Recognizing False Prophets Part 2

Flores looking to Jesus through prophets of God, their message from God himself will draw their false messages from a variety of sources. Today sources and determine whether what you're hearing is from God or from somewhere else church in Chicago. This is going to win clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line continuous series on the church in Babylon unleashing the power of the spirit filled witness Nestor Luther and off a lot of Internet voices competing for believers attention. How do we know what's true and what's false well Dave I could give a long answer to that question, of course, the message that we are going to be listening to in a moment is going to respond to that, except to emphasize that what people preach and teach always has to be tested by the Scriptures, and of course as we think about the Scriptures we know that even biblical interpretation has a long history that we must always be careful and we must always ask God for discernment. You know, I've written a book entitled the church in Babel and and you know Dave since we been talking about false teachers.

I have to say that there's information in this book that is not in any of the messages that I have preached. It's entitled five false gospels within the evangelical church that actually happens to be chapter 8 of the book the church in Babel and now my dear listener, I have to say that we are making this resource available to you for a very specific reason. This book deals with all kinds of issues that the church faces today, including immigration, including issues regarding our culture, where to draw the line. What we can do what we should not do matters of conscience. These are the kinds of issues that we are facing in this book addresses the church in Babel and heeding the call to be a light in the darkness for a gift of any amount.

It can be yours, simply go to RT W offeror.com that's RT W offeror.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337 ask for the book the church in Babylon 1-888-218-9337 and now let us listen carefully as we continue our study of false prophets then and now. I wish we had time to look at this in more detail. But you know that in the New Testament. In second Peter is well as you there's a reference there false prophets who follow their own desires and so they look within, and they say I want to do this letter. The other thing and so God comes along and becomes to them. They want and as a result of that, they are led into great sin. You know the Bible is very clear that God says I am that I am says and not who you want me to be so that said another way in which false prophets get their particular wisdom supposedly made up in their own minds. There's 1/4 characteristic and that is they hide their true motives. They hide their true motives of the Scripture is very clear about this.

In the New Testament. This is the expression that is used for false prophets. It's as they are trained in greed trained in greed. My heart just absolutely breaks when I get to this because what you see false prophets do is they are making money. They encourage you to send money to them and this money is supposed to become seed money that will garner you a big harvest. Now this past week I was thinking about one false prophet who is on television regularly. Who encourages people to send $1000 to him now.

He never tells you how is going to use $1000 so I saw on the Internet that there was a man there who is looking at some papers to verify the fact that this man was worth about four teen million dollars, money that had been sent in.

And if you ever see them on TV. He is powerful he is, even scriptural sometimes and he will tell you that if you send me money. God is going to use this as a seed and you are going to get a great harvest and you are going to be wealthy and be able to pay your bills. Many years ago there was a false prophet on television who told people this and I saw with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears. He said if you send money to me. Your mortgage will be miraculously paid your get to get a letter from the mortgage company saying that your house has been paid for. You believe that couple of months later I was in the city where this false prophet lives in where his ministry is and so I said to the pastor from the airport whether or not he knew about this claim and he said yes and I said what really happened. He said the man received a lot of money but no mortgage was Barak paid Sir anybody out there who is surprised at that. Many years ago I attended a Crusade held by a false prophet and I'll never forget is he was taking one offering after another. People were putting wristwatches into the offering basket. These poor people were giving everything that they had to him. He even had the nerve to say from the pulpit. We are really fleecing God's sheep today. You believe that you spoke to thousands of people, many more than I'm probably speaking to today and so there they are.

The Bible says trained in greed, manipulation, and false promises that are not based on the word of God, please don't be deceived by these people. Sometimes I say and I do say it with love that sometimes God's sheep can tell the difference between grass and Astroturf. I do need to say that but I throw that one out for free today.

No offering. After that we could use one here and I don't mind raising money for specific things, but when I do. I never promise people that if you give somehow gifts are going to come to you and suddenly you're going to become wealthy, I love to raise money for people who can't raise money for their own whether it's for orphanages, whether it's for the ministry of Moody church and are many opportunities to share the gospel that really excites me and it is biblical but we never hear make promises as to how blessed as a result, you will be blessed but not monetarily necessarily. Well they hide their true motives there real motive is wealth and then the other motive that is so important folks is pride. Did you notice what the apostle Paul says these people in their post.

They boast about what they are able to do. They want people to look upon them as if to say, or they are so holy and as a result of that, they are so plugged into God.

They have a special relationship with the most high, and therefore they want us to be able to almost worship them reading this past week about it. Prophet who makes all of these predictions. They love to be able to say God is showing me he's going to do in your life. I'm anointing you for special ministry so one false prophet said to this couple God is powerfully going to use you in South America as missionaries. Couple of them.

