Amen. I'm in Acts chapter 16.
I'm going to be taking up at verse 16. We have left that opening
series where the Apostle Paul and his companions have met the
sisters at the riverside, a wonderful contemplation where they are
now in a customary pattern of going to prayer. They are in
a customary pattern of going to prayer. And this time, the
praying saints who have now been confronted with the gospel of
grace are now a Christian body. And we treated this subject quite
in depth last time, the marks of conversion, the marks of salvation. the marks of being drawn by God
and then having God revealed himself to us by the gospel and
we talked about how he will allow people to go through even forms
of religious practices and then ultimately in his providence
confront them with the gospel as he did sister Lydia and her
household and we looked at the marks of her conversion in verse
15 and when she was verse 14 rather and a certain woman named
Lydia a seller of purple of the city of Thyatira, which worshiped
God. And we stated last time, to worship
God does not mean that you are already or automatically a Christian. It just means that, circumstantially,
you have been brought under the auspices of a religious system,
maybe even the gospel. For, in this context, it was
Judaism, so that she would be what we call a proselyte, much
like Cornelius was a proselyte. And they both were compelled
to pray. And as they were praying, God
heard their prayers. And so, the lesson that I might
want to share with you by way of application is that Tell the
ungodly to pray. Tell the unbeliever to pray.
Don't tell them not to pray. Tell them to pray. Who knows
which one of their prayers are prompted by God to lead them
to Christ? Don't tell them not to pray.
If the circumstance or context allows for you to tell them that
God only hears the prayers of penitent sinners, then say it,
but don't compel them not to pray, for you are not the one
who has authority to sow the seed into their heart, nor do
you have the authority to know what day that seed will be watered
and metabolized and bear forth the fruits of repentance so that
their prayers are actually heard. We saw this with Cornelius, didn't
we? He prayed and God heard him.
And yet he was not a converted man until Peter preached the
gospel to them. and the Spirit of God evidenced
them being converted. And so you and I never want to
usurp God's authority, take the place of the Holy Ghost and tell
people when and when they are not to be doing whatever they
are seeking to do in all earnest coming to Christ. Coming to God
can be a very complex issue and it can be very unique in terms
of individuals journey to a point of revelation. It's not all the
same. You guys do understand that.
It's not all the same. What's wonderful about Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John is that Jesus dealt with people differently
and uniquely according to their need. And on some occasions,
he would heal them immediately. On other occasions, he would
pronounce a healing and it would take place an hour later. On
other occasions, he would do a partial healing and then a
final healing. So he would work with people
differently according to his own prerogative so that you and
I can't say this is the patent way that you become saved. You
and I never want to do that. You don't want to box God into
a formula and say unless you meet these criteriums and are
able to exercise our sybilis, you are not saved. You don't
want to do that. You want to give people room to come into
an authentic state of repentance and salvation which will be the
work of God and hence when God saves them they'll give God the
glory for it and not you. Am I making some sense? So here
we see in verse 14 how that the Spirit of God in his providence
brings gospel preachers into the life of Lydia and her friends
and she heard according to verse 14 whose heart the Lord opened
and we learned that God has to open our hearts. Is that true?
God has to open your heart. You can't even open your own
heart. God has to grant you repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.
God has to change our natures. He has to do a mighty operation
of faith before we actually even understand the word of God, which
is what we're about to deal with in our Roman series. But here's
the evidence that God is working in our life. She's able to hear
the gospel. Her heart now is inclined to it. She attended
unto the things which were spoken of by Paul, which means, and
I've told you this too about narrative theology, is that,
particularly in the New Testament, you don't get timeframes. So
you don't assume that all this happened in one day. this could
have happened over several weeks and in fact we are sure that
it did because that's the way it works normatively with people
people have to hear the word of god for long periods of time
until certain critical saving propositions are understood so
we read in verse 15 these words and when she was baptized you
guys see that So we would never say that Paul and his gang met
with Lydia one day and then baptized her the same day. You understand
that? We would never say that because
that's not what we call a normative pattern. Christ said in Matthew
chapter 28, make disciples, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever
I command of you, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son,
and the what? Holy. So baptism comes after they're
educated. This is why we never baptize
people who are not educated in the gospel because once you do
that you're just engaging in mere traditions of men and it's
a Ceremonial thing that is mystical in nature and it's not accompanied
by faith faith There's always an understanding of what the
Bible says about salvation and then one responding in faith
to the imperative to be baptized Otherwise, it's just a ritual
So we would assume that she heard the gospel over several weeks.
That is the finished work of Jesus Christ explained by Paul
through the Torah, the Tanakh, the Old Testament, which she
being a proselyte would have been aware of. And when she was
baptized in her household, she besought us saying, if you have
judged me to be faithful, see, even that is an insight into
the process, right? If you have judged me to be what?
Right, so that requires time to be able to determine if a
person is demonstrating a sincerity to the message of the gospel,
right? She said, if you have judged me to be faithful, then
abide in my house. And we talked about that too,
as we're dealing with sort of the critical secret components
to salvation. We are really not saved if we
really don't want Christ to abide in our house. If we've gone through
the external formula of maybe making a confession of faith,
Walking, you know down to the front of the church and praying
the sinner's prayer and even being baptized But then subsequent
to that there is no real zeal for Christ to come into your
life in a saving growing maturing doctrinal Developing way we're
not Christians yet In fact the wanting to be saved is the wanting
Christ to rule in our life right And this is eternal life that
they might know you, the only true God in Jesus Christ, whom
you have sinned. So you can examine yourself as to how passionate
you are and how committed you are and how desirous you are
of knowing God as to whether or not you're really a Christian.
Notice what she says. If you find me to be faithful
to the Lord, come into my house and abide. Do you see intimacy? Communion. fellowship, accountability,
a sense of openness and vulnerability to those messengers and means
by which she'd be taught God, right? The idea of just, you
know, quartering off a little space for God to fill, but the
rest of the life is mine to do with as I want, does not constitute
biblical Christianity. Christianity should permeate
the whole of our lives. There should be a sense when
you and I are being saved, that we would say to Jesus, come into
my house and abide so that you begin to have rule in every aspect
of my life. Since we are calling him curious,
right? This is really the case. And so we saw this last time
relative to Cornelius. We see this all through the old
Testament. We see this in Luke 24. Remember the two men on the
road from Jerusalem to Emmaus. As Christ is expounding the scriptures
to them, their hearts are warmed, illumination takes place. They
are excited about the word of God opening up in a radical crystal
centric interpretation being laid out. What did they do? Come
over to our house, sit with us and eat. That was customary in
that culture, by the way, that when someone was important to
you, you invited them into your home and show them hospitality
at this level. And for us, Christ should be
that way. This is one of the problems we do have in the West,
by the way. We have our own little cubicle worlds. And not only
do we not really associate with one another, and this is the
demise of Western Christianity, but Jesus doesn't have that much
place in our life. This is true. And this is why our Christianity
is so effete. And this is why our ability to
witness is so weak. because it's so isolated and
so decompartmentalized and so antisocial by nature. Am I telling
the truth? Precisely. Now, the Bible that
you have is written in the Middle East, where people eat out of
the same bowl with their hands. In the West, we wouldn't dare
do that. On First Sunday, we have individual Lord's Table
cups. In the Middle East, it was one
cup. they drunk out of the same cup. This is what we call koinonia,
actual biblical fellowship. So there's a lot about Western
culture that impedes authenticity around the gospel. And because
of it, we don't benefit. Am I making some sense? Right,
we are often way too isolated. And in that isolation, the problem
is, is that the enemy can get to you when you're by yourself.
And he does. because he's distracting you
with other things. As tonight, we're getting ready
to learn one of the methods of the devil. The goal of the enemy
is to let you feel like you're absolutely secure by a confession
of faith without a radical commitment to Christ or the body. Does that
make some sense? And because we're not committed
to Christ or the body, then we're not accountable for our actions
or our time. And so the devil comes right
on in and gives you things to do that takes us away from Christ. so we don't grow in grace and
in the knowledge of the Lord am I making some sense I'm making
a lot of sense right so now watch how this works as she made that
assessment she constrained us that means she prevailed and
we stayed verse 16 and it came to pass as we went to prayer
do you see that phrase And what this is doing is underscoring
the pattern that was established in the nature of the relationship
between the apostles and this band of believers. They constantly
went to what? Prayer, right. So I'm going to
put that up there as the first point of application for you
and me. And I am more than persuaded
that this is an area of deficit for us as a Christian church
as a whole. Prayer is wanting today. prayer is wanting. But in that
day, prayer was not ancillary. Prayer was fundamental. It was
fundamental to Christianity. You didn't have Christians in
the first century that didn't have whole blocks of time where
they prayed. It was never heard of that you
were a prayerless Christian. Never heard of. And I'm talking
about as groups Because our Christianity emerged up out of Judaism, and
Judaism was the framework and pedagogue of our Christian system.
And one of the things Judaism taught was study and pray. Judaism
taught Torah, didn't it? It taught study, it taught diligence
in the work, it taught learning your God's precepts, that's Psalms
119 and many others. And Judaism taught prayer. So
our Lord was one that was given to studying the word, teaching
the word, and prayer. And the fundamental truth that
came up out of the organization of the church in Acts 6, 4 was
that we will give ourselves to the word of God and prayer. And
a healthy gospel church is gonna be a church that gives itself
over to those two elements as fundamental to the foundation
of the church. And then the expression or the
fruits and evidences of that will be other things like healthy
families, growing families, mature brothers and sisters in Christ
that are doing outreach work and ministry and helps and missions.
