True and False Conversion

Now, Luke 11, beginning with the 14th verse. There are three powerful lessons
taught in these verses. And without delay, I'm going
to get right into them. Three powerful lessons. In verse 14 of Luke 11, he was
casting out a devil, Christ our Lord, and it was dumb, a dumb
spirit. It came to pass when the devil
was gone out, the dumb spake, and the people wondered, and
some of them said, He casteth out devils by the power of the
devil, or through Beelzebub, the chief of devils. The first lesson tonight I want
us to think about and look carefully at is this. Our Lord of Glory
is never in league with Satan to accomplish his purpose or
to cast out evil spirits. Charles Spurgeon said the Lord
of Glory is never in league or compromises with the dunghill
deity Satan. In fact, there is now and always
has been, since Satan fell, a deadly, eternal, infinite hatred between
Satan and Christ. God said to the serpent, I will
put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her
seed, enmity. John wrote in 1 John 3.8, for
this purpose was the Son of God manifested that he might destroy
the works of the devil. Now there's never, and I'm leading
up to something here that's very important, there's never any
compromise between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of evil.
Never. No quarter is ever given. The
Lord Jesus Christ never uses Satan's help to seduce Satan. Our Lord said that. He said,
I cast out devils by the finger of God. If I cast out devils
by the power of the devil, then the kingdom of the devil is divided. It's divided against itself and
it cannot stand. And the kingdom of Satan is not
divided, and the kingdom of God is not divided, and there is
a deadly, eternal, infinite hatred between the two. There is no
compromise. Christ never fights evil with
evil. Christ never uses carnal weapons
to cast out Satan. Turn to 2 Corinthians 10. I want
you to look at this carefully. 2 Corinthians 10. Now here's
what I'm leading up to. There's a wicked and blasphemous
philosophy that's gotten a grip on today's religion and today's
church. It's a wicked and blasphemous
philosophy, and it's the same thing the people are saying here.
He's casting out demons by the power of demons. He's casting
out devils by the power of the devil. And here is the philosophy
which this world of religion promotes today. Our goal, as
long as our goal is good, it doesn't matter what means we
use. As long as our goal is to cast
out Satan, we can even use carnal weapons, fleshly tools, Satan's
own weapons, craftiness, deceit, and God will bless it. God won't
bless it. Because Christ our Lord said,
I cast out demons not by the power of the devil, not using
the tools of the devil or the weapons of the devil, but the
finger of God, and only the finger of God. Christ never allies himself with
Satan to accomplish his purpose. To begin with, that would be
our Lord compromising righteousness, and it would be Satan surrendering.
It would be Satan's kingdom divided against itself. Listen to Paul
in 2 Corinthians 10. The weapons of our warfare, and
this is a spiritual warfare, this is to accomplish God's glory
and God's purpose. And these weapons are not carnal,
but they're mighty through God to the pulling down. of strongholds,
casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalted
itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity
every thought to the obedience of Christ." Now, Satan uses deceit,
but God doesn't. Those are Satan's weapons, carnal
weapons. He uses deceit, but God doesn't. He used deceit in the Garden
of Eden. Now, here are some of the things that are said today.
Our goal is to get people to receive Christ as Savior. Our
goal is to cast out Satan, cast him out of a man's heart. Our
goal is to get people to worship God, to attend church, to recognize
God. So, we will avoid using those
scriptures and those doctrines that are offensive. We will avoid
using those scriptures and those doctrines which men despise.
And we will present the word in such a way that men can understand
it and accept it. What kind of weapon is this?
This is a carnal weapon. This is a deceitful weapon. This
is carnal reasoning. And if God blessed this, it would
be God compromising. And if Satan permitted it, it
would be Satan's kingdom divided against itself. I hear people
saying this, now our goal is to get young people to attend
church, to get young people and others into religion. So the
thing to do is offer them entertainment, offer them activities, offer
them socials which are church oriented and church centered.
