Mm. Ooh, ooh, ooh. Ooh, la da da da da da da da da Hallelujah. God ruler of the universe, you are. There is There's no one like you, God giver of the deepest dreams you are.
There is no one like you God thinker of tremendous thoughts you are Thinking for towards me. Royal, holy, true you are And there is no one like you Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah. Welcome to Love Never Fails. In these last days, revival will come. but begins with our individual walk and personal relationship with Jesus.
Let's join Brother John now.
Well, good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is Brother John, and you're listening to Love Never Fails. You can also listen to this show live. uh in spanish and english thursdays and two tuesdays and thursdays uh in belize uh go to just search vision radio belize and you'll find it uh you can also go to my facebook page and find more information there as i do do weekly do do weekly uh updates as we post. Um Today's message, I want to talk about something that I was meditating on last night.
And I've talked about it before in part, but I want to really get into the word today on this. Beginning in the book of Jude, and then we'll go to 2 Peter. But we're going to call this message. Clouds without rain. You know, when I was growing up, young man, I worked on a asphalt crew down in Oklahoma and we would lay highways.
And when there was a storm coming you could see that wall cloud 30, 40, 50 miles away. And as that cloud would approach. We would begin to break down and get stuff put away because the first thing that would come would be the outflow, the cool downdraft of wind that was pushed out in front of the storm in the direction that it was going. And then it. it would carry in with with it.
Drops of rain, and then eventually you could see the wall of rain coming towards you, the wall cloud. And you could literally be out there on the highway or field or wherever you are, seeing the cloud coming at you. and it'd be sunny above you. And uh uh it's just an amazing sight. But when you see a cloud like that coming, you have an expectation of rain.
When we see clouds, we see storms coming. One of the beautiful things is that they give us rain and water the earth, our gardens, our fields, our yards. And it's a joyous thing. And after the storm leaves, It's usually nice and sunny. The air is fresh and clean because it's Almost like those storms clean the air out as well.
And Sorry, I had to have a bit of coffee there. And so. We have an expectation and we have a reward when storms and clouds come our way. And I want to read to you today because from the book of Jude. And let me just give a couple rules, I guess you could say it.
One, I love scripture. I always believe in using a lot of scripture. And oftentimes when we read scripture, we find little hints. And we go, hmm, I wonder what he's referencing there. Oftentimes, the best interpretation of scripture Is scripture and so.
I know as I've studied A lot of different prophecies, a lot of different parts of the Bible. I look for particular words and Jude was one of these books that when I read it, I went, wow. Hey, I know where that word is elsewhere. And then I went and read that word, and now I had understanding in that prophecy. And one of the best examples of that is in.
Jew to help me understand, he says, um He's talking about Oh. False creatures. and all these preachers that are in it for a career. And not in it because they have a call. But listen to what he says.
We're going to skip over verse one or chapter one, but I want to, most of chapter one, I want to go to verse. Uh 11. It says, Woe to them, they have taken the way of Cain. They have rushed for profit into Balaam's error. That's something we s should research.
What was Balaam's error? And they have been destroyed in Kerah's or Korah's rebellion. Listen. These people, so he's referring to men and women, are blemishes at your love feasts. This word love feast, these two words refer to, and even Peter talks about them in 2 Peter, in these days after Jesus.
They didn't necessarily have church services every Sunday. They did start doing church on Sundays because that was the day he's resurrected on. All the other theories out there just meant to confuse you. They celebrate, we celebrate. And gather together on Sunday because that was the day that Jesus was resurrected on.
But. He refers here to something called love feasts. Paul referred to him. Peter referred to him, and now Jude has referred to him. And these love feasts were these events where they would get together.
All the Christians would get together and have a big feast, and everybody would partake. Everybody would bring something, and you just eat. You know, maybe we would call it a potluck dinner now. But. There would be worship, there'd be all these different things, and they would just celebrate the life.
And the resurrection of Jesus. And they were just great events. But over the years, they I want to use the word metastasized into something else. And what it is, is it got to the point where the rich people would eat. Up higher.
And they separated themselves from the poor people, which we know that's unbiblical. Jesus himself said dissension and favoritism are not welcome. They're actually a couple of the things that God hates. The rich people would be and you know, people would be getting drunk. And the rich people from above would be looking down and go, Oh, send that girl up here, send that boy up here.
And it turned into all sorts of lasciviousness. And it started just with. And here's how it starts. I'll give you an example. Years ago.
Mm-hmm. and another fella started a prayer group. And Uh it was on Friday nights. And I told him, and it was at his property in a shed that he had behind his house. I said, here's the deal.
I said, we cannot just open this up to anybody and everybody. He says, why not, Brother John? He goes, everybody needs prayer. I said, no. I said, we're not praying.
