Fake Christians | Ep.15

This week we trace how online hate reveals the heart, then move to exposure and accountability in the church, and finally lay out what the Bible says a Christian is and isn’t. We challenge cheap grace, contrast devout and nominal faith, and call for obedience rooted in love.

• hate comments as a mirror for the heart
• public exposés and digital receipts
• the duty to denounce at the same volume as promotion
• Christian as recognition, not self-label
• data on devout vs nominal outcomes
• works as evidence, not currency for salvation
• judging inside the church to protect the flock
• repentance, endurance and keeping commandments
• love as action and the daily cross
• warning against wolves and stumbling blocks

Christ is King. Jesus loves you and he’s coming back soon. If Jesus is your saviour, but not your Lord, he’s neither of those things for you.

Chapters

• 0:00 Viral Clips And Self-Exposure Online
• 3:29 Public Exposés And Digital Accountability
• 7:30 Cover-Up Culture And Responsibility To Denounce
• 10:30 What Is A Christian Versus A Pretender
• 14:20 Devout Vs Nominal Christians And The Data
• 18:30 Fruit, Hypocrisy And Blaming Christianity
• 21:10 Identity Versus Recognition And Vain Profession
• 25:00 Cheap Grace And The “Say The Prayer” Trap
• 29:20 Judgement Inside The Church, Not Outside
• 33:00 Salvation: Endurance, Repentance And Works As Fruit
• 38:10 Love For God Means Keeping His Commands
• 42:20 Wolves In Sheep’s Clothing And Stumbling Blocks
• 50:00 Final Admonition: Christ Is King

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to episode 15 of the Ministry A Man podcast. I'm your host, Isaac Anthony Turner. And let me tell you this. Since starting this podcast, I have noticed something. The thing that I've noticed the most, out of anything that I have noticed, this is the thing I've noticed the most. When you start a podcast and you don't have any kind of notoriety or notability, you have to advertise it through clips and through Instagram reels and TikTok or whatever. And this is one thing that I've noticed. People expose themselves like in this really weird way. When when I say something that they don't like, you know that they do the thing that they get upset about. So okay, it'll be easy to give examples. So say if I go, lying is bad, and if you lie, you've got bad character. And then someone will comment, just be like, oh, what's this dude crying about or something? And you're like, okay, well, obviously you'd like to lie. And you're also on top of that, you're you're probably prideful as well. And it's kind of like hurt your, you don't want to admit that lying is bad. And so you want to just attack the source, kind of thing. Uh, if I say you shouldn't wear skimpy clothes, or wearing skimpes is either insecure or arrogant, or both, oftentimes it's both, people get very upset about that and they'll go, I don't know, they'll just throw insults at you, and you're like, okay, well, like you're just exposing yourself. Okay, so like now we know what like someone that doesn't operate in those behaviors that I'm calling out doesn't care. So if I go, you know, oh, it's bad to overeat. It's like it's gluttonous and it's lazy, or maybe it's just like lack of self-control, and it's bad for you to just stuff your face till you throw up or something. And then there's someone that likes to do that, and they don't want to believe that that is actually a bad thing to do because it's a pleasure that they get. They will just try and insult me or attack me, or whoever it is, whoever it is that's posting information that's like calling something out. They're just exposing themselves. The funniest one is when you're like, guys shouldn't watch porn, and that's bad. And then there'll be guys that'll just throw random insults, not even related to the topic or the video or something. They'll just try to attack my appearance or something you're like, okay, dude. Like you're just telling the world that you jack off and watch porn. So it's like like because that shouldn't upset you. Even the people that do it and like there's people that do it and feel bad about it, and they're probably not gonna comment, they're probably gonna watch a video like that and go, yeah, he's probably right. But it's the ones that want to keep doing it, want to keep doing the bad thing and feel okay about it, not feel the shame or uh not have anyone tell them that they're doing anything wrong ever. They just want to live their life in their lustful, sinful pleasures. And uh sorry, but if you're gonna do it, then you gotta cop some flack for it too, because it's disgusting. So it is what it is. You gotta call a spade a spade sometimes, and um anyway, so that's an interesting thing. And so on the topic of people being exposed, this is a great segue into what I want to talk about today because uh if you're in the Christian world, you might have heard of a man named Mike Winger who does these exposes where he exposes people in that are basically doing inappropriate things in the Christian community, if they're like a leader or a pastor or something. Uh I've seen some of his videos. He doesn't, I think he does a pretty good job most of the time. I've seen some where I'm like, oh, he's definitely missed with that one. But the one that I seen recently went for six hours and I watched all six hours of it, and I haven't seen the replies from the people he's talking about yet, but geez, he has gone in and he's got mad receipts. Uh so there's a lot of people getting exposed. And it just made me think like a lot of what he's got, like a lot of the data and the information he's got 100 years ago, these people would never have been exposed. Like he's