Introduction:
4 Clues You're Hearing a Bad Sermon (Micah 2:1-13):
- The sermon Avoids hard truths. (Micah 2:6a)
- The sermon doesn't Agree with something God already said. (Micah 2:6b)
- The sermon Appeals to the flesh. (Micah 2:6b)
- The sermon Attracts non-spiritual people. (Micah 2:11b)
2 Timothy 4:3-4 - For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:44-00:54
who would eventually become the pastor after me, one time got up to speak, and he said, "You know, God wants to shine his light through you.
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And when we take his light that's in you, when we take that light, should we hide that light under a bushel?" Remember that song?
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So I'm like, no.
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He's like, yes, because that bushel's gonna catch on fire and it'll make the light brighter and more people will see it.
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And then that's when it dawned on me.
01:30-01:32
I think that he thinks a bushel is a little tree.
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That wasn't a great sermon.
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And my point is, you know, sometimes it's easy to tell a bad sermon.
01:49-01:53
Other times, not so much.
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And that's where we're going in Micah chapter two today.
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Just as a quick review, remember we're under God's wrath.
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We talked about that a couple of weeks ago.
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For us in America, God's wrath isn't something that is coming according to Romans one, God's wrath is something that's here right now.
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And last week we explored the question, how does that make you feel?
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Are you apathetic?
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Are you angry?
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Are you amused at this thought that God is going to punish sinners?
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Well, you know what's worse?
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is the fact that God sends preachers to proclaim his truth so that lost sinners would come back to him.
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But those lost sinners would rather listen to false teachers that are preaching bad sermons.
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And there are lots of bad sermons being preached in our day.
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But I need to ask you, church, Can you tell if a sermon is good or bad?
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And when I say bad, I think you understand, I mean unbiblical.
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Can you discern if a message is actually from God or if it's something that some guy made up?
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Can you do that?
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I'd like you to bow your heads with me, please, and I'm gonna ask that you would please pray for me to communicate God's word faithfully, and I will pray for you to receive it.
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Father, I pray right now you'd open our hearts up to receive your word, and that we would be people that are fully dedicated to your word.
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Not with some chip-on-our-shoulder, carmogeny way, but with joy, but with much discernment.
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Father, you know we live in a day that there's people around every corner saying that they're bringing a message from God, and that can't all be true.
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You've given us your words that we would know.
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And I pray, Father, that we would read this message from Micah that was preached so many centuries ago, but is just as relevant right here today where we sit.
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We pray in Jesus' name.
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And all of God's people said, amen.
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Micah chapter two, the first five verses here, Let's just break it down a little chunk at a time to get the flow here.
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But the first five verses kind of gets us back to that courtroom scene that we talked about last week.
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But the Lord is getting specific with his issues with the people.
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You remember last week we saw in chapter one, the issue is idolatry.
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But specifically, you know, there's one manifestation of idolatry that God is really fired up about, and that is covetousness.
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You go to the New Testament, Colossians 3, 5 tells us that covetousness is idolatry, and it always gets God's attention, all right?
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So look at the first couple of verses here.
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It says, "Woe to those who devise wickedness "and work evil on their beds.
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"When the morning dawns, they perform it "because it is in the power of their hand.
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"They covet fields and seize them, and houses, "and take them away.
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"They oppress a man and his house, "a man and his inheritance." Micah here is condemning people in power, whether these were political leaders or business leaders, they knew who he was talking about, but these are people who prey on the innocent.
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And it's a sickening scene here.
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It says, "On their beds," meaning premeditated.
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They're laying down to go to sleep at night, And all they're thinking about is how can I get what doesn't belong to me?
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How can I legally, and that's in quotes, legally steal from innocent people?
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How can I take their livelihoods?
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How can I take their children's inheritance?
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Like, why would they do that?
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Well, he tells you right here in verse one, "because it is in the power of their hand." In other words, if you ask them, "Why are you doing that?" They would say, "Because I can, that's why." They're abusing their authority.
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Look at verses three and four, he goes on, "Therefore, thus says the Lord, "behold, against this family I am devising disaster "from which you cannot remove your necks "and you shall not walk haughtily, "For it will be a time of disaster.
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"In that day, they shall take up a taunt song against you "and moan bitterly and say, 'We are utterly ruined.
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"'He changes the portion of my people.
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"'How he removes it from me!
