Well, good afternoon, everyone. It's great to see all of you here. I know it's been since the Feast that I've seen a number of you.
As Rick mentioned, I actually came up here, flew up on Sunday and actually did some sightseeing and got really nice views of the mountains and everything through the Cascades. But as Rick was joking, I jokingly refer to Mount Rainier as "The Mythical Mount Rainier" because I think it's kind of a myth. I was up here about a year and a half ago and Dale and Laura tried to take me up there and literally we went up to Paradise. And they were showing me and he goes, "There's a big mountain right there." And I'm like, "You know all I saw was clouds and fog."
And then last Saturday night I was speaking on the phone with Dale and Laura. And Laura was showing me this webcam on the internet. You could go look at it and it was showing the view from Paradise. And literally all you could see was fog and the outline of cars. And I told her, I said, "I recognize that view. I feel nostalgic!"
Well, to get started on the sermon here, if you were watching to the news in the days prior to last Sabbath, you probably noticed there was a radio preacher—he has his own show on the radio—named Harold Camping—who had made some predictions. He had prophesied that this past Sabbath on May 21 was going to be "Judgment Day," as he called it. In fact, there were billboards all over the country. They were actually several in the Dallas area. They were up on the freeway and such that could see announcing "Judgment Day" on May 21.
And he said basically that the rapture was supposed to take place on that day. You know all Christians who are in a good relationship with God were going to be raptured up to heaven. And there was going to be an earthquake basically rolling around the earth. As he put it, it would basically be at 6 p.m. in whatever time zone that you were in. There was going to be a massive earthquake there. And, as each hour changed throughout, around the world, there would be a rolling earthquake that would take place.
And, as he also predicted, basically your Day of the Lord Tribulation period would basically start then. And, as he would tell it, it was going to last from May 21 through October 21, which would be the total end of it all.
Well, as we all know, nothing happened last Sabbath. And time proved that this was false prophesying as many others in the past have done.
But the reason I use this as an introduction is Jesus Christ specifically gives us a warning to the Church of God in our time to be aware of false prophets that could deceive us. He specifically told us. And He also told us how to sort this out, how to spot who we should listen to and who we shouldn't. And that's really what we're going to focus on today.
But to get started off with, let's turn over to Matthew chapter 24 and we'll look at this particular warning that Christ gave us. It's Matthew chapter 24. We're going to cover some familiar Scriptures I’m sure we've all read many times. We're going to start in verse 10. It's says:
Matthew 24:10. "And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another.
11) "Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.
12) "And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. (NKJ)
And I can tell you growing up in the Church of God—we've been attending Church of God since I was born—but for many, many years, I looked at this particular Scripture in verse 11 and what I thought of was individuals like this Harold Camping. You know other false teachers out in the world, who misguide people with their teachings and their prophesying and such and really thought of it in that terms. That that's what He was warning us about.
But that's really not what this section of Scripture is getting at. And the reason I say that is because if you look at verse 12, and it says:
Matthew 24:12. "And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. (NKJ)
The Greek word there for "love" is agape. As we know agape is a spiritual form of love that we get from the holy spirit. So, only the people who have the holy spirit are capable of having agape love. Therefore, Church members are the only ones capable of having their agape love grow cold because they're the only ones who have agape love in the first place. So, when you think about it in that context, He's specifically referring to the Church here. That's what He's talking about.
And if you look at false prophets deceiving many, I think it's unlikely that many members of the Church of God would be duped by someone like Harold Camping and his predictions. I think we were all probably more amused by it just kind of watching it happen and not coming to pass. But I doubt too many people in the Church of God bought into the ideas and were deceived by it.
Well, what we need to be aware of is more things specifically within the Church, but let's also look at first of all the meaning of what's being said here in this particular verse because it says here, "Beware of false prophets."
Now when we think of a false prophet, we probably think exactly someone like this individual I mentioned, Harold Camping, who makes specific predictions, declares himself a prophet, and tries to foretell things in the future. Now it is referring to that, but this has a broader meaning than that.
Now to cover that, the Greek word translated here as "false prophet" is pseudoprophetes (psyoo-dop-rof-ay'-tace) and it's spelled basically the way it sounds. It's "p-s-e-u-d-o-p-r-o-p-h-e-t-e-s". It's like "pseudoprophet" with an "es" on the end of it. And it's Strong's number 5578. And according to the Complete Word Study Dictionary of the New Testament by Spiro Zodhiates, here's how it's defined:
… a false prophet, one who falsely assumes the work of a prophet when pretending to foretell things to come…
But then he also gives more information here and notice the second part of this because this is why I say it has a broader meaning than those that just claim to be prophets.
… or teaching false doctrines in the name of God…
So, what it's getting at here is not just false prophets, it's false teachers. It's those that teach bad ideas, false doctrine, but do it in the name of God.
And, again, looking at the context of these Scriptures and especially verse 12, we know again agape love is only something that people in the Church can have. We're referring to within the Church.
Well, how do we sort out, then, who we should listen to and who we shouldn't? How do we make discernments in that regard?
Well, Christ gave us specific instructions how to do that. He gave us what I like to call "The Biblical Criteria for Assessment," because he actually gave us a criterion to assess these things by that we can use as a tool. So, turn with me over to Matthew chapter 7—
In fact, let me back up here just a second. Before we do that, I'd like to notice one other thing here. When He mentions, "and shall deceive many," it says, "Many false prophets will rise up and shall deceive many." Now if you look at the Greek word there for "many," it's polus (pol-oos'). It's "p-o-l-u-s", Strong's number 4183. Now if you look at Zodhiates' write-up on that, he has quite of an extensive write-up on how this word can be utilized because as you can imagine a word that's translated as "many" in English is used a lot in the New Testament. Or you might say, "It's used many, many times."
But if you look at it, it can have the meaning the way we typically use the word "many," in other words, a significant number. But it can have a much more startling meaning than that if you think about it in this context because, again, if you read Zodhiates' write-up on it he goes into lots of different examples and different kinds of shades of meaning it can have in various contexts. But when he refers to this section of Matthew 24, here's the meaning he gives for it:
… also the "many" meaning the most, the greater number, but implying exceptions…
That suggests when He says "shall deceive many," it could mean the most, the great number, the majority. So, when we think about it in that context, these are things we really need to be paying attention to as to how we sort out who we should listen to and who we don't because we don't want to become a statistic that's been deceived.
