The True or the False Gospel — Mose Stoltzfus

Well, here we are at the closing message already. It's been a short week for me, and it sounds like it has been for many others. And I'm very thankful that you gave me the privilege to come to Northern Indiana and share with you this past week.

I sense that God has begun a good work in you and will continue to perform it until the day. Great day of God. And I sense that some of you have laid hold of some things that you will never leave behind.

And that's a joy to our hearts, and we're very grateful to see what God is doing in these various communities. I know some of you are a bit scattered here and came in here from South and West and Northwest and North and even some from East.

And I trust that God will not let you fatherless, but will raise up fellowships where the good work that has begun in you can continue. Shall we bow our heads for a word of prayer? Father in heaven, we come to you in Jesus' name.

Thank you so much for the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of individual people as they submit themselves under the mighty hand of God. Thank you for your word and ask you to break your word again.

The True and False Gospel

This final message in this series, that men and women can open their eyes and lay hold of truth in their hearts and be able to walk with you and to follow you the rest of their lives. Thank you, God, for the work that you have done early this morning in the heart of one of our dear sisters, Lord, who became born again by the Spirit of God.

Thank you for that, Lord. It has been worth being here to see someone come through a clear salvation experience like that. And many others have been revived and encouraged and awakened and we thank you for all of those things and pray that much, much more could come of this in this community in months and weeks to come.

We commit all that to you. You are the master. You are the sovereign God. We are your servants. Use us as it pleases thee. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen. I'd like to speak this final message, a bit of a combination of things here.

I guess I should have a couple of more. You always think that way when you get toward the end as preachers. We think of all we didn't say or didn't get to say. That's a little bit of what I face, but I would like to speak on the subject of the true and false gospel.

The true and false gospel. I'm going to speak first of all about the false and then I'm going to talk about the true a bit. And I know that an hour should be spent on each and more than that perhaps, but I'm not going to keep you for two hours so don't get excited, I don't think.

But we want to submit to God in all those things. But if you don't know by now, then you're going to soon find out that there is a true and a false gospel. And I further would like to say, according to the Word of God in 2 Corinthians 11 .4, if I can turn to that a moment for my opening scripture, that if he that cometh preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit which ye have not received, or another gospel which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.

What he's simply saying here is that you will find that there is a true Jesus and a false Jesus. There is a true gospel and a false gospel and there is a true spirit, Holy Spirit, and there are many, many false spirits that are going out into the world.

And Peter tells us that these spirits must be tested as to whether what they are, as to what spirit they are. And God gives us ways to do that. I had not thought of speaking specifically of that, but I may as we get into the message.

But all Jesuses must be tested. And we're at the place now in the progression of things that sometimes when voices come out of individuals declaring they are the voice of Jesus, we can pretty well assume that they are the voice of a demon who call themselves Jesus.

And we have to say, Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, or Jesus from Nazareth, in order to distinguish the true Jesus from the many false ones. And I'll be honest with you, and I think it's an honesty that you have to face, but when people come from a very conservative background, they have a tendency to overreact and go to the opposite extreme very quickly.

We have people leaving old order churches back home and stepping right into the worst of charismatic movements that are going on in the county. And I never have seen the possibility of how a man can do that, but they're able to do it.

And they're able to do it because they're in a reaction mode and therefore react to everything that they have heard and learned along the way, discovering that they were deceived and that it was dead and they've thrown everything to the wind and have gone into the world in a few short steps.

It's also interesting to me to notice that some of those people who have made that step rather suddenly, some of them have taken a number of years to do it, the next generation is back in the same sins as what they come out of.

Fornication, drugs, tobacco, cursing, and what have you. And that is very, very sad. They have just for a short time touched the light and then plunged back into darkness again. And it doesn't appear like that anything is even awake enough to consider what has happened.

Another thing that is a direct result of that is a despising of authority. They have had over-authority in their lives for many years and now they despise authority. And nobody is going to tell them anything or to guide their lives in any direction because they are against authority.

