The sermon titled 'The Three Greatest Deceptions' delves into the challenges of facing mocking voices, discouragement, and cultural deceptions. It emphasizes the importance of not being discouraged by mocking voices and highlights the need to surrender to God's plan, even in small beginnings. The sermon also addresses the deceptions of atheism, disbelief in the resurrection, and worshiping false gods, urging listeners to seek the truth and believe in Jesus as the risen Savior.

Matthew 27.57 The title is The Three Greatest Deceptions. And towards the end of the message, I'm going to talk about the three greatest deceptions that you'll ever be faced with and that the culture is actually faced with. Last week, I talked about the mocking voices where Jesus was hanging on a cross and He was mocked before His crucifixion. He was mocked during His crucifixion. He was even mocked after His crucifixion 2,000 years later. So what do you do with those mocking voices? Have you ever been discouraged? And mocked? And people just can't believe you believe in Christianity? Can't believe you believe in Jesus? What is wrong with you? Mocking. You'll be seeing it more in the news how people are losing their positions. I recently read about six months ago a fire chief that was demoted and school officials that are demoted and judges that are demoted all because they say here's what God's Word says. And the mocking voices will increase. So get last week's message if you get a chance. And it talks about discouragement and how to get through discouragement. And the enemy will use discouraging situations to knock you off track and to get you off track. That's the whole point of discouragement because when you're encouraged, what are you doing? You're running forward. I'm running forward, here's what we're gonna do and then discouragement comes in. And that's what he uses. And I shared last week and when people talked about Elyse in Lancaster and Palmdale coming out here, a lot of discouraging voices. Why would you move the church out there? Even this week. Why did you go out there? Why did you go out? Like wherever God leads, wherever God leads is where you want to be. And those mocking voices, they're sent to discourage you. That's the whole point. And sometimes you'll go through things and you'll go, what, that was a waste of time. And I wanna just throw this out there. I don't know why, I didn't talk about this last night, but whatever God is doing in your life, it won't be a waste of time because he'll use that. And I thought of this recently when I left 24 Hour Fitness. Many of you know, I worked my way up the corporate ladder there as a district manager over multiple fitness centers. And God brought the prodigal son home. And I said, oh, thank God. And my whole mind changed. Like the word of God is, you know, I love this. And now I'm not wanting to watch country music videos much anymore. And I'm wanting more of God and less of the world. More of God, less of the world. And I just, I felt so bad for, it was many, many months, if not a year or two on, I wasted the majority of my life. Throughout my 20s, I wasted. I ended up working at the fitness chain. I should have been in God's word and tons of regret, but then God started to show me how he used that experience. Because I was able to lead 150 employees and have 150 employees underneath us and dealing with equal employment opportunity and sexual harassment cases and all these different things. And that happens a lot in the gym. And having a huge budget, a $300,000 monthly goal we had to hit every single month within our district and all these numbers and profit loss statements and income expenditures and the school of hard knocks and hiring hundreds and hundreds of people. And unfortunately, firing hundreds and hundreds of people over years. And God used all of this to now, even what I'm doing now, really a lot of those things come into play with what I'm doing. And I can look at a pastor who's maybe went through six years of seminary and say, yeah, but you didn't go through six years of health. And there's, you can have pastoral experience. And it's hard to get that in a seminary. It's very hard to get real life experience because you have to go through life to get real life experience. So once God did that and he began to, I just devoured a lot of theology and the word of God. And so I could see how he's bringing all of that together. So I said all that to say, don't despise the day of small beginnings. Don't despise that I'm going through this, this is worthless. I don't care if you're cleaning toilets. I don't care if you're working somewhere that you don't wanna be. God will use that to mold and shape you if you commit your life to him. So Matthew 27 verse 57, after that rabbit trail. Now when evening had come, there came a rich man from Arimathea named Joseph who himself had also become a disciple of Jesus. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be given to him. When Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his tomb, which he had hewn out of the rock. And he rolled a large stone against the door of the tomb and departed. And Mary Magdalene was there and the other Mary sitting opposite the tomb. So let's stop there just for a minute. Normally bodies were left on the cross. Do you know why? Because they didn't care about these people. They were usually criminals. And when you leave a dead body out for a while, animals will become, go in that area and begin to consume the body. The body rots and all these things. But because of the Passover coming, all these people coming into Jerusalem, I don't think the religious leaders wanted him up on the cross. That wouldn't look too good, now would it? It's okay what they did, but they didn't want people to see this person or these people hanging on the cross. So Jesus was taken down and put into a new tomb. And Spurgeon said this. It was a new tomb wherein no remains had been previously. And thus, if he came forth from it, there would be no suspicion that another person had arisen. Empty tomb. Complete new tomb. Jesus goes into it. It's sealed. The large stone was rolled against the door so it was sealed. There's no way you're moving this stone unless there's a few people with you. They probably had wood underneath and they could move it slowly. There was no big crane trucks you could call. No big loaders that you could push. It just, you had to seal this tomb with manpower. And I thought about this as well. Joseph of Arimathea made a significant sacrifice. He gave God his best. I think that's a word for us this morning. I actually touched a few people last night when they thought about how often we don't give God our best. We kind of give him second best and usually it's tenth best. And I often joke about this, but it's true. So it's really not a joke, but we are really quick to give our old washer and dryer to Salvation Army, aren't we? But the new one, mm-mm. No, it's not going to a family in need. We just don't want to take it to the dump. So if we don't want to take something to the dump, there's not a lot of amens this morning. This might be hurting a little bit. But the church is often a place where people, oh, pastor, would you like this TV? Well, it's 25 years old. I don't even think, well, I just want to give it to the church. Well, or do you not want to take it to get recycled? See, and we think, you know, I've done this before. I've got my whole closet. Look, I'm breaking all these clothes to Grace Resource. Why don't I go to Sears and buy some new shirts and take that? Oh, see, that hurts. And when you're going to give God something, it has to hurt. I remember a story in the Old Testament where David was given a piece of land to give a sacrifice to God. And the man said, David, just take it. And David said, no, I'm going to pay full price because I'm not going to give the Lord something that costs me nothing. And as soon as you can break out of that shell, and it's a hard shell to break out of, to give God the best of your day. And how I parallel this is often the mornings. He should be the priority. Now, let me try to squeeze him in when I get home. Turn off the evening news so you can get to bed earlier. You don't need to know if anything happened in the news in the morning. You don't need to know how many new friends liked your post on Facebook, first thing. You need to get into God's Word and spend time with Him. It doesn't take long. I actually put on the book of James as I drove here. Got through the whole book of James listening on my phone on the way here. We can make time to do that. Now, I'm not trying to, oh, that's wonderful, Shane. No, usually I go the opposite direction and don't listen to things like God's Word. I listen to worship, but not focusing on God's Word. So give Him your best, even of our finances, right? Uh-oh, here goes the church again and finances. Well, here's the interesting thing with money. If the church talks too much about it, it's not good. If we never talk about it, it's not good. You have to find a middle ground because the Bible is full of the middle ground. Jesus talked about wise stewardship. And I believe the best thing me and my wife have ever done since the day we were married is set apart that initial 10% or an offering, whatever you want to call it. God loves a cheerful giver, but it's gotta hurt a little. It's gotta hurt. And that's the best thing we have ever done. He's blessed us in so many ways. So why can't we share that, that God will bless those who give to Him? I mean, it's almost like the best kept secret that nobody wants to talk about or that everybody wants to talk about. You know, you gotta give, you gotta give, you gotta give. And that's not really a right heart if a church has to push and push and push. We should just preach what God's Word says. So yes, serving God with our best, it hurts a little bit. Our time, our energy, our resources, you've gotta give Him your best if the heart is right. And it's a struggle for all of us. So from time, from money, from sacrifice, what about all the scriptures that talk about seeking God with all of our heart? Have you ever thought about, seek me with all of your heart, you will find me. I don't think we have any clue, most of us, what that looks like because it's not gonna be a joy ride. It's not gonna be a walk in the park. When you seek God with all your heart, the flesh will fight you every single step of the way. It won't wanna get up early. It won't wanna worship. It won't wanna pray. It won't wanna fast. It won't wanna put a price latitude in check. It won't wanna do any of these things. So we go around thinking, I'm seeking God with all my heart. We're not. If we're not fighting the flesh, we're probably not seeking God with all of our heart because you can't have both. You can't fulfill the gratifications of the flesh and also the fullness of the Spirit. They