I want to thank you all for taking time out in your busy day to be with us as we continue to look at convictions, perspectives, and priorities in the Christian life. My name, as Bonnie said, is Reverend John S. Mann. If you would like to visit our website at www.gciweb.org, There is free discipleship materials on there, scripture memory, daily devotionals, messages, Bible studies, and it's all free. It's not free plus a love offering. It's not free if you buy a book. It's not free and we sell your email address for marketing purposes. It's just free, free, free. Some of the material is form fill-in, so you don't have to download it. Others are not. You are free to print it, make copies of it, and use it in any way that will be a blessing to you. If you would like an immediate copy of the outline that we are working with, if you'll email me at jmillion at gcriweb.org. I've started a list of people who've requested that. And then later this afternoon, I'll send you all out a copy of the notes that we are using with all of the verses. We also have a free app. If you go to the app store on your Apple or Android and type in Grace Community International and then look for my logo here, the logo of Grace Community International, GCI, then you can I have the app at no cost, and that's primarily to listen to messages. But there are materials there. But the vast majority of the materials are to be found on our website. So I pray it will be a blessing to you. And that it's always an embarrassment to me of how much Christian materials cost and so we have sought to place everything at no cost on our website. If it blesses you, then it blesses me. Well, having said that, we are going to continue looking at convictions, perspectives, and priorities in the Christian life and in the life of the disciples. Let's pray, shall we? O Lord God, this is your holy word. We are your servants. Give us understanding that we might know your testimonies. You have prayed, O Lord, sanctify them in truth. Your word is truth. Use your holy, eternal, inerrant written word to set us apart to your service and to your glory. Show us great and mighty things which we do not know. The sower sows the word. Let not your word go out and return void, but accomplish that purpose for which you are sending it out and for which you have gathered these here together this day. Protect us from Satan, Lord, who will snatch your word, making it fruitless. Protect us from the world's scares and the delight of wealth and the passion of other interests which enter in and choke your work, making it fruitless. Protect us from a wrong reaction to difficulties and persecutions and illnesses and poverty which make our hearts hard and unresponsive to your word. Rather, plow up now the hard ground of our hearts, O Lord. Give us good soil that your sown word might send roots downward and bear fruit upward. Unsheath now the sword of your spirit, O Lord. Cut to the vining point of bone and marrow, soul and spirit. Judge now the thoughts and intentions of each person gathered here. Spread your word before us as a banquet table, O Lord. grant grace that we might drink of the sweet milk and eat of the rich meat of the great doctrines of your word. Give us the heart of the prophet who cried to you. Thy words were found and I did eat them. And thy words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart from call by thy name, O Lord God of hosts. Oh Lord, we live in a dark and a wicked age. Broad is the way and many are on it, which leads to destruction. Make your word a lamp to our feet. Make your word a light to our path. Show us that narrow way that you would have us run. And Lord, as we run in the paths of your commandments, enlarge our hearts that in loving you, we might be more obedient to your written word. Drop your word against our lives as a plumb line, O Lord. Grant grace that we might see how we deviate from its high and holy purposes. Make your word to us a mirror, O Lord. Grant grace that we might not be as those who look and go away and forget, but make us active doers, not forgetful listeners of your holy word. Oh Lord, because of our fealty to you, because of our undying love and devotion to your Son, our resurrected Savior, we pledge to you this day our total submission to your holy, eternal, inerrant, written word, And we pledge to you our unquestioning obedience to all of its commands. In the name of our Lord and our resurrected Savior, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen. Well, thank you. I appreciate so much your being here. We are going to have a great time in the Word today. We will first be looking at a quick overview. Convictions, perspective, priorities. And you'll remember from yesterday that our convictions are what we believe. Our convictions represent itself or manifest itself in the Christian life by faith. Romans 10 17 says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God We believe certain things and by faith we believe