Wolves In Between The Dustcovers - [2 Peter 2:1-3]

Father, we thank You for this morning, for this opportunity we have to look at Your Word.

Father, to examine what people teach in the name of Christ in light of what

Your Word teaches. Lord, would You make us those who would be discerning, those who would examine everything that is taught and compare it to Your Word.

Father, would You bless our time this morning. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Well, good morning.

You know, several years ago, Hank Hanegraaff, who is the

Bible Answer Man, wrote a book called

Christianity in Crisis. And, you know, I thought it was a good book.

In fact, I thought it was so good, I'd give it to my wife to convict her of her wrong theology, but that was a long time ago.

But the tape, the tape, listening to, because you would listen to people that are on TV, that sell a lot of books, listening to them in their own voices describe what they believe was just amazing.

It was absolutely amazing. So what I thought we'd do this morning, and since I didn't keep a copy of the quiz for myself,

I'll just steal Carl's and Carl can get another one. I hate it when I do that. I thought we would go through this.

Now, I have to tell you that some of these are quite good quotes. Some of them are not so good.

And some of them are just pretty feeble, if I'm being quite honest. And you say, well, what does this have to do with me?

Well, there are a few biblical aspects that I want to introduce first, and then I'll give you the practical aspect, and then we'll go through this.

First of all, the Bible says in 1 Timothy 3 that it is a good thing when a man wants to be an elder, to be an overseer of the flock.

In Titus 1 .9, it says that an elder must be able to both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict.

So as we look through this this morning, many of you are sitting here thinking, the women are thinking, I can't be an elder.

What does this have to do with me? I'll get there. 2 Peter 2, 1 to 3, But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.

Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be maligned.

And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

False prophets are going to come to the church. They are going to preach heresy.

They are going to introduce things that ought not be taught. Now, if you go to a

Christian bookstore today, it'll probably be closed because it's Sunday. But if you go there on a normal week, a normal weekday, what are you going to see?

What's that? Joyce Meyer. In fact, Joyce Meyer, that's an interesting one, because I went to CBD this week.

I didn't actually go there, I went to the website. The number one best -selling Christian book in the entire country is written by Joyce Meyer.

She's on your quiz this morning. I'm not going to identify her. She also has number 19, so she has two of the top 20.

If she was a record maker, we'd go, hey, she's really up at the top of the charts. I also went to Amazon .com,

and I went to their religious and spiritual category. Number 10 in the religious and spiritual category.

Of course, you'll find out later, because I'm going to mention it briefly during this morning's message. But two of the top 10 religious and spiritual books are written by atheists, which

I think is rather unusual. But number 10 was written by T .D.

Jakes. T .D. Jakes. We're going to talk about him a little bit, too.

All of these folks here are incredibly influential in Christian circles.

When we look at 2 Peter 2, 1 to 3, and it says in verse 2, because of them the way of the truth will be maligned.

Well, what does that mean? What does it mean that these false teachers, because of them the way of truth will be maligned?

What is it to be maligned? Well, that's misaligned.

But to be maligned is to be spoken of in a bad way, right?

To be scoffed at, to be mocked, to be put down.

And so when we look at what these people teach us, this is the face of Christianity.

Whether we like it or not, this is what people see as Christianity. Why? Because they dominate the book sales.

They dominate religious television. They are prominent people. Now look at number 1.

Quote number 1. Jesus didn't come as God. He came as a man.

And he did not come perfect. So is that orthodox?

Good, sound, biblical teaching? Is it false teaching? Or do you have no idea?

Show of hands. Well, what's wrong with it? You know, you could even argue that some of this is right.

He did come as a man. One out of three ain't bad. Well, in baseball it would be pretty good.

333 average, you'd take that. But Jesus didn't come as God, is that true?

How do we know that? Okay, John 1 .1,

who wants to quote that for us? In the beginning, okay.

And then verse 14. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. So we know that Jesus Christ came as God.

Did he come as a man? Yes. But how about this? And he did not come perfect.

