Good morning.
Let's bow our head for a word of
prayer.
Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord God, for
your blessing this day.
God, for the opportunity we've had already to
worship you and God, to look into your
word.
We thank you for the memory verse, Father.
Let's ask right now, Lord God, for your
grace, mercy, and assistance.
I want to commit this message as well
to you, Father.
I just ask, God, that you would grant
us inspiration.
Pray, Lord, that the truth that is on
my heart, Father, would be brought forth.
That you would help me to speak in
a clear and concise way, Lord.
I ask, God, that you would inspire every
one of us, Lord.
We need you, Lord.
We just commit ourselves to you, Father.
We don't rest in anything of ourselves.
I ask, God, that you perform your work
right now.
We pray these things in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Let's go ahead and turn to Revelation chapter
2, verse 2.
This is a passage that's read a lot
and sometimes I tend to want to shy
from reading verses that are too often preached.
I'm doing this because I thought it was
best representative of the what was on my
heart, so I thought this would be a
good way to springboard, even though you probably
have all heard many messages on this.
I'm not trying to expound this as much
as use it as a good illustration or
starting point.
And that is in Revelations 2, we're going
to read from verses 2 through 5.
This is speaking of the church of Ephesus
and how Christ warns them.
He says, I know thy works, and thy
labor, and thy patience, and how thou canst
not bear them which are evil.
And thou hast tried them which say they
are apostles, and are not, and hast found
them liars, and hast borne, and hast patience,
and for my name's sake hast labored, and
hast not fainted.
Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee, because thou
hast left thy first love.
Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and
repent, and do the first works, or else
I will come unto thee quickly, and will
remove thy candlestick out of his place, except
thou repent.
I want to title this message, The Danger
of a False Center.
And as I look at this particular situation
here, I want to try to create a
principle that has, is, I feel common, not
only throughout history in a large measure, but
is something that all of us face in
one degree or another.
And that is this, the danger of having
a false center.
And I'm going to put a little illustration
on the board there.
There are things that are naturally born out
of our faith that are necessary.
Now look at the situation here.
The works that the Ephesians did were commended
of the Lord.
In fact, he says they did it with
patience, they did it for Christ's name, and
they labored and didn't faint.
So they put all their heart into these
things.
And it was never done in a way
of condemnation, but almost in an exemplary sense.
If we were to read verses two and
three, we could say this is an example
to us to follow.
You can't look at two and three and
say, well, four negates it all and we
throw it away.
That's not the point here.
It's saying that this is good, but something's
changed.
And I want to get on that, and
I'm going to expound a little bit broader,
hopefully broad enough to encompass all of us.
And that is the danger we have of
assuming that the outflow of faith is in
itself the foundation of our faith or the
center of it.
I would say these Ephesians got to the
place where the things that were started from
their love for Christ, I understand they did
this for Christ's name, and they did it
because they had a love for Christ.
But it itself became the very center of
their religion.
So that no longer, the love kind of
got shifted out, the focus.
So I say it's the center, danger of
a false center.
We're going to think of like a circle
and how you can move that circle off
center.
So now it's not lined up.
Maybe for you carpenters, you'd think of calibrating
your equipment so that its center is in
the right place and you're not trying to
cut something and it's cutting like this, even
though the line says here, it's really cutting
there.
Well, this is kind of our little illustration.
So I want to get into several things
that can result as from a true faith,
but in the end, ultimately can replace that.
I'm going to put a little illustration I
thought of as we did our memory verse,
1 Timothy 1.5, now the end of
the commandment is charity and out of a
pure heart and a good conscience and a
faith on faith, I thought it was really
good to really go along with what we
are saying here.
I'm going to draw a little picture here.
I hope I can.
First, I'm going to draw a circle.
Okay.
That's depicting of the Christian life, let's say.
What would we put in the center of
that circle?
That's the ultimate question we need to ask
ourselves.
What is the essence of this?
If this circle would represent like a wheel,
you're going to have a hub, you're going
to have things on the outside, and you're
going to have the center, which is the
core, it's the essence of it.
So if I get out the center, then
the rest of this ultimately becomes dead.
I'm sorry.
Yeah, thank you.
So what would be a center?
Get out some ideas.
If I wanted to ask, what's the end
result of our religion?
What's to be the end result?
I mean, you get different realities as far
as how we live, what we say the
end result of our religion is.
But in theory, what would be the essence
of our religion?
It would be what?
Okay.
One word.
Charity.
I'll put that right here.
I've got all the thing here that I
thought of, but what is the foundation of
our faith?
I'm sorry.
Go ahead.
What's the foundation of our faith?
When do we base?
How do we come to God?
What's the basis?
Think of our memory verse.
What was the...
Is that a Chris?
Sure, it is.
But what's the...
Think of what one key word would represent.
Faith.
I'm just going to do this.
Because faith is not the...
The problem is sometimes people put faith in
the middle, and they say faith is the
ultimate result of our religion.
It isn't.
It's the foundation of our religion.
That's why I have it here, because it's
three-dimensional.
It's through faith that the result of our
religion is charity.
The end of the commandment is love.
So we're going to talk about this situation
here.
Now, we have our hub here.
And from a Christian life, we result several
things.
That's what I want to talk about, because
what happens is these things become the...
Invariably, throughout the 2,000 years of the
church, and we could probably say in our
own lives, we always tend to veer towards
putting these things as the gist of our
faith.
Or not the gist of our religion.
I'll say the gist of our religion.
Or sometimes we even put these as the
source of our...
The foundation of our religion.
This is the foundation.
This is the end result.
These things are the outflow.
What happened to the Ephesians here is that
they started with a love.
They had their first love.
So they had a love for God as
a gist of their faith, because they had
a first love.
But then it says they lost it.
They were doing things out here, which I'll
put maybe here in their case.
I mean, let's try to summarize that.
What were they doing?
I'm going to break this down into three
things.
I'm going to put number one.
We're going to say, I'll put standards.
I think that we can either relate to
that, because I find that we either veer
to one thing or another.
Standards, I'm going to put over here.
Knowledge.
I'm going to put the other one.
Works.
Ephesians were doing several of these things.
They had standards, obviously.
They had works.
They had that which they were estimating was
right and what was not right.
I'm going to use this as an illustration
point here.
The essence of it, I often, when I
look at Christianity as a whole, when I
see where people get off track, where throughout
history have people got off track, the danger
I always see is that this here becomes
the measuring point of what somebody's religion.
It's either here, depending on whether you're academic,
or it's here, depending on your background.
I mean, there's these different things that we
veer as, these things are all necessary, but
these are not themselves the essence of our
religion, even though these things may flow from
it.
Now, knowledge might be derived from anything from
theological understanding.
We want to learn more about God.
