Do You Love the Truth?

Sovereign Grace Family Church iconSovereign Grace Family Church

2 views

0 comments

00:01
I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the 16th chapter of the book of Acts, 16th chapter of Acts, and find your place at verse 16, the message this morning is entitled with a question, do you love the truth? Do you love the truth? Human beings have an innate desire to put one another into categories.
00:49
We like to put people into groups, helps us mentally, helps us sort of understand the world around us.
00:59
Many, many centuries ago, Hippocrates came up with a theory that there were actually four personality types called the four humors.
01:14
The choleric, the sanguine, the melancholic, and the phlegmatic.
01:18
The choleric was the ambitious and restless person.
01:21
The sanguine was the playful and carefree person.
01:24
The melancholic was the serious and analytical person.
01:28
And the phlegmatic was the thoughtful and peaceful person.
01:33
Hippocrates theorized that it was the fluids of the body that caused these specific behavioral differences.
01:41
Blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm were believed to make up the four humors or substances that makes the body.
01:50
Again, this is very pre-scientific age.
01:53
And he said, whenever there was an imbalance of one of those things, whether it was blood, yellow bile, black bile, or phlegm, whenever there was an imbalance, you saw a rise in a certain personality type.
02:06
Well, though the science of the four humors was species at best, the idea has carried on until today.
02:12
If you go and study psychology, which I know some of you have, you'll know there's still personality tests where they'll put people into categories.
02:19
Type A or type B, right? We've all heard that before.
02:25
Christian counselor, Dr.
02:26
Gary Smalley, has a system where he examines personalities and he puts them into animal types.
02:34
He says you're either a lion, or you're a golden retriever, or you're a beaver, or you're an otter.
02:42
And you're one of those four things, and each one of those has a specific personality type that goes along with it, and it's just a regurgitation of the four humors of Hippocrates.
02:56
Race is also a way that people put themselves into categories.
03:01
We take the most basic trait that any of us have, and that's the external appearance, and we categorize by it.
03:08
Those with a lesser melanin count we often call white people.
03:12
Those with a greater melanin count we will identify as black people, and then those somewhere in between will be identified in some way like that.
03:22
Past the melanin, we look at certain physical features, the circularity of the eyes, the proportion of the cheekbones, size and structure of the nose and the mouth, and we tend to identify people that way.
03:32
From that, we get what we're called races.
03:35
But to be fair, there's only one race, and that is the human race.
03:39
No person is more or less human because of the color of his or her skin.
03:43
It's part of what makes racism so sinful, is that it promotes the idea that it's appropriate to favor a person simply because they have more or less melanin or because their face is shaped in one way or another.
03:55
And I raise the issue of categorization this morning because I want to point out that we as humans tend to place people into groups, man-woman, white-black, rich-poor, type A, type B.
04:07
We tend to do that very naturally, but the Bible knows of only two groups.
04:13
In all of humanity, the Bible knows of only two groups.
04:20
Those who love the truth and those who hate the truth.
04:24
Those who are saved and those who are lost.
04:30
All other attempts to categorize will eventually matter not in eternity.
04:36
For there will be people of all tribes, tongues, and nations in heaven.
04:43
So by categorizing ourselves in any other way, other than those who are lost and those who are found, is really silly and has no eternal consequence.
04:53
I want to quote one of you.
04:56
I often quote folks in my sermons.
04:58
I want to quote Lee Frazier.
05:00
He taught my Sunday school class for a few weeks a couple of months ago, and he talked about this issue and he sent me his notes afterwards, and I just want to quote something that he wrote I thought was very good.
05:13
He says, beginning in Genesis and continuing throughout the Bible, the word of God does divide the one human race but divides it in only two groups of people, and the division is not based on external features but is based on the condition of the heart.
05:27
The human race is composed of those who know the Lord and those who don't, and that is the only division of mankind that has any eternal significance.
05:38
I say a hearty amen to that.
05:42
Well this morning we're continuing in our study of the book of Acts, and last week you'll note that we were introduced to a woman named Lydia.
05:50
Lydia, she knew the truth, and by God's grace she loved the truth.
05:59
Well this morning we're going to be introduced to a second woman, and we will see in the text that she also knew the truth.
06:09
She proclaimed the truth, but she did not love the truth.
06:16
Thus we see a stark contrast between these two people, which is representative of all mankind.
06:22
In the world there are only two types of people, those who love the truth and those who don't.
