So I'm gonna be starting back
at point number three if you will pull up our point number
three and we'll stay right here We all opened up last week dealing
with Peter's imprisonment and we saw the necessity of understanding
the redemptive parallels in Scripture This is a presupposition that
I'll just repeat briefly and that is historical narratives
Generally have what we call a redemptive principle to extract from the
text that if you read a portion of scripture and that portion
of scripture is a narrative and you don't anticipate from that
portion of scripture a redemptive lesson, then you don't quite
understand why the Bible was given and how it was crafted.
So the Bible is a narrative with a meta-narrative underneath it. And that meta-narrative is the
person and work of Jesus Christ. So often We will deal with the
text as we have here. And the context is prison and
prisoners. And in this context, it's God's
servants. And if you were to do a word
study on that, you would find that God's servants have frequently
experienced being in prison, being brought into captivity.
And loosening the prisoners is part of Christ's redemptive purpose. This is one of the principles
elucidated in Isaiah chapter 53 as well, to let the captives
free, to deliver captivity captive, to free men and women. We are
talking then about the doctrine of liberation, something we will
be more fully developing in Romans chapter 6 in our Sunday messages. So when you look at the account,
the historical account of Peter being in prison, and he's in
prison because of Herod, and you and I have already talked
about the history of Herod and his symbolism as the great Antichrist
figure. That's why the particular title
of this series is The Return of the Antichrist under Herod,
who is at this point the grandson of Herod the Great, And consequently,
he's following in his father's footsteps, of which we considered
week before last when we went through the history of Herod.
Herod being a king, being a despot, being a ruler, is threatened
by Jesus, who is the monarch. And I made this observation.
It is fair to embrace it for yourself. Wherever there are
monarchs or despots or rulers in the world, whenever you present
the gospel of the sovereignty Lordship of Jesus Christ Inevitably
they are going to be threatened because the idea that an individual
would have as ruler of their life Sovereign of their life
God Is a threat to human systems Because for you the highest authority
is outside of the scope and reach of the government that you are
under When the government thinks through the implications of a
man or a woman taking God seriously, what they understand is that
man or that woman can never ultimately be the property of the state. Whenever the state understands
that a people group have pledged allegiance to God, then that
government has one or two things to do. Either frame their government
to be consistent with the ethic and morals and protocol of God
or find that they are going to be at war with God because God
is going to prevail in the life of his people. Either that government
capitulates to the universal moral standards of God's law
and then operates out of the ethics that God has given us
in his law by which human beings or mankind interacts with each
other and therefore reflect the mind of God This is what we call
the law of God. If human governments would bring
into conformity their own man-made laws with the law of God, the
universal laws of God, God would bless those human governments.
And the reason would be is because their law, walking in harmony
with God's law, would keep those governments from being in conflict
with the will of God that God is accomplishing through his
people. But if a government determines to establish laws that actually
militate against and oppose the laws of God, they are setting
up a warfare and conflict between their kingdom and God's kingdom. And as Peter has already developed
the argument and the stance in Acts chapter five, it is better
for us to obey God than to obey man. In the context in which
you and I are in in Acts chapter 12, Herod has chosen the latter. Following in the footsteps of
his fathers, he has chosen to oppose the authority of the apostles
of whom I have shared with you. We are dealing with two authorities
in the book of Acts, are we not? The authority of the kingdom
of God represented in the church and the authority of the political,
religious system that are walking in harmony. Even here in Acts
chapter 12, Herod is walking in harmony with the Jewish people.
This would tell us that the Jewish church is a secular institution
because that secular institution is in harmony with the state
against the church. So when a church goes apostate,
you know it because it actually now adopts the secular political
paradigm as a convenience and as a tool and instrument to do
its bidding. I'm going to say that one more
time. You can tell when churches go apostate because those churches
are seeking now the scepter and authority of political influence,
political power, political promises. This was the tragic mistake of
Western Christianity as well as Catholicism in the days of
Constantine all the way through the Byzantine period. This is
the problem whenever churches become so large that they think
that they can accomplish the will of God in the flesh. When
once we give up the power of God as the true source of influence
and authority on the part of the church, we're gonna embrace
and adopt now the political scepter. So whenever Herod and Pontius
Pilate come together, Herod and Ananias Caiaphas come together
you're gonna have what we call in Revelation 12 and 13 beast
1 and beast 2 Politics and religion and they both work together to
control the masses Control the masses. I'm giving you the larger
paradigm and this runs all the way through the scriptures when
the church fails to influence the culture through gospel principles
It will seek to do so through political means. And so even
the African-American church has fallen prey to that over the
last three, four, five, six, seven decades. And we are looking
up and we are seeing that we have lost so much ground as the
African-American church in America, because we thought that getting
the resources from the government would help us achieve our goals,
but God will not have two monarchs on his throne. either King Jesus
rules or you are being governed by the Antichrist system. And
this is absolutely true. Now, what this means is there's
a certain precariousness, a certain tangentialness, a certain sense
of sensitivity in terms of the relationship
between the state and the church. What I mean by that is that at
any time in God's own inscrutable judgment, he can allow the state
to break out against the church and the church now has to demonstrate
its absolute allegiance to Jesus by faith. Because whenever the
state decides to erect laws and establish laws that oppose biblical
truth, now the church has to say, hey, we don't agree with
that. And therefore we are not submitting to that because you
are forcing us to violate our conscious and to violate our
walk with God, things that were inherent in the constitution,
things that were inherent in the constitution, freedom of
religion. And so what we have in the book of acts is that tension.
And I say that because sometimes people don't recognize the subtle
slides into trust and, and dependence upon the state, the Jews, Herod
are pleased to kill the Apostles that is your Revelation 12 1
2 3 & 4 text of which I have stated the things that are happening
on the earth only reflect those things that happen in heaven
as Jesus said when you pray pray this way our father who art in
heaven Hallowed be thy name your kingdom come your will be done
on earth as it already is being done in heaven. He's not asking
that it would be done. It is being done. It's for us
as the children of God to recognize it and for us to accept as an
a priori assumption that the will of God is being done. And
therefore for us, our primary authority is what God is doing
in terms of the kingdom of God, his objectives, for us on earth
and when Christ taught us how to pray what he was saying is
that we want to prioritize the will of God in our life we wanted
to take precedent over us to influence us to control and advise
us and to guide us as we make decisions as to how we're going
to serve God so again Peter says it is better for us to obey God
than to obey man. And he wasn't saying that to
plead with Caiaphas and the high priest. He was saying that because
he understood the consequences of not obeying God. It's better
that we obey God. That makes a lot of sense, doesn't
it? It's better that we obey God. For who can withstand God?
As you guys may very well see today, Herod was turned to worms
because he thought he could oppose God. And so as we look again
back at point number three, the providence of prison, what we
saw was that we are dealing with a type of our own spiritual condition,
the spiritual condition of the world. And under that, we dealt
with three observations that we are all by nature in a prison
house of sin because we are slaves of sin. You guys agree with that,
right? And so we saw Romans 6, 20 through 23, and there are
multitude of passages that underscore that we are slaves. We are slaves
under the curse of the law. We know that, that in Adam all
what? Die, in Adam all die. And therefore
you and I are slaves of the process of human decay. We are slaves
of the process of mental decay, and we are slaves of the process
of spiritual decay. When God said in Genesis chapter
2 verse 17, in the day that you eat of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, you shall surely what? Right. And that's in what
we call a double infinitive verb form. And this is what it means.
