Book of Romans, 14:2 - Freedom in Christ | Handling Doubtful Disputations, Pt. 2 (03/27/2022)

All right, anyway, it's fascinating to read in Ezekiel 37 through 39, somewhere in there.

It speaks of a Russian invasion and a lot of scholars don't think it's talking about Armageddon. It happens prior to all that.

I tend to agree with that myself. So whether it's this one or not, who knows. The way you will know is if he breaks out of Ukraine with his army that he has now, it doesn't seem possible really.

It's shown quite a bit of weakness. But if he breaks out of Ukraine, heads

South and goes through some of those nations and gets close to Israel, and then five, six of the entire

Russian army is annihilated by nuclear weapon, then you'll know that we're in Ezekiel at that point.

So is this, not to say that's what this invasion is, but certainly this is part of God's will.

Because it's happening and it is setting the stage for future events that are prophesied.

So it's fascinating days we live in. We are the most likely generation to be here when the rapture happens.

Much more likely when my grandmother thought she would go up in the rapture, but every generation has thought it would be their generation.

But there are a lot of things that have happened in my lifetime that had to happen, that had not yet happened, but they have now.

We've still got a few more things. We've got to build a new temple in Jerusalem.

That's one thing. This Russian invasion has to happen. This may or may not be it.

And so several things still have to happen, but there's nothing that has to happen that couldn't happen in our lifetime easily.

So let's just assume we're in the generation that like Brother Roloff said, take the plane air ride rather than the airplane ride.

And that was glorious. I still think there's some little quadrant up there, Park Meadows quadrant, where we'll all meet together and throw a party and some visitors may come as well.

And it's going to be quite an amazing day, isn't it? All right, good to see all of you. Let's turn to Romans chapter 14 and we're on verse two today, but we're going to review verse one for a second.

And we only made it through one verse last time, but we are in a new chapter, so we can celebrate that.

So let's pray and we get started. Father, we thank you so much for your word. We ask you to enlighten our hearts and minds, your

Holy Spirit, be our teacher and teach us things both old and new out of this passage.

In Jesus name, amen. I teased about this being a boring chapter last time, but I was kind of,

I really was teasing because it's the chapter that actually hits me a lot in some of my weaknesses.

And so to me, that's boring. I don't want to talk about it, right? That's what we're joking about, but it is interesting.

Obviously you have books in the Bible, you have chapters in those books that really, you just, they blow your mind and you love them and they're powerful.

And then you have chapters that aren't so much that way. This is one of those, chapter 14, you would think, but wait till you see some of the stuff that's in there.

And it's really quite amazing. So let's just start here. Obviously verse one introduces the chapter, him that is weak in the faith receive you, but not to doubtful disputations.

And so the whole chapter is kind of talking about freedom in Christ and how to handle doubtful disputations.

And it will even define what that is. What is a doubtful disputation? It'll tell us what that is as well.

So we talked about verse one last time, just a couple of things that are interesting there.

We went out to, you don't need to do it this time, I'm just reviewing, but in Luke chapter 24, 36 through 39, where Jesus appeared to the apostles and they were troubled because they thought he was a ghost.

And that word troubled is the same word as doubtful disputation. It's the same in the

Greek. So that's why I went to it, because it kind of gives you some information on what that word means. But the answer to it was

Jesus said, behold my hands and my feet. He revealed himself to him. He said, look, it's me. And that's really a picture of the right answer in a church or anywhere you are where you have a doubtful disputation.

One of the answers is go to the word, go to the word of God, go to Jesus and let him point out what actually the truth is.

So let me remind you of three points we made last time. We'll make a fourth one today. But last time we said, number one, when there's a doubtful disputation, basically what it's talking about is it says, receive feeble believers.

In other words, baby Christians, receive them into the group, but do not allow them to bring doubtful disputations into the church because they tend to create division.

And you're arguing about something and you might not even be able to figure out the truth if it's not even in the Bible, right?

And a lot, not all of them, not all of these doubtful disputations are things that are not in the

Bible. So let me give you these three points and it'll remind us. First of all, we must examine any perceived imperative by its context before judging others by it.

Now, what do we mean by imperative? It's a grammatical term. When you see that the grammar is in the imperative, it means it's kind of a command.

So there are imperatives in the New Testament. There are things Jesus says, do this and don't do that, right? I mean,

I know we're under grace, but still there are certain ways like, be ye kind one to another, right?

That's an imperative. It's not a suggestion. It's like, be this way,

Jesus says. So we have those. And when we have people come into the church and say, now, here's an imperative.

Men, make sure your hair is not so long as it can touch your ears. I was in a church once that taught that.

And it was this church when it was founded, the founding pastor, we went that direction. And praise the

Lord, the Lord removed him eventually. And all of us who were there swung all the way over here and we grew our hair way out, didn't we,

Brother Raymond? All the way down to our collars after that. And then we swung back a little towards the middle where the truth is.

But anyway, so like people will bring something and say, here's an imperative. Well, one thing is they might be trying to show it to you in scripture.

