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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 All right every everybody welcome to steadfast baptist church if you could go ahead and take out your psalm Book and turn to song number 328 I want that mountain Song number 328 Song number 328 I want that mountain I saw the time of prayerlessness upon the mountain high He laughed so hard at my unbended knee No longer in the wilderness I'll stay and so I cry I want that mountain it belongs to me I want that mountain I want that mountain Where the milk and honey flow Where the grapes of ash grow grow I want that mountain I want that mountain The mountain that my Lord has given me There was a giant of laziness who said I wouldn't go And witness for the one who set me free I'll come from out the wilderness I'll witness now I know I want that mountain it belongs to me I want that mountain I want that mountain Where the milk and honey flow Where the grapes of ash grow grow I want that mountain I want that mountain I want that mountain The mountain that my Lord has given me One faithless giant upon the crest of Hebron's lofty hide Has found that he's the one to make me flee I'll come from out the wilderness and trust Jehovah's mind I want that mountain it belongs to me I want that mountain I want that mountain Where the milk and honey flow Where the grapes of ash grow grow I want that mountain I want that mountain The mountain that my Lord has given me Let every time of distress and unbelief and sin Get ready now to vacate for you see I've come from out the wilderness I know I'm going to win I want that mountain it belongs to me I want that mountain I want that mountain Where the milk and honey flow Where the grapes of ash grow grow I want that mountain I want that mountain The mountain that my Lord has given me Amen, that's the power of prayer Dear Father, we thank you that we could be in your house this morning to hear the preaching of your word I just pray you bless Pastor Shelley right now Fill him with your Holy Spirit that he can edify the people here to strengthen our faith And just Lord help us to walk out of here Loving you better and serving you more We love you Father and pray these things in Jesus Christ's name Amen Next song is song number 374 Sin the Light Song number 374 Again that's song number 374 Sin the Light There's a call comes ringing on the restless waves Sin the Light, Sin the Light There are souls to rescue, there are souls to save Sin the Light, Sin the Light Sin the Light Sin the Light, the blessed gospel light Let it shine from shore to shore Sin the Light, the blessed gospel light Let it shine forevermore We have heard the Macedonian call today Sin the Light, Sin the Light And a golden offering at the cross we lay Send the light, send the light, send the light The blessed gospel light Let it shine from shore to shore Send the light, the blessed gospel light Let it shine forevermore Let us pray that grace may everywhere abounds Send the light, send the light And the Christ-like spirit everywhere be found Send the light, send the light Send the light, the blessed gospel light Let it shine from shore to shore Send the light, the blessed gospel light Let it shine forevermore Let us not grow weary in the work of love Send the light, send the light Let us gather jewels for a crown above Send the light, send the light Send the light, the blessed gospel light Let it shine from shore to shore Send the light, the blessed gospel light Let it shine forevermore Good morning. Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you didn't get a bulletin already, you could just slip up your hand real quick and we'll have an usher come by and get a bulletin to you. On the front, we have our Bible memory passage, Exodus chapter 20. We're on week number two, and so we'd really encourage you to keep working on that. Do we have the prizes for the extra gift cards? All right, we'll make sure to have those. So if you haven't gotten your prize for Psalm 23, we're going to have those pretty soon. We gave them out on Wednesday, but we need to get a couple more. On the inside, we have our service and soul-winning times. We also have our church stats. And then on the right, we have our list of expecting ladies. Please be in prayer for all of them. We also have a prayer request list that if you have any extra prayers throughout the week that you'd like for the church to be in prayer with you, you can either email those in to our main email address, or you can fill out a communication card and just slip that into the offering plate. And it has a checkbox for you if that's a public or private prayer request. We have a soul-winning marathon coming up. It's the cleanup map soul-winning marathon, and we'll be meeting here this upcoming Saturday from 9 to 10 a.m. for breakfast, and then lunch from about 12 to 1.30 p.m., and we'll be headed out. If you can only show up for just the morning or afternoon, please still do. We don't want to turn anybody away. If you can hang out for both, please show up for both. It's going to be a slightly different marathon though in the sense that instead of going to one area and then just kind of hanging out the whole time, you'll probably be given maps where you're going to do like a string of houses and then drive a little bit further and then do like another string of houses, because the goal is to not have a Swiss cheese map that we have highlighted over here to actually fill in a lot of circles. And so we're just having an extra push this upcoming Saturday to do a lot of cleanup maps and to try and help us to finish out lots of different maps that have only been either halfway done or partially completed or something like that. So we're really looking forward to that. Also, Pastor Bruce Mejia, he's going to be preaching at Pure Words Baptist Church, February 21st. So that's not next Sunday, but the following Sunday. So that's about two Sundays from now. He's going to be at Pure Words Baptist Church, and we're going to have a sign up sheet for that that you can put down. But if you would like to travel down there, that would be great. You know, I'd really encourage it just to support Pastor Mejia. They'll have some pizza after the service in the morning. But if you'd like to head down there, we would love for you to do that. And we'll encourage you, you know, because, you know, you don't always get these opportunities to have somebody, you know, escape California, like, you know, Brother Marcos did and come out here and visit us. And so, you know, it's a blessing to have Pastor Mejia coming out here. And especially in all the battle and heat that he's going through, we just want to be supportive of that. And so if you'd like to go down there, if you've never been to Pure Words Baptist Church, it'll be a great time to go down and just hear some really good preaching. So I just encourage you. I'll still be here. I'll preach. I'll be preaching both services Sunday that Sunday here. But if you'd like to go down, we'd love for you to do that. On the back, we have a couple other events. On March 6th, the Galveston Marathon. So that's in the Pure Words area. Galveston's about 30 minutes south of Houston. And it's right there on the coast. And so if you'd like to go down, we'll have a marathon down there. It'll be a lot of fun. April 3rd is the proverbial mega marathon date. And so we're definitely going to do something. I don't know exactly how big scale that's going to be this year. But we'll still have a marathon dedicated in all of our church areas. So the Dallas-Fort Worth area, the Oklahoma City area, the Houston area. And we may even have other areas depending on what kind of manpower we have. Also, we have an Austin Marathon that's going to be coming up May 15th. And so this one will be really good. Really excited about that one. So we have lots of other events and other things that are planned. But those are some of the marathons that you can put on your calendar. That's pretty much all I have for announcements at this time. Let's go ahead and go to our third song this morning. Psalm 67 in your handout. Psalm 67. If you need one, you can raise up your hand. One of the ushers will try and bring one to you. If not, take out your Bible to Psalm 67. God be merciful unto us and bless us And cause his face to shine upon us That thy way may be known upon earth Thy saving health among all nations Let the people praise thee, O God Let all the people praise thee O let the nations be glad and sing for joy For thou shalt judge the people Righteously and govern the nations upon earth The nations upon earth see Let the people praise thee, O God Let all the people praise thee O let the nations be glad and sing for joy Then shall the earth yield her increase And God even her own God shall bless us God shall bless us And all the ends of the earth shall fear him Let the people praise thee, O God Let all the people praise thee O let the nations be glad and sing for joy As the offering plates are being passed around, please turn your Bibles to Matthew chapter 7. Matthew chapter 7. Matthew chapter 7. Matthew chapter 7, the Bible reads, Judge not that ye be not judged, for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye meet, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but consider'st not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye, and behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn again and rend you. Ask, and it shall be given you. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good gifts to them that ask him? Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets. Enter ye in at the straight gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat. Because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you, depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man which built his house upon a rock. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock. And everyone that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it. And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Let's have a word of prayer. Lord, thank you so much for this day, and thank you for the opportunity to be in church. I pray that you'd fill Pastor Shelley with the Holy Spirit, and give him boldness to preach your word, Lord. Pray that you'd help us all to sit up, pay attention, and that you just bless this service, and in Jesus' name we pray, Amen. Amen. Amen. Look back where the Bible reads in verse 13, Enter ye into the straight gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat, because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. The Bible gives a very sobering message, and Jesus Christ makes it clear that the majority of people will not get saved in this world. The majority of people will not go to heaven. The majority of people in this world are not saved. In fact, he describes it as being a few. If you're going to believe the Bible today, you would have to be consistent in acknowledging the reality that the majority of people are not saved. Yet, a lot of false prophets today would like to give a false hope like a Billy Graham, or a Carl Lentz even, or Rob Bell would like to give a false security idea that, oh, God's so loving, just everyone's getting into heaven. You don't even have to know the name of Christ to get into heaven, as Billy Graham said, or Rob Bell, just a universalist thinking everyone's going to heaven. There's all of these ideas trying to push people to believe that, you know, it's easy to get to heaven. There's a broad way that leads into heaven, but the Bible says that it's narrow. The Bible says that it's straight, meaning it's a very specific way to get in, and there's only one way to get into heaven. That's through Jesus Christ, obviously. The Bible says, Jesus himself said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me. So we have to realize that if we're going to be consistent with the Bible, then when we look into the world, we would have to believe that the majority are not saved, okay? And they're not going to get saved even necessarily. Only few are going to actually get saved. So then the question would be, okay, well, of those people, what are some other characteristics? Is it just everyone that's a Christian? Maybe that's the few. Well, it gives a stronger warning. Look at verse 21. Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. So that means not even everyone that claims to be a Christian, not everyone that claims the name of Jesus Christ is going to enter in the kingdom of heaven. That's just a plain statement from Jesus Christ saying there's many people who claim to be a Christian and they're not even going to be saved. Now, first of all, the people that don't even claim Jesus, they're not saved. But then even within the confines of people that claim the name of Jesus Christ, the Bible tells us there's a lot of people who are still not saved. Let's keep reading in this passage. He says, but he that doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven. So it's not giving lip service to the name of Christ. It's doing the will of God the Father. And we're going to see what that looks like in a second. But look at verse 22. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works. And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you, depart from me, ye that work iniquity. So I see a group of people, they say they know the Lord. They say they did a lot of wonderful things for him. They said, we prophesied in thy name. That means they preached in Jesus Christ's name. It says that they also cast out devils. And it even says, and thy name have done many wonderful works. And then we see Jesus saying unto them, I never knew you, depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Now, when we talk about these people, this is my viewpoint in this passage, that these people probably did do all of these things. Now, I would say with a quantifier, while they did these things, they weren't truly the works that God wanted them to do. Obviously, you know, without faith, it's impossible to please him. So someone that's not saved, all of their good works are ultimately meaningless in the eyes of God. He doesn't see them as true works. But I do believe these people are probably being honest in the fact that they did these things. They really did preach. They really did try to cast out devils. And they really did do a lot of works, so-called. Whether that's, you know, having a food pantry, or whether that was going out and doing all kinds of things to be seen of men. They did all those things. But that's what they're saying is the reason why Jesus Christ should let them in heaven. When they're being rejected at the throne, or when they're being rejected at the gates, when they're not being let in, notice what it is that they point to as the reason why they should be let in. They're works. I mean, they say it plainly, wonderful works. Okay, and the title of my sermon this morning is this, A False Sense of Salvation. A false sense of salvation. I have three points this morning. But point number one is this, people think that they're saved. People think that they're going to heaven because of their righteousness. Point number one, people have a false sense of salvation because of their righteousness. And notice when these people are not let into heaven, what is it that they're pointing to to get into heaven? Their righteousness. Look at all the things that we did. Now, what is righteousness? I'll make it plain. It's doing right. Okay, it's doing right. Wouldn't it be right to preach in Jesus Christ's name? Wouldn't it be right to, you know, help people that are hurting or to do wonderful works? Obviously, that would be right. Okay, but these people are trusting in their righteousness. They're thinking their righteousness has something to do with them getting in and Christ says, I never knew you. He also said in verse 21 that they did not do the will of my Father. Okay, so let's go to John chapter six for a moment. Go to John chapter number six and see what that is. Now, an unsaved person or false teachers, what they like to do is they like to read that passage and they say, oh, these people weren't good enough to get into heaven. They say, oh, these people, they claim to do all these wonderful things, but they weren't doing the true will of God. They weren't really serving him and doing enough good works. Notice, they were too sinful. You know, they were doing too much evil. They were workers of iniquity. Well, we should let the Bible tell us what the will of the Father is, number one. Okay, and then number two, everyone's too sinful to make into heaven. So that's, you're kind of in trouble there, right? But look at John chapter six, verse 40. And this is the will of him that sent me, Now, how many works are mentioned in verse number 40? None. So what is it that they did not do? They did not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved. You say, what do you mean? They're calling him Lord. How do they not believe? That's because your definition of belief is incompatible with the Bible's definition of belief. Okay, believing in the Bible does not mean you acknowledge Christ's existence. It does not mean that you recognize that he is the Son of God or the Lord. Now, to believe in Jesus Christ means you're trusting him to get you into heaven. Because if you're standing at the gates and Christ is saying, why should I let you in? You say, because you died for me, because you bled for me, because you were buried and you rose again, and I put my faith in you to get me into heaven. And then Christ will say, you're right, and he's going to let you in. Because the Bible says whosoever believeth should not perish but everlasting life. Jesus Christ made it clear whosoever liveth and believeth and me shall never die believeth now this. So the Bible makes it clear the one thing you have to do is trust in him. What would be the opposite of that? Trusting your own righteousness. And notice when these people aren't let in, Christ says, I never knew you. Meaning also the fact that once he knows you, you're saved. These people were never saved. It wasn't like they lost their salvation. They became too sinful. And the reality is you can't do enough right to get into heaven. Go to Luke chapter number 18, Luke chapter number 18. Now who would be out there that would claim the name of Christ that thinks they can do enough right to get into heaven? This would be your Catholic. Your Catholic thinks that they can do enough right to get into heaven. And when you go and you knock doors and you talk to people and you run into Catholics and you ask them why they're going to heaven, they will point to their works. They will point to the fact that they go to church or their catechism or the fact that they're a good person or all the good that they do. Oh, I've been in church. I go to church. I go to confession. In fact, I ran into a Catholic pastor. He was like a, he was an archbishop. Okay. Which is kind of a high up position within the Catholic structure. Okay. This guy was an archbishop over an entire region. And I said, if you were to die today, are you a hundred percent sure you go to heaven? He said, yes. And I said, why? And he said, cause I had a really good confession today. And I'm like, how, how's that going to get you in? You know, oh, look at like, I confess really well, you know, Lord. And again, the Catholic will point to what he does. And this is a wrong mentality. If you think you're getting into heaven based on some righteousness that you've done, you'll never make it. You have to change your mind about even what it takes to get into heaven. Look at Luke chapter 18, verse 10. Two men went up in the temple to pray. The one, a Pharisee and the other publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself. God, I thank thee that I'm not as other men are extortioners and just adulterers, or even as this publican, I fast twice in the week. I give ties of all that I possess. And the publican standing and far off would not lift up so much as his eyes into heaven, but smoke upon his breath saying, God be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other, for everyone that exalted himself shall be abased. And he that humbled of himself shall be exalted. Notice we have two guys praying. One is praying and congratulating himself on how wonderful he is, on how righteous he is, how he's better than this other guy that's next to him. And then he points to what? The stuff that he does. Oh, I fast. Oh, I tithe. He's pointing to his good works. He's pointing to his righteousness. And notice what Christ says. Hey, if you exalt yourself, you'll be abased. But the guy that humbles himself and says, you know, I need mercy. You know, he's asking the Lord to just save him. Notice he's the one that's justified. He's the one that gets into heaven. And when we looked at our first example of those people standing for Christ, did they humble themselves or they magnifying themselves? They were exalting themselves. Oh, I prophesied in thy name. Oh, I cast out devil. Oh, I did many wonderful works. Look at the quantifier. They said it was wonderful because they just have to really emphasize. They didn't just do one. They didn't do works. They did wonderful works. I mean, because they're just such a wonderful person. They're so great. They're so, uh, uh, so much of a righteous person. Go to Matthew chapter 19, Matthew chapter 19. But notice again, this philosophy of trusting in your righteousness will not get you saved. It will not justify you. You won't enter in the kingdom of heaven. If you think your righteousness has anything to do with getting to heaven, you're not saved. Matthew 19, look at verse 16. And the old one came and said on him, good master, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life. Now, what is this guy's perspective on what it takes to get to heaven? He has to do something that's good. He has to do some righteous thing. So what is he going to point to for his, for getting in heaven? His righteousness. He's saying, what's the good thing that I have to do to get into heaven. Look at verse number 17. And he said unto him, why call us thou me? Good. There's none good, but one that is God. But if that will enter into life, keep the commandments. He saved them in which Jesus said, thou shalt do no murder. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou should not bear false witness, honor thy father and thy mother. And thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Now, this is what I like about verse 18. He says, follow the commandments. Now, if you had truly followed all the commandments perfectly, okay, imagine that you were, you know, this is impossible, but imagine you hypothetically had followed all the commandments perfectly. And someone says, in order to enter into heaven, you have to follow all the commandments. You wouldn't say which. He'd be like, done. He's saying which, cause he's like, I know there's some I haven't. I know there's a few that I haven't done on the list. You know, if your boss at work gives you a task list and says, Hey, complete all these tasks. And you come back and you're like, Hey, what else do you want me to do? And he's like, did you complete all your tasks? You're not gonna be like, which ones? That implies that you didn't do them all. Cause if he says, do all your, you're like, yeah, done. Got it. He's like, which ones, you know, which, which ones do I have to keep? Okay. Now, as we keep reading in this passage, though, he brings up lots of things. This guy obviously has broken some of these things. Okay. Thou shall not bear falls. He's never lied one time. He never disobeyed his parents. Come on. He says, the young man said that all these have I kept from my youth up? What lack I yet? Does this guy sound prideful or does he sound really humble here? This is the most prideful person on the planet. Frankly, this is like Jesse Lee Peterson or whatever. He doesn't sin anymore. Verse 21. Jesus said on him, if thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast and give to the poor and thou should have treasure in heaven and come and follow me. But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful for he had great possessions. So Christ knows that there's something this guy can't even give lip service to have, to have kept. He's saying, Hey, what about giving all your money to the poor? He couldn't do that one. And look, all have fallen short. Let's just assume he was telling the truth. Let's say he's like the most righteous guy we've ever met. He still wasn't perfect. He still couldn't keep every single commandment flawlessly. He couldn't be like Jesus Christ. There's only one Jesus Christ. No one else is perfect. No one else is that righteous. And he realizes he's not going to get into heaven because he can't be righteous enough. And he goes away sorrowful. He had the wrong mentality. And Christ tried to correct them initially by saying, why cause thou me good? If the guy had realized what Christ is saying, he's saying, look, nobody can be good. Nobody can be righteous enough. Nobody can be perfect enough. If he had changed his tune and said, Oh, you're right. There's none good, but one that's God. You know, you're the only one that's ever going to be good. I guess I need a savior then. But he rejected the savior. He was appointing to his righteousness. And you know what? He went away sorrowful because he can't get into heaven that way. Look at verse 23. Then said, Jesus and disciples, verily I send you that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. Now that doesn't sound like good news for the rich. Isn't everybody just want to be rich. I want to be rich. You know, money, money, money. It's like, it doesn't sound like a very good thing. Sounds like it's horrible. Sounds like most people that are rich are not going to heaven. They say, is it impossible? No, it's not impossible. But you know what? It's very few. So you know what? It's a blessing. You know, I wish I grew up in a rich family. Why? So you would not go to heaven. So you would have rejected the Lord. So you'd have been full. Well, I want to be rich now. Why do you want to be rich now? Well, I just want my kids to have all kinds of goodies and all the good stuff. Why do you want your kids to be so rich so that they'll deny the Lord? They'll be full and deny the Lord and they won't even want to go to heaven. You know what I want my kids to be rich with? Spiritual blessings, not the carnal blessings, because the carnal blessings are deceitful today. And people that like to trust in their righteousness, you know what? It's often tied to how much money they have because they've worked so hard for their money that they really have a large self-reliance. Because look, most people that have money, not all, a lot of people that have a lot of money, they worked really hard for it. They did a lot of things. They worked extra. They were spending the midnight oil on working, starting their business, making deals, doing all the hard jobs, figuring out, busting their butt or whatever, getting out there, doing the labor. I mean, you don't become rich by being a derelict. You don't become rich by just going out and being lazy today. No, you get rich by working hard in a lot of ways. Now, obviously, the super wealthy, they do it by lying, cheating, and deceiving, or they inherit something. But we understand that a majority of people that actually have a substantial amount of wealth, they worked really hard for that. So they what? They trust in themselves to get everything that they need. Everything they need in their mind has been provided by their own hands, by the sweat of their brow, by what they've done. And so they look at salvation in the same manner. They think, okay, what do I have to do this time? What do I have to do? What's the good thing I have to do? That's the wrong question. You can't do anything good enough to get into heaven. You're a sinner. You don't have righteousness on your own. Go to Luke chapter 16, Luke chapter number 16. And it gives people a false sense of salvation because they think they're so good. I mean, when you go to rich areas and preach the gospel, which obviously we don't do a ton of, but we've done some of it. And if you ever run into people that are well off or the nice neighborhood, this is the phrase I often hear. It rings in my head whenever I ask them, I'm good. You knock on their door. What do the wealthy say? I'm good. I got that taken care of. I'm settled. Why? Because that's their mentality. That's their philosophy. And they have a false sense of salvation. They think there's no way God wouldn't let this guy into heaven. I mean, look how good he is. He gives $500 to charity once a year. Oh, Joe Biden. Sorry. I mean, they think they're so wonderful and so good and so godly. And so they don't need Jesus Christ. They don't need a savior. They don't need any kind of saving because they've saved themselves. Luke 16, look at verse 15. And he said to them, ye are they which justify yourselves before men, but God know with your hearts for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God. And in fact, most of the rich are probably the most sinful, the most wicked, the most ungodly, the most full of covetousness and pride. The love of money is the root of all evil. So those who are chasing money, chasing wealth are often the most evil and wicked people on the planet. Yet they justify themselves before men. They like to tell you how righteous they are. Go back to chapter 10, Luke chapter 10. And I'm showing you different examples here. But the reality is the majority of people in this world are trusting their righteousness to get them into heaven. And it's a false sense of salvation. You know, it's so frustrating is when you knock on doors today and you ask people if they're 100% sure they're going to heaven and they say yes. And then you drill down. It has nothing to do with Christ, though. It has nothing to do with salvation and faith in Jesus Christ. And the worst thing you could have is people that think they're saved when they're not. I'd rather run into people that know for sure they're not going to heaven than all these people that are so certain they already got their ticket punched. They already got their place reserved for them. And then, of course, they point to their works. What could be more prideful than that? I know for sure I'm going to heaven. Why? Because I'm a good person. And that's what the majority of people say. Isn't that crazy? Luke chapter 10, look at verse 25. And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? So this isn't a one-off story. Isn't this just a constant theme? Hey, what do I have to do? What's the good thing that I have to do? Hey, what are the rights? Which commandments do I have to keep? It's just this constant ringing theme in the Bible. Verse 26. He said in him, what is written in the law? How readest thou? And the answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind and thy neighbor as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right, this do, and thou shalt live. That is seemingly easy. But then when you start breaking it down, that's every single commandment. Because you know what? All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments, loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself. It says in verse 29, but he noticed this phrase, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, and who is my neighbor? This is the attitude of the same people in Matthew chapter number seven. They're willing to justify themselves. Oh Lord, I prophesied in thy name. Oh Lord, I've cast out devils. Oh Lord, I've done many wonderful works. And you know what? You're not saved. If you're willing to justify yourself, you have to humble yourself and realize your righteousness is never going to get you into heaven. The Bible says they that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. This is what Christ said. And there's this disease. Go to Romans chapter 10 for a moment. Romans chapter number 10. There's this disease in people's minds that they think they're whole when they're not. They think that they're righteous when they're not. They think that they're saved when they are not. And so one aspect of getting people saved is helping them recognize the fact that they're not whole. Telling them, hey, you're a sinner. We use verses like Romans chapter three verse 10. There's none righteous, no, not one. Romans 3 23, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. This is something that we have to use to help people realize you have a problem. It's not that you're not doing enough good. You've done bad. You've done something wrong. Okay. And in Romans chapter number 10, in order to figure out how to get to heaven, then they have to create their own righteous standard. Like what it says in verse number one, brethren, my heart's desire pray to God for Israel is that they might be saved for I bear the record that they have a zeal of God but not according to knowledge for they being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves in the righteousness of God. Now, in order for people to believe that they're righteous enough to get to heaven, they have to throw out God's standard and replace it with their own, their own standard of, well, I haven't killed anybody today. You know, I haven't