- 00:01
- Our great Father, we come before you this morning thankful for who you are, all that you've done for us, for your mercy, your kindness, your grace in stooping to save us, sending the
- 00:19
- Lord Jesus Christ to live, die, and be raised from the dead for us, that we might be counted worthy, that we might be, as it were, wrapped in Christ's righteousness.
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- Father, we thank you for that. We pray that as we study these things today, that we might be not only edified, but that we might be reminded again of your goodness to us and that we might extend that goodness in terms of spreading the good news to our friends, families, and neighbors.
- 00:59
- We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, last week we started talking about, or working our way through a little bit of this
- 01:07
- Ligonier false teaching test. And ultimately, I guess it's not a test that Ligonier gave,
- 01:15
- I wrote the quiz. They just provided some of the material. And yesterday morning,
- 01:20
- I mean, if you missed the Machen Men yesterday morning, there would be only two reasons for that.
- 01:27
- One is maybe you're not a man. The other one would be you don't like donuts. But we had a great time yesterday just talking about theology.
- 01:36
- And, you know, one of the things that I wanted to just mention before I start here this morning is, Machen says, basically, that if the
- 01:46
- Apostles' Creed is an incomplete document, and it is,
- 01:53
- I mean, it's very brief, it has some truth. And the truths that it puts forth are 100 % true.
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- But he says that as time goes on, the church develops better doctrine and writes longer statements that are more precise.
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- And I thought, what is the significance of that for this day, for right now? And the significance in part is that when we see some of the things that we're going to see this morning, some of the false teaching, we ought to immediately step back and go, this is not what the church has taught, does teach, has believed or does believe.
- 02:33
- When you have a wealth of theological teaching and tradition.
- 02:45
- Oh, did I say that word? Tradition is not a bad word, right? As long as we don't equate tradition with scripture.
- 02:53
- But when tradition or teaching reflects scripture, when it accurately interprets scripture, then it's good.
- 03:02
- But let me give you some quotes here and you tell me, you know, what's wrong with these.
- 03:10
- I am a billionaire because the assignment that the Lord gave me, he said, I want you to begin to confess the billion flow.
- 03:19
- Oh, I just like that one. Have you ever confessed the billion flow?
- 03:25
- I don't even know what that is. Sounds like Mike Murdoch, but it's not. But Mike Murdoch is coming.
- 03:32
- I didn't even know who Mike Murdoch was till I looked these up. So Bill's really got his finger on the pulse of bad teaching.
- 03:38
- Thank you. That was actually Kenneth Copeland.
- 03:46
- You know, who has a private airplane because he needs one. But the billion flow,
- 03:54
- I like that one. And then how about this one? God said, it is time to tell the money. You don't belong to the wicked.
- 04:03
- You belong to us. Money, come to me now. Well, no, that was
- 04:11
- Leroy Thompson. The infamous
- 04:17
- Leroy Thompson. But I got a Mike Murdoch quote. He asks his viewers to donate a thousand dollars.
- 04:24
- Then he says that God will erase a donor's credit card debt if he or she will donate with a credit card.
- 04:32
- Here he says, as you use your faith, God is going to wipe out your credit card debts.
- 04:41
- I was going to say, it sounds like some governments I know, right? This won't cost you a thing.
- 04:47
- Just borrow a few trillion more. All right. How about this?
- 04:53
- This is, this doesn't have to do with money, but this is really. 1991,
- 04:59
- Jimmy Swaggart caught with a prostitute for the second time. He was pulled over driving erratically.
- 05:05
- And his passenger was said prostitute. The next Sunday, Swaggart told his church quote, the
- 05:12
- Lord told me it's flat, none of your business. Okay.
- 05:19
- Not accountable to anyone, right? Okay. Now we've got to have a Benny Hinn quote. Just a couple more.
- 05:27
- Benny Hinn and then Joyce Meyer, then we'll get back to the real news. Benny Hinn, man,
- 05:34
- I feel revelation knowledge already coming on me here. Lift your hands. Something new is going to happen here today.
- 05:44
- Now, should your antenna already be up? Not just because it's Benny Hinn, but when someone says some presumably
- 05:52
- Christian teacher says something new is going to happen here today.
- 05:59
- You ought to be running for the exits. I felt it just as I walked down here,
- 06:04
- Holy Spirit take over in the name of Jesus. God, the father, ladies and gentlemen, is a person and he is triune, a triune being by himself, separate from the son and the
- 06:14
- Holy ghost. How many blasphemies in that sentence? I mean, how about, how about this?
