The Strong Words of Christ

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Hey everybody, I'm Pastor Jeff Durbin with Apologia Church. I want to thank you all so much for watching the content right here on Apologia Studios channel.

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So thank you again so much for watching these and sharing them. God bless you. So there's a title.

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I guess I can give this sermon many titles, but I would title it, The Strong Words of Christ.

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The Strong Words of Christ Seen in Matthew 23. Jeff asked me to talk about really the strong language that Jesus uses when he addresses the

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Pharisees in Matthew 23. Whenever you get to that point in Matthew, you're like, wow, Jesus is kind of letting it loose and seemingly has an assertive or maybe an aggressive tone.

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And I think what I want to do, because I am the pastor of local outreach, I kind of want to look at this evangelistically.

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I think Christians are very puzzled or confused about strong language that Christians use, especially in evangelism.

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Jeff has done an incredibly thorough job in explaining the context, the historical background, in the ins and outs of chapter 23.

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You can find that sermon. It's called Jesus on Hypocrites in YouTube. It's absolutely excellent.

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You got to go check it out. I listened to it a couple of times this week. But my kind of overall goal through the sermon is to focus on Jesus's example and the way that we evangelize the lost.

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The two main goals here, the way that we evangelize the lost and the way we collectively protect ourselves and our brothers and sisters from false teachers.

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So I'm really answering only one question. It's hard. I'm going to move through this as quickly as I can. But the umbrella question that I'm kind of asking as you look at Matthew 23 is this.

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Why did Jesus use such strong language when he addressed the Pharisees and the scribes in Matthew 23?

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That's the overarching question. What was the purpose? And maybe a sub -question would be, should

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Christians use strong language as Jesus is seen doing in Matthew 23? Should we be doing that?

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Is there a wrong way and is there a right way to accomplish this task? Now if you look at our abortion mill videos on YouTube, if you come out with us on any type of evangelism, you are going to hear us say strong words.

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Words like coward, words like murder, murderer, fool, hell.

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And then we do as we minister at the death clinics, we describe abortion procedures and it can get pretty graphic.

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And I know that since I started doing that, I've received tons of questions and remarks about our terminology and if we're being biblical in what we're doing.

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Are you guys just being jerks? Are you being mean -spirited? Is this how Jesus would have you to communicate using such seemingly harsh language to people, you know, out on the streets?

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I know my sister, myself, and everybody that's went out to a clinic have interacted with many

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Christians and have been accused of being hypocrites or, like I said, just bullies or mean -spirited.

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So I kind of want to answer that. Look at these texts, look at these verses and see if we can come to an answer about that tonight.

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I think the biggest, the people with the biggest problems with this are professing Christians. You know, those that we receive the most amount of pushback in our biblical evangelism and our evangelism of abortion clinic are people who profess

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Christ. They say things like this, that's not the right way you should speak to people. You're not, you're judging and condemning people.

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If only we had a penny for every time we heard, stop judging people, we would be billionaires.

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It happens, it happens every second. Just a five dollar little tip for you today. When Jesus is talking about judging in Matthew chapter 7, he's talking to the

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Pharisees and he's commanding not to judge based upon the wrong standard. Not self -righteously, but based upon the standard of God's law and God's word, right?

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That's what the Pharisees were not doing. But as we go out proclaiming the truth and exposing sin, like Ephesians chapter 5 tells us to do, we're judging based upon the standard of God's word.

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That's just a two dollar little tip for you. So you're judging and condemning people.

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You're the pot calling the kettle black. You're being unloving and unkind. So let's take a look through this and see if we can't shed light on that subject.

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Just a little bit of context. Jeff, like I said, has gone thoroughly and exhaustively into the background context all the way back to the

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Old Testament and explaining how we can properly understand this chapter. So I don't want to be redundant and I don't just want to,

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I don't want to repeat what he's saying. But Matthew 23, it's Jesus' last public sermon.

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I didn't know if you knew that. It's his last public sermon and he chose in his last public sermon to really aggressively indict the

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Pharisees and scribes. So he chose, he's not talking about spiritual health. He's not talking about warm and fuzzy feelings during his last public sermon.

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He is letting them have it. It's a lambast attack on false teachers.

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And so I think what we can learn from that is publicly warning and rebuking false teachers seems to be very important to God.

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It's exactly what he took time to do in this sermon in Matthew 23. So Jesus came to accomplish a multi -faceted mission.

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We knew that. And we know that he came to destroy the works of the devil. He came to what? Luke 19, seek and save the lost.

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And he came to declare judgment on the house of Israel. And we know right before God rolls over a nation with judgment comes the final straw before he does that and it's the wrath of abandonment.

