Open your Bibles today to 2 Corinthians
chapter 11. I'll read the first 15 verses. The Apostle Paul writes to this
church in Corinth, you could bear with me a little in my folly,
and indeed bear with me. For I am jealous over you with
godly jealousy. For I have espoused you to one
husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear less by any means,
as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety. so your minds should
be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he
that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached,
or if you receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or
another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear
with him. for I suppose I was not a whit
behind the very chiefest apostles. But though I be rude in speech,
yet not in knowledge, but we have been truly made manifest
among you in all things. Have I committed an offence in
abasing myself that you might be exalted? Because I have preached
to you the gospel of God freely." I robbed other churches, taking
wages of them to do you service, and when I was present with you
and wanted, I was chargeable to no man. For that which was
lacking to me the brethren which came from Macedonia supplied,
and in all things I have kept myself from being burdensome
unto you, and so will I keep myself." As the truth of Christ
is in me, no man shall stop me of this boasting in the regions
of Achaia. Wherefore, because I love you
not, God knoweth. But what I do, that I will do,
that I may cut off occasion from them which desire occasion, that
wherein they glory they may be found even as we." For such are
false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into
the apostles of Christ. And no marvel, for Satan himself
is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no
great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers
of righteousness. whose end shall be according
to their works." I've entitled this message this morning, The
Satanic Trinity. The Satanic Trinity. We find that name mentioned in
this text this morning, that name of Satan. And it is one of the names by
which God identifies and makes us to know more about the devil. He is a very real being. He is called by such names in
Scripture as Lucifer, the old serpent, the dragon, the prince
of this world, the god of this world. And he is that angel that
rebelled that we read about in Isaiah 14, Lucifer, the son of
the morning, who exalted himself against God, saying, I will be
as the Most High. And in that rebellion, God cast
him out of heaven along with a third of the angelic host and
reserve them in chains of darkness forever." The name Satan literally
means adversary. And he is the enemy of God and
also the enemy of all men. But he is particularly shown
in Scripture to be the enemy or the adversary of all of God's
elect. And the Apostle Paul tells us
here and shows us that his work and his methods are not like
those in which he is generally portrayed. Actually, a lot of
what is called the work of the devil is literally nothing more
than the works of men. And he is not that figure in
the red suit with the horns and the pointed ears and the tail
and the pitchfork. Not long ago I read where a preacher
friend was saying that he ran up with an old high school friend,
I believe, and they were talking about how that in an art class,
The teacher refused to put up this boy's self-portrait because
he had done himself with a mustache and a beard, and she said, it
looked too much like the devil. And that's just about a good
illustration of what men and women think about the devil,
but he is first of all a deceiver. If you look back in verse 3,
Paul says, But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled
Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted
from the simplicity that is in Christ. He said, I am jealous
over you with a godly jealousy, and I fear for each and every
one that I have preached to, lest you be deceived by the devil. The Apostle in another place
says that he, like a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom
he may devour." And all that means is that he is a counterfeiter,
and rather than being the lion of the tribe of Judah, he tries
to make himself to be such in order that he might consume and
deceive his prey. And his deception is carried
out in the greatest part by deceiving men and women over what God says,
and most particularly about what God says about Himself. He deceives them with a gospel
that is not God's gospel. He deceives them with lies concerning
God and with a deceiving spirit and a false Jesus. Look at verse 4. Because Satan uses false preachers
and false religious institutions and false professors to do this,
he deceives men and women using what appears to them, to these
blind and ignorant natural men, it appears to them as good and
it masquerades for the truth. You see, if you are deceived,
it seems right. to you. If you are deceived or
spiritually blind, they seem to be telling the truth. Look down here in verse 13 again. He says, for such are false apostles. What is an apostle? One sent
from God. They are false apostles, deceitful
workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ,
and no marvel. In other words, this ought not
surprise us because Satan himself is transformed into an angel
of light. He doesn't appear as darkness. He's not easy to recognize, especially
in his activity. He transforms himself so as to
appear an angel or a messenger of truth. Therefore, it is no
great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers
of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works. Look back in II Corinthians chapter
4, Paul again in verse 1, "...therefore seeing we have this ministry,
as we have received mercy, we faint not, but have renounced
the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor
handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth,
commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight
of God. But if our gospel be hid, it
is hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world,"
there he is, the devil, Satan, in whom the God of this world
hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light
of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should
shine unto them." Paul says, "'For we preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus'
sake. And the only reason that we're
not deceived, the only reason the Lord's people in every place
are not deceived is this, for God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. The only reason Paul says we're
not deceived, the only reason that we know God is that He came
to us in our darkness and shined in our darkness His light revealing
His glory, the glory of His grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
this is the only thing that has preserved the Lord's people throughout
all generations all the way since the Garden. Peter speaks of it
in that light. He says, But there were false
prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false
teachers among you, who privately shall bring in damnable heresies,
