Christianity and False Comfort Pt 1

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast, making Theology Central. Good afternoon everyone. Yeah, there was kind of a dramatic pause there. There was kind of a dramatic pause because I was thinking, what exactly should I say right now? Should I just go in and say my typical introduction or should I just start expressing my emotion and my frustration. Which way should I go? I guess I'll start in a much more positive way, right I guess I'll start sounding at least sounding a little bit more positive. Good afternoon everyone. It is Saturday, November sixteenth, twenty twenty four. It is currently twelve fifty three pm Central time, and I am coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. That is about as positive as I can be right now. That's about it, because I'm kind of sitting here and that pause is kind of symbolic of I don't really know if I know what to say or what to do. You know, it was such a good idea, It really was such a good idea.

1:23 Let's challenge everyone to take this wonderful resource that's available to everyone for free. The sermons two point oh app Right, let's get everyone to download the sermon's two point oh app well, they will where they will have access to millions of sermons for free. They can download them, they can listen to them, they can do search by topic, by Bible verse, by anything, and they have all of these sermons available. Let's get everyone to download this app and then we'll have them listen to at least one sermon every single day, forever, very single day of twenty twenty four. It'll be fun, it'll be interesting. We'll have them choose these sermons as random as possible, not picking a certain denomination or a certain anything, just or a certain speaker. Just hey, look up random sermons, or look up sermons on this passage of scripture, or look up sermons on this topic. But still make it random. You're not looking for your favorite preacher or your favorite kind of church. And then you can hear all kinds of different perspectives. What a wonderful idea, What a great idea?

2:30 That's exciting, that's encouraging, that's wonderful. And where have I found myself? Well, I find myself on this Saturday, November sixteenth, twenty twenty four, and the excitement is gone. Okay, the even being excited about finishing this has disappeared. I really just don't even care anymore. I mean, I hate to say that, I feel like that the Sermon's two point zero app sermon challenge has turned into a negative thing. And I never I never envisioned that it would. I knew there would be some twists and turns and ups and downs, and there would be some frustration and some irritation.

3:19 But here's where I am on this Saturday, no verm the sixteenth, twenty twenty four. This is where I am, after listening to sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon. This is how I feel. This is expressing my emotion as raw and as unfiltered as I possibly can at this point. I feel that Christianity constantly offers nothing more than fraudulent promises, that Christianity constantly offers nothing more than false comfort, That Christianity constantly offers nothing more than shallow peace. It offers me, it offers you an illusion of hope. It is nothing more than a lie, a sham, and it leaves people confused and broken. That's how I feel. I know that that's probably not gonna make everyone happy. Let me let me state it again carefully.

4:26 After all of this time I'm listening to sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon, I have reached this place where I feel that Christianity constantly, constantly offers nothing more than fraudulent promises, false comfort, shallow piece. It offers nothing more than an illusion of hope. It is nothing more than a lie. It is a sham, and it leaves people confused and broken. Those are some strong worst you see. You notice now why there was a pause at the beginning, because should I even say that? Now? If I was to try to set aside my emotion, set aside my feelings, I may state that a little different differently. Instead of necessarily saying Christianity, I think maybe what I could say is Churchianity. The church, many pastors, many preachers, many Bible teachers. They constantly offer nothing more than fraudulent promises, false comfort, shallow piece, an illusion of hope.

5:36 They offer nothing more than a lie, a sham, and it leaves people broken and confused. See. I think if I were it that way, then it makes people a little bit more comfortable. If I say Christianity. Ooh, I can see why that would make people uncomfortable. But if I say Churchianity, then I'm taking Christianity and I'm referring to the Church what we see, right, I'm not talking about the truths of Christianity. I'm talking about the earthly representation of Christianity, the Church, what we see, the institution, the corporate Church. Well, however you would like to describe it, so I think i'll state it this way. At least Churchianity, I'll state it that way offers nothing more than fraudulent promises, false comfort, shallow piece and illusion of hope. It's nothing more than a lie. It is a sham, and it leaves people confused and broken. And that's how I feel on this November sixteenth, twenty twenty four, after almost an entire year, because we started in December of twenty twenty three, we're fast approaching the end of our sermons two point zero app sermon Challenge, and by the end of this I just feel like what happened? Now? Maybe your experience

7:06 is very different, right, and you should write a paragraph describing your experience. I would love to know your experience. You may feel completely different after a year of sermons, you may feel rejuvenated, revived. You may feel excited, you may have a passion for God's word, you may feel hopeful. You may feel like that the Christianity is at the we're in the golden era of Christianity, the Golden age. Things are amazing. You may be you may have a completely different experience. Now, a lot of that may be based on the sermons we chose to listen to. It may be on our perception. But I'm here like there's almost a part of me that says, do I ever want to listen to another sermon? Ever? Again? Ever? Again?

7:56 This is what has happened, especially over the last month or so, is I feel like we have found ourselves if you've been following along being confronted with false comfort, false peace, and false hope, and sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon. Now, there's basically two ways in which this has occurred, two basic ways. If I wish to summarize how we ended here, what we ended here by listening to sermons, but in the sermons, in the Bible teaching, we have found ourselves here because there's basically two things happening in sermons that I think leads you to drawing the conclusion that church entity offers nothing more than fraudulent promises, false comfort, shallow piece and illusion of hope. It is nothing more than a lie, a sham, and it leaves people confused and broken. I think there's two things that happen that me to this confused this conclusion.