Man, not too good. I mean, if he wasn't perfect when he came, when did he become perfect?

I mean, this is something, quite honestly, this is something that I would, you know, 20 years ago,

I would have embraced wholeheartedly. But I was an occult. This is

Mormonism. And yet the person who said this is

Creflo Dollar. And you might think, well, who's Creflo Dollar? Well, I'm going to tell you who

Creflo Dollar is. Well, he's somebody you may not want to know, but he has a lot more influence than anybody here at this church does.

Let me just say that. Creflo is C -R -E -F -L -O.

And then Dollar just, I don't know if he changed his name or not. As we discuss his teaching, you'll have to decide if that's his given name or not.

I should have looked him up on Wikipedia to find out. But he is the founder of the nearly 24 ,000 -member

World Changers Church International in College Park, Georgia. He holds no degree in theology.

And he teaches the prosperity gospel, which is, name it and claim it,

God wants you to be rich. Now, when he says that Jesus didn't come as God, he came as a man, and he did not come perfect, he goes on to say,

I don't want anybody to accuse me of quoting him out of context. I don't know how you can clean that up.

But he says, how many of you know that the Bible says God never sleeps nor slumbers?

And yet, in the book of Mark, we see Jesus asleep in the back of the boat.

This ain't no heresy. Please ignore the double negative there. This ain't no heresy.

I'm not some false prophet. I'm just reading this thing to you out of the Bible. So if God never sleeps nor slumbers, but Jesus fell asleep in the back of the boat, therefore, what's his implication?

I'm just like, or there's errors in Scripture? Jesus isn't God? Jesus wasn't perfect?

Because if God never sleeps nor slumbers, how come Jesus was asleep in the back of the boat? Well, what's the answer to that?

Is that really a stumbling block for us? I mean, does

God get hungry? God get hungry? No, but Jesus did, right?

And so, I mean, things, Jesus got tired. Jesus had to take a nap. Why? Because he had a body.

He had a physical body. Well, and that's true.

He did not exercise all of the attributes of God. Otherwise, what could he have done?

You know, if we read in Hebrews that he suffered even as we suffered, went through all the things, we have a high priest who can empathize with us with what we go through.

Why? Because he went through all the things that we go through. Well, we wouldn't have a high priest like that if he didn't get tired, if he didn't have emotions, if he didn't eat, if he didn't have to deal with all these things.

But listen to what he says next. I mean, it goes from bad to worse. His next strategy, now that he's lowered who

Jesus is, that he wasn't perfect, his next strategy is to elevate man.

And again, I don't know what to tell you, but this is exactly what cults do. When I was in, and so I guess

I'm going to have to say this sounds like cultic teaching, but when I was in Mormonism, they talked down God.

God was once like us. And then what do they say in the next breath?

We can be like God. Listen to what Dollar says.

I'm going to say to you right now that you are God's little

G. That's a quote. You are God's because you came from God and you are

God's. He goes on.

Now, if I'm going to take what he said here, what

Jesus said here and put it on, in other words, wear it, make it part of my life, then my whole attitude now should be,

I have equality with God. Now, somebody says, well, it's hard to think that way.

And he advises, keep saying it, talk to yourself. Have that attitude about yourself that you are equal with God.

Problem. Is that a problem?

Yeah, it's a problem. I mean, you know, it's kind of this attitude that everything that God does or everything that Jesus does, we should do.

Philippians 2, 5, and 6 says this. Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped.

So is the Bible saying here that we should think of ourselves as existing in the form of God and therefore being equal with God?

Is that the point there in Philippians 2? The point is humility, to emulate Christ's humility, not to think of ourselves as equal with God.

Again, this is just, it's so cultish. I don't even know how this guy, I mean, obviously he's on the

Trinity Broadcasting Network, which, as we'll find out in a moment, doesn't necessarily mean that you're a Trinitarian.

