Well, I walked out the door tonight and left my jacket at home. So I had to figure out some way to reroute our microphone. But that's okay. Besides that, it's a little cooler that way. I won't feel like I'm put on the spot. Well, if you would, stand and turn with me to Matthew chapter 7. And I want to restart at verse 15. It says, beware of false prophets. which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. You shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? Even so, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. Wherefore, by their fruits ye shall know them. Let's pray. Father, we do thank You again for Your blessings. Thank You for the prayer time that we had previous. Lord, I'm thankful that Pastor has allowed me to step up here for a bit while he's able to be with family and pray for safety as he and Lisa travel soon to come home this weekend. Lord, I pray that it's a good relaxing time for them. But Lord, we do pray as we look into your word tonight, we look as a challenge to what you'd have us to use in our lives as we look around with all the false teachings and have had sermons of recent about false churches. Lord, now I pray that you'll just give your will and your way that these would be your words, not ours, and that they would just be a sweet sound to you and understanding that you would just work on our hearts. Give us wisdom how we can use these wisely in our lives. And we ask it for Jesus' name. Amen. Well, you can be seated. And it's interesting, as I was going through this, I thought back on, I think, a couple weeks back, Pastor had a sermon about those churches that talked about material things. Well, as I was, I've been going through some of David Cloud's discipleship lessons, and this one spoke out to me. It's called A Testing Mindset. kind of stepped out at me, but in the line of work that I've done for the last 20 plus years, I write testing procedures for people's equipment. And it's kind of interesting with this testing mindset. As I write them, I have to have some sort of standard to look at and how to know that the tests that I'm giving to them, and I know Brother Austin is running up with that in his line of business. But in order to properly test something, I've got to be able to have a basis to look at to make sure that the test that I'm writing is correct for that piece of equipment and that it does what it is. And as Christians, guess what? We have a standard. And it's right here in our King James Bible. And we can always be trusted to go through that. And as I was going through this lesson here, it says one thing a Christian must develop if he wants to have a Spiritual victory is a testing mindset. So as we go through, think about that, okay? Do I test everything and what do I use it? And it means that we must learn to test everything by the Bible. Not like, oh, that sounds really good. I think that would be really nice. Because guess what? Our minds and our hearts, they'll lie to us every time. And we need to see that if it's right or if it's wrong. It's interesting. In fact, I grew up with the King James Bible. In fact, I've teased my wife tonight. I brought the one that I was given when I was eight years old. And it's the type of Bible you wouldn't give an eight-year-old. It's still there. All the pages are in it. But it's one that would be a nice Bible that well-worn, but it was printed by Collins Clear-Type Press out of Glasgow, and it's one that I think an adult would handle, not an eight-year-old kid, because that's how old I was when I was given this on my birthday. And it's made several patrols at sea with me and Made it through a lot of years, but eight years, so that means it's 65 years old. Yeah, so some people are not quite that old in here, I don't think. Anyway, but I grew up with it, and when I think about this, the standard, when you look at things like the newest translations, what do they compare it to? King James Bible. They go, oh, this is better than the King James Bible. And you look at it and go, no, it's not. And so we just realized that when a standard is written, it's designed so that it's the foundation for what you set up for. The translators made sure that this was God's preserved word, taken from the inspired words, the translations as Brother Travis was talking about and pastors talked about, the copies as they went through history were copied properly. And when we think about that, God allowed those ancient manuscripts to wear out. Some people go, well, you know, the inspired word of God is in the original transcripts. How important did God really put in those? He thought the preservation was more important than those actual transcripts, those actual manuscripts. And if those things would have been brought down, guess what? They would be an idol for people to worship. In fact, that's what they're doing now with a lot of these. Oh, we found these whatever, whatever, and the latest and greatest. The whole idea is that many churches, and I'm sad to say churches that I attended years ago that were very strong King James churches, no longer looks to the King James. They will allow anything and everything. They'll teach from any translation. Sadly, most of them have lost sight of how important it is to teach from the King James Bible. Most of them have gone the way of the world. They've let the world creep into their churches. The pastor was talking about how some of these big churches are set up and they only look at the material things. Well, sadly, what's happened is these churches are going after a newer and better version. And as a result, the world is permeating the church. And what's happening is these new translations are setting the world up for a Christless church. They're setting them up for false teachings. And many churches have even closed their doors because, well, nobody else is attending, or they have left completely because, I don't want to hear that kind of teaching anymore. I want to hear about this, or I want to hear about that. And you have all sorts of weird churches coming up. I think I went to one. How many have ever