Sermon

The Doctrines Of Gnosticism - Frank Brancato 12/15/19

Church of Christ - Bakersfield, Ca

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  1. As you can see, on the screen, the title of our lesson is the

  2. doctrines of gnosticism. And the question is, what does

  3. that mean? What is the doctrines or what

  4. are the doctrines of gnosticism? And why does it matter as an

  5. introductory text? I want to invite you to a

  6. passage found in the book of Jude and Jude only has one

  7. chapter, but beginning in verse 3, beloved while I was very

  8. diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation.

  9. I found it necessary to write to you exhorting, you to contend

  10. earnestly, for the faith, which was once for all delivered to

  11. the Saints for certain man have crept.

  12. In unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this

  13. condemnation. Ungodly men who turn the grace

  14. of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our

  15. Lord Jesus Christ. But I want to remind you though,

  16. you once knew this at the Lord having I saved the people out of

  17. the land of Egypt, afterward, destroyed, those who did not

  18. believe in this lesson. Today, I want to examine the

  19. doctrines of gnosticism as touted in the popular media.

  20. And you might remember these phrases or know what I'm talking

  21. about. I'm talking about The DaVinci

  22. Code and also the doctrine or the Gospel of Judas and others

  23. and we want to do this so that we might all understand what

  24. gnosticism. And how the New Testament deals

  25. with those doctrines and why popular culture gets it wrong.

  26. Well, first of all, about the text before us, this passage

  27. along with several others. In the New Testament, allude to

  28. the doctrines and practices of a religion.

  29. Today that is commonly referred to as gnosticism, but what is

  30. it? And what's the word actually?

  31. Even me, the word gnosticism comes from a Greek word gnosis

  32. and it Literally means knowledge.

  33. Now, gnostics were concerned with knowledge because they

  34. believed that salvation was predicated upon obtaining

  35. special Enlightenment for or through their Mysteries.

  36. Now gnosticism did not originate with Christianity, in fact it

  37. had its origins in paganism and it was primarily pantheistic,

  38. meaning many gods, you know, paganism.

  39. Was pantheistic because they observed or recognized, many

  40. different or multiple gods on the flip side.

  41. For example, a religion that is monotheistic is a religion that

  42. recognizes only one God. And that's all of us.

  43. Today, Christians, we recognize one, God.

  44. So gnosticism was pantheistic, meaning many gods, but there's

  45. so much more and I'll get back to that in just a little bit.

  46. As Christianity though, expanded into the Gentile world.

  47. Gnostics were quick to fuse the two religions together.

  48. Added to that was modern-day philosophy.

  49. And the idea was this, they emphasize personal or spiritual

  50. knowledge over Orthodox or traditional teachings.

  51. I want to notice a definition of very long, wordy definition or

  52. description of gnosticism and we're not going to read the

  53. whole thing because it is very, very worthy.

  54. I want to highlight a couple of things though, to understand

  55. what gnosticism is I want. To just say this as a general

  56. principle of this definition, it is a collective name.

  57. Gnosticism is for a large number of greatly varying pantheistic

  58. idealistic sex borrowing the phraseology and some of the

  59. tenants of the chief religions of the day and especially of

  60. Christianity, held matter to be a deterioration of Spirit and

  61. the whole universe. A Privation of the deity.

  62. Now, with philosophy, added all of this.

  63. These things were fused together and what is known as or referred

  64. to as gnosticism. Now, I got to say in the past.

  65. In the past, perhaps the study of the subject of gnosticism

  66. would be extremely dry. And I got to tell you, this is a

  67. challenge for me. Because we're going to talk

  68. about something that is and can be very dry.

  69. I don't want it to be boring. I don't want it to be dry but

  70. also on the very same subject, we look at this idea and we want

  71. it to be interesting to understand what it is and really

  72. how some of these beliefs have trickled over into our society.

