Now we are going to come back to Genesis 3 but flip over if you would to Revelation chapter 12, very last book in the bible. Revelation chapter number 12. We saw that familiar story in Genesis chapter three of Satan deceiving Eve, he beguiled Eve into eating of the one tree that she was not supposed to eat from. Then of course she gave unto Adam and they both ate, they sinned, they were cast out of the garden and they brought that curse upon the whole earth and the curse upon mankind.
What I'm going preach about this morning is one of the devils deceptions that he uses all throughout the Bible. We see it in that story in Genesis chapter 3. Really it’s a theme with Satan throughout the Bible, this is one of the tools that he uses to deceive. You see the devil’s main objective is to deceive mankind. Over and over again the Bible talks about him as being a deceiver.
Look at Revelation chapter 12 verse 9 it says, “The great dragon was cast out; that old serpent called the devil and Satan which deceiveth the whole world.” He was cast out in the earth and his angels were cast out with him. Flip over to chapter 20, notice it says that the devil deceives the whole world, it doesn’t say he is trying to deceive the whole world. It says he deceives the whole world.
The world today by and large is deceived by the devil. He is succeeding at deceiving most of mankind. The bible says that he, the God of this world has blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel should shine in. Look at Revelation 20 verse 1. It says, “I saw an angel come down from heaven having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. He laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent which is the devil and Satan and bound him 1000 years and cast him into the bottomless pit and shut him up and set a seal upon him that he should deceive the nations no more till the 1000 years should be fulfilled. After that he must be loosed a little season.”
Here we see that when the devil is bound up for 1000 years during the millennium, that he will deceive the nations no more. Meaning that right now that's exactly what he's doing. He's deceiving the nations of the world. What does he do when he gets out of prison? Look at verse 8, “Shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth Gog and Magog to gather them together to battle the number of whom is in the sand of the sea.” Look at verse 10, “The devil to deceive them was cast in the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.” Over and over again we see that the devil is called the deceiver, he deceives, he's deceiving the whole world, he's blinding people, he's beguiling people.
In reference to that story back in Genesis 3 in the Garden of Eden, it says in 2nd Corinthians 11:3 don't turn there, but it says, “I fear less by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” The Bible warns us that just as Satan deceived or beguiled Eve, he's out to deceive us. He definitely deceives the unsaved, he definitely deceives the nations in the world. Even we as believers can be in danger of some of the devils deception. We need to take heed that we do not get sucked into it.
Flip to a 2nd Peter 2 in your Bible, 2nd Peter 2, just a few books before Revelation. In 2nd Peter chapter 2 we find some teaching on false prophets. Of course the Bible says that false prophets are evil workers and that there actually ministers of Satan or Satan's helpers. When we look at this passage, we can see some of Satan's devices. It says in 2nd Peter chapter 2 verse 13, “Shall receive the reward of unrighteousness as they that count it pleasure a riot in the daytime. Spots they are and blemishes,” taking about these false prophets, “Spotting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you. Having eyes full of adultery and they cannot cease from sin beguiling unstable souls; a heart they have exercised with covetous practices curse it children.”
Notice in verse 13 the word deceiving, notice in verse 14 the word beguiling, okay? Now jump down to verse 19 and we’re going to see one of the main modes of deception that both Satan uses and that Satan's ministers will use. It says, “While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption for all of whom a man is overcome of the same is he brought in bondage.” What is the method or modus operandi of Satan and his workers? One of the tools that they will use to deceive or to beguiled, is that they will offer or present a false liberty. They’ll present a liberty that's not truly liberty, it's not truly free but it’s actually fake.
Now go if you would at Genesis 3, let's see that in the story. Genesis chapter number 3. In Genesis chapter number 3 where we started let's look back at that story where Satan beguiled Eve in the garden. It says in verse 1, “Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. He said to the woman yay hath God said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden.” Now right away the devil is trying to make God sound like he doesn't offer freedom. See God actually in chapter 2 said, “Of all the trees of the garden thou may just freely eat.”
Now that sounds good, doesn’t it? I mean if somebody puts you in a perfect place, a paradise and they tell you look at all these trees, look at this beautiful garden, you can eat all this tree, you can choose whatever you want of a trees except one. That's the real true story of what God told Adam and Eve. He gave them a lot of freedom. Now did he give them a completely unlimited freedom? No. There was one small limitation when he said, “There's one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that you may not eat.” He focused on the fact that look at all the ones you can eat of all the trees of the garden [inaudible 00:06:30] freely.
When the devil comes along, he tries to spin it differently and make it sound like God is just so restrictive. Because God said that you can't eat of every tree of the garden. God said? Is that really truly that God said you can't eat every tree? Why not? When in reality it's such an easy rule to follow when 99% of the trees are available to you and there's one that’s not. It just depends on how you look at it. Look at verse 2. The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden God said you shall not eat of it neither shall you touch it lest he die.” The serpent said to the woman, “You shall not surely die, for God does know that in the day you eat thereof and your eyes shall be open and you shall be as gods knowing good and evil.”
Now notice what is he saying is the motive of God for not wanting them to eat at that tree? He said God knows that when you eat that fruit you're going to be like him, you're going to have all this knowledge that you didn't have before. God is just trying to hold you back from that. He's is trying to stop you from having all the good things that you could have, all the great knowledge and everything that you can gain from it. This is the way the way the devil will try to deceive us today.
By trying to make it seem like God's rules are too restrictive, God's rules are taking away our freedom, God is stopping us from living our life to the fullest. If you listen to this atheists and the godless teachers, that's what they'll say. Well Christianity just keeps you from living your life to the fullest. You live this really restrictive repressed life. Then because you think you're going to get all his afterlife and since it isn't there, we need to just eat drink and be merry because tomorrow we die. That's what the atheist will teach as why Christianity’s so bad, because … I heard Richard Dawkins say it, you don’t live life to the full. What is it that you're trying to do Richard Dawkins that’s going to give you such fullness in your life that God has prohibited? Because everything that God has prohibited is harmful.
