Grow In Awareness

If you have your Bible, would you open it to 2 Peter chapter 2?

2 Peter 2 · chapter mention

I hope you have your Bible with you.

If you don't have one, there are a few Bibles.

And you may uh think or wonder, well, why don't you just put the scripture up there on that screen?

A lot of churches do that.

That'd make it a whole lot easier, Pastor.

I could just look it up there.

And there's an ulterior motive, I'll admit.

I don't put our scripture on the screen because I want you to carry your Bible.

I'll be honest with you.

I want you to have your own personal copy of God's Word.

I think that it is important.

Not just to read it on your phone, and I'm not against technology.

I read on my phone sometimes.

And I'm not against, I'm not preaching against putting the words on the screen.

If you come on Wednesday night, you'll see me put scripture on a screen.

But I am convinced that having a written copy of God's Word has an impact on your life if you use that as your own personal devotional Bible.

And I'll tell you one of the reasons why I believe that.

I've got my mom's old Bible.

And uh I'm telling you, it's dog-eared, it's marked up, it's stained because that lady read her Bible almost every day and it made a difference in her life.

If you don't have a Bible, we've got free Bibles out here at the Connect Desk.

We'll be glad to give you one.

And if you don't find one there that's got print big enough for you, let me know and we'll order you.

I mean, they got it in super extra giant large print now.

And uh so we we can it may be in multi-volumes, but we can get you to a print that you can see.

We just believe that the Bible is the word of God, and it is that important that God has spoken and it's recorded for us in his word.

If you would look at 2 Peter chapter 2, we're gonna read these first three verses and uh and see what God has said here.

2 Peter 2 · chapter mention

It begins with this word, but but there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily or subtly shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction, and many shall follow their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of, and through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you, whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbers not.

Let's pray.

Dear Heavenly Father, we believe that the Bible is your word.

We believe that you inspired these holy men of old to pin it down.

We believe that you have preserved it down through the ages and through the translation, so that we have your word in our hands today.

We believe that there is power in your word, the power of the gospel to convert a lost soul to salvation in Christ, the power of the word to sanctify the believer and to shape them into the image of Christ, the power of scriptures to do spiritual battle in our lives and help us to overcome those besetting sins and temptations.

There's power in your word to give us hope, as Pastor Brian mentioned, pointing us to the return of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Father, I pray that you would unleash the power of your word today among us.

May it mark us as your people.

May it make us aware of the dangers of those who falsely claim to speak for you.

I pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

At the end of chapter one, Peter assured us of the trustworthiness of the God-inspired prophets who pinned the scriptures.

Remember, that's how it concluded.

He had made truth claims about Christ to validate those truth claims.

He says, Listen, we've got eyewitnesses that have seen this.

There is eyewitness testimony.

And then he says, Listen, let me tell you, we have a more sure word than eyewitness testimony.

We have the inspired scriptures that the Holy Spirit moved the holy men of old to write down the words of God so that we can have God's word to us.

But then he begins in chapter 2 by warning us that there were false prophets also.

We are alerted by this contrasting conjunction.

It begins with the word but, and so that lets us know that it is connected to the previous text, but it is not in agreement.

It's in contrast.

And so it is contrasting the fact that holy men of old were moved by the Holy Ghost to write the words, but there were also false prophets among them back then.

And I would say to you that one of the challenges that we face in trying to sort through the distortion field of false teaching in order to find God.

Peter wants us to come to know the Lord.

He wants us to grow in our faith in the Lord, but there are challenges to that.

It is not a road that just rises up to meet you.

It does not mean that every obstacle is going to be plowed out of the way in front of you.

If you are going to seek to get to know God and to grow in God and in your faith, then you are going to have to sort through a distortion field of false teachers and false teaching to find the truth.

Anyone who tries to pursue God will quickly discover that there are a lot of competing voices on the subject.

Have you discovered that?

In your pursuit of God all of a sudden, and now in today's age, when we can click online or find videos on social media, you'll find that there are competing voices.

There'll be one teacher that says this, and one teacher that says that, and one denomination that claims this, and one group that claims that.

And you'll look at that and you say, boy, there are variant views on this thing called Christianity.

