This sermon addresses the dangers of hyper-grace teaching, emphasizing the need for a balanced understanding of grace that includes accountability and responsibility. It highlights the importance of being convicted by the Holy Spirit, living a life worthy of the Lord, and not falling into a reverse legalism that attacks other believers. The message stresses the training aspect of God's grace, teaching us to renounce ungodliness and live godly lives while eagerly awaiting the return of Jesus.

Let's pray. Lord, thank you for your grace and goodness. Thank you for your kindness towards us, for your abundant truth. Lord, we want to embrace your grace. We want to revel in your grace. We want to dive into your grace and experience it in full. We never want to denigrate your grace, but we want to rightly understand your grace. So give us ears to hear, give us hearts to understand, help us to be faithful to you and your word. In Jesus name, amen. I'm speaking tonight on hyper-grace. It's a name I've used to describe some current teaching that is spreading through the body. Others have used the same term. I was speaking at a men's meeting, men coming from different parts of America that gathered together in Charlotte once a year, seeking God, really wanting to live their lives in a radical, God-pleasing way. People out on the street winning the lost. And before I got there this year to speak, I live in the Charlotte, North Carolina area, I felt I was supposed to teach on hyper-grace. And when I got there, they said, oh, we've been having some significant prayer before you came. And when I finished the message, they wanted me to know that they had been praying against false teaching in the body and began specifically to get burdened by what they called hyper-grace, not knowing that's the same word I was using in the word I was bringing that night. I'm not referring to it as counterfeit grace, which to me would mean something that claims to be God's grace and isn't, and rather than saving people, damns people. In other words, that would give people a false impression of salvation, and they hear this message and they are ultimately hell-bound. But Charles Spurgeon did make this comment. Spurgeon said this, and I quote him, not just because he was a greatly respected preacher in the 1800s, but because he was a grace preacher. One of his books is just an all-of-grace book, and he poured forth a message of God's grace. Spurgeon said this, the grace that does not make a man better than others is a worthless counterfeit. Christ saves his people not in their sins, but from their sins, and then quoting from Hebrews 12, 14, without holiness, no one will see the Lord. I'm using, though, the title hyper-grace. It is an exaggerated teaching that is spreading through the body today, and it's spreading in such a way that I didn't go looking for this. It started running into me. I do a lot of posting Facebook or things like that. If I'm speaking somewhere, I let people know or talking about something on the radio, I'll post it, and if I just would post something about holiness or purity or even a scripture, I'd be having many friends weighing in, amen, agreeing, good quote, and then suddenly somebody, that's just legalism. I'm thinking, hang on, all I did was quote a scripture. All I did was point to a beautiful truth in scripture, and next thing I'm getting blasted, that's legalism, that's sin management, that's behavior modification. I'm seeing some of the same terms thrown around. I'm thinking, where's this coming from? Now, this is not something new in terms of something unheard of in church history. These things keep repeating themselves. I look at writings from from 20 years ago where I'm dealing with similar things, but it's coming in such a way that it is claiming to be the new Reformation, an important Reformation that is sweeping the body, that is going to revolutionize the body, and although I'm sure some have been liberated and helped, some who've been caught up in legalism and dead works and just a human striving to somehow be accepted by God, they've been helped by this message. The message is so extreme and unbalanced that it's producing dangerous fruit, and along with that, giving people false assurance who are living in willful, unrepentant sin. So, I want to read some scriptures first to lay a foundation, then I want to describe in short what I mean by hyper grace, and then give you some of the key points of it to show the serious error in that, all right? And then when we're done with this, after we share a little bit about our ministry, we'll have a time for a Q&A as well. Let's go to 2nd Timothy. 2nd Timothy chapter 3. It's often been said that the problem with deception is that it's so deceiving, and the fact is that no one is willingly deceived. There are many different denominations and church groups, but none of them are called the first church of the deceived, or the congregation of the misled. So, it's kind of ludicrous for me to get up and say, I'm going to teach it right and someone else is teaching error, when they're down the block saying they're teaching it right and I'm teaching error. So, I want to ask some fundamental questions and say, are there ways by which we can evaluate any teaching? Are there principles in Scripture? It's one thing if people aren't using the Bible at all, that's easy enough to critique, or if they're just taking one verse and basing everything on one verse, that's easy enough to critique. But when people are throwing a lot of Scripture at you and are making some true points, and when all of us want to appreciate God's grace, I mean, I live by grace 24-7 just like you do. We don't want to denigrate a truth and get caught up with a negative reaction. So, how do we assess this? Well, look at what Paul wrote to Timothy in 2nd Timothy chapter 316. He's talking about how Timothy has been made wise for salvation through faith in Messiah Jesus, since he knew the Scriptures from his childhood, and the Scripture was the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scripture. That's the only Bible that they had at that time. The rest of the New Testament had either not been written or not recognized yet as Scripture. And Paul says this, all Scripture is breathed out by God, or inspired by God, and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. Just a simple principle to start with. First, since Paul said all Scripture is God-breathed, and he was speaking about the Old Testament, because that was the Bible of that day, anything that throws out the Old Testament is highly questionable. Anything that denigrates the Old Testament, or doesn't appreciate God's purposes in it, or just uses it to preach negatively, something's sadly wrong there. But notice that he says Scripture is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. And it's only if you have teaching, reproof, correction, and training, that we'll be thoroughly equipped in ministry, and that a leader will be thoroughly equipped to do ministry. That tells me that anything that does not bring correction and reproof as a regular part of spiritual diet is missing something. And anything that is constantly resistant to correction and reproof is missing something. And correction and reproof only come to set right that which is wrong, and if