"Prophet Margins " Part Two November 4, 2018 AM

in which you have revealed your Son, Jesus Christ. You tell us that we can only come as little children.

We have nothing to offer, but we confess our need.

Nothing to add to your kingdom, but knowing that we are sinners in need of a

Savior, beggars in need of bread. I pray that you would capture all of our affections here today and lash them forever to Christ.

We pray for these mercies, seeking your answer, only for the sake of Christ, the one with whom you are well -pleased, amen.

Well, I invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to Jeremiah chapter 23. In particular, this morning, we will be looking at verses 16 through 24.

Jeremiah 23, verses 16 through 24. A couple of weeks ago, when we were last in this chapter, we were talking about profit margins,

P -R -O -P -H -E -T, margins. That there are actually boundaries.

There are actually lines within which profits are to operate.

There is such a thing as truth and such a thing as a lie, and that profits who operate outside of the margins are of no benefit to the people of God.

This is the Lord's contention as he speaks to Jeremiah, to the people of Judah here in Jeremiah 23.

Last time, we were just establishing whether or not we were concerned. Are we concerned about profit margins?

We are obviously concerned about the number representing our checking account and our savings account.

We are concerned about the books at the businesses that we run, that we work at. We're concerned about these things.

But are we concerned about something of far greater impact, a far more eternal value?

Are we concerned about what we believe and from whom we gather our beliefs?

So our opportunity continues this morning to talk about profit margins.

I would invite you to please stand with me and do reverence to Jesus Christ, who was revealed here in Jeremiah 23, verses 16 through 24.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, do not listen to the words of the prophets who are prophesying to you.

They are leading you into futility. They speak a vision of their own imagination, not from the mouth of the

Lord. They keep saying to those who despise me, the

Lord has said you will have peace. And as for everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his own heart, they say, calamity will not come upon you.

But who has stood in the counsel of the Lord that he should see and hear his word? Who has given heed to his word and listened?

Behold, the storm of the Lord has gone forth in wrath, even a whirling tempest.

It will swirl down on the head of the wicked. The anger of the Lord will not turn back until he has performed and carried out the purposes of his heart.

In the last days, you will clearly understand it. I did not send these prophets, but they ran.

I did not speak to them, but they prophesied. But if they had stood in my counsel, then they would have announced my words to my people and would have turned them back from their evil way and from the evil of their deeds.

Am I a God who is near, declares the Lord, and not a God far off? Can a man hide himself in hiding places so I don't not see him, declares the

Lord? Do I not fill the heavens and the earth, declares the

Lord? And this is the word of the Lord. You may be seated.

1889 was a landmark year, literally, for Oklahoma and Paris.

We had the land run, they had the Paris Exposition. While we staked our claims, they celebrated their newly constructed experimental architecture named the

Eiffel Tower. Some of you knew the answer. This exhibition piece was not actually supposed to last very long.

And by 1925, Parisians were publicly debating whether or not to continue throwing money at this rusty pit.

The Deputy Director of the Ministry of Mail and Telegrams sent a confidential missive to the largest metal scrap dealers in Paris, emphasizing confidentiality.

He met them one at a time at one of the most opulent hotels in Paris. Deputy Director Victor Lustig informed them a decision had been made to take bids for the right to demolish the tower, and the winning bid, the winning metal scrap dealer, would take possession of 7 ,000 tons of metal.

While taking them on posh tours of the tower, he would comment to them at the appropriate time that although he was but a poor, poor government official, here he was entrusted with this very lucrative decision, and one of the metal scrap dealers,

Andre Poisson, bit. A $70 ,000 bribe was agreed on and secured.

And as soon as Victor Lustig, Deputy Director Victor Lustig, pocketed the money, he returned home to Austria.

For you see, Victor Lustig was not Deputy Director of Mail and Telegrams, and he had not been entrusted with the scrapping of the

Eiffel Tower. That decision had actually never been made by the Parisian government. Victor Lustig was a con man.

Now, con man is short for confidence man. Victor Lustig had gained the confidence of Andre Poisson, and he bilked him of 70 grand.

False prophets are con men as well. They gain our confidence and then bamboozle us of what is far more valuable than 70 ,000.