  73. For example, there are people for example, that perhaps

  74. believe certain things that were taught under the religion of

  75. gnosticism. That wouldn't Consider

  76. themselves to be Gnostic but these are things that have and

  77. theories that have drifted over. Well, I'll tell you a dry

  78. subject like this was revived when the recently released

  79. ancient documents and popular works of fiction became in our

  80. society. One of which is The DaVinci Code

  81. Now The DaVinci Code is a popular work that presumes

  82. certain Gnostic teachings to be true.

  83. Now and basis the fictional story upon these things.

  84. In fact, you also remember something else.

  85. You remember this, the Gospel of Judas and you heard of that the

  86. Gospel of Judas, Why is it important?

  87. Why do we have to pay attention to that?

  88. And why does it matter? Why does it matter today?

  89. That we noticed, what the Gospel of Judas actually was, and why

  90. it's wrong, or The DaVinci Code or gnosticism.

  91. Why is it important? I'll tell you why, it's because

  92. of people's responses to varying interpretations of things, or

  93. varying accounts of things and they conflict each other.

  94. So people do one of two things. Number one, people, They say

  95. sometimes when there's all kinds of varying opinions so just pick

  96. the one you want. And that's good enough.

  97. And everything is okay because there's all different opinions,

  98. just choose the one that you want.

  99. That's number one, number two, people say because there's a

  100. conflict and there's a division, or a conflict between two things

  101. like the word of God and things, like the Gospel of Judas and

  102. other Gnostic Gospels that people say.

  103. You know what? You can't know what's, right?

  104. Nothing is reliable. Throw it all out.

  105. You can't know what's true. You know, I think that that kind

  106. of philosophy trickles over to people today years and years

  107. ago. There was a softball coach that

  108. I knew and I was talking to him about church and he said, you

  109. know, I mean I believe in God but I am against organized

  110. religion and I said, why is that he said because there's so many

  111. differing opinions. It's impossible to know what's

  112. right? Well, I know that there's

  113. various opinions about a lot of things, but when you talk about

  114. the word of God and you talk about what God wants, there's

  115. only one standard. So that's what we want to

  116. emphasize. We want to notice what these

  117. Things were in gnosticism number one gnosticism and I told you

  118. we'd get back to this gnosticism is pantheism now that's a fancy

  119. word one of the definitions of pantheism and we're going to

  120. notice this from a two-fold perspective, one of the

  121. definitions of this is a doctrine that identifies god

  122. with the universe. Sound familiar, it identifies

  123. god with the universe or regards the universe as a manifestation

  124. of God. In other words, God is not a

  125. person. God is not someone that can be

  126. reached. You know, brother Wade, prayed

  127. to God on our behalf, we prayed together, we all said, amen, and

  128. agreement with that prayer talking about reaching God

  129. specifically, brother. Darren prayed to God

  130. specifically, because, you know why, God can be reached, he is

  131. our heavenly father and when the Bible talks about Abba, Father,

  132. it refers to God himself. But the relationship that we

  133. also have with him. Wouldn't it be awful?

  134. If you could not reach the Creator and have a relationship

  135. with him, you know, Albert Einstein.

  136. One of the most brilliant men that ever lived, you know, he

  137. said he didn't buy into evolution by the way, never did

  138. what Einstein said is the idea of creation or the world, or the

  139. universe that exists was the result of cause and effect.

  140. So what we live in is the effect and if there's the effect there

  141. has to have a cause and if there has to have a cause it's got to

  142. be God, it's got to be a higher power.

  143. Albert, Einstein raised in a home of Judaism believed in the

  144. god of Judaism. At one point in time, and said

  145. there had to be a God, no problem at all.

  146. You know what happened to Albert.

  147. Einstein as brilliant as he was, I'll tell you what happened.

  148. He started looking out at all. The things that happen in the

  149. world. And he couldn't put together the

  150. idea in his mind that if God were so good and God were so

  151. great. Then why does he allow bad

  152. things to happen to good people? Albert, Einstein couldn't wrap

  153. His Brilliant mind around that. So you know what he said, he

  154. said this, oh, they're still a God but he cannot be reached.