You certainly don't have to be a Protestant or anything like that, because that's horrible to be a

Protestant. Sometimes that's how they think. But what's the problem with the idea of us being

God's small g? What does that even mean? I think so.

I think it certainly sends us in the direction of idolatry, yeah. Well, let's read

Psalm 82, because this is something that, again, cultists often point to.

They say, well, you know, Jesus said, have I not said ye are gods? Well, he absolutely did say that.

God said that in Psalm 82. But let's read. I'm going to read all of Psalm 82. Bear with me, because, okay, it's only eight verses.

Psalm 82, a psalm of Asaph. God takes his stand in his own congregation.

He judges in the midst of the rulers. How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked?

Selah. Vindicate the weak and fatherless. Do justice to the afflicted and destitute.

Rescue the weak and needy. Deliver them out of the hand of the wicked. They do not know, nor do they understand.

They walk about in darkness. All the foundations of the earth are shaken. I said, you are gods, and all of you are sons of the

Most High. Nevertheless, verse seven, you will die like men and fall like any one of the princes.

Arise, O God. Judge the earth, for it is you who possesses all the nations. What's the message?

What's the context in which God says, you are gods? Who's he talking to? The rulers.

These men, and why did he call them gods? Okay, because back then, the idea would have been that the rulers were gods in a sense.

Why? Because, I'll just cut to the chase, they have the power over life and death. Well, it would be

Hebrew, but you know, I don't know. Here's what I would say. It probably is gods, but the point of it is, in Hebrew, I'd have to look it up.

The point of it is, is that these men had absolute power given to them by God, and they used it unrighteously.

So it wasn't like they were gods on par with God, or that they were even gods in training, or gods small g.

They were only gods small g in the sense that they had power over life and death. And of course, he uses it to suggest, and we're going to talk more and more about this, this whole idea of name it and claim it, that your words, because you are a god small g, carry force, and that you can speak your own reality into being.

Dollar goes on to say, see, there are some people that believe not in prosperity. They don't want to hear about that.

God is a god that wants to put money in your hand. Well, you need to hear about money.

This is a quote. You need to hear about money because you ain't going to have no love and joy and peace until you get some money.

Colossians 3, 14 and 15, beyond all these things, put on money.

No. Beyond all these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful.

What do you mean we can have peace, be thankful, and loving without money?

If you look through Colossians 3, which we don't have time to do, but if you look through that context, you're not going to find anything about this concept that money brings all these things, that money is essential to that.

Ecclesiastes 5 .10, he who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance with its income.

This too is vanity. The Bible says exactly the opposite of what he's teaching.

Moving on. I spent way too much time on him. Let me give you the number two.

When faith begins in the soul, it is but as a grain of mustard seed.

God's people are not born giants. They are babes at first, and as they are babes in grace, so their graces are as it were in their infancy.

Sound orthodox biblical teaching, false teaching, or I have no idea. False teaching.

That's a shame because that's Charles Spurgeon. What's he saying there?

Kind of hard to know because we don't have the whole sermon in front of us. When faith begins in the soul, when you are saved, are you fully grown spiritually?

And I think that's Spurgeon's point there. 1 Peter 2, like newborn babes long for the pure milk of the word so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.

We do grow in salvation, and that was Spurgeon's point. Let's move on to number three.

Many people do not understand. If you're going to receive something from the Lord, you have to be prepared to invest something.

So many times people want things out of life without any kind of investment. You can't in the natural, in the stock market.

You can't get a return on a stock where you have not bought shares. That's true, isn't it?

If you buy stock, if you don't buy stock, I don't own any Microsoft shares.

So when Microsoft pays its dividends, they don't send me a check. So, is this orthodox biblical teaching, false teaching, or you have no idea?

Well, and you're right. This is heresy. It's false teaching. I just threw in that Microsoft bit to kind of throw you off a little bit.

What do we have to give God in order to receive something? Nothing.

Absolutely nothing. If we could somehow control

God by our giving, then He wouldn't be God. God is sovereign. You've heard it said many times, what we bring to God when

He gives us salvation is our sin. We give Him nothing of value. Zero.