In dying, you will continue to die and your dying will never
cease. And what it implies are several
aspects of death of which ignorant people, unlearned people are
careless people. not aware of when God said to
Adam in the day that you violate my law and there was only one
law don't eat of that tree you will die multiple deaths and
those deaths will ultimately end in eternal death so in the
book of Revelation chapter 20 we see where it describes in
verse 15 the second death being a the lake of fire, right? And
so obviously if there's a second death, there's a first death.
So generally we categorize the deaths as one being physical,
the other being eternal. But the physical death is also
incorporated in the spiritual death because man is born spiritually
dead. This is something also in the
scriptures that you have to be able to grapple with when you
are diagnosing the human condition. Remember what Jesus said? Let
the dead bury the dead. Now that would be an oxymoronic
statement that would be contradictory in its imperative if he were
calling the physically dead to bury the physically dead. But
if he's calling the spiritual dead to bury the physical dead,
now we understand that imperative, correct? So there is a spiritual
death. that has all of the markers of
death. First is separation from God because death is separation.
Death is separation. Whatever is alive, when it dies,
there's a separation that takes place. And when mankind sinned
against God, he immediately died spiritually. And so your agnostics
and your atheists and your Again, uninformed professing believers
that read the Genesis account and say that in the day that
Adam and Eve ate of the fruit, they didn't die. They did die.
They died immediately. There was a separation between
them and God, and the effect was visible immediately. They
lost a sense of the knowledge of God immediately. They lost
a sense of the God that they had known in a state of righteousness,
unmediated fellowship, and in a state of purity that was free
from sin. The level of knowledge that Adam
and Eve had before the fall was so enormous that God could talk
to them directly, fill their minds with information so that
they didn't have to go through the process, the long arduous
process of learning. Knowledge was available to Adam
and Eve right away because they were in a kind of communion with
God that was of a phenomenal nature. All they had to do was
ask and immediately the knowledge would have been poured into them
and because their physical constitution, which meant their mind also,
was not contaminated or limited by sin, the capacity for them
to embrace volumes of information at accelerated speeds are without
measure in terms of you and I. You and I could never know that
until we enter into glory. What kind of profound fellowship
Adam and Eve had with God. This is why last week, as I left
off in the Roman series, sharing with you that when Paul said
that Adam was a type or a figure of him who was to come and that
sin had reigned even over those who had not sinned after the
same manner in which Adam did. And I began to share with you
the insight of being a person who has no sin in their life.
What the implications of that is are beyond us because we've
always had sin, but to contemplate what it must have been like for
Adam to actually sin free of a sin propensity, free of a sin
inclination, free of a sinful impulse, darkening the mind,
obscuring his clarity, even veiling his capacity to see God when
he acted in that sin. That sin was tremendous because
it was done in a perfect light. It was done in a state of righteousness.
but which you and I could never do. We could never sin in a state
of perfect righteousness, because you and I are still in process.
So the act was profound on many levels, intellectually, emotionally,
psychologically, pragmatically, relationally, when it came to
God. Do you understand what kind of, you can't, but I'm just acting
like you can, what kind of calculation went into the act for a man who
was in, He was righteous through and through. See, that was a
violation, a major violation of all that he was and all that
he experienced in the whole of his surroundings. This is what
made him a type of Jesus Christ. Because when Christ bore our
sin, the same violation of his holy nature had to take place. The level of conflict into which
Christ had to enter to openly put himself in a position of
being in hostile rebellion against his God as a substitute for his
people was a calamity of conflict and inner turmoil that you and
I could never ever imagine. This is why in the garden, he
sweat great drops of blood because the contemplation of him being
put in a position of having hostilely disobeyed his father, And his
father then responding in separation from him, which is something
he never knew This is too much for you and I to get with Because
you and I are used to being separate from god. You and I are used
to living in the dunghill of sin East bay mud is the normative
atmosphere we breathe It smells good to us because you and I
are nothing but dong heels by nature Sin is a common parlance
for us, but not for a holy god And what our savior must have
went through to put himself in a position to become like us
Is the same contemplation not an equal measure But an analogy
of what adam did when he crossed the line and sinned against his
god in a very clear and open and lucid understanding of the
high-handed treason that he was engaging in. Subsequent to that
act, we are all slaves. Immediately upon Adam's partaking
of the fruit, not Eve's, Adam's, because he was the head, immediately
their eyes were open and they knew that they were in rebellion
against God. And the first thing they did was what? Hide. which
means they lost their sense of God's what? Omniscience. See,
now they're thinking like idols. They have an idolatrous concept
of God because sin now causes you and I to not be able to comprehend
God accurately. It's your sin that separates
between you and your God, as Isaiah puts it. And that sin
will darken our mind, it will distort our view, it will corrupt
our affections, it will incline us to evil, and it will drive
us to darkness, which is the bondage that I'm talking about
occurs when we become a sinner. Adam and Eve now are, what are
they? They are fugitives, running from God, hiding and covering
and lying and blaming and excusing, are they not? Don't tell me that
sin didn't have an immediate effect upon them. It broke their
capacity to comprehend God rightly. It destroyed the comfort of their
union and fellowship with God. They ran out of fear. Where there
was confidence and communion, now there's fear and trepidation.
We heard your voice and we hid because we feared you. Don't
tell me sin doesn't have consequences. It has major consequences. And
that paradigm of Adam and Eve hiding behind the trees and covering
themselves with fig leaves and running from God is the spiritual
disposition of the whole world. Everybody's running from God.
Everybody's hiding behind trees. Everybody's suppressing the truth
and unrighteousness. Everybody's distorting the knowledge
of God until God comes, gets you, brings you into his presence
and secures a remedy for your soul. Is that true? And so we
saw Adam and Eve not even be able to actually honestly admit
they're wrong. See, this is what we mean by
being slaves of sin. Adam didn't tell it true. Eve
didn't tell it true. But God didn't wait for them
to either, did he? In his mercy, he still redeemed them. In his
mercy, he still redeemed them. And so we say that there is a
spiritual sin that Identifies us as being separate from God
and ignorant of God and running from God and hiding from God
and opposing God and resisting God and lying on God and distorting
God that's the condition of the lost man and Then there is the
physical death that occurs when we die after 70 or 80 years or
by reason of strip And then there's the eternal death that will occur
on the last day when he will raise up Every human being bring
them before the judgment throne and if they're not in Christ,
they're going to heal See judgment day is not a day where God is
going to determine whether or not you are saved or not It's
a day where he's going to expose whether or not you are saved.
It's a day of indictment not a day of trial The trial is here
On that day, everybody is going to be assigned their destiny.
You will not be able to argue in the courtroom on the final
day as to whether or not your destiny should be this, that,
or the other. All that's resolved down here. Am I making some sense? So under the doctrine of slaves
of sin, that's what you and I are. And we know it. If we're honest,
Paul treats this so fully, even for the believer. in Romans 7. But when we are in an unsafe
state, as Paul clearly elucidated in Romans 3, there's none that
do it good. No, not one. Even the good we
think we do is not good because it's not done with a right motive.
Unless you and I are loving the Lord our God with our whole heart,
soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbor as ourself, we are
sinning. Am I making some sense? And so whatever good works we
try to muster up and produce Our conscious never accepts them
because unless the conscious is just utterly deceived, we
know that those good works are tainted by a bad motive. There
must be another work given to us outside of us that's capable
of meeting the divine standard that God requires for us to be
accepted before him. And that's where the gospel comes
in at. But we talked about being slaves of sin. And this is why
I tell you that you and I are not free moral agents. I'll just
drop this while I got you now. Got a good class here tonight.
