New Age Christianity Is Antichrist

When we read the Apostle Paul's letters, almost all of them are written to specific congregations. There's a couple like Timothy and Titus, you know, there's three there, that are written to a specific person. But when we read most of his letters, they're written to specific congregations with specific problems. I mean, if you were in Ephesus, and of course his letters got sent around, and you got 1 Corinthians, you would be saying, man, is that a group of messed up people?

If you were in Laodicea, and you got the one to the collagians, you would probably say, boy, they got some weird ideas. Or you would have probably said, what does Paul mean in this passage? Just like we're asking today, what does he mean in this passage? Although it may have been actually more clear to them in some ways because they would have understood the context of what was going on. But we have the general epistles, and they're James, and 1 and 2 Peter, and 1 and 2 and 3 John, and Jude. The general epistles are different. These letters were written for the purpose of sending to all the congregations. Now, Paul's letters got sent out all over the place, but these weren't written to a specific group. What makes these letters then interesting is their comments made to the churches at large. Now, understand how difficult this was. If you sent a letter, and you were, say, the pastor of a church in Italy someplace, and you wanted to send a letter to Peter, how would he get it?

Would you send it to the postal service? I mean, there was a postal service, but would he get to Jerusalem? Well, by the way, the Jerusalem church was in trouble in the time when Peter wrote his books, and if you were writing your letters, and if people were writing him letters, because Rome was at war with Judea at the time. You might not get mail through. We don't understand how hard it was to get these letters around, and why the New Testament wasn't put together right away. It had bits and pieces of it all over the place. Some congregations had these letters, some had others, but the general epistles are important because they're getting enough reports from all over. And of course, they're traveling too, especially Peter and others are traveling. As they get these reports, they're writing a letter. When Jude writes his letter, he's saying, everybody needs to read this one, all the churches, no matter where you are scattered throughout the Roman Empire, you need to read this. When we go through those, it's very interesting because now we're looking at not specific problems, but general problems in the church that they were seeing throughout the church. And so we're going to look at Jude and 2 Peter at some specific problems that churches were having. Now, remember, I always say to understand the scripture, the first thing you have to know is what did it mean to the people who first got it? I mean, if you say, well, this was the epistle to the Americans, but it may not be. It was the epistle to the collagion. So how it fits to Americans can't be figured out till we know what it meant to the collagions. Then we can start to figure out what it means to us.

So as we go through this, I want you to really do that. We're going to be looking at, Jude was written in 62, around 62, 2 Peter around 67. So you get this five-year period where something is happening in the churches, something dramatic is happening in the churches, and they're trying to deal with it. So let's understand what it meant to them and how they dealt with it. But at the same time, as we go through this step-by-step, start asking, does that have any impact on the society I live in? In other words, is there some similarity between what they're dealing with and what you and I are dealing with in the society we live in?

So let's go to Jude. Let's start in Jude. You know, we've been talking a lot about hope lately, but sometimes we have to also look at the reality of the world we live in. Hope has meaning only because you have to hope in something.

So it's important to recognize where we are in the influence of society on the church. So something's happening. It's in the 60s. Something's happening inside the church at large that's different than anything that's happened before in their history. So, verse 1, Jude, a bond servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called, sanctified by God the Father and preserved by Jesus Christ, mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you. Simple. That's a typical introduction, a formal introduction to a letter at the time. Verse 3, 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... Here's what he's telling to do. Remember, this is the specific congregation. It's all the churches. To contend earnestly for the faith which was once delivered to all the saints. Okay. It was once to all that delivered to the saints. 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 and denied the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I'm not saying that there are people coming into the church teaching this today. I'm saying we're getting it from another direction. We get it from society. But when we go through this, the church was being influenced and at times ripped apart by certain things that were happening because people were coming into the church and teaching things. This is a little more subtle. We get this influence every time we go to work, every time we turn on the television, every time we listen to music. Everything we do, this same influence comes into us. And we come to Sabbath services and we're pretty safe.

So they're dealing with it—they didn't have mass media—they're dealing with a problem where people came into the church and actually split the church in ways. I mean, the Apostle John later in his life actually wanted to go visit one of the churches and they told him, don't show up because we don't believe anything you teach, basically. So it happened in 3rd John. That was a church that believed in Jesus Christ. It was a church that considered Christian, that was Christian and didn't want John to come.

