Beware Those Like Balaam

All right, let's pray.

Lord Jesus, again, as we open your word, we ask that you would send your spirit to open our hearts and minds so that we

may rightly understand it.

Give us the light of your word that is a lamp to our feet so that we may know what it is that we are to believe,

to confess, and to do.

We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.

We have been working our way through Exodus, and like I've noted, we've been really pausing here and

working our way through the Ten Commandments.

We've taken a look at the sin of idolatry.

We are continuing with a careful look at what it means to take God's name in vain,

which is the second commandment that you should not be doing this.

And today, we're gonna do an in -depth study, one class, it might end up being

two, taking a look at the Epistle of Jude, at the Epistle of Jude, as it

relates to contending for the faith.

And in the Epistle of Jude, we're gonna note that there are three major prototypes given

for false teachers.

And so a good way to think of that is that every false teacher, in one way or another, has

one or all of the different ingredients of the prototype of false teacher.

And in looking at what Scripture teaches us in this regard, we will know how to protect ourselves,

we will know how to contend for the faith, and we will be able to rightly identify a false teacher and of what

type of stripe that they are.

So we're in Jude, and if you ask me which chapter, I will laugh at you, because there's like only one chapter

in Jude.

Here's what it says,.

Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and the brother of James.

Important to note this, Jude is the half -brother of Jesus, but he says he's the brother

of James, doesn't even note the fact that he's the brother of Jesus.

That should tell you something right there.

We know from the Synoptic Gospels, and when I say Synoptic Gospels, do you know what I'm talking about when I say

that?

There's four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.

The three beginning ones, they're called the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

And there's a reason why, is they all kind of be synchronized to each other.

They pretty much seem to be telling the same stories, the same miracles.

And then if you read the Gospel of John, it's very different than the other Gospels.

And John himself set out, he wrote his Gospel a lot later, and he set out specifically to give us some of the

information and more about Jesus that were not in the Synoptic Gospels.

And so we pick up more of Jesus's, some of the stories that didn't quite make it into the other three.

But when you look at Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they seem to be saying the same type of miracles,.

Same teaching.

There's kind of a rhythm to them that is very similar, where John is a little bit of an outlier.

So in the Synoptic Gospels, we learn that Jude was not a believer in Jesus.

He thought Jesus was cuckoo.

And at one point, actually, with his other brothers and mother, came to collect

Jesus up and take him away and get him safely in a place because they thought he'd lost his mind.

But now, by the time we get to this epistle, he's a believer in Jesus Christ.

And you gotta think how difficult that must be.

You grow up with somebody.

Yeah, right, you're the Son of God.

Now, granted, you never get in trouble.

Mom never spanks you.

And you always say, yes, ma 'am, and yes, sir.

I can't stand that about you.

But so this is a stumbling block for him that his brother is the Son of God.

That's kind of, trust me when I tell you, my brother is 100 convinced I'm not the Son of

God.

And he's right.

So Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ, brother of James, to those who are called beloved in

God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ.

So this is the to portion.

Who is this epistle to?

Christians, yes.

The epistle of Jude is part of a body of work within the New Testament called the

Catholic epistles.

Catholic meaning universal.

And the reason why is because they're not addressed to a particular church.

They're addressed to Christians in general, to the church Catholic, the church universal.

In other words, this is specifically written to you.

You know, my wife always marvels that when she sees that little number at the bottom of my email screen, how many emails I haven't

read.

This one is, this is an email written to you from Jude.

Have you read it yet?

And he has it flagged as read or unread.

Keep that in mind.

So Jude writes, may mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.

Beloved, although I was eager to write to you about our common salvation, I

found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith

that was once for all delivered to the saints.

So what is Jude admonishing you to do?

To contend for the faith.

And you say, moi, do you not wear the armor of God?

So you, brothers and sisters, me included, we are all together as Christians

called by the Holy Spirit through this epistle, which is part of the word of God, to

contend for the faith.

And notice what it says.

Once for all delivered to the saints.

Does the faith change from generation to generation?

Nope, nope.

A good way to think of it is that the faith is like, well, one of those baton races in the

Olympics.

You know what I'm talking about?

It's where you have to pass the baton.

So it's a relay.

So first guy, he runs his course and he takes the baton.

He passes it to the next guy.

He grabs it and he does his race.

And you gotta faithfully pass the baton on.

But we live in a day when you pass the baton on,.

The guy goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's on this thing?

Somebody give me a hacksaw, would ya?

We got a cutoff portion of it, throw that away.

Maybe put my own stuff.

Oh, we gotta cross that out and do our own thing.

