🎵Piano Music🎵
Let's all find our seats.
As you find your seats, please pick up a song book. Turn to song number 255.
Song number 255, Come and Dine. Let's all stand together for this first song, if you're able.
Song number 255, all together nice and strong on that first verse.
🎵Jesus has a table spread where the saints of God are fed. He invites His chosen people, come and dine. With His manna He doth feed, and supplies our every need. Oh, it is sweet to sup with Jesus all the time. Come and dine, the master calleth, come and dine.
You may feast at Jesus' table all the time. He who fed the multitude turned the water into wine. To the hungry calleth now, come and dine. The disciples came to land, thus obeying Christ's command.
Come and dine. There they found their hearts desire, bread and fish upon the fire. The sea satisfies the hungry all the time. Come and dine, the master calleth, come and dine.
You may feast at Jesus' table all the time. He who fed the multitude turned the water into wine. To the hungry calleth now, come and dine. Soon the Lamb will take His bride to be ever at His side.
Oh, it will be a glorious sight, all the saints in spotless wine. And with Jesus they will feast eternally. Come and dine, the master calleth, come and dine. You may feast at Jesus' table all the time.
He who fed the multitude turned the water into wine. To the hungry calleth now, come and dine.
Amen. Wonderful singing. Let's start our first service with a word of prayer.
Dear Lord God, Heavenly Father, we just thank You for giving us another day, Lord, that we can come to Your house and hear the preaching of Your word and just be here with our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Thank You for keeping us safe as we came here, Lord, and I just ask that You please bless this day, please bless this service, bless this singing most of all.
Please pull past me with Your Spirit as He preaches unto us, Lord, that we may leave here differently than when we came in. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
You may be seated. Please turn your songbooks to song number 250. Just a few pages over in your songbook, song number 250.
Burdens are lifted at Calvary. Song number 250, all together nice and strong on the first verse.
Days are filled with sorrow and care. Hearts are lonely and drear. Burdens are lifted at Calvary. Jesus is very near.
Burdens are lifted at Calvary. Calvary, Calvary. Burdens are lifted at Calvary. Jesus is very near.
Cast your soul on Jesus today. Leave your worry and fear. Burdens are lifted at Calvary. Jesus is very near.
Burdens are lifted at Calvary. Calvary, Calvary.
Burdens are lifted at Calvary. Jesus is very near. Troubled soul, the Savior can see. Every heartache and tear.
Burdens are lifted at Calvary. Jesus is very near. Burdens are lifted at Calvary. Calvary, Calvary.
Burdens are lifted at Calvary. Jesus is very near.
All right, great singing. Thank you for being here this morning. Welcome to First Works Baptist Church.
Just a few announcements here before we sing our next song, which will be 248, Now I Belong to Jesus.
Song number 248, if you want to get that ready. If you did not get a bulletin, go ahead and raise your hand.
One of the ushers can get one for you. Some important information on there.
Of course, our Sunday morning service is at 1030 Sunday evening at 5 p.m.
And then we have our Thursday night Bible study at 7 o'clock.
We're actually going to start a brand new book this coming Thursday, so hope to see you then.
And you see there at the very top, Infants and Children. Of course, they stay with their parents in the main service.
We are a family integrated church, but for your convenience, there is a mother-baby room located at the back of the building.
Should your children need some diversion, changing tables, speakers, and screens are available in there as well, so you can still tune into the preaching.
You see the so many times and teams, the list of expecting mothers. Please continue to pray for them.
Important reminders there at the bottom. Please make sure that you are supervising your children in the building.
No children should be in the mother-baby room or any other room alone without their parents.
Please make sure you supervise them and keep an eye on them.
And then, of course, no men allowed in the mother-baby room or in the women's fellowship restroom.
Men, if you take your children out, you can utilize the fellowship hall for that.
And then some of the upcoming church events. We have the ladies' prayer breakfast coming up on Saturday, April 1st.
And that is not an April Fool's announcement, okay? Although that would have been a good one, actually. Now that I think about it. No, I'm just kidding.
Just have everyone show up and then no one's here.
If you have any questions about it, you can see Ms. Janelle Gonzalez for more details about that.
Easter Sunday service will be on April 9th. We'll have a breakfast potluck at the very beginning prior to the service.
And then an Easter egg hunt for all the children afterwards.
And so I want to encourage you to bring your family, friends, co-workers to that. We do want to break attendance on that day.
Last year's attendance was 157. The attendance before that was 159.
And so if we could just get to 160, I think that would be a great PR for our church.
And so invite your family and friends. Of course, I'll be preaching a resurrection-type sermon.
And Lord, we'll see a lot of people saved and maybe even some baptisms.
And we do have Easter tracks there at the back there. You can utilize those as an icebreaker to invite your friends.
And then Barstow soul winning resumes on Monday, May 1st.
We have an end of school picnic coming up on Tuesday, May 30th.
And if you're interested in participating in that, you can see my wife for more details.
And then you see the regular reminders there at the bottom.
Just as a weekly reminder, but I just want to emphasize this more.
No food or drink allowed in the main auditorium except for water and coffee.
And it doesn't say energy drinks. Okay?
Sometimes people can get a little comfortable and they slip in an energy drink here and there.
They slip in a coke here and there.
And they're like, oh, no one said anything as of yet. Okay.
And then, okay, you know, the old pastor just walked by me.
He didn't say anything to me. I have it in my hand.
So stop it. Okay?
Just water and coffee. Make sure if you have anything else, keep it outside in the foyer and fellowship hall.
And obviously if you're transporting food or whatever to the kitchen, that's a different story.
But if you're in here just fellowshipping, you're just, you know, kind of drinking, then obviously that's what we're talking about there.
We want to make sure we keep the auditorium as clean as possible.
And so please make sure you respect that rule.
No loitering in the foyer and fellowship hall during the preaching service, of course, unless you're taking your children out there.
And then you see the quiet time there is from 3 p.m. to 4.15.
And please make sure you silence your phones during the preaching so as to not be a distraction during the service.
And that is it. Let's go ahead and sing our next song. I'm going to go ahead and lead this one.
248, song number 248, Now I Belong to Jesus.
248 in your songbooks.
Nice and strong on that first verse.
Jesus, my Lord, will love me forever.
From Him no power of evil can sever.
He gave His life to ransom my soul.
Now I belong to Him.
Now I belong to Jesus.
Jesus belongs to me.
Not for the years of time alone.
But for eternity.
Once I was lost in sin's degradation.
Jesus came down to bring me salvation.
Lifted me up from sorrow and shame.
Now I belong to Him.
Now I belong to Jesus.
Jesus belongs to me.
Not for the years of time alone.
But for eternity.
On that last joy floods my soul.
For Jesus has saved me.
Freed me from sin that longed and enslaved me.
His precious blood He gave to redeem.
Now I belong to Him.
Now I belong to Jesus.
Jesus belongs to me.
Not for the years of time alone.
But for eternity.
Great singing.
At this time the ushers are going to take the offering.
And go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Acts chapter 8.
Acts chapter 8.
Acts chapter 8 the Bible reads.
Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ unto them.
The people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake.
Hearing and seeing the miracles which he did.
For unclean spirits crying with loud voice came out of many that were possessed with them.
And many taken with palsies and that were lame were healed.
There was great joy in that city.
But there was a certain man called Simon which before time in the same city used sorcery and bewitched the people of Samaria.
Giving out that himself was some great one.
To whom they all gave heed from the least to the greatest saying this man is the great power of God.
And to him they had regard because that of long time he had bewitched them with sorceries.
When they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ they were baptized both men and women.
Then Simon himself believed also.
And when he was baptized he continued with Philip and wondered beholding the miracles and signs which were done.
Now when the apostles which were in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God they sent to them Peter and John.
Who when they were come down prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Ghost.
For as yet he was fallen upon none of them only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Then lay they their hands on them and they received the Holy Ghost.
