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Hey guys, welcome back. Glad that you are with us again. So I just got done preaching the sermon and I titled it the science of charlatanism. So we're going to take a look at what a charlatan is. A charlatan is a fraud. And the thing that I want you to remember about charlatans is that all false prophets are charlatans, but not all charlatans are false prophets. So we need to take that vigilance that we have in scrutinizing false teachings and false teachers. And we need to make sure that we apply that same tenacity, that same scrutinizing ability to things that influence people in the body of Christ as well. And that's what this sermon is designed to do. I hope it blesses you. God bless. All right. Amen. Well, keep your place there in Acts chapter 19, but go to second Corinthians chapter number 11, second Corinthians chapter number 11. So we have a different one for you this morning. I'm going to title this, the science of charlatanism, the science of charlatanism. So we're going to talk about charlatans this morning. I started in Acts chapter 17 cause we're going to focus on the story of the sons of Seva who believed that they had a special skill and ability to cast out evil spirits and found out that they did not. And that's basically the definition of a charlatan. A charlatan is a fraud. So it's a person that claims to have special knowledge, special skills or something of that nature, but actually is a fraud. And I got this idea because I've been reading this book, um, this leadership book and it's, it's really interesting. The guy gives out this five step process for how to basically be a charlatan, how to get a cult like following. I thought it was interesting because all of the examples that this guy used were from history, from like the 16, 17, 1800s, and none of them are Christian. You know, and it got me thinking like, wow, what's the deal with this here? You know, in our church we're used to preaching against false teachers, false teachings, you know, and we use the word charlatan to describe false prophets and things of this nature. But that book's really got me thinking like, wow, you know, how many times have we seen people carry it off with a charlatan that's not even a Christian, not even claiming to be Christian, you know, see that's the danger in this thing is that not all false prophets are, I'm sorry, let me say this. All false prophets are charlatans, but not all charlatans are false prophets. Does that make sense? There's a lot of charlatans, uh, people that have, you know, a cult like following. A lot of them are just like trying to sell you something or just trying to sell you a medical procedure, a financial scam or something of this nature. And so I want to say this, that a charlatan gains his power by basically opening a possibility, in your mind for people, for us to believe something that we want to believe. That's what a charlatan is good at. A charlatan is good at reading a room and looking around and be like, okay, people want to believe this is true. So I'm going to give them just enough information to make them think that I can facilitate that want, that desire and that need. And, um, I thought that was very interesting. So in this book, you know, some of the charlatans that they were talking about, there really is nothing new under the sun. One guy from the 1600s, believe it or not, was basically going around saying he got this vision from God that, and this, this one was kind of a Christian one, but he had this vision from God that he could use magnets to, you know, cure diseases and cast out demons and things like that. The guy got found out obviously to be a false, you know, a charlatan, basically a false teacher. And so he got expelled from his country, went over to France and basically was able to get the queen and a bunch of nobles on his side and just gathered all kinds of money and support. And when people started finding out his tricks, he's like, all right, onto the next country. It's a little harder today because we have the internet. So when somebody gets exposed, a lot of times that information's out there. But nonetheless, these people are still successful, even in today's day and age. And the reason for that is because they've had to adopt and adapt their tactics. Another guy was using, uh, it was like in the 1800s and he basically linked up with Benjamin Franklin and he was using different forms of low voltage to cure and cast out, uh, diseases from people. Didn't claim to be a Christian, but he got quite the following and amassed quite amount of wealth. And actually if you read the book, he did actually wind up stealing a lot of people's hearts and minds that were saved, that were Christians. And so I thought, you know, this is definitely a danger worth looking into and worth preaching about. So you're there in second Corinthians chapter number 11. I just want to show you real quickly that the word charlatan, you're not going to find that here in the Bible, but you're going to find its equivalent, which is going to be this phrase, deceitful worker or evil worker. So second Corinthians chapter 11, look down at verse number 13. So Paul says this, he says, for such, okay, for such are false apostles. Now look at this, deceitful workers transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. Now in the world of false prophets today, all of the ones that are definitely charlatans are the ones claiming that they have the ability to heal people, right? So like your Peter Popoff, he was a guy popular back in the eighties, been locked up, been sued numerous times for fraud, but yet every time they let him out and he gains a following. Hey, you got guys like that. You got your Kenneth Copeland's, you got your Benny hands. Um, I would probably classify it. Yeah, I'd definitely say Todd White. Does anybody know who Todd White is? The guy with dreadlocks. I think he's still pretty popular today on the internet. He's definitely a charlatan. Okay. And you say, well, well, how is that? Well, because he claims that he can heal people and he claims that he's got the gifts that the apostles have. He clearly doesn't. Um, go to Philippians chapter number three, Philippians chapter number three. But then you've got other false prophets, right? That don't claim to have those miracles. In fact, they'll preach against these false prophets. Okay. But what's their gospel message? Well, their gospel message is works, just like, you know, the Pentecostal, but because they go against, you know, the obvious to us, the Benny hands, the Todd Whites, you know, people are like, wow, you know, this guy is actually like an apologist. He's got this guy's, you know, onto something here and they get carried away with his Calvinism or his dispensationalism or what other ism that that person is wrapped up in. So just one more for you here. So we've got deceitful workers in second Corinthians chapter number 11. That would be an example of a charlatan, somebody