Living in Truth in a Time of Great Deception (part 6)

Know the Truth!

7.26.2020

Introduction and Review

We are living in a time of great deception.

Isaiah 5:20 (NKJV)

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;

Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness;

Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

We are living in a strange time where what is true is twisted and warped to fit various agendas people have.

Matthew 24:4 (Passion Translation)

Jesus answered, “At that time deception will run rampant. So beware that you are not fooled!

1 Timothy 4:1-2 (Passion Translation)

The Holy Spirit has explicitly revealed: At the end of this age, many will depart from the true faith one after another, devoting themselves to spirits of deception and following demon-inspired revelations and theories. 2 Hypocritical liars will deceive many, and their consciences won’t bother them at all!

This is a time to stay stirred up spiritually and stay alert and not let your attention wander away from your spiritual life.

The spirit of antiChrist is rising right now. He is not yet revealed, but the ideology he follows is rising.

The spirit of antiChrist is an anti-God, anti-Bible, anti-family, lawless ideology, that joins the nations of the world together under one umbrella economically, politically, and religiously.

The spirit of antiChrist pushes for:

Abortion

Same sex marriage

Transgender rights and sexual orientation rights

Pornography

Living together without marriage

Relative values

Socialism

Communism

Control

Atheism

Lawlessness

Fear

Godlessness

Amorality

Divisiveness

Inequality

Rioting

Violence

Division

Racism

World wide law codes adopted by all nations.

World wide currency

No borders between nations

Some of this may seem political, but it is not!

As a pastor I must preach truth, then I must also reprove, rebuke, and exhort patiently and passionately. My heart is for people to understand truth in the context of what we are going through.

I have needed to say some strong things about the Black Lives Matter Organization and its ties to Communism, Marxism, the LGBTQ agenda. I am not making political statements when I do this. I am a shepherd warning his sheep and anyone else who will listen when I say these things.

The defaming of property, the tearing down of statues, and cries to defund the police – the ideologies behind these things are ungodly, and should be resisted by Christians who know the truth. This is not a political statement. What I am saying is unctioned by the Holy SPirit as a warning. Pastors NEED to speak up today.

Our freedoms will evaporate, and serious persecution will rise here unless we pray, stand, and lift our voices for truth.

Look at the big picture!

I will stake what I say and have said on 39 years of ministry. I have been in the ministry since 1981. I have been around a long time. I know what I sense. I know the Holy Spirit. And, I know that I must sound alarms.

If you do not understand what I am saying about some things, come and see me. I care about you!

I was reminded that when Jesus got really serious about commitment to Him before He went to the cross, many of his followers left!

John 6:66-67 (Passion Translation)

And so from that time on many of the disciples turned their backs on Jesus and refused to be associated with him. (67) So Jesus said to his twelve, “And you—do you also want to leave?”

The Word brings with it a challenge!

We are in a moment of time that the distance between natural life and spiritual life is becoming very narrow. No longer can you separate what you believe from how you live and who you associate with.

Keep yourself full of the Word.

Turn off the news media! This is not a time to allow someone else’s opinion to rule your life. And that is mostly what you get now from the media.

Today – I want to continue and finish talking about 7 things to know about the Word of God.

We have covered:

1. God’s Word brings stability.

Isaiah 33:6

Philippians 4:8

Keep the Word in your mind and you will stay on course!

2. Ask God for a hunger for the Word.

Remember that our attitude towards the word determines the place that God holds in our daily life.

3. Know that the Bible is the Inspired Word of God.

The DNA of the Word will get inside of you. God’s Word is God-breathed. When you read it, it gets inside of you. And it will begin to change you little by little.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NKJV)

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Have you made a personal choice to live by its teachings?

Are you going to choose to live by the Word, even when it become culturally unpopular?

The cultural winds are blowing now, my friends. Now, for the sake of our children, we must stand up for what is right.

The Bible is not just for church services. We are to live by it every single day! Do not compartmentalize life.

It’s no longer enough just to say I believe. Now, if you believe, you must ACT like you do.

Do NOT compartmentalize your life. Apply God’s word to everything you do!

1 Corinthians 2:14 (TPT)

Someone living on an entirely human level rejects the revelations of God’s Spirit, for they make no sense to him. He can’t understand the revelations of the Spirit because they are only discovered by the illumination of the Spirit.

4. The Word is designed to take Jesus and the Father’s place in their physical absence.

Begin NOW to disconnect from your dependence on feelings and circumstances. Now is the time to prepare for times when nothing is going right.

When you make a decision to focus on the Word, you will always successfully navigate the hard places life brings.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (NLT)

That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. 17 For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! 18 So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.

God revealed Himself to Adam’s spirit as Adam lived in the Garden of Eden before the fall.

After the fall, God in His great love had to devise a way for fallen man to receive information from Him, since man now has a fallen, dead spirit nature.

God devised a way to communicate with us from the outside in, instead of from the inside out, and that is through His Word!

John 6:63 (NKJV)

It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.

Matthew 4:4 (NKJV)

But He answered and said, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

John 14:21-24 (NKJV)

He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?” 23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. 24 He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.