In reality God’s rules are not just to withhold us from something good or just to keep us from having a good time. That what kids sometimes think about their parents. They think oh yeah my parents just don’t let me any fun, that's why I can't play ball the street. That's why I can’t have ice cream for breakfast, that's why I can't do knife tricks and play with fire. In reality obviously those rules are there for the benefit of the child. Mom and dad are saying eat your vegetables just because we want to see you suffer. Yeah. Really we are giving you vegetables because we know it’s going to make you healthy.
We want you to grow up and be strong and live a better life and a longer life and a fuller life. Mom and dad know better and a little tiny child know. They think candy is good to be good for them, they think that there's no danger in setting up a ladder by the pool and then jumping off the top of that ladder. We as adults know that that's a bad idea, that you're going to get hurt. There are other more efficient ways to jump into the pool than off the top of the ladder, okay? When you jump off a ladder, it falls over as you’re jumping off and land on your face. We as human beings, we as God's children sometimes we might think well God's rules don’t make sense.
In reality the bible teaches that his rules are there for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. It’s for our good. God has commanded us, his commandments for our good and for our edification and for our safety and to help us. The devil wants us to believe that God's rules are just to restrict us, to stop us from getting too high and mighty, he just wants to just keep us down and keep us oppressed and keep us repressed. It’s simply not true. The devil wants us to believe that God is trying to restrict us and we need to just free our minds from these restrictions, we can be like gods and we can know all things.
Then of course in verse six there it says, “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof to eat and gave also under her husband with her and he did eat.” Of course that's the tragedy of the story that they ruined that perfect paradise that they lived in by eating of that tree of which they were not supposed to eat.
Let me give you a couple of examples this morning of this kind of false liberty. The devil wants to come along and make it sound like God really restrictive but that he offers freedom, he offers liberty. Again this is not a political type sermon. I'm preaching my spiritual things this morning. I've preached other sermons where I went into the political aspects of liberty. Of course the Bible teaches a system of government that provides a lot of liberty politically speaking. If our government were patterned after the government laid out in the Bible, we would have a lot more freedom than we do right now.
We wouldn't be paying these huge amounts of our income in taxes, we wouldn't have the right to bear arms, being infringed upon, we wouldn't have all these dictates and just the government running our lives in the nanny state and the police state. That's a whole other sermon, that's not what I'm preaching about. I'm preaching about in your personal life today.
I'm preaching about how in your personal life the devil wants to deceive you into thinking that there's more liberty living outside of the bounds of Christianity and his word and his commandments, than there is to follow and keep God's commandments. I'm talking about in your personal life, the devil's lie to get you into sin by promising you liberty, by promising you a liberty that’s a fraud, that's not true liberty.
First of all go if you would to Galatians chapter 5. The first example of a false liberty that the devil's offering today in 2014, is the teaching that living with no rules equals liberty, no rules that's liberty. Now according to that, Adam and Eve had no liberty in the Garden of Eden because there was a rule there was one rule. The devil wants you to believe that the definition of freedom is to have no rules.
Now that simply does not exist. There is no place in this universe where there are no rules, okay? If that's your definition of liberty, then there's no such thing as absolute liberty. We have to have laws, we have to have rules. Now we shouldn't have too many laws but what about this law, thou shalt do no murder. I mean that sounds like a pretty good laws, it sounds like a pretty good rule. See if your definition of freedom is just no rules then that means murder is acceptable. Well now someone else's freedom is being infringed because they're being killed.
Obviously we have to have rules. From a spiritual standpoint because again I don't want to get political this morning. From a spiritual standpoint, there's a movement today amongst Christianity that teaches against following God's commandments and says, “Christianity is not a bunch of do's and don'ts, it's a relationship, it's not laws it's not commands.” They teach that were free in Christ. What they mean by free in Christ, is that basically we can just live our lives however we see fit. Here's one of the verses that though used to teach that, Galatians 5:18 it says this, “If he be led of the spirit, ye are not under the law.”
Here’s what people will try to teach in your typical new evangelical churches? You'll try to show them sometimes, hey the Bible says we shouldn’t be doing this. What do they call you? A legalist. You just show them, hey the Bible says right here ask X, Y and Z, maybe you show them the part where the Bible commands man to cut their hair and not have long hair. Then they’ll say, “You're a legalism you're trying to bring us into bondage, you …” I remember I was out soul winning one time and I was explaining to a guy why we should stay away from some of these modern versions that are coming out, the NIV, the new American Standard et cetera.
I'm explaining this to a guy and the guy was really interested. His roommate walks out and looks at me and says, “You need to get free bro.” He's wearing a shirt with like a long-haired hippie Jesus and he just like, “You need to give free bro. We are free in Christ too. All these rules, men, you're bringing us into bondage bro. you need to get free. This is a big movement today.
I mean this is a huge teaching. The majority of churches they follow this teaching that says, “Hey, just let the spirit guide you and as long as you just let the Holy Spirit guide you, then just don't worry about all the do's and don'ts. Just walk in the spirit bro and in the do's will take care of themselves. Just be a good guy, just do the right thing bro, you know what that is. Just let the spirit tell you what that is.”
No, let the Bible tell you what that is. It’s been etched in stone and this is what we should be doing. This whole free in Christ movement is a fraud and it’s a devilish fraud just to get you to get into a lot of sin and do a lot of wrong things just because that's how the spirit’s leading me today. Let's see what the Bible really teaches about the spirits leading and its relationship with the law. Because the bible in verse 18, “If he be led of the spirit, ye are not under the law.”
