The Great Falling Away

In this powerful message, Pastor Chip dives into what Scripture calls the “great falling away” a moment when many will drift, distort truth, and walk away from real faith without even realizing it.

This isn’t about fear. It’s about awareness.
Because not everything spiritual is from God… and not every voice speaking truth is actually leading you to Jesus.

We’re living in a time where:
• Truth is being redefined
• Culture is discipling louder than the Church
• And many are trading conviction for comfort

But Scripture saw this coming.

In this message, you’ll discover:
• What the Bible actually says about the falling away
• How deception works and why it’s so subtle
• Warning signs you might be drifting without realizing it
• How to stay grounded, discerning, and faithful in the last days

This is your wake-up call.
Not to panic… but to prepare.

Don’t get played. Stay rooted. Stay awake.

Key Scriptures:
2 Thessalonians 2:3
1 Timothy 4:1–2
2 Timothy 4:3–4
Matthew 24:10–13

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

All right, so we are in our series right now called Warning. Don't get played. We're talking about end times, deceptions, all the things we need to watch out for in the last days. Today we're going to be talking about something called the Great Falling Away. The Great Falling Away. Something that is in the Bible that is and should be scary. A little bit. So the Great Falling Away, essentially, I'm going to give you an overview and then I'm going to kind of go through some things. Is essentially a time where believers specifically begin to fall away. You see, it's called the Great Falling Away. If you've never actually belonged to Christ, you can't really fall away from Christ. So that makes this warning even more stark to me as it's aimed at not just the wickedness of the world, but it's aimed at the church and us drifting from God. So where does this come from? It comes from a couple places in the Bible, but we're going to give you a lot of scripture today. Number one, we see the warning of the falling away in 2 Thessalonians 2.3. Whatever that is, whenever that is, I'm not here for speculating on that. That's something we'll deal with when we get to it. There will be a time where the people who believed in Jesus, even the faithful, will slowly begin to fall and drift away from the faith. They will drift and they will not, they will enter into destruction. I mean, I'll have a better, nicer way to put it. So before this unfolds, it'll be a falling away. The truth of God, of the gospel, of the Bible will start to begin to be abandoned by believers. They'll begin to trade into that truth. And then deception within the church, within the body of believers, will dramatically increase. Dramatically increase. So what we have is we have a situation that a lot of people will be caught off guard with. And we have to understand it's not going to be. So again, the Greek word for that, and I don't usually like sharing all that because most people are like, I don't really care about that, is apostasia. Say it. If I say it, you say. There you go, there you go. This actually means a rebellion. That means believers will begin to rebel against the truth. They'll begin to rebel against sound doctrine. They'll begin to reject it, and they will walk away from it. They will depart from the teachings that are biblical. They'll depart from the teachings that are sound. They'll depart from everything that the church is built on and they'll abandon it for something else. This is how the Antichrist will gain his control over the church. We often read in time stuff and we say things like, Well, I would never fall for the Antichrist. I would never take tomorrow. I would never, how could I do that? Why would I do that? I know Jesus. This is showing you how he's going to do it. Because as we abandon the truth, it becomes much easier to embrace a lie. Amen. So as we walk away from the truth and understand it won't necessarily be a time where you wake up one day and say, I no longer want to follow Christ. I no longer want to follow the truth. Satan is much more tricky than that. So as this begins to happen, people will rebel against the true church. They'll rebel against the true teachings. They'll probably begin to outlaw his only word, some of the true teaching, which will happen, and it's happening in other countries as we speak. And this is how the Antichrist will come away, come forward. We understand the falling away happens through deception. We talked about this scripture last week, Matthew 24, I'll read it again, four through five. Jesus answered and said to them, See to it that no one misleads you, for many will come in my name saying, I am the Christ, and they will mislead many people. Remember, I told you that doesn't necessarily mean they're going to come and say, I'm Jesus Christ. Because Christ is a title. It's not his, like I said, his name isn't really Jesus H. Christ. His name is Jesus of Nazareth. He is the Christ. So people will come and say they are the anointed. I saw all I felt in my spirit. Some of you are like, come on, when I made that joke just then, but