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00:01 Good morning. Uh, I'm not as old as Ricky, but on the
00:06 way. So, my music taste is in the 80s and 90s. This is the band. I'll be
00:13 extremely shocked if anyone of you know, anyone of you know this band, Nylon and Broken Heart. Please raise your hands. I
00:18 will buy you lunch outside. Nobody, right? Yeah. You wouldn't know this band. It's what you call an 80s
00:24 Christian rock band. Okay. So, like I say, I got funny music taste. In one of the albums, uh there was a song which
00:30 caught my eye because of the title. It was called denomination demolition. And the lyrics were quite interesting. It it
00:36 goes this way. One church, one heart. That was God's intention from the start.
00:41 No fuss, no fight. We can work together in the light. Tear down the walls that cause a division. Get back to Jesus and
00:49 renounce religion. Denomination demolition. Life shouldn't be a competition. We can fulfill the great
00:56 commission. de denomination demolition. Now, the lyrics are corny, but it's a
01:01 point. The video is very interesting because what he had in the video was a series of cars and each car was labeled a denomination.
01:08 And they were all in a competition to win souls. So, you had the Catholics, the charismatics, maybe the Southern
01:13 Baptists. And as they were racing, what happens with the cars will crash into one another. And it was very profound.
01:20 And he was making a point. The point is that all you guys say you're Christians
01:26 in your search to win souls, you are actually causing damage because of the divisions among yourselves. Now, we're
01:33 going to take this among two weeks and it's a real question we got to ask. You
01:39 see, you tell someone you're a Christian, what's the first thing they ask you? You Protestant or Catholic?
01:45 The next question they ask you now, of course, is you charismatic or evangelical?
01:52 correct or not? I mean, we are first Baptist. I mean, what what's the difference between a Baptist, a Southern Baptist, an Anabaptist, charismatic
01:59 Baptist, and congregational Baptist? I mean, what's a Baptist anyway? I have no idea what a Baptist is. Let me
02:05 complicate the situation with you and why we need to take two weeks. Imagine you come from a family and everybody's
02:12 from another church and you decide to come to First Baptist. Do you pick a fight with them and say
02:18 you're in the wrong church? I'm in the right church. I'm in the First Baptist church. We are first and better Christians. Ricky just told us.
02:24 Or you say, "Well, you go to your church. I go to my church. We you I respect your faith. I respect my faith."
02:30 What if that church is teaching things which in your conscience is not what the Bible is saying?
02:37 Isn't what Paul said? What did Paul say in verse chapter 1 verse4? Even if we or
02:42 an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we have preached to you, let him be eternally
02:49 condemned. It's a complex question. It's a real question and we we want to deal with
02:55 this delicately and I pray that uh this week and next week we'll take some
03:00 matters home and God will speak to us and encourage us. Let us come before God in prayer. Lord, we uh we come before
03:08 you now with honesty and in humility. And I ask Lord for the next 40 minutes,
03:15 you remove any pride, remove human persuasion
03:21 that your word, oh Lord, is a double-edged sword, oh Lord, and it will go out and you have promised and your
03:27 word goes out, you will not come back not. We ask for clarity of of your of
03:33 mind, humility of the spirit and a heart willing to follow the cross. And we say
03:40 this in Jesus' name. Amen. Mainstream denominations, cults,
03:46 interchurch movement, independent church, apostolic churches, non-denominational churches. I want to
03:53 just give you a five minute church history. I know this is not a class, but you we should do a little bit. Let me
03:59 give you first the context of chapter 2 because chapter 2 takes you to a place which we have not really looked into
04:06 detail is called Antioch. Now to read the book of Galatians you have to read
04:11 it with the book of acts and you are told in acts 11 the Jews begin to spread
04:18 the word because of persecution. It goes all the way to Antioch. Antioch is in modern day Syria if our history is
04:26 correct. and they begin to reach out to Gentiles. The Jerusalem church sends Barnabas there and Barnabas finds out
04:33 yes they are Christians they're not Jews. He pulls Paul along and by Acts 13
04:40 five leaders are formed and there is a church and in this chapter the Antioch
04:46 church is now established under the leadership of Paul and he sends he goes
04:51 up to Jerusalem. He goes out to Jerusalem with Barnabas and interestingly with Titus to discuss this
04:59 issue of the heresies of the Judaizers. Now let me tell you a bit of church
05:04 history. Church history started in Jerusalem. It moved to Antioch.
05:09 It would then move to Rome and there the beginning of the Catholic Church.
05:16 Now then what we call Eastern Rome started in Constantinople
05:22 and Constantinople they moved to Alexandria which is in Egypt and Alexandria basically sent bishops out to
05:29 Africa. Along the way what was called the great schism happened. Eastern Orthodox and
05:35 Catholics split. The Catholics under Luther split with the reformation. And
05:40 according to Catholic history they tell you the Protestants started to split into thousands of groups.
05:45 and where we are here today. And Paul says this, this matter rose because some
05:51 brothers had infiltrated our ranks the spine and our freedom to we have in
05:56 Christ Jesus to make us slaves. The first thing you're told is that it's quite hard to detect a Christian.
