The message
worship and follow something. And the question today is this is what we saw say if we proclaim that we have a walk with God, are we a counterfeit Christian or are we a legitimate Christian? What's interesting is this could be very offensive today and that's okay.
Jesus was a very offensive person in his day. Not out of malice intent, but because truth is not easy to hear today.
Cameron McCarty · 2:20
And that is why Jesus was murdered as well.
None of that is on my notes. Perfect. Here we go. Buckle up. Counterfeits versus legitimates. This message is about everybody. Two weeks ago, we learned about the wide path and the narrow path. And I would like to say everybody is on a path today. It's either to hell or it's to heaven. It's either on the wide path or the narrow path. The question isn't where am I at, but where are you at right now? Because where you're at right now is going to be the destination you're going to go today. We're going to be looking at false prophets, false teachers, but we're also going to look at false Christians as well.
Jesus is going to talk about false prophets and we can begin to move the spotlight on them and away from us. But today Jesus is talking about it's the heart, not just the false prophet, but those who are following something. Okay, let's begin with the Scripture now. Good grief. Okay, verse 15. That should be plenty of time to find your Matthew verse. Verse 15, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. Pause there for a moment. There is something important today that we must look at. And it says, "who come to you, they come to you, and that's important because you don't always accidentally stumble upon them, but they are ravenous wolves stalking you, waiting for you to strike at you. They are coming to you. And Jesus is saying in this warning, not if it ever happens, but in your walk, the more you walk with Christ or the more you walk with the world, you will come in contact with a false pastor, a false Christian, and even begin to maybe be pointed to a false God.
This is important news Jesus is talking about today. Verse 16. You will recognize them by their fruits, or grapes gathered from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles. So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.
Not everyone who says to me,"Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of the Father who is in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, "Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, cast out demons in your name, and do mighty works in your name?" And then I will declare to them, "I never knew you. Depart from me, workers of lawlessness. At the current job I'm at, even though I've moved different positions throughout the years, I'm almost at in September will be my 9-year mark. And what I do is I am a individual that will sell plumbing parts to plumbers or homeowners. And just like anything, if there's something you need last minute, you're probably guaranteed not to be able to find that, but you have to order it. That is something that I have to do a lot. We call it a special order. So what we have is if we don't stock it or have it, we have to order it and have it shipped to us for this customer. And what happens is there's independent vendors for a much bigger company that they represent.
And the reason I'm saying this is you have to begin to have great communication skills by calling or email to be able to get price and availability on a part that you need for a customer. What's interesting is there's this in there's this one individual that comes to my mind that happened to be the vendor for this company and he's the type of person that you can call six times in a day, six times the next day and you will not hear a phone call back from him. You have to catch him when it's convenient for him. It can be frustrating. But what's interesting is he is a lot faster. And I say faster as in two days versus never calling you back if you send him an email. One day, this was about 6 months ago. I begin to email him and instantly under 30 seconds, I got an email back. There's this little thing today that is taking over our world. If you don't recognize it, you might will now. It's called AI. AI stands for artificial intelligence, and it's to it's a shortcut for humans is really what it's for.
It's interesting. Less than 30 seconds, I get a paragraph in the front of on the top of it is the email address to the man that I actually emailed. So, it's his legit email. On the bottom, it's his signature, him. Okay. Yet in sandwich between this there is a paragraph long which is unusual for him and the wording and grammar was off. But what I did see was a price and what I did see was availability. The two things I was looking for but something was off. And when you begin to read the bottom, it says, "Please allow 4 to eight hours when you receive this email because this is artificial intelligence AI emailing you back and there is some error." So in the 8 hour mark, you can say if you did not receive a correct email, this is the legit price.
Interesting. It had his email. It had his signature on the bottom, but it did not sound like him. And the only way I knew it did not sound like him is I knew who he was. I knew how he talked, how he communicated. And what was bizarre was instead of it being hours or days, it was seconds. Something was off. And that's how I could identify before reading that it was AI that responded back to me that it was not him. I had to know the truth to know the fake. That's actually what Jesus has been saying on the sermon on the mount. Remember back in chapter five, there's two people, two sets of people. There's the observers watching the disciples with Jesus and there's the dece the disciples with Jesus. There's two people.
