0:07 Uh I'd like us to turn over some Proverbs chapter 14. Proverbs chapter 14. We'll read verse one. The wise woman builds her house. 0:26 But the foolish tears it down with her own hands. And uh I've been thinking about in the last few days, or last few weeks actually, what it would be like to destroy a church. In fact, um um 0:44 in a sense I I I my what I'd like what's on my heart that I'd like to share today is how you can destroy a church. Not that we would want to, but how there may be things in us that could that are a hindrance to the church 1:02 and could result in my contributing to a church being torn down. Now, by God's grace, if if the Holy Spirit is there and if there are godly men and women who are interceding for the sake of the church and are binding the work of Satan, especially if the 1:19 leaders as elders are interceding and standing against Satan and his influence, a church can never be torn down, no matter how much people within it might try to. But I believe that there have been many churches that the devil has been able to successfully 1:38 tear down by people within the church itself. It says that the foolish woman tears down her own house. It's not somebody else's house, but the foolish person and the it's not just speaking to women here. The women uh 1:57 the the church is often described or pictured as a woman, the bride of Christ. And here you think about a wise woman who builds up her house. A wise church is one that's built up in the way that the Holy Spirit wants to build up the church. 2:14 And a foolish church is one that allows such a church to be torn down and contributes to tearing down its own house. A foolish woman tears down her own house. And um in uh in one paraphrase 2:32 uh the way I understand it the the literal meaning here may be little by little. When it says with her own hands uh one paraphrase says brick brick by brick. One brick at a time. See, this isn't the destruction of the 2:50 church that happens immediately like an explosion. This is a little by little, little by little, gradually taking one brick out, one brick out. And the reason that's more dangerous is that often you could be sitting in a house 3:06 and one you're taking out a brick from your own house, not realizing that eventually there will be one last brick that will cause the whole thing to collapse. It happens over a gradual period of time, a slow process. The foolish woman tears down her own 3:24 house. But the word that stood out to me here as I was meditating on this verse recently was the word foolish. It doesn't say a wicked woman. I could understand if somebody said a wicked woman tears down her house. It's wickedness. 3:41 But foolishness. We might not take foolishness that seriously because you think, well, it's not it's not obvious sin. It's not clear wickedness. It's just foolishness. You know, they have a saying in the world, he's acting the fool. 3:59 You won't send somebody to prison for acting the fool. You won't get convicted of a crime for playing the fool. Sometimes teachers will tell their students, don't play the fool. Or parents might tell their children. But that's not considered a crime. 4:17 It's just you're being foolish. And yet it says here that it's foolishness that destroys the house. And I believe that it's foolishness that destroys the church. That's really the message that I get out of this verse. If I wanted to destroy RLCF, it probably 4:37 won't be through wickedness. I think wickedness, if it came into the church, we would see it very quickly. And we would stand against it. Many churches stand against wickedness, but not many stand against foolishness. And it's no wonder that churches fall 4:53 apart so easily. So, foolishness destroys the the church. Um And uh the reason this is dangerous is because let me show you this verse in Matthew chapter 10. The foolishness that I'd like us to think about 5:13 today is the foolishness of soulishness. I believe that soulishness is perhaps that foolishness that the uh proverb is talking about that you might not think of as that dangerous. It's not carnality. It's not fleshiness. 5:32 It's not gross sin. It's just soulishness. And like foolishness, soulishness can very easily and does very easily destroy churches. Jesus said here in Matthew chapter 10 verse 39, 5:51 "He who has found his soul." That's the literal word there. If you have an NASB, you can probably see it in your margin. "He who has found his soul will lose it. And he who has lost his soul for my sake will find it." And I I think it's 6:10 interesting. I'm not trying to be a nitpicky about words. But I've as I've been thinking about it, I've come to see that at the root of what I want to preserve, more than even my physical life, is my soul. I see this because there's a lot of 6:27 people that would be willing to give up even their lives physically. Soldiers in the military, they'd gladly go into battle. But that's not the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. In fact, even suicide bombers, you can say they they don't like they don't they 6:46 their body, their love for their body is secondary to something else. And that something else is the soul. It's that thing that's most precious to me, my reputation, that my identity, my inner identity. And that's what Jesus 7:02 was talking about, more than my physical life. Because like I just said, there are many examples in the world of people who give up their physical life, but they won't give up their soul. In fact, the reason they're giving up their physical life 7:16 is in order to preserve their reputation. And they may not even want to die, but they know that there's some honor there in going into battle. There's some courage, there's some maybe machoism even that's driving them into the 7:31 battlefield. And that's not the courage of Jesus Christ. And Jesus said, "You must be willing to give up your soul, that which you're seeking to preserve more than anything else. Um And the one of the first areas of foolishness, I don't want to talk too 7:48 much on this because I think it's very obvious, is one of the ways in which we can destroy the church is love for the world. In Luke chapter 12, Jesus said this parable. Luke chapter 12. You know this parable of the man who had 8:04 a lot. And then he got even more blessing. A rich man. It says in verse 16, Luke 12:16, the land of a rich man was very productive and he began reasoning to himself and said, "How can I make it even more productive?" I don't I don't need to go over the 8:22 whole story, but at the end of it God says to him, "You fool. You're a fool." This very night your soul is required of you, and now who will own what you have prepared?" And this is a foolishness. This is a a self-seeking 8:42 that can easily destroy the church, and that is that I'm more careful to prepare for my earthly future than for eternity. That's essentially what was wrong with this rich man. It God wasn't against his riches. God is not against rich people. 9:00 It is very difficult to enter the kingdom of God as a rich person. But what God was angry at with this rich man was that he was so careful to plan so carefully for his earthly future, he didn't plan ahead for eternity. And I'm convicted of that. 9:18 Think about it, dear brothers and sisters, how much care do you pay to eternity, to the things of eternal value compared to how carefully you plan for this earth. Think about how carefully we plan our finances and plan for our children's 9:35 education and plan for their health. If they're sick, we'll think about what other medicine we can give them and some other doctor we can take them to or so many things we plan carefully for ourselves and for our children, for our families, 9:50 for our earthly benefit. Now, I want to make sure that we're we must make sure that we are even more careful in preparing for eternity. I don't want to say more on that. We've heard quite a bit on that already. Uh but I'll just read one more verse. 