The Love of the Truth Abhors the 10 Great Heresies

Sure, it's nice to see everybody again. One of the things that we always like to talk about when we meet together is how do we come to the knowledge of the truth? That is an important topic, and we're covering in a series here the 10 Great Heresies. And why we don't believe these certain ideas that there are, we should love the truth, but we should also reject falsehood when it is found. God's people are characterized by the love of the truth, something that we come to an understanding, something that God opens our eyes, just like it will happen when Christ returns. And we are blessed with some wonderful truths, and at the same time we realize Satan has cleverly substituted those truths with counterfeits. He always has something to replace or to substitute the truth, something that appears sometimes very close, but it's never the same thing. It's like having a counterfeit dollar or a counterfeit twenty dollar bill. It's going to look similar, but if you've ever had that experience, it's rejected, and it's very dangerous. This is the same way when we go over the truths of God and their counterfeits. It's one of the things that separates us. God's people are truth-loving. They want to follow the truth, but also in love. Notice in Ephesians chapter 4, which is one of the things that we covered in that Council of Elders Retreat. Ephesians chapter 4, it says in verse 15, but speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into him who is the head Christ. So here are two elements that you need. You need truth and you need love. Again, you can have truth, but if you give or you speak the truth but not in love, that's going to be harsh. That's going to be negative, but you can also speak about love without truth, and that loses form and structure. It can become sentimental. It can be wishy-washy, and so what we came up with at the Council is what is called the graph of truth and love. And so I wanted to bring this up. So this is the name of it.

All right, so based on Ephesians chapter 4 verse 15, what we have then, if you, I hope everybody can see the graph, we have an arrow.

Let me check here.

We have an arrow that points upward. As you grow, you're supposed to grow in truth. You're supposed to deepen that truth. So here it shows where a person begins, and then will grow with the truth.

Now we're going to divide this up.

Love would be here.

And the arrow of love, as you grow in love, you're going to go right. As you grow in truth, you're going to go up. And so we divided it into four quadrants, and we want to show you where we want to be in this quadrant that we have. So we would use here traditional Christianity.

Traditional Christianity.

It has, as the arrow goes, it has low truth and low love. That's why we've come out of so many different churches like that. I came out from a church that was traditional Christianity. And then we can say we have more of an evangelical Christian, which has more love, goes this way here.

It's more active, more dedicated normally than traditional Christianity, but it has low truth as well. So here's the quadrant for evangelical Christianity. And then as we grow in truth, you can get again into this quadrant, which we can call legalistic, which has to do with people and groups. They have a higher level of truth.

Churches of God community have a lot more level of truth, but because it's more legalistic, it's harsher, it's more imposing, it's more controlling.

And then we have the circle where we want to be, where you're in this quadrant, which is high on truth and high in love. That's where we want everybody to feel comfortable. If I ask some kids here, which quadrant do you want to be? Do you want to be in one that is low truth, doesn't have much truth in it, or has love but it doesn't have much truth, or do you want to be more legalistic, harsh, controlling environment, or do you want to be where there is high levels of truth and love? I think all the kids here would say, that's where I want to be. Well, that's where our church strives to be. And to be realistic, we might be right here. We're striving. We're trying to live the truth and love, but we have a long ways to go here to get here. And so, at least that's the quadrant that we want to be in. And so, it's an easy way to illustrate the love of the truth and following truth and love.

Those are elements and those are key words. Those are reflected in the vision statement, a church that is actually growing in truth and love, both together, balancing each other, just like two oars in a boat, that you need to row together. If you only have one oar, you're just going to be going around in a circle. And you can overemphasize one to the detriment of the other.

But you need to have a balance and you need to be able to both follow the truth, but in love, in a loving manner, as Christ and the apostles show us in the New Testament, and of course, Old Testament men as well. So, previously, this is the third and last of the series. We covered the 10 great heresies. The first great heresy has to do with switching Sunday for the Sabbath, changing from the seventh day of the week, which God sanctified in the 10 commandments, and started keeping the first day of the week. And you can examine and see that that seven-day cycle of weeks goes all the way back to the creation, and that the Jewish people have been keeping, faithfully, way from the time of at least Moses on down. And previously, we see in Genesis six and seven where it talks about the flood, and it has the cycles of the months and the weeks involved. That was even before the flood. And so, this cycle has not changed. The seven-day cycle of a week continues on, and of course, this is the most scandalous of all to presume to change one of the 10 commandments of God. No man is authorized to do that. We don't see in either the Old or the New Testament anywhere where the Sabbath was changed. And certainly, it would have been an uproar in the New Testament. The Jews would have gone whole hog attacking a church if they say, well, these are breaking the Sabbath and now keeping the first day of the week. And yet, there's no controversy. There's no Acts 15 Jerusalem conference about what day of the week you should keep holy. The second, which we also covered in part two, the second great heresy is the abandonment of the holy days and substituting them for false days. Days that are not subscribed in the Bible. They are counterfeits, and yet, all through the year, we see that alternative holy days being kept as far as holidays, where the term holidays means holy days. If you look it up in the dictionary, it's just been watered down. So nobody says, holy days, I wonder if there are some of those in the Bible. Oh, no, please don't look. Let's keep the holidays like it's something different.

