How to Avoid Being Deceived -- Zac Poonen -- March 31, 2021

[Music] as i have observed christendom in general and believers in many countries and even many in our cfc churches i felt more and more that the great need one of the great needs anyway is to be delivered from deceiving ourselves about our spiritual condition see when the disciples asked jesus in matthew 24 if you begin there he in in matthew 24 and verse 3 the last part he said when will all these things happen that is when will the temple be pulled down that was about 40 years after jesus crucifixion and then he asked they asked him what will be the sign of your coming and at the end of the age and when they ask for one sign the first thing jesus mentioned was was for see to it that no one deceives you do you take that exhortation seriously see to it that you are not deceived and he went on to say further again [Music] verse 11 many false prophets will arise and people will be deceived in verse 24 false christs and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders to mislead people do you know the number of false prophets today who are showing signs and wonders in the name of jesus and deceiving if possible even the elect so it's one of those things which we wonder god is a loving father why does he allow deceiving spirits to come into the midst of the church i mean if i as an earthly father if i knew that somebody is a deceiver i would not allow him to come and talk to my children in my home i keep them away but i'm not god god's wisdom is as much above mine as the heaven is above the earth that's what he says in isaiah 55 my ways are not your ways isaiah 55 verse 8 and 9 very important for all of us to humble ourselves and understand [Music] god's ways are not our ways and if you want to know how much different they are he says as different as the heaven is above the earth so as i said my way is i would never allow a deceiver into my house if i knew he was a bizarre i'll keep him far away but god i mean the very first chapters of the bible tell us that god allowed a deceiver to come into the garden of eden to tempt and adamandi as a loving father if you have two innocent children would you allow a deceiver to go and try and deceive them and lead them astray into eternal damnation because that's what happened very often we try to project our way of thinking into gods and he's not it says please remember this verse always god's ways are as much different from ours as the heaven is above the earth and that's a very humbling thought that the cleverest among us doesn't have a clue of god's ways but if you study the scripture carefully and see how god dealt with different people in the scripture that's why it's important to study the bible it's the only book in the whole world that shows us god's ways and if i don't spend time studying it however clever we may be we will be deceived in these days jesus said the disciples asked what is going to be the sign of your coming and jesus said be careful no one deceives you so we can ask ourselves why does god allow deception why did he allow satan to come there into the garden he could have kept satan away well there are many reasons first of all we can never become holy if our will is not personally exercised on god's side against everything else that's the first thing we see in the garden of eden [Music] that when even adam and eve saw that tree of knowledge of good and evil so beautiful attractive it made eve's mouth water it was perhaps one of the most attractive trees in the garden and yet it was forbidden there are many attractive things in the world that god forbids we say why does he make it attractive man i mean if god had made that tree ugly repulsive smelly full of thorns and and told adam and eve don't go near it he's saying no lord we don't want to go anywhere here we like to stay a mile away from it it stinks but he made it attractive and the scent of it was so good and the appearance was so good and everything was attractive and then god said don't don't eat from it the test there is god is asking adam and eve is asking us today [Music] do you consider me more attractive than what i've created you believe that i am more attractive than everything i've created or do you find something i've created to be more attractive than me i find numerous christians for example you know jesus spoke about god and money being opposites and the reason i mention that is because money is one of the most attractive things in the world today if you want to know why did adam and eve go for the tree of knowledge of good and evil and not go for the tree of life you ask yourself why do so many so-called born-again christians go so much after money even though it brings loss to their spiritual life well the answer is there in luke 16 jesus said that money and god wealth and god were two opposite masters seeking to draw us and he says in luke 16 13 no servant can serve two masters and either he will be devoted to the one and despise the other or you hate the one and love the other you cannot serve god and wealth or money or mammon and that's very clear you cannot serve both how do i know whether i'm serving god or money i don't want to deceive myself you know jesus warning be careful that you're not deceived and i don't want to deceive myself the way i've looked at it is like this are you to use an illustration [Music] if there are two people sitting in front of me and both say zach is my servant it's very easy for you to find out whose servant i really am you tell both of them you call zach let's see who he goes to a or b and if both of them call me and i go to a and not to b then i'm a servant if i go to b then i am these servants so that's the way we can test ourselves when god and money pull me and say come towards me whoever i respond to i'm that person's servant if the call of money in a particular situation attracts me more than the call of god i am money