Revelation | Week 3

was thinking about this is, I don't know if you guys do this at your home, but at the Bush household, we end up in some really interesting conversations. Like just goofy. Like I go, I can't believe this is a conversation we're having. It's like like just the

night before last, I wanted to watch a movie and I wanted my daughter, Sarai, my youngest, and my my son, Jayden. They were there. I go, hey, watch this movie with me. And they're like, no. And they didn't want to watch a movie with me. And I'm like, come on, watch a movie with me. No. So finally, they just refused. They didn't want to watch the movie. They want to do other stuff. I guess they're too cool for me. And oh, how they hear deceived. I'm way cooler than them but still,

they they they and and so finally, I was joking and I'm like, fine. You guys wanna watch a movie with me? You're dead to me. You know, and I was just joking around and my son, Jayden, immediately goes, well, that's okay. Theoretical mom is dead to us.

Like, that's because I was like, what? What are you talking about? And I look at at at his mom, Carrie, sitting next to me, and I go, what's going on? She's, ugh. They both came up to me earlier today and said, hey, mom. If you had $10,000,000,

you would give each one of us a million. Right? And she's like, what? Just give it to you just because you're my kid? No matter what's going on in your life or where it She goes, yeah. And and and Carrie goes, no. I wouldn't give you a million dollars. So now they're all mad at her. They don't,

theoretical mom's a bad leader. They don't like theoretical mom. So he goes, well mom, why wouldn't you give? And we're having this fun, it's like it's an argument about theoretical mom not handing him a million dollars. And I'm like, Jaden, if it's theoretical, why doesn't theoretical Jaden just have $10,000,000?

And he goes, true. And she goes, dad, theoretical Jaden would give you a million dollars. And he goes, he goes, as long as you don't share any of it with theoretical mom. Anybody else have those kind of conversations?

We, it was like, the ten minute conversation. It was like, this is the weirdest thing. But that's the things we do at the Bush household. We have these theoretical conversations, and that was a theoretical about leadership. Like, his choice on what he think would make a good mom.

And you know what, I think we kind of still have those conversations all the time. We have it on social media, we have it on every network now. It's the theoretical conversation on who should be our leaders.

Who who should lead? Who who could really lead this country? And and when you hear the conversations back and forth, I go, is there any way we can come up with a leader that everyone would back? Is there anybody out there that everyone would get behind?

Probably not in actuality we wouldn't think, but maybe theoretically. Let me let me let's play the theoretical leader game.

Think about if if you think you would vote for this president, and if he really did do this, do do you think he would definitely get reelected? It'd be, say you get a a president out there that can that can say, a, one, make the economy just just really crank, but at the same time, enact environmental protections

that that that safeguard our environment. If you can put both of those together, and not just say it, actually do it. That would start to bring some people together, wouldn't it? What about if at the same time he's doing that, he can increase he can make he can make unemployment drop to almost nothing,

while at the same time investing heavily in infrastructure. Building up roads, making our our our highway system, and the infrastructure that's crumbling now become the the the talk of the world. He could be world renowned. You put those two together, now you're starting to say, hey, this guy's getting somewhere.

What if what if he can what if he can both make science and technology world renowned? You're leading the nation in that, but by at the same time investing in in in health reforms that make people healthier, and and and and choices in that.

And then maybe last but not least, he can he can invest in keeping the military strong, keeping the border safe, but at the same time, getting your education system to where it is the best in the world, especially your universities. Now, if if there was a president that didn't just promise that but produced that,

would you vote for him? How many would vote for him? Good. A lot of you a lot of you are like, I know this guy. There's a catch to what he's saying. I don't trust him. Well, if you raised your hand, you just voted for Adolf Hitler. He did every one of those in Germany in the nineteen thirties.

Every one of those. He took Germany, which was in a shambles, rapid inflation after World War one, it was a mess, and he turned it around in a short period of time and did all of those. So theoretically, he's the greatest leader we've had. The problem is he did all those good things, but he wasn't good, was he?

And all those good things ended up in destruction, and not good. Even for the people that had the good things, they all ended up destroyed. Why? Because he was an egomaniacal, narcissistic, ruler who wanted to dominate the world, set up a master race, and wipe out an entire race of of people.

So you add that to the list, and all of a sudden, all that good, he may have done good, but he wasn't good. That's kind of the brunt of where we're at today in the book of Revelation.

We've been going through this book, if you're if you're new here, we're only jumping through four four snapshots in the book to try to get a get a handle on on what the last book of the Bible's about, and really, what does it mean to us.

Because this last of the Bible, focuses on the end times, The last seven years basically,

is the thrust of most of the book of of human history. Of God bringing everything to an end, and it has some darkness, some judgment of God, evil running rampant, because it's being judged, and and and what we gotta understand is on the other side is hope. Because it ends with victory.

And so why do we need to know it? The big idea of this whole series every week has simply been this. If I know what's happening next, it should impact what I do now. So we've been taking these snapshots, explaining them a little bit, and then saying, so what?