them These are our convictions they are based on the Word of God Hebrews 11.1 Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. By faith we believe the invisible. God tells us things in the Word of God and we believe it. That faith, however, is not, as many have been deceived into believing, Faith is not the ability to get things from God. Rather, the apostles taught us in Romans 1-5, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith. The apostles never brought the gospel to the church to create a bunch of greedy Christians who shout at God, shake their fists at God, and demand from God in the name of His resurrected Son blessings. Rather, the apostles brought faith in Jesus Christ that they might repent of their sins, be born again, and then, as Jesus said, take up their cross daily and follow Him. The obedience of faith. Our convictions shape our perspective, just as our faith shapes our hope. Hebrews 11 1. Faith is the assurance of what is hope for, the conviction of things not seen. Hebrews 6, 17 through 20 speaks of hope as the anchor of our soul that enters into the very holy of holies in heaven where Jesus Christ reigns. By it we are commanded, in Hebrews 6, to lay hold of the hope set before us, a hope that is sure and steadfast. That means we can say as the psalmist, and now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you, Psalm 39.7. Just as faith brings about action of obedience, So hope makes that action of obedience immediate. We don't have to worry and wait. See, hope shapes our perspective, our worldview. Hope is laying hold of those invisible truths given to us in scripture as if they were more real than the world we see around us. Our hope then leads us to love. That is our priorities. Our perspective is our worldview by which we set our priorities of life. Our hope is manifested in the obedience of love. John 14, 15, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. Faith is believing the invisible and taking action in obedience. Hope is laying hold of the invisible and not waiting, taking action. Love is obeying the invisible and taking action. Now, we illustrated this initially for sake of the review by a quick illustration. If this is your brain, And this is your eye. Now, your convictions. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the convictions of things not seen. Faith comes by hearing and hearing the Word of God. So our convictions are based upon the written Word of God, which results in perspective. how we see the world. It is our assurance of things hoped for, so we live out, we walk through life as if these things were real, which in turn set our priorities, which are based on obedience, faith, hope, love, conviction, perspective, priorities. Now let's see how this works out in a secular illustration. Suppose you started your day yesterday and your conviction was that someone was going to try to kill you. Well, when you got up in the morning, you would make sure that all the blinds remained shut so that no assassin could break in, could see you and assassinate you. When you got in your car, you would race to church. If someone passed you and tapped on their horn and waved at you, you would look away. Perhaps they were trying to run you off the road and you would speed to church. When you got to the parking lot, You would park right up near the front so you could race into the church. And there you see somebody parking in the guest area. They are new. You don't know them. Perhaps they are the assassin. So you don't greet them. You go right into church. You sit in the very back with your back against the wall. After church, when they have refreshments of tea and biscuits, you don't take any. Perhaps they are poisoned. And you get in your car and race home. You see, your perspective was based on the conviction that someone was trying to kill you, and that made you have certain priorities. But let's say you had different convictions. You were convinced that this is the day the Lord has made, that you should be glad and rejoice in it. that God is a sovereign, loving Father, and that Christ came that you might have life and have it more abundantly. That you are going to go to church this day, be out of obedience to Hebrews 10, 24 and 25, where you are not to neglect one another, but encourage one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. you would have a totally different set of priorities, wouldn't you? You would get up in the morning and you would throw open the blinds and rejoice in the wonderful day God has given you. When you got in your car, you would go at a normal rate of speed to church, and when somebody passed you and waved at you and tapped the horn, you would wave back. Praise God, there is someone else from the ministry going to church this Sunday. You would park in just a normal parking spot in the parking lot, and when you saw a family getting out of their car that you did not recognize, you would go over and greet them. If they were new, they were visiting, you would invite them to come in, and you would bring them into church with you, introduce them around, and take them down towards the front and sit with them. Afterwards, you would go for fellowship, drinking tea and biscuits, and introducing them to your other friends, and finally return home rejoicing in the day that the Lord had given you. Now notice something. The events around this person's life that we described were exactly the same, weren't they? However, the wrong conviction that someone was trying to kill you that day changed your priorities from 1, 2, 3, and 4 to 97. 