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  CRAZY CHRISTIANS (FULL MESSAGE)
  by Steve Gallagher
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Summary: This sermon emphasizes the importance of immersing oneself in
the Word of God to combat deception and spiritual lawlessness. It warns
against false teachings and urges humility, surrender, and a hunger for
God's truth to experience transformation and freedom. The speaker
highlights the need to confront sin, spend quality time in Scripture,
and allow God's Word to reshape thinking and values amidst the
challenges of the present age.

Topics: "The Power of Scripture", "Combating Deception"
Scripture References: 2 Thessalonians 2:9, Amos 8:11, Proverbs 3:5, Psalm 119:105, James 4:7, Hebrews 4:12, 1 Peter 5:8, Matthew 7:24, Ephesians 6:10

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon emphasizes the importance of immersing oneself in the Word
of God to combat deception and spiritual lawlessness. It warns against
false teachings and urges humility, surrender, and a hunger for God's
truth to experience transformation and freedom. The speaker highlights
the need to confront sin, spend quality time in Scripture, and allow
God's Word to reshape thinking and values amidst the challenges of the
present age.

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CONTENT
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Last week, before Luke spoke, I got up here and shared some verses out
of Matthew 11. And I touched on that one verse, I think I started my
little talk with that one verse, it says, the violent shall take the
kingdom by force, right? And I said something to the effect that, you
know, when you have been hit with the truth of the Word of God, it's
like being hit with a sledgehammer, and that the Word of God comes in
and exposes what's inside of you for what you really are. And long
before I confronted Pastor Ed or whoever did 14 years ago, 15 years ago,
I had been confronted by the Word of God.

And it absolutely devastated me when I really saw the reality of who
Steve Gallagher as a person is. And this guy that came with his pastor
and basically either blew off or was offended by Pastor Ed's sort of
light confrontation of him, and where he's at. You know, all I can tell
you is this, this is one of the things that separates the men from the
boys.

This is one of the things that separates those who get it and whose
lives are changed, and those who don't. You either accept the truth
about yourself, humble yourself, and let the Lord speak into your heart
and into your life and show you what you are, or you are going to stay
in your sin. Because the reason I'm saying that is because before
repentance can happen, you've got to see what you're like.

You're not going to repent if you are telling yourself nothing but nice
platitudes about yourself and convincing yourself of how godly you are
and what a great guy you are and all of that. It's not true. And the
sooner you come to that realization, the sooner you can start getting on
the path to freedom, real freedom.

Well anyway, you know, over the years, over the last 35 years, I have
spent minimum an hour a day in the Word of God. Some days, hours and
hours. And you know, maybe you think, well you're a preacher, you know,
you of course make sense that you would spend time in the Word every
day, but let me just tell you, I'm a preacher, it's the other way
around.

I don't spend time in the Word because I'm a preacher, I'm a preacher
because I was spending time in the Word of God before. Because my life
was completely revolutionized by the Lord through the Holy Scriptures.
And so all these years I've spent time in the Word of God, I could
probably count on two hands the number of mornings I didn't spend at
least an hour in the Word of God.

And again, just like Pastor Ed said, I'm not boasting, I'm just telling
you, this is what I desperately needed. And you know, I desperately need
the Word of God today. I need it 10 years from now.

I will need the Word of God all the way throughout my journey on earth.
I am a sinner and I need the Word of God because if I don't have a
regular infusion of it into this corrupted mind, I will slide back into
old thinking and it won't be pretty. I can tell you that much.

So all these years I've spent all this time in the Word, you know, and
six years ago I was doing a study in the book of Revelation. I've done
it, man, at least a half a dozen major studies of the book and this is
one of them. And while I was going through it, the Lord spoke to me one
morning.

And when I say He spoke to me, I mean He put it, He impressed a thought
on my heart, okay? And that thought, you know, after it went through my
particular filters, me being from California, came out this way.
Christians are crazy if they don't immerse themselves in the Word of God
now while they can. And that's my message, Crazy Christians.

That's the title. And so, you know, I gave that message here six years
ago and, I don't know, a week or two ago I felt kind of led by the Lord
to go back to that message. And so I've been kind of chewing on it,
thinking about it, and something hit me over the last week, you know,
that I've, let me say it this way, for 34 years I have been harping on
the need to spend time in the Word of God because it was what changed my
life.