06:04 What Jesus says wheat and wheats who's really a Christian just because
06:10 you use the name Christian. Now last Friday my daughter got pulled
06:15 savagely off the boot camp. We blame all these BBC people. All the BB guys took
06:20 my daughter off to be I like to use the word tortured but for our own good. Okay. So me and my wife decided to do
06:28 what all you older couples to do. We went to park tour. You old people better do that. But I don't want to thank my
06:33 wife. So we decided to try to be romantic. We went to watch a movie. Went Friday night to Mid Valley. Queued up
06:39 with all the young people. There were two fogies watching a movie. So being kasu Chinese, you queued up in
06:45 the line after so long down there. They give you the screen, you want to watch movie right in the middle at the front row where Richard is sitting, the screen
06:51 is there. So we want to watch a movie like that.
06:58 Now let me tell you a point. Being a Baptist is like this. You don't get a
07:05 bird's eye view. But if you sit at the back, you get a better picture. So I'm
07:11 going to give you a bit of a five minute rundown of people who call themselves
07:16 Christians, but Paul may not may not. And at the end of it, you understand why
07:22 I'm trying to say that. And then we'll zoom into the text. A lot of people call themselves Christians. These groups call
07:28 themselves Christians. A friend of mine, a consultant of mine is a Jehovah Witness. The term Jehovah
07:35 witnesses comes from Isaiah 40 witnesses for Jehovah. It started from a movement
07:42 from man called Russell Taste from the Bible student movement. The Jehovah witnesses do not believe Jesus is God
07:50 and they only have their own translation of their Bible but they will see themselves as the true
07:56 church. They believe in 1914 Jesus came in spirit and you are in the last days.
08:03 The right hand side you have the church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints. They have a very big church in state.
08:11 Two shop lots young people there are lot. They believe that there was a second
08:17 revelation and and if you go to the websites they believe that restoring the church to first century Christianity
08:24 because Joseph Smith had another revelation and the new Jerusalem will be
08:29 established on the shores of America. And in the Mormon faith, the precedent
08:36 of the Mormon faith has is direct revelation from God. You cannot question the president of the of the church of
08:44 Jesus Christ to Latter Day Saints. You can go to the website is right there. Now, these are people who won't consider
08:51 you as Christians. And I like to suggest Paul won't consider them as Christians either. before you like to use the word
08:57 count on them. Mitt Romney, presidentelect of America is moment.
09:03 Steven Kovi, author of seven habits is Mmon. You go to Utah, you throw a stone.
09:08 Everyone's M. They are a power force, economically very powerful. When you
09:13 think cult, you think some strange weird guy, you call it to a Mmon. They extremely powerful and very intelligent
09:19 people are Mormons. Now I want to take you to another group what we call fringe churches. know churches which are you
09:25 know have particular inclinations and some of our friends here may have come from that and I'm sorry if I offend
09:33 anyone but this is just a general statement. I'm not saying I'm an expert but let me quickly bring it through. The
09:38 Catholic Church split later to form the Catholic Apostolic Church. The Catholic
09:44 Apostolic Church then split in Germany to form the new apostolic church. The new apostolic church is very big in KL.
09:51 A lot of the Indian community joined them and they believe they are also restoring the first century church. The
09:58 church must be run by 12 apostles. So there are 12 apostles that run the whole
10:03 church and they give instructions worldwide. They're huge in Germany. And
10:08 of course you have the seventh day Adventists. Now the 7th day Adventists their statement of faith is very similar
10:15 to most Christians but they have few peculiarities. one, there's a huge, huge
10:21 emphasis on the Sabbath. Go to their website and they'll give you doctrines on the Sabbath and they're very proud of
10:27 it. And they're called Adventists because they're very much interested in
10:32 the second coming. And 7th day Adventist teachings are very much in early years
10:38 grounded by a prophetist called Ellen G. White. She wrote many books and she has
10:44 claimed to seen many visions. One of our most famous book is this book called the great controversy which describes this
10:51 cosmological fight between Jesus and the devil. Here are some of French
10:56 denominations. Have you ever received a magazine called the plain truth quite
11:02 popular printed in Malaca by the way? Printed in Malaka very big hill also. At
11:10 one point they were called Armstrongism because they were verly pushed by a
11:16 leader called Herbert Armstrong. Recent years the church has restructured itself extremely prophetic and end times
11:23 connected. Go to their website. Then you have another group called Christian Science or they like to label themselves
11:31 as Christian scientists and they were pushed by woman called Mary Eddie who
11:36 believe very heavily science and miracles were both the same thing. And
11:42 in America they lead many reading rooms and the Christian Science Monitor is one
11:47 of the most popular publications in America. It has won the pulster prize seven times.
11:53 Now after that a lot of people get very upset. You all Baptist, Anglicans, Pisterians, Adventists, Catholics,
12:01 Protestant get fed up. Why can't we just call ourselves Christians?