And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles hands the Holy Ghost was given.
He offered them money saying give me also this power that on whomsoever I lay hands he may receive the Holy Ghost.
But Peter said unto him thy money perish with thee because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.
Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter for thy heart is not right in the sight of God.
Repent therefore of this thy wickedness and pray God if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee.
For I perceive that thou are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.
Then answered Simon and said pray ye to the Lord for me that none of these things which ye have spoken come upon me.
And they when they testified and preached the word of the Lord returned to Jerusalem and preached the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans.
And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip saying arise go toward the south out of the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza which is desert.
And he arose and went and behold a man of Ethiopia and eunuch of great authority under Candace queen of the Ethiopians who had the charge of all her treasure had come to Jerusalem for to worship.
Was returning and sitting in his chariot read Esaias the prophet.
And the spirit said unto Philip go near and join thyself to this chariot.
And Philip ran thither to him and heard him read the prophet Esaias and said understandest thou what thou readest?
And he said how can I except some man should guide me?
And desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him and the place of the scripture which he read was this.
He was led as a sheep to the slaughter and like a lamb done before his shear so opened he not his mouth.
In his humiliation his judgment was taken away and who shall declare his generation for his life is taken from the earth.
And eunuch answered Philip and said I pray the if whom speaketh the prophet this of himself or of some other man?
Then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus.
And as they went on their way they came unto a certain water and the eunuch said see here is water what doth hinder me to be baptized?
And Philip said if thou believeth with all thine heart thou mayest.
And he answered and said I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God.
And he commanded the chariot to stand still and they went down both into the water both Philip and the eunuch and he baptized him.
And when they were come up out of the water the spirit of the Lord caught away Philip the eunuch saw him no more and he went on his way rejoicing.
But Philip was found at Azotus and passing through he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea.
Let's pray to the Lord God. I just thank you for this day. Thank you for this opportunity to assemble here in your house.
I just ask that you would meet with us here now this morning. Please bless, pass from here with the Holy Spirit and please just strengthen him to preach the whole council of your word to us with boldness.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Amen.
Okay we're in Acts chapter 8 this morning and the title of my sermon this morning is modern day charmers and enchanters.
Modern day charmers and enchanters. Look at Acts chapter 8 and verse number 8.
It says there was a great joy in that city but there was a certain man called Simon which before time in the same city used sorcery and bewitched the people of Samaria giving out that he himself excuse me giving out to himself with some great one to whom they all gave heed from the least to the greatest saying this man is the great power of God and to him they had regard because that of a long time he had bewitched them with sorceries.
And this morning I want to talk about the subject of sorcery and charmers and enchanters and not necessarily from the perspective of what we would consider to be sorcerers today as far as magicians are concerned, hypnotists, things of that nature but I'm talking about the Christianized version of that.
Okay now here in Acts chapter 8 we see that the churches there in this region are getting persecution they are being persecuted for their faith and so they're scattered abroad and Philip the evangelist ends up going to Samaria and of course he's going to do what any Christian does when they're placed in any situation where they change regions or geographical location.
He's just going to try to win the people to Christ there and perform miracles because he's enabled by God to do so and so he's preaching the word of God in Samaria he's getting people saved and there's people there who have unclean spirits they have diseases they have infirmities and he's healing them.
Okay he is preaching the word of God unto them people are getting saved he's healing individuals he's casting out devils because he's given this ability by God as God gave that ability to many apostles of that day to perform such miracles.
But in this particular city there was someone called Simon who was essentially a sorcerer now this person was not saved obviously and the Bible tells us that he essentially what it means for him to perform this sorcery is that he was bewitching the people he was tricking them he was deceiving them and the reason he was doing it was not to heal people.
He wasn't doing it to get people saved he was doing it to elevate himself as being some great one okay what does that mean?
It means he wanted the acclamation of the people of the city he wanted the admiration of others and people to see how great he was and so he would perform these so called miracles through sorcery in order to gain that type of reputation.
And we know that it wasn't a power that was supernatural because it specifically tells us there that he bewitched the people okay now what does it mean to bewitch someone?
Well to bewitch someone simply means to enchant or to charm them by trickery okay it's some sort of deception it's a sleight of hand it's something that basically it's obviously it's not real but he's obviously fooling people into thinking that what he's actually doing is true.
Now we know that he never possessed any real supernatural power he was a phony and he was essentially what the bible refers to as a charmer or an enchanter and a simple way of defining this is basically someone who specializes in manipulation.
They're able to manipulate people into thinking that they're actually performing these miracles raising the dead casting out devils healing people but they're not really doing it okay.
Now we often think well people like that only relegated to like circuses and you know freak shows where they have hypnotists and make people think that they're chickens and you know to cluck and laugh and think that they're invisible.
You'll see stuff like that on social media where you have some hypnotist and he comes with a watch or something and he hypnotizes them and he makes them think that they're something that they're not and you think yeah that's only in those types of circles but that doesn't really happen in Christian churches but it actually does happen in churches.
Now obviously not in a church like ours we're a fundamental Baptist church we don't adhere to things like that but this stuff does happen in what's known as the charismatic type churches.
And when I say charismatic churches I'm referring to Pentecostal churches.
Okay these are churches that practice speaking in tongues where women prophesied.
This is the type of churches where they practice the casting out of devils and they heal people supposedly and so this is really big even today in 2023.
And one of the reasons I want to preach on this is because of the fact that this seems to be gaining a lot of traction today in 2023 and quite possibly because of the fact that you know you had this movie The Jesus Revolution that came out.
Who essentially has this charlatan known as Lonnie Frisbee who performed a lot of these so-called miracles and so it's kind of giving credence to that way of Christianity.
People are starting to believe that these things are actually true.
Now when it comes to the charismatic movement in my opinion there's two types of charlatans.
Because make no mistake about it these people are phonies they're not able to perform these miracles.
They don't have apostolic abilities and powers and authority as the apostles did in times past.
They're phonies they're devils.
They're charlatans and in my opinion there's actually two types of charlatans that operate in these churches.
The first type is the charlatan who has a charlatan working for them.
So what do you mean by that?
You know they'll come and they'll say you know who needs to be healed or who's deaf or slightly blind or you know who can't walk or something.
And they'll pick someone from the crowd but what the crowd doesn't know is that the person that they pick works for that person.
They're in cahoots together.
Okay they basically planned it out.
And you know they have some sort of earpiece where they communicate with someone in the crowd.
And this person is like yeah I've been able to walk since I was 10 or something like that.
And then they'll come slap them on the forehead or something.
They get slain in the spirit and they're just like oh I'm able to walk.
And you know a lot of people are so gullible they're just like wow that's actually true.
What they don't realize is that people lie.
They don't realize there's a lot of charlatans and fake phony healing type preachers that will do these things in order to gain a following.
And really to make merchandise off of the flock of God.
And you know Christians can get caught away with that stuff too.
Safe people can get caught away with that stuff if they're not grounded in the word.
So the first category is the charlatan who has a charlatan working for them.
But the other one, the other charlatan is the one who practices the dark arts as a means to manipulate people into thinking that they are performing miracles.
Now here's the difference between this person and the apostle in the Bible.
The apostles in the Bible was a temporary office.
And God supernaturally enabled these apostles in the Bible to have these supernatural abilities in order to confirm the message that they were preaching.
And in fact essentially the apostles were the catalyst to the New Testament churches.
So in order to kind of get the ball rolling in the New Testament to start these churches, the apostles were necessary and they were allowed to perform these miracles and heal the deaf, the blind, they resurrected the dead from the grave.
They performed a lot of these supernatural things in order to confirm that they were sent from God.
But let me say this is that here's a major difference between the apostles of those days and today's apostles.
Every miracle that the apostles performed and even Jesus were like 100% legitimate.
Like a deaf person was healed 100% of the time.
A blind person was healed 100% of the time.
A person who couldn't walk was healed 100% of the time.
