Phil Beach Jr. addresses the critical issue of self-deception in the church, emphasizing the danger of being hearers of the Word without being doers. He calls for a collective awakening to the apathy and complacency that can arise from prosperity, urging parents to confess their sins and guide their children towards a genuine relationship with God. Beach highlights the necessity of recognizing and killing idols in our lives, as well as the importance of responding to God's Word with action rather than mere acknowledgment. He encourages believers to seek transformation through humility and a deep commitment to living out God's commands, rather than falling into the trap of self-deception. The sermon concludes with a heartfelt plea for the Holy Spirit to empower the congregation to become true followers of Christ.

Father we thank you for your presence here. Father we thank you for your presence and Lord we pray for the children before they go. Please mom and dad stand with me in spirit. This is a very very serious issue. We have to pray the Lord wakes us up out of sleep. Lord we pray for our children. We ask oh God first of all that as parents we confess our sin to you Lord. We confess Lord our sin of apathy, complacency, being asleep in the light. We confess Lord that because of the abundance in this land like Israel Lord who went into the land of Canaan and because of abundance we as your church have turned from you Lord. We've sought to follow our own desires and our own pleasures. We have sought to live a life of comfort and ease because of prosperity and your warnings are being heard Lord. You have rebuked our idols and you have warned us to turn from our idolatry and our covetousness and our greed and to come back to you. Lest the blessing of God become a curse and less the increase of God become a means by which the enemy robs our hearts from intimacy with you. We confess our sins before you Lord. We acknowledge our iniquity oh God. We refuse to put it under the carpet Lord. That we stand naked before you Lord trusting in your mercy, trusting in your grace, trusting in your loving-kindness. We ask oh God that you would cleanse us and remove our iniquity and our sin. We pray oh God that you would transform our minds, that you would put passion back into our hearts. We pray God that you would free us from everything that we are holding on to, everything that we are grasping. Show us the foolishness oh God of setting our heart toward the things that you have given us. Release us oh God and Father I pray that if you can't release us then you take it from us but don't allow us to continue in this state. Don't allow us oh God. We long for the days when we can sense your heart cry once again as a body functioning day by day, as a body preoccupied with your interests, preoccupied with caring for one another. These things simply are not present Lord and it's not Lord it's not going to change unless you help us to turn. And we pray Lord that as you enable us to turn that we would be able to pray and teach, pray for and teach our children not to set their heart on the things that this world sets their heart on, that they would learn that the most important thing is to offer their lives to you, to seek to do your will, to know your will and that you have promised in your word that as we set our heart to know you and to love you and to be a lover of truth that you and your sovereign way will work out all the details in our life in a way that far exceeds how we could ever try and do it in our own wisdom and in our own foolishness. Preserve our Children, I pray God, preserve them from pride, preserve them Lord. Oh God lay your hand upon every one of them from the youngest to the oldest, turn their hearts to you Lord. I pray, I pray Lord, help them see, help them see. Yes Lord Jesus. I'm forgiven because you are forsaken. I'm accepted, you were condemned. I'm alive and well, your spirit lives within me, because you died and rose again. I'm forgiven because you are forsaken. I'm accepted, you were condemned. I'm alive and well, your spirit lives within me, because you died and rose again. Amazing love, how can it be, that you my king will die for me? Amazing love, I know it's true, it's my joy to honor you. Amazing love, how can it be, that you my king will die for me? Amazing love, I know it's true, it's my joy to honor you. In all I do, I honor you. You are my king, Jesus you are my king. Jesus you are my king, Jesus you are my king. Amazing love, how can it be, that you my king will die for me? Amazing love, I know it's true, it's my joy to honor you. Amazing love, how can it be, that you my king will die for me? Amazing love, I know it's true, it's my joy to honor you. In all I do, I honor you. You are my king, Jesus you are my king. Jesus you are my king, Jesus you are my king. In the next few moments, I just feel nudged of the Lord to make this invitation. If you have heard the Lord's voice in your spirit this morning, and you believe the Lord has said to you, it's time to follow me. Not to become a Christian, you are a believer. But somehow, someway, along the way, you have