Eric Ludy – When a Pastor Lives a Double Life (Sermon)

so it's nine years ago that i gave this message and so the message you're about to hear is an older one and eric ludy is rather feisty in it and i guess i don't blame him after looking back and i was listening to this message and it was all stirred up and i like this guy uh you see the the very uh issues that were at play then are not altogether different than the issues that are at play now and so in 2012 right before this message something rather grave happened in the church and it it hit me and it hit our body uh rather intensely and outflowed this message when a pastor lives a double life i think it's appropriate for now and that's why even though i'm going to be out of town over the next two sundays we're going to release two older sermons uh ironically they're uh it's this one and i think the one that immediately followed it uh nine years ago and so there was a stirring inside of me back then and it's a stirring that i have a hearty amen for right now so i hope you really enjoy and are edified uh by this father we as the body of christ yield says spirit of god come upon us and work your work i pray that we would be stirred we would be convicted that we would be driven to the foot of that cross lord jesus i pray that the body of christ would be purified lord that we would not justify anything in our midst but that we would truly be purged and that we that represent the leadership of the church of jesus christ would come into alignment with your kingdom pattern and that we would not play patty cake with the truth and we would not mess with souls lord jesus where there's sin i pray that it would be exposed and i pray that your light would shine unlike it's ever shown before in this generation come lord jesus come maranatha we need our god and we need him now it's in the precious name of our great king we ask amen when a pastor lives a double life that's a title what happens when a pastor lives a double life and i i want to replace the word pastor with what if a christian leader lives a double life what if a minister of the gospel lives a double life how about this what if a christian lives a double life do you guys know the effects of that you know the damaging damning effects of hypocrisy you know i don't know if we could see a short list of sins in heaven that have the greatest impact to dampen and to the effects of the gospel of jesus christ in any generation but satan seems to know that list and there's no greater achievement for the kingdom of darkness than to trip up a leader and then to have that leader hide his sin and to live in a habitual pattern of defeat and darkness under the banner and the moniker of christian strength one of the reasons this is a weighty message for me is i am a leader i am a pastor and the amount of responsibility that i have it's high and it's not an undue amount where i could say i could plead and say it's unfair and it's unjust that any man should be expected to actually live out that which he preaches no the basic expectation we do have as humans is if someone speaks it they better live it it's funny thing and that's what you see all the non-christians that have thrown out christianity due to what hypocrisy what's the reason hey christians if you're genuine you'll live it you'll live it now here's the challenge we face many of you have tried to live it it's not that you're intending to be a hypocrite you honestly don't know how to be anything else because you esteem what god says but you don't have the equipment of soul to live the way you're supposed to live what do we do so this is about the concept of the double life and the double life needs to be exercised it needs to be removed and purged out of the church of jesus christ it's the equivalent of shooting ourself in the foot and attempting to then run a marathon when we attempt to witness to the lost and dying world around us and to tell them and let them know that there is victory in jesus christ that there is hope in the gospel and then we ourselves live under the damning effects of sin we have no message we have no witness there is no power in the church of jesus christ remember jesus walks into the temple and he sees money changers tables what did he do he grabbed a whip turned those money changers tables over and drove out the money changers he was indignant and i tell you what every single one of us knows the vulnerability of being the one with the double life you know that you could live a life above reproach for your entire life and then if you have one down moment remember david king david the guy was the man what did he do it says in the season when the kings went forth to battle every spring is when the kings would go forth to battle and guess what israel went to board the battle david david even sent out his men to battle but for the first time david stayed home david don't do that he stays home and decides to do a little looking you know what you don't stay home from the battle when the season comes to go out to battle you must go and he could say and he could justify just like the rest of us you know i've been fighting so many battles i need a reprieve when the pastor begins to look for the reprieve the enemy is waiting are you ready for a reprieve i'll give you a reprieve the strongest men can fall so i don't want you to just think that just because a strong man has fallen he hasn't ever been strong and he's always lived the hypocritical life however i want us to realize that the weight of responsibility that we have when we bear the name of jesus christ is no small and insignificant thing the reason this has been brought up this week is because came to our understanding at ellerslie this week that one of our heroes tom white from the voice of the martyrs committed suicide committing suicide is shocking enough but it was exposed and he was uh was found out to have molested a ten-year-old girl and we don't know the truth of any of these things it's all hearsay for us as the rest of the body but we have to grapple with it we have to grapple with the fact that one of the most significant ministries in our generation the voice of the martyrs richard and sabine warmbrand have had one of the greatest impacts upon leslie and i his testimony his life and i highly admired tom for his stance for his vigorous determination to represent the weak around the world and he lived it he went into the hardest places and stood for the gospel of jesus christ and the rest of us stand back and we look and we scratch our head and we say yes it could be a conspiracy someone may have killed him and someone may have written a letter and stuck it in his car in his handwriting how do we handle this when a pastor lives a double life he might have been living a singular singular life his entire time and then didn't go out to battle and then we see a breakdown of his moral character and we see the finishing touches put on by the enemy i tell you what this is our generation and this is our watch and the wolves are surrounding the sheep pen do they have justified reason why they can mock the church of jesus christ we might get mad that the earth that the world around us is mocking the church of jesus christ they don't know what they're mocking but guess what they have good reason right now and we are the ones serving it up to them on a platter we are the ones i don't want you thinking about tom white as we're going through this message i want you to be the one that is being discussed i want me to be the one being discussed remember it was a few years ago but we had a moral breakdown in the church of epic proportions and that was with ted haggart the pastor from new life church in colorado springs the reason it was so significant because we've seen many pastors fail in our generation it's one of the saddest statements i could ever make but ted haggart was over all the other pastors in the evangelical world he was the pastor of all the pastors of all the pastors he was the chieftain and our chieftain if you will who stood for righteousness purity and the like was living a double life and there was one scene that i'll never forget as branded upon my memory and that was a newscaster who stopped and flagged down ted haggard's car and ted haggard at the time didn't know what that there were accusations out there and they rolled down their window his wife was sitting in the passenger seat and that's where the newscaster was and the passenger's side his two kids were in the back seat and that newscaster asked pastor haggart is it true that you have been in a gay relationship down in denver and that you are addicted to methamphetamines dear lord jesus save me from ever being in such a moment to disgrace the name of jesus christ and to humiliate my family there is no greater fear that i could ever have in my life than to be in such a situation from the very beginning of my christianity in the days of jimmy swaggart and jim baker this is how i started i started by seeing the hypocrisy around me and i remember struggling as i was coming to jesus and here was one of my first declarations i'll give my life to you and i'll be radical but i cannot end like that please lord jesus is there a way that a man can go the distance and go it well is there a way is there a possibility that a man can stand strong for something and not be a fraud is it possible because how many of us have seen it how many of us can testify that it's possible we don't know we're a generation wondering question marks dancing around in our head is anyone telling the truth is anyone truly living it and i feel it i feel a searchlight whenever these things happen and i feel who do i feel it on me i feel like people are saying there's another one anyone who stands strong the stronger you stand the more you're covering up i remember when i was in high school what the uh teacher of my english class who wasn't the most stable person he was a very argumentative and contentious man and very anti-christian so here i am in a public school and i mean it was about as awkward as it gets and the man said something about 95 of the men in here by the age of 20 will have had a homosexual experience