Christianity in America is a very, very dangerous
thing, especially when we deal with Christianity in
the South, Christianity and the Bible Belt.
There have been scholars and churchmen throughout the
last decade.
These are not wild, radical men.
These aren't mean spirited men, but established churchmen
and theologians and scholars who've said things like
this.
We would be surprised if even 15%
of all the people who attend evangelical and
Baptist churches throughout America are even Christian.
If we were to take the New Testament,
what it says about the evidence of true
Christianity, and we were to compare the average
Baptist church member to that, we could only
come to one conclusion, the great majority of
everyone who congregates on Sunday morning is lost,
deceived.
A cultural Christianity, add to that bad preaching.
We have taken the gospel of Jesus Christ
and reduced it down to nothing more than
a superstitious prayer.
If you have repeated certain words after someone,
you are born again.
Or we have reduced the gospel down to
a type of morality.
I go to church on Sunday, there are
certain things I don't do.
Yet there's no passion for Christ, no desire
for God, no thought about eternal things, no
worship of God throughout the week, everything confined
to a church service.
Jesus said something one time and is probably
one of the most frightening things that he
ever said, and I just want you to
listen, just want you to listen.
Then I will declare to them, I never
knew you depart from me, you who practice
lawlessness.
Now, in this same context, Jesus talks about
a gate and way.
He said that few would find the way
to life.
Most would be on the path of destruction.
Now, when we read that, we often think,
yes, he's talking about people who go to
church on the path to life and then
everyone else out there, the atheist, the agnostic,
the secular man who doesn't care or give
any thought to God.
It's not what he's saying in the whole
context.
What he's saying is this.
Among those who profess faith in me, few
will be saved.
He's not even referring to the atheist or
the agnostic or the secular man or the
one who publicly and openly declares his hatred
towards God.
He's saying among those who profess to be
Christians, even emphatically declare me to be Lord,
among those few.
We'll find life and the great majority will
be destroyed.
So what scholars and churchmen are saying today.
It's really nothing new, is it now?
I want to just look at for a
moment again, just listen, because we're going to
go to another text, but he says, depart
from me.
You who practice lawlessness, you've probably heard the
word antinomian eyes, a negative particle and not
much law, it's literally those who live without
law.
Do you know that describes the great majority
of people who go to church on Sunday
morning?
Do you realize that it does?
It describes them to a T.
It describes some of you.
You profess faith in Jesus Christ, and yet
you live as though he never gave you
a law to obey.
What you do in your daily life is
not determined by his word.
What you think about is not determined by
any law or precept or statute that he
gave.
You profess faith in Jesus Christ and you
do your little Sunday morning thing and then
basically live the rest of your week like
a practical atheist.
Let's just draw on some examples so that
we can be very specific.
Are you looking in God's word to determine
how he wants you to be a husband?
Are you looking into God's word to determine
how he wants you to be a father?
Are you looking into God's word concerning your
finances?
Are you looking into God's word concerning your
time stewardship?
Are you looking into God's word with regard
to your behavior?
Your attitude, your thoughts, your heart?
Are you looking into God's word to discover
the great eternal hope?
Are you wanting to know more about Christ?
Is your life centered around Christ or is
Christ just some little accessory to your life
like a belt or shoes that a woman
might buy to match a new dress she's
purchased?
You see what the Bible says is true.
And even at least this time, what many
scholars and churchmen say is true.
And that is, have a form of godliness,
but deny the power thereof.
Now, how can we know if we are
Christian?
That's a good question.
How can we truly know if we are
Christian?
Ever thought about that?
I mean, what is the basis for your
belief that you're even saved?
Huh?
People say, well, well, you know, everyone who
believes in Jesus is saved.
That's very true.
But how do you know you believe?
Because the devils believe and tremble.
You say you believe, I've never even seen
you tremble.
How do you know that you believe?
Because there is a vain way of believing.
You can't believe in vain.
How do you truly know?
Or were you raised on that even popular
evangelical doctrine?
Well, I know I'm saved because there was
one time in my life when I prayed
and asked Jesus Christ to come into my
heart.
Do you know that means absolutely nothing?
Do you mean that?
Do you realize that's nowhere in the Bible?
Do you realize that nowhere in the Bible
is that found?
Do you realize that?
It that whole type of saying that whole
type of gospel presentation is literally something that
started about 40 years ago or so, 50
years ago.
And it's the same error that the Catholic
Church committed.
Catholic Church didn't believe anyone could really understand
the gospel.
And there was no supernatural this to them
because they never were really a church.
And so they reduced everything down to do
to repeat a few short things and you'll
be OK with God.
Guess what?
Evangelical community, including the Baptists, have done the
same thing.
There's no supernaturalness in salvation anymore, but we
can sure get people saved.
And how do we do it?
By leading them through a few questions.
And if they agree to them at the
end, get them to make a decision to
open up their heart and ask Jesus to
come in.
And if they've done that, we tell them
they're saved, even though they doubt it.
Most people think they're saved because one time
in their life they made some decision like
a flu shot or an inoculation.
And to them, salvation is just all past
tense.
I repented one time.
I believed one time.
I asked Jesus to come into my heart
one time.
But you see, he who began a good
work in the Christian, the true Christian, continues
it.
The evidence that you repented unto salvation long
ago is that you're still repenting today.
The evidence that you believed unto salvation is
that you're still believing today and growing and
growing in Christ and that Christ is of
utmost concern to you.
He is.
Now, how can we know?
I want us to go to Second Corinthians
for a moment.
Chapter 13.
Verse five.
Here you have the church in Corinth and
we read through the first letter of the
Apostle Paul to the church of Corinth and
we discover that there are a lot of
carnal people in that church.