We can't give Him anything. What can we add to God? If we could add to God, He would not be

God. And this is the idea. Basically, what He's doing is He's setting people up for the big giving campaign.

If you want to give from the Lord, you have to give to me. That's the idea. Now, T .D.

Jakes, as I mentioned, is quite popular. He is bestseller after bestseller, huge church.

He is really quite popular. But he has one little problem. Maybe Bruce and some others know what it is, and that is he's not a

Trinitarian. He doesn't believe in the Trinity. He is what is called a modalist. So again, here's the idea.

You go to the Christian bookstore, you're going to find books by T .D. Jakes, and what you need to understand is he's not a

Christian. That's the problem. It would be like going in there and seeing all the atheist books lying on the shelf and going, oh, that's unusual.

This is a Christian bookstore. This is what T .D. Jakes says about God and his capacity for changing form, for appearing in different modes.

Jakes says, when God says, I am that I am, remember he said that in Excess 3, he says, what he really means is,

I can become whatever. Is that what it means? And he showed off from that point all through the wilderness.

He just kept turning into stuff. They said, we want meat.

He, God, became quail and started flying through the air. They said, what are we going to do for water?

He became water, came gushing out of a rock. They said, we can't drink this bitter water.

He became a tree and turned the bitter water sweet. I mean, he just kept turning into stuff.

One God, manifesting in a multiplicity of ways. That is the definition of modalism.

Usually it's restricted to three ways. He's either the father or the son or the spirit, but T .D.

Jakes has a multitude of modes. I mean, he takes it off the charts. One God.

Now you don't divide all of those manifestations. There's another word. A lot of times they'll avoid the word mode because that is tied to modalism, which was condemned as a heresy many, many centuries ago.

You don't divide all of those manifestations into different gods. The God of bread, the

God of quail, the God of water, the God of tree, the God of cloud, the God of fire. Just one

God who manifests himself in many different ways. Your God is multifaceted, manifold, many shades.

What did God mean when he said in Exodus 3 .14, I am who

I am. What was he saying? He's present.

He's now. He's eternal. He's always existed. He did not mean, hey, I can be this burning bush now.

Later on, I'll be some water. I'll be some quail. I'll be whatever you guys need. I'm going to transform myself.

Yes. Well, he would probably go to a scripture like that and say, see,

Jesus is also referring back to that trip in the wilderness and how he was the bread of life.

In other words, what they do is they, you know, I've told this story on occasion, but I love this.

I was watching it. Now, none of these quotes this morning are from Benny Hinn. But Benny Hinn, I was watching him once and he said, he was talking to the owner of Trinity Broadcasting Network, Paul Crouch.

And he said, you know, Paul, you know who the demons are. The demons are the beings that own the earth before mankind was created.

They are the dispossessed spirit beings of this world. And that's why they're so mad at us, because we took over.

And I'm going, what is that in Genesis? The lost pages, you know, please turn with me to Genesis negative three and we'll read.

I don't even understand that. You know, they make this stuff up. So they'll take something like Jesus saying,

I'm the bread of life, and they'll import an entirely different meaning. I mean, look at the Greek, look at the

Hebrew. What for? I don't need all that stuff, because I could just make it up as I go along. If there are contradictions, my teaching, it doesn't matter, because if you dare to point out the contradictions of my teaching, you are a heretic hunter.

And we know what happens to heretic hunters, because we hear often from them, touch not the Lord's anointed.

Also taken out. Well, that's what they say. You know, I am anointed of God. Don't touch me. Don't you accuse me?

Now, this talking about Bartimaeus, where Jesus heals him. Listen to this.

This is T .D. Jake still. He says, but it was not what was in Christ's mouth that got him,

Bartimaeus, healed. The power was in Bartimaeus's mouth. He would have whatever he said.

And Jesus was saying, listen to this, my hands are tied, because I can't do any more for you than what you say.