And so I, all these years since Pure Life began, I've been telling men,
you need to spend time in Scripture. If you don't start spending time in
Scripture, I'm not telling you it will change your life today, but if
you don't start spending time in Scripture, six months from now you're
going to be the same guy you are today. You know, so I've been saying
those things for all these years.

But, you know, during the last week, something started kind of dawning
on me. Yeah, you need to spend time in Scripture, but the way you
approach the Scriptures is of enormous importance. And I think I've kind
of missed that over the years, or at least I haven't emphasized it like
I maybe should have, because you have to come to the Word of God humbly.

And I want to give a little backdrop to that, so if you can just bear
with me for a little history lesson here for a minute. And I'm not
claiming to be an expert on this, okay? I know enough about it so I can
at least give you a sense of it. For hundreds of years, the enemy used
the Catholic Church system to keep the Word of God away from people,
right? We all basically know that.

If you watch any of you know, movies, Christian movies of the
Reformation people, you know the truth of that. And so God used Martin
Luther and others behind him to open up the Word to the common folk.
Wow, what a tremendous thing that was! People were living in complete
darkness, and all of a sudden the light of Scripture is there for them
to partake of.

Awesome! Tremendous thing in the history of mankind. You can't overstate
it, really. But on the heels of that, just like the enemy always does,
every time God comes in, the enemy's behind him.

And he came in this time, okay, so he had managed to squelch the Word,
to keep it away from the people. And by the way, he's done that in the
last century through communism, too, right? He kept people from the Word
of God. They would burn the Bibles, and bar it, and ban it, and all
that.

So that's one of his tactics. But another tactic that he uses is to cast
doubt on it. Hath God said? I mean, that one goes all the way back,
right? Are you guys with me? You're not acting like you're really with
me this morning.

Are you just like bored to tears? All right, I got one fan here. He and
Hunter back there. Hunter's like just right on the edge of his seat back
there.

All right, so the devil comes in, and he starts using, really was on the
heels of the Reformation, it began, but it reached its height in the
second half of the 1800s with the higher criticism movement. And that
was largely, really, in Germany when it really reached its height. But
then it went from there, leaked out of there, and got into England and
America.

And this was really unfortunate because in the late 1800s in England,
there was a tremendous spiritual move. I mean, Charles Spurgeon, man, I
could just go through the list of all the men of God, of the great
missionaries that we hear about, you know, Hudson Taylor, George Mueller
with the orphans. There was just a great move of God in the second half
of the 19th century.

All right, so that was going on. But then at the same time, the enemy is
casting doubt on the Word of God. So you basically had two divergent
pathways for the approach of Scripture in seminaries that were happening
at that time.

So you had men like Spurgeon and these others who had been tremendously
affected personally by the Word of God. And then you had men who had not
been affected by the Word of God, and were approaching it with this
higher criticism mindset. All right, so, you know, the higher criticism,
it began like this.

Basically, their attitude was that the Bible should be examined with the
same kind of critical thought as any ancient text. That's how it began.
Maybe it was, you know, kind of an innocent thought at the beginning.

I don't know, but the devil's the one that authored it. And basically,
the worst of these people, the most famous of these higher criticism
teachers were unbelievers. They didn't believe that this was the
inerrant Word of God.

They didn't believe in supernatural, the supernatural events depicted
and told about in the Word of God. They didn't believe that. Their
mindset was this, that some Scripture is probably true, most of it is
most certainly doubtful, and much of it is positively spurious.

Man, wow, how can any mortal say that about the Word of God? But that
was their mindset. All right, now fast forward, let's say to the 70s,
and the evangelical movement started emerging, largely out of the Jesus
movement that shook the whole country in the 60s and early 70s, and
that's when I got saved. And the evangelical movement started changing.

And so, let me put it this way. I'm trying to get this thing down as
quickly as I can to where you can kind of track with where I'm headed.
Now, all these years later, we basically have four, just think of it
like four, different veins or ways of approaching the Word of God by
preachers.

And let me just go over these real quick. First of all, there's the
higher critic, and that is still very much alive today, and you see it
in the liberal denominations for sure, but it's also gotten into the
evangelical movement through the emergent church, the emergent movement,
and all of that. It's the same thing.

It's the same devilish mindset with a new face. Hath God said? That's
the whole thing behind it, trying to cast doubt on the Word of God. So
there's that group.

Then I'm going to say the other extreme, and I couldn't figure out
exactly how to say this in the right way, but I'm going to say it this
way. Those who interpret Scripture... What's the word? My mind just went
blank. Wouldn't you know it, right in the middle of my message.