Now, you know, it's amazing.
Paul says in chapter three, he goes, are
you not carnal?
And out of those few words, Christianity in
America has created an entirely new doctrine.
It's the new doctrine, the false doctrine of
the carnal Christian based on just a few
little words.
Are you not carnal?
They've developed an entire doctrine of the carnal
Christian.
And what we say today is this, if
you ever heard this in the church, there
are three types of people.
There are spiritual Christians, carnal Christians and lost
people.
That's not what the Bible teaches.
Not at all.
You know, we have Christians who Jesus is
sitting on the throne of their life and
Christians, but Jesus is not sitting on the
throne of their life and then lost people
where Jesus is not sitting on the throne
of their life.
But all throughout church history and the Bible,
it's just spiritual Christians and carnal lost people.
And when Paul says, are you not carnal?
What he's saying is, aren't you acting like
lost people?
And as a matter of fact, maybe you
are.
And as a matter of fact, when you
get further into first Corinthians, you discover that
some of those carnal people God killed and
other of those carnal people were sick.
Those weren't Christians he killed.
Those were lost people he killed, tares who
were destroying his church.
And that shows you again right there, the
judgment of God upon the Church of America,
that our churches can be so filled with
so many carnal lost people and God's not
killing anybody.
See, one of the greatest signs of judgment
is when God allows wickedness to continue.
When he just pulls back and doesn't discipline.
One of the greatest signs of blessing and
of God's presence is when he comes in
and cleans house.
I sometimes watch, like I said, the greatest
oxymoron in the world today, Christian television.
It's kind of like jumbo shrimp.
They just don't go together.
And all these people, you know, the Lord
is in this place.
I was in a place one time where
everyone started going, the Lord is in this
place.
I said, no, he's not.
And they said, why?
I said, because half of you'd be dead
if he was.
He's not here.
Because if he did show up, it would
be terrible.
It would be utterly terrible, terrifying.
And Paul looks at this church, 2nd Corinthians
13, and he says this, chapter 13, verse
five, test yourselves to see if you are
in the faith.
He looks at these people, some of whom
did not seem to be walking as they
should.
And he said, test yourselves to see if
you're even Christians.
Now, notice he didn't ask them, was there
ever a point in time in your life
when you prayed and asked Jesus to come
into your heart?
He didn't even ask them about their past,
because here's the here's the thing you need
to understand.
The evidence that really something happened in the
past and you were saved in the past
is that you're still being saved in the
in the present.
How do we determine whether or not that
experience you had in the past is valid?
Because it's not it not only continues into
the present, but it grows and gets stronger
and becomes ever more life changing.
So he goes.
Test yourselves to see if you are in
the faith, examine yourselves.
Now, this is very this is very Hebrew,
this is very Jewish.
In Jewish literature, we have something we call
Hebrew parallelisms.
Something is repeated and sometimes repeated with a
little bit different emphasis in order to add
emphasis.
It's like the wicked shall not dwell in
the land, the wicked shall be destroyed.
It's saying the same thing twice, changing it
around just a little bit to define and
to add emphasis.
He says, examine yourselves, test yourselves.
Both words here are very serious, strong, severe
words in the sense of not just sort
of looking over things, but examining carefully.
Testing a litmus test, doing everything in your
power to determine whether or not you're saved.
You know, it's amazing to me.
Most of the old literature in Christianity dealt
primarily with two things, what the gospel of
Jesus Christ truly is.
And how do you know you're saved?
I can challenge you.
You can go into any Christian bookstore in
America today, maybe a few exceptions.
But most Christian bookstores today, and you'll be
hard pressed among all the thousands of stupid
books in those stores, you will be hard
pressed to find even a handful of books
that even speak about the gospel of Jesus
Christ or help you understand whether or not
you're saved.
Isn't that scary?
Listen to this.
It's terrifying.
The most important thing in the world is
not getting your best life now.
But those are the books you buy.
The most important thing is this.
What is the only message that truly saves?
And have I believed it?
Am I saved?
Am I converted?
Am I going to heaven?
Those are the two most important things.
And yet they're almost never preached on.
And you can't find any new literature on
it.
It's like jump over the most important thing
and get to all the superficial, silly things
like temporal blessings.
You can give a Bible conference on the
cross of Jesus Christ and how do you
know you're saved?
And very few people would show up.
You could give a Bible conference on economic
prosperity in the Christian faith and fill up
an entire auditorium.
Why?
Because most people identified with Christianity are lost,
temporal and carnal.
That's why.
He said, examine yourselves, test yourselves, examine yourselves.
Or do you not recognize this about yourselves
that Jesus Christ is in you?
Unless indeed you fail the test.
He's going, look, if you're really a Christian,
Jesus Christ is in you.
The Father is in you through the indwelling
of the Holy Spirit.
This is a supernatural thing in which divine
presence has come into your life.
Listen to what he's saying.
You know, I want to tell you something,
you ever meet a demon possessed person, it
will be obvious.
I mean, when the guy flies out of
a chair and crosses the entire room without
touching the floor and smacks into the wall
opposite you, you know something's going on.
So one demon can possess a person and
it's obvious to all.
And yet God, the Father, God, the Son
and God, the Holy Spirit can supposedly come
into the life of a man and he
can live in carnality and worldliness.
And the only thing he does is come
to church on Sunday morning.
I'm afraid not.
I don't know about in your world, in
your theology, but in my world, in my
theology, the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit
is much stronger than anything demonic.
You see, here's what happens.
You start off with true theology and then
you reduce it down to creedalism.