All that flows out of a foundation of prayer and word. You guys
follow that logic? Prayer and word will prepare
you to do ministry where you and I are not engaged in prayer
and word We have no power and we have no desire to do ministry
And where those are missing you and I are just church folk even
if we're under good doctrine, we're just church folk We're
just church folks. So it's important for us to mark
that. Now, what's about to take place is fascinating. I'd love
to expand the beauty and the significance of Paul and his
brother's discovery of these women at the riverside. I'd love
to expand that and show you how that this is an eschatological
fulfillment of Ezekiel chapter 47, the temple and the river
proceeding from the throne of God and going out and as it were,
abounding and flourishing even reaching the sea so that it was
healing the fish of the sea so that the Fishermen were able
to bring in vast droughts of fish which are all symbolic of
the evangelism of the gospel I'd love to develop that but
I want to go on to what I think is another Very crucial point
in our text. And so we're gonna start at verse
16. Are we there? So at verse 16, it says, and
it came to pass as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed
with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters
much gain by Sue's saying. The same followed Paul and us
and cried saying, these men are the servants of the most high
God, which show unto us the way of salvation. And this did she
many days. But Paul being grieved, turned
and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ
to come out of her. And he came out the same hour. And when our masters saw that
the hope of their game was gone, they caught Paul and Silas and
drew them into the marketplace unto the rulers and brought them
to the magistrates saying these men being Jews do exceedingly
trouble our city. they teach customs which are
not lawful for us to receive neither to observe being Romans
and the multitude rose up together against them and the magistrates
rent their clothes and commanded to beat them and when they had
laid many stripes upon them they cast them into prison charging
the jailer to keep them safely who having received such a charge
thrust them into the inner prison and made their feet fast in the
stocks. Thus is the reading of God's word. So what we have here
is an excursion that takes on three parts. We are in the upper
regions of Philippi. We already saw that on the map
as to where we are, right? We are in what we call Asia minor
and there is blessing in Asia minor in Philippi. Is that true? Blessing in Philippi We saw that
already, it's already taking place, but something takes place
between Philippi and Thessalonica, because that's where we're going
now, right? We're still going to where that brother had the
dream. We're not in Thessalonica yet,
but we're headed there. So God blesses in Philippi, and
then something happens in this space here. What's taking place
now? is on a human level and on a
diabolical level, an interruption. An interruption. Now, I say that
to say this, you can be sure that when God is blessing you
in an area of his will in your life, that at a strategic point,
you are going to experience an interruption in that blessing.
I'm gonna say it again because I want you to get the lesson
as we unpack this. You can be sure that when God places you
in his will, because they are in the will of God, are they
not? And the will of God has affirmed itself by blessing them,
the conversion of these folks at the Riverside, a nice little
fellowship is there, and Philippi is going to be a place where
there is a church established. The book we call what? Philippians. So the Philippian church is established
right here, but there is an interruption that's taking place in the establishment
of the local church. Cause remember what are they
doing every Sabbath day or maybe even every day going to what?
Prayer. They're going to prayer. So we
bring up our first point under the passion of Christ and men
part two, as they're going to prayer and fellowship, guess
what? The devil goes to church too.
Do you see it in your outline? All right. So I don't say that
to be fancy or cute because one of the things that religion does
is it loves to develop quips things and make people feel good
and make people laugh. This is absolutely true. And
there's an ominousness to the proposition that you and I have
to be careful of. When you come inside a fellowship
of Christians or a body of believers and you experience a marked distinction
between that atmosphere and the world, and you should, when you
come into the body of believers and they are largely regenerate
and born again, there is a substantial difference between that community
and the world you came out of. One of the reasons we love gathering
together, whether on Wednesday, or on Friday, or on Saturday,
or on Sunday, or whenever we gather together, is because where
two or three are gathered in His name, by His Spirit, there
is a radical ramping up of the presence of the Kingdom of God.
Is that true? That radical ramping up of the
presence of the kingdom of God affords us that sense of safety
and security that we call righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
We are once again put in our native atmosphere. We are in
our native culture. We are now once again in that
space and place where we know the Lord is going to grow us
and mature us and develop us most coherently. When we're not in the presence
of the brothers and sisters, we are in a warfare and we are
conscious of it. And the thing we're doing in
that context is putting on the whole armor of God that we can
withstand the hostile environment of work, school, or other until
we can come into the presence of God again among the saints.
Am I making some sense? This is if you recognize and
thank God for the atmosphere called the kingdom of God in
the church. But I'm gonna show you how the devil can take you
away from that too, when you despise the church. But now having
said that, I also wanna say this, everywhere there is a body of
true believers presently forming and functioning as a local external
witness, the devil must show up there too. This is just a
typical pattern. Again, I say that, but be very
careful when you respond. because you are just as vulnerable
as anyone else to be the devil's pawn. Be very careful when I
say that. I warn you, brothers and sisters,
he can hoodwink any one of us. You and I as an individual are
no match for the devil. I warn you as the old scholars
and old professors warned me in my youth, do not mock the
devil like many of our churches do. The reason you and I were
admonished by the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and our
Lord putting his disciples on display before us and allowing
the devil to actually operate among the 12 is to let us know
that if they could be blinded to his presence, you and I certainly
could be blinded to his presence. And that no one of us have any
superiority of discernment over his presence. That he can hoodwink
you and make you actually a tool of the enemy and become an opponent
of the very church you say you love. Are you guys hearing what
I'm saying? this is absolutely true on any
given day you can wake up with your head on backwards with your
armor off and the devil can ride you like a horse and he can do
his bidding through you and the next thing you know you are opposing
the Saints and opposing the gospel and you're mad at this person
and mad at that person and you're gossiping and you're slandering
and you're ridiculing and you're bearing false witness can I get
a witness it's just true It's just true. It's only the grace
of God that keeps you and I from falling This is why at the end
of their three years of education When they're grateful that I
told you would be the advancement into their diploma Diploma you
guys remember that in the John 17 study He had to let them fall
greatly before they got their certificate of accomplishment
How many of you guys remember that just a few of you? is something
to be remembered. They had to fall so that they
would not do like religion does exalt men. They had to fall to
know that they only stand by grace. Remember what Christ said? This night, one of you will betray
me. And after three and a half years, they were humbled enough
to say, Lord, is it me? See when you say it's not you
you're already been deceived by the devil That's right These
were the ones that the lord was established the foundation of
the church on So you and I want to be very sober around what
we're about to deal with right now Because there are lessons
to learn now. He keeps us doesn't he? But on
any given day you and I can be a servant of the devil So now
our first proposition is the devil goes to church Now before
I deal with my five sub points on that, I want to share with
you a number of verses in the scriptures to substantiate that.
Job chapter one, verse six through eight tells us that when the
sons of God appeared before the Lord, and this would be the children
of God who understood Torah and understood that three times a
year you must become, come before the Lord. The men would come
before the Lord with the sacrifice to offer unto God because of
his blessings in their life over the course of that year. This
was a pre-law paradigm that God had set up from the foundation
of the world. When Adam and Eve failed and God recovered them
with coats of skin and established the doctrine of substitution
as the grounds of worship for God, He gave them these models
of coming before the Lord because God had blessed their increase,
blessed their land, blessed their produce, blessed their cattle
and all that. And all this indicates is when
you and I worship God, we worship God by giving God what God gave
us. So here's a point of application. If you are part of a church and
you aren't giving, you are indicating that God hasn't given you anything.
If you are part of a church, in a gospel church at that, and
you look at your life and you go, you know, I can't even determine
at all in any area in my life where I'm giving back to the
Lord, you are indicating that God hasn't given you anything.
This is why in our church we structure basic things like service. We're in that service, we have
offerings, and then we have ministries in which we engage, right? Offerings
and ministry are opportunities to do what? Give back to God
what he gave to us. But when people just come in
to take, take, take, take, take, they are saying they have never
received because takers don't give. Only receivers give. You guys understand that? You
don't understand worship if you don't understand that worship
is giving your bodies a living sacrifice unto the Lord and all
of your time, all of your talent, and all of your gifts are to
be employed in the maintenance and advancement of the gospel.
Mature believers understand that. Those of you who are raising
children, you teach your children how to give. If they're sitting
in service, you tell them, son, I'm going to give you this quarter.
Put it in the offering so God can teach you, teach you that
everything you got came from God. When you don't do that,
your kids grow up selfish and narcissistic and think they can
come and take and not give and they've missed the gospel. Good
point of application, right? Right. And this is where we often
miss it. Now, do churches abuse the system of giving? Of course
they do. But you don't throw the baby
out with the bathwater. All believers give because it is more blessed
to give than to what? But when you give, it's an indication
that you have received. And so here in this context,
Something is taking place in Job chapter 1 verse 6 It says
now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves
before the Lord and Satan came also among them verse 7 and The
Lord said unto Satan whence cometh thou? Then Satan answered the
Lord said from going to and fro in the earth and from walking
up and down in it in that context we have what we call a dialogue
between God and the devil right and For those of you who may
not be sensitive to narrative theology, the only reason God
is asking that question is not because God does not know, but
it's important for me to lay this out because we're so new
often as Christians that we don't understand the narrative theology
sets the context in human terms so that you and I can understand
the principles of relationship. God draws out questions from
us, not that he doesn't know, but that he might advance his
own purpose through those questions. So when the woman with the issue
of blood touched Jesus, he said, what? Who touched me? Not that
he did not know, but that he might draw her out, lift her
up and make her example of radical faith, breaking through and pressing
through and getting the blessing in spite of obstacles. Does that
make sense? Right. And so here's the same
thing. And the Lord said in the same Where are you coming from?