  155. He cannot be touched. We don't really have a

  156. relationship with him. It is just a cosmic mind that

  157. spoke everything into it. Existence know, God can be

  158. reached now. What about this right here?

  159. What about the universe? We give you two examples, okay?

  160. When I had cancer, you know what people said to me that I come in

  161. contact with? They would say this all the

  162. time. You're in my prayers people.

  163. I did business with people that I associated with members, of

  164. the Lord's Church, Christians would say I'm praying for you.

  165. You're in my prayers. Then there were other people

  166. that said this, I'll keep a good thought out for you.

  167. You know, why? It's the principal just like

  168. this just like gnosticism if I have enough good thoughts going

  169. on about me in the universe and I turn it over to the universe.

  170. Then guess what? Good will happen.

  171. That's not the god that we serve, but understand this.

  172. It is pantheistic in nature. Gnosticism is first perspective,

  173. is that That it regards the universe as the manifestation of

  174. God and we can't reach him personally.

  175. But number two, it's a worship that admits are tolerates all

  176. God's plural e. And by the way, interesting

  177. about this gnosticism teaches that there are multiple gods,

  178. small G, multiple gods in existence and they are called

  179. Ian's. And what is that?

  180. These gods in these Ian's formed a hierarchy of deities.

  181. And from that all things happened, the higher order of

  182. deities were thought of to be a spiritual and the lower were

  183. thought up to be physical. And it just easier to open up

  184. the word of God and say in the beginning, God created the

  185. heavens and the Earth and leave it at that.

  186. Would it be easier? Instead of having a concept of

  187. believing in a concept that there's a hierarchy of gods that

  188. created everything and all the good stuff was paid for by the

  189. or created by the spiritual and all the bad things were created

  190. by the physical. It's the doctrines of gnosticism

  191. in that. Now, here's the problem to the

  192. spiritual. They believed is good.

  193. And the physical is inherently evil, that distinction,

  194. ultimately affected the practices of those who believed

  195. in gnosticism. But the Bible teaches, there's

  196. only one God, let me give you some Bible for that.

  197. Several passages of scripture. First, we begin in Deuteronomy

    Deuteronomy 6 chapter mention

  198. chapter 6 and verse 4, where the Bible says.

  199. Hear o Israel the Lord our God is one Lord.

  200. That's it right there. How many just one?

  201. What else it's going to the New Testament in John chapter 17 and

    John 17 chapter mention

  202. verse 3. And this is eternal life that

  203. they may know you. The only true God and Jesus

  204. Christ whom you have sent. Here's another passage the words

  205. of the Apostle Paul in First Corinthians chapter, 8, verses

  206. five and six for even if there are so called God's whether in

  207. heaven or on Earth, Earth or there are many gods and many

  208. lords yet for us. There's one God, the father of

  209. whom are all things, and we for him and one, Lord Jesus Christ

  210. through whom are all things. And through whom we live, so

  211. there is one God. One final passage though, in

  212. Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 6, Paul said this.

    Ephesians 4 chapter mention

  213. He said, one God and Father of all, who is above all and

  214. through all and in you all. So gnosticism is pantheism which

  215. believes that God is nothing more than the manifestation of

  216. the universe and the forces around us, and you can't contact

  217. him directly at all. Number two, it is the

  218. recognition of multiple Ian's or multiple gods.

  219. Therefore, it is not One God that we serve.

  220. But all of these others are enforce, the word of God says

  221. though there's only one God. Number two, another reason why

  222. gnosticism is false teaching and false Doctrine is because

  223. gnosticism denies the deity and Humanity of Jesus Christ.

  224. You know, part of the teaching of gnosticism is that Jesus

  225. Christ was a created being And by the way, there are religious

  226. affiliations today, that believe that Jesus was created.

