Crazy Christians — Steve Gallagher

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A Growing Hunger for the Word of God

Everything that's been expressed is really what the Lord put on my heart to share with you today. I'm going to be in 2 Thessalonians 2 here in a few minutes, but I want to tell you the title of my message that Jeff didn't know was the title, Crazy Christians, and we'll get to that here in a minute.

I want to start by just sharing something out of my own life, and that is that for the past almost 30 years now, I've had a solid time in the Word of God every day. And the Lord has helped me to remain faithful at that, and probably just a handful of times over all those years did I miss my time in the Word, usually always at least an hour spent studying and just being in the Word of God.

But something has happened to me over the last couple of years that's changed. And I find myself just so enthralled with God's Word. This is testimony. This isn't just a sermon, okay? I'm just sharing from you my own experience that something has gripped me, a passion to be in the Word of God like I've never known before.

I don't know why exactly, maybe just out of desperation spiritually, but for whatever the reason, I just have really become increasingly more interested in it, hungry for it. And spending time in it. Recently I started teaching through the book of Revelation to the staff here on Mondays, and so I thought, well, you know, if I'm going to be teaching through that, I want to be in the spirit of that, so I'm going to go back through the book of Revelation again.

I've been through it probably five or six times, intensive studies. But I thought, you know, I'm going to do it again, and so I have been over the last month or so devouring everything I can lay my hands on, teaching through Revelation and so on.

And I suppose that the darkening clouds that you feel when you are in that book may have colored my thinking one day, but a couple of weeks ago I felt a very strong impression come upon me from the Lord.

Now when the Lord speaks to you, if you have had this experience before, you know it's usually not an audible type voice, or not even audible, it's usually not even distinct. It's usually a basic impression that is impressed upon your soul, and then it comes into your mind through your own ways of expressing things, you know.

So you get this impression and then you articulate it with your own style. And really, when you look at the Word of God, you see that that's how it's happened. That's why it's not all this robotic talk, you know, Paul wrote in Paul's way, and it was different than the way John would express things, and so on, you know, it's that kind of way.

Well anyway, I'm going to interpret for you in my own Californian dialect the way it came to me, okay? And you know, I'm kind of making light of it and I shouldn't because it's extremely serious. But this is what came to me.

The Warning to Immerse Ourselves in God's Word

Christians are crazy. If they don't immerse themselves in the Word of God while they still can. Now I'll let you decide if that was a word from the Lord or not. I'm telling you for myself, my testimony to you is that I felt like it was God speaking that into my heart.

That Christians are crazy. If they are not immersing themselves in the Word of the Lord while they can, and when I looked into the future, what I see is an increasingly dark time for God's people. Now it's not as negative as it may seem, you know, and I'll get to that later.

I'm saying that there is coming upon this earth increasingly the power of the enemy to influence, to deceive, to attempt to destroy our faith, an increasing power of darkness. But I am not afraid. I want you to hear that distinctly this morning.

I am not afraid of that. Because my life is so anchored in with God, I don't fear what the enemy is going to do. But I am very concerned about the church at large. I'm very concerned about many of you.

What's happening is really what John said in the book of Revelation. When he was describing, he was seeing the same thing, of course this was 2 ,000 years ago, but he was seeing the same thing. The way he described this increasing power of darkness, he said that the enemy was coming in a rage against the people on this earth knowing that his time was short.

And I want to add to it that Satan cannot do anything outside of God's license, if I could put it that way. The enemy is being given increasing latitude. That's what's happening on this earth. And these things that we keep witnessing, it's crazy out there.

I saw a headline on CNN that said something like, is America going insane? You know, two weeks ago, an NFL player went and killed his girlfriend, his live-in girlfriend, and then for whatever crazy reason, he goes to the ballpark, stands in front of his coach and general manager, and kills himself.

It's insane. And it's exactly what we've already heard this morning, that the power of darkness is growing and it's agitating and animating people. And of course, we're all still reeling over what happened two days ago in Newtown, Connecticut.

That is the heart of Satan being expressed right there. What you saw him do through that young man to those innocent children is what he wants to do to you, destroy you and make you suffer forever. That's his heart.