Secondly, they may just made it up. So the first one is, what if they show it to you in scripture?

Well, the key is go to the context where they pull that verse out. And you might have to read the whole book down to it, or at least the chapter you're in down to it and beyond it to know the context.

It may not be talking about what that person is saying it talks about. And usually if they're off base, that's the problem.

They've pulled it out of context. It's not even what God means by it, but they're saying, oh yeah, it means this.

So that's the first thing. The second thing is we must ask, is this imperative actually even found in the

Bible because a lot of them are not, right? And the third thing is the word of God is the only true test.

Well, that's what we talked about last time. So that what that person is saying, he does not have authority, but the scripture does.

So you go to the scripture and that was sort of pictured there in Luke 24, 38 and 39, when they were troubled, they were having a disputation, like it can be in your mind too.

It doesn't have to be your creative division by talking. It can be like, you're just fretting in your mind over something because you're not sure what it means.

And the way Jesus fixed that one, he just revealed himself to them. So that gives you a picture that you go to the word of God, right?

Now we went to Philippians chapter two, and I'm just gonna give you two verses out of that little passage we studied last time.

Verse 14 says, do all things without murmuring and disputing, that word disputing is the same Greek word.

We're not supposed to be disputing. And the answer for it was found in verse 16.

It says, holding forth the word of life. So you go to the word of God, you take it in context, you might have to study two or three weeks to figure out the context.

Because you may have to go to some other passages that shed light on that passage to understand the truth of what

God is saying. Do that, don't just buy into what someone says that he thinks it means.

So we talked about that a little bit last time. And in first Timothy one, four, it says neither give heed to fables or endless genealogies.

And it ends up down here with verse seven saying this, desiring to be teachers of the law. And the last point we made last time was this, almost every case where a person comes in and begins to create division is because he's wanting to get legal.

He's wanting to talk about the law and bring us under the law. Whereas we're not under Moses, we're under Christ who brought grace.

And they try to bring you back to the law or they try to say, yeah, we believe in Jesus, but you got to do this stuff too. And they give you a list of stuff you got to do.

Some of it may be in the Bible out of context, other may not even be in the Bible, but they want to prove to you they can keep that list better than you can.

And that's where this prideful leadership comes from. So we're not to give heed to fables or endless genealogies that minister questions rather than godly edifying.

Like what a person is supposed to be doing is building the others. And if they're just asking doubtful disputation questions to create division, that's not building anybody.

It's just, and usually it's fables, which means it's not even in the Bible, they just made it up. It's a story they're made up, trying to make like it has authority or endless genealogies.

And some people now, a big fad, as I did mention this last time, is they're going to some of the apocryphal books and other writings, some of which were even founded along with the

Dead Sea Scrolls, which had scripture also. And then they lift those other books up to the same level of authority.

And that's what this means that they're giving heed to fables. It's fiction.

I mean, they read fiction back in those days too. They had fiction books and they had the Bible and then they'll take the fiction and lift it up and say, oh, this must be as true as the

Bible. And then it'll give, there's one of them, I can't remember the name of it, but it talks about genealogies of angels with all kinds of names of angels that are nowhere listed in scripture.

So it's a fable, it's a story, in endless genealogies, it's not scripture. And this is what he's saying, avoid this, stay away from this sort of thing, because it leads to questions that cause divisions in the church and it doesn't build anybody.

Fiction stories, by the way, don't build you. It's scripture that builds you and makes us strong, right? All right, so that's kind of what we discussed last time.

So let's turn now to 2 Timothy 2, verse 15, if you would, and we'll pick it up right there.

We were in 1 Timothy 1 last time for those verses we just looked at.

2 Timothy 2, 15 and 16 will speak to this same issue. And here, we're kind of under that point number one, where if someone brings in doubtful things that are disputing, people are disputing about because it's doubtful, we never believed it that way.

We never saw that in scripture that way and it's something new. You always got to watch the new stuff. I mean, it can be something that's been there forever and you just now saw it, that kind of new is good, but it can be something that no brother or sisters believed ever for 2000 years of Christian history.

No one ever believed it that way. And now all of a sudden it's this way. Those are the ones you got to watch out for. Sometimes that's called a private interpretation and we're not allowed to have a private interpretation where I'm the only dude that sees that and I'm going to share it with all of you.

A word of knowledge, a word of wisdom from me to you. You got to watch that stuff.

But for one thing, Paul said that those gifts would cease and he told when they ceased and church history shows he was right about it.

Of course he was prophesying, so it wasn't going to be right, but they did cease. And so people that claim they're still happening, number one, they don't know church history.

Number two, they're wanting to ignore certain parts of scripture. So that's a problem when we want to take a pen knife to certain parts of scripture.

So let's pick it up here, 2 Timothy 2 .15. Study to show yourself approved unto

God. There's one of the main things we have to do to avoid these doubtful disputations. We got to know the Bible better than the guy that's trying to teach us the new thing.