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"'To an apostate he allots our fields.'" So God uses their same language.
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God invokes eye for an eye.
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Do you see that?
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He says, "You are devising to take from people." "Guess what?
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"I'm devising to take from you." God says, "I'm going to knock you off your high horse.
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"You're not gonna walk around haughtily.
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"You're not gonna be proud.
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"I'm gonna knock you down." Eventually, what happened was Assyria conquered the 10 northern tribes in about 722 BC.
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I believe that's what he's talking about here.
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Verse five, he goes on, he says, "Therefore you will have none to cast the line by lot "in the assembly of the Lord." Cast the line, he's not talking about fishing.
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That was a figure of speech to talk about measuring out land parcels.
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What he was saying here is this, eventually Israel's gonna be restored, and we're gonna be measuring out parcels of land to divide up among the people, but guess what?
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You ain't gonna be part of that.
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You're gonna have nothing.
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That's what he's saying.
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Look at verse six.
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Do not preach, thus they preach.
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One should not preach of such things.
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Disgrace will not overtake us.
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You see, the people were denouncing the true prophets.
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This is what I was talking about earlier.
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There were people that were saying, hey, you shouldn't be preaching God's wrath.
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I mean, come on, come on.
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God's not going to punish us.
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We're Israel, we're His people.
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He's not going to punish us.
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You shouldn't be talking like that.
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Well, that's a problem, because you know, it's really hard to repent from sin that's not being preached.
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He goes on, verse 7, "Should this be said, O house of Jacob?
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Has the Lord grown impatient?
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Are these his deeds?" Do not my words do good to him who walks uprightly?
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You see, they were objecting to people who preached the word of God, like Micah.
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They're like, "Hey, should you really be preaching "like this, going around, saying God is impatient "and God brings disaster on sinners?
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"Come on, come on, Micah, that's not true." And Micah's response right there, "Do not my words do good to him who walks uprightly?" Micah's response is this.
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Old Testament Israel, the enjoyment of covenant promises only comes to the people who keep the covenant.
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That's how it worked in the old covenant.
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But I would say church today, even today, I think there's a principle there for us.
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And I would have to ask, why do those who despise God's words expect to receive blessing from God?
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Same principle.
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You want God to bless you and do good to you, but his word has no place in your life?
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How do you come up with that?
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There was just no market for Micah's message.
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But he repeats it.
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Verses eight through 10, he says it again, same thing.
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"But lately my people have risen up as an enemy.
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You strip the rich robe from those who pass by trustingly with no thought of war.
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The women of my people, you drive out from their delightful houses, from their young children, you take away my splendor forever.
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Arise and go, for this is no place to rest because of the uncleanness that destroys and with a grievous destruction.
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See what he's saying?
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He's saying to certain Israelites, you're acting like Israel's enemy.
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That's what you're acting like.
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You're coming upon your fellow Israelites who are trusting you.
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You're stealing from them.
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So now, God's evicting you because your thuggery has polluted the land.
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Look at verse 11.
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He says, "If a man should go about "and utter wind and lies, saying, "I will preach to you of wine and strong drink, "he would be the preacher for this people." Again, it's a problem with preachers.
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Problem with preachers.
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We see here, here's how to be a celebrity pastor.
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It's right here.
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I mean, I don't know how I missed it all these years.
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I've been looking all through the Bible for sermon content, and I don't know, I don't know if I've ever preached a sermon on wine and strong drink.
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So I thought about that for today.
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Like, how would you like to hear that sermon?
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Like if I got up before you today and said, "Today, I'll be preaching from the book of Budweiser." In the beginning, God created the hops and the barley.
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You know, greater love has no man than this, that he shares beer with his friends.
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Blessed are the intoxicated, for they shall dance well.
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It's foolishness, right?
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It's foolishness.
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We can admit that, right, it's foolishness.
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That's what he's saying.
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He's like, that's the garbage that you wanna hear.
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It's foolishness.
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You don't wanna hear from God, right?
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You don't wanna hear from God.
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You want somebody to preach something that's gonna make you feel good.
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That's what you want.
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There's a problem.
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But as always with these Old Testament prophets, it's not all doom and gloom.
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He gives us that glimmer of hope.
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Look at verses 12 and 13.
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He says, "I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob.
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"I will gather the remnant of Israel.
