Don't Get Played By TIm Badal

The devil doesn't come with the pitchfork and the and the red suit and say, look, I'm the bad guy. Back in the beginning, the devil showed up to humanity as the good guy. When the bible speaks of it in the Hebrew, he's the radiant one. It caught and captured Eve's imagination and attention. And through his cunning words, he doesn't say rebel against God. He says, did God say? Did God say? And he begins to paint very subtly, God into a killjoy instead of the giver of all good things. [00:15:48] (40 seconds)  #DeceptionIsSubtle

They say that the only way you can really find a counterfeit is to study the real deal. And so I would ask in our time of evaluation before we prepare for the Lord's Supper today, do I know Jesus enough not to be deceived? Do I know Jesus enough to know when someone's selling me a bill of goods even if it is subtle? And would you take some time and then maybe there's an area where you find yourself being duped or believing something you shouldn't, that you would just confess that and say, Jesus, I wanna walk with you. Jesus, I wanna talk with you. Jesus, I wanna be with you. I I wanna live for you. [00:45:39] (41 seconds)  #KnowJesusDeeply

And so let me ask you, as I did last week, what are the voices you're listening to? Where do they go to church? How are they serving? What is their theology? What do you know about them? Or do they have a gift of playing a guitar and a voice? And they've written some words about the Jesus that you may know, but it's not a Jesus they know. But because it's encouraging family friendly and uplifting, we say it's truth. And the Bible says, and it smacks us in the faith face, even the devil masquerades as an angel of light. And so what we have to do, what the apostle John says is test the spirits. [00:44:25] (46 seconds)  #TestTheSpirits

Paul confronts them. Paul speaks very, very difficult words. And they had been hearing words that that just affirmed who they were, how great they were. And friends, there are a lot of places you can hear about how great we are. But that's not what Jesus says. Jesus says, we're dead in our trespasses trespasses and sin, far from God. That's why he came to seek and save that which was lost. He called us blind. He called us dead. He called us lame. But he didn't just leave us there. He didn't just call us those names and leave. He came to set us free. [00:41:52] (40 seconds)  #SavedFromSin

And so this isn't us just getting wrong facts. This is a wholesale luring someone away from the truth into a lie. And what Paul wants to communicate here is that this wasn't just true for the Corinthians. It's been true for us as human beings. And so notice in the text, he brings up the book of Genesis, the Garden of Eden. And he says that the serpent, the devil, which he'll communicate about later at the end of the passage, this serpent deceived Eve, notice, by his cunning. [00:15:15] (34 seconds)  #DeceivedLikeEve

Friends, from the garden, we have been easily deceived. We have been easily duped. And for the last hundred and sixty eight hours, you and I have lived in a world where lies about life, about righteousness, about godliness, about Christ, about the church have flooded our news feeds, our social media accounts, our conversations. They're everywhere. They're at work. They're at play. They're at home. And we've been inundated by it. And and I think it's good for us to ask the question, am I susceptible? [00:10:10] (38 seconds)  #DiscernYourFeed

They are the best with lofty rhetoric. They're able to communicate when people listen. They just feel smarter when they listen. And notice what they're communicating, it isn't the truth. Paul says, in every way we have sought to make things plain to you in all things, to speak honestly, to speak openly. These super apostles who are really, really good at at pitching ideas and and being really good salesmen, they're lying to you. We make things plain to you. They are deceiving you. [00:21:05] (36 seconds)  #TruthOverRhetoric

What do you mean the mega jumbo? Why did you add mega to jumbo? Doesn't jumbo take care of it all? Well, the word apostles should take care of it all. Chosen by God to be a messenger and an authority for Christ. That's what an apostle means. That word wasn't good enough for them. To be chosen by messenger for God, and to be an authority for Christ wasn't enough. We had to add a superlative super apostles. Which meant there was this belief that they were better than the original apostles. [00:20:10] (34 seconds)  #FalseAuthority