Mike Bickle addresses the critical topic of God's grace, emphasizing the widespread confusion and distortion surrounding it in the church today. He warns against false teachers who misrepresent grace as a means to live comfortably in sin without repentance, highlighting the importance of understanding true grace as empowering believers to pursue holiness. Bickle stresses that genuine grace inspires a heartfelt response to God, leading to a sincere desire for repentance and a life aligned with His teachings. He encourages listeners to be vigilant and discerning in their understanding of grace, as many teachings today may lead to spiritual complacency and misunderstanding of God's true nature.

that I hope will bring some clarity and some confidence about this vast and important subject. Father, we thank you in the name of Jesus for this glorious truth that you revealed to us in the scripture called the grace of God. And I ask you for revelation, that we would have confidence, that we have understanding as to what your heart is enthusiastic about related to your grace. We thank you in Jesus name, amen. Well, there's a lot of confusion and it's very dangerous, spiritually dangerous, confusion about the grace of God, a lot of distortion. And, uh, so this is not an area that you think, well, grace of God, I understand that. I think it's an, it's an area that is significantly misunderstood today, commonly in the body of Christ. So I'd like you just to kind of put an alert in your hearts, say, okay, I need to be paying attention to this in a careful way in terms of your searching of the scripture on this great subject. Roman numeral one, false teachers in the church distort the grace of God. A, one of the great pressures in the end times will come from false teachers that are in the church. And this is prophesied. Uh, the most clear is in second Peter chapter two and the book of Jude. And most of, you know, the book of Jude only is one is just one chapter. That's why it's just Jude. And so, uh, so the chapter, the, of the book of Jude and second Peter to their parallel passages, they go together, there's repetition and they cover some of the same, most of the same themes, although they expand, uh, each one of them does, uh, you know, takes on some, uh, uh, new insights from the other one. So you want to read them together, but those are two of the weightiest chapters in the Bible that you want to be familiar with on the subject of false teachers in the end times. Now the false teachers were in the first century as well. And Peter and Jude were, uh, addressing the apostle. I mean, the false teachers of their day, but then warning about the false teachers in the end of the, at the end of the age, very sober passage, because these teachers will end up in eternal judgment. And that's what Jude and Peter is saying. And most of us think of false teachers as the cults, you know, the Eastern religions are out there, but there are many false teachers in the church. And that's, it doesn't mean they're demonic. Does it mean that they're, that they don't, uh, have, uh, some kind of understanding of biblical truths. Paragraph B the most common idea of false teaching is that which perverts perverts the biblical understanding of the grace of God. And the way that it's perverted and it is perverted, that's the right word, is that they pervert God's grace by reducing the message of grace to receiving forgiveness without repentance. And by seeking to make people comfortable with God with while they continue in their sin without repenting. Now, actually we have a little bit of that in our midst because in our, in our emphasis on the bridal paradigm, which is a very important emphasis, I pick up confusion here and there in some of our ranks and the Lord will correct it. But I hear, I get P I, I, I, I, uh, pick up clearly the confusion that the main thing is for people to be confident before God almost regardless. As long as they're confident with God, it's good. And that's not true. It's only good if we're confident with God, if we're living right with God, if we're not living right with God, we have no reason to be confident with God. And I have seen in our own midst, people take the teaching on the bike, on the bridal paradigm, on bridal paradigm, the message of Jesus as a passionate bridegroom who loves us even in our weakness. And, and the, and the underlying point is he loves us in our weakness while we are sincerely seeking to obey him. That's a critical part of the bridal paradigm. And so they'll take this and really emphasize the need for confidence before God. Cause that's a vast and weighty subject, a very important one to be confident before God, but we don't want to be confident before God in a false way. And I see that trend strands of that in our own midst. Occasionally it's not a prominent thing, but I'm zealous that that is not in our midst at all. That we want people confident before God. We want to talk about his infinite mercy. We want to talk about his, his kindness, his passion, his longing for us, but we must respond to him in wholeheartedness. Now our wholeheartedness is flawed. It's weak. It's inconsistent, but it's still a longing to be right. It's a longing to be consistent. It's a longing to be full. And so I don't know anybody's wholeheartedness that is perfect, but when we see its, its weakness and its failures, then we respond to reach it. Oh God, we're concerned about this. We want to be fully yours in all the areas of our life. That's the wholeheartedness I'm talking about. I'm not talking about sinless perfection. I'm talking about a, a sincere longing and desire for every area of our life to line up with the Lord. And I don't know anybody who's doing, who's walking it out a hundred percent, but I know a lot of people that are, that are aiming for it, that really want it to be true in their life. It says in Jude verse four, certain men have crept in unnoticed. Now