06:27
Let's stand together and read Acts 16, we're going to read verses 16 through 18, just looking at a few verses this morning.
06:47
As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination, and brought her owners much gain by fortune telling.
06:57
She followed Paul and us, crying out, these men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.
07:07
And this she kept doing for many days.
07:11
Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.
07:23
And it came out that very hour.
07:27
Father in heaven, I thank you again for the opportunity to preach your word.
07:31
I know that I am undeserving of such a call, and yet you have, by your grace, called me and prepared me for such a task as this, and I thank you for that, Father, and I pray that you would keep me from error, for the sake of your people, for the sake of my conscience, Lord.
07:49
And I pray that as we study this text together, that we would do so rightly.
07:54
And ultimately, Lord, I pray that for the believers, those who love the truth, I pray that this would just be another encouragement to love the truth all the more, to be all the more spurred to good works and the seeking of you.
08:08
And Lord, if there are those here who do not love the truth, I pray that this would be a call to them to repentance and faith, to trust in Jesus Christ, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved than that of Christ.
08:26
In his name we pray, amen.
08:40
We are continuing this morning in our study of the book of Acts, and we find ourselves in the midst of Paul's second missionary journey.
08:49
He had departed from Antioch, which is north of Israel, and he wanted to preach in a place called Asia Minor.
08:57
But the Spirit, the Bible says, earlier in chapter 16, it says, the Spirit of God hindered him and thus he bypassed that area and made his way to Troas, which was on the coast of the Aegean Sea.
09:09
It was in Troas where he had a vision of a Macedonian man calling out to him for help.
09:15
So he, along with Silas, Timothy, and Luke, set sail from Troas and made their way to Macedonia, going first into the city of Philippi, which was named after Philip, the father of Alexander the Great.
09:29
This is the first time we have recorded in Scripture that the gospel has made its way into Europe.
09:36
Once in Philippi, Paul goes to a prayer meeting, which is being held outside of the city by a river.
09:41
We learned last week that this is probably the case because there were not enough men to constitute a synagogue.
09:47
It took ten men minimum to have a synagogue.
09:51
And it says here that he went out and it were women who were praying by the river, so it was likely there were not ten Jewish men in the city that would be enough to constitute a house of worship.
10:02
So Paul preached to these women the gospel, and one of the women named Lydia was converted to Christ.
10:08
She was a wealthy businesswoman.
10:10
She sold expensive purple clothing, and she urged the evangelists to come and to lodge in her home, likely because her home being a wealthy businesswoman was large enough to take in guests.
10:22
It would also keep them out of the inns, which were often filled with rabble and prostitution and things like that.
10:27
It would keep them safe by having them come and stay in her home.
10:33
And that's where we left the situation last week, was ending with our study of Lydia.
10:38
Well, now we arrive at verse 16.
10:41
And we make note immediately at verse 16 that Paul is going back to the riverside.
10:47
Thus that time that we talked about last week where he went down to the riverside and preached the gospel, that was not his only time going.
10:54
Paul made it his duty to go down there regularly to speak to those women about the gospel.
11:02
Possibly some of them had not yet been saved, or possibly he was just trying to teach them more about the word of God if they were saved.
11:10
In verse 16, it picks up by telling us he was going to the riverside to again proclaim the gospel, but as he went, he was followed by a very undesirable advertiser.
11:21
Verse 16, it says, as we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune telling.
11:37
Now it's interesting to note that Paul is going to the place of prayer as we said.
11:41
We know he's already seen gospel success here.
11:44
He's going again and as he goes, he's met by a slave girl who the text says in the ESV had a spirit of divination.
11:53
That word in the Greek is very interesting.
11:56
It is the same word we get the word python.
12:00
It's called the spirit of python was what she had.
12:05
And according to the original language sources that we have and information that we had, this was the name of the serpent or the dragon that guarded the oracles of Delphi.
12:17
According to Greek mythology, it lived at the foot of Mount Parnassus and was killed by Apollo.
12:22
And from this, the word came to designate any person who was thought to have a spirit of fortune telling.
12:29
Someone who had the ability to tell the future was called the python spirit or the serpent spirit.
12:35
The person who had the ability to see things that were going to go about.
12:40
Pagan generals would consult with people like this.
12:43
They would go and talk to the people who had the spirit of python because they didn't want to go into battle not having some idea of what was going to happen.
