The Doctrine of Demons

This sermon was actually inspired by a number of conversations that I've had over the last few months. I had a conversation this morning where someone said, would you please give a sermon about the origins of all of Abraham's children and where they ended up and, you know, why the Arab-Israeli conflict is so deep? And I said, oh, I gave a sermon on that in, I thought about it, and I thought about it in 2019. Well, he wasn't even in the congregation then in 2019. I thought, you know, I probably should give that one again. I mean, there's certain information you forget to cover, and you should cover every once in a while. But this one was because of conversations about people saying, do you believe with the anxiety and just the irrational violent behavior that we see so much in our society? I mean, people who go out and kill 20 people that they don't even know. I mean, it's not like a crime of anger. It's just killing people. With all the sort of insanity that seems to happen in the world that we live in, is that do you believe there's a more demonic influence on human beings? And demonic activity in the human race has been there ever since Adam and Eve stepped out of the Garden of Eden. But the Bible does say that towards the end it will get worse. Now, this isn't a prophetic sermon about demonic activity in the future. It is about a certain aspect of demonic influence. And something very specific as I started to work through this question about demonic activity that we need to look at. We need to look at. Now, we're not going to talk about demon possession. That's another subject. Let's just briefly set up the foundation that we know of who demons are. And then we're going to talk about a specific aspect of sort of how they relate to us. We know that when God created angels before He created the physical universe, one of the greatest angels was Lucifer. Lucifer rebelled against God. He decided that God's definition of good and evil and God's omnipotence, His authority to rule over His own creation, weren't really legitimate. He really didn't know the difference between good and evil, and He really shouldn't take all this power unto Himself. And so Satan rebelled. And he became, well, Lucifer rebelled. He became Satan, which simply means adversary. He literally became the enemy of God and the enemy of humanity when he created human beings. He is the enemy of God because he believes that God's idea of goodness is not legitimate. So he looks at the definition of good and evil totally different. Now, if we talk about God being good, it's His nature to be good. It is Satan's nature to be evil. It's His nature to be that way. We know from the book of Revelation that a third of the angels followed Satan, and they have become the enemies of God.

They also share in His desire, Satan's desire, to either convert us so that we all agree, humanity agrees, that God does not know the difference between good and evil, and that God's omnipotence is not legitimate, or He destroys us. In other words, we either see reality the way He does and accept Him as the God of this world, which when Adam and Eve got kicked out of Eden, God allowed Satan to come in. He allowed him to give them a choice because they chose evil. Because of that, God said, okay, you can leave now, and He can be your God for a period of time, and you're going to learn good and evil the hard way, easy way, which is just like God tells us. Well, we've spent all these years with human beings, struggling with, does God actually know? Or maybe we need to redefine good and evil. Maybe we need to redefine God's omnipotence. Demons do not possess the average person, but they do influence people, and therefore they influence societies. They don't control people's minds. They do when they possess people, but that is actually not that common. I mean, it happens, but it's not that common. What demons do is the same thing that Satan does, is that because they are present on this earth, their thoughts and their emotions can be projected to others when they're around them. You say, well, that's sort of strange. I want you to think about something. Have you ever been with someone that you know that you're close to and they're grieving, and you sit down to grieve with them and they're crying? And after a little bit, you're crying too. You're grieving. The emotion that they're feeling, to a certain degree, not the depth of it, but is actually shared.

You can see that all the time now. Maybe you've never had this situation, but somebody's mad, and they're really mad. And if you're not careful, pretty certain you're really mad too.

We absorb other people's anger all the time. We respond to people in their emotions. Now, think of these beings who are much greater than we are in some ways, and their emotions and their thoughts, and they're around. What happens is they try to influence our emotions and thoughts. You and I, everybody in the world, gets that a certain amount every day. Most of the time, you and I simply reject it, right? We simply reject it. My little granddaughter's not here. She was at church this morning, our son's daughter. The other day, she said, they always bring to me their moral problems. I don't know why. How old is she, Kim? Two? Four. Oh, she's four. Yeah, she's bigger than two. She says, Grandpa, I was really mad at Mom. I said, you were? I said, why? Well, I had a sucker in my mouth. She made me up my mouth, took the sucker out, and threw it away. I said, oh, and I was just mad at her. I yelled at her. And I said, okay. I said, why? Well, you know, she just took the sucker out of my mouth. I said, no, your mother just didn't take the sucker out of my mouth. She took the sucker out of her mouth. Why? Well, because I, and then she told me what she did. So in other words, it was a punishment for something you did wrong. Yeah, but I was mad. I said, I accept that you're mad. I'm not even talking about you being mad. I'm saying that was a result of your action. She didn't do that just because she wanted to. Yeah. No, no, no. Then she says, and this is what was profound. I wanted to kick her, but I did not listen to my brain.

