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Let me begin this message, by stating that there is nothing more important in your life than "truth." Truth is absolute and is not relative. Truth will not change with more study or more revelation. If you have truth, then you do not change your mind on something every month. There is no confusion. For example, if you have truth about salvation, and you believe everything that the scriptures say about salvation, then there is not confusion in your mind about what a man or woman has to do to be saved. If there is confusion then you do not yet have truth. If there is doubt then you do not yet have truth. If you do not believe and take into consideration EVERY scripture on a subject and allow scripture to interpret scripture, then you do not have truth. Truth is not taking one verse and twisting it to mean what you want. Truth is not partial. You have truth when you believe exactly as it is with God. Truth is not based upon man's traditions or opinions, but solely upon the Word of God. Truth is truth no matter if everyone in the world does not accept it. And God will one day judge the world according to His truth.

There are not two possible ways to be baptized to go to heaven, there is only one way that is "truth" after the biblical example, taking all the scriptures about the subject. There are not two possible ways to receive the Holy Ghost. There are not two ways to believe about the Godhead. There is only truth and it's opposite "a lie." If something is a half-truth, then it is completely a lie. If it is half right, then it is completely wrong. There are not multiple ways to believe and get into heaven, there is only one way. Paul wrote it like this:

I do not believe that every denomination that believes in Jesus basically believes the same thing. We are not all the same. If you and I disagree on something, then one of us has to be wrong. There are no exceptions to the plan of God for your life. The scripture is of no private interpretation. You cannot believe your way and I believe mine and we "all go to heaven together." It doesn't work that way. There is only one way that leads to heaven, and it is a strait and narrow one. Jesus said "few there be that find it." It is a scriptural fact that the majority of the people in this world who call themselves Christians will in fact not make it. And the reason for that in most cases will be a refusal to believe or thirst after truth. They will be lost because somewhere they allowed themselves to believe a lie. If you allow yourself to believe something that is not completely true, then you have allowed yourself to believe a lie. Listen to the following somber scripture:

If you choose to believe a lie, then God will let you. AND He will make sure that you circumstances will come and delude your faith so that if you do not believe the truth, you will be lost. He has to, because His Word is truth and He is truth, and He is His Word, therefore if you will not believe truth, then you have essentially rejected Him! Jesus said "ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." Only the truth sets free. Only the truth saves. Only the truth of ALL of God's Word about a subject enlightens and truly completely changes a person's life. Partial truths may have a positive effect on your life, but they will NEVER bring about the power and complete change and effect that God desires for you to have. God may have used a preacher in partial truth to get you this far, but you cannot afford to stop with partial truth and not move on in God. You cannot afford to keep believing things which the scripture contradicts even in the slightest way. You must study doctrine and must study the scriptures and believe them in such a way that no scripture contradicts what you believe. When you believe that way, you have found truth: truth that sets free and the only thing in the world that can truly save you! Don't let the uncertain sounds of this world's denominations confuse you: there is only one way to heaven, and the majority of people are not going to accept it. Whatever you do, don't allow yourself to believe a lie, because if you do, then you are going to be lost no matter what level of relationship with God that you have.

Glance back up at the scripture in 2 Thessalonians. Notice that verse 11 says that because they refused truth, God would send a strong delusion. Notice that it says "strong." There are many "strong willed people" who believe "strongly" in what they believe, but they believe a lie! Don't be confused by personalities, TV time, media exposure, miracles, and the praise of men. Judge a man of God by whether or not his teaching lines up or contradicts the Word of God. If even the smallest thing he teaches does not line up to the Word of God, in even the slightest way, then he is not teaching truth. If he is not teaching truth, then he is teaching a lie. If you allow yourself to believe that lie, you will be lost. If he is teaching a lie, then he is a tool of Satan, not of God. Don't let his clothes, claims, miracles, money, or charisma fool you: only believe truth! Jesus never had a television show, he was never proclaimed to a great position in Israel during His ministry; He never wore fine clothes, never hobnobbed with celebrities and politicians and went against the common religious beliefs of His time, and yet He taught truth! Some people cannot bring themselves to accept our message because the majority of the religious world does not believe it. But if it is completely based upon all of the Word of God, then it is truth! It doesn't matter if our church building is the nicest in town or largest, what matters if we preach and live truth. It doesn't matter if our parking lot is the fullest on Sunday morning, what matters is that those who are there be taught and believe truth! A large church preaching a lie is only causing people to become more confused and lost. Whatever you do, you better believe truth and not just take someone's word for it, but carefully search out the scriptures yourself and allow someone to show you ALL of the scriptures on a subject!

