The Book of Life — Thaddeus Barnum

Almighty God and Father, I simply pray this morning that You would grant mercy and kindness to us as we live in these difficult days, that we might know You and Your Son, Jesus Christ, and be filled with the Holy Spirit to live and endure until the last day.

Give us strength, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Please be seated. There are Bibles coming down the aisle. If you'd like a Bible, if you've brought your Bible, go with me to Revelation chapter 20.

The Great White Throne and the Book of Life

Revelation and chapter 20. I want to pick up this verse that you'll find in chapter 20, verse 11 of Revelation, which in many ways is a parallel to the Daniel text that was just read to us from Daniel chapter 7.

But here it goes. In Revelation 20 and verse 11,. And I saw a great white throne, and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened.

And another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them, and they were judged, every one of them, according to their deeds.

And death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. It is these kinds of scriptures that are presented before us continually in the pages of scripture.

This verse 11, we're standing here in the throne room of the Almighty. Before the great throne, it said the great white throne, and the ancient of days is seated upon it. So great is His holiness and His majesty that earth and heaven flee away.

They cannot even stand in the presence of the Holy One. And they can't even, it says in verse 11, find a place. But the ones who do stay are called the dead, the great and the small, who, if you look carefully at verse 12, the dead are standing before the Lord, and the books are opened.

And there's another book called the book of life, and the dead are judged according to their deeds. Now this is it. This is the moment that I would say we have got to speak of a day that is coming when the ancient of days comes, when the Son of Man comes in the cloud of glory, when everyone who has ever been born, great or small, will stand before the ancient of days and judgment will be rendered.

And it says here there are books that are opened. And what ends up invariably taking place is that you and I and everybody ever born are going to be in this day when the court is seated and the books are opened.

Now this is a moment that's coming, and it has always been impressed upon me that my job in this work has been to prepare people for this moment. Now, I'm going to pause and put this sermon on pause for a few minutes.

Motivational Speaking and the Promise of Possibility

I'm really wrestling with something. It was articulated in the man a few weeks ago who, after I was done preaching, announced to me he was an atheist, a pagan man. But he had been in the church, and he had heard me preach, and he came up to me and he said, I find you a motivational speaker.

What you say is quite positive, and you reinforce belief in ourselves. I wish I'd had a CD of the same sermon in my pocket to give him and to rethink it. I don't think I mentioned any of those things.

But this is what he said to me, and this is what I want to present to you. The dangers of the times that we're living in, I thought, were captivated by this man's comments. Motivational speaking. I have been in TV, I'm watching TV shows where sometimes I can't distinguish the preacher from the info commercial man.

Something's happening. Something's engaging here that I want to uphold. There are six principles. No, I didn't read a book about this. I'm living it, and I'm living in the generation of it. People want to have this sense of a positive future.

They want a sense that when they're coming into the rough world that they're living, that there's a positive nature of what's ahead of us. And so our messages and the message of a motivational speakers always be positive and is to be personally point to affirming.

Everybody wants to be personally affirmed. Get with the program. The third thing is we all want to see tomorrow morning when we wake up that there are possibilities. We might not see the possibilities, but we've got to have somebody show us the possibilities.

Maybe it's in the area of finances. Maybe it's in the area of weight, diet plans. Maybe it's in the area of personal happiness or inner peace. Maybe it's in the area of relationships. Maybe it's in the area of self-affirmation or needing to belong or needing that spot in that place where we've got purpose in life.

We've got to see possibility. Maybe you need to see possibility in parenting. So we'll do an eight-week series on parenting just so that you can be having that sense of possibility. As I said some months ago, all of us have got the plates spinning.

Everybody's got all these plates spinning. We want to come into an environment where one, there's a positive future to I'm personally affirmed and three, that there are possibilities out there. Point four.

And this is the critical one that you've got to tell me that there's something good inside of me that's got the potential to make those possibilities realized in my life. And that's what motivational speakers do.

They come and they tap that area in us, which says you can do this. I came in. I didn't think I could. I'm overwhelmed by life, but I'm here to say to you that there's something good inside of you that can rise up to the moment.

