This is Sam from the Mask and Journey Podcast and our goal with the podcast is to help you to try to find your way in this difficult world. Your Chosen Truth Network podcast is starting in just seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all thank you for listening and choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. Welcome to If Not Forgot.
Stories of hopelessness that turn to hope. Here is your host, Mike Zwick. Hey, this is Mike Zwick from If Not For God with Mike Zwick. I've got my new friend Scott Green here who is starting KMG Fitness. You can get the app in the July area.
I've got Dr. Greg Hennant in the house. And Dr. Greg most recently wrote a book, and it is absolutely amazing. It's about Freemasonry.
What is the name of the book, Dr. Greg? Freemasonry: An Expose: Shining Light on Freemasonry's Dark Teachings. Oh man, that was a doozy. It was amazing.
And we've actually done several interviews on Freemasonry, but. That's not what we're here to talk about today. What we're here to talk about today is the fear of the Lord. And in Proverbs 9:10, it says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the holy. is understanding.
And so, you know. Scott and Greg, when I first became a Christian, I'm sure that there were some denominations that were so far out. On the fear of the Lord, I mean, I met some of them, and it was some Pentecostal denominations, I'm going to be honest with you, where it almost seemed as if you sneezed the wrong way, you might be in hell the next day. You know what I mean? And so, they were constantly having to say, Oh, I backslid, I did it, you know.
And I think that's kind of one extreme. But I'm going to be honest with you, I believe most of the churches, especially the American churches, are on the other end of the extreme. And so, Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8 and 9, it tells us that we're saved by grace through faith, and that is amazing. Thank God that Jesus died on the cross for our sins so that we can know that by surrendering our lives to Him, not just by believing, but by surrendering our lives to Him, we can have eternal life. The very next verse in verse 10 actually says that we were created for good works in Him.
Not only that, but there are some Bible verses where if you really read through the Bible, where it clearly Clearly talks about as a Christian, repentance is not optional. And I'll give you a few. Jesus said so himself. He said, if your hand causes you to sin, he said, cut it off. He said, it's better for you to have one of your hands than to have both of your hands and to be thrown into the fire of hell.
He said, if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. He said, it's better for you to have one of your eyes than to have both of your eyes and to be thrown into the fire of hell. There's another verse that a lot of people know, although I don't hear it quoted a whole lot in the churches. And what it says is this. It says, many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord.
Did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not cast out demons in your name? Did we not heal the sick? Did we not do this? Did we not do that?
And you know what Jesus said? Depart from me, I knew you're not. I never knew you. I never knew you. And so the Bible says in the book of Romans, it says that the gifts are without repentance.
So in other words, you can have the gift of healing. You can have the gift of casting out demons and you could be living a reprobate lifestyle. You could be living terrible. And you could still do it because the gifts of God are without repentance. Yes, certain gifts will work that way.
Others will not. For instance, teaching, preaching, if you're teaching the word of God, God's going to shut you down if you turn to sin. He's not going to open that word to you. You're not going to get messages. You're not going to get insights that benefit the church anymore.
And it'll be quite evident that you've taken a turn to anyone who's listening to you or knows you. Yeah.
So, but I think in what you were just telling in that introduction, the underlying message is Christians must take God seriously. Yes. Deadly. Salvation and our walk with God is the most serious thing in the world. It's a joyful thing.
It's the most joyful thing. In His presence, it's the fullness of joy. But it is the most serious thing that we learn to walk closely with Him, not be divided through tests and trials, turning aside to sin, etc., or heresy, and keep our walk close. And then Through testing, go through transformation. Because as we obey the word of God in our daily test, there's an ongoing transformation by the power of the Holy Spirit.
That is what God's after. That's why the Holy Spirit's come, not just to make us feel good. And that transformation makes us ready for translation into his presence. Because when the church is ready for Christ's coming, she will be the mirror image of him in nature, in character, and works.
So that's what the Holy Spirit's doing.
So for that to be the case, Christians must take God seriously. And there's too much of a casual spirit in the churches today. And so what I see a lot, and I've seen this in the bigger churches and the smaller ones as well, and some just don't talk about it, but there are some churches out there that say.
Okay, you said a prayer, you're a Christian, you're good to go, you're going to go to heaven.
Now, if they'll say if you're not living the right way or you're just completely living the same as the world, they say, oh, well, you're still going to get into heaven, but you're not going to get any rewards. But I tell you what, there's some verses in the New Testament, if you believe that, that should really scare you. One of them is, and I believe it's in 1 John, it says that nobody who abides in him continues to sin.