done any hardcore drugs. I only do prescription drugs, you know, but I don't do the illicit drugs. And really the only reason I don't do those kinds of drugs is because they made marijuana illegal now. So now I'm not doing illegal drugs, you know, or I don't drink a lot, you know, or I don't beat my wife a lot, or, you know, I don't, I pay most of my bills. You have to create their own righteous standard by which they apply to themselves. You know, there's a lot of churches a day. They think they're righteous and they think they're more godly than the world. And they have to create their own standards. They have to create their own righteousness. They say, well, I watch some TV shows, but not the really bad ones. Well, I listen to some secular music, but not the really bad secular music. Well, you know, I do sometimes skip church and fool around and do wrong things, but you know what? When I commit fornication, I love the person, not like the world who doesn't really love the person. And you know, when I commit adultery, it's because God really wanted me to be with that person, you know, not just for selfish reasons or something like that. And when I steal, I steal from the man and from the government. I don't steal from the poor little lady, you know. I don't steal from the poor widow woman. And you know, when I lie, I do it because I feel like it's better if I lie and I'm helping people and, you know, it's white lies. I don't lie like the other people who are malicious, you know. You're just deceiving yourself. Look, you show me any of these people. You're full of sin. You're full of iniquity. And you know what? They create their own righteous standard to measure unto themselves. And you know what their righteous standard is? Just a little bit worse than whatever they are. Just whatever that, I mean, you run into people, they just got out on parole, you know, from murder and like drugs and whatever. And you're like, are you going to heaven? Yeah, I'm a good person. It's like, what standard do you have? Okay. It's insanity. We have to, we have one standard, God's standard. And notice the ritual is like, keep all the commandments, which it was all of them, buddy. It was every single one. It wasn't, you get to create your own standard of righteousness and then measure that unto yourself. No, you only have God's standard. And when you start applying God's standard, you start realizing you're not righteous. Go to Revelation chapter 15 for a moment. Revelation chapter 15. The Bible says all our righteousness are as filthy rags in comparison. Hey, every good, the best thing you've ever done. It's like a dirty, disgusting, filthy rag in comparison to what Christ has done and comparison to who God is. They say, well, you know, the Bible says be holy for I am holy. You know, you have these holiness preachers that'll get up and try to claim that they're holy and that only the holy are going to get into heaven. That's a problem. You know why? Cause there's only one that's holy. Look at Revelation chapter 15, verse three. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God and the song of the lamb saying, great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God almighty, just and true are thy ways. Thou King of saints who should not fear the old Lord and glorify thy name for thou only art holy. Hey, if you have to be holy to get into heaven, there's only going to be one person there. That's God. It's just going to be at the beginning when it was the father, the son of the holy ghost. They're the only ones that make it in because you know what? They have these interesting qualifiers to their name. Holy father, he's holy. And then you have Jesus Christ, the holy one. And then you have the holy ghost. And then when you worshiping God, you say holy, holy, holy. And you know who else is holy? No one for thou only aren't holy. If you think that your righteousness is getting you into heaven, you've deceived yourself. If you say that you've not sinned, you deceive yourself and the truth is not in you. The Bible makes it clear. Look at first John chapter one. Let's look at another verse there. First John, just back up. It's really close to revelations. First John chapter number one, look at verse 10. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. Verse eight, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. You have to realize you're not righteous. Your righteousness doesn't exist, number one. Number two, that's not how you get into heaven. You can't get into heaven. And you say why? Christ said that if I keep the commandments that I would live. Yeah, he's giving you a hypothetical. But here's the problem with your hypothetical. Everyone sinned. No one is righteous. Yeah, hypothetically, if someone was perfectly righteous, why wouldn't they go to heaven? But here's the problem. No one exists like that. The only one that was righteous was Jesus and he died on the cross for us. He took our place. He gave us his righteousness. Now that makes sense because if we're given Jesus Christ's righteousness, we get to go to heaven. But that was the only way you could get there was through his righteousness, not your own. If you're trusting and your righteousness, you are not saved. If you think there's anything that you did that was good, you're not saved. It's a false sense of salvation. And we have to help people realize that they're not righteous. Now, I'm going to go to my second point and this is my second point because people would think, okay, yeah, no one's perfect. And I think a lot of people admit that at the door. Majority of people say, yeah, I've sinned. Yeah, I've done wrong. But then this is why they think they're saved still or this is why they're righteous. They've repented of that sin though. And so people end up trusting their repentance as a fact of the fact they're going to heaven. They think because they've turned over a new leaf that they're going to be saved. And really, this affects mostly people that were very sinful in their past because people that got saved as a kid, they realized they were more sinful after getting saved than before getting saved. But people that grow up and they live a very sinful life and get saved later in life, they look at their life and they think that they're somehow better or they're more righteous. And so that's a proof or an evidence of that they're saved or really that's what they're ultimately trusting in to get them saved. And this is a dangerous doctrine when you think that repenting your sins is anything to do with getting saved. You know why it lends a little bit of credence is because what they're really describing is the fact that they matured. Because guess what? When you're 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, I mean, your hormones are going like crazy, okay? And then people go to college, which is like a den of iniquity. And then they get hit in the face with reality and they have to get a job and they often get married. And so just naturally, their lives look a little bit cleaner. Naturally, their lives just seem a little bit less sinful. So they think that they repented of their sins. All they did was mature. Look, car insurance for men doesn't go down until age 25. That wasn't because he got saved at 25. That's because your hormones stopped being as crazy. You know, you stopped being such a, you know, a prideful person. I mean, guys think that they're invincible. Why do you think their insurance is so high? Because they'll pedal to the metal. They just drive their car like, you know, they don't care. They're just running around and they have a chip on their shoulder and they look at the next guy like, you know, he's like, he's not gonna, he's not gonna beat me down the line, you know? Hey, I've been there. The first wreck that I had, I was trying to be, you know, kind of cute in my car. It's like 200 feet of road and I'm trying to drive like 70 miles an hour on 200 feet of road. It didn't work out. Okay. But look, you can't trust in the fact that you repented of your sins to get you saved because you, first of all, can't repent of all of them, number one. And number two, even if you repent of it, you still send, you still have to pay punishment for that. But they look at the fact, oh, I gave up alcohol. You know, you have to give up alcohol if you want to get saved, you know? Well, I'm a different person than I used to be. And you have to be a different person too if you really want to get saved. Go to Romans chapter number two for a moment. Let me show you a few verses here. They think, well, I gave up drugs. I gave up fornication. I gave up all these things. Maybe you gave up fornication because nobody wants to be with you. You know, that doesn't mean you even gave it up. You could just be, you know, got hit with the ugly stick and nobody's interested in you anymore. Okay. You could just be on meth and nobody wants that. That doesn't mean you repented of your sin. You know, the reason why most drugs, drug addicts and drunks on the street aren't having drugs is they ran out of money. They didn't repent of their sin. You know, when people hit the lottery, they usually go into these sins even worse just because money's feeding that addiction. The only reason that they're not committing that sin is because they're at work or something or they're hungry or, you know, they're just forced with reality. It's not like they gave it up out of a sense of pure righteousness. Oh, I just decided I really want to give that up now. But even if you were better, you know, what are they basically saying? I'm better than other people. I'm better than the person outside. I'm better than the drunk, than the derelict, than the murderer, than the thief, than the liar, than everyone in government. And that's probably true. You probably are better than most people in the government, right? But here's the reality. Just because you're better than someone else, that doesn't mean you're getting into heaven. Look at Romans chapter 2 verse 1. Therefore, thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou that judgest. For whereon thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself. For thou that judgest doeth the same things. But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things. And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? So in Romans chapter 1, he contrasts those that are saved by faith with the most wicked, ungodly people on the planet, the reprobates, okay? That's your two comparisons. He has the most righteous person by faith, and then you have the most ungodly person because they rejected that faith. They rejected the Lord. They changed the truth of God into a lie. And then it leaves a list of what they're like. It says they're full of all unrighteousness. And so some people look at that and they say, well, I'm going to get to heaven because I'm not like the reprobate, you know? I'm not full of all unrighteousness. I don't do all of those things on that list. But wait a minute, do you do some? What were some of the things on that list? How about covetousness? Have you ever been covetous? Envy? Have you ever debated? Have you