even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves
swift destruction. And this is so sad, this next
statement. And many shall follow their pernicious
ways, by reason of whom the way of truth they will follow these,
and both they and their followers, he says, the way of truth shall
be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall
they with feigned words make merchandise of you, whose judgment
now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth
not." So Paul here warns these Corinthians, and therefore he
warns us, lest we be deceived. And he was simply following the
example of his Master, the Lord Jesus Christ. Turn back over
to Matthew Chapter 24. Matthew Chapter 24 and listen
to our Lord's words in verse 4 of Matthew 24. And Jesus answered
and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. That ought to be a sobering warning. Comes from the mouth of him who
is himself the truth. Take heed that no man deceive
you, for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and
shall deceive many." Look down at verse 11, "'And many false
prophets shall rise and shall deceive many.'" Verse 24, "'And
there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall
show great signs and wonders, insomuch that, if it were possible,
they should deceive the very elect." They're not like dumb
counterfeiters printing three-dollar bills. Their counterfeit gospel
and their counterfeit God is a close representative, if you
will, of the true God. But there are distinctions. And
our Lord, in order to preserve and to save and to call out and
distinguish His people, He has given to His church gifts or
men to prevent this from happening to His people. Turn over to Ephesians
chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4 and look
down in verse 11. and he gave some apostles," talking
about these gifts, and some prophets and some evangelists and some
pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for
the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ,
till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge
of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the
stature of the fullness of Christ, that we henceforth be no more
children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind
of doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby
they lie in wait to deceive. Craftiness, cunning words, doctrines
of one kind and another in order to keep men and women from knowing
about and knowing personally and believing on the Lord Jesus
Christ. And though these men that God
gives, these gifts to His Though they and their message are not
outwardly appealing to men, they are the means of God making known
the truth to His people. Christ said, You shall know the
truth, and the truth shall make you free. Because a person deceived
is a person in bondage. And for that reason, Paul writes
to Timothy, and he says to Timothy, he says, and the servant of the
Lord must not strive. You find somebody in the name
of the Lord who is striving, always in a conflict in this
world, and most especially, always striving with men and women,
trying to get them to do what they don't want to do. God didn't
send him. And the servant of the Lord must
not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient
in meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves, if God
for adventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging
of the truth." You know what that tells me? With all that
men say about repentance, Repentance has most of all to do, as Paul
and all the Apostles says, with regard to God. It is repentance
toward God. It is the acknowledging of the
truth about God. Say, I'm going to repent of my
sins. You don't even know what all your sins are. He says repentance,
which is the gift of God, has to do with this acknowledging
of the truth about God. And when we acknowledge the truth
about God, He gives us faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. They're
simultaneously given the gift of God. Pete Paul goes on, and
that they may recover themselves, these to whom God might give
repentance, and they may recover themselves out of the snare of
the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will." Do you hear
that? They are taken captive by the
devil at his will. And every person, listen, every
person who believes the gospel of Satan, who falls false prey
to him, everyone who is in his bondage, which is the bondage
of tradition and false religion whereby they believe on a false
god, they are demon or devil possessed. You say, that's awful
strong. That is exactly what is taught
in Scripture. And he assures that they are
always these that he sends out to protect his people and preach
this message, he assures that they are always successful in
the thing in which he sends them. Turn back to our textbook, and
if you would, look back in 2 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 5, or verse
3, rather. 2 Corinthians 10 and verse 3, the
Apostle says, for though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after
the flesh. We are just mortal men, mortal
human beings, sinful, weak, frail, all the things that Paul confesses
himself to be. And we are in this flesh, but
we do not war in this flesh. That is, we do not take to ourselves
the weapons that the devil's group does themselves. For the
weapons of our warfare are not carnal." They don't have to do
with our abilities, our wit, our wisdom, our ability to manipulate
or sneak up on somebody with the gospel, to trick them into
doing something. No. Not emotionalism. For the weapons of our warfare
are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds,
casting down Imaginations. Casting down images that are
already in our mind as fallen, depraved sinners about God. Casting down those images in
our mind that we are taught from childhood, that the religious
world all around us tries to raise up and say, this is God,
this is Jesus. No. Casting down imaginations
and every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge
of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience
of Christ." To our obedience of Christ? No, to the obedience
of Christ. That is, we are brought to bow
and trust in His obedience unto death, even the death of the
cross. So that when God sends His messengers
out to His people, not knowing wherever they are in this world
themselves, they go and preaching the gospel to every creature,
He takes that gospel and He uses it and causes them and that gospel
to be a success. Everybody in our day wants to
be a success, especially preachers. And the more buildings you can
build, the more successful you must be, the more bodies you
can accumulate in a place and on a church roll, the more successful
you can be, the more money you can pile up, the more programs
you can establish. But the Lord's servants are successful
with the gospel. Why? Because they're only looking
for the Lord's sheep. Paul says, now thanks be unto
God. who always causes us to triumph
in Christ and makes manifest the savor of His knowledge by
us in every place, for we are unto God a sweet savor of Christ."
