We'll read our background verses
here. Pick up where we left off last
week. John chapter four. We'll be reading verses 21 down
through 24 again. John chapter four, verse 21.
Let's bow and have a word of prayer. Our gracious heavenly father,
we are so thankful this morning for that grace that we just sang
about. We're thankful, Lord, that that grace extended beyond
our faults and failures, that grace never took into account
the conditions that we keep, that grace never looked to the
works that we can do. That grace was given freely to
us in spite of who we are and what we have done. Father, we
thank you for that matchless unmerited favor. Father, we thank
you that we cannot earn salvation, but that it's given freely. And
we thank you for giving it to us. We thank you for including
us in the number. in the names that you've written
down before the foundation of the world in your book. We thank
you for bringing us to be part of those people that you have
given to Christ before the foundation of the world. Those that you
have put in union with Christ before ever a thing was ever
made. We thank you for that unity that we have in him. We thank
you, Father, for the life that is ours because of him. We thank
you for the salvation that comes to us because of his life and
his death. And Father, we just are so grateful
for all the things that you've given to us, the daily provisions
you give us, the friends and family that you've given to us,
the brothers and sisters in Christ, especially that we had the fellowship,
even as we do today. And as we come together as the
church this morning, Father, we pray that your presence will
be with us. We need you today, Lord. We need
you. to give us understanding and to teach us and to cause
our hearts to lift in proper worship. And Father, Lord, we
just ask that today that we might glorify you in all that we do
and all that we say. We ask, Lord, that you would
just bring us closer to Christ and our understanding of him.
We pray, Lord, that you would conform us daily to his image,
Lord, as you have promised you would do. We rest in that promise. And Father, we just thank you.
that you've given us the word of God to look into. We pray
now that as I preach it, Lord, that you would keep me from error
and that you would help me to speak truth, Lord. And again,
we're thankful that the word of God has been given to us.
The very thing that is the rule and guide for your church, we
acknowledge you as our head and we acknowledge the scriptures
as our rule of faith. And so Father, may it be made
clear to us today what it says, and that we might be faithful
to you in all things as you enable us through your Holy Spirit.
We pray all these things in Christ Jesus' name, amen. John chapter
four, verse 21, down through 24 again. It says, Jesus said
unto her, woman, believe me, the hour cometh when you shall
neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the
Father. You worship, you know not what, We know what we worship
for salvations of the Jews. But the hour cometh and now is
when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit
and in truth. We made quite a bit of an emphasis
at the beginning of this study that this is the fact of the
matter, right? This is the fact of the matter.
John isn't here just given frivolous information He's given us the
fact of the matter. Jesus here is telling the truth
about true worshipers versus false worshipers. True worshipers
shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. In spirit and in
truth. For the Father seeketh such to
worship him. Of course, we talked about that
as well. This isn't God looking out across the world trying to
find people who are seeking to worship Him. Now, this is saying
that He seeketh after people to make worshipers of. He seeks
after His people and He makes them worshipers by quickening
them, bringing them to spiritual life. The Holy Spirit within
them brings them to worship the Father. And so God isn't looking
across the corridors of time. He isn't looking across the span
of the plane of earth. looking for those who might be
worshiping him. No, God seeketh such types of
people to worship him and he makes them those types of people. It says, God is a spirit and
they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. Why? Because God is a spirit and he
gives us that spirit and that spirit leads us into true worship
Doctrinally, it leads us into true worship experientially,
okay? We worship him according to the
word of God, outwardly, the way that he calls us to serve him,
and then we worship inwardly as that spirit of God lifts us
up in love towards our God, to Christ specifically, for what
he has done, who he is, for what he has done, and what he continues
to do for us, And one of these days will ultimately do for all
of his people as we are glorified and brought into his presence.
And so we see here that there is a true way to worship God. The church, and this is the message.
This is our final installment in this subsection of our study
in the church. I don't know how many messages
we've had in our study in the church. I'd have to go back and
count it. We've had a lot. But in this study, we are in
the worship of the church. And we see here that the worship
of the church, and with the thought of that the church being a gathered
assembly, and that the gathered assembly is to be made up of
baptized believers who have been born again, okay? So that is who makes up the church. Now, there are people that attend
church that are guests to the church, that come to church that
may not be the church, okay? But the church is those who are
believers, who have been born again and caused to believe upon
Christ, have confessed their sin, have professed their faith
in Jesus Christ, and have been baptized. Those are the ones
who are the members of the church. And that that church, whenever
it gathers, it gathers with people who are born again and have the
ability to worship, truly worship God in spirit and in truth. And
I won't go back and rehash those messages. You can go back and
listen to those again if you need to. But we looked at that
and we saw that worship was an act of reverence. We seen that
it was a, physically we seen that it is to bow down to prostrate
one before to fall down, to stoop, to crouch. We see that it's commanded
of God, that it is O God. We've seen that worship can be
corrupted, and we're gonna talk about that today, that it can
be perverted. But we also saw that true worship
in spirit and truth was given by the angels. We've seen that
it was given by men, it was given by women, it was given by the
heavenly hosts, We've seen that all creation eventually is going
to give worship to the Lord Jesus Christ in the end of days. And so we see that the worship
of the church is only by those who have been born again. And
that worship is to God in spirit and in truth. And in that we
worship him not only inwardly, but outwardly. We follow what
the Bible tells us and how we are to serve him, properly serve
him. And so we have learned that worship
is to God and God alone. We do not worship the church,
although that is extremely important. Matter of fact, we don't hear
enough preaching upon the Lord's church. The studies that we've
done over the last few months, you don't hear in too many churches
anymore. Some people on one side will
say, well, that's because our focus should be on Christ and
the gospel and these secondary issues we shouldn't be harboring
on. But that's not true. Whenever you preach on the Lord's
church, you preach and extol the Lord Jesus Christ, who is
the head of his church and that church is his bride. And so we
must look at the studies of the church because the Bible has
said that we are to preach the whole counsel of God and the
Bible teaches some things about the gathered assembly and how
we are to exercise that delegated authority that Christ has left
us in propagating the gospel and in
serving him. And so there are proper ways
to do that. Just as in the Old Testament, there were proper
ways that the Levites were to serve God in the tabernacle with
all the ordinances and the sacrifices and that they were not to deviate
that, deviate from that in any manner. So in the New Testament
church, God, Christ has given his church some commands to follow
in serving him and how we are to do it. And we should be mindful
to follow those directions and commands of Christ And so that
is why we have this study. This is why we harbor this long
on this study is because you don't hear it often and you don't
hear it anywhere else mostly because most people don't believe
these truths. They think church is just a,
you know, take it or leave it, or just a ooey gooey feeling
that you get when you come together with friends or, you know, but
church is more than that. It is the place of worship. It
is the place of service. And it is from here that the
gospel is to be propagated. So, but today I want us to look
at some things that we can wrongly worship. The church should not
be worshiping these things. And sadly today we find so-called
quote unquote churches all around this world and specifically one
specific quote unquote church that has all kinds of idolatry
attached to it, and that would be the Catholic Church. But even
in so-called evangelical churches of today, and even so-called
Baptist churches of today, we find a lot of iconery, a lot
of things that are put up to aid in worship, and I wrote a
little paper, it's out in the foyer on the worship of God alone
and how we can often substitute or use other things as an aid
to worship. And if we put too much stock
in that, then we have made an idol out of the very means that
God brings to us the message of him. And so we don't want
to make an idol out of anything. The Bible tells us that we are
to worship God and Him alone. And we'll see some of that today.
