The Battle for Truth - 7 Traits of False Prophets — Shane Idleman

The Battle for Truth and the Need for Spiritual Discernment

We've been talking about the battle for truth, correct? There's a battle for truth going on right now in our nation. Is anyone aware of that? Okay, good, not just me. And the title is Seven Characteristics of False Prophets.

The battle for truth, seven characteristics of false prophets. And the reason I'm doing this, again, is because I didn't quite finish from last week. So I wanna just do part two and pick up here. I'm gonna try to get through the first points fairly quickly, but all of you listening online or listening to the message or here, you can find all of these at shaneidleman .com.

I'm gonna release an article tomorrow, hopefully, with these same points. And we left off where? In Ephesians, what does Paul say to the church in Ephesus? Gird up with the truth. Gird up your loins with the truth of God's word.

What does that mean? Fasten the truth of God's word to you. And now, more than ever before, we need to be grounded to the truth of God's word. We know what's happening, right? Kingdoms are colliding. Looking at the news, kingdoms are colliding.

Here's what's happening. Let me give you a brief overview. Believers are now getting more involved, even in government. So what does that mean? You think the enemy likes that? Of course not. And of course, we know, many of us feel that the end time scenarios are playing out.

So I'll be talking about that in the next two weeks. We've got a spiritual battle also is coming against the church, coming against Christians. The recent order to not sing in church. I mean, it's getting ridiculous.

And that's why I really prayed that prayer, because I don't want my opinions to come into this. I don't want Shane Eidelman to come out. But there should be a righteous indignation within true spirit-filled believers on what is going on.

There should be something that is upsetting to you, and that drives you to your knees. That's why I said last week, you can have a full gun safe, but if your prayer closets are empty, we're in trouble.

That's really where our hope comes from is in seeking God again and breaking our arrogant hearts and humbly seeking him. And there are certain players I've talked about before. I wanted to let you know, of course, what's going on.

And what you're seeing is there's a funding, there's influencing, and there's controlling, okay? The funding of what is the rioting and the looting and a lot of those things are being pushed and funded by, and I mentioned George Soros and other organizations that want to see America collapse.

So you have the funding, you also have the influencing. Do you think the media, the secular media is on God's side right now? They are influencing us, they are influencing our nation. And then, of course, you have the control aspect, the politicians trying to say, don't do this and do this and don't do this and we need to be that sounding voice now more than ever before.

If you, what's that old saying, forever speak up now or forever hold your peace because at some point you won't be able to say what you're saying or what we're saying today. They're gonna start to call it hate speech.

I like what Jim Garlow said. I just, I kind of printed it just in case and a friend of mine wrote this, Jim Garlow. He said, dear health experts and leftists and progressive Democrats and the media, let me just say that.

To you, we might be the deplorables, but we are not ignorant. We know the truth. For you, for the record, we lost trust in you some time ago. We see through your hypocrisy and your feeble and failed attempts to justify your positions.

This is why you yell and scream so loudly. 1 ,000 of you health experts said that we would be plagued by this virus and to not meet in stores or parks or gather for worship. Yet you affirm the rioters and the protesting and the looters, the thieves and all these activities claiming that this does not present a health concern.

You see the hypocrisy and it has to be called out at some point, I believe. And what will happen, God will raise up voices to speak the truth. A .W. Tozer said, when we become so tolerant that we lead people into mental fog and spiritual darkness, we are not acting like Christians, we are acting like cowards.

I'm gonna say that again for those who wanna tweet this. When we become so tolerant, think about this, when we become so tolerant that we actually lead people into spiritual fog, into deception, we are not acting like Christians, we're acting like cowards.

And that's what you'll see out there. I know Sean shares his passion as I do for this. So many leaders are remaining silent. And their silence speaks volumes. But praise God, God will raise up voices.

We need to be encouraged. God will raise up voices, but we must listen. It's interesting to me, right before the collapse of Jerusalem, right before its fall, you can read this, God said to his people through the prophet, I sent messengers to my people, rising them up early and sending them.

Why? Because I had compassion on my people and on my dwelling place, but they mocked my messengers, despised my word, and scoffed at the prophets until the anger of the Lord arose against his own people until there was no remedy.

What do you do when God says you want it, you got it? It's interesting that he chose those three words, mocked. What is mocked? That's imitation, imitating, and mocking. And now there's coming out the transgender lesbian Jesus.

