The Bible isn't the Gospel Message

Well, praise Jesus today, everyone. I want to speak about this topic because in the Christian church, many Christians have started to elevate the Bible as if the Bible itself was the gospel or is the message itself. And they make it as though knowing the Bible is the very pinnacle of the Christian faith. So you have to get into a Bible study. You have to listen to their leaders and their teachers who have went to seminary who are worthy to teach the Bible. You need to educate yourself in the Bible and learn, you know, Hebrew roots of words. And they make it seem as though the Bible itself is the message, that the Bible itself is the gospel. And that is absolutely not the truth. In fact, if you read the gospels that are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you will realize even from the very beginning of the gospel of John that Jesus is the Word, not the Bible. I want to read it to you. This is John chapter 1. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” This is the gospel, guys. Why this is so important to distinguish between the Bible being the gospel itself or the message itself and Jesus is because it defines where you are placing your faith. The Christian church places their faith in the Bible itself. They treat the Bible as if it's the basic instructions before leaving earth, the B-I-B-L-E. They say that the Bible is infallible, meaning it's perfect, although they don't know which version. They treat the Bible as if it can predict all the future, that it's everything God ever wanted to say. It is the Holy Spirit. It is Jesus. Yet then you have Jesus claiming to be the Word of God. Now, what in the world does it mean to be the Word of God? Well, it's very simple, actually. When you think about a message or a messenger, what does that mean? The Word, like what's the Word on the street? It means the message or the news. So, God had a message or He had news for humans, for people, for us, and throughout time He spread this news to His people. For example, in the Old Testament, He spreads the news through the Old Testament, and He gives the law through Moses, which is the Ten Commandments, the Torah, those 613 commandments to lead His people. He calls His people out of Egypt, out of the bondage that they were in Egypt and into the wilderness to the promised land, and He leads them. So, this Word, this Word of God is the message to them, or you could say the rules to them, or the law, whatever humans should understand that God wants humans to understand. So, the really profound thing about this, guys, is this message or this news didn't just stay in heaven, but this message became a messenger, and that messenger took on that prophetic role of becoming flesh, and not just a prophet, but more than a prophet, our Savior, our Redeemer. He became Emmanuel, which is God with us. A lot of people don't even believe that Jesus is God. They say He's God's son,  but they don't believe the Son of God to be one with His Father. They don't believe Him to be God, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, like the prophets said about Him, that He would be Emmanuel, God with us, and that the government would rest upon His shoulders, that He'd be wonderful, counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. So, this is what it means, the Word of God simply means the news of God, the information God wants to send you, and the information that God wants to send you isn't just that the Bible is a good book, or that you should get your nose in the Bible. That is not the message. The message is that Jesus Christ became flesh, He died, He resurrected from the dead, all power and all authority is given to Him in heaven and on earth, and He has the power to deliver you from your sins, and then to come into you with the power of the Holy Spirit, make His abode in you, that you would be the temple of God, and that you would be in communion with Him. This is the new covenant, and this is the gospel message. That is why Jesus is the Word of God. That's why Jesus is the message. Jesus is the news. Now, I turned on the radio today, and the preacher on the radio was speaking all about how the Bible is the Word of God, you know, the Bible's infallible, that we should only be looking at the Bible. These Christians think that the Bible itself is the gospel. They think the Bible is Jesus. The Bible is the news. That is not what God wanted to relay. God did not come to just send us a book. He came to send His Son, that His Son would die and be the perfect sacrifice for us, that then we could also bear our cross, take up our cross, and follow Jesus, and live in the newness of life with Him. He didn't come just to send a book and to tell you, go educate yourself. In fact, three-quarters of all of Christians have never had the Bible. Think about before the printing press. They didn't have the Bible. They didn't have the ability to understand English, but they came to know God's faith the same way as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and, you know, all of the people of old that believed in God but that weren't educated or have the privilege of having the recorded scripture. So don't be deceived by the Christians who are worshiping the Bible, calling the Bible itself the message, because that is not true. The Bible didn't come to proclaim itself as God, but all of those that wrote the Bible are proclaiming the message, which is the gospel of the New Testament, that Jesus is the message. He is the news. He is the word. This is what the rest of it says in John chapter one. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the light, that all through him might be saved. He was not that light, meaning John, but was sent to bear witness of that light, not the Bible. John wasn't sent to bear witness that the Bible was the light, but that the word was the light. That was the true light, which gives light to every man coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. This is another thing that many Christians reject, or they deny, or they look over. They say, well, the Father made the world. Well, the Bible, over and over again, bears witness that Jesus made the world. Jesus created all things. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory. The other gospels speak about this as well. They speak about how His name is Emmanuel, God with us, that God became flesh. The Bible didn't become flesh.The word is not the Bible. And over and over and over again, we hear about how the name of Jesus, how He is the word, because He is the gospel, guys. The Bible is not the gospel. The Bible is not the word. Jesus is the gospel. Jesus is the one who came to save us and give us the new covenant, not the Bible itself. And this is where Christians in the church are extremely deceived and deceiving others, because they make it seem as though the Bible were the gospel, and if you get into the Bible, you'll be saved. They always say it has to be biblical. We get into a biblical church, and they're deceiving others because they're not coming to the word of life. Even though they read the words of Jesus in the Bible, they don't come to the words of life. And ironically, Jesus speaks about the same thing at the very beginning of the gospel of John. If you look at John chapter 5, starting in verse 38, Jesus says, but you do not have His word abiding in you, speaking to Jews that didn't believe in Jesus and the Pharisees who knew the scripture, He says, you don't have His word abiding in you, because whom He sent, meaning God, Him you do not believe. You search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life. And how many Christians are searching the scriptures, thinking that they're becoming like the Bereans of Acts, that they're getting closer to God, that they are understanding more, and so they're getting better at their Christian walk, because they're reading the Bible. But Jesus says clearly at the beginning of this gospel of John, you search the scriptures, for in them you think that you have eternal life. And these are they which testify of me. But you are not willing to come to me, that you may have life. This is a huge problem in the Christian church today. They go around teaching the Bible, saying this is the B-I-B-L-E, basic instructions before leaving earth. The Bible is what you need to get into, yet they are ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth, that Jesus is the word. They're teaching the Bible as if it's the gospel, and that is simply a lie. The Bible didn't come to save anyone. The Bible can't save you. The Bible can't lead you into everlasting life. You have to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. You need to receive the truth of Jesus. Read the gospel of John for yourself. Read the whole book. Pay attention to what Jesus really said, and don't believe the lying pastors that make the Bible into an idol. Receive the Holy Spirit as Jesus spoke about in John chapter 14 through 16. Jesus Christ Himself is the word of God. He is the one who will lead you and guide you and manifest Himself to you, but the Bible is not worthy to lead you. Three quarters of all of Christians since the time Jesus resurrected from the dead did not have access to the Bible, yet they are not lesser brothers in the Lord because they didn't have the Bible. You can't say, "well, they're not real Christians because they weren't reading the book. They were uneducated, so God doesn't love them", but the Christians of today act as though they are better than others if they know the Bible, but what Jesus said is they're ever searching the scriptures but never coming to the truth. These biblical preachers who have went to seminary and they know all of the roots of words, they know how to teach all this. They're educated, but they don't know the truth of Jesus. They don't have His truth in their heart. So, I encourage you to read this gospel, but come to Jesus, receive His Holy Spirit, repent of your sin, allow His Holy Spirit to come into you, and then be led by the guidance of the Holy Spirit and not just by the arm of the flesh and knowledge and all of this stuff that you can glean from people of this world. So, I want to pray for those of you that want to receive the Holy Spirit, that want to be baptized in the Holy Spirit, and receive the Word of Life, which is Jesus. "Lord Jesus, I pray for people to come into your truth, that they would not be deceived by the wolves in sheep's clothing, by lying pastors, by paid ministers who are paid to preach lies day after day after day. I pray that people would really repent of their sins, that they would come to be led by your Holy Spirit, that they wouldn't be deceived or have deceiving dreams or deceiving visions, or that they would not be deceived by their own understanding of the Scriptures, but that they would truly come to the knowledge of the truth, that they would have faith in you, that they would partake in your new covenant and be filled with your Holy Spirit. I pray this in your name, Lord Jesus. Amen."

