Alright, if you can turn your Bibles with me to Romans chapter 16, I'll be reading from verse 17 through 20. I think I have maybe about three more messages including today, maybe. And then we're going to take a short break from the teaching and then we're going to be jumping most likely into the book of Hebrews.

So those of you who are A students and you want to get ahead and study, we're most likely going to be in the book of Hebrews. Rest of you, that's where we're going, okay? Alright, verse 17, "Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned and turn away from them.

For such men are slaves not of our Lord Christ but of their own appetites and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting. For the report of your obedience has reached to all, therefore I am rejoicing over you. But I want you to be wise in what is good, innocent in what is evil.

The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you." Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for such a great privilege that we have to be able to worship you. Help us, Lord, not to take for granted the access that we have to this throne of grace.

Help us, Lord God, to be good stewards of everything that you've given. I pray for your mercies this morning, that your word would penetrate our hearts, our minds, and ultimately move our lives, Lord God, that we may become more and more like Christ every day. So anoint this time in your Holy Spirit, in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

I know some of you guys are Dodger fans, and I was up at a retreat so I couldn't watch the game. And even though I don't normally follow Dodgers during the regular season, I hurt for you. And my only encouragement is put your hope in Jesus, okay? So some of you guys who didn't watch, you don't know what I'm talking about, but I'm sure it was a big heartache yesterday for those of you guys who were watching.

You know, if you have small children, you probably, I mean, if they're of age, you probably have the kids play at least pony ball or some kind of sports when they're young. When they're at that young age, there is no real criteria for them to join a team, because the goal of those teams is to kind of get their feet wet, see if they have some athleticism, see if they like it.

So even if they don't like it, even if they have no athleticism whatsoever, when you're three, four, five, six years old, it's just, you just send them in, you take pictures, and it's cute, right? And then, so they don't have a tryout, they just kind of try different positions.

But as they get older, the purpose of this team changes. So somewhere around puberty, maybe around 11, 12, 13, it starts to get a little bit more competitive. So you see the good kids being separated into different teams, and then they start to play certain position, they go to the all-stars.

By the time they're in high school, their sole purpose is to win. So if you're not good, you're not on the team. And even if you make the team, if you're not the top maybe, you know, nine, 10 players, you're not going to see much playing time. You're the guy that they use to warm up for the guys who are going to compete, right?

Depending on what the purpose of the team is, the membership of that team changes. So in a competitive team, for the purpose of winning, you're going to have very strict membership. You're going to have people who are going to come in, who's going to add to the goal of the team.

Now if you are talking about a neighborhood, a community, they don't have strict membership. In fact, it's illegal. You can't discriminate who comes in and who comes out. I mean, again, we live in a great country where those kind of laws exist, and so you can't discriminate based upon age or sex or, you know, religion or anything like that, because the purpose of that community is to have anybody welcome.

The question is, what is the church? So some people may look at it as a community, and the fact that we have even membership maybe bother you because why should we put any kind of borders? Everybody should be welcome. The idea of having any kind of borders in the church maybe sounds unchristian to you because your mentality is this is a community like our neighborhood.

And then you have the other extreme where it's kind of competitive sports team where this is only a gathering of elites. We want the green berets, people who are elite and there's no tolerance for anybody who can't do their part, and then they usually get weeded out. So you have a church filled with people who only are doing this, and there's no tolerance for any weakness in the church.

And eventually, again, they get weeded out. So which is the church? What does the Bible describe? The Bible describes the church as a community of people gathered for a specific purpose. So it is both. It is both a community where God gathers together both the weak and the strong from various backgrounds, where we practice grace, accept the strong and the weak, encourage those who are weak-hearted, but for the specific purpose of being a light into this world.

It is not just a community of people who gather together where we just accept one another no matter what. There is a specific vision. There's a specific task that God has called us to. And that's what Paul was trying to say to the Roman church after 15 chapters of preaching the gospel.

He's exhorting them to protect this gospel, to make sure that in the church that you do not allow these wolves to come in and destroy what God's trying to build. So last week we looked at Paul telling them to watch, to be sober. Watch to make sure that you don't allow these false teachers to come into the church.

So this week we're going to be looking at the second part where he says, "Once you recognize them to separate." And then third, make sure that you are discerning. So the second part, when he says to separate, the idea of separating or not to be around them or the exact words that he uses, to turn away, it almost sounds unchristian.