Months later, the wife was actually killed in a car accident. The prophecy did not come to pass. He said to somebody else you will write a book appealing to their pride that they write this book that was going to influence people.

The book was never written.

You will have been a ministry another false prophet told this couple God is going to give you this great ministry never happened.

Member false prophet. I saw this on television, a couple came forward and said you know we'd really like to have children and that we can have children, he said them. Let me ask you do want a boy or a girl when a boy spring baby fall baby. Whatever it was, okay, that's what you will have you come back next year and you tell us about the birth of this child now want you to think about this for a moment, let's suppose that the couple doesn't have a child if they have a child. The next year they'd return and this faith healer would take all the credit for it and say hallelujah what a miracle. But if they don't whose fault is it never is it your fault because if you had had the faith. It happened, but you see, because you don't have that faith. That's your problem why my preaching this message. My heart breaks for people I sometimes see crowds you can see this on TV with false prophets and many of these people are poor and why are they there there saying to themselves, if I just had enough faith if I had the same faith as this Guru and of this profit then I would be able to drive the same car that he drives and where the close that he wears and so forth. I'd be wealthy, just as he is because he tells us that if we meet the requirements we will be. If only I could be like him.

These dear people leave their money.

There they go home and never experience the miracle because that's not a miracle that God ever promise tragic now. I could go on about this because I've seen this so often. Let me give you three quick conclusions here to help us to draw this together and to give us some hope. First of all number one remember this false prophets, false prophets are God's judgment upon a nation. False prophets are God's judgment upon a nation.

What Jeremiah actually says is God says I'm putting a stumbling block before the people and that stumbling block happens to be false prophets penned Paul in effect, says the very same thing in the book of the first Timothy I want you to just that. Notice what Paul has to say here for the time is coming. He says when people will not endure sound teaching but having itching ears will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and will wander off into myths but as for you, always be sober minded endure suffering. The work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry notices, people are going to wander off to find Dr. and find a preacher that affirms their own passions.

So you see what the people did in Jeremiah's days. They said we don't like Jeremiah's message what were going to do is were going to find a false prophet who tells us exactly what we want to hear that becomes part of their judgment because you see they're not interested in the truth because the truth bothers them so deeply in the truth means that they are sinners and they need to repent and come to God and they say that's not what we want to.

And so they turn away and they do their own thing seeking the kind of teacher or profit that they want. Secondly, true prophets always preach God's word want to read this from my Jeremiah chapter 23 true prophets always preach God's word.

You know what Jeremiah says in chapter 23 that the false prophets actually strengthen the hands of evildoers.

That's in verse 14 and 15. Can you imagine that they strengthen the hands of evildoers, they give people confidence to do evil and say that nothing will bother them, God will put up with it. But then the Lord says this in verse 23. Amaya got at hand, declares the Lord, and not a God of far off.

Can a man hide himself in his secret place so that I cannot see him, declares the Lord answer of course is no do not. I fill heaven and earth, declares the Lord. I have heard what the prophets have said in prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed I have dreamed how long shall there be lies in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies in prophesy that this each of their own heart.

You see how deep this goes who think to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell one another, even as their fathers forgot my name bail not notice this let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream but let him who has my word to speak my word faithfully what has straw in common with wheat, declares the Lord is not my word like is a fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces.

Therefore, I am against the prophets, declares the Lord who steal my words and they get them to one another and they got all the dreams and self to God there makes a contrast between his word between Jeremiah's word and the word of the New Testament, in the words of the Bible God contrasts that with all the false prophets were going with their dreams and their visions. He says what connection is there between straw and wheat one is straw.

The other is wheat and what is it that what is the message that we need to get to people today. What is our greatest need if we're not going to simply heal their wound superficially, what is it that they need to know first of all, the holiness of God. We cannot remake God in our image, we must bow before who God is. God does not come along and say want you to choose whether or not you like me or whether or not you want to change me.

I am who I am and I change not.

That's the first thing that we must communicate to this generation and the second thing that we must communicate is that he is a God of mercy and invites people to come to him all throughout the book of Jeremiah. God's keep saying return to may return to me. Return to me, and in chapter 31 God says that even though this generation has hardened their heart and will not turn to me and will look at that more in future messages. The Lord also says very clearly that there's another generation. Chapter 31 that will turn to me and I will give them an new covenant, God says, and they will obey knee and I will for you.

There sin and their iniquities.

