we read from Luke chapter 11. We're going to read verses 14 through 26. And he was casting out a demon and it was mute. So it was when the demon had gone out that the mute spoke and the multitude marveled. But some of them said, he cast out demons by Beelzebub, the ruler of the devil. the demons, and others tested him, sought from him a sign from heaven. But he, knowing their thought, said to them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and a house divided against a house. If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? Because, you say, I cast out demons by Beelzebub. If I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore, they will be your judges. But if I cast out demons with the finger of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace. But when a stronger than he comes upon him and overcomes him, he takes from him all his armor, in which he trusted, and divides his spoils. He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, He goes through dry places, seeking rest and finding none. He says, I will return to my house from which I came. And when he comes, he finds it swept and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that man is worse than the first. May the Lord bless the reading of his word. Let's bow our heads in a word of prayer. Our Father, we just thank you so much that you are God. Lord, we thank you for the lessons from the Gospels, from the New Testament, the Old Testament, for all of your word. Lord, for the hard sections, for the good sections, for the knowledge that you are God and you rule over men. Father, for the knowledge that you lift up nations and you dispose nations. Father, even today as we look at your power In particular over demons, Lord, we just thank you that we can trust in you. Father, we ask this morning that you would bless each one who hears. Father, that our hearts would be encouraged and our hope would be placed in you. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you. You may be seated. Last week, we looked at the beginning of this, and Luke's just got a couple of words, Matthew adds a couple more, talking about Jesus' miracle of delivering this man who is a mute. Matthew says he was mute and blind, but because of a demon. and the demon is cast out. And as we get to the end of Christ's ministries, the writers of the Gospels are no longer trying to show us the details of the miracles. The miracles have been happening continuously since Jesus came. There are multiple miracles, multiple times stuff like this has happened. You remember the one over across the the Sea of Galilee where the demons said, I am legion for we are many. And they ran into the, they were cast out of the man in the tombs and they went into the herd of swine and the herd of swine ran down. So you've had all of these already, these huge encounters. And so when Luke brings us to an encounter like this, he is not trying to give us exhaustive details. He's just kind of summing up. And the reason he's summing it up is because we are looking at the rebellion that happens against Christ. And you're going to see this come up, and this is the whole next section of the chapter here, is this rebellion as they blaspheme Jesus Christ. And the reason that this miracle, again, sparks this fierce hatred and rebellion is They were so clear. Nobody, not even the enemies of Jesus, could argue over what was happening. We looked last week at how Jesus continually claimed multiple times through the New Testament that he was sent from God. We also saw that he claimed that he spoke the words of God and that he was God. They understood these three claims. So every time he did a miracle, it was a mark of judgment against those who didn't believe. They had to come up with a reason. They had to come up with something to destroy his credibility because he continued to claim that he came from God, he spoke for God, and he was, in fact, God. And that claim is the same claim we have to face. Every single person on the face of this earth will be judged based on what they have done with Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came. He died on a cross to save men from their sins. This is known all the way up to today. You know, and it's interesting, most of us can remember when it was A.D. It was after the death of Christ. And now it's the common era or something along those lines. We do whatever it takes to get rid of this knowledge of Jesus. Why? Because it convicts us. It convicts us. We know there was a turning point in history where God stepped in. And man is without excuse according to Romans 1. He's without excuse. He stands in front of a holy God with no excuse. He will be judged. So they hated the knowledge that he spoke for God. They refused to acknowledge the sins that he pointed out to them. This is particularly the Pharisees and the leaders of Israel, and they hated Christ. They hated Christ. Now, this is the culmination, and I don't know if culmination is the right word because it's going to go to to the point where they stir up the people to say, crucify him, crucify him. But this is the final, you could say, rejection of Jesus by the Pharisees. They have now reached a point of impasse where they cannot go back. In Matthew chapter 11, I went back and I looked at it this week, this same account happens in Matthew chapter 12. And starting at Matthew chapter 11, there is a progression of people struggling with Jesus. And it actually starts with John the Baptist. And John the Baptist doubted, are you here? Should we look for another? And part of the reason was they had seen Jesus now for two, two and a half years, and he was not fulfilling the expectations they had. They had their idea of what