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you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you Amen. All right. This time I'm going to go through our announcements. If you do not have a bulletin, slip up your hand real high. We'll make sure that we get one out to you. Brother Carter's got some. He's walking around. Keep your hand up till you get it. If you open up to the first page, you will notice our service times there on the upper left. Sunday morning at ten thirty. Sunday afternoon again at four pm. Wednesday night at seven is our Bible study. We're in Isaiah twenty-eight this week. We've got the soul-winding opportunities listed there. As well as the salvations and the baptisms for the month of October. We had another baptism this morning. Praise God for that. It was good. And then let's go ahead and count up. Before we do today, anyone have anything to report from yesterday? I know we got the Saturday soul-winding group that there were six from your group. I got that. Is there anything else to report from earlier in the week? Anything other than today that we might have missed this morning? Okay, now how about for today when I'm soul-winding today, salvations? Okay, yeah. So far nobody's raised their hand, so I haven't... Amen. Someone got saved today. That's good. That's good. And I know I kind of cut the time short a little bit unintentionally going late on the soul-winding workshop. But I appreciate everybody sticking around and listening for that. And if you weren't here for that, check it out online. We stream the first and the second one, so they're available on the YouTube channel. So you can catch those and probably do one more. Yes, sir? Yeah, I got that from Joseph, so it's... Thank you. And then we got the offering totals on their bottom page for the month of October. Prayer requests. I don't have any real updates on anyone on the list. Is there anything to report? Anyone have any updates from people on the list that you need to... any changes to the prayers? All right, and then we did want to add Brother Mo for his liver problem. And I know for those of you who are in the WhatsApp group for the prayer requests that's been posted in that already, I apologize for not getting it printed in the paper, but make note of it if you don't already know that. And we're going to pray that everything will go well and that that could be treated and just handled. So we're praying for Brother Mo. Did I say liver? I'm sorry. I knew it was kidney. I even have kidney written down, and I haven't said kidney this morning. I don't know why I said liver, but thanks for the catch. It is a kidney problem. And it sounds like it caught a little early that, you know, obviously before it's extremely bad. So just pray that everything will go well and that everything could be treated and that God will heal. And then continue to pray for the churches in Australia that are going through the extreme lockdown restrictions there. And, you know, it's easy to say that and gloss over, but it really has a very significant impact on their way of life there on the churches, as well as just on the individuals, you know, people trying to work and live and survive. And who knows, we might be right around the corner with similar restrictions, too. I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen. I'm not saying that to scare you, just it may be a reality here as well. So please be in prayer for them that do have to deal with those things. On the next page, of course, this month, the month of October, is the Soul Winning Challenge. So the point is to add an extra hour to however much time you normally invest out soul winning. Regardless of the day you do it on, just make sure you're getting, you know, that extra hour in once every week. Okay, and you can't use the thing on Saturday and be like, okay, I got all my extra hours for the month in one day. It doesn't work that way. You got to at least add one hour per week, right? It's not an accumulation over the whole month. It's one every week, and that is the challenge. Soul Winning Marathon that I mentioned is this Saturday, and the itinerary is right there, so we're meeting up at 930 at that park. And try to get there as close to 930 as you can. You know, the earlier the better in general. There will be breakfast there waiting for you at 930. I believe the plan is to get some Chick-fil-A breakfast. Pastor Williams is working on the breakfast part of things. They're going to help with that. And then, you know, we'll get everybody paired up as quickly as possible and be out on the street hopefully by 10. That's the game plan. I did find, now he's going to go out and do some recon work to make sure that the areas that I picked on the maps were good. But I was picking areas that are good for strollers as well as, you know, apartments that may or may not have stairs. So, I'd thought about that for this event. So, if you're concerned about that, especially being out all day, one of the good things about the park, you know, Lord willing we'll have good weather. One of the good things about the park is if you've got little ones and kids, you know, you're like, man, we can't do this all day. There's at least, you know, restrooms. It looks like a clean place. You know, there's playground equipment. There's stuff to do and kind of have this home base of being around a park while other people are going out and knocking on doors and stuff. So, it should work out really well to try to accommodate for as many people as possible there. And then that's also going to be where we're going to be eating our breakfast and lunch. It's just the best place to be able to deal with a large group of people. So, hoping to see that. Now, I asked for a raise of hands this morning. Can I see another raise of hands again? Even if you raised your hands this morning, I want to try to get a really good count. If you plan on attending. Thank you. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you all very much. I got it. I'm counting families. So, if I see a hand, I'm going to assume that your whole family is going. If I see one hand, I'm going to count for that. So, roughly 35 people is what it looks like right now that's here right now at the moment that's planning on attending. So, that's really good. And I'm going to make note of that. Pastor Williams was asking how many people about were expecting. So, I'm hoping I might tell him 40 because I might miss some people that are planning on attending from this morning. I don't think so, but we'll see. Lots of stuff coming up. We had the workshop this lunch this afternoon. Do we have any leftovers from that? Does anyone know? I didn't see. Are there some? Is there a lot? A tray? Two trays? So, we'll put those out after service for you guys to take. And I'm just going to ask this, again, in the spirit of what I had said already during announcements this morning. Kind of go over some housekeeping stuff. If you want to eat after church, great, but if you could take the sandwiches. If you want to eat them outside, that would be preferable. You don't have to, but it's easiest to clean up if it's just already outside. You want to set up a table, fine. Not a problem. I'm not going to give you a hard time over that. It's just real easy to send sandwiches. If you want to take them outside and eat them, great. Easy cleanup, but if you want to eat here, that's fine as well. And drinks and everything else. So, first come, first serve. I don't know. There's not tons of people here this evening, so if you want sandwiches, again, help yourself. And please, if people aren't eating them, you know, I want them gone. I want those. I don't want to throw them in the trash because that's where they'll end up. So, I'm not taking them home, so just have at it. Alright, and then we've got the sewing marathon, chili cook-off, after the morning service. That's when we'll be planning to do it since October 31st on a Sunday. We're going to be doing that, bringing your chilis in the morning. And we'll plan on doing the competition. We'll do the judging. And the way that we do that is judges. Anyone who wants to be a judge can, but we need impartial judges. So, one, if you're a judge, you can't be submitting your own chili. That should go without saying, right? Two, if you're going to be a judge and someone in your family is going to be submitting chili, you can't know what it looks like or have tasted it or things like that. You've got to be able to be an impartial judge so you're not given preferential treatment to someone in your household. So, you're going to have to be willing to say, yes, I've kept myself from this chili, just like David's mighty men had to have kept themselves from women for at least those three days since they went and ate the showbread, right? So, if you're going to eat of the chili, you're going to have to have at least kept yourself from that chili to be a judge. And there are prizes. So, we do prizes every year for the best chili. And there's a payoff if you could win. But I'll tell you what, right now, the competition is stiff. We