Good morning, everyone. Welcome here to our morning service at Calvary Baptist Church of Turn. And welcome to those who faithfully enjoyed us via internet all over the world. Please welcome. Please open your handouts to number 195. 195, look and leave. Number 195. so I've a message from our Lord, Alleluia The message sent to you I'll give This recorded in His Word, Alleluia It is only that you look and live Look and live, my brother, live Look to Jesus now and live Flesh recorded in His Word, hallelujah It is only that you look and live I've a message full of love, hallelujah A message to my friend for you This a message from above, hallelujah Jesus said that and the note is true Look and live, my brother live Look to Jesus now is recorded in his word hallelujah it is only that you look and live life is offered unto you hallelujah eternal life thy soul shall have I will only look to Him. Hallelujah! Look to Jesus who alone can save. Look and live, my brother, live. Look to Jesus now and live. This recorded in His Word, Alleluia It is only that you look and live I will tell you how I came, hallelujah, to Jesus when he made me whole. Was believing on his name, hallelujah, I trusted and he saved my soul. Look and live, my brother, live. Look to Jesus now. It's recorded in his word, hallelujah It is only that you look and live I'm sorry for opening, but... Our Heavenly Father, we thank Thee again that salvation is not something that's complicated, that we can look to Thee, we can be forgiven and saved through the blood of Thy Son, and we can have eternal life. We're thankful for that promise that is in thy word, and for those of us that are saved, we have found out this is true, because we have it in our own lives. We're thankful that we can know thee, the true God. We can help others to see the importance of knowing thee as well. We pray for anyone listening this morning that's not saved, that they might see the importance of believing the truth, believing in thee, the true God, Realizing that they can't go by their feelings and their opinions don't matter, but they need to trust in Thee, the true God. Help us, those of us that are saved, that we would live our lives with biblical convictions so that we can be a help to others, that they can see that there are people who do believe in Thee, and as they watch us, that they can see the benefit, the blessing that there is in trusting in Thee. So we thank Thee that we have the opportunity to gather together here and to study Thy Word and to be encouraged through Thy Word. We ask that Thy will be accomplished in our world as we look at the situation in Ukraine and we see that the Russians are still attacking and we do pray for the Christians there that they'd be faithful to Thee and encouraged in Thee and be able to help others to come to know Thy peace and truth. We thank you that we have a God who is in charge across the world. And as we look at the situation in communist countries like Venezuela, China, and other places where they're very restricted, we pray for the Christians there as well, that they would be faithful and be able to help others to know the truth as well. We thank you that we live in the country of Canada where we do have a great amount of freedom yet, Help us to be faithful and to speak up as we see that our governments would like to stop the preaching of thy word. And we pray that we would be a voice for truth and reason and allowing thee to direct us and give us the boldness that we need to encourage individuals to believe the truth and to trust in thy son, the Lord Jesus Christ, for their salvation. Guide and direct us here. Pray that Thou wouldst help us to set aside the distractions that would want to interfere with the blessing that Thou wouldst give to us, that we can receive that blessing and honor Thee, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. And over to 252. Only trust him. 252. Come, every soul, by sin appraised. There's mercy with the Lord. And He will surely give you rest By trusting in His Word Only trust Him, only trust Him Only trust Him now He will give you, He will save you He will save you For Jesus shed his precious blood, great blessing to be sold. Plants now into the crimson flood that washes white as snow. Trust Him, only trust Him, only trust Him now. He will save you, He will save you, He will save you now. Yes, Jesus is the truth, the way that leads you Him without delay and you are fully blessed. Only trust Him, only trust Him, only trust Him now. He will save you, He will save you, He will save you now. And over to 474. 474. Only a sinner. Number 474. you Not how I got in, but what I received Grace at least know it, since I have believed Boasting, excluded, pride I abased I'm only a sinner, saved by grace Only a sinner, saved by grace Only a sinner, saved by grace My story to God be the glory I'm only a sinner saved by grace Once I was foolish and sin drove my heart Causing my thoughts to drift from God to depart Jesus has found me happy in my case And now I am a sinner saved by grace Only a sinner saved by grace Only a sinner saved by grace Saved by grace This is my story To God be the glory I'm only a sinner Saved by grace There's an unveiling of Mary today Mercy God save me or else I must die. Sin of all army, fear in God's face. But now I'm a sinner, saved by grace. Only a sinner, saved by grace. Saved by grace Only a sinner Saved by grace This is my story To God be the glory I'm only a sinner Saved by grace Suffer a sinner whose heart overflows Loving his Savior to tell what he knows Once more to tell it, would I embrace I'm only a sinner, save my grace Only a sinner, save my grace I'm sorry. Take your Bibles and turn to Luke's Gospel account of the Lord Jesus Christ, chapter 12. Luke chapter 12, we're reading there this morning, verses eight to 12. Stand please for the reading of God's word. Luke chapter 12, beginning at verse eight, it says, also I say unto you, whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the son of man also confess before the angels of God. But he that denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels of God. And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him. But unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven. And when they bring you unto the