Not only is this a challenge in coming to faith in Christ, but it's also a challenge to growing in our faith in Christ.

Even though we get saved, we're still going to have to deal with the distortion field.

And Peter wants us to know the truth.

And Peter wants us to grow in the truth.

And so now he turns his attention to this issue of false teachings in order to equip us to navigate this treacherous terrain.

I mean, he is saying, listen, I can't do anything about the fact that there are false teachers that you are going to encounter.

I can't erase the damnable heresies that have been put forth and postulated.

But what I can do is I can help you navigate through this treacherous terrain.

You see, it's not just the first three verses of chapter two in which he talks about these false teachers.

It's the entire chapter.

Twenty-two verses.

I mean, that to me, in comparison, when you're looking at the letter of Peter, uh we have spent months in chapter one because he is talking about how we are equipped in Christ in all of these areas in which we are to grow.

And we touch on these different subjects from that to the eyewitnesses to the more sure word.

And then chapter two, it's all about false teachers, all about false teaching, all sounding the alarm for us to be aware of this.

The apostle wants us to grow in our awareness of the spiritual danger and its consequences.

That's what he wants.

He wants us to grow in our awareness.

Obviously, he doesn't think we're all known up about this.

And so he says, let me tell you something.

There were false prophets, there's going to be false teachers.

They brought in damnable heresies, they will damn your soul.

And then he goes in and he begins to start going through history and talking about Balaam and others and what they taught and what it caused and the consequences of that.

The good news is that this is like a muscle.

By that I mean the more we exercise it, the stronger it gets, right?

As a new believer, you're coming in, and man, if you're like me, you're naive, and you thought everybody who named the name a Christian were on the same team, believed the same thing.

And soon I found out that was not the case.

And early on, I didn't know exactly who I should listen to.

But what we find is that this thing is like a muscle, and the more you work it, the stronger it gets, so that eventually you'll be able to spot a be able to spot a false teaching from a mile away.

You'll be able to sniff it out.

Well, there's something wrong with that teaching.

I mean, it sounds good on the surface, but there's something there that they're indicating that does not align with Scripture.

And so I'd like to share with you four aspects we need to be aware of from this text today.

Number one, be aware of false teachers.

Be aware of false teachers.

We need to know that there are false teachers in the world.

That there are those who are seeking to undermine the faith of Jesus Christ.

It is undeniable that there are two forces that work in this world.

There is good and there is evil.

Now, in our postmodern world, there are times when secular media has a hard time using the word evil.

But just let me tell you, if somebody goes in and shoots up a school, it's evil.

There's no other word for that.

It is not, oh, well, they've got a mental health psychological problem that wasn't diagnosed and it was overlooked and there was this and that.

Yeah, that might be true, but I'm telling you, it's evil.

If there is a country who seeks to annihilate entire groups of people for whatever reason, it's evil.

There are forces in this world of good, thank God for that, but there are also forces of evil.

And I don't think any living, breathing, conscious human being can deny that there are two forces at work in this world.

But we need to know what's behind those two forces.

God is the archetype of good.

That means that he is the first, the epitome, the prototype of what is good.

And the devil is the architect of evil.

He is the one who designs these malicious plans.

He is the one who comes up with these insidious ideas.

God operates in truth.

And you'll find that if you read the Bible, there's a heavy emphasis on truth and what is true, and God claims that he is true, that he is the truth, that his word is the truth, that the gospel is the truth, that we're not to have anything to do with deception and lies.

And you will find that Satan deals in lies.

Jesus himself said that Satan is the father of lying.

We use that terminology when somebody invented it, right?

Thomas Edison's the father of the light bulb.

We say Henry Ford's the father of the production line.

And when Jesus says that the devil is the father of lies, he's saying this is the original liar.

This is the guy who designed a lying.

This is the guy who has forced it upon the world.

And so it's no surprise to find that God would have prophets of truth, and that the devil would have prophets of deceit.

Right?

There's good and evil.

We know that.

Well, there's somebody behind those good and evil.

There's God who's behind the good, there's Satan who's behind the evil.

And then they operate in truth and deception, and God has prophets who speak the truth, and the devil has prophets who speak the lies.

The Apostle Peter appeals to documented history.

When he is writing to his audience, he says, but there were false prophets.