I said, in other words, you decided not to do what you felt. She always thinks she looks something. Yeah. Yeah. So you decided not to do what you felt. I said, that's good. That means you're becoming a big girl. This is what you learn. You can't do what you always feel. Well, see, we are bombarded with thoughts and feelings all the time. I'm not saying that came from a demon, but, you know, we have to sort through. They do affect us as we, especially as adults, thoughts and feelings hit us all the time. So that's what we're looking at. That's what we're thinking about is that, that influence that we don't even notice where it's coming from. And they appeal to the darker side of our nature because we have all absorbed some of Satan's nature. So we have a darker side to our nature that they can appeal to because it's like theirs. There's a darker side to us with corrupted human nature that can be tapped in by them because it's similar to their nature. And so that's sometimes why we're pulled a certain way is because, well, our corrupt human nature. Yes, but it's always being played on, too. Once again, demons can't make you do anything you don't want to do. They can't. They're not going to possess you. They're not going to force you. But there's this manipulation that goes on. In societies, of course, where they don't understand that, they're manipulated all the time. I read an article just this week by a minister—I forget which denomination he was—saying that Christianity will be finally so much better when we give up the myth that we are influenced by Satan and demons. Once we give up that myth, we'll be so much better. Now, 40 years ago, that would be considered among mainstream Christianity as a false doctrine. It is now more than half of Christians believe that. Woke Christianity has created a whole new Christianity out there that, beyond sometimes what we imagine has happened. The old Baptist evangelicals of the 1970s, less than 6%, according to Barna, of Christians believe what the average Christian believed in 1975. In other words, the old-time Christianity is just about gone. And there is a woke Christianity. It's a movement. It's been going on for decades, and it's taking over Christianity. And I want to look at that in terms of a specific scripture, because I want to talk about what's happening in Christianity. I mean, it was always—it's always been there in Christianity, but something that's actually happening at an accelerated rate. Let's go to 1 Timothy 4, verse 1.

1 Timothy.

Because all of us are going to have to face these arguments that are happening, and the younger you are, the more you've already been dealing with these arguments. The more you're interacting with society, you've had to deal with these arguments.

But this is a very peculiar statement by Paul. Verse 1. Now, the Spirit—that's God's Spirit, the Holy Spirit—expressantly says that in the latter times, some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons. Now, this is written to the church. Paul here is writing to a minister about how to teach his church. This isn't written to the world. So he says that the church is going to become susceptible to doctrines or teachings of demons. How in the world does that happen? I mean, what are doctrines of demons? And how can the church become infiltrated by the doctrines of demons? Now, we say, well, sometimes I don't understand the Bible. Does that mean I believe in the doctrine of demons? No. None of us know everything that's in this book. The older I get, the more I realize what I don't know. None of us know everything that's in this book. We all have blind spots. We all struggle with different ideas. It's all part of Christianity. It's a growth process that we're going through as we learn, as we grow. So everybody always have what? I don't know. I don't know if that particular detail, I don't get that. Okay, that doesn't mean you're believing a doctrine of demons. Or I disagree with maybe that little piece here. That doesn't mean you're believing a doctrine of demons. But a doctrine of demons means literally a teaching that is like-minded to theirs. It's something that's like-minded to the way demons are. So to make it simple, I'm going to break this down to a simple concept that's like everything else, gets more complicated than this. But here's how we know something is a doctrine of demons. It's first of all, it distorts through lies. It distorts the essential reality of who God is.

I'm going to show you some of these doctrines. It distorts the essential reality of who God is. It distorts the reality of who humanity is and our relationship to God. It distorts that. Who humanity is and our relationship to God. It distorts the definitions of good and evil. It distorts them entirely. It distorts who Jesus Christ is and that the work is doing through him, or God is doing through him. The work God is doing through him is distorted. And lastly, it distorts God's purpose for humanity. It distorts God's purpose for human beings. And as we go through these, I want you to notice how each of these things happen in a series of doctrines we're going to explain that are very, very common. As I've mentioned before, I get a newsletter, I get feeds all the time from churches all over the country, and they're shifting. They're going different places. The Catholic Church is facing a possible split. The Methodist Church is self-destructed, kicking out members who actually believe what the Methodist Church has believed for all these years and creating a whole new church. The Presbyterian Church has changed. The Episcopalian Church has changed. Half the Baptist churches have changed. They're not what they were 20 years ago in their doctrines. And these are the core doctrines that are beginning to be accepted. The first one is, all religions are basically good and lead to the same spiritual connection with God. All religions are basically good and lead to the same spiritual connection with God. This was Joe Olstein's message 20 years ago, and now he's become, well, too hard. This was Oprah Winfrey's message about 20-25 years ago. All roads, not just Jesus, but all roads leads to God. And I remember her saying that and arguing that with ministers. And that, you know, that was years ago, as a generation ago. And those two, their impact, plus others like them, has changed what Christianity has done. Others like them, has changed what Christianity is today.