So, with that in mind again, let's turn back over to Matthew chapter 7. I'll start reading in verse 15. It says:
Matthew 7:15. "Beware of false prophets, (NKJ)
Now, let me point out that the Greek word here is also pseudoprophetes. It's referring to more than just those that claim to be prophets. It's false teachers.
Matthew 7:15b. …who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. (NKJ)
In other words, He's saying, "Individuals that look good. It looks good on the surface. It looks appealing, but inwardly you've got problems here. You need to be running from this."
In verse 16, He says:
Matthew 7:16. "You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles?
17) "Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.
18) "A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.
19) "Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
20) "Therefore by their fruits you will know them. (NKJ)
This is what I like to call "The Biblical Criteria for Assessment." It's looking at the fruits. If you'd like a title for this sermon, it's By Their Fruits You Shall Know Them because this is the criteria that we use to sort things out. Now what were looking at here is a good basic principle that we can use in lots of contexts, but, as you can see here, He's specifically referring to "How do we sort out our teachers?" In other words, "How do we evaluate who we should listen to and who we shouldn't and how do we sort out the good ones from the bad ones?" because, as He mentioned, "Some may come to you in sheep's clothing. It looks good. It looks positive," He said, "but inwardly they're ravenous wolves."
Now think about that. If you're a sheep—and which God tells us we are. He tells us we're His sheep and Christ is the Good Shepherd—but if a sheep continues to hang out with wolves, what should they expect to happen? A realistic expectation is you should expect to be dinner because at some point, the wolves are going to go, "I'm kind of hungry. There's a sheep over there. I think I'll snack on him." That's a realistic expectation. So we need to be able to discern who the wolves are and who they're not and who's someone we should get our spiritual teaching from and who we shouldn't.
Now when we look at this concept of "judging by the fruits," I'm sure if you've been in the Church for a number of years, you've heard this concept talked about many times. I know I've heard it talked about most all of my life because again I grew up in the Church of God since I was born. But I have to honestly say if I look back at the history of the majority of the time I was in the Church of God, I think we did a really poor job of teaching people how to really discern by fruits because what tended to happen is we taught them to discern by corporate affiliation. We thought of it in terms of "The 'good guys', those are all the ones that are in our group and anybody who is outside of that, that's the 'bad guys.' So, you should always trust what you hear from the 'good guys' but don't listen to the 'bad guys.'" And, again, it was defined by a corporation affiliation.
And if you look back at our history, I think there are commonly two reasons we kind of fell into that line of thinking. One is just human error, human carnality in our thinking. The other was it seemed to make sense in the circumstances we were in because if you go back a number of years in our history, there was a time when probably the vast majority of people that God was working with—at least that we knew anything about—were all in one big large organization. The Bible tells us that God has one true Church, which He does—again defined as all those who have His holy spirit—but we tended to think of that, "Well, okay God has one true Church and that's the Worldwide Church of God. That's the corporate organization that we're in." So it became very simplistic thinking to think "Well, the 'good guys' are those, the ones in our organization and you trust everything they tell you. And the ones are not in our organization those are the 'bad guys.'"
That's not adequate logic because look back at how well that logic worked out for us. Because what happened over time? A lot of the people that we trusted that were in our group basically wound up teaching us, going completely off-track, teaching very erroneous pagan doctrines. And it happened within our midst because, again, I mean the Church of God isn't typically deceived much by what happens from the outside. It's what comes from within that looks like it's in sheep's clothing. So, if you look at it like that, this wasn't adequate logic. And that's because we've ignored some basic principles in the Bible.
Jesus Christ addressed this in the Book of Mark. Turn with me over to Mark chapter 9 and we're going to start reading in verse 38. It says:
Mark 9:38. Now John answered Him, saying, "Teacher, we saw someone who does not follow us… (NKJ)
Notice that wording. We're going to come back to that.
Mark 9:38b. …casting out demons in Your name, and we forbade him [Why?] because he does not follow us." (NKJ)
What the apostles were saying here is "We noticed this guy. He's casting out demons in Christ's name, but he's not in our group." And that was really what their issue was with him. Now, notice they're not saying, "He was claiming to cast out demons, but he really wasn't. He was a fraud." They're not saying he was doing this, I mean he was leading people astray with heresy. They were saying, "He was doing this, but he wasn't with us. So, we jumped on him." That's basically what they're saying here. But notice Christ's reaction to it in verse 39.
Mark 9:39. But Jesus said, "Do not forbid him, for no one who works a miracle in My name can soon afterward speak evil of Me.
40) "For he who is not against us is on our side.
41) "For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in My name, because you belong to Christ, assuredly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward. (NKJ)
Christ is saying, "That's not adequate logic to look at it."
Now, again, this is my personal speculation because the Bible doesn't say this, but I think it's a logical argument to make that this guy was probably a disciple of John the Baptist because he's casting out demons in Christ's name. He obviously knows who Christ is and understands that authority and says he was casting out demons so that the demons were actually leaving. He wasn't he was just claiming to. So he's obviously being backed up by God's authority to make that happen. He's obviously legitimate.
But Christ is saying, "Don't jump on him just because you're not familiar with him. You need to evaluate this by the fruits." Because, as He teaches later in Matthew 7, that's the proper criteria to look at. Because you see there are two ditches we can fall into here. One I've already mentioned which is the idea of "Let's define all this by corporate affiliation." In other words, "Just in my group and you can only listen to this particular group."
Well there's another ditch as well. And that's what's happened especially since the break-up of Worldwide because we start realizing, "Okay, it's not really just defined by organization," but the other ditch we can fall into is the idea that "Anybody who keeps the Sabbath and the Holy Days and observes clean and unclean meats is a good source to listen to and we should kind of just think of it all equally." Well, that's the other ditch that we can fall into. Think of it kind of as a highway. As you're driving down the highway, there's a ditch on each side of the road and you don't want to be in either one of those. You want to be driving down the middle of the road in a balanced approach. That's how we want to look at this because we don't want to just jump straight into the other side of the ditch as well.