You can look it up in the dictionary. Any time the term holiday, where does it come from? And, of course, these first two have to do with a great question. When do we worship God? When are those days that God has specified to worship Him? That's why they attack the wind. And as you come to the knowledge of the truth, you realize in the Bible you already have God's calendar. You already have the days when God says, these are my holy days. Let's look it up in Leviticus 23. Leviticus 23, where God is giving His laws to His people. And, of course, it wasn't just limited to the Jewish people. He was giving it to the whole world, because the whole world was supposed to convert as they saw the good example of Israel. It was open to anybody.

In Leviticus 23, let's look here in verse 2. It says, speak to the children of Israel and say to them, the feast of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are my feasts. Okay, God says these are mine. If you're keeping something else, that's not God's feasts. That's man's feasts, because God is the only one that can make something holy. Then He says in verse 3, six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. That's why we're doing it. Are we doing it on the right day? Yes, according to the Bible. You shall do no work on it. It is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings, the Sabbath of the Lord. God is the Lord of the Sabbath. Jesus Christ proclaimed that. And then it says, verse 4, these are the feasts of the Lord, holy convocations, which you shall proclaim at their appointed times, which means set times. And God gives the calendar. He says, on the 14th day, on the first month at twilight, is the Lord's Passover. So God's calendar is not this Egyptian pagan calendar that was adopted by the Roman Empire and then by Christianity, where you start the year January 1st in the middle of winter. It has no relation to the feasts or the fall or the different seasons of the year, whereas God's feasts, here it mentions the first month, starts in the spring. Actually, the term abib, which is mentioned in Leviticus 12, God says, this is the first month, and He calls it abib, which means green sprouts, because that's when the barley begins to come out. Life begins. That's when God's calendar begins, and it goes through all of these, and these are appointed times. We call them, again, just like an appointment that you go to. God appoints them, and we just follow. God's people do not question God's Word. We're convinced this is what God wants us to do, and that's what we do. In Daniel chapter 7, we see a prophecy that there would come religious figures in the future that would try to change the laws and the times. Daniel chapter 7 verse 25.

Daniel chapter 7 verse 25. I'll read it first here in the New King James, and then I'll read it in another version. It says, He shall speak pompous words against the most high, talking about the most high God, shall persecute the saints of the most high, and shall intend to change times and law. So there would be religious leaders in the future that would try to change the times, which the term here means religious festivals. The Holman Christian Standard Bible says of Daniel 7.25, He will speak words against the most high and oppress the holy ones of the most high. He will intend to change religious festivals. The term zeman, which means appointed time or season, feast time, and laws. And so that is something that was prophesied. There would be an intent to change things like the Sabbath and the Holy Days. Let me go to the third one.

Might be a bit shocking to any visitor that is here, but one of the things that was done in the fourth century was the imposition of the Trinity doctrine as unquestionable. You can't question it. You can't doubt it. That was established in the fourth century. There's a good book. It's called AD 381, which is by a historian Charles Freeman. He put the date 381.

And this is what he says on page one in his introduction. It says, in January 381, the Christian Roman emperor Theodosius issued an epistola, which means a decree, a formal letter to his prefect in the Danube province of Illyrium, announcing that the only acceptable form of Christianity centered on a Trinity in which God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit were seen as of equal majesty. Theodosius went on to condemn all other Christian beliefs as heresies that would be punished by both the state, the Roman Empire, the weight of all the soldiers there, and the divine judgment of God. It was a pivotal moment in classical and indeed European history. Never before in the Greek or Roman world had there been such a sweeping imposition of a single religious belief alongside the active suppression of alternatives. So now, if you even questioned it, then you were subject to persecution, to be jailed and killed, just because you had questions about it.

