Episode Transcript
Alright, if you take your Bibles and turn to Proverbs chapter 14, verse 2.
Proverbs chapter 14, verse 2.
The title of the message tonight is Talking About Walking.
And we need to do some talking about walking.
Because walking a lot of times is overlooked in a grace-based church.
We're not a grace-based church, by the way.
We are a Bible-based church.
We don't specialize in and emphasize any particular part of God's word other than the entirety of it.
We love the wholeness of the Scripture, the full counsel of God's word.
And a lot of churches, and increasingly so in number.
Have gotten to where they tend to specialize and emphasize certain aspects of God's Word, so much so.
That spiritually speaking, it would be like a man lifting weights on only one muscle.
And he walks around and he's got one, you know, he's got biceps that are real big, and his legs are skinny, and his triceps are skinny, and his chest is bony.
And his abs are flabby, because he's only got one muscle that he exercises.
And we don't want to be that kind of church.
We want the whole counsel of God's Word.
And when it comes to controversial and sensitive matters, the Bible does not walk softly to keep from hurting people's feelings.
People generally try to avoid controversial topics so they can avoid the discomfort that comes with disagreeing with somebody.
And it's common.
We want to shake our head as much as we can when someone's talking and not disagree with them.
It's so much easier just to shake your head and smile and think differently in your head.
Brother Shepherd, I haven't always been so good at that in my life.
I tend to want to tackle controversial things and get people angry at me.
But I had a had a dear lady that used to be my next door neighbor.
I love her very much.
She's 83 years old, and she was talking to me this week.
And she said, you know, a lot of people would disagree with what I did.
She said, but there was a. a young woman I know that uh was a school teacher and she ended up getting pregnant by one of her students.
And this is in Texas.
And she said, so, you know, it's hard to find someone to do an abortion in Texas.
You know, it's illegal here now.
She said, so I got with the priest, and the priest helped her find a doctor to do it.
And he said, when she came out, there wasn't hardly two or three square inches on her shirt that didn't have blood on it, she told me.
And she said, but she's okay, and she pulled through.
And she said she's married now.
And she has some children.
She said, but the school found out and they fired her anyway.
She said, but I think it was worth it, you know, trying to help her.
I said, So to save a job, you took a life.
Took a life.
I'm not going to let that go.
I can't.
And fortunately for us, the Bible doesn't walk softly on controversial topics because God's not like people.
He doesn't want to just go along to get along.
We need to be getting along with him.
He doesn't want to build up our ego.
By letting us believe a lie.
He would rather build up our inner man by teaching us the truth.
So the Bible speaks very frankly to us, and that means we should listen very frankly to what God has to say.
And I hope we'll all do that tonight.
Preachers are sometimes uncomfortable speaking on controversial topics, and the topic we have tonight will not be controversial to the vast majority of you.
But it may be to some, and it may not be to anybody.
I hope it's not.
But one of the wonderful benefits of teaching verse by verse is that you will eventually come to controversial topics.
You'll eventually get to a scripture where you'll say, That may bother somebody.
But you know what?
We get to do by the grace of God, and with all the joy in my heart, we get to teach it anyway.
Not to grade on somebody and not to irritate somebody, but to hopefully grow somebody in grace.
When I was sitting here as Brother Shepherd was closing, the Lord reminded me As I teach tonight, the Lord reminded me of something I prayed to him before I took my first church.
I was by myself praying one night, praying about becoming a pastor, preparing to become a pastor.
And I told the Lord.
Based on scripture in the book of Ephesians.
But God, for the great love wherewith he loved us, and even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ by grace.
Are you saved?
And I told the Lord, Lord, if I ever become a pastor, if you ever make me a pastor, I want to teach and I want to preach to those people for the great love wherewith you love them.
And that's the way, and the Lord reminded me of that scripture tonight, to approach anything that might be perceived as controversial.
With great light, with great truth, out of great love.
And by the way, there should never be a controversial topic in the Bible, right?
Should never be a controversial topic in the Bible.
The only reason there are controversial topics is because people fail to believe the scriptures for what they say.
That's the only reason they're controversial.
That's why I refuse to let men put me in a theological box.
Most people fail to understand the scriptures.
Because if they accept the scriptures for what they actually say, then that will destroy the theological box that they place themselves in.
Well, I'm Calvinist.
That's the box.