98, 99, 100. Priorities that wouldn't even normally come into your top 10 list, more or less your top 50 list. They would be relegated way down at the bottom, not even to be considered. But because of a wrong conviction which distorted your perspective, these inconsequential priorities became one, two, three, and four. However, this same person with the correct convictions had a proper perspective of life, and these important top four priorities were easily fulfilled. So can you see that? Same person, exact same events, wrong convictions, resulting in wrong perspective, resulting in wrong priorities. And each of these convictions is important. I have trifocals. The top third of my glasses sees far away. The middle third sees the median. The bottom third sees the close in, the written word. My glasses, which give me my perspective, are only as good as the weakest lens. If I can see far away and medium, but cannot read, the glasses are virtually useless. Well, it is the same thing with our convictions. The essential convictions of the Christian life are imperative to us. We must know them, master them, and hold to all of them. Because even one wrong conviction can skew our day-to-day walk with God. So, having said that, Let's return and look at the basic convictions of the Christian life, shall we? Last week, yesterday, we looked at In terms of our convictions, we looked at the nature of God and the sufficiency of Christ. And we saw how wrong convictions in this area would lead you, after salvation, instead of taking up your cross and following Jesus, to run in circles. Next, we will look at the conviction of the authority, finality, and sufficiency of the Word of God. We will see here that God's Word is indeed authoritative. That is an important perspective for us to have. That God's Word is authoritative. It is the final and ultimate authority in our life. It is final in that it is complete and it is sufficient. By complete, what we mean is that that the written Word of God is the will of God for the church age. And we will look at that. I'm going to add that to our notes. that when we speak of the Word of God, you know, I'm surprised. Twenty years ago, when I said the Word of God, people would automatically equate that with Holy Scriptures. Now, more and more, people are raising their hands and saying, you know, it sounds to me like when you say the Word of God, you're talking about the Bible, the Holy Scriptures. And I say, of course, but more and more we have false teachers, false prophets, false apostles who not only teach falsehood, but they disparage and downgrade the written word of God. They call it dead doctrine, cold doctrine, dead words. And we're going to look at that. So we will begin by looking at God's written word, the finality and sufficiency of God's written word. First, the written word of God is inspired. 2 Timothy 3.16 says, all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, and for training in righteousness. By saying it is sufficient, we also say, because of 2 Timothy 3.17, that the man of God may be sufficient for every good work. So the word of God is not only inspired, but we say it is sufficient. I have to add that because many people think if you have the Word of God, you are still somehow insufficient in terms of the ministry. And you are not. It is that which you need. There is no set of Christians who are second-class Christians because all they have is the Word of God. I almost hate to even say that, but because there is a teaching now that there are some second-class Christians, because all they have is Jesus, it's no wonder that these false teachers and false apostles and false prophets also teach that you are insufficient because you are relying on the written word of God. Of course, that's very handy for them, because then they can teach anything they want. Well, the Word of God is inspired. What does that mean by inspired? Turn with me in the Holy Scriptures, if you would, to 2 Peter 1. 