Why is it important? Because having a part of the truth and never coming a full knowledge will ALWAYS keep you from fulfilling God's will in your life.

For example, someone who likes to feel God's Spirit and likes our worshipful services, and yet refuses to acknowledge the truth of Repentance, Water Baptism in Jesus' name, and the receiving of the Holy Spirit as being essential to salvation, will NEVER really work for God as they should, nor get a burden for the lost as God desires, because to their "half-truth" belief, everyone who feels God's Spirit and just believes in Jesus is essentially saved, so almost everybody around them is "saved." They, then, never become a soul winner or desire to "work for God" like the scripture command us to be! We are all to make disciples out of people. You cannot do that without teaching them truth!

Another example, is someone who believes the correct, Acts 2:38 plan of salvation and yet allows the truth of God's Word to change even the smallest area in another part of their life. Such a person will eventually show a double standard in their life to others who know what the pastor preaches and teaches and will turn people off of the truth because they will think everybody lives a double standard. If the people in this town know what I teach and preach and yet see someone who claims to be a Holy Ghost-filled, Jesus name baptized, member of this church live or act or dress differently away from the church people, then they automatically assume that everything I teach and preach is not really necessary even that Holy Ghost and Jesus' name baptism stuff. You have turned people off of the truth and maybe even caused them to be lost because of your disobedience to even the smallest teachings of truth!

And whether you realize it or not, you are a soul winner whether or not you want to be. Your lifestyle either causes people to desire what you have or to be turned off by what you have. We must live truth. We must not act, believe, talk, dress, one way at church and another at home. To do so is to not only to live a lie, but to also cause others to believe a lie. If you live "hypocritical" to the truth preached in this church, then you are actually a "soul loser" because you are driving people from accepting truth in this community! They are watching us seeing if we really believe it. Revival does not rest upon the ministries' shoulders, but rather your shoulders. I can preach and teach and live truth faithfully and yet if you are hypocritical, then you ruin any light that I am trying to shine forth in this community. Most of the people around you know what I teach and believe . . . do they see it obeyed and reflected in your life away from church? Worded another way, do you believe truth, or have you allowed yourself to believe a lie? Any rebellion against God's Word, whether it be in the smallest area to you, is rebellion and thus a lie! It will not only cause you to be lost, but will cause others around you to be lost!

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So the primary tool that the devil uses is to get people to believe a half-truth, or -- let's call it what it really is -- a lie. But let's go beyond that thought for a moment, and let's focus on another two more subtle traps that Satan has for those who embrace and live in truth. To use scriptural terms, we might refer to these traps as the "Wherein trap," and the "form of Godliness trap."

Let's start with the "wherein trap." To understand what I am saying, turn with me to the book of Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament. Once there, let me point out to you the most common response of the people to the message of the prophet. That most common response is "wherein" or in modern day lingo "what do you mean?" Seven times the prophet pointed out something that God wasn't happy with and seven times, the people answered "wherein" or "what do you mean, we haven't done such and such?"

The word translated "what" in this last verse should be "wherein" as the others because it is the same word in the Hebrew.

Seven times the man of God gave the people of Israel a direct word from God and all seven times, the people responded "wherein?" These people were not in open rebellion to God. They were not worshipping idols or religious prostitution. They were church-going, tithe paying, testifying, believing in only one God, people of God. When Malachi, said, "you are despising my name" they responded "what do you mean we have despised your name?" We are careful to not use it in vain. We are careful to not even utter or write it? What do you mean that God says we have despised His name?

When Malachi told them that God had said that they had robbed Him in tithes and offerings, they said "what do you mean that we have robbed Him?" "We are paying our tithes and offerings faithfully according to the letter of the law." When the prophet told them "you have wearied me." They were quick to respond "how have we wearied thee, we've obeyed everything that you commanded?"

The problem was not that these people had believed a lie or directly disobeyed God's Word, but rather that they made the mistake of believing that "obeying the literal letter of the law directly" was all that God required. You can obey the commandment but rebel against the spirit of the commandment. You can obey the written word of God but ignore the spirit of the written word of God. The letter, at best, is just the basic concept of what God wants. The scripture is not a set of rules, but a set of principles. Our text said:

In other words, those who are really known as "God's people" {Jews} must apply the Word of God in their spirit and not just in the actual letter obedience. There is a well-known story about a child whose mother got on to him and made him sit in the corner as punishment. The child, mad, turned around and told her "I may be sitting down on the outside but I'm standing up on the inside!" Just like that child, it is possible to obey the Word of the Lord and yet do so in such a spirit that you are "doing just the opposite inside!"