No, it's the faith once delivered to the saints.

You pass it off to the next generation, disciple them.

They then pass it off to the next generation.

No touchy on the content.

It's the same from generation to generation.

That's what we want.

So why did the definition or?

Why did the reason for the rainbow change?

That was not because of Christ.

The rainbow is the sign of the noetic covenant, which

basically says God sees the rainbow and he says, all right, I promised I wouldn't wipe everybody out

with a flood of the whole earth again.

So it's the sign of the noetic covenant.

Now people have changed it.

It's now the sign of pride, right?

Yeah, that should be changed to shame, not pride.

And so the rainbow does not belong to them, does not belong to them.

But that's a different subject altogether here.

So notice it's the faith once delivered to the saints.

So if the body of content of the faith, of the doctrines, of the teaching,

of what we believe, teach and confess, changes from generation to generation, are you

believing the faith once delivered to the saints?

No, and you'll note this about the Lutheran Reformation.

The Lutheran reformers were meticulously conservative.

The question always came down to, is what we believe, teach and confess

Catholic?

Small c, universal.

Can we find this doctrine in the writings of the church fathers?

Clearly explained in the scriptures.

And so we always, and again, are accused of being like flunked Roman Catholics, okay?

For the very reason that we didn't go overboard with other parts of the Reformation.

No, no, we said no.

Our doctrines, what scripture says and what the church has historically taught.

If it ain't that, it's not the faith once delivered to the saints.

Straight up.

So you get the idea.

So we're to contend for this faith.

To contend.

That sounds very non -Norwegian.

But that's what we're called to do.

And here's the reason why.

Four, certain people have crept in unnoticed who

long ago were designated for this condemnation.

They are ungodly people who pervert the grace of God into sensuality

and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ.

So we are to contend for the faith because according to the Holy Spirit through Jude,

people have crept into the church, into the visible church.

And they have perverted, literally changed the grace of God into sensuality.

A license to sin.

And they even deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ.

I think we all can point to examples of this.

I would say within the liberal mainline denominations, we see great examples of this.

For instance, have you ever heard the Easter sermon of a pastor who doesn't believe in miracles?

I want you to think about that.

So there's a pastor who believes that miracles are not possible.

That a miracle is the breaking of the laws of nature.

Therefore, miracles cannot happen.

And now he ascends to the pulpit.

It's Easter Sunday and what does he say?

Does he say he's risen?

He's risen indeed?

No, he doesn't believe that Jesus actually rose bodily from the grave.

He doesn't believe that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary.

That's crazy talk.

We live in the day where we have electric razors and electric razors prove that, you know, raising from the

dead and virgin births are just not possible.

So what does the person preach then on Easter Sunday?

We are very thankful that today that we are remembering the ways in which God has

given us hope that our dead dreams can rise again within our hearts and that we can have hope

again for a better universe and a better community.

Just empty platitudes, right?

You've heard that sermon, haven't you?

Or you take the preaching of the text of the Valley of the Dry Bones from Ezekiel, which is a

clear prophecy of the resurrection from the grave when Jesus returns.

We'll hear that next week, by the way.

And what do they say?

Well, you see, these dry bones, they represent your dry marriage.

And so God is going to bring moisture to your marriage.

Okay, really?

Wow.

When somebody preaches like that, they deny Christ.

They don't believe the faith.

They can't preach the text as it stands.

Now, within the liberal mainline denominations also, you have men and women

who are openly impenitent homosexuals.

What's going wrong there?

They've taken the grace of Christ and turned it into a full -blown license to sin.

You wanna do the same sex thing?

No problem, oh, God blesses that.

No, he doesn't.

And we're gonna hear that in this text.

No, he doesn't.

That's a perversion of the grace of Christ.

Has Christ set you free from slavery so that you can be a slave?

No, he has not.

So let's continue.

So we have to contend for the faith because these people, according to Jude, they're in among

us and they seek the pulpit.

They seek the place of teaching so that they can teach others these perverted and

perverse things.

They are not teaching the faith once delivered to the saints.

They are teaching stuff that is twisted, and that's what Jude says.

So we, all of us, are to contend for the faith.

So Jude then writes, I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus,

who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not

believe.

Who led the people of Israel out of Egypt, according to this verse?

Jesus.

Now, if you have an older translation, it'll say God or Lord,

but the new, since the NIV has been published, we

have found older manuscripts of the Catholic epistles, and in the oldest manuscripts, it

doesn't say God or Lord.

It says Jesus.

Who's the one who led the children of Israel out of Egypt?

It was Christ.

Let me give you a good cross -reference on this, too.

