How Do You Know If You Love God?

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast making Theology Central. Good afternoon, everyone, I guess I could say good early evening to everyone. It is Tuesday, August the twenty seventh, twenty twenty four. It is currently five forty two pm Central Time, and I am coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Well, if you do a broadcast and it's not great, you're not really happy with it, what do you do? How do you handle those emotions? How do you handle that? Do you just stay frustrated, do you stay irritated? Or do you turn on the microphone and try again. Well, I'm turning on the microphone to try again because I wasn't super happy with the last broadcast. For a numer I think it was more in my head. I think it use when I go back and listen to some of it, it doesn't sound quite as bad as it felt. But you know, how do you process those emotions? Which is kind of ironic because the program was a lot about well Christianity and emotions. Okay, so maybe there was a reason I had those feelings.

1:17 I don't know. So here's what we're going to do. I'm gonna turn well, the microphone's on, we're live, all right, So I'm going to use this broadcast to We're gonna look at two scriptures, and then i'm gonna pose basically one major question. There'll probably be a lot of smaller questions, but two scriptures, one really big question, and then we're gonna review some audio. All right, So it's kind of a combination of things. Let's start with the scriptures. Both of these scriptures you know so very well, you probably have them memorized. The first one is Matthew Chapter twenty two. Matthew chapter twenty two, verse three seven. Matthew twenty two, verse thirty seven. And I want you to hear this carefully. Jesus said unto him, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. Let me read it to you one more time. Matthew twenty two, thirty seven. Jesus said to him, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. Verse thirty eight. This is the first and great commandment. The first and great commandment is for you and I to love God with all of our heart, with all of our soul, and with all of our mind.

2:48 That is the great commandment. Now go to Revelation chapter two. Revelation chapter two, verse four. Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee because thou hast left thy first love. We are commanded to love God with all of our heart, mind, body, and soul. And yet we have a warning Jesus gives to the Church of Ephesus and Revelation chapter two. Hey, he had a problem with that church. You have left your first love. So we have a command to love God with all, with all of our being. At the same time we have a warning not to depart from our first love. Well, that's somewhat concerning one. I don't even know if I can ever truly love God with all my heart, my body, soul. I will say. I'm going to say, because it's my theology, it's not possible.

3:45 That is law. It condemns us. We are constantly, we are constantly faced with the reality that we do not love God with all of our heart, mind, body, and soul. And as a result, we have to flee to Christ, who did love God with all that he was. And it is one God three distinct persons, the Father, the Son. The son loved the Father. Okay, we can get into that. But his love was perfect. And then by placing my faith in him his love, his obedience to that command is imputed to my account. So I can stand before God and say in Christ, I love God with all my heart, mind, body and soul, and practice I do not so with the command. I know that I can never do so, But then it makes it even worse, even if I believe that I could do it. Well, now I have the possibility of nevertheless, have something against you.

4:30 You have left you have departed from your first love. Well, that means I could actually leave it. Well, then that's that is concerning. But now so those are the two scriptures. Right, love God with all your heart, mind, body and soul. Nevertheless, have some somewhat against you you have departed from your first love. Those are the two scriptures. I want you to write those two scriptures down, put them, put like one on one side of the refrigerator and the one on the other side of the refrigerator, and just be confronted with them. Every single day because I think that like, WHOA, what do I do here? What do I do here? But here is a question. Are you ready? Here's the question? Those are the two scriptures. Here's the question. How do you know if you truly love God? How do you know if you truly love God? I want you, right now, go ahead, grab a piece of paper. Write down all the ways you think these are proofs that you love God.

5:32 I want you to write down the proofs that you think prove that you love God. I want you to write them down. Write down five five proofs. These are the proofs that show me I love God. All right, you have those down now. I'm asking this question because I told everyone that I've been paying close attention to the Stay by the Stuff camp meeting of twenty twenty four. Stay by the Stuff twenty twenty four camp meeting. Right, Stay, I would call it a conference, but they call it a camp meeting. Stay by the Stuff twenty twenty four camp meeting. All right. I think there's ten messages, eleven messages.

6:13 Far as I know, the camp meeting is over, but I'm still working my way through the messages. And there's a message entitled you've left your first love. So the name of the message You've Left your first Love. It was a part of the Stay by the Stuff twenty twenty four camp meeting, and I told everyone to listen to all of these. Well, when I was listening to the message You've Left your First Love, the question that came to my mind was, well, then, how do I know if I truly love God? How do I know? And there's a reason that question came to my mind? So we're gonna review some of this. I don't know if that question will come to your mind, but it comes to mind because love God. Love God. Hey, don't depart from your first love. Okay, Well, minute, how do I know if I truly love God? How do I measure that? Measure that, how do I quantify that? How do I qualify that? How do I know? And I know all the tests that have been given? Right, I know, I've heard I've preached the test for years and my Christianity, this is how you know love God? If you do this, if you do this, if you do this, if you do this, and a lot of times, if you go well, does anyone actually love God? Then? But there's a reason I asked the question, and listening to this message. So let's listen to a little bit of this. The audio was a little low. I've amplified it. I may have amplified it too much because it starts off really low and then the volume increases, then it gets really loud.

7:44 So the volume won't be perfect. But you know, all I can do is work with the original. So here we go, let's find out. And we began right now. Hey, O, praise the Lord. Good to be here, denied, Amen, I tell you we I didn't come to set soaking sour. Amen. Came to get in, not get out. Amen. Well, we need we need revival in our day. Amen. I'm glad tonight, thank God. This world is not my home.

8:24 And I'm just curious. I'm just curious, I really am. I have been listening to sermons for my entire Christian life, my entire Christian life. Became a Christian as a teenager. I don't know it was it in nineteen eighty five, eighty six, somewhere around that time, eighty five eighty six, I think. And I've been a Christian ever since. And from day one I started listening to sermons, so just in my lifetime, from eighty five eighty six to twenty twenty four. It's been a never ending We need revival. The world is falling apart. It's all coming.

