Hidden Wolves and Rotten Fruit

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I want to ask that you open your Bibles with me to the seventh chapter of the Gospel of Matthew.
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And in a moment, we're going to be looking at verses 15 through 20.
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This is part of a much larger series wherein we have been studying through verse by verse the Sermon on the Mount.
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We've been doing so for over a year now, looking intently at the passages therein.
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And we're drawing now to a conclusion wherein we have come to the part of the Sermon where Jesus is offering to His people the choice.
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It is the narrow way or the broad way.
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It is the narrow gate or it is the wide gate.
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It is the house that is on the stone or the house that is built upon the sand.
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And last week, we began to look at verses 15 through 20.
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And we were looking at the subject of false teachers, a very important and very serious subject.
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As many of you know, our sermons go all around the world through sermon audio.
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And I had a man contact me this week regarding last week's message.
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It is someone that I knew, but he had listened to the message and he sent me a message or sent me a little note.
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And he said, wow, you really didn't pull any punches.
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And I said, yeah, I don't on this subject, because this is a subject which is so vital in the life of the church that we understand that Jesus tells us to beware, to look out for, to don't give our minds to, to don't get invested in false teachers.
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And by telling us that, as I said last week, he's telling us, number one, that false teachers do exist.
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There are heretics in the world.
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There are people whose intent it is to provide people a path down the broad way, not the narrow way, which is Christ.
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And as we noted, we called them last week ticket sellers, their ticket sellers on the broad road.
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That is their goal is to be profits for profit.
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They make their living through lying.
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And we live in a day where in false teachers are more available than ever.
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I just referenced the fact that our sermons go on the Internet and go out all over the world.
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And we do have people that hear us in China and in all types of places like that.
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But so do these false teachers and much more so.
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Much more so, the false teachers have the radio, the false teachers have the televisions, the false teachers have the vast majority of the Internet websites.
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And they they force out their bad information through these various mediums.
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And as I pleaded with you last week and I continue to plead with you today, beware of them.
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They are not just good old boys.
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They're not just nice people who are a little off track.
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They are dangerous, false prophets.
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And this morning we're going to see the two illustrations that Jesus gives to us, because last week we dealt with just the command, beware of false prophets.
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And now today we're going to look at the two illustrations that Jesus gives us to accompany that imperative.
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He gives us one imperative and he gives us two illustrations to accompany that imperative.
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So with that as an introduction, let's read the text in standing as we do, as we give honor and reverence to God by reading his word.
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Standing up, says in verse 15, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
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You will recognize them by their fruits are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles.
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So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.
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A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.
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Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
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Thus, you will recognize them by their fruits.
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Our Father and our God, we come to you in Jesus name.
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I pray, Lord, as I pray every week that you would keep me from error, as I certainly am capable of preaching error.
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I pray that you would tie me to the post of your word and not let me deviate down any trails of my own making.
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I pray that you would give me strength to preach truth and that you would always, Lord, remind me of the necessity of the Holy Spirit in this time.
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For, Lord, you have taught us in your word that the teacher is the spirit of God.
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So ultimately, I trust you, O God, through this time to teach your people through your spirit.
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I pray that you would put a hedge of protection around them, that you would gird them in and gird them up, Father, protect them.
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And also, Father, that you open their minds to the truth.
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And, Lord, if there be those among us who don't know Christ, as I'm certain there are, that you would use this as a time of conviction and conversion.
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For only you, Lord, can change a heart.
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And we trust you with that.
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And for those, O Lord, who are here, who are believers, I pray that this would be another reminder, yet even still, to guard our minds against the wolves who are serving this terrible fruit.
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In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.
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Jesus is the epitome of pastoral ministry.
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He's the most brilliant preacher who has ever walked the face of the earth.
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Obviously, he is God in the flesh, so it makes sense that he would be.
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And one of the things that we note in his preaching is that Christ gives us many commands, imperatives.
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But he also provides with those imperatives many illustrations to help us to understand and make the words that he's telling us apply.
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It makes them stick.
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It gives them meat for us to chew on.
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And that's what we're looking at today.