So what are some of the wrong things that people can worship
or that churches can worship? Well, one of the things is, and
if you'll turn with me to Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy chapter 17. Now we already know that the
law of God has told us that we shouldn't worship any other God,
correct? Everybody with me on that? It
tells us that we should not worship any other God. However, the Bible
also says that we shouldn't make any kind of graven image and
give worship to that or give any kind of adherence to that. We should not make with our hands
anything in heaven, okay, and have that for something to be
a catalyst of worship. Or anything upon the earth, and
that be a catalyst for worship. Now, I'm not going to be dogmatic
about this kind of stuff. I used to be fairly dogmatic
about it, but I'm not going to be as dogmatic at it anymore
as much as I was, but I particularly have a conviction that we should
not have like pictures of Jesus, statues of Jesus, of angels. I don't believe that we should
have angels or any other thing that is made, whether it be Peter
or you know, Paul or Mary or anything else, those things that
exemplify or are used to express a worshipful or a religious worship. And so that is my conviction. I believe that there are some
things in the scripture that talk about that, but I know whenever
you say that, a lot of people go and they'll run and say, well,
then you mean that you can't make anything with your hands.
So if my kid makes a, giraffe with his Plato, he's now made
a graven image. And that's not what we're talking
about, okay? We're not talking about those
things. We are talking about anything of the celestial heavens,
anything of heavenly things that is made, that is to show forth
the majesty of heaven. That is to show forth the glory
that is of God. and to have that to show how
religious we are. Okay, let me just put it that
way. Okay, to show that we're religious. We shouldn't put any
credence in those types of things. I would also say another thing
that fits into that would be even crosses. You know, we see
churches all over the place that have crosses, and unfortunately
this building we stay in, it's not our building, and we can't
change it, You know, out in the brick, inlaid in the brick is
a big giant cross out here. You know, if I had my say-sos,
we wouldn't have that there. People make an icon out of the
cross. And yes, do we sing about what
happened on the cross? Yes. Jesus died on the cross?
Yes. Did Paul say, I preach nothing
but Jesus Christ and Him crucified? Yes. Does he talk about the importance
of the cross? Yes, we do that. But we don't
make the cross an icon of worship. See, it wasn't the cross that
saved us, it was Christ that saved us who was tortured and
killed on the cross, okay? The cross was a means of death. It was an instrument of death.
It would be like today if we had an electric chair, you know? If Jesus would come today and
it would have been an electric chair that he died in, okay? Is everybody gonna walk, go around
with a little electric chair on their necklace? Well, we would
say no. but that's because the cross
has become such an enamored thing that we forget that that was
a tree that was specifically made to kill people on. People
that went to the cross did not come down from the cross. Matter
of fact, if they lived too long, we learn in the scriptures that
the soldiers would come and break your legs so that you couldn't
push yourself up anymore to gasp for breath and so that you would
die faster. But if you got on the cross,
you were on the cross until you died. It was a place of torture
and execution. And so we have now enamored and
made the cross to the place where the cross really doesn't have
much offense anymore. The meaning of it. We wear it
around our necks, we wear it on our fingers, we have it on
our church buildings, on steeples, which a steeple in another aspect
is a pagan thing as well. But I won't get into that. But
anyway, we see these things, this iconery, and we think that
we have to have that in worship. People build new churches today.
What do they think they have? They have to have a steeple?
They have to have a cross. Well, why do they think that?
Why do they think they have to have that? Or whenever you get
in, they have to have pictures of Jesus and things like that.
Do you have to have that to worship? I love going back and seeing
a lot of these older churches that some of the old Baptists
used to meet in, they were very humble. They're just little,
you know, straight shotgun type buildings. Didn't have much flair
to it. They didn't have a bunch of rooms
in it like we see here. They didn't have a bunch of classrooms.
Why? Because the congregation congregated. They didn't come
and split up into all these different groups. They came and they congregated
together and worshiped together. The children sat with the parents.
The children were being instructed by the Christian parents how
Christian worship was to take place. They didn't send them
out to some ding-dong youth minister that, you know, wasn't mature
himself, who's been, you know, being a youth and he's 38 years
old and still acting like he's, you know, 18 years old. He doesn't
send their kids out to kids to be taught. They bring them with
them. And these old Baptist buildings,
they were just plain things, not a lot of decorations, not
a lot of nothing. They had pews, they had a pulpit,
they had places to go to the restroom, if they had that, and
they maybe went out to outhouse, if they had that. But the thing
is, is it isn't about how pretty the building was, it's about
coming together and meeting. It was a place to meet. Why? Because the church congregates
to meet. It isn't about the building.
It isn't about how much money you put into your building. It's
about coming and meeting together. I mean, Sister Loretta was talking
about that this morning. You know, we, today, we don't
know what it's like to worship without the conveniences that
we have today. You know, we have a heated building
this morning. It's cold outside. It was, what, 20 degrees whenever
we came to church this morning, something like that, you know?
It's cold outside, ice out on there. Well, what do we do? We
came in a heated car, drove right up to the door and walked right
into a heated building, and now we're sitting on padded chairs,
and we're gonna have some lunch. We got a coffee pot back there.
You know, we've got it made nowadays, but Christians back then, they
didn't have it so. And so it's not a requirement.
