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of Glory.
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I'm going to continue on the theme that
I've been preaching on, which is the apostasy.
You know, I gave a message, Word to
Apostates, which was the three signs of apostasy.
Lifelessness, lovelessness, and lawlessness.
And then I gave a message on the
false peace of apostasy.
And today I want to talk about the
false religion of the apostasy.
And I'm going to be sharing out a
second Timothy.
Here in a little while, I'll get to
it.
But actually, the title of my message comes
from a phrase in the book of Jude.
The title of my message is, The Way
of Cain.
And the book of Jude is another one
of those sections of Scripture that talks about
the apostasy, the great falling away of the
last days.
And dear ones, we are in the throes
of it right now.
And I hope that this message will make
that a little more real to you today.
Because you need to be aware of the
spiritual atmosphere we are living in.
The way of Cain, or I guess we
could say, the way Cain did religion.
Maybe is another way of saying it.
Let me just recap the story real briefly
about Cain and Abel.
You know the story.
Cain was a tiller of the soil, a
farmer.
And Abel was a keeper of the flocks.
So he probably had a few cows and
sheep and so on.
And Cain probably had a corn crop and
maybe some wheat.
You know, and maybe a nice vegetable garden.
I don't know.
But anyway, he grew things.
You know, even at that early stage, really
ever since their parents sinned in the garden,
God created a sacrificial system, even in those
early days.
And they were told how to do this.
How to bring sacrifices to God in order
to atone for their sins.
And so, you know, Abel brought a sacrifice.
He brought one of his sheep probably.
He killed it and burned it on the
altar.
But Cain brought some of his vegetables or
wheat.
Maybe he brought a big bushel of wheat.
Or maybe he brought a whole bunch of
corn.
I don't know.
But he brought something that he had grown.
And it probably did cost him something.
And he put it on the altar as
a sacrifice to God.
And he lit it up and burned it
up.
And God rejected it.
Why did he reject it?
You know, how ungrateful is that?
I mean, this really cost him something.
But God rejected it.
And, of course, we know the story that
Cain got angry inside, morose, depressed.
And instead of repenting and doing the right
thing, he looked at his brother who was
in the favor of God, receiving the blessings
of God, and he murdered him.
That was his response.
And, you know, maybe I'll do a message
one day.
Because that perfectly describes what's going to happen
before the end comes.
That the apostate church is going to turn
on the remnant and do the same thing
for the same reason.
But that's another message for another time.
But anyway, I want to make a couple
of observations real quick on this story.
Number one is that Cain believed in God.
Cain believed in God.
His parents walked with God in the garden.
But even more than that, he had a
conversation with God.
So I would say he believed in Him,
wouldn't you?
He believed in Him.
And not only that, he did do what
he was told to do, even though he
did it in his own way.
Cain went, you know, a certain length in
obeying the Lord.
But the problem with Cain, and the reason
his sacrifice was rejected by God, was because
he did it his way.
He wanted to create a religion of his
own making.
One that fit his lifestyle or whatever.
This is what I want to say about
this story right here.
This disassociation of belief from full obedience and
true submission is the way of Cain.
That's it right there.
That's the way of Cain.
This separation of belief, believing in God, the
separation of belief from full obedience and true
submission is the way of Cain.
That is the false religion of the great
apostasy right there.
Now we see this tendency really all down
through the ages.
For instance, the children of Israel when they
were out in the wilderness, and Korah and
his followers, they believed in God.
How could they not believe in God after
what they had gone through being emancipated from
Egypt?
How could they not?
Of course they believed in God.
And they obeyed God up to a point.
Up to the point that he demanded that
they trust him, even though their mouths were
dry, their bellies were empty.
He was looking for their trust and they
weren't willing to give it, so they murmured
against him.
And you know what happened?
He destroyed them.
But they believed in God.
King Saul believed in God.
And maybe the example of the Amalekites, the
way he handled them, would probably be a
perfect example of what I'm talking about here
because Saul believed in God.
And he obeyed God up to a point.
But not fully.
It was partial obedience.