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He says, beware of false prophets.
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And then he gives two illustrations.
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The first illustration shows us the nature of the false prophets, the deceptive nature.
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And the second illustration gives us the method for determining who they are.
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Because the reality is the first illustration makes the second illustration hard because the first illustration is that they are deceptive.
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So the second illustration where he talks about recognizing their fruit, their deception is that they try to make their rotted fruit look nice and shiny and edible.
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So he provides for us these two illustrations.
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And today, as we have been through this Sermon on the Mount, breaking down the sermon verse by verse, we're going to look at these passages and we're going to see these two illustrations.
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And my prayer is that you will understand better how to know who the wolves are.
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So let's look first at verse 15.
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He says, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
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Now, the key to this, as I've already noted, is the idea of deception.
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John Stott, the great pastor, said this.
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He said the dogs and the pigs from verse six.
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And if you remember a few weeks ago, we talked about them.
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Don't cast your pearls before swine and don't give that which is holy to the dogs.
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He says the dogs and the pigs of verse six, because of their dirty habits, are easy to recognize.
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It's easy to know who's the pig.
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It's easy to know who the dog because of their behavior, but not the wolves, for they sneak into the flock.
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In the disguise of the sheep, as a result, the unwary actually mistake them for sheep and give them an unsuspecting welcome.
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Their true character is not discovered until too late.
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And the damage has been done.
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End quote.
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You see, that's Jesus's point in this part of the sermon, is that the false teacher who is the most dangerous is not the pig.
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It's not the dog.
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It's the person who comes in as one of us.
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It's the person who has all the right words and all the right things to say.
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And yet they are inside that sheep's shell, a dangerous wolf.
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Yesterday we were at the Callahan Christmas parade.
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And during the parade, I was surprised to see that the Mormons had a float and they were going down and they were passing out tracks.
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Of course, I said, no, thank you.
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But I noted the fact that here within this parade, we have the Mormons, and obviously we would believe that Mormonism is a false teaching.
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If you want information on that, I'd be happy to share it with you.
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It's not part of the sermon, but we would believe that Mormonism is a false teaching.
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So we see this giant float dedicated to false teaching going by.
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And I saw many people who would not take their tracks.
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Some people took them and threw them away.
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But here's the thing, they weren't the only false teachers in the parade.
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There were other churches that were going by, represented, many of which I know have pastors that do not preach the gospel.
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But you see, they are obvious, the others, not so much.
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The deceivers come in hidden among the flock of God.
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They come in dressed as the flock of God.
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They come in looking like everyone else so as to blend in with the flock of God.
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And yet inside they are dangerous and deceptive.
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I want to show you two texts from the Bible that help illustrate this point that Jesus is making.
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Turn in your Bible to Jude while you're turning there.
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I do want to make mention of this.
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I was very happy that there were some churches that were handing out really good gospel tracks yesterday.
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So I don't want you to think I'm just slamming everybody.
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There was a church that was handing out some really fantastic literature yesterday.
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And I was very proud to see that, happy to see that.
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So that was great.
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Jude chapter.
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Well, Jude doesn't have any chapters.
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It's only one chapter.
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So if you go to Jude, verse three, it's one page in your Bible, most likely, unless you have a really large edition, large letter edition.
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Going back to Jude, verse three, Jude is talking about what he wanted to write about and what the Holy Spirit urged him to write about.
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He says in verse three, he says, Beloved, although I was eager to write to you about our common salvation, I want to write to you about salvation.
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What a blessing.
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I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.
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I wanted to write to you about salvation, but I'm actually writing to you telling you you've got to fight for this faith.
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Why? Why do you have to fight for the faith? Why do you have to stand for the truth? Verse four, for certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation.
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And ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only master, Lord Jesus Christ.
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So he says right here, he said, there are people among you who have crept in and you didn't know it.
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There were some sneaky deceivers who have come in among you and you did not realize it.
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You have wolves among you and they're dressed like sheep since we're already here.
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Turn a couple of pages to the left to second Peter and look at second Peter, chapter two.
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As I said last week, this subject is so important.