coming with text messages, he's got audio recordings, he's got video evidence, he's got, I don't know, so many testimonies from people that have only been able to contact him online. And even him being able to compile it all together for an online video and then send it out, and then it's got like over a million views on it, and uh it's just trending really hard. So, like there it wouldn't have been possible before the age of information, I suppose. There's a lot of wolves in sheep's clothing that would have just continued to hurt people and try and profit off the back of other people's innocence and naivety, maybe. Uh, and there's just there's there would never be a voice for a lot of the victims, and there'd be no accountability for the perpetrators. And the so the the whole video was about this like cover-up culture, and the bad thing about it was that they're they're trying to basically there were some people that were doing some really bad things, and then there were some other people that knew that these people were doing bad things, and then didn't say anything, even though they knew, and they they should have said something because they platformed these people, gave them a voice, endorsed them, and then when things sort of went down, that is were silent about it. And it's like, well, you promoted them, you should also on the same level of like the same volume, you should denounce them as well. At the same volume that you promoted them, the same volume should be used to denounce them. So, yeah, so I'm interested to hear the rest of the responses. I mean, obviously, I've only heard Mike Winger's six hours. Uh, I haven't heard the responses, but I'll have a look at it another day. But the the thing that I want to talk about, the thing is is not so much about that. I mean, you can make up your own minds on you know what happened there with the information provided. But I do want to talk about what is a Christian versus what is a fake Christian or just a non-Christian altogether, because the Bible actually outlines what is a Christian and what is not a Christian. So from the get-go, first of all, there is a huge gap in what a Christian is according to the Bible versus what a Christian is according to the world, and according to most people that claim the identity of Christian. So, first of all, a Christian isn't something that you identify as, it's something that you are recognized as. So initially, Christians in the in the Bible, Christian just means follower of Christ. And people recognized those people as the followers of Christ. So they would call them the Christians. They would say, the Christians themselves would say, We are of the way. We follow the way, we we uh that's how they describe themselves. Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And uh, but the the term Christian was sort of thrown at them. And it was actually looked down upon as well. They they would call uh the religion of Christianity, they would call it the religion of slaves and women, as like a derogatory term that would that they would assign to the Christians. So it's very different to now, where people just say, I'm a Christian because of they pretty much can give any particular reason. I spoke to a girl once and in I asked her if she was a Christian. She goes, I think I'm a Christian. And I was like, Okay, well, what do you mean by think you're a Christian? And she's like, Oh, well, my parents were Christian and I was raised Christian. I was like, Okay, well, do you believe in God? And she goes, Hmm, uh, and it's like, if you have to think about it, then the answer is no. No, you don't even know if you believe in God or not, then you're not a Christian, okay? Like, it's like saying to someone, like, are you a vegan? And they go, Well, I don't know. And it's like, well, how do you not know? Like, you either know or you don't know. Um, and I'll come back to that analogy soon, actually, but I want to point out some some differences because in in uh the world, that you can separate Christians essentially into two categories. There's what you might call a devout Christian or a practicing Christian. Uh, in in a lot of surveys and studies that they've done, they would classify that as someone that attends church at least three times a week and is committed to practicing and living the lifestyle of the of a Christian versus what might be called a nominal Christian. A nominal Christian is Christian in name. They might say, Yeah, I was raised Christian, or I have a faith or a belief, but they might attend church sporadically, they might not even attend church at all, and they definitely don't uh make effort to practice or or understand or lean into the Christian lifestyle. But they still claim Christian as an identity because of their upbringing or something. So there's some interesting stats to point out. So in in the devout Christian or the evangelical Christian space, they've done studies on um men, and there's a there's actually a book called The Toxic War on Masculinity, which details this. And some of the studies that they quote in here says that the devout practicing Christians were more loving to their wives, more emotionally engaged with their children than any other group in America, least likely to divorce, and had the lowest levels of domestic abuse and violence of any group in America. Now, this is where it gets cooked because the nominal Christians, the Christians in name only, uh, they spent less time with their kids. Their wives reported being uh having lower levels of happiness, where where the devout Christians had 35%, they were 35% less likely to divorce. The nominal Christians were 20% more likely to divorce, which was higher than the secular