Cerinthus, the Ebionites & Sophia Heresies

Lightly edited for readability while preserving the speaker’s meaning and substantive statements.

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   Lord, I pray today, Lord, that Your presence, Your anointing, the power of Your Spirit, Lord, that we feel here today as we've been worshiping You, that You will speak and You will touch and minister to those watching and listening and those here today. Lord, I pray the prayer they prayed almost every night of the Brownsville Revival. Lord, speak to our hearts and change our lives. We pray in Jesus' name, amen, amen. We may be seated this morning. We welcome everyone. Man, that's a good song. Let me tell you, that reminds me of the old days. I don't care what anybody has to say. I remember my great-grandmother and my two great aunts when I was a little bitty boy. When I was four and five and six years old, taking me to the first assembly of God Church and singing those old hymns that actually talked about Jesus and the blood and the power of forgiveness and the power of His resurrection. There's not enough songs like that today, just not enough. And I don't care what you young whippersnappers say. Old school is the best school. One day, you'll know what that means if Jesus tarries. This morning, got a lot on my heart this morning. Didn't know even really what to call this because I knew we were gonna go everywhere in the Bible this morning. First place I wanna go, and you guys are gonna have to move to keep up. Well, let's go to 2 Timothy chapter three, and we're gonna look at something and look at chapter three and chapter four there. Like I said, though, we're gonna move around quite a bit because I wanna revisit some things even from last week. I will go ahead and make this part public. I did get to finally talk to Robbie Davidson and he's heard from me and other Christians and truly is humbling his heart and he said, changes are gonna be made. And so that's what brothers do. We sometimes we, everything's hunky dory and we get along fine. Sometimes we disagree and sometimes there has to be some strong words, but what's beautiful is any time a brother or sister in the Lord will humble themselves and say, yeah, I need to make some changes. That's a good thing, that's what we wanna see. All of us need to do that at some point or another. So anyway, I just wanted to share that because he knows and we all know there were some things getting off the rails, but yeah, yeah, even before I'd talked to him,

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   he'd already been dealing with that and knew that some things got out of his control and some people he didn't vet like Karen B, he didn't know she was gonna do what she did and then boom, she did it. So there's gonna be a lot of, he just said, there's gonna be a lot of changes come Canada and Dallas, so just letting you know that. It's always good to let you know when people do respond that are making changes, amen? So let's get in this because of course things didn't stop. Last week was an interesting week and things continued on, but I wanna go back to this because I guess one of the things that's on my heart today is I'm actually just blown away right now how so many people who call themselves Christians really don't have a problem with gross and terrible heresies, false teachings in the body of Christ. I'm really blown away, but I shouldn't be because this is exactly what the apostle Paul by the Holy Spirit prophesied would happen in the last days. Last week we did read through this in Second Timothy chapter three and I really focused in on those it said, those who are ever learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Just keep that in mind as we look at this. I wanna back up and start at verse one. So this is Second Timothy three one because let's just keep it in context of who he's talking about because I'm just gonna let it rip today as usual. The Holy Spirit through the apostle Paul said this, this know also than the last days, perilous time shall come. Now if we just had that verse by itself, we just think Paul was talking about all the terrible troubles and things like wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes and we'd start thinking of all the terrible, terrible judgments that are coming in the last days. If that was the context of this verse, but that's not the context of this verse. When he says, this know also that in the last days, perilous or very dangerous times will come, he begins to talk about problems or the sins in men. But I wanna tell you, he's talking about, and I'll prove this as we look at it, he's talking about people who call themselves Christians or have a form of godliness. He's not describing the wicked here. He's not talking about the wicked. Everybody assumes that because of what he says. But the context is not that, let's read it. So now we're gonna read all the way through. This know also than the last days, perilous or dangerous times shall come for men shall be lovers of their own selves.

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   Covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers. Remember that one, blasphemers. Disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent or having no self control whatsoever, especially in the sexual area. Fierce, listen to this, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. Doesn't say they don't love, say they love God. It just says they love pleasures more than they love God. And then this is the key that lets you know, he's not talking to unbelievers or people who don't claim to be Christians because he says having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof from such turn away. And if you'll notice, that's verse five and verse four, it's a semicolon there. So the thought is continuing. Having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof. For of this sort are they which creep into houses and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lust. Verse seven, ever learning, never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. I would say that this is the verse for the truth movement, even among Christians. It says now as Genesis and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth. Men of corrupt minds reprobate concerning the faith, but these shall proceed no further for their folly shall be made manifest unto all men as theirs also was. But Paul goes on to say, you have known fully known what? Did he say first here? My doctrine, what I teach. Why do you think Paul put the doctrine that he taught first? Because it's most important. What will you teach? Doctrine is important. There's a lot of people out there, you'll hear them. Christians even. Oh, doctrine's not important. That's just too churchy. That's too legalistic. That's too dogmatic. Well, I'm sorry, friend, but doctrine and adhering to sound doctrine is part of the Christian faith. And if you don't, the Bible says, if you get away from sound doctrine, you do not have God. So that's pretty serious. We're gonna look at that passage in a minute. This is not a game. You don't say I walk with Jesus, but I don't want the Bible. Or I believe in Jesus, but I don't know about that book right there. Or I don't know about everything in that book right there. No, this book right here, and in particular, the new covenant in which we dwell now, live and dwell, is the doctrine of the apostles. And they made it very clear that they got their doctrine directly from Jesus himself, even Paul. He said, my doctrine is not mine. It came directly by revelation. I was with Jesus three years in the desert of Arabia.

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   So even the apostle Paul got his revelation, his doctrine, his gospel that he preached directly from Jesus. He said, these are not my words with the commands of the Lord. He said that in Thessalonians and in other places. The doctrines of the apostles, we don't get to depart from those doctrines. And Jesus anointed those men, filled those men, taught those men and commissioned those men to explain to us everything that he taught. I've heard people blasphemously say that the New Testament is just commentary on Jesus. And we don't, you know, we just need to go back and see what just what Jesus said in the red part of the Bible. No, Jesus said to his disciples, his apostles, if they receive you, they receive me. If they hear you, then they're hearing me. It's pretty serious. Those apostles that God used to write this New Testament by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, this is, you don't get to add to or take from what they said. You don't get to make up stuff. You don't get to add stuff. You don't get to take away stuff. You don't get to pick and choose, right? This is paramount to Christianity because Paul warned, and I'm gonna read it in a minute, but he Paul warned that they would come a day and that people would preach another Jesus. They would preach another gospel and they would have another spirit, but all pretending to be Christian, Christianity. And we have it, folks. We have a different Jesus being preached. We have a different gospel being preached. We have a different spirit being put forth. And I'm sorry, I offend a lot of people. I don't care. This is what people don't understand. I'm not gonna listen to him anymore. Fine, you see any tears? I'm not losing any sleep over it. You will stand and give an account because if you've listened to anything, you've heard this part. Now he says here, the deceivers, let's keep reading. Paul says, but thou is fully known, verse 10, but thou is fully known, my doctrine, what I teach from the scriptures, manner of life, purpose, faith, long-suffering charity, patience, persecutions, afflictions, which came to me at Antioch and Iconium and Lystra, what persecutions I endured, but out of them all the Lord delivered me. Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution, but evil men and seducers. Seducers here is the Greek word goes. It means an imposter, a wizard, one who mutters spells,

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