don't appear to be any different physically speaking than when I went into the water, except now that I've got water dripping off my nose.

What difference does it make?

because God said so.

That's why we do it.

Details matter.

God could have said any number of things, instructed us in any number of ways in order to receive forgiveness of sins, but what he said was, be baptized for the remission of your sins.

And until we follow his command.

We're disobeying God if we try to do something else.

Well, the second lesson that I want to suggest to you is that past obedience doesn't cancel current disobedience.

That's the reason I wanted you to see kind of the summary of Moses' life, because Moses' life wasn't one of those things where Moses was constantly, like the people of Israel tended to be, constantly disobeying God, constantly going back and, and not doing what God said.

You get the impression that Moses' life was a life of faithful servants, a life of obedience.

Even under difficult circumstances.

And yet, all of that.

Didn't cancel what happened in Numbers 23.

And so God said, because you did not treat me as holy in the midst of the people of Israel, you shall not enter the promised land. Wow.

One sin Now I'm sure Moses sinned on other occasions, but this one, you mean this one sin is gonna keep him from going into the promised land?

Well, that's what the text says, isn't it?

That's exactly what happened.

God doesn't ignore sin because we're Christians.

God doesn't ignore sin because we've been faithful Christians for some time.

God's not like so many of us who are parents or grandparents, where we look at sin and say, oh, I just love you so much.

I'm gonna overlook it this time.

God doesn't do that.

I think some of the Jews in Jesus' time and Paul's time, they believed that God would give them a pass.

Because they were God's chosen people as a nation.

And I think that's exactly why Paul would write in Romans 24, after having condemned the Gentiles in general for their sins of idolatry and and all kinds of immorality.

He then turns to the Jews and says, but you're no better.

And he says that God's judgment will be impartial.

Romans chapter 43, verses 24 through 217 is that discussion.

And so even though the Jews were, at least in the Old Testament period, God's chosen people.

And they may have thought themselves to be privileged and given a pass.

Paul says, no, God's judgment will depend on whether you do righteousness or whether you do wickedness.

Regardless of whether you're Jew or Gentile, doesn't make any difference.

And so it is with us.

As Paul says in Romans 218 and 6, he will render to each one according to his works.

For God shows no partiality, verse 11.

The Muslim religion teaches.

That the final judgment will be like a weighing of the balance.

That what God's going to do basically is he's going to weigh the good deeds that people do against the evil deeds.

And if good weighs heavier, then you get to go into paradise.

You get to go into an eternal reward.

That's not what the Bible teaches about the final judgment.

God is not going to measure good works against sins to determine which outweighs the other.

If he would do that in the case of Numbers 20 Moses would have coasted into the land of Canaan, because all, all that we read about him is that he was exceptional in a number of ways, a faithful servant.

But Numbers 20 kept him out of the law out of the land of Canaan.

Past obedience doesn't cancel current disobedience.

Can't rest on your laurels.

Well, It ain't over until it's over.

We sing a song One of the lyrics is Almost is but to fail.

Moses could identify with that song.

Because he had carried these people, shepherded these people on behalf of the Lord for 40 years from Egypt all the way to the, to the very entrance of the land of Canaan.

And then it seems almost at the last moment.

Before the people enter into the promised land.

Moses is not given permission to go in.

Almost is but to fail.

It's sad to see sometimes individuals who have been Christians for many years who begin to coast.

Or they begin to give up their faith entirely.

It's almost as though because they're toward the end of their lives, at least.

As we look at life, we tend to think older people are towards the end.

Sometimes young people are toward the end of their lives.

But as people grow older, we just kind of assume their lives will end at some point and they just kind of begin to coast as though I'm so close now, I don't have to worry about anything anymore.

I don't have to be faithful in my obedience to the Lord.

I don't have to be a servant, a faithful servant.

God's going to send me into the land based on all of the things that I've done in the past.

It ain't over until it's over.

In Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 173, the Hebrews writer wrote, for you have need of endurance, these Christians who were thinking about going back to the law of Moses, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised.

The life of a Christian is not sprint, it's a marathon.

And you keep running that that race until You rest in paradise until you're with the Lord.

Moses' failure at Kadesh, I think serves as an example to us of the need to treat God as holy.

And what that means in practical terms is when God says you do it this way, that's the way we do it.

If we treat God as holy, if we glorify Him as God.

Then we need to follow what he says.

And not change things.

Moses did not enter the promised land with the rest of the Israelites.

But I do believe that from a spiritual standpoint, Moses was saved.

And I, I tell you, the reason I think that is that uh at the transfiguration of Jesus, Moses is seen speaking with the Lord.

This is in uh Matthew chapter 17 and verse 3.

When the Hebrews writer talks about obedient faith in Hebrews chapter 11, and he gives kind of a litany, a list of those who acted by faith, Moses is right in the group there, of whom the writer says in verse 39 at the end of the chapter, and all these, that would include Moses, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, and he's not talking about Canaan.

He's talking about forgiveness of sins, grace of God.

But Moses is commended for his faith just as these others were.

Even though Moses suffered the temporal consequences of his sin at Kadesh, He apparently didn't lose his eternal reward.

And I want to bring out again a difference between Moses and Aaron.

Both of them die because of what happened in Numbers 20 at Kadesh.

But Aaron, for whatever reason, God doesn't explain explicitly, but for whatever reason, he doesn't get a glimpse of the promised land.

Only Moses does.

I really believe that God intentionally gave Moses the privilege of glimpsing the promised land, even as he gives us through our mind's eye, a glimpse of the promised reward that lies ahead for us.

In 1 Peter chapter 1, in verses 3 and 4, the apostle Peter wrote, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope.

That's the objective of our spiritual life, is to have fellowship with God in heaven, to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

From the dead to in it, he continues, he actually explains now what this living hope is to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading kept in heaven for you.

Every complaint that you might have about this life, about this world is absent in heaven.

We get a glimpse of what life will be like there, not.

Explicitly, as some would try to do, but we're told in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verses 17 and 18, Paul writes for this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

There's nothing in this life that even comes close.

Think of the best days that you've had.

Think of the best experiences you've had.

No comparison.

That's what Paul's saying.

As we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen.

For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

I don't care how good something was in this life, it's temporary.

But the reward, the promised reward that lies ahead for Christians, if we continue to be faithful, that reward is eternal, never ends.

That's what we're glimpsing.

That's what we're looking for.

That's what we hope to obtain.

Do you have that reward promised to you?

The promises to those who have been born again in Christ, a birth that takes place when we are baptized into Christ, we're made alive again spiritually, forgiven of our sins.

It's like we're a new creature in Christ.

It is.

Exactly that.

We have a new life that we walk in.

Have you obeyed the gospel?

We're gonna talk more about this this evening in a question and answer sermon, this process of salvation, but where are you in this process?

If you need to obey the gospel this morning to be baptized into Christ, as Mason was on Wednesday, upon his confession of faith, you can also confess your faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the risen Savior, and you can be baptized into Christ.

This very moment, this very morning.

And so we want to stand and sing to encourage you, come if you have that need, we'll assist you.

Let's stand and sing.

Series: N/A

Service: Sun AM

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Allen Dvorak

The following transcription is computer-generated and may not accurately reflect the contents of the audio. Please verify the content before quoting.

(Transcribed by Congregate. Always check document for possible errors and inaccuracies in automated transcriptions.)

But the rest of them probably will not be cold because we tend to see them more as personal pets and not just uh income for eggs.

But if you are running a business and you have limited resources.

You're taking care of livestock, you really often can't afford to just keep feeding livestock that don't have any value.

And so the purpose of culling.

Is that you, your resources will only allow you so many animals and so breeders will often choose the inferior animals in a group to be cold.

They save the best to keep the uh the quality of their animals high.

That's even done in the wild wildlife management officials sometimes need to call the deer population in, in the state.

Because the amount of food that they perceive to be available in the forests, etc.

will not sustain the current population size.

And so sometimes if hunters don't take enough animals, then they'll even be culled further by wildlife organizations.

Culling is similar to pruning in the sense that even with fruits and vegetables, individuals who raise fruit trees will prune those branches that are not going to produce so that more production is then reserved for the healthier branches and so in general culling serves the purpose of reducing quantity.

With the purpose of maintaining quality within some group.

I believe there's a sense in which Jesus called the multitudes who followed him during his personal ministry.

That may seem a little odd to some folks in as much as most churches are very concerned about growing.

Having more and more people.

And it might seem ironic then that Jesus would intentionally reduce the number of people who were willing to follow him.

One of the difficulties that I think Bible students have in general is that we're not privileged to see in a visual way, the things that we read about in the New Testament, particularly in the life of Jesus.

And so sometimes what we have to do.

In the reading of various passages is we have to form a mental picture of what it would be like based on things that maybe we've seen or experiences that we've had in our lives.

And so this morning I wanna talk to you about the popularity of Jesus and.

I think sometimes we don't have a good mental picture of what it would have been like to have been around Jesus during the time, say for instance, of his Galilean ministry.

When great crowds follow Jesus, in fact, I'm going to suggest several passages that I think demonstrate the popularity of Jesus at least through uh most of his earthly ministry.

With the attempt of trying to get us to see how broad, broadly Jesus was being followed by the people of the land of Israel.

Matthew in particular seems to emphasize the crowds that followed Jesus.

And Matthew chapter 4 and in verse 6.

We're told that Jesus went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.

Now notice verse 24, so his fame spread throughout all Syria.

That's an even larger area than just Galilee.

And they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures and paralytics, and he healed them and great crowds followed him from Galilee, from the Decapolis.

From Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan.

And so Jesus is in the northern part of Israel, but people are coming from everywhere.

Great crowds are following him.

Some of these people have traveled days to be able to follow Jesus and to see and to hear the things that he was doing and saying.

In the 12th chapter of Matthew and in verse 15.

Jesus leaves an area because he has healed a man and the Pharisee done on the Sabbath.

The Pharisees are conspiring to kill him, we're told in the previous verses, and so Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from there, and many followed them and he healed them all.

And so wherever Jesus goes, people are gathering, they're bringing their sick.

People are coming in huge numbers, crowds, great crowds, and they're following Jesus.

In the 15th chapter of Matthew.

Jesus went on from there and walked beside the Sea of Galileo, and he went up on the mountain and sat down there and great crowds came to him.

You know, sometimes we just kind of pass over these things without maybe giving a whole lot of thought to what the scene must have looked like.

We're not given numbers.

The gospels are not that precise in terms of the crowds.

But we've seen great crowds assembled for sporting events or for memorials like the Charlie Kirk Memorial this, uh, just this last Sunday.

Thousands of people in some cases more than 10s of thousands of people.

We don't know what these crowds, what the size of these crowds were, but they could very well have been tens of thousands of people who come to Jesus, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others, and they put him at, they put them at his feet and he healed them.

Think about the time that it would take for Jesus to heal all these people who have come, who are sick or have some sort of disability.

Need for the power, the divine power for healing and so his fame has spread throughout, uh, Israel, and people are coming from everywhere to be healed and to follow Jesus.

Matthew 19 and 2, Jesus has moved down to the area of Judea on the other side of the Jordan there, what's normally called Parea and large crowds followed him and he healed them there.

Jesus' popularity was such that the gospels note that at times the number of people who were following him impeded him in his teaching.

Jesus was able to find uh private time.

Only with some difficulty.

In Mark chapter one, there's uh Mark's account of a very long day in Jesus' life, and he teaches, he heals, and then the next morning.

He goes out early in the morning we're told by Mark in verse 35 and rising very early in the morning while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place and there he prayed.

Why did Jesus go out to a desolate place?

Because he was getting away from the crowds.

Do you think those people just all disbanded and went home every day?

Here are people who are following him from great distances and so Jesus goes out very early in the morning to pray and his disciples come and they tell him everybody's looking for you.

Well, that's why he's out there it's because everybody's looking for Jesus.

Occasionally, Jesus would choose to teach the people from a boat.

Matthew the 13th chapter records one such occasion.

Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea and great crowds gathered about him so that he got into a boat and sat down and the whole crowd stood on the beach.

And so Jesus removes himself some from the crowd so that he can address perhaps even the larger number of people who have come together.

His family on one occasion wants to come and to see him.

And they can't get through the crowds.

We're told in Matthew the 33th chapter in verses 46 and 47 in the New King James Version that while he was still talking to the multitudes, behold, his mother and brothers stood outside seeking to speak to it with him.

They can't even get to see Jesus, their own family member, because of the crowds.

One of the interesting things in the Gospels is that occasionally, Jesus would tell various individuals not to tell others what he had done, what he had done in terms of healing them.

For instance, in Mark chapter 1 and verses 45 and 44 and 45, Jesus heals a leper and tells him.

See that you say nothing to anyone, but go show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded for a proof to them.

If you were suffering from leprosy and suddenly you've been healed, The temptation to tell others would be great.

And in this case, he went out and began to talk freely about it and to spread the news so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town but was out in desolate places and people were coming to him from every quarter.

And so, uh, Mark gives us some explanation of why Jesus said, don't tell anybody because the crowds always were coming, and I think in some cases that impeded his teaching and of course the time that he needed for himself.

In Matthew the 9th chapter in verses 30 and 31, Jesus had healed two blind men and sternly warned them, the text says, see that no one knows about it.

I've wondered about that.

If you're blind and you're healed, how do you keep that a secret?

But I think Jesus was just saying, don't, don't go out and and noise this abroad, but they went away and spread his fame through all that district.

Even great multitudes were warned not to make him known.

In Matthew 73th chapter in verse 16.

We read about Jesus leaving the area because there was a plot uh among the Pharisees to kill him.

And so, uh, many people followed him and he healed them all, verse 16 and ordered them not to make him known.

So Jesus's popularity is seen in the number of people who have gathered together to hear Him from faraway places.

And by the fact that sometimes Jesus said, don't tell anybody what I've done, even though the purpose of miracles was to confirm a message.

I believe that Jesus tried at times to weed out the crowd.

To call the flock, if you will.

He emphasized, for instance, in Luke 14th chapter, the cost of discipleship.

This is a passage that I think most of us are probably familiar with.

We've heard the illustrations that Jesus uses here to talk about counting the cost of discipleship.

He says in verse 2144, great crowds are accompanying him, and he turns and he says to them, if anyone comes to me, that would be all these people who have come to him and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters.

Yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

Hate father and mother.

Wife and children and brothers and sisters.

Stern words, whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple, cannot be my disciple.

I've pointed out before, I think that Jesus doesn't say that that'll make you a mediocre disciple or you're just kind of a poor disciple, but you're still a disciple.

Jesus says you can't be my disciple.

It's a yay or nay.

There is no halfway.

With discipleship.

For which of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost whether he has enough to complete it.

Or what King verse 2000, going out to encounter another king in war will not sit down first and deliberate whether he's able with 26,26 to meet him who comes against him with 226,23.

Verse 223.

So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

I don't believe Jesus is saying in that verse that all of us must do what he instructed the rich young ruler to do, and that is sell everything that you have, give to the poor, and come follow me.

But there is certainly a sense in which all of us have to renounce everything that we have.

Or we cannot be disciples.

So Jesus emphasized here the cost of discipleship.

And I'm sure that those words probably cause some of those people to say, well, I, that's not for me.

I'm not willing to make that kind of a commitment.

On another occasion in John the 222th chapter, Jesus had the previous day fed miraculously 2000 people plus.

And the people followed him and so then in John chapter 225, Jesus talks to them about spiritual sustenance, spiritual food.

If you're in the Gospel of John, take a look if you will.

At verse 53.

Jesus has said in verse 51, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?

Verse 53.

So Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.

Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.

Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.

It's not my intention this morning to talk in depth about this passage.

I think if you go back and review some of the early things that Jesus has said, you'll understand Jesus is not talking about literally eating flesh or drinking blood.

Look at the parallel verses in this chapter, and you'll see that eating his flesh and drinking his blood is essentially the equivalent of believing in him and following him.

But the Jews apparently did not understand that, and they are scandalized by the idea of eating flesh and drinking blood.

Well, no surprise there, they just didn't understand what Jesus was saying to them.

And in verse 60, when many of his disciples heard it, they said, this is a hard saying, who can listen to it?

After this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.

I believe that Jesus purposefully said some things that would require individuals to listen carefully and to think about what he said.

Knowing that many of them would not do that and would be scandalized and stop following him.

And so in both cases, whether Luke 14 or John 6, I believe that the outcome was deliberately pursued.

There seems to, I think, to be to us a tremendous apparent irony in Jesus deliberately culling the multitudes.

Was it not the Lord's purpose to teach as many people as possible?

I think we would answer yes.

Jesus sent out his disciples on several occasions to preach.

Jesus was the one who said, he who has ears to hear, let him hear.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear an invitation to people to come and listen and follow him.

Is there not plenty of room at the feast?

That's the figure that's sometimes used in the scriptures to talk about enjoying the spiritual blessings of the kingdom is to sit and feast with the Lord.

Again in Luke 0003th chapter.

Jesus told a parable about a banquet, a man who gave a banquet, and he invited some folks, and they began to make excuses.

Verse 18 says, I bought a field and I must go out and see it.

Please have me excused.

Who buys a field and then goes to see the field?

Doesn't make much sense.

Another said, I bought 5 yoke of oxen and I go to examine them.

Please have me excused again, same question.

Why would you do that?

Why would you buy and then go and see?

These are excuses, obvious excuses.

Another said, I married a wife and therefore I cannot come.

That guy may have had some validity.

His wife may have told him, you can't go.

But it's listed as an excuse.

And so the man who's giving the fees becomes angry, verse 21, and he said to his servant, go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.

The servant said, see what you, sir, what you commanded has been done and still there's room.

Go out farther and bring more people in.

There's plenty of room at the feast.

Jesus is not calling the multitudes because God's got a quota on the people who can make it into heaven, the 144,000 if you're listening to some.

Was it not Jesus's purpose, I think, to attract as many people as possible, I would answer yes.

But the truth is that while Jesus wanted to attract everybody, he was not attempting to attract just anybody.

And that's the point I'm trying to make this morning.

People, I think, flocked to be with Jesus for several reasons.

In John the 6th chapter, we know that they wanted to benefit from his powers.

The day before, he had fed people miraculously, and Jesus says in John 6:26, you're here to eat the bread.

You're not here because you saw the sign and you understand the significance of it.

And so sometimes people were there just so they could benefit physically from Jesus' power.

Others were apparently just curious.

Because of the many miracles that he did.

You can understand that curiosity will, will draw a crowd very easily.

It's why people slow down to see what's going on if there's an accident on the side of the highway.

It doesn't concern them.

It's it's a stranger.

It's not affecting them other than the fact that there's uh vehicles there that are slowing traffic, but people will slow down because we're curious about what's going on there, and I think people came together, noise, the, the, the power of Jesus and his acts, miracles was being noised.

Around the towns and villages of Israel.

And so people would naturally come to see who this is, who's doing all these things.

But Jesus' goal is to save as many people as possible, but salvation is not possible simply by a casual association with Jesus.

And that's why Jesus talks about the cost of discipleship.

You and I need to understand as well, what it really means to be a disciple.

Not everyone who followed Jesus was an adherent to his teaching.

Discipleship is not the physical following of Jesus.

There were great crowds who followed Jesus, but many of those people were not disciples.

Not in the sense of what the Bible describes as a true disciple.

I think Jesus' efforts to reduce the number of followers.

Demonstrates his emphasis on quality rather than quantity, commitment rather than numbers.

And that's where Jesus and many churches today diverge.

A lot of groups are worried about numbers.

Jesus had great numbers.

Sometimes I think he deliberately called those numbers.

By requiring.

The high cost of discipleship.

When Jesus taught the necessity of commitment.

The cost of discipleship.

Some disciples stopped physically following Jesus.

But Jesus knew that the size of the crowd was no indication of the number of true disciples.

And even today, there are many who claim to have some association with Jesus, but that doesn't make them true disciples.

The number of the Lord's disciples is not necessarily the same number as the number of names on the rolls of local church memberships.

Did you hear what I said?

Just because you're a member of a local congregation doesn't mean that you're a true disciple of Jesus Christ.

It means you're being recognized by other Christians as part of the group, but that's not the test of discipleship either.

Jesus talked about the cost of discipleship and it's all or none.

If you're not willing to renounce everything, if you're not willing to put everything second, then you cannot be His disciple.

That's pretty blunt.

But very clear.

Now my purpose this morning in our study is not to discourage anyone.

I think it would be ideal and it's the Lord's wish that we would all be disciples.

And I'm not implying that I have this ability, infallible or otherwise, to tell who are true disciples and who are not.

The Lord knows who belongs to him.

But I do believe that we need to be careful that we don't fall into the mindset of equating discipleship with just physical presence in worship services.

Well, I'm a disciple because I'm there 3 times a week.

Every time the buildings open, I'm there sitting in a pew.

That doesn't make you a disciple.

The physical trappings of religion, wearing crosses or having uh bumper stickers on our cars that proclaim our allegiance to Jesus.

The fact that we carry a Bible doesn't make us a disciple.

In the denominational world, I can tell you by experience that that's as far as a lot of people's devotion to Christ goes, the physical outward trappings.

We need to be careful we don't fall into that kind of thinking because those are not true disciples.

Those are just hangers on.

People who are in the crowd around Jesus in the first century, but not true disciples.

The same kind of people that when it became costly to be a disciple went home.

And there are those people today who are the same way.

As we've already suggested, just having your name on the church roll doesn't make you a true disciple.

Even former commitment or obedience doesn't mean that today.

I remain a true disciple.

When the Lord called the multitudes, as I believe that he purposefully did, those who are unwilling to pay the cost of discipleship usually just simply stopped following him.

They go home or go about their other activities.

But I'll tell you, the really sad thing is when we deceive ourselves about our willingness to pay the cost of discipleship.

When we deceive ourselves about whether we are true disciples.

I want you to imagine if you will.

That At the back door here, there's only one door in this illustration to get into this building.

That every person who comes in has to put in a personal code.

Now we have codes for the security system, etc.

but in this case scenario, everybody has their own code.

And when you come into this building, you have to answer that code in order for the door to let you in.

Every one of us, you, you can't open when, when Debbie and I get up here, I put my coat in there and she sneaks in behind me.

But in this illustration, Debbie has her own code and she has to put in the code to get in the door.

And only true disciples can get codes.

In this illustration, the Lord has determined who's a true disciple, and that's how you get your code.

You can't get in here to be with the other disciples unless you enter your code and the door then is willing to open for you.

I want you to imagine if someday.

On a Sunday morning, you come here and you enter your code and the door will not open.

Because only true disciples can get in.

Only the codes of true disciples will open that door.

Can you imagine the shock, how we would feel if, if our code didn't work, you'd enter it again, wouldn't you?

And then the third time, there's surely some mistake because I'm a disciple of the Lord.

That'd be kind of shocking, wouldn't it?

It would be clear to us then.

That the Lord didn't consider us a true disciple.

But the sad truth of the matter is that we can deceive ourselves for a long time thinking that we are disciples because we can come in the door and sit with the other Christians.

Even though we're not willing to pay the cost of discipleship.

The Lord doesn't demand perfection.

Salvation is my grace through faith.

But he certainly does require devotion.

Devotion means that I'm putting everything else second.

My responsibilities to God are first.

No question.

No question about that.

And if it's not that way.

And you cannot be his disciple.

Our heavenly Father wants sons who will be conformed to the image of his only begotten Son.

And that was true of Jesus.

He came to do the Father's will.

Even in the face of crucifixion.

Jesus would pray, not my will.

But your will Be done.

What we've seen this morning is the Lord's emphasis upon commitment in His disciples.

Of the many people who follow Jesus at times, great crowds, probably thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, not all were truly devoted to him, and Jesus exposed their lack of commitment, I think sometimes by describing the cost of discipleship, the path of salvation.

And many are not willing to pay that cost.

The scriptures show us that the Lord is more interested in quality than quantity.

And it is ever so.

The strength of a congregation is not the number of its members, it's the devotion of its disciples, those who are following Christ.

The measure of our own spiritual strength is not how many times we come and sit in the building a week.

Or what kind of outward trappings we wear.

But it's the measure of our devotion to the Lord.

Our obedience to his will.

Word of God continues to challenge those of us who claim to be disciples.

Are we really devoted to him that we will follow him as we sing wherever he goes, take up our crosses, give our lives in service to him.

Or is that just what we've seen?

We don't really mean it.

There's a story in the Old Testament and Judges the 7th chapter about one of the judges, Gideon.

And Gideon is going to deliver the people of Israel from their oppressors.

And a large number of people come together to form an army that Gideon will use, but the Lord called.

Gideon's army by sending 22,000 fearful soldiers home.

There was another culling as well.

But everyone who was fearful was told to go home.

So the Lord narrowed the group.

Only to those who were committed and courageous and even then to a smaller number.

The Lord doesn't depend on numbers.

He depends on discipleship.

That's what he's looking for, I should say.

We've studied this morning how Jesus called the multitudes through his teaching, and I think that teaching continues to call the multitudes.

Call the flock today.

But the final culling is going to be at the final judgment.

When the Lord will separate the sheep from the goats.

Matthew 25 talks about that scene where God's gonna separate people into two groups.

And to the sheep, he's going to invite them into the blessings of heaven.

And others will be consigned to the punishment of hell.

Will you make the cut?

When that separation comes, which side, which side will you be on the right or the left?

Jesus gives us the information through the Holy Spirit.

To know how we can be prepared for that scene.

So that we can be saved by the grace of God, forgiven of our sins.

And invested with the hope of eternal life.

If you're not a Christian this morning, our plea with you.

is that you'll take advantage of this occasion.

