Saul and Barnabas have been commissioned
by the Spirit of God. They have departed to a work
up in Asia Minor. As you guys note, they were dealing
with small islands and they are presently on a small island called
Pappas, where there were synagogues of the Jews, which means the
Jews also in their diaspora have been spread abroad all over the
known world. And the Apostle Paul and Barnabas
have run across another Trickster and con of the cause
of the gospel and we see this clearly over in verse 5 and 6
and when they were at Solomus they preached the Word of God
in the synagogues of the Jews and and they had also John to
their minister. And when they had gone through
the aisle unto Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet,
a Jew, whose name was Bar-Jesus. And we worked through that language
last week and the week before, and we understood that everywhere
the gospel is to go, there will always be some kind of what? Opposition. The gospel was not
designed to only operate within the framework of a vacuum or
a void. In fact, it's designed by nature
to actually penetrate into the darkness and expose the darkness
for what it is. So when you and I are dealing
with a light-darkness model, we are talking about a conflict,
are we not? The goal of the gospel from an offensive standpoint,
offensive not being, not meaning that it is intentionally scandalous,
but from an offensive standpoint, it is assertive. It moves forward. It marches on and it seeks out
lost sinners to bring to a saving knowledge of Christ. That process
is an assault on the kingdom of God. It's an assault on the
kingdom of Satan. When you and I become Christians,
we become part of God's army. And that then calls us to the
task of Pressing forward in the cause of Christ as well and we
get to see some work done by the Apostle in this area And
so we marked very carefully in verse 6 that this was a Jew He
was a sorcerer, but he was also a false prophet and his name
was bar Jesus So he was a Jew There's some commonality there.
He was a sorcerer. This is where he departs and
He was also a what? Prophet. And interestingly enough,
his name was Bar, what? Jesus. This brother had an epithet,
didn't he? He had a title, he had an entourage,
he had a complete AKA in front of him that would have attracted
all sorts of people. Think about it, he's a Jew, so
he's going to attract Jews. Then he's also a sorcerer. I've
got sorcerer. He's a sorcerer. And so he's
going to attract people who are given to what mysticism and fantasy
and strange and the bizarre. I'm thinking I'm getting that
wrong, strange and bizarre phenomenon. That's right. And then he's also
calling himself what a prophet. That means he handles the word
of God. We saw that last week. We'll
touch on that as soon as we go back to Paul's exposure of him.
But then he's also calling himself the son of what? That means in a strange way,
he's actually calling himself a disciple. He's banking on ignorant people
who only get jazzed by terms and titles and not the substance
behind the terms and the title. to attract them to him just because
he adopts the name Jesus. Bar Jesus for him means that
everyone that kind of gets moved by the phrase Jesus, Jesus, will
listen to him. So he's a fourfold liability
to the church. He's a Jew. So as a Jew, he's
supposed to be the person who has the law of God, the oracles
of God, and he therefore is calling himself an authority by virtue
of being a Jew. He's a sorcerer, so he's tapped
into all the dark powers of the world, and the dark powers are
powers with which you and I have to deal in the church as well.
You guys know that. In this room here, we're getting
close to 100 people in here. There will be one or two of us,
if not more, who dabble in sorceries among us right now. Just the
statistics will affirm that some of us who profess to be Christians,
in fact, cross the line, transcend the boundaries of Christian protocol
and engage in the horoscope or some form of New Age philosophy. some type of cultic practice
that will give you an edge and insight. You will listen to the
men and women who essay to be able to talk to the dead, like
these programs that are popular today with madams and these folks
who can tell you that your mother's right here and she's telling
me to tell you, don't worry about it, right? There are people who
are fascinated by that stuff. and drawn in. And they're quick
to call themselves Christians. Now they may be Christian in
name, but they're not Christian in conviction. Because when you
are Christian in conviction, you know that the word of God
tells us to shun and to avoid, if not expose, the unfruitful
works of darkness. But if I am drawn into that,
if it impales me, if I'm driven internally to be attracted by
those things, one, either I am not rooted and grounded in Christ,
two, either I am still fondling with and playing with certain
dark worlds that I came out of, thus I have an allegiance to
them and they have a tug on me, or three, I don't know Christ
at all. And I don't see the importance
of turning away from idols to serve the true and the living
God. If I'm not grounded, I can be tempted if my background,
if my upbringing, if my culture, and mine was, I'm a Creole, because
of that, I have a lot of folks who dabbled in all of the stupid
stuff of voodoo and seances Ouija boards and tarot cards
and and and things of that nature in my culture and so they saw
things and they heard things and they Experienced things and
because they saw them heard them and experienced them for them.
It was real But it was not true Do you understand the difference
between real and true a thing can be real and be a lie? Lies
are real Lies are real. So don't, don't, don't pour into
the definition of the term lie as being ethereal, non-substantive. They can be very real. Demons
are real, but demons are liars. Spirits are real, but spirits
are liars. They will be whatever you want
them to be. So as to perpetuate the lie in your life. When you
and I are not rooted and grounded in Christ. Or when, as we're
gonna learn on Sunday, We don't have an allegiance to jesus one
of the things that you're going to learn If you profess faith
in christ is that the devil the world and your own flesh is going
to see to it Whether or not you're serious about your allegiance
to jesus If you don't really have allegiance to jesus You're
going to find out before you die this man bar jesus who is
also a prophet, therefore he dabbles in the word of God. You
know him. These are the folks that can quote the Bible, but
it's not Christocentric in nature. Neither does it operate out of
a biblical worldview. It's rules of interpretation
always rooted in a very pluralistic sort of vague paradigm or vague
interpretation that leaves room for everybody. Taking Bible passages
and interpreting them like, Who is it Chopra deep Deepak
Chopra, right? This guy will twist scriptures
in a moment and he is often found in Christian circles. I forget
what I was Looking at in terms of an article of about some kind
of event occurring here in the Bay Area just recently Deepak
Chopra what what was it? Sensei San Jose, what was it? Oh, yeah, it was an event recently
church folk troopers there And I bet you the building will be
filled with people all calling it Christian This is how deceived
people are when they're not rooted and grounded in the truth I'm
laying a foundation because what's going to occur in the next few
verses is the exposure of darkness by the light and The imposition
of the light on the darkness in such a way that it's authority
over darkness is going to be the means by which a man will
be delivered from the delusion of false teaching. So now we'll
follow through our points really quickly. We've been here before.
The light imposing the darkness in chapter 13, verse 11. Listen
to what Paul says in verse 11. He says, and now let me, yeah,
this is imposing the darkness. And now after having given all
of these Sort of appellations of condemnation on bar jesus
in verse 9 He says in verse 11 and now behold the hand of the
lord is upon you and you shall be blind Not seeing the sun for
a season and immediately there fell on him a mist in the darkness
And he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand. What
did god do? He blinded this man Why did he
blind him? Because he professed to be a
seer when in fact he was the means of obscuring multitudes
of people so that they never saw the glory of God. As we closed
out last week with the apostles insignia of being a true apostle,
these are what we call the signs of an apostle that you see here.
This is 2 Corinthians chapter 12 where Paul said, truly the
signs of an apostle were wrought in me People talk about the fivefold
ministry and the perpetuity of the sign gifts and the perpetuity
of the offices of apostle and prophets and evangelists and
teachers and pastors. And we argue against the perpetuity
of two of those gifts, prophets and apostles. We assert that
if you embrace a position that there are still apostles today
and that there are still prophets today in the classical sense
of a prophet, you don't need your Bibles. This is what we
are certain. What we teach is to accept the
notion that God is still raising up apostles of the caliber and
class of the apostle Paul, Peter, James and John and such is for
you to no longer need your Bible because the apostles would have
been the vehicle by which divine revelation was communicated to
us. And why do we need a closed canon if in fact we have apostles
speaking into our lives with equal authority as that of the
scriptures? In other words, we're perpetuating
the scriptures in the oracles of these apostles and their authority
is equal to the Word of God. Am I making some sense? Now follow
this. This is to help some people who don't understand implications
of erroneous doctrine. If I accept the notion that she
or he or they possess the same office as the apostles, when
they open their mouth and speak ex cathedra, I must accept what
they say as being equally authoritative to the word of God. Now watch
this. When they say, yes, but if they don't say what the word
of God says, then you don't have to hear them. And I say, yes,
you do. Because if they're speaking for
God, they may very well be canceling out a present authoritative rule
that lasts only so long as God is willing to bring new revelation.