If you've grown up in a context where all you've heard was, "God is gracious no matter what you do," and that's exclusively the only thing that you heard, it seems unchristian to think that we would draw any boundaries. We would be patient and tolerant of everything and everyone. But again, the community of the body of Christ is also a body of Christ, the army of God, the temple of God, for a specific purpose.

So it is not one over the other. So therefore, Paul says, "Once you've identified them, make sure that you draw lines and you don't allow them to penetrate into the church." Many people think that if we preach the Bible too much or if we get too deep into theology, that's naturally going to divide the church.

So let's not talk about what theology we believe. Don't talk about baptism, don't talk about various outside things. Just talk about the essential of the gospel, which basically is, "Jesus loves you and died for you on the cross." And as long as we talk about that, the church wouldn't be united.

But the problem with that is that that will also unite the non-Christians. Because I've never met a non-Christian who is offended by a gospel that teaches that he loves you. I've never met a Christian who said, "You know what? How dare you say that your God loves me?" If we take what unites us to the lowest common denominator, where even the non-Christians can walk in, we lose the identity of what it means to be a Christian.

In fact, I found it exactly the opposite. The more we pay attention to Scripture, the more unity I find. Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 4, 11-14, he gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and some as pastors, and some as teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ.

You notice how he highlights apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, but he doesn't talk about the gift of administration. He doesn't talk about the gift of hospitality. There's a unifying factor of all of these offices. Can you guess what they are? Every single one of these offices, their primary task was to teach the Word of God.

The apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, to teach the Word of God, the church may be equipped for the building up of the body of Christ, until what? Until we all attain the unity of the faith. He doesn't say, "Stay away from too deep teaching of the Word of God, or else we're not going to be united." He says the way that we get united is to pay attention to what he says in his Word.

That's how we get united. And of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature of which belongs the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of man, by craftiness and deceitful scheming.

He says these men who are going to come in to pervert the gospel, they're going to cause divisions in the church. So he says watch for them, and then he says to break away from them. Because not only will they divide the church, they will cause hindrances to the gospel of Christ.

The word hindrance literally means, is scandalon, where we get the word scandal. And the idea is that it will trap you. If you allow these false teachers to come in, and you're not paying attention, you're not sober, you can easily be swayed back and forth by every wind of doctrine that comes in.

That's why he says, God says in Exodus 34, 12, "Watch yourself that you make no covenant with the inhabitants of the land into which you are going, or it will become a snare or a trap in your midst." He says if you marry a Canaanite woman, she's also going to bring with her the gods that she served before she married you.

And then once she comes in, and you allow that idol to come into the camp of Israel, that family is going to end up corrupting the other families, and eventually it's going to lead the nation of Israel astray. That's the same language that Paul is using. Once you identify these false teaching, make sure, he says, to turn away from them.

Now why is this so significant? And even if you belong to a Bible teaching church, why do we need to stay sober? You know, I was raised in a Presbyterian home. I got saved at a charismatic para-church. I went to a conservative Bible teaching, Biola, Talbot. I got discipled by Navigator-style discipleship.

And then I, you know, who was also charismatic, and then I became, I went to a Baptist church, and then I became Reformed. So I kind of went full circle. But in the midst of all of this, in the past 30-some years that I've been a Christian, I've seen so many movements come in and go out.

And every wind of doctrine that comes in, there is some truth to it, but there's also a danger that it brings. Just in the time that I've been a Christian, I got saved in 1983 at the tail end of the Jesus movement, and that Jesus movement primarily was one way.

There's only one way, Jesus Christ, and then these hippies that the traditional churches would not accept. So we're going to get rid of all that. And that's when the dress code started changing, you know, and they started to become a bit more casual to win the hippies to the church.

And the primary message of that time was, "One saved always saved." And there was bumper stickers that would say, "Christians are not perfect, just forgiven." And that was the mantra of that time. The tail end of that movement, it created this fuzziness in the church where there wasn't any guidelines, there wasn't any discipleship.

Everybody was claiming assurance of salvation while living in sin, and then the holiness movement came in. So discipleship. So every church was about being discipled. This happened at the, maybe in the mid-80s to tail end of the 80s. And at the end of that, at the end of that movement came the charismatic movement.

