Satan's Counterfeit

Well, let me get set up here. Give me just a second. I've got my computer to wake up. While that's happening, Mr. Veller asked me to talk about what I'm doing with the Internet and how it relates to the preaching of the Gospel. I am not involved directly in the preaching of the Gospel. But in regards to the potential of the Beyond Today and how we should pray fervently for Beyond Today, there is huge potential, brethren, in it. You see, the world, the vast majority of people in the world, who we are commanded to reach, do not have a personal computer.

Therefore, do not have Internet access. They do have televisions in community areas. Many, many people do. Many don't. However, television is dependent on buying airtime and being on that station, and we don't have that worldwide. So how are we going to reach the world? If they do not have computer access, they do not have televisions. Through these, right here. This is a smartphone. Smartphones are very popular in the United States.

The iPhone, the Android. They're little computers in your pocket. The world cannot afford personal computers. Oh, and by the way, these are made overseas. They're not made here. We pay an exorbitant fee for these phones when we get them, but they're actually made very inexpensively. And these smartphones can be put into the hands of just about everybody in the world. And this is one way that we will be able to reach the entire world. Because most people in the world, or many people, even third world countries, have these now. In the Philippines, they don't have personal computers. They do have smartphones. They have internet access to their smartphones. They take their smartphone to the grocery store, and they pay for groceries with their smartphone because it identifies them and is attached to a bank account.

They get their emails from smartphones. And, very importantly, they can watch video on their smartphones. They can watch the Beyond Today program right on their phone. So we can actually reach people on the internet through the phone. Let me give you some statistics really very, very quickly. Google, the largest search engine in the world, is Google.com.

Actually, they have many properties, Google.com. You know, CA for Canada, DE for Germany, dot com for the United States. Google is, by far, the largest search engine in the world. Google is shifting everything that they do towards the mobile phone search because last year, in 2010, more than 50% of all searches done on Google were done on a mobile device, not a personal computer. Facebook. Facebook is the largest website hit in the world.

Facebook is eight times larger than Google. There are more people who have accounts on Facebook than there are people in the United States of America. I believe Facebook, if it was a country, would be the third largest country in the world. Facebook is huge. More than 50% of all activity on Facebook last year was done on one of these.

A mobile device, not a computer. So, is the Beyond Today program, does it have potential to reach the world? Yes, it does, in a way that has never, ever been possible before. So, there's a lot of really big things coming together at one time for the Church of God. I was asked to comment about the Beyond Today program.

Let me move this a second here. Very good. The television crew came down to film Mr. Petty, Gary Petty, who was our pastor, and one of the presenters on the Beyond Today program in a local congregation, which, unfortunately for the world, was us. It was really interesting. They set up... you see how we're spread out and comfortable? They packed us in like sardines and put all kinds of lights around, beamed lights on Mr. Petty. You would think, you know, for a Beyond Today program, you'd kind of take it easy and give light messages.

You don't want to give meat to babes. You give milk to babes. And he did. He did take it easy. But I'll tell you, when they come out, and I believe they're coming out this month, he actually gave some fairly strong messages, stronger than you might expect. It was actually really good to hear. So, it was interesting. We just sat really still and hoped our kids didn't make any commotion. Mr. Petty took the rest. Well, brethren, tradition has it that God gave Moses the Ten Commandments on tablets of stone on the day of Pentecost. That's not written in the Scripture. That is just tradition.

Whether it's true or not, I don't know. But the law very well may have been given on this day at Mount Sinai. And it may not have either. But my hunch is it was. In 31 A.D., God gave His Holy Spirit to the church. He started to write His law on man's heart on this day in 31 A.D. And the church began, as Mr. Veller said yesterday. And with the Holy Spirit, the people who were called and chosen by God were given the power to learn, overcome, and change.

And their carnal, selfish human nature could be converted into the heart that God has. But Satan, in anticipation of this day, created a counterfeit. And this counterfeit is like an infection that affects mankind. And if we're not careful to avoid it, it will infect you and me. We have seen it infect brethren before.