Our good cross -reference is going to be found in Hebrews 11, talking about Moses, down in

verse 24.

By faith Moses, when he was grown up, Moses refused to be

called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting

pleasures of sin.

He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking

to the reward.

Moses was a believer in Christ.

Huh.

Important stuff there.

But -.

God was able to tell him about it?

Oh yeah, they knew about it prophetically.

And so we now know from the New Testament that Christ is the one who led the people of Israel out of

Egypt.

Moses believed in Christ.

Hmm.

Now, notice what it says then.

So I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterwards destroyed those who did not

believe.

This is a warning to us.

And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he's kept in eternal chains in

utter gloomy darkness until the coming of the great day.

Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise

indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an

example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

If you've ever heard a mainline liberal pastor, pastrix, priest, priestess,

talk about the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, there was a recent TED talk done by a couple of these people.

And what do they claim was the great sin of Sodom and Gomorrah?

Lack of hospitality.

I'm pretty sure that homosexual gang rape would be inhospitable.

That would show lack of hospitality to your guests.

I'm pretty sure that's the case.

But notice what Jude, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, says.

That Sodom and Gomorrah, that they indulged in sexual immorality, and that's of

every stripe, as well as, and you can think of it, and they also pursued

unnatural desire.

What is that referring to?

Same -sex attraction, same -sex intercourse.

They serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

So according to Jude, we know for a fact that a

big part of the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was their sexual immorality, which also

included homosexuality.

This is what Scripture says.

And God does not bless this.

They serve as an example of punishment of fire,

pointing to the fires of hell itself.

And so now Jude then continues.

Yet in like manner, these people, who are these people?

These are the people who've crept in among us that are in the church right now.

We are to contend for the faith because they are now in among us.

Yet in like manner, these people also, and watch the list, relying on

their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority,

blaspheme the glorious ones.

Now we're starting to get some characteristics of these false teachers.

Relying on their dreams.

This is talking about where are they getting their doctrines and their teachings from?

Are they getting them from the written Word of God alone?

No.

They are relying on their dreams and visions.

They're claiming, oh, the Lord spoke to me last night when I had a dream.

I had a dream of the world's largest Big Mac and it had pickles on it.

And I don't really like pickles.

I'm not sure what the Lord was trying to tell me because this Big Mac had a pickle on it.

This is literally how they talk.

I wish I was making this up.

Relying on their dreams, claiming to receive direct revelation from God.

Let me give you two examples that we would all recognize as people who are like this.

Muhammad of Islam.

Where did the Quran come from?

Huh?

Huh?

Yeah, his own.

He claimed that it was revealed to him by the angel Gabriel.

How about Joseph Smith of Mormonism?

Claimed to be a prophet of God.

So the idea here is that they'll sit there and say, well, we believe that the Bible's the Word of God.

But.

But.

And then they add to it.

We also believe that God is speaking through modern day prophets and apostles.

That God is speaking through my dreams about food and other things.

That God is speaking through angelic encounters and stuff like that.

And Jude is warning us, these false teachers, they rely on their dreams, not

the Word of God.

And as somebody who keeps a very close eye on what's going on in the visible church and reviews a lot of the

sermons being put out there in the name of Jesus, oh, this is exactly what's happening today.

Exactly.

And what do Christians do when they hear a pastor ascend to the pulpit?

We're on stage now.

And he says, the Lord is saying to me this, and he's laid this on my heart, and he wants me to tell you this,

and all this kind of stuff.

What do Christians do?

Okay, let me take notes.

As soon as a pastor opens up a different body of work than the Bible to

tell you that God is speaking to you, turn him off.

He's one of the people that Jude is warning about.

Yes?

These are the same people that are teaching their kids that

if you have a

complaint.

Yeah, this is nonsense.

This is nonsense.

It's the faith once delivered to the saints.

Where's the only place I can go to find the faith once delivered to the saints?

Scripture, period.

Now, let me talk about Mormonism, because it's kind of in the same vein here.

Mormonism, what's their primary book, aside from the Bible?

They claim they believe the Bible.

It's the Book of Mormon, right?

Have you ever read this thing?

Oh, is it horribly dry and boring?

Oh, man.

Anyway, and it claims to be a history.

It claims to be a historical narrative of Jews who built a boat and then

sailed across the Mediterranean in the Atlantic and landed somewhere in South America.

You know what's missing at the back of every Book of Mormon?

A map.

There's no map.

And so, and you sit there and go, where's this city?

We're not sure.

How about that one?

Well, we don't know where that one is either.

How, why am I to believe that this is true?