9:02 Number one is how the church constantly speaks of salvation and sin sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon. Somewhere in the sermon, it's this idea that, hey, when you became a Christian, don don dundah, you were given superpowers. Now you can say no to sin, yes to God. You basically can stop sinning. You have a new heart, you have a new spirit. The old nature is completely gone. You're a new creature. Whole things have passed away, whole things have become new. You basically can walk on water, go do it. Oh wait, you sinned, Well you're probably not saved. You're going to hell over and over. That type of preaching manifests itself. Now they may try to backtrack a little bit, they may try to offer a little bit of balance, but you walk away from sermon after sermon, thinking, look, I've basically now basically right there, I almost threw the microphone across the room. But basically, sermon after sermon after sermon, you basically come to the conclusion that I should be perfect, that I should be basically without sin. I should be basically sin so little that it's not really even detectable. And if I do sin, it's some insignificant sin. It's not going to be any big sin, because you know, Christians don't really commit big sins because why well, all of the old is gone and everything is new. This happens over and over and

10:34 sermon after sermon, and we have reviewed it. We've reviewed so many sermons that present this way of thinking, and we've even showed how many of these sermons they contradict themselves after going thirty five to forty minutes basically acting like you nobody should sin, and they'll say, well, nobody's going to do it perfect. Well, we still fight against sin, Well, we still fight against the flesh. Wait a minute, you said to have a new heart and new spirit. You said, I'm a new creature, the oldest gone, And what am I fighting against? And it's just maddening and it's confusing. But you know what, it leads people with a false hope, a fraudulent promise, a shallow peace because you cling to this thinking, Okay, this is it. I've got it, And then you face reality. You hear all of the preaching and it's so disconnected with the reality of what goes on in the lives of and the lives of believers, and what's going on inside the church. It is so disconnected from it. And then we get story after story about this pastor and this church and this sin and this sin and this sin and this, and everybody's like, well, the only thing you know to do is throw everyone out of the Kingdom of God, because true Christians don't do any of this, because we basically have become superheroes.

11:51 I don't know why we're not all perfect. But then they'll say, well, we're not saying you'll be perfect. Well, and it's just this circular reasoning, conradictory statements, and it is maddening, and after a while you just like, I just don't get it. I disagree with everything within within Churchianity. I'll use the word churchianity because you just it's so it's preaching a fairy tale. It's so it can't face the reality of the world around. Christianity should be able to speak to reality, not simply create a fraudulent reality that we all pretend to be in and nobody can be very open and honest and transparent that we all sin.

12:38 God's standard is perfection. Nobody is perfect. Therefore we are all in a perpetual state of sin because we can't obey the simple command to be holy as He is holy. We can't obey the simple command to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. We can't obey the command to love God with all of our heart, my body, and soulf We can't obey. And I can go on from scripture after scripture after scripture. Nobody all, but somehow, we are told in sermon after sermon after sermon that basically we should be perfect. Does that not drive anybody else crazy? Is it not maddening? Is it not ridiculous? Because it creates a Christianity that is detached from reality. We should be able. Christianity should be able to be very real with reality. It should be able to confront it and speak to it in a correct way. So that's the first main way that this has occurred. This is what brought us to this point, or at least brought me to this point of just I don't know what to say anymore. Christianity's constantly offering this fraudulent hope, this false hope, this false comfort, and the first way they do so is the way they speak about salvation and sin, creating a reality that nobody truly experiences. Or you have to convince yourself that you're so much better and so more godly than you really are. But if you would just compare your life to the law of God, you would be like I fall short. I fall short, I fall short, I fall short. Why can I not

14:08 get to perfection? And if I can't get to perfection, then I'm a perpetual state of sin. It may not be that sin, it may not be that sin, but I'm still in a perpetual state of sin. So then can I, who's in a perpetual state of sin pick up rocks and throw them at other people who just happened to be in a perpetual state of sin but they committed the big sins? Where I'm at a perpetual stat of sin, but I didn't commit those sins, so I can pick up the rocks and stone those people, even though I'm in a perpetual state of sin. It's maddening, it's ridiculous, it's foolishness. How do you play that game? I don't know. So that's the first way this occurs.

14:51 It's this the way the church handles this. Number two, The second way that we've watched this unfold with this false comfort, false hope, false promises, all these fraudulent things, is the way the church constantly misapplies and hijack scriptures that were meant for someone else, and we hijacket apply it to ourselves. Still the promises claim that is for us, and then pretend that somehow these things are happening, when in reality they are not. And we watch this over and over and over again. In fact, I think what became so depressing in all of this is I started feeling like that. That's all I do is the I turn on the microphone to go, Okay, here's another sermon. Okay, here's the passage of scripture. Okay, please know what they do.

15:49 They insert us, They move the people out. Hey, ladies and gentlemen, here's another scripture. Look what they do. They insert us, they move the original recipients. Hey, ladies and gentlemen, here's another scripture. And that's maddening. In the last month or so, we can forget everything else we've covered over twenty twenty four. But over the last month or so, really three passages have kind of emerged to the surface as being the issue. The first one we know, right, we know the first one. Everyone want to say it Isaiah.

16:29 Come on, everyone want to say it. Isaiah chapter forty verse one. Isaiah chapter forty verse one, where we read these words comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God, and sermon after sermon the people that this was spoken to their context, everything about them. They are kicked out, they may be mentioned. They may be mentioned as we walk them to the door, push them out the door, slam the door shut, and say, ladies and gentlemen, this is our comfort. Comfort for you, comfort for me. We still this comfort. We hijack this text and we make Isaiah forty through fifty five, which is the book of comfort, a comfort for us and for you and for me.