discovered this morning that you've gotten distracted. Distracted by whatever it is, you're distracted. But now you've sensed life, you've sensed a surging in your spirit. Listen, this is your day today. You want to say, yes Lord, I've heard your call. And I want to be a follower of you now. Which means what you say goes. I want to hear your words through your word. And I want to follow you. If that's you today, and you feel God is telling you, and asking you to say yes to that call, I want to invite you to stand up and come forward together. And we're going to pray for you. Sing that one more time. Don't do it. Unless you believe God is saying this is your hour. And may I say this. If you're hearing the Lord speak to you now, and there's a struggle, there's a pride issue, brothers and sisters, if the water's stirring now, I beg you by the mercy of God, to say yes to him. Because to be able to see properly and to hear the Lord is not something that you can tune in and tune out when you want. When God calls, it's time to run. When God speaks, it's time to say, yes Lord, thy servant hears you. Speak Lord. We'll wait before we pray. Let's sing one more song. Amazing love, how can it be that you, my King, will die for me? Amazing love, I know it's true that it's my joy to honor you. In all I do, I honor you. In all I do, I honor you. Hallelujah. One thing everyone here will have to settle if you're going to follow Jesus, and that is this, you're going to have to want to please him more than people. If you're a people pleaser, you are not a follower of Jesus Christ. If you are a people pleaser, you are not a follower of Jesus Christ. That's an idol in your life. Carrie just pointed out to me on the back of this chair here, it says, kill your idols. How do we kill our idols? How do we kill our idols? Listen to the Lord's voice and follow him. I think the first step in killing our idols is recognizing that we have idols in our life and identifying them as idols. Kill your idols. That's what the Lord is saying. We talked about that last Sunday. Recognize. Identify. Then ask Jesus to slay it. Hallelujah to God. Lord, we want to be a follower of you. We just want to follow you. Lord, help the teenagers here to be a follower of Jesus. Help Christina and Kristen and Jason and Rebecca. Jeremy. Sarah. Michelle. Daniel. Mike's not a teenager, but help him anyway. You want to jump into this? Lord, help our teenagers, please. Help them, Lord. Help them, Lord. Help them not be people pleasers. Deliver them, Lord, from being people pleasers and so worried about what people think. Help them to become lovers of your word. Lovers of your word. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Have your way in our hearts today, Lord. Timmy is a teenager. Joseph. No, he's not 13 yet, is he? Have your way, Lord, in our lives, we pray. Let's just continue in the Lord's presence. We only have one purpose, and that's to let the Lord have his heart. And they have a song they feel the Lord has given them, so let's let it minister to us. God, I pray every single person today will leave here saying to themselves, I must become a follower of Jesus Christ. Forsake religion. Forsake the outward, external appearances, and start loving and obeying Jesus Christ. As you said, I'm not sure but every time you take me back I pray you'd do it once more. Please take away my life when I don't have the strength to give it away to you. Please take away my life when I don't have the strength to give it away to you, Jesus. How many times have I turned away? The number is the same as the stars in the sky. Every time you've taken me back I know I pray you'd do it tonight. Please take from me my life when I don't have the strength to give it away to you. Please take from me my life when I don't have the strength to give it away to you, Jesus. To give it away to you, Jesus. The only way to be able to kill your idols is to pray that God will heal the conscience so that the moment, I mean the instant, God's Word or God's Holy Spirit deals with you about something, you respond. Idols stay in our life because we either do not walk in the light which is the only place that we can see properly and know that there's an idol in our life and if you're sucking from the paps of modern Christianity you're not going to see any idols in your life because the light of God is not shining in you. But if you drink the pure sincere milk of the Word you will be confronted by the light and you will see clearly. So you either do not deal with idols because you don't recognize them because of failure to walk in the light or you walk in the light God deals with you about something and you nudge it off. You convince yourself that you know better than God. You know better than God or this probably isn't God. This sounds too radical. And so we have to pray, Oh God, heal our hearts. The moment you resist the Holy Spirit I mean in anything you are setting yourself up for self-deception which is what we've been talking about and you are setting yourself up for blindness. We have to pray, God, heal my heart from rebellion or stubbornness. Listen, every time