Hardwired with Jeff Wickwire

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Hardwired with Jeff Wickwire. Here's what's coming
up in today's edition.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Do you and I we're not called to sit on
tree stumps and let the world go by and never
say anything about the sin Jesus did, the prophets did,
Paul did. John the Baptist lost his head preaching power
to a politician and preaching truth to a politician. He

(00:31):
said to Herod, Herod, you should not have your brother's wife.
That's sin. It cost him his head.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Have you ever watched something evil happen around you and
wished you had done something to stop it. Well, that's
the conviction of the Holy Spirit, reminding you to call
out and confront evil when you see it. Pastor Jeff
reminds you today that John the Baptist didn't let fear
of death stop him from calling out King Herod's evil
actions and that conference.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Which cost John his life.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
But John knew that he was in God's hands, and
he knew that death wasn't going to be the end. Well,
let's join Pastor Jeff in the Book of Matthew, chapter
twenty two as he continues his message many are called
few chosen.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
How many of you are glad you're not God. I
don't want that job, oh my, But that's the message.
That's new Age teaching. You could go into any secular
bookstore and go to the whole new Age section. It's
a section all on its own. It's huge, and you
could pull out New Age book after New Age book

(01:41):
that teaches that we are all little gods, that God's
in every human being. One new Age teacher put it
this way, all you need is within you. Now he's
not talking to redeemed people, he's just talking to everybody.
He says, all you need is within you, with no
defined order of sin, no repentance, no need for salvation.

(02:07):
You are your own God. All you need is within you.
I could name churches or names of preachers who teach that,
and you would know the name quickly. Now I'm not
going to go there. You know. I don't go there.
You can figure it out on your own, go do

(02:27):
your own research. But here's the thing. If this New
Age thought has infiltrated big chunks of the church, tens
of thousands, maybe millions of people hear this taught and
no warning bells go off. No, you know, remember that
Robot and lost in space. Maybe I'm dating myself here,

(02:50):
warning warning, remember that okay, that little Sometimes I wonder
where that is in a lot of life, because you'll
hear this taught in big conventions, online and social media.
You'll hear this taught. Okay, I've heard them say you're

(03:11):
a little god. I'm a little god, or you a
little god, I'm God. We're all little gods. Heard it
said on Christian TV, millions watching, I'm a little god,
You're a little god. We're all little gods. Woo who
Now do you hear the echo of Jesus' words? How

(03:32):
they have played off this? Well because you say to them, no,
I'm not a little god. Well, then you haven't read
what Jesus said. He said, the Kingdom of God's within you.
All that you need is in you. Another person delivered
from New Age described the beliefs like this quote. Man

(03:53):
is himself God, for he consists of and is the
creator of of forces. Do you know where the force?
The force be with you? You know where that came
from New Age? Came from New Age, they continued, Man

(04:13):
already exercises the powers inherent in his divinity and needs
only to awaken to this fact. You need only to
awaken to the fact that you are a little God. Now.
I wish I could say you'll only find this in

(04:35):
New Age bookstores, but no, it's in churches with huge
followings and different derivatives of it. But let me just
clarify here. Only God has a divine nature. Now we've
been born again, you better believe we have. But are

(04:58):
we God?

Speaker 1 (04:59):
No?

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Okay, let me just read to you some verses. It's
always good to go to the Bible. Galatians four, verse eight. Formerly,
when you did not know God, you were enslaved to
those that, by nature are not God's. Let's look at
Isaiah forty three, verse ten. Isaiah writes God, speaking straight

(05:24):
through him, You are my witnesses, declared as the Lord
and my servant, who I have chosen, that you may
know and believe me and understand that I am He.
Before me, no God was formed, nor shall there be
any after me. Okay, that's pretty clear, right, So there goes,

(05:50):
I'm a little God because no God's formed. No, no,
nor shall there be any God after me that includes
you in me. Isaiah forty four to six. Thus says
the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the
Lord of Hosts. I am the first, and I am
the last. Besides me, Read it with me, everyone, there
is no God. Look at Ezekiel twenty eight too, and

(06:15):
I'll stop there. I could read so many verses, But
look at Ezekiel twenty eight two, son of Man, say
to the Prince of Tyre, Thus says the Lord God,
because your heart is proud and you have said what
was the Prince of Tyre saying, I am a God.
I sit in the seat of the Gods, in the

(06:35):
heart of the seas. Yet you are only a man
and no God, though you make your heart like the
heart of a god. In other words, to you, you're
a god. When you look in the mirror, you think
you're looking at God. And I know some folks that
might be right there. They look in the mirror, there