It is interesting that we learned about if we look at a tree, there's the roots and the base. And what many people will refer to is chapters 13 and 14 is the root and the base of the tree. And now we're looking at the branches. To understand this and to understand next week's message, we must understand there are two paths, two destinations, and two choices. And we're all on a path. And we're heading to a destination right now. And not everybody is heading to the same one. What path are we on today?
Jesus begins to say there's two types of Christians. There's the hypocritical leaders that he's been talking about and he will continue to talk about it all the way to 28 as well. And there's the disciples. There's the observers and there's the followers. There's those that want to be influenced and those that want to be in with Christ.
We begin to see there's an inward versus outward change. Just because you have a pig and you put lipstick and makeup on doesn't make it anything else than a pig with makeup and lipstick. Jesus looks at the heart. Jesus judges the heart. And today what our heart says. We may say the right Christian things. We may quote the right verses.
But
Today you can quote the whole Bible and still go to hell. Why? Because if your heart is rotten, it will be thrown away.
Cameron McCarty · 10:48
The heart and the fruit speaks to who you are today. Right? This is important because Jesus is saying it's the heart that matters. What does your heart say today? And today there are pastors every Sunday that will be faithful to the church, faithful to preaching a Bible verse, might be an upstanding guy, but his heart is wicked above beyond anything else. Today there are pastors that will go to hell just like observers. Today the heart reveals everything.
You see there's an internal danger that Jesus is talking about to his disciples at the time. And I want to tell you right now there is an internal church danger today. At one click of a button, you can listen to a sermon and start worshiping a false madeup God that will not save you, that will not help you, but will mislead you and misguide you.
Jesus is saying there's false prophets and today there are false pastors in the church just like there's false congregants. And if we look at somebody that has a dog on a leash, the dog has a little bit of freedom, but where the person that's guiding the dog with the leash is ending up going to control where they're going.
That dog has to follow them willingly or not if they're connected to the leash. And today,
If false prophets are going to hell, those that follow are being led on that same path.
Cameron McCarty · 12:30
And that is scary today. It's not just oopsy daisy. Jesus is saying these are people that are intentional. Notice for a second it's not an I accidentally said something wrong. Pastors will begin sometimes to insert their opinion and they must come before you and say I messed up. No, Jesus is talking about those that put on a costume. If I put on a costume for halloween and I dress up like Mario, I'm intentionally dressing up as something.
I'm not accidentally walking around like Mario. And these ravenous wolves are not accidentally acting like pastors. They know what they're doing. And they're there to kill you, to eat you, and to rob you in multiple ways today. Number one, I want you to know this. They do not care about truth. They care about what you can give them. They don't care about God. They care about what they can gain from it. This is scary news.
Imagine for a moment to really put this in a much better perspective that there is a disease that is killing millions of kids, millions of elderly people, and millions of people that occupy the gap. Did you know there is a disease today called sin? And if somebody had a cure and they could profit off of it and they begin to replace that with a water substitute that will never save anyone, but they get the money anyways because they think it's the cure.
That's what false prophets do. They rob you of truth. They rob you of a relationship with God. And today, if a pastor ever tells you to pursue them and their ministry over a relationship with God, I can tell you right now, you need to be careful. Men will fall.
If you put your faith in Pastor Shaun's ability, if you put your faith in anybody's ability, guess what? You fall every day. And pastors fall every day. Why? Because we're human. We make mistakes. And sometimes we let our emotions speak before wisdom does.
Do not put your faith in man, even if they look holy.
Cameron McCarty · 14:52
Yet, we have a sin problem today. It's a huge disease killing multiple people every day.
And all false preachers do that preach a false gospel and point you to a false God is not giving you the cure but giving you a water substitute that will never cure the disease in the end. Today I got three points that I want us to look at and I try to make it rememberable because today isn't just looking at the false teachers or prophets which Jesus is talking about but it's looking at the bridge that those who follow a false teacher, a false pastor are also going to be lumped in with what happens to a false teacher. There's three Rs we're going to look at.