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There's entire books of the Bible that are focused on it.
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But in second Peter, chapter two, verse one.
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It says, but false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false prophets, false teachers among you.
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By the way, this compares false prophet and false teacher using them synonymously.
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That's important.
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Who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.
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And many will follow their sensuality.
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And because of them, the way of truth will be blasphemed.
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And in their greed, they will exploit you with false words.
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Their condemnation from long ago is not idle and their destruction is not asleep.
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Notice what it says here.
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It says they will secretly bring in destructive heresy.
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You know, we live in a time where you can't say heresy anymore.
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If you say heresy, people think that you're one of the Puritans wanting to burn people at the stake or wanting to find the witches.
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If you say the word heresy.
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But the reality is there is heresy in the world and there are people who teach this heresy.
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And the apostle Peter here in this passage tells us that he said false people, false prophets arose among the people just as there will be among you.
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As long as there is a church, there are going to be people who try to sneak in and teach false doctrine and they will sneak in.
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They will not come in with a sign that says, follow me to hell.
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They will not come in with with the sign that says, get on the broad path.
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Every false teacher has a sign that he holds that says, follow me to heaven, not to hell.
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When I'm in my I teach, I mentioned this last week, I mentioned this again.
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When I teach personal protection safety classes, as many of you know that I do, I have a PowerPoint presentation.
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And in the PowerPoint presentation, I have a picture of two people.
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One of them looks out of his mind, just crazy.
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The other one is a very nicely dressed, handsome suit and tie individual.
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And I asked the normally the class is ladies.
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Sometimes men will come, but I'll ask the people in the class.
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I'll say, if you were approached by these two men, one of these two men, who do you suspect would be the most dangerous? And of course, they say, well, the guy with the crazy look on his face.
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Well, the guy with the crazy look on his face is dangerous.
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I put a picture of.
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I forget his name, Helter Skelter, was the man Charles Manson.
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Yeah, I put it put his picture.
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Yeah, he's crazy.
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Big swastika on his forehead.
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Everybody, you know, a lot of young people don't know who that is anymore.
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So I can use that picture without people realizing who he is.
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But I put him up.
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Oh, yeah, he's crazy.
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Well, they're right.
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But the guy next to him, they say, oh, yeah, I would I would let him come talk to me.
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I would approach him.
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It was Theodore Bundy who looked handsome, who looked nice, who everyone would have accepted as just a normal guy, would have accepted him into the church, would have accepted him into the home, would have accepted him to date your daughter.
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Right.
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And here is a man who we know is vicious in his soul.
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Beloved false teachers are the same because they don't come in looking like Charles Manson.
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Well, not always.
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Every once in a while.
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But but generally they look the part.
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They come in dressed in looking like everyone else.
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They sound good.
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Even they often even use orthodox language.
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Vance Havner, the great preacher of the past, said this.
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He said, you can dot all your I's and cross all your T's and still spell the word wrong.
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Oh, that's pretty genius.
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He said, you can dot your I's and cross your T's and still spell the word wrong.
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And that's what happens with a lot of these guys.
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They use the right language, but they teach the wrong gospel and they teach the wrong faith and they teach the wrong Jesus.
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And they're dangerous people and they're all about us.
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They're all around us.
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And this is the reason why we have to be on guard, because these these people can deceive thousands.
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Nay, these people can deceive millions.
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There is a man right now who lives in Rome who has deceived millions.
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He has millions who follow after him.
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He calls himself the vicar of Christ, him who stands in the place of Christ and beloved.
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He is loved by people because he's so philanthropic.
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He's so nice.
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He's such a good guy.
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But he teaches a false gospel, a dangerous false gospel, one of the marks of the reformers.
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Was they saw the papacy.
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As people, as a deceiver and those who followed the papacy, what they called the papacy, those who follow the pope as being deceived.
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How far have we fallen from that? How come we can't say that anymore? How come I have to still worry about offending people that I can't tell you the truth? Well, we live in a politically correct age.
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It's what's wrong with our age that we can't tell the truth.
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It's the problem.
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We live in a dangerous society because we live in a society that no longer will satisfy, be satisfied with the truth.