that's okay. What'll happen is people will claim they are the Christ. They are the anointed one. They are the one who have the truth. They are the one who's going to lead you to salvation. They are the one who's going to open it all up for you, and you're going to get everything you've ever wanted. And that is a deception. And we've got to understand that just because someone is not claiming to be Jesus doesn't mean they're not claiming to be an anointed one. Doesn't mean they're not claiming to be a Christ. Amen? You follow me on that? Now, there, of course, there will be people who say they are actually Jesus. That happens. And Jesus is going to return, but we've got to understand the Bible gives us a clear view. And I know this sermon is a little more teachy, but that's okay. The Bible gives us a clear view. When Jesus returns, he's not going to return quietly. He's not going to return in someone's basement. He's not going to return at your local, you know, Kroger. It says he will return from the sky on a white horse with eyes flaming like fire. On his side will be written faithful and true. That we will know is the real Christ. So when you see people saying they're the Messiah, they're the, and we got to understand that there's messiahs in pretty much every major religion. There's someone that they count on. So the Jewish people as of now are waiting on their Messiah. Muslims have a type of messiah. All of these things that we hear, they're going to come together one day and it's going to create something that we aren't even going to believe, that we aren't even going to understand. And many of us, hopefully not in this room, who have spent our lives reading the scriptures, reading the Bible, going to church, knowing Jesus, many Christians will embrace that and they will drift away. Because their foundation is not built on relationship. We are fooled oftentimes by these books like Left Behind. Has anybody ever read that or watched the movie? When I was a kid, I was terrified of that. I watched that movie and I remember one time I walked into the living room and all the TVs were on and the lights were on and my grandparents' jackets were in their chairs and they were gone. I was like, whoops. I've been left behind. They're in the garage. But I thought I'd been left behind. I was scared of that happening. Planes falling out of the sky, all of that. You know, whatever. But the problem with that, not that some of that might not happen, is we we learn from things like that, and we get a false idea of what the hardships of the end times are going to be. See, we think that it's all going to be terrible all the time, but the Bible says it'll actually be like the days of Noah. People will be partying, getting married, going about it, just their life, and when they least expect it, the flood, the return will come. So there will be a sense of normalcy in the world when this happens. It will not necessarily look the way that we have learned it in movies. We have been trained to believe that persecution of the church is the greatest threat to the end times. They're going to persecute us, they're going to kill us. And they probably will. Happy Sunday. But doesn't Jesus say it's not those who kill the body to fear, but those who kill the soul. See, persecution only happens on the earth realm. The dumbest thing the devil can do is kill a Christian. Because guess what? Now you're not persecuted, now you're in heaven. Therefore, persecution couldn't be the most dangerous thing we're going to see in the end times. Hardships that are going to come with that aren't going to be the most dangerous things in the end times. This is hard for some of us. Other people's sins are not going to be the most dangerous thing in the end times. So many times I hear end times teaching that focus on the sin of the world just growing and growing and growing and growing and growing and people getting worse and worse, and how this person is this and that person is that. Yeah, all of that is part of it. But the biggest thing is do not be deceived. Look at your neighbor, say don't be deceived. Now look at the other one. You didn't care if they were deceived and tell them too. Secretly introduce destructive heresies. A heresy is a false teaching, even denying the master who brought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. Secretly introduced. That means it's not going to be overt. It's somebody's not going to come in and say, I'm going to give you a false teaching, prepare. They are going to secretly begin to slide in these teachings. And they'll secret, and let me tell you what happens in our culture in America. If a big enough church that we think is cool believes it, you'll see a bunch of little churches try to copy it. Because a lot of times we don't actually listen to the spirit, we listen to the trends. God is not the God of the trends, he's the God of all. God is not interested in trends. When destructive teachings, they secretly come in, they secretly sneak in, and they are destructive. They'll destroy. They'll destroy. They'll destroy your relationship with Jesus. They'll destroy your conscience. They'll destroy