And Netflix is picking up. You see, mocking, this mocking that we're seeing throughout our nation, despising is deep hatred, deep hatred. And be clear here, evil, when it goes unchecked, can get terribly wrong.

We're not far from what happened in Germany with Hitler. Because evil, when it goes unchecked, gets progressively worse. And I don't wanna alarm people, and I'm trying to be careful here. I know we've got kids in here.

But once we open that door to gay marriage, and now men wanting to marry men, and maybe three at a time marrying three people, now there's a big push even for pedophilia. You're gonna see that, where they're gonna start pushing this.

And if this doesn't raise a holy indignation in you, I don't know what to tell you. You're probably spending too much time in the world, not in a time of God's word. We need to have that holy fire again that calls the nation to repentance.

Jesus' Warning About False Prophets

So where do we leave off? Here's where I'm picking up, Matthew 24. Matthew 24, that many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because of lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.

And I do believe that Jesus was talking to his contemporaries there in Matthew, when he's talking to the disciples. He was talking specifically to them in the early church. But I also believe that there are principles that apply to us now, that there are false prophets and false teachers that have been rising up in every generation.

That's actually where the word antichrist comes from. So many people are worried about, there's an individual, but actually the spirit of the world, the spirit of what's rising up is an antichrist spirit against Christ, antichrist.

And so I believe more than ever before, there is a battle for truth. There's a battle for truth. We have to be able to spot out those who are false prophets. But throughout the message here, I'm gonna give you a little glimmers of hope.

Praise God. Amen. So the first one on hope, we need hope, we need hope, is that when the enemy rises up a false prophet, God will bring up a true spokesperson. Or actually it's the opposite. God usually calls the true prophet, and then the false prophet, the enemy will bring in to cut.

So anytime you see the enemy working, trust me, God is working as well. And there's tremendous hope in that. I know it's hard, I know it's difficult, but we should not allow fear to fuel our decisions and live in a state of fear.

You don't have fear in you as a believer, right? The Bible says there's not a spirit of fear. He doesn't give you a spirit. So where does it come from? It comes from feeding on the wrong things and not conforming our mind to the goodness and grace of God and focusing on hope.

Listen, even as we go down, I'm focusing on hope. Even as things look like it's in disarray, I'm focusing on the God of order. You readjust your mind, fix your thoughts on what is good and noble and honest and things that are right.

If you're spending a lot of time on Netflix and you're fearful, I can tell you why. Too much of the world, too much of fear, too much of anxiety, you're feeding those things. And what you feed becomes the dominating force in our lives.

We have to get back to worshiping God and seeking him. So I wanna give a point of clarification that I don't know if I did last week, but there are false prophets who say that they believe in Jesus. Okay, there's also false prophets, cults, I've talked about cults before, who deny his deity.

And many times you'll hear them do this on your door. Right? So, well, no, he's not really God. And so that's clearly a false prophet. But there's also those that rise up inside the church, wolves in sheep's clothing.

And there are wolves among you. And we can look at Jude, we can look at Peter. I mean, there's so many verses. So that's really what I'm focusing on this morning is those who appear, oh, we believe in Jesus too, but the fruit is not there.

Second Peter, but there will be false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you who secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them. And they bring on themselves swift destruction.

That's this side, that's your group, okay? You guys can be the ones who deny Jesus. And you guys can be the hypocrites that you say you believe in him, but you really don't. And we found ourselves last week in Jeremiah.

And you can tell often by what calling God has given you, by what book of the Bible you like. If you like John the Beloved, and oh, that's so nice, and just laying back in Jesus's bosom, and being slow to speak, and you might have that calling.

But if you like the fire of Isaiah and Jeremiah, you might be a John the Baptist. So I just read through Isaiah and Jeremiah. It's food for my soul, and Psalm, the Psalms. Those, I just love those. And I can relate with Jeremiah.

He said, my heart within me is broken. Can we all not agree when you look at the news? Did you know, just, it's gonna be out. I don't know if you saw it yet. The Los Angeles School District's Teachers Union said the kids are not coming back to school until you defund charter schools and defund the police.

Well, let me say, I got a message for LA Unified School District. Not on my watch, not on my watch. There are people standing up, standing up. If you wanna defund the police, it might mean you're doing something wrong.

