Christians are quick to say that salvation is by faith alone, but can you detect if somebody is preaching works-based righteousness? Welcome to The Conquering Truth. I'm Dan Horne. I'm Jake 1 Underwood. I'm Charles Churchill. And I'm Joshua Horne. Steve Lawson was caught in an inappropriate relationship with a woman is what the church that he pastors has announced. And since then, there's been people saying that it was not physical, it was just emotional. Who knows how true that is? But that's not the main thing we want to talk about tonight. What we want to talk about tonight is what he used and what he preached just a few days before that was clearly preached to cover up for the sin that was about to be revealed. So Steve Lawson here, you know, they do sequential exposition. He's preaching on Luke 7, starting in verse 24. Immediately before that, is the passage about John the Baptist sending some of his disciples to say, are you the Messiah or is there another one coming? Should we be looking for someone else? And Jesus basically says, I've fulfilled the role of the Messiah. I've healed the lame. I've all those things. And then he turns and he speaks to the multitude. And when he speaks to the multitude, he starts to explain who John the Baptist is. And so that's who Steve Lawson's preaching on. And in the midst of that, he, well, let's watch it. John is in prison because he would not bend the truth. And by this use of sarcasm and what we could call satire, Jesus is affirming the ministry of John the Baptist. And you should not judge a man by his one weak moment. You need to look at the whole body of his work. You need to look at his whole message. You need to look at his whole ministry. And don't judge him on one hiccup that happens. The fact is John is what every preacher should be. John is fiercely dedicated to the truth. He is doctrinally rigid. He is theologically Unbending and unyielding and he is willing to suffer for what he believes that and Preaches it's just that the word of mouth between one person to another person was having the effect of of eroding everything that John really was Listen any preacher who is worth his salt is dogmatic In fact, he's bull dogmatic The real focus of the passage is you didn't go out to see a raid, that John the Baptist didn't move, and that it's not that he had this weak moment. I mean, that's not what Jesus is talking to them about. He then goes on and says that when Jesus later said that they called him demons, that John the Baptist had a demon, that he was saying that that's what they were talking about, which wasn't. He was twisting the scriptures. But the core of what he's saying is, just because you have the sin on the one hand, if you have all these good works on the other hand, the good works outweigh the one sin. And that's pretty much the definition of works-based righteousness, is that your good works can wipe out your sins. That's saying there's no need for Christ. It's a very serious thing, but when you hear it and hear the passion, it's very easy to think that this somehow is reform doctrine when that is workspace righteousness. And so it's against the word of God. So why can't we trust that someone's saved just because if their good works outweigh this one little thing that they did, Jesus Christ said, you'll know them by their fruit. So why can't you say, okay, that person's saved? As soon as this happened with Steve Lawson, I heard the exact argument he's making. It's not related to this message at all. I don't think anybody that was making this argument had ever heard him say this, but they made basically this exact argument. There were a ton of people who kept going, well, we know Steve Lawson's saved because of his ministry. That was like just their assumption. When this message was posted and I heard what he was saying, I mean, first of all, my immediate reaction was, this is related to what was going on. This message was preached just a few days before he was forced to reveal what had been going on. And so I think when you hear this, it's really important to recognize how quickly we can switch over and think about salvation and think about our assurance of someone else's salvation on different terms than the way God defines it. Because I think that verse that you said, God says you shall know them by their fruits. And that does not mean, when he says this, that you somehow weigh their heresy against their good preaching. Or that you weigh them against their adultery, against their faithful exposition. That is not what that means at all. It's saying, he says, a tree cannot have both good and evil. You know, what is it? A fountain can't be- I think it's worth reading that passage, which is Matthew 7, 15 through 20. Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore, by their fruits you will know them." People read this wrong, because it starts out by saying that the false prophet looks like he's wearing sheep's clothing, and inwardly, where you cannot see it, he is a ravening wolf. That doesn't mean that you can see their fruits right away. We're now seeing the fruits of Steve Lawson. And people want to go, but we saw all his good works. It actually says every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. It doesn't say when you see good fruit, you know it will never be cut down into the fire. It's when you see bad fruit that you know. Right. The bad fruit tells you that you should reevaluate your thought about what before you thought it was sheep. You know, you thought he was actually a sheep. And then you realize, oh, a shepherd. Now you realize he's actually just dressed in sheepskins. You actually realize he's just he was deceiving you all along. And that's really, really important because there were so many discussions that I would see on Facebook of people going. We know. We absolutely know. And you listen to this message by Lawson, and somebody might say, hey, I don't think he's really talking about himself. I think it's pretty clear he's talking about he knows what's going on. He is making a difference. Like you said, even if he's twisting the scripture to get there. And so when you look at that, I mean, the real thing is people need to ask. I think people have this idea that they would never fall into believing in works-based righteousness. I think, you know, especially if you're a Reformed, you go, hey, that's Catholicism. It's really obvious. The second you hear it, you know it. You just, we've rejected it. Absolutely. It's by faith alone. But then when you hear that phrase, it's really easy to go, well, that kind of makes sense. By the way, the good works with the bad works. Right. And so, I mean, I think it's really important for people to actually ask themselves, how susceptible are you to believing in this false view of workspace righteousness? Because it's really, really easy to fool yourself and think, I can't be tricked by that. And just before we go off of this verse, I mean, there's something in the verse that I think people At least when I saw people talking about it, they were really skipping over. They were saying, well, he, you know, he must have fallen into sin. You know, he, and we all need to watch out and make sure we don't fall into sin, which is true that we all need to make sure we don't fall into sin. We should be careful not to. But the verse, this verse is talking about wolves. It's not people who were trying to do, to walk the Christian walk. It's talking about people who were intentionally deceiving. i'm not saying every person who falls was intentionally trying to deceiving but i think christians today just don't have a category for that maybe prosperity gospel but anyone who has seemed like they have sound doctrine we have we feel like we have to assume that they either are a Christian, or at least we're really trying to be a Christian. And we need a category of people who the Bible talks about as wolves, who are trying to deceive to gratify whatever desire that they have. And it is really important. He is talking about pastors, right? He's not talking about the general Christian in this passage. That's not who he's talking about. He says, beware of false prophets. who come to you in sheep's clothing, who wear sheep's clothing, shepherds do. This is talking about what people that are in the