12:07 And Brian McLaren teaches this. He's everything. I'm Catholic, Protestant,
12:13 you name it. It's in his title of his book. And they call this an inclusive
12:19 engagement or they call this part of what we call the emergent movement. And we won't go into that but it means all
12:24 of you are the same. Then there's another type that's very exclusive. You know all you Baptist or Anglicans are we
12:31 very sick of it. We are just going to call ourselves Christians and we're going to call ourselves non-denominational Christians. And we're
12:38 going to call ourselves the true Jesus church. Of course if I tell my church
12:44 true Jesus, guess what am I telling about you? You're the false Jesus church. If I'm the true church of
12:51 Christ, guess what I'm saying about you? You are the false church of Christ. And I tell you in Sabah,
12:59 the true Jesus church is very large. Is the biggest Christian movement in Taiwan. This is a Chinese-led movement.
13:08 And the true Jesus church has two pecularities. With the Adventists, it was with the Sabbath. The new apostolic
13:15 church, it was with rebringing up the apostles. The truth is this church if
13:21 you don't speak in tongues you're not really a Christian. Number two when you get baptized cannot be in baptism pool
13:28 you know must be in the river. Go to their website. I'm not even doing this in Wikipedia. I don't want to
13:35 slander anyone. They'll give you a whole statement how in the book of acts whenever people were baptized it was in
13:42 a stream or a river. You cannot get baptized in a tub.
13:48 Then you have the International Church of Christ. My friend is a full-time worker with them. They are in Puchung. I
13:53 can give you the address. I spent a lot of time with him. I brought him to my Bible study group. They also telling you
13:59 we are the only true church. You denominations are a sin. And in their church, you cannot have all these bands.
14:06 You know, this is a sin. You know, I asked him why? Because in the New Testament, they sang ac capella. I said,
14:13 where do you get that? Paul sang in the prison without instruments. I said, "Of course, how can you bring instruments to the prison?"
14:19 Then he argued very convictingly, "Scripture doesn't show instruments."
14:26 And so on and so forth until you get the groups get stranger and stranger. You even have this group called the local
14:32 church. Now, let me give example. The Bible say the church in Galatia,
14:38 correct? The church in Corinth. The church in Thessalonica. Does it say
14:44 First Baptist Church in Galatia? No. Right. Does it say Assembly of God in Corinth? No. Does it say church of
14:52 Christ in Thessalonica? No. So you people call yourself First Baptist Church is a sin. You know, you must call
14:59 yourself the church in Sububangjaya. Now before you laugh, my condo is two
15:07 doors away from the church in Pataling Jaya. They are opposite university hospital.
15:15 Do not laugh. They are around and the groups get stranger and stranger from
15:21 the church that is called that tells yourself you can only name yourself locally. You actually have the church
15:26 with no name. How do I know this? Because last year
15:33 two members of them sat in our congregation. You ask brothers David and Susan Adams.
15:39 We spent time with them and they are active in Australia
15:45 and they are called the two by twos. You ask them why the ones who came to our church had left the movement because
15:51 Jesus when he sent out people how do you send out disciples 2 by twos. So alpha you must evangelize two by two
15:57 huh three by three. Four by four cannot. So in the midst of all this, people get
16:02 uncertain and it throws the million-dollar question. Who is right?
16:08 Now if you take one step back like watching a movie, you'll find certain traits. And I want you to take this at
16:15 the back of your head as we go into the text, you find Paul addresses this.
16:20 Number one, you find people cherrypick. Some people is important to Sabbath.
16:28 Some people, some groups is important as end days, some is important music, some
16:35 is important going out two by two. You notice that there is a particular emphasis and they all will refer to the
16:43 Bible. Secondly, you find all the movements are pushed very heavily by
16:49 individuals who reform it and their writings become central to that
16:55 particular group. Take that in mind as we look at it. And here we ask ourselves one simple question. Is there such a
17:02 thing as a correct denomination? Is there such a thing as a correct group?
17:08 Why are there so many denominations? The first thing we will ask, would Paul be
17:13 surprised at the division among Christians today? I won't go into it. You just look at the text. This is not
17:20 even complete. I just ran out of space. If you write down every verse in the New
17:26 Testament that warns you about false teaching, you pack up two, three pages.
17:32 This is only a sample of it. So, we should not be surprised today when the
17:38 church is so split. Paul wouldn't have been. But let me give you a few danger signs
17:45 that you may be in the wrong church. The first there is a claim of being the one
17:51 true church or more true than other churches. The Judaizers believe only
17:57 Christians who observe Jewish ritual laws and were circumcised were part of the one true church. As I mentioned and
18:05 you look at Galatians 2, it is a story of Antioch meeting Jerusalem.
18:12 It is a tale of two churches. Now if you put it into a chart,
18:18 I like to propose to you this is the birth of the first denomination inverted comma. I mean how do you define a
18:24 denomination? It's a group of Christians that meet together and independent from
18:30 another group. Let's look at Jerusalem. The Jerusalem church were all led by
18:36 apostles Peter, John, James mentioned here in the text. All Jews. And we're
18:44 told very clearly their mission was to reach out to Jews. Is mentioned here for
18:51 God who was at work. Verse 8, who God work in the ministry of Peter as an
18:57 apostle to the Jews. He was independent but in fellowship with Antioch. How do we know that?