A lot of times we hear things in religion, we hear things in
church and we adopt them because most of us are in a disposition
of learning, right? But now when you are learning,
you are both in a position to be privileged with acquiring
things new, but you're also in a dangerous mode, a vulnerable
mode of embracing things that are untested. So when you hear
words, and this is the language game dynamic that goes on in
religion, And this is why we here at Grace are an expository
teaching ministry, because we don't accept the premise that
all the Christian has to do is live on the assumption of things
that have been longstanding in the church. That's not how you
grow, by coming in and simply mimicking what other people say
and what other people do. The way you grow, as the Word
of God says, is to prove all things and to hold fast that
which is good, 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 18. We are to test the
spirits. We are to study the word of God.
We are to examine the word of God. And as we get to Acts chapter
16 and 17 in about two months, we are to be like Bereans studying
the scriptures to determine whether those things are so or not. Now
that particular ethic is going to liberate you because truth
liberates. Lies bring you into bondage.
However, if you are lazy, you're going to be a slave. because
it requires diligence to obtain truth as you humbly seek God
in terms of what his word has to say. So what I see is that
you and I are moral agents. We are not free moral agents,
FMA. We are moral agents. That is
God made us with a principle of morality in us. The law of
God's written in our heart. It's in our conscience, Romans
two. But because we know what's right, doesn't mean that we do
what's right. And because we're slaves of sin,
though we know what's right, we still do what's wrong until
there's a power infused in us that gives us grace to do what's
right. Am I telling the truth? And so what I say is, as the
theologians long ago have proven is that the good that we would,
we do not, the evil that we would not, we find ourselves doing
until we are dependent upon a third person, a third rail that occupies
fellowship with us to assist us to do that which we want to
do. Now, when I'm not saved, I don't even want to do it. And
one of the evidence that I'm saved is I want to do it. Before
I'm saved, I don't want to do it, but I know what I'm doing
is wrong. Oh, that's good. Unless, of course,
I'm reprobate. Now if I'm reprobate, I have
now so seared my conscious that I no longer see the distinction
between right and wrong and whatever I do in my own mind is right.
So the proverb says, every way of man is right in his own eyes.
And again, another proverb says, there's a way that seems good
unto man, but the way thereof are the ways of what? That's
right, death. Why? Because it leads to separation
from God, it denies God's truth, and it sets us up for eternal
Destruction that's the condition of man. He's a moral agent, but
because he cannot obey he's a slave to sin Does that make sense again? So you're gonna be hearing this
all the time. We have a free will you really don't? You have
a will And you actually do What your will inclines you to do?
But as a sinful person you are only inclined to evil Until God
breaks that power of evil and gives you grace to actually do
what he says So these are terms and phrases in Christianity that
get discombobulated. And so what people will do in
the church, they'll learn the term free will. And everybody
said, we all are free. We all free moral agents. We
all have free will. That's the reason we do this,
that, and the other. And no, you don't. You have a will, and you do what
you want, but you can't do what God wants until God graces you
to do it. Am I making some sense? So what
we say is, and I use the analogy because I'm a mechanic. I've
been a mechanic for many years. This here is a device inside
automatic transmissions. They're called one-way clutches.
And a one-way clutch is essential for a car to move in a forward
direction because transmissions operate out of fluid pressure,
which drive discs. And when the discs come together,
they engage the gears. So you move from one direction
to the next direction. With a one-way clutch, it's free. I'm only going one direction. But it can't go in the opposite
direction. So when we say mankind has a free will, we say he's
only free to go in one direction. And that direction is the direction
of sin. He's not free to go in the direction
of good or evil. That's the battle line that we
fought with Pelagius and Arminius and we demonstrated through the
scriptures. It's impossible for you to conclude by the word of
God that man has the ability in himself to go after God when
the scriptures plainly says there's none that seek God. And Jesus
says, you will not come after me that you might be saved. So
not only can we not come, we are not willing to come. We're
hiding from God. We have a one way clutch. So we sin freely. but all we can do is sin. Am
I making some sense? Good. That's a good example.
I just wanted to drive that home. So when people say, well, I have
a free will. What we are saying to them is
that that, that simply means when you say you have a free
will until God has liberated you by the grace of God, that
simply means you have the ability to sin against God. I wanted
to come home. Whenever you and I say, I exercise
my free will, All we're saying is God has given us the right
to sin against him. That's all. There were two trees
in the garden. The one was a tree of life. I
look forward to developing a complete thesis around that because he
told Adam all the trees of the garden you may eat. He did not
compel Adam or drive Adam toward the tree of life. But he did
warn him against the other tree. And that's because God knew Adam's
potential and God also knew Adam's inclination because God knows
all things, right? So he's saying to Adam by placing
a law prohibition, don't do that, Adam. Don't you do it. Knowing all along he was going
to what? That's exactly right. And so what we say is that in
order for man, mankind to know life, he's going to have to know
God. And so when Adam and Eve lost
their relationship with God, we lost life and you and I are
slaves until God enters into the equation once again and bring
us to a place where liberty is something we truly experience
now. Tell it true. When God saved you, you experienced
a dimension of liberty you never knew. Isn't that true? You experienced
a dimension of liberty you never knew. And that liberty is a doctrine
that you have to work on and develop and understand fully
as the foundation of your hope as you move towards God, because
God, God moved towards you in order to liberate you so that
you could move towards him. This is why in the first paradigm,
and I'm talking about the Genesis account, this is the first paradigm.
God moves towards them. They never moved towards God.
God moved towards them so that he could set the conditions for
them to move towards him. And so we say in theology, unless
God hunts you down, you're always going to go in the wrong direction
until you end up in hell. And so God moves towards us and
starts addressing our conscience and addressing our heart. And
you know how God does? He starts squeezing you in. And
he starts cutting off things and starts hedging you in because
if God loves you, he's going to head you in. He's going to
influence you by his grace and providence and sovereignty. And
you're going to begin to be aware that God is dealing with you.
That's if he loves you. If he doesn't love you, he leaves
you alone. And you, when God leaves a man alone, he can leave
a man alone in such a profoundly sensible way. that that man will
conclude that there's no God. See, on the spectrum of human
beings, am I boring you guys? Good. On the spectrum of human
beings, understand this, the mind is a gift. And it is that
place of light, that place of reflection, that place of cogitation
and thought, that place of awareness. And in our minds, if we have
healthy minds, we're thinking about God all the time. Saved
and unsaved, This is true. This is true. This is why with
the atheists and especially the agnostic, you can't get away
from talking about God with them. All they want to do is talk about
God because they are preoccupied with the fact that they have
this sensible awareness of his presence, but it's not such as
to bring them into the comfort of being affirmed of his existence.
But there are some peoples whose conscience becomes so seared
that they become forged opponents of the proposition that there's
a God because in their experience they have no sensibility of His
presence. Their rebellion has cut them
off on such a level that any talk about God for them actually
produces hostility because they feel as if you are ripping them
off, telling them something about something of which they have
absolutely no sense of referent. You meet most people, you're
good, upstanding, moral people who don't have a relationship
with Jesus. You talk about God, they open the door. They let
you talk about God all day long. And they may not agree with you
because they don't know how to agree with you, but they're not
going to deny it. Why? God created them in His image. Moral law,
ethical principles, right and wrong, the scale, all of that
is there for them to experience the light that's going to condemn
them on the last day. But the man that is seared, the
woman that is seared, the conscience that is seared is hostile against
your assumption, your proposition, your notions about God because
you're talking like God's everywhere. He is you're talking like God
can be perceived easily and he can you're talking about like
everything bears record of God and it does But this guy doesn't
sense any of it and he's mad Now what has happened? It's not
that the evidence what we call the paracopal evidence The circumstantial
evidence around him has disappeared. God hasn't moved any of the props.