Number one, counterfeit shepherds rot the flock. Look at verse 15. This is not a suggestion Jesus is saying. This isn't just in case a false teacher ever comes. No, a beware is this. It is coming. It will come eventually. And I guarantee everybody in this room has encountered one at some point in their life.
And what happens when you begin to go on the road to listen and seek? Your fruits become their fruits. If you have fruit and you have one that's rotten, if you don't isolate it from the other fruit, the other fruit will begin to get rotten. Think of this maggots. Ew.
Think of rotten fruit. You don't eat it and you don't want to be it. What we follow is what our fruit and what our heart will begin to be molded by every single time we step with who we follow.
In this time, a prophet in the Old Testament, we know that one of the things they say is, "Thus says the Lord." Meaning, they're not inserting their opinions. They're not inserting what they want. They're simply saying, "this is what Jesus or God has said to me to say to his people." It's interesting because they are speaking on the inspiration of God, similar to what pastors are supposed to do and called to do today.
It doesn't matter what my opinion is. It matters what truth is.
Cameron McCarty · 17:13
And at the end of the day, the only way to know truth is to read truth. But we can't take my word for truth. You have to read truth yourself. And today we see a describing word for this prophet and it's false. In the original language, it actually means a religious impostor. An impostor. Externally, they look holy. Internally they are ravenous wolves.
If you look at ravenous, if you open up your English dictionary, it's not going to be accurate to what Jesus is actually saying here. One thing we have to do is we have to look at the original language to understand what is Jesus saying. And Jesus is calling these people this. They are robbers. They are swindlers. And today a religious pastor, a religious individual will rob you from a relationship with God. They will not point you to a relationship with God and they will swindle your life away.
Jesus, what he's calling these religious people is this fakes, counterfeits. And
The sad thing is today there are many that are following a counterfeit pastor living a counterfeit walk with God.
Cameron McCarty · 18:34
It's important today to know, are we counterfeits or are we legitimates? There's two paths, two destinations, and depending on where you're at, that's going to be the destination you're going down right now. I think of like the comic books and the movie Superman. From an audience standpoint, we understand that Superman has an alter ego named clark Kent. Yet, the people in the universe don't know they're the same person.
But as an audience, we know they're the same person, just two different egos. That's kind of like us. We're the people in the universe. We might not be able to know right off the bat the fruits of someone's life, but God is the people that know the truth. The truth is Clark Kent is Superman. And the truth is, we might not be able to know your heart completely, but God at the end on judgment day will be seeing what is true about your heart.
A false prophet is very much one that lives an alter ego lifestyle. He may hold up a Bible. He may be able to say something from the Bible. He may be able to point you to a somewhat partial truth of what the Bible says, but
A partial truth is nothing more than a fullon lie. Amen.
Cameron McCarty · 19:56
There is a difference from a counterfeit Jesus and a legitimate Jesus.
This is important today because if we live a counterfeit lifestyle, we will reap a counterfeit reward which is not a good eternal place.
If a message on Sundays, which is often preached all over the world, is about a trinity that's called me, myself, and I, and not Christ centered. That would be a counterfeit sermon that's wasting away from truth because it's not about us. When I flip through the Bible, I still haven't seen Cameron McCarti in it. But what I do see is I have a problem. We have a disease and there's only one cure today and it's not ourselves.
It's all about him, not me. And that's good because I would mess it up if it was about me.
Cameron McCarty · 21:06
And the thing is we need to remember is when a false person follows a false teacher, they will become misled away from truth and they will become to adopting a lie on what they believe and who they are. A counterfeit walk is scary today.
We must examine our lives. I remember when I first really got God got a hold of my heart and I was really on fire. I really wanted to tell everybody about this transformation in my life. It was weird. Like who I was in one moment was different than the other. It was very interesting and something I cannot even explain today. Yet there's this one pastor that had a lot of zeal, a lot of passion, a lot of smooth talks. He leads millions of people today online, thousands of people in person.