I had a friend in college. I attended Ambassador College with. She was in my class. And she always had a way she kind of joked. Well, she joked about herself, but it was true of human nature. She would always say, "I only see the middle of the road as I jump from one ditch to the other." Isn't that just true of human nature? What we tend to do is realize, "Okay, I'm over in this ditch." And we overcompensate and we go out of this ditch and we go right ahead towards the other one rather than steering. No, we need to get in the middle here and have a balanced approach.
And that's what I'm trying to look at today is "What's the balanced approach to this subject so we stay out of the ditches and we stay running straight here?" Well, the answer to that again is discerning by fruits.
So what do we mean by fruits? What does the Bible define as "fruits"? Well, to answer that from the Bible, let's turn over to Galatians chapter 5. And if you've got a ribbon in your Bible, you're probably going to want to put it in Galatians chapter 5 because we're going to come back and forth to this chapter a number of times in this sermon. That'll make it just easier for you flipping back and forth.
As I'm sure you're all aware, in Galatians chapter 5 here, we list out what the fruits of God's holy spirit are. What we're going to see here is basically two lists. I'm going to call them "The Good List" and "The Bad List." The Good List is the list of God's, the fruits of His holy spirit. The Bad List is the works of the flesh. And if we use these as a basic principle, this is how we can discern fruits. But let's kind of go through these and learn some basic lessons about this. So to kind of read it in its context, let's actually start up in verse 19 because we're actually going to start with the works of the flesh. It says:
Galatians 5:19. Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, [licentiousness],
20) idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies,
21) envy, [murderers], drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. (NKJ)
And notice that phrase. We're going to come back to that later as well.
Galatians 5:22. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23) gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.
24) And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
25) If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
26) Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. (NKJ)
Now notice first of all the commonalities in these two lists. I guess let's talk about first of all what's oftentimes termed as "fruits" these days. Because some of the things you'll hear kind of battered around in the Church of God today just amongst different groups and as Brethren who debate things with each other.
And sometimes you'll say, "Well, this group is the right group. You should be following it." And they'll say, "Well, why is that?" "Well, look at the fruits." And their list of fruits is "Well, look how large our organization is. Look what media we're doing. Look it, we're on TV or we have this magazine." Or, "Our leader was ordained by this individual, or has been ordained "x" amount of time. And you'll list out a number of different facts like this.
Notice that none of that is included in this list. What I'm going to make a discernment for here is if you look at the things—and, again, I'm not condemning all the things that I just mentioned as well—but notice that those are all physical issues. Because I mean first of all issues like who ordained someone, how long they've been ordained, those are just historical facts. I mean those can be absolutely true, but it doesn't necessary prove where a person's at today and how solid they are.
If you look at issues, again, like media or size of an organization or different things a corporation is doing, again, those can be evidence that God is blessing an organization in a particular way or blessing what they're doing. I'm not dismissing that. But is that proof positive in terms of fruits?
Well, look at it this way. What do you have to have? What is absolutely required to have, for example, a significant media effort? Mainly two things: a large bank account and an understanding of marketing. And again, I'm not knocking those that have a media effort or something in that, but I'm just actually saying, "What do you absolutely have to have to produce that?" Well, you have to have the funds to make it happen. You need the ability to understand how to kind of market what you're trying to present and such in a palatable way that people would be attracted to. And you've got to have the funds to fund it. That's doesn't necessarily of and by itself prove that God is behind it or it's doing well in His eyes and such. Again, I'm not necessarily knocking any of that, but I'm saying, "Is it of and by itself proof positive of anything?" No.
Now let's go back to the two lists that we have here.
Notice that the list of the fruits of the spirit what they are are character traits. It is basically the changing of carnal human into the character of God. That only happens one way—through God's holy spirit. That's why it's proof positive of the involvement of God's holy spirit and a good relationship with Him. Because, again, you only get to this one way when you really change carnal human nature that's in all of us and we act more converted and act like Christ. That comes about through God's holy spirit.
Now what does the bad list tell us? What is that a list of? It's a list of carnal human nature running amuck. When you get into revelries and drunkenness and outbursts of wrath and jealousies and heresies, this is all carnal human nature running amuck.
Again, because the evidence of God's holy spirit is proof positive of where He's working, of who's submitting to Him. Other things, again, can be indications of that, but they're not proof positive. Again, God can bless what an organization is doing, make it grow and things of that and that can be His blessing upon it. But, again, is that proof positive of where He's working? You always stick to these basic principles because, again, this is the criteria for assessment that Jesus Christ gave us to sort things out. So, that's what we have to work with.
Also, let's look at it like this. The basic thing, the basic premise that this whole sermon is based upon is the idea—and it's not just an idea. Again, this is exactly how Christ told us to look at this. Sound Biblical teaching that is profitable for salvation, aids us in getting to the Kingdom of God, comes as a result of a mind that is being led by and surrendering itself to God's holy spirit. That's how where good sound teaching comes from. So, what this basically is saying is that correlates with the fruits of God's holy spirit. There's a direct correlation. You're going to find them together. If you can't find good fruits, you don't want to listen to the teaching because that's what Christ is telling us. "You'll sort them out by their fruits."
To demonstrate the idea, let me tell you a personal example. A friend of mind at the Feast a number of years ago shared a personal story with me of his own life. And it really illustrates the very principle that I'm talking about here because he didn't really put it exactly in these words in how he told the story, but he was absolutely practicing this principle.
He said for a short time in his life he got kind of confused on the calendar ideas that go around the Church of God these days. You know the whole idea that we shouldn't use the Jewish calendar that the Church of God has always used and use some other developed calendar. Well, he got kind of confused on that for a while and he actually kind of believed in an alternate calendar and attended groups in that regard. But he said it dawned on him one day. He said, "You know if God's holy spirit is leading people to this understanding, then that should mean I should be able to find at least one group out there—that obviously is not perfect because nobody is—but where I feel like the leadership is sound and solid and balanced on most issues. They're good examples of being a Christian and just their whole approach to doctrine in general and practice and how they treat people would just be solid." He said, "I should be able to find these together," but he didn't feel like he could.