This counterfeit will quench God's spirit. This counterfeit will quench what we are here to celebrate today.

It will stop our conversion. And if we let it get out of hand, it will actually kill our conversion. This counterfeit started with a lie that Satan told in the Garden of Eden. So I'd like to go back there to start the sermon out in Genesis 3, verses 4-5. Genesis 3, verses 4-5.

And we just heard in the sermonette that our potential is to become like God. But Satan threw in a counterfeit. He said, you already have immortal life. This lie came in two parts. There were two sections of this lie. In almost every false religion in the world has these two lies in one form or another. The one part of the lie is, you will not die. You will either be reincarnated, some say, or you have an immortal soul. That's the first part of this lie, the counterfeit. The second part of the lie is infection.

And that is, you will be like God. No need for repentance. No need for God's Spirit. You've already got it. That was the lie that Satan told. Almost every false religion teaches that you don't need to change what's inside you, which is the opposite of what we are here to learn today. Many religions are very disciplined, however. They require strict behavior, and many of them, if not most of them, don't tell us that we need to change the heart. So what I want to do today is I want to tell you a story of one such religion. And this religion, a group of people, right after the apostles died out, they became very popular. And that religion was called the Gnostics. The Gnostics. I want to tell you the story of the Gnostics today. This was a very influential group of people. And they were so influential that the, what historians call proto-Orthodox, or what we now call mainstream Christianity, actually was so influenced by these people that they absorbed many of their doctrines.

And the two lies that Satan told in the Garden of Eden, they're in Gnosticism. And the infection that tends to infect all of mankind and will quench our spirit and still affects us today was in this Gnostic religion. These beliefs that we fight have their roots told in the Garden of Eden. Now let me briefly tell you the story of the Gnostics.

What was their background? What did they believe and teach? Gnosticism is a veiled form of paganism. They believe that the one true God is compromised of many perfect God-like beings in this euphoric state called the Pleroma, which is Greek for the fullness. And these perfect beings exist in their version of heaven or paradise, this Pleroma, and all is well. However, the physical universe was a mistake. To the Gnostics, what God created and called good, they call evil. And they call the God who created this universe evil. And yet many of those Gnostics are actually in the Christian faith right after the Apostles died. So how did that work? What's their story? Well, here's how the story goes according to this counterfeit religion, the Gnostics. They believe that the physical universe was created by an evil God-being. This evil God-being was actually conceived by another female God-being in the Pleroma, in this heavenly, spiritual-only location. And it was... He had no father. According to the Gnostics, she just became pregnant and had this mistake God-being, this mistaken child. He was flawed. And he became angry in some of these traditions. There's actually many different traditions of how this came about. But this false evil God became angry and out of spite created the physical world, what we can see and feel and touch. And then in one form of... There's many variations of how he turned evil, but in one variation, he has his mother broken into millions of pieces and spread throughout the physical creation. And these pieces are what the Gnostics called sparks. He had her broken up into little sparks. And these sparks of the mother were given to certain people. Now here's the lie that Satan told in the Garden of Eden. You will be like God. When they're born, the spark is already in them. It's either in them or it's not. And the spark, this part of the pure mother God-being that is in you, is desperate to get out of the physical creation, this evil world that was created by the evil God-being. You can just hear Satan's mind twisted, how he's calling God evil. Here's how it works. The spark wants to shed the physical existence and make it back to the Pleroma. So that is their purpose. And the only way back to the Pleroma is through Gnosis, which is the Greek word for knowledge. Hence the word Gnostics. Now, this knowledge was not knowledge that we can obtain. Smart people don't make it back to their heaven, to the Pleroma. You can't research your way. You can't study the Word of God and get to heaven. That's not the knowledge that they're talking about. No. This knowledge is given to them. It's a counterfeit of the Holy Spirit. This is a counterfeit of what we're here to learn today. This special knowledge has to be given to them by an emissary. An ambassador from the Pleroma comes down to the physical evil universe and gives special knowledge only to those who have the spark. Only to those who have the spark.

