In this sermon, the speaker describes a scene where a man named Charlie is shown falling asleep while watching a film. The film depicts various events, including a countdown, a shot of the earth, and images of hunger and poverty. The sermon then shifts to a church planning session where the pastor is discussing ways to improve the church, but everyone is exhausted and falling asleep. The speaker uses this story to illustrate how people react when confronted with the light of truth, either by admitting their wrongdoings, avoiding the truth, or trying to resist it.

This session you can call the in crowd. I think the vast majority of more evangelical churches today will find Christian caliphates that you could call the in crowd. I think in some of the more online denominational churches you find a lot of religion of fear. And some of the more fundamental churches that do not stress the preaching of a holy life you'll find a lot who call themselves carnal. But in the more sophisticated evangelical churches I think you'll find the in crowd. And that's the last kind of counterfeit the Bible talks about, but counterfeit nevertheless. Turn in your Bibles to the book of John. John, chapter 12, verse 37. But though he had done so many miracles before them yet they believed not on him. Here are some men that saw Jesus do some miracles and they didn't believe in him. Let me tell you something briefly about this. God is very wise and God is also very good. And he has set up a very cunning thing to deal with people who will not surrender to what they know to be right. And what he does is he robs people of what they already know if they will not obey him. Now the Christian life is like riding a bicycle. You get on and you ride it forwards. If you stop, you fall off. It's as simple as that. Once you're on, you've got to keep moving. Jesus said, no man having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. So when you give your life to Jesus, you're in for life. And it's the life work. You've got to keep on riding on that bicycle and there's no stopping, there's no looking behind or you'll get into crashes. Now, can you imagine what God must be thinking if he gives people some true facts and they refuse to obey them and yet they want to learn more things about God. Yet they won't do what they already learned. Have you ever heard the story of the preacher who came into a church and he preached on every person in this church ought to invite one of his unsaved friends to come to church on Sunday. He preached this really heavy message and people were falling out of their chairs with conviction. Oh, pastor, this is a tremendous thing and weeping all over altars and things. And he preached that Sunday morning. It's a brand new pastor. He was trying out in the church. And they said, wow, that was a fantastic sermon. I've never heard a sermon like that. And he said, fine, come tonight. So they all came tonight, that night. He got up, he looked at the crowd and he preached the same sermon he preached in the morning. Every Christian ought to bring an unsaved man in. Man, the anointing was powerful and more people were falling out of their chairs that hadn't heard it in the morning. The others were doubly convicted and they came out and they said, wow, that was really heavy. We're so glad you preached that again because a lot of us missed it this morning. He said, well, make sure you're at the prayer meeting on Thursday. Prayer and chair meeting on Thursday evening. He arrived on Thursday and guess what he preached on. Preached the same sermon. Afterwards the deacons got together and they said, we should really talk to this pastor. I mean, he's a really good preacher. We really appreciate that. But when has he said any other sermon? Sunday night, Sunday morning, got up, preached the same sermon. And then they came to him in a big old body. They said, ah, listen, I'll tell you what, pastor, we really like that sermon. That's a good sermon. We've got it on tape. We're going to make copies of it and send it to our friends. I said, boy, that's a heavy tape. That's what it is. That's a tremendous sermon. But what we really wanted to know is, do you have any other sermons? The young pastor looked at me and said, yes. And when you do what I told you the first time, I'll preach the second one. Now see, God is like that. He gives you something simple to do and He wants you to do it. And when you do that, then He'll give you something else. If I was a person who had invented some brand new fantastic knowledge, like a laser beam that could cut the top of this thing and look like a pencil, the other end was an anti-gravity beam that could levitate the whole top of this roof off. If I had one of those things and you're from the mafia and you come up and you say, I'll give you two million bucks for that knowledge. And I extend your knowledge and you're a selfish man, then there's something wrong with me. Can you imagine a 6,000 year old Hitler? With all the technologies of today available to him. And what do you think God is going to do if a man refuses to obey Him and refuses to love Him and refuses to serve Him? He is not going to let that man learn anything more. He is actually going to rob that man's mind of the knowledge he has. And God must do that because that is wise of God. That's why you read in the Bible, Satan is called wise until he falls and then he's called subtle and cunning, but never wise. God begins to rob knowledge from men. You know what the Bible says? To him that has, that has not, from him shall be taken even that which he has. Him that has, to him shall more be given. When you take a little bit of what God has given, you say, alright, I'll take that, I accept that, I'll change. Take that one little bit and God gives you something else. You say, oh wow, something else, and then you change again and He gives you something