False Brothers

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Alright, well let's open our Bibles to Galatians 2 and we're going to read the same text we read last week, but we're going to focus in on one word and the whole sermon will be centered on that word.
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So it's either going to be a really short sermon, because it's only one word, or you're going to tell me to stop, because sometimes I get stuck on one word and I just keep going and going and going.
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So we'll see how it goes.
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I will say this, with the storm and everything, I'm not as meticulously planned out as I normally am, so I'm a little more relaxed.
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So that sometimes can be good, to let the Spirit have His way.
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So we're going to read chapter 2, verses 1-10, focusing on verse 4 will be our attention today.
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Then after 14 years, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me.
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I went up because of a revelation and sat before them, though privately, before those who seemed influential.
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The gospel that I proclaimed among the Gentiles in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain.
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But even Titus, who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek.
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And here is the verse we're going to focus on.
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Yet because of false brothers, secretly brought in, who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus so that they might bring us into slavery, to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.
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And from those who seemed to be influential, what they were makes no difference to me.
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God shows no partiality.
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Those, I say, who seemed influential added nothing to me.
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On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised, for he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised worked also through me for mine to the Gentiles.
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And when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.
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Only they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.
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Let's pray.
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Father of mercies, I ask, Lord, by your grace, that you would, through the preaching of your word, reach down and affect souls in this room.
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Lord, for the believers, I pray that you would draw them closer to you, that you would spur them to good works, that you would keep them from sin, that you would use this message as a tool for construction in their life and instruction to their souls.
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And Lord, for the unbeliever, I pray, whoever he may be in this room, I pray that this would be an opportunity that he be confronted in his unbelief and that he be forced to respond in faith by the power of the Holy Spirit of God.
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Father, we know that there are those who are false brothers.
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And Lord, as we consider that today, what it means to be a false brother, why someone would be a false brother, and how someone becomes a false brother, I pray, Lord, that you would keep me from error, for such is a dangerous subject.
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For, Lord, I do not want the believers to live in doubt, and I do not want the false brothers to live with assurance, but I want the division to be clear.
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And I pray again that you would keep me from error, anoint me with your Spirit, Lord, that your Word would be paramount.
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In Christ's name we pray, Amen.
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I'm going to write a word on the board.
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I hope I'm not offending by erasing it.
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In our sermon last week, I mentioned this word in Greek and in English.
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This is the word that we're going to be looking at today.
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This is the word pseudodelphos.
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Pseudodelphos is two words that can be broken down into their prefix and root.
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You understand how those work.
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Prefixes provide a meaning, change the meaning of the root of a word.
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The root, adelphos, we should be familiar with.
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I understand that you don't study Greek.
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Most likely, most of you do not, and that's fine.
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But it's important that you learn some words, because that's what the Bible was written in.
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At least the New Testament.
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The Old Testament was written in Hebrew.
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Some parts in Aramaic, which is a Hebrew dialect.
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But the majority of the New Testament, in fact, the whole of the New Testament, except for just a few words, is written in what is called koine Greek.
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The word koine means common.
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We get the word koinonia to have things in common or fellowship.
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Koine Greek was the language.
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It was sort of like English in the first century.
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What I mean by that is the modern English tongue is the language of business.
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Think about English as the language of the world's business, because America is so influential that if you were to go to China, you'd see their children are learning English.
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Not just Chinese, because they learn English so that they can do business in the world.
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In fact, my wife teaches Chinese students how to speak English.
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She's paid to go online, and she does this every morning from about 5 o'clock in the morning to about 9 o'clock in the morning.
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She's teaching Chinese students to speak English, simply so that they can do business in the world.
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All air traffic controllers have to speak English because they have to communicate with one another, and so they all learn English so that they can all communicate.
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It's the language of business.
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It's the language of the world.
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It's not the universal language, because there, of course, are many other languages.
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But if you're going to do business, you study English.
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Well, in the first century, Greek was sort of that way.
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Koine, common.
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It was the common language.
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Everybody knew it, and everybody used it who did business.
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Therefore, the Bible, the New Testament Scriptures were not written in Hebrew, because Hebrew was kept within a small group of people known as the Jewish or the Hebrew community.
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And if you wanted your message to go out into the world, you wouldn't write it in Hebrew.