you every time you resist the Holy Spirit He might nudge you to go to your wife or your husband or your children and say, I'm sorry. And you don't. You get into that practice and you are going to get a hard heart. Your conscience is going to become seared and you are going to fall prey to self-deception. And there's going to be idols in your life that you will not be able to see. Because you have exalted yourself above God. You know better. Anytime and this actually brings us to our next form of self-deception. Be doers of the Word and not hearers only deceiving your own hearts. What do you do with God's Word when you hear it? When it comes to you? God's Word doesn't only come on a Sunday morning gathering like this but God's Word comes to you every day. God's Word comes to you every time a wrong attitude rises up in your heart and you sense a troubled conscience. That's God speaking to you. What do you do? What do you do when you hear God's Word? Be doers of God's Word and not hearers only. What do you do? And so to kill an idol comes when we pray, God, heal my heart. Heal my heart, Lord. Heal my heart from resisting you. Wash me and cleanse me. Last week we looked at the first way to know whether or not we are self-deceived. James chapter 1 verse 26 If any man among you seemeth to be religious but bridleth not his own tongue, that man is self-deceived, James says. We're not going to repeat ourselves. All of these things are available on tape and as I encouraged everyone last week to get these tapes and to take notes and not only to teach yourself but teach your children these things. We learned just by way of review real quickly that to bridle means comes from a word to restrain so as to lead properly. We learned that that's what a bridle in a horse's mouth does. It restrains the horse from going its own way so that you can lead it your way. And a tongue, listen carefully, listen carefully. A tongue that is unbridled is a sure sign that self-deception is in your life. And we learned a few weeks ago that the evidences of self-deception, number one, we don't see ourself clearly. Number two, we don't see others clearly. And number three, we're not hearing the Lord clearly. We saw that Jesus said, why do you look at your brother and seek to take the toothpick out of his eye when there's a telephone pole? I know that doesn't say that but that helps us to understand. It's contemporary language. And then Jesus said, and consider not, consider not. The word consider there means to clearly see. So what Jesus is saying is you don't clearly see. In other words, you are self-deceived. Self-deception, in that one little statement there, reveals two things definitely clear. I don't see myself clearly and I'm certainly not seeing my brother clearly. And we learned last week the evidences of an unbridled tongue. And there were seven evidences. Matthew 12 chapter 37, Jesus said, verse number 36, But I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned. So not only does an unbridled tongue reveal self-deception, but an unbridled tongue promises that there will be a day when you will be held accountable for the things that you said. Out of an unbridled tongue, this form of self-deception is running rampant in the house of God today. James tells us in chapter 3 that the tongue is an unruly member and when it is unbridled, it is fueled by the fires of hell. Fueled by the fires of hell. Brothers and sisters, brothers and sisters, beware of a tongue that is fueled by the fires of hell. Think of the damage that a little spark can do in a forest. One little spark out of control can set an entire forest on fire and one little tongue out of control can do so much damage. So much damage. We must pray, Lord, rescue us from an unbridled tongue. Rescue us from words that stem out of an unbridled tongue. Holy Spirit of God, place alive living coal from your altar upon our tongue. Set a guard upon our mouth. Holy Spirit of God, we pray that you will deeply convict us any time our tongue speaks out words that are unbridled, that are ungoverned, that are not chosen words that we have thought through and know that what we're saying is right and good and wholesome and true. Help us, Lord. And then, Lord, once you heal our unbridled tongue, then deliver us from the self-deception that comes from an unbridled tongue. 1 Peter chapter 3, the Word of the Lord gives a promise, and part of the promise has to do with living a life that is governed by a tongue that is under control. 1 Peter chapter 3, beginning in verse number 9, not rendering evil for evil or rallying for rallying, but contrarywise blessing, knowing that ye are thereunto called that ye should inherit a blessing. For he that will love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips that they speak no guile. The word guile there means deceit. Literally, it comes from a word that is bait. Tricky speech to deceive. Guile. A tongue full of guile is a tongue with bait on it. Bait intended to get someone to be deceived, to mislead someone. Such a condition is a dreadful thing in the eyes of the Lord. The second form of self-deception is found in the book of James chapter 1. The first form of self-deception had to do with our words in relation to what we say. The second form of self-deception has to do with our actions. Specifically, James chapter 1 verse number 22. Our actions in relation to God's Word. Let's begin in verse number 19. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. Boy, that's good advice, isn't it? We seem to have this thing backwards today. Every man is quick to speak and slow to listen. We get ourselves into a lot of trouble, don't we? Because we're quick to speak. We're quick to say something. We're quick. We're quick. A fool, the Bible says, spits out and utters everything that comes to him in a moment's time. But a wise man studies before he answers. A wise man thinks. A wise man exercises self-control, which is one of the evidences of the fruit of the Spirit working in your life. Matter of fact, it says in the book of Proverbs that he that masters his own spirit is stronger than one that takes a whole city all to know the abiding in Christ and the grace of Christ so deeply that we have the ability to control ourselves through the power of God and not to speak harshly and hastily. And so, this has to do with what we do with God's Word. Be slow to speak and swift to hear, slow to anger, for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Wherefore, lay apart all filthiness and superfluity. That simply means lay aside all evil, all kinds of evil, lay it aside, and receive with meekness the engrafted Word, which is able to save your souls. Be doers of the Word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. The second way to know that self-deception is working in our heart is that we are able to hear the Word of God, but not do the Word of God. We must pray that the Holy Spirit will rescue us from this dreadful condition of coming to God's Word and either reading it in our private time or reading it in a devotional setting or coming to such a place as this or other places and hearing the Word of God and hearing it on the radio and getting to the place where familiarity breeds contentment. We have become so familiar with God's Word that we enjoy hearing it but are not convicted over the lack of doing it. We come to gatherings like this and oftentimes we sit as judges whether that was a good sermon or not. A little too long today. Yet brothers and sisters in other countries will walk for 24 hours through desert, through tropical forests, through streams and rivers with their kids tied on their back to sit and hear God's Word. And then when they hear God's Word they weep and they cry and they say, Oh God, make true in my life Your Word. Make true in my life. Lord, by the power of Your Holy Spirit make me a doer of Your Word. Make Your Word so real in my life. Brothers and sisters, we should never be in the place where we can casually pick up our Bibles and just read through it as if we're reading a book. We should never reduce the Bible to a theology book. It is God's Word to us. And only as we cry out, Oh God, heal my heart. Restore back into me a passion. Hebrews 13.1 Let brotherly love continue. Stop. Stop. Don't go on. There's enough there to bring us down to our knees for six months. Oh God. Oh God, help me. Let brotherly love continue. Oh God, do I love my brother the way You love my brother? If you ask God that, He'll say no. And then He'll show you how you're not loving your brother. And then He'll give you an opportunity to die to your pride and die to yourself and die to your own selfish life. And He'll show you how abiding in His life will enable you to love your brother as He does. Be doers of the Word and not hearers only. We should be at the place where I say, Lord, I can't go on. I can't read the next verse. And then once you have peace in your heart that God has dealt with you about brotherly love, you might be able to go to the next one. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers. Oh my God, have mercy. How many times do I blow off the call of God to entertain people? Because I don't have time, Carrie. It's not in my time schedule. It's not the right day. See, fellowship day is only Sunday and Friday. No, Lord, I can't entertain this brother. This isn't part of my schedule today. Oh God, forgive me for I stand guilty today. I have been forgetful, Lord. I have been forgetful to entertain strangers. I've been too busy. This, brothers and sisters, is what it means to be a doer and not a hearer of God's Word. A doer and not a hearer. Now that doesn't mean that you can't just read through God's Word in order to get it in your mind. You can't have a Bible tape on. Please understand the spirit of what the Lord is trying to say. To be a doer of the Word and a hearer is one that not only hears God's Word, but wrestles with God in prayer so that he is enabled to do what God says. If you love me, what does the Bible say? You'll keep my commandments. Now, we're only going to go a few more minutes. But listen, brothers and sisters, how many here want to be a doer of God's Word and not a hearer only? All right, watch this. We're going to together look and see the