Gradually, it's coming. I hope you'll be able to see that all right in the setting sun this evening. Before we begin, let's look to the Lord in prayer again. Our Father, we are grateful for the privilege that we have to come together to worship our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to sing his praises. Oh, Father, we come in a time when it seems that in many places, foundations are crumbling. And often in our hearts, we cry out, what shall the righteous do? But we thank Thee, our Father, that Christ has won the victory, that he is head over his church, that the gates of hell indeed will not prevail against it. But Father, we pray that as we live and walk in a world in which these things are happening around us, that you would give us discernment. We pray that we might be watchful. And we pray that we might understand what is required of us in order to be obedient to Christ and his word. We thank you for these things, Father. And the things that we're looking at this evening, Lord, give us no pleasure because we know they give you no pleasure. We know that many of the things that are happening around us and happening indeed in the visible church grieve your spirit. Oh, Father, may we be grieved as well. And may it be with that manner of heart that we would consider the things that are before us this evening. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. The things that we're going to be considering this evening are not pleasant, but they are real, they are happening. Dr. McKnight mentioned that I gave this presentation first at the American Council of Christian Churches Convention last October. And what I described to the people who were at the convention was that the PCA, the Presbyterian Church in America, is following a pattern, a tragic pattern that we find throughout church history. It's not new. And this was driven home to me just before I attended the convention last October on my way to Maine where the convention was. I took the opportunity to make a side trip to New Haven, Connecticut to Yale University Divinity School to do some research, to look at archives that are there of the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches that deal with some issues related to a book manuscript that I'm working on. And it was interesting to observe what was to be found there. Yale University, Yale Divinity School, had godly beginnings, as the PCA had godly beginnings. Yale Divinity School was founded by a group of men led by James Pierpont, who was Jonathan Edwards' father-in-law. And Jonathan Edwards himself was one of the early students. He was one of the early members of the faculty. Yale Divinity School had wonderful godly beginnings, but this is Yale Divinity School today. Perverted and militantly proud of it. So once again, why are we focusing on the Presbyterian Church in America this evening? We're focusing because of four disastrous developments that are taking place. that have taken hold of the denomination. First of all, today the PCA permits a false gospel of salvation commencing with water baptism and justification not by faith in Christ and in his blood at the last judgment, but by faith in our works. Permits that to be taught in its seminaries and preached with impunity in its churches. That is the situation today. Secondly, The PCA is presently on a path that will soon lead to the official ordination of women to the offices of deacon, ruling elder, and pastor, contrary to the word of God. And thirdly, the PCA is on a path that will lead to the official receiving of homosexuals into the membership of the church and their admission to the Lord's table and eventually to the offices of the church. And finally, The PCA is also presently embroiled in a controversy over the nature of the Trinity of all things. Now, what I'd like to do in this presentation this evening is to address the following questions about these things. What exactly is the nature of these four disastrous developments that have taken place? How did the PCA get into this kind of a condition? as it seems lies ahead for the PCA if this trajectory continues and what are the lessons for the church and for us here this evening. There's so much material on these matters that it's hard to condense it into a short presentation and in some cases I won't be able to cover nearly as much detail as I would wish to. but I hope that what I'm about to share will be helpful and edifying, will serve as a warning to us. This is not for sensation. This is so that we may understand what is happening and hear and fear. And let me also mention that in teaching the word ministries, at our office, we hear from at least one person every week within the PCA. someone emails us or writes to us or contacts us by phone, sometimes a pastor, sometimes an elder, but more often than not, an individual church member, telling us about some spiritually grievous situation in their local church or in their presbytery, as often as not revolving around one of the issues that I've just mentioned a moment ago. So over the years, we've had to study the situation in the PCA pretty extensively. One of the members of our advisory board is a man who was a minister in the PCA for many years before he left about a dozen years ago. And so he has been a very helpful source of information to us. What I'm presenting today comes out of work that we've done on behalf of others who we've always counseled to leave the PCA, to