17:18 And we don't really care about the people who I don't know were really suffering in Babylonian captivity. I mean, yeah, it's great God did something for them, but it's all about us. And then we start taking and hijacking it and applying it and ignoring the context and taking the comfort that was meant for them, which was very material, very physical, very tangible, and then we tell people that we get that same kind of material, tangible, physical comfort, and you're like, uh, have you looked at the world lately? Come on now, So there's the first passage Isaiah forty verse one, and what has that led to Isaiah chapter forty verse one has led to us now beginning a series where we're going to cover Isaiah chapter forty verse one all the way to the end of chapter fifty five.

18:04 We're gonna cover the entire section. It's gonna go long, it's gonna be tedious, but we're gonna go through it. Why because of all of the misapplication, mishandling twisting of the text, someone's got to look at it in its historical context. So that is what we're going to do. So we have this series Isaiah forty through fifty five. We are going to do that. The second Scripture, Deuteronomy chapter thirty two, which is Moses' song Deuteronomy thirty two to ten. We read these words, he found him in a desert land and in the waste howling wilderness. He led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. And what we've saw sermon we've sold, well, a lot of sermons don't really address it.

18:56 We definitely found one main sermon, one main teaching, but it's coming throughout Christianity. To go to Deuteronomy thirty two ten. If I said Isaiah thirty two ten, I apologize Deuteronomy thirty two ten. Go to Deuteronomy thirty two ten. And again, what do we do? We make it about us. It's not that he found him, he found us. It's not about he led him. It's about him leading us. It's not about he instructed him. It's about him he instructing us. It's not about he kept him. It's about him keeping us. And we immediately go in and sert us into the text and move everyone out, and it's all about us again.

19:38 And then it takes these promises, which again are very tangible, very material, very physical because of the context in which Deuteronomy thirty two is found, and we make it about us. So what we're going to do is we will do some specific teaching on Deuteronomy thirty two, kind of on the chapter and then specifically on verse ten. We've already done some, we'll do a little bit more and we'll try to wrap it up to some level. We'll try to wrap it up. Okay, I don't know. Maybe we'll make that a little mini series on Deuteronomy thirty two. I don't know, but we're gonna work on that. Then we stumbled upon again. This one is Hebrews chapter six, Hebrews chapter six. We started talking about this yesterday Hebrews chapter six, verse thirteen. Hebrews chapter six, verse thirteen. For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he swear by himself, saying, surely blessing, I will bless THEE, and multiplying, I will multiply THEE.

20:53 And so after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men rarely swear by the greater an oath, for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. Wherein God willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise, the immutability of his counsel confirmed it by an oath that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation who have fled for refuge, to lay hold upon the hope set before us, which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil, whether the forerunner is for us entered it, Whether whether the forerunner is for us entered even Jesus made a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Okay, now another way that's written. You have to really kind of break it down. But what we learned listening to a sermon is that the anchor is our anchor, and stop being their anchor. And immediately this is a made promises about us, and these promises become for us and about us, and said, oh wait, what about them? And what is the context? So we have Isaiah forty verse one, how are we handling that?

22:11 We're going to cover Isaiah forty verse one all the way to the end of fifty five. We're doing the entire series on that. We have Deuteronomy thirty two ten, we've already covered it, but we'll do some kind of like teaching to bring it to some kind of a conclusion once again, to demonstrate that this passage is being ripped out of its context and applied to us without dealing with the original people, and then making those promises somehow applicable to us and almost acting like the promises are for our material, physical, tangible lie, you know, in a tangible way for us. Then we have Hebrews chapter six, verses thirteen through twenty, where clearly, I mean, if you just look at the context, it's promises to abra Ham.

22:55 This is written to the Hebrews, so this clearly has a Jewish context, and we can go through, wait, what are these promises? What is this strong consolation? What is it about? Who is it for? And instead of ripping it out of its context, we'll do a little work and teaching on this to put it in its proper context. So we're gonna do an entire series on Isaiah forty through fifty five, Isaiah chapters forty through fifty five. We're gonna do a little bit of teaching and try to wrap up our discussion on Deuteronomy thirty two, and we're gonna do a little bit of work and try to finish up our study of Hebrews chapter six. We're going to do all of that, and maybe we'll take all of that and put it in a Maybe we'll put all of that teaching in a series that we may refer to as Christianity and false comfort or false comfort in Christianity are Christianity's false comfort something along those lines, And then we're gonna put everything in that series. I think that's what we will do, and then we're gonna add something to that. What I want to do is I want to spend some time looking at all of the negative consequences that this false comfort causes and brings to people's lives, and then I want to look at all the ways Christianity offers false comfort. Now I've already given you two clear ways that has led me to

24:26 this frustration, right, how the Church deals with sin and its misapplication and hijacking of scripture. But we'll get to some more specific ways in this. So that's really kind of the introduction we had this, And I want you to just realize, how did we end up in Isaiah forty verse one a random sermon? Right? How did we end up in Deuteronomy thirty two ten, a random sermon. How did we end up in Hebrew six thirteen through twenty a random sermon. It wasn't like I set out to go I'm going to go find sermons that offer false comfort and false peace. No, all of this came about because we're just going from sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon, random sermons, and starting to realize that this is what's happening over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

25:21 So we have to deal with all of this, right, I've got to try to put it all together and try to you know, I can use all the metaphors, land the plane, bring the ship into harbor, however you want to, you know, finish the race, bring the train into the station, whatever metaphor works for you. I've got to try to put this all together so that yes, we're gonna be talking about some of these similar things in our study in Isaiah forty through fifty five because it's applicable, and then we'll be talking about some of these things of you. And then I think, so I think we can have our series on Isaiah forty through fifty five, and then we can have this series on Christianity's false comfort Christianity and false comfort, false comfort in Christianity.

