The True Gospel of Jesus Christ
Transcript
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;29;15
The following message is a message about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and what it means to have a saving faith and relationship with God through Jesus Christ. I made this message to two people who were Catholic, who had opened up to me about some concerns they saw in the leadership in Catholicism, and it also mentioned they had begun reading the Bible themselves for the first time, and came across quite a few things in the Bible that they didn't understand.
00;00;29;18 - 00;01;06;24
Knowing I was a Christian minister, they asked me if I had any Bible studies. My answer was to immediately make them this custom recording, speaking directly to them about what the Bible's message is about Christianity. Why the need we have to be saved from our sins, and how to do so. I also included some information in warning about the fact that Satan has created counterfeit religions and counterfeit Christiana to Catholicism, perhaps being the largest on earth that actually cannot save the souls of its hearers.
00;01;07;01 - 00;01;39;13
Apart from being truly born again and regenerated by the Spirit of Christ, that's what this message is about. It would be a good message to share with anyone who wants to be reminded of the basics of their salvation, and what God has done for them through Christ Jesus, or for anyone who has yet to understand the need to be saved from their sins, forgiven by God, so that when they step from this life through death into the next, they have a confidence in eternal life rather than in eternal condemnation.
00;01;39;16 - 00;01;44;13
May God bless you as you listen.
00;01;44;16 - 00;02;30;15
Good morning. You too. God bless you both in Jesus name. I was really blessed by your opening up and sharing with me yesterday about the fact that you both had begun your own really deep research for faith in Christ. Starting back in August when you both agreed to start going through the Bible, and you mentioned that you both come out of Catholicism and that you've got some concerns, and you've seen perhaps some red flags in the Pope and in the leadership.
00;02;30;17 - 00;03;03;25
And then you also mentioned that as you went through the Bible, you come across places that you really would like to have a better understanding on. So you're left with your spiritual questions. And then you asked me if I have Bible studies, and I could just share with you a few insights about Christianity, the Bible, Jesus Christ in faith that might be intriguing to you, that might help you guys in your search to find more of God in your life.
00;03;03;27 - 00;03;49;19
And how I pray that he answers the desire of your heart to do so. So in my ministry, I am not primarily a ministry that helps people who are, if you will, just getting started in the basics of Christianity. So I did that many years ago, and then my ministry really grew into becoming a real faith walk with the Lord Jesus Christ, where I was learning to hear from him for his personal will and guidance as he promises us in Psalm 2512 and Psalm 32 eight.
00;03;49;22 - 00;04;17;11
Psalm 2512 says, who is the man who fears the Lord? He, God will instruct him in the way chosen for him. So, as you know, in that trusting God in the storm crisis, I found myself in real desperate need of God's guidance. My heart was ripped in half. I had no peace. And I humbled myself as a child before God.
00;04;17;14 - 00;04;42;23
And I said, I need you to help me to know, you know, is this Bible description of Christianity available to me? Because I don't have it right now. I don't have that piece. And I basically told God, I either want all of him or none of him. That I was tired of playing this in-between game, of trying to love the world and money and trying to love God.
00;04;42;23 - 00;05;17;15
You saw that part. So shortly after that is really when my story begins, and my whole ministry for the last, coming up on 13 years, because I did my very first ministry teaching videos in 2011. So from that point forward, my ministry was about navigating the terrible sufferings that God had allowed into my life and then ultimately reaching for his redemption of it, his giving me beauty for ashes.
00;05;17;17 - 00;06;07;29
He is helping me to find a thoroughly fulfilling, although much suffering in it, a very fulfilling relationship with God who became my father, where he became not just a subject that's fascinating and interesting to billions of people all over the world where he became not just a reason for religion and perhaps a hope for eternal life on the other end, but that he became my father, who I enjoy a living, breathing, interactive relationship with, albeit by faith, albeit it's difficult, albeit I don't always understand exactly what he's telling me and when I'm still left down here, subject sometimes to my flesh, to the natural part of life.
00;06;08;02 - 00;06;40;17
But I've enjoyed this very vibrant walk with God, and that's what my ministry is really about. It's been about helping people who have already come to faith in Christ, but perhaps haven't yet realized it needs to be much more than just a religious belief system, that Jesus Christ is a living God and a living King, and a living Lord and a living master who says to us, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and then not do what I say?
00;06;40;18 - 00;07;13;04
Luke 646 who says, not everybody who says to me, Lord, Lord, on that day, the day of judgment will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my father in heaven. As you know, and I'm sure you guys recall reading in Matthew 721 through 27. So I had for all those years been attempting to apprehend Christianity rather than allowing the Jesus Christ of Christianity to apprehend me.
00;07;13;07 - 00;07;49;07
I bought into a belief system rather than submitting to the King, the person, the living God. And this is really what distinguishes between religion and relationship. So man, as you know, is beyond heavily flawed. And almost everything man touches is corrupt and ends in chaos. Just look at our lives, our family lives, etc. even the mistakes we've made.
00;07;49;09 - 00;08;24;22
This is the effects of sin that have been there since the very beginning. And when you look at the corruption that's in human heart, it's not surprising that left to their own devices. Religion becomes terribly corrupt. You see, the whole world, most of the world, except for a few small number of atheists, have a sense that God is real, that the universe, that this whole world that we live on was created by an intelligent designer God.
00;08;24;25 - 00;08;43;21
The majority of the world is religious. The majority of the world believes in an afterlife, eternal life, and that there is a supreme being who is sovereign and in control of all things, and in charge of all of creation. And then, of course, they have varying beliefs about how much he's involved or not involved and what he expects of us and how we are to please him.
00;08;43;21 - 00;09;22;18
And you know, what the afterlife consists of, etc. and these all rise up out of men's conjecturing. The whole of human existence has been men telling themself a story about why we are here. What is the purpose for my life? And so when you get to the very, very basics of what the message of the Bible is and what I would want every person in your particular stage of life and position to know is something like this.
00;09;22;20 - 00;09;56;24
The very basics of this is that God created man in his own image for two reasons. He gives in the book of Revelation and in the book of Isaiah, he created man for his own pleasure and for his glory. Now he's God. He gets to do what he wants with his creation. So we have to humble ourselves as the creation and start out by saying He is God.
00;09;56;26 - 00;10;23;26
We are not. He has the power to create. We do not. So thank God that he's just and loving and kind and compassionate. But he clearly indicates that he made people for his own pleasure and for his own glory. So God's purpose in creating us, according to the Bible, was to be in subjection to him and live in a loving, harmonious relationship with him.