See the possibility, be affirmed and know that your future is positive. And that brings us to the fifth point, that there will be results that will come. Prosperity will be yours in finances. Weight reduction will be yours.

If you just stay with my program for 10 to 12 years, you'll have personal happiness, spiritual happiness. You'll be affirmed. You'll be blessed. If you just buy my product, 49 95 over the next 15 years, this is exactly what the world is doing.

It's selling us things. It's constantly selling us things so that we can somewhere find in us the blessing to rise up on the day and to move out. It always leads to the six point action. Motivational speakers always move us to action.

There's something to do. We are provoked or promoted to do something. And that's what motivation means. It means you've come to the, you've come in, you're thoroughly depressed. You're on the edge of divorce.

You're 50 pounds overweight here. Your finances are a joke. And you need somebody to show you a positive future, that there's a personal affirmation somewhere in it. For me, there are possibilities where my life can be changed possibilities.

And that potential resides inside of me. And in that, I'm going to see change. I'm going to see results. I'm going to see prosperity. I'm going to see something. And I'm going to rise up here and I'm going to act today.

Why Motivationalism Enters the Church

That's called motivation. Motivational speaking is that moment when we are encouraging it. And my point is today, it's come into our churches. That you cannot separate the preachers from the motivational speakers.

There's this familiarity. Why is that? Well, I think there's a couple of reasons. All of us want those six points at the end of the day. That's what we want. We've got sort of an addiction to wanting to feel good, to have something going on inside of us where we're affirmed.

I've got to stand up today and know that in me is the potential for a positive future and possibility. You've got to tell me that there's a certain craving, a certain addiction for this kind of thing.

And so it makes our appeal. It makes this kind of wanting this, this allowance to come into our churches, because that's what people are wanting to hear. And so it's easy just to give it. I have been with very strong Christian leaders that cannot separate preaching from motivational speaking.

People who call themselves mature in Jesus Christ cannot tell the difference. Why? Because by the time you're done with motivational speaking, you feel good and you walk out. And the thing that's amazing in our churches is we coat it with scripture.

We put the name of Jesus on it, and therefore we stamp it as the gospel when it's not. It's not the gospel. That's the problem with it. Underneath it, it's moving against the gospel. It's doing the very thing, the very opposite of which Jesus came to do himself.

But it's come. And I am finding that leaders are being sucked into leaders. Creatures are being sucked into it. Why? I'm going to tell you why. I'm telling you this. I know this better than any of you.

Church of the Apostles would be double the size if we went with this program. I know that. After being two years here, I know this. As we come to June and this church being two and a half years, I know how to fill this place.

You know, Dan Fox used to sit over here, but Dan has fled the country. It's probably with our kids. Dan Fox is a very, very gifted man. I'm actually glad he's not here. I can speak completely about him, but it's Kimberly here.

That might be the real question. Dan is a very gifted man. If we wanted to turn this worship team into an entertainment, we could do it in a minute. And by the time that they're done, he's got the gifting to entertain us.

Keith knows how to stand in the pulpit just in front of people. He's very funny. He's very gifted, actually, in front of people. You probably don't know that because one of the things I said to him, one of the things that we made a choice here at Apostles, you've got to put the humor aside.

You've got to get that natural gifting of wanting to entertain aside. We've got to come here, the gospel of Jesus. And that means you've got to do things inside of you, which you make choice. We're not going to motivate.

We're not going to entertain. We're going to come to the Savior. We're going to come to this gospel. And that's what I said right off from Keith. You've got to come. And as you're as you're as you're preaching, as you're as you're speaking, tell us the truth.

That's what people have got to hear. At the end of the day, it's the truth of the gospel that we need to hear. Not something that's going to double our size, but the temptation. I cannot tell you the temptation out there when you're planting a church.

Church Growth, Leadership, and the Temptation to Please People

What people want to do is they want to grow. They want people. Don't get me started on the subject. Do you know what I deal with all the time are calling committees for churches? And at the end of the day, the calling committee says, yes, we want people that believe in the scripture.

