Love of the Truth

We are living in a day, as I said earlier, that what Jesus emphasizes, what the New Testament writers emphasize. Let me just make this statement first. When it comes to end times passages, those passages are aimed at the church. The entire world system, from God's perspective, His focus is on the church. It's like all the world system is just a backdrop, you know, a stage. It's where what He's doing in people transpires. His focus is always on those who claim to follow Him. And these end time passages, especially this one in 2 Thessalonians 2, has to do with Christians. And this passage talks about the apostasy and the Antichrist. I'm going to skip past the Antichrist stuff because, to me, he's not the issue. You know, the issue is, what are you going to do? What am I going to do? As deception grows stronger and stronger, what are we going to do? As the spiritual lethargy, and, you know, we just don't have strong enough terms. Sleepiness doesn't sound that bad. That kind of sounds like a nice little thing. But it's in the soothing voice of cosmos that people are sound asleep to spiritual things. So his concerns, as I said, are deception and readiness. Deception and readiness. And, you know, I don't know if I've, have I said this recently? The Bible does not emphasize the rapture. I'm sorry if that's, you know, they come up with all these movies, and the rapture and the Antichrist are the central figures. But that's not what the Bible emphasizes when it's talking about the end times. It emphasizes deception and deceivers. Man emphasizes the rapture. Makes for a nice little storyline for a movie or the Antichrist. You know, the Church of America has a real way of somehow shifting the spotlight off ourselves and onto the world and comparing ourselves with lost sinners and making ourselves feel better about our supposed spirituality. We're terrible in that way. That's not the way the Bible is. The Bible is examine your heart before the Lord. All right, so let's start here at verse three. Right off the bat, let no one in any way deceive you. Almost the identical words Jesus uses in the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24. Do not be led astray. For it, the day of the Lord, that's what the context is, the day of the Lord. The day of the Lord will not come unless the apostasy comes first. And the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction. Okay, move ahead to verse seven. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. This is almost certainly the Holy Spirit being spoken of. And I'll get into that in a minute. Then that lawless one will be revealed. In other words, exposed for who he is by those with discernment. Oh, Chris, can you turn the air on? It seems to be hot in here. Someone, yeah, I guess you know how. Mark's sick, by the way. We need to pray for Mark. I forgot to pray for him. Lord, I pray for Mark right now. Please come to him and help him. Just drive this sickness out of him, whatever it is. In Jesus name, amen. Then that lawlessness will be, one will be revealed, whom the Lord will slay with the breath of his mouth. As Martin Luther so eloquently put it in his song, by a word of his mouth. How's it? One little word shall fell him. Thank you. That's my memory over there. And bring to an end by the appearance of his coming. That is the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan with all power and signs and false wonders and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish. And here we're going to see why many professing Christians will perish because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. For this reason, God will send upon them a diluting influence so that they will believe what is false. Did you get that? God? God's going to send this on people for the purpose of deceiving them. That's not good theology, you know. God will send upon them a diluting influence so that they will believe what is false in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth but took what? Pleasure in wickedness. Anybody here take pleasure in wickedness in your past? Oh, a few of you have. Before I get into the message, I want to just make a few observations on this passage. One thing I want to say is that it feels like the way that Paul lays this whole thing out in these handful of verses, it feels like this is all going to happen, you know, one thing after another in short order or all at the same time. And that's not, you know, that is a typical thing for prophets when they see off into the way distant future. Everything's just kind of crammed together. They're only getting the highlights. And so they state the highlights as God has shown them to them. You understand what I'm saying? But this is going to take some time to unfold. This isn't going to happen all at once. And, you know, I mean, for instance, it just said right here, the mystery of lawlessness is at work right there in the first century. But it will become an ever increasing force within the professing church of the end times. Jesus said that the increase of lawlessness would deaden the love of