Now, this doesn't mean that you never sin or anything like that, but I think that if you make a habit of just living like the devil, I don't know if you're even a Christian, man. Yeah, of course, there's a whole mix of things that we're dealing with here. In a typical church in America, you have people who are called professing Christians. They profess Christ, they check the box of Christian, they have an allegiance to the Christian religion, but they've never experienced rebirth.
So they're not true Christians. They're not really in the body of Christ. They're in a church, but they're not in the body of Christ. Then you have others who have genuinely had a conversion experience. They have really been come from darkness into light.
And they begin to walk with the Lord, but they don't learn discipleship. And they don't understand how Satan works and his wiles and his traps. And so they get tripped up, they get stumbled, and they become offended. Jesus said in Luke 7:23, Blessed is he who's not offended in me. And when this happens, they fall away from their close walk with the Lord that they were building, and they fall right back into the same sins they were in before.
Now, the question is: are they saved? I believe if they were really, if they really had a genuine born-again experience, they are saved. What happens, however, is they lose fellowship with God. The relationship abides, but they have no fellowship. They feel like they've never known Him.
I know I was there when I was a college student, going from high school to college. During that year, I was saved in high school, distinctly saved, powerfully saved. Then for about a year and almost a year and a half, I walked in the flesh. I actually lived worse then than I did before I was converted. And then I heard a message, ironically, on the second coming, and the fear of God came all over me.
My mother was fasting and praying at home, and I was up in Boone. The fear of God came all over me, and my life was just turned immediately. And I knew the most important thing was to walk with the Lord, fulfill his will for my life, and be ready for Christ's coming whenever that happened.
So it just suddenly I had a complete reset on my life because of the fear of God and conviction of sin.
So what I'm saying now is that I was saved, but I would have lost all rewards. I had no honor, no privileges in the eternal kingdom. This is something Christians should think about. We're saved entirely by the grace of God, not works. But we're rewarded at the judgment seat entirely by our works, you just referenced them in Ephesians 2, and not by grace alone.
Grace supports us every day. But our works is what brings rewards. And so we need to know that now.
So that's another kind of Christian. This is called the carnal Christian, who is generally saved but falls away. Paul addressed them in 1 Corinthians. He talked about their attitudes. They were still carnal, worldly, unchanged, unspiritual, unbiblical.
And he dealt rigorously with them. A carnal Christian doesn't just mean that you live in the gross sins of the flesh. It can mean you merely are not spiritual. You've never become spiritual. You've never.
Aspire to have a spiritual mind. Paul talks about being spiritually minded versus carnally minded. To be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
So it's your viewpoint. This is gained through continuing to seek God, study His Word, receive teaching, and then go through testing. Because the testing not only transforms you, but it changes the way you think. Your mind is not just renewed by Bible study. That's right.
It's renewed by Bible study, and then by obeying the word in your daily circumstances, you begin to think. Like the word you're studying.
So that's a carnal Christian. And so many fall into this category. And I'm teaching very clearly in my books and marauding that a carnal Christian has no assurance of rapture, that they will be raptured. Because the rapture is a great privilege reserved for those who are walking with God, like Enoch and like Elijah, the only two people who were taken off this worth, translated to heaven, never experiencing death. Yeah, and one of the things that you and I have talked about before is this once saved, always saved idea.
And you don't believe that, correct?
Well, basically, now you open a big can of worms. I do believe in that if there's a genuine conversion experience, I believe in the eternal efficacy of that.
However, We do have the Judas model.
Now, the Judas model is this. Jesus said in his high priestly prayer, He said, Father, of them whom you have given me, I have lost none except one, the Son of Perdition. Mm-hmm.
So we know Judas was given to him. Jesus handpicked him. Judas sat under his teaching. Judas was received his grace, if you will. He was gracious with Judas.
Judas received an anointing from ministry. Judas was sent on ministry, and we can assume his preaching and ministry was successful. The disciples came back rejoicing that even the demons, the 70 did that the demons were subject to them. And we know the disciples came back also as successful ministers during that time. And so all of that happened, but then what happened?
John says he was a thief and he held the back.
So he had covetousness. He didn't receive Christ's teaching and correction, that's for sure. Because if he'd done that, he wouldn't have continued in his sin. And then he fell away and he betrayed the Lord.