else. And that's where you go. The man that says, no, I'm not interested in that, I want to learn all these things. Oh, that's very interesting, yes. Praise the Lord, we really want to know more about that and not do it. God starts robbing him. And he has to. That's what it tells us here. He has blinded their mind, blinded their ears. Now, the verse I want you to really read comes immediately after this. Nevertheless, among the chief rulers, also many believed on him. But because the Pharisees, of the Pharisees, they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue. For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. Now, here's another group of people that believed in Jesus. But of course, these men were never saved. Because they refused to do what Jesus said is absolutely essential. He said, if you want to be saved, and remember Romans, in Romans 10, 13, whosoever shall confess with his mouth the Lord Jesus. Do you remember what Jesus said? Whosoever shall confess me before men, him also will I confess before my Father which is in heaven. Whosoever shall deny me before men, him also will I deny before my Father in heaven. There must be a public declaration. I'll tell you why that must be so. Let's imagine that you've been convicted of a terrible crime. A great, you know, you robbed the country of three billion dollars. And now you're up on trial, and you ask the judge for it. You say, listen, I'm really guilty, I know that. But I really wish you'd pardon me, because I never robbed the country of three billion dollars before. So I, I, you know. Do you think it's fine in your heart to just give me another chance? And the judge says, well, we'll think about it. And then you say to the judge, of course, these are my conditions. I don't want you to tell anybody that I really stole that stuff. I mean, I did, but I don't want people to think that I was a robber or something. See? I really want you to pardon, but don't tell anybody I did anything wrong. Do you think I did pardon? Well, you remember a little, you remember a little kid and he stole some cookies, and your mother said, don't you touch these cookies or don't you eat that cake? And you went and you did that. And you had your hands full of sticky cookies, and she came in, what are you doing? Um, nothing. Uh, did you take any of these cookies? And you got them in your hands trying to crumble them to nothingness. Cookies, my cookies, you say. Now listen, friends. Every time you deny what you're actually doing, you simply harden the heart of the person who's in the position of punishment against mercy. Now if you break down, and you say, yeah, I took the cookies, because I'm not going to eat them. Mother probably says, oh, I'll let you off, you know, all right. You stand there with cookies all over your hands and say, who me? I don't know, cookies, I don't even know what a cookie is. Cookie, who? You're in trouble, baby, you really are. And here's a group of men who wanted to serve and believe Jesus, but they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. They refused to confess unless they'd be put out of the synagogue. They wanted to serve Jesus, only they wanted to do it popularly, and I want you to know this. No man who ever lives for God in the selfish world will be popular. Knock it down. Well, his Christian friends will love him, but that's about all. When you serve Jesus, you must know where he's going. There were three men who came up to Jesus, and the first man ran up to Jesus and he said, Lord, I'll follow you whosoever thou goest, and he didn't even know where he was going. Jesus was going to a cross to die. Wicked men were going to crucify him, nail him up there in blood and agony, and he was going to a cross. Listen. If you follow Jesus Christ, you too have better be ready to be crucified. Either you will love God and follow him, and Jesus said, if they have done it to me, they'll do it to you. If they have hated me, they will hate you. And it is impossible to serve Jesus and still be popular with people who hate him. Did you ever hear about the man who went into the army? He went into the army and he was supposed to be a young Christian and came out two years later and they said, how did you get on in the army? Did they give you a hard time? He said, no, I didn't get a hard time at all. He said, you didn't? They didn't laugh at you? He said, no, I never had any problem. They said, didn't they put you down or did they say anything? He said, no, they never found out I was a Christian. I kept it secret as I could. There is a class of people in the Bible who believe in Jesus, but Jesus doesn't believe in them. It's all the people pleases. They love the praise of men more than the praise of God. And I'll show you how to recognize this last phony class of counterfeit conversions. Bible of course, very clear. We must confess Jesus openly. We must first of all admit we really are what he said we are. We are last men and women who have been selfish not part of the time but all of the time. And you can tell the signs of the people pleases. And these are the first. I'm going to start and run out of chalk here eventually. First of all, in 2 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 12 you'll find that the people pleases does what Paul says he will do. They measure themselves among themselves. And they never find truth because they keep on comparing themselves with other people instead of comparing themselves with the Bible and comparing themselves with Jesus. And a vast number of people in the world instead of making Jesus their rule and Jesus their pattern and the Bible their guidelines simply look at others and they say, what does a Christian look like in the world around me and I'll be as much as I can like them. Now in the scriptures the Christian is a man who serves and loves God if the rest of the world backslides