The Ten Great Heresies, Part 2

We're ready now for the main message for today. Some have said they're looking forward to part two of the subjects that we've been covering, the Ten Great Heresies. Part two. This past Sabbath, we covered the first five heresies. Remember, the term heresy means a false teaching according to the Bible. Everything that is not taught in the Bible, it can be a counterfeit, it can be something similar, but it is not taught in the Bible.

Of course, one thing is to know these heresies. Another thing is to be able to explain them in a clear and logical way. And so the purpose of this message is to give you the tools to apply these explanations when asked. We talked about tools, and the first message, here are some more of these biblical tools so that we not only know what is the truth about things, but also how they have been covered up or exchanged for other types of teachings. Actually, it's not complicated. If you just let the Bible speak for itself, if you take the Bible at its face value, you will come up with many of these truths. The problem has to do with unlearning what had been previously taught. That's very difficult. Tradition and history and how things have been taught in the past many times hinder a person from going forward.

So I'd like to, first of all, cover these first five heresies that we talked about last week. Rehearse these first five heresies or lies because they are.

The first one is that the Ten Commandments have been done away with. That's one of the greatest lies in the entire Bible, that somehow the law now has been done away. We don't have to worry about the Sabbath, or we don't have to worry about these Ten Commandments anymore. Somehow they think that Christ's teachings annuls or replaces them when actually Christ's teachings only magnify these commandments, but He didn't change any of them. The second heresy is the one where Sunday replaces the Sabbath day, the first day of the week, which in the Roman times was dedicated to the Sun God. They put it first there because they thought it was the most important of the celestial objects, so the first day they dedicated it to the Sun God. And they replaced that with the seventh day, the day God rested called the Sabbath. That's the second great heresy. The third is when they Christianized pagan holidays to replace God's holy days. When they started changing the calendar and replacing the seven holy days of God with the equivalent seven or more of their holidays based on pagan teachings. The fourth is the idea, once saved, always saved.

That salvation, once you declare Jesus is your Lord, somehow when you make this statement and then you are accepted and you are saved and once saved, always saved. That's another heresy because the Bible says that you can forsake your salvation. You have to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

It says you can quench the Holy Spirit. That means a person can't put it out. A person can lose their spiritual instinct. That's what I call it. When God gives you that spiritual instinct, you understand God's ways. You understand his truths. Like other people, do not have that spiritual instinct, but it can be lost. You can quench or put out God's Spirit, and that spiritual instinct disappears. You no longer have that attraction to God's truths and that understanding of how they work. Then the fifth, great heresy, has to do with the Trinity, replacing the concept of the God family, which is taught throughout the scriptures. Yes, there is one Godhead, which means there is one family. There's one unity where the two work together. They have the same spirit, but there are two persons that are separate. But there is a certain unity of mind. That's why Christ said, my father and I are one. But that term, one, does not mean that they're one being, but they are one in harmony and unity. Just like in John 17, Christ explained that they can be one as we are one because we share that same harmony, the same attitude, the same way of thinking. But that doesn't mean we all become one being.

And so that is the fifth of the great heresies that has been taught and people have been deceived through the centuries. But there are five more which I want to cover today. The last six, or well, the last five, but beginning with the sixth one here. So there are five of them, but this is the sixth one, where the immortality of the soul replaces the death sleep and the resurrection. So the immortality of the soul replaces the biblical teaching about the dead sleeping and one day being resurrected. Now this idea of the immortality of the soul is one that as scholars have developed more their teaching, they really are admitting more and more that this is not a biblical concept, that this is actually something, and they trace it to the Greek immortality of the soul. I'm going to quote a couple of authors about this. But the immortality of the soul was clearly not an Old Testament concept.

It came from Greek philosophy and for the first two centuries of Christian history was powerfully resisted, yet slowly it crept in and was accepted more and more by apostate churches, those that veered, and they accepted this heresy.