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It wants everything but the truth.
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And when the truth becomes heresy, that's dangerous.
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And what's the most dangerous thing is that some of these deceivers, some of these false teachers, some of these wolves in sheep's clothing are actually themselves deceived.
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I want to show you one passage in Second Timothy three.
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If you'll go there with me quickly, this I found so interesting when I was reading this, because this is dangerous stuff.
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Second Timothy three, verse 12, says, Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted while evil people.
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Verse 13 and imposters will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
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See, this is the most dangerous thing about false prophets.
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This is the most dangerous thing about wolves in sheep's clothing.
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If some of them are themselves deceived about their own powers and abilities and teachings.
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I hear people say sometimes, well, this guy's really sincere, he can't be a false teacher.
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Slow down.
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Just because someone's sincere doesn't mean they're not a false teacher.
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In fact, they're the most dangerous kind because they're the most believable.
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They're the most encouraging.
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Beloved, whether or not you believe something does not make it so.
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How many times do I have to say that whether or not you believe something does not make it so.
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The Bible is the arbiter of truth.
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It is the standard of truth.
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And when we say, well, I believe it, so it must be.
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No, it doesn't matter.
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As I've used this illustration a thousand times and now will be a thousand and one.
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If you stand on the edge of a cliff and you say, I don't believe in gravity and you take one step off the cliff, gravity is going to prove that it's true.
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It didn't matter what you believed.
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What we believe does not make something true or not, and I've had people come to me and they'll say this.
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They'll say, I don't believe in God.
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You believe in God.
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We can both be right.
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No, we cannot.
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We cannot both be right.
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One of us is wrong.
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We have reached an area in our society where we have got this idea that somehow contradictions can exist.
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You cannot be and not be at the same time and in the same relationship.
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That's the very foundation of logic.
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It is called the law of non-contradiction.
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And you cannot exist and not exist at the same time and in the same relationship.
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God either is or he is not.
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There is either truth or it is not truth.
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It's so simple.
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I mean, think about it, Rob.
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How many times you have people say, well, you believe what you believe about abortion.
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I believe what I believe.
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And we're both right.
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It's garbage, isn't it? It's absolute garbage.
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Never let it pass.
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That's garbage.
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It's either a baby that we're killing or it's not.
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And it is.
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But that's the idea.
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It's not a matter of it's not a matter of how we feel.
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It's not a matter of opinion.
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It's a matter of truth.
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And that's the point.
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I don't care how sincere the false teacher is.
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If he's a false teacher and he's sincere, he's sincerely wrong.
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OK, so the wolf in sheep's clothing is Jesus's first example.
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Why are they so dangerous? Because they're so deceptive.
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They're so dangerous because they slink in, they sneak in and they deceive.
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And sometimes they themselves are deceived.
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The second illustration he gives us is that of bad fruit.
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He gave us the illustration of the wolf in sheep's clothing.
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And he said, here's the danger is that they're going to sneak in.
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They're not going to be like dogs and hogs that are easy to recognize.
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They're going to be dressed looking just like everybody else.
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They're going to come in sneaky.
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You've got to watch out for them.
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And here's what you watch out for.
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And this is where the second illustration undergirds the first, because now he's going to say, what do we look for? Because we can't look for claws and teeth because they're hidden behind the veil of the wool of the sheep.
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They're hidden.
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So what do we look for? Verse 16, you will recognize them by their fruits.
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This passage is often used when people talk about how to tell whether or not a person is a Christian.
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I mean, how many times have you heard it used in that way? Somebody will say, well, how do we know somebody's a Christian? You recognize them by their fruits.
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Well, I want to tell you that as believers, we are supposed to bear the fruit of the spirit.
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And in that sense, that's correct.
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But this passage is not talking about how to tell believers.
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This passage is trying to talk about how to tell deceivers.
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That's an important distinction contextually.
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How do we tell the deceivers by their fruit, the fruit specifically of the preacher's life, because who is the false teacher? It's the person who stands behind the sacred desk.
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It's the person who stands up before the people of God.