- 06:25
- He, yeah. God, the father is a person. God, the son is a person.
- 06:31
- God, the Holy ghost is a person. God and three persons, but each one of them is a triune being by himself.
- 06:43
- If I can shock you and maybe I should, there's nine of them. And then
- 06:49
- Benny Hinn. Benny Hinn says, huh, what did you just say?
- 06:55
- Let me explain. God, the father, ladies and gentlemen, is a person with his own personal spirit, with his own personal soul and his own personal spirit body.
- 07:04
- You say, huh? I never heard that. Well, you think you're in this church to hear things you've heard for the last 50 years?
- 07:13
- You can't argue with the word, can you? It's all in the word. I mean, you know,
- 07:24
- I, I used to say the, uh, the message was a Brad translation, but I don't know where that one comes from. Uh, quick one from Benny Hinn.
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- I saw Jesus walk into my bedroom message for Benny.
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- Stop with the peyote. Okay. Joyce Meyer.
- 07:49
- Now, again, just think of all the blasphemies in here. The devil thought he had it.
- 07:55
- The devil thought he had one. He's talking about the death of Jesus, or she's talking about the death of Jesus. The devil thought he had it one.
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- Oh, they were having the biggest party they had ever had. They had Jesus on the floor and they were standing on his back, jumping up and down laughing.
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- And he had become sin. Don't you think that God was pacing wanting to put a stop to what was going on?
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- All the hosts of hell were upon him, up on him, up on him. The angels are in agony.
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- All the creation is groaning. All the hosts of hell were up on him, up on him. They got up or they got on him.
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- They got him down in the floor and got on him and they were laughing and mocking.
- 08:38
- Ha ha. You trusted God and look where you ended up. You thought he would save you and get you off that cross.
- 08:45
- He didn't. These are,
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- I mean, Joyce Meyer, if you look at, you know, CBD, you're going to find out she's one of the, still one of the most popular teachers out there.
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- It doesn't matter that she's a heretic. These people make millions and millions of dollars.
- 09:12
- So last week we started this quiz, started with good teaching.
- 09:17
- And the reason, you know, you may wonder why I'm even bothering with those people. It's because we're going to get into these false teachers this morning and what they do because it's part of the
- 09:28
- Ligonier false teaching guide. Now on the quiz, I believe we are on, are we on number eight?
- 09:41
- Yeah, I think we got to seven. Number seven, true or false, all members of the
- 09:47
- Trinity are equal in substance, power and glory. And by the way, there are not nine of them. Just thought
- 09:54
- I'd throw that in there. How many people in the Trinity? That's a trick question. How many persons in the
- 09:59
- Trinity? Three, three persons, one
- 10:05
- God, right? All members of the Trinity are equal in substance, power and glory.
- 10:11
- True or false? Substance, power, glory.
- 10:18
- So all that has to be true. Is it true? Yes, within the one
- 10:25
- Godhead, there subsists three persons, father, son and Holy Spirit. These three persons are the one true and living
- 10:32
- God. Now, because that's difficult to put our arms around, people like Benny Hinn can make fools of themselves and convince many people to believe them.
- 10:47
- The Trinity or the Trinity, the Ligonier guide goes on to say the father, son and spirit are the same in substance.
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- And equal in power and glory. So God is the
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- Holy Trinity. So many errors are often taught by bungling this doctrine.
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- Number eight, number eight, true or false?
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- One of the reasons for Adam's testing in the garden was to underscore the creator creature difference.
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- One of the reasons for Adam's or for Adam's testing in the Garden of Eden was to underscore the creator creature difference.
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- We'll be passing. There is a creator creature difference.
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- And that's all right. That's a truism. Okay. And says, does it say why?
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- Who wrote this question? One of the reasons for Adam's testing in the garden was to underscore.
- 12:15
- Well, let's look at Genesis two versus 15 to 17. Genesis two versus 15 to 17.
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- And would somebody read that, please? So God gives Adam these instructions, right?
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- He gives him a job to do. He gives him this instruction here that he should not eat of the knowledge of or the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
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- Because if he does that, what's going to happen to him? Don't eat it or you die.
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- Now, what's the reason God gives him for that command? None other than if you do it, you're going to die.
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- Does he explain why? I mean, imagine your boss comes in and gives you, I know this has never happened to you.