And if we don't, then he's going to make us think he's wise and I'm a half Jewish.

And so you got to listen to me because I got a better grip on the scripture than you do. And they're going to lead us down a path with false presuppositions at the front that you don't recognize.

And then the logic is perfect and you buy into a false conclusion. That's how it always works. It's never nothing new.

That's the same way it always works. So what's the answer for us is to study this book right here.

Study this book so that you're approved unto God. So God himself sees that you're studying enough.

And that's not enough just to hear it on Sunday morning, is it? That's not enough. We've got to spend some private time in the

Bible every week. And I'm not saying every day because I'm not talking about reading.

I'm talking about studying. But every week we should study. Some portion of scripture we should be interested in enough to be boring down into even what the words mean and the grammar and all of that stuff.

And that's what we have to do if we're gonna fight people that are gonna bring in doubtful disputations and eliminate them from the discussion by showing them scripture.

You gotta know where the scripture is. Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Now there's a key phrase, rightly dividing the word of truth. That is discussing an entire area of theology known as dispensationalism.

And there are those out here today that say dispensationalism is not true. Well, the problem with a person like that is the same thing that happens to some of us on a lot of issues where it's like this.

Well, let's just go back. I'll take the example Artie gave. We had a pastor that said, like if men have hair that touches their ears, that they're not walking with God, right?

Where do you get that? I mean, I don't know what scripture he's alluding to, but if you look at it in context, it's not teaching that.

But so here he wants to bring that, he wants to bring that into the church, right?

And so then what you do is you just swing over here and you see that that's false. So now everybody, all the men grow their hair down to there, as long as we can grow it.

That's what we tend to do. That's just a picture. Like if we find out this over here is false, we don't just move to here.

We usually swing all the way over here for a while. And then we come back closer to the truth, which is somewhere in the middle, right?

That's just what we tend to do. So in this case of dispensationalism, there is a false fable that almost every

Southern Baptist and independent Baptist, I grew up both, and I'm neither now, we're just Park Meadows Church at this point, but I grew up that way.

And there was a fable that they all bought into was that the rapture happened seven years prior to the end of the seven -year tribulation period.

They call it pre -tribulation rapture. It's a fable. The Bible doesn't teach it. I hate to be that blunt, but if we talked about it in person,

I wouldn't be mean about it, but I'm just saying it's a fable. It's something that was made up, and I know the house it was made up in in England by a woman who spoke in tongues, gibberish.

I don't mean biblical tongues. I mean, gibberish. And she had visions, and this was one of her visions, and that is the origin of this fable.

There's a very good book written on that that you can get hold of where it goes back and traces the origin of the pre -tribulation rapture theory.

And so you have these kinds of fables that come about. Well, in order to make it work and fit certain portions of scripture where it doesn't really fit, and I'll tell you the best one is where Paul said we cannot precede them, but the dead and Christ will rise first.

Then after that, we which are alive and remain will be changed in the air. Remember that?

It's every funeral preacher preaches that at every funeral. So it talks about the rapture, and it says it happens after the first resurrection, which happens, by the way, at the end of the seven years.

So you got a problem with that. So what do you do? Well, you create more dispensations that actually exist in the

Bible. Dispensation means a way that God deals with people at certain times in history.

It's not so important about the time as it is that God changes how he deals with people, such as difference between Moses and Jesus, law and grace.

There's the greatest example of a dispensational change, right? So, but there are several of those, and they're real.

But the problem is these hyper -dispensationalists have taken it so far to make that theory work that some of us who don't agree with the theory have come back and swung all the way over here and said, well, there's no such thing as dispensations.

And that's wrong, because there are dispensations. This talks about it, rightly dividing the word of truth.

What it means is you can't take certain things in the Old Testament that were only for the Jews and preach that you've got to do that in this church, because it wasn't written to us.

It was written to the Jews. And you have to look at the dispensation when you're interpreting scripture also.

That's one of the rules of proper Bible interpretation. So here's where it talks about it, right here in 2 Timothy 2, 15.

So we have to rightly divide the word of truth. You can't just pull a scripture out of context and say, here, God says that.

Well, who's he saying it to? You have to ask that question, right? When was he saying it? Was it for a specific group of people, or is it for every human?

You've got to ask all those questions to get it right. Then it says, shun profane and vain babblings, for they increase to further ungodliness.

Wow. All right, so we're not supposed to let people bring in vain babblings or talking about stories as if they're authority of scripture and all of this.

It says it again here in 2 Timothy 2, 16, and it leads to further ungodliness. You say, well, you know,

David, you're kind of picky on some of this stuff that you pick on, like false modern tongues, as opposed to the biblical languages.

Why do you pick on that all the time? Because when you go down a rabbit trail to the wrong conclusion, it leads to further ungodliness, the scripture says.

We don't need that. We've had enough of that. We don't need to add more ungodliness. And then it says, their word will eat as does a canker.