26:07 I don't know the exact title, how I should word it. Whichever is probably sounds the best and it's more clear. I may have to you know, I'll have to try to figure that out, but then create and then put all of this additional discussion about Deuteronomy, Hebrew six, and just the concept in general in this series. So we'll have some kind of at least summer that will have at least just two main series dealing with this subject, one in the context of Isaiah forty through fifty five, the other in a broader context but including discussion on Deuteronomy thirty two and Hebrews chapter six, somewhat running parallel until we can bring one to the to a conclusion, because Isaiah forty through fifty five will go much longer, and the hopefully I'm scared to review any more sermons like the one sermon on Hebrew six that was part that was a a prep sermon for a conference that was happening, a preaching conference. I wanted to keep listening to the messages in the preaching conference, but you know what, I'm scared of that every sermon after I'm going to keep finding the same thing, either the how they speak of salvation and sin or how they misapply and misinterpret scripture and move the original recipients out to insert ourselves into it. And I can't. I don't want to find anymore.

27:30 I don't want to find anymore. I'm sick of that. And what's crazy about this kind of wild Challenger experiment is I never went into it going, oh, this is where we're going, this is how we're going to end. I never envisioned in December twenty twenty three that I would be here on November sixteenth, twenty twenty four, going, hey, I'm tired of it. I'm sick of it. I'm fed up of it. Christianity offers nothing more than fraudulent promises, false comfort, shallow peace, an illusion of hope is nothing more than a lie, a sham. At least people confused and broken. I never would have thought that's where I would have ended up. That was never the intention, that was never the goal. I wanted everyone to be like that.

28:23 And again, hopefully it's positive for you. If it's positive for you, now that's awesome. I just hope it's positive for you because you are listening to discernments and facing reality. It's not positive for you because you're listening to discernments and denying reality. So how do we deal with false comfort and Christianity? Where should we begin? Well? I think all of this led me to two passages. The first one is in Jeremiah chapter six. Jeremiah, Verse fourteen. Jeremiah chapter six. Now I want to go verse to verse fourteen.

29:13 Let's go to verse thirteen, right, Jeremiah chapter six, Verse thirteen. For from the least of them, even unto the greatest of them, everyone is given to coveteousness. And from the prophets, even unto the priest, everyone dealeth falsely. Oh, now, this is Jeremiah bringing words of rebuke and condemnation to the religious leaders. Listen to that. Again, From the least of them, even unto the greatest of them, everyone is given to coveteousness. All right, So a lot of what motivates what they do is coveteousness, money, position, fame, popularity. They covet something right and preaching. If you covet anything other than just being faithful to the text, You're in trouble, and let make it, make it very clear. I covet other things other than just the text. I have my entire ministry just like other people, because we're human beings and we have a sinful nature, right, but we have to be aware of man. Am I doing this because I want popularity?

30:20 Am I doing this because I want fame? Am I doing this because I need a paycheck? Am I doing this because I need people to support the ministry? Am I doing this because I want more downloads? Am I doing this because I want more streams? Am I doing this because I want, you know, people to not in this case for me pay money to go to my conference? Do I want this for people to buy my books? But look what happens and from the prophet, even unto the priests, everyone dealeth falsely, They dealeth falsely, and what way? Look at verse fourteen. They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly. Hey, hey, you've brought healing to the hurt, just slightly. It almost feels like almost a little sarcastically because this is what you're saying.

31:12 You're saying peace, peace, when there is no peace. The priest the prophets. The religious leaders are running around, say no, no, no, everyone, hey hey hey hey peace, Peace, find comfort, find hope, peace, everything is okay, But there is no peace. It's an illusion, it's a lie, it's false comfort. Go to Jeremiah chapter eight. The exact same words are used. Jeremiah chapter eight. Look at verse ten. Jeremiah chapter eight, Verse ten. Therefore will I give their wives and to others, and their fields to them, that she'll inherit them. For everyone from the least, even unto the greatest, is given to consciousness, from the prophet, even unto the priest. Everyone dealth falsely, for they have healed a herd of the daughter of my people, slightly saying peace, peace, when there is no peace. Jeremiah is upset with the religious leaders for running around and they're acting based off more covectiousness than anything else, and they're telling people everything's good, everything's okay. Here's a little bit of comfort, here's a little bit of peace, here's a little bit of hope. But it's all fraudulent. So if you know anything about the Book of Jeremiah, you know it serves as both a warning and a message of hope.

32:37 Addressing the spiritual, moral, and social corruption of Judah during a critical people a critical period in its history. Jeremiah was commissioned by God to call the people of Judah back to faithfulness. The book emphasizes judas persistent idolatry. They're injustice, the rejection of God's covenant, and through vivid imagery and prophecies, Jeremiah warns that have failure to repent will lead to judgment. He's like, hey, you're idolatry. You're doing this, you're doing this and doing this. You need to repent. Judgment is coming. While he's running around telling everyone that you got the other religious leaders go no, no, no, no, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, he's all negative. And now I'm paraphrasing here, all right, So I'm not saying that this is exactly how it went down. I'm just trying to be illustrative here. Hey, hey, guys, that Jeremiah. He's all negative and he hates the country.

