Reckless Faith message
I’ve been reading the book of Jeremiah for the last couple weeks. The book begins with the prophet sent to warn an adulteress people of the coming judgment of their sins. The children of Israel had been worshipping foreign gods and Nebuchadnezzar was the agent God would use to impose judgment on his adulteress children. When I read the word adulteress, it was as if my heart had been pierced. I knew the story. This was a pattern for Israel. They did this again and again. So why would that one word “adulteress” have such a sting?
Then, last week in service, Pastor used the same word. She said it in passing at the end of her message. “When things and events and circumstances became more important than the time we spend with God, our relationship with Him has an adulteress. We become unfaithful to God.”
Oh sure, we still believe in God. We still come to church and pay our tithes. We still pray. BUT at the same time our worship is no longer acceptable. It’s tainted because of the adulteress in our relationship with God.
This morning I want to talk about “Reckless Faith”.
Back in the 80’s there was a song called “I believe”.
Dolly Parton sang it, Frank Sinatra sang it. They even sang it in churches. It started with the words,
“I believe for every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows. I believe that somewhere in the darkest night a candle glows…”
You remember the song? The intent of the songwriter was to say that he could see God’s hand at work all around him and that there was always hope. It’s a good thing. Right?
BUT raindrops do not contain flower seeds. And God did not place candles in people’s homes to light up the night. He put the moon & stars in the sky. When we confess things that are not scriptural we exhibit reckless faith.
Did you know that faith can be harmful? What you believe in can lead to destruction. Reckless faith leads to superstition.
Before I get ahead of myself, let’s look at the faith road.
We know that the road of faith is a narrow road.
Turn to Matt 7:13-14,
13 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.
14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
On either side of the road we have a ditch. One ditch we call fundamentalism and the other we call liberalism. In both ditches we find reckless faith. On the fundamentalist side we have the sects that handle snakes, don’t allow women to cut their hair or wear pants…those sorts of things.
On the liberal side we have Unity churches that don’t care what religion you practice, because God loves everyone. So you come to church and worship Buddha and I’ll come to church and worship Jesus and God will sort it all out. Reckless faith?
In both ditches we find people relying on their own preference for how they practice their faith. They measure what is right or wrong by their feelings, education, fantasies. Some rely on inner voices or a human leader to tell them what to believe. Some just practice a tradition. “My grandparents believed this, my parents believed this, I believe this, I’m raising my children to believe this.”
That’s as foolish as driving along the shoulder of the road when traffic is backed up. You’re just speeding along without any regard for what’s causing the tie-up. There might be construction ahead and the median may come to an abrupt end. Or maybe there’s an accident ahead and injured people lying in the median your racing along.
Reckless faith?
If we get out of the ditches and back on the road. Where do we want to be? Ideally in the middle.
But in truth where are we? If we’re honest, most of us would probably say closer to the fundamentalist ditch than the liberal ditch and proud of it. Besides we’re not in the ditch. We’re not fanatics.
No we’re not in the ditch. But we in the church do from time to time get close enough to look inside. And sometimes some ditch dirt looks pretty appealing; we may even try some on for a while. Like looking down the mountain side or over the side of the bridge your driving on. How close can you get without falling off?
How do we stay away from the ditch and get back to a balanced trip down the faith road?
The first answer to reckless faith is sound doctrine.
Is what you believe Biblical?
Can you back up what you believe with the word? And I’m not talking about with just one verse, or one phrase either. Scripture is easily twisted and those who twist scripture are ditch dwellers – stay away from them or they will suck you in.
Open your Bibles to 1 Tim 4:1
The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. 2 Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.
Jump down to verse 7
7 Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly.
Flip over to 2 Tim 4:2
2 Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.
3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
And back to 1 Tim 6:3
3 If anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, 4 he is conceited and understands nothing.
Sound doctrine refutes reckless faith.
I’ve shared with you before that I was part of a large revival ministry back in the 90’s. This was back during the days of the Brownsville Outpouring and Toronto Blessing. The church we were attending caught the fire and held revival meetings 7 days a week for 6 weeks before I joined the ministry team. I was in training for 2 months before I was allowed to pray for someone.
By that time, they had the order of service orchestrated like a 3 act play.
Act 1 was praise and worship – and it was awesome with professional musicians and singers.
Act 2 was preaching. Sometimes a guest revivalist, but most times it was the pastor. He would whip the congregation up so much that when you got to
Act 3 the prayer ministry, people would literally run to the alter for prayer.