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English didn't come about until many centuries later.
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But you'd write it in the common language.
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And the common language of that day was Greek.
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So it would behoove you to study a little bit of Greek, but to be just reminded that these words matter.
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And one of the words that's good to know is the word Adelphos.
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It means brother.
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If you are familiar with the word Philadelphia, the city, the root of Philadelphia is Adelphos.
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Philos is love.
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Therefore, the word Philadelphia means brotherly love.
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You know, brothers is Adelphos, and love is Philos of Philadelphia.
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So knowing that Adelphos is the root, this is the word that the prefix is modifying.
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It's like if you had the word structure, and you put C-O-N at the beginning, it becomes construct or construction.
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Putting the prefix C-O-N means with.
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So construct means to give with structure, or to give something structure, or to construct.
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So prefix modifies the root.
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Right? Well, the prefix pseudo should be familiar to us because pseudo is used in other ways in English.
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We talk about someone who has a pseudonym.
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That means they have a false name.
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You ever seen somebody who went under a false name to do crime? Somebody who put themselves out as someone else? They sometimes call it an alias.
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Right? But there's also a pseudonym that's used in writing.
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Sometimes people will write books, and they don't want anyone to know that they wrote the book, so they'll write it under a false name.
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Who's that? Lemony Snickets? Okay.
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Well, there's also funny, if you look up the history of film.
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I like movies, and I like to look at movies.
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There are some times when directors will make movies, and the movies are so bad, they don't want their name attached to it when the final product comes out.
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So on the credits, it'll be like directed by John Smith because Ivan Reitman doesn't want his name attached to it, or whoever it was.
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This movie is bad, so I'm going to put a false name on the movie.
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So we understand pseudodelphos then means a false brother.
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False brother.
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And so this is going to be the word that we use to study today.
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And it's interesting, this word only shows up twice in the Bible, but the concept is all through the Bible.
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You can go all the way back into the Old Testament, and you can see men and women, but for the sake of the gender neutral, you'll see people who present themselves as members of the covenant community who are not truly members of the covenant community.
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Remember a man named Korah? This was back in the Old Testament during the days of Moses.
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And Korah led a rebellion against Moses and ultimately against God.
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And he tried to get God's people to reject God's man and to turn and go back to Egypt.
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Was that Amber G.
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Robinson in the Ten Commandments? Did he play him? You know, I just said I love movies, but I don't remember.
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What's that? Is that Haman? No, you're thinking of the story of Esther.
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That's where Haman comes in.
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Now this is back during the Exodus.
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And Korah led a rebellion of people, and what happened was Moses had them come out and they had their interaction, and God opened up the earth and swallowed him and his family.
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And I imagine it sort of looked like an earthquake.
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I mean, you've seen earthquakes swallow people whole, right? I mean, I've seen sinkholes that just drop a whole house down into them and cover it up.
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That's what happened.
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On the day Korah had his rebellion, the Bible says the earth underneath him swallowed him and his family and his followers.
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Not just him.
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It wasn't like a small manhole opened up and he fell in.
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A crack in the earth occurred and gave way and gave him and his entire family their grave from the hand of God.
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Yeah, they're gone.
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So that is an example of someone who was a false brother.
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Someone who was a member of the covenant community, but was a rebel against God.
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And that's really a picture of what Paul is addressing here.
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Paul is talking about people who have in some way become members of the church family.
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They've some way become members of the household of God.
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Maybe they grew up in church and through a process of simply being a part of the church, grew up and were baptized or confirmed depending on the type of church it is.
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And they grew up in the church, but at some point, they chose to be a rebel against God and against His will and they began to create a division in the church.
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And let me tell you, that's what false brothers do.
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False brothers never unite.
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They always divide.
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They always bring...
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And let me tell you something, I have seen churches split over the most ridiculous things.
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And this may sound like an exaggeration, but I've seen churches that have split over what color they were going to paint the sanctuary.
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People get so angry.
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I've been in this church for 40 years and I think it should be mauve.
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And this new guy is going to come in and paint it turquoise? And you think I'm exaggerating.
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And I tell you, battles begin with such little nonsense and begin to crack and open up a fissure and a division and it widens and it widens and it widens and you get people who hate each other and they don't even remember why they hated each other.