people. Deaden their love. Again, talking about professing Christians, deaden their love for God and for others. Lawlessness. And, you know, the other thing that will deaden is the love of self. Self-love deadens the love for others. And that's what we see in 2 Timothy 3 and that other, that's another passage talking about the end times church having a form of godliness, but denying the power. All right. So let's just look at a couple of things here. As lawlessness increases within the professing church, the Holy Spirit is going to withdraw. And you get a picture of it in the book of Ezekiel. I think it's 9 through 11, if I remember right. It shows the Holy Spirit withdrawing first out of the temple and then up on the hill and then out of Israel. That's a picture, a type of what we're going to see and what is happening right now, in fact, in the church. The Lord's going to allow Satan to do his worst on this earth once we get into the tribulation period. It's going to get more and more intense. It just is. And this great apostasy Paul's speaking of here, you know, it's a great falling away of, you have to, I mean, if you read the, study the word apostasy in the Greek. It is a falling away from something you once held to be true. You know, you know, it's not describing the world. It's describing people who believed in their heads anyway, believed the gospel. And the time's going to come when they will, I mean, the reality is they're already in their hearts, you know, they're still going through the form, but in their hearts they've already strayed far from God. And eventually the man of lawlessness will emerge and all these people who have long since fallen away from the Lord, from any reality of God in their lives, will be completely open to his message. That's, you know, that's the, that's the layout, the timeline of what's going to happen, what we can expect. And I'm telling you, we are already there. We are there. We're in the early days of the apostasy right now. It is the perilous times that Paul spoke of in 2 Timothy 3. The peril isn't plagues and martyrdom and things like that. The peril is spiritual. That's the whole context of 2 Timothy 3. The peril is being in love with self. Are you guys with me? All right. In this passage of scripture, you can study this later on. I invite you to do it. There's four different words for deception in the Greek, in this passage, just this passage. And in fact, you know, talking about the enormity of this subject in regards to the end times, those four words are used 42 times in the New Testament, just regarding the end times. You got concordances over there, right? Don't you have concordances over there in the house? Look them up. Look them up later and you'll see what I'm talking about. It'd be a great way to spend your afternoon. The Bible continually and consistently warns about deception. Why is it we are so unconcerned about it? Where's the movie about deception? We have whole book series on the rapture. I'm not even convinced there is such a thing, but we have entire books series and movies and movies and movies about the day after and the moment after and you got left behind and too bad for you. See you later. We are off to heaven. That kind of mindset. You really believe that that's the way the Lord thinks? Why aren't people concerned about what Jesus emphasizes? Paul says they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. For this reason, God will send upon them a diluting influence. There's a word in there I bet you missed. Agape. Who caught that? Anyone catch that agape was in there? It's there. They did not receive the agape of the truth. Agape is the ruling passion of your heart. Agape, we think of it in terms of God is love. God is agape. We think of it as for God so agape the world, right? We think of it in terms of the love chapter agape, but it's also referring to negative things in the Bible too. Quite a few times. Do not agape this world, for instance. This is describing what is the ruling passion of your heart. Get past all the religious fluff and talk. What's the reality of your heart? What is it that your heart really longs for? And the Lord is basically saying to many people, and especially in our day, you have one foot in the world and one foot in the church. You are going to have to make a decision. Will you continue with the masses living for self or will you come into this life of love with God and love for the truth? You know, Babylon is the original spin zone. It just spins out lies like nothing. I mean, just constantly lies, lies, lies, just filling the atmosphere in the world full of deception. That's a large part of the reason deception would be such a powerful thing in the end times is just simply because of the media. You know, people who lived 150 years ago driving around on carts, you know, and maybe get a telegram or something or whatever, maybe a newspaper. They didn't have the constant influences of the world like we do. Well, like I do, you guys don't get any of it. You know, it's given the enemy the opportunity and the ability to reach the masses constantly