Part of understanding that is in 1st Timothy 1. This isn’t my notes, this is popped into my head. In 1st Timothy 1, it says, “The law was not made for a righteous man but for the lawless and disobedient, for unholy and profane for ungodly and for sinners, for murderers of fathers, for murderers of mothers, for whore mongers, for liars, for them to defile themselves with mankind, perjured persons.” He says, that’s who the law is for. A righteous person doesn’t need the law. Meaning that if you're doing right anyway, but right in who’s eyes? God’s eyes according to his rules.
Let’s get the context. Jump up to verse 13. Are you in Galatians 5 there? Galatians 5:13”For brethren you’ve been called unto liberty.” Amen. “Only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh but by love serve one another.” Should we use liberty to be just an opportunity to gratify our flesh with that which sinful? Jump down to verse 16. It said this, “This I say then walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.”
Remember the verse that says if led of the spirit you're not under the law, okay. If you don't want to be under the law, you need to walk in the spirit and part of that includes not fulfilling the lust of flesh. Let's look at what the lust of the flesh are.
Because it says in verse 17, “For the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other so that you cannot do the things that you would. If you be led of the spirit, you're not under the law.” Now the works of the flesh are manifest. Which of these adultery, fornication, uncleanness lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envies, murderers, drunkenness, reveling and such like, meaning anything like those things.
Of which I tell you before as I have told you in time past that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom. Of course the Bible also says, “All liars shall not inherit the kingdom of God. All liars share their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone. Of course all sin is punishable by hell but thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift. If we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved even if we've done all the things on the list.
Because of fact that the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanses us from all sin. What I point out here in that list is that if were doing anything on that list, we’re not walking in the spirit. That’s what the bible says. These are all works of the flesh, these aren’t works of the spirit. To sit there and say, “Well I'm free in Christ,” you're legalist stop trying to bring into bondage because somebody tells you not to do one of the things on that list or such like. You see how the devil is so crafty? It sounds good on the surface. You know what? If you just wake up every morning and this is what's being taught today.
Just wake up every morning, have a relationship with Jesus and just go through the day, don't worry so much about rules and do's and don'ts, don't let people tell you how to live your life. Just go with what you feel, just follow your heart because you're in the spirit bro and you can just make choices and God’s going to … Hold on, how do we know if were in the spirit when these things do not characterize our life? Am I a legalist when I say that said not commit adultery? Am I a legalist when I command that God said not to commit fornication or when I preach against drinking and I preach against … Look what's on the list, what's not on the list? There's a lot on this list.
We see adultery on the list and yet people get angry about my sermon last week because when I preach about divorce and remarriage and adultery and everything like that, people get upset. Wait a minute, you're not walking in the spirit when you are filling the lust of the flesh and the works of the flesh are listed here specifically. Adultery's one of them. By the way if you look on a woman to lust after her, you’ve committed adultery with her already in your heart, so you're committing adultery in your mind in that case. Fornication is any type of going to bed with someone that you're not married to me. When you're single, you need to stay pure and stay virgin until you get married.
Legalism, we’re free in Christ bro. No. Fornication is a work of the flesh. If you're walking in the flesh, you need these laws to tell you how to get out of flash and how to start walking in the spirit. The Bible says no to adultery, not fornication, no to uncleanness, no to lasciviousness, no to idolatry. You’ve got little statue, the Bible says that you not make any graven image. You’ve got a statue of Jesus, you’ve got a statue of Mary, statues of the saints and you say I'm being led by the spirit? No. The Bible says no to idolatry. By the way the Bible also says covertness is idolatry. When you desire cars and houses and wealth that you do not have, you're guilty of covertness. That is fleshly sinful mindset.
That is not the mind of the spirit when you are desirous of gaining more wealth. The Bible says, “They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and predation for the love of money is the root of all evil and if the love of money is in your heart today, that is the work of the flesh and you are not walking in the spirit.” Legalism, legalism that's what they’ll say and they promise you liberty.
The devil will promise you liberty and say, “You need to get out of that fundamental Baptist church. Pastor Anderson screaming and yelling about how he doesn't want you to get rich and he doesn't want to get drank and he doesn't want to commit adultery and he doesn't want to fornicate and he's preaching against all this stuff.
You need to get free bro, you need to get in one of these churches that’s a more loving place, that’s going to give you liberty to just live your life just at the spirit leads and just dress how you want and act how you want and you're going to have total freedom over there. The Bible says this 2nd Peter 2:19 if you remember, “While they promised them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption. For whom a man is overcome of the same as he brought in bondage.”
The Bible says the people who teach that, the false teachers who teach that permissiveness that permissive doctrine like [Baling 00:23:18] taught. Where Baling said, “It’s okay to commit fornication.” Where Baling taught it’s okay to eat things sacrificed unto idols. That permissive kind of teaching is taught by people who are in bondage themselves and they are the slaves of corruption, they are the servants of Satan and they are usually suffering from all kinds of addictions and sins and bondage in their own life. They don’t live a life of true freedom. It looks like freedom to those who are fooled by the devil but it's not real freedom. Keep reading.
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance against such there is no law. They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the spirit let us also walk in the spirit. Let us not be desirous of vainglory provoking one another, envying one another. What's the Bible teaching? If we are walking in the spirit, we've crucified the flesh. We are not fulfilling the lusts thereof. It says in verse 24, “We've crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.”
When you're constantly turning on the TV and going to the movies to see the latest skin flick and looking at all that flesh and lasciviousness and fornication on the screen, when you're looking at all that and you have that lust of the eyes that leads you that, and that lust of the flesh that makes you desirous of that, that is not biblical liberty, that’s not Christian liberty, that’s you just falling into Satan's trap and becoming a servant of corruption. The devil wants you to think that all that stuff is okay and that any preacher who warns you about that stuff is just trying to put you in bondage.