2 Peter 1. But first of all, know this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation. We are not left to our own devices to say what prophecy means, and we are not free to declare the Word of God. Rather, no prophecy ever made by an act of human will, but now here we are going to have the definition of inspiration in the scripture. But men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. That is in the Holy Scripture the definition of what it means by inspiration. Men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. So this is God's word via God's Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul, the Psalmist, Luke, they were the typewriters. It is God's Word. Everything in the Bible is there because God wants it there. If it's not there, it's because God did not want it there. You see, the Word of God, therefore, is sufficient. In 2 Timothy 3.17, when it says, all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, reproof for training, and righteousness, it goes on then to say, so that. Why did God give us? the written word of God as inspired by the Holy Spirit so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. You are sufficient if you have the word of God. You don't need someone else's prophecy. You don't need a word from God. You don't need a word of knowledge. You don't need anything else. you have the Word of God. In fact, if someone prophesies, they better quote scripture. Would you like to hear me prophesy? I will be glad to prophesy. Here it is. You want to hear the prophecy? Hebrews 9.27. It is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment. Hebrews 9.27. And anyone who claims to be a prophet and does not quote scripture is a false prophet. Would you like to hear a word of knowledge? I will be glad to give you a word of knowledge. John 5, 24. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in Him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but passes out of death into life. John 5, 24. Would you like to hear a word of wisdom? I would be happy to give you a word of wisdom. Proverbs 3, 5 and 6. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path. A word of wisdom. See, the Word of God is sufficient. We don't need any more knowledge. We don't need any more wisdom. And we don't need any more prophecies. We have the Word of God. It is sufficient. Well, God's Word is not only sufficient, but it is without error. Look at Psalm 19 with me, beginning with verse 10. Notice what God the Holy Spirit says in Psalm 19 about His Word. Psalm 19. The law of the Lord is perfect. Do you see that? God's word is without error. It is perfect. The precepts of the Lord are right. The commandment of the Lord is pure. God's Word is perfect. It is righteous. It is pure. It is without error. And we can have confidence in it because of that. Now, many people will say, well, the word of God is inspired in the original languages. Well, how does that leave us today, 2,000 years later? And in some cases, up to 10,000 years later. We don't have the original writings. And that is a deceptive statement that allows for the downgrading of scripture. No, we have the Word of God as inspired and inerrant in the copy we hold before us today. Now, there used to be the argument, yes, but you know, there were a lot of changes introduced in the Word of God over the years. Well, something happened. There were, near the Dead Sea, scrolls were found. that dated 500 years before Christ. All of the books of the Bible were found, have been found up until this time by Esther, and I'm confident Esther too will be found. Everything you have in your Bible is also in those Dead Sea Scrolls without any change or error. That means for 2,500 years, God preserved the Holy Scripture with no change. We have fragments of all of the New Testament and the Gospels in the lifetime of the Apostles and there are no deviation or change from anything you have in the New Testament. In fact, the proof is so conclusive that secular scholars no longer argue that changes have been introduced to the Bible over the years. Rather, they say they just don't believe it. But in fact, there's more evidence that the Holy Scriptures are what they are than there is from any other ancient Near Eastern writing. And even the Shakespearean writings So, God's Word is inerrant, and as such, it is eternal. God, the Holy Spirit, not only personally inspired the Word of God, but He has watched over it. He has kept it safe. He has not allowed error or change to be introduced into it. Notice in 1 Peter 1, 24 and 25, For all flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, the flower falls off, but the word of the Lord endures forever. And this is the word which was preached to you. God the Holy Spirit has watched over and kept intact the Holy Scriptures. Now, why people think that God can watch over and keep intact our salvation and the church, but not the Bible, is beyond me. Well, no, it's not beyond me. The reason they don't want to think in terms of the authority, finality, and sufficiency of God's written word is they want to be free from its constraints. And when I come to a conference and teach on marriage, on family, on doctrine, on evangelism and witnessing, on discipleship, I always tell people, I am not coming to tell you that what the Bible says is not what it says. Rather, I come to tell you that