The charismatic movement came because this holiness movement felt dry. You know, everybody was being disciplined and reading the Bible and doing all this, and they said, "No, it's about the spirit." And so when the charismatic movement came in, all of a sudden the worship began to change. So I remember early on as a Christian, you know, I would lead praises with one guitar, and at that time it was considered contemporary.

Right? One guitar, because prior to that it was piano, it was pipe organs, and it had to be very high church. And all of a sudden we started leading praise with guitars, and then all of a sudden even the Presbyterian churches started to have a praise team. You know, guitar, electric band, the drums, and all this.

This all came in as a result of the charismatic movement. And now, you know, most churches usually have praise teams like what we see here. Well, at the end of the charismatic movement, people were saying, "Well, it's charismatic, it's kind of chaotic." You know? And so they were starting to, people got tired of it, and then young people were starting to leave the church.

And so there was this panic, if this continues, that we're going to lose a young generation, next generation we're not going to have any Christians. And all of a sudden this seeker-friendly movement came in. And the seeker-friendly movement was, let's get these young people back to church. So they started running the adult service like they would Sunday school.

They would have programs, they would have skits, and they would have big shows up in the front to attract the adults to come, and it attracted a lot of people. Prior to the seeker-friendly movement, a mega church would have been a church maybe 5,000 or 6,000. There weren't churches that had 10,000, 20,000, 40,000 people, not in the United States.

All of a sudden the seeker-friendly churches started gathering people, and the mega churches, 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 churches started popping up, which to this day they exist. Well at the tail end of the seeker-friendly movement, people got tired of the superficialness, where this is all happening up on the stage, we need some meat.

And then came the Bible movement. And this probably happened maybe in the early 2000, 2003, 2004. And all of a sudden Bible-teaching churches started to grow, and our churches was one of them. People were hungry for meat. So they were coming to church wanting to have discipleship, the teaching of God's Word.

And then at the tail end of that, people were like, you know, church discipline, it's about theology, it's about the Word. And then the Gospel Center movement swept in. It's not just about the Word. We need to focus on Jesus and the Gospel. And then that started to sweep the church.

So I've seen these movements just in the short time that I've been a Christian, back and forth, back and forth. Now in every one of these movements, there is truth. Because they see an error and they're trying to fix it. But the problem with that is whenever this thing swings, it has a tendency to swing all the way to the left.

And it goes back and forth and back and forth. Now the danger of following the trends of the waves that come back and forth, back and forth, eventually, if you follow the trend, the trend may, and oftentimes does, lead you away from who God is. If your spiritual life is dependent upon the majority of people's opinions, you will always be dependent upon whatever movement comes into town.

And that's why he says to pay attention to the Word of God. Because every lie has some truth in it. And that's why it's called deception. That's why he says to pay very close attention. You know, I mentioned to you years ago that I spent about a year sitting down with two missionaries to UCI, two young men who were in their mid-20s, and full-time devoted to share the gospel from the local church, Witness Lees.

And so I sat down with them, spent months, every Wednesday, sitting down talking with them, and I remember sitting down in the beginning, and I said, "Oh, you guys are from the Witness Lee Church?" And they said, "Oh, don't call us Witness Lee. We're the local church." And I said, "Well, don't you guys study from Witness Lee?" They said, "No, we study the Bible." And I said, "Oh, okay.

Well when you studied this Bible, do you use Bible study material?" And he said, "Yeah." "So this Bible study material, who wrote it?" I said, "Witness Lee." "So do you use any other Bible study material other than Witness Lee?" And then he knew where I was getting at. He's like, "No." So basically everything you're being taught is being taught through Witness Lee's Bible study material.

And he's like, "Well, yeah, but we're studying the Bible." Now here's the danger in all of that, and we can get into that same trap. We can get to the Bible through people and through theology and through books and never really understand the scripture itself. And there's a danger in that, because when that man falls, you fall with him.

If your primary confidence is in a system, if it's in a man, if it's in your camp, when that camp goes astray, so do you. That's why he gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, so that you may be unified by the Word. Not by our denomination, not by our tradition, not by the masses, not by whatever wind of doctrine may be popular at the time that we are in, but by the solid and unchanging Word of God.

I know so many people who are so versed in theology, but know nothing about the passage itself. Even when people quote theology to me, and I fully agree, my first question is, "How did you get there? What passages led you to do that, to believe that?" And if they can't defend their theology, it is not valid.