We learn about the attributes of God.
And those things are good.
And I think they're needful as we grow
in faith.
Doctrinal positions.
But I find that a person can hold
that and have yet not the essence of
religion.
And as John Wesley said, he can be
as orthodox as the devil himself.
The devil, you could say, certainly has a
knowledge of who God is.
He does know who God is.
He was an angel.
We would believe that.
I assume that we'd believe that.
So we'd assume that the devil knows who
he is.
Standards arising usually from convictions.
I mean, if we're walking with God, that
we're going to develop convictions.
We're going to create preferences, also.
We might say, this is how I prefer
to walk with God.
Or I prefer to do it this way.
I'm not saying that you need to do
it this way.
Others would be convictions to say, this is
what God has showed me.
Regulations, perhaps.
Maybe a church says, we're going to just
not do the following because we feel like
we want to create some direction that we
feel would be just safe to travel this
way.
Not saying that other churches may have difference
in their understanding.
And then form.
Perhaps in our services, we have the way
we worship, the order of our services.
We don't all stand, we sit.
We don't necessarily have the men and women
on different sides.
It's just different forms and all that.
But these things here are not what is
the reality of our faith.
And then works, which is the things that
we do with our faith.
Why I manifest the gifts of the spirit,
or I do this, or I visit the
poor, or I go to the prison.
Those things are the essence of what things
I do to manifest the works of God,
the things I do outwardly.
In 2 Peter, I want to use a
little bit of a illustration here, as far
as I think is somewhat of a priority.
2 Peter 1.3, it says, according as
his divine power hath given unto us all
things that pertain unto life and godliness through
the knowledge of him that has called us
to glory and virtue.
Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and
precious promises, that by these you might be
partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the
corruption that is in the world through lust.
And besides this, giving all diligence, add to
your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and
to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and
to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness,
and to brotherly kindness charity.
For if these things be in you and
abound, they may make you that you shall
be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But he that lacketh these things is blind
and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten
that he was purged from his old sins.
Wherefore, the rather, brethren, give diligence to make
your calling and election sure.
For if you do these things, you shall
never fall.
The list here, I don't want to read
too much into what he's doing here, but
he's essentially giving an illustration like a dance.
If you had these virtues are, in a
sense, hand in hand with each other.
But I do think there's some note to
take as far as the order he gives.
I don't want to read too much into
that.
But I would say this, it's interesting enough
that knowledge is placed after virtue, and faith
being the very foundation.
That's why I have faith first, is the
starting point.
Too many people lay knowledge as the starting
point.
And they think that somehow that makes them
a Christian.
Because now I've got an understanding of the
things of God, and I understand who God
is.
I believe the Trinity.
I believe that Jesus died and rose from
the dead.
I believe these aspects of these doctrinal ideas.
And they think that somehow that's their starting
point.
And they think that it's going to turn
out well.
But you look at their lives, and you
say, what is the ultimate reality of your
behavior?
And what comes forth as far as fruit
in your life?
And sometimes it's obvious to everybody else, but
that individual.
And some say, well, did you hear what
so-and-so had to say about such
and such?
Yeah, but another person says, why would you
even have confidence?
That person really doesn't even seem to have
a walk with God.
Yeah, they have this knowledge, but there's something
that lacks as far as reality.
Always be careful about that, because there are
a lot of people who start with knowledge.
And they have a lot to say about
the Christian life, and a lot they want
to tell you about the Christian life.
But the end result is always, yeah, something
that doesn't ring right within the life of
that individual.
What flows out isn't in order.
But here he says, faith is the starting
point.
Now, when we talk about faith, we're not
just talking about an ascent into the things
of, obviously, to understand faith, we have to
have some idea of who God is.
We have to believe God is, and there's
a reward of those that diligently seek him.
We have to have some foundation as to
who we're having faith in, the Lord Jesus
Christ, the Son of the Living God, who
was born of a virgin.
He died and suffered for our sins, was
raised from the dead.
And when we talk about that knowledge, there's
some, obviously, basis of knowledge.
But I'm not talking about the simple, maybe,
level of, say, the Apostles' Creed, where we're
just simply acknowledging in basic form who the
God is we worship.
But when we talk about faith, what we're
really saying is our foundation of our life
is not based upon knowledge, standards, or works.
I had a good talk with my brother
-in-law, Irvin, and I really appreciated his
testimony about how God had led him to
get to the place of just, with empty
hands, coming to Christ by faith, with nothing
added to it, no works.
None of these things being added is any
kind of a foundation, but it's pure, naked
faith, just resting in the mercy of God
and in the power of God, outside of
our ability, and acknowledging that there's nothing within
us to merit anything.
Many don't even come to that place.
Their idea of faith is not based upon
a surrender to that, that I have nothing
to offer.
It's usually, I've got knowledge, but I'm going
to, I have the knowledge that I have
to come empty-handed to God.
But it's just the knowledge, and somehow I'm
cutting confidence, my center now goes on the
knowledge of that, not the reality of it.
It's not an individual who has given up,
as far as his own righteous standards, his
own attempting to make God, to please God
by his own efforts, his own works, but
is a wholehearted committing himself to God's grace.
That's what I'm saying about not, when I
talk about knowledge, I'm drinking these distinctions, because
there is a true knowledge that we're going
to hear a little bit later that is
built upon virtue, but it has to be
built in its proper order.
There is a basis of knowledge that we
have the knowledge of God, and there's the
knowledge of God that's referenced as far as
the experiential knowledge of God, which is different
than knowledge about God.
So the starting point there is by adding
to your faith, which is that coming to
Christ with nothing in our hands, not of
my intellect, not of my background and standards,
not of my pedigree.
Well, I came from a godly home.
I'm not coming and saying, well, I've had
these strict standards all my life, so it
is, I'm going to bring that, or I've
really studied a lot on doctrine, and I'm
really good at apologetics, or whatever it is.
I'm going to bring that along with me,
so that the center no longer is starting
with faith.
It's faith mixed in with something I've achieved
on top of that.
And I'm not just saying this theologically.
I'm trying to get this down to reality.
If that's what our hope is, we should
re-evaluate, am I really coming to Christ
on the level where I have nothing to
offer, but it's faith alone?
You know, when Paul, the apostle, says, it's
not of works, lest any man should boast.
We tend to think in works in the
sense of, well, it's just the law.
Why didn't I abstain from these meats, and
this, that, and the other?
We tend to think of works in the
sense of, I'm adding works.
Like, I did good deeds, that plus faith.
But we can do works as well just
by adding the things that we think.
Anything that creates, that is introducing pride, that
is not coming in humility to Christ, it's
faith plus something that puffs me up, is
a work, because that's what works do.
They puff up.