They jump in that Calvinist box.
And if I believe this scripture for what it actually says, it's going to mess my box up.
I won't know what box to be in anymore.
What do I do with that?
So, what they end up doing, instead of expounding the scriptures, they end up defending the box.
It makes them uncomfortable.
They spend their lives defending the box rather than expounding the scriptures.
So tonight, God willing, we are going to expound the scriptures which talk about a man's walk.
The Bible says, you have to look in your text now, he that walketh.
Why is this controversial?
Why would this bother somebody?
Because it doesn't say, he that believeth, it says, he that walketh The Bible has a lot to say about believing.
We are saved by grace through faith.
I'll stand on the hilltop by God's grace and preach that to the day I die.
As a Bible preacher, I speak a lot about believing.
Y'all know that.
But there's more to Christianity than simply believing.
Would y'all agree with that?
There's more to Christianity than simply believing.
We believe the gospel to be saved.
But there is more to the Christian life than just salvation.
God didn't save the Israelites in Egypt just to leave them there.
He saved them to get them to a land that was fruitful, to a land where they could live an abundant life led by the wisdom and power of their God, where they could Thrive in the goodness of God's grace.
That's the way each and every one of us want to be tonight.
We don't want to be where you say, well, we know we're going to heaven.
And then just sit in the fetal position for the rest of our Christian lives, and I'm saved, I'm saved, and just stay right there.
We want our children to grow when we have children.
My mother told me tonight, as she so often does.
She said, I could not be more proud of you, Richard.
She's told me that many times in my life, and that's what a mama does.
She encourages her son.
And daughters, and that's wonderful.
But what if I still lived at their house in the same room that I grew up in?
And I couldn't pay my bills and I didn't work.
And all I did was watch TV and play games all day.
I think that the compliments would be a little more sparing and a little bit more encouragement to get out there and get a job, you know.
We want to see our children grow up.
God wants to see His children grow up.
He wants us to go from believing.
You know what believing is spiritually?
Believing is to a Christian what breathing is to a baby.
When my daughter Lauren was born, she was born at the house.
And when Lauren was born, the cord was wrapped around her neck.
And the midwife was there, and that midwife took her finger and wrapped that cord and took it off of her neck.
And I wasn't really sure how serious it was at the time until I heard her say, come on, breathe, baby.
And when I heard her say that, I started praying, God, let my baby breathe.
Let my baby breathe.
And when I heard that baby let out that cry, oh, thank you, God.
What a relief that was.
See, that's what breathing is to a child of God.
The moment we have our faith in Christ as our Savior.
That's the moment we have God's breath of life in us, and we're born again as a living, breathing child of God.
But there's more to living than just breathing.
Nobody that I know of, no parent that I know of, when the baby comes out of the womb.
Starts FaceTiming and says, Look, little so-and-so is about to take their first breath, and they get, oh, oh, good girl.
They don't do that.
But when that person starts to take their first step, that's when they get really excited and they want to advertise that to everybody.
And God wants us to do more than just believe.
He wants us to walk.
And to walk, you must grow.
We believe the gospel to be saved, but again, there's more to Christian life than just salvation.
God didn't save the Israelites to leave them in Egypt, but to take them to the promised land.
So salvation is not about surviving by the grace of Christ.
It's about abounding in the grace of Christ.
And to do that, we have to walk.
There's no other way around it.
We must walk.
There was only one way.
For those Israelites to get to the promised land.
Only one, do you know how it was?
Walking And there is only one way for the child of God to get from the place of just surviving and just breathing and just being saved.
By the blood of that Passover lamb, to actually getting to a place in life where they are abounding in the grace of God, and that's walking.
And there's only one direction to walk that will get you to the promised land.
And that's the direction God's Word leads us in.
Anything else will take you to the highest, To the Amorites.
They'll take you over back to Egypt.
They'll take you down somewhere else.
They'll get you off to the Nile River or the Red Sea or some other place.
But they're not going to take you To the place where God chose to put his name.
What is walking?
Walking is acting out what you believe.
Spiritually speaking, in the Bible, walking is acting out what you believe.
I said, well, Brother Richard, there's a lot of people that walk spiritually and maybe they don't believe the gospel.
There's a difference between walking and wandering.
The Israelites they wandered in the desert, for they weren't walking with the Lord.
Or they would have made it straight to the promised land.