He says from going to and fro on the earth and from walking
up and down in it. And this is where Peter extracts his spirit
aided principle. The devil as a roaring lion goeth
to and fro seeking whom he may what? All right. So verse eight
says, and the Lord said unto Satan, have you considered my
servant Job? Have you considered my servant
Job that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect man,
upright, one that fears God and eschews evil. Then Satan answered
the Lord and said, doth Job fear God for nothing? Now we have
the interaction between a holy God and a loving servant and
an antagonistic opponent in Satan, who is called the adversary,
who now wants to challenge God's assessment of Job's character.
So Job is about to be tested, isn't he? And this becomes a
model for all Christians. and all Christian communities.
When trials come into our lives, whether individual, or families,
or churches, it's that God sends them. When trials come into our
lives, whether individuals, or churches, or families, and he
sends them in all three, doesn't he? Individually, as families,
and as churches. We get these trials and we wonder
where they came from. Most high God. We wonder why havoc is being
wreaked in our house, or is being tempted to be wreaked in our
house. Most high God. We wonder why the enemy is coming
after us. Most high God, he's testing us. Whether or not we
will trust him through the trial. Is that true? Most high God.
So I won't stay there. I'm just saying this is a pattern
of how the devil always shows up where the saints are. We see
this happening all the time. He showed up here. He showed
up with the apostles, right? He showed up in the book of Acts
in the days where Peter in Acts chapter 8 is ministering with
Philip to the Samaritans. Here comes another crook rising
up, right? Simon the sorcerer. And then
again, Elimas in Acts 13 with Paul trying to hoodwink the believers. So I want us to go back to our
PowerPoint, first PowerPoint, and work through the lesson here.
First PowerPoint. Several verses there, but I don't
want to deal with them at large. I'll come back to your outline
in a moment. Under our first sub point, let's
now deal with the grammar that's in front of us because the Spirit
of God is calling our attention to something contextual. Look
at verse 16. And it came to pass as they went
to prayer, as they were going to prayer, as a pattern of life,
a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of what? Divination
met us, which brought her masters much gain by sooth saying. So Luke explains to us what had
happened. This woman sent by not her, not
primarily by her masters who were obtaining gain from her,
and we'll explain that here in a moment, but she was sent by
Satan. She was sent by the devil to do what he always does, infiltrate
the camp. And the text says that she is
a soothsayer, right? Soothsayer. And that also she
has what kind of spirit? A spirit of divination. The Greek
word is Python. The Greek word is Python. My
board is wet now. It'll dry up in a moment. The
Greek word literally is Pouthonis. And it's the word Python in the
Greek, okay? Pouthonis. Spirit of divination
the word is only used this time once is what we call a apex Lego
men off in the Greek It's a one-time use term But the term comes out
of the Greek culture and it has to do with those persons who
were possessed by demons who hissed like snakes and prophesied
as harlot priestess for temple worship in the Greek culture.
The Delphi Oracles is a common sort of historical marker for
this kind of practice. Also, your pagan speaking in
tongues, which we also oppose in the Christian churches, babble
that goes on in the church that we deny as being authentic speaking
in tongues. The pagan speaking in tongues
is part of this cultural practice too, in what we call the Delphi
Oracles, where these female women would be vehicles by which the
enemy would speak through them, susane. Now your Bible says susane
or what? Fortune-telling. Right. The word
means that they would go about and that they would prognosticate
or tell people the future. People are making lots of money
doing that today, aren't they? They have whole shows doing that
today, don't they? So there's nothing new under the sun, is
there? So at present, what's taking place is that this woman
who is operating out of what we call the Python spirit, And
you and I understand that the Python spirit symbolically is
a reference to who? Satan, right, is a reference
to Satan because he is the serpent, the dragon. She is attaching
herself to the church with the objective of getting a job in
the church as a prophetess. She's attaching herself to the
church with the objective of getting a job in the church as
a prophetess. Now I told you already that when
you and I are part of the church, we're not in heaven, right? And I've also told you now that
the enemy does infiltrate the church with the objective of
wreaking havoc, leading people astray and basically operating
out of his system of which I'm going to work with you here a
little bit in a moment. But what the text teaches us
is that she came in and being possessed of a spirit of divination,
a python spirit, she met us which brought her masters much gain.
This is what we call a parenthetical statement. In other words, what
she normally does is work for her masters, in the plural, going
around fortune-telling and making money doing that. This is going
to set the context for what we call being in the world but not
of it. and preaching the gospel in a hostile culture, where in
that culture, the people have their own customs and practices
by which they make money. And in that context, many things
on a religious level were used and employed by which people
made lots of money. The danger here is the gospel
has now come to Philippi. Philippi is a colony of Rome.
It is one of Rome's major featured cities where the Roman Empire
has set up its rule and its colony and its culture and its practices. The Roman Empire is a polytheistic
culture where they worship many gods. Caesar worship was prominent
among them. Soter, the savior, Kyrios, the
Lord, Caesar is Lord and savior. So many people had to bow down
and worship Caesar, the emperor as a God. He was a pseudo type
of the son of God. And then you have all the other
gods like Zeus and Apollos and others that they worship as well.
They were in a polytheistic culture and they were also in a pluralistic
culture just like the culture we are in, right? So when you have the gospel,
which is by nature, a monotheistic Trinitarian gospel in a culture
where you have all these other religions, our gospel by nature
is antithetical to their gospels. So you can't help but know that
we're getting ready to enter into a major conflict around
the gospel here. But what she's doing first is
coming in to test the church whether or not it would receive
a false prophet simply because she can prophesy the future.
So let's exercise our senses around what's taking place. Go
back to your outline because I want to work through the points
here. It's a python spirit that's attached to the church. It's
a very prominent spirit in the Middle East. It's prolific everywhere
in the regions of Corinth and Athens. and even here obviously
in Philippi, but there are four other sub points that I want
us to grasp out of this. Here's the question that I raised
first. What is the devil seeking to do? What is the devil seeking
to do? Is that in your outline? So what
we are doing is acknowledging that the devil has shown up,
right? We are clear that he has shown up through a woman this
time, in previous times it was men, right? She has shown up
this time through a woman and this woman is exercising her
craft. What does the devil love to do
when the saints are about the will and work of God? It's one
word that I want you to think through. Distract. This is what
we call a distraction. That's his goal. The goal of
the devil is to what? To distract. This is why I said
in the opening of our study is that when you are going along
and doing the will of God, you can be sure that at some point
a distraction is going to occur in your life. And once that distraction
occurs, you're going to be tested as to discerning what the nature
of that distraction is and how you are going to negotiate that
distraction. you don't discern that distraction
carefully that distraction can have you distracted for a long
time even to the point of as it were causing you to abort
your mission in this case the distraction had a number of important
things that it wanted to achieve and I gave you Genesis chapter
3 verses 1 through 7 you guys remember that well Genesis 3
verse verses 1 through 7 don't go there it's about the fall
You guys will learn this if you are interested in church history.
I'll be teaching church history over the next couple months starting
next week in our Sunday school class because a lot of people
don't know church history and it's important for you to know
it. But one of the doctrines in church history that we teach
is the doctrine of the fall of man, which is a critical doctrine
to the gospel. And Genesis 3 verses 1 through
7 gives us the fall. And I've taught for years that
in Genesis 3, 1 through 7, the devil engaged in five diabolical
exercises that constitutes what we call the five, what, of the
devils? The five Ds of the devil. So
in Genesis chapter 3, verses 1 and 2, he distracts Eve from
the tree of life by calling her attention to the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil. Is that true? What a radical
and fatal distraction. Because whereas she should have
made a beeline to that tree, he was able to circumvent her
by saying, hey, do you know this tree over here? And that's exactly
how the devil works. Here you are on your journey
and agenda towards life. And his job is to get you off
your course and to get you curious and interested in other things.
And in this context, the other thing was the very thing God
said, don't do. So distractions can be fatal,
can't they? And so within the framework of
the dialogue with her, that is Eve, the devil distracted her. Then he actually distorted what
God said. And in distorting what God said,
he diluted her mind and her mind being diluted, opened her up
to deception. which deception led to the destruction
of humanity in Adam and Eve. Right? Distraction, delusion,
distortion, or deception, and ultimately what? Destruction. And this is how you and I are
often trapped too. We get distracted. And if you
don't see that you're distracted, you're set up for a distortion
of the issue. Sometimes all the devil wants
to do is make a small thing in your life bigger than what it
should be Sometimes all he wants to do
is make a small thing bigger than it should be What a distraction Sometimes all he wants to do
is make a small thing bigger It's called distortion. What
the devil had done was said, God hath not said you shall eat
of every tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Yes, he did.
This is what he said. It's just like that. But see, when you're
distracted, you're not walking in your authority. So like when you're not walking
with your armor on and some very slick, wily individual who knows
scripture better than you catches you off guard, because your heart
is not right, and you're mad or angry, and he actually pushes
the right button, he can get you to lie on God. He can get
you to say something about the Word of God that's not true.