19:03 Because chapter 2 verse one, 14 years later, I went up again to Jerusalem.
19:09 Acts tells us he only met Peter once for three days. There's no central command.
19:14 There's no one big church, one body, you know, like a like a multinational organization telling Antioch what to do,
19:21 telling Alexandria what to do. They were independent, but they were fellowship.
19:27 The nature of the Jewish church in Jerusalem was obviously based on the Old
19:33 Testament. You find it inferred to also in Acts. Let's look at Antioch. Antioch
19:39 only had one apostle, Paul. In fact, the Antioch church, Acts 11 tells us, was
19:45 set up by Barnabas. Barnabas is a Levite from Cyprus. No, he's a Levite. He's not
19:50 an apostle. And Acts 13 tells us they had five leaders. Two of them were Africans. One from Niger and one from
19:58 North Africa. They had a gentile mission. They were independent.
20:03 And their way they led their worship obviously was very different from Jerusalem. What is the point here? The
20:11 point is very simple. There's no such thing as a true church.
20:18 The moment First Baptist Church says we are the true church, you're in the wrong church.
20:24 There's no such thing also as the true denomination. So let me give a few examples of this.
20:30 Pope Pius I 6 the union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the
20:37 return to the one true church of Christ of those who are separated from it. This
20:42 is classic Catholic doctrine. They'll tell you your Protestants all of you are split. Only the Catholic church is the
20:50 true apostolic church. You talk to a Russian Orthodox or Greek Orthodox they'll tell you they are the real true
20:55 church. So Orthodox churches will tell you the Catholic split in the great schism after
21:01 what they had to fight over the apostles creed. So anyone who say the true church, you got to be quite worried.
21:09 I mean true Jesus church. But you see it gets very subtle. You know you don't
21:14 have to tell someone that you know your church is false, my church is right. When I was a kid, I was in school and a
21:22 charismatic brought me a sign. I'm not here to throw stones at charismatics. Please, we're going to throw stones at everybody just to be fair today. And you
21:28 know, they tell you, they'll say, you know, I know you're a Christian, but your Christian life is like that. No, your cup is half empty. That is your
21:36 life. My life is like the other cup. I'm overflowing with the spirit. Yeah, you're a Christian. You're Christian.
21:41 You know, it's telling you I'm a better Christian than you. So, this is where the subtlety is. Why
21:47 am I a better Christian? I'm a better Christian because I speak in tongues. I'm a better Christian because I follow
21:54 the Sabbath. I'm a better Christian because my church is run this way. I'm a better Christian because I follow signs
22:02 and wonders. I'm a better Christian because I read the Bible more. There's no such thing as one true church. Paul
22:09 reminds us here that you're caught by grace and grace alone.
22:15 We can look at denominations this way. Why are there so many denominations? I'd like to propose to you denominations are
22:21 like schools you know you have international school you have Chinese school you have scholar kabanga
22:28 what is the aim of the school education of course you go to a madrasa we get very worried for you
22:35 but can a Chinese school tell the international school we're better than you you cannot say that so each schools
22:41 have different forms had a different form from Jerusalem but
22:46 it had the same gospel We are first Baptist church. I have no idea what it
22:51 means to be Baptist. I have no idea what it means to be first. And you can meet someone from a
22:57 Presbyterian church. I have no idea what a Presbyterian church is. Now what you do know is they are run differently. For
23:03 example, the Baptist love to vote. Very bad habit. Terrible habit. Why is
23:10 this so funny? It must be. If you go to a brethren church, there's no such thing as voting. You're elder for life.
23:18 If you go to an Anglican church, the Anglican church has a central governing body.
23:23 So there are different ways of running in the Chinese school. The Chinese school has certain ways of running it. For example, Chinese school always
23:29 asking for money. I know always asking for money. You go to international school, they a bit more
23:36 lateral in the way they do it. This kabanga no. Okay, I better not go
23:41 there. But there are different ways of running the school in the same way.
23:46 Antioch was run differently from Jerusalem. So you cannot say there's a such a thing as
23:53 a one true church. One gospel, different forms. Here's the second danger and this
23:60 is really quite important. You feel pressurized to conform to certain church
24:06 practices and beliefs. I give you example. Let's just say you're not a
24:11 Christian, but you love this girl or you're very attracted to this girl in church. The
24:17 girl says she's going to go to church camp. So, you decide to tag along. I put you away in Port Dixon for 4 days, you
24:24 know, and you have this girl you love very much. And four days, the church, bam, whacks you with their doctrine.
24:32 What are the chances at the end of four days, you're going to believe everything the church says? extremely high. You
24:39 see, we must accept one thing. Human beings are social creatures.
24:45 We are social creatures. We get pressurized subtly or not subtly,
24:53 consciously or unconsciously. Now, there's a very important place to show fellowship.
24:59 You see, people come to church because they feel lost. They sit in the middle here. They go to the cafe out there. We
25:06 show them love. They're very happy. But we must understand it doesn't stop there. You know the love we show them
25:12 there is to bring them to the love of God. If after a while they only see the
25:18 love of people they feel wanted. Anything that comes out the pit they will just suck in.