Don't bother them with the preaching of the cross. Don't bother them
with repentance. Don't bother them with the conviction
of sin. Don't bother them with godliness.
Don't bother them with doctrine. Just get them into the church
any way you can. It'll keep them off the streets,
and it'll bring them to the house of God. You think God would honor
this? You think God would stoop to
this type of compromise, this type of satanic evil? Do you
think Satan would permit it? There was a church not long ago,
not too far from here, that had River Sunday. This is the truth. I saw the ad. They went up and
down the countryside to get people to attend church that Sunday
because they were going to take one of the deacons, clothe him
in his Sunday suit, and throw him in the river. And they invited
everybody to come and see the deacon thrown into the river.
He said, well, it got people out. You think the Lord of glory
would stoop to that sort of evil, satanic entertainment to accomplish
his holy purpose? I hear people say this, well,
our goal is to build a church. to build a building for God's
glory. Our goal is to send missionaries. Our goal is to do great things
for God, to build orphanages and all types of things. So we'll
call in bonding companies. We're not going to use God's
way of raising money by the freewill offerings and gifts of His people.
We'll bring in bonding companies. We'll have ice cream socials.
We'll have all the ladies make some candy and we'll sell candy
to raise money for the glory of God. What kind of God do you
worship? Do you think the holy God of
heaven would stoop to using this type of carnality, this type
of flesh, to accomplish his glory? Well, our goal is to get people
to profess faith in Christ. Our goal is to get people to
say they believe Christ died on the cross, was buried and
rose again, and get them into our churches and build up the
kingdom of God. So why wait for the sowing of
the seed? Why wait for the regenerating
work of the Holy Ghost? Why wait for real conviction
of sin? Why wait for genuine heart sorrow
and repentance toward God? Why wait for a genuine faith
in Jesus Christ? Why trouble the sinner with these
doctrines and with these truths and with these things that the
disciples taught? Take a shortcut. Have a lot of
good music. Give away some prizes. Invite
people to services. Pack a pew. Fill the church.
Tell a few sob stories about heaven and mother. Promise the
rebel eternal life. Pressure him to come down the
aisle and decide for Christ now. Carnal weapons. Carnal reasoning. That would be God Almighty casting
out Satan by the power of Satan. That's God using the deceit of
Satan. And our God never deals in deceit. impossible. Our Lord Jesus Christ,
when they said to him, you're casting out demons by the power
of the devil, he said, I'm casting out demons by the finger of God,
and the kingdom of God has come down here among you. And with all my heart, this is
the reason, right here, this scripture, is the reason I resent
this type of dealing with men and women. I believe they ought to be dealt
with in honesty and truth and sincerity from the Word of God.
That's the reason Paul said to that church, I kept back nothing
profitable unto you. I have not shunned to declare
unto you the whole counsel of God Almighty. And if the whole
counsel of God offends you, you'll have to be offended. If the whole
counsel of God is despised by you, you'll just have to despise
it. If the holiness and righteousness and justice and truth of the
cross offends you, you'll just have to be offended. Because
our God deals not in deceit. Our God uses not carnal weapons. Our God uses not carnal reasoning. Our God offers no compromise
whatsoever to Satan. No compromise. When a man stands in the pulpit
and opens the word of God, he is not the deacon's man. He is
God's man. He is not the town's man. He's God's man. He's not the
church's servant. He's God's servant. And he must
not stoop to carnal weapons and carnal reasoning and carnal compromise. It must be the whole truth of
God Almighty. And that's the only thing our
Lord will bless. Now what's the second division
of this? Beginning with verse 21, our Lord describes true conversion. He describes how Satan is dealt
with and how Satan is cast out, and how sinners are brought to
a true saving relationship with God Almighty. And it's not by
catering to the flesh, it's not by compromising with Satan, it's
not by buttering up sinners, It's not by offering something
that appeals to their flesh. This is the way God saves sinners.
He begins in verse 21, he says, when a strong man, armed, keeps
his palace, his goods are in peace. Who is that strong man?
