The Dichotomy of Love: God vs. the World

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast,

where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to

this podcast.

I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen

you in the word of God.

Now, come along, let's look into the Bible and see what God has

for us here today.

If you have your Bibles, open up with me to First John.

John.

First John, chapter number two.

One John, Chapter two.

And it's been a couple weeks.

We were off at camp last week, and so I want to thank Pastor John

for covering our Wednesday evening service.

And I know that he was a blessing to all those that were there

and here this evening, we're going to continue on in First John,

chapter two.

And really, the whole book of First John is speaking about fellowship

with God, a relationship with God, knowing him and knowing him

in a personal way.

And that's one of the beautiful things that we have in

our faith is knowing that we have a relationship with God, knowing

that we have salvation.

And we're going to talk more about that when we get to chapter

five.

But all of First John is talking specifically about having

that relationship with God and what that looks like.

And so he.

He talks about it from the perspective of, if you are in Christ,

this is what it will look like.

And these are some of the things that try to steal that fellowship

with Christ.

And we know that in First John chapter one, it tells us that if

we find ourselves in a place of sin, there is a remedy for that,

where we can find reconciliation, and that is repentance.

If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our

sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

And so what the Bible speaks of is this concept of, yes, though

our salvation is secure in Christ, there are times and situations

in our life that might cause us to have our fellowship broken

with the Father.

We don't lose our sonship or we don't lose our relationship with

Christ.

But what we do know is that sometimes, whether it be through

unrepentant sin or through different struggles in our life,

we can lose that fellowship with Him.

And that's what First John, chapter two starts with.

It's this, my little children, these things write I unto you that

ye sin not.

So he says, hey, don't sin.

Don't have a desire to sin.

But then he goes, and if any man sin.

So the reality is, is that as much as we want to keep that fellowship

with God, there's gonna be times in our life where that fellowship

is broken and we fall into a sin.

And then it says we have an advocate with the Father.

So we don't find forgiveness through just being a better person.

We don't find forgiveness from just trying harder to not sin.

We find forgiveness in our advocate, someone who is appealing

for us.

And the Bible says, that's Jesus Christ.

And so that's amazing there in verse one.

Jesus Christ, the righteous.

It's his righteousness, not our own.

And it tells us how we can have that righteousness through the

fact that Jesus is our propitiation.

And if some of you were here, you remember what that word propitiation

means.

We were at junior camp, and the speaker there, his name was Adam

Morgan.

He's an awesome speaker.

He's.

He's awesome guy.

He actually taught the junior campers what this word means.

He's like, propitiation.

He started going through that, and I was like, wow, that's a pretty,

pretty awesome endeavor to try to teach junior campers.

Because I, you know, teaching adults, that's difficult, difficult

word propitiation.

But all propitiation really means is a satisfaction of wrath,

a payment, a sacrifice.

Jesus is the satisfaction of God's wrath.

God's wrath must be poured out upon sin.

We know that Jesus Christ paid that payment.

And so he's explaining the.

That relationship that we have with God through Jesus Christ.

And he says, if you have that type of love, if you know that type

of love from Jesus extended to you by the Father, then what will

you do?

What will it look like?

You will love one another.

He says, if you love God and you understand his love, how is that

going to be manifested?

By loving one another?

You can't say that you love God.

You.

You can't say that you're walking with him and then have a

problem with a relationship.

In our life now, there can be problems, but if we're not displaying

love and we're not displaying righteousness and reconciliation

and repentance, then we get to a place in our life where we can't

say that we're.

We're loving the Lord.

Verse 10.

He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is

none occasion of stumbling him.

But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness,

and knoweth not whether he goeth, because the darkness hath

blinded his eyes.

And.

And so one of the things that fights against our fellowship with

God would be hatred against the brother, bitterness against the

brother, discord among the believers.

And what we can see is that because of that, and sometimes we

think that that is unrelated to our walk with Christ.

The Bible says that one of the things that's fighting against our

fellowship with him would be fighting amongst ourselves.

Division.

And we even know that in John, the Gospel of John, John, Chapter

John 17 · chapter mention

17, one of the things that Jesus prayed for for his followers

would be that there would be unity.

We read the book of Acts over and over and over again.

We see that they were in one accord, they were in unity.

And so it's the heart of God.