I'm just going to say they look at Scripture from a spiritual
standpoint, but it's... Man, that's frustrating. I can't think of how to
say it. Subjectively, thank you.

Whoever said that, it was me. And let me give a real positive example of
this. Rex Andrews.

How many of you appreciate the Mercy Studies? Yeah, that is completely
subjective though. Rex Andrews did not go through seminary, but he had a
tremendous encounter with God back in the 20s. I mean, when you come
into the presence of God like he did, I mean, it completely changes you.

And so he could take a subject like mercy, chesed, in Scripture and
really bring out tremendous revelations out of it. He's on the positive
side. You know, the thing with people in this side of things who are
subjective, it can either be really good or it can be really bad, so you
have to be careful there, okay? The third group I'm going to call the
historical critical approach.

I don't know if that's the exact right way to say it. They have rejected
the cynical unbelief of higher criticism except that they've held on to
one important aspect of it, and that is this. They also believe that the
Word of God should be approached with an intellectual examination.

Their examination lies outside of and is not dependent upon their
personal walk with God. And while they can offer helpful historical and
textual information, let me just stop there for a second. Here is an
example of what I'm talking about.

This is the Expositors Bible Commentary. Now, this is one volume.
There's probably at least a half a dozen just for the New Testament.

I've read and studied just about the entire thing, okay? So I use this,
and I like it because it gives me some really valuable information about
Scripture, about the biblical times, and so on. It's important for me as
a preacher. But I never feel challenged as I study this.

Never. I don't think I've ever been challenged spiritually. I don't
think I've ever been fed spiritually by this.

It never gives me the sense that the author has really experienced the
life of Scripture, you know, that he's ever really experienced having
God come in and just completely overthrow his whole mindset and
lifestyle. I never get that sense studying this. Now, I grabbed this
from the main house.

This is Matthew Henry's commentary. Matthew Henry, I'm just going to use
him as an example of the fourth group, and that is the spiritually-
minded commentator or the spiritually-minded scholar, meaning he's got
an understanding of Scripture. So he's not totally, what, subjective.

He's got a solid background in the Word of God, but he's also been
deeply impacted by the Spirit of God. And so when he writes his
commentary, you're going to get the sense of both. You're going to get
the kind of the academic, some of that, but mostly you're going to get,
you're going to hear from a man who has been on his face before the
Lord, someone who knows what it means to be disciplined by God, someone
who knows what it means to be corrected and to go through real
repentance and have the sinful attitudes in his heart dealt with by the
Lord.

There's, I can name many, Adam Clark, Spurgeon, Alexander McLaren,
Jameson Fawcett Brown, maybe A.W. Tozer would be kind of like maybe one
of my favorites, a man who has both and really walks with the Lord. So
here's what I want to say. I'm trying to get to my message, and this has
taken a lot longer than I expected.

Some of you guys in here, before it's over with, you are going to walk
more closely to the Lord, I believe, than men like the seminarians who
have approached the scripture from an intellectual standpoint. Because
the only truth that has any real value is truth that has been worked
into your soul by going through the processes of the Holy Spirit. And
some of you are in the midst of that right now.

I ran into Chris yesterday, Denny's and his family, a lovely family back
there. And I said to him, I can't remember exactly how I said it, but
something to the effect that what he's going through now is, you know,
it's painful. It's hard what you guys go through here.

It's like just the Holy Spirit just comes in through the Word of God and
just starts carving out chunks of your self-life, right? Is that what's
happening for you? And it's a hard thing to go through. But man, the
value of it. Man, you're coming into real life through this process of
death.

I hope you understand that. It's not just a matter of trying to, you
know, whatever. This ain't going so good.

I'm going to get back on track with what I said before. Christians are
crazy if they don't immerse themselves in the Word of God while they
can. And why do I say that? You know, I told you earlier when I came up
with this message six years ago, I was in this deep study of Revelation.

Maybe my mind was partly clouded by that in a sense, because when you
get into the book of Revelation, you can't help but see that things are
going to go downhill in the end times. And that's happening around us
all the time now. Deception is greater than it has ever been.

The time to be completely impacted by the Word of God has never been so
needful as it is today. And, you know, what's happening is that the Lord
is giving the enemy more latitude. And, you know, it's all part of His
plan for the end times.

He's in control. God's in control. But He is letting the leash out on
the enemy because He's going to bring everything to a head before it's
over with.