And if you take that path tonight, you will soon end up in serious trouble in your Christian life, I'll promise you. Many wrong doctrines have come out and have produced a false gospel and a false Jesus and Paul is unapologetic this afternoon when he says, if you hear any other gospel than I've preached to you, then it's a false one.

Galatians, he makes it a little stronger. He says, if it's any other gospel than I've preached, let it be accursed. Paul is unapologetic and inflexible that any other gospel or any other Jesus or any other spirit could ever be promoted in the Christian church beside the one that had already manifested himself to him.

And so, we would like to emphasize that this afternoon in our closing message as we try to lay out and help you to discern the true and the false gospel as you go out into life because it does take some biblical discernment, real biblical discernment.

The Falling Away and the Need for Biblical Discernment

If we would turn to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, I would just want to show you just a little bit of prophecy here. In 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, the Bible says in verse 3, and Jesus used these words many, many times, and the apostles use it likewise, let no man deceive you, let no man deceive you for that by any means, for that day shall not come except there be a falling away first.

Before the Lord comes, there will be a falling away first and the man of sin shall be revealed, the son of perdition who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped so that he as God sits in the temple of God showing himself that he is God.

Remember ye not that when I was yet with you I told you these things, and now ye know what withholds that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work, only he who now let us will let until he be taken out of the way.

And then shall that wicked be revealed whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders.

For this cause, excuse me, verse 10, with all receivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved, for this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie that they all might be damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

And then verse 16,. Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God even our Father which hath loved us and hath given us everlasting consolation good hope through grace comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work.

And if that's the case, you don't need to be afraid. But I do want to warn you and tell you don't you let any man deceive you. There are going to be false Christs and there are going to be false spirits and false Gospels that will come out to try to deceive you and they will try to deceive the very elect.

And the Bible says that after a time of a group of people not loving the truth for a given time and your salvation in the long run is going to be in that love of the truth that you have. That you will not accept any movement or any vibration of anything going on anywhere unless that you have examined it also by the Word of God and it rings true with the Word of God.

If it does not ring true with the Word of God then please do not accept it. Because there are many movements out there today that are professing all kinds of things and it is producing a false Gospel, a false Jesus.

And many, many, many millions are being deceived by these things. Now you might say, what is that strong delusion? And I'm going to give you an example of it tonight. I'm going to give you an example of it.

I'm not going to say exactly what the strong delusion is going to be but I at least see a forerunner of it and a number of them in our day. And like I said the other night there you will always find two ditches on either side of the road.

And the devil will always be trying to get you in one or the other of those two ditches. One of those ditches is a legalistic ditch where you will try to enhance and perfect your Christian life by law.

And you will get so saturated with law that you will leave the grace of God and lose it. And that's what our brother was talking about. I think we would have to say that the true Christian faith is built on two pillars.

It is first of all built on the pillar of faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. And then it is also built on the pillar of obedience to God's Word. And if you emphasize the obedience and begin to diminish on the faith you will be standing on one leg and you'll tip over.

And you'll get into the ditch. If on the other hand you are going to emphasize faith alone as Luther did and forget and believe that the book of James is an epistle of straw like Luther did you will fall off into the other ditch.

And we constantly have to recognize that those two ditches are a threat to us in the Christian life and experience. But what we must fear is that if we are given over to not having a diligent love of the truth and a search of the Scriptures to see as the Bereans did whether these things be so you will probably end up in a given, God-given or God-sent delusion that because you didn't love the truth and didn't love His Word He will send you a tricky one that will trip you up and cause you to be damned.

And these are hard, hard words by Paul to the Thessalonians because he doesn't want people in Heaven who didn't have the love of the truth. And he's going to send something that will screen them out and filter them out.

That's what God says. And I'll tell you, that ought to rock our boats when we realize that that's what God's going to do. But now listen to me. I want to share with you and give you a picture of a new Gospel that has come among us called, I call it, The Gospel According to Tim LaHaye.