And here, you wanna know what the Mormon says when it comes to knowing that the Book of Mormon is true.

Here's what you've gotta do.

You've gotta pray to Heavenly Father to ask you to give a testimony within your heart, or your

bosom, that the Book of Mormon is true.

So lock yourself up in your bedroom and say, oh, Heavenly Father, please show me that the Book of Mormon is true.

And if you get a strange, warming feeling sensation inside of your bosom, it's called a burning in the bosom,

that's the proof that the Book of Mormon is true.

I wish I was making this up.

It's totally subjective.

And years and years and years ago, I learned Mormonism from the Mormons.

My first year at Christ College Irvine, which is now Concordia University, I was taking Greek,

and Christina had just been born, and our lives were crazy, and the Mormons come knock on our apartment door,

and like a moron, I'd let them in.

But they came in, and I thought, well, let's go for this.

It's like, all right, they gave me a Book of Mormon, said I needed to read it.

I said, well, it's gonna take me a few weeks, and I'm in school.

They said, no problem, we'll come back in like four or five weeks.

And they did.

So they came back, and I read it.

So, first question out of their mouth when we came back and they sat down.

So did you read the Book of Mormon?

Yes.

How did it make you feel?

My answer.

What's the weirdest thing?

Every time I opened the Book of Mormon, it was like the room got darker and colder, and I felt the presence of

sure evil.

And as soon as I would close it, it would go away, and the sunlight would come back up.

And no joke, the guy looked at me and says, you're not reading it right.

Right?

And he explained to me how it was supposed to give me a warm feeling inside of my heart, and I said, well, here's the thing.

Your subjective experience is different than my subjective experience, so we're not gonna be able to determine the

truth of this thing based upon our feelings.

So, that led us into a multi -month study looking at the objective evidence, and their bishop

yanked them out of that after a while.

Yeah, they literally took them out of Southern California and sent them to Arizona, you know?

Get them as far away from me as possible.

Never gave us their phone numbers, because as we moved along, these guys were starting to really get shaky and rattly

because the wheels were coming off objectively.

Yeah?

There's an article I read.

It's like, is the internet killing Mormonism?

These kids are going, checking out the evidence.

And finding, is the way it can be true?

Yeah, Mormonism is -.

Especially in Europe,.

They say wards are closing left and right.

Yeah, there's no basis to believe any of this stuff is historically accurate.

You know, as I was learning, the same people that are telling kids, well, if you're born a

certain way, then why would God make you that way, so follow that way?

Right, here's the problem.

How do we justify, oh, Christ.

And this is the same kind of logic that creeps into liberal churches.

Well, do you have feelings towards another fellow?

Well, you just, you know, you gotta go with that, because that's who you are.

Well, scripture says we're all born dead in trespasses and sins.

We're all sinners.

And that sin manifests itself in just all kinds of vomitous ways.

And so I can sit there and say, yeah, I'm a sinner, but when I'm thinking or feeling these things inside

of me, that's sinful.

And it should shock me that I would say that I am this way, rather

than saying I just need to embrace and be who I am, which, by the way, is like the theme of the Barbie movie, not the Bible.

Just follow your heart.

Okay, no, my heart's the problem.

Jesus says it's out of the heart comes these things.

So this nonsense, you just gotta be what you are, because what you truly are is what you feel, well,

no, that's like saying there's no such thing as a false or bad or sinful feeling.

Scripture says au contraire.

Notice when it was describing those in Sodom and Gomorrah, they were pursuing what?

Unnatural desires.

That's a feeling.

We all know what it's like to have a crush, right?

You know, you get that wibbly wobbly feeling inside you.

Every time she's in the room.

Oh, oh, oh.

But then the feelings go away sometimes and you wake up.

I mean, have any of you older people here thought, oh, I am so glad I didn't marry him

or marry her?

You know what I'm saying, okay?

But you had those wibbly wobbly feelings inside of you when you were like junior high or high school, and now you're

thinking, oh, man, I just saw a photograph of that guy, and oh, Lord, thank you for helping me dodge that bullet.

Am I being too real?

Yeah, okay.

So, coming back to this.

These false teachers among us, they rely on their dreams, they defile the flesh.

Here's the important one, they reject authority.

And we're gonna talk a little bit more about this in a minute.

And the primary authority, the one they really reject is the authority of God himself through his word.

If you ever are in the presence of a pastor who's saying, you know, listen, you know, there's lots of different

ways in which God speaks to us, and the Bible is just full of errors and contradictions, and why should we take this thing seriously?

Run, because nothing good is coming from this fellow's mouth because he rejects the authority of God in his word.