(06:57):
is none like you. But here, here's the thing, he's saying.
Right here, you are but a man, This Prince of Tire,
that's a real human being. He had begun to exalt himself.
And God says to him through Ezekiel, you're just a man.
You're not a God. We're sinners saved by grace, if

(07:21):
not for the grace of God, we all be going
straight to a devil's hell for all time. Can I
just be honest with you? We be lost. Where Paul
said I'm a chief of sinner sinners, he wasn't saying
he was actively living a sinful life. He said, when
God saved me, I was one of the worst of
the worst. I'm a sinner saved by grace. And that's

(07:42):
what we are. We're not God's But this is the teaching,
and this is how they twist the Kingdom of God
is within all people. New ageism appeals to your ego
and it appeals to your thirst for power. What wasn't
this the deception Satan succeeded in pushing over on Eve Eve?

(08:06):
If you eat that tree, you're not going to die. No,
here's what you will be. You will be like God.
And that's so appealed to her ego that she said
I'm in and she ate and guess what, she didn't
become like God and she did die. So here's what

(08:29):
Jesus was actually saying. It's really simple. He was surely
not saying the Kingdom of God is in every person,
because we know that's not true. The Pharisees opposed Jesus.
They had no relationship with God. And Jesus looked at
them and contrary to saying the Kingdom of God is
within you, he said, you're of your father, the devil. Amen.

(08:52):
He was not out to win friends and influence people. Well,
he was out to influence people, but not win friends.
You are of your father, the devil. So they didn't
have the Kingdom of God within them. The actual Greek
translation is this, the Kingdom of God is in your
midst that's the better translation. Or it's among you? And

(09:14):
how was it in their midst? Or how is the
Kingdom of God among them? In the person of Jesus Christ,
Kingdom of God summarized is standing right here in front
of you, in your midst. And so he was never
saying Kingdom of God or God is in everybody. No,

(09:38):
until you get saved by coming to the cross and
receiving the forgiveness of Christ, you are lost. Your soul
is falling, and you are going to die in your
sins if you don't repent it come to Christ. I mean,
that's just the gospel. The last thing anybody wants to

(09:59):
do is dying their sins. You don't want to die
in your sins, and that means you're going to answer
for them, not the great advocate capital a Jesus Christ. Okay,
so everybody say the Kingdom of God, it's in me

(10:20):
in the sense the Holy spirit's in me now. Yeah,
But am I a God? Nah? I don't need that's
nowhere in my resume and I don't want it to be.
So that's that explanation. Let me deal with one more.
You know this one. But I gotta deal with it
because I deal with it all the time. I mean,
I'm told this all the time. Okay. What is the

(10:43):
world's favorite quote Bible verse? What is it? Judge not?
That's the world's everybody in the world knows that verse.
Those two words. Bible says, don't judge. You tell me
you're a Christian. The Bible says, don't judge. You tell
me you're a believer, and you're judging me. And your
Savior told you don't judge me. Quit judging me because

(11:06):
he said, don't judge. It's quoted immediately to anybody that
would darek call out sin or point out that a
person is living in sin. Immediately, more times than not,
that's quoted. It has become the go to verse, escapegoat,
the verse the world hides behind to avoid conviction and exposure. Okay,

(11:30):
that's not what Jesus was teaching, though. Jesus would never
teach you and me to never judge, because if we
took that literally and we never judged anything again, we
would probably be dead within a month or hugely messed up,

(11:52):
because every single day, in a million different ways, we judge. Okay,
we're commanded in the Bible to practice judging. Did you
know that. No, Jesus, I don't judge. I'm going to
explain that in a minute. But the Bible, the rest
of the Bible, y'all to read the rest of the Bible,
because the rest of the Bible commands us to judge,

(12:19):
and it commands to do it to protect our soul,
to protect our soul, and to expose what is wrong
in the world. Hi, everybody, this is pastor Jeff and
thank you so much for listening the Hardwire. You know,
Jesus said a lot of things that people did not understand,
and so I decided to do this series on the
most misunderstood things Jesus said. Jesus' words can sometimes seem

(12:43):
very challenging, that they always carry life changing truth and
the most misunderstood things. Jesus said, I'm going to unpack
his teachings in a fresh way, and for you to
follow along, we want to send you a devotional. All
you got to do is text truth to eight one
seven or eight four four seven sixty seven. That's truth
at eight one seven four eight four four seven sixty seven,