If I preach the gospel and God is not pleased to save anybody,
what I preach about Christ is going to be a sweet fragrance
to God. In other words, the Lord's servant
preaches, first of all, for God. I've heard people say they preach
for decisions, they preach for converts, they preach for the
salvation of men, all these things. But we preach first for God to
say what is right about God and true of God and glorify Him. For we are unto God, a sweet
saver of Christ in them that are saved. It is in them that
are being saved and are in them that are perishing. To the one
we are the savor or fragrance of death unto death, and to the
other the savor of life unto life. And who is sufficient for
these things? For we are not as many which
corrupt the Word of God. But as of sincerity, but as of
God, in the sight of God, speak we in Christ. It wouldn't be
worth as many, many, many have tried to do over the ages, it
wouldn't be worth the changing of one word, one verse of Scripture
concerning what God says about His self and His Son. It wouldn't
be worth changing one word about Him to save ten worlds like ours. So the first order in telling
men about the true and living God, as Paul said, is to tear
down the false gods, the false gods of their imagination, the
false gods of their tradition, the gods they've held to so long,
believed in so long, the things that they have thought were right
and true about God from almost the time they were first taken
to a Sunday school or something. But there's just one problem.
They're not what God says about Himself. And in our day, as in
every day since the fall of our race under Satan's deception,
men are deceived by his counterfeit God. The true God makes Himself
known in Holy Scripture as one God in the Trinity of three sacred
persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And that's everywhere
in this book, in the beginning word, in verse 1 of Genesis,
God, in the beginning God, plural, created the heavens and the earth. And the Apostle John expresses
it in one sentence by the Spirit of God in an unmistakable way. He says, For there are three
that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy
Ghost, and these three are one." So Satan, with his false gospel
and his fake God, seeks to steal the glory from God in this very
thing. And he sets forth a lie concerning
each of these persons and their work, wresting the Scriptures
to succeed them And thus, we have the Satanic Trinity. First of all, concerning God
the Father. And here is His first and maybe
His greatest deception and His description of Him. He says,
He loves everybody. That's something we all know,
don't we? God loves everybody. Isn't that right, preacher? No.