25:24 That's how cults work. Look at how Paul describes it. We did not give in to them
25:31 for moments so that the truth of gospel might remain with you. What does it imply? Pressure.
25:37 2:12 But when the Judaizers arrived, he begin Peter begin to draw back and
25:43 separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid.
25:48 We're going to deal with this more next week. He was pressurized. He didn't want to look bad in front of this group.
25:54 They're very powerful. Because of that, look at that. The other Jews joined him
25:60 in his hypocrisy. And Barnabas did the same thing. And this is so critical.
26:05 Paul repeats it in chapter six. Those who want to make a good impression outwardly are trying to compel you.
26:14 One of the difficult things we have in our church is we have people coming here from Catholic families. And please again
26:22 uh today if I offend anyone I really apologize. Try to imagine you're from a Catholic
26:28 family. Your relative is a nun. Another relative is a priest. For five
26:33 generations they are Catholics. You suddenly tell them I want to go to First Baptist Church. You think the next time you have dinner, he's going to have a
26:39 nice dinner. They will see you're betraying the church.
26:45 Can you imagine? You're another friend of mine is in a charismatic church. Everybody speaks in tonesues. He can't
26:51 speak in tonesues. One day he comes to me. He says,
26:58 "I know. Is that tongues?" I say, "No, that's that's gorage." I said, "No, it's tongues." I said, "Really? say that to me very slowly
27:06 sha I can do that also that's not tongues now I'm not trying to
27:11 get into the debate of whether tongues is real or not I don't want to go into that I'm just saying there is a very
27:18 easy place to fake many things why because we all want to feel accepted am
27:25 I not right the church is a social body so here's the danger of it and what the
27:31 judaizers are doing they are from the party of the Pharisees. The Pharisees
27:37 had the respect of society. And so when they move, they have
27:42 influence. Social pressure can strongly influence our understanding of biblical truth.
27:48 Look at a nice picture here. Missionaries that come smiling at you only think they are they are Jehovah
27:55 witnesses. They could be Mormons. They could be anybody. And Jesus says this, "Woe to you teachers of the law and the
28:02 Pharisees, you hypocrites." Listen to this. You travel over land and sea to
28:08 win a single convert. And when he becomes one, you make him twice as much
28:15 a son of hell as you are. Travel land and sea. People will go to great lengths
28:23 to fill up their church. Thirdly, when your understanding of the
28:28 Bible is mainly shaped by what the church leaders tell you, look at how
28:33 Paul describes the apostles is almost sarcastic. 2:2 to those who seem to be
28:41 leaders. Verse six, for those who seem to be important, those reputed to be
28:49 pillars. Now, the text is very straightforward. Paul is simply going up to Jerusalem with Barnabas and titles.
28:58 You don't even need to execute the text. But look at the way he describes the Jerusalem pillars. Why does he use such
29:05 language? Because the Judaizers were claiming to endorsement from James and
29:10 implying that Jerusalem apostles were more credible than Paul. This is very classic Chinese trick. We call that
29:18 hijacking a name. When you want to do business, what you do? You drop names. Hey, so and so uses my product, it
29:25 endorses you, isn't it? What the Judaizers were doing was simply this. They're saying, you know, this guy Saul,
29:32 he used to persecute Christians. You know, he wasn't there when Jesus was around. But James, John, Peter, they
29:40 walked with Jesus through his life. This Paul secondass apostle. But we we are
29:48 from James. You know, you know who James is or not. James is the brother of Jesus. You know, literally got
29:55 connection. So, we must be right. Very clever marketing, right? Name calling to
30:02 use that to endorse. Now, it gives you a common danger. And what just now I
30:07 showed you a lot of pictures just now. A lot of fringe movements begin
30:14 by leaders. Let me give you this movement. If you know your church history, any one of you
30:20 has heard of the children of God. The children of God was started by exhibi called David Burke.
30:28 And when you look at the statement of faith entirely evangelical
30:33 but David Burke moved from that to another movement, he started to promote sex.
30:39 It's very famous case. And he took Matthew's text and he started something
30:44 called flirty fishes. just Google up flirty fishes and he looked at again like what I showed you early a lot of
30:51 fringe boomers will cherrypick versus so go forth and multiply is now seen as you
30:57 know what god wants you to have sex all the time leaders can make you do many
31:02 things this is another church I won't even give the name the pastor of the church convince his members to eat grass
31:10 and the members following willingly followed today leaders are elevated to
31:16 such a position. Whatever the leader says goes. So here's
31:22 the question we say we ask. And Paul says this, I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preach is not
31:29 something that man made up. I want to ask you about what you believe now. Is it because you're really convinced the
31:36 Bible says it or because you heard it from the pulpit? For many years, I was in a brethren church.
31:42 I I've been a very confused person. I started off as a brethren then I went to an Anglican church then I went back to a
31:49 brethren then I'm now in a Baptist I have no idea what they all mean but you know that was my journey in life now in
31:54 a brethren church the women pow you know cover you don't pow cover you're a sinner
32:02 so I had a friend who was brethren that day and he asked me hey your church the women don't ptow I say no sinner no I
32:09 say why they say the Bible says so I said show me where the Bible they will wobble and wobble They can't tell you.