And how are you going to know which rule now is abrogated for
a new rule since you accept new authorities? Am I making some
sense? The apostles had to preach the
end of circumcision, the end of offerings and sacrifices,
the end of Sabbath worship, the end of going to the temple for
worship as a mandate from God. All of those things were struggles
for the early Jewish believers. But the authority of the apostles
ultimately raised them above those old traditions so that
they could walk in the newness of the gospel. They had to accept
that Christ now has established a new manifestation of the kingdom. And that old manifestation is
fading away and waxing old. The New Testament Church had
to work through that. It was a process. as we're working through
the book of Acts. That's a process. It didn't happen
in one day, but think about that. Here you are a Jew, a believer
in Christ, and here comes the apostles who tell you, you no
longer have to keep the law as a grounds for righteousness.
You no longer have to be circumcised in order to maintain righteousness.
You no longer have to keep feast days and new moves and Sabbath
days and the like, which was the totality of the expression
of Jewish distinction. You get to free yourself from
all of this stuff. Well, y'all know, like I know,
traditions are hard to get rid of. You have to actually really
be listening to God to move away from a pattern of traditions
that you are used to, and you are persuaded that it was the
word of God. Do you see the challenge here? You see the challenge that
in our present generation, if we're going to be logical, if
we accept prophets and prophetesses, and if we accept apostles, We
must accept new revelation, even if it cancels out old revelation,
because God is not redundant. What do I mean by that? Why would
he only allow the New Testament prophets to say precisely and
exactly the same thing that's already written in the canon
when we could read it in the canon? Are you guys following
my logic? So if I accept the premise that
we have new apostles and new prophets, then I have to accept
the necessary consequence that there's going to be new revelation
that trumps old revelation. And ladies and gentlemen, we
have whole segments of the pseudo Christian church that are within
that classification. You know what happens when that
occurs? I'm just treating this subject
right now for your good. When you accept that, you must
get away from the scriptures. When you accept that someone
has the ability to receive direct revelation from God in an authoritative
way, equal to the apostles, you must get away from the scriptures.
This is why in those assemblies where this is practiced, it's
more what did the spirit say than what does the scriptures
say. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
So you know, you can't have two masters. You're going to hold
to the one, let the other go. Despise the other, yield to the
one. And so this is very important
for us to understand. So I'm treating an error in the person
of our Jesus for which Paul now yields forth just thunderous
damnation in terms of his attributes and characteristics. in verse
9 and 10 and then the judgment falls on him in verse 11 and
so under this PowerPoint the light imposes the darkness as
your last week's outline the authority of light prevails against
darkness the text I wanted you to go to last week is where we're
going to go now to basically nurture that run through this
quickly and move into our new outline Ephesians chapter 5 if
you will turn with me in your Bible to Ephesians 5 and let's
see The instructions that the apostle gives us, these are imperatives,
commands, declaratives, instructions to obey around what to do when
we are confronted with error. I'm in Ephesians chapter 5, verse 13. Are you there? In fact,
let me start back at verse 10. I have to start at verse 9 because
verse 10 won't make sense if we don't. For the fruit of the
Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and what? So the
first two adjectives, goodness and righteousness, hallmark the
behavior of the believer and the basic disposition and fruit
of the believer's life. True believers are called to
a life of goodness and righteousness and truth. So these are going
to be the three, this triad here are going to be three things
that are going to manifest in your life. You're going to be
geared towards goodness, not evil, not bad things, goodness.
You're going to be driven by a principle of righteousness,
not wickedness and disobedience and rebellion, righteousness.
And you're going to be lovers of the truth. So those three
fruits there are going to show up in the life of a believer
who's committed to the word of God. Are you guys following?
that when you meet with people, what people are going to have
to struggle with in your life is that you are driven to be
good. You are driven to do the right
thing. You're not trying to be perfect. You're not trying to
be holy because you already are holy and you already are perfect. But you are now seeking to do
good. And the reason why is we did bad all our life. And when
once Christ saved us, now we want to operate out of a new
ethic It's maybe a struggle, but people will know that there's
something operating differently in you when your meter, when
your drive, when your inclinations are always, I wanna do the right
thing. I just wanna do the right thing. And so goodness and righteousness
and truth are what believers are to be inclined to dwell in,
to be comfortable with. This is our lifestyle. So we
see now in verse 10, Proving what is what? Acceptable unto
the Lord. So see, that's called for discernment,
isn't it? How do I live my life in terms of a 24-hour day and
multiple decisions that I have to make that require me to exercise
an ethical compass that's rooted in biblical truth? That ethical
compass has to point in a direction that pleases God. And my spirit,
because I'm born of God, want to follow that compass, right?
And so this is a walk with the Spirit of God of learning how
to prove what is acceptable unto the Lord. This now becomes the
motive for my decisions. Does this honor God? Right? Verse 11. And have no fellowship
with the unfruitful works of what? Right. So here is a principle
of avoidance. The previous verse 9 and 10 dealt
with the things that we are now moving towards and embracing
as a practice. Verse 11 is a principle of avoidance. There are things that you gravitate
towards and there are things that you avoid. One of the things
that new believers learn is, watch this, there are things
to avoid. If I actually want to live happy
in Jesus, I better quickly learn to avoid certain things. That's
if I want to be happy in Jesus. Because everything coming to
us is not good for us. And discernment is needed to
avoid certain things because to not avoid them is to be distracted
from the good things that you need to gravitate to. Is that
true? Right. So there's a virtue in
avoidance, right? Shunning evil. There's a virtue
in avoidance. So, you know, some of us may
not be strong enough to always confront and address and deal
with temptations. Your character Predisposition
might not be one that's willing to wage war with the devil Face
to face well learn to avoid him You don't want that fight go
the other way fetch a compass like the Old Testament says go
around That's wisdom, isn't it? The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom and so here we are developing an ethic for the believer
so that the believer does not get Inadvertently entangled in
stuff that does not please the Lord because they were undiscerning
of the situation and made wrong choices Naively we read then
in verse 11 have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of
darkness, but rather what correct them? Reprove them Verse 11 is
an adumbration of what we're dealing with in Acts chapter
13. Is it not a This here is covering the basic text. Here's Barnabas and Saul, Paul,
in the island of Paphos, preaching the gospel. Here comes this fella
who has been hoodwinking the whole island, and he wants to
stop them from making progress. Well, what is the apostle Paul
and Barnabas gonna do? Join hands with this crook? Because
it's politically correct to do? because it would be more advantageous
to keep from having conflict and tension and warfare and opposition
because after all, he's a disciple of Jesus too. Deepak Chopra,
right? And many other of your cons.
He's a prophet too. He speaks the word of the Lord.
Don't pay attention to his sorceries. That's another day. And he's
a Jew. Out of this list of four, these
three pretty much give him an ostensive right to hang out with
the apostles. Isn't that true? But all you and I need is one
to say no, sir. This here cancels out every implication
of the rest of these epithets. A sorceress is a person that
is fundamentally a witch. Engaging in the deep dark dark
regions of demonism as a gateway for the souls of men How can
light and darkness dwell together they can? So the Apostle Paul
then confronts it as he's supposed to and he reproves the unfruitful
works of darkness You and I don't see that a lot in our present
day. Do we you don't hear it a lot in terms of Expositional
preaching that lifts up and exposes error for what it really is,
and even expose those who actually perpetuate it. You don't hear
it. Because our culture today cannot tolerate, it cannot tolerate
this kind of assertive and aggressive proposition of biblical truth.
Because we no longer understand the virtue of division. We don't
understand the virtue of division, separation. You guys follow that?