Why should the church, why should I, as a follower who wants to know the word of God, why do I need to know this? How is it gonna impact me now? What does it mean for me? And today, we're looking at a leader like Hitler. Only imagine a Hitler who was better and actually more successful.

He actually does end up ruling the world. And he's known in this last book of the Bible as the Antichrist or the Beast.

The Beast. And we're gonna read about him and take it apart. We're in Revelation 13 is what we're gonna go through here in a minute. And and but I just gotta warn you as we go in. Buckle up, keep your hands and feet in the car at all times

because I gotta move quick, and we are gonna walk through about a semester worth of seminary in fifteen minutes. That means you're getting a week a minute, okay? And so

some of the stuff I'm gonna say, I'm gonna do like math classes, when you took a test, they said you have to show all your work on how you got to that answer.

I'm violating that. I'm not showing you all the work of how I got to the answer today. Hopefully that will encourage you, if you're intrigued by some of the things I say, to go back and study on your own. Small groups, you can take this apart and and and look at it some more on your own. So, I'm just gonna fly through some of the stuff. Okay? So, just hold on. Hold on to your your your whatever.

You can throw the cat out the window. I don't care about that but.

So Revelation 13, it's during what's happening here is is is we talked about this whole great tribulations. Last seven years, it's in two halves. The first three and a half, not as bad. The last three and a half, watch out.

And and what's happening is that this entire seven years is divided, really outlined from chapter six to chapter 19 of Revelation, is is really all put together around three waves of judgments that God

pours out. First are the seal judgments. These seals are broken. Then there's these trumpets that are blown. There's seven of those. And then the last most brutal is these bowls. Seven bowls of wrath. It's all symbolic in here, but there's these things. What's happening here is it then jumps in and out of time and space and talks about here's what's going on on Earth. This chapter is happening

during the end of the trumpets, right before it gets really bad. This Antichrist,

really the part we're gonna read is is what happens as he goes into that last three and a half years. The first three and a half years, he's that that, one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, the first seals that were broke, he was the one that rides in on the white horse. Looks like the hero. The first three and half years

is good. It's that list of Hitler. He does these good things and all these things, and he consolidates power by riding into chaos and and looking strong. Well, now this last three and a half years, chapter 12, go back and read it. Satan gets tossed out of heaven for the last time because he apparently has been able to go before God. He's called the accuser, always ripping on stuff, but God finally says, we're almost done here, buddy. Michael,

the archangel, why don't you and the boys show them the door?

And I it's the one one I really like the older translations of the Bible when it says there was a war between Michael and the angels and the demons, and it simply just says, and there was no longer a place found for Satan. Meaning, he just got tossed. So now he's angry. So he goes and rises up and inhabits this antichrist, this world leaders we're gonna see, and and and it gets slowly

more brutal. There's the good, but you find out he's not good. And and and so here we go. We're into that. So we're starting off. Let's read this. Lot of imagery and that's why I'm not gonna show all my work and you're gonna be yeah. Here we go. Verse one of chapter 13 says, then I saw a beast rising up out of the sea.

It had seven heads and 10 horns, with 10 crowns on its horns, and written on each head were the names that blasphemed God. This beast looked like a leopard, but had the feet of the bear and the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave the beast his own power and throne and great authority.

So there you have, doesn't that completely make sense? Oh, I get it now. Now this is like, you're talking about horns and beasts and seven heads and lions and leopards and dragons and lions and tigers and bears, oh my. It's not as confusing as you sound, as it sounds.

Because there's some things we know in there from the culture and from the old testament, and

first of all, like the the beast riding out. The beast is a man. He's a leader. And riding out of the sea, any kind of sea monster to the Israelites, they would have known the the original here is this. It it it it denotes coming out of the sea and standing on the sand of the shore is a worldly system.

So this is describing a leader that's gonna rise up and lead a worldly political and military system that will have seven heads and 10 horns. The heads is means leadership, seven means complete, he's gonna have world dominion, and the 10 horns means ultimate military power in the world. Make sense?

The part about the leopards and the bear, that is a direct reference to a prophecy in the book of Daniel. Daniel chapter seven, go read it. Don't have time to get into it, but it's literally, it's it's a prophecy about the the Babylon, Medo Persia, the the Greek, Macedonia, and the Roman Empires, and basically,

Daniel predicted those coming, and by mentioning this guy's gonna have the head, the feet, and all that it is, he's gonna have all of the greatest abilities of all of those empires. So bottom line, what this is saying is there's gonna come a leader into this chaos that's gonna consolidate all worldly power,

all military power, and he will rule the empire like no empire that's ever existed. It's gonna be a worldwide thing. Make sense? That's what it's saying.