32:16 You notice that? So people are persuaded on many things. Whether is head covering, speaking in tongues, keeping
32:22 the Sabbath, having music at the back, whatever is occultic, whether you can play video games, whether you should
32:29 watch Harry Potter, not because of their own convictions, because they had influential people
32:35 standing in front telling you this is what the Bible says. And when you go to
32:41 the website of the church of Jesus Christ of letter saints latest entry as
32:46 of yesterday it says there in the right hand side listen to what your prophet says. The prophet is the chief president
32:54 of Roman church. And when you click on that the section tells you whatever the
32:59 prophet says unquestionable. You don't need to think.
33:05 So this is where false teachers come from. They come because the leaders are
33:11 persuasive. But here is the core of Paul's argument. You see the core of
33:17 Paul's argument and the main reason why he went up to Jerusalem was this because
33:23 he is trying to ask and trying to find out from the Jerusalem apostles what
33:30 really is salvation. And he says here in verse six, okay, he says, "This man added nothing to my
33:38 message. On the contrary, they saw that I have been entrusted with a task of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles
33:44 just as Peter had been to the Jews." Now, what's interesting this verse? This man added nothing. Now, why do we say
33:51 that? Why do we say that? Because he find out later on in verse two, he says
33:57 this. I did this imprivately to those who seemed to be leaders for fear that
34:03 was running or had run my race in vain. Now what is Paul saying? Paul is worried
34:10 his ministry has been compromised by the influences of the Judaizers. And what
34:16 were the Judaizers preaching? Paul tells us this. He says this when he say this
34:21 man added nothing to my message. Let me break it down for you. In Acts 15, which
34:27 a lot of scholars believe happens after this account, there is a meeting with
34:33 Paul, the Antioch church, and Jerusalem. And this some men came and they were
34:40 from the party of the Pharisees. And look what it says. Some men came down from Judea to Antioch. This is referring
34:46 to this account. and were teaching the brothers unless you are circumcised
34:52 according to the custom taught by Moses you cannot be saved. Now this is quite
34:57 important and if you go back to every all those pictures I show you this is where the connection is. You see are
35:03 they telling you not to believe in Jesus? No. No. They are saying yes believe in Jesus. They're saying Jesus
35:11 saves. Jesus died on the cross for your sins.
35:17 But you need to be circumcised. You see the subtle thing. It is a gospel
35:24 plus circumcision. And on the argument is very powerful. You you don't get the depths of it
35:29 because when you talk to someone, this is the way they argue. Didn't the Bible says you must be circumcised? Correct.
35:36 Moses say you got to be circumcised. Didn't Jesus says he came to fulfill the law? Fulfilling the law. Didn't Jesus
35:43 says that not one of these will be blotted away? Didn't Jesus wasn't Jesus
35:48 circumcised? So you should be circumcised. It's a powerful argument and you can understand why the Galatians
35:55 listen to this. They say yeah well we better get circumcised. But you see firstly there's a failure to
36:01 understand the function of circumcision. And Hebrews tells us this regards to food laws or circumcisions. He says the
36:09 law is only a shadow of the good things that coming, not the reality themselves.
36:14 For this reason, it can never by the same sacrifices repeatedly endlessly
36:20 year after year make perfect those who draw near to worship.
36:25 So this is what the Hebrews writer is saying. You circumcise, you observe this, you observe that. When you get to
36:32 the temple, the priest will still have to offer sacrifice to you. Meaning no matter what you do, all your efforts
36:40 will never make you right with God. What can make you right with God? Only
36:46 Jesus. Now there's an important point here because it means circumcision is
36:52 pointing towards Jesus. Jesus fulfills it. It gives you another point to look
36:58 at scripture. It means everything we read in scripture should be looked at in
37:03 light of Jesus. Now some of you at this point will say well that's all very good. None of us here have been
37:09 circumcised. Any of you circumcised? I don't think so. Right? Anyone hear about food loss? No you guys after this go eat
37:14 your bakut. So this whole thing becomes academic. You're not going to get
37:20 circumcised. You don't your your Chinese people wall up anything is dead. It's on a plate. It crawls. It flies. You will
37:25 eat it. Right? So it becomes academic. But look at the principle. The principle
37:32 is this is what Paul say. This man added nothing to my message. And this is where
37:38 heresy begins. Heresy begins when it's gospel
37:44 plus something else. In this case is gospel plus circumcision.
