Put Not Your Trust in Humans

Psalms 146:3-4 ESV

 

“Put not your trust in princes,

    in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.

When his breath departs, he returns to the earth;

    on that very day his plans perish.”

 

Masters of Smooth Talk

 

The picture the Lord gave me here was of a black dog with a long snout turning his face away from me. And I knew that a “dog,” in the Scriptures, was often used to depict someone who is morally and spiritually unclean, but also a false teacher and a predator who feeds off others. A dog represents someone who is unholy, a worker of evil, and someone who flatters and manipulates, who is a master at “smooth talk” in order to deceive the naïve.

 

So, a dog is also usually a liar, who tells one lie after another after another, for his purpose is to deceive, to trick, to manipulate, and to use fear tactics, too, in order to pressure and/or to persuade others to follow after his lies. He may claim to be a follower of Jesus, and a follower of truth, but by his words he gives himself away as one who is not a truth teller. For, he does not lead people in the path of righteousness, but in the ways of the flesh.

 

For, he twists the Scriptures to his advantage, to make them say what he wants them to say rather than to teach what they really say… Oh, that reminds me that this afternoon I watched a video of Keith Green, who was a famous Christian musician back in the 80s and before that. He died in a plane crash in July of 1982 at the age of 28, but before his death he gave a series of sermons titled, “What’s Wrong with The Gospel?”

 

Now, Keith explained (clarified) that there is nothing wrong with the gospel as Jesus taught it, and as the apostles taught it, but that there was plenty wrong with the gospel as many humans taught it, including famous preachers of his time (and our time, too). And he pointed out how what they taught was wrong and how they twisted the Scriptures and how they cherry picked the Scriptures they liked while they ignored the ones they didn’t like.

 

Now, our trust needs not to be in Keith Green, either, for he was a human, too. But from what I heard in his sermon, in Part 1, I felt he had it nailed. So, if you get a chance, you can find his sermon on YouTube, and it is a “worthwhile listen to” kind of sermon. For, he called out the lies and he proclaimed the truth, and he told of how these “dogs” – though he did not call them that – twisted and misused the Scriptures to teach lies.

 

A Twisted Gospel Message

 

So, back to these “dogs” who are these false professers of faith in Jesus Christ, many of whom are preachers and teachers of the Scriptures and/or they are Christian book authors and evangelists or motivational speakers. Although they claim to speak God’s word, they are teaching a twisted version of the word of God in order to deceive, so in them is No Salvation. And they are not leading people to true salvation from sin, either.

 

For, what they are teaching is a diluted gospel void of the truth, void of the Spirit of God, and void of true righteousness and holiness. For they are against God. They are turning their faces away from Jesus Christ and away from his gospel because they don’t want the truth. They embrace the lie. And they are telling others that they can believe in Jesus and have heaven guaranteed but that they don’t have to repent of sin or obey the Lord.

 

And people are buying into their lies by the hordes (the masses). For the lies tickle their itching ears. The lies tell them that they can continue in their sinful practices habitually and deliberately but that they can still have forgiveness of their sins and eternal life with God. For they are reducing faith in Jesus Christ to some prayer prayed once or some acknowledgement once of who Jesus is and of his free gift of salvation.

 

So, what they are producing are followers who are followers of the flesh, not of God, who are still living by the flesh and not by the Spirit. They are those who are still living in sinful addiction deliberately and often premeditatedly without conscience or guilt for the evil that they do, and without care and concern for those they hurt in the process. And they are also turning their faces away from God and they refuse to submit to Jesus as Lord.

 

They want to believe that salvation is theirs and that heaven is their eternal destiny, but they won’t walk in obedience to the Lord or cut the cord of the bonds of sin from their lives. For, they love the flesh, and they are their own gods, and thus they are one with themselves and not with God and not with their spouses, either, if they are living in sexual immorality following after the lusts of the flesh rather than living in holiness, purity, and faithfulness.

 

They can be like the Pharisees, putting on a show of righteousness on the outside while they are secretly sinning when they think no one is looking. Since they are masters at lying, trickery, and manipulation, they will try to convince others that they are one thing while they are living the exact opposite of that. And they will try to cover up what they are doing by putting on a show that would speak the opposite of what they are really doing.

 

Psalms 146:5-7 ESV

 

“Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,

    whose hope is in the Lord his God,

who made heaven and earth,

    the sea, and all that is in them,

who keeps faith forever;

   who executes justice for the oppressed,

    who gives food to the hungry.”

 

Put Your Hope in God

 

So, we are not to put our trust in these “princes” and in other humans who are teaching a false gospel message. So, how do we know if what we are hearing is false? We have to read the Scriptures in context, one word at a time, verse by verse, chapter by chapter, and book by book, always comparing Scripture with Scripture so that we get the whole big picture and so that we don’t draw the wrong conclusions.

 

We also have to listen to the Lord and we must be walking in obedience to the Lord or we are not going to be able to discern truth from lies. Our trust must be solely in God and not in humans who may fail us or who may deliberately deceive us. We must give our lives to God as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to him, no longer conformed to the ways of this sinful world but transformed of the Spirit of God away from sin to God.

 

Psalms 146:7-10 ESV

 

“The Lord sets the prisoners free;

   the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.

The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;

    the Lord loves the righteous.

The Lord watches over the sojourners;

    he upholds the widow and the fatherless,

    but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

 

“The Lord will reign forever,

    your God, O Zion, to all generations.

Praise the Lord!”

 

He Sets the Prisoners Free

 

For, Jesus doesn’t just free us from the penalty of sin so that we can go to heaven when we die. He frees us from our slavery to sin so that we can live as slaves of God and of his righteousness. He died on that cross that we might die with him to sin and live to him and to his righteousness. He shed his blood for us to buy us back for God so that we would now honor God with our bodies, not so we would continue living in immorality.

 

The gospel that Jesus and the New Testament Apostles taught is a gospel that demands death with Christ to sin and living to Christ and to his righteousness. Jesus said if we are going to come after him we must deny self, take up our cross daily (daily die to sin and to self) and follow (obey) him. And he said if we don’t, but we hold on to our old lives of living for sin and self, that we will lose our lives for eternity, not have eternal life.

 

[Lu 9:23-26; Jn 6:35-58; Jn 15:1-11; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17; Eph 4:17-24; 1 Pet 2:24; 1 Co 6:9-10, 19-20; 2 Co 5:10, 15; Tit 2:11-14; Jas 1:22-25; Gal 5:16-21; Eph 5:3-6; Gal 6:7-8; Rom 2:6-8; Matt 7:21-23; Heb 10:26-27; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Rom 12:1-2; Eph 2:8-10]

 

Mary, Did You Know?

 

Songwriters: Greene Lee Rufus / Lowry Mark Alan

 

Mary, did you know that your baby boy

Would one day walk on water?

Mary, did you know that your baby boy

Would save our sons and daughters?

Did you know that your baby boy

Has come to make you new?

This child that you delivered, will soon deliver you

 

Mary, did you know that your baby boy

Is Lord of all creation?

Mary, did you know that your baby boy

Would one day rule the nations?

Did you know that your baby boy

Is heaven's perfect Lamb?

That sleeping child you're

Holding is the great, I Am

 

Mary, did you know?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPsgIhlYQmM

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