Well, a canker is an ulcer. So when you allow these false teachers to come in and get off on these tangents that are not biblical, or they're not even in the

Bible, and you let them teach it with authority, then it's as if your church has an ulcer that's oozing stuff out of it from God's viewpoint.

Do we wanna be that kind of church? I don't think so. So we don't allow this to happen.

And how do we avoid it? We have to study to show ourselves approved unto God. You've gotta know the scripture and you have to know it in context.

And you have to know it better than the false teacher. And listen, if you've ever met a

Jehovah's Witness or a Mormon, kinda know their scriptures. Now, what's funny about Mormons is they don't know all the scriptures though.

So there's stuff you can show them and it just blows their mind. And usually they'll say, well, we gotta go study that for a week. We'll get back to you on that.

Cause they've never seen that scripture cause they don't talk about some stuff. So that can be the case, but you have to know what the scripture says.

Now, when these people bring their words into the church, it eats like a canker.

And then he named a couple of false teachers in the Bible in verse 17. And in verse 18, he says, who concerning the truth, they erred or erred if you wanna say it like we

Texans say it. They erred concerning the truth. What does that mean? They took it out of context.

They use scripture to prove their false teaching, but it was out of context and it defied the 10 rules of Bible interpretation.

Maybe two or three of the rules were broken. And so they're cheating and they're using scripture to teach something

God did not mean by that scripture. And it says they err. They make an error when they do that saying that the resurrection has already passed and this overthrew the faith of some.

Now, Paul gave a specific example of Hymenaeus and Philetus who were teaching a false doctrine in this church.

And he pointed this out as an example. It doesn't mean this is what they always teach, but here's an example of a false teacher, two of them.

What were they teaching? They were teaching this church that the resurrection had already happened. And look what the result says.

It overthrew the faith of some. Now that's interesting, isn't it? You can't, like when you get saved, we know that God gives us the faith of Jesus, right?

You can't overthrow that. But guess what you can overthrow? Human faith, human belief. Because human belief is here today, gone tomorrow, right?

We talk about that all the time. You have faith and then all of a sudden the next day it's doubt. Then it's faith, then it's doubt.

Depending on circumstances, that's human faith. This kind of human faith can be overthrown. And so one thing, when these false teachers came in, it discouraged some of the people in the church so much that they just totally threw out

Christianity and forgot about it. They weren't yet saved, but they were coming to church. And they just said,

I don't want anything to do with this because it sounds like nutcase stuff. And it ran some people off from the church, these false teachers did.

So they erred from the truth and they caused these people's faith to be overthrown.

So let me ask you this. What was the false teaching here in that case?

Did I bring my water up here? Who can tell me what the false teaching was in that case? Come on, you gotta make sure you're with me.

It's one of those sleepy days. I know it ain't to preach and sing it. It's like y 'all are tired.

Spring weather, even the babies are sleeping. There's no noise. The babies aren't crying.

The adults are asleep. Come on, 2 Timothy 2, 18. Go ahead and look it up.

It'll wake you up. Tell me what the false doctrine was they were teaching. Yes, Ben.

There you go. They were teaching that there is a resurrection prior to the seven year tribulation period, which was false.

So I've just gotta ask you, and I know you think it's my favorite thing to pick on, but it is the most prevalent error in the whole world right now in the church is this error.

And well, it's one of two, two most important ones. It's putting the resurrection and the rapture in a place where it doesn't really exist.

And the Bible says it overthrows the faith of some. So does that make it important? Do we get it right or not?

So like, are we nitpicking? Well, we're not gonna break fellowship over that. Well, I don't know that we break fellowship over it because when we do that, we stop the discussion between people that disagree on this.

And it is something that is very much disagreed on. We had a debate recently at a trade way meeting over some of these issues.

And we've had visitors that come here, even some in the ministry who approached me at the pulpit and disagreed on that issue.

And I said, well, look, brother, we don't break fellowship over it. We can study it together.

And if we use the 10, man, people are waking up. This is awesome. Thank you. It doesn't bother me, stay.

Whatever you wanna do, it's up to you. But anyway, like if you don't, if you're willing to use the 10 rules of Bible interpretation, and you studied it together for 13 years, like brother

Otis and I did, your views will come closer and closer. We had 20 things we disagreed with when he passed away.

We only had two little insignificant, silly things. And so, but what if you're not willing to put that work in together?

What if you just don't come back? You just leave and don't come back because brother David doesn't believe the rapture happened seven years prior or maybe in the middle or whatever.

So just, I don't wanna go there. I don't think that's the way we should be. I think what we should do is like, if your view is correct, prove it using the 10 rules of Bible interpretation and don't cheat and prove it.

And if you can prove it, we will all change because we all want the truth. We don't care about the argument anymore. We just want the truth, right?

But is the question I'm asking this morning, is it important enough to even debate about? Well, if it'll overthrow people's faith,

I think it's important enough to debate about and get it right. Would you agree with me on that? If you will,

I'll leave it and go to the next point. All right. Very good. It continues in verse 19.

This is beautiful because here are these false prophets that Paul named, came in and they taught the resurrection already happened and some people lost their faith over it.