That we walk together in love doesn't mean that we're.

We'll agree with everything.

It doesn't mean that we'll all look the same way or we'll all respond

the same way.

But what it means is that we're walking with a bigger purpose.

So then we're gonna get to tonight, our main text.

That's verse number 15.

And we're gonna look at something else that fights against

our fellowship with God.

So we already saw that division in.

In the.

In the believers, hatred amongst the brethren causes our relationship

with God to be severed.

But we also see here in verse number 15, that another thing attacks

our relationship with God, and that is worldliness.

Worldliness.

What is worldliness?

So we're gonna talk about that here this evening.

Look at verse number 15 right here.

John gives us the problem with worldliness.

He says, love not the world.

And he's not talking about.

When he.

When he uses the word world here.

He's not talking about the.

The global earth itself, like the water and the dirt and the trees.

He's not talking about that.

He's talking about the.

The idea of sinful humanity united in rebellion against God.

The world system, so to speak, Satan's system that he enacted in

this world.

And so we see here he says, love not the world.

So he says, love God.

Love your brother, Love God's word, but don't love the world.

And there's a warning here, because the warning is this.

If he's telling us not to love the world, the implication in logic

would be that we are inclined to love the world, right?

Our natural self wants to love the world.

Our natural self and our flesh wants to love ourselves.

And we're going to talk about that later on here because that's

another issue when it comes to our fellowship with God.

But he says, love not the world.

And then he goes a little bit further here, gets a little bit more

specific.

Neither the things that are in the world.

And so the World in, in the sense of, of what John is saying

here in context is that sinful rebellion in the ways of the world.

And he says, don't love the world, nor the things that are in

the world.

He's talking here about rejecting the ways of the world,

rejecting the world system.

Then he goes on to say this.

If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

So think about that for a second.

He's saying this, he's saying you can't love the world and the

Lord at the same time.

Just, it's not possible.

You, you can cross reference that with another passage of scripture

in the book of Matthew.

Matthew chapter 6, verse 24.

Matthew 6:24

Some of you are familiar with this passage.

You'll know why I'm going there in a moment.

But what he says here In Matthew chapter 6, this is Jesus's

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

words.

He says, you can't serve two masters.

Matthew 6:24.

Matthew 6:24

No man can serve two masters.

For either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he

will hold to the one and despise the other.

Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

So in the context of what Jesus is talking about, he's talking

about you can't love money and God at the same time.

The love of money is the root of all evil.

That's what the Bible says in the New Testament.

What we can see here this evening is that he's saying, if you

are loving the things of the world, the love of God is not in

you.

You're not displaying the love of God.

You can't sit here and say, well, I love the world and I love

God and I want those both.

I want the benefits of both of those.

The book of James has a lot to say about that.

The book of James says a double minded man is unstable in

all of his ways.

He's like a wave of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed to

and fro.

So what we would say is that a person who's trying to love the world

and God at the same time, he's a double minded man and he's unstable

in all of his ways, can't do both.

And so that's exactly what he's talking about here in First

John, you have to choose your master.

Is your master going to be the Lord or is your master going to be

the world?

Goes on to say this verse 16, for all that is in the world.

So he says, you want to know what the world's all about?

You already know what God's all about.

He's about salvation, love, forgiveness, everlasting life, righteousness,

purity, all of that.

And then he says, here, here's what the world's all about.

And he's going to describe to us three what we would call categories

of sin that we fall into when we go the path of the world, when

we go the way of the world.

And so this would be basically how we would define worldliness for

all that is in the world.

The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of

life.

He says those three things, those three categories.

Basically, we can lump all sin into those three categories.

Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life.

It's not of the Father, but is of the world.

And so he explains here what worldliness really is.

It's love of ourselves, pride of life.

It's, it's, it's the lust of the eyes, what I want, what my eyes

desire with the lust of the flesh, what makes me feel good.

And so if you were to define it in, in our worldly sense today,

in our, in our modern sense, it's what makes me feel good, what

I like to look at, and what's all about me.

That's the idea.

That's the idea of the world.

That's the way of the world.

And so enlisting these aspects of the world, John, I believe he

even could go back in mine and look at what we would call the original

sin back in Genesis chapter three.

That's when we can lump that sin into these categories.

Lust of the flesh, right?