I'm saying works by themselves, apart from faith.
If we come to Christ with, because I
have studied this, or I have done this,
or I have visited this many people and
helped this many people, and I'm adding that
along with my faith, we'll puff up.
To some degree or another, it creates that
pride.
And the illustrations are given so clearly throughout
scriptures.
The illustration of the publican who went to
the temple there, and Christ gives us this
differentiation between him and the Pharisee, and the
publican, it says, oh, he couldn't even lift
up his eyes to heaven.
He didn't say, Lord, I'm thankful that I'm
like not at, even to say, Lord, I'm
thankful that I came and I do help
people, and I don't always charge too much
with my taxation, and I'm thankful that I
have helped some poor people today, thankful that
I do understand.
I've read several scriptures, and I, none of
that.
Do you understand?
He didn't give anything.
It's the Pharisee that had some things to
offer with God to mix his faith with.
I believe there is a God, and he's
a reward to those that diligently seek him.
And thank you, Lord, that I've done these,
this, and this, along with that.
The center becomes off where faith is the
starting point.
I want you to think of this like
a wheel, like a little pin type thing,
where faith, charity is the end result of
faith, but it's still faith is in the
center as far as our foundation goes.
Charity is the center as far as the
end result, or what it means to have
the knowledge of God in our lives.
Experiential knowledge is charity.
That is the ultimate reality.
That should be the, when people look at
our religion, they should say that Christianity is
a religion of love.
Well, they don't.
What they see is it's a religion of,
and they grab something here, and this becomes
the focal point.
If you were to take this circle and
you say it's misaligned, it's like this.
How has Christianity been portrayed in our culture?
It should be here.
If I got a little circle, if I
had to put a circle, and they say
the lens through which the world sees us,
it should be right here.
But often it's this or this.
And some of us veer one way or
another.
We all have something that we're, usually we're
offset one way or another.
It's either our knowledge we air in, standards,
or our works.
Well, I believe in this, or I believe
in this idea, and I go about and
I prophesy, and I speak on the street
corners.
And that becomes what they see as our
religion, the focal point.
Not something that is encompassed as a result
of our faith.
So adding to faith virtue, which is to
me a result of, when he says adding,
think of it in the sense of, like
these things are holding hands.
That's kind of the illustration that I understand
is given here, is think of like a
Grecian dance.
These virtues are coming and holding hands and
coming across the platform.
They would be starting with faith.
And then you see these things all encompassed
together.
They're all chained together as a complete thing.
So I do, like I said, there's something.
Charity is the very end.
Faith is the beginning, because I think charity
is the end result.
If charity isn't the end result, then it
ultimately is, as Jesus says, you have to
repent because it's no good and it doesn't
accomplish anything.
Yet though you may have all these other
things in order, that's the result of our
faith.
I'm really convinced there would be so few
divisions and offenses within the church.
And it amazes me, why within the Christian
religion do we see such when charity is
supposed to be the end result?
And I think it's because ultimately we don't
believe charity is the end result.
We think it's something offset.
Again, it's because they didn't hold this view
of that and this idea of faith is
they don't hold this view of faith like
I do.
And it's like, well, OK, I understand.
Sometimes we have to say, well, we have
to agree to disagree on something, or I
don't feel like this is.
But charity is the end result of it.
Love for God, it's obviously the love of
God and the love of my fellow man
and the love of my brethren.
And if I can love my brother who
I don't agree with.
What I see often, I'm not just, I'm
just talking about throughout history.
I see this constant moving off target where
this person denounces that person because he doesn't
have the same outside perspective.
And you say, well, what's the end result
of your faith?
Is it charity?
Is it what you do view it like
Christ did?
Can you say if somebody casts out devils
in Christ's name that, and he doesn't follow
it, not us, that we could, would we
say that we forbid, do we forbid him?
In our hearts do we forbid him?
Because he followeth not after us.
So that's what I'm talking about here.
Or the foundation of our faith.
I'm here dogmatic about one of these things
here, but yet there's no reality.
And you look at my life and you
say, but the end result of your life
is inconsistent with everything you're talking about.
This is not like Islam.
We're not going to emphasize ideas and just
saying, all the Christian faith is is about
believe this, this, and this.
Throughout the years, even within the last century,
we had the rise of what was called
fundamentalism, which rose in reaction to what the
liberal theology that was coming down the pike.
And fundamentalism was a re-emphasis on the
basic tenets of the Christian faith.
And it was necessary to do that when
you have people, churches coming out and preachers
saying, well, Jesus really didn't rise from the
dead and he didn't die on the cross.
He really spiritually rose.
And when he died, well, he just set
an example for us to follow, and that's
what this is about.
And he really wasn't born of a virgin.
That was made up.
And you start getting these attacks on the
faith.
So naturally, you have to do like the
Ephesians.
You start to prove those things.
And you start to say, no, this is
what the Bible says.
It is God's word.
It isn't something arbitrary that you can just
pluck out of the air.
And then Jesus did die on the cross,
and he did rise from the dead.
And these things are true.
But what happens, again, when we try to,
and I'm not saying that was right to
do that.
The Ephesians did right.
Nobody should condemn what the Ephesians did.
Nobody should condemn what the fundamentalists in the
early part of the last century did.
They did what they had to do, is
define the right parameters.
They started defining this.
They had to do that.
You can't have faith and charity when you
don't even have the right God, when you
cast and doubt his word.
You can't have that.
I mean, you look at those churches now.
It's just a complete mess.
I mean, they have nothing.
They're just social churches.
So they had to bolster these defenses here.
And they'd say, OK, we're going to define
knowledge.
But what happens is all it takes is
the next generation to come along.
And they say, because the emphasis is so
strong on believing the right thing about the
inspiration of the Bible, the inerrancy, they fail
to say this is only an aspect of
the Christian faith.
But that's not the core center.
So what happens?
The next generation comes.
And they hear all the preaching.
So we can counter the liberals.
And they get this.
And the center goes right here.
And so then the next generation comes, says,
this is what it means to become a
Christian.
You need to believe in the inerrancy of
the scriptures.
You need to believe that Christ died.
He really bodily rose from the dead.
And he ascended into heaven.
And that he died for our sins.
Now that becomes the thrust.
And you see it going wrong.
And you say, well, look at why is
there such?
You look at these churches.
And why are things the way they are?
Because what happens is the center gets.
And it's just like all that used tools.
I mean, they don't calibrate their tools again.
They get off.
They don't take the saw.
And they don't recalibrate it.
Or take the, let's think about when Brother
Chris fixed my car.
He had to calibrate the timing chain.
The timing chain broke.
And he had to take it and calibrate
it so that, put a new one on
and calibrate it so that it fired right.