Some Gnostics actually believe that when you die, you don't go straight to the Pleroma if you have the spark and you have the secret knowledge. In other words, you need a password to get to heaven. But there's many, many levels in the afterlife. So you have to go from the physical universe to level one, get a new password, new secret knowledge, and go to level two. Get another password and go to level three. And so on and so forth. Many different variations. But so on and so forth. Eventually, if you have the secret knowledge, you will wind up back in the Pleroma where you belong. Jesus, according to the Christian Gnostics, was the one who delivered the secret knowledge. So somewhere in the second century AD, Gnosticism and Christianity came together in many parts of the ancient world. And that doesn't mean that all Christians of the day were Gnostic, not by a long shot. But there were also many opponents to Gnosticism, including God's true church, which is hardly ever mentioned in history after the apostles died out. But the problem with the Gnostics was there was no need for the Holy Spirit. There was no need for repentance. There was no need for a sacrifice to be made on our behalf. They were already like God. They just needed the secret knowledge. And since Gnostics believed that the physical universe was evil, they practiced two very different lifestyles. One of them said, well, the physical universe is evil. No big deal. You can do whatever you want to do in this life. They were very licentious. They gave into every lust that they had. But that wasn't the majority of them. The majority of Gnostics were actually very strict, rigid people.

They didn't indulge themselves. They were not loud and rude. They shunned actions that would be deemed immoral. They were very ascetic. They were called ascetics. At casual glance, these people appeared to be righteous. And that's the danger to us, brethren. That's the danger that we face. Is that there is a way that appears to be righteous. There's a way that seems to be right. And these people seemed like they had it. But they weren't righteous at all. They denied the Creator God, who made everything good. They denied that they sinned and needed a Savior.

They believed that Jesus was the emissary, and His teachings were necessary to get you the chosen few people back to the Pleroma. But in their minds, they were already God beings, stranded in an evil world. And we can sometimes be that way, and I'll show that in a little while. This is just like the lie that Satan told in the Garden of Eden, you will be like God. The resulting attitude of the Gnostics is appalling. To most Gnostic, quote-unquote Gnostic Christians, they were very critical, judgmental people. They believed that there were three kinds of people on the earth. There were one category of people were the ones who had the spark.

They were the elite. They had the secret knowledge. There were other kinds of people who were good people. They were brothers. They were brethren. They would have an afterlife, but they didn't have the spark. They were called regular Christians. Because they believed you had to repent and have the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And then, you know, so they were sort of, they weren't the elite. They were below the elite. They were the secondary Christians. And then you had the rest of the world. You know what the rest of the world was? Mere animals. They had no potential at all. When they died, they were gone. They were no different than a mosquito to the Gnostics. That's the problem with Gnosticism. There was no love in them. The rest of humanity was considered little more than animals. Gnostics would classify people and judge them. And they were always the elite. Because why? Because they had God's Spirit in them? Because they were growing? No. Because they had a spark from birth. Because they were special. They were important. This is the core belief that I want to focus on today. People who judge themselves superior to other people. Because in their minds, they have superior knowledge. And that makes them superior people. Do we do that? I've seen it all my life. Grown up in the church? I've seen it all my life. You know, I know so much more. I understand so much more. I've seen people do that. They don't literally say it, but they imply it. And Gnostics didn't invent this attitude, as I mentioned. Satan began it. It's a counterfeit that started this vain line of thinking back in the Garden of Eden. And many scholars believe that Gnosticism rose in the second century after the death of Jesus and the Apostles. It died off. It's not true. I believe it has been around since the Garden of Eden. In fact, Gnosticism is actually very similar to the ancient Egyptian religion. Where the elite people in ancient Egypt would have these secret passcodes for the different levels of the afterlife. And scribed on their coffin, all around their coffin. Because they believe that the dead would come alive and need these special codes to get through the different levels of the afterlife. To make it to the Egyptian version of heaven. So I believe that Gnosticism is just a big knockoff religion. But it's given a lot of credit in history. Satan has played on the minds of many of us Christians throughout our walk. Of vanity and self-importance. He tricks us into thinking that we are elite. And we of ourselves are special. It's a great trick. It's a great lie. Because it is very similar to what God says. That we are a special people. That we are His very beloved people. But it's not because we were born that way. And it's not because there was something that welled up inside us. But brethren, don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying we're not special. We are special to God. But all of His children are. And that's the point I'm driving to. 2 Peter 3 verse 9. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise. As some count slackness. But is long suffering towards us. And is not willing that any should perish. But all should come to repentance. God is not willing that any one of us perish. We are very special to Him. But it's not that you're not important that I'm talking about. It's that we are not to be self-important. And we're supposed to remember that on this day. Satan promotes the opposite attitude that's pictured in this day of Pentecost. We're supposed to... We're doing a fine on time.