that's the key word, unnoticed. They're teachers in the body of Christ and nobody has noticed that they're off base. It doesn't mean they crept into the meeting unnoticed. You know, I sat on the back row, nobody saw them. No, they're teachers in the body of Christ. They're upfront teaching, but they're, they haven't been noted as being a false teacher. And here's what they do. These men, they turn the grace of God into lewdness. It's what the new King James says. The other translations say licentiousness or ungodliness, meaning they preach the grace of God in a way that makes people comfortable in living in sin while they're claiming grace. That's what that verse means, that they turn the grace of God into lewdness, means the people are comfortable to live in their immorality and claim grace and say, well, praise God. His grace is here. Brother, that's what grace is for. Yes, grace does cover us in great sins when we repent of those sins. The grace of God doesn't cover us while we live in them, what, because we just have this positive view of God. It says, and these men actually deny the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what their, their teaching denies what Jesus came for and what he died for. They deny the purpose of what Jesus was about in his coming. Okay. Paragraph C, the true grace of God inspires us to, to deny lust. It gives us power to walk godly. Titus chapter two, the grace of God brings salvation that brings salvation has appeared. And here's what the grace of God does when it's really the new Testament teaching on grace. It teaches us to deny ungodliness and it teaches us to deny worldly lusts. And if you're teaching, if your insight into grace is not teaching you to deny lust in your heart, not just lust of sexual impurity, but pride, all kinds of lust. Lust has many, many dimensions. If your understanding of grace is not inspiring you to deny your anger, your covetousness, your pride, your immorality of any sort, if it's not pushing you, pressuring your spirit, inspiring you to deny it, then you don't understand the teaching of grace. You've got a wrong idea of what grace is about. Grace is not that which makes us comfortable while we're sinning. Grace is that which God gives us that when we sin, the grace of God convinces us to repent of it. And it does give us confidence to have a new beginning with God right now, today, this minute. And we can be first class citizens in his kingdom that very hour. So grace does give us confidence, but it's critical. It's confidence after we repent. If we have confidence before we repent, it's a false teaching on grace. And there's much of that going around the body of Christ today. And I said, like I said, and I'm not overly concerned because I know our leadership team, and we're zealous that this doesn't take root in our midst, but every now and then I see little little kind of signs of this. And I go, no, no, no, let's get this thing back on the mainstream, on the word of God. Paragraph D, much of the grace teaching in the body of Christ today. And I say this word measured, and I don't say this, I don't want to be a hot shot, or I don't want to be negative in an undue way. I want to be accurate. I don't want to be negative or positive. I want to be accurate. It's what I want to be. But I've thought on this word I'm using, this word much, and I believe it's true. I believe much teaching in the church in the West today is not true grace teaching. I believe the church in the West is as a whole significantly in a different pathway from the grace that compels people to live abandoned and righteous on the inside, not just righteous on external things. Oh, that's good too. But I'm talking about longing to live out the Sermon on the Mount at the heart level. It is distorted because it empowers people to compromise. It's a grace teaching that makes sins small, like, hey, who cares? You know, boys will be boys. You know, that's how it is. God understands, you know, praise God, thank you for grace. And we just keep on in drunkenness and in lewdness and in immorality and all kinds of unclean speech and many, many things. We just, well, hey, grace, what about the bride of Christ? And, and it's a perversion of a very holy and precious thing in God's sight. Now, many have grown up, they've grown up in, in their, in their, uh, church setting. And, uh, I'm talking about in our own midst here, you know, the thousand or so folks that, that are here in a, you know, in the full time sense, whether they're Bible students or interns, I mean, they're, they're, they're, they're primary occupation right now is to do this thing called the IHOP Missions Base. And I think of that, that thousand and many of them grew up in church settings where the grace of God was taught in a perverse way. They didn't know it. And even to this day, uh, that they might not know it, that the grace of God was presented as, as, uh, Jesus was like a big Santa Claus just trying to make our life happier. And he was with us and, hey, things are gonna get better and hang in there. And, and, uh, and so even in our own midst, when I teach on grace, I find there's a very easy natural resistance to the truth of it because it's new. They think, no, I've heard about grace. I hear a lot of times people say, well, where's the grace in that teaching? I go, but you have to have the right definition of what grace is to ask that question in a right way. And so, uh, many that come in and even are in our midst have come for five, 10, 15 years of a spiritual atmosphere where grace was really minimized true grace and distorted. And the sermon on the Mount type of living was not, was not the premier thing of which the grace of God was packaged together with. And if it's not packaged with a call to live that way, it's not the true grace message. It really isn't. It's something other than what the apostles were teaching. And it's very, very common in our nation