Someone who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, but says it's alright to murder babies, it's alright to marry sodomites, it's alright to push the Marxist godless system of Marxism and socialism, there's something wrong with somebody's heart there. Even though they may say this. So I just want that to be clear. But if you take someone who is basically giving a good profession, you have no reason to doubt their profession of faith, but then they tell you they don't, well, it's all just to teach some symbolic, Jesus didn't really live. There's a real problem there. But that's what you got in a lot of seminaries and pulpits. Somebody did a survey, it was anonymous, because these guys didn't want to lose their jobs and their pension. But they admitted something like 60% of the preachers in main line denominations when given an anonymous interview. Think of that number I just said, 60% said they don't believe in God. I don't think some of you even understand what I just said. I'm talking about the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Lutheran Church, all the mainline denominations. Sixty percent of those in pulpits say they don't even believe in God. And that's an imposter. And that explains why they'll get up here and not, even if they don't promote sin, they don't ever to confront it. They don't ever preach on it and expose it. It is, it's a business. I mean, some of these people you know, they'll tell you, they know their pastor spends more time golfing than he does anything. Permanent vacation with a robe on. Yeah. And why do they do that? They have no conscience because they don't even believe in God. And then when they were asked, well then why are you in the ministry? The number one reason was the money. And the job security, and they just have a lot of free time, and they can go golfing and everything. And the retirement plan. I, as pastor, I have no retirement plan here. But my retirement plan is out of this world. So I'm not worried about that. But these guys, they're of the flesh. And so they think just like a good businessman and their denominations function the same way. Now read verse 3 aloud with me. And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God. And this is that spirit of Antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come, and even now already is it in the world. It was in the world at the time that John wrote this, It's increased throughout the centuries and it's in the world right now in a huge, huge way. When 60 percent of your Protestant churches, pastors in Protestant churches, don't even believe Jesus has come in the flesh. Why? Because they don't believe in God. So obviously, their version of Jesus is something they made up in their heads. It's not the Christ of the Bible. Of course, the Roman Catholic Church on the other side. You can find Roman Catholic priests. I've talked to a couple of myself. I've seen interviews of others and they're agnostics. A lot of them get degrees in Eastern religions and Buddhism and Hinduism and all that because they just think, oh, anything that's going to contribute to my spiritual well-being and all this stuff. I don't know each of them personally, but the ones I do know personally, they don't have a lot of spiritual well-being. That would explain why there's so much child molestation among the priesthood. But it's not just a Catholic problem. So every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is that spirit of Antichrist. And so we're seeing as we're approaching the rapture and the 70th week of Daniel where the Antichrist, the final Pope, assumes that role and the world comes under his wings because millions of people have disappeared all over the world and there's probably the Gog-Magog war either right then or right after going on and everything. And so there's all this chaos and people are checking out psycho and psycho and all kinds of, and here comes the man of peace. Now every Pope previous to this one that we have now, including Francis, all walk around with the little peace and union, all this, all this, all this stuff. And all they talk about is world peace, world peace, and all this. And they join together with all the world religious leaders as long as the Pope is able to stand in the middle. Some people don't, they don't buy the fact that the Pope will be the final, the final Pope will be the Antichrist. You can see it already, the stage is already set. All the world religions look to him. And what you don't know is behind the scenes, politically, the Popes, going all the way back before the Reformation, have been orchestrating world events as best they can. And God has stood in their way, but there's coming a time where God's gonna let him do what he wants to do, that final one. so that he can then smash him like a bug. This is that spirit of Antichrist, and the spirit of Antichrist increases on a daily basis. I want to give you some examples. Spirit of Antichrist in Islam. See, Islam has a Jesus, but it's not the biblical Jesus, so they deny the Christ with the Bible. And they say that the Issa is their word for him. And they say he was a total fraud. Somebody else died on the cross in his place. They faked his resurrection and so forth. That's the Islamic fake Jesus. It is of the spirit of Antichrist. The New Age movement, I mentioned earlier, those who think that Jesus was just one Christ of many with the Christ consciousness, Buddha and Confucius and they all, and well, then you just committed the unforgivable blasphemy that we studied when we went through the Gospel of Mark. You've attributed Jesus and his works to an unclean spirit. when you do that. When you say Jesus is just one of those devils, that's what the Pharisees said. He did his work by the power of the devil. Liberalism in general. Liberalism in