I don't care how many high theologians you quote, because you didn't get there. Somebody put you on a boat and took you there. So it's not based upon God's Word. Your confidence is in somebody. Your confidence is in a church. Your confidence is in your denomination. But it's not in His Word.

In order for us to recognize right and wrong doctrine, we have to be men and women in the Word. That's why he says to watch, be sober, and then when you recognize that, to separate. Titus 3, 9-11, "But avoid foolish controversy, genealogy, strife, disputes about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless.

Reject a factious man. Consider first and second warning, knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning, being self-condemned." He said the reason why these people are coming in and doing these things is because they are motivated by their own appetite. They're not seeking the glory of God.

They're not seeking truth. But they are men who are enslaved to their own appetites. Romans 6, 18, "For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Jesus Christ, but of their own appetite." Paul makes it very clear in Romans chapter 6 and Romans chapter 7, the distinction between a Christian and a non-Christian is that a Christian has been delivered from slave to sin and he's become a slave to righteousness.

So he's not describing a Christian who has some difference of opinions. He's describing a person whose appetite has never changed. That's exactly how Jonathan Edwards describes a Christian and a non-Christian. What is true and what is not true. Because a Christian, when he meets Christ, his appetite changes. We see the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ and all of a sudden we want him rather than the world.

See, a false teacher says he is led by his own appetite. In Philippians 3, 18-19, "For many walk of whom I often told you and now tell you even weeping that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things." A non-Christian is an individual where his appetite has never changed.

All that has changed is he added God to whatever they were pursuing before they met Christ and so their frustration is, "How come God is not helping me with my life?" He still has his ambition. He still wants to be somebody in this fallen world and he's never let go of the pursuit of his own comfort and glory.

So his appetite has never changed. So therefore, even in his teaching, he is willing to teach false doctrine for the purpose of satisfying his own appetite. Now, his appetite is not just talking about food. He's talking about his flesh. His primary reason is because he wants to satisfy his flesh, whether that is money, whether that is comfort, whether that's glory, or whether it is food.

Whatever it may be, he is a man who is led by his flesh. A Christian may be struggling and at times being tempted by the appetite that he had before he met Christ, but fundamentally, Jonathan Edwards writes religious affection because people were questioning the revival, that this was or was not really from God.

So he writes this book, Religious Affection, and at the core of what he says is, a true Christian is one where his affections have been changed for Christ. He saw who he is and he saw what he has done and then now he's attracted to that more than the world.

He said, "These men who come in, they're preaching the false doctrine. They're motivated by their own flesh." He says, "Watch out for them. Separate from them." He says, "These people come in and they use flattery." And the word for flattery is eulogia, where we get the word eulogy. Typically, when you hear a eulogy, you never hear something negative in a eulogy.

And the word eulogia literally means good speech. So when you go to a funeral, it may not be a lie, but they highlight the best part of that person, whatever that may be. He was a good golfer. He was very generous. He was a good dad. Whatever it was, they highlight.

He may have been a horrible friend. He may have been lousy with his money. He may have been neglecting his children. Whatever it may be, in a eulogy, you only hear what is good. And that's what Paul uses here to describe a false teacher, that he comes in his whole purpose for his self-benefit.

He says things that people want to hear. That's exactly what 2 Timothy 4, 2-4. He says to Timothy, "You preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction." You notice that? Reprove? Rebuke? There are some circles where the word "rebuke," you get a knee-jerk reaction.

People are having a hard time as it is with life. You don't want to come to church and get rebuked. See, if you're building a community like a neighborhood where everyone is accepted, and that's your sole purpose, then the word "rebuke" shouldn't fit. It should be encouraging all the time.

But he says, "You rebuke, reprove, exhort with great patience and instruction." If your life, if all it is, is sitting around watching Netflix, you don't want anybody uppity. You want to keep it quiet. You don't need a cheerleader in the room. But if you're in a competition to win something, like the way Paul describes our Christian life, like if you're in a World Series, you know, you're in game seven, and your outfielder is standing in the wrong spot, and the coach sees that and says nothing, that's a bad coach.

And if the fellow teammates watches him, and he's not paying attention, he's fraternizing with the stand, and they're about to hit, and he's not even paying attention, and nobody says anything to that guy, that's a bad team, depending on what the community is for. So if you're building a community where everybody just kind of gets along, and there is no purpose behind it other than just having an easy life, then yes, the word "rebuke" doesn't fit Christianity.