And then it goes further. So not only this guy, and he rode in on the white horse, remember? He does this by by bringing peace to Israel with his with the the people that are against. You know, everyone's tried to get Israel to be at peace in the Middle East. This guy's gonna accomplish that. He's gonna be this man of peace. He's gonna bring stability into chaos. He's gonna do things that are good, and

the Jews are gonna see this as a heroic guy. And the world's gonna see this as a hero. But he goes not just from a leader that's a hero, is is look what happens next. In verse three it says, I saw that one of the heads of the beast seemed wounded beyond recovery, but the fatal wound was healed,

and the whole world marveled at this miracle and gave allegiance to the beast. So apparently, what it's saying is, it looks or he really does, he dies and then comes back. So there's a death and a resurrection. Who is this guy starting to try to look like? Yeah. Jesus. He's empowered by the dragon, which is Satan.

What you're seeing here is is is is the bigger tactic. What I want us to look for is I just kind of run through this quick is, what is the tactic and strategy of the devil? What is he trying to do here? And the one thing you gotta understand is his ultimate goal, Satan wants God's job.

He wants to rule the world. He wants to be worshipped. That's what he wants. And so, he's a copycat. He's a copycatter.

So he copies God. It's like that person that has a weird fixation of someone who's like, I want to be them. I want to replace them, but I'm going to act just like try to act like them, but they can't stop being who they are. And and so he since God is the trinity, triune, father, son, and holy spirit, guess what he's going to do?

Build a band, and it's gonna be fake father, the Satan, dragon. Now he's got his fake antichrist son, and this son dies and is resurrected, and in a minute, he's gonna get the whole band together because we're gonna see the fake Holy Spirit.

And he creates a false trinity, but here's what you're gonna see. The real trinity is selfless. The real trinity came and sacrificed himself. Jesus died to save us.

Antichrist kills to save himself. He's got it wrong. Now, this gets freaky, so hang in there kids. It doesn't work out well in the end for him. Okay? He doesn't win.

Alright? That's that's that's good to know. But so it says that he dies and comes back, and then look what everybody does. Verse four. They worshipped the dragon for giving the beast such power, and they also worshipped the beast. Who is as great as the beast, they exclaimed. Who is able to fight against him?

Ain't that interesting? He comes in and does some good, then it looks like he dies and comes back, and so it goes from just being the guy that brings good to he's God. And now they're worshiping him. You think that's ridiculous? You you don't have eyes on watch. People hero people practice they worship

people that have done less than what this guy's gonna do.

And and so now they've started to worship him. So they're worshiping him because he's the hero. He did all these good things, and he died and came back. He's great, but but it starts to it starts to get narrower in in in what's happening as he consolidates power. Because if you look skip down to verse seven and eight, it says, and the beast was allowed to wage war against God's holy people and to conquer them. And he was given authority to rule over every tribe and people and language and nation.

And all the people who belong to this world worshiped the beast. So everyone who didn't know Jesus at this moment is worshiping the beast. They are the ones whose names were not written in the book of life before the world was made. The book that belongs to the lamb who was slaughtered, meaning everyone who's gonna put their faith in Jesus. These are people that are refusing.

And so now they start worshiping the beast, and it says he gives them full dominion. That's the part I said about all political military power. He has now established a one world government. So this guy's gonna be so successful looking heroic

that the entire world's going agree that it's one government and he's the leader.

Isn't that funny? How they will not only let be in charge, but follow and worship a leader who is basically empowered by Satan. That seems ridiculous. I would fight that. Wouldn't it's like, really? Look at our culture today. We will overlook leaders' downsides, left and right, as long as they give me the upsides I want.

We will check out on the leaders downsides as long as I get my list of upsides. I'll I'll forget the downsides. We are poised and set up as people to fall for this.

Happens all the time. Matter of fact, Satan is constantly trying to do this anyways. He doesn't know when this time's gonna come. He doesn't know it any more than we do. You realize the reason this guy rises to power is because Satan is constantly trying to do this. He's constantly trying to empower. It's the world system. Anything other than God is the system out of the sea, and Satan is the prince of that. He drives that, and it's a false sense of worship. He wants us to worship something other than God. He ultimately wants to worship, and he will do this over and over and over again, And the only reason this finally goes further is because it says in the end times that God removes the restrainer.

The Bible says very clearly the restrainer is the Holy Spirit.

And and you think our world's bad now. God allows free will. He allows evil to happen. But he still has a point where he goes, it's going no further than this. Satan cannot run amok. Evil cannot go as far as it wants to go. This world is messed up as it is. This is the world that's being held back. And finally,

he starts to succeed at what he always wanted to do, because the Holy Spirit's taken away. Boom. Hitler conquers the world. And they start to worship him. And then if you look at verse 11, the the

fake Holy Spirit shows up. Says, then I saw another beast come out of the earth. He had two horns like those of a lamb, but he spoke with the voice of the dragon. So meaning he didn't have any actual military or political power, he spoke of just like the Holy Spirit goes around and

speaks of the Father, speaks of the Son.

He exercised all the authority of the first beast, and he required all the earth and his people to worship the first beast whose fatal wound had been healed. He did astounding miracles, even making fire flash down to the earth from the sky while everyone was watching. He's copying some of the miracles that God had done. And with all the miracles he was allowed to perform on behalf of the first beast, he deceived all the people who belonged to this world.