we're never allowed to address that which is wrong because grace has dealt with it all, something's fundamentally wrong and missing. He then goes on to give Timothy an awesome charge in the fear of God. In very strong words, I charge you in the presence of God and of Messiah Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. And what's his counsel to Timothy? Reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching. This is his commission to Timothy, to preach the word, and an essential part of preaching the word is to do what? It is to reprove, rebuke, and exhort. It is not just to comfort, encourage, and comfort, and it is not pep-talk Christianity, motivational speaking to help you get through another week. Yes, we want to encourage people, but in point of fact, Paul says there is to be a steady diet of what? Reproving, rebuking, and exhorting with complete patience and teaching. Why? For the time is coming, it was in Timothy's day, it's in our day, when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, will turn away from listening to the truth, and wander off into myths. You have to ask yourself what appeals to the flesh, what pleases the flesh, and what does the flesh not like to hear? Now it doesn't mean that God doesn't say good things to us, he says many wonderful, and kind, and encouraging things, and bathes us in his love and goodness day and night as we walk with him. At the same time, he calls us to go against the grain, and swim against the tide, and take up our cross, and follow Jesus, and that begins with saying no to self. Denial of the self is right at the beginning. A. W. Tozer, over 50 years ago, made the comment that whereas the old cross kills the sinner, the new cross redirects him. I thought about that, and thought we could update that to say that the new cross of American preaching does not redirect the sinner, it empowers the sinner. We preach a gospel of empowerment to the lost that Jesus died to make you a bigger and better you. That's pretty much the American version of the gospel, and God is here to fulfill your dreams and make you a success. It's a very different message than the message of Scripture, which is that we die, die to our dreams, goals, life, to say, Lord, I'm here to do your will, and in doing his will, we find the real purpose and meaning of life, and we find dreams beyond anything we could possibly imagine. Today's gospel promises everything, and requires, and asks for nothing. It's very different than the gospel of the New Testament. So when I speak of hyper grace, what am I speaking of? I'm speaking of a message that basically says this, because Jesus has died for us and made us righteous, and we are now fully accepted in Jesus, that not only have we already been justified, so that God puts us in the righteous column, not only have we already been justified, but we have already been sanctified and made perfectly holy in God's sight, so God only sees us as holy. It's not even that he sees us through his Son, but he sees us as holy. He doesn't see our sins, and because Jesus died for all of our sins, past, present, and future, that means that all of your sins have already been considered forgiven by God. God's already forgiven your future sins, therefore you never need to confess sin, because it's already forgiven and doesn't exist in God's sight. You never need to repent of sin, because it's already been forgiven and doesn't exist in God's sight, and any human effort that you put into trying to please God is a denial of grace and a denial of the cross. Now you can see the truth of that mixed with error, and you can see the tremendous danger in that when you're not even allowed to address sin anymore, and you're not allowed to call for repentance, and I even wonder just on a relational level what kind of relationship you can have with God that does not call for confession of sin. I don't mean making a list every day and going through it, or looking back at the end of the day to think, okay, where did I sin? What can I confess? But come on, think of a husband and wife where you do something insensitive to your spouse, and you realize, I hurt my spouse. The first thing you want to do is get with that person, say, I'm so sorry. I don't know what I was thinking. Obviously I wasn't thinking. That was so insensitive to me. Forgive me. You couldn't just imagine, just come home with a smile on your face and ignore what happened. What kind of relationship is that? I was driving on Wednesday to meet with some of the scholars at Reasons to Believe, Christian Ministry of Science in the Bible, and I had about an hour and a half to drive, and just having some beautiful time communing with the Lord, but something rose up in my heart that I was convicted of, and it was such a beautiful, life-giving thing to say, Father, I realize I've acted in this way, and confess it to Him, and just in communion with Him, it was beautiful and life-giving. The idea that that's somehow negative or wrong or denying the cross or denying the blood is absolutely perverse. What about this idea that all future sins have already been forgiven and God doesn't see them? Let's take a look at a passage that's used to emphasize this. Go with me to the book of Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 8. Hebrews chapter 8. Boy, it's so interesting. After decades of preaching, started preaching in 1973 in August, so going on 40 years, you get used to certain things, like the turning of pages of Bibles, and now you don't hear it so much as people are just finding the verse on their phone or their tablet. It's interesting. Some have it memorized. All right, look at me and quote it. Hebrews 8, verses 8 through 12, quote in full the New Covenant prophecy of Jeremiah chapter 31, verses 31 to 34, and what does God say at the culmination of that? Hebrews 8, 12, for I will be merciful toward their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more. And then Hebrews chapter 10, it's quoted again. Verse 17, then he adds, I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more. Where there's forgiveness of these, there's no longer any offering for sin, so you don't need to go back to the temple and have sin offerings and sacrifices because they've already been paid for through the blood of Jesus. God says, I'll remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more. Therefore, if you as a pastor, a teacher, a leader confront someone about sin in their lives, they can say, you're being a legalist, and you're being judgmental, and you're condemning me. God doesn't see my sins. He doesn't even remember them, and if I go to confess a sin to God, I'll say, what sin are you talking about? I don't even see it. I don't remember it. Now, we should just ask the logical question before we look at more scriptures. When we got saved, when we came to faith, 1971 for me, the end of 71, 16 years old, heroin shooting, LSD using, rebellious, proud, wicked kid, convicted of my sin, now I get saved. All I was conscious of and thinking of was the fact I'm guilty in God's sight. I've sinned against him, and when he forgave me, he forgave the sins I had committed, the ugly things I had done, and I remember that conviction of sin, which I just knew was guilt before I was saved. I didn't understand what it was, but I knew it was guilt