I didn't want the police in my 20s. I was driving around with that quart of Jack Daniels in between my legs, and I was on a highway to hell. I was singing ACDC. I am on a highway to hell. I was singing Metallica, darkness, imprisoning me.

Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba. And you're singing these things, and you're living. And I didn't wanna see the police. I avoided the police. Now, of course, there's changes that need to be taken.

I understand that. But we are throwing out the baby with the bathwater. And what's happening is you're seeing many pastors say nothing. They'll support ungodly movements, but they will not support, they will not say anything about the ungodly behavior that is happening.

And I will no longer remain quiet. You can email me, you can text me, you can say something to my face. I do not care. I have to stand before Almighty God for my decisions. You don't know that, but that's what the enemy uses.

Or I should say, you do know that. The enemy uses intimidation, right? Shane, if you don't be quiet, what you're saying is going to be labeled hate speech. You know what? It's love speech, so I don't care.

You might lose your 501c3 status. Guess what? We've already set up the church to where we could lose and still pay taxes. We got you. We got plan B, C, and D because God is on the throne. You cannot silence the truth.

You cannot silence the truth. That's what you have to remember. You cannot silence God. Who's gonna silence God? God said, I put the Pacific and the Atlantic right where I put them. I raised up kings and I pulled down nations.

I set the moon and the sun in this atmosphere. Who can stand against God Almighty? We need to get back to that. We need to get back to Bible believing, preaching, and prayer, and worship, and having our nation change from the inside out.

And so we said, oh, God help us. Their course is, the whole land mourns. There's a curse. The pleasant places of the wilderness are dried up. Their course of life is evil. Both prophet, God says, both prophet, my spokesman, and my priest, those who represent me, they are profane in my house, says God.

And I think before we start worrying about Hollywood and Washington, we need to look within because God said, judgment is going to start in the house of the living God. God is more concerned about cleaning his house first because see, when this house is clean, then that filters out into the nation.

The condition of our nation falls squarely upon our shoulders. Look in the mirror to see what is happening. It is the deterioration of the family. Do you know that's what's happening? You look, oh, how is all this happening?

It started many, many years ago in the family. As the family goes, so goes the nation. Men who are called to be spiritual leaders in their home start building man caves and going out and getting drunk and watching sports, and they refuse to lead spiritually, and as a result, the family declines and goes down.

If you have a man cave, don't feel bad. I have one, too. I think I do, I don't know. It's that whole lifestyle. We're called to die for our families. We're called, wait, wait, can you imagine, if men would just stand up again and say, that's not right, we shouldn't be doing that, and that's why it cracks me up sometimes, men, I don't like this emotional worship you guys do.

Well, you get real emotional about sin. You love to shout in joy about sin. You love to shout in joy when your Broncos win or when your Packers win or when your 49ers win. Hey, I just made $100 ,000, and you're jumping up and down, but when you come into the church of the living God and you're handcuffed and you're bored to death, it's because you're dying spiritually.

You need, there should be an excitement. There should be a joy, I wanna worship God. If it was up to me, I would've never preached this morning. I would've said, hit rewind on that song. Hit rewind, this is how I fight my battles.

Folks, you better get ready for battle. You better learn how to pray and how to fast and how to worship and get excited about it, and that's coming from a conservative Christian, whatever that means. Right, conservative, suit and tie.

We don't get excited like that, Shane. We just, we just, I don't know what we do. We just worship. That's boring. There should be, no, but you sing those songs. I was lost, but now I'm found. Don't you understand?

I was blind, but now I see, and so were many. How many of you did God rescue from the gutter and pulled you out, and you're gonna come into the house of the living God and be quiet? How many of you, how many of you has God saved your children and pulled them from the brink of destruction, and you're gonna come in here and be bored during worship?

You're gonna be bored and not excited? Let me tell you why. You need spiritual resuscitation, and that's my job. Look at that, heart is done. Mouth to mouth, no, no, no, just resuscitation. Pop that up.

Don't we, we need to be revived and renewed and excited about the things of God. Jeremiah said, my heart within me is broken because of the false prophets. All my bones shake because the Lord is holy, and holy is his name.

The land is full of adultery, full of sin. The curse is on the land. We are mourning. God has dried up the pleasant places of the wilderness, and the people are experiencing the wrath and judgment of God.