To express your faith in Jesus as the Christ.

If you have doubts about that, then those doubts can be.

Allayed by scripture and we'd be glad to study with you.

But if you believe with all your heart that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, but you're not a Christian, what are you waiting for?

Time is not guaranteed.

Opportunity is fleeting, but you have that opportunity right now to obey the gospel.

As it is laid out in the scriptures so that you can become a disciple of Jesus Christ, a follower of the Lord.

And one who has the hope of eternal life.

For those of us who have already obeyed the gospel perhaps decades ago, a long time ago, or even more recently.

We need to answer the question, are we true disciples?

Be careful how you answer that.

Because we can deceive ourselves.

In thinking everything is OK. If we're not looking at what Jesus said is required for disciples.

And then the question is, are we willing to pay the cost?

If you need to rededicate yourself, if you would appreciate the prayers of the congregation, we'll pray together with you.

We invite you, whatever your need is, spiritual need this morning, to come to the front and we'll assist you as we stand and sing to encourage you.

Series: N/A

Service: Sun PM

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Ian Boike

The following transcription is computer-generated and may not accurately reflect the contents of the audio. Please verify the content before quoting.

(Transcribed by Congregate. Always check document for possible errors and inaccuracies in automated transcriptions.)

Good evening.

As many of you know, I haven't always preached as a profession.

In fact, I used to work at a motorcycle dealership where I sold parts and accessories and tools.

And in the winter of 2023, I'd been working there for about 3 years at that point, almost 4.

And I was nearing the end of a almost a 10 hour work shift, so I was pretty tired.

And a younger gentleman walked up to the counter and asked me to look up parts for his sport bike.

And I looked up all of his parts and I told him his total.

And he smiled and he gave me a crisp $100 bill.

But as soon as that $100 bill touched my hand, I knew something was off, but I just played it off out of respect for the customer and I just said thank you.

But it kept rolling around in my mind.

Something doesn't feel right about this bill that's in my hand.

It felt thicker, felt way too smooth, and come to find out, along with the other 10 he had, they were counterfeit $100 bills.

And as a parts counter employee, I'd handled tens of thousands if not more on a yearly basis just by myself, taking the money from the customer and putting it into the register.

That was part of my job.

And having spent years testing the real deal 5 days a week, I knew something was wrong the second that it touched my hand.

And today that's the reason I want to talk about discerning between truth and falsehood and as being something as being able to tell when something is a lie and when something is truth is such a massive part of our day to day lives.

In this evening, I want to start, start by talking about how Christians are called to discern between good and evil.

In 23 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 21 through 22, Paul tells us, but test everything.

Hold fast to what is good and abstain from every form of evil.

But what does it mean to test?

Well, the test means to make a decision or a judgment about something.

2 and 3 chapters back in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse 4, Paul tells us, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak not to please men, but to please God who tests our hearts.

And the Hebrews writer Hebrews chapter 5 and verse 133 tells us that solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

So now that we understand that testing, what testing is, but we need to, we need to understand that testing involves deciding the nature of something.

So I want to break down the word decide.

And that the, the first part of the word comes from the Latin meaning off.

And then the second part of the word side comes from the Latin verb chadari, which means to kill or to strike down.

So just as the word suicide or homicide involve killing off someone, the word decide literally means to kill off one option in favor of choosing the other.

And I couldn't think of two men in the Old Testament who were given more commendation for their ability to discern than King David and his son Solomon.

And in 2 Samuel chapter 14, we see the woman of Tekoa commending David on his ability to discern between good and evil.

In 2 Samuel chapter 14 verse 17.

The woman of Tekoa says, and your servant thought, the word of my Lord the King will set me at rest.

For my Lord, the king is like the angel of God to discern good and evil.

The Lord your God be with you.

And then later on whenever Solomon becomes king, we see in 1 Kings chapter 3, we see that commendations are given to Solomon not by some mere person, but by God, as his overall desire in life was to have knowledge and the ability to practice discernment.

First Kings chapter 3 and verse 11 to 23, God says, and God said to him, because you have asked this.

And have not asked for yourself long life or riches or the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself the understanding to discern what is right.

Behold, I now do according to your word.

Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you.

But on top of getting commendations from the Lord, Solomon is also attributed to have written the first book of Proverbs, chapters 1 through 9, as we were told just a minute ago by Alex that it describes a father who is trying to teach his son right from wrong and being able to have discernment.

But in Proverbs chapter 2, verses 1 through 6.

Says, my son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding.

Yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and seek and search for it as hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.

For the Lord gives wisdom from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.

So we can clearly see from these Old Testament passages that both King David and King Solomon were commended for their discernment between right and wrong, but the question is, and that I pose to all of you, is that will we do the same, because Satan loves to use lies to confuse everyday people about the differences between right and wrong.

Just a small list that I've compiled for this evening.

Well, you can't have a good time without alcohol or drugs present.

Or homosexuality isn't wrong as long as there's commitment and love between two people.

For those who warn others of sin in their life are not kind but rather intolerant and hateful people.

And those who use the scriptures to guide their decision making are mindless sheeple.

But after hearing those four lies, what do the scripture say about discerning between truth and the Satan and Satan's lies that he would interject into the world?

In Isaiah chapter 5 and verse 20, the prophet Isaiah tells us, woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

And as Christians, we need to understand two things in reading this passage, is that no amount of lies will turn a wrong into right and evil into good.

And that Satan loves when people believe his lies.

But how should Christians respond to these lies?

How should we?

And we need to test everything.

That is how we respond to these lies.

And if you would turn over to Acts chapter 17.

Acts chapter 17 and verse 133.

Acts chapter 17 and verse 11, Paul tells us, now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica.

They received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

So the Berean Jews tested Paul's teachings against what they already knew to be true, and that was the Old Testament scriptures.

That's what they had as a reference or their standard at the time.

And I think it's a kind of an important, it doesn't go out directly and say it, but one point that we can take away from this passage is that not even Paul was above being checked by others and by the scriptures as the standard.

But like the Bereans, we need to test things by the proper standard of good and evil, which is God's word.

And I know I started out this evening by telling a story about myself and what happened to me a couple of years ago.

But this story that I'm about to tell, it happened much earlier on in my life.

It happened right after I had became a Christian.

And so I was still very fresh.

And my grandfather, John McKee, he taught a sermon at West Murray Church of Christ.

In Murray, Kentucky, about people and places of authority and influence in the church needing to be checked by the scriptures.

But towards the middle of his sermon, he made a comment that not even he could be trusted 100% all of the time.

And hearing this as a new Christian, well, it blew my mind if I'm being honest.

I put this man in such high regard.

he baptized me not a couple of months before this.

I couldn't, I couldn't believe the words I just heard from a sermon no less.

And I just put him on this pedestal of knowing everything spiritual knowledge wise, and after the service, I, you know, after the service was over, I asked him, I said, does that mean that you lie when you preach?

And I know, you know, looking back in my ignorance, my youthful ignorance now, that wasn't the case, and he smiled, and of course, he said, no, I don't.

But because I'm human.

And I'm not an inspired speaker of God.

I have the ability to make mistakes.

But that's why it's so important for you, Ian, to check me when I'm preaching.

You're talking about a man who had been a, been a, been a gospel preacher himself.

Somebody who's been a Christian for the majority of his life, and he just told a few months old Christian to check him when he's preaching.

That meant a lot.

That was powerful to have an older man look at a younger man like me and say that.

And he continued to tell me if I ever preach something that you can't find in the scriptures.

Then I want you to correct me because that's how you show love as Christians.

And in this, maybe I didn't realize it at the time, but looking back on it now, I realized that he was teaching me two critical truths.

And I already mentioned it a moment ago with Paul in reference, but there is no one in the church who is above being checked.

There's no one who can be better than the proper standard and get it 100% right all of the time.

And unlike the world standard of good and evil, which seemed to fluctuate every couple of months or so, 11 month, this will be OK, but then we'll go a couple of months in the future.

Oh, that's not OK anymore.

God's word and God's commands are physically never going to change, and we have that hope as Christians.

But why is testing so important, as we read in 1 Thessalonians 5:21.

It says to but test everything, and I know we've already read this passage, but I want to put it back up on the screen one more time.

And I've color coded it to help us understand that this is not just one long command separated by two verses.

These are three separate but related commands.

In 1 Thessalonians 53:21 to 22, we need to understand that these commands have to be completed in the order that they are listed in order for them to be successful.

Because once now that we understand that we're commanded to test everything, we need to understand that once we do so, we're commanded to hold on and hold fast to the truth.

In Romans chapter 12 in verse 9, Paul writes, Let love be genuine.

Abhor what is evil and hold fast to what is good.

And in 1 Timothy chapter 6 and verse 20, Paul tells us again, oh Timothy, guard the deposit and trust it to you.

Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge.

And in 2 Timothy chapter 1 and verses 13 and 14, we're told, follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.

And I wanted to get all these passages up on the screen so that we can understand it's 1st and 2nd Timothy.

Paul has commanded younger preacher Timothy.

To make sure that he is guarding the true knowledge that was given to him so that the false knowledge would not corrupt.

What was given to him.

Because if we fail to hold fast to what is true, The truth will be corrupted and replaced with falsehood.

That is a guarantee.

And we will all fall prey to false teaching.

But testing also makes it possible for us to obey the third command that's listed in 1 Thessalonians 5:22, which is to abstain from all forms of evil.

And according to Webster's dictionary, abstaining is defined as the as to refrain deliberately and often with an effort of self-denial from an action or practice.

So abstaining from evil may involve us physically removing ourselves from a situation.

And in Genesis chapter 39, it actually mentioned this morning in Alan's sermon, in Genesis 39, we read that we read that Joseph, who has been sold into slavery by his brothers far away from his homeland, his father thinks he's dead.

He's away from all of his godly influence that he grew up with.

Well, he's presented with an opportunity.

To have an affair with his master's wife.

In fact, he was presented with this opportunity over multiple days without ceasing.

And only when Joseph had his hands placed on him did he make the conscious decision in that very moment to run away and abstain from the evil that his master's wife wished to participate in with him.

In Genesis chapter 39 verses 93 to 13, we're told she caught him by his garment saying lie with me.

But he left his garment in her hand and fled and got out of the house.

We know that she made verbal advances towards him in the past before this instance.

Where he said, I can't dishonor God.

I can't do that.

But when she laid hands on him, he didn't go, well, hold on, I already told you we're not gonna do this.

He got out.

He ran the second she laid hands on him.

In other words, there was no hesitation in his response to her physical advances.

And Joseph knew the difference between right and wrong because he tested her physical advances and her verbal against what God had already told, what God had already deemed and discerned was good.

But only by testing first can we begin to know what is good so that we can hold fast to it and so that we know what is evil so we can abstain and get away from it.

But what happens when we fail to follow the commands found in 1 Thessalonians 521 and 22?

Well, if we don't test, then we're likely to accept falsehood as truth.

We've already established this in Proverbs 15:21 in the new King James version, we're told folly is joy to him who is destitute of discernment.

But a man of understanding walks uprightly.

First John 4:1 tells us, beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

So if we fail testing, We're also going to become what the apostle Paul described as the natural person in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 and verse 14.

Paul told the Corinthians, the natural person does not accept the things that the Spirit of God has, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

So Paul is trying to teach the saints in Corinth that a spiritual person can discern spiritual truths that are going to seem foolish to unbelievers.

But what happens when we fail in following the results, not just testing, but following the holding fast and the abstaining?

What happens then?

If after testing we fail to hold fast to what is good and abstain from what is evil, then we'll not just fall into the trap that we spoke of earlier.

We're going to willingly accept falsehood into our hearts.

And the apostle Peter wrote in his 2nd epistle to the general audiences of the Gentile Christians in Asia Minor.

In 2 Peter chapter 213 and verse 22 were told by Peter, but false but false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the master who brought them.

Who bought them bring upon themselves swift judgment.

And one other potential that we have if we fail to do the results.

is that we will lose the sense of our own of our own spiritual condition.

Have you ever met someone who They couldn't stand being told they were wrong.

There was no correction involved.

You couldn't ever tell them, Hey, you know, this might be the wrong way to do this.

Let's do it this way.

Sure we all know someone like that.

The people of Israel couldn't stand being told they were wrong.

Especially when it came to the prophets that the Lord sent.

In 213 Chronicles chapter 25 verses 21 through 29.

They were told the Lord, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by His messengers because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place.

But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets until the wrath of the Lord rose against His people, until there was no remedy.

So unlike the Israelites, we need to be honest about our spiritual condition.

In Proverbs chapter 13 verse 21.

We're told whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper.

But he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.

In James chapter 29 verse 227, we're told, therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

And it may not happen today.

It may not happen tomorrow.

It may not happen a week or a month or a year from now.

But at some point in your life, somebody is going to come to you as we are all imperfect people and say, you're not living your life the right way.

And if someone tells you this and they have scripture to back it up, they have proof and evidence, don't despise them.

They're doing the right thing by simply repeating what God has already discerned as false.

And it's hard to confront your friends.

It's hard to confront your spouse or your family members, your moms, your dads, brothers and sisters, cousins.

It's hard to confront evil and sin.

But even though it can be uncomfortable, it must be done.

And in fact, I, I'll ask this question of everyone here.

If someone is living their life in sin and they've separated themselves from God, and you know this to be a fact.

And you don't say anything to them.

How much do you truly love that person?

How much do you truly love them?

Your friend, your spouse, and yes, even your family.

Do you love them enough to tell them that their soul is in danger of being lost?

In order to show this kind of love to others, we must follow the commands that are found in 1 Thessalonians 5 and that we've studied this evening.

But the question still stands.

Are we going to make the choice as Christians to be able to discern right from wrong?

Because the scriptures are very clear in regards to how the Lord feels about discernment.

And the Lord has already drawn a line in the sand, but the question is which side are you on this evening?

Are you on the right side or are you on the wrong side?

And many people spread false teachings, and even in the church, yes, they do.

Disguised as truths But how are you going to know the difference between those two?

Only by following 1 Thessalonians 5 in the order that they are listed by testing everything, holding on to what is good.

And abstaining from what is evil, can we truly begin to understand how to discern between these two?

And I know I already used the example earlier in Acts chapter 17 verse 11, but we must be like the brethren, the Jews and Berea, who followed the instructions of the apostle Paul.

And I'll just read the second half, and they received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

And I encourage everyone here tonight.

We've talked a lot about testing.

Testing everything you hear or testing everything you see, testing the things that are done to you.

But I now want to take a moment to talk about testing your life.

And I want each one of us to ask this, ask ourselves this Are you living according to God's word?

Have your sins been forgiven?

And if you don't have a relationship with the Lord, you're not walking in truth.

And in order to have a relationship with the Lord, we must use the right standard, not your feelings and certainly not others' opinions.

But when you test your life, what are you going to find, and maybe a better question to follow that up with is what are you going to do about what you find.

And in James chapter 93 and verse 22 through 24 we're told, but be doers of the word and not only hears, not hearers only, deceiving yourselves, for if any one is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who intently looks intently at his natural face in the mirror.

For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.

If testing your life against God's word reveals that you're separated from Him because God makes that distinction very clear.

I want you to know that the Lord sent His Son to this earth so that you would have the opportunity to be forgiven of your sins.

And start to lead a life of truth.

Because God's free gift of mercy has conditions as you can see up on the screen.

But we have everything here ready to assist you in becoming a Christian this evening.

But if you're a Christian, are you testing your life as well?

There are some Christians in the world who believe that because they're a Christian, and they've already been baptized, they've already been saved, they no longer have to test their life.

Once saved, always saved.

As Christians, we need to be testing our lives as well.

If you would turn over to 2 Corinthians chapter 13.

2 Corinthians chapter 13 and verse 5.

Um Paul tells the Corinthians, examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith.

Test, test yourselves, or do you not realize this about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you unless you indeed fail to meet the test.

And in 1 Corinthians chapter 9 verse 27, he's not addressing other people, he's addressing himself.

1 Corinthians chapter 9 verse 27 says, But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others, I might I myself should be disqualified.

If you're separated from the Lord, and you have, you have the opportunity as well to be forgiven of those sins because of Christ's sacrifice on the cross.

The Lord has promised to us that He is willing and He is able to forgive us of those transgressions for those who would plead for His forgiveness.

And if you're subject to the invitation this evening and you're ready to begin your new life in truth rather than continuing in falsehood, Please come to the front, and we will assist you in any way that we can.

Series: N/A

Service: Sun AM

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Allen Dvorak

The following transcription is computer-generated and may not accurately reflect the contents of the audio. Please verify the content before quoting.

(Transcribed by Congregate. Always check document for possible errors and inaccuracies in automated transcriptions.)

John Siota was mentioning the lottery.

And the Chance that someone might win that lottery every time I open up my computer.

And I have to bring my outline up.

I wonder if this is going to be the Sunday that you all win.

Because the outline is gone, and we just sing the invitation song.

The risk of that is actually fairly small because I bring a paper outline also.

But I wanted you to hope.

Good morning.

Glad to have some of you who are visiting with us for the first time.

If you're visiting with us, we're so grateful that you're here.

We want you to feel comfortable.

We want to encourage you this morning to study with us even as you have worshiped with us thus far.

We're gonna be talking in our first few moments about Joseph and his brothers.

That's a story in Genesis 37 that is uh relatively familiar I think to many of us.

Joseph, of course, as the text suggests there in Genesis 37, was the son of Jacob's old age, and so he preferred Joseph over the other brothers, gave him a special gift, this coat of many colors, tunic of many colors as some versions say.

And I wanted to point out a couple of verses that were in the reading this morning, and that is that because of his father's preferential treatment of him, that is of Joseph, his brothers hated him and could not speak peacefully to him.

And it said again in verse 5 and then again in verse 8 after he talked about his dreams in which he would have the preeminence over his brothers, even his father, so they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.

When Joseph, when Jacob rather would send Joseph later to go meet his brothers where they were uh shepherding the flocks in a distant location.

As the brothers see Joseph approaching.

They begin to plan.

Their hatred leads them to think about murder.

Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits.

Then we'll say that a fierce animal has devoured him and we will see what will become of his dreams.

Now they didn't actually kill it.

Judah suggested rather than kill him, let's sell him.

And so a band of Ishmaelites was coming by and so they sell their own brother, the 17 year old brother.

To these Ishmaelites who carry him to Egypt and away from his family, he'll be separated from his family for 213 plus years.

They lied to their father to cover the deed of their hatred.

They brought this garment, this multi-colored tunic.

With blood, animal blood on it.

To lead Jacob to think that Joseph had actually been killed by some animal.

And of course, Jacob is inconsolable.

His son, his favorite son is dead.

You know, it may be hard to understand how someone could sell their own family member into slavery.

Although if you have any siblings, the thought probably has crossed your mind from time to time.

But seriously, that's just such a terrible thing that it's hard, even if you don't get along real well with some of your siblings sometimes.

It's just hard to imagine selling somebody into slavery.

But it helps us understand the potential power of hatred.

They were jealous of Joseph.

They were envious of the father's love toward Joseph.

And then finally hatred.

ends up causing them To sell him into slavery.

We sometimes use the word hate in a rather casual manner.

We hate this or I hate that.

It's just something that is an inconvenience, but hatred is really an extremely dangerous emotion.

Hatred is a defining characteristic of the world, as Paul wrote to Titus in chapter 3 and verse 3.

He said, For we ourselves, speaking of Christians before they were converted were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures.

Passing our days and malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.

Most of us have probably spent some time listening to or reading about the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

The young man who at least is suspected of shooting Charlie Kirk, wrote.

And it has been quoted by media sources.

I had enough of his hatred.

Some hate can't be negotiated out.

And so here's an individual who felt that Charlie Kirk was a hateful person.

That the things that Charlie was saying about various religious convictions that he had, and I'm not defending or disputing any of his convictions, that's not my point.

But this young man decided that Charlie was spewing hatred.

And so he decided to do something about that.

And so he shot Charlie Kirk and killed him.

I want you to note the irony in all of that.

This young man accuses Kirk of hatred because he disagreed with Kirk's religious convictions, so he killed him, and one might define his actions as the result of hatred.

And so in order to combat hatred, he allowed his hatred.

To lead him to the act of murder.

This morning I want to talk to you about hatred.

I wanna help us understand when hatred is actually called for and when it is sinful.

and that already may make your head spin a little bit.

I thought hatred was a bad thing.

No, there are times when we need to hate.

I want to help us see how easy it is to fall into the sin of hatred.

And then finally, and I think practically, we need to uh learn how to avoid hatred.

What do we do to avoid sinful hatred?

As I said, I think there are times when we need to hate.

And so I think it's important for us to carefully define what we mean by hate.

And the reason I say that is that God hates certain things.

For instance, in Deuteronomy the 16 chapter verse 22, Moses wrote, and you shall not set up a pillar which the Lord your God hates.

He's talking about a pillar that would be involved in the worship of a false god.

God hates those things is what Deuteronomy 16:22 says.

The proverb writer in chapter 6 of that book says there are 6 things that the Lord hates.

7, there are an abomination to him, verse 203, and then in verses 17 and following, they, the 7 are listed.

In Amos the 5th chapter verse 21 through the prophet Amos, God told the northern kingdom, I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.

There are some things that God hates.

And there's a time for hatred.

In Ecclesiastes chapter 3 and verse 8 in this where there's time for various things in life.

The writer says in verse 8, a time to love and a time to hate.

When Jesus Christ addressed the church.

At Ephesus in Revelation chapter 2, you recall that 7 churches were addressed in that first chapters 53 and 3 of Revelation.

And he criticizes.

The Ephesians because they've left their first love.

But he also says to them, yet this you have, you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

And so God is approving, Jesus approves of their hatred of the works.

The behavior of the Nicolaitans.

In Luke 14th chapter and verse 26, Jesus says, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

Those are strong words.

We need to try to understand how it is that we are required to hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters.

At the same time that the scriptures tell us that husbands should love their wives and wives should love their husbands, and that we ought to love our children.

What exactly are we talking about when we talk about hatred?

Well, I'm going to define hatred from two different angles.

I want to talk about our English word hatred first of all, and Webster says that hatred, the verb to hate, means to dislike intensely or passionately, to feel extreme aversion for or extreme hostility toward.

It means to detest something.

That's what our English verb to hate means according to Webster.

The noun hatred, he says, means intense dislike, extreme aversion, or hostility.

And when we move to the Greek language.

We find that the definition of the words that are translated hate are essentially the same, have essentially the same meanings, but it adds a little bit for us.

Vine, of course, is the source that I'm citing here, and he says that this Greek word miso means malicious and unjustifiable feelings toward others, whether towards the innocent or by mutual animosity.

In other words, someone hates you, you hate them back is the idea there.

But Vine also says that hatred is a right feeling of aversion from what is evil.

The English word says or means in an extreme aversion and Vines says that sometimes the word hatred is used to talk about a, a right feeling of aversion.

But toward what is evil, and then finally he says hatred sometimes refers to a relative preference from one thing over another by way of expressing either aversion from or disregard for the claims of one person or thing relative to those of another, and he cites Luke 14:26.

So Vines says that sometimes the word hate is used to talk about relative preference.

In other words, in comparison to my love for Christ, my feelings toward my family are essentially hatred, not that I have an intense aversion to any of them, not even uh Vicky.

But it means that in comparison to what I feel for Christ, Everything else.

would be on the order of hatred in comparison.

You know, you've heard the expression hate speech.

If you suggest that someone's behavior is sinful, which is what Charlie Kirk did frequently.

Then you are often accused of being a hater.

But what you see from the definitions that we've looked at is that's not really the meaning of hatred, is it?

You can say that somebody's behavior is not righteousness, that it is sinful without hating that person or having an extreme aversion toward that person.

But sometimes people believe that if you say that behavior is wrong, it's automatic that you hate the person who's involved in the behavior, and that's a non-sequory doesn't follow.

But what we do know is that hatred is sometimes defined as a work of the flesh.

The apostle Paul in Galatians 5:19 to 21 in the New King James version, I'm quoting here.

Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred.

Contention, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like.

So Paul's not giving him a comprehensive list, an all inclusive list of the works of the flesh, but he mentions these, and here's what he says, of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Hatred will keep you out of heaven.

That's what Paul's saying here, and I quoted the New King James version because it uses the word hatred in their translation.

The ESB uses the word enmity, and there's really not any difference to my understanding between those two words.

The word that's used here in Galatians 5:83 and translated hatred is the word ekra uh in the Greek language, and it's defined as enmity by various lexical sources, and so that's the translation of the ESV.

But it's interesting that that word is also very similar to the noun.

It's actually a substantive adjective.

Eros or ros rather, which means an enemy, it's translated enemy.

Extra describes the emotion of some toward others, but shouldn't describe our emotions even toward our enemies.

Because Jesus says in the sermon on the mountain in verses 43 and 44, and chapter 5, you have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

Vines definitions.

Suggests that hatred may not always be an evil thing, as we pointed out from scripture.

What is it that we should dislike intensely?

That's the idea of hatred, right?

To have this extreme aversion to something.

Well, when Moses was choosing judges in the Old Testament to judge the people of Israel in civil matters, one of the things that he said was that they needed to hate covetousness, and that way they wouldn't be inclined to take bribes and pervert justice.

And so basically, these judges had to hate the sin of covetousness.

And we should hate every false way.

We should hate evil.

In Psalm 119, devoted to God's word in verse 104, through your precepts, I get understanding.

Therefore, I hate every false way, the writer says.

That is a legitimate hatred.

And Amos 5:15, we quote a little bit earlier from Amos, verse 21.