those last few months as people were praying for me before I got saved. When I got saved, it disappeared. I remember trying to find it, and I couldn't find it. It was gone, but the last thing in my mind was that all my future sins are already forgiven. I mean, who ever thought that thought when you got saved? Who ever thought when God forgave us and washed us and cleansed us to say, and God, that means everything I'm going to do for the rest of my life is already forgiven? No one even thinks like that. To make a theology out of it is even stranger, but it's interesting that this very word that's given here in Hebrews 10, 17, proceeds by a few verses. Hebrews 10, 26, a warning to the very same people, for if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified? This is a saved person, and has outraged the spirit of grace. Outraged the spirit of grace. What a phrase. Outraged the spirit of grace. Think of it. But the very chapter that's reiterated that God remembers our sins and lawless deeds no more says that if you keep on sinning deliberately, don't think you can go back to Judaism or go back to sacrifices. There's no more sacrifice that remains if you reject the cross. Only thing you can look forward to is fearful judgment. Strange if future sins have already been forgiven. Take a look with me at Jacob, James, chapter 5. I am continuing to encourage Bible scholars and translators to translate this properly as Jacob as it is in the Greek. Jacob, James, chapter 5, writing to believers. Verse 13, is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the congregation and let them pray over him anointing with oil in the name of the Lord and the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick and the Lord will raise him up. And if he's committed sins, he'll be forgiven. What do you know? Maybe he sinned and because of his sin and willful violation of God's will, he's become sick. No problem. As you turn to the Lord and ask for his mercy, he'll heal and he'll forgive. It looks like God still sees that sins are there. Otherwise, why are you again forgiving the sins of a believer? And then, of course, the next verse, therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. Why are we confessing our sins one to another if they've already been forgiven and God doesn't even see them? But just James 5, 15 is enough to put to rest the idea that all future sins are already forgiven. You say, but I don't get it. Didn't Jesus pay for all my sins? Yes. Yes, he did. And the transaction of that, the transaction of us receiving forgiveness, is when we have sinned. In other words, you didn't receive forgiveness before you were sinned, before you sinned. We're born now in the in the 20th century. Unless you're a little kid here in the 21st century. Jesus died for us in the first century. Was forgiveness transacted to us before we were born? No. Was it transacted to us when we were in the womb? No. Was it transacted to us when we were in sin? No. When was it transacted? When we turn to God in repentance and faith and ask him to wash us clean and forgive us. And what sins were forgiven at that point? Everything we had committed. And God took us into his family and now treats us as righteous, treats us as his sons and daughters who belong to him. And in an ongoing basis, if we sin and turn to him, we receive forgiveness. We don't get saved again. We don't get born again once again. When we lived in Pensacola in the South in the Bible Belt, I found out that getting saved, in many people's minds, meant going to the altar. I remember some young lady getting baptized. She had been marvelously touched, but was still using her old Bible Belt terminology. And she said, I came here last week. I was in sin. I was doing this and that. I heard the message on Wednesday. God showed me I was a sinner. I went up. I got saved. And she said, I liked it so much. I came the next night and I got saved again. Oh, you went back to the altar. You responded to the altar call. That's your church terminology. We don't need to get saved again and again and again and again. There's the lesson of John chapter 15, or John chapter 13, excuse me, where Jesus washes the disciples' feet. And Peter says, you're not going to wash my feet. And Jesus says, then I have no part in you. And he says, oh, then wash everything. Head to toe, you know, wash me head to toe. And Jesus said, no, no, the one who's had a bath doesn't need to be washed all over again. Just his feet. Why? Because when you walk home from the river or from the public bathhouse, they didn't have running water in their homes. When you walk home, your feet get dirty. Oh, feet are dirty. I need to go back to the river. No, you don't need to go back to the river. If you go back to the river and wash, by the time you get home, your feet will be dirty again. What do you need? You need your feet washed. So on a daily basis, there's washing and cleansing. We're not getting saved again and again. We're not getting born again every day. I'm saved today. I'm lost next day. I'm saved. I'm lost and back and forth. And God writes your name in the book of life with a pencil and he's constantly erasing it. And because you backslid four times last week, he's gonna wait a day before he writes it back in. No, as children of God, we receive forgiveness on a daily basis. That's how it's transacted to us. Not the forgiveness of salvation, but relational forgiveness. You say, can I prove that in Scripture? No, I just made it up. How about the pattern of prayer that Jesus taught us in Matthew 6 and Luke 11, which includes prayer on a daily basis for what? Forgive us our sins, our debts, as we forgive those who sin against us. What do you do if you're a hyper grace teacher? Throw out the words of Jesus. They're not relevant for today. I'll come back to that in a moment. Jesus teaches it in the context of prayer. For example, Mark the 11th chapter, when you stand praying, forgive those who sinned against you, so your heavenly Father will forgive you. He gives a parable in Matthew 18, which ends with a strong warning that if we don't forgive others, our heavenly Father won't forgive us. He's not talking about being born again once again then or going from the category of righteous to wicked. He's talking about on the relational level, there's going to be something wrong and blocking between us and God. If we don't forgive others, there's going to be something unforgiving between us and God. Obviously, all our future sins have already not been paid for in the sense that they've been transacted for us and God doesn't see them. Otherwise, there wouldn't be these verses talking about. And why, pray tell, does most every letter in the New Testament deal with the issue of sin in the lives of believers if God doesn't see it? How about 1 Corinthians chapter 11? Sometimes I'll be talking with Nancy, my bride of almost 37 years, and I'll be talking about some new teaching that's circulating and people are now getting into this or that, and I'll share it with her. And more than once, her response to me has been, what do they do with the Bible? In other words, she's like me. The moment we hear it, we're thinking, what about this verse, this verse, this verse, this verse, this verse? And I've read the hyper-grace books, and when I've read them, I said, Lord, speak to me. Show me anything I'm missing. Show me anything in my heart that's not fully embracing your grace. Show me what I can learn from my brother. In other words, I'm not reading it that I'm God's man to tear this stuff up. I'm open to receive whatever I can, whatever truth is there. And as I'm reading, it's like, okay, you just said this, this, this, this. What are you going to do with these verses, these verses, these verses, these verses, and these verses? And I get to the end of the book, and they never deal with them. 1 Corinthians chapter 11, writing to believers, and he's talking about how the believers in Corinth are coming to the table of the Lord in an unworthy manner. He says in verse 28, let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. He says in 2 Corinthians 13 as well, examine yourselves to see whether you're in the faith. I do not believe that in hyper-grace churches that the text, examine yourselves, is quoted too much. Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself. That would seem to indicate that God sees something wrong, and acts on it. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. God disciplines us when we sin, not to hurt us, but to help us so that we can avoid condemnation and future judgment. Throughout the New Testament, sin is looked at as a reality, and something in the lives of believers that must be dealt with. And even though there are many hyper-grace teachers that try to eliminate the Gospels, I'll give you a representative quote or two in a moment, they try to eliminate the Gospels and they say, okay, the teaching that Jesus gave was for the Jews of his day, but it doesn't apply to us because we're under grace, and Jesus did his teaching before the cross. We're under grace, so we have to listen to Paul. Well, throughout Paul's letters, he's talking about sin, and dealing with sin, and calling on people to live differently. And then what do you do with the fact that Jesus is still speaking after the Gospels, as in the book of Revelation? What do you do with Revelation chapters 2 and 3, where Jesus rebukes five out of the seven congregations in Asia Minor? And he says, I see your works, I see your deeds, I know who you are. Could anything be more explicit that he looks at us and sees who we are as beloved children, not as hateful enemies, but as beloved children, and he sees what's wrong. He says to Laodicea, you say, I'm weak, I'm rich, increased in wealth, and I'm in need of nothing. Jesus says, you don't realize you're wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked. Sounds like he's looking at them. He doesn't say, I look at you and see you as perfectly righteous, perfectly clothed. He said, no, you're wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked, and you're self-deceived to think you're rich and have need of nothing. And to Ephesus, you've left your first love, and if you don't repent and do what you did at first, I'll remove your candlestick from your place. You won't even be anymore. And to Sardis, you have a reputation for being alive, and yet you're dead. And for Thyatira, if you don't repent, I'll kill your children. This is Jesus speaking. There was some guy on my Facebook page and began to espouse all of the hyper-grace teaching, and I said, hey, look, look, I'm trying to help you. I'm a father. I'm speaking to your young man. I want to help you. I'm speaking to you as a father. You've got some real serious error. And he comes back with all of his stuff, and I said, okay, what do you do with the words of Jesus in Revelation 2 and 3, because they completely contradict your theology. He said, if you base your theology on Revelation, you get in a mess. In other words, we'll throw it out. Now, aside from the fact that Revelation 2 and 3 are not like the opening of the seals and the trumpets and all that, I mean, this is pretty straightforward stuff, just like the epistles, just like the letters. That's how far it gets, throwing out the very words of Jesus. In fact, let me just go to that point for a moment, and then I want to come to some further errors of hyper-grace teaching. I don't want to mention this young man's name. He's a hyper-grace author, but I haven't reached out to him to contact him yet and to offer input to see if he'll receive it. And in his book, he refers to the fact that it's only a few years ago that he's been transformed through hyper-grace teaching. Now, again, a lot of the transformation in his life is very positive and good, and I'm thrilled to hear it and see it. But the only reason I quote him is because major hyper-grace teachers and leaders have endorsed his book enthusiastically and say it's wonderful. Listen to what he says. It is these preachers of law that love to quote scriptures from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John out of context, forgetting that the crowds who Jesus was preaching to were Jews. So first, if you quote the words of Jesus from the Gospels, you're a preacher of law. And if you quote them to apply them to us today, you're taking them out of context. I'm the vine, you are the branch. The man who abides in me will bear much fruit. I'm taking that out of context to apply that. I'm the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never hunger, whoever leaves me never thirst. I'm taking that out of context by applying that to me. How about some of the favorite words of Jesus in the mouths of televangelists? Give, and it shall be given to you. Is that a promise for Jews only before the cross? I'm being facetious. He says these Jews had been polluted with hundreds of years of preaching of the Old Testament law. By the way, the Old Testament law is a good thing. Paul wrote Romans 7 that the law is holy and just and good. Paul wrote Romans 8 that the righteous requirements of the law are now written on our hearts as believers. The psalmist said in Psalm 119, great peace have those who love your law. Nothing will make them stumble. Psalm 1, the man is blessed, truly blessed, who meditates on God's law day and night. God's law is wonderful and perfect. The problem is us. We fall short. Hyper-graced teachers reject God's law itself as being negative, as opposed to God's law revealing what's sinful and wrong in us. These Jews, this author says, had been polluted with hundreds of years of preaching of the Old Testament law, hearing day after day that it is their obedience to the law that will cause them to become righteous and that their level of morality and good performance will earn them God's acceptance and blessing. Well, that's what God said in the law. That's what he required. Israel fell short. That revealed our need for mercy in the Savior. But God said this is your righteousness if you live by them. Choose blessing or curse. Obedience will bring blessing. Disobedience will bring curse. That was all good. People fell short. He makes it as if the whole system was sinful. If you want to hear one of the most bizarre, ridiculous quotes you could possibly hear, at the risk of sounding critical, it remains a sad reality that the Bible Society chose to combine the Old and New Testaments into one single book. This isn't a highly praised, hyper-grace book. Aside from the completely idiotic notion that there was some Bible Society that decided to do this. Come