have excellent cooks in this church. Men and women, both. We've got people who know what they're doing with food. So, bring your A-game and join. And even if you don't, you're like, man, I'm not that good a cook, it's fun anyways. Enter the chili cook-off, it's more chili for all of us. Don't think that it's all just about winning, right? You could serve others and feed because we're all going to be enjoying of the spoils of the chili on that afternoon so we could eat that before going out soul-winning. And we'll have the church that's going to provide some other things to go along with the chili, like some hot dogs and some chips and, I don't know, whatever. A bunch of other sides will go along with that and some drinks and stuff, too, so it should be a lot of fun. You could read the rest of these upcoming events. I don't want to go into those in detail. We did that already this morning. Bible memory passage, brand new Bible memory passage, Romans chapter 4. Ten weeks to learn the entire chapter and if you could memorize the entire passage and quote it word perfect by the deadline, you will earn a prize. Now, I have some prizes for the last Bible memory passage and I counted six people and I don't have six prizes and I'm going to give you the option. If you completed it, I've got two prizes. One, we've already given these away before and if you either won another one or you didn't get one before, I'm going to hype these up because I think these are super cool, okay? You can hang these up like in a tent. It's got the light, three different brightness, and it's got the bug zapper. I know it's hard to see now, but it's got a little bug zapper on there, too, and it's rechargeable. I mean, these things are super cool. Even if you got one, I would understand you wanting to have another one just because they're that cool. If you completed the last Bible memory passage and you want either one of these or I found this Dunkin' Donuts gift card. It's an unspecified amount. I've gotten these for $5 and for $10 before. It's not going to exceed $10, I can tell you that right now. You can take your chances if you want that. Or one of these awesome lights or you can wait and get the mystery prize that I don't have yet because this bracket of prize, I need more of since there are six people that won. I've got five prizes up here that fall into this category of, you know, an 11-verse passage of scripture to memorize. The prizes go up as the difficulty level goes up for the Bible memory. So this is that prize. If you want to collect one of these and you were one of the six, come on up and collect your prize. All right, I see people getting up. That's a good sign. Hopefully you don't all want the Dunkin' Donuts gift card. Awesome. Oh, and I'm sorry, you know what, I forgot to get these out. See me after church, there are charging cables for these. I need to find out where they are. I just remembered that now. There are charging cables, they're in the office. I know for sure we have them, but you don't want to leave without them. Now they're like micro-USB or something, so I mean they're common, but I will give you that too. There's a little rubber piece here. Yeah, it's a little micro-USB. So you probably have a bunch of those already at home, but we'll give you another one. So four got collected. Did I count right? Is that right? Two, three, four. So we've got two holdouts, or they're not here, I don't know. Cool, well congratulations on that prize, on that Bible memory. Hopefully we'll see a lot more people doing Romans chapter four. On the back we've got the birthdays that are coming up in the month of October. Leslie, will you help me to remember, we have a lot of the people who have started coming to church recently, we don't have all their birthdays, would you help me remember to get those? Not required, but everyone who's been coming, if you haven't given us your information, we like to share birthdays and anniversaries and recognize those in the bulletin. So if we haven't, if we miss your birthday or something because we don't have it, I apologize for that, but we're going to try to get everyone's information and we'd love to get that, and if you know you haven't given it, you know, if you want to write down names and dates and drop it in the offering plate or something like that, I'd appreciate that. Otherwise we're going to approach you Gestapo style and be like, give me the birthdays. No, I'm just kidding. But that's about it for announcements, so right now I'm going to turn the service back over. Yes sir? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, thank you, thank you, thank you for reminding me. One last piece, this should only apply for this evening, for today. The big bathroom, we had to replace the door handle on there, and it's weird because when you, it locks just fine, so it'll lock so people from the outside can't come in, but when you lock it, the handle still turns on the inside. So it could be a little deceptive, you might think like, oh, this isn't locked, but it's actually locked on the outside, and the reason why I bring that up, because normally locks, when they lock from both sides, you know it, so when you leave you have to unlock it to get out. This one isn't like that, so it's easy to leave it locked, because you have to open up the door handle and go out, and then if you close the door, it's going to be locked from the outside with nobody on the inside. And it's a keyed lock, and I don't have the key. Okay, that was a spare doorknob, because the one that we had on there was broken, so we are going to replace that. I'm going to stop at Lowe's on the way home tonight and pick up a replacement door handle, I'm going to replace it on Wednesday, so it's not a very long-lasting thing, just be aware of that. Very good, thank you. All right, Brother Peter. Our next song is actually going to be in our Stronghold Baptist songbook there. It's I'll Fly Away is the name of the song, it should be there in the front. I did notice that one of the songbooks doesn't, some of the songbooks might not have it, so if you don't have one, raise your hand and we'll get one to you. I guess it was only mine. All right, I'll Fly Away. I'll Fly Away. All right, let's sing this one out of the first. Some glad morning when this life is o'er I'll fly away To a home on God's land so short I'll fly away I'll fly away You're showing I'll fly away When I die, hallelujah, by and by I'll fly away When the shadows of this life have gone I'll fly away Like a bird from risen force have flown I'll fly away I'll fly away I'll fly away When I die, hallelujah, by and by I'll fly away Just a few more weary days ahead I'll fly away To a land where joy shall never end I'll fly away I'll fly away I'll fly away When I die, hallelujah, by and by I'll fly away At this time we'd like our Sunday afternoon offering. I'll ask Brother Carter if he would please do that for us. While the offering is being passed around, if you can open up your Bibles to the book of James chapter 2. It's James chapter 2. And as we do customary here at Stronghold Baptist Church, we're going to read the entire chapter. I'm going to ask Brother Devin if he can please do that for us. Once again that was James chapter 2. My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and with the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come also a poor man in vile raiment, and you have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, sit thou here in a good place, and say to the poor, stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool, are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts? Hearken, my beloved brethren, hath not God chosen the poor and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him? But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you and draw you before the judgment seats? Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by the which ye are called? If ye fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well. But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors. For he whatsoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point he is guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty. For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath showed no mercy, and mercy rejoiceth against judgment. What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled, notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body, what doth it profit? Even so, faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works. Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works. Thou believeth that there is one God, thou doest well. The devils also believe and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works? And by works was faith made perfect? And the Scripture was fulfilled, which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God. Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only? Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way. Whereas the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. Let's pray. Dear Lord, thank you for this chapter. I thank you for this time to come together in this church. Lord, I pray that you would bless our time now and help us to listen and have hearts to hear what pastor has for us. I pray that you would bless him as he comes. Help him have the words to say that you would have him to say, and in Jesus' name I pray, amen. Alright, so this afternoon I am continuing on with that series on the devil's counterfeits, and as I mentioned this morning, you know, last week we did miracles. We also did the gospel. And, you know, I'm being very clear here too that everything that I'm preaching on, I believe, is from the devil. Right? Now, I know that the world loves to make fun of that, you know, you've got the Adam Sandler movies, Mama said he's the devil, and he's the devil, and she's the devil, and everyone's the devil, and you know, they kind of make fun of that. And it's kind of funny, I get it, like, it's funny making fun of people who just say everything is the devil, but the stuff that I'm preaching on, I'm proving from scripture that these things are of the devil. These are from the devil. The lying signs and wonders is from the devil, okay, that I preached on last week. The gospel, the false gospels, come from the devil, from the Satan twisting God's word. We saw, you know, the Bibles this morning, the different Bible versions, I think it's very clearly those things are coming from Satan, his attack on God's word. And what I'm going to be preaching on this evening, this afternoon, is on Satan's counterfeit religions. And that's going to go not just within Christianity, but even outside of Christianity, right? You think of all the religions of the world, and again, this has to go with the understanding that, you know, we know, we know that man did not just evolve from lower life forms, from the single-celled organism, to the monkey, to the homo erectus, to then become some humankind as we know it today, whatever, going through that whole chain of evolution. It's nonsense, and it's garbage. That style of thinking is going to, it teaches also that same philosophy of, oh, well, man just kind of comes up with these religions because they feel a need to want to think that their life is about something more, and something to help guide them, and, you know, this is how the world speaks, right? Religions can be useful tools to help people, to live moral lives, and to do these, you know, it's like, it's a bunch of garbage from people who don't believe in a creator, people who don't believe in God at all, just trying to understand why would people believe. Well, we know that from the beginning, when God made man on this earth, he had communion with man. He had a relationship with his creation. He was able to speak and converse with his creation, so from the very beginning, from day one, religion existed because man knew that God was real. It's not an invention of their mind. It's not an invention just like, oh, well, what, you know, someone looking at a service, do I think God, I mean, look, I think God might exist. That's not how things started. It's not just Adams looking around going, wow, something, you know, God was active in his life, and he knew that, right? I mean, he received the commandment from the Lord, when it's just you, and God's bringing, like, all these creatures to you, you know God's real, right? When you're there, and then all of a sudden it's all of a sudden, and then all of a sudden he makes a woman, and you're missing a rib, right? Like, no one else is there to do that. He knows that's God. So these aren't things that just kind of happen in the human experience that we need to fill some void as a species to, no. It's been real from the beginning, which also, by the way, and I brought this up when I preach against Hinduism, but the Hindus like to say, oh, we have the oldest religion in the world, and they'll say, you know, our religion is older than any other religion in the whole world, and they get away with that because, yeah, it's an old religion, but they say that Christianity started with Jesus Christ, which, yeah, under that name, sure, that started with Jesus Christ, and the practices have changed between what the Old Testament believers did and New Testament believers did, but the religion itself goes all the way back to Adam and Eve. I mean, that's the God. That is the Lord. That is the God of the Bible. That is the one true God, the real God, and that communion and conversation and God's revelations unto mankind and dealing with man has started at the beginning of the world and continues to this day. So that one God and that one understanding, that one religion, and the fact that Adam and Eve needed skins of an animal to cover their sin, right, they needed the blood shed from the beginning, same religion, the same understanding, it's the same atonement that they needed from the beginning, same salvation, same gospel, going all the way back to the beginning of time. It's an everlasting gospel, and Jesus Christ is a lamb slain from the foundation of the world. So no, no other religion that came into existence existed before the religion that we practice and accept today, which is the religion of the Bible, of God's word, right? We call it Christianity today, but the name itself isn't as important as the belief system, right? I mean, call it whatever. Obviously, we wouldn't call it Judaism today, because Judaism is a different religion. They believe in something different. We're going to get into that, too. But what I want to point out is that those counterfeit religions, and when I say religion, I'm using it relatively loosely, just in the sense of how people worship God or understand God to be, right? That's all I mean by religion. The fact that there are so many other religions in the world, though, shows us, and here's the thing, you hear it very commonly reported in the world that, oh, you know, all the religions of the world are actually closer than you think, right? There's a lot of people pushing for this idea, this concept that, well, we all worship the same God, but we just have disagreements kind of on how you do it and some minor details, but really, we all just worship the same God. No, we don't. No, we don't. And these other religions, they are literally of the devil. They are counterfeits that have been created by Satan himself or by some other devil to steal worship away from God because they like to be like God. I mean, that's what Satan wanted from him. He wants to be like the Most High. Satan is lifted up with pride, he likes being glorified, he likes being worshipped, so it makes sense that he's going to create religion. One, to draw people away from God, two, to have people worship him. And we know that this is going to happen in the end times as well when the beast is set up and the false prophet is going around preaching, that and the antichrist comes into power. And I'm going to go into that in depth. I'm not going to do that today, but that's another, when I preach on a counterfeit trinity, we're going to show you a lot of that to come. That one's going to be a lot of fun, so that's why I haven't preached it yet because I really want to make sure I got all my ducks in a row for that because there's so much scripture on that. But we started off in James chapter 2, right? Because it's a real famous passage, especially for people who want to teach a workspace salvation. And when you try to tell people that all you have to do to be saved is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, it's what we believe, it's what the Bible says. Every once in a while you run into someone who says, well, you know what, believing's not enough because the devils believe. Who's ever heard that before? People say that. Yeah, you hear it. You hear it from time to time. And where do they get that from? They get that from James chapter 2. And they get that from James chapter 2, 19, but we're going to look at that verse because I always want to point out to you that it does not say that the devils believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior. It does not say that the devils are believing the gospel of Jesus Christ. Because that's what we say when we say you have to put your trust in Jesus Christ. You're putting your trust in the death, burial, and resurrection. You're putting your trust in that blood atonement that he made for you. That's what we're trusting in. We summarize that by saying you have to believe in Jesus. But what you're believing is that everything that Jesus did was to pay for your sin. I mean, obviously that's all just inherently included in that believing on Jesus. What James 2 is stating in verse 19, it says, Thou believeth that there is one God. Thou doest well. The devils also believe and tremble. No reference to Jesus Christ at all. It just says, hey, you believe there's one God. Now, how many people believe that there's one God that aren't even Christian? That don't even claim Jesus at all? I mean, that's most of the world. Right? I mean, whether you claim Jesus or not, people who are going to say, yeah, I believe there's one God. I'm not polytheistic, and