He doesn't defend that statement, right?

Why?

Because it's evidentiary.

It's true on its face.

He didn't need to make an argument for that.

Everybody who read that said, yep, there were false prophets.

There were those who claimed to speak for God.

They were pseudo-prophets.

This is well documented in the Old Testament.

For example, last Sunday night, I'm preaching through the book of Deuteronomy.

We're in Deuteronomy chapter 13.

Deuteronomy 13 · chapter mention

And in Deuteronomy chapter 13, it's all about false prophets.

Deuteronomy 13 · chapter mention

And it says, if there's a prophet who comes to you and he tells you, gives you a sign, and it comes true, but then he tries to lead you away from the revealed word of God, from the way of God.

Mark him, he is a false prophet.

And so we find that that is proven throughout the Old Testament, and ultimately it led and contributed to their downfall.

There were false prophets who came in and contrasted the prophets of truth.

Who spoke against Isaiah and Jeremiah and others.

There's multiple examples of this throughout the Old Testament.

And after citing this historical fact, Peter then says, just as surely as we can look back and say there were false prophets back then, I'm going to tell you, there will be false prophets among you.

False prophets among you.

Just as surely as there were in the past, there will be in the present.

And you know, there's multiple examples of this in the New Testament, and two millennia of church history has proven it to be abundantly true.

We can find false teachers in the New Testament.

Paul writes about them in 1 and 2 Timothy and in Titus.

Jesus speaks about them in Revelation chapter 2 and 3, warning us.

Revelation 2 · chapter mention

Jesus, as a matter of fact, in his Olivet discourse in Matthew 24, says, listen, there'll be false prophets that arise in the last days, claiming that they are me.

Don't listen to them, don't believe them.

And so we find that just as there were false prophets in the old time, there are false teachers in the future.

And we need to be aware that not everybody who claims to speak for God is telling the truth.

I must confess to you guys that I am a Johnny Cash fan.

I like the man in black.

I liked his sound.

I liked his songs.

And to my delight, I found that Johnny Cash had a gospel cassette.

And he sang a song that I'd never heard before.

And it went something like this everybody talking about heaven ain't a going there.

And that's what Peter is saying.

Just because they claim that they're from God, just because they claim that they speak for God, doesn't mean that they are telling the truth.

And you and I have to be aware of this.

And what makes them even more dangerous is that they often do it subtly, undermining the word of God.

Take, for example, the first false teacher.

When Adam and Eve were in the garden in Genesis chapter 3, it says that he was more subtle than any of the creatures in the world.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

And he begins by questioning what God had clearly said.

Oh, you can't eat of all the trees in this garden?

Oh, you can't eat.

Oh, you won't certainly die if you eat of that tree.

And so we understand there are false teachers.

These false teachers are teaching against the word of God, but they do it very subtly, so it begs the question: how do we know?

How do we discern?

And the answer is by what they teach.

Number two, be aware of damnable heresies.

First, be aware of false teachers.

I just need to have my eyes wide open as I'm going through this world and say, I know that there's going to be some teachers who are teaching false things.

I've got to be aware of that.

I've got to have my filter on.

But I also need to be aware that there are such things as damnable heresies.

A heresy is an unorthodox teaching, an unorthodox opinion or an unorthodox belief.

You say, well, that's great if I knew what orthodox meant, right?

Orthodoxy simply means established belief, an established doctrine.

What has been established and has been practiced and has been set as the standard is what we call orthodoxy.

Jude stated it this way.

He said this, Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

For there are certain men crept in unawares who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men turning the grace of God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.

I want you to pay attention to the language that Jude uses when he refers to the common salvation and the faith which was once delivered to the saints.

What he's saying is orthodoxy.

This is established.

There haven't always been these variant opinions about who Christ is and what Christ did and how we are to be saved.

There is one faith, it is one body of teaching that has been delivered and it is recorded for us in the New Testament.

And we have that assurance because he said it's a more sure word.

Where do I find these Orthodox teachings?

Where do I find the truth?

You find it in God's word.

Are teachers good?

Yes, absolutely.

God has called people to be teachers and preachers.

It's one of the giftings, but you should never, ever, ever consign all of your confidence to a teacher.

Not even to me.