You know who that is? That's Satan. I had a man write
to me who watches our television program, And he said, he asked
a question and in asking the question he proceeded to state
this, he said, we know that Satan is omnipresent and omnipotent. And I wrote back in answering
his question and I said, now to begin with, Satan is not omnipresent. Satan is not everywhere at the
same time, only God is omnipresent. There are aides to Satan, there
are assistants to Satan, there are demons and evil spirits who
do the will of Satan, but he's not omnipresent and he's not
omnipotent. He could do nothing to Job without
God's permission. And Satan can do nothing today
without God's permission. He's not omnipotent, he's not
all-powerful, but he is powerful. You ask those who've stood toe-to-toe
with him. Ask Job how strong he is. He destroyed everything Job had.
Job, a righteous man, a godly man, a son of the living God,
and yet when he entered conflict with Satan, it was no match.
Ask Samson how strong he is. Samson, the strongest of men,
slew thousands of Philistines, but he was no match for Satan. Ask Solomon how strong he is.
Solomon, the wisest of men, I guess the smartest man who ever lived,
but he was outwitted by Satan. Ask Peter how strong he is. Peter
said, Lord, I'll never deny you. He was the only one who really
did. As the angel Gabriel, when he was disputing over the body
of Moses with Satan, he said, Satan, Lucifer, the Lord rebuked
thee. I'm no match for thee. So when
this strong man, armed, what's he armed with? He's armed with
deceit. And his deceit is so deceitful
we can be deceived and not know it. His weapon is the lie. He knows how to use it. Oh, he
knows how to use a lie. It was by a lie that he overthrew
this human race. He has ways of making the sweet
appear to be bitter. He has ways of making the bitter
appear to be sweet. He can make a man believe his
lie and reject God's truth and believe he's accepting the truth.
He's a shrewd, subtle, crafty, deceitful power. When the strong
man keeps his palace, he's armed, and oh, he's got weapons for
which you're no match and I'm no match, and he knows how to
use them. He's been using them for years and years and years.
He's handled folks like us before. And he always, except by the
power of God, wins. Always wins. You're no match
for Satan. When a strong man, armed, armed
with deceit and lies and subtlety and craftiness, watch it, he
keeps his palace. What is that? You know what that
palace is? It's man's heart. It's the unregenerated
man's heart. A palace is the abode of a king.
A palace is where a sovereign reigns and rules. A palace is
that place where he has authority. And you know man's heart was
intended to be the throne of God. But because he submitted
to Satan, his heart became the dwelling place of the evil one. And he's taken possession of
the human heart. And that's where he reigns, and
that's where he rules. Christ said, you're servants
of sin. Turn to Ephesians 2. Look at
it. Here it is right here. We're the servants. I'm talking
about natural man. I'm talking about fallen sons
of Adam. In chapter 2 of Ephesians, verse 2, Paul writes, in times
past, you walked according to the course of this world, according
to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now
worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our
conversation. In times past, in the lust of
our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind,
and we were by nature children of wrath, sons of Satan, he reigned
on the throne of our hearts. He controlled, he controlled
our thoughts, our affections, our wills, our thoughts, our
imaginations, our actions, our deeds, he controlled them. From
the sole of the foot to the top of the head, no holiness, no
soundness, no righteousness, all evil, all under the power
of Satan. But, watch this now, but, verse
22, when a stronger than he shall come upon him. Now this is conversion. You have the picture of man in
his natural state. The strong man Satan, armed with
prejudice, armed with bigotry, armed with envy, armed with lies,
armed with all of these evil works of the flesh, he keeps
his palace, his goods are in peace. But, when a stronger than
he, you know who that is? That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
When a stronger than he, this is not the man himself, we're
not stronger than Satan. This is not the man. This is
not the minister. I'm not stronger than Satan.