 

The Fate of Your Christmas Tree

 Well, praise Jesus today, everyone. What I wanted to speak about shortly is the fate of Christmas trees. You've probably seen what happens to Christmas trees. I remember when I was a little kid, I would notice the day after Christmas or so that the Christmas trees would be thrown out into the backyards around the town, and it surprised me how quickly those Christmas trees would be turning brown. There was a lake not far out of my town that people used to throw Christmas trees into, and right after Christmas, they would go out there and throw the Christmas tree into the lake, and the Christmas tree wouldn't be discovered until late summer when the lake's waters recessed, and then you would see the Christmas trees in the lake. But Christmas trees are like the Christians who have the Christmas trees. They're spiritually dead. Christmas trees are not alive. You go into the forest, you cut them down, so they're already dead by the time they make it inside your house. And then there's false fruit. There's false decorations and ornaments all over the tree that appear to look very beautiful. Christmas trees are like spiritually dead Christians. Spiritually dead Christians, they look like they have fruit. On the outside, they look good. They maybe wear nice clothes. Their family looks nice on the outside. They go to church. They keep the Sabbath. They keep Sunday. Whatever it is they do outwardly, it appears good before men. But inwardly, they are spiritually dead and dying, and we all know what happens at the end of the age. We all know what happens at the end of the year. The Christmas trees are taken out of the house and they are burned, and the same happens at the end of the age. God gathers with His angels all of those who are alive, and He brings them into His barn, and all of the chaff, all of the weeds, and all of the dead trees, He gathers them and He throws them into the fire to be burned. So this is like a huge spiritual manifestation that happens every single Christmas, guys. Let it remind you that the Christmas tree represents dead Christians. The Christmas tree looks really good. Everyone wants a nice Christmas tree. Everyone wants to look beautiful on the outside. But remember, the Christmas tree is dead. Its fruit is all fake. It's all plastic. And the people that don't have real dead Christmas trees in their house are going out to Walmart and they're buying completely plastic and fake Christmas trees, and they're putting that in their house. So either way, those trees are fake, they're phony, they're dead, and at the end of the season, they'll be thrown out onto the fire or into the bottom of the lake, and they will be completely burned up and destroyed. So remember this, because the important thing is not about looking good on the outside. It's not about having this plastic fruit, but it's about having genuine fruit, being a tree in God's garden, having fruit and having life because we are connected to the life source. A real tree should be somewhere out in the mountains and it should be reaching up to the heavens and the gardener should be pruning it. The gardener is God. And we are as the branches. God is the vine. Jesus is the vine. And if we're connected to Him, we are alive. And sadly, so many Christians are worshiping what they don't know. They're bringing a dead tree into their house because they are spiritually dead. And they're not worshiping the true living God. I have no need for Christmas because I worship the one true living King. And Jesus hasn't called us to just remember Him year after year as a baby. What Jesus has called us to remember is that last supper where He broke the bread and He said, do this in remembrance of Me. And He gave them the grape juice or the wine. And He said, this is the blood that I'm going to shed for you of the new covenant. So He said, do this in remembrance of Me. Every time that you break bread, do this in remembrance of Me. It's important to our eternal destiny. Keeping Christmas will benefit you absolutely nothing. And at the end of Christmas, all of that joy goes away. But if you keep Jesus's commandments, if you eat His flesh and if you drink His blood, there will be those rivers of living water that spring up in you, that well of living water. You will eat His flesh and you'll be alive because His words, His truth are in you. His blood is cleansing you from all your past sins. You'll be made new and you'll be able to partake in Jesus's suffering, new life. You have to partake in Jesus's suffering in the cross. And we have to bear our own cross, daily denying ourselves, taking up our cross to follow Him as Jesus said. And we have to remember what Jesus actually taught, which was the new covenant. We have to eat Jesus's flesh and drink His blood. That is what is important to remember. But keeping Christmas, that's not helping anyone live holy. That's not helping anyone repent. That's not what Jesus commanded. But what He did institute is the Lord's supper, eating His flesh, drinking His blood, taking communion so that we could be in communion with God. So the question is, what are you keeping? Are you keeping a dead tree in your house? Are you keeping Santa Claus? Are you keeping a tradition of men? Are you keeping something that's pagan? Are you keeping something that just church people are lifting up as if it's holy, a candlelight service? Or are you keeping the words of Jesus close to you? Are you obeying what Jesus actually taught? Are you eating His flesh? Are you drinking His blood? Because if you aren't keeping His words, then you have no life in you. I'm telling you guys, this world has no life. Even though they go to church, they hold their candlelights, they worship under the Christmas tree, at the end of the season, that Christmas tree is thrown out and burned. And the people that don't know God are also gonna be thrown out and burned. That's what Jesus said. At the end, the angels go out and they gather the good from the bad. The good are brought into the barns and the bad are bundled and they're thrown into the fire. We need to remember the words of Jesus. We need to practice the words of Jesus and remember what He has called us to do. He hasn't called us to participate in rituals of the world and the holidays of the world, but He has called us to communion with Himself. Are you in communion with Jesus? Are you eating His flesh? And are you drinking His blood? So I wanna pray for those of you that want the truth in you, that wanna receive Jesus's flesh, that you wanna eat His flesh and drink His blood. “So Lord Jesus, I pray for those who are serious to eat Your flesh and to drink Your blood, not to just take some ornamental thing in the Catholic church or the Baptist church or just do a candlelight service or do presence under a tree. I pray that we can be separate from all of the traditions of the world and that we could be connected to You in the newness of life and that we would truly be eating Your flesh, living on Your words, drinking Your cup, living in the newness of life and that You would purge us and purify us and keep us holy and unstained, that we may enter into Your presence with joy and thanksgiving and purity of heart and with our new robes. I pray this in Your name, Lord Jesus, amen.”

False Fear

 Many Christians only follow God for a short time out of a false sort of fear. It is the fear that He will return imminently. These Christians hustle to get their life in order thinking that He will return in a matter of months. When they see no sign of Jesus's imminent return, they immediately go back to the world, supposing they have more time. How sad it is for these people who have founded their entire religion upon a false fear of God and not the truth. The end of these Christians will be complete ruin and destruction. 