9:04 To an end. Jesus is about to come back. It's over. The world is falling apart. The country's falling apart. We're going to Hell in a handbasket. It's the end. We need revival. Satanists are gonna kill us. All Satan is destroying us. To the world, it's over. It's over. Oh my goodness, what are we gonna do? What are we gonna do? We need revival. I've only been Okay, maybe that's that's not much of a hyperbole, but I've been hearing it NonStop since then. It's twenty twenty four. So does revival ever happen? Does it ever fix anything? I don't understand? And then what shocked me is when I started reading then older sermon sort of the Lord. They publish old sermons, I'll read them, and I'm like, when was that preached? I was like, nineteen forty, we need revival. You're reading sermons from the eighteen hundred. We need revival. You're reading sermons from the sixteen hundreds. We need revival. Fifteen hundreds, we need revival the twelve hundreds. Wait, it's like everyone's constantly saying that. Now, Typically, though it's weird, is that we need revival? Typically is they look at the condition of the world and say we need revival. But isn't revival not about the condition of the world. Isn't revival about the condition of the church.

10:23 So is the church and a perpetual state of needing revival? And if the church is in a perpetual state of needing revival, why Because on one hand, Christians are saying, when you become a Christian, you're a new creature. In Christ, whole things have passed away, all things that become new. You have the power to say noticing and yes to God. The Holy Spirit gives you power. You can do this, you can do that. But we're in a perpetual state of needing revival. What's wrong? If everyone's a new creature, the old is gone, then we don't need revival because everyone's a new creature and the old is gone and everything is new. So which is it?

11:03 Do we need. Revival or is everyone a new creature? The old is gone and everything is new. I can't figure it out. And if the revival is we need revival in the world, that's not revival. That's what they need the Gospel and salvation. Revival is what the church needs. Revival is what Christians need. And why do we constantly need to be revived if we're a new creature and the old is gone and everything is new? Christians says such contradictory things, But I've just heard it for so long. Everybody says we need revival, but almost inevitably they point to the world. I would say, don't point to the world, point to the church. If you point to the church, I would say we need revival.

11:49 But at the same time, then I would call your theology into question because you say that if anyone becomes a Christian, that there are a new creature, old things that passed away, all things have become new. So then nobody should need to be revived because there's nothing to revived. Since we're all new and the oldest completely gone, we should be walking around pretty much close to perfection. Now that's not the question. That's not the question I'm asking. The question I'm going to be asking is how do you know you love God? All? Right, that's the question, But we'll get to that. So let's go back through this. All right. He's kind of got that down to earth, you know, every man kind of a presentation. All right, that's good. But all right, so he says we need revive. I was gonna back it up, but let's just move forward. All right, Let's just move forward.

12:33 I'm just passing through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue. I believe with all my heart we're closer tonight to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ than we ever have been in all the history of mankind. Y'all believe that you don't have to know any of the signs of the time to know that. You don't have to be a rocket signist. You can just be a dummy, amen, and realize that this whole thing's about winding down. Amen. Okay. I hate to say this. I've been hearing that since before I became a Christian. This whole thing is winding down.

13:18 Son of the Times. I remember a book I was young. I don't even know how I came across. It was like Signs of the Times or something like that, and it was a book about the anti Christ and the end is near, and I remembered I didn't understand it. I have any religious background or theological background, and I was I don't know, it was probably I wasn't even a teenager yet, maybe even before them, but I was reading any book I could ever get my hands on, and I was like, wait, so the end is near? Like we're all, well, what's going to happen? Like I was a little worried, a little concerned. Well, the seventies turned into the eighties, and I heard it in the eighties the end is near? Were closed. Then all throughout the nineties, I heard it over and over and over. And then I was a student at the Family Radio School of the Bible Herald Camping.

14:00 I was. I was a student of the school when all of a sudden we were informed that the world was coming to an end in nineteen ninety four, and we're like, wait, what is going down? What is happening? This is like a reformed kind of theology, all millennial, and next thing, you know, the world's coming to the end of nineteen ninety four. And then well that didn't happen. Then the church age ended and we needed to leave our local assemblies because they had if you stayed in your church, You've taken the mark of the beast. Everything got bizarre. Then he moved the prediction to what two thousand something, I can't remember what it was. Was it twenty fourteen? I think it was twenty fourteen. Well, then that didn't happen. He ended up having a stroke. He did kind of repent and apologize to some level. So I went all through that. Then I remember there was a book out, like you know, eighty six Reasons Jesus Will Return in nineteen eighty six, ninety three Reasons Jesus Will Return in nineteen ninety three. Book after book. It's over, it's all coming down, it's wrapping up. We're about to go home.

14:56 It's all happening. They're right, the Rapture is coming, the Second Coming. It's all and well. In twenty twenty four, we're still here. I've heard it so many times. I've heard that we need revival and Jesus is coming back in fifteen minutes a thousand times. I don't know what you do with that, But what I want to know is we're going to talk about loving God with all our heart, mind, body, and soul. And nevertheless, I have somewhat against you. You've left your first love, Well, how do you know you love God's? And you'll see why I'm asking this question. It's about getting up and going home time. I remember preachers talking about a funeral while ago, and my mind drifted back to the time I preached both my mama and my daddy's funeral and raised in a Christian home, raised in church. That has never been a time in my life. I don't ever remember not going to church, not going to Sunday school and visitation bus visitation revival meetings, And there never been a time that in my life.

16:05 I'm sixty five years old and be sixty six this year, but all that time, I never remember a time that we weren't involved. Mom and Daddy weren't involved in church and took us kids to church. I thank God for that. But I raised up in church, but I wasn't saved until I was about twenty one years old. You can, I suppose the worst thing that could ever happen anybody is to die and go to Hell from a church pew. Amen not know the Lord as your personal savior. If I wasn't saved tonight, I'd get saved before anything else happened. Amen, I wouldn't go to hell for nobody for no reason. Boy, we need revival, and we need revival preachings. We need revival singing. Amen. Singing prepares the heart for the word of God. That kind of singing you heard the night will speak to your heart. Uh, it's I know, I know it. May it make you tap your foot, you know, and and enjoy yourself. But them old songs like that, they'll they'll draw you to Calvary. They'll draw you to the Lord Jesus Christ. It'll draw you into a state of meditation thinking about where you are with the Lord.