servant whatever you may say however much you may know the bible whether you go to rlcf or any other church in the world in the testing times of life that's what attracts it particularly is for example in the matter of being righteous righteous and paying our taxes and being righteous and all money matters and there may be situations where you can be a little unrighteous and get away with it and there you're tested that little benefit you that little profit that you get by doing something slightly wrong [Music] attracts you then you prove thereby that money is more valuable to you than god but righteousness is not as important as that little financial profit you can get by being slightly unrighteous which the world may accept now that's not serious and even some other believers may say oh that's okay most people do it do you live by the conscience of others i've one of the things i'll tell you i've been a christian now 61 years and by the grace of god one of the things that's preserved me from the beginning is i decided not to live by the conscience of other people even fine believers they would say this is okay zach i say fine go ahead and do it i don't feel free to do it so excuse me i will not be involved in that so many people thought i was very peculiar in my younger days when i was in the navy that's fine i live with a clear conscience today and i've lived with a clear conscience for many years now and that's made such a difference in my life it's like breathing fresh air it's like being able to sleep peacefully at night i say the best pillow you can sleep on is a good conscience so always the test is is god more important or this other thing that looks so attractive there are people who tell lies in order to get some benefit i know a lot of indians have told lies in order to get a visa to come to the united states because coming to the united states is such an attractive thing and nobody's going to catch you except god and so we tell a lie and get away with it and get that visa and come there and they live here and work here it looks as you know everything is okay everything looks okay until the judgment seat of christ when everything is exposed and you discover where you're going to finally end up or even if you do get to heaven what a wasted life you lived on earth because you made a slight compromise at one point i don't want to face that many times i've said to the lord lord don't show me anything at the judgment seat of christ which you don't tell me now i want to hear it down because then i have no opportunity to set it right am i fooling myself in some area am i deceiving myself am i thinking that my bible knowledge makes me spiritual please show me i want to be absolutely clear so that at the judgment seat of christ the lord has zero charges against me because first of all the blood of christ has taken care of my failures in the past that's taken care of and justified by the blood of christ and and to the best of my knowledge i'm living with a good conscience now i want to encourage you dear brothers uh please preserve yourself in this because i find around me deception is increasing like anything and i'd say almost the maximum deception is among those who claim the most and in christendom those who claim to have the maximum spirituality are among pentecostals and charismatics and i've been in their midst and i've been amazed at the amount of deception there is about what true spirituality is fake healings and all types of things which ordinary sensible people can see through we're not even christians and here are people who call themselves christians who are deceived so it's very real what jesus said take heed that no one deceives you satan is called the deceiver of the whole world i hope you know that verse in revelation it's one of the titles the bible gives to satan revelation 12 and verse 9 he deceives the whole world there's if you live in this world there's a deceiver who's out to deceive you so the question comes to us why does a loving father allow such a deceiver okay at least why doesn't he protect his children from being deceived why does he allow deception to come into the midst of god's people to whom did jesus say take heed that nobody deceives you he didn't say that to the pharisees he didn't say that to unbelievers he said that to not just to believers but to wholehearted disciples who had forsaken everything to follow him people had given up their jobs sold their fishing nets and decided to follow jesus radical disciples he tells them be careful nobody receives you do you think any of us can escape that i want to be careful i don't want to think that because i've committed myself to the lord and i wanted to follow him a whole lot only therefore i'll escape the sex see the bible says in jeremiah 17 verse 9 jeremiah chapter 17 verse 9 the heart the human heart is more deceitful than everything else jeremiah 17 verse 9. so look at the things that are fighting against us first of all the devil who's there to deceive the whole world i'm born with a heart that is deceitful about everything else that means it can fool me completely about whether i am born again or not first of all there are numerous people i have met it's crystal clear to me as a servant of the lord this guy is not born again this lady is not born again but they are absolutely convinced they are and nothing i tell them will ever wake them up the heart is deceitful about all things you must be humble enough to accept the word of god let me show you another thing that deceives us i told you satan diseases our heart is deceitful ephesians chapter 4 [Music] ephesians 4 it says here is remember ephesians is written to believers is not a letter written to unbelievers and he he says in ephesians 4 verse 21 you have heard him you've been taught in him just as the truth is in jesus and he talks about your former unconverted way of life now you believers he's talking to the believers