God has kept Satan on a leash for the past 6 ,000 years, but that leash is being let out little by little. And dear ones, I guarantee you, I guarantee you that before it's over, you're going to be witnessing worse horrors than what just happened two days ago.

It's going to come in all kinds of different ways, through earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, bizarre stuff, bizarre weather patterns. But even more so, through human beings. You are going to witness some incredible things.

And if you're not solidly attached to God and have a very real sense of who He is, you will eventually be on the side of questioning God. And that's happening right now in our country. People say it. Where was God?

And things like that. And you'll find yourself on that side of things if you're not careful. We have got to fortify ourselves spiritually. It's not a game. This is not a game. We can't do the Christian thing like we've done it in the past.

Those days are coming to an end. Satan's ability to destroy is increasing, and we're seeing that here and there. These little episodes of terrible violence and so on. We're seeing these outbreaks of that sort of thing.

But what you may not be as aware of, because it's much more subtle, is that his power to deceive and to seduce is also growing exponentially. My concern for God's people is they are not preparing their hearts.

The Peril of Spiritual Deception in the Last Days

When Paul predicted that the last days would be perilous, he wasn't talking about violence, persecution, or destructive weather. He was talking about a spiritual atmosphere of selfism that would be so pervasive outside and inside the church that masses of professing Christians would find that they have no defense against the enemy's lies and seductions.

That's the perilous times that we are facing and entering into. The peril isn't to our bodies. The peril is to our souls. I'm going to read this passage out of 2 Thessalonians 2. I'm going to go ahead and read these ten verses, not because we're going to be in all this, but I want to create the atmosphere of what I'm talking about.

And Paul was in this atmosphere. You know, he was probably spending time with the Lord this particular day that he wrote this, and he was writing some things to these believers in Thessalonica, people he knew.

And he was writing them a letter. And questions had arisen about the second coming of Christ, and there was some confusion about it all, and all of that. And the Lord just came on him and helped him to articulate part of the picture of what would be going on in the last days.

Now I use the New American Standard, and I'll be referring to that here as I speak, but I'm going to read this out of the Phillips translation just because it's a little fresher to me and it expresses things in a nice way.

So we'll start with verse 3. That day will not come, and he's referring to the return of the Lord. That day will not come before there arises a definite rejection of God and the appearance of the lawless man.

He is the product of all that leads to death, and he sets himself up in opposition to every religion. He himself takes his seat in the temple of God to show that he really claims to be God. I expect you remember now how I talked about this when I was with you.

You will probably also remember how I used to talk about a restraining power which would operate until the time should come for the emergence of this man. Evil is already insidiously at work, but its activities are restricted until what I have called the restraining power of God is removed.

When that happens, the lawless man will be plainly seen. Though the truth of the Lord Jesus spells his doom and the radiance of the coming of the Lord Jesus will be his utter destruction. Verse 9, the lawless man is produced by the spirit of evil and armed with all the force, wonders and signs that falsehood can devise.

To those involved in this dying world, he will come with evil's undiluted power to deceive. I'm going to read that again because I guarantee you, every one of you guys, I'm not trying to point the finger, I was there once myself, but I guarantee you, every one of you, before you came here, this spoke of you, to those involved in this dying world.

Need to think about that. Think about the way you were living your life. Never mind the pornography and the sin. I'm talking about the way you lived your daily life. To those involved in this dying world, he will come with evil's undiluted power to deceive.

For they have refused to love the truth which could have saved them. God sends upon them, therefore, the full force of evil's delusion so that they put their faith in an utter fraud and meet the inevitable judgment of all who have refused to believe the truth and who have made evil their playfellow.

Guys, listen to me. Playing church is not going to get you through. I'm telling you, those days are over. You've got to make up your mind. Before you leave this place, you have to make up your mind. Those days of playing church are over for me.

I'm either in or out. It's got to be one or the other. Before I go on with my message, I want to just mention one thing. That it's not the man that we need to be concerned about. You don't have to worry about the Antichrist.

He is not your concern. It's the spirit behind him, the spirit that will possess him. That spirit hates you and knows you and is watching you and is scheming to take you down and to make you his own forever.

That's who you better fear. Don't worry about the man. We don't even need to study about him and talk about him because what he does is immaterial almost. It's so unimportant compared to the overwhelming, powerful, demonic darkness that is enveloping this earth.