We received an email this week about a Beyond Today program we did. And this sort of summarizes this woke, because that's what they're calling it, woke Christianity. I don't mean people who are against it. It's what they are calling it. The people who support it. We are now, we've awakened to the truth. So that can have, you know, there's woke political things happening in the country. This can be associated with it, or not associated with it, depending on the issues.

But listen to this, because this summarizes the viewpoint. Started watching the series about supposedly the devil being in churches. This was a series of five programs that Steve Myers did. A few minutes was enough. I mean, really? We're now picking on churches just because people go to church on Sundays, and a world full of people being depressed, full of anxiety and stress. We focused on picking on going to church on Sundays. In other words, there is no relationship between when you go to church and anxiety and stress. There's no relationship between those two things. We're also picking on Buddhism. Those peaceful, beautiful, gentle souls whose traditions go back before Christianity even started. So instead of just loving them, we pick on traditions that are thousands of years old and accusing them of being devil worshippers. Even when it's clear that even a dumb person helped ... it's clear even to a dumb person how peaceful and genuinely loving they are. The church is still today in the space of trying using threats of hell. Some of this is hard. Certain structures are very good. The threats of hell and punishment are used to scare people instead of just radiating love and realizing people are doing the best they can in a very stressful world. He says even people in prison are as mean as you Christians are. At the end of the day, religion is still trying to use fear and eternal punishment to control minds that's not love. Now, I just read a recent poll about beliefs of Christians. Over one-third of all Christians in this country would believe with that 100%. 100%! And if you take the ones who would believe with part of it, it's over half. That there's just something wrong with this Christianity that doesn't simply love and accept everyone no matter what their religious beliefs. Because God loves and accepts everyone. We're going to talk about that one in a minute. Right now we're just going to deal with the concept of all churches like Buddhism are peaceful, loving people. So it doesn't matter whether a Hindu, a Buddhist, somebody down in the Andes that worships a religion that goes back to the Aztecs, Islam, all these religions are the same spiritual forces leading people to God. Same spiritual powers.

Now, how does Jesus deal with that?

And then we're going to look at how Paul deals with that. How does Paul answer this email? How would Jesus answer this email? We're going to go through scriptures today that are some of the most fundamental scriptures that if you want to know the truth, if you were a mainline Christian 30 years ago, these are the ones you would have turned to and answered to this. And nobody, hardly anybody does now. Hardly anybody. I am shocked when I go on, okay, I'm going to find out. I'll watch eight different religious shows dealing with something like this, you know, on YouTube. And seven out of the eight agree with it. And then you get one that doesn't. And they'll go to a few scriptures. Everybody else either doesn't go to scriptures or they just pull scriptures that totally out of context. So we're going to look at simple scriptures that are common scriptures. Don't take a lot of, well, one of them takes a little bit of digging into it, but they don't take a lot of digging into it. So let's go to John 14, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ.

John 14. All churches, all religions, all lead to the same God. Jesus is with his disciples on John 14. It's before, you know, this is at the Passover time, he's going to go out that evening and he's going to be arrested, beaten and killed the next day. He's trying to prepare them for that. And he says to them in verse one, let your heart not be troubled, or let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my father's house for many mansions, if it were not so, I would have told you, I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself. And where I am, there you may be also. And where I go, you know, and the way you know. So you know where I'm going and you know the way to get there. And of course, Thomas always says that, Thomas, like Peter, some of the other guys are thinking the same things, but nobody's going to say it. And Thomas said, Lord, we do not know where you're going and how could we know the way? Now, what Jesus says now is very fundamental if we're going to understand the authentic Jesus. Simple statement. Jesus said to him, I am the way. Now, notice he did not say, I'm here to just teach you the way. Let me give you, you know, 10 points on the path, on the way. Let me explain. No, he says, I am it. I am the way. How is this interpreted other throughout the rest of the New Testament? The book of Acts, Peter says, he's the only way to the Father. There is no other way. No other religion can get you to the God of the Bible. None other person can get you to the God of the Bible except Jesus Christ. That's important. I'm not here to teach you the way. I am the way. So he says, I am the way. Then he says, I am the truth. I'm sorry, the truth. I am the truth. He says, so if you want to know what truth is, I teach it to you.

So Jesus says he's the only way to God. Jesus says he is the only truth. Then he says, I am the life. I am the only opportunity for eternal life. I'm going, I'm coming back. That's about eternal life. I'm it. I'm it. And then he says, no one comes to the Father except through me. That's what he said. All religions lead to the same spiritual consciousness. So it really doesn't matter what religion you are as long as you're a good person. Jesus Christ said, he is the way. I'm not just teaching it to you. I'm it. Without the way, without me, you don't have the way. I am the truth. Without me, you don't have the truth. I am the life. Without me, you don't have life. And no one reaches the Father, the true God, except through me. Now this gets very simple, folks, when we're looking at woke Christianity and the Scripture. Either Jesus is telling the truth, and he is the only way, the truth, and the life, and the only way to the Father, or Jesus Christ is a madman. It's that simple. He's insane.