The Tim LaHaye Gospel and Strong Delusion

I don't know if any of you have ever read the Gospel or heard the Gospel According to Tim LaHaye. But these are taught in his books called Left Behind, Desecration, Soul Harvest, Assassin, Apollyon, and the Mark, and so on, and they're still being hatched out.

And they are a false gospel. They are a false gospel. This Gospel has printed 30 million plus copies that are scattered around the world today and still on the press, hot on the press, and in the bookstores.

Every Christian bookstore has it on the front shelves practically. And even Wal-Mart and others. In our local Wal-Mart at home, they got Tim and Beverly LaHaye and the other writer that helped them write them, I think, into our store because they had the highest sales in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania of any store in America, I think, or one of the top sellers.

And I got there one night to shop and there was a long line of people out into the parking lot. And I passed this long line and every now and then I noticed they had one of these books in their hands.

And they went inside through the door and all the way down the aisle, down toward the garden center, and there they were set up to autograph the books of the people who were coming in for an autograph.

That's the kind of impact these books have made in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. And we're a drop in the bucket. Thirty million plus. And I don't know when and where the next one will come on the shelf, but there's a whole raft of these, as I already mentioned, on the shelves and probably more coming.

Listen to their teachings. You can refuse to be saved now and not receive the strong delusion promised by God to those who enter the tribulation still not believing the truth but having pleasure in unrighteousness.

You can believe the Antichrist is God. Listen to this. You can believe the Antichrist is God and still be saved later. Next one. The purpose of the tribulation is so that God can get the attention of those who previously scorned His salvation.

You can deny Christ before men and still be saved. You can confess Antichrist as the risen Lord and still be saved. And I have this documented on exactly which book and which page that that is found if you doubt what I'm saying.

I'll get you a copy of this. No matter what you do, whether it be murdering, envying, hatred, strife, commit suicide, lying, stealing, even denying the Lord Jesus, coveting, revelings, selfishness, extortion, even denying the Lord Jesus before men, you will still be in the book of life.

Because at one point in time you made a transaction with God. False doctrine. There are no human rules for the Christian during the tribulation. Next one. You can pretend to be part of Satan's kingdom of Antichrist and still be saved.

God will lead you to work for Antichrist. Next one. Antichrist has no ability to affect Christians' minds even if they are given place to the devil through sinful living. Christians can even have Satanists lay hands on them and they will not be spiritually harmed.

Next. God will motivate you not to confess Jesus Christ in order to save your life during the tribulation. The Bible says totally opposite. Your name can never be blotted out of the book of life no matter how much you serve sin to save your own life during the tribulation.

You will not have the ability to take the mark of the beast. God will render you incapable of committing this soul damning sin. And the writer here says this teaching is satanic to the core. Next one.

A person can be a Christian and hate others if they are stupid. Next one. A Christian may lie and even say, I swear while lying. You can come to Jesus Christ for fire insurance to stay out of hell. God sees you as a Christian through His sinless Son.

I want you to mark this one. God sees you as a Christian through His sinless Son. That is why Christians can serve unrighteousness, even commit murder and still go to heaven. The truth of that is God does not see the sins of Christians.

God does see the sins of Christians and certain sins cause them to not inherit the kingdom of God. 1 Corinthians 6, 9 and 10 names them off and so does Galatians 5, 19 and 21. 19 through 21. And just a few more.

I'll give you here. And you'll have a layout of a strong delusion that men are believing a lie. And the Bible says they'll be damned because they didn't love the truth. If they had loved the truth they'd throw these books out.

But they love them and they buy them by the millions. If a person is saved first, nothing can separate him from the love of God even if he does not confess Christ and receives the mark of the beast. And the Bible says if you receive the mark of the beast you cannot go to heaven.

You don't have a threat of a chance. If a person has decided for Christ he cannot change his mind. But the Bible says we can draw back on the prediction. It says we are not of those in Hebrews 10, 38 and 39 we are not of those that draw back on the prediction but are of those that believe on the saving of the soul.