Where Lustig used political means, false prophets use spiritual means. They operate outside the margins as prophets for their own profit, and we are commanded in the scriptures and instructed in this passage that rather than listening to con men, we must listen to Christ.

Rather than listening to con men, we need to listen to Christ. This is a very simple idea.

First, don't listen to con men. Some of you may have had a caring grandfather who, when you went off to college or went off to war or went off to whatever

God called you to, he had some sage advice for you, and he told you before you left, don't take any wooden nickels.

Now, wooden nickels aren't the problem anymore, are they? And these days, when your grandson heads off to college or to whatever vocation he's been called to or heads off to serve in our armed forces, when he leaves, he turns and tells his grandfather, stop downloading malware.

Because although the con changes from generation to generation, there are always those who are willing to deceive and to profit from others in an illegal fashion.

Notice the Lord's command in Jeremiah 23 in verse 16. They're just one command in all these verses, just one thing that God says to do or to not do.

Here's what he says. Do not listen to the words of the prophets who are prophesying to you.

Now, of course, God is speaking through Jeremiah to the people. And so here is the prophet Jeremiah saying to the people, stop listening to prophets, which is kind of like a complete stranger walking up to you and handing you a pamphlet on stranger danger.

But Jeremiah is different than the other prophets. You'll notice in verse 15 and verse 16, back to back,

Jeremiah speaks for someone who was called the Lord of hosts. He does not preach in the name of Baal.

He doesn't preach in the name of many other gods. He doesn't preach in the name of God who is one among many.

He preaches in the name of the Lord of hosts. He's different.

He's different. The Hebrew is Yahweh Sabaoth. What does it mean?

He proclaims the self -existent God who owns and rules over all other things in their full number from the stars in the heavens to the sands of the earth.

When we read Lord of hosts, we must recognize this name refers to the

God who is the I am over the what is. And this is the mighty

God who commands our attention. This is the God who deserves our affections. This is the

God who should orient all of our aspirations. And here's what he says. Do not listen to the words of false prophets who prophesied to you.

Now, what does that really mean, don't listen? I mean, there may be some heretic at the homeschool co -op starts in on the motherhood of God.

What do you do? You're not supposed to listen to it. Jeremiah 23, 16 says,

I'm not supposed to listen to it. So what do you do? Do you stick your fingers in your ear and run away? Stranger danger.

Pharisee heresy. I will not be proxy to heterodoxy. It's actually better to just shake your head and inform the prospector she's unearthed fool's gold.

It's not true. When God says do not listen to the words, he means do not give heed or obey these words.

Do not accept them. Do not appropriate those words as your words. See, God's emphasizing the words.

It's the words that are the concern. It's the words that the people of Judah are to reject.

Certainly they are personally preaching false doctrines. These persons, these false prophets, well, they're doing the wrong thing, but it's their words that God has concern for.

Words are of primary importance. Too often we allow con men to put their own words in our mouths.

Their false words soak into our souls. Before you know it, we're using their terms.

And this happens in a dozen ways in our own personal lives. We tend to stop calling sin, sin.

We call it brokenness. We call it disorder.

We call it some kind of unfortunate consequence or circumstance, but we tend to stop calling sin, sin.

We stop calling truth, truth. We come up with other names for them because we're not following this directive, this command to stop listening, to stop taking the words of false teachers and using those as our words.

God says to stop. If we unwarily listen to lies, we will unwittingly speak like devils.

Here's the concern, the pastoral concern that God has. He says, stop listening to them.

Why? They fill you with vanity. They make you empty. They fill you with vanity. They make you empty.

The Hebrew word is very concise. It's Solomon's favorite word in the book of Ecclesiastes. If you've ever read the book of Ecclesiastes, you may feel a little depressed at the end as Solomon describes trying to live life without reference to God, which is hevel in the

Hebrew, vanity, emptiness. God says here, don't listen to false prophets.

They fill you with emptiness. These vain speakers fill you with vain ideas.

These windbags are giving you the gas. God doesn't want his people getting conned. And just so we're clear, vain futile windbags are not harmless.

They're not bumbling and confused and well, it's okay. Vanity is soul famine.

Emptiness is spiritual starvation. And Christ's own warnings tended to be a bit more pointed than Jeremiah's.

Matthew 7, 15, beware of the false prophets, Jesus says, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

These con men feed on their prey. Let's look at the con that is being run in Jeremiah's time.

