Stand for Jesus

Guest (Male): Are you standing up and fighting for the faith? The enemy is on the attack, and it's time for us to get ready. This is From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve, who today is going to teach us how to face off with the devil and fight for the faith, particularly in the days in which we live. He's going to expose how Satan is working deceitfully, even especially in the church, to spread poison and attack Christianity from the inside out. But we can and must fight back if we'll just recognize the poison for what it is and the effects it will have if not stopped. The message today is entitled, Sound the Alarm. If you can't be with us for the entire message, please go online to FromHisHeart.org and click the Listen link to hear part one from last time. You can also download a free MP3 of any broadcast. Right now, though, if you can, open your Bible to the book of Jude. Here is Pastor Jeff to sound the alarm so we can better understand the need and the importance of facing off with the devil and fighting for the faith.
Dr. Jeff Schreve: Let me tell you, the devil has two main attacks against the church of the living God, against the faith, as the scripture says, once for all delivered to the saints. Two main attacks. The first attack is to root it out, root out the faith and the truth through satanic persecution. That gets some, but persecution isn't his best method. If he can't root it out through satanic persecution, he will try attack number two: to rot it out through satanic infiltration. It's like termites getting into the wood. They're going to eat it from the inside out. They're going to rot it out. Against persecution, we're to stand under persecution. But against infiltration, we're to stand up to infiltration. Notice there are three main areas where the enemy comes to attack. Three main areas that are discussed here. Area number one: the enemy attacks the Word of God. Look at verse three again. He said, "Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith, which was once for all delivered to the saints." The word "faith" literally means the truthfulness of the message. The devil will attack the truth of God, the Word of God. The way he attacks the Word of God is he tries to water down the Word of God. To water down the Word of God is to try and smooth out the sharp edges of the two-edged sword. We see that happening all over the place where people who say they believe this book—preachers say they believe this book, people who hold their Bibles high—but then in the church service, they don't ever open their Bibles. They don't preach the Word of God, and they don't believe the Word of God. They want to have somebody just say, "Preach a message that makes me feel good. I just want to feel good." There's an attack from the enemy. He has crept in unnoticed, and he attacks the truth of the Word of God. Second area of attack: Not only does he attack the Word of God, the enemy attacks the grace of God. Look at verse four. "For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation." Hell's hottest flame exists for the people who do what he's getting ready to say: ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Most Bible scholars believe Jude was dealing with a heresy that was just at its beginning stages. It's called Gnosticism, from the Greek word "gnosis," which means to know. The Gnostics were people who said, "We have a super knowledge. We're in the know." They would say the body is evil. The only thing that's good is the spirit. The spirit is good, the body is evil, so it doesn't matter what you do with the body. You can live a lifestyle of sin and unbridled lust because it doesn't have anything to do with your spirit, and all that matters is your spirit. They were introducing this destructive heresy into the church and saying you can sin all you want to. They were turning the grace of God into licentiousness. You mark this down: the grace of God is not a license to sin. When you receive the grace of God, it doesn't mean that you got this license that says, "I can sin because I'm under grace." That's what they said in the book of Romans. That's what Paul answered in the book of Romans. He said in Romans chapter six, "Should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Of course not." One translation says, "What a ghastly thought! God forbid that we should have this attitude that the grace of God is just a license to sin." If because of sin God gives grace, then if you want to have a bunch of grace, just sin a bunch. He says no, that's not what we're to do. The grace of God changes your attitude toward sin. How do you know if you have personally received and experienced and have been touched by the grace of God, which is another way to say that you have really been saved? Every person who's really been saved has experienced God's grace. Grace is the unmerited favor of God. You didn't earn it, you don't deserve it, but he gives it to you the moment you turn to him in repentance and faith. It changes your attitude toward sin. You don't have this attitude that you continue in sin so that grace may abound. You have an attitude that says, "I don't want to sin anymore. God, I don't want that anymore." A person who has really experienced grace doesn't want to go back to the old way of life. We still deal with sin, but deep down in your heart of hearts, the way you know you're a Christian is you don't want to keep sinning. One preacher told his congregation, "I have a confession to make. I sin all I want to." They looked at him. He said, "I sin all I want to because I don't want to. There's something different in me. My 'wanter' has been changed. I want to please God, I want to serve God, and I don't want to live a pigsty kind of life anymore." Has that happened to you? The enemy attacks the grace of God and says you can do anything you want; it doesn't matter because you're not under the law, you're under grace. You know what we get in that kind of environment? We get churches that don't preach the truth, that don't present the truth, and that don't have any standards for truth. We get people who don't look any different from non-Christians. They come into the church and the church gets so polluted you can't tell the difference. There's as much divorce in the church as there is out of the church. There's as much sexual immorality in the church as there is out of the church. There's as much sexual perversion in the church as there is out of the church. They just say, "I'm under grace. Christians aren't perfect; they're just forgiven." Christians are different. They are forgiven, that's true. They aren't perfect, that's true. But they're different, and they desire to worship God and serve God and obey God. Jude didn't sell a lot of CDs in his day because that wasn't a popular message, but it's the truth. You don't hear it today, and we desperately need to hear it. The foundation is being eaten up by the termites that say, "Wait, wait, wait! Why are you getting on a rampage on this stuff? Just tell us we're good, tell us God loves us, and tell us there's another blessing coming." You've got to deal with stuff in your life. We have to stand up for the truth. No one is perfect; I am definitely not perfect. But I know the difference between someone who's really experienced grace because I have and someone who hasn't. I know that when God really touches your life, you desire to obey him. When you don't obey him, it's like a knife in your heart, and you feel it. You say, "God, forgive me. I've sinned against you," and you want to get things right.
