The following is a pre-recorded version of CORE Christianity.
We'll be back live again on Monday. What is the greatest sin of the Church in America today? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Well, hi, I'm Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. This is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. Here's our phone number. It's 833-THE-CORE.
That's 1-833-843-2673. You can also post your question on our Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter account, and you can feel free to email us any questions at questionsatcorechristianity.com. First up today, let's go to Dan calling in from Indiana. Dan, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Yes, sir. There is a verse in the Old Testament, I think it's in Amos, that says something like, God does nothing except he reveals it first to his servants the prophets.
Okay. And then, there's another verse in the New Testament, I think it's 1 Corinthians 14, chapter 14, verse 2, that says, seek he provolently the gifts, but especially seek the gifts of the Spirit, which is prophecy, especially seek prophecy. Now, backtracking just a bit, I don't know if you paid any attention to the last election or not, the presidential election, but all the big shop prophets here that I ever heard of said, don't worry a thing about this election. And I don't know, there were maybe 200 such prophets that predicted that Donald Trump was going to be the next president. Well, Donald did not win the next presidency. And not only that, it must be a case where either the prophets didn't say anything, the real prophets, which my question is, is there a real prophet today in the church?
Dan, thank you for that question. I did see a number of people, popular televangelists and others, who were claiming to speak on God's behalf as prophets, declaring things like, we know who's going to win this election, so on and so forth, and prophesying in that way. And then, obviously, when their prophecies didn't come true, many of them sort of backtracked or made excuses for why things ended up going the way that they did.
Let me just say this. And what does this tell us? Avoid those quote-unquote prophets. Yes, Amos chapter three does talk about God revealing his will through the prophets, but we need to understand where we are in the history of redemption. We don't have prophets like Jeremiah and Ezekiel walking around the church today.
Why is that? It's because those prophets were annexed to the theocracy in Israel. They were a part of the old covenant system, the old covenant economy. The prophets, in particular, they prosecuted the terms of the old covenant. When the kings in Israel would sin against God's covenant, turning away from the Lord, engaging in idolatry, God would raise up these prophets to prosecute the terms of his covenant, to go to the kings and to say, look, if you don't turn, if you don't stop, the covenant curses are going to come upon you. And of course, these prophets also foretold the coming of the Messiah, looking forward to Jesus, the Messiah, who is the ultimate prophet, we learn in Hebrews chapter one versus one and following. And so we shouldn't be looking for another Jeremiah or Ezekiel today. And anyone who claims to have the office of prophet like those men just doesn't understand the Bible and doesn't understand where we are in the history of redemption.
And my concern is you have people that will make that claim for themselves. They'll say, I'm speaking on God's behalf, and then they'll do silly things like what we saw happening there and lead people astray and confuse people. We need to get back to faithful Bible teaching, brothers and sisters. We need to get back to the word, the core doctrines of the Christian faith. We don't need new prophets. We just need better pastors. That's what we need in the church today. And so you ask the question, you know, where are the prophets today? Well, the ultimate prophet is Jesus Christ, and he reveals to us by his word and spirit, the will of God for our salvation. And we hear his voice speaking to us today through the faithful proclamation of his word through pastors that he's raised up in the church who have been called and ordained and are seeking to honor the Lord in that way. God can, if he wants to, work extraordinarily and, you know, give people, you know, wisdom and guidance through his providence today. But ordinarily, here's what God is doing, Dan, is he's building his church up through the word and through faithful Bible teaching. And it really saddens me and frustrates me when you see these people who are claiming, you know, these prophetic or apostolic offices for themselves, when in reality God has not called them as apostles or prophets, that what they're really doing is just confusing people. And so I recommend avoiding them. God bless.
Good counsel, Adriel. Just a follow-up question. We know that pastors, elders are held to a very high standard by scripture. What do you think about those who claim to be prophets and God's possible judgment on them? Yeah, it is a sobering thing to think about. And in fact, it's what James says in James chapter 3. Let not many of you become teachers, my brothers, knowing that we will receive a stricter judgment. Whenever we speak, right, it's not hard to, you know, fall into sin once you start opening your mouth. We have to be really careful. James makes this point in his epistle as well. But especially when we're speaking on God's behalf, we've got to be really careful here.
