Don't Cut Corners

Okay, let's pray and we will get into our text. Lord Jesus, again, as we open up your word, we ask that you would help us to understand it, to rightly know what it is that you have revealed about your nature, what we are to believe, how we are to conduct ourselves.

All of this we ask in Jesus' name, amen. All right, by way of hands,

I have James 3 ,1 up for reference, but we're gonna be in 1 Corinthians chapter three.

Any of you over the past two Sundays, as we were reading out from 1 Corinthians chapter three, were any of you thinking,

I don't understand what that passage is saying? Always, now there is an honest answer.

1 Corinthians chapter three is one of those texts that on its face is a little bit difficult to get, and it's even made more difficult when you chop it up, and sometimes the lectionary will chop things up in a way that I think can create some confusion, and let me put it this way, there's a lot of bad sermons that I've heard over the years on 1

Corinthians chapter three. So it behooves us to actually go through the passage in context, noting what it's teaching, and if you are familiar with Roman Catholic doctrine, then you will know that they use 1

Corinthians chapter three as one of the texts that they say proves the doctrine of purgatory.

Robin just gave me that look. She does that thing. Okay, now let me show you where they grab that from.

It's 1 Corinthians chapter three, and in the part where it talks about, if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, verse 12, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, well, each one's work will be manifest for the day we'll disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.

If the work anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

You see, it talks about being saved through fire. Therefore, purgatory is right. Now, if you don't know what the doctrine of purgatory is, if you're not familiar with it, let me help you.

Roman Catholic doctrine describes grace in a way where it's kind of like jet fuel.

I don't know how else to describe it. This is kind of a weird metaphor, but grace isn't something that covers all of your sins, you have to keep going back to church and to the mass to keep getting refueled in grace, if you would, and grace then gives you the strength to mortify your sinful flesh, and in Roman Catholic doctrine, not everyone is a saint.

A saint is somebody who, in this lifetime, has achieved a state of sinless perfection so that their good works, they're not necessary anymore for anything to do with their salvation, and the way you know somebody is a saint is after they die, if when you pray to that person, wondering if maybe they've already gone to heaven, and you have to talk,

I have to explain this to you, if three miracles can be verified as a result of praying to that person, that the

Roman Catholic Church can actually verify these miracles have taken place because you've prayed to such a person, then they can be inducted into,

I call it the Saint Hall of Fame, they become saint, and let me give you an example.

In our lifetime, we've seen two people that we would know become saints in the

Roman Catholic Church, Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II, and so the idea then is that why are they doing this?

Well, they believe that in order to be in the actual presence of God, you have to be sinless, and if you haven't really worked that out, then you go to purgatory, and purgatory is described in such a way that it's just like hell, okay, except for it's temporary.

So you get to burn in the purgatory fires which purify you until you burn off all of the dross of your sinful nature, and once all of that's gone, then you go and you can go to heaven.

You sit there and go, what's the point of forgiveness? What did Jesus die for exactly? It's like, what, what, what, what, what? And how come the

Bible doesn't clearly teach this? So this is one of the texts that they go to and say, see, it says talking about being saved through fire.

Oh, purgatory, and you sit there and go, why do

I feel like somebody's like dealing cards from the bottom of the deck? Something isn't right here. But you don't have to be a

Roman Catholic to twist this text. There's a lot of bad preaching that goes along with this text that kind of creates this impression that somehow salvation and works go together in a way where your salvation is dependent upon or hinged upon your works.

Take this passage out of context, and you can start twisting it in this way. But when you take a look at what this text is talking about, then you can see what is talked about when it talks about works, not people, but works being tested by fire.

And there's a particular context as to whose works are being tested in the fire. So we're going to take a look at 1

Corinthians 3 in context, see if we can make sense of this passage and put all the pieces together, if you would.

So 1 Corinthians 3, a little bit of a note in the context here. The church in Corinth was a church that, how shall we say it politely, had some challenges, okay?

Let me describe to you some of those challenges. The first challenge that we're gonna hear about is that, well, some of the people there were into this thing that we, in modern parlance, we talk about the cult of personality, cult of personality.

