No Other Place On the Earth Like It
Where the Great Plains Prairie & Grassland Meets the Rugged Badlands Wall
M Paulson
Kadoka, South Dakota
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Word-for-word transcription of the audio sermon - transcribed by Bob Harris |
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Part IV Deceptions Taught
from Today's Pastors
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We are in a process, and it’s going to turn out to be, as they always seem to do here, a series or a direction that kind of all ties into the same thing. And we started this thing off about a week or so ago, by looking at the Old Testament, how they had no shepherds. And when the Lord saw them in the Gospels, which is still Old Testament, he had compassion on them. But those people that had no shepherd at the time had their problems. They had their issues, and it’s the same issues we’re having today.
However, what we started to look again, again, is what Paul said about the false teachers today. Because there are people that have no shepherd, but they don’t realize it. They think they do.
And, first of all, we want to remind everybody again, never are Christians referred to as “sheep,” and never is a pastor referred to as a “shepherd.” That is Old Testament terminology, that is Gospel terminology, and that is Tribulation terminology. Paul never calls us “sheep.”
Really, there’s no reason for us to be as dumb as sheep, as pastors like to put it, because we have a Bible today. And what do they had in Paul’s day? They had a man who had met the risen Saviour, so there was no reason to be ignorant, or, you know, stupid or whatever. And there is no reason today.
Now, we can be deceived, and that’s what we’re going to look at. We look at Sunday, let’s see, this is Wednesday night — I hope you can to look at this thing Wednesday night, as you’ve heard it before. We started to look at what Paul says about these false teachers today, these pastors that are in the pulpits and what they’re preaching and what they’re teaching, and he had a lot of warnings about it, a lot of descriptions, “sleight of men,” etc., “who’s bewitching you,” and all that sort of a thing. And he really puts the hammer down on these pastors.
And, again, I need to say it again, people love their pastor. Is that a deception, or does the guy mean well? Well, the guy — or gal — means well, in many cases, but not always. Some are deceived, and they don’t know any better, and there are those who are deceiving with what they’ve been deceived with. We just pass on down our deception. Been there, done that.
So, there’s nothing better than a King James Bible, rightly divided, not according to mid-Acts, not according to hypers, not according to — I can’t think of the guy’s name anymore — just, you sit down, read your Bible. I even hate to keep saying the word “rightly divided,” because it’s just very simple. Old Testament — the Gospels, Old Testament — Acts 1 to 8, Great Commission — Acts 9 — Paul, but Paul’s got some Jews mixed in there with him for awhile. And then you get into Paul’s teachings, we look at the Gentiles and the Jews can listen too if they want. And, when we get all done with that stuff, Paul faught the good fight, and then it goes into the Tribulation, and that’s where Peter, John, and James become important with their writings, and et cetera, et cetera.
It’s just straight through your Book dispensationally. But everybody makes denominations out of this thing. Now you even look at the Paul world. We’ve got people, we’ve got men especially — well, I know we’ve got people, because the ladies are running most of the Paul churches I’ve seen and read on the Web site and know about, pretty much the women are running the ship. Or, there’s a pastor there, but the women are actively involved as well as actively immodest, actively loud, actively out of place. But everybody loves their pastor.
So I’m not trying to knock that this morning, although I am. We are looking at what Paul says about these people. And you know what these people do? They deceive people. And so I though what we’d do this morning is, we’re going to continue on with the Paul descriptions.
Now, probably not tonight, because I probably won’t get through this thing this morning, back to Wednesday again, and if you can’t make it Wednesday night, I hope you take the time, I don’t know why you wouldn’t, I don’t understand why a man would take a sermon off a cassette — or, boy, that’s old-fashioned — off the Web site and listen to it on their own, unless they really want to be fed and really want to do something about it. So, I don’t see much of that, but I’m glad you guys are here. I hope you take a chance to listen to Wednesday night. Because certainly Wednesday night had to do with what Paul says that we have a lot of instructors but very few fathers as pastors.
