Topic: Worship
As we continue on this series on “Worship Our King Jesus,” we also need to be watchful how we receive the Word of God in our hearts. In the previous message, we studied about how we can be from the spiritual corruption in our lives. Before we became children of God, we were spiritual disabled beings. Unlike physical disabled being, we were in a dark place to avoid from the light of the truth. “The Bible says that we were corrupted in our sins and was saved by the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Being a physical disabled may or may not be caused by our spiritual corruption. God did not bring His people into sins, but they brought themselves into the spiritual corruption in their own lives.” (See Worship Our King Jesus: Free from Being Spiritual Disability.)
We worship because we love God and He loves us. We worship God because He is the Creator who created us. We worship Him, not because it’s requirement, but we have freedom that He gave us to choose to serve Him.
But we need to worship God without receiving deception promise from the other gospels. Before I’d go further with this discussion, let’s read I Timothy 4:1-5.
Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.
This passage of the Scripture speaks what’s going on the world today. Paul predicted this before his death. Since the days of Paul to our time period, there is a lot of false witness for Jesus Christ. As we see several events today, many churches are falling in this category. Even Trinity Broadcasting Network, Christian Broadcasting Network, and other Christian media are falling for the false gospel.
Paul told his people that one latter of days many of them, even us, will separate from the true Gospel, which Jesus spoke to His apostles and which Moses, prophets, and psalmists spoke throughout the Old Testament, and decide to follow the demonic doctrine. As I said, some of us may live in the darkness situation and need to free from that.
As we see, many of us give credit to our youngsters to watch and read Henry Potter, which contains a lot of magic and witchcraft rituals. Although God told us not to use of witchcraft (Leviticus 19:26-28, 31; 20:6; Deuteronomy 18:9-14), we do it anyway for our own entertainment by watching movies and reading books. Dr. James Dobson, a founder of Focus On Family, said that it is okay for Christian family to watch Henry Potter Movie, which contains witchcraft (read TWO MORE CHRISTIAN-ORIENTED ORGANIZATIONS RECOMMEND HARRY POTTER BOOKS -- WITCHCRAFT IN THE NAME OF JESUS ! from Cutting Edge Ministries). In other saying, he doesn’t care what Satan is doing in the Christian home. Everything what Christian family is doing for kids is for their education and leisure, which it is not a case according to God’s view.
Now, here in I Timothy 4, Paul warns us that some of believers may decide to leave from their faiths in Christ and accept demonic doctrine as their gods. He gave some of lists of demonic activities that people would accept:
- Speaking lies, such as:
- White lies
- Half lies
- Broken promises
- Make false statements
- Having their own conscience seared with a hot iron
- Forbidding to marry
- Gay marriage
- Having sex outside marriage
- Divorce and hurts
- Marry to strangers
- Commanding to abstain from foods
- Weight problem
- Eating certain food continuously
- Eating too much junk food
- Eating food every single hour
As we see, these lists of activities or more do not satisfy with God. Some mega churches believe that we are “little gods.” This doctrine carries over many years as a fundamental Christian teaching through TBN. If we are little gods, then we would not be in the church on Sunday morning. In fact, we would accept and do every activity that God forbids for us to do.
Another example:
In February 2004, many church leaders recommended for Christian to go to see The Passion movie by Mel Gibson, which was rated R and had many bloodshed scenes that even children cannot see it. Why the movie was so violent? One of reasons is that the movie wasn’t made from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, John, and Luke, but it actually from the doctrine of Catholicism. If you compare with the Bible and movie, you’ll see many differences that are not recorded in the Bible. But if you compare with the movie and Catholic doctrine, such as The Secret History of the Jesuits, you’ll see a lot of similarities that are not recorded in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, but are recorded in the Catholic doctrine.
So how we need to protect ourselves from deception and worship God the Almighty. Jesus warned us that there will be a great deception on the final day that even the elect may accept it (Matthew 24:23-25).
In I Timothy 4:4-5, Paul says, “For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.” We should not be refused what God has give to us and not to accept what He says “No” for our lives. In fact, God created everything that He created for His purpose.
How we need protect ourselves from deceptive words, so that we may know which things are true and are not?
1) Knowing the right way and wrong way. Although this may seem unbiblical practice, we need to learn both right and wrong ways to handle our life situations. This way, we can know what is right from wrong.
2) Follow the Spirit, not our spirits. The Bible says that the Spirit teaches and leads us into the absolute truth that we would not be aware of from the Word of God. Our own spirit can only know things what we hear from the world perspective and not from God. Our spirits can do what we desire for them to do, but the Spirit that God gave to us can access into His presence and communicate with Him.
3) Receiving deception is from Satan and not from God. Satan loves to make us headache by using other people to lie about anything that God gave to us. Jesus described him as a thief to steal, to kill, and to destroy (see John 10:10). He can use anything or anybody of this world to try to deceive us. The Bible says that he can quote from the Scripture to deceive us. But, he cannot deceive us if we put God in our lives.
God is the Light and Satan is the Dark.
4) Lastly, we need to obey and honor our God and people. If we want to have success life on earth until God would take us His home, we must respect God and people. If we help and love our people, we are actually honoring and obeying Him.
Let me ask you this question: If someone come to you and says that God is not real, would you believe him? If we are gods, there would be no Creator or no beginning point of our lives. But if we are gods, why we have sickness, freckle on our skins, and face the death bed when we would turn old? The answer: we are all human beings and fall short of the glory of God. We all have sinned and there is none of us perfect, except the Person Jesus Christ, who paid all of our sins by facing His death bed at the cross and resurrected on the third day to prove that He is the King of kings and Lord of lords over all things that He created, even us.
Choice is yours and mine alone. Whom are we going to worship? Joshua said to the people of Israel, “And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." (Joshua 24:15.)
Are you saved? Are your love ones and friends saved in the grace of God through Jesus Christ? The purpose of this study is to help you to become closer relationship with Jesus Christ. As Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14:1-3.)
If you are lukewarm in your relationship with Jesus Christ and want to know Him as your personal Savior and Lord of your life, please consider asking Him to forgive your sins and invite Him into your life. Paul says, "That if you confess with your mouth, `Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believed and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." (Romans 10:9-10.) If you have done in your private room or workplace, then you need to tell to your friends or love ones about what you have done, so they may rejoice with you and want to have that relationship with Christ in their own life. There are many occults in the world, which do not know the love of God and His great plan for those who believe in Him. As it is written in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