Christianese Pagan Game

 There is a sect of Christians ( if they can even call themselves Christians, due to their strange convictions and supposed knowledge) that I have come across in life, that love to go around calling everything pagan. They love to make baby Christians feel ignorant and naive for celebrating a birthday or for Thanksgiving. They love to go into great detail about how Christmas is pagan and how Easter is pagan. These sorts of people often condemned the innocent, as they themselves are on their way to hell, all the while rambling their proud mouth. The extraordinary thing is, as these people go around blindly calling everything pagan, it is the PAGANS who are repenting and finding Jesus. It is the PAGAN and NOT this sect of Christian who will in the end find life.

Christian, you know the world is in darkness

 

Christian, You Know the World is in Darkness

Christians know that this world we live in is in darkness. Everyone can see it. We know that the world is both spiritually blind and deaf.  They will say that Jesus is a fairy tale, demons don't really exist, heaven and hell, who knows what happens. They disregard the Bible, the words of Jesus that are found in the book, but at the same time they chase after these demons in video games and with drugs and alcohol, experimenting with all kinds of strange sex, and they find these demons to be real through their experience. And the world, even though it is spiritually blind and deaf, is also very convincing that these experiences are good.  Not in a sense that they're godly, but they are good for you to experience, that you may have more knowledge, more information, maybe it's a way to seek after the truth, you can find joy in this way. And they make sin look so sensational that even Christians fall into sin, and Christians are blind. A hundred percent of the world is blind and deaf, but probably now almost 100% of Christians, more than 97% of Christians are blind and deaf, and also on their way to hell.  If you ask most Christians in their church if they sin, they will openly confess with their lips that they are still sinners. They don't talk about a transformation from sin. They talk about an experience like the world experienced, but their experience with Jesus somehow has not led them to really repent of their sin, it hasn't led them to change.  If Jesus changed you, you would be a new man and a new woman, you would be cleansed from the inside out. But because the world gives this sensational kind of belief, the feeling that you don't have to change, you can just believe whatever you want, and they're so convincing at it that even Christians have become blind and deaf. But I want to remind us what Jesus said about our sin problem, the sin problem that is taking the world to hell and now most Christians to hell because they have followed after the world and not after the words of Jesus Christ.  So this is what Jesus said to his disciples in John chapter eight. Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed him, "if you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." They answered him, "we are Abraham's descendants and have never been in bondage to anyone.  How can you say you will be made free?" Jesus answered them, "most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin." So let's stop right there for a second. Not just the world is in darkness, not just the world is a slave, but also Christians are slaves because they are in sin.  You say, oh no brother, I've put my faith in Jesus Christ in the blood of the lamb. I've put my faith in the cross. It's not by work, so no one can boast.  No, Jesus says that whoever sins is a slave of sin. Look at this, "and a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore, if the son makes you free, you shall be free indeed."  A slave is someone who is a slave of sin. The house represents the kingdom of God or the kingdom of this world. The devil is the prince of this world, and if you're in the world, you're living in the devil's house.  And if you come out of the devil's house, and if you bind that strong man, and the Lord leads you into his kingdom, into his house, then you have a house that is on the solid rock that won't fall down. But if you're still sinning, of course you're still a bond person. You are a slave to sin, even if you say you're a Christian, even if you go to church, even if you read the Bible.  And this is exactly what Jesus said. So we have to get away from these lies that the Christian church is teaching, that we're just saved by the blood of Jesus, and we don't have to actually repent. Because whatever kind of sinner you are, whether you're a worldly sinner or a Christian sinner, you're still under the condemnation of death if you haven't repented and obeyed the words of Jesus.  So he says, "therefore, if the son", meaning himself, if Jesus makes you free, you shall be free indeed. So does that mean you're not actually free, but you're just forgiven? Does that mean you continue to look at porn and cheat on your wife, and you continue to go back to drugs and drunkenness and parties and associating with people who mock and hate God, Is that what it means? Because that's what most Christians think it means. They think putting their faith in Jesus means getting an escape from hell card, that then they can go look at pornography the rest of their life, and God will have to let them into heaven because of the blood he shed on the cross.  What a lie from Satan. He says, "I know that you are Abraham's descendants, but you seek to kill me because my word has no place in you. I speak what I have seen with my father, and you do what you have seen with your father."  They answered and said to him, "Abraham is our father". Jesus said to them, "if you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God.  