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You can see God's moving of judgment upon a nation in the book of Romans, first chapter. But right before he really lets it loose, 70

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AD, when Titus came in and just destroyed the temple, it's the wrath of abandonment where he says,

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I'm done with you. We're good here. We're done. Matthew 15, 14 says this.

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Then the disciples came and said to him, do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard the saying?

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He answered, every plant that my heavenly father has not planted will be rooted up. And some of the scariest words

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I think you can ever hear from God, Jesus says this, let them alone. They are blind guides.

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And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit. So Jesus is coming as judge declaring the reasons why

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God is about to pour out his, he's about to pour out his judgment upon the house of Israel.

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So really encapsulated in Matthew 23 are the seven woes and those seven woes really descriptively and very, you know, adequately explain the sin that was just so completely rampant within the spiritual leadership of Israel right before Titus comes.

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I mean, of course, generations before he came, about a generation before he came,

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Jesus is coming and saying, woe to you. Judgment is headed your way. So here's the big question.

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Why does Jesus use such strong language towards the Pharisees? And I'm going to unpack that question, but I kind of want to condense everything

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I'm saying into kind of a nutshell form. So you can kind of get the gist of where I'm going. Jesus uses strong terms for the benefit of the

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Pharisees or the false teachers and for the benefit of those being influenced or potentially influenced by the

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Pharisees. Or we could just put in false teachers because of course that's what they were. So why does he use such strong language?

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It's for their benefit and for the benefit of those that are going to be potentially influenced by them.

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Because what will people tell you? Why are you being so negative? How many times have I heard that when we biblically evangelize and preach the gospel?

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Why are you being so negative? And we kind of front load the word negative with our own meaning, but it's a positive thing to do to use strong language when you need to.

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It's a positive act because it's for their benefit. You're thinking about their souls. You're thinking about the state of their souls.

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The answer, Jesus uses strong language to warn the Pharisees of the doom and destruction headed their way.

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If anybody comes at you and says, whoa, you got to, you got to make a U -turn. I mean, you got to put on the brakes in your life, especially the son of God, who's causing eyes to see, blind eyes to see and deaf ears to hear.

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I mean, the son of God is coming and saying, whoa, to you. I mean, you got to stop everything and put everything in reverse.

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That word means grievous distress, affliction, or trouble. What is Jesus saying to the

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Pharisees? Trouble is coming your way. Distress and judgment is coming your way.

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Spiritual and eternal doom for them. Matthew 23, 33 says, you serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?

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So their activity is bringing upon themselves eternal and spiritual doom. Not only that, but temporal and earthly destruction.

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Matthew 23, 35 through 36 says, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth from the blood of innocent

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Abel to the blood of Zachariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary of the altar.

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Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon what this generation, and of course it did in dramatic form.

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I know Jeff was going to get into really the description of what Titus did. I know he already has, but of course that was visited upon the house of Israel in 70

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AD when Titus came and sacked the temple. Evangelistically, and what I'm going to do is kind of break down portions of, kind of unpack portions of chapter 23 and then look at it evangelistically.

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I think it's safe to say if we're not warning unbelievers of the consequences of sin in this life and the hell that awaits them, we are loveless and not communicating as Jesus did.

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So if we are not warning unbelievers about the destruction of sin and the hell that awaits them, if they continue to spurn and disobey the gospel, we are not loving people as much as we would want to say that, as much as we might have some jovial demeanor or just be kind of the uplifted person and the positive person all the time.

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If we're not warning people of the fire that they are about to walk into, then are we truly loving those people as we should?

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Look what Jesus says to the masses when it comes to this component of your evangelistic life, that essential component of warning.

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He says in Luke 12, 4 through 5, he's saying this to the masses. This is going out like a megaphone.

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He's saying, I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body and after that have nothing more that they can do.

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But I will, what, here's the operative words here, but I will warn you whom to fear. Fear him who after he has killed his authority to cast into hell.

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Yes, I tell you, fear him. Now my question for you is when's the last time you told that to your friend? When's the last time you told that to a co -worker if the time was right?

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Are we really warning people, our family members, that there is the actual, that hell is an actual destination?

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It's an absolute destination for all those who are outside of Jesus Christ. Are we loving them enough? And it takes a lot of death to self, but it is absolutely essential to our evangelistic activity if we're going to be like Christ and if we're going to be biblical.

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What about the rich man in torment in Luke 16, 27 through 28? And he said, then

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I beg you father to send him to my father's house for I have five brothers so that what he may warn them lest they may come into this place of torment.

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Can you see why this Jesus loves you and say this prayer gospel presentation is a false gospel presentation, right?

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Can you see that? It's missing the crucial aspect of warning an unbeliever.

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If there is no, if there's no exposure of hell, if there's no warning to the unbeliever of where their road is going to lead them, that is a false gospel.

