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Will you take your Bibles and turn to Hebrews chapter 13, I would like to look at what I'm calling the second part of an exposition of verse nine, under the heading "The Danger of Being Carried Away." And it is my earnest prayer that the Holy Spirit will captivate your heart with the transcendent majesty of our holy God, that you will have a vision of him as we come together, that you will once again be deeply humbled by his sovereign grace that chose you before the foundation of the world, that as you come together here to worship, you will be reminded afresh of the fact that the Father drew you unto himself, that by his grace he saved you, and he is continuing to make you fit to one day be in his presence. And as always, the longing of my heart, as your pastor that as we come together on Sunday mornings, you will be able to see Christ. You will be able to experience him, to just enjoy him and expect him in a new and a fresh way. Because all through the week, we've had everything in our life to do just the opposite. Right? I pray that above all else, you will know the living God and the power of his might, as the Apostle Paul reminds us.

In light of what we discussed the last time we were together, which is now two weeks ago, because we missed the snow last Sunday. I want you to once again, wrap your mind around the concept of being preoccupied with the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want you to remember that much of the theme of the Epistle to the Hebrews has to do with two very simple words, revelation and redemption; what God has said and what Christ has achieved. And we want to focus on that again today. And as you will recall, we know that Scripture makes it very clear that the remedy for all of the problems that we have in life is Christ, but not just knowing him at a distance, but being literally preoccupied with his person and his work. And I want to expand upon that great concept here this morning. In fact, whenever we come to church, our hearts should literally tremble with reverential awe as we humble ourselves before the word of God and cry out to experience God's presence in our life, and I hope that's the priority of your prayers and the passion of your life.

Now, as we come to the text, there's a very fascinating comparison and contrast that we see between verse seven and verse nine. And so I'd like to begin with verse seven but focus primarily on verse nine. So let me get a running start here. Look at Hebrews chapter 13, beginning in verse seven. He says,

"Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever."

Then he says this in verse nine,

"Do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings; for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, through which those who were so occupied were not benefited."

Now, as we look at this contrasting comparison, we see that the Spirit of God is really emphasizing the argument here. Let me show you the contrast, because I believe that this will help us as we try to understand what the Spirit of God is saying through his inspired author, and how we can apply this to our life. In verse seven, he's essentially saying that he wants them, and all of us, to remember and imitate those who spoke truth into our life, those who spoke the truth of God to us and lived it out. And in verse nine, in contrast, he's saying, don't be carried away by those who teach falsehood. In verse seven, he speaks of the Word of God, in verse nine, he contrasts that with the varied and strange teachings of man. In verse seven we are called to consider the end result of the lives of those who lived out their life in faith and were obedient to the Word of God, compared to those in verse nine who embraced the strange teachings contrary to grace that were of no benefit to them. Then finally, in verse seven, he emphasizes those who lived by faith, and in verse nine, he contrasts that to those who live their lives by food.

Now as we come to verse nine, I'd like to examine it under two very simple headings. We're going to look at, first of all, counterfeit grace without benefit, and secondly, genuine grace that strengthens the heart. And I do hope that this will be helpful to you. First of all, let's think about the counterfeit grace without benefit. Previously, you will recall that we examined the great risk a believer takes when they lose their preoccupation with the person and the work of Christ and the central truths of the gospel. When that happens, all manner of religious - external religious distractions; some of them good, some of them bad - begin to captivate the mind and the heart and lead us away from truly knowing Christ. That's the danger. I recently talked with a pastor, and he confessed to me, quote, "I have been so preoccupied with ministry that I fear I have forsaken Christ." I remember telling him I have been there before. And if we're honest, we can all say that we've been there. Some of you may be there now. And I reminded him that it's very much like the first century church in Ephesus. Remember in Revelation two, the Lord said,

"'I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they were not, and you found them to be false;

"'and you have perseverance and have endured for My name's sake, and have not grown weary,

"But..."

Oh, there's that word,

"'I have this against you, that you have left your first love.'"