And Samuel rebuked him and said, To obey
is better than sacrifice, and to heed than
the fat of rams, for rebellion is as
the sin of divination, and insubordination is as
iniquity and idolatry.
You know, Samuel saw what was in Saul's
heart, that he would do the outward things,
but he was holding back inside.
Judas is another example.
His crime was not in his traitorous kiss.
His crime was that he spent three and
a half years in intimate fellowship with the
God of love and human form.
He was with him day in and day
out for three and a half years.
But even though he had that kind of
fellowship, he rejected the Savior.
That was his crime.
Well, really, this goes down through church history.
It's really nothing new.
And it's what Jesus was referring to when
he said, Not everyone who says to me,
Lord, Lord, you know, not all those who
believe in me will enter the kingdom of
heaven, but he who does the will of
my Father.
And then he goes on to talk about
people who did all kinds of things, prophesying
and casting out demons and performing miracles.
These are believers.
Christians.
Evangelicals.
People sitting around you in the church out
there.
People you know.
But on that day of judgment, he's going
to make a statement to them.
I never knew you.
Depart from me.
Something was missing.
Well, how in the world can a person
believe in God to the point of affecting
her whole lifestyle and the way they do
life and all the things they give up
and sacrifice for the sake of Christianity?
How can a person like that go to
hell?
How could God send someone like that to
hell?
I want to say a couple of things
about the conversion experience because it begins with
enlightenment.
That's where all conversions begin.
We have to come into the light in
some degree.
Now, some people are raised in Christian homes
and they've been in the light their entire
lives.
They've never known anything else.
But that doesn't mean they're converted because at
some point it has to go beyond that.
Other people grow up in an unbelieving home
or whatever and God starts to move in
their life.
In other words, He is calling them.
He's inviting them into His kingdom.
You know the verse where Jesus says, Many
are called, but few are chosen.
That's what we're talking about here.
The many and the few.
There's been an invitation extended because God loves.
He loves people.
And He wants them for Himself.
But not everyone will continue through that process
because as you go through that process, yes,
you become aware of the spiritual kingdom around
you.
You become aware that there really is a
God.
There really was a Jesus Christ.
There really was a Savior who died on
the cross.
And you believe those things.
You accept those things as truth.
But that is meant to bring you to
a point.
And that point is Calvary.
There is no entering the kingdom of God
outside of Calvary, dear ones.
You can't make your own religion and get
in.
Calvary means repentance.
Calvary means denying self.
Calvary means renouncing the right to control your
own life.
It's self-renunciation.
That's Calvary.
It's repentance.
It's the transference of faith from yourself to
Jesus Christ.
That's more than head knowledge.
It means something more than that.
This is what James was trying to explain.
I mean, he had a different purpose in
mind in his second chapter.
But he said, you say you have faith
for you believe that there is one God.
That's good.
Even the demons believe this, and they tremble
in terror.
How foolish.
Can't you see that faith without good deeds
is useless?
There has to be more to the Christian
faith than simply believing in God.
There's got to be something more.
You know, believing in God without submission is
dead faith.
And that kind of faith is not saving
faith because there's been no conversion.
There's been an alteration of a person's life,
but not a conversion.
A conversion, dear ones, is something very dramatic.
Now, I'm not saying it necessarily has to
happen in one big dramatic emotional experience.
That's not what I'm talking about.
But what I am saying is there is
a dramatic change in the person's life, in
the way they think, in the way they
view life, and so on.
I'll tell you where you really see it
is in the New Covenant.
The Lord said it through Ezekiel.
He said, I will give you a new
heart and put a new spirit in you.
I will remove from you your heart of
stone and give you a heart of flesh.
And I will put my spirit in you
and move you to follow my decrees and
be careful to keep my laws.
That's what it means to be born again.
In Jeremiah's version, the Lord said, I will
write my laws on your heart.
Let me put it to you this way.
When you have repented of your sins and
you've exchanged the self life for the Christ
life, something dramatic happens, as I said, and
the Holy Spirit indwells you.
And as part of that indwelling, he inscribes
on your heart a spiritual DNA.
If I could say it like that.
In other words, just like DNA is the
genetic instructions that determines what you turn out
to be, well, it's the same thing with
the new birth.