Walking is acting out what you believe.
We are saved by believing.
But what we believe will affect how we walk.
And this is where it gets a little controversial for some.
Because there's some people that they're so hypersensitive to being grace-based.
They're so hypersensitive.
Not wanting to add any works to the gospel that a lot of times they cut all workout, period.
And we're not supposed to do that.
We are supposed to work for the Lord.
What you believe will affect how you behave.
There's simply no other way around it.
How many of y'all?
last Saturday or sometime in the recent past, we hadn't had rain in a while.
But how many of y'all have watched a weather report?
And based on that weather report, you made sure and had an umbrella in your car that day or took one in to yeah.
I see people all the time in the tower that I work in.
And there won't be any rain anywhere.
But you'll see them carrying their umbrellas inside.
Because if it rains, they don't want to be caught walking outside without their umbrella when they leave for work.
Or leave her home.
Why are they taking their umbrellas in Because what they believe affected how they behaved.
What they believe, they put stock in that weather report.
And then their actions of taking the umbrella in was a result or were a result of what they believed.
It works that way for the weather.
It works that way for our faith in the Bible, in God's Word, too.
What we believe will affect how we behave.
And you cannot deny that.
The Bible says in 1 John 3:7 little children Let no man deceive you.
In other words, don't let anyone pull the wools over your eyes on this.
He that doeth righteousness Is righteous, even as he that is Jesus is righteous.
He said, Don't let anyone deceive you on this matter.
Don't let anyone trick you on this matter.
The person that does righteousness Righteous.
Now, we do not become righteous by doing righteousness.
But the person who has become righteous by faith in Christ will do righteousness.
What they believe will affect how they behave.
Doing in 1 John is the same as walking.
In our text tonight in Proverbs, doing and walking is the same thing.
We are made righteous by what we believe, our faith in Jesus.
But what we believe will affect what we do, and that's our walk in Jesus.
You see?
There is your faith in Jesus.
There is your walk in Jesus.
What I believe concerning God and His Son will affect how I walk in my relationship with God and His Son.
To say otherwise, Would be to not deny reality, would be to deny God's word, would be to defy logic.
In our text tonight, there are two ways to walk.
In uprightness and in perversity.
Those are the two ways to walk in our text: in uprightness and in perversity.
Solomon says, looking at your text, he that walks in his uprightness.
The word translated uprightness comes from a Hebrew word, a root word that means straight.
Straight.
So the idea.
Of a man walking in his uprightness is of a man that walks the straight path that God's Word has paved for him to walk.
God's Word says, This is how you behave, this is what you do, this is what I expect from you, this is not what you should do over here.
And so you just take your feet and walk straight on God's Word, and you don't depart from it.
Anytime you disobey God's word, you're departing from it, whether this direction or in that direction.
Why?
The two different directions.
You'll see there's two different directions to depart from God's Word in the Bible.
Did you know that?
There's two different directions to depart from God's Word.
In the scriptures, you can depart to the left of it, or in the scriptures, you can depart to the right of it.
You know how that works?
If you depart to the left of God's word, you're a liberal.
If you depart to the right of God's word, you're a Pharisee.
Either way, you're wrong.
You don't add to God's word by going to the right of it.
You don't take away from God's word by going to the left of it.
You just stick with God's Word by walking right down in the middle of it.
And that should not be controversial.
Deuteronomy 5, verse 32, God told Israel, Ye shall observe to do, therefore, as the Lord your God hath commanded you.
You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.
Don't add to his words.
Don't take away.
Just walk in his word as it is written.
Plain and simple, therefore.
To walk in uprightness is to walk according to God's word.
To do what God tells us to do in the Bible.
And the Bible says, He that walks in his uprightness, look back in your text, feareth the Lord.
Feareth the Lord.
The word fear or feareth here means both to be afraid of the Lord as well as to reverence the Lord, depending on how it's used in the context here tonight.
It means essentially to reverence the Lord.
In Genesis chapter 3, verse 10, God had asked Adam where he was.
And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden and I was afraid.
That's the same word in Proverbs tonight.
I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself.
Now, that is not reverencing the Lord, that is being scared of the Lord.
The word afraid, again, is the same word translated fear in our text, and it's the very first time we see that word used in the Bible.
The word afraid was never used until Adam sinned.
For there was no need to be afraid until sin entered into the world.
