Sermon Tone Analysis

I. Introduction

Today we want to pick up where we left of last week in 1 Timothy 4:1-2.

Today’s Christian must be on guard for the apostacy that the Holy Spirit declared long ago in the Scriptures would happen during the later times.

I admonished you last week that we need to ‘hit the gym,’ meaning that we have to get our own spiritual weight up so as to be able to avoid our own apostacy from the faith by being able to spot error and not fall prey to deceitful spirits and the doctrines of demons that permeate our society and are borne by all kinds of false teachers in our day.

II.

Doctrines of demons

“Any religious instruction that does not conform to historic Christian faith as preached/taught by Jesus and His apostles.”

A. ‘The Prosperity gospel’

The Prosperity gospel is a distortion of the gospel which connects the gospel with the promise of earthly blessings such as wealth and good health.

J. B. Hixson, Getting the Gospel Wrong: The Evangelical Crisis No One Is Talking About, Revised Edition.

(Duluth, MN: Grace Gospel Press, 2013), 181.

Videos - “False Teachers Exposed”

Joel on sin: By his own admission, he intentionally avoids using the word sin in his preaching and writing.

When asked why this is the case, Osteen told Larry King, “I don’t use [the word sinners].

I never thought about it.

But I probably don’t.

But most people already know what they’re doing wrong.

When I get them to church I want to tell them that you can change.

There can be a difference in your life.

So I don’t go down the road of condemning.”

He writes, “God focuses on the things you’re doing right.

He sees the best in you.…

[Y]ou can stop obsessing about all your faults and give yourselves a break.

Every person has weaknesses.”

J. B. Hixson, Getting the Gospel Wrong: The Evangelical Crisis No One Is Talking About, Revised Edition.

(Duluth, MN: Grace Gospel Press, 2013), 187.

Proponents of this view: Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, Paul Crouch, Frederick K. C. Price, and Charles Capps, Joel Osteen, T.D. Jakes, etc.

J. B. Hixson, Getting the Gospel Wrong: The Evangelical Crisis No One Is Talking About, Revised Edition.

(Duluth, MN: Grace Gospel Press, 2013), 181.

B. The ‘Performance gospel’

The Performance gospel emphasizes man’s good works as either a prerequisite or “postrequisite” for receiving eternal life.

J. B. Hixson, Getting the Gospel Wrong: The Evangelical Crisis No One Is Talking About, Revised Edition.

(Duluth, MN: Grace Gospel Press, 2013), 217.

Example: Judaizers - Acts 15:1

Today many churches add things to the gospel, like doing good works, paying tithes, attending services a certain number of times, surrendering, committing, pledging obedience, contracting with God, and the like, but the Bible makes clear that salvation is not earned by any human works but is acquired only by trusting Jesus for eternal salvation.

Many have “failed to realize that the question of character and conduct belongs to a different area, namely, sanctification, and is taken up by Paul in due course, whereas justification relates to status and not to condition.”

(Everett F. Harrison in the Expositor’s Bible Commentary–Romans)

C. Others...

1. Hebrew Israelites

The Hebrew Israelite movement is rooted in Black Judaism, a belief system birthed in the late 1800s by black Christians from the South's Pentecostal "Holiness" movement.

They claimed to have received a revelation: America's recently emancipated slaves were God's chosen people, the true Hebrews.

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2015/history-hebrew-israelism

2. Kemeticism, Kemetic movement

Kemeticism is a revival of ancient Egyptian religious practices.

3. Black Conscious Community