Eve and Adam, they desired it.

Lust, lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

What was the pride of life?

It was, you can be like God.

It's the original lies from Satan.

And they're just repackaged and reproduced and given to our world

today.

We, we would look at the very beginning and see that the, the longest

running false belief in this world is humanism, right?

What was Satan's lie?

You can be like God.

You are your own God.

And that's what humanism really is.

Humanism is elevating self above God, pride of life.

And so he says, you know what?

If you want to be characterized by the world, you can

be characterized by these three things.

What makes you feel good, the lust of your eyes, what you want

to see, and the pride of life, your selfishness, you worshiping

your own life, worshiping your own self.

And so God knows that we have eyes and he's given us eyes to use

but to look upon the right things.

He's given us our flesh and our bodies to use in the right way.

And so he says that these are not of the Father.

We rarely appreciate how much the world dominates our thinking.

You ever think about that for a second?

Like, why do I think what I think?

Why do I believe what I believe?

Hopefully, ideally it would be because the word of God tells me

this, and this is the way the Holy Spirit's guiding me.

But most of the time, we think and we react and we deal with people

and we deal with our own issues in a very worldly, humanistic

fashion.

And so I. I don't think that we even in some ways, intentionally

do it.

It's so ingrained into our minds.

It's so ingrained into our cultures.

And so.

So, for example, think of.

Think about just one.

One area, success.

Think about how the world defines success.

Well, it's not the same way that God defines success.

We could go into that whole category.

You could read the book of Joshua and just read the first chapter

of Joshua and see how God defines success.

God defines success by obedience and adherence to the word

of God, following the will of God.

That is definitely not what the world decides is successful.

The world decides success is, what do you have?

What do you look like?

Who do you have power over?

Who.

Who follows you?

And so we think of.

We think of the standard of success.

We think the standard of beauty.

Think about that.

Think about the world's standard of beauty.

Does it have really anything to do with what's on the inside,

what they believe, how they're standing for righteousness?

No.

Usually what people in our world define as beauty is something

that's appealing to the eyes, appealing to our flesh.

Think about the Spanish.

Think about just the standard of morality in the world today.

What's considered now in the world to be good is what the Bible

says is bad.

And then what the world decides is bad is actually what the

Bible says is good.

Right?

Think about it.

Think about how the world defines just in general.

New Christians are judgmental.

The truth is, is that, yeah, some Christians can be judgmental.

Some Christians can do a lot of things that are not biblical.

But at the end of the day, what we have to do as Christians

is we have to speak the truth.

We have to live the righteousness of God.

We can't define truth as we want it to be defined as the world

defines it.

And this shows us our great need, as Romans chapter 12 says,

Romans 12 · chapter mention

to not be conformed to this world.

That idea of Romans chapter 12, verse 2, where it says, don't

Romans 12:2

be conformed to this world.

It's the idea of taking, you know, some of you that have kids

or have had kids in your house or grandkids, you know, Plato, and

they have all different types of putty and stuff now that they

have.

And it's, it's the idea of taking that play doh.

And jamming it into a mold and forming it to that.

So what the Bible says is don't be formed into that mold that

the world defines is good.

Be transformed.

And that word transformed, the Greek word is the word that we get

the word metamorphosis from Transformation, change.

Be different.

Even, you know, Peter says, be different, be distinct, unique.

Don't be like the world.

Don't follow that path.

Don't allow the world to tell you what success is all about.

Don't allow the world to tell you what beauty is.

Don't allow the world to tell you what morality is.

Don't allow the world to say, hey, you know what?

Hey, that you have to choose this or this.

The truth is, is that the Bible very clearly teaches us that

there's one path.

And, and he says it right here, verse number 17.

And the world passeth away.

He says, this is why you don't believe the things of the world.

This is why you don't put all of your stock into the lust of the

flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.

He says, the world passeth away.

So some commentators have called verse 17 the folly of worldliness.

It reveals the emptiness of this path.

What we invest into the world, we invest into something that is

going to pass away.

And we've seen that over and over again in the biblical example

and probably our own lives.

And so he says, the world is passing away, so why invest into

the things of this world?

It's gonna go away one day.

Then he says, the other side.

But he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.

And so essentially what he's teaching here is the idea of eternal

investments in, in our life.

