Spiritual Cancer

Well, today I want to start the sermon with a word. I'm going to give you that word in a minute. The English language is quite interesting because some words, you can just say one word and everything stops. One word and people have a reaction to it. Some words just make you feel good when you think about the word.

Others not so good. The word I'm going to give you today is something that's not so good. I know that some of you have been on the other side of the table when this word has been sent to you. I want you to think back to what you thought when you heard this word come at you. It's a word we've all heard, of course.

It's something that's common in our society, all too common. Something that we all know, I'm sure, someone who has had to face this in their lives if it wasn't us. That word is cancer. We all have our personal stories on that. It's an insidious disease that brings just a lot of heartache and pain to families, to individuals. Those of us who have had family members die from cancer, we've seen firsthand just how difficult the disease is and how hard it is for people to go through that.

Thirteen, fourteen years ago, my dad died of cancer. Debbie's dad died of cancer several years before that. It was heart-wrenching to see someone who had been so vigorous in their life and who was otherwise healthy see this disease come upon them and over a period of months just waste from what they were all their lives to half of what they were before they died.

My dad never was sick. I don't remember him ever being sick as I was growing up. I mean, in occasional cold and something like that. I don't even remember him having the flu when I was growing up. He was in his mid-80s. One day he was supposed to come out and visit us.

They were living out west and we were living in Indiana at the time. He called and said they weren't going to make the trip. That was not like my dad at all because he would always go anywhere. So I knew something was wrong. A cancer word never entered my mind, though. He went to the doctor.

He never liked to go to doctors, but he went. The doctor told him he had lung cancer. It had advanced to quite a stage. There weren't a whole lot of treatment options available, but he didn't want the treatment options anyway. He was just going to put it in God's hands and whatever his will was. In six months, he went from 160 to 170 pounds down to, I don't know, he must have been 80 or 90 when he died. Just a shell of what he was. I was living far away and I arranged that I was able to go out there for a week every month. My clients were pretty understanding during that time.

But I could see the progression. I thought, what an insidious disease. It just saps the light right out of you. It's a hard disease. It's full of pain when it gets to that stage. It's hard on the family members that are there and as painful for them, I think, as it is for the people who suffer through it.

Because you see it and there's just nothing you can do. You rely on God, but there's nothing you can do to stop it. Except rely on God and have your faith in Him. You know, there's a lot of facts about cancer. Over a million Americans a year die from cancer. And I'm sure you know what the disease is, but let me read to you from the medical dictionary what cancer does, in case you aren't sure.

The medical dictionary says, Cancer's two main characteristics are uncontrolled growth of the cells in the human body and the ability of these cells to migrate from the original site and spread the distant sites. If the spread is not controlled, cancer can result in death. So it's the disease of the genes. And our cells are reproducing all the time. That's just part of what we are. And there are abnormal cells that generate in all of us. Most of the time the immune system will fight and combat and kill those genes. But sometimes they continue to grow and then they multiply and tumors can develop.

And if the tumors spread isn't the right word there, but the tumors can develop, and they are cancerous and they will continue. Now you've heard someone say, one of the questions that's asked, has a cancer spread. If the cancer is contained in one place, it's better because you can kind of isolate it and treat it. Again, I'm speaking medically. God is the one who heals and we know that. So that goes without saying here. Well, it goes with saying, but I want you to keep that in your mind. It's God who heals.

But if the cancer has spread, it's much more difficult because as these unnatural, abnormal cells start to develop throughout the body, it becomes something that just takes over the body. And they can't tell where it's going to pop up next, even if it goes into remission. So, so one of those insidious diseases that just kind of keep growing and growing and growing, and eventually, and eventually, or in so many cases in America today, it ends in death. A troublesome or a tough death. Let me give you a couple of the causes of cancer.

And as I was researching this a little bit, this was kind of surprising to me. There's two different reasons the cancer develops. One is genetic. We've heard of that, right? Breast cancer, colon cancer, those type cancers, often they say are genetic. That's why if you have a checkup, your doctor should say if you have any family history that you should. You should do some testing just to see if it's there. Early detection is important. There's nothing wrong with early detection. If you can detect something early and it can be treated, it's much better than waiting until it's so far advanced that it's very difficult to treat.

I want you to just think in your mind, how many of the cancer deaths in America, and this is 2012 information, how many cancer deaths in America, what percent, come from genetically caused cancers? This is surprising. Less than 10%. Less than 10% of cancer deaths are from a genetic condition that resulted in cancer. The only other cause out there are environmental factors. More than 90% of people who die from cancer, the cancer was contracted through environmental reasons. Let me just read here from what it says.

It says, 90 to 95% of cancer is due to environmental factors, such as, they define that as any cause that is not inherited genetically. These would include lifestyle, economic and behavioral factors, not merely pollution. Common environmental factors that contribute to cancer deaths include tobacco, 25 to 30% of the cancer deaths are related to that, diet and obesity, 30 to 35%, a higher number than I thought I would realize, and there's an asterisk, and I'll just give a little bit more information on that, because all of us are susceptible to diet and what we eat and how it can affect our health.

It says, diet, physical inactivity and obesity are 30 to 35% of cancer deaths. In the United States, excess body weight is associated with the development of many types of cancer and is a factor in 14 to 20% of all cancer deaths. Isn't that amazing? So, when someone says, and you hear the shows that talk about diet and exercise and nutrition lifestyle, it's important to have all those things and to be paying attention to them. Infections, going back to the environmental factors, infections are the cause of 15 to 20% of cancer deaths, and then the rest of them are all combined into alcohol, risky and abnormal sexual behavior, exposure to chemicals, radiation, stress, and environmental pollutants.