what the Bible says is exactly what it says it means, and rather than to free you from the constraints of Scripture, I bring myself and all those to whom I speak under the authority and submission of Holy Scripture. And people chafe against that. Oh, no, that sounds legalistic. No, it's not legalistic. It's authoritative. Jesus is our Lord. Jesus is our Master. This is the Word of God. We exist under its authority. Now, as such, the Word of God is dynamic. as in it judges our actions. Hebrew 4.12 The word of God is alive. It is active. It is sharper than any two-edged sword. It cuts to the dividing point of bone and marrow, soul and spirit. It judges the thoughts and the intentions of the heart. God's word judges us. We do not judge the word of God. God's Word judges us. We do not decide what is the Word of God and what is not the Word of God on the basis of our life experience or what we like and don't like. Rather, God's Word judges us. That is very important for us to understand. It is a dynamic, living document that judges us. Now, I began reading the Word of God through every year. in 1970 and have done so till the present. Some years I've read the Word of God through more than once, most years the Old Testament once and the New Testament twice. God's Word is still alive and I'm still finding new things. This morning I was reading in Romans 5.8 where Jesus Christ commands us that our repentance should bear fruit. And then I remembered a passage I had memorized in 2 Corinthians 7, beginning with verse 10, which describes the fruits of repentance. So I wrote that in the margin of my Bible, 2 Corinthians 7, 10-11. Well, that's something entirely new. And God is continually bringing new truths from the Holy Scripture, not from my mind, from the Holy Scripture. You see, there's a big difference between my thoughts and God's thoughts, aren't there? God says, God the Holy Spirit says, my thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are not your ways. There is a way that seems right to a man whose end is the way of death. Therefore, we submit our thoughts, our ways, to the Holy Scripture. We don't entrust ourselves to the teachings of men who don't need the Holy Scripture. and who in fact wrongly judge them. For in talking about dead doctrine, in talking about cold doctrine, in talking about dead words, they themselves bring condemnation upon themselves, by Hebrews 4.12. As the word of God judges them, because the word of God says doctrines are not dead, they are alive. The written word is not dead, it is alive, and it judges those who say otherwise. You see, God's word also judges all teachings. Acts 17.11, the apostle Paul says, Now these Bereans were more noble than those of Thessalonica, for they studied the word every day to see if these things were so. That's why cross-referencing is so good. And I praise God that I grew up in the ministry as a college student with the Navigators when we did chapter analysis Bible study and the third step of studying a passage in the scripture was to find an Old and New Testament cross-reference to it. To study the scriptures every day and make sure that what we were saying, the Word of God said, It did indeed say, and were not simply, our thoughts and our ways which are not God's thoughts and His ways. So God judges teachers. And if it does not bother the Apostle Paul for the Bereans to get home and unroll the scrolls and look at Isaiah or look at Malachi or look at Hosea or look at the Psalms to see if what Paul was saying, the Word of God actually said, it should not bother any teacher of the Word of God. And any so-called teacher, so-called apostle, so-called prophet or bishop who rebukes you because you want to know where does the Bible say this, what is the chapter and verse, a red light should go off. Because he is lifting himself up above the Apostle Paul and the Holy Spirit. Because both the Apostle Paul and the Holy Spirit commended those who cross-referenced the teachings of men with the Word of God. Act 1711. It judges all teachings. It judges all teachers. So let's take a look at that, shall we? Let's do a little project here. Let's think in terms of this. Let's see, where is my... Okay, I'm going to pause this just for a second. So, let's take a moment and do a little project here on how the Word of God judges man. Man does not judge the Word of God. And I call this project, Upside Down Christianity. So we have things that so-called men of God says, and then we have things that God the Holy Spirit says. Now if a man claims to be a prophet, a bishop, an apostle, a man of God, and he contradicts God, would you call him a man of God? Would you? If someone came to your ministry and said, I represent Amika, and everything he said contradicted Amika, would you just say, well, I guess Amika's changed his mind? No. You would go to Amika and say, hey, this man is saying this now. Is that true? Is that true? And Amika would say, no, it's not true. And then you would