pulpit, like Steve Lawson, are like, that there are ones that are ravening wolves. whenever it talks about in scripture where it's using wolves as a picture it is always the shepherds that are the wolves never the sheep it's the shepherds that are the wolves and so he's saying you can look at them and over time not immediately because it's inwardly they're ravening wolves but over time their bad fruit will come out because Christ will protect his church. It's not because somehow they're magically, you know, that it just, they can't control themselves. The reality is Christ protects his church and he causes their bad fruit to be made known. It is hidden. It's not that you can automatically look at anybody and go, oh, they're fine. It's God reveals it. Because when Steve Lawson preached this message, he knew he had had a five-year relationship. He knew for five years he had a five-year relationship, let's be clear. Every other message that he preached, he preached knowing he had that, which meant that he was a ravening wolf the whole time. The whole time. It's important to recognize that. It's really easy to pretend like he didn't know the whole time. He knew for how long he had had that relationship. He gets caught, and then he preaches this message. But he always knew he was a ravening wolf. if he was willing to face the reality. He could deceive himself. I'm not saying he couldn't have deceived himself, but it's so easy, and I've been in so many situations where somebody gets caught in sin, and everybody looks at him like they just found out. No, they didn't just find out. They've been doing it for five years. Every sermon he preached for the last five years, he knew. And a lot of times they also know sooner or later they'll get caught. They know that every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down. And though frequently people in that kind of position, they're always doing what Steve Lawson did here, which is to try to protect themselves against the righteous judgment of God. Or at least the judgment of people. Yes. yeah, probably better said the judgment of people because you're not going to escape the judgment of God, but they're trying to make it so that he wants everybody in that congregation to judge him based on works-based righteousness. That was the goal of the sermon. It's really important when we think about these is to consider what it looks like and what you can judge because it's really hard to judge the fruit of the Spirit. When Paul's writing to the church in Galatian, he tells you what you can judge, what's evident, and he tells you what is really hard to judge. Galatians 5, 16 through 24. I say then, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident. Which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, 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. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such, there is no law. And those who are Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." You can tell if somebody's drunk. I mean, somebody who drinks a lot, they can hide it. But, you know, the fornication comes out. I mean, these are things, the works of the flesh are evident. reality is somebody can look like they have peace and have no peace whatsoever. They aren't evident because you can fake peace, right? You can fake being loving. I think we've, I hate to say this, but this summer I think we've seen a whole fake of joy thing, right? You can fake joy. You can fake these things because there's two ways to have them. One is to have them internally, that it comes out, and the other is to put on a façade and be a hypocrite, where you can have no peace, but you can pretend like you're completely peaceful if it's to your advantage. So the works of the flesh are evident, the works of the Spirit aren't evident the same way. And so what he's saying is, well, you know that when I was preaching these messages, when you look at my body of work, when you look at all the places I went, you look at all these sermons I gave, you look at all these things, you can know that that was out of the Spirit of God. But Paul doesn't say that. He says that the letters he wrote to the girlfriend, The works of the flesh are evident. Those are the ones you can know. The other, you can't actually know the motives because the motives have to come from the heart that has been changed by God. Because just like the picture of the false prophet in sheep's clothing, that you can have the person who has the clothing so that they look like they have the fruit of the spirit, that it's their spirit, but it's all fake. It's, you can be a hypocrite about those things. You can't be a hypocrite about being a slave to the flesh because the slave of the flesh, slavery to the flesh is made evident. You can hide it for a while like he did for five years. Allegedly and there's one thing to point out you know because people are always saying how come all these these Pastors that I've listened to on the internet are falling well remember one of the works of the flesh is selfish ambitions So how surprised should we be that a lot of celebrity pastors are the ones who fall? well, I think there's If you are someone who's governed by selfish ambitions, whose focus is on elevating your platform, you're more likely to become a celebrity pastor than if you're someone who is truly walking the fruit of the spirit. Not that all celebrity pastors are unsaved, but it shouldn't be too big of a shock when these things happen. especially because Paul says to Timothy, who's not even an elder yet, he's a disciple of Paul's, and he says, find other men to train up to lead churches, right? That's what he says to him. Find other men that you can train that will hold fast to the 4% words that I've given to you. And so these celebrity pastors, they're trying to see how big of a church they can get. Well, I'm sorry, that's actually contrary to the commandments of God. Commandments of God is they're supposed to train up other people. I mean, like, another way to say it would be, you shouldn't be shocked if you found out that all the celebrity pastors weren't saved. That shouldn't, like, blow your mind at all. You know, I mean, there's this part of it where this is one of the things, I mean, we've done episodes on how God uses scandals to build his church. And one of the things he does is he's saying one of the reasons why men hold up men is because there are many people who want to have someone to look at instead of God. And so there's often where God reveals that there are people who are not who they seem so that his church is strengthened because he causes them to go, I've been idolizing man. So you shouldn't be surprised by that. That could be true. And I think there are people who are going, that's not possible that it's true. I mean, this is a very different episode than the episode we did on Ravi Zacharias. The episode on Ravi Zacharias was really going, hey, we want people to consider, how do you think about salvation? How do you think about your salvation? How do you think about this? In this one, it's how do you think about how you hold your leaders accountable? How do you think about Christianity in the sense of when you think about someone else's salvation in particular, what are the means by which you think about whether they can be saved or not? And I think there's so many bad metrics out there. There's so many twistings of scripture that evil people have created so they can hide behind. And I think the idea of salvation by faith alone, this was the heart of the Reformation, right? And before that, everybody said, well, the pope, he has to be saved. Luther said the pope has to be saved. How could he not be? He's the head of the church, right? And all these people are saying, that's just, that bishop has to be saved. The fact that he's an adulterer, the fact that he's fornicators, whatever, he has to be saved because if he's not, who is? And we're not that far off now. People hear Steve Lawson, the works of the flesh are evident, right? The works of the flesh are evident. For five years he did this. It says, he who practices such things, he will not inherit the kingdom of God. That's what Paul said. And people look and go, well, he practiced, it was only five years, he wasn't practicing it. or they just reject