WWUTT 2396 Whatever is Said in the Dark (Luke 12:1-3)

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Jesus told his disciples to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, beware of hypocrisy, and be mindful of the fact that every word you speak you're going to have to give an account for when we understand the text.

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You are listening to When We Understand the Text, an online Bible ministry so that we may know all the riches freely given to us by God.

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For questions and comments send us an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com

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Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. In our study of the Gospel of Luke, this week we are up to chapter 12.

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Jesus is going to be teaching his disciples and the crowds, so let's begin here by reading verses 1 through 13.

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Hear the word of the Lord. In the meantime, when so many thousands of the people had gathered together that they were trampling one another, he began to say to his disciples first,

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Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known.

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Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.

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I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do.

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But I will warn you whom to fear. Fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell.

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Yes, I tell you, fear him. Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies, and not one of them is forgotten before God?

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Why, even the hairs of your head are numbered. Fear not. You are of more value than many sparrows.

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And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of God will also acknowledge before the angels of God.

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But the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God. And everyone who speaks a word against the

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Son of Man will be forgiven. But the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.

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And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say.

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For the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.

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So what we have here in these 13 verses, we've got three lessons, essentially, that Jesus to his disciples.

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Many thousands of people have gathered. As said there in verse one, they are even trampling over one another.

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But it says that he began to say to his disciples first. And among these three lessons we have, beware the leaven of the

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Pharisees. That's in verses one through three, Jesus telling them to have no fear. That's in verses four through seven, and then acknowledging

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Christ before men, verses eight through 12. And in that lesson also, the

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Holy Spirit giving them the courage to speak in that situation and even giving them the words that they will say.

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So over these couple of days here between today and tomorrow, we'll be looking at these 13 verses and three lessons that Jesus gives to the disciples.

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Now some of the things that we see here we've read before. You might have recognized some of this from the Gospel of Matthew.

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In fact, even from the Sermon on the Mount, the statement about how your hairs on your head are numbered and God cares for the sparrows, so he cares for you.

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That's right out of Matthew chapter six. Reminds me of the comment from Charles Spurgeon who said, fear

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God and no one else. But Jesus doesn't just leave it at be afraid of God, but rather that God deeply cares for us.

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We shouldn't fear those who want to harm us. And you see that connection in all three of these lessons, a reference to beware the leaven of the

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Pharisees. Again, that's in verses one through three under the lesson of have no fear.

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Don't fear what man can do to you. Fear God and then fear nothing else. And then acknowledging

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Christ before men. Again, in verses eight through 12, the warning is given there that the

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Pharisees are going to harm you, but you have nothing to fear of them. Acknowledge Christ before men and he will acknowledge you before his father in heaven.

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We have an eternal perspective that's being presented for us here also in these 13 verses.

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So back to this first lesson in verses one through three, Jesus directly says to them in verse one, beware of the leaven of the

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Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Now, leaven can have various applications in the scriptures, and you have to check the context to see what's being talked about there.

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Here specifically, it's said of the Pharisees to beware of their leaven, which

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Jesus says is hypocrisy. Really, it's false teaching. That's how we would understand that the

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Pharisees will say one thing and they will do something else. So beware of the things that they teach you.

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And then their actions do not correspond with their deeds. For if you are going to teach and then not follow with what you teach, if you talk the talk but you don't walk the walk, then you're guilty of hypocrisy and the same sin of the

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Pharisees. So beware of their deceptiveness.

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They show you one thing, they may show you one face or tell you something else, but then they behave in a completely different way.

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At the time that this is going to air, that this particular lesson will be posted to the podcast, it's been a week since Pope Francis has died.

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So of course, the most recent pope in Roman Catholicism passed away at what was he, 88 years old.

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And since dying, of course, there's been people that have just been glowing about Pope Francis.

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You're talking about a man who is an antichrist, who stood in the position of Christ, proclaiming himself to be the vicar of Christ.

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That's by the very nature of the position of the pope. He spoke all kinds of heresies, even things that are contrary to Roman Catholic teaching.

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He was an extremely divisive character on just about every front. But since dying, people have been talking about just how genuine he was in the way that he cared for people, loved the poor, took a vow of poverty.

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So there's a certain wage that the pope is able to receive as he serves as the pope.

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And Francis denied it. He would not accept the wage that was promised to the pope.

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Instead, he lived in a very small room. He took a vow of poverty, didn't make any money at all. And so I've seen pictures in the news of them taking pictures of Francis's room and say, see how humble this man was.

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He didn't take any money. He just lived in a small space like this. And I'm just looking at this. I'm going, are you kidding me?

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He lived at the Vatican. Have you ever seen the Vatican? This thing is worth billions of dollars.