and i raised my voice to that and i said that is ridiculous and he said and those that are most vocal about it are most vulnerable to prove it right how do you say anything to that well i got quiet and i was mad and guess what what's being said in christianity today look at the leaders look at the ones that take the strongest stance for true purity mark them they're the frauds because everyone knows and by the way these are christians speaking everyone knows that true purity and a life that is lived to the glory of god in the sense that it does not have blemish on it as a regular as a regular attribute to the soul is an impossibility i just read an article this morning saying the exact same thing a christian saying we have too high of expectations upon our christian leaders we actually expect them to live this out we are hero worshiping them so we are setting them up for failure because no one can actually live that was paul a fraud the entire integrity of the gospel goes down the drain the moment you come to that conclusion either it's possible or it's not you choose your side i've chosen my side and i know the lightning that comes with it this is serious issue in the church of jesus christ and we're facing it afresh this week so let's go through this and let's allow god to purge and purify us let's not point our finger and wag our heads at someone outside this building we're here this morning and god starts here judgment begins in the house of god the offense of hypocrisy the commission that paul gives is that we give no offense in anything that the ministry be not blamed and the word means discredited we give no offense in anything there should be no offense that could possibly be brought to the church of jesus christ in and through our lives that's a very strong statement by the way that the ministry be not discredited but in all things commending ourselves as the ministers of god to be a minister of god is a very very very serious matter hypocrisy is akin to taking god's name in vain let's read this scripture in exodus thou shalt not take the name of the lord thy god in vain for the lord will not hold him guiltless that takes his name in vain and i know what most of us think that means taking his name in vain means cursing what does it mean it means falsely representing his name bearing it carrying it and saying i represent that name and doing it in a false manner where you say one thing with your lips and live another thing with your lives it's called duplicity it's called hypocrisy it's called taking the name of the lord in vain every single one of us in here has done it at some level i know we are very vulnerable to it you know those moments when you come to church and you're supposed to have a smile on and someone asks you how you're doing brother and out comes doing great well you just had one rough morning and you're not doing so great and so in a sense you have born false witness you have now it's why are you doing it why are we bearing false witness why are we saying something that isn't true we have good motives we want to protect the name of jesus especially as a leader come on what good is it going to be to you if i say yeah i i stumbled about seven times this past week but i got back up you're gonna be like what was wrong with this guy what kind of triumph is that and so this is what happens to a leader a leader begins to stumble scrapes his knee and immediately covers it up and wears long pants that day he doesn't want his scrape to be seen pretty soon he gets into a habitual pattern of scraping that knee he never takes off those pants why well for the sake of the ministry for the sake of the glory of the king i understand it i understand how shame works i understand how hypocrisy is built it's not purposeful not like many of us are coming to christianity going i'm going to live that hypocritical version of christianity that sounds fun none of us intends to be a hypocrite we don't esteem hypocrisy we don't want it in the church and yet we're oftentimes the greatest perpetrators the tolerance of hypocrisy you know that when you're a hypocrite you put up with other hypocrites you just start turning a blind eye i mean come on have you ever been to a men's gathering where some of the key leaders and elders in a church are confessing to the fact that they're addicted to pornography that they struggle with sexual addiction that they're actually flirting with girls that aren't their wives and what do the other men do or with you brother we're all there at some level just try not to do the extreme things try not to do the extreme things you root out sin at the most rudimentary level self on the throne is your problem you're about you you're interested in your comforts you're interested in tending to your needs that's your problem now we're beginning to see the outcropping and the fruits being born of that this is unacceptable in the church of jesus christ you have provision from the cross of jesus christ to root out self and the flesh and the old man and the behavior of it so that you would let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that you would obey it in the lusts thereof quote unquote paul the apostle it's a serious business in the church we either believe the word of god or we don't this morning i'm going to talk about believing the word of god and we're going to take our souls to task on this point the tolerance of hypocrisy the great breach of the modern church it's a breach it's a hole in the wall when pastors are living the hypocritical life what happens the enemy trucks in his goods in and through that breach if a pastor is duplicitous if a pastor is a double life if a pastor is a hypocrite then we have truckloads of the stuff coming in to the church i'll never forget coming down into my basement we had a little play area set up for hudson hudson was about um maybe one at the time maybe no i mean i think he might have been two he was standing yeah i think he'd probably be around two and you know i i've had different sin struggles throughout my life okay and i've had the classic man struggles back in the day and god has done an amazing work in my life okay i'm a testimony of a lot of different things if we were to go through them i mean it's just incredible what the grace of god can do but there are certain things that can sort of be low lying because they're not that big of a deal okay and no no one really talks about them in the church you know we have classic ones like gluttony who's going to talk about that i mean how ridiculous now i'm not going to say i struggle with gluttony mine was irritation and frustration but it wasn't with people and so as a result i could justify it in a tremendous way i mean if it was against people that's one thing you know because that would be unforgiveness bitterness resentment that could stem from that but i'm talking about things like bad signage on the roads like bad directions when i'm trying to build something stupid directions now i'm not mad at an individual i was mad at a thing okay so in my mind come on it's not that big of a deal less i could walk in and go oh what kind of attitude is that it's like this is terrible directions okay and it was under the radar it's like i couldn't even see it and so whatever that is whatever that's classified in our life i remember coming down to the basement hudson was standing there playing with his train set and he was trying to fit something together and it wasn't fitting together and he did something frustrating he had his arms out like this one and i recognize something in it you see i don't typically do that on the outside because i can cover it fairly well that's what maturity does for you but i recognized it that was the state of my soul at times and i was allowing it into my home and guess who it went straight to went straight to my son you see if we don't close off the breach it bleeds into the church if a father opens his door what does it go to it goes to his wife and it goes to his kids we're responsible to guard the door and i tell you what we're trucking hypocrisy in by the train load right now and i say let's close the door a bad man is worse when he pretends to be a saint not a great statement i mean it's a very sad statement but talk about well put you see a bad man is bad but he's even worse when he pretends to be a saint you know how many bad men we have in the church today you see they're under the banner of christianity but they've never been converted and regenerated and set free from their badness so they literally can show forth the goodness of god gospel 101 life or i'm sorry death unto life old man dead old behavior buried newness of life all things become new that means behavior not just you think a new thought or you go to someplace new on a sunday morning it means a change of life of disposition of attitude countenance dress everything you do is shaped and it's new because there's a new man ruling within known as jesus christ a bad man is worse when he pretends to be a saint the acceptance of defeat so why in the world are we allowing this in it's an issue of avoiding scripture we have begun to justify our defeat which is our hypocrisy under the banner of doctrinal reasoning we have begun to build doctrines that match our experience rather than indict our experience against true doctrine you see god says that we are to be free from sin god says that we are to be triumphant in our behavior that our thoughts are literally supposed to be pure thoughts we were supposed to think on these things not on those things these things god never mocks us with his commands to say here's what you must do and then he chuckles to himself yeah good luck trying we cannot do it it's a truth but he can and he intends to in and through us and that's how the gospel works the acceptance of defeat so let's read it okay any of you that have hung around in modern christianity have most likely heard the old roman 7 argument it's not a bad argument the problem is it lacks its context romans 6 half of romans 7 and romans 8 are probably the most triumphant chapters in the bible arguably i mean they are triumph incarnate and then you have this little