You should always go to the source.

You should always get back to the book and say, what does this say?

Because this is the more sure word.

You say, well, tell me about these heresies.

There's some of them that are specifically named in Scripture.

Now, we don't have time for me to tell you every heresy that has been, you know, fostered on us over the years, but let me just give you a few.

There is the heresy of the Sadducees.

Remember, Jesus dealt with those guys?

And I would summarize their heresy as anti-supernaturalism.

They didn't believe that there was a resurrection.

That's what they were challenging Jesus on.

People don't come back from the dead.

When they dead, they dead.

They died.

They're annihilated.

Just nothing after death.

Why?

Because they didn't believe in supernaturalism.

That is, they didn't believe that God actually worked in the realm of humanity.

Hey, that's a heresy that's still alive and well today.

Here's a fun fact for you Thomas.

Thomas Jefferson, who was great at writing our founding documents, was horrible at translating the Bible.

Because he made his own copy of the New Testament.

And do you know what's unique about his copy of the New Testament?

He excluded every miracle of Jesus because he was an anti-supernaturalist.

God does not operate within the realm of mankind.

Well, how about the heresy of the Pharisees?

That was the other group that opposed Jesus.

They're at the other end of the spectrum.

Their heresy could be summarized as legalism.

They believed that you could work your way to God.

You could earn it if you were righteous enough.

You could be self-righteous and you could make it into heaven.

It's a damnable heresy because it will send you to hell.

Jesus said to them, you're like a sepulcher.

You're like a tomb.

You're beautiful and ornate on the outside, but inside you are full of dead men's bones.

And you will corrupt anybody who follows your way.

There was heresy among the Corinthians.

I would summarize it as antinomianism.

That means no law, anything goes because of grace.

Let me tell you something.

That's a damnable heresy.

If you think that believing in Jesus means you can live any way that you want to live, let me tell you something.

You've not been regenerated, and that will send you to hell.

A believer understands that it is not by our works.

We understand that we're not under the law, that we are under grace, but we do not use that grace as a license to live sinfully.

It actually becomes a greater motivation than the law ever could have been to cause us to live godly and Christ-like.

But the most obvious tale of heresy is what it says about Jesus Christ.

I don't know if you notice this, but both Peter and Jude made reference to the denying of the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

These false teachers bringing damnable heresies, denying the Lord who bought them.

Jude says essentially the same thing.

These ungodly men who snuck in under the radar denying the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's the biggest indicator of a heresy.

The Apostle John stated it this way.

He said in 1 John 4, Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world.

Hereby you know the Spirit of God.

Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that confesses not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God, and this is that spirit of Antichrist, whereof you have heard that it should come, and even now already is it in the world.

And so John tells us plainly, listen, you gotta be aware there are false teachers and there is false teaching, and you need to try the spirits.

In other words, you need to test them, you need to filter them through the filter of Scripture and make sure.

And here's the biggest filter.

What does it tell me about Jesus?

Does it try to downplay his deity and tell me that he was only a man?

Does it try to downplay his humanity and tell me that he was only a deity and not really man?

Does it try to downplay his sinlessness?

Does it try to downplay his sufficient sacrifice on the cross?

What is the teaching and the teacher telling me about Jesus?

Is it in contradiction to what the Bible says?

And you might say, well, what's the big deal about having a variant opinion about a guy who lived 2,000 years ago?

I'll tell you what the big deal is: it's a damnable heresy.

Damnable heresy.

Damnable means utter destruction.

And ultimately, it culminates with the eternal damnation of the soul in hell.

So, thirdly, I would say to you, be aware of eternal consequences.

I need to be aware that there's false teachers, gotta have my radar up, gotta be looking around, I've got to be aware that there are false teachings, these heresies, but I also need to know that there's such a thing as damnable heresies.

That I could believe something that can send my soul to hell.

Notice how Peter raises awareness about this eternal consequence with the words damnable, with the word destruction, with the word pernicious, with the word damnation in those three verses.

Can I tell you these are all translated from the same Greek word?

Same Greek word, damnable, destruction, damnation, and pernicious.

He repeats the same word four times in three verses to alert us to the fact that there are eternal consequences to what we believe.

It is an existential threat that it poses to us.