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"I will set them together like sheep in a fold, "like a flock in its pasture, a noisy multitude of men.
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"He who opens the breach," that's Jesus, by the way, "goes up before them.
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"They break through and pass the gate, going out by it.
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"Their king passes on before them the Lord at their hand." So he speaks of a day when Israel is going to be assembled and then liberated from confinement.
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Many scholars believe that that was fulfilled in a particular event in about 701 BC.
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And we're not gonna read it now, but I'll break these references down.
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You know, the events talked about three times in the Bible.
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It's talked about in 2 Kings 18 and 19.
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It's talked about in 2 Chronicles 32, and it's talked about in Isaiah 36 and 37.
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Short version, Jews fled to Jerusalem, Jerusalem under siege from the Assyrians.
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King Hezekiah prayed, and God killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers while they slept.
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And that whole scene foreshadows the day that the Messiah is going to protect Israel.
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At the end of the tribulation, Zechariah 14 talks about it, Revelation 12.
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This is a foreshadowing when God helps Israel flee from the Antichrist.
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So this prophecy had a near and a far fulfillment.
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That's Micah chapter two.
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And what do we learn from Micah chapter two, my friends?
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Here's what we learn.
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That Israel in Micah's day had the same fatal flaw that we have in our day.
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Lack of discernment.
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Like, didn't we just have a sermon series on this?
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Yeah.
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And we're gonna have another sermon on this.
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Why?
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Because I've told you before, that's my biggest concern for this church, is lack of discernment.
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Gobbling up anything that's being spewed, as long as it's called Christian, as long as there's a Bible verse kind of attached to it, well, I'm gonna believe this and follow this.
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You gotta have discernment.
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And the people in Micah's day, as Micah pointed out humorously, they couldn't tell a good sermon from a bad one.
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And you know, you know the great thing about the internet?
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The great thing about the internet is we have access to so many sermons.
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But you know a bad thing about the internet?
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Some of you got ahead of me.
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We have access to so many sermons.
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Now listen, I'm not telling you not to be listening to sermons.
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I think you absolutely should.
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I do.
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I listen to sermons online from other preachers.
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Here's what I am saying, you've gotta use discernment, people, and you've gotta watch for red flags.
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And there are so many red flags, and Micah gives us a few, all right?
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Micah gives us a few, so let's highlight those.
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On your outline, four clues you're hearing a bad sermon.
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Four clues you're hearing a bad sermon.
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Keep these things in mind anytime you're listening to a sermon, even here, okay?
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Even here.
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Number one, the sermon avoids hard truths.
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The sermon avoids hard truths.
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Go back to verse six.
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See this?
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Do not preach lest they preach.
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One should not preach of such things.
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See, Micah was talking about the judgment of God.
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They're like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, nope, "we shouldn't be talking about these things." Many people evaluate a sermon based on how it makes them feel.
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If the sermon makes me feel good, then it was a good sermon.
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And if a sermon made me feel bad, then it was a bad sermon.
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(buzzer buzzing)
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Incorrect.
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That is not how you evaluate a sermon.
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People just wanna hear the good stuff, right?
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Oh, just tell us the positive.
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We don't wanna hear the negative stuff.
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I don't wanna hear, just, can you, can you just preach like comfort to us?
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Not so much of like the commandments and what God expects from me and disciples stuff.
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Can you just affirm me?
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Give me the good stuff.
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That's what they were saying.
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Nothing about guilt, nothing about, hey, you're in sin and you need to repent.
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Nothing about, God's wrath is on people who do not obey the gospel.
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They say, you shouldn't preach about things.
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But Pastor Jeff, you're making people feel bad about themselves.
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You know, it's funny, over the years of ministry, I've preached about hell many times.
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You know, so many times that I've preached about hell, I've gotten pushback.
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You shouldn't talk like that.
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You shouldn't say those things.
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Pastor Jeff, you shouldn't talk like that.
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You know, that scares people and doesn't make people feel good.
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And I've gotten so much pushback when I preached on hell.
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But you know, it occurred to me this week as I was thinking through these things, I've preached on heaven a lot too.
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And you know I've never gotten any pushback on that.
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They're like, "Oh, that's a truth that's delicious.
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"Tell us more about that." But hell, that's a truth, now we're not really interested in that one as much.
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Do you see a problem?
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When we start picking and choosing what it is that we want to hear from God?