For both prophet and priest are profane. Yes, in my house, God says, I have found their wickedness. See, we're so worried about Hollywood and Washington, but do you know judgment starts in the house of God?

I'm more concerned about this house than the White House, honestly. Because God says, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, because I'm looking at the heart of my people.

My passion is for my people. I desire to move on behalf of my people. So let me go through these quickly. A few of these I touched base on last week. Seven characteristics of false prophets. Number one, they scatter God's flock rather than unite us.

False Prophets Scatter God's Flock

I'm talking about true spirit-filled believers. They try to scatter God's flock. Woe be to the shepherds, again, Jeremiah 23. Woe be to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, says the Lord.

So false prophets are more concerned about what Oprah says than what true spirit-filled believers say. They will divide the church. And I gave you an example of a pastor who I would consider a false prophet.

People say, Shane, that might get back to him good. I hope it does. But he actually mocked churches where the virus came in and hurt about 20 people, and the church had to close down for a few weeks. He was mocking them on the media, dividing, instead of praying and fasting and protecting the church and not gossiping.

See, these false prophets will divide the true body of Christ. That's one of their goals. They don't know it because they're working for the enemy, but a characteristic is they are not, so look at all these, you don't know who to trust out there in the media, right?

Who to follow, who not to follow, what's going on? Are they bringing the body of Christ back together through prayer and worship and true unity? Always remember this about unity. Never forget this about unity.

Unity is never unity for the sake of unity. Can't we all just get along? No, we can't if you're rejecting God and denying his word. Unity, true unity is unity of faith, unity of truth, and unity of the Holy Spirit.

See, the Holy Spirit in me and the Holy Spirit in you is never divided. So you're finding a lot of so-called Christians out there taking the wrong side of these issues and actually dividing the church.

Are you as confused as me seeing posts and things like, what are these people thinking who call themselves Christians? It's almost like they're uniting with darkness and not the light, and it's interesting, when you read what the prophets said, when they said, woe be to those who call good evil and evil good, aren't we doing that?

Do you see that couple that was defending their house from protest? I believe they got their weapons seized and the DA was going to press charges. We have lost our mind. We have lost our mind. Where are the leaders calling that out?

Because see, the evil will just keep pushing and pushing and pushing, and most people just, well, I don't wanna say anything, I don't wanna say anything, you be the steamroller, I'll be the pavement. When God says, no, you do business until I return, you be that voice, you hold the line.

Having done all, stand. Having done everything, and I think, Lord, I've done, there's nothing I can do. He said, Shane, I don't mind. Just stand. Stand, therefore, with your loins girded about with truth.

Hold the line of truth. Preach the truth until Christ comes again. Point people to the cross. Point them to redemption. That is the only hope. And then also, also, in case you haven't found out, I'm not trying to win a popularity contest.

We have to start telling it like it is. Did you know that truth used to come from the pulpit? That live separation of church and state wasn't even in the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson coined the phrase when he wrote to the Danbury Baptists of Connecticut, and he assured them that there would be a wall of separation of church and state so the government could not interfere with the churches.

Did you, so they could not. And that, for 150 years, everything was fine until the Supreme Court made a decision to where now government could intervene with the churches. And so now the churches want to be silent, and they don't want to speak to these issues.

But the pulpit is where people used to get the right information to see if it lined up with God's word. And now we're so, did you know you can say, hey, this candidate believes this, this candidate believes this, the Democratic Party's for this, Republicans are for this.

You should be able to tell people what the truth is. How else do you get the facts? But when you start to silence that truth, that's when you're in dangerous waters there, and false prophets will be on the side of silencing truth, trust me.

False Prophets Neglect the Spiritual Needs of the Flock

And then number two, they do not care about the spiritual needs of the flock. God says, because you have scattered my flock and driven them away, and you have not cared for their needs, I will punish you.

So false prophets are too busy trying to keep their kingdom together. I don't want my kingdom to come crushing down. A true spokesman of God says, God, it's nothing but your kingdom. Even if I lose some things, even if I become nothing, even if I'm scorned and ridiculed, at the end of the day, I have to go home and say, have I done what God has called me to do?

And they will die to self, they will find themselves on the foot of the cross, weeping over the nation and repenting and humbling themselves. But a false prophet will protect their kingdom. They don't care about the true spiritual needs of the people.