And the father is the one who cares, who comforts. He exhorts, he comforts, and he charges. It’s a fanastic verse. Because most fathers are glad to exhort. They love to preach to their kids. They love to preach at their kids, and to them, and, you know, just burn them with their preaching, because they can’t be a parent. So they hide behind the preaching, and they preach at them during the sermon. And they’re good at charging. They don’t know what to charge them for their lives, because they want to charge the girls to be good sports stars; maybe they’ll get a scholarship. And the sermon goes on and on.
But as a comforting thing, most fathers, all they know how to do to comfort their kids is to buy them something. Buy them some fancy type game, buy them some new video, buy them some new game, some new gun or something, you know. But they comfort them as they’re growing up. And they comfort the family in these hard days. Very few ever do that.
So that was the sermon for Wednesday night. I encourage fathers to listen to that. Unless you’re happy with your father and you don’t want to hear anything else.
So, this morning, as I’ve been thinking about these pastors that are deceiving people, I just started coming up with these thoughts about, well, what’s being taught in the church that is so deceptive. What are we looking at here that is deceiving to people? And the list just started to flow from my fingers. I mean it wasn’t hard to recognize things that are being taught — some of which I taught a whole while ago.
So, let’s look at some of the deceptions that are going on in the local church today. And we probably pretty much know most of these; we’ve been over these, we know the verses. But let’s look at it here anyway. The sad thing here about these deceptions that are going on within the church, the church has become such an addiction to Christians, and such a blinded leader. We have to go to that church; we have to go to church, even if, well, there’s a good intent there.
But, let’s say there are six restaurants in town, and you’re just lazy, and you don’t want to fix your own meals, so you go to these restaurants. What if you find out that there’s poison in these restaurants? Ahh, MSG, RSG, PBA, I mean, you know, whatever they’ve got in these restaurants, and they’re poison. And people are getting sick. And you find out how sick they’re getting.
And you say, “Well, you know, but I like the cook. He’s a nice guy. I don’t want to hurt his feelings.” Or, “I like the waitress.” Or, “I like the atmosphere.” “I want to support the local restaurant association. I’m too lazy to fix it at home.” Or, you recognize what’s going on out there, and you decide, “You know, I’m staying home and fixing my own meals. I can’t keep being poisoned like that.”
And then you see the guy who cooked downtown a couple months ago, and he says, “Hey, I haven’t seen you around the restaurant for awhile.”
“Oh, I know, I’ve just been, you know —”
Well, tell him him! “Well, it’just been because of the chemicals you put in your food, or you’re a lousy cook, but you’re a nice guy, do you want to go golfing? Let’s go do some shooting of some prairie dogs. But I don’t want you to fix ‘em, because you’ll poison me with them,” or, “You’re such a lousy a cook.”
This is what we’ve got going on. Then, beyond the deceiving part, is we know the people that know the cooks are poisoning people, and they just go anyway. They just know that. That’s an amazing thought. Is that not amazing? But we do it all the time with our churches.
God gave us a Bible, and it took many of years for it to come about, and, yes, before 1611, before God gave us this thing in written format like this in a preserved written format — “that which is perfect is come” — then, yeah, God showed people things. He showed them in part. And we’ll get into that.
So, there’s no reason for us to attend a church today where the pastor is a deceiver. Nobody’s perfect. But if he’s teaching poison, we pass this religion, we pass this poison onto our kids. I pass this onto my kids, and they wise up to it — unfortunately, they tossed it all out.
We stay in these places, we encourage people to stay being deceived.
I’ve come to realize from this educational job I have, that the masses, the general population, wants somebody to do something for them. They want the government to pay their way, they want the educational system to teach their kids, they want the pastor to be the liaison — is that the word? — between them and God. And they’ll eat what the pastor tells them because it doesn’t taste bad.
The masses in the political thing, they’ll just vote what the media talks them into voting. The media will choose this next president, knowing that the devil will as well, the god of this world.