I follow pastor so -and -so, I follow pastor so -and -so. I listen to the, I'm a, yeah, yeah, you know, see, this is the reason why

I wear this thing is to visually remind you, slave, you know? So, but they, so they've got this problem going on and there's like factions among them and it's dividing over, well,

I'm a disciple of Paul, I'm a disciple of Paulus, okay? And you're thinking, this isn't right.

Oh, and then there's this fellow in the church, he's bedding his dad's wife and like nobody in the church is doing a thing about it, they actually are kind of like happy about it in some weird way and that's a problem.

Oh, and then let me tell you about their communion practice. So, let's pretend that this side of the room, you guys are all poor, this side of the room, you're all the fat cats, okay?

You guys are all, you've got the money. And so, communion practice kind of goes like this.

When it's time for communion, the fat cats block you guys from actually going to receive the

Lord's Supper, like elbow you and shove you out of the way and then to make sure you don't get it, some of the fat cats, they take the wine and they chug it so much so they get drunk.

Crazy stuff going on in this church. Makes our, you know, when we have challenges here, it makes them seem so small, you know?

Now, important to note here that despite all of these challenges that Paul constantly refers to the saints and Corinth as saints, as brothers and sisters in Christ.

Sinful, oh yeah. Needing some discipling, oh yeah.

Outside of the faith, no. He continues to address them as brothers and sisters. Now, I would note that this is a complete sharp contrast to how

Paul talks to and treats those who are in the churches in Galatia, who are listening to the

Judaizers. Paul's quite terse with them. He says things like, even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel other than the one already preached, let him be damned.

Oh, you didn't like that? Let me say it again. If anyone's preaching a gospel other than the one you received, let him be damned.

And then he says things like, I wish those who are troubling you, the Judaizers, who are saying you're not saved unless you're circumcised,

I wish they would just cut it all off. This is how he talks. And he says, you who would be justified by the law, you've been alienated from Christ and you've fallen from grace.

That's how he talks to the Galatians. That's not how he talks to the Corinthians.

And these people are like crazy screwed up. So this is one of the first presenting problems in Paul's corrective letter to the church of Corinth.

Here's what he says. I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.

I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you are not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready.

For you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human manner or way?

So there's jealousy and strife at church. Who ever heard of that? Never heard of such a thing.

Crazy talk. And here's what he says. For when one says, I follow Paul, and another said,

I follow Apollos, are you not being merely human?

Now, a little bit of a note here. This text is literally describing something going on at the church in Corinth.

And if you don't pay attention to the details, you'll miss it. Who planted the church at Corinth? Paul, on one of his missionary journeys.

We know this from the book of Acts. Now, it doesn't say who he handed the reins over to in Acts, but this text tells us who he handed the reins over to when he left.

Who did he hand the reins over to? Apollos. Apollos is the pastor of Corinth. So Paul's the planting pastor, apostle if you would, and after he leaves, he appoints

Apollos. Apollos is the pastor. Now, Apollos was quite an educated man and a gifted

Christian apologist, able to refute people who were opposing Christ, especially those who were

Jews. This is kind of making it sound like as a pastor, he may not have been that great.

It's the same. That's kind of the subtext of all this. So some say, I follow

Paul, and another, I follow Apollos. Are you not being merely human? I follow Pastor Roseborough.

I follow Rick Warren. I follow John MacArthur. I follow, hmm. That's not how this works.

Paul says, what then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed as the

Lord assigned to each. So you hear me say over and again, I'm a servant.

That's what I'm here to do. That's what I is. Now, it's important to note here, in this case, the word servant, it's right over here, the

Greek word is diakonos, and it's, we get the word minister from it.

A derivative form gives us a deacon. So, and a deacon is a guy who waits tables, is kind of a way of looking at it.

So it's not a doulos. A doulos in Greek is like a slave, slave, slave. This is a guy who's a servant, and he's a servant within kind of an office.

And one of the things I love about the government of the British Commonwealth nations is they have a sense of this.

You know how like we have the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.

In the British Commonwealth, different governmental departments are called ministries. And I think that's a better way of putting it.

