Senior Pastor, Robert Dennison, preached this message on May 25, 2025. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Audio Transcript
I invite you to take your Bibles. Turn to Luke 11. If you’re using the Pew Bible, it’s page 922. Luke 11, 1423. Looking today at can good be evil?
And I’ll begin reading verse 14 now. He being Jesus, was driving out a demon that was mute. When the demon came out, the man who had been mute spoke, and the crowds were amazed. But some of them said, he drives out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons. And others, as a test with, were demanding of him a sign from heaven.
Knowing their thoughts, he told them, every kingdom divided against itself is headed for destruction. And a house divided against itself falls. If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand for you? Say I drive out demons by Beelzebul. And if I drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons drive them out?
For this reason, they will be your judges. If I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. When a strong man, fully armed, guards his estate, his possessions are secure. But when one stronger than he attacks and overpowers him, he takes from him all his weapons he trusted in and divides up his plunder. Anyone who is not with me is against me.
And anyone who does not gather with me scatters. May we pray? Heavenly Father, as we look at your word today, give us understanding about the many doctrinal truths that are presented here, especially about your character and how Jesus reflected that wrought it in the flesh, that we might see your goodness and your power and your love and your concern for us. It’s in his name that we pray. There are some symbols up there on the screen.
If you ever see any of them, raise your hand.
What’s the last one up there? The two sabers are what? Star Wars. Okay, you have the good Jedi and the bad Jedi. Yin and yang is this oriental philosophy that says good and evil exist together.
Good and evil have to be there together. They say that they’re complementary, they’re interconnected. They are interdependent upon one another and they cannot exist independently. It says that the female and the male, they’re both negative and possible positive principles. They’re against each other, but they have to come together in order for life to exist.
It says that good and evil are balanced forces that are fused together into one. And even on the dark side, there’s a little white eye, and on the white side, there’s a little dark eye. Because what they’re saying is, even in that which is good, There’s a little bit of evil, and in everything that’s evil, there’s a little bit of good. It’s this mixture that good and bad come together. And that’s what Jesus is being accused of here.
He’s God in the flesh, and he’s being told that he’s uniting himself with evil. And what we want to see today is a lot of different doctrinal truths. And the first one we’re going to look at is that God is good. There is no evil in Him. We go all the way back to Genesis chapter one each day when God made things, he looked at it and said, it’s good.
And then finally, when he saw all that he had made, it was very good indeed. God made everything good because it reflects his nature. There is no evil in him. James 1:17 says, Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. Only good gifts come from the Lord.
And he’s the Father of light. He is not the Father of what would be evil, of darkness. And it tells us that he does not change before Genesis, chapter one, Genesis, all the way to today and into the future. He never will change. He will always be good.
So read the doctrinal truth with me up there at the bottom. It says, God is good. Good. There is no evil in Him. We go on.
In Psalms, we find the same thing. Psalm 5 says, for you are not a God who delights in wickedness. Evil cannot dwell with you. It’s impossible for evil to be with God. That’s why we are in such need of a Savior.
Because of the sin in our life. God cannot dwell with us. Except for the fact that he sent Jesus Christ to die on the cross to secure our sin problems so that there’s no evil in us and we can dwell with him. Psalm 92, the Lord is just. He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.
And James 1:13 says that God is not tempted by evil, and He Himself doesn’t tempt anyone. Let’s read the doctrine of truth again. God is good. There is no evil in him. Psalm 45, 6, 7, we read this.
Your throne, God is forever and ever. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of justice. You love righteousness and hate wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of joy more than your companions. This is a prophecy about the coming Savior, and it refers to the coming Savior as God.
And then it talks about his God and The only way to interpret that is that the psalmist is speaking to Jesus about his relationship to the Father. We could read it this way. Your throne, God, is forever and ever. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of justice. You love righteousness and hate wickedness.
Therefore Jesus, God the Father, has anointed you with the oil of joy more than your companions. Jesus is God, and therefore he loves righteousness. He hates wickedness because he is all good, just like the Father. Like the statement says, God is good, There is no evil in Him. We find this in the New Testament.
Jesus shares a parable. And the parable answers three questions. The first one is, if God is good, why is there evil in the world?
And if there is evil in the world, did God place the evil here? And since there is evil, is God ever going to do anything about the evil in the world? So let’s read the parable here. And there’s some different characters in the story. One talks about the man, and that man is God the Father.