synagogues, and unto magistrates and powers, take ye no thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or what ye shall say. For the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say. Our Heavenly Father, we're thankful again that we have that word. Thankful again for the privilege of being able to handle thy word. Thankful that we live in a country where thy word is still readily available. And we're thankful that thou has been gracious to us in keeping thy promise that thou has preserved thy word from this generation and forever. We're thankful that we have the privilege, those of us that are saved, to make thy name and the name of thy son known to our neighbors, to our coworkers, and even to strangers that we meet. And we pray that thou wouldst give us that boldness to proclaim thy name faithfully, that we'd be careful who we take our counsel from in regard to how to be a good witness, that we would just be plain speakers who can allow thy Holy Spirit to do his work through us in the heart and life of other people. Thank you for thy word and for the power of thy word. And as we look into these verses this morning, I pray that thy will be accomplished, that we would be encouraged to be a vocal testimony for the God who has saved us, that we can help others to know the truth. May thy will be accomplished, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. The title of the message this morning is Honoring the Name of Jesus. honoring the name of Jesus. While Jesus was on the earth, he faced false religion. In fact, false religion was very prominent in that time. Shortly after his birth, as the wise men followed the star, seeking for the place where Jesus was as a young child, King Herod wanted to kill him. He was threatened by the fact that there was a king of the Jews that had been born, and in Herod's mind this king was there to overthrow the Roman government. Of course, we know that's not true, but that was his opinion. As a young man, he As a 12 year old, he went to the temple and he was debating with the doctors, the religious doctors, and they were amazed at his questions and at his answers. And then when he began his public ministry, we know that the Pharisees, the scribes, the lawyers, the Sadducees, They all took their turns to attack him and to try to discredit who he really was. The evidence was there. The Jews, they were very careless that they did not pay attention to the fact that he fulfilled prophecy in his birth. He was born in Bethlehem. He was born of a virgin. And those facts were clear at that time, but the people ignored them. and they fought against the truth. But the truth prevailed, and the same is true today. We have enemies. There's far more false religion today than there is true religion. But in spite of that, For those of us that are saved, we can have an impact because the Word of God is powerful. And so if we will know the Word of God and use the Word of God in our own lives and in our witnessing to others, we can have an impact. It doesn't mean that we're going to see thousands getting saved. We know that that has happened in the past, but we're not seeing that today. But that doesn't mean the word of God is less powerful. It just means that people are hardening themselves more and more. And the Bible tells us that will be the case, that there will be a great falling away, in fact, in the last days. And so we are seeing that. Even in fundamental circles today, we are seeing that there are more and more churches that are turning to the emergent philosophy. And of course, the emergent philosophy involves the CCM music. I was speaking to a pastor recently regarding our need here. And he was telling me about how that it's difficult nowadays to trust in different men, even within our independent Baptist circles, because of the emergent church philosophy. Men like Paul Chappell are very harmful. And the sad thing is that too many older men who should know better are allowing their own sons and other young people in their churches to attend his college, and that is not helpful. So we need to understand the importance of taking a stand for truth and realizing that that will put us in a minority, but we are in a minority anyway if we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. The Bible tells us that. So the first thing that we see in this passage that Jesus points out is that there is no such a thing as a secret Christian, not in God's economy. In verse 8 it says, also I say unto you, whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of God. And so we see in verse nine, but he that denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels of God. Persecution is a fact of being a Christian. The Bible tells us, yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. That's a reality. That's something that we need to understand. We're not looking for that. We don't have to look for it. But the fact is that the word of God is contrary to the thinking of the natural man. If you go in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 2, every one of us was at one point a natural man. Many people today are still natural man. But in 1 Corinthians 2, it says there in verse 12, now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God, which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. So it tells us there, We talked about this in Sunday School, but if you look at verse 13, it tells us which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. We talked about that this morning, that if we're going to stand for the truth and if we're going to have a testimony, we're going to compare spiritual things, we're going to use the Bible as our defense. We're going to contend for the faith using the Bible. And we don't need to go outside of the Bible and look at, well, this guy has this philosophy and this over here. We need to know the Bible. And we need to be able to answer people based on the Word of God, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. And when we do that, that's how we determine, that's how we come to a solid faith in God. When we look at what God says in one place and we compare to what God says in another place, that's how we build true, sound doctrine. We don't run away with some false philosophy. Then in verse 14 it says, but