Your love took me and my wife last Sunday morning as we were preparing for church about six o'clock in the morning or so. I had an attack of AFib where my heart was racing very rapidly. And the rhythm and balance of my heart was way out of whack. And it's a very dangerous illness And I had been having problems for two or three weeks leading up to Sunday with AFib and every day and was getting worse and worse. But Sunday morning I woke up and it got dangerously close to having a heart attack. And so an ambulance was called. They took me to the ER and they had to shock my heart back into rhythm. And they gave me some new medication to help that rhythm. The medication I had previously wasn't doing it. So I've been doing really well since then, this last week. And God has stabilized that problem so far. And I, again, wanna thank you for your prayers for me because God answered them. And here I am by his grace. And so this is the eighth second chance God has given me in about seven or eight years to be with you and my family. And truly, God keeps bringing about certain health crises in my life to not let me forget each day is a gift from God. We ought never to take it for granted. None of us are beyond. having an immediate life-threatening health issue, no matter how old we are or young we are, that could lead to death. And so what a blessing it is to have this reminder because we forget so easily. It's also a blessing to see our sister, Giselle, back from her trip. We'll continue to pray for you, sister. that God will comfort you and your family. And so, with that in mind, let's turn in our Bibles as we continue our series of studies in the gospel of John chapter five, our last message on this very important text, verses 16 through 23. John chapter five, I'll be reading verses 16 through 23. For this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus and sought to kill Him, because He had done these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, My Father has been working until now, and I have been working. Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was his father, making himself equal with God. Then Jesus answered and said to them, most assuredly I say to you, the son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the father do. For whatever he does, the son also does in like manner. For the father loves the son. and shows him all things that he himself does. And he will show him greater works than these that you may marvel. For as the father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the son gives life to whom he will. For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son, that all should honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Let's pray. Lord, we know that we dare not lightly approach your word in any way, whether from the perspective of the preacher or the hearer. And we know your word is extremely important and valuable and precious to each of us. And you've taught us that you've selected and ordained your word to be a means of filling and building up your kingdom. as it is applied to the lives of the hearers and produces fruit. Therefore, give us ears to hear today what you're saying through your word. Help us to honor your word by not only paying attention and staying awake, but through your spirit, so help us, Lord, to hear what you are saying to this thy church. If anyone's not saved in this room or watching and listening around the world on social media, well, I pray you would use your word to break through to them and save their never dying souls. Give them an awareness that each of us are on the precipice of eternity at any given moment. and we could leave this world. Help us to value your word by not only paying close attention, but by using your word, Lord, to prompt a worshipful response. For this is our prayer, in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Churches throughout the world are filled with masses of people, but tragically and sadly, most of them are enemies of God. They may be religious, they may be church members, they may attend faithfully, but in the place where it really counts, there is such a level, a chasm of emptiness that in fulfilling the purpose and the essence of Christianity, there is nothing there in them. All they have is organized religion, and surface a surface relationship with that religion. The worst enemies of the kingdom of God are religious professing Christians. I know that's a strong statement. But no one can read Matthew one one through Revelation 22 18 with spiritual eyes and ears without seeing that the greatest persecutors of Christ and the church and the apostles and the disciples and followers of Christ down through the last 2000 years of church history has always been the organized unconverted, outward church. There are two different churches we're talking about here. There's the nominal, formal, organized church filled mostly with unsafe people. And then there's the true church of Christ, converted, spirit-filled, and kept and sealed by God. whose main focus is on the spiritual kingdom. These are the ones that know God himself, that have a day-by-day relationship with him. Though they are not perfect and struggle with sin, yet in their heart of hearts, there is a witness in them of the knowledge of God. That's the true church. And there's always been this battle between these two entities, not only over the last 2000 years, but go back to when there was only four people on the earth, Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel. We see that the greatest issue between Cain and his brother Abel was on this very matter. Cain murdered his brother because of jealousy. God accepted Abel's worship and he rejected Cain's worship. Why? Because they represented two different kingdoms, two different focuses. One had a spiritual focus, one had a religious focus. They were both religious. They both professed to know God and be worshipers of God. Cain had his offerings to God. It's not that he wasn't religious, but his offering was rejected because he did not know God. That's what this passage really is all about. If you lift up the rug on this text, verses 16 through 23, to look at what's really going on, to look at what's going on in the furnace. That's the issue here, the enemy within. And when we talk about the enemy within the church, it's a very big issue that most pastors and most church members are either oblivious to, are not aware of, and do not address in their teaching and preaching. But you can't study the scripture. You can't go verse by verse expository through a book in the Bible without being confronted with this dualistic, this twofold issue in the battle within the church. So let's look at some of the causes and effects of these church wars in the message. If you follow Christ's ministry, everywhere He went, there were those who embraced Him and believed in Him, but there were those who persecuted Him. Almost everyone that persecuted Him was religious. Jesus pretty much did not go anywhere else. He stayed within Palestine, He stayed within Israel, so everywhere He went, he was ministering to religious people. He had a conversation with a Roman centurion, maybe one or two others who were not Jewish by blood, but his ministry was primarily with religious Jews. And so he, who his truth himself made it a point to uncover the spiritual root and heart of what is taking place and what the greatest need is wherever he went. He went right to the heart of the matter regarding the spiritual need of all people. He did not deal with surface superficial matters and pleasantries. He wasn't a politician and didn't flatter people in his teaching and preaching. For example, with Nicodemus, Nicodemus flattered Jesus, we know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no one can do these miracles that you do unless God was with him. Immediate response was Nicodemus, unless a man is born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. He