bit in here let's read it this is paul speaking for what i would and i'm going to put in want to do just because it helps you understand what paul's saying because that is what he means for what i would want to do that do i not but what i hate that i do for i know that in me that is in my flesh dwells no good thing for to will is present with me but how to perform that which is good i find not for the good that i would want to do i do not but the evil which i would not want to do that i do o wretched man that i am who shall deliver me from the body of this death all right that's where everyone stops and we take a quotation from paul and we're like oh no wonder no wonder i see i'm wanting to live this life but i can't paul couldn't have you ever studied the rest of the bible paul in romans 6 is saying the exact opposite of this and that's not an exaggeration romans 8 is literally a complete contrast with this he's talking to the jews those under the law and he's relating to them saying we're in a body of death we are not yet the body of christ he's speaking from the position of the body of this death the body of life the body of christ is what we are being grafted into and becoming we're being filled with the spirit of god we are no longer ruled by the flesh everything about the context on this counters every conclusion in our modern day paul is saying you understand what i mean don't you jews see you're esteeming the law but then you look inside of yourself and you have nothing to perform the law you don't have what it takes oh no who can save us from this body of death now look at what's trimmed off oh wretched man that i am who shall deliver me from the body of this death i thank god through jesus christ our lord that's who jesus saves us from this body of death that's his business that's what he did upon the cross the fraternal twin twins we have identical twins and fraternal twins fraternal twins by definition two people born during the same birth but bearing a different look one from the other i know it's not a very biological definition of it but for our sake that's that's all that's needed same birth but they look different okay what we have in the old testament is we have fraternal twins known as jacob and esau same womb but they're different i mean esau's the opposing twins so the boys grew and esau was a skillful hunter a man of the field but jacob was a plain man dwelling in tents esau was covered with hair he was the hairy hunter jacob was like the hairless you know guy who i always picture him knitting uh he's like come on jacob what's the deal with you okay and it's funny just by natural observation we esteem esau now i i've asked girls i said okay would you rather have the harry hunter or the plain man dwell in intense you know i asked the girls you know which one would you rather marry and the girls sort of struggle with that it's like how hairy it's like okay that didn't come across very well how about the hunter or the plain man okay that just isn't a good sales pitch for jacob but it's the first born and the second born and they share a womb and the same thing that you struggle with there are fraternal twins inside of you flesh spirit the firstborn is of the earth earthy it's the natural man it's the flesh man it's the one that cultivates the self-life it's the one that preserves your pleasures and your comforts and seeks that it's its primary aim it's the principle of sin you are born in sin you are born the first birth you have which is why you must be born again into the second born and the second born is not esteemed we look at it we mock it as the firstborn like oh what a what a character come on buddy plain man dwell in intense no hair on your body come on get some hair i mean it's just awkward i don't want to be jacob in this story esau despises the birthright jacob esteems it jacob esteems what god has to bring to the table and he will give up his life to get it he grabs a hold of god and won't let go and says you have it i need it jacob represents the second born but as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit even so it is now for the flesh lusts or is it enmity or fights against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh and these are contrary to one to the other so that you cannot do the things that you would there's something that you want to do but as long as the flesh rules in your life you can't do it which is a direct parallel with what paul is saying in romans 7. there's two enmity there's two at odds within you and as long as the first born is ruling you you can't perform that which you know you ought to be doing you can't which is why jesus christ came he came to deal a death blow to the old man known as the flesh so on that cross your old man was crucified why so that you could be born again into a new man jesus christ and your covenants with death was sever that's the first half of romans seven it's talking about how a covenant cannot be severed except with death and you have a covenant with death which means the penalty for sin is shared by you where's sin going where's all the powers of darkness going they're going to hell and guess what you're grouped with them because you have a covenant with that kingdom you're bound to them into their fate and to their destiny but because of christ's death there has been a severing and you have been set free from that covenant and made ripe and ready to enter into a covenant a new covenant in his blood and that's the life of the spirit and by the way it's not like in any regard the life in the flesh so what happens when a man or a christian leader has head knowledge they know truth they know the bible but they've never allowed the old man to be removed and severed they've never exited the covenant with death and entered into the covenant of life yet they have head knowledge about the whole thing how are they going to live they're not going to be able to perform that which they're preaching and thusly we see the fraternal twin we see esau leading the church instead of jacob the second born is not ruling the second born or the second man jesus is not the one in control by the way first and seconds i said this this past weekend but kane abel firstborn persecutes the second born ishmael isaac firstborn flesh persecutes the second born esau jacob firstborn persecutes the second born saul david firstborn 21 assassination attempts on the second born also known as the better man first covenant second covenant first covenant exposes the flesh and the weakness of it which is what romans 7 is all about the second covenant supplies everything needed to perform here's one of our key words for the day duplicity i know it's a big sounding word you know the word duplicate now you can sort of see it packaged in there duplic to double something okay so this is the concept of doubling your life duplicity living a double life this is what duplicity means i got this out of the 1828 webster's dictionary doubleness of heart or speech the act of or practice of exhibiting a different or contrary conduct or uttering different or contrary sentiments at different times in relation to the same thing so you talk about god over here with these friends and you say something different than when you're talking about god over here with these friends same topic but you're saying something different as you're saying over here it's the equivalent of saying one thing to a congregation going home and living a completely other way it's a message that's coming out of your life that's contrary it's contradictory it's hypocritical or the act of dissembling one's real opinions for the purpose of concealing them and misleading persons in the conversation and intercourse of life it's double dealing dissimulation deceit it's hypocrisy that's duplicity okay we don't want a double life let me just put it that way your yes is yes your noah's no and it always is you are the same way in every moment of your life without exception it doesn't matter if they're going to spit on your face because you're that way it doesn't matter if you're rejected because you're that way you must be the same in every circumstance i must be the same with you in front of you in an audience as i would be with you off stage when other people can't witness in every moment of my life i must be consistent i know that sounds like a high standard it's just the standard of the gospel we bear the name of jesus and jesus in him is no shadow of turning he is the same yesterday today and forever like yeah that's him who lives inside of you the one who is stationary and fixed and rock-like yes i realize we are a work in process and the body of christ is gracious for the work and process and when you fail what do you do you immediately repent you turn and you seek forgiveness that's what we do we're humble we recognize that we're not done we're not finished but where are we headed what do we expect of this life do we have any level or standard of excellence in the church of jesus christ anymore if the firstborn rules for if you live after the flesh you shall die so long and short there's your summation if the firstborn rules you die your life will be corrupted it will be a sham you cannot live after the flesh but if you through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body you shall live mortify is the concept of embalming literally removing life from something it dies and then you literally remove any sense or operation of life from it it's to mortify it to give it no access to give it no life we are commissioned by the spirit of god to see that old man never come back his behavior his thoughts his attitudes no we do not allow them in this body we are single of focus single of eye single of speech single in voice and action our opinions are always the same we don't change our opinion you ever know how politicians i don't know how many of you have noticed this maybe but they'll go from one group to the next and say a completely different message to get the vote of that group that is duplicity and some people say no it's just good politics it's duplicity it's a sin and god will spew it out of his mouth i don't care if they get elected