Whereas a lot of these charlatans of today it's like a temporary healing.
You know they hear for like a moment and then when people follow up with them later on they're like deaf again.
They help them to see for a moment but then later on you see that they didn't really help them at all.
You say well are you saying that they actually helped them to receive their sight?
No they just manipulated them into thinking that they did.
And I'm going to explain to you how they do these things.
Because it's not by supernatural means.
They don't have any powers.
They just have the power of manipulation into making them think that they are actually healed.
That a demon has been cast out of them or whatever.
So on and so forth.
Now in this particular story in Acts chapter 8 luckily Simon gets saved.
Because people are getting saved and then he ends up believing on the Lord.
He gets baptized.
He gets saved and then he begins to see the apostles performing these miracles.
And he's just like oh man how much money do I have to pay to have that type of power.
And then of course he gets rebuked.
He gets reproved severely.
And then he understands the error of his ways and he moves on.
Now what that shows us is that if there's a sorcerer out there who's practicing the dark arts so to speak.
They can actually get saved. Amen.
Now let me say this is that if they claim to get saved but they continue in the dark arts.
Probably not saved.
He said what if they give credence to the real gospel.
You know what if someone gives credence to the real gospel but they're still practicing being an enchanter.
Or a charmer.
And they're practicing necromancy.
It probably just means that they believed in vain.
Essentially what they're doing is they're continuing to deceive people.
Right.
Because they want people to think that they're actually saved and therefore they're sent by God to perform these things.
Now go to Acts chapter 13 if you would.
Acts chapter 13.
Look at verse number 5 of Acts chapter 13.
It says when they were at Salamis they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews.
And they had also John to their minister.
And when they had gone through the isle of Paphas they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew whose name was Bar-Jesus.
So Barnabas and Paul are on their first missionary journey.
And they come to this island.
They're preaching the word of God.
But then they're confronted by this false prophet who is a Jew.
And the Bible specifically tells us that he's a sorcerer.
And keep in mind sorcery in the Bible is synonymous with being an enchanter, a charmer, someone who bewitches individuals.
Okay.
And he says that his name is Bar-Jesus.
Now what does Bar-Jesus mean?
It means son of Jesus.
Okay.
So this person is a false prophet.
He's a sorcerer.
And it says in verse number 7.
Which was with the deputy of the country, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man, who called for Barnabas and Saul and desired to hear the word of God.
But Eilimus the sorcerer, for so is his name by interpretation, withstood them seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith.
So what's the difference between Eilimus and Simon?
Simon heard the word of God gladly, got saved and was baptized, and no longer was a sorcerer.
Eilimus is a sorcerer and he withstood Paul and Barnabas and didn't want them to preach the word of God unto the individuals that were in his vicinity.
He's trying to turn the people away from the faith.
Okay.
Now this is a wicked individual.
And this is a hallmark of a false prophet is that they don't want people to hear the truth.
They will compass land and sea to make one proselyte.
And when he is made, they make them twofold more a child of hell than themselves, the Bible says.
That they take away the keys of knowledge.
They're not going to have eternal life, but they're trying to keep other people from gaining eternal life as well.
These are very wicked individuals.
Since then Saul, who also is called Paul, filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him and said,
O full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, will thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord.
And now behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season.
And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness, and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand.
Now this is a legitimate apostle right here.
And I don't see anybody today in 2023, any so-called apostle, making people blind.
Okay, yeah, go ahead and say that you recover the sights of the blind.
Let's go ahead and see blind someone though, right?
Do what the apostle Paul did and actually strike someone with blindness.
You're not going to be able to do it.
So the apostle Paul had 100% success rate on this particular miracle, okay?
And to the point where this guy was seeking some to lead him by the hand because he's blind.
Then the deputy, verse 12 says, when he saw what was done, listen to this, believed being astonished at the miracle.
Is that what it says?
It says being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord.
So what is the byproduct of the miracles of the apostles according to the Bible?
The byproduct is the people elevate doctrine.
It moves them towards the Bible.
It helps them to believe in the word of God, which is exactly what Mark chapter 16 says,
that these signs will follow the apostles in order to confirm the word of God that they are preaching.
But look folks, when you look at charismatic churches today and these so-called miracles that are being performed,
it doesn't move people to the word of God.
It doesn't make people believe the Bible.
And in fact, in many cases, it causes them to reject the Bible.
Why?
Because when someone actually comes to them and says, hey, this isn't biblical.
What you're doing is not in the Bible.
They completely negate the Bible and said, well, I feel like I gained this experience.
I know I felt God.
I feel it in my heart.
Oh, I just think and just completely ignore what the Bible actually says.
Whereas the legitimate miracles in the Bible actually provoke people to believe the Bible.
You know, this guy's song is just like, you know what, I believe this doctrine.
This doctrine is true.
And some of the most biblically illiterate churches out there are charismatic Pentecostal churches.
They will only utilize and cherry pick verses out of the Bible and twist scriptures in order to promote what they're doing.
But once you get into a discussion with them regarding those particular scriptures and actually give the context,
they're just like, I just feel like this.
I know I've seen the Holy Ghost work and I've spoken in tongues and I've I've seen the miracles.
So they elevate their experience over what the Bible actually says.
It's all emotional.
Now, go to Deuteronomy Chapter 18, if you would.
Deuteronomy Chapter 18.
So in both instances, we see that the word of God is that which has preeminence in the situation.
Right.
Because with Simon the sorcerer, he got saved by the word of God.
And then later on, he repented of the fact that he wanted to buy the power of God of the Holy Ghost.
You know, in order to perform these miracles, he was rebuked sharply for it.
He repented of it.
He got it right.
And that was the end of the story.
And Linus the sorcerer was a person who essentially practiced the same thing.
He tried to get people to turn away from the faith because he wanted to be some great one as well.
The apostle Paul blinded him and it caused the individuals in that region to believe the word of God.
Not to worship the apostle Paul, not to worship the experience, not to elevate that above doctrine,
but to actually promote them to actually follow the Bible.
Look at Deuteronomy 18.
I'm going to read to you from Jeremiah 27 verse 8.
It says here in Jeremiah 27 verse 8,
And it shall come to pass that the nation and kingdom which shall which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon,
and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon,
that nation will I punish, saith the Lord, with the sword and with the famine, with the pestilence, until I have consumed him by his hand.
Therefore hearken not ye to your prophets, nor your diviners, nor your dreamers, nor your enchanters,
nor to your sorcerers which speak unto you, saying, Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon.
For they prophesy a lie unto you, to remove you far from your land, that I should drive you out, and ye should perish.
You see they had charismatic preachers back then.
They had Pentecostal charismatic prophets back then who would divine and say I had a dream from God,
and God told me in a dream and in a vision.
And let me say this, some of this stuff is creeping into Baptist churches too.
Where some people can even come to a church like this and start believing that, oh they got a dream from God or something.
And sometimes it's women, let me just put it out there, most of the time it's women.
And that's why some of the ladies are laughing right now because they know it's true.
Sometimes it's women who are susceptible to this type of trickery, enchantment and charming because they're very much emotionally driven,
and so they get some dream about a 50 foot Jesus or whatever, who comes to them and tells them that their husband's skin smells like oranges.
And it's like, oh this must be him. This is the one.
We got to be aware of these things, and ladies we need to make sure that if you have some dream or whatever,
that you don't begin to elevate that dream above the Bible.
You say, well what if it coincides with the Bible?
Then just stick with the Bible because the Bible's still better than your dreams.
There you go.
You can't trust dreams my friends, because it all depends on what you ate the night before.
You got grilled onions and your feasting or whatever, and then you got your hormones mixed in with that.
Oh man, you can have a horror movie as a dream.
You can have some crazy things going on in your mind,
and if you're not careful because it felt so real and it just felt like it was from God or something,
you might be tempted to impose some sort of authority on that dream.
Whereas what you need to do is stick with the Bible.
