WHAT IS THE MOST REPEATED SIGN OF THE END ACCORDING TO JESUS? ONE WORD--DECEPTION

someone asked me they said is this the questions and answers night and i said well our pattern is question and answer but uh actually tonight uh this is at least five uh i had questions on what is the greatest sign how do we get ready um is so and so the antichrist should we uh be concerned about all the you know microchip medical implant stuff and and how i i can't remember all of them but what i thought is as as i put all those together i thought about christ introducing this topic so tonight if you want to turn with me to matthew 24 and then if i just breeze right through this then we can have more questions so you can be thinking about them and we'll take them from the floor but this is almost a i don't know how to describe it kind of like a new paradigm for many of us prophecy lovers what jesus emphasizes because when we think about it what was the most repeated sign of the end of days in the new testament which is an amalgam of all these things because what i was being asked is how do we get ready and is this the the one and should we be aware of that and is this election going to do this or this and what i thought is that the that when jesus presented the scenario and and he he devoted this entire 24th chapter as well as the 13th chapter of mark we'll see in the in also the 21st chapter of part of it of luke jesus emphasized something different than us he was not talking about don't get the social security number and watch your credit card and you know be careful and this and that he he lifted the the entire emphasis one whole degree higher one whole notch higher and that's that's what i want to show you tonight uh the end of days in other words the way that jesus describes the the whole climactic conclusion to human history the end of days as a biblical term uh jesus parallels with the earth's darkest hour now i want you to think about what you already know because remember satan can read remember that satan is an angel he is a living spirit he knows every language of the world a baby can learn a language in 14 16 months the devil can learn them very rapidly he knows every language he can hear he's been everywhere and he has millions if not billions of little helpers that are feeding him so he knows what the he's already read what god said and the bible says the great multu which no one could number of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues we saw that term this morning god loves that that term to describe all the peoples of the earth are standing before the throne before the lamb clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and that happens to be in chapter 7 of revelation coming up out of what is described and no matter what persuasion you are theologically or eschatologically everyone agrees that this group are coming out of a horrific time on the earth and and which the bible describes is the time of jacob's troubles or we call the new testament term is the tribulation so out of this revelation 7 9 time satan already knows there's this huge ingathering of people so to thwart god's harvest remember the devil is always trying to thwart put a blockade in the way you know drown jesus in the boat have him stoned to death in the temple you know what i mean have a king kill all the babies that satan knows god's plan and he's trying it every possible turn to cut it off and so what he's trying to do is he's trying to prevent the world from coming to christ so what's his way deploying a legion of liars people who distort the truth because as we'll see in a moment the only way you can be saved is to receive a love of the truth if you never receive a love of the truth you can be deceived and so satan has these false signposts and i mean have you ever you know been looking for something the kids have played around you're going garage sailing you know and the kids in the neighborhood have turned around and the streets you can tell right away because you know what street you're on and yet you see that street going that way and you know that someone's trying to fool you well if you don't know the word of god and someone turns the signpost and points in the wrong direction satan knows that he can get people to follow that so that's always been satan works usually behind a cleric's collar he is most he doesn't work you know in the massage parlors and the meth labs that all operates all on its own immorality drugs alcoholism all that stuff you know all that stuff just goes on its own where satan is most at work we'll see is in religious deception and so this this concept isn't new to right now and most of them you know are on the radio and television and and uh are voluminous in their in their output but false teachers have been a part of the landscape from the start so the most repeated description in the end of days and this is what i want to show you starting in verse four in matthew 24 in fact you can mark these i i like to daisy chain my bible so if you have your pen with you tonight you can just circle these words and and i connect them just so that the next time i see the flow but look at at verse 4 and jesus answered and said to them take heed that no one what what does your bible say deceives you okay look at verse five for many will come in my name saying i am the christ and will what's the word deceive many there's the second time look down at verse 11. and many false prophets will rise up and there it is again deceive and keep going down to verse 24 for false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to now this one is amazing to deceive if it were even possible the elect that means that the the level of deception is going to be at such a level that if it wasn't for god's supernatural intervening work even believers even those who are indwelt by the spirit of god could be led away from the truth and into the devil's way but the lord said i'm not going to allow that i will not allow that so that's why it says if it were even possible it's not possible okay first of all let's do a little study this word the word deceive is the greek word plan o now all of you know that it's it's into the english language it's come it's one of those transliterated remember i told you that that some words aren't translated that means the foreign language word is translated into what it means in english some of them are just slid across which is called transliteration which means it sounds the same in both languages now one of them you all know in the english bible baptism bapto bapto baptist is the greek word baptisms what does baptism mean i don't know baptism you know it it isn't baptizo is never translated in the english bible now the reason for that is that when the king james version was being translated the