men, higher than the non-Christians. So the nominal Christians tend to be to be worse than even people that just don't claim any kind of religious ideology at all. Um the devout Christians were the lowest of any domestic abuse and violence group. The nominals were the highest, again, higher than any other group, higher than uh the secular and non-Christian groups. So you you look at these things and you're like, okay, so what's the difference? There's there's obviously a significant difference between the two. Because one you've got it is actually showing good fruit, the other one is showing bad fruit. And there's a Bible verse that says, a good tree can't produce bad fruit, like a bad tree can't produce good fruit. So it's all about the tree and what it produces. So you can look at the life of someone and go, oh, okay, I can see what's coming out of their life, and then I can make a judgment based on that. I can make a judgment on the person based on what they're producing in the world. So people will look at some of these nominal Christians or these pastors and leaders that are getting exposed for sexual immorality or having affairs or just blatantly lying or manipulating people to give them more money. And they look at these people and they go, see, Christianity's bad. It's all a fraud. It's not an unfair assessment to look at those people and go, wow, it looks like Christianity is a sham all along because the people at the top, the highest leaders, they keep falling. They keep having these moments of perversion or disgrace. And so it's not unreasonable for people to look at that and then just be like, well, it looks like you know, Christianity sucks. The thing is that I believe it is Frank Turek always uses this. He has a channel called Cross-Examined, which does a lot of Christian, the defense of Christianity, Christian apologetics. And he would say, if someone plays Mozart bad, you don't blame Mozart, you blame the performer. You would say, no, Mozart is amazing, but this person's just playing it horribly. In the same way, if someone is behaving poorly as a Christian, you don't blame Christianity as a whole, you would blame the Christian or if they even are a Christian or not. So I will yeah, go into what I believe is a Christian or is not a Christian. So as I said before, Christianity isn't something that you identify as, it's something you are recognized as. In the same way that if someone says that they're vegan, but they go to a steakhouse every week, you would just say, Oh, okay, well, you're actually not a vegan because that's just not what a vegan is. Like you're not doing the thing that makes you the thing. So, in the same way, if a Christian is just sleeping around and getting drunk and lying to people all the time, stealing from people all the time, you go, Oh, well, you're not actually a Christian because that's not what a Christian is. That's not what they do. So you're you're just deceived or you're believing a lie. Like, that's just what that is. What it what it actually would be is just using the Lord's name in vain, which is to say, like, people think using the Lord's name in vain is just saying, like, oh my God, or saying Jesus Christ in like a swear word type of way or an explicit type of way. Uh that is one form of using the Lord's name in vain. But another way of using the Lord's name in vain is representing the Lord's name in an unholy way. So when you go and you're proclaiming the name of God or Christ and Jesus, but then you are living in this unholy, just uh a sinful way, I suppose. You're you're you're bearing the name of Christ in the wrong way. So that's also using the Lord's name in vain. And that's what I see a lot of these Christians doing. So there's this idea that's somehow gotten around by if you just say you're a Christian, then that's it. Then you're just a Christian. All you have to do is just say the magic words, and then all of a sudden you're a Christian and you're saved and you're going to heaven. And these churches have this thing where they'll say, just say this prayer. It's called a salvation prayer. If you just say the prayer, you're sweet. You you're you're saved, you are going to heaven, and then that's kind of it. Like, they don't put any emphasis on the following of Christ or the walking after Christ or turning your whole entire life around. Like, it's so backwards, bro. Like, you you sit there in a church service and they'll talk about, I don't know, the book of Daniel. Or they might talk about, let's say, I don't know, Genesis. And at the end of the service, they'll go, now if anyone wants to give their life to Jesus, repeat after me and say this prayer. And you're like, you didn't even talk about Jesus the entire time. What do you what do you mean? Like you haven't shared the gospel, the the the message of Christ and what it is to be a Christian. You you just took spoke about like, I don't know, some life advice. And then you want, and then you're saying, oh, if someone wants to give their life to Jesus, they don't even you haven't even spoken about Jesus yet. Like it's so crazy. And then then they walk out of there completely deceived because they're like, oh, I guess I'm a Christian now and I'm going to heaven and I'm saved. And they have no idea what they've just said or what they're supposed to do now. Like it's it's frustrating because nowhere in the Bible does it emphasize a singular moment that you are that you just say a thing and then that's kind of it. Like it's it's really deceptive, actually, because the actual call to Christians is to pick up your cross, deny yourself, and follow Christ. It is to die. So it asks you to die and be and born be born again. You're dying to