So what's happening here would affect the church over the next 30 years greatly. And that's one of the reasons why when you get to the book of Revelation and you just look at the churches, not in their prophetic meaning, but those seven churches that are in Revelation, they all had turned into different congregations. They'd all turned into different congregations. And part of it was happening in the 60s, in the church here, where they're having an internal redefinition of Christianity. What you literally have happening is a redefinition of Christianity. Last night I took Mr. Keller's Bible study for him because he wasn't feeling well. He has a cold. He doesn't have COVID. He tested himself, but he has a cold. And he said he would want to talk about Gnosticism for a little bit because he was going to go into 1st John. I said, I'll just cover the whole thing of Gnosticism, which I've covered here a couple years ago, because I teach a class on it at ABC. And how Gnosticism came into the church in the 30s, I don't mean the 1930s, I mean in the 30s AD, and then moved into the church in the 2nd and 3rd centuries until it changed the definition of Christianity. Totally changed it. Well, they're having that problem. There's a change in definition going on.

And they come into the church. And what we get here is two interesting things. One is that they turn the grace of our God into lewdness. What the Greek word there literally means, just a license to do whatever you want. To give into your basest human desires at once. Life is about happiness, and whatever makes you happy is okay. And in doing so, notice what they do. In doing so, they turn the grace of God into something else. Now, I want you to remember that. What was happening there was a turning of the grace of God into the concept that however I feel determines what's right for me. Ludeness.

Ludeness means I can... It's like I actually saw this morning popped up on my news feed. Strange things that people don't know was taught in the Bible.

So I opened it up, and the first one on the list was, you can't have sex out of marriage. How strange. The second one was, you can't have same-sex relationships. How strange that was? Oh my! You know, those are strange.

And so there was a whole list of things like, you can't eat pork, according to the Bible.

So I stopped after a while.

But then again, there were those coming into this time period that had a similar message. It wouldn't have been exactly the same, but a similar message. The idea that God's grace opens the door because we have a mystic relation to God through Jesus, and therefore, what we do in this physical body as long as we love doesn't matter.

And we're going to go through this and start to see how this was part of this message. And in doing so, they deny God and Christ. This is really important. These people consider themselves Christians, but by what they taught in their lifestyles, they denied God and denied Christ.

We live in a society that's doing the same thing. So as we go through this, think about, is there anything I've read, any messages I've heard, anybody I've talked to, that's going down this path or believes this? And you'll see where there's this constant pressure on the church. They had it inside the church, and we can't let this message inside the church. So in verse 11, he then explains, he uses examples. Now, once again, they're using biblical examples. Remember, Jude, James, 1 and 2 Peter, Jude, 1 and 2 Peter, John, were not written to the world. These are not books proclaiming the gospel to the world. They are letters written to the church about issues inside the church. And if you read 2 Peter, if you read Jude, you find out that there's a condemnation here that's not in other places that talks about the gospel. There's a condemnation to people who actually believe God, who have turned to God, who have received His Spirit and buy into this. It is a serious condemnation because it's eternal. Now, we always talk about the eternal reward of those who are called and chosen by God.

But to be called and chosen by God now means that this is your opportunity. If we turn to this message of Christianity, we run the risk of losing our salvation. That's how serious this is. And I encourage all of you to read 2 Peter and Jude this week because it's to the church. So we want to promote the fact that God isn't going to ever leave us or forsake us, that God's going to get us there. God promises all these things to us. But we also have to understand we buy into a certain definition of Christianity and we can lose our relationship with God and we can actually lose our salvation. And that's a real message here. So we need to look at it. So in verse 11, he uses a biblical example because he's writing to the church. Woe to them, because he just goes on and just condemns these people who are teaching this lifestyle and these new definitions of Christianity. Woe to them, for they have gone in the way of king, have run greedily in the air of Balaam for profit, and perished in the rebellion of Korah. He says, you want to understand the basis of what drives them? Look at those three examples in the Old Testament. So let's briefly look at those three examples in the Old Testament. Let's go to Genesis 4. I talked about Cain, oh, I guess it was back in August, and about his response to God. I'm going to look at this story. You think there are... Oh, you can't get too much out of these few verses on Cain, but there is. We're going to look at different than what we looked at a few months ago, because we're going to look at the problem with Cain's approach to God. In other words, the problem with his religion. Okay. What was the problem with Cain's religion?