The Bible says in Leviticus 19 verse 31,
Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards to be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God.
Exodus 7 11, when Moses was there performing the miracles in order to get the children of Israel freed from the enslavement of the Egyptians,
it says in verse 11,
Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers.
Now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments.
In other words, with their trickery, with their manipulations.
What do I have you turn? Deuteronomy chapter 18, look at verse number 10 here, it says,
There shall not be found among you anyone that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire,
or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer,
or a consultor with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.
Why? Verse 12,
For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord.
And because of these abominations, the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee.
You see, a lot of these individuals, charmers, enchanters, those with familiar spirits,
their primary goal is to just get you to not trust the Bible.
Because if they can give you an experience that is just potent, and powerful, and just very convincing,
they can convince you that that's more important than what the Bible actually says.
You know charismatic churches will refer to these experiences as being slain in the Spirit.
How many of you have ever heard that phrase before? Being slain in the Spirit.
You won't find them in the Bible. You can type that in, Google search it, it doesn't exist.
What they're referring to when they talk about being slain in the Spirit is the examples in the Bible
when people had an encounter with God and they fell at the feet of Jesus or of God as dead men.
That's what they consider to be slain in the Spirit.
And they say this is what's happening in churches today.
They preach God's Word and they start saying Holy Ghost come and the power is going to come
and then people just start falling over or whatever.
And they're like this is being slain in the Spirit.
So really what it is is charmers and enchanters hypnotizing their congregation into believing that they are performing these things.
Now let me explain how they do it.
Because again I said there's two categories.
There's the one that is a charlatan who has a charlatan working for them.
But then there's a charlatan who uses the dark arts, who uses Eastern mysticism,
who uses the methods and the tactics of Hindu gurus, mesmerism to perform these things in order to trick individuals into believing that's what they're doing.
Here are the four things that they use.
I'm going to explain the four things that they use to trick people into doing this.
Now before I get into these four things let me say this is that there's different degrees of churches that actually practice these things.
One being of course the charismatic churches that like bark and laugh and speak in tongues and do all kinds of...
And I'm not joking to actually do that.
That's very foreign to us.
How many of you have ever seen that live?
Like you actually went to a church where that happened.
Whoa man I'm surrounded by a bunch of ex-Pentecostals here.
Wow.
How many of you actually barked at...
No I'm just kidding.
You know they actually do these things and I guess I don't have to convince you because you've actually seen it first hand or whatever.
But I remember being I don't know about 12 years old and my Pentecostal aunt.
There's always that Pentecostal aunt who took me to a Pentecostal church and she brought me to this church.
It was a Spanish Pentecostal church and she was just like we're going to exorcise the demons out of you Bruce.
I'm just like dang.
Like this is like you're welcoming.
This is like the welcome bag that you get.
So then everyone starts going to the front and they're laying hands on people and people are falling over.
It's pretty scary actually as a first experience you know.
And one lady fell to the ground and she just started seizureing.
And they couldn't control it so they took it to the back room to perform like an exorcism.
And then my aunt said you know go to the front.
Go get that exorcism boy.
I'm like alright.
So I just like walked up and one of the guys there started praying over me.
There was like two people next to me and he put his hand on my forehead.
He started praying and I just kind of closed my eyes and I'm like what's going on here.
And after a while he started kind of pressing against my forehead a little bit.
And then at one point he's like you know you're supposed to fall over.
He like whispered into my ear.
And I'm thinking to myself like I don't want to fall over though.
And so what I did is I just sat down.
I just kind of like sat down.
I was like just to kind of get him off my back you know what I mean.
And that was it.
Like I was just kind of like this is weird.
It's scary.
It's not you know as a 12 year old I was just kind of freaked out by it.
But here's the thing is that I'm going to explain what it is that these people do in order to get people to fall over.
And actually get people to think that they were healed.
And actually get people to actually physically feel these so-called transformations.
Because these people actually physically feel they have these physical manifestations in their body that they experience.
That essentially gives credibility to these false prophets.
So you have the charismatic churches that will bark, laugh, speak in tongues, do all manner of silliness.
But then you have like a lower grade of this.
Okay.
Which is essentially the non-da-nam churches.
And the non-da-nam churches won't speak in tongues per se.
They're not going to bark and laugh because that's just a little too wild.
But they will set up an atmosphere to get people to feel that emotion so that their testimony is that they feel the presence of God.
And this is your liberal churches.
Where you know the music is playing for like you know I don't know how long.
They're kind of like this or whatever.
And they're just kind of like swaying back and forth and they're just repeating the same lines.
And it actually produces the same emotion that these charismatic churches produce as well.
The only difference is they're not barking and laughing and doing all that silliness.
But it produces the same result because they still elevate the emotion and the experience above the Bible.
Because then they'll hear someone like us and be like CCM is wicked.
And they're like no but I feel the presence of God there though.
I know the presence of God is there because I felt something.
And believe them because they do feel something.
So then there's a lower grade than that.
You have the charismatic churches that go all out.
You have the non-denom churches that produce that type of atmosphere that produce that same result.
And then you have fundamental Baptists who they're not going to speak in tongues.
They're not going to do all that nonsense.
They're not going to snap their wrists back and sing for hours on end or whatever to produce that atmosphere.
But they have something called altar calls.
And these altar calls, they essentially create this atmosphere during the altar call by playing a certain song over and over again.
And by peer pressuring people to come into the altar to make a decision for Christ.
And it gets to a point that if you don't come to the altar, it's like something's wrong with you.
You're not right with God or something like that.
And it's funny because Brother Marcus was just telling me, he's backslidden right now, he's in Texas.
But him and his wife, you know, because his wife, she's kind of originally from Texas.
But his mother-in-law who lives in Texas, they go to an old IFB church.
And his mother-in-law doesn't believe in altar calls.
She's just like, I don't believe in that stuff, right?
She kind of has our view on that.
But at this church, they practice the altar calls.
And a lady came up to her and was just like, why don't you go to the altar?
And she's like, you know, I really wish a lot more people would just go to the altar.
So it's almost like, you know, it's just like you're not a good Christian if you don't.
And I know how that is because I was part of a church and a group known as the old IFB where they would institute that.
And it was like a big thing, like you better be at the altar every time there's an altar call.
You better make a decision or at least look like it.
And you know, many times when I would go to the altar, it was emotional.
You know, it was like the atmosphere was set in such a way that it caused you to go to the altar, make these decisions.
But the problem is they would make vows that, you know, people would make vows during a youth conference, for example.
They would make all these vows that they wouldn't keep.
It was just based on emotion and obviously if they break the vow then it's really wicked, it's evil inside of the Lord.
And so those are like the three categories right there.
Now let me show you the methods here. Go to Acts chapter 10 if you would, Acts chapter 10.
Acts chapter number 10.
Now what these hypnotists, these Christian hypnotists will do, because they get it from Eastern mysticism, they get it from Hindu gurus,
is that they'll try to get them into what's called an altered state of consciousness.
And what this is, is you have these Hindu gurus in these ashrams who will essentially, their objective is to cause people to be dull in their critical thinking.
So they'll, you know, they'll repeat certain mantras, they'll have certain songs playing and they'll repeat these lines over and over again
until they can overcome the obstacle of critical thinking in their mind and essentially just dull the senses.
Because they'll say the biggest obstacle is a thinking mind.
They'll say we got to overcome this thinking mind where it's critical of what's going on and we need to make sure that we dull the senses
and cause them to be in this altered state of consciousness.
And so these Eastern gurus will work their devotees or whatever into that state until many of them, and many of them have claimed this,
that they feel like they're actually going insane. Because it's not natural for us to just be dull of senses, not critically thinking.
We like to know what's going on. You know what I mean? We don't want to walk around as though we had a lobotomy or something like that.
And not knowing what's going on. We want to be aware of our surroundings. We want to be aware of danger.
We want to be aware of individuals if they're trying to take advantage of us or not.