10:06 Mark chapter 8. Verse 36. Actually, this is the same verse we read earlier in Matthew 10. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul? What will it be a What profit will it be? 10:25 And this man was a fool because he paid more attention carefully planning his earthly life than preparing for eternity. But there's a few other areas of soulfulness, areas of soulfulness that the Lord's been showing me and uh 10:40 warning me to be careful of that I felt a burden to share today um with you all. You've heard me talk about it before and that's the danger of club mentality in the church that will very easily destroy a church. If you brought sexual sin into the 10:57 church, I think we would all see that. Most churches can see that sexual sin will destroy a church. Um money, unrighteousness in money. That will destroy a church. I think we can probably see all of those things. But do we realize that a club mentality, 11:15 and uh a desire to have a to be satisfied with a club relationship, and by that I mean that my relationship with my brothers and sisters in Christ is just that, which is soulish. It's that we're nice to each other, we take care of each other, we're 11:30 hospitable, we bless each other, we give each other rides, we invite each other into each other's homes, we sit and talk for hours on a Sunday afternoon, and it's so easy for our church it would be so easy for our church relationship to degenerate 11:48 to brick by brick collapse and uh backslide into being that of a club. This is very it's very very easy, especially because we seek to love each other. And we call ourselves a local expression of the body of Christ, and we 12:05 want to love each other more. We want to lay down our lives. We want to be sacrificial. We want to care for each other sincerely. But that care must come out of a spiritual relationship. I remember being challenged by the 12:20 example of um Simeon in Luke chapter 2. And this is my prayer for us, especially for us at RLCF, this is my prayer. That this prophecy that Simeon made about Jesus 12:39 will be true about us. If somebody was to ask you, "What's your church's vision?" There are probably many things we could say, but recently I've been challenged by this. The prophecy that was made about the first body of Christ must be 12:52 true about us as well. Luke chapter 2, uh you know, there was it says in verse 25 there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout and was looking for the Messiah. He was looking for the 13:07 body of Christ, you can say. Like many of us, I know many of us have made many sacrifices for the body of Christ. Many like me have left um traveled across many distance to move here because we sensed the Lord was calling 13:21 us. Many of you in other places as well have a longing and have made sacrifices yourself for it. Think about Simeon, he was very old and he for years have been saying, "Lord, will you let me see your body before I die? Will will you let me see 13:36 the true Jesus before I die?" And after he sees Jesus and he gets a revelation that this is the body of Christ and there he is holding baby Jesus in his hands. And think of it like that for us, dear church family, if you're a part of a 13:51 local church, think about think about the local church that God has placed us in. And then he says in verse 29, "Now, Lord, you are releasing your bondservant to depart in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared in the presence 14:08 of all the people and here's the prophecy, a light of revelation to the Gentiles, a light of revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel. A light of revelation. This phrase has come alive to me. That not that just we will have good 14:27 sermons and we hear of so many people writing to us and even many of you joining our our our meetings regularly. It's not just that we can listen to another message or get some more idea or even understand the new covenant a 14:42 little bit better. That's perhaps our greatest danger for most of us on this on this call that we could understand a little bit more of the of the fine aspects of the new covenant. Because there are many people who are pursuing theology or 14:58 pursuing anything in the world for that matter, whether it's mathematics or physics or computer science, the finer aspects of of study in that area. And we could do the same thing even with the teachings we receive. Oh, I got some 15:14 finer aspect. Here's an interpretation of a verse I've never heard before. And yet this this is the one desire I have more recently and that is that the church would be a light of revelation. That the result of the church 15:32 proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ would be this, that the eyes of people's hearts are open. That they get revelation of Jesus, not just some intellectual understanding. And I've come to realize that the mark of real revelation of Jesus Christ is 15:47 that I become more like him and more set free from sin. Because I know there was a period of time in my life when I listened to a lot of messages, but it wasn't working in my life. I was still defeated. I was still proud. 16:01 I was still uh yeah, just defeated. And the difference between intellectual knowledge of even the new covenant and a light of revelation coming in our heart is simply this, that I become like Jesus. I mean increasingly set free from sin because I 16:19 see Jesus. I see his holiness. I see his purity and I want to be like him. Cuz I see his holiness as something precious, as something pure. And I allow him to change me into that. There's a deeper hatred for sin. So if and we you know, sadly we often 16:35 get people writing to us and I'm I'm not here to condemn anybody. I I I'm glad nobody condemned me when I was defeated. But just to encourage you dear brothers and sisters, if you're still defeated in some way or even children, there's a 16:48 hypocrisy that you're ashamed to admit to somebody, pray that you will have revelation of Jesus. And pray church, when you pray for us, for each other, when you pray for RLCF, pray that this will be true, that we will be a light of revelation. 17:04 That whether people are sitting inside the building where we meet or listening to us online, something will penetrate through what they hear into their hearts. We can't do that by human means. God alone can do that and cause our church to be a light of 17:21 revelation. It was true of Jesus. And this it must be true about his body as well. And then it also says another prophecy that um the last part of verse 35 that the thoughts from many hearts would be revealed. This the last part of verse 17:39 35. And this is also my prayer. Lord, let RLCF be a light of revelation. And let it be so that the thoughts of hearts are revealed. Because many people will come into our midst perhaps drawn by the teaching or 17:57 drawn by the friendliness in the church, drawn by the hospitality, drawn by how welcoming we are and or even watching us from a distance and wanting to to be a part of this. But if the church is really a local expression of the body of Christ. See, 18:16 it's so easy I find to just say that, oh, local expression of the body of Christ. But I I I say that more carefully nowadays. If we really are a local expression of the body of Christ, then it means that the prophecies that were true of Jesus 18:31 when he was here, the real body of Christ, must be true in our lives as well in an increasing measure. So it must be true about us as well that as people come into our midst and interact with us, the thoughts from many hearts will be revealed. 