went right to the heart of the issue. If we are saved, if we're a true worshiper, and a true believer, we have the Spirit of God. We must be born again and we must receive the Spirit of God in regeneration and in sanctification. And so wherever Jesus went, he went right to the root of the matter concerning the spiritual problem and the spiritual need. And he provided the answers and the solutions and the knowledge that we need to correct those problems to going beyond just being merely religious. Thank God for that. If you really don't know the Lord and you're a church member, and you've devoted yourself, dedicated your life to some degree to Christ, maybe even been changed a little bit, but you're still not converted, you are wasting your time trying to worship God and serve him. And you will end up being an enemy of God in ways that you're not even aware of, and that you cannot even help. You'll find yourself on the wrong side of the spiritual tracks, so to speak, when you didn't necessarily plan it. Because very often, a religious unconverted person will find themselves in a situation where they're required to spontaneously reveal the true person that they are. And they'll be challenged as to what their spiritual values are. They'll be forced to reach down deeply into their heart and mind. when they are unexpectedly challenged concerning the reality or lack of reality of their faith. And they'll give the wrong response. Very often they'll persecute the person who has unexpectedly made them aware of a spiritual truth or a doctrine that they haven't considered. And so notice how Jesus was persecuted everywhere he went. 99% of the time it was a religious person. Look at the Apostle Paul. He was persecuted pretty much everywhere he went by Jews. Five times he received 40 stripes minus one, mostly by the Pharisees and the soldiers, the Jewish soldiers. Why? Because Jesus and the apostles and a true believer is going to challenge the organized religious establishment and their leaders, which just float on the surface of religion and never go down deep to address the weightier matters of the law, the spiritual the spiritual essence of the law. Well, that brings me to our first point, the war between two natures. Look at verse 16a. For this reason, the Jews persecuted Jesus and sought to kill him. You talk about a contradiction. Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords, the creator of the universe, the one who received unending eternal praise and glory from angels before his incarnation. Angel's voices did not grow hoarse from worshiping and adoring and singing his praises from all eternity past. They had a couple of extra wings given to them by God to shade themselves from the glory which emanated from the Lamb of God on his throne from all eternity past. The angels themselves who had never sinned, the ones that never sinned, were deeply affected by the majesty of Christ as it shone forth and reached every end of heaven. They were deeply affected and moved by who Jesus is in his deity, in his glory. But these Pharisees did not hesitate. On the contrary, to persecute and try to kill Jesus. Can you imagine the sheer insanity of such a thing? And that they will give an account someday of persecuting Jesus? How blind can a person get where they can't see the tree for the forest, they can't see that this man who did all these miracles, not only is there something different about him, but that nobody can do these things unless he is God himself. And so when we look at this text of scripture, you really must look beneath the surface to understand what's really going on here. How is it possible that there are two very religious groups of people, Jesus and his disciples on the one hand, and the Jewish Pharisees on the other? Both groups professing to believe in the same God, subscribing to the same beliefs, and have grown up in the same religious community, observing the same religious traditions and customs and the law of Moses, but become enemies with one another. How can that happen? What brought about this great division between these two religious groups? Reason and logic cannot answer this question. To understand this contradiction, we must understand what's happening here beneath the surface. Most people, when they read the Bible, they just do a superficial reading. And what they don't understand, they skip over. And that's the way the Pharisees approached their study of scripture. Most of what they read and studied, they did not understand the spiritual nature of the law. Most of the scripture points to something else, a deeper principle. But here's the answer why this contradiction can take place. Like I said, religiously, both groups have much in common. But inwardly, They are opposites. And that's what church and churchianity and Christianity and the Christian religion is all about. It is a pure, a total and complete religion of the heart. And if you don't have that, you don't have Christianity. you don't have Christ, you are not a Christian. I don't care how impressive your Christian religious resume is, you are not a Christian if you don't have the inward life of your world consumed and focused on Christ and knowing him, regardless of your weaknesses and your ups and downs. You have this dominating mindset that unless your inward man is in sync and alignment morally, ethically, and conscious wise with God, you are not right with the Lord at that moment. And this canker worm will eat away at your conscience until you repent of whatever has gotten you out of whack with God And if you're a true believer, this has happened innumerable, even countless times to you, where conscience has made you aware of where your inner world was in your relationship with God, whether it was one with the Lord or you're temporarily out of alignment with his perfect will. This is what Jesus continued to do everywhere he went in his teaching and preaching. darkness swallowed up the religious world in Jesus' day. Preaching in the synagogues was all about reading the law of Moses. And then one of the men of the congregation would stand up and they would comment on the scriptures. And most of the time, except in a very rare occasion, the truth was not preached. the message of the coming Messiah and His kingdom and faith in Him. And that forward focus the Jewish people should be having with great expectation, even at the present moment when they heard the word taught, should be on the Messiah and on Christ, He who was to come. But they never talked about the Messiah. I remember a few years ago, I asked a rabbi chaplain at the VA hospital out to lunch. After I was a patient in the hospital, the rabbi saw my last name. He thought, oh, here's a Jew, I'll go visit him. So before my discharge from the hospital, he came up and visited me. Hi, I'm Rabbi, what was his name? Fishman, Rabbi Fishman, thank you. He sat on my bed, or he stood there. I think my wife was there, two of my sons. So I'm ready to be discharged. He said, I'm Rabbi Fishman, better come by and pray with you. And he had his yarmulke on. Oh, hi, Rabbi. So I said, Rabbi, I'm not Jewish. First thing. I used to be, but not anymore. Oh, what happened? Oh, when I was in the military, I became a Christian. and I'm a pastor. Really? How did that happen? So I took, because I didn't know if the nurse was going to come at any moment and discharge me. So I said, well, let me give you my five minute testimony. And I shared my testimony and a little bit of the gospel with him. I said, Rabbi, I don't have a whole lot of time because I'm getting ready to be discharged. Would you like to get together for some coffee? I'd love that. So a couple of weeks later, I called him. I drove over there. We went to the cafeteria at the VA hospital in Palo Alto. And we had a two-hour conversation. And I said to him, Rabbi, what Jewish seminary did you graduate from when you became a rabbi? He says, oh, the one in