don't go hand in hand. They're actually fighting each other. Well, Shane, which one wins? Well, we've talked about before, whatever one you feed the most will prevail. And it's hard to seek God, but it's worth it. Verse 62, Pilate sets a guard. On the next day, which followed the day of preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees gathered together to Pilate, saying, sir, we remember while he was still alive how this deceiver said, uh-oh, now Jesus is a deceiver. This deceiver said that after three days, I will rise again. Isn't it interesting? The Pharisees remember that Jesus said that, but the disciples didn't. They're like, oh, what happened? He's dead, he's gone. We're gonna go back to fishing. Our Lord and Savior were so depressed. They didn't remember, but the Pharisees remember that Jesus said, after three days, I will rise again. Therefore, command that this tomb be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night and steal him away and say to the people, he has risen from the dead. See, that's what they were worried about, that they were gonna come and steal the body and say he was risen from the dead. And the Pharisees said, so the last deception will be worse than the first deception. Now, obviously, it wasn't deception. What was the first deception according to them? According to them, all of the nation of Israel just about was following after this man, Jesus. They're following him. They said, we're gonna lose our temple. We're gonna lose our home. We're gonna lose our religion. Everybody is following this man, Jesus. This is a huge deception. We're jealous. We're envious. We've gotta stop him. We've gotta silence his voice. Let's crucify him. Let's bring in false witness. Let's crucify him. We got rid of that deception. Well, no, you didn't. So the next deception that's gonna be worse is if it's believed that he raises from the dead. That will be worse than the first deception. Because why would that be worse? Well, it might carry on a couple thousand years. And millions of people might be changed and converted. And they're worried about this deception. So this is interesting for all those people who don't believe in the resurrection. You can read secular historians. Josephus is one. Other people who wrote during the time of Roman dominance over Israel is that they say this man, Jesus, existed. He was a true historical figure. He was crucified. He died. He had disciples. Many miracles were attested to him. So he's an historical figure. So you can't just say, oh, he was an imagination or he was a fairy tale. No, he was real. So what do you do with that real fact? That's why C.S. Lewis said he's either a liar, he's a lunatic, or he's the Lord Jesus Christ. Those are your options. And there's not a month that goes by I don't run into somebody who says, well, he was a good teacher. No, that's not a fourth option. You get a lunatic liar, the Lord, or a good teacher. Because that can't be an option. He was a terrible teacher if he wasn't the Lord. He was a liar if he wasn't the Lord. So you have to, all of us in this room, all of us hearing this later on the radio, wherever this goes out, you have to answer that question. Lunatic, liar, or Lord? They knew he was going to, his disciples were gonna say he was risen from the dead. So Pilate said to them, you have a guard. Go your way, make it as secure as you know how. Then they went and made the tomb secure, sealing the stone and setting the guard. So what happened? The stone was put against this tomb. It was sealed somehow with the signet maybe of Caesar were knowing nobody could break that seal. And you had Roman guards guarding this tomb. This would be equivalent to the Navy SEALs. You think they're just gonna fall asleep or let somebody steal it? Especially disciples who are scared. Can you imagine disciples coming against Roman guards? They have no passion or courage. Their Savior's in a tomb, dead. So who's gonna come steal the body and try to get past these guys? It's impossible. I wanna talk about this theory for a minute. I don't know if it's popular anymore. It was maybe 20, 30 years ago. It's called the swoon theory. When they say, well, he was still alive. So the Jews are acknowledging that he died, correct? They're not gonna say when he was still alive if they didn't think he was dead. So a swoon theory, swooning is fainting from extreme emotion. Do you know what that word means? I probably should clarify that word. Swooning, like if I'm swooning and I fall over from extreme exhaustion. So people said, it's called the swoon theory, if you can believe this, that Jesus actually fainted because of all the trauma he went through. So the disciples nursed him back together, or back to health. A humorous letter written to the editor of Christian Magazine says it all. Dear Eutychus, our preacher said on Easter that Jesus just swooned on the cross and that the disciples nursed him back to health. What do you think? Sincerely bewildered. Dear bewildered, beat your preacher with the cat of nine tails. With 39 heavy strokes, nail him to a cross. Hang him in the sun for six hours. Run a spear through his heart. Embalm him, put him in an airless tomb for 36 hours and see what happens. Sincerely, Eutychus. Isn't that true? I mean, see how deceived we get? But I've talked to people who believe that he came because they can't, it's impossible, people say it, but it's impossible to say, well, it's just a fairy