17:26 I appreciate that message tonight, Amen, I appreciate what God's doing. I was sitting there thinking about what I'm going to preach and everything, and it's interesting how the Lord works. A few years, a few years, a few weeks ago. Uh, I preach what I'm going to preach in my church on a Sunday evening. And we had a good time. I enjoyed myself. But after the service was over, I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, I'd been praying about this meet and been looking forward to it, and and uh, it's exciting to be here. Oh, by the way, thank you for letting me come. Man. I appreciate that this is my first second time to be in this part of the country, and I enjoyed it the first time, and I'm gonna get all I can the second time.

18:18 But I preached this message there and I knew, be on a shadow of a doubt, that that's what I needed to preach on the first night of this meeting. I've never had that happen. I've never experienced anything like that. You preachers know what I'm talking about. You sometimes struggle, and you you bounce back and forth and ping pong back and forth, and you got this and this and that and thathn't and you know, and you just go through everything of God. You hope it's the right thing, you know. And it's kind of odd how that that thing worked out. I knew, I knew, and then after Brother Coley preached what he preached, I thought, wow, Uh, what what a what a blessing? Uh? He told about revival, and he talked about wanting revival and getting revival. You know what The sad thing about it is a lot of churches are having meetings, but they're not having revival now.

19:16 I do like that you can have a meeting, it doesn't mean it's a revival. Okay, I agree with that. I agree with that, right, Okay. So, and it sounds like in this particular case, he understands revivals for the church. Because so we may be in complete agreement on all of this. We may be in complete agreement, but I'm just saying I've heard we need revival for so long, like it's almost like it's never ending ever constantly we need revival, we need revival now. And I also find it interesting that so many times the we need revival mantra that that constant refrain it's USO. I know, I can't.

19:59 I know this is going to show that may be cynical. It also seems to come from people who then will go to these conferences or camp meetings for a so called revival meeting or a camp meeting or right like, if you're getting paid to go there, well, you need to constantly keep saying we need revival so that churches will bring in people who will quote unquote do the revival preaching. Isn't that kind of like you got to continue to convince everyone you need this and then I'm the one who will provide what you need. So hire me to come to your church or pay me to come to your church to preach the revival. Like I know that sounds cynical, but it's kind of like, do you need to bring in someone to have a revival service to have revival? Or can revival just happen with your normal preacher? I don't know, just a thought.

20:53 Having preaching, but they're not having a meeting with God. That's what's mission. Amen. I pray that this week it's not just a preaching, it's not just a meeting, but there'll be something happening in your life, in my life. And when we go our separate ways, when the time comes, we will leave different than when we came. And I believe God has the makings for all that to take place. He's got the right singers and and and he's got I believe the right book. Amen, and Uh, I pray tonight that He'll use and unctionize the preachers and use them for His honor and glory. Take your bible to the Book of Revelation, the Book of Revelation, chapter number one, Chapter number two. Tonight Revelation, chapter number two I realize it's getting late, and so I'll try to hurry and and uh, kind of cut the fat out here and give you what's on my heart.

21:57 One of the things I've noticed is every preacher at this camp meeting has to say, Hey, I know the time. I gotta hurry. I know the time I gotta hurry. Wouldn't it be great you can have a meeting and nobody has to worry about the time. Would it be great if you could just say, preach when you're done. You're done. Now. I understand that there's obviously you can go too long. I'm the king of going too long, right I do. I go too long sometime for my podcast episodes. I go too long sometimes for my sermons. It's just been a disease forever. If I'm in a different situation where I do have a time, I always follow the time given to me if you give me like this is the time. In other situations, I like the more the having the freedom. Right. Look, if it's about revival, if it's about not just having a meeting, if it's not about just having preaching, then for crying out loud, someone smashed the clock into oblivion and just preach and let what happens happens. It's like, hey, some churches just have meetings, they don't have revival. Some churches just have preaching, but that's it. Well, well then if it's about revival, then forget about the time. Just who cares, right, I mean, if I don't know, I don't, I don't know. I know there's a there's a balance there, So I'm not saying, but it's just it's just interesting that I think everyone in this camp meeting has mentioned the clock. I think every single time I've listened to it, every single one's mentioned the clock, the clock, the clock, the clock, the clock,

23:27 the clock, the time, the time, the time, the time. I gotta hurry, I gotta cut something out because well, wait a minute, does people are people there for the word of God or they like I don't. I think I would just say, look, you need to leave. Leave. But I'm gonna keep preaching until I'm done. And if there's no one left, I'm gonna keep preaching. The live stream will be going, okay, So I'm just gonna keep live streaming. You can listen on the way back to the hotel or your house. I don't know, I don't know. All right, well, let's continue. And Uh, I'm excited about it. Amen, I'm excited about what the Lord's doing. I appreciate the opportunity to come and and uh, but I'll wait for another time to uh mention more about that. I believe we need to get in the book, amen, and and and do what the Lord wants us to do, and and try to get this thing going for for God tonight. Uh. Chapter two.

24:23 Unto the Angel of the Church at Ephesu's right, these things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. I will say that all the people who preach at this conference are very good at the public reading of scripture. Just the pacing. The pacing. I like, that's one thing I have been you know. I'm like, man, I'm no good at that. Like my public reading. I read. I read horribly, even when even on the podcast my reading I was either I'm skipping a word, I'm reading too fat.

25:09 I need to learn to slow down enunciate. I've had preaching classes about that. When I when it's reading, I'm not ugh. Ah, Yeah, they all are very they pace, they enunciate, there's a pause, there's a They're really good at it, all of them so far that I've heard. I know thy words and thy labor and thy patience, And how thou canst not bear them which you're evil? And thou hast tried them which say they are apostles and are not, and hast found them liars, and has borne and has patience, and for my name sake, has labored and has not fainted. Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee.

26:06 And here's what he had against them, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember our Father, Lord God, Tonight, we thank you for what our ears have heard, and Lord, I thank you for what my heart has felt. Those songs have ministered again to my soul this evening. What a blessing it is to meet these dear men that have given their lives and their talents to use for the Lord. And it's not just a show. It's not just a time of matching wit and talent and ability, but it's an opportunity to minister and Lord, that's what we need tonight. We've got way too much entertainment, but we sure need the kind of songs that draw us to the Lord. It sure makes preaching.