We're doing all we can to avoid separation. When in fact separation
is the one criterion by which God's elect are discerned to
be his elect 2nd Corinthians chapter 1st Corinthians chapter
11 verse 9, which says heresies must be among you false teachings
must be among you those who teach error must be among you because
that becomes an opportunity to discern those who are the Lord's
sheep from those who are not because when error is among the
sheep of God, the sheep of God will be disturbed. They will
be troubled. They will be concerned. They
will be disconcerted. They will be, uh, they will be
traumatized. They will be driven to want to
do something about it because intrinsically it's not possible
to be of Christ sheep and be comfortable with false prophets
and false teachers. Are you guys following? Hence,
we are now contemplating the man who basically is calling
Saul and Barnabas, or Paul and Barnabas, which is the deputy,
Sergius Paulus. Remember what we learned? He
was the one who called them. Let me read a few more of these
verses, and then we'll go back to our text. Verse 12, for it
is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them
in secret. But all things that are reproved are made what? by
the light, for whatsoever death make manifest is life. Wherefore,
he said, awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead and Christ
shall give you light. See then that you all walk circumspectly,
not as fools, but wisely. The word circumspect simply means
to watch all around you as you go. Watch a circumspect, to circumference
something is to see it fully. And specter means to see. To
not be narrow-minded or tunnel vision. Be able to have a periphery
that allows you to see over here and over there. As you're going,
you're watching. You guys understand that? As
you're going, you're watching. Now, you know what's interesting
about this little word? It reminds me of animals in the forest who
are subject to the predator animals. Now, when you watch them, they
are very circumspect. Like, my backyard is a backyard
for a lot of animals. And we have deer there all the
time. We got a bunch of other stuff
too. You don't even have to see them, you know that they're there
by their smell. But the deer are there all the time. And I'll
sit and I'll watch the deer. And they only come out when they
know it's safe. but while they're eating every
shrub, every leaf, every piece of fruit in my wife's garden,
which she wants to kill them for. I got up the other morning,
it must've been about seven o'clock, 6.30, and my wife was going out
the sliding glass door in the backyard. Barb, where you're
going? I'm going to run that buck out of my yard. I'm tired
of him eating up everything. Girl, you better be careful.
This is mating season, girl. I know you can run but his testosterone
levels are high enough for him to mistake you Bucks are crazy You got you guys
don't you're laughing but you don't get that Animals are no
joke and But she's just so frustrated at them eating the plants, but
if you watch them their ears are up and turning everywhere.
And they'll be nibbling, then they'll go up like this, just
to check. Then they'll go back down, then
they'll go back up. And there's really nothing happening that
would provoke that. It's just habit. And see, Christians
have to have the habit, popping up, open up the ears, and look.
Because there's a lot of stuff that will get into you, get inside
your heart, get inside your mind, that's false and improper. you're not watching what did
he say what did she say are you hearing what I'm saying that
didn't make that wasn't quite right you don't just let it in
because it will erode your capacity to discern and it will certainly
destroy your resolve to stand against something As again, we
will see on Sunday when we work through this arduous struggle
of what the apostle was describing in Romans 7, the good that I
would, I do not, the evil that I would not do, I find myself
doing. And so let me explain to you this thing that's going
on in me. We have to work that through so we can get it right.
He will declare to you and me that when you're a true believer,
ultimately all that struggle will do is prove to you that
your allegiance is with Jesus. That's all it will do. Whether
the struggle is internal or whether the struggle is external, all
struggles do for true believers is prove our allegiance to Christ
as it proves his allegiance to us. You get ready to see that
now in our account. So again, the final verse here
is, Verse 18, verse 16, redeem the time because the days are
evil. Let's go back to our PowerPoint, drop through again, and deal
with those propositions. I just want to express them,
and then I want to move forward. So the authority of the light
prevails against the darkness. The darkness did not overcome
it. We dealt with that. That's John 1, 5. You guys remember
that text. pierced into the darkness, and
the darkness overcame it not. I told you the idea of comprehending
is not a good translation. Overcome is a better translation
because you're dealing with two non-personal sort of metaphors,
the light and the darkness. And the light there is a metaphor
for God, and the darkness is a metaphor for the kingdom of
Satan, our fallen humanity. And whenever God comes into the
presence, darkness has to scatter, whenever God shows up. I used
the analogy last week if this room were dark, pitch black,
all I would have to do is take my little pen and hit the button
and the little light flashing would illuminate immediately
and we would be able to see in the darkness. That's how powerful
light is. And in our account we're going
to now see this as we mark the last one. The difference between
Paul and Bar Jesus is what? All right, so I'll make that
proposition. I'll affirm that one more time as we go back.
And you guys can go back to your text now so I can basically show
you once again what we learned here in a moment. So we got Bar
Jesus, we'll call this BJ. And then we got the Apostle Paul,
we'll call that AP. Look at the similarities and
then contemplate the distinction. and then we'll move on to the
impact that it made on Sergius Paulus. Now, if you guys remember,
what I stated last week was this. When Paul said in verse 11, under
unction of the Spirit of God, Behold, the hand of the Lord
is upon you, and you shall be blind, not seeing the sun for
a season. And immediately there fell on
him a mist and a darkness, and he went about seeking some to
lead him by the hand. Remember what I said last week?
It takes one to know one. Remember that? And this is what
we call a divine irony. In order to demonstrate the sovereignty
of God through true faithful ministers over against false
ministers. The sovereignty of God in true
faithful ministers over false ministers. So, if you recall,
Paul is a what? And Paul is also a what? Yeah,
in terms of his apostolic calling. And therefore Paul had a whole
lot in common with Bar Jesus, didn't he? Especially before
his conversion. Being a Jew, he was also like
Bar Jesus, a false prophet, wasn't he? Because while as yet he wasn't
preaching Christ, he wasn't preaching the truth. Judaism today is a
false religion. It is not the same as the gospel. You cannot say that Judaism and
Christianity are synonymous. They are not. And so what Paul
had in common with this guy was that he was a Jew. He was a false
prophet, just like this guy is. And even though this guy is using
Jesus' name, he really is anti-Jesus, is he not? Yes, he is. And so when Paul pronounces this
judgment on him, he pronounces this judgment acutely aware of
its power because he experienced the same thing, didn't he? Isn't
that what happened to Paul? He comes against the Lord, raging
against the Lord, and the Lord exercises a level of sovereignty
upon him that knocks him down on the ground and immediately
blinds him. He knows something about blindness.
And the text tells us in Acts 9, Paul had to be led by the
hand just like this guy. Is that true? Had to be led by
the hand just by this guy just like this guy So what do you
think is going on in the soul of Paul while he's being moved
by the Spirit to pronounce this judgment on a man a very judgment
that he himself experienced other than this the difference between
me and bar Jesus is the electing love of God in Christ The difference between Paul and
bar Jesus is one thing election Are you following the logic?
If you're not, let me help you. When God looked at Bar Jesus
and God looked at Paul, he didn't see any difference because there
was not. That God chose Paul over Bar
Jesus could not have been a consequence of Paul being better than Bar
Jesus because he was not. For God to have chosen Paul and
to say to Paul in Acts 9, you are a chosen vessel unto me to
bear my name to the Jews and to the Gentiles for this purpose. Have I chosen you? Was it because
Saul who is now Paul was better than bar Jesus. They were both
hell bound sinners, equally rebels against God with a whole lot
in common. Ladies and gentlemen, are you following me? Here's
what we teach them. You and I are objects of grace
if we are saved. And we are objects of grace in
Jesus because God chose us in Christ before the world began.
What that means is our salvation has no room of personal boasting
because you and I are not better than any other individual. It
was God's inscrutable sovereign choice to smile on you and pour
his grace on you when you were just as much a rebel as everyone
else. Do you guys see that? Very much
so. Now think about this as we move
on to our next one. How many of you guys raised kids
like I did? Now, if y'all raised kids like I did, wasn't it a
shock to you? The first time you had to really
get busy with whooping that tail. Stay with me for a moment now.