I'm not atheistic. I believe there's one God. That is the vast majority of people in this world. Vast majority of people in this world. Well, the Bible says if you believe that, that's good. Right? You're doing well. Why? Because it's true. Because there is one God. But the point he's making here, the devils also believe and tremble. The devils know that there's one God. Okay? But it's not that they're trusting the Lord to save them. But just believing that there's one God, that doesn't save you. It's true, but there's nothing to save your soul by just trusting that there's one God. But it is a good thing to understand that because it's the truth. You do well if you know that there's one God. You believe there's one God, great. That's just the beginning. The lie, though, is that we all worship the same God. Or even if some people try to limit and say, well, because they know it's too much of a stretch, with some of the, especially some of the eastern religions, to say that you worship the same God. Because if you know anything about them, some of them are just dramatic. Like Buddhism doesn't even, like, believe in God. It just believes in self. That you can just attain this state of, and sometimes I mix up the terms that the different religions use, but it's basically a state of nothingness, where you kind of empty yourself and Nirvana's actually used in multiple religions to kind of mean something similar, but not always exactly the same. And I don't know who started with that term or whatever. I don't know that much about all the various religions, but I know this much. When I took, I took a world religions class in college, and I've seen a lot of the propaganda in those world religions classes, really the whole point of those things is New Age religion. When I say New Age, it's pushing, hey, let's look at all the similarities. And that's, I mean, that was pushed back in my college class in, what year did I take that? Probably like 1996. 1995, I don't remember exactly what semester I took it in. Doesn't matter. But going all the way back then, it's not any different now. They're still pushing that, oh yeah, it's all the same. And now you have churches these days. I saw a church in, we went to, my wife and I went to a funeral in Arizona, and the church that was holding the services had I think it was a Methodist church, right, Leslie? They had signs up on the outside on their walls and stuff saying events coming up, and one of them was they were having like a rabbi and like an imam, someone from a Muslim coming in to have discussions and talk about how, you know, how similar we all really are, and how we can learn from one another. I mean, this is the way that the world's going. I get emails, I got an email on just recently, there's some event coming up, I get invited to things being a pastor sometimes, and I don't know how my name gets on these lists, and if people really knew anything about me, they'd probably uninvite me, but they invite me to these events, and it's like a Shalom conference. So right off the bat, it's Judaizing, right? And Shalom just means peace. And it's basically trying to say, well, how do we communicate in these divisive times and how do we overcome, it's like we need to be more divisive. We're not looking to cross boundaries here and become ecumenical, literally, and start yoking up with all these different church leaders so that we can just coddle the people and tell them, no, no, no, don't worry about what's going on, we actually all just have a lot of similarities, and let's not worry about those silly differences, like who God is, like how you're saved, like all these things that really aren't that important. Let's just push that stuff to the side. Stop being so divisive, don't you know that that's sinful to be divisive? If you're here this morning, you understand the reference, because that's what the NIV says, that's what the New King James says, that's what the ESV says. No, we don't worship the same God. All the Abrahamic faiths don't worship the same God. Muslims will try to tell you that. They do, they say, well, we worship the same God. We believe the Bible, that's what they'll tell you, we believe the Bible. No, you don't. You don't believe any of it. But here's the thing, this is why it's a counterfeit, it's a deception of Satan, to get these people to think that they actually do believe that. It's a skillful deception to try to incorporate and include the Bible into other religions to try to influence that many more people, because if you're going to counterfeit, if you're going to fake something, you need to add some truth, you need to add something real to it to get people to go along with it. And there's a reason why there's so many similarities, and this is what people will point out to you, you know, the zeitgeist films and all these other people who want to try to say all this new age garbage that's going to tell you that, oh, it's really all just worshiping the same God from a different angle, a different perspective. This is because Satan isn't a dummy, and he's trying to make these other religions that are lies, but make them close enough to the truth so that people will accept it. So of course you're going to have real laws and rules, and they're going to closely resemble, if not exactly follow, many of the things that God has already instilled in our hearts and our conscience with understanding, like, not to kill, not to steal, not to do a lot of other sins, right? That's going to be shared among all these various religions, because if it didn't have that, people would just be like, what kind of religion is this? And reject it out of hand. So it has to be palatable. It has to be something that people are going to be able to accept, so it has to have semblance of the truth inherent into the religion. That's how it's counterfeited. That's how it's faked and forged. Now, turn, if you would, to Deuteronomy chapter 32. It's important to understand, though, that these false religions, like I said before, are actually satanic, they're of the devil. It's not just man trying to come up with their own understanding of why they're here and give themself a reason for being here. And it's funny, because the atheists try to talk and mock in their passive-aggressive manner about people, you know, when they try to be not hostile, but you can still tell that it's there, in their arrogance and in their pride, because they think they're so smart, and these weak humans that think that they need some understanding of their life and some bigger picture and bigger meaning, oh, they create this religion, they create this crutch, they create this god, because they need to have that in their life. But us atheists who are so intellectually aware and understand that we actually, you know, there is no god, and we don't need that for ourselves, we're okay with that, you fool. The fool has said in his heart there is no god. Rejecting science, rejecting what you observe, rejecting even your conscience that bears witness of god. Deuteronomy 32, this is going to show you, though, that these aren't just imaginations of man. Now, I'm not saying that's impossible for man to fabricate a religion. I mean, L. Ron Hubbard is a great example of that. Fabricated religion. Fabricated religion that people still follow today, I mean, unbelievable. First of all, you might be saying, well, who's L. Ron Hubbard? L. Ron Hubbard created a bunch of self-help books, he's a science fiction writer, and created a bunch of self-help books is kind of the way it was marketed. So who's ever heard of Dianetics before? Anyone heard of that before? Dianetics. Okay, when I was young, when I was a kid, I remember seeing commercials for this. How old am I? 44 years old. When I was a kid, I would see this on the TV, right? Dianetics! And there was like this cool looking picture on the front and they'd just ask these questions like, what should I do with my life? What career should I do? You know, just all these real dumb basic questions and it's like, get Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard, right? So it's all this self-help type of stuff and this guy started a religion, he created this alternate reality and gods to worship and it was all based off of a bet with somebody that he could pull this off and get people to believe some crazy stuff and it's called Scientology. That's the founder of Scientology. Scientology is a whack religion. It's crazy. It's so crazy. It boggles the mind that people can buy into this. It really does. Because it's just a Ponzi scheme. It's a pyramid scheme. You have to keep paying more money to go to the next level of understanding and they even tell you at different levels that you get to that sometimes, oh yeah, well we told you there that was a lie, but you weren't ready to receive the truth. So it's like, well why did I pay for you to lie to me? But no one ever asked that question. Well maybe some people do, but these people who just get suckered into it, it's like, and it's the same occultic type of thing that there's this hidden knowledge and people don't