According to a list, we're praying out the mysteries and the things of God. And so we don't need, we can bring people in here who aren't. Quite mature because we're mentoring them, but we don't want anybody and everybody in here because then it'll just turn into a service. I said, and that's not what we're going for here. We're praying out the mysteries of God, we're praying out prophetic events.
And so we even had a whiteboard in there where, as we would pray, It was a safe place for us, so we would write things on the board we thought the Lord was telling us, and then over the next few weeks, if we got them right, we go, Look, we wrote it there.
Sometimes we erase some things when we realized, hey, but we would examine and go, Listen, how did that come to you? Did it just come to your head? Did it come up from out of your heart? Or how did that word come to you? And why did you write it down?
And so it was a great opportunity: one, for us to pray and as a group of men and be around God. Just grow, but also helped all of us understand one another and understand how to hear from God. And At one point, my friend invited somebody else, and I said, Not good. And he was like, why not? And I said, well, unfortunately, he's a.
Spiritual hobo. He's a vagabond. And I think I used the word vagabond. And I said, he's looking for the next great thing. He's not rooted and grounded.
He's looking for the next event and he wants to be a part of it, even though he's not ready for it. And to be honest, he was not qualified for it. And well. His friend Kane. And the man brought a guitar, And as soon as he got in there, what did he want to do?
He wanted, oh, we need to worship. We're like, no, brother, we've been doing this for months. We don't need to worship with a guitar. We just begin to pray.
So, first thing he did is he wanted to worship. Worship went 45 minutes. We began to pray.
Well, then he was ready to go because he wasn't there for prayer, he was there to pray. be seen. And this went on for a few weeks. And I finally told my friend: I said, you notice now. after a month.
We're no longer praying. And he goes, what? I said, we're not praying anymore. I said, we're worshiping. to music And we're talking.
But what happened to praying out the mysteries of God? What happened to praying out? What God wants to do. It went to the wayside. Because we introduced somebody.
To the group that was not in line with our objective, which was to pray out the will of God, to pray out the mysteries of God, to know what was coming.
So ended up that group. You know. Uh We went our different ways. He called me. My friend called me about three months later and said, You were right.
I said, Right, about what? And he said that guy being a spiritual vagabond. And I said, what do you mean? He goes, well, he's. I can't tell you everything because I'm not into revealing things, but Especially bad things about people.
But basically, he abandoned his family and left the state, took all his money, and disappeared. And left his family high and dry. And, uh, That they became a burden on the church. He went out to. another state to follow The column got.
And you're like going, no, you've missed it. God would never call you to leave your wife and family and abandon your children to be raised by other people just so that you can fulfill the call of God. And, you know, 20 years later, I don't know where he is. But You know, his family. Has lived on without him.
But I say that to you because. It happens with just one little thing. One little foothold. And so, what happened is these feasts began with they were celebrating Jesus. They were, and we don't know the exact everything they did, but then scripture right here says they creep in.
Well, Paul. Um Peter in 2 Peter, let me read this to his reference to These love feasts. And he says Sorry, I'm having to go there. Um He calls them bold and arrogant. It's chapter two, but he says, false teachers and their destruction.
And he's talking about there are false prophets among people. There will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereignty of the Lord.
So, how do you introduce a destructive heresy? A little bit by little. You eat an elephant one bite at a time. And so, let me give you an example: purgatory is a destructive heresy. Purgatory doesn't exist.
Purgatory in the Old Testament was called Abraham's bosom. It was abolished. When Jesus went there, Hebrews says, What does it mean he was? Uh, uh, if actually it's Ephesians says, What does it mean he led captives from captivity? What does it mean that he ascended if he didn't?
Also descended. But Jesus, when he died, he went to Abraham's bosom and preached the gospel to all of those, like those found in Hebrews 11, who were waiting. For the coming Messiah, they died. Hebrews 11 records that they died waiting in faith. For the Messiah.
So, where did those people go? Because only two people ever went to heaven: Elisha and Enoch. And so he went to Abraham's bosom. Go read the story in the Gospels about. The rich young ruler, and/or the rich man, and Lazarus.
And he says there's a great chasm because the rich man was in hell, Lazarus was in Abraham's bosom. And there was no crossing.
So when Jesus died, he went there, he preached the gospel to him. And then, as Paul records, he then led captives, those in Abraham's bosom, into heaven. Could you imagine that? Opening up the throne room, the doors of the throne room, and here come all these saints of old who have been waiting and looking and died in hope and faith for the Messiah.
Well, in the same way. We live post. Uh Jesus looking forward to his second coming. And in some cases, the catching away. And so we live in a different mindset, but there is no need for purgatory because even Paul tells us, he says, when you die now and you go to sleep, in a twinkling of an eye, you're with Jesus.