12:50
So they would go and they would speak to these fortune tellers to talk what's going to happen and how can I better prepare for battle.
12:57
So they would go and they would speak to these people.
13:00
They had some type of an ability to somewhat predict what was going to happen.
13:05
And we understand that in our modern world, we are familiar with the concept of fortune telling.
13:11
You go downtown, maybe not so much in Jacksonville, but there are some places like if you go over to Gainesville and places like that, you go down the main strips there near the college and things like that and you'll see little booths set up.
13:24
You'll see little buildings set up and there's a picture on the glass and on the picture it's a picture of a ball made of crystal sitting on a table.
13:37
And the idea was that the person, the medium is what they're called, meaning a mediary between you and the spirit world.
13:44
The medium can sit behind that piece of crystal and they can gaze into the crystal and that ball of crystal gives them a window into another world, a window into the spiritual.
14:01
Some people use tarot cards and it looks like big playing cards with different types of figures on them and they'll deal the cards out and then they'll turn the card over and if the card comes up with a positive message, then they'll give you a positive message.
14:16
If the card comes up with a negative message, they may ask you to pay a little more and have them deal again.
14:24
Sometimes they'll just use your hand.
14:25
Maybe no crystal ball, maybe no tarot card, maybe they'll just say hand me your hand and I'll tell you which line is your life line and which line is your financial line and which line is your success and love, your love line.
14:41
It got to the point, very popularly in the last century, where people didn't want to leave their homes anymore so they established things called psychic hotlines and they established you didn't even have to go look at the crystal ball, you didn't even have to go give them your hand, you just give them a call, 1-800 number and they'll tell you all about your future.
15:10
And some of us, most of us here I know, but some people would say, well man these people must just be fools who spend all this money going to psychics, all this money going to crystal ball gazers and to palm readers.
15:24
But you need to understand, heads of state, military men and women, people who are otherwise lauded for their wisdom frequent these types of individuals seeking for some edge over the competition, business men looking for something to give them an edge in the stocks or something to give them an edge in business or economics.
15:58
Did you know the psychic capital of the world is in Florida? Cazadega is in Volusia County.
16:08
Cazadega, and I've personally known people that go down there and there is a place where they go and gather and they have their meetings and they have these psychics that come and they have these mediums that come and it's one of the largest places in the world where there's a gathering of people who claim to have extrasensory perception and psychic abilities.
16:30
I know a man who goes down there, in fact, and this is kind of an odd story, but I always I have to tell it, when I first received the call to ministry, I was in this church as a young man and I knew God was calling me to ministry and I wanted to go and study and I wanted to seek that God would use me in the ministry.
16:51
I was down south at an event and there was a man, one of the guys who goes to Cazadega, and I knew that he was, he believed himself to be a spiritualist and a healer, very different thinking than me.
17:08
And I told him, I said, you know, I believe God's calling me to ministry, I'm trying to share the gospel, I'm trying to talk to him, I said God's calling me to ministry, and he says, well, he says, well, why don't you just come with me to Cazadega? We will ordain you to the ministry.
17:21
And I said, no, thank you, no.
17:27
But I just remember, I'll never forget.
17:29
I was invited to go and be ordained into something, I had no idea.
17:38
But my point being is, the success of spiritualists and mediums is nothing new.
17:47
This is something that has been going on for thousands of years.
17:50
Men have always wanted to know the future.
17:54
They crave to have certainty, and they seek for it in the only source they can find.
18:01
And there's always money to be made in this venture, and that's what we see in the text.
18:07
This woman was an employee of businessmen.
18:10
They would send her out, and she would take money to give fortunes, and these men would make money off of her abilities to speak things that made people believe she knew the future.
18:26
Next week, we're going to talk more about those men, because those men become instrumental in seeing Paul and Silas in prison.
18:34
Because when the gravy train stops, men get angry, and that's what's about to happen.
18:42
But before we go further, I want to answer a question, because I have been asked this question before, and as I was preparing my message, I got to thinking about the times I've been asked this question.
18:52
Do you think, it often comes like this, Pastor, do you think that psychics and fortune-tellers are real? People ask me that, Pastor, do you think that psychics, fortune-tellers, mediums are real? Let me say this, one, no one knows the future except God.
19:07
God is the one who ordains the future, He has decreed the end from the beginning.
19:13
God is the only one who knows the future.
19:16
Second, there are people who have abilities of a demonic nature, which can wow and amaze people.