The same thing I see in the Christian
life is I think it's necessary for us
as individuals to really take an assessment to
say, am I calibrating my life so that
the center is charity, which is the love
of God, the reality of Christ in my
life?
Or do I get my calibration wrong?
Is the basis of my acceptance with God
based upon Christ plus something?
And is the end result of my religion
Christ plus something?
Or is it, I feel, the balance of
a hub?
You've got the center point, which is the
foundation.
And these things are simply the hub.
An illustration I wanted to give and I
didn't bring with me.
But I had the thought in my mind
of a shell.
If I were to take a shell, and
I would show you a nice conch shell
and see all the intricate curves and all.
And I could say, look at this.
Look at the intelligence behind this.
It's depicting something of creative life.
And I show this.
I say, take this shell here.
Look at the beauty of it.
Look at how it's orchestrated.
Something living made this.
But then if I say, therefore, this is
alive, what are you going to say?
You're probably going to look inside and see,
is it alive?
Maybe it's not alive.
Maybe it's dead.
All that shell tells me is that one
time there was something living inside of it.
It's a shell.
And we wouldn't say that whatever the sea
creature is, it needs a shell.
That's part of it's the result of its
life was to create a shell.
But the thing died inside.
And it still left a shell that is
still there for us to see.
Well, that's what happened in Ephesus, is they
still had a shell there.
They could point to a shell and say,
look at these things that are done.
Now, Jesus didn't say, get a new shell.
But he said, unless there's life back, unless
there's life again, unless there's that first love,
a dead shell is no good.
That shell, maybe a crab can climb in
it and take over that shell and run
off with it.
But as far as the life that was
in it is no longer there anymore.
And I think the same thing with our
Christianity.
We too often emphasize the shell itself is
the end result of the reality of the
Christian faith.
Look at the shell.
Look at our church.
Look at my life.
Look at the shell.
And I think that's great that we'd have
a good shell.
We'd have a nice, shiny, intricate shell.
But it's got to have something in it.
I put that in my fish tank.
It falls to the bottom.
And then bubbles pop up.
And then next thing, you're just sitting there
as a decoration.
It's not going to climb up the walls
or do anything.
It's not going to eat the ology.
It's not going to.
It's dead.
It's just a decoration.
But it's not a decoration that Christ is
pleased with.
And ultimately, he has to, if it doesn't,
if it's going to stay that way, he
has to get that shell out, whether it's
depicting of a church or a movement or
whatever it is, if it becomes just a
shell.
Or if that's all our life is, that
shell can also be manifested.
When I say it's the result of a
life, I mean in general.
Now, I can adopt that shell.
I could be a hermit crab.
And I can come in and take that
shell.
But it doesn't make me the life that
was once in it.
I'm kind of like an imposter.
I come in and take it and put
it on myself.
And now I've got a crab inside the
shell.
That crab didn't make it.
And that shell is not the result of
the life of the crab.
That crab just simply was somebody else adopting
those aspects of somebody else's religion.
For example, we talk about the fundamentalists.
They come and they create it.
They emphasize true doctrines, the doctrines that we
teach.
And I think it's good for us to
rehearse in our minds what we believe.
But I can put that there, and that
life can be dead.
Charity becomes dead.
And the crab can come in and take
over and walk off with that and say,
look at this.
And we get like a hermit crab religion
where you've got an imposter taking the forms.
And that's what happened.
The generations come up.
And it was like, we believe these things.
But not those who are born of God.
They just simply had the knowledge of those
things.
They took the shell of past generations and
walked with it.
But it was not the life that the
past generations had.
Because they themselves have to come directly to
God for that life.
And that's the problem is that you can't
preach life.
All you can do is preach truth.
We can preach doctrine.
And we need to do that.
And we can create this shell.
We can create the standards.
And we can say, these things are not
right behavior.
This is the way Christians should behave.
And we can define our shell.
But we can't define and preach the life.
That has to come from God.
And oftentimes, again, what happens is, and especially
for the second and third generations, or second
generation Christians, I'll use that.
Lightly, I use that, is the danger is
that they've got the shell, which is good.
But they somehow maybe misplaced that as an
evidence of life.
No, it may be the evidence of the
life of your parents.
They got those convictions.
But you've got to get that life firsthand
yourself.
You can't be a second generation.
God has no grandchildren, as Corrie ten Boom
said.
God has no grandchildren.
You have to have that reality, the centerpiece
in your life, afresh from God.
This here cannot be.
We can pass the knowledge of the faith.
But this experientially has to be done by
us alone.
And we can't.
People can lead us to Christ.
They can point the way.
But we have to.
This is something that is between us and
God alone.
Nobody can force that or preach that into
you, so to speak.
Man can't do that.
It's God himself.
It's the relationship between that individual and Christ
that that reality comes into place.
Knowledge, it says in 1 Corinthians, puffeth up,
a charity edifieth.
And the context there is touching things offered
unto idols.
And again, here's a scenario.
The Corinthians, who would eat these things offered
unto idols, had a knowledge, which was true
knowledge, and a knowledge that we could preach
ourselves to say, it's true.
These idols are nothing.
There's no other gods that are out there.
These are false gods.
There might be demons behind it.
But you'd say they're not gods.
They're not gods in the sense that they're
propped up to be.
And we have knowledge of that.
And he's not saying be ignorant of that,
because it puffs you up.
But that's why I think the order here
has some significance to why he says add
to your faith virtue and then to virtue
knowledge.
I look at virtue as encompassing humility.
Meekness.
I would say this.
As much knowledge as you add to your
understanding, make sure that you have more charity
and humility to gird that up.
Otherwise, what you're doing is you're creating a
building that has a heavy top and a
very weak structure to it.
It'd be like me trying to build a
skyscraper on top of my little mobile home.
And I'd crush that thing if I did
that.
Well, that's what we do with knowledge.
We build this superstructure, but on a weak
foundation.
We don't have the humility, whereas somebody says
we don't have the head or the heart
for understanding.
We have neither the head nor the heart.
And maybe we have the head sometimes, but
if we don't have the heart, we can't
undergird that.
And it does say to add knowledge.
And I believe knowledge encompasses more than that.
It's true wisdom, as Mr. Wesley defined it,
by which your faith will be increased and
your courage directed and preserved from degenerating into
rashness.
That knowledge is necessary.
Otherwise, I've seen a lot of people have
a lot of zeal without knowledge, a lot
of zeal without knowledge, and do a lot
of irrational things.
And that ultimately hinders their faith.
Knowledge is necessary, but you have to lay
the underpinning of humility.
Psalm 131, David says, Lord, I exercise myself
not in things that are too high for
me.
That's a good psalm just to meditate upon.
There's a sense at which I think we
can become a little bit over ourselves as
far as what we think is true.