It's the Holy Spirit inscribes on your heart
a genetic set of instructions that lays out
your entire future for you.
A good place to see it is Ephesians
2.10, for we are his workmanship.
That's that creation of a new being.
We are his workmanship, Paul said, created in
Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared
beforehand so that we would walk in them.
If you have been born again, God has
a path already inscribed on your heart, and
all you've got to do is follow through
with what he has laid out for you.
That is the born again experience, and that's
what Pastor Jeff was referring to when he
was talking about fruit will come forth from
your life.
It has to.
It has to, dear ones, because the spirit
of the living God is indwelling you.
I'm not mad.
You understand that, right?
It's like the longer I go, your heads
just get lower and lower.
I don't mean to beat up on you.
I'm just trying to explain something, and I
get a little passionate about it.
But I want to tell you, man, I
want it to be real to you, the
difference between struggling along in the flesh, never
being able to get the victory, never understanding,
you know, where is the love?
Where is the power?
And some people go year after year after
year living in the light and never experiencing
the power or the love of God within
them.
It's because they haven't crossed that line.
When God Himself indwells your heart, He begins
changing your desires.
He begins influencing your thinking.
He creates a new value system within you.
He begins filling you with love for Himself
and love for others.
It doesn't mean that you all of a
sudden don't have struggles.
It doesn't mean that you're no longer tempted.
It doesn't mean that you don't fail.
That's not what I'm saying.
But something is dramatically different.
There is a power there within you that
wasn't there before.
There is a desire to obey God.
There is a passion for holiness within you
that wasn't there before.
Maybe before you had certain reasons that you
wanted to obey the Lord.
Maybe you felt pressure from those around you
to conform yourself to the way everyone else
looks.
Maybe you felt a pressure on you to
get rid of sin out of your life
or something.
But that's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about something that wells up from
within you like a fountain.
Something that is from outside of you, and
yet it's within you.
I'm talking about what it means to be
born again.
For that to happen, the old system must
be overthrown and a new system installed.
Just keep all that in mind, because now
I want to focus on the great apostasy.
If you want to open up to 2
Timothy.
But I wanted to lay that groundwork for
you, and I'll explain it here in a
little bit.
Because I want to take that spiritual dynamic
of what a true conversion looks like, and
I want to apply it to the end
times.
And what Paul called the great apostasy.
In this passage of Scripture here, in 2
Timothy 3, is one of those passages where
he describes characteristics of the apostate church.
Mostly I'm referring to verses 1-7 and
verse 13.
But I'm not going to read it.
Most of you are familiar with this.
I just want to point out some things
here real briefly, and then I want to
touch on some things.
If you look at these different things that
are expressed about these people, you will notice
that nearly every one of these characteristics is
a heart attitude.
In other words, it's not what people are
actually doing so much as it is what
they are inside.
That's important.
And secondly, these are church people.
In other words, you wouldn't say that unchurched
people are holding to a form of godliness.
You wouldn't say unchurched people are always learning
and never able to come to the knowledge
of the truth.
You wouldn't say that about unchurched people.
These are people in Christian churches that he's
describing.
And, of course, it says it right there.
This is what's going on in the last
days.
This is the corporate mentality of much of
the church in the end times.
And I think that what this is, is
God gave Paul a snapshot to see inside
of people, the majority of the church of
the end times, to get a sight of
the attitudes going on within them.
All right, so anyway, I want to touch
on four phrases here briefly that describe what
these people are in.
And the first you see right off the
bat in verse 2, Now that, you know,
just on a superficial level, that just sounds
like, oh yeah, people are selfish or people
are self-centered.
And that, of course, is true, but it's
something more than that.
Because when you really start studying what the
conversion is in the New Testament, you can't
get away from this whole concept of the
self-life.
When Jesus laid it out, what it means,
the word of the cross, the first thing
he said is, if you want to follow
me, you must deny self.
You must.
You must say no to self.
In other words, self is asking for something
from you, and you have to say no
to it and yes to God.
There is a definite contrast there.
You can't have both.
You can't have two masters on your throne.
You can't serve God and mammon.
It's not possible.
Something has to happen.
