The Bible says, “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see…”
How strong is your SPIRITUAL eyesight? On a scale of 1-10, 10 being JESUS, where are you?
Did you know that SOME OF US are WILLINGLY walking down the road of life VISUALLY IMPAIRED?
(Beer Goggles slide) ? Who can tell me what this woman is wearing over her eyes?
When teaching people about the effect of alcohol and how it impairs your ability to drive, the professionals use these beer goggles… They’re designed to simulate how things look when you’re drunk so you’ll avoid the deadly mistake of drinking and driving. Don’t YOU want a pair?
Can you imagine someone PURPOSELY driving to work every day with these on???
Why, you could drive to work every day like a drunk, and when the police pull you over, you’ll come up clean every time. You’re not drunk; you’re just IMPAIRED, by BEER GOGGLES!
That’s absurd! No one in their right mind would purposely wear beer goggles on the way to work…
And yet something funny happens to “people of faith” every day… Believers cruise down the highways of life visually impaired in their faith. People are living under the influence of spiritual blindness by their own choice! HOW ABSURD!
How are they doing this?
By REFUSING TO BELIEVE the infallible, authoritative word of God!
#1 of the 16 TENETS OF FAITH of the Assemblies of God, which most of you are members of today, declares our steadfast belief that:
The Scriptures, both the Old and the New Testaments, are verbally inspired of God and are the revelation of God to man, the infallible, authoritative rule of faith and conduct.
(2 Tim 3:15-17;1 Thes. 2:13; 2 Peter 1:21).
Do you believe that? If you’re a member here, you better!
And yet, some of us, probably ALL of us at some point or another, REFUSE to believe God’s Word!
Today, I want to talk to you about the deadly effects of the DUI’s of FAITH…
Let’s call it THE EFFECTS OF FUI: Faith Under the Influence.
Faith under the influence of spiritual blindness. Now, I don’t have any beer goggles, but I don’t really need them. Every one of us has been “Under the Influence” of things that impair your ability to BELIEVE, and the first of the deadly influences that impair your faith is FEELINGS.
I: Faith Under the Influence of your FEELINGS is always impaired.
I don’t always FEEL righteous, but the Bible says I AM! I don’t always feel loved, forgiven…
One day a desperate man called the church in desperate need of encouragement. He was tormented in his mind and spirit because he felt separated from God… Having been raised in a Catholic church, he had little more than what the traditions taught him. He confessed that he was a smoker. He said, “God told me to quit right now” and I didn’t. I’m a sinner, father… I feel awful, separated from God. Sometimes I say terrible things to God in my anger. I feel like I’m being influenced or possessed by demons father… You have to help me. I feel like I’m going to hell. Every day is terrible and lonely. I dread tomorrow because I’m afraid it will be like today. I haven’t smiled in months and I don’t know what to do…”
I spoke with him for a while and he told me about some of the things he had done, and we prayed together. He asked Jesus for forgiveness and at the end of the call he said, “I feel so much better.”
But the next day there was another desperate message on my answering machine… He had the same problems with the same guilt and the same condemnation… What had happened to his forgiveness since the night before, when he felt so relieved?
The truth is, nothing happened to his forgivenss… John was having a crisis of faith in which he found it impossible to accept that forgiveness because he still felt guilty after he prayed.
His faith was impaired because it was under the influence of feelings / emotions.
He REFUSED to believe the truth of God’s Word because of his feelings!
Have you ever committed a sin you were ashamed of, even after you prayed and asked God for forgiveness? You probably have, but you shouldn’t because it’s contrary to God’s Word…
You see, John let his feelings, or the devil, whatever, convince him that he was still being condemned for yesterday’s sins and he was holding his sins over his own head… He knew about the righteousness of God, He knew about the consequences of sin, but his faith was impaired by his emotions. He couldn’t believe he was forgiven because of the way he felt…
How do you think the woman felt, who was caught in the act of adultery and dragged through the dirt in front of a condemning crowd? Did she feel clean when Jesus said, “Your sins are forgiven? Go and sin no more…”
Here she was, filthy, guilty, dragged naked through the city streets, laid at the feet of Jesus, THE RIGHTEOUS SON OF GOD… She was forgiven, no doubt. But how did she FEEL that day?