Now verse 15 says, hate evil and love good.

And establish justice in the gate.

It may be that the Lord your God of hosts will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

The prophet counsels.

The rebellious people of the northern kingdom, you need to hate evil.

They were embracing evil.

You need to love good and establish justice in the great in the gate.

The danger of hatred is that even an aversion to evil, which is encouraged by scripture, you see from the passages that we've read so far, it can become a malicious feeling or hostility toward the sinner and not just the sin.

And particularly in the case of someone who sins against us.

So now it's personal.

It's not some impersonal sin, but now it's something that's been committed against me, and it's easy to move from the legitimate aversion to evil to begin hating the one who's committed the evil, the sin against us.

That's the danger of hatred.

It's so easy to make that transition if we are not careful.

And the Bible paints a pretty bleak picture.

Of the fruit of hatred.

The Bible contains plenty of examples of the destructiveness of hatred.

We could start in the very beginning, practically of the Bible with Abel and Cain.

Cain kills his brother.

Because Abel's sacrifice was accepted by God and Keynes was rejected.

And out of envy perhaps and certainly anger toward his brother Abel, Cain then allows his hatred.

To cause him to lead him to murder.

In 33 John the 3rd chapter.

In verse 11, John makes reference to uh this story in verses 11 to 212.

He says, for this is the message that you've heard from the beginning that we should love one another.

We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother.

And why did he murder him?

Because his own deeds were evil and his brothers righteous.

Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.

We know that we've passed out of death into life because we love the brothers.

Whoever does not love abides in death.

And then John says, whoever, everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

Now, John's not suggesting that hat or that murder is some sort of mental thing.

Murder is a physical act.

But John's making the connection between hatred and murder, and we've seen that already in this story of Abel and Cain.

That's why he mentions it in verse 217.

The individual who hates is well on the road.

The other acts of violence, sinful behavior, even murder, as John says.

Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer.

That is, he has the attitude of mind that will cause him perhaps to murder.

We saw that just in the last couple of weeks.

In the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

Hatred led to murder.

But the Bible has plenty of other stories in which we see again the ugliness of hatred.

Jacob and Esau.

Esau had sold his birthright to Jacob earlier in his life.

And with that birthright came the blessing that would go to the first born.

But when the time came for Isaac in his old age to bless his sons, he tries to give the blessing.

Esau and Jacob will not have that.

He deceives his father, he shouldn't have done that.

He did so with the assistance of his own mother, Rebecca.

And when Esau finds out what Jacob has done, his decision is, I'm going to kill him.

He hated what had happened.

How Jacob had Gotten around him and secured the blessing that he wanted.

And so his decision is when my father dies, I'm going to kill Jacob.

Of course that doesn't happen.

Jacob isn't murdered, but I want you to see the connection between hatred.

And the thought or the intention of violence.

Joseph and his brothers, the story we already talked about.

They hated him.

They hated him even more, couldn't speak peaceably to him.

And they sold him into slavery.

And he's yanked away from his family.

He ends up in prison through no fault of his own.

There's a good bit of suffering that goes on in Joseph's life before finally he will be elevated in the land of Egypt to a position of prominence.

And it started, it started with hatred.

Now, Joseph later on, I believe in Genesis 221, will make the observation to his brothers that the Lord had sent him ahead in order to prepare a place for the family, that is Jacob's family because of the famine that was coming on the land of Canaan.

But however he got there, whatever God's intention was, the specific agency was the hatred of his brothers.

And it's ugly what they did to him and to their father.

The story of Absalom and Amnon is not as well known perhaps.

But Amnon was the first born of David, next in line for the throne.

And he lusted after his half sister, the full sister of Absalom, another son of David.

And he rapes his half-sister, and when Absalom finds out, he hates Amnon for what he has done.

And as is so often the case, that hatred led to murder.

Absalom ends up having Amnon killed.

220 Samuel 25 tells the story.

As the Bible reveals, the fruits of sinful hatred include malice and deceit, vengeance, even murder in some cases.

In Proverbs chapter 28 verses 163 through 216, The text says whoever hates disguises himself with his lips and harbors deceit in his heart.

In other words, sometimes people hate, they don't let others know of their hatred.

It's here in their heart.

And so they may say, oh yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm a friend of this person, when in truth.

They hate that person.

When he speaks graciously, believe him not, for there are 25 abominations in his heart.

Through his hatred.

Though his hatred be covered with deception, his wickedness will be exposed in the assembly.

It's hard to hide hatred for a long time.

Hatred produces strife.

In Proverbs 214 and 12, hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all sins.

Someone says, well, uh, maybe I have this aversion, this extreme dislike of somebody, but I, I'm not gonna murder anybody.

I'm not gonna engage in violence.

Hatred can be hidden in the heart, but it's still a sin.

That's the nature of hatred.

It is part of that list of the works of the flesh.

And as John says, I would remind you hating our brother is equivalent to being a murderer as far as intent is concerned.

The truth is that hatred is an emotional poison that slowly kills the one whose heart entertains it.

That's the irony of hatred, is that while it revol involves my extreme aversion or dislike of someone else, meanwhile, it is killing me spiritually.

Hatred is a dangerous emotion.

We need to be very careful.

How do we deal with hatred?

How do we avoid sinful hate?

Well, you've probably noticed already in some of the passages that we have read that love is the cure for hate.

Again, the passage that we read a little bit earlier, Jesus said, you've heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

It's hard to hate someone.

And pray for them at the same time.

I think that's why Jesus says that.

In Leviticus 19th chapter.

Moses wrote much the same thing.

You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor lest you incur sin because of him.

Don't hide this extreme aversion, get rid of it.

And practically speaking in Exodus chapter 23 and verse 5, listen to what the law said.

If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it.

You shall rescue it with him.

So here's someone who hates you.

How do you deal with that?

Well, I see this person needing help over here, then I go and I help him.

Love is the cure.

For hate.

We need to be honest about our feelings toward others.

Oh, I don't hate that person, really?

Look at the definition of hate.

Let's make sure that that's not the case.

In terms of our feelings toward others.

Be careful of envy.

In Genesis 37, remember, envy, jealousy led to hatred and hatred.

led to violence.

We need to be careful about harboring anger toward others.

That's, that's often how hatred begins.

It begins with an anger, and it may even be that the anger is uh initially justified because somebody has sinned against us.

But we need to be careful about what we do with that anger.

Paul writes in Ephesians 4:53, be angry and do not sin.

Do not let the sun go down on your anger.

When anger is hell, when anger is nursed, when it's preserved in our hearts, it often leads to bitterness and even hatred.

We need to be honest about our feelings toward others.

We need to be willing to deal with anger in the proper way.

You can expect to be hated.

If you are a Christian and you are a faithful Christian, But we must not respond with evil for evil.

In John 15, Verses 18 and 19.

Jesus said if the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.

If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own.

But because you're not of the world, But I chose you out of the world.

Therefore, the world hates you.

They have an extreme aversion dislike for us, partly because righteous behavior by example condemns wicked behavior, sinful behavior.

Jesus said if you just like the world, they would love you.

But because you're not like them.

They hate you just like they hated me.

In Romans 12th chapter, the apostle Paul says in verse 17, we pay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.

What Amnon did in the sexual violence against his own family member was horrific.

But what Absalom did was respond to evil with evil.

And so he murdered his own brother, half brother.

In verse 21, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Absalom was overcome by evil.

He may have had a case to make against Amnon, and David's not guiltless in all of this.

That he was overcome by evil.

When he killed his brother.

Well, we understand that hatred is an intense dislike for someone or something.

There are some things that we ought to hate.

We ought to hate evil ways.

We ought to hate evil, hate sin.

But we need to be careful that we do not allow sinful hatred into our lives.

It will destroy us when we begin hating people.

Then we're guilty of the work of the flesh.

And as Paul says, it'll keep people out of heaven.

In the story of Joseph and his brothers.

Joseph eventually is elevated, as I said, to a position of prominence.

He controls the grain supply in Egypt.

And his brothers come to Egypt to buy food.

They don't recognize Joseph.

It's been over 20 years since they've seen him.

He was a youth when he was sold into slavery.

Now he's a man.

And he's in this position of authority, and he eventually reveals himself to his brothers and his brothers are afraid that he would take vengeance on them after their father's death because of what they had done to him.

And many people would do that.

They would respond to evil with evil, even if it's something that had happened a long time ago.

We might even expect that God would do the same toward us.

Romans 5:8 says that we were enemies of God.

But God didn't hate us.

Rather, he expressed his love toward us in the gift of his son, as John 3:16 suggests.

He offers us the opportunity for eternal glory.

He is the example for us of love, conquering hate.

There was enmity between us and God.

We were enemies because of our own sins.

But God shows His love toward us, pours it out in our hearts to the Holy Spirit.

Paul says there in Romans 5.

And it's that love that ought to motivate us to accept the invitation of God, to enjoy life.

Eternal life, spiritual life.

If you need to respond to the gospel this morning, if you need to follow the steps that are outlined in the scriptures, allowing your faith to cause you to repent of your sins, to turn away from evil, to hate evil, and to turn to God and righteousness, and then confess the faith that you have in Jesus Christ as the Son of God.

There is no other way.

To the Father except through Jesus, he says in John 14.

And then to be baptized.

For the remission of your sins that you may receive the gift that the Holy Spirit offers us, eternal life, salvation.

If you need to do that this morning, we want to encourage you, and we stand and sing to do so.

Please come to the front if we can help you.

Series: N/A

Service: Sun AM

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Allen Dvorak

The following transcription is computer-generated and may not accurately reflect the contents of the audio. Please verify the content before quoting.

(Transcribed by Congregate. Always check document for possible errors and inaccuracies in automated transcriptions.)

This morning we're going to be reading a few verses from the 5th chapter.

Of the epistle to the Hebrews.

Hebrews chapter 5, beginning of verse 7 and going through the end of the chapter.

I'll be reading from the New King James version.

The early part of this reading, Paul finds or the writer finds it necessary to explain to his audience uh the importance of knowing about the priesthood of Jesus.

And in the second part, he explains to them why that is important.

Beginning at verse 7, Who in the days of his flesh when he had offered up prayers and supplications.

With vehement cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death and was beheard because of his godly fear.

Though he was a son, yet he learned obedience by the things which he suffered.

And having been perfected, he became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him, called by God as high priest, according to the order of Melchizedek.

Of whom we have much to say and hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing.

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.

For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.

But solid food belongs to those who are of full age.

That is, those who by reason of use, have their senses exercised to discern between good, both good and evil.

Eric began our assembly this morning by making the observation that it's good to have everybody here.

It's a privilege and a blessing to be able to meet together with other Christians, and I want to emphasize that point in our studies this morning, particularly if you're visiting with us, we are so glad that you're here.

And we want to, of course, encourage you to come every opportunity that you have.

You're always welcome here.

I want to talk to you a little bit about Spiritual health.

Sometimes with our physical bodies, it's a little difficult to know when we really need to visit a doctor.

We can sometimes distinguish between the aches and pains that are just kind of the normal result of being active.

But not necessarily symptoms of a serious ailment.

If you get out and you do a lot of exercise and you're not accustomed to that kind of exercise or that level of exercise, you're gonna wake up probably the next morning, maybe more than one morning with some stiffness and sore muscles, that sort of thing.

And we just understand that that's the consequence of uh becoming more active.

We don't think that's particularly serious.

But if you wake up in the morning and you start to roll out of bed and you can't move without severe pain, You've got a problem.

And that's a sign that you need maybe to go and see the doctor.

There are a number of symptoms that would suggest a serious problem.

Pain, like the kind that won't allow you to get out of bed is one of them.

A wound that doesn't heal suggests that there's a problem uh with your body or persistent shortness of breath, fatigue.

That is constant and maybe just a uh an obvious change in your normal body functions.

All those things suggest that you have a problem and that maybe you need to consult someone for help uh with that problem.

But you know, there are other times when serious illnesses creep up on us because there's little observable change in the way that we look, feel, or function.

And sometimes people become aware or made known that they have a serious illness and they didn't realize it until uh It's become a real serious threat to their lives.

There are changes sometimes taking place in our bodies and we're just not conscious, conscious of them.

Sometimes the symptoms of physical sickness are there.

We just don't recognize them for what they are.

Obviously, the sooner that we become aware of some serious health problem, usually the better the chances are that treatment can be sought and will be effective and that we can enjoy a full recovery.

And so this morning, I want to talk to you about spiritual weakness, about our spiritual health.

Because I'm afraid that sometimes people are actually seriously, spiritually sick and they're not aware of it.

They're not paying attention to the symptoms.

And so this morning, I want to talk to you about apostasy.

Apostasy, the falling away of a Christian is usually not.

The idea of falling off a cliff.

It's usually more the matter of sliding down a slippery slope.

It's something that's gradual.

Usually Christians, if they fall away, they fall away over an extended period of time.

I know there are exceptions, but most Christians who fall away.

Do so over an extended period of time, and there are some things that seem to be common among those who suffer apostasy.

When a Christian cuts off his brethren, that's really a final step to apostasy.

And usually that means that somebody has been spiritually weak or sick for some time.

But unfortunately, that's sometimes what we perceive to be the first sign of trouble, when in fact, that's really the end of the process in many cases.

It may be that the weakening process was so gradual.

That neither that person nor other brethren realized the precariousness of that person's condition until it was a full-blown case of apostasy.

And so this morning, we want to talk a little bit about Spiritual weakness.

And I want to talk about some of the symptoms that are typical of spiritual weakness.

And then as time permits, we'll talk about the Lord's prescription for dealing with spiritual weakness.

I'm gonna suggest to you three steps that I have observed over the years in a number of different people who eventually have fallen away.

Steps that indicate some of the symptoms of spiritual weakness.

The first step is just uh a time of shifting.

And by that, I simply mean that there's a shifting, for instance, in the uh influences that a person uh is under.

The weak Christian begins to spend more time with worldly friends than with other Christians.

And this Christian begins to talk like his worldly friends.

He begins to think like his worldly friends, and consequently, his interests change.

The proverb writer in chapter one of Proverbs, beginning in verse 10, warns the reader about Throwing in with those who are wicked.

Following their path.

And that's really the first thing that happens.

There's influences in the life of a Christian that begin to be more powerful than those influences that are good.

There's a shift in interest that then takes place.

There's a reduced interest in the study of the word of God.

You know, in our physical bodies, a loss of physical appetite usually leads to difficulties because our bodily, our bodies typically can't function without some sort of constant or regular outside nourishment.

But the weak Christian is unwilling to set aside time for study.

This is a person who's satisfied with superficial study or just the, the, the uh uh Kind of surface, uh, talking about the Bible.

Don't, don't bother me with the hard stuff or the deeper principles of the scriptures.

And then there's inevitably a shift in priorities.

What you begin to see is a change in the activities that take up the person's time.

A perfunctory prayer life usually is what happens when there's this shift of interests.

The spiritual weak, spiritually weak, don't have time to pray, or at least that's uh the idea in their mind.

They pray only maybe at meals or at services of the church, or they go through the motions, but there's really no intimacy in their prayers.

It's amazing to me.

How many times I've talked with people who are obviously weak spiritually, you can see the symptoms and yet they will assure you that God is number one in their lives.

But the truth of the matter is that how we spend our time.

Manifests our priorities, not our declarations, not any kind of list that we make about what's first in our life.

The bottom line is, how are you spending your time?

That'll demonstrate.

Your priorities.

And those who are spiritually weak have shifted their priorities to other activities besides, for instance, the study of God's word or even their prayers, their life, their personal life with Christ.

And the weak Christian, as there's a shift in, in uh priorities, begins to miss some of the assemblies of the saints.

Assemblies that he or she could really attend if that person wanted to.

I understand there are reasons sometimes that people don't assemble with the other saints.

Sometimes we're sick, sometimes there are other things that happen, we're traveling, we're not available.

But sometimes people just decide they're not going to make the effort to go and be with the saints.

And so there'll be some sort of excuse that will be offered.

The absence, however, at this point is infrequent enough that maybe other Christians don't become particularly concerned.

They may not even notice depending on the size of the congregation.

That's step one.

It's a time of change, of shifting, but step two is a time of slipping away.

Whereas only some assemblies were sporadically missed, now attendance becomes even more sporadic.

I will hasten to point out that regular attendance is not a sure sign of good spiritual health.

People attend services for a variety of reasons, not all of which indicate any kind of spiritual health.

But sporadic attendance is nearly always a sign of spiritual weakness.

When the elders meet with prospective members of this congregation to talk to them.

To tell them a little bit about us, uh, both the elders in the congregation, and to learn about those individuals.

We always emphasize that we would like for people to let us know when they're not gonna be here because that is a sign of spiritual weakness when people just miss services and there's no indication of why.

The activities in which we engage in our assemblies were designed by God to give us strength.

We sing together, we pray together, we study together.

All of these activities are designed to encourage us and strengthen us.

And when people miss those, Then often it ends up weakening them.

Excuses are sometimes offered.

All kinds of excuses.

Excuses that I really suspect the Lord sees right through, and many times even other Christians do.

Things that cause absences in the assemblies don't seem to affect other activities.

The same individual who can't make it services on Sunday will make it to work on Monday because you got to go to work in order to get paid.

The same kind of thing that will keep someone from coming here on Wednesday won't stop them from being at work on Thursday morning.

I understand sometimes there are temporary conditions, but brethren, we need to be honest with ourselves.

Sometimes those are just excuses.

And they indicate Spiritual weakness.

A shifting already of priorities.

There's little contact with other members.

Sometimes even when Christians do attend services, they come to the assemblies, they don't stay long around long enough, they slip out quickly after the last prayer.

They don't associate really with the other Christians.

I've seen that over the years where the people who are spiritually weak and eventually sometimes slide away, they're the ones who don't really have many connections with other Christians.

And so they're gone just as soon as the amen is said.

In the final prayer, And of course, they have little or no contact with other members outside of the assemblies.

Friendships with other Christians become more distant and those relationships are being replaced by relationships with people of the world.

Understand, I'm not saying it's wrong for anyone to have a relationship with somebody who's not a Christian.

But I am saying to you that in order to be strengthened spiritually, we need those connections with people who are godly, who share the same faith that we do, who share the same moral compass that we follow.

And when those friendships with other Christians are replaced by friendships that are not going to encourage us spiritually, What happens is someone becomes weaker and weaker.

A lot of times in this stage, you'll see compromise with the world.

People begin to classify sin in their mind as small sins.

Don't sweat the small stuff.

I'm not an adulter.

I'm not a murderer.

I'm not a thief.

And so those small things like lies.

And hypocrisy And gossip malice, bitterness, all of those sins people don't worry so much about, and the, the Christian begins to cut corners.

And by that I mean this is a person who begins to use some of the same kind of sinful language that he or she never used in the past since their conversion.

But now, with their association with other people of the world, They began to pick up the habits of those folks.

Instead of The habits, the influence of godly individuals.

And so you can hear it in the way that they talk.

It's interesting if You begin to break the law by speeding.

On just certain occasions, only when it's necessary.

It just gets easier and easier to do that until what happens a lot of times is people every time they get behind the wheel, they just start speeding.

Their conscience pricks them less and less as they do things that in the past, they would have said that's wrong.

And so the lines between right and wrong begin to blur in this stage.

And then finally step 3.

The time of disconnect.

And I want to say again that by the time someone gets to this stage, It's a 93 alarm fire.

It's difficult sometimes to to recover someone to, to help someone who's gotten to stage 3 because what happens is that their attendance becomes so sporadic that for all practical purposes, they're attending very little or not at all.

Occasionally, they'll show up just every once in a little while.

They become unreceptive to admonition.

Or maybe they just brush it off with agreeability.

Oh yeah, yeah, I understand.

I, I should attend more regularly.

No change.

They may be very friendly to other Christians who contact them, but with very little intention to change behavior.

The influence of the world has become so strong that that's really the guiding principle in their lives now.

And what other Christians have to say is just kind of a side thing.

Not much importance there.

Or sometimes they just become hard to contact.

You can text them, you can email them, you can phone them, you can try to meet with them and they're just never available, or they just refuse to respond to what you Uh, your efforts to contact them.

Or sometimes they just cut off all contact with other members of the local church.

And you can understand why every time they see another Christian, it reminds them that they're not doing what they ought to do, at least not what they used to do.

And so that's an uncomfortable feeling and you never know when someone's gonna come and say, you know, you need to change your life, you need to do this or you need to do that and that that's all uncomfortable and so they just cut off contact.

With other Christians.

Usually at this point, people are involved in obvious sin.

And they know it, but there's very little desire to repent.

Three stages that I'm not saying every person who, every Christian who apostatizes goes through all three of those stages, but I'll tell you, I've seen this again and again over the years.

I've seen it in this congregation, and so have the other elders.

A time of Slipping A time of disconnection.

And finally complete.

Leaving of the Lord I want to make a couple of other observations.

As I said before, perhaps not every apostate follows this exact same path.

This slippery slope path, however, is a common one.

The nature of some of the warning signs is such that brethren may not immediately notice them.

That is, other brethren may not notice them.

The devil takes some Christians by surprise.

I, I will freely admit that, but I suspect that many Christians who fall are aware that they are weak.

The weak Christian is in trouble.

In step one.

But the shifts may be visible to only close friends, shifts in influence and priorities.

In interests I would say that in general, the connection that each of us has with other Christians is a key indicator of spiritual health.

I know there are other issues, there are other things that need to be looked at, but it strikes me that when people fall away, one of the things that almost always happens is they disconnect from other Christians.

At the very time.

When they most need that good influence.

And I will tell you that by the time people have gotten to step 2 and 3, it's difficult to restore them.

And yet sometimes, That's the only time that people say, 22, there's a problem over here.

No, the problem has existed for quite some time.

We're just now seeing the more obvious symptoms of that.

Well, what's the prescription for this problem of spiritual weakness?

How, how do we deal with that in ourselves or in others?

Well, I would suggest to you, first of all, we need to be honest about our spiritual condition.

Often the spiritually weak Christian will protest that he or she is doing fine.

If you talk to them and say, well, I've noticed that you missed a lot of services in the last couple 21 months.

Oh, I'm, I'm fine, I'm fine.

Just it just happened and that's happened and there's always a reason.

Sometimes people are just not very honest about their own spiritual condition.

It seems that everyone else can see the weakness.

While the one who's involved is blind to the problem.

Or at least it seems that way.

I want to ask you a question.

When I was talking about those steps, those 23 steps, did you see yourself at any point?

Did those symptoms describe you?

Can we be honest about ourselves and say, well, maybe, maybe I am showing some shifting.

In my influences, my interests, my priorities.

And it's showing up in the fact that sometimes I just don't bother to come when I probably could.

We need to be honest about our spiritual condition.

Spiritual weakness is manifested in sinful behavior and or sinful attitudes, and the prescription for that, the divine prescription is repentance.

The changing of mind about one's behavior.

In Revelation chapters 22 and 24, the Lord addresses letters to seven churches.

Of those churches and at least 27 letters, there is the specific command to repent, to change, or the consequence would be that the Lord would no longer recognize that congregation is as faithful as one of his.

In Ezekiel, the 113th chapter, the prophet Ezekiel in verse 211 said, Therefore, I will judge you house of Israel, one, according to his ways, declares the Lord God, repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin.

And that's exactly where iniquity takes us, is to ruin.

Destruction I would suggest, thirdly, get adequate spiritual nourishment.

When people don't have a good physical diet, usually, it affects their health.

It'll weaken them in various ways.

And spiritually speaking, the same thing is true.

If we're not being nourished spiritually, then we're going to become spiritually weak.

Doctors Often we measure some sort of physical improvement.

By the restoration of appetite, the ability to digest food.

And in much the same way, at least in a spiritual parallel, the spiritually weak need more nourishment, not less.

And yet unfortunately sometimes they have stopped eating.

Spirually speaking, The writer of Hebrews in chapter 26.

I would like to explain to his readers some things that are a little bit deeper about the priesthood of Jesus Christ, how Jesus is a high priest after the order of Melchizedek, but he stops in verse 11, there of Hebrews 5 and says, you really can't handle this food.

This is deeper stuff.

This is more meat, not milk, and you're not ready for that.

And I hasten to point out that he's not writing to people who haven't been Christians for very long.

He says to them, for though by this time, you ought to be teachers.

Interestingly enough, I don't think the writer is saying every Christian needs to be a teacher in some sort of public forum or anything.

What he's saying is that with time, we ought to be maturing and these Christians have not matured.

They're not growing.

He says, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. Why?

Because they had become dull of hearing.

That wasn't always the case.

They at one point may have been very energetic and, and zealous, but they had become And the concept is lazy.

You're not working to grow.

And so the writer says, you've gone backwards, you retrogressed until the, the fact of the matter is we have to teach you the, the, the, the beginning principles again.

He encourages them to diligence.

In Hebrews chapter 6 verses 1011, and it's interesting.

That the word for dull in verse 11 of chapter 5 is the same word, it's translated sluggish.

In chapter 6 and verse 63, don't be sluggish, be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Paul would write to Timothy and 2 Timothy 2:15, be diligent to present yourself approve to God, worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth in the New King James Version.

But what happens sometimes is that Christians like Esau become profane, and I don't mean they necessarily are involved in vulgar or profane language.

They're people who do not have an appreciation for spiritual things.

That's the sense in which Esau became a profane person.

He didn't have the proper appreciation for things that were sacred, things that were important.

Sometimes Christians likewise.

Don't recognize that.

Bible study reminds us of the reality of this world, appreciated the comments made about the fact that we live in a dark world, and we need to understand the stakes involved.