heard of the Emerging Church? Well, it's real interesting. They say if you want to find out what it's about, it's like nailing Jell-O to the wall. You can ask them a question, oh, we're seeking people that are looking for a higher life. One guy put it, they're just a bunch of environmentalists, what it comes down to. But young people are going, they will grab anything and everything. In other words, experience helps them get along. They're not teaching anything about going to heaven. They're not teaching anything about sin. They're not teaching anything about faith in Jesus Christ. They're not teaching anything about how to get to heaven and living a victorious life. And it's sad and it's very dangerous. And, you know, it's like, OK, you're, you know, scare tactics. Well, guess what? We're on this earth for a purpose. We're here to warn the world. that the bridge is out as you go forward, and if you keep on that path, you're going to die, and you're going to fall into hell, period, pure and simple. And the verse that we started reading tonight, and there's a series of them in here, and I'm kind of going to go through there, and seeing as how I've got a few minutes, I'm going to do a few of these, but this whole chapter, as we look through here, Jesus warned that false prophets will deceive men. And in fact, when you look at this, it says, we should not be surprised that there are so many false churches today. Well, they were happening back in the first century. We're reading about that as we go through the epistles. When Paul was talking about it, he was being inundated all the time. Peter, currently now, for a victorious life, you've got false teachers coming in and convincing people, no, you don't want to live that way. You got to do it this way. And so we expect that there'll be false prophets and we must be careful so that we're not deceived by them. And here's the real problem, is they're so cunning that they'll deceive even, as verse 24 says, they'll deceive, of Matthew 24, they will deceive the very elect. And many churches today are that way. Jesus said the false prophets will appear as true prophets outwardly and by this they'll deceive the unwary. They have Bibles, they talk about Jesus, salvation, good living. They have churches and teach doctrine. Some of these new churches, though, you go in and you start looking for their doctrine, they won't publish it. You got to go in and start looking real carefully. And a lot of them will just take a boilerplate, goes, yep, we believe in the Bible. We believe that man's lost. We believe that, you know, God is ahead of the church, you know, right down through. And some of them sound very, very good. Well, then you start listening to some of the preaching that goes on there and you find that definitely contrary to the Bible. False teachers, as it says in verses 16-20 here, they're known by their fruits. You'll know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns and figs of thistles? And the false teachers will teach things that there's not of works. Verses 22, it says, Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then I will profess to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work iniquity. there are people out there that are standing up, they're teaching what sounds like something very good if you would just listen to it on the surface, but when you bring it up against the Bible, all of a sudden they're teaching you some different things. And we've known about many of them, the Roman Catholic Church, the Mormon Church, Seventh-day Adventist, Church of Christ, you can go down a whole myriad of groups. And usually if there's a man's name attached to that church, well, usually it's a false prophet up there. like Acts 20 verse 30, also their own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them. And they'll sound very good. They'll sound very charismatic. How many of you remember Oral Roberts years ago? Ever listen to them? Or maybe you've seen a telecast of them. Sounded really, really good. But now you go, in fact, I saw a show not too long ago where the Oral Roberts Tabernacle was down there, and it's just now an empty hulk. Nobody's in there, it's just an empty building. A flash in the pan, so to speak. But he led people for years, convincing them that, oh, if you do this, you give me money, I'll give you this, I'll give you that, I'll do this, I'll do that, just send me money. That was the whole thing of it. And people, he had a university for a while. no longer in existence. It's done away with. Romans 16, 17 says, Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrines which ye have learned, and avoid them. That's so very important. And as we're teaching, people get upset when a pastor points out things like that or when Travis or Any one of us teaches and says, you know, avoid that kind of thing. Galatians 1, 6 through 7 says, I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of God unto another gospel, which is not another, but there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. It's being pointed out, first century churches. We can go on and on, but when we think of Matthew 24, verses 4 and 5, Jesus answered and said to them, The closer and closer we get to the rapture of the church, and we're in those end times, when that tribulation period starts, people are going to start believing anything that sounds good, especially when they realize, looking around, all of a sudden people that were living for something are no longer there, they're gonna go, oh, maybe I missed this. The Left Behind series that they started about. Tim LaHaye had a very interesting concept of that and a good imagination. And if you look at it, he followed it biblically, what potentially could be happening and what was going on with people. And it's amazing. People will fall for anything. We're seeing it today. The more you lie, the more you lie, the more you lie, the more it sounds like a truth. People make it sound good. It says, Jesus warned again that there will be false prophets. They will multiply at the end of the church age. And the closer we