You remember how conflicting the emotions were? You were struggling
with whipping them. And do you know why you were
struggling with whipping them? Because you were a rebel just
like them. This is true. Can I get a witness? Now this, you want to get husbands
and wives fighting? Let the wife be the person who
is sympathetic to the child. And let the husband be the disciplinarian
or vice versa. Oh boy. They're at war Because
you whipped that child too long And you said no, I didn't whip
him enough I would have done it like this. You should have
said it kinder and more gently. Those are battles we go through
But you remember that time as they were getting a little older
and you were looking at them and they had gotten into some
real trouble, like they lied to you to your face. Remember
that? Lied to you to your face. They
got their hand in the cookie jar. Mama, I did not do it. Daddy,
I did not do it. And as you are about to execute
wrath on them for their disobedience, a mirror pops up and you go,
I'm just like them. Not when I was their age, now. Right now you struggle you're
telling the boy don't lie Holy Ghost and now Right now But you still have
to whip him Because you are the authority this is interesting
where I'm going because if you don't understand this is the
beauty of us working carefully through Romans 7 and if you can
get it. Because what God does is he saves
sinners through sinners. And that's as paradoxical as
you can get. He saves sinners through sinners. He doesn't make you perfect before
he uses you to save others. Are you guys following a lot?
And therefore, as an analogy to the struggle of disciplining
your own children, so it is for the Christian church to discipline
people who stand in front of us and we know they're lost and
hell bound and we got to tell them they're lost and hell bound
and that the wages of sin is death and that the soul that
said it, it shall die. When in part we're still doing
the same thing, right? Now watch this. But when you
know how to parse Romans 7 and make your allegiance with Jesus
and not your sin, then you can declare judgment on them and
on yourself too. And tell them that the only hope
that they have is the hope that you have. Am I making some sense? This is the, this is why God
leaves us in that struggle. I'll be talking about the benefits
of the struggle. The benefits of the struggle
is that you and I, as we share the gospel with lost centers,
we are not standing over the top of them as if we are not
ourselves still struggling, but we must in our allegiance to
Jesus, tell him you're going to hell. And parents have to
do that with their children. We struggle. You gotta tell that
knucklehead, hardheaded, 18 year old, if you continue down this
course, you'll perish, son. You'll perish, daughter. You
gotta tell him, no matter how raggedy your own walk is. Am
I making some sense? Gotta tell him, gotta tell him.
And so the difference between Paul and Bar Jesus is what? Election,
election. Let's go to our new PowerPoint.
Let's work in our new outline. Your outline says, I'm sorry,
I'm jumping, I'm jumping. I'm jumping last point. This is where I want to come.
I cannot leave this. This is just It's it's almost
so easy to grasp but there's some points there that need to
be developed we're at verse 12 So then the deputy who is Sergius
Paulus as we have met him also over in verse 7 where it says
in verse 7, which was with the deputy of the country, this is
Bar Jesus with the deputy of the country, Sergius Paulus,
a prudent man who called for Barnabas and Saul and desired
to what? Hear the word of God. You guys
got the context? So Sergius Paulus is really the
target of this whole account. I love this. Sergius Paulus is
really the target of this whole account. The desire that's in
his heart It's placed there by God. It's placed there by God
and God's mercy to make this man an example of the process
of salvation. So watch this. Often when God
is calling people into the kingdom, he gives them experiences by
which they might learn that entering into the kingdom first is not
easy. And then secondly, there are all sorts of difficult challenges
that come with pursuing God. And I think that the model before
us is really good because Sergius Paulus could represent many of
us in that when God began to initially produce in our heart
a hunger for Him, we already dealt with that outline, right?
Blessed are they that, what? Hunger and thirst after righteousness.
When God begins to produce in you a hunger for righteousness,
You have no discernment. You have no ability to determine
right from wrong. Who's preaching the truth? Who's
preaching error? You are in a lot of ways very
vulnerable. Am I telling the truth? With
this exception, it's because if God is the one actually working
in your life, you're not really vulnerable at all in the sense
that God is going to lead you to Jesus. But he's going to lead
you to Jesus in such a way as to teach you that Jesus is not
easy to get to, that every church is not preaching the truth, and
that every pastor is not orthodox, and every Christian that says,
Lord, Lord, has not entered into the kingdom of heaven, and through
much tribulation you shall enter in, and that you and I are going
to face many, many false prophets and false teachers along the
way. Many of you know that for years you were caught up in religious
experiences and churches that were false, but you didn't know
it. They were wrong in terms of the gospel, but you didn't
know it. They were hooksters and crooks, but you didn't know
it. You only knew over time when God gave you a sense of discernment,
raising the antenna and the signal start going out and picking up
on inconsistencies and patterns of conflict. and behavior and
ethics that you began to be wary of. What's this about? How come
I'm uneasy? And this is exactly what's happening
to Sergius Paulus. Now he's been hanging out with
Bartheses. They're partners. Told you that's
what false prophets do. They get a hold to the dignitaries,
to the politicians, to the people who have influence, so that they
can work their magic on them first and then everybody else.
Sergius Paulus is just the naive Christian who has fallen prey
to... If I go to name any names, I'm
gonna make a few of you folks mad. But they're all out there. All of the cats that have made
it to the White House are false prophets. Let me put it that
way. All of the cats that have made it to the White House are
false prophets. You are not going to be a true gospel preacher
and make it to the White House. Are you hearing me? Cause the
White House is too black for faithful preaching. You guys
hear what I'm saying? Well, what about him? What about
that? Well, what about all false, all compromisers, all people
who are willing to be pluralistic for five minutes, Open the door
for all the other religions for five minutes, all willing not
to say in Jesus name. Because see, that's what's required.
That's what's required. I remember one time, just one
time, don't beat him up, Zacharias, Rabbi Zacharias, and he messes
up too. Because see, you start breathing
that thin air up there, it's easy to compromise. So don't
throw stones, just be alarmed, be concerned. Once you start
getting called here and there and yon, once you start getting
called to the Mormon church and start getting called to some
of the larger Buddhist temples where you are dealing with some
of the elite Buddhist leaders, or once you start getting called
to some of your major Islamic institutions, you're very popular. But they give you a protocol
and they give you boundaries with which you can communicate.
You don't get to freely communicate the gospel. And as I opened up
in our study with the gospel being something that basically
is assertive, dividing light from darkness, exposing error
and exalting truth, exclusive truth, you don't get to actually
have that kind of free course in those environments. When they
let you in, they lay down standards and they tell you, you can talk
about this, but not that. Right? And then you exercise
certain senses of, well, you know, can I get in there and
be a witness just in the area of Christian ethics, even though
I don't use Jesus' name? Not really, but some people compromise
because they get used to being called by all of these elite
systems, right? And he came to realize over time,
he said it one or two times on the radio, that he paid for it. It was not worth it to be silent
on the truth and associate yourself with institutions and systems
that openly and blatantly go contrary to the gospel. See,
you and I don't need to go everywhere. Are you hearing me? You and I
do not need to be applauded by, whoa, when all men applaud you. Sometimes you are better off
by the company that you do not keep. This is how you know the
servants of God Jeremiah said in Jeremiah chapter 15 around
verse 16 or so He said, you know, oh Lord, you know that I did
not sit with the company of hypocrites I did not sit with the mockers
in the assemblies in the feast. He he knew all of the Religious
elitist. He knew all of the political
elitist that went to temple went to Sabbath every week He says
I never sat with them Lord. I never sat with them Why because
he was jealous for the name of the Lord am I making some sense?