And then it talks about his enemy. So here’s your question for the day. Who do you think the enemy is? Satan. Let’s read it.
With that understanding, he presented another parable to them. The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man. What he’s saying is, the kingdom of heaven is here right now. And in this kingdom of heaven there was a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while people were sleeping, his enemy.
And again, who’s the enemy here? It’s Satan. He came and he sowed weeds among the wheat and he left. How many of you have a garden or a yard? I mean, if your neighbor came over and just threw dandelion seeds everywhere during the night, wouldn’t that just aggravate you?
That’s what happened. The enemy came and planted this bad seed. And it says that when the plants sprouted and produced grain, what also came up? The weeds. And a lot of times weeds look just like the good stuff.
The landowner’s servants. And here we have the angels refer to. They came to him and said, master, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Then where did the weeds come from? Again, the questions are, why is there evil in the world?
What kind of seed did God plant? He planted good seed. He didn’t put evil in the world. The evil is here because his enemy saw Satan came along and planted seeds that were weeds. So the next question so why isn’t God doing anything about the evil in the world?
He goes on in the parable to explain that, the man said, an enemy did this. He told them so his servants. The angel said, well, do you want us to go and pull them up? No, he said, because when you pull up the weeds, you might also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest.
So we’re talking about the present now. The weeds and the wheat are growing together, but one day the harvest is coming, and God at that point will do something about evil in the world. Because at harvest time, I’ll tell the reapers, gather the weeds first, tie them in bundles to burn them, but collect the wheat in my barn. So whereas God is good, there is no evil in him. We come to the next statement here.
Read it with me. Satan is evil. There is no good in him. There is no yin and yang. There is no unity between good and evil.
What does it tell us about Satan in scripture? John 8:44 says this. You are sons of your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and he does not stand in the truth. The truth is completely diametrically opposed to him because there is not a little truth.
But it says what? There is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he’s doing it because he speaks from his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of lies. God’s nature is to be good. He will always be good.
But Satan’s nature, at the very core of his being, he is evil, and there is no good in him. He is a murderer and he is deceitful.
Let’s go back to the text now. Luke, chapter 11, the next doctrinal statement here, and you can read it with me. God is amazing. You say it with me. God is amazing.
He does what people cannot do. I mean, should that be easy to understand? It should be. It says that he was driving out a demon that was mute. And when the demon came out, the man who had been mute spoke.
And it says that the crowds were amazed. It’s the shortest description in the Gospels of Jesus casting out a demon. But it’s very significant because this demon has something about him that’s different than the rest. I have it underlined up there. He was what?
He was mute. And what we understand from Jewish tradition is that the Jewish exorcist believed that you had to know the name of a demon before you could cast it out. When Jesus spoke to the man that lived among the tombs, he spoke to the demon, asked what his name, and he said, my name is Legion. Because there are so many of us here. But here it’s unusual because Jesus doesn’t know the name of this demon.
And the Jewish exorcist, according to tradition, would have thought, there’s no hope for this man. We can’t get a name of the demon. There’s no way we can cast him out. But God is amazing. He does what people cannot do.
And Jesus is, even though he did not know the demon’s name, was able to do what? To cast him out.
Going back to the text. But some of them said, well, so what if he can do what nobody else could do? He obviously is driving out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons. And you have to understand that this name, if we go back to the original Canaanite language, we had it spelled like it is up there. BAAL Zebul.
And then the Hebrews spelled it BAAL Zabub. And then the Greeks had it Beelzebul or Bub. They had slightly different meanings. There’s this play on words because to the Canaanites, their God was the Lord, the master, the owner, or the prince. But the Hebrews changed the spelling just a little bit.
And all of a sudden, instead of being lord or master or prince, it means Lord of the flies, or Lord of the dung and decaying flesh.
And then the Greeks, they changed it back to meaning the Lord of the house. And we’ll see that as Jesus goes on, because he talks about a house owner that is powerful. Here we have a deliberate distortion to deprecate the pagan God. But here they’re saying that Jesus is united with Satan in casting out Satan. And the doctrinal truth here is, read it with me.
Jesus is against Satan, not with him. Can you read it like you mean it? Jesus is against Satan, not with him.
Verse 15.
Some of them said, he drives out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons. And others, as a test, were demanding of him a sign from heaven. So first some of them said, these some, they are anti Jesus. I mean, they’re just like, you’re part of Satan. We don’t want to have anything to do with you.