33:36 Whatever their arguments would have been, but I want you to know you don't need to worry about it. It's peace, it's comfort the central and I think this and this very much connects us to our Isaiah forty verse one passage. What was central to Jeremiah's message is the announcement of the coming destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian exile. This judgment is portrayed as a result of Judas covenant covenant unfaithfulness, illustrating God's righteousness and justice. But what's central to Jeremiah's message is judgment is coming, captivity is coming. And the religious leaders are like, no, no, no no no no no no no no no. Peace is coming. Peace, everything is okay.

34:18 When there is no peace, it's fraudulent comfort. Throughout the Book of Jeremiah, the religious leaders, the prophets, the priests consistently offer a people a false comfort, a false peace, a false hope, which directly contradicted Jeremiah's warnings from God. This dynamic is a significant theme in the book. It highlights the corruption of judah spiritual leadership and their role in leading people astray. And I think the same thing is happening today. Pastors stand behind polpe. It's offering people, Hey, when you become a Christiann, I guess you become superhero, You're and never well, that's not true. It's fraudulent it's fake and instead of being hey, the reality is you've been saved, you're saved by an imputed righteousness, not in infused righteousness. You're still a sinner and you're still going to sin and thought word. Indeed, by what you do and by what you leave undone. Nobody's excusing it. But we've got to have a Christianity that exists within this reality because this is reality, or we can all pretend that we're great when we're not. And pastors stand behind pulpit's going to passages like Isaiah forty and saying comfort, comfort, you get comfort, you get comfort, and stilling other people's comfort and then applying it to us in a way that is not even applicable, or going to Hebrew six or going to Deuteronomy thirty two, and that stuff has to stop. So let's consider the consequences of false comfort today.

35:58 Just like or Amaya's day, they were offering false comfort, they were offering false hope and it was not a good thing. Well, it's not a good thing that it happens today and Christianity constantly offers up this fraudulent stuff. So let's look at the negative and unintended consequences of preachers offering false hope, false peace, and false comfort. I hate to see this now when I listen to sermons, I'm just like, Okay, Where comes the false message? Where comes the false hope? Where comes the false comfort? Where comes the false peace? I'm waiting for it? Where comes the misapplication, misinterpretation, ripping scripture out of context and inserting us where we don't belong. Come on, let's go. How long does it take before one of these things happen? Well?

36:52 The first negative consequence that occurs because of false hope is dissolute illusionment and loss of faith. It leads to disillusionment and loss of faith. That is one of the unintended consequences and negative consequences of this false, false comfort and false hope. It leads to disillusionment and loss of faith when a pastor stand and promise some kind of guaranteed healing or some kind of prosperity, or some kind of deliverance, and it fails to materialize. When you say trust in God and he will protect you from this, and he will fix this, and he will do this, and he will do this, and they still verses from the Old Testament that are very much directed towards Israel based off their covenantal promises. The promise is based off the Covenant, still them applied them to us and say, hey, God's going to do this, and God's gonna do this, and God's going to do this, and God's going to do this. And when those things don't materialize, when the healing doesn't happen, when the prosperity doesn't come, when the deliverance doesn't come, you know what happened. People feel betrayed by God, they feel betrayed by the church. This leads to cynicism, This leads to doubt, This leads to even abandonment of the faith altogether. It leads to deconstruction, It leads to disillusionment. It leads to a loss of faith

38:22 because you've given all these promises and then sooner or later you're like, wait a minute, this is just not materializing. This is just this is just not true. You say, well, God's gonna do this, and God's gonna do this in God, and you're like, wait a minute, Well, there's this happening, and this happening, and this happening and this happening, and this is going on in my life. And sooner or later you're like, wait a minute, all of this that you've you've been selling me a fairy tale. It leads to disillusionment and a loss of faith. You can't make all of these promises and they don't materialize. You can't make a promise at all that God's going to show up and do anything for anyone in a physical, physical, tangible, material way. I can spend all day promising what God has done in Christ, Jesus forgiveness, forgiveness of sins, imputed righteousness, not an enfused righteousness, right that I am adopted into the family of God. My sins has removed as far as the estes from the west. I can go all those spiritual things. I can dogmatically promise and tell people that's what Christ has done. But making any promise that God is going to show up in this way or this way in our physical life, you're out of your mind.

39:42 You're just lying to people. So the first negative and undetended consequence of all of this false comfort and false hope is disillusionment and a loss of faith. It destroys people's faith. It leads people broken and battered and confused. If they're willing to admit honesty. Now, if they're willing to admit reality, I may add something to this before we're done, But okay, disillusionment and loss of faith Number two. It could lead to spiritual complacency. False comfort lulls people into a false sense of security, making them less likely to seek repentant spiritual growth or a deeper reliance on God.

40:31 Without being challenged by the reality of sin and the need for holiness, believers remain stagnant or nominal in their faith. If you basically convince everyone, hey, hey, you can say notice sin, yes to God. You're a new creature. I think you become you can maybe spiritually complacent. I mean, what else do I need to do. I'm a new creature. The old is gone. I mean everything is good. I'm good to go now. I know what happens in churches is they do this weird contradiction. Hey, you're a new You're a new creation, the oldest gone. Everything is new. You have a new you have a new soul, you have a new spirit. Everything is new. But you've got to fight against sin. You've got to fight against the old man. I thought it was all gone, so it contradicts. But I think it can lead people sitting in the pew going well, well, I do think it just leaves them confused. I don't know if they become spiritually complacent because of that, but you could see how you would be why do I need to worry about sin? I'm good to go, I'm golden. I mean you basically make it sound like I'm basically, you know, almost perfect. So disillusionment and loss of faith. Number two, it could lead to spiritual complacency of such to some degree. I think Number three it leaves people unprepared for trials. When people are taught that basically their faith will just shield them from suffering, they're going to be ill equipped to endure hardship, leading to confusion and despair when life becomes difficult. They