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Sort of like the Hatfields and the McCoys.
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They've been fighting so long, they don't even remember what started it.
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They just know I hate him and he hates me.
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And that kind of division is what is brought in by false brothers.
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Now, because we are here and looking at this Word, I do want to show you the only other place it is.
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Because it's here in Galatians and in Galatians Paul is talking about the Judaizers.
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I think I've founded that plenty on our last 10 weeks of study.
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We did 8 weeks in the first chapter and we did another week last week in chapter 2.
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I think I've made my point that the false brothers Paul is talking about here, he mentions them in chapter 1.
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Those who have a false gospel.
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We're going to talk about that in a minute.
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But I want to show you in one other spot.
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Go over to 2 Corinthians.
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Go to chapter 11.
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Paul is explaining in chapter 11 about his difficulties in ministry.
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I've had a lot that I've dealt with, he's saying.
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I've gone through a lot.
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And depending on where we pick up, we could pick up I guess around verse 21.
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He says, To my shame, I must say, we were too weak for that, but whatever anyone else dares to boast of, I am speaking as a fool, I also dare to boast of that.
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And he goes on to verse 22, Are they Hebrews? So am I.
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Are they Israelites? So am I.
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Are they offspring of Abraham? So am I.
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Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one.
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I'm talking like a madman with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death.
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So again, Paul is simply explaining his fidelity to Christ.
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If they think they're faithful, so am I.
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If they think they are something, so am I.
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And here's why.
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And he starts in verse 24.
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Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes, less one.
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Three times I was beaten with rods.
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Once I was stoned.
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Three times I was shipwrecked.
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A night and a day I was adrift at sea on frequent journeys in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from the Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers.
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That is the only other place in the New Testament that I am aware of.
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And I did a pretty good search where this word pseudo-adolphos comes into play.
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And here Paul is saying he was in danger from these people.
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And he compares them to being shipwrecked.
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He compares them to being beaten with rods.
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He compares them with being adrift at sea.
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And he compares them to robbers when he's making his list of things that he's had to deal with.
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He says, one of the things I have had to deal with as an apostle is I have had to deal with false brothers.
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They have done great damage in my life.
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Do you remember? Maybe you do, maybe you don't.
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There's a point where he actually names a few of those who were false brothers.
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Alexander the coppersmith who did me great harm.
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Can you imagine your name is written in the Bible as a guy who did the apostle Paul great harm? And that's how you're remembered for the rest of all eternity.
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That your name is written in Scripture as having hurt or harmed the apostle Paul.
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Yes sir? Was he the same one as Alexander the Great? No sir, Alexander the Great lived several hundred years before Christ.
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This would have been after Christ, so historically he's a different individual.
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Alexander the coppersmith was a false brother.
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He was a member of the early church.
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Would have been somewhere around the time of 50 A.D.
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Alexander the Great was about, I think, 400 A.D.
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or 400 B.C.
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Tiberius was around too, right? Who's that? What now? Tiberius Caesar.
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Now Tiberius Caesar, yeah, but that would have been later.
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Yeah, this is a time during the Caesars.
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Yes sir? Why did Paul change his name? Why did Paul change his name? Yeah, I mean, Saul and Tarsus didn't have a revelation.
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Well, some people make a huge deal out of this that this was an example of Paul's conversion.
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I think Paul had from birth two names.
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I think that he was Saul when he was with his Jewish brethren, and he was Paul when he was with the Romans because he was a Roman citizen.
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And I think Paul was his Roman name and Saul was his Hebrew name.
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And so I don't think that...
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I think in Scripture we do see a sense in which when he was Saul, he was the old man, and when he's Paul, he's the new man.
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But that's not always that way.
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Sometimes there's a back and forth.
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But generally in all of his letters, he calls himself Paul.
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And I think that there is a sense in which that references his conversion going from his old life of Judaizing, being a Jew, to his new life in Christ.
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But I do think both names were birth names.
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It was very common for a person who had mixed lineages to have a name that associated with one and a name that associated with another.
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It wasn't uncommon for that to be.
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That's what I'm saying.
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I don't think he changed his name.
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I think he started using his Greek name when he started going to the Gentile churches.
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Right.
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Is that why they say Noel? In Acts it says James, Lomax.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And again, it was very common for people to have several names or even nicknames.