very cause, the root cause why we're not doers of the Word. And if we'll listen and we'll ask God to work this in us, you will leave here today as a doer of God's Word and not a hearer only. It's right in James. Right in the book of James. Verse 22. Be ye doers of the Word. That word doer is a worker. A worker, a doer, a worker. In other words, God's saying let the truth of my Word work in you so that what you hear is working through you being seen by what you do and what you say. Don't you love God's Word? It's so powerful. Now watch this. Here it is. How is it that we end up being self-deceived over this matter? Here it is, right here. For if any be a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass or a mirror. For he beholdeth himself and goeth his way and straightway forgets what manner of man he was. A hearer but not a doer of God's Word is revealed when we look into God's Word, we see ourself in light of God's Word, but we straightway go our own way. Do you remember a few weeks ago we talked about what it was to be a disciple? Jesus spoke to believers and he said, If you continue in my Word, then shall you be my disciples. And then he said, Then shall you know the truth and the truth will make you free. The doer or the hearer of the Word but not the doer of the Word is the man or woman who looks into the Word of God, hears the Word of God, but goes his own way and then forgets what manner of man he is. It's like getting up in the morning and looking at yourself in the mirror and getting so discouraged over what you see, you just turn your head and you forget about what you see so that by the middle of the day you forget what you look like. You don't want to deal with it. Now everybody else sees what you are, but you don't because you're not looking in the mirror. You're not seeing a reflection of who you really are. And a hearer of the Word and not a doer is one that's trapped in that heart condition. But watch this. Here's the victory. But, whoso looketh. Now, the word whoso looketh literally means, this is so, so heart-searching. That word actually means to stoop down in order to look into, to stoop down. The word is used in Luke chapter 24, verse 12 and John 20, verse 15 when it talks about the apostles racing to the grave. And it says that either John or Peter had to, it says he stooped down to look into. It's the same word. Stooped down to look into the grave to see if Jesus was there. Brothers and sisters, we must pray that God gives us a stooping down to look into heart condition when we come to God's Word. Our failure to be doers of the Word is our hearts are too high. Our hearts are too mighty. Our hearts are too proud. Our hearts are too exalted. We must pray, O God, give me the capacity to come to your Word in brokenness. Give me the capacity to come to your Word stooping down, looking into it, getting down off my self-righteousness, getting down off of my walks, getting down off of all that I think. Let me hear your Word. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, now watch, and continues therein. See what's developing? The Holy Spirit's developing the way to be a disciple. Not just a believer, a disciple, a pupil, a follower of Jesus, a student of Jesus. So we have stoops down, and then we have continues. You continue in that stooped down position in God's Word, letting it speak to you, letting it reveal what manner of man you are, letting it convict you. But at the same time, because we're under the New Covenant, we experience the transforming power of God's Spirit. So not only are we convicted by God's Word, and shown what manner of man we are in ourself, we are given the grace to be transformed and changed. That's the New Covenant. Don't run from God's Word in fear. That's the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant says, I am God and this is what I demand of you. The New Covenant. I am God. This is what I demand of you. And I have provided it in my Son. And now my Son is available to you. And if you will continue in my Word with a bowed down heart of humility, God saying, I will transform you. I will change your heart. I will give you a heart of flesh. I'll take that stony heart out of you. I'll take that idol out of your life. I'll take that love of money out of your life. I'll take that insecurity you have. Continue in my Word. Be a lover of my Word. Meditate on my Word day and night. And I, God says, I will change you by my Word. And what's pronounced on such a condition? He that continues therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work. Of the work. Not of the Word, but of the work. What work? The work that the Word produces. This man shall be blessed in his deed. Okay, that's all we're going to go through. We've got more on that point. But we're going to just stop right there. A forgetful hearer and not a doer. How are you about God's Word? Does it bring you to your knees? Does it bring you to your knees? Does God's Word bring you to your knees? You say, no, it doesn't. Thank you for being honest. But now pray that it will. Because if God's Word doesn't bring you to your knees, you will be self-deceived. If