Okay. Verse 1 of chapter 4. Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived of bore Cain, said, I have acquired a man from the Lord. And she bore again, and this time his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. So one basically was a farmer, the other raised animals. And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord. And Abel also brought the firstborn of his flock and of their fat, and the Lord respected Abel and his offering. Now, in the sort of economy of the way Genesis is written, it doesn't say why he accepted one or the other. But we do know that the commands of offerings to God was a blood offering.

And so Cain did not bring a blood offering to God. He brought some fruit, you know, some things he had grown, but Abel brings firstborn of a flock, which is a blood offering.

But he did not respect Cain and his offering, and Cain was very angry and his countenance fell.

Now, notice something here. Cain was upset with God because God didn't accept His way of worshiping Him.

In our world today, the majority of Christianity teaches that worshiping God is the issue. How you worship Him is totally subjective. Now, there are certain subjective aspects of worship, right? Your prayers are very subjective and very private. But this is the argument many times over like Christmas and Easter. Christmas and Easter, most people know that they're not actually biblical. They know that Jesus wasn't born on December 25th, but it's their way of worshiping Jesus. And so he would be happy with that because that's what we're doing. Cain believed that he had the right to worship God in accordance with his own emotions.

His own emotions.

And I was watching an interview and I can't remember her name. She's a big rock star. And she was talking about how much she was a Christian and how she knows she's a Christian because she just filled with love all the time. And that's why she supports LGBTQ. Because she's a Christian. Only Christians would do that because they're filled with love. God honors me because I'm following Him and worshiping Him on the way that I want to do it. Abel did it, worshiped God because he honored God, because he respected God, and he worshiped God the way God wanted to be honored and respected. Not the way Cain did. It was, I do it my way. I do it my way. So the Lord said to Cain, Why are you so angry? Why has your accountant fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not well, sin lies at the door and its desire is for you, but you should rule over it. He says, No, you cannot sin here. You just gotta get control of your attitude. Just do what was right. Just worship me in the way I've instructed you. Now it doesn't say in the way I've instructed you, but if God hadn't given him instructions, then this is really unfair, isn't it? So you had to give him instructions. You know what you're supposed to do? Just do it. Just worship me in the way I want to be worshiped.

Now Cain talked with Abel, his brother, and we know what happened. And he took out his anger against God on his brother. I wonder how much anger there is in the world, because people are really angry with God, and we take it out on each other. We're angry because we were born in a poor family, and that must be God's fault. So I can rob. I can steal. I can do something else. Now he wouldn't say it's because I'm angry with God. It's because life is unfair.

So somebody's got to pay because life was unfair to me.

Sort of his attitude.

He says, then the Lord came and said, where is Abel? Of course, we know what he said. And then he says, verse 11, that it's a curse on Cain because of what he did.

Now you think Cain would say, my Lord, I have sinned and I repent. But see, if you determine how you're going to worship God, and everything is about fairness, and God is now punishing you, when really, you know, Abel was the one who was getting all the privileges here because he brought a lamb, he did not ever take responsibility because he determined his relationship with God. He did not understand that God determines the relationship we have, not us.

Now, it's a hard one. I don't know about you, but I've wrestled with that before. I just want God to do something my way. And then you realize he's not going to. You can try for years and then realize one day, you know, he's not going to do it my way. And then realize that's because he knows what he's doing and I don't. Cain here just, now you have to do this my way because, you know, look how unfair this is, right? Because Cain says to the Lord, my punishment is greater than I can bear. This is so unfair. He didn't say, my brother is dead. They had never seen a human being die before. I don't suppose. There's no case of anybody dying yet. He took, he hit him so hard. You know, he bled out. He knew he was dead. He knew he wasn't coming back. They'd killed animals before. He knew what had just happened. And his response is, God, I please forgive me. His response is, you know, this isn't fair. I'm really not a bad guy. I just had a moment.

So we have Cain. We have Cain who decided to worship God the way he wanted to, and then when God did not treat him the way he wanted God to treat him, now, God was unfair.

The heir of Balaam. Balaam is an interesting story. It's in Numbers 22 and 23. We won't go there right now, but the story of Balaam is, now this is really interesting, Balaam is not an Israelite, but he worships the God of Israel. He is known as a prophet of the God of Israel.