today. Paragraph E, what is a false teacher? Those who do not hold to the main and plain doctrines of scripture. Very simple definition. The first one is, is the more easy one to, uh, is the easier one to identify. I mean, to recognize they deny it says Jude. I mean, uh, Jude said they deny the Lord Jesus. They deny him false teachers do by denying the main doctrines. Like for instance, the doctrine, the true doctrine that Jesus is the only way to salvation and more and more teachers in the body of Christ. And I'm talking about, uh, many on TV, many big ministries are becoming really, uh, they're uncomfortable with the narrowness of that position. And they're saying, well, you know, who knows, you know, God only knows. And they're, and they begin to deny the Lord Jesus in this, but they wouldn't imagine it. They'd make no, no, I'm preaching grace. That's not preaching grace. That's denying the Lord Jesus Christ is what that is. But more, uh, common is the false teacher that denies Jesus by denying the plain teachings of grace, which is, uh, in relationship to holy living as, as defined in the sermon of the Mount. I've talked to, uh, young people for years at IHOP and, and radical, we want to be radical. I like that, but we need to be radical as defined by the sermon on the Mount. Not radical is defined by just kind of radical. Well, what's radical mean? I don't know. I'm just going for God radical. What get, you know, give me a little bit more insight on what you're talking about. Like what, what does radical mean? Doing strange things, doing bizarre things. Radical must be defined by pursuing the eight beatitudes. Matthew chapter five, verse three to 12. If we're not pursuing the eight beatitudes, it is not radical Christianity. It is something other than what the Bible set forth as the grace of God. And so a lot of, uh, people are excited about being radical. Whether that radicalness is rooted in reality or not is not always a concern. I am concerned that our radicalness is rooted soberly in a pursuit of the lifestyle, the eight beatitudes and the sermon on the Mount. Jesus defined what radical and basic Christianity is. And there's no other definition that's acceptable besides the one that he gave. I mean, he would know best what it is. And so there's a lot of energy in the body of Christ by being radical and cutting edge and out there. And if it's not leading us to the eight beatitudes, it is not radical Christianity. It is a distortion and it is a deception, even though it may have truth in it. Paragraph F, this may be a new idea to some of you, but it's important that you get it. False teachers are not only those that are involved in false religions, but false teachers can be born again, believers and still be a false teacher. A man or woman can, can be born again and love God in that general sense, but not uphold the true teachings of scripture because they're deceived in their own heart and they don't know it. Now, some of these born again, teachers will go too far. Scripture makes it clear in half a dozen places, real clear. They'll actually lose their salvation. The ones in second Peter two, that's clearly what he's talking about in the book of Jude. They go too far and they leave the way of righteousness and they, they reject the knowledge of Jesus that saved him. It says it real clear and they turn to darkness. Second Peter two, just read it through just throughout the whole chapter towards the end is where it really gets powerful. I mean, uh, scary, powerful. I mean, it's, Whoa, it's heavy. It's sober. Others, other false teachers. I'm talking about born again, believers, maybe mega ministries growing at thousands joining. Doesn't matter how many people are joining. We're not seduced by the size of a ministry and how fast it grows. That people, uh, make this comment to me because I hop has been growing a bit in the last few years. They go, boy, the Lord's really blessing you. Look how much you've grown. And I said, you know, the Lord has, I think it's the Lord's blessing, but don't look at growth and just assume it's blessing. There are many, many ministries that are growing. That is not the blessing of the Lord. It's because it is, it is catering to the lust of the people and making them feel good about God in a deceptive way while they live in their unrighteousness. And the Bible's clear that many ministries will explode and grow rapidly under this ear tickling man, pleasing spirit. It isn't the blessing of God. It's actually, it's a, an allowance of, of, of, of allowing people to live unrighteously, but feeling good about it before God. And if a preacher with a big ministry can make you feel good in your conscience while you're sinning, that kind of church will grow rapidly. A lot of people want to be right with God and they want to stay in their sin. So I tell him, I said, well, don't, I don't think God's with us because we're growing. That's not the issue. I said, uh, there's other criteria. Don't be seduced by a growing ministry says here in first Peter. I mean, first Corinthians three talking about ministries. It says, if anything, at the judgment seat of Christ, they can, if anyone's work, their lifestyle choices or the ministry is burned up at the judgment seat of Christ, that man or woman will suffer loss, though they will be saved yet as though by fire, they will stay, they'll keep their salvation, but all that they've worked for in their life, in their ministry will be burned up. And there will be many that will stand before God with this description. They will have suffered the loss of all they labored for because it was tainted with distortion with significant distortion. The grace of God is generous. If we're sincere about being wholehearted with the Lord and our, and again, our wholeheartedness is flawed. Our wholeheartedness is fragile. It's not that consistent, but when we find, uh, uh, uh, failures in our wholeheartedness and gaps