I will remember no more. And when Jesus came. Remember how he said to the disciples taking this is my body which was broken for you. This blood is the blood of the new covenant in my blood. What Jesus was saying as I fulfill the promises of the book of Jeremiah.

I am here today to forgive your sins to receive you. The issue is never the greatness of our sin there.

Some of you were listening today who don't think you need a Savior because you don't think that your sin is very big on the Bible says that all of send and come short of the glory of God.

There are others of you who say to yourself I send so bad I messed up so bad.

God can't forgive me the answer to both of you is God can forgive he is gracious he is merciful. If you come to Jesus, forgiveness and reconciliation with God is not only possible, it is a reality. Those who believe on. Remember that Simon these in fall. I think I pronounced his name correctly was a junior member who survived the Holocaust and in his book sunflower. He tells an interesting story. He says that there was a young Nazi soldier who was dying, and these in fall was there in the room with this soldier and the young Nazi asked Weisenthal to forgive him for his sins against the Jews. No doubt it was quite a dilemma for Simon. These in fall, but he left the room and refused to grant this young man's request for forgiveness.

So what Weisenthal did as he wrote then about it and he sent his dilemma to the various ethicists and professors throughout the world and asked that I do the right thing will actually Weisenthal did the right thing in my opinion, because he wasn't in a position where he could forgiveness Nazi sin, it would've been one thing for the Nazi UC to go to those who whom he had brutally wronged and in some instances killed, which of course would've been then impossible for him to make reconciliation, but the whole point is simply this, that when we send we can only be forgiven by the person against whom have sin in that sense. These in fall was right, but there's something that we need to emphasize from the book of Jeremiah and from the whole Bible.

And that is this that all sin, all sin is sin against God.

Whether or not you live to someone that lie is an offense against God. A greater offense against God than it is against the person to whom you have lied. Immorality is an offense to God and therefore only God is able to forgive sins and Jesus Christ came to this world so that God could forgive God could be holy at the one time over here. We know the holiness of God and at the same time he could be merciful and loving to receive all those who come to him recognizing that all of us have sinned against God, and therefore only God can forgive us. That's a message that needs to be heard today because there are some of you were listening in whose heart God is working right now and pointing out your need for a Savior, your need for Jesus Christ who came to forgive us of our sins.

You know, during the time of the Reformation unofficial Christendom said to the reformers. How do you know that you have the right message where your miracles in the reformers said we don't need miracles because the Bible says that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God onto salvation to all those who believe if you want to see a miracle you come to Jesus Christ and receive his forgiveness, his acceptance and he'll do a miracle in your heart and you will be converted and reconciled to God. Let's bow together in prayer showing before I close this prayer I'm talking now to you and not yet talking to God. If God is talk to you. Would you reach out to him right now and say Jesus, I thank you that you died for sinners.

I thank you that you invite me to come to you to become your son or your daughter forever. Would you reach out to him now in this moment of silence father. Here the prayer of all we ask and we thank you that you are a holy God. But you're also forgiving God and we thank you today that Jesus died for us. May we come to receive the forgiveness and the cleansing that he offers to all who believe on him. We pray in his blessed name, my friend, this is Pastor Luther. If you been listening to running to win for any length of time you know that we are gospel driven.

Our desire is to get the gospel of Jesus Christ into the minds and hearts of his many people as possible.

Thank you so much for helping us, but we also deal with cultural issues and we do that because all of us as Christians have to make decisions. What part of the culture can we accept what part of the culture must we reject how do we live in the midst of a world that clearly has lost its way. I've written a book entitled the church in Babylon, and this book deals with issues such as conflicts of conscience when the state becomes God, the church technology and purity. Transgender is some sexuality. Immigration how should we think about these issues now for a gift of any amount. This book can be yours.

Here's what you do and I'm going to give you enough time so that you can find a pencil. You can go to RTW offeror.com or you can call us at 1-888-218-9337 I'm going to be giving you that contact info again and I want to thank you in advance for helping us.

We are deeply committed to get the gospel of Jesus Christ to his many different countries and in as many different languages as possible.

Ask for the book the church in Babylon go to RTW offeror.com. Of course, RTW offers all one word RTW offeror.com or you can call us at 1-888-218-9337.

We are within the world but we are not to be of the world ask for the book the church in Babel and heeding the call to be a light in the darkness. You can bring to is running to win 1635 N. LaSalle Boulevard Chicago 960614 many people think they are masters of their own destiny, but God sees his people as lay on a potter's wheel and since he's the potter controls their destiny next time. Learning to see ourselves as vessels God can make and remake as he chooses. This is Dave McAllister running to win is sponsored by the Moody church