So it’s not surprising the church is what it is today, still. But this King James Bible, as it does everything, authoritatively exposes this deception.
Let’s go to Romans 16:18. Enough of my introduction here. We’ll pass on this religion to the kids; we’ll encourage in there and continue to be deceived and stay out of their Bible.
And here’s the other point, before we get to this Romans 16 verses, we glorify these pastor guys. And the Bible says they’re evil men. He tells us to avoid, from such turn away, that type of thing. And they’re Dianas, is what they are. They’re deceiving the people. And we glorify them. I don’t know how many people will believe what their pastor says, even though the Bible says such-and-such. They got a degree, whatever. They’re an instructor, but they’re not a father.
So what do the pastors do today when they say they’re fathers? Oh, well, “Let’s put in a parking lot.” “Let’s put in some games. Let’s put in a coffee thing in the back. Let’s have a soft, nice sermon, family time. Let’s have some great, fun music, OK? Let’s have activities that are fun, like Santa shoot and Easter bunny shoot” — trying to win the people with activities. Not that activities are bad. Santa shoot and the Easter bunny shoot was pretty good — we had a good time with that.
We were about to get into a Michael Jackson shoot, and we were about to get into a, we’d have a Martin Luther King shoot or something on Martin Luther King day, but those weren’t going to be received very well out here at all. So, you know, if I did this again, I’d have a prairie dog shoot, I’d have a snake shoot, snake hunt, you know, whatever. But that’s the deception that’s going on in the churches. Pastors are — well, we should get into the specific things here.
So they become their popes. Pastors have become their popes. And I’ll tell you, don’t anybody say “Amen” unless they’re Bible-reading on their own, and they’re not just believing what a pastor says, from a Paul-pastor. There are Paul-pastors out there who are just as popish as anybody else. They truly are.
You know, the rightly-dividing thing is not difficult. It is not complicated. It’s an obvious, makes-common-sense kind of a thing. And these mid-guys get into this, when the church began, all this kind of stuff, and they get into these doctrinal sermons that would be doctrinal discertations, I dare them to go through Timothy and Titus and put it on their people. I dare them to go through the music thing.
I know the one big hope for the mid-Acts guys — I can never think
of this guy’s name — called me up one day and wanted me to give him permission
to use my music stuff. I say, “You don’t have to ask for my permission,
but I’m glad you’re —” I can’t even think of the guy’s name. Ah!Ah! Anyway,
he’s like the big pope of all the mid-Acts guys in the country, and I wanted
to find out ever what he did with the music, and somebody wrote to me and
said, “Well, he did the music stuff, but he sure didn’t —”
Well, good morning, Web site folks, we missed the first couple of minutes, so if you want to get into the first introduction here, you have to go to the audio. But from here on out we’ll be just getting ready to start. But you missed the introduction — which I’m sorry about that. Typical me, always got something I don’t turn on.
So, anyway, there’s still deceptions going on, even within the Paul churches. My thought is, that if you can have enough people to gather into a church in a local community these days, amongst this falling away, amongst this not interested in the goodness of God stuff that seems to be prevalent everybody, and you can actually get a church together, with a building and the whole thing, something must be wrong. You must be backing up in some of the teaching. Because there are few ladies who like to hear Titus preach to them, or Timothy preached to them like they should be. There’s few men who want to step up to the plate, let alone know how. But they all like to sit around and have their itching ears tickled about doctrine. They all like to know that they’re right with Paul. They all like to know that they’re learning.
And what has it done to change their life? I mean, Paul’s direction, Paul’s ministry is to change our day-to-day life. Our manner of life should be totally different than the world’s.
And I know few people — you folks on the Web site — I know few people out there that really want to change their lives. Or, if they change their lives, it’s fun for awhile, but then it gets all tough, and losing your friends, and you just get tired, you get worn down. But if you go to these Paul churches — well, you can still go to church, you can still have the fun music, you can dress the way you want — and the guy’s going to teach grace. “Hey, it’s OK!”