These are people who are put into an official capacity office, and those people in those offices are to minister to their constituents.

Does that make sense? All right, so this is the idea of this word. So what is Apollos? What is

Paul? What is Pastor Rose, bro? Servant. I am your servant.

I am not your ruler. I am your servant. Okay, so Paul's corrected.

And here's a wonderful sentence. Servants through whom you believed as the

Lord assigned to each. Servants through whom. You've heard me say it over again.

I'll continue to say it as long as I'm breathing or still a pastor or a teacher in the church.

God works through means. People do not become Christians by walking down the street and getting struck by lightning.

And you don't find people walking down the street who are pagan one second, and all of a sudden go,

I think I'm a Christian now. Okay, it just doesn't work that way. There's nobody who's just like accidentally a

Christian. And even the Apostle Paul, how did he become a

Christian? Okay, on the road to Damascus, that gets the ball rolling. So there's Paul.

We'll pretend he's on a horse, and he's riding around, brum, brum, brum, brum, right? You know, all right?

They get it. Jesus appears, knocks him off his horse. Is he a

Christian at this point? Nope, nope, not at all. He's blinded, quite an intense experience.

He's blind for, uh -huh, and he makes his way into Damascus. And what does

Jesus do? Jesus finds a random old guy.

No. Two demerits, okay. Random old guy.

Okay, Jesus appears to a fellow by the name of Ananias. And he sends

Ananias to go and preach the gospel and to baptize Paul, right?

And Ananias, he's not exactly hip on the guy. Lord, I've heard of this fellow. He's dangerous.

He's my servant, I've chosen him, you go. So how does Paul become a Christian? Through the preaching and the baptism administered by Ananias.

God works through means. So we see in this sentence, we are servants through whom you believed as the

Lord assigned to each. Now, a little bit of a note here. The primary confession of faith of Lutherans, if you wanna know what we believe teaching confess, is called the

Augsburg Confession. Augsburg Confession. Our church says that we hold to the unaltered

Augsburg Confession. This is what we believe teaching confess. And when I took my vows as to be your pastor when

I was ordained, I promised that I would only teach what was in accord with these confessions.

So if you wanna get rid of me, all I have to do is start preaching different doctrine than this.

But I wanted you to note something. There are two articles within the Augsburg Confession that go together.

It is Article 4 and Article 5. Now, Article 4, if you know your Augsburg Confession, is what we say is like the chief doctrine of Christianity.

It's the one with all the salvation marbles in it. And here's what it says, Article 4.

It is taught among us that we cannot obtain forgiveness of sin and righteousness before God by our own merits, works, or satisfactions, but that we receive forgiveness of sin and we become righteous before God by grace for Christ's sake through faith.

Everyone says, yep, that sounds right to me, right? That's what the scriptures say. And this happens when we believe that Christ suffered for us and that for His sake our sin is forgiven and righteousness and eternal life are given to us.

For God will regard and reckon this faith as righteousness, as Paul says in Romans 3, 21 through 26, and Romans 4, verse 5.

Sounds good? Sounds solid. That's salvation by grace through faith alone. Succinctly, wonderfully put.

But watch what Article 5 says. In order to obtain such faith,

God has instituted the office of the ministry, the serving ministry, right?

The preaching ministry. That is, He has provided the gospel and the sacraments. Through these, as through means,

God gives the Holy Spirit who works faith when and where He pleases in those who hear the gospel. And the gospel teaches that we have a gracious God, not by our own merits, but by the merit of Christ when we believe this.

So condemned are the Anabaptists and others who teach that the Holy Spirit comes to us through our own preparations, our own thoughts, and works without the external word of the gospel.

So the idea's kind of laid out this way, all right? So God has, in Christ, through His death on the cross, given us the gift of eternal life, salvation, the forgiveness of our sins.

So Jesus accomplishes that. How is it then delivered? Through, normatively,

I'll put it this way, through pastors, through Christians, through preachers and teachers who go and tell everybody, let me tell you what

Jesus did. And so they're put into the office of the ministry to preach the word, administer the sacraments.