you can just sit and hear God's Word and say good sermon, too long of a sermon, or read your Bible to gather information and it doesn't speak to you and make you go down on your knees and, oh God, work this in me, you're self-deceived. That sounds radical, Phil. It is. It is. That sounds a bit extreme. It is. It is. But when I meet Paul, I meet an extreme man. When I meet Jeremiah, I meet an extreme man. When I meet Paul, or Peter, I meet a man who said, I'm not worthy to be crucified right side up. This is what church history tells me. I want to be crucified upside down. Extreme? I want to be extreme. I want every word that I hear my Savior speak into my heart bring me down to my knees. I don't ever want God's Word to become like a talk show program. I don't want to ever be able to turn on Bob Grant, Joan Rivers, then Alexander Scorby, then Contemporary Christian Music, and then Mayberry RFD in one day and basically be affected the same way by all of it. I don't ever want that to happen to me. I had Hackman send me recently a notice that because of a certain amount of purchases that have been done there recently, I had a discount. So I said, oh good. I was able to buy an entire New Testament tape by Alexander Scorby. It was a recent edition that he did for five dollars. That's a good deal, isn't it? I can't get through it. I'm driving down the road. I flip on Matthew. Stop. Oh God. Oh God. Make that true in my life. Then I go on and I hit the stop and I go back again and rewind because I'm just not settled yet with that issue. Then I go again and stop it. Then I try and go ahead because I just want to hear the word, but I can't because as soon as I feel God nudging on something, I've got to stop. I've got to stop. So I've gone through Matthew 5, 6, 7, and 8 probably 10 times and I can't get to Matthew chapter 9. I have to go back to blessed are the poor in spirit. Stop. Oh God, am I really poor in spirit? Blessed are those that are hungry and thirst. Stop. Oh God, am I hungry for you today or am I hungry for something else? God, rescue me from being satisfied with whatever. Oh God. I can't. I can't go on until I get a piece that God is saying, It's okay. I've put a hunger in your heart. You sure, Lord? You sure? Lord, I don't want a hunger for anything but you. Okay, now I can go on to the next one. That's a doer and not a hearer only. Father, we thank you for your presence. We thank you for your Holy Spirit. We thank you, Lord, for challenging us this morning through our brother Bob and Penny and the story that they've written. We honor them as the scripture says. Give honor to whom honor is due. We honor them as servants of the Most High God who risk their lives for the kingdom's sake. We receive from them, Lord. We submit to what you've given to them. And we pray that you'll work deep in our heart the truth that they have shared with us this morning. And we also pray for the truth that your Word has brought to us this morning. Help us to kill our idols. Help us to be free from self-deception through an unbridled tongue. And help us to be free from self-deception that comes when we don't seek to do your Word but simply enjoy hearing it. We commit these words into your hands, Holy Spirit. Work them deeply in us, please. We pray. Now let's just listen for the Holy Spirit for a few moments. We've said this many, many times. We've been saying it for years and years. Don't be swaddled up in condemnation when God's Word comes forth and it's hard and it's powerful and it's stirring and it pricks us to the heart. Don't be stirred with condemnation. Come to Jesus and say, Thank You. Say, Thank You, Lord. Thank You that there's a living Savior. Thank You that He is my life. When God's Word exposes you, don't run and hide, but run to Him and say, Lord, I stand guilty. Change me by the power of Your grace. Change me by the power of Your Holy Spirit. Don't let the devil lie to you and say, Ah, you see, there's no hope for you. You see all the sin in your life. You see your tongue is so unbridled. You see how you can just hear God's Word week after week and it doesn't affect you. Don't let the devil lie to you. You say, Father, I come to You in faith. You're committed to do everything Your Word says this morning in the New Covenant and I'm under the New Covenant. I come to You in faith, Lord. Smash my pride and do it. Smash my pride and do it. Today we pray, Lord. Go ahead and sing a song and let's just wait in the Lord's presence for a few moments and let Him speak to us. Speak to us, Lord. Speak to us, Lord. Let us hear Your Word in our heart today. Let us sing today. Holy Ghost with power divine Cleanses guilty heart of mine Long has sinned without control Held dominion over my soul Held dominion over my soul Holy Ghost with joy divine Cheer this silent heart of mine Bid my many woes depart Heal my wounded, bleeding heart Heal my wounded, bleeding heart Holy Spirit all divine Dwell within this heart of mine Cast down every idol thrown Reign supreme and reign alone Reign supreme and reign alone Holy Spirit all divine Dwell within this heart of mine Cast down every idol thrown