18:48 That we'll become a people who are discerning. That when a visitor comes in and and talks and even has the right language and says, oh, I've been watching you guys online, you're able to discern the spirit in that person. 19:01 This is the true church. It's not just the language. Most people will just discern by what they hear and say, oh, here's another seemingly nice brother. He's got the right language and he traveled all this distance to come and 19:14 visit us. Or another sister, but to discern the thoughts that God reveals the thoughts of of people's hearts. I believe he's been doing that. Church family, especially for us locally. Um and I think all of three of us elders 19:31 can testify to that. That little by little as as God is increasing the sphere of our influence. And I I don't say that proudly. I say that soberly. I I I I tremble somewhat when I think about how we're becoming more well-known 19:45 and and more people come and want to visit us or pass by and and say, "Oh, we don't even know they existed and here they are. They've been watching us every Sunday." I And I'm careful. And I I I stand before God who who's alive 20:00 like Elijah did. I say, "Lord, I pray that this will be true about us. That we won't be led astray by foolishness. That this church will not be destroyed by foolishness. Not outward sin. I think if somebody was to come into our midst 20:15 proclaiming a sinful, licentious gospel, they won't last long. They would be exposed immediately. But it's it's not the wickedness that would deceive us. It's the foolishness. It's that thing that you think, "Ah, it's it's not that big a deal." 20:32 The the testimony of the church must be like that of a bride, that we're only interested in pleasing Jesus and being ready for him. You know, I I recently listened to a message by my dad. Uh I think it was spoken to a little 20:46 fellowship in Germany. I encourage you to maybe I'll share the link with you all. Which he spoke about the this The title of that message is, "Has Jesus committed himself to you?" That phrase has been ringing in my mind 20:58 a lot recently. You know, we we talk a lot in the church about commitment. Are you committed to this church? That's something we look for. There are a lot of people who like to come to the church and uh want to just have a loose affiliation 21:13 with the church, attend on a Sunday, and come whenever they want. And if you ask them why they're not at a meeting, they're offended because they really don't want to be committed. But you know, there's an even deeper level than that. And maybe we all think, 21:26 "Yeah, I'm a committed member. I'm there at all the meetings. I'm a part of the the heartbeat of the church. I'm united with the vision of the church. I'm submitted to the elders in the church. I'm seeking to grow in unity with the 21:37 brothers and sisters." But the more the deeper question that my dad mentions in this message is, "Has Jesus committed himself to you?" There's a verse in John chapter 2. John chapter 2, I pray that we will be a 21:56 church of people to whom Jesus is committed. We might say we're committed to Jesus. RLCF is committed to Jesus. I believe we are. But I hope it's also true that Jesus is committed to RLCF. If we are his bride and we say that we as bride are 22:11 committed to him, and and according to the best of our knowledge, we're committed to him, it's also important that we search our hearts and we search our practices according to God's word, that we test the spirit in our midst 22:27 so that we're sure that Jesus is also committed to us. Because here we read about a group of people, John chapter 2, verse 23. When he was in Jerusalem at the Passover during the feast, many believed in his name observing his signs which he was doing. 22:46 Many believed in his name observing the signs which he was doing. But what about Jesus? You know what Jesus did when many people came and said, "Jesus, I'm I'm committed to you. I believe in you. I'm a believer." Jesus said Jesus It says Jesus on his 23:04 part was not committed to them." You think it's possible that there are believers today, believers? He's not talking about unbelievers. Believers today who fit the condition of verse 23, but also fit what's said about them in verse 24, that Jesus said, "I 23:23 know you say you're committed to me, but I'm sorry. I see something in you in your heart, and I can't be committed to that." Jesus can never be committed to a spirit of pride. Jesus can never be committed to a spirit that takes his word lightly, 23:39 that scoffs at small commands because we think that it's not that big of a deal. Jesus can never be committed to a church that's not righteous in money matters. Jesus can never be committed to a church that doesn't deal with 23:54 that doesn't take sexual sin radically seriously, and even carefulness in our interactions between brothers and sisters. That's why we often talk about even teaching our children to treat their brothers and sisters in the 24:10 church of the opposite gender respectfully and carefully, because the spirit of sexual immorality, a sensual spirit, is around us in the world. You'll see it. You know it's there. Even in the G-rated movies, the Disney movies, you know it's there if you've 24:25 seen them. That sensual spirit wants to come into the church, and it'll destroy it. Jesus himself, on his own part, was not entrusting himself to them, for he knew all men, and because he did not need anyone to testify concerning men, for he himself 24:42 knew what was in man. This is why Jesus could not commit himself to these believers, because he knew what was in them. He knew that they said they were believers. He knew that they liked to come and hang out with him. And he knew 24:57 that they liked the wonderful signs that he did. Jesus was a fun person to be around. But he knew what was in their hearts. He knew what was in man. And I've been praying recently. I said, "Lord, what is in me? What is in my marriage? 25:14 What is in my home? What is in RLCF? Not who is in RLCF, but what is there? As in, what spirit is there in us? It doesn't matter as much how many members we have in the church or how many chairs are filled or not filled. 25:29 What matters is what is the spirit? What is in me? What is in this church? The spirit that's there. And that's what determines whether Jesus can commit himself to this church. You know, we talk to you often about the church. Maybe you've heard us say that, 25:46 but a church is like a home. That means commitment to the church means that there is a sense of responsibility. And um it's a good time for us, local church, and if you're a member of a local church somewhere else and you're joining us 26:00 today, examine your heart. If it's a Bible-believing New Covenant church and you're committed there, do you have a sense of responsibility? You know, the home is different from a restaurant. You can go to a restaurant and be respectful to the waiting staff, 26:16 and they'll serve you, and you can pay your money there, and and leave. And the next week, you don't have to go back and eat at the same restaurant. Nobody would be offended. But in a home, if you eat a meal and the next day you 26:29 don't show up, somebody might ask you, "Where were you? We missed you at dinner." And that must be the spirit in the church. It shouldn't It shouldn't be that us elders should come and ask you, "Where were you?" or "What's going on in 26:40 your life?" But that there is a sense of responsibility that you want to be I'm not talking about attendance. As you know, we don't take roll call here. This not a school. It's for your own good, dear brothers and sisters that we say, "Have a sense 26:54 of commitment. Take up a sense of responsibility." At the home you stay late and do the dishes. You don't have to do that in a restaurant. At the home you have to wipe the table. You have to take turns fulfilling different responsibilities. 