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- He gives you a completely capricious and arbitrary order and you don't like it.
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- What do you say? I quit. That's one. Or why?
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- David says. You ever done that? You ever said that doesn't make any sense to me.
- 13:29
- Why? With all due respect, sir or madam, as the case may be, or they or them or whatever your pronouns might be.
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- May I inquire as the wisdom behind this, right? You ever done anything like that? And does the boss?
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- I mean, it's like, you know, when you're a child, do you ever say to your mom and dad? You know, did you ever say why did you ever question them for any of the things they asked you to do?
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- Does Adam? Hey, God, let me ask you something.
- 14:09
- Why that tree? Why can't I take that tree? Does he do that? No, Ligonier says, and just think about this for a moment before you jump all over them.
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- They say this was meant to both test Adam's obedience and to remind him that God is the creator and he was the creature.
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- How does it do that? How does it underscore that creator creature difference?
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- It highlights dominion. Absolutely. Right, David. Okay, God sets the standard.
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- He says, here it is, Adam. He doesn't explain why he doesn't have to. You know, you ever say to your kids when you tell them to do something?
- 15:01
- What? Because I said so, right? So there's that implied because I said so.
- 15:09
- Nothing else. I've referred to this because theologians have referred to this as the covenant of works.
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- You can call it a time of probation and time of testing. You can call it, you know, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
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- It doesn't really matter, though. Peanut butter, jelly sandwich sounds more tempting than a covenant of works.
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- But here's the point. Adam's put in the garden. He's told what to do. And ultimately, if he obeys, then what?
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- He's not going to die. And the implication, if we stretch it out and look at what the other scriptures eventually developed for us,
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- Jesus undoes what Adam does. Well, why does he have to undo it? Because what
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- Adam did was plunge us into death, and ultimately, if Adam had kept, if he had obeyed, we would not experience death.
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- But that's a hypothetical that was never going to happen. But one of the reasons for Adam's testing in the garden was to underscore the fact that God is
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- God and we are not. Number nine, true or false,
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- Adam possessed original righteousness or original righteousness, somebody said true.
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- Who said true? Brawley. And that is 100 percent correct.
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- Adam's natural born descendants have his guilt imputed to them, but his original righteousness was lost when he sinned his original righteousness.
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- I mean, if you think about it, if Jesus is the second Adam. Then didn't the first Adam have to basically have
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- I mean, I'm not going to say basically didn't he necessarily have to have the same opportunity that Jesus had,
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- David? How? How would he get that? OK, it was imputed to him when he was made,
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- Charlie. OK, let me put the original righteousness in another way.
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- Would Adam have had the gift of the Holy Spirit? Would he have had the presence? Let me put it another way, the presence of the
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- Holy Spirit. I think if we if we just think about the parallels, first Adam, second
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- Adam, second Adam, born without sin, first Adam created.
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- Without sin, second Adam. Filled with the
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- Holy Spirit, first Adam walked with God.
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- Well, let me ask you this. If we're going to say that Jesus basically did the work that the first Adam was supposed to do and didn't do, and we know that Jesus being the second
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- Adam had the presence of the Holy Spirit all the time, isn't that an unfair advantage over the first Adam?
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- I'd look at it and go, that's not really fair. First Adam didn't really have a shot. He was just left on his own devices.
- 18:44
- I'm going to propose to you. The this original righteousness, what makes it shocking, the presence of the
- 18:53
- Holy Spirit, what makes it shocking to me anyway, is to think. Perhaps. I think he probably did have the presence of the
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- Holy Spirit. And this is what I say about us as believers, when we sin, what do we do?
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- Do we heed, you know, the alarm bells of the Holy Spirit are going off. Our conscience is being afflicted.
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- We know that sin is coming and what do we do? Send the
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- Holy Spirit on vacation. We ignore the Holy Spirit. We ignore him entirely until later on the conviction comes upon us.
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- And then we have godly sorrow. We're broken over our sin because we belong to him.
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- And he crushes us and makes us feel the weight of our sin. I think what makes what would make the fall of Adam all the more shocking is having that presence of the
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- Holy Spirit and still going and listening to Satan. But the idea, yeah,
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- I'll get to you in a sec. The idea, again, is original righteousness, Charlie. Yes. And to be clear, when we, because let me interrupt for a second, when we hear about God walking in the garden, right, and he calls to Adam, where are you, et cetera, who is that?