Try to separate the transcend and the temporary.

From those things that are eternal in consequence.

First Peter 2 verses 1 through 3, the apostle Peter wrote, so put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk that by it, you may grow up into salvation, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

Some Christians just have lost their taste for God's word.

And they become weak.

We need to get adequate spiritual nourishment.

We need to set aside a special time for daily prayer.

Remember I said that one of the signs of weakness, one of the symptoms of spiritual weakness is this perfunctory prayer life.

What's pulling you or me away from God?

Talk to God about it.

Make a list of people.

Use the prayer list who have special needs, mention them in your prayers.

Count your blessings and thank God for every one of us.

And then finally connect with God's people.

Don't miss the assemblies of the saints if you can help it.

No feeble excuses.

There have been times when people have said, well, I couldn't be here because And my inclination is to say, really?

Would you tell the Lord that?

Would you say that to the Lord?

Can you honestly say that it was impossible for you to be here because of that reason?

Because I think the Lord will call those out.

Without any difficulty.

Come to worship assemblies, determined to get some good out of the teaching of the word and the contact that you will have with the best people on earth.

Well, I want to conclude by suggesting that as we age, I think we expect to have more physical uh health problems.

We accept decreased abilities, can do what we used to be able to do.

And we understand that our bodies are slowly deteriorating.

But there's no reason that we should weaken spiritually over time.

In fact, Paul would say to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 4, so we do not lose heart.

Though our outer self, I think he's talking about his spirit, his physical body is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.

The irony is that while our physical bodies get weaker, our spiritual selves can become stronger and more mature and should.

I wish that it was always the case.

That every member of the congregation was growing spiritually by leaps and bounds.

And I will tell you without any uncertainty that if you want to grow here, you can grow.

There are good Bible class teachers here.

There are good lessons presented here from the pulpit, not, I'm not talking about my lessons necessarily.

I'm talking about Deb's lessons.

But others likewise teach things that will help you grow.

If you want to grow, the opportunity is there.

There's a banquet here.

And you can be filled.

If you're willing to eat.

If you're willing to make yourself available.

But experience suggests that the devil will pull some Christians back into the world.

It doesn't have to happen.

I'm not saying it's inevitable.

I'm saying that that's what experience has shown.

That some people will not make the effort to grow and to become stronger spiritually, they'll go the other way and become weaker.

And some will go back into the world.

They'll be the Stage of slipping away, disconnect.

It's one thing to recognize the existence of a health problem.

It's quite another to follow the prescribed treatment for it.

So I ask you again, when I talked about the symptoms of spiritual weakness this morning, did you see yourself?

Do they describe you?

And if they do, what are you going to do about it?

Are you gonna take the prescription that the Lord offers?

Or will you end up leaving the Lord?

You know, every once in a while, there'll be a story.

About a professional athlete, maybe uh a professional basketball player or football player.

And these are people who are uh physically fit in most cases and, and very active, and somebody will just drop dead on the court or on the field.

And we're always surprised by that because we think that's someone who ought to be in great shape, who ought to be in good health.

And what usually happens is it's discovered that there was some sort of hidden physiological problem, maybe uh a heart malfunction or some sort of congenital problem that this, this athlete was unaware of.

Nobody was aware of it, but under heavy stress and activity, it comes to the surface and someone ends up just dying.

And it's just a shock.

Because you don't expect it.

And that's the way it is sometimes with Christians.

We don't see the symptoms until it's so late in the game.

It's very difficult to recover someone, to help someone.

Become stronger and overcome that spiritual weakness.

Many people who feel pretty good about their lives are in fact, spiritually dead.

And I'm talking now, not necessarily about Christians, but about people in general.

A lot of people will say, oh yeah, I, I, I love the Lord.

I belong to the Lord.

They're spiritually dead because they've never been bought by the blood of Jesus Christ.

They've never been forgiven of their sins.

They've never followed what the Lord commanded in the New Testament for becoming a Christian.

And sin is a killer.

Sin is a killer.

Paul wrote about it in Romans 7:9 through 11, that sin used the law to kill him.

As he became a sinner and was separated from God, and he writes to the Romans in chapter 6 and verse 23, that the wages of sin is death.

That's what sin produces.

It promises so much more.

It promises life and pleasure and good things, but in fact, what it brings is death.

What's your situation this morning?

Are you spiritually alive?

Are you spiritually healthy?

Are you growing?

Do you see the signs of spiritual growth in becoming more and more conformed to the image of God's Son?

Or is this lesson about you?

About the need to take the Lord's prescription, make some changes.

The stakes are high.

But through Jesus Christ, we can live spiritually.

We can had that hope of life after this life.

A hope of fellowship with God in heaven.

I appreciated the comment that was made earlier about the fact that we see all around us the majesty, the wisdom, the power of God.

Is it your hope?

Is it your expectation?

That you will someday spend all of your existence with the God who not only created this world.

But who gave his son.

To die on the cross.

So that sinners like us could be saved.

Have you obeyed the gospel?

If you need to this morning, we want to encourage you to take that step.

Make The decision To become spiritually alive and to grow.

If you're a Christian who, as you look at yourself, realize that you're weak, spiritually weak.

The brethren will pray with you.

The elders will talk with you and study with you.

You can have all kinds of help, but you have to make the decision.

To seek that help.

So if we can help you this morning, we want to encourage you, and we do so as we stand and sing.

Series: N/A

Service: Sun AM

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Allen Dvorak

The following transcription is computer-generated and may not accurately reflect the contents of the audio. Please verify the content before quoting.

(Transcribed by Congregate. Always check document for possible errors and inaccuracies in automated transcriptions.)

We'll be reading from John chapter 19.

Verses 31 to 37, John 19:31 to 37.

I immediately after Jesus has given up his spirit.

Since it was the day of preparation and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, for that Sabbath was a high day, the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away.

So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him.

But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.

But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.

You sought as borne witness.

His testimony is true, and he knows that he's telling the truth that you also may believe.

For these things took place that the scripture might be fulfilled.

Not one of his bones will be broken.

And again another scripture says they will look on him whom they have pierced.

I had rather hoped that Eric would not announce that I would be speaking instead of Gary.

I was kind of hoping that I could slide in and attendance would not be harmed by the knowledge of me speaking instead of Gary, but the secret is out now.

And so I'll just go ahead and invite you to come back this evening and I'll give a report on the trip that Debbie and I made to Zimbabwe uh in August, and I look forward to that.

Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

He grew up in the village of Nazareth, just off of the valley of Jezreel, plain of Esdraan.

As an adult, he performed many miracles.

He was crucified by the Romans.

Buried in a rich man's tomb.

And raised on the 3rd day.

All of those things we learn from the four Gospels.

And you and I most likely take those things to be true without question, but not everybody believes that the gospel.

That the gospels are truthful that the things that they record that Jesus did and said and taught that those things actually happened.

I recently ran across a post.

It was a quotation of a comment that Charlie Kirk had made, uh, the post was by another person.

Kirk's comment was, the resurrection of Jesus is a fact of history.

It really happened.

Jesus rose from the dead.

Well, you can imagine that that brought the boo birds out.

And in fact there were 10.3k comments.

When I looked at this particular post the last time.

Some of them rather pointedly negative.

And Santa Claus comes down my chimney, facts.

So, the resurrection of Jesus is equated to or at least considered to be similar to the idea that a fat guy in red clothing makes his way down the chimney.

On Christmas Day.

Somebody else said the tooth fairy gave me $13 for a lower bicuspid.

The fairy exists.

I have the $5.

Sorry, Libs, it's just reality.

Another one said, pictures, or it didn't happen.

Not a fact.

The resurrection.

Based on writings from 100 years after this supposedly happened, I'm giving it to the, to you the way it was written.

Quit being simple.

So if you believe in the resurrection, you're just being simple.

Someone else wrote, it's clearly absurd, and we need to stop acting like it could have actually happened.

It didn't happen.

It's infinitely more likely that somebody lied.

And then to up the ante, someone made the observation Jesus never existed.

He appears to be several gods from several first century cults, combined into a new story.

Well, just from the few that I've shared with you, you might guess that there were a lot more snarky and smart aleck comments among the 10+K comments along with a number that I saw, I didn't read through all 10,000, and I've got a life.

But there were some who actually supported the resurrection, who gave evidence for, who stood up for the gospels as truth.

But this morning I want to ask the question, can we trust the gospels?

When the gospels say that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, is that true?

When the gospels say that Jesus was buried and then raised on the 3rd day, is that true?

Or are we just being simple or gullible?

Obviously, you may have already surmised that Facebook may not be the best source for informed opinions on the historicity of Jesus, or for that matter, the reliability of the gospels.

But the reason we're talking about this is not because somebody decided to say some things on, on Facebook, but because the comments that were made on Facebook reflect the skepticism and the disbelief that you will run into when you talk to others.

About the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

About the reliability of the gospels.

And this skepticism, this disbelief is not uncommon among those who have not investigated the track record, if you will, of the Gospels.

But for our own benefit and perhaps for those that we might have the opportunity to talk with about the gospels, we need to answer the question, can we believe that Jesus did and said the things that are recorded in the Gospels?

Or as I've suggested, are we just perhaps being gullible.

We're not going to be able to discuss this subject in its comprehensive.

Uh, nature Not unless you're willing to stay here a lot longer than I think.

But instead, what I'd like to do is address some of the ideas that have been suggested by these comments.

And the very first one is the charge that the story of Jesus and particularly his resurrection was invented at least a century after he supposedly lived.

And uh just to remind you and even to add a comment, these are the things that were said.

Resurrection is not a fact.

It's based on writings over 100 years after supposedly Jesus was resurrected.

According to the people who wrote the story, hundreds of years after he died, another uh comment poster wrote.

And then finally, and here's someone who ups the ante again, there's literally no contemporary evidence Jesus Christ existed.

The earliest actual verifiable accounts come almost 130 years after his supposed death.

Now that may sound erudite, but somebody knows something about ancient literature.

But I'm gonna show you that those comments are patently false.

And you don't have to really dig very deep.

In evidence is to understand that those statements are just blatantly wrong.

For instance, there is a Roman historian by the name of Cornelius Tacitus.

He was born about the middle of the 1st century, 153.

He wrote a lot of things, but he wrote a series of books called The Annals.

The annals were concerning Roman history from the time frame of about 8014 to just prior to uh Nero's death in 18068.

He wrote these books somewhere around 115 AD. Tacitudus wrote.

That Christ was put to death while Tiberius was emperor.

Tiberius was emperor from 8014 to 8037.

So that means it's in that period of time.

Tacitus also noted that it happened, Jesus being put to death, while Pontius Pilate was in charge of Judea, which would uh put it in the time frame of 26 to 36 AD. And so while someone says there's no verifiable account of what Jesus, that Jesus existed until 130 years later, that's just wrong. Tacitus.

He's not just some fly by night historian, somebody who would say whatever, he was not friendly to Christians.

He considered Christianity to be a disease that started in Judea.

But he acknowledged that Jesus was put to death during the time of Tiberius.

And that Pilate was in charge of Judea at the time.

He is considered an eminent ancient historian.

The Oxford Companion to classical literature, which I get out and read every day.

Fingers crossed.

Says the annals, that is his work here of this time frame, in particular, show Tacitus to have been one of the greatest of historians with a penetrating insight into character and a sober grasp of the significant issues of the time.

My personal opinion is tacitus at time was biased, but he acknowledges the truth that Jesus existed regardless of comments that were made.

But he wasn't the only one.

Pliny the Younger, or sometimes I've heard his name called Pliny, Pliny the Younger was a governor of Bethenia and Pontus.

If you look on your maps, it's at the north side of Asia, we call Asia Minor.

The Roman province, and he was governor of that province around AD 111, and he wrote a letter to the Emperor Trajan.

In that letter, Pliny describes for the emperor some of the activities of the Christians.

Mind you, Pliny was not a friend of Christianity.

He's not someone who wrote something that the gospel said because he wanted people to believe in it.

He was an enemy of Christianity.

In fact, he persecuted Christians and had many of them put to death.

In that letter, he is writing the emperor to ask for advice.

This is how I've been dealing with Christians.

Is this the way that you would recommend is the substance of his letter.

But he notes that the Christians, when they assembled, they sang a hymn to Christ as to a God.

So as early as the beginning of the 13nd century, there's already secular historians who are noting that Jesus existed.

The Christians certainly believed it.

Tacitus says it was true.

Lenny noted that there were many Christians in his province of Bethenia and Pontus, so many that he says that the temples to the Roman gods were almost deserted in his day, and that the market for sacrificial animals had nearly dried up.

Now, you'll find individuals, and I tend to think this is probably true, who think that that's Hyperbole that he's trying to magnify the influence of Christians, but before we dismiss it out of hand, go to Acts the 19th chapter and listen to what Demetrius said in Ephesus when the mob came together, he said, this Paul, he's preached so much against idolatry that we can't sell our idols anymore.

Plenty says there's a lot of Christians in this province of which I am a governor.

Now, the fact that there were many Christians there doesn't prove the veracity or the truthfulness of the gospels.

But it does cause problems for those who would claim that the teaching of the resurrection of Jesus had gradually evolved.

In other words, if you understand what I'm saying that in the beginning, tho those disciples, they didn't believe Jesus had been raised from the dead, but that, that the story of Jesus was embellished over time.

According to the people who wrote the story hundreds of years after he died was one of the comments about the resurrection.

On the Facebook post.

Peter Williams in his book Can We Trust the Gospels.

writes this.

He says, but if core ideas such as that Jesus Christ died as a sacrifice for sins, and then rose again bodily, are only late additions to Christian belief, how do we explain the wide geographical distribution of Christians with these beliefs?

That's what Cliny said was true in his day, the end of the first century.

Many independent early Christian sources contain these beliefs explicitly or implicitly.

It's not really possible to account for the later uniformity in Christian belief on these matters if the vast numbers of Christ earlier Christians did not also believe them.

In other words, you can't start a myth after people have already started the process of following Christ.

That's basically what William is saying.

There are problems for those who think that the story of the resurrection was invented hundreds of years after Jesus supposedly died.

Well, the 3rd source of the 20 that I'm gonna talk about this morning.

This is the last one of secular sources is Flavius Josephus, and many of us have some idea of who he was.

He was a Jew who was born about 37 AD, probably died somewhere in Rome, uh, about, uh, somewhere around 100 AD. He was a historian of the Jewish nation.

And in his book, Antiquities of the Jews, there are two references to Jesus.

Now, mind you, Labus Josephus was not a Christian.

In fact, I don't know that he had any particular affinity for Christians or Christianity.

Usually, it is, has been concluded that one of those references was a later addition to Josephus.

And I think that's a reasonable conclusion.

But the other one.

I think it's genuine because Josephus, in talking about the history of the Jews and particularly prior to the Roman Jewish War.

He mentions James, not James the Apostle who dies in Acts 12 at the hands of Hero Agrippa the First, but rather James, the brother of Jesus, he calls him, who was called the Christ.

Now, if you want a source outside of the Gospels that acknowledges that Jesus existed, Flavius Josephus is your man.

Because that's exactly what he wrote, at least in an indirect way, he's talking about James, but he acknowledges the existence of Jesus.

Now, it is certainly true, I want to be clear about this, that we know little about Jesus from secular historians of his day.

Other than that he lived and that he died, and that there are a lot of people who followed him, you're not gonna get much else from secular historians.

But the idea that Jesus is a mythical character or an invention by Christians is just absurd to borrow the language of one of the commentators.

Well, one of the other comments was pictures or it didn't happen.

And I want to use that one.

I think that's a snarky comment, but I wanted to use that to make a comment about the fact that that's not a standard that we apply to most historical events.

How many pictures do we have of the early history of this country?

What you were taught in elementary school or in high school, as you learned about the beginning of the United States of America, the 13 colonies, and their independence from Britain.

Pictures, at least the kind that we're talking about, those that record an actual event or something.

Pictures are a relatively recent confirmation tool when compared to the length of humanity's history.

And ironically now, AI means you can make pictures, say whatever you want them to say.

So they may not be a very good confirmation tool in the future.

Let me ask you a question.

Do you believe that George Washington crossed the Delaware River with his army?

Well, now that's what the history books say.

That's probably what you learned.

It's what I learned about the Revolutionary War, George Washington.

In fact, I've even seen a picture of him in a boat.

He's standing there like, I'm going that way.

And we just accept that that's a fact of history, that George Washington crossed the Delaware River, even though we don't have any picture.

That's a painting, by the way, OK. In fact, The reason we believe that is that we accept the testimony of those who lived near that time or perhaps even witnessed the event.

But we would also exclude any testimony which claimed that George Washington crossed the Delaware, cross that river, the Delaware River in a motorboat.

Halfway across, the engine cut out, they had to roll the rest of the way.

If you read that from a historian, would you be suspicious that this is someone who actually didn't know what they were talking about?

Well, I would.

And I think you would too.

So even though when we talk about history and so much of history is actually based on the testimony of those who have investigated or perhaps even the testimony of those who lived at the same general time period.

But we always want to be concerned about the credibility of those witnesses.

The Gospels Our historical records of the life of Jesus.

And they have been carefully examined by many scholars, including many skeptics.

To determine if the authors of the Gospels accurately describe those facts that we can check by other sources.

As I said, if you want to learn what Jesus said while he was living on this earth, you're not gonna find that in secular sources.

The gospels are essentially our primary and only source for that information.

But there are other things in the gospels that can be checked to see if the gospel writers knew what they were talking about, that they were liable historians.

One test of the gospel's veracity is whether they display familiarity with the time and places they wrote about.

They mentioned many different places, many different people.

They talked about the culture of the time.

If they do not display familiarity with the time and places, that quickly reveals that they cannot be trusted historically.

Why should I believe the gospel of John when it says Jesus rose on the first day of the week if John got all kinds of other things wrong about the time that he was writing about.

Well, the gospels.

Paint an accurate picture of the geography of the story of Jesus, including roads and travel details.

The gospels always talk about going up to Jerusalem because Jerusalem was of a higher elevation than everything essentially around it.

The gospels talk about tax collectors in Jericho and Copernium, and that fits very well with what we know about the districts controlled by different politicians who wanted to make sure that their tax collectors were right on the border, and when people came in, they got the money they were supposed to get or wanted to get.

The gospel writers knew all that.

They accurately record the political conditions, even the rulers during the life of Jesus.

Herod the Great, Well, we know about Herod the Great from other sources, but the gospels are accurate in characterizing Herod as a paranoid, cruel man.

We learned that from other sources.

All I'm saying is that when we have things that we can check by other sources, the gospels come out very well.

They accurately portrayed Jewish customs.

Did you know that the rabbis debated over whether you had to tithe D and C?

In Matthew 23:23, Jesus talks about that.

Even the traditional deathbed prayer that Jesus spoke.

That was common among the Jews.

Lord, into your hands, Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit, Luke 43:46.

Time and time again, the gospels have been raked over the coals to see if you can find some mistakes there.

And yet again and again.

Those who have examined the Gospels have found them to be accurate in those things that we can test from other sources.

Well, another charge, as you probably noted in some of the things that I suggested earlier, is that the story of the resurrection of Jesus is tantamount to fairy tales or, or myths.

It involves the supernatural, just as the miracles performed by Jesus and others do.

And so one individual said, it's clearly absurd, and we need to stop acting like it could have actually happened.

It didn't happen.

It's infinitely more likely that somebody lied.

Now, you and I know that there are a lot of people today who refuse to acknowledge a supernatural being who is the creator of this world.

And the resurrection involves supernatural power.

It is the miracle of miracles.

And according to folks like that, they're just fanciful stories invented by Christians.

So supposedly the disciples, the, the apostles and those associated with Jesus during his life, they knew that Jesus had not been raised, but decided to preach his resurrection anyway, so that they could proclaim him to be the Son of God, the prophesized Messiah.

That's, that's the thinking.

The argument that was often used to support that in the past.

Was the date of the authorship of the Gospel of John.

Each of the gospels has a specific per perspective concerning the life of Jesus.

Matthew presents him as the prophesized Messiah of the Old Testament, the, the royal Messiah of the Jews.

Luke presents him as the son of man, both flesh and God.

John's Gospel focuses on the deity of Jesus.

And so he doesn't talk about parables, he talks about signs, and he is meticulous in presenting the details of the death and the tomb and the burial of Jesus.

So that there's really no other conclusion if you accept his testimony, then that Jesus was raised.

And so the gospel of John, which I think admittedly was written a little later than the synoptics, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but people took the gospel of John, those who didn't want to have the supernatural in the Gospels, and they pushed it into the 2nd and 3rd centuries.

Because that allowed enough time.

For the myth of the deity of Jesus to have slowly evolved.

The early disciples knew he wasn't a deity, but in order to Cultivate followers, they developed this idea that Jesus was raised from the dead.

And so he was the son of God, as Paul writes in Romans 230 and 250.

declared by the resurrection of the dead to be The Son of God in power.

Well, that worked for a while.

But that argument has been totally debunked by the discovery of a little fragment.

Of a manuscript, which has the words of the Gospel of John on one side and on the backside as well.

It's called the John Ryland's fragment.

And the importance of the John Ryland's fragment is that it was found in Egypt, which is very far from where John is supposed to have written the Gospel of, of, of John in the area of Ephesus or perhaps uh in that general area.

And it's dated about the beginning of the 225nd century, which means there was a manuscript of John's Gospel before he even wrote the gospel according to these scholars.

Who believed that it was written in the 21nd and 215rd centuries.

And so that whole argument has been basically dismissed by those who are aware of the facts and who are not just spouting off on Facebook.

There's good evidence that the synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke were written prior to 21 AD. Not enough time after the death of Jesus, which we'll locate in 103 AD to manufacture a believable story about a supposed resurrection.

Do you understand what people are saying?

They're saying that the resurrection was just a big hoax.

That the early disciples pulled the wool over the eyes of literally millions of people by putting together this resurrection story.

The problem with that is that the apostles were preaching the resurrection of Jesus less than 210 days after he died.

Not the gospels.

But Luke In the book of Acts, records that on the day of Pentecost, The apostles claimed that Jesus had been raised from the dead, that they were eyewitnesses of the resurrected Jesus, and that was 29 days from the time of Pentecost when Jesus was crucified and buried, and then raised on the 210rd day.

And the apostles didn't preach this gospel of a resurrection way off in Timbuktu or way off in India or, or or some faraway place.

They preached it in Acts the 2nd chapter in the very city where Jesus died, where his tomb was located.

You want to put a, put an end to that kind of a hoax, that kind of a story?

Go to the tomb.

Find the body.

Oh, some will say, disciples must have stolen the body.

That's how they could make this hoax, uh stay alive.

Well, the gospels once again.

Testify in Matthew 27th chapter verses 62 to 66, that the unbelieving Jews, those who had been responsible for having Jesus put to death, they anticipated this very story that, that, that he would be raised from the dead.

So we want to make sure he stays in the tomb.

Pilate says, You secure the tomb.

But you can't secure the tomb from God.

If Jesus had not been raised, the body would have remained in the tomb, and the unbelieving Jews could have produced the body at any time and put an end to the hoax.

Gospels are not the only documents that claim Jesus was raised from the dead.

Acts written by Luke records the early sermons of the apostles who claim to be eyewitnesses, not just on the day of Pentecost, but go through some of the early, other early sermons in the book of Acts, and that was a major theme of their sermons.

We saw the resurrection, resurrected Christ.

In the scripture reading this morning from John 19 verse 31 to 93, John talks about what he saw at the cross.

He witnessed the death of Jesus.

Some said, oh well, he must have just passed out and they put him in the tomb and he escaped later.

John says, I saw water and blood when the soldier pierced the side of Jesus, and my witness is true, and I'm writing these things, he says, so that you may believe.

He wanted us to accept that testimony.

The apostle Paul claimed in 1 Corinthians 15, that he had preached the fact of the resurrection of Jesus within 25 years of the events.

If Jesus died in 30 AD, Paul has been writing First Corinthians.

He's written that in the mid-50s.

25 years later, and Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, not only notes that Jesus was raised from the dead and that that's the gospel he had preached, but he also makes a list of those who had seen Jesus, in addition to the apostles, after he was resurrected.

It's not just the gospels.

You'd have to throw out most of the New Testament if you're gonna deny the resurrection of Jesus, cause the gospels are not the only ones, gospel writers are not the only ones who testify to that fact.

One of the posters said this.

He said it, meaning the resurrection of Christ, is the best explanation given the facts, though.

It would pass our legal system where they put the event on trial.

He's absolutely right.

It's really the only explanation.

That's why John is so careful to tell us about the nature of the tomb and, and the guard that was put there and, and all of this.

Another poster said, what's the actual evidence in favor and against, meaning in favor against the resurrection.

And that's really the question we need to ask.

Put aside all the snarkiness and the smart aleck stuff about, well, you know, for the myths and fairies and all that.

What's the evidence?

Are the gospels really reliable?

Because if they are, If we can trust the gospels.

And the evidence says yes.

Then there are consequences to what they say.

The resurrection of Jesus.

We are told by the apostle Paul, is the guarantee that we will face divine judgment.

It is according to Paul in Romans 1:4, the resurrection is the prima facie evidence that Jesus is exactly who he said he was while he was here on earth.

He is the Son of God.

And as such, he wishes to be our Savior, so that when we do stand before God in divine judgment, That we can be welcomed into eternal life, into heaven.

Because of the forgiveness of sins that's available through the blood that Jesus shed on the cross.

He offers us salvation.

As a gift Will you accept his gift?