And you will either be fully on board with God, completely repentant,
humbled before Him, walking humbly with Him, or you're going to be on
the other side. And that's where things are headed. And Scripture is
very clear about that.

And so we must be spiritually fortified. It's just desperately important
that we are spiritually fortified so that we can withstand the great
deceptions that are coming on this earth. You know, when Paul predicted
that the last days would be perilous, he wasn't talking about violence
or persecution or destructive weather or any of that stuff.

He wasn't even talking about the plagues, the seals, you know, the bowls
of judgment. That's not what he was talking about. He was talking about
the spiritual atmosphere of selfism that would become so pervasive in
the church that masses of professing Christians would find that they had
no defense against the enemy's lies and seductions.

And you better take that serious, man, I'm telling you. It is... Golly,
I feel like I go on and on about this all the time. The peril isn't to
our bodies, the peril is to our souls.

And there needs to be the fear of God within us. If you don't have the
fear of God, then what's going to happen is you'll be like that guy that
Pastor Ed talked to. You'll just blow off, you know, your need to take
these things seriously.

You'll blow off the need to allow the Lord to deal with you, and you'll
just find a way to justify yourself and get out of it. In fact, I've
heard, I mean, you know, I don't know who's who in the residential
program, and I just hear little things in our staff morning prayer
times, but one of these guys was talking the other day about one of you,
and I don't know who you are, okay? But just digging your heels in, just
will not humble yourself before the Lord, before your counselor, before
anybody. And, you know, guys, man, you're only doing it to your own
destruction.

That's all I can tell you. That's all I can tell you. I don't, let me
just read this.

I'm going to read 2 Thessalonians 2 out of the Phillips translation just
because, yeah, he just really nailed it in some ways. Starting with
verse 3, the whole context, I'm going to read this whole thing because
I'm not going to go over all this, but it's going to establish the
atmosphere of what Paul was going through, or what he was in when he
wrote these words. That day, meaning when the Lord returns, will not
come before there arises a definite rejection of God and the appearance
of the lawless man.

He is the product of all that leads to death, and he sets himself up in
opposition to every religion. He himself takes his seat in the temple of
God to show that he really claims to be God. I expect you remember now
how I talked about this when I was with you.

Verse 6, you will probably also remember how I used to talk about,
quote, a restraining power, which would operate until the time should
come for the emergence of this man. Evil is already insidiously at work,
but its activities are restricted until what I have called the
restraining power of God is removed. When that happens, the lawless man
will be plainly seen, though the truth of the Lord Jesus spells his
doom, and the radiance of the coming of the Lord Jesus will be his utter
destruction.

Verse 9, the lawless man is produced by the spirit of evil and armed
with all the force, wonders, and signs that falsehood can devise. To
those involved in this dying world, he will come with evil's undiluted
power to deceive, for they have refused to love the truth which could
have saved them. God sends them, therefore, the full force of evil's
delusion so that they put their faith in an utter fraud and meet the
inevitable judgment of all who have refused to believe the truth and who
have made evil their playfellow.

Man, that, yeah, wow is right, and all I can say is this is why you
better love the truth and love the truth about yourself and let God deal
with you through his word, the truth of his word. You know, when did I
say that? I guess it was Friday with the staff. I was talking about the
Antichrist and these ridiculous end time movies, and you know, they
always make this huge thing about the Antichrist, the man, and what I've
always said is the man is nothing.

He's not important. He's just some demon-possessed man that the enemy's
going to be able to use to accomplish his purposes. What is of
importance is the enormity of the spirit of Antichrist, the spirit of
the world that is going to usher this man into power.

That spirit is what is affecting all of us at some level or another, and
that's what we need to be very, very concerned about. It's so important
that we are sandbagging our lives with truth. All right, so let me just
go over quickly three reasons why it's so important that we get the
truth of Scripture strongly established within us, and again, you know,
it's not enough to just read the Bible, and it's not enough to study it
academically.

You've got to let it get into you and affect you, and I'll just give you
three reasons why. Because of where things are headed in the church
culture of our day, we need the Word of God because we're coming into a
time of great spiritual lawlessness, and you know Jesus said it, um, the
love of many. Many means most.

The love of most will grow cold. Why? Anybody know? Because lawlessness
will increase. He's not talking about out there in the world.

He is talking about in the church. So Paul touched on it here in 2
Thessalonians 2. He said, for the mystery of lawlessness is already at
work. Only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the
way.

