What the Heart Wants

That kind of leads into one of the things I want to talk about today. You know, as I was up there at the home office, I was thinking about what a privilege it is to be called to be part of God's church, to understand the things that God has called us to understand, to have the hope that we have, and to be able to work day in and day out, and to be led by His Holy Spirit. I think if we would just all meditate, you know, from time to time, on the importance of God's calling and how great a calling and what a blessing that is, you know, we wouldn't have trouble.

We wouldn't have trouble praying and we wouldn't have trouble studying and we wouldn't have trouble yielding to God. And it's something that we really do need to think about. We really need to stay close, you know, stay close to God. We live in a dangerous world. We all know we live in a dangerous world.

I think, you know, as I read the prophetic times last night, we haven't, you know, seen the news much in the weeks that we were gone, but looking at that brought it back to reality again, what kind of world we live in, you know, with brutal groups out there that really don't want anything except, you know, their own way and to enforce their will on everyone else. You see all the things that are going on in the world and it's a dangerous place.

And here in America, my guess is you can listen to the news and you wouldn't have any idea. If you didn't read some of those articles in the prophetic times, you know, what the world outside or outside of America really was like. So I hope you read that. You take to heart what is going on and where the direction the world is going in. But it is a dangerous place even beyond the brutality and the forces that we see and play.

You know, Satan is our greatest enemy and he is very much interested in your life, very much interested in my life, and he would do anything. Anything, literally anything to take us away from God, to take us away from our calling, to have us leave the path, to stray, if you will, and to no longer be on this path that God has called us to. And that's a very dangerous thing and we have to be aware of what the devices that Satan uses are. We talked about that in times past and some of the devices we've talked about.

Let's go back to Matthew 24. Of course, the Olivet prophecy and Jesus Christ said timeless words when the disciples asked him, you know, what will be the sign of the end of the age? What will be the sign of the time of your return? And in verse 4 of Matthew 24, Jesus answered and said to them, Take heed that no one deceives you. Take heed that no one deceives you. And of course, as you go on through the chapter, you see that he's talking about false prophets and there are those who would deceive us, who would lead us astray, who would have us leave the truth or misunderstand the truth that God has called us to.

And in very many ways he's talking about this, but you know, deception is more than just others deceiving us. Certainly that's part of us. That's part of it. There are others who would deceive us and lead us from God's truth. You know, we could also become deceivers if I hope never would happen to any of us, that we would be some that would deceive others. But the more danger, I think, or a real danger to all of us is that we could deceive ourselves. We could deceive ourselves.

You know, this word, decease, that Christ said here, comes from the Greek word planao, or planao, P-L-A-N-A-O. Here's what the meaning of the Greek word planao is. That is translated, deceived, here, and translated that in many places in the New Testament. It means to go astray, get off course, deviate from the correct path, roam into error, or just wander off. So when we are deceived, we leave the path that God has put us on. He called you and me. We responded to that call, and he put us on a path that should lead if we follow him directly into the kingdom.

But if we're deceived, if we deceive ourselves or if we let others deceive us, we wander off that path. Whenever we wander off that path, that's not leading to the kingdom, it's leading to someplace else. No place that you and I want to be, because where we want to be is going straight forward to the kingdom. I won't turn to Isaiah 53, verse 6, but you can mark that down in your notes.

Probably when I said, go astray, you thought of a verse that we read at least once a year at Passover time, when it says, we all like sheep have gone astray. In times past, we were all off the track. We all were off the mark that Jesus Christ had set for us. We were deceived. But it's him who called us out of that deception. It's him who brought us back on to the path.

And whenever we read the words, because there are many of them in the New Testament, don't be deceived. Don't always think that it's someone from the outside that's going to try to deceive you. Sometimes we are our own worst enemies. Let's go back to 1 Corinthians 3. 1 Corinthians 3 and verse 18.

We read these verses last time I was here, when we were talking about the temple and how God is building a spiritual temple in all of us. It says that there in verse 16, and Paul reminds people, you're the temple that God is building today. Don't defile that temple. Keep clean. Keep it holy. In verse 18 he says, let no one deceive himself. Don't let anyone deceive himself. Don't let anyone talk himself into going off of the track, going off of the road, veering off in another direction. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, he says, let him become a fool that he may become wise.

Don't be deceived. Don't deceive yourself. That may be the most sorry kind of deception at all, just when we let ourselves.

We're all deceived at some time in our life, even if we grew up in the church. There were times when we deceived ourselves into things and justifying to ourselves what we were doing just wasn't that important that God just didn't care. And that he would be okay with it as long as this other stuff was okay. Let's look at Titus 3 and verse 3.

Before we acknowledged his calling and committed ourselves to him and told him that we wanted to follow him the rest of our lives and all that that means. Going on in verse 4 says, He saved us. He rescued us. He gave us the hope of eternal life. We should never be deceived. And we certainly should never allow ourselves to be in any kind of situation where we would deceive ourselves and justify in our minds some thing that would take us off the track that God has put us on.

So many times when we deceive ourselves, it's because of something that we hold near and dear to our hearts. Our hearts are what God looks at. He says back in 2 Samuel that people look on the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.

And it's our hearts that he is looking to change. It's our hearts that we need to yield to him. But our hearts, no matter how long we've been in the church, they're still in process of being changed. They're still in process of, and there are things that need, that are in there that can lead us astray if we let them. Let's go back to Jeremiah 17. A memory verse, you all know where I'm going, Jeremiah 17, 9, that really tells what man's heart is about.