But there were these others, and they’re what we call fence sitters. And they were giving a test to Jesus. It was a pretty strong test. They were demanding of him a sign from heaven. What has Jesus been doing throughout Luke?
Miracle after miracle, healing after healing, casting out demons. And they still want one more what test? Because they’re sitting on the fence. And it actually seems like this test is Kind of rigged. Because it just seems like whatever Jesus does, he can’t pass it in their mind.
If Jesus gave them another sign, would they really believe no. Is one more sign all that they needed? And the answer is no. Because read the statement there with me. Jesus gave adequate evidence of who he is.
That’s what most of the gospels are about. This is Jesus. He is God Almighty in the flesh because he’s able to do all these things. They weren’t just testing Jesus, they were actually testing who. They were testing God.
The application here is that sometimes people ask God for just one more sign. You ever heard anyone say, well, if God answers this prayer, then I’ll start going to church. Or if God heals so and so, or God helps me in such and such a way. If he’ll just send a sign from heaven, then I’ll give my life to him. That’s what these people are doing here.
They’re not really sincere about it to say that they will turn to him if he gives a sign or does something for them. And the answer is that God has already given enough signs. We don’t need any more signs from God in order to follow the truth. Jesus gave adequate evidence of who he is.
Jesus also warned them about hard hearts. And there’s these references in the text that we’re going to look at that being Jewish, they knew the Old Testament scriptures. And what Jesus is pointing out to them, he’s making them think about the hardness of the heart of the Jews in the wilderness. And when he’s speaking to them, what he says, he’s reminding them of Deuteronomy chapter 6:16, where we have again this word test. And God the Father said, do not test the Lord your God as you tested him at Massah.
And then in Exodus 17, it says, the entire Israelite community left the wilderness of sin, moving from one place to the next according to the Lord’s command. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for people to drink. So the people did what they come complained, give us water to drink. How was it that they were testing God? Let’s go to Psalm 95, where the Psalmist tells us what was going on today.
If you hear his voice, and I want you to remember that word today because we’re going to see it all throughout our Scripture references today. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as at Meribah. When they tested God, they were hardening their hearts as on that day at Massa in the wilderness where your ancestors, they tested God and they tried God. And it says, though they had seen what I did, as you remember, Jesus is referring back to this, look at all I’ve done. Why are you testing me?
And he’s letting them think about the Israelites who had seen the 10 plagues. They had seen the Red Sea parted. They had seen the Egyptian army completely destroyed. They had seen water come out of a rock. They had eaten manna in the wilderness.
They ate the quail that was miraculously sent to them. The question is, what more did they need to see? And was one more miracle really necessary for them to believe God? And the answer is no. They had seen enough.
Self hardened hearts never have enough signs to believe. That’s what Jesus was telling them. Just like the Israelites who saw all of these things, their hearts were still hard and they tested God. One more would lead to asking for one more, and one more would ask for one more and one more would ask for one more because their hearts were hardened. And Jesus is trying to warn these people, don’t harden your hearts towards me.
We could take the scripture and we could read it this way. In the Old Testament it says, do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as on that day at Massah, in the wilderness where your ancestors tested me, they tried me, though they had seen what I did. It says Jesus could be saying the same thing in his day. You’ve seen my miracles, healings and exorcisms. You don’t believe because you choose not to believe.
And if I give you another sign, you still, still won’t believe. Because self hardened hearts never have enough signs to believe. Because the truth is Jesus gave what adequate evidence of who he is.
Let’s go to Isaiah, chapter 5, verses 18 through 20. And again we’re going to see this idea of hardened hearts in, in sinfulness and people testing the Lord and mixing up good with evil. We’re going to see how sin asks for a sign, but it also reverses good with evil. Isaiah wrote, what sorrow. He’s so sad for these people.
He’s reflecting that God feels for them. For these people who drag their sins behind them, their intention intentionally pulling their sins behind them because they don’t want to give them up. It’s a picture of how we sometimes don’t come to faith in the Lord because we don’t want to be repentant. And in order to place your faith in Jesus Christ, you have to say, I want to put my sin away. You don’t come to Christ pulling your sin with ropes.
Those who drag Their sins behind them with ropes made of lies. And it gets worse. First they’re pulling their sins with ropes, but then they have so many sins that they begin to drag their wickedness behind them like a cart instead of just pulling it. Now they had to go out and buy a large van to put all their sins in to pull it behind them. Their few sins because of their hardened hearts were leading them to many sins.