We need God's grace, God's mercy. Woe to those who do so flippantly. And especially, I think, there is a serious warning for people who are saying, yeah, I got the direct line to God. I'm a prophet.
And let me tell you what he said. I mean, read the book of Jeremiah, where Jeremiah talks about the false prophets, those who didn't actually stand in the counsel of the Lord, those to whom God had not given any word, and yet they say the Lord has said. And God has very strong words for them.
He did then, and I think for people who play around with this today, God would have strong words for them as well today. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Easter is coming up, and we have a free Easter devotional for you. This will really, we believe, help your Easter even become more meaningful. It's called Meeting the Risen Christ. Yeah, you know, Easter can unfortunately be a time where we can be tempted to water down our faith with sentimentalism.
You hear about how you can roll away the stones in your own life, that sort of thing. We turn the Easter message into something that's all about us, my own conquering and resurrection. It's about Jesus, his life, death, and his victory over death, his resurrection from the dead. And so we're excited to share this devotional with you, Meeting the Risen Christ. It contains five scripture readings and reflections surrounding Christ's post-resurrection appearances. And we hope that in this season you'll reflect on these passages of scripture that may be somewhat familiar to you, but that you'll be encouraged, you'll be edified, that you'll learn something new as well. And so get a hold of this free resource over at corechristianity.com. We'd love to get that in your hands between now and Easter.
We believe it'll be very meaningful to you and to your family as well. Just go to corechristianity.com forward slash Easter, again corechristianity.com forward slash Easter, to get Meeting the Risen Christ, that free devotional. Well, let's go to a call from one of our listeners.
This is Michael in Springfield, Missouri. Michael, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Hey, the question is, basically I was trying to focus on the verse of Mark 10, 44. Have you guys heard of that verse in Mark 10, 44?
Yeah, so it says, okay, so basically the question is like, most atheists and ex-Christians, they have a bitterness towards Christianity because of slavery. So what if today, what if that is a way that God is trying to show some of the churches how to revisit and think about some of the things that's happened in the past, and then not just think about it, but learn to be a servant so that they can learn to not be the Lord over things, but to learn to be the servant. Okay, Michael, so to the text that you mentioned, Mark chapter 10, verse 24, let me just read that. The disciples were amazed at his words, but Jesus said to them, children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God. It is easier for the camel to go through the eye of the needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. There, this is the context of the rich young ruler and entering into the kingdom, obviously, and there's a lot that I could say about that, and the gospel sounded to me like you were thinking maybe of the text where Jesus talks about servanthood. I would actually go to Luke chapter 22, verse 24, where the disciples are arguing about which of them is going to be the greatest, and Jesus said, the kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors, but not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest and the leader as one who serves. For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves?
Is it not the one who reclines at table, but I am among you as the one who serves? So you mentioned a lot, Michael, in your question. One of the things that you mentioned, which is true, is just the track record that the church has. You mentioned the problem of the sin of slavery and Christians historically who were okay with it, who bought and sold slaves, and sometimes these are things that we can brush under the rug, or at least attempt to, or seek to find justifications for the sinful behavior of people who have gone before us and will find ways to do that and say, well, they were good in all these other ways, but I think it is important for us, especially before the watching world, the watching world, as you said, Michael, to be able to confront sin wherever we see it and to say, look, this right here was out of accord with the teaching of Jesus in these ways and the teaching of the Bible in these ways. And so we need to go back to the word and back to the teachings of Christ and think about how to really have these kinds of discussions. And you mentioned different ways that people are approaching this subject in particular today. And so at least as far as I'm concerned, look, we want to look at everything through the lens of scripture. And it sounds to me like initially that's what you're trying to do, bringing up this passage and the importance of serving and listening and that really being what true leadership is according to Jesus. And so I think with whatever we're looking at in asking these questions and in seeking to address the problem ultimately of sin and how to deal with it in our past, but also how to address it presently, I think it's important that with whatever we're looking at, we want to gauge it through the lens of scripture, of God's holy word. And where God's holy word confronts us, we want to humble ourselves and repent.