tale. Jesus never existed. Those cities never existed. Nothing ever existed. It's a fairy tale. Well, you can go and you can find where David lived and you can find the garden. You can find general areas of these things. You can see everywhere where Jesus walked, where he talked. He was a historical figure. History records it. Now, conversely, the Book of Mormon, for example, you can't find anything in there. You can't find the kingdoms. You can't find the cities. You can't find the tools that were used. You can't find the golden tablets that apparently Joseph Smith found and the glasses that he used to read them. You can't find anything. Now, that is a fairy tale. That is this person making this up, starting a religion and leading thousands, if not millions, astray to a different gospel. Paul said, if an angel from above or anybody else preaches another gospel, then what we have preached, let him be anathema, which means accursed. Do you know who spoke to Joseph Smith and gave him this revelation? An angel of light. And the Bible also says that the enemy can deceive you by becoming an angel of light. To be careful, to be on guard, to not be deceived. And it cracks me up. People say, why do you say that, Shane? You're gonna offend Mormons. No, I wanna wake them up. If I didn't love them, I wouldn't say a darn thing. But I want people to be challenged. And sometimes you need a hit in the face. Whoa, what was that? Did he just say what I think he said? We just got an email last week. I can show you if you want. I'll get her permission. She just came out of a lifetime of being a Jehovah Witness because she heard a message on YouTube that says seven traits of a false teacher. And now she doesn't wanna know what to do because her husband and kids are still caught in that religion. But see, you gotta slap people in the face. That's how you wake them up sometimes, not physically. But you gotta, what did he just say? I can't believe he said that right because the truth hurts. It goes right to the heart. That's how you get people to change. Who, an unconverted person would not even be able to get through the first few chapters of the gospel without being convicted. It's conviction is a very healthy, natural thing. And even people to this day, if you tour the nation of Israel, that whole area, it's changed some, the demographics since when Jesus was there. But they'll still say that the body was stolen, even to today. They came and took his body. And I've talked about this before, but maybe it'll strike some of you at a different angle that weren't here. But imagine this for a minute. Because we have to say Jesus was real. He was an historical figure. There was a body put in the tomb. Now, if that body was taken, why did his disciples, why did they, many of them were martyred for their faith? Why is that? Because if somebody captures you, and hey, tomorrow your head's coming off. If they hid the body, I don't know about you, but they're probably like, okay, it's in the field behind the Joshua tree. I'm not gonna die for this lie. But they died and they will continue to die because the faith is genuine. Those people you're seeing being martyred, many different nations, they're dying for their faith. They're dying for the truth. You say, oh, Shane, let me stop you right there. What about terrorism? Same thing. No, they're killing because of their faith. This is much different than people being killed because of their faith. You see the difference? They think there's truth, so they're killing. Others know it's truth and they're dying. Nobody's gonna die for a lie unless they believe it to be true. And these people saw, the only way they would die for their faith is they saw the resurrected body. They saw the empty tomb. They saw the Roman soldiers. When Roman soldiers go running back to the religious leaders and they say, here's what happened. An angel appeared. The stone was rolled away. Jesus was resurrected. And I would have thought the religious leaders would have said, oh my God, we repent. We killed the Messiah. What did they say? Shh, shh, shh, shh, here's some money. If anybody says anything, we'll just tell them that they took his body. The height of deception. It's called spiritual pride. Spiritual pride. You're blinded spiritually. You can't see the things of God because of that. That's one of the great deceptions. So the last deception is worse than the first. Let me talk about the three deceptions. Number one, there is no God. There is no God. And many of you know the term. It's atheism, right? Atheism just means without deities. There's nothing higher out there. It's void of that. All of this happened by random chance. And it's really science versus God is what it boils down to. You have the science side over here and you have the God side over here. And atheism runs to this side. Science, science, science. But ironically, doesn't science confirm God? Can't we have both? I mean, you'll be hard pressed to find anything in science that goes against scripture. And you can email me on that. Anything, it just hasn't been revealed yet probably. Well, what about this? What about this? You can't trust science. If I had time, I could read what science believed 100 years ago. I mean, we can go back even when they thought cigarettes were good for you. I mean, how? To get rid of an ailment on your skin, you mix cat dung with the blood of something back in Egypt. Wash, after working with the corpse, they would