Paul calls the Antichrist the lawless one and the man of lawlessness,
but then he mentions the mystery of lawlessness, and this is a very
enigmatic and, uh, yeah, just a really, um, profound concept to
consider. You know, there's a number of mysteries mentioned in the New
Testament. There's the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.

There's the mysteries of the mystery of Christ and the church, the
mystery of the gospel, mystery of the faith. There's mystery of Babylon
the Great in Revelation 17. So here he presents another mystery, the
mystery of lawlessness.

The mystery of lawlessness is a subtle power at work in our hearts where
no one can see what's happening. It's an unseen spiritual influence that
is continually, relentlessly driving home the attitude that outward of
obedience to a few biblical principles is good enough that we don't
really need to submit our decisions and plans to God, that we can live
independently from God, that God's grace will cover us so long as we
don't quit going to church. That's the main thing.

It's a mindset that has taken hold in the church and become entrenched
in the church, and it's very powerful, you know, and ministers, wherever
they're at, you know, maybe they've never really allowed God to deal
with them, and so they're just up giving little sermons, information
sermons, infomercials, you know, now it's become like you can't go over
30 minutes because people get up and leave. You know what I say? See you
later, man. You know, I'm sorry that you don't really love the Word of
God, but I'm going to sit here and I'm going to preach it for an hour,
and if we were like we should be, you know, in places like Africa and so
on, they want the Word for two and three hours.

In China, they want it for six or seven hours. They're starved for
truth. But anyway, so, you know, ministers, they're faced with people
who don't want to be told, just like Pastor Ed.

I don't know what the pastor was like who was with this man. Maybe he's
one of these, you know, appeasing sort of pastors, super diplomatic,
don't offend anyone in the church no matter what. That's the most
important thing, most important rule of successful pastoring in their
minds.

So maybe he just appeases the guy and comforted him all the way home
because his ego was devastated by Pastor Ed or something. I don't know.
But, you know, there are those types.

But then there's also sincere pastors who have to walk on eggshells so
careful because people will just outright vote them out of their church
if they say anything wrong. Are you guys with me? You sure are being
awfully quiet this morning. Let me put it this way.

The deception in the church isn't so much in what is said, it's what is
left out. That is really most of the deception in the church is what is
no longer taught, like repentance, the need to repent, the need to
humble yourself, the need to separate from the world, the need to deal
with sin in your life, the need, you know, just those kinds of things.
Man, you just can't hardly hear confronting messages anymore in the
church.

Let me just read, you know, some quotes here real quick. And these would
be from men, godly men who lived in the late 1800s. Albert Barnes said,
the mystery of iniquity seems here to refer to some hidden or concealed
depravity, some form of sin, which was working secretly and silently,
and which had not yet developed itself.

Any secret sources of iniquity in the church, anything that tended to
corrupt its doctrines and to destroy the simplicity of the faith of the
gospel would correspond with the meaning of the word. Now, I'm telling
you, these men who lived 100, 150 years ago, you read some of the things
they wrote about the apostasy, they absolutely nailed it, even though
they lived way before that time would come upon us. The thing that we
live in right now, they saw it through their spiritual eyes, and it was
vague, and they couldn't quite say it, but they had it.

I mean, they had the gist of it. Adam Clark said, there is a system of
corrupt doctrine which will lead to the general apostasy already in
existence, but it is a mystery. It is as yet hidden.

It dare not show itself because of that which hinders it. Yeah, and
that's exactly what I was saying before, that the Lord is starting to
let the enemy have his way, and it's all part of his plan, so it's okay,
but that's what's happening. One of the pulpit commentators said this,
even at the time the apostle wrote, the seeds of apostasy were already
sown.

The leaven of lawlessness was fermenting inside Christianity. The
foundations of a false Christianity were being laid. This was written in
the 1880s, and guys, you are witnessing it right now in the church.

It's coming to fruit now. All right, second thing. We need the word of
God because we're coming into a time of a famine of the word from the
Lord.

That comes out of the book of Amos, but it's also mentioned in judges
when the word of the Lord was rare, the same kind of concept. Now, it's
very likely before it's over the Bible will be banned. It's been that
way.

It's that way in China right now. I mean, what those believers are
suffering in China is unbelievable, and also in Muslim countries.
They're suffering now.

Your Christian brothers and sisters can't get their hands on a Bible, so
we may come to a time when we can't even find the Bible, but I don't
tend to think it's a lack of Bibles that we deal with today. At least in
America, it's a lack of interest. It's a lack of interest.