He doesn’t teach them that, “You know, that stuff that you’re wearing, that stuff that you’re doing, it’s all gonna burn at your Judgment Seat? Oh, but that’s OK. You’re happy coming to church here; we can keep paying for the building, and we’re all nice, grace-loving people.”
Which, grace is grace — dispensation of grace.
But the grace is there, not to give us permission that all things are lawful to do all those things. All things are lawful, but — they’re not expedient. They need to edify. They need to not cause someone else to stumble. Do these guys ever look at that stuff? They need to not be an occasion for the flesh. Duh!
So, anyway. So, let’s get back. So my point this morning so far has been, there’s these decepions going on in the Paul churches almost as much as anywhere else anymore. If you can maintain a church family like that, there must be something wrong. And, no, I’m not jealous, no, I’m not bitter. I’m not a pastorless church whining on the Internet. They had their chance.
OK, here we go. Romans 16:18 says this; I can already tell we won’t finish this until tonight: “For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly.” So these pastors that are being deceived and are deceiving, teaching what they’re teaching out there, they’re doing it for their own belly, for their own selves here. “And by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.” Hearts of the simple! See, that’s the way the King James Bible says “the masses,” it seems like to me. “Hearts of the simple.” They just go along with the flow. If a pastor comes in who’s a Ruckmanite, “Well, let’s just preach that.” Then, when he changes it to Paul, “Well, OK, we’ll go to the Paul thing.” Then he leaves and another guy comes in, and he does all the community stuff; “Well, let’s go on” — you know, they’re simple.
Open your Bible up, and you don’t have to be simple anymore. “Deceive the hearts of the simple.” And, it’s “good words and fair speeches.” So, how do you tell somebody, “Hey that was a good, that was a fair speech. It was good words.” Yeah, but do you know that that was deception? It’s not true. What he’s teaching you is not true.
Another frustration was have here is Ephesians 4:14: “That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine.” Ephesians 4:14. You know, when I watch children go out for recess, do you know what I see anymore? I see these kids that run out the door, and they just go spastic. They just hop all over the place, they go from the swing to the teeter-totter, they go to the slide, they go to the — I mean, they just go all over the place. They’re nuts.
And this is what we have going on today. We’ve got people — and Paul people, too, don’t get me wrong; I’m not, you know — they’re tossed to and fro, every wind of doctrine. You got, when does the church start, you got this doctrine, and you got that doctrine, and you got all this kind of stuff — “by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness.” You don’t think some of those Paul guys are cunning in their craftiness what they’re trying to get? You don’t think the devil will put somebody in a Paul church position to maybe, slowly, like the Jesuits, kind of slowly move that church into worldliness? And it says, “Whereby they lie in wait to deceive.”
So, we need to not be carried about. So, if I ever quit doing this introduction thing here, you’re going to find out what we talked about here, these are the deceptions that are going on in the church.
“Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse.” We know it’s not going to get any better. “Deceiving and being deceived.”
And then Titus says here, “For there are many unruly and vain talkers and decivers.” And then he says “especially they of the circumcision” — and that’s the worst bunch.
OK, let’s get started here. Let’s go to Galatians chapter 3 verse 1. For those who missed the introduction on the Web site, which is my fault, we are going through the deceptions that pastors preach and teach in the church today. And I will have to say that some of these are being done in the Paul churches as much as anywhere.
So we’re looking at Galatians chapter 3 verse 1. And this is a question I want to ask people as time goes on. I want to say to them, as I look at their walk, their testimony lately and all this kind of stuff, and I want to say to them, “O foolish {person that you are}, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?” I mean, what are you doing differently? Why are you changing this? Why are you allowing yourself to be deceived with these teachings that we’re about to go over here?
Look at 2 Corinthians chapter 11; here is Paul’s biggest concern. Second Corinthians chapter 11. He says: “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty —” so we know that these “means” are going to be very subtle “— so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” For example, whenever when I say about the Paul thing? When I listen to a Paul preacher, so many times, I wonder, “What are you teaching? I don’t understand what you’re talking about here. That’s very complicated. All these different verses, all these different places to prove your point about when the church began, or some doctrinal thing about whatever?” And it’s very simple here.