your morality. They'll destroy what you've learned and what you've believed, and ultimately they'll destroy your soul if you embrace them. Hope this isn't too heavy. They'll also be introduced secretly by being offered next to the truth. What the devil tends to do is take a chunk of the truth and then put a lie in it. The best example, see, we've been taught this. The devil's the father of lies. Everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie. So we're convinced he can't say anything that's true, but he can say distorted truths. He can do that. How do you know, Chip? Because he quoted the scripture to Jesus, and the scriptures are true. So what does he tell Jesus? He says, if you throw yourself off, the angels will bear you up, turn the stones into bread. So we see all of this happen. So what happens is there will be secret false teachings that look like the truth because they're in what I call a truth sandwich. Truth, lie, truth. Do not eat the sandwich. It is rotten. It'll come in and it'll sneak in. That's how you can be listening to a preacher preach and preach and preach, and you're like, oh, I really think everything they're saying is good. Then all of a sudden, out of left field, they'll say something like, Well, it's well, there's many ways to God. It's not just one. Like, wait a minute, what? No, it's Jesus and Him alone. That's the biggest one we see. No, it's okay to, you know, you can they'll preach the gospel. We should love everyone, we should do this, we should do that, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then they'll sneak in. Well, love is love. You can marry whoever you want. That verse is outdated. You'll hear a gospel preached, and then someone will say something along the lines of, well, maybe God did make a mistake when he made you, and you should alter who you are. Those are lies. Why are those lies so devastating, by the way? It's not just because those kind of sins gross us out. It's because those kind of sins are an attack on our identity. And what is our identity? It's we are made in the image of God. So if we allow the enemy to tear down our identity, we will, and we allow him to go in there and convince us God was wrong, he made us wrong, we're programmed wrong, we're wired differently. Instead of going, God help change me, there's going to be churches that embrace things and say, be exactly who you are. There is no change needed. We'll get to that even in a minute, even more. Some of the teachings will look logical. They'll appeal to your logic. There's nothing logical really in the Bible. You don't ever see Jesus appealing to earthly logic. He appears to spiritual logic. He doesn't appeal to earthly logic. So it's not, well, that wouldn't be fair if Jesus was the only way. What about the people that are, you've heard this argument. What about the people on the island who have never heard of Jesus? What about Jewish people who don't believe in Jesus? What about all God's just going to send them to hell? Well, no, God's not sending anyone to hell. We send ourselves to hell. But we hear these type of things and they sound logical, but just because they sound logical doesn't mean they're biblical. Yeah, devil. No, I'm kidding. Some teachings will actually deny Jesus' deity completely. We're in this phase, if you're on social media at all, where people start talking about something and understand there's different ways people talk about it, of Christ consciousness. We hear things like Jesus was a Christ, not the Christ. Jesus was a teacher, Muhammad was a teacher, Buddha was a teacher, all leading to the same God, blah, blah, blah. Those types of deceptions sneak in and people start believing them. And I know I'm giving you some overt ones, so you probably are like, I'll never believe that, but I'm just telling you what the culture is seeing and what Christians are believing. That Jesus is just another kind of good teacher, and that there's many ways, and whichever one you choose, that's okay. That's not okay. Jesus alone, salvation is in, no one else. And then it ends in a pretty drastic way. It says judgment will come on the people that do that. Judgment will come on the people that mislead. Judgment will come on the people that give false teaching. Our job is to call it out and to walk away from it. Let God judge and do that part. Part of the deception of the end times, messages that appeal to desire. For in 2 Timothy 4, 3 through 4, for the time will come when they will not tolerate sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled. They will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires. They will turn their ears away from the truth and will turn aside to myths. There is coming a time where when sound doctrine is preached, the church will not tolerate the truth. They'll say that's too harsh. They'll say that's too narrow. They'll say that's not right. People, I a good example. Every single time I've shared this before, I have never preached on the love of God or the grace of God without somebody getting mad at me. Literally angry, like leave the church angry. I could preach on anything else. But you start saying things