come out to be separate. And some heed that call and some do not. Many do not. But with that being said, let me move on to a brief discussion of the four disastrous developments that I mentioned a few moments ago. First of all, the first one that I mentioned is generally known as the federal vision heresy. In 2011 and 2012, The courts of the PCA tried three men who were charged with teaching what is called federal vision theology. What is that? Federal vision theology teaches that an individual is regenerated by water baptism. Teaches that an individual remains saved by keeping the law or keeping covenant, as they put it, and is ultimately justified at the last judgment by works. And there were three men. Greg Lawrence in the Siouxlands Presbytery in Minnesota, Peter Lightheart in the Pacific Northwest Presbytery, and Jeffrey Myers in the Missouri Presbytery. The first two cases were tried in September and October, or were concluded, I should say, in September and October of 2011. Jeffrey Myers' case was concluded in April 2012. He's the individual we see here dressed as a priest conducting a service in a PCA church. Let me take a few moments to focus on the teachings of Jeffrey Myers because his teachings are very typical of federal vision theology. They're very typical of what is spreading wide within the PCA. Jeffrey Myers denies the imputation of Christ's righteousness to sinners. He denies that Christ's righteousness is imputed in order for us to be saved. He says instead that we must have a righteousness of our own to stand before God. He responds favorably to a passage from a book by N.T. Wright, who is the apostate former Bishop of Durham in the Anglican Church. N.T. Wright wrote a book called What St. Paul Really Said, which isn't what St. Paul really said at all. And N.T. Wright gives this heretical deconstruction of the doctrine of justification by faith alone. He says this, and Jeffrey Myers agrees with him, that the gospel is not a description of how people get saved. It's not a description of the theological mechanism whereby in some people's language, X takes our sin and we his righteousness. In other people's language, Jesus becomes my personal savior. And in others' languages, again, I admit my sin, believe that he died for me, and commit my life to him. That's not the gospel, so says Jeffrey Myers in the PCA. Jeffrey Myers says this in response. He says, I suppose that this quote from N.T. Wright is supposed to be damning, Actually, it is quite in line with every gospel sermon recorded in the book of Acts. So wrong, so wrong. And Jeffrey Myers goes on, he says, the key is to understand what righteous means. It does not refer to moral purity or conformity to a legal standard. Righteousness in the Bible means covenant faithfulness, in other words, law keeping. A person is righteous when he does what the covenant requires of him, what the law requires of him. Beloved, what the law could not do, Jesus did. And Jeffrey Myers declares that the means of salvation is not the blood of Christ, but water baptism. He says this, the reason that baptism was offered immediately to Paul in Acts chapter nine is because the forgiveness of sins is attached to the action. When were Paul's sins forgiven, Jeffrey Myers asks? When he was converted, and notice that the word converted is in quotes. Federal vision theologians hate the word conversion. They do not believe that there is a moment when God makes a judicial forensic declaration that you are declared righteous. They don't believe that. And so they always use the term conversion in quotes. So Jeffrey Myers goes on, he says, when were Paul's sins forgiven? On the road to Damascus or in Damascus when Ananias poured water on his head in the name of the triune God? The text is pretty clear, normally God forgives sins and grants new life in baptism, water baptism. This is Romanism, plain and simple. Now despite the, oh there's more, I'm sorry, there's more. Jeffrey Myers again, baptized children are Christians. They're disciples. They belong to Jesus. They're members of his body, of his church. They don't grow up and become Christians in high school or college when they have a particularly powerful experience of God's love or grace. They can and should have these experiences as they mature, but for baptized Christian children, these experiences are not conversion. And there's the word in quotes again. Baptism seals to our children all the promises of God in Christ. They are forgiven, justified, adopted, et cetera, by means of their baptism into the church. The substitution of the water of baptism for the blood of Christ. What was the PCA's response to this? Well, despite these heretical assertions and many others, The ordained men of the Missouri Presbytery acquitted Jeffrey Myers of all five charges against him overwhelmingly in no case by a margin of less than 39 to 3. Only three men standing for the gospel. And the charges in the other two cases that I mentioned, the Lawrence and Lightheart cases, those two men were also acquitted by similar margins. And let me also mention that the lead prosecutor here, the man that is pictured here, Jason Stelman. He was the lead prosecutor in the case against Peter Lightheart. And at the time Peter Lightheart was being acquitted of heresy charges, Jason Stelman was leaving the PCA and joining the Roman Catholic Church. He's become a leading spokesman for the Vatican-sponsored organizations