remember that apply to you and me lay aside the old man hey actually i thought my old man was crucified with christ it's true but i need to lay it aside because that is corrupt according to deceitful lusts so here's another thing that diseases us our lusts the devil our heart and those desires within us deceive us saying i can make you happy they don't make us happy they make us miserable or it tells us oh that's not serious they deceive us look at the number of believers believers who secretly watch pornography married people who secretly have a glance at something pornographic you gonna they are believers you ask them don't you think that's bad yeah but those deceitful lusts in that moment tell them oh it's okay just not doing it all the time just a few minutes it's over you can always repent you can always come to jesus and ask him to forgive you that would be like teaching your child who's going for an examination [Music] if you can cheat cheat take some answers in your pocket and look at it during the examination or glance over to the neighbor's paper and see what the answer is writing and you can always come back at the end of the exam and come back to the lord and ask him to forgive you see then you've got the benefit of cheating and passing in your examination and the lord's forgiven you too now we won't teach our children that but there are many believers who act like that what does it matter if you watch pornography a little bit you can always ask the lord to forgive me what's wrong if you do a little wrong there you can always ask the lord to forgive you what does it matter if you don't control your temper and you yell at your husband or wife you can always ask the lord to forgive you there's absolutely no difference between that and telling your son cheating the examination come back and ask the lord to forgive you what's the difference deceitful lusts so the devil my heart deceitful lusts why does god allow all this i believe there's a purpose one of the great things that god does through the circumstances of life is to sit you know in india uh we used to uh if you're not very well off you have to go and stand in a ration shop and get wheat supplied by the government we used to stand in line and get the wheat when we were there my wife and i earlier on when we are not so well off but that wheat that you get is mixed with so many other things there's a lot of chap in it and you have to sift out the wheat from the chaff if you want to use it you can't cook it as it is here you get cleaned meat perhaps wheat rather but we have to do that all the time and i believe that's quick and there's a little sort of tray in which people keep throwing the thing up so that the chat flies away and get the wheat i i thought of that is that is how god is using deception he's allowing deception even to come into the church because he's sifting the wheat from the chap that is the purpose is that like that little tray which folks in india use to toss to read up and chop up and throw away the chaff and leave the wheat behind the various ways in which people sip the wheat out from the chat and you know or whenever people want to get something concentrated uh people when they want to get pure gold from a mixed metal they put it in the fire to get the pure gold out so deception is like that deception is like a fire which purifies the gold and god gets the gold out of it and the rest which is mixed gets burned up or thrown away so that's the purpose of deception so that's god's way it's the way he drives the chaff away from the wheat and the only way to escape it how can we escape it how can we ensure that we remain as the wheat and we remain that we are not deceived for years and years i used to seek god about this and i said lord i don't want to be deceived i've got only one life to live i mean we are so careful that people don't cheat us in money matters boy money matters we are really smart almost all of us you can fool a little child in money matters a five-year-old goes to the market or something like that you'll get cheated you can't put a five-year-old you can't ask a five-year-old to put money in the stock market you will be you lose everything they can be deceived but we are not five-year-olds we are smart right most of us think we are pretty smart with money matters you know people can't fool us maybe not in money matters but in something much more serious than that in our eternal destiny in our eternal wealth and the wealth that really matters it's very easy to be deceived and i believe that many many christians are being deceived so as i've studied the scriptures and sought to escape myself the escape from deception myself here is the one verse that has helped me the most and i want to share it with you he's talking about the deception of satan in 2nd thessalonians in chapter 2 specifically speaking about deception it says here in second thessalonians 2 and verse 9 in the middle of that verse it says about the activity of satan which is of power and signs and false wonders fake healings and a lot of it today with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish why do they perish here are the two reasons and this is what helped me they perish number one [Music] because they don't perceive the love of the truth and secondly they don't want to be saved from sin for this reason which reason they don't receive the love of the truth and they don't want to be saved from sin for this reason god himself let me paraphrase it allows them to be deceived allows them to believe something totally false god himself allows some people to believe they are born again when they are not born again and even when a discerning spiritual man comes up to a person and tells him brother i don't think you're born again he says oh this guy doesn't know i'm okay god himself allows them to believe something totally false to believe that they are very spiritual when they are downright