An impersonal knowledge in which you set forth
a few certain things about what Christianity is
and you agree to them and all the
power is gone.
And then that, if you stay there, is
finally reduced from creedalism to superstition and that's
where we're at today.
I prayed that little prayer one time.
I'm going to heaven because the evangelist told
me I was and even told me to
write it in the back of my Bible
in case I ever doubted it.
He says, look, if you are a Christian,
Christ is in you.
But you may fail the test.
What he's saying is if there is no
outward, practical, real, observable evidence that Jesus Christ
is in you, it's because he's not.
It's because he's not.
How can it be that there are
some Christians who this morning in Peru got
up three in the morning and walked six
hours on foot an old path through the
Andes Mountains to attend church?
How is it that there are pastors in
China and North Korea rotting like dogs in
a prison and could be set free if
only they would promise not to speak of
Jesus?
And yet people who identify themselves with Christianity
in the West, the United States, Western Europe,
who, if it rains outside, they can't come
to church and who never minister in his
name and pay no price for the faith.
May I ask you a question?
What does it cost you to be a
Christian?
How much have you lost?
How much have you suffered in the name
of Christ?
You see, there's a big discrepancy that's really
hard to overcome.
What's going on?
He says, examine yourselves, test yourselves to see
if you are in the faith.
Now, how can we do that?
How can we truly test ourselves?
I want you to go over to First
John for a moment.
Chapter five, verse 13.
John is a marvelous writer in his gospel.
When he finishes writing his gospel, he tells
us why he wrote the gospel.
He said that you might believe, that you
might believe in the Christ, that you might
have eternal life.
When we come to his epistle, he also
tells us why he wrote the letter.
And he says in verse 13 of chapter
five of First John, these things I have
written to you.
What are these things?
The letter.
Could say this letter I have written to
you who believe in the name of the
Son of God, those of you who profess
faith in the Son of God so that
you may know that you have eternal life.
The purpose of First John is that by
reading it, in reading it, you will find
a series of tests.
Against which you should compare your life, and
these tests will help you determine whether or
not you've truly come to know him.
So that your faith or your assurance of
salvation is based on something more than the
word of an evangelist who hardly ever studies
his Bible.
But your salvation and your assurance is based
upon the infallible, inerrant, inspired scripture that the
Holy Spirit uses to bear witness to our
heart.
Now, let's look at these tests.
We're going to look at them now.
First John, chapter one, verse five.
This is the first test.
The true believer walks in the light as
a style of life.
That's the first test.
And let's read.
This is the message we have heard from
him and announced to you that God is
light and in him there is no darkness
at all.
Now, what does that mean?
It means basically two things.
That's the marvelous thing about John.
When he writes, so many times he writes
where there can be a double interpretation.
He does it so often that we think
he does it on purpose.
When he says God is light, what does
that mean?
Well, it does mean, as the common interpretation
is, that God is holy.
There's no evil in God.
There's no darkness in God.
God does not sin.
God is not tempted.
God is holy, righteous.
Yes, that's what he is.
But since in the context of this letter,
there were a bunch of false teachers that
had come into this church and they were
teaching that God was very esoteric, very dark,
very hidden.
And the knowledge of God was hidden and
dark and hardly anyone could understand it.
These false teachers were saying, look, you know,
God is very, very hidden and you can't
know him.
So John is coming and he's saying, look,
God is light, he's holy, but also he
has revealed himself.
You know who God is.
God has told you who he is and
God has told you what his will is.
Now, I can say that about everyone in
this room.
Now, you might not know every nut and
bolt of the thing or be able to
dot every I and cross every T, but
you know, things like God is holy.
You know, thou shalt not kill.
You know, a lot of the commandments, you
know, some things about God.
God's not hidden.
He's told you who he is, not only
through his law, but through the conscience, through
the law written on the heart of even
the unbelieving man.
So God is light.
He's told you who he is and what
he requires of thee.
Now, this is what it says in verse
six, if we say we have fellowship with
him, that means if we say we are
saved.
If we say we are Christians and yet
walk in darkness.
We lie and do not practice the truth.
Now, what does it mean to walk in
darkness?
To walk in the light means that you're
walking according, living according to what God has
said about himself.
And and living according to what God has
said about his will or his law, it's
to walk in those things that God has
revealed about himself and his will, his commandments.
To walk in the darkness is to walk
in a way that contradicts what the Bible
teaches about God and contradicts what the Bible
teaches about God's will.
Again, it's to walk as a lawless man.
As a pagan who does not know God.
As a lawless man who does not care
about his will.
Now, to walk.
The word the Greek word is Patel.
OK, but it has has something in front
of it, a prefix petty, which means around.
And it means to walk around in the
light.
I think that's very, very important because it
means style of life.
Not just walking in your religious walk, in
your church walk, but everywhere you walk, everywhere
you walk around, you're walking in the light
of God.
You're walking according to the commandments of God
in the church.
You're walking according the commandments of God in
your family.
You're walking according the commandments of God in
your business, in your work, with your children.
Everything is orientated towards knowing God, knowing his
will and submitting to it.
Someone can look at you and realize your
life is marked by a desire to know
who God is and to know his will
and to carry it out in every aspect
of your life.
Can someone say that about you?
Or is your only boast you prayed a
prayer a few years ago?
Can someone look at you?
Because I'm not concerned about your heart.
I'm really not.
I hear people all the time.
They'll tell me, well, you know, you can't
judge a book by its cover.
Yes, you can.
Jesus said just the opposite.
If you've ever said you can't judge a
book by its cover, I want you to
know you're teaching the doctrine of the devil.
Because Jesus Christ said just the opposite of
what you said.
He said, you will know them by their
fruits.