Has it ever happened to you? These are what cults do when
you're not grounded in the Word of God. They can show you a Bible
verse and actually twist that verse right in front of your
eyes. And because you're not grounded, you will go, okay,
that seems like what it's saying to me. Immediately you have been
diluted by the distortion of the devil. Or as I stated, and I just want
to drive this home by way of application. One of the things
he loves to do, my brothers and sisters, is call your attention
to an issue that might be important and then make it more important
than anything else in your life. And that distortion itself is
a lie. One of the things that we have to do as Christians is
learn how to prioritize our lives You know what we call that wisdom
You meet the man or the woman whose life is not orderly And
the priorities of their life are not set in a way that allow
them to maintain their primary objectives and goals Their life
is filled with chaos And they're defeated because they have issues
distorted out of proportion. And when God corrects those areas
in our life, we wonder why on earth do we let that little thing
become so big? Is that true? And I'm just sharing
that with you on a practical level so that you don't think
that you're okay and that the devil is not hook-winking you
when all he needs to do is distort something that is nothing in
your life. And it becomes just large enough to hinder you from
actually taking care of the real critical areas of your life.
His job is to simply impede you from making the kingdom of God
your priority. All he wants you to do is take
church, take Christ, take the word of God, take your communion
with God a little less serious than God wants you to. And you're
done. So this lady comes along under
the five D's of the devil. And she uses a method that the
devil also uses after he operates out of distraction. And then
what? Distortion. And then what? Delusion. And then what? Deception. And then what? Right. Destruction. She uses
another method that the devil also uses. Which was quite fascinating
to me and it goes like this in verse 17 acts 16 verse 17 I want
to see if you can identify this methodology that she uses The
same woman who was possessed by a spirit of divination Who
made much game for her masters by fortune-telling? Followed
paul and us. This is luke speaking and cried
I'm going to talk about that in a moment saying These men
are the servants of the most high God, which show unto us
the way of salvation. What's wrong with that statement? Nothing. Nothing at all. The statement is true. The motive
is wrong. The method is suspect. So let's work with it. Are you
ready? One of the things the devil loves to utilize, and particularly
in church, is the practice of what we call flattery. Write
it down so you can learn something. Flattery. Flattery. Is flattery a a prominent practice in our churches
by which people seek to manipulate people by saying nice things
and good things about them with the objective of achieving some
kind of goal from them. You guys know what flattery is,
right? Flattery is not the same as telling someone something
that's nice or good about them. Flattery is when you work it
beyond the reality of its pale with the objective of getting
something or advancing something because you now are working it
beyond its pale. If you dressed nice today and
I say to you, you are really dressed nice today, that is not
flattery, that's a compliment. But a flattery would be, girl,
you really be working it. I mean, you work it. You ought
to be a fashion designer. I can tell you now, if I had
your skill set, I think the Lord is calling you into the ministry
of fashion design. Now, as I state that, my heart
sinks because this is the common parlance in many of our churches. one dare to think that the spirit
of soothsaying and divination are in those camps using those
hallmarks and Here's the problem with flattery. If you're not
an honest person, you'll be deceived by it Did you guys hear what I just
stated if you're not an honest person you'll be deceived by
flattery This is why the devil uses it The statistics and the
analysis is very clear. So I'll talk to us for the next
30 minutes and then I'll let us go home. The analysis is this
and the proverb affirms it. Very few people are honest about
themselves. Most people will paint a better
picture of themselves than is really the case. And what this means is, is that
we are not comfortable with the truth about ourselves. Mirror, mirror on the wall, right? And again, it's laughable, but
it's dangerous because we live in a culture that basically fosters
the idea of flattering people to tell them there's something
that they're not. And it's rising now to a level of which, for
those of us who are trying to be authentic, genuine Christians,
for us to tell men and women they are sinners is a crime and an offense. And that the psychologists who
are your secular priest today would say that those of us who
say that by nature we're sinners and we're under the wrath of
God and the remedy is the mercy of God in Christ, and that's
the only thing that's gonna fix your problem, they would say
that you and I are abusing people psychologically when we say that.
It's not funny though, because it's really, really a harbinger
of things to come. And I'm gonna show you that in
our text. It's a harbinger of things to come. When we don't
have the right to tell men and women that God's assessment of
us is that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,
and that the wages of sin is death, and that the death that
God has in view is eternal damnation. And here's the real kicker. The
only way out is the grace of God in Christ. That message is
going to be met with the same consequences that our brothers
are met with in our text. Am I making some sense? And so
many churches are preparing to depart from the consequences
of the offense of the gospel by preaching a flattering gospel,
by making everybody good and making everybody better than
they really are, and giving you a, what we call a man-centered
potential gospel that always caters towards you being able
to have more and do more and be more. It's called your self-esteem
gospel. Am I making some sense? And this
militates against the biblical gospel. It really does. And you
can imagine that this young woman with the spirit of divination,
she really does have the gift of gab. She really does know
how to make the crowd feel good. She brings much gain to her masters. That means she knows how to take
the mic and work it. She knows how to work the crowd
and make the crowd feel good. And by the time everybody's done,
they're all little gods. They can demand Jesus to bless
them because they can claim it in Jesus name. I'm claiming my blessing because
I have that power as a son of God. I can demand God to bless
me. I can decree my blessings. Have
you ever heard it? It dominates our church world.
They're deceived. I've said it so many times. These
same people standing up here, I decree that you give me a house. I decree that you give me a car
and you can't even get your kids to act right. See how hypocritical it is. You
can't even get your kids to act right, but you're going to decree
an omnipotent God to bless you right now in Jesus name when
you can't even get your husband to work right with you. Is that
true? You and I by nature don't have
any power. we can't take power from God and he'll prove it every
time. The gospel will see to it that
no flesh glories in his sight. The gospel is about humility
and submission to God, not vaunting oneself and making yourself out
to be a little God where God is your bellhop and does what
you want him to do. Am I making some sense? This
is so very important. And so what is she seeking to
do? She is seeking to what? Distract
him. And she is using what methodology?
Flattery to work ruin in his life. Let me see if I can work
through her, her, her, her, her favorite methods. What is one
of her favorite methods by which she is doing it? Look at Proverbs
chapter two, Proverbs chapter two, 16. Proverbs 2 16, and then
we'll look at Proverbs 20 verse 19. Proverbs 2 16. I'm gonna
look at about four Proverbs and then we'll come back. So I want
you to think about tonight as we're working through our outline,
the danger of flattery. Have you ever been manipulated
by flattery? Have you noticed how flattery
will have you deceived into thinking that you're something that you're
not? How that flattery works kind of as an opiate to give
you that euphoric feeling of almost indestructibility or invincibility. It makes you feel good. And notice
what it says. This is the warning that Proverbs
gives in verse 16 to deliver you. In fact, go back to verse
15 to give a context, just in case my brothers and sisters
don't know the word. We better go back a couple, one more. Let
me see if I'll get a context. This is very important. Got to
go back again. One more time. So now Solomon is running through
a series of warnings about the woman Who leaves her covenant
with her God and becomes a mistress of deception and I'm just going
to start here To deliver you from the wisdom is given to deliver
you from the way of the evil man from the man that speaketh
forward things verse 13 who leave the path of uprightness to walk
in the ways of darkness verse 14 and who rejoiced to do evil and delight
in fraudness of wickedness, verse 15, whose ways are crooked and
forward in their paths, verse 16, to deliver thee from the
strange woman. Do you see it? To deliver thee
from the strange woman. For those of you who don't know
theology or don't know your Bibles, strange woman is a term in the
Old Testament that has to do with the woman that leaves covenant. The ungodly woman who never enters
into covenant are the strange woman who departs from God. That's
also in the book of Solomon, departs from God. She becomes
an apostate. She's fundamentally called what
we call a whore or a harlot because she leaves her covenant and she
then makes men her targeted goal for consumption. So it says the
strange woman which flattereth with her what? The strange woman
who flatters with her words. Is that what's going on in our
context in Acts 16? So then go with me in your Bible
now to Acts chapter, I mean Proverbs chapter 20 verse 19. I'm going
to just share with you a few. Proverbs 20 verse 19 and listen
to what it says here. There are many in the Proverbs,
Solomon warns about this significantly and continually because he was
duped by it himself. Proverbs chapter 20 verse 19,
are you there? Listen to it. He that goeth about as a talebearer
revealeth secrets. Therefore meddle not with him
that does what with his lips? Right. So mark that one because
the flatterer is the person that first gets into your business.
And they get into your business with flattery. And then once
they get all your business, they go tell it. That's called the
talebearer. They come through the front door
of your heart because you're gullible as the proverb says
in Proverbs 14 15 the simple believe every word But the prudent
look well to their going in other words. Don't open the door just
because they knock They're not worthy of your attention just
because they're knocking on your door you better find out who
they are Where they came from and what they want But a lot
of people open up, ooh, somebody at my door, come on in, come
on in. Are you guys hearing me? He goeth
about as a tale bearer, revealing secrets, therefore meddle not
with him, that flattereth with his lips. I love Solomon. He
gives us such practical insights into the maladies of fallen nature.
They say one thing smiling at you, and then when they get all
of the goods necessary to know about you, they go slam to you
behind your back. Here's another one. Proverbs
28, 23. Proverbs 28, 23. Are you there? He that rebuketh a man afterwards
shall find more favor than he that flattereth with his tongue.
Now again, if you guys remember, I taught three weeks on the subject
of forgiveness. And within the framework of that
subject, I talked about why forgiveness as a process must be done biblically. And it's because God values what?