As if I were trying to put my children in bondage when I say, “Okay, see the sidewalk, that’s the boundary of playtime. Play in the yard, don't play in the street.” Why do we say that? Because there are cars, there are speed bumps on another street right next ours. Sometimes people that are in a really big hurry, they go around the speed bump by going on our street and just fly down our street to avoid those speed bumps. If a little kid’s playing out there, they might run into the street and get hit. Or all the time there are perverts who will drive sometimes and they might just abduct a kid off the sidewalk.
We teach our kids, don't play, little kids don’t play right on the street or near the street or especially no play in the street. It's not that we are trying to be restrictive, you need to give your kids total freedom. Do you think any parent really give their kid total freedom? Any parent who did give their kid total just unfettered freedom, would probably have their kid taken away from them or something. If the kid didn't just die before that from just neglect or getting lost or getting stolen or running in front of a car or whatever.
Flip over if you would to John chapter 8 and we’ll see this teaching reinforced by scripture. John chapter 8. Now I'm going to get into at the end of the message a little bit about what true freedom is. Right now I'm just presenting the devil's false freedom. Later I'm going to show you some true biblical freedom. So far what have we learned about the devil’s mode of attack? It was the same in the Garden of Eden as it is now. It’s the promise of false liberty. It’s to make God's way sound restrictive, it’s to make God's rules sound like they're holding us back from a good time, holding us back from everything we could gain and accomplish and realize our full potential.
What does Richard Dawkins mean when he says, “If you're Christian you can't live life to the full?” Do you have to commit adultery to live life to the full? Is that fullness of life? Is fornication the best thing that life has to offer? How many 90-year olds today would probably say, “You know what? Out of all my life, all my accomplishments, I look back, the thing I'm the most proud of is all fornication I did in my 20s. That's what I'm really glad about, that’s that where I really think was the high point of my life, when I was is having a lot of fornication in my 20s, it was great, it was awesome. I'm just still living on that that, that excitement today at age 90.”
Is that really and if somebody did say that, you would say were worthless human being. Wouldn’t think this? Are you an animal? Basically what I'm saying is that life has more to offer than adultery, fornication, stealing, watching movies. I mean is that really all life is to you? It’s all about wealth, it’s all about making money. Look at the people that have the most money. I was talking to a PhD in philosophy this week that I sat down to have lunch with. I'm just kidding but he's a friend of mine the teachers at the community college and he brings me in to speak to the young people every semester at the community college believe it or not.
I was speaking to this philosophy PhD and he told me since maybe you don’t believe the Bible but maybe you'll listen to this, respect authority. He told me, He said that when people are in abject poverty as in then they don't even have enough food to eat, right? It’s just a struggle to just get enough food to eat each day, that their life is pretty miserable. Pretty easy to agree with that probably.
When you don't have enough food even you're in abject poverty, that's not a very happy situation. He said once you get food to eat, on the happiness index, once you have enough food and you’ve got clothing, your happiness experiences a pretty big jump. He said after that, no matter how much money you get, your happiness doesn't just keep going up on that same trajectory.
It’s not like well if I'm in abject poverty I'm miserable and I get a little more money, I'm happier or happier and then I mean once you make it a million dollars you're just so happy every day, it’s great. Because in reality, the Bible just teaches having food and [inaudible 00:29:44] let us be there with content. The bible teaches if we do get to that point where we have food, we have clothes, that should be enough for us. Honestly what are you going to do with all that money if really had millions? Because there comes a point where I mean you can only put so much food down your throat.
If you think about it. That’s these rich people, they drink stuff and spit it out. They go to these wine tasting because you can only put so much food in your stomach before it is ready to explode. Because I mean what are the things you give us pleasure in life? One of them is eating and drinking, right? Who gets a lot of pleasure out of eating and drinking good food? It’s all about enjoyment in life. Different people have different things that provide enjoyment in their life.
Obviously the relationship physically that I have with my wife is something that’s enjoyable. The food and drink and I eat is enjoyed. Going to sleep at night can be enjoyable, right? When you're tired and you're exhausted and you lay on bad, it’s just, this is the best place in the world right now, just to be lying in bed. It’s the greatest feeling I've ever experienced to be lying in bed right now, going to sleep finally. That can provide great pleasure.
A lot of people find pleasure in accomplishments, they find pleasure in relationship with her friends or maybe they find pleasure in exercise or sports, right? Look there's only so much of those things that you can do. No matter how much money you get, you can probably only cram three big meals down your throat each day. You can probably have so much energy to go out and do the things that you want to do. You're only going to be able to maintain so many friendships and there's only so … I mean look Solomon had a 100 wives, I don’t even see how he could get to them all. It doesn’t even make any sense to have 100 wives. It just makes no sense.
What I'm trying to say is that a lot of this illusion of how great it is to be rich and how great it is to be a superstar is just part of the devil deception to get you to walk in the [inaudible 00:31:55]. Because a lot of those people are the ones that are committing suicide. They're the ones that are miserable, they're the ones who can't sleep at night. I enjoy sleeping at night. Here’s the thing Michael Jackson, he had to be put under like you know you go under for surgery? He was put on her like that every night to go to bed at night. He was literally anaesthetize to sleep at night. That’s how happy he was. That how comfortably, that’s how good of a life he was living.