It's all still here You can hear God in the wind You can see him
in the clouds. You can observe him in the physical
world. The animals, from the birds all
the way down to the worms, will testify of God. If you listen,
that's what the Word of God plainly says. Day after day utter speech,
night after night, show forth knowledge. There's no place where
the Word of God is not heard. For the man or the woman that
knows that God created everything for his glory. And so the creature
will speak to you about order and wisdom and complexity and
beauty and sovereignty and power, and even of sin. Because that
big old rottweiler you got will eat you if you treat him wrong.
And he'll let you know you're a sinner. And when he eats you,
he'll thank God for eating you because he has no compunction
because he's under no moral ethical paradigm. If you look good to
him one day, he's going to eat you. And so the point is is that
what happens to the atheists are the agnostic the shades go
down on their conscience the shades go down on their conscience
the black shade is pulled down on their conscience and Whereas
they used to be able to see things they can't That's the consequence
of slavery to sin. We saw before that mankind by
nature is spiritually what asleep? That's right And we say that
because that euphemism sleep means that one day we're all
waking up one day. Is that true? Either God wakes
us up when he converts us and regenerates us and quickens us,
or he's going to wake us up on the last day. On the last day,
everybody's waking up. I'm going to give you one text
that will affirm my point. And you actually wake up in a
real sense at death. Because the only thing that sleeps
is your body. Your soul does not sleep. So
we can demolish right now at present. the Jehovah Witness
doctrine of soul sleep. Let's demolish that right now.
When a man or woman dies and there's a separation of their
body from their spirit, the spirit does not go to sleep. It's the
body that sleeps in the ground. That's the analogy. You put it
into the ground to go to sleep because the body is going to
be awakened one day after what? Resurrection. but the soul doesn't
go to sleep. In fact, the soul that sleeps
spiritually in this life is awakened when it leaves here and goes
to hell. In other words, there's a step
down in death for the unsaved person, but there's an opening
of their eyes at the same time. And the rich man opening his
eyes in hell, saw Lazarus, heard Abraham, and
became aware that everything that was told him in this life
was true, even though he lived a drowsy life of rebellion and
indifference because his wealth put him to sleep, because it
was a false crutch and refuge that he thought could deliver
him. But as the proverb says, riches do not profit in the day
of evil. What is money gonna do for you
when God calls you? So his eyes were wide open, and
now he's aware of the truth of God, but it's too late. Are you
guys understanding what I'm saying? So there's an awakening that
happens to the man who fails to awake in this life. And the
metaphor, the rubric of sleep, we're gonna see this again in
Acts chapter 13, as well as Acts 28, because Israel is under that
state right now. Israel is spiritually asleep. Four verses. Isaiah chapter 6. Don't go there. Isaiah chapter
6. Remember? Isaiah saw the glory of God and
the Lord sitting on his throne and the train filling the universe
and the angels, the cherubim, crying, holy, holy, holy, Lord
God Almighty. The whole earth is full of his
glory. And Isaiah was brought to ruins when he saw the glory
of God. This is the beginning of conversion for us. You're
brought to ruin. He didn't go running around dancing.
He was brought to ruin because God's holiness made him extremely
aware of his sinfulness and his ruin. Remember that he was ruined
within himself. And then God came and touched
his mouth with the coals from the altar and purged him. And
God allowed Isaiah to ear hustle on the conversation that God
was having in heaven. See, this is how you know, God's saving
you first. He brings you low and shows you your corruption.
He gives you a glimpse of his glory and you realize that you
are undone. I doubt very seriously if a person
is actually saved who does not recognize their inward corruption,
their hell bound condition and their right to be thrown into
hell. That's the first work of the spirit, which is to convince
us of sin. John 16 three, Isaiah was convinced
that he was the sinner. By the time he got to chapter
six, he said, woe is me. From chapter one through chapter
five, he was saying to the whole church, woe is you, woe is you,
woe is you, woe is you. He saw the Lord's glory, he said,
woe is me. And then when he heard God saying,
who will go to Israel? You know what he said? I will
go. That becomes one of the other evidences that we're children
of God. We are now willing to enter into God's project, his
agenda, his purpose, his plan. I won't in on it. Now that God
has given me ears to hear. Never heard the counsel of God
before. Now I hear his counsel. What
is this counsel? He wants men and women to know
he's a sovereign Lord. But the only way they're going
to know is if God sends somebody. And so Isaiah said, I'll go.
And God says, okay, you go. And when you go tell this people
that hearing, they will not hear and seeing they will not see.
And their eyes will be shut that they will go to sleep and enter
into the judgment of God. That was his mission to shut
their eyes. And Jesus said the same thing
in Matthew 13, when he came, the disciples said, Lord, why
are you speaking to them in parables? He says, in order that hearing
they may not hear, and that seeing they may not see, because their
hearts are obstinate and rebellious, and if they could, they would
kill me right now, although my time is not yet. So it was God's
prerogative to put Israel to sleep because of their rebellion
against the law of God. See, to whom much is given, much
is what? I told you last week, God wakes us up initially, but
if we don't take what he has given us and apply it properly,
we will go back to sleep. This is why Jesus gave so many
parables. The disciples said, Lord, why
do you keep throwing parables at him? Because those people
are not worthy of open revelation from me, because you don't cast
your pearl before swine. You don't give that which is
precious to dogs. All they're going to do is misuse
it. And the very judgment that Christ prophesied in Matthew
13 was clearly affirmed by their killing the son of God. And here's
now in the book of Acts where we are. You're now in the book
of Acts where we are. The apostles are taking up where
Christ left off. The same Jews are still hell
bent to cut out the lights. When Paul is done in the book
of Acts chapter 28, he's going to say once again, well, have
Isaiah the prophet said hearing you would hear and hearing you
would not hear saying you would not see. And therefore, the Lord
has put a spirit of slumber and deep sleep that you should not
hear the gospel. And you'll hear this statement
rendered by Paul as the book of Acts closes, which is the
basic argument that I am making. But he said, the Gentiles will
gladly receive the gospel. This is the tension that's in
the book of Acts. The tension is between a people
who assume that they are right with God because they are religious
and a people who know they're not right with God and can only
be made right by the atoning work of Jesus Christ. This is
the tension that we're dealing with in the book of Acts. You
guys understand that? This is the tension because the
kingdom of being taken from them and giving it to a people bearing
the fruit thereof. Obviously we are talking about
the church, are we not? The church coming into existence
by the power of the spirit through the ministry of the apostles
who are here being depicted as lost sinners being brought out
of captivity. Let's move forward. Then there's some things that
we can learn out of this under the Providence of prison. We
are slaves of sin by nature. We are spiritually sleep until
God wakes us up. This is what we learned in Ephesians
5 11 through 14. Awake thou that sleepest and Christ will give
you light and he will raise you from the dead that you and I
might walk in the righteousness that's freely given to him of
God and then Paul says in first Thessalonians chapter 5 verses
5 through 9 that those of us who are true believers are children
of the what day We are not children of the night those that are children
of the night sleep Believers don't sleep because we're children
of the day. And this is why Jesus said to
the disciples, you better walk while you have the light. You
better walk while you have the light. The night cometh when
no man can work. And Jesus was saying, there's
a time coming, I'm not going to be around. And the only person
that presumed upon that warning was Judas Iscariot. And because
he presumed upon our Lord's warning, he went to sleep. Remember the
night he betrayed the Lord Jesus? The text tells us in John's gospel
chapter 13 and then also in Luke's gospel the very same night that
Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus, Jesus saw Satan enter into him. And then he said to Judas, whatever
you are going to do, get up and go do it now. And Judas got up
and left. And the text says, and immediately
it was night. Immediately it was night. Why? Because Judas now becomes a model
of apostate Israel. Why? Because he's going to the
leaders and all the people in the leaders of the Jews are ready
to cut the lights off. What is that light? Jesus! They're
ready to cut the lights off because they hate the light. That's what
Jesus said in John chapter 3. Men love darkness rather than
light. They will not come to the light that their deeds may
be manifested whether they are wrought in God. So what we do
is either we are being drawn by God to the light or we are
rejecting that light and nothing could be better for us than to
cut the lights off. This is how you know you're saved
or not. If you love sin, you're lost. If you love the sin, the
very sin that dominates your life, where you are used to that
dark, sinful life of folly and empty frivolity and chaos and
I'll just use the safest word I can use to people get mad at
me when I get a little bit too toxic I'm gonna use a safe word
for you dumb I'm gonna wrap it up a little bit stupid. I'm be
theological moronic The next word is bad Are you hearing me? That's what it means to be in
darkness It's a vanity of vanities to wallow in the mire and the
muck and the dong of sinful corruption and think somehow you're being
shaped for heaven. Are you hearing me? When God
saves a brother or sister, for real, their taste buds change. Am I making some sense? So walking
in the day is natural to those of us. I tell you the truth.