You will know them internally in their ontology,
in their being.
You will know who they are by what
they do externally.
So there you go.
Church is so filled with cliches and wives
tales.
That's unbelievable.
Well, thou shalt not judge.
Thou shalt not twist scripture.
Because the same Jesus who said thou shalt
not judge in Matthew chapter seven in the
first part and the last part says judge,
says you will know them by their fruit.
So you see, my dear friend, have to
be very careful, don't we?
I think we invent a lot of these
cliches in order to protect ourselves from the
fact that we don't know God.
So the first question that I have for
you is if someone were to look at
the style of your life, if someone outside
of you now, we don't want to hear
about your heart.
If someone was looking at you from the
outside and studying your life, would they look
at you and say.
There is a person that they're serious about
knowing God, and I can see they're serious
about knowing God's will and they're serious about
following it, they're not always perfect, no, they
fall, they sin, but if you look at
their life, you can tell, you can tell.
Now, what about you?
If someone looked at you, what would they
say?
If they followed you around in your home,
in your work, what would they say, would
they would they look at you and see
you concerned about knowing God and knowing his
will for your life and the life of
your family and the life of your children,
would they would they see someone like that
or would they see someone who attends church
on Sunday?
What would they see?
And, you know, one of the biggest lies
that's going to pop into your head this
morning, it's this.
I don't like that guy.
I really don't like that guy.
You know, you probably have good reason not
to like me.
But that still doesn't change the fact that
you're not confronted by me, you're being confronted
by the word of God, and you've got
to determine, is this true about me or
not?
You see, the devil will allow my bad
personality to give you an excuse to walk
out of here without hearing God's word.
So the question is not whether you like
me or not.
The question is, am I telling the truth
or am I lying?
And if I'm telling the truth, you need
to listen to it.
And you need to ask yourself, do you
walk in the light as a style of
life?
Because if you don't, one of the evidence
is that maybe you do not know him.
We go on to the next test, verse
8.
If we say we have no sin, we
are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not
in us.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful
and righteous to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If we say we have not sinned, we
make him a liar and his word is
not in us.
What does that mean?
Well, the first test was the true believer
walks in the light as a style of
life.
The second test is this.
The true believer is sensitive to the sin
in their life and that sin leads them
to repentance and that sensitivity leads them to
repentance and confession.
Are you serious and sensitive about the sin
in your life?
Isn't it amazing that some people in the
church can commit adultery or have vile, angry
spirits and attitudes, can lie, can just not
even be concerned about the things of God,
and yet come to church and be happy
every Sunday without any notion whatsoever of sin,
can watch the vilest programs on television, can
just look at any manner of thing and
not be concerned a bit about it, not
be affected.
And then you have other people in the
church who, if God begins to move in
the church and deal with people about their
sin, they're just broken and they're humbled and
they're crying and they're weeping out to God
and they're confessing their sin.
It's always amazing that when God begins to
do a work in a church and God
begins to deal with the sin of the
people in the church, it is amazing that
the most holy, most devout and most dedicated
Christians are the ones who come forward weeping
over their sins, while the most carnal, wicked,
backslidden, cold-hearted church member sits there as
though nothing was said about them.
And what you're seeing is the difference between
a lost man and a saved man.
A saved man is not perfect, but a
saved man is sensitive to his sin.
And that sensitivity and that leadership and conviction
of the Holy Spirit leads them to repentance
and confession.
Have you ever read the text, Esau, Jacob
I loved and Esau I hated?
What that means is this, God loved Jacob
and he hated Esau.
That's what it means.
It means exactly what it says it means.
But how does God show hatred towards Esau
and love towards Jacob?
Well, if you look at Esau's life, every
promise God ever made to Esau, God fulfilled.
And Esau was so blessed and so wealthy
when Jacob returned to the land that he
needed nothing from his brother.
I mean, so how did God love Jacob
and how did God hate Esau?
What was the manifestation of that hatred?
And it was this, never one time in
Scripture does God convict Esau of his sin,
discipline Esau, go after Esau, change Esau.
He never deals with Esau, never deals with
his sin, never deals with his carnality, never
deals with anything.
He lets Esau be Esau.
How does God manifest his love towards Jacob?
He beat the living daylights out of the
guy every day of his life.
It wasn't Esau who was limping because of
the discipline of God.
It was Jacob.
Every time Jacob tried to do something that
wasn't according to the will of God, it
was according to his own self-will and
his own pride.
God would not let it happen, tore the
boy apart.
Same thing you see in the church today
or in what's called the church, church membership
role.
You have some people that can commit every
manner of abomination, never attend church, do all
sorts of things, but they believe they're saved,
but God never touches their life.
He never disciplines them, never deals with them,
never does anything with them.
And why is that?
They're not his.
In the book of Hebrews chapter 12, it
says, if you do not receive God's discipline,
you're an illegitimate child.
You're not born again, you're not a child
of God, you're just a pagan.
That's what it says.
Now, let me ask you a question.
When was the last time you wept over
your sin?
When was the last time you wept over
the fact that maybe you didn't love your
wife as you should?
When was the last time you wept over
the fact that you serve yourself more than
you serve Jesus Christ?
When was the last time you wept over
the fact that your head is filled up
with thoughts about you and your own endeavors
and not much about the Kingdom of God?
When was the last time you wept over
the fact that there were petty sins in
your life that even after all these years,
you haven't been able to overcome?
Tom, when was the last time you were
down on your knees confessing sin to God?
That ought to frighten you.
Because I talked to a great deal of
people throughout this land, and many of them
say, I can't even remember when I wept
over sin.
I can't even remember when my heart was
just struck like a knife through it because
of something I had done.