that are trying to persuade undiscerning evangelicals to come home to Rome. The picture here is of Jason Stelman being interviewed on the Roman Catholic cable network, AWTN. This will give you some idea of the kind of spiritual darkness and confusion that's taken hold in much of the PCA. Now, I wish I could say a lot more about this, but we need to move on to the second point. Certain segments in the PCA have had women in office for many years. This began when the PCA merged with the Reformed Presbyterian Church Evangelical Synod, the RPCES, back in 1982. The PCA started in the, excuse me, in the early 70s. But the RPCES joined PCA in 1982, they went through a process called joining and receiving. Now, some RPCES churches already had women as female deacons, ordained deacons within the church. And so they were permitted to keep them when they came into the PCA. This was one of the reasons, for example, that when 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia left the mainline PCUSA church, that they did not immediately join the PCA. They first joined the RPCES. James Montgomery Boyce led them into the RPCES. One of the main reasons was so they could keep their ordained female deacons. They could keep them in office. And 10th became a part of the PCA along with the rest of the RPCES in 1982. And these churches were quietly permitted to retain their female deacons even though the PCA Book of Church Order actually does not permit the ordination of women as deacons or to any other office. But it wasn't long before the practice of having female deacons serving not as assistants but in every way in every critical respect equal to men, that became more widespread. For example, in the PCA Presbytery of Philadelphia today, there are 26 churches in the presbytery, 24 of them have women as deacons. A number of presbyteries are also already commissioning female evangelists. In other words, they're commissioning women as ministers. And they use the word commissioning rather than ordaining, but the service in which that commissioning takes place looks just like the ordination service for a man, including the laying on of hands by the elders of the church. And there's now a study committee working within the PCA, it's due to report this year, I believe, this summer, which is taking this feminism much further. And the majority of the membership of the study committee is already publicly predisposed to support a feminist agenda. Now, let me give you two quotations regarding this from PCA men. One is from a man who is in favor of this, Dr. Michael Ross, who's pastor of Christ Covenant Church in the suburbs of Charlotte, North Carolina, Matthews. He said this at the last General Assembly. He said, we're asking the General Assembly to appoint a very diverse and well-qualified committee of men and women to study the issue of women's role in the church and their ministry and to touch upon with greater clarity for us what ordination is and how it is to be conducted. Not whether, but how. Dr. Joseph Piper, who is an opponent of this, president of Greenville Presbyterian Seminary, he said this, he said, this is an open-ended authorization to study the ordination of women, not just for the office of deacon, but also for the office of elder as well, both ruling elder and pastor. Now we know from the history of the mainline Presbyterian Church over the years that this is exactly where the PCA is also headed. And it starts with a study committee, but it ends up with women in authority in the church. So first we have heresy regarding the way of salvation. Secondly, we have a growing compromise with a feminist agenda. And then we come to a third element in the PCA's decline, and that is this. For a number of years, There's been a push to promote what's called a social justice agenda within the PCA. And of course, that's what is behind the push to ordain women. Dr. Timothy Keller has been one of the leading advocates of the social justice agenda within the PCA. And the fact is that there is ample evidence that Dr. Keller's agenda has its roots in radical Marxism. and in liberation theology. And time doesn't permit me, I wish I could say much. We could spend an hour on Dr. Keller, I'm sad to say. But one thing that I would suggest, if you have the opportunity to go to the Trinity Foundation website, trinityfoundation.org, You'll find an article there in one of the issues of their publication called The Trinity Review, an article called Workers of the Church Unite, The Radical Marxist Foundation of Tim Keller's Social Gospel, and it's well worth reading to understand where he's coming from, where his thinking comes from. The social justice theme is now being used to push a homosexual agenda within the PCA. We're hearing this from folks all the time. I've been told by multiple sources in the PCA that at least two PCA church sessions have established secret study committees that are trying to find a way to justify the admission of unrepentant homosexuals to the membership of the church and to allow them to partake of the Lord's table. And once you admit people who are in open sin as members. Once you admit them to the Lord's table, how can you realistically say no if people demand that they be given the opportunity to be officers of the church or to be ministers? The slippery slope is very real. A number of reliable people in the PCA have told me independently that PCA churches are already