really know this and it's truly science fiction. There's these Thedens and all this, and I don't remember all the details about it. I read about it and it reads like science fiction. Well big surprise, L. Ron Hubbard is a science fiction writer. And he wrote a piece of science fiction and got people to believe that it's actually real. That there's these alien beings inside of you and you have to go through these sessions where you release these alien creatures from your body by giving confessions while you're hooked up to like a lie detector thing. It's insane. What do you think they're doing with those confessions? They're recording them and keeping and they urge people, you know, just tell us everything. Right? So they get all this dirt on people and now they've got leverage to hold that over their heads to not leave. It's a cult. They keep people from their families. They keep people isolated. It's insane. Well anyways, I don't want to go this wasn't even in my notes. I don't want to get too far off into Scientology. It's nuts. Okay? But that's an example. I don't know if L. Ron Hubbard got his inspiration from a devil for that or not. That's one example if you want to call it a religion of something that could be man-made. But the Bible teaches us that these false gods, so when you've got, you know, Ashtoreth Baal, all these various gods that they read about in the Bible, which people still worship today. People still worship in various ways. I mean, you look at all these different gods of the Hindus and these gods of other religions. They're devils. And the Bible teaches us that they're devils. Look at verse number 15 of Deuteronomy 32. It's talking about Jeshurun. It's talking about basically Israel here. But Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked. Thou art waxed and fat. Thou art grown thick. Thou art covered with fatness. Then he forsook God, which made him, and lightly esteemed the rock of his salvation. They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods. With abominations provoked him to anger. Look at verse 17. They sacrificed unto devils, not to God. To gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not. We know that throughout history there's been people who have worshiped other gods. Other anything they want to talk about. A religion. And people who set up altars and set up idols and make these sacrifices. And the Bible says that they are, they sacrifice unto devils, not to God. Now what's interesting about this, and I'm not going to go through in-depth and teach this, but this is talking about Israel. And one of the things that you notice about Israel is that when they have the false gods, they're still associating the false gods with the Lord. Oftentimes, now sometimes they go completely off, just way off the deep end into full-on Baal worship. Right? But many times you've got prophets that say they're prophets of the Lord, but they're still involved in the idolatry, they're still involved in these sacrifices to other gods, and they're claiming the name of the Lord. And it's a counterfeit. It's a fake. It's a phony. And they're really sacrificing unto devils and not to God. 1 Corinthians 10, you don't have to turn there. I don't know if you would to Romans chapter 1. 1 Corinthians 10 basically says the same thing that Deuteronomy 32 says. It says, What say I then, in verse 19, that the idol is anything, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is anything? But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to God. And I would not that you should have fellowship with devils. These other gods, these other religions, it's not just an invention. They're actually worshiping and serving devils. It's of the devil. I mean, that can't be much clearer. Verse 21 says, You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils. You cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and of the table of devils. Brother Doe, do you mind standing up and checking that thermostat right there? It gets real hot. Is anyone else hot in here? I'm sweating my brains out. Should be on cool, and hit it to run, and then put it down, and then put it back on hold, if you could do all that. Appreciate it. Romans chapter 1. See, we understand from the Bible that God made man after his own image. Thank you. God made man after his image. An image means a likeness. So the image of God, God looks similar to the way a man looks. Because he made man in his image, in his likeness in that sense, a physical likeness. But Satan's counterfeit is to make the creature into the creator. He's taking the, you know, because God made man in his image, now Satan likes to turn it around to make you think that because you're made in God's image that you're like God. And have these religions that will teach that you could be like God. Any religion that deifies a creature, whether man or beast, is of the devil. We're going to see that here in Romans chapter 1. Look at verse number 20. The Bible says, for the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things God made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lust of their own hearts, the dishonor of their own bodies between themselves, who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served the creature more than the creator who is blessed forever. So when people take God's creation and turn that into the object of worship, right, this is extremely bad sin. This is violating the first commandment of the ten commandments that God gave, and this is something that God will decide to reprobate people over and just to give them up when one, they know who God is, they understand who the Lord is, and they choose not to accept the Lord, but then just make up their own God out of their own heart and start worshipping and serving, you know, for example, a cow, like the Hindus do. Oh, we don't really worship them, we don't think the cow has got, look, you just idolize it, oh, it's all just symbolic. And why do you have so many idols? Why do you lift it up? I mean, there's, you know, the actions speak for themselves. You could look outwardly if you want to say you're not doing it. It's like the Catholics who say, oh, well, we don't, you know, we're not practicing idolatry. You can say that all day long. You could say you're not worshipping Mary as much as you want. We don't worship Mary. It's funny, because I see people walk into a Catholic church where there's a statue of Mary and they get on their knees in front of the statue. I've seen it firsthand, I witness it. On more than one occasion, in more than one Catholic church. But we don't worship her. What do you think worship is? Seriously, people just don't even understand, and you know what, there's a reason for that. Because people think worship these days is, oh, praise God! Like, they think that this is worship. And that's it. Now, you may be worshipping the Lord when you praise God. I'm not saying you're not, but really, the technical term, when you're getting on your hands and knees, when you're getting down on your face in front of something, that's worship. If I bow down myself in front of anything, that's worship. And that's a scriptural biblical definition of the word. If you look throughout Scripture, you see people worshipping, they're getting down on their face. So when people are getting down on their knees, when people are kneeling down and getting down in front of a statue, you're worshipping an idol. Whether or not you think you're doing that in your heart doesn't matter. That's exactly what you're doing. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, is there a ring of the bell with anybody? Is there a story in Daniel? Right? Where the three men of God were like, we're not going to worship this idol, this big image that Nebuchadnezzar raised up. We're not going to worship the idol. And what was the worshipping? When people heard the music, they had to bow down. That was the worship. And how did they see that they weren't doing it? Because they weren't down on their knees. They were just standing there going, sorry. Turn, if you would, to John chapter 8. See, Satan's been spreading this lie that humans can be like God, going all the way back to the Garden of Eden. And this is a common tenet among many false religions that are out there. It is this teaching that you can achieve a status of godhood or somehow become part of God. And it's obvious in some places, like the Egyptians, for example, they believe that the Pharaoh was like a deity. That the Pharaoh was God. And this is something in their culture, you're like, yeah, yeah, I've heard that before, I understand that. Well, did you know that that satanic lie is also what the Mormons believe? That man can one day become a god of their own planet? Of their own world? And that if you're a good enough Mormon, you can be a god too? Now, they're not going to tell you that when they come and knock on your door. Again, just like the other cults, similar to Scientology, you've got to be going there for a while before they're going to expose you to that level of information. You've got to be a good Mormon