So now you have this false prophet who's a copycat Holy Spirit, whose job is to get you to worship anything other than Jesus. And really, he wants you to worship the beast, which is what Satan wanted all along. But you realize why people are being fooled. He's brought good. He brought peace.

Everything we argue about over politics and what would make our society better, this guy brought.

And they follow him. And they worship him.

But then something happens. They're following him because look at the good. Look at the freedom. Look at this, but it's getting narrower

because because Satan's actually more like a cornered animal. He knows he's running out of time, and he can't help. He just wants the worship for himself. So if you look down at the second half of verse 14, it says, he

ordered the this false prophet, the fake Holy Spirit, orders the people to make a great statue of the first beast who was fatally wounded and then came back to life. He was then permitted to give life to the statue so that it could speak.

Then the statue of the beast commanded that anyone refusing to worship it must die. So now he makes a statue,

and and it's empowered to talk and move. Now, there was a time when you read that that would sound supernatural. It might still be supernatural, which would be freaky, but to me when I see her a statue that can move and talk, think you know, Master Luke, wait up for me.

You know, it's like C3PO. It could be a robot, a droid or something. It could be a hologram, or it literally could be some supernatural

kind of freaky thing where this statue starts talking, you know. And and but here's the thing you understand about this. We know from other scripture stuff, this is what the scripture calls the abomination of desolation. That's what the Jews call it. Because we know that at this point, he's made peace with Israel. They've rebuilt their temple, and and if they've rebuilt their temple, this guy brought peace. They now have the temple back. They have the land. They have peace, and this guy dies and comes back to life. Who do you think the Jews think he is?

He thinks he's the Messiah. See, Jesus wasn't the Messiah. This guy is. But then they know about the abomination of desolation. To put a graven image

and expect it to be worshipped, God says, I'm God, there's no other God, no graven image. You don't do it. This statue gets put in the temple. What do you think Jews would then realize at that moment? We've made a horrible mistake, and I think that's why it talks about a 144,000 sealed evangelists

that stay behind their and they are Christian Jews who are preaching the gospel, and if you need a 144,000 of them to preach the gospel to Jews, how many Jews do you think are turning to Jesus at this moment? I think millions,

and it's consistent with the whole story of the word of God. The entire story of the word of God is God pursuing us, his passionate pursuit of us, and and he started by by calling out a people, his his covenant promised people Israel. He always intended to bring a matter of fact, Israel's called the woman in the book of Revelation that brought forth the man who is Jesus,

and it says Israel is their Jesus was a Jew. He came through Israel. That's where the Messiah who he always meant to die for the sins of the world to to save everyone, but he used this covenant relationship with these people called Israel, and God has always kept his covenant to them specifically too,

and all through the Old Testament, the people of Israel turn from him and follow false gods and anti Christs and get off. Then they get into such a horrible situation, they realize how bad it is, and they cry out, and there's always a remnant

that gets saved. It doesn't mean they automatically, it's because you're a Jew, you're saved. It's a remnant. Always gets rescued by God. I believe the last book of the Bible is why we get confused, though, like a lot of what's going on here doesn't have anything to do with us. It has to do with God finishing up time, pouring out wrath upon an unbelieving world, giving him one last chance, judging sin, judging death, bringing new life, and call and closing up shop and calling Israel back home. He's doing one more rescue of his promised people, and I believe in this moment, a remnant of the millions is gonna turn to Jesus.

And that's what causes the Antichrist to do the next thing. It's frustrating to him. He's ruling the world. Everyone's supposed to worship him, and now you got people turning to Jesus despite he finally gets what he wants.

And so what you have happened next is verse 16. He required everyone small and great, rich and poor, free and slave to be given a mark on the right hand or on the forehead,

and no one could buy or sell anything without that mark, which was either the name of the beast or the number representing his name. Wisdom is needed here. Let the one with understanding solve the meaning of the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. His number is six six six. So he gets so bad.

What looked like I solved your problems and brought great freedom

comes down into you've willingly worshipped me because of the good. Now it becomes no matter what happens, you must worship me or die, And just to make sure, if you don't take this mark, which you know you're doing and taking allegiance to me, you can't by yourself, so you're gonna starve to death or you're out.

Ain't that interesting how it gets narrower and narrower? What looked like so awesome ended up enslaving and killing? It's this thing, this mark of the beast that everyone's like, oh, you know, and we try to figure out what does it mean? What is it talking about? What's going on? Well, know what? We have figured it out,

And theologians have come together and we know what the mark of the beast looks like. We actually know it and we have a picture of it. I wanna show it to you right here.

But it's even better. We have a composite sketch of what we know the the antichrist to look like and we have that picture here.

Alright, alright. Why did I just do that? Because I could? No. This is intense and can be a little bit overwhelming. So I was like, this is our moment. Let's just let's take a breath, refocus, act, and Jesus wins.