There's a sense we have to back up
and say, Lord, I don't have all the
answers.
Make it real to me.
I mean, I've got a lot of doctrines.
Myself, there's a lot of things I've had
to just step back and say, you know,
maybe I've adopted things.
It's the best of my understanding.
I might believe these.
But in the same sense, I have to
be careful about how I commit myself to
a lot of things.
And just leave that, say, you know, Lord,
I want to be open just to be
re-taught.
Because some of these things, I may never
have a full understanding on this side of
eternity.
And there's that humility with knowledge.
I think as the more mature we grow,
I think the more we should feel that
we don't know.
I really do.
And not to say that we become ignorant
or foolish, and we don't exercise ourself in
understanding.
But there's a sense of realizing that there's
more to God's truth than we can comprehend.
So add to your faith virtue, then to
virtue knowledge.
And I look at that.
Again, I don't want to read into the
word of God and create some sort of
a something it's not saying.
But I do believe that there's something to
that.
I mean, just by experience, and also what
I see elsewhere in the scriptures, that virtue
has to undergird our knowledge of God.
Our doctrines, our understanding of theology, for example,
should be undergirded with ever more humility.
The more that we take in, the more
humility, more just saying, Lord, I exercise myself
not in things too high for me.
I need to come like the publican, more
and more to God, and less and less
be coming in with my sword to say,
you know, I've got this understanding, and you
don't got it, and I'm going to argue
with you.
And like I said, very few have the
head or the heart to really debate issues.
It takes both.
And it doesn't come out the same when
you've got a person who's yielded to God
on these.
When God gets a hold of somebody, and
they're humble, it doesn't come out the same
when they get into discussions and debates.
And then it becomes more of just, to
me, it doesn't come out right.
Add to faith virtue, virtue knowledge, and to
knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to
patience godliness, and to godliness, brotherly kindness, and
to brotherly kindness charity.
And again, like I'm saying, I don't think
there's necessarily some sort of an order, per
se.
Though I do think it's interesting that faith
is mentioned first, and charity.
And that's why I put that there.
And with our memory verse, it just seems
that the scriptures over and over always emphasize
faith is like the starting point.
Because faith just simply is the reality that
we have nothing that we can make any
claim of, other than God's promise.
It's God himself that is, in a sense,
doing that.
He's providing the means by which we can
find peace with him.
There's nothing that we can offer, and reward,
or in payment.
And faith and charity is the ultimate summation
of reality.
Faith itself, it says in 1 Corinthians, will
fade.
It will be brought into sight.
Hope itself shall fade, but charity.
These three, faith, hope, and love, this one
will yet abide, and that is charity.
In 2 Timothy, as you look at some
of these other things, he talks about those
who have a form of godliness, but deny
the power thereof from such turn away.
For this sort are they which creep into
houses and lead captive silly women laden with
sins, led away with diverse lusts, ever learning
and never able to come to the knowledge
of the truth.
I don't believe that when he says these
have a form of godliness, it's hard to
say they had some outward standard.
I don't know what it was.
I don't know if these are Judaizers.
And in what way did they lead about
captive silly women laden with sins?
I don't know that.
But I think we can say some sort
of a relevance here.
A form of godliness can either encompass the
way we live our life.
The Pharisees, for example, had a form of
godliness.
I don't think it means these were just
a bunch of heathens.
These had a form of god.
They had something external about them that commended
them as religious people of some relationship to
God.
They were some sort of a religious people
that believed in God.
So they had a form.
But it says denying the power thereof.
Now, we ever ask the question, what's the
power thereof?
Now, some might say, well, working miracles.
And again, you might take this and say,
well, the power is another one of these
things on the outside.
But I don't believe so.
I think it's charity is the ultimate reality.
The power of God manifest in their life,
love being the chief end of the law.
But these individuals had a form of godliness.
There's something about them.
And maybe some of that was good.
Maybe that form wasn't even a bad form.
We don't know.
We don't know if it was pharisaical, maybe
the phylacteries.
Or maybe it was, I think we can
all identify.
There are many out there that can say
their form is good.
And we would say, if they ever get
right with God, don't change your form.
We maybe appreciate your form.
However, you don't have the power of God
in your life.
You're not right with God.
You just have a shell.
You're like the hermit crab.
You took over a shell of formality, which
might not be bad.
But you're not the life that was once
the inhabitant of that shell.
That life isn't there anymore.
The charity, which is the foundation, the power
of God in your life isn't there.
And these ones ever learn, but never come
to the knowledge of truth.
And I think the same reason I brought
before.
If virtue does not undergird knowledge, all knowledge
does is puff up.
All it does is it helps us be
ever more mindful of just how much we
know in relationship to other people.
Other instances, Jesus speaks of those who say,
Lord, Lord.
So they acknowledge even Jesus himself is Lord.
We could say there's knowledge of who Christ
is and that they acknowledge Christ is Lord.
And it says that they shall not enter
the kingdom of heaven.
But then he says, but he that doeth
the will of my father, which is in
heaven, which to me is emphasized.
To me, I think when you look at
the reality of how do we know if
someone has charity?
Well, those who do the will of the
father, obviously they give evidence, the charity, the
love of God in their hearts.
Many will say in that day.
So it makes me wonder, many will say,
why are there many that say it?
And I think it's because generations come up
that take the formality, but they don't have
the substance of this religion.
This here has to be the starting point.
And we can adopt these things, but I
think even if we're ignorant of God and
we get the scriptures and by reading the
scriptures we come to faith, these things can
start on their own.
You don't necessarily have to adopt it.
I mean, it's great that we have a
lot of resources we can go back to.
We can say, how do people live their
lives?
How did they believe?
How did they?
We can use those to help us, but
I would say if you have to make
a decision, a choice between the two, it'd
be better to have none of that, start
over and start with the Bible and not
knowing anything of church history and coming to
faith and having those things develop again, if
that's what it takes, if that life is
not there.
Well, there's those who will say, Lord, Lord,
have we not prophesied?
And this is the only thing that works
here.
These individuals prophesied in the name of the
Lord and they cast out devils and they
did many wonderful works, it says.
And I'm thinking again of the same old
miscalibration that, I mean, all of us either
have been there or we have met people
who have emphasized the reality of their Christian
life.
I did this, I speak in tongues, I
prophesy, I have visions.
And those things now become, this is the
evidence of the life of Christ within me
because these things are manifest.
If you're really a true believer, you will
manifest by, I'm just throwing things that are
out there.
I'm not trying to belittle anybody.
I'm not belittling the gifts of the spirit,
but those are not the foundation.
They are not the center of our faith
because here it says there are those who
can do those things and it doesn't evidence
anything.
And Jesus says, I never knew you.