the Scripture. And the reason they reject the Scripture is because regardless of what their statement is, regardless of how much they say, they believe in salvation by faith alone, in the end they're saying, we can weigh his righteous works against his evil works, and there's more righteous works, so he must be saved. That is a rejection of the foundational doctrine of the Reformation. I mean, what Paul is arguing here is completely consistent with John and 1 John when he talks about those who, when he's, you know, the practicing sin is exactly the same language that John uses when he's, you know, those who walk after sin, those who have a pattern of walking in sin. Well, in 1 John 3 it says that only those are saved who practice righteousness. If all you're doing is not even trying to practice righteousness, guess what? You're not saved. It's not that you can kind of just like waltz through life. You either practice righteousness or not. But anybody who's walking in a pattern, you immediately know that they're not a Christian. And so there's this part of it where the church has really been pushing against the idea that salvation is supernatural. we've been, you know what I mean? We basically think it's just another form of self-help, and that's really become, I mean, that's what the definition- And Steve Lawson really helped himself, so therefore he must be saved. Right. And you can contrast that with John 6, 27 through 29. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set a seal on him. And they said to him, what shall we do that we may work the works of God? Jesus answered and said to them, this is the work of God that you believe in him who he sent. That's God that does that work. He's the one that gives the gift of faith. He's the one that has to do it. And so you can't weigh any of your works against that, because the question is, did God do that work in you? And yes, if he does that work in you, it does produce good works. But you can't look at the good works, because those good works can be faked. they can be done out of a heart of pride, they can be done out of selfish ambition. How do you tell the difference between somebody who goes, look at the blessing of this church, this church is established, this church, you know, we've studied the Word of God, we preach and look, everybody's maturing and we're growing in holiness. How do you tell the difference between somebody that's doing that with humility towards God and somebody who's doing that out of selfish ambition? it's really hard to tell the difference. There's a point where you have to wait until their sin becomes manifest. Right. Because God says the sins of the flesh are evident, and sooner or later the sins of the flesh. And it might come after death, like Ravi Zacharias, but the sins of the flesh, well, it didn't come really after death. There was plenty of evidence before, but people suppressed the truth. But the works of the flesh become evident. Yeah, so we can contrast that again with Ephesians 2, 8 through 10. When Lawson's up there saying, even though he wasn't personalizing it, because it got personalized a few days later, but he was saying it was John the Baptist, but he was clearly speaking of himself, where he's saying, you know, look at all his good work. So I'm sorry, that was him boasting about himself. And that's contrary to it. And yes, he was putting it in the context of John the Baptist, but he was preparing his defense for his sin being revealed. And that's what boasting looks like. And I think too often we don't look at that and think that's boasting. That is boasting. Where you're going, look at all my good works. I must be fine. Well, those are your works. They aren't God's work. It says in Matthew 5 that they'll see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. He's not saying that. He's saying way John the Baptist works. And it's one of those things where, I mean, maybe you're saying, well, I've listened to Steve Lawson. He's all about salvation by grace alone through faith alone. And so, you know, and I have no doubt that if you went up to him after that sermon and said, you know, you said this, but, you know, you should be saying that we just weigh the works that we then we just look and say, well, the pastor, yeah, he wasn't, what if my pastor's been in adultery for years that should we say well you know that's bad but it's not as bad as his teaching is good i'm sure he would say first of all that we're not getting salvation through works i'm sure he would say that you can't have a pastor who's living in adultery but often when and there's different types of attacks i mean like you have the attack of catholicism where they have perverted it in real ways, where you do have, you know, the Pope has these extra good works he's giving you, and you, and where they have this whole system of things, versus here, where, Lawson, if you tried to nail him down, I don't think you could have gotten him to say, yeah, I believe in salvation by works. But as a conscious or even subconscious defense mechanism to lay the groundwork for what happens if what I'm doing comes out. He does pin in that direction. And so, you know, because even that statement, like the clip we watched, I mean, you could even say, well, if you're talking about people who are converted, well now, You don't say, well, how valuable is this preacher? Well, he cut me off in traffic. He's a rude guy. I hate him. I mean, that's not how you do things. I mean, you don't judge people's ministry. No, you don't judge them unjustly. Well, yeah. Or, you know, he did this to me, whatever. You don't judge it by the worst thing that they've done. But you can't apply that, which I think it's fair to say that it's relevant to the situation. You can't then apply that to adultery. And if he wasn't doing it, a lot of people do intentionally try to do that. His description there when I was hearing it, I mean, I've talked to a lot of nominal Catholics because those who actually understand Catholic doctrine, they understand that it's a transference of superabundant grace that the pope has, that he transfers it to the bishop and all this other garbage that's just foolishness. But most nominal Catholics, they get down to, as long as my good works are bigger than my bad works, that God's gonna sit on a scale and go, ah, your good works are heavier, you're in. And that's how most Roman Catholics that don't understand Roman Catholic doctrine, that's how they look at the world. And so when I heard Steve Lawson say that, I went, that's Roman Catholicism. not technically Roman Catholicism, but that's practical Roman Catholicism. Your good works outweigh your bad work, so you must be fine. God will let you in because you've earned your way to heaven. And that was the message that he was saying. And again, I'm sure if you pressed him on it like Joshua said, he's gonna say, no, I believe in salvation by faith. But we now know he doesn't, but that's another story, right? I mean, he practiced a work of the flesh. And so out there, I think that this has constantly been an attack on the church. This goes back to the Reformation as to what was happening. It continues in the Roman Catholic Church. The reason the Roman Catholic Church is bigger than the Protestant Church is because more people believe in works-based righteousness than believe in salvation by faith alone. And that's a comforting thing, that it's not the work of God. You can do it. You can make yourself acceptable to God. You can earn your way to heaven. And so it's always been popular. And so you have the extreme, like Roman Catholicism, but this always comes into, you know, Orthodox Christianity, you have Doug Wilson, Doug Wilson and federal vision. Federal vision is workspace righteousness. When you read their arguments, their arguments from, you know, Auburn Avenue, it's workspace righteousness, and that's where they are, and they pretend like it's not, and the church isn't discerning enough to be able to go, this is completely contrary to the gospel. One of the things he really emphasizes toward the end in his thing that he's saying is that the work that he wants to emphasize is that you preach well, that you stick well to preaching. But what we're contrasting that again, like you said, is a work of the flesh. And