and goes to hell. He stands alone for Jesus. He loves God. And the Christian does that which is right not just that which is respectable. And sometimes it is easier to be respectable than to be right. The Christian doesn't deliberately go out to make himself a nuisance or to be a pest. The Christian and I know a lot of kids at school today that the teacher says some dumb thing that he shouldn't have said and the Christian in this case says, ah ha, I got him now I'm going to go and really put him down. So they wait in the class ah you're on there teacher this is a well you know just kind of and the kids say yeah, yeah because kids are always against teachers. But see the Christian doesn't deliberately go out to make himself a nuisance but he does stick up for truth. And that will always bother people I'll tell you why. Say you're in this room that was very dark pitch black and all of us were doing some very nasty things and somebody comes in here with a flashlight and he starts shining it pew pew pew pew starts shining around everybody's going ah yeah turn that light off you know stuff like this see. Now what do you do if a guy comes in with a flashlight? Well you can do three things you can say you got me tell alright alright I've done it see you can admit it what God wants you to do be honest admit come out with the light or you can run away to another corner of the room where the light isn't or thirdly you can try and shoot the guy through the flashlight and you'll understand young people when you go out you'll meet some people who say you got me tell you'll meet some who say well I'm sorry I haven't got very much time and keep running into the darkness and you'll find some people who try to shoot the light out they might try to do it with words they might try to do it with actions mark it down if you're going to be a Christian then you're going to be unpopular so I'm not going to tell you how to be a cool popular Christian I'm going to tell you how to be an unpopular Christian because that's the Jesus kind two the people pleaser never bothers to raise the standards of rights now something burns in my heart for the Lord Jesus' church I don't believe Jesus is coming back to a filthy prostitute but to a spotless bride that's what the Bible says and if there is a crowd of people pleasers in the church they could care less what Jesus says about his church he loves her and he died for her and he shed his blood to make her spotless and present her perfectly for the they don't care about that if a church is in a rut of parties and socializing and messing around they don't care that's fine whatever is happening that's fine we're sinning something burns in my heart for Christ we're going to do a little thing called the party it's based on we got the idea from a Charlie Churchman film you ever seen Charlie Churchman the guy with the moustache runs around he's an idiot but he's a beautiful person Charlie so if you've got an idiot you can be Charlie Churchman and Church Week this particular film if you haven't seen it I suggest you do and prepare yourself for an awful cutting experience it opens up with him being run over by cars all those old cars you know this weird kind of fast no soundtrack except music cars running over and washing windscreens and falling off ladders and all that kind of weird stuff and you're laughing you sucker you laugh ha ha and then you're getting ready to be pretty sucked see because what happens is it's a typical church week opens up I don't know different things happen during the church week first they have the Christian bowling the bowling game and the passers are wearing scarves and praying and then he they're all getting ready to bowl and then they bowl you know got to make it Christian put the prayer and then and then then they have a missionary council all the ladies come in it's going to be a missionary outreach and all the ladies come in and all you see is a whole bunch of ladies bringing pies sleeves of pies clonk clonk clonk there's a whole table full of pies all smiling another one another one huge thing of pies and then comes a missionary sermon what happens is the ladies dress up one is you know like this and then runs away and another one comes like this with the hula dance and then runs away that's the missionary sermon and then they start eating the pie see and then right in the corner of the film just quite suddenly you see a thing that looks like a speedometer and instead of going forward it's going backwards it's counting down it's going 20 19 just drops down and goes back on see and then you see a church collapse there's a whole huge building falling down bulldozer pushing it over and then you see this huge plot of land being cleared and the pastor comes up takes a takes a spade smiles throws the and then they unlace this big long huge poster it's a huge monstrous thing and it goes $100,000 at a new church parking lot or something like that they all jump up and down you know it goes 18 and then they have the outreach they've got to win the sinners so again you see them bringing food, chicken all kinds of things and they're having a party see a Wednesday night potluck fellowship and they put a big sign right over the door here it says sinners welcome and they put it inside the church where you have to come in and see it first see and then they all lay out all the plates and all the food and they're sitting down they're smiling and they wait for the sinners to come look and nobody comes nobody can see that sign so finally they go and then they start eating this this this guy is chomping into this chicken he's going right into the chicken and then it's all color suddenly the music stops the color stops you see a black and white slide of a kid dead of hunger on the streets of India and it goes right back clunk clunk clunk clunk clunk clunk and then it snaps back and you