king was paying for it that's why it's called king james's version you know he paid for it and the church in england believed in infant baptism and if the translators would have translated baptism for what it means which is to dip to immerse to overwhelm people would have questioned the clergy and said why aren't you dipping and overwhelming my child why are you doing this but because of the practice they didn't translate it if they translate it we wouldn't have all the denominational disputes because it would have been very clear what was happening so same thing is here planets planetase has come into english language what is it it's the word for planets now think about this if you lived in the ancient world and you didn't have you know electronic devices and television and cable in your computer and electricity period your day was you know basically sunrise to sunset if you wanted to have some fun you would lay out at night look at the stars there wasn't much else to do especially if you were agrarian you lived out you know in the fields and so people would just lay there and what they did is they watched the stars and the stars were always the same now they had they they learned that there's constellations and they they went on this cycle but they noticed that the stars were fixed but then after a while a few of them started saying wait a minute that star was there last night but that star is there whoa and there were stars that plana owed that that weren't fixed they wandered they they they moved without moorings and those were called the planetarys which we know today is the planets that these these stars that didn't have a fixed position were wanderers to the ancients they didn't know that that there was a solar system and that there were planets until the telescope was embedded so there were two kinds of stars there were the fixed stars and there were the wandering stars deception planets means to wander not fixed to a point but floating drifting wandering the devil wants people to not be fixed now have you ever heard people say oh doctrine ah so divisive oh so boring doctrine you know let's doctrine divides you bet it does it's intended that way and and what the devil wants people to do is to wander away from doctrine the doctrine of christ the doctrine of inspiration doctrine of whatever doctrine so when jesus was asked look what it says in verse one when jesus went out and departed from the temple i'm in matthew 24 and his disciples says wow look at all these buildings and uh and jesus said to them don't you see all these things verse two surely i see unto you not one stone will be left upon another that will should not be thrown down that's one of the highlights of the whole journey of the land of the book you can actually go to the fulfillment of a prophecy jesus said every single stone of this temple is is going to be cast down and you know what today in jerusalem they've excavated and pulled back the dirt and the ad-70 destruction of jerusalem the romans completely scraped off every trace that temple and threw it over the top and just massive piles of boulders and you can sit on a pile that's a fulfillment of jesus saying not even two stones can be one on top of another now as he sat on the mount of olives verse three the disciples came privately they said well you were telling everybody that we want to know more details what will when will these things be verse 3 and what will be the sign of your coming so you notice jesus was asked about the end of days and what is his very first description of that future apocalyptic end time look what it says in your bible jesus answered said to them signs of the times prophecy the end he didn't pull out a chart he said take heed that no one plan o planet tastes you make sure make sure that you get fastened to truth that you know truth that you be able to explain truth did you know we we have a real challenge calvary bible church has a real challenge we are so into the truth and we talk about it and we believe it and we have it at home and we have it at church and we build our lives around the church schedule but there are these little people growing up around us and it's different to just hear all this and to actually be able to explain and defend it those are two completely separate things and we've been talking on staff about over the years how many of those that that are the most successful in all of our children's ministries and youth ministries and they wash out and don't believe anymore when they go to college what happened verse 4 be careful that no one that you have such a fixed position you know it's amazing um head coverings uh of because there's the controversy about head coverings in the bible because in the same passage it's talking about the role of women the church all these churches says oh well we can't know anything from the bible we can have women pastors we can have women elders and and you know what happens as soon as you do that and say that's just cultural well then so is homosexuality just cultural and by the way infanticide must be too because it was practiced in the biblical times right and so there are no fixed any things whether it be social issues or doctrinal issues and that's why as you see a little later the whole controversy people they call people that believe in doctrine islamophobic i'm not afraid of islam it's just islam is damnably deadly doctrine jesus christ is god's son and he died as a substitute and he is jesus the son of yahweh jehovah is not the same as allah allah is a generic name that's loaded with doctrinal meaning to the muslims and there's nothing wrong with saying truth and we aren't supposed to coddle people and say well you know we don't want to be divisive yes we do we do we want to be divisive because if we don't see anything we aren't hindering them from going the wrong direction the way of destruction so jesus said don't be deceived okay look at verse 11. many false prophets will rise up and to see verse 24 false christ now what's interesting is that pseudo if i was giving you false currency i wouldn't paint it blue i mean do you ever get your money counted back and one of them's red and you go oh wait a minute what's that you look at it i don't want that you know someone has highlighted or marked you don't want that in fact uh when my daughters were headed back to honduras they went through all of their money we're counting and overseas they won't even take ripped bills and even a little rip are those ones where they have a stamp and it says see where george goes people overseas don't like any uh you know amending of the currency and the lord says don't let anybody pseudo christ don't let them make a false representation of christ or false prophets pseudo prophets these are going to rise and show great what