Adam was right to be afraid of God because he had sinned against God, and now he's about to suffer the consequences of that disobedience.
But had Adam feared the Lord in the sense of reverencing the Lord, Then he would have never feared the Lord in the sense of being afraid of him.
When I was a boy, I had, if I had feared my parents, In the sense of respecting their authority, then I would have never feared my parents in the sense of dreading their belt.
Right?
The person who walks in obedience to God's word fears the Lord.
That means they're reverencing the Lord.
They're respecting God's word because They're obeying that word.
If they're walking according to God's word, it's because they reverence that word and they realize what God has told me to do has value and purpose in my life.
And the God who gave me that word.
Has not only authority over me, but he also loves me and he knows what's best.
And so, because they reverence God, they walk according to his word.
Are they going to walk perfectly?
No.
We're sinners.
We're not perfect people.
But they're going to walk according to His Word.
In other words, God's Word is going to become the basis that they make their life decisions on.
Make sense?
So, the person who walks in obedience to God's word fears the Lord.
In the sense that he reverences the Lord as the God, the Creator, and the Judge of all.
There's a valuable principle that we've learned in this church before, which I would like to remind you of tonight, and it is this.
Truth read forward in a sentence.
Is truth read backward in a sentence?
Whatever is true going forward in a sentence of God's Word.
Is going to be true going backward in a sentence.
A man who walks in obedience to God's word, that person fears the Lord.
That's truth read forward in our sentence tonight.
But also, a man who fears the Lord walks in obedience to God's word.
That's God's truth read backward.
So not only do you say, he that walks In his uprightness, fears the Lord.
You can also say, He that fears the Lord walks in uprightness.
A person that reverences the Lord is a person that obeys the Lord.
It is impossible to honor God without obeying God.
John chapter 14, verse 21a, Jesus said, He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me.
Can you imagine Jesus gave two prerequisites.
First, you've got to have his commandments, and then you've got to keep them.
And if you have them and you keep them, then you're the one that loves them.
Because the reason he added that second on there is because there's a lot of people that have his commandments, but they don't keep them.
Those are the people that crucified him.
They had God's word, but they didn't keep God's word, and they crucified God's word, the Son.
And so the person that has God's commandments and keeps those commandments, that's the person that loves him, he says.
And sadly, this is a very controversial topic for some people.
And here's why.
It's because some people would accuse me of adding to the gospel because I say that if a person loves God, then he or she will obey God.
But I'm not the one saying this.
Jesus is.
I'm not the one saying this.
Solomon is.
The Holy Spirit is the one saying this.
We do not work to be saved.
We believe to be saved, but what a person believes will affect what they do.
This week, Rhys and Kim, the dynamic duo of gospel distribution, they worked on assembling gospel booklets for the lost.
Why?
Why did they do this?
Why did they work on those booklets?
Could it have been, could it have had anything to do with what they believe?
Of course it does.
They believe people need to hear the gospel to be saved, and they're acting on what they believe.
Now suppose Rhys and Kim, on the other hand, spent their time this week assembling Muslim propaganda.
To distribute to the infidels throughout Maybank.
Or suppose they assembled communist atheistic propaganda this week to hand out. to the religious people.
If we caught them, if we were in the city park and we caught them handing out Muslim propaganda, propaganda that denies the gospel Would we be wrong to assume that they don't believe the gospel if they're handing out propaganda that teaches the gospel is not true?
Would that not just be common sense?
What if they said, well, Brother Richard, in church, hear us out?
We believe, we do believe the gospel, so we are saved by faith, even though we're just practicing Islam.
We don't believe Islam.
We're just practicing Islam, but we believe the gospel.
Can those two things go hand in hand?
Absolutely not.
Why fellowship has light with darkness, as what the scripture says What we believe will affect what we do And the reason this can be controversial, preaching on this topic tonight, is because some people would accuse me Of backloading the gospel.
Y'all ever heard of backloading and front-loading?
How many of y'all have never heard of backloading and front-loading?
We' Had several, got few Almost wish there were more people that had never heard of it.
But the reason is we don't preach stuff, we expound scripture.
But because this is becoming popular to teach, I've got to address it.
So, what some people call front-loading the gospel, and I don't teach front-loading and back-loading.
And I'll tell you why.