  227. Jesus was not created. In fact, the Bible says that in

  228. the beginning, Jesus was there. And in Genesis chapter 1 and

    Genesis 1 chapter mention

  229. verse 26, when it says, let us make man in our image, that

  230. means this when God created everything, he also did.

  231. So at the very same time with Jesus Christ, and the Holy

  232. Spirit and they were all there at the very beginning, in other

  233. words, all things were created by them.

  234. We have one God that we serve Serve.

  235. But Jesus Christ was not created.

  236. He was there in the beginning. Somebody asked me one time.

  237. Well, when was what happened before the beginning.

  238. Let's not get too smart, doesn't matter in the beginning, that's

  239. it. In the beginning, that means

  240. that whatever happened before the beginning.

  241. I don't know what happened before Genesis 1:1, I don't

    Genesis 1:1

  242. care. All I know is, Jesus has always

  243. existed. He was not created but the

  244. doctrine of gnosticism denied, the deity of Jesus Christ.

  245. And also at the same time, the humanity of Jesus Christ.

  246. Now, some gnostics even believe that Jesus Christ came and to

  247. set man on the path of Enlightenment.

  248. And I'll tell you something, I appreciated the songs and some

  249. of the songs. We sung this morning, talking

  250. about Jesus Christ, being risen talking about the things that

  251. Jesus Christ has done. I'm so grateful for that, I know

  252. you're grateful for that. These are wonderful words of

  253. praise and honor to the Lord for them.

  254. Okay. gnosticism didn't believe in any of that, they believed

  255. that Jesus was really a person created and he came to this

  256. earth to put man on a path of Enlightenment, and that's why he

  257. came Now, the enlightenment was this, by the way, to put man on

  258. a different path. That was separate and, and

  259. separate and different from the god of the Old Testament.

  260. And that's why Jesus came. And by the way, this is affirmed

  261. in The DaVinci Code, it is stated and I will read in the in

  262. that book that it wasn't until the time of Constantine that

  263. Jesus Christ was set forth as divine.

  264. We know that to be false, we know that not to be true

  265. gnostics. Also denied, the humanity of

  266. Jesus Christ, but the Bible teaches the Divinity of Jesus.

  267. In John chapter 1 and verse 1 would be a scathing rebuke of

    John 1 chapter mention

  268. gnosticism notice. This right here.

  269. Jesus was both Divine and human. Incidentally. if Jesus were not

  270. human, he could not have been the sacrificial lamb to pay the

  271. price, the blood sacrifice the price for the sins of the world.

  272. Not created in the beginning. I didn't make that up in John

    John 1 chapter mention

  273. chapter 1 beginning in verse 1. It said in the beginning was the

  274. word and the Word was with God and the Word was God, he was in

  275. the beginning with God. All things were made through him

  276. and without him nothing was made, that was made in verse 14

  277. of John chapter 1. It says, and the word became

    John 1 chapter mention

  278. flesh and dwelt among among us and we beheld, his glory, the

  279. glory, as of the only begotten of the father full of grace and

  280. truth, who's that as Jesus Christ, the word Was in the

  281. beginning. The Word was God.

  282. Meaning deity, the word became flesh and dwelt Among Us.

  283. Meaning he was fully human. This was a doctrine that the

  284. gnostics would not have tolerated.

  285. Notice more, though, Colossians chapter 2 and verse 9, for in

    Colossians 2 chapter mention

  286. him, dwells all the fullness of the godhead bodily.

  287. That's Jesus Christ. Remember this to, in order for

  288. Jesus Christ fulfilling prophecy, he had to be the Son

  289. of God and he also had to be the son of David now that shows the

  290. fleshly lineage of Jesus Christ and he was the only one And by

  291. the way, that could have been the seed of David and also be

  292. the Son of God, the only one now, there were many that could

  293. be fall into the category of the seed of David or the son of

  294. David, but nobody else could be the son of David and also be the

  295. Son of God. It's the idea of this is the

  296. same thing as saying Jesus is the son of God, meaning fully

  297. Divine, and Son of Man, meaningful human.

  298. That was our Messiah and in him, dwells all the fullness of the

  299. Ahead bodily. Another passage in Titus Chapter

    Titus 2 chapter mention

  300. 2 and verse 13. Looking for the Blessed, hope

  301. and glorious appearing of our great God.