who's deceiving people claiming to work, um, works of whatever sort that they're claiming, but they're deceiving you. Okay. Uh, Philippians three, look down at verse number two, very familiar verse, especially in our church. Beware of dogs. Beware of evil workers. Beware of the concision. We've already taken apart the dogs and the concision this year. So today we're going to focus on the evil worker. Okay. When you see that word evil worker, I want you to think charlatan. Okay. Somebody who's falsely claiming to have a special set of skills or special knowledge. And remember all false prophets are pretty much charlatans, but not all charlatans are false prophets. Some charlatans operate outside of the local church. All right, go to James chapter number three, James chapter number three. So I might've butchered that earlier when I said that all Pentecostal type, you know, guys are charlatans, but some of the other ones aren't. Scratch that. Okay. They're all charlatans because I guess if you really think about this, it's just kind of hit me as I said that, you know, these guys that are, you know, even preaching against the Todd whites, the Pentecostal guys, you know, their gospel message in and of itself because it's, it's falsehood and they're preaching it as truth that would still classify them or qualify them, I think as a charlatan. So, um, you're in James chapter number three, we're going to read a verse here in a second, but let me just kind of give you this outline that they gave in this book for how to build a cult-like following, how to be a successful charlatan. He said, well, why would you read something like this? Well, think about it like this. Why do we read the devil strategies out of the Bible? Why are we given his tactics and his agenda in the Bible? Well, so that we can know the playbook of the enemy. I mean, think about it, right? Let's say you were a sports guy, right? And you're on a football team, you know, don't lie and say, Oh, I don't want to know what their plays are. If you could get their playbook and when, Hey, you would definitely be okay with that and definitely want to do that. That would be to your advantage. It's the same thing in life. So when you read and understand how these people operate, it gives us a toolbox filled with things that we can use to pick, pluck, and basically, you know, help other people recognize charlatry to recognize like, Hey, just because this isn't a church thing, this person is taking advantage of you. This is not honest. This is not good. This is bad. So just listen to this here. So this is how to build a cult like following number one, keep it vague, keep it simple. What does it mean? Vague? Yeah. Well, it means uncertain. Hey, and indefinite. So for example, you know, there's a lot of preachers out there and their statement of faith on their website is very vague, right? They'll say things like, Oh yeah, we believe that salvation is a free gift by faith. And then like 18 paragraphs down, it's like, you gotta turn from your sins to be safe. What are you talking about here? You know, I would say that definitely qualifies, but number one, you want to keep your message vague and keep it simple. Number two, emphasize the visual and the sensual over the intellectual. Okay. And this is why we always warn people, Hey, when somebody is starting to shy away from explaining what they believe on a doctrine, there's a problem with that. Either there is a lack of understanding on their part or something else is going on. Okay. Because why wouldn't we want to sit down and have an intellectual discussion on whether or not something is true. And so when people start putting a vision in front of you and they start avoiding facts, they start avoiding that intellectual discussion. They just keep trying to paint a picture in front of you. You gotta be aware. You gotta understand, wait a minute, this person may be trying to take advantage of me. Number three, borrow the forms from organized religion to structure the group. These things were written down by a guy in the 1600s that was successful at his craft, which was being a charlatan, obviously translated into English for, for us. But number four says, disguise your source of income. And so what they meant by that was don't necessarily put it out there that your people are making you rich, but yet show them that you're rich so that when people look at you and they see the clothes you're wearing and they see your mode of transportation, they're like, well, okay, well, this guy's clearly blessed. Okay. This guy clearly knows what he's talking about and therefore we ought to follow him, but you don't ever talk about it. Okay. Anybody know anybody like that? Joel Osteen. Like how are you a preacher and your net worth is $60 million. Politician, same thing. How is it that Nancy Pelosi's, you know, annual income is like $150,000 or something like that, but she's worth like what, $90 million or even more. Okay. It's because they know insider trading. They're, they're fraudsters, they're charlatans, they're scammers. That's what they are. They're literally following this playbook and you want to talk about keeping it vague and simple. Don't all these politicians do that? You keep, you know, you ask them questions. It's just real vague. You know, you're just going to get a vague, unclear, uncertain answer and they're going to keep it simple and move on to the next person. And then what do they do? They just paint a picture, right? That's what we call circular reasoning or talking in political speech and it redirects you over here. Look over here, look over here. Don't don't be asking these intellectual questions. It's not going to profit anybody. Okay. And the number five set up an us versus them dynamic and set up an us versus them dynamic. And so with this one here, what they're saying is that you have to anticipate human behavior. And this is true. What they say here, this is, this is true what I'm about to say. Okay. People when they get into any kind of a group setting, whether it's your job, church, some kind of a hobby that you're in. At some point in time, two things are going to happen. Okay. Boredom and skepticism. These things are what happen. That's why the Bible says that we have to endure sound doctrine. People can become bored with sound doctrine and because they're bored, they could start like, ah, you know, is there something else going on here? Is there some kind of agenda? And so you have to be careful with that type of behavior. But you're there in James chapter number three. Obviously we know number one, they say, Hey, keep it vague, keep it simple. What does the Bible tell us? Right? To proclaim truth. Okay. To be honest, to be transparent, we preach the whole council of God. We don't hide anything. We put everything that we believe out on the internet. You know, we're not trying to hide anything. Our statement of faith is very clear. We try to put as much of it as we can on our church invites so that people aren't