And he would go and he would evangelize to people and say, "Jesus loves you. Jesus has a plan for you. I can heal you. I wanted to be that guy." I wanted to be the one to tell people at Bass Pro, you know, Jesus loves you. Jesus has a plan for you.
Yet later on, I begin to actually pursue truth in the Bible, and I can begin to see that some of the things that this man would say contradicted what God has said in his word. It was interesting because one thing that he claimed is once God got a hold of his heart, he no longer sinned. Sign me up for that. I am tired of falling short every day. But can I tell you something? I begin to follow him. I begin to imitate him. And I begin to get burned out by him because it's like a hamster on a hamster wheel. I wanted to be sinless. So, I need a better relationship with God.
Well, guess what? According to First John 18, those who claim they are without sin are liars, are swindlers, and are robbing themselves from truth. Guess what? Today, many years later, he is beginning to have his fruit shown nationwide.
He treats his staff poorly. He begins to manipulate his church to gain more money. And guess what? People are starting to understand this man is not righteous. He's a swindler robbing people of a relationship with God. I had to begin to read my Bible to unlearn lies. Because at the end of the day, if I don't know truth, I don't know a lie.
What is the difference from a legitimate and a counterfeit? You have to know what a legitimate is first. Do you know a legitimate God or a counterfeit one?
There's a million different Jesuses being spoken about today, but there's only one Jesus that saves.
Cameron McCarty · 24:19
I tell the youth there might be somebody that thinks Jesus is the one smoking pot with them on a weekly basis. Jesus that cusses with them on a weekly basis.
Jesus that does this and that. Well, guess what? Sometimes the hardest things we need to hear is what benefits us. And if Jesus is our homeboy, it's probably not the Jesus that's true. If Jesus is what we imagine him to be, as cuddly and sweet, know that at the end of the day, 100% of us in this room will stand before Jesus and he is the one that judges the heart.
That's interesting, isn't it? It's interesting. It's interesting. You see, here's the deal. This guy that I followed, I began to imitate and I began to be like a hamster on a wheel. I wanted to be sinless like him. He said you can be sinless, yet it never happened. Yet the truth is we will never be sinless until we go into eternity with him if we're legitimates. Here's the kicker. It's hard. They are dressed up like a Halloween character looking holy and righteous. And it's not always easy to see through the disguise. But you know what is?
If you read your Bible, if you know truth, and you pursue a relationship with God, you will not be easily fooled.
Cameron McCarty · 25:45
Amen. I had to begin unlearning many lies. And did you know that some of the most popular Christian sayings are not full truths?
Evaluate some of the things you hear. And the some of the things you say and what does the Bible say about it. It's interesting. The second thing I want us to begin to look at before that I want to make this very clear what I'm saying about a year and a half ago for work, we have multiple different locations over Kansas and Missouri. Cargo Largo sold almost like $150,000 worth of fake $100 bills that looked real.
And there were many branches that lost hundreds and hundreds of dollars because they didn't know what A real dollar $100 bill look like versus these fakes. Can I tell you something?
You don't have to know the million ways something's fake. All you have to do is know the one truth to find a legitimate from a counterfeit.
Cameron McCarty · 26:56
What I'm telling you today is this. Open your Bible. Don't rely on pastors. Read truth to know truth. Even right now, I could be lying to you right now and a lot of you probably wouldn't even know. Read the Bible. Yes. Read it. The second point is this. Counterfeit fruit rob truth. They are not looking for truth. They're looking for manipulation and personal gain. If I go to Hobby Lobby and get a fake decorative apple, its purpose is to be a decorative apple, not to be eaten. And if I were to get the most superior apple in the face of the earth, and you can disagree with me, but you'd be wrong. It's a honey crisp apple. It's amazing.
Huh? Yeah. It's so good. But if I'm expecting that honey crisp apple and I bite into the Hobby Lobby apple, I'd be disappointed. Why? Because a Hobby Lobby apple does what it's intended to do. It's not intended to be eaten. It's not intended to give you nutrients. It's intended to be looked at.
False teachers, false pastors, false prophets are intended to be looked at as holy, but internally are rotten and fake.
Cameron McCarty · 28:08
They serve the intentions of what they are, which is a counterfeit, not a legitimate.