37:51 But in our case is gospel plus
37:56 fill in the blanks. Let me just go through this list. And this is my own list not exhaustive
38:04 to some is how you get baptized. So I would judge you whether you've been
38:09 baptized in the river. If you not been baptized in Clang River, you've been baptized in the bathtub in France,
38:15 you're not a Christian. Or you're not baptized emerging down there, you've been sprinkled in Methodist church,
38:20 you're not a Christian. Or you're you're a half-filled Christian. Speaking in tonesues, oh you're a
38:26 Christian, I'm a Christian. You don't speak in tonesues. You don't have the Holy Spirit ma you are secondass Christian Sabbathke keeping and I had a
38:34 conversation with brother who was in our church last year he told me the same thing you Baptist are Christians but not
38:40 as holy as us because we keep the Sabbath asked him when was the Sabbath he gave me the time on Saturday no it
38:45 was a certain time on Saturday and time ended I say what about past one hour am I wrong but you notice the list can go
38:52 on it can be worship you meet an orthodox is liturgy they'll tell you the way you're you're doing the Lord's
38:58 supper is really not as good as the way they do it. My friend is a deacon in Russian Orthodox Church. He tells me
39:05 when we do liturgy, it has more meaning. The sacraments have more meaning. So, he's telling us he's in the true church.
39:13 So, it will go on and on and on. Gospel
39:18 or gospel plus important distinction. And here let me give you example since
39:26 we want to talk about evangelicals. Evangelicals love to talk about Puritans. The Puritans are the
39:32 cornerstone of their thinking. But let me just see how this thing go you know and how they start. The Puritans taught
39:39 us about family values which are very important. Family simplicity work great values.
39:48 After that from Banyan and Jonathan Edwards, it shifts to morality. It's a
39:53 very subtle shift. You find all these movements don't start off straightforward. They shift and let me
39:59 tell you how the charismatic movement one way starts. It starts by saying, you know, the church is dead. We need to
40:04 bring in the power of God. It's it's true. And please, I'm not here to derite charismatics. From that, it shifts a
40:11 little bit that you know what, we got to bring in miracles. After that, it shifts a little bit more. If you don't speak in
40:16 tongues, you're not healed, you're not doing this, your church is a is a bad church. The Puritan movement started
40:23 from that when they came to the shores of America and ended up this way. You celebrate Christmas is a satanic
40:30 practice, you know. And the Puritans went out to persecute the Quakers.
40:37 You see how the shift goes? It's very subtle. And every movement starts it. They tell you, "We're going to return to
40:44 basics. But after a while, they're going to tell you, if you're not like me, you're not in the right church. The
40:50 shift becomes very subtle. Now, we've been what we call in Malay taroing
40:56 everybody. You're not a you're not a local. It means going after everyone. It's time to go after ourselves for a
41:01 while. Before we point fingers at charismatics and everyone else, let's look at
41:07 ourselves. The evangelical heresy is not a gospel plus, it's a gospel minus.
41:15 You see Tim Platt, David Platt puts it very well in both these books, you know, and radical is such an excellent book.
41:21 He says, "We have taken the command of Christ to go baptize and teach all
41:28 nations and mutated it into a comfortable call to come be baptized,
41:33 sit in one location." You see, you criticize a guy from another church of false teaching. You
41:39 see, look at me, I don't have that problem. You come to First Baptist, you see my theology is right. But when you
41:46 go off to work and your behavior is no different from a Catholic, a Mormon
41:52 7th day Adventist, what difference does it make you? It makes you the same. And for us
41:60 evangelicals, we have taken the gospel basically like an onoff switch. You know, I say if
42:08 Jesus is in my life, that's it. I just come to church, I got my quarter. It
42:13 doesn't transform my life. Whether gospel plus or gospel minus, Jesus says
42:20 this, "Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees. You hypocrites. You clean
42:25 the outside of cup, but inside they're full of greed and indulgence." A lot of
42:30 us go to church, but our insights are full of greed and indulgence. And we
42:36 forget what it means to be gospel- centered. And Paul reminds us, I am not
42:41 ashamed of the gospel. It is the power of God for the salvation. Everyone who
42:47 believes first for the Jew, then for the Gentiles. I want to give you example.
42:53 This is my viewer. Last week, a friend I helped for a long time in my view stabbed me in the back. I won't go into
42:59 the details. Stabbed me very badly. I was very hurt because I gone out of
43:06 the way to help him. and he went around saying all sorts of things about me because he had lost his job. Now at that
43:13 moment when I feel very angry and very hurt, would speaking in tongues help me? No.
43:21 Would keeping the Sabbath help me? No. Would the fact that I know the Bible better than a lot of people help me? No.
43:28 You know what? The only thing that helped me through the moment is when I got on my knees and I say, "Lord, teach
43:35 me to forgive because you forgave me." You see, the gospel has power. All these
43:42 other things when you add to the gospel or you take away the gospel, you
43:48 essentially make the gospel powerless. Because in the gospel, in the
43:54 crucification, there is the love of God. There is the forgiveness of God. There
43:60 is the grace of God and there is power. A gospel- centered church is the best
44:05 safeguard against false teaching. I want to close in a short while. Let me give you a few points. The gospel alone and
44:13 nothing else is required for salvation. The gospel transforms lives through the
44:19 Holy Spirit. Every believer should come to his or her own personal spiritual convictions
44:25 anchored in the gospel not through social pressure to conform. Teach the
44:30 Bible through the gospel and pursue unity among churches on the basis of the
44:36 gospel alone. I want to close with two points. What color is this?