Right, and where people are not willing to be accountable for
their actions in the context of a relationship with you, they
do not value the relationship. If a person wants to act any
kind of way they want to with you, and not be accountable for
their moral ethical behavior that may hurt you or bring you
into question as to their character or integrity or their motive
and they're not willing to give an answer for that. And especially
if they actually do offend you, create harm or hurt where you
have to come together and talk about it and they don't want
to deal with it, they are not your friend. Because God values relationship.
He tells us the value relationships at the level that when you and
I are engaging with one another I am responsible and accountable
to you and you to me if you hurt me I gotta let you know and you
must reciprocate with me and if we are in covenant context
like a husband and a wife We don't get to play the game. Well,
I don't I don't want to deal with it. We got to deal with
it Because the value of the relationship requires that we deal with it.
Is that true? I Right because if we go on offending
one another every day ad infinitum We destroy the relationship and
we make a mockery of marriage, don't we? The same thing goes on in the
church So look at the text again he that rebuke of the man afterwards
shall find more favor than he that flat earth with his tongue
proverbs 28 23 is making the assumption that the parties in
view are people of integrity Is that right? Because you know
that you've gone to people to rebuke them and you got a block
to yourself. Or the relationship was completely
demolished because the person that you rebuked according to
Proverb 9 was a fool. Rebuke a scorner and you'll get
a block to yourself. In other words, where people
don't want to walk in the character and integrity of the gospel,
when you try to straighten them out, it's gonna go all bad. Be ready to lose that relationship.
Where you and I are not committed to love and good works and care
and a quality relationship between one another, you and I are not
ready to face the fact that some days we say things wrong to each
other. This is again going back to what
I said earlier about the psychologist making the assessment that you
and I have a hard time facing the true self. Because if we look at our true
self, we're worse than we think. Have you ever actually had an
epiphany about yourself? Stay with me. And discovered,
man, I'm jacked up. Stay with me. Stay with me. That's the grace of God. Have
you ever been in a relationship where you have really actually
been abusive? Because you never really measured
yourself against the principles of truth and you behaved in a
fashion that was just horrible and either you were such a monster
that no one could actually hit you upside your head to let you
know how horrible you are or you hid from every rebuke that
was trying to come your way until finally the Holy Ghost caught
up with you and slammed you against the wall. And it came home and
you realize that you are a monster Are you guys with me? At that
point the door is being opened and light is being cast in to
humble you and transform you So you can be the man or the
woman you thought you was Are you guys hearing what i'm saying
And this is the problem in our relationship Jesus said it like
this in john's gospel chapter 3 men love darkness rather than
light So if you love darkness, you'll never be corrected You'll
never grow. You'll never mature It will always
be the other person's fault You guys hear that it will always
be somebody else's fault not mine And I tell you it's virtually
impossible to be in a long-standing relationship with anybody And
it's always their fault you are narcissistically and hopelessly
deceived when it's always their fault. Are you guys following
me? So the rebuke is making the assumption
that the person that you're going to correct is willing to accept
correction. Let me go to one more. Proverbs
chapter 7 verse 21, because Proverbs 7, 21 actually is giving us another
direct model, an example of this woman that's in our text. And
we'll go back to our text and work through our first proposition.
And I'll take some Q and A for us and then we'll close tonight.
Proverbs chapter seven. This text is about the harlot woman
who deceives the simple man. And it is a sort of parabolic
picture of the false church. Because in your Bible, the false
church is depicted by a woman who takes on the attire and the
attributes of a whore. And what she does is she destroys
the character of men by her solicit Relationships illicit relationships
with them and by her solicitations which Solomon is going to describe
here are flawed Approaches that are designed to corrupt the hearts
of men and the persons that she actually brings into their web
are Men who are simple and ignorant Now the simple ignorant person
is the person who does not know God does not know the gospel
and is wide open to flattery to deceive This is a perfect
picture of what happens with the young man that's longing
for relationship, but is gullible and naive and ignorant and is
open to that very, very subtle, very wise, very mysterious harlot
type woman that can say just the right things to bring him
into her web. And then he becomes in bondage
to her powers. And she drains him of all of
his wealth and all of his emotional and psychological stability and
brings him to what proverb calls a piece of bread. And this is
a picture of the false church too, because the false church
seeks to take souls to hell by stripping them of everything
they have. So watch the context. Here's what it says. I'm going
to start back, not at verse 21, but I'll start back at verse
13. You can read it on your own time.
Her characteristics is in verse 10 through 12. And her characteristics
is that she's a woman with the attire of a whore and she's subtle
of heart. She's loud and stubborn and her
feet abide not in her house. You guys see that? This is why
I tell my sisters, there's a big difference between being godly
and being religious. Haven't I said that for decades
now? Loud doesn't mean you're godly. And generally as a tenor, when
women are extra loud, they're covering up for a lack of internal
character. And then when he adds the other
adjective, stubborn, it means that she is not willing to submit
to biblical principles. Do you see it? So he says she's
loud and stubborn and her feet abide not in her house. In other
words, she's not subjected to her home. It's the picture of
a woman that departs from her covenant head. Verse 12. And this is a picture of our
churches. Now is she without where in the street where lieth
and wait at every what is not how the horse do it. Don't they
walk the streets. Don't they meet you at the corner.
Guess what else is on the corner. Churches to suck in ignorant gullible
naive simple people with their false religion and flattery.
Am I making some sense? See the parallels? They're there. They're there. So she what? She called him. Do you see verse
13? She called him. So she called him. So she called
him. So now you guys understand what
we call antithesis hermeneutics and that is when you when you
do antithesis hermeneutics are what we call refutation of hermeneutics
what we are demonstrating is one thing being this way and
the opposite being the other way a godly woman doesn't catch
her man I just ran into it right there Because the catcher man is to
seduce him but to win your man is to attract him. You guys got that? There's a
big difference between attracting a man because of attractiveness
and snaring a man because of seduction. See the big difference? Huge difference. Huge difference.
And this is where false churches, they can't wait till you get
in the doors. Before you even get in, they got your name, your
number, your address, They wanna ask you how well was the service?
Did you like it? Are you coming back again? Can we call you?
Caught you. Got it? Let me go on. So she caught him and kissed
him. Do you see it? We call that flattery. See the
whore knows the weakness of the man. So she caught him and she
kissed him. Now, if she gets past the kiss,
she got it. Because if he doesn't have character, he won't tell
her, hey, you crossed lines. You guys see that? She caught
him, she kissed him, and with an impudent face, that is a straight
face, like a diamond, like a poker face, knowing her cards, not
even blinking, here's what she said, I'm religious too. Do you see it? Now, what we're
about to do, she says, is gonna be a little uncomfortable the
first time, but it'll get better and better down the line. Plus,
all we have to do is go to God and say, we're sorry, and then
we can keep doing it. Do you see it? Do you see it? Now, we're not in church, but
you guys do see it, right? Do you see it? I have peace offerings
with me. You know what she's saying? She's
already been to God This is what we call Catholicism and I'll
be talking about this in church history Because in Catholicism
they have a penance system that doesn't require you to actually
repent just confess And pay a debt indulgences and other things
and you keep doing it like you some folks in catholicism they
know they know they're going to confess in order to go do
it again is that true that's our text isn't it biblical repentance
biblical confession is only true when the heart is repentant and
the goal is to turn from that sin upon confession but when
you're confessing your sin in order to do it again you're a
devil I have peace offerings with me
this day. I have paid my vows to God She just went to church
and then went on jumped on the streets Right, can we do that
as human beings? We are diabolical by nature,
aren't we? Therefore came I forth to meet you flattery, huh? I came to meet you Diligently seeking your face
And I have found you. The Lord brought you to me. I
knew you was from the Lord. I asked the Lord for you. He
showed me to you. And this is what you got going
on in religion. Is this true? Now she's going to be more crass.
Are you ready? I've decked my bed with coverings
of tapestry. And why are we talking about
bed? We just got through talking about church. you find me now we in
the bed already in the bed with carved works and fine linen
from where in other words this solicitation is going to lead
to bondage because Egypt represents bondage this is the harlot who has left
Jerusalem and gone back to Egypt and has bought the garments of
Egypt so that she can snare the men in between you guys see it
It's false religion. I have perfumed my bed with my
aloes and cinnamon. You can put the new contemporary
stuff in if you want to right here. I don't know what y'all
wear, so I'm not going to quote anything. But the question would be, would
you be putting on perfume to catch somebody? Or to just not
be offensive in your indigenous Hygienic expression Trying to be nice with that Motive is everything with God,
isn't it? Motive is everything. I love when our brothers and
sisters smell good But are you doing it to attract? Are you
doing it with the proper motive? See what I'm saying? See all
of us have to examine ourselves around that don't we? You see
how sinful we are by nature? It goes on to say, come, let
us take our field of love until the morning. In other words,
she's going to handle you all night long. Is that what the
text said? Is that what it says? Let us solace ourselves with
love's plural. Love's plural. You see it? Here it is. For my husband is not at home. Do you see it? She's bold, isn't
she? The good man is gone. And redemptively
and spiritually, what that means is the local churches that are
harlot churches, they do what they do because they do not believe
that Christ rules in that church. And in their mind, he's going
on a long journey and he is. And what it indicates is an absence
of the spirit of Christ in the church, because if Christ was
in the church, we never ever think of him as on a long journey
because he's right here right now in my heart, in my word,
in our fellowship, ruling as Lord and husband over those who
have been begotten of him and are betrothed to him as his bride.