So purgatory or Abraham's bosom was emptied out. But the Catholic Church reintroduced it. Why? It's about control. It's a destructive heresy.
There's so many other things like that I could teach you. I would tell you that there's a doctrine that if you are a Pentecostal type, There's a doctrine you've probably heard, and you don't even realize that you think along these lines because it was taught to you. And that is that about 120 years ago, uh, We had what was called Azusa occur, the Azusa revival. And what really happened is on 1901, January 1st, 1901, there was an outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Topeka, Kansas, in Charles Parnham's Bible school. It was a house converted to a Bible school.
And what they did was they just began to pray. They just began to pray. And the whole thing, they were praying in search of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And the baptism of the Holy Spirit fell while. Where the Holy Spirit fell and baptized these students and these people who were showing up of their own accord.
They'd had dreams. They'd had all these different things. God saying, get here and study there, go to Bible school there. And it's just a series of miracles. And he wasn't even there when it happened.
And when he showed up, all these people are speaking in tongues and they got the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He begins to travel the country teaching the Baptist of the Holy Spirit, goes to Houston and meets William Seymour. William Seymour turns around, begins to preach the gospel. A black man begins to preach the gospel with a white man. And then he goes, William Seymour goes to Azusa in Los Angeles, California, and begins to preach the Baptist of the Holy Spirit.
But he also preached prayer. And he would pray with a box over his head because he was constantly, it's not about me, it's about Jesus. And for them, the beginning of the end of Azusa is recorded. If you go study Azusa and you read all the different books, there was a man there that William Seymour met. His name was Frank Bartleman.
And Frank Bartleman, along with a few other preachers, joined him in prayer and the Baptist Holy Spirit. They were all part of what was going on. Frank Bartleman also belonged to a church, uh part of a church The New Testament church, and then there was another church, the pastor of Ninth Street Mission, I believe it was. They would all get together and pray, and their focus was prayer. Their focus was just the presence of God and the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
And it went on for a few years. But then one day, and what happened is people came in and said, Oh, Seymour, you need to do this. You need to do that. You know, you could take up an offering if you would get legal, if you got this, if you could do tithes and offerings and all these things. And God kept telling them, No, no, no, no.
And then finally, he did it. And Frank Bardaman records that he was walking up to the church or to the barn. that became the church, and somebody had put a sign on the door. And or sign out front, calling it the Azusa Street Mission. and they'd put a lock on the door.
And at that point, when he was walking up to church, the Holy Spirit told him, this is the beginning of the end. And it wasn't long after that that through religious tactics, and yes, some of it was still genuine, slowly but surely, Azusa petered out. And Frank Partleman came to North Carolina and he taught all of that, you know, began to teach that here in an area called Falcon, up and down the I-95 corridor. And the amazing thing is that he had a group of salesmen that he was mentoring in that area. And these salesmen were traveling salesmen selling out of their back of their cars.
And they would travel up and down the I-95 corridor, selling their wares and getting together to preach the gospel. And they would also, all of them were also part of a group called the Fellowship of or the Full Gospel Businessmen. All of that birthed out of there. And all of that birthed. Why?
Because one group of people in Topeka, Kansas got together and said, let's find out if this is true. And they began to pray. But Azusa. They crept in unaware and they began to introduce their destructive doctrines. It happened in Falcon, North Carolina.
They crept in unaware and they began to introduce their doctrines. And there was another group about that time out of that. There were other men and women around the world: Maria Edwards Eder, Amy Simple McPherson, John G. Lake. Charles Parnham, Stephen, I can't even remember them all.
But they were traveling the world preaching the gospel, full of the baptism and Holy Spirit, full of the presence of God. And then a group of, I would call them secondary leaders, not any of these generals that we would know by name, got together, said, We need to create a church, a fellowship. And really, what they were doing was creating a denomination. And one of the things that they said, and here we go with the doctrine of men that. Creeps in unaware is they insisted that the proof of the baptism of the Holy Spirit was speaking in tongues.
which is not in the Bible. It's not scriptural. Will you speak in tongues if you're baptized in the Holy Spirit? Possibly. Yeah.
You could, but the true, if you study the baptism of the Holy Spirit, Jesus said, I'll give you a comforter, a teacher, a paraclete, one who will work beside you, and he will teach you all things and remind you of all things, and you will have power. when he comes upon you. That was one of the last things Jesus said: is that you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.
So I've spent. You know, 35 years now as a Christian watching Pentecostals, and they're they all speak in tongues, but they're just rocked back and forth by the cunning teachings of men and have no real power in their lives. Why? Because they believe in this one powerless doctrine that if you speak in tongues, you must be full of the Holy Spirit.