44:42 Obviously all you guys have gone viral. Okay. Shall we separate the black and blues for the white and go for those who
44:50 are not familiar? Okay, let's let's humor those. Who here sees black and
44:57 blue? Raise your hand. Okay, who of you see white and gold or
45:03 white and brown? Raise your hand. Sizable minority.
45:08 Now, what's the point? Right? The point of this is that and when you look at the Twitter tweeting going out, people get
45:15 very confrontational. I seen it. I seen the the tweeting. You're crazy. It's black and blue. You go without your
45:21 mind. It's so clearly black uh white and gold. And then so I I Googled up why this happened. And
45:29 it says that it's got to do with two reasons. One is our DNA which affects your eyes. Number two is your social
45:36 conditioning. Meaning what? Now it's an important point. No, you see what you want to see.
45:46 You see how relevant that is. You see what you want to see.
45:52 You hear what you want to hear. You believe what you want to believe.
45:58 And the Salvation Army took that ad and put it in his most powerful form.
46:06 And what the Salvation Army is trying to say is that don't look at the dress.
46:12 Look at the bruises. Look at the bruises of Christ.
46:19 Look at the bruises. Look at the body for us broken because of our sins. Why
46:27 is it so hard to see the black and blue of our savior who died for us for our
46:34 sins? That is the center of the church. And when you look at the cross, this is
46:39 what the cross emphasizes in the Bible. Sin, repentance, salvation,
46:45 everything on the left hand side is what the gospel is. Everything on the right
46:51 hand side, my view is you can argue to the cows come home. You will never know.
46:57 Don't pick a fight. Don't bother to ask whether their tongues exist or tongues don't exist.
47:03 Whether Sabbath is Saturday or Sunday, whether 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. or 1:00 in the morning to 1:00 p.m., don't waste
47:09 your time. They don't help and you're not careful, they add to the gospel. And
47:16 let me just close on this. Let me just close. Gospel truth and life
47:22 requires connecting with believers from other church. And Paul says this, 14
47:27 years later, I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also. Why did he take
47:34 Titus? Titus is a Greek. And it says just like I said, for fear of running, I run my race in vain.
47:41 Paul's meeting the Jerusalem apostles had two agendas. One on verifying gospel
47:46 truth and the other on encouraging gospel unity. I want to end on this. If you spend the
47:54 rest of your life in First Baptist Church, all your friends are first baptist church. All your makan kakaki
48:00 are first baptist church it will be a very poor Christian life because you're trying to say the
48:06 Christian community is only that you know let me give you example you know
48:12 how charismatics view themselves this is how they view themselves filled with the holy spirit sorry you're charismatic
48:18 here I'll offend youh you know how evangelicals think of charismatics this how we think of them
48:25 we say ah these people be cuckoo believe in all sort of strange things You know how evangelicals think of theirelves?
48:30 You know how people like us think of ourselves? What we call Bible Bible believing Christians are this how we think of ourselves.
48:36 Ah correct or not, correct? You want to know how charismatics thinks of you? Not
48:41 this what charismatic thinks of you. Am I not right? Correct or not? You you
48:48 you think about it. Am I not right? It's true. It's true.
48:55 You one of the best remarks I read was from this author called Scott Mcnite. He says, "The most profound experience I
49:01 ever had in this regard, one that drew me out a cloistered perception of the evangelical fundamentalist movement was
49:08 a summer missionary work and evangelism in Australia in the summers of 1973 and 75. There I encountered genuine
49:17 Christians who one not from a denomination of Baptist. I selected this because of y'all.
49:23 Two, unable to read from the King James version. Three, happy to use guitars, drums. Four, charismatic. Five,
49:30 non-American, even anti-American. Six, unconcerned about issues I thought were
49:36 important, drinking, dress code, hair length. Seven, profoundly
49:41 godly and spiritual. My world was partly shattered because I came to realize that
49:47 what I thought was Christian was no more than a reflection of intertribal debates that were occurring in the United
49:53 States. The consequences of those two summers changed my perception of the entire church. I recognized that God
50:00 works in different ways with different peoples in different parts of the world. You can almost hear Paul saying, "To me
50:08 the ministry of the Gentiles. To you, Peter, the ministry of Jews. To me, Antioch, to you, Jerusalem." You see,
50:17 the church isn't a group of penguins. You know, the church has color, variety,
50:24 differences. As we end, one of the best things that do this is alpha. I have to
50:30 promote alpha again. I tell you why to promote alpha. Felong, you owe me on this.
50:37 You see, alpha is charismatic. You ever realize that? It's not just what is overtly charismatic.
50:44 Do we care? We don't care. Happy to use charismatic materials. Bring it on, brother.
50:50 Ask me one alpha member that have gone astray. Seven sessions, none. Alpha is
50:59 the only movement that has gone into the Catholic Church. So please all of you go to Alpha.
51:06 It has been a wonderful blessing to our church. You see in the end I'm not
51:12 Baptist. I'm not evangelical. I'm not charismatic. I'm not prististerian.
51:18 What am I? I keep the gospel in my heart. I see the black and blue of the
51:25 bruises of Jesus. And I pray FBC that that too will be for you as we
51:32 journey together in unity with other Christians and in growth together.