00;10;23;28 - 00;11;10;15
Where we feel loved as we love God because he first loved us, and we walk with him in reverence, submission to him, and we get to enjoy him as he enjoys us. This is what was meant to me from the very beginning. The Bible depicts a picture in the Garden of Eden, of God walking in the cool of the garden with Adam and Eve, that at that time, before sin had entered, God was able to be so close to humans that he could effectively have partnership with them and walk shoulder to shoulder with them in the Garden of Eden.
00;11;10;17 - 00;11;36;11
I would just ask you to imagine it almost brings me to tears to think about it. What kind of an existence would that be? In contrast to what you see in the world today, where the pride and lust of men have ruined and contaminated everything? So this is the way it was intended to be in the very beginning.
00;11;36;13 - 00;12;12;22
But the Bible teaches us God's ways, being so much higher and his thinking so much higher than ours. Isaiah 53 says this, that it's so much higher. It's higher than the heavens are above the earth. So we come to this God with the understanding of an ant, trying to understand that which is far beyond even a human. I mean, imagine us trying to explain ourself and our life and our purposes to an ant or to a cockroach.
00;12;12;25 - 00;12;37;25
And that's a little bit like the frustration of God the Father trying to explain himself and give understanding to a people who have fallen to such a depraved level through sin that he likens us to the dumb beasts of the earth. If you've ever seen, a field of cows. I used to live in Alabama, where there was a lot of, cattle.
00;12;37;27 - 00;13;05;02
And one thing you notice about the cows, this was pointed out to me by a minister in India, by the way, is that these animals are always looking down. They never once look up independence upon God. They never recognize God as their creator. They're always looking down, fending for themselves. Going from one blade of grass to another to another and their lives are completely worthless.
00;13;05;04 - 00;13;40;22
The Bible says they are born only to be caught and to be destroyed. Basically for fuel for us or fuel for another animal. Right? So back to the scene of the Garden of Eden. The Bible says in God's wisdom that he has basically given us, it shows that he's given us free will, that although he created us and could have easily turned us into spiritual robots, he's given us free will to choose him or to reject him.
00;13;40;25 - 00;13;58;05
So he puts Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and then he says, okay, look, all of this is yours to enjoy along with me. But there is this one tree, the knowledge of good and evil in the garden that you are not to eat of. He simply tells them, this is life for you to obey me.
00;13;58;06 - 00;14;25;29
Do not eat of that tree, because when you do, you will die. But the Bible then shows in the next scene this tempter who shows up in the form of a serpent, which we know to be Satan, who the Bible depicts in Isaiah chapter 14, God in a type of in a shadow of this kingdom, tire. The king of tire, that Satan attempted as an angel in pride.
00;14;25;29 - 00;14;49;29
God only knows why to liken himself to God and to even exalt himself above God, if you will, to take the throne of God. So no need to try to figure out the explanation behind that. That's the Bible is silent on how that happened, how that was possible. But this is what the Bible says that he was a beautiful morning star.
00;14;49;29 - 00;15;13;13
God called him, and that pride rose up in his heart, and he exalted himself and convinced a whole conspiracy, apparently one third of the angels in heaven to follow him into this coup against God. I don't understand the insanity of how he thought he could get away from with that, but I don't understand the insanity of the pride of men today.
00;15;13;15 - 00;15;41;29
To think they can get away with the things they do. But that's how insidious and how, blinding pride is. So as we see, God allows this serpent to test and to therefore tempt his first creation, and to see whether or not they would be loyal to him and to obey him. And so the offer is made that they can partake of this tree.
00;15;42;01 - 00;16;01;25
And Satan lies to them about what God really meant, and accuses God of holding out on them. Oh, he knows that if you eat this, you will become like God, knowing good from evil. And then we know that the Bible says that Eve, based on what she saw with her eyes, that the fruit was pleasing to the eye.
00;16;01;26 - 00;16;22;16
One of the biggest problems we get into is we choose relationships. We choose real estate, we choose automobiles. We choose where we're going to live solely based on what we see with our eye. This is also the mistake that Abraham's nephew lot made. He chose Sodom and Gomorrah based on what he saw with his eyes rather than on God.
00;16;22;16 - 00;16;45;19
What do you say about this? The. Interestingly enough, the prophet Isaiah wrote of Jesus Christ that he will not judge by what he sees with his eyes or hears with his ears. So Jesus is a complete contradiction to the nature of man. Man chooses by what he reasons, by what he desires, by what's pleasing to his eye, what's pleasing to his ear, etc. Jesus chose only that which his father told him to chose.
00;16;45;19 - 00;17;01;11
He didn't speak what he what. He wasn't what he wanted to speak. He didn't do what he wanted to do. He says, I came not to do my will, but to the father's will. I came not to please myself, but to please my father. The words you hear me speak are not my own. They come from him who sent me.
00;17;01;13 - 00;17;47;10
So Jesus is showing us the right way how it was intended to be for man to walk with God. In sharp contrast to the way of Satan, who has been used to poison the entire human race. That basically says, if it feels good, do it. And to each his own. And so we have human beings all over the world, all created in the image of God, and yet they are all doing what each one sees fit and is best in their own eyes, which have been corrupted by the sin that is rooted all the way back in the first initial choice of Adam and Eve to rebel against God, listening to the voice of Satan,
00;17;47;10 - 00;18;18;05
God's rebellious enemy. And then the Bible says in Romans five that Eve has become the mother of all the living, and that sin entered into the world through one man, and through that one man. Sin and death came to all men. The Bible ultimately tells us in Hebrews and in several other places, saying that Jesus Christ was slain from the beginning of the world.
00;18;18;05 - 00;18;46;06
So before Adam and Eve even sinned. It was God's plan to allow this to happen. And I believe the Bible, with some basic spiritual understanding and reasoning, paints a beautiful picture of why God allowed this to happen. It says in Hebrews that God has handed all men over or bound them over to disobedience, so that he can have mercy on them all.
00;18;46;08 - 00;19;11;03
In Luke chapter seven, verse 47, I believe the answer as to what happened in the Garden of Eden was given to us by Jesus Christ in one of the most beautiful stories in the whole of the New Covenant, one of the most beautiful non-religious salvations that took place in the whole of Scripture. It's one of my favorite passages.
00;19;11;06 - 00;19;39;00
It's the passage in Luke seven of the sinful woman, perhaps a prostitute or an adulterous. She makes her way to Jesus Christ in desperation, when she finds out that he's in the home of a man named Simon, a Pharisee who would have been a very religious Jewish man, keeper of the law, who would have at that time been very antagonistic to the notion of Jesus Christ and salvation by grace through faith.
