Misconception Tag

August 7, 2016

The Truth About Angels

Many of the popular depictions and figurines of angels are fashioned after the Greek god Cupid. But in the Bible, angels are most often portrayed as men wearing brilliant white garments. Ordinary isn’t the best adjective, because angels are extraordinary, but only two special categories of heavenly beings are described as having wings. In Isaiah 6, the Seraphim are described as having six wings. In Ezekiel 10, Cherubim are described as having four wings. God’s ordinary angels are never described as having wings.

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July 17, 2016

Why Jesus is Greater Than the Angels

Now, if only God is worthy to be worshipped, and Jesus accepted worship, what would that make Him? God. So we should be worshipping Jesus as well, because He is God. So put your eyes on Jesus and worship Him.

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May 31, 2015

Imagine: No Hell Below Us; Above Us Only Sky

Two-thirds of Americans believe there is no hell. For the first part of this message, let’s imagine there is no hell. Lest you take me literally, I DO believe in the existence of heaven and hell. But what would you do if you wanted to eliminate the distasteful idea of hell?

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August 24, 2014

Jesus’ Power Over Demons

If Jesus was willing to cross a dangerous, stormy body of water just to help one troubled man, you need to know He cares for you in the same way. He crossed the great gulf between heaven and earth to bring hope, healing and forgiveness to you. If you had been the only one who needed help, He would have made the trip just for you.

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February 16, 2014

The Devil After the Dove

Think about Jesus’ temptation for a moment. Remember, Jesus was God in the flesh. He was the creator of the heavens and the earth. Jesus created Lucifer and all the other angels. He had the power of life and death. So, Jesus could have just snapped His holy finger and Satan would have disappeared, forever. So, why did Jesus endure forty days of fasting, and then this temptation? He did it for our sake.

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April 29, 2012

Can You Fall from Grace?

How many of you have ever seen a falling star, raise your hand. Really? I doubt what you saw was a star. Our sun is a star, and stars don’t “fall.” What you saw was a piece of space junk, a meteor. It wasn’t a star falling. If you see a star falling, we’re in trouble. And if you think you saw a Christian who fell from salvation, chances are they weren’t a Christian in the first place.

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January 15, 2012

How to Stay Spiritually Sharp

We’re surrounded by dead people who go to great lengths to look alive. And in some respects, they may look better than some of us. They can work out, and have six-pack abs, but unless they know Jesus, they’re dead. They can spend money and wear nicer clothes, and live in nicer houses, and drive in nicer cars, but unless Jesus has come into their hearts to give them life, they’re dead. Just like a cut-off Christmas tree.

September 25, 2011

The Bad News Gospel

Jesus’ last words from the cross weren’t “EARN THIS.” His last words were a shout of triumph, “It is finished!” Sadly some Christians spend every day of their lives feeling like they have to live in a way to earn the sacrifice of Jesus. When Jesus said, “It is finished,” He was saying there was nothing else we could ever do to be saved.

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September 13, 2009

The Parables of Foxes and Funerals

Regardless of your age, are you willing to follow Jesus more faithfully now than ever before? There may be some of you who are at an age when you think the best of your life is behind you. Every car needs a rear-view mirror, but if driver constantly looking in the mirror then you are an accident waiting to happen. Some people live life the same way: They look in the mirror of their memories and talk about the good old days. And you can only see a tiny sliver in your rear-view mirror, while God has a windshield full of blessings in front of you. The past is a great place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there. The wonderful thing about following Jesus is that the best is always ahead.

February 8, 2009

The Miracle of the Magi

The Bible calls the light that led the magi a star, but that’s what most people call every light in the sky except the sun and moon. There has been endless speculation trying to explain the nature of this light. Some say that it was the alignment of Jupiter and Saturn, which astronomers calculate happened around 7 B.C. Others say it was a comet, or a supernova, an exploding star. But I think the scriptural evidence refutes all of these natural explanations. They saw the star at times, and then it’s apparent they didn’t see it when they stopped in Jerusalem, and then they saw it again and were overjoyed. The language says the star moved ahead of them and then stopped over the house where Jesus was. This would preclude the possibility of it being an actual star. I believe this was simply a unique light God provided for this special occasion—and it wasn’t the first time God used a light as a guide.

November 2, 2008

Taming the Money Monster

Money can be a monster if you love it more than God. There’s nothing inherently evil about money—it’s just a measure of value. Money can be used for good or evil. Money can be used to buy drugs, or it can be used to buy bread for a hungry child. Money can be used to buy missiles, or it can be used to send missionaries around the world.