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- Pre -incarnate Christ. Okay. Okay. Well, let me push back a little bit on that because what, again, what happens, you know,
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- Charlie's point is, you know, that Adam had a form of, let's say, neutral compliance, not a positive righteousness, not the righteousness of God per se.
- 20:43
- Right. And so all of creation happens, you know, mankind falls and Adam needing that alien righteousness, then that alien righteousness, the righteousness of God is imputed to him through the work of Christ or, you know, it's, and it's subsequently imputed to all of all believers.
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- Right. Okay. Jonathan. He had righteousness until he didn't.
- 21:16
- Yeah. I don't want to use the word works righteousness, but yeah. I mean, did he have obedience? Was he obeying
- 21:22
- God? Yes. The whole time he wasn't partaking of the tree, then he was righteous.
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- Did he have original innocence? Was he innocent from the beginning? Well, yeah,
- 21:42
- I think so. Right. No sin. Wouldn't even have the concept of sin.
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- Just would have known, you know, I'm not allowed to do that. Yes. Right.
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- So he wouldn't have any righteousness unless he obeyed God's command to not take of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
- 22:16
- Right. Okay. Perhaps that's why.
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- Well, I mean, I would only say this, that the reason, the reason we can presume is the pre -incarnate
- 22:31
- Christ is because he has a body. They can hear him walking. There's a physical activity and that's not associated with the father typically, but may back up to this righteousness issue.
- 22:43
- So from the moment he gets this command in Genesis 2, 17, however long he's obedient, what do we know?
- 22:52
- Right. He was obedient. Yes. So for some period of time, and I would posit that that is what, what can we call that?
- 23:03
- Is it passive obedience or active obedience? It's active obedience, right?
- 23:09
- It's absolutely active obedience. So he has the righteousness he needs to enter into heaven.
- 23:18
- And what does he do with that? He forfeits it by partaking, by believing
- 23:25
- Satan and partaking of the tree. Corey, right.
- 23:30
- I mean, that's the negative. Well, to have dominion over the garden, one of the commands that he received or dominion over the earth to protect the garden, to tend the garden would also mean to guard it.
- 23:56
- Right. And so I've said many times that as soon as the serpent walked, walked in, crawled in, slithered in, flew in, whatever, however he got in a little dragon, he did not.
- 24:11
- No, he totally, he totally made a hash of that. Um, okay.
- 24:18
- He possessed original righteousness. I I'm going to say true because Ligonier says true. Number 10.
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- Number two. Yeah. It's an appeal to authority, which is a logical fallacy, but on to number 10.
- 24:35
- True or false. When Jesus became a man, it united him to us in our humanity.
- 24:45
- Right. But it was written by Ligonier and they said our humanity. So I, and I'm going to go,
- 24:52
- I'm going to go, you know, second degree David Smith here this morning, yesterday, yesterday, you guys really missed a great study, but yesterday morning,
- 25:01
- Dave said he, he gave an answer and then 20 seconds later, he gave the opposite answer and there was no interruption in between the two.
- 25:12
- It was just, it was just Dave. So Dave gives a very affirmative answer. And then he says, you know,
- 25:18
- I am now going to obliterate myself and, and he did.
- 25:24
- So I'm in that tradition. I'm going to obliterate myself because I, I had false.
- 25:31
- And now that I'm reading this and why I put false, I'm like, no, it was true. It's true. Um, the eternally begotten son took on a second nature, that of a man, thus he is truly
- 25:44
- God and truly man with no mixture of either nature. In other words, the two,
- 25:50
- Jesus, you know, sometimes our, our thoughts of Jesus, just as our thoughts of the triune
- 25:58
- God are too human, we forget that he's a hundred percent God and a hundred percent man, because we, we want to think that he's like mostly
- 26:11
- God or he's mostly man or, um, but he is 100 % of each.
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- So I'm going to rate that a true, um, he's united with us in our humanity.
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- He's, he's able to sympathize us with us in every way. I mean, if we read the book of Hebrews, the letter of Hebrews, we can't come to any other conclusion.
- 26:39
- Number. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's fire the guy who wrote that.
- 26:52
- Um, that was me. All right. Number 11, which of these,
- 26:58
- Oh, multiple choice question, which of these is necessary for our salvation? A, the father chose to save some in eternity past B, the son died to atone for the sins of all
- 27:09
- C, the Holy spirit causes the elect to be born again. D, A and C only, or E, A, B, and C.