But there's a lot of causes of cancer, and there's a lot of different types of cancer, I should say. You know of liver cancer, colon cancer, breast cancer, all of them that you could name off, there's over 100 types that are there. So, people say cancer, it has an immediate reaction, but there's a number of different places. No part of the body is immune from cancer. It strikes fear in us, and I think those of you who have had to face that diagnosis, initially there's probably fear and there's dread, but I hope your next thought was to turn to God and say, He can heal it and put your faith in Him.

People in the world don't have that benefit that we have to know that there is a healing God, but it should be of comfort to us. But all those physical cancers, and what it does to us, it leaves a mark on the family, it leaves a mark on the people who even survive it, and it's an insidious thing.

And any one of us could fall prey to it, but there's a worse cancer than physical cancer that can take your physical life. That's what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about spiritual cancer, spiritual cancer, because every single one of us sitting in this room today are susceptible, or could be susceptible, to spiritual cancer. Physical cancer, less than 10%, is genetic. More than 90% are generally in areas that we can control. Some we don't know about until after the fact. My dad developed lung cancer, the doctor said, probably because he worked in the oil refineries up in Indiana for 35, 36 years, and probably that was a result of that. In retrospect, it's something he could have controlled, but it was part of his environment, and something that he did that affected him in that way. Spiritual cancer can affect all of us, and usually we're the cause. We're the cause if we fall victim to it. Let's turn over to 2 Timothy.

A few weeks ago when I was here, we turned to this verse as well. We were talking about the Book of Life. Today we're talking about spiritual cancer.

Paul, as you read through his epistles and as you look at what he writes to the churches. Here in Timothy, he has the instruction to Timothy, who's becoming a minister. He's kind of telling him the things to watch out for because he wants Timothy to be a good shepherd. He wants him to be aware of what can befall people because we're all interested, that we will all be in the Kingdom, that we'll all stay on the correct track to the Kingdom.

But here in 2 Timothy, let's get over to 2 Timothy. 2 Timothy 2, let's pick it up in verse 16. Paul, writing to Timothy, says, Shun profane and idle babblings, for they will increase to more ungodliness. He's talking here about those type of things that you talk about that just don't have a basis in the Bible or maybe there's just a lot of arguments going back and forth where the Bible says one thing and you absolutely know it, but someone else has a little wrinkle on it that they just want to keep arguing back and forth on.

And they said that will just lead to more ungodliness. And he says in verse 17, And their message will spread like cancer. It'll infect. It'll infect the person. It'll infect the body. Now, if you're looking at the old King James, I think the word there is gangrene, is what they have instead of cancer, but the New King James translators use the word cancer. And let me give you what the Greek meaning of the word translated cancer in the New King James, the gangrene in the old King James is. It comes from the Greek word, gagrena, from which we get our English word gangrene. But here's what it means. It says, It's a disease by which any part of the body suffering from inflammation becomes so corrupted that unless a remedy be seasonably applied, the evil continually spreads, attacks other parts, and at last eats away the bones.

That was quite a condition that Paul was talking about. And when you look at 2 Timothy, when you look at 1 Timothy, when you look at Galatians, when you look at Philippians, when you look at these letters, long letters that Paul was writing to the churches, he was concerned about them, and he was making them aware of things that could befall them if they let it happen. And cancer was one of the things, spiritual cancer, that he was very, very much aware of, and that he had seen, and he saw so many people in his time. As he went from church to church, die of spiritual death from spiritual cancer.

And, you know, as painful as it is to see someone you love die from physical cancer, I can tell you, and you know, because you know some people who have succumbed to it, it's very painful to see someone die from spiritual cancer, where they have allowed something to enter into their body, something apart from the truth of the Bible, the word that we should know inside and out, that we should be learning inside and out, so that it directs our lives, directs our thoughts, directs everything we do. And they let something get in, and one of those abnormal cells, and then it just keeps growing and growing and growing until one day, they're not here.

They're not here. They've died a slow, painful, for everyone watching, death. And Paul was telling Timothy here, watch out. Watch out for this. Before we go any further, let me just paint the picture for you of some similarities between physical cancer that we talked about and spiritual cancer that you will read about in the Bible. One similarity is there's many different types. You know, cancer is a broad word that covers, we said, over a hundred different types of cancer that you can define.

Spiritual cancer is a broad brush as well. There's many, many. There may be a hundred different spiritual cancer types that we can talk about. Today we'll just talk about one. But between now and the days of Unleavened Bread, we'll come back periodically and look at a few more that the Bible talks about that shows how something grows into something. That could take someone's spiritual life away. That will take the Holy Spirit away from them by the things that they do, the things that they allow. Because God would never, never take the Spirit away from us. We give it back to Him by the things that we do if we let something grow in our minds that kills what He has called us to.

So we'll look at a few of those. Today we'll look at one. But there will be many. And as you think about the concept, you'll think about several that are in the Bible that you would be able to identify as well. Another similarity would be early detection is crucial or is critical. Doctors would tell you, if we could catch it earlier, you know, don't delay that. Don't delay that colonoscopy. If we can catch it early, if there's anything there, it's a lot easier than if it's already to the point that you have, you know, gone into a different stage.

The other thing I should have mentioned is that, you know, so many cancers, and you probably know people, you don't feel the pain. Your life just kind of goes on. You might feel a little bit different. But you don't feel pain until it's too late in many cases. It's not the case in all people.