It's one or the other. It can't be both. I can't be the only way to life, but I'm not. You either are or you're not. And to make these kinds of claims, he's either an absolute madman, or he is what he says he is. This makes woke Christianity trying to redefine God, and it redefines Jesus. It's a doctrine of demons. It's the way they think. It's a doctrine of demons. To redefine Jesus, or he's a madman. If he's a madman, why in the world are we following? What did Paul say? You know, one of the reasons this is hated so much is because exclusiveness. The whole thing about woke Christianity is love is inclusive. Love includes everybody. Now, in some way I agree with that, but what does that actually mean? I mean, you can't take that at face value. So, the fact that Jesus is exclusive makes him wrong, or makes it only right for those who believe in Jesus. If you believe in Buddha, that's just as right, because it's the only way. How many only ways do you have? Well, we can't use the word only. Let's change it. I'm one of the ways. That's the only way you can make sense out of that.

I don't think we understand how much this movement has permeated into society.

I just permeated into it.

So, how would Paul do this? So, this exclusiveness of this is what's really offensive.

Really offensive to the whole woke movement, because Jesus is absolutely inclusive. Jesus gets us. You've seen that one? He includes all of us. Okay, does God love everyone? That's a good question. We'll have to get to that one. Does God accept everyone? We'll have to get to that one. But what does Paul now say about this idea that God is inclusive, that all religions come to Him, all religious movements bring people to Him? How does he deal with that? 1 Corinthians 10. So, we see what Jesus says. No, I'm the only way. So, Paul comes along. 1 Corinthians 10.

And let's start in verse 14.

Paul says, therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. Now, remember, he's writing to a church in Corinth that just steeped in idolatry. You can't walk down the street without seeing temples and statues and altars. It's every place, every part of their society, of their culture, involves ceremonies to pagan gods. Everything is around. Even their civil, what we would call civil ceremonies, their government ceremonies all had religious ceremonies tied in with it. So, it's everywhere. You can't get away from it. And he's telling the people here, many of them who have come out of that, because only a minority of people in the church in Corinth, it appears, were Jews. Most of them are people who come out of paganism. And he says to them, you've got to run away from this. I know it's the world you're used to, but you've got to run away from it. I speak as to wise men, judge for yourselves what I say. He says, okay, let me explain what I'm saying, and you judge whether this is right or wrong. It's sort of like me saying, Jesus is either right or he's a madman. He's doing the same thing. You've got to judge what I'm going to say now. It's either right or wrong. The cup of blessing, which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, it is it not the communion of the body of Christ? Let's talk about the Passover service. He says, when we take that wine that represents the blood of Christ and that bread, isn't that communion with him? Communion means close relationship. You could just as easily translate that out of the Greek as fellowship. Are we not in close fellowship with God, or Jesus Christ, which God, when we take that bread in that wine? Let's just use a Christian ritual to say what's happening in this ritual. It's real. It's not just a ritual. It's an actual thing that happens between us and God. And you know, when you go to the Passover service, it's different. God is there. That's the way we're supposed to approach this Holy Convocation here, too. God is here. He's invited us to come. So he makes this point. You're in communion with Christ. Then he says, in verse 17, he takes it a step further, for we, though many, are one bread and one body, for we all partake of that one blood. He says, so in reality, we're in communion with each other because we're in communion with Christ, symbolized by the Passover. We're in his communion. This is very personal, is his point. Verse 19, he ties us in to Old Testament Israel and the priesthood. Then verse 20. I'm sorry, that's verse 18. Let's go to verse 19. What am I saying then? Okay, what's my point? That an idol is anything? What is offered to idols is anything? He said, you know, he had said other places, an idol is just a big chunk of stone. The idol itself has no evil good. It's just stone. And an animal sacrificed, it's just an animal. But what is my point? And this would have meant so much to them because of their experiences, their experiences in going to pagan temples, their experiences in going to all kinds of pagan activities and pagan ceremonies. They understood what he said next. Rather, that the things with the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. And I do not want you to have fellowship communion with demons. There is a power in paganism. There is a power in their ceremonies and in their teachings. And it's not because of the temples or the statues. It's because behind that is the power of demons.

The power of demons is behind paganism.

Boy, that's pretty exclusive, isn't it? Now we're talking a minute whether we're talking about whether God loves pagans or not. We're just talking about here, do all religions lead to God? And the answer from Jesus is no. And the answer from Paul is no.