The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, for instance, says, quote, We are influenced always more or less by the Greeks, by the Greek platonic idea that the body dies, yet the soul is immortal. Such an idea is utterly contrary to the Israelite consciousness and is nowhere found in the Old Testament. And of course the Old Testament is the basis for the New Testament. So here, this very authoritative and scholarly encyclopedia says that concept cannot be found in the Old Testament, the immortality of the soul.

So where did it come from? I'd like to quote from the Seventh-day Adventist historian Samuel Bakkioki. He says in his book Popular Beliefs, quote, This teaching of the immortality of the soul found its way first into Hellenistic Judaism, especially through the influence of Philo-Jadeus and later into Christianity, especially through the influence of Tertullian, Origen, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas. Those four, in different stages, first beginning in the two hundreds, where they meekly started to introduce the immortality of the soul. It had been rejected even by the second century, the two hundreds, by even who became Catholic theologians. Those were not things taught previously, but with Tertullian, Origen in the late, well, early 200s, Augustine in the 300s, and Thomas Aquinas in the 1200s.

Bakkioki continues, saying, These writers attempted to blend the Platonic view of immortality of the soul with the biblical teachings on the resurrection of the body. So again, they attempted to do this. Another quote from a theologian that's more recent, Paul Althos, in his book The Theology of Martin Luther, says Paul speaks of the resurrection not, quote, of the body, but of the dead. Thus, the original biblical concepts have been replaced by ideas from Hellenistic, Gnostic dualism. This body and soul, they're separate, the soul is good, the body bad, that's what replaced the original biblical concepts. The New Testament idea of the resurrection, which affects the whole man, has had to give way to the immortality of the soul. That was not originally taught, but it is today. That is a great heresy, and people still believe the great majority of Christians today. Let's look at some scriptures here on this sixth heresy, Matthew chapter 10. How do we refute the concept of the immortality of the soul? Matthew chapter 10 verse 28.

Crisis says here, And do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul, but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. The term gehenna, or the referring to the lake of fire. So the soul can be destroyed. It's not immortal. Immortal means it cannot die. It is eternal. But here it says that the immortal concept is false, that the soul can die. And there's a way of understanding this, and that is that for every human being, God has given us two different lives.

The first one is this physical life, which will either end in death or the coming of Jesus Christ. And then you have a second life. Now that second life is the one where a person is resurrected, and you can either be resurrected in the first resurrection, in the second, or the third. But everybody has a right to be resurrected. And so if a person is resurrected and eventually is sentenced to death in the lake of fire, which is called the second death, there is no more life to that person. But everybody, from Adam to the last person that will ever be born, does have two lives. This is just the first one. But it does not end with this life, because there will be a resurrection, a second life to live. Notice in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. This is one of the best scriptures that can be used, in my opinion, on this subject. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 13.

Paul is talking here about what happens after death to two members in particular. It says in verse 13, But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep. This is what the Bible teaches that a person who has died falls asleep or in an unconscious state. When you go to bed, you wake up later, and you have gone unconscious during that period of time.

So he says concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest use sorrow as others who have no hope, because some people think that there is no second life. They think this is the only life you get.

And so they sorrow as if that person is never going to live again. Verse 14, it says, For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who sleep in Jesus. This is an important scripture because it tells you when it happens. It doesn't happen right after death. A person doesn't go conscious, kind of like into an immortal soul. It says that even so, God will bring with him, talking about Jesus Christ, those who sleep in Jesus.

So when is Christ going to come? And those are going to be brought with him at his coming. That's when the first resurrection takes place. Verse 15, it says, For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, that's his second coming, will by no means precede those who are asleep. It means that those who are asleep are still asleep. They have not awoken yet.

But when Christ comes, it says, verse 16, For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. So that's why the Feast of Trumpets has that symbolism of Christ's coming. And the dead in Christ will rise. First, it doesn't say those that are alive in their souls. No, they are dead, and they will rise first. That's talking about those that are faithful, who died in the faith. They will be resurrected. But it's not only those who have died in Christ, but those who are in Christ when he returns. They have God's Spirit in them. What happens to them? Verse 17, Then we, because Paul thought that Christ would come in his generation, then we who are alive and remain alive shall be caught up together with them, with all of the resurrected saints, in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words. So that explains there's no such thing as an immortal soul, because if there was, people would be up in heaven with Jesus Christ and God the Father already.