Abraham did not do this. You do the deeds of your father. Then they said to him, we were not born of fornication.  We have one father, God. Jesus said to them, if God were your father, you would love me, for I proceeded forth and came from God, nor have I come of myself, but he sent me. Why do you not understand my speech? Because you are not able to listen to my word.  You are of your father, the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.  But because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me. Which of you convicts me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? He who is of God hears God's words. Therefore, you do not hear, because you are not of God. This sums up most of the Christian church, as well as the world. They are of their father, the devil, even though they know the scripture, they know the Bible, they say Jesus, Jesus, they say the blood of Jesus, the cross, he is risen, he is risen indeed, we're going to celebrate Christmas and Easter. Even though they profess with their lips that Jesus is Lord, they continue to serve their father, the devil.  They mock the true prophets, they mock you, they mock me, if we are preaching the words of Jesus, because they hate Jesus Christ. They can't hate us, but they hate the Jesus Christ that is in us and working through us. We have to be changed by the blood of Jesus, not those that are just talkers. The Christian church today is filled with men and women who are talkative. They love to talk about their theology. They of course love to talk about end times and prophecies and revelation and the prophets of old.  They love those really sensational stories about Elijah and David and Goliath, Samson, Moses, the Ark, the Ark of the Covenant. They love to talk about these stories and pull out really obscure texts from the Old Testament to enamor their congregation. But because they haven't truly repented, they're still slaves. They're blind, they're deaf, they're miserable, they're naked, and they refuse to come from just talking to actually repenting. See, if the Son truly sets you free, you are free indeed from sin. You can repent because we have a God who is mighty to do anything.  He is powerful enough to set you free from the bondage of sin if you desire true repentance. Jesus didn't come to just make you free from your conscience, but not from sin. He didn't come to just set you free from the consequence of sin, like a lot of Christians preach in the hyper-grace gospel. He didn't come to just let you get into heaven by this ticket of His blood, but that you could continue to go on sinning, but just escape hell. Jesus came to set His people free from sin, to let His captives, to bring His captives out of hell, that they would follow Him into the newness of life and be changed. So, are we Christians who have fallen into this sensationalism of the world that is blind and deaf and doesn't know the truth? Are we chasing after people in the world, teachers in the world, athletes in the world, or are we really fixing our on Jesus and allowing the Son of God to set us free? Because that's what His promise was. His promise wasn't just to cleanse us of outward things, looking bad on the outside. He didn't come to just make us look good enough to wear nice clothes and go to church and pay tithe. He didn't come just to give us fancy clothes and fancy things in this world, but He came to purify our hearts, to purge us from sin, and to give us a new life, to purify us on the inside, so that then we could be clothed in righteousness and enter into the presence of a holy God. This world, of course, is on its way to hell because they've rejected their only salvation in Jesus Christ. But you, as a Christian, are also on your way to hell unless you are truly washed clean by the blood of Jesus. It's not about just believing that Jesus died on the cross, but it's about putting your faith in what Jesus said by obedience.  And what Jesus said is true. If the Son of God sets you free, if He sets you free from sin, you are free indeed. You'll be free from drunkenness.  You'll be free from addiction. You'll be free from lust, from pornography. You'll be free from bad behavior, from cursing.  I hear so many Christians that proclaim faith, but then they drop the f-bomb. They can't stop cussing. They can't stop taking Jesus' name in vain. They don't really love Him. If you really have been changed by God, if you really love Him, if you really want to walk with Him, you will hate the old man. You will hate the old way of life that was you.  You will put the old man to death so that you can walk in the newness of life with the Holy Spirit. You will allow Him to purge you and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness and to transform your mind that you can be a true child of God. "So, Lord Jesus, I pray for those who are stuck in the grips of sin.  I pray that whether those listening today are in the world or whether they are Christians who have backslidden, that they may come to know You as the true living God, the Messiah of the world who came to save us from our sins, even when we were in sin. We thank You for loving us. We thank You for dying on the cross and resurrecting, but we pray that we are purged and purified by Your blood and that You would come into our lives and cleanse us from all unrighteousness and take addiction from us, take worldliness out of us, take the false gospel out of us, and place in us a new heart that beats for righteousness.  I pray for my fellow brothers and sisters that they would truly repent and no longer be deceived by the darkness of the devil, that You would set them free in Your name and that they would be free indeed. In Your name I pray, Lord Jesus. Amen."