42:01 may question God's goodness or presence when their expectations are unmet. Look, when you're being told, hey, basically, God's gonna do this for you. God's gonna do for this for you. This promises for you, this promises for you, this promises for you. Then you're like okay, great, and then all of a sudden, boom, you get punched in the face. You're like, oh, a nose is bleeding. My lip is bleeding. What just happened? Reality just hit? Okay, okay, all right, God's gonna show up. I'm sorry your child's still dead. I'm sorry they you're still have cancer. I'm sorry you're still paralyzed. I'm sorry children are still being molested in churches. I'm sorry this keeps happening. I'm sorry that. But wait, wait, wait, God's going to show and sooner or later. You're kind of like, what just happened? You're not prepared for the reality. People have to be prepared that even as a Christian. Here's the reality pain, suffering, death, disappointment, sin, brokenness, heartache, despair, betrayal.

43:02 You say that sounds stinking negative, It is because that's life. You give everybody all these fraudulent promises. That what do you do. You're not prepared. If you got priests running around in Jeremia's day going hey, no, no, guys, guys, guys, guys, forget Jeremia's message about judgment and the Babylonians forget all of that peace peace. Well, then when the Babylonians is knock kicking in your front door with a sword to your throat, You're like, what just happened. I'm not prepared for this. Of course you're not, cause you listen to stinking sermons that give you false promises. So number one disillusionment, loss of faith number two, spiritual complacency number three, unprepared for trials number four, and erosion of biblical understanding. This kind of nonsensical teaching erodes any hope of biblical understanding.

44:09 When you misuse scripture to offer false hope, it undermines people's ability to understand the Bible correctly. When you got pastors standing behind the pulpit taking this text and this text and this text making about you and you and you and me and me and me just the people in the pew, how are they ever going to understand the text correctly? How are they ever going to figure it out? When all they ever hear is the misapplication, twisting, and misapplying of scripture. What this basically leads to is a shallow, selective approach to scripture, where promises are taking out of context and harder truths are ignored. Hey, hey, look everyone, we're in Isaiah forty verse one. Hey, I'm glad you came to church today because I'm gonna offer you comfort, even though I'm gonna use the text literally out of its context. We're gonna go to Deuteronomy thirty two, We're gonna rip it out of context. We're gonna go to Hebrews chapter six. Forget the people who suffered in seventy eight, just a few years after this was written, who turned to cannibalism and was eating one another, and they suffered, and they died, and over a million people died.

45:23 Who cares about them? We'll just make it about us. Well, how is anyone going to how is anyone going to understand the scriptures? In how we have to understand the text and we got to know, you know what, sometimes we have to do. M Okay, what can I do with that? How is that really applicable? Is that really applicable? Now, there may be a lesson in it, but a lesson is far different than making it applicable to me. In other words, there may be a lesson about God, but that doesn't mean that that God is going to do for me what he did for them, Because, especially in the Old Testament, Israel is under a covenant or under covenantal promises that are not applicable to us. Promises of land a blessing of all. Just look at Deuteronomy twenty eight, all the promises given to them and all of those Look, they get all the curses over and over and over and over, and so when are they going to get the promises? They're going to get the promises when you go to Ezekiel thirty six, Jeremiah thirty one, you look at the New Covenant, then God is going to bring them into land, and all of those Deuteronomy twenty eight promises is now going to be fulfilled, not because they ever finally kept the law, because God is going to save them. And then we go to Romans, and we can put it all together. It can make sense if you put it in any kind of actual context, but

46:57 we so want to insert ourselves, rip them, rip the verses out of context, shove them out of the way, and then say it's all about us. Well, I don't know how anyone is ever going to understand scripture. And even if you rip the scripture out of context and apply it to you and apply it to me, kiss what sooner or later one day you're gonna wake up going, wait a minute, none of this works the way I've been told. I've been told this my whole Christian life. That's just you're going to see your own sin. You're going to see your own failure, You're going to see your own hardship. You're going to see the pain and suffering around you. And at some point you're gonna go, wait a minute, guys, this is all a sham. Now, some of you will. The rest of you are more than happy. You're comfortably numb. You the you know, religion has become the opium opium of the masses. You've gotten a little bit, You've been drugged into a false sense of security, and you feel great, and even when tragedy comes you, you still will just hold on to this illusion.

47:58 And that's great. If you hold on to the illusion, you probably will enjoy Christianity better than those of us who the illusion has been shattered. And for some weird reason, we can't stop staring into the face of reality, and we keep staring into the face of reality going hmm, I think I've been lied to my entire Christian life. So it leads to disillusionment loss of faith number two. It leads to a spiritual complacency to some level. I mean, it's gonna have issues there. Number three, you're unprepared for trials. Number four, it's an erosion of biblical understanding. I don't know how you can't see that. Number four. It leads to a mistrust of church leadership. When pastors repeatedly offer empty assurance, people begin to lose trust in their leadership.

48:54 This leads to divisions within the church and causes individuals to leave organize religion altogether. This leads people to say, forget it. The church is trash, the church is just a fairy tale. It's not dealing with reality. And guess what it's not church attendance continuing to drop. Now we could get into the d why people have left the church. Some people say politics, So I think at some point there's always gonna be Look, they may always be in the minority. They may always be in the minority. But I think the minority of people who become disillusioned and sick of Christianity and the church. And when I say Christianity, institutionalize Christianity Churchianity, I think because they can't stop looking at reality and they go to church, they're looking at reality.