like God loves you, people get mad. Why? They have a judgmental spirit. They're not tolerating sound doctrine. Sound doctrine. It's very important you know your Bible so you know the doctrine that is sound. A lot of this deception is gonna come from biblical illiteracy, from people that do not open up their Bibles and read it for themselves. If you don't know what the Bible says, then you're not gonna have a way to fact check. That doesn't just go for a false teacher, that goes for me. You should be looking at the Bible when I say scriptures. You know how at my old church one time I got up and read a totally fake scripture. And not one person said anything. I saw people pretending they were reading it. And I was like, that's not in there. Why do you do stuff like that, Chip? I don't know. But it was a good experiment, and it proved a point. If you don't know your Bible, you're not gonna have the tools that you need. You, yes, you have the Holy Spirit. I get that. But the Holy Spirit is not the only spirit that can speak to you. And you might be clever and cunning and smart, but the demons are ancient. They've been doing this for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. You are probably not smarter than them. You might have more power and authority than them. So, what do you do when the Holy Spirit says something? You fact-check it to the Bible. The Spirit will never say something that's not in the Bible. Whenever I say you need to listen to the Holy Spirit, inevitably somebody goes, Well, what if he tells me to kill a man? He's not, I promise. How do I know? The Bible. What if he tells me to rob a liquor store? Why would he do that? I mean, read the thing. You'll find out. What do you got? So people won't tolerate sound doctrine because they won't know sound doctrine. So when they hear it, it'll sound harsh. It'll be too much for them. It'll be considered uninclusive. It'll be considered low tolerance, all of that stuff. We've got to read our Bibles, we've got to know the doctrines in the Bible, and we've got to live by them. They will find teachers that tell them what they want to hear. In the old days, you might not be aware of this, in America at least, you did not choose necessarily the church you went to. If you go look at older church buildings, they're almost always in neighborhoods. They're almost always here, and nowadays, like that's a weird place for a church. But most people went to a church that was relatively close to their neighborhood. So that means if the preacher got up and preached against gambling and you were a gambler, you just had to sit there and listen and let the spirit convict you of your problem. If you were an alcoholic and the preacher began to preach against being an alcoholic, you would sit there and deal with the conviction of the spirit. Nowadays, what we do, if somebody says something we don't like, we just get in the car and we go to a church until we find one that we do like. Until we find a church that says the things we want to hear. When was the last time you went to a church and said, I go to this church honestly just because they tell the truth? That's why we should be going to church. We should not be going to church because people don't agree with our politics. I know people that voted differently than me. And guess what? The same Holy Spirit can speak through them too. We can't go to church based on our race. We can't go to Go to church based on anything other than does this teacher tell the truth? The media has shaped our minds to only think echo chambers are correct. When I was little, I and I I talk about politics because it's a part of our culture, but aside from that, I actually love politics. I'm one of these few people I love it. Not that I love one side more than the other, I just love the whole the whole science of it. I love seeing the systems that are at work, I love seeing how people manage campaigns. I probably love it because growing up at my grandma's house while my mom was at school, we would lay on the floor and watch CNN and Fox News as kids. There was a time where they said kind of the same thing. Now they don't. Now you can choose the news you want to hear. You can literally, when you get home, look at all the major news networks, find the same story, and it'll be reported in five different ways. And you will choose the one you agree with, which isn't always a good thing. Because sometimes we don't agree with the truth, but that doesn't make it not true. There's some things in the Bible that I would have probably done differently. There's probably some things you would have done differently. But for whatever reason, God, who knows much more than me, chose to make the things the way that they are. And I don't get to say I don't like that truth. I get to say I love you, Jesus, and I support your truth. But we've been so conditioned by algorithms, by news media, by social media, by YouTube, that we can just click skip or swipe anything we don't want to hear. Sometimes the thing you don't want to hear is the thing you need to hear. The most transformative moments of my life have been moments where someone says something to me