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I think Peter was Peter, Cephas, and Simon.
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So you had three names.
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And he was also called Barjona, which means son of Jonah, which was his father.
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And sometimes that's like Barabbas.
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Remember Barabbas, the guy who Jesus...
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No, that's Barnabas.
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Barnabas means son of encouragement, but Barabbas was the one who was supposed to go to the cross.
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Remember? Crucify Jesus, give us Barabbas.
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The word Barabbas in Hebrew means son of the father, which is interesting.
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Abba means father, son of the father, which probably meant they didn't know his father's name.
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It might be a way of calling someone an illegitimate child.
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We don't know who your father is, so we just call you son of a father because we don't know who he is.
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It was a negative way, sort of like you might call someone today illegitimate.
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So Barabbas was probably a nickname and a negative one at that.
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Alright, so good question.
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Very good question.
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Alright, so going back to pseudo-Adelphos, we see it here in 2 Corinthians.
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We see this was one of the things Paul had to battle with, was false brethren.
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But I want to show you two other Scriptures today that don't use the word pseudo-Adelphos, but does describe the false brethren.
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Even though it doesn't use the words, it gives an apt description.
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And the first one we're going to look at is way in the back, almost to the end in the book of Jude.
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So find your way to that little one-page book, probably half a page if you have small print, right before the book of Revelation, you have the book of Jude.
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I love to preach Jude.
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I've taught them it several times.
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In fact, if I ever do get through Galatians, maybe we'll go to Jude next and see just how long we can preach on a half a page.
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Because there's so much meat here.
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Jude is a powerful book.
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Jude was written by the half-brother of Jesus, just like James was written by the half-brother of Jesus.
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We believe this Judas is one of Jesus' brothers mentioned in the Gospels.
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But start at verse 3.
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We're going to read from verse 3 to 13.
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And I want you to listen out for what his concern is.
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Listen for what Jude is worried about.
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What's his concern? He says, Beloved, I was eager to write to you about our common salvation.
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I found it necessary to write to you appealing to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.
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For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation.
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Ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ.
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So stop right there.
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What's Jude's concern? People who have crept in falsely and they're denying the grace of Christ.
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So the one thing I point out when I am teaching Jude is this.
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This was not what he wanted to write.
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This kind of shows the inspiration of the Spirit.
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Jude sits down and he says, I would prefer to write to you about salvation.
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I would prefer to write to you about something positive, about a good message, about what we have in Christ.
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But because of these people, I've got a right to you to contend for the faith.
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It literally means to fight for the truth.
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Because of these people who have crept in.
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And he goes on in verse 5, Now I would remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus who saved the people out of the land of Egypt afterwards destroyed those who did not believe.
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By the way, that's talking about Korah.
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Remember I mentioned him earlier? He said even though he saved him out of Egypt, he wasn't a believer, and later he destroyed him.
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It goes on to say, And the angels who did not stay within their position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.
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This is talking about angels who fell with Satan or demons.
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Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desires, served as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
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He's now talking about back in Genesis when the people of Sodom were sinning against God, and they were sinning against God in an unnatural sexual perversion, and God rained down fire from heaven and destroyed the whole city.
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Then he goes on in verse 8, Yet in like manner these people...
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Who are these people? These people are those in verse 4, the certain people who crept in From a linguistic perspective, you tie verse 8 to verse 4 verses 5 to 7 as an aside.
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Verse 4 connects to verse 8.
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He says, Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones.
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But when the archangel Michael contended with the devil who was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, The Lord rebuke you.
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But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.
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Woe to them! Now here's the key.
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Verse 11.
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Woe to them! For they walk in the way of Cain.
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Who's Cain? The very first murderer.
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Right? And abandon themselves for the sake of Balaam's error.
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Remember who Balaam was in the book of Numbers.
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He was brought in to bring a curse on God's people.
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He was a false prophet.
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He was a dangerous false prophet.
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And perished in Korah's rebellion.
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I've already mentioned who Korah was.
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Yeah.
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These are blemishes on your love feasts, and they feast with you without fear and they're looking after themselves.
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Meaning, they come into the church.
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Love feasts were how the church...
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Originally, worship for the church centered around a meal.