Guest (Male): That's the difference. That's genuine faith. You're not running to sin; you're running away from it because of the love the Heavenly Father has put in your heart. You're listening to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve today, and he'll return in a moment to expose the last area of attack that Satan launches in the lives of believers. The lesson is called Sound the Alarm. But first, we wanted to thank you so very much for listening so faithfully and for your financial support to join us in sharing the truth in love on radio, television, and online each and every day. For your gift of any amount this month, we'd like to say thank you by sending you the six-message series, Faith Under Fire, a study of the book of Jude. Make your gift today of any amount and we'll send you Faith Under Fire. Call 866-40-BIBLE or go to our homepage at FromHisHeart.org. Now let's get back to the message today, Sound the Alarm, from Pastor Jeff's series, Face Off: Fighting for the Faith, and continue to learn how to protect ourselves against the last area of attack that Satan launches in the lives of believers.
Dr. Jeff Schreve: The enemy will attack the Word of God, he attacks the grace of God, and lastly, he attacks the Son of God. It says they deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. How true is that? The word "deny" means to literally say no. The apostates, the tares among the wheat, what do these ungodly persons who are marked out for condemnation do? They say no to the Lord Jesus Christ in three critical areas. They say no to the fact that Jesus Christ is the God-man. They say he's just a man, a good man, an exalted man, but he's not God. You look at every single cult in the world today. A cult is a group that presents themselves as Christian, but they're not. The reason you know they're not Christian is because they deny the deity of Jesus Christ. They will say he's some kind of in-between God. He is not co-equal with God the Father. The Mormons don't agree that Jesus Christ is co-equal with God the Father. They say Jesus is an exalted man, a god with a little "g". They literally say Jesus and Lucifer started out as brothers, but Jesus won the crown to be the Savior. It's a twisted, polluted theology. They say you can be just like Jesus and he's going to be the god of a planet and you can be god of a planet one day. You keep believing lies and you keep opening the door for the devil to come in and say that's not that big a deal. It matters! This is the faith once for all handed down to the saints. If we keep letting the lies come in, your next generation doesn't have any faith. There's nothing left. That's why it's a call to arms to say stand up for the truth. I fully believe there's going to come a day they're going to put me in jail for preaching the Word of God. That's happening in different countries. I don't want to go, but I think that's going to happen. You're going to see guys put their tails between their legs and shut down. They don't want to rock the boat. It seems like my whole boat is always rocked. Everywhere I go, it's just a rocky boat. If you stand up for the Word of God, the devil comes at you. If you want to get along with everybody and just be hunky-dory, then don't stand up for anything. I get tired of people telling me, "Jeff, you've got so much controversy surrounding your life. Why don't you be more like Jesus?" Yeah, he never had any controversy around him. He had a whole group of people who were constantly thinking about how they could kill him, and they finally did it. He's love in the flesh, and they nailed him to a tree. It is not loving to lie to people. It is loving to tell people the truth. If you have cancer, do you want to go to a doctor who tells you, "I could tell you you have cancer, but that would hurt your feelings. I'm just going to tell you you're okay. All the tests came back good"? Six months later you're dead. He could have, if he had told you the truth, given you a treatment that would have perhaps saved your life. I want to go to the doctor who is going to tell me the truth. Jesus is the God-man. That's true. He's as much God as though he were not man at all. He's as much man as though he were not God at all. There will never be another like Jesus. The Bible says in 1st Timothy chapter 3, verse 16, "Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh." That's God in the flesh. Who do we worship? Jesus Christ, who is God in the flesh, and he's coming again one day. Jesus is the God-man; they deny that. Jesus is the only way to heaven. The only way. John chapter 14, verse 6, Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me." So let me ask you this question: how many can come to the Father without Jesus? No one. Zero. He's the only way. You're not going to get there through Confucius, Buddha, or