Now that's human faith. That's not God -given. They weren't saved yet, but they were at least coming and listening and then they never came back.

That's a bad thing. All right. So I'll tell you this. If they were sheep, they found another place to find the gospel and they got saved later.

If they were goats, they didn't care anyway, but it's still important because you don't want false doctrine to run people off if they're coming.

So here's what's interesting. Verse 19, even though that happened, even though that happened, nevertheless, the foundation of God stands sure, the scripture says, having this seal.

Now this is amazing. I mean, we may just park here until it's time for lunch. I never saw this in this passage before this week.

So look at it. Here you have a problem. Two false teachers came in, began to teach that the,

I assume the rapture and the resurrection happened at the wrong place. It overthrew the faith of some people.

You could go and study that one right there, but I know what it means. It doesn't mean God -given faith. It means mannish belief.

It can overthrow that because anything can overthrow that. But even though that happened,

God wants to encourage us because I mean, that's kind of an interesting verse where it says it overthrew the faith of some is, you kind of got to get into that and say, okay, what does that mean?

But then he comes back and encourages us with this. If you put this in the context of that, nevertheless, even though that happened, the foundation of God stands sure.

Now we need to look into this and see, well, what is this foundation he's talking about? Because what is the foundation in the building?

It's the bottom of it. It's the most important part because if it cracks and doesn't work right, the building fails, does it not?

So it's the thing upon which everything else is built and God's about to tell us what that is. Isn't that interesting?

People want to debate you, well, these things are not, why are you talking about this stuff? It's not important. Well, what if God calls it the foundation?

Then all of a sudden it becomes important. Well, let's see what it is. Nevertheless, the foundation stands sure.

Having this seal, what is a seal by the way? It's something that God put on it, which means you can't change it.

God seals the Holy Spirit within us and the moment he saves us, he seals the Holy Spirit inside of us.

You can't get him out. No human can get him out because you can't lose your salvation.

He is sealed in you. Can you imagine this? You go to one of these churches where they teach you can lose your salvation and you think you did and you die and you go to heaven.

Wouldn't that be a surprise? And you say, well, I thought, I mean, I just became a little reprobate and just thought

I had lost it. Yeah, but the Holy Spirit is still in you, buddy. He brought you right up here. How about that? That's good preaching.

Maybe not so much, but you see the point. Well, here's a different kind of seal and let's see.

All right, so this is the foundation. It stands sure, nothing's gonna change it. In fact,

God seals it and he says, here's what it is. Number one, the

Lord knows them that are his. What doctrine is that? Well, that is election, predestination, foreknowledge, the calling and regeneration.

You see it? That stands sure. People are gonna preach it out of existence if they can.

They're gonna try to remove it all day long. They're gonna try to get you to believe it's all about your own choice, but it's a foundation of Christianity.

Did you know that that foundation has been chipped at for 2000 years in the church? There's always false groups that rise up and say, no, no, no, it's all about man.

That's called Arminianism or humanism in the church. Every great church movement has gone through a cycle where it started out with Jesus, their first love.

And it's all about God and Jesus blood plus nothing for salvation. And it rotates around where it's Jesus blood plus something you do and you lose it right there.

You lose it right there because if you get circumcised in order to think that that's part of your salvation, then

Christ availeth you nothing, Paul said. Well, if he doesn't avail you something, you're going to hell. So that loses it right there.

When you go around that side, you don't even have to get all the way over here like the Catholic church has where their traditions and all that is even higher in importance than scripture.

You can be over here more where the Baptists are, where they say, well, yeah, you gotta believe in Jesus, but you gotta, and just add anything.

I mean, you can think of some things a Baptist would say and I can pick on them because I grew up that way. I've got to give my life to Jesus.

All right, so it's his blood plus you deciding to give your life to Jesus. So don't tell me the

Baptists don't add things to it. Bapto -Catholics. Yeah, because why?

Because they've gone a part of the way around the cycle. This church, if it exists another four generations, by the fourth one, it will have moved around.

Probably not on generation two because they're sitting in here now and I don't want to see them change for the worse.

They may learn more good stuff, but they're not going to change for the worse. So here's part of the foundation is number one, the

Lord knows who are his people. That's not taught in the church at large today. At church at large today, what is taught is, if you, whatever you choose to do will determine your eternal destiny.

If you decide to live a good life and name Jesus' name, you'll go to heaven.

If you don't, you'll go to hell. So that put it squarely in your arena to decide. But this verse says, no, here's the foundation.

God knows who he's going to save before he made the foundation of the world. Read Ephesians chapter one, read Romans chapter eight, read

Isaiah chapter 53. Go anywhere in the scripture you want to. It's everywhere once you see it.

That's the foundation. God loved us first. Then we loved him back.

It's not man deciding because we're reprobate. I mean, we're totally depraved. We can't see the difference between God and Satan in our natural state.

We do half the stuff we do in our natural state is stuff the devil has us do. We think it's fine. We're just doing just great, right?