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Oftentimes we think of church as you come in and everybody faces the guy who's speaking and he stands up and he speaks and he preaches.
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And that's not unbiblical necessarily.
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We see that.
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But the worship was not just you come in, you sing, you leave, and you go to the Cracker Barrel and have lunch.
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Worship was an entire celebration.
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And it centered around a meal.
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And they called it the agape feast or the love feast.
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And they ate together.
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They fellowshiped together.
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And he said, these people, these are blemishes on your love feasts.
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These are the dangerous ones in your fellowship.
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And then my favorite section comes right after this.
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He says, they are waterless clouds swept along by winds, fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted, wild waves of the sea casting up the foam of their own shame, wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.
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Notice the analogies.
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It's kind of interesting that we look at this analogy of a waterless cloud.
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Last few days, we've been a little concerned about the hurricane.
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Now you guys might not have had access to what my wife had access to, and that was 24-hour news cycle.
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So she, for the last 48 hours, has done nothing but watch the news and watch the hurricane come up the coast and concern that it was going to dive into Florida and bring destruction.
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Thank God it didn't.
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We ought to pray for the Bahamas though.
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It sat for 72 hours in one spot.
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Never seen anything like it in my life.
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It just beat and beat and beat and beat the Bahamian people for two days.
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180 mile an hour winds over and over.
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It is flat.
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The Bahamas are flat.
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The GPS picture of space is covered in hurricanes.
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Yeah, it's awful.
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I can't even imagine.
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Number one, I can't imagine having lived through it.
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And number two, I can't imagine how they're going to come back from it.
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It's going to require a lot of grace and a lot of help.
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And hopefully we'll be able to, as the people of God, show them the love of Christ in offering that help.
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But I didn't mean to digress there.
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My point is, imagine you saw this cloud but there was nothing in it.
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That's the picture Jude is giving.
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A waterless cloud.
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Looks like something, but it ain't nothing.
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It doesn't have any substance.
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That's the picture of the false brother.
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He looks like a brother, but there's nothing inside.
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There's nothing real.
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It's false.
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It's fake.
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He's not genuine.
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So the picture, the waterless cloud.
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And then he uses some others.
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He says, he's like fruitless trees.
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And you think about that, that should make you think of another passage in Matthew 7 where Jesus talks about false prophets.
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By the way, same prefix.
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Pseudo-prophetes.
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False prophets who have what? Bad fruit.
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Jesus said you'll know the false prophets by their fruit.
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You will know them by their fruit.
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They don't have good fruit.
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They have rotted fruit or no fruit at all.
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So these are the false brothers.
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These are the false ones.
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And what does Jude tell us? He says they're casting up the foam of their own shame.
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They're always making waves.
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They're wild waves.
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But all they do is stir up division and stir up hatred.
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And all they're doing is they're creating for themselves a worse situation when they finally face God because they're going to have so much to answer for.
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Imagine you spent your whole life in opposition to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ and then you face Him.
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You spent your whole life in the church bringing division, bringing hatred, bringing gossip, bringing all kinds of horrible things and then you die and you open your eyes and the one you hated is your judge.
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The one you have rebelled against is the one who's going to offer your sentence.
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It would be better if you'd never been born than to be a false brother.
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What's that, brother? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
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It would be better if you'd never been born.
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It'd be better if you'd never heard the Gospel.
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And just know this, even if you'd never heard the Gospel, you'd still be responsible for your sin.
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You don't get off the hook just because you don't hear.
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But at least you're not a rebel from the truth of the Gospel.
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Yes? Alright, so false brothers there.
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That's the issue of Jude saying it's the wrath of the Lord.
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Outer darkness is their destination.
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There are untold lessons to be paid for.
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Yeah, I mean, we could get into the issue of their being prepared for destruction.
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Romans 9 talks about that, being prepared for destruction.
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And even Jude gets into that some.
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So I would say this, there are some people who are false brothers and they are going to remain false brothers.
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But I want to make sure we're clear on this.
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If you are here today and you're unconverted, as long as there's breath in your lungs, you have hope.
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I don't want to leave anybody without hope.
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I don't want to say that because God knows your destination and God has determined that you're without hope.
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I've heard people say that, well, because I believe in predestination, but predestination is something that God knows I don't know.
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That's why I come here and preach.