the political and religious world is basically an agnostic cult. They deny absolute truth. They deny that Jesus said, I am the way, the and the life, no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." Now, that means if you reject absolute truth, you reject Jesus as the Christ. That's just the bottom line of what they believe. Universalism. Universalism basically says all paths lead to God. Doesn't matter as long as you're sincere. Well, I could pull out a gun and say I sincerely believe that the way to heaven is to blow my brains out. Are you still going to say that all that matters is being sincere? The guy was sincere that he thought blowing his brains out was the way to heaven. All those heaven gate people who drank the Kool-Aid and committed suicide. They were sincere. Absolutely. George W. Bush in an interview said that he believed that all you had to do is be sincere and then he said, accept those guys. Why? They were sincere. If you want to talk fictitious characters, we're trying to keep it into real characters here. That's it. That's the point. Sincerity isn't the question. The question is, do you have the right Jesus? And do you believe on Him the right way? The definition of the term, you know, I've told people we've had cults come to our door and I ask them if they're saved. Do they believe in Jesus? Of course. But then when I ask them what they mean, it's totally not what you and I mean. Verse 21 and back to our text in Luke 9 says, and he straightly charged them and commanded them to tell no man that thing. Wait a minute, pastor, you just said this is the most important question, the most important answer, and now Jesus is telling them not to tell anybody? Well, why? As Charlie pointed out last night, one of the things, I love to hear it when your children talk about how that something you did as a parent I mean, of course, changing the oil and those things are important, but when they tell you that something you taught them spiritually has benefited them. And Jenny and I, we would read the Bible, and the kids would read along, and Charlie talked about how many times he saw that he would want to ask a question, and a few times I think he did, and I would say, well, let's keep reading. And at first Charlie's like, what, you're not going to answer my question? Let's just keep reading. And then we keep reading, and there's the answer. And so then he got to where he would start to ask the question and say, wait a minute, I'm just going to keep reading. That's what the word of God will do that for you over and over. And so you look at verse 21, he's telling them not to tell any man anything, but read now verse 22. Read it with me. Saying, the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be slain and be raised the third day. He's saying, don't go around telling everybody I'm the Christ yet, because when you do that, they're gonna kill me. That's exactly what it is. Practicality for practical purposes. There is still a lot of work to be done before I go to the cross. If you go out telling everybody this, it would be considered blasphemy, and you'll see that later. The Pharisees will seek to kill him because he calls himself equal with God. How's that? Well, they knew Isaiah 9.6. If you're calling yourself The Christ, the Messiah, and you can find it in rabbinical writings before Jesus came, they believed that. And they only rejected it because they reject Jesus, and then they rejected most biblical doctrine after that. And so for practical purposes, Jesus is saying, don't go running around telling everybody, because I don't want this to come to fruition yet. I still have things to do, and he's got to suffer many things. I mean, not many of us would say, wait a minute, I just look forward to suffering a few more times before I die. But that was his purpose. And he had to be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes. That hadn't happened officially yet. And he had to be slain and then raised the third day. So once Jesus is openly proclaimed to be Christ or Messiah, he will be killed. A word on this and I'll move on. You'll hear people running around saying, Yahshua, Hamashiach, thinking that they're more spiritual because they're speaking a transliteration of the Hebrew. I think Mary, you telling us and a couple of others here have run into that, the Messianic and the Hebrew Israelites and all this stuff. It's childish. When Jesus spoke and the apostles wrote, They didn't refer to him with Hebrew transliteration. They referred to him with Greek. Yesu Christos. And so if going back to Hebrew and saying Yahshua HaMashiach is somehow more spiritual than Yesu Christos, then the apostles weren't very spiritual. See how dumb it is? And people will pull that stuff because they want, it's all pride. They want you to think, oh, wow. This man must be really spiritual. Yahshua Hamashiach. They're not more spiritual, they're actually more infantile. And you're English and not Greek, so if you run around saying, Jesus Christos! Gesundheit. You're English. He's Jesus Christ. If you want to be First of all, if you want to sound more spiritual and impress people, you're right there. You're just a spiritual infant right there. That's not your purpose. John the Baptist gave the purpose. I must decrease, he must increase. I don't want you to think more about me. I want you to think more about Jesus. So I try not to do anything that leads anybody to think anything big of me. It's not about me. It's not about you. It's not about that, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. You know that? It's not about, it's about Jesus. So once Jesus is openly proclaimed to be the Christ Messiah, he will be killed. And that's what he's saying there in verse 22. The son of man must suffer many things and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be