But these gurus will seek to get their students into that altered state of mind so that they can become completely numb and free in their mind.
You say why? So that the demons can possess them. That's why.
There's a person actually by the name of Lynn Andrews, an author, and she practiced this under a guru, an Eastern guru,
and she stated that as she progressed into that trance state, she believed that she was going insane.
She quoted, she said this, I was terrified. I began to inhale great breaths of air, gasping. I sobbed uncontrollably. I had finally done it. I lost my mind.
Very scary. And in fact, there's a man by the name of Howard Brown who is essentially this holy roller, holy ghost bartender, what they call it.
These people who heal individuals, speak in tongues, whatever. And he would try to get his subjects to make these nonsensical sounds.
And he would even prohibit people from praying. Because when people get in this altered state of consciousness, it's very scary.
You feel like you're losing your mind. So the natural response is, Lord, help me. I don't know what's going on with me.
I feel like I'm losing my mind. This severe anxiety attack is hitting them. They know it's unnatural. They feel terrible.
And so the natural thing is for them to pray. But what this guy would do to his congregants is say, don't pray.
He would actually hear people praying and crying out to God because they're afraid of what's going on.
And he would tell them, stop doing that. Don't pray. And he would rebuke them. And he would even say, would you listen to me?
If your praying had helped, it would have helped you. Now get laughing. This is real.
And then he said this, now people in the lines, wait for me to come and lay hands on you.
And he was, or I'm sorry, he was quoted as saying that people would stand in the lines and wait for him to come and lay hands on them.
But he would tell them, don't pray. Please don't pray. Don't pray. Please don't pray.
He addressed those who insisted on praying as stubborn people, adding people come trying to be all serious and praying.
No, this is not a time to pray. This is not a prayer meeting. Get into the joy. You can pray on the way home.
This is demonic, satanic. It's demonic. Any man of God or pastor that would forbid you from praying, right?
In order to experience this altered state of consciousness is obviously wicked. He has an ulterior motive. He's an agent of Satan.
And even a Hindu guru by the name of Rajneesh, in his experience, he has stated on the road to enlightenment produced temporary insanity.
Possession and he almost killed himself. Did you become mentally insane when you go into this altered state?
And a lot of the times, you know, people have, how they've expressed how this feels is just like, I feel like there's some sort of demonic presence.
Yeah, you know, that sounds about right. Like some demonic presence is trying to possess them or something.
And these Hindu gurus will say, well, just allow it though. It's not a demonic presence. This is a higher self of you who's trying to get in.
Now, there's a guy by the name of Wimber, John Wimber, who is essentially the pastor of the vineyard.
And there's an individual by the name of David who was actually playing the piano during one of these services.
Because John Wimber, he was part of Calvary Chapel and then they disassociated because John Wimber became so charismatic in his views that they parted ways.
And he just went full blown charismatic, full blown tongue speaking, full blown laughter and all that holy roller nonsense.
But he had a piano player that was playing. His name was David. And it said that he was seized by the spirit like a rag doll and just shaken and bounced like a jackhammer violently.
And then he was thrown to the ground, just thrown to the ground, his glasses were knocked off, his nose was pushed to the side, his ears pinned.
So this guy's just playing the piano and all of a sudden he gets into this altered state of mind and then boom, he has this physical experience that happened to him.
What a godly experience, right? It says Campbell, David, says this encounter was so violent, I'm sorry Campbell's not David, this is an individual who witnessed it.
It says Campbell says that the encounter was so violent that David had to be taken to the back room to be checked for demons.
Uh, yeah. Now Mark 9-20 says this, and they brought him unto him and when he saw him straightway the spirit tared him and he fell on the ground and wallowed foaming.
This is a common thing that happens when people are demonically possessed. They're thrown on the ground, they are cast into the fire, they cast them into the waters, it's like the demon that possesses these individuals tries to kill them basically.
And this is the byproduct of going into that altered state of consciousness where you're just completely, you rid yourself of your senses, you're just in this higher level of understanding and then boom, a demon possesses you and then you end up like these guys.
Now let me say this, there's documented studies of these people who have experienced this, whether in the occult or in charismatic churches, and they both share the same symptoms afterwards.
So when they experience these things of these holy ghosts experiences or this higher form of understanding in the Hindu guru realms or whatever, afterwards they start experiencing these other things that take place.
It says it has been well documented from studies of the world of the occult that dangerous effects may involve depression, detachment, depersonalization, disillusionment and many equally serious disorders.
In addition to pain, meditators may sense energy flows coursing through their bodies or feel tingling, tickling, itching or vibration on their skin.
These sensations usually begin in the feet or pelvic area and move up the back and neck to the crown of the head then down across the face and abdomen.
Now when I read that, I was reading this to my wife and my wife reminded me of someone who's actually in our church. This person had come from a liberal church.
And it was very difficult to kind of explain things to this individual when it came to the Bible because they would ask me questions about the Bible, things that they didn't agree with doctrinally.
Anytime I preach on Charismatics and tongue speaking, they hated it because they elevated their experience above what the Bible says.
And this is what this person literally said, I know this is true because when it happens, I get a tingling feeling in my face.
And this person would say that it would travel down her face. I already said her, dang it.
Oh well. It would travel down their face, into their nose. And I remember when this person told me that, I was like, this person taking drugs or what?
Never felt that before unless I'm about to pass out or something from lifting or something like that. Unless I'm taking pre-workout or something, you know what I mean?
Then you get that tingling feeling. But this person was saying that when they have these experiences in their church, previous churches, when the music would come on and the spirit would fall, they would always get this physical tingling sensation on their skin that to them would verify this is from God.
Folks, we walk by faith, not by sight. Okay. Let me say this is that this is exactly what CCM does. Because why are you bringing all this up?
Obviously, we're not going to experience that here. And we would never go to the side of the Charismatics. But you know, there might be some Christians that like listening to CCM.
And you know why you like listening to CCM? How it makes you feel. Because it makes you all tingling. That's why. It gives you that emotion. You start feeling the spirit of God, which is not the spirit. It's a spirit for sure. It's just not the spirit of God.
And in fact, Rajneesh's prescription for attaining this new consciousness was a process referred to as dynamic meditation, which was used to subjugate the critical faculties of idealistic devotees to the will of the master.
Let me read on here. They chanted mindlessly in unison until the hushed moaning of their mantras filled the ashram. Sanskrit songs of praise were sung to the accompaniment of rhythmic clapping.
At the subtle suggestion of the master, they engaged in repetitive physical motions to complete the process of becoming mindless.
So what are we talking about? Are we talking about Calvary Chapel? Are we talking about the ashram? I'm confused here. Are we talking about like non-denam churches? Are we talking about Hindu gurus? It's both.
Because when I read this, he's talking about the ashrams. I'm thinking about liberal churches. Now those of you who went to liberal churches, is this true or is it not? Raise your hand if it's true. Right?
You say, well, you know, why is it that they just repeat the same verse or the same words over and over and over again in these liberal churches?
Because it's a mantra intended to put you in a state of mindlessness so that when the pastor says come forward, you just obey the master.
I'm not done yet. Some jumped up and down furiously and chopped their hands frantically through the air. Now keep in mind, he's only talking about, he's referring to, the light just went on, don't worry, there's nothing charismatic about it.
We just got bad electrical work here. They're like, God is here.
They jumped up and down furiously and chopped their hands frantically through the air. He's talking about these ashrams, but folks, charismatic churches do this.
Now listen to this one. Others threw their heads backward and forward violently and bent wildly at the waist. Let me show you how that looks.
What does that look like to you? Jews. Jews will do that. As they read the Talmud or whatever, they'll do that in front of the Wailing Wall.
I mean, if you ever look at footage of the Wailing Wall with a bunch of Jews, it's just like, just a bunch of black coats, just kind of like.
Why are they doing that? To get themselves in an altered state of consciousness. They didn't get it from the Bible.