One man who's demon possessed means very little. He's just going to be Satan's figurehead. That's all he's going to be. He is zero. He's nothing. But the spirit that possesses him is very powerful and you better have a healthy respect for it.

We've got to start sandbagging our lives against what this spirit is bringing. We have to do it no matter what. We have to do it. I'm looking at this like you're just a crowd of skeptics, okay? And my job is to convince you that you need the Word of God in your life today, a year from now, five years from now, more than you have ever had it in your life in the past, okay?

The First Reason: Spiritual Lawlessness Is Increasing

So I want to give you three reasons why, and it's really just going along with what we've already heard this morning. We need the Word of the Lord in our lives in a greater way because we're coming into a time of great spiritual lawlessness.

Look at verse 7. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. That's the NAS. But I want to read it in a couple other translations.

I like using different translations because it just makes the reality of what's being expressed fuller. The NLT Bible says, For this lawlessness is already at work secretly, and it will remain secret until the one who is holding it back steps out of the way.

Yep, that's right. And the Amplified, talking about the mystery of lawlessness, it says it this way, That hidden principle of rebellion against constituted authority. Paul calls the Antichrist the lawless one and the man of lawlessness, but then he mentions the mystery of lawlessness.

Now there's a number of mysteries mentioned in the New Testament. There's the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, the mystery of Christ in the church, the mystery of the gospel, the mystery of the faith.

There's even the mystery of Babylon, the great we find out later in Revelation. But here he presents another mystery, the mystery of lawlessness. What is that? The mystery of lawlessness. There's something about it that's hidden.

There's some kind of reality about it that isn't clearly visible to us. It's not easily discernible. I want to tell you what it is. You know what lawlessness is, right? It's that thing that rises up inside you that doesn't want to submit.

That thing that rises up inside you where you want your own way. That thing that says, I don't need anyone telling me how to live my life. The thing that wants what you want, wants to make your own plans and just ask God to bless them.

That thing. That's it. That thing is a subtle power at work in our hearts where no one else can see what is happening. It is an unseen spiritual influence that is continually, relentlessly driving home the attitude that outward obedience to a few biblical principles is good enough.

That we don't really need to submit our decisions and plans to God. That we can live independently from God. That God's grace will cover us so long as we don't quit going to church. It's a packaged deal, you know?

And the bottom line of it is rebellion to God's authority. I mean, that's what it comes down to. And I want to tell you that that mindset, even though you will never hear those things articulated in the church, that mindset is powerful in the church, in the evangelical movement.

It's powerful. It's unspoken. It's an unspoken way of doing Christian life in America. We've just layered, layer upon layer upon layer over the word of God, our own rendition of the gospel that allows us to play with the world's playthings and live life for ourselves.

And we've just layered one time after another, after another, after another, all these filters over God's word. So then when we go to read the scriptures, it doesn't even look like what was actually expressed.

That's deception. It's you know, it's what the Pharisees did, they had the word of God. But they had so covered it over with their traditions year after year after year, by the first century, Judaism didn't even slightly resemble what God had in mind way back when.

We've done the exact same thing. Ministers instinctively understand, you know, they kind of have this balance they have to maintain. On one side, they know that Christians do not want to be confronted about sin and worldliness and selfishness and so on.

But on the other side, they can't preach outright messages to go ahead and disobey God, so they have to kind of navigate their way through. So what they do is that they just kind of give messages that teach people about the Christian life and how to raise your kids.

And they teach about books of the Bible and they teach all these nice things. And there's not necessarily any deception in any of that. It's just not the whole truth. That's the problem. The deception isn't in what's actually said, it's in what's not said.

I want to read a couple of comments from commentaries written at least 100 years ago about this mystery of lawlessness. Albert Barnes said this. The mystery of iniquity seems here to refer to some hidden or concealed depravity.

Some form of sin which was working secretly and silently and which had not yet developed itself. Any secret sources of iniquity in the church, anything that tended to corrupt its doctrines and to destroy the simplicity of the faith of the gospel would correspond with the meaning of this word.

Yeah, that's right. He's nailing it. Way back in 1850, it's almost, you know, the Lord's not taken by surprise with any of this. And he's dropping something into this man's mind, you know, and giving him a sight of the apostate church that is our home, Adam Clark.