that I don't want to hear. I've talked about this before. One of those times was at this church, John Potter. He said, Chip, you know the Bible, you know scripture, you know all that good stuff. He goes, but nobody wants to hear it if you're, I won't use the word he used, but he said, nobody wants to hear it if you're gonna be a jerk. He didn't say jerk. Which I needed him to not say jerk. And that was, I didn't want to hear that. But I needed to hear it. I didn't, I don't, you think I want to hear from Tyler? Did you go to the gym today? I don't want to hear that. You think you think I want to only have air fried chicken? But I need to have it. Good things don't always feel good. Bad things almost always feel good. That's why we can't collect teachers we want to hear just because we're offended. Sometimes your flesh needs to be offended. In fact, any deep work of the spirit, if it doesn't offend your flesh, it's probably not really the spirit. Because your flesh hates what the spirit is doing in you. Well, Chip, I would never follow a myth. I don't believe in Zeus and Mount Olympus. I don't believe in, you know, all these Mesopotamian gods. I don't believe no, you don't. But what if I change the words? They will follow conspiracy theories rather than truth. Conspiracy theories. Some of them end up being true, I get that. But there are myths in our culture that people are led astray by every day, and they don't even realize it's a myth. There's people right now on the internet, and this is why I talk about it, and everybody's like, why are you talking about this at church? That have already said they encountered an alien who opened their blinded eyes and their deaf ears. Where do you think they're gonna say Jesus came from? Guess. There's myths out there that say actually God didn't create us. We evolved from apes. There's another myth that's almost more popular now that actually aliens planted us in a garden as a biological experiment. And we laugh right now, but just this week the UFO files are coming out. Will they be true? Will they be a lie? We don't know. But if you're not well versed, you may be led astray. Let me up it in a whole nother way. What are you gonna do? I haven't been crazy enough for you, when you see an alien on TV healing people. You see it with your own eyes. That's the deception. It's a myth. And instead of going, oh, that's actually probably something satanic, people are going to be caught up in the myth. Because you've got to understand, all throughout the Bible, there was all kinds of creatures and spirits on the earth. There was angels, there's demons, there's Nephilim who were giants. That's not a conspiracy theory. People think that, what's funny is we think that's a myth, but that's actually in there. And if Jesus says it'll be in the last days as it was in the days of Noah, during the days of Noah, those creatures were walking the earth. During the days of Noah, all those things were present. So don't be surprised and don't be fooled. And you might laugh at old Pastor Chip today, but one day you're going to turn on the news and go, my God, that dude was right. They're talking to Zolar or whatever his name is. The pastor warned me about that. It's true, though. Don't become taken by myths. 5. There will be great supernatural, like I just said, and spiritual deceptions. We talked about false signs and wonders last week. Same thing I kind of just touched on. 1 Timothy 4, 1 through 3 says this. But the Spirit explicitly says that in latter times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons by the means of hypocrisy, of liars, seared in their own conscience, as with a branding iron, who forbid marriage, abdicate abstaining from foods which God created to be gratefully shared by those who believe and know the truth. I shared it last week. I'll say it again. I just talked about it with Zolar. Every supernatural sign is not from God. The devil has supernatural power too. The devil operates on a spiritual plane too. Just because someone's able to do something that appears to be supernatural or that even is supernatural doesn't mean they're getting that power from God. Do not be fooled. In fact, that was such a common thing they knew in the Bible. Jesus was constantly being accused of being demon-possessed because of his miracles. And what does he say? No, Satan can't cast out Satan. House divided. So you've got to understand. That's why you can see these preachers who do things and then they fall. That's why you're going to see the Antichrist be able to do things. That's why you're going to be able to see all kinds of stuff that you go. How are they doing that if they're not from God? Or if they're not a God? Because all supernatural events and power does not come from good or from God. Says people will pay attention to deceitful spirits. There are spirits that are sent out by the enemy whose main job is to make sure you stay deceived. Not just over in time stuff. I guarantee almost every person in this room is probably being or has been deceived by a spirit in some way. Whether that be you just don't believe you're worth anything, a spirit spoke through somebody