Well, are you crazy? We're talking. I suppose, about
the God of the Bible, are we not? Are we not talking about
the God of the flood in which he destroyed the whole antediluvian
world with water? Somebody said you would never
find on the back of Noah's Ark that bumper sticker that reads,
Smile, God Loves You. You see, the God of the Bible
is the God of that rained fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah
and destroyed every person in all the cities of the plain in
his judgment. He's the God who slew thousands
of soldiers by simply passing through them. He is the God who
brought about that destruction in the Passover when every firstborn
in Egypt outside of the camp of Israel died in Israel, in
Egypt that night. But mainly, he just doesn't say
he loves everybody. In Proverbs 6, it says, six things
doth the Lord hate, yea, seven are an abomination to him. And
they all have to do with persons. They're not things out there
abstract. They're things that have to do
with you and with me as we are. He says, as a close, a false
witness that speaks lies, and he that sows discord among brethren. What about them? God hates them. You say, well, that just means
He loves them less. What is less than perfect love
but hate? He quotes in Romans 9 what He
said in Malachi concerning two brethren who came born of the
same parents, born at the same time, twins, raised in the same
environment, given the same opportunity. He said, Jacob have I loved,
but Esau have I hated. Those deceived by the satanic
gospel, they shriek at the thought and try to figure out how in
the world could God ever hate Esau? How could God ever hate
anybody? But the truth of the matter is
that just reveals that we know nothing about God and nothing
about man as a sinner when we ought to be asking and wondering
how in the world could God love anybody? Because God is holy
and He cannot love anybody who is not holy. And because God
is just, and He cannot excuse sin, and He hates all workers
of iniquity, because God's love is said to be an everlasting
and an immutable, unchanging love. And it says mainly, though,
that God cannot love anybody outside of the Lord Jesus Christ,
because His love is in Christ. I wrote some things about the
love of God one time, and somebody in an appraisal of it said that
maybe I ought to talk more about the general love of God. The
first thought in my mind was, in this book I have not seen
it, because the love of God is redeeming love of It's everlasting. It's unchanging. And it's always
been in Christ. And outside of Christ, he's a
consuming fire. Paul said, neither height nor
depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate his
people from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And a multitude of people, most
of whom think they know something about the love of God, they're
going to find out that they knew nothing about the love of God,
because they knew nothing about that love that is in Christ Jesus. The God of the satanic trinity
seeks to diminish the power of the living God by the promotion
of the so-called free will of man. But the true God works all
things after the counsel of His will. And He, if He works all
things after the counsel of His will, There cannot be any such
thing as a free will in man. And not only that, but there
could not be simply because the man who is supposed to have this
will is himself bound by his fallen nature, by his desperately
wicked and depraved heart, by a nature that will not, a carnal
mind that cannot do anything to please God. And by the way,
all you have to do is take your concordance, and you look in
the concordance under that word will, and you find out whose
will is talked about in the Bible. And unless God does for us like
He did Nebuchadnezzar, we'll be blinded and deceived by this
satanic God the Father that men are always talking about and
preaching about, who in no way resembles the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ. It says in Daniel 4, He confessed
that at the end of the days, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up
mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me,
and I blessed the Most High. Satan said, I'll be as the Most
High, and he was not. When Nebuchadnezzar was brought
down by God, he said, I blessed the Most High, and I praised
and honored him that lives forever, and whose dominion or sovereignty
is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation
to generation, and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing,
and he does according to his will in the army of heaven and
among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his
hand and say unto him, What doest thou? What he does, whatever
takes place, that's what he wanted to do. He doesn't desire to do
one thing, but because of circumstances out of his control, find himself
unable to do it. Whatever he desires, it says
in Job, that his soul does. And Satan would deceive men into
thinking that there is some good in them when God says that there
is not. That they can do something for
God when he shows us that they cannot do anything for God. That
they can work righteousness when He says they cannot. That they
can come to God any time that they want or any way that they
want when He says that they cannot. And there is only one way that
they can decide on Him or hold Him at bay or thwart His purpose
by not doing what He wants to and on and on and on. That the
reason He chooses a people is because they chose Him. That's
the God the father of the satanic trinity. And he's a weak, frustrated
God who wants to but can't, who tries to but fails, who weeps
because men will not choose him. or let Him do what He wants to
do. But that's not the God of glory.
Don't you ever be deceived. He does what He will, to whom
He will, how He will, when He will, where He will. That's what
His Godhood is about. He said, I'll be merciful to
whom I'll be merciful. I'll be gracious to whom I'll
be gracious." And Paul said, Bless be the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ. Turn over to Ephesians chapter
1. Bless be the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 1, 3. Who have blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ
according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundations
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before
Him," and that's where that actually ends, "...in love, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself according
to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of
His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the beloved."