October 5, 2008

Heavens!

The current problem is that most of us don’t seem to be as excited about going to heaven. I think one of the greatest tragedies of the modern church is that we have either ignored heaven or we have robbed heaven of its wondrous joy to the point that most Christians are apathetic about the idea of heaven.

June 8, 2008

Give ’til You Giggle

When you give to God, are you giving grudgingly and reluctantly? Or do you find yourself giggling as you give? If you want to be a giggly giver, understand that your attitude is more important than your amount. You’ve got to recognize God’s law of the harvest and start joyfully, extravagantly planting seeds. And you’ve got to give out of a sense of gratitude for the grace that God has given to you.

June 11, 2006

Beware of Grace-Robbers!

Some grace-robbers today insist we should still obey obscure Old Testament rules and regulations, and have even substituted a whole new set of rules. Legalism is the attitude that I can establish or improve my standing before God by my activities. It’s not an act–it’s an attitude. If you think there is anything you can do to either establish a relationship or improve your relationship with God, you may have fallen into the trap of legalism. An introduction to three insidious grace-robbers.

September 28, 2003

To Thine Own Self Be True

The word “tolerance” has undergone the same change. Tolerance used to mean, “respecting the beliefs and practices of others without agreeing with them.” The new use of the word tolerance means that I must not only allow but I must accept the beliefs and practices of those with whom I disagree. This new tolerance came to be in a postmodern world where objective truth no longer exists. There are only subjective opinions and if someone’s truth differs from your truth you must accept it as being as valid as your truth; if you don’t, you are intolerant.

September 21, 2003

Let Your Conscience be Your Guide

When a person continually ignores the dictates of his conscience, the conscience can become faulty. You can take a perfectly good compass that is pointing north, and you can hold a magnet next to the compass, and the needle will rotate and no longer be a reliable guide. The same thing happens to your conscience when you expose it to repeated sin—it no longer is reliable guide. Your conscience doesn’t become ruined instantly, it happens gradually.

September 14, 2003

God Moves in Mysterious Ways

Many people think God’s ways are so mysterious they are beyond our understanding. Perhaps the phrase “God moves in mysterious ways” was coined because in the Bible, God often did the unexpected. For instance, instead of using Moses when he was 40 years old, God waited until Moses was 80—that’s moving in a mysterious way! Instead of using Gideon’s army of 32,000 soldiers, God told Gideon to whittle his ranks down until only 300 soldiers remained—that’s pretty mysterious. God seldom acts or moves the way we think He should.

Instead of having the Messiah, the King of the Jews born in a great palace, He was born to a peasant girl in a barn. Instead of having the Messiah placed on a great throne of gold, God had the Messiah nailed to a cross of wood. Unexpected? God specializes in the unexpected.

September 7, 2003

When God Shuts One Door, He Opens Another

Have you ever been excited about an opportunity and suddenly found the door closed? The worst thing you can do is to camp out at that closed door. Don’t quit—keep on moving, and God will direct your paths. But what about “waiting on the Lord?” Waiting is not a passive experience. Waiting on the Lord is acting like the waiter or server in a restaurant who takes your order and brings your food. Waiting on the Lord is asking God, “May I take Your order? Is there anything else You need?” God doesn’t tip—but His retirement benefits are out of this world!

August 31, 2003

To Err is Human; To Forgive Divine

Jesus taught we should not be the kind of person who seeks to get even. In Matthew 5:38-39 He said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” “An eye for an eye” may sound cruel, but at the time this Old Testament law was given, it was merciful. Human nature demands if someone blinds you in one eye, you want to kill them. The Old Testament law taught limited revenge. If they broke out your front tooth, you should limit your revenge to breaking out their front tooth. But someone said “An eye for an eye would leave the whole world blind” so Jesus introduced the concept of grace-not responding in anger, but giving people what they need—forgiveness. It was a revolutionary concept, and it still is. Forgiveness is expensive, but it’s not nearly as expensive as seeking revenge.

August 24, 2003

God Won’t Put More on You Than You Can Bear

To us, a broken dish is worthless, or a broken television is no good, but to God, brokenness makes a vessel more usable. God uses broken things. The little boy brought the five loaves and two fish to Jesus and He broke them in order to feed thousands. When Mary brought the spikenard of perfume to anoint Jesus, the vessel had to be broken before the fragrance filled the room. And the body of Jesus had to be broken before we could be forgiven. My personal prayer continues to be that God will use my life to give Him glory, and I realize I must be broken for Him to do that.