He's trying to find a way, when the person who is undermining the authority of Scripture, as soon as they get Scripture out of

the way, they're gonna replace Scripture with their own doctrines.

And believe me, they're not gonna be pretty.

So they reject authority, they blaspheme the glorious ones.

Now this is a fascinating one here.

Within the New Apostolic Reformation, which is really running rampant through evangelicalism now, it's all

about doing warfare with the demons, and tearing down, and decreeing,

and declaring, and binding, and attacking, and all this kind of nonsense.

You think of Kenneth Copeland, remember a couple years ago, the very first Paris attack recently within a few

years ago?

Well, the terrorist attack in Paris.

And Kenneth Copeland, no joke, the week after the Paris attack, he stood up on his

stage, and he bound the demon in the territory over Paris.

And I'm thinking, well that cow left the barn a while ago, why didn't you do it a week earlier?

You could've saved a few people, you know?

It's nonsense.

James still on this?

We're not sure, we're not sure.

So he isn't going to appear?

No, but he does become one right after the resurrection.

The resurrection kind of changes everything.

So they blaspheme the glorious ones, but watch what it says.

When Michael the archangel contending with the devil was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to

pronounce a blasphemous judgment.

But he said, the Lord rebuke you.

But these people, they blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed

by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.

Where are they getting their doctrines and their ideas from?

Their own instincts.

But they're unreasoning animals.

They are completely irrational.

And Scripture says, woe to them.

Pay attention when Scripture calls down woes.

Jesus called down woes on the Pharisees.

Woe, you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, you whitewashed tombs.

You're beautiful on the outside, but inside you are full of dead men's bones,.

Jesus said, right?

Woe, that's a calling down of judgment.

These people, and this is where we're gonna spend most of our time now.

Woe to them, for they walk in the way of Cain, abandon themselves for the sake of gain to

Balaam's heir, and they perished in Korah's rebellion.

Verse 11 here reveals to us that there are kind of like three primary

categories that false teachers fall into.

Cain, Balaam, or Korah.

Now, let's take a look at Cain real quick.

We know the story of Cain and Abel.

Cain is the one who killed his brother Abel.

And if you know the beginning of the story, let me get there, in Genesis 4,

here's what it says.

Adam knew Eve, his wife, Genesis 4 .1.

She conceived and bore Cain, saying, I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.

And again, she bore his brother Abel.

Abel was a keeper of sheep.

Cain was a worker of the ground.

In the course of time, Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the

firstborn of his flock of their fat portions.

Now, if you've ever heard bad teaching on this, the bad teaching would go, why did God not accept

Cain's offering?

Well, Cain offered a salad rather than a sheep.

That's not actually the problem.

When we look at the Mosaic Covenant, are there grain offerings?

Are there first fruit offerings?

So is giving an offering of a salad forbidden in Scripture?

Is it considered sinful?

No.

So the problem isn't the contents of the sacrifice.

What's the problem?

We need a good cross -reference to this, and our cross -reference is gonna be Hebrews 11.

It's such an important passage of Scripture.

Verse four, by faith, Abel offered to God a more

acceptable sacrifice than Cain.

How did he do it?

There's certain sacrifice, certain things.

Certain things you were supposed to sacrifice for certain reasons.

Yes, but that's later revealed in the Mosaic Covenant.

We don't have the Mosaic Covenant at this point.

Close.

Very close.

You're in the ballpark.

Faith.

By faith.

And you'll notice Hebrews 11 is the great hall of faith passage.

By faith, Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice.

That means he trusted God, and he believed in the promise of the seed of the woman who

would crush the head of the serpent.

But he didn't believe his brother was that person.

But he had faith.

So by faith, he offered a sacrifice, an acceptable sacrifice more than Cain, through which he was commended

as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts.

And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.

And you'll notice verse six.

And without faith, it is impossible to please God.

For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists, and he rewards those who seek him.

What did Cain lack?

Faith.

He had no faith.

And you can see this then in the Hebrew text when you go back to what it says in Genesis four.

So Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground.

Abel also brought of the first fruit of his flock, their fat portions, and the Lord had regard for Abel.

Notice the person.

The Lord had regard for Abel.

Abel has faith.

And then his offering.

But for Cain and his offering, he had no regard.

He had no regard for Cain nor his offering.

The most important person is Abel and Cain in this sense.

God has regard for the person.

So what does Cain lack?

Faith.

But was he not doing a religious thing?

Offering a sacrifice to God?

But his heart wasn't in it.

He had no faith.

This is going through the religious motions and expecting a blessing from God.