did jesus say signs and wonders did you know miracle working is not a proof of god doctrine is oh isn't it amazing that the greatest time of deception at the end of days is going to be accompanied with people who can do signs and wondrous miracles wow think about that because a lot of people are enamored with the power signs and wonders thing where i mean i i have a book in my library you want to read it there's a guy in indonesia who can heal washing machines he can heal him and he can raise from the dead everywhere he goes he can raise people from dead and heal washing machines and do all kinds of stuff and if you'll just give five thousand dollars we'll keep his campaign going yeah but what is he teaching when he's healing the washing machines see that's how you verify and you know what else a true prophet whatever they say happens and if it doesn't deuteronomy 18 says what are you supposed to do yeah you don't you don't allow for jeannie dixon to ask prophecy any of you don't remember from the 60s there was a clairvoyant named jeannie dixon and she'd say something but it was so vague that about 10 things could come true no god says exact or it's false see and there's going to be these these signs and wonder workers who deceive they do all this this this fantastic stuff but then they water down the truth about christ jesus says the same thing by the way jesus was asked the similar question the the sermon on the mount of olives discourse and in mark 13 records the same sermon take heed no one deceives you luke is the same thing don't be deceived jesus said so when christ returns now we come to not what jesus said now his beloved apostle and and you should go to revelation 13 because i want to describe this for you you know everybody's always saying who is the antichrist you know who he's going to be he's going to be someone that's like ronald reagan and julius caesar and bill clinton you know mr orator of our day and someone that is an absolute genius elocutionist he's probably going to be the most winsome person you've ever seen because he's going to be like jesus christ he's going to be so kind so gentle we all think the antichrist is this big you know sharp toothed monster no it's going to be like christ he is anti does not mean against means in place of which ends up being against but but watch when christ returns there's a powerful pervasive universal leader who speaks eternally damnable lies backed by the most believable signs and wonders ever witnessed revelation 13 14 and and and again that's why i want you to daisy-wheel these the most prevalent sign is religious deception and i could wear you out tonight taking you through and and i'm not even doing the minor prophecy i'm not doing the major process and i'm not even doing the even mosaic talking about the future just the easy ones revelation 13 14 and he deceives those who dwell on the earth other than a few people in the sky lab or whatever our current space station where do all people live by the way on the earth every living human being other than a few that are in space all the rest live on the earth maybe some are you know in airplanes and some are in submarines but look what it says he deceives those who dwell on the earth so so humanity is universally deceived by the signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast telling those who dwell in the earth to make an image to the beast this is talking about his false prophet his his sidekick his right hand man now chapter 19 20 god describes the antichrist himself the beast the antichrist by the way he has 33 different titles in the old in the old new testament the antichrist the man of sin and the lawless one and i mean you can just go through you know the all these different terms but it's this one super man superman isn't that where all of our movies are going all these action super powerful heroes this guy is super powerful and he he the beast and the false prophet verse 20 who worked uh signs in his presence by which he deceived those who receive the mark of the beast and those who worshipped his image these two were cast alive in the lake of fire burning with brimstone and the next chapter and he cast him into the bottomless pit and shut him up in the seal on him so that he should deceive that's the devil now the one see it's satan who is behind all this sign and wonder stuff and deception and satan is cast in the bottomless pit to deceive the nations no more till the thousand years and the devil who deceived them was cast in the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and false prophet are by the way if you've ever wondered i'm not even on that tonight but if you've ever wondered whether the notion of hell being incineration that you know you just go there and burn up and it's over it last at least a thousand years because those two in this line were cast in alive the beast and the false prophet and they're still alive a thousand years later because the devil's thrown in with them that interesting you don't get incinerated in in hell but you notice the deceived deceived deceived deceived this powerful universal leader john says watch out he is deceptive as the end of days satan sends the earth an expression of all of mankind's desires and the person of the antichrist in a very short time almost all the earth will follow him you know that's one of the saddest things about biblical prophecy that jesus himself came who was god in human flesh and very few ended up following him when it got tough john 6 says most of his followers stopped following him the high tide of christ's ministry is defeating the 5000 in john chapter 6 and it goes downhill from then on fewer and fewer and fewer so that probably many of those who were saying crucify him crucify him had been healed or fed and they just drifted away but the sad thing is the longer that satan's man works he gets almost all the earth to follow him do you remember what jesus said follow me and very few did and very few do today and the devil gets a shot at the earth and he gets almost everybody to follow him it's one of the saddest commentaries on humanity the heart of humanity is so bad wanting always the wrong choice the antichrist like satan comes to kill and steal and destroy christ in the other and came to offer abundant life that's john 10. and you know the best prophetic preparation is to receive christ so that we're not deceived so that we're not taken in by this evil one when you call upon christ to save you from your sins god delivers you from the power of darkness and from the eternally damnable lies and actually transfers us into the kingdom of his dear son well real quickly just during the tribulation period and today there are two types of people on the planet now look at second thessalonians 2 with me because