Well, that's not true. It's not true. Can it happen? Absolutely, because tongues is a gift. just like prophecy, just like all sorts of other things of special faith and of miracles, signs and wonders, of words of knowledge, interpretation of tongues.
All of those are gifts that come through having a relationship and the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Now Yeah. We know if we read scripture and we examine scripture properly that the baptism of the Holy Spirit brings at least two things. And that is Power. Because miracles, signs, and wonders are the dinner bell of the gospel. When you're anywhere in the world and people don't want to believe you, miracles, signs, and wonders are the dinner bell to the gospel.
And in two, love. Because the Spirit of God is love, and the Holy Spirit is love.
So, a lot of these people who speak in tongues but have a critical spirit. Really? Or these people who are dominating and lording over people. And they claim to be full of the Holy Spirit. and speak in tongues.
But yet they mistreat people, they show favoritism, they show dissension, they gossip. I mean, those are all things that the Holy Spirit and God hates. It's recorded in the Bible. He hates those things. And yet you're claiming you're full of the Holy Spirit?
And you have no love? I mean, 1 John tells us. that if a man claims to be To walk in the light. Or to walk with God, yet shows hatred, or hates his brother, or treats people with hatred. That he's a liar, he's deceived.
And I'll even go even further since we're talking about this doctrine, because it's a good example. Is there, I was in India. Several years ago, and all over this newspaper, they were talking about this Hindu priest who's doing miracles, signs, and wonders, and even levitating. And he spoke in tongues. And because he said he spoke in tongues, they said he must be a holy man of God.
There are Muslims who speak in tongues.
Well, we know they don't have a doctrine of love, they have a doctrine of destruction and hate. There are Mormons who speak in tongues, and while they are A lot of them are deceived. I do believe there are many of them that will go to heaven because they do believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and they walk in love. Just the same with Catholics. But just because you speak in tongues does not mean You are full of the Holy Spirit.
It means you speak in tongues. The proof of the Holy Spirit is your love walk. And the power, the miracles, signs, and wonders. And I'm not talking about a man who stands up in front of a thousand people and says, Somebody got a headache.
Well, you got a thousand people. I can guarantee you somebody's got a headache, somebody's got a backache, somebody's got a toe that hurts. You know, but what about a word? And I'll give you an example. Mm.
I know of a situation in which Uh a person, well, I'll give you one that occurred for me. And I'm not telling you to say that I am. full of the Holy Spirit and blah, blah, blah right now because it changes from day to day. Every day I get up, I have to pray, I have to talk to God, and He chooses to use me. That's His.
thing I'm just one who's seen some of these things and been able to experience some of these things. But we had a young lady who was pregnant for the second time, unmarried. I didn't even know that. I came back from being overseas. And I went to this Bible study out of favor and wanted to be around American Christians.
This girl actually walks in late to the Bible study. My wife and I are sitting on the floor. We're not even sitting. On a couch, everyone else sitting on the couch. They made room for her because she was pregnant, and she sat right at the end of the couch near the door.
And we went all the way through the Bible study and whole prayer request time. And as we began to pray, the first couple closest to me, the Lord gave me a word.
So I spoke to them and the husband was like, how did you know that? Said, I don't know. I haven't seen you guys in eight months, but that's what I hear the Holy Spirit say.
Next couple, same thing happened. The husband bobbing his head up and down, going, How did you know that?
Next person, same thing. And we go all the way around the room, and all these people get a word from God. And I was shocked. My wife was shocked. And even the person running the Bible study is like, wow.
I mean, it was awesome. It was incredible. Then we get to this girl. And I did hear some. or two words.
And I go to say something and the guy in front of the bible study the guy leading the bible study looks at me and shakes his head no So I kind of leaned back against the wall some more and Just waited, and all these women went over to her and began to just hug on her and love on her. And I'm sitting there, and the thought that I had was: God's not a band-aid, God. They're just putting salve and band-aids on her. and that God is not a band-aid God. Finally, as the women began to move away, I said out loud because my chest, it was on fire.
And that doesn't happen very much anymore now. But back then, when I was learning these things, it was an indication to me that God wanted to speak. And anyway. I said to her, I said I hear two words. And I said both of them.
One was a name and one was that it was a girl. And uh She broke down crying. It was like, oh, great. I slid down against the wall. The women are looking at me.
You know how women can look at you, and you're getting those arrows shot at you. I'm getting glares and everything. And I just sit back against the wall. I said, I'm sorry, God. And I said, I went a bridge too far.
I am so sorry, God. And in a girl. It says, no, no, no, no, no, no, stop. He's right. And everybody just freezes.
And she picks up her Bible. and pulls out an ultrasound. Before she had come to that Bible study, She was at the doctor's office getting an ultrasound. And she had already written the name. of the baby across the top of the ultrasound.