And these people that he's describing here, the
self-life is fully intact.
It hasn't been dealt with.
You know, and the bottom line with them
is that they are devoted to self first
and God and others second.
I'm going to just read something here real
quick.
The fundamental difference between a true and false
believer lies in the question of loyalty.
Is he devoted to Christ or to himself?
When it comes right down to it, is
he going to look out for number one,
or will his primary loyalties be to Christ?
Will he do his own will or that
of God?
Will he love self or will he love
the Lord?
Being born again means the person is converted
from a self-centered existence to one which
is becoming increasingly Christ-centered.
That is the message of the cross right
there.
And that's the difference between those who have
transferred their faith from self to Christ and
those who haven't.
Those who have become enlightened but have never
made that transference of faith.
All right, and the second phrase I want
to just touch on here is in verse
5, holding to a form of godliness although
they have denied its power.
This is a dictionary definition.
Form means an external appearance of a clearly
defined area as distinguished from color or material.
So if I could just put it in
my words, a form would be like an
ink drawing, where let's say I drew a
building with pen and ink, but I didn't
fill the color in.
I didn't fill in the details.
You get a sense of what it looks
like.
It's a semblance of a building, but you
don't have the interior of it.
Or maybe even it could be, remember those
old erector sets.
You build an erector set, but there's nothing
inside of it.
It's empty.
That is a form of godliness.
The semblance of godliness is there.
This person looks like these people, these godly
people.
He does kind of the same things, the
same outward actions.
He says praise the Lord.
He sings praise as we heard earlier, but
there's something different.
He's empty inside.
So, you know, a form of godliness is
kind of the semblance of it without the
reality of it.
I'm just going to, again, read something very
briefly out of my book, Standing Firm Through
the Great Apostasy.
In its barest sense, this must mean these
people would have the outward trappings of a
walk with God but lack the inward reality.
One of the terrifying realities of Christianity is
that it is possible for people to live
with an outward semblance of faith while at
the same time they are resisting the inward
work of the Holy Spirit.
People with a form of godliness have opted
for a Christian existence where they convey to
others that they have a viable spiritual life
which they don't really possess.
That's a form of godliness.
That is the way of Cain.
It's the same thing.
You know, it's doing it your own way.
It's being in control of your own life.
It's being the master of your own ship
and yet at the same time attempting to
fit in with others.
All right, number three is found in verse
four.
These people are lovers of pleasure rather than
lovers of God.
And again, I want to get past the
superficial understanding.
The superficial understanding was, okay, they just totally
love pleasure.
These are sex addicts they're talking about.
These are alcoholics or drug addicts they're talking
about.
They really love to snort coke.
Well, you know, that's true, maybe.
I don't know.
But it's something deeper than that.
Come on, this is deeper.
Paul was seeing inside the depths of people's
hearts, living in the church of the end
times.
What he was seeing is deep-seated attitudes.
Let me put it this way.
This is what I believe it means, is
that there's a choice between two paths, and
it's very clear-cut.
Am I going to please self or am
I going to please God?
That's what that means.
Lovers of pleasure, meaning that they live their
lives to please their self-life.
That is the momentum of their heart, if
I could put it that way.
Whereas a true believer also likes pleasure.
I like pleasure.
You know, there's pleasurable things I enjoy.
I like a good meal and stuff.
But it isn't the flow of my heart.
It isn't the foundation of what drives me
in life.
You know, my number one priority is to
please God, to do what's going to be
pleasing to Him.
To obey Him, not just outwardly, but from
my heart.
To live my life in such a way
that He is going to be pleased with
my life, with my thought life, with the
way I speak and treat people, with the
way I do everything in life.
The Apostle John said, you know, I'd never
thought of it this way, but I just
happened to cross this verse and I thought,
wow, I never saw it like this before.
I'll just read it.
If anyone loves the world, the love of
the Father is not in him.
Now think about that.
That bare statement by itself.
If anyone loves the world, if his devotion,
never mind the outward religious facade.
Just get past that.
What's the devotion of his heart?
What is it that excites his heart?
Is it the things of this world?
If that's true, this God of love is
not in him.