see seventeen and then the church week wears on and when it gets right near the end they're having a satellite planning session and for goodness sake seven thirty they all meet there and the guy's got a blackboard just like this and they've got a hundred thousand dollars they've got to add some new things for the church so the guy's looking at the chair it's plastic see it's a sort of metal chair but it doesn't look very pretty so he's throwing those out and he's going to get some nice plastic and chrome chairs you know to put in the thing and he's covering the board with all the things it says balloons for the kiddies for the adults balloons for the adults all kinds of things covering a whole board and every time you look back you see the clock is going click click click and that little deal is going click five click and finally you look back and they're all nearly asleep it's about twelve thirty in the morning Sunday morning and there's cobwebs all over them right through the whole room and he's still writing tons of writing on the board cobwebs all over and then Sunday morning the pastor goes with his perennial smile like this and they have to bring all the people on stretchers put them out because they're so dead running around doing all the programs they're just about finished see they're falling all over there's some asleep some are wheeled in in wheelchairs some are brought in on stretchers and tipped into the pew the pastor's still with his perennial smile running around all over the pulpit and everybody's asleep and you see Charlie and his head sort of drops and the screen splits and one side you see him asleep and then you see the whole event of the week and every time fleck fleck fleck fleck and it comes back to this little speedometer coming down and then you see the last thing five four three two one and the screen goes black and you see a shot of the earth from space you know the moon shot of the earth of the green blue planet and right in the center you see a little dot like this and it goes so it's a whole screen it's an H-bomb just goes and then the screen goes black and that's the end of the film you know what they were doing in Russia just before the Bolshevik revolution they were trying to decide on whether they should use tablecloths on the communion that were plain or fancy and they spoke for three or four days on it arguing up and down I think it should be plain I really don't think so I think it's and outside there were young people planning to blow up the world while the revolution was on outside the church was arguing about communion tablecloths inside sometimes I wonder when I walk into a church and I see kids in a rut of parties and games selfish as the day is long and I something burns in my heart and I say where where are the Christians a kid comes in listen a young Marxist came and sat down I want you to imagine it's in your church youth group and one young Marxist said I'm going to destroy this system a brilliant trained young man he said I'm going to tear this system down the ears of every Christian in this country but he said I'm going to give it one more chance I'm going to go to a church I'm going to find some kids my age and I'm going to see if anybody really does know God and if I can find one group of kids who really love God then I'll give up my revolution and he comes into your church youth group just when you're having the time you enjoy most and he sits down and he watches and let me ask you a question and he walks out of that room will he go back to his destruction or will he give his life to God and I walk into a room see I was going to be a Marxist and I see kids in a rut of parties in a rut I see a group of people pleasers going around trying to impress each other with just how selfish they can be and still call themselves Christians something in my heart cries out for God how much has God been hurt by the selfishness of people who are phony people pleasers I went into a church some time back guy says did you have any additions to the church I said no I had some blessings some tractions got rid of some kids that should have been got rid of a lot earlier you know what they did in the Bible they preached they lay out the message of salvation and people sat and listened they waited for them to change if they didn't they went to see him personally they said listen this is what's happening and this is what ought to be done will you change the guy says no I have no intention of changing and there's the door could you please close it as you leave they went back and they got somebody else who was concerned and they came together in love and they said will you change and the guy said no I'm not and the door was in the same place they went out and they waited until church when everybody was sitting here and then they nailed them they said this isn't it time you gave up your selfishness and gave your life to God right there in the church not preaching to somebody in particular you know just I wonder if there's anybody here that is really a good God of course none of you none of you just somebody maybe outside the walls maybe somebody you know but not you man I'd be so thrilled if some preacher had come right to me and said listen man you are phony as the day is long right but I wish somebody had told me that earlier for six years I wasted my life the time I was 12 the time I was 18 in phony Christianity and there's nothing more miserable in a person who tries to live both worlds to please the crowd and to please God God says I'd rather you call yourself a good honest atheist at least you know I admire the man that says I don't have anything to do with God I don't worship him I don't follow him I would rather admire that man than the man that says oh yes I love Jesus I really am a Christian it's really cool and then it's exactly like the atheist let me tell you my definition