But anyway, this isn’t hear just to bash the many people. But what we’re looking at here is, we can be beguiled through subtlety — and what is his point here? The point is to get our minds corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
So here are the things I could think of anyway, some of them, that I know that’s going on in churches that is wrong. Well, should church be perfect? No, a church doesn’t have to be perfect; but it doesn’t have to be this wrong.
For example, let’s go to, I think it’s Acts 17, let’s go to Acts 17 for the first one here. Yeah, it is; it’s Acts 17. The comment or the title would be “Ignorant Worship.” I’m going to make my own notes, because these are all scribbles; ignorant worship. If there is anything that pulls people into churches today, it’s the concept of worship. “Come worship with us. I know we have different beliefs, we have different doctrinal issues, but you know? Come on, let’s just come and worship God together. Come sing with us. We have a really hot worship director. He’s just hilarious. And, boy, he can really sing. We got this worship team that gets out there and they sing and they play, oh, it’s just marvelous. We got the Marshalls, and we got the Sheriffs, and we got the Crooks, and we got the Rochesters, and we got the New Yorkers, and we got the Rapid City, we got all these people coming in to sing for us. Oh, it’s just such a great time; it’s just such a great time of worship.”
I mean, if there’s anything preparing people for the coming of the Antichrist, it’s this music thing that’s going on in the churches. Remember, I said it before. We’ve had people come to our church back there in Touchet that left during the song service because our music wasn’t what they wanted. Didn’t even get a chance to preach to them.
And — one of these days I’ll get my mind into music and Bible but, you know, the contemporary Christian music scene, the musicians that are out there today, they are their own denomination. When you listen to modern Christian music, you are listening to Lutheran teachings, or Methodist teachings, or Presbyterian teachings, or Catholic teachings, or some denominational something-or-other. These guys have their own statement of faith. These guys are their own denomination. These guys follow a false bible. These guys follow deceptive pastors. These people are deceiving as well as being deceived, and they’re doing it through music.
The only universal language in the world, as universal as music is. The most powerful force in the world right now is the power of music.
I know there’s a bunch of quotes — I think it was Lenin or Stalin or something said, “If I can control the music of a country, I can control the country.” I forgot who said that; it’s one of those biggie guys out there.
So, we look at Acts chapter 17, and we see where it says in verse 22, this is Paul talking to the men of Athens here, in the midst of Mars Hill, and it says, “I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.” Then he says this in verse 23: “For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions.” You know, we walk by these churches, we hear the churches, we see what’s going on today. “I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.” We’ll stop right there. Do people realize that they know nothing about their God, other than what their pastor has told them?
They think God is — well, we’ll get into this thing — for example, here’s one of the deceptions. They think that God loves everyone. No, God doesn’t love everyone. God loved everyone. But if they haven’t accepted Christ as their Saviour, if they haven’t put their trust into Jesus Christ the risen Saviour through Paul’s teachings, then they don’t have God’s love.
And I’ll say it again. If they did, why would they need to be saved? Why would a lost person — if you tell a lost person, “God loves you. Why don’t you come to him? God loves you.”
My initial thought would have been, “Well, if God loves me, why would he send me to hell?”
So they know nothing about the real God; they know nothing about the truth of the rightly divided King James Bible. Their bibles don’t teach them hardly anything anymore. Anyway.
But here’s the point here: “Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.”
Can you imagine that God would ever not like music? Think there was ever a time that God wouldn’t like the music from his people? Well, let’s look at it. I think it’s Amos. Let’s go back and find Amos for a second here. It will take us all half an hour to find Amos. I’m flipping in my pages too, but it doesn’t pop up like it used to. Amos chapter 5. Now, this is Old Testament; this is to show who God was, still is, but now he offered the payment for the sin of what we do. He took care of sin. This is the way God is. In Amos chapter 5, verse 21, he says, “I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.” He’s not there — burnt offerings, etc., etc. Look at verse 23: “Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.” So, he didn’t want to hear what these people — uh-oh, water line’s broken, oh, what a mess — OK, see you tonight — um, there was a time when God did not want to hear the music.