admitting non-homosexuals into their membership. They're simply keeping quiet about it for the time being. And the hope behind that is eventually there will be enough of a critical mass that can force the issue at the General Assembly level. And if the history of other denominations such as the mainline Presbyterian Church, the Reformed Church in America, the Christian Reformed Church, many others we could name, if the pattern is the same as it has been in the history of the church in the past, I believe that it will not be long before the PCA sets up a study committee to try to find ways to make official what is currently being done quietly and privately. There is also within the PCA a controversy that is raging, which we're hearing more and more about. The term that's used by many is the eternal submission controversy, but it's really a controversy about the nature of the Trinity, the nature of the Godhead. We have the same PCA that permits the preaching of a soul-damning false gospel, the same PCA that is violating clear scripture on the authority of women in the church, the same PCA that is promoting an agenda which is opening the doors to those who practice what is in the sight of God an abomination. The same PCA is now embroiled in a growing controversy over the doctrine of the Trinity. And I don't think that this should surprise us. It's a very natural development in any church that has gone as far into apostasy as the PCA has in these other areas. The controversy surrounds the teachings of Dr. Wayne Grudem on the doctrine of the Trinity. Now, Dr. Grudem is not in the PCA. He was formerly at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Indiana. More recently, he's been at Phoenix Seminary. He was one of the founders of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. He has strong charismatic leanings personally. And like many people with charismatic leanings, it seems to be a pattern that there is a lot of false teaching among them about the Trinity. And here's what we find. Dr. Grudem says this, he says, just as the Father, God the Father, has authority over the Son and the Trinity, so the husband has authority over the wife in marriage. The husband's role is parallel to God the Father, and the wife's role is parallel to that of God the Son. Moreover, just as the Father and Son are equal in deity and importance and personhood, so the husband and wife are equal in humanity and importance and personhood. A clever mixture of truth and error. And he goes on. And although it is not explicitly mentioned in scripture, the gift of children within marriage coming from both the father and the mother and subject to the authority of both father and mother is analogous to the relationship of the Holy Spirit to the father and son in the Trinity. Dear friends, let me just cut through this, it's heresy. It's heresy, why? In other words, what's being said here is, The role of the father in the Trinity is analogous to a husband. The role of the son is analogous to a wife. The role of the Holy Spirit is analogous to a child of the husband and wife. I almost hesitate to say the words because they're so blasphemous. If you take this teaching to its logical conclusion, it feminizes at least one person of the Godhead. But this teaching is now being openly debated and in many cases advocated within the PCA. We don't find the biblical model for marriage in the relationships of the Trinity. We find it, Ephesians chapter five, in the relationship between Christ and his church. That is the relationship. Satan, though, is clever. This is a controversy that has really deepened the spiritual confusion within the PCA and the way it's playing out is an example of just how clever the devil can be. What I mean by that is that we have a controversy that's creating spiritual confusion and the spiritual confusion is coming because you have many of those who are advocating this particular heresy about the Trinity who are also opponents of the other things that we've talked about. They're opponents of federal vision theology in some cases. They're opponents of the feminist agenda. They're opponents of the homosexual agenda, but they are advocates of this heresy. Men who are opposing this heresy about the Trinity, for example, like Dr. Mark Jones in Vancouver and Dr. Liam Goliger at 10th in Philadelphia, they've been on the wrong side of the federal vision issue in many respects. Dr. Jones more openly, Dr. Goliger more generally. But what we have, we have this quite ungodly spectacle. We have men in the PCA who are apostates or enablers of apostates on one hand, opposing one another on this fourth issue. And so the seeds of spiritual confusion are being sown thick and fast. Well, how did the PCA get here into this tragic state? And let me say before I go on that I've only touched on the four areas that we've mentioned here this evening are just four among many that we could name where there is this kind of spiritual corruption. The question that we must examine is how did the PCA get there? And let me put it a different way. Let me compare with the Mainline Presbyterian Church and its history. It took the Mainline Presbyterian Church about 140 years to get to this point. The Mainline Presbyterian Church was on a slower course. The PCA has gotten to this point in less than 40 years. How's that happened? Well, the story of the downgrade is the story largely of this, of theological liberals organizing