27:07 And if you're assigned a menial task, there's no complaining. At least there shouldn't be. We work with our children on not complaining. We try to distribute the tasks evenly and according to their ability. But we do what we're told to do. And 27:23 we're we we do what when there's a need, we fulfill that. We're not seeking a reputation. We're also The church is also like a body. And we heard this recently, I think a couple weeks ago on a Sunday, that every member of the body has a 27:38 function. Every member of the body has a function. And if you consider yourself a member of RLCF, that means you have a function. It may not It doesn't always have to be a visible function. We heard about that, too. But there is a function, a 27:53 spiritual function. I'm not talking about, you know, "Oh, I I can rearrange the chairs or I help set up the the table for lunch on on Sunday afternoon or or this or that." I'm not talking about those things. I'm talking about a spiritual function. 28:08 It could be as something as simple as I earnestly intercede for this church in prayer. And nobody needs to know about it, but you take up that responsibility. And maybe we'll find out only when Jesus comes how this church was 28:24 preserved from the spirit of foolishness by those who were interceding in prayer. And yet all they did was sit in in the meetings. All they did was sit in that chair. They hardly opened their mouth because it wasn't their gift. They 28:36 didn't preach. They didn't teach. They couldn't even sing well necessarily, but they prayed and they preserved this church through prayer. Every member of RLCF has a function. If you're born again, you're baptized and you're then you're 28:52 member of this local church, you have a function. I have a function and we must know what that is and we must be fulfilling that. That shows that I'm a a member of this really a member of this local church. You know, um 29:08 we're often asked about why why local church, you know, there a lot of people scoff at the the biblical teaching on the local church. They think, well, it's just one church, one big church, the body of Christ. Yes, it's true. There is only one bride of 29:23 Christ. We're not all separate brides of Christ. It's one body that God is making into one new man united with the head. But you see it throughout scripture. I'm not going to make this a Bible study about the local church. You can read 29:38 about it. And I have written a book called One Body in Christ. I even talk about it a little bit in that book, the congregation, the column of the church. But God has called us. You see that over and over again. You read that 29:49 in the book of Acts that as these apostles traveled to different towns that weren't that far apart, closer even than say Denver to Loveland, some of those cities, they planted churches in every place. And the reason for that is because they didn't have 30:04 cars that could travel so quickly between these distances. And so if you were in Loveland and Apostle Paul and Titus came through or Titus was coming through, Paul would have told Titus, "Hey, when you get to Loveland, appoint 30:16 elders there and establish a church there. And after that, listen, I heard there's a contact over in Denver. Travel over there and plant another church there and establish elders in that place." Because they they can't travel easily 30:29 between those two places. So you see that over and over again. You know that in the book of Revelation, there's seven churches. And those seven churches, Yeah, turn there really quickly, actually. Revelation chapter 1. Revelation 1 before Jesus 30:54 speaks to these seven churches, he gives John a picture of these churches. And each of these churches, these are local churches, and sometime you can look it up if you have a biblical map and you see that they were about 30 to 50 miles apart 31:09 each of them. A 30 30 miles, you know what 30 miles is? It's like It's like here to maybe Broomfield or Westminster, something like that. That's 30 miles. And the These were seven different churches. Again, like I said, they 31:22 couldn't they didn't have automobiles to travel. And so they couldn't all come to the same place, but they met in different places as distinct local churches. And God had a message to each of those local churches, to the messenger in each of 31:37 those local churches. And those churches a church like Philadelphia, 30 miles apart from another church like say Sardis, was so radically different in spirituality. Laodicea was right in that same area, and God could say nothing good about it. 31:53 But a few dozen miles away was a church like Philadelphia where he had only good to say about. Here you see those local expressions of the body of Christ different in their spiritual level. But this verse I wanted you to see in John 1 I'm sorry, 32:08 Revelation 1 verse 20. As for the mystery of the seven stars which you saw in my right hand, the seven stars are the seven messengers in each of those churches. One in each church. Uh and the seven seven stars which you saw in my right 32:24 hand, and the seven golden lampstands. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. Not one lampstand. There's not one lampstand. It's seven lampstands that Jesus is holding saying, 32:43 "Each of you, local church, must have a personal relationship with me." And boiling it down even further, each individual member in that local church must have a relationship with me. And you see that that in some churches he 32:55 could say, "You messenger, you're you're I'm ready to take away my lampstand from you. But there's a few in your midst, like in Sardis, who have not soiled their garments. So I have a personal relationship with them." You see that in a couple of other 33:09 churches as well. There's a remnant within that church that even if you were in a dead church where the spirit has departed, where the presence of the Lord is no longer there, but they're continuing to meet, you could be there and you can have a 33:22 relationship with Jesus because you don't have an option to go anywhere else, perhaps. But the warning for us, for those of us who are meeting at RLCF especially, that God is holding this lampstand and the message that he has to say to us, 33:37 we have ears to hear. It's also why we break bread exclusively within the local expression of the body of Christ, something that a lot of people have criticized us for. Because Jesus, we see the example of Jesus when he called the 12, even though 33:52 Judas was going to betray him, those 12 he's told them, "You are those who have stayed with me. You've forsaken everything. You are those who have stood with me. You've committed my yourselves to me and I've committed myself to you." 34:07 Jesus spent all night praying before he picked the 12 and the Father specifically picked the 12. I want to show you something that recently uh came alive to me in John chapter 17. John 17, this is the prayer that Jesus 34:25 prayed with his disciples. At this point Judas has already left to go betray him. And um they um um he's he's pouring out his heart to his 11 disciples that are left. He knows they're going to be the the core of the church that he's going to build. And 34:44 then he prays for them in John chapter 17. It's a wonderful chapter. And but something that stood out to me that I hadn't noticed until a few weeks ago is this. He says um um Look at how he uses the word them. He 35:06 talks about the 11 in a very specific way as distinct and different from everybody else. Let's read it verse six. I have manifested your name to the men whom you gave me. I've been challenged