And I I reason I decided to add a little brevity there before we transition is this. When I was explaining where I was going to my wife this week, she says, now just remind me again that if I already believe in Jesus, I don't have to go through any of this. Right? And I know that it freaks us out, so that was just a moment to joke around, but here's the deal with the mark of the beast.

First of all, first of all, let me encourage you, if you are one of those Christians, don't be that Christian that's the crazy uncle that no one likes. Meaning,

what does this mark mean? It used to sound ridiculous. How could you not buy or sell without a mark? We now have the ability. It could be a chip. You could put a microchip in your forehead or your hand, and then all money's controlled, bitcoin, all this stuff, like there's no actually really transactions.

That could actually happen, where you can't do anything. So what some of you crazy uncle Christians are gonna do is you're gonna send articles out there saying, and that's why we have to reject all chip technology, and we can't do it. And and when you do that, you act really weird, and you freak people out, and and and you're just a half a step away from a sandwich board standing on the side of a street. That's who you are, and and here's why.

As if the technology is really the problem. The problem is not the technology. The problem is who's using it and what it's for. And you're not gonna stop this from happening by the church fighting. Our job is not to prevent this from happening.

We want the 10 time to come. We want Jesus to come back, judge sin, set up the new kingdom, and once and for all, in death, dying, suffering, and all of that. We want that to happen. And second of all, you're not gonna accidentally take the mark of the beast if you were here in the first place.

It's very clear that you are accepting worship of this beast and the anti Christ in exchange for this. So you're not gonna wake up one day and go, oh no, I drank too much at Saint Patty's party last night, and now I've got the mark of the beast. That's not how it works. This is why I don't think it's so specific.

Number one conjecture on what that wisdom is you need to figure out the mark of the beast, is gonna sound very underwhelming. It's not figure out, oh, it's numerology. The numbers are this and it adds up to Barack Obama. Or or or Donald Trump.

Or or you know, or or or Adam Sandler, because his movies have got to come from hell. They're terrible. You know, whatever. That's not what it means. Most likely, if you want my opinion,

probably doesn't matter, but opinion from from the scholars and people I trust and when I dig in, The number six all through the scriptures is known as the number of man. That's why it says it's a number of a man. It means it's not a specific, it's man's number.

And and numbers are significant in the Bible. Six is the number of man because six is incompleteness. Seven is the number for God. It means complete and total. So so six means it's a number of a man. Fallen and broken without God is six. You repeat a number anything three times in scripture that means complete.

So if you say holy holy holy is the Lord God Almighty and all the angels, holy holy means infinite. It means when you say it three times, it's infinite. So to say six six six, what he's saying, figure this out, it means this man who comes as the Antichrist is gonna be the highest level of complete,

dominant leader, kind of most effective man that any human being can be apart from God. It's all saying is it's man's and the world system's best attempt, but it fails because it's incomplete. That's the point. If he wanted to tell you as a person, there's prophecies that he calls out specific names

hundreds of years before that name even really existed. If God wanted to tell us a name, it would say the name. So so it's just it's more or less saying, hey, this is a mark that determines you are giving an allegiance and worship to the world's best attempt at being good for you.

But the underlying problem is it's not really good. It's like a Hitler story. Do's good does good things, but it's really ultimately deceptive because it's not good in the end. So the Bible says there's a way that seems right to man, but in the end it leads to death. So if that's true, then why do I need to know this?

What's the so what? I told you, watch Satan's tactics because these tactics are always happening right now. It's the world's way of thinking, and it can sink into our way of thinking even if I am a Jesus follower.

I can get deceived now. Satan is always trying to take over the world, always trying to do this stuff, and what it reminds me of is because he has this pattern of he comes with good, and then slowly it narrows down, like I said. And it's interesting. Jesus said a parable about this. He has a story. He goes he talked about two roads. One leading to life, one leading to destruction. And what did he say about the road that leads to destruction? It is

wide. What do you say about the road that leads to life? Narrow. Let me ask you a question, those of you that know that and have heard that story. How many of you think that that parable is solely just talking about quantity? That the wide road is wide because there's so many more people on it than the narrow road.

That's not what it's talking about. Did you know that?

It's talking about the system of how it works. It's the there's a way that seems right. It's wide. It's wide open. It looks like it promises so much. It promises this much. It promises freedom. It promises the way Everything you wanted. It solves your problems right now. It feels good. It looks right. But here's the problem. That road is a funnel.

And that's exactly what happens in the story. Starts off white horse, solving problems. Good. And then it gets narrower and narrower, till you realize, no. All of this freedom and problem and good I gave you was really intended to bring you to one thing. Worship the beast or die. And it narrows down and narrows it down, where all you have is one choice left.

Worship or death.