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I saw the figure one time too, like in today's currency, what the Vatican would be worth. It's like living in a massive mansion and it's not like the pope is confined to one small very poor area and he can't go anywhere else.

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It's like living in a palace, living in a castle. So give me a break. How humble this guy was and he didn't take any money and he just lived in this small little place.

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He lived at the Vatican. Everybody did everything for him. He had servants and slaves constantly. Yeah, I've read the stories about how he had, uh, he carried his own luggage and things like that.

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Big whoop. I carry my own luggage. I at least have wheels on my luggage.

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So that's, that's nothing spectacular. The man lived like a king and people just fawning all over him wherever it was that he went.

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This is hypocrisy. Like presenting this man as a genuine figure of Christ like love, but he's anti -Christ.

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He is against Christ. He is, is claiming to stand in the place of Christ.

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Would say things like, who am I to judge? And would say that any one of all faiths are going to heaven as if all roads lead to God.

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The man was leading people to hell. There was nothing about him to celebrate at the end of his life.

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And even the, the presentation that he gave as a man who cared for others and cared for the poor, it was all an act.

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It wasn't real. It was not genuine. This was truly hypocrisy. And so Jesus warning the disciples to beware of this, and not just that they would be fooled by the

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Pharisees. It was, it was more than a warning against, against being deceived by them, but also that they would not be like them.

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Jesus telling his disciples, don't be as the Pharisees, beware their leaven.

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And again, you know, I guess I have to explain leaven here just to not take anything for granted.

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But what are we talking about with regards to leaven? Oftentimes, whenever we read of leaven in the older New Testament, we might picture in our mind, yeast, right?

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Whenever you're making bread, you put yeast in the dough so that when you bake it, it will rise.

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But in this case, it's not yeast, it's not something that is added to the dough.

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It's kind of like a sourdough. And so there is leaven in the dough. Whenever you take leavened dough and you take a portion of that leaven out and you add it to other dough, well, now that dough is immediately leavened because the leaven that is in that dough will multiply and it will get through the rest of the dough and then all of the dough will be leavened.

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So in that way, it provides a great illustration for how things spread.

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And hence why there's these warnings about leaven or the Apostle Paul speaking to the church in Corinth, get the old leaven out so that you will be unleavened.

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Talking about purging the evil person from among you in the practice of church discipline as he's instructing the

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Corinthians in First Corinthians, chapter five. So get the old leaven out so that you may be a new lump and there won't be any leaven in the lump at all if your intention is to make unleavened bread.

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And if leaven gets in there at all, even a tiny little amount, then the entire lump is ruined. You can't make unleavened bread because now the leaven has gotten in there and the leaven will spread and your lump is now leavened.

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So Jesus is saying here, the leaven of the Pharisees, it will spread. It will infect.

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And if you become a hypocrite, it's not just one area of your life that is a problem.

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It is your whole life. Everything is a lie. You say one thing, but you live another way.

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Beware the leaven of the Pharisees. Don't let it get to you. Don't let it spread.

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Don't become like them. Jesus goes on to say in verse two, nothing is covered up that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known.

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Now this goes well with hypocrisy as we've talked about hypocrisy in the past is being like a mask.

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This is a word that would be used to describe actors. Actors would be called hypocrites because an actor would wear a mask.

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You've seen the tragedy and comedy masks, right? That will often be the symbol for drama or plays or acting or something like that.

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You have the comedy mask that's smiling and then the tragedy mask that's crying.

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And it's supposed to be a picture of these are kind of the two most common kinds of plays.

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You're either watching a comedy or you're watching a drama. In the ancient sense, it would have been called a tragedy.

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So you have the comedy and tragedy mask, and that's not just a symbol of, of a production or a theater, but it was also the way that actors would commonly play with masks on.

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So whatever character they were playing, they would have a mask and whatever mood that character was supposed to represent in the story that was being told, the mood would be very exaggeratedly expressed in the mask.

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And the mask is able to be seen by more people than just the expression on a person's face, especially when you're talking about a big amphitheater and people are far away.

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So the mask is bigger. It makes the face larger and the expression is exaggerated.

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So the people can see what sort of emotion that particular character represents.

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So very common among actors to wear masks. They were called hypocrites for this reason, because they have a mask.

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And then behind that mask is a different person. It's a different expression. And so hypocrite becomes the language that is used to describe a person who is not what they seem.

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They may show you one thing, but behind that mask that they show is a completely different person.

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And so Jesus saying here in verse two, nothing that is covered up like the face that is covered up, the real man, who they are, that they try to cover with this front that they're putting on.

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Nothing that is covered up will not be revealed. Eventually the fake person is going to be known.

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Or, yeah, the fake person, again, who they really are, is going to be known. We'll put it that way.