There is a system of corrupt doctrine which will lead to the general apostasy already in existence. But it is a mystery. It is as yet hidden. It dare not show itself because of that which hinders it. It's still hidden, but it's going to come out in the open before it's over with and you're either going to be on one side or the other.

And I hope that terrifies you, it should. It should. Pulpit commentary, even at the time the apostle wrote, the seeds of apostasy were already sown. The leaven of lawlessness was fermenting inside Christianity.

The foundations of a false Christianity were being laid. These are amazing things. You know, it's like the dark period during the judges when there was that 400 years where there was no move of God. God was silent.

The last statement in the book of Judges, it said there was no king. In other words, there was no authority in the land. Therefore, everyone did as they pleased. And that's what's happening more and more, the authority of God is being undermined in the church.

And as that continues to grow, so also grows the natural human tendency for everyone to do as they please. You wonder why sin is rampant in the church, that's what it is. OK, number two, we need the word of the Lord in our lives.

The Second Reason: A Famine of Hearing God's Word

In a much greater way, because we're coming into a time. When there will be a famine of the word from the Lord. That comes from something that Amos prophesied, and interestingly, also during the period of the judges, it said that the word of the Lord was rare.

It was rare in those days. Now, I suppose we will eventually come into a time where Bibles will be outlawed. You know, I suppose that that's going to happen at some point. But what I see going on right now is not a lack of Bibles, but a lack of interest.

You know, famine is talking about people dying from starvation and you can become starved either because there's just simply no food available to get your hands on or you can starve to death because you're too sick to eat.

You just have no appetite. And that's what I see right now. There's a spiritual disease in the body of Christ that is depleting us of our hunger for the Lord, for the things of the Lord, for the word of the Lord.

Why is that happening? You know, one of the ploys that the communists used back in the 50s and 60s and so on. When they had Christians in their prisons, prisons were full of Christians, well, they would they would put a Christian pastor in a cell by himself and then they would pipe in this recording.

And it was 24 hours constant, you know, and the recording was this message of all the reasons why they should question the reality of Christianity and all the reasons why communism was good. And this message was like was a loop and it just went on and on and on.

We're not facing that, but what we are facing is the same kind of relentless message in our culture because we're all so plugged into the world's information outlets. We're piping it into our own homes and hearts.

We're doing it. The bait that Satan is using is entertainment. He has gotten Christians so addicted to entertainment that they cannot conceive of life without it. Christians have become immersed and addicted to the world's entertainments.

And that's what has made us so vulnerable to the enemy's voice. The difference between us and the believers in the communist countries is that they saw atheistic communism as their enemy. They understood this is the enemy of my soul piping this garbage into my cell.

They understood that. So they were able to resist it and cry out to God, please, Lord, protect my mind and heart. But us, we see the world as our friend. We feel no need to change things. We're like the Laodiceans, we're just we feel rich and in need of nothing.

My fear is that many Christians have so immersed themselves in the kingdom of this world, they've gone so far in there that they're not going to find their way back out. Anyway, Paul said the Antichrist, well, I should say the spirit that will possess him.

The Antichrist would come with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. It's like the Lord is offering it. Here is the love of the truth.

It's the thing I've been describing to you that God has just gripped me with. I want the truth, Lord. I want the truth of your word. I want to be completely permeated with your word. I want the truth about myself, about my sinful attitudes, about my pride, about my selfishness.

Anything you see in my heart, God, show me go right ahead. The door is wide open. I want to know. Judge me now, Lord, please. We've got to have that attitude, that love for the truth. You know, people don't mind listening to sermons and reading books, but they won't put up with being confronted about what's really in their hearts.

And it's just human nature to be that way. We are just we're all that way. None of us like that. It's just the way we are. But God has given us a solution to it. You know, if you hate the truth being presented to you like that, God's given you a solution.

It's the word of God. If you'll spend time in the word, I'm telling you, it will develop inside of you that conviction, that love for the truth that will save your soul. Well, listen, it was Paul who said that the love of the truth is what will save our souls.

Paul said it, not me. I'm just quoting what he said. But, you know, I'm not saying this to blame anyone or whatever. I don't mean it this way. I just know the reality of the situation. All those layers on the truth of God's word.