It's not a necessity that we have those things, but we have
all this iconery whether it be the building, whether it be the
icons of a steeple, or a cross, or an angel, or a picture of
Jesus, or any other thing that is made, these things, people
think, well, you have to have that to come to worship. I mean,
you can't just worship in a lean-to. Well, yeah, you can. We've worshiped
before in a house many times, haven't we? Matter of fact, I
believe that one time we even worshiped out at a picnic table
under a little lean-to building in the park. We've done that,
okay? There isn't nothing wrong with
that, okay? And we think that it has to be
about this to worship God. Well, you mean we don't need
a cross in our baptistry? We don't need a cross in our
steeples? All around in the room? No, you
don't need that. You don't need that. Deuteronomy chapter 17,
look if you would with me at verse two. If there be found
among you within any of thy gates which the Lord thy God giveth
thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight
of the Lord thy God in transgressing his covenant, and hath gone and
served other gods and worshiped them, either the son or moon,
or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded, and
it betold thee, and thou hast heard of it, and inquired diligently,
and behold it be true, and the thing certain that such abomination
is wrought in Israel, then shalt thou bring forth that man or
that woman which hath committed that wicked thing into thy gates,
even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones
till they die. At the mouth of two witnesses
or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put
to death. But at the mouth of one witness,
he shall not be put to death. The hands of the witnesses shall
be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hands
of all the people, so thou shalt put the evil away from among
you." You see how serious that God was about worship and worshiping
other things. Now, how does that pertain to
us today? How does this pertain to the
worship of the church? Well, one thing God specifically
says here is that we are not to serve other gods. We're not to serve other gods.
And we look around today in society and we see this ecumenical world
church that's out there that holds hands with the Muslims,
that holds hands with the Buddhists, that holds hands with all these
other religious groups that claim to have other gods. And they
think that we're all just getting along. Well, yeah, they call
him Allah, we call him Jehovah, okay? And they think that we're
serving the same person. Well, the God of the Arabs is
the same as the God of the Israelites because they all had the same
God. They were split and they were all under the same God.
No, brethren, that's not true. Matter of fact, the God of the
Israelites is not the God of the Bible today, okay? Don't
get that mistaken either. All those Zionist Jews that's
over there worshiping a God that is not the God of the Bible,
if they were worshiping God, they'd be worshiping Jesus Christ.
And see, that's the problem with a lot of churches today and dispensationalism
and things like that is people think that holy Israel, don't
touch or talk about Israel. Oh, don't say anything about
them. They were God's chosen people. God divorced Israel and
said, I've left your house to you desolate. Except for a remnant
of people, God has claimed them, just like with every other nation,
that their house is desolate. The only thing that matters is
the true spiritual people of God. And that ethnic national
people, the Bible says, and that religious system, the religious
system, Jesus said that that was a synagogue of Satan. But yet we, and we've been told
this over and over and over and over again throughout the years,
is that, oh, Israel is God's anointed and we don't say or
talk about them. We don't put our hand to their
mark. say anything bad about them, and everything has to be
for them. You have to be pro-Israel. If you're not pro-Israel, then
you're against God. Brethren, Israel despises the
Lord Jesus Christ. Israel hates Christ. Christ is
nothing to them. They are anti-Christ, okay? Those who hold to that are anti-Christ,
just like anybody else, just like the Russians that don't
believe in Christ, just like the Buddhists that don't believe
in Christ, just like anybody, that's a world religion that
is anti-Christ. And this isn't anti-Semitic talk,
this is the truth of false worship. False worship is anything that
doesn't look to Christ as King, as God, as Lord, and doesn't
look to Him in righteousness and His righteousness only for
salvation. If they don't do that, it's a
false gospel, it's a false religion, it's false worship no matter
what it's called. Whether it's called evangelicalism,
whether it's called Buddhism, whether it's called New Ageism,
whether it's called Judaism, okay? Christianity is not a Judeo-Christian
religion. It is a Christian religion, if
you want to put the word to it. It's not Judeo. There's no Judeo
about it, okay? We are not Jews. We are not... in that respect, in the religious
aspect. We're Jews spiritually, but we're
not Jews on the outward. We don't follow that religious
system of the Jews. That is not God's way of doing
things. But what does it say here? It
says not to worship other gods. Okay, so anything that we would
do in the worship of the church that would lend a hand or lend
out and say, hey, we're working equally with these people, acknowledging
their gods, That's a sin, we shouldn't be doing that. We shouldn't
be doing that, okay? But it says here that they shouldn't worship them,
either the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven. You
go down an aisle in a Christian bookstore and you'll see rows
of books upon angels. Matter of fact, I think Billy
Graham even wrote a book one time about angels. you know,
about the glory of these angels. Now, there's nothing wrong with
teaching about angels and the biblical teaching of what angels
are and what angels do, okay? But listen, angels are not to
be worshipped. They are not to be worshipped. Angels are not to be lifted up. Matter of fact, angels shouldn't
even be thought more highly of Christ or of the church. but yet people put so much emphasis
on those things. The sun or the moon. Now there
are actually religions that worship the sun, that worship the moon,
that worship the host of heaven, the things such as that, and
you see that blatantly. But yet brethren, also within
quote unquote Christianity, there are those who follow all these
pagan festivals that center around the worship of the sun, and the
moon, the summer solstice, the winter solstice, okay? And they have these holidays
that revolve around when the moon does what? Matter of fact,
a lot of the Jewish holidays in the Jewish system revolves
around the timing of the sun and the moon, okay? And the Bible here says that
we should not worship these things. Are they important to teach about?
Is there something that the Bible tells us about the sun? How it
was made, what day it was made on, what it does, what it doesn't
do. About the moon, yes, the Bible
tells us some things about the moon. One of these days I'm gonna
preach on that here. We'll have a study on the creation
and what the Bible says about some of these things. The host
of heaven, does the Bible have some things to say about that?
Absolutely it does. Matter of fact, you know, we
just sung a song talking about that. come through a time in
December where a lot of people sing songs about Jesus's birth,
although we know it didn't take place at that time, but sing
songs about Jesus's birth. And what is one of the biblical
accounts that gives about Jesus's birth? Well, there was a host
of heaven that came and proclaimed, glory to God on the highest and
on earth, peace, goodwill toward all men. So the Bible has some
things to say about that. but yet we should not worship
them. They should not be a part of
our worship. And God tells us that this is a very important
thing to him, that there should not be worship of these things. And so strict of a thing under
the law that a person was stoned to death. That's how important
that was to God. Look with me, if you would, at
Exodus chapter 20, and you'll see what I'm talking about there.