on. The Old, what we call the Old Testament, that was the Bible of Jesus. That was the Bible of Paul and Peter and the Apostles, the early believers. The single decision has caused widespread confusion within the ranks of believers throughout the world. Many of the writings of the Bible before the cross portray God to be a harsh, cruel being set on destroying and punishing people if they dared to disobey the set of moral standards represented by the Ten Commandments and the other ones. Rejection of the Old Testament and the God of the Old Testament. Rejection of the Heavenly Father of Jesus, whom Jesus loved, and whom Jesus said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. It's really quite extreme. Well, how do we reply to that notion that the words of Jesus are not for today? Well, my gut level replies, what a stupid statement. I mean, what follower of Jesus, disciple of Jesus, doesn't want to drink in his words and take in his words, however challenging they are? But just to say it's stupid does not help those who actually believe this and who are caught up in this error. So let's actually think this through together. What's the Great Commission? The Great Commission, Matthew 28, verses 18 to 20. We have it in the ends of the different Gospels in different ways. Matthew 28, all authority in heaven and earth is given to me, therefore go, make disciples of the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe everything I commanded. The Great Commission is for the disciples to go and make disciples. And how do you go and make disciples? You teach them what Jesus taught. You teach them what Jesus commanded. If you're not doing that, you're not making disciples, according to the Great Commission. And then as we go throughout all the world, lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. How remarkable. You also have to ask the question, these gospel authors who worked on their books over a period of many years and decades. Someone like Luke who compiled the sources and sought things out. And Matthew carefully wrote to edify the believers and to reach Jewish people with the gospel. Mark and John, all the decades involved in putting together these Gospels. And the Gospels are written after the letters of Paul. Who were they writing these for? And why were they giving us all the words of Jesus if they were not absolutely relevant for us today? What about this notion, though, that this is teaching before the cross and the new covenant had not yet been instituted, and therefore the words of Jesus were for the Jewish people then, but not for those on the other side. We've already given you the words of the Great Commission. I've already asked for whom the gospel writers were compiling these books. But Jesus actually addresses the nature of his message and the transition age in which he comes. Luke 16, Luke 16, verse 16. The law and the prophets were until John. Some translations will add the word were preached until John. The Greek does not have that, but it's implied. The law and the prophets were until John. Since then, the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it. But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the law to become void. Thank you. All right, we are going to translate the words of Jesus into contemporary English, and it's not a cup of cold water that I've been given. It is a bottle of cold water, and for that you get a heavenly reward, son. God bless you. Thank you. For all who are thirsty, this is for you. Thank you. I needed that. I don't need 20 more, by the way, for those wanting rewards. I remember when our daughters were little, 15, 18 months apart. One of them wanted to play with a toy that the other one was playing with, and the younger one surrendered the toy to her older sister. Okay, you can have it. And I said, Meg, God is really going to bless you for doing that, for letting your sister have that, even though you wanted to play with it, for giving it to her. God's going to really bless you. That's special. A few seconds later, our older daughter comes marching, gives it back. She goes, I'm not going to have that. She wanted the reward. She wanted to be blessed. The law and the prophets were until John. Since then, the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it. Jesus is preaching the good news of the kingdom. Jesus is the ambassador of the good news, the gospel. He is not simply continuing the system that had been unto then. He is now announcing the new age. He is the ambassador of the new age, the kingdom of God, and he makes that clear distinction. To put his words on the other side of that is wrong. How about John chapter 1? What's written there? And I wonder how the hyper-grace teachers deal with this. John chapter 1, verse 14, the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. The words of Jesus are full of grace, full of grace and truth. Verse 16, and from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. If you are not receiving grace upon grace through Jesus and through the words of Jesus, then you are not embracing the witness and testimony of Scripture. For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Grace and truth, grace upon grace, grace and truth. The idea somehow that Jesus was not a grace preacher and Paul was is a monstrous distortion. As for the rejection of the Old Testament, I started with 2nd Timothy 3.16 and showed that it's a complete violation of Scripture, and to neglect the Old Testament you cannot be fully equipped. But not only so, the New Testament tells us about the purpose of the Old Testament. For example, in Romans 15.4 it tells us that whatever was written beforehand was written so that through patient endurance of the Scriptures we might have hope. And then in 1st Corinthians 10, verses 1 through 12, Paul gives a warning. Look at what happened to Israel, and all the things that happened to Israel are written down for our benefit, because God judged them for idolatry and sexual immorality, and he'll judge us for it. So learn from their example. 10, 12 in 1st Corinthians, therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he falls. So Paul is explicitly saying we need to take heed and look at these warnings, because it's the same God who will judge sin, because sin is destructive. Sin and the Spirit is far worse than cancer in the body. What about then this notion though, which is also part of the hyper-grace teaching, that following Jesus is effortless. It's effortless. You're just kind of carried. Have you ever been on a raft or just floating on the water, and it's just a beautiful day, and your eyes are closed, and you open your eyes, and oh! You're way out from shore. You didn't realize how far you floated out. You're just kind of carried out. Now again, there's a truth. You come to the Lord and find rest, Matthew 11, 28 to 30. We find rest in him, and we cease from our own labors, and when you really commune with the Lord, you're carried. You're empowered. Your health is just kind of automatic that you want to follow the Lord. At the same time, the entire New Testament calls for discipline. I mean, verse after verse after verse in the book I'm working on, on hyper-grace, I have a chapter on this consulate of effortless spirituality. It may sound nice, but it's not true. It's unbiblical, and it