go and then deliver a baby. And the woman would die or the child would die. What's happening here? Somebody read the Bible that you should wash your hands in Leviticus? And they washed their hands and they stopped that plague? I mean, who are you gonna trust here and believe? Science has changed and continues to change and continues to change. It'll eventually catch up to the Bible. It never contradicts itself because you read biology books and you read science books, it confirms a lot of what is already in the Bible. But they believe that there is no God. And here's the main reason. Atheisms, and I was reading on Richard Dawkin and Bernard Russell, a British philosopher. They say this. If you can believe that God has always existed, right, this side, why can't I believe in evolution? That's a pretty good question, right? If I can just believe that there's a God who's always existed, nobody created God, why can't you, why can't I believe that all this just happened? Same thing, right Shane? No, big difference, big difference. And I'm gonna explain why in a minute. Bernard Russell said this. Why I'm not a Christian. He said, it's because I could never answer the question who created God. And I wish I could talk to this guy, but he died in 1970. And say, no, that's not your question. Your question is, I don't want there to be a God. That's your statement. That's what they're saying. I don't want there to be a God. So we'll hide behind this, well, who created God? Well, who created humans? Well, who created God? Well, who? To me, it takes 10 times more faith to believe that all this just happened. That there is no God. Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion said the same thing. Philip Adams said the following at a 2010 Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne, Australia. The great argument for God was that there had to be a creation, a beginning. But my objection was simple. If God was the beginning, then who began God? And that's their stumbling block. That's what they stumble on. But here's, on this point, I know it hopefully won't get too confusing, but this is a valid question, is it not? Well, who created God? I mean, well, he lives outside of space and time. He doesn't, you know, I'm fine with struggling with that, because the other thing I'd have to struggle with is this. Well, who made all of us? How did this just happen? Think about this. The brain, 15 to 20% of our cardiac output from our heart per minute goes to the brain. Even the energy in the brain could light a light bulb. There's 100 billion neurons. The highest concentrated area of fat is in the brain. All these brain facts I was reading on, it's amazing to say that that just started itself? And then was that, okay, no, Shane, that didn't start, little amoebas started and proteins. Okay, well, did they have a heart or a brain? No, that came later. Okay, well, and it just doesn't make any sense. And then was the first person a male? And then a female later? I mean, how did nothing know how to do that? And you just look, I mean, look at the eye. The eye is amazing. The eyelids are window wipers. Did you know that? When you blink, it's cleaning the eye? And when you cry, if there's water, it actually goes down a little funnel into the nose, and that's how the eye, so when people are crying, why is their nose runny? Because the water eyebrows that protect. All this is just perfect creation. To say that came from a little premortal ooze is ridiculous, it's foolishness. That's why the Bible says the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. You have to look at the brain, you look at the heart, you look at everything just firing, firing, firing. What keeps it together? Nothing, a creator. There's nothing valid to that. I'm gonna actually quote Charles Darwin. What do you think? To suppose that the eye, with all its ability to adjust focus, to differentiate distances, for admitting different amounts of light into it and correcting the spherical alterations, to say that that could have been formed by natural selection seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree. So the man who just wrote Darwinism, who promoted Darwinism, who wrote his book, who's led millions astray, looks at just the human eye, just the human eye, and he's struggling with that. Well, what about the heart? What about the lungs? What about the liver? What about planet Earth and the sun and Jupiter? What about all these things? It's because, and it continues to happen to say today, I don't want there to be a God. I don't wanna bow my name to the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't wanna admit that there is something better than me and I need to humble myself and repent and confess my faults. I don't like that. Well, sir, it doesn't matter what you like. It matters what is true. And every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, that there is a God. Do you think Charles Darwin is an atheist right now? What do you think he would say if he could come back at all these atheist conferences? Repent. Repent, there is a truth. I mean, just think about it. If you're on the fence, just think about it. Look at the body. Look at the body. Do you know if we didn't have thumbs, how hard it'd be to grab anything, a baseball bat? Cut off a few toes, you can't even walk. I mean, everything is just perfect, perfectly created. The eyebrows, the ears take in, the eyes connected to the brain. There's