and powerfully. This deception, it's a complex system, really. Subtle lives, lies that are just woven throughout the group think of our world. And, you know, the world tells us what to accept as truth. And they do it in a thousand different ways. You know, I mean, it's just such a subtle thing. Constantly, you know, if you watch, I mean, it seems like movies have gotten more, I don't know, I'm no expert on it, but it seems like they've developed the ability increasingly so to really move people in a movie. You know, like, I don't care what it is. Okay, for instance, Casablanca. You know, here's the story is this woman is married to this man, but by the end of the movie, you are just wanting more than anything else for him to sweep her off her feet, Humphrey Bogart to take Ingrid Bergman and dump her husband. I mean, that's the whole idea of the movie. It just pushes you along in that way. Any of you ever see that movie? What have you guys been watching? Yeah, they have no idea what I'm even talking about. Well, don't go watching it because it's a bunch of trash anyway. I'm just telling you that movies have that power, you know, and the media has become so powerful in the way that they get us to think their thinking. And you don't even realize what's happening inside of you. You know, every time you go into an internet site, watch TV, listen to Rush Limbaugh, whatever, you're being influenced and you're being lied to at some level. Rush Limbaugh does not have 99% truth. What a delusion. God help that man, he's dying of cancer and all he can think of is his own ego. Why is it that Jesus and Paul and Peter and John are all concerned about the end times church not being deceived and we could hardly even have any concern whatsoever. I'll tell you what it is. Does anybody want to know? You guys are not acting very interested this morning. I'll tell you what it is. It's head knowledge. It's head knowledge. You know, head knowledge makes people arrogant. It makes them think they know. And it makes people extremely vulnerable to deception. Because, you know, we fill our heads full of all these biblical facts and things about Christianity and things about biblical times and stuff like that and it just puffs us up. And Paul says it. He said, knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. In other words, living out the love of God is what builds you up in the faith. But a bunch of knowledge does nothing but build up your pride. That's all it does. Always learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. And I said in the Babylon book, if you think you can't be deceived, and that is just like our default way of thinking. You know, because what you believe is what you believe, right? Whatever it is that you believe, whatever your opinion is on any particular subject, that's what you believe. And if you didn't believe it, you would think something different. The thing is, because of this misplaced confidence in our ability to understand and to comprehend what's really going on, we just lock onto it and we believe that we know. And I said in the Babylon book, if you think you can't be deceived, you're already halfway there. You are halfway there. We're living in the last days, and the one thing that's clear is that deception will be prevalent and powerful. So how does the Lord handle all of this? He basically is giving us this choice to accept his love or accept a diluting influence. That's where we're headed. That is where everything is moving towards. And you know, this phrase, diluting influence, is the words of planae energia, and planae means to be led astray, and energia, that's the word we get energy from, and that means basically activity, like Satan's activity said earlier. Let me put it this way. If you don't come into a love of the truth, what the Lord is saying is the day is going to get there when he is just going to give you over, and that deception is going to be activated and energized inside of you. And when it's talking about truth, it's not talking about your favorite doctrinal system. Oh, I have all the orthodox doctrines and dogmas down. I understand them, and I believe them, but that's not what it's talking about. When it's talking about truth, it's talking about the reality of your relationship with God. Truth is reality. It's not head knowledge about some doctrinal system, whatever it may be. You better know how to hear the voice of God, that's all I can tell you. You better know how to hear the voice of God. All right, I want to just talk about how people respond to the truth and what we are seeing happening right now in our day and age out there in the church. I can't tell you how many times people have written in and or whatever I've run into out speaking and stuff, and man, Brother Steve, do you know any good churches in my area? I can't find a church that really preaches the truth. I can't find a church where people really do love the Lord. It's, yeah, we have a real problem in the church world, and it's because we're so in love with the world. All right, number one, God offers people the love of the