It only means one thing.
We've got a lot of glorified, perfect Christians
in America, or we've got a bunch of
lost people who think they're saved.
So the second test, the question would be,
the first one is, do you walk in
the light as a style of life?
Is your life marked by walking according to
what the Bible teaches about God and about
His will?
The second test is this, if someone looked
at you, would they be able to see
that you are sensitive to the sin in
your life?
You hate it, and it leads you to
repentance and confession.
Now let's go to the next test.
Verse 3 of chapter 2, by this we
know that we have come to know Him
if we keep His commandments.
Now listen to this, verse 4, the one
who says, I've come to know Him, and
does not keep His commandments, is a liar.
Now look at that.
I mean, it doesn't take, I know a
lot of you guys are rocket scientists, but
you don't have to be a rocket scientist
to understand this.
Listen to what it says.
The one who says, I've come to know
Him, I'm a Christian, and does not keep
His commandments, is a liar.
He's a liar.
Just an out and out liar.
You lie about being a Christian.
That's what it says.
You know, I'm convinced that most seminaries teach
preachers how to preach in a way so
to take the blade off of the text
and not be offensive.
If I was in preaching class, I would
have been told I shouldn't have said that.
I'm not in preaching class.
I graduated a gazillion years ago, and I
really don't care, because the one who's going
to grade me is sitting in heaven, and
I fear him.
Look what it says.
The person who says they're a Christian, and
yet they have very little concern for understanding
and knowing the commandments of God and applying
them to their life and obeying them, is
a liar.
When they say they're a Christian, a liar.
Can you imagine standing there on the day
of judgment and hear, depart from me, you
liar?
Oh, I don't think he'll say that.
Really?
Go back to Matthew again.
Depart from me, you worker of iniquity.
Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.
Depart from me.
What is lawlessness?
To act as though God never gave you
a command to obey.
Depart from me.
Now, when it says keep the commandments, does
it mean that the only evidence of a
true Christian is absolute, perfect obedience to the
commandments of God?
No, because he's already said that Christians sin.
He's talking about, again, style of life.
A person who is genuinely Christian.
It doesn't mean your heart's going to burn
every day to have a quiet time.
It doesn't mean that every time you read
the Bible, you're going to learn something.
It doesn't mean that it's not going to
be a struggle.
But it does mean this.
In the life of the true believer, you're
going to be able to witness.
You're going to be able to see a
genuine concern for knowing the commandments of God.
Obeying them, and when that Christian does not
obey them, then the second test applies.
He will be convicted of his sin.
His heart will be broken.
He'll be led to repentance and he'll confess
it before God and start all over again.
But to so many people who attend church
on Sunday morning, the commandments of God never
even enter into their mind through the week.
And the will of God, not just the
commandments, not just the preceptive will of God,
which is the will of God revealed in
precepts, but the decretive will of God, the
will of God in decrees.
People go, young people go off to college.
Christian young people go off to college.
Why?
Because that's what people do.
Never concerning themselves with, is it God's will
for me to do this?
Marry without ever considering, is this God's will?
Get a job without ever concerned about, well,
it must be God's will.
It pays more.
You see, the fact is, if you're a
Christian, you're a slave.
Your son, you're a slave, a bondservant.
Bondservants don't have ambition.
They're not self-willed.
The only thing they do is stand at
the door of the master in the morning
until he comes out and says, this is
what I want you to do today.
And they go, okay, Lord, I'll do it.
Democracy is a great thing, but it sure
doesn't help you be a good Christian.
Because you don't understand what it means to
have a king.
You don't understand what it means to have
a king.
An absolute sovereign Lord.
Do you know that Jesus Christ in the
New Testament is called a tyrant in the
Greek language?
He is.
There are a few passages in which the
word that we transliterate tyrant is used with
regard to Jesus Christ.
Did you know that?
He's called the tyrant.
Now, for men to be tyrants is a
horrible thing because tyrant means literally absolute power,
absolute authority, absolute sovereignty.
And we know that with regard to men,
you know, absolute authority corrupts absolutely.
But see, Jesus is the righteous Lord of
glory, and He is a tyrant, make no
mistake about it.
What He says goes.
He's not into democracy.
And He doesn't ask anybody to vote and
really doesn't ask anybody's opinion ever.
He does exactly what He wants to do
all the time.
We have a really big problem with that
because we think we ought to vote.
At least about something.
No.
Now, verse 6 of chapter 2.
Here's another test, the fourth test.
The one who says he abides in Him,
the one who says he's a Christian, ought
himself to walk in the same manner as
He walked.
You look at that and you say, well,
then we're all going to hell.
Who walks like Jesus walked?
Well, again, you have to understand the idea
of lifestyle.
You have to understand the idea.
He's not talking about perfection.
He's talking about the one who is truly
Christian.
You're going to note in their life that
they want, they desire in a genuine way.
It's evident that they are seeking, striving to
walk and act, be like Jesus.
Now, let me ask you a question.
If someone's standing outside your life, even a
lost person, has a lost person ever made
fun of you because you're trying to be
like Jesus?
Have church members ever made fun of you?
Because there's a lot of lost people in
the church.
Have church members ever made fun of you
or criticized you as holier than thou because
you were trying to walk like Jesus?
Or has no one ever pointed a finger
at you?
I mean, when unbelievers walk up and go,
yeah, most of those Christians, they're fanatics and
they're just trying to holier than thou and
everything.
But this guy, he goes to so-and
-so Baptist church.
He's a great guy, man.
And he's just like us.
When I was a little boy, I used
this illustration quite often.
My daddy, he would get me up in
the morning, about 5.30 in the morning.