Which was the name that I had spoken, and that it was a girl. Of course, everybody's freaking out. You know, months later, when I get back from the count out in the country, even these people that you're going, they don't believe in miracles, signs, and wonders. I mean, you know who they are. We all know people like that.
They don't believe in miracles, signs, and wonders. They think it's all whatever. Those people are coming to me going, Have you seen the baby, baby, baby, baby, this? And I'm like, going, no, I just walked through the door, you know, and people freaking out, going, How? how and see she had considered giving that baby up for adoption And and so I say that to you is that There are Undeniable.
God doesn't need our help. He doesn't need us to build up momentum.
So that we can do a miracle, sign a wonder. He does what he wants to do when he wants to do it. Maybe As we go around the world, as we travel around the world, we become a conduit through which He uses because of our love walk and our obedience to Him, that He says, Hey, I can trust you to do this. And so, you know, I don't think I've ever called out a headache or a big toe hurting any of that stuff. And 99% of what we've seen happen doesn't happen in churches.
It happens out in the street. The last miracle I actually saw. occur in a church was Few years ago, I was asked to preach at a church, and the night before, I kept hearing somebody crying out to God. And I was like, God, these are not my thoughts. Why am I having thoughts about a young lady crying out to you, considering suicide?
And so I went the next day. My wife and I, we preached, we did what we were supposed to do. And at the end, I said, I don't know who this applies to, but last night as I was laying in bed trying to go to sleep. I heard your thoughts. I heard blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I'm repeating all this out loud. Nobody moves.
Okay. We sat down closed service. I missed it. I missed it. But after service.
Two women came up to me. And one of them said, we didn't want to come up. Uh to the pulpit for the altar call, but And I have said a name. as well. And they said, this is her.
And yes, last night she was crying out to God about suicide.
So they didn't want to do it. in front of everybody. But after service, they came to me and said I'm her. And, you know, so you know. Take that for what you will, but it's like most of what I've seen and what Anger and I have seen happen doesn't always happen in the pulpit.
It happens after church. She just, we just had recently had somebody come after me through gossip and rumors, which, you know. In my mind, I'm going, well, you're not born again if you're gossiping and. Creating rumors and trying to create dissension, you're doing all three of the seven things that God despises. How can you be full of the Holy Spirit?
Well, when I heard about it, I didn't call that person up, cussing them out, and doing any of that. I was working on a foundation and I just kept working on my thing. And I went, because I've learned the lesson, I went and started blessing that person, praying for that person, and believing great things about that person. And several weeks later, my wife had the opportunity to minister. a family member of this person and that person got healed.
That's all I can really tell you. And more details to it. And now, all of a sudden, that person that was trying to destroy me with rumors and lies that I just basically ignored and blessed him is now all up in my wife's business, wanting to know more, wanting to, you know.
So, what was meant for evil, God turned around, used for good.
Now, we reacted to it the right way because we've learned our lesson. We don't let that stuff bother us anymore, but we learned our lesson. And now God has turned it into something good.
So. Let's go back to 2 Peter here, to what I'll say. It says, Many will follow their depraved conduct, will bring a way of truth into dispute. Disrepute. In their greed, these teachers will explode you with their fabricated stories.
Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping. For God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains and darkness to be held for judgment. Um Listen, he goes on to say. He rescued Lot, a righteous man who distressed the devout in the middle of all the lawless, living among them day by day, and was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds that he saw and heard. And so he said this is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the flesh and despise authority.
Bold and arrogant, they are not afraid to heap abuse. On celestial beings, angels, even though they are stronger. And he verse 12, but these people blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like unreasoning animals, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed. And like the animals, too, they will be perished.
They will be paid back harm for harm, as they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. There are blots or blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you. Yeah. They're eyes of adultery.
They never stop sinning. They seduce the unstable. They're experts in greed, an accursed brood. I mean, that experts in greed right there, I would tell you, that's. Is that not a reference to the prosperity gospel?
I might have just lost you there, huh? I believe in prosperity. I believe that God wants us to prosper. I mean, he says in 2 John that. Dear brethren, I pray that you prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers.
But there's a difference between the prosperity of God and the prosperity gospel that is all about the preacher getting rich and not all those who Run with the preacher. You know, the difference is David. His mighty men of valor went into the cave of Abdulam, broken, porn, and distraught, and came out, mighty men of valor, with wealth. Everything they needed, Abraham. Was the kind of man that when he uh people united with him and became part of his his, I'm not going to say army, but more, it was almost more of his fellowship or his household.