of an atheist an atheist is somebody who practically lives as if God does not exist and about 80% of most of the youth groups that I work in are atheists under that definition David Wilkerson goes into a church he preaches as if every kid in the place is unsaved including the pastor I think it's high time we stopped taking things for granted and started seeing what the Bible says about dinner and Christianity you watch Jesus deal with the people pleasers in his day you want to read some of the stories in Matthew chapter 5 verse 20 he took some of the church leaders of his day who had made a nice little cool thing about what a Christian was and he burned them so badly they said he is a devil he took these men and sometimes I think I find that attitude buried in some people that ought to know better people who are church leaders and every effort to open their eyes to show them that the church is in such a worldly place that if a New Testament Christian from 2000 years ago walked into the church and he wanted to have a fellowship but he had to backslide you show them that and they get really uptight listen don't rock the boat baby this is cool we've got it all it's all set don't touch it Jesus with a heart breaking said how can you escape the damnation of hell my heart is broken because I felt God's heart break over his will I know what he feels like a little tiny weeny bit because he showed me a little bit of what I've done to hurt him and I think it's time Christians took revenge on sin sin has hurt God it's hurt me it's hurt others and I'm going to get revenge on it the last thing I do for Christ I'll get revenge on sin I'll go back and clean up where I've wrecked I'll put back where I have stolen I will forgive where I've hated that is Christianity and then the third sign is that they oppose measures and men before the Lord are trying to bring them into a real New Testament experience I can always tell the people pleaser because he never usually comes out very strong to begin with you can preach you can lay out the conditions of the gospel and the people pleaser will sit back there saying I'm not going to do this man I've made my mind up and this so what they usually do is start a whispering campaign go up and I say hey listen do you really believe that what he's been saying I don't believe that man I really don't and they won't commit themselves to this publicly and of course if the person isn't very popular that comes in then they'll say oh well I don't really like this guy and then of course if a great revival breaks out and he does become popular I say oh yes I was his friend all along you know I prayed for him you know they change just like remember the chameleon that funny little creature you put him on a blue thing he turns blue you put him on a red thing he turns red you put him on a yellow thing he turns yellow and you put him on a Scotch tartan plate and he blows his mind and dies there are a lot of people are like that no oh one way right on if the preacher is popular and then if he gets unpopular oh well I really thought there was a lot of things wrong with him anyway I remember how sometimes hard to Charles Vinnie calls it this way forming a public sentiment in favor of godliness and then we came back from a conference meeting one night Joy Dawson the woman of god who will be with you later on during the week was at that same meeting one of the finest deepest spiritual conventions that our little country New Zealand has ever had and I came back with my heart full of God and we were driving early in the morning I saw a hamburger stand and there was a guy standing there cooking hamburgers and we were really hungry we hadn't eaten anything so we all got out full of praise to God and we went over to this hamburger stand and this college kid was cooking hamburgers and every now and then oh! it was like he stabbed me right in the heart and he took the lollipop out of my mouth and I said oh! I can't tell you how much that hurt and I said to God he said one more time I'm going to get him Lord straight away and again so I looked at him and I said do you know him? He said who? I said Jesus Christ I just heard you use his name well sometimes I think about him sometimes I don't I said I happen to know him a lot and love him and you just heard him hamburger stand closed down half an hour later and we moved into an evangelist meeting and all the people came and were buying their hamburgers and the guy came out of his hamburger stand they shut the thing down and we went on preaching we had a number of kids give their life to Christ that night but it's not easy to stand up for God it's not easy to do that but you have to ask yourself this question am I going to suffer reproach for Jesus am I going to slap this guy in the back so I can slap Christ in the face I understand I'm going to have to say alright it might be hard but I'm going to stick up for Jesus because he's number one you girls would understand that if a guy really loved you and somebody came and was putting you down and calling you names if he really loved you he would stick up for you he would say don't you say that about him that's not true at all that is unless he loved his own reputation more than he loved himself if he really loved you in which case he would say well if you want to say that that's fine then go ahead what kind of love is that man you girls will get on this case soon enough you say you love Jesus stick up for him Bible says this here's in living letters when you love somebody this is 1 Corinthians 13 right at the end in living letters when you love somebody you will be loyal to them no matter what the cost you will always believe the best of them always expect the best of them and always stand your ground in defending them when you love somebody you will be loyal to them no matter what the cost and then number 4 a people