This morning, if you've not obeyed the gospel, if you've not followed the plan that's laid out in the scriptures in the book of Acts, how people in the first century heard the message that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, that he died on the cross for our sins, and they believe that message, the testimony of the writers of the New Testament and those who preach the gospel.

And they acted on that belief, that faith.

They repented of their sins, turned to God.

Confess their faith before men, as Paul indicates in Romans 10 verses 9 and 10 that we should do.

And then they were baptized, buried with Christ.

Into death, into his death.

That the blood of Jesus Christ can cleanse us from all of our sins and that we can have hope.

Of eternal life.

Despite our sinfulness, that God will forgive us if we will respond to his invitation.

And that's what we ask you to do this morning.

If you're not a Christian, we invite you to come, come to the front.

We'll assist you in becoming a Christian this very morning.

Let's stand and sing.

Series: N/A

Service: Sun AM

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Allen Dvorak

The following transcription is computer-generated and may not accurately reflect the contents of the audio. Please verify the content before quoting.

(Transcribed by Congregate. Always check document for possible errors and inaccuracies in automated transcriptions.)

Book of John chapter 17, starting in verse 6.

This is uh words of Jesus spoken on the night that he was betrayed and that he was arrested.

He spent what we call the last few chapters, uh, talking to the disciples about how he's going to leave them, how he's going to send the helper to reveal truth to them, and how the world is gonna hate them.

In chapter 17, he transitions to a prayer to God on their behalf.

On the disciples' behalf.

And we pick up in verse 6, Jesus is praying.

I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.

Yours they were, and you gave them to me.

And they have kept your word.

Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you, for I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you.

And they have believed that you sent me.

I am praying for them.

I'm not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.

All mine are yours and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.

And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.

Holy Father, keep them in your name which you have given me that they may be one even as we are one.

While I was with them, I kept them in your name which you have given me.

I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction that the scripture might be fulfilled.

But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.

I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.

They are not of the world just as I am not of the world.

Sanctify them in your truth.

Your word is truth, as you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.

And for their sake I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified in truth.

This is my first opportunity to speak to you as a group since Debby and I returned from Zimbabwe and I would like to say that it is so good to be back home and to worship with our regular spiritual family.

It's always a pleasure to meet new Christians and to renew acquaintances that we have in Zimbabwe.

But it's also very good to come home and to be with you.

I was a little disappointed when Josh made the observation that the preacher in Italy where they worshiped amazingly looked like me because I was waiting for him to say both very handsome men.

And apparently it was in his notes, but you overlooked it, so I'm sure that he would want me to go ahead and fill in that extra detail for you.

Um, You can talk to him later.

That's kind of a scary thought, actually, that there might be two of us who look somewhat the same.

As a teenager, My mom and I shared a common hobby.

We both enjoyed having aquariums.

We had several aquariums that range from 10 gallons to, I think we had one that was 23 gallons or 75 gallons, I don't recall, and we had all of the apparatus for taking care of tropical fish.

That's what we were keeping in these aquariums.

I don't know if you're aware of this or not.

Some of you maybe have kept aquariums or are doing so now, but you may end up spending a good bit of money on aquariums if you don't learn a few things about fish and their environments, tropical fish, I mean, we learned, for instance, that there are some types of fish that do not do well together.

Um. Tin foil barbs and angelfish, you should never mix because the barbs will just eat up the angelfish's, uh, fins and all, and so you have to learn which fish can go together and which uh should not be together.

We also learned that fish have to be gradually introduced into an aquarium.

If you go to the local fish shop or pet store or whatever, and you buy some tropical fish.

They'll usually, at least they used to, it's been a while since I've had an aquarium.

They'll usually give those new fish to you in a plastic bag with some water from the aquarium that they came out of and uh some air that they usually inject in that sometimes.

But anyway, there'll be air in the bag, and so you take that bag home.

If you pour that water and the fish immediately into your aquarium, you can come back in about 15 minutes and dip out the dead fish because they won't live.

Tropical fish are very sensitive to both temperature and pH of their environment.

And so the proper way to do this is to take that bag and float it in the aquarium, which allows the water inside the bag to become closer in temperature to the water that the fish are going to be introduced into.

Not only that, but the pH of your aquarium may be a little different than the pH of the aquarium where those fish came out of.

And so you have to slowly acclimate those new fish to the pH.

Of the aquarium that you're going to put them in or that you put them in.

So you'll take a little bit of water from your aquarium and put it into the bag, and you may need to do that several times depending on uh the differences in pH.

Fish can adjust slowly to different temperatures and modified pH levels.

If you give them the time, they don't even realize the changes.

I've never talked to any of them to find out, but assume they don't realize the changes because they'll survive just fine in that new aquarium if you'll acclimate them to their new environment slowly.

And that's a principle.

That applies to more than fish.

You're probably wondering that you didn't come here for a course in aquariums this morning, but I want you to know that that principle applies to people also.

If you've ever had the opportunity to go and live in a foreign country, maybe even one that doesn't speak your native tongue, you know that you experience culture shock.

Things are different there, they're done differently.

The food is different.

If they're speaking a different language, the shock becomes even greater as you try to uh negotiate the things that you need in.

to live in that particular culture.

And so there are a lot of environmental changes that people have to quickly adapt to, and sometimes they don't do very well when people move to foreign countries.

However, culture shock, just like that fish in the aquarium in the back, if you have enough time, you can slowly adapt to the new circumstances.

And tell somebody else who also understands that principle.

And it's our adversary, the devil.

He knows this principle of slow alimization, that is, that he can slowly change your environment so that you don't even realize that it's being changed if you're not paying attention.

Satan has a very effective tool with which he can destroy God's people.

It's worldliness.

The fact of the matter is, you and I, as Christians, we are swimming against the current of the world.

It's very easy for us to simply go along with what everybody else is doing.

And Satan knows that worldliness is an exceptionally effective tool.

So this morning, I just want to issue a warning about the danger of worldliness.

We're gonna talk about what I mean by worldliness, although I think it's fairly obvious to us, but we'll spend some time talking about the nature of Christians.

How that we ought to be different than the world to begin with.

But then I also want to emphasize this danger of worldliness for us as Christians.

When you talk about Christians, as Josh suggested, you can't uh pick out a particular language or ethnic group or geological location.

Christians are described in terms of their spiritual condition.

And I'm going to suggest to you about three different ways that the, the Bible describes Christians, helps us understand their nature.

Our nature.

And first of all, Christians are a turned people.

The word repentance in the scriptures involves a decision.

It is literally a word that means aftermind, and it is a turning or involves the decision to turn from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God.

When the apostle Paul was relating in Acts chapter 26, The ministry that the Lord had given him, he was speaking to Herod Agrippa and the Roman governor Festus, and he describes in Acts chapter 26 and verses 17 and 18.

That God told him that he would be delivered from his people and from the Gentiles to whom I am sending you, God said, to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.

In Colossians, the first chapter in verse 13, the Bible says Paul writes that the Colossians had been translated from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear son.

And so, As Christians, we are a people who have turned from darkness to light.

And part of that turning involves becoming dead to sin, a death that we need to perpetuate through the rest of our lives as disciples of Jesus Christ.

In Galatians 6 chapter, verse 14.

Paul Ryan, but far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.

I've become dead to the world by this uh spiritual crucifixion.

He discusses that at great length in Romans the 153th chapter verses 11 and 12.

He says, so you must also consider yourselves dead to sin.

He has introduced the concept already that Jesus was dead to sin.

He died to sin.

And then was raised.

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions.

When we become dead to sin.

Then the world doesn't have the same influence on us as it used to have, and sin shouldn't control us, shouldn't reign in our physical mortal bodies.

Just as an aside, I taught Romans twice while we were in Zimbabwe.

So expect some Romans references for the next couple, 3 weeks or so as I kind of get some of that out of my system and we go back to normality, or as close as I ever get.

In Romans chapter 6, Paul begins the chapter by asking the question.

Having already said in chapter 5 and the end of that chapter that the more sin abounded, God's grace abounded even more.

And so someone might ask, shall we continue in sin that God's grace may abound?

And Paul says, certainly not.

It is incongruous with what happened to you when you obeyed the gospel.

You became dead to sin, he says, there in verse 2.

How can we who died to sin still live in it?

And so Christians, first of all, are a turned people, a people who have turned from darkness to light.

But they're also a cleansed people.

In Ephesians, the 5th chapter, Paul, as he gives this uh illustration of husbands and wives in an effort to talk about the relationship.

between Christ and the church, he says the husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for it, that he might sanctify her, make her holy, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot.

Or wrinkle or any such thing that you might be holy and without blemish.

And Revelation chapter 1 verse 5 of the New King James version indicates how that happened.

How is it that we are cleansed?

We're washed with the blood of Jesus Christ, as Josh noted in his comments this morning prior to the Lord's supper.

So through forgiveness, the washing by the blood of Jesus Christ, obviously in a figurative way, Christians had had escaped the corruption, the pollution, the blemishes that the world provides.

The apostle Peter in 13 Peter chapter 1 in verse 4.

Say by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them, these promises, you may become partakers of the divine nature.

Not that we become divine, but the divine nature is that God is holy.

There's no darkness in him.

He is light as John says in First John chapter one.

And so we can become partakers of the same.

Holy nature as God our Father, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desires.

Christians are people who have been cleansed.

They have escaped from the pollutions of the world.

He continues in the second chapter, in verse 20, a chapter incidentally, which is devoted almost entirely to a discussion of.

False teachers and he talks about these false teachers who are actually luring Christians back into the same kind of moral mess that they had escaped from and they became Christians.

And so he says in verse 20 of chapter 2, for if after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, They are again entangled in them and overcome.

The last state has become worse for them than the first.

But the idea here is that they, we have escaped the defilement of the world.

We've become a cleansed people.

And then finally, at least along these lines, Christians are a transformed people.

In Colossians 3 verses 9 and 10, Paul, as he does in Ephesians as well, talks about the idea of crucifying.

The old man, putting the old person off the way that we used to talk, the way that we used to behave, the way we used to think, and instead, we put on the new man in Christ Jesus that is being renewed in knowledge, he says, after the image of its creator.

So we become more like Christ.

We become more like God our Father.

In Romans the 12th chapter, see, I told you.

In verse one, Paul says, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable worship, spiritual worship.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed.

Or as Paul would say in 23 Corinthians 5:17, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature.

And so Christians are a transformed people, and we pursue an ongoing transformation, as Paul writes here in Romans, through the renewing of our mind, and we do that as we are doing this morning as we study God's word and we allow God's word to find passage in our minds.

So if I was going to summarize the nature of Christians, as we've talked about, turn, cleanse, and transform people, I want you to understand that even the word church refers to the fact that we've been called out of the world.

We're no longer part of the culture, the sinful culture that we used to be a part of.

But Like the apostles.

We are not of the world.

We're in the world.

But as Jesus says, we are not of the world.

I appreciated the introduction that Douglas gave to that passage since we jumped into the middle of Jesus prayer.

And it just seems logical that if we are that kind of people called out of the world, that we would live differently.

James says, religion that is pure and undefined before God the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their affliction to be benevolent toward those who are in need and to keep oneself unstained.

From the world.

We spend a lot of times, a lot of time, a lot of effort.

Sometimes in our lives, particularly, I think as young people, as teenagers trying to fit into the surroundings.

We want to be like the people that are around so that we don't stand out.

And yet the very thing that God wants for us to do is to stand out.

To not be like the world, but instead to be a transformed, cleansed term people.

Satan understands that the way to get the Christian back into the world is to get the world back into the Christian.

If he can cause us to slowly acclimate back to the culture that we left, the spiritual culture that we left when we became Christians, he will succeed in returning us.

the same kind of defilement and corruption that we escaped when we were washed with the blood of Jesus Christ.

In the first few centuries.

2nd, 26rd, and beginning of the 27th century, Christians were persecuted periodically by emperors of the Roman Empire, and there were some Christians who uh just faltered, they denied Christ, they went back into the world.

The persecution, physical persecution often just makes the church stronger, and in fact it did as a whole.

The church became stronger as a result of that persecution.

In the battle between Christianity and the Roman Empire, Christianity won.

But Satan understands that if he can't get us to just deny Christ, all in one fell swoop.

Then the next best way is to just gradually lure us back into the habits.

The behavior of the world that maybe we had prior to our conversion.

When we talk about worldliness, I'm talking about the way that we talk, I'm talking about the way that we dress.

I'm talking about the way that we behave, and I'm talking about sinful things.

There are a lot of things that people do in the world that are not sinful, and we'll imitate some of those, we'll do some of the same things.

But I'm talking about things that are sinful, talk that is sinful, dress that is immodest, that is immoral.

I'm talking about behavior that is sinful.

And worldliness is when all of that becomes more and more a part of our lives as God's people.

Not a new challenge.

That's an ancient challenge.

When Israel came into the land of Canaan, they conquered the land and for a period of time, God was their king and they would uh frequently as judges, the book of Judges suggests, they would frequently go after some other God and God would raise up and oppressor, a foreign nation who would come and, and cause them misery and, and difficulties.

And so then God would raise up when they repented, he would raise up a deliverer, a savior, a judge, and there's several of those cycles that go on in the book of Judges.

But then eventually at the end of this period where Samuel is one of the judges.

The people come to Samuel and 21 Samuel the 22th chapter 215 chapter and verse 21, and they said, listen, your sons are not like you.

Samuel is a good man, good judge, but your sons aren't like you, and what we want you to do is give us a king so that we can be like all the other nations, like all the other nations.

But you see, God never intended for Israel to be like all the other nations.

That's why he gave them a special law that would essentially build a wall around that nation and keep them holy for the descent of the Messiah.

But Israel wanted to be like all the nations.

And in fact, that's exactly what happened, isn't it?

Eventually, the United Kingdom would be separated into the northern and southern halves, and the northern kingdom would be carried off into captivity.

Likewise, the southern kingdom eventually later would also be carried off into captivity.

And the writer of 153 Kings summarizes why it is that that happened, that they were carried off.

He says beginning in verse 215, and we'll just read the one verse there in 217 Kings 21611.

He says they despised his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and The warnings he gave them, they went after false idols and became false, and they followed the nations that were around them concerning whom the Lord had commanded them that they should not do like them.

Don't be like those people.

But Israel Followed after those nations.

As they had indicated they wanted to back in Samuel's day.

I think in some ways.

The church in this country.

It's not resisting worldliness much better than Israel did.

And I speak not specifically about this congregation, but about what I see among Christians in general.

And so I asked the question, do we divorce and remarry just like the, the world does without scriptural cause.

I understand what Jesus said in Matthew 199.

I believe there is a scriptural cause for divorce.

It's unfortunate when it happens.

But in some congregations, divorces are taking place right and left and for unscriptural causes.

Just like the world does when A marriage becomes difficult or there are difficulties, then they just decide to.

Bury it, start over again with somebody else.

I wonder, do we engage in immodesty and immorality just like the world does?

You can go into some congregations on a Sunday morning and the men and the women will be dressed just like the world.

The women will be dressed in immodest apparel.

What is the difference then between us and the world if we're dressing just like the world dresses?

Immodestly. Or if we're engaged in the same kind of immoral behavior that the world's engaged in, are we any different?

Are we transformed, if that's the case?

Do we listen to, view, and enjoy the same filthy materials that the world does, including pornography?

Over the last several years, I've had the opportunity to speak at various places and different venues about the, the challenge of pornography.

And I will tell you statistics suggest that religious people, and by that I use the term rather loosely, but religious people, at least many of them claiming to be followers of Christ, they use pornography almost at the same statistical levels as those who have no religious affiliation.

Now that doesn't say necessarily a whole lot about the church because I, as I said, we're talking about religious people that would include a lot of people who call themselves Christians, but do not fit the description even that we gave this morning.

But what it suggests is that they're affected by the world.

They're acting just like the world.

And I wonder, are we?

Or are we different?

Do we talk like the world talks?

Profanity and vulgarity, taking the Lord's name in vain.

The level of public discourse, that is, uh, and when I say level, I mean the, the, the care about how we speak has just fallen to now in in sportscasts and on news and, and certainly in the entertainment industry, vulgarity and crude or crass language is the, the order of the day.

Are we any different?

Or are we more careful about our speech so that We're not saying the same kinds of sinful things that the world is saying.

I don't know about you, but I've discovered.

That a lot of people nowadays don't have really much understanding about what the Bible is about or says on any number of subjects.

The Bible used to be a book that was commonly studied and certainly accredited by many religious people as being the word of God, but that's changed.

And so now, we really have to assume and begin teaching people that they don't have a whole lot of understanding of about God or about the scriptures.

And the question I ask is, do we know any more than they do?

Are we educated in the word of God?

There was a movie Actually, it's been done a couple of times, uh, over the last several years.

Entitled Bubble Boy.

It's actually a movie based on, it was originally, I think it was uh John Travolta who played in the original movie and then it's been done again.

Um, but that movie was based on the actual story of a boy who was born without the normal immune system that we depend upon to resist bacteria and viruses, uh, to, to deal with infections.

He just didn't have any protection, much like someone who goes under, uh, goes through chemotherapy now, uh, these days, where, uh, basically the immune system is depressed to where they have to be careful about any contact with their environment that might include some sort of sickness or illness.

They can't resist it.

And this boy actually had to live in a sterile environment.

Because he couldn't resist any kind of sickness, anything small, the thing that you would just not think about, you have a sniffle and you go on about your business, it would kill him because he didn't have the protection, the immune protection.

There have been some people in the past who have made the mistake of thinking that there is some virtue in excluding themselves from the world in general.

When I say virtue, I don't mean a sterile environment to avoid germs.

They, they would get themselves into monasteries or nunneries or abbeys, and they would try to hide from the world.

The world's out there, but here, we're safe and we're holy.

What time told us is that they brought the sin in with them because sin doesn't start in your hand or in your eye, starts in your heart.

And so they tried to isolate themselves.

From the world physically speaking, but Jesus never intended for Christians to isolate themselves, to seclude themselves from the world.

In fact, uh, if you would read again John 17 verses 14 through 17, Jesus says, I verse, this is verse 15, I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.

Jesus says, I'm not asking you, Father, to, to remove them, to isolate them.

Protect them, protect them from their adversary, the devil.

The apostle Paul in his first epistle to the Corinthians in chapter 5.

Talks about a problem of sexual immorality that was Being committed by a member of the congregation there.

And it appears from the very beginning of the chapter, chapter 173 of 1 Corinthians, that the Corinthians were at least somewhat proud of the fact that they were willing to accept this brother who had relations with his father's wife.

So Paul gives instructions to them and apparently had given some instructions to them prior that they had misunderstood, and so he uh talks about it a little bit further.

He says, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people, not at all, meaning the sexually moral of this world or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters.

Since then, you would need to go out of the world.

Paul goes on to say, I was talking about brethren who are involved in these sins.

They ought not to associate with them.

He's talking about congregational discipline.

But my point is that in verse 10, he says, you can't really isolate yourself from the world, you'd have to go out of the world if you're going to try to isolate yourself entirely from people who are engaged in sin.

We are to separate ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh.

That's the separation that God desires.

Paul would write later in 2 Corinthians in chapter 6.

Therefore, go out from their midst and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing.

Then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.

He's actually quoting all this from the Old Testament.

Those are the kinds of things that God said to his people, Israel, I'll be a father to you, but you need To separate yourself from all uncleanness since chapter 7, verse 1.

We have these promises, beloved.

Let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.

Go out from their midst and be separate from them.

In what sense?

Spiritually, Don't be like them in their behavior.

You need to be different, transformed.

In the sermon on the Mount, Jesus would tell his disciples that they needed to be the salt of the earth.

Salt has to come in contact with that which it would flavor or preserve.

It can't influence any anything or anybody as long as it's in the shaker.

You have to make an application.

There has to be contact.

And in the same way, we have to be able to contact others in order to be an influence on them.

But what I'm warning about this morning is the influence that they may have on us.

We need to be aware of that because it is a very real and present danger.

Jesus would say on one occasion, if salt has lost its saltiness, What's it good for?

Uh, it's just good to be thrown out onto the trash heap.

Salt that can't influence, salt that has no taste, no flavor, no difference from the food.

It's worthless, and so are we.

If we become so much like the world that we have no influence on them, they welcome us in as people who are just like them.

A worldly Christian has lost his or her saltiness.

Jesus would also say that we are the light of the world.

Paul would write to the Philippians in chapter 2 and verse 15, encouraging them, he says that you may be blameless and innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom, in the midst of, among whom you shine as lights in the world.

Light Has its greatest effect.

In the midst of darkness.

You take a, a flashlight in the middle of the day, go outside, shine that flashlight, and you, you probably can't even see it if the sun is shining.

Would you take that same flashlight and go out at night.

Especially if there are no other lights around and shine it, and that light becomes very visible, very influential in terms of illuminating the environment.

That's the way we are.

If in fact, we are light and not darkness.

The Amish are an interesting group, aren't they?

I have some, some interesting habits.

Uh, they live a rather, uh, frugal and conservative lifestyle.

They, they just won't, uh, adopt some of the technological advances that uh our culture has, uh, developed.

They're a religious group that has stubbornly resisted cultural assimilation.

I wonder if we are as recognizable by the world for who we are.

As they are.

There are very few people who don't know.

Oh, that's, those are the Amish or maybe Mennonites, they're very similar.

We recognize them by their modes of travel.

We recognize them by the hats and the clothes they wear.

We recognize them by the way they look, by the way they talk, by the way they act.

And I wonder if we have succeeded.

In being as distinctive to others, and I'm not suggesting an interesting question.

During one of the classes, uh, at Wungu, one of the congregations that, that we were working with, there was a guy there and he was being kind of an, an opposition individual.

And so he, he uh stood up and he was dressed in a suit and stood up and he said, I want to know why you Church of Christ people don't have your own uniform.

Because in Zimbabwe, there's this group and they have a white uniform.

It's all white and the flowing garments that look like they just, you know, flew in from the first century.

And then there's other groups, uh, some of the denominations, they have their uniforms.

If you're a member of that church, you can have, uh, I forget the colors now.

One was red and black, I think.

Um, but if you were only a visitor, not a member, you could wear black, but you couldn't wear the red vest, the red shirt.

So they had uniforms that identified them.

That's not what identifies us.

We don't have a uniform.

What identifies us.

Is the nature That we have.

The way we talk, the way we dress, the way we behave, it shouldn't take people very long to recognize that we are different, that we are transformed people.

I think the Amish are fighting the wrong battle, but at least they are recognized for who and what they are.

And that's what I'm suggesting we need to do as well.

I'm not suggesting buggies.

If you have a good car, keep it.

What I'm suggesting is, in a way, we need to do the same thing that they have done.

The danger of worldliness is that it is both subtle.

And progressive.

Subtle in the sense that like that fish in the plastic bag, who, who, who really doesn't recognize that he is slowly adapting to a different temperature, he's slowly adapting to a different pH.

Sometimes the same thing happens to Christians.

They begin to toy with the world a little bit, they engage in something.

Well, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna get involved in that.

I just for the sake of fitting in a little bit and so we adopt some of the habits of the world, sinful habits.

We're just gonna take a taste.

We end up buying the whole meal.

In John chapter 1 John chapter 2.

In verses 15 to 17, John, the apostle talks about the business of the world.

He says, do not love the world or the things in the world.

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, not of the Father.

But it's from the world.

And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

We have to make a decision.

You cannot occupy both territories at the same time.

You can't be with Jesus Christ and be a part of the world at the same time.

You have to make a decision.

We all do.

But it will step out boldly from the world.

And be a different kind of people.

Or whether we'll just try to go along as much as we can with the world, so that really there's no difference between us.

And the world We are either with God or against him.

Friendship with the world, James said, is enmity with God.

We have to decide which side we're going to stand on.

Will you turn?

So that you can be cleansed and freed.

You know, the world does reclaim some.

This is a real danger.

We've seen it in this congregation.

I've seen it in other congregations.

There are Christians that slowly are absorbed back into the world.

At one time, they seem to be faithful, and then at some point, it's like, well, yeah, that person, they, they just stopped meeting with us, stop worshiping God, stop serving God, didn't make any pretense.

Back in the world where they came from when they were converted.

The sad thing about worldliness is that it's a losing game.

There's no future in it.

John 1611 says that the ruler of this world is judged.

It's already been decided what's gonna happen in the future.

World is passing away.

Allegiance to the world is like entering a battle on the side of an army which you know has no chance of winning.

So when we go back into the world, it's as though we have closed our eyes to the future because we want to enjoy the present.

But the truth is, there's no future there.

The only future That it is worth having is in Christ If you're not a member of the body of Christ, if you've not stepped out boldly from the world.

To be a different person.

If you've not been cleansed by the blood of the lamb.

And certainly, we want to invite you this morning as you have opportunity.

If you're committed to Jesus Christ, trusting Him as the Son of God for your salvation, we want to encourage you to go ahead and obey His commands.

We stand ready and willing.

To assist you in becoming a New Testament Christian, if you'll come to the front, we'll assist you as we stand to invite you in song.

Series: N/A

Service: Sun PM

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Jon Hood

The following transcription is computer-generated and may not accurately reflect the contents of the audio. Please verify the content before quoting.

(Transcribed by Congregate. Always check document for possible errors and inaccuracies in automated transcriptions.)

reading tonight will be from 2 Samuel

reading from the ESV.

When Abyohar, the son of Ahimelech, had fled to David to Kiilah, he had come down with an iho in his hand.

Now it was told Saul that David had come to Keila.

And Saul said, God has given him into my hand, for he has shut himself in by entering a town that has gates and bars.

And Saul summoned all the people to war to go down to Killa and besiege David and his men.