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That's a problem.
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If hell isn't real, if sin isn't a problem, if guilt isn't a valid feeling for sinners who are disobeying God, then what is the purpose of the cross?
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What moves us people to cry out to God for mercy and forgiveness from our eternally terminal condition?
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If we don't address the reality that we're broken people and Jesus Christ came into this world to rescue us from our sin.
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How are we gonna do that if we're avoiding the hard truths?
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You know, just imagine with me, imagine if I went to the doctor.
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Imagine I go to the doctor and I'm sitting down in a room and the doctor goes, "You know, Jeff, "your blood pressure is pretty high." And I say to him, "Too scary, what else you got?" And the doctor says, "Well, Jeff, you're a bit overweight." And I say, "I don't really want you making me feel bad about eating cake." "Next." And the doctor says, "Well, you know what, Jeff, as you're approaching 50, you know what What we recommend is that men about your age get a colonoscopy, and I say, that doesn't sound like fun.
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The doctor says, Jeff, hey, we got your blood work back and it's giving me a lot of concern.
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And I'm like, dude, you are really bumming me out.
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Can we just talk about what is working?
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My left elbow feels amazing.
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Not a bit of pain.
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Look at that, full range of motion.
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Are you seeing this?
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Can we just talk about this?
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Let's just talk about how great my left elbow is.
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Can we do that?
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Truth be told, it's about the only thing that still works.
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But wouldn't that be foolish of me to so address the doctor?
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That's exactly what Mike is talking about.
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'Cause that's the mentality that people have.
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We just wanna hear about the good stuff.
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Don't tell us any of the bad stuff.
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Don't give us any warning.
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That's why at Harvest, we preach through a book of the Bible, verse by verse, chapter by chapter.
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Why?
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Well, lots of reasons.
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Here's a reason, we don't wanna avoid anything.
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We don't wanna avoid anything.
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Because you know, Jesus went right after the hard truths, didn't he?
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Jesus said things like, "Deny yourself." Jesus said things like, "You need to carry your cross." Jesus said things like, "Oh, you wanna be great?
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"Well, then you need to be a slave to everybody." And how did people react to Jesus?
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Jesus often had people walk away from him, saying, "This is a hard saying, who can accept it?" Listen, my friends, whoever avoids hard truths isn't following the pattern of Jesus.
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They aren't preaching the whole counsel of God, and they aren't being faithful to their ministry.
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So when you hear a sermon that avoids hard truth about sin, about guilt, about repentance, about God's wrath, about costly discipleship.
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If you hear a sermon like that, well, you're hearing a bad sermon, okay?
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Here's another clue, number two.
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Four clues you're hearing a bad sermon.
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The sermon avoids hard truths, number two.
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The sermon doesn't agree with something God already said.
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How about that?
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No brainer, look at verse six again.
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He says again, "One should not preach of such things.
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"Look, disgrace will not overtake us." Boy, that's a definitive statement, isn't it?
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Disgrace will not overtake us.
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It will not.
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Wait, wait, wait.
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You're saying, are you saying, Micah, that God is going to bring discipline on people who disobey him?
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That's poppycock.
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No way!
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And you know, I thought so much about that this week.
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You realize Micah was not the first preacher to warn of God's judgment on unbelievers, to warn of God's judgment coming upon the idolaters.
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Do you know that's all through the Old Testament?
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For example, Leviticus 26, 17, Deuteronomy 28, 15, Deuteronomy 30, 18, Deuteronomy 31, 17, 1 Kings 14, 16, Jeremiah 7, 15, Jeremiah 15, 1, Hosea 9, 17.
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Do I need to go on?
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Do you get the point?
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This was a consistent message of God all through his prophets.
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And then Micah says it and they're like, nah, that's not gonna happen.
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Excuse me?
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The preachers in Micah's day, these false teachers, they just, they were flat out contradicting what God already said.
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Either that reminds you of Satan.
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Remember Garden of Eden?
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Tempting Eve to eat off the tree and Eve's like, Well, God says we're not supposed to eat that or touch it or we're gonna die.
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You remember Satan's response?
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You're not gonna die.
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That's exactly what he's talking about here.
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No, you're not gonna die.
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No.
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Satan's tactics never change.
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All he does is recruit more spokesmen.
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And the only remedy for this is to know your Bible.