God should do. He should deliver the children of Israel. He should sit on the throne of Israel as the king of Israel, and they should rule the world. And there are passages of scripture they clung to, but they failed to take the rest of scripture into account. They also failed themselves to humble themselves and to listen to the one who came from God and could have given them the answers. So there was a lot of confusion, and even John the Baptist, as he sees his life drawing to an end, calls and says, you know, are you here? Do we look for another? And Jesus is blessed as the one who's not offended by me, who's willing to be humble and submit under the true teaching of God's word. because it doesn't always agree with our pre-expectations of what God is like. Secondly, we saw that Jesus starts to rebuke the people of this generation for their lack of faith in them. They said he came, John the Baptist came with an austere life, neither eating nor drinking, and they said what? He has a demon. He's being tormented. Nobody would choose to live this way that John lived, even though he was living the same way that one of their favorite Old Testament prophets had lived, Elijah. He came in the spirit of Elijah, but they would say, he's got a demon because they did not want to listen to his words. Then they looked at Jesus and Jesus came eating and drinking and kind of being more normal. And they said, oh, see, he's a glutton and a wine bibbler. That was their excuse, their escape from reason there. So Jesus starts and he concludes not just by rebuking the people but then by the entire cities. The cities where he had done all these miracles that failed to repent. He said if these had been done in Sodom or Gomorrah or Sidon or any of the pagan cities, these people would have repented in sackcloth and ashes long ago. but it shows the hardness of the hearts of men as they continue to reject Jesus. I just enjoyed this because in Matthew 11, Jesus comes and he thanks the Father for the Father's sovereignty that he will reveal this to some. He says, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in your sight. And then along with that, he gives the gospel invitation. Come on to me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. and I will give you rest." The teaching of God's sovereignty is never to close the gospel. It is always an encouragement to proclaim the gospel with great boldness because the Lord will work in calling souls to come and follow him. The Pharisees' response after that is very plain. They condemn Jesus for eating grain on the Sabbath and his disciples for eating grain on the Sabbath. They condemn Jesus for healing a withered man in the synagogue on the Sabbath. The interesting verse is Matthew 12, 14 through 21, and we'll only read the first verse or two. It says, then the Pharisees went out and plotted against him how they might destroy him. How they might destroy him. But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew from them. So after this, they have come to a point of impasse, and the Pharisees are now publicly and boldly, within their own group at least, plotting how can we destroy the credibility of Jesus. This is what's been going on in the background. He still has a great multitude following them. He's still doing that verse 13, verse 15 and 16, and a great multitude followed him and he healed them all. And it continues on. So even in the midst of this, he's still doing these miracles. And again, you can see that they're just, Luke doesn't give us the detail of what the miracles are. He just, he healed them all. You know, it's without doubt, there were many done. So there were many who were still following Jesus publicly, but he knew that rejection was coming, persecution was near, and he wanted time to preach. Now, in Luke 15, after this last miracle, we read this verse, but some of them said, he cast out demons by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons. Now, I've given you this preview so that you know that when it says this, this is the plan of the Pharisees. In Matthew 12, 24, now the Pharisees heard it, they said, this fellow does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler of demons. So, You know, within this great crowd, there are Pharisees, or the followers of Pharisees, the disciples of the Pharisees, who are following along with, and they are waiting for these opportunities. And when they come, they have been prepared. They have the plan. And you're going to see there's actually two things. Verse 16 as well in Luke says, Others testing him sought from him a sign. And that will be dealt with by Christ in Luke in verse 29. But those are the two things that their plan came up with. We are going to accredit the miracles to Beelzebub, the prince of demons. And we are going to credit, we are going to demand of him the sign. The sign. from the heavens. Forget that he did all these things, that he's raised the dead, that he casts out demons, that he claims to speak for God himself. We want to see the sign from heaven. And so these are the two things they have decided to do to try to turn people's hearts from the Lord. And what we're going to look at in this section of teaching is how Christ is going to answer this. He is going to be talking and responding directly to their accusations. Now, before we do, one other thing I want to do is who is Beelzebub? You don't find him anywhere else in scripture. So who is he? Well, I looked it up in the commentaries and this is what one of the commentaries said. Not content merely to claim that Jesus received his power from an ordinary demon, they charged him as being empowered by Beelzebub, a Jewish name for the ruler of demons or Satan. That