And what they did, carrying the sinfulness along. It says they mocked God and say, hurry up and do something. They’re wanting God to show a what? A sign. Just like they were asking Jesus, God, we want to see what you can do.
They’re testing him. Let the Holy One of Israel carry out his plan for we want to know what it is.
And again, Isaiah reflecting, God says, what sorrow for those. They’re pulling their sin. They’re testing God. And now they’re saying that evil is good and good is evil. They’re saying that dark is light and light is dark, that bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter.
It goes back to the yin yang principle that good and evil exist together. But the truth is they are completely separate. And Jesus is warning these individuals about their hard hearts. Jesus knew all of these individuals for what they truly were. They were asking for another sign, as if that one thing would change their minds about him.
But because they were already evil, they would not accept the miracle of the exorcism. And another miracle or sign Jesus knew was not going to convince them. Going back to the text, Jesus knew their thoughts. He told them, every kingdom divided against itself is headed for destruction. A house divided against itself falls.
And if Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? Jesus just gives three self evident, irrefutable logical responses here. The first one is that a kingdom divided will be destroyed. You can’t have a country that is warring against itself internally. It will destroy that country.
It’s just logical. You can’t have a house that’s divided or it will fall. And in the text here it’s talking about house on house and it’s an expression as if we talk about building a house of cards. And what happens to a house of cards when it falls? It just completely collapses.
He says, if Satan is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? If Jesus, I mean, if Satan is shooting down his own demons, he can’t last. If you have a government that’s out there shooting all their soldiers, what’s going to happen to the country? It’s going to collapse. Jesus is saying it’s Ridiculous what you’re saying about me.
Jesus was speaking the truth about himself. For you. Say I drive out demons by Beelzebul. And if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons drive them out? And for this reason, they will be your judges.
He made three statements. Now he just asks a logical question. Well, if I’m driving out the demons by Beelzebul, by Satan, then how are your exorcists doing that? Maybe it’s possible that they’re following Satan. And their answer would have been, no way.
All of ours are on the right side. It’s just you that’s following Satan.
Jesus was speaking the truth about himself. He is not with Satan, he is against him. Then again, Jesus warned them about their hard hearts. In verse 20, it says, if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. That expression, the finger of God is very unique.
And to these Jewish people, it would have brought back memories of God’s finger in the Old Testament. And when we’re talking about someone’s finger, it means there’s special immediate and direct involvement of anyone. When our kids had dirty diapers, if I changed their diaper, I was using my what my fingers were on the situation. But if Mary was changing it and I was giving advice from the side, I was removed from it. So when we’re talking about the finger of God, we’re talking about God just getting down the nitty gritty, getting in the dirt, and actually doing things themselves.
And they would have remembered. What do we know about the finger of God? Well, the tablets of stone that the law were written on. The finger of God actually wrote those. It tells us in Psalm 8 that the heavens are said to be the work of God’s fingers, his power.
Scripture talks about him being the potter that actually forms the clay. But what I want us to see today, because it’s really about the hardening of hearts, it would have brought up the memories of, of the plagues that was put upon Egypt in Exodus, when the Egyptian magicians finally said of the plagues, this is the finger of God. In other words, they recognized that God was sending these plagues on the people. And Jesus is making them remember what Pharaoh was doing, how he was hardening his heart, even when he saw the finger of God. Let’s go back to Exodus 7.
The first plague was blood. And the magicians of Egypt, they were able to do the same thing by their occult practices. They were able to turn water into blood. So it tells us that Pharaoh’s heart was hard and he chose not to listen to them, as the Lord had said. And Pharaoh turned around and he went into his palace and he didn’t even take this to heart.
Jesus is saying, remember Pharaoh, how he hardened his heart? Don’t do the same thing today. And what we’re going to do is notice a progression here, that it says that Pharaoh hardens his heart over and over until eventually it’s so hard. It says that God hardens his heart. The next play was the frogs, but the magicians did the same thing by their occult practices and they brought frogs up onto the land of Egypt.
But when Pharaoh saw there was relief. It’s not God yet, but it says he hardened his heart and he would not listen to them as the Lord said. Then we have the gnats. Now the magicians tried to produce gnats using their occult practices. But now things change.
The they could not remember Jesus. He did something that no one else had been able to do. He cast out the demon that was mute. The gnats remained on the people and animals. And this is what the magicians said.