What I'm trying to say is that living life to the full does not mean getting rich. Because if you look at a lot of rich people, they're miserable, they're cantankerous, they're angry, they're greedy, they're covertness, they want more whatever, they're shoplifting and they are literally millionaires, what was that? Winona Ryder, right? Or whatever all these famous people to do that. It's not getting rich that brings fullness to your life folks. It’s not adultery, it’s not fornication, drinking is the meaning of life. None of these things on the list that we saw in Galatians 5 …
I don’t understand what is it that Richard Dawkins wants to do so bad that Christianity is holding him back from? It’s probably being a pedophile to be honest. I mean seriously, it’s probably just, he probably wants to be a homosexual, he probably wants to just do everything that God said is abomination. Why in the world would anyone fall for the devil lies? Because they're blinded by the god of this world. Look at John chapter 8 verse 31 it says, “Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him. If you continue in my word then are you my disciples indeed and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”
Now let me just point out to you quickly that there's a difference between just being saved and being a disciple. What do have you to do to be saved? Just believe. These people had done that. They believed, they're saved. To be a disciple he said you’ve to deny yourself and you’ve got to take up your cross daily and you’ve got to follow him, okay? It’s a lot of work being a disciple. I mean there were thousands of people who got saved under Jesus ministry, but how many disciples? 12, 70, 120, there weren’t really that many compared to how many people got saved.
He says, “If you want to be a disciple indeed, you need to continue in God's word. If you continue in God's word, you'll know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” Notice it’s the lie and the deception that enslaves and it's the truth that makes free. The devil deceives, he promises you liberty but it's a fraud, he is actually putting you into service. Look at verse 33, “They answered him we be Abraham's seed and we are never in bondage to any man. How sayest that you shall be made free?” By the way no one is so hopelessly enslaved as those who think that they are free. These people thought they are free. They said, “We’ll never been in bondage.” Jesus explains what bond there in verse 34. Jesus answered them “Verily I say unto you whosoever committed sin is the servant of sin.” Do you see that?
“The servant abided not in the house forever but the son abided forever, if the son therefore shall make you free ye shall be free indeed.” According to the bible to be free indeed you believe on Christ, you continue in his word, you know the truth and you purge the sin out of your life. Because sin brings bondage, sin puts you in servitude. Go to Romans 6. Romans chapter 6. Romans chapter 6 is another one that sometimes people use that tries to teach a permissive Christianity, meaning a Christianity where anything goes, absolutely no rules, you can eat up all the fruits in the garden and you can eat of the one that God said not to as long as the spirit is leading you.
You can eat even that one. I mean that is basically what they are saying. Don’t even worry about what God said in the bible, just let the spirit lead and you will be fine. There are all kinds of people in this world who think they are doing right and they are not. There are all kinds of people in this world who think they are light of the spirit as they pray God’s word. As they do things that are on the list of the works of the flesh. Therefore it is a fraud.
Look at Romans 6 and Romans 6 is another verse that teaching, that movement will use. They will use verse 14 and say, “For sins do not have dominion over you for you are not under the law but under grace. They will say if you preach Gods’ commandments that we are trying to bring you back under the law. It is what they will try to say.
Look at what the bible says in verse 15, “What then?” “Shall we sin, because we are not under the law but under grace?” God forbid. What does the bible define sin as? Sin is the transgression of the law. When the bible says we are not under the law but under grace it is talking about our salvation. We are not saved by keeping the law. We are not under the curse of the law that we have to do all those things to work our way into heaven.
Because we are not under the curse of the law, because we are not under God’s law does that mean that we should sin? Does it break God’s rule, break God’s commandment? No. Look at what he says, “Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourself servants to obey, his servants you are to who you obey.” “Whether of sin under death or of obedience under righteousness but God thanked that you were the servants of sin but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which has delivered you.”
Being that made free from sin you become the servants of righteousness. In verse 16 he said it one way, but in verse 17 he said it another way. In verse 18 he said it another way, what did he say in all three verses? You are either serving one or the other. You are either serving God or you are serving sin. You are either serving the Lord or you are serving corruption. You are either serving God or you are serving the flesh. He says, “You are in bondage.” Why? It is because when you are serving God, it is because you chose to serve God. You are free. You freely chose that I’m going to serve God. When you serve sin that is not even a choice that you make. You are like I’m not going to serve anybody and then you end up getting enslaved against your will.
That is the difference between serving God and serving sin. One is a choice the other is forced on you. Look at what the bible says in verse 19, “I speak out for the matter of men because of the infirmity of your flesh.” “For as you have yielded your member’s servants to unclean this and to inequity unto inequity, even so now yield your member servants to righteousness under holiness. A fourth time he talks about you are serving one or the other.
For when you were the servants of sin you are free from righteousness. Look at verse 22, “But now be made free from sin and become servants to God you have your fruit unto holiness and have everlasting time.” Look six or seven times. I mean he goes back and forth saying, “Look you are going to be serving one or the other.”
You think, “Oh men, if I can get out from under God’s rules I’ll just be free.” “If I can just get out of church and quit hearing about His dos and don’ts I’ll be free.” “I’m just going to leave the bible on that shelf and just be free and just do what I want.” Here is what’s going to end up happening, when you start doing the things that God told you not to do, you will start going into bondage. You will start going into bondage. Let’s give some example, okay. Let’s say you decide, "I’m not going to obey God’s law on fornication. “That’s too restrictive, right? To restrictive, too strict. I mean be a virgin when I get married forget about it. You go and commit fornication. Can you see how that can lead you into bondage?
Like how about this, child support. I mean if money is being taken out of you check every week you are in bondage you are working for somebody else. Because you went out and something happened and you got some girl pregnant. Okay, what about this. You get a disease. That brings so much freedom to your life, right? When you are filled with disease. No, now that you are filled with disease your option in life gets more and more limited.
Now you have to spend a lot of money on that disease, it limits your activity and so what. If you think it is far-fetched that you are going to get a disease when you go out and commit fornication you think again because disease are bounds. STD is bounds out there and people are getting so promiscuous today that they are going from person to person.
It becomes exponential. You are with somebody who’s been with 10 people, who have been with 10 people, who has been with 100 people. You are exposing yourself to all kinds of diseases. It is epidemic today because of this open fornication. It doesn’t bring freedom plus here is the thing, I’m married to my wife, right? I feel a great freedom in that relationship, you know why?