that's not how a godly man is elected so be it if they never vote for you it's better to be right with god than to have the applause of this earth duplicity is not allowed that's the greek word sounds familiar doesn't it it means surprisingly hypocrisy the acting of a stage player a pretending to be something you are not if you're not a victorious christian please don't act like one if you don't truly know jesus christ then please don't tell us you do it is better to be straight up honest in your walk than to try and con the christian what good is it doing by the way how is it helping your soul or anyone else's for you to play this act why we do it we're duped into it we feel it's easier if we could remove friction from our life and so when we're around christians let's act spiritual let's use the language they like let's use the the terms that they're attracted to they'll buy it and then when you're around your worldly friends whip out the worldly stuff they'll buy it you're a mess of confusion you don't even know who you are you need to know where you stand in this battle and you need to know who you are the pharisee the consummate hypocrite don't take my word for it let's listen to jesus's word on the matter woe unto you scribes and pharisees hypocrites they're play actors they have no life they're whitewashed sepulchers for you make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter you're cleaning up the outside spitting polish on the outside but within these scribes and pharisees are full of extortion and excess woe unto you scribes and pharisees hypocrites for you are like unto whitewashed tombs a whitewashed tomb it's a tomb looks really good on the outside what's inside of a tomb dead death dead men's bones death decay that's what he's likening them to that's hypocrisy for you are likened to whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outward but are within full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness how could we ever allow this into our life this is literally if you want to talk about arch enemy number one to jesus christ it's that you know he knows that the world behaves like the world the world just is the world the world being the world doesn't put spit on god's face it's when the church acts like the church but inside is the world and is marked by darkness and decay and disease that god detests it i mean i and i mean it detests it and you can say isn't god love sure he is he loves you too much to allow that to remain beware of the leaven of the pharisees which is hypocrisy you have to beware of these pharisees they have leaven remember a little leaven leavens the whole lump these pharisees are lugging something around and it's a disease it's called hypocrisy but above all my brethren do not swear either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath but let your yes be yes and you're no no listen to this last line you notice how i made it big and you can say why did he make that big lest you fall into judgment you know what the word judgment is i don't know why they translated judgment hypocrisies lest you fall into this great and terrible trap that the pharisees have fallen into which is hypocrisy isn't that interesting again i'm not exactly sure why i mean judgment fits it's still judgment the judgment of god is a pawn hypocrisies but that's interesting lest you fall into hypocrisies your yes must be yes when you say yes over here it means yes over here your yes always means yes you're bound by your word when you say yes you mean yes and when you say no you mean no make sure that's true about your soul the old man and the subtle art of duplicity now your old man might have you know has your name associated with it my old man is called old eric okay he looks similar to me you know the same hairdo uh you know same features i'm a little older version with a little more gray hair but he's deviously similar and he's tried to poke his head back in quite a few times since he officially met his end isn't it incredible how the old man seems to have life after death i mean how in the world does this guy come back which is why we must die daily okay if we don't die daily i tell you what resurrection is a very real thing for the powers of darkness obviously too because that old man is sort of like and he's back to business you ever heard that statement it's like an old indian proverb i wish i could get it right but something like this that this indian chief had uh you know one of these big huge marmaduke types of dogs over here and then a wolf over here and they were both stout strong warrior type you know beasts and someone came up to and says in a fight which one wins and the indian chief in one of those wise types of tones says the one i feed it's a well-put statement isn't it i don't know if the indian chief was talking about flesh versus spirit however it means a lot to us the one we feed you feed the flesh the flesh will win in your life you feed the spirit spirit will trounce the flesh the flesh has no opportunity all right unfortunately i need to take you through a little bit of my life not very fun but for your sakes i think it might be helpful we could call it eric the duplicitous eric has messed around with a little duplicity in his life i'm not proud of it but it's true i've tasted the stuff i don't like it i don't want it back in my life but it's been there the ultimate athletes and the little exaggerations all right now my dad when i was growing up i always wanted to play sports for him i mean i wanted his approval and my dad had a certain training technique that he learned from his dad which was you don't give too much of a compliment to your son if he's doing well you don't tell him he's doing well you tell him he's getting there that was my dad's training method so i was always getting there i remember having a game where i had a hat trick scored three goals in a soccer game and i came over to the side i mean i just wanted to hear my dad say it you've arrived instead he said well you're getting there getting there and so as a result i felt inferior and i began a process in my life of exaggerating who i was because who i was wasn't there so when i was talking to my friends i would always add something to my stats if you will so if i scored three goals in a game it would upgrade to four because three obviously wasn't there and then for my weight i know this is the opposite of what most of you would ever think of doing but my weight i added 10 pounds because i'm like the classic skinny guy you know i don't want to be that i need to be this i literally would tell people a weight that was 10 pounds higher when it came to my 40 yard dash time i knocked off a couple tenths of a second when it came to my 400 meter run time knocked off about five seconds no one will know at least down in texas because i ran it in colorado i did this when it came to my bench press added 10 pounds pumped it up it was close enough or they'll believe it duplicity and you can say that's harmless sure seemingly it's killing me you see i was living as a liar and you could say well that's not really a lie that's an exaggeration what's the difference between a lie and exaggeration nothing they're the same exact thing an exaggeration is a falsehood you are manipulating facts to aggrandize yourself to preserve yourself so i remember i was in uh texas at a missionary school and i was in my dorm in a bed we had these like bunks and they were like five bunks high you know like a typical bunk is like two it's like five this is like efficiency of space and so i'm liking the third bunk so i crawl up in there and like the top of the plywood is like right here so i had a soccer dream once and i kicked the soccer ball and oh but i'm laying in my bed and i'm praying and i'm asking god to search me said god if there is anything in me that needs to be rooted out please go after it he did he made it very clear i mean literally i had those key things i don't know four or five things i just mentioned to you immediately flashed before my mind eric that's a lie liars go to hell nope i mean i had every justification just like you would in this situation come on that's ridiculous i just asked god's bright hot searchlight to search my soul and he found something because he loves me well god i'm so sorry that wasn't true and i'm trying to do the old confession back to god thing and you know just let's make it right everything's fine the problem is i'd lied to others oh no and so here i am the next day i mean i'm trembling in the you know sitting in the front seat in the class and we get to a sort of a pause and i raise my hand and the the leader goes yes eric i i need to say something oh i don't know if any of you have ever gone through this but oh boy i get to the front i'm literally shaking and i'm like the strong guy in the course i know anyone that was here this weekend it was all the weirdos in my class and then i'm the one that's put together well no more eric was undone and so i'm standing in front of them and i'm like um and i literally felt like i was exposing myself at such an intimate level and they were going to mock me and laugh at me because who i was was not sufficient and i was just about to tell everyone who i really was donnie i don't really weigh i weigh he's looking at me like i don't know and i'm like trembling i'm starting to cry and i'm hardly able to speak tim i didn't really run the 400 meters and it was really mark i didn't bench press i was really i went through this i was a broken man here's what i was expecting i was expecting to be mocked you know the church responds to truth the church loves honesty it's a really strange thing when you are literally willing to say jesus is the truth and he is correcting this which has been a lie i'll tell you what it's an amazing avenue into grace these men that i had confessed to and felt like an absolute idiot in front of all came up to the front and wrapped their arms around me and held me and prayed for me and here's the words eric we love you just the way you are i sobbed like a baby how embarrassing was that too the whole thing was awkward and guess what the duplicity melted out of me