Matthew 27.57. Matthew 27.57. The title
is, The Three Greatest Deceptions.
And towards the end of the message I'm
going to talk about the three greatest deceptions
that you'll ever be faced with, and that
the culture is actually faced with.
Last week I talked about the mocking voices,
where Jesus was hanging on a cross and
He was mocked before His crucifixion, He was
mocked during His crucifixion, and He's even mocked
after His crucifixion 2,000 years ago, or
2,000 years later.
So what do you do with those mocking
voices?
Have you ever been discouraged?
And mocked, and people just can't believe you
believe in Christianity, can't believe you believe in
Jesus.
What is wrong with you?
Mocking, and you'll be seeing it more in
the news, how people are losing their positions.
I recently read about, six months ago, a
fire chief that was demoted, and school officials
that are demoted, and judges that are demoted,
all because they say, here's what God's Word
says.
And the mocking voices will increase.
So get last week's message if you get
a chance, and it talks about discouragement, and
how to get through discouragement.
And the enemy will use discouraging situations to
knock you off track, and to get you
off track.
That's the whole point of discouragement, because when
you're encouraged, what are you doing?
You're running forward.
I'm running forward, here's what we're going to
do, and then discouragement comes in.
And that's what he uses.
And I shared last week, and when people
talked about Elyse in Lancaster, and Pomdo coming
out here, you know, a lot of discouraging
voices.
Why would you move the church out there?
Even this week, why did you go out
there?
Why did you go out?
Like wherever God leads, wherever God leads, is
where you want to be.
And those mocking voices, they're sent to discourage
you.
That's the whole point.
And sometimes you'll go through things, and you'll
go, that was a waste of time.
And I want to just throw this out
there.
I don't know why, I didn't talk about
this last night.
But whatever God is doing in your life,
it won't be a waste of time, because
He'll use that.
And I thought of this recently, when I
left 24 Hour Fitness.
Many of you know, I worked my way
up the corporate ladder there as a district
manager over multiple fitness centers.
And God brought the prodigal son home.
And I said, oh, thank God.
And my whole mind changed.
Like the Word of God is, you know,
I love this, and now I'm not wanting
to watch country music videos much anymore.
I'm wanting more of God and less of
the world.
More of God, less of the world.
And I felt so bad for, it was
many, many months, if not a year or
two, I wasted the majority of my life.
Throughout my 20s, I wasted.
I ended up working at the fitness chain.
I should have been in God's Word, and
tons of regret.
But then God started to show me how
He used that experience.
Because I was able to lead 150 employees,
and have 150 employees underneath us, and dealing
with equal employment opportunity and sexual harassment cases,
and all these different things.
And that happens a lot in the gym.
And having a huge budget, a $300,000
monthly goal we had to hit every single
month within our district.
And all these numbers, and profit and loss
statements, and income expenditures, and the school of
hard knocks, and hiring hundreds and hundreds of
people, and unfortunately firing hundreds and hundreds of
people over years.
And God used all of this to now,
even what I'm doing now, really a lot
of those things come into play with what
I'm doing.
And I can look at a pastor who's
maybe went through six years of seminary and
say, yeah, but you didn't go through six
years of hell.
And you can have pastoral experience, it's hard
to get that in a seminary.
It's very hard to get real life experience.
Because you have to go through life to
get real life experience.
So once God did that, and He began
to, I just devoured a lot of theology
and the Word of God, and so I
could see how He's bringing all of that
together.
So I said all that to say, don't
despise the day of small beginnings.
Don't despise that I'm going through this, this
is worthless.
I don't care if you're cleaning toilets.
I don't care if you're working somewhere that
you don't want to be.
God will use that to mold and shape
you, if you commit your life to Him.
So Matthew 27 verse 57, after that rabbit
trail.
Now when evening had come, there came a
rich man from Arimathea named Joseph, who himself
had also become a disciple of Jesus.
This man went to Pilate and asked for
the body of Jesus.
Then Pilate commanded the body to be given
to him.
When Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped
it in a clean linen cloth and laid
it in his tomb, which he had hewn
out of the rock.
And he rolled a large stone against the
door of the tomb and departed.