your flesh, you're dying to the old man is dead, you're being born again into a new creation. And how does that happen? You have to let go of things, you have to no longer live the way you used to live and say, I'm going to live a completely different way now. I'm going to live a completely different way now, not have a moment where you're like, yeah, that sounds cool. Count me in. And then you go and just do whatever you want. And then you're like, you're back out of the clubs and you're back just like just doing whatever you feel pleasurable. Like there's so many hedonist Christians. They're like, yeah, I'm a Christian, but I also like to just do whatever makes me happy too. And it's like, well, that's just not what a Christian is. What are you talking about? And it's not even necessarily their fault because like the person that led them to Christ, like, didn't tell them. Didn't tell them the truth. One of the first things Jesus ever sent was repent. Stop doing what you're doing and walk this way. Walk a different way now. Live live your life differently to how you've been living it. And it's not gonna feel good either in the beginning. It's gonna be hard to do. Oh, there's so many different ways I can go with this. Where am I gonna go with this? Um, okay. So, yeah, okay. So, people will say something like, Well, it's just my relationship with God. Or they'll say, Who are you to tell me what my relationship with God is? Or this is just my this is my version of Christianity. Okay, so first of all, who am I to tell you what your relationship is with God? A a Christian. So that's what a Christian does. Like it says in in 1 Corinthians, Paul who wrote 1 Corinthians, says, actually, let me read this, brother. Let me read this now. Okay, I am going to sound off in this podcast because I'm fed up and so I'm I'm bringing out the shotgun, okay? I'm bringing out the shotgun. I'm getting my Bible. Okay, so I'm gonna read from 1 Corinthians 5. Let me tell you this. Uh, this is 1 Corinthians 5, verse 12, where Paul says, For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? Whom you are to judge? God judges those outside, meaning he judges the non-believers. Purge the evil person from among you. How do we know who's the evil person? By reading our Bible, which tells us what the evil people are. This is what the Bible says. This is how, like, okay, let me keep reading. I'm gonna let me back it up a little bit. This is what the Bible says. Paul says in in uh 1 Corinthians 5 verses 9, he says, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people, not at all meaning the sexual immoral of the world, so not the people outside of the church, or the greedy and the swindlers, since then you would need to go out of the world. So he's not talking about the people of the world, he's talking about the people of that that are in the church. He says, But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexually uh sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler, not even to eat with such a one. So, like, he's pretty harsh when it comes to how to deal with people that are behaving a particular way that call themselves brother, to mean those that are of the faith. So when people go, who are you to tell me how what my relationship with God is? A Bible reading Christian, that's all. That's all. Jesus says not to judge, yep. I've spoken about this in a previous podcast, but he says, Don't judge lest you be judged by the same measure. And he says, Remove the plank from your own eye before removing Spect from your brother's eye. He's just saying, don't be a hypocrite. But he said, but once you've done that, then you're free to judge righteously in the hopes that you would bring them back into the body of Christ, though. It's not just to do it for fun. But that's how. Like when people go, oh, and they go, Yeah, this is my version of Christianity. Okay. You can have your version of Christianity, but just know that it's not Christianity if it's just your version. Because there is a doctrine, there is a Bible. And if you fall outside of the doctrine and what the Bible says, then you just you just can't use that term anymore. You just make up your own thing. You just have your own thing. It's just not Christianity. There aren't versions of Christianity, first of all. There's denominations and there's schisms, but there isn't like they all follow the same uh fundamental practices and believe the same core values and core doctrine. There's some some secondary things that people might disagree on, but there are there are things that if you don't agree on, then you're just labeled a heretic and you're expelled from the body. You're not classified as a Christian anymore. So um you having your own version is not even a thing. Like it's just not what that is. People use the term, oh, I've got my own relationship with Jesus. And it's like, it probably isn't Jesus that you have a relationship with. Like, just to be honest, if you're just doing whatever you want and you don't feel guilty about it, and you're just like living in full sin, doing all the things that Jesus says to turn away from, very explicitly says to turn away from, and you're just doing that anyway, and you go, Well, Jesus knows my heart. And he's like, Yeah, and so does everyone else. Everyone knows your heart. Like, you do what you want to do. Like, the reason people sin is because they love it. They love their sin. Sin is a pleasurable thing, and you love that more than not doing it. Because if you loved not doing it more than doing it, then you just wouldn't be doing it. So there is an element in which you are, you do love it. You just haven't died to the flesh enough, or you've you're just not repentant