If it's a if it's a strong evangelical church, we want people who are strong in the scripture, strong in their belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, that they're born again, all these sort of credentials. But at the end of the day, what's the pulse of the calling committee?

We have got to get somebody that's going to bring life into this church, inspire, motivate and grow. That's always the key underneath it. And always what we find is that people and I'm sorry, I've seen this in mature congregations.

What we're looking for at the end of the day is somebody who is going to come and really beef us up and motivate us a call on that inner thing inside of us, which is so good that we'll rise up and that we'll live different lives because of it, inspire and motivate.

And that's called leadership. It's not called leadership. Do you know, I can put a donkey up here that can say if he's going to please you, if the message is going to please you, he'll, of course, gather people.

It's not difficult to have a passion to please people. If that's your passion, go please people. I'm telling you, that's why much of our church in America is growing today. Why is it growing? Because people are saying you've got to come to our church.

It feels good to be at our church. And so the churches are actually growing and there's building programs and the pastors are now actually there to give us the five points that are going to make us feel good.

Get that get that motivation going, inspire us to live more godly lives. We pepper, we salt the sermons with scripture so that it sounds like it's about Jesus when in fact what it's doing is calling on us to to to find in us this good that will make us live differently.

At the end of the day, there's self potential underneath it. This this rising up of the belief that there is something good inside of us. Now when I present to you, I'm going to tell you straight out this is please never study the Book of Romans.

Never come to it. Never address it. That's why Paul's entire first three chapters are devoted to the actual bringing down of this heresy to the conclusion in Romans chapter three. If you're if you've got your Bibles in Romans chapter three, I want you to see what a great motivational speaker Paul was Romans chapter three.

Romans 3 and Humanity's Lack of Righteousness

Here is the summation of his argument. He actually pulls this from the Old Testament. Talking of the Jews, are we better than they? Verse nine, Romans three, verse nine, not at all. For we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin and it is written there is none righteous, not even one.

There is none who understands. There is none who seeks for God and dropping down verse 18. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God, accountable to God.

One day standing before that great white throne. That's what Paul is saying. All of us are going to be accountable to God. And here's the indictment. We're all sinners. We've all fallen. We're all in a place where there's no nothing good inside of us.

That's the statement of the Bible. How do you motivate somebody like that? See, what's happening here is this. If we come to a place where there's something good inside of us, my dear friends, we don't need Jesus.

We don't need him. If there's something good inside of us that we can call something inside us that can that can make the day and something inside of us, a good work that we can do, then what we'll say is that good work will get us into heaven.

There aren't good works that will get us into heaven, that's the whole point of needing a savior. That's how we do it. We we call upon the Lord who who has got to meet us in the minutes, if not, no, not even one.

We're not going to stand when the court sits and the books are opened. This is the whole point of it, where we're ravaged not only by a by a by a gospel that's contrary. These are six principles that are working in the world.

Our financial system is built on these six principles, not the gospel. I'm so sorry to tell you this. This is how my grandfather, great grandfather made money. Suckers are born every minute. He knew the principle, he knew it, he understood it, and therefore pitch a tent and anybody will come.

And the idea is, by the time you're done, you'll have a blessing. You'll be you'll be encouraged by whoever you are. For those of you who don't know my name, my name is Barnum. That's the whole point underneath the principle that's the secular principle, but it is the devil's own principle that we might salt and pepper this gospel so that actually at the end of the day, you'll hear scripture, you'll see and hear about Jesus on some level.

But at the end of the point, it's all going to be about you being personally affirmed, seeing your possibility and tapping the good potential inside of you that will make that possibility a reality. And you'll have benefit at the end.

That that is contrary to the gospel of Jesus. It is contrary because the gospel begins the opposite. No, sir, there is nothing good inside of me. I have to underscore this because, again, I appeal, I make my appeal.

There are Christians who have been long time in the Lord who don't know these things and can't discern them. And I don't know why I've seen it all over. I remember one day a preacher came into into a church I was serving.