It's a lack of hunger. When you're talking about famine, you're talking
about starvation, and people can starve in one of two ways. I mean,
there's just no food to be found, and so Ethiopia or wherever, people
are starving because there's just no food, but there's also another kind
of starvation.

If you get sick, if you get really sick to where you have no appetite,
you just won't go eat. You know, you may force yourself, but you don't
want to, and that's more like what we're experiencing today. There is a
spiritual disease that has run rampant throughout the body of Christ,
and it's worldliness is what it is.

It has deadened our hunger for the things of God. You know, in communist
countries, I don't know if they still do this, but back in the 50s and
60s, they did. You would have, let's say, a godly minister that they've
thrown in prison.

He's in a cell by himself, and they have, they pipe in brain, the whole
idea was to brainwash Christians, so they would pipe in propaganda, and
it would go on and on and on loud, 24-7, talking about all the, you
know, trying to dispel the trustworthiness of scripture, all the reasons
why you can't trust Christianity, all the reasons why Christianity is
false, and also talking about all the glories of communism, and these
poor men and women of God would have to sit under that for hour after
hour after hour, and I'm sure they were crying out to God, Lord, please
keep this junk out of my mind, and I'm sure the Lord did help them. We
face the same kind of relentless message in our culture, but it's
because we are so plugged into the world's information outlets, and the
bait that Satan uses is entertainment. He's gotten Christians so
addicted to entertainment that they can't conceive of life without it,
and he's using that as the Trojan's horse, that he's getting his
deception into the church, and getting our minds off of the Word of God,
and the truth of the Word of God, and getting it on the value system of
cosmos, of this world system.

The difference between us and the believers in those communist countries
is they saw the atheistic communism for what it was, their enemy. The
difference is we see the world as our friend. You know, they braced
themselves against what they were hearing, and we let it all flow in,
just completely oblivious to the way it's affecting us, and the more it
affects us, the less discerning we become.

You know, my fear is that many so-called Christians will so immerse
themselves in the mindset of the world that they won't be able to find
their way back out, and you guys have a tremendous opportunity in this
place to find your way back out. Paul said the Antichrist, and I'll just
say the spirit that possesses him, would come with all the deception of
wickedness for those who perish because they did not receive the love of
the truth so as to be saved, and as I've said, people don't mind little
infomercial sermons. Just tell me about, you know, what the culture was
like, and tell me what the textual, you know, grammar means, and just
tell me these little nice little tidbits, but don't start confronting me
about my sin, or whatever, and you know, the reality is humans hate to
hear the truth about themselves.

They do not want to be told. The reality is, guys, the only way you're
ever going to acquire a love for the truth is, first of all, to humble
yourself and embrace the truth that God is expressing to you about
yourself and where you're at, and to spend a lot of time in this,
because this will restructure your thinking. It will restructure your
thinking if you'll spend time in it.

It has the power to alter your perspectives, to change your values, and
to create new attitudes within you, but you've got to spend time in it,
and you have to approach it with a humble heart, not academically in
your mind, but in your heart. All right, number three. I'm trying to get
through this.

We need the Word of God because we're coming into a time of great
deception, just as scripture has told us, and Paul says it right here,
with all the deception of wickedness, etc. For this reason, God will
send upon them. God will send upon them.

Man, that should terrify us. What's wrong with us? He's talking about
right now. God will send upon them a deluding influence so they will
believe what is false.

Man, man, I'm telling you, you better get, how do I say it, start
looking at what the Bible actually says, and get all your predisposed
doctrinal systems filters out of your mind, and just read it for what it
says. It's the only thing we can trust. Basically, what Paul is saying
is God's going to give you what you want.

If you want to be deceived, He's going to let you have that in
abundance. And right now, the greatest deception in the church that the
enemy is spreading is that we can immerse ourselves in the world and
still go to heaven. We don't really have to obey God.

We don't really have to walk in the Spirit. As long as we go to church
and call ourselves Christians, that's all that really matters. But you
know, the deception has been pretty much underground, but now it's
starting to break out.

And I don't like to name names. I really try to shy away from it, but
I've gotten to the place lately where, you know, it's getting so bad, I
just feel like, whatever, I just have to say what I believe. I don't
like doing it.

You know, I just, I'm really, there's a part of me that cringes at the
thought of saying something about someone, even if I'm pretty sure I've
got all the evidence and I can see it, I'm still hesitant publicly to
name names and say, but I just, what are we going to do? I mean,
someone's got to start saying the truth. I know there's others out there
who are, so don't, you know, I'm not meaning like I'm the big voice of
God on earth today or something. Joel Osteen.