So, do you suppose that today, with what Paul is teaching here, God doesn’t want to hear what he’s hearing that is considered worship? Well, what is he going to do about it? What does he do about it? Romans chapter 2; he doesn’t do anything about it; he teaches people through the Scriptures. He teaches people what’s good music, if they want to learn. And they can change their ways; they can change their music. It goes against their flesh most of the time, because most of the reason people listen to music is an occasion for the flesh, if it’s real beaty stuff, rhythmy and all that. Another whole sermon there sometime for you.
But, why doesn’t he do something about it? Because he says in Romans chapter 2, “Listen, if you’re lost, I’m going to give you the time to get saved, and what you do wrong, well, I’ll just store it up in the treasure chest here, and we’re just going to keep track of this thing, and when you finally die without me, we’ll pull it up and I’ll show you that your works were full of sin, and you got to go to the lake of fire.”
If you’re a Christian, and you truly are a Christian, and you listen to this kind of junk, or you play this kind of junk or you do this kind of junk, then you’re not going to get chastised or burned for it other than in your Scriptures, but it’ll burn at the Judgment Seat of Christ.
So the point here is, one of the deceptions going on in our churches today — Paul churches are as bad if not worse than a lot of the churches I’ve heard — is they’re ignorantly worshipping God with this music thing.
Verse 24: “God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands.” Now, remember, in the Old Testament, he had his presence in that Temple. So, what you see going on in churches today is Old Testament-designed worship. Old Testament-designed church procedures. Old Testament-designed church houses, church buildings, church routines.
He says in verse 25, “Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things.” So, yeah, people would say, well, yeah, we don’t build statues anymore, we don’t build statues of Mary and the bathtub and all this kind of stuff. Yeah, but what do you do with your hands on a piano? What do you do with your hands on a trumpet? What do you with your hands on a CD player — you know, that kind of stuff? We are worshipping him with our talents and with our musical skill.
Now, isn’t that acceptable? Well, if you go to Colossians, let’s find out a little bit about music. Go to Colossians — I suppose it’s time to do a sermon on music here. Go to Colossians chapter 3, and we see it says in verse 16, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom.” So the whole thing is about the word of Christ. “Teaching and admonishing one another —” what is? The word of Christ “— in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” OK, so music does have a place. “Singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” That’s the word of Christ.
Now, look at Ephesians — a similar thing, except he throws in one more really important verse here. Ephesians — what do we got here? — Ephesians chapter 3, I suppose. I can’t think of it myself here. No, it’s Ephesians chapter 5 verse 19: “Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.” He wants melody. This Bible is written in 1611; they use the word “melody.” Back in those days, melody was hardly under, what was even meant. So we’re looking at a day here where our music in the churches is not melody. Our music in the churches today is rhythm; it’s flesh. If they take the melody out of it, then you’ve got either rap — without a “c” — or you’ve got new age, which is emotional, spiritualistic garbage. But if you put the melody in there, and it brings up the memories — da da ta da — and you sing it with grace. But it’s in your heart.
We lose this whole concept of temple worship today.
And then you’ve got — I’m just weighing my thoughts, I got so much I could say about it — you’ve got these people that think that music is the handmaid to the word of God. So let’s come to a church and let’s sing three hymns, and it’ll get us in the mood for preaching. Oh, really? Oh, I’ve heard that for so many years. It’s a deception; it’s a lie.