00;19;39;03 - 00;20;05;10
So Jesus is in this pharisee's home, a Jewish man. You know, having some conversation with him. And this lady breaks in because she's heard and seen the miracles of Jesus Christ. She's been convicted by her life of sin, and she knows that he is the answer to her soul and to her spirit and to the forgiveness of her sins.
00;20;05;12 - 00;20;34;09
And she runs in and she falls at his feet as a sinful woman in front of all these religious leaders, she humiliates herself. She begins to weep. She begins to anoint Jesus's head with oil. She begins to cry on his feet with her tears and to wipe them with her own hair. She never speaks a word asking for forgiveness, saying any kind of prayer.
00;20;34;14 - 00;21;02;20
She never says a word. It's the most remark able salvation in the entire Bible, if you ask me. Next to perhaps Paul's on the road to Damascus, but in Luke 747 God reveals to this woman a desire of his heart and a purpose that I believe is pervasive throughout all of God's dealings with all of the people throughout the entirety of the Scripture, starting all the way back with Adam and Eve.
00;21;02;22 - 00;21;27;11
God's purpose is revealed in this passage. Simon the Pharisee says to himself, oh man, if this guy were truly a prophet, meaning Jesus, he would know what kind of a woman this is, that she is sinful. Because, you know, the law of Moses would say to stay away from people like this, that a person like that, if she had claimed to be a Jew, would be stoned.
00;21;27;13 - 00;21;56;03
You know, if she'd been caught in adultery or promiscuity and stuff like that, prostitution, she'd be stoned to death. So here she is, touching Jesus in the law of Moses. What is said? Separate touch, no unclean thing, and purge all the evil from Israel, so that Israel takes warning and fears God. And here Jesus is allowing this sinful woman to touch him and be in the same presence with all these holy religious leaders, so-called.
00;21;56;06 - 00;22;31;20
So basically, Jesus, to try to explain. What the principle is at work and why he's allowing this woman to be there. He basically gives this parable and he tells this religious man, he says, okay, Simon. He says, answer me this. He said, there were two men who owed money to a certain man. One owed $500, if you will, and the other owed 50.
00;22;31;22 - 00;23;05;17
Neither of them had the money to pay the man back, so he canceled the debts of both of them. And he says, now, which one of these men would love him more? And Simon, the Pharisees said, I suppose the man who had the larger debt. And he said, you have answered correctly. Here's God teaching men how he thinks about this woman's sin, versus how the religious people think of this woman's sin.
00;23;05;19 - 00;23;27;19
Now, mind you, she's in a state of humble, submissive contrition. She feels contrite, very remorseful of her sin. Very, very much so. So it's not that she's come in in pride, questioning, who do you think you are? Jesus? Can you forgive my sins? Who makes you Lord of all self righteous? No, no no. She's coming in. Total fear of God.
00;23;27;22 - 00;23;57;25
Total respect. And she's coming in faith. She believes that Jesus Christ is the promised Messiah and that he can forgive her sins and reconcile her back to God. She believes this and she is right. So Jesus then says, Simon, I came into your home, but you did not offer me any, you know, oil for my head. You did not wash my feet, he says.
00;23;57;25 - 00;24;21;11
And yet this woman, since I have come in, has not stopped, and she has anointed my head with oil. She has wept on my feet. She has dried my feet with her hair. And then he says, the most amazing thing I think that you could possibly imagine in the whole of the Bible, and I can scarcely say it without weeping.
00;24;21;11 - 00;25;04;09
When I think of the heart of God towards you, towards you, towards me. In this passage of Scripture, he says her many sins have been forgiven because she loved much. He said, but he who has been forgiven little, loves little. It is one of the most remarkable statements I find of God the most remarkable, revealing of the heart of God for broken, sinful people that you can find in the entirety of the Scripture.
00;25;04;11 - 00;25;39;06
It echoes thousands of years earlier to the Garden of Eden as to why God allowed Adam and Eve to rebel against him in the Garden of Eden, and why it is that God has allowed all of man to go roll in the mud and the filth and the corruption of their own wicked hearts and desires, their own inherent desire to rebel against the one who made them, and who will find no goodness apart from his salvation and grace, and then and God's sovereign election.
00;25;39;08 - 00;26;06;00
He chooses a few after they roll in the mud of sin and terrible thinking and unwise choices that we make in the life, to find hope and light in the Word of God, forgiveness of our sins and redemption of the old life and beauty for ashes through the person and salvation of Jesus Christ, as laid out before us and articulated in the Scripture that God so loved the world even in their sinful state.
00;26;06;02 - 00;26;30;25
The Bible says that while we were yet sinners, Jesus Christ died for us. So, you know, even in the Catholic Church, you would know that the work of Jesus Christ on the cross was the shedding of the blood, the atoning for that sin, the covering over the blotting out of all of the debt that we owe against Jesus Christ or against God through our sin.
00;26;30;28 - 00;27;21;00
And God makes this incredibly foolish way. Too many men can't understand the cross for men to be back reconciled with Jesus Christ as our Savior to God the Father through the shedding of his blood, through our faith there in believing that God sent him to die for our sins and then raised him three days later. And the Bible says, if we put our faith in that act of atonement, that we shall be instantly forgiven, we will then become regenerated, born again, and we begin the process, then, of what the Bible calls sanctification, being separated more and more from sin in our life and a lifestyle of sin, habits of sin, the practice of sin becoming
00;27;21;00 - 00;27;50;01
more and more like Jesus Christ, and therefore being able to be closer and closer to God. This is what the Bible teaches in a basic nutshell. And so that's the very basics. And then once you have the basic understanding of what it means to be reconciled back to God, then you begin this process of learning to call him master, learning to first do his revealed written will through the teachings of Jesus Christ in the Bible.
00;27;50;03 - 00;28;12;24
And then you begin to see this living. Jesus Christ has a living word for you. He has a living plan for your life. He has living guidance for your life. He has living concern for your life. He has living provision for your life. And you begin to slowly learn to recognize that God is speaking to you and wants your involvement.
00;28;13;01 - 00;28;41;10
It's not just him wanting to herd you like cattle. Like for example, cattle cannot respond intelligently to direction. You cannot say, I want you to go down to the end of the gate here, or down to the end of the fence, and turn left and then make your way into the to the shed. You can't tell a cow that you're going to have to use a man on a horse, or you're going to have to use a dog, and you're going to have to use this fencing system to block their way here so that they naturally have to go there.
00;28;41;17 - 00;29;18;07
And in the beginning, that's sometimes exactly how God has to deal with us. He heard us like ignorant cattle because we're ignorant of a speaking voice that is available to us by faith. Once we've been born again in God through Christ, to actually receive guidance from God, once we fear him and then submit ourself. Just as Jesus said in John 717, if anyone chooses to do God's will, so now it becomes a matter of do you recognize God as the supreme authority in your life?