- 27:18
- Yes. It's D, A and C only.
- 27:25
- Why? Because B is false, right?
- 27:31
- Had to be just those two. The son died to atone for the sins of all.
- 27:36
- Now that's something that pastor Mike was going to be talking about this evening, but won't be, why is that important?
- 27:46
- By the way, the concept of the son died to atone for the sins of all being false.
- 27:53
- Why is that important? Because universalism is not taught.
- 28:00
- Why else Brian? Okay. Because God would then be unjust because he would ultimately be punishing for the, for the same sins twice.
- 28:18
- Jesus on the cross and then those who don't believe in hell. But it's also false because this, this is what people who want to appeal to free will teach, right?
- 28:31
- They say, Jesus died for all. And it's up to us to believe.
- 28:38
- Some will believe in someone it, it mitigate or it, uh, basically eradicates the whole concept of a total depravity.
- 28:51
- Yes, Andrew discontinuity in the
- 28:56
- Trinity. Yes, it does imply that, which, you know, if, I mean, if we just look at Ephesians chapter one, verse three to 14, and we see that God, the father chooses
- 29:06
- Jesus Christ, the son dies for, and then the Holy spirit seals, it's all for the same group of people because Paul writes again and again and again, what for our sake and for us.
- 29:20
- And he's writing to believers, not to, you know, the world in general. Okay. Number 12 on judgment day, true or false on judgment day, all who profess faith in Christ will go to heaven.
- 29:40
- That just seems so negative. People say that they're Christians.
- 29:46
- How can you say that they're not going to heaven? Isn't what the Bible says, confess with your mouth.
- 29:54
- Okay. And believe in your heart. And this is ultimately where we're going here this morning in the 10 minutes we have left false teachers, profess faith.
- 30:06
- Listen to Matthew seven verses 21 to 23. Not everyone who says to me,
- 30:12
- Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father, who is in heaven, what's the will of the father who's in heaven, you know, people read this and they think right away, what, that that means that only those who obey the commandments of God are going to heaven.
- 30:28
- Is that true? What's the will of the father to believe in the son?
- 30:36
- Yeah. Number verse 22 on that day. And when he says on that day, he's talking about judgment day.
- 30:42
- Many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and command dollars into our wallets in your name and, and do many mighty works yet, you know, buying the demons of credit cards or whatever, you know, in your name and do many mighty works in your name, verse 23.
- 31:06
- And then I will declare to them. I never knew you depart from me. You workers of lawlessness.
- 31:15
- They're just outside of the boundaries of scripture number 13.
- 31:23
- And here's where we get into these quotes. I was talking about earlier, true or false. The so -called prosperity gospel has one basic error.
- 31:31
- It teaches that God wants all Christians to be wealthy. It has a ton of errors.
- 31:41
- It has a ton of errors. I mean, they, they, this is how the Ligonier field guide describes it.
- 31:49
- They say individuals who exercise true faith. I mean, there's the exercise, you know, a matter of the will.
- 31:58
- True faith, because what do they talk about? They say that if you, if you don't have enough faith, then you don't get these things.
- 32:07
- The reason you don't have physical wellbeing is because you're not faithful, right?
- 32:16
- Yeah. You don't believe enough. They, there has to be an explanation for it. So they believe that you'll attain physical material and financial prosperity in this life.
- 32:28
- And that's the key. The focus is on this life. You know, Jesus said, I came that they might have what and have it more abundantly.
- 32:38
- So they turn that and they say, well, wait a minute. If you're not living a wealthy life, then you're not living an abundant life.
- 32:46
- If you're not living a healthy life, then you're not living an abundant life. That's why you'll hear things like your best life now, right?
- 33:01
- Number 14, the prosperity gospel is a relatively new development.
- 33:11
- It is false. Um, but I mean, the way we know it now, it's kind of new, but it's not new.
- 33:18
- Post -World War II, uh, Oral Roberts wrote books, listen to these titles.
- 33:25
- If you need healing, do these things. I mean, does that sound biblical?
- 33:33
- I'll answer that question myself. No. Uh, how about this one? The miracle of seed faith.
- 33:39
- What's seed faith. Anybody know what that is? Referring to the mustard seed.
- 33:46
- If you have faith like that of a mustard seed, you can. So then what does it turn into for these folks?
- 33:58
- Well, move a mountain of wealth into my bank account. It's, you know what? I don't care how little you have.