The spiritual confidence game that is being played. You know, Victor Lustig's criminal career spanned many years and two continents.

Authorities later commented on his remarkable ability to fool intelligent businessmen and savvy criminals.

Even Al Capone was not immune to Lustig's magic. And we'd like to think that only the gullible and only the naive fall for con men.

But the truth is that all kinds of folks are duped by con men and all kinds of folks smell a rat.

The difference is not intelligence. The difference is awareness. Are we being aware?

How many news reports have you seen in the last year trying to raise your awareness on some scam that's being run in some fashion?

We need to be aware. Our passage wants us to be aware. These false prophets scam the people of Judah.

They claim close association with God, that they're in the know, that God has authorized them to speak for him.

As deputy directors of the heavenly messages, they are pleased to inform their fellow Jews of God's will. Like Victor Lustig, they even cough politely, invite a bribe.

Micah 3 .5 says, thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who lead my people astray.

When they have something to bite with their teeth, they cry, peace, but against him who puts nothing in their mouths, they declare holy war.

Like Victor Lustig, however, they are not actually in the know. They are not authorized.

They are not sent by God. They don't even know who God is. Verse 16 says they speak from their own imaginings and they're very convincing.

Verse 17 says they tell their fellow Jews nice things that they wanna hear. This is a great way to establish your credibility.

Just tell people whatever they wanna hear. They also claim to speak from God, that they're sent from God, and that God has revealed his truth to them.

Verse 21, but all those claims are not true for their words are not from the mouth of the

Lord. Verse 16, their predictions actually do not come true. Verses 19 and 20, God says,

I didn't even send them. And verses 23 through 24 shows that they don't even know who God is.

Look at those two verses. God says, am I a God who is near, declares the Lord, and not a God far off?

Can a man hide himself in hiding places so I don't see him, declares the Lord? Do I not fill the heavens and the earth, declares the

Lord? The thing about these con men is that they don't fear the Lord. If these false prophets really believed in the true

God, they would have never tried to con the people. See, the Lord is not far away, as they suppose, and ignorant of their schemes, as they suppose, but in fact, they lie and extort in his very ears.

And before his very gaze, but they don't believe it.

And so they try to con the people. Why don't more Jews call their bluff? Why don't they say, you've got it all wrong?

Don't you know it's impolite to say those things? To tell anybody with their idea that they're wrong?

Don't you know that's impolite? Don't you know that you're not supposed to say that in these days? Tell anybody that they're wrong about anything?

It would be impolite if not an outright breach of social norms for anyone to shake their head at one of the prophets and call him a con man.

Besides, besides, they liked the message. These prophets were saying, I'm okay, you're okay.

Man, that's a nice message. It's a positive, encouraging message.

Everything will be all right. Nothing's wrong. You know, when people rush to the scene of a horrible car accident to help the wounded, what are they wanting to hear?

They're wanting to hear somebody in the gathering crowd say this. Step aside,

I'm a doctor. We're all listening for that. Maybe you've had a little

CPR training, but you're hoping someone says, step aside,

I'm a doctor. And as this person steps forward and begins to go from one unconscious and wounded person to the next, either on the ground or still in the vehicles, and he's fiddling about, you give him the benefit of the doubt because you want him to be that doctor who can help these people.

And when the paramedics do arrive on the scene and the doctor is nowhere to be found, neither are the wallets of all the wounded.

And who would have ever stopped the fiddling doctor and said, I don't think what you're doing is an actual medical practice at all.

Only those who are aware. In fact, probably a real doctor who noticed what this person was doing was nothing like a real doctor would do.

Likewise, Jeremiah, the real prophet is exposing these false prophets who are making a living off those who are dying, not helping them at all.

The truth is that they were in grave danger, but these false prophets just wanted their money. We need awareness of spiritual con men and their scams.

Why? Because of the eternal consequences. There are eternal consequences. Today's Christian billboards and bumper stickers affirm everyone and everything.

God loves you just the way you are. We accept everyone at First Baptist Church and know that our fellowship is strengthened by a diversity of life situations.

When they speak like devils, they've been listening to lies. The bumper stickers and billboards of Jeremiah's day are in verse 17.

They keep saying to those who despise me. Now notice this. Who is God? He's the giver of life.