This is the Spirit of God who is stronger. Greater is he that's
in you than he that's in the world. This is the Spirit of
God for salvations of the Lord. He comes upon that strong man. He comes upon Satan. He makes
war upon him right where he is, and he overcomes him. There is
a struggle between God and Satan. It's not just a struggle between
me and which church I'm going to join. It's not just a struggle
between me and the crowd with which I run and the business
in which I'm engaged. This is a warfare between heaven
and hell. Satan holds on to his palace. Satan holds on to his subject.
Satan holds on to his servant. And God has determined to take
him away. And God has determined to save
him. So God comes upon him, and he
struggles. How long he holds out is not
known, but Christ is always victorious. The heart will be broken. Imaginations
will be thrown down. The high places will be destroyed. The will will be broken. The
heart will be broken. Satan will be driven out, because
God never surrenders. Brother, you don't win this battle
here by throwing deacons in the river. You don't accomplish this
by giving two-dollar bills to the children that ride the buses.
You don't accomplish this by bringing in quartets and trios
and soloists and having a gospel sing all night long. No, you
don't accomplish this by standing up telling jokes like that fellow
down in New Orleans. This is God. This is God moving,
this is God working. You don't accomplish this with
socials and entertainment. You accomplish this when the
power of God is pleased to come upon a sinner's heart and overcome
Satan. Watch it. He overcomes him too. How long it takes, I don't know.
God may do it in five minutes, God may do it in five weeks,
God may take five years, but he'll whip him. He'll drive him
out. And what does he do? He takes
from Satan all his armor. He has defended his palace. He
has kept his palace. He has kept it in subjection
with all of these weapons. What were they? Prejudice. God
takes it away. Ignorance. God takes it away. Tradition. He has defended himself
against the truth with tradition, religious tradition. And God
destroys it. Hatred. God destroys it. Hard-heartedness. God destroys
it. Rebellion. God destroys it. You don't do this by getting
a fellow to come down there and shake your hand. You don't do
this by slapping a wafer in some wine and sticking it on a fellow's
tongue. It won't be accomplished. Satan reigns in his palace. He sits upon his throne. He laughs
at the world. This is his home, his palace,
his throne, and nobody can move him. except God Almighty, a stronger
one. And when he comes upon him, he
overcomes him. He overcomes him. O sovereign
grace, my heart subdued, I would be led in triumph to drive that
old dragon from his seat with all his hellish crew. And you
can put this down. When God comes in and overcomes
Satan, He disarms him, he taketh away all his armor, wherein he
trusted, he takes away the lie and puts in truth. He takes away
hatred and sheds abroad his love. He takes away prejudice and gives
a universal spirit. He takes away all of these things
and he gives the grace of God and the fruits of the Spirit
in that place and divides his spoil. And this is the result. He that's not with me all the
way, he's against me. You see, God and Satan are not
going to divide Berlin like the Allies in Russia did. God's going
to reign in Berlin and nobody else is going to reign there.
Nobody else. And God's not going to divide
you with the archenemy. God's not going to compromise.
God's going to move in or move out. That's so. That's true conversion. And there isn't any other kind.
Now you can talk about this compromise all you want to. You can talk
about somebody gradually slipping into the kingdom of God all you
want to, but you don't slip in. You're born into the kingdom
of God. And our God will not compromise. He doesn't need to,
because he doesn't need me, and he doesn't need you. And there's
no use in me dilly-daddling around with a 13th Street Baptist Church
or anybody in the tri-state area. Present the Word of God. There
it is. If they don't take it, God said,
shake the dust off your feet and go somewhere else. Go somewhere
else. Shake the dust off your feet
as a witness against them. God doesn't need them. God can
raise up of these stones children to Abraham. If you don't praise
him, the rocks will praise him. Somebody's going to praise him,
though. What we need to pray is that God Almighty will do
this kind of work for us. That we're going to do our best
to get everybody into the kingdom of heaven, even if we have to
use carnal weapons. Even if we have to compromise
with a kingdom of evil, even if we have to compromise with
neo-orthodoxy and half-truths and everything else, slip up
on people's blind side, God doesn't. He comes with a frontal attack.