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And that is the person that is going to be judged on the day of judgment.

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All of the secrets of his heart, all of the things that he did, as Jesus has said in Matthew 12, even every careless word you're going to have to give an account for.

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So nothing is covered up that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known.

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God will disclose all of the intentions of the heart. It was this past Friday on the broadcast that I read from first Corinthians 1425 of an unbeliever hearing the message of the word being proclaimed and hearing the word, he would be cut to the heart.

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All of the secrets of his heart would be disclosed. That's what the word of God does for us. Whenever we read the

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Bible, God penetrating the heart and revealing to us our sin so that we might understand our need for forgiveness.

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And that forgiveness is only found in the Savior. So the intentions of the heart will be known on that day of judgment, especially there's nothing we will have been able to have hidden from God.

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He knows all. Therefore, Jesus says in verse three, whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light.

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And what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.

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Now we have some other statements coming up here very soon with regards to judgment, especially in this next line.

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Verse five, I will warn you whom to hear fear him who after he is killed has authority to cast into hell.

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Yes, I tell you, fear him. So you see the constant string of of judgment, the stream of the theme of judgment that continues through these three lessons that we're reading here.

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So whatever you have said in the dark, don't think that you can say something that will not be known.

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Everything will be disclosed. God knows every word that you have said and will bring those things out on the day of judgment.

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Not just things that we've said, my friends, but even things that we've texted, stuff that we've said on social media, a video you've recorded, things that you've said in DMs, direct messages that nobody else sees except you and the other person that you are talking to.

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All of these things are going to be known. Every word that you have said in whatever capacity that you have said it, it's just the overflow of your heart.

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Again, as Jesus said in Matthew 12, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks or even the fingers type or the fingers swipe or or you will say in a video or something to that degree.

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Even these words, I have had to confront a person before in my church who was behaving in a way online that was not good conduct.

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It was not the way that a Christian should talk or behave toward other people. And I've made those confrontations before.

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And the pushback that I would get from that is that's not who I really am. You know, I just take those things with a grain of salt.

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The people that I was talking to, they understood the way that I was saying it and so on and so forth. They will try to say that whatever

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I said online doesn't count, but it does. It matters.

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Even the words that you type or the words that you dictate into your phone or whatever, they all flow from your heart.

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They are revealing of the heart of who you are. So what are you saying and what is that saying about you?

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Do you have words that are pleasing to God or as Ephesians 4 .29

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says, that are building one another up with your words, giving grace to those who hear.

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Or as David prayed in Psalm 141, set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth, keep watch over the door of my lips.

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Do not let my heart inclined to any evil to busy myself with wicked deeds in company with men who work iniquity and let me not eat of their delicacies, meaning whatever

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I take from them and I put in my body, is that what's going to come out of my mouth? That comes right back to Jesus warning to the disciples, beware the leaven of the

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Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Don't let that stuff get in and then it's not coming out of you.

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But again, it's out of the expression of our heart that our mouth speaks.

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And so let our hearts be filled with good things, those things that are

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Christ -like, God honoring, and then we will say things that are honoring of God and even respectful and kind to one another.

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How can we build one another up with our words instead of tear each other down?

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I think with the advent of social media and how ubiquitous it is, how many people are using it, it's almost like we've had more of a license than ever to tear each other down and it almost becomes second nature to us.

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We don't think about it and there's no big deal if we do it, but we have to be a kind and loving people for our

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God is kind to us. If you have to admonish someone, admonish means to correct with goodwill.

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Yeah, there are times when people will be in sin and they will need to be corrected, but you do that with the intention, with good intention, with the intention of bringing them back to the path of righteousness.

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Even in this way, we're kind and loving with our words and not ripping a person apart, being the accuser, because we know in scripture who the accuser is, right?

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That's Satan. But instead, let us speak knowing that God is listening.

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Even those things that we say by ourselves, take every thought captive, make it obedient to Christ.

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Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we have read here and the lesson that we can glean from what Jesus said to his disciples 2000 years ago and is still relevant to us today.

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Help us to be aware of false teaching, to be aware of hypocrisy. May we be consistent in what we say and in what we do and help us to understand that words that we say don't just disappear into the air.

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Everything that we have spoken is a reflection of our heart and we will have to give an account for.

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Only by faith in Jesus Christ are we forgiven even those harsh things that we may have said to somebody else, but let our hearts be filled with Christ so that what comes out of our mouths might be a blessing to others rather than a curse.

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Thank you for taking away the curse from us by sending your Son to die on the cross for our sins.

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Whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. It's in Jesus' name we pray,

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Amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website www .wutt

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.com and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page. Join us again tomorrow as we continue our