And I'll just share with you his observations that he shared with me because he had actually attended a number of these groups. And he said what he tended to find in his opinion was oftentimes unbalanced individuals, especially the leadership he said, that would be combative, argumentative, more contentious with one another and he just oftentimes found kind of unbalanced individuals. And even felt, in his opinion, that that was true of the average member in the groups. And again, no description fits everybody in a group but he was just saying that's kind of what he found.
And he said he kept looking around going, "I should be, if this is right, I should find the fruits directly correlating with it. And I can't find that!" And he said that just bothered him over time. And he said, "You know what? This can't be right!" He said, "Regardless of whether I can kind of sort through every technical argument and defeat every technical defeat, if I can't find this directly correlating with the fruits of God's spirit, something is wrong! This can't be right."
So, he decided as a result to walk away from it. And he absolutely did the right decision. Because, again, that's how Christ told us to sort it out. "You will know them by their fruits. Beware of false teachers who come to you in sheep's clothing." It looks attractive. It looks positive, but if you can't find good fruits, run! Get away from him. Because, again, if you're a sheep and you continue to hang out with wolves, what should you expect to happen? You should expect to be dinner at some point! Because that's what happens when wolves get hungry; they consume sheep. That's why Christ used that analogy. You want to run away from ravenous wolves.
So, basically if you notice that whole principle and just to back up this idea, let's turn over to Matthew chapter 12 and we'll look at verse 33. This is also Christ speaking here. He says:
Matthew 12:33. "Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit.
34) "Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? (NKJ)
Now notice that. He's saying, "If you're inwardly bad, you're on the wrong track. Not leaning to God's holy spirit. How can you teach good things?" Because the whole point here is if the fruits are bad, you should expect the teaching to be suspect. That's basically what He's saying here.
Pick up again in verse 34.
Matthew 12:34b. For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
35) "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things.
36) "But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment.
37) "For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." (NKJ)
Again, He's teaching them the same basic principle because notice Christ said, "If you find bad, you'll sort them out by their fruits." In other words, the bad fruits are the teachers you should consider as inwardly ravenous wolves. That means if you find bad fruits, you don't want to listen. You don't want to even if the teachings look like it's in sheep's clothing, you want to get away from it.
Because think of it like this: You notice when we went through the list of the works of the flesh at the end of it, it said, "Those who practice these things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God." And realize while I'm talking about all of this, I'm talking about a track record of people going in this direction. Everybody falls short at some point and messes up, makes mistakes. That's called being human, but if you're seeing a significant track record that are matching with the fruits of the, the works of the flesh I should say, Christ said, "Those who practice these things will not inherit the Kingdom of God."
Why do you come to Church and study the Bible and pursue all of this? Isn't the ultimate objective to get into the Kingdom of God? Isn't that the idea? You study all of this because you're trying to get teaching that helps you make it into the Kingdom ultimately. Why would you want to get spiritual teaching from individuals that if they stay on the course they're currently on they're not going to be there? Isn't that a logical disconnect? Doesn't that kind of not make sense? "I want to get my teachings and ideas from individuals who if they stay on the same path aren't going to be in the Kingdom and my whole idea is to try to get into the Kingdom with this teaching." It doesn't make sense. Does it?
Now, if you kind of think about that, let's kind of go through in detail some of the issues here with the works of the flesh. Turn back over to Galatians 5. As I mentioned, we're going to go back to this chapter a number of times here. What we're going to do here is kind of go through the works of the flesh here to look at warning signs that we should be watching for. And again, when we see a pervasive track record of someone going in this direction, you want to get away from him because sheep who hang out with wolves should expect to get eaten.
Now we won't have time to go through every single one of these, but let's just kind of read through these. And I'm going to pick certain ones and kind of expound upon them and go through examples we can find in the Church of God today of things we want to be aware of. Again, starting back in verse 19 of Galatians 5, it says:
Galatians 5:19. Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness,
20) idolatry, (NKJ)
And I stopped at idolatry because that's the first one I want to expound upon here. Now, when you think about idolatry, if you're like me, one of the kind of first obvious examples that comes to mind is Exodus 32. You know, the Golden Calf incident because that's just kind of blatant, straightforward idolatry. Moses is up on the mountain getting the Ten Commandments. People get frustrated he's been gone too long and they take all the gold and jewelry and everything they have. They melt it down and they make a golden calf. They make a big pagan idol out of it. And people start bowing down and worshipping it. And so when you think of idolatry, that's kind of an obvious blatant example of idolatry.
But we can make an idol out of things that are good. It doesn't have to be something again like a big pagan idol that we're bowing down to. We can take something that God gave us that was positive, that was good, He intended for good purposes and we can make an idol out of it and we can start putting it before God. So, what we have to look at are examples in that regard because that's more commonly what we're going to find is a problem, again, within the Church.
But let's look at just some Old Testament examples to illustrate this idea. And, again, I'd keep your ribbon in Galatians 5. We're going to come back there several times, but turn over to Jeremiah chapter 7. Let's look at a couple of examples here of how ancient Israel made idols sometimes out of very good things. In other words, things that God gave them. He told them to make. He instructed them to have, gave them the things they needed to make it, but later they wind up turning it into something bad, turning it into evil. Jeremiah chapter 7, we're going to start reading in verse 4. It says:
Jeremiah 7:4. "Do not trust in these lying words, saying, 'The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these.' (NKJ)
What we're about to see here in this chapter is Israel round up making the Temple that God told them to make, turning it into an idol, trusting in the building rather than trusting in God Himself. But, again, realize this was something that God told them to make the Temple, told them how to make it, provided them with the means to make it, totally intended it for good purposes. But the people over time turned it into an idol and starting looking to it rather than looking to obey God.