00;29;18;10 - 00;29;33;29
Do you recognize him as king? And are you willing to submit to this King very much like if you lived, say, 500 years ago and you lived inside of a monarchy, you wouldn't have any choice if you wanted to live inside the protection of his kingdom, but to obey the king's every order and if he called upon you, you would obey.
00;29;33;29 - 00;29;57;05
And if you didn't, that could mean imprisonment, death, fines, what have you. Well, there's a great king, the King of kings. His name is Jesus Christ, and he's a living king. He's not trapped in a book called the Bible. The Bible is a means to an end, to begin to engage this living God through the living person of Jesus Christ and receive his living speaking voice.
00;29;57;05 - 00;30;29;05
God still speaks. He still guides. He still directs. He still has a plan and purpose for those who are willing to pay the sacrificial price of denying themselves their right to live their life down here the way they want, how they want, when they want, where they want, and instead saying God by faith in gratitude for what you did to forgive me of all of my sins, offering me eternal life on the other side of this life, Supreme happiness in heaven with you forever.
00;30;29;07 - 00;30;54;20
In gratitude for that, I willingly laid down my life and make you my master and give my entire life in control thereof to you. The prophet Jeremiah says in chapter 1023 says, O God, we know that it is not for a man to choose his own way, basically to determine his own steps to live his own life. Man is not his own.
00;30;54;20 - 00;31;15;10
The Scripture teaches us, if you've been born again and you've put your faith in Jesus Christ, that you have been bought at a price that you become now what's called a bond servant. So I am definitely a bond servant. I'm not living my life in accord with what Michael Criswell wants to do, like I did for the first, you know, three and a half decades of my life.
00;31;15;13 - 00;31;53;10
And I had simply added, Jesus Christ, if you will, like a lucky rabbit's foot in my Christianity, on top of my life, like a cherry on top of an ice cream sundae. Somehow or another, believing that because I believed in Jesus and I believed in the Bible, and I called myself a Christian and I loved God, that God would just bless all of my plans and all the good things that happened in my life were from God, and all the bad things that happened were from Satan or from the other people that are messing with my life, etc. etc. and not really making him a living Lord, but reading the Bible as if he was
00;31;53;10 - 00;32;16;23
the I once was, not the great, I am not the great, I am that he still is. The Bible says in Hebrews 13 eight that God, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So now I want to add one more thought that I have for you guys, and I hope that this is some just basics that will help you, and I'll be more than happy, as I said to you, to to sit down with the Bible and to teach you guys this.
00;32;16;23 - 00;32;47;24
But there's something that is super, super important for you to also understand based on the fact that you're coming out of Catholicism or that you're, you know, you've grown up in Catholicism, you didn't really tell me how you became Catholic. Most people are Catholic through birth. So myself, I did not have any religious, upbringing. None. I thought that if you were a Caucasian, I remember thinking this like at five years old, like if you were Caucasian and you lived in the United States of America, that's what made you a Christian.
00;32;47;24 - 00;33;04;23
That's what my understanding of Christianity was when I was about five years old, and I had one experience of going to a church, and the only thing I remember about it was the cookies and the little red cups that they gave me juice, and that's all I remember. My parents were not religious. I don't remember anything about God.
00;33;04;23 - 00;33;30;04
I was not taught about God at all. I began to hear about Jesus Christ from a young man who I ended up going to school with after my parents divorced. When I'm around 14 and 15 years old, and he began to tell me about Jesus Christ and salvation. And already at that age, I wanted nothing to do with it because I felt that Christianity was for weak people, somehow or another.
00;33;30;04 - 00;33;49;05
That had been my picture of Christianity. And so for months he'd been telling me about Jesus and trying to get me to go to church, and I just ignored it. And one day we were on the way home from school in his little Mazda seven sports car, very low to the ground, and we stepped out of the road.
00;33;49;05 - 00;34;07;27
As I stepped out of the car on the road in Winter Park, Florida at a Piggly Wiggly grocery store back in, and I stepped onto this little piece of paper that somehow or another God use to get my attention. It was crumpled in such a way under my foot, and I reached down and I picked up that piece of paper.
00;34;08;00 - 00;34;32;14
And I think I maybe have told the story and in God in the storm. So forgive me for repeating this, but I have a point to remind you of. And I picked up that piece of paper and and it I read between the tire marks. It showed a picture of a car accident. As best I can remember, it was a drawing and it said, if you died in a car accident right now, would you go to heaven or hell?
00;34;32;17 - 00;34;56;21
And I, being honest at least, could not answer that question. And then it laid out what the Bible explained to be the path to be able to answer that question in such a way that you would know that if you died, you could go to heaven. And what the path to heaven was through Jesus Christ and through being born again.
00;34;56;23 - 00;35;22;01
So one of the things I know from having put my story out around the world to tens of thousands of people then contacting me, a lot of whom had been Catholic, and there are quite a few remarkable testimonies of people that felt, after watching my testimony, reading the Bible, and perhaps doing some of their own online research, decided to come out of Catholicism and just simply go back to what they read in the Bible.
00;35;22;03 - 00;35;48;17
Was just being a plain, simple follower of Jesus Christ to find this relationship with God the Father. Basically just going back to what the Bible said, rather than a man's religious definition of what God in religion is supposed to be. So without making a big, long teaching on Catholicism now, I have taught for years Catholicism is a counterfeit.
00;35;48;19 - 00;36;10;15
So, for example, if I paid you the rent that I'm paying you on a monthly basis in $100 bills, and I put a counterfeit hundred dollar bill in your hand, if I would have given you, last month's my first month's rent in counterfeit hundreds, chances are you wouldn't have known it. If it's a good counterfeit, you wouldn't have known it until you took those $100 bills.
00;36;10;17 - 00;36;41;04
And you tried to cash them in somewhere with an expert, somebody who had been trained on how to identify a counterfeit. For years, I've wanted to be able to go to my bank and say, would you guys allow me to to possess a counterfeit $100 bill just temporarily? Like, check it out so that I can make an example and do a teaching and show people that with a human eye, you cannot at all tell the difference between a good counterfeit hundred dollar bill and a authentic $100 bill, and you can't find out until it's too late.
00;36;41;06 - 00;37;03;02
I wanted to be able to use that as an illustration to help people see that there are religious counterfeits, Catholicism being, I believe, one of the largest in the world, that although there are parts of it that look so identical to what would be the authentic, but that there's enough to the trained eye to be able to see that this is a counterfeit.