I think I can say that.
I think that's right.
But it's still, whether that's what John meant
or not, it's still true.
You know, because you can't have a holy,
loving God indwelling you, filling you, and be
in love with the things of the world.
Have your primary devotion to stuff that pleases
your senses.
Jesus said, where your treasure is, that's where
your heart will be.
And it's just another way of saying exactly
what I'm trying to explain.
I guess I could just put it to
you that way.
What is the treasure of your heart?
What is it that your mind constantly drifts
towards?
What is it that you think about throughout
the day?
You know, what's the predominant thought of your
day?
Are you drawn towards the things of God?
Or are you more likely to be drawn
towards just all that the world has to
offer?
Now, please understand, even when you're converted, there's
still an attraction, okay?
So don't misread what I'm saying or exaggerate
it in your mind.
That's something that takes years to really become
full of a love for God.
But still, when you have been converted, something's
different.
The primary foundational momentum of your life is
towards God and the things of God.
That's where you get the joy and the
thrill and all of that.
Okay, number four, deception.
And we see it in two verses here
at verse 13.
Evil men and impostors will proceed from bad
to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
These two terms, evil men and impostors, really
incorporate the whole unsaved world.
I mean, these are the people who will
inhabit hell forever.
Evil men represents the unbelieving world out there.
People who make no pretense about Christianity.
They don't go to church.
You don't see them in church today.
Impostors, that's just referring to what we're talking
about here.
Impostors are hypocrites.
Impostors are people who are play-acting Christianity,
but they're holding back their heart from God.
Let me just push out the evil men
here for a minute and just look at
what it says.
Take out those first four words, and here's
what it says.
Impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving
and being deceived.
What is the deception?
Well, we'll get to that in a minute.
And look at verse 7.
Always learning, always learning, learning, learning.
Reading books, listening to sermons, reading articles on
the Internet or whatever.
Just learning, learning, filling their minds with more
and more and more information about the Bible,
about the kingdom of God, about spiritual things.
Learning, learning, always learning.
Some of the greatest teachers end up in
hell.
Why?
Because they just have a knack for teaching.
They enjoy learning about stuff.
Whatever.
I don't know what the reason is.
But I do know that this is one
of the characteristics of the apostate church, that
these people are very much concerned about learning.
And yet, they never cross the line into
arriving at that knowledge of the truth.
You know, you can only go so far
in this thing.
You can learn stuff in your head.
But until you have made that full consecration
to God, you can't have that connection of
the Holy Spirit inside you.
There's a whole level of enlightenment that occurs
when you have truly been converted and given
your heart to God.
It's a whole different thing.
That's the knowledge of the truth.
The knowledge of the truth really is Calvary.
The knowledge of the truth is that I
am an utterly sinful person, and I deserve
hell, but God is merciful, and he showed
his mercy to me and many millions of
others on the cross.
2 Thessalonians 2 is another one of the
key passages about the great apostasy.
And let me just read a couple of
verses.
Paul said that apostate Christians are on the
way to perdition because they did not welcome
into their hearts the love of the truth
so that they might be saved.
Another translation said that they are doomed to
destruction because they did not open their minds
to love the truth so as to find
salvation.
And for this cause, God will give them
up to the power of deceit, and they
will put their faith in what is false.
That is the way of Cain.
That's it.
That's the way of Cain, and it's going
to be unfolded in a greater intensity and
a greater way in the days ahead.
But what is the deception?
You see it all through these different things.
The truth is that they are devoted to
themselves and their own cause rather than to
Christ.
The truth is that their relationship with God
is a mere pretense of outward religious activity.
The truth is that in their hearts, they
are only looking to please themselves.
The deception is that in spite of all
of this, they still think they're saved.
All right.
Now, what does all this have to do
with the great falling away?
And this is what I believe.
Let me put it in terms of the
conversion experience.
If you could think of it as going
up a stairway.
You start off by being enlightened, and then
the Holy Spirit begins to convict you of
sin, and then He begins to deal with
you.
And at some point, you have to cross
that line where you make that full surrender,
and you repent of your sins, and you
renounce the self-life, and you allow Jesus
Christ to take control of your life in
a real way.