slain and be raised the third day. What did you just read? There's point number two. This is the gospel. This is the gospel. You hear hyper-dispensationalists say, well, Jesus never preached the gospel. Yes, he did. Right there, he did. What is, there's different words, but he's saying the same thing as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15, three and four, how that Christ died for our sins and that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. Jesus is saying it before it happened, Paul's saying it after it happened, but it is the gospel. Now here's the thing. Note that none of his followers got that. They weren't looking forward to the cross. And I just warn you about that because there's some very bad theology out there being taught by Bible believers who will say, well, in the Old Testament, they were saved by looking forward to the cross and they didn't even know what a cross was. And they say, well, it was the death of the Messiah. No, it wasn't. Even these Jews right here he's talking to will continue to not get it. Right up to the time he's being crucified, they don't get it. While they think he's rotting in the tomb, which he doesn't, he doesn't decay, but they think he is, and they're all, oh, what do we do now? Jesus is dead. No one says, well, wait a minute, we're just gonna hang out until he's resurrected, because that's what he said he was gonna do, right? They didn't even get it then. And then when Jesus shows up, they're so shocked. Yeah. And then you have preachers today saying that they were all looking forward to the cross. Think about how dumb that is. What am I telling you? Not to listen to other preachers but Greg Miller because I am the way of the truth. No, I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is even when Greg Miller talks, you need to check the scriptures and see if what you're being taught is so. Acts 17 11. Acts 17 11 will save you a lot of trouble. The Bereans checked the scriptures even when Paul was speaking to see if he was being biblical. Yeah, John? You'd think if all these men of God were betting their eternity on looking forward to the cross, one of them would have mentioned it. Yeah, they would have mentioned it. Nobody mentioned it. You know, the prophets weren't out there preaching that. People say, we're looking forward to the cross in the Old Testament. Go read it sometime. It's not in there. You will see references like to that in a sense of prophecies but never in a concise way and no one got it. They understood, again referring to rabbinic writings, they understood the Messiah would suffer. And, but they didn't understand that the full implications of that suffering being the vicarious atonement, that he was dying for the sins of the whole world. And they didn't understand anything about a cross. They didn't have any concept. And even the resurrection was kind of a vague thing. They didn't understand how it all worked. But you'll hear people talk. There was a suffering servant and then the conquering king in the Messianic prophecies. And so by the time Jesus comes, they've totally discounted the suffering Messiah. And they were looking only for the conquering king. And so when he's not conquering, and then he goes to the cross, most of the Jews are like, well, this guy's a fraud. Well, no, they didn't know their Bible. So yes, by the time Jesus came, they were totally ignoring Isaiah 53. And by the way, since then, they've taken it out of the rabbinic readings in the synagogues. Because too many people would read that and they had a neighbor or a coworker or a student they went to school with who would say, Isaiah 53 describes Jesus. And so then they were getting people in the synagogue saying, wait a minute, now how do you explain that away with what Jesus went through? So let's just get rid of it. How many of you have seen what's called the mountaintops? And the show where the prophets saw the mountaintops, but there were valleys of prophecy that they didn't see. And so that's why they were in that situation. So we'll close this up in verse 23. And he said to them all, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. You've waited to the very end to get to the point, preacher. No, the point is that you will not deny yourself if you don't get the rest of this covered. You, as a Christian, if you don't understand what it means that Jesus is the Christ, and that He is God, manifest in the flesh, who died for your sins, and that your salvation is totally because of what Jesus has done, you're not going to then do what we talked about in Sunday school. You're not going to present your body as a living sacrifice. I must deny myself and that is a response based on my understanding of who Jesus is. It's a complete contradiction of the love yourself and self-esteem messages. Listen, if you were taught that, I don't care by who, I don't care if it's in a church, it's false. It's satanic. It is produced Laodicean Christianity. Loving yourself is wicked. Self-esteem is wicked. You are supposed to deny yourself. And as Christians, when you're not doing what God has told you to do, you're demonstrating why this is satanic. You are denying Jesus and his will for your life to do what you want because that's what you're all about, self-esteem, self-love. And why is Christianity such a terrible thing right now? It's in such a terrible mess worldwide. Only pockets of remnants of people who their profession matches their possession. Why? Because of this. You go to church, they don't even teach the Bible in most churches, and what you do get is telling you to love yourself and esteem yourself, and it's wicked. Paul said this in 1 Corinthians 15, 30 and 31, and why stand we in jeopardy every hour? I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord. I