So it was an emperor and not a biblical leader who imposed the doctrine of Trinity in the Roman Empire. It is acknowledged by scholars that neither the word Trinity nor the concept of a Trinity is found in the Bible but was developed from the third century on. And these are not my conclusions. I'll read to you from the New Bible Dictionary, which says the word Trinity is not found in the Bible. And though it was used by Tertullian in the last decade of the second century, you know, close to the 300 year, it did not find a place formally in the theology of the church till the fourth century. So basically, you have close to 400 years before it was established. And then you couldn't question it. The church would impose its will. The Roman emperor had its will. It had its spies. And anybody that questioned it was subject to persecution and even death. And from then on, it was an active persecution through the ages.

This is not just a theological matter. For the Trinity effectively blocks out the concept of one day being part of the family of God.

Notice in Hebrews chapter 2 verse 10. Hebrews chapter 2 verse 10. This is the goal that God the Father and Jesus Christ have for us. Hebrews chapter 2 verse 10. It says, for it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory. So that is the goal. God wants to have children in His family. And we know, if somebody asks you well, isn't that rather strange what you believe? No. Just say, I believe in John chapter 1, 1 through 3. If we read John chapter 1, this is exactly what we believe and teach.

It says, 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. So how many beings do you count there? I count two. It doesn't say anything about a third person being involved, being part of that family. It has God the Father, it has God the Son, and they've always existed. And God the Father is in charge overall. Jesus Christ is then below the Father as far as the role and responsibilities. And then everything else is below Jesus Christ. But it doesn't have a Holy Spirit somewhere that's also in charge. That's not taught in the Bible at all. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son, but it's not a person. It doesn't have a throne next to God the Father. We see that Christ is sitting at the right hand. We don't see anybody that there is a left-handed throne there someplace. That takes us then to the fourth great false teaching that we see in the Bible. That is that the once saved, always saved mentality.

That once you're saved, it doesn't matter what you do, you can never fall from grace.

As a matter of fact, Martin Luther once wrote that he could commit adultery multiple times a day, and he's still saved by God. Well, that goes against God's laws and what the Bible teaches. And I can show you that quote anytime anybody has any question about that.

This idea of once saved, always saved, destroys a concept of having to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. If it's something guaranteed, then you don't have to really work hard at it. Overcome. If there's one key word about our Christian path is, he who overcomes will be saved. That's what Jesus Christ said. He didn't say it was automatic.

Notice in Jude the first chapter, which is the only one it has in Jude, Jude verses three and four. It shows here that you can turn grace into licentiousness, into license to sin. And that was a big problem at that time as it is today. Notice what it says here, verse three. It says, Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you, exhorting you, to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. You have to contend. He says, for certain men have crept in, unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men who turned the grace of our God into lewdness, which means license to sin, and deny the only Lord God in our Lord Jesus Christ.

We see then there's a big difference between receiving God's Spirit being forgiven, but it's a life of overcoming. The Apostle Paul brings that out. Let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter 9.

This is a very simple illustration of this point. 1 Corinthians chapter 9, in verse 24.

He says, Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And if everybody runs and everybody gets prizes because they're all saved, that wouldn't work out. But here it says you have to overcome. You have to stay and remain firm. He goes on to say, And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus, not with uncertainty, thus I fight, not as one who beats the air, but I discipline my body, and bring it into subjection lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified. He says, I can become disqualified.

And that means not receive his salvation. He said if he just became negligent, if he just got careless, went back into the world, he was going to be disqualified. And so the idea of once saved, always saved is a wrong concept in the Bible.

Let's go to the fifth wrong concept, where the immortality of the soul belief replaces death in sleep and resurrection. This destroys the concept of resurrection, where the dead do go to sleep, the type of unconsciousness, their spirit rises up and is stored by God until they are resurrected. The dead are asleep in Christ. They are not awake in Christ.

We don't find the immortality of the soul as an Old Testament concept. It came from Greek philosophy. Notice what the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia talking about death and resurrection. It says, we are influenced always more or less by the Greek platonic idea that the body dies, yet the soul is immortal. He says this is where the influence came from, from Plato and Aristotle and others. It says, such an idea is utterly contrary to the Israelite consciousness and is nowhere found in the Old Testament. Theologian Paul Altheos admits, Paul speaks of the resurrection, not, quote, of the body, but, quote, of the dead. Thus, the original biblical concepts have been replaced by ideas from Hellenistic Gnostic dualism. That's where they came from. The New Testament idea of the resurrection, which affects the whole man, has had to give way to the immortality of the soul. Notice in Matthew chapter 10 and verse 28.

Matthew chapter 10 and verse 28.