the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. I sent this passage of scripture to a a family member this week, it was his birthday, and so I sent him this passage because he is heavily steeped in the charismatic movement. He is a follower of Joseph Prince, who is a heretic, also a supporter of Kenneth Copeland, another heretic. And he sent me back the misquoted verse from Isaiah chapter six, because of what I'm going through, that Christ died to set us free, to heal us, that we shouldn't be sick if we believe in God. And that's the sad reality, that you can give people the word of God, but they just ignore it because they allow some smooth talker to give them an opinion that has no merit in truth. But that doesn't stop us from believing the truth if we're saved. It doesn't stop us from trying to be a help to others. But we need to be vocal. We need to be open with what we believe. And what we believe as Christians needs to come from the Word of God. And so I've been saved now since I was 20. I'm 73 now. That's 53 years. There's still things I'm learning. but it's as I spend time studying God's word, taking the things that I think I know and studying God's word and seeing further, is that true? That's how I'm gonna be strengthened. Same with you. If you're saved, you take what you believe and you make sure that you never put what you believe higher than what the Bible says. And so that's where there's room for change, for growth. And change is a reality for us as people. But the thing is that we need to be changing, becoming closer to God, not becoming careless in our walk with God. That's the danger. We can grow weary, the Bible says, in well-doing. That's a danger. And of course, who's behind that? The devil is. He wants to discourage us. He wants to keep us from pressing on. He wants us to think, well, I've tried and it didn't seem to make any difference, so I'm just gonna pull back. That's not what God wants us to do. Because as we look around us, we see the need, the great need that there is today for people to know the truth and for Christians to be strengthened in the inner man. So how do we do that? Well, we do that by confessing Jesus Christ before men. We know that in Acts chapter 4, that Peter and John were threatened and told not to speak in Jesus' name anymore. And they said, we can't stop. Why couldn't they stop? Because the love of God dwells in the child of God. It's not because God was standing there with a whip and telling them, you either speak or else, but that's what motivates the child of God. It's that inner, the Holy Spirit indwelling us and the love of God in us that causes us to want to tell others the truth. Even Jeremiah, when he was growing tired of the persecution and he wanted to stop speaking, he couldn't. Even in the Old Testament, people want to talk about God was different in the Old Testament than he is now. It's not true. Jeremiah was motivated from inside because he knew God, and he knew that his nation did not know God. And God put that burden upon him, and he had to speak, even though it led him into further trouble. He had to speak. And so it is with us today. We need to understand that if we're going to live for God, yes, we're going to face trouble. I remember as a young person, I wasn't saved at that time. I had prayed a prayer, but I wasn't saved. But I was very zealous. I was 12 years old and going to public school, and I was very zealous to tell people about the Lord in my version. And I got picked on a lot. And by the time I was 14, I said, that's enough. And I walked away from what I thought I had believed. And I became a real pagan for the next six years till 20 years of age. I knew better because I had a Bible. We went to church. But I was tired. I didn't want to face the opposition that there is to Christianity. And I saw in my family and in my church, I saw too many conflicting things that just confused me. And I said, I'm done with this. But God didn't leave me alone. And I'm thankful for that. And at 20 is when I got saved. And from that time, yes, I've also faced opposition. And at times I've been quiet when I shouldn't have been. But God has continued to work in my life and helped me to see that there is no answer, there is no hope for man outside of God, outside of knowing Jesus Christ as personal Savior. That doesn't take away all the problems in life, but it gives us the path of how to deal with those problems in a proper manner. When we meet people and we talk to different people, we can give them counsel that will help them. My wife and I were having our service this week in Notre Dame and afterwards, it's interesting. Notre Dame is a very Catholic community. Trehearne is, I don't know what they would be, United Church more than Catholic. We go to a home in Trehearne and we go to a home in Notre Dame. In Notre Dame, they welcome us there. They're Catholics. But they welcome us there. They want us to come there. And afterwards, when we have a coffee time, and they always invite us for their coffee time, some of the staff is always there during that coffee time. And this week, they were talking about all the violence that's going on in Canada and why, what's going on. And I told them several times, the reason for all the violence is because the fear of God is gone in Canada. And when God is not the center of our lives, then you're going to see all kinds of problems come up, and we talked about that, and they agree, but they don't accept it for themselves. But you know, God is giving us that open door, and I'm not afraid there to speak about the Catholic heresies, and God is giving me that ability to help those people to see. that what they're believing is not the truth. Hopefully, eventually, there will be some of them will get saved. But that's in God's hands. My duty is to tell them the truth. And we do the same thing here in Trehearne. But the reception here in Trehearne is much colder than it is in Notre Dame. But God still wants us to be faithful. Doesn't matter what the reception is. We need to be faithful. We need to seek to help people to know that there is no hope outside of knowing the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. In the last week, I've been listening to a man that name was mentioned to me last week. And so I thought, well, I'm