like, well, what do you believe? Right? We're, we're out there with it. We're ready to answer any questions. So we do the opposite of keep it vague, but we do keep it simple because the gospel message is simple. However, not all doctrine is simple in that matter. But number two, they said, emphasize the visual and the sensual over the intellectual. What does the Bible have to say about that? James chapter number three, look down and look at verse, we'll start in verse, verse 13, verse 13. So who is a wise man and a dude with knowledge among you? Let him show out of a good conversation, his works with meekness of wisdom. So what that means here is that our conversation, so our daily walk with the new man, okay, that ought to have a pattern of virtue, a pattern of, of wisdom. Okay. And like we talked about last Sunday with edification and what James is saying here is that we ought to do these things without expecting anything in return. So when you do something good to somebody, you don't want to just constantly be mentioning. I was talking with another pastor not too long ago. It was last week and he was having problems with these people and it's been going on for like a year. And he's like one of the things that they started doing right away and that people had even come up to me later on with is that anytime they would do something for the church, it would make sure and tell like 18 other people like, Hey, just so you know, I did this. Hey, just so you know, I re, I did this. Okay. And it's like, you're just telling everybody and it's like, well, okay, great. Well we're glad and we're thankful for it, but why are you like telling people, you know, how good you are in every single thing. It was just like every day, Hey, just, just so you know, just so you're aware, okay, I did this, I did this and I did this for you when you weren't looking. And it's like, you know, that's the opposite of what you have here. That's something different. Hey, look at verse 14, but if you have bitter envy and strife in your hearts, glory, not lie, not against the truth. Okay. So be honest with yourself. Verse 15. And here it is this wisdom case of this wisdom, which is not from God. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but as earthly. Now look at this, sensual devilish. So what does that mean? Sensual? Well, sensual means gratification of the senses and gratification of the senses. So when you're listening to somebody speak, you know, from another church and maybe somebody sends you a clip like, Hey, this guy sounds pretty solid. Hey, you need to begin the investigation process and you need to start listening to other things that this person is saying. And if you discover that these people have a pattern of just trying to gratify their congregate senses through lighting music, you know, the smoke show, the glorification of the building, things like that. Okay. Just be aware that there could be a problem with that. This is what charlatans do. This is what politicians do. This is what false prophets do. This is what people do when they are trying to conceal truth. That's why James is warning us about this. Okay. And so when people come into a church and they're just like, Hey, just want to let you know, man, I, Hey, I did this. Now sometimes you have to let people know like, Hey, I just want to let you know, I, I set this up or I clean this here, just so you're not like wondering. There's nothing in the world wrong with that. But when you're like waiting for the pastor to leave and his family or, you know, they're away and you're like, Hey, Hey, come here. You know, you're just like, I don't want to let you know that I, you know, he's busy. Okay. But I took care of this, this and this. You know, can I get your email address by the way? Can I get your phone number by the way? Can I get your birthday by the way? Hey, these people all have the same pattern process. Okay. They want emails, they want phone numbers and they want to tell you every single day, every day, every day, how good they are and how much good they've done. Okay. So it's going to be pretty obvious when you see people like this, we don't have anybody here like this now. Okay. But we have in the past and I'm just bringing this up because this is applicable here where you have to pay attention to the sensual. That is a very key factor in how these people operate. Go to the book of Jude right before revelation. Jude, go to Jude chapter 85. Just kidding. Jude, look at verse number 19. It's one chapter. Jude verse 19. Actually, we're gonna look at verse 18. Okay. Jude, verse 18. So the Bible says this, actually look at verse 17. It says, but beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time who should walk after their own ungodly lust. That's what a charlatan does. They walk after their own ungodly lust. The issue is they become very good at concealing it and they use sensual, sensual gratification to mask it, to veil it in other words. Okay. So the walking after their own ungodly lust. Now look at this here in verse 19 these be they who separate themselves sensual having not the spirit. Okay. So just a couple of quick examples, James Jude on the fact that people when they have an agenda and that agenda is not good. Okay. They're going to use or try to use sensory overload on you. This is one of the things that I find a danger. Now go back to Acts chapter 19 where we first started. This is one of the things that I believe is a very dangerous thing in our society today. Last week we talked about scrolling, right? Generation scroll, instant gratification, the microwave mentality. Everybody wants things now. Okay. We're used to, you know, if you want to know the answer to something, a lot of times you can just go on the internet and just get it. Now you can go to Facebook or YouTube and just start scrolling on shorts. I do it sometimes. I have to limit myself because it's a time waster. Okay. But the problem is when people don't check themselves and don't have any restraint with that sort of stuff, it spills over into other areas of your life. And so then you become more susceptible to being taken advantage of by a charlatan. You might say, yeah, but I know the truth about prophecy. I got the right gospel, King James, I'm good to go. That's true. However, okay, you have to also understand that things outside of the church also need to be approved and need to be scrutinized and need to be examined. And for example, many, many years ago when I was just starting to learn about like conspiracies and things like this and learn about problems in the medical field, problems in the food industry, I, this person, there was a friend of mine gave me a book and it was by a guy named Kevin Trudeau, not the guy in Canada. That guy's name is Justin, but they do look the same and they're about the same person. Okay. The name's Kevin Trudeau. And this guy wrote a book called Natural Remedies that they, okay, in quotes, they don't want you to know about. So this sounds really