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It's missing a crucial aspect of warning as well as other essential components. I think it's important any supposed gospel presentation that is missing essential biblical components is no gospel message at all, right?

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If it's missing these components, it is powerless. It is impotent to save anyone. We can't just pick and choose and cut and paste the gospel presentation that we want to present to people because you are doing nothing when you're doing that.

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Your mission in life, if you're doing that, presenting that type of gospel presentation is absolutely futile.

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It's absolutely impotent and you are wasting your time and you're leading people to a false assurance of their own conversion.

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Just Jesus loves you to say this prayer and heaven awaits you. Then those people stand before the God, our

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God and Lord on the day of their judgment. And then he says department for me for I never knew you having believed that that was the right gospel presentation, that that was the right means of salvation.

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It's a pretty serious subject if you think about it. As gospel proclaimers, we have to think long and hard about the reality of hell until it motivates it motivates us to warn unbelievers in it.

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You have to think long and hard of it. And I don't know about you, but I don't like sitting around thinking about hell all the time. Thinking about people who are not in Christ are going to spend an everlasting amount of time and eternity in punishment, in torment, in fire.

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Have you allowed that to really soak into your heart and mind? Am I being too dramatic up here?

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I don't think so. I don't think so. If you look at the way Jesus is speaking to people, we have to, you know,

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I'm not, I'm not saying just being get in the dark in the closet all the time and think about hell.

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No, what I'm thinking about is think about that essential component of warning and the reality of hell to where it would motivate you now to come outside of yourself, to love your neighbor by telling them the true gospel.

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Here's just a couple of verses about hell. Mark 9, 42 through 48. This is one verse that we, that we preached when we were ministering at Christie's Cabaret the other night.

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Mark 9, 42 through 48. Whoever causes one of the least, one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, which they were doing there at a strip club, it would be better for him to have a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.

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And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go into the hell to the unquenchable fire.

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That's how hell is described. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame with two feet than to be thrown into hell.

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And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.

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Are you looking around the people in your life, your children and your relatives, maybe a spouse, and are you seeing them inching closer and closer to that reality?

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Now, of course, God is sovereign in all this, but we are the means to his ends. The gospel presentation that we present to them is the means to his salvific ends.

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So we have to allow these verses to change us and to keep us up at night. This is one that keeps me up at night.

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I think this Revelation 20, 11 through 15 probably motivates me more than anything else as I go out there.

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Revelation 20, 11 through 15 says, Then I saw a great white throne and Him who was seated on it.

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This is for telling the judgment that awaits everyone, the lost, right? From His presence, look at this, from His presence, earth and sky fled away and no place were found for them.

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Just that verse right there just captivates my heart. Jesus, in His judgment, is not coming as a lowly, meek,

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Galilean servant, right? He's coming as the unmitigated

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Son of God, fully effulgent. This is God the Son, the one that spoke and all the universe leapt into existence.

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This is Jesus unveiled, the judge, and as He comes to judge the earth and the sky, they're like,

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I don't want anything to do with this guy. They are fleeing from Him. This is the reality of the lost. They're going to be standing before God the

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Son in judgment. And I saw the dead, great and small, stand before the throne and books were open.

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Then another book was open, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books according to what they had done.

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And the sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done.

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Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. Death and hell were thrown into the lake of fire.

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This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

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Can you imagine God throwing hell into the lake of fire and then picking you up and throwing you in too because of your sin against Him?

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I can't imagine. Jesus in Matthew 23 warns the

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Pharisees by showing them how God sees them. And so He's using terms here when

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He's indicting the Pharisees so that they can see themselves as God sees them because they were blinded by their sin.

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They didn't see themselves as needing saved, right? That's what sin does. He used hypocrites here six times, blind guides, blind fools, you serpents, you brood of vipers.

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He's using such strong language. The same thing that we would do if someone was walking into a house on fire, we would use strong language to call to them to get out, to get out, to stop.

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You have to turn around and go back the other direction. Jesus was revealing to them the sin that will damn and destroy them so that they will repent.

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Jesus is not only pronouncing judgment, the judgment to come as a prophet here, but He wants them to repent.

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He reveals His heart here in Matthew 23, 37. He says, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to Him, how often when

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I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not.

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Listen, this is important. We use biblical language and biblical terms to inform the unbeliever about how

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God sees him because the lost spiritually dead man is absolutely blinded to his true sinful condition and status before God.

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He thinks he's good and fine without Jesus. How many times have you ever spoke to someone, hey, can I share the gospel with you? And what do they say 99 % of the time?

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I'm, I'm good. I'm good. And we're like, no, no, you're not. Josh Haskins is so great at that.

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He's, he's quick at that. Somebody says good. He's like, no, you are not good. There's no unrighteous. But they're not good.

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They think that they're good, but that is what the sinful mind does. Corrupted by the sin, my sin, it corrupts the way that you discern in the way that you see it.

