Fake News

Sermon notes from Sunday 25 February 2018

Galatians 1 verses 1 - 10, 2 Corinthians 11 verses 1 - 4

I want us to take a moment or 2 to think of a term that we have been listening so much to - fake news.  A term that is widely associated with the President of the United States Mr Donald Trump himself.  It is a term that speaks of lies, falsehoods against the government, society or maybe to someone in person.  Something that has been written about someone or is said about someone.  It is lies, sent with the intention that it might be believed.  Maybe there are some things you see in social media, that you read in papers, hear on the news in the evening, the moment you see them you realise something is wrong.  They don`t affect you.  You don`t realise they are real or fake because it doesn`t affect you.  Paul warns the Galatian and Corinthian believers, to those he had preached to in times past, he had met with them, watched them trusting Christ as Saviour.  He warned them of this happening.  There were men coming in and taking believers away from the true gospel.  The great subject is this message we have to proclaim.  It is a message preached by the prophets of old, by the disciples of the early church right down to this day and hour in which we live.  Therein lies the great importance.  What is the importance of fake news?  What is the importance of genuine news?  It is that your soul lies in the balance of what you believe in.  Have you come into this meeting with that reality?  That this may perhaps be your last night on this earth.  What you believe tonight might seal your fate for all eternity.  

The apostle Paul warns of a deceptive policy.  He had come to Galatia and Corinth, laid the foundations of the gospel, pointed men and women to Christ who had shed his blood on Calvary`s tree that he might reconcile your soul and mine to God, that he might save your soul tonight.  He came to Corinth and Galatia, preached the word of God and there were those who came to Christ and were saved as a result.  He returns now to them - verses 6 and 7 "I marvel that you are so soon removed from him."  He had preached the real genuine gospel but others came in after him and preached a perverted gospel.  They were drawing them away from Christ.  Are you saved tonight?  Are you in that place  where the Lord would have you?  He was addressing a situation that revolved around fake news.  People who came with another spirit.  Men and women were being drawn away.  A hardened warden in a American young people`s prison for those aged 15 - 17 years of age had heard so many stories and seen many situations but the hardest task he had to do, as he locked these young people up, was to sit down and convince them that they had done wrong.  "Everyone believes they are there because they believe they are innocent."  Isn`t that the most difficult task for the preacher - to take the word of God and persuade men they need to be saved.  How do you stand tonight?  Have you listened to the Saviour who came into the world to save souls?  There is a spirit in this world that deceives.  Maybe you are not saved tonight.  Maybe you can point to a date in the past and are living on that.  You do not have a real relationship with Christ at this moment in time.  Salvation is more than a stirring of the heart, agreeing with what the preacher says.  It is more than simply stepping out and walking to the front or raising your hand in a meeting  It should cause a change in behaviour, cause a hunger for the things of God, to have a life of holiness and righteousness sought after through God or are you still depending on something that happened 10 or 15 years ago?  That you have to confess really there is nothing there.  This is what Paul was preaching about.  Someone has got access to your mind and you are now believing a falsehood.  Jeremiah was preaching the word of God day after day, telling men and women if they wanted to escape the judgement of God they had to go into the hands of the king of Babylon.  There were people who rose up and said "don`t listen to him God will never pass judgement on his own people."  But that is what happened - they were carried away into captivity.  People listened to that false news, that God would never judge them.  Do we not hear that same message today?  How God will never turn you out of heaven.  He loved you so much that he sent his Son to die on Calvary.  If he loved you so much then he cannot turn you out of heaven.  That is false news.  Depending on God never turning you away.  He would have to turn you away.  On the cross he died for your every sin yet you have never claimed that atoning work.  You haven`t admitted you are a sinner, asked the Lord to come into your life, make you a child of God.  There was fake news in the Garden where the tomb was.  The disciples came to find the body of Christ was gone.  Fake news.  The soldiers said the disciples had come by night and stole the body away.  When God made creation all was good.  There was no sin.  The devil came in with his deceptive policy.  You will not die he said to Eve.  She replied  they could eat of every tree but there was one tree they were not allowed to eat.  In that day they ate of it they would die.  The devil said you will not die.  A deceptive policy to take her away from God, to form a wall between her and God, to destroy God`s wonderful creation.  She believed in his word.  The Lord was not talking of physical death but spiritual death.  In that one act we died to the holiness of God.  The apostle Paul had tremendous dread on his heart.  2 Corinthians 11 verse 3.  He was still concerned about that deceptive policy.  Paul said "besides those things that are without that which cometh upon me daily the care of all the churches." 2 Corinthians 11 verse 28.  He was afraid of this deceptive policy, drawing men and women from the faith.