That's the idea. And so justification is won on the cross. It's delivered through the means of preachers, teachers,

Christians, evangelists, and things like that. So God works through means. So this is why we understand the preaching office is so important.

Coming back to our text then. Verse five, what is Apollos, what is Paul? Paul, servants through whom you believed as the

Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, God gave the growth.

So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything. Oh, so Pastor Rosevere, you're not really anything.

Yeah, that's what the text says. Only God who gives the growth. He's the thing.

He who plants, he who waters are one and each will receive his wages according to his labor for we are

God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building. So the way to think of it is is that, well,

I'm a coworker with God. You wanna know who's really doing all the heavy lifting?

Ain't me, ain't me. I can tell you that right now. This is a crazy office, it's nuts.

Because you think about it, when I was a CEO in the corporate world, I had power.

Power. Somebody wasn't performing, oh, they got to come into my office.

We did a performance evaluation. You're not measuring up, power.

Now, you're either gonna tow the line and pick up your performance or I'm going to invite you to play on somebody else's team.

Yeah, people didn't really like the performance evaluations. They kind of creeped them out. Okay, now that's power, right?

I'm a servant here, so here's kind of the thing. I mean, I get up and I preach the word.

Whose word is it? Ain't mine, it's his. I'm stealing out of that thing every

Sunday, right? I'm stealing out of it even now. And then I got a little bit of wine and a cracker thingy and some water.

And some prayers. You ever tried to climb a pole that's been greased? You know, you feel like you're not able to.

It just ain't happening. This is the, okay, when

I was CEO power, here, I feel naked. I got nothing.

I don't have a sword. I figured out you can't actually waterboard with the gospel. It doesn't work that way.

You will believe or else. Yeah, you know, that's more like Islam, right? So what do

I got? I got nothing. Nothing. I don't even have a vote on the church council.

I got nothing. But here's the thing. Do you think

God is mightily working here? He is. But you wanna know something?

I'm not doing any of it. He's doing all the work. It's his word, his sacraments, his baptism.

And I pray back his word. He's the one doing all the lifting.

Now granted, he's using me to do this, but I'm not anything. That's what the text has said.

Totally frightening experience. And I can honestly say he's the one doing all of it.

Really, for real. And it's quite sobering to watch. So the people that are preaching falsely in the church, they're doing it because of themselves.

They're not, but they say they're hearing it from God. Oh, I know, yeah. Usually, here's the thought.

What do we normally do when somebody says to us we're hearing voices? Right, right, exactly.

Right. We'll save that, though. But this comes up in our text. Okay. So let's come back through this.

So, I planted a Paulist water. God gave the growth. Who gave the growth?

That's right. Neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything. Are pastors anything?

No. Only God who gives the growth. He who plants, he who waters. They are one and each will receive his wages according to his labor.

We are God's fellow workers. You are God's field. You are God's building. So then Paul goes on to explain.

According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder,

I laid a foundation. Someone else is building upon it. Let each one of you take care how he builds on it.

For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. So the apostles, how many books of the

Bible did Jesus write personally in his own hand? Zero. We know what Jesus said because his apostles said he said these things.

So the apostle Paul comes and he lays the foundation. The foundation is Jesus. So what are you gonna build on it?

Now notice the context here then, and the context hasn't switched. The context is talking about teachers in the church.

Now you can say it's secondarily. There may be application to Christians in general, but let's stick with the primary meaning here in the context.

So I have come to Kongsvinger. I'm here. Aren't you great?

I'm happy about that. And so what am I gonna do? I got a foundation. The foundation's Christ. What am

I gonna build with? Yeah, his word. Word, sacrament, water, prayers, absolution.

In other words, I'm gonna only build with the materials that I'm given to build with. There are those who build on the foundation using shoddy materials.

Now, when I lived in Southern California, we had earthquakes. And if you grew up in Southern California, you actually get used to them.

So there you are in the middle of the night, and you hear, it sounds like a freight train coming through. And depending on how strong it is, you might go,

I ain't getting out of bed for that one. And it got to the point where I could literally tell Barb, nah, that's a five.