27:02 Ease again, I don't look the prayers before preaching. You know, my never ending struggle immediately right there, it just sounds like now he's starting to preach, and the people are even like amening it, and it's like, are you asking God? Are you telling God? Well? Like, who are you telling? Like? I don't like that so much, so much. Many times, the opening prayer is simply an opportunity for the preacher to to basically start preaching, and the closing prayers just for him to do another summary of what he just preached.

27:43 I struggle with that. Oh. I was like, what is that sound? Rain? Rain has a right, Rain has come to the desert of West Texas, Ladies and gentlemen. I haven't heard that sound in thirty years. Okay, all right, all right. I was like, what's going on? All right, so let's go back. It's just a look. I understand, it's the tradition. It's the template. Pray before you preach, pray at the conclusion, and if you don't immediately, people think something is wrong. But just I know, as a preacher, it's so hard to actually talk to God because you're standing there ready to talk to the people. So in your prayer it becomes this convoluted thing. Am I really talking to God? Or am I talking to the people?

28:24 Who am I really talking to? Does God need to hear me summarize my sermon? Like? What does God need? It need me to go ahead and start preaching my sermon? God doesn't need any of that. So what am I really talking to God about? Makes preaching a blessing and makes preaching simple. And I pray, Lord God tonight that you will Lord, take up where the message left off, and God, that you'll give us what we need. It'd be a terrible thing, Lord, to travel the miles that many folks have traveled, and made sacrifices that many folks have made, given money and preparation, and took off work or whatever the case might be, to make a meeting like this work. It would be a shame not to get something from you. It'd be a sad occasion to go away and give of ourselves and do what we can and still be the same. Lord.

29:28 I pray tonight, God that you do for us what we can't do for ourselves, and God that you had blessed the preaching of the word of God. You'd bless the word of God as it's red, and every word of God would become precious in our sight. And I pray Lord tonight that you had blessed this dear pastor and his wife and family. Lord, you'd blessed this dear church. And I pray God that you'd help us tonight speak to our hearts. And I pray Lord that you would Lord, just not just stir us, but God stirs to the point of a change, that there be some changes made in our lives. And God will thank you and praise you for everything you do. In Jesus' name, I pray and for his sake, Amen.

30:19 Again. This is one of those struggles I have within Christendom. Are sae contradictory things. I hear prayers all the time. Changes change us, change us, change us, transform us, change us, changes change us. And then I hear sermon after sermon after sermon that says, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. Whole things are passed away, whole things have become new. Well, then there's nothing to change. So so I don't understand. So are you willing to acknowledge that when if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creature. All things have passed, the old things have passed away, all things have become new. Is a reference to our position in Christ, and not our practice, not our practice living. That's only true positionally. Positionally in Christ, I'm new. Practically I'm still I'm still the old man the flesh. I'm still a sinner, and I'm constantly in need of change. And then if God just do we pray God changes, well, does God just change us? And if he changes us, how come he doesn't change us to perfection? God changes I mean, I know you're not going to change us to perfection, So then does he just change me a little? I mean, these are questions I think every Christian, anyone who just thinks about the Bible and theology even just a little bit. You don't have to have a degree in theology, you don't have to go to seminary. If you just think about things from a logical, rational point. It's like, wait a minute.

31:42 I keep being told that the minute I got saved, everything changed, the old is gone, and everything is new. But at the same time, it's like, well, you've got to be changed, you got to be changed you got to be changed. Okay, Well, and God's going to be the one to change you. Well, if God's going to be the one to change me, the one does any just change me and I'm perfect. Well, you're never going to be perfect, So then the change? How did then do I quantify or qualify the change? Which is kind of how we're going to talk about how do I quantify or qualify do I love God? But you'll see why I'm asking that question in a minute. Uh. This church at ipsis uh. Uh, there's a whole lot that that probably could be said that that you all know more about, probably than I do. But the Lord here is talking about this church and commending this church, and and he says, I know thy works and and uh.

32:34 He he begins to commend them for some things that they had done, and he recognized that they had accomplished and uh. And then he gets down to verse number four. And now this is where in the sermon when I was listening to immediately it hit me, I'm like, wait a minute, he's commending them for all these things that they've done. But but he says, nevertheless, you've departed from your first love, meaning you can do all of these things and it doesn't mean you love God. So then that led me to ask, well, then how do I know if I love God? Because almost inevitably, when you hear sermons about do you love God, it will be well, do you do this, do you do this, do you do this? Do you do this? But is that actually proof of loving God? Because the church at Ephesus did this and did this and did this, but they had left the departed from their first love. So then how do you actually quantify or qualify if you love God?

33:29 That's why I asked that question. He'll articulate this a little bit more, but that's the moment and the sermon. I went, well, then how do we know? That's immediately what I said to myself. I think as he says more, maybe it will become more abundant to you. Maybe you don't have the same question, but I. Did begins to critique this church. He begins to hey, I like the way the Lord does it. He kind of builds you up and then he puts you down. Amen. He he kind of lets you feel good about what you're doing, and then he and then all of a sudden he lets you know in the smack dab in to face what you're doing wrong? Amen? Uh? He said, uh, you know, I I'm glad that you're you're the kind of church you being. And and but he begins to when he begins to critique them, he says, nevertheless, I have somewhat against them. Uh. The criticism of this church was not because uh, they were unsound in their doctrine. Uh.

34:34 They had their doctrine right, they had they had their theology right, they had their Uh, they had the right to teaching. They Uh that you didn't say, listen, I wanna I have somewhat against thee not because you're unsound in the faith or or unsound in your doctrine. All right, So immediately we know we can have sound theology, sound and still not love God. So orthodoxy and theology, orthodoxy and doctrine does not mean you love God. So if someone doesn't have right theology or right doctrine, you cannot accuse them of not loving God. Because a church can have right doctrine and right theology and the people there may have departed from the first love. So you can mark that off the list. So I remember I told you to write down about five ways how you know if you truly love God, well, if you put right doctrine, right theology, or anything on that line, well you can just go ahead and remove that.