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Sin absolutely destroys every last part of who we are as human beings. That's why we are totally depraved.

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But Proverbs 16, two says, all the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the

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Lord weighs the spirit. I think the most destructive aspect of sin is its deception is the blinds that go over your eyes is the way that it programs you to see life and self incorrectly, not according to God's word, but absolutely in a distorted way.

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At the abortion mills, we do use the term coward quite often. I mean, if you go on an

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AZ clinic defense fund, I don't know, AZ clinic defense force on Facebook, that's the death squirts that go there to usher women into the clinic to kill their babies.

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But we're all named, they have names for all of us and pictures. I have this weird picture of me, like looking back, like I'm about to get hit in the face with a pie or something, but I'm Zach Howard Morgan.

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That's how they describe me on their, on their page. And they do that because I do use that word quite often.

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We use the word murder for the abortionist. The abortionist comes out and we say, you are a murderer and you're going to stand before God and he sees you as a murderer.

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And the women that are going in, we say, if you do this, you're going to be seen as a murderer on the day when you stand before God.

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Do we do this, um, to verbally abuse them? No. I mean, we got to stop if that's our intention.

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Do we use this type of language to put them down? We're no better than anyone. We make that very clear. No one's sin.

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No one's sinless except Christ. It's a shock to people. And I think it's a shock to Christians as they come out and hear that.

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But I think in what we're hoping is it's more of a shock to them that are hearing it.

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We use biblical language and you can call it strong or load that load that word with whatever you would want, but it's biblical language is what it is.

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We use the biblical language to help them see themselves as God sees them. We inform man who is bringing his wife or his girlfriend into have an abortion that he is playing the coward in that instance, because he does not want

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God to inform him of his cowardice in the day of his judgment, right? We're saying this is how

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God is viewing you, regardless of what they're telling you, what you're telling yourself. This is your classification before the living

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God. And it sounds like this brother, I'm calling you a coward now. So you'll repent because you do not want to hear coward out of the mouth of God on the day of your judgment, then it's hell for you forever.

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Revelation 21, eight, just listen to the words here. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.

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Using biblical language to help unbelievers see themselves as God sees them is truly loving them.

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It is. It's truly loving them. Those that love people at the highest level are those the ones that will tell them the truth of the gospel.

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Those that love people at the highest level are those that care about that, which is the most important to an individual, which is the status of their soul.

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It's truly loving them. Of course, the world's not going to tell you it's loving them. That's loving.

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Warning of doom, warning of destruction, warning of an eternity in hell is loving.

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I just don't see any other way around it. Proverbs 27, six, we use this often out there. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.

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Faithful are the wounds of a brother or a friend. What does that mean? It's talking about, yeah, it hurts to know, to hear the truth about who you are.

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It hurts to hear the truth that everything you claim to know is wrong. But to hear the truth, not according to our opinion, not according to our spin on it, but according to God's word, even though it might be hard to hear, it is faithful.

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It is better than the kisses of an enemy just telling you, oh, just go along with what you want to do. This is your life.

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You just, you carve out your own path. No, that's the words of the enemy, right? That's kisses of an enemy.

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What we are constantly saying out there is those who love you the most in life are those who will tell you the truth.

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What do we need the most in life? A slimmer waistline. It would be nice. More money, more stuff.

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No, what you are designed to need the most in life is truth. And what we do,

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I think the most honorable and faithful people on this planet are those that will tell you the truth and tell the world the truth at any cost, whatever it costs.

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Think about your life and think about it too. And I feel so convicted how much, you know, I'm prone to like exaggerate or prone to like shirk the truth for my own welfare.

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Or I should be telling this person the truth. I shouldn't spin it this way just so they see me in a different light.

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No, I just, God, help me every day to have integrity. I want to be a man who just says it as it is, according to your word, because even if it may cost me, it's what you require of me.

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I want to, with all my heart, have a life of integrity and be a man of truth.

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Can we do this wrong when it comes to using strong language to warn people? Can we do it wrong?

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Yeah. Yeah, we can do it wrong. I mean, you got somebody like Reuben Israel or the Screech Creatures.

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You can look up them on YouTube and see these guys blasting people and just being maliciously aggressive towards the unbeliever.

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No, we're not saying that. You can look that up. That's the wrong way to do it. We're not going there. Of course, there's

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Westboro Baptists, a whole bunch of guys out there in the field, just thinking that they have to abuse unbelievers and that they're doing the will of God.

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No, that's not what we're talking about. The Bible commands us to communicate the truth in what? In love. Ephesians 4, 15 says, rather speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way unto him who is the head into Christ.

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I'll say it again. Rather speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ.