Because I feel this, no matter what I do my wife is not going to leave me. I’m free to be myself. I’m free to act how I want to act and be the person I want to be. Because I know she is not just going to leave as soon as I do something she doesn’t like. You know what she has the same freedom to know that she can be herself she can act herself and not have to worry, “Is my husband going to stay with me?”
I better makes sure I look just right. I better make sure I act just right because you are not married. People are living together in fornication. I mean one of them can just walk out of the door tomorrow. True of false. If it is just you girlfriend of six years, your boyfriend of five years and you are living together, you know what you don’t have freedom to be you.
You don’t have freedom to live your life because you just constantly think of yourself, “Well, you know I hope she’s still going to be around, I hope he’ll still be around.” What happens when you really get sick? What happens when you really get injured? What happens when you are not so much fun to be around? See you. Because that commitment is not there and for some people even marriage is like that. They’ll just get out of that marriage.
For God’s people and my wife and I we both know that that commitment is a lifelong commitment and know that I’m never going to leave here and she’s never going to leave me and you know that is freedom. It is a liberty in our marriage. We have a liberty together where we can really open up to each other. We can really be ourselves we don’t have to just worry is this really life long? Is this really going to last? Doing it God’s way give it liberty, doing it man’s way is not the liberty way.
It looks like liberty, oh just free as a bird just fornicating all the way into next week until you get disease, until you get somebody pregnant. Until you are getting trouble with the law and all kinds of different things they can come from that. Gambling. Yeah, don’t tell that preacher tell you not to gamble. Freedom. Then you get gambling addiction which is really common.
Then you are in debt and you know what the bible says, “The borrower is servant to the lender.” What happens when you borrow a bunch of money for your gambling habits? That’s freedom, right? What happens when you borrow a bunch of money because you drank up all the money? What happens when you are addicted to alcohol and you are addicted to drugs? Is that really freedom?
Is it really freedom to just, “Let me off this airplane I haven’t had a cigarette in three hours?” You are shoving everybody. I used to travel all the time. I’d see people go berserk and start shoving people out of the way, “I got to get a cigarette.” Just breaking out. Because there is a delay and they can handle going a few hours and it has been like three and half hours and they are screaming.
That person is as free as a bird. Don’t let this restrictive any smoking. Honestly sin bring bondage, smoking brings bondage. You are chained to that habit. You are a chain smoker, you know what I mean. You are chained up. You are an alcoholic and it ruins your life. There is so many ways that you can become enslaved. Look that is just a few examples. Name the sin. We have covered adultery, fornication, drinking, drugs, gambling okay, name another? Stealing.
You are going to lose freedom when you get caught. Right and then you are going to be put in jail and then you are not free. See any sin, you name the sin it takes away your freedom. It causes you to become the servant of sin, the servant of Satan, the servant of corruption.
You are going to serve someone of something in this life. There is no such thing as absolute freedom in the universe if you think absolute freedom means no rules you are going to be bound by somebody’s rules someday. Here is the true freedom. Psalms 119:44. Flip over to Psalms 119. This is the longest chapter in the whole bible. If you let you bible fall open right in the middle it should fall open to Psalms.
Psalms is the longest book in the bible and Psalms 119 is the longest chapter in the bible and it is the one that has all the Hebrew letters in it. Separating out the little sections, it has all the Hebrew alphabets there. Psalms 119 look at Verse 44. While you are turning there, I’ll read to you 2 Corinthians 3:17. Now the Lord is that spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.
Look at Psalms 119:44, “So shall I keep thy law continually for ever and ever.” Men that sounds restrictive. I mean you are keeping God’s law forever? That doesn’t sound like freedom. Look at the next verse, “And I will walk in liberty for I seek thy precepts.” You say how in the world is walking at liberty compatible with following God’s law? Did you know that God’s law in the book of James is called the Law of Liberty? In James 1, he says, “He’s is looking into the perfect law of liberty and continue it therein.”
Let’s turn to one last place, Titus chapter 2 and I want to talk about another false liberty. I spent a lot of time on my first point so I’m not going to have much time on these subsequent points. We talked about the false liberty of the whole free and Christ movement. The whole just, “Hey walk in the spirit, don’t worry about God’s rule.” “Just let the spirit lead you.”
We kind of showed how that is a fraud. If we keep God’s commandments we are going to be happier. By the way Jesus didn’t say if you love me keep my suggestions. He said if you love me, keep my commandments. Not only that there is another false freedom that the devil is offering today and it is called Women’s Liberation. Now it even has liberty in the name. Liberation, Women’s Liberation and it tells you, the feminist movement tells you that women who are Christians are in bondage.
I mean doesn’t the word liberation mean somebody’s in bondage so we need to liberate them, we need to free them? According to Women’s Lib Philosophy women who follow the biblical pattern of life or Christians who believe in the bible’s roles of men and women that those women are somehow oppressed and in bondage and that we need to free them. I mean isn’t that what they are saying.
Yet are women today who have been liberated or feminist are they really more free than women who have not been liberated. Let’s examine the evidence. First of all let’s look at what the bible teaches. Let’s look at the oppressive or restrictive teachings of the bible. In verse 3, Titus chapter 2 verse 3. “The age and women likewise, that they be in behavior has becometh holiness not false accusers.” That is so restrictive why can they gossip and lie about people.
How can they live life to the full if they are not gossiping and lying about people? What are they going to do on Facebook if they can’t do that? It says, not given too much wine. Oh you got to be kidding me. You mean I can’t just become a complete drunk? What does it say next? Teachers of good things. That they may teach the young women to be sober. There’s a good start.