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You gotta read it and you gotta reread it and you gotta memorize Scripture Are you gonna meditate on the word of God?
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And you have to be so familiar with God's truth that as soon as someone spews a lie, it is so obvious to you, like, "Man, that's not what God says.
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"Caught that right away." It's gotta be so obvious to you.
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You know, like when somebody gets up and says, "Okay, my friends, listen, "You know, God does not give you any more "than you can handle." Well, that's a popular sermon, isn't it?
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You ever hear that one?
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(slurps)
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Sorry, I gag a little bit when I hear that.
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(congregation laughs)
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Threw up a little bit in my mouth when I hear people say that, because that is not in the Bible.
26:58-27:00
I've had people fight me on that.
27:00-27:01
That is in the Bible!
27:01-27:03
I'm like, that is not in the Bible!
27:03-27:04
It's not in the Bible.
27:05-27:08
Show me where that's in the Bible, that God does not give you more than you can handle.
27:10-27:17
I can show you where the Bible says God gives us way more than we can handle learn to depend on him and not ourselves.
27:19-27:27
So this idea that God doesn't give you more trials than you can handle, the Bible says God's not going to allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear.
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That's a different thing, but that's not what people are preaching.
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You gotta know what the Bible says.
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Here's another one.
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People say, well, you know, God's done with Israel, and the church has replaced Israel.
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That's not true.
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Read Romans 9, 10, and 11.
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God has not replaced Israel with anything.
27:49-27:58
God made a covenant with Israel, and God's going to fulfill that covenant, but there's people that preach that, and it's wrong, and you've gotta know your Bibles.
28:00-28:01
Here's another one.
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You know, women are just as qualified to be pastors of churches as men.
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Look, I know somebody right now is like, "Oh, that's a sexist statement." My most favorite human being on the planet is a woman.
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By far.
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Look, it's not speaking about ability or talent.
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The Bible says there's roles that God has for men and roles God has for women.
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And you can take that up with him, but that's what he said.
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By the way, don't assume that a sermon is biblical just because a Bible verse is read.
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That happens a lot.
28:53-29:02
People get up and they read a verse and then they start spewing trash and you're like, "Well, he read a verse, so this must be biblical." No, no, no, that's not the evaluation.
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You need to ask yourself, "Is the preacher expositing?" Meaning this, "The preacher, is he representing the text?
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Is he echoing what's in there, not using it as a springboard to launch into his own thing?
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Is what he's saying agreeing with everything else that God said in his word?
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And if the answer is no, then you're hearing a bad sermon.
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Four clues you're hearing a bad sermon.
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The sermon doesn't, I'm sorry, the sermon avoids hard truths.
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The sermon doesn't agree with something God already said, number three.
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Here's another huge clue.
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The sermon appeals to the flesh.
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The sermon appeals to the flesh.
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Look at verse 11 again.
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If a man should go about and utter wind and lies, old windbag, saying, I will preach to you of wine and strong drink.
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I will preach to you of wine and strong drink.
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Some people are like, oh, I hope this is a sermon series.
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I wanna hear about this.
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It's an appeal to the flesh.
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There's a huge clue, listen, huge clue that it's a bad sermon when the spotlight of the sermon isn't on Jesus Christ, but the spotlight's on you.
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See, here's the message of the gospel, the short version.
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The message of the gospel is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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He died to take away our sin, and He rose from the dead to give us eternal life.
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And upon believing in Him, His Spirit indwells all believers, and His people are to grow as disciples by the power of His Holy Spirit, by the wisdom that comes from His word.
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That's the gospel.
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But that has been replaced in our day by sermons that are all about my benefit.
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Sermons that cater to, God wants me to be happy.
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God wants me to be happy.
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Like, what do you mean?
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I'm gonna give you a couple examples of these kinds of things.
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One is, we can call it the psychologized message of self-actualization.
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Oh, that sounds so technical.
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The psychologized message of self-actualization.
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What does that mean?
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I mean, so much preaching in our day is that Jesus is our divine psychologist who wants us to learn how to love ourselves.
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Jesus' main concern for me is that I have positive feelings, that I stop thinking less of myself and I start thinking more of myself.
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And in this message, I need to see myself as a victim of psychological disorders rather than an offender of God's law.
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What I need is healing and purpose in my life rather than mercy and forgiveness.
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Do you see the problem?