I mean, you were never even, you didn't
have life.
You just had, it was just a shell
with a hermit crab inside of it.
That's all you were.
It wasn't, there was no life there.
I never knew you.
You were iniquity, the charity, the love of
God was manifest in your heart.
All you were is puffed up that you
thought you were some great man like Simon
the Sorcerer or someone who thought he was
someone great.
And he did these mighty things for God,
he said, and maybe others, maybe he made
it clear to others that he was a
mighty man of God and people give him
money, I don't know what they do, or
they follow him and they say, this is
the voice as one speaking as a God.
Many will come that day.
And we did it in the name of
the Lord.
We had these things in our lives and
he'll say, I never knew you.
You didn't have the life of Christ.
Ephesians aren't gonna be exempted.
These are individuals who had the reality of
God.
He says, you have to have it back.
Get yourself recalibrated.
There's some that never started by faith.
I never knew you.
We can say that at least Ephesians knew
God.
It's just, you had to get that priorities
back in order.
But many will not even come by faith
and yet think that they have the reality
of God in their lives.
And I just, sometimes I hear Brother Jim's
stories of different ones in the prison and
they start with, it sounds like what I
hear Brother Jim relate.
It's like they're coming around with these things
and they're saying, yeah, but I believe this.
And Jim says, yeah, but what's the reality
of your life?
What's the fruit of it all?
I think we're kind of speaking the same
thing.
What's coming forth?
Is that what your faith is based on?
Is that what the reality, your foundation?
If it is, you could be just as
lost as everybody else.
That's not going to, that doesn't say anything.
Those things will pass away.
Prophecies will cease.
Tongues will be, those things will all cease
one day.
And all that will be left is, not
even faith.
Faith will cease, but all that will be
left is charity.
Is that the ultimate, if someone were to
summarize your life, would it be summarized by
the love of God manifest in this individual,
this life here?
Is it the demonstration?
If someone says, what, if we were talking
about the love of God, could they say,
this brother here is an example, the best
example physically I could give of the love
of God.
Brother Paul mentioned the sister, Norman Grubb's wife,
that just talking to her on the phone,
the presence of God was there.
That's what I'm talking about, of what we
need our lives to be calibrated with, that
it wasn't, his wife was telling me about
this doctrine and that, and this is how
she performs her, this is the things that
she wears, and she doesn't do this, and
she does that, and then Paul was impressed
by this, that it was just simply not
even speaking, just something about her life that
represented the life of Christ.
It was the centerpiece that affected him.
Now, she may have had those other, I'm
sure she did, I mean, she has the
love of God in her life, she's gonna
have the rest, you can't have a life
without those defining boundaries.
I just can't emphasize, I would really encourage
you, when you go through the scriptures, mark
how many times charity is represented as the
fundamental of the Christian life.
How many times does Jesus bring it up?
How many times does the Apostle Paul bring
it up?
How many times does John bring it up?
Mark 12, 28 to 34, I'll just kind
of give a real quick synopsis about the
scribe that came to Jesus, and he tries
to question him, and he says, which is
the first commandment of all?
I think he's thinking, I don't know what
the scribe was thinking, maybe he was trying
to stumble him, maybe he wasn't, and Jesus
could have said, well, it's to do this
or to do that, but he says, hear,
O Israel, the Lord our God is one
Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart and with all
thy soul and with all thy mind.
That's the essence of the, that's the greatest
commandment.
That means the greatest.
If you're going to meditate on God's law,
that's the chief one that you start with,
and then the other one is, thou love
thy neighbor as thyself.
Well, John makes it clear that you can't
have the second, if you don't have the
second, the first one's not real to begin
with.
It's not like they're two separate, like I
can say, I don't steal, but I've killed.
We can't, though you can do that with
those commandments, you can say, I've coveted, but
I've never murdered anybody.
I've never actually stolen, but you can't say
the love of God and the love of
your man's that way.
They are inseparable.
If I say, I love God, and I
say, I hate my brother, he says, you're
a liar.
You can't, but he wouldn't, I wouldn't be
a liar if I said, I never stole,
but yet I've coveted.
I mean, probably I'm a liar because everybody's
done those things, but I mean, it's theoretically
possible that I could do one and not
the other.
You wouldn't say, well, if you say you,
in fact, James says, if you violate one,
you violate the whole.
He didn't say you had to have violated.
He's not saying that you've literally violated the
whole, but it's as if, since you broke
one point of the law, the whole becomes,
you become guilty under the whole law.
You can't just say, well, I'm just a
thief, but at least I didn't kill.
Okay, you didn't break the law.
He's saying the law is violated if any
point is violated, but here you actually cannot
do the one without the other in obedience,
and that is love is that encompassing.
You can't violate the love of God and
then they'll have to love, or violate our
love for our fellow man or our brother
or neighbor, as the scripture says, and yet
say we have love for God.
And then he says, it's all more than,
more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.
Now think about what he's saying there, all
whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.
He's saying in the sense that this is
worth everything else that the Christian life is
even about.
Everything we do in the Christian life is
nothing compared to loving God with all our
heart and loving our neighbor as ourself.
Don't just look at it as Jewish sacrifices.
Well, that's irrelevant to us.
We'll just write that off as, well, that's
just pertaining to the Jews.
We'll look at it from what it represents.
The whole of our religious system is worth
nothing compared to loving God with all our
heart and loving our neighbor as ourself, is
what he's saying.
All this stuff out here is worth nothing
in comparison to loving charity in the middle,
loving God, that's what charity is, loving God
with all our heart and loving our neighbor
as ourself is the essence of the Christian
faith.
These other things are whole burnt offerings, sacrifices,
understandings of human heart, but the human mind,
all worth very little in comparison to that.
And if the center is gone, they're worth
nothing.
And then Jesus says discreetly, he says, thou
are not far from the kingdom of God.
That's something, think about what the implications there.
This man had, he was on the right
track.
That tells me if that centerpiece isn't there,
then maybe I am not, if my life
is void of this reality, I'm not saying
that as believers, we might have to get
recalibrated.
I'm just saying there are some that don't
have this as reality, but have this.
And I have to say, are you far
from the kingdom of God?
Are you in the kingdom of God or
would Jesus say you are not far?
Or would he say you're not close?
But I have these things here, but that's
not what Jesus says is the, in response
to being far or close to the kingdom
of God, it's what's the reality of the
life?
And then we read in Galatians, the fruit
of the spirit is love.
And love is always mentioned there as like
the finality, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance, against such there is no law.
And they that are Christ have crucified the
flesh and the affections and lusts.
And then it says, if we live in
the spirit, let us also walk in the
spirit.
That's to me is a faith charity.