If you teach front loading is bad and backloading is bad, then suddenly you'll start judging the way someone preaches or teaches.
To see if they are breaking the scripture of front-loading and backloading.
And so you'll start: well, are they front-loading or are they backloading?
So instead of judging them based on what the scripture says, You'll judge them based on the box that you've created of front load, backload, front load, backload.
Can't do that, can't do that.
And then you'll actually stop your ears to what the scripture says for the sake of not wanting to damage your box.
So what they call front-loading the gospel is where you say, well, you must do A, B, and C before you can be saved.
That's the more obvious the more obvious sin, the more obvious error in the gospel.
We believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and we're saved.
So then here comes the other part.
It's where someone says, oh no, we're saved by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone.
No front loading here, only faith in Jesus and what he's done.
So far, so good.
Then you get to the back over here and you say, but Once you're saved, you must also speak in tongues.
You must also be baptized.
Or you must also continue to live a good life, or you'll lose your salvation.
That's backloading the gospel.
They say, oh, yeah, we're saved by grace through faith alone.
But you got to do A, B, C, and D to keep yourself saved or to perfect the salvation that's begun.
Make sense?
Both of those are errors.
But here is where the pendulum swings too far one way.
It's where someone gets so hypersensitive to this that when you teach what the scripture clearly says He that hath my word and keepeth it is the one that loves me.
And then someone says, Well, that's backloading the gospel.
And there are people who actually teach.
That if a person teaches that works will follow faith, then that's backloading the gospel.
Oh, no, sir.
I don't care if you front load or backload.
All I care is about the scripture.
I don't want to think about front loading and backloading.
I just want to think about the gospel.
But the gospel says this.
We are saved by the work that Jesus did and our faith in that.
And that is a finished work, and our faith in that saves us forever.
No work for us to do.
But.
And this is where they'll say, oh, you said, but, you're backloading the gospel, brothers.
No, sir.
But God's word says.
Be not deceived.
He that does righteousness is righteous.
And the reason we have scriptures like that is because if a person comes in and says, oh, I believe in Jesus.
But they live contrary to the word of God, then that's what we need to look, and we need to say something wrong there in that person's life.
It doesn't mean that we judge our salvation by what we do.
We don't.
We judge our salvation by what Jesus did.
We don't look at our works after we believe and say, well, let me prove that I'm saved by me doing something.
That's not it.
We know we're saved based on what Jesus has done, but you cannot deny the logical, simple truth that when I do believe what Jesus has done, it's going to affect now what I do.
It's got to.
What we believe will affect how we behave.
And that, again, that's just as, it doesn't mean that we look at how we behave and we start judging whether or not we're saved.
But it is the simple biblical truth that a person who fears the Lord will walk in his word.
Look back in your text, but he that is perverse in his ways, and that word perverse means to go to the left or to the right.
He that departs, that word perverse, to stray off the path, he that departs from the straight path that God has laid out for him to walk, the one going the wrong direction in life.
Despiseth him.
Says he despises him.
That word despised means he disesteems God.
Disesteems God.
If I hold God in high esteem, will I not reverence his word?
If I hold God in high esteem, will it not have an impact on my life?
If I have a father and I hold that father in high esteem, Don't you think that that dad that I hold in high esteem would have some kind of influence in my life?
If I do the exact opposite of the influence my dad has had on me in my life, then I don't hold him in high esteem.
I can't.
I lightly esteem his direction in my life.
I lightly esteem his advice in my life because I don't follow it.
Whoever esteems their dad highly will follow his advice.
Whoever doesn't follow his advice disesteems their father.
Now you take that to the highest level of God the Father.
My dad may give me advice and sometimes he may be wrong.
God gives me commandments and they're never wrong.
So if I highly esteem God and I know he's right 100% of the time, Won't that then have an impact on my life?
Will not that then influence my behavior?
Yes.
And if I walk contrary to what God's word tells me to do, contrary to the direction he tells me to go, that I clearly do not esteem his advice and his wisdom in my life.
I despise him.
I don't think God as highly as I should.
And this is what the people did when Jesus came to save them.
They didn't esteem him either.
Speaking of Jesus, the Bible says in Isaiah 53, 3, he is despised.
And rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from him.
He was despised, and we esteemed him not.
He told them the direction to go.
He told them the way of everlasting life.
He told them.
What they should do.