LA. I know of that seminary. It's a very highly regarded one. And I said, Rabbi, out of all of the courses you were required to take, Did they have any courses on messianic theology, which would teach about who the Messiah is and the coming of the Messiah from a Jewish perspective? He said, no. I said, really? I said, the coming of the Messiah is the very heart and highest expectation of the Jewish religion. And you didn't have one course? on the theology of the coming Messiah, where he will be born, how he will live, what his purpose is, how he will help the Jewish people. Those questions were not addressed. No. I said, how long did you go to seminary? Four years. I said, okay, let me rephrase the question. In any one of your courses, Was there even a passing reference made to the Messiah? He said, no. I said, the Messiah is the heart of the Jewish religion, the coming of the Messiah. Everything is moving in that direction and is going to culminate with his coming to, at least from a Jewish perspective anyway, destroy the enemies of the Jews and set up an earthly kingdom. But the Jews are once again sacrificing in the temple. He'll rebuild the temple. Now we know that perspective is skewed and wrong because as Christians, we know that it's not correct. It's only the beginning of the teaching of the Messiah. I left the hospital that day with tears in my eyes, shaking my head. I said, yep, the veil is still over their eyes in Moses, but the veil is taken away and removed in Christ. And so when we look back at John chapter five, verses 16 through 23, we see the veil is heavily over the eyes of these rabbis. And the real spiritual issues involved are going on underneath the surface of their conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees. And within the New Testament, if you are a reader of the Bible, you will have observed that there are many conversations between Jesus and the Pharisees in our Lord's travels, in his teaching ministry, The Pharisees would always step up and challenge Christ. Why are you doing this? Who are you making yourself out to be? Many, many of these conversations. And all of those conversations lead you back to several underlying problems that the Pharisees have in understanding and appreciating Jesus' ministry and his teaching. Religiously, like I said, these two groups have much in common, but inwardly they are opposites. Inwardly, the Pharisees do not have the inner structure and the capacity to understand Jesus and his ministry. And they ended up becoming his enemy. And so the greatest enemy in the church The greatest enemy of the church is an enemy within the church, and that enemy is an unconverted religious church member. So many churches are split and destroyed, their lampstand put out because you have a carnal, fleshly, unconverted church member who will not stop slandering and gossiping against the brethren, planting and sowing seeds of discord. Having gone unchecked will bring down a church. There'll be infighting, there'll be misunderstanding. And unless there is a spiritually mature base of members and godly leadership who know how to handle conflicts in the church, the church will explode and be no more. And so these people are folks who have a carnal nature. When push comes to shove, when you push these people to give a response of spirituality, to give something that they don't have, a heart for Christ, conversation and fellowship that will be evident that they know the Lord. They don't have those things. And so they respond. There is a response from them when they are challenged spiritually. But their response is confusion. Their response is ignorance. Their response is misunderstanding. Their response is judging those. and unfairly attacking them, who challenge them, not to provoke them, but to get some kind of spiritual feedback from them and fellowship from them. They will attack them. And all they have is a focus, and it's so sad to observe it, a focus on outward activities. It's difficult enough for pastors to have people be faithful laborers in the church, just be reasonably faithful, which is their reasonable service. So if we can get as elders, people to be very active and faithful, and participate in the church's spiritual activities or religious activities. That's one thing. But even if unconverted church members participate in these activities, that's all they have is physical participation. Now it's not to say that these folks don't work really hard really hard at justifying their salvation because they have consciences, unsaved church people, unsaved church goers. They have a basic understanding of what it means to be a Christian, but they're still not saved. And they avoid stepping into that room. They avoid stepping into a place where their level of participation requires them to give spiritual feedback and response and worship and love and a heart for Christ. And so they will shift their focus from that since they don't have the capacity to respond to that and to participate in that level of spiritual life. And everything they do will be law-focused, doing something or not doing something. And so they seek to justify being saved in their own eyes by partially keeping external laws. And their conscience will wrongly affirm that they're saved because they go to church, they do this, they do that. You see, they're in a constant state of misery. They're spiritually bankrupt, bankrupt because they have no witness of the spirit in them. And they go through this mental gymnastic. Where they're always in denial, they know they're not saved, but they're in denial and they seek ways to justify that maybe they are. And so the Bible describes these two religious realms. These two realms are evident here in this conversation. Jesus gives a response, he teaches them, he explains things to them. They either interpret what he's saying always on a physical level instead of a spiritual understanding and comprehending that teaching. or in confusion and in anger, they misunderstand what he's saying, they misinterpret what he's saying, or they persecute him. But the Bible teaches that the kingdom of God as a participant and member of the kingdom is a spiritual kingdom. And those who worship him, those who participate in this kingdom, must worship and participate in spirit and in truth. Your spirit must be engaged. Your heart must be engaged. Your love, your joy, your affection, must be engaged, it must be proactive, it must be positive, it must go out to God. Because someone who's truly in love with God cannot repress or suppress these spiritual feelings of affection, love, praise, and joy to God for what God has done in them. It's you cannot deny if you're a true believer what God has done in you and you cannot push those feelings down. The greatness of his love in redemption and in sacrifice to his son and his death on the cross is so great. The true believer cannot help but go out to God in the way of his heart with praise and thanks spontaneously. And so it's a spiritual kingdom. Turn to Luke 17, Luke chapter 17, verse 20 and 21. Luke 17, verse 20. Now, when he was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them and said, the kingdom of God does not come with observation, nor will they say, see here or see there for the kingdom of God is within you. In one of the most clearly delineated comparisons between the two kingdoms, Jesus says the kingdom of God is not an outward organized kingdom. No one's going to come and say, well, there's the right church or there's the right kingdom and point to some outward organizational external edifice or organization. Because the entirety of the kingdom of God takes place in a very small place. Your heart and mind and my heart. The Spirit of God being in there, He brings the kingdom inside of us, makes us aware of it, bears witness to us of it, and gives us life, understanding, and capability to be active in the kingdom and have a vertical relationship