ever whispered? Have you ever been proud? How about disobedient to parents? Anybody fallen on that list? I guarantee the parents could testify about their children. Unmerciful? I mean, look, obviously some of these things on this list, like haters of God, that's not going to apply to very many people. But you've done some of these things on this list, and if you believe God's going to judge them for every single thing on this list, guess what? He's going to judge everybody based on every single thing on that list. And why do you think you're going to escape? Well, I turned from that sin. Okay, yeah, but he's still going to judge that sin that you committed. And, you know, thinking that repenting of your sin is somehow going to get you into heaven, it's foolishness. It would be me looking, me being a thief and looking at another thief. And the other thief, he stole a billion dollars, and I've only stole a million, and think that I'm just going to get off because I, well, he stole a billion. Okay, well, he's going to get judged according to the billion he stole. You're going to get judged according to the million you stole. Even if it was a one dollar, you will be judged according to that. Go to Galatians chapter number two. Galatians chapter number two. If you're trusting your repentance, you still have to pay for the sins that you've committed. Hypothetically, if you commit one sin and repent of all the other sin, you never commit the other sin, guess what? You still are guilty of the one sin. That's a problem for you, okay? And arguably, there are some people that are worse sinners than others. The Bible preaches this. The Bible teaches this. Some people are arguably more sinful. They've committed more sins. They've done more unrighteousness. And as a whole, in the Old Testament, you had the Jews, and then you had the Gentiles. As a whole, they look at the Gentiles and say they're more sinful. And in many cases, they're right. Not always, but generally speaking. And look what it says in verse number 15. Let's do verse 14 too. But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou being a Jew liveth after the manner of Gentiles, not as do the Jews, why compelest thou the Gentiles and liveth as they do the Jews? We who are Jews by nature, not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. So he contrasts Jews to the sinners of the Gentiles. Notice he has a quantifier on the Gentiles. They're sinners. They're worse than the Jews. But guess what? That doesn't matter because you're still sinful too. We have before proved that all are under sin. All are guilty. All have come short of the glory of God. He says, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. Even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. Notice the Bible makes it clear. No work is going to get you in heaven. You say, what's the works of the law? Well, keeping the commandments, but also not breaking the commandments. When you're not disobeying and you're not disobeying his clear statutes of thou should not kill, thou should not steal, thou should not commit adultery, and thou should not bear false witness, have no other gods before me. When you observe those, you're doing the works of the law. And the Bible is saying, you're not going to get justified by doing that. I don't care how much you've turned and now you're obeying the works of the law. You're not going to be justified by turning to those works of the law. The works of the law are not going to save you. Just like whenever I'm driving down the highway, going 100, and the speed limit says 50, and then the cop flips his lights on, and I slam on my brakes, and now all of a sudden I'm going 50. He can still pull me over. Oh, well, wait a minute. Now I'm going 50, sir. Now I'm obeying. Now I'm doing right. Well, I'm not going to give you a ticket for obeying now. I'm going to give you a ticket for when you disobeyed, for when you broke the law, for when you actually did something wrong. So obeying God's commandments is not going to save you. It's going to prevent you from more punishment. That's all it'll do. It's not logical to think that, oh, now I'm obeying, therefore I'm going to escape the judgment of my previous sins, of my previous disobeying. Obviously, we should try not to break God's commandments, but here's a problem you already have. Here's the problem. You're already guilty, and in reality, you're going to keep doing it. You have a sin problem. Go to Revelation 21. Let me tell you the extremity of this. If you think your repentance is going to get you saved, well, I have bad news because even one sin will keep you out of heaven. Just one. Well, I don't sin anymore. Okay, well, have you ever sinned? Revelation 21, look at verse number 27. And there shall in no wise enter into it. What is this? The new heavens, the new earth, the new Jerusalem. Anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie, but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life. Hey, telling one lie, making one lie, you won't enter into heaven. You had to be perfect, and you're not. So no matter how many, well, I repented of lying. I only did it once. Well, there's a problem, because whosoever maketh a lie is not going to enter in. And we all know you haven't told one lie. If you say that to me, you just lied again. Okay, that's evidence of the fact that you lied more. Go to James chapter two. Go to James chapter two. Let me show you from another place in scripture. People that think that they're more righteous than others have a wrong concept of what it takes to get to heaven. It's not having stolen less money. It's the fact that you've stolen. You're in trouble, okay? And when it comes to sinning, it's not that you're better than other sinners, because you may be. You may be more righteous than other people. In fact, you guarantee you are. I guarantee nobody here is as bad as Jeffrey Dahmer. No one's as bad as Ted Bundy. No one in here is as bad as Don Lemon, or Ellen DeGeneres, or Rachel Maddow, or Joel Osteen, a false prophet. No one is as bad as they are. But guess what? Being more righteous than them is not going to get you into heaven. Your righteousness has to exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees. And obviously, we know that they were hypocrites, and they weren't really that righteous. But I think Christ used that picture, because they were, in everybody's mind, the most righteous person. They looked at the scribes and Pharisees and said, if we were going to point to the most righteous person in the room, they would point to that person, essentially. And they're saying, you have to be more righteous than those guys. And they're like, uh-oh, I'm in trouble. The scribes and the Pharisees are probably thinking like, yeah, that's right, buddy. They're like, you have to be more than yourself. You're like, oh, how does that work? James 2, verse 10. For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offended one point, he is guilty of all. Hey, oh, you repented of every single sin? But did you commit one sin? You're guilty. And when you're guilty, guess what? You're going to the same place as Jeffrey Dahmer. You're going to the same place as Joel Osteen. You're going to the same place as Todd Ferguson. Hell. You're going to hell. If you don't believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you're trusting in your repentance, if you're trusting in how good you are, you're not saved. There's none good, no, not one. Now, I have an article that I want to kind of articulate this point because you say, why preach this? Nobody believes this stuff. Nobody believes that you have to repent of your sins or you have to be better than other people to get to heaven. Oh, contraire, my friend. Oh, contraire. There's a main false prophet of this, main false teacher, and he makes soul winning look bad. His name is Ray Comfort. And Ray Comfort emphasized this doctrine, this false doctrine, and a lot of people believe it. In fact, I made a video of a sermon I had preached at Pure Words against Ray Comfort. It has like 15,000 views or something. And it's like more against that video than four. And literally this is what Ray Comfort said. He says, you're not saved through faith or you're not saved by faith, you're saved through faith. And I was articulating how that was stupid. Okay. Everyone was against me for that. Everyone was saying that I'm hateful and mean and angry and I beat my wife. And, you know, I'm just like, what in the world? Because I'm telling you there's no difference between the words through and by like, am I therefore your enemy? Cause I tell you the truth. But look, it's like half and half on thumbs up and thumbs down. And like lots of people are on there just like Ray's right. You have to repent. You have to be holy. All the verses I'm showing you, they're just pointing to the fact that they repented and they've turned from their sins and they're no longer sinful. You know, we all have to be a holy like Ray Comfort is, but here's a problem. Ray Comfort's not holy. Now he has a sidekick buddy. That's also a false teacher. His name is Eric Hovind. And Eric Hovind is the son of Kent Hovind. And he has his own ministry called creation today, which he stole from his father. And Eric Hovind has no charisma and is just one of the worst false teachers. And he's not saved. He claims he got saved by Ray Comfort. He says, he says, Ray Comfort got him saved because he heard Ray Comfort preach a sermon called hell's best kept secret. And that's what got him saved. Even though he was raised by in church, by his parents and by his dad, you know, I don't know about Kent Hovind. The jury's out on that one. I've heard him say the right thing about salvation plenty of times. And so if I cling to that, I would think he's saved, but he's also giving lip service to like Joey Faust's doctrine of like going to hell and weird stuff. I don't know. It's confusing. Okay. But I do know Eric Hovind is not saved because if you think the person that got you saved is Ray Comfort, you're not saved. If you got saved by Ray Comfort, you're not saved. You have a false conversion. Okay. And this guy is wicked. He's evil. And you know, the only people he wants to attack, the only people he's really against is yours truly. And the new I have to be okay. And I'm going to, I'm going to explain that in a minute, but there's an article that he wrote. He says, his repentance of work one must do to be saved. Okay. This is by Eric Hovind. And it's an interview Eric Hovind did with Ray Comfort specifically. And they had this video where they're talking about is repentance of work that you have to do to be saved. Now it's interesting that Eric Hovind being under Ken Hovind's ministry, uh, this whole article, you know, how many times the King James is quoted? Never. You know, he uses the NIV, the ESV, and the new King James and this article can open your dad. Okay. What are one of the great King James only advocates? It's like your dad taught you the King James Bible is the word of God. He's using the NIV because he doesn't hear the voice of the shepherd. Obviously this is a quote from Ray