1 John 2:3-6 (NLT)

And we can be sure that we know him if we obey his commandments. 4 If someone claims, “I know God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth. 5 But those who obey God’s word truly show how completely they love him. That is how we know we are living in him. 6 Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did.

5. Our culture has set the Word of God aside. It now has little or no influence on lifestyle, and now God is forced to back away from us as a nation because of our choices.

The Bible has been replaced in our schools by atheism, evolution, relative values, and amorality.

Parents, be careful with your kids in public school. They are teaching things that disagree with what God says about life in general.

If you can, homeschool or Christian school would be a much better choice today.

If you must keep them in public school, for the sake of your child’s mental and spiritual health, find out every single day what they were being taught that day. Look at their textbooks. Read over the materials that they must read. And when you find things that do not agree with what you know to be right, go see their teachers.

This will not make you popular, but you may save your child from hell!

Pluralism is when immigrants come into a nation from another nation and are not required to adhere to basic customs within their new nation.

Pluralism is dividing the USA into separate groups, each with different values. People from other cultures now bring their religion and beliefs here.

The things that united us are no longer mainstream.

God and the Bible have been removed from our public and civic life.

The light found in the Bible allows God and His kingdom to move in a nation and keep out darkness.

Isaiah 1:19-20 (NKJV)

If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

When individuals or nations reject God and His Word, this is what God has no choice but to do:

Proverbs 1:24-33

Because I have called and you refused, I have stretched out my hand and no one regarded, 25 Because you disdained all my counsel, And would have none of my rebuke, 26 I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your terror comes, 27 When your terror comes like a storm, and your destruction comes like a whirlwind, When distress and anguish come upon you. 28 “Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently, but they will not find me. 29 Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, 30 They would have none of my counsel and despised my every rebuke. 31 Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled to the full with their own fancies. 32 For the turning away of the simple will slay them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them; 33 But whoever listens to me will dwell safely, and will be secure, without fear of evil.”

Proverbs 1:24-33 (TPT)

I’ve called to you over and over; still you refuse to come to me. I’ve pleaded with you again and again, yet you’ve turned a deaf ear to my voice. 25 Because you have laughed at my counsel and have insisted on continuing in your stubbornness, 26 I will laugh when your calamity comes and will turn away from you at the time of your disaster. Make a joke of my advice, will you? Then I’ll make a joke out of you! 27 When the storm clouds of terror gather over your head, when dread and distress consume you and your catastrophe comes like a hurricane, 28 you will cry out to me, but I won’t answer. Then it will be too late to expect my help. When desperation drives you to search for me, I will be nowhere to be found. 29 Because you have turned up your nose at me and closed your eyes to the facts and refused to worship me in awe — 30 because you scoffed at my wise counsel and laughed at my correction — 31 now you will eat the bitter fruit of your own ways. You’ve made your own bed; now lie in it! So how do you like that? 32 Like an idiot you’ve turned away from me and chosen destruction instead. Your self-satisfied smugness will kill you. 33 But the one who always listens to me will live undisturbed in a heavenly peace. Free from fear, confident and courageous, you will rest unafraid and sheltered from the storms of life.

Matthew 7:24-27

Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.

6. When you choose to do what the Bible says, you put God in charge of your life!

Proverbs 3:1-8 (NKJV)

My son, do not forget my law, But let your heart keep my commands; 2 For length of days and long life And peace they will add to you. 3 Let not mercy and truth forsake you; Bind them around your neck, Write them on the tablet of your heart, 4 And so find favor and high esteem In the sight of God and man. 5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; 6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths. 7 Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the Lord and depart from evil. 8 It will be health to your flesh, And strength to your bones.

Deuteronomy 8:1-3 (NKJV)

Every commandment which I command you today you must be careful to observe, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers. 2 And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. 3 So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.

James 1:22-25 (NLT)

But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. 23 For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. 24 You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. 25 But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.

So, if God’s Word says to be honest and don’t lie, then I choose to be truthful.

If God’s Word says my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, then I treat it with respect and don’t do things to abuse it.

If God’s Word tells me to love my wife the same way Jesus loves the church, then I choose to love my wife that way.

If God’s Word tells me to discipline my child, then I discipline my child!

If God’s Word tells me to work responsibly, then I work responsibly.

If God’s Word tells me to give, then I give.

If God’s Word tells me to forgive, then I forgive.

Choose to ask yourself over and over, what does God’s Word say about this in every action you take.

7. The Word is your stability in turbulent times.

Numbers 23:19

God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent.

Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?

Psalm 89:34

My covenant I will not break, nor alter the word that has gone out of My lips.

Ps 119:89

Forever, O Lord, your word is settled in heaven.

Isaiah 40:8

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.

 

Isaiah 55:11

So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

Jeremiah 1:12 (AMPL)

Then said the Lord to me, you have seen well, for I am alert and active, watching over My word to perform it.

Matthew 5:18 (NIV)

I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

Matthew 24:35

Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.

Action Points:

1. Are you easily swayed by the changes in what people around you think and believe?

2. Are you spiritually hungry, or have you lost your appetite for the Bible?

3. Do you act as though the Bible is God’s inspired word to you?

4. Are the opinions of culture and others more important to you than what the Bible says?