God is my witness. I so enjoy being sober. For me, sobriety is like being
high. That's a paradox. Sobriety is
like being high. I feel so good when I am walking
in the clarity of God. It's inebriating for me. Anybody
understand that tension? Give me some more. Because clarity,
nothing like clarity, nothing like being able to see. That's
a gift of God to be able to see, to be able to see, to walk in
the light. Nothing is more horrible than walking in darkness and
not knowing where you're going and therefore stumbling and not
knowing what you stumble over. It's horrible. People were in
that state all the time. When you think about how good
God has been to you, to come to you and cut the lights on
and show you the pathway and put you on that pathway. And
even though you're stumbling on the pathway, you're stumbling
in the light. What a joy to stumble in the light. What a joy to learn
how to walk in the light. What a joy for the lights to
be on. God's never cut the lights off on me since he cut them on. I love the high I get from sobriety. Thank you, Lord Jesus. The last
one is prisoners of hope. Under this proposition, we talked
about this last week. It's beautiful, isn't it? Every believer, before
his conversion, when he is in the prison house of sin, is nevertheless
a prisoner of hope. And that hope is not something
that's intrinsic to him or her. It's a hope that God designated
for them because he chose them for freedom. And there's a day
in the life of every chosen sinner where God's gonna come and do
what he did to Peter. You guys remember what he did?
The angel came into the prison house. Let's just read that so
I can go on to my next point. Deliverance, a type of our redemption.
The text tells us verse seven, and behold, the angel of the
Lord came upon him, that is Peter, and a light shined in the prison,
and he smoked Peter on the side and raised him up saying, arise
quickly, and his chains fell off from his hand. Now you and
I worked through verse seven, every one of those clauses, did
we not? The angel of the Lord came in. Who came to Peter? The
angel of the Lord. Peter didn't come to the angel.
And a light shined in the prison. You see what the angel has to
do? He has to what? Cut the lights on. And then the
angel had to smoke Peter. That is the experience that occurs
when God now is gonna joy you out of the sleep of death. You
must be smitten by the angel. The light's wrong because the
angel is present. He has to smite you. That's the third act on
the part of the angel before Peter is even aware that the
angel is present. And this is what I meant earlier
about the providence of God moving into your life, dealing with
you, hedging you, shutting you up, preparing you. And by the
time God smites you to wake you up, he's already established
a way out for you. See, a lot of folks think that
God starts with you when you're aware of Him starting with you.
But God starts way before He wakes you up to the awareness
that He's doing something for you. Way before Him. When He
smites you, He's telling you to get up! That's what the word
arise mean, and it's a connotation of the resurrection. Resurrection
from the dead. Get up out of that grave house
of sin. Come out of that prison of carnality
and death. Rise up in newness of life. Follow the light. And in order
for you to do that, the chains have to come off. And notice
the chains fell off. They fell off. And that's what
we mean by deliverance. Because you and I are in bondage
under the change of law, under the curse of sin, under the curse
of a fallen nature, under the weakness of the flesh, under
the deceptions of the devil. You guys understand that? We're
slaves sold into bondage, Paul said in Romans chapter 7, 14.
This goes back to the Levitical law that you ladies are learning
in the book of Ruth. Redemption is being purchased off the slave
block of sin and then being brought out. This is all happening to
Peter. Peter's not doing a thing. Believers
are passive in the work of grace. When God's raising you from the
dead, you are not cooperating. You are experiencing. You are
not sharing in your salvation. You are experiencing your salvation. He comes to you. He cuts the
lights on. He quickens you to the awareness
of your sinful state. He breaks the shackles of sin. And then he gives you the authoritative
command to leave your present condition. That's what we are
to leave your present condition. That's what it means to be a
prisoner of hope. So therefore we read our fourth point, deliverance,
a type of our redemption, deliverance, a type of our redemption. And
I would circle that because that that's the point. Redemption
pays the price for our deliverance. The blood pays the price for
freedom. Blood, freedom. Blood, freedom. The antitype or the type was
the blood on the doorpost of the children of Israel in the
land of Egypt the night when they walked out with their heads
high as free sons and daughters. You guys remember that. We call
it the Passover. Passover was an act of redemption.
And once again, we established the gospel true, that national
Israel, the children of Israel, they weren't Israel at that time,
they were Hebrews. There's a distinction. The Hebrew people were in slavery
to Egypt. They were in bondage in Egypt.
This is why when the Lord brought them out and gave him his king
servant law, the covenant of the king servant paradigm, I
am the Lord, your God. I am the Lord, your God. I am
your king. I am your sovereign, which brought you out of the
house of bondage, out of the land of Egypt. You were slaves
in bondage. Now watch this. And they were
not as it were looking for God. They were complaining, but they
weren't looking for God. God came and hunted them down.
God tore Egypt up for them. He gave them a display of his
power for a whole year, destroying God after God, after God, after
God. So what God has to do for you and me is to let us know
he's God in our life before he brings us out. So Israel is observing
how through this man called Moses and his brother Aaron that God
now is demolishing the greatest country in the world, the greatest
nation in the world. Idle upon idle being demolished
and destroyed. And you know, they're fighting
against God. The magicians are fighting against God. Pharaoh's
fighting against God. But you can't win against omnipotence. And the children of Israel were
watching. The Hebrews were watching as God paid the price to liberate
their souls from bondage. And one night he simply told
them, let's go. Just like he's telling Peter,
let's go. Let's go. See, that's what salvation is
all about. Freedom. Let's go. Let's go. And that's
what's happening here. And they walked out. Did they
walk out? They walked out they walk right on out and cross right
on over through that which was typical of the blood of christ
And that is the red seed Which points to the price? That is
paid for the sins of all of god's people So deliverance is a type
of our redemption in christ and under that there are three things
that we want to consider going again Back to the text when it
says in the angel of the lord entered into the prison and a
light shined in the prison, point number one under our fourth consideration,
the revelation of his glory in the gospel. It's the revelation
of his glory in the gospel. I do not have any confidence
that a man or a woman is saved until they have seen the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Second Corinthians chapter four
verse four says it like this, watch this now. In whom the God
of this world has blinded the minds of them which are not believing.