enough, uh, and you just don't really care. Like that, and to put a little caveat, it's different to the people that stumble and that are working their way towards Christ. I'm not talking about being a perfect human and never failing or never stumbling. I'm talking about the people that willfully sin, that choose to live in a particular way and and make up their own Jesus to make themselves feel good about it, or like that they don't feel judged or no, I like I love Jesus so much. Like there's people go that they do OnlyFans and they go, No, I love Jesus. And you're like, You don't though, because we can see that you don't. If I had if if someone has a a spouse, a husband or a wife, and their spouse is out cheating on them every weekend, but they go, No, I love my husband, I love my wife, and they're just cheating on them all the time. Well, then you go, no, you don't, because that's not what love is. You like you can't have it both ways. You can't just say you love someone and then constantly mistreat them all the time because that's just not what the definition of love is. So, whatever it is that you think you have, it is it just isn't love. You might have a bond, you might have some form of affection, it might be some limerence there, but it's definitely definitely not love. So there's a thing called the Nicene Creed. So this is if you don't believe in the Nicene Creed, you are basically just not included in the church, like in the in the large capital C church, the body of Christ. I'm gonna read it out for you so you know what it is. It says, We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, begotten from the Father before all ages, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of the same essence as the Father. Through him all things were made, for us and for our salvation. He came down from heaven, he became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was made human. He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, he suffered and was buried. The third day he rose again according to the scriptures, he ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in he will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead. His kingdom will never end. And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life. He proceeds from the Father and the Son, and with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified. He spoke through the prophets. We believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church. We affirm one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look forward to the resurrection of the dead and to the life in the world to come. Amen. That is the Nicene Creed. That is what you have to believe in order to be a Christian or an included and to not be considered as a heretic. So, and also I will add when it says we believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church, Catholic means all inclusive, is in the word Catholic by definition is like unity and one. We believe in the all-encompassing church. We are one body. So you you must believe that. And if you don't, then you're a heretic and you're not included. So that's pretty simple. Um, in addition to that, the Bible's very explicit in what it defines as a Christian as well. Again, not at not what you identify as, what you are recognized as. It says in John 13, 34 to 35, Jesus says himself, A new commandment I give you, that you love one another just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. So how will they know? How will you know if someone is a disciple of Jesus? Well, according to Jesus, it's if you have love for one another. And that's the agape love, that is the self-sacrificial love. That is not an emotion, it is a action. Sacrifice requires action. You put others before you, you want them to do better than you. It is if is it as if they are you and you you're you're living to make sure others are living better, basically. Now in Matthew 16, 24, Jesus says, then then Jesus told the disciples, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. What does that mean? To deny yourself is to put your own desires aside. You're denying your own personal desires. Deny yourself, pick up your cross. What is that? Well, that's where you die. You're picking up a crucifix. Not only are you dying on that crucifix, a crucifix or a crucifixion was a very public death. You are getting raised up in the public eye to die. So in front of the world, you are you are dead to yourself. You are dead to your own pleasures, your own desires, and you follow Christ. In Luke, it has the same verse. It says to do it daily. Pick up your cross daily, deny yourself, deny your own desires. That isn't an easy thing to do, but that is what a Christian must do. It's not uh something that you might be able to do overnight. There is a process of sanctification, there is a process of learning, there is a process of understanding. I'm sure there's many things that people start to journey towards and they're not going to be perfect in the beginning, but that's where they're aiming. Where is your aim? Because if it's not towards Jesus, which is the highest possible good imaginable, he's perfect. If you aren't aiming for to be like Jesus and bearing his image, then you're not walking towards Christ, which means you're not following Christ, which means you're not a Christian. Christian just means by definition Christ follower. That's what the word means. So here's the thing: this is where, this is where a big issue has gotten into the church. Romans 10, 9 says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, then you will be saved. So people say, people look at that and they go, they look at just the first bit. They go, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, then they skip it to, then you'll be saved. You just have to confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord. Well, guess what? So the demons confess with their mouth that Jesus is Lord. They called him the Holy One. They they understood who he was, they definitely believed who he was. So what's the difference? The difference is there are so many verses in the Bible that talk about salvation. It isn't just one verse in Romans that is the entire doctrine of salvation. Whereas some churches, because they just want numbers and they want just more people to fill the church, could be because more people in the church, they get more tithes. I don't know. Maybe it makes them look better that they've got so many people coming in. But it's not a depth and it's just not a, it's a it's such a weak way to win people to the Lord. You want their lives to be changed and transformed. You want the best for them. And just saying if you just confess with your mouth, that's enough. Well, it's not enough. It isn't enough. Like believing in your heart is so much different than just like an acknowledgement of the head. When it says to have faith, faith means to lean the weight of your life into the thing that you're believing. It isn't just an acknowledgement of something being real. So when when they when they say things like, just believe in your uh or just confess with your mouth, they're basically just saying, just say the, just quickly say the words, just say the words, and then you're good, and we can move into the next person. It's like, don't worry about all the other Bible verses. You don't need to hear about that. Which is actually, when you think about it, it's really it's as deceptive as what Satan did to Jesus in the wild, because Satan used scripture out of context to try and get what he wanted, basically, to try and deceive Jesus. But Jesus repeated scripture back, he knew the whole, the, the full truth. So he everything that that Satan said, he was applying Bible verses and scripture, the word of God, to get Jesus to do something. And if Jesus didn't know what the whole Bible said, then he like would have been deceived in in terms of, you know, if it's hard to say that because Jesus is God. So I don't know. But the point is that he did know the scriptures, he knew all the scriptures, and so he was able to use other verses to say, no, Satan, you are wrong because the Bible actually says this, the word of God says this. So what are the other verses? Okay, great question. Thanks for asking. Matthew 24, 9 to 13 says, This is Jesus speaking, then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake, and then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray, and because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. Okay, that's that's interesting. So you have to endure to the end to be saved. It also says in Matthew 6, 15, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses. Okay, forgiveness, that's another big one that we don't talk about a lot. Titus 1.16 says, They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work. So when someone says, Who are you to tell me what my relationship with God is? I'm a I'm an observer. I can see what your life is like. That's how. And according to God and the word of God, you're denying him by your works. And God sees that as detestable and disobedient and unfit for any good work. So I don't know if you've read that, but that's an important one to make note of. Uh Hebrews 10, 26-27 says, For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and a raging fire that will consume all adversaries. Okay. If you go on sinning deliberately, you're not under the sacrifice. Just there's no sacrifice for your sins, which means you're still in sin, which means you aren't saved. So you might want to check the Bible. Now, so there are some verses, right? But I want to be very clear. I want to be very clear on what it is that actually saves you. The Bible is very clear by saying we are not saved by works, we are saved by grace through faith. So it isn't your behavior that gets you into heaven. Faith is so we're saved by grace, that is God's grace, that is him giving us something that we don't deserve. We don't deserve to go into heaven. Bible says, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. It is by his grace alone that we are even able to enter into the kingdom of heaven, to, to, to have eternal life. But it's we're saved by grace through faith. So faith is a very important aspect of that as well. What is faith? As I mentioned before, faith is leaning the weight of your life into what you believe. Faith is an action, faith is something that you do. It goes back to things like actions speak louder than words. It isn't just an acknowledgement of the existence. Everyone in the time that Jesus walked, like belief in God, like everyone believed in God. It was the common thing. They believed in some form of God, at least in where where Jesus was born, in um Judaism. So it's not just an acknowledgement of the existence of a God. It is like when you believe in something. If you go to someone like, I believe in you, man, I believe in you, it's like I have faith in you. That's the kind of faith it's talking about. It's like, no, I really believe in you and believe in what you can do, and you are who you say you are. And uh, like if you say to someone, like put it like this if I say, I I believe that it's that it's not going to rain tomorrow, and then tomorrow comes around, and I walk outside and I've got a raincoat on and an umbrella, it's pretty safe to say that you don't really believe that it's not going to rain because your actions are sort of saying