this is another one that you should mark you know most people when they're marking stuff they're marking how many the toes and what color the toes of the beast are and you know what i mean they're just always looking and flooding you know every time some new technology comes out actually the thing that god emphasizes is truth and not being deceived and so ii thessalonians 2 look at the first six verses and and basically uh paul says that that the two kinds of people are the lovers of truth and those who've never gotten that divinely implanted love for the truth and he says now brethren born again people concerning the coming of our lord jesus christ and our gathering together to him we ask you not to be soon shaken either by spirit or by word as though the day of christ had come let no one deceive you by any means for that day will not come unless the falling away comes first and the man of sin is revealed the son of perdition who opposes and exalts himself above you notice again the deception man of sin falling away from what falling away from truth see that's what what paul is saying is when you start seeing religious deception becoming greater and greater and greater and greater and greater in power be careful because that's a sign of the devil's last you know thrust into the world is to to cause this spiritual darkness and paul says i told you these things and now what is restraining uh is restrained and he'll be revealed now keep going verse 7 for the mystery of lawlessness is already at work only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way most likely speaking of the holy spirit indwelling the believers as a restraining salt and light in the earth and when believers are pulled out the restraint it's almost like pulling the rods out of the reactor uh the that are absorbing all the neutrons when you pull those graphite rods out the reaction just builds until it explodes and when the restraint of the spirit of god because of the people of god that's why we're here we're supposed to be impacting the world but when that happens the lawless one will be revealed whom the lord will consume at the breath of his mouth and destroy the brightness of his coming and by the way the the lawless one is revealed after uh he is taken out of the way verse nine the coming of the lawless one is according to the work is of satan with power now notice what it says in verse nine with all power signs and lying wonders and with all unrighteous deception did you catch this paul is talking about the end he's not talking about storms he's not talking about solar flares even all that's fun and exciting and they come he's talking about religious deception that's the most prevalent sign and the the churches decline in biblical literacy and more importantly in doctrinal literacy in in being aware of doctrine and and notice what it says in verse 10 with all unrighteous deception among those who perish why do people perish eternally verse 10 because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved you understand that that what god does in the salvation process is he implants within people a longing remember that's what acts 17 talks about you'll seek me and and and feel after me paul says that they might feel after god and he is not far from anyone what are those people feeling for they're desiring truth and they're saying we know you're out there we're no and they're groping in the darkness but they're trying to feel how come they're doing that because god has placed within them this longing for the truth so when you find people they're asking questions if they're legitimate you know there's two kinds of questions there's questions that are tearing down they're questioning truth itself there's others that are trying to put it together and when you find that you're very likely probably finding someone the lord's implanted to love the truth and you help them that they might be saved and for this reason god will send them strong delusions that they should believe the lie who does he send that to now be very careful it never says in the bible it only says in in popular prophetic books but it doesn't say in the bible that no one who ever hears the gospel before christ's return can never be saved after that is a popular thing in fact i remember growing up remember i grew up in the hal lindsey era and preachers you say if you don't receive christ if the rapture comes tonight you won't be able to be saved after the rapture and i thought where did you find that because it's not in the bible this is what they're talking about this is a verse but it doesn't say that all it says is that if people do not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved god sends them strong delusion that they should believe the lie what it means is god is going to flood the world with with satan's powerful delusions to show that only those that he supernaturally places within them the love of the truth can be saved that's how strong the the attack of satan will be that they can all be condemned who did not believe the truth but have pleasure and unrighteousness well real quickly uh now we'll talk about something that sadly is the butt of many jokes you ever heard of the fundamentalists you know and and you know those fundamentalists and there's all these caricatures most people don't know what fundamentalist means about a hundred years ago it was actually uh started before that but the greatest bible teachers of a hundred years ago banded together to put up the flag of truth because after darwin's publication of his origin the species it just basically undermined everybody and people started doubting everything and and the whole mechanism of liberalism cranked up and that's where we had all the uh you know this idea that that if you fix culture you'll fix people instead of preaching the truth and having born again individually we've got to clean up society and all that stuff and so they banded together and what those men did is now a common form of mockery in the world they sat down and declared what were the non-negotiables of the faith so if you ever heard of fundamentalism it was a hundred years ago a declaration in a seven volume set among the greatest known bible teachers of the day it would be like if we had you know macarthur and piper and you know charles stanley and billy graham and i don't know who chuck swindoll all get together and and you know ken ham and a few others that that are renowned you know gospel teaching and they wrote together this this declaration that's and i'll show you who they were as the at the end of days truth is under attack and lies will bound that's why jesus said watch out for false teachers and counterfeits and when faced with that situation at the turn of the century 1909 to 1915 is when they produced this now