reject that man, wouldn't you? Well, that's very clear, isn't it? Ladies, if someone came to you and said, your husband said this, this, this, this, and you said, I don't believe my husband said that. And so you went to your husband and you said, this man over here is saying you said these things. And if your husband said, no, I didn't say those things, then you would throw that man out of the house, wouldn't you? He's bringing division. He's deceiving. He's lying. And yet men come into the church, men come into your life, claiming to be a man of God, and they say, God says this, this, this, this. You don't check it out with the Word of God. And if you do check it out with the Word of God, you suddenly have a crisis. There's no crisis if you check it out with the Word of God. If the Word of God says no, There's no crisis there. The man is a false teacher. True teachers represent the written word of God. False teachers teach something else. It's very clear. There's no crisis of faith. There's no struggle. He's a false teacher. 1 John 4.1 says these guys will be everywhere. We need to be alert from it. said do not believe every spirit but test the spirit because many false prophets teachers and spirits are in the world so we're swimming among them and we have to be able to recognize them well let's say a so-called man of God says everybody who's righteous will die a peaceful death okay now what are we going to do Well, we have three options here. What are we going to do? We have three options. Well, first, there is SYI. So, are we going to do that? What's the SYI approach? That's share your ignorance. Somebody says, well, this is what I think. Well, this is what I think. Well, this is what I think. Well, this is what I think. And then you all come to a corporate decision, you throw all your ideas, all your imaginings, all of your thoughts, all of your convictions, whether they are right or wrong, you throw them all in a pot and stir it all up and come up with something. Is that how we're going to do it? No. Well, here's another approach we can take. That's the mother bird. In the mother bird approach, the mother bird comes to you and you take pre-digested convictions without thinking. You're a little baby bird, you come to church with your mouth open, she regurgitates up, and you eat it, you don't think about it, and you make it your own. But what we want to do is be Boreans. That's, and when we say we are Boreans, that is Acts 17, 11. We study and decide if it is true from the holy scripture that's what we do we're not just little mother birds but we study and then we decide from the holy scripture whether the teaching is true or not all the righteous will die peacefully in their death. What do you think? What do you think? What do you think? Or put the little bites in your mouth and you believe it without questioning. Or we go to the Bible. Well, what does God the Holy Spirit say? We know what some people think. We know what some people teach. But what does God the Holy Spirit say? Well, in Hebrews 11, verse 36 through 40. And others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword, they went about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated, men of whom the world is not worthy, wandering in deserts and mountains and caves, in holes in the ground, all these having gained approval by their faith." Ah! In verse 37, people are put to death, but they are considered such great men of faith that the world is not worthy of them. So we reject this, don't we? We say no. That teacher is teaching false doctrine. Okay? Other people will teach. Well, everybody who has faith will be healed. Universal healing by faith. Ah, okay. What does the Word of God say? Well, let's turn to 2 Corinthians 12. And let's begin with verse 7. Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from exalting myself. Concerning this, I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, I will boast about my weakness, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore, I am well content with weaknesses, insults, distresses, persecutions, difficulties, for Christ's sake, for when I'm weak, I'm strong. Ah, that's a false teaching. Paul entreated God, Paul who healed the sick and raised the dead, entreated God, and what did God say? God said, no. And Paul said, well, I'm content with that. I'm not going to spend my life running in circles, going to every healing service, every false apostle, every false prophet, every bishop, every event, in the great country of Nigeria trying to receive something that God is not going to give me. Paul got on with the ministry, didn't he? And that's what we should do. Now I want you to think about healing for a minute. We all die of organ failure, don't we? Now when I say organ failure, I mean our biological organs. We talk about our primary or essential organs. The heart, the lung, the brain, the stomach, the liver, the kidneys, the pancreas. These are essential organs for life. And