Jeremiah 17, verse 9 says, It says, See, that's deceitful. Deceitful among all things. It's desperately wicked. Who can know it? Even sometimes we don't know our heart. We don't even know what we're capable of. We don't even know really sometimes what motivates us. What is the thing that we really, really want? And when we really, really want something, mankind is pretty good at figuring out a way to justify his will.

I don't want you to think that I listen to pop music a lot because I don't. But when we were in Cincinnati, Debbie mentioned to me, Debbie mentioned to me a song that she heard on the radio. And I don't know if you've ever heard this saying, you know, something I heard years ago, and the older I get, the more I realize how much truth is in it.

The saying is, the heart wants what the heart wants. It means if we want something, if the humans want something, they will find a way to do it, even if it's not the right thing to do. Well, the song, the title of the song was, The Heart Wants What It Wants. And, you know, she told me about the song, or thought it was interesting, that here's a saying that we've talked about, and there's a song by it.

Well, I was in one of the vehicles driving to where I was saying one night, and then the car radio was on. And I really never listened to the radio, but it didn't occur to me to turn it off, so I just left it on because it was on. And you know what song came on?

The Heart Wants What It Wants. Now, you know, so my ears perked up when I heard it, and I thought, ah, this is the song she's talking about. Now, for you younger people, Selena Gomez. Selena Gomez is who sings the song. And I listened intently to the words because I thought, I wonder what she's talking about in this song.

Well, she was talking about this, I guess, boyfriend that she has. And if you know modern culture, as I've learned, she does have a notorious, I guess, kind of boyfriend. But in the song, she was talking about how there's a million reasons why this should not be the guy she's with. He has bad news all around and boom, boom, boom, and she knows that she shouldn't be with him. But the Heart Wants What It Wants. And so, she was going to stay with him. Even though she knew the outcome was probably not going to be good, the Heart Wants What It Wants.

And in the song, she justifies why and the whole nine yards and whatever. And as I listened to that song, I thought, isn't that what we as humans do? We find something that we want, and we will find a way to make it happen or justify it or say in our minds, you know, this is good. This is why it is. She wasn't able to take the right approach and say, this isn't good. I need to weed it out of my lives. We need to learn how to do that.

What the Heart Wants, if it isn't in measure with God's Word, if it isn't along the path that God wants us to be following, we need to use his strength that he gives us through his Holy Spirit to say, no, that isn't going to be what I follow.

I'm going to follow the truth and follow him. So today, I want to talk about the Heart. And many times I'm going to talk about what the Heart wants, because as we examine ourselves, you know, we need to really know who we are, what the Heart wants, and we can ask God, what is it that my Heart wants?

If I'm at odds with something, what is it that my Heart wants? Because God called us, as I said, to have a change of heart, to put what his will is first, that what he wants is also what we want, sacrificing and laying aside and asking him to eliminate from our hearts those things that are going to lead, not to any good, not to any good at all. So let's look at a few verses where pleneo, the Greek word pleneo is, and we can see some of the areas that we can deceive ourselves in and talk about some of those.

Let's go back to James. James 1. James 1. This is one that, to an extent, we've probably all used an excuse in our life. James 1, verse 22. Now, one of the things, one of the things as a preface to this verse, is, you know, we all have good intentions, right? There's things that we say we're going to do, and, you know, we think we get points for that. Well, I was going to, and I'm guilty, I was going to call you this week, but I just was too busy.

Nice! But I didn't do it. No points, okay? And same thing with a number of things that we do. You know, one of our four children, he would always say, when I would ask him, is this done or why didn't you do it? His favorite response, and it's not the one son you know, but it was, I was going to. I was going to. And I thought, man, I want to just have that emblazoned on your forehead.

I was going to because, you know, I had the right, I had the intent. I was going to. I just haven't gotten to it yet. And we would talk about that and talk about that. And you know, I will have to say, in his defense, as he's gotten older, he's realized that's one of the things and now he just does it.

And he's a very, very good employee and very good, very good father with his children and does, by and large, the things that he says he's going to do. But in verse 22 of James 1, that's kind of what it's talking about. Good intentions. Verse 22, it says, Be doers of the Word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. I mean, we're all here because we've heard the Word. We all believe what we've been taught. We know this is the Word of truth. And that there's so many things in God's Word that maybe we think we get points just for knowing it. But we don't really do it, right?

Maybe those are the things that we think, well, I'll get to that tomorrow. I know I need to pray every day, but you know what? I was going to, I was running late for work. It just wasn't time for it. But I was going to, so that counts for something, right? No. God says, Be doers of the Word. If you know to do it, our job is to do it. Not just be hearers, not to just sit and soak it all in, not to be able to repeat it back and think we get points for that.

He wants us not to say, I was going to, he wants us to do. And so many times we can use, I was going to, I know that. I know that's the truth. I know I should be. And somehow to think that that's okay. God says, if we do those type things, we're deceiving ourselves. And that's maybe the worst kind of deception, because it's a very sad type of deception.

We convince ourselves that just knowing is enough. But I don't read that in the Bible, and I don't think you do either, if you know the Bible. Verse 23, If anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he's like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. For he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. He sees, he sees the dirt, he sees the tousled up hair that isn't in place, and yet, meh, I'll just go outside anyway. And if people don't like it, they, you know, whatever.

He observes himself, immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, he does it. He yields his life to God. He gives his heart to God. He asks God, sincerely, change my heart. Change what I think. Change my will. Or let it be replaced by your will. He who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work. This one will be blessed in what he does.