False Prophets Encourage Sin Instead of Repentance

And then number three, we talked about last week as well, they encourage sin. Did you know that? False teachers encourage sin. Here's the key. Somebody truly speaking on God's behalf will tell you run to repentance.

They tell you run away. Run away from, you don't need to repent. You don't need just love. Who are you to judge? You can't judge. Who are you to say these things are wrong? God is love. The attribute that sticks out above all attributes of God, quite frankly, is holy.

For I am holy, you shall be holy. Come and worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. The angels cry, holy, holy, holy is our God. And the only way to experience that holiness is via repentance. So false prophets encourage sin.

Jeremiah, God pointed out, they commit adultery. In other words, they commit sexual sin. And that's an epidemic right now. They also strengthen the hand of evildoers. Think about this. God says these false prophets strengthen the hand of evildoers so no one turns back from his wickedness.

So they actually encourage people in their sin. I've shared this before, a man I debated on Fox News. He said, he was asked, if somebody comes with you and they're struggling with same-sex attraction, what do you tell them?

He said, I tell them to embrace it. They encourage, here's the difference. I will encourage people through their sin, but I do not encourage them to continue to sin. So false prophets will encourage people by their silence.

See, when you say nothing, you say something. And those of you, right now, I'm gonna drop a truth bomb, that you think you're just gonna get out of this culture war somehow. No, those days are over. But Shane, I didn't sign up for this, it's signed up for you.

As an American citizen who calls yourself a Christian, you will have to, at some point, get out of your comfort zone. And call, I am on this side, or I'm on this side. There's no more just kind of middle gray area.

They are calling good evil and evil good. And there will have to come a point where you make a decision. There's a line of demarcation being drawn in the sand. That line is called truth. The absolute, inerrant truth of God's word.

So they encourage sin. They're more afraid of holiness than sinfulness. False prophets do not like to talk about holiness. But let me offer some hope here. Well, I wanna read, I should read, I wanna read 2 Peter.

For when they speak great swelling words, 2 Peter 2 .18, about false prophets. For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness. Have you ever noticed that? Those guys, like, what did they just say?

Well, the philosophical conclusion of that might make you think these ramifications could take place spiritually. But really cognitive, that's not gonna happen. What are you talking about? Great swelling words of emptiness.

Emptiness. I could get a homeless man off the street who just came to know the Lord, and he would say, I don't know, I was blind, but now I see, I was lost, but now I'm found. And you would change hearts in this room.

But you get a false prophet filled with emptiness, the spirit of the living God is not speaking boldly through that person. And there's no life. There's no life in the word of God. The spirit gives life.

The letter kills. But the spirit gives life. So they allure, they trick people through the lust of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error, while they promise them liberty.

This is what a false prophet always says, they promise you liberty. Come on, just be yourself. Like Nike's slogan, if it feels good. That's not biblical. That is not, I'm gonna tell you the opposite. If it feels good, be careful.

Check it through the filter of God's word. But they promise them liberty, but they themselves are slaves to corruption. But here's a hope alert, God offers freedom. So I don't know where you're at, I don't know who's listening, I don't know what you came in with, but if you're bound in sin, God can set you free.

Who the Son sets free is free indeed. The Bible talks about repentance, not excusing your sin. What we're seeing across our nation is blame shifting. Isn't blame shifting? It's not my fault, it's their fault.

And nobody's taking responsibility instead of calling it like it is and saying God, I repent of my sin. If you wanna be set free, I don't know what you're addicted to or what you struggle with. Maybe you've been beating yourself up for years, God can set you free.

But it's full surrender, it's full surrender. I don't know why, but I wrote a book, You Know, Help, I'm Addicted. It talks about overcoming addiction. God has given me a ministry to those who are addicted.

And many times you'll find that when people are struggling with this, it's because a part of them still enjoys that sin. There's a part of them. I think it was John Owen, the famous Puritan, who said our little pet sins are as dear to us as children.

We cleave onto them and we can never let go. There does have to come a full surrender, saying, Lord, this is wrong in your sight. I do not want to enjoy this. I want to get rid of this. God, would you help me?

And God can set you free. And there's a struggle though, there's a fight. Many of you, I've told you this before. 20 years ago, I came back to the Lord. I fell back into alcohol a little bit, even as a believer.