But before you get to that point, and
this is what happens is many people live
their lives right there, right before they never
cross over because they don't want to.
That's the truth of the matter.
They just don't want to give up their
lives.
They don't mind being religious, but they don't
want to cross that line.
And so what's going to happen in the
end times is, and if I do another
message on this series, I'll be able to
explain this better, but there's going to be
a great pressure from the world system that's
going to turn on the church, the false
church and the remnant.
And that pressure is going to force people
to go one way or the other.
They are either going to give their hearts
and lives over to God once and for
all in a real way, or they're going
to fall down that stairway.
They're going to fall away and just throw
themselves into the world system, take the mark
of the beast and everything else involved.
That's the falling away.
They get up to a certain point, but
because they never pulled the trigger, they never
really crossed the line, when the pressure comes,
they're not going to be able to stand.
They're going to be swept away with all
the other millions.
All right, now to apply this message to
our own situation, what's the answer?
Is the answer to try harder?
No, you can't try harder.
You can't do it in your own efforts.
You can't muster up something inside you to
make it, you know, or whatever.
The answer is surrender.
And just to wrap things up, I want
to read this little portion out of Intoxicated
with Babylon.
Let me just read this because this really
describes what true surrender is.
And I'm cutting right into a paragraph where
I'm talking about something in the Old Testament
as an illustration.
When Ben-Hadad, the powerful king of Syria,
decided he was going to attack the northern
kingdom of Israel, he sent the following message
to King Ahab.
Your silver and gold are mine, and the
best of your wives and children are mine.
The king of Israel answered, Just as you
say, my lord the king, I and all
I have are yours.
When one king surrendered to another, he understood
what it meant.
I and all I have are yours.
It would be an unconditional surrender.
This is what the Christian conversion should resemble.
The person's kingdom has been overthrown by a
new king.
He doesn't come out to face the new
master with a list of conditions.
He's in trouble, and he knows it.
The enormity of his sin overwhelms him.
The magnitude of his crimes against God staggers
him.
The reality of his unworthy condition is too
great to bear.
The knowledge of his utterly lost condition terrifies
him.
He has nothing to offer God.
He realizes there isn't a thing he can
do to save himself.
It is in this condition that he comes
to the king and says, I and all
I have are yours.
There, lying utterly prostrate before God, he is
hoping for one thing and one thing only.
Mercy.
I've done my best to try to share
with you all what I see going on
and why we are in the condition we're
in today, why many of you have never
gotten the victory over sin and so on,
because I believe that something was missing in
your lives.
Something never happened.
You went a certain distance spiritually, but you
didn't complete the job.
Now, I know that many, if not most
of you guys, since you've been here, you
have made that consecration, and you're going on
with God.
It's happened for you inside.
What needed to happen has happened for you,
and you will continue on with God.
You'll have your struggles, I'm sure, when you
get out of here and get thrown back
into the world out there.
You'll have some struggles, but if that true
conversion has really happened, I believe you will
go on with God, and I will see
you one day in glory.
Others, you're still in the process of deciding.
You haven't yet really made that full consecration.
You haven't really made the decision.
And we always want to give you the
opportunity here.
Every meeting is an opportunity.
Just another invitation from the Lord.
Come to me.
Lay it down.
Surrender.
Put up the white flag.
Cease all your resistance.
Let me come in and take control.
There's always that invitation here.
And I do want to have an altar
call.
It may only be because one guy needs
it or something.
That's okay.
I'm not looking for some big emotional thing
today.
But I do want to have an altar
call.
Pastor Jeff, could you lead us in that
song?
I think that would be good.
We're going to sing, I Surrender All, if
you guys could find that.
If you've already had that experience I'm describing,
this altar call is not for you.
But if you're unsure, if you don't know
that you have really made that consecration to
God, then this would be a good opportunity
for you to come down here just quietly
by yourself with the Lord, you and the
Lord, and just give your will to God
once and for all.
Just make that decision.
I'm saying yes to you today, Lord.
I am saying yes to you.
Let's all stand up.
If you feel like you should be down
here to say that prayer, then just come
on down right now.