truth, but many, many will and are neglecting the truth. Just neglecting. Behold, days are coming, declares the Lord God, when I will send a famine on the land, not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, but rather for hearing the words of the Lord. Notice now, it's not talking about a famine of Bibles, okay? If you would have gotten that word in communist Russia 60 years ago or something, okay, that would be appropriate, but that's not what it's talking about. It's hearing the words of the Lord, and it's becoming increasingly more rare to hear men of God who walk with the Lord and preach a fresh word of the Lord. What we get are these little, I'm telling you, more and more and more, this is becoming the norm, 30-minute little sermonettes that tell us some biblical facts but have no fire in them, no reality of God in them, no substance. They don't touch people's hearts. Do I sound like I'm angry? Well, I'll try harder then, because I am. So that's one thing. That's one aspect of this famine of hearing the word of the Lord, but famine, or let me put it this way, you can starve yourself with food aplenty. If you have the flu, and someone brings a plate of delicious food and puts it in front of you, you are just going to push it away, right? Because you have no appetite, and that's more the reality of what's happening in our country, in the Western world today, a lack of appetite for the things of God. There's a spiritual disease of apathy and worldliness that has just infiltrated and taken over the church and stripped it of its love and hunger for truth. You know, the spirit of the world always comes in shouting. Have you ever noticed that? It's just a loud, obnoxious, brazen message, but the Lord does not speak that way. He speaks in a still, small voice. Do you hear Him? I hear Him pretty regularly. You know, I can just get the sense of, you know, go this way, go that way sort of thing. I mean, the decisions we have to make in this ministry on a regular basis, I mean, just like one after the other, you just don't have time to pray everything through, but the Lord just directs our paths. I mean, it's so awesome to walk with the Lord because He just is constantly directing us in which way to go, and you've got to know how to quiet yourself to hear His voice, how to spend time soaking in the Word of God, and how to limit the noise of this world in your life. If you are just constantly hearing the roar of cosmos, you're not going to hear the still, small voice of God. Okay, you can do your religious thing. You can go to church on Sunday and convince yourself that you're hearing from the Lord, but you're probably not. You're probably not, even if the preacher is preaching the truth. It's probably going through some worldly filter in your heart and just amounting to nothing. We've got to train ourselves to think biblically. Okay, number two, God offers the love of the truth, but there are many who turn away from the truth. You see this in 2 Timothy 4. Now, let me just get the context here. Okay, the beginning of 2 Timothy 3, it's like the Lord came on Paul. He's sitting in prison, and this is the dungeon now. Okay, this isn't where he was before in the apartment. Now, he's in the dungeon, and he's probably witnessing all kinds of terrible persecution of God's people. You know, they're hauling him out and taking him into the Coliseum or lighting them up in Nero's gardens, or who knows what he is witnessing, but because he is a Roman citizen, he's not going to suffer that way. But anyway, he's sitting in the dungeon when he's writing this final letter to Timothy, and it's like the word of the Lord just came over him, and it's like he just suddenly, he's writing along, and all of a sudden, the whole flow changes, and now he's in the prophetic, and he's seeing off in the distance. He's seeing the professing church of Christ in the last days, and he's saying it's perilous, and the first thing he says, for men will be lovers of self. Man, if that doesn't describe our culture, I don't know what does, and then all the things that go behind that, having self-love, having self strong inside you, and then goes down through the chapter, and by the end of the chapter, he's, and into chapter four, it's one of those unfortunate chapter breaks. Some monk in the middle ages threw in there. He starts talking about the word of God is powerful. You know, the word of God, oh, now I'm losing my train of thought, but that it's there to reprove, and to correct, and to train in righteousness. You know, that's what the word is for. It's what you guys receive in this program. You're being trained. You're not just getting a nice little sermonette. You're being trained every time you turn around in this place, right, and then he goes from that to, you know, the powerful efficacy, efficacy, thank you. You guys are as messed up as I am, of the word, and then he says this in verse three, chapter four, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, lust, lust for the things of the world, and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths. These are the