The first Bible verse I ever heard in
my life was, Paul, boy, get up, no
rest for the wicked.
That's what my daddy would always say.
He'd come in there and it'd be cold,
northern winter, snow on the ground.
And we'd have to go out and bust
ice for the cattle.
Or we'd have to go out and feed
or something.
And I remember walking out there, the moon
would still be up, shining off the snow.
And my dad was a big man and
he would take great big steps.
And as a little boy, I wanted to
be just like him.
So I would follow him out to the
barn.
And what I would do is I would
try to put my foot in his footprint
in the snow.
Of course, he was my height, but I
was about this big at that time.
And I just looked ridiculous, like some sprawled
out spider trying to reach out.
And if someone would have saw me, they
would have laughed.
They would have laughed until my dad turned
around.
They would have laughed.
Look at this kid.
He's trying to do something he can't do.
And he looks ridiculous and he's falling down
a lot.
But they would have been able to see
that there was one thing that boy wanted
to do.
And that is he really wanted to walk
like his dad.
It's the same way.
The true Christian has been asked to follow
in some footsteps that are spread out too
far for him.
It goes beyond us.
We strive.
We want to do it.
We look ridiculous.
We fall sometimes.
And church members and other lost people look
at us, point the finger and laugh.
But if you look at us, you'll be
able to tell.
Well, they might look pretty goofy, but yeah,
I'd have to say that guy really wants
to be like Jesus.
Who do you want to be like?
You say, well, in my heart of hearts.
I really don't care about your heart of
hearts because if it's in your heart of
hearts, it's going to come out in your
feet and your hands and your face and
your words and your eyes and every other
part of you.
Can someone, a neutral, you know, bipartisan, impartial
observer stand outside your life and look at
you and say, man, the whole world is
walking that way towards certain ambitions and goals
and they all want to be like this
and that.
And this guy, he walks totally against the
current and is going the other direction and
just wants to follow some ghost from Nazareth
who lived 2,000 years ago.
That's what I heard a magazine one time
wrote about some guys who were trying to
be Christian.
They were actually musicians.
And the Rolling Stones magazine wrote about them
and said, they are fantastic musicians.
The only problem is they're trying to follow
some ghost who lived 2,000 years ago
in Judea.
And, you know, that's a thing to be
proud of.
Those musicians should have cut that out of
the magazine and framed it.
Great.
You recognize I can play better than all
of you guys put together and that I'm
following Jesus.
We'll put two and two together.
Maybe the reason that I play so well
is because I follow him.
But would someone say that about you?
Would someone look at you?
And then let's get it really personal.
Would your wife look at you?
Would your children look at you?
Would your husband look at you?
And say, they're really seeking to follow Jesus.
We always tell men to lead their home.
Really, we need to be careful because you
do lead your home.
The only question is where and in what?
Because you do lead your home.
It's like tell people, well, be an influence.
Well, you are an influence.
The question is, what kind?
Do you seek to be like him?
Is Jesus your model, the one you admire,
the one you want to be like?
Now, let's go on.
He says, verse 9 of chapter 2, The
one who says he is in the light
and yet hates his brother is in the
darkness until now.
The one who loves his brother abides in
the light and there is no cause for
stumbling in him.
Now, that's the next test.
The genuine Christian will love his brother.
Now, brother here is not someone of another
race, even though we should love someone of
another race, I suppose.
You know, that's an amazing evolutionary statement, love
someone of another race.
Do you know there isn't another race unless
there's Martians or something out there?
Do you realize that that doesn't even exist?
And there's not even people of other color.
Did you know that?
They have the same color.
They just have more pigment than you do.
That's an amazing thing.
Well, there are people of a different color.
No, they're really not.
They just got more of it than you
got.
So there's not really another race.
There's just the human race.
But here, it's not referring to someone of
a different color.
It's not even referring to the poor, even
though we should love the poor.
That's not what it's referring to.
What it's referring to here when it says
brother is you should love other Christians.
The genuine Christian is going to love other
Christians in a practical, real way.
Well, I can worship God here out in
my bass boat.
I can worship God here out on the
golf course.
You are the biggest liar in the world.
I suppose you could, but you don't.
And even if you do, guess what?
Let me tell you something.
You're not allowed in the Bible to worship
God the way you want to.
Did you ever think about that?
God says you're to worship him according to
the way he's commanded to be worshiped.
As a matter of fact, there were two
worship leaders in Leviticus 10 who decided they
were going to worship God in the way
they wanted to, and God burned both of
them up with fire.
You say, well, I worship God in my
way.
You better be careful because you might end
up getting toasty.
Worship God in your way.
He said, you worship me according to my
way.
Now, can you worship God in a bass
boat?
Yes.
Can you worship God in a golf course?
Can you worship God in a tree stand?
Of course, I do it all the time.
Can you worship God turkey hunting?
Depends on how big the turkey is.
But if that is exclusively how you supposedly
worship God, you're lying.
You're not worshiping God because God calls us
to congregate together, to worship together.
And then it's more than just, well, I
can worship God anywhere I want because he
doesn't command you just to worship him.
As a matter of fact, he says you
can't worship him unless you're loving your brothers
in Christ, and you can't do that if
you're not around them.
And then there are people who say, well,
I have no problem.
Gandhi, for example, the great Gandhi, that's lifted
up as the great man of peace.
He was an adulterer and had several wives
and was very abusive to women, but that
never comes into the media, does it?
He said, I would be a Christian if
it wasn't for the Christians.
That's a very famous statement he made because
here's moral Gandhi talking about the immoral Christians,
and no one cares to point out that
that moral Gandhi, man, he was some kind
of a character.