look who they were ari tori he's the man that was dwight l moody's assistant and he founded biola if you ever heard of biola bible institute of los angeles that's what biola means and it was just to put moody on the west coast uh in a different form to teach the scripture and so torrey went out there bibi warfield from westminster seminary was one of the most renowned doctrinal i mean he defended his his treatment on inspiration is still a classic jc rile was the the kind of like the john piper uh um maybe maybe uh uh like charles stanley he was just a very popular devotional writer g campbell morgan was an expository wouldn't preach on any verse of the bible until he read it 40 times from the westminster pulpit in england c.i scofield was kind of like the charles ryrie of his day he wrote the first popular study bible james m gray was the president of moody bible institute a.t pearson another great devotional writer and these men distilled down the fundamental beliefs and by the way there's a whole group of them these were just the more well-known ones from the list i could have given you more of the list and they're just theologians but they put out this book set of books called the fundamentals and what they said is these are the non-negotiables now let me show you what they said the non-negotiables were here are the seven things these books were number one they said in order not to plan ace wander to be fixed and not to become a deceived one you got to make sure that you know and believe what god says about his word so they affirm the inspiration and reliable historicity of the bible so in 1909 they said the bible is accurate any statement the bible makes about history science anything that it makes about those topics it's not a science book and it's not an encyclopedia it's not exhaustive but if it says anything about history or science it's reliable and by the way nothing the bible says about history and science has ever been disproven in fact if if you collect books like i do you can look at books that are 100 200 300 years old and science is finally caught up because remember science is observation and and if it's scientific it's reproducible understand that that you can observe and then reproduce this this this concept that's why they don't allow to publish it until somebody else can reproduce what the scientists supposedly did and so there is this element of science and nothing that is listed in the bible that is scientific in nature has been disproven rather it shows that the bible was thousands a year ahead of science because god observed secondly creation now this is interesting this is not a modern ken ham thing or henry morris this has been going on for a hundred plus years god is revealed from cover to cover they said in 1909 as the creator of the universe just as described in the bible and so what they said is evolutionism and darwinism are planets the greatest bible teachers of 100 years ago warned people about evolutionary thought and darwinistic thought and what's amazing is nowadays and i won't even you already heard ken ham say it's some very popular christian speakers don't believe in in creation the way god presents it they've got their own version and it said doctrine god's word teaches clear doctrines about jesus christ and his church so they specifically named the cults presenting false gospel in their days and they said the jehovah's witnesses mormonism christian science and spiritism those were the the key false teachings of the day and they said that that those were wrong depravity they declared the reality of sin and they affirmed that man is not basically good see this is the the time when we were uh i don't know if you've ever read uh i forget the name of the guy but it's the one what would jesus do it's a beautiful book and the wwjd is beautiful stuff but the book is bad because you know what that book is about it's not about the gospel if you ever read that in his i think it's called in his steps or something like that it's a social gospel move into the inner city clean up the neighborhood feed the people educate them teach them and it'll just change culture yeah it will there's nothing wrong with changing culture that is not the gospel the gospel is not clean up build a habitat home you know get crime out of the area unless you realize the crime is coming from the heart they have to have a new heart they have to have a heart attack give them a new house and give them a new education everything else but give them a new heart and don't leave that out and see what was happening is people were they were having this this notion that if we can just clean up the mess people will get better no they're incurably ill the heart is desperately wicked unless you get a heart transplant no matter how nice an environment you get in you'll pollute it and so they reaffirmed the depravity of man substitution this is when the whole blood thing i talked about this morning was was warming up people did not want to talk about the blood of christ so they said god's word only presents biblical salvation is received is received only by faith in the god incarnate christ jesus who became sin for sinners to save them and his substitutionary death was the sacrifice on the cross imputation by the way imputation is the key doctrine it has to do with roman catholicism they believe in infusion not imputation you go to the hospital for infusion you have a little bag hanging there with a little cord in your arm and they bring and they go in the bag put a little something in there and it just drips in you and as long as you have the bag attached you just keep moving along doing great god doesn't operate that way he doesn't infuse a little drip of grace he gives it all to us and we are saved by his grace once and for all at the instant salvation not drippings from the church so they said imputation god's word teaches that salvation cannot be earned at any level and it cannot be dispensed by god nor by any church and cleric in other words that god does not go through distributors it's not like you own the franchise you know and and you pass it out to the distributors and that they deliver it for you no no it's not that way they clearly exposed the errors of roman catholicism and every other religion of human achievement and works righteousness they were universal in this just like the reformers were and just like all the people since reformers did you know until sometime in the 20th century there was universal agreement in the church that romanism was damnably error but now when we started the you know promise keepers and the moral majority and everything else you know they have roman catholicism is 99 good doctrine they just have rat poison in there right and the rat poison is works human achievement that you go through