And so the king of the Moabites comes to him and says, we got to stop the Israelites. They're moving through here like a herd of buffalo. Well, they didn't have buffalo. They're a herd of locusts, and they're just going to come through and eat everything in the land, which isn't what they were doing, but he was afraid of that. So we have to stop them. So you call on their God to curse them. And you read the whole story. It's just Balaam knows who God is. He's told people about God, but they've just offered him a large sum of money, and he had to find out a way to obey God and not obey God at the same time. He had to find a way to obey God and not obey God at the same time. I'm sure none of you have ever done that. But we live in a society in which people do that all the time. I'm sure God will understand, right? God will understand.

And so at one point, God has to send an angel to stop it because this keeps going on and on and on. No, I can't do this because God told me I can't. Now remember, God said, came to him and said, you can't. It's not like, well, I read it in the Bible. He didn't have a Bible. God actually sent someone to talk to him.

It says Yahweh, so it's probably Christ Himself. No, you can't do that. He did send an angel one time to kill him. If you do this, I'm going to kill you. And that's when He's donkey talked to him. You think talking to a jackass would make you see life differently, but it did not.

And it did not because I want my cake and eat it too. I want to be accepted as a follower of God. I want to be His prophet. I want this power that comes from God talks to me, but I also want the bucks. I also want the money.

And so He didn't do it. He did not get up and curse them. In fact, every time He got up, He would bless them. There's a prophecy given by Balaam that's a remarkable prophecy about the history of Israel because God inspired him to do a, you know, well, you're going to speak for me. Here's what I want you to tell him. But what's really interesting is, of course, we know what happened was that I said the Moabites. It was actually the Midianites. The Midianites show up one day, you know, coming out of the desert. I've painted this picture before, but you can imagine thousands of people coming out of the desert. All of the women are dressed real nice. Everybody has their jewelry on. There's music playing, and there's lots of food and lots of booze.

And they had maybe the biggest party in the history of humanity. The millions of Israelites, and who knows how many Midianites, in a giant party. And it went on, and people got drunk, and they started sleeping with each other, and they started worshiping the Midianite gods and goddesses, and mixing it in with the worship of the true God. And God finally had to start killing them to get them to stop doing it. What's really interesting, when they go in, He sends an army in to punish the Midianites, and it says, well, let's go there, Numbers 31.

Numbers 31.

Verse 3, get the story here. So Moses spoke to the people, saying, arm some of yourselves for war, and let them go up against the Midianites to take vengeance for the Lord on Midian. And then let's go down to verse 8. They killed the kings of Midian, and with the rest of those who were killed, there was Evian, Rechim, and Zor, and Hor, and Rebah, the five kings of Midian. Balaam the son of Beor, they also killed with the sword, they killed a prophet of God. Who had blessed them, inspired by God, to bless them. Verse 16.

Because now what are we supposed to do with all the women, okay, that had participated in this mass orgy? And He said, look, these women caused the children of Israel through this, verse 16, through the Council of Balaam to trespass against the Lord in the incident of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord. He said, no, kill all the men and women who came over and did this to us.

And they killed Balaam why? He never got up and cursed Israel because God would not let him. He actually blessed them. You know, the story sort of ends there, unless you read this in chapter 31. The story ends with him blessing them, and the king of Midian say, this isn't what I hired you for, to stand up here and bless them. So then Balaam said, ah, yeah, but you know what? Everybody likes a good party.

So what was... they're like Balaam. They're like Balaam. Well, this is a little different than Cain. Balaam's answer to things was a good party, where there was lots of booze and lots of sex, and it led people away from God.

The third point he gives is the rebellion of Korah. So let's look at that one in number 16. So these are the three things Jude says these people are like. They have a self-willed, self-willed, I determine how to worship God in the way that feels right to me. And if anything bad happens to me, it's unfair.

And then we have this second viewpoint that's like, okay, I bless God, I do His will, but underneath, I'm always getting what I want. Because what did He want? Money. And that's what He got. And He didn't care what it cost the Israelites. He really didn't care what it... because He got what He wanted. That was His approach to life. Number 16. And let's go to verse 1 here. Now, Korah, the son of Ishar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, with Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and on the son of Peleo, I shouldn't have read all this, the son of Reuben took men. Okay, so we get all these people. And they rose before Moses, here's the important part, with some of the children of Israel, 250 leaders of the congregation, representatives of the congregation, men of renown. And they gathered together against Moses and Aaron, and said to them, you take too much upon yourselves, for all the congregation is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourself above the assembly of the Lord? Now, you know, you can look through this and you can miss something that's real important here. So they come to Moses and they say, you shouldn't have this much say so because every person is holy. Very interesting approach here. We're against authority. So we've brought together the leaders to tell you to let the people be in charge, and we'll lead them in this. What are they doing here?