August 17, 2003

God Helps Those Who Help Themselves

“God helps those who help themselves” it is seldom spoken in kindness and usually spoken as a harsh statement challenging someone to get up from their pity party and get to work. This is a half-truth because the Bible does teach God won’t bless laziness. Let’s imagine that you need a job to feed your family. You should get on your knees and ask God to give you a job, but then you shouldn’t get up and sit by the phone and just expect some employer to call you out of the blue and offer you a job. Don’t do anything until you pray, but then get out and knock on doors and put in applications. That’s what Jesus meant when He told us to ask, seek, and knock. We’ve all met slackers who created the need for such a biblical misquote. Laziness is part of our sinful nature. Some people would love to just lay around and have God put food in their mouth and then massage their jaws to chew it, and tickle their throats so they’ll swallow it.

August 10, 2003

Money is the Root of All Evil

Let’s face it: It’s not money people love—it’s the things that money buys—all the stuff. When your life is driven by a desire to have more and more stuff, you can suffer from what I’m calling possession obsession. Americans are notorious for spending money they don’t have to buy things they don’t need to impress people they don’t even like! This obsession with getting more and more is what the Bible warns against. Paul writes in verse 9 that people who are driven by a desire to get rich fall into a trap. It’s the money trap–and there are many money myths that catch people in the money trap.

August 3, 2003

Spare the Rod, and Spoil the Child

Sometimes when a toddler stomps his foot and says, “No!” Parents laugh and say, “Isn’t that cute?” But it’s not cute, it’s dangerous. When your children willfully disobey you, and you spank them, you are teaching them an important life lesson: They are not a law unto themselves. Someone (parents) has moral authority over him and there are unpleasant consequences to disobeying authority. If your child doesn’t learn that lesson they will have trouble in school, trouble at work, and trouble with the law. Most kids only need about four or five real spankings in their life to get the point—although it took many more than that for me. There are some things a child can learn through the seat of his pants that otherwise he would have to learn later in life at the cost of much greater suffering.

July 27, 2003

Cleanliness is Next to Godliness

Salvation is like a bath. What a bath does to your body, salvation does to your soul—it cleans you up on the inside. But as we walk in a dirty world, our spiritual feet get dirty, and we have to stay in His Word to stay pure and clean. The Bible says Jesus makes His church holy by “cleansing her by the washing with water through the word.” (Ephesians 5:26) God’s desire is that we be holy and pure. Soap is good for cleansing the outside of the body, but doesn’t get below the skin into the heart.

October 15, 2000

Seek God and Live

God outlines Israel’s sins and describes his punishment for them. Amos 5:1-17.

July 7, 1996

The Greatest Members and the Greatest Gifts

The truth is throughout the history of the church, it has been known as a body that attracted all different kinds of people. You didn’t have to have a certain kind of IQ; you didn’t have to have a certain bank account; you didn’t have to have a certain social standing. The church has always been, “Whosoever will may come.” For that reason the church is made up of all different kinds of people and some are more prominent by the world’s standards than others.

August 27, 1995

Preparing for Your Final Appointment

The foundation of salvation is Jesus Christ, but we are all building a superstructure of Christian service, some using gold, silver, precious stones, that means it really lasts, it’s permanent, some using wood, hay and stubble, that means it’s perishable, temporary. But when we stand before the Lord, he’ll try it with the fire of his eyes and he’ll pass out rewards. Some of you are thinking you don’t want any rewards. That’s the point. If you’re serving the Lord for rewards, you won’t get any but if you’re serving the Lord because you love him and because you obey him, you can’t help but get rewards. He is the one determining it—not you.

August 6, 1995

Deceived by the Light

Reports of near-death experiences have confused a lot of people. Many of us want to know the same thing: what happens at the point of death? In the Old Testament, even Job asked the question everybody wants to know: If a man dies, shall he live again? Death is not a period; it is a comma.

February 14, 1993

The Blessing of Baptism

Salvation is not achieved by works; it is only by the grace of God and our faith. Baptism, as good and as important as it is, is a good work and we are never saved by works. I’m not saying it’s not important. If you want to be fruitful in your life and want to have the blessing of God on your life, you ought to be baptized. Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

December 6, 1992

The Amazing Truth About Angels

An informative message separating the fantasy from the facts regarding angels and a comparison of five fantasies the world holds vs. the facts of God’s Word.