19:27
There are demons at work in this world, and there are people who can do things that will wow and amaze.
19:33
In a moment, we're going to see Paul cast a demon from this woman.
19:36
That tells us that she was able to do something impressive enough to make money.
19:47
So what I'm trying to say to you is this, I believe there are people out there that can do amazing things, but that in no way makes them godly things.
19:58
I've seen people do crazy things, but that doesn't make them godly, and it doesn't make it something worth pursuing.
20:06
In fact, the opposite is true.
20:10
Rather than asking if someone is real or not, because there are charlatans out there.
20:17
In fact, do you guys remember Houdini? Houdini was a magician.
20:21
Do you know what Houdini's last years of his life were spent doing? The last years of Houdini's life were spent trying to find a genuine psychic because his mother died, and he wanted to make contact with her in the afterlife.
20:38
So he went around trying to find a legitimate psychic, and because he never found one, because everyone was doing tricks that he knew, he was Houdini, he knew the tricks.
20:52
So he would sometimes set up tents across from their tents, these traveling psychics.
20:56
He would set up a tent across from their tent and do the same things they were doing just to prove that they were false.
21:03
But he never gave up hope.
21:04
Houdini died a lost man.
21:05
He never gave up hope in the spiritual because he told his wife a special word, and he says, when I die, you will be the only person who knows this word.
21:18
Continue looking for a real psychic, and you'll know you've found one when they tell you the word.
21:33
Isn't that scary? He died with that kind of hope rather than hope in Christ.
21:40
Listen to me closely.
21:42
There are people who can do some amazing things, but participation in psychic phenomenon is ungodly and demonic.
21:52
If you want to look at your Bible, or just write this down, Deuteronomy 18 verses 10 through 12 says this, there shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead.
22:18
For whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you.
22:29
Now I realize that's Old Covenant language, but it still holds true today.
22:32
That that action of fortune telling, psychicness, mediums, are there people who can do some amazing things? Yes.
22:41
Does that make them godly? No.
22:42
And certainly not something that we should seek out.
22:48
So here's a woman.
22:49
She can do amazing things.
22:50
She can do such amazing things that she's making money for other men by doing these amazing things.
22:57
And she follows Paul, verse 17, crying out, Now I find that quite perplexing because verse 17 is right.
23:20
Everything she says is right.
23:23
Here's a woman who we know has an evil spirit.
23:26
Paul's about to cast the evil spirit out.
23:29
She's known as the town psychic, and yet she proclaims the truth.
23:38
Now you would think that the demonic spirit wouldn't want this girl anywhere near Paul.
23:43
You would think that this demonic spirit wouldn't want her anywhere near the apostles as they go about preaching.
23:51
But she was following them like a groupie.
23:54
Everywhere they went, here she comes in tow, and she's not saying anything wrong, she's saying everything right.
24:01
These men are servants of the Most High God, and they're proclaiming to you the way of salvation.
24:05
But Paul did not appreciate her announcement.
24:08
Verse 18, and this she kept doing for many days, Paul having become greatly annoyed.
24:15
And by the way, the word in the Greek there, annoyed, means annoyed.
24:20
In case you're wondering, sometimes the Greek can be a little confusing, but it does mean annoyed.
24:26
It actually means irked or provoked.
24:29
He didn't like it.
24:34
And he said to the spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ, come out of her.
24:38
And it came out that hour.
24:42
Now because she was speaking the truth, not from faith, but from a spirit of hostility and demonic influence, the Apostle Paul was irked or provoked or, as the ESV says, annoyed by what she was doing.
25:10
But it kind of does raise the question, why do this? Because, I mean, if you think about it, in Philippians chapter 1, the Apostle Paul talks about the fact that there are people who preach Christ incorrectly.
25:28
They preach Him from selfish ambition, and yet we shouldn't stop them because at least Christ is being preached.
25:34
Go there with me.
25:34
Go to Philippians 1.15.
25:36
Because I want to just point this out to you.
25:40
Philippians 1.15.
25:49
It's interesting that this is happening in Philippi.
25:51
And we're going to Philippians, so that's just sort of a kind of interesting connection here.
25:54
But in Philippians 1.15, he says this, some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill.
26:02
The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel.
26:06
The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, but thinking to afflict me and my imprisonment.
26:12
What then? Only that in every way, whether it in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.
26:17
So it's interesting in Philippians 1, Paul says, look, there are some people who are preaching the gospel because they have a love for God.