carnal how can i escape this it's not enough that some elder brother thinks i'm spiritual i tell you i couldn't care less if every man of god in the world comes and tells me i'm spiritual they may be all deceived they don't see 99 of my life how can they know i want to be absolutely sure because this is a matter of eternal life and eternal death how careful we are in matters of physical life and death of pete how easily people are willing to spend millions to be healed from cancer or from some deadly disease this is more serious i don't want to believe what is false i don't want to be deceived and so i find my salvation in this lord by your grace i'm going to love the truth i'm going to love the truth that god shows me in the word about myself i'm going to love the truth that god shows me about his ways and i'm willing to change my mind when i see something in god's word which is different from what i've always believed i found many many believers are not willing to do this see more than 90 percent of christians believe that jesus will take us up when he comes and we will escape the great tribulation that's the belief of 90 of people who call themselves believers and more than 90 of all the bible colleges teach that that the christians will escape the great tribulation and be raptured christ will take the church up i believed it for years from the time i was converted because i belong in the brethren the plymouth brethren assemblies who taught that i was only young 23 years old but as i studied the scriptures i found that's not what the bible says i found that the bible says that christ comes after the great tribulation and that then i will hear the sound of the angel and trumpet and when i started preaching that people thought it was a false doctrine let me just show you what it says here in matthew 24 and verse 29 i'm just giving you one example of deception matthew 24 and verse 29 he's talking about the last days in the great tribulation immediately after the tribulation of those days there'll be so many powers in heavens will be shaken etc and then when immediately after the tribulation and then verse 30 the sign of the son of man will appear in the sky and the son of man will come verse 29 when clouds great glory and he'll send forth his angels and with a great trumpet and they will gather together this is the rapture he's elect from the four corners of the earth how much clearer can it be than that how is it that 90 of believers throughout the world believe that christ will come before the tribulation it's amazing the work that satan has done to deceive people even though it's so clearly written by the words that they say is the word of god that jesus spoke i'll just give you one example i could show you numerous places in scripture where people don't accept what is clearly written this god's word is the truth jesus said that in john 17 he said father sanctify them through thy truth thy word is truth okay but they did not receive the love of the truth so god allows them to be deceived that's just one example there are many other things like that if i see something in scripture i've seen numerous people for example who take an infant baptism as a baby and they they're born again after that and they don't feel the need for baptism i said you know what baptism means the word baptism means immersion were you immersed as a child no oh that's not serious isn't it when god says so it's uh there are places in scripture where it says they john the baptist was baptizing in a place because there was plenty of water there and philip was speaking to the ethiopian unit and when they came to a place where there was a little pond and a lot of water he said baptize me he didn't take a glass of water and put it on his head it's so clear in scripture but there are multitudes of believers in many denominations who are never baptized okay it's amazing how they don't love the truth in my own life my spiritual i was i was born again 61 years ago but i took one and a half years to take baptism because i was baptized as a baby and people told me well it's accepted by god you don't take a second baptism i said oh okay when i was young i was only 19 and a half and i started studying the scriptures and i saw clearly that baptism is after we are born again baptism is a symbol of burial and you bury your personally after he's dead not before he's dead so my when i was born again my old man is dead it's after that only you can bury him but i fought against it for one and a half years and every time i knelt down to pray i felt the lord saying to me you're not listening to me why should i listen to you still i got fed up and i said okay i'm gonna get baptized so it was one and a half years after i was born again that i took baptism and i know in my own life it may not be true in everybody's life my spiritual growth started from the time i was baptized because it was an act of obedience against a certain teaching that i had accepted if i did not love the truth at that point i would be in that same state today after 60 years i thank god he gave me grace to obey it to love the truth that means when i read something in god's word and it tells me something about myself god is asking me do you now love the truth about yourself which i've shown you you can listen to a message and in the message god speaks specifically to you about something in your life and you know god is speaking to you maybe your wife or somebody else or husband is sitting next to you and god's not speaking to them it's to you and you know it is to you and then the question comes will you love the truth or will you immediately bring out some justification no this is why i did it that's why oh it's not like that etc we are such masters at self-justification every human being even a little four-year-old child is a master at self-justification you try that with any child they'll give you an answer for any wrong thing that they did