They're stirring up people against authority, but they're simply shifting authority. Do you see what they're doing? They're simply shifting it from one place to another. And God hadn't given them that authority. They were leaders in the congregation. These people actually had, or leaders in Israel, these people actually had authority, but now we get to shift it for their own reasons, for their own purposes.

So we have to be careful about democratic movements. Now, everybody has a say so in the congregation, you know, and I don't have absolute authority here. And if I ever tried to have it, my wife would bring me down. Okay, so you don't have to worry about it.

I listen to her when she talks, because she usually knows when I'm being driven by pride, you know, she has a way of knowing that. So, and all of you have a right to come to me and say, you did something that bothers me, or I didn't agree with you. That's okay. Now, that doesn't change the fact of the pastor, right? I mean, I'm just giving an example, because we understand authority is abused. I don't make all my decisions. All my decisions are absolutely right. They never are. Nobody says, except Christ.

So we understand there's a give and take in authority. That's not the issue here, okay? Authority can be wrong. Authority needs to be corrected sometimes. That's not the issue here. The issue is, look, everybody gets a say so, and we're going to rule over that.

It's simply a shift of power from one place to another. And what's happening in the 60s is there are people in the church that are saying, what we need to do is we need to replace John and these others. How do I know about John? Because they did it in a congregation. They actually would not let him in. We have to replace these people because all of you are holy. But what's the real reason?

It isn't to create really some kind of democracy. It's to create a shift of power.

So he marks these people, these leaders, as ones who are, their motives aren't right. Their motives are we have to change these basic teachings to a new set of teachings. If they change these teachings, we know they came from the apostles to a new set of teachings. Christianity was growing. It was changing. It was morphing. It was becoming a better Christianity.

Now, I don't know if you keep up with what's going on in the postmodern, new age humanistic Christianity of today, but that's a term that's used quite often. There's a better Christianity for me. A new and better Christianity that really understands things deeper, even deeper than Jesus did. Oh yeah, you see Jesus was a man of his times.

He was anti-women and anti-people who weren't Jew. He was prejudiced against everybody that was not a Jew. Oh, these are Christians pulpits. And I mean, just watch Joel Ooste. No, don't watch Joel Ooste. But he's... I mean, it's just amazing. For 20 years I've watched, I kept saying, the man's creating a new Christianity, but he's doing it in such this slick style that people don't even know he's doing it. He's the front end of an arrow. As it goes back, it gets a whole lot worse. He's just the front end of it. And he's been doing it for 20 years. Oprah Winfrey is more than a front end. She's really expanded it out. Don't underestimate the power she had on the development of this new Christianity. It's enormous. That's why she was selected... I don't know, I guess about a decade ago, they asked thousands of people who they'd select to give the new 10 commandments, and she was the one. Yeah, she's the one that God would use to give the new 10 commandments.

So here's what we have. See? Shift of authority away from the Bible to a new set of teachers who are perverting the Bible, twisting the Bible. That happened in their society, in the church. We live in a society that's pressing on us all the time. We have to make sure we don't buy into that. 2 Peter. So let's look at what Peter says about this, because he's writing only five years later, and it's still happening throughout the churches. 2 Peter 2.

Chuck Smith is here today. The reason he's not speaking is I forgot to ask him to speak. And when I finally mentioned it this week, he said, oh no, you speak. So blame it on him. No, that makes me make a new excuse, isn't it? So we're glad to have you here. 2 Peter 2.

He's dealing with the same problems Jude was five years earlier. But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false prophets among you. He will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them and bring on themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their destructive ways, because in whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. And he starts to tell why.

By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words. Ah, sounds like Balaam, right? Deceptive words. For a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber. He goes on and says, you know, if God didn't spare the angels that rebelled and became demons, He's sure not going to spare these people who come into the church and do this. It talks about Lot, verse 12. But these... Now, we think, well, the New Testament, you know, has...we zero in on it. I mean, it just gave 11 sermons on Agape. We zero in on the love. But we can't ignore this either. What does the New Testament say? What does Peter say about the people who try to destroy the church? Remember, it's going to have elements of this come into the church if we're not careful. There's going to be people come into the church and try to teach this. I'm looking at how we have to prevent that from happening. And I don't mean end up where we're so rigid, we can't have discussions. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying, but you look at what's happening in this world. There was a whole website dedicated to Thanksgiving, this last Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving for abortion.