- 34:03
- Be like the widow who just had a tiny little amount of money and she gave. And what did
- 34:09
- Jesus say about her? Well, they totally mangled that. But I don't have time to go into that.
- 34:14
- But if they say that if you have the faith of a mustard seed, you can move mountains and you show, but show faith by obeying this principle of the universe.
- 34:23
- You do what you sow a seed and you return, you get in return the harvest.
- 34:30
- You give to get, you put God essentially in your debt.
- 34:36
- And I almost sound like a poet. Now you give to get, you give and put God in your debt.
- 34:42
- See, get in debt. I think I'm a, I think I'm a songwriter. I mean, there are so, you know, who has given to the
- 34:52
- Lord that it might be repaid him. There's so many problems with that. Um, but we could see the, the falseness of this and the seeds of it.
- 35:06
- I just said seeds, uh, in acts eight, nine to 24 and acts 19, 11 to 20.
- 35:14
- Uh, I'm not going to go there right now, but there are, are many false teachers, Jim Baker, Jim Swaggart, Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, Joel Osteen, T .D.
- 35:24
- Jakes, John Hagee, Creflo Dollar, Paula White, and Joyce Meyer people.
- 35:30
- Why do you suppose many, and I've even heard folks here, not from the pulpit or with a microphone, but people here tried to defend some of these people and they'll say, why do you go after them, right?
- 35:43
- Why do you even give them a platform? But they're, they're trying to preach the gospel the best they know.
- 35:50
- How is that true? And should we go after them? Why should we go after them?
- 35:58
- Jonathan, it's loving to keep other people from their errors.
- 36:04
- Yes, Brian. Okay. Expose the wolves, expose the, the deeds of darkness.
- 36:24
- Uh, you know, Ephesians or I'm sorry. Titus one, nine says we're doing exhort and sound doctrine and refute those who contradict and Charlie.
- 36:42
- Yeah. If somebody was libeling your grandmother, you'd send, you know, a lawyer, a lawyer would send them, you know, a cease and desist order, how much more when they're blaspheming
- 36:53
- God and not just that, but preaching a false gospel that ultimately if people believe it sends them to hell that we've talked to,
- 37:03
- I talked about last week, you know, this idea of, you know, you go to present the gospel to people and they say, what?
- 37:10
- Well, I've already heard about Jesus. And the Jesus I heard about is nothing like the Jesus you're talking about.
- 37:17
- The Jesus you're talking about expects me to believe and trust in him entirely. And then
- 37:22
- I might suffer in this life. The Jesus I've heard about is the one who says, give me a buck and I'll make sure you get all the luck.
- 37:31
- See, I just did it again. That could be a rapper or something. It's a completely different gospel with a completely different God.
- 37:43
- And ultimately their God is a God who really appeals to us, right?
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- Appeals to our flesh. Why? Because he gives me what I want. I make some sort of sacrifice for him.
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- I put something on a credit card, which ultimately if I go bankrupt, I'm not going to have to pay back anyway.
- 38:02
- And I get something in return. And they're all focused on wealth and health in this life.
- 38:13
- And they make a lot of money. Number 15, true or false. The prosperity gospel teaches it's an adherence to focus on heavenly gain.
- 38:24
- I just said it was false. Uh, I mean, they actually teach things like Jesus purchased all the benefits of salvation for this life.
- 38:35
- What are the benefits of salvation for this life? Yeah, they, they will hate you because they hated me.
- 38:44
- They'll persecute you because they persecuted me. You know, I mean, the benefits of this life are what the benefits for this life are a clear conscience, right?
- 38:55
- A right standing with God, which doesn't really give us a great benefit in this life. I mean, the benefit we have also is the fellowship of the saints, but how about teaching like this?
- 39:05
- It's a sin to be poor. You imagine that your pastor says it's a sin for you to be poor.
- 39:14
- Daniel. Yeah. I mean, there are certainly temporal benefits to obeying the
- 39:32
- Lord. Absolutely. Um, but they teach, we are to obtain a present day inheritance, right?
- 39:39
- And if we read first Peter chapter one, which we're not going to do in the interest of time, but when is our inheritance revealed?
- 39:48
- Not, not this lifetime, right on judgment day. Yeah, it's, it's going to be revealed on judgment day when
- 39:58
- God reveals what he has preserved for us. Number 16, true or false. The Bible teaches we give to God so that he can bless us.
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- False. Let's name it and claim it. You know, that's all that craziness.