so and through years of experience we've become experts in self-justification even towards god god allows such people to be deceived love the truth when you see it in god's word when you see something in god's word that's different from what you've always believed i'm not saying act immediately study it carefully and when you're convinced it is the truth of god's word give up what you've always believed and accept the word of god this is how i have left one church and gone to another and left that church and gone to another because i said hey these guys are not preaching the truth i grew up in the syrian orthodox church and i discovered they're not preaching the truth like i said about water baptism so then i joined the brethren and i discovered they are not talking about the baptism in the holy spirit they don't even talk about it so i visited their pentecostal church and founded there was a lot of confusion there they were not preaching gently i mean holy spirit what's the holy spirit supposed to do i know what an evil spirit does makes people evil i know what an unclean spirit does it does people makes people unclean i know what a deceitful spirit does deceives people okay so what should the holy spirit do make us holy but i found that people who talk about the immersion of the holy spirit were not talking about holiness they were just talking about babbling making some noises with their tongue and saying that's the baptism in the holy spirit i came away from such changes i said lord i don't want to be deceived evil spirits make people evil unclean spirits make people unclean and deceitful spirits to deceive people holy spirit must be making holy if he doesn't make me holy some other spirit that i got i decided that i'm gonna be i love the truth and i want the genuine fullness of the holy spirit not some fake fool myself for years just convince other people i'm baptized in the holy spirit what's the point what's the point of fooling other people if a man's got cancer and dying of it what's what does he gain by convincing other people that he's healthy he's only ruining himself so love the truth when you see something in god's word this country what you always believe study it accept the truth and god tells you something about your own life and you see that is the truth humble yourself and accept it that's the way we can be saved see for example i'll give you one or two examples turn with me to james in chapter one james 1 let me paraphrase this james 1 26. if anyone thinks he is spiritual that apply to you [Music] i think most of you think your searching that's my guess if anyone thinks he's spiritual and he cannot control his tongue when he speaks to his wife when he speaks to her husband when he speaks to somebody who's irritated him and provoked him he cannot control his tongue his paraphrase his christianity is worth zero do you believe that if you believe that someone who thinks he's spiritual but he cannot control his tongue in a provocative situation do you believe that his christianity is worth zero what does work less mean worthless is another way of saying it is worth nothing his entire christianity is worth nothing he deceives his own heart speaking about deception in this verse he's deceiving himself he cannot control his tongue but he thinks he's spiritual he's just deceiving himself so it's amazing how easy it is for us to deceive ourselves when you read something like that you must face up to it and say lord i don't want to fool myself help me help me to be a genuine child of god one who's really seeking to be your disciple let me show you another verse in galatians and chapter 6. i told you earlier on it speaks about if anyone thinks he's spiritual here also the holy spirit is referring to galatians 6 and verse 3 if anyone thinks he's somebody i'm an important person in whatever sphere spiritually perhaps he is when he's actually nothing he deceives himself he speaks about deceiving ourselves and thinking that i'm a very spiritual person when i'm not at all imagining that i'm spiritually rich but i'm actually poor do all these verses sort of disturb you and shake you a bit good if you're established in christ and you're walking in the light you will never be shaken the solution is to walk in the light of god there is no condemnation to those who walk in the light but i have to be ruthlessly honest that's the word i often use ruthlessly honest with myself and never allow myself to be impressed by the opinion other people have about me no my dear brothers and sisters i plead with you in jesus name never be impressed by the opinion other people have about you those people do they know how you live at home do they know how you speak to your husband or your wife every day no what do they know about your spirituality then they see your public image when you go to church or when you meet them which is we are always putting up our bus front when we are there so the opinion of others words worth nothing in fact the opinion of satan about me is better than the opinion of people because satan sees me at home and always in my private life when i'm all alone also he sees me his opinion is far more important than people's opinion because they don't see me all the time because god's opinion is the most important so to imagine that i'm spiritual it's very easy very very easy and this since this is a matter of our eternal destiny you have to be very very very careful imagined importance and that's why god gives us certain checks sometimes where for example when you slip up and fall in some way what can happen to any of us you say lord what do you say when you sleep and fall into some sin don't just say oh i'm sorry i slipped up lord please forgive me that's good ask for the cleansing in the blood but go beyond that and let me tell you what you should do when you slip and fall into anything you mean in a small way or a big way just slight slip out maybe a bad