Test The Spirits | Wade Branch

Well, there's nothing better than to be in the presence of

God, to be talking about God, talking to God, to be singing

about him, singing His praises and affirming our faith to Him

and to each other, not just by ourselves, but with other people

who believe the same thing. It's a great day to be together.

And as I mentioned, don't forget, this is the last time

we'll be doing this in the afternoon only.

We'll be back to the morning services starting next week.

Thank you for making it once again, and it's a great day to

be together. I'm happy to continue our study

with you And 1st John. We're in chapter 4 today.

So if you want to turn your Bibles there for those who

haven't been here, we've been studying through the first book

of first John. And this book is a message,

holds a message of assurance, a message.

He tells us at one point that he's writing to them so they may

have full joy, so they may know that they have eternal life.

He writes concerning those who might try to deceive them.

And so you're going to see this mixture of themes even today in

this chapter as to what his goals are.

His goals are to establish and ground them in their faith so

they can know, so that they can be full of joy and so that they

can please God in reality and not just by the things that they

say. OK, so one of the things we're

going to talk about today, you may have noticed on the board,

is this idea of testing the spirits.

So just a little bit of a running start from last week in

chapter 3, we read. And by this we know that we are

of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him.

This thing that he was talking about was by this was obeying

and following Jesus and actually doing what he says.

He says that's how you know and that's how you'll be assured.

And at the end of the chapter he said, now he who keeps his

commandments abides in him and he and him.

And by this we know that he abides in us by the Spirit whom

he has given us. So here we go in chapter 4.

He starts out by saying, beloved or these people, these children

of God who he dearly loves, he says do not believe every

spirit. You have to remember he said

this for a reason. And I'm glad he said it because

I've needed this. I've needed this statement to

not believe everything you see in here.

And clearly they needed it because the Holy Spirit guided

the writer to say this. So maybe you need to hear this

like I have many times in my life.

Don't believe everything you hear.

And we're going to get into this spirit, but basically don't

believe the essence of everything or don't believe

everyone. He's not saying test, He's not

saying it's like some some mystical thing.

It's very straightforward. Don't believe everyone you hear

and don't believe everything you hear.

That's the spirit, the essence of the things that you hear.

And there may be a lot of people in here that are pretty

skeptical, but not everyone is as refined in their evaluation.

So maybe you need to hear to test the spirits today.

He says do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits

whether they are of God. Well, this word test does not

again mean some myth, mysterious, mystical thing.

It comes from a Greek word, doki mazo, that means to examine, to

prove or to scrutinized to see if something is genuine or not.

It's really a very straightforward thing.

We're supposed to evaluate something against a certain

standard to see if it is of that genuine standard.

If you have a gold standard, there is a standard set and you

have to evaluate every other piece of gold up to that

standard. So we are supposed to test these

spirits or these people or these ideas that are out there, right,

Because I have a tendency and I think as you get older, you get

more robust to wherever you are in your struggles.

But I have a tendency to thank everybody is good.

And it's not saying like, oh, that's that's so high.

That's so great of you, Wade, because that has its downfalls

too. Taylor's a little bit more like

she's skeptical and she sees saying things for how they

really are. Sometimes you need both

personalities in the world. You need people who see and want

to see the good. You need to see people who are

like, I see what's real. I need to hear the examination.

But we also read last time I spoke that the heart is

deceitful above all things. So I can't just examine

something and say, oh, I'm going to be a one.

I'm going to be a one man jury here and I'm going to decide

whether what I think is right because our hearts can deceive

us. So how are we supposed to

examine, and it's against the standard whether they are of

God. OK, so how do we do that?

How do you know what is of God? First Corinthians chapter 2

1 Corinthians 2:11

verse 11 says for what man knows the things of a man except the

spirit of the man, which is in him?

Even so, no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God

for a very straightforward concept, right?

You don't know who I am unless I tell you.

No one knows it what's inside me unless I reveal it to you.

And God has to reveal himself to us for us to know the things of

God. So if we are going to evaluate

whether they're of God, we have to have God tell us.

Second Peter 2 verse 21 says for prophecy or the teaching of God

2 Peter 2:21

never came by the will of man, but holy men, men who are set

apart, holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy

Spirit. So in God's word, those holy men

who are set apart to teach and write these scriptures were

moved by the Holy Spirit himself.