perilous times Paul is warning about. Now, keep your finger there, and turn back to 2 Thessalonians 2, and look at what he says in verse 11. For this reason, God will send upon them a deluding influence, so they will believe what is false. That word false in the Greek is pseudos. It's just like, we understand what pseudo means, right? You have a pseudo what? Huh? Pseudonym. Is that what you said, Chad? I want to make sure you get all the credit that you deserve. Pseudonym. Something that's false, right? Something fake, something counterfeit. We understand that that's what pseudo means. And, you know, well, we'll get to that in a minute. So he's warning that that's what people are going to fall for, is a fake version of Christianity. In fact, if people won't accept his truth, he's going to send a powerful influence on them to accept a pseudo faith, a pseudo version of Christianity. Now, I've really studied, I've studied all the end times stuff I can find, as far as I possibly could. Thousands and thousands of hours I've spent studying revelation and end time passages, okay? So I've done a lot of studying. One of the things I studied were false prophets and false teachers. So in the New Testament, when it's talking about false teachers, and most of it, most of these descriptions and so on, verses about it, has to do with the end times. I found 45 characteristics of false teachers, 45 characteristics, and 63 things that they do in the New Testament. Now I'll just go over some, 2 Peter 2 and the book of Jude are end time books or sections of scripture. I'm just going to blow through some things, just in these two passages, says about these pseudo prophets and pseudo teachers of the end times, okay? Starts right off in 2 Peter 2.1, talks about pseudo teachers, spurious teachers, and pseudo teachers. And then it says in 2 Peter 2.7, pseudo prophets, the Greek is pseudo profetas, pseudo prophets, fake prophets, just fake preachers. And it says in verse two, because of them the way of the truth will be maligned. Verse three, they will exploit you with false words. Now there it's not, the word isn't pseudo. There the word is plastos. It's the word from which we get plastic. In other words, they're plastic preachers bringing a plastic sort of Christianity. Verse 10, they're self-willed. They indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires. They despise authority. Verse 17, springs without water. In other words, no substance. When they preach, all you get is a bunch of fluff. Always careful not to offend anyone. I hope I offend plenty of people today. That's always my first priority when I get up to preach. Verse 18, sensual. They entice by fleshly desires and sensuality. Diplomats. Diplomats. Just taking such care to present things in a lovely, sweet, nice way. No feathers get ruffled. No one ever has any concern about their spiritual condition. Jude, they creep in unnoticed. Verse 4, and turn the grace of our God into licentiousness. You know that word creep in, it literally means to come in alongside of something. So, you know, it reminds me of what they do in politics. They'll have like a bill they want to pass, and then they stick on a, what do they call that? Huh? Addendum? A rider. That's it. I know I shouldn't have listened to him. They stick a rider on there, and that's what it's like. You know, they attach falsehood to the truth. You know, false preachers tell a lot of truthful things. You know, they know how, they know that they've got to come forth with an orthodox doctrinal system. They understand that. They're not stupid. They'd get thrown out of the church if they weren't preaching orthodox doctrine, but it's the underlying message they bring with it. A message of sensuality, a message of living for your time on earth. Again, he says, clouds without water, carried along by winds, autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted, no substance. Verse 16, following after their own lusts. You know how many preachers are addicted to pornography? Thousands. Think about that. You guys know what that's like. You know what you, what your mind was like when you were constantly full of perverse imagery? Can you imagine getting up in front of a church week after week, and you are going to lead them spiritually? Flattering people for the sake of gaining an advantage. That's a false prophet. Verse 19, worldly-minded and devoid of the spirit. I don't care if they call themselves Pentecostals or Reformed or what. Devoid of the spirit. All right, now turn back to 2nd Timothy 4. I want to read this in the voice. I've come to like the voice, and I've started reading this, another paraphrase. The voice is a paraphrase, okay? So anytime you're reading a paraphrase, make sure you have a literal translation with you, okay? But that doesn't mean you have to just shut out paraphrases. Just be careful. The message is being recorded. Someone said, how'd they say it? The shack is the gospel of the emergent church, and the message is their Bible. That pretty much says it all right there. But anyway, the voice is a pretty good paraphrase I