Now, this is the key element. It's one thing to fall back and away from the Lord. We call that backsliding. It's not good. It's terrible.
You're going to lose your rewards and you'll never know the Lord intimately in this world. But it's another thing when you fall away from Christ and then you turn and you attack Christianity, you attack Jesus, you attack the believers in your life, you attack the churches or ministries that you know. And you denounce them? This is what Judas did. He attacked Christ and his followers.
So where did he go? Perdition. There's no question about that.
So that's why I call the Judas model an exception to the rule, if you understand what I mean. For almost every rule, there's an exception. And it's part of wisdom to understand that.
Well, you believe in you're an Arminian, right? Yes, I would align with Arminianism.
So this is, here it is, Hebrews chapter 6, verse 4. For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come. And if I may interrupt you, that would apply to Judas. Go ahead.
Okay. If they shall fall away to renew them again to repentance, seeing they crucify themselves the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame. And even 2 Peter chapter 2, where it talks about a dog returning to its vomit. Correct. Better were they that were not born.
Yeah, those who were clouds without water. Absolutely. Right.
So that's another subject. It's highly controversial. And here's what I say to anyone listening: walk with God. Walk with Him closely.
Okay. And you will never doubt your salvation. The people who doubt their salvation are not walking closely with God. It's impossible to live and to seek the presence of God every day where there's fullness of joy, where you're permeated by the Holy Spirit and His power. And you're in the Word of God and you're feeding on that Word, it's impossible to live that life and doubt your salvation.
So rather than tell somebody who's doubting their salvation, oh, you're eternally secure, you were born again, don't worry about it. No, that's a presumptuous attitude. You should say, Well, let's talk about this. Why is it that you're troubled about your salvation? What has happened?
And I would say, in 100 out of 100 cases, there's going to be sin in some form, in thoughts, in motives, in action, in omission. And that sin has not been confessed.
So it's blocked the fellowship. And without that fellowship, Satan can easily move in on you and make you think anything under the sun. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And so he's way ahead of us as far as his ability to deceive through lies.
Well, Jesus said some other things as well. He said, anybody who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God. Correct. Correct. Yes.
And he also talked about Lot's wife. Lot's wife had actually been delivered from Sodom, but she looked back. She didn't go back. She looked back.
Now what does that indicate? That indicates a desire. for the things of Sodom and Gomorrah, that is the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.
So technically, she had escaped those things, but in her heart she was back in Sodom. Yeah, and so there's another verse where Jesus said, He said, anybody who must follow me. You must take up your cross daily and follow me. Yeah, and that's another issue because discipleship is not salvation. It's two different things.
Two different things. A Christian is a born-again one. Everybody who's experienced a genuine rebirth is a genuine Christian, a genuine member of the body of Christ. The disciple, the word disciple in the New Testament is the Greek word mathetes. That means a pupil, a learner, a student.
But when you look at the context of the culture, both Roman and Greek, Greek and Roman cultures, and particularly Greek culture and Jewish culture, we can expand that definition. It's more than a learner. It's more than a learner. Because a Greek student, Mathetis, would find a philosopher or rhetorician who he admired. He would follow him, perhaps even leave his home, come live with or around the great teacher.
He would imbibe his teaching daily, taking it in. All teaching was oral. And so he soaked in the atmosphere of his philosophy and teachings. And then he wanted, his aspiration was to go out into the world and glorify and honor his teacher and his philosophy and teachings. He also wanted to emulate that in his life.
He wanted to embody that.
Now, it was the same thing with a Jewish student. He wanted to find a rabbi who. He would admire. And so he would learn from him just as the disciples did from Christ. Be with him constantly, receive his teachings, and then put them into practice.
So he would model the philosophy and teachings, the ethos of that teacher. And then he wanted to go out and spread the teachings of his master to glorify him, which is what the disciples did to Christ.
So, really, we could expand that definition to this: a true New Testament disciple is a born-again one. who subsequently becomes a deeply serious irrevocably committed, Self-discipline, student follower of the Lord. Let me explain. Deeply serious, meaning he's not casual. He or she is not casual.
They're very serious about this. It's the first priority in their life. Yeah.
And then um Irrevocably committed. It means once they set their foot to the path to be a disciple, that's it. They're not changing the rest of their life. And then a self-discipline. You know, to walk with God, you've got to be disciplined.
You've got to discipline your time, you've got to discipline your reading and where you go and what you do.