He did this. And the God men will meet in
death and in judgment is not the God of this satanic trinity,
not the God of this satanic gospel by which men are deceived. Because
do you see what this reduces the love of God to? In other
words, if God loves everybody, then evidently the difference
in whether or not they are saved or lost has to do with something
that they do and not that which He does. He loves his people
in Christ with an everlasting love which is just like himself,
active and mighty in saving all of them in a way that is consistent
with his holy character, with his sovereign will, and with
his eternal purpose. And then the second person of
this satanic trinity, he has to do with a counterfeit of God
the Son. You see, the Jesus of the satanic
trinity is the one Paul warns of and calls another Jesus, another
Jesus. Got the same name, said to be
the Savior, but he in no way resembles the Christ of God. How do we know that? Because
we open the book and read it. The Jesus of the satanic trinity
is promoted as the Jesus who died for every person in the
world. If you wanted one thing about
this fake Jesus to identify him right away, they say of him that
he died for every single person in the world. An old fellow by
the name of John Owens, who was no slight preacher, set forth
three things that had to be. Had to be. And men called it
Owen's Dilemma. That it had to be, with regard
to the death of Christ, one of three things. One, first of all,
that Christ died for all the sins of all men and therefore
all will be saved. You know that can't be. Christ
has already told us. We know of a number of people
who are already in hell. Secondly, he said, or he died
for some of the sins of all, and since you and I and anybody
else can't do anything about the rest of them, then nobody
be saved. But that's not true either, because Jesus is the
Savior. Or he said, thirdly, that Christ
died for all of the sins of some men, and therefore they all will
be saved." Bingo! That's exactly what this book
teaches, that Jesus Christ died for all of the sins of some men,
sovereignly chosen by the Father and given to Him in an everlasting
covenant of grace as His bride and people, and they every one
shall be saved. The Bible sets forth the death
of Christ as particular. A particular person dies in a
particular place at a particular time through a particular means,
the cross, and accomplishes a particular result. If Christ died for all men, then
why are not all saved? Somebody always has an answer
because of unbelief. But isn't unbelief a sin? If
he died for all the sins of all people, and somebody says, well,
the reason all aren't saved is because all don't believe. But
unbelief is a sin. When the Bible speaks using terms
like all men, or as we find in John 3.16, the world, he's talking
about first of all, all kinds of men, but mainly in those texts
he is talking about the removal of that distinction between Jew
and Gentile. He's talking about a people from
amongst Jew and Gentile, not just Jew now, not even just Gentile,
but from among the Jew and the Gentile, a remnant according
to the election of grace, a people out of every nation, kindred,
tribe. And John 17, when he's praying
to the Father, he says, glorify me. He says, as thou hast given
this your Son power over all flesh, that he should give eternal
life to as many as thou hast given him. He has power over
all flesh as the Savior of the world, as the man Christ Jesus,
the one mediator. He has power, authority over
all flesh to give eternal life to those that the Father gave
to Him. When you look back in the Old
Testament with every sacrifice, when those innocent victims were
slain there in the garden and blood shed and the skins provided,
they were provided for and those animals were sacrificed for Adam
and Eve. When that Passover lamb was slain,
that blood did not go on the houses of Egypt. It went on the
houses of Israel, which was a type and picture of the Lord's true
Israel. And every time that priest went
with that sacrifice into the tabernacle or the temple, it
never was for everybody in the world. It was for that one nation,
one people, which were simply a picture of God's elect. What do the Scriptures say? Christ
said that He died for His sheep. I am the Good Shepherd. The Good
Shepherd gives His life for the sheep. As the Father knoweth
me, even so know I the Father, and I lay down my life for the
sheep. And then He turns so as to make
those who were immediately before Him and us know that not everybody
is His sheep. He said to those Pharisees, but
you believe not because You are not of my sheep." All of God's
sheep believe, but that believing doesn't make them God's sheep.