He made all things. He's the Lord of hosts. And the false prophets say to those who despise

God, can't stand him. The false prophets say to those who despise the

Lord, shalom, peace, wholeness, everything's fine.

They say to those who walk in the stubbornness of their own heart, they say calamity will not come upon you.

By the way, notice, as for everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his own heart, that's the motto of every

Disney movie. Believe in yourself. Don't listen to what anyone else tells you. You just be you, right?

That's a really dangerous way to live. Don't listen to anyone in the multitude of counselors there is safety.

Don't listen to anyone. What if I don't know everything? Maybe I need someone else to help me.

Maybe I shouldn't be so prideful and know it all. Maybe I need to listen to those who know who

God is and can explain his truth to me. But they say to such people, calamity will never come upon you.

Yeah, that's really worked out, hasn't it? People who go their own way, no matter what anyone says to them, everything always turns out well for them, doesn't it?

But I mean, really, what's so wrong about that? Affirming God's acceptance of those who hate him, affirming God's acceptance and peace of those who live however they want, doesn't love and acceptance conquer all?

Isn't that the gospel? No, no, that's not the gospel.

You see, love does not mean permissiveness. Love does not mean, so what, do whatever you want.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, so that everyone who would despise his son,

Jesus Christ, would always be acceptable to God.

Is that what it says? For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever should believe in Jesus Christ, believe in his only begotten son,

Jesus Christ, would not perish, meaning that those who do not believe in Jesus Christ, that those who are on a road against Christ, against God, despising

Jesus Christ, not believing what he said about himself and what he came to do, but going their own way in the stubbornness of their own heart, that the end of this is death, the end of this is perish.

They will perish. But God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

So God, when he loves, he warns. When God loves, he gets in front of those who are going their own way and saying, this is the wrong way.

Death is in this direction. My son gives life. See, when

God loves, that's what he does. These common men didn't know the gospel. They didn't preach the gospel.

They didn't even know God. Verse 18, but who has stood in the counsel of the

Lord that he should see and hear his word? Who has given heed to his word and listened? See, if they had known God, if they had treasured his word, they would have preached the sinfulness of man, the holiness of God, and the need for repentance and faith in the

Messiah. But they didn't know God. They weren't in with God.

Verse 22, if they had stood in my counsel, then they would have announced my words to my people and would have turned them back from their evil way and from the evil of their deeds.

And they needed to turn back from their evil deeds. And they did need to repent from their Baalism and their adultery and their injustice.

They did need to return to the shadows of Christ and cling to him alone because judgment was coming.

Judgment was coming. No matter how loud the holy hegemony howled to the contrary, judgment was coming.

In fact, it was already on the way. Verses 19 and 20, the storm of the Lord had gone forth, has gone forth, it's already on the way.

Even a whirling tempest, it will swirl down on the head of the wicked. The anger of the Lord will not turn back until he has performed and carried out the purposes of his heart.

If you don't believe it now, in the last days you will clearly understand it. But by then it's too late.

The false prophets you see knew that talking about judgment and wrath and destruction and death, that this generally does not bring up the income.

It usually does not increase the popularity. What does is when you say, oh, don't worry about it.

They were covering up the realities of God's wrath. That's not loving. Well, it's loving to self and it's putting self in front of others.

But interesting thing about Andre Poisson, after being conned out of 70 ,000, he did not report the crime to the police.

He was a little embarrassed that he tried to bribe someone he thought was a

Parisian official and then lost 70 ,000 on it. And so what would happen to him with the civil authorities and what would happen to his standing amongst his other businessmen when they found out?

So he didn't really say anything till much later. And Victor Lustig got away with it. Emboldened by the silence of his victim, he went on to greater and grander endeavors, mostly dealing with counterfeit $100 bills.

The question comes to us, should we be silent on con men? Should we be silent about false prophets who make up false claims about God?

Or should we just say, oh, let them think what they want. Ephesians 5 says this in verse 10, let us learn what is pleasing to the

Lord. Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but indeed even expose them.

For it is disgraceful to even speak of the things which are done by them in secret, but all things become visible when they are exposed by the light.

For everything that becomes visible is light. For this reason it says, awake sleeper and rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you.