Exodus chapter 20. Exodus chapter 20, look at verse
five. Well, let's back up. Verse three,
thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make
unto thee any graven image or any likeness of anything that
is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath and that
is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself
to them. So here we're seeing that the
context of this command is talking about worship and reverence,
right? Worship, reverence, giving any kind of adherence and credence
to anything about that. Listen, astrology. There are
some people that would say, well, I don't worship astrology. I
don't bow down before, but by golly, they get up every morning
and they read it in the newspaper and they say, man, I better not
go outside today. It looks pretty bad according
to the stars. Okay. You know, it says, thou shalt
not bow down thyself to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord
thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon
the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that
hate me." Okay, so we see here that it is very important to
God that we do not make any graven image of things in heaven or
on earth and bow down before them and serve them because God
is a jealous God. God is a jealous God, and so
we are not to worship other gods. Exodus 34, if you would. Exodus
34. Look if you would at verse 14. It says, for
thou shalt worship no other god for the Lord whose name is jealous. That's the Lord's name. That's
one of the Lord's names. We talk about Jehovah-Jireh,
Jehovah-Sidkenu. We talk about all these names
of God, but yet here we see that God's name is jealous, and he
is a jealous God. Lest thou make a covenant with
the inhabitants of the land, and they go a-whoring after their
gods, and do sacrifice under their gods, and one call thee
and thou eat of his sacrifice. Now I'm going to say some things
here that's going to be pretty controversial. And I don't mean
it to say it just to be controversial. I mean to say that we have a
problem in America and this problem is undetected because we've been
Americans our whole entire life and all we've known is freedom
in America. All that we've known is ease
in America, prosperity in America, freedom in America, and we don't
know one whit what it's like to be persecuted like other countries
are, or to live under other types of systems besides the system
that we live in. The world talks about Americans
being arrogant, okay? I've come to understand that
we have become very, we are very arrogant people. We are arrogant
to think that our system, the way that we do things, is the
only way it should be done. Now I'll say, I think that, I
will say that a republic system, as far as politics is concerned,
the best I could see, a republic government with a democracy and
a and a constitution that governs by law, okay, and freedom for
everybody, with capitalism running that system, seems to me to be
one of the best ways that a government can thrive, and that a country
can thrive and stay where everybody's treated fairly and nicely and
great, you know, and everybody's given their ability to get out
and make for themselves, you know, if one of these kids want
to become a baker and open up a bakery shop, you know what?
Save the Lord hindering that providentially, they can go out
and do that, right? Our mindset is that this country
and the way that it's set up and the way that it's to be run
is a God-given right. Matter of fact, it says that
in in our founding documents, right? That it is a God-given
right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Can any
of you guys show me that in the scripture anywhere, though? It's not in there, brethren.
The pursuit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
We can find instances all through the Bible that life isn't promised
to anybody. The Lord giveth life, the Lord
takes life, right? It is appointed unto man once
to live, and after that, the judgment. Okay, God appoints
that life, and God takes that life at His appointed time. So
we are not guaranteed life. We're not granted under God's
things the freedom or the right to have life. Now, we are not
given the right to take life in a murderous way, right? Now, there are places where the
Bible does talk about where we can take life, but it's not in
a murderous way, okay? Liberty. Let's look throughout
the scripture, how much liberty was, we have spiritual liberty. Yeah, we can find that in the
Bible. But what about a lot of these Jews? Man, they lived,
the early Christians lived without liberty. They were under Roman
rule. They were under, even whenever
they scattered out of Jerusalem and into the Gentile world, they
still was under Roman rule. The Romans ruled everything during
that time period. You look back through all of
history, the Catholic Church and it's iron fist over the Christians.
There wasn't liberty there. The Baptists definitely didn't
have liberty to speak up on what they believed and preach the
gospel, lest they be killed. And you look, even coming into
the United States, there was not liberty here, even though
that's what we supposedly was founded upon, religious liberty.
Yet the Baptists were persecuted worse than anybody here in the
United States of America by other religious groups, killed. tortured, imprisoned, fined,
had their goods taken away, restricted from any kind of education or
any kind of worship. I mean, what about God-given
right? And the pursuit of happiness.
Oh, ain't that nice? Well, it is nice, and I'm thankful
that the Lord has put us in a government that sees to it that we can have
those rights, okay? Now, it's wonderful that God
has given us a government that works to, at least used to work
to, don't so much anymore, that works to those things. But see, it's not a God-given
right that we have any of those, okay? Really, we don't have any
rights as people before God. The Christians, because of their
union with Christ, has been given promises. But we don't have any
rights that's guaranteed us. We deserve anything that comes
to us because of our sinfulness. Now, with that being said, there
are some that have made these United States and the patriotism,
and I'm not against being patriotic either. I love my country, and
I think we should stand up for our country, defend our country
for evil oppressors and things like that. the Democratic Party
for one. I think we should defend ourselves
from evil. But brethren, if we make our
country on the level of God, then we are making an idol out
of our country and out of our government. Listen, our patriotism
shouldn't be towards our God and our flag. It should be to
the king. And if the United States falls
and the government falls, we still have our king, okay? It isn't all about the United
States. Now, I love our country, as I said, and I'm not trying
to be anti-American, but that is not, and people are so wrapped
up with that, it's God, country, and guns, you know? That's what,
and family, God, family, guns, and country, you know? But yet
God is driven by the other things, you know? They try to drive God
because of the other things. And they try to mold God and
Christianity into patriotism. Now look what it says here. For
thou shalt worship no other God, for the Lord whose name is Jealous
is a jealous God. Lest thou make a covenant with
the inhabitants of the land, and they go a-whoring after their
gods." Listen, this country and their gods are going a-whoring.
Look at the things today. I just read an article yesterday
that in the Southern Baptist, one of the oldest Baptist churches
that's still in existence, I think it was 1832, Wake Forest Baptist
Church, that out of that church came
one of the Southern Baptist seminaries. And this church right now is
calling a transgender to be their pastor. And this article was
about how it came down to two different people, and these two
different people had great characteristics, but the one that was the transgender,
they felt in their heart love, the compassion, the spiritualness
of this person. Okay, well, if that person was
truly spiritual, they wouldn't be transgender, okay? Not to mention the fact that
the Bible says that the pastor of a church should be the husband
of one wife, not a sexual deviant, not a sodomite, okay? So, this world, and its system,
and this government who is making laws to back up these things
is going a-whoring after other gods. What little bit of God
that was in the beginning of our country, and even at that,
it wasn't true Christianity, brother. Don't be fooled by that
either. Okay, we say that this is a godly
country. It's not a godly country, and
it wasn't founded upon true biblical, scriptural things. mostly set
up upon deism and upon a generic deity, okay? Not upon the Lord
Jesus Christ, not upon the true gospel, okay? It wasn't ever
set up that way. And so let's not be fooled. Just
because someone says that we're given honor under God, you know,
just because our dollar bill says in God we trust, well, who's
the God of this country? If you look at it now, it isn't
Jehovah God of the Bible, is it? Look back 60 years ago, the
God of the Bible, was it the God? I mean, the God we trust
60 years ago, was it the God of the Bible? No. Go back to
the founding fathers and read their works and read what they
say about spirituality and religion. They talk a lot about God, but
brethren, it isn't the true gospel. It isn't the Jesus Christ of
the scripture, and it isn't the God of the scripture. It's a generic God. Now, that's
for another day, getting into the Masonic part of it and how
they have their generic God that is kept quiet until they learn
that it was Lucifer. But anyway, it says here, lest
thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and
they go a-whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their
gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice. And
thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters
go a-whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a-whoring
after their gods. Thou shalt make thee no molten
gods. Now, what's God warning here?