00;37;03;04 - 00;37;37;03
Satan is the first great counterfeiter he creates. And in fact, if you look at, Satan's interaction with Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter four, you find this amazing thing happens where even Satan quotes the Bible to Jesus, but he slightly twists it so that it's not actually the Word of God. He gives the majority of it exactly as it came from Psalm 91, but he twists just enough of it such that it's completely corrupt and it's no longer the original.
00;37;37;05 - 00;38;02;05
So a counterfeit can be thought of as anything where you have an original, and then you either take away something from the original, or you add something to it that was not in the original. And now you have a counterfeit. And if it's a purse or a watch, it's not life threatening. If it is the religion by which you're basing your eternal destination on it could be eternally costly, damning.
00;38;02;08 - 00;38;29;12
So one of the things that I have taught people to see into recognizes, I think, one of the most important teachings of Jesus Christ that will provide an insurance to all of us, to that, that want to truly know if we will be saved by our faith, is our faith in our salvation adequate to be saved, as Jesus taught that a tree is recognized by its fruit.
00;38;29;14 - 00;38;56;29
If people could only understand how many people miss, underestimate, if you will, the power and the effectiveness of that one teaching of Jesus Christ. That a tree is recognized by its fruit. He says that a good man brings good up out of the good stored in him, and an evil man brings evil up out of the evil stored in him.
00;38;57;01 - 00;39;25;19
And he says that a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Now the truth, as we can point out in Scripture and stories, is that yes, a good tree can produce an occasional piece of bad fruit, but it's not consistently producing bad fruit. It's not fundamental to the nature of that good tree to produce bad tree.
00;39;25;24 - 00;39;42;20
Occasionally, yes, there'll be a bad piece of fruit. And is it possible that a good tree could accidentally produce, a bad piece of fruit, or at least a piece of fruit that appears to be good on the outside? Yes, it happens. And then when you peel the skin off, you go, oh my goodness, there's terrible worms or disease inside there.
00;39;42;20 - 00;40;05;29
So to the eye, this teaching of Jesus may not always look to be true, but ultimately it is. So if you were to measure Catholicism, if you measure the Pope, if you measure the history of that church, and I'm saying that you can apply this also to the Protestant side of things. So this is an equal opportunity offender, this teaching of Jesus.
00;40;05;29 - 00;40;31;25
I apply it to myself. I apply it to people in my family. I apply it to any denomination that I may have been a part of. I apply it to the current state of Christianity, which is a total debacle. It's a total mess, and I speak primarily of that which is underneath of the Protestant umbrella. It is, to me, just as filthy, just as corrupt, and just as worthless as I'm getting ready to tell you that the Catholic institution is.
00;40;31;27 - 00;40;53;22
But when you look at just quickly the fruit and you simply say, I believe Jesus is God, I believe his words are directly from God. And you take this teaching that a tree is recognized by its fruit, and you measure that teaching up against the history of the Catholic Church. And you really say, okay, I'm going to be honest and just look at the facts.
00;40;53;24 - 00;41;26;22
You can see it's a counterfeit. It is a religious counterfeit. The Bible says that Satan has taken the entire world captive, that he is the prince of this world, and that he has led the entire world astray. And he does so through deception. He deceived Eve very cleverly, and he's deceived many, many, many, many, many countless billions through religion and religious systems that are designed to make men think that they are getting right with God.
00;41;26;22 - 00;41;51;17
But in the end, they are a complete counterfeit, and man has no idea they're in possession of a billfold full of counterfeit $100 bills. And it's one thing when you get to the store and you find out they won't cash, but it is eternal condemnation. When you stand before Jesus and find out that your religion is a billfold full of counterfeit $100 bills, it's a tragedy that's unspeakable.
00;41;51;20 - 00;42;16;02
So when you look at all the corruption, when you look at all the pedophilia, when you look at all the financial corruption, when you looked at it is admitted that some 70% of Catholic priests admit that they are homosexual. When you look at all the documentaries that have been made that show the Catholic priests out at the Italian night gay clubs there in Roman Catholicism, when you look at the affiliation, I mean, you can just go on and on and on.
00;42;16;02 - 00;42;37;14
There's documentaries done about this. The money that was taken by the Catholic Church from Hitler and Mussolini and the you look at all these filthy things that happened in the history of the Catholic Church. You look at the Inquisition, you look at the murders of the wall denizens, and you look at literally, how much blood was spilled.
00;42;37;17 - 00;43;13;08
And when you look at the description in the book of revelation, when you look at the the woman who rides the beast, the whore, if you will, and you look at the descriptions so vividly pointing to the current leadership, the Pope, holding the golden chalice in his hand, filled with abominations. When you look at the the Bible, even pointing out the the purple and scarlet garb that she wears depicting the the Cardinals, oh my goodness, it's shocking when your eyes are opened up and you see, you know, Catholicism, 1.3 billion people.
00;43;13;08 - 00;43;34;08
No wonder the Bible speaks of it so clearly. And it's a shock when people see this. It would be very, very shocking for you to really watch some of the documentary videos that I could show you of men who are much more intelligent theologically than I am, who have done a beautiful job showing the connection between the Catholic Church and the warnings in the Bible.
00;43;34;08 - 00;44;05;13
It is absolutely amazing. It's flabbergasting. And again, I want to be fair. This isn't something for you to feel ashamed of because first of all, you've not known any different. You most likely were grown up believing this, and quite honestly, I feel more ashamed for the Protestants who think that because they either a came out of Catholicism or they're part of the Protestant movement that recognized that what the Catholic Church was doing was a counterfeit of God's Spirit and a counterfeit of true religion.
00;44;05;13 - 00;44;41;05
That was a true saving faith. They believe hypocritically they are the chosen ones. And then they look down on Catholics thinking that they're so much better and there is so much filth in the Protestant churches that that's where I spend the majority of my ministry is confronting, not Catholics. Come out of her lest you share in her sins, but confronting the filthy hypocrisy of so many who would look down on Catholics and who do not know they will hear from Jesus Christ, flee from me.
00;44;41;05 - 00;45;11;29
I never knew you. Why did you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I say? That's what the majority of my ministry has been is not confronting Catholicism as a counterfeit. Although I have had a few messages that I've done, and there's been, some pretty remarkable testimonies of people that have come out of Catholicism over the years who continue year after year to send me thank you emails for, the part that I played in God, using my ministry to open their eyes to see the truth and the blessing they have found therein.