  302. And our Savior Jesus Christ. Jesus is divine.

  303. He is also human again. Son of man.

  304. In first, John chapter 4 and verse 2.

    John 4 chapter mention

  305. By this, you know, the spirit of God, every spirit that confesses

  306. Jesus Christ is come in. The flesh is of God.

  307. Now, interesting, this is one test of Fellowship, one test of

  308. Fellowship. We read that again by this, you

  309. know, the spirit of God, every spirit that confesses that Jesus

  310. Christ is come in, the flesh is of God.

  311. And every spirit, that does not confess, that Jesus Christ is

  312. come in the flesh, he is not of God, and this is the spirit of

  313. the Eddie. Christ, which you have heard was

  314. coming and is now already in the world.

  315. This is one test of Fellowship, not all one.

  316. If a person rejects that Jesus Christ came in the flesh, he's

  317. not of God, if a person teaches against that, guess what?

  318. It's the Antichrist. The spirit of the Antichrist.

  319. Jesus did come in the flesh. Jesus Christ was and is deity.

  320. Here's another one. Gnosticism stresses knowledge as

  321. the path to Salvation. Now what kind of knowledge we

  322. talking about? By the way, you have to have

  323. knowledge, I have to have knowledge.

  324. Anytime that you study something and learn something you gain

  325. knowledge. When we pray to God, we ask God

  326. for wisdom and gives it liberally but we have to study

  327. for knowledge. So there's nothing wrong with

  328. knowledge. It's not what I'm saying.

  329. What gnosticism top though, is it stressed knowledge, as a path

  330. to Salvation, what kind of knowledge here it is.

  331. Gnosticism believed. That there was one special

  332. secret knowledge that could lead a person to Salvation this

  333. knowledge consisted of their pantheism that we already

  334. noticed and also the condemnation of the physical,

  335. some gnostics held that, there was no such thing as Sin since

  336. all flesh is sinful and the only sin is ignorance of their

  337. special knowledge. Now the Bible teaches that

  338. knowledge isn't special oil. Why would you teach a doctrine

  339. that says knowledge is special and only a few can get it.

  340. If Jesus died for the sins of the world and he did and those

  341. things are revealed to us in the gospel of the death, burial and

  342. resurrection of Jesus. Why would only a select few

  343. understand the specific special knowledge that a person had to

  344. know to be saved In fact, you know, the Bible teaches against

  345. that, you know, I love this in the book of First John, the word

  346. no. now there's varying definitions about the word no in

  347. the English language, but this word comes from a Greek word

  348. that is found 26 times in the book of First John and it means

  349. to know for certain It means to know in the here and now it

  350. means to know right now for certain 26 x, that is found.

  351. Let's notice a few of those passages in first, John chapter

    John 2 chapter mention

  352. 2 and verse 3. Now, by this, we know, That we

  353. know him. I think that's pretty

  354. encouraging, don't you? Now, by this, we know, That's to

  355. know for certain that we know him.

  356. That means have a relationship with There's a lot of folks that

  357. would love to have a relationship with God.

  358. Notice what John said by this, you know, for certain that you

  359. have a relationship with him. If you do want, if you keep his

  360. Commandments. Anybody can understand that

  361. first John, chapter 2 and verse 21.

    1 John 2 chapter mention

  362. I have not written to you, because you do not know the

  363. truth. But because, you know, it then

  364. sell, like, special knowledge to me.