pleaser makes the split between the things that people say you ought to do and the things that people know you ought to do but don't do in other words if the pastor of a church preaches long and strongly I'm not eating chocolate ants on Sunday I'm not eating chocolate ants on Sunday then the person who is a people pleaser will not eat chocolate ants on Sunday while the world stands but if there are other things in the Bible equally clear or more so clear than not eating chocolate ants on Sunday but they're not very popular because that doesn't fit in with the kind of structure of the thing that's set up the people pleaser will ignore those things he won't care about them in other words he will choose for himself which of God's commands he will obey and which he will disobey you can soon see where his heart is his heart is not fixed on serving and loving Jesus his heart is fixed on serving himself and you ought to know this about the people pleaser and the in crowd the reason why he is serving God is not simply because it is popular to be a Christian it's a double motive when it is not too unpopular to be a Christian he serves God in order that he can take care of heaven and everything else behind that and so he has a double motive I have sometimes got on planes and I've seen soldiers young guys who have just been drafted heading out they're going to go to Vietnam or some training camp or something and I'm sitting down the wait you know the airline waitress always comes around she says could I get you a drink you know before you leave and she brings Bloody Mary's and all kinds of other weird things around and I say yes you can bring me a large orange juice please you bet yay hi see and I'm sitting down here's this guy he gets on sits down you know trying on his army uniform and that you can tell he's a fresh out of the induction centre whatever it is and he's sitting down the waitress comes around she says yes you're welcome to get so would you like a Bloody Mary oh yes I'll have a Bloody Mary please give me three or four you know so he's sitting there trying this stuff out and then I start witnessing to him and I say I'm a Christian and he says oh you are you're a Christian puts his bottle underneath I'm a Christian too he says I don't really tell you how you can tell a people pleaser he separates the things God requires from the and that people know about from the things that God requires but not too many people know about and you can always tell him because he changes his colours when the crowd changes now I have learned to recognize people pleaser because I lived like that for six years and it's easy to spot something you've been in and come out of I tell you what I did when I was with the church crowd I was that churchiest kid you ever saw man I went five times a day and I doubt very much whether even in the world you have five services a day you probably have one today five but I had five church services a day and I sung there and some of those services sing everybody in you know did some solos sung just as close to walk with me and walked as close to hell as I possibly could go Saturday our church is 15 miles away from my home town all my friends came up and we put our rock band together did I sing church songs well if we are doing a church thing I always put a church song in you know I was giving a plug for God he should consider himself very lucky that I put a plug in for him at the end of that thing and then what did I do on Monday well I wasn't with anybody so I broke into houses for entertainment and I lived like that for five years house breaking on Monday band on Saturday and church on Sunday God bless you pastor what a wonderful sermon I really appreciate that sermon pastor fantastic sermon pastor that was very cool pastor see my halo is out polished with Brasso and everything then come Monday night I put my halo back up on the shelf and next Saturday my horns started growing again cut my tail and my horns on Saturday night and we were back in church Sunday morning smiling God bless you pastor oh good heavens I'll tell you how you can tell a person's heart very simply you can test them with obedience and little things and that's precisely what Jesus does he says he that is faithful in a few things will I make rules of the I'll give you an example of what I mean so I have here in front of me two piles of money this pile is a gigantic pile of money it's a thousand dollars which is taken up by the early morning collection of YWAM ha ha thousand dollars of counted bills and over here is a small pile of uncounted change nickel pennies dimes and this whole place clears out and you come back in here and you see there's two piles of cash and this is counted we got the serial numbers we know what it is and know how much it is this one isn't you know that you come into this room and you see that and you see this and you snitch one dime off that pile you prove you'd snitch that whole thousand dollars if you had the chance because you see your heart is not being regulated by what is right in obedience to God you did not steal that because you love God the reason why you didn't steal that is you could think that somebody could find it who stole a thousand dollars search that kid's case there is a thousand bucks in his case send him off to jail why didn't you steal a thousand dollars because your reputation was at stake people pleasing what about this one the man comes in he sees that money he says oh that's not right I can't take that that doesn't belong to me he refuses the dime God knows where his heart is at and God will test you give you a little thing see what you do with that obey it and you prove to him you really mean business and it is sometimes easy to do the big things because there are other motives besides serving Jesus in them how many of you want to be a world famous evangelist oh me me me