So you have to be self-disciplined. No one can impose discipline on you that's going to last. If someone has to impose discipline on them, if you have to be disciplined only while someone's watching, well, then as soon as they're away, you just lose your discipline.
So a disciple is self-disciplined, and also they're a student follower. That is, they're studying the truths of Jesus Christ from the entire Bible and the New Testament most specifically. And then they understand they must follow him. They must put them into practice. In Christ's words, you must be a doer of the word, a James word, a James epistle.
We have to be a doer of the word, not a hearer only. And Jesus said in Luke 6. Why do you say to me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I say?
Now he's talking about a disciple.
So, as you just mentioned, part of discipleship is carrying your cross. And the cross was a symbol of utter rejection in the Roman world. If you follow Christ, you're going to be rejected.
Sometimes it's family and friends. Jesus talked about that in Matthew 10:34 through 39.
Okay? Family and rejection. There was a young lady, Chip Ingram. Do you know him? Chippinger.
I know that name. Yeah, he's a pastor. He comes on this channel. But he told a story of a young lady. And she was a Christian lady in a Christian family.
And they were surrounded by Muslims. All of a sudden, there was some sort of a riot where the Muslims were killing all of the Christians in the area. And this young lady, they told her, they said, Look, we're not like those Muslims. We don't want you to die, anything like that. This is what we'll do.
You can come with us. We'll give you a Muslim name. and will tell them that you're a Muslim. And when they come around, they won't kill you. And the young lady, I mean, she couldn't have been 10 or 12 years old.
She was just about to do it. And then she remembered what Jesus said. where he said. If anybody denies me in front of men. I will deny them in front of my Father in heaven.
Whoever acknowledges me in front of men, I will acknowledge them. in front of my face. That's right. And she says, I'm not going to change my name. I'm going to tell them I'm a Christian.
and they came around. And they killed her. Right, absolutely. She's going to get some rewards. Right, absolutely.
Yeah, that's exactly right. But the point I was trying to make is that being saved and born again is one thing, but discipleship comes afterwards.
Now, I want to say something else. Here's Need to Hear.
Nowhere in the New Testament. Is salvation called a commitment? Not one time. It's called receiving him. Repenting and receiving him.
To as many as received him, to them gave he the power to become the sons of God. John chapter 1. And it's called being born again. Jesus said to Nicodemus, You must be born again, you must have a spiritual rebirth. But nowhere is the word commitment used, either in the Greek or in any translation, because newbirth is not a commitment.
It is a surrender. It is a capitulation to Christ. I surrender to you. Come into my heart. And the miracle is what God does in us.
As the angel told Mary, when she said, you know, she learned she was going to be pregnant, she said, How shall these things be? And so he said to her, The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the high shall overshadow thee, and that holy thing that shall be what? Born in thee shall be called the Son of God.
Now, what happened in Mary's literal womb happens in the heart of the believer when he or she confesses their sins and repents, and that is an essential of salvation. You cannot be saved without repentance. and you're not going to repent until you're convicted.
Well, and that's why that's why I think you receive him. Right, go ahead. I think that's why some people would say, and I've seen two different ways of putting this, is that if you get saved or you say the prayer, and your life looks the same afterwards as it did before. you may have never been saved in the first place. Correct.
And that is the case with many people.
Now, let me say this too. For many... I'm not the judge, so I'm just going to say. No, no, and we're never the judge, except the fact that Jesus said that every tree is known by its fruit. And we know the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5, 22 and 23.
Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, et cetera. Which is really a breakdown of Christ-likeness.
Okay? It's a breakdown of Christ-likeness produced by the Spirit flowing in our life because we're in constant union, touch with him, right?
So if that never shows up in a person's life and they say they have been born again, yes, I would doubt that, and I would tell them I doubt it. Yeah, and so that's very important because it should be the normative Christian life. is different. from the previous slide. BC, you know, before Christ, after Christ.
And I'll tell you this, too. I would rather believe the worst case scenario. And later on, find out that it wasn't as bad versus believing the best case scenario and find out later that it was as bad.
Well, we don't want to be presumptuous, is what you're saying. We don't want to assume things with God. We want to know that we are making choices and making decisions and taking actions in direct line with the Word of God because God's Word is the authority. As the Reformer said, solo scriptura. Only the scriptures are the authority for our faith and our belief and our doctrine.
And that attitude really is part of the fear of the Lord. Mm-hmm.