49:42 They look at all these people talking like what is happening? It's like you live in a foreign world. They're like, You're like, you're speaking a different language. You're like from a different country, and you're like, what is wrong with all of these people? And they're all talking, and you're like everything you say is just garbage. Just stop it now. For some of you, you never see it. And that's great. I almost envy you that I could just go back to those days where I kind of bought into all of it, and now it's kind of like the whole thing has been blown apart. It's like, come on now. And so it leads why would you trust pastors who keep saying this trash from sermons where they're clearly taking scripture not meant for us and ripping it out of context and trying to give me the You know, you're trying to give me comfort that belongs to them. Now if you want to take it and try to explain how it connects to me, that I know this, those promises are not for me in a material, tangible, physical way.

50:44 That would only relate to the promises I've been given in a spiritual way, which then lays the groundwork for fulfillment in a physical way. But that's an eternity not now see now we can try to put it together. So it's a mistrust. It leads to a mistrust of church leadership. It also leads to continuing to perpetuate, continuing to spread false theology, false teaching about God's promises spreads.

51:25 It leads to widespread misunderstanding of core doctrines like suffering and the nature of God. This creates a circle where new preachers and believers adopt and propagate the same eras it only perpetuates false teaching. You continue to give this wrong, this false comfort, and this false hope, and then you continue to sell it those people. They continue to spread it, and it perpetuates this false idea about life, about Christianity, about God, about reality, and it perpetuates it, and it spreads it, and it's got to stop at some point.

52:10 Number one, at least to disillusionment and a loss of faith. Number two, it leads to spiritual complacency. Number three, It leaves us unprepared for trials. Number four, It erodes biblical misunderstanding. Number five, It leads to a mistrust of church leadership. Next, it perpetuates false theology about reality, God, sin, pain, suffering. Number seven. It leads to a neglect of genuine spiritual needs. By focusing on superficial comfort, pastors often neglect deeper spiritual issues such as repentance, salvation, the pursuit of holiness, God's law, grace, gospel.

52:51 People's real struggles, both spiritual and practical, go unaddressed because all you're doing you're not really dealing. You're just giving everyone a false sense of trying to make them feel better. But you're not dealing with anything real. You're not dealing with anything tangible, especially with the sin thing. You don't deal with people's sin. You just say basically, you should stop sinning because you're a Christian. Is saying, wait a minute, The reality is you're still a sinner and you're going to sin, and you're going to sin. Well, guess what the law is going to show you your condemnation and is going to condemn you. Let me present to you the medicine, not a false comfort, but the medicine of the gospel. And the Gospel is needed for those who are lost, and it's needed for a Christian every single day because every single day you need the Gospel because every single day you are in sin. And so therefore the real needs of people are not met. You just continue to give them the almost, pushing them into pretending and putting on fig leaves and a robe of self righteousness because nobody wants to be able to nobody can handle reality, so genuine needs are not met. A genuine need is not met if you give people false comfort and false hope and a lie to believe number eight, it has harmful and emotional mental effects. Offering false comfort can lead people emotionally devastated when reality doesn't align with the promises they were given. You begin to feel guilty, You begin to feel inadequate, and often this feelings often

54:23 arise when people are told they lack faith or obedience has a reason for their unfulfilled hopes. It leads to all kinds of mental crises. It leads to emotional problems. You begin to look, wait a minute, I'm getting to all this hope, all this promise, all this comfort, and then reality just slaps me and slaps me and slaps me, and sooner or later you're like, wait a minute, wait a minute, what is going on here? So then you start thinking something is wrong with me. I keep sinning. Maybe I'm not saved. What's wrong? With me. I struggle with this, and I struggle with that, and what's wrong with me? Where's God? Well, maybe God is not helping me because I'm not being good enough. And then you try to be good enough, and sooner or letter you have an emotional breakdown. Thanks to Christianity, who breaks people and leaves them at a pull of their own blood and walks away acting like they're so godly. You offer this false stuff. It's gonna leave people confused and trying to figure it out. And yes, you heard my emotions right there, because I get tired of it. You listen to these some of these sermons and you're like, okay, man, man, okay, I gotta do this, and I gotta do this, and I gotta do this, and I gotta do this, and if I don't do this, and if I don't do that, then I'm probably never saved. And it's not like I can trust and rest in the Gospel. They give you law, law, law, law, law, law,

55:54 law to beat you down and beat you down and beat you down. So you so either you start pretending or you start facing a reality that's going to lead you to all kinds of problems. You start believing that God's going to do this for you, and this for you and this for you, and then when it doesn't happen, you're like, what do you do? What do you Where is God? I thought God was going to do this, and I thought God was going to do this. I mean, you told me that I could find comfort that God is all powerful. Well, right now I need the all powerful God? All right? Well then why am I having comfort in God being all powerful when he's not going to use his power to do this? Well, I mean we didn't mean it that way. Well, yeah, well you led me to believe that. Now I'm just going to stop right there. I got like seventeen of these. The harmful emotional and mental effects to me is outrageous. I think a lot of people's time and Christianity, by the time it's over, they're an emotional wreck. Their mental health has been trashed again for people who can't stop looking

57:24 at reality. Look, there's a lot of people who they come out of Christianity and they feel better and they feel wonderful because they buy into the fraudulent hope. They feel better, so it heals them slightly, That's what Jeremiah said. They slightly heal the people. There is a slight healing. You feel comfort, you feel peace, you feel warm, you feel great, you feel like you know all is well with my soul. And remember the person who wrote all is well with my soul, Things didn't turn out so great for him afterwards. Right, Okay, he had an emotional complete breakdown because things aren't weren't all well with the soul because his family was dead. Okay, how about we face reality sometimes we don't have to say all as well with my soul when things aren't aren't all as well.