That they should be set aside for Thanksgiving for abortion. Probably under the guise of Christianity. I didn't look at it. I saw it and just said, I'm not even going to go there. It's going to be more and more difficult, especially for the younger people. I don't mean just all of us old folks. If you're under 40, you're going to be, and you're old at 40, you're going to be influenced in one way or another from work or friends.

Yeah, Mr. Corbin, you're really old.

I mean at 40, you're an adult, right? I mean a complete adult. At 30, you're an adult. At 25, women, you're adults. Men are almost adults. We're not quite there yet.

I heard that. Someone said, that's true.

So we're going to have to make sure this doesn't come in, and you're going to have to fight this at a remarkable level because you're going to be inundated with it.

It's not going away, and you're going to be inundated with a changing society in England today because they just did a survey the last couple of weeks. For the first time in history, less than half the people even claimed to be Christian, and most of them believe in a Christianity that 50 years ago would have not been considered Christianity.

Most people who claim to be Christians today couldn't be considered a Christian 50 years ago because of what they believe. So it's here. What they're going through is here, and we've got to keep it from coming in. It came in there, and it tore their churches apart.

He says, for these like natural brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed. He's talking about people who were in the church who did such destruction. He says they are like animals that need to be killed. That's Peter. This is New Testament. This is an Old Testament. In fact, I don't know of anything in the Old Testament that said anything quite that brutal because it came into the church, converted to God's way, and then tried to destroy it and destroy everybody else.

He goes on back to verse 15. He says, they have forsaken the right way and gone astray, following the way of Balaam. Brings it right back to Balaam.

So I'm not going to go through. Verses 12 through 22 is a condemnation of these people that is as horrible as anything in the Old Testament. But you know what the difference is? Whenever God in the Old Testament condemns Israel, He always says, but I will save you. I will bring you back. I will someday intervene. In the church, He doesn't say that. He says, there's a point where if you're in the church and you do this, you are no longer in the church and I'm not coming back to save you. Those are harsh words. That's Jude and that's 2 Peter. So we want to be ... We're reviewing our scripts on Friday. The comment was made by Steve. He had a big background in Protestantism. He had a big band that played and he was worship leader and all kinds of things in his church before he went to a master college. And so he was saying, this idea come just the way you are, which was a big song at the time and it was a big thing he heard all the time in his church. And someone said, but we want them to come just the way they are. We just don't want him to stay the way they are. And he said, you're right. That's the difference. So I need to say that. So he changed his script. He's saying, God doesn't want you just the way you are. Well, then how do we get there? Okay. God will call you just the way you are, but you can't stay there.

And there was this interesting discussion then about, you know, people have to believe, hey, I can go to this church and, you know, I don't have to be absolutely perfect to attend. But once I get there, boy, I'm going to have to change. But they have to learn that or they'll stop coming. And it's amazing how many people come to church for a month and stop. Because they say, well, I didn't know I was going to do this. I didn't know this was expected. Okay, that's fine. But they came. They had their opportunity. We didn't run them off. Sometimes people say, I like the people. I just don't like the teachings. Okay, good. You liked us. Then some people don't like us. You know, I just don't like the people. And then there's a few that I just don't like you. I'm just a real person. I just don't like you. So I have to deal with that.

So here we have in Peter the same problem. So you read those together. So what do we learn from this? I'm going to learn from this and then I want to read. I'm going to go back 10 years before the writings of Jude and Peter, 2 Peter. And I want to read something that the Apostle Paul wrote. Well, first of all, we learned that this movement, if you will, this new Christianity is based in self-will, that we get to determine how to worship God. We determine that the Sabbath isn't the way he wants it done. Sunday is the way he wants it done. It is a self-willed religion that can promote a lot of nice sounding things, especially about love and acceptance and inclusiveness. In fact, the program I'm working on, I'm doing a whole series of programs, six programs on the teachings of Jesus. And of course, one of the things today is Jesus was all-inclusive. Actually, He was not. He said, I'm the only way.

I'm the only way to the Father, which means that that doesn't include Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism. It doesn't include anything that doesn't accept Him as the only way.