recently, you know, we speak often of that verse, John 6:37, 35:24 all whom the Father gives to me will come to me and any who come to me I will not cast out because I've come down from heaven not to do my own will or the will of him who sent me. And that's been a personal challenge for me, church 35:36 family, recently. That I've not even come down from I've I've come down from heaven. I'm not even here on this earth to build the church. That's not our calling in life. Our calling in life is to do the will of him who sent us. 35:50 That's our calling in life. And so we're not here to add more people to RLCF or try to win the lost and all that that you'll hear in Christendom. That could be a foolish motive. And wisdom is to say like Jesus, I've only come down from heaven to do the 36:06 will of him who sent me. And so the Father will give me those whom he wants me to have. And any whom he gives to me I will not turn away. If the Father hasn't given them to me, then let them come and go. We don't have a foolish desire to draw 36:22 to try to draw those whom the Father has not given to us. I've manifested your name to the men whom you have given me. Um the words verse 8, you have which you have given me, I have given to them. And they received them and truly 36:40 understand that I came forth from you. Verse uh 9, I ask on their behalf. I want you to see over and over again in this prayer, Jesus drawing a clear boundary because he understood those whom God had given him. And yes, he wanted many others would 37:00 eventually come to to believe in him. Think about the 100 and um 109 others who were on the day of Pentecost beside these 11 and the 3,000 others who came uh that day also to believe in him. But while Jesus was here on this earth, he 37:17 had a clear understanding of whom God had placed in his circle. He says that over and over again in this prayer. I ask on their behalf. Um uh in verse 9, I do not ask on behalf of the others. But of those whom you have given me, for 37:34 they are yours. Um uh Verse 12, while I was with them, I was keeping them in your name which you have given me. And I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition so 37:54 that the scripture would be fulfilled. And this is how the Lord supplied it to my own life that that those whom God had planned to plant into this church, that none of those will be lost. And I'll tell you, by default, all of 38:09 our children are there are in that list. And that's a prayer I pray fervently that not one of these children See, these children I believe God our children God has given them to us because they're born into our families 38:20 and you us as parents, we've made the choice to be part of this local church, and God has given us our children, and so they are given to us, and let's pray this prayer that we've guarded them. Let May it be so that we too can say, "We've guarded 38:36 them, and not one of them has perished. Not one of the children in this church must have perished by the by the time Jesus comes, when he calls us home." But, most churches are focused on all the other things over Let's get more 38:50 people in. Let's get more people in. Let's get more people in. Let's do this activity, and let's have a barbecue, and let's do this outreach ministry. And I'm all for everybody God is not willing that any should perish. That's what it 39:02 means to have the heart of God. But, look at Jesus' heart. And if we are a local expression of the body of this Jesus, then we too will have a clear understanding that God will give some to us, and those are the ones we must 39:14 guard. And the others, if God hasn't given them to us, let them go to the church down the street, perhaps, or somewhere else where God wants them to go. But, let's never lower our standard. Let's never have this foolish 39:29 soulishness that wants people to like us, and wants people to come into our church buildings and attend our church meetings. It's the spirit of the world. It's the spirit of Babylon that wants to grow and be great in the eyes of 39:42 the world. And then he I just want to um show you these verses as well. Verse 22, "To the glory which you have given me, I have given to them." He's again talking about these specific ones whom the Father gave to him. "That they may be one, just as we are 39:59 one." That means we don't have to pray for unity with those whom the Lord has not given to us. Now, there is a unity in the body of Christ. I'm not talking about that. But, there is a unity in this local expression of the body of Christ here at 40:12 RLCF that we will not experience with those whom God has not given to us. In the same way that there was there were lots of other people that followed Jesus. But the unity that Jesus wanted was primarily for those 11 initially. 40:27 And that's why he called them and said, "Let's break bread together." And he instituted the the communion, the table of a fellowship, the breaking of bread with those 11. And we seek to do the same. Um Look at verse 24. "Father, I desire that 40:43 they also whom you have given me be with me where I am, so that they may see my glory which you have given me, for you have loved me before the foundation of the world." I I read that passage again. I I I've read it many times recently. 40:59 Um so that that's about the local church. I want to talk about a couple more things that will be a foolish brick by brick way by which we can we will destroy this church. And that is the foolishness of emotions. Outward testimony that comes through 41:19 emotions. You know, there's a verse that um we we we pray often for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And I wonder, you brothers and sisters, if if if we think we're not baptized in the Holy Spirit. Let's say there's one of us 41:32 that thinks, "I'm not baptized in the Holy Spirit. I've been waiting for it. I've been wanting it. I've been desiring it, but God hasn't filled me with the Holy Spirit." If you don't have an assurance of the baptism of the Holy 41:41 Spirit, please seek for it. I believe it is God's will that he that all of us should have it. But there are I think there are many people who are seeking for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but are seeking for that emotional 41:53 experience as an indication that they're baptized in the Holy Spirit. And because that emotional experience has not yet come, they think that they're not baptized in the Holy Spirit. Now, I don't know if they are or not, 42:05 and that's only God knows and and that person knows. But Romans chapter 1 verse 4 Romans chapter 1 verse 4 We call him the Holy Spirit and and I think because that word is so often used 42:23 some people even prefer the word Holy Ghost because that's the old King James. Somehow it seems to sound holier when they say Holy Ghost and again it's just emotionalism. Don't fall for that. He is the Holy Spirit. Use a word that 42:37 you can relate to and you can understand. I don't think anybody is drawn to a ghost. I've never heard of any human being that's drawn to a ghost. And I please understand I'm not trying to be silly. But I think the devil would love for us 42:49 to put some aura or even get our children to think of the Holy Ghost as this person that I'm somehow afraid of and and and he floats around like that. The Holy Spirit is a person. He's a person as as much of a person as 43:05 Jesus was a person. If you were around Jesus, you didn't expect some kind of spectra or um you know, angel-like being. You saw a man who had flesh. He spoke words. He ate food. He wore clothes. He looked just like his brothers. 