That's the Christian biblical answer. And once again, we either accept it or we don't. We go find another religion to belong to. Because you have to find a church that doesn't believe in these passages.

Verse 21, he says, you cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the Lord's table and the table of demons. May he really makes this point. He makes the point that there is a power behind this. You know, all human beings are designed to have a relationship with God. We're designed with a need for a relationship with God. And if that need isn't being filled through our constant attempt at a relationship with God, which isn't easy.

I mean, he's the God in the universe. He's invisible. And here we are trying to get through every day. So it's not easy. But as we have that relationship with God, those needs are filled. If they're not, we are driven to fill them another way. Some people do it through drugs. Some people do it through just working hard and collecting lots of money. Most people try to do it through some religious beliefs. And there's a certain power in paganism that makes them believe they're spiritually connected.

But they're not spiritually connected to God. So we understand there is a power there. This is a doctrine of demons, a doctrine of demons that paganism, which involves the worship of demons, that's what Paul said, is somehow the same as the worship of God. What happens when people believe this, that all religions are the basically good and lead to the same spiritual connection with God, is that they reject that God is exclusive, that the God of the Bible is the only way, and that there's a requirement to believe and follow Jesus Christ to have a relation with God.

They reject that. It's good, but there's other ways that are just as good. It taps into a demonic influence that we can feel religious, but they're not really. You know, when you ever hear people say, well, I'm spiritual, not religious, I always laugh when I hear that, because I think, oh, explain that to me. And usually what I get is woke Christianity. Well, I think all spiritual people are right with God.

It doesn't matter what church, what religion, what particular name they give to God, or names, or whatever. And also, it promotes a belief that we determine how God will be worshipped. God doesn't determine how to be worshipped. We do. So we get to figure out how to worship. And you know, it's interesting. Years ago, when I'd go out and meet new people as a pastor, I would sit down and say, well, you know, Jesus wasn't born on Christmas.

He wasn't. And you'd go through the scriptures, and they'd say, well, where'd it come from? And you'd talk a little bit about the pagan origins, and they'd say, that's terrible. Now, if I say to somebody, you know, Christmas isn't in the Bible. Jesus wasn't born on that day. They'll say, oh, I know. Well, you know, his origins are pagan. Well, I know. But you know, it's how I choose to worship Jesus, and it's so nice for the family.

At that point, there's no argument. I mean, what do you say? But doesn't God choose that? Oh, no. God just wants us to love Him. And however we express our love, is okay with Him, because He just loves us. That's the argument. We're sort of back to the letter I just read. We're not radiating love unless we accept that God loves everybody, so He accepts everything. It doesn't matter what you bring Him, as long as you bring it to Him, because you love Him, and it's all that matters.

Okay, a second doctrine of demons. And this is tied in with this one. The first one is that all religions lead to the same spirituality and to God. So it doesn't matter whether you're a Christian or what kind of Christian. None of this stuff matters. The second one is that most people are basically good, and are loved by God, and accepted by God.

Most people are basically good, loved by God, and accepted by God. Now, this is based on the fact that, hey, I have a friend over here. I went to church, and they told me that homosexuals weren't right with God. And I have a neighbor over here who's the nicest person they ever met. He works at the soup kitchen every Saturday and Sunday. He helps everybody in the neighborhood.

And we just love talking to him, and he's a great guy. So we know God loves him, and we know he's good. Therefore, God doesn't care about his sexual orientation. Some of you have had to heard these arguments.

I hear them all the time. I see some shaking in your head, yes. And so, most people are basically good, so everybody's loved by God, and accepted by God. Okay. Does God love everybody? We've got to answer that first. Well, John 3. Let's see what we have here in John chapter 3.

And let's go to verse... Where do I want to go here? Verse 16. John 3.16 used to be the most quoted verse in the Bible. Some of you are old enough... Let's see how old you are. To remember, every football game on television, every basketball game on television, and every baseball game on television, people would have a big sign out that said that actually had John 3.16 on it. God so loved the world. How many remember that? Or have seen that? Oh, you young people. Oh, it's oldies. Okay, so okay, there's some young people. Oh, some... Tim Haggard shaking, he said, yes, but he won't raise his hand, because he doesn't want to be seen as an old man. You're an old man. Come on. This was considered the central verse of Protestant Christianity.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. God so loved the world. Does God love Buddhists? Yes. Does God love murderers? Actually, yes. Does God love thieves? Yes. Okay, so that's settled. God so loved the world. Now, he so loved the world that he simply said, I don't care, I accept all of you. That's not what it says. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him will not perish. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but the world to him might be saved. See? He came, everybody's saved. End of argument.