I was on the staff of this church and a preacher. They flew him in from some other country and he got done. Everybody I interviewed people afterwards, they were thrilled with the sermon. They were. And the man was very gifted.

He was a very gifted speaker. And I went immediately to people, all kinds of people. What did you think of this sermon? And they were they were overwhelmed by the wonder of the day and they felt blessed by him.

And I said to some of them, especially the mature. Are you aware that the gospel was not preached in your church this day? We got motivationalism. We did not get the gospel that saves. Did you know that they did not?

I had to walk it through with them. And I'm talking about people who have been seasoned, mature, who know their scriptures, who couldn't discern it because at the end of the day, we're addicted to motivation.

We're addicted to this this unrighteous gospel that's crept into our church. Twenty two years ago today, I stood in the pulpit of a church on staff and was fired. Twenty two years today, and I saw my history, I saw my future.

Denying the Resurrection and the Authority of Scripture

It wasn't good. I saw my future. What I was dealing with in those days and we're still dealing with it today. Is it there are people in the pulpit that are actually publicly denying Jesus Christ? And the person under whom I was serving at that time had given the message denying the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I was in a pickle because I didn't know what to do. I was up to preach. I could not stand with him. I called the person overseeing me. I said, what do I do? He said, you preach the gospel. And I said, well, thanks be to God.

You better have plans for me afterwards. I thought that my life would be spent dealing with these people who are in the pulpit, denying Jesus publicly. Denying Jesus at the cross, denying him. This is why for me, many people today, many people, many pulpits today are being filled with preachers speaking about the Da Vinci Code.

I know that. Let me just tell you something. Da Vinci Code speaks for itself. The secular world has picked up this Da Vinci Code is denying the authority of scripture. What else do you want from the world?

Of course, it is. The Da Vinci Code is denying the deity that Jesus, as son of God, they're tearing him apart. But what do you expect from the world? Of course it is. And it's denying the work of the church as being now under reproach for hiding truth and bringing down the reputation of the church over these 2000 years.

Deny the Bible, deny Jesus, deny the church. I'm sorry, the devil's been doing this for a long, long time. It doesn't take a long time to figure out that this Da Vinci Code is not of the Lord. And I'm not so concerned about the Da Vinci Code.

And you won't hear anything more about it, at least from me in the pulpit, because these things are self-evident. What's not self-evident is how the devil brings in a gospel that's foreign and deceives the Christians from understanding it's the wrong gospel.

That's what concerns me. There is something far more dangerous in the pulpits today than the Da Vinci Code. One and two, this this overt denying of Jesus. It's this it's this thing. I can only call it motivationalism.

Preaching the Truth Rather Than Motivating or Entertaining

I don't know. I don't know what else to call it. This is why I've had to make a statement. I've had to say it. I've had to say it to the staff. I've had to say it as Errolyn and Keith come to preach or anybody preaches here.

I'm sorry. Our job is not to motivate. Our job is to preach the truth. That's our job. And sometimes what does the truth find? It convicts us. It brings us to a savior. It calls out for Jesus. That's what it does.

It's not here to give us what we're actually longing for. We went through New Covenant members class with 20 or so people who are standing up. They may not stand up now, but they were they were they were completely planning on it.

Not long time ago. And and what they were commenting back is that apostles is not a comfortable place to be. This is why I'm telling you about mission. I know how other churches are growing. You have no idea what a temptation this is for the preacher.

There's a temptation to want you so excited about apostles that you'll run out, you'll tell your friends and the rest of these seats will be filled. And you'll come in and you'll say, oh, you've got to be at this church.

It's a wonderful church. It's a great church. I always feel good when I leave this church. I've always got that wonderful joke that I've got to tell my mates in the morning when I get to work. I've always got that wonderful little story that ran the goose bump down my hands.

And I feel like I'm I'm just charged up for the day. And then they come to apostles and we never see them again. I'm sorry, the pulpits never been about you. It's always been the declaration of him. Always.