To love their husbands, to love their children. To be district, chased, keepers at home, good, oh, oh. Obedient to their own husbands that the word of God be not blasphemed. Now this is the bible’s motto of what a righteous woman looks like. What does the righteous woman look like or worry about? She is sober. She is not drinking, she is not on drugs, she is a sober serious minded, clear thinking, not under the influence of substances. She lives a chaste life, what does chaste mean, pure, and clean.
She’s discrete meaning that she doesn’t talk about things that she shouldn’t talk about. She is not blowing off her mouth being a false accuser. She does good things, she teaches good things. She loves her husband, she loves her children. She does housekeeping, keeper at home. She keeps the house, that’s her job. She’s good and she obeys her husband.
That is the picture of the oppressed chained and slaved woman according to the Women Liberation Philosophy. In order to liberate here what they have done is they’ve said, “Look, you don’t need to obey your husband.” They have said this by the way, “If your husband’s a jerk, you can divorce your husband.” You need to drop that zero and get you a hero. It is what the talk show will tell you. You can do better honey than that guy and if your husband is a jerk, divorce him. Obey him, are you serious. It is 50-50 which means 90% I’m in charge and the husband gets 10% but we will call it 50-50. Obey my husband, no. Love my children; I don’t even want to have children. You don’t even have to have children, just go to plan barren hood and get all dialed in and set up and don’t even have children.
They want to liberate you by telling you, “Look you don’t want to be beholden to that guy.” “You don’t want to a slave to your husband.” “You don’t want to just to be beholden where you have to stay with him and where you rely on him.” “You don’t want to be dependent on him you want to be independent. Isn’t that what freedom is independence? That’s why you need to get your own career. Get your own job do what you want then get into a 50-50 partnership type marriage if you want.
Or just live with some guy and if he doesn’t treat you right, you are out of there. Here is the flip side of that coin. If you think it is so liberating to be able to divorce your husband that’s a jerk that means your husband can divorce you when you are a jerk. See how that cuts both ways. You know what, everybody is a jerk sometimes.
Well, but that’s okay if he leaves that’s fine because I have got my job I have got my career. Today if we look at the picture of today’s liberated woman you know what we see a lot today of women who say, “Hey, I can sleep around outside marriage, I don’t need chastity.” “Chastity is too restrictive.” “Purity is too restrictive.” “I can fornicate and sleep around.” Then what happens? Child out of wedlock. Today we see many single mothers and not only just single mothers even married mothers but there in one of these weird 50-50 type relationships where the husband and wife, everything is 50-50.
The husband is not taking care of them, he’s not paying for everything see it cut both ways. If you take away the husbands authority you know what you also took away, the fact that he’s going to pay all the bills. Because let me explain something to you the one who pays the bills is the one who makes the rules.
You say, "I don’t want him to make all the rules, well now he’s not going to pay for everything." Now everything is 50-50. What we have today is women who are single mothers or just working wives, working mothers and you know what it reminds me of, the children of Israel and Egypt where they had to make bricks by day and gather straw by night.
We see women today that are much busier and working so hard because think about how hard it is going to be to go to work for eight hours a day then you got to take care of the children then you got to cook and clean care for everything else and you are going to work and they are trying to juggle so many things but that’s all part of liberation. You see when you are a married housewife of mother do you punch a time clock?
Who here has a husband that makes you punch a time clock? Okay, when you are working for your husband you don’t punch a time clock. You don’t have a ridged schedule. I better not ask these questions, because somebody is going to. I don’t have a set time that I make my wife get up every morning. There is no ridged schedule, she makes her own schedule. There is no time clock.
If you go out to the world and work ladies because you are liberated, your feminists you are going to get a job, you are going to get a career, yeah, we can do it. Hey you know what? You still have a boss at work. Guess what he is probably a man. Except he does hug you. He doesn’t kiss you and hug you, I hope not or it is harassment right?
Anyway you still got a boss, it is probably a man or it is a woman who’s acting like a man, right? What about this? Does your husband put you on CCTV to watch you and to make sure you doing what he told you? I have never used CCTV to monitor my wife. Yet if you go to work today and be liberated you’ll be on camera. You will be wearing a name tag. I don’t make my wife wear a name tag. I don’t wear a name tag that says like, “Hello, my name is Lord.” She wears a name tag that says, “Hello my name is whatever.” I’m not going to make her wear a name tag.
Okay, does she have to wear a hair net when she cooks my food? No, because I don’t mind pulling a long blonde hair out of my food every once in a while. Guess what when I go Chipotle and there is a long black hair in my burrito, yeah that does bother me. I’m not speaking against Chipotle because Chipotle is my favorite restaurant. I eat at Chipotle multiple times per week. By the way this message has been brought to you in part by Chipotle.
I’m not against Chipotle but one time I went to Chipotle in Washington DC and I was eating my burrito and I found this long black hair in my burrito and pulled and I was like, “Okay, I’m a tough guy I have got a strong stomach.” I was feeling a little queasy but I was like, “I can handle this.” I’m tough I’m not going to let something like that bother me.
Threw it in the trash took a few more bites found a second hair. I’m like I can’t take it anymore. Uncle, I can’t take it anymore I’m tough but I’m not that tough. The second black hair, I literally – I never like to waste food. I threw away the last part of my burrito because I couldn’t just handle that second black hair. When I hit two, three blonde hair level if it is my wife’s hair I’m okay with that because it is my wife.
That is why she doesn’t have to wear a hair net. See the freedom? Her hair can float freely all day. The wind blows through her hair and flows freely whereas in the world she would be in a hairnet. She would be wearing a name tag. She would have to wear a uniform and a dress code. I have a dress code for my wife, they have a dress code. What’s the difference?
Well, Albert she is getting paid. Well, at home everything is paid for. She has her mad money and her spending money. You think I have like rule books and big thick, 57 page employee manual for being my wife. She got to initial every page and then sign at the end and I’m constantly pulling out this 57 page rule book. Do I have rule for my wife? Not as many as she’d have if she were at a job.
