Contentions & Strivings about the Law

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

1. 0:00:00

   So Lord today we just ask you for your presence to continue to flow, for the anointing of the Holy Spirit in the mighty name of Jesus to go forth from this place. And we ask you Lord to touch hearts out there. And Lord we thank you for that. Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. You may be seated this morning. Hallelujah. There's a lot of things stirring around in my heart this morning. So just be ready because I don't know what part. Not yet. Not just yet. Though we may just have those testimony ready in just a second. I want to share those. But just follow me in the scriptures first this morning. Basically going to talk today a little bit about the contentions and striving about the law. And this message is going to have kind of a lot of aspects to it. So I hope you can hear my heart and I hope you can pay close attention. Of course there's no doubt that I knew and everyone else knew you preach something like I did last week. You create a firestorm out there. And it's quite all right because I expect it. You know truth especially when you begin to expose errors and extremes in the body of Christ. Boy it just stirs up the wrath of Christians even. I'm going to be honest with you this morning that sometimes I'm just you know of course Jesus warned living in the last days that deception would be the biggest thing that we'd have to deal with. I mean he warned four times in Matthew 24 and just one little sermon he was giving there on Mount Olive. Mount of Olives that you know take heed that no man deceive you. He even said many will come in my name and deceive many. He said that they would even be those who would do signs and wonders and they would be false Christ and false prophets. And he went on and on. He said in fact many false prophets would rise and deceive many. And I'm not going to lie to you sometimes I look in the world right now and just particularly among those that call themselves Christians. And there is so much deception and so much confusion that it's almost overwhelming. It's just like Lord I just would rather just you know can I just quit because there's just so many deceived people. So many deceived Christians that I mean it's just overwhelming. It really is. And then of course you know if you dare tell them anything that's contrary to their false beliefs they lose their minds. I mean that's where we are right now. I mean we're in the time of the snowflake but we're in the time of the snowflake Christian as well.

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   I'm sharing this that I want to read. Let's go to Jeremiah 15 first because this is kind of part two of last week I've called this contentions and strivings about the law. You'll understand more what that means in a second. But I remember when God called me to the ministry in 1987. It was kind of twofold. One was an open vision of heaven Jesus standing the right hand of the glory of the father was amazing vision so powerful that I thought that the rapture was about to happen because I was you know new to all this. But the presence of God and the power of God and the glory of God was so strong upon me that it was almost more than my physical body could take. But it wasn't painful. It was glorious. It was if that was just a small taste of heaven. I can't wait to get there. I can assure you that it is sheer overwhelming love peace and tremendous power all at the same time. It's just the present. There's nothing like the presence of God. And you know a minute ago when we were getting toward the end of worship I was beginning to feel his presence and I thought how wonderful it is that we can enter into his presence by the blood of Jesus and not because we have to keep the Sabbath or feast or have tassels on our belt. I've been doing that for 30 going on 32 years now entering God's presence. And let me just say that's what it's all about. It's about a relationship with Jesus. And if your relationship is based on certain little outward things instead of true intimacy with him I feel sorry for you because I want the presence of God. I want the anointing of God. I want the power of God. I don't want to just sit around and argue about the law. To me that is so it is so much of a waste of time. But there's a reason why I have to do it. You might get away with not having to do it. But as a fivefold minister of the gospel as a leader in the church as one called by God I have to confront false doctrine and false teachers and false teaching. But I'm going to be very honest with you. I would rather not have to do that. I wish that was not part of it because it's just constant battle when you have to confront. And who likes constant battle. And really to tell you the truth most Christians and I don't take this wrong ladies but most women can't handle it when there gets to be a real battle. You know I get more emails from women saying can everybody just please get along. You know and I'm like I know sweetheart I wish I could you know. And I mean that with all sincerity. I'm not mocking you. I mean I wish that that was the case and I know how women are more relational and more emotional in that regard and they just want peace.