God might put you on assignment to sin in order to serve Him. And if He does He'll automatically cleanse you from your sins while you are disobeying His Word and not walking in the light. And the last one, you can take the Luciferic initiation if you remind yourself to think about Jesus Christ while you are confessing with your mouth antichrist.

If that's the case the three Hebrew children would have never had to hit the fiery furnace. They could have bowed down and worshipped the God in heaven secretly while they bowed down to the image of Nebuchadnezzar in the desert.

And that is the Gospel that is being preached unto you in the religious bookstores all across the land and in the pulpits of many, many a church. And it's a false Gospel. It's a God-sent delusion not a God-sent revival.

The sales of these books has not made one iota of difference that you can tell as far as a nation is concerned in their turning back to God. In fact, since these books have been printed we have only gone headlong into deeper delusion and deception even to the Protestant church to the ordination of a homosexual bishop.

And many more are considering it and likewise so with marriages. But the Bible teaches us totally a different Gospel and that's what we want to talk about tonight. Just a little bit also in closing the true Gospel.

The Days of Noah and Lot

The Bible also says in Matthew 23 and in Luke 14 I think it is where as it was in the days of Noah so shall it also be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man. People will eat and drink and marry and give in marriage and all those things.

But they will be just like it was in the days of Noah and the days of Lot. Those men were looked at as a fool for standing up and saying that they're going the wrong way. And they laughed and hooted on their way to destruction.

While those men withdrew themselves and got themselves out of their situation one in an ark and another being led into another city by angels when the fire fell and the rain fell and destroyed those civilizations from off the face of the earth.

And that's the way it will be as it was in the days of Noah as it was in the days of Lot so shall it again be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man. It will be like that. The man who will stand up and tell you the truth by the written Word of God will seem like a fool.

And the people will laugh and mock him and persecute him. And he will go to glory in whatever way God will salvage him and the rest will be destroyed in the great destruction that's coming. Now let us switch a little bit and there's a burden on my heart a little bit that I would like to give you out of John chapter 3.

The New Birth and the Necessity of Regeneration

As we look here at the true gospel in the way John lays it out in John chapter 3. John chapter 3 verse 3 says Jesus answered and said unto him Verily, verily, I say unto you except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of heaven.

The true gospel and this is the rarity today the true Jesus is going to make it an absolute prerequisite for anyone to get the glory that he must enter through a second birth. And that second birth is clearly experiential in that the sense in which the illustration is given and I'll follow through with that clearly shows you that you must be born again and you must because that which is of the flesh is flesh and the only thing it ever can be is flesh.

And that which is of the spirit is spirit and the only way that you can get born again is by the power of the Holy Spirit. Now the brother said it this morning in essence also but I'd like to underscore it again this afternoon you will not grow into the kingdom.

You have to get born into the kingdom. Now that is sometimes a laborious process in which you prepare your heart to confess your sins and to repent and turn from them and submit yourself under the hand of God and go through a long labor process through the birth canal but it is still a birth is a birth and if you don't have a birth you have flesh.

Among conservative minded people I often find this mistake that they mistaken light for the birth. There are many people today who are enlightened. They have made a lot of changes. They are not the way they used to be.

They think different than what they once did and some of that light has come from God and out of the written word of God and by hearing sermons preached and they have shored up their lives and made themselves morally better and cleaned up their acts but John says that Jesus said and it is written in Holy Writ that except you be born again you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.

You cannot along the way but there comes a time when you are born into the kingdom or you are still waiting for that to happen. I see a lot of people they try they come in some other way. They are either up in the attic trying to get down to where the music is playing and where the joy is or they are down in the basement trying to find a hole to get up through but they won't come in by the door and the door is Jesus Christ and him crucified and if you want to get in you have to come in by the door but now let's look at the illustration that the Lord Jesus gives in John chapter 3 verse 14 to put the cap on this whole thing.