He's warning about going with the God of the inhabitants of
the land, right? What were they doing? They were
going into other lands that were not their lands. God had given
them, foreign lands to go into, and those people had never been
under the law, had never been under, of course at this time
the law was just being given, it hadn't been established, but
had never been under God and under his, they were
not Israelites, let's just put it that way, they were not Hebrew
Israelites. That was the only one who God
had revealed these things to, okay? They've gone into other
countries and God is telling them, don't go in and do like
they do. Don't be what they are. Don't act like they act. And
don't take under them women and men who believe those things. That's a good example for all
you young people and for anybody else that's out there that's
single, that's looking to become married and everything. You should
never be married to an unbeliever. You should never be married to
someone who doesn't believe like you do. in the true gospel, okay? Just because somebody in the
Jewish community said, well, I believe in God, that doesn't
mean that you should go out and marry them. Well, they believe
in God. No, they don't. Or any other
religious sect that's out there, okay? The Bible commands us to
not be unequally yoked. That doesn't mean that whites
and blacks can't marry together. That's what I used to, here growing
up, among a lot of racist type people, that whites and blacks
shouldn't marry against each other, and that that verse do
not be unequally yoked, that's what that's talking about. No,
the Bible is talking about someone who is a believer and a non-believer.
And a true believer is one who believes the true gospel, who
believes the doctrine of grace. And so God here is saying, listen,
These people worship different than you. Don't take up their
worship. Don't listen to that stuff. I hear of people who grew
up as Baptists, and I know that name don't mean nothing, and
especially don't mean much anymore today, but they grew up being
taught biblical truth in Baptist churches, and then he runs off
to college and finds some little sweetheart, And then in finding
that one little sweetheart, finds out that she's a Catholic. And
so her family says, well, we can't marry you unless you're
a Catholic. And so he all of a sudden decided, well, I'll
just switch and become Catholic. And so now he's humbling himself
to the Catholic God and marrying this woman under Catholic church. all the idols that they represent
and the false anti-Christ system that it is, that's being unequally
yoked. If he even in fact was ever truly
a Christian or not. Anyway, I'm kind of getting way
off track on this. My main point on this is that
we shouldn't make covenants with the inhabitants of land or that
means that we should not partake of the worship. Just because
America might worship this way, okay, how we see America worshiping
God in all these mega churches and complexes all over the world
and everything, and we're belittled and we are ridiculed for believing
like we do in our small little groups and holding dogmatically
to the word of God and not to just let love rule, okay? Brethren, listen, the Bible says
that we should not make covenants with the inhabitants of the land.
We shouldn't go in and listen to them and how they worship
and how they serve their God. That's not God, okay? Or taking those wives or husbands
from them. Look with me, if you would, at
Deuteronomy 6. I'm sorry. No, that's right, Deuteronomy
6. Deuteronomy 6, look with me at
verse 13. In fact, I'm going to back up
to verse 12 because I want to make mention of something here
that the Holy Spirit gave Moses to write. Verse 12, it says, then beware,
Deuteronomy 6 verse 12, It says, then beware lest thou forget
the Lord which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt from
the house of bondage. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy
God and serve him and shalt swear by his name. Ye shall not go
after other gods of the gods of the people which are round
about you. For the Lord thy God is a jealous
God among you. Lest the anger of the Lord thy
God be kindled against thee and destroy thee from off the face
of the earth. Ye shall not tempt the Lord your
God as you tempted him in Massa. Now, in verse 12, he says, then
beware lest I forget the Lord which brought thee forth out
of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage." Now, what
he's saying there, and we'll look at this in the spiritual
aspect, is this, is God has delivered us from idolatry. God has delivered
us from our sin, and he has delivered us out of, so to speak, Egypt
and bondage. So in light of that, we shouldn't
be worshiping any of the gods of bondage. See, you look at Egypt and who
do they have? They had the Pharaoh. They thought Pharaoh was God.
They had all their sun gods, Ra and all these others that
they had, that they worshiped. All these idols within the Egyptian
system. But you also look at Babylon.
You look at all the other religions that were out there that the
children of Israel were were exposed to. And you see that
God had given them forewarning that they should not go after
these gods. Don't be drawn in by their worship. Their worship
can be enticing. The fruits of their worship can
be enticing. They may indulge in this and
that, and it may seem right to you, and it may seem good to
you. It may seem profitable to you, but don't indulge in that.
And that's exactly what's happening today, brethren. is the gods
of this world, the idols of this world, and the worship of this
world and their pagan systems have all these things that entice
us and try to draw us in, but if God and Christ and His righteousness
isn't at the center of our worship, then we're worshiping something
false. That's why I say these churches with their worship groups,
that people go, if you could pull back that person and look
into their heart, look into their mind, their motives of things? And you'll see, why do they come?
Is it really for their love of Jesus that's explained in the
Bible? The Jesus who actually died for a specific people and
actually saved that specific people who chose him from eternity?
A God who predestinates all things? Are they worshiping God for who
he is as according to the scriptures? Or are they worshiping because
that worship team just is so awesome? Man, that band is awesome. Have you heard that band? Have
you heard that lead singer man, the way he sings? It's just so
heartfelt and it just brings me into worship. I don't know
how many times I've heard that in youth rallies and different
things like that, that I'm gonna lead you into worship. That a music minister or that
some worship team is gonna lead you into worship or lead you
in worshiping. They can't do that, brethren.
Worship comes from the heart. The true worshipers worship in
spirit and in truth, not in a worship leader, not in a worship group.
And if they say that, man, that guy, the way that he sings, it
just brings me into worship, then you're being led into worship
by a false God, into a false sense of worship. And so we need
to be careful of those things. And so the Lord has brought us
out of the worship of pagan gods, and brought us into the worship
of the true God. So we shouldn't be holding as
a church or as an individual to other gods and the way that
they worship. Look with me, if you would, at
Deuteronomy 32. We'll see something else. So we shouldn't be worshiping
after other gods, right? Deuteronomy 32. Deuteronomy 32, look with me
if you want down to verse 15. It says, but Jezaron waxed fat. Everybody know who Jezaron is
talking about here? That was kind of another name
that God gave for Israel, faithful Israel, okay? Jezaron. But Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked. Thou art waxen fat. Thou art
grown thick. Thou art covered with fatness.