It's surprising how many Christians have never heard that today because it's not taught. So we're doing a program on He's the only way. It can have lots of emotions involved in it, a self-willed religion. I worship God the way I want to. I get the music I want. I get the messages I want. But in the end, the person doesn't change. Cain could not change. He would not bend his knee to God. So he ended up seeing everything in life as unfair. We have Balaam. And that is, I wanted a relationship with God. I want to be very spiritual. I mean, God talks to me, right? I'm very spiritual. But I want to be able to have my cake and eat it too.

So if I have to compromise here and there to make some money, to make... It's okay. It's okay. I'm a little dishonest. I cheat. It's okay. I work on the Sabbath. It's okay. Because, well, you know, I'm supposed to be prosperous. Isn't that the gospel? No, it's not. Health and wealth gospel is not in the Bible. It's an absolute fallacy. It's part of the new age religion. There's no health and wealth in gospel. Jesus said, follow me. Yes, I'll bless you. But you know, come follow me. Sell everything you have. Walk the dusty streets with me. There you go. That's not quite the health and wealth gospel, is it? Quora. And of course, that approach is I'm going to mobilize people so I become the teacher by telling them they don't need teachers. I'm going to mobilize people to let me be the teacher. It's really not about truth. It's about who's teaching. That's the issue. That's the issue. Then there's freedom. Let's go back to 2 Peter. There's a verse there I wanted to read. Let me see. 2 Peter. I was skipping through it. Verse 18, For they speak great swelling words of emptiness. They allure them through the lust of the flesh. Once again, it becomes very physical in nature. It's how you feel. Through lewdness, and now we get the same thing, sexual promiscuity, as long as you love each other, it's okay. And the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error. So they're dragging people who have been saved by God into a point where they will lose their salvation. That's the point he's making. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption, for by whom a person is overcome, by him he is also brought into bondage.

For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end has worked for them than the beginning. They promise them freedom. The new Christianity then promised everybody freedom. Freedom from law. You just get to be free. Now there is a freedom as part of the true message. This is where they twist it. Freedom from sin.

Freedom from our own addictions. Freedom from our own thoughts. Freedom from our own actions. As God works in us, it gives us freedom. And the ultimate freedom is the change when Christ comes back. That's the ultimate freedom. This freedom is the freedom to do what you want now. Do what you want now. You see it in the churches that have outside, they have a little radio broadcast, so you can sit in your car. We live in Wisconsin. There was a church way back then doing that. You can sit in your car dressed to play golf because you didn't want to go into church that way. And you can sit there and listen to the service and soon it was over, all the cars are ripping out because everybody's going off to what they want to do. Or to get to be the first one to the restaurant. Freedom. It's very interesting. The message gets, we're freedom in love. Freedom in love. No matter what our lifestyles, as long as we love each other, it's okay. That's not what it means by love your neighbor as yourself because the first commandment is love God with all your heart and all your might and all your soul. So that's the first one. If you reverse those, you get in real trouble. If you love God, you have a certain value system. If you love your neighbor first, you have a totally different value system and you impose that on God. It's supposed to be the other way. You love God first and that imposes on your other relationship. That defines your other relationships. So how you put those is everything. And Jesus was very, very specific. The greatest is the love God. And the second one, it's almost as great, it's the love your neighbor. Loving God defines how we love each other. You can't reverse those. You can't reverse those because that doesn't lead to freedom. The result of the double-mindedness is sort of interesting. Yes, you should obey God, but you don't have to keep the law.

Yes, you should obey God, but you don't have to keep His instructions. In other words, Paul says, the law, I would not have known sin except through the law. Paul says that, New Testament. So the law defines sin. And we must obey God, but we have to throw out His definition of sin. Do you realize how double-minded that is? But that's what it means. That's exactly what it means. We have to obey God, but we don't have to keep His law. According to the apostle Paul, New Testament, Paul, that's so double-minded, I think that's double-minded. You can't even make sense of it. We have to obey God, but we have to throw out His definition of right and wrong. Well, then it means nothing. Freedom that's all twisted around to make you feel a certain way. It doesn't produce acceptance to God. Okay, last scripture, 2 Thessalonians. We're going back now 10, 12 years before Jude. And it's interesting because Paul sees the seeds of this already, and he sees it as bigger than what was going to happen in just that time period.