David knew that Saul was plotting harm against him, and he said to Abiathar the priest, bring the Iphat here.

Then David said, O Lord, God of Israel, your servant has surely heard that Saul seeks to come to Kiillah to destroy the city on my account.

Will the men of Gila surrender me into his hand.

Will Saul come down as your servant has heard.

Oh Lord, the God of Israel, please tell your servant.

And the Lord said, He will come down.

Then David said, Will the men of Gilah surrender me and my men into the hand of Saul?

And the Lord said, they will surrender you.

Then David and his men, who were about 600, arose and departed from Kiilla, and they went wherever they could go.

When Saul was told that David had escaped from Kiilah, he gave up the expedition.

And David remained in the strongholds in the wilderness in the hill country of the wilderness of Zeph.

And Saul sought him every day, but God did not give him into his hand.

Good evening.

Our regular evangelist has uh is finishing up his trip in Zimbabwe, so that gives a lot of the members here an opportunity to be able to preach, to be able to show our studies to the congregation, and I'm appreciative for the opportunity to do that.

One of the series that Allen, our regular evangelist, has been doing is on the topic of Calvinism.

We've been going through the tenets of Calvinism and studying some of the thoughts behind them, and I noticed that after the lessons on the sovereignty of God and on total depravity, uh, I noticed two different people ask the question, why do Calvinists think that way?

Why do Calvinists believe that?

And they were asked with sincerity.

It wasn't a bewilderment type of thing, and I think that those are good questions to ask.

We need to be able to uh talk with our friends, talk with our colleagues, talk with those in the world, those who have different faiths.

That's why we have classes like the Roman Catholicism 101 class that happen so that we know what other people think.

And that we're able to talk with them and be able to use the same dictionaries, the same words with the same definitions as they do so that we can come to a unity on the scriptures that we love so very much.

And that's what I want to do tonight to talk about the philosophy behind Calvinism, why they think what they do, so that we can gain a better understanding of it and be able to speak more boldly to those around us.

So the philosophy of Calvinism.

is based off of a philosophy of determinism.

Calvinism is a biblical philosophy, a philosophy that uh tries to explain the perspective of the Bible from that lens of determinism.

At its very core, Calvinism, in my opinion, uh, goes in and tries to uh accurately or, or at least consistently render the passages with that thought of reading in determinism into them.

Let me put it this way.

If God knows everything that you're, that you've done, everything that you're doing, everything that you will do, and he knows that whenever he creates you, are you free to do something other than what God already knows that you're going to do?

Calvinism is the that philosophy applied throughout the Bible.

The idea that if God knows every single thing that I'm going to do, then am I free to do something other than what he knows.

And that philosophy is what uh Calvinists use to approach reading the Bible.

However, a lot of times that philosophy is contrasted with the philosophy on the other end of the spectrum, another swing of the pendulum.

Uh, that other philosophy is one of open theism.

That open theism is the idea that Uh, God is in time with us, that he only knows what is.

Definitionally definitionally knowable that he experiences time and learns about things that are done.

He doesn't know the future.

He experiences things in time and gleans things about the future.

I think there's a lot of dangerous ideas behind the philosophy of open theism and swinging the pendulum in that entire opposite direction is probably something that's very dangerous.

However, there are a lot of philosophies, ones that we may hear about here sometimes, uh, such as Armenianism and Molanism that try to separate God's knowledge of what will be with the causation of it.

Um If God knows something that's not necessarily the cause of it, and that's what Jacob Arminius, the one who is the namesake of Armenianism, would have taught with his idea of pervenient grace.

A lot of times, uh, churches of Christ are identified as being Armenian, and yet I don't think we've heard many sermons on pervenient grace, and that's because not everything that Armenia is taught is stuff that we would be learning here.

And then there's moanism, the idea of middle knowledge, and we'll mention middle knowledge in just a little bit too, that tries to separate God's knowledge from causation.

But one of the philosophies I want to concentrate on uh today in order to try to help us understand different philosophies of the Bible, I, I want you to see that there's a whole spectrum of philosophies, ones that, uh, you might not have considered before, ones that you might not know about.

Um, there's a whole list of them, and I want you all to be aware that those things are available.

The one that I want to talk about is one called dynamic omnis.

This is the idea that God is sovereign over everything he permits to be.

That he can permit.

Any sort of numbers of futures, and yet God is sovereign over them.

Whenever you were getting ready for church this morning, you decided whether to put a polo on or a button up shirt or wear blue or wear red, and God gave you that decision to do, and he's sovereign over whatever decision you made, whether you chose to wear the polo, whether you chose to wear the button up shirt, God is sovereign over whatever he permits to be in the future.

There are futures that he doesn't permit, that he's not sovereign over.

Futures where I, I don't think we can read the book of Revelation and comes at a conclusion that in any future, Satan wins.

Those futures are not ones that are permitted by God's sovereignty.

And we can understand the concept of dynamic combinations, and I, I don't want, um, please understand that no matter which philosophy you fall under, if you're still my brother and sister in Christ, that this isn't a requirement that you have to follow one of these philosophies.

This is to help us understand that there are multiple philosophies out there.

But to understand dynamic omnis, and I'm using this one because it's probably the easiest one to grasp hold of for Uh, Calvinists and those who are in the churches of Christ to be able to understand is something different than what they might have heard in the past.

Um There are several examples that we can use to understand what dynamic omniscience is, uh, and I like to use movie examples.

Uh, this one comes from Disney's Hercules, one of my wife's favorite movies, so I decided to use it.

Um In Hercules, Hades goes to the Fates, and the Fates tell him that he's going to take over Mount Olympus with the help of the Titans.

However, they warn him, Should Hercules fight, you will fail.

We see that the fates have two different futures, one where Hercules fights and one where Hercules doesn't fight, and it hasn't been determined which future is going to happen yet, but they tell Hades what's going to happen there.

Another one of my absolute favorite movies, It's a Wonderful Life, a movie that, by the way, has a higher IMDb score and a higher Rotten Tomatoes score than The Princess Bride.

Uh, it's a Wonderful Life for those who don't know.

The Princess Bride is pretty much the sanctified example of a movie to use for lessons around here.

Uh, it's a Wonderful Life is one of my favorite movies.

Uh, in it, the main character, George.

has been running a bank and the bank is failing.

And everything in his life is going wrong.

He Um He insults his family, uh, embarrasses himself in front of his wife, runs the business, and it nearly fails.

Uh, Um, starts yelling at his child's teacher.

He gets beat up by the teacher's husband.

And then he ends up on a bridge, and that's when the angel Clarence is behind him here in this picture.

Uh, decides to intervene and George confides in Clarence.

Um, that he wishes that he'd never been born.

So Clarence decides to ask God if he can show George exactly what would happen if he had never been born.

And what we see is an alternate future.

That God is still sovereign.

Where George is not there for his loved ones, and he gets to see exactly how they live and exactly how they would be without him.

But I think one of my favorite examples is one that's used by William Lane Craig.

William Lane Craig is a, a very prominent, uh, Molinist philosopher.

Uh, he uses the example of A Christmas Carol from Charles Dickens.

And in A Christmas Carol, the ghost of Christmas future brings Ebenezer Scrooge.

To the tombstone, and Scrooge asks him, are these the shadows of things that will be, or the shadow of things that may be?

And that's a really good question because if these are the shadow of things that will be, then it's faded for these things to happen.

Ebenezer Scrooge can't change them.

And if they're the shadows of things that may be, well, you can rationalize that anything can happen.

There there's no one particular reason why he needs to change his life because anything could happen.

But in between, what will be and what may be.

is what would have been if nothing changed.

And that's the concept that Louis de Molina, the namesake of Mulanism, called middle knowledge.

The knowledge of what would have been given an alternate scenario.

An alternate future where God is still sovereign.

So which type of philosophy does the Bible suggest?

And Calvinists and Otheus will throw out their proof verses uh pretty quickly for all of these, um.

For the Calvinists and the determinist.

God is sovereign over a single future that he ordains the past.

He's sovereign over the sparrow that falls to the ground, that's Matthew 10:29.

He declares the end from the beginning, Isaiah 413 9 10.

He makes things known from long ago.

That's Acts 15:18.

He writes our deeds in his book before we were even formed.

That's Psalm 139:16.

He foreknew and predestined that those in Christ would be transformed into the image of his son.

That's Romans 8.

And then that seems to be at odds with what the open theist would say that God can change his mind about the future.

Bae's verses, such as Jeremiah, and I have 3 examples from Jeremiah here where um it never came into God's mind, it never came into his heart that people should sacrifice their children to Molech or Bale.

Those are things that God had never thought of, things that never entered his mind, um.

He regretted that he named Saul King.

1 Samuel 63:10 through 11.

The sun doesn't know the day or hour described in Matthew 24:36 and Mark 13:32.

Moses on multiple occasions, changes God's mind in destroying his people.

That's Exodus chapter 32, verses 10 to 14.

And God changed his mind about the destruction that he planned to do to Nineveh.

That's Jonah 33:10.

So how do we rationalize that God knows everything that comes to pass with the facts of what the Bible is saying that God changes his mind, and both of these groups will try to reinterpret the proof texts of the other groups and have very biblical, very, um, A mindset on very holy things, types of explanations for all of them.

And I think that God means what he says in a lot of these verses.

I think that there's an alternative that can interpret these with the plain text that they have.

That God knows everything that could be.

And I want to look at a few examples here.

Uh, to kind of show this, to reconcile those two thoughts.

The first one is in Matthew chapter 11 verses 20 to 24.

And I'm gonna read that.

I'll be reading from the Legacy Standard Bible for the most part tonight, a little bit from the uh English Standard version as well.

Matthew 11:20 to 24.

Then he, Jesus, began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles were done because they did not repent.

Woe to you, Korrazin, woe to you, Bethsaya, for if the miracles had occurred in Tyre and Sion which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

Nevertheless, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you.

And Copernium, will you be exalted to heaven?

You will descend to Hades, for if the miracles had occurred in Sodom, which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day.

Nevertheless, I say to you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in a day of judgment than for you.

Jesus knows what would have been if his miracles were performed in Sodom and Gomorrah, entire and inside him.

And that knowledge is that little knowledge that Molina was talking about.

Another example, which thank you Ed, for reading 1 Samuel for us as well in 1 Samuel chapter 33.

In this one, David is being chased um.

I'm not going to be able to pronounce all those hard words as well as Ed was, but Teela was where he had asked God if the people of that city would surrender them to Saul, and God says, yes, they will.

Yes, he'll pursue you.

Yes, they will surrender you.

Those are things that God said will happen.

And so David, realizing that these things would happen, decides to flee that city so that they won't happen.

What we have is God saying that something will happen, and we see that especially in verses 1011 and 12, where he says that they will be pursued, that they will turn them over.

Those are things that God said would happen and yet they didn't happen.

If we read it from a Calvinistic perspective, Then there's some kind of dishonesty, some disconnection with God here, because how could God say that something would happen that didn't happen.

But if we read it with either an open uh open theistic or an Armenian philosophy or a dynamic omniscience philosophy, we realize that this is what would happen if things don't change.

We see that God is describing things from a perspective of middle knowledge that Molina talks about.

And there's no dishonesty with God or inconsistency with that.

Um, another example is in Genesis chapter 20 in verse 7.

In this account, Abile has Sarah.

Um, Abraham's wife.

Abraham had told Abimelech that she was his sister.

And he had taken her to be his wife.

However, in verse 7, God commands it in life.

He says, So now return the man's life, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you, and you will live.

But if you do not return her, know that you will surely die, you and all who are yours.

God gives a Benmelek a choice here.

And I believe that he had a real choice, that that's the way it's described.

If there was no possibility of ale turning over Sarah back to Abraham and Abraham praying in order to deliver Abimelech, then why would God present that as a real possibility that could happen?

It's something that would be dishonest in the mind of God, and then dishonesty is not something that I think is in God's character to be.

So, uh, I disagree with the Calvinistic philosophy there.

Uh, someone asked RC Scroll, one of my favorite, uh, Calvinistic the theologians about this, and His answer was one that I didn't really find very satisfactory.

He said that sometimes God speaks with a list, speaks so that we can understand Him.

He says things that might seem off, but he's trying to use words that are, uh, the way John MacArthur puts it, our pea-sized human brains are able to comprehend, uh, and that has some good sounds to it, but I don't think it's a satisfactory answer.

Because when RC Sproul was asked, and remember he comes from the perspective that children are born with original guilt or what Calvinists would call original sin, um, he was asked, what about children who are aborted?

And he said, Well, the God that I worship is powerful enough to whisper into the ear of an infant in their mother's womb and give them saving faith.

While I disagree with the philosophy of RCSpo behind that, I do like that he focused on the sovereignty of God and his ability because God is powerful enough to do things like that.

He's powerful enough to turn nations to him.

He's powerful enough to help even an infant understand.

And if he's powerful enough to help an infant understand things, he's powerful enough to help us understand him as well.

He doesn't have to deceive us in order to be able to accomplish his will, and that's what has to be interpreted with these passages from a deterministic perspective.

I believe that he means what he says in those verses.

All right.

All of y'all know that I like to include a little section of science or history in my lessons.

Now it's time for the science part, so, uh, hopefully you'll enjoy this one.

Um, what does science say about things being in multiple possible states of the future?

I think the double slit experiment, and these are experiments, experiments that you can perform, experiments that can be done, um.

This isn't theory, this isn't string theory, this isn't things that are theorized about.

These are actual experiments that you can go and do.

The double slit experiment shows that the smallest particles we know about, Quanta, are able to be in multiple different states.

Whenever they're passed through that double split.

I'm not going to go through all the details of it.

Um, in fact, if you want the details, this is a picture of uh Zach Gallagher performing the single slit and double slit experiments here in town.

So you can go ask him all the difficult questions and he'll be able to answer those for you.

But the point of this one is that A single quanta can be in multiple possible states until it's observed.

The second piece is what's known as the delayed choice quantum eraser.

And this one We show that uh A particle, we can know what it's going to do before it does something that it has a 50% chance of.

Whenever it travels through the beam splitters, the green items up there, it has a 50% chance of passing through or bouncing off, and the delayed choice quantum eraser allows us to be able to read its entangled particle and know exactly what it's going to do before it ever hits the beam splitter.

So something that has a 50% chance, we can know what it's going to do.

And that ties knowledge to causation.

This is an example that a lot of my Calvinist friends really like because it ties knowledge and uh causation together.

But that's not the last example here.

My favorite example is experiment number 3.

This is the quantum bomb tester algorithm and this one, and the experiments for this one were done in Israel.

It's a little more expensive to set up.

You can still get the equipment for it, but this one's going to be a really expensive one to get.

But the quantum bomb tester experiment, it allows you to test a bomb without actually triggering it.

It allows you to say, had I triggered this bomb, it would have gone off.

It allows you to obtain facts about middle knowledge.

It allows you to make a claim and test it that something that didn't happen would have happened, and that's what the quantum bomb tester does.

Um, it shows that middle knowledge is something that we can have obtain and test for.

And middle knowledge is something that's completely foreign to the Calvinistic philosophies.

Um I'm way behind on my notes, I apologize.

I get excited when talking about the science part, uh.

So that you'll understand my philosophy behind this.

There are examples.

In the Bible of 273 men who got a full ride scholarship with room and board to the King's College.

And they Set it in their hearts to not defile themselves with the king's food or defile themselves with anything that is foreign to God.

We have a lot of young people in this congregation, a lot that are going off to college, a lot that are learning from their schooling, and I hope that whenever I bring science or history into one of these lessons, they see that you can study these things and set your heart on things that are good, set your heart toward God and study them and be good, diligent students that still obey God throughout it.

I hope that it comes across that way and not from a perspective of for some that the Bible is subservient to science or something, but I hope it comes across in the former and not the latter.

So, Calvinists on the idea of middle knowledge, something that we can test for, something that we can have, they deny that God is able to do these things.

Um, Arson Scroll was the one that I've already mentioned.

He had a conversation with Paul Helm and other Calvinists, and in it he acknowledges that middle knowledge is something that is very attractive, but he ultimately came to the conclusion that since it undermines God's sovereignty, it must not exist.

And he and Paul Helm, in the conclusion of their discussion, said there's no room for middle knowledge.

For those of us who use these things and test for these things and do experiments with them, it's like saying the sky is not blue or, or that's something that we can test for and know that we have, it must be foreign to God.

It's something that doesn't exist.

Uh, this picture is of James White.

He's probably the most famous internet, uh, Calvinist.

He does a series called The Dividing Line.

Uh, for the, for the most part, it's a very good series.

I understand if you listen to that series that he comes from a Calvinist perspective, so, uh, a caution with what he's going to say there.

But whenever he does a series on Calvinism, he does one called Radio Free Geneva.

And in the intro to those lessons, he has this phrase that he says where he says, I categorically deny middle knowledge.

He denies it as a category that can possibly exist.

And Calvinists, even the most prominent Calvinists, Marcy Sproll, Paul Helm, James White.

They say that um These things cannot be.

Uh, that they're not categories that can possibly exist.

I believe that the most prominent Calvinists are approaching the Bible as Ebenezer Scrooge did whenever they say God is sovereign over everything that will be, and anything else is an attack on his sovereignty like Arson Scroll says.

And while I agree with the first premise of that, I think he goes off the rails there quite heavily.

I would modify that and say that God is sovereign over everything he permits to be, and that's something that they say cannot exist with Calvinism.

And that Calvinistic perspective causes us to miss some things whenever we're looking at scripture.

It causes us to miss things about soteriology, how we're saved, it causes us to miss things that will affect our entire worldview.

Um, whenever we look at things, there might be different ways of seeing them.

We have the, uh, I guess it's a candlestick holder or maybe it's two faces looking at each other, and the saxophone player, or maybe it's a silhouette, and the guy looking at you, I mean, to the, to the side, I mean that there's different ways of looking at certain pictures.

These are ambiguous images.

And whenever we make certain assumptions, whenever we look at God's word, sometimes we only see what we want to see in those pictures instead of what's actually being said there, and that's a dangerous thing for us.

To highlight that, I believe that we can look at scriptures like Romans chapters 8 and 9.

If you approach Romans 8:9 from the Calvinist perspective, Uh, it appears And it's one of the biggest proof texts that Calvinists use, uh, but it appears that God is choosing Jacob for salvation and Esau for destruction before they did anything good or bad.

Romans chapter 9 verses 10 to 13.

And not only this, but there was Rebecca also when she had conceived twins by one man, our Father Isaac, for though the twins were not yet born and had not yet done anything good or bad, so that the purpose of God according to his choice would stand, not because of works, but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, the older shall serve the younger, just as it is written, Jacob I loved that he saw I hated.

And then if you use that Calvinist interpretation of Romans chapter 9, the end of the conclusion of what Paul's writing there sounds like an attack on anyone who would dispute God's sovereignty of of having elected people for salvation.

Romans 9:13 on the contrary, who are you, oh man, who answers back to God?

Well, the thing molded say to the molder, why did you make me like this?

John Calvin and his institutes of the Christian religion, Book 3, chapter 23, uses this verse to say individuals are born who are doomed from the womb to certain destruction, to certain death, in order to glory glorify him by their destruction.

But I want you to see a different way of looking at this verse.

This passage becomes, I think, more clear and more beautiful whenever we understand it from the perspective of a God who provides for all to be saved.

Let's start with one of those presuppositions, the idea that God hated Esau.

What we see in the Old Testament is that there were times where God loved Esau and loved the Edomites.

In Deuteronomy 23:7, he confirms, you shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother.

We read about God blessing Esau with great prosperity in Genesis chapter 33 and protecting his land in Deuteronomy 2:45.

So how do we reconcile the idea that God hated Esau with all these verses talking about him loving Esau and loving the Edomites at times.

Um, that's something that has to be reconciled, and I think that the best way to do that.

is by realizing that Jacob I love and Esau I hated, isn't a literal expression, it's an idiomatic one.

And love and hate, that relationship between love and hate is used frequently in scripture as a hyperbolic expression, as an idiomatic one.

I think that a couple of examples of that are probably too small a font here.

I apologize.

I'll do better next time on that.

Um, in Genesis chapter 29 verses 30 and 33, it says that Jacob went In to Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah and served Laban for another 7 years.

When the Lord saw that Leo was hated, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren.

The love that Jacob had for Rachel was so much greater than the love that he had for Leah, that the difference between those are hyperbolically described as the difference between love and hate.

I think that we can also see that.

In Luke chapter 14 in verse 26.

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

Husbands love your wives.

Don't hate your wife.

Don't use this as a verse for hating your wife.

Um What's being said here is that our love of God, our love of Jesus, is so great that every relationship on earth that we have can only be described as hate when compared to it.

It's an idiomatic, a hyperbolic expression, something that's an exaggeration to draw lesser to the greater comparison.

Yes, we should love our parents.

Yes, we should love our children.

Yes, we should love our spouse.

But the love that we have for Jesus should be so much greater.

And when we apply that idiomatic philosophy to Romans chapter 9, I think that it makes so much more sense.

You see Instead, what God has done is he has selected.

He had to make a choice of who he would bring Jesus into the world through, and that choice was Jacob, and that love that God has shown all of humanity, including the Gentiles, is so great that whatever other love he's showing, even to Esau can only be described by hate in comparison.

God loves the world and loves you too.

And I think that's something that we're able to say from that full philosophical perspective.

And then at the end, that condemnation from Paul, um.

The Jews that had been selected as God's people for so long, they were happy whenever they were God's people, whenever they were the choice ones of God.

Now that God's selecting the Gentiles, who are they to question God for selecting Gentiles to be saved now.

I think that those verses make so much more sense and they're so much more beautiful than understood from an Indian perspective, an idiom, idiom perspective for uh Romans chapter 9.

But what about salvation?

Is salvation one of those things that's in multiple states?

Is salvation something that uh The Calvinists are right about or or something that the open theists write about.

How does the Bible describe salvation?

Does it put it into that conditional state?

Are there conditions on salvation?

I think that there are.

John Calvin embraced the five soullas.

The salvation comes through grace alone, by faith alone, and Christ alone, according to scripture alone, to the glory of God alone.

Those are the five solas that pretty much every Calvinist I talked to would be able to quote, and I would caution on Solaide, the only time uh faith alone appears in the Bible is in James 2:24.

It says that salvation is not my faith alone.

However, I believe that Calvinists.

We are not defining faith with the same dictionary that we're using whenever we look at faith in the Bible.

And using the same dictionary is that last piece that was in that introduction.

So how does the Bible define faith?

When growing up, one of the first memory verses I learned was Hebrews 11:1, but I got it in the New King James.

Now faith is the substance of things so poor, the evidence of things not seen.

You'll see confidence and assurance in some of the newer translations, uh, instead of those words.

But Hebrews 213, I think does a good job of defining faith here.

And we have to make sure that we're using the biblical definition of faith.

In Hebrews 11, We read of several examples of those who had faith.

And what is that faith described as?

Well, A, offered to sacrifice by faith.

Noah prepared an ark.

Abraham obeyed.

Sarah conceived, Jacob blessed his sons.

Abraham offered his son, Joseph gave commands.

Moses kept the Passover.

Rahab welcomed the spies.

All these gained approval through their faith.

You can't separate those things from the definition of faith that's there.

And I think a good example of that is in Acts chapter 8 verses 37 and 38.

And as they were along the road, this is the account of the Ethiopian eunuch.

They were along the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, Look, water, what prevents me from being baptized?

And Philip said, If you believe with all your heart, you may.

And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

What a beautiful thing it would be.

If your name is written in that book of life.

By faith, insert your name here.

Obey the Lord by putting him on in baptism.

And he gained approval by his faith.

You can't define faith apart from these actions, the actions that are done.

That doesn't mean that those actions merit salvation.

These aren't works of merit that make us uh deserving of salvation.

Those are things that are done by God's mercy and grace.

In fact, we see the baptism is when we're added to the number of the saved Acts 2:41.

We're baptized into the death of Jesus, that's Romans 6:3, and it's how we clothe ourselves in Christ.

It's Galatians 3:13.

We have to make sure that we're using a biblical definition of faith if we're going to go with Calvin's Sola fide, uh, and actually Augustine's uh Sola Fide arguments there.

But we have to make sure faith is properly defined.

And we agree with the Calvinists that God's grace and mercy are sufficient for all, that they are what save us.

We also believe that there are conditions and we have to take to to scripture, all of scripture, in order to understand what it says about salvation.

We often have a slide at the end of our presentations for sermons and for Wednesday night invitations, uh, that goes through these steps, that goes through these conditions.

And I'm gonna take a few extra minutes here to go through them right now.

What does the Bible say about God's uh grace and mercy, and how are these part of faith?

Does the Bible put if clauses on these gifts?

And I think that it does.

If you define faith without hearing that first rung of the ladder, then I don't think you have a biblical definition of faith.

Romans 10:17 says, so then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

Your definition of faith needs to have hearing in it.

And notice the consistent order of salvation throughout Scripture.

Salvation comes after hearing and believing.

John chapter 5 verse 23 says, truly, truly I say to you, He who hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life and does not come into judgment, but is passed out of death into life.

Instead of the Calvinistic claim that God gives us life so that we may believe, the order is different in the Bible.

John 23:227 and 21 says that we believe so that we may have eternal life, not that we're given life so that we may believe.

The order is important, and that was John chapter 23 verses 221 and 83, that's the end of the book of John.

And it says, therefore, many other signs Jesus also did in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.

Notice how believing gives you life.

Even in the Old Testament though.

God required a turning back to him, a repentance.

But turning back to him, we read about in 28 Chronicles 222:216, and it's also in the New Testament as well.