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If you're going to be an evangelist and work in the field with evangelism, which we all are called to do in some capacity,

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I'm not telling you you're supposed to stand on a street corner like we do and preach the gospel. No, we are a body. We all have our different gifts, but God has called you to evangelism in some way.

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But that is one of the most important verses, a tattoo verse for evangelists. This is one of the most important.

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Second Timothy 2, 24 -26. I want to just encourage everybody out on the field that goes out in the field on our church to tattoo this right on your forehead.

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I'm just kidding. Just remember it. Commit it to memory. Second Timothy 2, 24 -26.

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Second Timothy 2, 24 -26. And the

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Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.

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And look what follows that. God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth.

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I mean, our way of doing this when it comes to not quarreling and being gentle and kind works in tandem with God granting the individual's faith and repentance.

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That's what we're crying out to at the abortion clinic. God, give the women, give them repentance, give them faith, because that is not self -generated.

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But that works in tandem with our way of communicating truth to them. If we are doing it in a very harsh way, in an aggressive, in an unloving way, do we really expect

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God to be faithful to this if we are not being faithful to the way that he's prescribed us to do it, right?

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Using biblical language to warn and rebuke. Christians, even though we may do it wrong, and you may see that example, don't let the bad example just throw the baby out with the bath water.

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Using biblical language to warn and rebuke is not inherently unloving or hypocritical. Again, it is if done in the right way.

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My sister, who I'm a huge fan of, in a Facebook post, she was explaining the inconsistency and hypocrisy of the pro -choice movement.

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She was at Planned Parenthood, and she got cussed out really bad by one of the by one of the discourts.

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And she was just really showing and exposing the fact that, you know, they stand for tolerance, but if you don't agree with them, if you don't come into line with their perspective on life, then they're not too tolerant of that.

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And they stand for tolerance, but become quickly intolerant with those who don't agree with their perspective. Desi's professing

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Christian friend commented this. She said, to me, this is hypocritical.

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We won't agree and that's okay. You name called and feel justified. It's never okay to verbally attack another person.

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It's awful in front of your kids. I would be livid, but in this circumstance, it's the it's a little of the pot calling the kettle black.

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Now what I'm trying to tell you, that have done in the correct way using biblical terminology, this is not verbally attacking another person.

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This is properly evangelizing. Desi was like Christ utilizing biblical language to rebuke and warn unbelievers where their sin where their sin will lead them.

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It's far from the verbal abuse she received, which is purely to attack and to harm her. So just use that example to say, you know, as you hear those words, put them in the right category, understand that we are in put us to the test to put yourself to the test.

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If you're going out, if you're using words that are outside of the framework of the canon, extra biblical terminology,

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I don't agree with that. I think you should use the words Christ was using.

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So it's biblical terminology that we're, we're using because it is, it's such a, a practice that comes under scrutiny and under attack.

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And we could, I think, cause our weaker brother to stumble. If we, if we just do whatever we want, we're not really doing is doing what

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Jesus showed us and what he's commanded us. Why are, and here's a question I'm not going to spend too, too long in this, but why are professing

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Christians the biggest opponents of biblical evangelism? Doesn't that kind of blow your mind that some of the most,

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I think in my own life, and I haven't, I am old, but I haven't done evangelism for that long. It's just kind of mind boggling and really causes so much frustration mentally.

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When those that, I guess, when you were trying to look at the Acts, and you're trying to look at Christ as your example, and you're trying to do your best not to evangelize the way man thinks you should, but you're trying to look at the scriptures that you, and you go out to do that, which is not conceptually difficult.

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It's, it's much less conceptually difficult than we think. It's not cerebral. You pretty much just go to a lost person and you tell them the true biblical gospel.

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But it's, it's frustrating when you attempt to do that and your biggest opponents are professing Christians.

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Now the question is why? I think number one, the scriptures are really not your primary authority.

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When you are doing what you're doing, and you can show somebody that what you're doing is scriptural, that you're pointing to biblical passages, and you're saying, this is why

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I'm doing it. This is what the Bible says. And someone says, well, my opinion is, well, you've just now moved from the scriptures as being your primary authority to self being your primary authority.

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And I wouldn't have to, I wouldn't worry about that too much, is if you evangelize, you're doing it as Jesus described and commanded, and somebody lights you up for it.

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And you say, this is what the Bible says. And they say, well, I think that just disregard that critique fully, because now they have jumped from the authority of the word of God to themselves.

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And you can completely disregard that. And this is a warning too. If the

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Bible is not your primary authority, and you profess to be a Christian, you must examine yourself to see if that you are actually in the faith.

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I'll say it again. If the Bible is not your primary authority, if you're not looking to the scriptures to outline your life, the scriptures are not the blueprint of your praxis and the way that you live your life.

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Are you truly regenerate? Because the fruit of true regeneration is not a dismissal of God's Word.