with God. Are you hearing me? This should stir you up because the whole world virtually, the whole religious world, the whole Christian world, almost does not understand this. And it should burden you if you do understand it, and if you are truly converted, that most of what you encounter of Christianity is not Christianity, true Christianity. For we learn in Romans 2, turn over to Romans 2, And verse 28, Romans 2.28, Romans 2.28, for he is not a Jew, the word Jew here is representative of child of God, who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh, But he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not from men, but from God. And so to summarize, the Lord teaches that the kingdom of God does not consist of mere words. It's not in the letter only. Many groups which profess to be Christian, like the Pharisees here in John 5, the closest their religion got to the kingdom is it was in words and letters, even as described and taught by them in scripture. But a critical, indispensable element must be joined with the scriptures to make the kingdom real. When that word is applied to a person, that person is regenerated. It says, he who is a Jew, who is not one, I'm sorry. He says, circumcision is of the heart, notice. in the Spirit, not in the letter. You say, well, is the Lord disparaging the Word of God, the letter of the Word? The kingdom is not in the letter. Is he putting down the letter? No. What he's saying is, if that's all you have is the letter of the law, you're no better than a Pharisee. The kingdom of God is within you and the Holy Spirit brings the kingdom in you through the means and instrumentality of illuminating and enlivening and empowering the Word of God that we hear. If he does not do that, the letter of the law is a dead letter. It means nothing to us. It goes in one ear and out the other. Just like before your conversion, when you came into contact with the word of God, it did not change you. It meant nothing to you or very little until the spirit of God came and applied that word in a living, powerful way to you. And that's what opened up the kingdom to a place that you never knew before, your heart and your mind and your spirit. The kingdom was brought in by the spirit. And so you were able to love Jesus for the first time in your life. I'll never forget the tears that rolled down my cheeks at 20 years old, June 1976, a Jew seeking to attend rabbinical school, Yeshiva University in New York City, upon my discharge. A Jew who persecuted Christians in the military, a Jew who made fun of believers and hated them with a passion, especially the Bible-carrying kind, who saw Jesus on a cross as an opportunity to mock this impotent God. Suddenly, the kingdom was brought into me. And Jesus was transformed. And I loved him and I praised him. And he gave me of his spirit and his peace and his joy and his love. And I knew my sins were forgiven. And all the sorrow and regret and repentance I had for rejecting him. The hours I spent mourning over the persecution of marine, fellow marine believers that I was involved in. And that's what Paul says in the same book of Romans a few chapters later in Chapter 14. We're already in Chapter 2. Turn over to Chapter 14 and verse 17. He says, For the kingdom of God is not in eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. And Paul reminds these Roman believers and all believers in chapter 14, when he goes through a description of Christian liberty in chapter 14, he's saying if you believers are insisting upon your special things and special days and special meals and foods and if you drink wine or if you drink alcohol and you don't care about the circumstances in which you engage these things and use these things of liberty in front of other believers, you're missing the whole point of the kingdom. He says, look, the kingdom of God is not about a physical participation of eating and drinking and even taking advantage of things you have the liberty to do, because that is going outside the spirituality of the law. That is going outside of the heart of the law. The law says, In other words, if what you do in the form of liberty, whether it's drinking wine or some other form that you're allowed to do in front of other believers that causes them to stumble, the switch from your inward focus to outward focus betrays your selfishness and your narcissism because you're so concerned about your liberty. that you're not edifying others, you're hurting them. And everything the Bible says, let all things be done unto edification and for the good of other people. And that would fulfill the law. Love your neighbor as yourself. And then he reminds them, bringing them back to the correct focus, the inward focus. But the kingdom of God is not about external things, eating and drinking, for your own pleasure and liberty, if it's going to violate the heart of the law. But the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Those things. or experience inwardly the righteousness of God, peace, and joy in the Spirit. In 1 Peter 2, verses 5 and 6, We read you also as living stones are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Therefore, it is also contained in Scripture. Notice the word spiritual is mentioned three times in verses 5 and 6 of 1 Peter 2. We are living stones. That's a contradiction in terms. How is a stone alive? What he's saying is in yourself, you have no strength or power or life. You're like a stone in yourself. Remember, Jesus said, without me, you can do nothing. Without him, we're like a stone. We have no life to do anything, no power. But when we are converted and regenerated, God brings life into these stones, raises us from the dead. We become a new person in Christ. And he continually renews this tendency to spiritual deadness by his spirit. We're living stones. And what do we do? Since our whole focus is inwardly, that is to worship God in the Spirit, we're being built up communally, corporately, in that mysterious body called the church, a spiritual house. The word holy is used to describe this spiritual priesthood of which all of us are priests, and we are described as holy. Our lifestyle, in other words, is empowered such that we're able to live a holy life based on the renewing grace and life of Christ in us. And what do we do? as a holy priest. We offer up spiritual sacrifices. We come to church, our hearts are prepared, the hymns are played, we begin to sing, and our hearts begin to go out. So we meditate on the lyrics. Music is fine, musical accompaniment is important, but the lyrics remind us having the inner man cleansed and having blockages and hindrances removed out of the way, the Spirit of God is able to bring us into that heavenly sanctuary where everything that would obstruct true worship is moved and we're able to respond in the Spirit with a spiritual sacrifice of praise, and thanks and adoration to Christ as those lyrics that we sing remind us. And the theology of those lyrics remind us of the glorious doctrines of the cross, regeneration, justification, sanctification, propitiation, reconciliation, and many more that Jesus purchased for us in our dead stone-like We are now made alive and we can bear witness that it is true. He has saved us and our hearts are reminded with fresh appreciation what Jesus has done for us. I hope some of you tasted something of that this morning during the communion service. And when we hear the preaching of the word of God, our hearts are so ready to have the word of God come in and run swiftly to the deepest recesses and outlying areas of my inner man and bring glory to Christ. That's what spiritual preparation does. It prepares you to offer up spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable. And whatever sacrifice we may be offering, if it's not a spiritual sacrifice done with clean hands and a pure heart and a righteous conscience, it is rejected by God. Don't we understand this? And this is what got