Until you get saved. And then when God turns the light on and gives you the scripture, now you see the difference. But you didn't make that happen.

God did. While we were yet in our sins, hath he quickened us? That's regeneration. And there's nothing there but the blood of Jesus plus the

Holy Spirit awakening you. And Jesus said, you need two things to get saved. The water and the spirit.

The water is the word of God. That's the gospel. And you need the Holy Spirit. And you gotta have both. And that Holy Spirit part is the calling when he wakens your eyes and points you to Jesus.

And now he's irresistible because you see him for who he is because the Holy Spirit made you see him.

And then you're saved. So, but the point is the first part of this foundation is that God has foreknowledge of who his children are before he made anything.

And only those will be saved. The people he didn't know won't be saved. In the end times,

Jesus told this story. He said, there'll be many that come and say, well, didn't I do many wonderful works? Did I heal people in your name?

Did I do this in your name? And he says, depart from me, I never what? Yeah, he didn't say depart from me, you didn't live good.

Depart from me, you didn't have the right doctrine. What did he say? I didn't know you. This foundation stands you, sure.

Having this sealed, the Lord knows them that are his. There it is, there's your foundation.

Now let's keep going though. It says, let everyone that names the name of Christ depart from iniquity.

So now you have two parts of this thing. This is interesting because what are we talking about here? We're not talking about how, we're not talking about the cause of salvation.

That's not the topic. Although the first point deals with that squarely, doesn't it? The point is, what is the foundation?

That God says is the foundation of biblical Christianity. It has two parts.

It's not, I'm not saying you have to do these two things to get saved because you don't get saved, you become saved.

There's a big difference because get implies you did it. What I had got to do to get saved? Nothing. Okay, you can't do anything.

What do I have to do to partake in it? Receive it as a gift. It's free, right?

That's different than going out and doing a bunch of stuff. We see that. But this is talking about what is the foundation of all of the biblical

Christianity, which includes more than just getting saved, if you want to say it that way. It includes more than regeneration.

Would you agree? It includes learning to live right. It includes becoming like Christ, being made more like Christ.

It includes learning how to treat others in a different way than just our raw personality as we raised would do it.

You might not be a person who's particularly kind. And now that you're saved, you gotta be kind. Be kind, that's an imperative.

Gentle hearted, maybe that's not your personality. Too bad. Maybe it's not my personality to tithe, but I have to give, right?

So we have to learn things as Christians. That's part of the foundation too, isn't it? So look at this.

It is a great summary of the whole of the Christian faith in its reality, the foundation of God.

First, the first and foremost point is God knows who are His. But secondly, look at this. Let everyone that names the name of Christ depart from sin.

Wow. In the Greek, it means be departing from sin.

Aren't you glad it doesn't mean just stop instantly or else you ain't saved. It doesn't say that because we might as well do something else on Sunday morning than come here, if that's what it said because none of us would totally have departed from sin, have we?

But be departing from sin. Now think about this. What is the big doctrinal word for that?

Would you say maybe sanctification? Would that be a good word? I think so.

So here you have two things. You have a before time began thing.

He knew who are His before the foundation of the world. You have a before time or an outside of time thing.

And you have an end time thing. Like you're walking down your timeline, okay?

All of a sudden you find yourself regenerated and the Holy Spirit bears witness with your spirit that you are the child of God.

You know, you didn't do it. You just received it. And there you have it. And now you're walking. Part of the foundation of Christianity is what happens in that walk.

It's called sanctification. All right, it has to do with, listen to me, departing from iniquity.

Why don't we do this? This will be fun. It'll wake you up too. Let's do this. Everyone, one by one, let's stand and let's talk about what our particular sin weakness is from our youth.

All right, let's start with Bill. From the oldest to the youngest. No, I'm kidding. You ain't throwing any stones, are you,

Bill? No. You're not throwing any stones. All right. That would be fun though, to end up with the little children.

See what they would say. We'd have to do that in children's church. Now, see, why do we not want to do that?

Because there's stuff we do in secret, right? Is that true or not true?

Okay, but whatever that stuff is, we need to be being departing from it.

Now, let me ask you this. If it were so easy to do, why haven't you done it yet? What's the first thing?

It won't imply anything if you want to answer these because you say, I ain't answering that. You'll know I'm doing something. Okay. I mean, we're all included in this.

So what would the first thing be? If it's so easy to do, why haven't we given that thing up?

Whatever that pet thing from your youth is that you're still doing. Why haven't you given it up? Give me one reason.

Human nature. What? The old man that we gave up is still with us.

The old man is still, he can be influenced by the world, flesh and devil, can't he, the old man?

What's another reason? That's the reason I was looking at, Katie. You don't want to, but will the old man ever want to?

No. So how does sanctification work? It has two components.

The Holy Spirit lives in you, not just to save you and just live in you. So you can say, well, I'm a dweller by the spirit.

Sometimes Baptists take it to that level and leave it right there. Some people call that easy believism.