it wasn't the only area i had it though that's the challenge eric the ultimate partier okay here's what's funny i didn't drink alcohol at all i didn't smoke i didn't cuss i was like one of those good moral kids but not because i was just a good moral kid i literally had some funny mindset upon this because i was a fairly worldly guy right but it's like i'm not gonna lose my sanity and get drunk every one of you looks like a fool that was like my reasoning okay so i i literally have this sort of funny morality in my life which led me to make yeah you'd probably agree better decisions but it was out of a certain moral arrogance almost okay i wasn't the healthiest guy let's just put it that way so don't be too impressed by the fact that i didn't drink alcohol but what would i do in certain situations i wanted to appear that i was drinking alcohol it's not bizarre why would her do that why would you do it you know what i would do i would get like either a glass of beer you know like one of those cups plastic cups of beer or a beer can and i would stand there in a party and just hold it never would drink from it oh every once in a while i might act like i was drinking you know sort of like one of these things why would i do that to show something to the audience i was attempting to play act before i wanted them to think of me as one of those guys one of those guys with an edge one of those guys with some hitness in his pocket because if you're cool at all you have to drink alcohol i don't know who came up with that rule it's about as idiotic of a rule that ever was invented i remember sitting there with leslie we were married and i remember seeing this party we were in a restaurant there was a party where there's this raucous thing on a friday night and these people are acting like absolute imbeciles and they're just sort of standing around dancing with the music looking stupid i'm thinking who would ever want to spend their night doing that that's what i thought however you go back a few years there i am eric the ultimate ladies man can't you tell hey how you doing oh this is embarrassing the false era of prowess when i was in school there was a certain image that you wanted to cast and that is that if you're a guy you're a guy that's been around the block okay yeah you've seen some things you've done some things yeah i know sure absolutely been there well i hadn't been there but i wanted everyone to think i had been there and so there's ways that you talk there's hints that you make in a conversation like oh yeah sort of like you're totally in resonation mode with what they're saying it's duplicity you see when i go to church and i'm talking to my youth pastor you think i'm talking like that oh no when i come home to my mom do you think i'm talking like that oh no but when i was in school at the lockers that's exactly what i was it's called duplicity and it's a very very dangerous disease in the soul eric the ultimate tither oh boy this one hurts the empty-handed giver oh this is a hard one to admit have you ever been caught in one of those situations where you have nothing okay i mean you're stuck and you even feel like people are gonna look at you okay like people care and there are people that care when i'm traveling around this is people care they care about how i'm worshiping they care about what i'm doing i mean it's very awkward at times and then suddenly someone sticks a tie thing in front of you this is the key you ball up your hand like this and you stick it it's low in there so they can't see when you release your hand i've done that before isn't that disgusting why was i doing it well save face okay what i mean i was caught off guard okay i didn't know they were gonna pass the basket i have nothing in my pocket i at least need to show what a good christian would do didn't you guys see that what was it it was uh oh what was that movie it was one of the uh sherwood pictures no it was a flywheel i think flywheel where the guy has he gets out an empty envelope and sticks it in and when i saw that i was like that's just like my little oh those things hurt what is it it's duplicity okay it's false and it's a lie you are literally speaking something to someone you wouldn't do it if no one was watching if you didn't care about what anyone thought but you are speaking something to your audience and it is an outright lie eric the ultimate evangelist the squeezed hand i boy these stories do not make me look good i picked up a guy down in denver uh that was i i used this term homeless last time i shared this story and then i said i took him to his home which confused a few of my audience members i think he was living with someone at the time and he had to get down to denver and so i said oh i can take you and so i drove this guy and i shared the gospel with it was like one of those great situations and then that you know on sunday well let me finish how you know i brought the guy up to his this apartment in you know inner city denver and i said you know can we pray and i think what happened is we you know i held his hand there and i prayed for him and it was just a good time right so there we are in church on sunday it's testimony time and so people are sharing stories and eric has a story to tell you know i picked up this guy i took him home i shared the gospel and all that'll encourage the church so i get up and i'm sharing the story and i get to the point at the very end where i pray for him and you know the story is sort of bland okay i have to admit it wasn't that exciting i mean it was neat and all but eric's a good storyteller and eric needed a little punch at the end so i added the squeezed hand at the end and then i squeezed his hand he squeezed my hand back oh that was ridiculous so i sit down and immediately guy's like squeezed hand huh squeezed hand you want to track down everyone in this church and make that right or do you want to make it right now so the pastor is starting to go and move forward so open up your bibles to first corinthians and i'm like excuse me he's like and i'm like out there i think leslie weren't you with me at the time this is when we were in love we were like falling in love and this is like one of our first stories with me oh talk about bad impressions excuse me yes sir i need i need to say something i stand up it's like ah the guy didn't really squeeze my hand that was a lie i'm sorry will you forgive me you're all look at me like i guess thank you oh you know what it's just a lot easier not to be duplicitous okay the most terrible of lies is not that which is uttered but that which is lived the screwtape letters by c.s lewis uh i have not read the screwtape letters since oh it's probably 23 years ago and anyone who's been through the advanced program uh in here or is in the advanced program knows why because in bulgaria i got up in front of a very large audience with a film camera that was you know two million people watching in bulgaria were some of the first christians that they ever saw and eric got up and did something in regards to the screw tape letters that has forever uh branded me as the ultimate idiot okay you have to go to eldersly to hear the story though uh was a pretty good technique i like it you're going to say i thought you said you didn't twist arms for people to come to ellerslie the screw tape letters by c.s lewis this is letter 10 in the screwtape letters recognizing the traps of becoming a duplicitous christian a christian now if any of you haven't read the scrute letters it's actually a demon named uh screwtape who's sort of uncle screw tape that is writing letters to an underling demon who's sort of a beginner demon and he's learning the trade of duping a human it's a very fascinating book okay and so what i have here is an actual letter which i think fits well with this message so i'm not just trying to promote the book at all i'm actually just saying listen to this listen to how c.s lewis articulates it and i think you'll find it very fascinating my dear warmwood i was delighted to hear from triptweeze that your patient has made some very desirable new acquaintances and that you seem to have used this event in a really promising manner i gather that the middle-aged married couple who called at his office are just the sort of people we want him to know rich smart superficially intelligent and brightly skeptical about everything in the world i gather they are even vaguely pacifist not on moral grounds but from an ingrained habit of belittling anything that concerns the great mass of their fellow men and from a dash of purely fashionable and literary communism this is excellent and you seem to have made good use of all his social sexual and intellectual vanity tell me more did he commit himself deeply i don't mean in words there was a subtle play of looks and tones and laughs by which a mortal can imply that he is of the same party as those to whom he is speaking that is the kind of betrayal you should especially encourage because the man does not fully realize it himself and by the time he does you will have made withdrawal difficult you ever notice that where you commit in a conversation you nod along and you agree or you laugh at a joke and now you are beyond the point of retrieval so now you just continue to laugh and nod along because it's very awkward at a certain point in conversation after you've laughed at their joke nodded along and said by the way i'm convicted about participating in this conversation i think it's wrong come on are you going to do that that's what the enemy would tell you too you can't withdraw now dignity is at stake uh-huh and now you're finding yourself right in the trap of duplicity no doubt he must very soon realize that his own faith is in direct opposition to the assumptions on which all the conversation of his new friends is based i don't think that matters much provided that you can persuade him to postpone any open acknowledgement of the fact and this with the aid of shame pride modesty and vanity will be easy to do as long as the postponement lasts he will be in a false position he will be silent when he ought to speak and laugh when he ought to be silent i don't