He laid down His life for the sheep. He laid down His life
for His friends. Greater love hath no man than
this, than to lay down His life for His friends. And you are
my friends. If you do whatsoever, I command
you. What did He say His commandment was? This is the commandment. Believe on Him. whom God has
sent and love one another. He died and shed his blood, not
for every person in the world, but for his church, for his bride. Paul says, husbands, love your
wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for
it. When you see that word for it,
it has to do with as a substitute in the place of or as a sacrifice
for. He purchased the church with
his own blood. He died for many, even as the
Son of Man came not to be ministered unto but to minister and to give
his life a ransom for many. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. Christ was once offered to bear
the sins of many, and unto them that look for him shall he appear
the second time without sin unto salvation." Not everyone, but
many. Many are going to be deceived,
but many the Lord Jesus Christ gave Himself a ransom for. Can we imagine Him ever paying
for something He doesn't get, especially when He laid down
His life in that payment? When you think about the words
that we find used for his death, which is to redeem or to ransom
or to purchase. It doesn't say he made a bid
for everybody. He purchased his people. And
by his very name, he's named for a reason. Jesus means Jehoshua
or Jehovah the Savior. And Mary and Joseph were told
that she shall bring forth a son and thou shalt call his name
Jesus. For he shall save his people
from their sins." Isaiah, God says, through him he was taken
from prison and from judgment. And who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the
land of the living. For the transgression of my people
was he stricken. God must be just, and His justice
must be satisfied and honored and executed. And men make the
just God to be unjust by saying that He requires a double payment. In other words, saying that some
that Christ died for will also go to hell, and that will be
a double payment for their sins. Not a just God. Because a just
God cannot send not one of those for whom Christ dies or pays
the price to hell. He just cannot. And you've either
got universal salvation through his death or a salvation that
he wrought for a particular people by which he paid their sin debt,
and every one of them is going free. And the glory would be if we
could see that he paid that for us. Don't you suspect that the
Lord Jesus intercedes for those he died for? What does he say
in John 17? I pray not for the world, but
for those that you've given me out of the world. Thine they
were and you gave them to me. And I will that they be with
me where I am. That's the will I'm interested
in. The satanic gospel proclaims a second person of the satanic
trinity as one whose work and success and glory depends on
what those he died for do, not the true Christ. He came to save
and did, to redeem and did, to bear the sins of his people and
did, to suffer and to enter into his glory and he did. And he's
very different from the one that the God of this world sets forth,
this another Jesus. And then I've got to hurry. But
that third one, that third person of the Trinity, God the Spirit,
he counterfeits him. The Spirit of the Satanic Trinity
is trying to save every person in the world. Not really. If this were true, if this were
the true Spirit of God, then we would have to say He is a
total failure, a weak, impotent, and powerless God. If He's trying
to save every person in this world, but can't. And not only
that, but that would be and mean that there is a complete disharmony
in the Godhead and make all three persons a failure. The truth
is the Spirit of God that must quicken us, that is, bring us
to spiritual life, call us effectually and mightily to Christ, give
us faith to believe on Christ. He is working and so producing
and bringing forth that salvation of everyone that the Father loved
and chose and everyone, therefore, that the Son loved and died for. He loves the same and calls him
out. That's why Paul said, we're always
a success. Why? Because he said, I'm not
ashamed of the power of God, of the gospel, because it's the
power of God unto salvation. In other words, the Spirit of
God will take the truth. He's the Spirit of truth. And
Christ said, the Spirit of truth, when He's come, He'll take the
things of mine and make them available to you. He'll take
the things of mine and show them to you. You'll see them because
He'll reveal Christ. I have not seen, neither has
it entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared
for them that love Him, but the Spirit of God has come, He says,
to His people and has shown us the things that are freely given
unto us in Christ. Is the Holy Spirit only able
to influence or woo? To me, that would be a denial
that He's even God. But He is God the Spirit. He's the third person of the
true Trinity. The three that bear record, the
Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. And these three are one. Will he act in a way that is
contrary to what the Father chose and loved, or will he act in
a way contrary to the ones that the Son came and loved as the
Father gave Him and died for? I don't think so, because the
Spirit of God is not less than Almighty God Himself. co-equal
with the Father and the Son and co-able." Co-able. What does that mean? That means
what he desires to do, that's what he does. Christ said, all
that the Father giveth me shall come to me. How can you be so
sure? Because the Spirit of God is
going to bring them. He's going to bring them out
of that darkness by shining the light of the truth into their
hearts. He's going to call them and bring
them and give them faith to believe. They're dead. That's the condition. Dead in trespasses and sin. And this life-giving Spirit has
to come upon them as He did in the very creation. Let there
be light. What happened after that? What
does it say after that? And there was light. God says
of his people in Christ, he says to that son, his king, thy people