43:22 And the Holy Spirit is a personable God. Somebody that you who wants to know you and whom you can know personally. So that's just why I call him the Holy Spirit as well. But here he's described it says verse 4 who was declared the son of God. He's 43:40 talking about Jesus. With power by the resurrection from the dead according to the spirit of holiness. There's that word Holy Spirit again but this jumped out at me a few months ago when I read it. The spirit of holiness. 43:55 The next time you pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit dear brothers and sisters, let's pray this way. Lord, will you pour out the spirit of holiness upon me? Will you baptize me with a spirit of holiness? Not a spirit of tongues or a 44:08 spirit of emotion or a spirit of this ministry or this gift or preaching, a spirit of holiness. And when we truly pray that way, oh, I really believe if you're sincere, if you're hungry for the spirit of holiness to come upon you, you will be baptized 44:24 in the spirit of holiness. And it will change us. The spirit of holiness, he's called the spirit of holiness. But the enemy of that, the enemy of the spirit of holiness is the spirit of emotionalism. And I'll tell you this, 44:38 you may go to a meeting where you see the emotions flowing, people crying and weeping. And like I said on Sunday, this is one of the reasons why we're not big fans of altar calls in our church. Because there's a lot of what 44:52 and I'm not here to mock altar calls either and I there's maybe a time for that, a time of consecration. But if it becomes a ritual and if I if there needs to be some some some specific type of music that's stirring people emotionally 45:07 at those altar calls, that's the spirit of emotionalism. It's not the spirit of holiness. I can't even imagine Paul preaching a powerful message that drew people writing to the church in Rome perhaps about the spirit of holiness and 45:20 inviting people to be baptized in the spirit of holiness and then having somebody get out their harp and and and play along some soothing music so that he could stir people emotionally. Because that emotional spirit is the 45:33 spirit of foolishness that will tear down the house that God wants to build, his holy temple. And we may not see it as dangerous. If it was an evil spirit, if it was a demon-possessed person, we would cast out the demon by faith, I believe. 45:48 But if it's an emotional spirit, we may be more likely to put up with it and say, "Well, yeah, they're just just stirring them emotionally." And I'm not against emotions. I am an emotional person myself. Sometimes when I sing, I get stirred emotionally. I 46:03 believe God has given us a soul. But it is if we're live if we're if we're led by our soul, not by our spirit, we will die as much as if we're led by our flesh. It is the ones who are led by the spirit who are the sons of 46:16 God. Not those who are led by the soul. And it's no wonder that there are many people who who are baby Christians. Yeah, they're born again and they have a sincere desire to follow Jesus, but they're led by their emotions. And 46:30 perhaps they're led by false teachers who stir their emotions. And they never grow into maturity to be sons and daughters of God. And I thank God that from a young age I was taught what the baptism of the Holy of the spirit of holiness really is. 46:46 That it it makes us holy. And yes, I I've seen and experienced the genuine gift of tongues. I've seen genuine gift of interpretation. I've seen genuine prophecy. I've seen genuine miracles. I've seen demons cast out. And 46:58 so I believe in all those gifts. But the fundamental identifying mark that RLCF is a church that's full of the spirit of holiness must be this, that each one of us is seeking this spirit of holiness in our lives. A greater baptism in the spirit of 47:15 holiness. That's what I'm praying for, dear brothers and sisters, and I hope that's what you're praying for as well. You know, Jesus at after the Sermon on the Mount, he told a story about a wise man and a foolish man. Not 47:30 an evil man. Not a wicked man. As I've been thinking about this, too, I see the contrast between wisdom is not wisdom and wickedness. It's wisdom and foolishness. Because there's a tendency in the world even to sort of shrug our shoulders at 47:45 foolishness. Ah, it's just foolishness. If you see your son or daughter doing something, you you we tend to excuse it because they say, "Ah, they're just seven or 10 or they're foolish." And if that spirit comes into the 47:58 church, I'm not talking about children necessarily now, but if that spirit of foolishness, that light-hearted, careless attitude towards the things of God, that's what will build or destroy the house brick by brick. It won't be the 48:10 explosion. It won't be the catastrophe, the scandal, the sexual scandal or the the money scandal. It will be the brick-by-brick destruction of the church through foolishness. And Jesus said that he was there he was talking about the foolish man was the 48:26 one who hears sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon and continually is content just by listening to the sermon. There's not a change in their lives. They hear about commitment to the church, but never changes the way they 48:40 live their lives. They forget it within a day or so. They hear about living sacrificially. They hear about taking up being taken up with the things of eternity, but doesn't actually translate into living their lives that way. 48:54 Such a person builds his house on the sand. He still built a house, but then the floods came and that house was destroyed. In Matthew 25, Jesus talks about foolish virgins, not wise virgins contrasted with adulteresses. 49:09 It's wise virgins contrasted with other virgins who are pure, but they're foolish. The pure people who are foolish are the ones who are left outside banging on the door. Do you see that, dear brothers and sisters? Do you see that that's the 49:26 danger for us? I I I point my point the finger at myself first of all. I judge myself. That I that I could be a pure foolish person, a virgin who's foolish. And there Jesus was drawing the contrast between the wise and the foolish. The 49:41 wise had oil in their lamps as well as in their vessels. They had a hidden life. There was a secret dwelling place where it was just them and Jesus that the foolish didn't have. On Sunday morning they all looked the same, all 10 of them. 49:58 But on Tuesday afternoon is when you could tell the difference. On Thursday evening was where you could tell the difference when nobody else was looking. Jesus could tell the difference. The bridegroom knew the difference between 50:08 the the bride and the bridegroom and between the the foolish virgins and the wise virgins. And you know, isn't it interesting that Jesus times his arrival? The bridegroom times his arrival in that very small window 50:25 between when the foolish virgins went to get some more oil and when they came back. Read it sometime. They fell asleep, including the wise virgins. There's going to perhaps going to come a time, I don't know if what that means, whether, you know, what 50:39 that's spiritual that that sleeping means. Maybe it'll be a time where we'll all be locked up in jail. We can't meet. But anyway, even the wise virgins fell asleep and the foolish virgins fell asleep. And then they heard the knock. 50:53 And behold the call, behold the bridegroom cometh. And there was a narrow window of time between when that call came and when the bridegroom actually came and closed the door. And the foolish virgins thought, this is my time to repent. I can now try to have 51:08 a relationship with Jesus because he's at the door. But it was too late. Don't you think a loving bridegroom could have waited another 5 minutes? I think it was just a few minutes after the door was shut that the foolish 51:22 virgins came back with their oil and said, let us in, let us in. And the bride the call from the other side of the door said, no, you had your time. You had your warnings when you were here on this earth. It's a small window of opportunity. 