He meets Satan nose-to-nose and eyeball-to-eyeball and toe-to-toe
and slays him. And he slays him with the truth
of Christ. That's what Satan said to our
Lord Jesus Christ on the Mount of Temptation. Make these stones
bread and folks will believe you. You're hungry, aren't you?
Take a shortcut. Cast yourself off. People will
believe you. Follow and worship me. Anything
but the cross. Anything but the cross. All right,
watch false conversion here now. This is remarkable here. Now
get the picture. Satan sits on the throne in a
natural, unregenerated man or woman's heart. That's his territory.
He's a prince of the fire and the air. He's a spirit that now
worketh in the children of disobedience. That's his territory. He occupies
it totally. It's not a joint operation. He occupies it. He totally reigns.
Well, one day, here's Reformation. The unclean spirit, verse 24,
is gone out of a man. Now watch this carefully. He
wasn't driven out. He wasn't conquered, overcome,
and turned out. There was no conflict. There
was no struggle. There was no overthrowing of
evil powers. He just went out. He just left. He took a vacation. And the man,
after Satan left, He was a different man. Naturally a man would be
different if Satan was out for a time being. The unclean spirit
was gone. All of a sudden, he's religious.
All of a sudden, he's a saint. He was a sinner yesterday, he's
a saint today, and nobody knows exactly how. There was no conviction,
there was no struggle, there were no tears, there was no groaning,
there was no crying, there was no conflict. He just joined up. No seeking the Lord, no crying
out for mercy, no searching the scriptures, no agonizing pleas,
no rassling with Satan, no counting the cost. He just became a Christian. He had an experience. Satan left. And then it says Satan left,
and he walked through dry places seeking rest, and he didn't find
any rest. Satan never finds any joy or
delight or rest except occupying the human heart in opposition
to God. That is his joy, that is his
rest, that is his delight, is to destroy and to wrestle against
God Almighty. He was at his best in the garden.
He was really having a good time as he tempted Eve and as he drew
her away from the truth and away from God. That's his domain. That's his delight. That's his
occupation. And he doesn't find any rest
except in doing that. So what did he do? He said, I
will return to what? My house. It never ceased to
be his house. It was his when he lived there,
it was his while he left there, it was his while he was on vacation,
and it was his when he returned. He just came back. Now how long
he was gone, it varies in different circumstances. A man reforms
and joins a church and gets religion, and sometimes he lasts for a
week, sometimes two weeks, sometimes six months, sometimes a year,
sometimes longer than that. But unless Satan is driven out,
he's coming back. Unless Satan is conquered, he's
coming back. Unless he's overthrown, he's
coming back. Unless the Lord Jesus Christ
does the work and occupies the house, Satan's coming back. I don't know when, but he'll
be back, I guarantee you. That's the reason, brethren.
We just must lead this work of Holy Spirit conviction to the
Holy Spirit. That's the reason in the case
of your children and your friends and your neighbors and your husbands
and your wives and those people to whom I preach, we've got to
wait on God. It can't be just a commercial
contract between me and a sinner. I can't just lay down a plan
and a purpose and say, now, will you accept this? Will you believe
this? Well, I guess so. Then you're saved. He's not saved
till God does something. something miraculous, something
supernatural, something great, by coming into the heart and
driving Satan out and taking his rightful place on the throne. Matthew 12, verse 44 says that
when the evil spirit came back, he found the house. Now watch
this, he found it three things. He found it empty. empty. Now, brethren, no saved man is
empty. He's indwelt with the Holy Spirit.
Anybody whom God saves, Christ said, I and my Father will come
in and take up our bow. Know ye not your body is the
temple, the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit? The love of
God is shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Ghost. If any man
have not the Spirit of God, he's none of his. Satan may be at
home or he may not be at home, but if God's not at home, it's
not God's home. And when Satan came back, he
found it empty. What else did he find? He found
it swept. The fellow had quit drinking,
he'd quit cursing a little bit, He was swept. He wasn't washed
in the blood. He wasn't bathed in the blood.