else, told you had no value, spirit abused you through somebody else physically, sexually. Some of us we believed in witchcraft, and that was deceitful spirits. We've all been victims of these spirits, and these spirits are going to increase and get more diabolical and more emboldened than ever before. I watch TV and now I hear people that never heard talk about Jesus talking about Jesus. Have you noticed that? I also watch TV and see they're building statues of demonic gods and capitals. Baphomet statues with kids around them. Who was one of the gods that you basically sacrifice children to. Because what's happening is evil is getting bolder and good is getting bolder. So if good is getting more, don't you think evil's going to try to match it? Don't you think the more truth that is being proclaimed, the more lies that'll be coming out? One of the biggest ways you can do what's called a psyop operation is someone will say something that's true, and then someone else will release a bunch of untrue information into that truth so it's so diluted you don't even know what's true anymore. Oftentimes that's what the devil does. When you're about to learn a truth about yourself, he'll release a bunch of information into your mind, into your spirit, that dilutes the truth you're trying to hear. Deceitful spirits. Then it says this will all be done through people who are hypocritical because their conscience has been seared. In other words, their conscience is numb. If you've heard of some of these evil things that have happened in the world and you go, how does that happen? Don't they have a conscience? There's your answer. No, they don't. It's seared. It's gone, it's numb. How do you not feel bad for that? Because without the Holy Spirit, if you're if you can you cut off your conscience, you're not going to be convicted. Conscience is flesh. It's informed through our life, through our morals, through all of that. And then it is also empowered by the Holy Spirit to convict us. He works tandem. If you're not saved, you don't have the Holy Spirit, you only have your conscience. And then if you sear that conscience without the Holy Spirit, you don't have conviction. So that means it's real easy for humans to become depraved. It's not hard at all. We can look at depraved people and go, I could never understand that. There's something you could be depraved in, I promise. But by the grace of God you aren't. Let's see. Number six. And we've touched on this a little bit. The danger of a strong delusion. Second Thessalonians 2 10. And with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not accept the love of the truth so as to be saved. For this reason, God will send upon them a diluting influence, so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness. Notice it says this. It says, the love of the truth. You can know the truth, but if you don't love the truth, the devil knows the truth. The demons know the truth. They don't love the truth. You should not be begrudgingly loving, not loving the truth. That doesn't mean there's times it doesn't make you uncomfortable. That doesn't mean there's times you're like, oh, I wish this was different. But not loving it means you're actively kind of working against it and rejecting it. Then it says that God will allow delusion to come because essentially the people will begin to choose delusion over truth. I don't love the truth, I don't like it, so I'm going to choose this delusion because it's easier for me to follow. The delusion will look like truth. It will look true. Whatever it is, however the devil tries to fool us into falling away, it will look like it is the truest thing on earth. It will look more true than what you read in the Bible because it will present itself physically in front of you. But you have to remember it's not what, you know, what does Jesus say? Blessed are those who have not seen and believe. Therefore, God gave them up to vile impurity in the lust of their heart so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. If you keep rejecting the truth long enough, eventually God will give you over to the lie you want to believe. Doesn't mean you can't come back to him. Doesn't mean you can't repent. But it means at some point God says, you have free will, and if I continue to try to push you into that truth, I will then have to violate that free will. Therefore, I have to turn you over to your delusion. We will have religion without power. 