Are we going to invest our thoughts, our actions, our everything

into things that will matter for eternity or things that will

pass away?

Jesus, you see so many parallels to what John is teaching

about and what Jesus taught about.

Remember what Jesus taught about with the treasures of this

world.

He says, those are the things that the moth and rust will corrupt.

That's going to be taken away.

People can steal that from you.

I mean, I know that sometimes in my life, the most violated I've

ever felt is when I've been Stolen from.

We had our car broken into back in Florida, and I had my golf

clubs in there, of all things.

Okay, learn my lesson.

Don't leave golf clubs in your car.

But they broke into our car and stole my golf clubs and some

other stuff.

And not that I am any good at golf, but they were probably doing

me a favor by taking us away.

But at the end of the day, you feel violated when someone steals

something from you.

Like, think about, like, someone breaks into your house and

you have your most valuable material object there.

Maybe it's like a trophy that you've won or, you know, a document

that someone, you know signed, and it was a famous person that can

be taken away in a heartbeat.

But the one thing that can't be taken away from us would be the

things that God has for us in our life, our salvation, our.

Our spiritual growth, those eternal investments.

And so that's what he's saying there in verse 17.

He says, why invest into the things of this world, the lust of

the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.

Why?

Because that's.

It's going to pass away.

It's not eternal.

And so.

So this is, I believe, it's a powerful illustration of.

Of the worthlessness of the things of this world.

And the more I love that song.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face,

and the things of earth will go strangely dim in the light of

his glory and grace.

It's that same principle.

Like, it's not so.

So what we try to do sometimes in our Christian walk is we try to

just stop doing the bad.

And Ephesians chapter four tells us that that's really not the.

The best model.

The best model is just not to stop trying to do bad things.

It's to put off the old and put on the new to replace the bad

with the good.

So, like, instead of just stop stopping our stealing, okay, like,

let's say.

Let's say someone has a problem with just stealing things

from people.

The Bible doesn't say just stop stealing.

It says stop stealing and then work really, really hard and earn

money and then give that to the people in need, right, to restore

those things that we've done.

So it's inserting the good there.

So the point I'm trying to make is this.

It's not just stopping from doing something and trying our best

to just curb ourselves.

No, it's infusing our lives with the truth of God so the things

of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory.

And Grace to understand how great God is and how beneficial it

is to walk in his truth and understand how great his salvation

is and how great the grace of God is, that's when we start to see,

hey, I. I lose taste for the things of this world.

You know, if there's a Christian who says, you know what?

All I can think about is sin, all I can think about is, man, I

could be doing this and I could be doing that, and if I could

get away with it, I would.

Folks, that's an unhealthy Christian.

Or I would venture to say that's a person who does not understand

the grace of God.

And that's a dangerous place to be.

If all I can think about and lust after is sin in my life, is

the old man going to rear his ugly head on occasion?

Sure.

But if our heart's desire is sin constantly and we're not allowing

the Spirit to guide our lives, there's a big issue there.

It's maybe because I'm not resting in the truth of God.

Maybe I'm not fellowshipping with him.

Because the more I'm not filled as.

As.

What Does Romans chapter 12 say?

Romans 12 · chapter mention

Be renewed in our minds.

Be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

And so it's thinking the right things by intaking the right things,

whether it be the word of God or the preaching of the word of God

or through Christian fellowship or whatever it might be

service to the Lord.

And so it's not just, hey, you know what?

I just don't want to love the world.

I just don't want to love the world.

It's like, don't love the world and love God.

Right?

Isn't that the greatest commandment, to love God with everything?

The reason why he says that is because a lot of our problems in

our life would be resolved if we just truly, truly love God more.

And the way that we love God more is to get to know him more and

to spend more time with him, to be around his people to.

One of the things I'm really working on within my own personal

study is we say the family of God.

You've heard people say that.

Like, there's that song.

I'm so glad to be a part of the family of God.

And we use that in church.

And this is the church family.

But what does that really mean?

What does the.

What does that really mean?

Well, the Bible actually talks about that.

And the Bible actually talks about how important it is to actually

see the church as our family.

The Bible doesn't say the Church is like the body of Christ.

The Bible says the church is the body of Christ.

And so when I am looking at someone in my church family and I'm

looking at someone who is in the body of Christ just like me and

I say I can't stand that person.