Paul speaks of discrediting a person.  2 Corinthians 11 verse 4 "if he that cometh and preacheth another Jesus." A work to discredit the person of Jesus.  To carry out this idea would be to break up relationships the believer has.  The devil has to be so close that you will never give it a second glance.  I guarantee tonight that as we preach, invite, instruct - in the depths you could know you are not saved, that there is a battle on because the devil doesn`t want you to come to him.  In his great plan he has to discredit the person of Christ.  He is preaching another Christ.  He wants them to remember the Jesus Paul preached.  Do you remember the Christ I preached?  Acts 17 "They came to Thessalonica there was a synagogue of the Jews.  And Paul as his manner was went in unto them and 3 Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures."  He goes into the synagogue, begins to expound the word of God, alleges that Christ must needs suffer, he must rise again from the dead.  Not only a suffering Christ but a Christ that was dead and a Christ that was resurrected from the dead.  If anyone presents another Christ.  The false teachers present another Christ Jesus but not Jesus of the scriptures.  Not the sinless son of God, not born of the virgin Mary, not come to seek and to save.  Without sin the cults have another Jesus.  Paul preached about a dying Saviour, a resurrected Saviour, a glorified Saviour who is coming again.  Jesus to many is dead and in the tomb tonight.  He has made no atoning sacrifice, no salvation.  What a terrible life.  Where do you stand tonight?  Jesus turned the 2 disciples on the Emaeus Road to the word of God, to Moses, the Psalms and the prophets.  He convinced them who he was.  The Christ of the scriptures.  Is this the Saviour you are depending on?  We are not just talking about cults tonight.  We need to be careful tonight.  What do we see?  A discreditation of Christ`s work.  Man doesn`t need a Saviour.  He is on his way to heaven and home.  He can earn his own righteousness.  He will fling open the doors of heaven.  We do not need the atoning blood of Christ.  Just live the best life we can.  Attend church, say our prayers, sit at the Lord`s table.  It is fake news.  If that is what you are believing in tonight heaven will never be home to you.  Jesus said "I am the way, the truth and the life no man cometh unto the father but by me."  You need a living relationship in the saving blood of Calvary.

A denying of his power - chapter 11 verse 4.  Another Christ, another Spirit.  Isn`t that what the devil wants to do with a deceptive policy.  To take you away from Christ.  Invent another spirit tonight.  The false cults will tell you the spirit of God is not a person, not the third person of the Trinity.  He is nothing like that.  He is a sort of something you can depend upon at certain times but he is not an eternal power.  Remember what the apostle Paul said of the gospel.  He preached "it is the power of God to everyone that believeth."  Peter in Acts 2 took great theme of Jesus God`s son.  Peter took that message of a living Saviour.  How he came into the world, the miracles he wrought by his hand, his death at Calvary`s cross, spoke of his resurrection.  What was happening in the hearts of men and women?  They were "pricked in their hearts."  The preacher couldn`t do that.  There was an outside power working in the congregation, opening up hearts and lives to accept the gospel.  They realised they needed a Saviour.  Acts 10 verse 44 in the house of Cornelius he took the same message again. His miracles and his works.  While Peter spoke these words the Holy Spirit fell on them.  

There is also a destructive plan.  You can take that policy that disrupts and takes people away, speak of a person discredited, a power that is denied but the Holy Spirit finishes with a destructive plan - to take you away from Christ tonight.  To damn that soul of yours in a lost and Christless eternity.  What will it be tonight?  Satan said to Eve "thou shalt not surely die".  No qualms about it tonight.  Already as you consider the situation and condition are you realising for the first time that you are not saved?  You may have made a profession but you are not saved.  You know nothing of a life transformed, changed, an assurance of God`s salvation.  Will you not come to Christ tonight?  Trust him as Saviour.  Make certain of it tonight.  The devil said to Eve "you shall not die".  Maybe the devil is saying to your soul "that man has it wrong, God will never turn you away."  Why not come to Christ tonight, trust him as Saviour and Lord.  Have you been listening to fake news?  Maybe you have to step out, leave that old life and you have to come to Christ.  It will be a costly salvation.  Leave the old life behind.  Go through with God.  Allow him to teach you.  Come to him tonight.