But if the church is what he says it is, the temple of God, it is the army of God, the body of Christ, it is a community for the purpose of carrying out his great commission. He says, "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires." Their ears tickled, meaning they have an itch in their ear that they can't reach, and the guy with the eulogy comes, and basically he gives good word, right?

He's going to scratch. So every week they come, and they scratch your ears, "Oh, that felt good." And that's how sermons and teachings are evaluated. "Did that feel good? Did I feel encouraged? Did I feel uplifted?" Kind of like YouTube. "I like it." "I didn't like it." "I got my ears scratched.

Oh, that felt good. Oh, it didn't feel good." He says, "There's going to come a time when people are not pursuing Christ, so if they're not in the context of this marathon, they don't want a cheerleader, they don't want a coach, they just want somebody to kind of stay calm so that I can continue to do my business." But Paul, or the author of Hebrews in chapter 4.12, describes the Word of God as living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword.

You ever see somebody scratch their ears with a double-edged sword? That's how the Bible describes the Word. You don't say, "Oh, I have an itch." It's like, you know? We think he's crazy, because you don't scratch your ear with a sharp object. You're going to get hurt. But that's how the Bible describes the Word of God.

You ever see somebody scratch their ears with a hammer? Because that's another way the Bible describes it. It's like a hammer. You don't take a hammer to scratch your ear. Do you scratch your ear with fire? Because that's the way the Bible describes it. It's a fire and hammer of God.

He says, "So an individual who's coming to scratch your ear is not preaching the Word, because the Word of God is sharper than any double-edged sword. It is able to divide between soul and spirit and bone and marrow, and it judges the thoughts and intentions of a heart." Compare what he says here about this false prophet coming scratching your ear versus what Peter does.

When he begins to preach the Word of God, he says, "You crucified that Messiah that we've been waiting for." And remember what happened? They were cut to the heart. If what you say is true, woe is us. We're going to be standing before this judge. What do we do?

So, after Paul's preaching the truth, they were cut to the heart, and they say, "What do we do?" And Paul said, "Repent and be baptized." Look at Paul's preaching. When he preaches the Word of God, he immediately divides the believers and the unbelievers. They hear his Word, and those who believe, they are divided.

They judge the thoughts and intentions of their heart, and then when they receive the truth, they either repent or they pick up their rocks and want to stone him, because he's bringing the hammer, he's bringing the fire, he's bringing the sword. He's not tickling their ears. And that's exactly how the Bible describes God's Word.

So next time you see somebody, his primary desire is to give good word, you know. And I'm not saying that the Word of God can't be encouraging. I'm not saying that the only time, you know, when the Bible is open is to rebuke you, there is encouragement. But see, a eulogy is only good words, only encouragement.

He says to watch out for them, because they're going to be flattering. In other words, they're going to be using their flattery, and they're going to always kind of keep you calm, keep you encouraged, and keep the status quo, all for the purpose of feeding their own appetite and their own ego.

But if you are running in this race, you want the truth. You want the truth. You don't want just Bengay, right? "I'm aching here. Rub it over here. I got an itch here. Itch over here." I remember when, you know, we had our first child, you know, and, you know, like you take Lamaze class, and they teach you to do breathing exercises and stuff.

You know, when you're actually in the heat of the moment, and your wife is pushing, and all of that goes out the window, because, mainly because, you don't want to get killed, right? So if you, your wife is in intense pain, and you're like, "Listen, pay attention, breathe." It just doesn't seem like the right time to calm her down, you know?

So you learn all that, and it's beneficial, because they kind of guide you through. And I remember when Esther was giving birth, she pushed over two hours and maybe 20 minutes. And I remember just thinking, like, "Every woman does this?" And she was so exhausted, and I couldn't tell her to do more.

In fact, I wanted to tell the doctors, like, "This can't be normal," right? And then, everybody got fatigued, Esther was just kind of passed out, and then I went to the nurse and said, "Hey, she's been pushing for two hours and 15 minutes, is this normal?" And she's like, "Oh, shoot, our goal is two hours," so they weren't paying attention, and they went a little bit over.