And Mary Magdalene was there, and the other
Mary sitting opposite the tomb.
So let's stop there, just for a minute.
Normally bodies were left on the cross.
Do you know why?
Because they didn't care about these people.
They were usually criminals.
And when you leave a dead body out
for a while, animals will go in that
area and begin to consume the body.
The body rots and all these things.
But because of the Passover coming, all these
people coming into Jerusalem, I don't think the
religious leaders wanted him up on the cross.
That wouldn't look too good, now would it?
It's okay what they did, but they didn't
want people to see this person or these
people hanging on the cross.
So Jesus was taken down and put into
a new tomb.
Spurgeon said this, it was a new tomb
wherein no remains had been previously.
And thus, if he came forth from it,
there would be no suspicion that another person
had arisen.
Empty tomb.
Complete new tomb.
Jesus goes into it.
It's sealed.
A large stone was rolled against the door
so it was sealed.
There's no way you're moving this stone unless
there's a few people with you.
They probably had wood underneath and they could
move it slowly.
There was no big crane trucks you could
call.
No big loaders that you could push.
You had to seal this tomb with manpower.
And I thought about this as well.
Joseph of Arimathea made a significant sacrifice.
He gave God his best.
I think that's a word for us this
morning.
I actually touched a few people last night
when they thought about how often we don't
give God our best.
We kind of give him second best and
usually it's tenth best.
And I often joke about this, but it's
true, so it's really not a joke, but
we are really quick to give our old
washer and dryer to Salvation Army, aren't we?
But the new one, no.
It's not going to a family in need.
We just don't want to take it to
the dump.
So if we don't want to take something
to the dump, there's not a lot of
amens this morning.
This might be hurting a little bit.
But the church is often a place where
people, oh, pastor, would you like this TV?
Well, it's 25 years old.
I don't even think, well, I just want
to give it to the church.
Or do you not want to take it
to get recycled?
See, and we think, you know, I've done
this before.
I go to my whole closet, look, I'm
breaking all these clothes to Grace Resource.
Why don't I go to Sears and buy
some new shirts and take that?
See, that hurts.
And when you're going to give God something,
it has to hurt.
I remember a story in the Old Testament
where David was given a piece of land
to give a sacrifice to God, and the
man said, David, just take it.
And David said, no, I'm going to pay
full price because I'm not going to give
the Lord something that cost me nothing.
And as soon as you can break out
of that shell, and it's a hard shell
to break out of, to give God the
best of your day.
And how I parallel this is often the
mornings.
He should be the priority, not let me
try to squeeze him in when I get
home.
Turn off the evening news so you can
get to bed earlier.
You don't need to know if anything happened
in the news in the morning.
You don't need to know how many new
friends liked your post on Facebook, first thing.
You need to get into God's Word and
spend time with Him.
It doesn't take long.
I actually put on the book of James
as I drove here.
Got through the whole book of James listening
on my phone on the way here.
We can make time to do that.
Now, I'm not trying to, oh, that's wonderful,
Shane.
No, usually I go the opposite direction and
don't listen to things like God's Word.
I listen to worship, but not focusing on
God's Word.
So give Him your best, even of our
finances, right?
Uh-oh, here goes the church again and
finances.
Well, the problem, here's the interesting thing with
money.
If the church talks too much about it,
it's not good.
If we never talk about it, it's not
good.
You have to find a middle ground because
the Bible is full of the middle ground.
Jesus talked about wise stewardship, and I believe
the best thing me and my wife have
ever done since the day we were married
is set apart that initial 10% or
an offering, whatever you want to call it.
God loves a cheerful giver, but it's got
to hurt a little.
It's got to hurt, and that's the best
thing we have ever done.
He's blessed us in so many ways, so
why can't we share that, that God will
bless those who give to Him?
I mean, it's almost like the best kept
secret that nobody wants to talk about or
that everybody wants to talk about.
You know, you've got to give, you've got
to give, you've got to give, and that's
not really a right heart if a church
has to push and push and push.
We should just preach what God's Word says.
So, yes, serving God with our best, it
hurts a little bit.