actually no feelings in the brain because it's disseminating all this information remembering, adjusting the distance. All this just happened from a little amoeba, a little single cell something. My goodness, that frustrates me, that's foolishness. So yeah, who created God? Well, nobody, he's been in existence since eternity passed. He'll be in existence, I don't understand that, but I'm sure not gonna jump on this side and say that my great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather was a tadpole. Well, look at how close monkeys resemble us. Well, God just decided to make something that resembled closer to a human than an elephant does. My goodness, folks, this is ridiculous, but it's getting away from God. That's why you'll see, that's why everything is becoming more militant, more militant, people are getting upset and over the lesbian and bi and transgender, the agenda they have, and that's a hard issue because we love people that struggle with that, same-sex attraction. We minister to them often, whether you know it or not, but the agenda is what I'm concerned about. The agenda that's silencing Christian colleges, the agenda that's wanting to silence the pulpit, the agenda that's wanting to teach your little kindergartner that it's okay to choose to be something else than what God designed you. I have a problem with that. That should not be happening. If you struggle with this, yes, we'll pray for you. We all struggle with something, but don't push the sin on the culture and on the church. That's wrong. Back on track. It's funny, I spoke at a local event here. I won't say the name of it, but they said I'll probably never be asked to speak again. I told the person that told me that, I said, you know what, you might wanna go check out my sermons and do a little research before you ask me to share my heart for 10 minutes. Hello? I mean, put a bull in a china shop and tell him not to break glasses. Now, if people tell me, I mean, I remember Mike Antonovich's office, right, when I got down there a couple years ago, said don't mention Jesus and any of that when you pray, and of course I did it. I've never been asked down there again, but you have to be cordial. I understand people say, hey, this, and you know, you're cordial to that, but just, well, you can't mention these things. What are we supposed to talk about? What in the world are pastors supposed to talk about? Because I'm tired of talking about the daisies and the roses and all this stuff that doesn't do anything. We're on the road to hell, and all we wanna talk about is happy things. Make us feel happy. Do you know that's what they were saying 2,000, 3,000 years ago, too? Elisha, you know the prophet Elisha? He was not well-liked. He would challenge the people, and even the king said, oh, you wicked Elisha, you troubler of Israel. Because he would call the nation to repentance. They don't want to hear it. They're going to silence that as their agenda. That's the goal. So the second deception, I won't spend too much time here, because I already did earlier, is there's no resurrection. There's no resurrection. Many people believe in God, but not Jesus. This is interesting, isn't it? They'll believe in God, but not Jesus. And I've thought about that a lot in talking to people. I think a lot of it boils down to this, because when I can say I believe in God, then God can be whatever I want. He can be whatever, right? I believe in God. I believe in a higher, oh, obviously, Shane. I mean, most people say, obviously, this just didn't happen. There's a higher power out there. He's in the trees. Because you have to see something. And I spoke at a memorial here a couple weeks ago. The couple that met, and the man passed away, John, they actually met in rehab. And I don't know where it was, maybe down in LA. But it's interesting now, you'll see even a lot of those places, AA or different things, they'll change from what it was built 60 years ago. Now it says, we surrender our will to God as we understand Him. And it's underlined. It's like, okay, make sure, make sure. Because they're getting, why, why? Because it's the resurrection that conquered hell, death, and the grave. It's the resurrection that the enemy was finally defeated. Because Jesus is coming into Jerusalem, into Israel, making all these signs, all these miracles. Demons are fleeing. Demons are getting out left and right. He's walking the landscape there. They've never felt this type of spiritual activity before. So Satan says, I've gotta get Him out of here. There's a plot, there's a plan, the resurrection, the crucifixion. Yes, we got Him. All hell is cheering, are they not? You don't think the devil is going, oh, we've got Him, we've got Him. The plans are thwarted, and here comes Sunday. Oh no, here comes the empty tomb. The word is spread. Hell, death, and the grave were conquered. He gave the final sacrifice to Telias on the cross. It is finished. It is done. Thank you, Jesus, amen. Let's say that sometimes. We get more excited over Colby, and the Lakers, and the Packers, and all this stuff. I can't, we're just excited, but when it comes to Jesus, we're just bored to death. Isn't it sad, though? It's sad. Why, because there's something wrong in the heart. If there's no excitement for God, sometime throughout the day, something is wrong in the heart, and usually it's because the world has infiltrated us, and we're too busy for God. We're too busy for the things of God. And I just talked to a pastor this week, and he said he's seeing the same trend. He's been in ministry 30 some years. 