Muhammad. There's only one road, and that's through the Lord Jesus Christ, through his death on the cross and through his resurrection. That is the only way anyone ever gets to heaven. We live in a world today where people want to have a bunch of roads. Oprah Winfrey had a show not too long ago where she was talking about how Jesus can't be the only way. Well, he is the only way. You may not like it or agree with it, but it's not up for discussion. Barack Obama was asked the question when he was running for president the first time, and he said, "Jesus is the only way for me." No. Jesus is the only way, period. You can't try and evade it, try and punt, and say it's just for you. He is the only way. Two plus two equals four. It doesn't equal three, five, or 3.995. It equals four. People say you're so narrow saying Jesus is the only way. Two plus two equals four. Is that narrow? No, it's just right. It's just the way it is. They'll attack that and deny that. They attack truth number three: Jesus is the Master and Judge. They deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. This goes to the crux of an apostate and a false theology, and the devil's lies. He does not want you to bow your knee to Jesus. At the heart of those who don't want to follow Jesus, the reason they don't want to follow Jesus is because they want to be their own god. Luke chapter 19, where Jesus told the parable about a king who went away to receive a kingdom and then was coming back and entrusted his possessions to his servants, the Bible says they sent a delegation after him after he left his city. While he was in between, they sent a delegation after him and they said, "We do not want this man to reign over us." That's the heart of sin. We do not want you to reign over us, God. We do not want to do what you say. We're not going to bow the knee to you as Master, Jesus. He's the only Master and Lord. He is King of kings and Lord of lords. Ungodly people say, "I'm not going to bow my knee." An ungodly person has no reverence, fear, or submission to the Lord Jesus Christ. An ungodly person misses the fact that Jesus Christ is Savior and Lord; he is also Judge. Jesus said in John chapter five, "The Father judges no man but has given all judgment to the Son that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father." He said, "He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him." They deny those three key truths, and that has infiltrated the church of the living God. We are to stand up for the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the God-man, the only way to heaven, the Master and Judge. The book of Matthew, Pilate asks the greatest question that was ever asked in the Bible. He said to the people as he brought out Jesus, "Do you want me to release Barabbas or Jesus?" They said, "Barabbas!" Then he says, "What then shall I do with Jesus, who is called Christ?" What will you do with Jesus? Neutral you cannot be. Someday your heart will be asking, "What will he do with me?" The alarm is sounded. God's Word is under attack, God's grace is under attack, and God's Son is under attack. Will you stand up for Jesus?
Guest (Male): With the alarm sounding in your heart, you must ask yourself, "What have I done with Jesus?" Are you spiritually sensitive enough to hear God's voice ask you honestly to answer that question? If so, you have questions about what becoming a Christian really means. What does it demand of you? How will you change? How do you ask Christ into your life? On our website at FromHisHeart.org, there is a special section called Why Jesus that will give you the answers that you seek and, most importantly, answers to questions that you didn't even know to ask, but they are vital. Go to FromHisHeart.org and click the Why Jesus tab. We hope you'll visit the website to sign up for Pastor Jeff's weekly Real Hope email encouragement letter. Today's message was called Sound the Alarm, the first of four in Pastor Jeff's Faith Under Fire series, a study of the book of Jude. He'll continue this series for the rest of the month. Here's just part of what's to come on Monday.
Dr. Jeff Schreve: Here's the thing that most of us don't realize. It's dangerous to come to church because at church you're going to hear truth. You're going to hear God's Word as it is preached. God's Word goes forth and you hear Sunday after Sunday what you are supposed to do, how you can be born again, and how the Lord wants to change your life. If you come to church and you don't take the word and unite it with faith, all you do by coming to church is amass judgment against yourself.
Guest (Male): Be sure to be right back here when Pastor Jeff continues to explain what happens when we reach the point of no return. That's when we'll open up God's Word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from his heart.