Now, at first glance, they don't know the language of the time
here. They might think that God's calling
this guy fatty, fatty, two by four, can't get through the kitchen
door, okay? He's not talking about that,
okay? He's not talking about big boy
Mike, all right? What's he talking about? Whenever
the Bible talks that they have waxed fat, that thou art waxed
in fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness. That means that they've become
calloused, they've become hardened, that they've been covered where
they can't hear and understand or reason or have wisdom, okay? That they've grown calloused
to the things of God. And listen, we can become calloused. especially the more that we dabble
with the world, we can become calloused to the things of the
world. But what does he says here? Jezreel, our faithful Israel,
waxed fat and kicked. Thou art wax and fat, thou art
grown thick, thou art covered with fatness. Then he forsook
God, which made him and lightly esteemed the rock of his salvation. So that he became so entangled,
calloused to God, and became so enamored with the things of
the world that the things of God became light to him anymore.
Now, brethren, listen, that ought to be an awakening call to us
as the people of God. That can happen to us. We can
become so entangled with the things of the world that the
things of God just become light to us anymore. They don't matter
to us anymore. He says, they provoked him to
jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked him to
anger. They sacrificed unto devils,
not to gods, to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came
newly up, whom the fathers feared not. Of the rock that begat thee,
thou art unmindful and has forgotten God, that formed thee. And when
the Lord saw it, he abhorred them because of the provoking
of his sons and of his daughters. And he said, I will hide my face
from them. I will see what their end shall
be for they are very forward generation children in whom is
no faith. They have moved me to jealousy
with that which is not God. They have provoked me to anger
with their vanities And I will move them to jealousy with those
which are not a people. I will provoke them to anger
with a foolish nation." Now, this is actually a prophecy of
the Gentiles, of God leaving the Jews and going to the Gentiles. And that's what he's talking
about. Matter of fact, it's in Romans, I believe it's Romans
chapter 10 or 11, where the Bible speaks of that God brought the
Gentiles in to make the Jews jealous. And he said, I'm going
to move them to jealousy. Whose name, those whose name
are not a people, they're going to become jealous of you. And
then I'm going to open up to them and then you're going to
become jealous of them. And because of that, then we're
going to see that they're going to be two are going to be made
one. Okay, but here we see that it's talking about false worship.
It's talking about worship things. But here, not only are gods talked
about, but it says here that they worshipped and gave sacrifice
unto devils. And you know, we're seeing so
much stuff anymore on TV today that just makes light of the
fact of devil worship and all kinds of witchcraft and things
like that. And it's easy that you can easily become callous
to that whenever you watch that kind of stuff. If you don't keep
your mind on the Word of God, and if you don't keep your thoughts
on things that are good and pure, and if you don't keep in what
the Bible says, you know, we can easily be conflicted with
the things of this world. And to us, it don't make no difference.
And then all of a sudden, we lose our discernment between
the things that are right and the things that are wrong. Like
it says here, we become wax and fat. we grow cows to them, and
we lightly esteem the rock of our salvation. Okay, we should still stay sensitive
to those things. All right, so we shouldn't give
worship to demons. Turn with me now to Romans chapter
five. We're getting close to being done, brethren. I'm gonna
try to finish this up so we don't have to pick up with it next
week. Romans chapter one. Verse 25, we've already read
this in our study here, but let's read it again. It says, who changed the truth of
God into a lie and worshiped and served the creature more
than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. Okay, so we have
an admonition not to worship creatures. As I mentioned, A
week or so ago, we have a lot of worship of creaturely things. You go over in some of these
other countries and you have people in India that worship
the cow. You have Africans that worship who knows what. Here
in the United States, we've talked about the American Indians. They
worship eagles and wolves and bears. I mean, everything in
the nature. And it's part of that. And so
this is what we see here, that they have changed the truth of
God into a lie and worshiped and served the creature more
than the Creator. But listen, brethren, we can
worship man. He's a creature too, right? And
we can worship man. That's what will worship's all
about. Whenever you put more trust in what man can do than
what God can do, then you are now worshiping at the feet of
the creature. What do we do? What do we see
in today's society? Let me give you a few examples
of how this works. The Bible tells us that if you're a child
of grace and if you are a member of a local assembly, that if
there is any problems arise between brothers and sisters in Christ,
where are you to take that up at? Within the church, right? But what do we see today? Brother
and sister goes against each other and they go to the courts
and let men dictate. They feel that man has a better
thing to say about how this should go than God. A marriage. Where's the best
way to find marriage counseling? It's in the word of God, right?
But yet some people think that counselors and psychologists
and Christian quote-unquote Christian counselors is the place that
you ought to go. Psychology is where it's at.
Doesn't the Bible say that we're not to follow after those things,
that we're not to seek the wisdom of man, that we're not to seek
after the things of men, but that we're to look in the word
of God and let that be our rule and guide? But yet, what do we
think? We think, well, man, that guy's
got a PhD in psychology. He knows how to shrink heads.
Let's go to him, get everything fixed. I can tell you, going
to things like that, they're going to work from the wisdom
of man, the philosophy of man, and they're going to use the
works of man to try to fix man, rather than that's worshiping
the creature rather than the Creator. Instead of saying, God's
grace is sufficient, His Word is enough, we've got to go out
and look for man's wisdom for everything. We worship man in the fact that
we preach to them and say, here you have heaven and all eternity
offered to you by God, and if you'll only believe, if you'll
only trust, if you'll only walk this aisle, or if you'll say
this prayer, or become a member of this church, or get baptized
in these waters, then you can have it. See, then we become
will worshipers. That salvation is hinged upon
conditions that men keep and their will to do it. And so now
we worship the creator, creation other than the creator. We should
be worshiping the creator. What do we do whenever someone
gets saved? Oh, congratulations to you. I'm glad you made that
decision. I'm glad you accepted Jesus Christ. When we should
be saying, praise the Lord, God saved somebody. God saved them. You know, my ears are getting
more attuned to those things, listening whenever people talk.
Do they say, I got saved or I get saved or, you know, I accepted
Jesus or what's the, how's their terminology? Or do they give
the credence and the glory to Christ? I was saved. The Lord saved me. The Lord quickened
me. Give me faith. You know, do they
speak biblically about their salvation or do they keep talking
about what they did? You know, a lot of times whenever
people have come in the past and asked me about being baptized,
about being saved, I ask them, well, tell me about your salvation. You know, tell me about your
conversion, things like that. If they start going off talking
about, well, you know, this is how bad I was, and I realized
I needed to turn myself around, and so I started coming to church,
reading the Bible, and then I realized that, you know, I needed to repent
of my sins, so I did this, I did that, and I did this, and I did
that. I just tell them, you're not ready. You've not yet seen
the gospel. It's not about what you did.