Joel Osteen, from everything that I can see, is a false teacher. He's a
liar. And I'm going to, I'm going to call him the voice of positivism.

He's a polished version of Kenneth Copeland, who brought, you know,
really brought the whole prosperity message, the whole name it and claim
it thing into the church in the seventies. And, you know, Joel Osteen is
just a pretty depth version of the same thing. And you guys need to hear
this.

And I don't know if any of you are from this background. I apologize for
offending you. I don't mean to be that way, but you do need to really
look at what scripture says.

The prosperity movement, as far as I'm concerned, is a self-centered,
world-loving, temporal-minded gospel, false gospel. The message, it
pedals right out of Joel Osteen's book. Your best life is now.

Man, what a thing to say. You're representing God Almighty, the eternal
being, to temporal people, and you're telling them that the best life
they can have is right now on this earth. But you know what? If that man
doesn't repent and change his ways, then that book is exactly right, at
least about his life.

Because the best he's ever going to experience is what he's enjoying
right now, with his palace house and all his cars and all that stuff.
Because when he stands before God, things are going to go downhill very
quickly for him. I think you'd be better off reading books some guy
wrote, The Time of Your Life and Light of Eternity.

Now that's a man who won't lie to you. Rob Bell, another liar. I'm going
to call him the voice of relevance.

You know, he's part of the whole emergent church that's come out that
is, as I said before, it's just another form of the same higher
criticism. It's just taken on a new cultural form in America. I'm sorry
if I'm offending you guys, you know, any of you, but you do need to hear
these truths.

Young people love guys like Rob Bell because they speak their language.
They talk openly about the failures of the religious system we have in
America, much of which is true. Emergent leaders have a knack for
connecting with disillusioned young people.

But instead of leading them into a submitted life with God, instead of
leading them back into the ancient paths that take you into something,
the reality of God and the kingdom of God, instead of leading them that
way, they're leading them into a lawlessness, a rebellious mindset.
They're leading them into questioning everything about the Word of God.
That this takes second place to cultural relevance.

When I was, well, I did a thing about Rob Bell, a video that's on the
internet, and I was kind of studying up on him a little bit, and I ran
across what this one blogger said. He said, Bell's favorite tactic when
backed up against a wall is to redirect the question back at the
questioner. Very disingenuous.

I would respect him more if he would just come right out and admit what
he believes, however heretical it may be. Either he doesn't know what he
believes, in which case he shouldn't be preaching or writing books about
it, or he doesn't have the courage of his beliefs. And that is true
about all these emergent leaders.

And I was watching a video clip of Brian McLaren. Is that his name,
Brian McLaren? He gave like a, I want to say 10 minutes, I can't
remember. It's been a few years since I saw it.

But the question was, is homosexuality sinful? And he gave like a
10-minute talk. It was like listening to a politician. And at the end of
it, it's like, he's nothing but a bunch of gobbledygook.

He didn't say anything. You couldn't pin him to the wall on anything he
said. And you know, that's the way they want it, because they don't want
to be criticized.

They want everybody to love them. That's one of the common denominators
with false teachers. They want everyone to love them, and they want
worldly success.

You know, for myself, well, no, let me just mention a third one. This
one's, from what I can tell, Rick Warren is also peddling a false
gospel. I'll call him the voice of reason.

You know, he can go on CNN and spin out just smooth as silk his version
of the gospel. And the world loves to hear him. No wonder he's behind
this ecumenical, whatever you call it, movement, because he can schmooze
with popes or anyone else.

He doesn't care. And the reason why the world loves him is because he
speaks their language. And you know, he, Bill Heibel, some of these
other seeker-sensitive preachers who have built up these mega churches
with thousands of people coming to their churches.

How have they done that? By preaching against sin? Their whole line of
thinking is to make the church a safe place where anybody can feel
comfortable. Well, let me tell you something. Jesus Christ did make
sinners comfortable.

He confronted them in their sin. Yes, he loved them. He was a friend of
sinners.

It's true. But he was there for one reason, to save their souls from
sin. You guys are being so quiet this morning.

Worry me. No, not too much. Osgin has said this, when mega church
pastors seek to mold a message to their, quote, market, and he's
referring directly to Rick Warren there, of constituent needs, their
preaching omits key components.