But the emphasis there is by walking in
the spirit, the power of the spirit to
accomplish that.
Then he talks about, let us not be
desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying
one another, which I look at is when
you're an offsetter, you're not walking in the
spirit and vain glory ends up becoming the
predominance of your life.
I just can't emphasize enough that.
And again, in my own life, I've seen
it.
And I've met many that have something that
is, to me, it's distasteful.
And I see these lives and they're, oh,
do you believe in speaking in tongues?
Oh, do you believe in keeping the Sabbath?
Oh, do you believe in, it tells me
where your heart is at.
That's the thing that comes out.
It's not, do you know the Lord?
Do you love God?
Do you have the peace of God in
your life?
It's not that, it's do you have this
doctrine?
Or do you believe in doing this?
Do you believe in doing that?
How do you believe about this?
Or it's, we go out and prophesy.
Do you go out and preach?
Do you do this?
I'm just talking about that's the, it's not,
I'm just saying that's the center of their
fellowship.
They are stuck on this.
Their calibration is so off.
Where they can't talk about, they can't even
talk about this because they're here.
Or maybe they're here and they can't even,
they don't even talk about theological issues because
they're so stuck on over here.
I'm just saying they're out of calibration.
There's not, it's not the free flow of
what has Christ done in your life and
how, you know, what's the Lord teaching you?
It's what about these things on the outside?
That's the first thing I veer towards.
What's your view of the end times?
And I'm not saying this, again, and I'm
not against talking about that.
I don't see a problem with, you know,
brother, I had another brother sitting down with
me.
I might ask a question.
I think that's good fellowship.
I'm just saying that that isn't, shouldn't be
the focus point, especially when you meet somebody
who, for the first time, is a believer
and that's the first things you're asking.
It tells me you're off calibration.
What are your beliefs about the end times?
Well, you know, that's just a friendly discussion.
I'm not talking about that, but a lot
of times it isn't.
It's like there's something that harps on a
person that is like, it rings, it resonates
with that individual and they can't get out
of that rut.
It's like, okay, there's something amiss.
Is that the basis of our fellowship?
Or what's your view on this?
Or what's your view on that doctrine?
Well, is that the basis of our, it's
like you get this hostility and ooh, you're
gonna get in an argument or a fight.
It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
It's one thing, you know, I'm not saying
that there's never a time that we can
have a charitable discussion on things, but I'm
saying that that is not the focus point.
If it is, we have to ask ourselves,
either we're out of calibration or we don't
have that reality to begin with.
We might need to assess, have I ever
really been born again?
Just because I have the shell is no
evidence.
I can adopt that shell.
The hermit crab can adopt the shell, but
he's not a, I don't know what lives
in snails or whatever live in those shells.
I'm not, he's not a snail.
He just took something that somebody else generated.
Second generation, third generation.
I did what, took what my forefathers had
to do and I embraced it all, but
I don't have faith as the starting point
and I don't have true charity.
I mean, we can't emphasize more than enough,
by grace you are saved through faith.
That not of yourselves is the gift of
God.
And that's how he always brings this up.
Not of works unless any man should boast.
Boasting.
And I'm gonna say, it's not just the
idea of the starting point, but also anytime
we get our, we miss the focus here
where it's faith alone and the grace of
God in our lives.
Where it's God's grace, it's God's reality alone
too.
It's the love of God.
That's who God is, is love.
So if it's God alone, then it's, then
we're, then our heart is made perfect in
love if it's perfectly God manifesting.
Just like it's faith alone as the sole
foundation of our religion, so the end result
is charity alone.
Again, God is perfect love.
And so if God is perfect in our
lives, if we allow him to perfectly manifest
himself, then that's the end result.
Not everyone that say, Lord, Lord, we mentioned
that, but he that doeth the will of
my father and he says how that many
will come in that day.
And I just have to emphasize why is
it that he says many will, does that
mean a good, you know, I don't know.
Majority, is that a good many?
Does that just mean many in his day
or is that, I have, I believe that
it's many throughout all ages.
And they say, Lord, Lord, because there's something
that they've embraced that made them think that
Christ was Lord, because maybe they believe Jesus
died and rose from the dead.
But that wasn't saving faith.
That was just simply having a knowledge of
that and they say, Lord, Lord, didn't we
not?
And maybe some of them, so I was
raised in a church where we believed in
the gifts of the spirit and I, maybe
they didn't have the reality of Christ in
their life, but they adopted those things and
are not putting down the gifts of the
spirit and they believe something that was scriptural,
but they didn't have the foundation right.
They weren't saved.
They didn't come to Christ by faith alone.
Christ wasn't Lord in their lives.
It was just Lord, Lord from the outside.
They can say Lord, Lord, because that's what
they had the understanding of, but they didn't
have the knowledge of God, of the reality
of that.
It wasn't real to them.
They didn't experientially know Christ is Lord.
And so they can say, Lord, Lord, but
yet Jesus, I didn't know you and there
was no experiential knowledge.
I didn't know you.
You knew about me, but we didn't know
each other.
I didn't know you in a personal sense
and there was no relationship.
I didn't know you as a son.
First Corinthians 13 is one of those scriptures
that I think it's, my tendency is to,
you read it and you, it should forever
put within us an awe of the standard
that Paul lays out here and it's oh
so easy for us to read it and
then we go on as a man looking
at a glass dimly, we forget what manner
of man we were and we go off
and say, well, that's so great of it
an admonition of love and then we go
ahead and harbor feelings towards people and everything
else.
I don't know, I just, it's one of
these things where it's like, if that's the
Christian life, then we missed it quite a
bit.
Maybe we're really out of a calibration because
this is what he's saying is to be,
this is an example of a calibrated life.
Then he goes on to talk about these
externals again.
He says, if I speak with the tongues
of men and angels, I do many mighty
works and have not charity and I become
as a sounding brass and tinkling cymbal and
I give of the gift of prophesy.
Lord, do we not prophesy in thy name
and understand all mysteries, understanding all doctrine.
So you could say I could write a
commentary and it'd be perfectly sound and nobody
could, you know, you could say this is
the perfect commentary.
I have all knowledge of all mysteries of
God.
And though I have all faiths that I
can remove mountains and have not charity, I
am nothing.
It's not talking about the faith different, I
don't think he's talking about having faith, saving
faith in this, it's the faith that to
do something, maybe I trust that to have
the faith.
I don't look at it because you can't
have true saving faith and not have charity
as a result.
But even if I could theoretically have faith
to move a mountain, I could trust that
God would do it and God would honor
that faith.
Yet without charity, it doesn't profit anything.
Give my body to be burned, feed the
poor, give my goods.
And I mean, I'm just trying to, I'm
using this as an example here.
Though these things could be perfected, this is
the perfect shell.