And it's confining, it's narrow. That's the road that leads to destruction. That's the road we follow. That's the road that seems right to man. That's the worldly way of thinking, and we can do that even as church people. Let give me you the most incredible example of how this works. What I mean by this is think about someone who starts using drugs recreationally. I don't know why they call it recreational,

because usually when you do drugs, just to use one example, this is an extreme that we all get. It usually happens at a party somewhere, you either wanna fit in, be cool, or it just relaxes you, it'll make the party more fun, or you came there really stressed out about life. My job is a mess, my relationships are a mess, and then you do it that one time, you're like, wow, I got a high? That made it more fun. I forgot about my problems. And you start doing it a little bit more because you go, you know what that did? That took the edge off. That allowed me to handle those pressures and it made me just feel so good. So upfront you start because look at how free I am. And everyone who says drugs are bad, you're stupid. This is actually helping

me. But what happens? It starts closing in on you. It starts getting narrower and narrower, because the problem with these false gods, and these false ways of going after things, is it takes more and more to get less and less. So you get more and more consumed, more and more consumed. All of sudden,

helped you take the edge off for your job or your relationships pushes you over the edge. You lose the job. You start losing the relationship. It starts falling apart, and in the end, what are you enslaved? You are worshiping one thing. How to get my next hit. How to get that next high, and you will rob from the people that you love. You will steal. You'll do whatever it takes, and you will do anything you can because you are now narrowed down to where you have one thing. I have to worship the high.

Make sense? That is what the tactic of the enemy, that's what he's doing right here. And ultimately, what it is, is he's doing the same thing he did in the Garden Of Eden to get Adam and Eve to fall. When he came to them and they said, no, we're not allowed to eat this fruit. God had let him eat anything else.

There was one restriction. Don't eat this one. See, he goes, no, no, that's not true. You're not really gonna die. He twists the truth and he tells them, basically, you're gonna be more like God. So what he gets them to believe is God is holding out some good on you.

There is a better good that God's not given you. So realize the sin wasn't just grabbing the fruit. The lie they bought in their heart that the result was grabbing the fruit was the idea that there is good that's apart from God. And basically, in doing that, God is not

the definer of good anymore. My relationship with God is not where all good flows from. God is just the one that does good and has some good, but there's actually good out there that maybe he's holding out on me, and so what becomes my goal at that point? Is my goal God anymore, or is my goal the good?

This greater good. When they took that, they didn't think there. They thought there is good. I can get good apart from God. So their goal didn't become relationship with God anymore. Their goal became the good.

That's exactly what Satan is doing here. So here is the so what. Why we need to know this? What it means for us right now is simply this statement. If your goal is good, you're gonna miss God.

If your goal is good in life, if your goal for being in church, for coming here, for whatever you do in your life, if your ultimate goal is just good, you're gonna miss God. Now some of you are looking at me weird like, that just sounds like I should run, he's the anti Christ.

He's he's he's saying weird things. Did you just say God's not good or we shouldn't do good? That's not what it says. I just said if the goal is good, you're gonna miss God. That's how the enemy deceives. Is he makes the goal good. And if you put good before God, eventually you're gonna have no good and no God.

That's how Hitler rose to power. That's how this Antichrist rose to power. That's what we fall for all the time.

So what do I mean by what should be the goal? The goal should be God. And so if you look on this side here, I got a little chart here. The goal is God is the goal. Having an abiding relationship with my creator through Jesus Christ. And when I pursue that, when he pursues me,

good should result from that. When God is the goal, good becomes the result. When good is the goal, not the same. So so God should be the goal. So then good that I do is comes from God, and when it comes from God, good comes from His eternal attributes of being God. His good is absolute.

It's eternal. He doesn't change. It's the same, and is ultimately from Him, and when that happens, the good I do ultimately comes from the same good of the real Trinity. The real Trinity is selfless, not selfish.

And so the good I do flows out of that selfless pursuit that I know God, and I choose as a result of a relationship with God, I step out in good. Make sense? What happens if I put good as the goal? I don't start with God. I start with good. I end up good comes from me or self or the collective self, culture,

which I'm not making this up guys. I am 1000% right and you have the burden of proof proving me wrong, and all I gotta do is quote history. Just quote the last few years. Good that comes from self and our culture is temporary. Another word for it is relative.

It changes. It goes all over the place. One generation, something that's good, the next generation, that's bad. Now, something that was bad there is now good. It always flows and changes. Good is all over the place. It's temporary. It's it's it's it's relative.

And you know what I'm saying now? Some of you like, amen, preacher brother. Our world's going to hell in a handbasket. Straight down. I don't know. It's not straight down because I said there's some good things in there and the problem is it's not that it's straight down. It's that it's all over the place. There are things today that we consider good that the eternal attributes of God and who He is would say this isn't good,

and we've made some things that God says is good, bad, good, but you know, we've actually went the other way on some things. There's some things that fifty years ago, people just accepted as normal, that from the eternal attributes of God, that is bad, and we've still, we've gotten to that conclusion, this is bad. So some of the things we declare good now, that used to not be, are okay. Does that make sense? It's just the problem is there's no consistency. It's temporary. It's all over the place. And you know why? Because when you do it that way,

when you do it that way, your good just gets really.

Because there's no basis for it. And so all the time when we do that, you know what good turns into? Good for me, Good for right now. It's always anchored in just the current. It's not anchored in the eternal.