Satan's counterfeit or self-importance or self-righteousness sometimes we call it. Causes us to be critical of others. And make them less important to us. Those who we deem to be like us. Okay. What did we just go through? What did we just go through? A big split. Right? Where one side said to the other side. You're not as righteous as we are. We must leave now. Brethren, I'm not talking to them today. And I'm not talking about them today. I'm talking to you and me. Because what tends to be our reaction is, Oh yeah? Well, we stayed. And we're the right ones. And we can fall into the same vain trap that Satan laid for us before we were born. A trap that he laid for us in the Garden of Eden. What we said was, when we stayed, we said, God is right. And we will follow God. The trap is to say, we are right.

But when we become self-important, brethren, our human nature tends to make us forget God. We remove God out of the picture. And this was warned. It was warned it would happen. And it has happened throughout the history of mankind. Where when we get something good, we start to take credit for it. And we forget God. You know Moses warned about that? Okay, let me set the stage for this. Children of Israel, in slavery, march out of Egypt. The army of Egypt is destroyed right in front of their eyes in the Red Sea. And they murmur and complain and complain. They get to the Promised Land. They send spies into the Promised Land. Only two of them, Joshua and Caleb, come back with a good report. The rest of the spies say, No, go! There are giants in that land. They have chariots of steel. They will chew us up and spit us out. God has brought us here to have our children die in the Promised Land. God was so fed up with them. He said, You will not enter into the Promised Land. And the children who you say I would have die, they will enter into the Promised Land. And God let them wander in the wilderness for 40 years until all of them died except for Moses, Joshua and Caleb. The rest of them who were alive either walked through the Red Sea as little children under the age of 20 or below, or they were their children. And now this is who Moses is talking to in the book of Deuteronomy. And he warns them of what we're talking about today. And I'd like to go through that.

Deuteronomy chapter 8.

Now, I'm going to read this from a different kind of translation. It's more, I would say, conversational.

Not a great translation, necessarily, if you're doing a doctrinal study because it's sort of a loose translation. It's called the New Living.

But it sure reads really well in Deuteronomy chapter 8. So let's go through this.

Deuteronomy chapter 8. We'll start in verse 4. I'll be reading from the New Living translation. It will be a little different than what you have in front of you.

Verse 4, Deuteronomy 8.

For Moses is talking now to those who have survived, the children. Now they're older and have children. For all of these 40 years, your clothes didn't wear out.

Your feet didn't blister or swell.

You should realize that just as a parent disciplines a child, the Lord your God disciplines you to help you. That's what we're here today to learn about, that we need that help. Verse 6.

So obey the commands of the Lord your God by walking in His ways and fearing Him. In other words, respecting Him.

For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, flowing with streams and pools of water, with springs that gush forth in the valley and the hills.

It is a land of wheat and barley and grapevines and figs and pomegranates and olives and honey.

It is a land where food is plentiful and nothing is lacking.

We're going to come back to that word, lacking, later on.

Nothing is lacking.

That's a very important phrase.