This is when he's saying that in the
utmost, there's no way to improve upon any
of these points if I have this perfectly
lined up.
So if you said, what's your belief on
this?
I could tell you an absolute infallibly what
any doctrine is, and I'd be right.
I could tell you what is the right
way to live our lives.
I can go about doing works and set
the most highest standard.
In fact, die a martyr's death.
And yet he says, if charity is not
the centerpiece, I am, and just this theme
here keeps re-presenting, I have nothing.
This theme here is a, just as you
go through the scriptures, I keep seeing this
energy here.
It's constant, charity is the centerpiece.
These are the hubs.
Faith is the starting point.
But these things develop on the outside and
they're imperfect.
All of us are never, I don't believe
on this life we're gonna have perfect shell,
so to speak, because we're limited in our
knowledge.
We see through a glass dimly.
We don't always have maybe the right standards
or the right, when I say standards, anything
encompassing things that we ought to abstain from
or things that we should be doing, ways
that we should be living our lives.
We might encompass things that would probably be
best to leave alone, and we probably allow
things in our lives that we maybe shouldn't
to some degree or another.
And maybe we put out things that we
were too strict on somewhere.
I mean, we're fallible.
We try the best we can, and maybe
God leads us in a lot of these,
and we can say, these are convictions God
has given me, and others are preferences.
And we say, I prefer just to cut
this out, even though I don't ask other
brethren to do this, but I'm just gonna
make this line here.
And I can have all that, but again,
if that's all that it is, then it
profiteth nothing.
I have nothing more than the faith of
a Muslim or a faith of a Jew
or a faith of a Hindu, because all
of them can say that they've done things
to encompass their lives that have defined it,
they have abstained from things, they have embraced
things, they've got beliefs about God, and some
of it is sound, there is one God,
others are unsound, but even if they were
sound in all areas, a Muslim would still
be lost.
Even if his doctrine was all right, if
he has not love, he's still lost.
If he doesn't come to God by faith,
he's still lost.
He may accept Jesus in the perfect way,
instead of, as they do, they have a
false notion of Jesus, but even if they
did have a perfect knowledge, Jesus would still
have to say, Lord, Lord, Lord, I never
knew you, just because you knew who I
was, but you didn't know me.
And I could keep going on, I mean,
the scriptures touch on this all the time,
touch not, taste not, handle not, which all
are to perish with the using after the
commandments and doctrines of men.
Now, this is obviously speaking more in Jewish
terms, because there are some things that we
shouldn't be touching or tasting or handling, but
even then, which things indeed have a show
of wisdom and will worship in humility and
neglecting of the body, not in any honor
to the satisfying of the flesh, I think
I can make the point to say that
any of these outside things without humility, I
mean, without a proper balance will puff up,
whether it's things that we abstain, if I
say I'm gonna deprive my life of certain
things, I can honestly say if that charity
isn't the foundation of my life, that that'll
puff up, knowledge will puff up.
I think we can make a case that
every one of these will puff up if
charity's not the foundation.
I think you can go throughout the scriptures
here, 1 Corinthians or Colossians 2.20 brings
about these things, if you'd be dead with
Christ from the rudiments of the world, why
is the living in the world, are you
subject to ordinances?
Again, even if these are right ordinances, which
these aren't, that even in a right sense,
if without charity, they still will puff up.
You'll still say, you know, I'm doing things
just right, not like these guys over here,
look at these.
I stopped saying things like, you know, these
dead churches and I won't do that anymore.
That's just, to me, is arrogant.
One time, I remember feeling convicted, bringing up
something like that years ago, and it's, yeah,
but they don't believe this, and they don't
do that.
Okay, whatever they do, they do.
I'm not gonna give an account for that,
but I'm not gonna, that's not my job.
I've got enough to worry about my own
life than to worry about somebody I've never
met.
You know, I go to Pass by churches,
you see these signs, and sometimes they're good
signs, and I just say amen, I'll just
take it as from the Lord if it's
a good encouragement, and if it's not, I
just pass by.
Best vitamin for being a Christian is B1.
I like that, that's good.
I don't know who the people are, and
I'm not gonna judge them.
I don't know them.
That's not charitable for me to do, that's
pride.
That's, to me, it's arrogance.
I leave that with God.
I'm gonna end with a quote from John
Wesley.
He says, but here let no man deceive
his own soul.
It is diligently to be noted that the
faith which bringeth not forth repentance, and love,
and all good works.
Understand there, that's what, when these things are
actually brought forth from reality instead of just
adopted, but actually bring forth because of, love
will bring these things forth.
I mean, at least, like I said, a
living mollusk will make a shell.
It will have right works.
It will have right standards.
But he says, if these things are not
done, and he goes, that don't bring forth
repentance, and love, and all good works, is
not that right living faith, but a dead
and devilish one.
For even the devils believe that Christ was
born of a virgin, that he brought all
kinds of miracles, declaring himself very God, that
for our sakes he suffered a most painful
death to redeem us from death everlasting, that
he rose again the third day, that he
ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right
hand of the Father, and at the end
of the world shall come again the judge
both the quick and the dead.
These articles of our faith the devils believe,
and so they believe all that is written
in the Old and New Testament, and yet
for all this faith, they be but devils.
They remain still in their damnable estate, lacking
the very true Christian faith.
The right and true Christian faith is to
go on in the words of our own
church, which had been the Anglican church at
the time.
He's speaking of their statement of the articles
of faith.
Not only to believe that Holy Scripture and
the articles of our faith are true, but
also to have a sure trust and confidence
to be saved from everlasting damnation by Christ.
It is a sure trust and confidence, which
a man hath in God, that by the
merits of Christ his sins are forgiven, and
he reconciled to the favor of God, whereof
doth follow a loving heart to obey his
commandments.
Now whosoever hath this faith, which purifies the
heart by the power of God, who dwelleth
therein, from pride, anger, desire, from all unrighteousness,
from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, which
fills it with love stronger than death, both
to God and to all mankind, love that
doeth the works of God, glorying to spend
and be spent for all men, and that
endureth with joy not only the reproach of
Christ in being mocked, despised, and hated of
all men, but whatsoever the wisdom of God
permits the malice of men or devils to
inflict, whosoever hath this faith, thus working by
love, is not almost only but altogether a
Christian.
And I'll end that is that I think
if we were to say what's the summation
here?
And I have again that little illustration, it's
faith that worketh by love.
And I think that should be the picture.
That should be the testimony of our lives
as believers.
And as a church here is, if somebody
were to ask what does he believe?
You should say, well, his life is represented
by faith that work, maybe they don't use
those theological terms, but at least that they
know in their heart, it's faith that worketh
by love.
And that should be the essence.
God bless you, brethren.