Worship is a deception going on in our churches today; people are deceived into thinking, “Well, let’s go to this other guy’s church, and I’ll worship with them if you come to my church and worship with us.” You’re not coming here to worship this morning. Music we play ahead of time, it’s there — I do believe it pleases God — but it’s there not to manipulate you into anything. I tried many a time where we did the sermon first, and did the singing afterwards, and the singing afterwards was probably more worship than ever before. The only problem with starting with the preaching is those people that come in late because they don’t want to sing, and they don’t want to talk to the people, they have to come into the middle of the sermon.
I remember doing that. Do you remember that, Bob and Grandma? I’d start right off the bat. And then somebody would come, and I’d stop the sermon, just stand there, wait for them to come in and sit down, make them feel horrible. Why can’t you come on time? It’s a regular basis, you coming late. Why is that?
By the way, a bunny trail. I think people are coming late to church all the time, that’s a power thing. It’s a power thing, or it’s an unfriendly thing, take your pick. There’s a reason you don’t want to talk to the people. Or, there’s a reason you don’t want to sing. Or, you just to be able to interrupt, and be cool.
I remember just stopping and being quiet, make them feel horrible. Unfortunately, the only one who ever felt horrible was the wife. The guy, he didn’t even get it. The kids, they could care less. That happened all too often. Although, one time the woman was the one who was offended.
Hey, you wouldn’t dare go to a meeting at work like that. You know? That’s right, the work people pay money. God doesn’t pay money, so you don’t care if you possibly offend God, kind of a thing. Whatever.
God wants me there? I’ll get there, eventually. Oh, the whole thing here.
Anyway, that’s enough rambling about Number One here. One of the biggest deceptions going on in the local church from pastors today is this ignorant worship thing.
Let’s do another one here. Let’s go to Hebrews, kind of stick to the church basis here. And the false teaching of the importance of the church. Now, we’ll look at the purpose of the church in a minute, and there’s two different purposes, one is right, and one is wrong, etc., etc. But the important of church.
The only place you can go to find the importance of church is in Hebrews chapter 10. “Well, you can’t go to Hebrews chapter 10, pastor. You’ve been teaching that Hebrews is to the Jews during the Tribulation.” That’s right. When church becomes super-important, it’s going to be during the Tribulation — as it would have been during Paul’s time, as it would have been during Peter’s time, as it would have been during John and Jude’s time, if they had accepted the risen Saviour through Peter’s teachings, but they didn’t, so they went to Paul, etc., etc. We see in verse 25: “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.” Oh, that is a fantastic verse to put on the guilt trip for people not coming to church. “If the church doors are open, you ought to be there.” Well, if the church doors are open, you ought to be there, no doubt. But it’s not to worship together, it’s not to see each other, it’s not for the purpose of the people.
Look at what this verse says; let’s just analyze this verse a little closer than that; we don’t want to be simple. Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is.” In other words, there’s people not going to the gatherings. “But exhorting one another.” Oh, right. Well, there’s nothing wrong in that. “And so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” Oh, really? What day is approaching? The Lord’s coming back, so we’re worried about that right now? Not at all; that’s not what this is about. Church has its place; no doubt; and we’ll go through the purpose, and you’ll see it has a place. But we cannot go to this verse and say to somebody not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. This is the only place it talks about that.
Now, how do you know that this isn’t written to us, and we could still apply this thing? OK, let’s say you take somebody to this verse and show them why it’s important to go to church. And let’s say that person also then reads verse 26: “For if we sin wilfully —” well, yeah, we’ve done that, although we have to understand with what Paul teaches, the sin is no longer imputed, because it’s no longer a sin, because Christ took care of the law that makes it sin, but we’ll still reap the rewards or, you know, the loss of it all. Now, let’s get back to that. Let’s let this lost person read, or this newly saved person read, “For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins”? Oooohhh! Well, come on, hasn’t anything of you out there — including myself — done something wrong on purpose? We knew it was wrong? Well, then, there’s no more sacrifice. We’re done. We’re done.
No, this happens to be in 1 John 1:9, if anybody listens to this sermon during the Tribulation, you can go to 1 John 1:9 and you realize that — whew! — man, there is a way out of this thing. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” He will do that. Whew! I’m glad! See, that’s not to us.