God angry against the Jews. They came in to the temple and the synagogues and the whole focus was on the outward man. They're flowing religious robes with the gold trim and the purple velvet that were sewn by expert seamstresses, And they had their hats, their turbans, they had their silk undergarments. They were beautiful on the outside. But Jesus saw through all of that and He said, you are whited sepulchers. Beautiful on the outside. Go to a cemetery. See these rich people who have passed away. And they built for themselves these mausoleums and these sepulchres made out of white marble with angels on top looking to heaven. But what's inside that sepulchre? Death. So when we come to church, we tremble. who should tremble on the one hand of offering up a sacrifice that is diluted by sleep. If you want to sleep, go home. God rejects worship that doesn't care enough about loving God and worshiping Him where you fall asleep. If you don't want to come on time, look past this 10 o'clock time that the elders have established. Look past the times. Do you go to work on time? Show up late for two days in a row, see what happens. We can't be on time to worship God. Does spiritual motivation drive us? Is that the underlying impetus? Or do we just walk in whenever we want to? I'm not seeking to make a big deal about that, because I know some people get offended. But look past the sting of the realization of our consciences being convicted. Look past that for a second. Look past the subjective for a second. And remember, how does God feel about a lackadaisical approach to worship. How does God feel about it? Now, there are exceptions to the rule. We all get sick. We all sometimes hit traffic. This is important. If we can't be fastidious and faithful in the little things, when it comes to our hearts being engaged and ready to go, when it counts, at the moment when the worship service starts and everything about the service is running after Christ. Everything about the service is seeking and striving to reach Him, to lay hold of Him. To be able to do that you need your minds and your spirits and your hearts fully engaged in doing that. You don't need your consciences convicted because you're late again or you're shallow again during the worship service. That should be dealt with before you come into the house of God. Let's not get caught up with all these secondary minor things. Let's overcome these hindrances and be disciplined Christians that honor God, not only in the big things, but in the little things as well, that count. It matters. It's important. I'd rather have a church of five or 10 people who really care about respecting God enough. to be there ready to worship God in spirit and in truth. We read in 1 Corinthians 2.5, and my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and power that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Our faith is rooted in the power of God. That power must be our armor and our strength, enabling us to worship with a heart that loves the Lord. We must tap into that power. We must engage God with that power constantly. For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. 1 Corinthians 4.20, the war between two natures. Which side are you on? We can't be half-hearted. We can't be lukewarm. We're worshipers of God, the true God, who has revealed Himself to us and has not left us to ourselves on a path of blindness, on the broad road to destruction. He came into our lives. sought us and drew us to Himself with cords of love. And He gave us the unspeakable, indefinable privilege of being a child of God, not only the privilege of knowing Him, our Creator, our Redeemer, the One who made us who we are, but also to serve Him and only dedicated servants Dedicated, consecrated, committed, servants of God, are used of God to bring forth spiritual fruit that glorifies Him. Number two, the war of doctrines. Verse 16b, John 5, verse 16b. Because He had done these things on the Sabbath, that's why they wanted to kill Him. and persecute him because he had done these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, my father has been working until now and I have been working. Therefore, the Jews sought all the more to kill him because he only broke the Sabbath. But also said not only because he only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was his father making himself equal with God. We have two different belief systems. manifested here in verses 16b through 18. We see, first of all, the intimacy here. Jesus said in response to their persecution and attempt to kill him, he told them the truth, which they could not handle. He said, my father has been working until now, and I have been working. He gave them an intimate glimpse of how the father and son work. The father created a plan of salvation. He gave Christ, Jesus, his son, a mission to accomplish that plan. And Jesus has been working hand in hand, the perfect partner with the father to accomplish and implement that plan. They have been working harmoniously and perfectly together, which reveals their spiritual intimacy, the Father and the Son, working perfectly together to accomplish God's will in the salvation of sinners. They could not handle Jesus depicting himself so close, so intimate, so one with the Father, They were blown away by the fact that he's saying he's God, but also that he knows God on a level of depth that nobody else does. There's perfect union and communion between the Father and the Son. My father's been working and I've been working with him. They had no capacity, no understanding, no discernment to understand what Jesus was saying to them when he was explaining in this little glimpse of the father-son relationship that he is so close to the father. He works perfectly with him to accomplish his plan. The father loves the son and the son loves the father. And they have never been out of sync and on different pages, so to speak. They love one another and they work closely together to accomplish the will of God. And the Jews were they didn't know what to do. Again, when someone doesn't have the capacity or comprehension to understand spiritual things, when their whole focus is on the outward man, and external religion, they don't know how to respond to spiritual concepts that come at them. And those who are participating in religions and denominations where most or all in those churches, in those denominations are unconverted, you're gonna have those spiritual true believers kicked out and persecuted, even killed. Just like the Pharisees did, these will do as well. today in our world. The Jews also could not handle what they perceive as Jesus breaking the Sabbath. Again, this goes back to a different doctrinal perspective on the part of the Pharisees. They didn't listen to Jesus. They didn't understand Jesus when he said, he is Lord of the Sabbath. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. In other words, Jesus was saying, one of the 10 commandments, honor the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. He was changing that. He was abrogating and modifying that commandment. Now, if there was any commandment in the entire law of Moses that was a sacred cow to the Jews, it was the Sabbath. There were many Sabbaths, not just the seventh day Sabbath from Friday night at six until Saturday night at six. But there were very many special Sabbaths. There was the Jubilee Sabbath every 50 years when all the possessions would go back to their original owner. There was a special Sabbath for that. There were three annual feasts. There were special Sabbaths for that. There were many special Sabbaths. And the Jews were so outward focused that, of course, they relished in the physical obeisance of a day, worshiping the day. And Jesus told them, you fools. The Sabbath was created for man. To give man a rest at least once every six days to rest your bodies. In the Law of Moses, certainly the accountability and responsibility of observing the Sabbath was much greater because there were many religious and ethical ordinances connected with the Sabbath as well. But it started out as a creation ordinance at the beginning where God gave a day, one day and seven to rest, a Sabbath rest, which pointed to Christ. And then within the law of Moses, when the law was given and all these other Sabbatarian ordinances and responsibilities were added, to that original day of rest, the Jews were much more accountable and culpable and responsible to obey those Sabbath ordinances. But, Jesus is saying, not anymore. I'm changing that whole Sabbatarian system. And the Jews couldn't handle it. They wanted to kill him. They didn't understand the spiritual purpose. You see, originally, in the Law of Moses, the Sabbath laws, hundreds of them, ultimately pointed to Christ. Hebrews 4 talks about Jesus Christ is our Sabbath rest. We rest in him. He gives us rest. He gives us peace with God. We no longer are his enemies. We don't have to run anymore. And unsaved people hear the gospel, told them, they hear Aren't you tired of running? Aren't you tired of trying to work your way to heaven? Aren't you tired of all this effort in trying to save yourself by your good works? Aren't you weary from it? Trust in Christ Jesus alone. He did all the work. He died on the cross. He took your sins upon him and only he and his sacrificial death is acceptable to God. We rest in him. We trust in him. He works on our behalf. They tried to kill him. He was changing the Sabbath to fulfill the Sabbath purpose for which it was originally given in the law of Moses, that pointed all of us to rest in Christ, give our all to Christ. He's done all the work. You trust him to provide what you need spiritually and in every other way, because we rest all of our needs, we rest our salvation on him. And also this idea of the deity of Christ. They could not conceive of a person, physical person, the God-man Jesus Christ, being God or equal with God. They did not have the capability, the conceptual capacity to understand that Jesus is God, that the Messiah would be fully God and fully man, the God-man, two natures in one person. And so this points us to the fact that unconverted people in the church are so deprived and so empty of a desire to learn doctrine, to learn truth as the primary means of growth and as the primary foundation of their Christian religion based on solid, firm, strong, clear doctrines. This would mean that their concept of God, their understanding of the nature of God and the being of God and how God works and how God's saved must be established on the teaching of God's word, sound teaching. This assumes you have to have qualified teachers. who are converted. This assumes that you have to have teachers who are able to communicate this truth. This assumes that you have to have teachers who have a deep understanding of the length and breadth and depth of the Word of God. This assumes that the Spirit of God must be working in the hearers in a way, whether it be instantly over a short period of time or over a long period of time, or expanding the knowledge of God through these doctrines that are taught in their minds and in their hearts. There's got to be sound, truthful, correct doctrine stored up, laid up in people's minds and hearts as the foundation to understanding who God is as the true and only God, the God of the Bible. versus all these other deceivers, false religions, cults, and everything else in this world that Satan tries to draw people to, to latch on to, deceive them for their whole lives, and then they die blind and ignorant, just like the day they were born. But first and foremost, our understanding of who God is before we can even know him must be established on some basic gospel truth that the Holy Spirit reveals to us that we were blind to previously. And that is why you have this problem, this church war going on between Jesus and his disciples and the Pharisees. There was false doctrine or no doctrine that the Pharisees were guided by. They had religion up to here. They were experts. I mean, nobody was better at formalized, dead, organizational, ritualistic religion than the Pharisees. They were better at formality than anybody else. They knew the customs. They knew the traditions. They knew the hand washings. They knew how to cleanse themselves, the ritual. ceremonial elements of the law, they were experts at. Why? Because when you don't have sound doctrine established in the heart and the Spirit of God constantly bringing you to God and renewing the knowledge of God in you. You have no recourse but to shift your focus on outward religion that is rooted in the ceremonial, in the ritualistic and an intellectual form of expression. They don't have any other basis. They have not the new nature, the new nature. They have not the spirit of God in them. Their affections are not made alive. They're dead in trespasses and sins, and they have no recourse but to respond with ceremony. But we see the reason they could not understand the deeper truths of God's word. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2, 13, these things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. Nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things. If the Pharisees were converted, they would have the spiritual ability to discern truth, to appreciate that truth, and to, at the moment, apply it to Christ. The Spirit of God would make them aware, as the Spirit made Peter aware. You are the Messiah, the son of God. And Jesus said to Peter, flesh and blood has not revealed this to you. But my father, the spirit revealed the truth that Jesus was the Messiah to Peter. Well, why didn't the spirit of God do that with the Pharisees? If he did, they would have recognized at the moment. That this man is the son of God, this man is the Messiah, this man is very God, a very God. And then as spiritual men, they would be able to rightly judge all things. They would have the ability to discern the root cause and reason for why Jesus did what he did and who Jesus was, and they would have the proper and right response, therefore, of worship and praise, like Peter did. For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. True believers are converted, they're illuminated, they're given wisdom, insight, knowledge to identify truth, to apply it the right way, to understand the source of that truth. But the Pharisees did not have that. They were religious, but they were not converted. And why do you think Jesus said to his church in Revelation 2 and Revelation 3, he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. If all you have is a written word, a dead letter, you can be a Pharisee and kill the very one that is seeking to give you truth. The Spirit of God pulled back and did not give them the revelation of who Christ was and the proper appropriate response to that through a new heart, converted heart. They could not hear, they were alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their hearts. You see, the Pharisees never understood the spirituality of the law. Jesus told them, my father himself sent me and has testified of me, but you have neither heard his voice at any time nor seen his form. Why? In John 5.38 he tells them, but you do not have his word abiding in you, because whom he sent, you do not believe. The word of God did not go deep enough, was not anointed by the spirit of God. And so the word, they heard the word, in their ears, but it didn't abide in them. The word abide is a synonym here for a deep rooted presence in them, providing understanding, providing clear discernment, and the proper interpretation. That word did not abide in them. He said they have a superficial relationship with the letter of the law, the word of God. He says, you search the scriptures, You're in the scriptures all the time. Jesus acknowledged that. He told the Pharisees, you search the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life. And