in it, we return back and we cry out for help. And we're, we're laboring for help. We're trying to find a way to break through. And that is within the definition of wholeheartedness. There's a sincerity in that, that pleases the Lord. There's an area you can't get free on. It's an area of your life and you're in, you're, you're concerned with it. I mean, it's before it's ever before you, I don't mean every minute, every day. That's not what I mean, but it's a concern. It's a main concern in your life. It's not a peripheral thing though. Who cares? It's something you think about daily and you're trying to figure out, I'm trying to fast and pray to get free. And I break my fast and the Bible's boring, but I'm trying. That's all still within the vein of wholeheartedness. You're still reaching, you're trying, you're taking it serious. The beatitude, blessed are they, those that are poor in spirit and those that are mourning, those are the two first beatitudes. You're in the vein of that and that is pleasing to the Lord. So don't think that the Lord is only pleased when the breakthrough comes. The reaching, the contending, the wrestling, the failing and getting back up and repenting and getting back in the war, failing again, falling down, getting up, repenting, back in the war, all of that is pleasing to the Lord. That is in the vein of wholeheartedness that I'm talking about. I'm talking about a wholeheartedness that is attainable by people like you and me. The wholeheartedness that is human friendly. It is human friendly. It can be attained by weak people like us. Paragraph G. Today, some large and popular ministries have false teachers and they use biblical language. I mean, it's real common to use a few Bible verses in the presentation. Let's just read this here in 2 Peter, this very important passage. It says, verse 1, there will be, there will be false teachers. Now he's talking whether we're in his day and Peter's day, but they're yet coming in the future. They will be among you. They will be in the body of Christ. We're not just talking about the Eastern religions, the cults. They're among the body of Christ. And here's what they will do. They will secretly or subtly, they will secretly introduce destructive heresies. They don't get up and say, hey, hey, I want to, I want to deceive all of you today, but it's subtle. They, again, they present and it's mostly about perverting the grace of God. They teach the grace of God in a way that's contrary to the way the scripture teaches it, but it's very popular. And again, it's very popular today. This approach, it's, it's rampant in the church in the West. Verse 2, many, many will follow them. Many, they will have mega ministries. Multitudes will follow them. They will follow their destructive ways. Their ways are pleasing to the flesh. They'll be really soft on sin, real big on covetousness. That's what Peter goes on to emphasize. One of the main things they will do is promise people money. That God's reigning in heaven to give them more money. There's truth in the fact that God blesses with money. But in our nation right now, this doctrine is so exaggerated in so many ministries, it's just rank covetousness wrapped up deceptively as the grace of God and the power of God. And it's destructive. It's destructive to people's faith. Verse 3, by covetousness, they will exploit you with deceptive words. They will teach the Bible in a way that, that manipulates and deceives and exploits. It's deceptive. They'll use the verse to put spins on it and use their grand story and everybody will buy into it. Verse 13, they are carousing in their own deceptions and they're feasting with you, meaning they go to the fellowship dinners. They're right in your midst. They're teaching in your pulpits and they're at the fellowship dinners breaking bread with you. They're not in some far away, distant, false religion. They're right in the middle of that thriving ministry. They have a heart trained again, 14 verse 14. Peter says this over and over. Actually, their heart is trained in covetousness. They're experts in presenting the issues of money using the Bible that feeds their own covetousness and feeds the covetousness of the people listening. They're experts in it. They, their hearts are trained in it. Verse 18, they speak great swelling words, but they're empty. They're swelling words of how grand and great it's going to be and how awesome it is. And they're swelling words of emptiness is what Peter said. He says, don't buy into it. They allure through lust and through lewdness. That's their covetousness and their, their, their presentation of the grace of God that reduces the grace of God to where we don't repent. They allure, they stir up people's loss. People like them because of their loss, not because they're anointed and they stir them up through lewdness through, in other words, presenting them a presentation of the kingdom where lewdness or immorality is acceptable. They don't exactly say it. They just never, ever deal with the issues. And the people just feel so good in the, in their midst. They allure the ones that have actually escaped from error. In other words, these people are in the church. They've escaped from error through the knowledge of Jesus. It goes on to say, and those are the ones that are being allured by these false teachers on grace. Again, uh, when I think of the thousand people that are in our midst, many of them came from backgrounds where the grace of God was not taught as that which empowers righteousness and godliness at the heart level. They have an idea. It's a, just a blanket forgiveness for whoever asked for it, whoever wants it, they can get forgiveness. And as I said last week, and I got it here later in the notes that the idea, you hear it all the time. If you just, if you want forgiveness, just ask the Lord. Well, the Lord will say no. Millions asked the Lord for forgiveness and the Lord's