going to find out who this guy is. And so I've listened to him on the internet. And he's got some very interesting things to say. He has done a lot of research. That's obvious from listening to him. He has a lot of pictures to support what he's saying. And he's a very good speaker. And so he was talking about in one of his messages that I was listening to about how the occult is moving into churches, and that has been going on for a long time. One of the things that I did in Bible school is in one of the papers that we had to write in our study on cults, we had to pick a couple of cults and write papers on them. And one of the groups that I chose to research was the New Age movement. And that movement is still very prominent today. And you learn a lot about how that the occult operates when you do some study on that. And this man, he went into that as well and talked about how the occult is infecting. and affecting what's called Christianity. Now much of what is called Christianity is not Christianity. But it was interesting to me to listen to him, and I've seen that in so many people, how that they can take that research and follow it through. And this speaker also talked about Acts chapter 12, which is the disputed passage amongst certain people, the word Easter. People get tripped up with that word and they say it's a mistranslation. It's not a mistranslation. And this man agreed with that. It's not a mistranslation. Easter in Acts chapter 12 was being observed at the same time as the Jewish Passover. Now the Passover was at that time finished in that Christ is our Passover. But for the Jews back then, they were still keeping parts of the Passover. But Easter was a separate event. It was a pagan festival. Easter is of pagan origin. It's the Catholics that brought Easter into so-called Christianity. But it's not a Christian event. And yet, even in independent Baptist circles, most churches keep Easter. Good Friday, Sunday. I'm not against the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It's important. It's in the Bible. His death is also there. But Easter is not a Christian event. And somehow we can come and we can see that, but yet then when it comes to actually acting on it, we fall in line with what the world is doing. And we lose our testimony. when we do that. We need to take our position on the Bible. Yes, it's going to put us in a different place, a different camp, but we're going to be effective in our voice for truth because we're actually standing where Jesus stood. Did He die on the cross? Yes. Was He three days in the tomb? Yes. Did He rise again victorious over sin and death? Yes. Is He the only Savior? Yes. Why is He the only Savior? Because He rose from the dead. That's what makes Him the Savior. A dead person is not a Savior. If I die, and I'm going to die, and so are you, then that ends our ability to help anyone. That ends it. Doesn't matter how many people might want to remember me after I'm dead, my effectiveness is done when I take my last breath. But it's not that way with Jesus, because he's alive. And so he can save us. And so we need to make his name known according to what the Bible says about him, not according to what we want to believe. And one of the religious groups that has been very effective in spoiling the word of God is the Catholics. Their Jesus is not the Jesus of the Bible. And we need to understand that. And we need to help people to see that, that the Catholic Jesus cannot save anyone because he's weak. He's less than God. Mary, in the Catholic religion, is superior to God the Father and to Jesus Christ. And we need to help people to understand that salvation is found in the Jesus of the Bible. And so that's going to take time as we deal with people to show them over and over, verse by verse, show them who is this Jesus. And we know that he was born of a virgin in Bethlehem. We know that he grew up in the house of a carpenter. Joseph was not his father. He was the guardian that God gave for Jesus. And then when Jesus became an adult, God brought him to public ministry. The Father brought him into public ministry. through his baptism. And then he preached the word, corrected the false teaching of the Pharisees for about three and a half years. And then he went to the cross and died on that cross and shed his blood. He laid down his life to go to that cross. And then he was buried for three days, rose again, the stone was rolled away, not for his benefit, but for the benefit of the disciples and the women that came to the tomb. He didn't need that stone rolled away in order to get out of that tomb. But they needed to be able to see that he wasn't there. And then he spent another 40 days and then ascended back up to heaven. And he is alive and seated on the right hand of his father in heaven. That's the Jesus that we need to make known to people. And there was no one that assisted him. Mary, the mother of Jesus, was at the cross. But at that cross, Jesus spoke to John and told John to take her as his mother, to look after her as if she was his mother, because she needed someone to help her. She needed someone to look after her. She was a woman, and she needed a man to look after her. And that's God's design. But Mary had nothing to do with helping Jesus. She didn't encourage him on the cross. She had nothing to do with his work of salvation for us. And that's important for us to help people to see that and understand that. It doesn't matter how long the Catholic religion has been around. It doesn't matter how dominant they have been in history. They're wrong. And we can tell people that very clearly. I've said to people before, there will be no Catholics in heaven. That's a fact. Not one. Anybody that goes to heaven, if they're a Catholic now, will be there because they've repented toward God and trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ to save them. They're no longer a Catholic. By the same token, there'll be no Mennonites in heaven. That's my background. And most Mennonites today don't teach the truth. But in heaven, it'll be those who are born again. those who are saved. And so we don't hang on to false doctrine and protect that simply because that's our background. We honor God. And we realize that there are things that we have been taught that aren't