51:37 And it's those who live in that constant state of readiness that the that the bridegroom could come at any moment. And what will matter is not what people saw. The Sunday morning meeting is not going to make the difference. That won't be 51:48 the distinguishing factor. It will be that inner life. That oil in our vessels. And at that moment when the trumpet sounds, there will be no more time to seek for personal devotion with Jesus. This is the time, dear brothers and 52:03 sisters. This is the time. In the Old Testament, actually not even even before the law. In Genesis 1 itself, you see the spirit hovering over the earth. Genesis 1:2, I think it is. Or maybe Yeah. The very second verse of the Bible, it 52:18 says the the spirit of God was moving, brooding. I I think that's a picture of emotional meetings. Where the Holy Spirit is brooding over. It's a dark the earth is still dark and unformed. There's no interest in in in the things of God. The word of God 52:37 hasn't penetrated. The light of God hasn't shone shone like with revelation. The spirit is just brooding over those emotional a charismatic meetings. And by that, I don't mean a denomination. I mean those those emotion-filled meetings. The spirit of 52:53 God is brooding over. And maybe people are aware that the spirit is brooding over, but he's not in them. What had to happen after Genesis 1:2? Light had to come. The revelation had to come. And then God had to speak and say, "Let there be 53:08 light." And he had to speak to the to the ground and he had to speak to the the the leaves and he had to cause animals and he had to form man out of the dust. The word of God had to come. And in most of these meetings, you'll 53:21 find there's an emotional stirring and there's a lot of feeling, but there's very little about the of the preaching of the word of God with revelation. I don't want a spirit that's hovering over RLCF. And many churches are praying for that. 53:35 You know, there's even a hymn, an old hymn, "Hover over me, Holy Spirit." We don't sing that. Say, "Come and dwell within me." This it's the indwelling Holy Spirit that we desire. And it may not feel as good as the hovering cloud of the Holy Spirit, but 53:49 it changes our lives. And this is the the thing that will matter. And so, like I said at the beginning, there's many who may be waiting for the baptism of the Holy Spirit who are seeking a feeling. And I tell you, brothers and sisters, I 54:01 was there once upon a time. I was seeking a feeling. I wanted something. It didn't matter what it was. Just a little light bulb or some little, you know, warm feeling in the back of the my lower back or just a slight voice or a 54:13 little physical sensation. It didn't have to be a lot. Just a little bit, something in the physical or the soul-ish realm that could convince me that I was baptized in the Holy Spirit. And I went for years like that, lacking the power of God. 54:29 And through godly teaching, and through meditating on God's word, and just coming to an end of myself, and really failing, and failing, and failing, and failing, and failing, that I finally said, "Lord, give me the spirit of holiness. I don't 54:41 care whether I feel it or not. I want you to change my life so that I'm more holy, more like you." And I'll tell you, my brothers and sisters, I'm not here to boast, but God has changed my life. I'm so far from where Christ is. Such a long 54:53 ways to go, but he's done a miracle. He's really, genuinely filled me with the spirit of holiness. To the extent of my capacity, and I want more of it. I pray he'll do that for us. And I I've had very, very rare experiences of 55:08 feeling that came much later, and they don't last and I don't even know if they're real, but it doesn't matter. I want the spirit of holiness. The opposite, the enemy, foolishness, which is the enemy of the spirit of holiness, 55:21 is is an emphasis on music. You know, I I would be I'm glad our music isn't that great at our church. It's okay. It's not bad. We try to sing in tune. And we sing unto the Lord, make make a joyful noise, and make sure it's 55:35 not irritating to people who are singing together. But, I hope that music is never the draw for people. The way we sing or the kind of songs we sing. Not even preaching. Soulish preaching, it's easy for even the preaching in our church to be an 55:51 emotional stirring, a soulish stirring. It should never be that. Or activities. Oh, we go to the park and we play games and the children play games and people find out that this is a church where they go to the park every day and in the 56:03 summer and in the winter they're there and they have activities and they have a nice little Sunday school and they do skits and all these things. That's foolishness. We believe in it. We do those things and we'll continue to do that. But, if we 56:16 ever sense that those things are becoming the means by which the devil is able to brick by brick tear down this house, we'll stop. We'll put an end to it and say no more of that. We want the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. 56:28 We heard on Sunday how the real altar call I probably put this way, I think in a message my dad preached years ago. That when God called Abraham to worship, he didn't say bring your guitar. He said bring your sword, bring your 56:41 knife. It's going to cost you something. This is the real altar call where there's no music playing in the background and and and everything within me says I can't give it up. So, I Jesus said sit down, preferably in private where nobody can see that 56:55 sacrifice that you're making. Go like Abraham and tell the servants to stay at the bottom of the hill and you walk up with that thing that God is asking you to give up and say, "Lord, this is just between you and me and I'm giving it up 57:06 to you and I don't care if the feeling never comes. But, it's yours." I believe that that most sacrifices, most genuine sacrifices that lead to revival probably happen on a bed where a man or woman is laying there in the middle of the night, can't 57:23 sleep, and God puts his finger on something in their life and says, "You need to give that up." And there, that's happened to me, I'll tell you honestly. I've given it up and the next morning you wake up and you have to make a decision, say yes, Lord, 57:35 it's yours, like it happened to Abraham. Then you give up that thing. Rarely have I seen it happen in a church meeting, cuz it's so easy for the devil to fool us into foolishness of emotion. One more area of of foolishness, and 57:51 that is this area of of of intellectualism. It's also a form of the soul. And that that that can manifest itself in our in Bible studies. Or even in our sharing times that we have on Sundays or in our sharing times in in our Bible studies, and I have a 58:06 greater fear for that. One of the reasons, as you've as you've noticed in our meetings, brothers and sisters, that we we are more careful who we allow to share is because we're we're careful of the foolish the spirit of foolishness that can come into 58:21 a meeting through some intellectual idea. And I've been in Bible studies at RLCF years ago where there were things that were shared that I knew were not of the spirit of God. They weren't evil, they weren't heresy, but it was just foolish psychology. 58:36 And I've repented of the fact that as an elder, I didn't put a stop to it right there. I pray that I'll do better next time. That if there's any foolishness that's shared in a meeting, anything that's not truly prophetic, 58:50 that I won't fear, you know, the reputation of people, which I don't know if I do, or even that somebody might get offended, and allow the foolishness that will tear down the church in the form of intellectual ideas. Intellectualism. 