And friends this is a danger we must all avoid at every cost. We must understand that because spiritual life cannot exist apart from eating the living bread and drinking the living water of Christ, and therefore indulging in religious activities and other preoccupations, are simply of no benefit. In fact, they will lead you to misery. And when the primary becomes secondary, the secondary becomes primary. We see this dangerous principle throughout this passage. Now remember the dominating theme of this entire epistle is the absolute supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ over all things. And when we apprehend the glory of God in the face of Christ, and we lose ourselves in awe and adoration of the one who gave himself for us, we experience life - real life - come what may. And unfortunately, that was not happening for some of the folks in the early church, and perhaps for some of you.

Remember the context Jews who had come to Christ were not experiencing all of the wonderful things that we might think as a part of being of church. They were experiencing a lot of persecution. Family and friends rejected them. They were considered outcasts. They had become a part of the Jesus cult. Not only that, they were missing all of the trappings that they were used to in Judaism. It's important that you remember how important that would have been to them. These were the things that, in many ways, made them feel spiritual. And a lot of people are that way today.

They had temple priests, and all of the garb that the priest wore, all the vestments, beautiful robes. They had all of the altars and sacrifices and menorahs and candles. The Levitical music, they participated in all those feasts and convocations. They had a special diet that they obeyed. They had all of the Sabbath restrictions. They were essentially 11 Sabbaths. I won't get into all of that, but there was so much that was a part of their culture. These were all of the trappings of Old Covenant Judaism. But now they come to Christ, and all of these things are basically non-essential. In fact, it would be inappropriate for them to remain fixated on the shadow that pointed to Christ rather than the substance that was Christ; but it was hard for them to abandon the established ordinances that they were used to of Judaism. This was their heritage. You must realize that their lives orbited around all of these things. This was their culture. It made them feel spiritual in many ways, but now all that mattered was following Christ in your heart, communing with him, worshiping him, loving one another, sharing the gospel, no more need for all of the feasts and the sacrifices and the Sabbath observances and the special diet restrictions and all of those things.

Now to make all of this worse, not only are they missing these things, but they're experiencing persecution, and unfortunately, Satan had come up with a great strategy - as he always does -to make them feel really bad. Their friends, their Jewish relatives, were essentially telling them that, because you don't do all of these things, you have no religion at all. Well, it's easy to lose perspective when you're hurting, isn't it? It's easy to lose your preoccupation with the person and the work of Christ when your family and your friends reject you and make fun of you and tell you don't have any religion. God is basically done with you. And when that type of thing happens, you become vulnerable to being carried away by varied and strange teachings. And that's what was happening in the early church.

By the way, the term "varied" carries the idea that there were numerous options, all right? There's numerous options. And boy, there's numerous options today. All you have to do is go to the Christian bookstore and there's at least 10 heresies on virtually every shelf. You just pick your poison. And the term "strange" doesn't mean, as we might think of it, weird or bizarre. The term "strange" essentially meant contradictory to the gospel. It meant contrary to the truth. That's the idea.

Now, in the context here with the Hebrews, these strange teachings that are mentioned here primarily revolved around food and Jewish diet restrictions based upon the Old Testament law; regulations and diet that they believed would somehow strengthen their heart spiritually. Now in order to understand this better, you must understand that the Jews believe that their ceremonial meals and rituals had kind of a mystical power to them, that they literally invigorated the inner man and strengthened the heart with a special measure of God's grace. You might say they believed that doing these things caused them to be more spiritual; and certainly, to feel more spiritual, like people do when they have a candle vigil. You know, they may not know Christ at all, but they get a candle, and they come out together and pray for something, and that candle, somehow just makes you feel more spiritual. Well multiply that many fold and that's kind of how they thought.

By the way, we see elements of this kind of thinking in Roman Catholicism, in the doctrine of Transubstantiation. That's a process by which they believe the bread and the wine of the Eucharist is transformed into the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ. Catholics believe that through Transubstantiation, quote, "The risen Jesus becomes truly present in the Eucharist during the mass." End quote. By the way, if you want to get a glimpse of what first century Pharisaism looked like, all you need to look for is what's happening with the priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church, because ultimately they derived much of what they do, and what they believe, from ancient Judaism and mixed it with Christianity, and you have this hybrid apostate religion.