It's always been this this passion, because one day we're going to stand before him and our job has only been to ask one question. Is your name in the book of life? The Lamb's book of life, this book, is it there?

Christ Alone, Conversion, and the Lamb's Book of Life

I had a man come to me, the very dear friend of mine, when he came to know Jesus. It was because somebody didn't say come to a church that will bless you. He said, come to a church where you'll meet Jesus.

He heard the gospel of Jesus. And that night after receiving Christ into his life, he had a vision, a dream, a picture. He saw the Lord giving him a charge. A calling. He saw two books that were opened, the book of condemnation.

And the book of life. And he saw the Lord giving him the ability in the preaching of this gospel. Where the lamb, Jesus would take names out of the book of condemnation and write them in the book of life.

And he said, from that day on, I knew my calling. The gospel begins where our names are in the book of condemnation. Our job is to say, Lord Jesus Christ, by your grace and mercy, in fear and in trembling, take our name out.

Because on that day, if I am judged according to my deeds, I will not stand. It's with fear and trembling. It's with this extraordinary cry, Lord, have mercy upon me, a sinner. It's the Lord's grace and mercy because of what he did at Calvary, that Jesus allows us to hear that calling and watch him by grace, take our name out of this book and put us into the book of life.

You want me to entertain you? I can't. And I've tried. You know, not many times I've been in my office with people who are in sin. And I've tried with all of my heart to let them see what that sin will do for them, I can motivate by saying, look, pick yourself up, man, live a good day.

There are things inside of you. You can tackle this addiction. I know you can. And I'll walk with you. You'll do it. Yes, you can. But I know it's not true. I know he'll like me at the end because I'll motivate him and that night he'll go to bed and he'll feel good about our meeting.

But our meetings are a waste of time because tomorrow he'll go back to his addiction. There's only one that can save him. And so I make my appeal. But my appeal, I can see it in their eyes when the deer looks back at me with the headlights beaming him.

They're not going to do this. I can try to convince, but there's nothing I can do. There's only one motivator, it's the Lord. That's what happens. The Lord motivates somebody. That's what happens when somebody rises up.

It's not because I've said something or a preacher has said something or the Bible has said something. It's because they've heard the voice of the Lord saying to them, come and they rise up and they know that the Lord is calling them to seek him.

And suddenly they come and they say, it's not what you said. It's what he said when you said it. Why are they motivated? They're motivated because they realize it's Christ alone. It's Christ alone who can strengthen us through all things, not motivationalism.

It's the opposite of motivationalism. It's Christ alone. How often I wish I had the power in my hand to deliver people out of sin and put them in the book of life, but I have no power. But what I have the power is I have the power to sin and tempt you to believe that I can make you do something that will make you live a better day.

And I can't. It's wrong. It's against the gospel. It's against the gospel. If it's true, then Jesus had no reason to come. If there's something good inside us, there's no reason for Jesus to come. And that's why there's only one gospel from the beginning.

The Gospel of Grace, Holiness, and the Work of the Spirit

It's him and it's him alone. He sets us free. He delivers us. He fills us with the power of his spirit to live this life that I can't live. He's the one that enables us. He's the power that cross to forgive us our sins.

He's the one. And people want to hear five teachings on what it is to be a better parent. More than that, five teachings on what you can do in your life to be a better person, five teachings on what you can do to find personal happiness in your life.

And these churches are growing, salted with scripture, salted with the name of Jesus, and they're growing. I know that. And you have no idea the temptation of going that direction. I would that this church were completely filled, but I know why it's not.

I know that there's got to be a statement that gets us away from this gospel, which is more dangerous in our country than any other. It's got to start with a people in passion for Jesus Christ and for him alone.

And that's why when these covenant members, whatever remnants remain, stand up and say, I'm making a commitment to this church because I believe this, I believe that Jesus Christ has placed me here. A part of the local body of faith, that's what he does, he puts us into the body of Christ, I learned this so early in the days back at the days when the great preacher Terry Fulham used to say, a Christian who is not in the local church is a dying Christian.