You know that's possible? Amen. Or is everyone in here perfect? I'll talk to you at 11 a .m. But it was those little thoughts, right, that bring you back. Just one, Shane, it's been a year. Oh, that's true, I can have one now.

I mean, right, you start to compromise. Xanax, Valium, Vicodin, Porn. See, it's those little whispers. And you go back into the bondage that one God set you free of. And you can't experience freedom. Oh, my point was this, that how many of us have prayed, God, please take this away?

And thank God he does sometimes. But many times you have to fight. I encourage, and when I talk to people, and encourage repentance from homosexuality, I will let them know, listen, God might lift it, but he might not, and if he doesn't, he will hold you all the way through.

The high suicide rate that we're seeing in that LGBTQ community is not because the church is coming against it, it's because the conviction of the Holy Spirit will never leave. No matter if Hollywood validates it, no matter who validates it, sin, when it's left unchecked, will lead to depression and anxiety.

That's why there's a high suicide rate. We need to be pointing them to the cross. Say, listen, if you struggle with it, I struggle with other stuff. I can't relate to you, you can't relate to me. Let's tell you how Jesus walks you through the struggle, clinging to the old, remember that hymn, the old rugged cross, clinging to that old rugged cross where there's true freedom and redemption, and we've given people the lie, just pray and God will take it away.

Well, what about if he doesn't? What about if he doesn't, if there's still a spiritual battle from here on out? But my point on that was false prophets will continue. They'll encourage you to continue in sin.

False Prophets Avoid Difficult Biblical Truths

And then number four, I love this one. You'll know them by their fruit for this. False prophets always, without a shadow of a doubt, avoid the difficult truths in the Bible. They'll talk about love and joy and unity and forgiveness.

Can't we all just get along? These truths, yeah, they're kind of truth, but do you know the power of God's word is in its total application? But they forget about holiness and judgment, the blood of Christ, repentance, sin.

It amazes me that they don't wanna talk about the very thing that put Jesus on the cross. Don't mention hell, of course not. Jesus did, Jesus actually talked more about hell than heaven. He said, don't worry.

Don't fear those who can kill your body, which many of you are worrying about that. He said, fear him who can cast both body and soul in hell. He told the disciples, go out and preach love. No, he said, go out and preach repentance.

A turning from sin, a turn from sin. To truly help our nation, to truly help people in the church, you have to talk about the difficult truths as well as the beautiful truths. I talk about mercy, but judgment.

Grace, but holiness. Heaven, but hell. And they will avoid difficult truths like the plague. Jeremiah 23, they continually say to those who despise me, the Lord has said, you shall have peace. And to everyone who walks according to the dictates of his own heart, they say, no evil shall come upon you.

So here's the thing. Jeremiah is prophesying, I believe, when Judah and the nation of Judah and Israel were split up into northern and southern kingdoms, and God's people had become corrupt. They are worshiping Molech and Bel and sacrificing their childrens on the altar of sexual perversion.

Sound familiar? And they were a form of idolatry. They were drifting from God. And God said, listen, you false prophets, you're encouraging them in this sin. And you say, don't worry, don't worry. God doesn't care.

Continue in what you're doing. God says, I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet they spoke. But had they truly stood in the counsel of God's word, they would turn the entire nation back to me.

Is not my word like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces? Is not my word like a fire that devours? But you have perverted the words of the living God. These false prophets avoided telling people, hey, your sin could be causing this judgment.

That's what we need today. We need that today in our airways. But it has to come from a broken, humble heart. If you get up and try to preach this message in pride, you will be utterly ashamed when you get home.

God will humble you. I thank God so much why he has humbled me over the years. I remember that story of a young man who just graduated seminary. He was 24 and arrogant. And they just gave him a church and he came up to the pulpit.

And he came up here and he said, all right, I'm gonna impress him with my exegetical interpretation of scriptures from a pneumatic, I'm sorry, pneumatology, eschatology, hermeneutics, homiletics, you know, all that good stuff.

We need those words, but you gotta have the spirit of the living God. So he came up here and he said, I'm gonna let them have it with the word of God. And I prepared this sermon. It's polished at three points in a poem and it fits all the inductive, deductive, immediate approaches to my seminary sermon preparation.

So my professor would give me an A plus on this. And the crowd is unmoved. He loses his spot. He doesn't feel the unction, the anointing, the power of the spirit. And he goes back and he sits back down in utter defeat and failure.