Let's continue now in verse 5:
Jeremiah 7:5. "For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor,
6) "if you do not oppress the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, or walk after other gods to your hurt,
7) "then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever. (NKJ)
God's saying here, "If you repent and you actually follow Me, then things are going to work out well for you. You know you can't trust in a building."
Let's continue on here in verse 8.
Jeremiah 7:8. "Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot profit.
9) "Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods whom you do not know,
10) "and then come and stand before Me in this house which is called by My name, and say, 'We are delivered to do all these abominations'?
11) "Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of thieves in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it," says the Lord.
12) "But go now to My place which was in Shiloh, where I set My name at the first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel.
13) "And now, because you have done all these works," says the Lord, "and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you did not hear, and I called you, but you did not answer,
14) "therefore I will do to [this] house which is called by My name, in which you trust, (NKJ)
Now notice that! That they were trusting in the building; they were not trusting in God. They had made an idol out of it. They were placing it before God.
Jeremiah 7:14b. …and to this place which I gave to you and your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh.
15) "And I will cast you out of My sight, as I have cast out all your brethren— the whole posterity of Ephraim. (NKJ)
So God's saying basically, "I'm going to destroy your idol because you've made an idol out of it. You think because you have the Temple that you're in great shape and you're in good relationship with Me. That's just a building." He goes, "You need to actually obey Me," because they made an idol out of something good. Again, it wasn't a golden calf. It wasn't a blatant pagan idol. It was something good they turned into an idol.
Another example, and I'll just summarize this one for time's sake rather than turning to the actual Scriptures on it, but another example is the Ark of the Covenant. God told them to make the Ark of the Covenant. Told them exactly how to do it, provided them with the means to do it, had very good purposes for it, what He was using it for, but the people over time turned it into an idol.
Israel went up against the Philistines in battle and started getting defeated. Then they thought, "I know what. Well, let's take the Ark with us. We can't lose if we've got the Ark with us. You know the Ark's our trump card." So they take the Ark with them and go up against the Philistines and they got slaughtered! And the Ark gets captured and the Philistines take it away because God's teaching them a lesson. He's teaching them, "You tried to make an idol out of this and that's not how this works." Because Samuel came along later and told them, "If you want God to help you against the Philistines, you've got to repent of your actions. You've got to actually obey His Commandments. It's not a matter of taking a relic with you." You know, "As long as we've got the Ark here, we're in good shape." Because again, they're thinking "As long as I've got this object, we've got this idol with us, everything is going to be fine." And that's not how it turned out.
Well, if you look at our recent history in the Church of God, there has been a decent amount of idolatry going on. I mean if you can just look back at our history in Worldwide. I personally believe one of the major reasons why God allowed the Worldwide Church of God busted apart as it was is that many Brethren had begun to make an idol out of the organization, out of the corporation, out of the culture, out of all that we had going on with media efforts and the big campuses of the college and all of that. People began to look at that as "Well, as long as I'm a part of this and as long as I'm supporting this organization and kind of a part of what all this corporate machine is doing, well, that means I'm good with God. That means I have a right relationship with God and everything is right." And that's idolatry because God expects us to actually obey Him and to repent and change in our lives regardless of those things. We can't trust in something physical of that nature.
Well, if you look at it today even after that's been destroyed, still many individuals and organizations still get into idolatry. Look at their organization. "As long as I'm supporting this media effort, as long as I'm following this particular leader, this is my ticket into the Kingdom." And then it becomes idolatry. We begin putting that before our relationship with God.
And many things have done that. If you look at one of the more common idols today, unfortunately, it is actually Herbert Armstrong himself. And, again, don't get me wrong. I'm not in any way putting down Mr. Armstrong and all that God accomplished through him, but he was a tool that God used. But a lot of organizations and individuals today look at it from the standpoint of really making an idol out of Mr. Armstrong even using his teachings, his writings as the foundation of doctrine. And there's a huge logical disconnect there even outside of the issue of idolatry.
Because look at it like this—and this is what always puzzles me when people say, "Well, everything Mr. Armstrong ever said, every opinion he ever had and everything is all canonized and that's basically our foundation of truth now." And they defend everything that they teach with "Well, here's what Mr. Armstrong taught," or "Here's what he wrote or said at this time." And I'm going, "Okay, now wait a minute. So you're telling me that you want to use as the foundation of your teachings, the teachings of an individual who was famous for saying, 'Don't believe me; believe your Bible'? The very same guy who taught, 'Don't believe what I think. Always go to your Bible. Compare everything that you're taught and only believe what matches your Bible.' That's the guy you want to use as the foundation of truth in contradiction to his own teachings?"
Isn't there a logical disconnect here? Because think about it. Again, I'm not diminishing the role of Herbert Armstrong. I absolutely believe he was God's servant and his ministry brought about what has resulted in all of us today. I'm not putting that down. But we can't make an idol of the man. A lot of the organizations today you go to their website. One of the first things you see is a picture of Herbert Armstrong and booklets that then get into his role and what does that mean? And basically we should follow everything he's ever said and done. That's not what God intended for us to do. Because again, even Mr. Armstrong himself, again, famous for "Don’t believe me; believe your Bible. Compare everything with your Bible. Follow what matches in the Book." And that's what we should do. And we can't trust in "Well, we're the closest to what Herbert Armstrong taught." That's quite frankly idolatry.
And, again, I'm not putting down Mr. Armstrong. I have a great deal of respect for what God accomplished through Mr. Armstrong, but he was a man. And we can't make an idol out of this. My point in all of this is when you see blatant idolatry in whatever form it comes in, whatever is being used as an idol and put up there, again what did Christ tell us? "You will sort out the bad teachers by their fruits." When you see a pervasive track record of the issues you're seeing here—again, the works of the flesh going on—run! Because that's what Christ said, "You'll figure out they're ravenous wolves on the inside." If you're a sheep and you continue to hang out with wolves, what should you expect to happen? You should expect to be dinner.