Gone are the hard sayings of Jesus. Gone is the teaching on sin, self-
denial, sacrifice, suffering, judgment, and hell. With all its need-
meeting emphases, there's little in the church growth movement that
stands crosswise to the world.

He nailed it. That's exactly right. You know, I would rather tell the
people the whole truth than to water it down so I can be successful in
the world's eyes.

I'd rather bring a negative message, if it means telling people what
they need to hear, than to promote some Pollyanna form of Christianity.
I'd rather come across as irrelevant than to plant one single thought of
uncertainty about the veracity of God's Word. I would rather count
myself among all the saints down through the ages who have been hated
and persecuted for the sake of Christ than to bring the message the
world considers reasonable.

Men, we are watching prophecy unfold right now. I hope you realize the
reality of that. You know, I've just got to cut things down now.

I mean, I need to bring it to a conclusion. You say that, but not
everyone feels that way. We live in dangerous times.

Spiritual perils surround us like a pack of wolves, and we need the fear
of the Lord. Listen, if we will subject ourselves to the authority of
God's Word, we won't be part of that mass of lawless Christians who will
find themselves on the wrong side in the end. If we will allow the truth
of the Word of God to penetrate our hearts, God will transform us from
the inside out.

If we will spend quality time soaking in the Word of God, we will find
ourselves sufficiently fortified against the heresies that are
dominating our culture. This Word is an anchor into God's mind. It's an
anchor into His perspectives.

It's an anchor into His values. You know, our feelings will fluctuate.
Our feelings are all over the place sometimes.

That's why we so desperately need the Word of God as an anchor that we
are attached to. So I'll end with what I began with. You're crazy if
you're not immersing yourself in the Word of God, because we're coming
into a time that that is what will get you through.

It's the only thing that's going to get you through. Let's pray. Lord, I
just don't have words strong enough to say.

How precious Your Word is. As Pastor Ed said, I say the exact same
thing. It is Your Word that brought reason into my soul.

My mind was so driven by lust for the things of this world. I was just
practically insane in my pursuits for carnal things. And it was Your
Word, it was Your Word that told me the truth about who I was, what my
character was.

It was Your Word that taught me the truth, and it was Your Word that got
into me as I spent hours and hours and hours in it. It was Your Word
that completely rebuilt my whole thinking apparatus. It's Your Word that
has kept me on course all these many years.

It's Your Word, as Pastor Ed pointed out, that is settled in heaven
forever. I need it desperately. And I pray, Lord, that You establish
that conviction in every heart that's here today, that people will
approach it with a humble heart and a hungry spirit, that they will
spend time in it, soaking in it, studying it, memorizing it, and let it
transform them from the inside out.

Bless everyone who's here today and everyone who may watch this later.
Bless them, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen.

I just want to say something real quick. There were people in Germany
before Hitler came to power who saw where Hitler would take the nation.
Economists, philosophers, theologians, they knew what was behind the
man.

And there were, most Germans could not see it. And most Germans would
not see it because they wanted what Hitler was offering. And all you're
hearing today is from a man who has spent hundreds and thousands of
hours trying to understand what is behind the spirit of the world and
where it is taking us.

And I understand that many of you don't see it and haven't seen it, but
the Lord will extricate you from that spirit if you will spend time in
His word. And that's what has to happen. So that's all that's going on
is a man telling you, here is what's coming down the road and here is
your way out.

And the question is, do you want out? That's the only question. All
right, God bless you guys. In a very short time, my life spiraled
completely out of control.

The whole time I've been looking at pornography, the longer I looked at
it, it began to get progressively worse. I couldn't really explain what
it was, but I was instantly addicted. You cannot take steps down a path
and avoid arriving at the destination.

God wants your heart. Satan wants your heart. Whoever has your heart
will control you.

Every time you sin, your desire for the things of God dies a little bit.
Your faith dies a little bit. Your desire to be free dies a little bit.

And with it, the hope to get free. So how do we win this war and emerge
with the victory that Christ has earned for us? What's missing is God's
power to transform a person. For God to come in and do a work to set us
free up of something that has taken hold in our lives, that we have
allowed in there, requires surrender.

The Lord was able to show me that, yes, I can set you free from this.
And hope for me was actually within reach. It was something I've never
felt before.

I don't care what kind of sexual sin you're involved in. I don't care
how bound up you are. If you will sincerely apply the principles that
are in that book, God will absolutely set you free.

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/lHAmIYJwWSY.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/steve-gallagher/crazy-christians-full-message/
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