good. Free books, like 30 bucks at the bookstore. I thought that, hey, this is a great book. I read that book in like two days and I was more confused on natural cures by the time I got done with it than before I even started. And I re, I was, I re-went through it and I'm like, what am I missing here? Okay. And you know, obviously as I'm studying this, this came to mind because you know what he did? He kept it vague. He kept it simple. Okay. And, and throughout the pages of his book, he did an excellent job at sensory overload. Like when you learn natural cures, you're going to be healed of cancer. Here's a story of a woman that we healed in cancer over in Africa. Right. And you know what the false prophets do is always in Africa where they heal somebody or somebody got resurrected from the dead, but it was in Africa, like deep in Africa. Okay. And they don't speak language so you can't go and check me on this. Okay. You just got to believe it. The internet don't work out there by the way. So we couldn't film it and there's no printer. So we couldn't print their reborn or rebirth certificate. You know, you get how these guys are. Okay. And throughout this book, there was just hints of religion, never mentioned like Christianity or anything like that. But he kind of talked in a sense, it would make you think, maybe this guy is a believer. Maybe this guy's, you know, something. And of course, you know, picture got a million dollar suit on. So, you know, that would take care of step number four, disguise your source of income and then set up an us versus them dynamic. And his us versus them dynamic is something that none of us in here would disagree with. Right. It's us against the establishment. It's us against the elites, us against those who want to poison us, you know, the elites of the world. And so it sounded good. And I'm having to go through this book and I'm like, but where are the cures? And thank God, this was like 2004 where Google hadn't been scrubbed yet. So I'm like, all right, you know, I need to go to Google. Yeah, I'll go to Google. See back then it wasn't just automatic. You know, I'm going to go to the internet. I just had this thought like, Oh, maybe Google. There's all this stuff about how this guy was arrested in the nineties for all these financial scams, all this fraud. I printed all this stuff out and brought it to my friend. He's just like, I don't know. I think that people just locked him up because I'm like, dude, I do. I appreciate the book, but this dude gave zero remedies for how to cure anything. I don't even know how to cure a cold after reading this book, you know, but the guy was hooked and you know, it is what is he, this guy's brother saved, you know, but it got him, man. It definitely got him. So I'm just saying that these things are important for us to study. And all of that made me think of this story here in acts chapter 19. So let's go through it. The sons of Siva acts 19, look down at verse number 11. The Bible says this and God rot. Hey, the word rot there. What does that mean? That means to work. Okay. So God's working and God rot special miracles by the hands of Paul. Okay. So very important for us to understand that God is the source of these miracles. And this is not, I mean, the mere fact that this verse is in the Bible should be proof enough to all of us that this is not something that is just available to anyone today. Okay. I just rolled out of bed, had a vision, and all of a sudden God has bestowed this gift on me. Okay. No. And God rot special miracles by the hands of Paul. Very interesting here though. Look at verse 12. So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons. Now look at this and the diseases departed from them and the evil spirits went out of them. So again, just like in our day, Paul's day, people have evil spirits. They are a sick, there's diseases going around and things of that nature here. But what do we know from these first two verses? Well, we know because the narrator is telling us that God gave Paul this ability and he gave it to him for a reason. And this ability was that apparently these handkerchiefs, these aprons that Paul had, when he would distribute them or send them out, people would get healed. They would get healed from disease and they would get healed from the bondage of evil spirits. These evil spirits would leave people. Okay. So we know this is from God. We know that God worked through Paul. We know that diseases and evil spirits left. And so all of that equals this real results. Okay. Real results. It wasn't just some guy down the street in his bedroom at three o'clock in the morning, got healed of a migraine because I had a thought. Okay. No, none of that. This was verifiable. This was proven. This, this word spread throughout all the region. Okay. Look at verse number 13. So we got real testimonies here. So verse number 13, you're going to see that this is my opinion here. I believe that envy and ignorance is set in. So people are hearing about this. Okay. People are hearing about this. And now what we find is this group of vagabond Jews shows up and they're like, Oh, we want a piece of this as well. Okay. So let's look at this here. Verse 13, the insert of the vagabond Jews. What's a vagabond? Hey, well, a vagabond is a wanderer. I always think of Vega from street fighter too, but I'm not encouraging you to play. I'm just saying that's just what I think of because he's a wandering fighter, but vagabond Jews. So these, this group of Jews here, they would wander around here, which actually, if you think about it, fits that playbook of, of charlatans. Okay. If you're wandering around, nobody can pin you down. And especially you can say what you want over here in this region in Israel, we got all these people healed up, doing all these things, you know, you can go ask them and you're going to always get the gullible. There's always going to be somebody quoted somebody who said a quote and I'm probably going to butcher this, but it was basically like, it's too easy to fool people at any given time. And there's always too many people to fool at any given time or something to that nature. And charlatans know that. And I believe that this group here understood that and says, then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcist took upon them. Hey, what does that mean? Took upon them? Well, they took it upon themselves as opposed to God giving them this ability. You see that? So they took it upon them to call over them, which had evil spirits, the name of the Lord Jesus. Okay. Saying we adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth. Does that even sound powerful? That sounds like a new evangelical statement to me, to be honest with you, you know? Well, we get people saved by the Jesus that is preached in the Bible. It's, you know, they're always trying to separate Jesus from the word, which you can't do. You know, Jesus is the word of God, but they're like, we adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches. There's