Well, let's turn back over to Galatians chapter 5 and continue in our list here. Picking up here in verse 20 after idolatry, it mentions sorcery, which is obviously encouraging activity with demons. But notice the next several:
Galatians 5:20b. …hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, (NKJ)
Now, three out of those four are basically speaking to uncontrolled anger. If you think about it contentions, outbursts of wrath, that's typically someone who's raging who has an anger issue. That oftentimes expresses itself in sarcasm and attacking words and verbally abusing others. If you see these types of things, you want to run because uncontrolled anger is a cancer. It is like an infection that spreads to other people and poisons them.
Turn with me over to Proverbs chapter 22. We'll see some specific warnings in this regard. Proverbs 22 and we're going to read verse 24. It says:
Proverbs 22:24. Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious man do not go, (NKJ)
Why? Let's read verse 25.
Proverbs 22:25. Lest you learn his ways and set a snare for your soul. (NKJ)
In other words, it's going to rub off and affect you. That's something, if you expose yourself to on a regular basis, it can have an affect on an individual and even an entire congregation. And let me give you a personal example of that.
This happened I want to say ten-fifteen years ago or longer. It's been quite a while ago. But I was in a congregation at that time probably at its highest about 90 to 100 people. And there was minister there that spoke fairly often, but he had a very obvious anger problem. Most of his sermons oftentimes were just kind of an angry tirade in a lot of ways. Now again, when you think of it just doctrinally, probably the majority of the basic doctrine he taught was on target, but there was this very angry approach to it all, very kind of verbally abusing in many ways the congregation at times.
Well, a close friend of mine who was in the congregation at the same time—we were there together—made an observation one day. He said, "Have you ever noticed after this guy speaks, if you watch the congregation and how they interact with each other, it's like watching a bunch of teenagers who've been playing too much Nintendo." He said, "They're edgy. They're on edge. They're short tempered. They're just kind of feisty," he said. "And you can just kind of see people stirred up in how they interact with one another." And he said, "You can just kind of see that." And we would see it kind of escalated more conflicts with people and just had a pervasive effect on the entire group.
Within a year or two that congregation shrunk from about 90 to 100 people to about 40. And, again, that was probably more issues than just this individual. But it certainly had a very cancerous effect on the whole congregation because not only were people offended and hurt by, again, the angry tirades, but it affected everyone else's behavior and how they treated each other and how they interacted with other Brethren. And it just had a poisonous effect on the group in general.
That's why it says, "Make no friendship with an angry person, lest you learn their ways." Because that's what was happening! People were learning his ways and carrying it out and laying a snare for their own soul.
But also realize this, severe anger problems and other issues with sin tend to come hand-in-hand. They are directly correlated with each other. Turn with me over to Proverbs chapter 29 and I'll show you this right out of the Bible. Proverbs 29 and verse 22, it says:
Proverbs 29:22. An angry man stirs up strife, and a furious man abounds in transgression. (NKJ)
In other words, when you see lots of uncontrolled anger problems, you can pretty much bet, if not then, if that continues over time, there are going to be lots of other sin issues that creep in as well because again, it's like leaven. You know a little leaven leavens the whole lump. You put a little in there and it grows over time. This is what happens because sin has a very progressive nature. And uncontrolled anger is very much like that in terms of how it stunts a person's spiritual growth, their emotional growth and really anchors them and even pulls them backwards. And, again, it has a cancerous affect in affecting other people.
It can even over time lead people into heresy. Let me give you an example of that. But before we go specifically in that story, turn back over to Galatians chapter 5. I want to show you the specific meaning of one of the works of the flesh here we talked about.
In Galatians chapter 5, again in verse 20, notice it says, "hatred, contentions." Now let me give you the definition of this word "contentions." And this is the Greek word eris (er'-is), Strong's number 2054. And, again I'm quoting from the Complete Word Study Dictionary of the New Testament by Spiro Zodhiates. It's defined as:
… strife, contention wrangling; metaphorically it means love of strife …
In other words, one who loves to debate, loves to argue, loves to be combative. That's basically what it's getting at.
Now, with that in mind, let me tell you a personal story. Several years ago, in fact, this was—I know this was a number of years ago because my wife, Linda, was alive at the time. But there was a family that we knew in the Church that we had known for many, many years that didn't live in the area but happened to be traveling through the Dallas area. And we heard about it. So, we invited them over to dinner. "Hey, come over. Let's have some dinner together. Catch up on old times and fellowship." So, they came over. We had dinner and we talked for a number of hours.
Well, one of the things I noticed that evening was the husband of the couple was really getting into a contentious attitude like this love of strife, loving to argue and to debate. And it was even very much affecting his approach to the Bible and approach to Bible study and religion because he really just wanted to focus on all the different issues he could debate with someone. You know every little picky point that he could argue about or kind of stir up strife. In fact, even our conversation that night at the table got kind of tense because he was kind of espousing some of his ideas. I didn't agree with some of what he had to say and I told him. He didn't like that. And he even kind of wanted to get combative with me that evening.
Well, fortunately we got through the evening and had a peaceable end to it all. As they were leaving, Linda and I were standing in our driveway kind of out in front of the house. We saw them out to their car. And I watched them kind of drive down the street and I watched their tail lights disappear. And I turned and I looked at Linda right there as they were walking away, and I literally said these words exactly. I said, "Honey, it's just a matter of time before he's off on some issue like the calendar."
And I meant that more as a generic statement because the reason I said that was my personal observation was kind of similar to my friend I quoted at the beginning. And, again, it certainly doesn't apply to everyone because no general description, no cookie-cutter fits everybody. But I've tended to find that the majority of people that I've ever known personally that tended to really get wrapped up on issues for example like the calendar tended to have again, more of a contentious, argumentative, wanted to fight and debate type of approach to things.
So when I saw this in my friend, I thought, "Man, if he stays on that, it's not just a matter of time before he's going to be off on that issue." I had no idea when I said that—and I mean that as a generic statement—within a year or two later, he was off on the calendar. And he has been ever since. And, in fact, in time he kind of led his wife in that direction because she was a much more of a peaceable individual. But over time just the influence of that, now she's bought into it and followed him around.
Again, making friends with an angry person can be very dangerous lest you set a snare for your soul and you learn their ways. This is basically what happened. It kind of led them off into heresy.