And she goes, how do you know? I just know. She turned on the television. Yeah, a 5 .0 earthquake just came through Southern California.

And then, you know, you don't get out of bed for a five, unless you're from North Dakota. If you're from North Dakota, ahhhh!

Right? Right, exactly. The way Southern Californians deal with snowstorms here, you guys deal with earthquakes there.

Anyway, so we've all seen the stories, though, in third world nations.

If a five or a six earthquake hits, what happens? I mean, tens of thousands of people are killed.

The reason for that is the building codes. It's the building codes.

And so, what materials are you building with? What standards are you using for building? And here's the thing.

If we ever hear the story, we've probably heard stories like this. You ever hear the story of like a contractor who was cutting corners to save money?

Okay, oftentimes we don't find out about this until we actually purchase the house, and then something isn't working, and so we bring a contractor, and he says, oh, let me show you what the problem is here.

The guy who fixed this before, let me show you the corners he cut. And you're sitting there going, I want to kill that guy, because it's costing me like five grand to fix this problem because he wanted to save 200 bucks.

Same thing happens in the church, though. If you think of pastors, then, as builders, their job is to build on the foundation who is

Christ. The question is, what are they building with? There are a lot of guys who are building with really inferior materials.

They're cutting corners. And everybody points to them and say, look, that guy's blessed from God, because look at the results.

I mean, 10 years ago, there was only 100 people in their church, and now they have 15 ,000.

Let's take a little bit of a closer look at the materials you're building with. I'm pretty sure you can't pastor 15 ,000 people.

Already we got a problem. And then we look a little closer, and it's like, well, there's a reason why you have 15 ,000 people here.

It's because you're not actually preaching God's word. You're telling people what they want to hear. You're building with inferior materials.

And so this passage is going to reveal to us what happens to that fellow who decides he's gonna cut corners, that he's going to build on the foundation that is

Christ, and it's going to assume that the person who's doing this is a believer. So we're not gonna say that this pastor actually didn't believe

Jesus. It's just that he decided that he was going to cut corners. That whole discipling thing, that whole shepherding thing, it's kind of hard, you know?

Sheep bite. I don't know if you know this about them. And they're kind of, well. Anyway.

And they smell, you know? They're difficult to work with. God calling us sheep is not a, he's not complimenting us.

And so taking the time to actually invest in people, preach the word, rightly handle it, in season, out of season, take the hits when what you're saying isn't what people want to hear because they need to hear it whether they want to hear it or not.

These are all, this is all that goes into building correctly with the right materials. A lot of guys have figured they can grow a quick, they can grow a crowd.

I won't call it a church. They can grow a crowd quickly by ignoring all that what you're supposed to do and ignoring all of the building standards.

But at the end of the day, all of that work's gonna get tested. It's gonna get tested by fire.

That's what the text says. Let's take a look. Oh, why is

Jesus called the Lamb of God? Now that's a great question. Jesus is called the Lamb of God because he is the sacrifice for our sins.

In the Old Testament, it was the lambs who were the sacrifices for our sins. And now Jesus is the

Lamb of God, the Lamb that God has provided as the sacrifice for our sins.

And so that picture from the Old Testament carries through into the New Testament. In fact, we even see it in the book of Revelation.

The Lamb who was slain but is now alive. So the Lamb of God that talks about Jesus as the sacrificial work for our sins.

Does that answer your question, Kathy? So, verse 10. So according to the grace of God given to me, Paul says, like a skilled master builder,

I laid a foundation. Someone else is building on it. Let each one take care then how he builds upon it.

For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is, than that which is laid, which is

Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become manifest for the day.

Now you notice the ESV has day capitalized. And the reason for it is because the

Greek here, it's not talking about any old day, it's talking about the day. Which day would that be?

The day that Jesus comes back, the day of judgment. For the day will disclose it because it will be revealed by fire.

The fire will test what sort of work each one has done. So notice, their works are being judged.

Now, in James chapter three, let me pull this up real quick.

James chapter three, I want to show you what it says. Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.