politically behind the scenes to control the agenda. While on the other hand, theological conservatives have continuously been drawing meaningless lines in the sand. Let me explain what I mean. The PCA began in 1973 as somewhat of a a grassroots organization, a grassroots denomination, but in roughly the last dozen years, the liberalizing factions in the PCA have organized a number of groups called networks that in fact function as political action committees that have promoted an increasingly liberal theological agenda within the PCA. And perhaps more importantly, they have promoted changes in the way the PCA is governed. that has largely silenced the opposition of those who still hold to orthodoxy. Now, these networks or political action groups characterize themselves as confidential, which means very simply that they operate mostly in secret. Their meetings are secret. They're not open to the public. And today, any man who wants to hold a position of influence within the governing structures of the PCA must have the support of one of these political action groups. And they carry names like Reformed Communion, the National Partnership, the Redeemer Network, Original Vision, Gospel Reformation. There are a number of names. What does it amount to? It amounts to I am of Paul, I am of Cephas, I am of Apollos. The things that the Apostle Paul called the Corinthian church to account for in the early chapters of his first epistle, to put it in PCA terms today, we have people saying, I am of Tim Keller, I am of Ligon Duncan, I am of Joseph, I am of Joey Pipa, I am of Brian Chappell and on and on. Dear friends, there's only one person who ever has had the right to stand up and say, follow me, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. For many years, The men who claim to be theological conservatives in the PCA have been saying things like this. They've been saying over and over again, and I've heard it from many of them over the years, if the liberalizers cross this line, then we'll leave. But always, when that line is crossed, they simply, for the most part, step back, draw another line, cross this one, and we'll leave. And it goes on and on. mention what I mean by that. Well, what are some of those meaningless lines in the sand? Among the first of these lines in the sand was a debate over the doctrine of creation. In the 1990s, the conservatives said if the PCA ever allows any view other than literal six-day creation, we'll leave. But the PCA's liberalizers soon crossed that line. A PCA study committee produced a report in the year 2000, 28th General Assembly, and the report of that committee said that widely divergent teachings on the nature and the length of the days of creation were all acceptable, ranging from an ordinary literal day to an ambiguous literary figure to a day age comprising billions of years. And it actually said in its report that requiring conformity to the original language of scripture, it says what the framers of the Westminster Confession of Faith clearly understood, which was six literal days, requiring conformity to that, they said, would be, and I'm quoting, disturbing to the church, unquote. We can't disturb the church with that. So when the liberalizers crossed this first line in the sand, most of the PCAs self-described conservatives quietly retreated, they drew another line, and that line was over the issue of what was called confessional subscription, or what constitutes the vital doctrines of the Christian faith. But in 2003, the PCA's 31st General Assembly boldly obliterated that line by permitting each of its more than today 80 presbyteries to all decide individually what they consider to be the fundamentals of the system of doctrine when they examine theological candidates for the ministry. Now the wisest among the PCA's conservative voices saw that this action was really the death knell for the denomination. And subsequent events have proven them to be correct because less than 10 years after this, you had openly men like Timothy Keller and Bruce Waltke openly advocating theistic evolution. You had a man named Peter Enns saying that Adam is not an actual person, and you had federal visionists, too numerous to name, as well as men who want to hand over spiritual authority to those who are in a sin that God calls an abomination. But when this confessional subscription line was crossed, the PCAs Self-described conservatives quietly took another step back from that second line in the sand. They drew yet a third. That third line in the sand was over federal vision theology. If the PCA allows federal vision theology to be taught and sanctioned, we will leave. But that third line in the sand, as we saw very early this evening, was crossed boldly and blasphemously in 2011, 2012. the three presbyteries who acquitted the heretics and the general assembly of the church and its standing judicial commission not doing anything about it. Once again, the men who claimed to be on the side of the truth did not act. Most of them quietly stayed. And it appears If the pattern is the same and if it's the same as it's been in other denominations and other places, the pattern will be the same with lines in the sand drawing about the feminist agenda and the homosexual agenda. One of the leading voices who has repeatedly drawn lines in the sand is a pastor named Andrew Webb in Fayetteville, North Carolina. a very sincere man. He's the moderator of a group