That was the problem that God had with the people in Malachi's time. These people were paying their tithes and offerings faithfully, just as the law required, but were not doing it cheerfully or worshipfully. They were not really giving with faith that God would truly supply their needs. They did not really give of their abundance, but just gave enough to say that they had obeyed scripture. Despite their faithfulness on the outside, on the inside they despised and dreaded giving to God at all!

These people were attending services at the temple and offering sacrifices to God, yet they were not worshipping God with their whole heart and passion. They were not serving the Lord with gladness. They obeyed the letter of the law, but not the Spirit of it.

Just having knowledge of truth and obeying truth is not enough. We cannot allow ourselves to fall into the "wherein" trap of obeying on the outside, but secretly hating having to obey on the inside. Eventually, a person who views living for God that way, will rebel and completely walk away from God.

The other thing that will happen when people fall into the "wherein" trap, is that they stop treating the scriptures as principles and begin to view them as a hard legal code, looking for every loophole that they can find. I've known people who say "the scriptures say "'be not drunk with wine' so I'll get drunk with beer." "It doesn't say anything about champagne or marijuana!" They are viewing the scriptures as definite laws rather than principles. True the scripture never identifies beer as such because it was not drunken in Israel during Jesus' time, nor is smoking marijuana ever mentioned in scripture because that was introduced to the civilized world by the American Indians along with tobacco in modern times. So, to just obey the letter of the law, you have simply got to refrain from drinking wine, but if you take such an approach, you have ignored the "spirit of the command." You are falling in the same trap of the people in Malachi's day. The principle is not that God hates wine, but that God hates for people to come under the influence of substances that cause a person to "escape from reality" and slows the effect of their conscience, while destroying the body. The principle and spirit of the passage then is that God hates "drunkenness no matter whether the person got that way from wine, J&B and cola, beer, ale, LSD, marijuana, abused prescription drugs, or even nyquil! Someone who only obeys the letter of the law, that is does not "drink wine" but partakes of all these other things, will NEVER live free in Christ Jesus and will eventually backslide completely because they have ignored the Spirit of the law and have not accepted that the Bible is a book of PRINCIPLES that applies to every culture and every nationality. If God had listed only a set of exact rules for the time that the scriptures were written, then watching XXX videos would not be wrong because those things were not invented yet. However, even though the Bible does not exactly say "though shall not watch porn videos" it definitely teaches that we are not to guard our eyes from evil and to avoid lust and not commit adultery in our heart, and avoid lewd and lasciviousness ways.

If you obey the scripture only as a law book, then you lose out on the blessings of God and the thrill of the power of the Word of God. The law says "thou shalt not commit adultery." If that is all I follow, then I will not have a very happy relationship with my wife. No where does the scripture command us to bring flowers or presents or spend time with our wives, but it does say to "love them as Christ loved the Church." In other words, love them with a sacrificial love that gets beyond what we normally "feel like doing." Not committing adultery is the basic commandment, but try spending time with your wife, try treating her with respect, try buying her flowers for no reasons, try doing the dishes every once in a while and see if you don't have better relationship! Try obeying the Spirit of the law rather than just the letter. It will not only improve your relationship with God but your relationship with others!

Jesus commanded that we are to "go to the extra mile" and "give up our coat." Those are principles not just steady rules. There are no more Roman soldiers today. Most of us do not wear outer cloaks in the heat of Texas, yet those scriptures apply to us today, because we can obey the Spirit of the word!

Unless you get a revelation that the scripture is a set of principles that must be applied to your life in everyday things, you will never become what God wants you to be! How many people have I ever heard say "I'm a Christian, I believe in Jesus and all, but I just ain't going to stop doing this or that because it is never directly referred to in scripture." Yet, they violate the spirit of the Word of God, the intentions of the Word of God, and their lives and failed relationships prove that they are living in sin and in false teachings.

Just as bad is someone who obeys the commands of scripture and yet despises it on the inside and never allows the truth of God's Word to really change them from the inside out. Such people may believe truth as far as salvation goes, but they have fallen into the "wherein" trap that God despised enough to send a man of God to preach against it!

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The other trap that Satan sets for people who grasp truth is the "Form of Godliness trap." The people in Malachi's day fell for this one also. They were so careful to not take the Lord's name in vain, yet they did not really trust in it or use it in faith either. It wasn't that they were abusing the name of the Lord, but that they were not using it all! They obeyed the commandment but did not access the power of the principle. In modern terms, they had a "form of godliness, but denied the power thereof."