So how do we test the spirits? Second Timothy 3 verse 16, all

2 Timothy 3:16

scripture is given by inspiration of God.

That phrase, as you've heard it before, literally means from the

breath of God. So if we are going to evaluate

things and test them, whether they're of God, the only true

way we know is to look at God's Word.

How do we test the spirits #1 here's a couple rule of thumbs I

came across that might be helpful to you.

Number one, were they taught by Jesus?

The things that you hear people teach or that you are wondering

about, were they taught by Jesus himself?

Number two, were they practiced by the early church #3 are they

affirmed in the epistles? The other letters?

Now, most people are right on with this one.

They're like, man, Jesus said it, at least if he said in the

form of a command, I got you, I'll do it.

But a lot of people seem to kind of think these number two and

three don't matter as much. Well, yeah, they didn't say in

in the letters or, yeah, the church did that, But you know,

doesn't really matter. And, and I would ask why, why

did they go through all the work to write that?

Many of these people were not very educated.

And so it was difficult sometimes to get someone who can

write it all down to sit down and write line after line after

line. These are long letters.

They didn't have great paper. They didn't have a computer to

sit down at. It took a lot of work to produce

these. So why didn't they even write

it? Why didn't they go through all

the work to deliver and pass these letters around and share

them? If it doesn't matter what the

early church did, it matters what they did.

And that's why we have the examples in the book of Acts in

other places. And again, being affirmed by the

epistles, all the letters that were written to churches.

This is a a way of asking ourselves to test something,

whether it's from God. Does it pass these tests?

And this is your weekly reminder, my weekly reminder to

value your time with the book that we're that we call the

Bible. We have to value it so deeply.

Why? Because he says, because many

false prophets have gone out into the world, we have to value

our time with God's word. And the reason I'm telling you

is because I need it. I know how often I get off track

with my attention to God's word. And so I guarantee there's,

there's maybe half the room at least that needs a

reaffirmation. You got to get in your word.

You've got to get in and study every single day.

And I need that because I fall apart spiritually and in my

ability to test things if I do not.

And why is that important? Because there are plenty of

things to leave me astray, he says here.

And this was just shortly after the church was set up.

And he said there are already many who have gone out into the

world to teach what's wrong. False prophets.

The word prophecy or prophet, as Darren often says, doesn't have

to just mean telling something ahead of time.

It's not just like I have to tell you, oh, this is going to

happen in the future. That's a prophecy.

Prophesying can also be forth telling or just saying it.

So there are people who say things, whether they're

predicting something in the future or just saying about

what's going on now, or they're teaching you something, they're

forth telling things that are false.

OK, Why is that a big deal? If you look in the garden, the

devil is set up as the master deceiver.

In the early days of the world, the devil was in there and he

deceived man and woman, and he led them to sin.

Let's think about the context that we were in there.

You had one command. Don't eat that tree.

Tend the garden, do everything else.

Don't eat that tree. He had one command.

They had one command. They had two people.

Just two. Don't mess this up.

You got one command, two people. You got this right.

You can handle this. And they had all the ideal

circumstances you could ask for. It was there was no pain.

There was no suffering. There was no daily struggle.

It was peaceful work. You had everything.

You think we can handle it right as humanity, But the devil was

such a deceiver that he said this twist.

He said you will not die if you eat that tree.

God knows you'll become wise. Remember, we've talked before.

He teaches in half truths. Yes, they became wise, but to

the destruction of their soul. So if the devil can twist one

command with two people in a perfect environment today, there

are many instructions we had to follow.

I was going to show you my Bible.

I'm the whole my Bible. If you look at your Bible, there

are a lot of instructions. There are a lot of things to

teach and to learn. So that provides a lot of room

for people to get in there and mess it up.

There are many people on this world of all different

backgrounds, all different experiences, all different

tendencies, and we are dealing with fallen circumstances.

We're not dealing with an ideal world.

We get tired, we get burdened, we get weakened by so many

things. So if we think we can waltz out

there and say God, I, I've read your Bible before, I know these

three things that I've learned, I'll be all right.

He says we have to be ready to test the spirits against the

standard of God's word. And if we don't know God's word,

we don't stand a chance. You may think you go to a church

that practices good things and you're safe.