Now the Jews, therefore, thought that they would actually receive some mystical measure of grace by eating certain kinds of foods and avoiding other kinds of foods. And allow me to give you a, I think, a reasonable analysis of what was probably going on. I don't want to be dogmatic here, because this is just taking from other historical accounts and trying to piece together logically what was probably going on. We know that in the Diaspora, the Jews were scattered all over the Roman Empire, and many of them now had come to Christ, and somehow some false teachers rise up from among them and tell them, you know, you're a long ways from Jerusalem and you're a long ways from enjoying all of the benefits and the blessings of of the temple, all of the ceremonial feasts and so forth. So we've got a plan for you. A plan that has to do with what you need to eat, and in so doing, your heart is going to be strengthened by God's grace, like it used to be. By the way, the heretical assumption underlying all of this is simply this: Christ is not enough. You need something more. The indwelling Spirit is not enough to strengthen your soul with his grace. Feeding upon His word and communing with God is not enough. Decisively committing yourself to living for his glory is not enough. If you really want to be strengthened by God's grace, you need to change your diet. That's kind of the long and short of it. Conform to the law of Moses. So you've got false teachers that rise up from within the church. By the way, Jesus said that's where they're going to come from primarily; they're going to rise up from within the church. And they come now with a variety of different food related diets that would link these dissatisfied, beleaguered Jewish believers to their Jewish heritage and cause them to feel more spiritual, and maybe even cause them to believe that somehow their hearts are going to be strengthened by God's grace in doing these things.

Now, we're not told what the diet restrictions are, and frankly, they're not important. That's not important. But if I can put it this way, we have today, Weight Watchers, okay? Let's say they have a false teacher that comes in and offers, I don't know, "Grace Watchers," you know, got their own version. We've got what, Jenny Craig. We've got what, Jenny Kosher. We've got, what's, what's another bit South Beach is that one? And they come in, we got, it's South Beef, or whatever. I would love that one, by the way. So the point is, they've got some alternative here they're bringing into the church. Christ isn't enough. You need to do this too.

In First Timothy four, Paul warned about hypocritical false teachers who were liars in their conscience. Remember verses one through three, and he says they're, "...seared as with a branding iron, men who forbid marriage and abstaining from food, which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth." And I know professing Christians today who call themselves messianic Christians, or Messianic Jews, who have come to Christ. And they follow all of these dietary restrictions of the Mosaic law. They follow the Torah, which essentially refers to the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch. And so as you, as you look at them and see how they function. They celebrate the Passover Seder. They will celebrate the feast of Purim and Hanukkah; Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and on and on it goes. A feast of tabernacles, a feast of trumpets, and all of the Sabbath restrictions, and at least some of them, I shouldn't say, all of them. And what you see is they arbitrarily transport some aspects of the Mosaic law into grace. They mix it with grace and come up with their own kind of Jewish version of Christianity.

One spokesman of this movement by the name of Mark Kinser, the author of "Post Missionary Messianic Judaism," argued that quote, "Our survey of the New Testament teaching on Jewish practice, for Jews, has produced a surprising result. We have good grounds for upholding the view that the New Testament as a whole treats Jewish practice as obligatory for Jews." And he argues that there "is a parallel body of the Israel of God which is separate from the Gentile community in the Church of Jesus Christ," and that they have "a separate mission from the Gentile body." And he goes on, as many of them do, to argue that Jewish believers are required, they are obligated, to keep Torah - the law - in order to be faithful to the covenant and so forth. But dear friends, I would humbly argue that none of these things are required under the New Covenant. Why try to marry Judaism with Christianity? And to Jewish believers that might be listening to me right now, I would say, yes, be thankful for your heritage that is yours, but rejoice in the fulfillment that you have in Christ. That's the point. If it is so important to do all of these things - to worship on Sabbath and have these dietary restrictions and celebrate these feasts - then what on earth is the purpose of the Epistle to the Hebrews? What's the purpose of the Epistle to the Galatians, or the Colossians?

Remember in Colossians two beginning in verse 16, Paul says,

 "Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day --

"things which are mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ."

 And in verse 20, he goes on to say,

"If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as,

"'Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!'

"(which all refer to things destined to perish with use) -- in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men?"

Why do you do that? Went on to say,

"These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body but are of no value against fleshly indulgence."