Church Lies: Faith Alone, Filthy Rags, Imputed Righteousness

 We'll praise Jesus today, brothers and sisters in the Lord. I wanted to speak about this subject of in faith alone, positional righteousness, the grace gospel, because these are things that have affected the Christian Church for many, many years. Ever since the fathers of the faith during the time of the early Catholic Church, promoting their version of Christianity, some of these false doctrines got into the church. Martin Luther taught some of these false doctrines, John Calvin taught some of these false doctrines, and many churches follow after the teachings of John Calvin and Martin Luther, instead of following after the teachings of Jesus Christ and listening to his words. But I want to just speak about this again, because it is such a big topic in the Christian Church. It's such a big deception, rather, and it's led many people off of the straight and narrow path, because they get confused about the filthy rags.  They think that their works for Jesus don't count or matter, because God sees them as filthy, and the church tells you the only thing that matters, you know, is that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, and so God sees you as positionally righteous through his Son, Jesus Christ. They say you don't have to do anything for God to love you more. He'll never love you any less than he does right now in your sin. It's a work that is just filthy if you try to repent and reconcile with God, and so it introduces a great amount of confusion into the Christian faith, because as a Christian you start thinking, especially as a baby Christian, well, Jesus paid it all on the cross, so I believe that. I trust that Jesus died and resurrected, but I want to live for him, but I know if I start living for him, Christians will say I'm trying to work out my salvation by just works, and that is sinful, and God sees that as filthy rags, so I don't really want to be filthy, and if God sees me as filthy, then I just shouldn't do those works anyway. So this promotes a sort of Christianity that is very dualistic, because one side of their mouth they preach you have to have you have to have works, you know, you have to go to church, read your Bible, pay tithe, but then on the other side of their mouth they say all of our works are as filthy rags, and so you get really confused as a Christian trying to go two directions at once.