Um, They prospered. They prospered in many ways besides just money. And so throughout scripture, you see people who unite themselves with a man of God or a woman of God or. In really individually with the Holy Spirit, prosperity comes to them. It is not something, you know, the problem with the prosperity gospel, it's basically like a multi-leveling.
level scheme in that only one man at the top prospers. That's the real problem with the prosperity gospel: one man's driving around, and scripture talks about this back in Elijah, Ezekiel even talks about it, where these people have furs and fat meat and the greatest chariots and this and that.
Meanwhile, those who give to them Our peer. Poor, desperate, dying of hunger. And I know of a church in Michigan, wonderful pastor, great shepherd. And when the recession hit in 2008. Uh they made sure nobody lost their house.
Nobody in their church lost their house. They made sure everybody was able to keep their property, keep their house when millions of other people were being foreclosed on. Not long after that, I believe it was in 2000. Fifteen or sixteen? A church was given to them.
You know, so that's true prosperity. When you prosperity is not just me, myself, and I, but. me and everybody that that I'm around. me and everybody that I know.
So, see, the whole thing about the New Testament is not about tithes and offerings, it's about. generosity. That's the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Everything out of the Old Testament was the minimum code requirement. The minimum law requirement.
Everything in the New Testament is the above and beyond. Your cup is overflowing. Luke, that your cup will overflow. It's about the generosity. And as you're generous with nobody knowing, as you're giving day and night to people around you that need it, God notices.
And Corinthians says that that offering comes up as a memorial offering to him into his nostrils in heaven, and he takes notice. Anyway, I didn't mean to get into all that. He goes, They are experts in greed, an uncursed brood. They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam, son of Bazar, who loved the wages of wickedness. And so it says these people are springs without water and mist-driven by a storm.
Blackest darkness is reserved for them.
So, listen, let's go over here. Back to Jude.
Sorry, got a turn to it. And he says, Listen to what he says. Wow. I got into Revelation. Listen to what he says.
Here It will start woe to them, for they've taken the way of Cain, verse 11. They've rushed in the prophet after Balaam's error. They've been destroyed in Korah's rebellion. These people are blemishes on your love feast, eating with you without the slightest quim, shepherds who feed only themselves. I think we just talked about that.
They're clouds without rain. blowing along by the wind autumn trees without fruit and uprooted twice dead, their wild waves of sea foaming their shame, wandering stars whom blackness is reserved forever. I say all of this because I want to get to one of my favorite. Verses in the word, and this is Ephesians chapter 3. And I'm going to read it.
Out of my Bible here. These people Hmm. Who claimed to be teachers of the word, who claimed to be this, and how many of them became? preachers because Someone in their family said, Oh, you need to be a preacher, or you need to be this, or they saw the wealth of some prosperity gospel or whatever it is, right?
So they become These preachers, and in doing so, they become the blind leading the blind. They're powerless, they have no authority, they serve off of a deceptive gospel. And you say, But, Brother John, how can I be aware of them? You know, and here's the thing: in the United States, statistics are saying that, and I believe the numbers are higher, so I'm just gonna go low and say 70%. of preachers in the United States do not believe in the authority and the finality of the word of God.
They do not believe That the Word of God has all the answers. They do not believe that the Word of God is the only way. Many of them believe there are many other ways into heaven. Man, those are the types of destructive doctrines that lead to churches that have. Keg parties, churches that allow all kinds of different things.
And to now we have churches that allow gay marriages and gay preachers and And, you know, why? Because we got off the narrow path. We've fallen the. into Balaam's error. We have uh become clouds without rain, trees without fruit.
And Let me read to you what it says. Yeah. It's it Yeah. It says this. It says, let me go to Ephesians chapter 3.
It says. Paul is praying. He says, for this reason in verse 14. I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The only person you should ever bow your knee to.
Is the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, Christ, Christians. And he says that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might in the spirit. In the inner man.
So he wants you to be, he wants your inner man, your spirit man, to grow and mature. He goes, That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love. You know, the key to everything is love. It really is, and not self-love. Not the kind of love that walks in and goes, here I am, but the kind of love that walks in and goes, oh.
and notices the person in the back corner that nobody's paying attention to. that walks down the street or drives down the street you notice the invisible people that society wants to ignore. That you notice people who are hurting and broken. that everybody else is ignoring. Why?
Because there's no favoritism. He goes, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend.
So you can comprehend this, what is the breadth, the length, and the depth, and the height. And to know that love of Christ.
So, what is the length and the breadth and the depth and the height of God's love?
Well, if you go east, will you ever reach east? If you go west, will you ever reach West? If you go north, will you ever reach north? Yeah. But he's not saying going north or south.
He's saying Length and breadth. You go east or west, you'll never reach the end. Because there's a verse that says he drives sin out of your life as far as the east is from the west. Why? Because you keep going east, you never reach east.