It's not that simple. We're here for a little while

and sure we can do our best together, but you stand and have

to bear your own burdens. We must spend time in the Word

of God so that we are not deceived because the danger is

real. The opportunity is real for us

to be deceived. Maybe you may seem small, but it

will cause issues in our walk if we don't know and live in God's

Word. Verse 2, we may not get through

the whole chapter. Don't worry.

If you're wondering why we're just getting through verse one,

verse 2 by this, you know the Spirit of God.

Now I don't believe he's drawing all the doctrine, the doctrinal

lines here. He's not saying this is the one

test that's going to tell you whether someone's going to be a

spirit of God. Rather, he's been talking about

a doctrinal issue and he's saying here is the Spirit of God

in this doctrinal issue. Let's remember back what he just

tell them in the last couple chapters.

If someone comes and says Jesus didn't come in the flesh, he

said that's the spirit of the Antichrist.

If somebody tells you that Jesus didn't really come, that's evil.

So what he's saying is you're going to know the Spirit of God,

the spirit of truth, by this. Every spirit that confesses that

Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every

spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in

the flesh is not of God. So that is the context he was

writing about. We have been talking about

these, the Gnostic teachings that said Jesus couldn't really

have come in the flesh because all flesh is evil.

So Jesus wasn't evil, He didn't really come here.

It was an illusion, right? It's funny, we've talked about

this a couple of times. Modern day we see the more

common issue is there are plenty of religions that don't believe

Jesus was really God. They actually don't have many

problems with the fact that he was here on the earth.

Muslims, Jehovah's Witness, Mormons.

They do not believe Jesus was God.

They believe these other things, but not God.

But it's funny, during John's day, that didn't seem to be the

real issue. Clearly God was among us.

He healed the sick, He raised the dead.

He brought sight to the blind. They couldn't deny that this

figure was God, but they said he couldn't have really been man.

It's funny how we we just turn it around.

The struggle has changed today. Jesus was proven to be a man

clearly because he lives. History says it, but he's not

really gone. The problem is if we twist or

undermine any part of Jesus work, we are going to critically

undermine our faith. He goes on to say, and this is

the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming

and is now already in the world. The spirit of the Antichrist,

the essence of the teaching of the anti Christian principles

teach. Yes, Jesus did not come in the

flesh. But I think maybe the greater

and more widespread issue this represents is like we just said,

anything that would undermine the teaching of truth from its

pure simplicity and from faith in the facts.

Anything of that would be anti Christian and would undermine

Jesus's work. Verse four He says you are of

God little children and have overcome them because he who is

in you is greater than he who is in the world.

They are clearly struggling and he starts by affirming that they

are from God himself and maybe you need that information.

Maybe you need to be reminded of your identity.

You're not put here for no reason.

You have a great purpose in service to the Almighty Creator

and can't afford to be overcome by the by the works of evil

because He's living in you and He is.

He was in you is greater than he who is in the world.

This is the anthem of the people of God and has been for

millennia. Maybe you remember in Second

2 Kings 6 · chapter mention

Kings chapter 6 this is said almost verbatim the same thing

and I'll just give you a quick rundown.

I think I taught on this about five years ago.

I don't think we've talked about it much then.

So maybe you need a refresher or someone hasn't heard it.

Second Kings, chapter 6 in this point in the narrative of the

2 Kings 6 · chapter mention

Old Testament, the Israelites are at war or the the king of

Assyria is coming to make war with the Israelites.

So God's people, he's trying to make war with God's people.

And every time he tries to go attack the Israelites, he's got

an ambush set up. His plans are foiled and somehow

they, the Israelites avoid the attack of this evil king.

He's a warring king. He wants to come after and crush

them. And pretty soon he gets fed up

and he's like, who among you are is a spy?

Because someone in here is telling the Israelites what's

going on. There's no way they've avoided

my attacks this many times. And one of his people stands up

is like, it's not us. The prophet Elijah, who's in

Israel, hears the words that you speak in your bedroom.

He says, and he is probably freaked out by that, but he's a

warring king. And so he says, OK, I got to go

get this guy. And they tell him where he's at.

They say he he must be in Dothan.

Therefore he sent horses and Chariots and a great army there.

This man has charge of a massive army.

The Assyrians were very well established as a military force,

and he had come after this one man.