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And he stands on the platform and he proclaims to God's people God's word.
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That's who it's in view here.
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Somebody who does what I do.
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This is who's in view.
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And he says you will recognize them by their fruits.
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And he asked the two questions, he says, are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? The the answer is no.
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It's a it's a rhetorical question.
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You don't go out to the thorn bush and look for grapes because grapes grow on a grapevine, not on a thorn bush.
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You don't grow you don't go out to the thistles and look for figs.
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You go to a fig tree.
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So he asked the two rhetorical questions.
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Do these things come from there? No.
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So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.
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And he says in verse 18, something very scary, a healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit.
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And that word bear means to be consistent.
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It means to consistently bear the bad tree.
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It's not saying I can't make a mistake.
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Certainly I can.
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I pray every week.
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God, keep me from error.
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God, keep me from preaching something that's false.
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Keep me in the truth.
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I mean, I pray that and I pray that consistently as I'm writing my messages, as I'm writing out these notes, I want to preach the truth.
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It's not saying a person can't make a mistake.
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What it is saying, though, is there is a consistency in what they're doing that is consistently bad.
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To bear means to consistently bear.
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And he says that in verse 19, every tree that does not bear consistently bear good fruit is cut down.
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If you don't, if you got a tree in your yard and it's not sprouting leaves in the springtime and it's not sprouting fruit when it's supposed to sprout.
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What do we do with those two trees that were in the front of the church? But that could change them, pull them out of the ground, he didn't have a saw, but they're gone because they didn't even spring leaves in the springtime.
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They were dead.
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So we cut them down and he says in verse 20, thus you will recognize them by their fruits.
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Now, I want to I want to borrow an outline very quickly from one of my favorite preachers.
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And I don't feel so bad borrowing this because MacArthur borrowed it, too.
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But from Arthur Pink, A.W.
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Pink gives us an outline in this passage, which I think is very helpful.
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He says, when you talk about the fruits of the minister, there are three things that we're looking at as the fruits.
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Number one is his creed.
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Number two is his character, and number three is his.
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Converts, so we're going to go through those very quickly, but at first is his creed to his character, three is his converts.
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So let's look first at his creed.
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Often when we think of fruit, we think only of what people do.
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Not how how someone behaves, not what they believe, but for the teacher, everything that he teaches comes out of what he believes.
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So what he believes is the beginning of where the false, bad, rotten fruit comes from.
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If he believes falsely, it will bear itself out in false teaching.
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This is why it is so serious.
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That's why it is so very serious to know what a person teaches before you listen to them consistently.
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Because people say, well, I heard a really great sermon by so-and-so.
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Yeah, but do you know what so-and-so really believes and teaches? Do you know what so-and-so has as their statement of faith on their website? So easy now to find out what people teach.
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It's so easy to find out what people believe.
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It's printed.
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You can go find it.
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Do you know what this person teaches? Do you know what their consistent testimony of Christ is? Do you know that they're a Unitarian, not a Trinitarian? Do you know that they have a false belief of the gospel, that they teach a works righteousness, that they deny justification by faith alone? Do you know those things? Well, that doesn't matter.
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Sure, it matters.
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It matters more than anything else in this world.
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I'd rather have a bad mechanic than a bad preacher.
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Worst thing, a bad mechanic is going to do is have me slide into a brick wall.
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He's not going to send me to hell.
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It's the most important thing in the world.
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People say all the time, well, you know, we don't pastors just go up there and preach what's on their heart.
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That's so dangerous.
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That's so dangerous.
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They need to preach what's in the word of God.
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They need to preach what's truth and they need to be held to the standard of truth.
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And it begins with what do they believe about this word? What do they believe about the truth? Do they believe that this is the inerrant, infallible, inspired word of the living God? And do they preach consistently with that? So his creed is first, what does he believe that bears fruit, what he believes will bear fruit and what he teaches? The second thing is his character.
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What a man believes will also show forth and how he behaves.
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And again, wolves in sheep's clothing can be so dangerous because this is why it's hard, because they're hiding their true self.
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They're hiding the true person.