But then when you feel the pain and you find out what's wrong, it has gone a long, long way down the line. Spiritual cancer can be the same way. We can look at each other and say, oh, they look fine. Maybe we notice a little something different, but nothing that would kind of raise our eyebrows that we would say, oh, there's a real, real problem there. You may not think anything's wrong. You just kind of go along your life. But then it begins to take over your life. You become fixated on something. You just can't seem to let it go. Your mind has been infected. Your body has been infected. Your spirit has been infected by this thing that you just can't let go. It's gone, just become a snowball. And it has to be brought back. Early detection is critical. So husbands, wives, if you see something in your spouse that looks like it's one of the things that we'll talk about between now and the next three months and today, let them know and tell them, we better get that checked out. You better go to the great physician. You better go to God, and you better ask Him to heal that in you, because He is the great healer. He is the one who provides, and He is the one who heals. You better go to Him, and you better ask Him to excise that from you and get the attitude or whatever it is straightened out. All too often, it doesn't happen, though. But if we're going to do early detection, or even if we're going to look at ourselves and kind of compare ourselves, do I have any of the symptoms that we'll talk about going on in my life? There's something we have to know. We have to know what a healthy Christian looks like, don't we? We have to know what a healthy Christian is like, so that we can say, oh, I can look into the Word of God, I can look at this mirror and say, oh, yeah, I'm falling short there. I've got some problems I need to have corrected. Now, in the Bible reading program in January, you're going to come across a chapter. I'm not going to tell you what it is. You're going to come across a chapter that tells you what a healthy Christian looks like. You'll remember, I hope, this when you come across that chapter. I'll give you a clue. It won't be this week, but it'll be one of the other three weeks in January. And when we get to that, we may talk about that in the sermon as well, what a healthy Christian looks like, because you have to know what that's like in order to be able to detect where there is a problem and where there is a sickness.

Like physical cancer, spiritual cancer grows over time. It grows over time. You know, we talked about the cells that divide abnormally, and a lot of times the immune system will just take care of those cells, but there's times that it doesn't. Well, we will hear things. We will be involved in things. Something will come into our mind. And if we're spiritually healthy, the Holy Spirit will take care of that. But if we've got some kind of sickness, that will sort of plant the seed in our mind that just won't go away. It'll just keep dividing and dividing and dividing, and become like a tumor, a spiritual tumor.

Turn over to Matthew 13, verse 15.

I want to show you what spiritual cancer can result in. Matthew 13. Christ here in this chapter that is full of parables about the kingdom uses a verse from Isaiah to talk about the people of that day who had a spiritual cancer that had overcome them. Verse 15, Matthew 13. He says, For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Again, I think the old King James might say that they have become hardened or calloused. The hearts of this people have become dull. Well, and a heart is calloused. And I'll read a translation for you here in a moment. What happens?

It's dead. The heart is dead. A hardened heart doesn't receive the blood and the life it needs. The hardened heart is done. Their ears are hard of hearing. The symptoms are taking over. These things that should reflect in their minds. The Holy Spirit that should open their ears when they hear something, and they should recognize, Oh, that's me! I can't do that anymore. Their ears are hard of hearing. The cancer is taking over. And they're no longer having the sense that they had before. Their eyes, they have closed. They won't listen. God didn't close them. They closed them. Lest they should see with their ears, see with their eyes, and hear with their ears. Lest they should understand with their hearts, and turn, so that I should heal them.

Let me read that to you from another version. I don't usually use the New and International version, but in some cases, the wording that they have there gets the point to cross. And the New Living Translation does as well in some cases. You have to be very careful. You have to see what the King James says. That's the most genuine, I guess, translation we have out there today. To see that it's not changing the meaning of it. Here's what the NIV translates this verse is. I think it makes it a little clearer than what we might read here. Christ says, for this people's heart has become calloused. Calloused. Hardened. They hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise, they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them.

See that? There is a cure. There's a cure for spiritual cancer. It's right there. Turn to God. Get your eyes back in the Bible, your words back in the Bible, see what God has to say, look at the whole context of what's in there, understand what God's plan for mankind is, what His plan for you is, and start doing what He says and allowing Him to lead you into that type of life. There is a cure. If you turn from Him, turn back. And He says, if you do that, I will heal. While we're there, let's look at a couple verses on that. I'm ahead of myself, so I'll just go there and leave this part off a little later. Back in Zechariah. Zechariah 1. Zechariah 1, verse 2. The Eternal has been very angry with your fathers. Zechariah writes, therefore say to them, Thus says the Eternal of Hosts, Return to me. Get your life back to me. Get your eyes off of what you're looking at. Get your life out of where it has gone and get back to me. And I will return to you. Don't be, verse 4, like your fathers, to whom the former prophets preached, saying, Thus says the Eternal, Turn now from your evil ways and your evil deeds. They didn't hear. They didn't heed. They died. He's saying, Don't let that happen to you. You pay attention. You can mark down Ezekiel 18, verses 30 and 31, where again God says, Turn back to me, Israel. Turn back to me, He would say to you and me. Put your own name in there. Turn back to me, for why would you die? Why would you let spiritual cancer take over your life? Is that what you want? No, none of us want that. But some of the people who have succumbed to that disease don't even understand the importance of it. That's how insidious the disease is. What they knew, the truth that God has given them, the open mind, the words in the Bible that used to jump out at them, when they succumbed to the disease, it's like they never knew anything at all. How sad is that? How difficult is that for you to see it happening? For me to see it's happening. For Paul to see it's happening. Because it happened time and time again in the churches that he started, and I don't think he ever got used to it. And I hope none of us ever get used to it. Another similarity. Another similarity between physical cancer and spiritual cancer. It's us. It's us that kills ourselves.