That is not a throwaway line in scripture. And I think what we're seeing here in 1 Corinthians chapter three is a picture of that a little bit.

So there it is, day of judgment, and Jesus says, all right, all of you who are pastors, come on up, we're gonna put you in your own line.

And we're gonna ratchet things down here. And all of your works, everything you built on the foundation, which is

Christ, we're gonna put it right over here and we're gonna burn it up, fire it up, baby.

And everyone else is going, thank God I wasn't a pastor. And what that fire is going to do is reveal just what they were building with.

And it will reveal their motives. All right, so here's the line for pastors. Each one's work will be manifest.

The day of judgment will disclose it. It'll be revealed by fire. The fire will test what sort of work each one has done.

If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, what's the only thing that can survive that?

Gold, silver, jewels, that can survive a fire. Those don't get burned up by fire.

But any wood products, hay, stubble, things like that, that all gets burned up. So if the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.

If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

You see it? So this isn't talking about purgatory, is it? This is talking about, well, it's giving us a picture of the day of judgment for pastors and teachers in Christ's church.

Right, this isn't run -of -the -mill stuff here, because remember the context we're talking about here. Paul plants and other waters.

One builds, I laid the foundation, another builds on the foundation. That's the context. This is talking about the pastoral day of judgment.

Mark. Okay, I'm a little confused by the word fire, because someone's teachings and beliefs aren't really material.

Yeah. So is it like scrutinization? Yeah, so the idea here is that it's employing a metaphor.

It's not like Jesus is really gonna take out a torch and burn it up, okay? But on the day of judgment, he's going to literally test all of those works.

What's the reason you said this? What's the reason why you did this? Why did you twist this passage of Scripture? Why did you not this, or why did you do that?

And all of your works are going to be scrutinized. And the guy who has built an empire to himself in the kingdom of Christ, all of that's gonna be seen for what it is.

And all of that goes bye -bye. Right, right, yeah.

So anybody who builds on the foundation, the question is, what are you building with? And why are you building?

Why are you building? Believe me when I tell you, there are people who are in the visible church claiming to be pastors who never received a call, who asserted themselves, inserted themselves, and are teaching their own doctrines and drawing away disciples after themselves.

Now, to the pastor who preaches the word of God, proclaims Christ, repentance, and the forgiveness of sins, all messages given to him by God to preach, he knows he's not making disciples for himself.

You are not my disciples. And everyone's sitting there going, thank God about that. You're Christ's disciples.

So I don't actually have a problem with any of these works being tested. And the reason why is because I ain't doing the work.

I didn't make the message up. I'm just building with the materials I was given to build with and building the way

I was told to build with them. And the disciples, I'm not making a kingdom or an empire for myself.

This, through all of this, God is making a kingdom for himself. So at the end of the day, those aren't my, none of you are my disciples.

You're not my peeps. I'm your servant. But the guy who has this all backwards, where he isn't a servant, he's a ruler, he is making a kingdom for himself and he is not accountable to anybody.

He will cut any corner possible, scratch any itching ear that he feels will well lead to more money in his pocket.

All of that gets burned up. You see it? Now comes some very important words of warning.

Do you not know that you are

God's temple and God's spirit dwells in you?

Now, is it talking about you as an individual or is it talking about y 'all as Christians?

There's a note there, there's a note in the ESV. What's the note say?

You is plural, okay? So let me do this Oklahoma style. Do you not know that y 'all are

God's temple and the God spirit dwells in y 'all? If anyone destroys

God's temple, God will destroy him for God's temple is holy and y 'all are that temple.

How's that? That wasn't quite Texas. I went Oklahoma on that one. You see the difference right there?

Just wanna make sure, because if I tried the Texas thing, you'd call me out on it. Okay, so two bits of theology then.

Where's the temple of God today? Is it in Jerusalem? I'm looking at it right now.

Here's the temple, it's right here. Now, I want you to consider the implications that has regarding the return of Christ.

We'll talk about that in a minute. But the other thing is notice the stern warning. Okay, this is still in the context of the ministry.

Y 'all are God's temple. What happens to the one who destroys God's temple? God will destroy him.