have found, and another one I've just come on to is the passion translation. That seems to be a good paraphrase, too. You can check them out later. Anyway, this is the same passage in the voice. A time will come when some will no longer tolerate, should say many, because that is the reality. That's what Jesus said. Many will be deceived. Many. That's most. Many is most, okay? Many is not a few. Many is most. Will no longer tolerate sound teaching. Instead, they will live by their own desires. They'll scratch their itching ears by surrounding themselves with teachers who approve of their lifestyles and tell them what they want to hear. They will turn away from the real truth because they prefer the sound of fables and myths. That's pretty good. And I don't know if you guys yet, you know, if the Lord, if you let the Lord do his work in you while you're here, you are going to be amazed when you go back out in the church world. I mean, some of you come from good churches, okay? So I don't, you know, I'm not saying everybody. I'm just saying. But you're gonna be amazed when you get out there. It's like, whoa. And you lived in that and never gave it a second thought. This is what you guys come out of. This is describing what you were like. And God's bringing you back in to himself. Praise the Lord. You know, it's just the reality the church is glutted with self-serving preachers. Think of someone like Glenn Meldrum. He'll be here in a couple weeks, by the way. They're building a house here and he's out traveling, speaking. You guys haven't heard him yet, right? Or have you? Okay, you think Pastor Steve's a strong preacher? Brace yourself. God bless Glenn Meldrum and Jesse, too. For all these years and years and years, he's been out there preaching the truth and they have practically shut him out of everywhere now. People, pastors do not want someone like Glenn Meldrum in their pulpit because he is a disruptor. I love disruptors here. You know, the reality is people are reshaping who God is. That's what's happening in our church culture right now. He's being reshaped into something that isn't him. And people are buying into it because they want to believe it's so. All right, number three. God offers people the love of the truth, but many suppress the truth in unrighteousness. And that phrase comes from Romans 1, which is describing sexual sin and homosexuality, the whole darkness of that realm. Guys, I'm not saying this to offend you, okay? Don't take it that way. Because I was there once myself. But when you came here, you have no idea how much deception filled your heart. And I'll tell you why. Because when you are in the regular practice of sin, you don't have the spiritual capacity to discern and to hold truth. You don't have the ability to. Hebrews talks about the deceitfulness of sin. Well, this is what it is. The truth comes up. How many times did God try to speak to you and you suppressed it? Or other translations say you pushed it away. But you are repenting, you're changing, you're humbling yourself. You're asking God, I hope, while you're here, you're asking Him, God, reveal truth to me. Tell me what I'm really like, because I have been in a fog. I have been out of it spiritually. I've been in a delusion. That cry should be coming up in your hearts while you're in this place. God, please reveal truth to me. You know, this thing with sin, lawlessness, again, this is another word that keeps coming up when it comes to the end times. The end times church, because of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold. And twice or three times in this little passage, we're talked about lawlessness. What is lawlessness? If you look in Matthew 7, Jesus equates it with people who will not live the will of God. It's not talking about some kind of doctrinal thing or making sure you do all the evangelical list of do's and don'ts. It's talking about the very real will of God for your life. He has a will for each of you, a plan for each of you. He expects you to find out what it is and to live it out. It's not just some vague, oh yeah, try to be a nice person and claim yourself to be a Christian, make sure you go to church. No, those people are going to be washed away in the flood of delusion that's already upon us. You know why millions of Christians will follow the Antichrist one day? Because they're in the same spirit of rebellion. Their attitude is, I don't want to be controlled, I want to be in control. They'll go to church, but it really doesn't mean anything more than in their minds a free pass, you know, so they don't go to hell. They don't love God. I'm not saying everybody, okay? I know sometimes it sounds like I'm saying that. I'm not. There are many godly people out there, there are many people who love the Lord, but it's no longer the majority. And in that chapter, Romans 1, Paul said they exchange truth for a pseudo. Think about that. They exchange the truth for a fake. Give me the fake, because I want to be, I want to have all the things my flesh desires. I mean, that's really what Romans 1 is all about, isn't it? Any of you live in Romans 1 before you came here? I did. If you do an exhaustive study on deception, the greatest lie of all of the lies people buy into, the greatest one is you don't have to obey God. That is always the greatest lie. It started right in the garden. Hath God said? Yeah, Satan, God did say, and I'm gonna listen to him, and I'm gonna obey him. And now that same mindset has overtaken the church under the guise of grace. I'm gonna let the Word of God speak for itself here. I'm gonna blow through some verses. 