If you ever find yourself outside of the
people of God, accusing them and saying you
don't want to be a part of them
because they're this and they're that or they're
not this and not that, congratulations, you are
doing the work of your father the devil.
He is a slanderer, has been a slanderer
from the very beginning, an accuser from the
very beginning, and you are doing his work.
And if there are wicked people in the
so-called church, the reason for it is
the wicked unconverted people in the church won't
allow the church to do what it's supposed
to, which is practice discipline and get the
wicked people out.
Matthew 18, 1 Corinthians chapter 5.
So if it is wicked, it's because wicked
people who are unconverted is keeping it that
way, but don't blame the believers for it.
Your friends, your companions, who do you like
to be with?
Now I can't say, if I just say,
do you like to be with other Christians,
I can really get in a lot of
trouble because almost everybody believes they're Christian.
Let me ask you this question, when was
the last time you got together with another
man or another woman or another group of
men, women, go out to lunch or just
anything, when was the last time you got
together with your friends to talk about Jesus
Christ, just to talk about Him, just to
do something in His name outside of the
church?
When was the last time you went over
to someone's house?
When was the last time you fellowshiped with
a group of people and the only reason
you were there was to be there in
Jesus' name and to talk about Him?
Isn't that terrifying?
Because see, here in church, you're no more
loving other believers than a man on the
moon.
You're sitting there in a chair.
You sang a few songs, that's it.
And when we get up, isn't it true
that when this service is over, the big
thing is, get to the restaurant and when
you're in that restaurant, you know, think about,
think back on every Sunday, think back on
your Sundays, when you got to that restaurant,
did you talk about Jesus?
Isn't that terrifying?
I go to church, you don't go to
church, that statement doesn't make any sense, I
go to church.
That's just grammatically incorrect, theologically, you can't go
to church, it's impossible.
This is not a church.
Church is, it is the called out group
of people.
You don't go to church, you are with
the church.
Fellow like-minded believers who love the Lord
Jesus Christ and are much about Him, much
about Him.
Now, let me share an illustration that I
shared last night, I want to share it
again because some of you weren't here.
It's the idea of loving believers.
If you do not love other believers, it's
one of the greatest signs that you're on
the road to hell.
And Jesus, when He talks about the great
judgment at the end of Matthew, and He
talks about the judgment of the sheep and
the goats, He says, the sheep are Christians,
the goats are lost people who claim to
be Christians.
And He says to the goats, I was
in prison, you didn't visit me.
I was hungry, you didn't feed me.
I was naked, you didn't clothe me.
So on and so forth.
Now, so many people today use that as
a sign that, you know, commandment, we need
to do prison ministries and help the poor.
That's not what that verse means at all.
What that verse means is this.
Let's say there's a group of Christians in
Rome and they're meeting in the catacombs, hiding
out, and all of a sudden, when one
of them leaves the meeting to go home,
Roman soldiers grab him, identify him as a
Christian, and they throw him in prison.
Now, in prisons in South America, even today,
and some that still exist, if you're thrown
in prison, they do not feed you, they
do not give you water.
If you get sick, they do not help
you.
The only way you can survive is if
someone visits you and brings you food, clothing,
and medicine, and water from the outside and
passes it through the bars.
That's the only way you're going to survive.
And what Jesus is saying is this.
Some believer gets thrown in prison for being
a believer.
Now, the other believers, you have to decide.
If I don't go take them food, clothing,
water, they're going to die.
But if I take them food, clothing, and
water, the authorities are immediately going to identify
me as a Christian and throw me behind
bars too.
What do I do?
Jesus says, if you go hide in your
house, you're going to hell.
When He talks about loving your brother, He's
not talking about just being nice to him
on Sunday.
He's saying, I'm talking about a real sacrificial
dying to self-love.
That's what I'm talking about.
Lay down your life.
That is the evidence that you're a Christian.
It's like when I shared last night, when
we were going through terrorist territory during the
war in Peru.
We were terrified and we didn't have anywhere
to go.
And it was totally pitch dark and we're
wandering through high jungle.
And we went into this village and we
didn't know whether or not it was controlled
by the communists or not.
We made our way through there and asked
someone if there were brothers there.
And someone pointed to an old little shack.
And we went over there and a lady
opened the door, a little Nazarene lady opened
the door.
And I said, we are pastors.
And she grabbed us and brought us in
there, killed a chicken, hit us in the
basement, kept us there all night until we
were able to leave the next morning.
She risked her life.
I went up to buy a piece of
land in the late 80s in the northern
Andes.
And after I made the agreement to buy
the land so that those brothers could have
a church, the terrorists came in the next
day and slaughtered the people.
He's willing to, you see.
And here's what happens.
People today in churches leave churches because the
pastor didn't shake their hand.
The church is so filled with lost people,
it's unbelievable.
Someone look at you the wrong way.
Talk about going to die for someone in
prison.
You can't even be nice.
You know, the man who mentors me out
in Missouri, dear brother, he always uses this
illustration.
He says, sometimes you go into a church
and hear someone stand up and go, you
know, we're Christians, we shouldn't be hating one
another.
And he goes, if you're hating one another,
you're not Christian.
You're a bunch of unconverted church people who
don't know God.
See?
Do you love your brothers and sisters in
Christ?
Now, I'm going to finish by saying this.
Do you actively love them?
Okay, let's get out a sheet of paper
and start writing.
One, two, three, four.
Tell me how you actively love other brothers
and sisters in Christ in your congregation.
Tell me how you do it.
Because, see, again, I don't want to know
about your heart.
That American idea that you can have all
this love in your heart and it never
makes it to your feet, hands, and tongue
is a lie.