like no power in that whatsoever. Okay. So you got this vagabond group of people here, these Jews, and they think, well, we're special. We're Jews. We're who's going to tell us any different, you know, this guy, Paul here who was believing in this Jesus guy can do this stuff. Why can't we do it? And so they've probably my opinion had a pattern of doing things like this, which is why they're wandering because then they can keep their message vague. They can keep it simple. They can use sensory gratification easier because they don't have to verify anything. And the list goes on and on and on. They can fulfill those things. And so they, they give it a shot here. Okay. Now let's see what the results are. Look at verse 14. And there were seven sons of one Siva, a Jew and chief of the priests, which did so. This is funny how the Bible just calls them out by name. Okay. So there's no like, Oh, this was just a parable here. Okay. And there's a principle here. Well, there's lots of principles here, but this ain't a parable. This really happened. This is God saying, no, here's the guy's name. Okay. And he had seven sons, which did so verse 15. And the evil spirit and answered, I'm sorry. And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus, I know. And Paul, I know, but who are you? And now this is probably where they realize, Oh, we're in deep trouble here. Our days of charlatanism are just about to be done. Okay. Do you imagine saying, I wish we could see this day, you know, Paul or what, what's that guy's name? Dreadlock boy. I just said it, Todd white. You know, I would love to see him walking through like a restaurant like he does and being like, excuse me, ma'am. Um, do you have a twinge or like a little pain in the side of your leg? Cause he observed her back in the background of her leg, you know? Yes. You know, I'm just like, command that to come out of your Jesus. And the evil spirit comes out. I was like, Hey Jesus, I know. Paul, I know, you know, and all these preachers, who are you? And just tear them up. But you know, I love reading this here. Cause the Bible just gives it straight up, you know, verse 15 and the evil spirit answered. So the evil spirits like, Oh, you know, I do know Jesus and I know Paul, but who are ye? So what does that mean for us? Well, it means they're imposters. Okay. And this evil spirits about to have a hay day with these guys and looking for a 16 K and the man in whom the evil spirit was. Hey, so talking to this man who was an evil spirit and the evil spirits, the one speaking here and says, and the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them and overcame them and prevailed against them so that they fled out of that house, naked and wounded. Now this is the end of charlatanism. Okay. This is what I believe the Bible saying, Hey, this eventually will be their outcome. And that's kind of the thing in that history book that I'm reading about this is that all of the charlatans, one thing that they all know is that they know there's going to come a point where they're going to be found out. Okay. Which is why the book tells you to have a backup plan and have another group of people ready to go to go keep leaping. Hey, that's what they do. They're vagabonds. They could go from here, go from there, go over here and they just keep going on. But the goal is to get as much money as possible and to hide that money so that you can have a fall out van, have a backup plan. But I like how this, uh, how the Bible puts it here. It gives us three things that the evil spirit does. Okay. Now I'm not glorifying evil here, but this evil spirit is doing something true. And actually, if you think about it as defending truth here, okay, what does this evil spirit do? What does this guy do? Well, he leaps, he overcomes and prevails against them. So God's truth wins here in this verse here because these guys don't have any power from God. And so we could say like this game. So what the truth does is the truth leaps, it overcomes and it prevails. Now for the charlatan, instead of leap, they creep. Right? That's what they do. Instead of leap, they creep. The charlatan is vague, just kind of like the serpent in the garden. Yea hath God said, always creeping around. You're just coming in very subtly. Okay. So instead of leap, the charlatan creeps and instead of overcome, what does the charlatan do? Tricks with fun. Hey, tricks with fun. And you can kind of see that's probably part of the vagabond Jews here. It's fun going from plays to plays, getting money and talking about stories and all of their false victories that they've had here. But they met the last day here with this guy because he's not going to play this. So instead of overcome, they trick with fun. And then number three, instead of prevail, they cause to fail. That's what they do. They destroy lives. They take advantage of people. And obviously you could, you could put that instead of prevail, they use a veil because that's also very, very certain what they do. They use a veil. They use that imagery, right? They use that, uh, that cloak of, of, of fun and sensory gratification. Now look at verse 17. So the Bible says, and this was known to all the Jews, not just some of them. Okay. And this, so this story, this man leaping, overcoming, and prevailing these vagabond Jews, this spread like wildfire. And so it says, and this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus and fear fell on them all. And the name of the Lord was magnified. Hey, and so this is what we need to learn from this is that when we become a people, we already are, okay, this is just an exhortation this morning. But when we have a culture that preaches a truth that leaps, right? We leap, we don't creep. We're all over the place. We're in this neighborhood. We're in that neighborhood. We're in this town. We're in that town, right? We're not trying to hide anything. We're not being vague. We're being crystal clear and we're overcoming lies with the truth of the word of God. And we're prevailing whether somebody gets saved or not. When we have that culture, we apply it to everything in our lives in the church, out of the church. Okay. What happens? Well, truth gets a witness. And when truth gets a witness, the Lord gets magnified. Okay. And so that's what he's saying here. Verse 18, and many of the belief came and confessed and showed their deeds. So this evil spirit actually did a good thing by taking out these charlatans, by taking out these vagabond Jews, because people were like, Whoa, I better not pretend. I better not be playing games like that spread out. And people are like, Hey, you know what? I'm going to believe what Paul actually said. Not what these people think Paul had said. So verse 19, many of them also, which use curious arts brought their books together and burned them before all men. And they counted the price of them and found it 50,000 pieces of silver. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed. That's kind of funny, you know, interesting here, how people had books, right? And what does it say here? Many of them, which use curious arts brought their books together and burn them. It's funny how, you know, I took a college class one time and it was something about religion. I have to go look at my grades to figure out the name of the class, but it was, it was, it was garbage. It was straight trash. I was mad the whole time. And the guy was like, you know, even two, 300 years after Christ, no one had books. So don't tell me that they had the written word of God because that's not true. And by the way, this guy was a Jew. This guy was a Jew. And I'm thinking like, but the Bible says they had books about curious arts and all these other things. You don't think they had the ability to have books and have a way to compact, you know, the word of God. It's like, no, you're a charlatan, pal. You're trying to sell me something here that ain't quite biting down. Now go to Hebrews chapter number 13, Hebrews chapter number 13. So that's the, that's the vision for us. Okay. When we can expose charlatans, when we can expose fraudsters of any field, I don't care in, out of the church, any kind of a falsehood. That is a good thing for us. And that is a good thing for the kingdom of God. Okay. Remember, the truth doesn't need a defense. It needs a witness. We need more witnesses to the truth. The truth always prevails. So the more witnesses we can gain for the truth, the better, the victory and the mighty year, the word of God will increase. Okay. Whether it be in the church, in your own personal life, in the community or what have you. Okay. That's the goal is to get more witnesses for the truth. Now what I want to do is just give you three quick applications for this morning, uh, about charlatans and what we can do to make sure that we never get taken captive by them. All right. Hebrews chapter 13, look down at verse number 17. So the Bible says this, obey them that have the rule over you. Okay. Remember, you know, Paul often uses this phrase, you know, obey the elders that rule well in the church and, and, you know, have respect to them and things of that nature. So he says, obey them that have the rule over you. So a pastor leadership of the church, we have a rule over how things work in the church. He's not saying that we Lord over you. Okay. I'm not interested in lording over you and scrutinizing all your decisions. Okay. And unless it's something that I could clearly see as falsehood that we want to get you out of that, but he's saying, Hey, obey them to have the rule over you and submit yourselves for they watch for your souls as they that must give account that they may do it with joy and not with grief. That is unprofitable for you. So what is, I believe Paul saying here, he was saying, Hey, Hebrews, okay, let go of this Levitical priesthood. It's done for, okay. If you're saved, you're a King and you're a priest. Okay. And so for that true, so because of that, okay, you want to go to the elders. That's why I believe he's saying here. So submit yourself to the elders. Okay. Let go of that tradition that was of old, that was in place. God has removed that. So submit yourself to these elders. Okay. Verse 18 pray for us for we trust we have a good conscience in all things willing to live honestly. So the first thing, very simple, you're already doing this. And the first step I would say, which is crucial to getting somebody into a mindset to where they can identify falsehood, overcome falsehood. Okay. Is being part of a church like this that preaches truth, being actively involved in it. Okay. Why? Because there are people in here that are very experienced at proving whether something is true or false. And so we can take those skills and apply them to anything. Okay. Anything that's out there. And so therefore we can help you with your decisions, whether to follow or not follow a person in a certain area, just based off of those skills. Go to first Timothy chapter three and give you another example of this here. First Timothy chapter three. Nothing has a mind of its own. All right. First Timothy chapter number three, look at verse 15. So Paul telling Timothy this Timothy, the pastor, he says, but if I Terry long that down, may us know how they'll ought us to behave thyself in the house of God. And of course, I would submit to you that we're always in the house of God. If you're saved, you're born again, and you're always in the house of God. But he says, which is the church of the living God. Remember we talked about this on Wednesday. The word church is used in the Bible and the universal sense and also in the local sense. Okay. So he says church of the living God. Now look at this, the pillar and ground of the truth. The church is the pillar and ground of the truth. And for this reason, okay, we're not always just on the lookout for false prophets or false doctrines only, but also just anything false that is out here that wants to try to come in. And I had a woman call me, not, uh, I think it was like a year ago, like, Hey, you know, I was looking online and I see you got some bad reviews and we could definitely help you out with that. And I'm like, yeah, I don't really want to pay. I kind of like them actually. It's just, you know, eventually they'll go away. And she's like, well, I think part of the problem is the way that you have the inside of your building structure. She's like, did you know that like, if you have your, your chairs in the wrong position inside of a room that can bring bad energy, I'm like, this sounds like that bung shui or whatever that stuff's called. And it's like, I don't know what this is. And she's like, no, no, no, no, that's not what this is. That's what, that's what this sounds like to me. And I was like, you know what? I'm not interested. I'll put the chairs wherever I want to. Yeah. I don't care about that type of stuff. As long as people aren't tripping and getting hurt and trying to sue me, then I don't care. In fact, I tell Jessica, like you, you, you figure that stuff out. Okay. What looks best? I ain't got time for it. Just give me a spot to put my Bible and my paperwork down and we're good to go. So anyways, okay. Pillar and ground of the truth. That is what the church is. So we want to make sure that we are in a consistent habit of not embracing things that are false, whether they're church related or not. Okay. And this is why I think it's important to have discussions about which gas to use, right? Chevron versus shell. I mean, we should fight about these things and come to the truth and you know, be good. I'm just kidding. I'm just teasing. Okay. Go to Philippians chapter number four, Philippians chapter number four. Okay. But being in a church is very good practice at debunking false teachings, false teachers, and that does translate to things on the outside. For example, right? Things that we already know. Obviously it's better for us to homeschool, right? We've proven that because we've been able to