the sacramental system and that you get your sins washed away by water the bible never says water washed away sins and so they reaffirmed imputation way back a hundred years ago and finally christology they the most fervently declared that all error starts in some way with an incorrect view of christ so they strongly affirm the deity and the personal visible return of christ and so those were the seven and you can look and and books are getting unpopular you can find a nice set of the the fundamentals from 100 years ago on amazon for just a pittance because nobody buys books anymore but what's happened is that what the clarion warning that christ gave that john gave that that paul gave and then that the fundamentalist writers of the seven volume set started talking about 100 years ago everything they said has happened it's kind of like the frog in the pot thing you know you drop a frog into to just you know room temperature water and he's fine and you just slowly warm it up and you kill him well you just slowly take away doctrine in the church i mean you start i mean who wouldn't rather watch movie clips than carry a big heavy book that's boring you understand it anyway right so just just entertain them and just just make them determine church by whether it meets my felt needs whether or not it's entertaining whether it's grab you know just just gravitates your kids to it because they can all jump in a different you know little tube and ride down to a a place where there's free drinks and free everything and do they learn true doctrine i don't know but they love it see it's all over i remember when i was in tulsa they had 10 foot high star wars characters and every kid got their own big chair with an xbox or whatever it was back then every kid in the youth group they i mean not to take home they just could sit in it that was the youth group you just sat there blasting away with music playing christian music i guess and sipping soda i mean who would want to go to that youth group and the parents didn't think that it was happening the longer i live the more alarmed i am at the growing trend of biblical literacy and the lack of biblical discipleship in today's church this is the decline in church attendance bible reading and bible caring has been seen in each new generation there is a corresponding decline in even knowing the bible how bad has it gotten well here's here's mr barna less than half of all adults who go to church can name the four gospels isn't that interesting a majority of professing christians struggled to identify more than two or three disciples sixty percent of americans cannot name even five of the ten commandments forty percent of americans believe that when jesus was on earth he committed sin so what's wrong with me sinning he sinned we sin you know it's just happy 50 believe anyone who's generally good and does enough good for others during their life learn a place in heaven and 40 believe the bible the quran the book of mormon are all different expressions the same spiritual truth kind of sounds like the modern political world we're living in we just blurt all and doctrines divisive well the statistics indicate there's a gradual change in temperature over time in general biblical literacy is a growing trend and discipleship that's being offered in churches is ineffective you know what discipleship is about it's about someone holding you up to a biblical standard and say did you know this is what god says do you know you're not doing that do you want to know how to connect those two oh no no we that might make people feel uncomfortable i remember four years ago i learned what makes people feel uncomfortable in the morning service you have people hold hands a whole group people said we'll never come back that church had them pray in small groups another whole group says never go back to calvary if you ever do that again wow then we had the audacity to turn to someone at communion the most sacred moment in the life of the church where we are holding in our hands pictures of christ's body and blood and you're supposed to turn to someone and tell them how much you're thankful christ saved you boy if you ever do that again we will never come back and i thought are you in let the redeemed of the lord what say so i'm not ashamed of the gospel of christ examine yourself whether you be in the faith see that that whole idea of discipleship it's ineffective nowadays because what we don't want to do is we don't want to offend anybody but god that's the danger one british pastor insightfully wrote the christian landscape is strewn with the wreckage of derelict half-built towers the ruins of those who began to build and were unable to finish for thousands of people still ignore christ's warnings and undertake to follow him without first pausing to reflect on the cost of doing so you see when i was in tulsa there was a big youth crusade in tulsa tulsa is almost a city of a million and they had a big crusade and what it was called is it was based on the coke thing or the pepsi i don't remember what it was but it was a popular where it was try coke or try pepsi you know where they were doing at every supermarket the taste test where you know if you're a pepsi lover you tried the other one and it was like that and so what they said is we're going to do that across this the city and everybody in all the churches were were you know you're supposed to wear a button try jesus and and it was a phenomenally successful thing and they had thousands of kids that tried out jesus and thousands of them that didn't stick you know what happened they were inoculated you know you have your little scarf from your polo you know what you did you got a a tiny a tiny case of polio and now you're not going to get it anymore and you have someone try jesus and see if you you know feel better or something and they said i didn't you've inoculated them so that they probably will never want to be shared the gospel if you get shared the true gospel and it tells you what you are undone before the sight of a holy god and how totally helpless and how your heart is desperately evil and how completely marred and warped we are from the image of god and only supernatural change is your only hope and that comes by you saying i repent of all of my human effort and i turn in simple faith in what christ did alone that's that's not palatable if you've already been inoculated with it try jesus thing the result is the greatest scandal of christendom today it's called nominal christianity in countries to which christian civilizations have spread large numbers of people have covered themselves with a decent but thin veneer of christianity they have allowed themselves to become somewhat involved enough to be respectable but not enough to be uncomfortable