35:36 He didn't critique them because that they'd become lazy and indifferent, he says, And. All right, so yeah, you just because you're busy and not lazy, that doesn't mean you love God. Just because you're not indifferent doesn't mean you love God. So you can have right doctrine, you can have right theology, you can have right work ethic, you can have the right passion, and none of that proves you love God, because he just said, Hey, they were not blamed for being lazy or indifferent, or for wrong doctor and wrong the all. So none of that is proof of loving God.

36:18 First too, you've labored for me, and you've been persecuted for me. You've been through the fires for me. He didn't critique them because they had gotten discouraged along the way and thought, all. Right, so he's giving you all these reasons that they did all these good things, but it did not mean they love God. Let me go through them again, Revelation too. I'm just gonna read from the actual text Revelation too too. I know that works. So doing good works, doing right works does not mean you love God. And thy labor. Doing good works and working hard does not mean you love God and thy patience.

37:00 And how thou canst not bear them which are evil? Your hatred and not liking evil does not mean you love God. And thou hast tried them which say they were apostles and are not, and has found them liars, fighting against false doctrine, hating that which is evil, working, laboring, patient, enduring, suffering, none of that right doctrine right here. None of that proves you love God. None of that proves you love God. So then how do you know if you truly love God? Thought about giving up? He said, you ain't fainted. Thank God for folks that ain't fainted tonight. Thank God for preachers that ain't give up tonight. Thank God for churches that still have revival tonight and still want to touch to God and still want a power of God, that want God to stir in the meet and nayn and critique them because of their lack of separation both. Thank God for separation. We need to get back to tod Amen.

38:08 Folks get all upset when you preach about separation about doing right, about looking right and and living right. That seems to be a thing of the past. But friend, it's still needed today. It's still proper today. It's still right today. If we're gonna make a difference in the world tonight, if we're gonna touch people's lives, if we're gonna have a witness, we got to be different. Okay, now everyone's going crazy and amening. Everybody should start getting quiet at this point, because I wouldn't be like I'm sitting there gonna win him and win them and win them and win him and women. Nevertheless, nevertheless, I have someone against THEE because Thou has left that first love.

38:52 He's going through all these Thingsbody's like, yello. You can be separated. Doesn't mean you love God. You can have right doctrine doesn't mean you love God. You can theology doesn't mean you love God. You can be working hard doesn't mean you love God. You can be doing good works. It doesn't mean love God. You can be patient, you can be enduring persecution, you can hate that which is evil, you can be testing false teachers. None of it means. You love God. You can do all of that and not love God. And I guarantee you the way we think. I don't know what you wrote on your list, but I guarantee you some of these things. You probably have something similar as how you know you love God. You could walk into a church doing all these things. You're like, this church loves God. This church has a passion for God.

39:35 They hate evil, they're testing false teachers. They're patient, they're enduring suffering, they're working, they're laboring, they're doing good works. They have right doctrine, write theology. This church loves God. No. Well, that leaves me totally baffled. So when I was listening to the sermon, I was like, oh, man, man, no, no, no, no, no, no stop. What am I gonna have left to cling to that I may love God? What am I gonna have left? He didn't critique them because of their separation. He didn't critique them because of their compromise. They'd kept the faith, they were true to the faith, they were true to God.

40:22 And the Lord was not critiquing them because of their intolerance. He said down yonder and verse six, he said you, I hate the deeds of Nicolote. He called them a nicola tens. And he said I appreciate y'all feeling that way about it too. Amen. He didn't critique him for that, but you know what he critiqued them for, they'd left the first love. At that point, I wouldn't be saying amen, I'd be going, oh no, wait a minute. So you can hate false teachers. The Nicolaytons there were a heretical group that troubled the churches at Ephesus and Pergamus. Okay, Apparently their teaching and practice were immoral, perhaps even idolatrous. I'm reading from a new study Bible that I have. It's in the notes right there. It just happened to be right there. And I felt bad for him trying to get the word right right, because I probably would have done the same thing right and then my whole sermon, I would only be worried about that. But just go through all those things.

41:24 They kept the faith, they had write doctrine, they endured persecution, they were doing good works, all of those says, and none of it proved that they loved God. None of that was proved. They did all of that without loving God. They had departed from their first love. Can you imagine you can do all of that and have departed your first love. So then what does it mean to have departed your first love? What does that look like? Well, wouitn't. It doesn't change it. You can depart from your first love and still be separated, still keeping the faith, still hating doctrine, still hating evil, testing false doctrine, and enduring persecution, laboring, doing good works, having right doctrine, having right theology. You can you can do all of that and not be truly in love with God because you've departed from it.

42:19 That's gotta we gotta come up with an answer. Then then how do you know if you love God? They'd left the first love? And for tonight I want to deal with that subject a little bit on how to get back that first love. You know, the church tonight is I've eva and in many of our independent fundamental King James Bible preaching churches, our doctrines they mean, our theology is right, our methods are right. We're still trying to hand out tracks. We're still trying to support missionaries.

43:14 We're still trying to run a van or a bus route. We're still trying to go to the nursing homes. We're still trying to hand out a few tracks and tell somebody about the Lord. We've got all those methods right, and we have had him for years. But you know what's happened to us. We've got we've we've got, we've got filled with traditions. We've got to the place where we're just going through the motions. We got our eyes dotted and our tea's crossed. But you know what's happening tonight, and Preacher hit on it in a different way. It's amazing to me how God can work to me and that don't know what they're doing and use them for His honor and glory. He talked about we don't get what we need because we don't want what we want to get. If you go over there and eat tomorrow night and you don't get enough, it's your own fault.

44:19 That's what he said. I have never not got enough of what I want, Bless God. I go to wherever I go, it's to all be Patty special sauce, lad his cheese, pickles, angers on a setting me set bun, and then anothering on top of that. That's what he was saying. Most of us are satisfied with a little bit of preaching. We're satisfied with a little bit of singing. We're satisfied with a little bit of doctrine. We're satisfied with a little bit of a visitation, We're satisfied with a little bit of prayer. We're satisfied with all that everybody's doing. But we have lost our first love.