So one of the ways we can deceive ourselves is to say, we know it. I've read the Bible before. I don't need to read it every day. I mean, how many times can you read the Bible? If you read it through several times, do you really need to read through it again? I think you know the answer to that. Every single time you read the Bible through, you learn something new that you didn't see before.

As long as we live, we will see something new before letting God lead us, and as His Holy Spirit is there. So it's never good enough to say, I've read that before. Read it again. Study it again. Read through it again. Let God work in your life again. And there's many other areas. I'm going to give you three words. I know there's at least two of these words get people's attention when you mention them. One of them I know you're thinking about.

We may get to that one in a minute. But the first word I want to throw at you is money. Money. Now, people will look up. Ah, money. We all need money, right? And for some people, the heart really wants money.

We all need money. God expects us to work. He blesses us with those things. But for some people, money is one of those things that they really, really, really want. And it's a problem for them. It becomes almost an obsession with them. And they're willing to justify what they do, thinking it doesn't hurt, it doesn't really matter. But they learn, or should learn, that when God says, be a doer of the word and that we yield our heart to Him, that sometimes, well, most of the time what our heart wants, remembering it's deceitful and wicked, we may want to compare it to what God wants.

Let's look at an example of this. Let's go back to John 12. This is an example here of Judas, Judas who is not known for the good things that he did. He's remembered for an almost unthinkable thing that he did. And Judas, we could say, had a real issue. What his heart was into was money. He really liked the money. And he walked with Jesus Christ for three and a half years. He was with him. He heard what he said every day. But you know, somehow he never asked Christ or he never dawned on him.

This is a problem. What my heart wants isn't in concert with this man is teaching us. Let's look at verse 4 of John 12. This is, of course, in the occasion where Mary is anointing Christ with a very costly ointment. And Judas, who really knows money very well, knows this is not an inexpensive anointment that is being used. And so he looks at that and thinks, wow, that is a lot of money to be spending on, on something that we're anointing his feet with or wiping his feet with. Verse 4, one of his disciples, Judas the Scariot, Simon's son, who would betray him, said, Why was this fragrant oil not sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor?

Well, that's a noble thing, right? Well, why are we using it this way? Why don't we just give it to the poor? He might justify in his mind that that was a good reason to ask the question. This he said, verse 6, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief and had the money box, and he used to take what was put in it. So what he was really interested in was that money. Why are we using this money on this? If I could just get my hands on that money somehow, wouldn't that be a better use for it? And so he foiled his question with one that we might think is of noble purpose, but we see what is in his heart by the question that he did. And it tells us here, even though he had that box, he was taking money out of it, even though he was walking with Jesus Christ, even though he should have known or should have been among those who knew that this was the Son of God, and yet he had no problem doing that. And Judas never arrested what his heart wanted. He just kept letting it build. And he just kept letting it build, and it led to far worse things. Let's go back to Mark 14. Mark 14 and verse 11. You know what it led him to do. Let's read verse 10. It says, Then Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, went to the chief priests to betray Christ to them. And when they heard of it, they were glad, and they promised to give him money. So he saw how he might conveniently betray Jesus Christ. Thirty pieces of silver. Now, somewhere along the line, Judas knew these people, they just want to arrest him. And he convinced himself, well, this would be okay. You know, he probably lulled himself to sleep thinking, you know, what all they're going to do is bring him in, they're going to yell at him, they're going to tell him not to do the things that he's doing anymore, they're going to tell him to stop saying the things that he did. And who will be the wiser? What harm will it be if I just turn Jesus Christ over to them? And I get what my heart wants. I get thirty pieces of silver. They're willing to give me thirty pieces of silver to do this. And if you think about what Judas did and how he convinced himself to do this, he let his heart deceive himself. It doesn't really matter. No one will be the wiser. I'll get what I want. Nothing's going to really happen to Jesus. Christ, they're not going to do anything to him. But you know what the end result of that was. Go back to Matthew 27.

Matthew 27, he did exactly what he said he would do, even when Jesus Christ at the last Passover pointed out to him that he knew he was about to betray him. He still went and did it because he thought it's the right thing to do. It satisfied what his heart wanted. And he had found a way to justify in his mind to do the thing that he wanted and think that he was okay. In Judas' mind, he was okay at the time he did it. Matthew 27, verse 3. He did that. He turned Christ over to the chief priests and the elders. It says in verse 3, Judas is betrayer, seeing that Christ had been condemned. He stood by and they saw, he saw, whoa, they're not just chastising him. They're not just yelling at him. They're going to put him to death. He saw him scourged. He saw everything. That this was far greater than what he ever anticipated. In his mind, it was just a little thing. Just turn him over, let him get yelled at, I get him the money, and everything will be fine. But he looked at it and thought, this is out of control. He's been condemned. He's going to die. Judas was remorseful and he brought back those 30 pieces of silver. They weren't so important to him anymore. He brought them back to the chief priests and elders, saying, I've sinned by betraying innocent blood. And they said, what is that to us? You see to it. And Judas threw down the pieces of silver in the temple and he departed. And he went and he hanged himself. He hanged himself. What his heart wanted led to his death and led to the death of Jesus Christ. Of course, that was prophesied, but what his heart wanted didn't take him where he wanted to go. He was on the path. He had an opportunity like you and I have an opportunity, but what his heart wanted, what his heart wanted, led to his demise, his physical life ended, his physical life ended, perhaps his spiritual life as well. You know, the Pharisees were like that as well. Let's turn over to Luke 16. When we talk about the Pharisees, we'll come back to them in a few minutes. There were things that their heart wanted, and one of them was money as well. Luke 16 and verse 10.