So I want to break a bit of this down. The confusion of the filthy rags, a certain brother in the Lord about a year ago sent me a really good message that he had made for a church to rebuke them. He sent me that that PowerPoint, and I have posted it on my WarningThePeople channel.  So if you go to warningthepeople.com and you want more information on this, you can go to warningthepeople.com and open up one of the tabs there that takes you to I believe it's just called Filthy Rags, and so if you look at that, it gives, it really breaks down and gives a good description of what the filthy rags in context looks like in Isaiah, and how the prophet Isaiah was describing all of their deeds as filthy because they weren't honoring God.

We know though as Christians that Jesus died on the cross, he resurrected, and we know that we have to believe in him in order to be saved. We know that it isn't by our own works.  So I think the couple things we need to break down here is, what is a work of righteousness compared to what is a filthy rag or a dead work, a work that's not really true, because the Bible speaks about both of these. On one side you hear about works that are leading to death, works that are filthy, and so we need to make a clear-cut distinction between what a false work is and what a true work is. So let's break that down first.

So a false work we can know is something that doesn't bring God glory. It's in vain. So an easy example of this for a Christian who is in the truth already would be to look at some of the false faiths that are on this earth.  One would be the Muslim faith that is based on works. Their faith, they have five pillars of their faith which are religious works that they have to carry out, and none of these works bring about the righteousness God requires. They don't believe in Jesus Christ.  They don't believe in him as the one true God, but they think that you have to make a journey to Mecca. They think that that work makes you holy. They think you have to give alms to the poor. You have to pray facing the east, and there's all these things you have to do, memorizing the Quran, upholding the prophets, fasting from sunup to sundown during the months of Ramadan, and there's all of these religious things that you have to do. Those are all works that God sees as filthy rags, and not just to pick on the Muslim faith, because a lot of Christians have a faith that is totally in vain as well, and all of their works are also as filthy rags. For example, the Catholic Church thinks it's very holy to go to Mass, have the Eucharist, pray to Mary, and pray to all these other idols that they call saints, and all of their so-called righteousness, and all of their prayer, and all of their alms-giving is all as filthy to God, because their works are totally dead.  They're not done in the spirit of truth with the Holy Spirit. There are many other faiths that are very vain. They go door-to-door, trying to witness to people about their watchtower, or about their Joseph Smith prophet.  They go far and wide into all of the earth, trying to preach about their works. Yet, God sees all of their deeds as filthy. So guys, these are all of the works that are as filthy rags to God. All the things that men try to achieve, and men try to do a lot to appease their conscience. We try to give a lot of money to the poor. We try to fast.  We try to read the Bible. We try to do good things to people, to erase bad deeds. And all of these sort of deeds that we can do, at the end of the day, God sees as filthy rags when we don't belong to Jesus, and our works were not works that were being fulfilled of the Holy Spirit, but works, rather, to try to appease a guilty conscience. So again, these are all the sorts of works that are on the side of filthy rags, true filthy rags.