45:11 Now this is interesting because now he's saying, Hey, the way you know you've lost your first love is you just want a little bit of everything. But that doesn't sound like the church at ephesis. I know your works, I know your labor, your patience. How you cannot bear them with your evil? Thou hast tried them, what say they are apostles and are not? And has found them liars, and has born and has patience, and for my namesake has labored and has not fainted. That doesn't sound like that they were just happy with a little bit. He's now trying to give a way you know you don't truly love God? Is well, you just want a little bit of preaching. You just want a little bit of this.

45:54 You just want to all right, So then what's the correct amount to know? If I truly love God? He's not letting you I don't even know. Look, there's no way to quantify this qualified. There's no way. This is just like well, if well, you gotta want more preaching, well if you're if they want more preaching, then don't worry about the time, right. If they want more preaching, then how the extra services? Like? Is that? Is that the key? If you come to more services, if you listen to more preaching than you love God. Well, it sounds like Church of Emphasis didn't have a problem with preaching, teaching, doctor in theology or work, and yet they did not love God. Somewhere in our life we fell out of love with the Lord. You remember when you first got married? Man?

46:40 I tell you if my wife and I just was we see when did we marry? Is this recorded? I'm glad to be at the first and night at Pentecostal Church tonight and chat and nougat Tennessee. We made forty six years last July, just this past July twenty nine. You remember when you first got married, man, I mean you, she'd write that letter, and she'd seal that letter and spray a little bit of that midnight musk on it. Amen, and you'd take that letter out and you'd unfold that letter, and you'd put it back together and seal it back up and put it in your pocket. You'd take a few steps and pull that thing back out and pull that that that old midnight muskuld just feel you up, man, you love man. You'd take her on a date and you'd go out and get an ice cream cone, and a little puddle would be there, and you'd take you jacket off, you throw it across that puddle. You'd got her by the hand and lead her across that little puddle of water. You'd open the door for her and let her get in, shut the dorm, run around to the other's tide. Do you remember that?

48:02 Forty Now, I've heard lots of sermons like this. Okay, now here's my question. So if you don't keep doing that fifteen years after marriage, twenty years in the marriage, did you depart from your first love? Is love measured by those feelings that I think typically we would classify them as infactuation? Almost right? Is it love deeper than that? Are you saying that? The way the way you know you love Jesus is you open up his word and you're like, oh, oh, yes, and I'm going to read more of this, and oh the page is and I'm just gonna read it and read it and read it and read it and read it and read it. And I can't. I can't make it a couple I can't make it a couple of steps without opening it again.

48:54 And I'm going to read more of it, and I'm going to read more of it. So is it measured? Is your love for God measured by feelings of infatuation? In other words, you have to have a certain feeling. Is love for God measured in feeling? Is love of God measured in action? Well? If it's measured in action, well, because he talked about laying down your coat and opening the door and doing all. Well, if it's measured in action, well, then the church of emphasis they seemed, and even their emotion everything here in Revelation too, that describes them. These things would seem to other than the emotions because it doesn't it necessarily express their emotions. So is it is it an emotional feeling?

49:37 If you love God, you measure it by emotion because action does not determine whether you love God. So it's your emotion. Now this is gonna get complicated, right, because I don't know if you know this, human beings are very unique. I joke a lot of times someone in our church by the name of Bobby. I make the joke all the time. He could find out tomorrow that he won the lottery fifty million dollars. He'd be like, Okay, well that's great, that's great, awesome, all right, what are we gonna do next? Like, I don't know if there would be an emotion. He's the one that when when the tornado hit our church building and the roof was gone, right, I walked in and I was like, I almost wanted to go, what are.

50:27 We going to do? We have no roof, the inside of the building is destroyed. It's over. Ministry has finished. What are we going to do? Is the end of the world? And he just kind of looked at it and like, well, probably about two or three years before we get this all fixed, just like very matter of fact, and I'm like, what in the world, and just like even just very and then I'm the opposite. I'm much more emotional. So if you measure loving for God in emotion, well then some people are going to be like, well I don't have those emotions. I don't get that excited. I don't, Well, you don't love God. Brother, you're not showing it. You're not showing it. So I I how do you measure this? Like? It's got to feel like if you love God, it's gonna feel like it did when you went on you know, your first couple of dates with the woman you married. Like that, that's the way you measure it.

51:21 Twenty five years later, you're slimming the door, her skirts hanging out the door. Amen, you're going down the highway fifty five mile pull up to the church house to say good morning pastor. We're ready for God to do something today. We've been up praying for you all the way to church. What happened? What happened? Lost at first love? Something's missing, something's not there. I'm saying tonight, we don't get all week and get. We don't want no more what we've already got because we've lost that love that we once had for the Lord Again.

52:17 You've given me, You've given me the text, which is Revelation to and according to everything the Church of Ephesus is doing. That's almost how we measure if you love God. So how do you know he's just. Now introduced none of this says anything about he's introduced this concept, it's got to feel like basically it did when you first started dating. Is that even accurate? Long before Navid seeing against God, the Sweet Salmist of Israel, as he stood and watched the sheep at night and played this hard and wrote those psalms fellowshipping with God and walking with God, long before he looked upon that woman, Long before he took the steps of the aught, not a took. He got cold on the Lord. Something began to cool down, long before Peter ever denied the Lord, long before he'd ever even thought about telling folks he didn't know him. The Bible said he fought now.

53:36 I don't think I was just looking something up. Is it entirely fair? Is it fair to say that David sinned because he had lost his love for God? David sins, particularly the incident involving Bathsheba and Uriah, were more complex. They reflected a moment of weakness, moral failure, and a yielding to temptation, rather than a complete life of love for God. In fact, David's subsequent repentance and his heart felt prayer demonstrates that he still loved God and deeply regretted his actions. His sin was more of a failure to align his actions with faith and love for God at the moment, rather than an outright abandonment of love. Now that's just one source. I look that up in just a couple of seconds. I know it's the easy wa David committed. He before David ever committed his sin, he grew cold. It wasn't David a man after God's own heart. Peter Peter denied Jesus three times because something had happened. Then something happened because Peter was the one like, hey Lord, wherever you go, I will follow you. I will not deny you. Was it more about Peter's pride than his love for God? Because when when the cock crows right, doesn't Peter go out and weak, bitterly demonstrating he still loved God. Is it fair to say Peter denied Jesus three times and David sin because they fell because they had grown departed from their first love. I think that's unfair. I don't think that's scriptural at all.