know if you guys can feel this boy this is like my whole upbringing he will assume at first only by his manner but presently by his words all sorts of cynical and skeptical attitudes which are not really his but if you play him well they may become his all mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to be this is elementary the real question is how to prepare for the enemy's counter-attack the enemy by the way when he's writing his god okay so you have to really get into mind of this the first thing is to delay as long as possible the moment at which he realizes this new pleasure as a temptation since the enemy's servants have been preaching about the world as one of the great standard temptations for two thousand years this might seem difficult to do but fortunately they have said very little about it for the last few decades in modern christian writings though i see much indeed more than i like about mammon i see very i see few of the old warnings about worldly vanities the choice of friends and the value of time all that your patient would probably classify as puritanism and may i remark in passing that the value we have given to that word is one of the really solid triumphs of the last hundred years by it we rescue annually thousands of humans from temperance chastity and sobriety of life sooner or later however the real nature of his new friends must become clear to him and then your tactics must depend on the patient's intelligence if he is a big enough fool you can get him to realize the character of his friends only while they are absent their presence can be made to sweep away all criticism if this succeeds he can be induced to live as i have known many humans live for quite long periods two parallel lives he will not only appear to be but actually be a different man in each of the circles he frequents failing this there is a subtler and more entertaining method he can be made to take a positive pleasure in the perception that the two sides of his life are inconsistent this is a really strange statement he can find pleasure in the fact that both sides of his life are inconsistent who would find pleasure in that listen to this this is done by exploiting his vanity he can be taught to enjoy kneeling beside the grocer on sunday just because he remembers that the grocer could not possibly understand the urbane and mocking world which he inhabited on saturday evening and contrary wise to enjoy the body and blasphemy over the coffee with these admirable friends all the more because he is aware of a deeper spiritual world within him which they cannot understand you see the idea the worldly friends touch him on one side and the grosser on the other and he is the complete balanced complex man who sees round all of them suddenly this is the intellectual christian he's above it all he can be around one side and the other and actually sort of look down his nose and say they don't fully understand me you see the christian in all his purity doesn't understand that i can participate in the bodiness of the world and then come here in a sp it's spiritually complicated this guy wouldn't understand and then he can be around the world and he can sort of snicker to himself because he has a depth of spiritual understanding that they have no clue about he's complex isn't that interesting thus while being permanently treacherous to at least two sets of people he will feel instead of shame a continual undercurrent of self-satisfaction finally if all else fails you can persuade him in defiance of conscience to continue the new acquaintance on the ground that he is in some unspecified way doing these people good by the mere fact of drinking their cocktails and laughing at their jokes and that to cease to do so would be prickish intolerant and of course puritanical we would never want to be that meanwhile you will of course take the obvious precaution of seeing that this new development induces him to spend more than he can afford and to neglect his work and his mother her jealousy and alarm and his increasing evasiveness or rudeness will be invaluable for the aggravation of the domestic tension your affectionate uncle screw tape well i don't know if you guys could understand that c.s lewis has a tendency to use words that most people nowadays don't let's talk about judas now typically when we mention judas only bad thoughts occur well there's for good reason why we could call judas the duplicitous judas was the two-faced judas lived the double life everything judas represents is everything we want to see removed from the church of jesus christ because it's a betrayer of the son of man this is judas when he sees the pouring out of the spike guard remember mary of bethany what does he do he says why was this fragrant oil not sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor this he judah said not that he cared for the poor but because he was a thief and had the money box and he used to take what was put in it that's a show of compassion for the poor how many of us could do that when in actuality we want the money for ourself it's called duplicity and the chief priests and scribes sought how they might kill him speaking of jesus killing jesus for they feared the people listen to this closely then satan entered judas how in the world could satan enter one of the disciples of jesus christ that's impossible unless that disciple was already opened up to the treachery of the demonic side he was already living duplicitous and he was taking from the money bag he had already made a highway in his soul for this moment and he was used and leveraged by the dark side to literally come against his rabbi then satan entered judas surnamed iscariot who was numbered among the twelve so he went his way and conferred with the chief priests and captains how he might betray him to them and for with he judas came to jesus and said hail master and kissed him i don't know if you see how disgusting this is when a man who is literally seated i believe even at the last supper he was seated in the seat of friendship so one of you might be able to correct me on that but i think it was literally one of the seats of honor a seat of friendship at the last supper so the position even jesus gave him and the position he had was one of trust closeness and intimacy and this very man goes and betrays him betrays his whereabouts and then when he's betraying him he kisses him on the cheek he's feigning faking play-acting love that's not real are we doing the same are we kissing the cheek of jesus and meanwhile turning them over into the hands of sinners to be mocked at the table with jesus you know what judas was preparing to do the new covenant i mean this is serious stuff you know when satan was even entering in when this cold con job was taking place he literally has a straight face he knows what he's doing he'd already prepared it in his mind and he's fainting he's showing this false love at the table of jesus scheming to do that which would harm him while celebrating his sacrifice how many of you even while you are in the midst of spiritual matters worshiping god taking communion i don't care what it is praying are you scheming something that would benefit your flesh that you were actually meditating upon things that would aggrandize you is there a difference between that and what judas did what you're going to do and what you're scheming to do is to crucify your christ afresh what you are scheming to do is to put spittle on the face of jesus and yet in a spiritual atmosphere at the table with jesus you have the audacity to do it showing him an illusion of affection at the very moment that we are betraying him you kiss him on the cheek falsely paint an illusion of friendship and agreement with both christ and with the world ananias and sapphira the double dealing ananiasis of fire is a tough story for us as christians because oftentimes what it exposes is the fact that the presence of god is not as thick and as real in our midst today as it was then because i tell you what when you lie to the holy spirit back in the early church you fall down dead the saints gather up your body wrap you up go bury you whoa same god same covenant that's not old covenant that's new covenant the same god that detests the lying to the holy spirit then is the same god that detests it now satan was the first that practiced falsehood under saintly show what are ananias and sapphira doing they want to look good to the church it's the equivalent of sticking your hand in the tithe basket and acting like you're dropping something in it now what's funny is they were dropping something in it but it's like dropping in a dollar and sort of whispering out loud well it's tough to part with that ten dollars they were holding something back but under the show in the pretense that they were more generous than they actually were you could say why would anyone do that it's a good question we do it all the time don't we we want the world to think higher of us we want the church we know what the church esteems yet we're only willing to give a dollar but we want them to think we're willing to give 10. there's no difference between you and ananias and sapphira and i tell you what that's serious to our souls that should make us tremble before the living god acts 5 but a certain man named ananias and sapphira his wife sold the possession and kept back part of the price his wife also being privy to it in other words they did this with full knowledge and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles feet but peter said ananias why has satan filled thine heart to lie to the holy ghost and to keep back part of the price of the land while it remained it was not was it while it remained was it not thine own and after it was sold was it not nine in this own power was your land god wasn't demanding it of you you could have held it back and it wouldn't have been an issue but you lied to the holy spirit why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart thou has not lied unto men but unto god and ananias hearing these words fell down and gave up the ghost he died and great fear came on all them that heard these things and the young men