Opening Prayer - Heavenly Father we thank You for this opportunity to worship You and study Your Word. We're eternally thankful that the Holy Spirit has given us a knowledge about Your Word, the Bible, so that we can help lead other people to Your Son. We're especially thankful for the opportunity to do this series on false teachings. Please help us to not be deceived by these teachings. We pray that everyone who reads or listens to these sermons who are not a Christian will become a Christian. In Jesus' Name, Amen.
Worship music - Please click the links and sing along if you know the words (You can also click skip ad to go straight to the songs) -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5jowLv0mXY&list=PLFJcq8L2MJSGyKgssH_Sz0Dnuo9XSdI9h
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xO5Qt2VQn4k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05hhZ0oFEIk
False Teachings
The Lord has led me to do a Sunday evening series on popular teaching in churches that has literally sent people to hell. The unfortunate thing is that these pastors and teachers refuse to admit that they are wrong and change their views. However, not all of these pastors and teachers are trying to trick people, but it is very important for you to learn about these unbiblical views and warn others so they will not be deceived by these false teachings. Therefore, please pass these sermons on to others.
Before I begin to warn you about teachings that are false, the Bible actually instructs members of a church to remove people from their church who claim to be Christians, but they refuse to stop their evil ways. This definitely includes proven false teachers who are pastors and Sunday school teachers. 1 Corinthians 5:12,13; 2 John 1: 9-11; 1 Corinthians 5:2,7; 2 Corinthians 6:14-16; 2 Corinthians 11:3-6,12-15; 1 Timothy 1:3; 3:1-10; and Titus 1:6-9 support this.
False Teaching # 21 -
If we tell a sinner that if they want to become a Christian, they need to be willing from this moment on to follow Jesus, and if they are willing to do that, then they are ready to believe that Jesus died on the cross for their sins, we might discourace them from becoming a Christian. So, we should only tell sinners that they need to believe that Jesus died on the cross for their sins and arose from the dead because they most likely wouldn't change their minds and decide not to become Christians.
The Bible's teaching -
As you will see, the people who were not willing to follow (imitate and obey) Jesus didn't become Christians, and nowhere in the Bible will you find that Jesus chased after and begged the people who turned away from Him to come back and just believe in Him. He plainly told people to count the cost (realize what they were getting themselves into) before they decided to follow Him (Luke 14:25-33). (And no, being willing to follow (imitate and obey) Jesus doesn’t always mean being willing to become homeless and go town to town and preach, teach, and perform miracles. God hasn’t called everyone to become homeless and go town to town and witness, preach, teach, and perform miracles like a modern day missionary and evangelist does. It is also true that God didn’t call everyone in Jesus’ day to do all of those things either. Luke 8:38,39 proves this. Ephesians 4:11 also proves this, and it says, “And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;” Clearly, God has called many people to be pastors and have families (for example) in our day and time, and they aren’t able to become homeless and go town to town and witness, preach, teach, and perform miracles like Jesus did. Many pastors today do follow (imitate and obey) Jesus and prove to be saved, even though they don’t go town to town and teach and perform miracles. Therefore, discipleship and following Jesus shouldn’t be defined as, “becoming homeless and going town to town in order to witness, preach, teach, and perform miracles.”)
The following websites give examples of people who turned away from following Jesus and didn't become Christians - http://chriswaug5.wix.com/chap6 and http://chriswaug5.wix.com/chap7
However, I do believe that many people are truly saved even though they just believed the facts about Jesus. This is because their hearts were so prepared to live for Jesus and to put Him first, that all it took was a simple two-second prayer. Jesus described this in the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:1-23). They received the Word, and it produced abundant fruit (good works, telling others how they can become a Christian, and holy living—setting aside their time each day to spend with God and doing things to help or witness to others). These people shouldn’t doubt their salvation because Jesus said in Matthew 7:16a, “Ye shall know them by their fruits.” The people who live this way after they believe truly begin to follow Jesus the way He said to follow, even though they didn’t verbally make a commitment to God when they prayed to become saved. These fruits are the result of someone who is truly saved, not someone who said a prayer twenty years ago and has had little or no change in the way he or she lives.
Many people claim that Jesus’ close disciples were saved when they witnessed Jesus turn water into wine at the marriage of Cana because John 2:11 says, “This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.” I also believe that Jesus’ disciples, were saved at this time, but notice that Jesus’ close disciples were willing to follow (imitate and obey) Jesus before they believed on Him and became saved.
In conclusion, if you have prayed or made a decision to trust Jesus' death on the cross and His shed blood to erase your sins and let you into Heaven, but you haven't been following (imitating and obeying) Jesus, please follow this website - http://chriswaug5.wix.com/makingsure
If you have prayed or made a decision to become a Christian, but you are not sure that you are really a Christian (Hebrews 11:6, Matthew 21:18-22, 1 John 5:14, and Hebrews 11:1), you need to be sure - please follow this website - http://chriswaug5.wix.com/howtogotoheaven
If you have never prayed or made a decision to trust Jesus' death on the cross and His shed blood to erase your sins and let you into Heaven, please follow this website - http://chriswaug5.wix.com/howtogotoheaven