right. When we learn the truth, just as it says, if you go in your Bible to 2 Corinthians chapter 10, when you know the truth, You don't keep fighting for the lie, and that's what it is. If it's not true, it's a lie. 2 Corinthians chapter 10, it says there in verse three, for though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ, and having inner readiness to revenge all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled." Verse six is a powerful verse. We want to, those of us that think we have the truth, we want to help others to know the truth. The Bible tells us that we cannot be effective in revenging all disobedience until we, first of all, become obedient to the truth ourselves. So that's where it's so important for us to be constant students of the word of God, allowing God to correct any false teaching, any false doctrine we have, so that we can help others to see the importance of truth. But as we see in that passage, our fight is not with people. Our fight is with false doctrine, contending for the faith once delivered unto the saints. That's what we're supposed to be doing. And we do that when we allow the word of God to show us, to examine what we believe on a daily basis. And when we cast down imaginations, and every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God. And that's what it is. When we set something up in our minds that is not biblical, that's in fact what we are doing is we're setting up a high thing. We have something that we have developed in our thinking that we have placed on a higher level than the word of God. And when we do that, we can't be effective for God. We might be effective amongst people, but we're not gonna be effective for God because we're fighting on a humanistic level. And so we need to know Jesus and promote him carefully and clearly so that others can know him. The Bible says, Jesus says here, that there's a reward for that. If we confess him before men, him shall the son of man also confess before the angels of God. And so if we are saved and honoring God in our walk with him, the angels know about us. That's good. That's who we need to be known by. People, yeah, okay. But it's not that important. But it is important that we're known in heaven. And sometimes we can get our priorities wrong and we're so concerned that people will look at us in a good light. And we're to be honest, if we're saved. We're to have a good testimony. But we need to understand that there's an enemy too who wants to spoil a good testimony. He tried it with Jesus. He tried to knock him down every chance he got, but he never succeeded. And so we need to be careful and make sure that our priorities are right, that we can be that blessing that God wants us to be if we're his child. The second thing we see is to beware of slander. Verse 10, it says, whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him. But unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven. So Jesus tells us here that there is forgiveness for those who mock his name, who speak against the Son of God. And we know Son of Man is called here. But we know that the Pharisees spoke against Jesus. But we know that Nicodemus was, we believe, I believe, that Nicodemus was saved before he died. He was a different man after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ than he was in John 3. We know that Paul, who was Saul originally, was saved. He was forgiven. He slandered Jesus' name. He didn't want people to believe in him, but we know that he was saved. and he was very effective as a Christian, God used him in a great way to reach out and to help others to know the truth. So when we look at the Holy Ghost here, Jesus says in verse 10, but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven. So if we go to John chapter 16, And Jesus tells us there what the ministry of the Holy Ghost is today. And he starts out by telling us what the ministry of the Holy Ghost is amongst the lost. In verse seven, it tells us in John 16, seven, nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is expedient for you that I go away. For if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you. But if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world. Okay, so that's why I say in this portion here, he's talking about unbelievers. He will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. of sin, because they believe not on me, of righteousness, because I go to my father and ye see me no more, of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot hear them now, albeit when he, the spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth, for he shall not speak of himself, But whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. So two different groups of people Jesus is speaking of. In verse eight, he's gonna reprove, the Holy Spirit is gonna reprove the world of three things. In verse 12, The Holy Spirit is going to reveal the truth of God to God's people. Speaking here to the disciples, but it's true for you and I today as well. Those of us that are saved, how do we come to understand the Word of God? Why is it that a Christian can read their Bible and come to a different understanding than the lost person? And the reason is because the Holy Spirit is working in the Christian to help the Christian understand the Word of God. And as we read there and elsewhere, the Holy Spirit does not speak of anything outside of what the Word of God says. So the charismatic camp is wrong. When they talk about the Holy Spirit told them to do this and so on, they're wrong. And most of them know they're wrong, but they don't care. In our study that we're having in our Zoom meetings, we've been looking at the charismatic movement because there are some people in that group that are trained in the charismatic movement. And we're raising that issue because we want to help them. We want them to see why it's wrong. And so we had a very good study this week on the charismatic movement. And at the end of it, the question still came up. One of the issues that we talked about this week, and it was not my study, it was David Cloud that was leading the study this week, because like I said in Sunday school, I appreciate his ministry, and so we use him at times. And he was talking about tongues. And he gave several biblical