Without getting into the weeds of everything else, that's what I would say, brother. But I'm sympathetic to you in terms of just the reality of the fact that, look, there are a lot of people who look at the church and they say, boy, the wars over the history of the church, some of them religious wars, the ways in which Christians have acted in different times or at different times, these are things that really frustrate us and cause to want to have nothing to do with the church. And so we need to get back to the teaching of scripture and ultimately the teaching of Jesus Christ and help people to understand the fact that ultimately the church is not going to save us, only Christ can. And frankly, a lot of times the church herself needs saving too. And so we remind people of that and we point them to the reality of the fact that the good news is the church has failed in significant ways, but Christ has not abandoned her yet.
He continues to work in and through the church and especially in and through the church as she is repenting of sin and drawing near to the Lord. And so may God help us all to do that. Michael, thanks for giving us a call.
Good counsel. Thanks for that, Adriel. Always pointing people back to Jesus and his finished work on the cross, not necessarily how we have messed it up through our sin. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. You can leave us a voicemail 24 hours a day at this number, 833-THE-CORE.
That's 1-833-843-2673. Here's a voicemail from one of our listeners named George. Hello. What would you say would be the greatest thing in the nation of America today or maybe the greatest sin of the church? And I would just say in general that, you know, smartphones, new technology, that has taken the place of relationships. And I think that God's will is relationships. You see it in the Bible. In our country today, I see so much a lack of concern for other people, compassion for other people, integrity, respect. Thank you very much.
Bye. Yeah, it's a really good question, something for us to think about. You know, like, what is the greatest problem or threat facing the church today, the greatest sin?
And I'm guessing, you know, you'd get different answers depending on who you asked. When I look at the Scriptures, Paul, in his letter to Timothy, the second letter that he wrote, he says in chapter 3, understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. And as you hear this, tell me if you don't think this is, you know, what we're experiencing today. He says, people will be lovers of self. This is the first thing he mentions. People will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness but denying its power. And Paul says to Timothy, look, avoid such people.
It's interesting to me that the very first thing that Paul mentions there is that they will be lovers of self, this self-interest. And you brought this up, brother. You said, look, it just seems like people don't care about others. We don't have compassion.
This is a serious thing. Basically, I think one of the greatest sins of today is this sort of idolatry of self. And I think we see this in the church, but I think we just see it in broader culture as well.
And there's something very heinous about this. You know, in the book of Jeremiah, when God is talking about the judgment that he's going to bring against his people, listen to what it says in Jeremiah 16, verse 10. When you tell this people all these words, and they say to you, why has the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? Why is God judging us so harshly? What is our iniquity? What is the sin that we have committed against the Lord, our God? Then you shall say to them, because your fathers have forsaken me, declares the Lord, and have gone after other gods, and have served and worshiped them, and have forsaken me, and you have not kept my law, and because you have done worse than all your fathers. For behold, behold, every one of you follows his stubborn, evil will, refusing to listen to me.
Listen to this right here. He says, look, your fathers, they forsook me. They went after other gods and bowed down before those false gods to worship them. You've actually done even worse, because you know what you worship? You know what you've gone after? You know what you follow?
Your own stubborn evil will. In other words, you've turned yourself into the idol. You're just a lover of self, and I think in our sort of affluent Western society, this is one of the, if not the, greatest sin that people struggle with, and that in the church we constrict, we just think we're the center of everything. Worship of self, love of self, putting self before everything and everyone else, and isn't this the very opposite of Jesus?