Verse 18, he who believes in him is not condemned. Boy, okay. He's comes to not to condemn anybody, and those who really believe in him and follow him are not condemned. But he who does not believe is condemned already. See, there's people that are condemned right now in their relationship with God, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God. Now, we know there's different times of salvation, and I'm not going to go into that. I'm just going to go through what is being said here, which is, there are people right now that are under condemnation from God because they don't believe in Jesus Christ. That's hard to not see that, right? This is what he says. That this is the condemnation. This is why people are condemned by God. See, this is the condemnation from you and me, by the way. You and I don't condemn anybody. We don't have the right to pass eternal judgment on anybody. We just don't. All we can talk about is this is what God says. This is God's judgments. So much as we get into our judgments, our judgments, okay, let's talk about God's judgments. That's where this all comes down to. What does Jesus Christ say? Do we believe in an authentic Christian or a Christian we've made or a Christ that we've made up? A Christ that really never existed. We just made it our own image. Or do we believe in the real Jesus Christ?

And this is the condemnation that the light has come into the world. And men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. Because there's evil in them and there's evil in the things they do, they don't want to accept the light of Jesus Christ. They don't want to accept who Jesus Christ is and therefore they are condemned. So much for absolute and, you know, everybody's included. But who's excluded?

It's those who refuse to accept certain things that are important to God. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light that his deeds may be clearly seen that they have been done in God. In other words, those who have turned to Jesus is the Son of God and all that that means. That's a huge statement. They come to God in the light because God's working in them and their deeds aren't self-made. Their deeds are a response to God. Everything we do is a response to what God is doing with us. So God is with us and there's light. If we hide in the darkness, we are condemned.

God loves humanity. But salvation and eternal life, acceptance from God, requires that we turn to God, the God. Requires that we accept Jesus Christ as a sacrifice for the penalty that we deserve. It requires that. And then we come out of the darkness into the light and let God shine his light in us and that we are transformed into his children. That is required. God loves the world. He doesn't accept everyone. Oh, how evil he is! No, he loves them. But he is a God of justice. He is a God of righteousness. And we must come into righteousness, his righteousness, to be saved. We cannot be saved separate from him or his righteousness. You can't. You can't visit enough homeless people. You can't give enough money to charities. You can't do all that and be an agnostic. And where everybody says that's the nicest man or woman I've ever met and be saved. Other than that, if it's not true, then you're saved by works. You're not saved by Jesus Christ, you're saved by works. I find it amazing. We're accused of believing salvation by works, and we keep the Sabbath. Oh, no, we love God. God says, do it, so we do it. We should also, by the way, be taking care of the poor and serving others. We're supposed to do that, too. But there's this new idea. As long as you serve the poor, take care of other people, donate some time at the hospital, and help your neighbors, you are saved by those deeds. And we are not saved by those deeds. Should we have those deeds? Sure, but we're not saved by them. This is a new salvation by works doctrine. You can believe in Buddha. You can worship all the Hindu gods. As long as you're a nice person, you get saved by your deeds. That's not salvation, that's a doctrine of demons. Do you understand where I'm coming from here? It's a doctrine of demons. It perverts the essential nature of God. It perverts it, it twists it, it distorts it. It distorts who humanity is. It distorts the concepts of good and evil. It distorts who Jesus Christ is. It twists everything into something totally different. It doesn't matter if I get drunk all the time. It doesn't matter if I go out and pick up a different girl every Friday night. It doesn't matter that I never go to church. It doesn't matter that, you know, what I do because I'm a nice guy. And that is not Christianity. Should we be nice people? You bet we should. But that's not the argument here, you understand? The argument is that you're nice without God.

And this is the proof.

People who buy into this are denying that they have corrupt human nature. They don't need Jesus Christ as their personal Savior. And if they do, it's in words only. There's no transformation of the person. You know, always saved doesn't matter what I do. They do not believe they're guilty of breaking the law of God. And they don't believe they must be forgiven for salvation. And that can only come from the grace of God. Believing this doctrine that most people are basically good is the absolute disbelief that you have corrupted human nature. We're all basically good with a few bad things, but God doesn't care about those bad things. No, that's not true. In accordance with God's righteousness, every human being deserves death. That's shocking. That's so mean. Wow, you are a hateful person. You can't be a Christian. You're a bad person to say that every person deserves death. That's not mine. I'm not coming up with that. I don't like that anymore than anybody else. It's what God says. And now I like it because it's what he says. And now I say, I don't want to be that way. And he says, you better repent and you better change. And so we try to do that. We're not passing that judgment. Like the person said, all you want to do in that letter, all you want to do is scare people that control them about, scare them about a God that's not loving, that will punish people. God is loving, but he will punish people. Those aren't mutually opposites, mutual opposites, right?

He will not abide with evil forever. Understand that. God will not live with evil forever. He'll only allow it further, a certain amount of time. Evil is so opposite to what he is. He will not live with it. He lives with it now with us because why? Because he's changing us. He lives with it now with society because he's going to give them an opportunity in the future. He lives with it now with Satan and the demons because he's allowing them their time.