  365. Sounds like something we can all understand.

  366. And that is the No Lie. Is of the truth.

  367. Hears, another passage these things.

  368. I have written to you, who believe in the name of the son

  369. of God, that you may know that you have eternal life and that

  370. you may continue to believe in the name of the son of God.

  371. Have to make this point though, okay.

  372. This does not mean by audacity or irreverence, or it doesn't

  373. mean that because we feel as though we have earned it, we

  374. have salvation, that's not what that means.

  375. And it doesn't mean once saved always saved.

  376. I saved it doesn't mean that either and it doesn't mean that

  377. a person cannot fall from grace, it doesn't mean that either.

  378. What it's saying is we can have an assurance that we have

  379. eternal life and continue in that.

  380. And we've already noticed, John said, if you keep his

  381. Commandments, Then sound like, special sounds like anybody can

  382. understand. It sounds like great stuff to

  383. me, 1st. Timothy 6 and 20 though.

  384. Paul said oh Timothy guard, what is committed to your trust?

  385. Avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of

  386. what is falsely called knowledge sometimes especially

  387. institutions of Higher Learning There's a lot of people that

  388. went to explain away the basic Foundation of Christianity and

  389. explain away with the word of God says and things that we can

  390. easily understand and explain it away all based upon what that

  391. which is falsely called knowledge.

  392. In other words, a greater Enlightenment, you know, there's

  393. another Point here I want to make and I would be very brief

  394. about this one because we need to get to The DaVinci Code.

  395. So I want to talk about this one very briefly and that is that

  396. gnosticism draws a false distinction between the physical

  397. and the spiritual. Now, we have seen the

  398. distinction made in their Doctrine regarding how the

  399. physical things were created and so forth.

  400. But they continued such distinctions on a practical

  401. level in two schools of thought. Number one, there were the

  402. ascetics and the Aesthetics practiced thorough denial of the

  403. physical body. They believe that to overcome

  404. sinfulness of the physical state, you had to refuse

  405. yourself of any pleasure whatsoever.

  406. In other words, the physical is corrupt and it's rotten.

  407. So the only way to have a strong hold over, that is to deny every

  408. bit of things in life that are pleasing to the physical.

  409. And I'm not just talking about Sin, I'm talking about anything

  410. beating the body up on the other hand.

  411. There were the antinomian sense and they believed that since the

  412. flesh was sinful, and the spirit was wholly, that nothing could

  413. be done in the flesh to corrupt the spirits.

  414. You know what they said, do anything you want.

  415. Indulge in everything doesn't really matter.

  416. This said, deny yourself of all physical enjoyment.

  417. This said it doesn't really make any difference.

  418. Do whatever you want to, because there's nothing really you can

  419. do and it doesn't really matter and give in and indulge in all

  420. sorts of fleshly Delights in carnal appetites.

  421. But you know, folks really briefly the Bible refute to both

  422. of these. The former is refuted in

  423. Colossians 2 verses 16 through 23 and the latter is refute as

    Colossians 2:16–23

  424. refuted in first John. Second Peter.

  425. And also Jude. All right?

  426. What about this? What about The DaVinci Code?

  427. The Gospel of Judas. And all the others.

  428. First of all, understand The DaVinci Code is nothing more

  429. than a work of fiction. It is not true, the premise, by

  430. the way, I haven't seen the movie.

  431. These are excerpts from the book.

  432. I haven't seen the movie, but there is a movie.

  433. Maybe you've seen the movie, I don't know what the movie says,

  434. but this is what the book. Says, the major premise of the

  435. book was this That Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and

  436. they had children. And you know, that violates

  437. everything we read about the word of God.

  438. But interestingly, in The DaVinci Code in the book, these

  439. children quote-unquote were purrs, are preserved today by a

  440. secret society, known as The Priory of Sion.

  441. And by the way, the Priory of Sion is a fraternal organization

  442. that was put together by a man by the name of Pierre plantard

  443. in 1956. Do you know what he said?