Our time, our energy, our resources, you've got
to give Him your best if the heart
is right, and it's a struggle for all
of us.
So, from time, from money, from sacrifice, what
about all the scriptures that talk about seeking
God with all of our heart?
Have you ever thought about, seek me with
all of your heart, you will find me?
I don't think we have any clue, most
of us, what that looks like, because it's
not going to be a joy ride.
It's not going to be a walk in
the park.
When you seek God with all your heart,
the flesh will fight you every single step
of the way.
It won't want to get up early.
It won't want to worship.
It won't want to pray.
It won't want to fast.
It won't want to put a prideful attitude
in check.
It won't want to do any of these
things.
So we go around thinking, I'm seeking God
with all my heart.
We're not.
If we're not fighting the flesh, we're probably
not seeking God with all of our heart,
because you can't have both.
You can't fulfill the gratifications of the flesh
and also the fullness of the Spirit.
They don't go hand in hand.
They're actually fighting each other.
Well, Shane, which one wins?
What we've talked about before, whatever one you
feed the most will prevail.
And it's hard to seek God, but it's
worth it.
Verse 62, Pilate sets a guard.
On the next day, which followed the day
of preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees gathered
together to Pilate, saying, Sir, we remember while
he was still alive how this deceiver said,
uh-oh, now Jesus is a deceiver.
This deceiver said that after three days, I
will rise again.
Isn't it interesting?
The Pharisees remember that Jesus said that, but
the disciples didn't.
They're like, oh, what happened?
He's dead.
He's gone.
We're going to go back to fishing.
Our Lord and Savior were so depressed.
They didn't remember, but the Pharisees remember that
Jesus said, after three days, I will rise
again.
Therefore, command that this tomb be made secure
until the third day, lest his disciples come
by night and steal him away and say
to the people, he has risen from the
dead.
See, that's what they were worried about, that
they were going to come and steal the
body and say he was risen from the
dead.
And the Pharisees said, so the last deception
will be worse than the first deception.
Now, obviously, it wasn't deception.
What was the first deception according to them?
According to them, all of the nation of
Israel just about was following after this man,
Jesus.
They're following him.
They said, we're going to lose our temple.
We're going to lose our home.
We're going to lose our religion.
Everybody is following this man, Jesus.
This is a huge deception.
We're jealous.
We're envious.
We've got to stop him.
We've got to silence his voice.
Let's crucify him.
Let's bring in false witness.
Let's crucify him.
We got rid of that deception.
Well, no, you didn't.
So the next deception that's going to be
worse is if he actually is, it's believed
that he raises from the dead.
That will be worse than the first deception.
Because why would that be worse?
Well, it might carry on a couple thousand
years.
And millions of people might be changed and
converted.
And they're worried about this deception.
So this is interesting for all those people
who don't believe in the resurrection.
You can read secular historians.
Josephus is one.
Other people who wrote during the time of
this Roman dominance over Israel is that they
say this man, Jesus, existed.
He was a true historical figure.
He was crucified.
He died.
He had disciples.
Many miracles were attested to him.
So he's an historical figure.
So you can't just say, oh, he was
an imagination or he was a fairy tale.
No, he was real.
So what do you do with that real
fact?
That's why C.S. Lewis said he's either
a liar, he's a lunatic, or he's the
Lord Jesus Christ.
Those are your options.
And there's not a month that goes by
I don't run into somebody who says, well,
he was a good teacher.
No, that's not a fourth option.
A lunatic, liar, the Lord, or a good
teacher.
Because that can't be an option.
He was a terrible teacher if he wasn't
the Lord.
He was a liar if he wasn't the
Lord.
So you have to, all of us in
this room, all of us hearing this later
on the radio, wherever this goes out, you
have to answer that question.
Lunatic, liar, or Lord?
They knew he was going to, his disciples
were going to say he was risen from
the dead.
So Pilate said to them, you have a
guard.
Go your way, make it as secure as
you know how.
Then they went and made the tomb secure,
sealing the stone and setting the guard.
So what happened?
The stone was put against this tomb.
It was sealed, somehow, with the signet maybe
of Caesar, knowing nobody could break that seal.