assess what's going on out in the public school system and we have a plan, at least, you know, I have a plan. Obviously everybody in here has the desire to homeschool. We do have people that listen to us where that's not a possibility. They have, they're forced to send their child to public school. We've got a plan for that as well. Hey, we've got things that people can do to still be successful in that arena. But how do we get to these positions? Well, it's because the church is the pillar and ground of the truth and we take a look at everything. Okay. Anything that wants to come in here, anything that wants to attach itself to our people. And we look at those things, Hey, is that even welcome in here? And if it's not, we preach against it or we speak against it and we try to get people away from it. Even with certain medical practices, there's certain medical practices that are definitely designed to harm people. And this is probably going to get taken down because I've said that, but I don't really care. And of course, financial scams, there are plenty of financial scams and advice out there that is not sound, that is not true. And you know, there's nothing wrong with us taking a look at those things. And that's something that you're struggling with or something that you need help with and trying to get you into a position of truth because the church is the pillar and ground of truth. And that's not with just things that are specifically listed in the Bible that is with all things. And that's what the second point is going to be here. Look at Philippians chapter four, verse number eight. So Paul tells the Philippians this finally brethren whatsoever. Now look at this. Look how many times this word is used in this verse here. Things. Okay. Finally, brethren whatsoever things are true. Whatsoever things are honest. Whatsoever things are just. Whatsoever things are pure. Whatsoever things are lovely. Whatsoever things are of a good report. If there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things. What does virtue mean? Okay. Virtue in the Bible. You think of it like this. Remember when the woman touched the hem of Jesus garment and he said, I felt virtue come out of me. So virtue in the Bible is either power or a pattern. Okay. I want you to remember your peace. Virtue is either power or a pattern. And by pattern, I mean a pattern of good behavior. Okay. Going back to that book that I read many years ago by Kevin Trudeau, he had a pattern of lying to people. Okay. Now some of the stuff that he said in his book, some of the stuff that he probably says on his website, if he still has one, I think he got locked up again in 2013. But anyways, some of the stuff they say is true and that's what people tend to focus on. And then, well, I'll just forget about all this other stuff. Okay. That's not a good pattern for you and I to get into. Okay. We're called to look at something and to take a thing. And that means anything. And Hey, does this have virtue? Is there power in this? We know what power is because we have the word of God. Okay. These words are power. So we can scrutinize that. We can look at that. We can evaluate that. We can audit that. Say, is there power? Is there any pattern, a good history of moral righteousness of good, you know, of praise? Is there anything good in that? And we can say, okay, well there is, then we'll hold onto it. We'll adopt it for now. We'll take a look at that. If not, we're going to reject it. Better safe than sorry. Okay. And so there are many things in this world in out of the church. And so for the second thing, I'm going to say, surround yourself with integrity. Okay. That's what he means here. Surround yourself with integrity. If you want to be the type of person that is going to be able to overcome the fraudsters, overcome the charlatans in this world, not only do you want to be part of a local church, but you want to surround yourself with things that are honest. Okay. Surround yourself with integrity. Go to Ephesians chapter number four, because that is going to then enforce this consistent pattern that we need in our lives to be able to prove bad advice, false advice, bad people, false people, fraudsters, charlatans, whatever you want to call it. Okay. So number two, surround yourself with integrity. And what does integrity mean? It means honesty, whole undivided, okay. Whole undivided honesty. That's what that means. Integrity is a crucial defense against deception. Crucial. If we start allowing things in our everyday ordinary lives that are false. Okay. If we start allowing those things to creep in, you know what's going to happen. It's going to spill out into every other area of our lives. It can spill out to things in the church and it can do damage to us. So we want to surround ourselves with integrity. Say, prove it. Got you right here. Ephesians four 25. Look at what this says. So Paul says, wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor for we are members one of another. This is why we don't allow people to just come in here and be like, oh, you know, I can get you making a lot of money off this Amway. I can get you making a lot of money off of this multi-level marketing, you know, program that I have here. Okay. People come in here and they start saying stuff like that. We're going to take a look at that and do an audit and we're going to evaluate that and see whether there's any virtue in that, whether there's any truth, honesty, just pure, whatever. And if we find not, if I find that and be like, you know what? The Bible commands us not to lie. You know that you can ignorantly lie to somebody that you can believe something false and bring that in here and not intend to lie, but still be lying. Hey, we have to be on guard. We have to be on the lookout for those types of things. Why? Because the church is the pillar and ground of the truth and the church is not a building. The church is made up of every single believer in God's kingdom. We know this, we understand this game. And so when we surround ourselves with integrity, we're fulfilling this verse here, putting away lying. We want to speak truth with all of us. Okay. Because we're members one of another. So we want to be careful about the advice and the programs and things that we recommend to other people. Go to first Timothy chapter number five, first Timothy chapter number five, getting close to being done here. We've got one more left. All right, so let's take a look here. First Timothy five, look down at verse number 11 for 75 11. Look at what the Bible says. Paul says this, he says, but the younger widows refuse for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry. And I know some of you are thinking of that China, the Chinese buffet up here and wanton soup. That's not what you're talking about here. Okay. What does it mean to wax wanted? Well, it means to stop depending on Christ for your fulfillment and to basically start going into the world and go back to instant gratification, right? Go