And all of a sudden, this new nurse comes into the room, and Esther just passed out exhausted, and I didn't know what to do. She comes in, the first thing she says, "Esther!" And I remember thinking, "Where did this lady come from? Where was the other nurse?" And she started barking at her, you know, and said, "Pay attention!" Like, "Shut up!

You're going to have to push!" And she's barking at her, and Esther perks up, and she started pushing the whole time, I'm on the side, I'm like, "Man, this lady's mean. Why is she in this field?" You know? And she kind of let her through it, and eventually, she ended up pushing the baby out, and the whole time, I was thinking, like, "Man, who hired this lady?" After the delivery was done, you know, everybody took, and we had the baby all washed up, and then we're, like, calm in the room, I came in, and I asked Esther, I said, "Esther, man, that lady was mean!" And then she said, "Oh, my God, I couldn't have done it if she didn't, she wasn't there." And she told me her yelling at her gave her the strength to push.

And then later on, I found out it's very strategic. They appoint that person. They find the toughest lady during that time to get in the room and not to be nice, to get the attention, and so that, because they need the energy to push through, because they're so exhausted.

And I found out it was very strategic. If you are relaxing and watching TV, and you just want to coast along, you don't want to coach. You don't want to be pushed. You don't want to be directed. But if you're in the race, in the middle of a competition, you're exhausted and tired, the Word of God says it's a hammer, it's like a double-edged sword, it cuts through.

It judges the thoughts and intentions of our heart, it gives us that boost to be able to continue. See, the false prophet comes in, and all he is teaching you is peace. He's giving you good word, scratching your ear, and it's not for your benefit. It's to satisfy his own ego.

It says it is effective on hearts that are unsuspecting or not alert. The word there for unsuspecting is akakos, and basically it just means without bad. So, I mean, literally, the word doesn't mean that, I mean, it doesn't seem that bad, right? It's effective. His false teaching, scratching ears, for his own appetite, he can easily win over those who are unsuspecting.

What he is describing is an individual who is neither committed to good or bad. He's easily influenced. He's not paying attention. He's a guy or girl who is easily tossed back and forth in whatever trend that comes into town. So, if it's a charismatic movement, I'm a charismatic. If it is a holiness movement, I'm holiness.

If it is the theology movement, I'm theology. If it is the seeker-friendly, I'm seeker-friendly. If it is discipleship, it's discipleship. He's being tossed around back and forth, and in any group of people, you have some people who are leading, trying to shepherd the church into the right direction toward God, and then you may have some people who are just constantly negative and always dividing, and they tend to influence people as well.

He's talking about a large group of people in the middle who are easily influenced back and forth because they're not paying attention. And whoever speaks the strongest, whoever is the most charismatic, whoever seems to have the most influence, whoever is the most articulate, those are the people that we give adherence to.

He's talking about those people who are simple-minded, who are like children tossed back and forth. They do not know the Word of God. And so 1 Corinthians 15, 29 says, "Do not be deceived. Bad company corrupts good morals." That's why he says to protect the flock. That's why he says, "Do not be unequally yoked." And let me make this very clear, and the Scripture is not ambiguous about this.

A Christian and a non-Christian cannot be married. Just the idea that a Christian would even entertain that already means that that person has no idea what it means to be a Christian, or he's not a Christian at all. Because a Christian isn't somebody who comes to church on Sunday.

A Christian's value has completely been transformed. The way you raise your children, what you do with your money, what you do on the weekend, how you value people, where you live, it affects everything that we do. So how do you get unequally yoked with somebody where the Bible describes his whole intention is to satisfy his own appetite, who serves a different master, and then to be tied with that person?

It is not possible, unless you're not a real Christian. The Bible's very clear about that. And that's why he says the church must be a place, a gathering first and foremost, of believers. That's why we have membership in the church. We welcome everybody into the church, but the church that God sees as church are believers who confess Christ as Lord and Savior.

He says they come in and said, "Identify them." He says, "If you see that these people are here for the purpose of destroying the church, to put a snare," he said, "separate from them." And then verse 19, "Be discerning. For the report of your obedience has reached to all, therefore I am rejoicing over you, but I want you to be wise in what is good, and innocent in what is evil." From time to time, I hear this ridiculous opinion from some, and even sometimes from pastors, that it's okay to indulge in semi-pornographic material because you want to know what the world is like.