We must repent or perish.

That's what Luke 13:3 says.

2 Corinthians 7:10 says, for godly sorrow produces repentance without regret leading to salvation.

Repentance is another one of those things that comes before salvation in the order.

And I hope that you remember that great confession of the Ethiopian eunuch.

He said that I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God.

People here have been baptized have made that confession.

I've made that confession publicly.

And such a confession precedes salvation too.

Romans 109 and 8 says, if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

For with the heart one believes, leading to righteousness, and with the mouth, he confesses, leading to salvation.

Notice that confession leads to salvation.

And that confession is that Jesus is Christ, the Son of God.

And we've already talked about baptism.

The Bible connects baptism with salvation as well.

I've already mentioned Acts 2:41, Romans 6:3, Galatians 3:27 from the previous slide.

And Peter identifies in 1 Peter 3:21, there's also an anti-type which saves us.

Baptism Then he uses one of those lesser to greater arguments about how God in the Old Testament destroyed the world and delivered Noah and his family, separating the sinful world from Noah through water, just as water baptism purifies us as well.

In just a few seconds, it's our tradition here.

To stand up and sing a song of invitation.

And standing up is intended to get you ready.

In a position to take that first step that you know you're not alone and that you have the encouragement of everyone.

That each and every one of us hopes that you have what the same definition of faith is described in the Bible.

I mean, Even Paul in the in the book of Romans, we've touched on Romans so much.

Romans 1:8, he talks about the obedience of faith.

If your faith doesn't have obedience, it's not the faith Paul's talking about in the book of Romans.

It's not the faith that God is talking about.

Maybe you have the need to be baptized.

Well, here's water, and what's stopping you?

I'll leave you with the words of Ananias.

Jesus told Saul that Ananias would tell him all that he must do.

And when And we find out when Saul's sins were forgiven, and that happens in Acts chapter 22 in verse 16.

Now, why do you delay, rise up and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name.

Series: N/A

Service: Sun AM

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Ian Boike

The following transcription is computer-generated and may not accurately reflect the contents of the audio. Please verify the content before quoting.

(Transcribed by Congregate. Always check document for possible errors and inaccuracies in automated transcriptions.)

I'll be reading Philippians 1:18 through 23.

I'll be reading from the ESV, starting in verse 18.

What then, only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.

Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, this will turn out for my deliverance.

As it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body whether by life or by death, for to me to live as Christ and to die as gain.

If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me, yet which I shall choose, I cannot tell.

I am hard pressed between the two.

My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.

Good morning.

It's wonderful to see everyone out this morning, including our visitors.

We're so excited and happy to have you here.

And I would encourage you to stay a little bit afterwards, after our services this morning in our Bible classes so that we can get to know you a little bit better cause we're so excited to have you here.

And I'm sure many of us here, if not all of us here, are avid book readers or binge watchers of movies.

And personally, I enjoy watching movies a little bit more than I do reading books.

And I'm sure many of you know what this is on the screen, and if not, this is the community from the book and the movie The Giver.

And then maybe this is a more recent.

This is an image of the Emerald City from The Wizard of Oz, or Wicked is more recent film.

And these are books that have been turned into films that describe what many would call a utopian society.

And for those who are unfamiliar with that term, a utopian society is a is an idealized society.

One devoid of crime issues, war, illness, and other societal problems that plague us even today.

And one possible derivation of the word utopia is good place, and that typically fits with the way that we use this word in our modern English language.

It comes from the beginning of the word, you meaning good and topos, meaning place in the Greek.

However, another possible derivation is oo, meaning not opos, meaning place.

Therefore, utopia literally translates to no place or nowhere.

And the second etymology that I just gave, which was no place, is the way that Sir Thomas Moore used that word whenever he coined the phrase in the year 1516.

And ironically, utopias or perfect places.

They tend to be no place.

As many of you know, including the two movies and books that I put up above.

Problems always arise.

Essentially, all of these utopian societies, they turn into dystopian societies, places with nothing but problems.

But the question is, why do people find the idea of living in a utopian society or a perfect place so desirable?

Why do people want to live in a place like that?

Well, who wouldn't want to live in a place where there's no war, no sickness, no violence, crime, and yes, and no evil.

I think everyone here this morning wants to live in a place like that.

And you know, the description that I just gave, it kind of sounds a little bit like how God has described heaven to me.

But that wouldn't make much sense because why do so many people in the world who desire this deny God?

Whenever he has promised those who would follow him a perfect place, not just a perfect place, but an eternal perfect place for those who would serve him.

And that's what I want to discuss this morning, is why do people who seek a utopian society, a perfect place, deny and oppose God?

Well, some believe that utopia should be achieved through human effort, not the supernatural.

And we know this is false because the Garden of Eden was the only time in human history where people actually lived in a perfect place.

Where they had nothing to do with the creation of that place.

God created all of it.

Human sin is what ruined this perfect place or this utopia, if you will.

And we know this after hearing the punishment that God gave to Adam.

In Genesis chapter 3 and verses 17 through 33, God speaks to Adam, and he said, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it.

Cursed is the ground because of you.

In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life.

Thorns and thistles, it shall bring forth through you, and you shall eat of the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken for dust, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Sin is what has caused man never to have another utopia on this earth, ever again.

Secondly, some believers, or some people believe that religion can hinder the process.

Of having another utopia or even be the source of conflict.

And many of you know who this gentleman is on the screen.

His name is John Lennon.

Who was one of the more popular songwriters of his time.

He wrote a song called Imagine.

He starts the song in the first verse by saying, imagine there is no heaven.

It's easy if you try.

No hell below us, above us, only sky.

Imagine there's no countries.

It isn't hard to do.

Nothing to kill or die for.

And no religion too.

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.

I hope someday you'll join us and the world will be as one.

Imagine no possessions.

I wonder if you can.

No need for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of man.

And he ends the song by saying, you may say I'm a dreamer.

But I'm not the only one.

I hope someday you'll join us in the world we'll live as one.

And in my ignorance as a young man, when I heard this song for the first time, I used to think this was a great song.

He just wanted peace and joy, and he wanted everybody to get along and just wanted everybody to be happy.

And, you know, as a young man, as a Christian, I wanted that.

And I've been taught that my whole life.

God tells us we're supposed to get along, build unity with one another.

But as I grew older, in my maturity, I realized that this song presents a very dangerous idea.

What John Lennon and his believers and people who believe like him have done, they have taken this idea that religion and God are the problem.

And they are the reason why the world is so messed up and sinful.

He took The the sinfulness and the imperfection of man, and he said, it's God's fault.

Why there's greed and hunger and war and death and pain.

It's God's fault.

And he could not be more wrong.

In James chapters 1 and verses 13 to 15.

James tells us, let no one say when he is tempted.

I'm being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.

But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

Then desire, when it is conceived, gives birth to sin.

And when sin, it is fully grown, brings forth death.

Even though there are many in the world who believe like John Lennon does, God is not the source of evil or sin.

But the Lord does give us free will to do as we please.

But unfortunately many in the world choose sin.

As their path.

And finally, some believe that the concept of God clashes with the idea of human autonomy and freedom.

And the world will tell you that Christians, they'll look at you and say that you as a Christian, Live a life of slavery.

Forced to do what God would tell you to do in His restrictive commands.

Your hands are tied behind your back, you can't do a thing about it.

We have no free will.

And the people who think this way are only 50% right.

Because yes, Christians do live a life of slavery, but we do have the free will to make our own decisions.

In Galatians chapter 5, the apostle Paul is speaking to the Galatians and he says, for freedom, Christ has set us free.

Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again.

To a yoke of slavery.

Skipping down to verse 13 through 15, for you were called to freedom, brothers.

Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh.

But through love, serve one another, for the whole law is fulfilled in one word.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself, but if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

As I said a moment ago, Paul was speaking in this context to the Christians of Galatia, not to go back to the ways of the Mosaic law for which Christ and his death on the cross had freed them.

From those restrictions.

But the point that I bring out in Galatians 5 is that you can clearly see that Paul is telling these brethren, you have a choice to make.

Nobody's gonna force you.

You have a choice to make.

Are you going to go back to the restrictions of the old law and be yoked into slavery, or are you going to be free?

And Paul in Romans chapter 6 and verse 43 says that we can either be a slave to sin or a slave to God.

Romans 6:16 to 18 tells us, do you, do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey, either of sin which leads to death or of obedience, which leads to righteousness.

But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed.

And having been set free.

From sin have become slaves of righteousness.

And Paul's whole point from Romans all the way to Galatians was that we have a, we are, if we are slaves to God, then we are free from sin.

But somebody might look at you and say, OK, well, fine, you've made your point.

But why is a utopian society impossible here on earth?

Why can't it be done?

Well, because people are sinful.

People are full of greed, hate, and selfishness.

And sin is the reason why we won't have another utopia on this earth.

Of course, we've already talked about Adam and Eve at the beginning this morning.

And in Genesis 3:23 to 24, just a few verses ahead of what I read, we see what God had to do to Adam and Eve.

In Genesis 3:23-24, we're told, therefore, the Lord God sent him out of the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.

He drove out the man and at the east, and at the east of the Garden of Eden, he placed the cherubboom in a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

And many will stop at Genesis 13 and say there was never another point on earth where the earth was without sin.

But this isn't the case.

In Genesis chapter 7, we see that the world experienced a flood that wiped out all evil on the earth.

And it was clean.

And as soon as the floodwaters subside, we see the folly of man come right back, excuse me, come right back into what was a perfect world at that point.

In Genesis chapter 9.

In verses 20 to 23, which we are told that Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard.

He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent.

And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside.

Then Shem and Jabeth took a garment, laid it on both of their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father.

Their faces were turned backward and they did not see their father's nakedness.

I want to make it clear while I'm saying, I'm not saying that Noah and his family were perfect people.

But what I am saying is that whenever the flood came, the whole purpose of it was that the earth was, the earth was so sinful that God said, we need to start over.

We need a clean slate.

And only one man in his family and his sons were allowed to survive.

But due to the imperfection of man, The earth, whose surface had been wiped clean of evil, experienced sin once again.

And later on in the scriptures, we see in the New Testament that the apostle Paul even spoke about the sinfulness and the sinful nature of people.

In Romans chapter 8 and verses 5 through 8, we're told, for those who live according to the flesh, set their minds on the things of the flesh.

But those who live according to the spirit, set their minds on the things of the spirit.

For to set the mind on the flesh is death.

But to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace.

For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law.

Indeed, it cannot.

Those who are of those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Romans 3:23 says something similar for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

But what are these things that are living your life according to the flesh?

What are these works of the flesh?

Well, Paul answers this in Galatians 13:19 to 21.

He tells us now, the works of the flesh are evident, sexual immorality, and purity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.

I warn you as I warned you before.

That those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

And there are many in the world who will say, well, just because you Christians say that it's wrong, doesn't automatically make it wrong.

There's not one thing in Galatians 5.

There's not one item in that list of Galatians 5 verses 19 to 21 that can be twisted to be a good thing.

They never work out for anyone.

Which leads me to believe that the apostle Paul is telling us that the works of this flesh or sin is destructive.

And behind me on the screen, you'll see an image of the Roman Empire, who was known for its massive armies, its extended reach across the ancient world, its ability to conquer, its vast resources.

And yet it fell.

Later on in history, we see the Ottoman Empire.

Who at its time was the superpower of a nation.

It too fell.

Both of these massive empires fell due to the political greed, divisions, rivalries, on.

We've heard these before.

In Galatians 5, we just read about it.

In verse 20 idolatry, sorcery, anger, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, and divisions.

Every kingdom on earth has fallen due to the works of the flesh.

And King David even wrote a psalm that explains that this would happen to all the nations who oppose God.

In the 9th Psalm in verses 33 to 17, David tells us the nations have sunk in the pit that they made in the net that they hid, their own foot has been caught.

The Lord has made himself known.

He has executed judgment.

The wicked are snared in the work of their own hands.

And the wicked shall return to shield all the nations that forget God.

So now that we understand why utopias are no longer possible on this earth, Well, what makes God's utopia so perfect?

What makes heaven so perfect?

I think first is that heaven is ruled by a perfect God.

In the 1 in 103rd Psalm in verse 21, we're told and the Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and His kingdom rules over all.

The 21th Psalm verses 23 and 24, your throne, oh God, is forever and ever.

The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness.

You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.

Therefore, God, your God has appointed you with with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.

And finally, in Hebrews chapter 21 and verse 21, But of the son, he says, your throne, oh God, is forever and ever.

The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.

Heaven will never fall away because of the perfection of the Lord's kingship.

And secondly, is heaven is where we will be closest to the Lord.

Jesus spoke about heaven as a place where we will be with Him.

John chapter 43 verses 24 to 21, we're told in my father's house, there are many rooms.

If it were not so, I would have told you that I go to prepare a place for you.

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again.

And will take you to myself.

That where I am, you may be also.

The Lord often had to tell his disciples, you can't go where I'm going.

You can't follow me where I'm headed.

But thankfully, due to his sacrifice on the cross, we will never have that answer told to us.

As we are told that we will someday have the ability to go where he is.

In Philippians chapter one.

In verses 4 to 23, we're told, for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.

If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me.

Which I yet which I shall choose, I cannot tell.

I am hard pressed between the two.

My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.

And finally, heaven will last.

For an eternity.

Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 1.

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal.

Excuse me, eternal in the heavens.

John 3:16 tells us, for God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.

That whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

John chapter 13 verse 27, skipping down a few chapters.

Jesus Told the Jewish leaders that my sheep hear my voice and I know them, and they follow me.

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

My father, who has given them to me is greater than all.

And no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand.

I and the Father are one.

And secondly, that the Lord has promised something.

That no other country, empire, or nation can offer its citizens.

In Philippians chapter 3 and verse 20.

We're told, but our citizenship is from heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And in 1 Peter chapter 1 and verses 3 and 4, I find that the scriptures give us a perfect View of what a utopian society truly is.

In 1 Peter chapter 1, verses 3 and 4, we're told, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

According to his great mercy.

He has caused us to be born again to a living hope that through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.

Kept in heaven for you.

That brings me nothing but hope.

To know that while there's no place on earth that is perfect, we are promised a place that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.

There are many in the world who have a flawed view of what makes a place perfect.

Why even some believe that God and religion make it impossible for a place to be perfect or that unless a human being creates it, it's not gonna happen.

And these people cannot be more wrong.

Utopias can't exist on Earth anymore, and sin is the cause of this.

But I want to make one thing clear, is that there is a silver lining to this fact.

is that while we live in a broken world, due to sin.

Living here causes us to look forward to that truly perfect place.

And Philippians 1 and 23.

We're told I am hard pressed between the two, my desires to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.

And then again, we're told that it is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, that which is heaven.

And I know that I've kind of beaten it down a little bit this morning, the idea of wanting a utopia on Earth.

Desiring to live in a utopia is not a bad thing.

Just depends on which utopia that you're talking about, and that God rules over his perfect place, which he does, which he offers to all of us.

And fortunately, because of his son's sacrifice, his willing sacrifice on the cross, we all have the opportunity this morning to become a part of his flock and join him in eternity.

And while his mercy and his grace may be free, there are conditions that must be met in order to gain citizenship in admission to the kingdom of heaven.

And we have everything here ready this morning and available to assist you in this moment so that you can gain your citizenship and attain heaven.

And if you're a Christian here this morning, maybe you have sin in your life that has separated you from your God.

And it has separated your admission from heaven.

If you're willing to ask the Lord for forgiveness of your sins, he has told us that he is able and he is just to forgive you of all of your transgressions.

If you are subject to the invitation this morning, and you are ready, To allow the Lord to recognize you as one of his citizens.

Please come to the front as we stand and as we sing.

Series: N/A

Service: Sun PM

Type: Sermon

Speaker: John Jennings

The following transcription is computer-generated and may not accurately reflect the contents of the audio. Please verify the content before quoting.

(Transcribed by Congregate. Always check document for possible errors and inaccuracies in automated transcriptions.)

Good morning church.

Or, good afternoon.

My mind is still thinking of this morning.

Eric did a great job talking about restoration and It made me think a lot about what I had to say as well, uh.

I want you to imagine.

A young man He is strutting around during the colonial time.

Uh, in Philadelphia.

He's beaming with such courage and boldness that it's disgusting.

I mean, this guy loves to argue.

He's cornering his friends with logic traps, zapping them with.

Witty comebacks and so they're all tongue tied and just uh red with anger.

The young man thought he was waiting at life.

Until a friend pulled them aside.

And said, bam.

You're about as charming as a porcupine on a picnic.

You're arguing makes people want to run straight for the heels.

Oh, Corinn.

He was stunned His ego was making him the guy that nobody wanted to be around.

If you're wondering who this is, this is Ben Franklin.

And I thought is, how would you respond?

To rebuke like that.

We'll leave that open edited for now.

And imagine someone saying that to you, and you will come to know.

That based on your relationship with that person, oftentimes determines heavily how you will receive it.

The story I'm about to preach or I preached on this lesson before and I'm gonna take a slightly different angle.

And I often have this perfectionist mindset, and I feel like my materials never really completed, which the irony of is.

I will never be completely perfect.

So, My knowledge on this subject matter or any subject matter really, uh, will never be complete, and I ask for your grace and the things.

That I do miss.

I want us to turn to 2 Chronicles 18.

2 Chronicles 18.

We're gonna be reading about Jehoshaphat.

Uh, this story begins with this principle.

Who is influencing me?

The individual that is out there steering my direction.

Who is listening and who is not.

I think this is a great story about a young king.

He was sitting on the throne of Judah.

Here's something to keep in mind.

That it does not matter how prestigious your position may be where you are in life.

You will always be influenced by something, always.

And this story is about a king who's being influenced by another king.

And the struggle to listen from a sea of voices.

2 Chronicles 18.

I'll be reading from the ESV.

Now, Jehoshaphat had great riches.

And honor And he made a marriage alliance with Ahab.

I'm gonna stop right there.

Now, who is Joseph Adder?

You know, I didn't have this pleasure growing up.

Uh learning Bible class when I was little, uh.

I didn't know about God really that much until I was adopted, and I, I, uh, remember when I was in Florida I'd walk by some uh children's Bible classes and I'll see smiley faces and some frowning faces and I would look closer.

All the frowning faces were all the bad kings and all the smiley faces were good kings and guess who was one of the smiley faces, Joseph.

Joseph was one of the smiley faces.

He's one of the good kings and who at the age of 4003.

He became king Uh, I compare my life to that, I'd feel pretty, pretty sad and grim in comparison to his position.

Uh, can you imagine how his life must, what it must have been like?

It must have been grand in some degree, right?

Being responsible for the whole nation.

And the scripture tells us that he's one of the good kings, yes.

And He got rid of the bells.

He diligently tore down all the pagan temples and worshiped the Canaanite gods that the people of Israel previously had done.

He was faithful to God.

And the scripture tells us that there was there was courage in him to serve the living God.

Before that, He has riches.

He has honor.

From all of Judah And now for some, some reason, he has this marriage alliance going on with King Ahab.

We'll get to him in a bit.

He makes a marriage contract.

Probably, uh, this is my uh deduction here.

He makes this marriage concept probably because in hopes of uniting the two kingdoms.

Uh, maybe their previous glory of how David and Solomon, how their everything was more united until after Solomon's fall.

Uh, maybe he was hoping to achieve that unity once more.

So here, here he is, uh, trying to unite the two kingdoms with evil King Ahab and evil queen Jezebel with his son Jehoram, which eventually will marry the daughter Athelia.

And if you read the stories, it is horrible.

There's so much bloodshed that happens after his succession.

There's an influence here.

Keep that in mind.

Verse 2 and verse 3.

After some years, he went down to Ahab and Samaria, and Ahab killed an abundance of sheep and oxen for him and for the people who were with him, and induced him to go up against Ramoth Gilead.

Ahab, king of Israel, said to Jehoshaphat, King of Judah, Will you go up with do with me to Gramoth Galliad?

He answered him, I am as you are, my people.

As your people, we will be with you.

In war.

We will be in war.

You ever uh spent time with a friend and Usually their ideas are maybe a little bit too ambitious.

Uh Say, hey, watch this, or, hey, are you with me?

You're like, uh, I don't know, uh sure.

You might get a little in trouble, you might get bruised up a little bit, but, but this, I mean, hardly ever ends well.

Generally, when I'm with my friends, we don't ever discuss about going to war with something.

Hey, you wanna go to war?

Yeah, sure.

Why not?

I've been looking for something to do this weekend.

Now think about this statement.

My people as your people, let's go to war.

What is really happening here?

Joseph that is new, he's young, he's new to the throne.

OK. And everything he has been trying to, he's been working his way.

God has been blessing him.

Uh, and God has shown consistently throughout the Old Testament that those who follow his ways, he blesses, blesses very well.

And he probably has some grandiose ideas and maybe some great way again to reunite the country and we could all get into all the political things of it, but that's not the point I want to get strictly into.

But for some reason, He's trying to get close with Ahab.

And Ahab I think he's very smart.

Joseph at very young.

Probably learning the ways and how to rule a kingdom.

You have Ahab at it for years, maybe even having counsel by Jezebel, and you know her.

Well, uh, she's very wise in the evil ways you could say.

And Ahab is probably trying to work things up.

He's thinking, OK, well, you know, Joseph's pretty religious guy, right?

He acts as a really good salesman.

I'm going to sacrifice all these animals and make it really impressive, you know, all these people really in Judah really like to worship Yahweh over there.

So let's sacrifice all these animals, make it really impressive and make sure that he knows how religious we are.

And so, Here they come.

And Joseph about, I think, I think he gets really sucked up into it.

And their friendship, perhaps he has this idea like maybe Ahab is this really good guy.

Uh, and yet really close.

Maybe there's this bond.

Maybe King Ahab is not so bad that from what I've been hearing about, you know, he's doing all this grand sacrificing, this worship to God, whom are people really, really love.

And then he says, after all that flashy worship, Ceremonial stuff, he says, hey.

You want to go to war?

Ramo Iliad.

Why Ramoth Gilead?

To the location on the other side of the Jordan, uh, southeast of the Sea of Galilee, and it is tribal territory that's Uh, that belonged to the tribe of God.

And I believe they refused to live on the other side of it at some point.

And if you remember the days of Joshua, Raymont Gilead was a refuge city that belonged to the priest.

And lost by Israel over the years, the Assyrians eventually have controlled it, and Ahab wants it back.

He wants it back. Why?

Because it's rich economic stronghold.

So Ahab says, do you want to go to war?

Read verses 4 to 218.

And Josephat said to the king of Israel, let's first inquire for the word of Yahweh.

Then the king of Israel said to the prophets together, 29 men, and said to them, Shall we go up to battle against Ramon Gilead, or shall I refrain?

And they said, go up, for God will give it into the hand of the king.

Jehoshaphat said, Is there not another prophet?

of Yahweh, of whom we can inquire.

Expect anything less from a man of God?

Verse 24.

And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man.

By whom we may inquire of Yahweh.

Makaya, son of Emla.

But I am I hate him For he never prophesized good concerning me.

But always evil.

And Jehoshaphat said, Let not the king say so.

Let not the king say so.

Do you have that person in your life, Makaya in your life?

That one person that expresses Mm, you know, it's under your skin because you want to do something and they say, wait a minute, hold on, that's probably a bad idea here.

Let's think this through.

Hold on.

And every time I say something, You're saying no, no, no, no, no.

Hey, do you want to do this?

No, that's probably not a good idea.

What does your Makah say?

Here you have Ahab saying I hate him.

I hate him because he never gives me what I want.

He never tells me to go for it.

He just says, hey, or never says, hey, this is a great idea.

He's always challenging me.

Does anyone have parents, a mentor, a teacher?

A friend who's like that.

A wise person in your life that says, Wait, Hold on.

Let's think about this.

Verses 24 through 24.

Then the king of Israel summoned an officer and said, Bring quickly Makah, the son of Em-law.

Now, the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, were sitting on their throes, arrayed in their royal robes, and they were sitting at the threshing floor at the entrance to the gate of Samaria.

And all the prophets were prophesying before them, and Zedekiah, son of Chenana, came for himself horns, made for himself horns of iron and said, thus says Yahweh.

With these, you shall push the Syrians until they are destroyed.

And all the prophets prophesized so and said, go up to Ramo Gilad in triumph.

Yahweh will give it into the hand of the king.

I want you to grasp what's happening right now.

Ahab knows.

Ahab knows how to work it, does he not?

He gets all the support of the prophets, right?

Because they tell him everything he wants to hear.

They're the yes men.

Oh yeah, do it, King, all yours.

These people, they're always going to be on his side and going to please him.

I would imagine that when word got out, when Ahab took the vineyard from that man they bought and all the wicked deeds that he did.

This group would be saying, it's all right, King.

It's OK. You know, it wasn't your fault.

He deserved to die.

Like a guy, his life is meaningless.

It's OK. Whatever the king wanted to hear, they said yes.

So when the king said to go get Maay and the prophets, we're starting to plot something.

We started plotting.

And so they're thinking probably, hey, While we're waiting for this guy that always opposes us, let's try to do our best to work up more magic here and really impress Jehoshaphat.

And so Zedekai prepares the horns and uh what are the horns all about?

What are the horns of iron?

Horns of iron are representative of a symbol saying the power and authority is yours.

God is with you.

Go. The symbol is yours, King.

And hoping that this would all impress Jehoshaphat.

And by this, and I think he was.

I think he was.

Verse 240.

And the messenger who went to summon Maaa said to him, Behold, the words of the prophets with one accord are favorable to the king.