(13:06):
and we'll get a devotional that'll help you understand Jesus'
words like never before. Now let's get right back to
the message. If Esians five eleven take no part in
the worthless pleasures of evil and darkness, but instead, what
does it say rebuke and what expose them? If I'm

(13:29):
going to expose darkness and sin, how can I possibly
do it without passing judgment? I got to conclude that's wrong,
that's darkness, that's sin, that's a judgment. And then I
got to call it out if I'm going to call
it out and expose it, because you and I we're
not called to sit on tree stumps and let the

(13:50):
world go by and never say anything about the sin.
Jesus did, the prophets did, Paul did, John the Baptist
lost his head preaching power to a politician and preaching
truth to a politician. He said to Herod, Herod, you

(14:11):
should not have your brother's wife. That's sin. It cost
him his head. Did Jesus ever say about John? You know,
he was a great prophet. I just wish he hadn't
gone so far with talking about Herod's sin. He should
have been nicer. Did he do that? He said, you
tell me somebody greater among the sons of men. John.

(14:33):
He didn't go back and say he made a mistake
at all. Okay, we're called to expose darkness, lovingly, but firmly,
lovingly but surely, because if we don't, how in the
world are we salt in light? If we look like
and sound like, and walk like and talk like everybody else,

(14:55):
how are we ever going to be salt in light?
Salt reserves from a decay. So we're supposed to be
preserving the world from going further than it's even gone. Now.
We are preservatives on the world to keep the enemy,

(15:15):
to restrain evil. How are we going to do it
if we don't expose darkness? And how are we going
to do that without passing a judgment. If you don't
judge things in your own life, you start drifting, or
you get tempted to something. And how are you going
to avoid temptation if you can't judge that. Maybe somebody

(15:36):
in your life is trying to lead you astray, to
influence you negatively, wrong kind of friend, wrong kind of coworker,
and they're trying to influence you into sin. How will
you ever avoid it or protect your soul unless you
judge it. You got to judge. Beware of false teachers,

(15:59):
jess the said, who come disguised as harmless sheep, but
they are wolves, and they will what everyone tear you apart.
They can't tear me apart if I discern them and
avoid them. Now look at it, he said, verse sixteen.
You can detect everybody. Say that's a judgment word. You

(16:22):
can detect them by the way they act, just as
you can identify a tree by its fruit. You would
walk up to a fruit tree, an apple tree, and
pick an apple off, and see that it's got a
great big spot on it and a hole in it,
and you know that inside there there's a worm. You're
not going to say I can't judge and take a

(16:42):
big bite, would you, No, you can't say I can't judge.
And yet false teachers, false prophets come our away all
the time on social media everywhere, and there's clearly worms.
But we say Jesus said, don't judge. If you don't judge,
you're a fool. I'm a fool. My little birds in

(17:07):
my backyard have more wisdom than a lot of believers.
Because I've noticed have you ever noticed birds? I used
to wonder, because they're there are they're eating out of
the bird feeder, but they're going always moving their heads around.
So it makes my head my neck sword just watching.
What are they doing? They're watching for the number one

(17:30):
enemy hawks? And when they see a hawk swooping overhead,
does bird A say to bird B, we can't judge,
we can't judge. No, no, no, God doesn't want us judging.
Bird C says to bird A and B, if you

(17:51):
don't judge, you're gonna be his breakfast. And they said no, no, no,
we can't judge. Bird C has enough sense to get
out of their bird A mb bye bye. But a
lot of Christians they go, no, no, you point out
a false teacher. And they say no, no, we can't judge.
That's not what we're supposed to do. It's not eat

(18:13):
a worm if you want to not me. It's not unloving,
it's not on Christ. Like what did Jesus call the
Pharisees whitewashed tombs? Did Jesus worry about judging when it
came to the Pharisees? You're of your father, the devil?