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If I just thought it was already determined and there's no way that my preaching is going to have any effect, I wouldn't have any use in preaching.
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The Bible says that God uses the means to achieve His ends.
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And the means of preaching is how unsaved people get saved.
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Romans 10 tells me that.
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How shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall anyone preach unless he's sent? So we ought to be sending preachers.
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Next month, our church is going to spend ten days at the Nassau County Fair in Callahan.
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We have a booth that's right out on the midway.
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We give away over 4,000 Gospel tracts.
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We have several good Gospel conversations.
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And we wouldn't do that if we believed that we didn't have some part in the plan of God and bringing His elect in.
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And I do believe a man can be in opposition to Christ and be converted.
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A false brother can become a true brother by the grace of God if God so chooses.
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That's where Paul was, right? He hated the church.
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He was bringing persecution against the church.
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God changed his heart.
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So I would be careful to simply say, if I see somebody who's a false brother, I'm just going to write them off.
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I'm going to pray for that person.
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But, he may have to be removed from the church though.
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If he is a false brother who's bringing division into the church, the Bible says that we are to go to him and call him to repentance.
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And if he refuses to repent, we are to go back to him with witnesses and call him to repent.
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And if he refuses to repent, we are to take him before the church.
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And if he is taken before the church and he still refuses to repent, he is to be excommunicated.
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Meaning, he's to be put out of the church for the protection of the church.
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It's like cancer.
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You can't have cancer growing inside of you and expect to survive.
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You've got to cut it out.
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Yes, sir? No, no.
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An apostate is someone who has been a believer at least by confession and then rejects faith.
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So for instance, Dan Barker is probably the most famous apostate that I know.
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Dan Barker is the head of one of the largest atheistic societies in the United States.
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I think it's called the American Atheists, but I don't remember for sure.
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But Dan Barker is the president that he used to be a preacher.
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Oh, yeah.
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Dan Barker was...
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I don't know how many of you remember this name.
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Some of you are older than me.
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There was a lady by the name of Catherine Kuhlman.
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Catherine Kuhlman was sort of like the Benny Hinn of the 60's and the 70's.
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She was a faith healer.
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She had these big conferences and people would come.
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Dan Barker was her next in line.
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He was going to be the next preacher.
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Well, he fell away, rejected Christ, and now he spends his life telling people there is no God, there is no Jesus Christ, there is no afterlife, and there is no salvation.
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That is what we would call an apostate.
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Someone who once confessed the faith and now rejects the faith.
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I would say he was never saved to begin with.
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Base that on 1 John, which says that they went out from us, but they were not of us, for had they been of us, they would have remained with us, but they went out from us to prove that they were never truly of us.
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I think Dan Barker gives that better than just about anybody I've ever seen.
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I know we've got several hands.
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You had your hand up first, brother.
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I'll go.
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We know for a historical fact that somebody named Jesus lived.
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He may be able to deny that He was God.
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Well, there is a small contingency of people who argue the whole story of Jesus.
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It's ridiculous, and no good historian would ever accept such nonsensical argument, but there are people out there who believe it because there are people out there who will believe anything other than the truth.
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They call themselves skeptics, but they're not because they'll accept anything except the truth.
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Go ahead, brother.
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And I'll be right back to you, I promise.
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Now, you said that He was like next to God and that faith He would make Him whole.
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Yeah, He was the next one.
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Well, I mean, do you ever think that maybe that faith was sealed? Yeah, it could have been.
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I mean, again, Kathryn Kuhlman's going to have...
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She is one who I believe is a false teacher.
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I believe she fits into this category.
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She's going to face Jesus, and she's going to face Jesus for every false word she ever proclaimed about Him.
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And I believe she's going to bust hell wide open.
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If she's not already dead, I don't know.
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She may be, may not be.
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Well, I mean...
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I think she's going to hit just like the end of a water slide.
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Bam! It's going to be right there.
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Brother, you had a question, then I've got to move on.
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Yeah, Gnosticism was very prevalent in the later first century, yes.
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Oh yeah, and again, Jude...
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We're not...
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Jude is not necessarily referring to the same group as Paul is, but he's dealing with the same type of person.
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False brothers.
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Yeah, whether it's Gnostics, whether it's Judaizers, whether it was...