So again, the idea here, and the danger that we see all through the New Testament, is that Christ isn't enough. If you truly want to become spiritual, you need to add to what Christ has done and what he has provided through his Spirit, through his Word, through the body of Christ; you need something more to be strengthened in your heart by God's grace. I grew up with a lot of Jewish people. I still have very close Jewish friends and a lot of Roman Catholics. And I remember some of you guys, Mike and Chris, some of you guys remember, we had a lot of Roman Catholic friends. Remember that on Fridays, they weren't allowed to eat meat. So you go into the cafeteria, you know, and it smells like Long John Silver's, you know. They're consumed with this type of thing. And they weren't allowed to eat meat during Lent. And I know Christians today who, for example, they won't eat pork. Boy, don't tell them that we're having barbecue sandwiches after church. They're not going to be here. And I remember talking with one of them and the guy said real sternly. He said, "You know, certain foods were considered unclean in the Old Testament, and God doesn't change his mind." I think, oh, man, that's bad theology. But I think of what Jesus said in Mark seven, beginning in verse 18. Jesus said, "'...whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him, because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach and is eliminated?'" Pretty graphic, all right, we get the point. Jesus said, "Thus He declared all foods clean." I can understand that very clearly. He went on to say, "'And He was saying, "That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man.'" But folks, this is what happens when people aren't grounded in the Word, and they don't understand the gospel. They're not preoccupied with the person and the work of Christ, they don't understand revelation and redemption, etc. And when this happens, people start looking for spiritual life in all of the wrong places, and one of those options is legalism; adherence to a ceremonial religious code that will make you feel more spiritual and lead you to believe that somehow God is doing some great work in your heart, but it's of no benefit.

I think of what Paul said to the Galatians, "You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?" You know, are you so foolish having begun by the Spirit, are you now going to be perfected by the flesh? Folks, please understand God's all sufficient grace - that strengthens the heart with all of the blessings that is ours - is not mediated by something that we do, it is mediated through his Word, through his gospel, through his person, through his work, through his Spirit, through the body of believers that we are a part of. And when Christ becomes peripheral, secondary matters become central. This is the great scourge in evangelicalism today; people are not grounded in the Word. They have little concern for what God has said and what Christ has achieved. That's not all that important. And of course, it's for this reason that God gave the church, pastor teachers.  Ephesians 4:11 beginning in verse 12. He goes on to say he's given pastor teachers, for the equipping of the saints. Why?

"...for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ;

"until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

"As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming."

But of course, much of the church today has no appetite for these types of things. I think you're aware of that. They have no appetite for the purity of the word, for an in-depth, systematic preaching, teaching and application ministry of the Word of God in a church. People are so gullible today, they'll believe just about anything. In fact, today, in our postmodern evangelical culture, the only thing that is considered heretical is the idea that something might be considered heretical. It's an amazing thing to me.

I was absolutely stunned - I didn't think my jaw could drop anymore - but yesterday we went to the Christian bookstore there in Clarksville to pick up a birthday card. And of course, you know me, I'm going to look at the books. And right as you come in, there's this massive table with all these books of some new female Christian guru. I had never heard of her before. Best-selling author, a number of books. So I picked up the books, I started reading the little side sheets, and I started reading different things that was being said. And then I went to another book. I probably stood there for a half hour. And folks, I'll tell you, it was just so discouraging to me. I mean, it's filled with frivolous dribble based on terrible exegesis of the Word of God, and people are flocking to this type of thing. And I think about this: people have no appetite for Christ. If you come to a publisher and say, you know, I want to write a book on the glory of the cross or the astounding realities of the person and the work of Christ....no, no, you know, people aren't really interested in that. They want to know if the Pope is the Antichrist. That's the type of thing they want. You go to a bookstore, and you say, you know, on this side, we have a wonderful set of books that talk about, you know the glory of the cross and the intercessory work of Christ, our Great High Priest. No, no, we don't want that. We want 90 Minutes in Heaven. Or we want to know secret Bible codes. Or you say, hey, we've got this wonderful book on the nature of the Atonement. No, no, no, no, I want that book, Heaven is for Real; a little boy that supposedly went up to heaven and came back. Or you say, we have a book here on the high priestly prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ in John 17. No, no, no, no, we want the War Room. We have a wonderful book here on the tri unity of God. No, no, not interested in that, we want to read The Shack. That's where we'll get our theology. Well, we have a wonderful book here on, on Christ's Sermon on the Mount, or another one here on the Olivet Discourse. No, we don't want that, we want the Prayer of Jabez, or we want Your Best Life Now, or we want secret Bible codes, or we want the book on hidden cures for cancer found in the Bible. Folks, I just get incensed with this, because this is the work of the enemy, and its leading people down a path of destruction and misery in their life. People want something more than Christ. They want something trendy. Isn't it interesting? Anything today that has the number 40 in front of it seems to be a best seller. You notice that? Or the word radical? People want something that is man-centered; but if it is God-centered, they want nothing to do with it. Think of all the fads that we've had down through the years. Promise Keepers, The Purpose Driven Life, 40 Days of Purpose, things that are like shooting stars. They blaze brightly for a short period of time, and then they just disappear.