You know what sweeping does? Sweeping picks up the loose dirt
and leaves that old inground dirt. It leaves that dirt that's
deep, that's dirt that's part of the fixture. It leaves that
dirt. It just sweeps off the loose
dirt. That's what Reformation does for a fellow. It quits some
of the outward things and leaves the hatred, and leaves the gossip,
and leaves the jealousy, and leaves the envy, and leaves the
blasphemy, and leaves the temper, and leaves all these things in
there. The only way that can be removed is for God to do it. God to do it. He found it empty,
he found it swept, not washed, just swept, just tidied up a
little bit. On the outside it looked clean, but on the inside,
oh boy, it was full of dead men's bones. It was full of spiders
and gnats and cobwebs and wiggle-tails and all kind of evil fixtures
of hell, because God hadn't been there with a cleansing stream
and flowing blood, and that which gets to the corners and that
which wipes out everything. And then he found it garnished,
decorated. What was it decorated with? Well,
he had crucifixes, and she brought her a cross and started wearing
it around her neck. That looks real religious. That
looks real religious. Pagan, but religious. And usually
they get the biggest Bible they can carry. Get one of these big
family Bibles, you know, with a cross hanging down here. Good
Samaritan Bible, the bigger the better. Buy you some pictures
of Jesus. Put them up around the house,
you know, pictures of Jesus. The Solomon's Head of Christ,
Christ praying in the garden. I'm not making fun now, I'm being
serious. That's graven images. The Word
of God speaks against those pagan pictures. You got any in your
home, you better go throw them away. You say, well, that's Jesus.
That is not Jesus. by not even the wildest stretch
of the imagination is that our Lord. That's a graven image. That's an image of things in
heaven, and God says you are not to make unto yourself any
graven image of things in heaven or earth. And then they'll get
these little clichés, these little slogans, and they'll put them
all over the house, you know. Decorate it up real pretty. You're
not going to replace the fruits of the Spirit with that sort
of thing. If God Almighty really does something
in your heart, you don't need a cross on here to tell folks
about it. Your life will tell them about it. Your attitude
will tell them about it. Your walk will tell them about
it. You don't need pictures on your wall to show that your home
is occupied by Christ. Folks won't be there long to
find it out. It will leak out on you. You don't need little
old clichés everywhere. Just one life will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will
last, and that's not so. The only thing that's going to
last is what Christ did for me, not what I did for him. And you
don't need that to prove you're religious. If the Holy Spirit
comes in to dwell in your heart, people will be able to know it
before very long. But when that old unclean spirit
came back, he found that house empty! Oh, it was cleaned up
on the outside, it was swept up, it was decorated, it fixed
up real pretty, it appeared righteous, it appeared beautiful, it looked
good! But it's empty. And you know
what he did? Then he goeth, verse 26, and
he found him seven other devils, more wicked than himself. And
they entered in, and they dwelt there. and the last state of
that man worse than the first. If you want to find a real renegade,
you find you are used to be Christian. If you want to find you a real
renegade, a real rebel, you find you a fallen religious man or
woman. I'll even tell you the names
of these seven devils he brought back. He brought back seven with
him, and I can name every one of them. I've seen it a thousand
times. I've seen folks reform. I've
seen them get religion without God. I've seen them make a decision
without Christ, without the work of the Holy Spirit, without that
inward work, without God reigning and God occupying, God giving
a birth, bringing forth a new creature. And I've seen them
after they quit. And these are the demons that
occupy their hearts. Here they are, all seven of them.
First of all, there's that gospel-hardened spirit. This man is no longer
moved by the things that used to move him. He's no longer interested
in the things in which he used to be interested. He's no longer
brought to tears by the word of God. There are no groanings
in his soul and in his heart. He's no longer interested. He's
no longer moved. He's no longer held by those
things that used to be his primary affection. Secondly, he's indwelt
with a spirit of pride. He resents anyone preaching to
him. He resents anyone questioning his condition. He resents anyone
offering any advice. He's a proud man now. He's all
right. He's all right. And then he's
occupied with a spirit of covetousness. He once was interested in spiritual
things, and now His whole affection is craving materialism and the
things of this world. The things of this world become
his God. His God becomes the material.