00;45;12;01 - 00;45;42;24
So but at the same time, to me, I never make it about a denomination. I make it about you will stand apart from any institution you may have, or may not have been a part of on this earth. You will stand individually, as will I be for a living. Jesus Christ, man to man, man to king. You will stand before him without any denominational support, without any support, a pope, a minister, a priest, a brother, a sister, a wife, a child, an elder in a church, you're going to stand before Jesus Christ.
00;45;42;24 - 00;46;12;27
Every man, Jesus said, will give an account of how he lived in this body and what he did, what with the person of Jesus Christ, the grace of Jesus Christ, the salvation of Jesus Christ. So the final point that I would make to you about one thing I know that happens with a lot of Catholics. And by the way, I want to tell you just so that you're not offended by this, that one of the most beautiful stories of a person who loved God with all of their heart, mind, soul, and strength.
00;46;13;01 - 00;46;42;21
One of the people that I respect the most is somebody who suffered more than any person I've ever heard of, for the name and sake and cross of Jesus Christ is a person who grew up in Roman Catholicism. Her name was Madame G. All. G u y o n e in the French pronounce keyhole, and Jean Marie Bouvier would have been more her proper name known historically and famously as Madame G or.
00;46;42;23 - 00;47;24;22
She grew up in Paris. She has one of the most remarkable stories and walks of faith I've ever heard. And she loved the church, her Catholic church. She loved the sacraments, and God began to woo her. And she began to obey Jesus Christ, cry out to him to do his will and to know him. And God began to reveal himself to her in remarkable ways, but unfortunately in ways that would make her known as a, a mystic and a heretic in the Catholic Church.
00;47;24;25 - 00;47;57;11
And the leaders who once revered her turned on her and persecuted her in ways that are just unspeakable. And they tortured her and they punished her. They put her in a dungeon, they poisoned her, and she lived with the effects of it. I mean, this woman suffered in ways that are unfathomable. And God would slowly, over time, begin to liberate her from a lot of the religious traditions and sacraments and teachings and doctrines of the Catholic Church.
00;47;57;14 - 00;48;15;29
She never entirely got out of it in her lifetime. There probably wasn't enough life and time for her to do so. But what you find when you read her autobiography is that the lights begin to come on, and she gets more and more into this personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and simply following and doing the will of her Lord, whom she loves so dearly.
00;48;16;01 - 00;48;43;22
And she separates more and more from the institution, the sacraments, the doctrines, the teachings of the Catholic Church. And they punish her and never forgive her for it. She becomes such a powerful example of a Christian faith that she influences some of the greatest men who are in the early parts of what would become the Reformation, the Protestant Reformation of the church.
00;48;43;25 - 00;49;14;18
Men like John Wesley, who writes in his autobiography of what an incredible influence this this Catholic woman, Madame Gill, was. So the issue then becomes this not whether or not you are Catholic, grew up Catholic, our Protestant grew up Protestant or nothing in between. But the issue becomes John three three through eight, when Jesus Christ going all the way back before there was a Catholic church because there was no Catholic church.
00;49;14;20 - 00;49;40;05
The Catholic Church doesn't exist until you get to Constantine and the years 300, and he has a what is, I can easily point out, as a completely false conversion in the name of Jesus Christ. And then we have the beginning of what becomes Catholic Rome 300 and then you have the Pope read it starts in the year 680, and from there it just grows into this gigantic earthly institution, and it overtakes nearly every, you know, nation of Earth.
00;49;40;07 - 00;50;17;15
And it reaches out. But if you go back to the very beginning, the Bible you're reading, there is no such thing as Catholicism, the universal church starts with just Jesus and 12 disciples. And if you just read and let it work its way out, it's always just been about a small beat down week, unlikely chosen group of people who love the Lord their God with all of their heart, mind, soul and strength, who humble themselves in their sinful state to receive the forgiveness offered to them by faith in the blood sacrifice Jesus Christ shed on the cross.
00;50;17;17 - 00;50;42;16
And they become what the Bible refers to as regenerated, born again. The old has gone and the new has come. And this starts in John chapter three, verses three through eight, where there's this remarkable interaction between Nicodemus, another Pharisee, and Jesus Christ. And Nicodemus begins to realize, maybe this guy is the Messiah that Israel has been waiting for.
00;50;42;18 - 00;51;17;08
But Jesus is so contrary to what the picture had been painted of what the Messiah would be. God's thrown everybody through a loop for a loop with Jesus. He's he's he's just not quite certain. And this is where Jesus begins to teach this principle of being born again happens. And so in John three three through eight, Jesus Christ tells Nicodemus, no one can see the kingdom of heaven, and no one can enter the kingdom of God.
00;51;17;10 - 00;51;37;05
Actually, he says, nobody can enter the kingdom of heaven, and no one can see the kingdom of God in heaven unless they are born again, born from above. And Nicodemus doesn't understand this in the natural. He says, whoa, whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. What do you mean? I mean, surely nobody can be born again. You cannot.
00;51;37;05 - 00;52;00;28
Certainly into your mother's womb a second time and be born again. He's thinking only in the natural. He he's a natural man. He he has flesh and blood in five senses. He believes if he can see it, it's real. And if he can't, it's not for the most part, he cannot understand the idea of a spiritual being born again, a spiritual birth.
00;52;01;01 - 00;52;32;07
And so Jesus says again, he repeats, you shouldn't be surprised what I'm telling you. He says, here you are, this great teacher in Israel, and you do not even understand what I speak. He says, flesh gives birth to flesh, but spirit gives birth to spirit. And he said, you should not be surprised at what I'm saying. He says, the wind blows wherever it wishes, yet you cannot see where it is coming from or where it is going, he says.
00;52;32;07 - 00;53;00;06
Thus it is with everyone born of the spirit, the Spirit of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is like a wind that, according to God's sovereign election, is predetermined purpose of who would know him and who would not. That's a teaching for another time blows into people's lives according to God's will, not the people's will. The people don't actually choose God without God first choosing them.
00;53;00;06 - 00;53;21;14
This is a a theological or doctrinal position known as preserving it. Grace that God's grace must first choose you before you can even have eyes to see that there's a God to choose, he has to first choose you and open your eyes to the nature of God, to the nature of your sin, to the need for redemption and salvation in Christ.
00;53;21;20 - 00;53;47;18
And only then, after that first work of grace, can you choose him back. This is what the Bible teaches. And I told you yesterday in the car I said, oh, this type of an encounter with me. My experience has been, this is not by accident. This isn't some random event. This is in the spiritual realm. God working through what is often called providence.