When she went home to take care of the situation, did she feel forgiven? How did she feel when she had to clean up a messy house and kick this man out of her bed and her life… When she had to bathe and put on new clothes. How long did it take for her to FEEL GOOD about herself again?
It may have taken days or weeks to get over the feelings of guilt and shame from what she had done. Never the less, she had been FORGIVEN, and she had everything to live for.
Don’t let your feelings impair your ability to believe God’s Word. JUST SAY NO to disbelief!
What’s done is done and He did it 2,000 years ago. Accept it, believe it! You’re forgiven by the blood of the spotless lamb: the Son of God, Jesus Christ! GO & SIN NO MORE!
After our conversation, we prayed again and I said, “John, you need to start believing the Truth…
The Bible says the blood of Jesus is enough to wash all your sins away. Quit holding the past over your own head. By reminding God of sins He’s already forgiven, you’re grieving the Holy Spirit and you’re saying in essence, “I don’t believe the blood of Jesus is enough to wash away my sins…”
Why was John having such a hard time believing? Because his faith was impaired by his FEELINGS of inadequacy, guilt and shame… He couldn’t get over the fact that he didn’t FEEL SAVED by the blood of Jesus Christ, or LOVED by God!
FUI: Faith Under the Influence of FEELINGS is always impaired.
II: Faith under the influence of FOOLISHNESS (or STOOPIDITY)…
FUI STOOPID is when YOU violate your faith by replacing or altering the truth of God to suit your unhealthy desires or fit YOUR lifestyle… It is, in essence, attempting to MAKE God who you want Him to be…
Take, for instance, homosexuals… Gays and lesbians claim to love God, and His Word too…
There are so-called “Full Gospel” gay and lesbian churches all over America too.
A mutual friend of most of us in this church recently went to one without knowing. She sat down, only to realize a check in her spirit during service when something didn’t feel right. She began to notice there were a lot of men sitting next to men and women sitting next to women and before long, the empty seat next to her was being filled by an interested party of the same sex…
Totally surprised, she stood up and walked out in the middle of service.
I don’t understand how anyone could claim to be “Full Gospel” and homosexual at the same time! How DO they DO IT?!
They DO IT UNDER THE INFLUENCE of FOOLISHNESS! They’re replacing or altering the truth of God’s Word in order to suit their unhealthy desires: trying to shape God into whom THEY want Him to be in order to accommodate their perverted and sick lifestyle.
For instance, they love the scripture, which says,
I Jn 4:16-21, “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.
20 If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.
21 And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
If you throw away the rest of God’s Word, and just focus on this passage of scripture OUT OF CONTEXT long enough, then you have the perfect recipe for homosexuality. After all, Adam and Steve are doing a great job at loving their brother, aren’t they?
Brotherly love IS part of the Gospel plan, but “Brother Love” is NOT part of the Full Gospel plan, friends. Homosexuals are greatly deceived if they think they can continue to live their revolting lifestyle and please God at the same time.
The Bible, in context says,
Rom 1:25-32, “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things [MATERIALISM: a depraved mind begins with SELF] rather than the Creator-- who is forever praised. Amen.
Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.
In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion… [The Bible calls it PERVERSION and the homosexuals call it ‘LOVE.’
Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.”
When you have yourself convinced that GOD will move or God will change, or turn a blind eye in order to accommodate your plans, that’s faith impaired by the influence of foolishness!
That’s riding down the freeway on a skateboard and playing chicken with an 18-wheeler.
My Bible says God is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is the ROCK. He never moves, never changes and His Word is everlasting… You on the other hand have changed your story a million times. You are a leaf in the wind, a shifting shadow, a wave, blown and tossed by the sea. The smallest storm causes you to cower in your faith and question God…
So, you’re heading down the freeway of life and you come face to face with God…
Something’s gotta give. Someone’s GOT to change.
WHO’s GONNA DO IT? YOU, or GOD? My guess is, if you’re not the one who’s changing and adjusting and altering YOUR course, then you’re going to be SPLATTERED against the windshield of righteousness!
A neighbor friend came over to visit Jen and I at our home. When we invited her and her husband to church, she said she wasn’t ready for that. She went on to say how she occasionally attends a “Reformed” Jewish temple…
Why do people REFORM religion? We reform religion to accommodate our lifestyle.