everyone who dies, dies when there is organ failure, don't they? It may be wear and tear. You may get old, and your organs finally just collapse. It could be disease, like cancer. Or it could be trauma. You're in a car accident, and a piece of metal pierces your lung, or your liver, or your heart. Could be a combination of these. But when you die, it's going to be by organ failure. Now, if by faith, listen to me, if by faith God heals all organ failure, he will always heal it. Who's in heaven? Let me ask you that. Who is in heaven if by faith God heals all organ failure? It's going to be those who don't have faith, isn't it? That's called upside down Christianity. By faith we go to heaven. It's something we want to happen. When someone dies of a heart attack because of the wear and tear of the heart, of disease because of cancer on the heart, or of trauma because of injury to the heart, and they die and go to heaven, nothing has gone wrong. That is the plan of God. because we are all going to die. Look at Job 14 with me. Turn with me to the book of Job. We're gonna look at Job 14. Job 14, five. What does God the Holy Spirit say? Since His days are determined, the number of His months is with you, and the limits you have set so that He cannot pass. Hebrews 9.27 says, It is appointed for men to die once, and then comes judgment. We are all going to die. And I will tell you this right now. If you have some hero of the faith, a minister, an evangelist, a pastor, or if you have some family member, a mother, a father, a brother, a sister, or even one of your children, And if by their dying you are going to get bitter at God, your baby is going to get sick, your teenager is going to get sick, your wife is going to get sick, your mother or father are going to get sick, your pastor, and you pray and you say, oh Jesus heal them, heal them, heal them, and God doesn't heal them. and instead they go to heaven, and you get mad at God and become bitter, then Satan does not need to pay attention to you anymore. Because everybody you love is going to die, aren't they? I'm going to die. I hope you are not so superstitious that you're going, oh, no, no, don't talk about death, don't say that, John, oh, don't say you're going to die, because then you might die. No! I didn't just wander in from the tutorial lesson of death from the village spiritist. God the Holy Spirit says my days are numbered. God has set their limits. I have an appointment to go to heaven. I'm waiting. Somebody's number comes up. Is it my turn, Jesus? No. Keep laboring on earth. Keep laboring. Somebody else goes to heaven. Is it my turn, Jesus? No. That's not your number. Keep laboring. Keep preaching the gospel. Keep teaching. Now can I go? No. And then finally one day when Jesus will say, yes, Come home. My organs will fail and I will go to heaven and nothing will have gone wrong. So yes, I'm going to die. I said this three years ago and there was a girl at one of the conferences and she almost rebuked me because if I talk about my death, I'm going to die and I haven't died. But when I do die, it will be God's will, not some superstition. How are we going to help people with stability in the Christian life if we live in fear of death? Hebrews 2. could not be clearer. We don't live in the fear of death. Doesn't the Holy Scripture say that the sting of death was taken away? What does Hebrews 2 say? Hebrews 2. Verse 14, therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, he himself also partook of the same, that through death he might render powerless him who had power over the death, that is the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to his slavery. We're freed from the fear of death, 1 John 4, verse 18. There is no fear in love. Perfect love drives out all fear. Fear involves judgment. The one who fears is not perfected in love. And we don't fear God. God is a sovereign, loving Father. So, universal healing by faith? No, because it's God's will that we die and go to heaven. So we reject that teaching. We are not afraid of death, we are not afraid to talk about death, and we need to minister to people because that's one of our convictions, that God is sovereign. Universal prosperity. Well, you know, we looked at Hebrews 11, 36-40 that clearly taught that some of the great men of faith were impoverished. What does 2 Corinthians 8-9 say? What does it say? For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. He became poor. Foxes have holes. Birds have nests. The Son of Man has no place to lay his head. How can we teach a doctrine of prosperity when it is so clear from Holy Scripture? So many of the great saints of God were poor. But let me ask you this. Since 1960, these false prophets, these false apostles, these false teachers have been screaming and shaking their fists at God and commanding the storehouses to open and have been promising you the storehouses will open. And you've been giving the tithe, the double tithe, the triple tithe to