Is that true? My husband is present right now.
But if I sense that he's going on a long journey, I'm playing
around I'm a whore you got it for the Goodman is not at home
he's gone on a long journey she knows how long he has taken a
bag of money with him and he will come home at the day appointed
she knows when he's coming back so she can cheat up to the day
before do you see it with her much fair Speech she caused him
to yield See it in other words she worked him with all this
language I just shared with you didn't she She broke through
his ethical break She broke down his conscious awareness of the
moral implications of the actions of She constrained him by her
powers to cross the line into an illicit relationship. And
the man was trapped and powerless. You guys follow that? That's
how they work. And by the way, this is how you
make people make false professions of faith in Jesus. by working
you, working you, working you, working you, working you, working
you. Come, come. Just repeat after
me. Just repeat after me. Who wants
to be saved today? Come, come. Just repeat after
me. Come up to the front. Come up,
come up to the front. We'll help you get saved. Repeat
after me. Forcing you in an unnatural way to make a decision for Jesus,
compelled by their agenda and not the grace of God in your
heart. Am I making some sense? No wonder
brothers and sisters who have a little gray matter on their
head don't go to churches. I wouldn't either. If you would
assault my conscience and disrespect my person at such a level to
take advantage of my vulnerability, I'm already vulnerable coming
into your assembly and you won't let me go until I repeat after
you and you don't have a Bible verse to defend that methodology.
Nowhere in the scriptures as we'll see over the next two weeks
in the book of Romans chapter 10 And yet we compel them don't
we we compel them make a decision Hallelujah, he just got saved
and everybody's clapping and shouting and he was forced and
he yielded and he left the same way he came but he felt spiritually
raped and because the whole church was involved in that tricanery.
Are you guys hearing what I'm saying? Disrespecting his personhood
only to get game. With her much fair speech, she
caused him to yield with the flattering of her lips, she what? Forced him. Here's the outcome
of false religion in this way. He goeth after her straightway. And as an ox goes to the slaughter,
or as a fool to the correction of the stocks, till a dart strikes
through his liver, as a bird hastens to the snare and does
not know that it is for his life. Hearken unto me now, therefore,
O ye children, attend to the words of my mouth. Let not your
heart decline to her ways. Go not astray. See, this is apostasy
in her paths. For she has cast down many wounded. Yea, many strong men have been
slain by her. Her house is the way to hell,
going down to the chambers of death. Explicit, isn't it? Pull our PowerPoint back up.
Let's go back through that again. This is the difference between
the true gospel and the false gospel that I am sharing with
you. At the level of interaction with human beings, This is why
people ask pastor. Why don't you do altar calls?
Why don't you we don't ever see anybody say because you're not
supposed to see anybody say That's God's work to save people That's
a hard work You know, I don't see anybody saved like you can't
see the conception of a baby in the womb Who knows the conception of a
baby in the womb only God Who knows when a person is truly
born again? Only God Are you guys hearing me? All we can do
is wait for the evidence of the conception. Honey, I'm pregnant.
I don't see any evidence. I'm pregnant. What's the evidence?
I'm sick. A couple of weeks later, I'm
real sick. A couple of weeks later, I'm
showing. It took time, didn't it? This notion of, ah, he got
saved right now. No Bible for it. The devil goes to church too.
Python spirit attached to the church. What is the devil seeking
to do? Distract. Now let's deal with this one
last point. Who is he using? This woman is called a maiden
in your text. And some of your texts are far
better in its translation. You know what they call her?
A slave girl. That's our literal Greek term
for this young lady that's being used. Paidiske. Parion is the Greek term for
child. Different forms of the word actually means slave. A
paidiske is a female slave. That's what she is. She's a female
slave. That's why you have the two slashes
there. So interestingly, our context is doing this. While
true church is going on, Satan's slave happens to be a female
is now Attaching herself to the church with the objective of
using her wonders and powers to draw people to herself She
actually wants to get in on the ministry because she sees a movement
happening. Am I making some sense? Now,
let's look at our texts We've already seen what his favorite
method is is flattery, right? I I'll just ask you the question. I wanna look at our text. What's
required to overcome her diabolical methodological approach to flattering
and game saying and fortune telling? What's required on the part of
the Christian to make sure that they're not hoodwinked by these
very professional cons and crooks? What's the word? Discernment. Write it down. Discernment. The gift of discernment. Now, how many of you guys know
that discernment is a gift? And discernment is not just a sense
of intuitive knowing or intuitive aversion. Discernment is a consequence
of knowledge. You can't discern what you don't
know. You know how you get sucked in
and hoodwinked by a proposition? Even though you say, you know,
I knew something wasn't right. I just knew something wasn't
right. No, you didn't. You just didn't know what you didn't know
and you felt bad that you didn't know what you didn't know. But
when you bought in, you bought in with your eyes wide open.
But because you didn't have the necessary knowledge to divide
between and discern and separate the proposition from the motive
and its outcome or implications, you were hoodwinked. Are you
hearing what I'm saying? This is how the salesman works.
that true? He can go in your garage, get
your old vacuum cleaner, clean it off, walk to your front door,
knock on your door, have you to open it up and sell you your
vacuum cleaner when you don't have discernment. Is that true? This is why we have to pursue
truth at a heart level because as I said, opening We all think
we are better than we really are. And the big thing that the
Bible really warns you and me about is deception. And one of the reasons God will
allow you to be deceived long enough is so you can learn that
you can be deceived. Are you guys hearing me? Because
the moment you say, I can't be deceived, you're already deceived.
You're already deceived. But when you know you can be
deceived, what you ask God for is what? Discernment. Listen
to the Proverbs. This is Proverbs 15, 14. And
I quoted it. I learned these by memory. Many
of them. Proverbs 14, 15. 15, 14. So it's 14, 15. Turn that around.
That's my dyslexia working again. Good verse here. Proverbs 14,
15. Now here's what I want you to learn. See the word simple?
That's the person that does not have enough understanding to
discern The word simple means simplistic. You know how some
people are gullible The simple believe every word Now ladies
and gentlemen, you can't believe everything you hear But what
can you do if you don't have discernment Am I making some
sense? Listen to what it says, but the
prudent man see the word prudent the discerning person Looks well
to his going You know what? That means he doesn't bite at
everything people say Stay with me. This is the other problem
with church folk They say amen before you even get the sentence
out your mouth Amen. Amen. Amen. Why are you saying
amen and you haven't even heard what I said? And why are you
affirming something that you haven't even discerned? These
are gullible people. This is a good study. Give it
to your friends because a lot of them are hoodwinked. Psalm chapter 119, 104. This
is the last one I'll use. And I'll take a few questions
if you want it and then we can go tonight. Do you see Psalm
119, 104? I love this verse. Learn this at 19 taught all my
kids this they learn by the time they went through all the divisions
of Psalm 119 This one was the one that landed So my kids are
not deceived by false religion Through your precepts Do I get
understanding? Therefore do I hate some false
ways? So how am I going to discern
false ways let alone hate them unless I learn the precept of
will of God, right? Psalm 119, 130 is a premise to
this. It's another verse to learn.
Thy word is a what unto my feet? It's a what unto my path? It says two things. Oh, I'm sorry. Psalm 119, 104. Just hold on. This one is good too. Go back,
go back, go back. This one is good too. Go back, go back, go
back to 130. Watch this one. 119, 130. It's
another one. That one popped out. The entrance
of thy word gives what? Life. Do you see it? It gives
understanding to the what? Simple. See how important the
word of God is? When it enters in, it gives life.
Now Psalm 119, 105. Our word is a lamp. So when we
read God's word, the spirit of God can use his word to cut the
lights on in our understanding. And it can also cut the lights
on in our goings and conduct, right? And where we intentionally
avoid God's word as a lamp for our feet and a light for our
path, we're going to stumble. You guys follow that? Questions
before we get out of here. Anybody got questions? I need
a runner right quick. I got a sister right there. Great, great. Remember
in our church, we are expositional. We are expository listeners.
That means we literally have questions because these are important
things. Come on, let's run, let's run. You got it, did you cut
it out? Okay, maybe I have to cut it out. Somebody else, if
you got another question, raise your hand so Rami can help you. Talk through it. Oh, can I? Oh,
okay. So my question is is a There's a word Christian. Does that also
mean disciple? No, it's not synonymous Christian
is simply the word to be like Christ The word disciple means
to be taught so if one makes the If one makes the claim that
he's a Christian Then that will be evidenced by how your life
lines up with the character of Christ as revealed in the Word
of God So discipleship leads to a Christian manifestation. Does that follow? Yes. So should
a disciple be baptized or is it required of a disciple to
be baptized? If a person is in a discipling
mode, then they will be baptized because disciples obey the master. This is what blows me away about
many people who, I mean, they hang out under the gospel for
long periods of time, and they delay baptism. And what it tells
me is you're not a disciple. You just go to church. Because
when you're a disciple, you obey Christ. Right? Right. And so one of the first commandments
in obedience to the gospel is that we would be what? That's
why the Ethiopian eunuch said, hey, we got water right here.
I'm a disciple. So when people are sitting under
the Word of God and failing to obey Christ in those critical
areas, because baptism is a emblem and symbol of your actual union
with Jesus, such a level of commitment that you're ready to die for
Him. That's what the water signifies. Death, burial, and resurrection.