It's the choices that we make. It's the environment that we create. So we can look at our environment and say, have we created an environment for growth in our homes? Do we create an environment for growth here at church? Do we create a healthy spiritual environment that we live in and that we thrive in and that we grow in? Or is our environment a hazard? Does it take us away from what we've been called to life and send us back into the way of death? Because there's only two ways of life.

God's way leads to life. The way of the world. Our own ideas lead to death. What environment do we live in? You know, when God calls us, we say, yes, Father. Yes, I accept Jesus Christ as my life. Yes, I will follow you and I will follow Him all the days of my life. Yes, I ask forgiveness of my sins. I repent and turn from my way to your way when I'm immersed. I will come out of those waters of baptism and I will let you write on me your principles, your way of life.

Your spirit will lead me. And I will live a different life than I did before. Over in 2 Corinthians 6, Paul talks about this in very easy to understand terms. 2 Corinthians 6, verse 17, he tells us what we are to be. Christ said, you live in the world, you work in the world, you go to school in the world, you have to make your way in the world.

Your way in the world strengthens us by being able to live and resist the ways of the world. But God says, or Paul says here under inspiration, come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Be separate. Don't be like them. There's two ways of life. Your way the world's way, there's God's way. Don't be like them. Create an environment for growth in your homes. Don't touch what's unclean and I will receive you. I'll be a father to you and you will be my sons and daughters.

Do that, he says. Be separate. You still go to work, you still shop, you still go to school. But you're separate. You're led by a different spirit. You have a different purpose in life. You know the truth. You have the answers to life right here in the book sitting on your lap. Be different. Be different and walk into life or allow those insidious, abnormal cells that lead to death back into your life and death will be the result.

James, James 4. James 4, verse 4. He writes, adulterers and adultresses, don't you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Are any of us here? Did anyone ever walk through those doors here that thought they were going to be in enmity with God? No. The only reason anyone would show up here is they don't want to be at odds with God. They've heard the call. They want to be in line with Him, walking with Him. And yet James says, if you're friends with the world, your enemy's with me. Now, what he's talking about there, and when you read the word world there, you understand what he's talking about.

He's talking about society and all its proclivities. And the world is really all about self, isn't it? It's all about self-fulfillment, self-identification, self-gratification, self-self-self. I want, I want, I want. And if there's anything that defines our society today, that's what it is. It's what I want, I don't really care how it impacts you, I have the right to do what I want. And everyone does have the right to do what they want, but that's not the biblical way of doing it. So when Paul says here, you know, there's a way of, used to be said, there's a way of give and a way of get.

There's a way of self that the world is all about. There's a way of God. It's more about love, agape, developing the traits and allowing God to develop the fruits that will last for eternity. He says, don't be, don't be friends with the world. Don't let that into your homes. You have to work in it, you have to live in it, but you know what? Use the Spirit. Use God's Spirit to steal yourself, S-T-E-E-L, against the things of the world. Build an environment that will lead to life. Build an environment that will lead and that will offset any spiritual cancers. Let's go on in verse 4.

Whoever, therefore, wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Mother, it doesn't sound like there's any fence sitting on that. If you want to be a friend with the world, if you want to do the things that they want done, or want to do everything the way they do it, you make yourself an enemy of God.

What do we want? Where do we want to go? Let's go back to Ephesians 4. Even here in Ephesians 4, where Paul is talking about the church, the spirit, all of us being united in the spirit, led by the spirit, guided by the spirit, he even draws a contrast here to the world around them in verse 17. Ephesians 4, verse 17 says, This I say, therefore, and I testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk. You've committed to God. Don't walk like they do anymore.

You said you weren't going to do that. You committed to God. That you should no longer walk as the Gentiles walk in this utility of their mind. Futility. What a nameless part of life that is. Just be doing things in vain. You and I don't do things in vain. Our lives aren't futile. What we do, we do for a purpose. God has called us to that purpose.

And what we do, we do with that understanding. Don't walk in the futility of their minds, having their understanding darkened, feeling being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their hearts, who being past feeling doesn't hurt anymore. They just keep doing the things contrary to virtues, contrary to God's law. So it doesn't even hurt anymore. It doesn't even faze them anymore.

Maybe the first time they did it, it fazed them, and they felt guilty, but they thought, oh well, it can't be that big a deal. And you just keep doing it and doing it and doing it, and pretty soon the feeling is lost. Pretty soon the hardening of the heart sets in. The ears stop hearing. The eyes stop seeing.

The communication of the relationships end. Who being past feeling have given themselves over to lewdness to work all uncleanness with greediness? It's us. It's us that would allow cancer in. We have to be on guard. Guard our hearts. Guard our lives. Stay spiritually healthy. Take in the proper spiritual diet. Do the things that God wants us to so that even when those little abnormal cells or thoughts come into our minds, they are immediately thrust out. And they're not allowed to germinate and take seed or take root and grow and grow and grow.

Well, as I said, Paul. Paul saw this in the churches that he started. And sadly, we've seen it in this church and every single church of God there has ever been. Satan is very alive. Satan is very aware. Satan will do anything he can to plant the seed to take away from you the life that God has given you.