And so I start taking them through that and unless they see that
and repent of those self-righteous thoughts and actions, then they're
not ready to be baptized. They're professing a wrong faith
in what they're saying. They don't have the knowledge
of the true gospel yet. So we see here in Romans that
we can worship the creature more than the Creator. That's why
Paul says that we aren't to trust in the arm of the flesh. We're
not to trust in the wisdom of man. Turn with me now, if you
would, to Daniel chapter 3. Daniel chapter 3. Starting in verse 5. Daniel chapter
3, verse 5. Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes,
Songs of Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel.
If you found Ezekiel, keep going around. It says that at what time you
hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery,
dulcimer, and all kinds of music, you fall down and worship the
golden image of Nebuchadnezzar the king hath set up. And whoso
falls not down and worshipeth shall the same hour be cast into
the midst of a burning fiery furnace. Therefore, at that time,
when all the people heard the sound of the cornet, flute, harp,
sackbut, psaltery, and all kinds of music, all the people, the
nations, and the languages fell down and worshiped the golden
image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. Wherefore, at
that time, certain Chaldeans came near and accused the Jews. They spake and said to the king,
Nebuchadnezzar, O king, live forever. Thou, O King, hast made
a decree that every man that shall hear the sound of the cornet,
flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of
music, shall fall down and worship the golden image. And whoso falls
not down and worship, that he should be cast in the midst of
the burning fiery furnace. There are certain Jews whom thou
hast set over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego, these men, O king, have not regarded
thee. They serve not thy gods, nor
worship the golden image which thou hast set up. Then Nebuchadnezzar,
in his rage and fury, commanded to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego. Then they brought these men before
the king. Nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto them, is it true?
O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, do you not serve my gods? nor
worship the golden image which I have set up. Now, if you be
ready that at what time you hear the sound of the cornet, flute,
harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music,
you fall down and worship the image which I have made. Well,
but if you worship not, you shall be cast the same hour in the
midst of a burning, fiery furnace. And who is that God that shall
deliver you out of my hands?" Kind of, making claims there all big and
mighty that he thought he was. Of course, he learned, didn't
he? Nebuchadnezzar learned. Verse
16, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king,
O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this
matter. If it be so, our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver
us from the burning, fiery furnace. And he will deliver us out of
thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto
thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the
golden image which thou hast set up.' Then was Nebuchadnezzar
full of fury, and the form of his visage was changed against
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Therefore he spake and commanded
that they should heat the furnace one seven times more than it
was wont to be heated. And he commanded the most mighty
men that were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego,
and to cast them into the burning, fiery furnace. Then these men
were bound in their coats, their hosen, and their hats, and their
other garments, and were cast in the midst of the burning,
fiery furnace. Therefore, because the king's
commandment was urgent, and the furnace exceedingly hot, the
flame of the fire slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abednego. That's saying that that fire
was so hot that the men that had to go up and throw them into
the fire, that it was so hot that the fire burnt them up,
throwing them into the fire. And these three men, Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego, fell down, bound into the midst of the burning
fiery furnace. Then Nebuchadnezzar, the king,
was astonished and arose up in haste, and spake and said unto
his counselors, did not we cast three men bound in the midst
of the fire? They answered and said unto the
king, true, O king. He answered and said, lo, I see
four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have
no hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God. Then Nebuchadnezzar came near
to the mouth of the burning, fiery furnace and spake and said,
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, ye servants of the Most High
God, come forth and come hither. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
came forth of the midst of the fire, and the princes, governors,
and captains, and the king's counselors, being gathered together,
saw these men upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was
a hair of their head singed. Neither were their coats changed,
nor the smell of fire had even passed on them. Then Nebuchadnezzar
spake and said, blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach and
Abednego, who have sent his angel and delivered his servants and
trusted in him and have changed the king's word and yielded their
bodies that they might not serve nor worship any God, excuse me,
except their own God. Therefore, I make a decree that
every people, nation and language which speak anything amiss against
the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego shall be cut in
pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill, because there
is no other God that can deliver after this sort. Then the king
promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the province of Babylon."
Now here we see the account of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego,
and how that the Bible teaches that we are not to bow down to
any image, no matter how much the persecution might come. no
matter what happens in this life. And it may come, especially for
you young kids. The time may come, whenever you
profess Jesus Christ, that they might drag you out in the streets
and say, you're going to bow down before this homosexual God,
this sodomite God. And if you don't, then we're
going to kill you. Listen, there is a no, well,
okay, well, I'm not going to be any good for God if I'm dead.
I'll just act like I say that, you know, I'll say that, but
I don't mean it in my heart." No. What did Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abednego say? They said, listen, our God can
deliver us, but if he don't, we're still not going to bow
down. If it means that we die, we're going to die proclaiming
the truth. We're going to die not worshiping
other gods. We're going to die not giving
in to other religions. We're not going to give in to
other idols. We're not going to give in to
that. We are going to die if we have to. Listen, I tell you
what, brethren, there is going to come a day when the sheep
and the goats are going to be separated. And it may not, I
think there's going to be a separation that going to begin somewhat
before judgment day, because whenever true persecution comes
upon the Christians, You're going to see a lot of these so-called
churches out there, their numbers are going to dwindle. Those people,
if they dwindle, they're probably just going to jump right on board
with whatever's going on. But listen, they're not going
to stand because they don't have a true faith. But what are we to do? We're
to stand. Someone comes this morning, puts a gun to the back
of my head and says, you're going to renounce Jesus Christ. Could
I say, okay, okay, well, I'll do that. Then whenever he turns
around and goes away, I say, well, I just was saying that,
I didn't really mean it. I just did that to stay alive.
No, we don't renounce the Lord Jesus. And that's what these
men did, and they were willing to die for it. And so we in our
worship should not worship to any kind of image or any man's
philosophy or image, no matter how it comes. Now, we should be worshiping
any man. Look at Acts. Acts chapter 10. Acts chapter 10. If we look at verse 25, It says, and as Peter was coming
in, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshipped
him. But Peter took him up saying,
stand up, I myself also am a man. Okay, so we see that we shouldn't
be worshipping men. Now brethren, in today's society,
we have a lot of men worshipping men. Probably one of the greatest
examples of these would be the Pope. People all over this world
look to that man, whether they are Catholic or not, even people
who are not Catholics, still look to him and worship him as
some, you know, the leader of the Christian church. There is
only one mediator between God and man, and that's the man Jesus
Christ. The Pope is not the vicar of
God. The Pope is not the mediator
And those priests are not to be prayed to. You don't go in
and confess to priests. They are not the ones who remove
your sin and give you absolution, whatever it is. I might have
the term wrong. You know, they can't do anything. Why would you want to go to another
man and confess your sins in hopes for it being removed whenever
the Bible says that that man don't have any power to do so? But here we see that Cornelius,
who was a man I believe, who was quickened of God, but had
not yet been taught the truth. You know, he had a religious
heart, he was seeking after God, he tried to do what's right,
but yet he had a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
And so even though he was quickened, he had not yet heard the gospel.