He takes us and he places us into the book of life and in the book of life, he places us amongst Christians, wherein we can live and move and have our life according to God's word, where we can be strengthened, where we can be accountable, where we can live together in the joy of the Lord.

That's what he does. That's why Jesus said, don't boast, don't rejoice in the ministry God has given you rejoice that your names are recorded in the book of life. That we're found there, that he's done this work inside us, after all these years, I have found something inside of me that has just given up, I make a choice, I make a choice not to go this way, I choose not to proclaim a gospel that's going to make you feel better, but in the end, when you meet Jesus, you'll never know anything like it, when you meet Jesus and trust him.

When you meet Jesus and the Holy Spirit begins to work in your life, you'll never know anything more great, but what he's going to do is he's going to deal with the areas of your life that are in sin, and he's going to call you to stop it.

That's what he does. And if you want to live in sin and still have Jesus, you're going to have to go to a different church. That's just the way it is, because you can't come before the Lord in reverence to the scriptures, and you can't come and ask the Holy Spirit to be with you and upon you, and you can't come into the body of Christ, and then believe that you'll be allowed to walk in the path of sin from that point on, it's just not true.

The hound of heaven wants us to live godly and righteous in this day, and say no to ungodliness in this day, and that's why I say I've learned, I've learned my lesson, he is the motivator, he is the motivator, I had one man I was talking to, he was completely lost in addiction, he came into my office, we had a conversation, at the end of the conversation, I knew why he was in my office, you know why, you'll never guess.

The Lord as the True Motivator

His wife said, you either go and talk with him, or I'm out of here, that's motivation, he was there to save his marriage, do you think he got out of his addictions, he did not, and what I said to him is, my friend, I'm going to tell you this straight out, you are not ready, you have not hit bottom, you have not cried out for mercy, you have not asked the Lord to help you, you are coming here because of your wife, until you own this as yours, not because I say it, or your wife says it, until you've met the Lord, and he says it, when he says it, then you'll find it.

He came to me with tears in his eyes and said, I am free in the name of Jesus, and I said, who's the motivator, the Lord is the motivator, that's what the Holy Spirit does, he motivates us to live a godly life where the cross is in front of us, where Jesus lives his life to strengthen us in what we've got, not us, him, him, and guess who he gave praise to, it was a sad moment, he gave praise to the Lord.

He didn't come up to me and say, dad, I want you to know, it was what you said, and the way you articulated it, oh, you're so gifted and lovely and affirming, and boy, you did such a wonderful thing, no, no, thank God, there's nothing I can do about this, I can't deliver him from that, who can, the Lord, Jesus Christ, that's who does it, and that's who we proclaim.

A Church Centered on Jesus Rather Than Entertainment

I think eventually this church will grow, but it's going to grow by the people who need Jesus. It's going to grow by you reaching out to the people who are hurting and saying, you know something, if you want to go to Entertainment City, there's a great church down the street, but if you want to go here, we're going to find the well of water deep that's going to allow us to tap and touch the great well that is Jesus.

Please hear me, there are many churches in this town that are preaching Jesus, but there are also many churches that are preaching motivationalism, and our Christians are not able to distinguish. My friends, have you, as Dan comes up to sing and lead us in this song, I've got this to say, is it well with your soul?

That's the nature of this song, is it well with your soul? That takes examination. Father in heaven, I pray today especially that you would forgive us in the church who have been so tempted to want the church to grow that we've compromised the gospel.

We pray, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon us and especially upon our people in this country. Lord Jesus, I pray for everyone here that you would give us the discernment by the Holy Spirit to separate motivationalism from the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That you'd give us wisdom by your Spirit that we might not tap the resource of our own potential, which we have none of, but to confess our sin and to cry for mercy and to call upon Jesus to rescue and empower us for life, the blood of the cross.

Help us, Lord, to be able to say and to know by what you have done, it is well, it is well. Our names are recorded by your own hand in that book of life, it is well. Jesus, Lord, have mercy upon us. We pray these things to the honor and to the glory of your holy name.

Amen.