I cannot tolerate that person.

Do you see the fundamental issue within that now?

Can you not stand something that they've done?

Sure, of course.

But when we cannot work as a body and a unit in the family of

God.

We're, we're, we're loving the, we'll go back to that verse,

verse 16.

Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and pride of life.

I, I would venture to say that most of our problems is pride of

life.

And, and so when we look at these things we think about what

does it mean to be the family of God.

Why?

I just, I guess I just have to tolerate these people.

The Bible does not say a lot of things we insert in because culturally

it makes more sense.

Tolerate, tolerate other Christians just put up with them?

No, it says to love them.

Actually it goes a little bit further and says to love our enemies.

But that's another topic for another day we'll get into.

But let's just start with the other brothers and sisters in Christ.

Are we willing to say that we love them and do things for them

and sacrifice for them?

You know it well when it makes sense for me that's not what it says.

And so he says love God, reject the world.

The world's way of saying is this.

Do good unto others that do good to you.

Right, that makes sense in the world system.

Sacrifice for people who sacrifice for you.

Scratch the back of those that scratch yours.

But that's not the biblical principle.

The biblical principle is love those that don't love you.

Sacrifice for those who don't sacrifice for you.

Serve those who don't serve you.

Really what happened throughout history was that as Christians

we thought about it from the perspective of not just God.

Okay, so Jesus said John 13 to be a servant in every way.

He demonstrated that by washing the disciples feet.

But then there was some place and it wasn't just a one time thing,

it was a gradual slip.

But there was some place in line where we started to think that

as Christians it was all about who can serve us.

What does this person bring to me?

What does this church bring for me?

What does God bring for me?

And the reality is, is that God does bring a lot to us.

He brings us eternal life and salvation.

But what we've done is We've flipped the model from service in

every way to people to now, who is going to serve me?

And that's a lie of the enemy.

That's the way of the world.

Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life.

And so over and over again in scripture, Jesus emphasizes, over

and over again in scripture, Paul emphasizes, really, God emphasizes

through the inspiration of Scripture that materialism, fleshly

passions, sensuality, all lead to destruction.

And so this, this principle that he says here in verse 17, this

is the last verse we're looking at here this evening, he

says, but he that doeth the will of the F, the will of God, abideth

forever.

This is in strong contrast to what the world system tells us to

do.

So we are, as believers, called equipped, challenged to live

a life of eternal impact.

And so what does that mean for us?

It means that we can make a decision.

Are we going to serve ourselves?

Are we going to look for something that brings immediate gratification?

And we live in a society today that feeds that.

I wouldn't, you know, it might.

You might get down a rabbit trail if you do this, but look into

the process in which the smartphones were created.

A lot of it appeals to the part of your brain that's addictive

and goes down that rabbit trail of.

You know, there were people who did a lot of research to see

exactly what they need to put into phones and apps to get people

launched into that process.

And I'm not saying smartphones are bad, inherently bad.

They can be used for good, but they also can be used for bad.

And we look at every material thing in this world can be used for

good, and it can be used for bad.

And so the.

The idea for us is, are we going to allow the things that God

has created to feed the flesh, to feed the lust of the eyes, the

pride of life, the ways of the world?

Are we going to redeem it for the cause of the truth of the gospel?

It's so easy to fall.

I mean, I. I will be transparent with you here this evening.

I have been on my electronic device, and Alicia has said, how

long, how much longer are you going to be on that?

I've been.

I've only been on it for like, five, 10 minutes.

And she's like, it's been an hour.

You've been scrolling on there.

It's like, really, time flies because we get so engrossed into

something that is feeding that part of our body, that part of our

brain, that part of our flesh that.

That makes us feel good.

And not everything that makes us feel good is bad.

We know that, right?

God has designed certain things in our life to be pleasurable

and to be amazing.

But at the end of the day, what can happen is that we can have

an inordinate affection towards those things that God has

said that are good, but we can have an unhealthy attachment to them.

So, so that's what happened in the Old Testament with idols, right?

Wood and silver and gold aren't necessarily bad things.

But when it becomes an inordinate affection and put before

God, it's become an idol.

And so what we can see here in First John chapter two is he's warning

us about really idolatry.

Are we gonna let our flesh.

And he's saying, you are your own idol.