And that's one of the reasons why when you see a significant anger problem, when you see the biting and stabbing comments—and that's, again, not just someone who gets upset one time and loses their temper. Everybody does that at some point in their life. I'm talking about a pervasive pattern of that's their general track record.
It's one of those things you want to run from and go the other direction from because as Christ, as actually Paul laid out for us here, "Those who practice these things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God." And if they stay on this course, why would you want to follow their teachings if they're headed in a direction that's not going to take them to the Kingdom? Isn't getting into the Kingdom the very idea as to why we come to Church, why we study the Bible? It's incompatible.
So saying regardless of whether someone is stimulating on a particular topic or whatever, when you see that pervasive pattern, good sound teaching comes as a result of a mind that is being ruled by God's holy spirit. That's how that happens. That means there is always a direct correlation between good fruits and a person's behavior and sound teaching. And if you're not seeing the good fruits, you want to run from the teaching. Because as Christ told us, "That's how you sort it out. That's how you identify the people you don't want to listen to."
Now let's move on to another point here. And, as we're going to see, this is probably one of the most common and pervasive deceptions that have been used to basically get the Church of God off track in our time. And notice here after we've covered outbursts of wrath, there's "selfish ambitions. And the next point is "dissensions." Now if you're like me when I read the word "dissensions" that doesn't give me an immediate picture in my mind as to what that means. In fact, I've looked at a number of some other translations and one of the things a number of other translations mention this as "factions." Others mention it as "factionalism." Now that gives me more of an idea of what that's saying.
But I personally just love how The Living Bible translates this. And I’m going to read this to you literally just word for word and I think you'll probably find this as astounding as I did when you think about today's Church of God environment! And, again, this is how the Living Bible translates this where it says "dissensions." This is word for word.
Galatians 5:20b. …the feeling that everyone else is wrong except those in your own little group… (TLB)
Now is that not a very accurate description of something we very commonly see in the Church of God today? "God is only working through this particular group or this particular minister" or however it is. "And if anybody else, if they get their act together and they get right with God, then they're obviously going to see that they need to be with us in this group." I mean is that not a very, very common thing we hear in the Church of God today?
It's what I like to call "A Fill in the Blank Argument." Because the argument is the same except for what you fill in the blank. Because it's always, "God only works through us and this is the only legitimate group and here's why." And again, the fill in the blank varies. There are various arguments. It could be our media campaign. It could be who is leading this organization. It could be our understanding on particular doctrines or prophecy or whatever the issue is. But it's a fill in the blank situation because the rest of it is pretty much the same. It's the same erroneous argument that leads you into the same ditch.
And one of the ironic things that you'll see oftentimes is people who make this argument, or organizations or whatever, typically will think, "Well, we're the most spiritually mature." And, again, it's a fill in the blank as to why that is. But that's normally the argument. "We're the spiritual giants and if everybody else could just see that, well, they would join with our organization."
Well, let's notice what Paul had to say about this very idea because he addresses this whole idea of how mature he thought this was. 1 Corinthians 1, we'll start reading in verse 12. It says:
1 Corinthians 1:12. Now I say this, that each of you says, "I am of Paul," or "I am of Apollos," or "I am of Cephas," or "I am of Christ."
13) Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
14) I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius,
15) lest anyone should say that I had baptized in my own name.
16) Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas. Besides, I do not know whether I baptized any other.
17) For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. (NKJ)
Now notice what he's describing here. "I am of Paul;" I'm of Apollos." Really what they're saying here is, "I'm with Paul and Paul's better than Apollos. And if you've got your act together, you're going to leave Apollos and you're going to come and join us with Paul because we're the only ones that God's working with." I mean what he's describing here is the exact thing that we see in the Church of God today. It's the same basic logic.
But notice how mature he feels this is. Turn over to 1 Corinthians 3 and we'll start in verse 1. It says:
1 Corinthians 3:1. And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ.
2) I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you [still are] not able;
3) for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men? (NKJ)
And what's the chief example of all this carnal behavior? Let's read verse 4.
1 Corinthians 3:4. For when one says, "I am of Paul," and another, "I am of Apollos," are you not carnal? (NKJ)
What he's saying here is "It doesn't matter what you fill in the blank with. The very argument itself is carnality." It's a work of the flesh. It's something we should get away from. It doesn't matter what you try to fill in as to the reason of why—you know, "We're the elite group and the only ones that God's working through."—because oftentimes, again, the argument is "Well, this is the most spiritually mature." In reality, God's up there looking going, "Mature? Are you kidding Me? Because you're acting like children! You haven't been weaned from the bottle. You're children in the sandbox fighting over who's king of the hill!" That's how God looks at it!
So, when we see that argument, it's something we want to get away from because it's the core of the Laodicean attitude. If you think about it, that very teaching, that very idea leads people right into an absolute Laodicean attitude.
Turn with me over to Revelation chapter 3. Actually I'm going to touch on a little bit of stuff that was covered here in the sermonette. Revelation chapter 3 verse 16, it says:
Revelation 3:16. "So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I [am about to] vomit you out of My mouth.
17) "Because you say, 'I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing'— and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked— (NKJ)
Now think about that. If someone thinks, "I'm rich and increased with goods. I've got it all together. I don't need anything." Basically what are they saying? "Well, I'm in great shape. Everyone else should be like me. I'm the poster-child for spiritual maturity, am I not?" because people don't typically try to fix what they don't perceive to be broken. If we perceive we don't have any issues, we're in need of nothing, "Well, we're the apple of God's eye." It's the very Laodicean attitude because as He says here, "You don't realize you're wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked." It's kind of like what Paul was saying. He said, "You think you're spiritually mature. You're actually babes. You're actually little children fighting and squabbling over toys." I mean it's the same kind of idea.
So, again, when you see that—when you see these bad fruits—you don't want to get your spiritual teachings from that. You don't want to get your ideas of doctrine and how to build a relationship with God from this very type of thing because it's poison. It's kind of like what Dale pointed out with the water. Over time it's built bacteria. It's become contaminated. You don't want to drink it. It's the very same idea.