He goes on to say, if the power of life and death is in the tongue, and you can have whatever you say, and if you've been praying and praying and praying, and you finally got

God's attention, and now he's looking at you and saying, what do you want? What do you want?

Name it, baby. Name it. Declare it.

Speak it. Confess it. Get your list out. Terrible.

Let's look at what actually happened here. Mark 10, verse 46.

Then they came to Jericho, and as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples, and a large crowd, a blind beggar named

Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the road. When he heard that it was

Jesus the Nazarene, he began to cry out and say, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.

Many were sternly telling him to be quiet. But he kept crying out all the more, son of David, have mercy on me.

And Jesus stopped and said, call him here. So they called the blind man, saying to him, take courage, stand up, he is calling for you.

Throwing aside his cloak, he jumped up and came to Jesus. And answering him,

Jesus said, what do you want me to do for you? And the blind man said to him, Rabboni, I want to regain my sight.

And Jesus said to him, go, your faith has made you well. Immediately he regained his sight and began following him on the road.

Now, what's wrong with T .D. Jake's interpretation of this? Okay? That Bartimaeus took the initiative?

I mean, if Jesus doesn't call him over, then nothing happens.

Because the disciples were all going to keep Bartimaeus away. What else is wrong, though?

What's that? Yeah, the idea that T .D. Jake's gives forth is the idea that it wasn't

Jesus who healed him. It was Bartimaeus himself. Because he had the courage to, you know, the faith to claim what he wanted.

And so it was given to him. Well, you know, it certainly says that Jesus said, your faith has made you well.

Exactly, yeah. So who gave him the faith? Where did the faith come from? This passage doesn't address that.

Faith is not a force, and that's what they consistently present here. That somehow, if you have faith,

God is your servant. God can do whatever he wants, but what he wants is what you want.

When you want it enough. That's the presentation. That's the gist of this. That Jesus' hands were tied.

That the sovereign God of the universe could not heal Bartimaeus on his own impulse. He had to have Bartimaeus' permission, faith, etc.

That was the key to getting healed. Nonsense. Jesus could do whatever he wanted. Somebody was asking me this week if I believed in the miracle power of healing.

I had to say, well, I think God can heal whoever he wants. But if you're going to tell me that I have to go to such and such a building between this time and that time and see so -and -so so that I can get healed,

I don't believe that. If that's true, then I want those people who have those healing ministries.

I will drive them. I will pay all the tolls. We'll go down to the children's hospital and I want them to empty that place out.

I want them to cure everyone of cancer. I want them to restore sight, limbs, everything. If they have the miraculous power of healing, then why is it that there are still hospitals and why is it that everybody who gets healed had a headache and now it's gone.

These are things that can't be measured. Can't be seen. Let's move on to number four.

Again, talking about giving. The more I send a head into glory, the greater the glory when

I get there. The greater the investment, the greater the reward. And thus, when we see the concept of treasure in Matthew 6, we're specifically talking about wealth.

In Mark 10 .21, the Bible says, Sell what you have, give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.

Now it's the same principle. He had more than he needed. He didn't say, sell what you need.

He said, sell what you have. What's just stockpiled? And in his case, I guess because of his own spiritual problems, it could have been everything he possessed because it stood between him and God.

Now again, it's difficult with a quote. Orthodox biblical teaching, false teaching, or I have no idea.

And if you say, and for no idea, I won't blame you. That's so sad.

Let me just focus on the last part here. And in his case, talking about this rich man, I guess because of his spiritual problems, it could have been everything he possessed because it stood between him and God.

What's he saying here? He's saying that this person's possessions were a stumbling block to him. They were a stumbling block to him.

And I think as a clue, any time you see actually the Bible quoted or referred to, that puts you about halfway home to knowing it's probably not a false teacher now.

Only halfway. But this is a good saying. And what he's talking about is you don't give to get in this world.

You don't even give to get in the next world. But that's what happens. What did

Jesus say in the Sermon on the Mount? Don't lay up treasures for yourself where the moth and rust can destroy, but rather treasures in heaven.