first to even get the teaching of that and understand, well, this is what it's really like. And it gets crazy. Because they don't want to be seen as a cult, they want to be seen as Christian too. For the longest time since they started, everyone knew they were a cult. But they've been doing their propaganda trying to get people to accept that, oh no, that's just another form of Christianity. These people are nuts. Their religion is crazy. I mean, to the point to where we had Mitt Romney, this open Mormon, has achieved a huge level of success politically, almost became the President of the United States, and he's a Mormon. And people don't care. But if you understand what they actually teach and believe, you ought to care, because if someone's going to be duped into religion like that, you really want this person making decisions for you and your life? It's crazy. But here's what Satan did, and we read this this morning in Genesis 3.5, the Bible says, for God doth know, this is Satan's response to Eve, for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, talking about the tree of the garden of good and evil, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods knowing good and evil. So this is how he's trying to entice Eve, he's trying to say, hey, the world of God knows you're going to be like gods. You're going to be like a god. This is a satanic lie. If you eat of the garden of good and evil, you're not going to be like God. You are going to know good and evil, but you're not going to be like God. And trying to make man somehow into God is a satanic desire, it's a satanic system or religion, and that's what the pharaohs believed, that's what the Mormons believe, but guess what, you may not have known this, but that's also what the Roman Catholic Church has taught. Roman Catholic Church. Get this, and this may be shocking to you, I don't know. I pulled this, now I checked the sources on this before you mocked me for going to Wikipedia, but this was awful, I copied and pasted from Wikipedia, but I checked the sources on this. This is the Catechism of the Catholic Catholic Church, quotes with approval Saint Athanasius is saying, the son of God became man so that we might become God. The son of God became man so that we might become God. It's a teaching that we can become God. That is of the devil. And this goes, I mean this goes way back, like this is old teaching. The Roman Catholic Church that's, you know, hopefully you all know that that is of the devil in itself anyways, for many other reasons, you can see in just their, you know, what they believe it takes for a person to be saved, and their workspace salvation, that that's a lie, among many other fruits that you could look at that's going to show you that they are definitely not of God, but there's another portion here that I want to read that I found, says the Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology so this publication that's authored by an Anglican priest named Alan Richardson, contains the following in an article titled Deification, right, deity is God deification, so deification is, you know, man or something becoming God. Deification in front of these Greek theosis is for orthodoxy, so orthodox Christian, that would be the, you know, going back to Catholic Church essentially, right, orthodoxy, phrase for orthodoxy, the goal of every Christian. Becoming a God is the goal for every Christian. So what this is saying, this is what this guy wrote, this Anglican priest. Man, according to the Bible, is made in the image and likeness of God. Okay, that's true. That has nothing to do with man becoming God. That's how God created man. That's how God made the creature, it's not the creature becoming the creator. It is possible it's possible for man to become like God, to become deified, to become God by grace. This doctrine is based on many passages of both Old Testament and New Testament and then it lists up a couple references which yeah, it says in Psalm 82, does that mean I said ye are gods? Right? Yeah, oh man. See, brother Jesse knows like, that is ridiculous to use that psalm to try to push a doctrine that says you can become God. Because if you understand that psalm, it's not talking about mankind achieving deity or God at all. At all. It's talking about He's saying, you know, you've said you're gods, but you're going to die like men. It's not about people who think they've become deified. But they're going to be judged and brought down and killed as a man. It's the exact opposite. But this is what the unsaved false prophets do, is they take things that mean one thing and turn it on its head to try to teach that it means something else. And there's other passages too, don't get me wrong, but I'm not going to go through and debunk all of them because this is just kind of a ridiculous statement anyways. I'm going to go on reading though, it says it is essentially the teaching both of Saint Paul, though he tends to use the language of filial adoption, and the fourth gospel, which would be the Gospel of John. Yeah, we do believe that we are adopted into God's family. Being adopted doesn't make you God. I mean, no, he really meant something else, but he just uses this language. No, no, he actually said what he meant through the Holy Spirit. What God meant is that, yeah, we can be adopted, we can be born into God's family in a sense, but that doesn't make you God. See, us being born again is not the same as Jesus Christ being the only begotten of the Father. The only begotten of the Father. We're born again, but not in the same way that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and is God. We're not the same. Crazy. But see, the Luciferians, and I had to turn to John 8, right? Luciferians are people who think that Lucifer and, you know, that word Lucifer means like a light bearer. It comes from the root word of luz. Luz means light. And a Luciferian is someone who would worship or serve or believe in or think that Lucifer is actually the good guy. That Lucifer is misunderstood. I mean, there's TV shows even about that now, isn't there? Like, I mean, I've never seen it, but I know there's a show called, is it called Lucifer? Is it called something like that, right? And I don't know, if I get something wrong about it, I've never seen an episode I don't really know is about, but from what I saw and read, it looked like it was about a show that's going to try to, you know, either maybe show some comedy or whatever, but try to give, like, the devil's perspective on things. Or try to desensitize, you know, try to think that he may not be really that bad or he's just kind of misunderstood. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but I know that's what, I mean, that's what Luciferians think. They think he's actually a good guy. I mean, because they'll say, look, well, the devil in the Garden of Eden, he's trying to give you knowledge. Is knowledge a good thing? Doesn't the Bible teach knowledge a good thing? Yeah, except when you break God's commandments. God wants you to have knowledge and He wants you to obey Him. But see, when God created mankind, He wanted man to be innocent. And just be obedient. And how great would that have been? But Luciferians would think that Satan's going to be telling you the truth, or Satan was telling Eve the truth, but it's not. It's a lie. Don't be deceived by anyone who's going to say that Satan has any truth in him, because if you're in John 8, look at verse 44, Jesus said, You have your father the devil, and the lust of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth. Because there is no truth in him. He's telling the devil, he says, there is no truth in him. The devil's not tell the truth. He says, when he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it. You know where lies come from? They come from the devil. He's the father of lies. And because I tell you the truth, you believe me not. Now, Jesus was speaking this directly to people who claim to believe the Bible. He's talking to people here. They claim to believe the Bible. They claim to believe in the Lord. They claim to be God's people. They claim to believe Moses. And Jesus is flat out telling them, look, you're of the devil. You don't believe God's word. You don't believe the Lord. They're actually believing lies of Satan. They're exhibiting traits of their father, the devil. Because they're telling lies. They're spreading lies about Jesus. They're spreading lies about the Lord. Lies about salvation. Lies about what you need to do to be saved. They're a bunch of liars. Because they were following a satanic religion. Because the religion of the Pharisees, which is today known as Judaism, the religion that follows the Talmud is of the devil. And they call themselves Jews, but they're not Jews. They're a fraud. Fake. Phony. Now, whether or not they're ethnically Abraham's seed doesn't matter. It's insignificant. Because I'm not referring to their identity as from their genealogy. I'm referring to them being a Jew the way that God's going to refer to them being a Jew as being his people. Turn, if you