Does God’s Word need REFORM? Maybe when we don’t like what it says…
God’s Word NEVER needs reform… WE DO!
She said, “I would never convert to Christianity because they think you have to DO certain things and ACT a certain way…” And she didn’t like how we Christians try to push our beliefs on others.
When I asked her why she isn’t more serious about what happens to her soul when she dies and she said flat out, “I don’t really care. Right now, I don’t have the time to worry about that.”
All I could say in response was, “(I’ll just call her Jan) Jan, I believed your soul is in grave danger and I’m willing to risk offending you by telling you the way to life because I care enough about your soul to risk it. God is a god of absolutes and it’s time you started thinking about more than the here and now.”
You see, even though she had Jewish roots and she knew what the Torah says, that there is only one true God: ELOHIM, yet she refused to believe it and even allowed the influence of Buddhism in her house because it was more accommodating. She refused to believe the Word of God because His Words and His ways didn’t work for her…
We live in a society where you can pick your own flavors and combinations, from ice cream to automobiles, to conceiving a child (Jen’s working with a lady who’s sister is doing so): customize it the way you want it.
We try to do this with everything, including our faith. If our faith conflicts with our desire to have what we want, our faith changes: “Oh, it’s ok to have sex before marriage, as long as two people truly love each other…” And THAT’s when life gets complicated!
We take the Word of God out of context to fit our patterns and desires. (Our neighbor who’s religion is reformed Judaism and Buddhism) That is in essence, conforming God to OUR will and it’s impossible.
Whenever our will, ways, desires, wants, beliefs are in conflict with God’s, life becomes EXTREMELY complicated.
“I don’t want to be a Christian because they teach you have to DO certain things. I want to be able to DO what I WANT to do…”
Lord forbid there be any absolutes to religion! Salvation is built on absolutes. God is GOD, not us! Salvation is absolute because God is absolute. He doesn’t just decide to change His mind about what He WANTS to offer by salvation through Jesus Christ. He doesn’t just decide to REFORM His Word, like the Mormon church and so many others have, His Words are absolute, His Bible is absolute, and His salvation is absolute. Praise God for ABSOLUTES!!!
Praise God we have a Lord who never changes! What would life be like if He decided to change the rules on us just because He didn’t FEEL like being forgiving or gracious one day? We would be a doomed generation with no hope…
God is the God of absolutes: He’s absolutely right, and when He makes a promise it’s absolutely trustworthy. That’s what makes salvation through Jesus Christ so absolutely beautiful!
YOU must learn to be the CONFORMIST: Conforming to GOD, not the other way around.
(The object which does not conform to it’s master’s design is worthless to the master!
The pot doesn’t ask the potter why He has designed him in such a way. HE CONFORMS and only when he conforms is he able to be used the way the master intended.)
Rom 8:7-11, “the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit…”
III: FAITH UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF IGNORANCE
FAITH IMPAIRED BY A LACK OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD’S WORD.
TO KNOW THE WORD OF GOD YOU MUST BE IN THE WORD OF GOD!
TO BELIEVE THE WORD OF GOD, YOU MUST KNOW THE WORD OF GOD!
Ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law…
“But ocifer, I didn’t know it was wrong to drink and drive” WON’T WORK with the police, and “But Lord, I didn’t know the Bible said that” won’t work with God either! KNOW THE WORD!
Rom 10:17, “Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.”
1 Pet 3:15, “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.”
You prepare by knowing and obeying the Word of God.
AND THAT’S THE WHOLE KEY TO LIVING THE SIMPLE LIFE, FRIENDS…
IT’S ALL ABOUT BEING SUBMITTED TO AND OBEYING THE WORD OF GOD.
CONCLUSION:
Life in conflict with God is ALWAYS complicated, but a life submitted to God is always rich in blessing and simplicity!
Submitting my time to God in devotions and prayer. (Getting rid of the worthless time hogs!)
Submitting my desires to God and finding happiness in what He’s given me for today.
Submitting my finances to God, honoring Him in the tithes, the offering and in alms.
Submitting my trust to God, believing His Word above my feelings, my preferences or my circumstances in life.
What is it that you need to submit to God? What are holding back on? Submit it today…
Let Him be Lord, master and provider.
SUBMIT IT TO GOD:
(Fill out cards and leave them at the altar.)
MUSIC to close: I SURRENDER ALL…