So even though at the end of the day, whichever way you go, your actual action might look exactly the same. The problem is the fluidity of the one side, because here's what happens. When I start with good,

miss God. Same thing Adam and Eve. Same thing the antichrist trick people in here is, it comes from me or the collective self. It's very temporary relative, and then that ends up forming my God. Instead of being from my God, it ends up forming my God. I change the view of God based on what I think is good. In other words,

if I make good the goal, my good eventually becomes my God. Make sense? This is pretty this is a little bit deeper now. Diving

into the deep end of the theological and philosophical pool, but you gotta think deeper on this because this is the meat and potatoes of what's gonna go wrong in our lives, in our culture, in our churches. Because this is the tactic of the enemy. So what happens when I go down this road

is you get a bunch of people that even come to church. The Bible talks about great apostasies even amongst believer, false teachings, is you end up with a church of people. We end up with people that say, I like Jesus. I want this God thing, but we start to picture what we think He should be like. And if it doesn't jive with this, if we take the eternal absolute word of God and try to say this reveals who God is, He's the one that defines good.

He defines good. See, when you take it the other way, you think God is God because He just does good better than the rest of us. But you automatically take good out there, and you think good is this list of this is what's good, and we follow God because He does the list the best.

Well, here's the problem. If you don't think that list, if God's word calls you to do something that you don't think fits that list of good, you don't wanna follow God. Well, he got that one wrong. So you've created this list of good that actually transcends and is higher than God,

and you forget that God is not God because there's this list of good, and He does the list perfectly. The reason God is good is God defines good. God doesn't have a list, God is the list. He can't not be the list. So if you have a list that says that doesn't jive with who God says he is, that's the problem.

But now, you'll sit here and go, well, I like this Jesus thing, I like this God thing, but I wouldn't follow that part. You know why? Because it's not good for you. Does that make sense? It doesn't fit your list. So we end up falling for what it says.

Better hurry, might be your last chance.

It's why people say I'm not gonna I would never follow a God that expects me to bum bum bum. Well, when you say that, who became the authority of good? You did. Who do you sound like? The devil in the garden? The Antichrist? You're deceived. See here here here's the deal. Wide leads to destruction,

but he says narrow leads to life in that parable. If the way that seems right and seems to promise so much freedom but ultimately enslaves and destroys, if that's the funnel, God's the megaphone. It's the other way. It starts narrow and it seems, that just seems hard. That seems not free.

That seems confining to listen to God. That seems hard, but if you do, it opens up to freedom. Because when you listen and follow God and it comes from God, not for Him, not to form Him, but just from Him, it becomes a megaphone of your life declaring the freedom and love of Jesus.

In other words, there's there's a parallel. I in Israel last month. A lot of places you go, they're not sure if what happened happened exactly or exactly, but there is one place they know exact,

Capernaum by the sea. It's where Peter and Andrew and James and them were called by Jesus to follow him, and we know because right by Capernaum, there's only one place. This is it's not a really big area. This is where their boats would have been. So we know Jesus walked right up to this area about as wide as this stage, and would have called them to say, hey, what did he say? Cast down your nets, drop your nets, and follow me. Right?

You know what that meant? Upfront, he didn't say, follow me for a while, make sure it sounds good, listen to me or whatever, then eventually you might realize or see. The first thing he says is throw down your nets. Do you understand that a net to a fisherman at this time was the most valuable thing they possessed?

It was the most expensive thing they owned. It was the most protected thing they had. They guarded it. They worked on it. They spent more time working on their nets than they actually did fishing,

because they had to have these nets. They were critical. Critical for what? They had no job without it. They had no income. They fed their families. It drove the economy. So then Jesus walked right up to them and said, hey, you know what I need you to do?

Put that down and come with me. He basically would be the same as coming to you and go, quit your job, do this, throw it all aside. Everything that in your world, in the world's way of thinking, it is everything that sustains you and literally keeps you alive, and in many ways gives you your identity, your job.

And he says, you gotta be willing to drop that and come with me. That's the first thing he said. What does that look like? Very narrow. But what did it lead to for them? Freedom. Love. Everything we were built to crave. That's what it means.

That's what we gotta listen because if we make good the goal, and you know, we do that a lot. A lot of us are sitting here. You gotta ask yourself this question, what is my goal? What is my real goal? Why am I here? Is your goal just good? You know what? There's a couple good tests for that,

especially if you're a parent. How do you parent?

Say you're a Christian, you're a parent, you come to church here, okay. What do you show your kids by what you make important? Yeah, I want you to know the love of Jesus,

and we should make that an important part of what he Jesus says, hey, you need to be the body, you need to be together worshiping and serving and in community and growing because the key is if good comes from God, it should flow from a relationship. That's why I need to worship him. That's why I need to be in his word. That's why I need to know it. That's why I need fellowship where we are meant to to be together.