on the internet called the Warfield List. Some of you may be familiar with it. It's an online discussion group where a lot of the, I would say, drawing lines in the sand has taken place over the years. In the middle of last year, Pastor Webb issued a public call for a convocation of PCA elders. to consider the possibility of leaving the PCA and either forming a new body or affiliating with some other existing Presbyterian body. But Pastor Webb felt that it was necessary to have some of the leading so-called conservatives of the PCA, men who were actually taking a position of doctrinal indifference, have those men come and be featured speakers at this convocation. And a few weeks after his first announcement, Pastor Webb came back with an announcement that the proposed convocation had been canceled because every one of the leading PCA men that he had invited had refused to come. But he concluded by saying that in a few years' time, it may be necessary to leave the PCA. Once again, another line in the sand. If the PCA gives in further to the liberal social justice agenda, Dear friends, those who claim to be the guardians of orthodoxy in the PCA have forgotten that true believers in Christ are in a war with ungodliness. We're not in a dialogue. We're not in a debate. We're not in a collegial fraternity. Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, back in the 1960s, was dealing with the same kinds of issues in England, and he said this to a convocation of ministers. He said, to regard a church or a council of churches as a form in which fundamental matters can be debated and discussed or as an opportunity for witness bearing is sheer confusion and muddled thinking. There is to be no discussion about the foundation. If men do not accept that, they are not brethren. And we can have no dialogue with them. We are to preach to such and to evangelize them. We need to treat these people as they are. lost souls in need of saving. Dear friends, those who do not accept the fundamentals of the faith, Scripture tells us, are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, whose glory is their shame, who mind earthly things. That's what's happening. And what are we told? We're commanded that a man who is a heretic is to be rejected after the first and second admonition, Titus chapter three, not the 10th or the 20th, not after 10 years, 20 years, 30 years of allowing his teachings to poison the church. I mentioned earlier that at teaching the word, we frequently hear from PCA church members and officers who are deeply troubled by what's happening and They call our office, they write to us, they email us asking for help, advice. And our advice is always the same, that believers who remain in the PCA, who have remained, have their battle orders from their captain. And those battle orders could not be more clear. The Holy Spirit through the Apostle John commands this concerning a man who is a heretic. If there come any to you and bring not this doctrine, sound doctrine concerning Christ, receive him not into your house, neither bid him Godspeed, for he that biddeth him Godspeed is a partaker of his evil deeds. The force of the original language is this, do not even welcome a false teacher privately, much less welcome him publicly into the church. Do not have anything to do with him. And the King James translation reads, neither bid him Godspeed, but the idea in the original is far more emphatic. A very literal translation would be like this. Do not have even a single encouraging word to say to a false teacher or anything that might even sound like an encouraging word. Why? Because that involves fellowship. We have the reason there in verse 11. John gives us the reason through the spirit. The one who gives even the slightest encouragement to a false teacher, the one who extends any sign of friendship to a false teacher is a partaker of his evil deeds. And the word that's translated is a partaker there, is a form of the Greek word koinoneo, which means to enter into fellowship, to be associated with someone's evil deeds. or to become a partner with them, or to cause someone's evil deeds to spread or to gain influence. When people in the church are neutral, and there is actually no such thing as neutrality, but when people profess to be neutral about false teaching, or they give it even the slightest encouragement or permit it to be discussed and debated as though it had some standing to be heard in the church, they are partakers in it. Now, this has been a very high level overview of the spiritual crisis in the PCA and it's a very complex and chaotic situation and it's growing more so. But the solution according to the word of God, 2 Corinthians chapter six is very straightforward. It is biblical separation from apostasy and from apostates and from those who enable apostasy and apostates through compromise or indifference or inaction. But let me say this, we must never think that we are immune to these things, never. There has been a massive unprecedented proliferation of false teachers and false teaching in our time. False teachers as well as the true have ready access to radio and television and the internet When the Apostle Paul was living, the fastest that heresy could travel was on foot or by horseback or we might say at the speed of sound, word of mouth, 700 miles an hour roughly. Today, heresy travels at the speed of light because of the technology that we have available to us. That doesn't make the technology bad. but it means that there are these dangers, and we must never therefore think that we are immune. But we might also ask, why does God permit these things? Why does God permit heresy and heretics? A lot of you remember a man named Harold Camping, and I wondered why in the world does the Lord let this man live? and continue to propagate his falsehoods, lived into his 90s propagating these things. Well, here's the answer. We have it in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 13, the Lord said to Israel, if there arise among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, the sign or the wonder come to pass whereof he spake unto thee saying, let us go after other gods which thou hast not known and let us serve them. Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God proveth you, he is testing you. To know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, ye shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice and ye shall serve him and cleave unto him. God uses the response to false teaching on the part of members of the visible church, individually and corporately, to demonstrate who is true to Christ and to his word and who is not. To put it another way, God is building a record that Christ will use at the last judgment. When many will come before him and claim to have done many wonders in his name, but Jesus will say to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. How must we who seek to be true to God's word respond to these things? And this, dear friends, I believe is the most important thing this evening for us to consider as we conclude. Three things. We must test the spirits. We must examine ourselves, and we must ask God to test us. First, we must test the spirits. We must prove the spirits, as we read earlier this evening in 1 John. We're told in Malachi chapter three that the true people of God will be able to discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not. And as we read earlier this evening, we're told, believe not every spirit, but try or test the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world. First, we must test the spirit. Secondly, we must examine ourselves. We have a continuing imperative in the word of God. Second Corinthians chapter 13 is one example of this, where we're commanded to examine yourselves, whether you be in the faith, and it is a continual examination that's in mind there. prove or literally test your own selves. Know ye not your own selves how that Jesus Christ is in you, except or unless you be reprobates, literally unless indeed you are disqualified, you fail to pass the test. So we must test the spirits. We must examine ourselves. And thirdly, in order that we may be able to test the spirits and test ourselves, we must ask the Lord to test us. We must ask ourselves, and I often have said this to people who have called in, people from the PCA and also from other places where there is spiritual crisis, and their inclination is to stay in the midst of apostasy. And I will often say to them, can you stay and honestly pray as the psalmist prayed? Judge me. or vindicate me, O Lord. For I have walked in mine integrity. I have trusted also in the Lord. Therefore, I shall not slide. Examine me, O Lord, and prove me. Try my reins or my mind and my heart. For thy loving kindness is before mine eyes. I have walked in thy truth. I have not sat with vain persons, literally with idolaters. Neither will I go in with dissemblers, with hypocrites. I have hated the congregation of evildoers. I will not sit with the wicked. And I will ask, folks, can you say that and stay? Can you say that and stay? Dear friends, in the book of Acts, we read of the Apostle Paul bidding farewell to the elders at Ephesus, telling them that they would likely see him no more. And he warned them, he said, you're entering a time in which savage wolves will come, even from among your own number, speaking perverse things, speaking lies in hypocrisy, by smooth words and flattering speech, deceiving the hearts of the simple. Dear friends, we must test all things, we must test ourselves, we must be willing to be tested by the word of God, always. And I believe that those are the lessons that believers who mistakenly choose to remain within the PCA must learn of the Lord. And they are lessons that those who have taken a position of biblical separation must never forget. Let's look to the Lord in prayer. Our Father. May we never forget who we are in Christ. May we never forget that we are the temples of the living God. And that there is to be no compromise between the temple of the living God and idols. No fellowship between light and darkness. no concord between Christ and Satan. Father, in so many ways this world wants to convince us of the lie that everything exists in shades of gray, when in fact you have told us that in your eyes it is a matter of darkness and light. And Father, you've told us that this is the nature of unbelief. This is the nature of the unbelief that condemns the sinner, that light is coming to the world and that men have loved darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. Oh, Father, may we love the light. May we flee the darkness. May many, Father, many more who are in these difficult places, these places of apostasy, see that imperative, and flee to the light that is to be found only in Christ. I pray these things in our Savior's name. Amen.