They surround the city with all of his force of his army.

And they came by night and surrounded the city.

And when the servant of the man of God arose early and went out,

there was an army surrounding the city with horses and

Chariots. So Elijah has a servant with him

to help him along with everything.

And that servant gets up early and rubs his eyes, wakes up and

he is surrounded. And his servant said to him,

alas, my master, what should we do?

What are we going to do? We're surrounded.

And Elijah prayed and said, Lord, I pray open his eyes that

he may see. Then the Lord opened the eyes of

the young man, and he saw. Did it say the Lord put

something else there? It said, open his eyes and what

did he see? Maybe it looked something like

this. And behold, the mountain was

full of horses and Chariots of fire all around.

Elijah, he says you brought horses.

Great, I got horses, you got Chariots, I got Chariots.

But mine are horses and Chariots of judgement, of destruction, of

power that is beyond anything that the enemy has against you.

And they were surrounding. It says that the mountain was

full of these horses and Chariots of fire.

He said do not fear for those. I think I failed to leave off

the the phrase. He said those who are with us

are greater than those who are with them.

That's the phrase he includes that is almost verbatim with

what John said. And 1st John, those who are with

us or he who is in you is greater than those who are

against you. And I need to have a spiritual

perspective. If we are going to survive

spiritually, we won't survive without a spiritual perspective.

We are going to be like that servant who's freaking out in

the middle of his troubles, who has no Peace of Mind, who has

all this unrest and inside of him if we do not have a

spiritual perspective. And that perspective is that the

Lord's help is always there and he is with us every day.

God's might is surrounded you, and it was always there all

along, whether he took the opportunity to see it or not.

So we might as well get used to and enjoy looking at those

realities that should comfort us.

So he's giving them these affirmations.

He's saying you back in first, John, you are of God and you've

overcome them, not because you are so awesome, but because he

who is in you is greater. Our God, who works in US and

lives through US, is the greater force.

Verse five, he says they are of the world.

He's talking just about those, those false teachers.

He says they are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the

world and the world hears them. We talked about maybe some of us

have a hard time believing any someone else is really wrong.

We don't say it. God, whose word makes the

distinction. We don't have to make that

distinction. And don't let people throw that

in your face like you're somehow so judgmental and so rude that

you see something as truth. You and I don't make the

distinction. The distinction is already made.

God's word makes the distinction whether something is true or

not. And we just help people see it.

Hopefully that's our goal, right?

With humility and gentleness. Verse 6, We are of God.

He who knows God hears us. He who is not of God does not

hear us. Who is the US he's talking

about? Well, it's the people who wrote

the inspired Word of God. John is inspired writer and if

people who are writing that inspired word and people who are

sharing the truth are not heard said, they're not of us.

When she goes back again to making sure we understand the

word of God and listen to these writers because those are the US

who we must be listening to. He says by this we know the

spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

Remember Spirit of being the essence of something or the one

who is of truth or the one who is of error.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God and

everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

Now last time we talked in chapter 3, we talked about this

idea of laying down our lives for the brethren.

I don't know about you. I felt really challenged by

those scriptures. We talked about how aggressive

of a command it is to literally lay down your life for someone

else. And I left that wanting to speak

a little bit more and, and it came back up in this chapter.

Let us love one another. So if we're going to become

commanded to love one another according to this love that is

of God, then it's a big serious task.

He goes on to say, well, we'll get there in a minute.

He's commanding us to love as God loved, and I need a little

bit more help with getting there all the time.

So how might we do that? Now it is clear that we must

understand God's Word, as we've already said.

And we all, I think, get the idea that we have to understand

what God wants from us in his Word to practice it.

But sometimes there's a gap between how and what you know,

And maybe you're at the point where you're like, I want to, I

want to know, I want to do it, but how do I do it?

Asking others, as we've said often, is one of the best ways.

If you ask a spiritual leader in this congregation, if you ask

Frank, if you ask some of the older brother, Carl and Darren,

anybody who has lived the life and who have been faithful, they

can give you some great advice. And many others, I don't mean to

leave it there. They can give you great advice.

So yes, start there. That's great, but in reality,

they are living their own life. They don't see every little

thing that's going on in your life to give the best advice all

the time. We always pray, you know, to to

be able to give good advice, but sometimes you don't know exactly

what somebody needs the way maybe they know what they need.