these are they which testify of me. How sad it is. If the spirit is not at work, your path of seeking truth in many cases, will end up idolizing the very spiritual means that need to be empowered by God to bring about life in you, but you will not have that life. All you will have are the instruments. You'll have the scriptures. You'll have churchianity. You'll have churchgoers. You'll have people giving money. You'll have all these externals. You'll have all the ceremonies. even the scriptures itself, even prayer, even the most spiritual, holy forms of worship. We, the Pharisees, became experts at. They prayed flowery prayers in the street corners. They became experts at formal prayer. They had all the right words, all the religious jargon, all the terminology. They sounded so spiritual, they caused 95% of their hearers to believe they were holy men of God. But the true believer can see through all that superficiality. And we're told in the New Testament prophecies about the end times, that church leaders in the end times will be clouds without water. that will be a curse upon the church, who will be sensual not having the Spirit. They have the Word, they pray nice prayers, but they don't have the Spirit taking all of their ministrations, their activities of religious things, their preaching and teaching. They don't have the anointing of God to provide life through it. And so what do we say then about the Bible and about teaching and preaching the Bible? That's what Paul asked in Romans 7.7. What should we say then? Is the Bible sin? Is the law sin? What's the purpose of the Bible? He said, certainly not. I would have not known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law said, you shall not covet. The law has a purpose and the Spirit of God has the discretion and makes the decision when and where and how to apply the preach law to a person's mind, heart, and conscience where he will. Otherwise, the law falls on deaf ears. In Paul's case, recounting his own personal testimony, he said the law did do something spiritual. and revealed my sin and prepared me to come to Christ and to exercise faith in Christ. He says, I would have known sin without the law in this sense, in this way of God using the law. I would have not known certain things about myself because previous to that, he believed, Paul did, that he had kept the law. And he said, I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. Paul said, I was alive once. I thought I was saved. I thought I had kept the law. I thought I was doing well, but in his self-righteous belief, when the law was preached to him, there was a spiritual benefit. It revealed to him that he had not kept the law and that he was a sinner, because the law in comparison to his life showed him there were faults, there were cracks, there was a failure to keep the law. And the commandment, which was to bring life, That is, he felt, since he had kept the law, that's going to entitle him to heaven. I've kept the law, God. And so based on this false understanding of him keeping the law, he thought he was saved, it was to bring life, I found to bring death. When the law was really preached, he realized that this new measure, that is, You no longer have to physically break the law to be culpable and guilty of breaking the law. All one needs to do is break the law in their minds. Jesus said, you've heard what was said unto you, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder. But I say unto you, he who hates a person, he who looks on a woman on lust, murders, commits adultery. So Paul heard the law preached. In that way, and he died, self-died. His self-righteousness was swept out from under him. And he could no longer say, I have kept the law. It brought death to him. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me. His first understanding of the law deceived him. He thought since he had never murdered anyone physically, he had never committed adultery with anyone's wife, externally, physically, he kept the law. But he heard the law preached on this new level of accountability that Jesus instituted, and he realized, oh, in his mind, he had broken the law. And so there's nothing wrong with the law. Jesus elevated the standard now to a mental and a mental level. Therefore, the law is holy and the commandment good. And then he says, for we know the law is spiritual. The law is spiritual. In and of itself, it is spiritual. Commandments God gives, they're holy, they're good. He created them. They're good in and of themselves, or to keep them. And he says, I find that a law, that evil is present with neither one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God, according to the inward man. Let me just close with a description of Paul's understanding of the law compared to the Pharisees. He says in Romans 7, verse 22, that he delights in the law of God, according to the inward man. So he makes reference again to the inner man, the inward man here. Now the Pharisees, their understanding and relationship to the law was not based on being recipients of the spirit of God. Their understanding of the law was purely objective. Their duty was to search and study the scriptures and to teach the people the scriptures. But when it came to applying the law to themselves, they were hypocrites. They didn't do it. They had a double standard. They preached and taught the law, but they didn't apply it to themselves. And they didn't understand the spirituality of the law, that they were to keep it. Paul, upon his conversion, had a completely revolutionary renaissance in his understanding of the law. Because now that he had the Spirit of God, the nature of the law, keeping the law was a delight to him. The law finally engaged his heart. He saw the beauty in spirituality, the goodness of the law and God giving it to us. And the Spirit of God in him delighted to obey God and therefore delighted to keep it. and obedience to God. The Pharisees had no such thinking, no such approach to the scripture. They didn't see it that way. They saw scriptures as a duty to teach them to the people. But their whole focus shift from keeping and delighting in the spirituality of the law from their hearts to customs and traditions. Therefore, in 70 A.D., when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. And during the diaspora dispersion, when the Jews in 70 A.D. were carried away as slaves into the broader Mediterranean countries, and then after that, within 100 years, they were sold far away into Eastern Europe and into other European countries. It was really easy. for the Jews establishing in their communities in these foreign lands, synagogues that focused on building volumes of commentaries called the Talmud, called the Mishnah. Since they couldn't offer up the animal sacrifices anymore, and keep major portions of the political law, the five books of Moses, Pentateuch, since they were dispersed, there was no more any temple. And most of the laws were to be kept in the temple and in Palestine during the pilgrimages to Jerusalem for the annual feasts. They couldn't do those things anymore. They were slaves in foreign lands. Oh, it was so easy for them. for the rabbis in those lands overseeing those synagogues to write commentaries. And in those commentaries, the rabbis give excuses why they don't offer sacrifices anymore. We're slaves, we can't do it, we're not authorized, there needs to be a priest and so forth. And so there was this monumental seismic shift from the heart of the law in which God sent prophets to the Jews in the Old Testament, pleading with them, begging the Jews to keep the spirituality of the law, because that is what pleases God. When you love Him, when you praise Him, when you thank Him, when you seek Him for a deeper relationship, that's the spirituality of the law. But when the Jews went into captivity, after 70 AD, these unconverted people who didn't love God to begin with, who had