He's talking here in the context of the return of Jesus Christ. Verse 1, now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, do not be soon shaken in mind or trouble, either by Spirit or by word or by letter as if it came from us as though the day of Christ had come. So there were some saying, Christ has already come. There are people say that today. Some say Christ has already come back in the Holy Spirit. So if you speak in tongues, Christ has come back for you. He says, let no one deceive you by any means, for that day will not come unless the falling away comes first. That day won't come until a whole new Christianity is formed. It's just going to take people away from the real Christianity. And the man of sin is revealed the set of perdition. So there's going to be a specific leader at this end time. But already this was happening in his day, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or is worshiped, who sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself to be as God. So there will be some form of temple at the end time. And there's going to be someone sitting in that temple who will claim to be the divine messenger of God. He is divine and he's bringing the word of God. You tie this in with revelation and part of Daniel and it's an amazing thing that's being prophesied here. So there'll be some temple, some edifice, some building or tabernacle or something in Jerusalem. And there's going to be a person sitting there and he's going to be this great, great false teacher.

And of course in Revelation 13, we know there's a religious leader and there's a civic leader. There's two people involved. He says, do not, Paul says to them, do you not remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things? No, Paul, we weren't there. Why didn't you write them down? That's what I always say when I read that. No, I don't remember. Paul, I wasn't there. Remember, this was a letter to specific people he had talked to and he had told them all these things.

And how you know what is restraining that he may be revealed in his own time. Here's what's interesting. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who is now restrained will do so until he's taken out of the way. And then he goes on and explains how this lawless one is going to be revealed and he's going to speak against God and he's going to persecute the saints and there are prophecies in Daniel and prophecies in Revelation of this happening. And Jesus talks about it in all of that prophecy.

But what I really want to zero in on here. He says he's looking way down to the return of Jesus Christ. He didn't know how long it would be. You know, no idea probably how long it would be. But he's looking down there and he says there will be this mystery of lawlessness.

He says it's already started now. He couldn't have been talking about paganism because it was already lawless. Right? Oh yeah, the pagan world. There's the beginning of lawlessness. It has to be in the church. He said it's already begun. It's already begun. And 12 years later, Jude comes along and says they're using the grace of God to produce lewdlessness.

Just the rampant give in to whatever you feel, whatever you want to do. Lawlessness. The mystery of lawlessness. It's a mystery because it doesn't appear to be lawless. It just redefines everything. It redefines Christianity. And so that it is actually at its core against the law of God. In fact, Jude and Peter say it's against God and Jesus Christ. But it will be claiming to be Christian. And it will claim that those who don't see it that way are not Christian.

So, the postmodern, as I said before, the postmodern new age humanistic Christianity is creating a lawlessness that makes the 1950s Protestant look like a Puritan. It's creating a lawlessness. The mystery of lawlessness is here. We need to ask ourselves, how much have we allowed the spirit of lawlessness to come into our thinking and our feeling? That's in the way we feel. And instead of the way we let God help us reason through the truth.

How much religious pluralism have we accepted? Because all roads don't lead to the same God. Jesus taught that. How much sin have we let slip into our own lives using the excuse of grace? Now, we all need grace and we all still sin. So, I'm not trying to say go give up because you've sinned lately. What I'm saying is how much do we start to allow it?

We stop resisting. You and I are going to be fighting sin till when? Till the day we die or the day we're changed? Well, the day we change. The day we die, next moment we're changed. Boom, it's gone. But until that moment, you and I will fight sin. So, that's not the issue. The issue is have I given in the sin because of the grace of God? Have I just given into it?

Instead of constantly going back to the grace of God and receiving the help to keep learning, to keep growing, to keep being repentant, Cain would not repent. He had the opportunity. God tried to get him to repent, then He would not repent. You know, there is going to be a great religious revival on the earth before Christ comes back. And the center of that will be, as we read in Revelation, it will appear as a limb.

It will appear as Christianity and probably an ecumenical movement to bring different religions in together under sort of a Christian umbrella. To do that, it will have to be compromised with certain biblical teachings and it will have to compromise and become lawless. It's very interesting. Churches all over the world are being split, Christian churches, because of they're just becoming lawless and some are standing up against it and they're just being swallowed up.

The Catholic Church is facing possibly the election of two popes. Now that's happened many times in their history because there's some saying, this new pope is lawless. We have to stand up against it. The spirit of lawlessness is here. The mystery is there. It's not a mystery if we just look at it. But we have to make sure that we can look at Jude and 2 Peter and say, okay, what happened when it came into the churches? That we stay close to God. We stay in this book.

We stay close to each other and encourage each other and sometimes correct each other in the right way so that we make sure that the mystery of lawlessness doesn't come into the church.