30 years ago, it used to be every Sunday, you see people. And now it's maybe twice a month. You know, that's the new trend, maybe once a month. And he said he had a person come up to him and said, Pastor, I haven't been here for three weeks, and you didn't even call me. I said, that's typical of just about everybody. How we can't gauge anymore, we don't know. And we wonder why the church is dead. We wonder why worship is stifled. We wonder why we just go through life, and things are boring, we don't get passionate about God. I mean, I read the book of Acts, and I'm embarrassed. In an upper room for 10 days, who has time for that? 10 minutes, 10 minutes I can do. 10 days, and we see them just going through the land with joy and being beaten, and they're happy? I mean, golly, if somebody beat me up, I think the old school might come out. And like, okay, you're going down, right? But that's just the grace of God has to come in and change your heart. Don't worry, I pray that that would not happen. I pray that I could lovingly take it like Jesus would take it. But you have to look at the resurrection. Either it happened or it didn't. And the interesting thing is the resurrection, the tomb, it didn't happen in Canada or America, or the Native American Indians, and people didn't have any clue. It happened right there in Israel, right there where Jesus was teaching. So if there was any tomfoolery, the people would know. You couldn't just go hide a body still and do all these things. It was clear that either He rose from the dead, or you have a challenge on your hand. And the Jews didn't deny that it was an empty tomb, did they? The Jews, nobody ever denied, read the Bible, they did not deny the tomb was empty. So the tomb was empty. So that's your two choices. Either His body was taken, nobody ever found it, people died, they were killed, they were beheaded, they were stabbed because they hid the body, or He rose from the dead. Those are the two choices. You can't try to find a nice middle choice here. Those are the two choices we have to deal with. And then the final thing is, the third deception is the wrong God. The wrong God. It resembles number two, but these people conjure up many different deities like Hindus. They believe in a supreme God, but they also believe in higher advanced spiritual beings, so they worship millions, many different gods. The Romans, back in Jesus' time, believed in many different gods and goddesses. Mars Hill, for example, was the god of war. Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, and all these different goddesses. Why is that? Here's why. Every person on the planet has the heartbeat of worship, and you have to direct it somewhere. People direct it to drugs, alcohol, illicit sex, they worship idolatry, or they direct it to God. Or these many other nations direct it to these false gods, these false deities. They have to. It's like telling you you can't drink water, you can't breathe oxygen, saying you can't ever worship anything. There's a heartbeat there. It's almost like there was a union between man, God and man, Adam, and then that fall came, the union broke, but there's this Abba Father, there's this something crying out that I have to connect to God. Now we are fallen, we are depraved, God got it, but God's image in us is not erased, it's effaced, it's damaged. There's a difference. We're still created in the image of God, and there's something there, so people are searching for that. I just want to have a little fun on this one. Also in Greek mythology, there's something called the siren. It entices sailors to their death and destruction through obsession and addiction. Anybody know what the siren is? Drive through Starbucks and look at their logo. There you go. So every morning you can look at the siren right there on the cup. Wow, there's not very many amens on that one either. So you can do whatever you want with that one. I'm just saying it's funny that your logo is Greek mythology that entices you through addiction. I mean, nobody's addicted to Starbucks, right? I mean, the lines just never end. The highest trading coffee establishment on the planet. So that's the question. Back to the ending here. Do you believe that Jesus is who He said He is? Do you believe? So I want to just throw this out there. Stop living your life with the question mark here. For some of you, this might not apply. You might just saying amen, amen. You're preaching to the choir. Well, the choir needs a little preaching too sometimes. We have to stop living our life with a question mark here. Maybe a few of you, maybe nobody, maybe somebody hearing this later. You are living your life with a question mark here. I'm not sure, I'm not sure, I'm not sure. And you do not want to be buried six foot under saying I'm not sure. Because you will be sure at that point. There's no going back. And all you have to do is you pray, Lord, Jesus, God, God. If you don't know Jesus, God, I want to know you. I want to know you. Help me understand these things. I'm confused. I have questions. It's okay to have questions. I have questions. I have questions all the time. How can God be sovereign? Yet how can we have a choice in anything? How can He allow certain things, but yet His sovereign plans will prevail? Questions are okay as long as you take it to the right source.