The question was raised in verse 3. If our gospel be hid, it is
hid to them whom Satan has blinded. Those that are lost, verse 4.
Watch this. In whom the God of this world
has blinded the minds of them which believe not. Stay right
there. See, and so what we say once again is when you're dealing
with lost people, understand that they have a whole lot of
obstacles that must be overcome for them to see the truth. They're
blinded. not only by their own prejudices and their own preferences
against God, but Satan is constantly sprinkling fool's dust in front
of their eyes, keeping them blinded from the glory of God. You understand
that? He's constantly sprinkling the
dust of delusion in front of people's eyes so that they don't
see the true glory. He's blinded the minds of them
which believe not, unless the light, there it is, that's that
light that came into the prison, with the angel, lest the light
of the glorious gospel of Christ. Do you see that? Lest the light
of the glorious gospel of Christ. It can be also translated, lest
the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. Lest the light
of the gospel of the glory of Christ. Let me call your attention
briefly to what is necessary to comprehend here. What Paul
is saying, he knows from experience which is forged in this theology
of which the Holy Ghost gave. And that's this. Men and women
can come to church and they can hear the gospel preached and
learn some things about Jesus and never see his glory. Never see the glory of God in
Jesus. You can come and learn a lot
about God. but never see the glory. Never
see him gloriously. Never have what only the Spirit
of God can do. That is an illumination, a revelation,
an inward revelation of the splendor of the person of Christ. So stay
with me now. This is the difference between
a religious person and a saved person. A religious person only
has a knowledge about Jesus. The same person has experienced
the revelation of His glory. Now that is not communicated
in words. I'm sorry, that is communicated
by the Spirit. Now what the Spirit of God will
do is allow me to communicate words as I'm doing. I'm communicating
words. But I cannot communicate the
duck sauce. I cannot communicate the glory. Only God can communicate
the glory. Only God can penetrate the heart
and communicate the glory. Infuse the glory cuts the lights
on in the heart so that the heart sees Christ in this glory that
changes your life when you see Jesus in his glory You are at
the apex of vision When you see him in his glory you're at the
apex of vision You will never ever see anything in the universe
more glorious than Jesus. You're at the apex of vision.
I It's like giving the right to look square in the eyes of
the sun in the face of the sun And see it at high noon day and
all of its brilliance and it not destroy your vision Christ
is the glory of the invisible god He is the outshining of god. He's the brilliance and fullness
of god That's why we see him the way we do in the scriptures
and we beheld his glory john said we beheld his glory Well
watch this not everybody did John beheld his glory. James
beheld his glory. Peter beheld his glory. The apostles
beheld his glory. Mary beheld his glory. Martha
beheld his glory. Lazarus beheld his glory. Nicodemus
beheld his glory. Many beheld his glory. Many did
not behold his glory. Many did not behold. Judas did
not behold his glory. And he had an office right next
to Jesus called apostle. And he did not behold his glory.
You guys understand what I'm saying? The thing that keeps
our boat floating in this world is the glory. That's what keeps
us going is the glory. That's the thing that keeps us
walking by faith is the glory. And when we talk about walking
in the light, we're talking about the residue of the glory, keeping
things lit up in our life. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? That's the thing that causes the believer to walk by
faith is the glory. Christ I Remember it like it
was yesterday Boom, the lights cut on my life was changed. I
mean it was changed Changed when I saw him in his splendor in
my soul my mind got a glimpse of God's glory in Christ and
I saw him I Saw him and my life was never the same Because the
lights were on This is what Paul was talking about This is what
he's talking about. This is what he's talking about
here. Lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is
the image of God, not was, not will be, is. We call that a stated
verb. What that means is he has always
been, he is, and he will always be the glory of his father. Always Christ will be the center
of the universe of all of God's new creatures for all eternity.
We will never cease to make him the object of our adoration and
our joy and awe for all eternity. It will only get better. Think
about this. Think about this for a moment. If for the rich
man whose eyes were open in hell, how much more so for believers
when they immediately leave the body and go to be with the Lord.
If for the rich man His eyes are opened in hell. How much
more so for God's elect the moment they die, what they enter into
in terms of a greater revelation of who God is. What a reward. What a reward for walking by
faith. What a reward. This is a light
that is being typified by what's taking place with Peter. And
I hope that's happening with you. The next thing is under
our fourth consideration, deliverance is a type of our redemption.
I must state this, that gospel preachers, I'm talking about
faithful gospel preachers, are angels of light, true angels
of light. We are messengers of the light.
We are not the light. Christ is the light, but we are
messengers of the light. Very much like John the Baptist.
John chapter one, verses one through six, And there was a
man sent from God whose name was John. He was not the light,
but he bore record to that light. And this is the light that lighteth
every man that comes into the world. That light is Christ.
And when we are faithful gospel preachers, we have no other message,
no other person, no other subject than Christ to share with men
and women. That's a gospel preacher a gospel
preacher doesn't cut lights off. He doesn't distract you He doesn't
take you to little side rooms He brings you in sent on center
stage in the front room in the main room in the living room
of God So that you can see his centerpiece, which is Jesus Christ
That's what preaching and teaching is designed to do if you are
under any kind of preaching and teaching You are not under the
gospel If you are not made to see the glory of God in the face
of Christ in some aspect of his personal work, you are not under
the gospel. I tell people this all the time.
When you are listening to preachers, ask the question, who is he talking
about? Because if he's not talking about
Christ, he is distracting you. Are you hearing me? This is a
critical truth. Your eyes were made to see God.
The eyes of your heart were made to see God. Your soul was made
to contemplate God's glory. He didn't make it for anything
else. He made you for himself. Your satisfaction comes by your
gazing upon his glory. That's how your soul is fed. That's how you're strengthened. That's how you're comforted.
That's how you're nourished and built up. That's how you conform
to his image. There's a sense in that all that
the believer is being preoccupied to do is to stare into the face
of Christ. There's a sense in which the
sum total of what God is doing in bringing us out of darkness
and into his marvelous light, I'm going to say it again, is
to set you in front of him. so that all you do is behold
His glory. Are you guys hearing me? Nothing else is gonna change
you. Good works don't change you,
do's and don'ts don't change you, money don't change you,
blessings don't change you. The only thing that changes the
soul is the glory of God. That's true. That's the only
thing that changes the soul. Second Corinthians 3.18. Second
Corinthians 3.18. That's the only thing that changes
the soul. The only thing that's changing
your soul and mine is for God to communicate to us through
the person of Christ on a vital level where we're fixed on him,
fixed on him. And in the mystery of communion,
our values are changed. Our affections are changed. Our
motives are changed. Our inclinations are changed.