(18:38):
So how are you going to detect bad fruit if
you don't pass the judgment you have to? Paul as
we come to a close pretty quick here, but watch
this now. Paul is in another city and he hears
of something that's going on in corinth and he says

(18:58):
the First Corinthians five one. I can hardly believe the
report about the sexual immorality going on among you, something
even Pagans don't do. I'm told that a man in
your church is living in sin with his stepmother. You
are so proud of yourselves, but you should be mourning

(19:22):
in sorrow and shame, and you should remove this man
from your fellowship. You should have judged it and removed
it so that his soul can be saved in the
day of the Lord. Even though I'm not with you

(19:45):
in person, Paul, It says in verse three, I'm with
you in the spirit, and as though I were there,
I've already passed. What on this man you got to? Okay?
So Paul judged the sinful lifestyle of a professing believer,
and then he asked the church at Corinth. At the
end of that chapter, he says, it certainly is He

(20:08):
says this to them, watch this. It certainly is your
responsibility to do what those inside the church who are sinning.
Is the church to just sit back and be muzzled
when they're operating on elementary age school children who are

(20:32):
confused about their sexuality and altering their life forever. We're
supposed to be well, hellelu y'ad can't judge? Are we
supposed to just sit by while sexual perversion takes over
the culture and say nothing? Don't speak the truth so
that somebody might hear the truth, because you're not going

(20:54):
to get the truth out there. You're not going to
get the truth out there. Where are you going to
get it? Going to get it into the word? And
who's got the word in them? You? So so so,
Paul says, it's your responsibility to judge. So Jesus can't

(21:15):
have meant that it's forbidden to judge. So who he's
talking about, you know who he's talking about. But I
got to read it because there's some humor to it. Jesus,
I believe here was using humor. He says, why do
you look at the speck and that means the splinter
or a lesser sin in your friend's eye, when you

(21:35):
don't consider the log in your own eye a far
greater sin. How many of you want your eye doctor
operating on you with a big two by four in
his eyes? Right? He can't see? And so I think
that's the lard's humor he's making. He's using an exaggeration
to make a point. He says, why do you not

(21:58):
consider the log in your own eye? Consider? Means here
to think carefully about the Lord is saying, instead of
looking at everybody else all the time, you ought to
more seriously consider yourself, okay, instead of focusing on the

(22:19):
minor faults of everybody, what do you call them? A
busy bee? They buzzed throughout the congregation and pick out
everybody's fault and talk about it when all the other
busy bees get together. But here's the thing he said,
Instead of you looking at all the minor faults, first

(22:42):
check out your own life. Are you doing the same
thing or even worse? Because now you got a log,
there is a spec yours is a log. So the
gist of what Jesus was saying was you can't properly
see to help your brother with a minor fault if
you're blinded by the greater fault in your own life.

(23:08):
Something to think about, isn't it. How many of you
have ever had somebody judge you bad but you knew
their life was worse. You ever had that happen? That's hard,
that's difficult. Do we judge, Yes, we have to judge,
but we're to judge fairly or to judge rightly, and
we're to judge non hypocritically, non hypocritically, Jesus says, hypocrite. First,

(23:34):
get rid of the log in your own eye. Then
you'll be able to see to operate on your brother's eye.
Because only free people can free people. Amen. So if
the Lord has set you free, then yeah, you can
operate because you're free. But if you're not free yet,
can't judge others for the same thing. Both of you

(23:55):
need a head somewhere and both get free. Right. So
just three things Jesus said that have been often misunderstood.
I hope that helps some.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
When the Bible says to watch the plank in your
own eye before judging others, that doesn't mean that you
shouldn't try and call out sin at all. What it
does mean is that you need to make sure that
you are right with God before you do so. Pastor
Jeff wants you to be strong in your faith to
know exactly where you stand with him. Don't let the
corruption of the world overwhelm you, but stand strong to

(24:27):
call out the evil that you see in your community.
Here's some more information about Hardwired.

Speaker 3 (24:33):
Isn't it great to hear these teachings from Pastor Jeff Wiguire.
We wanted to bring your attention to something you can
easily find through pray dot com. We love your prayer,
full and financial support of this ministry. There are a
few easy ways to do this. When you see Pastor
Jeff's profile, just click on the give button. Another quick
and easy way to find out how to support us
is by tapping on your present icon, which will take

(24:56):
you to the Hardwired giving page. Right now, let's give
you a sneak peek into what's coming up on the
next edition of Hardwired.

Speaker 1 (25:03):
How do you respond to discouragement in your life? Do
you give up and let the enemy win over you,
or do you take the time to seek the Lord
for guidance. Next time on Hardwired, Pastor Jeff will begin
a series on the giants that you will face in life,
beginning with Nehemiah facing discouragement about his mission to rebuild
the walls of Jerusalem. You'll learn that when God has

(25:24):
set you on a task, he will give you the
resources needed to complete it. That's all we have for
today's edition of Hardwired with Jeff Wickwire. If you'd like
a copy of today's message, you can download it from
our website hardwired dot org. Be sure to tune in
again as Pastor Jeff continues teaching through the Book of Nehemiah.
Next time on Hardwired