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   But there can't always be peace and that's why God made me indifferent. He made us for war. All right. And so we are able to separate between the logic of when we have to go to war versus our emotions or our desire for relationship. So I'm not saying all women are like that. Some women are fine with confrontation but most are not. But I'm just saying I get it. I get men and women the same thing. It's like why the debate. Why the battle. Why you know why can't we just all get along. Why can't we just ignore it. Why can't we just sing kumbaya and everybody be happy. And I'm sorry. It's not that way. And I have to remind people go back and read. Go back and read. You know I had one lady tell me that I wasn't very Christ like in my approach to Mr. Skiba's calling me an antinomian and lawless and having the spirit of Antichrist and his newest one is I'm a lunatic pastor. We'll deal with that in a minute. But that I wasn't very Christ like and I said you need to go back and you need to read Matthew 23 how Jesus spoke to the law fanatics called the Pharisees when he went down a long list and it says in front of the multitude. This happened and he called them snakes vipers hypocrites you know whitewashed tombs full of dead men's bones extortioners deceivers pretenders. I mean Lord have mercy. Let's be Christ like huh. Christ is not seeing this is this is the part I'm talking about in the body of Christ. We don't understand there's a time just like Ecclesiastes 3 says there's a time for peace and there's a time for war. And when it comes down to the essentials of the gospel of Jesus Christ what it means to be saved what is required of you to be a born again Christian and to be right with God and to be in right standing with God and to be justified and to be righteous and to be cleansed and to be holy. What is required of you in the new covenant. I have to make that clear even if all these other ministries out here these these Torah ministries and these Hebrew roots ministries even if they want to call me names as they do make videos against me. Call me a lunatic a lunatic. That's that's Rob Skiba's latest one. I'm a lunatic pastor lunatic. I'm going to show you in a minute. I said you know if I have the the stand that I have on this issue. It's just the stand that the church has had since the first century the early church fathers in the second century in the third century and the great evangelist. I'm going to show you the great the great leader of the first great awakening John Wesley agreed with me the great leader of the second great awakening by the name of Charles.

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   Grandison Finney agreed with me. So I guess that everybody's lunatics that's been leaders of great revivals and great moves of God and led hundreds of thousands of people to Jesus. They're all I guess they've just been deceived lunatics according to Mr. Skiba. See the outrageousness of this. You cannot have it both ways. Either Jesus fulfilled the law the ceremonial law the Sabbath the rest the sacrifices the feast or he didn't. But remember now the Torah people say oh you know he filled that fulfilled the sack and he fulfilled the sacrifices part so we don't have to do that anymore. Oh OK. So you get to pick and choose. And think about this. Let's just think about this. It really all boils down to this. Nobody here he calls me and some of his Torah groupie boys. They call me an antinomian. Now let me explain to you what that means. An antinomian that means someone that's totally against law. Now in the new covenant in the early new covenant. The Nicolations were antinomians. That means they believe that they were not subject to any of the moral law of God. Nothing. Remember there's a difference between the ceremonial ritualistic aspects of the law that were shadows pointing to Jesus that were fulfilled in Jesus. And the moral law about adultery and idolatry for occasion witchcraft and so on down the line murder. So to say somebody is an antinomian if you say that and you're going to go by the definition the correct definition of it that somebody that's a complete libertarian in the sense of licentiousness liberty. You can live any way you want to live. You can indulge the flesh. You are not subject to any law whatsoever any moral law whatsoever. That is a straw man argument or it's just a flat out false accusation to say that that for instance what I believe and what I've presented clearly is an antinomian position. I hold the same position as John Wesley as Charles Grandison Finney and those men were clear they showed the difference between what is required of Christians under the new covenant. And about the moral law that is still applicable under the new covenant and they said anybody that throws it all out and says we can do whatever we want and live however we want is an antinomian. Nobody in this church and no one that could write the book grace abuse where is it my book grace abuse grace abuse nobody to make that charge at someone who's actually authored a book against antinomianism is ridiculous.

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