We need to stop listening to con men and be willing to expose them. But the other side of that is that we have to listen to Christ.

It's an incomplete obedience. If all we do is just stop listening to con men, we've not really gone the whole way.

The other side of it is just as important that we have to listen to Christ. You see, when God says do not listen to the words of the prophets who are prophesying to you, he is not saying to Judah, stop listening to anything.

Stop listening altogether. That's not what he's saying. In fact, throughout Jeremiah we've seen that Judah's major problem is that they're not listening to God's word rightly proclaimed.

And so this command, don't listen to con men, is only completed when the counter command is obeyed, do listen to Christ.

And in this we need to set some profit margins. Let's think about God's confidant.

God makes it clear that if someone had dwelt with him intimately, receiving his will thoroughly, that someone would then reveal

God's words to his people, leading them in repentance unto salvation.

That's verse 22. That someone would be God's confidant on the inside, knowing what God thinks, knowing what

God says, all about the way that God operates. He'd be a servant entrusted with the most precious thoughts of God.

That servant is the Messiah. And that someone is Christ. Look at verse 23.

He says, am I a God who is near? The answer is yes, in case you were taking the test.

Am I a God who is near? Yes, declares the Lord. And not a God far off? Of course he is. He's immense.

You cannot finish measuring God. But when he reveals himself to his special creatures, made in his image to worship him and love him, he makes himself known as a

God who is near. A God who is near. His name is Emmanuel, God with us.

The word became flesh and dwelt among us. The word makes God known to us.

The image of the invisible God images him exactly. The son is the confidant of the father.

Jesus says in Matthew 11, verse 27, he says this, all things have been handed over to me by my father and no one knows the son except the father, nor does anyone know the father except the son and anyone to whom the son wills to reveal him.

So who's on the inside? It's the son. It's Jesus Christ. He's the confidant of the father.

He knows what the father says. He knows what the father desires and nobody can know who the father is unless Jesus, the confidant of God, who has been in the counsel of the father, unless he reveals the father to us.

And so we are immediately made aware of spiritual con men and con women who usurp

Christ as God's confidant. A spiritual con man will claim direct, unmediated intimacy with God.

He will share divine information personally given to him unavailable to others.

In the spirit of antichrist, he will usurp Christ as the revealer of God and make himself the conduit of God's message.

In that way, although Hebrews 1 says in many ways and many times, through either prophets or angels,

God has revealed himself, he has revealed himself supremely in Jesus Christ who is the son of God.

Irrespective of that, con men will say, oh, well, God told me to tell you, you may want to write this down.

And in fact, you should write it down. If someone comes up to you and says, God told me to tell you, say, wait, hang on a second, look at your

Bible, open it up to the back, some blank pages, be very helpful, and begin to write and add to the

Holy Scriptures whatever it is that they're saying that God told them directly. That is the claim they're making.

Wait, wait, let me add to the Scriptures because you have received special revelation from God for me.

You know, no one has to usurp the unique position of Christ in order to know what

God says or to share with others what God says. You don't have to do that because God has said what he has said and he has said it of his son through his

Holy Spirit and has given it to us in a living and enduring, active and powerful Word of God. And if we will immerse ourselves in the

Word of God, we will know what God desires and what God wills and what God says. And then when we speak to one another because we love each other and want to encourage one another when they're going through difficult times or otherwise, we don't have to say,

God spoke to me to tell you. We can say, God spoke through the Spirit about Christ.

And here's something I think will be encouraging to you. Here's what God says. Let's see, it comes out of here.

It doesn't come out of here. That's such an important corrective for us. I think that we have perhaps listened far too much to false prophets and we have begun to appropriate their words as our own.

And we, in just the common natural Christian vernacular of our day, say things like, God has informed me,

God told me, God put this word into my heart to tell you. And you know what? Let's just be honest.

The Holy Spirit convicts the world of righteousness and truth and convicts us of truth and brings to mind the things that Christ has said and he has said it here.

And we can share the truths of scripture with one another without ever claiming that we have replaced

Jesus Christ at the right hand of the Father, can't we? Let's think about that together. After all, let's consider how superior

Christ is to the counterfeit prophets. You'll note counterfeit $100 bills by contrast with genuine $100 bills.

