Standing Firm in a Culture of False Teachings

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then we are increasingly going to be on the receiving end of that kind of response you people are bigoted you people are this you people are that you know do you want people to like you in the immediacy and essentially despise you in eternity or would you rather have them despise you now for your straightforwardness and rejoice with you in eternity in other words do you have the courage to be a Biblical Christian [00:02:02]

be on your guards so that you may not be carried away by the error of Lawless man and fall from your secure position the promises of the Bible are real promises but the warnings of the Bible are real warnings they left a straight way they may have got up in the morning and said well that's fine we're ditching this but the chances are they didn't they simply slipped off theologically morally spiritually [00:02:31]

what other characteristics well first of all they're empty they are Springs without water they're mist-driven by a storm they're unsatisfactory and they're useless they come and go they don't have any settled principles or convictions Springs without water Miss driven by a storm dig Lucas in a wonderfully characteristic sentence or two says you have only to visit a second-hand theological Bookshop with its piles of unsealable rubbish once the latest thing in theological audacity to see the force of this [00:04:21]

they appeal to the lustful desires of sinful human nature and they're particularly strong with people who are just trying to extricate themselves from the realm of paganism now again we don't know the details but the chances are that they were teaching some form of gnosticism gnosticism essentially separated the soul from the body said that God was really interested in the soul once you had your soul dealt with you could do what you like with your body because your body didn't really matter [00:06:12]

what I'm arguing for is the Abiding Place of the law of God in the life of the Christian and the more I move around this is what I find people say no Duty no Duty you see you have freedom and freedom means that you do whatever the spirit tells you to do what I think the Bible says is the spirit enables us to do the duty to which the Bible calls us [00:08:48]

but it is to live in the empowerment of God in a way that pleases him when I had finished everything too late I went to a book given to me by a friend the New Oxford book of Christian verse and found a poem by William Cowper entitled love constraining to obedience incidentally where am I how did I even get here you're saying this is a strange departure how did he get off on this well what is being addressed here is actually antinomianism [00:09:29]

and these individuals are Lawless individuals they're the kind of individuals who say you don't have to pay any attention to the Ten Commandments that was in the Old Testament you don't have to pay any attention to anything that anybody ever tells you about Duty in the Christian Life those individuals are legalists have nothing to do with them come and join us in the realm of freedom well of course there is legalism an attempt to make ourselves more acceptable to God by the Deeds we do that is legalism [00:10:07]

but the antidote to legalism is not to fall into the antinomianism of license such as his profound adhere but is to live on the narrow uh Pathway to which James refers as the perfect law which gives Liberty now in the midst of all of that then caliper listen to this carefully no strength of nature can suffice to serve the Lord a right and what she has she misapplies for want of clearer light [00:10:47]

then all my servile Works were done our righteousness to raise now freely chosen in the sun I freely choose his ways now for those of you who come from a Roman Catholic background this is this is what you tell me we grew up Ten Commandments Ten Commandments Ten Commandments and we discovered that we couldn't keep the Ten Commandments we discovered that we were dreadfully sinful and we discovered that there was no hope for us at all [00:11:35]

you should be very thankful that you were that you discovered that because that's exactly what you needed to discover you were sinful you are sinful you couldn't keep the Ten Commandments and you couldn't put yourself right with God what you didn't get was that the answer lay in a once for all atoning sacrifice for sin whereby you were put right with God but having been put right with God you are not then set out on a pathway to do whatever you like [00:12:08]

Peter is describing those who at some point have made an escape from the corruption around them he said I'm not going down there anymore I'm not doing drugs anymore I'm not going to hang around with those people who are doing that filthy stuff anymore I'm going to go to Bible studies at Parkside now I used to stay out till four o'clock in the morning on Saturday I'm going home at 11 o'clock and I'm going to get up and I'm going to go to the 8 15 service [00:14:02]

to know the gospel to come to Parkside or any other gospel teaching Church regularly to begin to change your external circumstances and then to turn your back on it all is to be found in an actually unforgivable position not because God is unwilling to forgive but because when a man or a woman persists in that kind of self-delusion they leave themselves with no way of Escape and what they do is they turn their bikes on the sacred sacred command [00:16:05]

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