reasons why the tongues of the charismatic movement is not supported by the Bible. And having looked at all of that after the study, and we have some discussion time, it was still, among some of the people, still persistent that tongues is for today. You see, the reason for that is because the ones who want to fight against any truth, doesn't matter. When we want to fight against the truth, there's something wrong with our heart. And a person that is persistent in fighting against the truth demonstrates they're not a child of God. Because the Spirit of God, John chapter 16, will open our understanding if we're saved to see the truth. And the Holy Spirit dwells inside every born-again Christian. And so back in our text, Jesus warns against those who want to fight against the Holy Spirit. Jesus says, you want to slander my name, you can be forgiven for that. But once you come against the Holy Spirit, as it says there, on him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven. Blasphemy is to slander. There were people that blasphemed Jesus' name. They said, you're working under the power of Beelzebub. But Jesus says they could be forgiven. But it was different when you blasphemed against the Holy Ghost. You wanna say that what he's doing, he's not doing, you got a problem on your hands. And Jesus goes into that further in this passage in Luke chapter 12. In Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 31, it says there, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. It's a very dangerous thing to fight against God and against what he has declared and to claim that it's not true. And so Jesus gave the warning here about the danger of fighting against the work of the Holy Spirit. Now, we don't see him. They didn't see him in Jesus' time. He's a spirit, but he was working and he is working now as well. And so it's important for us to understand the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is when, as we looked at John chapter 16, when a person, a lost person, is convinced by the Holy Spirit, whether he accepts it or not is not the point here. But that's the work of the Holy Spirit, to convince the lost of their sin, to convince them of God's righteousness, and to convince them of judgment. And that, quite frankly, is the reason why lost people stay away from church. That's why they don't want to read a Bible. They don't want to get into a discussion with you about the Bible because when you start talking from the Word of God, the Holy Spirit is convincing them of sin. And they don't want to be convinced of sin. They don't want to be convinced of God's righteousness. And they don't want to believe in a judgment. They want to believe that when they die, they're going to be good enough to get to their imaginary heaven. So they don't want you telling them anything to the contrary. Now, the good news is that the Holy Spirit is working and some of those people will be broken and will be saved. And so it's never worthless, it's never a waste of time to use the word of God in our discussion with people. It's important to do that, because that's where the power is. And so I believe that the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit and the reason there's no forgiveness is because when a person continues to reject the work of the Holy Spirit in their life until death, there's no forgiveness. When a person says no to the Holy Spirit and says no to Him, in fact, the Bible tells us that God knows, we don't know, but God warns that there's a time when He can shut the door to a person, that that person can no longer turn to Him for salvation because they have hardened themselves so far. We don't know that time. And so we can't go and say, well, I'm not gonna talk to that person because God has shut the door. We don't know that, but he knows that. In Acts chapter eight, there was a man by the name of Simon who wanted to buy the gift of the Holy Ghost from Peter and Peter spoke very forcefully to him and treated him as though he was someone who was doomed to damnation. Now, Simon, by his response, I believe that he was smitten by the Holy Ghost for that, not smitten in the sense that he fell down, that doesn't happen, but he was convicted that he was wrong in his desire to buy something that is a spiritual gift that you don't buy, you receive it by faith. And the ministry of the apostles was unique, not something that Simon would get anyway. because he was not an apostle. So I believe that when it talks here of the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit and not being able to be forgiven of that, it's because the person defies God and defies him until death. There's no forgiveness. To reject the work of the Holy Spirit, there's no other way of being saved other than through the work of the Holy Spirit. You and I, those of us that are saved, we witness to people, but we don't save anyone. It's the work of the Holy Spirit that does the convicting in their heart. And that's why it's so important that we pray before we go to witness, during the time that we witness, and after we witness, because it's the Holy Spirit that is gonna bring about the salvation of souls. And so we need to be effective. We need to be that vessel that can be used by God. So our words need to be pleasing to God. And that way God can use us to work in the heart of that lost person to see their need to be saved. And we need to get rid of the distractions. That's why it's so important. I think sometimes as Christians, we get confused on the importance of a holy walk. But that's why a holy walk is so important. The Bible tells us to be holy as God is holy. And the reason is because when we're talking to that lost person, it's interesting to listen to lost people when you're talking to them. They observe us. They watch us. And we say things with our mouth, but they see things in our lives. And so it's important for us to have that consistent testimony that when we say things with our mouths, they're not thinking in their mind, yeah, but I saw you doing this. I saw you over there. I heard what you said. We need to be consistent because we don't want to interfere with the work that God wants to do in their heart in bringing them to salvation. And we're going to be inconsistent. That's the reality, because we're people. But