Con artists just cannot compare with Christ. We see that in the text. In verse 16, the con artists speak from their own imaginations, but Christ speaks the words of God as the word of God, see

John 1. Con artists speak peace to God's unrepentant enemies, but Christ announces war,

Psalm 2. Con artists deny God's judgment while Christ lovingly warns about God's judgment,

Matthew 23. Con artists do not stand in the counsel of the Lord, but Christ has shared in God's triune counsel from all of eternity,

John 17. Con artists are not sent by God, but the Father sent the Son into the world,

John 5. Con artists do not lead sinners to salvation, but Christ came to lead sinners to repentance, cleansing and forgiveness of sin,

Luke 5. While con men fill their hearers with emptiness, Christ's words fill his disciples with his love and joy and fruitfulness, and that's

John 15. So if you would not settle for a counterfeit, let's rejoice in the genuine.

God tells us not to listen to the words of the false prophets not to be taken in by con men, and that makes us accountable that we should be aware.

So what should we concentrate on? How do we know a con man? Well, the Bible does not leave us in doubt about that.

One such place that helps us is 1 John 4, 1 through 6. 1 John 4, 1 through 6.

And the apostle John says this in verse one, my beloved, do not believe every spirit.

Test the spirits to see whether they are from God because many false prophets have gone out into the world. Not one or two, not a few, but many.

So test the spirits. How do we do that? Well, the prophet margins are set. One prophet margin is the level to which they speak of Christ and the other is to the level that they speak in disagreement with the world.

So verses two and three. By this you know the spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.

And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist of which you have heard that is coming and now it is already in the world.

You see, John, as the apostle, is writing, as we can tell, the church in Ephesus and there was a false teacher by the name of Serenthes.

Serenthes believed that Jesus, although he was a spirit being, only appeared to be human flesh, but he really wasn't.

And so John says, when somebody gets it wrong about Jesus, about his person and about his work, that they are not just mistaken in the process of learning, but this is their claim.

And they claim false things about Jesus. Mark it down, they're not from the

Holy Spirit, they are from the spirit of antichrist. That's part of the prophet margins.

So when people say things that are wrong about who Jesus is and what he came to do, they are false prophets.

Further, prophet margins are determined by whether or not they find acceptance with the world's thinking or whether they're confessing the apostle's doctrine.

Verses five and six, they are from the world, therefore they speak as from the world and the world listens to them.

We are from God and we know, and he who knows God listens to us, he who is not from God does not listen to us, by this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

In other words, when someone is speaking in ways that the world says, oh, that sounds like a pretty good idea,

I'm for it. Oh yes, that sounds really reasonable.

Example, Christianity is one of many ways to God, very reasonable to the world, oh yes, well that makes sense.

Another example, oh, God would never send anyone to hell, that's another example, that sounds pretty reasonable if God is love and he wouldn't punish people.

In their understanding of love, and many other more subtle forms of finding agreement with the world. When the man or the woman is trying to find some sort of agreement with the world, and said please world, don't think ill of us,

I'll say what I say in a way that'll make you happy with me, mark it down, this person is not from the spirit of the

Lord but the spirit of the Antichrist. However, those who seek to confess in agreement with the faith once for all handed down to the saints, this person is striving to confess the truth of God in submission to God, this is a true person of God.

So we are given this command, do not listen to false prophets, do not listen to con artists, listen to Christ, we are given help to understand how to do that.

When the Secret Service agents finally caught up with and arrested Victor Lustig, they described him as the smoothest con man they had ever met.

But apparently they had never met the devil. The smoothest con man is the liar who scams you out of Christ, for a variety of reasons convincing you to not trust in Christ and to not follow

Christ. And he does it all the while looking like an angel of light.

The smoothest con man is the one who gains your trust, sells your soul, and gets you to sign for it.

Rather than listening to con men, we must listen to Christ, he is the one who gives you the way, he is the truth, and he is the life, and no one can come to the

Father except through him. Let's close in prayer. Father, I thank you for the time you've given us and your word, what a timely and fitting passage, what a immensely practical command to tell us to stop listening to con men, to false prophets.

Lord, help us, give us awareness, give us such a rising affection for Jesus Christ, such an appreciation for the genuine that we'll be able to spot the counterfeits.

Lord, may all that we do in this endeavor be glorifying to you, we put our trust alone in Christ.