Not many of you should become teachers. And believe me when I tell you, false teachers are destroying the temple of God.

So when we talk about bad teachers, there are those who believe and are really building with schlocky materials.

There's a whole other group and those who do not really believe. They are truly wolves and they are the tools of the devil.

And they destroy God's temple. Firm warning here. If anyone destroys

God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy and y 'all are that temple.

Which means you're holy, by the way. God says so. So let no one deceive himself.

If anyone among you thinks he's wise in this age, that's generally the problem with bad teachers, isn't it?

They're really wise when it comes to this age. Let him become a fool so that he may become wise.

For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, he catches the wise in their craftiness.

And again, the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise that they are futile. So let no one boast in men, for all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas of the world or life or death or the present or the future.

All are yours and you are Christ's and Christ is

God's. Total complete thought there. Chapter three stands alone as a complete thought.

And you can see now what's going on here. This is talking about primarily the office of the ministry and the judgment of pastors, the judgment of teachers.

And it's said in the context then of those who are literally taking a human and elevating them to the point that they're being sectarian and divisive over a guy, over a pastor, over a preacher, over a teacher.

Now, a little bit of a side note, and I'm gonna end a little bit early today because I have to catch a plane.

The implications about what the temple is are important. There's a lot of bad teaching out there today.

And if you've been in the Christian church for any length of time, then you're familiar with the guy who has locked himself in a room with his

Bible, and particularly the book of Revelation, and has not emerged until he's cracked the code.

And these are the guys who major on the end times and couldn't make a disciple of Jesus if their life depended on it is how

I kind of view them. But if you're familiar with some of these radio preachers and some of them TV preachers, they literally say things like this.

Jesus can't return until the Jews rebuke him.

Rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. So Jesus is up in heaven.

I really wanna come back. Please, somebody rebuild that temple.

And then we've got the Jews back in Israel. Oh, we're close, we're close, we're close. But politics won't let it happen.

I wanna come back so bad. And you're sitting there going, where are they getting this?

The answer to the question is they're getting this from an improper understanding of who the temple is or what the temple is as far as how the

New Testament defines it. A little bit of a quiz here, see if you were paying attention. What's the temple?

We, y 'all. Y 'all is the temple. It's not brick and mortar. Right. They think it's brick and mortar.

And this is an easy mistake to make when you don't let Scripture interpret Scripture. We're gonna take a look at 2

Thessalonians 2. I'll show you the passage that they get this from and you'll see it.

Here's what it says, 2 Thessalonians 2. Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed either by a spirit or a spoken word or a letter seeming to be from us or a book series written to the effect that the day of the

Lord has already come. I threw in the book series part because I'm trying to contextualize here.

So let no one deceive you in any way for that day will not come unless, pay attention to the details, the apostasy,

I'm gonna call it that rather than the rebellion. Apostasy actually means rebellion but we're familiar with the term. We've heard about the great apostasy and this is the prophecy regarding it.

Unless the apostasy comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, this would be the

Antichrist, the son of destruction who opposes and exalts himself against every so -called

God or object of worship so that he takes his seat in the temple of God proclaiming himself to be

God. And see, there it is. The devil, some lawless guy, the son of perdition is going to exalt himself in the temple of God.

So therefore, the temple has to be rebuilt in Jerusalem. Ta -da! Eh. This is why you pay attention to letting the scripture interpret scripture.

Let me ask you a question. Y 'all have ever looked at a study Bible where you see the pictures of what the temple looked like?

You've seen the schematics. What's, when you walk in the door, what's that called? The holy place, right?

And they had the incense altar and things like that set up. And then they have a big curtain. When you go behind the curtain, what's that called?

Holy of holies. What's behind the holy of holies? The ark of the covenant with the mercy seat.

Aside from the mercy seat, which really wasn't a seat, how many chairs were there in the temple?

What, the priests weren't sitting down, having coffee, listening to the word, being preached in the temple?

What does the man of lawlessness do here? He takes his seat in the temple of God.

Hmm, that's interesting. Let me test your memory again.