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I think this is one of the most difficult things for a pastoral search committee.
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I don't know how many of you have ever sat on a pastoral search committee before.
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I never have personally.
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I don't know how you do it.
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You say, how did I come here? For those of you who don't know, for our visitors this morning, I came here not quite by birth, but almost.
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I've been here since I was eight years old.
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People know me and have known me since I was a child.
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Does that mean that I couldn't have hidden things? Oh, absolutely.
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I could have.
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But it's so much easier for a man coming in who nobody's ever met, nobody ever knows.
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He preaches two really good sermons week after week.
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He preaches two really great sermons.
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They ask him 15 questions about his wife, kids and whether or not she can play the piano.
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And boom, he's got a job.
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It's so scary to think about having to sit on a pastoral search.
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This is why I do believe in raising up ministers from within the congregation.
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That's why I'm excited that Aaron's going to seminary from within our congregation.
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I think the church should be sending men into the mission field.
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I think churches should be sending men into the pastorate.
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I think churches should be raising up from among them ministers of the gospel.
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That way, when they go to another church, that church can call us and say, what do you know about this person? And we can say we've known this person.
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We've raised this person.
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We've taught this person.
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This person has come up among us and we know who he is and we know what he's about and we can stand firm on his character.
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That's important.
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That's so important.
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So the ministers, Creed and his character and thirdly, are his converts.
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Teachers tend to produce students who are like themselves, as as A.W.
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Pink said in his notes, like produces like it's often easy to know what a church is teaching simply by listening to the people who go there.
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I mean, really, it is, you know, my wife was in a was in a hospital the other day.
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I was sick and I couldn't go.
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So my wife went to visit the hospital while she was in the hospital.
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Another minister came in and was praying.
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That's fine.
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But as he was praying, he was saying these things were really off the wall theologically.
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And yet the people that were there, his converts, because he was a minister from another church, this was it's hard to explain why Jennifer was there.
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But the point is they were in another church and they're all amen, amen, amen to this nonsense.
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By the way, by his stripes you are healed is not about physical healing.
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It's not.
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I can demonstrate from the text.
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It's not physical healing.
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It's not intended to be physical healing and quit using it when you're praying for somebody who is sick.
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It's better to go to James and do as James tells us to do, have the elders to lay hands on the person and to pray over them, not to take passages out of context and apply them where they're not intended to be.
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So that was free, that was a little added note there.
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But the converts of a pastor will demonstrate oftentimes what the pastor is teaching and what he's about.
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And we see that over and over and over.
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Listen to them, pray, listen to people to a scripture, listen to people.
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And you will know what they're being taught.
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So it's not enough to look only at the man who could easily deceive with a false covering.
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We have to look at what he's producing.
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What's he producing in his teaching? What's he producing in his life, his character? What's he producing in his converts? You can't see a person's heart.
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The Bible even tells us that it says man looks on the appearance, but God looks at the heart.
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But what do we look at for the teachers among us, for those who stand before us and say, I'm preaching and teaching you the word of God, what do we look at the fruit? It's the only thing we can see.
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We can't see the root, but we can see the fruit and the fruit says what's in the root.
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The fruit is testimony.
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If it's a bad root, it can't produce good fruit.
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And if it's a good root, it will produce good fruit.
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So in that sense, we're called to inspect the fruit of those who we listen to, inspect the fruit of those who are teaching us, inspect the fruit of those who we turn our radio on and listen to, who we turn the Internet on and listen to, who we turn our television on, listen to, inspect it, know that what you're listening to is true and is coming from somebody whose heart is for the gospel and not for themselves.
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Jesus commands us, beware of false prophets, they are cunning, they are clever, they are dangerous, they're not well-meaning, good hearted folks, they are ravenous wolves.
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They're more dangerous than a loaded gun in the hands of a small child.
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They're more dangerous than any politician ever thought about being.
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I know some of you, some of you get really I know we have conversations about politics and get really riled up about these politicians who lie.
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Beloved, shouldn't we be 50 times more upset when a pastor lies? When a pastor preaches something false.