thought payment a bitterness against somebody a little murmuring just for a few seconds about something that happened in the home some complaining murmuring it's not the spirit of christ romans 6 14 says no sin can have power over you when you're under grace small sin fixing nothing can have power over you when you're under grace it's like if i'm under a roof however much it may rain outside not one drop falls on my head i'm under a roof that protects me from the rain the rain is falling all around sin is all around but it can't fall on me it cannot touch me because i am under grace sin shall not rule over you when you are under grace so what should i say when i slip up and fall into sin lord at that moment i was not under grace i did not receive grace at that moment then the next question comes why did i not receive grace that's also very simple 1 peter 5 verse 5 god gives grace only to the humble he resists the proud but he gives grace to the humble so i have to face up to the fact i did not get grace because i was god saw that i was proud even though i may have a reputation for humility and everybody thinks i'm out of god so i was proud and he did not give me grace if you love the truth about yourself i'm telling you the way i've gone anytime i slip up i say lord i don't ask why i know why i didn't get grave and i know why i didn't get grace i was proud and i say lord i only ask one question i don't ask why did i slip up i say lord show me where i was proud and the lord has shown me maybe something that happened last week when suddenly i began to have some high thoughts about myself in some situation and a little bit of that poison of pride got in and i didn't get grace it's a battle to keep ourselves humble it's easy if you keep looking at jesus if you keep looking at jesus it is impossible to be proud because he never sought his own glory in anything and always taking the long place he was never offended if people called him the prince of devils you forgive them and never he was never offended with anyone he was patient with people and i say lord jesus i want to look at that i look at the holy spirit i want you to show me the glory of jesus and make me like him you know the double ministry of the holy spirit is described in second corinthians three nobody in the old testament could experience this our new testament privilege i mean if you were living before christ you could never experience this old testament people were proud without knowing it they were defeated in sin no old testament person had victory in his thought life if there was pornography available in the days before christ a lot of so-called god's people would be watching it but not today because now we have the holy spirit and it says in second corinthians 3 and verse 18 that god has removed the veil and now i can see the glory of jesus in the mirror of god's word the mirror mentioned here by the way in 2nd corinthians 3 18 is the word of god the law the perfect law of liberty in james 1 it says the one who looks at the perfect law of liberty is looking into a mirror so god's word is like a mirror in which i see my need and not only my need but in this mirror i see the glory of jesus christ so in god's word i see the glory of jesus christ and the holy spirit shows me that and not only shows me then it says he transforms me into that likeness so the double ministry of the holy spirit is mentioned in verse 18 as showing me the glory of jesus in the scriptures and changing me into that likeness once i understood that my passion i'll tell you this honestly before god my passion when i read the bible is not to get a message to preach to other people you know it used to be in my younger immature days i read the word of god to get some message to preach to others now i read the word of god it says you have to see the glory of jesus from genesis to revelation to see the glory of jesus do you remember it says in luke 24 you look at that sometime in luke 24 it says when jesus walked with the two disciples to emmaus he took all the scriptures it says the law and the prophets that means from genesis to malachi and showed those two disciples the things concerning himself in all those 39 books so the old testament scriptures are full of jesus if i want to see the glory of jesus it's there in the old testament much more in the 27 books of the new testament and the holy spirit has come to show me the glory of jesus in the scriptures and to change me into that likeness if i make the holy spirit lord of my life it says here in verse 18 as from the lord the spirit so the way to be humble is by looking at jesus i won't be fooled i say lord and it's amazing the number of revelations god has given me as i read the scriptures of the humility of christ in different different situations and i say lord i'm not like that i want to be like that i want to be like that it's not something that will happen overnight but if you you have a passion for it if you hunger and thirst for it the holy spirit will do it for you so it's a wonderful life we don't have to be deceived i have to love the truth and i want to be saved from sin that's the second thing we read in 2nd thessalonians 2 love the truth when i see the truth in god's word and when i god shows me the truth about myself the other thing is to be saved from sin in other words my desire must be to be totally saved from all sin and the way i apply it to myself and i would encourage you to do also is do you want to be 100 healthy or 90 how many of you are happy with 90 health i know it's probably impossible in this world to be 100 healthy but don't you want it would you ignore a small sickness and say oh that's a small sickness it doesn't matter no even if we get an injury on our hand minor injury he'd say hey that can get infected let me wash it off if necessary put some medicine on it we don't want to get sick even a small injury we're so careful with our bodies and actually