And you had Roman guards guarding this tomb.
This would be equivalent to the Navy SEALs.
Guarding, you think they're just going to fall
asleep or let somebody steal it?
Especially disciples who are scared.
Can you imagine disciples coming against Roman guards?
They have no passion or courage.
Their Savior is in a tomb, dead.
So who's going to come steal the body
and try to get past these guys?
It's impossible.
I want to talk about this theory for
a minute.
I don't know if it's popular anymore.
It was maybe 20, 30 years ago.
It's called the swoon theory.
When they said, well, he was still alive.
So the Jews are acknowledging that he died,
correct?
They're not going to say when he was
still alive if they didn't think he was
dead.
So a swoon theory, swooning is fainting from
extreme emotion.
Do you know what that word means?
I probably should clarify that word.
Swooning, like if I'm swooning and I fall
over from extreme exhaustion.
So people said, it's called the swoon theory,
if you can believe this, that Jesus actually
fainted because of all the trauma he went
through.
So the disciples nursed him back together, or
back to health.
A humorous letter written to the editor of
Christian Magazine says it all.
Dear Eutychus, our preacher said on Easter that
Jesus just swooned on the cross and that
the disciples nursed him back to health.
What do you think?
Sincerely bewildered.
Dear bewildered, beat your preacher with the cat
of nine tails, with 39 heavy strokes, nail
him to a cross, hang him in the
sun for six hours, run a spear through
his heart, embalm him, put him in an
airless tomb for 36 hours and see what
happens.
Sincerely, Eutychus.
Isn't that true?
I mean, see how deceived we get?
But I've talked to people who believe that
he came because they can't, it's impossible, people
say it, but it's impossible to say, well,
it's just a fairy tale.
Jesus never existed, those cities never existed, nothing
ever existed.
It's a fairy tale.
Well, you can go and you can find
where David lived and you can find the
garden, you can find general areas of these
things, you can see everywhere where Jesus walked,
where he talked, he was a historical figure,
history records it.
Now conversely, the Book of Mormon, for example,
you can't find anything in there.
You can't find the kingdoms, you can't find
the cities, you can't find the tools that
were used, you can't find the golden tablets
that apparently Joseph Smith found and the glasses
that he used to read them, you can't
find anything.
Now that is a fairy tale.
That is this person making this up, starting
a religion and leading thousands, if not millions,
astray to a different gospel.
Paul said, if an angel from above or
anybody else preaches another gospel than what we
have preached, let him be anathema, which means
accursed.
Do you know who spoke to Joseph Smith
and gave him this revelation?
An angel of light.
And the Bible also says that the enemy
can deceive you by becoming an angel of
light.
To be careful, to be on guard, to
not be deceived.
And it cracks me up, people say, why
do you say that Shane, you're going to
offend Mormons?
No, I want to wake them up.
If I didn't love them, I wouldn't say
a darn thing.
But I want people to be challenged.
And sometimes you need a hit in the
face, whoa, what was that?
Did he just say what I think he
said?
We just got an email last week, I
can show you if you want, I'll get
her permission.
She just came out of a lifetime of
being a Jehovah witness because she heard a
message on YouTube that says seven traits of
a false teacher.
And now she doesn't want to know what
to do because her husband and kids are
still caught in that religion.
You got to slap people in the face,
that's how you wake them up sometimes, not
physically.
But you got to, what did he just
say?
I can't believe he said that right because
the truth hurts.
It goes right to the heart.
That's how you get people to change.
Who, an angel or an unconverted person, would
not even be able to get through the
first few chapters of the gospel without being
convicted.
Conviction is a very healthy, natural thing.
And even people to this day, if you
tour the nation of Israel, that whole area,
it's changed some of the demographics since when
Jesus was there, but they'll still say that
the body was stolen.
Even to today, they came and took his
body.
And I've talked about this before, but maybe
it'll strike some of you at a different
angle that weren't here.
But imagine this for a minute, because we
have to say Jesus was real, he was
an historical figure, there was a body put
in the tomb.
Now if that body was taken, why did
his disciples, why did many of them were
martyred for their faith?
Why is that?