Well, God, you know, gotta tell ya.

I really am looking forward to next week because the baseball season begins and it's really going to put a,

it's really gonna be a sacrifice for me to come to church and preach and go to Sunday school every Sunday.

And so baseball's really important.

But I'm just gonna show up anyway because I know that by showing up that I'm gonna be blessed by you.

But believe me, the whole time I'm gonna be thinking about the sports scores, checking Twitter and my Facebook

and stuff like that.

It's a mechanical Christianity.

And this can happen in any denomination or any church.

Within Roman Catholicism, when it comes to the efficacy of the mass, I have to kinda say it that way,

it works ex opera operato, which means by the working of the work.

You don't even have to believe.

You don't even have to have faith.

If you go and you have the Lord's Supper, the Eucharist, it works ex opera

operato by the working of the work.

The grace is given to you.

You got it.

It's in the bag.

All you gotta do is just go through the motions.

Uh -huh. Yeah.

This is scary stuff.

This literally turns church into like magic.

It turns it into magic.

Now it's a little harder to see when the outward shell still maintains

what used to be there, that the substance with the form.

But when the form exists without the substance, it becomes a little bit trickier to spot.

But I'll give you another example.

Those who believe in real magic, things like that, voodoo.

So you got the hots for such and such a person over there.

So you go to the voodoo witch priestess, and she'll give you a love potion or something like that, and

a tarot card.

She'll give you a spell to work or give this offering to this little deity

like cigarettes and alcohol.

You give him a little bit of this and that.

But then what happens when you go to South America, have you ever seen the weird mixing of voodoo and the

magical worldview with Roman Catholicism?

Oh, it is crazy.

Okay, so you have the little statues of the different saints and Mary and all this kind of stuff mixed with

this magical worldview.

And there's no faith here.

It's all by casting the spell, saying the charm, making the sacrifice, paying the money,

the working of the work.

You don't have to believe anything.

It's just walk through it.

On Friday on my program, Lance Wallnau of the New Apostolic Reformation, this guy's a

major fellow within the charismatic circles.

He was doing a periscope session.

I don't know if you know what periscope is.

It's like if I had periscope on my phone, I could talk to my peeps, and people can watch, you

know, I would broadcast myself to my audience, to whatever, and I can talk to them or whatever.

So he was doing a periscope session, and he says, let's do prayer requests.

Does anyone have any prayer requests?

And so the prayer requests were coming up through his feed, and he saw a lady there.

She says, please pray for my son.

He needs deliverance from homosexuality.

Rather than pray for this woman, here's what Lance Wallnau said.

Well, let me tell you the testimony.

I heard about these two ex -hookers who used to work in a bar, and they baked their boss, who was gay,

a cake, and it was an anointed cake, and as soon as he ate the cake, he was delivered and set free from homosexuality.

Like, what?

So if you have a child who's struggling with same -sex attraction, just go find those two ex -hookers, and

they'll bake you an anointed cake, and they'll cure that kid right up.

Do they have to be ex -hookers?

Apparently, I don't know, you know?

I just don't know.

This is magic.

This requires no real faith.

This is something totally different.

And so Christianity, when it loses the substance and what remains is the shell, then

all I gotta do is do the thing that God demands for me to do, and I can have my arms crossed and look at

my watch and can't wait to get out of there, and then God will bless me because I did what I was supposed to do.

Yeah, scary.

So this is one major prototype, then, of false teacher.

Next prototype.

They've abandoned themselves.

What a great way of describing it.

For the sake of gain, that would be money, to Balaam's error.

Abandoned themselves.

Wow.

Have you ever watched TBN during their praise -a -thon?

Oh my word.

It is just crazy.

So you get the guy up on stage, and he's got the cloth, and he's dabbing his forehead.

Oh, the Lord is telling me that he's gonna release triple blessings to you right now.

You're gonna have a triple breakthrough anointing if you just send in your anointed seed offering of more than $1 ,000.

Oh, Yoshaba, you know, whatever.

And this is kind of the way they do things.

And you watch this fellow on the television, and you go, you have totally abandoned yourself.

You have no shame.

This is spiritual prostitution, is what this is.

It's all subject, I love it.

Backing up a few verses, you read

about what the devil...

Uh -huh, yeah.

And so you'll notice when you read the scriptures,.

Read the New Testament.

Read the New Testament, okay?

The demonic's real.

Absolutely real, all right?

There are demons.

And when you watch the encounters between the demonic and Christians, it's almost like a non -event.

You think of Paul in Philippi.

There's this gal who has the spirit of Huthona, which just means she had something to do with the oracle at

Delphi.