But what is on the other side? The other side is the righteousness God requires. And obviously, Jesus does not look down and call true works filthy rags, whether you want to call that positional righteous, or whether you want to call that practical righteousness. But if you look at Matthew chapter 16 verse 27, you see Jesus rewarding people according to their works, and those are good works or bad works. So if you have works of iniquity, works of sin, or false works of religion, you're going to be rewarded with damnation. But if you have works of righteousness, because you were living in step with the Holy Spirit, then your reward will be everlasting life and peace with the Son of God in eternity. And we know that Jesus said these things in Matthew 16 verse 27. We know that if we stand with the Lord, He will stand with us, and if we deny Him and reject Him, He will also reject us before His holy angels. I want to give one example, because when I was young in my faith, even though I didn't know it, I really promoted John Calvin. I promoted John MacArthur and his doctrines, and also a lot of the thoughts of Martin Luther. And when I first started working at a Baptist church when I was about 18 years old, it was sometime early on, I was like 18 or 19 years old, and I remember at that time my Baptist church was going to do this new sermon series for a month, and they had made banners. So the secretaries had put these banners up in the worship area, and the banners said, “draw close to God by making right choices”. And as a 19 year old, I saw these banners that were so pretty and that were being promoted by my church, and I saw them, and I went up to my youth pastor, and I said, isn't this an exact example of the false gospel? Because we can't draw close to God with good works. The only way you can draw close to God is with true imputed righteousness. That's believing in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. And I truly was under the deception of this imputed positional righteousness that Jesus has done everything on the cross, that you can't do anything for him, because anything you do is filthy rags. And I went into the youth pastor saying this, and the youth pastor looked at me and he said, “well, that saying that we made those banners for in our church actually came from James, the book of James, where James says”, he says, I'm going to probably not get the quote exactly right, but, oh sinners draw close to God and he will draw close to you. Resist the devil and the devil will flee. And after the youth pastor spoke this to me, I knew he was speaking the truth, because this is also a verse in the bible. And in James, it does say draw close to God and he will draw close to you. Resist the devil and the devil will flee. So in what way do we resist the devil? We resist the devil by doing good works and not doing bad works. We draw close to God by making good choices and not by making bad choices. But if you were to think to yourself, I'm going to draw close to God by lusting, looking at pornography, by smoking pot, by getting drunk, you know, by hating my neighbor, by having just a hateful spirit. And if you thought to yourself, I'm going to draw close to God by that, because God is so loving and he's imputed righteousness to me, I'm positionally righteousness, so it doesn't matter how evil I am, then you are the definition of a deceived hypocrite.

And sadly, many Christians were like how I was. They're sitting in church.  They think that they're positionally righteous. They believe these lies of John MacArthur, John Calvin, Martin Luther. And they think that they're so smart because they've read these doctrines of men of old and they've believed in these doctrines of men that have seminaries and teach bible college. They're very literate. But at the same time, they're completely idiotic because the very basic principles of the faith that even a child could understand, they don't understand and they and they reject and they deny. We need to get back to the very basic understanding that if we do right, God accepts us.  And if we do evil, God condemns us. It's been this way from the beginning. Remember all the way back to Adam and Eve and their sons. Cain killed Abel. And before Cain killed Abel, God came to Cain and he said to Cain, Sin lies at your door. And he told Cain if you do what is right, will you not be justified? And if you do wrong, you will be condemned. If you'll be if you do wrong, I believe he said sin lies at your door. Sin's knocking at your door. But it was very basic.  If you overcome the temptation to hate someone, the temptation to murder, the temptation to lust, then you will overcome in the name of the living God. But if you don't, sin lies at your door and its desire is to devour you and to take you to hell. As we know, Cain chose to murder his brother Abel. And God put a marking on Cain. Cain became a vagabond. I believe he was roaming the earth.  He had no home. He was scared people were going to murder him because he was a murderer. If we start thinking like Cain that we don't have to overcome, that God will just forgive us, or if we start thinking like John MacArthur or Calvin or Martin Luther, if we get too smart for ourselves, then God is also against us. So we in our Christian faith need to make sure that we are not deceived by intellectual Christians, that we're not deceived by church doctrines, and that we're not deceived by this filthy rags doctrine or this positional righteousness doctrine. You are by no means positionally righteous before Jesus, before God of all heaven and all earth, by just believing in him with no works of righteousness. Read again the book of James and you will know for a fact that the scripture says that faith without works is dead. If you say that you have faith, but don't have works that prove your faith, then your deeds, your works, your deeds are completely worthless.

So what are deeds? What are works that are worthy before God? Let's talk about that. Works or deeds, as the Bible calls them, that are worthy before God are those that the Holy Spirit puts in you to do. So when you come to Jesus knowing that you are a sinner and that you need to repent, that you need to go and be baptized, and that you need to confess your sins, when you start acting on those convictions, all of those works before God are justified as righteous. Even Rahab the prostitute was considered righteous, in her works righteous, when she lied to conceal the identity of the spies. When she pointed the government in the opposite direction saying they went that way, when they went this way, she was considered righteous. If you read about what all of those men of old did that are in the faith chapter, they laid down their lives and they had works of righteousness and they were justified by their faith and by their deeds for choosing to go the right way by honoring the Spirit of God. So what are some of those things that you can do? Well, true repentance, a water baptism, not for religion, but for true faith in God, forgiveness, long-suffering, having love in your heart, joy, all the things that the apostle Paul speaks of as the fruits of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. We know what attributes are good in the eyes of God and we know which ones are evil. So if we practice good works, the things God requires, the things that we have on our conscience from God to do that are righteous, God will never condemn you saying that you are filthy. He will never condemn you as being filthy for praying, for casting out evil thoughts from your mind. When is the last time you think that Jesus ever said that you were filthy for resisting thinking an evil thought? When is the last time God ever looked at one of his servants and said, because you resisted temptation, you are filthy. Just know that I have done it all on the cross and you don't need to resist temptation. You don't need to resist evil people. Just follow after your lusts. Obviously, that is the devil's voice that says that, that says that you can stumble into all sorts of lusts of the flesh and that you're just positionally righteous. Every time that you choose to cast an evil thought out of your mind, that is a work of righteousness. Every time that you overcome a temptation, that is a work of righteousness. Every time you resist pride, every time that you are overcoming in the name of Jesus, those are works of righteousness. And as his disciples, those are the works that we need to have accompanying our faith. And if we don't, then our faith is totally in vain.  It is totally fake.