name, which means Lord of the Flies, is a disdainful corruption of Baal Zubal, Prince Baal or Exalted Lord, the chief god of the Philistines, city of Ekron. It was the worst name they could think of with which to associate Jesus. So the Jews in their culture knew about Baal. Even today as we read in Judges chapter 3, we saw they fell and they started to serve Baal. And it was from the city of Eklon that this worship went out. They had the chief temple. and it was Baal Zubal that they worshiped there, and they had changed the name to Beelzebub. The spelling is almost identical, they changed two of the vowels, and it went from chief prince, or prince chief, Prince Baal, to Lord of the Flies. So it was a Jewish satire on it. And they took that name from their culture, and they apply it to Jesus. They apply it to Jesus. And this is a, this is, I read this because this is not just, you know, I have to admit, I did not know this. And I kind of thought, well, there was some, they must've had some tradition that this is an arch demon and all of this. And yet, doesn't this make a mockery? I mean, this attempts to make a mockery of everything that Jesus is. It really does, even to distorting the name to calling him the Lord of the Flies. It's just, it's a complete mockery of who Jesus is. And from this, you can see their hearts. Their hearts are not open. They're not, they have long since passed the point of listening with the intent to hear, listening with the intent to learn. They are now at the point where they have predisposed in their disposition to Jesus, and they have the answer ready on the tongue, and they are just waiting for that right moment, and now we're gonna bring this out. Here's who you are. Here's who you are. So there is very little respect in this. There's no respect. This is blasphemy of the highest order. And what makes this interesting is that Jesus and his love continues to reach out to them. You know, often we look at some of these harder passages and there are a lot of hard passages coming up. There are the rebuke and the woes of the Pharisees, the woes of the scribes, the woes to the lawyers. There's several clear and open rebukes of the Pharisees. Not all of them are even recorded in Luke. Remember, Jesus at the end of his ministry in John says, unless that you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins. I mean, the scripture is full of these rebukes that happened at the end of Jesus' ministry. And we often think, boy, that's hard. And yet what I want to point out to you is God had already come to the point where they had hardened themselves to the point that there was no discussion, and now Jesus, I believe, in grace, is warning them that there is judgment coming upon them if they do not repent. And here, even though he has no woes, he is going to take, and this is the first time this has come out publicly, and he's going to take and he's going to open up and he's going to show them, this is foolishness. This is just foolishness. And he's going to give them two reasons why this is foolishness. And that's what we're going to look at today. So the first of them, the first one comes in verse 17. And 18, he says, but he, knowing their thoughts, said to them, every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and a house divided against a house falls. If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? Because you say, I cast out demons by Beelzebub. All right, they're whispering this in the crowd, trying to generate support and discredit him among his followers. He knows their hearts, so he confronts them. He brings it out publicly, what's been said. And he brings out the first argument, which is very simple, it's very direct, it's just a common sense argument. If there is a nation that's at civil war within itself, you don't have to worry about it attacking somebody else. In fact, as it says at the end, its end, it has come and it cannot stand but has an end. When civil war happens, there's always going to be a time of depression within that people, within that economy. It has to be. You have the hate and the discontent and the loss of life and the destruction of property. This is not even a war where you're going outside to conquest or a war where you're being united by an enemy coming against you that you depart and meet at the border, but this is a war being fought on the very soil and in the cities that it's being fought at. It can do nothing but destroy. Literally, there's no greater loss than a civil war within a country. You know, we look at it when we think of the American Civil War and you had brother against brother and father against son. And so he brings this out and he points out so clearly if Satan is divided against Satan, if Satan is casting out Satan, you know, the foolishness of this, if this is true, you should rejoice because Satan has come to an end. His kingdom is no longer united under him, but there's those within that are fighting. Mark says almost identically, Oh, Mark is the one, I'm sorry, that says, his kingdom has come to an end. He cannot stand, but he has an end. He has an end. So he just points to this, and it should be very clear. If anyone starts to think about this, this is obviously a lie. It's just gossip. Just, I can't remember what the word is, but when you, accusations, baseless accusations, unfounded accusations, maliciousness. The second one comes right after that. He starts, he gives them a second argument. And this one is also very clear. He says, if I cast out demons, and if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore, they will be your judges." Now, when you read that by itself, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But go back to