He takes us back to a scene in the wilderness when the people were bitten with fiery serpents and then a a brazen serpent was they told Moses the people were dying all over the place and God told Moses to fix a fiery serpent brazen serpent a brass serpent and put it on a pole and then the command went out to a people who were dying of being bit by this fiery serpent and these fiery serpents were slithering through the tents and they were biting young and old with a a fiery I can imagine a venomous bite that would just burn like everything and just inflame and the body would begin to swell up and they would just keel over and die in a matter of hours after they were bitten by the serpent and after a number of people had died and God instructed Moses to put this serpent on a pole the remedy for the whole business was one look of faith on that fiery serpent and they were cured of their bite.

Now you tell me what kind of a picture that gives to Christianity works a long laborious effort and strain to try to improve your life. No it was one look after you were bit with sin got you saved. And don't you make salvation so complicated.

The true gospel cannot allow the gospel to be so complicated to take away the look of faith to get genuinely saved. And you can work the rest of your life on sanctification and getting your life cleaned up and getting everything rooted out that needs to be rooted out.

But there is still a look that saves. A look that saves and anyone who tries to veer the gospel off of the look that saves ends up in legalism and it works salvation invariably a man who tries to separate the look for salvation and never come back to earth to walk with God after the healing has taken place for salvation.

That's another ditch in the road which we mentioned at the beginning and also doesn't come out right. But I do want to say we must have the look that saves. And if you are a religious person in here this afternoon and you have wanted to better your life and you have wanted to get rid of your old sins.

I tell you the true gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and it stands alone. It stands alone in all religions of the world be they Buddhists Muslims any kind of religion that exists out there Jews, Gentiles whatever.

And it has to be that we come to a look of faith that does the work and causes the light to come on and causes the transforming power of Jesus Christ to be a living reality in our lives. Now I believe that first of all first of all we have to realize that there needs to be a drawing of God and we must see our need.

There must be a conviction of sin and a travail of the soul. And I again go back to the illustration given in John chapter 3 to get the doctrine of salvation crystal clear in your mind. And that is you have to be bit first.

You are not going to look. If you are not bit why do I need to go out there and look at the serpent on the pole. I don't have any problem. And if you don't have any problem tonight you are not going to look.

But if you are dying because of your sin and you realize that the swelling is coming up over your body and if you don't do something soon you are going to choke and die. And that is the way you need to see yourself religious or none this afternoon you must see your need as a sinner that you have been bit by sin and you are going to die and go to hell if you don't get help and that help is available once you are bit and then I can imagine if you go back to the tent scene back in Israel on the camp that day and you find these old grandpas and grandmas in that tent you know who just who just said well I am not going to go out there.

What is that going to do for me. You know I am going to have to somehow get some salve on here and get this thing better or maybe exercise myself in all kinds of ways that they could have come up with to try to get the poison out of the system when it was established by God that all you needed to do was look and live.

And that is the picture. Why is that story brought in to John chapter 3. Because Jesus Christ through the Apostle John is trying to give a message to the whole new covenant for the last 2 ,000 years that what you and I need is to recognize that you have been bit by sin and that you are going to die and go to hell if you don't get some help and that you are slowing up and you are doomed and if you don't do something pretty quick it will catch up with you and you are going to die.

But what you do need to do is once you recognize that you are bit by sin and see your sinfulness and you are sick of it and you don't want to live. You don't want to feel the pain and have the misery of it.

And that you will look to Jesus Christ. And a look of faith will save you from a life of sin. And you can be healed. And you can live forever not just for the rest of your life here on earth but you can live forever.

That is the new birth. And God does the healing. Those Israelites did not heal themselves. Mark that down. There is a doctrinal foundational truth in that illustration again those people did not heal themselves with their own exercise and rubbings and witchings.

And what have you. They did not save themselves. It was the look that healed them. But it was the supernatural power of God that healed them. And that is the way it is with salvation. Salvation is a work of regeneration by God.