Our longings are changed. Do you see it? But we all with
open face. Why? Because the veil has been
removed. Remember the lights are on now. Beholding as in a
glass the glory of who? Now who is that glory? Jesus! And we are changed into the same
image from glory to glory. All we're doing is staring. Changed
by staring. Did you get that? Changed by
staring. Changed by staring. What you
doing? I'm staring. How come? I need
to be changed. Changed by staring. See, and
so what the devil... Now, let me take you back to
the garden. The devil called Eve's attention
to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, to distract
her from the tree of life. Are you hearing me? To distract
her. I talked about the five D's of
the devil. How many of you guys ever heard, how many of you haven't
heard of the five D's? How many of you haven't heard
of the five D's? Have you ever, those of you who have never heard
me talk about the five D's of the devil, I just need to know.
Okay, good. Just a few. All right. 40% of
you. Good. I get to talk about it again. And I'm just inclined
to do the first one because this is the one where the devil gets
you. The people that are going to hell are under the influence
of the first work of the devil and that is distraction. Distraction. Examine yourself and ask you,
has the devil successfully distracted me from what's most important?
You see? That's all he wants to do. So
he crawls up to E, slithers up to E. He says, now, have God
seen Thou shalt not eat of every tree of the garden That tree
of the knowledge of good see what he did immediately turned
her to that tree So that they would not end up at the tree
that gives life And there are two trees we're dealing with
the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil Those
are only two trees. Those are the two ways one leads
to death one leads to life One is life. The other is death.
Those are just are you guys following? Those are the two ways you can
sum up everything that mankind experiences under the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil. Because since the fall, that's
what you and I have been inextricably bound to the experience of the
knowledge of good and evil. All of humanity is under the
consequent of experiencing good and evil. Struggling with evil
in the world. Struggling with the absence of
good. Struggling with the tension between
light and darkness. Struggling with the tension between
what is good and what is evil. That's where we are, are we not?
The whole world is struggling over good and evil. Is that true?
Well, that was not our inheritance in the beginning. Mankind was
not designed originally to struggle over good and evil. God our Father
is better than that. All he wanted you to enjoy was
good. And that would have been all
we experienced had we remained content with our fellowship with
God and went on and made our way to the tree of life and fixed
the permanent state. This is the goodness of God.
Watch this. Here's the goodness of God. The goodness of God is
that if Adam needed anything, all he had to do was ask his
father. That's all. All he had to do was ask his
father. His father would have given him anything he wanted.
No, you know what he figured? I'm going to do this myself.
Doesn't that sound like our kids? I'm going to do this myself.
So he cut himself off from the beneficence of God's goodness
and disposition to give Adam anything that Adam wanted. See,
Adam was not a sinner. So his his affections and his
motives, his requests would have all been pure. He would have
never not gotten what God asked him for because his motive would
have been wrong. Are you guys hearing me? So you
and I don't get stuff from God because our motive is jacked
up. We receive not because we're
going to consume it upon our lust. So our father, because
he loves us, will not give it to us. Adam was in a state of
sinlessness. Everything he would have asked,
God would have gave him to. And because Adam was in a state of
communion with God, unmediated, the Lord Jesus Christ would have
infused into his mind every knowledge immediately in a nanosecond,
a picosecond. If he needed to know something,
boom, he got it. Available to Adam was infinite knowledge right
away. Not like learning. You know how
we struggle to learn? That's sin. That's sin. I hate class, don't you? I just wanna know. Don't you wonder sometimes why
the teacher just go through all of these complex methods? Give
me the answer. Now before the fall, our father
would have just infused the answer right away. Are you hearing me? Daddy, what's this? Don't. Daddy,
what's that? Boom. Daddy, what's this? Boom. There wouldn't have been a process
because the communion was unbroken and unmediated. It didn't have
to filter through a fallen nature with limited finite structures
that are already decaying. You know, you and I only learn
a little bit before we die. And by the time we die, we forget
that. So let me help you with one more point here. This is
what I'm teaching our men in theology proper. We deal with the high
hanging fruit here at grace because I want our men to be smart, not
dummies. In our churches, we are dumbing people down. People
don't even think right in our churches. And I stand a chance
at grace when I'm dealing with, you know, six or seven hundred
of you folks. You know, I stand a chance of
pushing the envelope with my terminology, with my doctrinal
concepts, with the way I formulate words and express them. I stand
a chance because some folks, they get upset when you use more
than three syllables. They get upset when you run a
line of clauses that require you to have to think things through.
But listen to me, will you listen to me? Adam had no problem with
that until the fall. It's the fall that puts us to
sleep when good knowledge is at your doorstep. It's the fall
that puts us to sleep when good knowledge is at your doorstep.
And it's sin that says, I don't need it. You do need it. The
proverb puts it like this. It is not good for the soul to
be without knowledge. That's what Solomon said. Now
he, beside the Lord Jesus, was the wisest man on planet Earth.
You know what he said? It is not good for the soul to
be without knowledge. Now watch this. Knowledge and
light are synonyms. So to the degree that I am walking
in the knowledge of God, I'm walking in the light. But because
of our fallen nature, we struggle with acquiring that light. That's
sin. And then if the devil can get in and hit that fool's dust
and distract us, The devil knows we're gonna get old and die. And if he can keep us distracted
for 60, 70, 80 years, we lose the blessing of communion with
God, the sustained light, the increasing light, the abounding
light, the effectual light, the light that comes to us to bless
us and the light that works through us to bless others is diminished
so long as we are distracted. I'm telling the truth. I'm just
telling the truth. You know, it's an amazing thing.
It's an amazing thing that we are in such a state. So what
the purpose of the gospel is, is to plug into the center like
an umbilical cord. That's the purpose of the gospel,
to plug into the center like an umbilical cord and to raise
you from the dead and make you a new baby and grow you up. God grow you up in God that's
the purpose of the gospel to be a means an instrument by which
the soul is impacted by the revelation and What it does as you and I
we call it regeneration Here go another theological term our
generation does not want to hear doctrine, but except you be born
again You can't even see what I'm talking about Except you
be born again except you be born again. What I'm talking about
is is nothing but speculation on your part Theories and concepts
and ideas that absolutely, and it all depends on how much the
devil is distracting you, mean nothing. Like, if you're born
again in here, you are so in tune with what I'm talking about
right now. If you're born again, if you are not, you can't wait
till I stop talking so you can leave. And I'm gonna tell you
why. This has nothing to do with your
IQ. This has everything to do with
your heart. This has everything to do with where you stand before
God. As I've said it before, a believer and a non-believer
can be depicted by one person having the access to go into
the store and purchase the goods and put them on and experience
the beauty of the fabric and all that goes into the material
that was made to dress them and clothe them. And the other person,
window shopping. Just window shopping. Just looking
through the window at the mannequins, saying, that's nice. I suppose. But in terms of experience, they
have not. You know, you can only look at
mannequins so long before you go do something else. Distraction. Now, I don't know anything about
what I'm about to tell you because I grew up broke in the hood.
So I'm used to going to Walmart, Kmart, every other mart. I thank God for marts. I know one day I'm going to enter
into the epitome of Newman Marcus. What are those lofty stores?