55:03 I'm sorry, I don't agree with that. You can commit great sin and still love God because you sin every single day, you're in a perpetual state of sin in some way, shape or form. Your sin does not mean you don't love God. And then how do I know this? Because you can love God and never be perfect, meaning you're always going to be sinning. All of at a distance, something happened. He got a little cool, and. I know preachers love that. It said, Peter followed at a distance. Oh, this is a spiritual picture. No, it's he followed at a distance because he knew that that. Well, there's persecution happening. They've arrested Jesus and he could obviously be demonstrated. Now his bravado was God. He now has worry, No, he has concern. It's easy to talk a big game when you're sitting in the upper room and there's no one around.

56:03 I will never deny you. I'll die for you until until the time everyone talks a big game, until you're confronted with the reality. And he followed from a distance. I've heard so many sermons on that. Who shows his spiritual condition? Oh, come on for crying out loud, let's not spiritualize the text. He got a little cold on God long before John Mark, however, left that mission field, and the persecution that came. Something happened in is hard. He got cold about what he was doing long before demons ever forsook Paul and went back to the world, and it's love of the world.

56:46 Something happened. He got cold on God. I'm saying tonight, there's folks sitting here tonight. There's people sitting here tonight. You're still trying to serve God. You still read the Bible, you still high prayer, you still come to church, but somewhere down the road, you've got a little cold. Okay, now, first, let me just state it again. I don't think it's fair to say someone sin because they've grown cold and they've departed from their first love, because then the argument, the opposite logical, you know, conclusion, would be, well, if you love God, you'll never sin. You can't say sin is mean because you've grown cold to God, because well, then if you're, if you're on fire, if you're if you're love God, then you'll never sin. That's just ridiculous.

57:36 We know that's not the case. And immediately right there, you still read your Bible, you still come to church, you still serve God, but you've departed from your love, from your first love. Well, then how do I know if I love God? The best He's given us to know if you love God is it's got to feel like it did when you first started dating. That's just ridiculous, especially in many cases when you first started dating. Look at your age and what was going on in your body chemically, all the hormones and things that were happy. Then that's just that's just not You're creating an expectation. And but guess what, you can make everyone in church feel guilty on this because everyone's like, well, I don't feel those feelings like I did way back then. Well okay, well then everyone's gonna I gotta get those feelings back.

58:25 I gotta get those feelings back. So you get convicted, you go to the altar, you cry, I'm gonna love God more, and almost inevitably, what do you How do you measure it? How much I'm gonna go to church, how much I'm gonna read my Bible, how much I'm gonna memorize scripture, how much I'm gonna go to church, And then it's all measured by your actions. But your actions don't prove if you love God, because the church at Ephesis and Revelation Chapter two demonstrates they did all the right things, but they departed from their first love. So we still have not been given an answer to the question, how do you know if you love God? Oh God, you're not in love with him like you once was. I'm saying tonight that there are a lot of Christians at one time or another, and it's gonna happen.

59:12 It's something you gotta work at, it's something you gotta labor with. But there's nobody here tonight that can stand up and say I love God as much as I ever have. We all go through spells with the love that we once had is not where it needs to be or not what it once was. Amen, we cool down in our walk with God, We cool down in our fellowship with God. We cool down in our Bible reading that prayer life. What happened, I say tonight, Problems happened. Problems came along and had those problems. You felt like God forsook your Our God didn't meet in to the requirements that you thought he ought to meet, and you thought that that maybe the Christian life was all ease and simple. You didn't realize that God grows your faith through trial and tribulation and problems got you out. Problems put a chill in your spirit. People put him chill in your spirit. Somebody said something, the front is mad at the back, and the back is mad at the front, and the side is mad at the other side. And you come to church and you fold your hands. You'll go to the ballgame and shout like how wild commands you on a war path. And you'll come to church and sit like Elijah, the wooden endian. The preacher preaching us hard out. He's giving it the best. He's God.

1:00:36 He's prayed about it, he's sought down about it, he's wept over it, he's begged God for it. But he's preaching the people that's got cold on God. By the way, some of your faces look tonight. You're cold right now. You ain't liking this well, I wish he'd shut up. It's nearly eight point thirty cold cold, every cold, see, oh held cold? What did it? I believe delight and things in this life that overshadowed the things of God.

1:01:24 There was a time in your life that the things of God brought great delight and joy gladness. But now there's more enduring than there is enjoying. I believe those some have lost the desire to spend time with God in prayer. Now, communication with God is not what it ought to be, and it's brought a coolness and the coldness in your heart. You give it in the things that you know are not right with God. You're giving in to things that you know bring pleasure to the Lord. Neighbor, listen, loved once tonight, you know what's right.

1:02:06 You You see the logical progression of thought. The idea is, if you love God, you won't do anything wrong. Well again, hey, those three people up front the church, they're perfect. They love God. Everyone else you don't love God. So if you just will love God, you will never And people say, no, no, no, it's not about being perfect. Well then how are you quantifying? How do you measure it? Well, you can have this much sin and still love God, But this much sin you've departed from your first love. You see how just subjective this whole thing is. Again, look at the church at Ephesis and Revelation to He doesn't mention any a sin, he doesn't mention any disobedience, he doesn't mention anything. They're doing everything right, Yet they departed from the first love.

1:03:02 So how then do you measure it? You know what's wrong, you know if you're right, and you know if you're wrong. But if you're wrong and you don't want to do right or not interested in doing right, you're cold. The Lord didn't criticize them because of their theology. He didn't criticize them because of the orthodoxy. He didn't criticizing because of their labor. He didn't criticize them because they fainted or lost patience. But he said, I have somewhat against them because you don't love me like you once did. Preacher said it, do you want revival?