But how can a belief have such consequences?

We have varying beliefs about which car we think is better than the other, or which team is the better team, or what flavor of ice cream is better, and there's really no consequence to that.

But there are consequences to other things.

How about your political beliefs?

There's consequences to that.

Who you believe should be in office, and then when they get into office, the policies that they enact is going to have an impact on your life.

And so we understand there are some beliefs that we have that are going to have physical and temporary consequences.

And then there are some beliefs that have spiritual and eternal consequences.

And those are the ones that have to do with Jesus.

Contrary to popular belief, all roads do not lead to God.

One road leads to God, all the others lead to hell.

Hear me on this.

One road leads to God, all others lead to hell.

Don't take my word for it.

Listen to what Jesus Himself said.

He said in John 14, 6, I am the way, the truth and the life.

No man comes to the Father but by me.

So let me ask you.

Based on your interpretation of that verse, how many ways did Jesus teach you could get to God?

There's no other way to interpret that verse.

You might abuse that verse and say, well, he didn't really mean what he said.

He was saying this.

He was just trying to make an emphasis.

But if you're just going to take that verse literally, you're going to say, Jesus taught there's only one way to God, and it was through him.

There's no other way to interpret that.

And so if you are going to believe in Jesus, then you are going to have to believe everything Jesus said.

Well, I don't know if I believe all that stuff he said about hell.

Then you don't believe in Jesus.

No, no, no, no.

I believe in Jesus, but I just believe that God is all good and loving and he wouldn't send anybody to hell.

Jesus spoke about hell more than anybody else in the entire Bible.

And if you're going to believe in Jesus, you're going to believe everything that Jesus said.

And if you don't believe everything that Jesus said, then don't delude yourself into thinking you believe in Jesus.

You have believed in an imaginary Jesus.

One of your own making.

And imaginary Jesus cannot save your soul from hell.

Only the Lord Jesus Christ.

This was understood by the apostles and the early church.

They expressed the exact same thing that Jesus expressed.

In Acts chapter 4, they said, There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.

Acts 4 · chapter mention

Orthodoxy, right?

That's what Jesus taught, that's what the apostles taught.

That's what the early church believed.

And so what you believe about Jesus determines your eternal destiny.

You believe that he's the Lord Jesus Christ who died on the cross for your sins, then you go to heaven.

You don't believe that, then you are standing before God on your own merit and you will be condemned.

Let me frame it this way.

If the skeptic is right, if the skeptic is right, and it doesn't matter what you believe because all roads lead to heaven, then you have nothing to lose by believing in Jesus.

But if the skeptic is wrong, then you have everything to lose by not believing in Jesus.

Think about that for a moment.

If they're right, but I believe in Jesus, I'm all good.

Because I'm going to heaven anyway.

But if they're wrong, and I don't believe in Jesus, I'm going to hell.

Eternal damnation.

There is a lot writing on what you believe about Jesus.

Which brings us to the final issue to be aware of, which is social pressure.

Number four, be aware of social pressure.

In verse 2, he says, and many shall follow their pernicious ways.

Remember, that means damnable.

That means destructive.

That means damnation.

Many shall follow their pernicious ways.

I find this to be one of the most sad and sobering verses in all of the Bible because it says many people will succumb to damnable heresy.

Many, many, many people.

That's sad.

Isn't that sad?

That the devil has done so good at his lies and he knows how to market them, right?

Verse 3 says that he'll make merchandise of you because he appeals to your desires.

That many people will buy what he's selling, and they'll buy a lie that condemns their soul to hell.

And you know, that puts a lot of pressure on us because we are we are greatly influenced by consensus.

We're greatly influenced by consensus.

I mean, just look at the styles.

How many of you all dress the same way you did when you were a teenager?

A few minority.

Most don't.

Why?

Well, I mean, not just because we don't weigh the same we did as teenagers, but because the style has changed.

And everybody around us has changed their style.

And we are greatly influenced by consensus.

And so we adapt our style to what is contemporary.

Sociologists call this herd mentality.

And we see it everywhere, don't we?

I mean, people jump on the latest bandwagon and change their social media profile to represent that this week, and then it's something next week.

But may I remind you of something that your parents taught you when you were a child, and that is the crowd is not always right.