There comes a time where Satan is gone and the demons are cast in outer darkness. God says, I will not abide with you. You can never come into my presence again.

Because I will not live with evil that will not change. That's the God we worship. Thank God he is who he is. I would be frightened to worship a God who could turn into Satan. Eternal death is better than living under Satan's rule forever. I can't live in the insane asylum forever. It is unfathomable to me.

But the God we worship is good and he will not abide with evil forever. With us, he's cleaning us up. We are pretty hard to live with still, but we are his kids. And he loves us anyways. And he works with us. Humanity, everyone gets their chance. Everyone gets their opportunity.

I've got a few more doctrines of demons here. I'm not going to keep going on and on. I'll be here for two more hours. Let me just mention one thing here and then just summarize with something here. There's an interesting statement by James in James 3 that I can remember. I mean, still now when I read it, I always find it amusing because he goes someplace that the first times I really read it and tried to understand it. I kept thinking, why is he going here? What's Paul or James taking us? Where is he going? And then you study it long enough and you see where he's going. Because of what we're talking about today. Doctrines of demons, teaching of demons. In verse 13 he says of James 3, who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. He says, if you really want to know what wisdom is, wisdom is having understanding and making right decisions. Wisdom is about making right decisions. So all of us are making wise and unwise decisions every day. And he's saying here, this has to do with real wisdom. And he's going to compare two kinds of wisdom here. Verse 14 now, once again, I'm not sure where's he going. He's talking about wisdom. Then he says, but if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. Okay, so envy and selfishness in your hearts leads us to lying against the truth and boasting. Okay, pride. So pride and actually lying against the truth comes from these two things. And then verse 15, this wisdom. Now what wisdom is this? This is the wisdom that comes from envy and selfishness and boasting, pride and lying. Okay, this wisdom, this way of living life, of making your daily decisions is not from above. It's not from God, but it is earthly and sensual. Okay, it's the way human beings think. Now, if he had to stop there, I would have said, that's right. That's the way we think. But he didn't stop there. He said, it's earthly, sensual, and demonic. In other words, sometimes we have more demons than we common with them than we realize. When we're motivated by envy and selfishness and pride and trying to bend the truth to get what we want, we're thinking like they think. That just, that still shocks me. I've read this hundreds and hundreds of times, but I'm still, I get to this one. It's like, whoa, we just those this in here. Yeah, this is the way human beings think, but understand this is the way they think. This is, this is another demonic doctrine.

To be driven by envy and selfishness, because they're driven by envy and selfishness. And the more you and I let envy and selfishness drive us, the more, if we're not careful, we start to sort of absorb their thoughts and feelings out there. Once again, you're not possessed, not making you do anything. It just sort of comes in. And how many times I've had people ask and tell me, I don't know, something's wrong with me. I was doing something and this really weird thought came into my head. Of course, the first thing I think of is now I didn't at the time, but with my grand, oh, you just wanted to kick her, right? But you didn't listen to your brain, right? No, no, because it really wasn't the right thought. It flooded in there, but you threw it out.

So you still think you don't listen to your brain. Sometimes we recognize, I should not feel this way. This isn't right. I shouldn't be feeling this much anger or being so down on this person, whatever, because I shouldn't be. Why am I this way? Because I let my anger be fed. It's just fed. So you can stop that. Satan and the demons have no power over us except what we give them. They have no power over us. We have God's Spirit. God is with us. That doesn't stop them from just, it's all out there. We just sort of absorb it. But it is real. It is very real. He says, for where envy and self-seeking is, confusion and everything, evil thing, are there. When we're driven by envy and selfishness, it creates confusion and it creates evil. And that's where we tap in. We tap in because we're being envious because of our corrupted human nature. We're being selfish because of our corrupted human nature. We're out of control because of our selfish human nature, and we're sort of open to stuff flooding in.