There would be more rules. What I’m saying is you are going to obey somebody, you are going to have structure in your life there are going to be rules and I promise you that a Godly wife has way more freedom than a liberated working woman. I mean just basically have freedom with most of her day. Does she have work to get done? Yeah. Here is the thing people who run their own business, they work hard, right? This is what they say, “I like the freedom.”
Because they are like I work hard but I like the freedom of being able to set my own schedule. Being able to do things in the order that I want to do them. That is how it is being a wife and mother because I give my wife responsibilities and work to do but it is not like I micro manage it. Because guess what it wouldn’t even be possible for most husbands to even micro manage their wife because guess where they are all day for eight hours. How controlling can the guy be he is gone half the day? You are doing what you want just as long as you get things done get them done how you want to get them done. What I’m saying is the devil always has this illusion of freedom.
He has got this illusion of you going out with your career and you’re succeeding and you are making your own rules and you are going to be with every guy that you want to be with. You feel so liberated fornicating and you are so liberated just living with a guy. You are so liberated because when you are married it is 50-50 and I’m paying half the bills. I’m making half the decisions. You know what it is not all that it’s cracked up to be. It is a deception because you end up doing twice the work because you got to work the eight hours then you got to come home and cook and clean and do everything else.
Then you are making bricks by day and straw by night and call it freedom. You are busy and you are frazzled and you have got all kinds of people telling you what to do. You have got customers mad at you and telling you what to do. You say, “My husband he’ll never tell me what to do, he’d never tell me off.” Customers tell you off. Your boss tells you off. Somebody is going to tell you off might as well be your husband. I’m just kidding.
I got to close the ceremony for sake of time but that is another great example of a false freedom the devil offers. Women’s Lib. The rules of the darkness of this world who has socially engineered us to put women in the work force. The will interview people from the rough child, they have said it is just to increase the tax base. It is just to get more people paying taxes. Because when you are married and you are both working you pay way more taxes.
The government loves that. Not only that but it is to get the kids and the government in doctrination camp and get them trained there at certain unified school district. Basically when you go to the liberal fine church that doesn’t preach the commandments, the freedom do what you want free in Christ, light of the spirit. All they are doing is leading you right in to the lust of the flesh. That’s where they are really taking you, that’s the destination.
The destination is lust. When anybody tries to point out the lust and say, “Hey. We probably shouldn’t be watching this.” “We probably shouldn’t be talking about this.” You Legalese, you Pharisee and it is the devils plan just to get us into sin. Then the Women’s Lib is another example of just getting women to disobey the bible. The bible says obey your husband, the devil wants them to disobey that.
The bible says keep her home or whatever. He doesn’t care what you do with your life as long as you don’t do it God’s way. The whole point of the sermon of this the devil’s freedom is an illusion. The true freedom is walking in God’s will. What kinds of freedom do we have in God’s will? Well, God lets us live our lives how we choose within the parameters of God’s word.
There are all types of trees in our garden today that we can eat from. For example God does not tell us at what to eat each day. I mean I did not wake up this morning with a menu plan from God. I don’t have an app on my phone telling me this is what God told you to eat today. I mean who here pretty much chooses what to eat every day? Right, and did God tell you? No. Are there certain restrictions on that? Well, don’t eat poison. Don’t eat GMOs. Anyway God lets us choose the food we eat.
Does God tell us where to live? No. Look when you grow up you can live in Arizona or you can live in Alaska. God doesn’t tell you where to live. He doesn’t tell you what to eat. What about all the good clean recreational activities that you can do? Did God tell you which ones to do and which ones not to do? Well, did he say, “Well, you can ride your bike but can’t go swimming?” You can run but you can’t go Kayaking.
There is all these good, clean, fun activities for you to do. There is unlimited number of good, clean, fun activities. You can go camping, you can go hunting, you can go hiking, you can play sports, you can play a board game with your family. Look just because you can’t drink and party and take drugs there is more fun things that you can do. You can marry whomever you want as long as they are saved.
God didn’t force you to marry a certain person. You can marry whoever you want as long as you are both saved and as long as you both haven’t been married before if that person is still alive. Just like I preached last week. You can choose what church you want to go to. Did God command in the Bible you have to go to Faithful Word? If you don’t like me and you think I’m obnoxious or you think I’m not a nice guy, you know what you can go to another church.
You can even go to another church that preaches the King James Bible and where you like the pastor. I mean God gives us a lot of choices. Where do you want to live? Where do you want to go to church? What do you want to eat? What do you want to do for a job? Do you want to be a plumber? Do you want to be a carpenter? Do you want to be an electrician?
Do you want to do landscaping? Do you want to program computers? Do you want to work on cars? Do whatever you want. I mean does God command you to or not to do any of those things? Look there are a lot of choices in life. God gives us a lot of freedom in life. How we live our lives but he also gives us boundaries. Those boundaries are for our good and we need to keep those commandments and stay in those boundaries if we want to stay free.
When we step out those boundaries we are just trading one master for another. We are trading in the Lord for Satan. We are trading in the Lord for corruption. Understand what true liberty is. Let’s bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father we thank you so much for you word and we thank you for the freedom that we have in you Lord. Just like I know my wife will never leave me, I know that you are never going to leave me Lord. It provides freedom to know that you will never leave me nor forsake me. That I’m sealed unto the day of redemption. That I’m saved internally.
Thank you for that liberty in Christ that I’m not under that curse of the law that if I mess up I’m going to be damned. Thank you for redeeming us from the curse of the law. Lord help me to walk in liberty by following your word and living a clean Godly free life. Help us all to avoid the bondage of corruption in our lives and in Jesus name we pray, amen.