Jesus Christ speaking of after a parable.

And verse 10 says, The question we can all ask ourselves, right? What price, or if this is something that's in our hearts, the money? What price is the money? What price is the money? What price, or if this is something that's in our hearts, the money? How would we justify? Someone says, just work on the Sabbath one time, and I'll pay you triple time if you do that. Just this one time, I won't ask you ever again, triple time, quadruple time, ten times, whatever it is. Would you do it? Would you think, how could that hurt? God understands that I really have these needs. I really could use that extra money. And it's just one time. Would you do it? How about cheating on income taxes? Expense reports? Anything along the way? What is it? What is it that you would do? Is money, is job, something that's so much in your heart that you would put what God says behind what your heart wants? Judas did. And the end thereof, as we saw, was the way of death. So money can be one of those things that our heart wants, and we can justify, and we can make a story around it and convince ourselves it's okay. Let me give you another word. Sex. Sex gets everyone's attention.

Let's turn back to 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 6. Then we read these verses last time I was here when we were talking about building the temple. The temple that God is building in us. Let's see what Paul says about these things. Let's pick it up in verse 9 of 1 Corinthians 6.

He says, Don't you know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Well, that's what you and I are here for. The reason we're here is we are following God with the goal of being that He will give us the kingdom of God. Don't you know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Don't be deceived. Don't convince yourself otherwise. Don't think that God is okay with a little sin here and a little sin there. Don't be deceived. The unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.

Now, if you list all those qualities out that Paul is talking about, most of them pertain to what? Money and sex. Right? Because he knows there's a lot of people that that's what their heart wants. And when our heart wants something, we will convince ourselves. We will create a story. We will justify actions that we do and think it's okay with God. He understands. He understands, and He's not going to hold us accountable for it. Now, we know as we read through these things, we should know anyway, that certainly, you know, and Paul says here in verse 18, flee sexual immorality, flee fornication. We know those things, but let me throw out a word that has become quite prominent in today's society. Pornography. Pornography is there, and you know what? It is easily accessible. You can access just about anything you want on your home computer. Don't have to go into a store. Don't have to rent anything. Don't even have to pay any money. I guess. And yet, in society, people say, not a problem. Not hurting anyone. God doesn't care, right? That's just something that we do, but how is that hurting anyone if I do that? And some of God's people might convince themselves of that. It's not hurting anyone. I'm not doing – I'm not with another person. It's just me. God is okay with it. He understands. Does He? Does He? Or is it what our heart so wants that we would be willing – that we're willing to make up anything? If we convince ourselves, it's okay. I'm okay. Everything is okay. And yet, if we look around society, it's not infrequent that we can turn on the news at night. And we can find some principal or some teacher who's gotten themselves in a lot of trouble by not heeding these words, right? Could be with a student. Could be just pornography. It's not unusual that you turn on the TV and find that someone has these images on their company computer. They get discharged. Their face is on TV. Boom, boom, boom. A tough thing. They convince themselves it's okay. How about in the church? Do you know people who have committed these things? And they're either not here with us anymore, or they've had some consequences in their lives that aren't great. Somewhere along the line, they convince themselves it's okay. God understands. I'm doing everything else right. It's just this little thing. He doesn't care. Or it's not that important. He does care. What our heart wants leads to death. What our heart wants, if we follow it and don't check it and don't give our hearts to God and understand they are deceitful and wicked, can take us right off that path that God has put us on and we will never be in His kingdom. We can't follow what our heart wants, and we have to understand what our heart wants when it's in contrast to what God wants and ask Him for the strength to not do that anymore or not to yield to that anymore. For everything we do, there is a consequence. Let's turn back to Galatians 6.

Galatians 6, verse 7. A well-known verse, but it begins with the same admonition that we've been talking about. Galatians 6 and verse 7. Don't be deceived. Don't let others tell you it just doesn't matter. And don't tell yourself it just doesn't matter. The standard to which you and I are measured are not against what the world would say is right and wrong. It's against what God says is right and wrong. Remember, we talked about that, too. That we are measured against the stature of a perfect man, measured against Jesus Christ and the perfection that He lived on earth. Verse 7, chapter 6 of Galatians, Don't be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, that He will also reap. Judas learned that the hard way. Others have learned that the hard way, that couldn't or didn't let go of what their heart wanted in a sexual area, or any other area that you can fill in the blanks in, because I couldn't stand here and elucidate every single thing that our heart wanted.

But those are two common ones. And even if you read...well, let's go back to Ephesians, Ephesians 5. We're there in the book of Galatians, one book over is Ephesians. Paul repeats the same thing about the warnings of those who won't be in the kingdom. Again, in verse 5 of Ephesians 5, he says, For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of God, or in the kingdom of Christ and God.

Let no one deceive you with empty words. Don't deceive yourself with empty words. For because of these things, the wrath comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore, he says in verse 7, don't be partakers with them. Don't be partakers with them.

There are those who are telling you, it's okay, and you're running with a crowd that says, really? I mean, come on, this is 2014. You're living by something that is antiquated. Really, is that the type of people? God says, don't be partakers with them.

In 2 Corinthians 6, he says the same thing. He puts us in a body where we have fellowship with one another. People who believe the same things. People who are led by Jesus are led by the Spirit of God. People that we can identify with and who can be an inspiration to us, a family that he puts us into. He says, don't be partakers with them.

Let's go back to 1 Corinthians 15, because I want an interesting little comment in the midst of the resurrection chapter in 1 Corinthians 15.