Repentance, Regeneration, and the True Gospel

Now repentance is a destructive work in our life. We begin to pull down the old building by admitting that its foundations are wrong. We are sinners. We have done this we have done that we have done the other thing and we are guilty before God.

But the regeneration work of the power of the Holy Spirit is the constructive work and changes us by the power of a living God. That is the true gospel. And anyone else who preaches any other gospel than that kind of gospel it is not the gospel that Paul preached.

It is not the gospel that Christ taught. I can prove it to you in John chapter 3. I can prove it to you in most of the epistles in the New Testament that Paul wrote that Peter wrote that John wrote they preached the gospel that was life changing and it was able to start with a look that lived and that transformed and that changed.

That has to be the true gospel. And when Jesus Christ came on the earth just before he started his earthly ministry we have so clearly that lead to us by the message of John the Baptist in Matthew chapter 3 when he said concerning Jesus they came out.

A number of people came out to be baptized and wanted to be baptized too. When John started baptizing on the repentance and he stopped them and said not everybody that comes out to be baptized is ready to be baptized.

Oh generation of vipers who I warned you to flee from the wrath to come. Then he says in chapter 8 bring forth therefore fruit meet for repentance. And in verse 10 he says. And now also the axe is laid to the root of the tree.

Therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. Let me assure you this afternoon that that is what a mark of the true gospel. Again the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ lays the axe to the root of the problem.

And today so many people want to be saved from the penalty of sin but not deal with the problem of sin. Oh I want to do something to get the fire insurance like Tim LaHaye is saying for your soul I want to do something so I don't go to hell and die.

But you don't want to deal with the root of the tree. You don't want to deal with the root of the problem. But John the Baptist said when this Jesus is going to come this Messiah starts his earthly ministry he's going to lay his axe at the root of the tree.

And you will not only be able to deal with the penalty of sin hell in the future but you can deal with the root of your problem now. And that was the message of the new gospel the new covenant Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

And that is worth preaching today. And today we have it all turned around. And the people will tell you that not every tree that doesn't bring forth. You know what they'll say? You know what they say?

They say every tree that doesn't bring forth good fruit loses its reward. That's what they say today. And God says if you don't have good fruit you will be hewn down and cast into a fire. And the difference between losing your reward or being cast into a fire is miles apart eternities apart.

They're lying to you. They're lying to you in all the books in all the messages that tell you you can live like the devil and still go to heaven. It's not true. You have to bring forth good fruit. And that's why I tell you the truth is built on the pillars of salvation in a decision for Christ and repentance of your sin and coming to Him by faith and then also in walking in God's holiness that God has given us in His word to live by.

And we cannot stand on one leg and expect that we won't fall over the new birth. It's the work of the Holy Spirit. It saves us from the love and the practice of sin. It gives us the power to obey God's commandments and puts a love for God and a love for truth and a love for humans in our hearts.

I've said before when I preached on the new birth that it's just like my marriage vows. My wife and I are married for 37 years just back in June the 25th. We've been married for 37 years and we still don't have our marriage vows framed up and on a wall in our living room so that we can go over them every week in order to remember what we promised one another.

And I think she'd testify and I know I would that that's not been necessary. That doesn't say we've not been perfect that we've been perfect. But I know one thing the love that I have for her does not necessitate that I have to go to a law and see what I promised 37 years ago in order to keep it.

It just is an actual outflow of the love of my heart. And that's the way it is with the gospel. And that's the way it is with God. And when you have that his yoke is easy and his burden is light and I've found it so I've found it.

So the Christianity is not the complexity that many people are making it. It is very simple. It is very forthright but it is not difficult. It is simple look and live. Look and live. But you have to know you need help.

You need to know that you're bit by the fake snakes. And that's why Jesus Christ was lifted up from the cross. That whole act back there in Exodus was a type of Jesus Christ being lifted up on a cross that now all those that will look on Him when they're hurting and they're burning with the venom of sin in their life can be saved.