Because if somebody captures you, hey, tomorrow your
head's coming off.
If they hid the body, I don't know
about you, but they're probably like, okay, it's
in the field behind the Joshua tree, I'm
not going to die for this lie.
But they died and they will continue to
die because the faith is genuine.
Those people you're seeing being martyred, many different
nations, they're dying for their faith, they're dying
for the truth.
You say, oh, Shane, let me stop you
right there.
What about terrorism?
Same thing.
No, they're killing because of their faith.
It's much different than people being killed because
of their faith.
You see the difference?
They think there's truth, so they're killing.
Others know it's truth and they're dying.
Nobody's going to die for a lie unless
they believe it to be true.
And these people saw, the only way they
would die for their faith is they saw
the resurrected body.
They saw the empty tomb.
They saw the Roman soldiers.
When Roman soldiers go running back to the
religious leaders and they say, here's what happened,
an angel appeared, the stone was rolled away,
Jesus was resurrected.
And I would have thought the religious leaders
would have said, oh my God, we repent,
we killed the Messiah.
What did they say?
Shh, shh, shh, here's some money.
If anybody says anything, we'll just tell them
that they took his body.
The height of deception.
It's called spiritual pride.
Spiritual pride.
You're blinded spiritually.
You can't see the things of God because
of that.
That's one of the great deceptions.
So the last deception is worse than the
first.
Let me talk about the three deceptions.
Number one, there is no God.
There is no God.
And many of you know the term, it's
atheism, right?
Atheism just means without deities.
There's nothing higher out there.
It's void of that.
All of this happened by random chance.
And it's really science versus God is what
it boils down to.
You have the science side over here and
you have the God side over here.
And atheism runs to this side.
Science, science, science.
But ironically, doesn't science confirm God?
Can't we have both?
I mean, you'll be hard pressed to find
anything in science that goes against scripture.
And you can email me on that.
Anything.
It just hasn't been revealed yet probably.
Well, what about this?
What about this?
You can't trust science.
If I had time, I could read what
science believed a hundred years ago.
I mean, we can go back even when
they thought cigarettes were good for you.
I mean, to get rid of an ailment
on your skin, you mix cat dung with
the blood of a something back in Egypt.
After working with the corpse, they would go
and then deliver a baby.
And the woman would die or the child
would die.
What's happening here?
Somebody read the Bible that you should wash
your hands in Leviticus.
And they washed their hands and they stopped
that plague.
I mean, who are you going to trust
here and believe?
Science has changed and continues to change and
continues to change.
It'll eventually catch up to the Bible.
It never contradicts itself because you read biology
books and you read science books.
It confirms a lot of what is already
in the Bible.
But they believe that there is no God.
And here's the main reason.
Atheism, and I was reading on Richard Dokken
and Ben Russell, a British philosopher.
They say this, if you can believe that
God has always existed, right this side, why
can't I believe in evolution?
That's a pretty good question, right?
If I can just believe that there's a
God who's always existed, nobody created God, why
can't you, why can't I believe that all
this just happened?
Same thing, right Shane?
No, big difference.
Big difference.
And I'm going to explain why in a
minute.
Bernard Russell said this, why I'm not a
Christian.
He said it's because I could never answer
the question who created God.
And I wanted, wish I could talk to
this guy, but he died in 1970.
And say, no, that's not your question.
Your question is, I don't want there to
be a God.
That's your statement.
That's what they're saying.
I don't want there to be a God.
So we'll hide behind this, well, who created
God?
Well, who created humans?
Well, who created God?
Well, who?
To me, it takes ten times more faith
to believe that all this just happened.
That there is no God.
Richard Dokken in The God Delusion said the
same thing.
Philip Adams said the following at a 2010
global atheist convention in Melbourne, Australia.
The great argument for God was that there
had to be a creation, a beginning.
But my objection was simple.
If God was the beginning, then who began
God?
And that's their stumbling block.
That's what they stumble on.
But here's, on this point, I know it
hopefully won't get too confusing, but this is
a valid question, is it not?
Well, who created God?
I mean, well, he lives outside of space
and time.
He doesn't, you know, I'm fine with struggling
with that, because the other thing I'd have
to struggle with is this.