And we know that, and we've heard it. Paul was very aware of it, even from the very beginning. Let's go back to Acts 20.

In Acts 20, he's about to leave the church at Ephesus. He's been there for three years. Perhaps the longest time that he'd ever been with a church anywhere. He grew to love those people. And he wanted them to succeed just like you want everyone here to succeed, just like I want everyone here to succeed in being God's kingdom. And to hold fast to the truth that God has given us.

But he knew, and it pained him as he was about to leave them to say the things that were going to happen that he knew was going to happen to them eventually. Let's pick it up. Verse 29 of Acts 20.

This I know. All right. After my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.

Savage wolves. People are just designed to kill and whatever.

Now, we would probably stand up strong against those savage wolves who come up with a totally different gospel. If anyone came to you and said, oh, you don't have to keep the Sabbath anymore, the real day to keep it Sunday, I think every single one in this room would say, absolutely not. I'm not buying that.

Or any other number of the things that we could say.

Savage wolves will come in, but sometimes they do. It happens. It happens in years past where savage wolves came in with a different doctrine and people bought it. But what happens more often is what he goes on to say in verse 30. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, things that are apart from what the truth of the word is, to draw away the disciples after themselves.

Now, one thing about spiritual cancer is, there's always an I, capital letter I, I in it.

Something I want, something I want to believe, something I believe that's there.

Capital letter I, bolded and underlined, if you use Microsoft Word.

Usually, that's the beginning or that's a sign.

If there's something apart from what you're taught, or the Bible teaches us, it's something I want.

Just like the world wants what it wants, the heart wants what it wants, right?

Like I said, Paul faced it in a number of places.

And he knew that right there, sitting among the people in Ephesus that day, there would be people that would rise up and they would have a little different twist on a doctrine here, a little different twist on this there.

Nothing wrong with discussion, nothing wrong with speculation.

But if there's a seed that germinates in our mind that begins to cloud out other things, it can be a real problem.

Well, the Church of Ephesus, to their credit, probably took some of what Paul said to heart because we read about them over in Revelation 2.

Let's look what it says over there to this church. Revelation 2 and verse 2. To the angel of the Church of Ephesus, write, it says in verse 1, drop down to verse 2, I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil.

And you have tested those who have saved their apostles and are not, and you have found them liars.

What does that tell you that the church did?

When someone came on with a different wrinkle of something, they went back to the Bible and they said, well, this is our litmus test. Is this what the Bible says? Is this what we do?

This is what our life is supposed to be. And if that apostle who proclaimed himself an apostle was saying something different than the Bible, they discounted it. And they called him a liar. They didn't listen to it anymore.

They based everything they said in the Bible, or they believed in the Bible. We have to be exactly the same type of people. That's why we have to know what it is to be a healthy Christian.

That's why we have to know what's in the Bible. So when we hear these things, and we understand when we understand God's plan, when we understand what He's doing, when we understand the whole purpose of the Bible that's in complete unison from Genesis to Revelation, and we hear something that doesn't add up, we know, well, that doesn't make sense. That doesn't. That's not the way it is. And unless you can prove it in the words of the Bible, you know, that old thing in Deuteronomy 1232, that scripture that says, don't add to and don't take away is something that we should all remember.

Because so much of spiritual cancer can be adding to or taking away from the Word of God. Well, the Ephesian church had its problems as well. They lost people from there.

The other similarity, spiritual cancer, as I said before, can be cured.

Remember Matthew 13, 15. Turn to God, and He will heal, he says.

But the only way for it to be healed is to turn to Him. Let's go back. Let's go back to 2 Timothy.

I want to talk about just one type of spiritual cancer today, and another time, two or three, between now and 11.

We'll talk about some more that we can see in the Bible.

But here in 2 Timothy, Paul is focused on one type that he talks to Timothy about, in both of his epistles, also in his Epistle to Titus, as we'll see here in a minute, and to some others as well. Let's look at 2 Timothy 2, where we're there a few minutes ago.

2 Timothy 2, verse 17, and read on from where we were before.

Their message, he says, will spread like cancer.

Hymenaeus and Phileidus are of this sort, who have strayed concerning the truth, saying that their resurrection has already passed, and they overthrow the faith of some.

But then he says, nevertheless, the foundation of God stands, having this seal, the Lord knows those who are His, and let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from the iniquity.

Here's Hymenaeus and Phileidus.

One type of spiritual cancer is the religious deception, religious deception type, that can lead to spiritual death.

And Hymenaeus and Phileidus were of that sort.

Somewhere along the line, they picked up on a doctrine that was different than what the Bible said, something that would seem kind of meaningless to us, and like, really? You think the resurrection has already passed, and that's what you let develop in your mind, and you lost sight of the truth and gave up eternity to follow that doctrine?

Because we all know, as we look toward the return of Jesus Christ, that the resurrection of the firstborn is at the seventh trump, the resurrection of all the rest of the dead, or at the end of the millennium.

But somehow, Hymenaeus and Phileidus, who lived in a different time, and we have to remember the times that they lived in, this was still relatively new to them to have a Savior, Jesus Christ. He was resurrected from the dead.

That had to be a fascinating thing for people to hear, an unreal thing.

They expected that He was going to take the kingdom right then, not, as we know, thousands of years later, but right then He was going to do that.

So, however these little doctrines or things that He heard came into His mind, it's no different than what we have today.

So, when we read something that Paul writes, we have to apply it to ourselves and say, we may not have anyone that would ever come up and say, oh, and then all the resurrections are passed, but there's other things that come up from time to time.