arose wound him up and carried him out and buried him and it was about the space of three hours after when his wife not knowing what was done came in and peter answered unto her tell me whether you sold the land for so much and she said yes for so much then peter said unto her how is it that you have agreed together to tempt the spirit of the lord behold the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door and she'll carry the out then she fell down straightway at his feet and yielded up the ghost she died and the young men came in and found her dead and carrying her forth buried her by her husband and great fear came upon all the church and upon as many as heard these things yeah great fear would come upon us wouldn't it what would immediately happen to us we would begin to allow god to search us i don't want i don't want to die i i want to honor you purify this we begin to see when we begin to focus on things like this i mean i tell you what it's like ratcheting a bolt tighter in our soul we have a little looseness that has come in a little laxness because we live in a relaxed generation it's not that big of a deal you can stretch things a little you know it's a harmless thing i'm still giving money why does it matter well if it matters to god it matters and for whatever reason lying is a high treason activity in the kingdom of heaven so much so that liars cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven lying to the holy spirit scheming to appear virtuous in and amongst the saints we exhibit a false show of fervor of humility of affection and even of reverence this is lying to the holy spirit not just lying to men it's lying to the holy spirit and so when you have leadership that literally will worship god will speak a grand gospel message and then live in a deceit that's not just lying to men they're lying first and foremost to the holy spirit dear lord jesus may we be purged of this the complex man duplicit the duplicitous man of two sides i don't know if you guys have ever seen someone like this actually i know quite a few people that fall into this category but when they're around me they they know they're around eric looting and so what they will give to eric ludy is their best side their sort of spiritual side their spiritual jargon and then when they leave my presence and they go into some of the presence of their other buddies there's even a contempt that can be made and even a hostility that can be shown towards me who they just had a pleasant conversation with i've seen this and what's interesting about it is oftentimes it's under the banner of this exact thing it's an intellectual superiority it's like you know what eric i'm sure you mean well you're a nice guy but you're little minded you're rather narrow in your perspective okay and so it's chuckle chuckle t he and then you go to your other friends and you even look down on them for their lack of understanding the fact that you can go back and forth in environments with such a wit and wisdom and you are now the complex man saint abroad and devil at home listen to this little uh poem this is the self-assessment of the duplicitous christian the complex man when with the worldly i'm a picture of barbarity and then there's a chuckle and a laugh when with the churchly i'm a testimony of piety when evaluating myself i'm a marvel of complexity i tell you what if we have any of that in here it goes the church of jesus can stand that no longer no play acting around here we want the real thing the man of duplicity duplicity's justifications the elaborate means by which conviction stays out of the chamber of a man's awareness some of us even as we're going to this message don't even realize we're being duplicitous we can't even see it i call that the chamber of awareness don't even know it you're just doing it it's just what you do well dear god save us somehow invade our chamber of awareness that we would see what we're doing and i mean that all the way through starting with me if there is any duplicity in my life i want it to be rooted out it's not purposeful i'm not waking up in the morning going i'd really like to be duplicitous i don't want to be so it starts with me but i want it to transcend through all of us this must get out of the church let's not talk about the church down the street let's talk here right here right now get it out of us lord jesus paul couldn't match his behavior this is the justifications by the way well paul couldn't match his behavior to his message so why should i worry about the discrepancy in my own life and they'll quote you romans 7. one of the number one reasons why duplicity is justified is romans 7 half of romans 7. you have the entire bible and people literally in our modern day will take half of a book of the bible half of a chapter of a book of the bible and they will build their entire rationalization for why they can live in defeat and why they can live lie a life that literally is contrary to everything stated in the bible everything including the part that they're quoting conviction is by the way paul lived a victorious life and i will stand on that okay and we could go back and forth on that you could bring up paul's thorn and all sorts of things i've heard all the arguments believe me everyone seems to have an itch to explain why they can live in defeat and not rise up to what jesus christ has commissioned us to what was his shed blood for that's for forgiveness it's for triumph for regeneration it's for a newness of life it's to reveal the manifold wisdom of god to the heavenlies through the church how in the world is that going to work if we don't have power if we don't have enabling grace the cross gave us power well how about this conviction is for those of weaker constitution i've matured out of that that's like all those little baby christians convictions for those of weaker constitution those that don't understand the freedom we have in christ jesus you ever heard that one i have freedom in christ jesus that's why i'm not convicted by this you're convicted by that you have a weak conscience you know the bible says we shouldn't do that yeah but i have freedom you know what freedom in christ jesus is it means freedom from the power of sin it means freedom from the control and dominion of flesh over your life you're going to be a slave to something either a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness you pick your master you are free to finally obey the living god you're not free to just do whatever you want you're free to obey you couldn't obey until now now you're free to do it but don't use that freedom to return like a dog into vomit to your flesh this is a classic justification of why we are allowing duplicity into the church of jesus christ today if i appear the sop i like that word that's a good old english word if i appear the sop or the pregas prudes puritanical starchy religionist none of us wants to be that i don't know about you if i were to say how many of you uh would like to be the sop the preakist prudes puritanical starchy religionist none of us is going to be that's because that's not what true christianity is but that's what the world perceives oh i don't want to be that and so what do we do we'll give our life radically to jesus over here and then when we enter entertain the world what will we do well i don't want them to think i'm one of those type of christians and so what do we do we act like them and then if we ever get a chance we can say yeah and i go to church you want to come to church with me i mean we have this really weak willed gospel presentation we act like them and we're around them to try and win them to something that they're not seeing in us what what are they going to think when they come to church and now you're acting all spiritual there they're going to look at you and go what a weirdo okay he acts like me when he's with me but then when he's here he's acting all spiritual or are you gonna act like the world in the church just to show off for your buddy who's with you what are you gonna do you're caught in a trap aren't you it doesn't work that way you're the same person everywhere you go whether your friend likes it or not you're jesus in front of him it's a show of love to my worldly buddies to laugh at their jokes and to join them in their debauchery after all didn't jesus do the same i don't know if you guys have heard these things this is just classic christianity in our day why in the world are they behaving this way why in the world is this youth group being led by some youth group leader meeting in hooters well it's because that's where jesus would be meeting i take offense to that i take offense to that you know that jesus did enter this world and he was around this junk but he was never of the world and he did not participate in worldlyness jesus didn't become worldly he maintained the perfection of holiness and righteousness the entire while he reached out to those in sin i agree he reached out to the prostitute i agree that he participated with people that the pharisaical class would never touch i agree he went to the lepers and you weren't supposed to do certain things like this he literally talked to the samaritan woman that is against the rules i agree jesus is quite a picture of christ of of god's love god's father's heart but he's not a picture of worldliness and he's not any justification for one of us to live a duplicitous life jesus was the same everywhere he was whether it was with the prostitute whether that was with the pharisee same guy he gave the same message well we could say it this way he gave to them that which they needed and so to the humble he gave grace and to the proud well he resisted them but same god same message no character shift so why would a christian do this that's a good question why would we do this let's go through this quick list why would a man cheat on his taxes why would we cheat on our taxes is it because we know that no one will ever find out is it because we feel that the irs doesn't deserve the money anyways we have all our justifications believe me i've probably had them run through my head many times they're out there they're