  444. He said at one point in time, he said that he had evidence

  445. geological evidence that he was a direct descendant of Jesus

  446. Christ. And by the way, you can Google

  447. it, I did it this morning. Don't do it.

  448. Now, do it later on your phone. I Googled it this morning and it

  449. said exactly the point I'm going to make right now.

  450. It was an elaborate hoax that he recanted and admitted was a lie

  451. before he died in the year 2000. And he did it in front of a

  452. French Court, this man, Pierre plantard.

  453. Now, here's the problem, he's dead. but many claim today that

  454. this fraternal organization still exists, it is supported by

  455. gnosticism and in the book The DaVinci Code Dan Brown was the

  456. author and he said, he went on record as saying that he

  457. believes all of. This is true based upon a

  458. passage found in the Gnostic Gospel of Philip Okay, I'm going

  459. to, I'm going to put on the screen, the exact passage that

  460. has been written down as in part of the Gnostic Gospels.

  461. One of which is the Gospel of Philip.

  462. This is the actual passage the companion of the savior is Mary

  463. Magdalene but Christ loved her more than all the disciples and

  464. used to kiss her often, the rest of the disciples were offended.

  465. They said to him, why do you love her more than all of us?

  466. The Savior and Jordan said to them, why do I not love you as I

  467. love her. As false teaching, folks.

  468. That's a lie. These writings are not in the

  469. New Testament. They're not.

  470. It's one of those Gnostic texts that is not reliable, and we

  471. cannot use it as a reliable source of History.

  472. Me give you another one. How about this?

  473. The Gospel of Thomas a Gnostic Gospel.

  474. Now I'm going to tell you I'm gonna tell you what the Gnostic

  475. Gospel of Thomas taught. And by the way, this is the

  476. proof of what I said. I don't know about 15-20 minutes

  477. ago. Okay, in this Gnostic Gospel it

  478. says this this would be terrible.

  479. Why would you believe this? Jesus was not Our Redeemer.

  480. He was only a revealer. We sang again, we sang about

  481. Jesus being Our Redeemer. They believe that Jesus was not

  482. resurrected in fact they didn't care about the resurrection.

  483. What does the Bible say about that?

  484. If Jesus was not raised, we are all men most miserable.

  485. Be terrible way to believe by the way.

  486. This taught that Christianity is all about self-discovery, and

  487. self-revelation. He ever known somebody that's on

  488. some sort of a quest, some sort of a quest for self-discovery.

  489. Self Revelation. Oh, I got it.

  490. People fall in that trap today, don't they?

  491. By the way, the message here is really anti-women.

  492. It really is because the gnostics had an agenda.

  493. They didn't care about the resurrection.

  494. As I've said they only cared about the Lord's secret

  495. knowledge followed this. Now, his secret knowledge that

  496. he was imparting and that message was for those who were

  497. smart enough to get it and the only I'm smart enough to get.

  498. It was a man. Come on.

  499. Anti-women Gospel of Thomas, it's go to another one.

  500. How about this one? But the Gospel of Judas Now, the

  501. Gospel of Judas and the rest of the NOG hammadi.

  502. Documents goes along with the teachings of gnosticism and not

  503. the Bible. But first of all, what is a

  504. nagpur mati document? They were a collection of

  505. Gnostic texts, discovered near the upper Egyptian town of naga,

  506. hamadi in the year, 1945, and all of these documents.

  507. By the way, the Gospel of Judas and all the other non commodity

  508. documents, all they do is, they don't support Christianity.

  509. They don't support what God wants they support.

  510. Not Gnostic teachings that's it. They don't fall in line with the

  511. Bible at all. Now, in the Gospel of Judas are

  512. the Gnostic Works claiming that Jesus entrusted to Judas,

  513. special knowledge regarding his death.

  514. I heard somebody talking about this one time and I don't know

  515. if they really understood what was actually supposedly

  516. described in the Gospel of Judas.