doesn't work, and the people I know that preach it the strongest are the ones who have drifted the furthest. Not only do you have verses like 1 Corinthians 9, 24 to 27, where Paul talks about running your race so as to win, and how athletes are disciplined in all things, and we do the same thing, and that how he pummels his body or beats his own body using a spiritual figure of speech there so that after preaching to others, he won't be a castaway. So in my book on effortless spirituality, in the hyper-grace book, I have interviews. I interview Jesus and say, was your spirituality effortless? As he agonizes in Gethsemane, as he says in Luke 12 that he's constrained with the burden of the Lord. Well, is it effortless to follow you? And I quote all of his verses about taking up the cross, and no man putting his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom, Luke 9, 62. And I interview Paul, and it's verse after verse after verse after verse, and I said, Paul, was your own spirituality effortless? And then I just have quotes from him about how he lived. Hebrews 12, run your race with perseverance. It says, in your struggle against sin, you've not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood. But you haven't died yet for resisting sin. In your struggle against sin, there's a battle. You may have to force yourself out of bed to pray. You may have to say no to fast. You may have to make a conscious choice to look away from this thing and to look towards the Lord. Yes, empowered by his grace, but he works with us. And then here's something fascinating for those who espouse an effortless spirituality. Take a look in the letters of Peter. Let's first look in 1 Peter and see what's written there. He talks about the glorious salvation that we have, then beginning verse 13. Therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. And he exhorts us to be holy is the Lord. Our God is holy. And throughout the letter urges us to live a certain way. First Peter 2 11. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. You have many exhortations like that. If you go to 2 Peter chapter 1, check this out. After explaining how God's divine power has granted us everything that we need for life and godliness, what does he say? 2 Peter 1 5. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue. And he goes on with that. Make every effort. And then Paul, at the end of 1 Corinthians 15, reminds the Corinthian believers that their labor in the Lord is not in vain. We are called to work. We are called to serve. I call it rest and run. You come to a place of rest and acceptance in the Lord. You know that you're accepted because of Jesus. That God looks at you as his beloved son or daughter. And now, empowered by that grace and love, you go and run your race. You go and fight your fight. 2 Timothy 2 3. We endure hardship as a good soldier of Messiah Jesus. Following Jesus is anything but effortless. It's glorious and wonderful and beautiful. And he carries us and he empowers us. But he calls for us to respond. And that response requires an effort. I understand there are people caught up in legalistic works righteousness. And they're trying really hard to get God to like them. And they think if I pray more and if I fast more, God will like me or God will love me. And people like that hear a hyper-grace message and are greatly helped by the truth of being accepted in Jesus. And by the truth that we are made righteous through what he did. And that we don't become righteous by trying harder. At the same time, there's such a profound and dangerous error that you can ask, where is it going to lead? In fact, it's come up in major ways in ministry to the homosexual community. That one leader, a brother that I know, I've spent good quality time with at different meetings, that he has said publicly, because he embraces the hyper-grace teaching, that if a practicing homosexual says they're a Christian because they received Jesus, then he believes they're a Christian. That's his brother, that's his sister, and they'll be in heaven with him because it's all by grace. So you're actually giving here a lying and false assurance to someone who's practicing. We're not talking about someone with same-sex attraction, we're talking about practicing, living it out, affirming it, saying it's fine in God's sight. And yet if you say I received Jesus, well then you must be in. A couple weeks ago, I saw an article, it was from Reuters, so just world news, but it was posted on a Christian website, and it was about Megan Fox. I'm not a movie expert, but we'll see her name as a sex symbol, and Katy Perry, singer who became especially well known with her song, that's what I started hearing about, I kissed a girl and liked it. Katy Perry was raised in a Pentecostal home, and mom and dad would speak in tongues all the time. I'm reading this article then about Megan Fox, and how she just loves to go to church and worship, and loves to speak in tongues, and how sometimes it's hard for her to hold back the tongues in the midst of the service. I thought maybe she's got a saying, maybe God's doing something in her life, maybe she's brand new in the Lord, and God's doing something in her life. Well, last week I'm going to the grocery store to pick something up, so I know at the checkout counters you got all that trashy stuff, just keep your eyes in the right place. I'm in another part of the store though, and there's a magazine rack I didn't expect to see, and there's a picture of Megan Fox, I mean very scantily clad, I saw it, I looked away immediately, but I saw, I mean split-second you saw who it was, and just, no, bad, seductive picture. I mean if I put it up here for a split second, every guy with any sense would look away, and the ladies go, I can't believe that. So I think something's just wrong with this picture here. So I wrote an article called Sex Symbols Who Speak in Tongues, and I write a few articles a week, between one and three articles a week, for a couple of major sites, one is townhall.com, it's a conservative political website, so I'll comment on a lot of social moral issues and do it from a kingdom perspective, and then we post those articles on charismanews.com and the opinion column, and sometimes in some other websites, but I wrote one just for Charisma, I didn't write this for Town Hall, this is going to be very specific, Christian, Sex Symbols Who Speak in Tongues. So I post it, send it in, they post it, 11 in the morning, on Monday, and when they posted it, I didn't mention her name in the article, or the name of Katy Perry, I just made general reference to things, and then I talked about how there's this rapper, he's called The Game, and he recently got saved, supposedly, and he goes to church, and he's been baptized, and his new album is called Jesus Peace, P-I-E-C-E, and I saw a video of, he starts his concert, and here's someone dressed like Jesus in the robe, and comes and puts a cross around his neck, and then he starts, oh you mother effers, with the cross around his neck, after Jesus presents it to him, and then I read this quote from him, that he's still out there smoking, and drinking, and going to the strip clubs, he loves going to church, he loves his family, he said I love Jesus, and I'm still out there thugging, so I talk about the