SF334 - WHAT RELIGION WILL DO FOR YOU (Luke 18 9-14)

@PAGE NUMBER = SF334

@TITLE = WHAT RELIGION WILL DO FOR YOU

@LEVEL ONE = Luke 18:9‑14

@LEVEL ONE = INTRODUCTION

@ILL TITLE = Billy Graham S.B.C. 1982

@ILL TEXT = "Most people in America have just enough religion to keep them from getting the real thing.  They have just enough to inoculate them against God!"

@ILL TITLE = Religion In America

@ILL TEXT = America is being inoculated with a mild form of Christianity that is making it's citizens immune to the real thing.  There are several types of this religious false Christianity.

@ILL TEXT = PSYCHOLOGICAL CHRISTIANITY ‑ an obsession that makes God a good "pepper‑upper" and religion a comforting thought.  It devotees see theology as a waste of time; shutter at the mention of sin; go to church to seek psycho‑religious adjustment for tension and frustration.  There heaven is health and wealth.

@ILL TEXT = SOCIAL CHRISTIANITY ‑ a good time religion with special appeal to those who cannot get into lodges, clubs, or the society column.  It expresses itself in a round of socials, banquets, or ‑ in its more liberal manifestations ‑ theater parties, dances and bridge.

@ILL TEXT = POLITICAL CHRISTIANITY ‑ a reform movement with a social gospel, that is so busy with surveys, committee meetings, projects, campaigns, etc., to clean up society that individuals are starving to death for spiritual food.

@ILL TEXT = EMOTIONAL CHRISTIANITY ‑ a type of inoculation that gives the patient divine thrills and mystical exaltations, but often leaves him spiritually dead.

@ILL TEXT = ATAVISTIC CHRISTIANITY ‑ a sort of religious loyalty to the beliefs of our dead forebears.  The Chinese have it in a bit different form and call it ancestor worship.

@ILL TEXT = SACRAMENTAL CHRISTIANITY ‑ a blind loyalty to certain rites or ceremonies, the faithful performance of which is supposed to give one a "pass" to glory.  Its devotees have a "form of godliness," but "deny the power thereof."

@ILL TEXT = THEOLOGICAL CHRISTIANITY ‑ an intellectual and coldly scientific acceptance of the abstract truth in the New Testament Scriptures. Those who have been immunized by this serum can split hairs with the same finesse that Nero played his fiddle while Rome burned.

@ILL TEXT = A very large proportion of the American people are professedly religious, but their religion is not deep, vital, real!  It does not grip the whole man and change and transform him into a new creature in Jesus Christ.

@ILL TEXT = ‑ Robert G. Lee, SERMONIC LIBRARY, pp. 38‑39.

@PAGE NUMBER = Page 2

@LEVEL TWO = Often when the Bible mentions religion it is either in a negative or corrective tone

@LEVEL TWO = Mentioned 5 times in scripture

@LEVEL TWO = All in the NT

@LEVEL TWO = Never in the gospels

@LEVEL TWO = The Pharisee in our text is a good example of what religion can and will do for you.

@LEVEL ONE = 1A. RELIGION WILL CONFUSE YOU

@LEVEL TWO = Places The Emphasis On The Wrong Person ‑ Man

@LEVEL TWO = 1B. Religion Builds Man's Ego (v.11)

@SCRIPTURE = "I" = appears 4 times

@SCRIPTURE = "God" = appears 1 time

@ILL TITLE = The Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1‑8)

@SCRIPTURE = Gen 11:4 (NIV)<R>Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."

@LEVEL TWO = 2B. Religion Is Based On Man's Energy

@SCRIPTURE = Gen 11:3 (NIV)<R>They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.

@LEVEL THREE = What YOU can do

@LEVEL TWO = 3B. Notice The Results

@SCRIPTURE = Gen 11:7 (NIV)  Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."

@SCRIPTURE = Gen 11:9 (NIV)  That is why it was called Babel ‑‑because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

@PAGE NUMBER = Page3

@LEVEL ONE = 2A. RELGION WILL CONFINE YOU

@LEVEL TWO = Encourages The Wrong Performance ‑ Works

@LEVEL TWO = 1B. Keeping Up With The Jones (v.9)

@ILL TITLE = Annanias and Saphira

@LEVEL TWO = 2B. Carrot On The Stick (v.12)

@SCRIPTURE = 2 Tim 3:7 (NIV)  always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth.

@LEVEL THREE = 1C. Impossible to meet God's demands

@SCRIPTURE = 1 Pet 1:16 (NIV)  for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."

@LEVEL THREE = 2C. God cannot tolerate even one sin

@ILL TITLE = Fly In Your Soup

@LEVEL ONE = 3A. IT WILL CONDEMN YOU

@LEVEL TWO = Ends In The Wrong Place : Hell

@LEVEL TWO = 1B. Hell Is A Real Place

@LEVEL FOUR = Jesus spoke of Hell more than he did heaven

@SCRIPTURE = Mat 5:29 (NIV)  If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

@LEVEL TWO = 2B. Real People Go To Hell

@SCRIPTURE = Luke 16:23 (NIV)  In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side.

@PAGE NUMBER = Page 4

@LEVEL TWO = 3B. Hell Is The Eternal Home For Those Who Are Trusting Religion

@SCRIPTURE = Rev 21:8 (NIV)  But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars‑‑their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."

@SCRIPTURE = Rev 20:10 (NIV)  And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

@LEVEL ONE = APPLICATION

@LEVEL TWO = Justification is available (v.14)

@LEVEL TWO = How (v.13)

@LEVEL THREE = 1. You Must Have The Right Attitude

@LEVEL THREE = Seen in the tax‑collector's...

@LEVEL FOUR = Position ‑ "at a distance"

@LEVEL FOUR = Positure ‑ "He would not even look up to heaven"

@LEVEL THREE = 2. You Must Have The Right Actions

@LEVEL FOUR = Repent ‑ "beat his breast"

@LEVEL FOUR = Faith ‑ "God, have mercy on me, a sinner"

@LEVEL FOUR = Surrender