back to, I want sensory overload. I want these things. So what he's saying is, you know, when the widows start going that direction, these younger ones, you lost them. Okay. They're going to go out there and they're just going to do all this stuff. Verse 12, he says, having damnation because they have cast off their first faith. He's not saying he can lose your salvation, but he's saying, you know, they're going to reap, you're going to reap what you sow. Start making a lot of bad decisions in life. It's going to come back to bite you. Okay. Verse 13, you know, with all they learned to be idle, wandering about from house to house and not only idle, but tattlers also and busy bodies speaking things, which they ought not. Verse 14, he says, I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. And so what does all this mean here? What this means is the third and final point. And it means that scrutinizing the character or behavior of those that influence us is a good thing. We have authorization from the word of God. We have the right to scrutinize, to audit, to look at the character or behavior of anyone or anything that is trying to influence people inside of the church. We have that right. We have the right to call those things out. If we find no virtue, no pureness, no truth, no, no blessings or anything like that. Why? Because the church is the pillar and ground of the truth. Last verse I'm gonna have you look at is first John chapter number four, first John chapter number four. Now, obviously nobody's perfect. All of us have, you know, done things are wrong. I'm not saying that. And if somebody has to be out without Santa, you guys know better than that. Okay. But what I'm saying here is what Paul is telling Timothy is, Hey, you know, here's the standard that I want for these young women. I want them to guide the house. I want them to do this. Okay. This is from God. These are good things. These are things that lead to virtue, that lead to powerful lives, that lead to a pattern of good things. I want them to do this. But when they wax wanton, when they want these instant gratification things, when they want these desires, they're going to turn away from that. And they're going to go back into the world and they're going to get harmed by the world because the world can only give you one thing. And that is damnation. That is judgment. We don't fit in the world. And it can be appealing. It can look cool. It can look good, but it's never going to turn out that way. So number three, we want to scrutinize the character and behavior of those that seek to influence us. Okay. Now, first John chapter four, look at verse number one. Beloved believe not every spirit. Okay. So we want to question things. Okay. Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God because many false prophets are gone out in to the world. Then verse two, he says, hereby know ye the spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. Okay. Very simple to understand this. Okay. When you establish a pattern of not just believing everything you hear, and I know this group knows this, everybody is good to go on this one here. Okay. But the point is when you establish that pattern, okay, it provides a very safe and effective place that people can come to and gain truth. Okay. And so what I'm saying here is three quick ways to make sure you never have to be charlatan, take advantage of you. And three quick things you can do to teach someone else who you might think is being taken advantage of by somebody out in the world. Number one, church, a good church, right? Gospel, right? Obviously, you know, Bible version, right on truth. Okay. Because the church is the pillar and ground of truth. And by truth, we mean all truth, all of it. Okay. And number two, you want to surround yourself with integrity. Okay. So if there are people in your lives that have a habit of lying to you, you either need to confront them face to face or put them on a double arm's length distance. Okay. That's what you're going to have to do. It's hard. It's not easy, but it is necessary for you to do that. You have got to surround yourself with things that are of honesty and things that are of integrity. The more falsehood you learn, or you, you allow to come into your life, the more you could possibly be setting yourself up to be taken advantage of by somebody else. And we don't want that. We don't need that. Okay. And number three, last but not least, we have the authorization to scrutinize the character and behavior of anything or anyone that has influence over anyone inside of the church. And this is what pisses people off because you know, somebody will come in here with, Oh, I found this guy or I found this person online and I'm going to start, you know what, Hey, I'm going to take a look at that. Okay. And if I, if I find some falsehood or some dangers in love, I'm going to start saying things against it. Why? Because it's my job to watch out as my job to ensure, but it's not just my job. It's also your job as a member of this church to make sure that we have a culture that is promoting the pillar and ground of the truth. It's promoting an environment of safety through integrity. That's where it's at. We start letting that slip man and things start to go bad in a hurry. And let me just leave you with something I already gave you here. Remember our story in acts chapter 19, the sons of Siva. Hey, what did the truth do? What did that evil spirit do in that guy? He leaped, he overcame and he prevailed. That's what the church, that's what the truth does. That's what the church is supposed to do. We're supposed to leap around. Why are we leaping? Because we're not, we're not worried about being seen. Okay. The charlatans worried about being discovered so he doesn't leap. He creeps. Okay. And instead of overcoming, he wants to trick with fun and things of, um, deception, trickery, things of that nature. And then of course, we know that we prevail because we've got the whole Bible. We've got the story from the beginning all the way into the end. So the charlatan instead of prevail, they cause people to fail and they use the veil. And that's our job. Our job is to identify that veil that they have, that they're using to cause people to fail. And what do we do about it? We call it out. Why? Because we have the authorization. We have the right to scrutinize and to audit the character and the agenda and the behavior of anybody or anything that has influence over anyone inside of the body of Christ. Here we do this for exhortation. We do this for edification. So that's it. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Thank you so much Lord again for this church and for all that you do for us. Lord, appreciate everything and everyone that we have just pray Lord that we remember these things and be able to teach them to others that they might be blessed by them in Jesus name. I pray. Amen. All right, we're going to have one more song and then we'll go ahead and be dismissed.