contemporary gospel, that's where I point the finger, the contemporary gospel message, about how it promises everything, and requires nothing, how it bypasses the cross, and scorns denial of the flesh, and calls purity legalism, I said this is the fruit of it, and basically my conclusion is, that as America collapses in judgment, it's going to be able to point at the soft gospel preachers, and say it's your fault, because I'm not pointing a finger at these different people, whose names I mentioned, if any of them have known the Lord at any point, well they need to really come to know him, and if they don't know him, then may they be introduced to the real Jesus, but my issue is with gospel message that's being preached, well obviously it was a catchy title, and when Charisma posted it, they had a picture, just a face shot of Megan Fox, obviously it would draw people that were into that, but I begin to notice this thing's just getting shared, I don't know how many times it's been viewed, or read, I can't see that, but I didn't see how many times it's been shared on Facebook, and Twitter, and so on, within 24 hours, it's just on one Christian website, this was not on the biggest website out there, that gets tens of millions of hits, and visitors, within 24 hours, it was shared 20,000 times, shared 20,000 times, when I last checked, knowing I was gonna make reference to it tonight on the way here, it was on that one website only, it was about 48,000 times it had been shared, I mean this is just wild, you don't see this happen, in other words, it hit a nerve, it hit a nerve, and although some were saying, and I didn't read the vast majority of the comments, but some were saying, well who are we to judge, and so on, and that's a very issue I addressed in the article, that we're not to judge hypocritically, and we're not to judge superficially, and we're not to condemn, we're not to be judgmental, but Jesus says in John 7 24, don't judge by outward appearance, but judge righteous judgments, and Paul writes in 1st Corinthians 5, that it's our job to judge those within the body, in other words, if someone claims to be a born again believer, they claim to be part of the body of Christ, they claim to be a follower of Jesus, and are living in blatant, willful, public, unrepentant sin, and you reach out every way you can, and they won't repent, then you are to disfellowship them, you are to judge them, we're commanded to, but the vast majority of comments that I heard about, or the ones I looked at, were basically saying, something's wrong, something's wrong, thanks for saying this, but this is where it goes, how could it not go in this direction? Let me just cover a few more points briefly. I've mentioned this wrong notion that all future sins are already seen as forgiven in God's sight, and transacted as such, I've dealt with the notion that God never sees our sins, I've dealt with the idea that spirituality is effortless, I've dealt with the idea that we should reject the words of Jesus as being directly relevant for us today, that we should reject the Old Testament as speaking to us in relevant ways today, what about the conviction of the Spirit? This is another teaching in the hyper-grace camp, that the Holy Spirit no longer convicts us of sin, after all, if God doesn't see our sin, and if it's already been transacted as forgiven, why would God convict us of it? So, of course, John the 16th chapter is pointed to, that says that the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin, and hyper-grace teachers will point out that it's the world that's convicted of sin, not us, that the Holy Spirit comes to teach us, and instruct us, and do these things. Yes, amen, he does all those other things, but does the Holy Spirit never convict us of sin? Now, obviously, as believers, we'd say, well, yes, he does, and it's a beautiful thing when he does. I've been to India now 20 times, but on our first trip, Nancy came with me, she was able to join me about three times in our early trips, when we'd go for three or four weeks at a time, and one of these trips, I think it was the first trip, she was brought over to a leper hospital, and was given a tour of this leper hospital, and many of the people laying in the beds there, that's where they just live permanently, in that hospital, they were missing toes, they were missing fingers, nose was missing, and sometimes we'd encounter leopards begging on the streets that looked the same, so my assumption was that the disease just somehow ate away at the flesh, and you just lose fingers, limbs, and now it eats away at the flesh in different ways, from what I understand, but he was explaining to her that one of the things that happens is the disease caused you to lose the nerve, and then the middle of the night, a rat will come and bite someone's toe off, munch on their toe, and eat the toe, and they don't know it, because they're dead there, and that's why some of them were missing toes and parts of their body. If there's not a sensitivity in our hearts to the conviction of the Holy Spirit, if there's never a time when we are wounded by God's loving spirit to tell us something is wrong, then something is very wrong. There's a certain deadness that's there. Paul warns, what is it, Ephesians 4 32, thereabouts, don't grieve the Holy Spirit. We read in Hebrews 10 about outraging the Spirit of grace, Paul says it in Ephesians the fourth chapter, he urges us not to grieve the Spirit. The Spirit of God can be grieved. I've asked hyper grace teachers about that, and they've said this, it's Ephesians 4 30, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. I've asked them about it, they said, well that's the only verse in the New Testament that says it. Seriously, that was the answer. Well, I can give you parallel verses and parallel truths, and plus it's in the Old Testament as well, because that creates a problem, the idea of God being grieved by things that we do. And some say the only thing that can grieve him is not believing the hyper grace message. I read that on one website in not so many words. But let's think this through a little further. The word that's translated convict in John the 16th chapter is more commonly translated as reprove in the New Testament. Reprove sometimes rebuke, and interestingly that's what's used in the verses we read from in 2nd Timothy, that part of the preaching of the word on a regular basis is to contain that very reproving. Isn't that the Holy Spirit ministering through the Word of God and through the preacher of the Word to minister conviction? It's also fascinating. Let's read this, let's experience this together. Revelation chapter 3, Revelation chapter 3 verse 19, Jesus speaking, those whom I love I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Now that word reprove is the exact same word in Greek as is translated convict in John 16. That's the first thing. So Jesus says those whom I love I reprove and discipline all but get to the end of the chapter, verse 22, he who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. This is the Holy Spirit speaking and the Holy Spirit says through the lips of Jesus as many as I love I reprove, I convict, same word. Why? Because he loves us. If a doctor says sir you're gonna have to lose weight, ma'am you're gonna have to change