Jesus said, And do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul, but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell or Gehenna Fire. In other words, you can be completely destroyed. According to the Bible, you don't have an immortal soul. It's something that can perish. And certainly with the Lake of Fire, where it talks about the second death, doesn't talk about the person continuing on with an immortal body. So that is another false belief.

In fact, brethren, I just thought about that at this moment, which is that a lot of people have certain truths that I'm mentioning, but not all of these other truths as well. We in the Church have an embarrassment of riches. We have so many wonderful truths, not just one or two.

We should really be appreciative of that. Let's go to, again, the heresy number six. Going to heaven replaces the kingdom of God on earth. It destroys the concept of seeking the kingdom. If you think that you have an immortal soul, you're going to go up to heaven. Well, why do you care about the kingdom of God eventually coming? You're not focusing on that. And once the immortal soul was imposed on traditional Christianity, then they had to find a place for the soul to go. So that created a vacuum where they had to fill in. Where does the soul go? If you have an immortal soul, that means a soul that cannot die. And so immediately after a person dies, the soul has to go someplace. And then that's where the idea of going to heaven or hell came from. Samuel Bakiyoki, a historian of church literature, says, Tertullian was the first to formulate the teachings of endless torment for the wicked by applying the notion of the immortality of the soul to the saved and unsafe. So Tertullian, who was a theologian basically in the third century of the time of the church, and he was the first one that came up with this concept of this torment as people are taught today that caused so much anguish. Bakiyoki goes on to say, he expressly taught that, quote, the torments of the lost will be co-eternal with the happiness of the saved. So this will go on and on. It's almost like they've described after a person dies. It's like you're on a railroad track. And when you die, there are two tracks. Either you go up to heaven or you go down to hell. And that's eternal. That's not what the Bible teaches.

Christ, in his prayer in Matthew 6.10, said the first thing we should focus on after honoring God the Father is saying, thy kingdom come. Christ is going back to the earth. He is going to resurrect the people from being asleep in Christ. Or, if they never knew Christ, they will be awakened in one of those resurrections in the future. They will have an opportunity to know the truth and to have their names written in the book of life.

Notice in Revelation, it shows us very clear in Revelation 20 what the resurrection looks like.

Revelation chapter 20. Here, Christ is inspiring this. And it says here in verse 4, when Christ returns, this is the chronology, it says, and I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them.

Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Christ, and for the word of God, who had not worshipped the beast or his image, and had not received a mark on their foreheads or on their hands, and they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. So, yes, the first resurrection takes place at Christ's coming, but the rest of the dead, they will not come up until that thousand year period is ended. Notice it says here in verse 11, then I saw a great white throne and him who sat on it from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were open. The term is biblia in the Greek. They are going to have their eyes open to the Bible truths.

And another book was open, which is the Book of Life. That Book of Life, as Revelation brings out, is the opportunity to have your name written in the Book of Life, and then you have a right to eternal life, because you have received God's Spirit, you have lived a life of overcoming, and then you are resurrected as a spirit being. Just like in the first resurrection, that's what people do today.

They are overcoming. They're coming to the knowledge of the truth, and then they're going to be part of that resurrection. But you see, all of the ignorant dead from the little baby that dies a day old, all the way to when so many die of old age, that includes Methuselah and others, but all of them who did not have a chance to come to the knowledge of the truth will have the truth explained to them.

They will have a chance to choose whether they want to follow it or not, and to have their names inscribed. That's why the Book of Life is open to them, because now they have the opportunity. So people like my father who died, he didn't understand the truth. Good man, just like so many our ancestors, nobody is condemned in some fiery hell, nor are they rewarded by going up to heaven when they never overcame. They didn't know what to overcome. And so we have this wonderful truth that people have not been lost. God is not a respect or a person. Christ died for every Indian that has ever lived, every Chinese that has ever lived.

They will have the Book of Life open in that second great resurrection that is going to take place. And that takes us to number seven of the false teachings, where infant or child baptism replaces adult baptism. Nowhere in the entire Bible is a child baptized into the faith. Again, Samuel Bakiyoki, the historian, church historian, said, it is significant that baptism in the New Testament is always linked to the command to repent and believe in Christ, something that infants cannot do. Now, I was baptized.

At eight days, I was sprinkled with some water and was declared a member of the Catholic Church. Did I have a choice? Did I repent? Did I come to understand what it's all about? No. It was automatic entrance. That's not the way the Bible works. Notice in Luke chapter 14 in verse 26.