a different thing. That's kind of what it's like. It's James 2, 18 says, You have faith and I have works. Show me your faith apart from works, and I will show you my faith by my works. Basically, what he's saying here is that works isn't the root of salvation, it's the fruit of salvation. Your salvation should produce good works. That's how we know that your faith is real. If it was works that saved, so let's say, for example, someone thinks that your behavior is what gets you saved. That means that Jesus died for nothing. If we could save ourselves, then why did Jesus die to begin with? It's because we can't save ourselves. And works doesn't like the other side of that that talks about in Romans is if works saved, that would mean that God would owe us and he would be in debt to us. So if I behaved a certain way and I did all these things and I obeyed the law and did all like lived whatever life I lived, but it was according to the law and the scriptures, then God owes me. He owes me so heaven. So the idea of God being indebted to man is just so crazy. Like obviously, that's that would never be possible. God doesn't owe us anything. So works is we're we're saved by God's grace through faith alone. The works is just the evidence of faith. That's all that is. You can't earn anything by works. In fact, Jesus actually says, in the kingdom of heaven, the first will be will be last, and the last will be first. So you're not gonna be able to be like, oh, I'm gonna do the most, be the best Christian, and then I'll get the most favor in heaven or something. It's not gonna work like that. You do it because you believe in it and you believe it's the right thing. And that that's just the that's how you were created, and you do it out of love, and you do it out of genuine love. So if you think that you can just say a few words and then do whatever you want as a Christian, you're just believing a lie. That's just a lie. Hebrews 10 29 says, How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and has outraged the spirit of grace? So, so the spirit of grace is where people just abuse God's good grace. Because the Bible says wherever sin abounds, grace abounds more. So there's always there's always going to be forgiveness for your sins. That's that's the power of God's grace. Where there is no uh amount of sin that God isn't going to be able to forgive. But if you're abusing it, that's worse than than anything. You're trampling underfoot the Son of God and the sacrifice that he made and outraging the spirit of grace. How much more, how much worse the punishment do you think will be for that person? So the thing is, Bible says God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. He's not coming here for to con condemn people, but there is a particular way or an expectation to live, or at least a direction to walk. And whatever you value the highest is what you focus your attention on. And that's also how you orient yourself in what you do. So let's say if the highest value in my life was money, and I thought money was the most valuable thing. When it comes to making decisions, I'm always going to be filtering it through what I think is the most important things. And if it's money, it's going to be money for me. And so there's going to be an element of selfishness that is going to be guiding my decision making and my behavior, because that's what I value the highest. That sits on the top of my hierarchy of values. So if it's God, though, or if it's Christ and following Christ, then I then I know what direction I'm going to be walking to isn't for selfish reasons, because as you can't be selfish. That's the opposite to love, is selfishness. The other thing is, and this is important to know, Jesus says, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? And in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles. And then Jesus says, He'll tell them plainly, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. A few things to note in there is that they call him Lord. So they're they're acknowledging Jesus as Lord as the place. They've recognized him verbally, by the way. They've said it verbally, calling Jesus Lord. There was fruit, good fruit. One might say they're casting out demons, they're prophesying in his name. Don't know if the prophecies were any good or not, but they're performing miracles. I guess uh if they're driving out demons, that's good. But Jesus says, I never knew you. Why? Why does he say that? I'll tell you why. Because in 1 Corinthians 8, verse 3, it says, But if anyone loves God, he is known by God. So when Jesus says, Depart from me, I never knew you. And then later in the Bible, in another verse, it says, Anyone who loves God is known by God, you have to love God. People want to say, you know, if you confess that, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that he rose from the dead, then you'll be saved. Well, that's just not what the whole Bible says, because there's other parts in the Bible that indicate you actually have to love God as well. You can't hate Jesus and expect that, like, but like, yeah, I believe though. I believe that he is the Son and rose from the dead. If you looked at only that verse in Romans 10, 9, you're believing a lie because you're only looking at one side of the coin and a half truth, even if half of that is true and all of that is true, but it's not the entire truth of salvation. And a lot of Christians have been lied to because that's what they believe. So, what does Jesus say about loving God? In John 14, 21, he says, Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him, keeping his commandments. In 1 John 2, verse 4, he says, Whoever says I know him, talking about Christ, but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. It's not just about that. So keeping his commandments is an in is an integral part of identifying whether or not you love God. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. It's put more even more simply in John 14, 15, where Jesus says, If you love me, you will keep my commandments. That's what it is. That's how we know. It's how we know if you love Jesus or not. It's how you know if you love Jesus or not. Are you keeping his commandments? No. You don't love Jesus. Are you keeping his commandments? Yes. Well then you love Jesus. That's how we know. That's the identifier. Just saying, just like doing whatever you want, not keeping his commandments, and then just saying, yeah, I love Jesus. You don't, though, because that's just not what the definition of love is in the Bible. You can't just say it. You can't just say it, and then that's just the thing. You can't just say you're a vegan, then you eat meat all the time. It's just not what a vegan is. Sorry. It's just not what it is. There's so many lies around, man. Just lies everywhere, dude. The other thing is as well, God measures the heart. So he he looks at what you're doing, but he sees clearly why you're doing it. He sees like the reasons, like obeying the like keeping his commands. If you're keeping his commands to get to be saved, because that's the reason is that you just want to go to heaven, then you're you're that's works. You're doing it to be saved. Like you're not doing it out of the love of like because you're grateful that you've been saved and that this is the overflow of the love that you have. Are you obeying the commands because you want to be seen as being righteous, or is it because you believe that God is good and you want to do your part to participate with his goodness and his righteousness? Yeah. So, I mean, the other thing as well is he's it's each person has been given a measure of faith. And it's what you do with that that counts, not in comparison to anyone else, not in comparison to anyone's walk, just as far as what your portion is is what matters and what you how you steward that. So some people he gives 10 talents, some people five talent, some people one talent. It doesn't really matter what you're what hand you're dealt, as long as what you're doing with that hand that you're dealt. It's the decisions that you make. So, I mean, yeah. So, like looking at these fake Christians, man, that's what they are. They're fake Christians. They're wolves in sheep's clothing, a lot of these people, because a lot of the time it's these people that preach, like try to convince others. Like the worst people, the worst types of people are the people that aren't really Christians, but they have their own random version of Christianity where they just sin all the time and feel okay with it. Like they don't, they're not guilty about it, they don't even repent, like they're not repentant at all. It's just willing, willfully sinning all the time. And they just tell other people, yeah, this is what Christianity is. I'm and they have this like false humility of like, yeah, I'm just a flawed person, but I love Jesus. And it's like, dude, you're just like sleeping around all the time, or you're just like there is nothing fruitful about your life, it's an unholy life, and you're trying to convince other people, so then you can feel better about yourself if you can convince a whole bunch of other people that it's like, yeah, we can all sin together willfully and unrepentantly, and that's what the gospel is, that's what Christianity is. We're just like, yeah, we say we love, we go to church on Sunday, and then through the rest of the week, we just do whatever we want. But we've we did our Sunday church, that counts. And and and also I listen to um Christian music sometimes as well. Listen to worship music, and um, you know, I read the verse of the day on my phone, so that means I'm a Christian, and I just do whatever I want now, and then God knows that I'm troubled and whatever, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Dude, woe to those, man. Woe to those, big time. Matthew 7:15 says, Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. There's wolves out there, bro. And woe to those, I tell you. You are the worst. The worst people, man. The worst people are the ones that make other other Christians stumble. They're disgusting. The worst of the worst, it is only by God's grace that you would be forgiven. Because the the worst is when people use Christianity to deceive other people and then they make the good Christians stumble. So, like, there's been so many times where there's been a someone going well with their Christian walk and their faith, and then someone comes into their lives and they're a wolf in sheep's clothing, and they seduce them and they drag them in and they convince them using like words that sound hopeful and that they they're saying all the right things, but they're hiding their true self. And then they convince these other people and they make them stumble. You are the worst of the worst. You are the ones that like woe to those. They're the ones that will have the millstone hung around the neck because it's to to make the the little ones stumble. Man, look, I'm gonna have to end it there because I might say something too unseemly that I might later come to regret. So, with that being said, all of that take it for what you will, but it's just just remember this that Christ is King. Okay? Jesus loves you and he's coming back soon. And I'll also say this if Jesus is your savior, but not your Lord, he's neither of those things for you. And I pray that hits hard. All right, thanks for listening. Bye.