And they wouldn't be asleep. They would be awake.

So you can see that that is a heresy, that is a lie, that has no basis in the scriptures.

Okay, let's go to number seven.

Heresy number seven is where going to heaven replaces the kingdom of God on earth. The idea of people going to heaven instead of the kingdom of God being and coming to this earth. See, once heresy number six was accepted by the majority of those who were false Christians, then where do you put them? Where do you put a person that dies and has an immortal soul? Well, now you've got to come up with these ideas that they're either going to go to heaven or hell or the purgatory. So that was the next teaching that came into church history. It started to be taught. Again, Samuel Bakiyoki is a good source. In his book, Popular Beliefs, he says, Tertullian was the first to formulate the teachings of endless torment for the wicked by applying the notion of the immortality of the soul to the saved and unsaved. He expressly taught that, quote, the torments of the lost will be co-eternal with the happiness of the saved. So he says here that when a person dies, if he's sent to hell, those torments are going to be eternal. Just like the people that go up to heaven, they're going to have eternal happiness. So he started coming up with this false concept.

We can see that Christ taught something very different in Matthew 6, verse 10. We're reminded of this when we pray to God. Matthew 6, verse 10, Jesus Christ instructed us about praying, quote, Your kingdom come. Your kingdom come. Not we will go to your kingdom. Oh, we're looking forward to going up to heaven. Now he says, pray your kingdom come. That's the biblical teaching. It's coming here. We're not going up there.

And why did this happen? I thought this is best described by a commentator that we recently covered in the book of Hebrews as we were covering chapters 4 and 5. G. H. Ladd, in his commentary on Hebrews, and by the way, that's on a PDF file. You can download his whole commentary. I recommend look up chapter 4 and also chapter 11 of the book of Hebrews. This G. H. Ladd, he denounces why this millennial hope is not taught today by the traditional churches. So here's a scholar, a Protestant scholar, and he admits that his churches are not teaching the right things, and he's railing against them for that. He says the following, he says the following, quote, by the third century, which remember is talking about the 200s A.D., the hope of the gospel, talking about the kingdom of God, had been too generally abandoned. Though those other Christians that had abandoned them still professed the faith. They avowed or they accepted salvation to come through Christ and his death, but had given up on his return as the true hope of a Christian. You see, they quit believing about the coming kingdom of God. As a consequence, he goes on to say, the many who named the name, talking about Jesus, readily accepted the proposal of the world to become the official state religion. And the presence and the power of God in those churches that did so soon ceased, because you see, they had become a worldly church. They united church and state, and now they weren't looking toward the kingdom of God. They were saying the kingdom of God is amongst us. It is the church. So from basically the second century, and then the third century, with Augustine, his famous book, The City of God, where he's saying the city of God is the church, and it's going to grow, and it's going to expand, and it's going to convert everybody.

And then, lad continues, quote, thenceforth it has been the minority that have confessed the hope of that kingdom of God, and walked in Abraham's path as a stranger among the peoples, and always it has been among such, among those who teach about the kingdom of God, that the spiritual glory of God has been displayed. So that's a pretty strong admission, where he says it's this minority who did not accept this concept of going to heaven, and or that the church is the kingdom of God. Those are the ones who would have the spiritual glory.

So we are part of that group that still faithfully teach the coming kingdom of God. We are waiting for that kingdom to come. We're not waiting for us to go up to the kingdom of heaven.