The reason in took 2 months of preparation before you could be on the prayer team is because you had to prove your faithfulness. Today I would say reckless faithfulness. Then you had to learn how to pray revival style. It was more deliverance than anything else. We would spiritually rip things out of people: pride, lust, anger, bitterness, jealousy. People would come forward for prayer, and the person praying would “discern” what their problem was, rip it out, and send the person back on his way.
It was very exciting. One of the signs of a person’s deliverance was falling out. I would raise my hand, not even touch them, and they would fall out.
Reckless faith? You bet’cha.
After we reached 40,000 visitors, and the celebrity of the revival had launched a television ministry, things began to change. There were nights when the Pastor got up to preach and said, I’m not going to preach, you came here for prayer so lets get to it. There was a time when a demon actually manifested and the ushers escorted the woman out of church. Another time a mentor of mine was praying for a woman and both she and the woman fell out on top of each other.
Reckless faith?
How much of what was going on was scriptural?
For me it didn’t matter. There was fruit. One woman was even delivered of homosexuality. I was praying in tongues 4-6 hours a day. I was in church 4 hours every night. I was on the famous revival team! That’s good fruit.
But the fruit test and the scripture test are not the same test.
You see God holds us accountable for what we believe as well as how we think about the truth He has revealed. Scripture tells us again and again that God wants us to know and understand the truth.
Ø “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; (Ps. 111:10).
Ø In all your getting, get understanding” (Prov. 4:7).
Ø “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16).
God wants us to be wise. He gave us minds for a reason. We are supposed to think, to meditate on the Word—to be discerning.
Discernment is the ability to understand, interpret, and apply truth skillfully. Therefore, when you ignore the Word of God, the bible, you are ignoring the truth and have no power to discern anything.
The opposite of discernment is “human reason”.
Human reason is the process by which we acquire reckless faith.
Where did I miss it when I abandon Biblical based faith and bought into the counterfeit faith of that revival movement? Human reason.
I’ve already said the movement had good fruit. In retrospect it had a lot of bad fruit too. I’ve already mention that the preaching part of the service was sometimes abandoned. Does Scripture not say, that God confirms the gospel preached with the signs that accompany it? Mark 16:20.
I got so wrapped up in doing God’s job for him that my relationship with him suffered. It is no wonder that there was one instance when I was praying for a woman and perceived something and then when I was praying for her husband I perceived the opposite.
If I had been reading my Bible and not relying on the pastor to tell me what it says, I would have known that one of the curses in Deut 28 says,
20 The Lord will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him.
At that point I didn’t know who I was listening to, and clearly on more than one occasion it wasn’t God. I just didn’t know that at the time.
I had reckless faith.
What I needed was discernment.
What I needed was to get back into the Word.
The Bible reminds us that God’s truth is precious. It must be handled carefully and not diluted with rituals, whims or human traditions. When believers trade their discernment for reckless faith, they can no longer distinguish between what is sound doctrine and what is error, between good and evil, or between truth and fiction.
That’s why I am so passionate about studying the Word.
I want you to know the truth.
I want you to be able to discern what is right and apply it to your lives.
And above all I don’t want you just to take my word for it. I’m sure pastor or Brother Rich or Benny Hinn or Joyce Meyer or any other man or woman of God would say the same thing. Our words will not work out your salvation.
Go home and study it out for yourself.
If what we say is true, it will line up with the Word.
If it doesn’t don’t accept it!!!
You’re not babes. You’re seasoned, mature Christians. There’s a lot of word already deposited in you. Don’t slack off now. Don’t get lazy or complacent. Don’t trade Biblical faith for reckless faith.
We are commanded to meditate on Scripture day and night:
Turn to Josh. 1:8
8 Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.
We are to let it fill our hearts at all times:
Deut. 6:6–9
6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates
We must study it diligently and handle it rightly.
What does 2 Tim. 2:15 say?
15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.
There is so much junk out there. I’ve heard Pastor say she finds it hard to watch Christian television. You never know what you’re going to get. You would think that after all the televangelist scandals we’ve seen; we would have learned something. Sometimes the preachers we see on TV are sheep, other times goats and still other times wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Paul described them this way in Acts 20:28-31
28 Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. 29 I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock.
30 Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. 31 So be on your guard!
That’s why we are cautioned in Col 2:8
8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.