It becomes the physical. It becomes occupying a higher
position and a higher place and getting the honor and fame of
this world, laying hold upon these things, fleshly things.
That's the spirit of materialism, covetousness. And then he's occupied
and indwelt with a critical spirit. Everyone who has a zeal for God
to him is a hypocrite. Father know better than I am,
he resents spiritual people. He resents those who are interested
in God and who have a concern for their soul. He resents them.
He has a critical spirit. He's critical of everyone. He
finds fault with them. You'll see what's wrong with
him. And then he's usually indwelt with a spirit of intellectualism.
He's a theologian without a heart. cold doctrine he enjoys, but
a message that reaches the heart and the affections, he doesn't
want to hear it. He's not interested in it. He's
not moved by it. A message of grace and a message
of love and a message of the glory of Christ, he's not interested
in that, but he'll stand around with you and argue all night
about some point of doctrine. He's a theologian. You find them
out there at the mill, you find them where you work, these used-to-be
preachers and used-to-be Sunday school teachers and used-to-be
Christians, well, they know all about the Bible, they're theologians.
But you talk to them about heart warmth and heart grace and heart
faith, and they're not interested. And then he gets a selfish spirit.
He can't find anyone who agrees with him. Everyone's wrong on
something. He can't go to church over here
because they do this, that, and the other. He can't go to church
over here because they don't do this, that, and the other.
He can't go to church over here because they're not premillennial.
He can't go to church over here because they don't have an altar.
He can't go to church over here because they're past priest.
He can't go to church over here because the women wear hats.
He can't go to church over here because he has a critical spirit
and he has a selfish spirit. He finds fault. Nobody's perfect enough for it. And then here's the servant spirit. It's a self-justifying spirit. Regardless of the wrong that
he does, he always has a reason for it. Always. Regardless of the direction he's
going. Totally opposite from God, but
he has a reason. He justifies himself. It may
not be clear to you, but it's clear to him. It may not be acceptable
to you, but it's acceptable to him. He has a self-justifying
spirit. And listen to what the Scripture
says in verse 26. And the last state of that man
is worse than the first. You know why? He's judicially
blinded. He's judicially blinded. If that
light which is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! How great is that darkness! Turn
to 2 Peter 2. Here describes this man's condition,
2 Peter 2, beginning with verse 20. 2 Peter 2, 20. They have escaped the pollutions
of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. They are again entangled therein and overcome. The latter end is worse with
them than the beginning. It would have been better for
them not to have known the way of righteousness than after they
had known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto
them. But it has happened unto them According to the true proverb,
the dog is turned to his own vomit again, and the sow that
was washed into wallowing in the mire. I believe after a message, scripture
like that, God speaking to us, We ought to cry as a church,
as a preacher and pastor, God give us courage and boldness
always to preach the word, the whole counsel of God, as God
reveals it to us, seeking not men's favor, but boldly, courageously
declaring God's truth. And every one of us ought to
cry, oh God, if you haven't already done it, come upon this heart
of mine. in supernatural, Holy Spirit power, and you give me
life, and you give me repentance, and you give me faith, and you
do for me what I can't do for myself. I don't want a little
old silly religious, evil-believism experience where Satan decides
to go on a vacation or be back later on. I want him driven out! of the power of God. I want the
Holy Spirit to make my very soul his temple and indwell me. And Lord, I don't want to be
deceived. I can't think of any more horrible condition than
to be occupied by these evil spirits. For once they occupy,
it seems to me the Word of God's teaching, they're there to stay.
They're there to stay. Our Father, bless this Word.
We feel Thou hast spoken to us.

True and False Conversion

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True and False Conversion

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