I mean, it really is, in one sense, the spirit of the antichrist, because it's the opposite of Jesus and what he was like. You think about what Paul said to the Philippians in Philippians 2, where he talks about the humiliation of Jesus. Jesus is coming to earth, and he says, Philippians 2, verse 4, let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. That's really a beautiful picture of the gospel, but it just goes to show us how much that sort of self-love, self-centeredness, idolatry of the self, you know, the expressive individualist. It's all about me, and I'm the one who creates my own destiny, and basically God, if he exists, exists for me and for whatever I want.
That's one of the big problems that people have today. We need to go back to not the sovereign self, but the sovereign God who forgives our sin, who forgives our idolatry, and who did so through the humiliation of his son, Jesus, who assumed human flesh, so that we who loved ourselves might be forgiven and might in turn love the people around us, and more than that, love God with all of our hearts. So thank you for that question. God bless. It's what Easter is all about as we approach that very important day in our Christian calendar, and by the way, we have a wonderful free Easter devotional for you. You can find it by going to corechristianity.com forward slash Easter. It's by Pastor Jonathan Landry-Cruz. It's called, what is the name, Meeting the Risen Christ, Meeting the Risen Christ.
Again, you can find that at corechristianity.com forward slash Easter. Let's go to Doug who's calling in from Oklahoma. Doug, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Hello, can you hear me? Hey, Doug, thanks for calling in.
What's your question, brother? Well, real quick, I wanted to thank you. I remember the other day a gentleman wanted to know what about the altar call, and you reminded him of tradition, you know, of congregations. I thought that was admirable. Hey, thank you, brother. Just real quick, I wanted to say something about Easter, and you know, you look back through the old word Britannica encyclopedias before there was a Google, and you can look up Diana of Ephesus under Easter.
You can look up Artemis. So then you look at pictures of Diana, and then right outside of her temple was thousands of bull skeletons that they excavated. If I'm attending, like you said, Acts 2 38, and they continued steadfast with the doctrine with the apostles, with breaking of bread and in prayer, and then I go to Acts 20 verse 7 and 6 and 7, that shows they wait around seven days, and then on the first day of the week they come together to break bread. So if I read that literally the first day of the week and I take the Lord's Supper 51 times a year, to me Easter Sunday would just be another day that the Catholic Church established in the third or fourth century.
So we, well, one, Doug, thank you for all of that. Let me just say, we got about a minute left, and I think I know where you're going with this with regard to traditions. Let me just say yes with regard to the fact that every Sunday, every Lord's Day, the first day of the week, we are proclaiming that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. In fact, when the apostle Paul talked about taking the Lord's Supper, he said that every time we do this, we proclaim the Lord's death and resurrection until he comes. And again, that was happening on the first day of the week, and I believe that it was with the disciples there.
Then, absolutely. This is why we worship on Sunday, why the apostles from the earliest days, as you mentioned Acts 20, another text you can go to is 1 Corinthians 16, why they gathered together on Sunday. And I'm grateful for the fact, brother, that you want to be careful about tradition sneaking into the church, unbiblical tradition, things that would take us away from the Lord. And certainly throughout the history of the church, you think especially of the medieval ages, there were and have been traditions that have crept in that have taken our eyes off of the simplicity of the gospel and the simplicity of Christian worship. So in all of that, I want to encourage you and commend you with regard to some of the history and especially the celebration of these quote-unquote Christian feasts.
There's a lot that can be said. I think if the focus is on Christ, the resurrection of the dead, there's nothing wrong with saying, hey, we're going to focus on that. This Sunday, it's an opportunity for us to invite friends and family who maybe ordinarily would not come to church. But I think you're right in wanting to emphasize the fact that it's not like we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus on just one Sunday out of the year. Brothers and sisters, if you only go to church on Easter Sunday, there is a serious spiritual problem in your life. You need to be going every Sunday, because every Sunday we proclaim that Christ is risen from the dead. And frankly, we need to be reminded of those great gospel truths every single week. Thanks for listening to CORE Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, visit us at corechristianity.com and click on offers in the menu bar or call us at 1-833-843-2673. That's 833-THE-CORE. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this program. And be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's word together.
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