26:23
There are some people who are preaching the gospel because they hate me.
26:26
They're just telling people the gospel because they're telling people how much they hate me and how much they hate the gospel.
26:30
But the gospel is still being preached because they're telling people what they hate.
26:34
They're telling people about it, and in that sense, I rejoice.
26:39
So the question comes up, at least it came up in my mind, why is Paul so frustrated at this woman? If she's not saying anything wrong, why is he concerned with what she's doing? Well, I think Calvin, and yes, I'm going to make an appeal to J.C.
26:59
this morning, Calvin made an interesting point on this text.
27:06
He said this, if Paul had admitted her testimony, there should have been no longer any difference between the wholesome doctrine of Christ and the mocks of Satan.
27:19
The light and brightness of the gospel should have been entangled in the darkness and lying and so quite put out.
27:29
See what Calvin is saying here? He's saying, had Paul allowed this woman to be part of his entourage, because that's what she was doing.
27:37
Paul wasn't by himself.
27:38
It was Paul, Silas, Luke, and Timothy, and this woman.
27:43
Now everyone in town knew what this woman was.
27:47
This woman was a psychic.
27:49
This woman was a woman with a spirit of Python.
27:53
She was a divination bearing woman.
27:56
Here comes Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Luke, and this woman, and what does it appear? She is one of them.
28:06
And by the appearance that she is one of them, what are they then taking as baggage with what they're doing? All that she brought to the table.
28:16
So what would be the connection in the minds of people? These men are nothing more than psychics like her.
28:23
These men are cut from the same bolt of cloth as she.
28:28
These men are essentially nothing more than just psychics.
28:36
And Paul was not having that.
28:38
The gospel of Jesus Christ, the glorious light of the gospel cannot be mingled with darkness.
28:45
And so that's what we have.
28:47
The Apostle Paul becomes annoyed at this woman who's trying...
28:50
And I think that was the demon's purpose, by the way.
28:53
Why did the demon not take the woman away? Because the demon wanted to sully the reputation of Paul and Silas by putting along with them a woman who was known for being a psychic.
29:04
How do you establish someone as false? You put somebody false with them.
29:12
And so that's the situation.
29:14
The Apostle Paul knows what's happening.
29:15
The Apostle Paul knows what's going on.
29:18
And he knows what this spirit is doing.
29:20
So in the midst of this, he turns to the woman and he casts the demon out.
29:26
And it says in verse 18, it came out that very hour.
29:32
Amazing.
29:36
Now, I do want to add a little thought here.
29:41
It does not tell us that the woman was saved.
29:49
But it also doesn't tell us that she wasn't.
29:52
Read again verse 18.
29:54
It says, and this she kept doing for many days.
29:56
She was following him.
29:57
She was saying what she was saying.
29:58
Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, that's the demonic spirit which indwelled her, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.
30:08
And it came out that very hour.
30:11
And then verse 19, it just says, but when her owner saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul.
30:16
And of course, this is what we're going to deal with next week.
30:17
They take him, they beat him, put him in the prison.
30:20
So really, the woman is not mentioned anymore.
30:24
So it does raise the question, did casting out the demon bring about her conversion? Well, the text doesn't say that it did.
30:35
Pastor Brian Borgman, a man I respect, a man I listen to regularly, I appreciate his ministry, he believes that she was converted.
30:43
He believes that the text indicating that the demon is cast out.
30:47
Other times when we see demons cast out of people, we see a spiritual rebirth in them.
30:52
So he said, this is a case where this certainly can be.
30:55
The text doesn't say that, so we can't prove it.
30:58
But in either event, we know she was delivered from the oppressive spirit.
31:04
She spoke the truth in hate, and now she has been released to know the truth in love.
31:14
So having said all that about the text, and again, I'm not going to give you the answer of whether or not she saved, because the text doesn't give me the answer.
31:20
I can simply say, I hope.
31:23
It would be nice.
31:25
This is something Brian Borgman pointed out.
31:27
He said, if you think about it, if she was converted, you have Lydia, and later you have the Philippian jailer.
31:33
And if she was converted too, then what you have in Act 16 is simply a progression of three different types of people saved.
31:40
You have the rich woman, the demon-possessed girl, and the old Roman jailer.
31:48
You say, why do you know he's old? Well, we'll talk about that next week.
31:50
How did Roman jailers get their jobs? So they were retired centurions, is what they were.