Glory is going to have an outfit for a brother that's tailored
like I don't know what. I'm going to be dressed to the
heel and it's going to fit me just right. It's going to be
comfortable enough for me to go to balls in the highest and
most prestigious places with the lovely Lord Jesus, who is
my husband. And I can sleep in it at the same time. I'm talking
about being dressed, but down here, t-shirt jeans. Oh, why you see me wearing sweat
clothes? I'm used to being broke. And my point is this, is that
while we are outside of Christ, we have no knowledge. of the
superiority of the blessings of the gospel. No knowledge. We're distracted. I'm going to
write these other four points down for those of you who are
new. And then we'll close out with this. I think I got for
the most part, I got one more point to make and then we'll
come back next week. Distraction. Then the next one is distortion
of the truth because he distorted the proposition and what the
distortion does is leads to a delusion of mind. If you listen to distorted
teaching, your mind will be deluded. And that delusion will ultimately
lead to what we call deception. Deception. All five of these
D's are in Genesis chapter three, verses one through eight. Deception
is when you are blinded to the truth by the work of distraction,
by the work of distortion, by the work of delusion. And ultimately
deception will lead to what? Destruction. These are your five
D's. The five D's of the devil is
distraction from the truth, which is in Christ, distortion of the
facts concerning Christ, a delusion that sets into the mind when
once you engage the distortion, the delusion that sets into the
mind, when once you engage the distortion, can I talk just a
few minutes about that? You guys have heard it before,
but for those of you who are new, you need to understand that
the Bible is not a myth. We literally believe in the Genesis
account. We believe that God in his providence
allowed Eve, who was a real woman, the only woman on the earth with
the only man on the earth who was Adam. He allowed her to talk
to a snake. We believe that. But we also
believe theologically by way of inference that by virtue of
her talking to the snake, he was able to distort biblical
truth. because she had lowered her dignity. Anytime you talk to snakes, you
lower your dignity. Anytime you talk to any kind
of snake, you lower your dignity. Anytime you engage in dialogue
with any kind of slithering serpent, forked tongue serpent, you lower
your dignity. Anytime you engage false prophets
and false prophetesses and distorting liars, you lower your dignity. Anytime you hold their authority
equal to what God has said, you lower your dignity and you dishonor
God. You are set up to distort the
truth. Are you guys hearing me? You're set up to distort the
truth. I told you God and his transcendent humor showed us
that by Eve talking to the serpent, she had been deceived. The serpent
is a slithering creature. Eve is a child of God. She had
no business talking to the serpent. She should have said snake. You
are out of order. Shut your mouth. You'll get that in a minute.
You'll get it in a minute. See, mankind was made to be the
pinnacle of God's glory. He was made for communion with
God and angels, not snakes. See, in our present world, this
false egalitarian equality of everything being equal human
beings equal with animals is a lie from the pit of hell, which
the devil was able to exercise in the first temptation. Are
you guys hearing what I'm saying? And the analogy is clear. That's
why the devil has always been typified as a snake, as a serpent. You and I get to ask the question,
do I listen to serpents during the week or angels? That's good. I know it's getting in your business.
I'm done right here. Do I listen to serpents during
the week or do I listen to angels? Do I have a propinquity? Now,
propinquity, see, there you go again, pastor. Why you always
use no big word? That's different than propensity.
Jan said, mm. Now, whenever my theological
brethren go, mm, what they're saying is, pastor, explain yourself. Am I telling the truth there?
So I will I will I will make the distinction between what
we call propensities to sin and propinquities to sin. A propensity
is an inclination towards a propensity. Like I may have an inclination
towards that cup that's on my table because I like the contents
in it. And so I might be thinking about it. Propinquity is my disposition
up against it. The difference is proximity.
When you have a propinquity to something, you are right up on
it all the time because it's precious to you. Did you guys
get that? Propinquity. When you're right
up on it versus a propensity. You and I can have a propensity
to a lot of things, but when we choose to take it to the next
level, we slide right up on it because we want to be next to
it. Are you hearing me? We want to be next to that thing.
We want to be next to it. And now it's the lover of our
soul. It's the lover of us. We should have a propinquity
to Jesus To Christ to the glory of God to the Word of God to
the gospel It should be the thing we're close to all the time.
We should keep our Bibles close to us In fact, it should be in
us. We should be meditating on his precepts all the time We
should be referring to the Word of God anytime the devil comes
with a distraction You understand what I'm saying
now the difference this is the word that's used in first Timothy
about leaders in the church that bishops and elders and deacons
should not be given to wine. You know what that means? All
up on the bottle. All up on the bottle. Like good
buddies with the bottle. Might as well just put a nipple
on it. Genesis 3 verses 1 through 8 describe the distracting tactics
of the devil, the distortion of biblical truth simply because
Eve engaged the serpent as an equal fellow. failing to discern his motive
and objective, which was high treason against God. The man
or woman, therefore, that does not have a foundation, a commitment
to an allegiance to absolute truth is always open up to the
devil. You will be distorted by his
propositions and diluted in your mind so as to not be able to
discern right from wrong. How is it that one person can
discern the errors and lies of false teachers and another one
can't? One is deluded, the other is not. The one is deluded because
they have engaged the conversation with the serpent long enough
to where truth is distorted in their mind and they can't rightly
divide the word. And you know they're deluded
because they argue with you. And their arguments are stupid
and fallacious and logically flawed and inconsistent. But
they don't know because they're deluded. And that delusion leads
to deception. Then they buy into wholesale
heresies and false doctrines and false teachings. And they
don't even know it because they are now sold on the proposition
of the devil. And this is what leads to destruction.
Wide is the road. Broad is the way. Many there
be that go there in. And they all will be saying on
the last day, Lord, Lord, when the five days have worked themselves
out magnificently in their life. You guys hear what I'm saying?
You would you and I want to always be able to ask is this, who is
this fool talking about? You have to use the word fool.
I do. Who is this fool talking about? Is he talking about Jesus
or something else? Is Christ the center of that
truth? This is free. I just want to toss it out to
you. There's a lot of stuff that can be talked about And it could
actually tickle your ears make you feel good and you'll call
it good You call it good because it will be good to you but at
that point all you're doing is defining good according to your
feeling That was a good message was it about Christ? Well, no,
then it wasn't good Then it was not good Because God alone is
good and all deriving from God and glorifying God and endorsed
by God is good. But if it's just good because
it made you feel good, it's not good. If God is not in it, if
Christ is not in it, if Christ is not exalted, if the center
is not being pointed to Christ, grounded in Christ, warned about
the Lordship and rule of Christ, it's not good. You know, some
messages are good that make you feel bad. And when you are a
believer, you go, that was good. I was good because what you know
is on the other side of that rebuke is deliverance. See, remember, I'll deal with
this next week. The angel smote him. I see Peter
going to walk up and say, dude, what are you doing? I'm trying
to sleep, man. And that's what people who are
not interested in being saved say when the gospel is preached.
Do what you trying to do, huh? I'm here sleeping. I get it all
the time. This guy, somebody said this
last week in our new members class. Her son came into church
with her. She got him to come one time.
And she said, well, what do you think about the message? After
about a week, she was strategic. She didn't want to ask him right
after service. You know how you get precarious? Because especially
if I'm tearing it up in here, you know, you can't ask them
right afterwards. But a week later she said, son, what do
you think about the message? She says, I didn't like that
guy because everything he was saying, he was talking about
me. Everything he was saying, he was talking about, there wasn't
one thing he was saying. And then on top of that, he was too
low. All he was doing was talking about me for an hour, two hours,
three hours. Now, you know, I ain't never
preached three hours, but it must feel that way when the Holy
ghost is getting in your business. Let's pray. So Father, thank
you for this time. Thank you for my brothers and sisters.
Thank you for your work of grace in our life. Thank you for coming
and getting us. Thank you for showing yourself
so glorious to us. Thank you for revealing your
son to us. He is altogether lovely. He is
greater than 10,000. He's fairer than the children
of men. There's nothing that he is not
to our soul. Glorious is our savior. As we
go our way, give us traveling mercies. We pray in Jesus name,
amen. God bless you guys.