And the very fact that he fell down and worshiped at Peter's
feet, shows me that he didn't know that. Otherwise he wouldn't
be falling down and worshiping Peter's feet. But he fell down
and worshiped at Peter's feet. And Peter said, listen, I myself
am a man. And look, the Catholics put the
Pope up as the successor of Peter. And the very one that they say
was the very first Pope, which he wasn't, by the way, the one
that they claim was the very first Pope is the one here saying,
don't worship me. But yet Catholics all over the
world worship Peter and worship every pope that comes down the
pike. That's a lot of alliteration, okay? Pontificating about that. Bad joke, sorry. Peter said don't
worship men. We shouldn't be worshiping men.
And listen, that goes for you evangelicals. Don't be worshiping
your pastor. That don't mean that we aren't
to give honor and and the reverence that's due according to the scriptures
for the man who is faithfully carrying out the office of pastor.
There's nothing magical or mystical about the man, but the Lord has
placed him in that office for your good. And so there is a
sort of honor that is to be given to the pastor for the office
that he holds and the work and labor that he does for you. But
listen, you're not to worship him. He's not your God, he's
not your king. He's not your head, Christ is. We shouldn't be worshiping man. Antichrists, we shouldn't be
worshiping them. Look at Revelation chapter 13.
Revelation chapter 13. Now, the word antichrist is made
up of two words, anti and Christ, right? What does the word anti
mean? It means to be against, right? Or opposite of. So an antichrist would be someone
who is against Christ or opposite of Christ. So anything that is Antichrist, we should be opposed to, right?
That's why I'm saying whenever you look to this Jewish state
over in Israel right now, they are Antichrist. Look at verse four. And they
worshiped the dragon, which gave power unto the beast. And they
worshiped the beast, saying, who is like unto the beast? who
was able to make war with him. And there was given unto him
a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies. And power was
given unto him to continue 40 and two months. And he opened
his mouth in blasphemy against God to blaspheme his name and
his tabernacle and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given
unto him to make war with the saints and to overcome them.
And power was given him over all kindreds and tongues and
nations, and all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him whose
names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb, slain
from the foundation of the world. If any man have an ear, let him
hear. He that leadeth into captivity
shall go into captivity. He that killeth with the sword
must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the
faith of the saints. And I beheld another beast coming
up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb, and he
spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power
of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them
which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly
wound was healed. And he doeth great wonders so
that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the
sight of men. and deceiveth them that dwell
on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power
to do in the sight of the beast, saying to them that dwell on
the earth that they should make an image to the beast which had
the wound by a sword and did live. And he had power to give
life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should
both speak and cause that as many as would not worship the
image of the beast should be killed. And he caused all, both
small and great, rich and poor, free and bond to receive a mark
in their right hand or in their foreheads and that no man might
buy or sell save he that had the mark or the name of the beast
or the number of his name. Here is wisdom, let him that
hath understanding count the number of the beast for it is
the number of a man and his number is 600, three score and six. Now there's a lot of imagery
and symbolism there and I don't want to get into that today.
everything but here we see that Antichrist or anything that is
Antichrist should not be worshipped okay and there there there's
a time there was a time when this took place and a lot of
things were done to the Christians I believe this is speaking specifically
back around 80 70 whenever Rome came and destroyed Jerusalem
and the the Christians were persecuted and Uh, there was a lot of people
slaughtered, uh, and that the, that those who were Christians,
uh, they were not able to, uh, work within the trade guilds
anymore. That's where the Bible talks about what we just read
there about. They were not able to buy and
sell and trade and all that stuff. Uh, that happened to trade guilds.
Uh, if you didn't, if you didn't identify with the beast, then,
uh, uh, that with Rome, then you weren't allowed to be a part
of the trade guild. So at that point, you wasn't
able to get any work. You were not able to get money.
You were not able to buy food. Those who were in the marketplace,
if you didn't be a part of that, then they wouldn't give you food,
where you could buy food. And so the Christians were persecuted
during that time, just like it says here. So a lot of this, I think, has
already taken place, but I believe it's cyclical. It happens in
every generation. There is persecution that comes
from antichrist organizations. All right. So we'll conclude with that right
there, brethren. There was a couple of other verses,
but they basically looking at them or some of the same things
we've already said, so for the sake of how long it's been, I
will keep from going through those verses, which are retreads
of the same ones we've already talked about. Does anybody have
any questions or comments about anything? Well, just a reminder, those
who worship the Lord will worship Him, and true worshipers will
worship Him in spirit and in truth, and will worship Him and
him only, and not worship anything else. Amen. May the Lord keep
us faithful in doing that, as individuals and as a congregation.
All right, let's bow and have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly
Father, we thank you for the day. We thank you for all that
you have said today, that you have given us in your word. We
look at those admonitions in scripture, Father, and we look
at the world around us and see how deceived and blinded many
are today, and following after the very things that you admonish. So Lord, we know that we can
easily be deceived. And Lord, we know that we can
become callous to the things of the Spirit of God. So Lord,
we pray that by your grace and by your mercy that you would
keep us faithful, faithful to your word, faithful to the worship
of God, faithful to the gospel, as it's found in scripture, faithful
to the God of the Bible, the Christ of the Bible. And so father,
we pray that you might for years to come keep the witness of this
church, one that witnesses of the truth. Father, I thank you
for these brothers and sisters that are here and I pray Lord
that you might continue to work and minister in our lives and
Lord that you might use us to minister to this town. I pray
for those of our membership that are not here again today. Father,
we continue, our heart continues to go out for them. We pray,
Lord, that you might touch them, that you might turn their heart
once again to the church. Lord, we know that you are in
control of all things and by your purpose and by your wisdom,
all things are transpiring according to your plan. But Lord, we just
pray that if it be your will, that you would just turn their
hearts to once again come and be a part of the service and
the worship here with us. And again, we pray for the folks
in this town, Lord. Again, we call that any believers
that are out there, that you might bring them and direct them
in their way in your providence, Lord. However it is that you
bring them this way, whether it be through us talking to them,
or them seeing the literature that we have passed out around
the town, or whether it be through the websites or the Facebook
sites, or whether it be through sermon audio, Our word of mouth,
Lord, I pray that your people might find a place to come for
fellowship and for the worship and the service of the gospel
and for Christ, our King. Lord, we ask you now to bless
this food that we're about to eat. May it nourish our bodies.
And it's in Jesus' name that we pray, amen.