Paul is talking about the first Adam. He's talking about Jesus Christ. He's talking about the first resurrection, those who will be resurrected at the time of Christ's return.

In verse 33, he says this, he says, don't be deceived. Don't deceive yourselves, he might say as well, because someone else might tell us. But he says, don't be deceived. You don't deceive yourself.

Evil company corrupts good habits. Fair and black and white. My grandmother used to say when I was growing up, I didn't really understand it when I was growing up. Later on in life, I did. They used to say, you can't lie down with dogs and not come up with leaves. Ever hear that one? They were from the South. So they had a few quips. They had a few quips like that. They didn't understand what they mean. If we are around people who espouse totally different values than us, and I'm not saying we disassociate ourselves from anyone that we work with, go to school with or anything like that. But if that's who we want to be around, if that's who we seek to be at with, you know, we've got to realize, don't deceive yourself. Evil company corrupts goodcit. We might want to examine that and not let those type of influences be in your mind. You ascribe to a higher calling. You ascribe to the calling that God gave you to be in His kingdom. Pure thoughts is what He wants us to be thinking. Bring every thought into the captivity of Jesus Christ, He says. And if the people you hang around all the time, if that's who you choose to hang around, it's going to be tough to do that. Don't deceive yourself and think that I can do it. I can withstand it. The results aren't that. Aren't going to be. Aren't going to be what you think when we follow what our heart wants.

Let me throw out another word. Gossip. Gossip is something that's kind of juicy. It's kind of fun to hear things about people, right? Sometimes gossip can just be rumors. Other times it can be people who are just looking for things that they can talk about.

Ferrissees. The Pharisees were that way. You know what they did with Jesus Christ? He was a frequent topic of conversation for them. What He was doing and how He was going about doing it was something they liked to talk about. And they were looking for things.

Let's go back here to Luke 20.

Let's see a little bit of what the Pharisees did. We know that one of the things their heart wanted was money. Here in Luke 20, we find some of the things or one of the things that they would do to Jesus Christ. Luke 20 says, they watched Him, and they sent spies who pretended to be righteous that they might seize on His words in order to deliver Him to the power and the authority of the governor.

They wanted to know what He was saying. They were looking for something. He was under a microscope.

Jesus Christ, as He walked on earth, He was healing people. He was the perfect example of love. He was speaking with authority. He opened the Scriptures. The Pharisees heard the same things the other people did, but you know what? They didn't want something.

Their heart. What their heart wanted was for this man not to be the Messiah. They didn't want Him to be the Messiah.

Now, why would that be? Because their heart wanted the positions they were in. They liked their life. People looked up to them. They were running the show.

And this man, this man who was coming in, who was healing the sick, who was a perfect demonstration of love to the people around Him, He was threatening that position.

They should have known. All they had to do was ask them questions. They supposedly knew the Scriptures, and they could have put two and two together and said, This man is the Messiah. There's no one like him. He speaks with such authority. He heals the sick, but what did they do? They watched every word He said, if they could just catch Him in something that they could accuse Him of. And so they talked about it a lot.

Even when He healed the sick, they called Him Beelzebub.

Why? Their heart didn't want Him to be the Messiah. Their heart wanted things to be just the way it was.

Now, I don't know if they began that way and didn't ever arrest it, but you know what the end result of their heart was.

Let's go back to Mark 7. Mark 7, verse 1.

They seized on His words. They watched His actions.

It was even so ridiculous that we have this event here in Mark 7 and verse 1.

The Pharisees and some of the scribes came together to Christ, having come from Jerusalem.

And when they saw some of His disciples eat bread with defiled, that is, with unwashed hands, they found fault.

They even watched how His disciples ate their food.

What? How can they be a Christian if they didn't wash their hands all the way up to their elbows? Are you kidding me?

That's what they were looking at. Anything to discredit Him, because they didn't want Him to be the Messiah. They didn't want to yield to Him. Their heart wanted things to be the way they were. They liked their life. They liked being in the positions they were in. And so they allowed their heart to look and analyze.

Do we ever do that? Do we ever do that?

Do we cease the truth in something, but we just don't want it to be that way?

Hold that thought, and we'll come back to that a little bit later. But the Pharisees, they were following what their heart wanted.

And they deceived themselves. And they convinced themselves that this man, called Jesus Christ, was evil.

And that he needed to be put to death for the good of the people.

Matthew 26.

It progressed, and it progressed.

And in verse 59 of Matthew 26, we find Jesus Christ, who has been betrayed by Judas. He's brought before the chief priests and the elders.

And they're all accusing Him. And they're looking for something to put Him to death. Verse 59. The chief priests, the elders, and all the counsel sought false testimony against Jesus to put Him to death. But they found none. Even though many false witnesses came forward, they found none.

But at last, two false witnesses came forward and said, This fellow said I'm able to destroy the temple of God and build it in three days.

Now, you know what he meant when he said that, because we've talked about it very recently.

And the high priest arose and said to him, Do you answer nothing? What is it these men testify against you? But Jesus kept silent. And the high priest answered and said to him, I put you under oath by the living God. Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.

And Jesus responded, It is as you said. Nevertheless, I say to you, hereafter, you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the power and coming on the clouds of heaven.

He spoke the absolute truth.

And look at what the reaction of the chief priest or the high priest was. The high priest tore his clothes saying, He's spoken blasphemy. What further need do we have of witnesses? Look, you heard his blasphemy. What do you think? They sought and they sought and they sought because their heart wanted him gone. They wanted Christ dead. And they answered and said, He's deserving of death.

He's deserving of death. What their heart wanted, what their heart wanted, they followed their heart. And it led to the death of Jesus Christ.