answers. No, I'm not going to forgive you. What do you mean? No. The preacher said, if I asked, that's all I got to do. You have to repent and ask for forgiveness and give ourselves to Jesus. The idea of pray a simple prayer and ask the prayer you're born again. So much of that is just utter deception. Jesus is a King running a kingdom. We're coming under his leadership, the whole of our life. We're not praying a short prayer at the end of a meeting and getting saved. So much of that is falsehood because when the guy says, Jesus, forgive me, they repeat the prayer. Jesus answers from heaven. No, I won't forgive you. That's the answer right now, but I would like to, but I need a different response from you before I forgive you. And our repentance doesn't earn our forgiveness. So you could never go before a judge when you're guilty of crimes and tell the judge, I'm sorry. He goes, well, in that case, I guess you won't go to prison and get the death sentence. I mean, you stand before a judge, say, I'm sorry, that's not going to get a murder off death row. Our repentance in no way earns us salvation, but it's essential that we line up with the King again in our broken, fractured, imperfect repentance. But it's, it's, we're with real energy and effort giving ourself to, to walk and obey him. Though our obedience is greatly flawed. Our love is greatly flawed, but it's real and sincere even in its weakness. And of course the, the verse, there's many verses where I could back up where Jesus would tell a person, no, if they ask for forgiveness, they don't repent. And of course the primary one is the Matthew seven verse 22, which I have in the notes where Jesus says many M a N Y many on that day will say, Lord, Lord. And I'll say, I never ever knew you, which translates when you prayed the sinner's prayer. I told you, no, I did not. I never knew you. Many will claim to know the Lord because they took the word of the preacher and the Lord will say, I did not know you. They did not tell you my word. They gave you a false offer. Paragraph H the scripture prophesies top of page two of spiritual compromise. And there's many passages. I just can't just kind of put a few up here just to let you see it. I mean, it's a big subject. It's a big subject in the new Testament. It says in verse three, second Thessalonians chapter two, verse three, let no one deceive you by any means. The day that means the second coming, the day of the Lord will not come unless the falling away comes first. And then unless the antichrist is revealed, the man of sin is the antichrist. The falling away is as big of a sign. The great falling away as the appearing of the antichrist. Those are the two biggest signs of the generation. The Lord returns is the massive falling away. This is not a trickling out. This is a massive wholesale falling away from the faith globally. And it's, it's called, it's called the falling away. It's not a trend for 2000 years, years through church history. It is a definitive sign that the Lord is about to return. And it hasn't happened yet. We can see the beginnings of it, but beloved, this is real. It will come with a false teaching on grace. It says in first Timothy four. Now the spirit express expressly says in the last times in the latter times, some will depart from the faith. Not all by any means, because the church is going to have a great revival at the same time, but some will depart from the faith. Now, Paul said the spirit explicitly or expressly says this. I wonder what that means. You know, Paul says, well, the spirit said it. No, he expressly said he put exclamation points on this. There will be some that will fall away. I mean, worldwide, why are they going to fall away? They're going to give heed to deceiving spirits. They're going to pay attention to lies about the Bible. And there is no subject more light about than the subject of the grace of God. That's the subject that people are so confident they understand. And when something doesn't suit them, that's not grace. That's the wholesale answer for everything that touches and stirs up their laziness and lust. When their laziness, covetousness, or lust is infringed on, the answer is, what about grace? Because grace would never infringe upon my lust. Yes, it will. Grace will move in decisively and invasively to confront our lust. That is the teaching of the grace of God. But there's so many don't understand this. Again, the most common deception today in the church is the, and covenants, is their covenants in understanding the grace of God, is that which is not dynamically related to the pursuit of whole heartedness. Second Timothy four, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. The church won't endure it. They, the sound doctrine, they'll go, I can't take it no more. Sound biblical teaching, a call to wholeheartedness, will so offend them, they will just bolt. They can't take it. It will create pressure on them, and this is bad that it creates pressure. It should create conviction and then revelation, but it creates a pressure. They can't endure it anymore. It's fanatical. It's ridiculous. This is legalism. And they'll bolt. And they will, according to their own desires, they'll find teachers that will satisfy their lustful, covetous, and lazy spiritual living. They will find doctrines, people that will make them feel good about the way they live. Says they'll search out teachers for themselves. Verse four, they'll turn their ears away from truth. We're talking about believers will do this. Roman numeral two. Now you say, boy, this isn't very positive. Actually, it is. Actually, it is. The reason it's positive, because the distorted message of grace never brings power to people's spirits. There are so many sincere believers that are not wholehearted, but they don't even know that they're not, and their spirits don't feel the presence of God. The grace of God is not operating in any kind of abundant measure on