we need to work at not being inconsistent. We need to draw an eye to God. That's why it's so important to grow in the Lord, so that we can be more effective today than we were yesterday, more effective this week than we were last week, and so on. We want to help people. Again, the love of God is in the heart of the Christian. So our desire is to see others saved. We want to see people knowing the Lord. And so we need to be careful that we don't interfere with what God wants to do in their heart because we have a bad testimony. The third thing that we learn in this passage here is the importance of trusting God and not worrying. Trusting God and not worrying. Verse 11, it says, and when, you notice there it doesn't say and if, it says, and when they bring you unto the synagogues and unto magistrates and powers, take ye no thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or what ye shall say. For the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say. So again, the Holy Ghost is going to guide the Christian in what needs to be said, but he's not going to do it outside of what the word of God says. He's never gonna tell you anything that you're not gonna be able to back up with the scriptures. And again, that's why the charismatic movement is wrong. So here Jesus is encouraging the disciples. and by extension us as well. The fact is that we don't have in Gentile circles, we don't have synagogues, but we do have courts and we also have in the dark ages and during the time of what's called as the Reformation, the Catholics would bring people before their system. Not all of the people that were killed by the Catholics were Christians, but they were against Catholic doctrine. Martin Luther, I don't believe, was a saved man, but Martin Luther was against some of what the Catholics taught. If you take the Lutheran religion, it's not that much different from the Catholic religion. It's different, but not that much different, still wrong. And when you read his writings, his writings talk about work salvation, not saved by faith. Yes, he is credited with the quote, the just shall live by faith, but faith in what? When you read his writings, it was not faith in the scriptures, but it was faith in his version of the scriptures. which was heavily indoctrinated by the Catholics. As I mentioned, he didn't like all of what the Catholics taught, but most of it. And Catholic religion isn't that much, or Lutheran isn't that much different than Catholic. But we are told here that we should not concern ourselves with what will we say if we get arrested. That's not what we should be focused on. First of all, we don't know if we're gonna get arrested. It was very common in the first century for the apostles to be arrested. It's been common in other times in church history for Christians to be arrested. And we have faced that as well in our time. In the last three years, we faced that. And we were ticketed as a church for being open. But people asked me during that time, it was almost three years after I got that ticket that I was taken to court. And people asked me, weren't you worried? No, I wasn't. I was not worried. I didn't know what was going to happen. I could have been fined. They told me what the fine was going to be right on the paper. I could have spent time in jail. I listened to the news. I watched what was going on. But I didn't know what was going to happen in my case. And so I wasn't going to be preoccupied with writing down notes and making sure I had my notes with me to be able to know how to answer if I would go to court. And then when I was finally told, here's your court date, be there, and I went. I prayed, I asked other people to pray, and I went. But I had no idea what was going to happen. And within about five minutes of the time that I was called to answer, my case was over. Dismissed. Praise the Lord. I had a chance to say a few things, but not much. I had been praying and asking God what I should say, and yeah, I've been rolling things around in my mind, but I had nothing memorized. Some of that I was able to say, much of it I wasn't. but it wasn't up to me, it's up to God. And all that we need to do as Christians is to be faithful to Him, serving Him on a daily basis and letting Him guide us in regard to what He wants us to say. Really, it's no different when you're arrested and brought to trial, it's no different than witnessing to your neighbor. You don't know what your neighbor is gonna say to you when you're talking to him. But if you're a child of God walking with him, you will be directed by God to give an answer to your neighbor as you're witnessing to him. That's all you're doing in court too. Yes, in court, there's the power of the government, but really, again, as we looked in Sunday school, that power is limited by God. So while the courts can claim to have all kinds of power, they can only do what God allows them to do. And that's why it's so important for us to be walking with God humbly, faithfully, and allowing him to direct us moment by moment as Christians. And that comes by studying the word of God, spending time in the word of God. I've been told that in the banking system, that the tellers are not given a bunch of counterfeit money to check. They're given real money to count. And then if the manager sticks a counterfeit bill into that real money, they learn to identify that money because they're so familiar with the feel and look of real money that they can see this one doesn't look right. But it's not by studying the counterfeit, but by studying the real thing. Same is true for us as Christians. The more time we spend in the Bible in honest biblical study, it's gonna be easier in the sense of the quicker we will identify when someone is bringing in something that's not right. We may not be able to say, this is what's wrong with what you said, but we will identify there's something wrong there. And then as we examine that in the light of God's word, we can say, ah, this is what's wrong with what you said. And again, it's the word of God that's gonna give us that ability to do that. The spirit of God in us and the word of God as we study it is what's gonna make us keener to the truth and keener to recognize the lie. And so when I look at people, And I look at people who get drawn