We're going to be covering a little bit of this in the Bible study next week, God willing. The Anchor Bible commentary, which is quite a scholarly commentary on Hebrews 11, 10 through 16, says the following. This is another admission. He says many scholars spiritualize, quote, the city which had the foundations, close quotes, making the contrast instead between the land of Canaan and heaven. So you see, they spiritualized this, that the kingdom was going to be the one that's up in heaven. Spiritualizing is something God prohibits in the Bible. You take the word of God as it is written according to its intention. Don't spiritualize and say, oh, this is just some symbolic idea of us going up to heaven. He admits many scholars have done this. And then he quotes a scholar called Delich, who said, quote, it must be confessed that we nowhere read of the patriarchs that they expressed a conscious desire for a home in heaven. That's a good point. Did you ever see in the Old Testament, David saying, oh, Lord, I'm just waiting to go up to heaven or any of the patriarchs? You don't find that anywhere.

If it would have been a biblical teaching, then you would see that they're looking forward to going up to heaven. In this commentary, it goes on to say, there is no indication that the author of Hebrews was contrasting his earthly sojourning with a heavenly habitation. Notice no indication that these men that were looking forward to that coming kingdom, that they were thinking they were going to go up to heaven. Neither did Abraham consider himself to be a sojourner or a pilgrim on earth whose home was in heaven, that that was the goal he had to get up there to heaven.

The author of Hebrews had basically one hope or aspiration, receiving the promised land in its full glory and prosperity. This was called inheriting or acquiring the promises and entering into the rest, talking about the coming kingdom of God. They were looking forward to having that city that was the Jerusalem that the Messiah would come and establish on this earth, and that they would be part of that coming kingdom here on this earth, not up in heaven. It says this is what was called inheriting or acquiring the promises. So again, this is a key understanding because the book of Hebrews is constantly talking about the rest that is coming, that procure yourself not to miss it, and it's talking about not being in the kingdom of God.

That you can forsake or you can be eliminated from that coming kingdom.

Notice in Matthew 6, verse 33, what did Jesus Christ instruct us to look forward to? But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. That's what the promises are based on, seeking, being part of that kingdom of God, not seeking being up in heaven. And yet, as clear as the scriptures are, people have it completely wrong. They are still thinking of going up to heaven. Okay. All right, let's go on to heresy number eight, which is infant or child baptism replaces adult baptism. Infant or child baptism replaces adult baptism. I put here include child because some people say infant kids should not be baptized, but hey, how about a 10 or 12-year-old? Oh, that's okay. That's still a child. It's still someone who cannot understand what true repentance and fully accepting the commitment to follow God the rest of their lives. So infant or child baptism should not replace adult baptism.

Bakioki, again in the same book, Popular Beliefs, mentions, it is significant that baptism in the New Testament is always linked to the command to repent and believe in Christ, something that infants can't do. And of course, to understand repentance, you need to have an adult mind. You need to come to the understanding of what breaking God's law is all about and having a maturity to truly repent. It's not just saying you're sorry, but actually applying the will to change your life. Notice in Matthew 28 and verse 19. Matthew 28 and verse 19. These are the last words in this gospel. Jesus said to his disciples, Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

So in order to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, you need to be observing Christ's commandments.

You need to understand the teachings. You have to understand the basic principles before baptism can take place. And when a person is preparing for baptism, we ask them to cover lessons 8 through 11 in the Bible study course, which we have available online. Just go over what does it mean on water baptism? What does it mean repentance? What does it mean to receive God's Spirit and how it is a way of life? Those are important fundamentals. You can't have a 13-year-old kid studying all of these and understanding and having the maturity to do it. We don't send a 13-year-old to war. We don't give them a driver's license, but here you're going to give him the baptism to receive God's Spirit and to be responsible for it and to take care of it the rest of your life, not on your life. We can't do that. So baptism is necessary to become a disciple of Christ, and we need to be observing first His commandments. A child can't fulfill these requirements. So infant or child baptism is not something taught in the scriptures. I was reading today about that, that one of the explanations they gave, especially during the Protestant years when the Reformers Luther and Calvin, why they accepted infant baptism. And another group who were the Anabaptists who did not accept it, they were persecuted by Calvin and Luther and others because they said, look, if we don't baptize them while they are children, then we can lose them later on in life. But if we baptize them when they're very young, they already are established, and they will stay. If they're Lutheran or they're Calvinist, get them when they're children. And of course, Catholic Church still baptizes when they're only eight days old, usually, because they want to have people established in their religion. It's a state religion. This is what they're taught. And by the way, the Muslims do the same thing. They induct their children into the Muslims when they are tiny little children. They're not dealing with adult conversion at all. Why? Because that's the way you get the masses. That's the way you just multiply through procreation, multiplying the people. Don't worry about what they believe later on. We've got them in the roles. They're Catholic or they're this or they're that, and that's what they've already become members of. Well, that's not the way the Bible tells us that we should make our own minds. And let's notice in Luke chapter 14 in verse 26, these are the requirements for baptism. Luke chapter 14 in verse 26.