But it doesn't stop there. He's not in you just to save you. He's in you to change you and me and to cause us to depart from the iniquities that we like so much, even in the old man.

Would you admit your old man is sort of part of your whole body right now, isn't it? It's a part of you.

And I know we're schizophrenics because there is no sin that you do that your new man likes the fact that you did it, right?

The first thing that happens is the new man says, I hate this, right?

Why did you think that thought about that brother? They don't really hate you. They're not that bad. And you just killed them in your mind because you hated them for a second.

Why did you do that? And your new man says, I don't hate him. I love him. I don't know why I did that, right? Well, so it's a function of the same thing we've talked about in trade ways so much is like the idea of the family business.

God has a family business and we're all part of it. And so it's him working together with us. It's not just him.

And it's certainly not just us like the Armenians teach. It's him working together with us within our own life to make us more like Jesus.

Now we know Jesus doesn't do any of the things you're thinking about that you've done or that I've done.

He didn't do any of those. He was tempted by all of it, but yet without sin. And we're supposed to be like him.

So we have to be moving forward to be more like him a little at a time, right? Because it didn't all happen at once.

I think all of you, it'd be kind of fun. Well, I'm not gonna do it, but it'd be kind of fun to have you stand and say, okay, can you name a sin that you had at the moment you got saved?

He totally took it away and you haven't done it or wanted to do it since. I can name a few. And I mean, raise your hand, at least say

I could name a few. They're gone now. Well, isn't that miraculous? Yeah, it's miraculous.

But then you'd say, but there's some that aren't gone yet. They still tempt. I'm tempted by these things from time to time, but they're in the process of being taken away.

If they're raptured, the final ones will fall off. That's the change in the air. The flesh, the old man stays on the earth.

He's done. So here we see the foundation of biblical

Christianity is twofold. God knows who are his kids. He's gonna bring a hundred.

Jesus said, look, no one comes to me unless the father draws him. Of them, I lose nothing. He's gonna bring a hundred percent of them to Christ and they will be saved and they'll be with God forever.

That's the first part of the foundation. And I would have to say the most important part, but the second part is very important in his sanctification.

And it's us being made more like him every step of the way in this life. Don't ever give up on that on yourself.

I think there'll probably be a pet sin or two. We still have the day we meet him.

How many of you think that's a good theory? So don't give up because listen, I love this.

The Bible says that God put this treasure, that's the new man, in earthen vessels on purpose so that God gets the glory.

So God made us this way. And that's not a cop -out or an excuse. He did make us this way. He made life this way where you were not perfect.

And do you know, I have this theory, but I'm gonna call it a theory till you guys at breakfast prove

I'm right. And then we'll start teaching it from the pulpit. Right now this is just coffee talk, table talk, okay?

But I just forgot my theory. Lord didn't want me to talk about it. We'll talk about it at the table.

I'll probably think, I don't know if I will or not, but what was I talking about? Choir, tell me what we're even talking about.

Earthen vessels. Earthen vessels. I didn't say what. What? We're still full of sand.

Ah, thank you. You know what? I'm just gonna stick with that. Oh no,

I just thought of it. Okay. You know where it, you'll see why I couldn't think of it. It has nothing to do with the sermon.

But anyway, you know how Paul said that he prayed three times that God would remove something from him?

Remember that? What was God's answer? Three times no. And did

Paul keep praying about it? Maybe, but it doesn't record that he did, does it?

Everybody says, well, he had bad eyesight. That's why I had other people write scripture and stuff. Some people say it's this.

Some people say it's the other. So since no one knows, I can hypothesize. I think it was a sin from his youth that he hated it from time to time he did it and he hated it and he asked

God to remove it. And God said no. And why did God say no? My grace is sufficient for you.

And I get the glory when you do get it right, Paul. It's not you, Paul. It's me, right? So listen, we have not arrived yet.

Paul said he had not arrived yet. Do not let that discourage you because God made you that way and made all of this work that way on purpose so that he gets the glory.

But at the same time, don't use it as a cop out to say, well, I'll never defeat that one. Yes, you will. You need to try.

Just say, I ain't doing it, whatever it is. I'm just not gonna do it. There's some clues about how to make that easy.

You know, don't like, don't put fleshly things in front of you where you can see them.

If it's a problem, get them out of the house. There's a clue. Flee useful lust. There's a clue.

There's no temptation, but what gives us a way out? There's a clue. So don't tell me we can't get rid of it.

So we're supposed to be trying. And would you agree with me that the word of God says that's part of the foundation of Christianity?

Where is that today in the modern church? I mean, we've swung all the way from legalism to easy believism where you just get saved and live like the devil, right?

Don't even worry about it. I'm saved. Once saved, always saved. I'm just fine. I don't need to work. Don't need to change.

I don't need people to look at me and say, man, he's like Christ or she's like Christ. Don't need that anymore in the modern church.

So who do they come to when they need help? Nobody, not even the pastor because he's running around with the whatever, secretary or whatever in a lot of churches, right?