And you know, when you read the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon and the whole time is saying everything is meaningless, it's meaningless. And it was because he disobeyed the Lord and he had a very strong start. I mean, the Lord came to him in a couple of dreams and said he was the wisest, wisest man who ever would live on the earth and also the wealthiest man. And it was because he didn't ask for wealth, he asked for wisdom. And I've actually heard some people say it's a Lev Shema or a Lev Shema, which means that a heart that listens to the Lord.
But after that, I mean, you know, the whole book of Ecclesiastes, he's saying everything is meaningless, it's meaningless. God told him not to marry foreign wives. He said, because they would take his heart. Away from the Lord. The end of Ecclesiastes, I love what he says, Ecclesiastes 12:13.
He says, Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. Right, absolutely. Yeah.
And Solomon is a striking case of. A person who was exceptionally born. He was David's son, had David's training. Um and he knew the law, he would have known it. Clearly, and he was called to God and to be king, not his other brothers who tried to steal the kingship from him.
Adonijah did. And. and then he turned.
Now, you know, and this shows you that no matter how much wisdom you have, Wisdom will not trump Obedience. Because he was the wisest man. He was the one who wrote the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. But he himself turned from that fear by, as you said, breaking the word of God to marry the foreign wives. Whether it was lust or whether it was a political motivation, we don't know.
But we do know he disobeyed the scriptures, and precisely what God warned in the scriptures would happen. Did happen.
Now, and then he ended up, many people don't know this. And I would say, probably it was the first half of his reign he was godly, the latter half he was ungodly, and he actually filled the temple courts. With idol shrines. This is preposterous. This is just unthinkable.
David's son. After he built the house of God, later filled it with idolshines. That's a warning to us because we can be wise and we can be godly, but any of us at any moment, if we don't walk in the fear of the Lord, this attitude of taking God with reverential awe, with deep abiding seriousness, If we abandon that, we can turn and we could pull a Solomon.
Now, again, the question is: was Solomon saved or lost? I don't believe he was lost. I believe he lost all his rewards because he disobeyed the Lord. But I believe by the grace of God, he's saved because he was a believer. That's what I believe.
Now, do I know that? No, I don't know that. Is it knowable? No, it's not, unless either one of you guys know it. No, I don't know.
I don't know. I don't know. So there's some things we don't know. We have to believe in God. What I've heard is that towards the end of his life, it seemed as if, like Ecclesiastes 12, that that's kind of the conclusion that it came to.
And I hope that's the conclusion that he came to. But really, I mean, the truth is, is that the listeners. Where Solomon is right now, that has nothing to do with you. Correct. It doesn't.
No, it doesn't. What the God is doing down the street, that has nothing to do with you. We need to fear God. Right, yeah, right. And to keep his commandments.
And the thing that I see with Solomon. Mm-hmm.
is that we think that pleasure. is going to make us happy. How many wives did this guy have? How much money did this guy have? Oh, could you, could you, could you only think of the squambles he had to put down?
Yeah, I mean, it's preposterous. It's just preposterous. Instead of making him happy, if you read the book of Ecclesiastes, he's one of the most depressed men I've ever met. Yeah, and the principle of lust is that the more you lust after an idol, and an idol is anything you love more than God. Or anything you trust in more than God.
In this case, he desired, obviously, the pleasure of women more than God. But anything you love or desire more than God, what it does is it betrays you and it takes you into captivity. And soon you cannot get satisfied with that anymore.
Now, we're back to what we said earlier. Psalm 16, verse 11. In your presence, David said, is what? The fullness of joy. That joy is abiding, and the word is inimitable.
It cannot be imitated, cannot be topped.
Now that's a wonderful thing, and it leads to one of the greatest treasures that a Christian can have: contentment. Paul said, I've learned in whatever state I am, and boy was he in some states to be what? Content.
Now, content means to be satisfied enough. With what you have, doesn't mean that you wouldn't take something better, but you're satisfied enough with what you have. And that's a terrific blessing.
Well, Dr. Greg, I want to thank you for coming on the show. I want you to mention your book one more time: Freemasonry.
Okay, sure. This is the latest of the last of 18 books, and it's called Freemasonry: an Expose. Shining Light on Freemasonry's Dark Teaching. It's available in print and e-book, as all of my books are on Amazon. If you look up Greg Hennett, G-R-E-G-H-I-N-N-A-N-T, with that title, it'll come right up.
Thanks for coming on. Have not forgotten. All right, for my YouTube channel. If not for God with mighty wick Just like, subscribe, and hit that notification bell.
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