And so I want to encourage you if you have tried asking someone

else, what should I do to show love?

How can I be an example of God's love for the world and how I can

be one who loves as God loves because that's a command from

God. The bar is set.

How do I love like God? Don't underestimate the power of

your heart going to God's heart, because once you know God's

word, you can study it all you want, but there comes a point

where you have to start to dig deep.

There comes a point where you have to ask God earnestly in

prayer. God help me to see.

In the book of James, he says, let him who lacks wisdom do what

ask of God who gives to all, How does he give to all?

He says who gives to all generously and and how and

without reproach. If you lack wisdom, he says ask

of God and he gives generously and without reproach, not giving

you shame like you're silly, don't know enough.

How could you not know what to do?

How could you not know how you should show love?

You should already know this. He says no, he gives generously

and without reproach. So if you want to love like God,

yes, ask, but ask God for guidance and don't underestimate

the value of what you can be aware of.

Because of that connection with God and because of the awareness

when you pray a prayer like this, this is a prayer that I

was taught and I think helps me a lot.

God, please help me to have opportunities to do good and

please help me to see those opportunities and please help me

to have the strength to take those opportunities.

Because sometimes you, you just missing it.

You don't care about people in the world.

You don't care about people around you sometimes as I do.

And I have to be willing to see that and then I can take

opportunity and take advantage of it.

So don't underestimate the process of the heart in seeking

communion with God. And something I don't normally

think about is one of God's guidance for prayers.

In Luke 18 it says this. Then Jesus told his disciples a

parable to show them they should always pray and not give up.

He said in a certain town there was a judge who neither feared

God nor cared what people thought.

And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with

the plea, Grant me justice against my adversary.

For some time he refused, but finally he said to himself, even

though I don't fear God or care what people think, yet because

this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice

so that she won't eventually come and attack me.

I think this is the NIV and the Lord said listen to what the

unjust judge says and will not God bring about justice for his

chosen ones who cry out to him day and night?

Will he keep putting them off? The teaching in this is this

worldly person can be convinced by a a woman who is persistent

in her asking. He's like I'm a good God.

Don't you think if you are persistent and ask me, I will

give to you? And it dawned on me, maybe I'm

not praying to God for guidance enough with that kind of

attitude. Oh sure, when when someone I

love is sick and struggling deeply, I will be persistent in

prayer and beg and I'll stay on it and stay on it.

But do I do that with turning my heart to God's word?

Do I do that with turning a mindset into action that has

never been in really an action before?

May we be as persistent as that widow in pursuing the actions in

the heart of God beyond maybe what we've ever done before.

Verse 8. He who does not love does not

know God, for God is love. He who does not love does not

know God, for God is love. God is defined by love.

God is the essence of love encapsulated.

So if we're going to be godly, we should probably start there.

Verse 9. In this the love of God was

manifested toward us, that God has sent his only begotten Son

into the world that we might live through him.

In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us

and love, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the

propitiation for our sins. Whenever the Word of God is

seeking to convince us of God's love for us, to teach us, it

doesn't do a whole lot of explaining.

It usually just gives US1 strong, concrete, undeniable

example. God loves you.

He sent a son to die for you. And that reminds me to look at

my love for God and for others that way.

Do I need to give some long oration about, well, I really do

love people. I just, God says I love the

world and here's how. Here's my action, here's my

proof. And I don't want to ever make

this seem like we are our our works earn our salvation because

they do not. No matter what I did, it would

not earn me salvation without Jesus Christ to save me.

But don't let people say that if you are evaluating your life to

see if you're a saved person, don't let them take you off the

fact that you show your faith by your works.

As James says, God to prove his love for us and to prove that he

does have love for us, reference an action.

So maybe we can reference, hey, I love God and I have faith.

And here's how I know that you can prove your love by action.

It doesn't have to be something that earns your salvation to be

assured, as we talked about in the last chapter.

Love that and be confident and to be able to reference your

faith by action. There's nothing wrong with that.

Verse 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love

one another. What if God loved me the way I

love my brothers and sisters? What if God loved you the way

you love the people who are your brothers and sisters in Christ?

Where would your soul sit today? He says to love God or to love

like God loved the world? Sure, we don't want to ever be

doing direct wrongdoing to people around us in the church.