I know in the four or five years I've been a pastor, I've been surprised at some of the things that will take people out of the Church.

Things that I might hear a little bit and think, okay, okay, well, that'll weed itself out.

But then a few months later it comes back and it's even bigger.

And pretty soon, to my absolute surprise, people are believing they're a hymenaeus and they're a phyletus because of some religious deception that usually has the word I, capital I, all about it.

It's what I want to believe.

I will not listen to what the Bible has to say. I will not listen at the end of the symptoms when the hearts become heart.

This is what I want to believe. This is what I'm going to do.

It leaves the spiritual death in so many cases.

I could give you some examples from even this congregation of people who used to sit among us and you would be surprised at the things that they believe today.

That you would say, no one, no one who ever came into a Church of God would believe that.

But that's what spiritual cancer does. It works and it works and it works and eventually it weeds out everything. It eats away at the bones of the person, the spiritual bones as well.

So, hymenaeus and phyletus were of this sort.

Let me read from the commentaries what they had to say, a couple of commentaries on this section of Scripture here.

This is from Adam Clark, the Adam Clark commentary. He says, such is the influence of false doctrine.

It fixes its mortal seed in the soul, which continues to corrupt and assimilate everything to itself, till, if not prevented by a timely application of the word of life, under the direction of the heavenly physician, it terminates in the bitter pains of an eternal death.

To such a gangrene, the Apostle compares the corrupt doctrines of hymenaeus and phyletus, kind of their epitaph.

It had to be very painful for Paul to sit back and see that slow spiritual death, just as painful as it is for us to watch the progression of cancer in someone we love or anyone that we know.

Barkley, the Barkley commentary says this, cancer will spread over and consume the healthful parts.

It will not merely destroy the parts immediately affected, but will extend into the surrounding healthy parts and destroy them also.

So it is with erroneous doctrines.

They will not merely eat out the truth in the particular matter to which they refer, but they will also spread over and corrupt other truths.

The doctrines of religion are closely connected and are dependent on each other, like the different parts of the human body.

One cannot be corrupted without affecting those adjacent to it, and unless checked, the corruption will soon spread over the whole.

It's kind of scary, isn't it?

That we could allow that into our minds, into our hearts, and that we could become victims of what Hymenaeus and Phyletus succumbed to.

It could happen.

It's happened.

It happened back in the times of Paul.

It happened in all the churches of God.

It's one of the tools that Satan uses.

Cancer is one of the things that he will use.

Just slow until feeling is passed, and you just keep doing the wrong thing over and over and over again.

You know, Hymenaeus and Phyletus, they didn't just wake up one day and say, Ah, the resurrection is fast. I'm done.

Now, someone planted a little seed, or maybe they had a little thought come in.

Maybe they did go and talk to Timothy or Paul.

They didn't listen, because I wanted that.

This is the way I wanted it to be.

Nothing wrong, nothing wrong with having questions, nothing wrong with having ideas. But, to let them germinate is not something that we want to do.

To germinate and take over our lives as these men did.

Let's look at a few of the symptoms here.

Symptoms of cancer, that we, spiritual cancer, that we might look at.

We've talked about two of them already.

Ears that won't hear, eyes that won't see.

Often when that happens, the cancer has regressed to a level that's difficult to recover from.

But over in 2 Timothy 4, oh, you're in 2 Timothy, a couple chapters over in chapter 4, he tells us another symptom that we might see in ourselves.

Again, we might see in our spouse, in our family, with people that we love in this congregation.

2 Timothy 4 and verse 3.

The time will come, he tells Timothy, when they won't endorse on doctrine.

They won't look into the Bible and say, yeah, that's what I believe.

You know what? You're absolutely right. That's what it says, Paul.

The time will come when they say, no, I don't want to believe that. But according to their own desires, and you notice the word own, according to their own desires, because they have itching ears.

Ah, there's a symptom. Itching ears.

I have to find the thing that I want to hear. There's a lot of things out there that I can hear.

There's a lot of things out there that I can listen to.

And some of them are really kind of meaty and kind of interesting, and they kind of just titillate when I think of the possibilities of that.

Some people have fallen prey. There's a shortcut.

A shortcut to the kingdom that guarantees that you're going to be there, because you just follow what this says.

Now, certainly, if you follow what the Bible says, but not what some man says and says, if you do this, 1, 2, 3, 4, you'll be there.

Hitching ears. Wanting to hear what they want to hear.

Not satisfied with the truth of God, not satisfied with the Word of God, not appreciatively of the calling that God has given them, that He has opened our minds to the truth and to eternity.

And given us things that absolutely none of us deserve.

What's given us the opportunity of eternal life, to be what God has created man to become, to reign with Jesus Christ and to work under Him, and to help humanity and to see what's beyond this physical earth, and what God has planned for the rest of eternity.

Can't imagine what it would be if we're thinking clearly that we would be willing to give up.

But if we have itching ears, there's plenty of places to get our ears itched today, aren't there?

I can turn on 24-hour-a-day TV stations, but I could probably find any theory that I wanted to hear.

Any! As bizarre as it could be, I could find someone that would want to say, or that I could find that would say what I want to believe.

I could just flip a channel. I've got itching ears. And I'll keep searching until I find that. The Internet is an even better source for that than TV is.

There's any number of doctrines out on the Internet. There's any number of theories out on the Internet. We could spend all day, all night, never sleep, and never get tired or never run out of things that our itching ears could listen to.