their heart. They're bored, and God is boring, and the Word is stuck, and they just don't... nothing feels right. They need grace on their spirit, and they're not going to get it by somebody telling them lies about how good they're doing. They need to... they need to war in, and wrestle, and break through, and they can have the grace of God in their spirit, and then they feel that brightness, and that spark of God in their inner man. This is... this is very kind, because the other approach leaves us spiritually bored, and spiritually barren, and with a depressed spirit. And God has more for us, but it's the real grace teaching that has power on it, and I'm jealous as a shepherd that people have power. I'm jealous for people's greatness in God. Like I said last week, I'm contending for your greatness. I want you to enter into the things of God that will make you great in His sight, and you will stand before Him with boldness on the last day because of the way that you live. Of course, our boldness is because of what He did on the cross, but I'm talking about... separate from that, that when the Lord reviews our life, we have confidence that we've lived in meekness and righteousness during our days on the earth. Paragraph A, the difference between grace and mercy. Mercy extends forgiveness. Grace imparts power. Grace is about power. Mercy is about forgiveness. The teaching of grace isn't mostly about forgiveness. In the most general sense, you could fit everything under grace, but in a very specific way, mercy is the forgiveness message. Grace is the empowering to walk in victory message. B, mercy... well no, Hebrews 4, let's look at that. Hebrews 4, it distinguishes grace and mercy. It says we can come boldly to the throne of grace and we can get both of them. We can get forgiveness and we can get power. When we come to the throne of grace, we want power on our spirits. We want power on our mind. We want our mind to have a revelatory spirit. We want the Holy Spirit to give us a spirit of revelation, is what I'm trying to say. We want power, we want grace, and we want mercy. We want both, mercy and grace. We need both of them. B, mercy is not receiving what we deserve. In other words, the removal of something negative, the wrath of God. When God gives you and I mercy, He's causing the situation where He's removing the negative thing we deserve, wrath. He's removing what we do reserve, deserve. It's like, that's good. We need mercy all of our days. King David said, mercy will follow me all the days of my life because I need mercy. We will need forgiveness up to the final moments. We need mercy all the days of our life. I love mercy. But people tend to confuse the two. Grace is receiving what you don't deserve. Receiving an impartation of the positive, the power of God. So mercy, we avoid what we do deserve. We escape what we do deserve, wrath. Mercy, we get what we don't deserve, God's power. Grace inspires us to repent. When we touch the real grace of God, we're hungry to go deeper in our repentance. And repentance is a lifelong thing. There is no such thing as a season of repentance. It's like in a world champion, a world-class runner, a miler who runs the mile run. There is no such thing as, you know, the time when they work out. A world-class runner, they work out all the way around, all around the year. The big race is coming up next year. It's not like they work out before. They work out all the time. It's like Paul just paralleled his life to the life of a marathon runner, a racer, a distance runner. And some people talk about repentance like, man, you know, there's a season of repentance. I go, no, we repent a little bit every day. And if we get behind on it, then we might have a big season of repentance because we haven't been giving ourselves to it on a regular basis. We will never be at a place where God's not calling us to repentance. You know, someone comes to me and says, the Lord says he's calling us to repent. I go, of course he is. He's calling us to repent and he's calling us to revelation. That's every day. That's the word. Of course it is. The idea that there's a time where we're not repenting as a main thing the Lord's calling us to that week is a strange idea. Repenting is like peeling an onion. It's layer by layer and you cry each step of the way. But here's the problem with that onion. We think, just kind of naturally, we assume that onion's about a one foot diameter. It's an onion about the size of a basketball and that onion's about a mile diameter. We'll be peeling that onion our entire life. But every time we repent, literally, I mean, it goes a layer, it goes a layer more. It really does. And we're crying all the way to the center. You know, five, ten years later, we think, wow, because we have this idea that the onion is only about the size of a basketball. No, it's about a mile in diameter. We're not, you know, the Lord thinks, well, you're eight inches down. You only have another mile to go, you know, to get through this whole thing. I see my sin more clearly at 35 years old in the Lord than I did at five years old in the Lord. I am closer to the Lord. I'm walking in greater purity and greater revelation. I have more insight as to the sin in my heart than I did 10 and 20 years ago. We're peeling out an onion. We're always called to repentance. Our entire life we're called to repentance. Just like the athlete is called the, the champion runner is called to work out as long as they're in that career, you know, that pursuit of the gold medal at the Olympics type deal. Okay. Let's look at a couple of these verses. Second Corinthians chapter 12, verse nine, Paul said, I mean, the Lord's speaking to Paul and he says, my grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect and weakness. Paul's not God. I mean, Jesus is speaking to Paul, the apostle in this passage. When it says my grace, Jesus referred, Jesus is speaking. My Jesus is