They may have thought that their lives would go on just as they always did. That they had secured their place in the temple, that they had secured the priesthood. That things would go on the way they always had. They thought that they had accomplished their mission.

But, not so. Let's look back in Luke 19. Luke 19, verse 41.

Jesus Christ, as he's drawing near to Jerusalem, lamented over it. Luke 19, verse 41, it says, As he drew near, he saw the city, and he wept over it, saying, If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace, but now they're hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you, and close you in on every side. And they will level you and your children within you to the ground. And they will not leave in you one stone upon another.

You'll reap what you sow. Don't be deceived. And he was telling them everything that they held so dear, everything that they were willing to sacrifice him for, that temple, not one stone, will be left upon another. And it happened that way. Forty years after Jesus Christ was crucified, armies did surround Jerusalem. That temple was torn down. The Levitical priesthood ended. And it hasn't been put back into place to this day.

Everything that they fought for, everything they had sacrificed for, they lost. It wasn't there. When we follow what the heart wants, it never pays off. It never leads to life. It always leads to death. Look at the last part of that verse. Let me read verse 44 over again. Christ saying, they will level you. They'll level your children within you to the ground. And they will not leave in you one stone upon another because you did not know the day, the time of your visitation.

The truth was right there in front of you, and you didn't realize it. You didn't grasp it. You followed what your heart wanted rather than discerning the truth, sacrificing your heart and your want, and following the truth. Following. And they used every means to justify to themselves what they were doing, deceive themselves into killing the Messiah. A tough lesson, a tough lesson to learn. We could do the same thing. We can deceive ourselves into believing something that isn't. We can look at the truth and see it in the Bible and decide it's something that we just don't want.

We just don't want it to be that way. Let's go back to Matthew 22. See Christ's words here when he's addressing the Sadducees. The beginning of chapter 22, and the verse is leading up to verse 29 where I'm going to read, you see that he was talking to them, and they were asking quires about the resurrection.

And it tells us in verse 23, the Sadducees don't believe in the resurrection. It's there in the Old Testament. You can prove there's a resurrection. And back then, Job was there. They knew the Scriptures, but they didn't believe in it. And they were asking Christ about, hey, this woman who married seven brothers, whose wife would she be in the resurrection?

Again, looking to trap him in something. And in verse 29, Christ answered and said to them, You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. You're mistaken. You don't know the Scriptures. You don't know the power of God. Now, that's the word that he uses in the New King James. If you go back to the Young's literal translation of the Bible, word for word, as well as it can be, from Greek to English, it says this.

It says, you have gone astray, not knowing the Scriptures or the power of God. You've gone astray. Greek word, pleneo, P-L-A-N-A-O. You've gone off course. You don't know the Scriptures. You don't know the power of God. The Geneva Bible and other translations say, not you are mistaken, you are deceived, not knowing the Scriptures or the power of God. It's a pretty powerful statement Christ made. What should that tell us? We'd better know the Scriptures.

We'd better know the Scriptures. We'd better have our eyes in the Bible. We'd better be studying them daily and studying them more than just once, but going over them and over them, that God would know, or that we would be letting God open our minds to the concepts that are on here. You are deceived, not knowing the Scriptures. You've gone astray. You're believing there is no resurrection because you don't understand what you've read, is what Christ is telling them. That's a pretty powerful verse and a pretty powerful concept, right? It'll prove to us that we should be reading the Bible. If Christ can say, you're deceived, you've gone off course.

You don't know the Scriptures because for you and me, He's opened our minds to know the Scripture. There is no excuse for us because His Holy Spirit will lead us into understanding. The Sadducees didn't want to believe in the resurrection.

Their heart was, we don't want to believe this. And so they didn't. What about us? Are there things that we don't want to believe? You know, the last two or three, four years, I've seen this. I've seen this happen with some people. There were concepts that are taught, concepts that are clear in the Bible, concepts that people understood, and then somewhere along the line, they read something, they think something, and all of a sudden they're making excuses as to why this that the Bible says just isn't what the Bible says.

And I could name off some things to you, and you would probably recognize some of the things that people have gone astray over. And they're no longer sitting here. They knew the truth, but there were just parts of Scriptures like, my heart doesn't want to believe that. There's got to be a way around that.

You know, Christ says about our hearts. He looks at our hearts. Remember, He says in Matthew, out of the abundance of our hearts, we speak. And I'm beginning to see that that's true. Sometimes I visit someone and a comment gets made, and I think, I see your heart. I see what could happen here. We have to watch what our heart wants. We can deceive ourselves, and we can find anything in this day of the Internet to justify our position. And if we don't know the Scriptures, if we aren't looking at the Scriptures, if we aren't asking God to open our minds to those Scriptures, if we aren't reading those, getting our heart out of the way and our belief that we don't want that to be that way, if we want something to be just this way, we can deceive ourselves and find ourselves right off course, going in a totally different direction, not in the kingdom of God anymore, but in a totally different direction.

It's a very sad thing to see that happen. But the Bible says it will happen. And we live in a time where it can easily happen, because there's all wealth of information that's out there. Let's go to 2 Timothy 4. 2 Timothy 4. Paul writing to Timothy, who is going to be a minister here. 2 Timothy 4. Let's look at verse 2. Paul writes, and he says, Preach the Word. Preach the truth. Tell them the truth. Be ready in season and out of season. Convince. Rebuke. Exhort.