So there is a doctrine of demons that says that basically the answers to every problem in life really doesn't lie outside the Bible. And the reason why is the Bible is filled with a lot of nice, good things, but it's old, it's out of touch, and has really nothing to do with the modern world. And there's a problem with that. I mean, I have shelves of books at home. I mean, you want a book on how to manage your time. I have a pretty good book on how to manage your time. You want a book on how to be a good leader at work. I got a book that'll help you be a good leader at work. But those are helpful, but they don't tell us how to manage your time as a Christian. Now, if I ever lend you a book like that, the first thing I'll tell you is now remember the priorities here are wrong. The first thing you have to do is put God at the top of the list. The rest of it is pretty good. Or this is how to be a good manager. Remember, the one thing they're not going to bring out in this book about how to be a good manager is that Paul says, remember, you represent God when you deal with your employees. So you've got to put that one in there first. Then you can read the rest of the book. So I get lots of good books, but they don't solve the core issues because the core issues are spiritual. They help us deal with things, and they contain good information. So the idea that the Bible is too old and too much myth and doesn't deal with everyday life, it does deal with everyday life, but in ways that people don't like. Because here's what we are to seek if we're to see godly wisdom instead of demonic wisdom, as it says in verse 17. But the wisdom that is from about the wisdom from God, and I challenge all of you to take this verse, write down every word in it, study it, and pray about it, and ask God to help you apply what the meaning of that word is to your life in your daily decision making, in your daily decision making. The wisdom that is from above is first pure. What does that mean? That's a whole sermon in itself. Then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits. And here's what's really important because you know this has to do with our judgments, how we judge things, our decisions without partiality and without hypocrisy. That's another sermon right there. That's another sermon right there. I'd have to do three sermons to go through that.

I challenge you to do that because the doctrine of demons is, you know, the Bible can't solve your everyday problems. Well, there's things we can learn from other sources, but when you get down to it, the only solution at the core of who we are, at the core of who we are, is from the Bible, is from God. Let's summarize by going back to 1 Timothy 4.

1 Timothy 4. Finish up here.

I just went through three doctrines of demons. I could give you six more. They're very common out there.

Now, the Spirit expressly says that in the latter time, some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons. Speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron. Here's what happens with the doctrines of demons. You may start out knowing the truth, and you may start out with a fairly clear understanding of good and evil. You will end up not knowing the truth, and you will end up not being able to tell the difference between good and evil. Your conscience will be changed. That's what the doctrines of demons does. It changes your conscience, because remember, it creates confusion. And in doing so, you lose your conscience, and now you no longer know the difference between good and evil. So you know what the conclusion of what Christianity is? However you feel is what's right between you and God. However you feel is what's right between you and God. No, it's not. It's what God says that's right between us and God. And when you really understand God, that's okay with you. I mean, God loves us. God created us. God gives us a future. God getting us through this mess every day, as hard as it is, and therefore, yeah, I want to do what He says. He's the anyone I can really trust, anyways.

He's the anyone who will never fail me. Oh, I mean, feel like He fails me, but He doesn't.

He goes on and talks about here, very interesting, the next few verses, asceticism was a problem they had. Had already started in the church then, where if you didn't get married, you were a vegetarian for religious reasons, not because of whatever health reasons, whatever. You just, yeah, because this makes me a better Christian. Sleep on a bed of nails, drink nothing but water. God's going to bless me more because I'll be much more spiritual than people who do those things. That was already started, and He calls that a doctrine of demons. This is a doctrine of demons. That's not what God wants. So you and I have to be on guard against this because we are in a society that's collapsing into a new Christianity that already had some doctrines of demons, but it is now filled with doctrines of demons. Now, there's still decent people. I mean, there's still good people out there, whether they're saved or not, it's that's between them and God. I'm just telling you the status of what you can't believe certain things and receive salvation, but that doesn't mean God isn't working with you to get you someplace where you will receive it. We can't judge where every person is. We can only judge whether something's right or wrong, and what Christianity is absolutely against God and against Jesus Christ. It is against the Bible and it is a doctrine of demons. When and how God calls them and when He judges them is not my business.

But that doesn't mean we're not supposed to know the truth and save the truth and be willing to share that truth, even though people may hate us for it.

So remember, doctrines of demons always look for this. One, they change the essential reality of who God is. He just becomes some cloud out there that all the gods fit in. Everybody gets there just by different paths. Two, it changes the reality of who humanity is as children made in the image of God who have fallen from God, who can be restored to God. It changes the definitions of good and evil. So God is love is very placed with love is love, which allows anything. You can marry your cat if you want to, because love is love.

It changes the definition and reality of Jesus Christ. He didn't come to die for our sins because we deserve death. He just came to die to show us what love is, because God would never sacrifice. This is part of where Christianity is going. God would never sacrifice His Son for us. That would make Him the greatest child abuser in the history of the universe and make God unworthy of worship. I'm telling you, that's what's written. That's what's preached in some churches. And it destroys and distorts God's purpose for humanity that we are all to be His family forever. Yes, He loves us. And yes, He loves sinners. Aren't you glad He does? If you were one of those people who never sinned, please come talk to me.

Please come talk to me. If you've never sinned, and God didn't have to forgive you, and God had to love you first, because of course He did. And that's why He still loves everybody. Does He accept everybody for salvation only after their minds are open, and they must take some steps? Only then, that's not what I've made up. That's what Jesus said. And the one thing we know, when confronted with woke Christianity, it all comes down to one central thing. Either Jesus Christ is who He says He is, and does what He said He would do, or He's a madman.

And that's the choice everybody has to make.