Have made words like that so depleted of reality that they don't affect us. If we really could see them for what they were, we would probably throw ourselves down at the altar screaming for God to penetrate our hearts.

The Third Reason: Guarding Against Great Deception

The only way you're going to acquire love for the truth is to spend a lot of time in it. That's just the way it is. All right, number three, we need the word of God. In a greater way because of the great deception that's coming, Paul said, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved for this reason, God will send upon them a diluting influence so that they will believe what is false.

You know what it is, it is God will give you what you want. That's what it is. God's going to give you what you want. And if you don't want the truth and you want to believe a lie about yourself or believe the best about yourself or whatever it is, that's what he's going to give you eventually.

I mean, he tries to break through. He tries to reach us, but eventually, you know, he just gives us over. And, you know, the inevitable result of turning away from the truth is that people turn right into the arms of the great deceiver himself.

It's not just a matter of, well, I don't really want to hear that or I don't really like that kind of preaching. It's more than that. Because when you steal yourself against the truth, there's only one other way to go.

And, you know, the greatest deceptions are the ones I've already talked about, but we are getting to the point now that the church has become so weakened by those deceptions of this watered down version of the gospel, we have become so weakened on a whole, not everyone, but on the whole, that we've become very vulnerable to greater deceptions.

So now outright deceptions are just breaking forth out in the church, in the open, and masses of people are being taken in by lies. Let me just give you some examples. I have never, I don't think, named names in sermons before, but I'm going to do it today because I'm sick and tired of these guys just getting away with stuff.

Critiquing Prosperity and Relevance-Driven Movements

And I'm just, you know, for whoever hears me, at least I'm going to say it. I'm going to name three movements that are in the church right now deceiving people. I'll mention Joel Osteen and I'm going to call him the voice of positivism.

The voice of positivism, I mean, just Mr. Optimism, I don't know how else to say it. He's like a polished version of Kenneth Copeland, who ushered in all this rash of junk theology into the church back in the 70s and 80s.

And he is such a smooth talking man with his effeminate personality and soft ways, and people are taken in by it. But I want to tell you that Joel Osteen, TBN, Benny Hinn, the whole lot of them. They're liars.

They're liars, and you need to hear that. They're presenting a false gospel. The prosperity movement is a self-centered, world-loving, temporal-minded version of the gospel. That's what it is. And you need to hear that, man, is it sucking thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands away from God into the darkness of cosmos.

The message that Joel Osteen peddles is your best life is now. And you know what? The people who follow him, that's true. He's telling the truth for a change, because the best they will ever have is what they can get on this earth, because they are not going to see it that way in the hereafter.

So if you want to give yourself to this world and what this world is going to give you, OK, go for it. But it's the best you're going to ever have. I'll tell you that. You won't like it when you leave this world.

I think you'd be better off with the book someone wrote called The Time of Your Life and Light of Eternity. That's someone who knows what they're talking about. Won't lie to you. All right. Number two villain is Rob Bell, the voice of relevance, I'll call him.

Young people love guys like Rob Bell because they speak their language. They talk openly about the failures of the religious system we have in America. Emergent leaders have a knack for connecting with young people, should say disillusioned young people.

But instead of leading them into submission and into a closer walk with the Lord on the ancient paths that have always worked, that have always brought us to the Lord, have always brought us into a real life of victory, a real walk with the with God.

They're leading people away from the Lord and into open rebellion. And of course, he's written this book Love Wins and, you know, and conservative Christian leaders have called him a heretic and a false teacher and so on, and rightly so.

But I want to tell you something. He was a heretic before he wrote that book. He's not a heretic because he wrote it. He wrote it because he's a heretic, because he's a false teacher. And Brian McLaren and the rest of them, they're liars.

They're smooth talking liars. I ran across this one article about him and some blogger, I have no idea who this guy was, just a regular Christian brother. But he said something about Bell that could be said about any of these guys.

I'm going to read it to you. Bell's favorite tactic when backed up against a wall is to direct the question back at the questioner. Very disingenuous. I would respect him more if he would just come right out and admit what he believes, however heretical it be.

Either he doesn't know what he believes, in which case he shouldn't be preaching or writing books about it, or he doesn't have the courage of his beliefs. And, you know, that is across the board with all these liars.