With all long suffering and teaching. Be patient. Keep working with them. But tell them the truth. Let them see the truth. Make them believe the truth. Let them see the Scriptures. But there's a part that everyone, you and me, have to be yielded to God that we see the truth and ask Him to see the truth. Convince. Rebuke. Exhort. With all long suffering and teaching. For the time will come, he says, when they will not endure sound doctrine. They won't want what the Word has to say.

They won't want what the Bible has to say. But according to their own desires, see that? According to their own heart, what their heart wants, what they want to believe, their private interpretation of something. And it must just be that way, because I want it so badly, I will find any justification or means to make it so. The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine based on the Bible.

Looking at it with both eyes wide open, looking at it with the eyes of God's Holy Spirit, and letting Him impart the understanding. But according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers. They'll find the justification.

They'll bring to you this, this and that and whatever to convince you or try to convince you because they're trying to convince themselves this, this, this and so. And they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables. What a sad situation. What a sad situation to be called into the truth, to be given the greatest gift God could give us, to open our eyes, to call us, to open our understanding, give us His Holy Spirit, and then not believe what He wants us to believe and not do what He wants us to do.

To make excuses for not doing the things that we, the Bible clearly says we should do, or for not believing the things that the Bible says to believe. The time will come. Now, that time is among us now. Let's go back to 3 John. 2 John, I'm sorry. 2 John has only one chapter. John, the Apostle, walked with Christ for three and a half years. He remained committed to the truth right until the end of his life.

He was committed to other people following the truth. He watched these things happen as the 60 years from the time that Jesus Christ died, 60 or 65 years until He died, He watched what was happening in the church. He saw people deceive themselves. He saw them go off of the course that they had been called to. And it hurt Him, and it pained Him. He's writing to a lady here who has kept the truth in 2 John.

Verse 5, let's pick it up there. He says, Not as though I wrote a new commandment to you, but that which we have heard from the beginning, that we love one another. The same truth that God called us to is the same truth that we're preaching today.

The same thing you've been called to, lady, that's the same thing I'm telling you. It's here in His Word. This is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it.

Verse 7, Well, that was something that happened at that time. What would it be today? Today it might be people who say, the Bible? Come on, it's just a collection of books by separate authors. How can you believe that one book is the Word of God? Really? You really believe that Jesus Christ is coming? Do you really believe that the country is in bad shape as it is? Do you really believe that God is going to hold us all accountable for the things that He said? It's 2014. It's not the 1800s anymore. It's not 30 AD. There's a whole number of things that people could deceive us with, things that we could put in our minds, things and arguments that we can hear and say, is it really that bad? Do I really need to do that? Many deceivers, verse 7, have gone out into the world. You do not confess Jesus Christ is coming in the flesh. Jesus is a deceiver and an antichrist. He's preaching and He's doing something different than what Jesus Christ stands for. Look to yourselves that we do not lose those things we worked for, but that we may receive a full reward. Look, lady, He's saying, hold on to the truth. Don't be deceived. Don't deceive yourself. Don't be let off by some fable or something that is really based on your heart desire and not on truth. Don't lose what God has called you to because we can't lose it. That's a common thing in the world, right? Once saved, always saved. The Bible preaches anything but. We can lose our salvation because God calls us to endure to the end and He calls us to live the way of life and to grow in grace and knowledge. Verse 9, Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. Do you believe that? Because I'll say that, you know, in talking to people, I will hear things that so-and-so said this. And isn't this true? Isn't this what we look at? And one of the questions I ask myself is that I'm not going to be able to believe that.

And one of the questions I ask myself is does that person abide in Jesus Christ? Does that person keep the Sabbath, for instance? Does He keep the Sabbath holy? Is He sitting, worshipping God? Every Sabbath just as God commanded. Very simple command to keep. But the answer is no.

I look and I think, well, whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. So if He doesn't have the truth, and if He's not living by the doctrine, why would we put a lot of stock into what He says? Now, there's books out there, and we can glean some insight into that. But I wouldn't use what someone said to change my mind about what the Bible clearly says because they have a different interpretation unless they're living by the Word of God.

That is every commandment. I would ask, well, does the church you go to keep any of these pagan holidays? Does it keep Christmas? Well, if it does, I think, well, you don't have the doctrine of Christ, therefore you don't have God. So I would probably look at that and say, not truth. Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son.

Verse 10, if anyone comes to you and doesn't bring this doctrine, if he's not bringing the truth, if he's not teaching the truth of the Bible, and if he's not living it, if anyone comes to you and doesn't bring this doctrine, don't receive him into your house or greet him, for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds.

That's what he's telling this lady to the elect lady and her children. Why even listen to it? He doesn't have the truth. Get your nose back in the Bible. Get your knees back on the floor and ask God for the understanding to lead you into the truth. Look at the doctrine of those who are keeping. Just as Jesus Christ did. And we can say, don't let him in the house today. Boy, we let everything into our house, right? I can sit every Sunday morning and I can flip channels and I can hear any doctrine that you want to give me or that I want to give you. I can go to the Internet and I can find any opinion on anything on the Bible.

I could bring you here and prove to you the Bible you don't even have to pay attention to or anything that you want to hear. If I want to convince myself that something isn't true, I can find that. But John says, don't even let him into your house. Use the Bible as your source. Use the power of God, as Jesus Christ said. Understand the Scriptures. Get your nose back into that. You're deceived because you don't know the Scriptures and you don't know the power of God.

The power of God, one of the things that parts is understanding. It will lead us into truth. The Internet is not going to lead us into truth. A church that keeps Christmas isn't going to lead us into the truth. A minister that doesn't even keep the Sabbath day into truth. The Bible is going to lead you into truth. The Holy Spirit is going to lead you into truth. That's where we find.