They call it shucking, actually. That's what it's called, to shuck. But shucking sucks. It shucks because it doesn't do anything other than prepare you to be demon possessed.
You don't find that in the Bible. You don't find people shucking in the Bible, just going back and forth. That's demonic.
You know what? You look at these liberal churches who place a heavy emphasis on CCM, they may not be shucking, but they're doing something very similar to it.
Where they're moving around, gyrating, gesticulating or whatever it may be. And it's all intended to get them into this condition of the mind so that they can essentially believe anything that the Master tells them.
Some jumped up and down furiously. Others threw their heads backward and forward violently and bent wildly at the waist.
Alternately, they laughed and sobbed uncontrollably. Doesn't that take place in liberal churches? As the music is going, they're just crying.
Their frenzied behavior produced a mind-altering form of hyperventilation that dulled their critical thinking processes and emptied their minds of coherent thought.
Emotions swing wildly from ecstasy, bliss and peace to intense fear, depression, anxiety and anger. So people who attend these type of congregations, they got really bad mood swings.
They're like praising the Lord one time and then the next minute they're just like in this dark place.
Thoughts become strange and irrational. Experiences may slip into dissociative or prolonged trance states.
They may feel very alienated and confused and often seem to be watching the things that are happening to them as if they were outside observers.
Not surprisingly, experiencers often fear that they are losing their minds, the Bible says.
So a lot of these churches, these liberal churches, charismatic churches, they don't have any supernatural power.
They're practicing the dark arts in order to get people in this condition of mind so that they can slip in whatever false doctrine they want.
They can prime the mind to accept any type of signs and line wonders in order for them to subvert the Word of God.
Look at Acts chapter 10. Because any pastor who's a charismatic will point to verses like this in order to justify going into trances and all these things.
Look what it says in Acts chapter 10 verse number 8. It says,
It says when he had declared all these things unto them, he sent them to Joppa on the morrow as they went on their journey and drew nine to the city.
Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour and he became very hungry and would have eaten.
But while they made ready, he fell into a trance. Don't say there you go.
Peter went into a trance. So all we're doing is doing what Peter did and services by going into this trance.
But you know one thing I don't see here is Peter gesticulating. We don't see Peter jumping up and down and sobbing and laughing and speaking in an incoherent language that no man can understand.
And also the trances in the Bible that are only recorded twice by the way.
Once in Numbers and another time here with Peter, both instances, these aren't self-induced trances.
This is something that God initiated. What's going on in churches are these self-induced trances where they put themselves in a position.
They prime the atmosphere to prepare the mind to be this way. Now what's taking place here?
Not only that, but also what God was revealing to Peter actually matches up with the Bible.
He says in verse 11,
Now we all know that what he's referring to here is God is trying to tell Peter, hey you need to start going to the Gentiles and preaching the gospel to them.
Because Peter views Gentiles as unclean animals of the Old Testament, therefore he's being a little racist.
And God's telling him, hey you need to love the Gentiles. Rise, kill and eat. The pig is no longer unclean. The shrimp is no longer unclean.
The Gentiles are no longer unclean. You need to go out and preach the gospel to them and get them saved, which is something that matches up with the Bible.
But these experiences that these people are having in these churches, you can't find them in the Bible.
You don't find uncontrollable laughter in the Bible. You don't find uncontrollable sobbing in a church.
You don't find gesticulating at the church at Corinth. I mean they had drama, but they never had anybody gesticulating.
And so you say, well how does this apply to me? Well this applies to you if you're listening to CCM. That's how it applies to you.
You know you leave church and you're like, put on a little CCM.
Here I am to worship. That's the only CCM line I know. Someone finish it for me. Just kidding.
You know you just like play and then you just like you just feel the tingling sensation. You feel the presence of God.
Make no mistake about it, music has power. I mean you put some heavy metal song on, you're going to be angry at one of the punch people.
You put some CCM song on and it's repeating the same things over and over again. Those songs don't reinforce doctrine.
None of those songs reinforce doctrine. So it's not by accident that at these services they play that song over and over again and the worship service is far longer than the preaching.
Preaching is like 30 minutes long, maybe it's that. The main emphasis is placed on the worship because they're trying to get you into a particular state of mind to deceive you.
And to get you to subvert the word of God. That's why these churches are very shallow in their doctrine. Very shallow in their teachings, shallow in their doctrine.
The pastor has no idea what he's talking about. Most of the people in the congregation are not saved and if you ask them they'll give you five different answers about salvation.
They're using five different versions of the Bible. They have views of all types. They're not in unison in regards to doctrine. They're just unified around the experience.
Come experience God with us. Folks, the Bible tells us to be sober. The Bible tells us to cast down imaginations and every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God.
To bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ, not to the obedience of some charlatan that's trying to get you to bark and laugh or do whatever.
So what do these Hindu gurus, mesmerists, hypnotists, and these charismatics and liberal churches have in common? They use these tactics.
The second one, the first one being the altered state of consciousness by playing certain music and get you to repeat a mantra. Jesus is Lord, Jesus is Lord, Jesus is Lord.
By the way, that's what the Catholics do too. That's why they have the Hail Marys. They even simplify it for you and give you beads in order to help you to keep track on how many you're saying.
The second one is this, and this is pretty basic, but they use it a lot, and that is the power of peer pressure.
Because if you go into a church, go to Galatians 4, and peer pressure is actually good, obviously, if you're using it in a righteous way to provoke someone unto love and to good works.
If someone is straddling the fence regarding the truth, straddling the fence in regards to doing that which is right, believing right, doing right, we want to be able to pressure that person into that direction.
Peer pressure that person into going soul winning, to reading the Bible, to believing the word of God, those are good things.
But obviously Satan uses that method in an ungodly way, the charismatic churches use it in an ungodly way, and the way this works is that crowds are basically prone to believe that the behavior of their peers is the standard and should not be questioned.
So if you go into a congregation where everyone is just kind of like, and you go in there and you're not doing that, by process of elimination you're like, I'm the one who's not right here then.
So here's the thing, some people may actually experience falling down because they're being demonically possessed, but there's individuals there who probably will fall down not because they're demonically possessed, or because they reach an altered state of consciousness.
Oh man, did I knock that off? Oh well. You know, not because they reach an altered state of mind, it's because of the fact that they feel like everyone's doing it so therefore they have to do it as well.
They're kind of just going with the crowd, is what I'm saying. And this happens all the time. And in fact, there's a particular person who's given a testimony that he went to this Benny Hinn revival thing, and Benny Hinn is a charlatan, he's a false prophet.
And he does the slaying, he takes off his coat and he starts hitting people and stuff, the street fighter stuff. And this guy went up and he didn't believe in that stuff.
But then when they did it to him, he just fell over. And one of the reasons he fell over is, number one, he fell peer pressured into doing it by others who were falling over, but also by the crowd who was affirming what they were doing.
And then when he got up, he was like, man, I was so stupid, I don't know why I did that. So he went up to the camera guy and he said, hey, can you delete that? Because I actually faked it. Can you delete that part of the show? Because I actually faked it.
And the cameraman looked at him and said, there's all kinds of people that fake it here. Why? Because everyone is always peer pressured into doing those things.
So even though you may have five or ten people that actually experience the altered state of consciousness and they fall over or whatever because they're mindless, then you have 15 to 20 to 30 people who are watching them who follow them because sheep follow other sheep.
How many of you have ever seen the fainting sheep? How many of you have never seen fainting sheep before? Raise your hand. Oh, you guys are missing out.
You guys are missing out. Look up after the service, fainting sheep compilation. It's the funniest thing ever.
These sheep are so scared that if you just scare one, you're like, ah, they literally stiffen up and just fall over.
And if one stiffens up and falls over, the other one will do the exact same thing, even though you didn't scare that one. By the mere fact that they watch their fellow sheep stiffen up and fall over, they will all do it.