Comfort. You aren't saved until you repent. He repent. Okay. But here's the thing repentance and his definition, because here's the thing definitions matter. So let's get Ray Comfort's definition of repentance from his own mouth. And then let's add that to this sentence so that we understand what he's saying. Okay. Because if you using the word repent mean change your mind and trust in Jesus. I agree, but wait a minute. Let's let him define for us what repent means. Ray Comfort defines repentance in the interview with Eric by saying repentance is an old fashioned word, which means to confess and forsake your sins. So let me read this other sentence. You aren't saved until you confess and forsake your sins, Ray Comfort. And he says, that's not work salvation. He says, you aren't saved until you repent. And it's just all these, you know, false Bible versions, which they have to use the ESV in Romans chapter 10. And the ESV, it says this, because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him for the dead, you will be saved. Now they make such a big deal about this Jesus is Lord phrase, which is not what the Bible says in your, in the King James. It says Lord Jesus. Okay. They saying, well, when you confess Jesus Lord, what that means is you've turned from all your sins. You confess and you forsook all of your sins. Cause you're calling him Lord now. Okay. This is what he says. Eric Hovind article in Romans 10, Paul describes what Ray Comfort calls repentance as confessing and forsaking your sins because it's, you know, confessing that he's he's Lord or whatever. He says, uh, in Ephesians two, where Paul says it is a gift of God and not of works. How can it be not of works and yet require the work and confessing and turning away from our sins. That's a good question. He's like, how is this contradiction work? He says some critics of Christianity claim that Paul invented his own brand of Christianity different from that of Jesus. But what does Jesus say about salvation? What is mess? What was his message? He doesn't even answer the question. Just ask those questions and then just moves on. And then he points to all the places where Jesus used the word repent. Okay. Matthew four, repent for the kingdom of heaven. His hand go to Mark chapter one. We'll read that one. Go to Mark chapter one. So you can look at this verse. If Luke chapter five and Jesus answered them, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners repentance. Now he's using the ESV. That's what I was reading there. And you know, I quoted that verse earlier. They, the beholding not a physician, but they that are sick and Jesus didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Okay. But what does repentance mean? According to the Bible repentance, according to the Bible is changing what you're trusting and to get you saved. If you're trusting that you're righteous, you have to stop trusting that and trust that Jesus is righteous and believing in his righteousness to get you saved. So of course, why would I call the righteous? They're good in their mind. They have to stop trusting in their righteousness and believe in Jesus Christ. Okay. But then they change it to, Oh, you guys have to become righteous like the other righteous people. Wait a minute. There is no righteous people, Paul or you know, Ray comfort. Oh, he didn't call the righteous. Well, who's righteous crickets. No one God. Yeah. Jesus Christ. That's the only one that's righteous. Then they use Mark chapter one verse number 15. And I use this worse when I go out. So when he sometimes not every single time, but sometimes and saying the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe the gospel. So they say, Oh, you have to repent if you want to get saved. Yeah. But it doesn't say repent necessarily of your sins here. That phrase isn't included. So what's the repenting? Okay, well, you're not believing the gospel. So you need to change your mind and guess what? I'll leave the gospel. Well, Jesus preached repentance. You're right. Jesus told a bunch of people that were self-righteous that they needed to stop trusting in their own righteousness and believe in him. They had to believe in his righteousness and that he was the son of God. Now, Eric Hovind brings up the fact that the word repentance Greek word is metanoia, which literally means a change of mind. Yet he still can't, you know, get this article right. Okay. He says, he's like, Oh, they need to change their minds. Think differently about their sin and then forsake it. It's like, they keep adding this forsaking thing that has nothing to do with salvation itself. Okay. And then he tries to find, believe I'm not going to read this whole article for you because it's just full of nonsense. But then in James chapter number two, he is the ESV and he brings up the contrasting idea of someone that says they have faith without works. And someone who says, I'll show you my faith by my works. Okay. And he, he brings that out in the ESV and he's saying, this is, this is the dichotomy that's presented. Okay. Someone that says they have faith, but they have no works. And then someone who says, I'll show you my faith by my works. He's saying the guy that's showing his faith by his works is the Ray comfort, true salvation. And it's that repentance that they've already taken. So then his example of the person is saying they have faith without works. This is who he says that is Richard Dawkins. Richard Dawkins doesn't even claim to believe that God exists. Why, why would I use Richard Dawkins as the guy that's saying he has faith without works? Richard Dawkins claims to have works without faith. The exact opposite you moron. They don't want to present our actual belief because then it'll actually make sense with the whole article. So they have to bring up the straw man and say, Oh, there's these people like Richard Dawkins who claim there's this blind faith. This is what he says. He says this verse, James two, 18 through 19 has caused much debate in the church, but I think it clearly illustrates the difference between a Dawkins defined blind faith and the kind of Jesus defined trusting and truth faith God reveals in his word. So he says, James two is contrasting Richard Dawkins with Jesus Christ. Like what in the world? Then he brings up the two demon possessed men in Matthew chapter number eight. And he says, they believe that Jesus is the son of God, but they didn't repent. Okay. He says the demons know who Jesus is probably better than anyone standing with Jesus at that moment could know, but they do not worship him. They do not turn away from evil and follow him. The demons believe in Jesus in the sense that they accept who he is, but they do not change their mind and fall his feet, calling him Lord. They were calling him Lord. They were submitting to him. That's so stupid. Okay. And look, no one is arguing that all you have to do is just acknowledge that Jesus is the son of God and you're saved. Just that acknowledgement alone. Virtually nobody believes that I don't hear people championing that. I mean, that would be a hyper liberal non-denom church or something that says, all you have to do is just say Jesus Lord or something and you're good to go. Look, no one is arguing that a mere acknowledgement of Christ is going to get you saved. What's going to get you saved is trust that his sacrifice paid all your sins, is putting your full reliance on his death, burial, and resurrection as your salvation. And look, demons don't do that. Demons aren't trusting the sacrifice of Christ to save them, number one. Number two, they're a demon. So I don't even know if they have offered to them the same options as we. Okay. I don't know where we get this idea. It's not like dogs have the same option either. I know it says preach the gospel of every creature. He's not saying Fido. He's not saying like, well, Fido really trust Jesus. He's getting to heaven too. He's not. He's not making it. Okay. And the angels that sin they're reserved for hell is what the Bible says. Okay. Now I'm going to read kind of the latter part of this article, and then I'm going to talk about that video that they pointed out, but this is what Eric says. The gospel message is clear. Change your mind, turn away from sin and to Jesus. He's he's unsaved heretic. Okay. And this guy is such a moron. He goes into Taco Bell and gets the, the clerk at the counter. He's like, you don't even have to do evangelism. He's like, watch. And he's like, he orders like some dollar thing off the menu or something. And he's all, they're like, what's your name? And he's like, Jesus is Lord. And he's like, yell it real, real loud while I sit in the back. And he's like, see, they'll do the evangelism for you. Cool. Huh? And then you just go sits in the back of a Taco Bell and they're like, Jesus Lord orders ready. And he's like, yep, that's right. That's cool. He like believes in the Judas doctrine. You don't have to be saved to get people saved. Oh, just let them evangelize for you. I didn't know that someone just yelling Jesus Lord is going to get people saved too. What kind of nonsense. This guy is just making everything about Christianity look bad. He makes his dad look bad. He makes creation ministry look bad. He makes the gospel look bad. He makes the Bible look bad. He's just a fool. He's an ignorant fool. And he just steals from everybody. Okay. And he's buddies with Ray Comfort. He says, Ray Comfort got him saved. He's twofold more of the child of hell than Ray Comfort. He doesn't even have any good gimmicks like Ray Comfort. Well, this is what Ray Comfort said. He said, those who say, all you have to do is believe that's work salvation. So he does that. I looked through the video. Okay. That this article is referencing Ray Comfort and Eric Hovind are combating with each other. And they say, well, the people that say that you have to repent of your sins to get saved. That's like work salvation. And he's like, well, if that's true, then saying that you have to believe to get saved is also work salvation. What a brilliant person he is. He says this, we're not saved by faith. We're saved through faith. Now let me shatter that for a second. Go to Romans chapter three. I need to shatter that again. This, this guy can't even understand the English language. You know, go back to New Zealand or whatever you're from, where apparently they don't even understand the difference between the word through and by, you know, when you look up the word through in the dictionary, you know what the only synonym was by, and then you look up by, and you know what the synonym is like through it's like, he doesn't believe in synonyms apparently. Okay. And he can't articulate a difference between these two words. Romans chapter three, verse 28. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Look at Romans five, one, therefore being justified by faith. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Who am I going to believe Ray comfort or the Bible? Hey, the Bible says by faith and look, a five-year-old could tell you the word by and through mean the same thing. Okay. He says this repentance means to confess and forsake your sins, which I already read. And he says, there's these people who say, I believe, but they still fornicate. They still look at things with lust. They still lie. They still steal. And they're not saved. You know what he's saying? He doesn't fornicate. He doesn't look at things with lust. He doesn't lie. He doesn't steal. We have to be holy. Like Ray comfort is go to first Corinthians chapter five, go to first Corinthians five. But you know what to say that someone who commits fornication is not saved can be proven false with the Bible itself. It can prove I can prove to you that that's not true beyond all of the scripture that just makes this obvious beyond realizing that salvation by faith alone, beyond realizing that everyone sin and will continue sinning. Okay. Ray comfort is so prideful. He thinks that he doesn't lie anymore. He doesn't steal anymore. He doesn't look with lust anymore. He's establishing his own righteousness of course, too, because when he describes these things, he describes them in a more extreme way. Okay. And I'm not going to use his language, but first Corinthians chapter five, look at verse nine. I wrote unto you in an epistle, not to company with fornicators yet, not altogether with the fornicators of this world or with the covetous or extortioners or with idolaters for then must he needs to go out of the world. But now I have written unto you not to keep company. If any man that is called a brother be a fornicator. Oh, how could this even make sense? If every person that the fornicators unsaved, he's contrasting the unsaved fornicators with the saved fornicators. He's like, well, wait a minute. It's the ones that are called a brother though. That's the false conversion, bro. Wait a minute. I can prove that it's still a safe person. Okay. Look at verse five, because this, there is a guy that's called a brother that's in the church that's committing fornication and the worst fornication known to man, basically. Okay. He's with his father's wife. That's gross. All right. Maybe his mother-in-law might be worse. I don't know. But look at verse five to deliver such one in the Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. So notice what the apostle Paul said, Hey, even if this guy gets kicked out of church and the devil kills him, he's still going to be saved and go to heaven. Why? Because you can be a fornicator and be saved. He said, Oh, you're advocating people to commit fornication. No, I'm not. You'll get thrown out of church. How can you argue that I'm advocating it when I say you're not welcome at church and the devil might kill you. The devil might destroy you. That doesn't sound like a strong abdication. That doesn't sound like a great encouragement to commit fornication. All right. Eric Hovind says this, there's many people are claiming belief, but there doesn't seem to be any difference. Do you know what they're doing? Eric Hovind and Ray Comfort look at everybody else and they say, we're more righteous than you guys. You know why there's a problem in the church? Number one, because people aren't saved because they have a false end to salvation. And number two, because churches aren't preaching against sin. Because if you preached against sin, you would immediately shatter the idea that anybody in the room was righteous. So they wouldn't have, they wouldn't be able to trust in that false sense of righteousness to get them saved anymore. That's why a church that believes in a freeness of the gospel also is the hardest preaching against sin. And the ones that are the most liberal on salvation, they're also the most liberal on sin. That's why that exists. Then Ray Comfort and Eric Hovind, they bring up this guy named Josh Harris, who was a pastor and he rejected Christianity and became like an atheist or something. And I looked up an article, it says this guy from the purity culture pastor, Josh Harris, who renounced his faith after announcing his divorce. So this guy was married, got divorced, quit pastoring. He was the former pastor of Covenant Life Church in Maryland. And he founded a church called Sovereign Grace Ministries. He went to Instagram and made an announcement. So after he quit all these things, then he made a special announcement on Instagram, an apology for the LGBTQ people. He said, I specifically want to add to this list now to the LGBTQ community. I want to say that I'm sorry for the views that I taught in my books. And as a pastor regarding sexuality, I regret standing against marriage equality for not affirming you or your place in the church and for any ways that my writing and speaking contributed to a culture of exclusion and bigotry. I hope you can forgive me. Now the article, the author of this article then says this, of course, this left the reader with more questions than answers. Now images are floating around on social media that have captured Josh Harris marching alongside other homos and sexual deviants and gay pride parades in Canada and munching on rainbow donuts. There's his pastor. He got divorced, quit pastoring, is now a flaming faggot. Okay. And they're talking about how, you know, this is a picture of the false sins of salvation. This is what Ray Comfort said about Joshua. We should rejoice for Joshua. We should rejoice for Joshua. He's no longer deceiving himself and he hopes that he gets saved. He said the worst thing for Joshua was the fact that he thought he was saved when he wasn't. And now that it's manifest that he's not, he has a chance to get saved. And so we should rejoice for Joshua because he's on the first step of repentance, a flaming faggot. What kind of nonsense? He says, oh, there's all this hypocrisy in the church due to true and false conversion. No, there's hypocrisy in the church because you all are a bunch of false prophets teaching false doctrine. Okay. Cause fags are behind the pulpit. He says, there's these people that say, all you have to do is believe you don't have to repent. And then he says, Christ will say on you, you worker of lawlessness. So he mentions the passage we already went to, Matthew 7. He says, the reason why those people didn't get saved is because they were too sinful. He says, if you say you're a Christian, you don't have any fruit, then you're not saved. And he says, well, how do I examine my fruit? Cause they bring up this verse in second Corinthians 13 about examine yourself, whether you be in the faith. Okay. He says, that does not mean look at your decision. Now what would be looking at your decision? Did I trust Christ alone for myself? He says, don't look at your decision. He says, you have to examine your fruit. The fruit of praise, the fruit of Thanksgiving, the fruit of righteousness, the fruit of repentance, the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, meekness, faith, and temperance. He says, that's how you decide if you're saved or not. What could a Catholic look at this list and then think that they're saved? Oh, I go to church. I praise and I'm really thankful and I'm really righteous. And I'm really, I got the spirit. They don't look and decide if they trusted Christ. They look at their righteousness to decide if they're saved. They look at their repentance to decide if they're saved. And then he says, you know what? There's all these guys that say, all you have to do is believe. There's all these people out there saying, all you have to believe. You don't have to repent of your sins and turn for your sins to be saved. He says, I find that they're lacking integrity and they do things that are so wrong. So Ray Comfort's going to point to us to someone who thinks that salvation is just by faith alone and that they do the worst things. They're doing things that are so wrong. Okay. And then, you know, you know, he, he says, he's doing this. He says, there's a guy out there that made a video with me in it and another minister. And we're preaching against one of the, it makes it look like we're preaching once again against one another, but we really weren't. So it was a lie. And that's the worst person. And you know who that is? Me. I like fell out of my chair laughing because I made this video a long time ago of Kent Hovind rebuking Ray Comfort. And that's like 400,000 views on YouTube. And it's just showing how Ray comfort's a false prophet. He literally says that I'm the worst person on the planet because I think salvation by faith alone. And then I make videos exposing him to be a false prophet. And then he says, you know, the other people are the people that come on my YouTube channel and are constantly commenting about how I teach work salvation. And I was like, oh, so the new IV. So the two people that he dislikes the most are us. And look, I, he said this video at hundreds of thousands of views. I look, my video is the only one that a hundred thousand views that had his name in it anywhere on YouTube. I did a fresh browser. I looked it up many different ways. And you know, his ministry has commented on every single of the videos I've made attacking him, the living waters ministry. What kind of a moron he says, oh, this is done by people who think it's okay to lie and believe in Jesus. Well, number one is never okay to lie, but yeah, you know what? I believe in Jesus and I've lied and I'm going to heaven and you're not, he says, oh, there's these people that say you don't have to repent. They're false. And they say we're false prophets because we use the phrase turn from your sins. He says, there's a stack of verses that say you need to turn from your sin. So he goes to Ezekiel, go to Ezekiel 14 for a moment. Now let me, let me explain to you who Ray comfort is. Ray comfort is the best picture of a modern day Pharisee today. He is that guy that thinks he's righteous. He's turned from his sins and he's teaching the most hardcore work. Salvation is a false prophet. And you know what? He thinks he's turned from his sins. Oh, thank God that I'm not like pastor Shelley making these videos, you know, thank God. And I like the new IFB going out and commenting on my videos. Thank God that I'm not like these other sinners. And you know, he goes to California where there's the weirdest people on the beach and he's trying to like contrast himself with them and be like, when you have a penny of sins, when you get a penny of sins, you know, when are you going to pay? What are you going to pit? Why? Cause he's trying to contrast himself with them to make himself look like he's righteous, look like he's gone. He's he's like talking to fags and lesbians and atheists and God. That's his number one target audience. He just riles up most of his videos that are himself. It's just atheists debating him and talking to him. And, you know, he did a interview or not an interview, a debate with two atheists on national television with Kirk Cameron. And he lost that debate because he's dumber than false prophets. He's dumber than atheists. He's he's so wicked. He's so evil. He tried to prove the existence of God without the Bible. And he had this picture of Crocoduck and it was just like, everybody's making fun of him. It's like, I would too. It was stupid. He said, if