You try pinning them down. Just say it was something this McLaren guy was talking about homosexuality. And I saw some clip and I listened to his talk for like five minutes. And I said, this is nothing but a bunch of gobbledygook.

What are you saying? Just come out and tell me is homosexuality right or wrong? Is it sinful or not? But he won't do that because he knows if he says it's not sinful, that he'll get criticized. But he doesn't want to say it's sinful because he wants everyone to love him.

Another blogger said this, Rob Bell is bound for hell whether he believes in it or not. I'll tell you, if someone ever wrote that about me, I would sit up and take notice and I'd be looking at my life.

Unless it was one of these guys, then I wouldn't pay attention to it. The last one I'll mention is maybe one that you wouldn't think of as a false teacher. And that is Rick Warren. I'll call him the voice of reason.

He's the voice of reason. He can go on CNN. He is so smooth with his words. He sounds so reasonable, so convincing. You know why? Because he's talking the world's language. Because he's not from us, he's from the world.

And of course, the world would embrace him. But you know something, because he and Bill Hybels and others in that secret sensitive movement, because they have become so adept at attracting tens of thousands of people to their churches, because they have become so successful and so many ministers want success no matter what they have to pay to get it, even if it means a lack of integrity with the Word of God.

So long as they have a big church, that's all that really matters, because success speaks very loudly, doesn't it? These guys completely emphasize God's love and God's grace and that side of the Lord, which, of course, we all love about the Lord, but they completely deemphasize His holiness and His righteousness and His justice.

As Guinness said, when megachurch pastors seek to mold a message to their, quote, market of constituent needs, their preaching omits key components. Gone are the hard sayings of Jesus. Gone is the teaching on sin, self-denial, sacrifice, suffering, judgment, hell.

With all its need meeting emphases, there is little in the church growth movement that stands crosswise to the world. And that's it. That's the truth. Well, whatever the case is with these guys, you know, they're just with all false teachers, just common denominators.

They want success, they're ambitious and they want people to love them, and that's why they give them a false rendition of the gospel. Guys, do you realize that we are watching biblical prophecy unfold right before our eyes?

You know, here again, we've we've read these words so many times in the Bible that they've become stale to us, we've become numb to them, they've become lifeless to us. But Paul talked about it. In Second Timothy four, I'm going to read it in a couple of paraphrased translations just to get you out of the way you've always heard it.

For there is going to come a time when people won't listen to the truth, but will go around looking for teachers who will tell them just what they want to hear. They won't listen to what the Bible says, but will blithely follow their own misguided ideas.

That's the living Bible that was written probably 50, 60 years ago before any of this started happening. The Knox Bible, the time will surely come when men will grow tired of sound doctrine. Always itching to hear something fresh, and so they will provide themselves with a continuous succession of new teachers as the whim takes them, turning a deaf ear to the truth.

Prayer for Conviction and Spiritual Awakening

All right, I'm going to bring this to a close here. I just want to pray. Before I finish. Lord, I'm just asking you to please help me. I feel like I'm not breaking through. I feel like I'm not expressing things clearly.

I'm asking you, Lord, to please help me. Please help me, Lord. If there is a wall of unbelief in this room, I pray that you'll tear it down. If there is a spirit of indifference and apathy and lethargy and spiritual sleepiness, please awaken us, God.

If there is deception, if there are those in this room who have already fallen sway to these liars, God, please dispel the deception in their hearts and show them the truth of the gospel. Lord, I can't do it with my words, my words don't mean anything.

Who am I? I'm asking you, Holy Spirit, to come into this room right now. Please, God, come into this room right now. And make us see the reality of the world we live in. And our own hearts and the longing of our hearts for the things of this world, help us to see it for what it is, God, and where that is going to take us and help us to see, Lord, how desperate our need for your word in our lives.

That we are so naturally prone to drift away from you, to wander away, to go astray. We are so vulnerable to be led astray that you said it four times in the Olivet discourse, do not be deceived, do not be led astray.

Don't let anyone mislead you. And yet, Lord, we've just so steeled ourselves, we've become so stale to the word of God that those words don't even affect us. I just want to end with this, guys. I'm just going to end with this, that we don't have to go into the future in fear.