The crowd wasn't right in the days of Noah.

Remember, Noah was a preacher, righteousness.

He says, it's gonna rain.

God is going to send judgment, he's going to flood the earth.

And the crowd said, It's never rained before.

We don't believe it's gonna rain.

And the crowd wasn't right in the days of Jeremiah.

When Jeremiah said, God is sending judgment, he is going to destroy our nation, he is going to disperse us into other nations, and the crowd said, God's gonna do that.

We're God's chosen people, he loves us, he's going to deliver us, and the crowd was wrong.

And the crowd wasn't right in the days of Jesus when he says, I am the Messiah, and they said, You're not the Messiah, we don't want you, you're gonna crucify him.

Just like the crowd wasn't right in the days of Galileo.

When the planets rotated around the earth, and old Galileo came up with the telescope, and he says, You got it all wrong.

We're all spinning around the sun, a heliocentric solar system.

And you know what?

He was considered a heretic for that.

But the crowd turned out to be wrong.

The crowd wasn't right in the days of slavery when they thought it was okay to buy a certain ethnicity and to sell them and to treat them that way.

And I would say to you, the crowd wasn't right in the days of Nazi Germany.

When the public was complicit in the destruction of millions of lives, because they were considered to be sub-human.

We must be aware that the current of popular culture will shipwreck us on the shores of hell.

If you just go with the flow, you will find yourself eternally damned.

Again, I appeal to the words of Jesus in Matthew 7, when he said, Enter ye in at this straight gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat, because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way which leads unto life, and few there be that find it.

I'm just telling you, following the crowd will lead you to hell.

Jesus says, if the blind leads the blind, they will both fall in the ditch.

And you might be a very confident blind person, but you will still find yourself stumbling into hell and leading others who follow you there.

And so we must grow in our awareness.

We must be aware of false teachers.

We must be aware of damnable heresies.

We must be aware of eternal consequences, and we must be aware of social pressures because there is too much at stake for us to live in ignorance.

And so I would close by asking you this: are your eyes open?

Have you really checked out what you believe?

Or have you accepted the word of somebody you trusted?

Have you imbibed the teaching of a professor at college who was an anti-supernaturalist?

Have you simply adopted something that was suitable to your worldview?

Or would you open your eyes and examine the truth claims of Scripture and put what you believe to the test?

Because I'm telling you, there's way too much writing on it for you to live in ignorance.

Would you bow with me?

As we bow our heads, close our eyes for just a moment.

My first appeal is to anybody here today who does not know and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the only way of salvation.

My friend, put him to the test.

He will never fail.

The problem is most of the time we don't want to do the work to really examine what we believe and the claims that Jesus made.

But I'm telling you, if you will, you will find that Jesus is all that he said he was, and that he is the only one who can save you.

Secondly, I would speak to those who are believers.

My friends, we've never lived in a day and time when there have been when we've been exposed to more false teaching.

With the advent of social media, with the age of information and communication, we are constantly being berated with competing voices.

And you and I need to be aware that everybody who claims to speak for God isn't telling the truth, and we cannot just let our guard down.

We must have our eyes wide open and do the work to make sure that it is in line with Scripture.

Because while your soul is secure in Christ, your growth is in play.

And if you succumb to false teaching, you will stunt your spiritual growth and you'll never grow into everything Jesus saved you to be.

Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you so much for your word.

I thank you for this honest, Lord, alert to the fact that there are false teachers and that there is such a thing as damnable heresy, that there is something we can believe that sends us to hell.

Lord, may this get our attention.

May it prompt us, Lord, to look into our beliefs and to check them against the authority of Scripture.

Father, I pray if there's anybody here today who does not know Christ, I pray, Lord, that you would set them free from their lostness and from their blindness, and that you would fill them with your Holy Spirit, and that you would save them through faith in Jesus Christ.

Father, I pray for every believer here today that you would help us to grow in awareness so that we can grow in Christ.

May we not imagine that the church exists in a peaceful meadow, but that it is in a raging battlefield and that we must have our heads on a swivel, and we must be looking around and paying attention to everything that comes through our feed.

Father, I pray that you would help us to grow in this area of awareness so that we can grow in our worship of you.

I pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

If you would stand with me.