What's the temple? Y 'all the temple. That's what

Paul says, right? Do you think Paul here is pointing to the temple in Jerusalem? Which temple is he pointing to?

The church. He's pointing to the church. So here's the question I have for you.

The antichrist, where does he come from? Us. He comes from us.

I recently was watching some guy pontificating regarding the return of Jesus, and he says,

I really am of the opinion that the antichrist is gonna rise up through Islam. And I wanted to reach through the

YouTube channel and strangle this fellow and say, do you not read your Bible? How can it be a guy from Islam?

He's going to take his seat in the temple of God, and it ain't referring to a brick and mortar building in Jerusalem on the

Temple Mount. It's talking about among us. Now, consider the implications of that.

So the antichrist is one who exalts himself above God, takes his seat in the temple, and the temple is us, claiming to be

God. Is the church, now, let me rephrase the question.

Is Obama this man? No, doesn't even come close to fitting the bill.

Hmm, how about Vladimir Putin? No. Trump, though. I'm sorry.

Trump, yeah, yeah. I have like no fear of Trump being this fellow as much as I had no fear of Obama being this fellow.

Now, that's not to say that I agree with any of these fellows' politics. The issue is when it comes to them being the antichrist, this whole game that everyone is playing, let's pin the tail on the antichrist.

Let's look at the world leaders. And I remember years ago, somebody asked me when I worked at a bank in Seattle if I thought that Nancy Reagan was the whore of Babylon.

Okay. Where we're seated with Christ.

Yeah, in heavenly places. This is what Scripture says. God has seated us with him. That's mind -bending theology.

You're currently seated with him now and not yet. How that works, I have no clue. You have to slip into a different kind.

To me, I. Mm -hmm, yeah, yeah.

Now, you were asking the question, Dave. What was your question? Okay. We're looking for a church leader who has exalted himself above Christ in this church.

Is he here yet? Exactly. Okay, now, when John, the apostle

John, talks about the antichrist, he affirms that he's coming.

But already in the time of the apostles, the apostle John says, and already there are many antichrists.

Because we understand that the true antichrist, whoever he is, there's already little antichrists on the earth of men and women now who have exalted themselves above Christ within the church.

So we're not looking for Vladimir Putin. We're not looking for a Muslim. We're not looking for an American president.

We're looking for a church fellow. You see it?

And of course, if you read Jesus on this, now it begins to make sense when Jesus talks about in the last days, there'll be false teachers, false prophets, and false

Christs. And he talks about the abomination of desolation, the one who exalts himself, who is prophesied in Daniel chapter nine, the ultimate penultimate, the final uber antichrist, whoever he is.

And he's a churchman. Would you say that any church leader who says that the bubble is putting themselves in that position?

That's where it starts, isn't it? You think about it this way. I remember years ago watching some guy give a

TED Talk or something like it where he talked about how does a hurricane start? Have you ever thought about this?

How does a hurricane begin? High and low pressure. Okay, high and low pressure, right. As high as the sun. Okay, you can watch him.

Look at the African continent in the month of August or September, right? It begins as something, as just like a little tropical wave is what it's called.

And it's got a lot of energy because it's coming off the Sahara. It gets into the Atlantic and it hits the water and then that wave turns into a storm.

And then that storm tightens up and the energy gets stronger and stronger as it's picking up the steam off the heated

Atlantic Ocean. And then it turns into a category four or five and then go barreling into Florida, right?

But it all started with just a tropical wave. So the idea here is that the person who sits there and goes, you know what,

I know better than God. This Bible thing, it's dusty, it's crusty, it's old and come on, you really believe, want me to believe that these people without the internet and Apple computers were capable of creating an infallible word of God?

That can't possibly be. So I'm going to go in and I'm gonna fix it up. Already that person has put himself over God's word and that's where the tropical wave begins.

Let that thing stew for a while. Category five, heresy hurricane, watch out, shutter up the house.

When it blows through, it's gonna leave a wake of destruction. But it always begins there.

And how does Satan talk? I will ascend to the highest heights. I will be like the most high.

I will, yeah, boy, you get the idea. I'll just leave that.