So the importance of church, they’ve just got the wrong basis for the importance. What is important about coming to church. Well, they say it’s to exhort one another. Exhort one another how? When the few people that are out there go to their church, you go to your church — this is for the Web site people — when you go to your church, do you exhort each other? Do you see that somebody’s trying to dress modestly, so do you encourage them to, you know, by your presence, by your modesty, are you full of grace? Are you teaching? Do you show them? I mean, what do we do to exhort each other?
Give them the strength to keep dressing modestly. Give them the strength, men, to keep starting to be still, try to be that man. Give them the strength to get into their Bible study. Give them the strength to change their lives. That’s what Paul teaches us to do.
So, what kind of exhorting goes on in churches today? There’s a bunch of “loving” going on. And they hide behind this grace; they hide behind God’s grace. Well, who are you to say anything to me about anything?
I venture to say that most of the people who go to church, you probably don’t even like half the people who are there. We don’t agree with them. Those are bad examples for your children. Or, their children are getting away with murder, and you know it. Are you really going to church to exhort each other? Do you realize that if you go to your church and you preach something to them about Paul, and the King James Bible, you’re not going to be looked upon as exhorting at all. You’re going to be looked upon as causing — what’s the word? — ahh! Not disputing, and not corruption. Yeah, there’s a Biblical word, disruptive, yeah, you are doing, you know, you’re causing — oh, what’s the Biblical word, and I can’t even think of it. Division. There we go, thank you, Floyd (Hugh) You’re causing division. You’re not exhorting anybody anything.
The pastor will tell you, “Now, when they come to church here, you just be glad they’re here. Don’t worry that they’re on a hangover. Don’t worry if she’s living with a guy. Don’t worry about that stuff, you know. We’re supposed to be there to exhort.” You know why they had to be exhorting in those days? Because, if those people don’t do right, they’re going to lose their salvation. So the best place to go is to be with each other, and see somebody else having the same struggle you’re having, so we can exhort each other. But this verse isn’t to us.
Well, then, the question would have to be, then, why do we go to church? What’s the point? Why are you here? Is this church?
I’ve heard some of you say, “This is church.” I’ve heard some of you say I’m your pastor. I’ve heard some of you say some things I didn’t think you could ever say. Ha! So, is this what the case is? Well, if that’s the case, do you type to each other after we’re done and exhort each other to hang in there and do the right thing? You don’t even know what the other person’s doing.
And then, finally, as you see the day approaching? We’re not even looking for the coming of Christ, other than to the Rapture. That’s Romans 11:22, when God is done with the Gentiles. But what’s to fear there? What are you afraid of the Rapture for? All things are lawful. You’re just going to have a bunch of things you did to please the flesh and cause people to stumble, but that’s going to burn up in the Judgment Seat. What’s your fear? See, when Jesus is coming, he says don’t be ashamed when he comes. In other words, don’t be caught in a casino during Rapture. Right? No!
See how this stuff gets mixed up? It’s so mixed up. So, we went to the importance of the church. It’s a false teaching about the importance of the church. It is important, but their reasoning is bogus.
Let’s go to the real — how we doing for time here? Oh, maybe not — I’ll think we’ll stop there. We’ll start tonight with the real purpose of church, and what about the church and lost people? What we’re looking at here are deceptions that are being taught from pastors today. We rambled on and talked about the ignorant worship that’s going on in churches. We talked about the deception of the importance of church. Church is important, but they have the wrong reason. And we will do more tonight.
Boy, I see what’s happening. I’ve got more stuff than I know what to do with, I’ve got tons of verses of what Paul says about pastors today, I’ve got a whole long list of things that are being deceptively taught in churches today. Ah! There’s just more than you can do in a day and an evening and a Wednesday. But, maybe if we wouldn’t talk so much and ramble on so, then we’d get more accomplished. Yeah, you’re probably right. But this is who I 'are.'
I’ll try to not put so many words in it, and we’ll get through
more things tonight.