It is a land where iron is common and stone and copper is abundant in the hills.

When you have eaten your fill, praise the Lord your God for the good land He has given you.

But at that time, be careful.

Beware that in your plenty you do not forget the Lord your God and disobey His commands, regulations and laws.

We can get so self-important.

We can understand so much doctrine and have so much understanding of the plan of God.

We forget God Himself and we forget to follow His rules.

Verse 11, but at that time be careful. Beware that in your plenty you do not forget the Lord your God and disobey His commands, regulations and laws.

For when you have become full and prosperous and have built fine homes to live in, and when your flocks and herds have become very large, and your silver and gold are multiplied along with everything else, it is time for you to be careful. What is the spiritual analogy there?

What are homes and flocks and herds?

Well, in the church, brethren, that would be our doctrines, our schools, our services, our traditions.

We must not relax and say that we are in need of nothing and forget we're still in need of God.

That time is to be careful. Do not become proud at the time and forget the Lord your God, who rescued you from slavery. He also rescued us from slavery, brethren.

In the land of Egypt, do not forget that He led you through the great and terrifying wilderness with poisonous snakes and scorpions, whereas it was hot and dry.

He gave you water from the rock. He fed you with manna in the wilderness, a food unknown to your ancestors. He did it to humble you, to test you for your own good.

He did it so that you would never think that by your own strength and energy, you became wealthy.

And we must never think that by our own intellect, our own strength, that we did anything. As Mr. Veller said in the message just this afternoon when he was talking about giving the offering, it doesn't come from us, it's multiplied by God. It's exactly what Moses said also.

Verse 18, always remember that it is the Lord your God who gives you the power to become rich. He does it to fulfill the covenant He made with your ancestors. And brethren, today it is God who still gives us the power to become spiritually mature, spiritually grown up. People who become self-important, who seek not to serve others, but to exalt themselves, they tend to get critical of others. And that's the tell-tale sign for us to watch for. When you and I start constantly talking about other people in a bad light, we're infected, and we have to get the infection out. When we start to judge people or categorize people, you know, Jesus didn't do that. Let me point that out. When He was hanging on the tree, He looked at the entire crowd and said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.

He didn't categorize that crowd. He didn't say, Father, please forgive my disciples who are here because they're special. They're the elite.

And then please go easier on the Roman soldiers because, you know, they're more ignorant.

But please really suck it to that Jewish leadership. He didn't say that. He just looked out at the crowd. And who was there? Who was in the crowd? His disciples, Roman soldiers casting lots for His clothes and mocking Him, who had already beaten Him. Who else was in the crowd? Oh, the Jewish leadership, right? The high priest and the Sanhedrin council who were standing in judgment of Him, saying, Crucify Him. They were all there to Him. They all needed Him.

They were all sinners. Every one of us. You know, Mr. Petty, San Antonio has a good saying.

This preaching in the Gospel is a group of starving people telling other starving people where they can get food. And that's so true. That's what it is. We are not the elite from birth, from within ourselves. And that should be our attitude towards all men, including those who left our fellowship. We must not be like the Gnostics.

God's gift of His Holy Spirit was given to help us see evil in ourself first. It was given to give us the ability to grow and to change and to overcome and to become like God that was talked to us in the sermonette. We are not called firstfruits because we're better. We're called firstfruits because we're supposed to go first so that others might follow when Jesus Christ returns. 1 Corinthians 1 Corinthians 1, verse 26. We sang this today. 1 Corinthians 1, verse 26.

For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, and not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise. Mr. Wilson talked about that yesterday. Appreciated that.

Talked about how He makes mistakes all the time. Yes, so do I. Ask my wife.

Sometimes pulls her hair out. If I didn't have her with me, I think I would leave my head if I could be detached. I'm pretty sure I would.

But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things that are mighty, and the base things of the world, and the things which are despised. God has chosen and the things which are not to bring to nothing the things that are.

And here's the point. Why did He do that? Verse 29, that no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

That it is written, He who glories, let Him glory in the Lord.