I I never sat with them. Why then are you pouring all
this trouble on me? I never sat with them. So then
the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed being astonished
at the doctrine. I think we were at verse 12. You can go back there for a moment
and we'll work through the points there. Once he saw what Paul
had said and what Paul had done or what God had done through
Paul to son to the sorcerer for Jesus verse 12 says then the
deputy when he saw what was done what and being astonished at
the doctrine of the Lord I just want to work with that briefly
think about what's happening there think about Think about
the impact of this whole scenario. The apostle Paul and Barnabas
come to the island. They get confronted by a very
prominent false prophet. It has its public and open debate. And it's ugly because debates
are ugly. And as Spurgeon said, whenever
you whip the dogs out of the church, the children will cry. That's right. Because we're not grown up. When it comes to error, the children
will cry and mature believers will cry because it's a lot of
noise. But faithful shepherds must whip
the dogs out of the church, right? Must get them out. And so this
man, Sergius Paulus, is quietly watching a debate, a battle raging
between this popular sorcerer and these two men of God. And
how does this debate end? The sorcerer is blinded, humbled,
and forced to be led by the hand. And Sergius Paulus so thoroughly
hears what the apostle Paul openly declared concerning the true
nature of a man who appeared to him to be a faithful servant
of God a few minutes ago. So I'll say that again so that
it can come home. Sergius Paulus, up until the
time that Paul said, you are an enemy of all unrighteousness. You are full of all subtlety
and all mischief. You are a child of the devil.
And when will you cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? See,
when he said that, immediately within the spirit, within the
mind, within the heart of Sergius Paulus was an affirmation of
something he could not quite detect before. He said, ah, it's
true. It's true. Watch this. It's true. I knew something wasn't
right. It's true. See, if you don't
get what I'm talking about, what I'm talking about is what happens
when you and I are deceived by a false prophet. And you accept
him or her or them as true. And so your allegiance to them
is based upon the value that you hold in your acceptance. You know when you're talking
to Christians and say, hey, you know what? You better be careful about her teaching.
You better be careful about his teaching. And they get offended
by that. But what they're offended by
is you challenging their discernment. What they're offended by is you
challenging them not necessarily being able to identify false
doctrine and false teaching. It offends us if you tell me,
Pastor, you're blind. If you actually accept this guy
as being a faithful minister of the Word, you've got to go
back and examine your ability to determine what constitutes
true. That's going to offend me. She's
still got to do it Because if what you're saying is true and
you don't you don't love that person Now watch this This man
Sergius Paulus wanted to hear Barnabas and wanted to hear Saul
because deep down inside God had given him a sense of Objectivity
to what he was experiencing though. He did not quite know what was
wrong. I And the true prophet comes
along and preaches the truth of the gospel. And you remember
the first time you actually heard the truth of the gospel over
against the fluff that we hear in Christendom today? And you
sat up and you said, this is crazy. This is amazing. This man is telling the truth.
This man is telling the truth. And remember shortly thereafter,
you had to wrestle with it. Do you understand how you had
to wrestle with it? Because you had to deal with the implications.
If he's telling the truth, what about my pastor? What about the
person that I'm under? Well, he's got my, my pastor
has to be right. My pastor has to be right. My,
my path, even though he doesn't sound like this man, he has to
be right because he's my pastor. Got it. You're struggling because
the Holy Ghost is putting a wedge between you and your former allegiance
and telling you now you got to be more critical. You have to
be more objective. You are not better than any other
Christian who is inclined to make a precipitous decision to
embrace somebody that you haven't fully vetted. Am I making some
sense? See, this is what Sergius Paulus
is struggling through and he's called for them. I could give
you another occasion that would affirm this. Back in like 2 Kings
chapter 22 and 1 Chronicles chapter 20 or 2 Chronicles chapter 20,
the young prophet Micaiah was in prison for telling the truth
in the days of Ahab and Jehoshaphat. Now Ahab and Jehoshaphat are
two kings. Jehoshaphat's the king of Judah,
Ahab's the king of Israel. Ahab's the bona fide crook. You
guys know Ahab. Nobody ought to name their son
Ahab. You want your boy to have a bad
life, name him Ahab. Jehoshaphat is a true believer,
but he depicts a ruler who has very little discernment. He just has very little discernment
and his value system of what constitutes grounds for affinity
and unity are not rooted in truth. They're rooted in his genealogy. Because the 10 Northern tribes
were physically brothers with the two Southern tribes. So he
was constantly justifying hanging out with Ahab because are we
not brother? And that's the way he put it.
Can I keep going for a few minutes? So it's like for us, having sound
conservative bible-based christ-exalting churches That come up out of
the reformation where we have recovered biblical truth with
a clear crystal centric message And us saying well, you know
the catholics they're our brother and two This is tough stay with me the
catholics they are our brother and two or the armenians are
our brother and two Because see, this is the half breed between
the Catholics and the Reformed Church. So let me help some of
you. That last statement, how many
of you guys that went over your head? I just want to come up, be honest, raise
your hand. Good. So let me talk about this. It's called church history.
Just help you with a little bit to help you understand where
we are in our present day. So Catholicism is the false church
like the sorcerer, bar Jesus, who is Christian in name only,
because they have abandoned biblical truth long ago and have embraced
mysticism, paganism, ecumenism, pluralism, every false god you
can imagine. The Catholic Church lodged itself
in all ways leading ultimately to Rome. Always. That's what
it literally says at the Vatican. All seekers of God are welcome
here. And in fact, right now in some
of their newer Dogmas what they say is even the atheist will
go to heaven This is in their new dogmas. Don't trip. Don't
trip this the spirit of this doctrine The spirit of this doctrine
is in your liberal churches, too so so now your liberal church
is simply your Catholic Church without the garb of because it
has embraced the same antichrist, unbiblical, incredulous spirit
of rejecting biblical truth as the final and ultimate authority
for what's right and what's godly. So your liberal church has Jesus
in name only too. But within the framework of your
liberal church, you have a sliding scale. Some who more or less
embrace certain Bible truths. So you have your, what we call
the Catholic church, We have the Protestant church, the Reformed
churches, and now we have a third category that's more contemporary
to where you and I are called the Evangelical church. So the
Evangelical church is an offshoot from the Reformation churches
or our Protestant churches. Are you guys following me so
far? But they really actually have the roots in Catholicism
from a theologically presuppositional base. Why do I say that? Because at the core of much of
our evangelical church's apostasy is the doctrine of humanism.
And the doctrine of humanism puts man at the center, not God.
It puts man at the center and not God. You guys gotta hear
me now. It puts man at the center and not God. And therefore, all
of the external, as it were, apparatus may fool you and me
for a while in terms of how they might appear in terms of their
zeal for evangelism, missions, and all sorts of other activities.
But once you peel away all of the facade, at the core of their
conviction is man. and not God. Are you guys with
me for a moment? I'm going to help you. If you
don't know the true gospel, you won't ask the question when you're
sitting under preaching, who is he talking about? Who is he
exalting? Who is he proclaiming? Who is
he magnifying? Who is he lauding? Is he lauding
himself? Is he lauding the church? Is
he lauding the world? Is he lauding men? Is the emphasis
on the goodness of man and the needs of men and therefore we
must help men? Or is the emphasis the glory
of God, the truth of God, the Christ of God? Are you guys hearing
me? Listen, there's only two men
in the world. Are you ready? The man of sin,
2 Thessalonians chapter 2 verses 3 and following and the men of
righteousness Ephesians chapter 4 the Lord Jesus Christ only
two men in the world there are only two men the men of sin and
the men of righteousness and you and I line up under one or
the two are you hearing me we line up under if you are bitten
by the delusional bug of humanism humanism you think men are basically
good If you're bitten by the bug of humanism, you think men
without God is salvageable. If you're bitten by the bug of
humanism, you think that ultimately we will solve our problems if
we work hard enough, pray hard enough, give hard enough, serve
hard enough, we'll solve our problem. If we can just come
together and quit all this squabbling, we'll solve our problems. See,
this is the rhetoric that comes out of humanism that tells you
and me we can change it. Comes out of the White House.
Comes out of the courthouse. Comes out of the whorehouse.
And it comes out of the church house. All the same. All the
same. It's called humanism. Stay with
me now. If you don't have the ability
to discern it, you will drop the gospel, young people, by
the time you go to college. because college is nothing but
a petri dish for preparing students to be servants of the men of
sin. That's all college is. I told every one of my children
that went to college, I told every one of them, when you go
to college, you better not lose your mind. You better not lose
your mind. You were only given one mind
by God and his word was sown into it. You better understand
a biblical worldview when you go into those dens and traps
and they tell you that you started from an amoeba You better understand
a biblical worldview when they tell you, you can define your
own essence. You can define your own personhood.