so there's this part of it where he's comparing things that they can't even be compared. The fact that you can regurgitate something, or the fact that you can understand something, that's not indicative of anything more than the fact that you've been sanctified in a sense. That there's been a sanctifying work in your life. That doesn't mean that you've been saved by that. I think that's one of the things that happens in the churches. There's this idea that somehow sanctification is salvation. Like when you talk about what a saint is, and this is one of the things the Roman Catholic Church does, is they take saints and they move them way up here. They say they do, but the real criteria is horrible. They move them above even just being saved. You have to have miracles and you have to have all these other things. Whereas in Scripture, what's saint means is sanctified ones. So there are people who have been sanctified who aren't necessarily actually believers. So there's this part of it where when you look at the tension, you look at the fight that's been going on in the church, it's happening at a really low level. It's happening, you're trying to move these goalposts. You're trying to move things so that you don't think about salvation in the right context. When you look at like James 2, 18 through 20, but someone will say, you have faith and I have works. Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe and tremble. But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?" And that's what I'm saying. When he's emphasizing just the fact that he can preach and hold to certain words, the demons can hold to words. The demons could probably preach better than most preachers. But the measure of whether you're a Christian is that your faith produces itself in your works, that it overcomes the flesh, that it overcomes the world. The previous verse said that put to death the lusts and desires of the flesh. And so there's this part of it where that's what he's not wanting to compare against. I mean, and it says Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Angel of light means, I mean, messenger of light. That means somebody who's incredibly faithful at saying what the word is. That's how Satan disguises himself. That's what the ravening wolves disguise themselves as. We shouldn't be surprised and turn around and go, how could that be? Because God says that's how Satan disguises himself. But we say, here's a messenger of light, that he speaks truth, so therefore he has to be righteous. And God goes, no. No. That's what Satan does. And it doesn't mean that righteous men don't do that as well. We are to be messengers of light, angels of light, but it doesn't mean that a false prophet can't do that too. And that's what the church ignores. because we look and we go, he has those works, he must be righteous. And God says, you know, there are some works that show that you're, you know, somebody that gets burned at the cross because they won't deny Christ, probably a pretty good chance they're saved. Somebody who has a nice salary and a nice home and a nice life and a comfortable life, What does that mean? That means they're a good speaker. It doesn't mean that they're not saved, it just doesn't mean that they aren't. And when you said a pretty good chance they're saved, you just mean it's a much better chance. They have a real testimony of their faith. They have a testimony that they aren't seed that was put on shallow ground, that when persecution comes, it didn't die. that's a much better testimony. Somebody who goes and preaches all over the place, that receives the applause of men, that does all these things, that's not dealing with cares of the world, and that's not dealing with persecution. And I'm not saying that he didn't, I'm just saying you don't really have any testimony of it. And so what God says are these checks to show whether faith is real or not, the fact that you can preach well isn't one of them. But let's take that scenario and go, let's say there was a person who went, there was a point where someone, they were threatened with death for standing up for God. They said they stood up for God, and they weren't killed. There was some circumstance that caused them not to be killed. They go on and they preach, and then later on they're found to be in an adulterous relationship. you don't go back and go, but they stood up for God in that day. And that's kind of the point, is while you're saying you can see things that say their faith has really been tested, what tells you, what tells you— As you persevere to the end is what tells you. Right. Every year on October 31st, we celebrate Reformation Day, where we gather together with other churches and other like-minded people to celebrate what God has done in the world, to think about how He poured out His Spirit in the Reformation and how that Reformation continues today. We have a meal, we have songs, we have several talks on topics pertaining to how the Reformation has impacted the world and how God is continuing to reform His Church. So if you're in the Wake Forest area on Reformation Day, we'd love to have you. You can go to CelebrateReformationDay.com and find out more details and about streaming options. But if you can't join us or you don't have any other way to do, but if you can't join us, please meet with other people. Consider celebrating Reformation Day in your own area. God did a great work in the world, and it's good for us to come together to think about what he's done and to celebrate that and glorify him for his power and for the work that he's done in the world. When we think of works-based righteousness or works-based salvation, although salvation is weird to use in the terms of Christ, the testimony is you have to be absolutely perfect. 1 Peter 2, 21-24, for to this you were called because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow his steps, who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. who, when he was reviled, did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but committed himself to him who judges righteously. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness, by whose stripes you were healed." Christ was the only one that could look at his works and say, I'm righteous. Everybody else, if you look towards their works, it will always testify that they're unrighteous, because nobody's works are perfect. And the only way that your works can make you right with God is for them to be without sin, no errors ever. not in the whole history of your life, and that just simply isn't possible. We all need the forgiveness that comes through Christ. When you start to weigh sins and say, my good works outweigh my bad works, you're rejecting the need for Christ. And another verse that talks about the standard that it takes to achieve that works-based righteousness is in James 2, 8 through 10. you really fulfill the royal law according to the scriptures you shall love your neighbor as yourself you do well but if you show partiality you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors or whoever shall keep the whole law and yet stumble in one point he is guilty of all so there you have that statement made that you know one transgression make it such that you've broken the entire law so it's when you're trying to weigh your good works against your bad works one bad work brings on the condemnation of all the bad works. So that hiccup that Lawson talked about, well, that hiccup condemns you to hell. That's how it weighs against your good works. That one hiccup's enough. It doesn't require more than that. And so that whole idea and that whole way to look at it, it's just totally wrong. And even if your point is, as well, that you shouldn't abandon someone as a pastor or stop following them, no, the answer is, yes, you should. And that doesn't mean that somebody makes an error, that somebody teaches something and repents. We're not talking about those type things. What we're talking about, especially is works of the flesh that are evident. Right. That cannot be used as a defense. Lawson could not use that argument as a defense. I mean, you look at Peter. Peter, he has to be really clear, Peter stops eating with Gentiles. He doesn't say anything against the Gentiles. He doesn't be mean to the Gentiles. He