shall be willing in the day of thy father. Preachers, evangelists
and such, Billy Graham and a host of others who support the satanic
trinity in gospel, they said, if you'll believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, He'll give you new birth. That's not the way
it's set forth in Scripture. You didn't have any part in your
first birth, did you? Well, I think I'll be born. Parley
and Sadie, they've lived together a while now. I think I'll just
be born and live with them. That's not the way it happened
with me. But the Lord Jesus said of that new birth, He said, the
Spirit of God is like the wind that blows sovereignly where
it will. You don't know where it came from. You don't know
where it's going. But He does that, and He brings that life
to His people. He brings them in Providence
to hear the gospel, and He speaks that life-giving word to their
souls, and they believe. Their belief is not the cause
of life. The life he gives them is the
cause of their believing. That means all the glory goes
to God, doesn't it? It is written in the prophets,
and they shall be all. What? All his people. And they
shall be all taught of God. Every man, therefore, that hath
heard and hath learned of the Father cometh unto me. The Holy Spirit has taken the
gospel, the truth, not everywhere in the world. That's so obvious,
it's just not even funny to think about. There are people in this
world who have never seen a Bible. There are many more people who
have seen all kinds of religious relics and such, and they have
not ever heard a true gospel sermon that you have. And it
may have come from a pitiful human being. It may have come
from the weakest of vessels. But Paul goes on to say that
we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the glory may be
to God. If he gives me breath, I pray
till the last day I live on this earth, it will be that I might
set forth the true gospel. to preach God as He is in the
Trinity of His sacred persons, the blessed Father who loved
and chose and entered into covenant relationship with His people
in Christ before they ever were born, before they ever were or
did anything. and of God the Eternal Son, who
came in human flesh, the God-man, the one Mediator, and went directly
to that cross as their substitute and Savior, and redeemed them
by His blood. God the Blessed Spirit, the Spirit
of truth, Spirit of Christ, who takes the things of Christ, and
who, like God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness,
shines in our And we see the glory of God, which is the glory
of his grace in the face of Christ. One day Elijah stood on Mount
Carmel, and there was him on the one hand, and eight hundred
and fifty of the prophets of the groves and the prophets of
Baal. And Elijah looked at the people
and said, How long are you going to halt between two opinions?
That's all there ever is. Two gospels. The true gospel
and this other gospel. The true trinity of God and this
satanic trinity. How long are you going to halt
between two opinions? If God be God, let him answer
with fire. And so those 850 prophets, They
had the favor of the king and the queen. They got out there
and they put out their sacrifices and all this kind of stuff, did
their rituals, their hocus pocus and such. And they got so zealous
and they were really into it, cutting themselves with knives
and lancets and stuff like that and showing their zeal and their
sincerity and all that. Except God didn't do anything.
Oh, I feel it. I feel this. No, you don't. And
then one man steps up there. came out of the wilderness, prayed
sixty-four words, had him to take barrels of water on his
sacrifice, put a tip toward him until the water filled trenches
around him. He stepped back and he prayed
that sixty-four-word prayer, I believe it was, part of which
was simply, Lord, let it be known this day. If you're God in Israel,
then I'm your preacher." And fire fell out of heaven, not
only consumed the sacrifice, but licked up the water in the
ditches all around it, dry as a bone and gone. Eight hundred
and fifty preachers, and one man over here knew God, preached
the gospel. When Satan said, I'll be as the
Most High, God said, you'll be brought down to hell, and he
cast him out. And one day it says that he'll
say to those on his left, the goats, depart from me ye cursed
into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. What's an angel? A messenger.
And every person that preaches the satanic trinity, the satanic
gospel, and every person who believes it and seeks to promote
it, they're his messenger. Depart from me, ye cursed. Oh,
but we preached in your name, and we've done many great, wonderful
works in your name. He says, Depart from me, I never
knew you. Would do God you'd think on these
things this morning, and that he give you faith to believe
on the God of this book. He's not the popular one. He's
not the one that maybe your family and your best buddies and your
co-workers and all that belief, huh? But he's the true and living
God, and this is the way he is. And the three that bear record
in heaven have all set their seals to this book. that this is the way he is. Beware
of the satanic trinity. Beware of the devil's gospel. Believe the truth. All the Lord's
people will. Our dear God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, our blessed Savior, and our wondrous and
blessed Comforter, the Spirit, we thank you. We give you praise
and honor. and counted a wonder of your
grace that we would ever be able to distinguish you, to love you,
to cast all hope upon you. And we know it's only because
of your mercy, nothing in any way because of anything we are
or have done, just the fact that you determined to have mercy
on us in Christ. Keep us, we pray. Keep us from
self-deception and from satanic deception. Lead us in the way
of truth and keep us in that simplicity which is in Christ. Call out your sheep. May this
gospel be a sweet fragrance to you as it is preached, Lord,
not only in those that are being saved, but also in those that
are perishing. Keep us from a crafty, deceitful
handling of your Word, and get all glory unto yourself. For
we pray in Christ's name, Amen.