I think that's obvious, like we don't want to be doing that.

But let's take it a little bit further.

What if God loved me like I can be toward my brothers and

sisters uninvolved in their life, and maybe they're on the

back burner. Maybe I treat you all sometimes

like you're on the back burner. Like you don't matter as much to

me as what's going on right now. Like it's really not worth my

time. I've got other stuff to do.

These people have their own. Go do your thing.

I'll go to church. I'll be whatever, but you're not

worth my time. Sometimes we, I think we as

humans, develop this attitude toward our brothers and sisters.

What if God loved you the way you and I sometimes love each

other? What if God loved me with the

spirit of just being annoyed at dealing with my brothers and

sisters? And I'm not saying you can't be

annoyed because there are things that deserve annoyance.

But if I just stay annoyed at my brothers and sisters?

If I don't move on past that and make something beyond that, I'm

living in annoyance with them. What if God lived in just

perpetual annoyance with you? And as we've kind of already

mentioned, what if God said I just got more important stuff to

do than to deal with them? Beloved?

And if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Verse 12. No one has ever has seen God at

any time. If we love one another, God

abides in US and His love has been perfected in US.

No one has ever seen God. God is spirit.

You can't see him. No one, no one in flesh has seen

God in reality. And John 14 verse 7, this idea

John 14:7

comic came up with his disciples.

Jesus said if you hadn't known me, you would have known my

Father also. And from now on you know him and

have seen him. Maybe you say see right there it

says you've seen God in a sense. He's not saying you've actually

seen God. He says Philip said to him,

Lord, show us the Father and it's sufficient for us.

He's like, yeah, it'd be great. I'd love to see God.

Jesus said to him, have I been with you so long?

And you and yet you have not known me, Philip, He who has

seen me has seen the Father. So no one has literally seen

God. No one wakes up in the morning

and says hi there, God, good morning.

No one does that because no one's really seen him.

We see him in another way. We see him in a spiritual sense.

We see him in an awareness. How?

If we love one another, that's how you see God.

If you love one another, God abides in US and his love has

been perfected in US. Do you think you would love him

more if you saw him? If you saw Jesus or God standing

here today in in your presence, do you think you love him more?

I think reaction might be to initially say, yeah, sure, I

think I would. I think I'd be more focused and

more attentive to that. But he just said it would not.

We would not love him more in a way that really matters to God.

Sure, we might have feelings that well up inside of us.

And this love is the word agape. The word agape means a self

sacrificing love that will give to another and show that aside

from what 1 feels, that's phileo love in the Greek.

If we might feel a phileo love more toward God if we saw him.

Doesn't sound like that's really what matters to God as much.

Obviously that comes with it. But God's love being perfected

in us in a way that matters to God comes in love for one

another. I might feel more love for him,

but the significance and what is great importance to Him is that

I love my brothers. By this we know that we abide in

Him and He and us because He has given us of His Spirit.

And I'm going to have to cut it off there.

We have a little bit less than half the chapter left, but I

hope this morning you have a written stilled, a reinstalled

desire to love God and to love your brethren with the kind of

love that God showed again, agape love.

That would be self sacrificing and do whatever it took for the

betterment of your brethren for mine.

And I stand the first in line of that list to be better at that.

And this church will be what it can be.

This church will grow in love and I believe in number as

people are drawn to that just said, the world will know the

love of God by how we love each other.

The lesson is yours this morning.

I hope that if you have not started this walk that you will

want to, that you'll want to be in God to know that He is with

me and living in me and He's greater than anything I'll face

in this world and it is powers surrounding me.

And if you have not started that walk and you want to enjoy that,

you can start it today. Obviously by hearing the word of

God, you got to hear something to believe and by believing that

Jesus Christ is the Son of God and repenting of your past life,

saying I'm going to change, I'm going to turn from my way to

God's way and confessing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

As we've already said, you have to confess this in this study

that that Jesus was the Son of God, that he came to this earth

and he died and saved and rose again to save us.

You have to confess that, but there's no other way by by which

we can be saved. And if you've already done that

and you're and you're ready to be baptized, we can be immersed

into water for their mission of sins to be added to the church.

Now the sins washed away. And you can do that today if you

have not, and start the walk.