what we had just read in Luke 9. You can go back in your Bibles, Luke 9, couple of pages before, verse 45 and 50. Luke 9, 45 and 50. And Jesus says this, but they did not understand this saying, I'm sorry, is that it? Luke 9, 45 and 50. No, I have the wrong reference, I think, there. Let me read to you what it is, though. Now, Jesus answered and said, Master, we saw someone coming out, casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him because he did not follow with us. But Jesus said to him, Do not forbid him, for he who is not against us is on our side. It was in Luke, but maybe it was Luke 5. I can't remember. What? 49. Okay, I may be reading the wrong verse there. So that was Luke 9. Oh, I was looking at 43. Yes. Yes. 49 and 50. So this is what started to happen in the ministry of Jesus because of his amazing miracles and the power that he displayed. The Pharisees, well, those men that took it upon themselves to cast out demons were starting to use the name of Jesus. Now, this does not mean that they really had power over the evil spirits through the name of Jesus. We read in Acts 19, verses 13 through 16, then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to call the name of Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying... Now, there's a difference. You notice how this is written. They did not call on the name of Jesus. They called over to call the name of Jesus over those who had an evil spirit, you know, to use his name, saying, we exercise you by Jesus, whom Paul preaches. Now, listen to the next verse. Also, there were seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest. So when he talks to them and he says, ask your sons, you know, let them be your judges, he's not just you know, facetiously saying they're your sons. They're literally some of the children of the priests and the scribes and the Pharisees that were doing this. So he says, and they were using the name of Jesus. and trying to use it to gain power over the spirits. Verse 15, we see, of course, the result. The evil spirit answered and said, Jesus, I know, and Paul, I know, but who are you? Then the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them. So they fled out of the house naked and wounded. Naked and wounded. So obviously it did not work for them, but that was what was happening. We see it starting in Luke chapter 9. We see people that were doing it, that were going around doing miracles. And this has not changed. We see it all the way from the prophecy of Jesus in Matthew 7, 22 through 23. Many will say to me in that day, and that's the day of judgment, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, done many wonders in your name? Then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. Now there's a lot in that, but even though they will use the name of the Lord, He says, I never knew you at any point in time. You were never one of mine. And their lives give evidence that they are false teachers, they are false prophets, which is what that section is talking about. Why? Because they are lawless. Their sin is still a part of their life. It has never been repented of and forsaken. So this is what Jesus is referring to when he comes here and he starts talking to them and he says, look at your own children. He says, if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, then what are they doing? Are they also using the power of Satan? You know, because obviously, No scribe or Pharisee would attribute the power of Satan to his sons. So he points out two things that are very clear. and very easy to see that this statement was nothing but blasphemy. Nothing but blasphemy. And it should have confronted not just the people who were listening, but the people who were speaking too, that what they were saying was pure foolishness. And look again, how important this is. Who was speaking? Jesus Christ. If he was truly speaking the words of God, they were accountable for him. They were accountable for him. Now, I'm going to stop there because there's too much in the next section and we're going to spend a little bit longer on application than we usually do. I don't want to go on to the next section as he takes this one step further. and talks about, but if I cast out demons by the hand of God. We'll look at that next week. But I want to just challenge you and think, Satan has always had a strategy. He's a deceiver. He's a liar, the father of lies, and he is a deceiver. This is why one of the very first things that we find when we talk about the armor, God's armor is what? the belt of truth, the belt of truth. And that we have the Holy Spirit being introduced as the spirit of truth. And Jesus who says, I am the way, the truth and the life. And even when we talk about spiritual warfare, we are putting down philosophies and taking captive every thought that would raise itself up against the glory of God. It's always a battle for truth. And I just was thinking, and I mean literally, this is just sitting here this morning, and I thought about, you know, what battles are we fighting for truth? What is Satan, you know, plotted out in our days? Because his strategy has never changed. His strategy has never changed. He's always trying to discredit God or the Word of God. Just listen to some of these. And again, this was less than five minutes of thinking, probably about two and a half minutes of thinking. Now, I know I'm a pastor and all that, but you will see these portrayed in everything you hear and watch on television, the radio, songs, okay? It's everywhere. First of all, the self-worth, the philosophy of self-worth, that we need to build ourselves up, that pride, self-respect is a good thing. The Bible would humble us. It would tell