Well back to the danger of being carried away by varied and strange doctrines. Folks, any ritual, any doctrine, any outward religious rule, any religious movement, any fad, anything that asserts that it will help you experience strength in your heart, apart from the grace of God, is false. At best, it will provide you with a temporary illusion of spirituality. At worst, it will carry you into spiritual deception, and it will grieve the Spirit. It will quench the Spirit, and it will bring destruction into your life. It will cause you to forfeit temporal blessing and eternal reward. And all I can do is warn you. I shudder to think of all the professing Christians, I've known that have been carried away by some silly, strange doctrine; some religious movement, some ridiculous movement that's going to fix their marriage or or change their family and things that they hold dear, and then eventually the whole thing just falls apart at the seams.

Folks, have you ever noticed that when you exchange the substance for a shadow, the shadow is always much easier? Let me give you an example, by the way, that's why people love legalism. They love all these rules, all these things that they will adhere to. I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say that I am a heretic because we do not have an altar call, or I won't go to that church because they don't hold to the King James only. We had a Christmas wreath up here and and there were a number of viewers that saw that, and you can't imagine the attacks I received from those people because we were heretics that believed in the pagan holiday of Christmas. And on and on it goes. Think about this, following the Grace Watchers diet plan is a whole lot easier than getting up in the morning and committing your day to the Lord, meditating on His Word and examining your heart before him and saying, "Lord, please help me to live for your glory this day." Which is easier, celebrating a Passover meal or confessing your self-serving pride and killing it in your flesh? Which is easier, following some Sabbath restriction, or serving Christ in obscurity and humility? Which is easier, following Old Testament dietary laws, or loving your wife as Christ loved the church? You see the point? Beloved, it's what's in the heart that matters, not what's in the stomach. It's not what we do, it's what Christ has done, is doing and will do. That's the point. And the reason why so many people think they need more than Christ is because they have never tasted who he really is. Can you honestly say "I have tasted of the Lord and seen that he is good?" Can you honestly cry out as the psalmist, "As the deer pants for the water brook, so my soul pants for You." Those who say my sufficiency in Christ are not concerned with all of those things. Those who understand that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, are not enamored with all of those legalistic types of issues. Those who can say indeed, he has granted to me all things pertaining to life and godliness, and I can celebrate the great mystery of Christ in me, the hope of glory. Those who can say that the Father has made me alive with Christ and seated me with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming age he might show me the immeasurable riches of his grace and his kindness toward me in Christ Jesus. Those who understand those truths and meditate upon those truths and live consistently with those truths are simply not going to get caught up in that stuff. Folks, I would ask you, do these truths and 1000 others like them, occupy your mind and animate your heart to worship and to praise God?

Dr Martin Lloyd Jones, one of my great mentors. I've never met, but I love the dear man. I'll meet him someday. The great Welsh minister of Westminster Chapel in London of years gone by. He was the man, by the way, who strongly opposed liberal Christianity. He said this quote, "Today, our essential trouble is that we are content with a very superficial and preliminary knowledge of God; His being and His cause." He went on to say, "Our supreme need, and our only need is to know God, the living God, and the power of His might. You may spend 50 years of a very busy life in preaching the gospel or in organizing this or that, and you may know God no better at the end of the 50 years than you did at the beginning." Folks herein is the danger for all of us.