grace sufficient for you, Paul. He's not saying my forgiveness is sufficient for you. He's saying my power on your spirit is sufficient for you to get through this trouble, this thorn in the flesh. He's not talking about, uh, uh, forgiveness right here. Let's go down to Romans chapter six, verse 14, skip one verse, go down there. Romans 6, 14 for sin shall not have dominion over you. Why? Because you're under grace. That's why sin can't rule your life because you're under the grace of God. He's not talking, saying, because you're under the forgiveness of God. That's where you are under forgiveness of God, but that's not his point. He goes, sin can't ruin your heart because you're operating in relationship to the grace of God. And so Paul, uh, sees the misunderstanding his day, verse 15, what then he says, I know what some of you are thinking. We'll send more because we're under grace because they misunderstood in Paul's day that grace meant forgiveness. He goes, no, you can't send more to get more grace. That's not how it works. He goes, may it never be? No, that's the wrong idea. He goes, grace is the power to overcome sin. It's not a insurance policy while you're sending. That's not what grace is. Paragraph D look at the passage, Joel chapter two says in Joel chapter two, turn to me with all of your heart with fasting, weeping, mourning, tear your heart. Rind is the word terror, not your garment, tear your heart and return to the Lord. The grace of God teaches us to tear our hearts. And as I put in the, uh, my notes here is that very little understanding of this is in the Western church. The grace of God is mostly fire insurance. It's an insurance policy to make us happy while we're sending. That is not the grace of God. That is a distortion and a deception. Tear your heart. Jesus said it differently. He called it spiritual violence. We talked about Matthew 11, verse 12. He said, the spiritually violent will take it by force. Matthew chapter five. He said, pluck your eye out, cut your hand off. He's talking about the same thing. We're talking about a seriousness about the issues in our heart. If gossip has got a stronghold in your heart, if complaining is a stronghold of your heart, if, if immorality is a stronghold, if, if alcohol is a stronghold, whatever it is, beloved, tear your heart. Cut your hand off. Pluck your eye out is the language of Jesus. Now he didn't mean literally plug your out and tear your, cut your hand off. He meant be radical till you get to the bottom of this issue. It's not well, you know, it's I'm under grace anyway. That is not a biblical approach to an unsettled sin in our life. It's weird to be aggressive about getting our tongue under control, our eyes under control, our humility in place. These are huge areas that the grace of God is able to give us power, but we have to tear a heart when me and meaning when I repent of an issue, that's been a bigger issue in my life, not just the more peripheral issues. It hurts. I don't like it. It, I really understand what Joel meant. Tear your heart. It's like, ouch, you got it. Well, that can't be grace. It hurts. No grace will give you power to go to the end of the matter. If you will stay with it, grace is not a guarantee that it won't hurt. Grace is a power to help sustain you till this surgery is over. Whatever area is in your life, God will give you power over it. Sin cannot have dominion over us. If we'll go hard after God and stay with it, it may take us some years to get to the, to some of these core issues. Okay. Let's look at Roman page three and we won't finish all the notes. I'll just go a couple more points there and then we'll end it and leave you with the notes to read on your own later. Top of page three, Roman numeral three, some important distinctions. God loves God. So loves the world. He loves the unbelievers, people with no regard. He loves them. He has passion. He is a lion. He has a roaring desire. He wants the world enough for Jesus to come. God really, really loves the world. There's no question he loves unbelievers, but that doesn't get them off. That doesn't solve their problem. It provides an answer if they want it, but it doesn't. It provides his love is what caused Jesus to come be okay. Now we know he loves us. Let's go to the next thing. God is patient with people who don't repent. He's tender in his patience, but beloved don't confuse his patience with you or with one you're ministering to with his approval. His tender patience is not the same thing as his approval. He's, I mean, Paul said it right. He called his patience is amazing. It says, Paul said, Romans two, he said, verse four, do you despise the riches, the wealth of God's goodness and forbearance? The word forbearance is the same word, patience or long suffering. The idea of patience is in both of those. Did you know that God has well, a wealth of patients that a, a, a person gets on a certain path and one year turns a two to three to four to five hours, not done anything about it. I should put a verse down here. Ecclesiastes chapter eight, verse 11. It says, Ecclesiastes eight, verse 11. It says the foolish man says, because the exit, the, uh, the, uh, sentence of judgment is not executed quickly. He says, God's not going to judge me. The foolish man says, because God's letting me get away with this. Hey, I'm, I might be getting away with it. He goes, Ecclesiastes eight, 11 says the foolish man says that because the sentence of judgment is not executed quickly because God, according to Romans chapter two, verse four is giving you a wealth, a wealth of patience. Why? To lead you to repent, to give you time to repent. He does not want things to go bad for you. He really will go the nth degree in his patience, but his patience is not his approval. He, I mean, I got in paragraph B revelation, uh, two 21. It's a very interesting passage. Revelations two, verse 21, Jesus is talking to the church and he says, you