lord i want to be just as careful with my spirit that there's no defilement see second corinthians in chapter seven second corinthians in chapter seven since god has given us these wonderful promises and what is the promise the previous verse chapter 6 verse 18 i'll be your father to you and you will be my sons and daughters and verse 16 i will come and dwell in your midst great with all these promises what should i do beloved let us cleanse ourselves from all the filthiness of flesh which is external and of spirit which is internal pursuing perfection in holiness in the reverent fear of god we'll never get there if we don't pursue it i have to have a passion to perfect holiness all of us will acknowledge we're not perfect we'll never be perfect on this earth but here it says we have to perfect holiness in a reverence for god in a reverence for scripture where i when i read scripture i see things in myself see i've been reading the bible for 61 years and i'll tell you honestly nearly 62 years now i'm getting things new from the bible to my need even now even this morning as i read the scriptures something for myself challenged me maybe one sentence but i never wanted to let a day go by that without at least one thing challenging me it's more important to have one thing that scripture challenges me about than easing my conscience saying i read one chapter today once you use easing your conscience saying i read so much today it's good to read scripture i spent hours reading and studying scripture in my younger days but i don't want to know the facts of scripture i want scripture to challenge me perfect my holiness in reverence for god let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit and god will help us if i love the truth and if i say lord i want to be saved from all sin i don't want to just get a reputation for others that i'm a holy person or what is it it's worth nothing the opinion of people i say it's good for the trash can unless it's a very godly person who tells me the truth about myself otherwise everybody else's opinion is a fit for the trash can because god speaks to me if i want if i'm eager to know my true condition i tell you god will give you a scan will you give me a scan just like if you have a doubt about your inner health you go and get a scan done we need to have a scan until we become perfect is only when christ comes again lord i want to be saved from all sin i want to love the truth and you can test me out on that and then i guarantee my brothers and sisters you will have you will not be deceived and here is one of my favorite verses i'll close with that one corinthians 11. which i often quote one corinthians 11 and verse 31 if we judge ourselves rightly in the day that i stand before the lord at his judgment seat i will not be judged the lord will say your record is clear i have nothing to say to you my son nothing to be judged do you know that we can live like that on the earth 1 corinthians 4 paul gives his own testimony one corinthians and chapter 4 verse 4 i am conscious of nothing against myself if he could live like that on the earth why can't you and i what he's saying is my conscience does not convict me of a single thing at this time but he says that doesn't mean i'm perfect because i have a whole lot of unconscious areas where i'm unlike christ that the lord is will examine me and show me little by little you know we have two parts to our life that which we are conscious of which our conscience tells us and then the unconscious area which god reveals to us little by little by little by little if we are passionate to become like christ but we are called to live in total assurance that our conscience is clear aware of nothing that the lord convicts me of every single day that's how we're supposed to live that is a true disciple of jesus how does he live like that as soon as a spec touches his conscience he immediately confesses it asks the lord to cleanse it the moment he realizes he's hurt somebody with a rude word or an unkind word he immediately asks forgiveness if necessary many times a day people may laugh at us your wife may laugh at you hey you're always asking forgiveness you know because i want to keep my conscious clean one day you will see the result of that you will not speak those rude words anymore because you took every time you said it you took it seriously you don't take it seriously i guarantee till the end of your life you'll be speaking rude words and hurtful words he'll be murmuring and complaining because you take all those things lightly it's because we take certain things lightly that we keep on falling into those areas dirty thoughts wrong attitudes the occasional lustful look because i don't take these things seriously i pray that all of you my dear brothers and sisters will really seek to perfect holiness in the fear of god take heed that you are not deceived may god help us shall we bow in prayer there are impressions of the holy spirit as made up on your heart today i want to urge you my dear brother sister ask the holy spirit to deepen that conviction and perhaps when you're lying in bed lying in bed tonight when you're alone before you go to sleep think about what you heard that's the best one of the best times to meditate on what happened during the day just before you go to sleep have a clean conscience say lord i'm serious about following you i want a major uplift in my spiritual life do that for me i've been stagnating for too long help me lord lord help us all we are in need i'm in need all of us are in need help us we pray in jesus name amen you

Channel: River of Life Christian Fellowship

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Keywords: rlcf, river, life, christian, fellowship, church, god, jesus, bible, scripture, how, avoid, being, deceived, sermon, zac, poonen

Id: 7Pgk_qSEHjA

Length: 60min 30sec (3630 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 01 2021