I mean, who do they go to when they need help? The only people they're going to go to are people that are having sanctification taking place enough where they see it.

And it's not perfect in any of us, but where they say, you know, that person is different than they were before they got saved.

And I see that, maybe they could help me. Man, this is so important. So here's the foundation and it's sealed and it isn't changing.

God knows them that are his and let everyone that says they belong to him depart from sin.

Why do you think it says that? Why do you think it puts it that way? It doesn't just say let every true born again person depart from sin.

What does it say? Let everybody that comes to church all over the world who says they belong to him, well, stop sinning then.

You know why it says that? Because that is impossible if you don't have the Holy Spirit. If you're not saved, it's impossible.

If you are saved, you're changing little by little and people will see it.

And that's why it says it. It is a proof of salvation is that God is in you and people can see that things are changing.

So we have foreknowledge outside of time and then we have sanctification in time.

Now it doesn't stop there. Look at verse 20. If a man therefore purged himself of these and the grammar, who is these?

Well, these would be, look at back at verse 20. But in a great house, there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also wood and earth, some of honor and some to dishonor.

So if a man or a woman purges himself from these, who's that? That's the people that are dishonorable, the people that come to church, but they're living for the devil.

Purge yourself from these, the scripture says. So there's a clue. Now this is still under the sanctification part.

All of a sudden, God gives us some how to. How do we get where we sin less and get more and more like Christ?

Number one, purge yourself. And this is a Greek word that means to cleanse thoroughly.

Cleanse yourself from these kinds of people that are marginal. Like they say they're Christians, they come to church, but you know how they're living.

Don't hang out with them. Don't hang out with them. If a man purges himself from these, this man will become a vessel unto honor.

See that's sanctification. You've become a person in the church that is like fine china in God's view, as opposed to a clay pot that's set in the refuse room.

Right? How do you get to the place where you're the instrument in God's hand that he can use mightily in this world?

Well, one, you've got to be saved, number one. Number two, you've got to be being sanctified.

And number three, part of our role in it is to not hang out with people that are just living for the devil, even if they call themselves a

Christian. So purge yourself from these and you'll be a vessel unto honor. What else?

Meet for the master's use. That means fit for the master's use and prepared unto every good work.

Now you think about that. Here we've got the whole foundation of the Christian faith found in three verses.

First of all, the before time part, God had to know you. Secondly, then it mentions these four things.

And this is all part of sanctification process. It happens gradually as we live in this life, as the

Lord works in our heart. Number one, separated. Separate yourself from the vessels of dishonor.

Isn't that what it says? So separation is important. Separate yourself from the vessels of dishonor.

Number two, sanctification. Means allow the Holy Spirit, when he speaks to you about something being something that's not pleasing to God, listen to it and don't grieve the

Holy Spirit or quenching. Don't say, no, I don't wanna hear that right now. Go with it. And it'll always lead you away from sin.

Number three, fit for the master's use. In the Greek, it means fashion. Fashion for the master's use.

And actually in the Greek, it carries the connotation of something that is easily used. So like you become a person that the

Lord can easily use, which means you're kind of ready when he needs you for the thing he needs you for, you're kind of ready.

He can easily say, Katie, go do that now. And you don't have to go pray for five hours and read 30 passages of scripture to get ready.

You're like, you just go do it. That's what this means. Fit for the master's use. Isn't that beautiful? And then the third thing is prepared.

And in the Greek, it means thoroughly furnished. So that's the same thing as in 2 Timothy 3, 16, that the word of God, if you read it and get into the word of God, it will thoroughly furnish you into all good works.

So there you have it. There's the very foundation of Christianity. Isn't it interesting that it includes election, predestination, foreknowledge, and all the things that the modern church hates and won't talk about anymore.

It's the foundation, but so is sanctification. And you know, that's a problem that a lot of people that do strongly believe that God's in control of everything is they don't think about the sanctification because they go, well, it's

God's will. Not supposed to do that because part of the foundation is trying to live right.

Brother Otis used to put it this way. He was so wise. He said, look, your job,

David, is to do the best you can do today with the equipment God's given you up until now. God will take care of the rest.

But then he would add, but you need to keep getting more equipment, right? All right, let's stand and have prayer together.

Well, I'll finish two whole verses now. Lord, thank you for your word.

We thank you for how much you put in it, even things we haven't seen in 40 years of studying it and all of a sudden we see it.

And thank you that you bring it to our minds right when you want all of us collectively to see it.

So help this be an encouragement to each of us, Lord, as you tell us so clearly that you called us from darkness to light because you knew us as your own, but you've shown us that we're not to be discouraged by the fact that we're not perfect.

We still have the old man, but we need to work on it. We need to be moving away from sinful habits and even have victory over certain of them as we move forward in time.

More and more of them have victory over that so that we can be a shining light in a dark world, a person that people will come to when they need help, a person that's equipped to help.

And thank you for these encouraging words from your word, Lord. And we ask you to go with us during this time of fellowship.