no clue about the spirituality of the law, it was so easy for them to write these book of commentaries and shift their attention from the heart of the law as represented in the two greatest commandments as frequently taught in the Old Testament to focusing on commentaries and the Talmud and many religions in the world like Roman Catholicism. Their focus is on tradition It's all about tradition because the outward, external, religious flesh has nowhere else to go but to tradition and ceremony. And it is pathetic. It is tragic. It is so sad to see all these religious people And the Bible says, we who are converted judge all things. We can discern what they're doing and why they're saying what they say and acting the way they do. And they delight so much in the externals of Christianity. They invest so much energy and resources in the externals, in their buildings, in their books, in this, that, and the other thing, in their symbols, in their crosses, in their holy oil, in their holy cloths, in all of their stained glass and all of their structures. They invest everything in those things. God hates it. It's an abomination to him. And Satan delights over it. He uses it to the fullest possible extent. And that's why we need elders in churches and pastors to cry out, not just to teach very diplomatically about these things. The church needs to wake up because there's these two kingdoms at war with one another, at war with one another. And Paul, the apostle, prayed, he prayed and prayed for the believers, saying that he does not cease to pray and ask that you would be filled with the knowledge of His will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding. He prayed it, that's in Colossians 1. He prayed in Ephesians 1. After I heard of your faith, He does not cease to give thanks. And then He says that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding. being enlightened that you may know what is the hope of His calling and the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. And what is the exceeding greatness of His power towards us who believe according to the working of His mighty power. And so by application, which nature do you have? Are you intimidated or offended or uncomfortable when a spiritual focus gets too close to you? Do you run from it? or does your heart relish in it? Even if you're backslidden, the heart of a believer may feel guilty, may feel convicted, but says, yes, Lord, I need this. I need to come back to you. I need to return to you so that you would return to me. I need to repent. Yes, it's convicting me, but this is what I need. I need to hear this. And behind that conviction, I see a frowning providence, not as something wrongful for me, a loving God who is drawing you back to himself. Pastors need to ask themselves, if you have a lot of enemies in your church, what kind of church do you have? You need to be careful, pastor, that you don't get swept up with these carnal church members, lest you be found fighting against God. And so the cause and effect of the enemy within, the unconverted church members. And most spiritual battles are rooted in a lack of conversion upon religious people in the church. And there are so many lost people in the church. It's incredible because of an unsound theology of Arminianism. Teaching, basically, that man is God. Man has the free will, man has the power to do this, power to do that. We choose this, that, and the other thing. All you need to have, they say, is a mental assent to a certain body of truth in the Gospel. And if you have that mental assent and you pray this prayer with me, then you're saved. Nonsense! By their fruits you will know them. Is there any wonder why on Judgment Day there's going to be masses of people shocked, surprised, people who fell into this false teaching of Arminianism. Once saved, always saved, that is. Once I make my little decision, I can live any kind of lifestyle I want. Nonsense! Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. No one! Narrow is the way that leads to life, and few there be that find it. Most people, therefore, are going to hell. Broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many go in that way. And so the cause of most spiritual battles is rooted in a lack of conversion Unsaved churchgoers like you, my friend, if you're hearing me and God is convicting you of this, you need to be saved. Put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. He saves sinners. His name is Jesus. For He shall save His people from their sins. Cry to Him, pray to Him, but most of all, trust Him to save you and pluck you as a bran from the burning. But if you're a believer, if you've struggled in these areas, you need to be shaken and reminded that when you encounter unconverted Pharisees, unconverted church members, and you find yourself not able to handle the slightest little criticism, the slightest little rudeness, the slightest little offense, and you fall to pieces, and you stay out of church for two months until your emotions recover. Don't you understand after this message and by reading the New Testament that the enemy is in the church? Well, I got confronted six months ago by a church member who was having a bad day, and he wasn't very nice, or she wasn't very nice. Everywhere Jesus went, He was persecuted by religious Pharisees. And as a believer, since you and I have the Spirit of God, we're to love our enemies, even the enemies that are in the church. We're to forgive the slanderers, forgive the church criticizers, be patient with them, pray for them. Jesus said, pray for your enemies and grow up spiritually. We're in a war. We're in a battle. Soldiers must be resilient. They must be realistic. They must be disciplined and patient and persevering. because religious persecution is going to get worse. It's going to get worse as we get closer to the second coming. Read Revelation and see that just before Jesus comes, the entire church will be persecuted. The true church, not the pharisaical church that I've been describing. They will be happy. Their theology is changeable based on political situation. Put on the whole armor of God that you may withstand in the evil day. Trust in Christ, cling to him. Don't get discouraged by all this fluff and glitter, all of this merchandising and commercialism in the church, all this pragmatism, these false methods that most churches are using now, subscribing to the Bill Hybels and Rick Warren form of church growth, If the Spirit of God does not build a church, even if you only have a handful to start out with, then I don't want to build a church. I want God's church. I want Christ to be glorified. I want the fruit manifested by the Spirit of God. Because every single crown and reward and any other blessing and gift that you may get on judgment day from the Lord as a true believer is going to be cast right back at his feet anyway. You're going to say, I don't deserve this. You're the one that did all the work. You'll get all the glory, even if it gives you the reward back to you. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for giving us Jesus. We pray that we would not forget what we have heard, though it was very hard to hear in some cases and very long. Give your people grace to bear with the word of exhortation, because Lord, as you have taught us, I may contribute to them persevering to the end. Help us, Lord. Give us more love for Christ. Oh, Lord Jesus, our hearts go out to you. Forgive us of our sins. Forgive us of having a defective discernment, a defective understanding. Forgive us of judging anybody in the church. Forgive us of criticizing, gossiping against people in the church. Forgive us if we haven't handled persecution and fleshly church members or true brethren that have been having a bad day. We haven't handled the property properly in our response through love and patience. Forgive us, Lord. Help us to be a true church, a Christian church. In Jesus' name, amen.