What do you do for other Christians?
What do you do?
How do you demonstrate love?
I come to church.
Whoopee!
Thank you for your presence.
What do you do?
How do you manifest love for other brothers
and sisters in Christ?
Jesus said you basically do so by obeying
Him.
For example, you've been given gifts and you're
to minister them in your local church.
I mean, there's so many things.
Now, we're going to go through one last
test and then finish.
Verse 15 of chapter 2.
Do not love the world nor the things
in the world.
If anyone loves the world, the love of
the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world, the
lust of the flesh and the lust of
the eyes and the boastful pride of life
is not from the Father, but it's from
the world.
This is very, very difficult because we live
in a culture that is worldly and extravagant.
This is not so hard for Peruvian believers
living in Condorcanchi in the jungle, but it
is hard for us.
A Christian can live with decency and dignity.
A Christian can live even with a type
of excellence and elegance, but luxury, extravagance
and sensuality are three things that God absolutely
abhors.
Driving cars you can't pay for, building homes
that impress people, buying clothes when you've got
a closet full, toys without number, things, things,
things, things, things.
Loving the world, thinking that what you do
belongs to you.
It's all wrong.
It belongs to God, everything, and you are
only a steward.
Listen, I said this to a group of
very wealthy men one time, and they listened
because they could tithe tens of thousands of
dollars.
They were very happy about that.
They made a lot of money, and when
they gave 10% of it, well, that's
good.
I said, gentlemen, you will not be judged
for what you give.
You will be judged for what you keep.
You actually need $500,000 a year to
live with decency because that's how much you
have left over, luxury, extravagance.
We are to be a simple people, a
pure people, in the elegance of simplicity, without
luxury, and most certainly without sensuality.
I haven't noted that here, but I want
you to know something, and if you talk
to any other godly preacher who is an
itinerant preacher like myself, he will tell you
one of the hardest things to do is
to prepare yourself to preach on Sunday morning
in most churches in America because when you
walk in, people are going to be dressed
in such a fashion that a godly man
has to keep his head down the entire
time.
My body belongs to one person, and there
is one other body on the face of
this earth that I care to know, and
it's my wife's.
Keep everything of yours to yourself because I
don't want to know about it.
My wife has a great teaching on this.
She tells young girls, if your clothing is
a frame for your face from which shines
the glory of God, it is of the
Lord.
If your clothing is a frame for your
body, it is sensual, and God hates what
you do.
Do you desire purity?
Not only purity, but let me give you
a word that most people have never even
heard.
Do you desire simplicity?
Just simplicity.
There is such a beauty and such an
elegance in simplicity, in not seeking to draw
attention to yourself, in dressing in such a
way as to have dignity and to reveal
the beauty of the Lord, but nothing else.
Let me share with you, young people.
Let me share with you something.
You go over to Eastern Europe, and if
you can get out of the larger cities,
if you can get out of Bucharest or
something like that, if you can get outside
of the larger cities, and you get to
the little villages where the communists haven't done
much, you see the most beautiful, it looks
like those Kinkade paintings, it's just beautiful, absolutely
gorgeous, but you come into places like Bucharest
or Timisoara, and the communists tore down all
those buildings and they built these big cement
block apartment complexes that are covered in soot
and gray and dark and dingy.
And communism, in my opinion, is one of
the most satanic things on the face of
the earth.
It is an attempt at babble, is what
it is, to create a society that doesn't
need God.
Well, anything satanic, and it's seen in that
system of government, destroys beauty.
Now listen to me, destroys beauty and promotes
ugliness.
Satan knows nothing of beauty.
Alright, girls and guys, I was in
Nigeria several years ago, and I was working,
got to be with the Fulani tribe and
different things, and all the women wear these
just flowing robes and these turbans on their
head, and it's just unbelievable.
And it's so beautiful.
And then as soon as I arrived in,
where was it?
It wasn't Berlin, it was somewhere.
Well, I arrived in some country, I forget
what it was, and I remember getting off
the airplane and just looking around, and people
were dressed as western people.
You know, the girls in old ugly faded
blue jeans, and the guys, you know, just
kind of walking around.
And the beauty was destroyed.
The beauty was destroyed, the femininity was destroyed,
just the elegance was destroyed, everything was destroyed.
Now, I'm not one of these legalistic type
of preachers who scream, you know, you wear
pants and you're going to hell and all
that kind of stuff.
I'm not really into that.
But let me just share with you something.
Don't dress like the world.
Don't seek to draw attention to yourself by
being extravagant or luxurious.
But refinement is okay.
Elegance is okay.
And if you're a girl, femininity is good.
It really is.
It's good.
It's so beautiful.
I mean, you can take, and I'll probably
teach on that today when we get together
with all the youth, but the world wants
to take all your beauty and just give
you the grunge look instead.
You know, dark under the eyes.
I mean, all these models, they look like
vampires.
And then for you young men, the devil
wants to turn you into mall waifs.
You know, you walk around with blue jeans
kind of slumped over, you don't have a
chest, you wear a little white t-shirt,
you've got more jewelry on than any girl
I've ever dated before I was a Christian.
You know, don't be like the world.
Don't do that.
And don't love it, because if you do
love it, girls and guys, listen to me,
if you really want to look like them,
it's because you are like them.
And if you are like them, you do
not belong to Christ.
Same way, adults.
You're not supposed to keep up with the
Joneses, you're supposed to keep up with Jesus.
Are you a Christian?
Ask yourself that.
Are you a Christian?
Let's pray.
Father, I come before you in the name
of your Son, and ask you, Lord, to
give us help in this day.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
Pastor?