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Shouldn't we be so much more concerned about the state of the church than the state of the state, but don't we get so much more involved in the state of the state than we do the state of the church? We can never let down our guard because the false teachers are among us and they will continue to be among us.
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John MacArthur said there is always a market for false teachers because people don't want to hear the truth.
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And all he's doing is echoing Second Timothy four, where the apostle Paul says to Timothy, a time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching.
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But having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
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That's the danger.
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These false teachers have come in among us.
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They're coming in not with sound doctrine, but with false doctrine.
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And they're coming in and the people want them.
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Why is it that there's 40,000 people willing to listen to a false teacher and less than 100 willing to listen to the gospel? Because it's what the world wants.
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It satisfies the flesh.
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I know of a man this past week.
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He said he was a he was a pastor overseas.
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He had he had come here as a person who was preaching a very exciting false teaching, but he didn't realize it at the time that he was teaching very, very much.
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And yet he had a church of like thousands and he was converted and convicted of what he had been doing.
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And he started teaching the truth.
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And it dwindled to 100 out of thousands down to 100.
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And you say, well, that guy must not be a very good preacher.
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Jesus Christ and John chapter six had many people following after him.
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He preached the gospel to them.
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He preached the truth to them.
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And when it was all done, all of them, except the disciples left and Jesus turned to them and said, will you leave me also? And Jesus and they said to Jesus, to whom shall we go? For you have the words of life.
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Jesus was real quick to empty a church.
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He very much was because he preached the truth.
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One of the most dangerous things I'm going to finish with this, I'm drawn to a close.
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One of the most dangerous things that false teachers do.
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And I'm going to tie this to the verse before it where we talk about the broad way and the narrow way.
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One of the most dangerous things that false teachers do is they give comfort to people who are on the broad way.
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And I want to end in Jeremiah six, Jeremiah chapter six.
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Jeremiah is all about false prophets.
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He's all about these.
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Jeremiah is one one true prophet in a in a in a sea of false prophets.
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And this is what he says.
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In Jeremiah chapter six, talking about the false prophets in verse 14, he said they have healed the wound of my people lightly.
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But the NASB says it much better.
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It says they have wound.
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They have healed the wound of my people superficially.
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They've got an open wound.
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They've only applied a superficial dressing by saying peace, peace where there is no peace.
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Beloved, that's the danger of the false teacher, because the danger of the false teacher is this.
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He will tell you you have peace with God when you do not.
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He will encourage you that you have peace with God when you do not.
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He will tell you you are on the narrow path when you are still trucking fast and curious down the broad way.
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People ask me, Pastor, can you give me assurance of my salvation? No, I can't.
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The Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation.
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I tell you, repent and believe.
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I can't give you assurance.
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What if I gave you assurance and you weren't a believer? What good is that? What good is my assurance anyway? People say, well, you should be able to give insurance.
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I have a pastor down the road who'll give me an assurance.
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The only place to get assurance is from the word of God, not from me.
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And if you read the word of God consistently and you still don't have assurance, repent and believe the gospel.
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I'm not going to give you a false assurance.
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I'm not going to give you a superficial covering for a wound that you have yet to have healed by God, because there are stripes which are healed by Christ, the stripes of our sin.
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And they're healed through repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ.
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And I call you to that today.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you, God, that you do give us assurance.
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You give us assurance through the word of God.
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Not because we have written our name in a Bible when we were 12 years old.
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Not because we raised our hand in a camp meeting or were baptized in the middle of a vacation Bible school.
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But you give us assurance every day.
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When we come to faith in Christ, because you persevere through us, you give us the perseverance and a faith that lasts.
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Father, we know.
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As we will see next week, that on that day, many will say, Lord, Lord, have we not done this in your name and have we not done that in your name and have we not done that in your name? And you will look at them and say, depart from me for I never knew you.
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Father, we know there are false believers.
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We know there are false converts in the world and in the church.
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May it be, oh Lord, that you convict and convert them today.
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And that they find their assurance, not in my words.
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But in your word, in Jesus name, we pray.
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Amen.
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Let's stand together and sing.
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And if you have a need for prayer, I encourage you to come.