us that we are sinners. It would tell us that we need a Savior. It would tell us that our hearts are deceitfully wicked above all things. Who can know it? And yet, what does man come out and say? Oh, follow your heart. Just, you know, you're good on the inside. If you could just take your heart and follow your heart. you know, everything would turn out right. And then we're surprised when we have absolute chaos. Absolute chaos. Second one goes very similar to this. The idea that, you know, self-worth and a good self-image inside has transcended and it's come into our parenting. We have this thing called gentle parenting. And I was looking through something on parenting the other day and it was not Christian. I don't believe it was Christian. I couldn't read it. It was so awful that it just, I got the first little bit and I couldn't even keep going. You ever get that where you open something, you look at the first paragraph, it's like, ooh, you know, and it's just like somebody poured vinegar down your throat and you just can't get the taste of it out of your mouth. And it talked about, it says, don't worry, good parents still have children who hit other children, who bully other children, who throw tantrums, who disobey, who, you can be a good parent and have disobedient children who don't listen to a thing you say. And I mean, the list was long. The list was long. And all I could do to stop from going to 1 Timothy 3 or 2 Timothy 3 and looking at it and going, here's the list, guys. Guess what? It was written 2,000 years ago. This is a judgment on a nation. This is a judgment on a nation. This is not good. This is evil. And yet we continue to exalt those parents who are willing to put up with it and endure along with the sinful, disobedient behavior of childhood. And again, what is this? This is nothing but false teaching. This is nothing but false teaching. We hear continually that Jesus was just a man, just a good teacher. The reason that it doesn't work is look at the miracles that he did. Even his enemies could not bear with that idea. He obviously had power. It came from somewhere. Nor does it make sense that it came from the devil. I just have to add this one in here because that's what Jesus just defended. If it comes from God, then we are accountable to understand what God said by Jesus. Anything that casts doubt on God's Word. Anything that casts doubt on God's Word. I don't know how many times we hear references to evolution. Just about any movie that you look at. The other day we were just happen to turn the TV on and watch Star Trek, just a couple minutes of it. And you know, they continually glorify evolution. They continue, well, we've reached such a point that now we have no personal sin within our own society and we've learned to live with differences and we've got all these things and we're all just... You know, if we just go that far, no, we'll never get there. Why? Because man has an evil heart. We want to believe it's good. We want to be told we're good. We want to be told those precious little ones are good. But if you just stand back and watch them for a minute, you'll realize they're not. You remember what Ephesians says when it talks about children obeying your parents. Why? Because this is right. It's just that simple. This is right. And yet we look at it and we say, no, you're a good parent even when your children disobey. You know, so anything that casts doubt on God's word. I mean, that was the fourth one. Self-worth, gentle parenting, Jesus was just a man. Anything that casts doubt on God's word. Christians are hypocrites. How many of you have heard that? Oh yeah, that's going around all the days. You know, another one I heard just this week in work. I'm spiritual but not religious. I'm spiritual, but not religious. And the man went on to tell me that he takes a little bit from here and a little bit from there, and there's some truth here and truth there, everywhere, and he just, and he says, I feel like I'm pretty spiritual. Well, he's cursing and yelling and taking the Lord's name in vain. And what do you say? It's just flabbergasting that people believe these lies. They talk about Christians, though, as being hypocritical because we acknowledge that there is such a thing as sin. And then they say, well, you also sin. Yes, we do. We're not perfect, we have not arrived at that yet. We are striving to put off our sins, striving to follow the Lord. But yes, there are times that we fall, we get angry, we say something we shouldn't have, we do something we shouldn't have, and we go back and we repent. They go, oh, look at that guy, you know, he fell. But he acknowledges his sin, and that convicts people, that convicts people. Christians are haters. Christians are haters. When we stand up, again, just this week, talking about somebody and they're absolutely passionate about how we must love those with differences, the LGBTQ community. And while they are saying that, they are encouraging kids to believe a lie and people to invest in a lifestyle that will be judged by God and that has no fulfillment in its end. An empty lifestyle. We're not haters, we're genuinely lovers of people and trying to draw them back when we speak the truth. We speak the truth in love. And the last one I thought of was this, there is no absolute truth. How many times have we heard that? You know, truth is just what you make it, your truth, my truth, there's no absolute truth. And guess what? When God speaks, we have absolute truth. When He says, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, that is truth. That is truth. When He says, all died in Adam, that is truth. That is truth. We could go on. There is truth. There is absolute truth. And