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It's a love for God's Word, right? Remember before God regenerated you and gifted you with a new heart?

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I can care less about the Word of God. But I remember as he gave me the gifted me life and resurrected me into new life, all of a sudden

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I'm like, I want, I got to read the Bible. I got to live by what the Bible says. That is the produce of the abiding

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Holy Spirit in the life of the regenerate believer. So if you're, if you don't want anything to do with the

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Word of God, repent and believe in the because it's, it's indicative that you do not know

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Jesus. Number two, why are Christians so opposed to biblical evangelism? And they've been taught wrongly by spiritual leaders.

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That's huge. That we always got to point to the pulpit when it comes to the flock. You always have to point to the shepherds.

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Yeah. Why are Christians opposed? Because they thought they're, they're teaching you, Hey, you know what? Just give somebody a hot dog and pat them on the back and you've fulfilled your evangelistic duties.

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Hot dogs are great. I can eat like 12 of them in a row, but you know, given somebody a hot dog is not evangelism, right?

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Give somebody a hot dog and talk to them about how, who Jesus is and talk to him about what he did upon the cross and the law of God and hell that awaits and the means of salvation and the call to command or the command to repent and believe and see if they can swallow the hot dog after you tell them that.

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But yeah, give him a hot dog, but tell him, tell him the gospel. Uh, number three, they're not obeying the scriptural command.

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And I've been thinking about this all week. Why are Christians so opposed to biblical evangelism? Because they're not obeying the specific scriptural command.

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It's in Romans 12 verse two, it says, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect, right?

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So what we are doing as Christians is we are conforming to the antichrist standards and antichrist ideologies, not protecting ourselves, our families, our children from these things.

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And what, what do we become? We become indoctrinated by them. And then it just totally messes up our discernment as Christians.

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You ask, why are Christians so lacking in discernment? John MacArthur said, or somebody asked

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Johnny Mack, what was the, what's the biggest problem with the Christian church? Lack of discernment. Well, why, why are they so not discerning?

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It's because we are just conforming to the standards of the world. We're not protecting ourselves from ideologies that are antichrist and anti -biblical, and that just throws everything for loop.

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So what is the, what's the command? What's the direction is you got to watch what you're, what you're watching.

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You got to watch what you're reading. You know, I'm not talking about becoming the Essenes and locking yourself up in a cave.

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You know, I'm not talking about that, but we do have to be diligent to make sure we are really looking at what's going in our hearts and minds of our children and ourselves.

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Because if we're just watching shows and movies, and believe me, I love shows and movies. I love them. I'm not, I'm not demonizing the medium, which so many people do.

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Right. But we're not really looking at what we're watching. It dramatically has effect on the way that we live and the way that we see.

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And I think a huge reason why people oppose biblical evangelism is because the scriptures are not, they're not, the scriptures are not their primary authority.

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They do not have a developed biblical worldview. By really getting out the garbage that this world wants to pour into your heart and life as a

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Christian. So that's just a couple, couple of ways why I think Christians have such a hard time with biblical evangelism.

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So I asked, why does Jesus use such strong language towards the Pharisees? And the answer was, Jesus uses strong language to warn the

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Pharisees of the doom and destruction headed their way. He was loving them by doing that. But secondly, and I'm going to just go through this quickly.

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Jesus uses strong language to warn the people about the damnable influence of the

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Pharisees. So he's warning the Pharisees directly, woe to you. And then he's labeling them for everybody to see.

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We better not listen to what these guys have to say. We better make our way away from the

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Pharisees. Jesus uses strong language to warn the people about the damnable influence of the Pharisees. Look at Matthew 23, 13 through 15.

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Can you imagine somebody saying this to you about your activity or the work in your life? He says, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.

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For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces, for you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.

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Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte.

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And when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourself.

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You're meeting with a mixer with your friends and somebody asks you, what do you do for a living? Oh, I just make people children of hell.

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I mean, that's what these guys are doing. Why should we warn people to stay away from false teachers?

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Because they stop people from entering the kingdom of heaven. Jesus is saying, you are slamming the door on people's faces by what you're teaching them.

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And they populate hell by making them children of hell. Mormon leaders and teachers are making people children of hell.

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That's what they're doing. Jehovah's Witnesses leaders and teachers are making people children of hell.

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Roman Catholic leaders and teachers are making people children of hell. Is that harsh what

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I said? Or is that loving what I just said? How did you take that? But immediately like, man, why?

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Huh? We have to be woken up to biblical terms and the biblical way of doing things.

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Look what John MacArthur has to say in his commentary on Matthew 23. He says, many of those groups masquerade as forms of Christianity and claim to teach a new and better gospel.

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But while purporting to offer spiritual life and help, they instead teach the way of spiritual death and damnation.