into, for instance, the charismatic movement. I know why they're being drawn into that. They're not studying the Bible. Most of them are lost. But they're not examining what the word of God says. Years ago, I had an uncle who was trying to promote one of the TV preachers at that time to me. He was not walking. He claimed to be a Christian, but he was not a faithful. Nothing in his life to demonstrate that. And so I talked to him about it. And he talked about this man that he watched on TV. And I said, have you ever opened your Bible and followed along with what he's reading? Well, no, because I just believe what he's saying. Well, yeah, that's your problem. That's your problem. If you're going to get involved in a Bible study, you need to have a Bible. If the preacher is preaching and says, turn to this passage in your Bible, you should turn to that passage in your Bible. You may not have time during the service to look at the context of that verse that he pulls out, but you should make note of that and check it for yourself later. Make sure is the context here saying what he's saying it's saying. That's how we grow. It's not that we're being critical of everybody, we just want to know the truth. That's for me, I want to know the truth. So when we have a guest speaker, I'm either looking at the verses around what he said in that certain part, or I make note of it and I check it later. And I know in the past I've done that, and my wife says, you shouldn't do that, it's a distraction when you're flipping around the Bible when the guy's preaching. Well, yeah, I have to be careful. I don't want to disrespect the man. But I also want to know the truth. And so if I see somebody when I'm preaching and they're looking in their Bible and looking, I'm trusting that they're examining what I'm saying and wanting to dig deeper into that particular point. Now, the danger is that when you're doing that, you're missing something else that is said, which might help you to understand why the pastor said that. So it all depends on your mind. You know your mind better than I do, so you know what you can take in and how you take things in. And so the important thing is that we want to, if we're saved, we want to know the truth. And if we spend time seeking to know the truth, then when we are caught, when we have to answer for something we believe, we can do it because God is gonna guide us. He's going to help us. And that's what we want to do. And First Peter. I believe it's chapter, yeah, 1 Peter 3. Verse 15, this is what we've been talking about, 1 Peter 3.15, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you. with meekness and fear, having a good conscience that whereas they speak evil of you as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. So when we are sanctifying the Lord God in our hearts, we're setting him apart in our hearts. That's what Bible study is about. I want to know God better today than I knew him yesterday. So should you if you're saved. That's sanctifying Him in your heart. You want Him in your heart and less of you in your heart. And so the reason for that is that we are ready to give an answer to the person that's asking us. The person that we're witnessing to, we want to give them an answer. We want to give them as pure an answer as we can. And we do that as we set apart God in our own hearts. And then doing that, having a good conscience that whereas they speak evil of you as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. That's where this walk of holiness that I talked about earlier, that's where that comes in. We need to live in such a way the word conversation there is not just talking about the words that we speak, but it's talking about our lifestyle. So we need to be able to help people to see that who we are is who we are. Not just because we say so, but because we actually are that. We're genuine. That's what the Christian life needs to be. A genuine life lived out before others for the glory of God. And we can do that. if we are saved and if we walk humbly with God, and if everything that we hear, we examine it in the light of what does God say. So the Christian life, you can never put your life in neutral if you're saved. You can't say, well, I can trust that guy, I'm just gonna close my Bible, I'm just gonna listen to what he says. Now, you may be driving while you're listening and you don't have opportunity to open your Bible. But again, if you're spending time in God's word, you have enough understanding from God's word that as you're listening to someone, you can examine, okay, he said that, I've never heard that before, I've never heard it that way. So you keep a note of that in your mind and when you have opportunity, you look at it. The person could be right on, but you wanna make sure because you wanna help others too. So as you know the truth and walk in it, you can be a help to others as they also need answers. So it's work, a workman that studied to show his self approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. So it's work to study God's word properly. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we're thankful that we have thy word, thankful that we can understand the importance of knowing Thee and making Thy Son's name known to the world around us. He is the only Savior. He needs to be the Lord of our lives if we're sane. And it's a blessing to have Him as the one who's in charge rather than ourselves fumbling around. Thankful for the work of the Holy Spirit in the lost Thankful that he's working today here and those that are listening on live stream. He's working to bring lost people to the place of repentance. Thankful for thy word that we can use to help people to see the importance of listening to the truth. And thankful that we have that same Holy Spirit who will guide us as we talk to people, whether it's in court or whether it's on the street. He'll guide us if we're saved. And I'm thankful that we can be effective in our witness to others. So may thy will be accomplished in each person's life that's listening today, that the lost would see their need to repent and be saved, and that the saved would see the importance of growing in thee to be a better testimony to their neighbors and friends. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.