Well, I must move along quickly. That was speaking about counterfeit grace without benefit, let's look at genuine grace that strengthens the heart. He says, "Rather than being carried away by varied and strange teachings; for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace," [that is the grace of God through Christ], "not by foods through which those who are so occupied were not benefited." You see, again, their legalism profited them nothing - legalism in matters pertaining to justification and sanctification, in terms of the perfect cleansing of the conscience that comes when we truly come to Christ, with respect to experiencing the felt presence of the living Christ within our soul, and having the unshakable hope of resurrection, glory - none of that stuff contributes to that. These and 1000 more, the great truths that truly do strengthen our heart when we meditate upon them. And this is the importance, by the way, of sound doctrine. In Titus two and verse one Paul tells Titus, "Speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine."  The term sound "hygiainō," in Greek; we get our word "hygiene" from that. It basically speaks of that which produces health. sound or true doctrine is, we might say, healthy for you, spiritually. Not foods, not what you eat or don't eat. In Second Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is inspired by God, and it's profitable for," what? "...teaching, reproof, correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate..." meaning, able to meet all of the demands of life, "...equipped..." which means completely outfitted, fully supplied, "for every good work." You see, external religious regulations are of no value. They're of no value, of no benefit. What matters is our preoccupation with the person and the work of Christ.

Peter had such a preoccupation, didn't he? I mean, think about it he struggled in so many ways, and yet that preoccupation just nurtured him and sustained him for 40 years of ministry, knowing all along that at the end of his life, he was going to be crucified for Christ. How would you like to know that? And it was this preoccupation that animated his great doxology of grace in First Peter one, remember, beginning in verse three, he says,

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy, has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

"to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you,

"who were protected by the power of God, through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

"In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials,

"so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold, which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ;

"and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy, inexpressible and full of glory,

"obtaining as the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls."

O, child of God, this is what it means to be strengthened by grace.

Well, my heart wants to take you to another passage, but my time is gone, so I'll save this for the next time we get together. But folks, I want you to understand that God has given us everything we need by placing us in Christ, and when we understand who he is, and we embrace him, and fellowship with Him, and commune with Him as we should, our souls will be strengthened by his grace, regardless of what happens in our life. I remember trying to comfort a depressed older widow not too long ago, she's not in this state. She described how she had been a part of several cults before God saved her, and lacking doctrinal clarity and spiritual discernment, she was one of those that got carried away by various and strange teachings, especially of the prosperity gospel that's in the charismatic church. She was there for a number of years. She was disillusioned. She got involved then with the Messianic group, and she had several more years participating with all of the feasts and the Sabbath restrictions, diet restrictions and so on. And her words were so poignant to me. She said, Pastor, "I've been a Christian now for over 20 years, and I feel like I know a lot about God, but I don't know God." She went on to say that "I feel frustrated, confused and filled with doubt." And I had a wonderful opportunity to tell her that all of this can be changed so quickly, but it's going to require at least two things. Number one, you need to learn sound doctrine. It was so obvious that she didn't even really understand the gospel and all of the other ancillary doctrines that surround that that are so powerful for our spiritual growth and joy.

The second thing I told her is that you need to seek the Lord with all of your heart. Proverbs one, eight and verse 17 says, "I love those who love Me and those who diligently seek Me will find Me." And I reminded her of that passage in Luke nine, where Jesus said, "Ask, and it will be given to you, seek, and you will find, knock, and it will be open to you." And by God's grace, I just happen to know of a very godly pastor in a place close to where she lived, and now she's in a very solid Bible teaching church. She's growing in the grace and the knowledge of Christ; walking in intimate fellowship with him. And unfortunately, her personal circumstances have worsened, but her joy has increased; all because of what she has in Christ.

And folks, that's my message to you, meditate upon the great truths of who you are in Christ, all that he has done, and watch what the Lord will do in your life. He will strengthen your heart with his grace. Amen. Well, let's close there this morning.

Father, thank you for these essential truths that are such a blessing to us, and I pray that we will embrace them with all of our heart, and that each one of us will renew our commitment to know you, to spend time with you, to commune with you, to serve you, to make you the center of gravity around which our lives orbit. And as we do, we will find our hearts being satisfied in ways that we cannot imagine, and certainly in ways that would cause all other methods, all other approaches, all other varied and strange teachings to just pale into utter insignificance. So Lord, I commit ourselves to you again today that we will be this kind of people. I ask in the precious name of Jesus, the one in whom we have been eternally hidden, and for his glorious sake, Amen.