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While claiming to lead people to heaven, they usher them directly to hell. Any supposed system of salvation that says you have to work for your salvation is leading you into hell.

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That would be everybody who hears my voice. That is a part of the Jehovah's Witnesses church. That's what your destination is.

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It's part of the Mormon church and LDS or a Muslim or a Roman Catholic.

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That's the destination because that is what they teach you. We must absolutely mark them out and warn people not to go near them.

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I appreciate Wade and Andrew and all of their efforts as well as the other guys down in Maricopa. They went to the

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LDS ward today. And when we started going to the LDS ward, just messages flooded in just about how unloving we are being by going to a

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Mormon ward and preaching the gospel. Is it? I don't think so. We go there to share the gospel, engage in conversation, but what you will see us do as they walk through the doors into the ward is warn them, is warn them because they're leading them to hell.

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That's exactly what Jesus did in his life and his ministry. Matthew 16 verse 6, Jesus said to them, watch and beware of the leaven of the

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Pharisees and Sadducees. Watch and beware. Matthew 16, 12, when they understood that he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teachings of the

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Pharisees and Sadducees. Jesus very, very loudly and descriptively labeled false teachers and said, get away from them.

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And that is what we should be doing if we love the lost. We truly love our neighbor.

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This is all about just loving your neighbor, as Jesus called us to. If a wolf came strolling into your house,

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I hope that the first thing that you would do would be to yell, wolf, wolf, get out.

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To show everybody that there's a wolf in the house. Like a good shepherd,

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Jesus is labeling them correctly, what? To protect the sheep. This is important. If you let a wolf into the sheep fold, you know what you get?

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No sheep. If you allow a wolf to come into the sheep fold, you don't get any sheep because he will kill all the sheep.

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And that's exactly how Jesus described false prophets and false teachers in Matthew chapter 7. Ravenous wolves.

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Any pastor must rebuke false teachers and warn the sheep about them.

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I was so, so saddened and distressed to see seemingly Reformed Baptist brothers welcome

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Stephen Anderson into their lives and go on a missions trip with Stephen Anderson.

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Anybody see that? That was absolutely distressing. They said that we want to partner with Stephen Anderson and go on a missions trip with him because of their mutual love for the

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Greek, really the pronunciation of Greek, which is just mind boggling. But you have to hear

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Stephen Anderson is a bona fide false teacher. He's an absolute wolf.

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And as shepherds with this high duty that God has given me, even though I'm just a,

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I'm a worm, I mean, as shepherds, we cannot allow the sheep to be influenced by a wolf that's going to hurt them and kill them and destroy them.

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Any pastor that lets a wolf into the fold has abdicated his primary duty to protect the sheep and is no longer fit to serve in that capacity.

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If you, as an elder with teaching authority and influential authority say, I am going to welcome in a demonstrable false teacher and false prophet, a wolf, then you have abdicated your duty and you need to step down for the sake of your soul.

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And for the sake of those under your influence, it's that serious. Is Stephen Anderson, because they, what they said in Dr.

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White, Pastor James, that's, it's never going to happen. I'm going to call him Dr. White for 50 years. He went into it, he explained it and they said, you know what?

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I don't think Stephen Anderson preaches a false gospel. It is demonstrable that he does.

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He says in his gospel presentation that there is no need for a call to repentance.

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If you were, if you, if that is a part of your gospel presentation, that is a false gospel. Clear and dry, right?

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He also says that the gospel is not efficacious to save homosexual people.

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He says that what a homosexual person should do is put a bullet in their head and go to hell.

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And this is a guy that these guys are partnering with. And I don't say that in any way to hurt those individuals who partnered with Stephen Anderson, but as a wake up to say, brothers, don't destroy your ministry.

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Don't destroy your life. And if you continue on doing this, you need to step down from ministry for the sake of the sheep.

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If you really, truly love the fold, if you're in this role as an elder, because you love the fold, then you, you must step down.

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This is this, this just cannot be happening. Titus one, seven, nine talks about our role as elders for an overseer as God's steward must be above reproach.

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He must not be arrogant or quick tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for game, but hospitable, a lover of good self -controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined.

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He must hold firm to the trustworthy word is taught so that he may be able to give instruction and sound doctrine.

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And also to rebuke those who contradict it. If we as elders and pastors are not rebuking and warning, we are not doing our jobs.

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Can we do this wrongly too? Yeah. Where there's groups out there that have done this wrongly.

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When we label and rebuke a qualified elder who is not an unrepentant sin, when we label and rebuke a brother that should not deserve that we're doing it wrongly.

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We don't rebuke and label Christian brothers as false teachers. That's how we do it incorrectly. So here's a couple. And just for the sake of time, this is kind of unpacking all of what

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Matthew 23 is saying. These, these, these are the marks of a false teacher, false leaders, lack authority, their self -appointed individuals.