Let your word be like the word of one of them and speak favorably.

Just so you know, Makai, just so you know that everyone is on board with this.

Just, just do the right thing.

Say yes.

Just, just go along with it.

103 and 210.

But Maias said, as Yahweh lives, what my God says.

That I will speak.

And when he had come to the king, and the king said to him, Makiah.

Shall we go to Ramon Gilead to battle, or shall I refrain?

And Makah answered, Go up in triumph, for they will be given into your hand.

Uh, you ever met a sarcastic person at all, uh.

I like this guy.

I don't know.

He's a.

He's a good, good sense of humor.

I would love this guy.

Go out to Ramon Gilead.

Yeah, sure, it'll all work well for you.

Verse 218.

But the king said to him, How many times shall I make you swear to speak to me nothing but the truth in the name of Yahweh.

There he goes again.

It's mocking me, Makaya.

I know you don't fully mean that.

How many times do we have to go over this?

It seems like they danced around that like the similar dance before.

They're pretty uh well experienced in this.

In verse 18.

And he said, I saw, Mathias says, I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains.

As sheep that have no shepherd.

And you always said, these have no master.

Let each return to his own home in peace.

And the king of Israel said Jehoshaphat, Did I not tell you?

Did I not tell you that he will not prophesy good concerning me, but evil?

And Maiah said, therefore, hear the word of Yahweh.

I saw Yahweh sitting on his throne.

And the host of heaven standing on his right hand and on his left.

And you always said, who will entice Ahab, the king of Israel, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth Gilead.

And one said one thing and another said another.

Then the spirit came forward and stood before Yahweh, saying, I will entice him.

And you always said to him, by what means?

And he said, I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all of his profits.

And he said, you are to entice him.

And you shall succeed.

Go out And do it.

I want you get a picture of the scene.

You have Josephia, young, courageous, bold, and then the Lord.

You have Ahab, manipulating the situation, grandiose, beautiful sacrifices, ceremonial things that would really appeal to the people of Judah, especially since during this time of that they're trying to convert back out of the pagan and idolatry.

And here they are making this grand scheme here.

And now you have the, the horns being presented.

Jehu or not Jehu, Jehosts getting caught up in all of the magnificent.

Splendor And you have 400 profits.

Chanting the same thing.

Go to war, go to war, go to war.

God is with you.

And you have this faithful man.

Walk in that assembly saying, you know what God told me.

You know what he told me.

That you're all liars.

Because you're all gonna die up there.

You're gonna be scattered like sheep with no shepherd.

Just because you think something good is happening does not always mean.

It's a good thing.

Makes me think about the passage in Romans.

God gave up people to their own desires.

That what they wanted to do.

They got to do it.

Verse 22.

It's continuing along.

Now, therefore behold, Yahweh has put a lying spirit in the mouth of your prophets.

Yahweh has declared disaster concerning you.

Then Zedekiah, the son of Tanana, came near and struck Makayam that she can say, which way did the spirit of Yahweh go for me to speak to you?

Uh, basically saying, how can we have contradicting messages when we're both hearing from Yahweh.

How is that possible?

So after he gets slapped and Maah said, behold, in verse 24, you shall see on that day when you go into an inner chamber to hide yourself.

Basically, he says, I'm going to be proven right.

When disaster hits you, basically when you're dead.

And the king of Israel said, seize Maay and take him back to Ammon, the governor of the city, and the king's son, and say, thus says the king, put this fellow in prison and feed him with meager rations of bread and water until I return in peace.

If you return in peace, If No. He says, and Maiah says, if you return in peace, you're always not spoken by me.

And he says, here are you people, here are you people, here are you people.

You can hear his voice.

Slowly fading away as being dragged out of there.

So what do you do?

You're Jehoshaphat.

What do you do?

What do you think?

What are you thinking?

It's quite the scene, is it not?

I want you to think about our society today, how Probably less prevalent now, especially during the past 4 years, there was cancel culture.

You say something.

That is not with something that is agreeing with the narrative.

They'll get rid of you.

Get off the platform Make sure he doesn't have a voice.

Hey, doing something similar.

People who put you down based on your emotional logic alone, and I believe that as a red flag that listening and understanding.

It's not even an option anymore.

Verse 28.

The king of Israel and Jehoshaphat.

The king of Judah went up to Ramoth Gilead, and the king of Israel said Jehosapha.

I will disguise myself and go into battle, but you wear your royal robes.

And the king of Israel disguised himself, and they went, I don't know.

Now let's just stop here for a minute.

What do you think the actions of Ahab is telling you?

It, ironically, it seems like Ahab believes Makaya more than Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat believes Ahab more than Makaya.

Yes, I was like, well, we'll go wherever you go.

I mean, I don't know.

Ahab's manipulating the situation, running it through.

He, he has his plans.

He, he, he has it all figured out.

I think Makaya has more influence on Ahab.

Then Josephat Verse 30.

Now the king of Syria had commanded the captains of his chariots.

Fight with neither great or small, but only with a king.

Of Israel.

He's basically saying, I don't care who gets in your way.

You go for Ahab, I want him dead.

I want him dead.

And as soon as the captains of the cheer saw Jehosapha, They said, oh look, it's the king of Israel.

So they turned to fight against him and cried out, and Yahweh.

Helped him I just want you to imagine how close do you think they must have gotten in order to realize that this is not Ahab.

Do you think they actually knew what Ahab looked like?

I don't know if the royal robes may have been different, uh, enough to signify.

Maybe differences in kingdom, or if they even knew the difference.

But the amazing thing is that somehow they recognize that this man is not the man they're looking for.

Thanks be to God.

So, there we go, continuing on in verse 183, and then Yahweh helped him, God drew them away from him.

And as soon, for as soon as the captains of the chariot saw that it was not the king of Israel, they turned back from pursuing him.

But a certain man drew his bow at random.

And struck the king of Israel, Ahab, between the scale armor and the breastplates.

Therefore, he said to his driver of his chariot.

Turn around.

And carry me out of battle.

For I am wounded And the battle continued that day.

And the king of Israel was propped up on his chariot.

Facing the Syrians until evening.

And then at sunset.

He died.

You know what, This is one of the stories where The application can easily scream at you.

By simply reading this story, it jumps out you, does it not?

Does it not?

But sometimes I think we can miss it all.

We can see the application when it's talking about someone else.

But in our own lives, It's different.

It's different.

You know, I'm glad John's preaching this thing today cause uh my son, my child, my daughter.

My husband, my wife, My teacher, the elder, this brother of mine, sister of mine, they're not listening.

Oh, they know, they just do whatever they want.

They're not listening.

It's so easy It's so easy to see it in someone else, but except for our own selves.

I want you to think about something here.

Uh Let's turn to Luke 18, real quick.

Luke 18.

Before I jump ahead of myself here.

We're gonna start in verse 9.

Luke 18:9 He also told this parable, this is Jesus.

He's told this parable to some who trusted it in themselves.

And they were right they were righteous and treated others with contempt.

Two men went up into the temple to pray.

One Pharisee and the other a task collector.

The Pharisee standing by himself, prayed thus, God, I thank you.

And I am not like that other men.

Extortioners, just adulterers, or even like this tax collector.

I fast twice a week.

I, I even give ties to all that I get.

But the tax collector, sitting far off will not even lifted up his eyes to heaven.

But it would be his breath saying, God be merciful to me, a sinner.

I tell you.

This man went down to his house justified rather than the other, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be.

Exalted Thank God that I am not like the Pharisee.

Do you see the irony And how perhaps.

Reading in this passage, we could take this seal the wrong way.

I would never do what Ahab did.

If I was Jehoshaphat, I would do better.

In fact, I wouldn't, I wouldn't have gone along with Ahab.

I wouldn't even have started this whole American Alliance thing.

Not on my watch.

For profits.

I would have spoken out.

I would have said, King, we gotta change something here.

Could you?

I want to talk about 4 characters, 4 groups here, to be single characters as well.

4 different types here.

I'm going to go through some of them, kind of give some examples, and then finish off with one point.

Four characters, Ahab.

The rejection of truth.

Oftentimes it's something that could be something that you really want to do, something that we That we're so passionate about that we are willing to call it the will of God.

God just wants me to be happy.

God wants me to do this thing.

If you cared about me, you would care about what God says and how happy he would want to make me.

That's just, it's oversimplification, but there are other ways of phrasing it.

And Sometimes we don't use the hand of God.

For his own will, for his own doing.

But we try to make it, we try to twist it around into our own favor at times.

I mean, this is not what is happening with the 40 prophets.

Go to war, go to war, go to war.

Yes, just go to war.

Let's offer sacrifices and go to war.

We have goals.

That we oftentimes don't realize that we impose on others and have hearts and set our minds fixed on something that we can be so consumed.

With our mission that we will even persuade others to believe in it.

The point is, or to even point of overpowering them, and when there's one way that we can overpower them.

What did Ahab do?

How did he describe his relationship to Makaya?

We can vilify them.

Husbands, you can vilify your wives, children, you can vilify your parents.

Vice versa, all, all around.

Whatever relationship that you have, I want to do this thing.

I wanted to do that thing.

But I said no.

Because they don't love me.

They don't care about me.

And we can overpower our friends and brethren and become adamant.

I know I'm right.

I know I'm right.

The person who's trying to say, wait a minute.

Hold on, let's think this through.

That person's on your side.

And we can vilify them because they don't love me.

They only hate me.

What do they have to gain by saying no?

Every single one of us have A Makaya in our life.

The question is, are we listening to them?

Because we are all influenced by someone or something.

It doesn't matter.

The question is, how many times do you have to get hurt?

Before we listen.

Or even worst case scenario before it's too late.

Wisely consider who your mentor or adviser will be.

And the takeaway with this First one, is that rejecting truth for personal gain destroys relationships by shutting out honest dialogue.

How are you ever going to reach the actual truth if you just shut people out of your life?

By leaving us spiritually and socially isolated.

Second one, Josepha.

Keeping quiet in fear of his mentor.

Joseph, what is, what is he thinking?

What do you, what do you think was going through his mind?

Uh, I know it, we can only assume.

But have you ever wondered why did Jehoshaphat not stop Ahab treating the way he did to Makaya?

If he is courageous in the Lord, bold, young.

had everything going for him.

Yeah, when Ahab sets up this whole picture.

Treats the way Maias should not have been treated, and yet never steps his foot down on the ground and says, wait.

This is not right.

Ask yourself.

Why am I afraid to change course?

Or what is keeping me from speaking up for myself?

If you've ever been in a situation like that, I guarantee you, high school, college, and even And even at the workplace, this can happen.

I mean, they, they make tropes about it all the time on TV. You'll have this, uh, nerd who all of a sudden get accepted by this cool football team, cool football teams, like, hey, man, you're one of us now, and then all of a sudden he starts transitioning to that cool team.

And all of a sudden when the nerd people that, you know, still hurt his friends is, hey, let's go do something, and all of a sudden the cool people, hey, what are you doing?

And you're like, well, going with you guys.

I'm not with all these nerds.

Yeah, they're just, uh, they're nobodies.

I, I don't even know who they are actually.

They, they just came up to me randomly he must have mistaken me for someone else.

I know that's a comical way of presenting it, but there is a real pressure.

When you're so willing to overcompensate.

To be accepted by a group of people who don't even care about you.

It does feel good though.

I will understand that.

It does feel good to be a part of a group.

This is hey man, You're cool.

You're you're great.

Uh, love to have you over and Do such and such.

To be accepted and not feel rejected.

It's a real temptation.

And maybe, maybe.

With his reputation, uh, he didn't want to ruin it with Ahab.

That's a big motivator.

We don't want to ruin our relationship.

Maybe he doesn't wanna have that shoving conflict.

Maybe there's someone that you're constantly trying to talk to, but when something happens, they do something that is just obviously just not good.

You keep quiet, you keep it to yourself because why?

If I say something, they might never talk to me again.

They might just shove me away for the rest of my life.

It's a real fear.

I get it.

I get it.

I'm too scared to find out what the real problem is.

Maybe there's something you don't, you just don't want to know and be ignorant of.

Maybe the truth could hurt you too.

And it could be becausepa You just started his kingship.

That it all of a sudden, he admitted that he was wrong in that moment.

Maybe he would be embarrassed.

I don't know.

I don't think that would be part of his character, but it's, it's potentially, it's, it's potential.

So careful on who you lend your ear and dedicate your time to.

The takeaway of Jehoshaphat is is staying quiet when truth demands action erodes relationships by fostering complicity.

And weakening integrity.

All right, 400 profits.

Third one.

The yes men.

All right.

I think it's easy to see the damage a group of people who do nothing but just say yes all the time, just, yeah, yeah, sure, sure.

Uh that's great, um, lovely.

Go on, uh, you'll, you'll be great.

You'll, you'll be fine, you'll be fine.

We can easily find ourselves in this group.

I, uh, I say that because a group that would rather avoid conflict, you ever How should I word this?

Have you ever been in a relationship where It's constant fighting.

And if you haven't, maybe, I hope not.

And if it ever does happen, I hope there's counsel.

People who can counsel you to go through it.

If you've ever been in a relationship where there's constant fighting and all that ever comes out of it is just negative.

Nothing good comes out of it.

No resolution.

It's just constant same answers, same results.

Everyone shuts the door and be quiet.

Because one side thinks they're always right, and the other side thinks they're always right.

And so one just caves in.

Sure, yeah.

I'd rather not deal with this person, uh, eventually.

Karma, where the world wants to call it, will take place.

They'll they'll get what's do them or maybe, maybe they'll change on their own.

Uh, I, I just don't want to deal with this.

It's, it's the attitude that I've stopped carrying.

I don't care anymore.

Just, just do it, OK?

Just go along with your plan.

You, you've already made up your mind.

Go along.

All right, next.

You see it?

I've had that atitu plenty of times before.

Now, The takeaway with this one.

Is being a yes man degrades relationships by replacing genuine communication with flattery, leading others astray.

Now this one is a little different uh group.

And you probably must have guessed it, it's Makaya.

He did nothing wrong.

I, I don't think he did anything wrong.

He said exactly what the Lord said to him.

That doesn't, and the example I want to use about him is more for mentors, people who talk to other people.

So, Before I go on, I don't know if you've heard this story, but I think it's pretty comical.

Uh, there's a man who went to an ophthalmologist and, uh, his eyes are getting a little fuzzy.

And He goes to the ophthalmologist says, hey, I just need my eyes checked.

I might need some glasses.

OK, sure, let's check and you know what, before we even do, uh, my glasses actually have always helped me out for 10 years and actually I have another pair back at home.

Uh, you can actually have these.

They'll they'll be, they'll work wonderfully.

I mean, they've always worked out for me, so have at it, buddy.

OK, well, that's great for you.

All right.

Oh man.

Oh, that's, that is awful.

Where are you prescribing me?

What, how bad are your eyes?

Oh, hey, you know, I put a little positivity into it.

It'll, it'll work out.

It'll work out.

No, no, I'm, I'm positive that I don't see anything.

Hey, how ungrateful that all the help that I try to give you, you give me that attitude.

The point in saying that strange story.

Is that oftentimes, God uses prophets first, I want to explain this.

God uses prophets to teach something very specific.

They are not oftentimes examples for us to use on other people all the time.

An example Huh.

Giving, God committed him to marry a prostitute.

Who in the right mind would just say, OK, that's a great idea.

God was teaching something, constantly forgiving her for her betrayal over and over.

I've known a woman who has gone through that, and the congregation tells her, you just need to have more faith, forgive.

Just forgive him.

If you're a godly person, you would do that like Isaiah.

And the reason I bring up Makah too because I've heard this strange argument.

I don't know if you have, but it's, you gotta talk as bluntly as Makah in order to be one of the faithful people, and I say that's not true, not all the time.

There is a time and place.

When you need to talk to someone like that friend did to Ben Franklin, there's a time and place to talk to someone harshly.

There's a time and place to talk to someone softly.

And to use Makaya as a misrepresented example, misused example.

Be careful how and who you take what is right out of the Bible and how you actually apply it to other people.

Imagine someone is struggling and thinking about actually doing something horrible, and you talk to them like Maia did to Ahab.

Now there's a purpose why Maia did that to Ahab.

God had specific words for him, and Makah in his right mind would do exactly what God would say.

But for us, God's not telling us how to talk to people, uh, in terms of direct messaging.

There's no Hey, Alex, uh, make sure you tell John that.

He got this point wrong and stayed in front of everyone uh this way, and no.

No. God is teaching us a specific lesson about the sinful stubbornness of not listening to the truth.

I think that is the point about Mackay's interaction with Ahab.

And mentors Do you take time to step back, put down your autobiography.

And listen To the person that really needs you to listen to.

Are you someone that's saying, oh, someone comes up to you for help and you're like, all right, the first thing that comes out of their mouth.

Oh, I know how to fix that.

So in my life, you know, I had it much harder than you.

Uh, we actually had to go through all this manually.

You have all this fancy computer stuff and on and on and on.

You, you completely missed the point.

You missed the diagnosis.

You miss the hurt they're trying to communicate to you.

I think the most important point, uh, I want to at least give to you is this, uh, it's something not that I thought of my own, but it's something I, someone I wrote um I think is well respected.

And a lot of the business community, a lot of uh the Christian community, even, uh, people who just want to excel in general, and I believe a lot of you would know him as Stephen R. Covey.

Uh, he made this great example, uh.

Or illustration, and then The phrase of seek to understand first, then seek to be understood.

The reason why I brought up all those characters is that it's so easy.

So easy to apply the negatives because we see it so easily on other people, but when it comes to our own life, we struggle to apply it.

We can mock it, we can scoff at it and that guy John doesn't know what he's talking about. Sure.

Uh But when someone is actually struggling, struggling and needs your help, what do you do?

How do you address them?

Do you address them like Maks straightforward?

Maybe that's OK, depending on who it is.

And so this idea is seek to understand first.

What do you do?

How do you do that?

Uh, There's a couple of thoughts that I had, I have from In practice, uh, from those that I've learned from books, teachers that have helped me along the way.

And I wish to share them before you.

When someone is presenting you something that could be shocking.

It, it really, uh, hey, I'm, I'm, I think I'm gay.

OK. Hey, I am having suicidal thoughts.

Oh, OK. Hey, I'm thinking about killing someone.

Oh, OK. Some extreme or it could be something, you know, whatever range they might find you or catch you off guard in, what do you do?

How do you, what is your initial reaction?

Pause. Reflect before responding.

It's OK to sit in silence.

Before answering, be patient with yourself.

And with the person that's talking with you.

Repeat back.

To what the other person is saying.

This way they, they understand that you're actually listening.

Hey, This person is not just rattling off about their autobiography about how they were able to overcome this situation and how their life was so much worse and Don't do that.

Repeat back to what the other person is saying, so they know that you're listening.

Be humble and acknowledge when you don't know something.

And I also admit when you're wrong.

Intellectual honesty is so important.

Trying to pretend that you have all the answers is not a good way to gain somebody's trust.

And they're gonna find out that you were just playing along.

It can really help keep the relationship from tearing.

And don't rush immediately to fix things.

I, uh I really struggle with this, OK. I, I still do.

I think uh if you want to learn a little bit more about this dynamic, there's a humorous video on YouTube.

Way back and it's uh called, it's not about the nail.

You may have seen it already, um.

And it's this dynamic where you have to see this husband and a wife and they're talking to each other and all of a sudden, she's saying, I have this pain in my head and the guys looking at her just Ah, yeah.

And then it pans off, the camera pans off, and you see this nail in our head.

It's, it's so weird.

And you can't help but just focus on it the whole time.

Our eyes are just constantly focused on it and laughing.

If you watch TV you probably laugh and The guy says, uh, it's, you, you got an issue right here.

I can see it right now and it's like, hey, it's not about the don't talk about that.

I, I just wanna talk.

Listen to my problems.

Listen, OK?

I don't, I don't want to hear about all these solutions, uh, I'm just paraphrasing the word.

There's, there's some truth to that.

When people come up to you and ask for help.

How do you do it?

I think one of the best ways to do it is to listen.

Be open.

There are many times uh where I have failed.

To be a good influence on somebody because in my mind, my ego, I thought it was the very best thing to do was to give them my advice because I know how to solve this issue.

I have all the answers.

No Listen, Because of what they might tell you could be the diagnosis that you need to understand and find out, the hurt that they have.

Maybe the first thing that they're saying is not actually what's happening.

Maybe there is an issue that's deeper than that.

And you ask questions.

Uh, all questions like, how did you come up with that conclusion?

Open-ended questions to help them think through things, come up with their own solution.

As you guide them from the principles of God.

That is a heavy driver.

Uh, it's a difficult thing to do because our nature.

Feels like we have to fix things right away.

We want to see immediate results.

You know, Before I go on, I, I was reminded about this proverb, uh, Proverb 18:13.

If one gives an answer before he hears it is his folly and his shame.

I, uh, I thought about talking about this, but I think it might be worth it.

Uh. Paul and Onesimus in the book of Philemon.

You have a man who's running away from his master.

There is not explicit detail and uh I've learned a lot when Troy was teaching the class, uh, that one class a day and learned a lot about some context that could have happened.

Uh, there's potential that he maybe he stole money during this time and he's running away and trying to get as far away as possible.

And in that culture, when you do something like that, especially a servant, your life. Nothing.

You're dead.

You are dead when you're caught.

And so you have this man running away and Paul, he's in prison.

Writing to Philemon.

And he's saying This man is amazing.

And keep it short.

And this was not like that at first.

He says first he was useless, and now he is useful.

And Isimus Probably had a lot of things to fix.

A lot of fears.

He didn't know who to go to.

Imagine being a runaway slave and you're just going somewhere.

I don't know if how many connections to me I've had.

But all of a sudden he, I don't know how he got to Paul, but to meet this man who's in chains, who is more enslaved than this man's previous status was.

And to eventually come to the gospel, how do you think that happened?

I mean, if, if, uh, if the consciousness of someone, uh, maybe typical would probably say this, you're a runaways like you need to go back to your master right away.

Right away.

No, none of this stuff.

Get, get that money back, we're gonna go straight back right now.

Would that have fixed anything, would that have solved?

The real issue No, It wouldn't I think Paul had a lot of patience.

Listened to him.

He out his story.

What's wrong in this?

How'd you get here?

Tell me about your life.

And I think the intellectual honesty that over eventually.

The intertwined in itself, God working his Grace, mercy.

Eventually came to the gospel.

I think it's a beautiful story.

And we need to be careful that when someone is not ready to As hard as this may sound, if, if someone is not ready to do what it is right, don't force them.

Hey, forgive this person.

It may be good to forgive this person.

But it may not be the right solution at the right time.

Hey, uh, the pastor says, You know, drop your sacrifice and go make your, make it right with your brother right away if you don't, you're not right with the Lord.

What if he's not ready?

If you force that, What do you think that some of the consequences would be?

I don't know is the is the potential answer, but I do know.

That when you force things on people that is not of their own will, it's not genuine, and they're not gonna come to their own conclusion.

Imagine trying to do that with the gospel, under the head gospel tactic.

It's not gonna work.

It's not, it's not genuine.

They're not actually safe.

It's not in their heart.

So everyone needs a voice of reason to prevent the echo chambers of our own thoughts from potentially leading us down a terrible path, and it can be scary.

It can.

To open it up to someone and have them only to strike you down or to dismiss you.

And I bet most of you know someone, at least one person that you can talk to.

Someone that you trust and some more than others.

Again, stop that relationship that you have.

And most times what holds people back from talking to us or you or anybody.

Is there a perception of you?

Always trying to win the argument, always trying to manipulate me and force on what they think is right and they want to tell me how I should be and how they got it worse.

They're trying to fix my issue before they even listening to what actually hurts inside.

And if you don't have that somebody, I am so sorry.

I can only imagine what you must be going through to even feel like you can't trust anyone to that degree.

I hope that after what I talked about today.

This afternoon, we'll encourage you to start your journey towards healing.

And every journey begins with a simple single step.

We as a congregation don't have all the answers, but we will do our very best.

Our very best To lend you an ear, I just want you to remember.

That we are people too Please have grace on us as well.

We make mistakes.

After Benjamin was bluntly uh rebuked by his friend.

He decided to ditch the debate trophy idea and Start listening to, he actually started to listen, and he started to talk without trampling egos and guess what?

He became the Benjamin Franklin that we know that inspired people to write the Declaration of Independence.

What courage it took to do that back in that time, not an easy thing to do.

If you're here tonight, Or this afternoon.

And you're struggling with your own thoughts.

You don't know where to go.

You don't know what to do.

You don't know who to talk to.

It may not be me.

It may not be someone in here.

But we can help guide in the best way we can.

The best way Christ.

Our Lord has taught us so much.

I'm reminded every day of how great the people is here and how they've treated us so well the and I. Um How you've taking care of us and In so many ways in our needs, especially with the upcoming baby.

Um, those are just physical things I know.

How much more would you care for someone's soul?

This is a great group of people from my experience.

And I hope that when you, if you come up here tonight as we sing a song in a moment.

That you remember that we're a people willing to listen, at least I hope.

Listen to your struggles.

Listen to what hurts you.

So that God can heal you To be baptized in his name.

Do you believe in him?

Do you believe in the only Son of God?

He died for you.

He lay on a cross So that you Each and every one of us could be together.

For all eternity In peace Without pain When you were baptized, And you live faithfully.

God will sign your name in the book of life.

I hope that when you come forward, That you give All of, all of it to him, your heart, your soul, your mind and strength, everything.

He will take you and he will bless you.

And he will forgive you.

Please come forward as we stand and sing.