would, to Romans chapter 9. See, Jesus exposed the Jews over and over again for not believing. Even though they claimed to. They were counterfeit. They were fake. They were a fake religion. It was modeled after the true religion. They say it's Moses. So this is part of the true religion, right? The Ten Commandments is part of the true religion. The Lord, true religion. So they're claiming all these things, but they didn't have the right religion. There's a counterfeit. There's a fraud. Jesus said in John 5, 45, Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom you trust. For had you believed Moses, you would have believed me, for he wrote of me. But if you believed not his writings, how shall you believe my words? He's saying you trust in Moses and you don't even believe what he wrote. Because if you believed it, then you'd believe me too. Because if you actually took it to heart, if you actually believed what Moses was writing about, you'd understand that he was writing about me. So if you believed that, you would accept me too. Because Jesus is not in contradiction to Moses. At all. Moses wrote about Jesus. They're in harmony. It's all part of the same religion, but see, the Jews had a different religion, which is why they rejected Jesus. They clung to their fake, fraud religion and rejected Jesus. There, what the Bible's talking about is being counterfeit Jews in Revelation chapter 2 and 3. I'll read that for you. Revelation 2, 9, the Bible says, I know thy works of tribulation and poverty, but thou art rich, and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. So there's plenty of people out there that claim to have the right religion. Well, we're a Jew, but God says, you know, you're not. No, you're not. You're the synagogue of Satan. Revelation 3, 9, same thing. Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews and are not, but do lie. Behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee. You're in Romans 9, look at verse number 6. Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect, for they are not all Israel, which are of Israel. Neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children, but in Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God. And that's a key. When I'm talking about Jews, when I'm preaching against Jews, I'm not preaching against the flesh. I'm not preaching against a person who wants to identify themselves as having been, you know, that they're a direct descendant somehow of Abraham. I don't care about that. You can't even prove that anyways. To some extent probably everyone in the world is a descendant of Abraham. At some point, somewhere along the way, to some small degree it's mixed down somewhere to say, well, I've got .0001, you know, whatever, right? It's in there. Because that doesn't matter. And that's not what God looks at either. That's why John the Baptist, you know, when the Pharisees showed up, he says, think not to say within yourselves that we have Abraham to our father. For God is able of these stones to raise up seed unto Abraham. Physically it doesn't matter at all. God could take this rock and make that become a seed of Abraham. What matters is spiritual. What matters is, are you a child of promise? Do you accept the promise that God gave? Which is, Abraham did. Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Memorize Romans chapter 4, you'll get a lot of insight onto that. It's our Bible memory passage. David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom the Lord impudeth righteousness without works. All these various people throughout the Old Testament, they had the Gospel. They believed. That's the right look. They're all children of promise. Because they received it not by the works of the law, but by faith. And that's how God sees it. And when God makes promises to Israel and God made promises to Abraham, any believer, any child of promise gets to participate and be yoked up with that blessing that he gave on Israel, on Abraham, that are these prophetic blessings for time to come. And that's why it says here in verse number 8, Romans 9-8, that is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. And then in Galatians 3, if you go to 1 John chapter 2, Galatians 3, verse 6, the Bible says, even as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness, know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. Again, that's what matters. If you're of faith, if you have your faith in Christ, that makes you a child of Abraham. That's how God sees it. That's what he cares about when he's referring to you being a child of Abraham. But see, the Jews, they did not put stock in that at all, they were putting stock in the fact that we're Abraham's stock, like, physically. That they're of the tribe of whatever, the tribe of Benjamin, the tribe of Naphilah, any of these tribes, physical tribes, they cared about that, and God's saying, you know what, no. They which are of faith, they're the children of Abraham. That's what the Jews are saying, look, if you were Abraham's seed, you'd do the works of Abraham, you'd be like Abraham, you'd believe like Abraham believed. If he was really your father, if you're a claim that you're a chip off the old block, right? Where'd that phrase come from? It talks about a son being just like their dad, right? Chip off the old block. Because you've got the same likeness, same, you know, whatever, it's a reproduction that way. Father like the son, son like the father, and he's saying to those Jews, he's saying, you're nothing like Abraham. You're actually like the devil. That's why he says, you're of your father the devil. Because that's who you're like, that's who you act like. Galatians 3 says, Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham, and the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed, so that they which be of faith are blessed with And I've taught this before, but I need to go over it again, because we're looking at the counterfeits, right? The fakes, the frauds. When the Bible clearly teaches us, God's Word shows us who are the real people of God. It's not some nation in the Middle East. It's not some group of people who reject Christ. Those are not the people of God. I'm sorry, they're not. I'm not sorry. I take that back. I'm not sorry, they're not the people of God at all. The people of God are the people of faith. They're the seed of the promise. Those are the people of God. I don't want some Christ-denying group of people even closely resembling or being associated as being children of God. They're anti-Christ. 1 John 2, verse 21, the Bible reads, I have not written unto you, because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth. Who is a liar, but he that denyeth that Jesus is the Christ? He is anti-Christ that denyeth the Father and the Son. So all those people who claim to be Jews, claim to believe the Word of God, claim to believe in the Lord, claim, claim, claim. They're lying. They're a liar. Why? Because they deny that Jesus is the Christ. Whosoever denyeth the Son, the same hath not the Father, but he that acknowledgeeth the Son hath the Father also. And don't believe that lie? The spin that says, oh, the Jews are just like Christians. They have the Father, but they don't have the Son. I mean, we're all worshipping the Father, but they just are missing the Son. No, they don't have the Son or the Father. If they don't have the Son, they don't have the Father. And we know they don't have the Father because they don't have the Son. Because you can't split them up. It's part of who God is. You can't just, I mean, if there's no Son, you've got a different God. If you don't believe in the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost that these three are one, you've got a different God. You've got a false, fake, fraud of a God. And that's what the modern Jews, Judaism, that's what they have. It's a counterfeit. It's not real. It's a fake, just like all the other religions of the world that aren't trusting in Christ alone as their Savior. And I don't care how they want to say how old it is. I don't care where their roots go back to. I don't care if they could claim that they go all the way back to Abraham, all the way back to Moses, whatever. Well, we all go all the way back to Adam. So what? Okay. Great. What does that settle? Nothing. What do you believe? That's what matters. Verse 24, Let that therefore abide in you which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that ye have promised us, even eternal life. Look at verse 26, These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you. See, there's a lot of people out there that are going to try to trick you. They're going to try to seduce you. They're going to try to deceive you into thinking that, oh, no, no, no. We actually do trying to either downplay or say that they have the truth or whatever. They're going to try to deceive you somehow. And he's being real firm and real strong here saying, look, if they deny Jesus as the Christ, they're anti-Christ. They're a liar. Don't listen to them. Don't believe them. That's why we don't bring in the rabbis