Some of among us may have forgotten that. We all do from time to time.

It's an infection that gets in us and we have to get it out.

Did we forget if we have any pride in ourselves, if we think that we're spiritually rich? Let us consider that we have a long way to go.

There are many personal enemies that we yet have to conquer.

Let us be in the Word of God this coming year, and let's strive to learn, assuming that we don't know it all. That we haven't grown all the way we need to grow yet. That we don't just have a spark in us waiting to escape this temporary physical life. Let's ask God for growth from the heart.

I'm going to skip that for time's sake.

We're called now to grow. We're called now to become converted into a God-like being, someone who loves other people. We're not called to condemn others. Let's not be self-important or self-righteous. I want to tell just another brief story. We've all read the book of Proverbs. If you haven't read the book of Proverbs, I so suggest you do. If you have struggles in life, struggles with finances, job, relationships, read the book of Proverbs. It will so help every one of us. And in the book of Proverbs, there's one particular individual that Solomon who wrote Proverbs, he picks on this guy all the time. This guy is named the Fool. Solomon picks on the Fool, and the full calamity happens to this guy. You just you feel bad for the Fool.

He can't get a job. When he gets a job, he can't hold a job. He can't send a message between one person and another person and get it right. He can't send a message between one person and another person and get it right. He can't do anything and get it right. This Fool is pitiful above almost all other people except one person. There's one person in the book of Proverbs that's worse than the Fool. You want to know who he is? Proverbs chapter 26 and verse 12. There's one guy yet you don't want to be even more than the Fool himself.

Proverbs chapter 26 and verse 12. Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes?

There is more hope for a Fool than for him. Wow! You mean we can go through our whole lives, repent and be baptized and receive God's Spirit and quench it by thinking that we really got the stuff and we are elite. And the rest of y'all, we say y'all in Texas, and the rest of y'all, you know, just second class. We're not called because we have a spark within us. We're not called because we're wise. In fact, we're called because of the opposites. We were called to become wise. So how should we think? How should we pray? Isaiah sums it up. This is a great prayer.

Isaiah was a prophet when there were still two countries. There was Israel in the north and Judah in the south and Israel was completely pagan. It has gone away. Judah was sort of coming back but Israel was to be taken off by the Assyrians during Isaiah's time. And what did Isaiah pray?

Isaiah chapter 64 verses 3 through 9. This is our attitude, brethren. This is our walk. Isaiah 64 verse 3. When you came down long ago, Isaiah prays to God, you did awesome things beyond our highest expectations and oh how the mountains quake. For since the world began, no ear has heard, no eye has seen a God like you who works for those who wait for him. You welcome those who cheerfully do good, you who follow godly ways. But we are not godly. We are constant sinners, so your anger is heavy on us. How can a people like us be saved? We are all infected and impure with sin. When we proudly display our righteous deeds, we find they are but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall. Our sins, like the wind, sweep us away. Yet no one calls on your name or pleads with you for mercy. Therefore, you have turned away from us and turned us over to our sins. And yet, Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are the potter. We have, we all are formed by your hand. Verse 9. Oh, don't be so angry with us, Lord. Please don't remember our sins forever. Look at us, we pray, and see we are your people. Now, I don't say these things that we might hang our head low. No. Jesus Christ died that we might be forgiven. And we are.

And we are to walk and grow and be thankful that God is our potter, and he is forming us into the perfect likeness of him to become somebody who loves other people, who cares about other people.

The purpose of this message today is to encourage us to avoid an infection that would take that away, and that infection can be shown in us when we notice we start to categorize people.

That's the symptom of this infection. We start to judge and put people on different levels, and when we do that, we set ourselves up high. We set, instead of setting God up on a pedestal, we're putting ourselves up on that pedestal. So, brethren, let's not be that way, but let's be like Isaiah said, and be moldable clay in the hands of God.

Let's let him mold us and shape us in his image.

So, let's let him mold us in his image.