And if I don't understand that, if I don't do those things, I won't have that power that flows out of me when I do good. I'll just be forcing it. And so, well, look at how you parent. Do you pair your kids like, hey, you know what? Yeah, we should do these good things. We might be involved, uh-oh, sports. Alright, we'll check out of church for eight weeks.

If your kid's involved in community and they actually enjoy it, how many of your parents go, well they got in trouble, so I'm not letting them go to youth group. Because it's fun. Do you push academics more than you push, have you spent time with your Lord today? Think about it. What are you accidentally teaching your kid?

Are you using God to just be another thing to encourage him to be good? Is that just one of the things on the list? Or do you want your kids to know the absolute unbelievable love of Jesus and to pursue Him with reckless abandon.

But you know what, if you teach your kids to go after good, it's usually because that's what you're doing. Heard a phrase once, it said, the father tells the son, watch your those steps you take. Watch where your footsteps go. And the son goes, you watch yours because I'm walking in yours.

So I ask him, what is your goal? And I'm gonna close. I don't like closing this way. I'm sorry, but I'm gonna close with a throat punch on this question because I think it lands the point really well. First, think about people if you serve in church. I'm gonna talk to those who are serving because it applies to you too.

Why do you serve? Is it because it's just it feels good? I feel guilty, but or I feel good when I do it? It makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something, makes me feel like I'm a part of something. Now like I said, did I say that's necessarily wrong? It's not wrong, but that's not the goal. Or do I serve as a natural

byproduct of knowing that Jesus gave everything for me, and now he's called me to be a part of the body? Says over and over in scripture that I'm a part of the body, a necessary part, and I should serve, but am I doing that because I know how much he loves me, or is it just because Bill guilts me into it, or because I or

because I just it feels good and it works for me. It's good for me. Because here's my challenge to everyone that's serving, because I want you to prove that I'm not just trying to make a public service announcement to get people to serve. If you're not serving, if your service doesn't come from your relationship with God,

once it doesn't feel good for you, you'll stop doing it. Once life gets too busy,

once things get too worked up. So you could say, well, I'm serving, you should talk to the people not serving. But you know the turnover of people, you go in, you go out, you go out, it's usually because you have the good focus, not God focus. So as long as it's good, you'll do it. When it doesn't work out good for you, doesn't work into your schedule, you'll

walk out. And you'll be in, out, in, out. And I want the best for you. I don't want service to be something that destroys you. I want it to be something that you just find your calling and experience the love of God. Does that mean it's always easy? No. Jesus said, take up your cross.

But that's where our good should flow from who God is. Now does that mean quit if you don't fit? No. It means change your attitude.

It means start going. It means get into the word. It's why we push you who are serving. Why aren't you get into community, like what do you expect? I'm already serving. Now you want me getting yes. Because that's the fuel that empowers the service.

But I have to it's too busy, I'm gonna work to It looks like this guys, it really does. But every excuse is actually this. So even if you're serving and you're living this life, eventually you're not. So that's your little throat punch to ponder, I just want the best for you.

But those of you, now if you're not a Christian, you're new to church, not talking to you, just listen. Not talking to you yet. But if you are a Christian, you profess Jesus, and you say this is your church, and you don't serve, why not? Why not? Here's the huge throat punch for you.

The Bible says really clearly, if you are pursuing the heart of God and following him, you're willing to cast the nets aside to go where He wants you to go. And it is absolute clear that for a church to do what God wants it to do, all the body parts need to be doing their job.

And I will take a big risk of offending you to no end. And some of you, and I know, some of you men are gonna get ticked at me right now. I am willing to let you get ticked at me. I'm hoping you'll listen because I believe it is this. You're mad because I seemed like I'm confining you. I'm trying to get you freedom,

but I guarantee any of you that's a Christian that calls this church your home that doesn't serve, every reason you have for not serving is this. Every reason you have is this. There is a way for you to serve if God called you to follow him and called you to this church. I absolutely guarantee it.

Might be creative, might be different than you think, but there's a way. And what you have to ask yourself is, what's my reasoning for not doing it? And I'm willing to just guarantee it is some form of it's not good for me.

Let's pray. Father God, I just thank you Lord that you do love us, and Lord I hope in these tough moments, this is tough on me. Lord, you've called me to get up and do this moment. This is one of those moments that doesn't feel freeing, doesn't feel good for me to have to challenge people.

I'd rather us laugh and make fun of the seahawks and cats, Lord, but

but Lord, you want the best for us. And Lord, oftentimes what you challenge us to do with our time, with our money, what we do with our children, how we parent, and how we do our job. So many times what you ask us to do through your word comes from the very nature of who you are. But

to us on our limited view, when we don't pursue, we don't know your love, it seems so narrow, so confining, but it's the only way that leads to the open open fields of the glory of your love and your grace.

So Lord, I I pray that I I've been challenged with the same question I've asked us all to to think about. What's our goal?

Is the goal just a good life for me and my own? Or is it the God life of knowing you? So what I pray that each one of us would ask that question and be willing to surrender and cast our nets aside and follow you. I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus, amen.