And she's out there, she's just obnoxious.

This is a fortune -telling girl who's demon -possessed, and she's making lots of money for her owners because she's a

slave.

And she's following after Paul.

These men are telling you to follow after the one true God!

And it's like, when the devil's preaching like this, there's always a hook.

And this goes on for several days, and Paul says, enough!

And he just casts the demon out of her.

And he ends up in prison for this.

And it's like a non -event.

So we do come up against the demonic, absolutely.

But if you know your Bible, then you know this, that the strongest of demons, the ones that

not even the apostles can cast out while Jesus was on earth, Jesus says, you know how you deal with them?

Prayer and fasting.

It's like a non -event.

So yeah, we're battling against these things.

Our battle isn't against flesh and blood.

But I don't know their names.

I don't need to know their names.

When the devil is working against us, what do we do?

We get on our knees.

We pray and we fast.

That's what we do.

We preach the truth.

So the idea here, the person who's out there, okay, I've done a genealogical survey of the demonic

entities in this region.

And because the Sioux nation was here in this part of the world, and they worship this God and this God,

therefore I need to bind and lose and totally decree and declare against these particular

demons because the Sioux worship them here.

This is nonsense.

This is absolute gobbledygook.

Preach the word, proclaim Christ.

All right, coming back.

So these folks, they've also abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error.

Now, we've all heard the person say,.

Well, if God could use a donkey, he could use me.

You know the story, right?

That's where we get the idea of Balaam from.

This is Balaam's donkey that did the talking.

So let's take a look at Balaam.

And actually, I'm gonna do a quick word search on this because there's several passages I want to look at when it comes

to Balaam's error.

We're gonna start in Numbers 22.

We're gonna pay close attention to Balaam, what he is.

The people of Israel set out, camped in the plains of Moab, beyond

the Jordan at Jericho.

Balak, the son of Zippor, saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites.

And Moab was in great dread of the people because they were many.

Moab was overcome with fear of the people of Israel.

Moab said to the elders of Midian, this horde will now lick up all that is

around us as the ox licks up the grass of the field.

So Balak, the son of Zippor, who was king of Moab at the time, sent messengers

to Balaam.

It's probably better pronounced.

Yeah, we'll call it Balaam.

The son of Beor at Pethor, which is near the river in the land of the people of Amor, to

call him saying, behold, the people has come out of Egypt.

They cover the face of the earth.

And they are dwelling opposite of me.

Come now, curse this people for me since they are too mighty for me.

Perhaps I shall be able to defeat them and drive them from the land.

For I know that he whom you bless is blessed and he whom you curse

is cursed.

So the elders of Moab and the elders of Midian departed with the fees for divination in

their hand.

How much do you think I charge for fees for divination?

It's not a product that I sell.

Balaam does.

Think of it this way.

This is a guy who is a prophet for profit.

He's in it for the money.

And so the idea is this is a guy who claims that if you need somebody cursed, oh, you come to me.

I've got the mojo and the magic and I've got the hookups with all the different deities around here.

I can call them up and talk with them.

We can curse whoever you need to have cursed.

If you need a blessing, oh, we can get that for you too.

But here's my fees for divination so that we can do this.

We gotta talk to these different deities.

So you need to talk to Baal, I can talk to Baal for you.

Need to talk to a Asherah or Molech, no problem.

I've got them on speed dial on my smartphone.

This is what the guy's claiming.

So there's a fee for divination.

Now, in this particular case, which is the deity, which deity is the one he needs to phone?

Yahweh.

And here's the thing.

Guys like Balaam are great actors.

Hang on a second, let me call up Baal.

Hey, Baal, this is Balaam.

Yeah, yeah, things are going great.

How are things going with you?

Oh, good, good, good.

Yeah, yeah, that person we need cursed over there, you remember that guy?

Yeah, uh -huh, I got the fees for divination over here.

Could you curse that person for me?

No problemo.

And the whole time, the phone's going.

So Balaam knows he's gotta connect with Yahweh.

But here's the weird thing.

Yahweh picks up.

There's someone on the other line here, okay?

And watch how the story goes.

So the elders of Moab, they brought the fees for divination.

They came to Balaam and gave him Balak's message.

He said to them, lodge here tonight and I'll bring back word to you as Yahweh speaks to me.

And that's Yahweh, that's the name of God right there.

So he's expecting to have a conversation with Yahweh.

So the princes of Moab stay with Balaam.

And God came to Balaam.

So there he is.

Beep, beep, beep, beep.

Brr, brr, brr, brr.

Yeah, this is Yahweh.