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There were several groups in the first century who tried to abscond with the faith and make it their own.
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Yeah, it could have been Greek philosophers and everything else.
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So there's a lot of groups that it could have been referring to.
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My point simply today is to say that false brethren in the first century were a problem for Paul, for Jude.
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Jesus mentions them in Matthew.
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False prophets, false brethren.
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And the problem still persists today.
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And I want to say this, and don't hate me, but if I say something that makes you hate me and it's truth, I'm just going to have to let you hate me.
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I am certain that there are those of you in this room who are false, brother.
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I don't know who you are.
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You don't have a tag on you that says fake.
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And neither do the true have a tag on them that says elect.
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So I can't walk around and lift up your shirt and see if there's a big E tattooed on your back for elect.
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I don't know.
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But I know this.
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False brethren are everywhere.
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So if I say I think there are some here, I'm only saying that based on the fact that they seem to be everywhere.
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God's people gather.
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And I want to give you four indicators of false brethren.
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This is based on Galatians 2.
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So if you want to go back to Galatians, I'm going to give you four indicators of false brethren.
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And then we'll draw to a close.
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Because I'm about out of time.
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The first indicator of a false brethren is they believe a false gospel.
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That's Galatians 1.6-9.
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You know, Paul talks about a false gospel.
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And he says if you believe a false gospel, you're cursed.
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So false brethren believe a false gospel.
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That's first.
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Number two, they're deceptive.
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Look at chapter 2 again.
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It says they snuck in.
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Look, it says they slipped in to spy out our freedom.
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They slip in.
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They're deceptive.
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They don't come in saying, look at me, I'm the false brother.
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Sometimes they're self-deceived, but sometimes they're intentionally deceiving others.
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Think about Jim Jones.
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Now I use him as an example because he took thousands of people with him to drink cyanide-laced Kool-Aid.
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Children, infants, mothers.
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Some of them it was forced on them.
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But the vast majority took it willingly.
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Here's a guy who was first a Baptist preacher.
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And he slipped in deceptively.
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And he brought literal physical destruction on an entire group of people.
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I want to tell you, what Jim Jones did is no different from what some of the false teachers that some of you may even listen to are doing to your souls.
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False teachers are the most prominent television preachers that exist.
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They are preaching a false gospel of prosperity, health, and wealth.
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But they are not calling for repentance of sin.
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And they are not calling for holy living.
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They are not calling for true faith.
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They are not teaching true grace.
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They are false prophets.
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They come in deceptively.
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They look nice, and they fly nice in their jets, and they ride nice in their Bentleys.
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But they are waterless clouds.
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Fruitless trees.
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So that's number two.
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They come in deceptively.
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Number three, they have ulterior motives.
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Look again at chapter 2, verse 4.
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He says, as they slip in to spy out the freedom that we have in Christ, so that they might bring us into slavery.
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That's their motivation.
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What do you think the false teacher on television is trying to do? He's trying to enslave you financially.
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If he can get you to give you a dollar, he can get you to give you $1,000.
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If he can get you to give him $1,000, he can get you to give every dime you have for the hope that one day you'll get a payoff.
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It's the worst gambling.
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You might as well go to Vegas.
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Because it's worse than gambling.
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Send a $1,000 seed and you'll get a reaped reward.
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Yeah.
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But number four, and this is the final one, they often flatter those in authority.
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Look at verse 6 with me.
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Paul says, and from those who seem to be influential, what they were makes no difference to me.
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God shows no partiality.
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Those I say who seemed influential added nothing to me.
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Paul is not trying to insult Peter, James, and John.
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They're the ones who seemed influential.
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We notice this later.
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He's not seeking to insult them.
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What he's saying is this.
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He's saying that those people who seemed influential added nothing to my Gospel because I got my Gospel straight from Jesus Christ.
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And you say, well, what does this have to do with the false brothers? I believe that Paul's whole point in saying that was that the false brothers were the ones who were going around and saying, I'm Peter.
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I'm of Apollos.
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Remember 1 Corinthians? They're the ones who flatter those in authority to make a name for themselves.
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I'm always nervous when someone comes to our church and the first thing they do is start telling me how great I am.
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Because number one, I know it ain't true.
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I mean truthfully.
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If somebody comes to our church and they say, Pastor, I want to take you to lunch.