You can define who you are and what you want to be. You better
have a biblical worldview to be able to challenge those oppositions
to biblical knowledge. Are you guys hearing me? That's
humanism. Do you guys understand why first
world countries spend so much on universities? It's not to
give people degrees. It's to indoctrinate them. It's
to change their minds. Please understand this is not
about helping people make a bunch of money. This is about producing
slaves, slaves to the antichrist system. You actually have to
understand this. I, you know, I'm broken inside. I'm broken because I didn't pay
hundreds of thousands of dollars, put my kids through college.
And I'm already threatening them to give it back. I want it back. I got two to go. I'm halfway
done with one. I got one more to go and I'm
looking her in the eyes and I'm about ready to say, Trent, you
know, let's you and me start an entrepreneurial business and
let's just circumvent college. Okay. Let's just leave college
alone and we can do it without college because the price you
pay by the time you come out, if you don't have an allegiance
to Jesus, is that you are a servant to the men of sin. Am I telling
the truth? And our church is aid and abetted
too. And when you go into a church
where all they're talking about is some thing or someone other
than Jesus, it's the bug of humanism. Are you hearing me? It's the
bug of humanism. And in college, because you are going for a certain
degree, for a certain discipline, because you want to pay your
bills, you might be able to justify working your way around their
false assumptions and their flawed presuppositions. You might be
able to deal with that, negotiate it, because you got to do that
anywhere you go. But in a church, you don't have to do that. You
have no lawful reason to stay in a false church. No lawful
reason. No lawful reason to keep your
children under false doctrine and false churches. No lawful
reason. If you do, If you do, you are
in danger of proving yourself not to be God's elect. Are you
guys hearing me? Now follow the logic. I ain't
telling you what to do. I'm telling you what you ought
to be thinking. Sergius Paul calls for Paul and Barnabas because
he's struggling with this dude who is doing things that he can't
quite put his finger on. Ladies and gentlemen false prophets
and false teachers are so good at what they do The one thing
you have a difficult time is putting your finger on it You
know something's there But you can't put your finger on it and
that's because you don't have the plumb line Once you have
the plumb line of the gospel of the grace of God in Jesus
Christ in a biblical worldview You can tell when that building
is lopsided And it's just a matter of whether or not you want to
go to Ripley's, believe it or not, cricket house if you want
to, or you want to find a straight assembly by which you can serve
God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. Am I making some
sense? See, Sergius Paulus becomes for us an example of one of God's
elect who is struggling and crying out to God, and God in His mercy
sending faithful gospel preachers. Can you imagine this for a moment?
God would send a preacher 75 to 80 miles on a boat to an island
just to save one man. Do you believe God would do that?
Do you believe he would do that? That's exactly what he did. That's
exactly what he did. Surgeon Paulus, the deputy, when
he saw, the word there saw, powerful Greek term, means to comprehend,
to perceive, to understand a right. It doesn't mean simply to view
it. There are many Greek words foreseen
in the Bible for just viewing some things. This Greek word
means that he understood the whole thing. That means there
was a revelation given to him. You know how when God gives you
that kind of revelation, that kind of breakthrough, when you're
struggling with a thing and you actually know something's behind
the veil, but you can't, you can't pierce it. And then God
just opens a veil and lets you move right on into it. And then
you have the aha moment. You can't believe it, but you
know God has now entered into the equation to help solve the
problem, right? Because there's a sense of liberty
because now you're getting some direction. God is speaking directly
concerning that person with whom you were struggling with enormously. And here God has given his indictment
of this individual. Deep down inside, you knew he
wasn't right. You saw the horns coming up out
of his forehead every Sunday. He grinded them down some Sundays,
but a few Sundays he forgot. A few Sundays he forgot. And then finally he's exposed.
And there's a part of your soul that says, thank you, Lord. I
am not crazy. See, because this matter of discerning
right and wrong will drive you crazy. because you are only human. You are not the paragon of wisdom.
And because of our frailty as human beings, I'm going to milk
this for the next 10 minutes, and I'm actually do a little
Q&A and close for the night. Because of the frailty of our
human existence, you and I can know what's right and have a
hard time with it. Is that true? We can know what's
right and still struggle with allegiance to the truth. It takes
grace to not only see it for what it is, but then to hold
to the truth. It just takes grace because whenever
you make your allegiance to the truth, you got to be willing
to lose something. Every time you got to be willing
to lose something for the truth. And by the way, Just as a personal
note around the matters of sanctification. This is the only way you grow
The only way you grow in your walk with Christ is to be willing
to lose something for closer walk with Christ For a better
knowledge of him for a greater sense of who he is You got to
be willing to lose something There's no gain without that
pain Do you understand that? You have to be, you're going
to lose some things. He promises to recover over time
what you were willing to lose for him. But you got to pay that
price. That is one of the characteristics
of faith. You got to make a decision when the revelation is given
and you know what's right. And your heart is vacillating
between two opinions. And you are now called upon to
make your calling and election. Sure. You got to say, OK, got
to pay the price. Jesus, I want you do whatever
you need to do. I want you, Christ, do whatever you need to do. What
does he do? Reveal this man for the crook
that he is by faithful preachers of the gospel and then exercises
a miracle to boot that is so visible and so obvious. If you
fail to pass this probation, you're never going to make it.
This is it. This probation period is it.
See because what he did was he saw what was done and believed
their word being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord Well,
I make a little Commentary on that briefly This is powerful
because the last line being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord,
which Luke is uttering simply means that Christ was so vividly
and personally present that in the ministry of Saul and Barnabas
that you and I might as well go back to Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John. Every time Christ showed up and
preached, this is what happened. People were astonished. They
were made to marvel. They were driven outside of themselves,
the literal Greek says. In this context, the word here,
astonished, is a Greek word that literally means that the man
was forced by virtue of the overwhelming evidence to be violently hostile
against himself. That's the way this Greek word
works. It's used 13 times in the Gospels, and it's the idea
of you realizing that this is the moment to make the break.
The evidence is clear, but the only way I'm going to make a
decisive break with the power of false religion and false deception
and false doctrine, which deceives many, is for me to be violent
against it. See, sometimes to be liberated
from the power of darkness, you have to be radical. You have
to be violent and intentionally given the word, literally the
root word means to throw blows at it. to throw blows at it. What Sergius Paulus had to do
was throw blows at himself to break himself free from his allegiance
to this crook. You know why? Because he was
going to have to bite the bullet and deal with everybody that
he knew that would be asking him, so what's up with you now,
Sergius Paulus? Wasn't that your dog? Wasn't
that your man? Wasn't that your partner? Didn't you put him up
on billboards? Didn't you advance him throughout
the whole life? Now you're dropping him like a hot cake. Because
Sergius Paulus wants to be saved. And when you want to be saved,
you don't mind. Ready? You don't mind saying,
I was wrong. I was wrong. I was blinded. I did not see the truth. And
you are ready to be violent against your own false inclinations to
hold to that which is erroneous. That's how powerful it was. You
guys see that? powerful Bless his heart. God gave him the grace to do
that, didn't he? He gave him the grace to do that. So, we're
going to deal with our new outline next week. I was compelled as
I was working through uh tonight's discourse was to see if there
are any questions that we need to deal with. Just a few observations.
Anybody got any questions? So now, how come my microphone
down here just got took my main mic down here. Do we have our
main audience mic? It's got We'll just answer a few questions.
I think there are a few in your heart. You guys stay with me.
We won't be long. Will God cross land and sea to save one soul? Yes, he will. Is he not such a good shepherd
that he will leave 99 in the wilderness and go hunt down that
one? Yes, he will. That's what's going
on here. And so in a sense, in a sense,
while Yeah, it works in a sense. While numbers are relative, that's
all they are. They're relative in the sense
that each and every person that gets truly saved. You can run
for me, Andy. First hand up is right here.