In case you're wondering who said that, by the way, that was John MacArthur. These quotes can be tricky.

And I've worked hard to make them a little bit tricky anyway, a little difficult. Okay, number five.

The Bible says that I'm righteous and I can't be righteous and a sinner at the same time.

What's that? The Bible says that I'm righteous and I can't be righteous and a sinner at the same time.

Okay, I should have put G up here for gun -shy. O for orthodox. X for false teaching.

N for I have no idea. I hear an X and I hear another X and I hear another X and the answer is

X. Yes. Okay. Who said that?

That was Joyce Meyer. You know, she was named in 2005 one of the top 25 evangelical leaders in the

United States. Good question. I think that was Time Magazine.

Money Magazine. Forbes. She's on the Forbes 500 list of...

She has authored more than 70 books and hosts a daily television and radio show called

Enjoying Everyday Life. She holds to the word of faith belief that faith is a force.

This is a quote from her. Every man is given the measure of faith and faith is a powerful force. And the two greatest ways we release our faith is through sincere heartfelt prayer.

I'll go for that. And through the words of your mouth. She goes on to say, it says in Romans 4 .17

that we have a God who gives life to the dead and he calls things that be not as though they already existed.

So, if there's something in your way, speak to it. Well, in other words, here's the whole idea.

If God says I'm going to speak something that is not as if it already is, then we should do the same thing.

Well, yes, I do know what to say about that. The Bible talks about it in Isaiah that the idols do what?

What do idols do? They sit there. Nothing. They can't do anything. But God says, you know what?

I told you what was going to happen and then I brought it to pass. And that's why,

Romans 4 .17, he calls things that be not as though they already existed because he can bring them into existence.

Can we do that? Where does the Bible say that if you say something you can bring it out?

I want a new car. Please don't hit me.

It worked. They twist that just as they do other scriptures to their destruction.

If you want to hunt through the Bible, hunt and peck and find things to substantiate some outside philosophy, you can do that.

But Joyce Meyer embraces the give to get message given by Oral Roberts and others.

This is a quote. When I talked with Dr. Roberts today, I mean right there,

I would immediately be reaching for the remote control. If I didn't have a remote,

I would get up and turn the channel. When I talked with Dr. Roberts today and we talked about this seed faith thing, in other words, what's the concept?

In order to receive something, you have to plant a seed in faith and then

God is obligated to reward you. Roberts said, when you give, you get a receipt in heaven.

Now, if somebody told me like this, I would never repeat it in an approving way. When you give, you get a receipt in heaven.

When you have a need, you can then go with your receipt and say, you see

God, I have got my receipt from my sowing and now I have a need and I'm cashing in my receipt.

God, you are my debtor. Who could put God in his or her debt?

She goes on to say, and I really would just like to claim and use and enjoy as many of my blessings and as much of my inheritance as I possibly can for two reasons.

One, I'll just read it what she said and I won't comment on the grammar of it. One, we all want to enjoy life.

I think that's true. And second, I believe Jesus died for this purpose and I believe it brings him joy when we mature enough to be able to receive the fullness of what he has for us.

Jesus died for the purpose of apparently making it possible for us to hold up our receipt and claim that God owes us.

Yes. Yeah, but the rest of that is her talking.

In other words, she says this is what he said and her response is and I really would just like to claim and use and enjoy as much of my blessings and as much of my inheritance as I possibly can.

So anyway, she has another startling claim here and this is where I was going.

I didn't stop sinning until I finally got it through my thick head. I wasn't a sinner anymore. That's when she stopped sinning.

And the religious world thinks that's heresy and they want to hang you for it. But the

Bible says that I'm righteous and I can't be righteous and a sinner at the same time. Well, you know what?

The Bible does refer to saints as righteous, right? Here, listen to this.

What's that? Declared righteous. That's right. Here's what Martin Luther said. The saints at the same time as they are righteous are also sinners.