31:54
They were retired men of war.
31:55
So here's an old guy.
31:57
So you've got a woman of position and money.
32:03
You've got a woman of divination, young, and you've got an old man.
32:06
Three different types of people all coming to know Christ.
32:09
That's the beauty, if she is converted, is that this is just story after story after story of people coming to know Christ through the ministry of Paul.
32:18
But earlier in the message, we talked about two types of people, and I want to go back to that as we draw now to our application.
32:24
We understand what the text is saying, and I want to begin to make an application from this passage, because I mentioned earlier that there are only two types of people in the world.
32:33
There are the lost, and there are the saved.
32:36
Those who hate the truth, and those who love the truth.
32:39
And in Acts 16, we're presented with two types of women prior to her being delivered.
32:48
Okay? I want to make sure that's understood.
32:50
If she is delivered, then praise the Lord.
32:53
But prior to her deliverance, we have Lydia, and we have the slave girl, or the woman with the spirit of divination.
33:01
One who loved the truth, one who hated the truth.
33:04
Now here's the point.
33:06
The Bible tells us that all men know innately that God exists.
33:15
In fact, that is the reason why on judgment day there will be no excuses.
33:22
No one will be able to look at God and say, well, I just didn't know you were there.
33:26
Romans 1 tells us that.
33:27
It says that all men will be without excuse.
33:31
Every man knows God exists, both by the evidence of natural revelation, and by the internal evidence of his conscience.
33:40
The one basic truth all men know is that God is, that He exists.
33:44
And yet, they hate that truth.
33:47
They try to destroy God.
33:49
They try to replace God.
33:51
They try to deny God.
33:53
They know the truth, and they hate the truth.
33:57
This is the natural state of men.
34:00
My challenge to you today, and my question to draw this together to an application is this.
34:07
Do you love the truth? You might say, well, I come to church.
34:17
I proclaim Christ in song.
34:21
I even went to the fishing hole.
34:24
I'm not calling anybody out who went to the fishing hole.
34:27
We say these things, but here's the thing.
34:34
This woman proclaimed the truth, but she didn't love it.
34:41
This woman proclaimed the truth, but she was not converted.
34:48
She was motivated by something other than love for the truth.
34:56
So my question to you this morning, if you want to ask yourself, do I love the truth? Why don't you ask yourself an even deeper question? What motivates you to love the truth? Do you come to church because you feel like you have to fulfill an obligation? Well, it's Sunday morning.
35:20
God expects me to be in church.
35:22
I better put my good pants on, or my good shoes, or whatever, and get down there because this is what God wants me to do, and I better do it.
35:31
Do you come to church because you love the social atmosphere? Well, I've got to go.
35:35
I've got to go see my buddy Dale.
35:37
Sorry, Dale.
35:40
I've got to go see Brother Jim and the boys.
35:44
See them here and play the guitars and the drums.
35:50
Do you come because it's a place to see people and be seen? You know, it's one of the last places of social interaction that a lot of people have after we leave school and we retire from jobs.
36:00
And we tend to only have one connection socially, and that's church.
36:04
Is that why we come? Or do you come and participate in the body of Christ because you are passionate about the truth of the gospel and you love Jesus, who Himself is the truth? Do you love the truth? Here's the beautiful thing.
36:36
If you don't, Christ can deliver you.
36:39
In the same way that woman was delivered from that evil spirit, you too can be delivered by the hand of God.
36:51
He can remove the heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh.
37:00
If you know the truth but don't love the truth, I call you today, repent and trust Christ.
37:10
For He is the way, the truth, and the life.
37:15
And no one comes to the Father except through Him.
37:20
Let's pray.
37:22
Father in heaven, I thank You for the truth.
37:26
I thank You that by Your Spirit, You make men lovers of the truth.
37:33
You make men desire the truth when we would otherwise desire only our self-interest.
37:41
I pray, Father, for those among us who do not love the truth, that today they have been convicted of their sin, that they would be drawn to their knees at the foot of the cross, that they would look up to You and cry out for mercy.
37:58
I pray, Lord, that You would change men's hearts, that You would draw them unto Yourself, and that You would convert their souls.
38:06
I pray also for believers, Lord, those who do love the truth.
38:10
I pray that they would be recommitted every day to the proclamation of the truth and living in light of their calling.
38:21
And we pray all this in Jesus' name and for His sake, Amen.