Well, who made all of us?
How did this just happen?
Think about this.
The brain, 15 to 20% of our
cardiac output from our heart per minute goes
to the brain.
Even the energy in the brain could light
a light bulb.
There's 100 billion neurons.
The highest concentrated area of fat is in
the brain.
All these brain facts I was reading on,
it's amazing to say that that just started
itself.
And then was that, okay, no, that didn't
start, little amoebas started and proteins.
Okay, well, did they have a heart or
a brain?
No, that came later.
Okay, well, it just doesn't make any sense.
And then was the first person a male?
And then a female later?
I mean, how did nothing know how to
do that?
And you just look, I mean, look at
the eye.
The eye is amazing.
The eyelids are window wipers.
Did you know that when you blink, it's
cleaning the eye?
And when you're crying, if there's water, it
actually goes down a little funnel into the
nose, and that's how the eye, so when
people are crying, why is their nose runny?
Because the water, eyebrows to protect.
All this is just perfect creation.
To say that came from a little premortal
ooze is ridiculous.
It's foolishness.
That's why the Bible says the fool has
said in his heart, there is no God.
You have to look at the brain.
You look at the heart.
You look at everything just firing, firing, firing.
What keeps it together?
Nothing.
A creator.
There's nothing valid to that.
I'm going to actually quote Charles Darwin.
What do you think?
To suppose that the eye, with all its
ability to adjust focus, to differentiate distances, for
admitting different amounts of light into it and
correcting the spiritual alterations, to say that that
could have been formed by natural selection seems,
I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible
degree.
So the man who just wrote Darwinism, who
promoted Darwinism, who wrote his book, who's led
millions astray, looks at just the human eye,
just the human eye, and he's struggling with
that?
Well, what about the heart?
What about the lungs?
What about the liver?
What about planet Earth and the sun and
Jupiter?
What about all these things?
It's because, and it continues to happen to
say today, I don't want there to be
a God.
I don't want to bow my name to
the Lord Jesus Christ.
I don't want to admit that there is
something better than me and I need to
humble myself and repent and confess my faults.
I don't like that.
Well, sir, it doesn't matter what you like.
It matters what is true.
And every knee will bow.
Every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord, that there is a God.
Do you think Charles Darwin is an atheist
right now?
What do you think he would say if
he could come back at all these atheist
conferences?
Repent.
There is a true, I mean, just think
about it.
If you're on the fence, just think about
it.
Look at the body.
Do you know if we didn't have thumbs,
how hard it would be to grab anything,
a baseball bat?
Cut off a few toes, you can't even
walk.
I mean, everything is just perfect, perfectly created.
The eyebrows, the ears take in, the eyes
connected to the brain.
There's actually no feelings in the brain because
it's disseminating all this information, remembering, adjusting the
distance.
All this just happened from a little amoeba,
a little single cell something.
My goodness, that frustrates me.
That's foolishness.
So, yeah, who created God?
Well, nobody.
He's been in existence since eternity past.
He'll be in existence.
I don't understand that, but I'm sure not
going to jump on this side and say
that my great, great, great, great, great, great
grandfather was a tadpole.
Well, look at how close monkeys resemble us.
Well, God just decided to make something that
resembled closer to a human than an elephant
does.
My goodness, folks, this is ridiculous, but it's
getting away from God.
That's why you'll see, that's why everything is
becoming more militant, more militant.
People are getting upset, and over the lesbian
and bi and transgender, the agenda they have,
and that's a hard issue because we love
people that struggle with that, same-sex attraction.
We minister to them often, whether you know
it or not, but the agenda is what
I'm concerned about.
The agenda that's silencing Christian colleges, the agenda
that's wanting to silence the pulpit, the agenda
that's wanting to teach your little kindergartner that
it's okay to choose to be something else
than what God designed you.
I have a problem with that.
That should not be happening.
If you struggle with this, yes, we'll pray
for you.
We all struggle with something, but don't push
the sin on the culture and on the
church.
That's wrong.
Back on track.
It's funny, I spoke at a local event
here.
I won't say the name of it, but
they said I'll probably never be asked to
speak again.