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And actually as an elder, if you are not in line with the scriptures and your behavior and your activity, you are, you have no authority there anymore.

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You've, you've abdicated that it's gone. False leaders, lack integrity, false leaders, lack sympathy, false leaders, lack true spirituality, and false leaders, lack humility.

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If you're under a shepherd and you don't see in his life, authority and integrity, sympathy and love and spirituality and humility don't have anything to do with him.

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If you ever see that in my life as a brother and as a pastor, rebuke me and call me out for it.

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Matthew 7, 15 through 16, Jesus is clear about how we can distinguish false prophets and false teachers.

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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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You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles?

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Now, what you have to ask yourself is what is fruit? What kind of fruit is he talking about?

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If we are going to distinguish somebody who's a false teacher and a false prophet based upon the fruit or the produce of their life, then what, what fruit is that?

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Is it charisma? Is it influence? Is it a good looking man?

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Is it money, prestige, popularity, followers? How much of the

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Christian American Evangelical Christian Church at large is following men who are producing these types of fruits, right?

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This is what the flesh looks after. It's charisma. It's somebody who is an extremely good orator and influence and looks and money and prestige and, you know, the masses fawning them and their

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Facebook likes and their followers. Is that the produce that we need to look to determine whether or not somebody is a false teacher?

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No. It's simple. It's the fruit produced by the Spirit of God in the life of an individual.

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It's not charisma. It's character. It's character. It's the character qualities of Christ being expressed within that man.

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That's what you got to look for. If those ain't there, then you know you're dealing with somebody that's not genuine, right?

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And when you look into the life of Stephen Anderson and just pop up his name in YouTube, see if you see those within his life.

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Galatians 5 .22 says, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self -control against such things.

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There is no law. That is what should be. That's the character of Christ in the life of a man who's called and commissioned by Christ.

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Again, if elders or spiritual leaders are not marked by the character qualities of Christ, which are the fruit of the

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Spirit, then don't have anything to do with them. When it comes to talking about Stephen Anderson or Reuben Israel, when it comes to the

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Joel Osteens or Benny Hens, Kenneth Copeland, I'm not up here to bash anyone.

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Who am I? I'm no better than these guys, but I deeply, if I can have a conversation with them,

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I deeply have concern for their souls. I can't imagine when these men, somebody like Joel Osteen or Stephen Anderson, stand before the living

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God and that day is fast approaching for them and them having to give an account for the things that they've done and the things that they've taught this world and how many people they've led to hell.

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You should not want hell on your worst enemies. We talked about meditating on hell to help you motivate you to be a better evangelist.

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When you do, it gives you sympathy. It gives you love for the lost. It doesn't give you this. I think people with a superficial understanding of hell are the ones that you see attacking, just all out attacking unbelievers, which we're not called to do.

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But those who truly take time, not as if I'm the example, but those who truly take time to think about hell, it gives you a love and a compassion because you see the description of it and you ponder that this is an actual place and you wouldn't want it on your worst enemies.

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No, you label these men out of love and care and gentleness so that they would repent. And that's the call for Joel Osteen and Stephen Anderson and Benny Hinn and Kenneth Copeland.

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It's God commands you to repent, turn from this before before it's hell for you. Should we use, should we use stronger descriptive biblical language as is using here?

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Yeah. Yep. Should we warn people about false teachers in the flock?

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Yes. At the abortion mill, should we say, man, brother, let me tell you, God sees you as a coward.

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You don't want to see, you don't want him to tell you that on the day of your judgment. That's why I'm telling you this. Yes. If we love people, we must do it.

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Can we do it wrong? Of course we can get in the my emotions out in ways that I shouldn't just because we do it wrong.

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And we might be prone to that. We can't throw that this necessary evangelistic practice out. We must look to Christ's example and we must, we must do it in love, but we can't do it in love.

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You can't speak the truth in love and really exemplify Jesus's example, evangelistic example.

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We, we shouldn't do it at all. Let's go ahead and pray. Father, we thank you for this word.

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Lord, I pray that, um, again, anything that I would have said that would have been incorrect, that you would erase it from the minds of your people.

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Lord, I pray that they would have been edified and encouraged. I pray that you would give them the boldness and courage really that only comes from you, um, to, to share the gospel with their lost loved ones, not giving them a, a component lacking gospel or a gospel that is no gospel at all, but the true biblical gospel that is filled with all the essential components that you have created it to have.

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Lord, let us be lovers of the lost. Let us be lovers of false teachers, lovers of our, of our

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Mormon neighbors, lovers of our Roman Catholic neighbors and Jehovah's Witness neighbors. Help us to love them.

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And how do we love them? We love them by sharing them your gospel. Give us, give us that courage. Give us that love.