die daily. Well then, that means you're not loving self and the self-esteeming self. You are dying to self. Dying daily. Do you see that? That that's the opposite of Christianity? And so, I encourage you, first of all, if you have some of that crap in your head, get it out. And if you know people who are constantly saying, well, the reason cousin Fred is hooked on drugs because he lacks self-esteem. No, he lacks Jesus. He lacks God-esteem. He lacks fear of God, the holy God who is going to judge him for his sin. His problem isn't lack of self-esteem. But you preach that most places, they will yell at you, spit at you, laugh at you, whatever, but they won't listen. And that's why we are where we are. This is the biblical basis for the phrase you hear, die to self. Take, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself. That means die to self. And that's why verse 23 closes there and says, and take up his cross daily and follow me. What did they do to Jesus with his cross? They killed him. What are you supposed to do? Take up your cross and kill the old man. Die to the flesh. What's that? Mortify the deeds of the flesh, yeah. So the question is, you say, what is your cross? Your cross is anything that stands before you and the Lord. Anything that's keeping you from serving the Lord. I know a guy that took a sledgehammer to his TV. Now, I'm not going to do that. Jenny is my witness. We use our TV for good. We watch a lot of Bible and documentaries and science programs. We had the kids over yesterday, Buddy Davis singing to us from Answers in Genesis. He's got some great songs and other little videos and things. It was talking about the wonders of God's creation, how fascinating is all that. That's what you do with your TV. But you know what? If that TV's got a hold of you and instead of you having a hold of it, take a sledgehammer to it. The question is not to preach against TV, it's to preach that you need to die to self and if something is keeping you from doing what you need to do for God, get rid of it. That includes some of your friends and family. Now, it doesn't mean kill them, by the way. But it does mean that you need to cut the cord. I know some women who have some very bad friends who are bad influences. I know some men who got into the bars drinking internet hookups and all that because they wouldn't cut the cord to those friends who drug them down. I don't care what it is. It doesn't matter what it is. If it's keeping you from the Lord, find a way to get it out of your life. Standing for biblical truth and the gospel, and it costs you. That's your cross. Now, that plays out in everybody's life differently, but that's the bottom line. Standing for biblical truth and the gospel, and it costs you. Listen, I talk about things like the political things and all that. I have never shunned anybody because they didn't vote the way I thought they should or anything, but they do that to you. And I can look at anybody you could bring in front of me, I have never shunned anybody and told them they're not allowed to come around me, but I won't let them come in my house and my church and preach wickedness. And I'll ask them to leave, they start that. But I'll never even tell them not to come back. I'll tell them they need to repent and come back. But whenever you do stupid or sinful things, don't call that my cross to bear. That's another problem. A lot of people, they are self-inflicting wounds. Oh, but it's my cross to bear. Who? Rasputin. Rasputin? Yeah. You can see Charlie afterwards if you want to update on that. But I know most of you don't know who that is. But he did that. Charlie would be glad to explain it to you. Wouldn't that be what Paul says of piercing themselves with many griefs? Yeah. That's right. Yeah, there's a number of examples, you know, Esau, Esau's a good example, Absalom, Solomon, Rehoboam, Hezekiah, they did stupid things and a lot of times they would try to kind of blame it on God or something. So denial of yourself is not only commanded of us, but it is also reasonable. I want to close over in Romans 12, where we were in Sunday school. I urge you to, if you can't get up early enough to come to Sunday school, watch the live stream when it's reposted, and then set your clock an hour early next week. But these studies we're going through Romans are very important, and John taught this this morning, Romans 12.1. If you're there, we'll give you just a second to get there, Romans 12.1. Very important. And what do we mean? This sums it up. What do we mean by denying self? It's right here. Romans 12.1. I won't be mean, but there's this old preacher I used to love to go hear him preach, local, years ago. And he'd tell people to turn someplace, and he'd start all that dust flying off those Bibles. Just kidding. Romans 12, one, read it with me. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. We're not gonna take the time to go through this verse line upon line because he did it this morning. Go watch it, it'll be online. Sunday School or Romans Open Bible Studies. But John Wesley said this, the spirit of love that dwelleth in all believers lusteth against envy is directly opposite to all those unloving tempers which necessarily flow from the friendship of the world. And we'll pick up there next week, but it is, not only are you not really seeing Jesus for who He is, but there's also this, remember what Jesus said? Remember Lot's wife. It's a love for the world, the big problem. To Jesus I surrender all, to Him I freely give. I will ever love and trust Him, in His presence daily live. I surrender all. All to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all. ♪ All to Jesus I surrender ♪ ♪ Humbly at his feet I bow ♪ ♪ Worldly pleasures all forsaken ♪ ♪ Take me Jesus, take me now ♪ ♪ I surrender all to Jesus ♪