stops eating with a group of Gentiles. Paul notices this, goes to him, rebukes him in front of everyone, and Peter repents of it and presumably begins eating with the Gentiles again and denying the Judaizers And Peter's not removed, but he is rebuked in front of everybody. I mean, it's very clear that he was wrong in front of everyone. That's very different. That's not—if Peter had— That certainly doesn't qualify of anything that's listed in Galatians 5. Right. It's not—he did not practice— That's bad judgment. Right. He did not practice and continue to do that. But if he had, you would have a very different account. You know what I mean? You would have a situation where you would go, Paul would have had to say he did not consider Peter to be a believer. And that's what would have changed. And I think people just, they don't want to deal with the detail of it. They don't want to deal with what actually happened. We just kind of want to slap a Band-Aid over something and go, it's fine. It's really important to recognize that this is how law works. This is how law works everywhere. The person who's a good father, he's a loving husband. He has children that he raises. He's faithful. He comes home every night. And then he goes out and gets drunk and drives and gets into an accident. He gets charged with the DUI. Nobody goes, but he's a good father. So why in the world are we doing this in the church when everybody knows that's not how law works? Law works that when you're guilty of it, you're guilty of it. And Paul, in 1 Corinthians 5, he goes back and he quotes the Old Testament and says, this is how you're supposed to be thinking about it. This is why you're supposed to put the man out, like Deuteronomy 19, 18 through 21. And the judges shall make careful inquiry. Indeed, if the witness is a false witness who has testified falsely against his brother, then you shall do to him as he thought to have done to his brother. So you shall put away the evil from among you. And those who remain shall hear in fear. And afterward, they shall not again commit such evil among you. Your eyes shall not pity. Life shall be for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. You don't go, well, this person perjured himself, but let's, how many, he was a good, faithful priest, look at all the things that he taught about the law, look at how, no, that's not how law works. And that's not how law should work in the church. And that's what Lawson was trying to get, is lawlessness. Because law, inherently in law, is when you see it, you punish that deed. When God says to Moses, your eye shall not pity, it's because people always want to do the workspace righteousness. But look, he's a leader of the culture. He's a leader of the society. We can't punish him. And God says, don't be biased. Don't be partial. And that's exactly what so many people on Facebook, on social media, want to do with Lawson and go, oh, we should be biased towards him instead of going, no, we should be loving towards him and judge him according to God's standard. I'm sure there are people who are going, what about David in the Old Testament who sleeps with Bathsheba? What about Moses who commits murder? One of the things that is related to the Ravi Zacharias episode is right after that episode, a lot of those same topics came up. And we have an episode, I think it's titled, The Holy Spirit and the Better Covenant. And there is a change in when the Holy Spirit comes and the Holy Spirit indwells. Part of the new covenant is God saying He will put His Spirit in you and the Spirit will keep you, not from all sin, not from ever sinning, but from walking in a pattern of sin where the sin of the flesh is made manifest in the life, that the Holy Spirit breaks the bondage of sin and God will make it so that His work in a person's life is that they do not walk in that pattern of sin. Right, Ezekiel 36. I will send my Holy Spirit and he will cause you to walk in my commandments and my statutes. That's what the promises of the Holy Spirit. So the people who go, ah, that's, you know, look at all these people. We don't need to worry about it. We need to weigh them. Look, David mostly did right things. The fact that he was a murderer and the fact that he was an adulterer, it doesn't matter. Sorry, that's not what the Bible teaches. Bible teaches that Jesus Christ came to take away sin, that the Old Covenant couldn't do that. Christ comes, establishes a New Covenant, and takes away sin. And He gives us His Spirit, and that's how we have the ability to do that. And so there's a much higher expectation in the New Covenant than there was before He established the New Covenant. It's crazy how people use the patriarchy sin to justify something. Right. It makes no sense. It's crazy. It's not like God hasn't warned us about these things and that we should expect these in the church. Read in Acts 20, 29 through 32, it says, for I know this, that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves, men will rise up speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore, watch and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears. So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified." Paul is speaking to the elders of the church of Ephesus. He's in Miletus, and he's talking to them, and he's saying to them, you all look holy. You all look righteous. You're all pastors. You're all elders. But guess what, some of you are wolves, and that you'll, over time, it will become evident. So too often the church doesn't say, too often the church says exactly what Steve Lawson was trying to get that church to do, which is to go, and I've been involved with this, I've seen it, I've done it myself, it is so tempting to do it, where you're looking and you're saying, yeah, but that's not that bad, because you look at all these good works they do, And the answer is, that's not how God commands us to judge. We're supposed to judge going, they could be a wolf. And if we see wolfish behavior, we should go not look at all their good works, we should go, the flock needs to be protected. And another verse that talks about this is 1 Timothy 5, 24 and 25. Some men's sins are clearly evident preceding them to judgment, but those of some men follow later. Likewise, the good works of some are clearly evident and those that are otherwise cannot be hidden. So, I mean, this is very, very relevant that if we're trying to judge someone's good works versus their bad works, if we were to attempt to do that, this verse is telling us you can't really do that. Definitely not. till they finish the race because some people their sins are hidden and they come out later. Some people their good works are hidden and you don't realize how much they actually are serving God because it's done in ways that it's not public, not easy to see. And so, you know, this should tell us that just like Acts 20 says, there are wolves that come out that you think, how could this have happened? How could I have not realized who this person really was? And this verse says, some people's sins are clearly evident and some are not. And I do think, I mean, you see a pattern with these men that are falling, that they don't all fall into this pattern, but a lot of them start out preaching very faithfully because that's the way to get a following. And then at some point in time, they decide that they want people to follow them rather than following God. And so they start to wander from sound doctrine. They use sound doctrine to attract a following, and then they move. And that's what I think In Acts 20, that's probably what they did. I've seen that happen time after time after time in the church of these people that fall. They're looking for idolaters. They're looking for people that want to follow them. And when people will say, his works were so good, it doesn't matter what he does. You have now created an idolater and the church needs to be really careful. We each need to be very careful because it's very easy to do when we think that we don't. But once we start to replace what God says, which is the works of the flesh are evident with this idea that you can weigh works, you're, you're moving towards idolatry. Yeah. And I think we are, We know of certain examples of people that have come in and really attacked the church and