draw to his return, the more spiritual deception will go on. It'll sound good. And here, the sad part is, they're gonna do wonderful things such that even many of the elect will be deceived by it. And it's a definite powerful deception that's going to go on. And it's going to be very diligently, very well cunning. Satan is working overtime. He knows he's defeated. He knows, though, that if he can get in and try to ruin a reputation, he will do it, especially if he can get in there and make it sound just good enough and to get people to understand. And it's our responsibility to check what's going on, to protect us ourselves, to protect God's Word as it goes forward. God doesn't need the protection, but He expects us as His servants to carry forth His Word and to stand up when false teachings are going on. And I'm thankful Pastor trusts us enough to go away so that we can teach. And if he's watching, I hope he's going to be checking his Bible going, oh yeah, that's right, he did. But he talked about these things that in Matthew 24 talks about signs and wonders that these guys are going to be able to do. They're going to do things that only Christ can do that. And He's given me that power to be able to do that. And it's going to deceive people. We look at groups, the megachurches. Take a look. There are some out there that are doing God's Word and doing God's work. but there's many out there that are being deceivers. Yet, they sound good enough, they draw people in, but they're not showing and pointing people to salvation. Sad part is, is most of those people going in there that are paying that money, thinking that they're getting something done right, will never accept Jesus Christ as their Savior. They're going to go to hell. And some of them are so ingrained in that, that when we do sit down and point out some of that error, they're going to get angry with us. How many times did Paul get stoned or thrown out of his city or thrown in jail or beat with rods? Well, stand by. That could be happening. Jesus warned about the false Christ and the world that abounds with Him today. We've got people out there that are essentially calling themselves Christ. They're showing you that they're modern-day prophets or they're modern-day apostles. Roman Catholic Church, they make that little wafer and show you pictures of a little baby in Mary's arms, showing that Christ is weak. Church of Jehovah's Witnesses and Unitarians, they don't talk about God. They have a God somewhere. Christ of the Mormons is the brother of Satan. The New Age, they draw in all the mysticism, they mingle just enough with it. And it's so sad. There are groups that have made Bible studies out of the Da Vinci Code. You can imagine. It's amazing. And you can go on television, and there's some really interesting shows that are historically accurate, and you can follow along in the Bible. They may not use King James, but you can follow along and find out that, historically, they're there. But there's others that take you through there, and they add a little mysticism here, or a little nuance there, completely throw you off the course. The other sad part is that we've got groups out there that are inundating you with all sorts of music as an entertainment side. Churches are not to be entertainment. We sing hymns, traditional hymns. There's a lot of them out that have taken the traditional hymns and they've put some rock and roll to it to make it appealing to the younger crowd, which really, when you think about that, carefully look at the rest of their teaching. What are they teaching? Are they taking you to the Word of God and showing you what God is doing? Showing you that it is a God of love, that He wants all men to be saved, not just to do a few good things here and there and hope you're going to do that. No, that church is not teaching that you are only saved by grace and faith alone in Jesus Christ and nothing else. Not, oh, you know, pay your back at the kiosk, swipe your debit card back there so we can make sure that we have these nice things going on. You know, make sure you go to the coffee bar and pay for the donuts and coffee so that we can continue fellowshipping. You know, all sorts of weird things. You look at John 8, 31 and 32. Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, if ye continue in my word, then ye are my disciples indeed, and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. And the only way that we can know the truth is to stay in the word, not just to pick it up periodically. And I'm thankful that I have a diligent wife that loves to get up early in the morning and do her Bible study and gives me time to finish catching some Z's and pray. But there's many here that are diligent in their study of the Bible and I'm thankful for that. And it's an encouragement and oftentimes I don't feel adequate enough sometimes to teach up here. It's wonderful to know that this is a group here that is one of the few that are willing to spend time checking out the Word and then sharing what they know and the excitement that they know. There are others out there that, you know, once they go out the door, They're on their own. They're doing the world. They won't ever crack a Bible open for the weak. But it's the only way and to know for sure the truth that's in there. I've got a whole series more lessons of this that are dealing with it and I'll be blending some of this stuff in because in the Sunday school lessons, guess what? It's talking about zealous for the truth. And I'm kind of thankful that You know, I'm doing this extra study along the side. I feel like, oh no, what am I doing here? But it's helping me, and it's helping, I hope, helping you as we go through the Sunday school lessons. Acts 17, 11. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind. Search the scriptures daily. whether those things were so. Who are we talking about there? The Bereans. They spent time in the Word. They said, yeah, that sounds really good, but here, let's go check this out. And they would go to the Scriptures and make sure. And what Scriptures do they have at the time? Well, the Old Testament to go back to and to verify. And it said, really, before you do anything, after you've heard a lesson, I don't care who it is, look in your Bible, follow along. And we're men, we're fallible. Something might creep out and not think about that. And I pray that if something does, somebody go, hey, as I was looking through there, you said this about this. I didn't really see it that way. It's a wonderful time to start things up and to ask a question. Because something you read and I read, we may see something slightly different in how it's applied to us. 1 Thessalonians 5.21. I'm going to kind of wind things up here shortly. Prove all things, hold fast to that which is good. And it says we're admonished to hold to all things. And it's really our obligation. and to prove all things. Don't just say, oh hey, it's so-and-so, he preaches really good. Maybe you've got a favorite preacher you can go to. I know oftentimes from here we'll quote a commentator from somewhere. that portion of scripture might be really good about what they discussed. But in the other one, they may be just completely out in left field. And we run into a lot of that with, you know, when we start using the studies that we're doing from regular Baptist press, sometimes a little Calvinism slides in. In fact, this next lesson, we get a little warning with that. I'm gonna present that. So we have to be very careful when we look through there. Because the, author of that lesson has a very Calvinist bent, and he might be presenting it that way. So it's time to go, okay, gotta prove this, oh, no, no, we're not gonna, and a lot of times we'll present it and say, this is what this guy says, what do you think? I know when we were studying, going through the Calvinism issues with Brother Brian, that was rather an interesting study, and how subtle it is. It's a heresy when you think about that. We're putting God in a box. Well, the Jews sort of did when they built the temple, kind of. But he voluntarily went into that, filled the temple. But no, God can't be confined to a box. He's the one that tells us what we need to know. So we want to hold fast to that's what's good. And I'll close with this one, 2 Corinthians 10, 5, He wants us to bring our thoughts into the truth. He wants us to look at that. Our thoughts, as we study the Word, will be more and more like Christ. And we do this by filling our mind with God's word, our study time. Our human imagination can run wild. I mentioned Tim LaHaye in that Left Behind series. There's some things in there you look and go, hmm, you know, the corner of the eye, but that was his thought. Well, if you read through it carefully, you might say, that's very possible. Don't know what God has planned. Because we aren't going to see it. This is just one man's idea of it. When you think about that, take it to Scripture. There's groups out there that have taken that series and made them into Bible studies. Well, in some ways, it might be kind of good to draw somebody in, especially when you can show them from the Word what's going to happen as a warning. That's why we teach like this. We teach on topics that other churches won't even touch. We have a church up the street, it's an evangelical church. Wednesday nights they have free dinners for anybody coming through, and oh, by the way, we're not gonna preach to you. Okay? I've also found out they really don't do that on Sundays either. But that's beside the point. It's very dangerous. Some churches out there have completely left the word of God away. They would rather expound on a TV show and try to get you to think about, oh, it's a good life, rather than taking you into the word of God and sharing the truth and getting you to realize, I gotta spend time in the word. I just can't listen to that and just only expect that to be the truth. I wanna look and see if that truth is there. I love taking notes. and then going back and reading them later and saying, what did I get out of that? I mentioned it before, our little note insert in the bulletin, the bottom of it says, what did I get from that lesson? What did God talk to me about? Hopefully he's saying, get back in the word. And so as a challenge, it's important for us to look at things with a critical eye, with a testing mindset. Now, when I test this, does it meet the standard when it's done? If it doesn't meet that standard, maybe I should set it over here and not be as concerned about it. Or maybe I should go to that one that told me about that and say, you know, when I was reading the Bible, this is what I found. And it doesn't quite agree with what you told me. Sometimes we might need to do that. That's a difficult time. So as we look at things and we hear things, and that's with our everyday life, balance it to what would scripture have me to do? It's not going to tell us exactly what to do in all situations, but it's going to give us some good guidance on how to handle many things. You know, if in doubt, go to the scriptures and see what it's all about. Let's pray. Father, I do thank you again for just this short time that we've had together. Father, I do pray that you would just instill in us the need to spend time in the scriptures to ask those questions of, does this align up with your word? If it doesn't, then we need to analyze and wonder why. Maybe there was somebody's idea crept in. But Father, I do pray. that he will just give us the wisdom that we need when we go in to test all that we're given. That includes walking through this world. There'll be many things that we run into that we just can't pinpoint in scripture. But if we stay studied up, we can look and we can understand. The best way to identify a counterfeit is to look at the original and to know the original. And you could spot the counterfeit and can know that what is being taught is a lie. It's false teaching. And I pray, Father, now that you'll be with us. Take us home with the safety. And if you should, Terry, bring us back together so that we can gather around God's word. And we ask this all in your son's precious name. Amen.