This is the other Andrew. Just give it here. Leave it on. While
numbers are relative, for God, one sinner that repents, causes
the whole of heaven to rejoice. And we have to think God's thoughts
after him like that. Like we're not approved because
we have a bunch of people in the church. They could y'all
could all be goats. But if you are, I know that I'm
not a true servant of God because kind begets kind and see Christ
made it very clear. Let the tree bear either good
fruit or bad fruit. don't tolerate levels of inconsistency
and incongruency that says you can have a good tree bearing
bad fruit. That's illogical. Irrational.
It's insane. Christ said, think clearly now
you shall know them by their what it's like that. So it should
be on. If you didn't go to plan, whatever,
put it to your mouth. What's your question? Um, you
were talking about implications of erroneous doctrine and people
not deeming Bibles because of apostles and scripture. is wrong, but the Spirit is right.
That was confusing to me. Can you elaborate a little more
on that? Yeah, I think you miswrote some notes right there. That's
what happened. I was trying to go fast. See, he honest now. Scripture
is always right, but just follow the logic once again. If you
believe in present-day apostles and present-day prophets, you
must necessarily believe in their capacity to receive direct revelation
from God. Otherwise, their office is superfluous
and irrelevant. And if they receive direct revelation
from God, that direct revelation from God is able to be equivalent
to what the scriptures already say. And I have taught this by
way of syllogism. If they are receiving nothing
but what scripture has already said, because God is not a God
of redundancy in that sense, that's a waste of time. Why do
I need to hear them when I can read the scripture? If they're
telling me exactly the same thing this book is saying, but they
kind of want to let me know God told them, well, why don't they
simply say the word of God says? Are we not more comfortable with
the pastor and the teacher saying the scripture say? rather than
us saying, well, you know, the Lord told me, especially if what
the Lord told you is already in the book. So you and I want
to be careful about taking, uh, taking strong impressions of
the Lord's work in our life and, and, and formulating them into
words that sound almost as if we have an ear at God's elbow,
like, like we God's partner. And nobody is as close to God
as we are. You don't want to do that because
you are now occupying a place of manipulation and deception
when you do that. Because a whole lot of Christians are struggling
with even hearing from God, period. A whole lot of Christians are
struggling with hearing from God through his word. And you're
talking about jumping past the word to God himself. They're
going to struggle with that notion. Am I making sense? Moreover,
as Christians, while we do not deny that God works powerfully
in our lives to give us conviction and to give us direction and
to give us clarity and help us to put together in some mysterious
way the Lord's will in our lives when he is moving providentially
he does he has to the Spirit of God is in us is that true
he does he has to and it will amount to a revelation but it
will not amount to God speaking directly to us equal to the scriptures
don't ever frame yourself to talk like that now here's the
point You don't want to continence that arena because it will necessarily
mandate you departing from the scriptures as your authority. Most of you who have been part
of those forums know this. When you go to challenge those
people with what thus saith the scriptures, they rear their necks
up and say, how dare you challenge the man of God or the woman of
God? Are you guys hearing? That's
what you're now doing is challenging their false authority with the
written word of God. Now watch this. If the apostles
erred, aren't false prophets and false teachers going to err?
This is why Paul said in the book of Galatians, listen, I've,
I've spoken by the spirit of God. I've given you what the
gospel is. Now, if I lose my mind and start saying something
else other than what this book says, Consider me accursed too. Do you got that? Consider me
accursed too. And this is the danger of people
unhinging themselves from the final revelation we call scripture
and getting caught up in this mysticism. You're going to actually
dumb yourself down. Are you hearing me? You're going
to dumb yourself down. If you're involved in that stuff
now, you don't have a good handle on your Bible. All right. So, um, the, you got a question?
Yeah. Okay. Pass it down right here. Could it could a sheep or a real
Christian get Caught up. Yes Follow even before you follow
like my wife is following. Yeah false teacher Yes, and I
noticed that these so-called prophets You know, this one is female
John the Baptist. Anyway, that's another trip. Ask your question, Martin. OK.
Because I've seen a lot of them. I've seen a lot of them. I know
you have. They like Rolex. Anyway, I was going to say, can a real
Christian get sucked up in that? Because it seems like they don't
even talk about the word. They don't preach the word of
God. Sermons, they talk about real quick. I talk about experience. I know I know but a real question
Christian. Who's the next question here? Come on. Come on running
to the back You can catch Carlos on the way back. Let me ask this
question briefly Real Christians can be deceived temporarily Right
real Christians can be deceived temporarily the deception comes
from immaturity in Christ the deception comes from a lack of
allegiance to Christ when you are divided in your loyalties
and your priorities are not right. Deception will come when pride
has so draped you under the assumption that you know enough intrinsically
to discern right from wrong rather than walking in the humility
of dependence upon God. You can be deceived temporarily.
So Christians are sheep and sheep are Stupid The thing that keeps us is a
faithful shepherd who catches up with us and brings us out
of the traps the next question calls My question was regards
to Genesis. You got to put it to your mouth
because people My question was regards to looking in Genesis. He says that he would set you
know his seed against You know the the opposition the devil
seed and then I'm looking here and that's not in Genesis 6 8
though. I Now, if you have a text, you want to make sure you quote
that text, and I'll give you the interpretation. Because what you're rendering
is Genesis 3, verse 15. So which one do you want to deal
with? Or is there a concept you're dealing with? There's a concept.
A concept. And right here in 1 Peter 1, 23 says, being born
again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible seed by
the word of God, which lives and abides forever. I'm tying
that in because is it possible for somebody to be So so born
again by incorruptible seed by indoctrinated by indoctrinated
by the doctrine of demons and given a false gospel and At what
points do people get indoctrinated like is it on salvation justification
when people teach a false gospel? You know because I know oftentimes
justification and the way you're saved, you know in Christ alone
that that's often the area where so Maybe you could give a little
bit of explanation. So what are the marks of an apostate? That's what you would be asking.
What are the marks of an apostate on a theological level? What's
the next question? Because I want you to go all
the way back there to Patrick. The marks of an apostate on a
theological level is their inability to see Jesus for who he really
is. And I say Jesus is at the center
of the revelation because God is invisible by nature. and he's
only revealed through Christ. So we know a person has been
brought into the framework of orthodoxy when they can comprehend
the person and work of Jesus. This is where we will be able
to determine whether or not a person is either regenerate or unregenerate. Now, regenerate and unregenerate
does not mean elect and non-elect. You can be elect, and non-regenerate
or unregenerate and therefore not have discernment in true
doctrine until you're born again. And then when you're born again,
you go, aha, I was taught wrong or I believed wrong, but now
I believe better. Election is not regeneration.
And once regeneration occurs, you are going to be on a trajectory
of truth. Follow this. So that when truth
is communicated to you because of the new nature in you, you're
going to gravitate to that truth. But if you don't have the incorruptible
seed of Christ in you, that's 1 John 3, 9. That's not 1 Peter
1, 23. 1 Peter 1, 23 is the purity of
God's Word being proclaimed to us, which results in Christ in
you, the hope of glory. And Christ in you, the hope of
glory resonates with biblical truth. So when the doctrine of
justification is taught properly, men and women who are already
born again say, of course, I'm justified freely by the grace
of God in Christ apart from any human works that I could have
done. It's ridiculous to believe that Christ's work plus my work
will work. That occurs when you're born
again. And now you are leaning towards biblical truth, the heart,
biblical truths of the gospel because of a new nature. And
this is what Christ meant when he told Nicodemus, you can't
see it, you can't experience it until you're born again. You
can't see it, you can't experience it until you're born again. And
when you're born again, that is brought into the kingdom, biblical
truths about the superlative nature of the person and work
of Jesus Christ become naturally logical to you. If they're not,
the chances are you're not born again yet. Now, if you're not
born again, it doesn't mean that you're not elect. Election and
regeneration are two different things. You can't be regenerate
without being elect, but you can be elect without being regenerate.
Am I making some sense? Good. Next question. Does that
help brother? So what we're doing is staying
judgment on people. until at last they just proved
themselves to reject the claims of the gospel. And if they should
die rejecting the claims of the gospel, they were not God's elect. Patrick, to your mouth. So my
question is regarding methods of evangelism for people who
are under what you just explained and tactics outside of intercession
that we can use to reach people who are sitting under false doctrine,
who don't have the discernment to know that they're actually
sitting under, you know, these doctrines. Because I feel like
as a young person, a lot of my peers, they're looking for themselves.