open the storehouse Sunday after Sunday after Sunday in every city, town, and little village in this great country. Nigeria, if these men were true prophets, Nigeria would be the richest country in the world. Your streets would be paved by gold. But it's not. and their churches are not. Well, the individual is. This is the message that's being preached. If you will give me your seed gift, if everybody in this congregation will give me their seed gift, at the end of the day, I'll have more money than any of you. And that's the true teaching. There is not universal prosperity by faith. The apostles came to bring about the obedience of faith. Not the prosperity of faith, the obedience of faith. And that's what I offer you. How about storehouse blessing? That's giving by faith, isn't it? Well, what does Matthew 6, 19 through 20 say? Matthew 6, 19 through 20. See, many of you are gambling with your faith. You don't come to God with your faith for obedience, you come to God with faith for gambling. And who knows, maybe this week you'll get rich, you'll give some money, you'll shout at God, you'll shake your fist at Him, and maybe you'll put your money in there and just like a slot machine, or roulette wheel, you roll the wheel and you pray and you wait and maybe, ching, ching, ching, ching, the storehouse will open and you'll get your money. It hasn't happened yet, but who knows, you're gonna take a chance once more this coming Sunday. You're gonna take a chance and see if it happens. That's not faith. That's not faith. What is Matthew 6, 19-21? Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there is your heart also. There is no storehouse here on earth in which to put your tithe. There is no storehouse. The physical building called the church. I hope you're not so simple in your understanding of scripture that you believe that building is God's temple. No. 1 Corinthians 3.16. Do you not know that you are God's temple? God's Spirit dwells in you. The storehouse that you do is that you give by faith and it's there in heaven waiting for you. You don't get by faith. You obey by faith. You give your life by faith. You don't get by faith. Ephesians 1.3 says, Every spiritual blessing is ours in Christ. You are the temple of the Holy Spirit and you have received every spiritual blessing. There's no more seeking, there's now serving. Dying and going to heaven or hell. Hebrews 9.27 says it's appointed for men to die once. Luke 16.26 says there is a chasm through which men cannot cross. They didn't die and go to heaven. They didn't die and go to hell. I'll have you line up 1,000 false prophets who say they died and went to hell, and I will stand with Hebrews 9.27. Man's thoughts are God's thoughts. Isaiah 55.8 and 9 says man's thoughts are not God's thoughts. Thanking God in order to get. What could be ruder than to say to God, thank you for the Mercedes Benz, when he hasn't given it to you? What human would you say that to? What man of flesh or woman of flesh? What parent or child would you say that to? It's manipulative. No. What did Jesus say? Not my will, but thine. And that's the prayer. Lord, these are my requests, not my will but thine. Not, Lord, these are my requests and thank you. Because God may say, I don't need any thanks because I'm not giving it to you. Don't be so rude. If you came up to me and said, John, I really needed a laptop and thank you for giving me your laptop, I would say, I'm sorry you have to keep your thanks. I'm not giving you this laptop. I need it for the ministry while I'm here in Nigeria. Dead cold doctrines and words. Hebrews 4.12 says, the doctrines found in the scripture, the words found in the scripture, are not dead. Luke 24.27, 31, 32, and 44, Jesus was quoting holy scripture upon his resurrection, and the hearers said, how our hearts burned in us, as he quoted the holy scriptures to us. So that is our authority, is quoting the Holy Scriptures. So we see these things on the one side. We see the Word of God on the other side. Now what are you going to do? Are you going to have a crisis of faith, or is your conviction in the authority of the Word of God, and are you going to act accordingly? You have to decide this, don't you? You have to decide. Where do your convictions lay? Where are they? And by God's grace, your convictions will be with the authority of the Word of God. Now, we have a lot more to cover here. We have a few more projects. But by God's grace, we will be able to finish today. And so we will just take a break now and then come back and visit this. So I want to thank you. We'll go back to our notes in just a moment and take a look at the continuing convictions upon the word of God. This is what I'm looking for. Show all the windows. There it is. So we will continue to look at the Word of God, but right now we are finishing right here that the Word of God not only judges us, but it judges all teachings. May God add His blessing to His Word. In Christ's name we pray, Amen.