evolution is true, then Crocoduck would exist. Okay. Look at Ezekiel 14 verse six. Therefore say to the house of Israel, thus say the Lord God, repent and turn yourselves from your idols and turn away your faces from all your abominations for every one of the house of Israel or the stranger, the sojourn of Israel, which separated themselves from me and set up his idols in his heart and put it at the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face and cometh to a prophet to inquire concerning me. I, the Lord will answer by myself. So he points to verse number six and he says, look, you have to repay. You have to turn yourself from your idols. Okay. You have to turn from all your abominations. Then he goes to chapter 18 and looks at verse 21, chapter 18, look at verse 21. He says, but if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he has committed and keep all my statutes and do that, which is lawful and right, he shall surely live. He shall not die. You know, that reminds me of what Jesus said to that one guy. Hey, follow all the commandments and you shall live. But there's a problem. Number one, you can't. Number two, this is not in regards to getting to heaven. And even if it is, it's impossible. Okay. But it's not. Now, obviously what Christ is telling you, he's giving you hope to all you sinners out there, which is everyone. All right. He's saying, look, when you give up your sin and you start living for the Lord, God's going to let you have mercy in your life. And he's not going to hold all those trespasses against you necessarily. And you can still live a long prosperous life. This has nothing to do with whether or not you're going to heaven because the Bible already told us that a man is not justified by the works of the law. He's justified by faith in Jesus Christ. And yet he wants to go to Ezekiel. Who uses Ezekiel out so winning? I've never even met that person. Number one, number two, I've never seen Ray Comfort use Ezekiel when trying to get someone saved. Yet they want to point to us. Oh, there's all these scriptures telling us you had to turn all your sins to be saved. He's a liar. Thank you. I want to get to my, I want to just mention my last point quickly as we conclude. Just go over to 1 John chapter five. I won't have you turn anywhere else. Point number one, why do people have a false sense of salvation? Because they're trusting their righteousness. Point number two, why do people have a false sense of salvation? They're trusting their repentance, specifically of their sins. They trust the fact they cleaned up their life. They're better than they used to be. But you have a problem. You already used to be bad. You're still going to have to pay recompense of that. And my third point is this. People have a false sense of salvation because of their revelation. Because of a revelation they had, a special revelation. They think they saw Jesus or they saw some angel or they started speaking in tongues or Benny Hinn knocked him over or whatever. Or they had some burning in the bosom, right? The Mormons. They have some kind of a feeling, some kind of an experience, some kind of revelation. And they're trusting that physical experience as the proof of their salvation. Oh no, Jesus was in the back of my car and he told me I'm saved or whatever. It's like, sorry. No, you didn't see Jesus. Ask him to describe Jesus for you. Is it long-haired? Yeah. Was he wearing a dress? Yeah. Hey Bo, was that a really long dress like someone who's getting married? Not Jesus. Not glory. Revelation tells us he had white hair and his eyes are like a flame of fire and his feet are shining like brass. Okay. That's the Jesus of the Bible. You didn't see him. Sorry. You didn't have Jesus come and talk to you and tell you all these things. Look, that's the point of being an apostle. And the Bible says no man has seen God any time. The only begotten son which is in the bosom of the father, he hath declared him. Anybody that tells me they shall call the father, liar. Liar. No one has seen him. No man shall see my face and live. No man has seen God. When they start saying, oh, I saw God. Well, you just denied the Bible then. And the Bible says to not trust, you know, trust not in thine own heart. You know, the Bible says to trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not on thine own understanding and all the ways to acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths. So I can't trust my physical experiences. You know, in 1 Peter, the apostle Peter, he's talking about how, you know, we haven't followed cunningly devised fables. We have a more sure word of prophecy. He makes it clear, hey, even though I saw these things, you know, it's more trustworthy than my remembrance of a past event is the scripture because I can go back and I can read the scripture. And you know what? If you weren't there, how could you tell me what happened? You can't, but we can all look at the Bible together. And that's how we can know that we're saved. The only way that we can know that we're saved is from what the scriptures say. It's one of the Bible. The Bible says faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. It doesn't say by hearing a physical experience. By having some kind of encounter, by some kind of a burning a bus. No, you get the faith by trusting what the Bible says. That's why it says in 1 John 13, these things have I written on you that believe in the name of the son of God, that you may know you have eternal life. God wants you to know that you're saved, but he doesn't want you to have a false sense of salvation. The false sense of salvation is trusting your righteousness. It's trusting your repentance. It's trusting your revelation. But you know what? The way you know you're saved is when you trust the record. Go back to verse nine. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater. For this is the witness of God, which he hath testified of his son. He that believeth on the son of God hath the witness in himself. He that believeth not God hath made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave of his son. And this is the record that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his son. Now I'll use this in soul winning sometimes, but you want to know if you're saved today? Do you want to know if you're going to heaven today? Well, here's my question. Do you trust the record? Do you trust the record? What's the record? Number one, it's only through Jesus. If you think that salvation is by any other name or any other person, you're not saved. You have to believe in Jesus Christ to be saved. He says, I'm the way, the truth, and the life, no man cometh unto the Father but by me. There's only one way to heaven, through Jesus Christ. Number two, though, he says he's given it to us. So if I think I have to earn it, if I think I have to work for it, if I think there's any righteousness I have to do, I no longer believe it's a gift, and I'm denying the record that God gave of his son. Notice God gave. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. How can he give something if you have to pay for it or you have to work for it? It's no longer a gift. You know, Walmart doesn't give me gifts. It tells me something. Amazon doesn't give me gifts. It sells me something. But God actually gives gifts. All you have to do is receive it. But specifically, you also have to know this, that the gift is eternal life. So in order to know that you're saved, in order to know you have to believe the record, the record is what? That it's only through Jesus, that it's a gift through faith, and specifically that gift's eternal life. If I think I could lose my salvation, I'm not trusting what Christ did. I'm not trusting the record that God gave of his son. I'm not trusting and his righteousness. I'm trusting myself to continue being righteous. I'm trusting in my repentance of sin. I'm trusting in something that I heard or I believe because the Bible sure didn't say it. And you know what? No matter what any person says, the only thing that matters is what God said. And so if you want to know that you're saved today, you have to believe the record. And if you don't think you're saved, if you're not sure about it, ask anybody in this room and they'll show you the record of God. They'll show you the record that God gave of his son so that you can know that you're saved. And you know, I think the majority of people in here are saved, but as we go out to preach the gospel, let us be mindful and realize most people have a false sense of salvation. Don't let that discourage you, but rather motivate you to preach them the gospel. You know, there's a watering down today where people just want to believe everyone's saved and everyone's on their way to heaven. That's not the reality. And just because someone thinks they're going to heaven doesn't mean they're going to heaven. We need to make sure that they're believing the record that God gave us. Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Father, so much for your word. Thank you for making salvation so easy and so clear. I pray that we would never stop contending earnestly for the faith that was once delivered, the common faith that we have with all brethren that is in your blood, that salvation is just a free gift. I pray that we would help those that are deceived today. We would help those that are led astray, that believe that they're saved even though they're not, and that with meekness we can come and instruct them that oppose themselves, that we can enlighten them with the gospel, that we can be a shining light, and that we can take those who are trusting in a false plan of salvation and bring them to salvation that you gave us, the record that God gave his son. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. With that, let's close it out with our last song for this morning. Go ahead and take out your red hymnal there. The song number 401, Set My Soul Afire. Song number 401, Set My Soul Afire. Set my soul afar, Lord, for thy holy word. Burn it deep within me, let your works be heard. Millions grow in darkness in this day and hour. I will be your witness, fill me with thy power. Set my soul afar, Lord, set my soul afar. Make my life a witness of thy saving power. Millions grow in darkness waiting for thy word. Set my soul afar, Lord, set my soul afar. Set my soul afar, Lord, for the lost and said. Give to me a passion as I seek to win. Help me not to falter, never let me fail. Fill me with thy spirit, let thy will prevail. Set my soul afar, Lord, let my soul afar. Make my life a witness of thy saving power. Millions grow in darkness waiting for thy word. Set my soul afar, Lord, set my soul afar. Set my soul afar, Lord, in my daily life. Far too long I've wandered in this day of strife. Nothing else will matter but to live for thee. I will be your witness as you live in me. Set my soul afar, Lord, set my soul afar. Make my life a witness of thy saving power. Millions grow in darkness waiting for thy word. Set my soul afar, Lord, set my soul afar. Amen. Thank you all for coming this morning. You all have a great afternoon. God bless. So you.