He said, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his father or mother, Matthew 10, 37, explains this term. It doesn't mean to hate. It means to love less. If you do not love less your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. It has to be a conscious effort that we're going to put God first in our life. And that's not easy to do. That's probably the hardest decision a human being can do, because it is giving away his own rights and putting God first. What he says first, we're going to say to him, yes, sir. Yep, we voluntarily enrolled in your army, in your church, and we are going to abide. We have placed you first. I was thinking this morning about people that have been in the military and how from the civilian life they come in, young reclutes, they're pretty undisciplined. They've been able to do whatever they want. Boy, when they come up into the military camp, the first thing that Sergeant does is he lets them know who's in charge, and they will have their wills broken. You will obey the army, whether you like it or not, and you have to wake up at six o'clock in the morning at bugle. You got to have breakfast at seven. You got to be doing your exercises as eight. Everything is regulated because you're in the army. Well, as a Christian soldier, we don't have hourly schedules, but we have been broken voluntarily to say, yes, sir, your will and not my will. God doesn't want anybody that is going to fight him, that hasn't given himself voluntarily up. They're not ready for it. God's not going to have some spoiled person that just says, well, I accept you, but halfway, or until it's convenient for me. No, this is serious. You have to love your father, mother, wife, children less than God. It doesn't mean you don't love them. I love my wife dearly. I love my children. I love my grandchildren, but they know. I love God first, and I will obey him first. If you get yourself behind between a rock and a hard place, you have to choose following God. He goes on to say, and whoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Talking about the sufferings of this way of life. Not everything is a gravy train. Not everything is wonderful. We are going to go through different sufferings and trials, and if we're not able to bear them, he says you shouldn't be baptized. And we cover this. This is my number one point of 12 different points that I go over when a person is going to be baptized. Luke 14, 26. Are we willing to count the cost? He says, verse 28, For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it, lest after he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying this man began to build and was not able to finish. So again, something that it takes a mature mind. A baby or a child is not ready for baptism. And so that deadly heresy of infant or child baptism has duped so many millions of people, billions of people, I would say, around the earth.

Now we go to the ninth heresy, which is the new covenant eliminates everything of the old covenant.

Oh, this is a clever one here. The new covenant eliminates everything of the old covenant. In other words, if you get duped into this, well, we're in a new covenant now. We don't have to worry about anything about the old covenant and the old testament. This is something absolutely new. We were starting from zero.

That's ridiculous and pretty simple to refute when you go to the scriptures. Let's go to Hebrews chapter 10, verses 11 through 22. Here it's discussing the new covenant, what it is, not what they want you to believe it is. Here we have the definition and description of the new covenant, Hebrews chapter 10, starting in verse 11, talking about the old covenant. In Hebrews 10, it says, And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.

But this man, talking about Jesus, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till his enemies are made his footstool, for by one offering he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.