floating there any way that we can hold back money to give the show of giving that which is due okay i want you to realize there is no excuse in christianity for living duplicitous even before the irs you're the same man and you live honestly same woman you live honestly in every situation i know that's uh an interesting debatable point it's not a debatable point up here you are honest in all your dealings you tell the truth there are things that i've done in my past when i look back on certain financial things that i've done i wouldn't do it the same now and so you can say well that's an avenue of excuse for me then no i'm saying i'm convicted and there's a repentance there's a change and i can justify and say well yeah i mean we're talking that much of a stretch come on hey let's start living honestly even when the irs examines our life what are they going to see are they going to see the same man that they see in our tax return why would a man speed down the interstate okay the students this weekend already know that i've been pulled over and gotten a ticket in my life in fact if leslie gets up here and starts talking she'd tell you that i probably have gotten three or four and she would also brag that she's never gotten any you know i i believe that we should obey the speed limit i know that sounds strange sounds like such a pathetic little thing but when no one's watching because the reason we would obey the speed limit is because we know that there's a uh radar on us what about we live honestly when no radar is on us we live the same when no radar is on us that's when the radar is on us think about it it's the same principle we're the same we're not trying to give to the cop what he wants to see or show the society around us what they want to see that we're a good driver we do it for jesus we live as the same in all circumstances you can say what's an unjust speed limit so be it it's not a violation of conscience for you to keep it there's a speed limit out here it's ridiculous it's like 45 it should be 55-65 at least you ever had that thought and so it's like i'm going in between that somehow okay i know the justifications i've been there many times i just want you to know we live as christians you want to start removing duplicity from your life let's start in these small areas and then god will begin to transcend that through the big ones i remember when god was dealing with me with absolute integrity i was at a bank uh and you're going through the drive-through window and they gave me change for something and i got into my car i drove a few feet you know out of the way so someone could come in behind me and i counted it and i think they'd given me either one or two extra pennies that's like really awkward what am i gonna do i'm in a hurry one or two extra pennies they're not gonna care what did i do i brought it in and you know how stupid i felt too uh you gave me you know one or two i don't remember what it was one or two one or two extra pennies they're like thank you they're looking at each other going is this guy for real what would happen if we as christians were for real what would happen if we did return the one or two pennies i remember studying one of my invoices once that i'd received from uh i think it was the estes park ymca the rockies we've done an event up there and for whatever reason i was looking through this invoice and i realized so i don't remember what it was but something like they had undercharged me oh no they undercharged me i was short on money to start with what do you do can you live with yourself you shouldn't be able to they undercharged you justly speaking you owe them money oh i remember calling up like hi um you know here's my account i really feel that according to this you may have undercharged me and i'm just expecting them to say oh good well here's an extra five thousand dollar charge you know you know what they did instead i don't know if it was something like this but we have never had anyone actually do that um let me talk with the management on this they actually got back with me and said you don't need to pay it that's what they said to me they got they're so impressed with the fact that i would go out of my way they said it was our mistake and in any other situation we wouldn't have received it so in this we want to honor you by not charging it to you yeah but i still had to go through it because it's very likely i was going to have to pay it these are hard i know but this is the proving ground of our soul it's not in the obvious things you know like are you going to deny christ or die that's a hard moment but if you don't train on the small ones do you think you're going to be ready for the bigger ones these are hard i know because it usually involves money it involves reputation it involves getting somewhere slower i remember i don't know if i've ever told this story this isn't a very good story but i was in seattle and so well i was actually portland i think and i was driving up to meet someone for dinner do you remember this story less uh the speeding story and we were the the interstate numbers were at like a certain number like three or four and they said that they were at exit 12. and so i'm figuring you know in colorado it's always a mild distance between mile markers so i'm thinking okay it's about 10 minutes on the interstate and so we'll leave with 15 minutes we'll be there plenty of time and i like to be on time it's one of the value things that i have going is i just feel like i want to be on time if at all possible if i can't you know hey that's what happens but i at least want to try and so but what i realized is i had to go across the border and all the numbers shifted and suddenly i was 50 some miles away oh no these people are waiting for us this guy uh was going to come down and meet us at the exit so he was literally in like a park and ride and he was going to meet us and then take us up some rambly road to help find his his house and so i'm picturing this guy waiting and i'm just feeling the pressure and so eric's foot just starts getting heavy on the gas and i was just going fast you know and i'm thinking you know what for their sake for their sake so i call the guy up and i'm like yeah i'm i'm really running behind and he says well and i said i realized that mile marker so i'm literally way behind i'm going to get there as fast as i can and he says please don't speed and i go well i understand but i'm going to get there as fast as i can he goes please don't speed i go thanks for being sensitive to us but i'm going to get there for your sake as fast as i can he's for my sake please don't speed he didn't tell me any more than that and i said i said so in the parking ride he said yeah i i'll be the white car and it'll say dare on the side of it i didn't think anything of it terrorism what's that uh and little did i know he's a cop and he's one of the head cops of the entire he called all his buddies that were monitoring the interstate he says there's a guy who's driving very fast and he's coming right through your range let him through so i got there i pull up to a cop car and he has to tell me you know i told you not to speed hey at least i was honest with him you can look at it that way no duplicity why would a man look at pornography why would he ever do that i love you says to his wife and then he literally stabs her in the back the next day why would he do that how could any of us participate in things that literally show a duplicity it's a lie and lies hurt the ones we love why would a man fake his christian devotion we have our reasons none of them are excusable before the bar of heaven hypocrisy is folly it is much easier safer and pleasanter to be the thing which a man aims to appear than to keep up the appearance of what he is not it's easier to just be honest it's harder to keep the sham the enemy's not telling you that part when the sham starts to get a little out of control it becomes very difficult it is better to just be honest it is better to be truthful even if the truth is going to hurt even if you have to pay the government an extra few thousand it is better to be honest the call to repentance may we not point to others but first point to ourselves is the problem then he said to them why do you sleep rise and pray unless you enter into temptation while he was still speaking behold a multitude and he was called and he he who was called judas one of the 12 went before him them and drew near to jesus to kiss him but jesus said to him judas are you betraying the son of man with a kiss when those around him saw what was going on going to happen they said to him lord shall we strike with the sword this is an interesting parallel peter was sleeping when he should have been awake it says lest you enter into temptation stay awake and then in this situation what does he do he draws his swords just shall we strike with the sword you see hypocrisy out there you see the son of man being betrayed with a kiss and guess what you're part of the problem we've been sleeping on the job we're trying to draw our sword out now and give this huge growl and say i can't believe the hypocrites out there but guess what jesus had been asking us to stay awake and to watch with him and what have we been doing we've been slumbering in the garden do we have any business talking right now let's get things right here and then let's start dealing with judas okay yeah i'm not happy with judas either but i'm also not happy with us as the church i think we have some serious culpability here in this room and we're serious-minded christians i say let's get serious about jesus christ and let jesus christ be everything in our souls

Channel: Ellerslie Discipleship Training

Views: 1,221

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Eric Ludy, The Gospel, Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Cross, Cross of Christ, Ellerslie Discipleship, Ellerslie Discipleship Training, Ellerslie, sermon, Bible, Bible study, sermon message, duplicity, hypocrisy, double life, pastor, minister, missionary

Id: HLi9BZ_DnLU

Length: 93min 49sec (5629 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 26 2021