1 Corinthians 6, 9, Or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, etc., etc., will inherit the kingdom of God. Galatians 6, 7, Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will reap destruction. Ephesians 5, 6, after basically a list like the one in 1 Corinthians, Let no one deceive you with empty words. For because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. James 1, 15 and 16, talking about temptation and giving over to sin. When sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. 1 John 1, 6, If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. Chapter 3, verse 7, Little children, make sure no one deceives you. The one who practices righteousness is righteous. The one who practices sin is of the devil. Does the Bible say it or not? Is this something I've come up with? Look in your Bibles when you leave here today. I'm not taking anything out of context. This is what God's Word says. You're not going to, you're not part of God's family because you've learned how to be religious. The spirit is withdrawn at last from those who vex, grieve, resist His gracious influences. Please don't let that be any of you guys. Alright, so we've talked about those who neglect the truth, those who turn away from the truth, and those who suppress the truth. Let me just say a couple things real quick about what it means to love the truth, to receive a love for the truth. You know, it mostly means God speak to me. God speak to me. Show me what's in my heart. No matter how much it hurts, no matter what it requires, no matter what sacrifice, show me the reality of my heart and my life. Show me, speak to me Lord, help me to see. I have other stuff, I just kind of ran out of time, but you know, just leave you with this. Don't you think it's time to fall out of love with the world and fall in love with the truth? God is speaking to you guys today. You know, the whole way this meeting began, I feel like the Lord is trying to get our attention. You guys are in a tremendous, wonderful place, meaning, I don't necessarily mean pure life, I'm just saying a place where God has you set aside so He can speak to you and help you, minister to you, and help you. Where you can't just jump off the operating table every time it gets a little uncomfortable or whatever. He's got you in a place where He can help you. But man, don't squander this opportunity. And I've seen it happen many times down through the years. This residential program's been here for 30 years, and I've seen many, many men, I've seen men leave out of here. Just one example of many. A Major League Baseball star, who was here, went through this program, and when he found out, I wouldn't do things the way he wanted them done. My office used to be up there in the office building, where Jordan's office is now. He slammed the door so hard that he cracked the door open. Door jam. And left out of here in a rage against Steve Gallagher, and he was dead within six months. You know, we think we can just do what we want. We think we can just take God in our own terms, and we can deal with those things when we are good and ready to deal with them. It's not like that. If there's anything the Lord wants to do in your life. You came here because all you can think about is sexual sin. It's been ruining my life. I've got to do something about it. You know, I can't put on a good Christian front with this in my life. That's not the important thing to the Lord. It's not after you being a nice little church boy. He wants your heart, and you've had stuff. You know, there is so much falsehood that you guys come in here with. False beliefs about Christianity, about the Lord, about yourself. We just have in the flesh, we have this natural tendency to flatter ourselves, and to diminish God down to our level. There's just a lot of falsehood that you guys come in here with. False understanding about what Christianity is. He does love you a million times more than any fake flattering preacher could say it. More than I could say it. He does. But if you think he's going to throw open the gates of heaven to anyone who just claims to be his follower and lives in his own will, you are sadly mistaken. Come into the truth, men. Today is a call to you to do away with deception, do away with insincerity, do away with hypocrisy, do away with fake Christianity, and give yourself to God. Surrender to Him. Lay down all your preconceived ideas about what should happen in your life, and what you want, this and that. As we just read, there's plenty of preachers out there that will be glad to tell you, you can keep it all.