2 Timothy 3.5, holding to a form of godliness, although they denied its power, avoid such people as these. People will claim, and I said it earlier, they will claim the gospel, they will claim Christianity, but they will not claim the power of God. You will see people going to church that never transform and are never changed and never become anything. When the Bible says you're a new creation, you will see people still being an old creation and they will be okay with that because they've denied the power of godliness. When we go, or we can see it in, well, we don't really believe that God heals anymore. We don't really believe God delivers anymore. We don't really believe that, you know, all this supernatural stuff. So why are you going to church? You know how many Christians go to church every week to worship a God they believe actually does nothing? They go to church every week, listen to boring sermons, listen to some person that can barely play the organ, stumble across as you sing the hymn for the 1,000th time, and then they leave there not believing God can change a single thing in their life or a single thing in their situation. That's a form of religion, but denying its power. You're denying the power of godliness. God absolutely 100% unequivocally can change your situation. I don't care how lost you are, I don't care how broken you are, I don't care how mentally unwell you are. When God steps in, if you embrace Him, you can and you will be transformed. There is no person that is too demonized, there is no person that is too sick, there is no person who is too emotionally unwell that if they run to the Lord, he will not say, be healed. So we can't fall into this trap of thinking God is just idly sitting by in heaven watching everything go to crap. Amen. Our God has power. And the reason this lie is so diabolical is our God has the most power. So if he can get the body of believers, the enemy can get the body of believers on the earth who have that power in them via the Holy Spirit to stop believing in that power, the enemy's gonna take so much territory. So much territory. You might not even realize it, but just being a church in this community that believes in the power of God sets something in this community. It pushes back powers of darkness that you might not even be able to see. Faith will become appearance without transformation, religion will have no conviction, churches will not have the Holy Spirit or power. So then why would people slowly start to drift away if we can clearly see this? Because it always begins as a slow drift. If you have seen the videos of this, I should start showing some of these. You've seen these houses on like Buxton in the outer banks that are these beautiful homes built in the 70s, 80s, 90s. And when they were built, they were safe. They had a beach in front of them, lots of beach. And people for years enjoyed it with their family. For years they go there, for years they are vacationing, for years, and then one day, without them realizing, their house is now falling and collapsing into the ocean. Well, that didn't just happen. Day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, decade after decade, that beach slowly eroded and slowly got washed away until finally the foundation of those houses are completely destroyed by the sea. Do you know in the Bible the sea actually represents chaos and evil? I'm not saying it the sea is evil in itself, but I'm saying that's what they used. That's how we drift away. We don't wake up and say, I'm done. Little injury to our soul here, little deception there, a little sin here and there, doesn't matter. Drink a little too much today. Smoke a little too much today. What's one porn video, right? What's cheating on your taxes one time? You've paid your dues. What's saying I don't really believe that one part of the Bible? All of these little things add up and erode the beach under your home. And slowly your foundation is no longer built on Christ the solid rock, but it's built on deception. Don't be fooled. Every single compromise costs you something. Every single compromise in your walk with Jesus is a costly one. I didn't put it up there, but Hebrews says, if you know the truth and you continue in darkness, you're trampling the blood of Christ. Basically re-crucifying him. When you snap at your children, when you treat your spouse bad, when you have a mean attitude, might not seem like a big deal, but as I'm learning, as I'm trying to lose weight, it's not the long term that matters, it's the day-to-day decisions. And eventually your day-to-day decisions will lead you to a place where you become apathetic. I know people who went to church their whole lives, and now you don't even see them in a church. You don't even hear them talk about God. What happened? One little lie, one little sin, one little here and there, day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year. And now they're in the water and they're drowning. Let's stand together and pray. Now that everybody looks encouraged, I love our church. Dude. Father, we've talked about some serious stuff today. But I'm grateful that you love us enough to warn us in advance. I'm grateful that you've given us a guidebook into the truth. Lord, I pray right now in the name of Jesus, every person watching online, every person in this room, that you would just increase their discernment, increase their hunger for truth, increase their hunger for the word, and protect their minds and hearts from deception. Lord, help us represent you in this time in the best way we can. Keep us safe as we leave here. Bring people into our lives to reach for you. And we give you all the glory for that. We ask this in the unchangeable, unstoppable, all powerful name that is above every name, the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. And all God's people said, Amen.