then we think that that's going to be a pattern for everyone. We think that someone's going to come into the church and then try to attack the confession, or try to attack the Trinity, or try to attack, you know, grace versus law, or, you know, verses, and then we don't even consider that someone could come in and their goal be to be exactly completely orthodox in doctrine, and then use that to say you can't You can't report my sin, you can't call the police that I committed a crime, because look how faithful my doctrine is." Because there's a lot of different people. There's people who start off complete heretics, and then that's how they're attacking the church. You have a whole range, and we can't really... But Satan disguised himself as an angel of light. The demonic way is to come in with much more sound doctrine, and we act like the biggest attacks. Like you were saying, we act like the biggest attacks are these people that come in and just say you're wrong. Those aren't the biggest attacks. The biggest attacks come from the false prophets who say you're right. The church doesn't believe that the Word of God has power. And so there's this part of it where there are, in addition to people who come in with the intent to deceive from the beginning, there are others who come into contact with the Word of God. And it has power in their life. And it actually constrains their sin. And as they wrestle with their sin, they actually go without being set free from sin, without the Holy Spirit, it's sort of a form of they begin to pursue a form of workspace righteousness within the church and going my sin is being constrained and they're like this this is really good for me and this is helpful and a lot of times what happens is because they haven't been set free from sin their sin is continuing to grow or even worse what happens is is because the sanctifying power of the gospel actually is useful in their life. And then the church puts them in a position and doesn't give them accountability. Because there's a part of it where Paul's standing in front of them, is Paul's even going, hey, for three years I've been here warning. And so some of you, you know, some of you, you've been constrained. I'm getting ready to leave. And not like Paul's like this, I can constrain your sin forever. But there's a part where he's going, my warning is a constraint. My telling the people to be on guard is a constraint. It causes you who are here, who are tempted to be wolves, who are wolves, to even be more careful. Because now you know people are watching for you. And today the church goes, there will be no watching. There will be none of that. And so it's real. I mean, the church doesn't believe that God's word is powerful. And that's really, that's bad. And when you look at that picture from Matthew 7, inwardly they're rabbiting wolves. I mean, some of that is because all those constraints are tying them down, but they're like a wolf that's trying to chew its constraints to get out, and it busts out at some point because it's just – it has this – and they may even think that they desire this, but in the end, they don't really because they are a rabbiting wolf and they're trying to tear themselves out to attack the flock. And sometimes they do it deliberately to build up the flock, other times the flock and where they are is constraining them until those constraints get loosened. you have to recognize that as God's kingdom increases, that effect will be increased. And so there's this part of where you have the ten virgins where you have five who look completely righteous, you have five who look completely righteous, but only five of them truly are. And so, I mean, there is this part of it where the church is not being honest with itself about how how constraint of sin works. They're not being, they're not actually thinking through these things and they're treating it, they're making up fables, they're making up fantasies about how scripture, how God's word works and how the power of God works. And that's one of the things that God even warns about is that there are people coming in who want, they want fables. I think we talked about that in an episode we recorded not that long ago, that that is something that just, it's infiltrated the church in a lot of ways. And so what happens when a church adopts this view that you can weigh good works against bad works, I mean, what happens is when you find out bad works, you end up hiding the bad works, which is why you see so many of these pastors when it, I mean, I don't think it's true with Steve Lawson, which is a credit to that church, but how many churches was, I mean, like Mark Driscoll. There was a huge list of things about Mark Driscoll before it finally blows up. Right? I mean, there are so many people that there was such a huge list for, and everybody's just going, no, this isn't... Ravi Zacharias, right, would be another example. There was plenty of evidence, but they're all hiding it because they go, look at all his good works, and that's outweighing his bad works, so we shouldn't expose his bad works. Well, that's completely the opposite of what the Bible says, Ephesians 5. 8-13 says, For you were once darkness, but now you are the light and the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth, finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. And there are minor sins. Because guilty of one part, you're guilty of all. I'm not saying that you weigh it. But I am saying that when you see those small sins, if you don't expose them, if you don't deal with them, then you don't make it manifest. If the person who gets angry once and you confront them on it, well, either they'll repent of their anger and they'll stop being angry. They won't, and they'll get more angry. And then you've made where they are manifest. And if you're weighing good works versus bad works, you don't want to do that, because then you're just kind of increasing the weight over here. If what you're saying is there is real power to the gospel to turn from sin, then you expose the sin, and then you'll see what their response is. Because it is, and when they respond, when it's manifest, that tells you a lot about where they are. When you hide the sin, all you're trying to do is actually increase the sin. But if you're thinking works-based righteousness, Churches hide the sin all the time because they're thinking that way, even as they say salvation is by faith alone. And I think when you were talking about small sins, there are sins that are not manifestations of the flesh. Sure. You know what I mean? And so there are things that you see, though, that you go, that could lead to that. That could lead to a manifestation of the flesh. And so you see that and you go, hey, you know, what's going on there? You know what I mean? Like, what's, what is the issue here? And I think this is the part of it is when you're talking about killing something, there's, there's someone who you see drinking more than they should in a situation or that you think you're like going, should you, I think you're making provision for the flesh. That's a good way, I think, of making an example of it. If someone is, they're doing something that's making provision for the flesh, and you go, are you making provision for the flesh out of ignorance? Are you not thinking about this? Are you not considering your ways? Or is this, or is what I'm seeing, is am I seeing something where you're really desiring to sin, and you're wanting to go and sin? And so, and even though that what they did may very well be a sin, it is not a manifestation of that sin in their life. It's not a pattern of them walking in sin. It's not something that you obviously go, you've been walking and practicing sin. And that is where the difference is. And for preachers, there's a very specific thing that people should watch out for, for their preachers, which is if they're holding to something that's a false view, right? And everybody has errors. But when you have errors and false views, you should think, how would this be used to hide sins of the flesh? because I've seen that time and time again where people fall, where they were already doing things, right? Doug Phillips was, you know, Vision Forum and that whole scandal. Before that, he kept talking loyalty. Loyalty