everybody wants to be a world famous evangelist how many of you want to serve God by going and apologizing to your mother for saying rotten things to her I want to tell you something a people pleaser breaks God's law whenever it suits him Joseph Fletcher is a man I put into this category a man who put together situation ethics Fletcher does a really sneaky thing here Fletcher says well story is this friends what if somebody comes breaking you got to break God's law sometime after all nobody's perfect quote unquote he says what if somebody comes busting into your house and here they are he's an insane ah he says there's a Christian just come running into your house and he's hiding in the closet he says oh there's an idiot outside where the gun is going to drill me the Zodiac killer he says you're hiding in the cupboard there the door closed and this other Christian comes to the door and he says yes sir what can I do he's got this gun he's going to break God's law and lie or you tell the truth and kill the guy and he says you got to break one of them so which one do you do you do the one that you think is the most loving you don't want him to die so you tell a lie you say no he's not here I don't know what you're talking about that's one situation immorality of not of not going back to a husband and the people in need of him you know but you would say well it's obvious you simply do the loving thing you offer yourself to the God and then go and join the rest of your family how cool he tells you some things about God's law number one situation one you do not need to lie and no Christian has a right to lie to save his life or anybody else's but neither do you have to say anything it just happens to be an amendment I do believe in your constitution that says you can plead that and not say anything man comes rushing over and says is there a Christian in here I have to say I am George Washington yes he is I can say no I am Winky Pratt get lost out of my house do you remember Joseph up came Potiphar the wife she was a really swinging hooker in those days and she said to Joseph hey you are kind of a cool guy I really like to know more about you and he recognized that man she grabs hold of his clothes he takes off there and he has to leave half his clothes behind the man who was better to run than surrender the people pleaser does not give in to God he gives in to sin he does it all the time and you can recognize your own heart like that and then the people pleaser indulges in secret sin here is a way you can check your own life if you allow yourself any deliberate secret sin you hold on to it time and time again you know how to get out of it you know what is wrong you know how to get cleaned up out of it you know what God expects and you hold on to it then mark your name down friend people pleaser your worship is outward your worship is external you do not love God you love the praise of men the reason why you keep your front up is because the only people you are interested in impressing is Christians not God if you really hated sin if you really loved God you would not surrender in to secret sin I used to boy when I was a people pleaser I hated preachers who preached about the bible and how many of you always they picked on me I hated that man I just hated it so I went I go out and I just read the bible right through just so I can say yes I hate it people pleasers dread the thought of being called fanatics now understand I am not talking about being a Jesus freak I am not a Jesus freak I may freak some people out but I am not a Jesus freak Jesus is not a freak either he comes up and he says hey I am a Jesus freak too I said I am not I am a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ the most high God he has made me his child he has put me in his royal family I am not some weird freak and I tell you this if you serve Jesus you are going to go right against the opinions of the world they will hate you for it and the people pleaser never wants to do anything that will mark him as being a little bit more spiritual he aims at a nice comfortable temperature where he can serve God and serve himself at the same time and you already know that is not possible and the man who comes in and says well this is the kind of thing the people pleaser will say well it's alright to be a Christian but you don't have to take that too far you don't have to do all kinds of things it really gets a little bit fanatical when you're talking about Christ when you're just going out to eat or going out to play or something for goodness sake you know a good thing is a good thing but there's limits to it they hate being called fanatical Jesus was called mad because he wouldn't eat sometimes and he wouldn't sleep sometimes he was so concerned about people and the disciples said you better eat something his heart was so set on seeing men change they said to Paul Paul you've gone nuts much learning has made you mad he said I'm not mad I am not mad I wish you were like me except for these chains do you remember the man whom Jesus delivered who was a gadarian maniac he came running down this dude he would take chains and chain them up clunk clunk with these big old manacles he'd go ahhhh and he'd smash them off he lived up there in the graveyards in the tombs ahhhh and he'd cut himself with stones in the early hours of the morning scared everybody to death man you didn't even go around that area you came past your boat on the sand he came running ahhhh cutting himself boy and he was a strong guy so where did Jesus head off to he headed off there man all the disciples pulled him out of the boat Jesus got out of the boat and here comes the maniac running down the hills and all the disciples got back in the boat Jesus stopped him with a word and this guy came up and said you come to torment us before our time we know who you are and we and and know who