What satisfies the itch? It should be the truth of God. It should be this word that satisfies. It should be this word that fills us up.

If it doesn't, if it's not enough, we might want to sit back and think and ask God, do I need to be healed?

Will you heal me? Will you fill me up? Will you get back? Or will you help me to turn back to you so that I can be healed?

So that I find my entire fulfillment in you and the truth you've called me to.

It might be something that we want to do. Now, you know, we're going to hear things from time to time.

You know, I hear things from time to time, and they kind of pique my attention, and I think, huh, well, I haven't heard that before.

I wonder if that is in the Bible. You know what I do? I go right back to the Bible, and I look and see, is there anything?

Is there anything in the Bible that indicates this?

And as soon as I determine there is nothing in the Bible that indicates that, I dismiss it.

Because I don't want it growing. I don't want it infesting.

I want to know what the Bible has to say. There is... when you're doing that, it's a tremendous Bible study.

When you look through the verses and see what it is, and God pretty much tells you what the truth is.

When you yield to Him and what you allow His Holy Spirit to lead you and guide you in what you're reading.

And you know, if you have questions, I say it all the time. Come and ask.

If you don't want to ask me, go ask Mr. Wendt.

Ask Mr. Johnson. Ask Mr. Brahmuller. Ask someone.

Don't rely on your own understanding. The Proverbs tells us what to do about when we rely on our own understanding.

Find someone else that you know is solid in the truth.

And have them show you. Run by them. They're not going to condemn you. They're not going to yell at you.

I'm not going to yell at you. All we want is people to be spiritually healthy and to learn.

And if there's a question that comes up, and believe me, there are plenty, plenty of things out there in the world today that affect every single person.

Every single one of us. Every single day.

Ask. Ask. Don't let it go undetected. Don't let it grow and grow and grow until it becomes a problem.

But when? When it happens. And when you see the truth. Dismiss it.

Let your spiritual immune system zap that abnormal cell of that abnormal seed that's been planted in you.

Itching ears. That can be a symptom of a religious type of...

A doctrine doesn't have to be like a totally different doctrine. It's just a little different.

Just a little different than what the Bible teaches or what you've been taught. That's all Satan cares about.

It's just a little different. We are here to know the whole truth.

There's another symptom right there that we can look at ourselves as.

Itching ears is one. They will heap up for themselves, teachers.

You notice that again? I'll choose my own teachers. Not the ones that God gives me.

I'll heap up for my cells, teachers. I'll go and find them and I'll listen to what they have to say.

If we find ourselves doing that. Finding our own teachers that say what we want to hear.

Ah, we might think, there's a problem here. There's a problem here. Cancer is growing. I need to arrest it.

And they will turn, he says, their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables.

Fables.

And I think he means the word fables. Not truth.

Imagination, fantasies, the thoughts of some man rather than the thoughts of God.

Let's never let that happen to any of us.

You know, I'm not going to take the time to read 2 John 1, 4 through 10.

I've read it before where John, the Apostle John, talks to the lady.

And he talks about staying with the truth that she has been called to.

And he talks about those who have turned away.

And what he says, if anyone even comes to your door preaching another gospel than what you've been taught, don't let them in. Remember those verses, right?

And yet all day long, some of us will let, or we could all let, the Internet in.

We could let the TV in that are preaching all sorts of different lifestyles, doctrines, and things that we should be aware of.

Because God's called us to be pure, blameless, obedient, following His word implicitly. Let's go over to Hebrews 13.

Go to Hebrews 13. Mark down 1 Timothy 4.1 as well.

I read that a couple weeks ago about having your conscience seared.

That would be another thing if we are doing things that no longer make us feel guilty. If we are deliberately, you name it, you know, looking at things on the Internet, we shouldn't look at.

Breaking the Sabbath, doing whatever it is, and it no longer affects us.

Wow! Spiritual cancer is there. God gave us a conscience, and His Holy Spirit gives us a conscience.

It's a very valuable thing. We should never violate it, and we should never sear it.

We should let it guide us, and when we know we're doing something wrong, we should immediately stop.

We shouldn't go in and say, just this time, because when we sear that conscience, and it no longer promotes the feeling or elicits the emotions or the truth to us, we've become a sorry person.

Where was I going? Hebrews 13. Hebrews 13, verse 9.

Another symptom.

Don't be carried about with various and strange doctrines.

For it's good that the heart be established by grace, not with foods, there is a spiritual comparison which haven't profited those who have been occupied with them.

Don't be carried about. You know, there was a time, and I know you all had a time when you knew this was the truth of God, and you knew there was a choice that you had to make. You either had to reject God and choose the world, or choose God and reject the world. All of us here have rejected the world, I hope, and that we're committed to rejecting the world and choosing God every day the rest of our lives.

It's a choice that we make.

But some people will hop, you know? Some people will, and sometimes I look at some back, I'm not talking about anyone here, so don't even begin to think that I have anyone in mind as I'm speaking to this, okay?

But I've seen people that kind of hop here, hop there, hop here, and then after a couple years, three years, you know, sometimes they want to hop right out of here into something else.

Maybe they were Methodists, maybe they were Catholics, maybe they were Presbyterians, and then maybe they were Messianic Jews, and they were that for a while, and then they were here for a while, and then they go to Judaism for a while, and then they go to something else for a while, and it's like, wait a minute, wait a minute! You find the truth, you stick with it, you don't get carried away by everyone.