is one of the core things of Christianity. No, it's not. It doesn't have anything to do with Christianity. We are to be loyal to God. He is our Lord. Nobody else is our Lord. But that doctrine was all building it so that nobody would challenge him, right? You're being disloyal. Look at what's this important work. And he believed in workspace righteousness. All his talk became workspace righteousness. But do you see how that works, is that people make doctrinal errors and you should call them on their doctrinal errors, you should force them to explain their doctrine, because a lot of times those doctrinal errors are actually to hide sins of the flesh. Because specifically when an intern caught him looking at pornography, he went, you need to be loyal to me and not tell anyone about this. So that false view that he was holding, like you said, you should look at and go, how can you use this to hide sin? It wasn't just some random thing that he picked. It was an apologetic. It was an argument for him to be able to use so that when he was caught, he could contain the situation. have to lie to protect things that are more important. So therefore, if you don't lie and say you didn't see this... He argued that lying was acceptable in certain circumstances. You could lie to the Nazis because you're saving something more important than yourself. And so therefore, if somebody found him in sin, he'd go, you have to lie about this, because look at all the damage that will happen if you don't. And these are examples, but people do this all the time, that somebody who knows their sin, which is exactly what Steve Lawson did. He knows his sin. Nobody else knows his sin. He knows his sin when he preaches that message. So he changes his doctrine to protect himself against the consequences of his sin. And so when you see somebody preaching false doctrine, People have mistakes. But again, when you confront them, when you expose it, they'll do one of two things. They'll either change their doctrine and fix it, or it was really to cover the flesh. And you're making it harder for them to cover their sins of the flesh. Right. Because like Joshua said, if you went up to Steve Lawson after this and you confronted them, he wouldn't argue for workspace righteousness. But it wouldn't shock me if he would say, What I am saying is, is let's say you find out a sin that someone, that a leader did, that while you need to look at them and go, hey, you need to repent, but that you can be assured that they're almost certainly saved because of these other things. And so you should just look at them and go, hey, I need to push you to repent towards God. I need you to push, whereas, so in other words, and people go, well, that seems reasonable because that's the position that most people are holding regarding Steve Lawson. You know, and I'm not saying that he invented this and he created all the circumstances, but I'm saying a lot of people hold that view. Whereas Paul is saying, when you see these certain types of sin, that is your very clear indicator that the person was not righteous, that the person was not saved. They could not be set free from sin because sin had dominion. You're guilty of one part of the law, you're guilty of the whole law. If you're walking in the flesh, and that's evident that you're walking in the flesh, you will not inherit the kingdom of God. The murderer who murders once He's a murderer. You don't look at everything else in his life. And that's the argument that's constantly made. Look at all the other good works I did. Well, no, those are good works you did. They aren't works because you're a new creature in Christ. And they're works of Christ. They're your works. I mean, another thing about hiding bad works, and this is just something that the church really needs to think about, is most churches don't have, they don't have any way of dealing with bad works if people bring them into the light. So what they do is they tell people, you should hide them. In other words, there's this part of it where I mean, like if something, because the answer to the bat, like think about it, like you start a job and you, and you're making mistakes, like you're, you're, you're sinning against your employer, but these aren't patterns in your life. You're actually trying to do the right thing. You just don't know enough to know what to do. You're making mistakes. You're messing up. And if you come to them, they go, here is how to walk properly. They teach you. Most places, the church doesn't do that with people. They don't actually teach them how to walk. They don't teach them. And it's important to, I mean, Titus 2, right? And we read Titus 2, and we think of women teaching other women how to love their husband, love their children. But it's also older men to teach younger men, too. The means by which this is done is not just from pastors and elders to the congregants. This is from the more mature believers to the less mature believers. This is how it's supposed to work. And everybody's supposed to be letting their works be evident so that people can confront them in their sin. And hopefully they turn from their sin, and they're guided to a better way, and they learn more, and they understand more, and they grow in the knowledge of the Lord. That's how it's supposed to work. And unfortunately, what we do is we go, we're not going to do that, because then maybe people will realize they're not saved, and they'll leave the church, and then you have one less person, or your church isn't as big, or whatever reason. Some people go, oh, the only way they can be saved is to hear the gospel, and they'll hear the gospel in the church. They come up with all these reasons to say, it's not good for a person to know that they're not saved. And the Bible says it is good. You should work out your salvation with fear and trembling. When you expose their works of darkness, it is being a blessing to other people, to that person who you exposed. Right. And I think a lot of the churches become like the church in Corinth, where what we do is we just celebrate that people are sinners, You know what I mean? It's like they're rejoicing over the fact that there's one among them who had done this great sin, but we do that with any level of sin, basically. It's just, isn't it great that God can wipe away our sins? But there's no idea of walking towards holiness in any real way. There's no thought of maturity. There's no thought of those things. It's just pretty much, hey, either you're going to sin in such a bad way that we can't have you here because, I mean, It's so you're hurting other people. Yeah. Or just let's just, Hey, isn't God great. Look at that. Wow. Yeah. I send this week to me too bad. Hey, you know, let's high five each other and let's hope next week we don't send as much. And let's just rejoice in the grace of God. And so there's this part of where the Christian life just becomes this sort of nothingness, except boring. And it becomes that, like Steve Lawson did it, and we're kind of picking on him, but not that he doesn't deserve it, but that we need to recognize just how widespread this is in the church. Because how many people go to church and go, well, I went to church, I gave my tithe, not usually a tithe, it's usually 2% or 1%, they said, I went to prayer, maybe if they're really holy, they come Wednesday night, and they go, well, this forgives me of my sin. I'm fine with God. I look and I'm a good Christian, even though their testimony during the week wouldn't hold that out. And the church, the congregations, often in American churches, they really hold to workspace righteousness. They hold to that these few little things that I do, they outweigh all the sin that I do. I lie, I cheat, I do all these other things, but I'm basically a good person. And look, I go to church. So therefore, my good deeds, I mean, I don't have good deeds like Stephen Lawson, but my good deeds outweigh my bad deeds. And I think that's widespread in the church. And so I think a lot of churches profess to believe in salvation by faith alone, but in the end, they go to, do my good works, outweigh my bad works. You know, I want to kind of close this with a couple examples, because Christ was dealing with this problem. It's not like it's a new problem. In Mark 12, 38 through 44, Then he said to them in his teaching, beware of the scribes who desire to go around in long robes, love greetings in the marketplaces, the best seats in the synagogues and the best places at feasts, who devour widows' houses and for pretense make long prayers. These will receive greater condemnation. Now Jesus sat opposite the treasury and saw how the people put money into the treasury. And many who were rich put in much. Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites, which make a quadrants. So he called his disciples to himself and said to them, assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury. For they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood." Christ is creating this contrast there where he's going, here's all the people that are the Steve Lawsons of the world. Right? Steve Lawson walks into a conference and they go, oh, can I talk to you? Right? I mean, that's the Steve Lawsons of the world. Those are the rabbis, and they go, he makes long sermons and so long prayers. But everybody's looking and going, these are the holy men. And Christ is going, no, this woman who gave all that she had, And that's the one that has the real good works. And you can look at that other man and go, no, he has all these good works. He's in the Sanhedrin. He's leading Israel. He's protecting the worship of Israel. He's doing everything Steve Lawson did. And Christ is looking and going, no, they're just all pretenses. In this widow who gave two mites, she really has good works. So be really careful when you judge good works, because Steve Lawson's holding up his good works, and the question is, is Christ looking at him and going, you're just like a Pharisee? My guess is that he is. So another very similar example is Luke 18, 9-14. Also he spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I possess. And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." I mean, when you read this, one of the things you have to do before you read it is you have to turn off the part of your brain that automatically thinks of Pharisee as a bad term. Because when this was read, it would not have been the Pharisee was a bad thing. It would have been this, like, replace Or John MacArthur, someone who you still think of in a positive way, replaced with just anybody that you say is a well-known, holy man who you would say deserves respect. And that's who's sitting there being praised. Christ again is saying it's really hard for someone externally to look and to judge good works, to judge who truly loves God. It is impossible for you from the external to determine whether someone else's good works truly please God. You do not have the means to look at someone else's good works and say, I know he did them with a pure heart. You don't have the ability. We can say because the works of the flesh are evident. that we know he did not. That we can say. That's what Galatians 5 gives you. Sometimes the best you can do is going, that looks like it might be a good work. Maybe. And it might be something that you're willing to be associated with, and it might be something that you're willing to help with, and your hope is that they're doing it out of a pure heart. But what they are doing it is it is something that's an obedience to God, right? I mean, I give tithes of all I possess. If you're working with somebody and they're giving tithes, it's good work to give tithes. Even God may not count it as good work to them, because if they're giving tithes so that people go, look how rich he is, it's not a good work. But it's still, from your perspective, all you can measure it as and say it's a good work, but it doesn't make the man good. It just makes the work good. And it doesn't mean that we look with evil suspicion at everyone around us. It doesn't mean we look at them with like narrowed eyes, like just with this horrible, evil cynicism. But I mean, we do go, but we do have to be completely honest and go, I don't know. I think there's this part where people don't like that. The Puritans all said, until you die, nobody should really trust that you're safe. because it's perseverance to the end. God talks a lot about that. Make sure you run the race with endurance. Make sure you persevere to the end. And that would be when they go, yeah, I really think he was a believer. He persevered to the end. And we make all these other rules. And even when they go to the end, you don't know for absolute sure, right? I mean, there will be people who, yeah, who it looked like in this life that they were believers, and in reality they were not. And like I said, I think that's part of, when I say I think it's eschatological in a sense, I think we have to recognize that the Word of God has power. And that, you know, I mean, I think it's very easy to deny that the Word of God has power. And, you know, so if you don't have that right view of things, it's really easy to skew the way you see people and to skew the way you see the working hand of God. So, you know, one thing that I've seen in my years in churches is people go, oh, man of God, this is a pastor. So therefore he's somehow holier than the person who's I don't know, whatever, vacuums the church. And God looks at the widow and goes, she's the Holy one, not the Pharisee. And so the church has to turn away from making heroes out of people because of the role that God has appointed them to. that's not a testimony of faithfulness. It doesn't mean that they're unfaithful, but that's not a testimony to say they have greater faith. When God looks at it, he goes and says, are they humble? Are they willing to sacrifice everything? These are the signs of great faith. Do they understand authority? These are the signs of great faith, not somebody who goes, I've got this position that a John MacArthur or Steve Lawson in the world. That's not what makes somebody have a testimony of great faith. It's faith that's pleasing to God, not the position he appoints you to. And so I've seen so many places where a missionary comes back and they go, oh, look at this missionary. He's willing to sacrifice so much. And I know what he's doing over in a country like Turkey where he's just sitting and having coffee every day. That's a great holy thing that most of the missionaries are doing, but yet people look and they go, oh, he's a missionary. Well, it might just mean he's lazy and won't work for a living and just wants to live off of the church dole. I mean, that happens all the time, but people go, oh, he's a missionary. Now, don't exalt people because of their role. It's holiness, it's faithfulness, it's walking in righteousness. These are the things that are pleasing to God, the things that are works of faith. And you can be a missionary, you can be a pastor, you can be an elder, you can be a teacher, you can be all these things, and you can do it without faith, like Steve Lawson did. Yeah, it reminds me of John Bunyan. A congregant walked up to him after the sermon and said, hey, that was a good sermon. He's like, hey, are you the second person who told me that? The first one was the devil. It's pretty, you know, humbling to me hearing that story. I usually go, oh, somebody said it's a good sermon. They won't be back. We need to recognize how natural it is for us to slip into a system that makes us comfortable, that makes us feel better, how we want to have more control over where we are with God. We want to have more assurance. And we don't follow God's ways of doing it. We follow man's ways of doing it. And man's ways end up being workspace righteousness so often. really think about how you look at your own faith. Is the testimony of your faith that you persevered through difficulties? Is the testimony of your faith you continue to serve God even when the cares of the world are choking it out? Is the testimony of your faith that you truly trust God and that you don't fear death? Or is the testimony of your faith that I preach this message or that I did this work or I did this charity? Don't look towards your works. Look towards God working in you. Thanks for joining us. This has been The Conquering Truth, a project of Reformation Baptist Church. If you found this helpful, you can visit us online at theconqueringtruth.com and subscribe here or in your favorite podcast app. Thanks for watching.