we must hold to it. We must hold to it. But these are the schemes of Satan. It hasn't changed. It hasn't changed. He has his plans on how to destroy the credibility of the church. And he comes against us. So what are we to do? What are we to do? First of all, I think we need to examine our own hearts. It is easy for us, like the Jews, to be followers of Jesus, possibly on the outside and on the inside to have some reservations. Hebrews warns about an evil heart of disbelief or unbelief. Do we truly believe who Jesus is? That he is the Son of God, that what he speaks is true, that he rules from the heavens above. Are we ready to start with his word? So many arguments start with philosophies of men or looking at man first, man who is weak and fallen. And the words allude me to describe how far we have fallen. We are dead, according to Ephesians, in our trespasses and sin. So why do we start with man? We must start with what God has said. We must start with how he's identified us. Secondly, along with that, is there some sort of pride that goes against what God's Word has written? There is many people that reject God's Word. They will take clear and obvious statements from God's Word and just simply reject it. We must be humble in front of the Lord's Word. The Pharisees are also a picture of the man who wants to worship God in their own way. They are against Jesus and God because they say that all of our works, all of our righteousnesses, Isaiah 64, 6, are as dirty rags, filthy rags. They're worthless to us. There's nothing that we can offer to God on our own, and yet every religion outside of Christianity comes to God and they have a list of good works that you must do. Whether it's tithing to the church, attendance at the church, building a mosque, a certain form of dress, a certain form of lifestyle, whatever it is, there's all these lists of things that they would try to impose on you. And yet not one of them will work with the purifying of the heart and subduing of the flesh. They might give the outward appearance of righteousness, but they don't change the heart. We need Jesus Christ in our heart, and we need a new heart from Him. So there's no works of righteousness. Thirdly, do we have a knowledge of the righteousness of God in placing our sins on His Son and taking Christ's righteousness for us? I mean, there is such a beauty in this, such a freedom. We can see the justice of God. in punishing sin. Sin is not just swept under a rug. It's not dispensed with. It's not just done away with. It was punished fully and completely in Jesus Christ. I love Romans 3. I think it's verse 29 where it says that he might be just and the justifier of him who believes in Jesus Christ. And also we have an example of God's love. That we, while we were still dead in our sins, God would send forth his Son to save us from our sins, to deliver us from our sins. Lastly, for those of us in the church, do we come to Jesus with our hearts open? You know, Jesus was never afraid to confront. He went off to sinners. He often ate with them and dined with them. But in all that he said, in all that he did, we never see him lacking in pointing to the way, the truth. Not once. When it was religious leaders or the rich young ruler who came to him, he told them the truth. Even the Samaritan woman, he told her the truth. You know, have you not had five husbands and the ones you're living with is not your husband? He brought it right out in front of her face, her sin. And the purpose of this is unless we see our sin for what it is, we cannot acknowledge it. We cannot repent of it. If we sweep it under the rug like it never happened, And that's a problem even in the church. Do we come to the church with an open heart to be taught? Do we try to fit God's Word to our plans and our desires, or do we let God's Word speak for itself? You know, the Pharisees were so working. Anything they could do to change what God was saying. And lastly, are we truly seeking to follow God? I mean, that's what it comes down to. The Pharisees, for all their talk about being the children of God, did not want God. They just wanted the blessings of God. And how easy is it for us to also want the blessings of God? You know, especially at election time, don't we see it? Everybody, God bless America. How about stopping the sin in America? How about a general repentance and a general call of repentance? How about taking care of abortion, how about all the issues that we're facing, the sin, all of them, I mean there's just so much. But we're not gonna talk about that, we're not gonna deal with that. Are we truly seeking God? Or are we just seeking the pleasures of what comes from God? I hope you think about this because this should be convicting to all of us. It is so easy for us to hear the words of the world and to forget the words of God. Let's stand as we close in a word of prayer. Our Father, we thank you for standing against the false teachings of your day, showing clearly the error they were based on. Lord, I ask that you would also help us to stand in these days and these ages against the false teaching of our day. Father, that we would clearly reject them and not hold onto them or cling to them in any way, shape, or form. Father, may we separate ourselves from false teachers in every form. Father, we want to know you. We want to know the true gospel. We want to know the true God. And Lord, we want to be the true children of God. Help us to follow you, and Lord, to hear your words. Father, you have said, those that come unto you, you will never cast out. And Lord, we claim this. We come to you, Lord, and ask for your help. We ask for this in the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.