Is it any coincidence that God refers to us as sheep? Because sheep often follow the crowd. They follow what everyone else is doing.
And so there's people in these charismatic churches that began speaking in tongues, not because they actually believed it or something came upon them. They're just doing it because everyone else is doing it.
But the Bible tells us, thou shall not follow a multitude to do evil, though. And God doesn't want us to just be mindlessly following people just because they do it.
He wants us to do it by conviction. He wants us to be soul owners because we want to be soul owners.
It's nothing bad with a little peer pressure and provoking them, but you know what we do at our church? We explain why you should do it.
We explain from the Word of God why it is you should go soul owning, why it is we believe the King James Bible, why it is we believe whatever doctrine that we have here, and not just like, well, just shut up and follow because we said so.
Because everyone else is doing it.
Look at Galatians chapter 4 verse 17. They zealously affect you, but not well. Yea, they would exclude you that you might affect them.
And look, the Bible tells us it's good to be zealously affected in a good thing. But you know, there's a lot of churches out there, charismatic CCM type churches, liberal churches that are zealous about the wrong things.
And they may have this powerful service with smoke and mirrors and lasers pointing and the music's blaring and you have all these colorful lights everywhere.
And they may create this atmosphere of like, wow, this is like great. But folks, it's all a sham. These people are zealous about the wrong things.
This is why it's hard to talk about doctrine to any of these people. If you've had conversations with anybody who goes to a liberal church, it's very difficult and frustrating.
Because you're just like, dude, you know, I just think, bro, I love God. I know you love God, too. I'm just saying, bro, we just need to get filled with the Spirit.
The conversation is so shallow. It's like, I agree with you about loving God, but can we quote some verses, though?
And they view us as like, oh, these hard nosed, fundamental, fundamentalist, conservative, traditional types. You know, they don't have the Spirit of God.
Yes, we have the Spirit of God. Of course we do. The words that I speak into their spirit and their life. The flesh profit is nothing, the Bible says.
God is not interested in us being emotional in a public setting. It's okay to have emotions. The Bible tells us to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.
However, our ministry will not be characterized by emotion because God expects us to believe the Bible, whether we feel like it or not.
God expects us to obey the Bible, whether we feel like it or not.
That same aunt who invited me to a Pentecostal church, she came to hear me preach one time at my old church. It was like a preacher boys meeting. We had a service.
And just to learn how to preach, and she came and she listened. And then she asked me, she was like, how long is your worship service here?
I'm like, and I didn't really understand what she meant by it. I'm like, well, what do you mean? She's like, you know, in church, like, how long do you guys worship for?
I'm like, I think we do it the whole time. Like, don't we just worship God like throughout? She's like, no, I mean, like, you know, the singing and everything.
I'm like, oh, the congregationals. Are you talking about the hymns? I was like, yeah, we do that, I don't know, like 15 minutes or so.
Like, I was like, we sing three songs, first and last verse of each song. Yeah, about 15 minutes or so. She's like, oh, no, that's too short.
I have to have at least an hour and a half of worship. And I was just like, when's the preaching, though?
She's like, well, we don't we don't really read the Bible. I could do that at home, she said.
And I thought I was like, don't you go to church to hear the Bible? Like, isn't church for the preaching of God's word?
Isn't it so we can give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine, not to, you know, gesticulating, tongue speaking, laughing, laughter and emotion?
But this is the attitude that people have. And you can show people the Bible who are part of these churches and they're just like, they glaze over because they elevate emotion over the Bible.
OK, what's another thing that they use? Go to Second Peter, chapter two.
So you have the altered state of consciousness where they set the atmosphere in such a way that they can insert and embed any type of false doctrine into your mind.
You become mindless. Then they use peer pressure because there's people in the church who maybe not believe in it, but they'll do it just because everyone else is doing it.
But then you also have the exploitation of expectation. What does that mean?
They're very proficient in convincing their congregation something is about to happen.
God is going to meet with us today. We will spirit fall.
And they create this expectation. And look, you know, it could get to a point where people are like, I'm coming to this service because I know something's going to happen.
Now, look, let me say this. Sorry, that's my daughter there. She's filled with the spirit right now, so she's crying out.
She's trying to give us an example of what they do in those churches.
Again, with the peer pressure, right? Peer pressure is good. You know what? Expectation is good too.
Because you know what we're supposed to do when we come to church? Expect to hear the Word of God preached.
Expect to hear doctrine. Expect to get something from God. Expect to be edified.
Expect to learn something from God, to hear from God because it's preaching of God's Word.
We should expect the pastor to deliver a sermon where you'll learn something, you'll be challenged, you'll hear the preaching of God's Word.
That's what we should expect, right? But these people exploit that because of the fact that they know that's why people come to church.
And so instead of teaching them the Bible, they provide an experience. And so when they expect something big to happen in your life,
I know someone here. God's going to use you in a big way. And then you make eye contact with someone and they're just like you.
And that happens in churches. They're like point someone out. Like I see the orb of the Spirit on your life. I see a light.
And here's the thing is that people around them will testify that they also see it. Because they expect it.
I remember years ago there was a cult. It was like a commune of this guy who's a false prophet and he had all these couples living with him.
And I think it was like in Utah. Big surprise, right? And he claimed to be like an apostle. He had all these divine powers or whatever.
And there's a documentary made on him and they're following him around. He's a pervert. He's wicked.
But he was telling us people like Jesus is coming tomorrow night. Jesus will be here tomorrow night.
And so the people who are filming this are like oh this should be good. Because how is he going to pull this off?
He's going to be in the desert. Which is funny because the Bible literally says if they say lo here in the desert believe it not.
But you know when you have this altered state of consciousness who cares what the Bible says apparently.
So he's like he's going to meet us in the desert. So the people who are filming this documentary are like I wonder what he's going to do.
Because they're not believers but they're thinking if it doesn't happen what are they going to think?
So then at night they go the next evening to the desert where Jesus was supposed to show up.
And you know the cameras are there. They're like filming and they're just like what's going to happen.
And I think he even said like a time that it was going to happen. I mean this guy had it down to the minute.
So they're standing around this huge crowd of people and then nothing happened.
And so the cameras are like pointing to the sky like okay. And then all of a sudden all of the group that was with them they're just like wow wow wow.
And the people who are like what are they looking at. And they're just like wow wow.
And then it was over and then they just walked back to their commune.
But if you ask them they said they'll tell you they saw something.
Because they're in this altered state of consciousness for so long that guy could tell them whatever and tell them to expect whatever and they will actually see it.
It's called hallucinating. That's what it is.
Now this guy didn't need drugs to do it.
But there's people who practice this stuff who use LSD, acid, marijuana, all types of things in order to see these things.
He's just like I'll skip all that and just go to altered state of consciousness and make them believe that they actually see it.
And so they cause people to expect you know oh you're sick you're going to be healed.
Oh you feel this pain I'm going to take it away. I'm going to heal you at this moment.
Now here's the funny thing is that you know you never see people who don't have a limb go to these places you know what I mean.
Because you know what are they going to do grow a limb? Can't do it.
Never see someone with like who doesn't have an eye go want to be healed because they can't do it.
So they're constantly promising them hey you know the Holy Spirit is going to heal you.
He's going to do this for you. He's going to relieve you of your cancer.
You're going to be able to walk. I'm going to make your leg longer.
Look what the Bible says in 2 Peter 2 19.
While they promise them liberty they themselves are the servants of corruption.
For of whom a man is overcome of the same as he brought in bondage the Bible says.
So they promise them healing. They promise them oh you know your legs going to grow longer.
You're not going to have this headache anymore. You're going to be you're not going to be blind anymore.
But it's never permanent. It's a fraud. It's a fake. It's exploiting the expectation of the listener.
Subjects are systematically programmed to believe they are poised to take over even social political systems of society.
I mean this has happened to many cults around the world where they actually think you know you think of Jones.
Jim Jones right. Using this psychological manipulation in order to do this.