But instead of believing on him, they crucified him, they esteemed him not.
So they did not follow the word.
They crucified it.
Some followed Jesus with their feet while they despised him with their heart.
But you know what happened?
Eventually, those people who despise him in their heart turned aside with their feet, right?
A person that is perverse in his ways despises the Lord.
That's forward.
And a person who despises the Lord is perverse in his ways.
That's backward.
Both are true.
You show me a man who is perverse in his ways, who's going the wrong direction in life.
I'll show you someone who's not esteeming God's word.
Show me a man who's walking contrary to God's word with their feet.
I'll show you a man who is not exalting God in their heart.
The key to a straight walk is to have a right view of God.
And that can only be had by knowing and believing what His Word has to say about Him.
We all sin.
Once again, we all sin and come short of the glory of God.
But if we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, we do not despise His word.
How can you despise the Word of God and believe on His Son?
How can you believe on his son and despise the word of God?
Because we could not know about his son apart from God's word.
So we don't despise God's word.
There's a lot of so-called Christians out there.
And any time a true Christian calls out the perversity that's in our world today.
Anytime a true Christian says, no, that's sin, no, that's perversity, no, that's murder, no, that's wrong, anytime a Christian does that, That you know what those false Christians do?
Oh, you're not a real Christian.
That's what they'll call the true Christians.
You're judging.
You're this.
Oh, that was hateful.
Jesus would never talk that way.
And so that shows you, since they call themselves Christians, yet they are despising the very word of God.
And walking completely contrary to what God's Word has to say.
Have y'all seen that?
They broke some more barriers in the past few months.
They have elected this the first female dyslexic Priest.
Did y'all see that?
She's over something in the United Kingdom.
Some big Church of England.
The first dyslexic female priest over the Church of England.
Like being dyslexic breaks a new barrier.
It's another form of being a minority, I guess.
And it has a picture of her with her regal religious garb on staring off like this, like somehow she's looking off to God.
And you look at that and you say, the Bible says you can't be a pastor.
And the things that y'all believe as the Church of England embracing all this whoredom in homosexuality and abortion and all sorts of wickedness is wrong.
And are we wrong to look at that and say with God, he that despises God's word, right?
Is walking in perversity.
Or he that walks in perversity despises God's Word.
Why do these liberal, religious clergy Walk in perversity.
One reason only.
I don't care what position they have, I don't care if they're called apostles.
Pastors, priests, I don't care if their members are called parishioners, if they are walking In a perversity to God's word, opposite of God's word, it's only because they have a perverse heart and they despise the word of God.
And if it wasn't for scriptures like this, we couldn't call a spade a spade.
But I thank God because of scriptures like this, We can know who we are in Christ.
We don't disesteem God's word.
Am I going to break God's word?
Yes.
Am I going to sin against God's word?
Sadly, until Jesus raises his body from the grave, yes.
But do you know what every child of God has in common?
Number one, we all sin.
Number one, we all don't want to.
We all sin against God, number one, number two.
We all don't want to sin against God.
We wish that if we could push a button of being perfect and holy versus being unrighteous and unholy, if we could, every one of us would say, yes, I'll take this, I'll take this.
God, I want to be perfect and righteous and holy.
That's esteeming God's word.
But when you have a group of people out there that push this button, The claim to belong to the holy God while they're choosing the unholy button.
Do you know one of the characteristics of how they are disesteeming God's Word?
Not just because they are doing opposite of what God's Word says, but because they are butchering God's Word.
Redefining God's word and changing his truth into a lie.
That's not backloading the gospel.
That's allowing us to put on biblical glasses and see the world as it really is.
To be able to look and say, that's a wolf, and look and say, that's a sheep.
Father, we thank you so much for your precious word.
Thank you, Lord, for giving us, Father God, the insight of your Holy Spirit.
When Jesus was here on earth, Lord, Lord, he knew.
You told us, Lord, considering the false teachers by their fruits, we would know them.
And God, I thank you for that, Father.
We don't look to our works for assurance of our salvation.
But we do look to the path, dear Lord, that people choose.
The path, Lord, to hold to the Bible as their authority.
Even whether they break it or not, they hold to your word as their authority.
Or those, Father God, who despise your word in your name, In the name of religion and in the name of Christianity, thank you for showing us the difference between those who have your word and those who keep it.
In Jesus' precious name, amen.