He says, and what is the depth and the height? Why? because you'll never reach the height. you'll never reach the bottom of the depth. He goes insane to know the love of God.
That's the love of God. That love comes in according to Romans 5. When you were born again, love came in and it began to push sin as far as the east is from the west, as high as you could look and as far as you could go. It's eternal. which passes knowledge.
Passes knowledge. See, a lot of these preachers, that's what they have. They have knowledge and doctrines of men, but you can be filled. And he goes on to say that you might be filled with all the fullness of God, that you could be filled to the fullness of God. That's even Jesus' prayer in John chapter 17.
Now listen to what he says. He goes on to say in chapter 4, he says then he has also Well, I mentioned this earlier.
Now that he ascended, what does he also mean that he descended first into the lower parts of the earth? That he descended as the same that might ascend up to all heavens, that he might fill all things.
So that's the whole thing, he went to Abraham's bosom, leading captives from captivity. And he says in verse 11: he gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors, some teachers. Why? For the perfecting of the saints, for the maturing of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body. Till we what?
Till we all come in unity of faith and enlarge of the Son of God into the perfect man. Unto the measure and stature and the fullness of Christ. Henceforth, and here's the clue: so he's talking about being rooted and grounded in love, he's talking about. The people who are in the ministry edifying and teaching you. And helping you becoming rooted and grounded in love.
So, why? That we henceforth no longer be children.
So, one, you would mature and become adults, tossed to and fro.
So, no longer swayed back and forth and carried about with every wind of doctrine and the slight of men and cunning craft. And it's by where they lie in wait to deceive.
So, how can you avoid these preachers? How can you avoid these false doctrines and all these deceptions out there by being rooted and grounded in love and becoming mature? Why? Because as you become rooted and grounded in love, becoming mature, what's happening? You're developing a relationship.
You're growing. You're no longer a babe in Christ. Because remember, you're newborn babes. Paul even talks about that. Hereby no longer do we pursue the elementary teachings.
Why? Because you're moving on to maturity. And the path to maturity is the path of love. That's why Paul said after the chapter of love that everybody has memorized, it seems. Nobody seems to remember or realize that the varying.
Next verse that we've separated into chapter 14 in verse 1, Paul says, Make this the quest or the journey, the goal, the path of your life. And what is that? To follow after love. Make love the greatest quest of your life. But he says this.
So he goes on to say this.
So if you want to avoid the cunning teaching doctrines of men, if you want to avoid the rainless clouds that you should be expecting fruit from or water from, or the fruitless trees as Peter talked about them, how can you avoid them? By being rooted and grounded in love. Because when you become rooted and grounded in love, now the sap that flows through the throne and flows through Jesus flows through you by the Holy Spirit and you begin to produce fruit. And you can, as you produce fruit, you begin to see the real realities of God taking place in your life, in your thinking, in your speech. In your daily walk, when you begin to experience these things for yourself, instead of listening to my testimonies or somebody else's stories and testimonies, now you are beginning to experience and grow and mature in these things.
And what happens is you become hungry for them. And as you continue to go out, and you know, you get up in the morning and say, hey, God, who are we helping today? Even though you've got a list of problems. Who are we helping today, God? And that day you end up talking to one person who needed to hear what you had to say.
Mm. And what's happening? You're now focusing on what God's focused on. Others. And as you grow in this love and you experience this relationship, you experience this love.
What happens? You begin to be able to see through the smoke and mirrors. The Vipers. And their teachings. And he says, but speaking of truth and love may grow up into him all things which is ahead.
And he goes on to talk about. Uh we become the perfect body. And mature body. I say all of that to say this. There are so many.
Rainless clouds. Sure. Fruitless trees Mean Who wants you to give to them and to give up your sweat and tears and effort so that they can prosper to fall in line with their doctrine? There are about 30 people on the planet right now who claim to be Jesus. There's a man from America who's claiming to be the 12th Mogi, which, when the Muslims find out about him, they're gonna kill him because he's not a Muslim.
He claims to be the continuation of Jesus, the 12th Modi. He claims to be the next Buddha and something else for Hindus. He claims to be the all-in-all. And the problem is that when the Muslims find out about him, that he's claiming to be the 12th Mohidi, they're going to kill him. They will.
And he's just some American dumb kid who studied cults and religions, did documentaries on them, and now he's going to be a target. And you'd go to the Philippines and find a dozen men who claim to be Jesus. And so I say this to you: that as we move forward in these darker days and ages. There is a light that is supposed to shine. There is a as the world does what it is supposed to do So are you.