In that case, it's humanism, lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes

and pride of life.

And so one of the things that we can guard ourselves against when

it comes to not having separation in the fellowship with

God would be just being worldly, just being, wanting to be

like the world.

I want to be a husband like the world.

Well, if I want to be a husband like the way the world says

to be, I mean, just turn on the tv.

Every dad on television today is someone who's like a buffoon that

doesn't know what he's talking about and everyone, you know, disrespects

him.

That's just the reality.

That's the way the world paints the picture.

So if I want to be a dad like the world, that's how I'll be.

Well, whatever, you know, I don't care, you know, just be a goofball.

And the Bible says that a man of God should be sober minded.

Doesn't mean that we have to be serious all the time.

But there's a time to be serious.

There's a time to enact leadership.

I can't be, I can't be a, you know, a spouse or I can't be, you

know, just in general a good co worker, an employee or employer

in the ways of the world.

Because if I do that, I'm not following what God has called me

to do.

And so one of the things that can attack our relationship with

God is just the ways of this world.

And it's a draw, it's a, it's a hard draw for, for us because we're

bombarded.

We, we don't even know how much we are bombarded with the ways

of the world.

Satan has, has many avenues to attack us on this front.

There was A day when it was limited, but now it's almost to the

point where it's unlimited access to these three categories

of sin.

And what I could tell you here this evening is that if we are not

careful, the church and the Christian can look more like the

world than we would like to emit.

And what's happened, and if you don't believe this, I'd love

to have a discussion with you.

But I believe that churches have allowed the ways of the world

to come in way more than we expect.

And instead of the church infiltrating the world and changing

the world, as the Bible said in the Old and Old and New Testament,

they changed the culture.

The Bible says in the Book of Acts that these men turn the world

upside down with their Christianity.

So are we allowing the church to infiltrate the world and change

the world, or are we here to say that the world has changed the

church so much that we've lost sight of what matters?

The Christian himself, the Christian herself.

Do I look more like the world than I do the things of God?

And it's a tough one.

It's a tough one because many of us fall into that trap.

And I'm not saying we'll talk about another principle here later

on in this study, and I'll end with this.

I'm not saying go live on an island or go live in a monastery

and avoid all contact with the world.

You just can't be ever involved with anything.

That's not a realistic expectation.

It's never what an expectation that God had for us because he talks

about being in the world, but not being of the world.

So the concept would be not just to avoid all people, the concept

is to be around people, but be the light, to be the difference.

Because you know what's unique?

I, I've read people that have gone out to monasteries and said,

if I go out there, I'll never have any more fleshly desires.

Guess what?

They, they, they live in a room and eat bread and water, drink

water and eat bread for two years, and they have all the struggle

and they have the same sin that they had before they left.

It's all up here.

It's in the heart.

So what I would say is that sometimes, and by the way, I'm not

saying indulge in sin, avoid sin at all costs.

What I'm saying is there's certain things that we can't avoid

around us.

And, and so what I would say is don't use the excuse of, well,

this person did this.

So I had to do this, No, I. I need to be different.

I need to be distinct.

And that's what John is talking about here.

We're.

We're gonna.

Not next week, but we'll continue our study with another attack

on our relationship with God.

And if you peek ahead, it might pique your interest just a

little bit because he speaks of false religion and specifically

Antichrist.

And then he says, you've heard that the Antichrist shall come.

Even now, are there many Antichrist?

Maybe that's different than what you've ever heard before.

What is he talking about?

Well, two weeks, we'll talk about that.

But essentially what he's talking about is like the guise of

religion, but it's not Christ.

That's another attack.

Because a lot of people will.

They'll say, well, I'm not in the world.

I'm in church.

I do everything.

I'm a good person.

Well, sometimes what we can see is that false religion can be

a divide between our relationship and fellowship with

Christ as well.

And false religion is not just in cults and temples.

False religion can be found within biblical churches today if

we're not careful.

And that's what we have to be aware of as we are studying this.

So come back in a couple weeks.

We'll talk more about another thing that attacks our fellowship

with the Lord.

Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church

podcast.

I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.

If you would like to find out more information about our church

or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org

or find us on Facebook or YouTube.

You can also email me directly at Josh Massaroiddletownbaptistchurch

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Thank you so much.

God bless.

Have a wonderful day.