I told the person that told me that,
I said, you know what, you might want
to go check out my sermons and do
a little research before you ask me to
share my heart for ten minutes.
Hello?
I mean, put a bull in a china
shop and tell them not to break glasses.
Now, if people tell me, I mean, I
remember Mike Antonovich's office, right when I got
down there a couple years ago, said, don't
mention Jesus and any of that when you
pray, and of course I did it.
I've never been asked down there again, but
you have to be cordial.
I understand people say, hey, this, and you
know, you're cordial to that, but you can't
mention these things.
What are we supposed to talk about?
What in the world are pastors supposed to
talk about?
Because I'm tired of talking about the daisies
and the roses and all this stuff that
doesn't do anything.
We're on the road to hell and all
we want to talk about is happy things.
Make us feel happy.
Do you know that's what they were saying
2,000, 3,000 years ago too?
Elisha.
You know the prophet Elisha?
He was not well liked.
He would challenge the people and even the
king said, oh, you wicked Elisha, you troubler
of Israel.
Because he would call the nation to repentance.
They don't want to hear it.
They're going to silence that.
It's their agenda.
That's the goal.
So the second deception, I won't spend too
much time here because I already did earlier,
is there's no resurrection.
There's no resurrection.
Many people believe in God, but not Jesus.
This is interesting, isn't it?
They'll believe in God, but not Jesus.
And I've thought about that a lot in
talking to people.
I think a lot of it boils down
to this, because when I can say, I
believe in God, then God can be whatever
I want.
He can be whatever, right?
I believe in God.
I believe in a higher, oh, obviously, Shane.
I mean, most people say, obviously, that's just
didn't happen.
There's a higher power out there.
He's in the trees.
And he's there because you have to see
something.
And I spoke in a memorial here a
couple weeks ago.
The couple that met and the man passed
away, John, they actually met in rehab.
And I don't know where it was, maybe
down in L.A. But it's interesting now,
you'll see even a lot of those places,
AA or different things, they'll change from what
it was built 60 years ago.
Now it says, we surrender our will to
God as we understand him.
And it's underlined.
It's like, okay, make sure, make sure, you
know, this is how, because they're getting, why?
Why?
Because it's the resurrection that conquered hell, death,
and the grave.
It's the resurrection that the enemy was finally
defeated, because Jesus is coming into Jerusalem, into
Israel, making all these signs, all these miracles.
Demons are fleeing.
Demons are getting out left and right.
He's walking the landscape there.
They've never felt this type of spiritual activity
before.
So Satan says, I've got to get him
out of here.
There's a plot.
There's a plan.
The resurrection, the crucifixion.
Yes, we got him.
All hell is cheering.
Are they not?
You don't think the devil is going, oh,
we've got him.
We've got him.
The plans are thwarted.
And here comes Sunday.
Oh, no.
Here comes the empty tomb.
The word is spread.
Hell, death, and the grave were conquered.
He gave the final sacrifice to Telios on
the cross.
It is finished.
It is done.
Thank you, Jesus.
Amen.
Let's say that sometimes.
We get more excited over Colby, and the
Lakers, and the Packers, and all this stuff.
I can't always get excited, but when it
comes to Jesus, we're just bored to death.
Isn't it sad, though?
It's sad.
Why?
Because there's something wrong in the heart.
If there's not excitement for God, sometime throughout
the day, something is wrong in the heart.
And usually, it's because the world has infiltrated
us, and we're too busy for God.
We're too busy for the things of God.
And I just talked to a pastor this
week, and he said he's seeing the same
trend.
He's been in ministry 30 some years.
Thirty years ago, it used to be every
Sunday, you could see people.
And now, it's maybe twice a month.
You know, that's the new trend.
Maybe once a month.
And he said he had a person come
up to him and said, Pastor, I haven't
been here for three weeks, and you didn't
even call me.
I said, that's typical of just about everybody.
How we can't gauge anymore, we don't know.
And we wonder why the church is dead.
We wonder why worship is stifled.
We wonder why we just go through life,
and things are boring.
We don't get passionate about God.
I mean, I read the book of Acts,
and I'm embarrassed.