58:11 We don't have to pretend to be perfect when we know we're sinners. We don't have to pretend that promises of comfort that are not for us are ours. We can face the reality of the world around us, where there's pain, suffering and death, and we can face the reality that pain, suffering and death impacts the believer and the unbeliever alike. And if we can't now again, if you can pretend that none of that is true, then then your mental health is probably better. I think Christianity it has a for some. They go in, they're bro they just are destroyed, and they finally walk away from the church. They leave the church they're done. Others stay in it and they just oh, it's great, it's all wonderful, and you listen to them talk. Sometimes you just kind of listen to them talking like you're completely delusional. You have lost your you've lost all touch with reality. And you know what's sad is sometimes you just kind of sit back and you're like, oh, praise God, I'm glad things are going so good in your life. But when the wills come off and the car crashes into the tree and bodies are broken, they sometimes don't know what to do. So Jeremiah gives us two places. There's a lot of other places in Jeremiah where Jeremiah confronts the

59:43 religious leaders for selling and promoting their fraudulent comfort, their false hope. And I think it's very relevant because as we've listened to sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon in twenty twenty four, probably more sermons than maybe you've ever listened in in your life. If you've participated, I don't know how you feel, but I know this that there's two ways this fraudulent comfort has presented itself in all of these sermons. The constant handling of sin and salvation, but basically telling you that when you become a Christian, basically now, I guess you can just stop sinning, you can keep the law, you can obey God, and not dealing with the reality of well, we're still sinners and we still sin. That's the first way.

1:00:24 Second is the constant misapplying, misinterpreting, hijacking scripture and taking things that are not for us and making it for us, even though there's no way that those It's completely in a different setting, it's completely to a different people. It's under a completely different use the word dispensation if you want to use it. And we have those passages of scripture Isaiah forty verse one, we're handling Isaiah forty three one because Isaiah forty verse one, because we're going to cover every verse in Isaiah forty to Isaiah fifty five. We've looked at Deuteronomy thirty two. I'll try to put it together and try to wrap it up. And then we've got Hebrews six thirteen through twenty. We've already looked at it. We'll try to do something and try to wrap that up. And we're going to do that all in this greater context of looking at the false comfort in Christianity. Are Christianity's false comfort? And obviously, when I say Christianity, I'm talking to the institutionalizes the Churchianity, and by no means I am I calling into the question the truth of Christianity. So what are the consequences of this false comfort? It leads to disillusionment and a loss of faith, leads to spiritual complacency. It leads people completely unprepared and unprotected for trials. It leads to an erosion of biblical understanding.

1:01:56 It leads people to mistrust church leadership, It perpetuates false theology, it neglects genuine, real spiritual needs, and it has harmful emotional and mental effects. All Right, Yeah, I got very upset in all of that, because I do. I've kind of just I've reached kind of a breaking point in all of this, I really have. It's one thing to try to say, okay, and that's what I'm going to attempt to do when I do the Isaiah forty. What do I want to do? I want to go through Isaiah forty through fifty five and put it in its proper context. When I go to Deuteronomy thirty two. What do I want to do? I want to try to put in its proper context? What do I want to do with Hebrew six? Put in its proper context? There is a little bit of fun of doing that, teaching about it. But my frustration is it's just like it's like that's one thing that there's positive in that I think there's positive and trying to put it in its context.

1:03:05 The frustration is, Okay, let me go pick a random sermon today and see what happens. Let me just what happens if I just choose a random sermon today? What how quickly is it going to fall into either the whost salvation and sin problem or the misapplication ripping verses out of context? Where is it going to go? That's the frustration. I can continue to try to do something different, which is great at times, can be fun. Hopefully it provides something different, but the frustration is, like, for crying out loud, it can't be every sermon I pick randomly falls into these this this this constant mess. There's got to be it can't be that way. I'm not saying every sermon does, but considering how many has fallen into one of those kind of two categories throughout twenty twenty four is somewhat staggering considering they're being chosen at random.

1:04:06 All right, it would be one thing if I was going in to try to prove a point. I'm going in just to listen to preaching, and I'm walking away going this is madness, this is not this cannot be happening. All right. Yeah, I don't know what else to say at this point. I just know this. If you have found yourself the victim of all of these fraudulent promises, false hope, false comfort, this illusion, this pretend, stop pretending.

1:04:49 Free yourself of the game, take off the fig leaves, throw away your robe of self righteousness, and just be honest and real with how you feel. And then pick it up and let's try to get back to the BI and try to get back to what it actually says to the people it was actually written to in an actual context, and not just immediately run in there and say I'm gonna put myself there and then I'm gonna get all the stuff they get. Or you can just continue to pretend and by all means, get some extra fig leaves, get an extra robe, cover yourself, pretend have have some slight healing, feel better, be excited, feel comfort, get rid of you don't have any of the cynicism and the negativity, and you can avoid people like me who for some reason can't stop looking at reality. And I want to make it very clear that reality sometimes is my own self. I know, I know my own sin, my own and my own life. All right, thanks for listening.

1:06:04 God bless