They're looking for an identity, which is kind of ironic because
they're looking in the church for something other than Christ,
which gives them their identity, which gives them their purpose.
And, you know, so how do we, what other tactics outside of
intercession, you know, intercessory prayer can we use to reach these
people. It's only two things. It's only
two things. And these two things are to be
done with the character that comes with being a Christian,
prayer and preaching, prayer and preaching. I was just last,
just over the last week, I was in a pastor's conference, you
know, being taught again, pastors have to be beat up for weeks
at a time with good sound doctrine too. And we were working through,
um, what witnessing is, is the basic thing. We're dealing with
witnessing from who God is, witnessing from who Christ is, witnessing
from the word of God, witnessing from the spirit in our life,
witnessing as a believer, witnessing as a preacher. And this is all
about witnessing. And what this is about is making
sure that the church, I was dealing with one of my pastor friends,
a prominent pastor up in Oregon, the church making sure that it
doesn't use any other method to reach people than prayer and
preaching. It's only the preaching of the
true gospel that can save you. Only the preaching of the true
gospel. My argument is the book of Acts. Do you understand that? Paul was just sent to an island
for one man. Right? Faith comes by hearing. Hearing by the word of God. How
shall they hear? Without a preacher. How shall
he preach? Except he be sent. Right? And
so what we are saying is that the people that are struggling
with their identity and stuff like that, they are victims of
a disintegrating world and its lack of understanding of who
made them. That's the world you and I are
in. Biblical truth, therefore, is going to become more and more
radical and more and more offensive the further the world gets away
from any semblance of a biblical worldview. That means that that
darkness can only be penetrated successfully by honest declaration
of the claims of scripture as to who God is, who man is, who
Christ is, what man needs, and the remedy that God brings about
to save man. It's the same message that's
been saving people from the beginning of time. But the church must
proclaim that message the spirit of dependence and humility before
God. So frequently what we are doing is actually half-heartedly
communicating biblical truth because we ourselves are victims
of the allurements of this world system. A church that is half-hearted
in proclaiming the truth of the gospel will never be effective.
Are you guys following that logic? And so what I This is one of
the things we were immersed in in a whole week. The question
is, do we believe in the efficacy of God's Word? If we really believe
in the efficacy of God's Word, the sufficiency of Scripture,
the clarity of Scripture, the veracity and power of Scripture,
we are going to know everything we can about the Word of God
so we can communicate it to people as vehicles of the Spirit of
God. as vehicles of the Spirit of
God. So what young people need to do, yourself, my sons, all
of our sons and daughters, as well as ourselves, we need to
be as committed to allegiance to Jesus and the Word of God
as much as we possibly can, so that we can be ready to give
an answer to everyone. Listen, it's not like, listen,
it's not like God is not working. He's working. Like, you don't
have to make doors open. You don't have to go make people
listen to you every day. The spirit of God is putting
situations together by which all you and I have to say to
God is I'm available. Will you hear me? God, I'm available. I saw you have to do. I'm available. The young man, Patrick, he's
talking about what happens in the surreal world of blogging.
But in that world of anonymity, a lot of those youngsters are
revealing their hearts because it's a safe place to do it. That
is a world into which the gospel can go. Why? Because again, it's the proclamation
of the word to people who may be exposed to hear it, by which
God can then begin to draw them in. It's just that you and I
have to be able to identify the problem and give the solution.
And be confident that God can use that word to get him if he
wants to get it. Is that true? He can get him if he wants to
get him. You have to believe that. And don't yield to any
other tactics in terms of how you want to reach them for salvation.
One more question. Where's the mic at? God's got
to raise your hand up. Here, give it to Marlis. And
then we'll get Joe and we'll close in prayer. So on a practical level, I kind
of think... Don't let the mic drop. On a
practical level, what I hear you saying is that the gospel,
for those of us who have been chosen, starts to penetrate into
our lives and the Lord shows us various things in our lives
that maybe that we feel are keeping us from that knowing him more
deeply, and you talked about the paying the price. So just for example, I want to
ask this question. Am I on the right path if, for
example, like I have a storage unit, a bunch of stuff, my mom's
stuff from years ago, I haven't gotten rid of it yet, haven't
gotten even to it. There's like thousands of books in there.
So my question is, am I on the right path when I'm feeling like
even maybe spending Going through that stuff is a waste of time
and keeping me from the power and the presence of Christ knowing
Christ more fully in my life and all the complexity of just
Daily life just I need to get rid of stuff. So I don't have
a bunch of stuff to do Am I on the right path? Do you want to
be free? That's what I think so sister Marla, I hope so I
want to be free I'd yes do you want to be free I One more time,
do you want to be free? Yes. Out of the mouth of two
or three witnesses, do you want to be free? Yes. Because we'll
back up a couple of U-Haul trucks, take it all in and go straight
to the dump and you will be free to serve Jesus. Free. But I'm serious, is that how
it works? Did you hear me? Did you hear
me? Is that how it works? Is that
how it works? That's how it works. Pastor Mike,
come on, come on, come on. See now, now, now, brothers and
sisters, please listen to me. Did I teach about two months
ago on the bag lady? How many of y'all heard the bag
lady? Okay, most of y'all heard the bag lady. She started off with a plastic
bag. She felt good because she was doing it in Walnut Creek.
Downtown Walnut Creek with Nordstrom's and Macy's and all of the nice
places, California Pizza Kitchen right there, Mount Diablo. Y'all
know the nice places over there? She had a bag and she lived in
the richy part of town. Two weeks later, she had two
bags. A month later, she had four bags. At the end of that
month, she got her grocery cart. So she rolling around with her
bags in her grocery cart. But she's rolling in Walnut Creek,
down Mount Diablo Boulevard with all the wealthy folks. Two months
later, she got bags all over the cart. You know y'all see
them like that? Two months later, she got two carts. And about
six months in, the carts were so heavy with the baggage, she
couldn't move them. I'm telling you a true story.
This is when I used to work as a bivocational pastor a few years
ago. She would sit in the middle of
the street with two carts with bags all over the place, too
tired to move it, but she wouldn't let it go. Now I guarantee you,
the police in Walnut Creek have asked her, do you want us to
simply call the garbage collectors to come to take that off your
hand? Take the burden off your hand. She said, no. But if she wanted to be free,
it would be just that simple. Wouldn't it, ladies and gentlemen?
Being free is just that simple. But watch this. You got to pay
the price. Last question. Put it to the
mouth. Just one last thing. I like the
part when you said you must have the plumb line. And that is like
so, so key because it's like when false prophets, it's like
if you don't have the plumb line, it's like it's what they don't
say. Right. Instead of because they
can say a lot of things or no scriptures. But when you had
the plumb line, you know, what are they not saying here? So
it's like that just really hit me tonight. So I got that as
one of my key notes is like that plumb line is this huge. You're
always got a plumb line. If you are a discerning believer,
you drop the plumb line. This is called judging all preaching
and teaching. You drop the plumb line and you
say, OK, let's see how frequently he passes the plumb line. Gordon,
your question? Or that was just an observation?
Okay, good, we're gonna close and pray now. Let's pray. Father,
thank you for this time. Thank you for all my brothers
and sisters who have come out tonight. Thank you for showing
us how you, in your love and mercy, and in your infallible
grace, will save your people. And many of us have experienced
that grace too, the difficult throes of deception and false
religion, and naivete and undiscerning hearts, in situations where we
knew that we were doing the wrong thing, but we did not have hearts
that were committed to you. If that be the case for anyone
here tonight, if you are speaking prophetically to them about their
need to make a decisive, violent break with error, as Sergius
Paulus did, because of the clear testimony of your word in their
life, grant them, O God, to make no more excuses. Liberate them
from error so that they can walk in the joy of the Lord that many
of us know because you have saved us by your grace. As we go our
way, give us traveling mercies. We pray in Jesus name, amen. God bless you guys.