This is the what finger of God. The magicians realized this was something special. This was different. This was God and himself hands on getting involved in the situation. But Pharaoh did not listen to his magicians.
It says that his what heart was hard and he chose not to listen to them, as the Lord had said. Then we come to the flies. But Pharaoh again hardened his heart this time and did not let the people go. But when it comes to the death of the livestock, there’s a change. Pharaoh is no longer hardening his heart.
Now it says Pharaoh’s heart now was what it’s hard. He’s refused to accept over and over he’s hardened his heart to the point that now it has become completely hard by this point. Therefore, in verse 12, when the boils came, now the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart and he still didn’t listen. And when the hell came, Pharaoh’s heart was still hard.
The locust came. It tells us the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Darkness came and it says the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart. But I want you to see, God didn’t harden his heart until what he had hardened it over and over and over and over himself. Jesus is warning these people that are accusing him of being involved with Satan.
Don’t let your hearts be hardened. Jesus said in verse 20, if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. These individuals Like Pharaoh saw not only the figurative hand of God, but they saw what the literal finger of God in the flesh. But yet they harden their hearts as Pharaoh did. How do we apply this to our lives?
Well, individuals who harden their hearts to God by their own choice, and they continue to harden their hearts to God, eventually they become so hardened toward God that they never believe in him. That’s the warning. Don’t harden your hearts toward the Lord.
Jesus speaks another truth about himself. Here we find that Jesus is stronger. There is no neutral, there is no middle ground with him. He begins with, with this statement. When a strong man, and remember one of the names was about a strong person, a strong man, referring to Beelzebul.
And this strong man is fully armed. He’s got atomic weapons. He’s got everything that he needs to guard his estate and his possessions are completely secure. This is where Satan was between the fall in Genesis to the time that Jesus came. Because God had created the world.
For who? He created it for Adam and Eve. And he told them, rule, multiply, take control. But when they sinned in the Garden of Eden, they in essence said, satan, you know, we’re going to give you control of us. We’re going to give you control of the world.
And Satan stepped in and he became this strong, strong man, fully armed now guarding his estate, the entire world, thinking that they are all secure. But praise the Lord, when Jesus came, in verse 22, we are told that one stronger than Satan is able to overpower him and attack him. He takes from him all his weapons that he trusted in and he divides up his his plunder. What Jesus is saying, I don’t have to join with Satan because I’m stronger than he is. Why in the world would I join with him?
Then he ends up by saying, anyone who is not with me is against me. And anyone who does not gather with me scatters. There is no neutral response to Jesus. You can’t say, well, maybe I believe, maybe I don’t. You either believe in him or you don’t.
You have to be on one side of the fence or the other. Satan is strong. Satan was fully armed. Satan was guarding his present earthly kingdom that was given to him by Adam. And he was acting as if his possessions were secure.
But when Jesus came, he was stronger. He attacked Satan and overcame him. Jesus does not make need to join forces with Satan because he is stronger. Application here is our choice is either for good or for evil. If we are with Jesus, we stand with him for good.
But if we don’t Stand with him. We are against him. Again, there’s no neutral position. And if we are with him, it will be evident. Because what does it say we’re going to be doing with him?
We’re going to be gathering with him. That’s what our work is. If we’re in league with Jesus Christ, we’re out trying to gather people. We’re looking at the seed, we’re planting seed. We’re leading people to Jesus Christ.
Let’s turn to Hebrews chapter 3, 7, 11, just to emphasize again that Jesus is warning us about hardening our hearts, because we find this over in Hebrews. It was in the Old Testament, it’s in the Gospels now. It’s in the letters. Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, and what’s the word there today? And we’ve seen it over and over again today.
If you hear his voice talking about God, do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion on the day of testing in the wilderness, Old Testament, Jesus bringing it up. Then we see it again because God is pleading with us that today, if you hear his voice, don’t wait to hear it tomorrow. But if he’s speaking to you today, respond to him. Because he says, if you rebel against him and you harden your hearts, it said in verse 11, they will not enter my rest. And that’s a reference to that.
The Jews, because they tempt, tested the Lord, they didn’t get to enter the promised land, as it is said today in verse 15. What’s the word again? The emphasis on today. Today, if you hear his voice again in the same chapter, he’s saying, do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion. Don’t.