00;53;47;18 - 00;54;29;06
It's like an invisible arm of God reaching through to work out in the circumstances, events and time and places of life his desired whims. So I believe, as I've seen multitudes of time, God will put me in a person's life at a specific period of time because he's reaching through to try to communicate a message to that person and to try to draw them, perhaps out of something in this instance, something that's false, something that he's not in, or to draw them into a new understanding of him, but ultimately to draw them into a deeper, saving faith relationship with him.
00;54;29;09 - 00;54;54;11
I've seen it happen over and over and over again. I call these divine encounters in my journal entries that I've shared on my website and on YouTube are filled with these divine encounters where I go and sit down at a restaurant or I show up, you know, here or I am in the woods or wherever God would have me be.
00;54;54;12 - 00;55;25;26
He'll use not just me. All people that are ministers of him that are open to be used by God. He'll use that person, not because that person is so special, but because of his love for people like you. And and I want you to know that I believe that our encounter and my being here at such a serendipitous time that you guys have just made a decision to try to look through the Bible and read through and find more of God in your life.
00;55;25;28 - 00;55;47;20
It's God's answer to send someone like me who can help you get up a few more steps, if you will, to help you see maybe some things that you haven't seen. Learn a few things you haven't yet known. Somebody who's just ahead no matter. For example, if I needed to know something about building, I wouldn't ask myself. I would ask, and he's way further ahead down the road of me in that right.
00;55;47;23 - 00;56;11;26
So God does this. And I believe this is a demonstration of God's love for you guys. And so the first question that I would want to ask you guys is, do you know that you have been born again because Catholicism teaches a works based salvation that you can never truly know if you've done enough to be actually saved in this life?
00;56;11;26 - 00;56;32;24
It's called a works based salvation. And this is very much in accord with the old covenant, where your righteousness, Deuteronomy chapter six will be to keep the whole of the law. Moses taught that if you obey all these commands, this will be your righteousness. Therefore your salvation before God of course, they had to believe that by faith that God gave the law, that it was from him.
00;56;33;01 - 00;56;55;23
So there's an aspect of faith, but it was very much a righteousness about the law. But the Bible says that now there's a new righteousness that comes in the book of Romans that is apart from the law, apart from observing the external regulations of the law, and apart from being able to justify yourself before God. And it's not based on works, it's based on faith.
00;56;55;26 - 00;57;25;11
So what the Bible teaches about how to be saved so that you would be certain when you die, you spend eternity with God, not eternity separated from him in hell, which was prepared for the devil and his angels. Is salvation by grace through faith. Grace is unmerited favor, unmerited forgiveness, unmerited power of God to be saved, to be sanctified, to know God, to walk with him, to be more like Jesus Christ.
00;57;25;14 - 00;57;49;21
It's given to us not because we want it, but because God first loved us, that while we were yet sinners, he gave it to us. It's a free gift that he gives us, that we accept and receive by faith. The only condition for receiving this Born-Again gift is to believe that Jesus Christ was sent to die for your sins, and that there's nothing you can do to earn it.
00;57;49;24 - 00;58;15;09
It is not by works lest any man boast the Bible say says, but it is justification. You being justified, pronounced not guilty before God, is by the saving grace that comes through faith. Believing for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever shall believe in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.
00;58;15;12 - 00;58;40;11
Now to believe in Jesus Christ. This is where a lot of people stop. I want to be sure of this, but once you believe in you cry out, Jesus Christ, save me! The Bible says in Joel the Bible says in acts that all who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved. In Romans ten it says that if you confess with your mouth and you believe in your heart that Jesus Christ truly is Lord, you will be saved.
00;58;40;13 - 00;59;03;07
And what that means is you'll be regenerated. You become born again at some point, as you're crying out humbly as a child for salvation. God save me in the name of Jesus Christ. I confess I'm a sinner. I confess my religion cannot save me. I confess my Catholicism cannot save me. I confess the Pope cannot save me. I confess the man that I go to confession cannot save me, only you.
00;59;03;07 - 00;59;34;12
Because the Bible says there is only one mediator between God and man, that is Jesus Christ, not Mary, not angels, not court saints. There is one mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ alone. And I believe that by faith. And I cry out to your holy name for the salvation that you've offered. And when you when you cry out to Jesus Christ, he saves you.
00;59;34;14 - 00;59;55;05
And after you cry out and cry out, however long it takes, you become born again. And many people have an experience in their heart. And the Bible says that the Holy Spirit will come to live inside of you, and that's being born again. He takes up residence in you. You become a part of the spiritual temple of God.
00;59;55;05 - 01;00;18;17
It is no longer built by human hands. God does not exist in buildings anymore, built by human hands. He now exists in a people sanctified elect of God through the saving, salvation grace of Jesus Christ. And you become a part of that. And the Bible then says that the Holy Spirit living inside of you bears witness to your spirit, that you are a child of God.
01;00;18;20 - 01;00;37;25
I can't tell you if you're a child of God. I can look at your life and I can judge a tree by its fruit, and I can begin to discern. And if God speaks to me about the condition of your soul, there are certain people that God has had me say point blank, you are not born again. You need to be born again.
01;00;37;25 - 01;00;59;20
You are practicing a religion, but you are like whitewashed tombs, like the Pharisees. You have nothing inside that you that is like Jesus Christ. He's not living inside of you. The Spirit of God root in Romans chapter eight that you belong to Christ. If the Spirit of Christ is in you, and if the Spirit of Christ is not in you, you do not belong to Christ.
01;00;59;20 - 01;01;23;22
And there are all kinds of marks, indicators that tell us whether or not we've been born again or not. You cannot continue living in any known sin. First John three six through ten says, no one born of God continues to live in sin. He cannot because the seed of God remains in him. Anyone who says that they're born of God and continues in sin is a liar, and the truth is not in him, so you can still fall short.
01;01;23;25 - 01;01;45;24
You can still be capable of a sin, but it becomes impossible when you've been born again to continue in the lifestyle of sin. For example, a man who's addicted to pornography, a man who's getting in drunkenness. You can no longer continue in that lifestyle of sin. If you've been born again, the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ will convict you so sharply and strongly you will weep.
01;01;46;01 - 01;02;04;02
You will be broken hearted over it. It will affect you tremendously. That's what the Bible says. You cannot continue on in sin, but you can stumble into a sin because you have not yet reached perfection. You will continually see that there is sin in you. And quite honestly, the farther down the road you go, you will see how more.