Righteous because they believe in Christ whose righteousness covers them and is imputed to them.

But sinners because they do not fulfill the law are not without should

I look this one up? Con -u -ca -pe -sence. I don't even know what that is. And are like sick men under the care of a physician.

They are sick in fact, but healthy in hope. That is so good. We're sick, in fact, we're still afflicted by the impact of sin.

But we have a hope of deliverance. I mean, I would just like Joyce Meyer to just kind of walk us through Romans 7 where Paul says the things

I don't want to do, I do. The things I do, I don't want to do.

There's no one righteous, not even one. Stop stealing my sermon. But, that's later.

But, there is no one righteous but, 2

Corinthians 5 .21 tells us what? Okay, so we do become righteous but we are positionally righteous.

We are declared righteous. We have the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, accounted to us.

Let's see. I think I have another one here. Number 6. You have to know the answer to this one.

Why are you fearful to leave your sins or leave you sins if you don't change the spelling on it.

Why are you fearful to leave your sins and turn to God? Oh, turn to Him. Turn in a sense of your own unworthiness.

Tell Him how polluted you are. How vile. And be not faithless but believe.

Do not go in your own strength and then you need not fear. O -X -N.

George Woodfield comes through. Yes! Moving on.

Number 7. Every day you should declare good things.

Just look in the mirror and say, I am strong. I am healthy. I am rising to new levels.

I am excited about my future. When you say that, it may not be true.

You may not be very healthy today or maybe you don't have a lot of things to look forward to. But the

Scripture tells us in Romans we have to call the things that are not as if they already were.

Is that a command in Romans 4 .17? You know, I just feel the need to kind of read that. Now we've just heard it used and abused.

By the way, is that orthodox? Oh yeah. Romans 4 .17.

As it is written, a father of many nations I have made you in the presence of him whom he believed, even

God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist. Now you read that and you think to yourself, oh, that's an interesting spin on it, that Romans we have to call the things that are not as if they already were.

Is that what it is? Is there a command somewhere in 17 for us to do that? I think that's a description of what

God does, not a command for us to do. That is from Joel Osteen.

Joel Osteen. He took over as pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas following the death of his father in 1999.

And during that time it's grown from a congregation of 6 ,000 to one of 30 ,000.

They had to buy a basketball arena down in Houston to hold all the people. His best -selling book,

Your Best Life Now, has sold more than 3 million copies in hardback and has led to a multi -million dollar contract for another book with Free Press, a division of Simon &

Schuster, and that will be out, if you want to get your pre -order in, later on this year. Here's a quote.

Our words are vital in bringing our dreams to pass. It's not enough to simply see it by faith or in your imagination.

You have to begin speaking words of faith over your life. Have we heard this before? Your words have enormous creative power.

The moment you speak something out, you give birth to it. Daniel.

Next week it'll be the North. I think... Well, I know it comes out of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Oral Roberts University, and having studied this a little bit,

I think the origins of it were around the turn of the 20th century, early 1900s, and I think it started actually in Kansas, and kind of built out from there.

That was Pentecostalism, but this is kind of not... they don't always go together, but they do a lot of times.

A lot of the four -square churches and different people are in line with this sort of thinking.

Okay. So anyway, we're done with him, but that's the kind of thinking that is there.

Think positively, speak things into reality. I mean, if you read

Shirley MacLaine's book... How many of you read Shirley MacLaine's Out on a Limb? Okay. She says the exact same thing.

This is New Age thinking. This is the idea that I create my own reality. It's just not a biblical idea.

We live in God's reality. Number eight.

That's the first obligation we have, to live in hope. Now, hope is a great thing.

First Corinthians 13 says, these three things abide. Faith. What's the second one?

Hope. What's the third one? Love. And the greatest of these is love. You've heard plenty of sermons on love.

You've seen plenty of books on love. You've heard plenty of sermons on faith, and plenty of books on faith.

Have you ever heard a sermon or read a book on hope? For some reason, we have somehow ignored that.