Let's cover one other idea here. Turn with me over to 2 Timothy chapter 1 and we're going to start here in verse 6. And while I'm pointing this out, you'll see another basic principle of God's holy spirit that we should look for in determining where God's spirit is strongly working and where it's not. And, again, I'm not saying that people that have bad fruits don't necessarily have God's spirit, but God's spirit is something that has to be yielded to and utilized. As Dale even pointed out, the water can become contaminated if we're not using it. If we're not refreshing it, it can become poison. Notice here in chapter 1 verse 6:
2 Timothy 1:6. Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you [with] the laying on of my hands.
7) For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. (NKJ)
He's basically saying here that a mind being ruled by God's holy spirit is not based in fear and you should find sound mindedness. That's a basic principle you should see in an individual that, again, you want to look to as a teacher—is sound mindedness.
The reason I bring up this particular principle, something I've noticed that has affected the Church of God at different levels pretty much my whole life because I was born in the late sixties. It was probably the mid-seventies by the time I was old enough to really remember a lot, but I've noticed all of my life, and especially since the breakup of Worldwide and in the last decade or so, conspiracy theories edging into the Church of God.
And what I mean by that is like if you're familiar with these terms, kind of the black helicopter's idea, "They're all coming after us," the Illuminati, the New World Order and a number of these types of ideas. If you're not familiar with kind of the logic—or illogic I should say—oftentimes behind these types of ideas, think of it in terms of if you have an e-mail account for any length of time and have any number of friends, I'm sure you've had urban legends forwarded to you at various times because they circle all around the internet.
And if you look at these kind of stories, oftentimes what happens there is they tell you some sensational event and try to get you worked up about it, but there's oftentimes basic elements missing to be able to really verify it—exactly when it happened, what date it happened—to be able narrow down the validity of it. Or there have been logical problems with it.
And, again, just on the subject of urban legends here, what I typically do whenever I get one of these e-mails, there are two websites that basically investigate these types of urban legends. There's truthorfiction.com and snopes.com. And what you'll find is the vast majority of the time, that you're getting one of these e-mails, if you go and look at it and do some research on it, what you're going to find is it's either completely bogus. It's just completely fabricated and made up or they've taken some element of truth and twisted it and embellished it and turned it into something that's totally changed the meaning and made it untrue.
And the reason I kind of point this out is oftentimes your conspiracy theories are kind of based on a similar type of thing. If you really analyze it and look at the logic of it, it starts getting ridiculous in a hurry. But more often than that, it's oftentimes very based in fear.
A friend of mind that I recently talked to I want to say the last couple of months had recently left a Church of God organization that she felt was kind of getting into this type of thing. And she made an interesting comment to me. She said, "They tried to control me with fear," because her whole point was they were edging in that direction.
And the people that really get into those types of ideas, it quickly gets into "Well, you need to stockpile food. You need to stockpile supplies because the end times are coming and you have to prepare for this." And I'm not saying don't prepare for emergencies and such. I'm just saying— But if they really get off the wall, it's "You've got to stockpile weapons because you need guns now and such to get through the end times that are coming." And the way they put a good face on this is typically always try to connect it with prophecy. "We're watching prophecy because we're commanded to 'watch.'"
Well, as I covered back on Trumpets, if you go through Christ's instructions to watch—and I won't take the time to go through all the details here—there are two Greek words there. If you look at the context in each case, what He's saying is "What we really need to watch is our spiritual condition." I'm not saying don't ever pay attention to the news or what's going on around you, but I'm saying that's not the "watching" that's going to save anybody. It's our spiritual condition and trusting in God.
But what oftentimes happens with these ideas is it gets people really off track, focused on the physical and really burning up their time with that, really with the idea. And it's based in fear. You do all of this to prepare because you've got to physically protect yourself and you've got to physically be able to survive through all of this.
God's spirit is not a spirit of fear. Where you see these kind of ideas being taught, you don't want to follow what else they have to say because you're not dealing with a sound mind. Because God's holy spirit, if someone is really yielding to it and being governed by it in their life, again, you're going to see sound mindedness and you're not going to have ideas that are just run by fear and paranoia.
So, when you see that again, it doesn't matter how interesting of a speaker they might be or tell any ideas they might have on this subject or that subject. When you see bad fruits, as Christ said, "You will know them by their fruits." When you see the bad fruits, you should consider it a ravenous wolf. If you're a sheep and you continue to hang out with wolves, what's a real expectation? You're going to be dinner.
So, when we look at Christ warned us, "Many false prophets will rise up amongst the Church" and He meant false teachers when we look at the real meaning of the word. He said, "You'll know them by their fruits." So, when you see the bad fruits, get away from them!
Again, I would never suggest to anybody just to define things just by corporate affiliation because, again, that logic didn't work too well once in our history. But if you're always evaluating by fruits, then you're always going to be safe because that keeps us from being a statistic and being deceived.
And again, these basic principles are not just something in evaluating our teachers. If we're looking at basic fruits and utilizing that principle, that'll help us in lots of areas in life. Again, it's the Biblical Criteria for Assessment in how we assess people and situations as again looking at these basic concepts of where God's holy spirit is and where it isn't. It's just a good way to govern our lives.
So, when we look at this, Brethren, realize we need to be concerned with the environment that we're in in the Church of God today. There are two ditches. We don't want to be in either one. One is "God only works with us and only the good guys are with us," but, again as we mentioned, that's straight out of the works of the flesh. But that's one ditch. The other ditch is again, "Everybody, because they're the called Church of God, is somebody to listen to." That's a very, very dangerous ditch to be in. Where we want to be is in the middle—discerning by the fruits, going straight through this. And, again, if you start seeing a pervasive track record—hey, even if that's me; if you see me going in a direction and you see the bad fruits—stop listening! That's what you do with the Biblical Criteria for Assessment.
So, Brethren, as we look at this and we look at the dangerous environment we are in in the Church of God today, let's realize if we want to stay safe, simply follow Christ's instructions—"Examine the fruits and evaluate those". Those are always a good guide to follow because as Christ told us when we come to evaluating these things, the basic principle we should follow is "By their fruits you shall know them."
Transcribed by kb June 15, 2011