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Okay, take me to lunch.
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And they start lavishing upon me all kinds of, you're so great and your preaching is so great and this service is so great and the people are so great.
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And I'm in my mind going, we ain't that great.
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I ain't that great.
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What's your motive? Now I'm not saying don't encourage me.
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I appreciate that brother.
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And I know that I'm not talking about anyone here.
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But there are people who use flattery to build for themselves a reputation.
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And often those are the most dangerously divisive people in the church.
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Because they're trying to produce for themselves a following off of the back of somebody who already has one.
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The pastor's already got a group of people who listen to him.
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If I pretend to listen to him, maybe they'll listen to me.
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Flattery is all throughout the New Testament as a dangerous sin.
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Now again, I appreciate the encouragement.
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I appreciate it.
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If my ministry helps you, I like to know that.
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And if I'm confusing, I want to know that too.
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Help me out because I want to do better.
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But don't ever think that flattery is the way that you should move forward because that's how the false brothers get their feet in the door.
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And always watch out when somebody tries to flatter you.
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If somebody tells you how great you are, just remember you're not.
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Yes, yes sir.
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Me? I would always encourage to call it out privately first because that's the way Jesus tells us if your brother is sinning, you go to him privately and seek to restore him.
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Now, we're going to see next week, Peter is called out publicly.
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And that's right where we're going.
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So lest you think I'm going to contradict myself next week, the difference is Peter is a man in authority and Paul is a man in authority and their position is influential in the church, so Paul confronts him to his face.
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Now, whether or not it was a public scene or a private scene, we'll discuss next week.
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But the point is, Paul doesn't go and talk to everybody else.
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He goes straight to him.
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So yeah, there's somebody that needs to be called out.
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Number one, you go straight to him.
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And number two, the example of Christ is go privately.
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That way, if there is a restoration possible, it can happen without everybody having to know, without gossip and dissension and division, but brotherly affection.
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Yes, sir? I agree with that.
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And I would agree, brother, if somebody is tweaking you, and I mean this for me too, if somebody's bothering me, if somebody's in a situation where I think they're in sin or they're doing something wrong, I'm going to go to Christ first and say, God, show me how best to go about this.
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Because the Bible says a soft word turns away wrath.
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And so can I bring a soft word that might turn this person over to Christ rather than having him be angry at me? Rather than having him be angry at the church? You know, when I go, I represent as a pastor, I represent the whole body a lot of times when I'm talking to people.
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I want the body to be well represented.
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You go, you represent Christ.
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You want Christ to be well represented if you have to go to that false brother.
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But do go.
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Don't just assume that, well, God's going to handle it.
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Because He might be wanting to handle it through you.
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So yes, do go.
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But do everything you can to protect your brother.
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You know, it says at the end of Galatians, and we'll get there eventually, that if you see your brother falling into sin, you should go and restore him.
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So that's our goal, is we want to restore him.
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And so again, I pray for all of you every day.
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I pray that you are true and genuine in your faith.
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If you're concerned that you are a false believer, first and foremost, the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes.
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And if you believe the false Gospel, I would say repent and believe the truth.
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You are a sinner, and you're a great sinner.
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Christ is a Savior, and He's a greater Savior than you are a sinner.
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And He can save even you by the blood of His cross.
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So let's pray.
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I'm sorry guys, I've got to finish up.
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Real quick, for the depths and the riches of both the wisdom and the knowledge of God, I want to circle as I find an outpouring of salvation and you should stand back a minute and wait.
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We don't know His ways always, and we ask Him for wisdom.
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Absolutely.
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Father in Heaven, I thank You for Your Word.
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May it be that Your Word would penetrate our hearts.
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Lord, I don't think any man in this room wants to be a false brother.
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But Lord, we don't know everyone's heart.
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So I pray for those who might be deceptive, who might have come in secretly, seeking to bring problems.
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And I pray, Lord, that You would convict their heart.
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I pray that You would change them.
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And I pray that by the preaching of the Word, they would see themselves as desperate for the grace of Christ.
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As Lord, we all are.
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Whether it's been in the faith for 20 years or the faith for 20 minutes, every one of us is desperate for the grace of Christ, for it is what sustains us.
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And we thank You for it in Christ's name, Amen.