59:06 Um uh you know, one of the reasons we only ask members in the church to share in the meetings is because the sharing must come out of care. If you have if if somebody hasn't manifested a committed care to the local church, nothing they they say can really 59:24 be beneficial to the the Ultimately, I really believe that. They may have something nice to say, but it won't be that edification that builds up the church. Because it doesn't come from a committed heart of care. Now, I'm not talking 59:37 about visitors. You know, sometimes we have brothers and sisters who are you know, brothers who come who we sense have an anointing and share a word with us, but we know that they have a relationship with us. It's also why we don't just have any any 59:49 preacher that that comes through here to speak in our pulpit. Because we want every word that's spoken at RLC to come from a heart of care. A sacrificial heart of care. We want those who speak to be those who have manifested a care for this church 1:00:07 through things they've done over the years. And I'll tell you, you don't have to live here. You know that my dad cares for this church through the through the way he speaks to us. Not just loving words of exhortation, but strong words of rebuke as well. We 1:00:22 know that he cares for us and that's why we invite him to speak. Whether people are offended that we have too much Zach or not, doesn't matter to us. Because we want that which builds up the church. That which edifies, not the foolishness 1:00:35 that will tear down. James chapter 1 says, "Be not many teachers." And there's a lot of people that say they have a lots to say, they have something to say. You know, we have we've had visitors even in our meetings who say, "Oh, I 1:00:46 have something to say." And uh we don't want that in our church, brothers and sisters. Fight against it. If somebody has something to say to you, discern it. Discern the spirit there before you allow that person to send you 1:00:57 that text or write you an email or even come to your house and say something to you. Discern. Is it a foolish woman that's trying to tear down the work of God in your life brick by brick? Or is it the work that the Holy Spirit 1:01:10 does in building up the church? Psychological message, psychological ideas. And I've been in Bible studies, not here thankfully, but where everybody's invited to share what what what does this text mean to you? What is your interpretation of this? How 1:01:27 did this verse speak to you? No, the heart is deceitful. I know how this verse will speak to me in my deceitful heart. It will deceive me. And that's why God has given teachers. And that's why in 1 Corinthians 14 when it speaks about what a local church 1:01:41 should look like, it says let the prophets speak first. Those who really know what the word of God actually means, who can rightly divide the word of God, let them speak first, even if it's the same prophet speaking every 1:01:53 Sunday. Let him speak first because he knows how to rightly divide the truth. And let those who are offended by hearing the same person speak leave. Rather than have well, this is what this verse spoke to me and this is how I 1:02:07 applied it in my life. They don't know God. They don't know his word and they've not been gifted. Now, again, as you know, we we encourage everybody to share. That's also one reason why we say the sharing should be limited to a minute or so. 1:02:20 Because if you stray beyond that one or two minutes, there's a great chance that you'll stray into the realm of teaching what this verse means. Now, you could even do that on Viber. Brothers and sisters, let's be careful 1:02:33 what we post on Viber. I tell you that out of love for us for for this church. Let it never be a spirit of teaching unless God has called you to be a teacher. We must Church, we need to Um I think this If you're applying it to yourself and 1:02:50 you and God's convicted you about something, you can share. Brothers sisters, this is how I'm I'm convicted by this. Not we need to or this is what this verse means or some theological explanation of it. And to be safe, keep even the Viber 1:03:04 messages short. You'll stay out of a lot of dangerous territory. A lot of foolishness. It might not seem wrong. It might not even be incorrect, but it's foolishness that'll tear down the church. Um Uh sentimentalism. we already talked 1:03:19 about that. And or even ethical. You know, there's I noticed just from observing the world around me. Had a conversation with somebody recently. I had the opportunity to to share with them, witness with them, and told them about RLCF, and the 1:03:34 questions that immediately came up had to do with ethics. Like, how do you you know, what's your perspective on uh racial injustice and social injustice and and about the COVID and you know, how churches responded to that or 1:03:46 diversity in the church and all these sorts of things. Don't let the ethical direction that that many churches are heading towards become foolishness that tears down this church. God is the only definite definer of ethics. 1:04:03 The world doesn't get to define ethics. Our own ideas of of ethics don't aren't the standard. The only book that helps me define ethics is this, the Bible. And any other idea that's outside of the word of God, no matter how 1:04:16 fair and just it sounds or fair and balanced it sounds, it's not the word of God, it's not for me. This is why we need teachers. This is why we need biblically based exhortation. And um you know, there's also I I find in 1:04:32 Christendom a resistance to strong preaching. That if there's a strong word of exhortation and rebuke, there's a tendency in my flesh to want to soften it with well, but remember God is love. Don't ever forget that. Yes, don't ever 1:04:46 go away from your security in the Father's love, but sometimes that Father needs to spank us. And we need that pain needs to sit there. And we would be foolish to go in and try to uh massage away the discipline of a father who loves us. 1:05:01 And to to filter everything everything that's uncomfortable. If there's a truth in God's word, let's not filter it through oh well, God is love, so he must not really mean that. But I really see the devil would rather us have wonderful Bible studies, 1:05:15 wonderful prayer meetings, wonderful meetings like this even, and not hear the voice of God. Not seek Christ. Not have that light of revelation. I think I've gone on perhaps longer than uh I initially intended to, but um 1:05:31 dear brothers and sisters, I I I I've I'm challenged. I'm encouraged. I believe we're in a sense we may be at a crossroads as a church. Which way shall we go? Shall we go the way as as we start to get a little bit more attention and 1:05:43 people start to notice RLCF and join us online? Uh shall we go the way of that so many other churches have been led astray where the devil has been able to come in and little by little take away a brick at a time till one day 1:05:58 the whole church collapses. I pray it won't be so. I believe in faith it will not be so. And as one of the elders, the three of us elders are committed to stand against that spirit where however it might come. And uh I thank God that he's he's 1:06:11 speaking to us in these days. I I don't know about you, brothers and sisters, the messages we've been hearing and especially the spirit uh of um of God in our midst over this last month that has been like nothing I've experienced at RLCF before. I'll tell 1:06:26 you that. And I hope you're sensitive to the Holy Spirit in the same way to see it that it doesn't pass us by.