But you are not designed and created to be a partaker of those things. You were designed and created to be a partaker of the divine nature. And the divine nature is the agape love of God. When you're born again, Ezekiel says he'll take out that heart of stone, that heart of flesh, or that heart of stone, which is the sinful nature, and he will replace it with a heart of flesh, which is the love nature. See, if you'll go study, go read Galatians chapter 5 and don't just read the part about the fruit of the spirit that so many preach from, because three verses above it, it tells you what the fruit of the normal spirit.
Sinful man, the nature that you and I were born into was the sinful man. Every man that's been born was born into the sinful nature of man since Adam. And then that's why Jesus said you must become born again, born again of what? The spirit. And so, when the normal sinful man character is found in Galatians chapter 5, I believe it's verse 18.
And in Galatians chapter 5, verse 20, he talks about the character of the born-again man, the character of love. See, the old man, your nature was sin, the new man, your nature is love. That's it right there. And as you begin to be rooted and grounded in love, you begin to pursue love, as Paul said, make it the greatest quest of your life. What happens?
You begin to grow and mature, and things begin to happen in you. Things begin to happen around you. You become different. You don't have to force yourself to be self-disciplined because it is part of the nature of love. You don't have to force yourself.
To not do these things or to do certain things, because those are either the nature of sin or the nature of love. Your choice. And so, what I say to you, what you feed on is what you will become. And so, if your relationship with God has gotten stale, is it because you're so full of the doctrines of men that you don't see anything else but a church that wants you to participate in all of its wares and doctrines? And yet are those doctrines found in the teachings of Jesus?
You know, we just did an episode the other night on the radio show Tuesday night. called the doctrine of Jesus. And what is the doctrine of Jesus? Love. Love.
That's it. Everything else falls into place when you walk in love. There's no other religion in the world. that gives you access to the love of God. Other than A relationship with Jesus.
And so I want to encourage you that as the world grows darker, as men and women continue to become experts on deceiving people, I mean, I referenced to you just now the book of Jude, 2 Peter, to even Paul. What? These are all men who come along to do what? To deceive you. Why?
to control you, and they're operating out of the sinful nature. But as you begin to grow and mature and operate in the love nature, these things will fall off. That's why Paul says, setting aside every weight and shackle that easily besets you. A lot of those weights and shackles are not just. your old nature, they are also the doctrines of men.
That have been put on you by a religious group that wants you to act a certain way. And so, my desire and my hope in doing this episode is not so that you will go out and run up to a preacher and say, Oh, you're wrong here. Listen, there's things I've got that are wrong. But I'm maturing day by day and endeavoring to teach the word, not doctrines of men. Not doctrines of some religion that Change the word.
or manipulate the word. I'm not interested in that. And so you need to become your own Berean and study the word and study. that for yourself and not just trust everything that we tell you. Those of us who claim to be preachers, you've got to study the word, you've got to have a a conversation with Jesus.
You've got to develop that relationship. And so I want to encourage you that if you're sitting under some of these fruitless trees, some of these that serve nothing but the doctrines of their denomination. Run. Run. And don't be scared to say something to them.
And it may be painful, but your salvation and your maturity are important. There is a revival coming of men and women who will be full of love and walking in the doctrine of Christ. It's coming, and it has nothing to do with the tribulation or escaping in the rapture. These are men and women who are going to be so full of love, so mature. It's the only thing the church hasn't tried.
in at least 1800 years. Maybe more like 1970 years. But it's the only thing that we have yet. to go after. And there is a scripture after scripture after scripture that says this is the path.
And Jeremiah himself said in the last, or he said, Today I stand before you. At a crossroads, choose this day which path you will follow. And the people of the church in that day chose the path of law. The path they were already on. And because they stayed on that path that seemed right to them, following the doctrines of all the law that had been passed down before them, what happened?
The destruction came. But yet Jeremiah was saying, here's a path over here. The eternal path, the ancient path. It was ancient in his time. How ancient is it now?
And so I say to you, there's a path of love. Paul said, Make this the greatest quest of your life. That if you will get on it and you begin to pursue it, you begin to quit thinking about yourself all the time. You quit thinking about all your needs, and begin to serve others as you serve Jesus. You will find yourself on that path and he will reveal things to you that you'll never be able to share with people.
And you'll go places and do things that people will go, that's not true. There's no way. They'll disbelieve you, but you'll walk away going, Jesus, that was awesome. You'll walk away going, hey, I'm glad Jesus was a witness to it. Because nobody else believed it.
And you'll live that kind of life, but you'll be okay because he'll be right there with you going, nice job, good job. That's the reward. That's the... extravagant reward of living this life. And seeing Jesus do things because you laid your life down for other people.
So listen. Don't follow after fruitless trees. And when you see a cloud, you expect. Rain. and a refreshing.
So we love you. We appreciate you. We thank you for listening. Remember, Jesus loves people, and love never fails.