1:03:47 Not if you're cold, you don't. It's funny. I hear his preaching that, and I think about what I'm going to preach now. The Lord you knew that two three weeks ago. I ain't never took it. I looked at a hundred different outlines. But we don't need an outline. We need inline. We need what God wants. You want a meeting, you gotta get what you can get and let God fill you up. I thought about when Brother Joe is preaching, when he fed the multitudes over the Bible said, when they left and got those twelve baskets left over. The Bible said that all them men were full.

1:04:28 You know, you know, you know what you know? I tell you about a fat man. He never gets full. There's always more, there's always something else. I determined tonight not to eat more than no art too. I'd made up my mind. I wasn't gonna eat more than no ort to know what. I eat more than art too, So I hate somebody made some of them look like little ice cream balls. I kept watching the meeting. I thought that thing ain't melting. Ice creams both to melt, but that ain't melting. There's something different about that. Come to find out, it's cream cheese with some kind of fake sugar in it. I got to have some of that, not one that's like a lace tater chip you had to eat. Nobody can eat just one.

1:05:28 Now I know he's joking, but I'm gonna raise a question. At what point does food become an idol? At what point does you're eating crossover into gluttony? And at that point is that a sin? And does that then mean you don't love God? I mean, and a lot of these conferences food food food food food has talked about frequently because they have meals and food food food, food, food. Food.

1:06:08 Already at this camp meeting, they've already talked about food. I think once or twice. It's maybe the third time. The food, the food, the food, the food, the food. Well, when does that cross some kind of line? I'm killing time because I get there. It is cold. You preach like this, you gotta use little humor. You can see the countenance of y'all's faces go from them right and what I wanted to hear tonight, get sound doctrine back up there. Let me tell you something about their singing. They're singing to bring more conviction than some preaching does. I've been listening to them, to him for years, met him for the first time last year. My girls feel mad at me about that. But they got more.

1:07:03 They got more power in their song than most preachers gotten their preaching punch. What happened? What's happening to us? Cold? I mean, we got all our hides dotted and all are tease crossed. We're still visiting, going to the nursing home, knocked in a few doors, handing out tracks. But we're just going through the motion. He's doing really good at you know, Hey, diagnosing the problem. You can do all of this stuff, but you still may not love God. Okay, that's great. Well, then how do we know if we love God. I'm gonna continue to ask the question. We're gonna wrap it up here in a second, and then you can go finish listening to the rest of this again. The name of this message is you've left your first love from Stay by the Stuff twenty twenty four on the sermon's two point.

1:07:56 Oh app okay, so please go listen to the rest of it. Please listen to all of it. I mean it, listen to all of the messages, but I still want you to make your list and how you know. While this was going on, I was arguing with artificial intelligence, saying, how do I know I love God? And would get me a list? And I say, well, didn't the church at ephesis do these things? And they were like yes, And I'm like, well, then how do I know I love God? And give me the same thing. I'm like, you just repeated what you just said, but you acknowledged that the Church of Emphasis didn't love God. So you and AI cannot seem to unravel this mystery. AI can't seem to unravel it. He's not the best He's done is well, the way you know love God is you'll act like you did when you were dating. That's that can't be the answer.

1:08:43 We're just going through emotion. That's what I'm supposed to do. This is what I'm expected to do. But there's no love in it. You become unwilling to give to the Lord's work. You can give to anything else and everything else, but when it comes to God's work, there's not enough love that digs to Oh. Now he's getting really specific. The amount you give will determine if you love God. So can I use that?

1:09:26 Ladies and gentlemen, If you listen to this podcast, unless you're giving at least thirty dollars a month, you don't love God. Can your pastor say, unless you're giving one hundred dollars a month to this church, you don't love God. Does the amount you give determine if you love God? Or you're giving at all? Make a little bit of sacrifice ass love for one another as a church. The Bible does say to bear one another's burdens and so fulfill you the love of Christ.

1:10:13 We're family, but most of the time we first and we are disagree. What's wrong love? Love? But doesn't the text say that the church at Ephesus has born and has patience, and for my namesake has labored and has not fam What did they what and has born? Born? What? What? What? What is that referencing they did not bear one another's burdens? So how again do we know if we love.

1:10:57 You seek the approval of the world and a pat on the back from the world. The Church of Emphesis wasn't doing that. So then I see, now I don't really understand. We have to try to understand it in the context of where it's found. Though. The text that says nevertheless, I have someone against thee you've departed from your first love is about the Church at Ephesus. We can't just insert anything into that. How did they demonstrate that they did not love God?

1:11:38 Yeah, and think that that is more desirable and more applicable and more prominent in your life than heaven God's approval. The Bible said, love not the world, neither of the things that are in the world. If any man loved the world, the love of the Father's not in him. That's where a lot of us are denied. Now I'll stop right there. But that what does that have anything to do with the church at ephesis? I mean, you're quoting from First John. John wrote Revelation, but he doesn't utilize the same language here. You're doing all the good things, but nevertheless you've departed from first love? So how do you know you love God? All right, we went seventy two minutes. We're gonna wrap this up. Thank you for listening. Go listen to the rest of it.

1:12:36 Go listen to the rest of it. I think this is the sermon. He mentions Abilene, Texas, where where I'm broadcasting from. I'm broadcasting live from Abilene, Texas. I think this is the sermon. He mentions a church in Abilene, Texas where something crazy happened, and I'm like, well, maybe maybe we'll use it for a separate episode just to talk about well, yeah, yeah, yeah, that churches are not obviously filled with people who are new creatures and old things have passed away and all things that become new, because every pastor I've ever heard tells horrible stories about things that go down in churches, and some of them I'm utterly shocked by. And as I even heard Charles Stanley one time he got punched by I think a deacon got punched in the face, and it's like, what in the world physical violence and churches? And he has somewhat of a similar story if it's the same preacher, where they're basically almost started throwing punches at each other, and it's like, yeah, so maybe church is still made up of sinners, which it is. So then the question is do we ever truly love God? And that's why we have to be saved by faith alone? Because Christ did love God correctly, and his love for God is imputed to me, so meant my position, I love God perfectly in my practice. I don't even know if we can really quantify what it is or what it looks like, or even how to measure it. Thanks for listening everyone,

1:14:09 Have a great night. God bless