What?

Yahweh says, who are these men with you?

Balaam said to God, Balak, the son of Zipporah, king of Moab, has sent me

saying, behold, a people has come out of the land of Egypt.

It covers the face of the earth.

Now come and curse them for me.

Perhaps I shall be able to fight against them and drive them out.

He wasn't expecting to have this conversation.

He's having to explain himself here.

And so God said to Balaam, you shall not go with them.

You shall not curse the people for they are blessed.

Click.

Brr.

What just happened?

This is not gonna be good for business.

Just saying.

So you can't curse them because they're blessed.

So Balaam rose in the morning and said to the princes of Balak, go to your land.

Yahweh has refused to let me go with you.

So the princes of Moab rose and went to Balak and said, Balaam refuses to come with us.

He's turning down the fees of divination here, man.

You know, I'm sure it was, and you know what Balak thinks that this is?

He thinks this is a negotiation tactic.

So, all right.

So the reason why Balaam didn't take our money and help us out is because I sent our third level

princes and we need to send some people who are more honorable and maybe we need to sweeten the kitty a little bit, bring a

little bit more money.

They think this is a negotiation tactic on the part of Balaam.

It's not.

He didn't expect to actually have a conversation with Yahweh.

So once again, Balak sent princes more in number and more honorable than these.

And they came to Balaam and said to him, thus says Balak, the son of Zipporah, let nothing hinder you from coming

to me for I will surely do you great honor and whatever you say to me, I will do.

Come curse this people.

But Balaam answered and said to the servants of Balak, though Balak were to give me his house full of silver and gold,

I could not go beyond the command of Yahweh my God and do less or more.

So you too, please stay here tonight that I may know what more Yahweh will say to me.

And so he phones Yahweh again.

Yahweh picks up.

God came to Balaam at night and said to him, if the men have come to call you,

rise, go with them.

But only do what I tell you.

So Balaam rose in the morning and saddled his donkey and went with the princes of Moab.

Now comes something very fascinating.

But God's anger was kindled because he went.

And the angel of the Lord, this is Jesus.

And wait till you see the cross reference of this.

The angel of the Lord took his stand in the way as his adversary.

Now he was riding on the donkey and his two servants were with him.

And the donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand.

And the donkey turned aside out of the road and went into the field.

Balaam struck the donkey to turn her into the road.

Then the angel of the Lord stood a narrow path between the vineyards with a wall on either side.

And when the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, she pushed against the wall and pressed Balaam's foot against the wall.

So he struck her again.

Then the angel of the Lord went ahead and stood in a narrow place where there was no way to turn either to the right or

to the left.

And when the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, she laid down under Balaam and Balaam's anger

was kindled.

Sounds like a fellow who has anger management problems.

Hmm?

And he struck the donkey with his staff.

Then Yahweh opened the mouth of the donkey and she said to Balaam, what have I done to you

that you've struck me these three times?

And Balaam said, wait a second, donkeys can't talk.

That's not what he said.

Balaam said to the donkey, because you've made a fool out of me.

I wish I had a sword in my hand for then I would kill you.

And the donkey said to Balaam, am I not your donkey on which you have ridden all your life long to this day?

Is it my habit of treating you this way?

And he said, no.

Great conversation.

So then Yahweh opened the eyes of Balaam and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way with his drawn sword in

his hand and he bowed down and fell on his face.

And the angel of the Lord said to him, why have you struck your donkey these three times?

Behold, I've come out to oppose you because your way is perverse before me.

Notice in this story, we see God's view of those

who are like Balaam.

God opposes them and their ways are perverse before the Lord.

Your way is perverse before me.

The donkey saw me and turned aside before me these three times.

If she had not turned aside for me, surely now I would have killed you and let her live.

Then Balaam said to the angel of the Lord, I have sinned for I did not know that you stood in the road against me.

Now therefore, if it is evil in your sight, I will turn back.

And the angel of the Lord said to Balaam, go with the men, but speak only the word that I tell you.

So Balaam went on with the princes of Balak.

Fascinating stuff.

We're only like halfway through kind of unpacking what these false teachers

are like, but already you get the idea.

The prophet for profit.

The guy who's abandoned himself for the sake of gain and will engage in all kinds of religious and

spiritual chicanery in order to make a buck.

Do we have those in the visible church?

Yeah, we do.

There's more we're gonna talk about Balaam because there's a second part to this.

And our cross reference is going to be in the book of Revelation regarding the church at Pergamon.

But we'll get to that next week.

We'll end here.

We'll pick up the rest of it there next week.

Same bat time, same bat channel.