tolerate Jezebel. You let Jezebel and her teachings on immorality and things. You let that teaching go in your church. And Jesus says, I even gave Jezebel time to repent. I mean, the Lord even gave Jezebel chance to repent. Isn't that amazing? He goes, if she doesn't repent, I will kill her and I will kill those that participate. I will kill them physically believers in the church of Thyatira. If they don't repent, I will kill them with sickness. Well, Jesus doesn't put sickness on people. I guarantee you he does. That's not his main method of discipline, but he said, tell them I will send sickness and kill them people in the church. The devil sends sickness and Jesus may use the devil. I don't, you know, Jesus can do it any way he wants, but he told him, he goes, if they, if they don't get out of immorality, sickness will come and kill them. And you tell Jezebel, I've been kind to her. He didn't say that, but that's, that's the meaning. I've given her time to repent. Beloved, if God gives Jezebel time to repent, he is a kind God, but his patience is not supposed to make us frivolous. It's supposed to make us understand his kindness so that we will repent. We don't despise his wealth of patience. We thank him. Oh God, I deserve, I should be in big trouble. I'm with, this is the week I am done, done, done. And maybe you won't be done. Maybe you'll end up doing it next week too. But you mean it and you're going hard. You're doing blessed are they that poor in spirit mourning. You're going after this thing. You're attacking it. You mean it for real. Because the beloved, you don't want to take Jesus's patience for granted. The wealth of his patience, the riches of it is to lead you and I to wholeheartedness called repentance. Well here's my, the passage I talked about earlier. Jesus refuses to forgive those who ask for it if they refuse to repent. In the classic passage is Matthew 7. Many, not a few, multitudes. I think it will be millions will say to the Lord on the last day and he's, he's not talking about them as someone who fell away. He's saying I never knew you. No, no. I went to the revival. The evangelist said if I said this prayer, I did. Jesus says I never, I didn't say yes back. I never knew you. Multitudes will have that confusion on the last day. Paragraph D. We can have the assurance and this is where we really emphasize here at the IHOP missions base. Letter or whatever. Letter D. Number D. Letter D. You know what I mean. This is one of our real pillars here. That we can have the assurance that God enjoys us even in our flawed obedience and our weakness. But only in sincerity though. Someone goes I don't know if I'm sincere. Well good. Go make sure you are. How do I know? Well you get your Bible and go after it with God. I don't mean you're going to find it in the Bible. The verse says you are now sincere. That's not what I mean. But you search it and say God I'm in turmoil. I'm wrestling. I don't know if I'm sincere. I gotta settle this. Beloved, a little bit of that won't hurt you. I mean it after all it is your eternal destiny and you're standing before the mighty God. Some people think anything that's disturbing can't be the grace of God. I go no. We a whole bunch of people need to get disturbed. Guy comes to me goes I'm not sure if this is right or wrong. I go I'm not sure either. But you know what in a week or two or three or a month or two you'll have it sorted out. And you may like be really preoccupied for two or three months but you will really sort it out if you care enough. I promise you you'll sort it out. The Holy Spirit will bear witness to you and make it clear. You may not have peace about it for a few months. So what? You're an eternal being. He's the God of glory. It's your relationship. I think it's worth a couple months. You might even miss a few tv shows. But you know what's really worth the hassle. But that can't be grace because I'm unsure. I'm uncertain. No that's the grace of God stirring you because it's the most powerful thing you have is your heart, your inner man. Beloved you and I steward it. We can have the assurance that God really enjoys us long before we mature. But it's only in context to sincerity going hard after the Lord. Our repentance and love for God can be sincere while it's still fragile and weak. Grace gives us confidence. I do something, say something, think something, repent of it. Grace gives me confidence. That moment I'm a first-class citizen in God's sight. Grace gives us a new beginning as a first-class citizen. But it's when we repent. But a cry for grace without repentance is a vain cry. Says Lord forgive me. I mean I mean a cry for mercy without repentance is vain. We have to repent. We really do have to repent. Jesus is a king. He's not only a fix the western world Christians uh you know leader. He is a king and a kingdom and he means it. We have we really lose our rights over our time and money and our bodies. We really lose our rights and many believers have no revelation that a king is over them and they are slaves. That's never crossed their mind ever. They want a good deal because Jesus died and to get on with the business and put a little Jesus salt and pepper shaker just kind of spice thing up. They have no revelation a king owns them and they are a slave to a king. That's never crossed their mind because the gospel has never been preached to them clearly. Well even even though God enjoys us in our weakness he will still discipline us. The fact that God enjoys us and that God's looking at our sincerity does not mean he still will not discipline us. Matter of fact in Proverbs three it says God he corrects the ones he loves like a father in the son he delights in. He corrects us because he delights in us because he's enjoying us. Well we could go on and on. I think we're going to end with that. Let's go ahead and uh stand. For more free downloads from Mike Bickle please visit mikebickle.com