01;02;04;09 - 01;02;43;16
You will see much more corruption in your heart. You'll see that there are things in you that are nothing like Jesus Christ. Paul says, I know that in mind was no good thing. That is in my sinful nature. So we have this sinful nature, even though you become born again, now you're into what's called a war. And it's the war of Galatians 517 where you start to experience the conflict between the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ, having born your spirit again and your sinful nature, such that the Bible teaches us that the spirit capital S desires in you what is contrary to your flesh, to your sinful nature, and your sinful nature desires what is
01;02;43;16 - 01;03;22;12
contrary to the spirit in the Scripture says they're in conflict with one another. So there's a war now when you become born again, so that you do not do what you want. And what ends up happening is, rather than the external pressure from a pulpit, from a sermon, from a pope, from a cardinal, from a bishop, from a father, whatever you would want to call it, from a reading, from a devotion, rather than that external pressure to conform to a religious image and an expectation of Christian behavior that comes from the outside, from your church, from your peers.
01;03;22;15 - 01;03;46;28
Now you find this pressure coming from the inside. Now you see this fear of God come upon you, the pressure from inside. You're born again. The Holy Spirit is saying to you, no, turn away from that. And then the Bible says in Romans eight that if we put down the misdeeds of the body by the power of the spirit, we are truly his children if we are led.
01;03;46;28 - 01;04;25;00
Romans 814 by His Spirit we are children of God. So my concern for you guys, the thing I would want to have you think about and pray about first is, do you know that you know that you know, based on Jesus's teaching in John three three through eight, that you have been born again? Because one of the challenges with Catholicism is that the emphasis has been placed on self-righteous works in order to be right with God, rather than faith alone, not justified by works.
01;04;25;02 - 01;04;50;02
So when you become born again, you then become a worker. So you're not saved by works, good works, but you're not saved apart from them. Because the Bible says faith without works is dead. But those works don't save you. They are simply the evidence of the saving faith. Whereas in Catholicism it's very much the works are intended to earn salvation.
01;04;50;02 - 01;05;18;04
You'll know this because in the Council of Trent, the Catholic Church declared anathema eternal condemnation to anyone that said that you're saved by faith alone. But yet that's what the Bible clearly teaches, however, and this is why it's so confusing. Faith alone. Simply saying a prayer and going to an altar call and crying out to the name of Jesus and saying that you're born again and you believe.
01;05;18;04 - 01;05;40;23
John 316 and now you're good with God. This is the very lie and deception that Jesus Christ raised me up to teach against in the Protestant churches, people who think that they simply said a prayer and they've committed to a belief system in the name of Jesus Christ, and that makes them good with God. It is a lie, and it can't be found anywhere in the Bible.
01;05;40;25 - 01;06;10;20
It can be found in a YouTube video. It can be found in the false sermons preached in so many so-called churches around the world, but it cannot be found in the Bible. Jesus said, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I say? Jesus said in John 1421 through 23, whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me, and he who loves me will be loved by my father, and I too will love him, and we will manifest ourself.
01;06;10;26 - 01;06;30;15
We will show our self to him. And he goes on to say that anyone who loves him, by putting his teachings into practice, that he and the father will come and make their home with that person. That is another way of saying you have been born again. The Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ takes up residence in your heart.
01;06;30;17 - 01;06;56;07
Now, the final thing I would want to say to you is, is that the Scripture also teaches, through the Apostle Paul, that to the person without the Spirit of Jesus Christ living inside of them, a person who hasn't been born again, many of the things in the Bible are misunderstood and they cannot understand them, and sometimes they may even seem like foolishness to them because those things can only be understood spiritually.
01;06;56;11 - 01;07;21;20
They can only be discerned. The Bible uses the word understood spiritually because until a person is born again, you're missing the faculty to be able to properly interpret what the Bible is saying. It'd be like going to India and not knowing how to speak one of the Indian languages like Telugu. Until you learn Telugu, you're not going to ever understand the culture, the people.
01;07;21;20 - 01;07;49;13
You can't even get directions. You need the faculty of the Telugu language to understand the people that live in Telangana or under Pradesh, right? So you would need to have that. That's the key to understanding. And in the Christian experience, the key to understanding the Bible first is being born again, having the anointing of the Holy Spirit as your teacher who can then open up your eyes.
01;07;49;14 - 01;08;06;06
Now, I don't know because I don't know you guys really at all other than the brief encounters we have. And again, I can't tell you if you're born again or not. If I spend some time with you, I can see in your life the Bible says you'll recognize a tree by its fruit. And so this wouldn't be anything personal against.
01;08;06;08 - 01;08;30;19
It would just be the principle that Jesus teaches that out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. So if I sit around with somebody long enough and I see what comes out of their mouth, I can determine the condition of their heart. That's just a black and white principle that's in Scripture. It doesn't mean that I can always be right, but it's pretty clear that that's how I'm recognizing the tree by its fruit, by what comes out of a person's mouth, which is what comes out of their heart.
01;08;30;21 - 01;08;50;07
Right? So I would ask you, are you born again? Have you fallen in humility before the Lord? Do you know for a fact that you've been regenerated such that you're a changed person and you no longer think the way you once did? That's simply because you grew up believing a belief system in the name of Christianity and Jesus Christ.
01;08;50;09 - 01;09;15;16
But something in you has dramatically changed. Like, as you can see in my life, there were things that dramatically changed. It wasn't just a process of life maturity. It was a process of me being regenerated and having spiritual eyes to see example money, the praise of people, business totally different than I had ever seen it before. My eyes had been opened.
01;09;15;16 - 01;09;34;13
I now had a spiritual faculty to see things differently. I'm going to end it here for now. I just felt led to share this with you. I hope that this is a blessing to you guys, and I just want to let you know I'm available. I'm obviously I don't pressure anybody into listening, but God sends quite a number of people over the years to listen.
01;09;34;13 - 01;09;58;27
And then I speak his truth. And as Jesus said, if anyone has ears to hear, let him hear. That's what I always try to do. I will plead with you to say, you know, let's all because I plead with my own wife, let's take the Bible and the words of Jesus far more seriously, where none of us are going to die and stand before him and say, wow, we took this religion thing and this Christianity and the Word of God thing and faith thing and obedience thing, way too seriously.
01;09;58;27 - 01;10;23;20
None of us are going to say that. We're going to say, wow, if only that's what I know that I know that I know when we stand before Jesus Christ in all of his majesty and glory, we're going to wish we honored the King more in this life. Before we got to the next, that, we took his words far more seriously than we took his warnings to heart far more serenely.
01;10;23;23 - 01;10;41;21
May God bless you guys as you journey. And if you think of questions, by all means maybe write them down, make a note, text me and if, like I say, if you would like, if you guys want to get together for coffee, and hang out and talk and do a Bible study or two together, I'll be happy to do that.
01;10;41;21 - 01;10;47;17
Would love to do whatever I can to help you guys. God bless you in Jesus name. Bye bye.