Let's go back to our text for a moment:

Paul wrote and warned Timothy that a sign of the end times would be people who would "having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof." The word in the Greek here for "form" is only used twice in the New Testament. The other place is Romans chapter 2:

The word means "the possibility of a process." What Paul was saying was that in the last days, a dangerous trap by Satan would come even more dangerous than believing a lie, and that is that a person might believe truth, which has the ability and possibility to bring about Godly changes, and yet refuse to allow the change to happen. That is, God sends truth to change us and to set us free from our sinful lifestyles, but in the last days, there would arise a people who would have truth, and yet "deny the power thereof" ie refuse to allow it to change them. They could believe in Jesus name baptism and yet not live free from condemnation. They could receive the Holy Ghost and yet not allow it to "reprove them of sin" and separate them in lifestyle from the world. That people could truly repent and yet sear over their conscience to certain things because they would view the scriptures as a set of rigid code rather than the principles of the Spirit.

Simply put, if we believe in the power of the blood of Jesus and the Holy Ghost, and yet do not allow them to work together to create us a new creature that lives, acts, dresses, and talks differently than the world, then what good have those things done us!? We have a "form of godliness" but we have denied the power of truth to change us. Simply put, if we have the Holy Ghost and then feel as if we have "arrived" and no longer need to fast and pray and seek God's face, and clean up every area of our life and be faithful to the house of God and win others to this truth, then what good has the Holy Ghost done in our life? We have taken God's power, more power than dynamite or TnT and yet we have stored it safely away in our bodies and not allowing it to do what it was designed for!

To bring it even closer to home, what good is a church filled with the Holy Spirit and thus having the "form" or possibility to have revival if they deny the power and do not release the Holy Spirit to do it's work!? What good does coming together tonight have, even if the Holy Ghost is here, if we have not come with the attitude that we are going to yield ourselves until we have a supernatural move of God!? Sure the Holy Ghost is here. Sure we believe truth, but if lives are not changed and we do not yield to that power or release it, then what good has it done us?

It's easy isn't it? To sit back on your heels of "truth" and say "I'm obeying everything I know to do in scripture" and yet stop bringing a heart-felt sacrifice of praise, or stop praying earnestly for revival or live day to day without ever really calling on or accessing the name of God or His Spirit within your lives. If you have not prayed for someone, then what good is it that God has set you free to be able to pray? If you reverence the name of Jesus and never use it in vain, but yet never rely upon it throughout your day and access it's power by praying for the sick, or a bad situation, then where is the power of knowing about Jesus' name!? You may "be a Christian" but you have denied the true power of it!

You can have the Holy Ghost and still go to hell, because it is not the actual process of receiving the Holy Ghost that saves you, but rather the changes in our life that having the Holy Ghost brings that saves us. Having the Holy Ghost is essential because we will never be able to please God and change certain things unless we have it's power and help, but if you receive the Holy Ghost and do not allow it to draw you out of a sinful world, then it has done you no good.

I preached a sermon one time called "I will not take the Lord's name in vain." I talked about people who get baptized and yet never allow God to change them to walk in a new life. I talked about people who received the Holy Ghost and yet never changed any of their sinful habits. They took the Lord's name in vain. They had a "form of Godliness" but they denied the life changing power of it by continuing in sin. To put it as simply as I can: it is not what you do at church that makes you Christian, but what you do or don't do OUTSIDE of church. It is not how you respond when the preacher is around that makes you holy, but how you respond when the preacher is NOT around. It is not how you act while others are intently watching that determines whether or not you are honest, but how you act when others are NOT watching and nobody is going to know about it. The real you, your real character comes out in those times when only God -- who sees all things -- is watching and no one else. You can have the truth and thus the possibility of change and yet deny it access to your life. You can live "holy" to others and yet inside be so sinful that God is repulsed. Such were the Pharisees of Jesus' day, they dressed right, they fasted, they prayed, they paid their tithes and offering, they went to church, they offered sacrifices of praise, yet their inner man was so filthy and fleshly and selfish and fake, that God considered them like graves: pretty on the outside but inside disgusting, dead men's bones.

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So to close, we must avoid the three most dangerous traps of hell. 1.) We must guard against "half-truths" at all costs. We must not allow ourselves to believe a lie and be damned. 2.) We must avoid the "wherein trap" of obeying on the outside and secretly hating or "rebelling" on the inside. 3.) We must also avoid the "form of Godliness" trap where we believe and hold on to truth but we refuse to exercise the power of that truth in our life either through not allowing our lives to be changed, or by refusing to step out in faith and minister to others! Above all else, I must be saved. I cannot allow myself to fall for such traps!