The doctrine, you know what the truth is, and you stick with it. You know the truth, and you keep the truth.

Paul tells us, God tells us, Jesus Christ would tell us, you hold on to that truth, you don't sacrifice it for anything.

It's the most precious thing you will ever have. Not your own ideas, not someone else's ideas, not what someone told you on the Internet, not what the friend at work said.

You stick to what the truth of the Bible is, and you don't ever let go of it, no matter what the cost.

Don't be carried away. Don't hop, hop, hop. God says, establish. He says it right here in this verse.

It's good that the heart be established by grace, established by His Spirit.

He puts us where He wants us, and He wants to make us into who He wants us to be.

Our job is to let Him, and to make the choices that allow that to happen.

2 Peter 2 I'll just read a couple verses there, then I will wrap up. 2 Peter 2 verse 1.

There were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be, Peter says, he saw all the same thing happening in the churches he was in, even as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction.

Even the very basis of religion, denying the person, denying the one who bought them.

So many times it's secret, secret ideas that are passed between here and there. Secret ideas. Be aware of secret ideas. Someone comes to you with a secret idea?

Tell them to go talk to one of the people I mentioned, me, or one of the elders or deacons here.

If they don't do it, you bring it to them. Don't let cancer grow in them if you can be part of what could interrupt that cycle.

Don't let it ever become part of the church and spread like some of the churches that we read in the Bible have happened.

Let's keep the church pure. Let's keep it healthy.

Let's keep it free. And we all are our brother's keepers to watch out for those things because we all love each other.

We all want each other to be in the kingdom. And there's only one way there.

Let's go back to Titus. Titus.

Another of the epistles that Paul wrote to a young minister that was beginning to become a shepherd.

And we find in verses 10 through 16, him talking about the very same thing that we've been talking about.

In these series of verses, we find some of the symptoms that we've been talking about.

We find out some of the remedies and things that we've been talking about that we should do.

And how we must resist this as well. Verse 10, Titus 1.

There are many insubordinate those who have their own ideas who don't want to fall in line with what God would have done.

There are many insubordinate idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision.

Of course, he's talking about the old Jewish religion who wouldn't let go of that doctrine, even after it was clearly shown that physical circumcision was no longer necessary.

There are many insubordinate, both idle talkers and deceivers, whose mouths must be stopped, whose subvert whole households, because it's about I.

I want people to know what I believe, whose subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of dishonest gain.

And gain isn't always money. Sometimes gain is, hey, you know what? I've got someone to believe.

Check. There are many people who believe what I say now.

I'll just keep my little scorecard here. That's dishonest gain.

One of them, a prophet of their own, he gives a very good example here.

One of them, a prophet of their own, said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons.

Paul is saying here, this is one of the things that would even mean spread around there.

And then in the next verse, he says, he doesn't agree with the guy.

He's saying, I'm telling you the truth. Yeah, even this, even this was said, and some people would buy what they had to say.

This testimony is true.

Therefore, rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the face.

Why would we ever rebuke someone? That they may be sound in the face.

Why did God, or why did Paul, this fellowship, the man in 1 Corinthians 5, because he wanted him to be sound in the face.

And as you read through 1 Corinthians 5, and later when we read 2 Corinthians, you'll see that it worked exactly the way that it should have.

Rebuke them, where am I?

Therefore, rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the face, not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn from the truth.

To the pure, all things are pure.

But to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure.

I don't want to believe what the Bible plainly says.

There's something more to it. But even their mind and conscience are defiled.

They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him.

I remember these words coming up from the book of life, becoming of those who wouldn't be in the book of life, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work.

Someone who has let spiritual cancer grow in their life.

Let's finish in 2 Thessalonians.

Another epistle of Paul.

What do we do to guard ourselves against spiritual cancer?

We know we turn to God, we recognize the symptoms, we help each other in that.

But we have to get on our knees and we have to ask God and turn back to Him and implore Him for forgiveness, repentance, and to turn to Him.

And in 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 9, something we've heard before, but we all must have if we're going to survive, because certainly between now and the time Jesus Christ returns, this type of spiritual cancer, I think it's going to be more and more one of the tools that Satan uses.

If he can just get people to believe just a little bit how many times did Jesus Christ say, beware of false prophets? Even the very elect, He said, would succumb to them if they didn't know who God was.

It implores us all to know and understand and live what we read here in 2 Thessalonians 2, beginning in verse 9.

The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan with all power, signs, and lying wonders.

He will bring out the entire army, throw the people of God, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, among those who perish, because they didn't receive the love of the truth that they might be saved.

We have to not only know the truth, we have to love the truth. It has to become us. It has to define us.

It has to define our homes. It has to define what we do, our relationships, our communication, a relationship with God that is growing closer and closer all the time, not one that just is on a kind of one of those funny graphs that you see, lying graphs that goes up and down, but one that is continually growing in closeness, continuing and increasing in knowledge and application of the Word and understanding the Word, because reading isn't enough.

Knowing and applying is what God wants us to do.

They would perish because they didn't receive the love of the truth that they might be saved.

For this reason, God will send them strong delusion.

Satan knows where we are. He knows who we are as well and what our weaknesses are.

He knows what kind of environment we create for ourselves.

God will send them strong delusion that they would believe the lie, that they may all be condemned, who didn't believe the truth, but had pleasure... Ah, there's that word, pleasure.

What do I want? In unrighteousness.

Well, may we all be aware of spiritual cancer.

And may we all continue to know God's Word, learn it, most importantly, apply it into our lives.