you know one of the largest christian nations as the in the world is brazil you know what they're also known for the carnival and all of their thin veneer goes away during that time period and the world flocks to watch the brazilians by the millions engage in horrific god dishonoring activity but there are christian nations interesting thin veneer well what's the solution to spiritual deception paul told titus remember we spent a whole year on a titus do you remember titus you know what paul told titus each believer in christ church needs to be nurtured in god's word until they're mature enough to disciple someone else you know what the best prophetic preparation is it's knowing the truth so well that every time you read the paper it just jumps out at you more falsehood more deception more lies more everything i mean this whole thing with let's coddle the muslim things is exactly what the bible says exactly what the the antichrist will do the first horse he rides in on the first seal that's undone when we get to chapter six is a white horse and he rides out bringing peace the antichrist is going to say all of you all of you religions i love you come to me you catholics you're great oh you muslims are great you mormons are great just and he'll just he'll just be one happy family why because nobody knows doctrine and nobody divides and no you know nobody wants to be the bad guy and say what needs to be said paul details and tied us to the behavior that follows proper understanding sound doctrine what paul said discipleship is about is that behavior is based on believing the right thing and if you believe right you'll behave right and and if your belief is healthy if you are believing in wholesome not you know my wonderful wife just came back she was visiting some friends that we've known for years and she went to this pear tree that that you know 20 years ago was in the yard of a friend and she brought on the airplane this pair back to me and i was so excited and i took the knife and i went and that poor thing i cut in half you know it was alive and wiggling in there see it was not a healthy pair it had decay and worms on the inside but boy did it look beautiful on the outside and what what paul said is you've got to cut through and make sure that that there's healthy sound doctrine when paul gave these clear objectives for titus he taught the older men it was to show them how to become strong advertisements for god and so the best thing we need is to have healthy truth and god's discipleship program for christ church is right from the early stage focused on guarding healthy faith and there's nothing more timely as we enter the end of days and the end of the physical world approach and earth's darkest spiritual hour then to have that lifelong process of guarding and feeding your mind and heart and look for evidence of your progress in fact look at first timothy century back there this is this is prophetic look at look at how you get ready for the lord's return first timothy 4 15 paul told timothy he didn't tell him to identify which of the 10 roman emperors were the bad guys you know and which one was going to do something that they shouldn't do rather he said to them meditate on these things first timothy 4 15 give yourself entirely to them that your progress may be evident to all did you know that we should be measurably growing in grace and the knowledge of christ and we should be doing that in a community of believers who know us and love us and can say you know what you are just as anxious and impatient last year as you are right now what is going on in your life christ is supposed to be mortifying that anxiety and that impatience and christ is supposed to be changing you know and what's going on see that's what the church is about the church is not about saying wow wow look at those pictures you had such a wonderful vacation i mean that's a part of it it's nice to rejoice with those that rejoice but then when you say yeah that's wonderful but how are you doing is your family do you have prayer time as a family oh you're so busy you don't have prayer time do you read the bible as a couple no is it fail no too busy see in a caring loving church that's taken as serious as oh you had a lung you had a a bad bad lab test everyone gets concerned about that do they get concerned about being too busy for god about having having mounting debt so that you have no freedom to do anything the lord wants you're enslaved to death see those are things see spiritual people surrounding us that's why we don't like to get close to people we don't want them to know too much because they might say what we're doing is wrong but we should welcome that we should welcome uh our our spiritual progress timothy first timothy 4 15. obey god by a healthy diet of sound doctrine then share life with others as you walk with them with christ your life so i'm sorry i'm preaching to the choir here uh real quickly to end this question and i'm glad we're ending it uh because then we'll have a minute left for another one um how do we i mean what is the best preparation for prophecy go to another prophecy conference no i don't think we need any more prophecy conferences they go off to bangor and they start hoarding food you know that is not the the goal the goal is not to build a place in the thumb to escape from 50 miles from all the horrific things that are going to happen did you know that the church is called to be right in the center of the horrific things and and to be sharing the good news i remember with y2k i had a friend very wealthy friend the best selling author in america in his line of books he's made millions he's a friend of mine he invited me to his compound i had to wear i had to wear a blindfold and he took all kinds of turns and drove for hours and finally showed me his compound spent millions on it and there are many christians have done this and nothing wrong if you do it's fine but it doesn't match with the bible but you can do it he had he had an underground underground steel reinforced tunnels he had he had barbed wire and guard houses he had an arsenal he had enough food for years he had buried diesel tanks he could go for years with his diesel he had a independent water supply he had everything and he said but if you come with me you can never go back you know y2k in november you went to this thing he said you can't go back no one could know where this is i said we mean can't go back i said what are we here for i mean if all the lights go out that's the greatest time people finally wouldn't be online you could talk to him for a minute you know i says and let's go and we'll go oh no no gotta gotta hide in the fortress and see that's not god's way so what are we doing to to get star hot you want to really get ready for the deception