You believe that you died with Christ, you were buried with
Christ, and you rose again with Christ. That's what true believers
do when they're truly disciples. Now there are a lot of people
who go in the water and they come out of the water and they
prove that they're not disciples. They were just trying to get
a ticket to heaven. Other questions. Do we have a
question? Let's get at it. If you got another question, you
guys can raise your hand. I'll talk for five minutes behind you, behind you.
I do. I have a comment and a question
about the book of Job. I was reading in Genesis today. And there was a commentary about
Job being, being, I can't think of the word. He was in the, he was at the,
was, I can't think of the word. He was a, not a companion. You get the gist when I say what
I need to say. Of Abraham, is that true? and
then contemporary, there you go, was a contemporary of Abraham. That's a complete conjecture.
We don't know that. Okay. When you read the historical
narrative of Job, there are many things contextually that makes
it very clear that it's a pre-law dated book. And some argue that
it's the oldest book in the Bible. But one of the things we want
to be careful about, this is why we did bibliology a long time
ago. This is why the church really needs to work on study. We need
to really work on study. That's why I'm doing some church
history, because you need to know the difference between facts
and fiction. We also need to know how to make a distinction
between assumptions made in educated guesses and explicit empirical
evidence affirming certain statements. When you look at the narrative
of Job contextually, you see similar language relative to
the period of Abraham, but nothing that's concrete. So it's conjecture.
Thank you. And the comment I wanted to make
is about when you talked about finding when it's always somebody
else's fault in a relationship. What I also seem to see often
is there are excuses given when people don't want to be accountable
for anything, any wrong that they have. There's always an
excuse to why they can't do, whether it's children, whether
they can't do what you're asking, or even us. Just an excuse is
not always fault, but there is a reason why it can't be done.
That was just a comment. And I laid it out. We're not
accountable people. And so we're willing to make
the relationship raggedy. All relationships will diminish
in their quality where you and I are not serious about accountability
towards that person. Do you guys get that? All relationships,
your relationship with God will be raggedy. It will be raggedy. where you're not serious about
your accountability before God. It will be raggedy. It can be
so raggedy that there's no fruit in your life at all. What's marvelous
about God is that God gives us multiple resources to strengthen
our walk with him. And he's gracious in his proximity. And what do I mean by that? He
gives us plenty space to work out our salvation with fear and
trembling. and he gives us plenty time. He doesn't crowd us. God doesn't exercise what we
call in philosophy or psychology, needy love. He has a giving love. He doesn't have a needy love.
I have a needy love. You have a needy love. And if
you have a loved one that has a needy love, they will smother
you sometimes when their needy love is overbearing. And you
wonder why it's so smothering, it's because they have that vacuum
there. But God's not like that. He doesn't operate on a needy
love platform. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? He operates on a giving love platform. Here, what do
you need? Here, what do you need? I need you to draw near. I want
you to draw near to me, so I'm giving you the resources to do
it. But if you don't, you won't, and you won't have the blessings
of a near communion with God. Am I making some sense? Am I
making some sense? He said again for suicide question
marks on people here. God is not a needy love God Don't
ever say that God needs something Don't ever say that don't ever
say that To do that is to diminish God's immutable attribute of
a seedy. I It means that by nature God
is self-sufficient and independent and never has nor never will
need anything. He is always the source of giving. He does not depend upon the creature
at any time or in any way. You guys got that? That's what
makes God different than us. He made us, we didn't make God. And before he made us, he needed
nothing. And we don't add to God by being
part of his family or his camp. We need him. The moment that
we find a way to make God need us, we have a false God. I'm sorry for waxing eloquent
on that because our churches are so jacked up around the character
and nature of God. Question. When she asked about, um, disciples,
I would like to hear about apostles. I thought they were the ones
who walked and followed Christ, but some preachers now have been
starting to call themselves apostles. They've been doing it for the,
for the longest. The church history class will help a lot of you.
How many of you guys have ever studied church history? That's
what I thought. Just what I thought. So, so because you don't know
church history, These words are kind of hanging in the air without
a context. Does that make sense? Right.
So you hear these terms today and for me to not contextualize
it historically is to simply kind of make some points that
are almost pointless. So yeah, you got people who call
themselves apostles to be an apostle is not to say that you're
not a disciple because obviously an apostle is a disciple. But
to be a disciple is not the same as being an apostle, though you
can't be an apostle without being a disciple. Does that make sense? All right. So there's a distinction
there. But then there's also what we call a carryover or an
overlap. An apostle is handpicked men
by the Lord who were given unique gifts in order to lay the foundation
of the church. Once done, never repeat it. Specially
qualified to do certain things and be qualified to do those
certain things which don't exist today. So every man or woman
that calls themselves an apostle, we call them liars, as does the
Word of God. Next question. Anybody got another
question? Let's get the microphone. Who got the microphone? Where
are we at? Here. Hand up. I can't see you. OK. Way back
there. OK. Hand over here. Over here.
Over here. Can you see? Can I ask you one more thing, please? Quickly.
The Sabbath. Constantine changed it. You'll
learn that. No, see, you'll learn all that
in church history. Because see those are mistakes
that people a lot if you make the church history class or if
you don't get the CDs Because people you will say things that
other people told you Listen carefully to me you will say
things that other people told you And you will not have done
the research yourself I And because you have not done the research
yourself or haven't had the research laid out to you so that you can
know the source data from which those claims are made, then you
end up being purveyors of information that other people laid out. That
will be answered in church history because we're going all the way
back to the patristic fathers, the apostles, the patristic fathers,
the seven ecumenical councils, including Constantine's era of
311 AD. whereby he established official
Christianity among the Roman Empire. There's a whole much
more going on than just Constantine's era, a whole lot more. And the
idea of the change from the Sabbath, from the Saturday Sabbath to
Sunday worship, started way before Constantine, way before Constantine. And it's in your Bible. It's
in the book of Acts and it's also in the book of Revelation
chapters 1, 2, and 3 and others. So we'll be dealing with that
because you got to know church history. Because there are people going
around saying a lot of things about what happened back then
and Christians are being duped by it. Isn't that what we were
talking about before this class? Question. Yes. Can you speak
on the Baptist catechism and is it worth going through the
questions? It all depends on which one. Which one? Which one? All I know is Baptist versus
Catholic. And it was like 150 questions.
And I'm trying to work through it. Also, this is what's going
to be beautiful about our church history lesson. The Baptist denomination
is divided up into multiple, multiple, multiple sub-denominations
as well. The Baptists are not monolithic.
You've got primitive Baptist. You've got landmark Baptist.
You've got reformed Baptist. You've got water-dunking Baptist. you got singing Baptist, you
got acapella Baptist, you got Southern Baptist, and you got
Yankee Baptist, and you got this Baptist and that Baptist, which
Baptist doctrine are we talking about? Does that make some sense?
I'll help you. OK. Philippians 2.12, I was just
wondering, I've not here, I haven't heard it, but I've heard it on
a couple of broadcasts where it seems that what the pastor
or the person is speaking, combining Philippians 2.12 with talking
about working out your salvation with fear and trembling, somehow
it's linked to sanctification. It is, it is. Okay. Cause I,
then I started thinking that it's, it's okay. We, the doing
part, I know there's some parts that we're supposed to do, of
course, as unto the Lord, but when it starts doing, then I
think, well, we can't be saved or keep our salvation by doing
certain things. I mean, we do certain things.
I guess I don't know the difference of, do you follow what I mean?
What is acceptable doing versus works. Right. So the text is, that's why the
person who was teaching said, this is not a doctrine establishing
our justification. Justification is what Christ
did for you outside of yourself 2000 years ago, when he granted
by his obedience, and suffering a righteousness that allows you
to stand before God accepted in the beloved. That's outside
of you. Justification is outside of you. God decrees you righteous
for Christ's sake outside of you. That's even before you had
to be. Even when you were converted, you were already justified in
Christ. The reality of that justification comes through the gospel that
Christ has justified you when the Spirit of God is working
in you through regeneration to bring that knowledge to you.
So one of the things that regeneration and sanctification does is renew
your mind and put you in a position where you can believe God's Word,
as Romans 10 is going to help us understand. So we've come
to learn that we have been justified freely by His grace through the
redemption that is in Christ 2,000 years ago. 2,000 years
ago, what does that mean? I had nothing to do with it.
But sanctification brings that reality to my being. Then God
says work from there not to be saved, but to affirm your salvation. Is that true? Work out your salvation,
which is a gift given to you so that God is glorified. And
really think this through saints, salvation should not be a secret
religion. You shouldn't live and die and
nobody know you say. So when it says work out your
salvation, what Paul is talking about, which is really a theology
I have been teaching for a while, is that you are not to think
of your salvation as merely terminating in justification, but rather
working through sanctification and terminating in glorification.
Does that make sense? In other words, if I'm saved,
I better manifest the fruits of salvation because faith works
by what? And if it works by love, it's
gonna manifest itself in good works that are evidences of the
grace of God in my life, right? Evangelical obedience is the
only way you and I can know that he is the husbandman that planted
the good seed of Christ in us, right? Let the tree bring forth
good fruit or bad fruit. Every tree shall be known by
its seed, right? No, fruit. Fruit. Even the thief on the cross.
worked out his salvation right there, didn't he? Did he work
it out? Man, don't you know this is the
only man that did no sin? Don't you realize how guilty
and hell bound we are? We deserve what we get, but this
man didn't do anything wrong. Lord, remember me when you enter
into your glory. And he said it to everybody in
the crowd. He didn't hide his salvation.