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You see it, it's self-centered, it's self-loving, it's self-pitying, and it's producing a non-serving generation of churchgoers.
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Because instead of denying yourself, instead of spending myself for the sake of the gospel and his kingdom to make disciples.
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We've turned that all into self-fulfillment.
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Another example is the prosperity gospel.
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If you have enough faith, God's gonna make you healthy and wealthy.
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And there's whole ministries built on persuading people, sow your financial seed and reap a financial harvest.
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Do I believe that the more you give to God, the more God gives back to you?
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100%, I believe that.
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But see, people have turned that into the whole thing.
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And sermons have turned into motivational pep talks, not calls to discipleship.
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And you listen to those sermons, actually very little is said about Jesus Christ.
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Very little is said about the cross, but much is said about how God wants you to be rich.
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It's a problem.
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Other examples, the word of faith movement.
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You have the power to speak things into existence, name it and claim it, believe it, speak it, receive it.
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I could go on, but I think you see my point that like in Micah's day, so much in the church today is all about me.
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It appeals to the flesh, and it turns the gospel of Jesus Christ into self-serving lies.
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And by the way, the Bible totally predicted this was going to happen in our day, just as it happened in Micah's day.
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Like look at 2 Timothy 4, verses three through four.
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Look at this.
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For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to, oh, there it is, suit their own passions.
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Not teachers to tell me about Jesus, not teachers to explain the gospel, not teachers to tell me how to be a disciple, suit my passions.
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We'll turn away from listening to the truth, wander off into myths.
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You see, Paul says the time is coming and I would say it's now here.
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When a sermon focuses on you, when it appeals to your flesh, that's a clue that you're listening to a bad sermon.
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And finally, one more.
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The sermon attracts non-spiritual people.
35:20-35:21
Look at the end of verse 11.
35:22-35:26
Again, he says, you know, the person says, I will preach to you of wine and strong drink.
35:27-35:30
Look at this last statement, he goes, he would be the preacher for this people.
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Wow, that's an indictment on the spiritual condition of Israel, and it's not good, not good.
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That wasn't a compliment from Micah.
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And I have to tell you, church, don't assume because the church is big that the truth is being proclaimed.
35:51-35:59
Somehow we get in our minds that the size of the church shows you how faithful the church is being to the Lord, and that's not always the case.
36:00-36:07
You know, Islam has like 1.8 billion followers, and they're not exactly representing the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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When I say not exactly, I mean not at all.
36:14-36:22
But when you avoid hard biblical truths, but instead you seek to appeal to the flesh, you're gonna get a large following.
36:25-36:27
But not of people that know their Bibles.
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You're going to want, you're going to get, excuse me, you're gonna get people that just want some personal benefit, even if that personal benefit is, you know what, I feel really good about myself because I went to church today.
36:46-36:50
A sermon that doesn't have the gospel attracts people that don't want to hear the gospel.
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And that's a clue.
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It's a bad sermon.
36:58-36:59
Micah chapter 2.
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Church, I would say again, no, no.
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The message of Micah is the message for 2024 America.
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We're facing God's judgment right now.
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And when someone stands up and says they're speaking for God, you better know how to discern.
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Let's pray.
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Father in heaven, it's just astounding to me how relevant your word is.
37:39-37:41
I mean, your word tells us it's living and active.
37:43-37:58
But when I get to a passage like this and look at the state of the Christian church in America, it's staggering how directly this applies.
38:01-38:09
Father, I could bemoan what's happening in other churches, but really you've called me to focus on what's happening in this one.
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And I pray for my brothers and sisters here that we would grow in discernment.
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Your word tells us it's something that we learn.
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It's something that we have to grow in.
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And I pray, Father, that we would grow in this discipline.
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We would grow in the ability to immediately be able to recognize garbage when it's being spewed, but it's being called the word of God.
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Father, we thank you that you've given us a book, something that can be analyzed and read and re-read and compared and meditated on, and you've given us this book so that these truths are frozen.
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Father, for Harvest Bible Chapel, help us to grow as discerners of your Word.
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We pray in Jesus' name, amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read Micah 2:1-13
What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
Tell of a bad sermon you’ve heard. What made it “bad”?
What would you say to a friend that excitedly follows a pastor that you know preaches unbiblical sermons?
Which of these “4 clues” catches your attention the easiest when you detect a bad sermon?
Breakout
Pray for one another.