You want to experience being drunk because you want to know that this is what the world struggles with, and it's okay for you to indulge in it a little bit because it benefits you being a good witness so that you can know what they're struggling with. This is what the world is like.

Absolute garbage. Absolute garbage. It is directly contradictory to what Jesus says in Matthew 10, 16, "Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of the wolves, so be shrewd as serpents and as innocent as doves." When it comes to evil, he says, "Be innocent." He doesn't say dabble in it, touch it, view it, participate in it so that you can know.

He says, "No, be innocent in it. Be shrewd like serpents, but be innocent when it comes to evil." Many people live their lives being innocent like serpents and shrewd like doves. Foolishness. Our obedience must be discerning. Is it scriptural? Is it biblical? His final encouragement to them in Romans 16, 20, "The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.

The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you." Now is Paul talking about how if you continue to endure and do these things that you're going to be delivered from the persecution of the Romans? Because as you know, as we talked about, I think it was last week, that chapter 16 is the list of probably the first martyrs of the Roman church where the persecution happens.

The intense persecution happens around 64, 65 AD because Nero was blaming the Christians for Rome burning down. And so all the movies and pictures you see of Christians being dragged into the Colosseum, it happened with the Roman Christians first. Apostle Paul and everybody connected with him. So this list of believers in chapter 16 was most likely the first martyrs of the Roman church.

Then what does Paul mean when he says that Satan's head is going to be crushed under your feet? It's directly connected to the promise that God made to mankind in Genesis chapter 3. He says that the seed of the woman is going to crush the head of the serpent.

He wasn't talking about living a comfortable life. He wasn't talking about a life devoid of any persecution or difficulty. He was talking about the ultimate victory that Christ was going to fulfill on the cross. And what you and I have a taste of because we know him now, but the ultimate victory is going to come when Christ comes and he crushes Satan's head permanently.

Because the recipients of this letter, humanly speaking, got tortured. They were beheaded. They were torn apart by lions. Their life was miserable because they met Christ. But their eternity was in glory because Christ crushed the head of Satan. That's the promise that he gives the church. If we live our life thinking that our life and our hope is in this world, the younger you are the better.

Because you have more life in you. You have more hope in you. And a lot of times, especially where we live, we celebrate youth. We envy youth. We spend billions of dollars trying to be younger. But if our paradigm has shifted, if we are living biblically and pursuing the things of Christ, you should envy me.

You should envy the older people. Because there's more difficulty for you. Just because we're a little bit ahead. We're closer to glory. I'm talking about average. I can easily die tomorrow. You can easily die tomorrow. But just on the average. He is talking about glory that is coming with the coming of Christ.

And how that changes everything. If your paradigm is if you suffer now, tomorrow there is payoff. Tomorrow when the payoff doesn't come, you leave. If I put in the hard work, if I sacrifice, if I am disciplined, then tomorrow, maybe next year, maybe next decade, but when the payoff doesn't come, if that's what payoff is for you, and then you get disappointed, and then you get frustrated, and then after a while your faith begins to erode, and then eventually you leave.

But the hope of the cross is not in this world. While we are in this world, the Bible says we will suffer. Because we are in enemy territory. We have wolves that are constantly trying to divide us, devour us. We have our enemy who is prowling around like a hungry lion seeking someone to devour, and that person is you.

And anyone who wants to run toward Christ, they become a greater target. And I've heard so many times young Christians who really start to devote their lives to Christ and all of a sudden they begin to have financial problems. They begin to have problems at home. They start having problems with their workers.

And I was perfectly fine. It's almost like they're being targeted. But the hope that we have in Christ, the promise that he gives, soon Satan's head will be crushed. He's talking about the eternal state of these Christians. No matter how hard and difficult life gets here in our struggle, our hope is our death.

When we die, we will be in glory. Not only, not for ten years, not for sixty years, not for seventy years, but for eternity. So that's what changes us. That's the paradigm. That's the distinction between a Christian and a non-Christian. So let me conclude with this. The hope and the promise that we have in Hebrews 10.36-39.

For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised. For yet in a very little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.

But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the persevering of the soul. Let's pray. Again, as our worship team leads us, let's take some time to come before the Lord in confession. I believe, help my unbelief, strengthen us, help us to be sober, help us not to simply want our ears tickled, but want the truth, even if it cuts at times, that we will be men and women that are firmly planted in his Word.

Let's take some time to pray as our worship team leads us.