coming learn some healthy verses you know we give away our little list of the hundred verses you ought to know uh you really honestly ought to ask yourself am i really exercising myself for god am i learning truth so i can guard my mind do i know more about everybody's you know favorite recipe that i know about god how many verses can you right now say that's the only thing that can bring health to our soul is the word of god we know the statistics and we know everything and we know exactly the time so we don't miss recording our favorite show but do we know the bible get some healthy verses number two get a healthy study bible now this is unbiased personal preference you know i've read the bible scores of times i've read every study bible i've bought purchased and read every study bible to get my hands on you can go to my office and look at them i must have 50 or 60 of them and the very best one and i've read and you can tell me about yours and i have i have every one that i've ever been able to find the best one i've ever found has 25 000 footnotes and it covers every doctrine in the bible it's consistent and there's not any there it might be things you don't agree with but there is not one error in it and of course that's my favorite it's the macarthur study bible costs 28 online it's better than pizza okay and there's a picture of it's now even in the esv do you know what i can't imagine having a family where you don't have a study bible where you where you have something to actually look up if your kids say wow this doesn't agree did jephthah really kill his daughter you go we'll call someone at the church why don't you look it up yourself right that's how you show the kids how the truth is found and how they can be those who test all things instead of just asking someone to give you an answer and then how do you know it's true see a study bible shows you how to connect stuff and a study bible is vital finally and this will even make some of you nervous how about have a healthy theology book how about invest in some tools for understanding systematic theology did you know right now we're into our second or third year of studying through wayne grudem's systemic theology it only cost 30 online or you could get ryries for 22 online but grudems i like because grudem he's a professor at phoenix seminary he's a nice guy and i know him a wonderful man of god but he takes what the roman catholics believe and what the armenians believe what the reform believes what the charismatics believe and what the baptists believe as if there's only those five and he puts them all side by side and he tells you what wayne gruden believes and then he applies it but he tells you what you've probably heard your whole life for example just his section on demons and the impact demons are having through movies and video games on children is one of the most powerful things i've ever read because he's examined what missionary kids are going through overseas in highly demonized areas and how it's affecting the kids and how the parents don't even know how the kids are being influenced by demonic powers and just that and understanding demons in the context of angels and everything else but there's grudem's book it's systematic theology but all that to say this we need to personally take in the hand the reversion to reverse any erosion of our christian minds and our minds are getting eroded we sit around with friends and they go oh yeah over at our church we're dating elders you know and ray vanderlaan believes in that you know he's so good in the holy land we should too and you know rick warren and you know bill hybels are loosening up on that and so and they're good people and so instead of saying wait a minute what did paul say well that's cultural really how do you know it's cultural what's that based on well there's seven views of interpreting the bible are there really see we just let it go right by and we think everybody is the same let me just say one more thing i wouldn't be caught dead allowing my children to go to valley family church if you knew what they teach over there if you knew their doctrine i wouldn't be caught dead i have people in this church that say well i wish that you could be as good as valley family i thought do you know anything about biblical doctrine anything i'm not criticizing the church they're happy and friendly to my best friends i see them all over town i wish i could be a zealous for the lord they don't know what they teach you need to guard healthy doctrine don't allow your christianity to be eroded don't allow unhealthy doctrine in now that i've said enough to offend everybody let's all stand aren't you glad we're not having one more question whoa we would get in trouble tonight let's all stand for word of prayer and my heart's desire tonight is that we in focus the same fervency that we have for knowing the latest details about israel and you know and the ten nations and all that stuff and focus in on being as great a watchdog a biblical doctrine and usefulness to god which is called sanctification so thank you to the five of you that asked me that question because i couldn't wait to answer it let's bow for word of prayer father i pray that you would help us to be bereans acts 17 11 examine the scripture over what was said tonight by me that any part of it that that gets away from your word i pray that would be dispelled and thrown out but anything that resonates with your word would be held fast too i pray that we would become doctrinal watchdogs of our souls and of our teaching and of our children and of our families and of our minds that it be healthy and that sound doctrine be what protects us from the evil darkness that's closing in all around us and that biblical illiteracy and effective discipleship would not be part of what we tolerate in our lives and in our families and in our church because it's yours and we pray that you would keep us in the love of christ and that you would keep us seeking to know you through your word and we'll thank you in the name of jesus and all god's people said amen god bless you as you go [Music] you

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Keywords: Bible, God, Jesus, Christian, teaching, biblical, teach, sermon, trinity, church, lesson, traditional, truth, true, divine, theology, freedom, guilt, testament, pure, interpret, spirit, holy, John, Barnett, christ, father, heaven, hell, doctrine, doctrinal, sinful, forgive, forgiveness, history, teachings, chapters, verses, discover, the book, ministries, dtbm, Dr. Barnett, controversial, repent, helpful, sin, the, book, dr, john, doctor, barnett, training, videos, series, resources, savior, god, jesus

Id: qtp7YvNsWPQ

Length: 59min 8sec (3548 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 21 2020