Go back and read the book of James. A lot of Christians don't like the book of James.  They avoid it because they uphold John MacArthur or they uphold Calvin or Martin Luther. And a lot of these men are upholding their false doctrines, but they're not upholding the truth of Jesus Christ. We need to get back to the basics of true love by working out our salvation with fear and trembling and having love of the truth and hatred of evil. If we hate what God hates and if we love what he loves, we will be going in the right direction. But it's impossible to go the right direction by going left and right at the same time. If you're saying all the things God loves are filthy rags, but we need to have those filthy rags, you're going to be so confused as a Christian.  You're not going to know what to do. So I encourage you to go back and read James. Go back and read the gospels.  Read what Jesus said about about faith and about works. And then make sure that you as a Christian have works of righteousness, not the false works, not dead religious works, but make sure that you have genuine works of faith like all the apostles had, like all the men of old had, like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had. Faith that proved or works that proved their faith.

Anyways, I want to pray for those of you that do want to have works of righteousness with your faith and those of you that want to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. “So Lord Jesus, I pray for your church. I pray that we will not be deceived by false prophets, by false doctrines, even those of old that even came about 2,000 years ago. We pray that we can overcome in your name and truly have the works of righteousness in us. We pray that we are your children, that we're not just chasing after doctrines of the church, that we're not just thinking that we're righteous because we've believed in the easy grace gospel or believed in positional righteousness or imputed righteousness. But we pray Lord that we really lay down our lives for you and that as you took up your cross, we also take up our cross, deny ourselves daily, and follow you, which we know is a work. We know it takes work to stay on the straight and narrow path, but it doesn't take work and it doesn't take diligence or self-control to deviate off the path. It only takes one lazy move to get off of the straight and narrow path, but it takes diligence, persistence, focus. It takes all of our self-control to stay on the straight and narrow path. So we want to work for you, Lord Jesus, with diligence, with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We love you, Lord, and we pray for many more to lay down their life for you and come into the true faith. In your name we pray, amen.”

Why Almost ALL Christians Today Are On Sinking Sand

This is what Jesus said in Luke chapter 6. "Whosoever cometh to me and heareth my sayings and does them, I will show you to whom he is like. He is like a man which built a house, diggeth deep, laid the foundation on a rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat the Hemetly upon that house and could not shake it for it was founded upon the rock. But he that heareth and does not is like a man without a foundation built a house upon the earth against which the stream did beat Behemoth and immediately it fell and the ruin of that house was great." 

The key here is listening to Jesus's words and then obeying them, which most Christians are not doing today. The men of old, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they heard things from the living God and then they acted in faith, leaving their towns, taking persecution, overcoming trials, leaving family members who did not believe. They were very straightforward about their faith, the God that they serve. They were unashamed. They didn't bend to the culture and when they made mistakes, they repented and they continued to go down the path of the straight and narrow that leads to life.  Today though, most Christians are not like the fathers of faith. They're not like the early apostles. Christians today don't think that they will suffer persecution. They don't think that they'll have to go through the end times tribulations. They don't think that they have to pray continually.  They don't think they have to truly repent of sin and overcome. And so their entire foundation is on the earth. It's on the sand. They believe in the Bible. They believe in the prophets.  They can quote you things that Jesus said from the scripture. But because their entire foundation is upon the sand, even though they built on it with the scripture, when the rains come down and when the stream beats vehemently upon their house, the whole operation will come tumbling down. And we see that happening today with many Christians' lives, many church organizations. We see the whole thing falling apart because Christians are no longer basing their life on obedience and true repentance. They're basing it upon their knowledge and understanding of the scripture, their church doctrines.  We need to make sure that we truly are repenting, that our faces are on the ground before God, that we become humble, and that the Lord fills us with His righteousness. That we're not thinking we're righteous because we know the Bible and because we're educated men and women, but that we are righteous because the Holy Spirit of the living God is in us and he has purged us from all uncleanliness, from all things that are evil. We need to make sure that we're separate from the world doing the will of God, then we can have the very basic foundation that Jesus wants us to have. The foundation that is on him. Is your foundation on Jesus Christ?  Are you on the solid rock? Or have you built your life on the knowledge of the Bible without true repentance, without true obedience, without righteousness, without the holiness God requires? Are you really obeying and living out your faith for the Lord Jesus Christ?