- 40:13
- Number 17, true or false. The prosperity gospel is primarily popular in the United States of America.
- 40:20
- It's popular all over the place. Uh, South Korea has one of the biggest churches in the world.
- 40:26
- I think it's like millions and millions of people. And, uh, it's one of those prosperity gospels all throughout the third world.
- 40:34
- Why? I mean, just imagine if you live in poverty and somebody says, if you do this, you can be rich, that'd be popular.
- 40:42
- Uh, I've told this before, but one of my seminary professors went over to France for a
- 40:48
- Bible conference. And all they wanted to know was if he knew Benny Hinn, you know, the famous American, uh, evangelist.
- 40:58
- Do you know Benny Hinn? Number 18 and last when dealing with someone in a, um, prosperity gospel church, we need to,
- 41:10
- A, identify with them so that we don't drive them away from the truth, B, evangelize them.
- 41:16
- See, start the process of Matthew 18, D all of the above or E, A, and C only.
- 41:26
- How many say D all right, Anthony. All right. Explain that. I don't even know how to do that.
- 41:35
- All that. Um, there are folks who want to not give them the bad news that they're stuck.
- 41:43
- And, and here's my question. If somebody is in a church like this, what's the difference between this and being in Mormonism or Jehovah witnesses or Roman Catholicism?
- 41:55
- You know, you have a faulty view of God, faulty view of yourself, faulty view of salvation, you know, sin, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
- 42:04
- What's the difference. There really isn't any right.
- 42:10
- A false religion is a false religion is a false religion. And in spite of the fact that it calls itself Christianity, I did like C that's why
- 42:21
- I wrote it, start the process of Matthew. Well, it's good to meet you.
- 42:27
- I'm going to confront you and kick you out of the church. I don't know how we do that, but what did
- 42:37
- I mean by a, well, what I mean, what I mean by a is I think,
- 42:42
- I think it's easy for us to see them as people who are in these kinds of churches as merely what misguided, right?
- 42:52
- They just need a little help. Somebody put as it were their arm around their shoulder and kind of, you know, help them understand the reality.
- 43:01
- Well, they do need somebody to put their arm around their shoulder and to tell them what friend you're completely off track.
- 43:13
- And again, I want to get back to this. That if we examine, it's one thing to examine things by the word of God and go, well, that's wrong.
- 43:21
- Right. But we have statements of faith that would cause us to just go.
- 43:27
- If we understand even what the confessions say, we would never do anything like this because they've got it all wrong.
- 43:34
- And we would understand that. Um, as soon as somebody says, God told me, then what do we say,
- 43:45
- Daniel? And, and, and what's shocking ultimately. Yeah. I mean, we certainly do that with Roman Catholics, but, but I would,
- 43:53
- I would suggest to you that these people are probably more devoted to their doctrine than Roman Catholics are.
- 44:03
- And the fact is that they're actually farther away from the truth, right?
- 44:09
- I, I mean, it's hard to, how do you say, uh, you know, well, this is way out there. This is out there.
- 44:15
- You know, this is semi out there and these guys are closer, but I mean, you're just about as far out there as you can get because you think you're following God.
- 44:27
- And what you're really doing is you're following a person who's making an appeal to your flesh.
- 44:34
- He's telling you that you can have what you want and have it now. And they got, that's what
- 44:39
- God wants for you. Forget about all this sin stuff, right? The only sin is not having enough faith, whatever that is.
- 44:46
- And in fact, I mean, I don't have time to go into this cause we're out of time, but they treat faith as if it is what a substance.
- 44:55
- It's like, it's like the, uh, the caulking of the universe, right? I mean, it's, it's everywhere and you use it for everything.
- 45:01
- You've got to have faith for this and faith for that. And faith, faith, faith, faith, faith, faith. And it's ultimately faith in yourself or faith in some nebulous concept of God, not in the
- 45:15
- Christ who redeems. But anyway, we need to close. Father, thank you for this time. This morning, Lord, I just pray as we come across those.
- 45:23
- And there are many who are either caught up in with these televangelists or with these churches that really are throughout our area where the gospel is neglected.
- 45:37
- And in fact, the God they present is just a God of their own imagining who is not any different than the idols of old, who simply wants to fulfill our fleshly and carnal needs.
- 45:52
- Father, I pray that as we come across folks who are caught up in this false teaching, that we would graciously and kindly tell them about sin, about a savior and about how they might be saved in Jesus name.