And then lastly is they'll use the subtle art of suggestibility.
In other words they exploit those who just are easily swayed.
Now I think that Christians can fall into this category very easily.
Even Christian you know Christians who are saved can fall into this very easily.
Because basically this means it's someone who can be easily persuaded because they're not really grounded in the word of God.
That's why I know that there's Christians in Baptist churches who listen to CCM.
Who like that type of environment.
And believe they're having visions believe it or not.
Because they're still babes in Christ.
Go to Proverbs 14. Proverbs chapter 14.
So what they'll do is they'll essentially prey on unstable souls.
People who don't know the Bible. People who are not grounded in the truth.
And they will essentially persuade them into believing that these things are true.
Now when you add all these elements together it makes for a cocktail of just you know trickery.
Signs and lying wonders and all these things.
So obviously there's people out there who just flat out lie.
And have people working for them who flat out lie about it to convince people.
But then there's others who actually use these methods and tactics in order to get the job done.
And this is why folks we'll never have a charismatic type service here.
We will never have CCM here.
We're not going to have purple lights and fog machines and smoke and mirrors.
To try to create this environment.
To get you to believe that the Spirit of God is here.
It's never going to happen.
Why? Because of the fact that I'm not a trickster.
I'm not a manipulator.
I'm not Simon the sorcerer.
I'm a man of God who's actually saved and I can prove it by just preaching the Bible.
Whereas these charismatic churches, these calvary chapels, vineyard liberal type churches, these Greg Laurie type churches.
They depend on these external things in order to create an atmosphere that they're actually accomplishing these things.
That's why I just feel the power of God here.
You know, I don't think I've ever had anybody come to our church and say that.
Like, you see?
I've never had someone step through the doors and just be like, God's here.
Wait, bro. God's here, bro.
No one's ever done that.
Like, aren't you ashamed?
No, I'm glad no one's ever done that.
And in fact, if someone walked through those doors and said something like that, red flags for me would go up immediately.
You know, it's just like, what kind of church did you come from?
Because guess what?
You say, well, isn't that, you know, what you want people to feel, like the Spirit of God is there?
No, I don't want them to feel that.
I want them to hear the preaching of God's Word and understand that the power is in the preaching.
That the power is in the Word of God.
Because the Word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword.
It pierces even to the dividing of sunder of soul and spirit, joints of the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart.
I like it when people walk here and they're just like, whatever about it?
But then they hear preaching and they're like, whoa, this is powerful.
There's like, I learned something.
Oh man, this preaching is powerful.
That's what I want people to say.
That's the kind of experience that I want people to have.
It's an experience around the Word of God.
You know, there's nothing wrong with you at home reading the Bible and tearing up.
You read the Word of God and a great, swelling joy in your heart when you read the Bible
and you are reminded of the love of God, the comfort of God, that is provoked by the Bible.
Because it's truth that's moving you in that direction.
You read the Bible and you're just like, man, I love the Lord so much.
He gave me a Bible and this is the truth.
It's not like you come in here into some sort of force field
of joy that you feel right when you get here or something like that.
After you just finish arguing with your spouse or something like that.
And then you come in and it's just like, praise the Lord, brother.
Hallelujah.
And you just can't wait to get into this state of just praise and worship.
Folks, it's false. It's phony.
And you know what?
If you're wondering why you're so emotional, it's probably because you've got to put away that CCM from among you
and be separate, sayeth the Lord.
Touch, not the unclean thing.
If you're wondering why you have such a hard time with biblical hard truths,
it may be because you're inserting within your mind these instruments and music that's causing you to subvert the Word of God.
What's the message today?
The message today, first and foremost, is this is the tactics of the Charismatics.
And these are the tactics of the Charismatics that liberal churches have adopted,
but also even fundamental Baptists have adopted.
But also, a good reminder to us that experience is great, but the Word of God is greater.
And never put an experience above what the Bible actually says.
Don't depend on your dreams.
I just had a dream that one day First Works Baptist Church will be used in a great way.
I don't need a dream for that.
I have the Bible that says, you know, that upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
It's the only passage I really need.
I just had this dream that God's going to call these young men to do a great work.
I don't need that.
And I don't want to build that expectation because I had a dream or something like that.
Martin Luther King.
You know, we don't need you to have visions and dreams.
And if you have visions and dreams, you've got other problems.
You're either messing with psychedelic drugs, or you're just spending too much time listening to or watching these liberal-type churches.
And again, I'm not trying to downplay emotions because emotions are important.
I'm just saying, you know, don't subvert the Word of God in order to justify your emotions or your experiences.
You know, I remember being in a fundamental Baptist church, and I learned about the subject of speaking in tongues, how it was false, and what the cares managed to try to do with that.
And I was like, wow, man, the Baptists are so cool.
Like, they know what the Bible says about that, and they taught me that.
And I went to a person in that particular church, and I was telling them, like, man, like, the whole tongue-speaking thing is, like, false.
And they're like, I don't know.
Like, what do you mean?
And they're like, I've seen people do it. I've done it.
What?
And it kind of, like, confused me, and I'm like, aren't you a Baptist?
And here's the thing. I was like, well, okay. And then I just turned to the passages. I went to, like, Acts chapter 2.
The passages that my leaders brought me to.
And then I showed them what the Bible said. I was just like, look, it's, like, actual language, though.
They're like, I did it, though.
Just completely ignore the Bible.
And I was just like, man, you're weird.
And it confused me as a young Christian, but it helped me to realize how much people value their experiences.
How much people value an emotional experience.
That tingling sensation.
That swelling of all this music is bringing me to a place of just worship and praise of God.
I just feel the presence of God.
But you know what? You can never find that in the Bible, though.
You'll never find that in the Bible.
You'll never find a charismatic service in the Bible.
You'll never find the apostles all gathered together and they're just like, here I am to worship.
You'll never find them gesticulating.
You'll never find them laughing and chuckling.
You'll never find them just sobbing in a service.
The main emphasis of the New Testament is preaching.
It's always been preaching.
And so let us be reminded of that.
Lest you forget.
And, you know, you're in a fundamental Baptist church.
Start acting like it.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for your word.
Thank you so much for the fact that the word of God sheds light on the deception of a lot of these churches, Lord.
And, Lord, help us as your people never to use an experience to explain away what the Bible says, Lord.
And we know that even in the end times, people are going to be deceived by signs and line wonders.
The world is going to believe that the Antichrist is Jesus Christ simply based upon the signs and line wonders of the false prophet.
And so it shows us there that experience is not everything.
We need to have faith in God's word.
And I pray that, Lord, you'd help us to do so, to read your word, to get enveloped in your word and to learn it, that we may be able to detect deception when it comes our way.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Please turn your songbooks to song number 244.
Song number 244, Amazing Grace.
Song number 244, all together nice and strong on that first verse.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.
Twas grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved.
How precious did that grace appear, the hour I first believed.
Through many dangers toils and snares,
I am already found.
Twas grace hath brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home.
When we've been there 10,000 years, really shining as the sun,
we've no less days to sing God's praise than when we first begun.
Amen. We're going to have a baptism. Please turn your songbooks to song number 41.
Song number 41, sweet by and by, all together on that first verse.
There's a land that is fairer than day, and by faith we can see it afar.
For the Father waits over the way to prepare us a dwelling place there.
In the sweet by and by, we shall meet on that beautiful shore.
And our spirit shall sorrow no more, not a sigh for the blessing of rest.
In the sweet by and by, we shall meet on that beautiful shore.
For the glorious gift of His love and the blessings that follow our days.
In the sweet by and by, we shall meet on that beautiful shore.
Please turn to song number 43, just a couple pages over. We're marching to Zion.
All together on that first verse.
Come we that love the Lord, and let our joys be known.
Join in a song with sweet accord, join in a song with sweet accord,
and thus surround the throne, and thus surround the throne.
We're marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion.
We're marching upward to Zion, the beautiful sea.