Here, Jesus Christ mentions the conditions to be baptized. He says, if anyone comes to me and does not, and the word here doesn't mean hate, it means loveless, his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. That's one of the conditions that you put God first in your life and whoever does not bear his cross, which means the sufferings of following this way of life and come after me, cannot be my disciple.

And so it's putting the conditions that a person has to be an adult, 18 years and older, that has come to maturity to decide what life he wants to live. So it's not just being baptized and being plunked underwater and said some words and then you all of a sudden receive God's Spirit and forgiveness. That is not the case.

Truth number eight and the falsehood, which is the counterfeit, the counterfeit is that the new covenant eliminates everything of the old covenant, which is called in many circles replacement theology. This means that, well, the old testament was good and the covenant there, but with a new testament and the new covenant, basically nothing of the old covenant is binding anymore. You just have to start with Jesus Christ and teachings.

And so it's a convenient way to get rid of the Sabbath, for instance, and the holy days. And so this replacement theology is very convenient. And Martin Luther had a type of replacement theology. He didn't like the old testament, and he just wanted to impose new laws and keep what he thought was proper. And they did get rid of a lot of wrong Catholic teaching, but they retained a lot of Catholic teaching as well.

But he used this idea that it's the new testament that you should follow and not the old testament. And basically the old testament is the foundation for the structure that you build on top of it. God's laws were not given again with Jesus Christ. They were magnified.

The spirit of the law was added, but all of the Ten Commandments still are the backbone of the entire Bible. It's not something that you just get rid of. Notice in Revelation 12, verse 17, describing the church in the end time period. Revelation 12, verse 17.

Notice how they are described. It says, And the dragon was enraged with a woman, that is, the symbol of God's true church. He says, And he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. So they have, they're keeping the Ten Commandments and all the derivatives of it, and also they have the testimony of Jesus Christ. They accept Christ as their Savior. They follow Christ's teaching and what he did many times to enrich those laws that were found in the Old Testament. He said, I did not come to abolish the law. Matthew 5, verse 19. Continuing on, number nine, the false teachings about the three days and three nights that Christ was in the grave. Jesus Christ mentioned there in Matthew 12, 40, that this was the sign he was going to give, that he was a Messiah. Let's read it real quickly. Matthew 12, verse 40.

It says, For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. That's three days and three nights, not half a day like they have from Friday when he died there in the afternoon and buried as the sun went down. And then you go Friday afternoon to Saturday afternoon. That's one day, and then you have half a day. And they say that Jesus Christ was resurrected on Sunday morning. And actually, the whole scheme is changed because Christ died on a Wednesday evening, and it was three days and three nights where he died and then buried for three days and three nights. And on Saturday, as the sun was setting, he was resurrected. That's why when the women came, the stone had already been removed. Jesus Christ already had been resurrected. And that's a false teaching that Christianity has. And that takes us to the tenth and final of these heresies, which is that Christianity says all foods are good, are okay. It doesn't matter what you eat. Now you can eat whatever you want, you know, lizards and snakes and anything else you want, and replaced the biblical food laws. The biblical food laws is what God gave us, so we would eat healthy animals. Notice in Deuteronomy 14, verse 2 through 4. This is part of God's law. Do you ever see anybody in the New Testament eating pig or swine? That would have been easy for Paul to say, look, I'm eating swine. You can do the same thing. Nobody dared. Nobody ate any unclean foods in the entire Bible that followed God. Notice in Deuteronomy 14, verse 2.

It says, for you are a holy people to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for himself, a special treasure above all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. You shall not eat any detestable things. These are the animals which you shall eat, the ox. So we can eat cow, sheep, the goat, the deer, the gazelle, all of these different types of meat. So there's a wide variety. He just did not want us to eat animals that were there in nature to clean the messes, to clean the dead things that appear. Pigs can eat all kinds of garbage, and they're equipped where they can process. But God did not want us to eat, and he prohibits things like this. Let's go to Isaiah 66 as we're ending. Isaiah 66. This is an important scripture. If anybody asks you, well, that has been done away. Isaiah 66 in verse 15, it says, For behold, the Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots, like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire, and by the sword, the Lord will judge all flesh. That's his coming. Christ's second coming. And notice what it says, verse 17. Who are those that are going to be slain? Those who sanctify themselves and purify themselves to go to the gardens after an idol in the midst of eating swine's flesh. That's pig. That's pork. And the abomination, which has to do with shellfish and all kinds of reptiles, and the mouse, which is a type of a scavenger as well. They shall all be consumed together, says the Lord. So, brethren, these are the teachings that we should follow and the false teachings that we should avoid. So remember, we need to abhor the religious lies, but always follow the truth in love.