your diet, is that because that doctor hates us or because that doctor cares about us? And then think of something like 2nd Corinthians chapter 7 where Paul explains that he wrote to the Corinthians with tears because he had a correct error in their midst. And it hurt him to write and he knew it was gonna hurt them but it was a good pain. And he explains there in 2nd Corinthians the seventh chapter that they sorrowed but in a godly way. He said godly sorrow produces repentance which leads to life but the sorrow of the world produces death. This is a healthy and wonderful and godly thing and Paul by the Spirit wrote to them and they were convicted of their sin and because they were convicted of their sin they repented. They experienced godly sorrow and he commended them for it and said godly sorrow produces repentance that leads to repentance and that repentance produces life. Not to be repented of as written in the King James. What I see and one of my colleagues really identified clearly is a reverse legalism in the hyper grace camp. A reverse legalism. I have never read anything in my life written by believers attacking other believers as harshly as the hyper grace books. Now I can't say this about every single book and you may have read a certain thing and had a lot of great stuff but a few extremes in it and you might say I didn't see an attack in it but because I do so much reading now on ebooks it's just easy to count how many times did he call people Pharisees? How many times did he call people legalists? How many times did he make this accusation? Just search on it and then you look them up. The moment you differ with this the moment you say anything contrary to the message you are branded. It is a reverse legalism. Now look I want to say again I'm talking about people within the family. I'm talking about brothers and sisters. I'm talking about people that have done much good in many ways for many especially the seasoned leaders who've been preaching and teaching for years but who have overemphasized this and some have said you can never preach grace too much. Of course you can. You can preach anything too much. Paul writes in Romans the 11th chapter to the Gentile believers in Rome behold the goodness and the severity of God. You can preach about the love of God too much if that's all you ever preach about. You don't preach about his justice or his holiness or anything else. You can get imbalanced and if you preach something wrongly you better believe you can preach it too much. What the New Testament teaches is grace with responsibility, grace with accountability and because of grace a calling to walk worthy of the Lord. Throughout the New Testament we are told that we are called by God to walk worthy of this high calling and by his grace with his empowerment and help to run our race with perseverance to run our race so as to win with God's grace working inside of us to strive with all of our might to attain the prize which is how Paul said that he lived in Philippians the third chapter. One last verse and again I'm trying to give an overview and deal with some of the key points. Titus the second chapter. Of course many of you are wondering about well first John, first John the first chapter if we confess our sins he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we haven't sinned we make God into a liar and his word is not in us. Of course the hyper grace camp says well those verses were not written to believers but to unbelievers because in John's wider congregations that were receiving this there were believers and unbelievers alike together. Now of course if you start reading from verse one on you realize it's to believers and the us and we is for believers. And then when you continue to read into chapter two I write these things to you so that you may not sin but if anyone does sin there it is again we have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous one and he's the propitiation for our sins and not for us only but also for those of the whole world so it's us the believers and the world. I was recently fellowshipping with one of the world's top New Testament scholars a man who's unbelievably learned but more humble than he is learned. When he got saved as a teenager it was his habit to read the New Testament once a week. Just an absolutely brilliant guy and I said to him he's written commentaries on good part of the New Testament his his commentary that he's working on in the book of Acts is six thousand pages long volume one just came out it's I mean it's so big you can't fit it on a normal shelf it's that tall and it's it's massive I think it's twelve thirteen hundred pages and it's the introduction to the book of Acts which is six hundred pages long and then it covers the first two chapters it's thirteen Acts 1 1 to 247 something like that just to do one of his footnotes would take your average person weeks or months to compile all the data there. We were together and I happened to mention this idea that those verses in 1st John 1 were written for unbelievers not believers he actually cringed when he heard it'd be like taking a whoops taking a masterpiece and you're like scratching it with your fingers and pulling the paint I mean does he cringed when he heard that bottles just fine no harm done. Contextually it doesn't work like that whatsoever and then what do you do as a hyper grace reader when you get into the third chapter and it makes clear that those who are born of God can't continue in sin I've actually read hyper grace teaching says well because I can't continue in sin as a believer therefore whatever I'm doing is not sin. You realize that that's crossed the danger line now that's actually crossed the danger line. Titus chapter 2 verse 11 we'll close here for the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation for all people training us or teaching us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled upright and godly lives in the present age. So what is the grace of God do? It teaches us it trains us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled upright and godly lives in the present age waiting for our blessed hope the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ who gave himself for us to what redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself of people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. Let this be the foundation of our grace teaching and it will keep us properly anchored. All right let's pray together. Father I pray that in this one hour that not only those that are here but those that will watch this and listen to the subsequently those who've watched by internet that this one hour will help revolutionize thinking will help lay foundations as a fortress and a buttress against error and Lord for those who have been duped or gotten off track or who really love you deeply and have gotten a little out of balance may your truth get the right back on the path Lord we confess it's by grace we stand it's by your mercy we recognize Lord that if we understood the depth of our wickedness and sin without you we collapse and die Lord we are beholden to your grace and grateful to your grace and don't deny it but rather we exalt it and extol it and all its glory and power thank you for it father in Jesus name amen amen praise God thanks