He didn't, he went, I need to tell you something. This is what it means to be a
witness. If you're hiding your Christianity, you are not a witness.
Do men take a light and hide it under a bushel? Or do they
set it out on the table to be seen by all? You are the light
of the world. Let your good works be done before
men that your father in heaven might be glorified. Is that right? And that's why James says, faith
without works is what? So our salvation is to be worked
out. Y'all hear me that? Y'all hear
me, saints? Last question. Last question. Who has the microphone?
I do. You got it? OK, go on. You got
to put it to your mouth. I have a question about Acts
16. We're talking about the certain
slave girl who possesses spirit. And you mentioned something about
the Greek religions and how they spoke in tongues. Now, were you
making a concrete statement about speaking in tongues? Yes, ma'am. In general, or are you saying
that or explain. Yeah, please. What I'm saying
is that when you actually study your Bible accurately, that what
is manifested today in most of our churches as so-called speaking
in tongues, where they are speaking in a gibberish, and this is technically
the term for all of the different forms of so-called speaking in
tongues, is an unintelligible speech form that does not correspond
to what the scriptures demonstrate as speaking in languages. So
when you actually study your Bible carefully, you understand
that glossolalia are actual languages. And when you read Acts chapter
two very carefully, which was what we call the paradigm for
the gift of tongues, they all spoke each man in his own language,
the wonderful works of God, so that the people that were hearing
were the people in the 17 different nations who heard these Galileans
speak in their dialect. Literally, that's the Greek term,
dialect. So you had these Galileans who were Jewish. speaking in
Parthian, speaking in Libyan, speaking in Mesopotamian, not
Mesopotamian, but Persian, and different languages. These were
languages. So the argument has been for
years now, is speaking in tongues this pagan form of gibberish
that you hear in your African religions, your Central American
religions, your Far Eastern religions, or is it languages? For the last
500 years, we have demonstrated that you cannot exegetically
draw from the scriptures that speaking in tongues is the babble
that you hear in our churches today. So what we warn is this. You have to be very careful that
your experience corresponds with the word of God, because we actually
do believe in demons and we also actually believe in deception.
What that means is Sociologically, you can be part of a group and
they speak in a sort of broken dialectical form that has no
grammar equivalent or no dialectical equivalent anywhere in the world.
And they will tell you that's the gift of tongues. And we can
get into how people are coaxed into it, how they are taught
how to do it. how they tell you to come up
and repeat after me, just start by saying, halata, halata, halata,
halata, halata, halata, halata, halata, halata, halata, halata,
halata, halata, halata, halata, halata, halata, halata, halata,
halata, halata, halata, halata, halata, halata, halata, halata,
halata, halata, halata, halata, halata, halata, halata, halata,
halata, halata, halata, halata, halata, halata, halata, halata,
halata, halata, halata, halata, halata, halata, halata, halata,
halata, halata, halata, halata, halata, halata, halata, halata,
halata, halata, halata, halata, halata, halata, halata, halata,
halata, halata, Then you go down to New York and you find out
that they do it different than folks in California. Then you
go up to Maine and then you go to Europe and you find out that
they're all speaking in tongues different ways. Some are chirping
like birds. Some are barking like dogs. Some are howling like cats. And
some are using very eloquent forms of speech patterns that
almost sound Hebraic or Persian or some other language. This
is how broad the spectrum is. Watch this. But if the Spirit
of God is giving us the gift of tongues, wouldn't you think
that there would be some uniformity to that gift across the board
instead of it being so different in all of these different cultural
groups? And we've investigated this for
a long time. How do you have an expression
of speaking in tongues in the Christian church that sounds
exactly like what takes place in the Hindu religion or the
Baha religion or some of these shaman religions and these other
pagan religions that are purely demonic. How do they sound exactly
the same? Because they are. It's tough, isn't it? So what
I said earlier about you have to actually examine what you're
engaging in because just because you have a spirit come on you
and help you do it or because someone trains you to do it,
which is even more unbiblical. Because that's what we call a
prescription you never have ever seen in the word of God where
anyone trained people how to speak in tongues. Nowhere. And yet folks are saying, come
on tonight and we'll teach you how to speak in tongues, right?
Well, if it's a gift of the Holy Spirit, wouldn't he just endow
you with that ability? And by the way, you're talking
to one who did that for many years until God taught me that
the real tongue I better learn how to talk in is the word of
God. Okay. It's humbling when we don't know. But God, he doesn't hold us for
what we don't know. He holds us for what we know.
So if you're going to embrace speaking in tongues, you better
be able to defend it from this book. Because if you can't actually
defend it from this book, you're lying against God. So you know
the debate debates go on. So let me ask, let me answer
an ancillary question to that just to resolve something This
is not for me an issue of salvation. In other words, if you speak
in tongues, you're not going to hell. There are a whole lot
of people that don't speak in tongues going to hell in the
church. It's just when we get into the
issue of the gifts, you have to be very careful of saying
the Lord gave me this gift or that gift or the other gift.
You must prove all things and hold fast to that which is good
and that gift must be understood as to whether or not it actually
can be demonstrated in the scriptures, and then does it really serve
the cause of the gospel? Why would God give you and me,
English-speaking people, a language of which no one can interpret,
not even you, if he doesn't give you the gift of interpretation?
follow the logic of first Corinthians fourteen straightness out. By
the way, I've got articles back there and CDs at fifteen questions
around the gift of tongues. Fifteen questions. Why would
God give you and me a gift of tongues where nobody understands
it when we all speak English? Does that make sense? Why would
I, why would I listen to you for one minute speaking in a
gibberish that I don't understand? Neither you. And why would God let you be
subject to somebody over on the other side of the audience that
would stand up? I'll give the interpretation. And that person
could be lying. So why would God start in a gibberish,
then interpret it over there when he could just prophesy to
us in English? Does that make sense? When the
vast majority of all that God does He does in clarity of prophecy. Your edification has come through
clarity of prophecy. Your edification, your salvation
didn't come through someone speaking in a tongue and you not understanding
it. That's Paul's argument in 1 Corinthians 14. If I don't
understand your speech, how can I be instructed? If the trumpet
doesn't make a certain sound, how can I respond? What are we
doing when we're all going Babylon language? What are we doing when
we're all doing that? Confusion. Confusion. We sat in the teaching
now for almost two hours, haven't we? And I spoke to you in English,
didn't I? And I expounded the scriptures,
didn't I? And your souls were edified, weren't they? Now, what
if I decided to every 20 minutes in my teaching, go into a tongue,
then come out and go back in English and then go into a tongue,
then come out. Would you have been edified?
Why? Because if your mind doesn't
understand what I'm saying, your edification is unfruitful. Read
first Corinthians 14 again. Read it again. It demands, it
demands, it demands, it demands clarity. Paul said, if you did
have an authentic tongue, you can't even speak it in the church
without an interpreter because no time can we as a group ever
engage in speaking in tongues where there's no interpretation
because that is anti-intellectual. Does that make sense, you guys?
It's very important for you to know. very important for you
to know. The other thing I want about
what that is, that once you get into that kind of fascination
where you are used to a mindless expression of worship, you will
gradually depart from the word of God. All right, that's enough for
tonight. All right, George, the last one. Well, here's what I would say.
about private speaking in tongues because after like 400 years
of debate around the issue of tongues, most people will concede
that, okay, this is my private prayer language. So you didn't
push me all the way into my closet now. I can't share this with
nobody, but between me and God, I can edify myself, right? By speaking in a language. So
I say, yeah, you can do what you want to. You're going to
answer to God for it. Go ahead only do it you're gonna
ask if you don't really labor to determine whether or not that's
a biblical gift or whether or not that's one of those hijacked
gifts that come into the church through apostasy and demons like
we're seeing in our texts and You're practicing something that
you just been passed down to you by tradition if you aren't
able to prove that that gift has been authentic from God and
then the question is if you're speaking in a gibberish and your
own mind doesn't have the capacity to know what you're saying and
Can you really truly say you are edified? Well, I feel better. Right. Right. No, let's I'm being honest
right now. Because I've heard I've heard
these same, you know, arguments for years, and I'm not being
mean or anything. I'm just I am going to challenge
you right here. I'm going to I'm going to challenge you to
ask the question, what is Christianity? Christianity a mystical religion
of feelings absent from the mind to where we go into these states
of being that when I'm done I you know you just almost euphoric
in nature and I am telling you that's exactly how our pagan
religions work by the time they're done they're laying out straddled
on the ground high from those visitations and experiences and
they can't tell you a thing about what's going on So you can go
in your closet and I would consider that a definite discipline, but
I would still warn you. If some entity is coming on you
and making you do that, you better ask whether that's a God or not.
Let's close in prayer. No, I'm sorry. I got a funeral
to do. Somebody died last week and two actually, so not tomorrow. Father, thank you for this time.
Thank you for my brothers and sisters. Thank you for a Berean
spirit Thank you for the spirit of humility Even in the areas
where we got brothers and sisters who are exercising are engaged
in the gifts as it were Bless them Lord with a sense of confidence
in the clarity and sufficiency of your word and let them do
their diligence around this gift at least let them know the arguments
and so that they can stand upon a conviction of having made a
choice based upon knowledge and not simply traditions of men
or culture or an experience. Since you've told us to prove
all things and hold fast to that which is good, as we go our way,
give us traveling mercies. You are so good. You are so good. And we pray it in Jesus name.
Amen. God bless you.