  517. But really the whole deal was he was talking about.

  518. The idea was to just really wasn't that bad of a guy.

  519. In fact, he was in there. He was in cahoots with the Lord.

  520. The Lord was in cahoots with him and so forth.

  521. No, the word of God says that Judas by transgression fell.

  522. The Bible says he was the betrayer, he sold the Lord for

  523. 30 pieces. Of silver when it was done.

  524. The Bible says he hung himself his bowels gushed out, and then

  525. it said he went to his own place.

  526. You know what that means. It means he wasn't saved.

  527. But the Gospel of Judas has all this other stuff.

  528. Once again, it goes along with gnosticism not the Bible.

  529. And also, by the way, Gnostic texts were dated in the second

  530. half of the second century or later.

  531. Now, Common Sense would tell us that cannot be reliable, the

  532. gospels of Matthew Mark. Luke and John are reliable.

  533. They're unreliable because they're in the inspired word of

  534. God, but they're also reliable because they were written close

  535. to the time that the events actually happened, all right?

  536. So you might be wondering where did these Gnostic texts come

  537. from? And why do they exist?

  538. I think it's very simple. Any time you have something?

  539. That is valuable, there is bound to be a counterfeit.

  540. I'm not an expert on paintings but you can go to some, I don't

  541. know, Rembrandt. Picasso.

  542. I wouldn't know what I want. No either one of those.

  543. Their works. But some people know.

  544. But there are counterfeits that are cheap knockoffs if you will

  545. of those very same things and any time you have something that

  546. is extremely valuable and you want to bring in your own

  547. agenda, then the counterfeit scum and that's exactly what

  548. these Gnostic Gospels were they were merely texts.

  549. That supported a counterfeit gospel or counterfeit teaching

  550. and they were said to be written by an apostle or a disciple for

  551. advancing their Gnostic views. And I'll tell you, if that's not

  552. the perfect definition of a heretic, I don't know what it

  553. is. Because a heretic is somebody

  554. that does this, a heretic has knowledge of truth.

  555. But instead of obeying truth or teaching truth, they teach

  556. something that is erroneous on purpose or false.

  557. All for the offer, the idea of drawing a party or a faction

  558. under themself when they do that and make that choice, the Bible

  559. calls them a heretic. I'm going to tell you something,

  560. the Gnostic Gospels that knocks not the Gnostic texts are

  561. counterfeit. They are false, they are lives.

  562. So in conclusion, The doctrines of gnosticism are clearly

  563. non-Christian. They deny the Divinity and

  564. Humanity of Jesus Christ. They are non-Christian in their

  565. religious practices too. Those who support these

  566. doctrines in modern day culture, our intent upon destroying

  567. Christianity, but I'm going to tell you right now, they can't

  568. get it done. They cannot destroy

  569. Christianity. They can't destroy Christianity.

  570. In your heart. You know what the truth is?

  571. So what are we going to do? What are we going to do?

  572. What does the Bible say about that?

  573. Because sometimes people say, well, what about these other

  574. books that they found other writings that they found what

  575. about them? Galatians 1.

  576. Beginning in verse 6. I Marvel that you are turning

  577. away. So soon from him who called you

  578. into the grace of Christ to a different gospel, which is not

  579. another, but there are some who trouble you and would want to

  580. pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from

  581. heaven, preach any other gospel to you than that, which we have

  582. preached to you, let him be accursed as we said before.

  583. So, say I now again, if anyone preaches, any other gospel to

  584. you than what you have received, let him be.

  585. Be accursed. So let me just say, finally.

  586. We have the inspired written, word of God.

  587. It's the original. If anything has ever taught,

  588. please get this. That violates the standard the

  589. scripture, it's counterfeit, every time.

  590. We don't have to go out and search after all the different

  591. beliefs in the world focused on the original.

  592. Like, my father used to preach focus on the original.

  593. It automatically eliminates the counterfeits and gnosticism is

  594. false Doctrine. It is counterfeit.

  595. We thank you for listening to our podcast, put on by the

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