And particularly in our culture, hope is a missing element of Christian experience.

We don't really live in hope, I think primarily because we like this life so much.

I want to say true or false, but I can't do that. Okay. Orthodox? False? No idea.

Orthodox is correct. Again, that's another MacArthur quote. And I think the key is really that last sentence.

We don't really live in hope, I think primarily because we really like this life so much. Our hope is not in this world.

Our hope is in the next world. Things might be difficult in this life, but that's not where our focus is.

Unlike Joyce Meyer. Unlike Joel Osteen. Unlike all these people.

I've got more on Osteen, I've got more on all these guys, but let's just finish the quiz here so that we don't have a three -part quiz here.

Number nine. Some of you better get ready to drive around in neighborhoods where you never thought you'd be able to afford to live.

Some of you better go down to that Lexus and Mercedes dealership and just sit down in one of those things with that leather all over it.

And when they say, what are you doing? Just say, well, I'm just feeling out what my father is going to give me.

How's he going to give it to you? Because I'm going to be obedient. Oh, good.

You're going to obey the word of God. I heard a word from the man of God, and when

I obey that word, it unleashes that anointing into my life, and I'm on my way to houses

I didn't build, full of good things I didn't have to buy. You know what?

I'm not even going to let you answer that one. That is heresy. But you know what?

There is some truth to that. I'm on my way to a house that I didn't build, but this is just rubbish.

That, by the way, is Rod Parsley. He's also a big shot, has a 5200 seat church and television program seen in 136 countries.

Rod Parsley. He's that little garnishment that they put on your plate. Number 10.

Number 10. It takes but one positive thought when given a chance to survive and thrive to overpower an entire army of negative thoughts.

See, I've been going, you know, bad teaching, good teaching, bad teaching, good teaching, but here I went two bad ones in a row.

That is Robert Shuler. I just really can't say enough about the falseness of his teaching.

Here's a man who once said that if he died and somehow he were to find out that his whole congregation had turned

Muslim, he wouldn't be saddened as long as they were good people. There's a guy who just doesn't understand the gospel at all.

The gospel is not one of positive thinking, which is what he presents here.

It takes but one positive thought when given a chance to survive and thrive. We have to have that positive thought and nurture it to overcome all the negative.

No, we need to listen to the word of God, not what we think, not how we feel, not whether something is positive or negative, but what does the

Bible say? What does God say? When we go into these Christian bookstores,

I remember once looking, you know, being told that someone was a good

Bible teacher, looking at his Bible handbook and turning, you know, it's always good to go to the acknowledgement, the forward, see who writes those things.

So I go to the people that this guy's thanking for putting together his book. He thanks

Benny Hinn, he thanks Marilyn Hickey, he thanks Oral Roberts, and on and on and on it goes, and I go, you know, it's kind of like you want to turn those books backward.

The problem is if I went to a Christian bookstore and turned all the books backward that needed to be turned backward, there'd be nothing facing forward.

There'd be like, you know, a little shelf this big. They don't need Christian bookstores, they need, you know,

Christian book booths or something like that, you know, a little kiosk in a mall where you could just walk by and go, all the

Orthodox books that are currently selling are right here on this shelf. You know, there'd be 20. So it's, uh, my exhortation to you, whether you're watching

TV, you're listening to the radio, you're walking into a Christian bookstore, you're buying Christian music, is to just not presume because it says

Christian on it that it is. There are millions and millions and millions of people in this country who think they're

Christians and who show no evidence of that. And there are hundreds, thousands, maybe more, teachers who say that they're

Christian and don't know the first thing about what the Bible says. Father, again, we thank you for the word made more sure, more sure than our experience, more sure than our feelings, more sure than anything.

Lord, would you turn us to your word, convict us by its truthfulness, and Father, keep us from all error, false teaching.

Lord, let us be those who would be humble enough to acknowledge that we don't know everything, that we can be wrong, but Father, let us compare each and every teaching that we read, hear, or are taught with the word of God.