Don’t wait until tomorrow if you are hearing God’s voice today, because today may be your last opportunity. And if you harden your heart today, tomorrow more than likely your heart is going to be harder. We continue in Hebrews 4. Therefore, the promise to enter his rest remains. God is offering salvation to all of us that we can come and rest in his arms.
But let us beware that none of you be found to have fallen short. The writer of Hebrews is saying, you’ve heard the gospel, but some of you have fallen short of accepting it. You’re not benefiting from the rest of God. It says, for we also have received the good news just as they did, meaning we’ve all heard the gospel. Jesus died on the cross for our sins.
He was buried and he was raised from the dead. We’ve all heard that. But it tells us the message that they heard did not Benefit them. They heard it in their heads, they understood what was being said, but it didn’t benefit them because it goes on to say they were not united with those who hurt heard it in what’s the word there? Faith.
You can have an understanding of the gospel. You can say, yes, Jesus is God, but you still have to apply it. Accept it by faith, rest on it completely. Rest on him alone for your salvation. For we who have believed, who have faith, we now enter that rest.
Verse 7. He again specifies a certain day. And what’s the next word again? It’s today. He specified this speaking through David after such a long time.
What’s the word again today? If you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. Jesus warns us about hardening our hearts. So the question is, is God speaking to you today? If he is, Scripture says, don’t wait till tomorrow.
Don’t be like the ones who called Jesus evil. Don’t be like the ones who say, well, God, if you just give me one more sign or do one more thing or help me in this way, then I’ll believe. Don’t be like the Israelites who saw the miracles of God and still doubted. And don’t be like Pharaoh who hardened his heart over and over until it could not be softened.
The spirit of God is pleading with you through the author of Hebrews today. Do not harden your heart one more time. You’ve heard the gospel. It’s time to unite your head knowledge with faith, to believe and place your your faith in Jesus Christ so that you can have the rest of God. Jesus was warning them, they were warned in the Old Testament.
He’s warning us today. If God is speaking to us, we need to answer him today. And it doesn’t just have to do with faith either. Many of us are already believers. I wish that I could say confidently that all of us here today are true believers, but I don’t know that for certain.
But for those of us who do believe, if Jesus is speaking to you today about anything, whether it’s spend more time in the word, witness to somebody, go do something for somebody. If God is asking you to do something today, don’t harden your heart and say, I’ll do it tomorrow, or no, I need you to tell me that one more time. Because if you put God off, you’re really not planning on answering Him. You’re just saying, well, maybe later. Well, maybe later or maybe later.
We all stand before God. One day we’ll have to answer whether we responded him today. I want to end today by having Us just read some doctrinal affirmations. Doctrine is important. It’s basic truths in Scripture that we should all know and understand.
And every week in your bulletin, you get this little thing from the New City Catechism. There are 52 of them, one for every week. These are basic doctrinal truths that you should know and understand in your heart today. It says, how does the Holy Spirit help us? And the answer is, the Holy Spirit convicts us of our sin and he enables us to pray and to understand God, God’s word.
I would encourage you. There’s one of these every week. Read that question and statement every week until you understand what it means and you know that you believe that. But we want to have a chance just to affirm our doctrinal beliefs today. And I’m going to read a statement and I’m going to ask you, do you believe?
And if you do, just respond, I believe. It’s just a way of reviewing what we’ve learned today. God is good. There is no evil in him. Do you believe?
And he. And your answer is, satan is evil. There is no good in him. Do you believe? God is amazing.
He does what people cannot do. Do you believe Jesus is against Satan? Not with him. Do you believe Jesus has overpowered Satan? Do you believe Jesus gave all adequate evidence of who he is?
Do you believe? Sorry. Jesus spoke the truth about himself. Do you believe? And Jesus warns us about hardening our hearts.
Do you have a heart toward him? Or do you have a heart that’s not toward him? Or do you believe? I believe. May we pray?
Heavenly Father, help us to get these truths instilled in our heart. Because it affects the way that we live. It affects our hope and our understanding of you. Father, if we love you, we will want to know as much as we can about you, just as much as we desire to know more about those that we love and cherish in this world. And we ask, Father, that there would be a moving of your spirit amidst us today.
That if anyone has hardened their heart up to this point, or if they’re hardening their heart today, Father, that you would move in their lives. That they would respond to you by receiving the gospel of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, that they will not pull their sins behind them in ropes or carts anymore, but they will forsake that and give their lives to you. May they come to you in faith and be part of your rest. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Will you.