So it's a process, but we always can use that sacrifice of Christ for forgiveness. Verse 15, But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us the same here synonymous for God, for after he had said before, This is the covenant that I will make with them. So here talking about the new covenant. This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord. I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them. Then he adds, Their sins and their lawless needs I will remember no more. Now where there is remission of sins, of these, there is no longer an offering for sin. So yes, the old covenant was based on animal sacrifices, a priesthood that was physically offering daily sacrifices for the people. Well, that now has been replaced by Jesus Christ as our High Priest and His sacrifice instead of the offerings. So the new covenant has to do with a new priesthood, with a new sacrifice, but God's laws dealing with the Ten Commandments, with His holy, just, and spiritual law is going to be inculcated, internalized, written in our hearts. So if the old covenant has nothing of use, what do you do with all those laws that are supposed to be written in our hearts? So there are, of course, new elements to the new covenant, but God's laws are still to be observed. Notice in verse 19, it says, Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us through the veil that is His flesh, and having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. So again, there's a new way to come, but God's law is holy. It is just. It is good. So don't let anybody confuse you. The new covenant has the old covenant's laws that are holy, just, and good, and they are now to be incorporated in us through God's Holy Spirit. We are to keep God's laws in spirit and in the letter. Notice in Revelation 22.

Well, let's go before that. Hebrews 13.4. There's another scripture here I wanted to mention beforehand. In the same book of Hebrews, if the old covenant included all the laws that now have been abolished, how could the same author write in verse 4, marriage is honorable among all and the bed undefiled? In other words, sexual intimacy within a marriage is good. It is something blessed by God is honorable. Nothing undefiled about that. It says, but fornicators and adulterers, God will judge. So here we have again the seventh commandment about not committing adultery.

And if the old covenant has been removed, the laws, there is no basis in order to condemn somebody committing adultery or fornication. In Revelation 22 is another good scripture along this line. Revelation chapter 22 verse 14 and 15. This is the last chapter in the Bible.

You think that this is where God's revelation is ending, and yet it doesn't talk about abolishing God's laws. All the contrary. Notice where it says in verse 14, blessed are those who do his commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. But outside are dogs and saucers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters and whoever loves and practices a lie.

So again, all the commandments are in force, and you have to be keeping them in the letter and the Spirit. So you see the new covenant contains God's Ten Commandments, but now they have to be kept not only in the letter, but also in the Spirit. That is the main difference because people in the Old Testament didn't have the Holy Spirit.

They couldn't be held responsible as the New Testament Christians are responsible to be keeping it in the Spirit and not only in the letter. That takes us to the last of these ten great heresies, and it has to do with the lie that all foods are okay and that this replaces the biblical food laws. This idea that all foods are okay to eat now, replacing the biblical food laws. Throughout the Bible, God gives and expects His food laws to be respected. They are part of His commandments. They are not suggestions. Notice in Deuteronomy 14 in verse 12. Deuteronomy 14 in verse 2.

That's what I wanted to say. God is speaking, saying, For you are a holy people to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for himself, a special treasure above all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. So we are to be a holy people, separate. One of the ways that we are separate is by what we eat. Because the next verse, it says, You shall not eat any detestable thing.

These are the animals which you may eat. And then it enumerates them. Why? God says, because you are holy. You are a separate people. And so you are to eat the foods that I have sanctified, that I have made for your goodness. And so it has to do with holiness, keeping our bodies pure as the temple of God's Spirit.

I'd like to read to you from a book that I just finished the other day. It's called Shocked by the Bible by Joe Kovacs. Shocked by the Bible. How many have read that book? Well, it's on Amazon. You can get it at Kindle edition. I highly recommend it. We actually interviewed Joe Kovacs a couple years ago. Gerald Ost did it for the Good News magazine. And virtually the whole book is a defense of what we believe.

But he's not a member of the Church. He came independently to these conclusions. Now, surely he did read some of our literature, but he's not a Church member. And he wrote this book Shocked by the Bible. I'd like to read in the chapter where he talks about the foods and food laws in the Bible. He says, And despite some billboards you might see from people for the ethical treatment of animals, Jesus himself was not a vegetarian.

He ate plenty of animal meat during his life, especially during Passover, when it was commanded that a lamb be slain for the holiday meal. Now the festival of unleavened bread arrived when the Passover lambs were sacrificed, Jesus sent Peter and John ahead and said, go and prepare the Passover meal so we can eat it together. Luke 22, verse 7 and 8. But some argue that everything is permissible to eat. Since Paul wrote, quote, For every creature of God is good and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving. First Timothy 4.4.