In an upper room for ten days?
Who has time for that?
Ten minutes.
Ten minutes I can do.
Ten days.
And we see them just going through the
land with joy and being beaten.
And they're happy?
I mean, golly, if somebody beat me up,
I think the old school might come out.
And like, okay, you're going down, right?
But that's just the grace of God has
to come in and change your heart.
Don't worry.
I pray that that would not happen.
I pray that I could lovingly take it
like Jesus would take it.
But you have to look at the resurrection.
Either it happened or it didn't.
And the interesting thing is, the resurrection, the
tomb, it didn't happen in, you know, Canada
or America, where the Native American Indians and
people didn't have any clue.
It happened right there in Israel, right there
where Jesus was teaching.
So if there was any tomfoolery, the people
would know.
You couldn't just go hide a body, steal
it, and do all these things.
It was clear that either he rose from
the dead or you have a challenge on
your hand.
And the Jews didn't deny that it was
an empty tomb, did they?
The Jews, nobody ever denied.
Read the Bible.
They did not deny the tomb was empty.
So the tomb was empty.
So that's your two choices.
Either his body was taken, nobody ever found
it, people died, they were killed, they were
beheaded, they were stabbed because they hid the
body, or he rose from the dead.
Those are the two choices.
You can't try to find a nice middle
choice here.
Those are the two choices we have to
deal with.
And then the final thing is, the third
deception, is the wrong God.
The wrong God.
It resembles number two, but these people conjure
up many different deities like Hindus.
They believe in a supreme God, but they
also believe in higher advanced spiritual beings, so
they worship millions, many different gods.
The Romans back in Jesus' time believed in
many different gods and goddesses.
Mars Hill, for example, was the god of
war.
Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, and all these
different goddesses.
Why is that?
Here's why.
Every person on the planet has the heartbeat
of worship, and you have to direct it
somewhere.
People direct it to drugs, alcohol, illicit sex,
they worship idolatry, or they direct it to
God.
Or these many other nations direct it to
these false gods, these false deities.
They have to.
It's like telling you you can't drink water,
you can't breathe oxygen, saying you can't ever
worship anything.
There's a heartbeat there.
It's almost like there was a union between
man, God and man, Adam, and then that
fall came, the union broke.
But there's this Abba Father, there's this something
crying out that I have to connect to
God.
Now we are fallen, we are depraved, I
got it.
But God's image in us is not erased,
it's effaced, it's damaged.
There's a difference.
We're still created in the image of God,
and there's something there, so people are searching
for that.
I just want to have a little fun
on this one.
Also in Greek mythology, there's something called the
siren.
It entices sailors to their death and destruction
through obsession and addiction.
Anybody know what the siren is?
Drive through Starbucks and look at their logo.
There you go.
So every morning you can look at the
siren, right there on the cup.
Wow, there's not very many amens on that
one either.
So you can do whatever you want with
that one.
I'm just saying it's funny that your logo
is Greek mythology that entices you to it
through addiction.
I mean, nobody is addicted to Starbucks, right?
I mean, the lines just never end.
The highest trading coffee establishment on the planet.
So that's the question.
Back to the ending here.
Do you believe that Jesus is who he
said he is?
Do you believe?
So I want to just throw this out
there.
Stop living your life with the question mark
here.
For some of you, this might not apply.
You might just say, amen, amen, you're preaching
to the choir.
Well, the choir needs a little preaching too,
sometimes.
We have to stop living our life with
the question mark here.
Maybe a few of you, maybe nobody, maybe
somebody hearing this later.
You are living your life with the question
mark here.
I'm not sure.
And you do not want to be buried
six foot under saying, I'm not sure.
Because you will be sure at that point.
There's no going back.
And all you have to do is you
pray, Lord, Jesus, God, God, if you don't
know Jesus, God, I want to know you.
I want to know you.
Help me understand these things.
I'm confused.
I have questions.
It's okay to have questions.
I have questions.
I have questions all the time.
How can God be sovereign?
Yet how can we have a choice in
anything?
How can he allow certain things, but yet
his sovereign plans will prevail?
Questions are okay as long as you take
it to the right source.