Don't even let these other things into your house. Now, I listen to things once in a while and it's interesting some of the things that are out there. But I never put any stock into it. I always look at the source and, you know, I think I mentioned here. I heard a well-known minister talking about the Sabbath, talking about it in glowing terms. And I thought, well, this is interesting. But then he came down to the conclusion. After all the great things he said, but today we don't have to keep it. And I thought, wow! Wow! You know, what do I waste my time for? I thought he was going to maybe have some revelation here of something that he was doing.

It's like, but we don't have to keep it today. I thought, why do I waste my time? You know? Because he doesn't preach the things of God. So it's not wrong to do that, but don't put your stock into that. All it can do is lead you away. You can deceive yourself. But we have to know what's in our hearts. What do we want? And we have to ask God, actually, that was the wrong side, wasn't it?

We have to know what's in our heart. We have to know what's in our heart and ask God to put in our heart what he wants in our heart and to recognize when those things are different than what his will is. Because the heart is deceitful. The heart wants what it wants. But what the heart wants, our natural heart, is not good for us at all. One more. One more, and then I'll stop. Let's turn to Ephesians 4. We could go on and talk about these things, but you know, you can think about some of these things as well.

When you read the word deceived in the Bible, don't always look at it as someone deceiving you because we could deceive ourselves. Ephesians 4, verse 11.

Well-known scriptures, I'm going to read through it quickly. God establishing the body that he has put us all in. And in that body, there are things that he wants us to work together on. It says, He gave himself some to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the work of service. That's the word that should be there of the saints. For the work of service, for the building up, edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

And then he goes on and says that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting. But speaking the truth in love, that we may grow up in all things into him, who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effect of working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

A lot of words. Go back and look at those. Jesus Christ called us to a life of service. Jesus Christ didn't come to be served, he came to serve. He was the chief servant of us all. And he puts us in a body where we grow. That's the purpose, to grow in love. That our hearts will be changed because God looks at the heart. And in that body, there are jobs that have to be done. We have people that, well, not here, but we have people that, in some congregations, set up chairs, clean up the hall, set up the potlucks, collect the songbooks, pass out the songbooks, print up the bulletin, keep up our internet.

To all the things that have to be done as part of the work, those are all good and noble things. Those are things that have to happen. The body works together to do those things. And nothing I say from this point forward should negate any of that. God wants us to work, and it's healthy to be involved. It's healthy to participate.

It's healthy. And when we become part of the body, we want to serve in the way. Because I believe that every single person sitting here today, and even those that aren't here today, that should be, there's a part that God wants them to play. We can't be part of the body if we're simply not in the body. But He's called every single person, and there's a part that He wants us to do because we all work together. And there are all jobs to do, different talents, different capacities that He gives us. That's good. That's great.

That should happen. Let God use your talents and use those to serve other people. But just like the world is a dangerous place and our heart can be a dangerous place, there can be danger in that as well. Because, let's go to Galatians 6. Let me preface what I'm going to say with what Galatians 6 here says. We were in Galatians 6 once before. In verse 7, now we'll be in verse 3. Galatians 6 and verse 3.

If anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. He's gone astray. He's gotten off the mark. When anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. There's a danger where we can almost develop a resume-type atmosphere and say, you know what? Look at all the things that I do. I do this.

I do that. I've done this in the past. This is who I am. Boom, boom, boom. And you know what's happened in the church, and I think back of, not recently, but in years and decades past, that I think people looked at their resume. Look at all the things I do. And somewhere along the line, they forgot. Just doing those things. It's good. God says he calls us to do those things and to serve.

But somewhere along the line, they forgot the weightier matters. They forgot that we still have to pray every day. We still have to study God's Word every day. We still have to be letting him change us every day. We still have to be seeking his will every day. And just because we do these things, physical things, it's great. But God's not a God who, when we stand before him one day, that we can whip out our resume and say, but look, I did this and I did this, and people wanted me to do this and this and this.

Don't you realize all the things that I did? Christ, it's like I'm looking at your heart. What's in your heart? That's the thing we can never lose sight of. Do all the other things, but never lose sight of the fact that what God is looking at is in our heart. Let's go back to Matthew 7. Matthew 7, verse 21. Well-known verse, but one that we should keep in mind. Verse 21, chapter 7, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven.

When we read words like that, when we read words that say, this person will not enter the kingdom of heaven, we should stop and think, is that me? Could that be me? Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven.

Remember James 1, 22 to 25? Doing the things that God says. Not just hearing, not thinking that you're okay, not thinking you know it all and that's enough and you don't have to learn anymore. We all learn, right, until the time that Jesus Christ returns. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name? Weren't we out there every week saying this and saying that and doing this? Come on!

Doesn't that count for anything? Haven't we prophesied in your name? Didn't we cast out demons in your name? Do you remember when we did that? Look at what we did. We were doing all these things. We were casting out demons in your name, too. And done many wonders in your name? Look at my resume! Come on! I will declare to them, Christ says in verse 23, I never knew you.

I never knew you. Wow, those words will hurt. Wow, those words should pierce us. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. Somewhere along the line, those people deceived themselves into thinking that they're okay. They had done all these things and that those things replaced the heart and letting God change the heart. How sad is that? How sad is that that we would lose the focus of what we have been called to? It can happen if we deceive ourselves. If we don't ask God to give us, as David said, a clean heart, to open our minds, open our hearts, and to replace our will with His. As Paul said, don't deceive yourself.