They often fail to mention the next verse, which clarifies the meaning, for it is sanctified by the word of God in prayer. That's verse 5. Paul and Timothy had only the Old Testament as their scripture, since the New Testament had not yet been written. The foods approved for eating in the Old Testament appear in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. Eating puppy dogs, monkeys, and worms does not suddenly become permissible if a prayer is uttered. The foods still have to be set apart, sanctified by the laws of God.

While some suggest Jesus did away with Old Testament laws, he himself said the exact opposite, stressing that he came to show everyone how to obey God's law to its fullest extent. Think not, he said, that I have come to destroy the law of the prophets I have not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot, or one tittle, shall in no wise pass from the law. This is talking here Matthew 5, 17-19. Even in the future, when Jesus will come back to earth at his second coming, people who eat unclean foods are going to have a problem, at least according to the book of Isaiah. The prophet foresaw the end times and noted that God would slay many people at that time. He even made special mention that people eating abominations such as pig meat and mice will be in trouble to say the least.

He quotes Isaiah 66, 15-17, 16-18, For behold, the Lord will come with fire and with chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with the flames of fire. For by fire and by his sword will the Lord plead with all flesh, and the slain of the Lord shall be many. They that sanctify themselves and purify themselves in the gardens behind one tree in the midst, eating swine's flesh, and the abomination and a mouse, shall be consumed together, says the Lord. If Jesus had some point declared all foods clean, Isaiah's prophecy means nothing and merits no place in the holy Bible. The idea that some foods are clean and others are unclean is present in the whole Bible, not just the Old Testament. God cares about what we put into our mouths, not because he doesn't want us to enjoy his creation, but because he wants us to enjoy it rightly. And as most Christians have never thought about their diet, it's stunning to hear that the Bible speaks with one voice on the issue. So that's from the book Shocked by the Bible.

And we see that God means business. These are part of his holy laws.

So these are 10 of the great heresies that are found in traditional Christianity today. Now you know them, and I hope you can better explain to others that ask about it. Remember what it mentions in 1 Peter chapter 3. 1 Peter chapter 3 verse 15. We should prepare just like Mike Dothit mentioned in the first message about having the tools that God gives us in his Bible to teach properly in 1 Peter chapter 3 verse 15. It says, But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear, with humility, but with God's truth.

So let's quickly just rehearse these 10. The first one, that the 10 commandments have been done away.

No, that's not true. Number two, that Sunday replaces the Sabbath. That's not true. Three, that Christianized pagan holidays replaced God's holy days. That's false. Number four, once saved, always saved is also false. Number five, that the Trinity replaces the God family. We've seen that as false. Number six, today we've covered these last five. The immortality of the soul is false. It does not replace the sleep of death and a resurrection. Number seven, it's false that going to heaven replaces the kingdom of God on earth. Number eight, infant or child baptism, it's false that it replaces adult baptism. Number nine, it is false that the new covenant eliminates everything of the old covenant. And number 10, it is false that all foods are okay now, and that replaced the biblical food laws.

So let's finish with one last scripture in 1 John 2, verse 19 through 21. This sums up why we should be studying, why we should be understanding these wonderful truths of God, and also understand the heresies that are out there and why we should not accept them. In 1 John 2, verse 19, it says, Some will leave us. They will follow heresies. The world is very powerful, very influential. Some people don't study God's word with an open mind, with a desire to know the truth. Sometimes they get confused and start just believing things because of their friends or their peers. Verse 19, it says, Either they never had that spiritual instinct to go toward the truth or they dropped it. They quenched it. Verse 20, talking about God's Spirit giving us that Holy Spirit, and you know all things. You have that spiritual instinct of what is true and what is false.

That no lie or we can say heresy is of the truth. Yes, let's be thankful for what we know. It's not enough to know the truth. It's a lot more difficult to live it, to defend it, and to always grow in understanding more of it.