to teach us, well, what was the culture like back in the Old Testament? Well, tell us a little bit more about the feasts and tell us a little bit more about this from some lying Jew. We're not going to learn Bible from someone who may physically have descended but is not a child of promise. Why are you going to learn spiritual things in any capacity from someone the Bible is calling a liar? It makes no sense. But people, oh, oh, they're a Jew. Okay, let's worship and oh, they're special. Don't you know they're God? How dare you say that? That's God's chosen people. No, it's not. Sorry. You kind of missed the place where the Bible talks about, you know, we're going to take it from them, from that nation, and give it to a nation that's bringing forth the fruits thereof. And you know, just as there's counterfeit Jews, there's also counterfeit Christians. Same thing. People are going to claim the name of Christ, they're going to claim to believe in the Bible, they're going to claim all these other things, but they don't really. And the world's full of people like that. And that's what we deal with most commonly. I mean, it's very rare you run into people who believe in Judaism just in general. I mean, there's just not very many of them, especially here. You know, I don't recall and I don't know if I've run into any professing... maybe a couple. I mean, it's just hard for me to even remember in the few years that I've been here in Georgia if I've run into any. I think I've seen the little scroll that they have by their door, which if you ever see that, by the way, you're probably dealing with a Jew. They have these little scrolls that they kind of put on the outside of their homes by the door, so just be aware, be prepared that if you're going to talk to them, it's probably what they believe. So try to get as much out as you can, because it's unlikely you're going to get in a conversation with them anyways. And that's just from experience. You know, it's not a...it is what it is. Jews are the hardest people to try to win to Christ. They just really don't want to have anything to do with it. It's kind of sad, but that is what it is. But there's counterfeit Christians, right? And I was going to preach a whole summary on this, and I probably will at some point. I'm not certain if I'm going to do part of this series or not, but I'm going to wrap this up. If you go to 2 Corinthians chapter 11, I just want to point out one more key point here. Kind of the main point is I want to show you that these various religions, whether they be calling themselves Christian, or Jew, or Islam, or any other religion of the world, for that matter, not only are they not true, but they're of the devil. And this is an attribute of Satan that, and he uses it as a tactic, as a tool to try to deceive people, one, to gain followers after himself, and two, to draw people away from the Lord. Because that's one of the things that Satan loves. He's filled with pride, and he wants people to worship him. 2 Corinthians 11 gives us an insight about Satan. Verse number 12, the Bible reads, But what I do that I will do, that I may cut off occasion from them which desire occasion, that wherein they glory, they may be found even as we. For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. So what's the apostle Paul doing here? He's warning about people who are calling themselves apostles, but they're false. They're not real apostles. He's warning these people, because what are they trying to do? Verse 12 says they desire occasion. They're trying to find fault with the apostle Paul. They're trying to find fault with real men of God. They're trying to do anything they can to tear them down, to find an occasion, to find something to stop their work, while they're claiming to be these apostles. They're claiming to be men of God. And they're trying to tear down the men of God who are doing this real good work. So they're seeking occasion. And he says, they're false apostles. They're deceitful workers transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. Why? Because they're not really. So they're going to try to appear that way outwardly. Verse 14, he says, and no marvel. He says, well, it's no surprise. That's what the word marvel means. It's not a big surprise. It's not something to marvel at. For Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. So Satan, and I've covered this before, he's going to look very beautiful. He's going to look outwardly. He's going to look like an angel of light. And this is why people of other religions who have had these visions, and I believe have actually had visions. I personally believe that Muhammad had a vision. I do. I believe he had a vision. The problem is it wasn't from God. He had a vision, all right. But it was from some lying devil. It was probably from Satan himself. Why? Because Satan transforms himself into an angel of light. So people have these visions, and it's light, and they feel good, and they see this, and they hear this voice, and they think, wow, this is amazing. And then they start hearing and receiving from that vision, from that angel. Well, this is exactly why, and I taught this last week, why the apostle Paul says, look, though we are an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel than that which you have received, let them be accursed. Why? Because Satan may come to you as an angel of light, and it may see, it may look good, it may feel good, but it's not good. Because it's not of God. So you can't trust just your senses of, wow, well, he looks great. I mean, think about it. The frauds, the false prophets, they may look really nice and really good, and they might dress great, and they might have great hygiene and everything about them, they just look good. And they seem very personable and very friendly, and you can't see their fangs because they hit them. You can't see the big pointy ears and the bushy tail, right, like the little red riding hood, right? She goes to visit grandma, she's being deceived, well, wait, what are those ears? You know, they start to show themselves a little bit. There's a relatively good story, I mean, it's a good warning, right? Watch out for wolves. They're going to dress like little old grandma, but they want to destroy you. They want to devour you. And this is a warning, hey, don't be surprised, Satan transforms himself into an angel of light to deceive people. I mean, the Mormons think that they have the light. Joseph Smith claimed to have, now, that guy was such a fraud, I have no idea if he actually saw visions or not. Don't know, because he was a professional fraudster. You go back and look at his history, he was, I mean, he's the snake oil salesman that, like, you read about, right? The guy that he sold treasure, phony treasure maps, and had all these gimmicks and stuff to just defraud people out of money, and then he got into religion. So, whether or not he actually had a vision, I don't know. If he did, we know it was from a devil, based on what he received, because it contradicts the word of God. But he claims to have seen an angel. People, whether they see an angel or not, that could be Satan, because Satan transformed himself into an angel of light. Therefore, there's no great thing, verse 15, if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works. So, whether it's Satan himself, or just one of his ministers, one of his minions, one of the people who serves him, they all try to make themselves look good. Because that's what a fraud does. They gain your trust by making themselves look good. Which is why you always have to be aware, which is why you can't always trust your feelings. You trust the word of God. The word of God teaches us how to judge, how to evaluate, how to discern whether or not someone is a false prophet or not. Jesus taught, in Matthew 7, you shall know them by their fruits. Look at the ministry of the prophet to see if they're a good prophet or not. And, and that should speak for itself. And on a side note, just one last comment. This is what makes me so angry when I see all the attacks against my friends. Because there's such an attempt that's been going on for a long time to bring slander and smear against people who are good men of God who are doing good works. And a lot of people get deceived by the slander and smear because they've never been a part of the ministry. They don't know anything about the ministry other than what they see on the internet. And what you see on the internet is not the whole picture. It's not even, you know, it's a very, very small portion of the whole picture. If you've never been, if a person's never been to Stronghold Baptist Church and you've only ever listened to sermons on the internet, or have seen clips of things from the internet, can anyone here say like, oh yeah, you know all what Stronghold Baptist Church is about? And they've never met any of you at all. Of course not. Now you may know what I teach from the pulpit, but you don't have any idea what this church is like. And I'll stand on this ministry. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...