And that's what Jesus is telling his disciples. We must know that even though there's observers watching on a separate place, Jesus is really just talking to his disciples today and other people get to listen to him. Jesus is saying this. These people will profit off of lies and they hate truth. It's like a robber. A robber has no problem robbing you until they get caught and then they're upset and then they're mad. Why did you catch me? This is ridiculous. Here's the deal.
They like criminal activity, but they hate the punishment for it. And false prophets hate when the light exposes their wicked ways.
There's two paths. Remember, there's two destinations and there's two pastors that preach a message. We must understand a legitimate from a counterfeit. You see, the problem is the Bible makes it very clear today. There's only one way to heaven. There's only one Jesus Christ that saves, and there's only one God. In Exodus, we saw there were multiple gods.
And they get talked about a lot. But there's only one God that saves. And we must know the real God from the fake gods. Because there's a lot of people that talk about God, but they don't talk about the God of the Bible.
People talk about Jesus all the time, but they don't talk about Jesus of the Bible.
Cameron McCarty · 29:59
Can we tell the difference from the truth and the reality versus the fakes and the rotten? To really make this clear, did you know false prophets are leading people like people lead dogs on a leash straight to a slaughter house for profit and gain.
Their purpose is to lead people not into the truth but into lies. Their purpose is not to point you to the Bible, but to point you to them.
Kind of very disrespectful if you think about what the Bible's intentions are for. It's a pure it's a cure for a disease, not manipulation. And yet today, because of sin, it's what we would call a fallen condition. Is because of sin, people do wicked things. People do horrible things. It was never intended to be like this. But sin kills, robs, and destroys every single person today. It's sad.
A couple years ago, I watched this show called Magic's Biggest Secrets Revealed. And it's a magician that was a little older. He would dress up all in black. He had a really interesting looking mask. And he would show you two things. He would show you a magic trick, which is all smoke, screens, and mirrors, you know, but it's fun. It's exciting to see. And then he would give you a different angle, give you a behind-the-scenes look and show you exactly how he did it. And every time it wasn't some big magic trick, but it was simply just manipulating what you're seeing and distracting you from what you're truly seeing.
Did you know that even though this is fun, I like magic. Become not dissonant. But this is what false pastors do to people that are listening to them today. It's all a smoke screen to distract you from truth. If there's two paths and two destinations, we're all going to be going down at least one. A smoke screen to hell is scary. And that's why we must know truth.
Remember at the end, Lord, did we not do this? Did we not do that?
We can do things for the Lord and neglect him in our heart.
Cameron McCarty · 32:26
This is a big deal. Jesus is telling his disciples what we need to know today. Open your Bible. Learn God's law. Learn the history. And most importantly, know truth.
People always want a word from God. I need a word. I need a word. And they seek men. Men lie all the time. The thing is, if you want to hear God and know that there's not a lie coming from it, you open the word. You begin to digest the word and you let the word speak. This is a big deal today. A very big deal because we must guard our hearts at all cost. Why? Wednesday I preached this out of this particular sermon and I labeled it there is a battle for truth and today there's a battle for your heart either truth is going to guard your heart guard your life and that's going to be the thing you stand on or it's going to be something else what are we letting our foundation be built on because that's important the last thing I want us to begin to look at is this counterfeit hearts reap their lies. This is terrifying because it's not just talking about at the end, depart from me for I never knew you.
It's not talking about people that faithfully come every Sunday, but those that might be preaching every Sunday. This is scary today because this is very much talking about everybody. It's scary. The word is depart which means leave my presence. And many people will say,"Well Lord, did I not preach for you on Sundays? Did I not serve a small group on? Did I not make 109 services and only miss two?" Jesus looks at the heart. We can work.
We can act but the spotlight will be shined on us at some point because at the end of the day when judgment comes the heart will be revealed and the path that we have taken our whole life is going to be the very thing that we're going to reap for eternal. It's either hell or heaven. There's no in between.
The only thing that's certain is all of us are going to eternity. But it might be different destinations. Right now there's different destinations. What destination are we on? For instance, praying to a Jesus is not enough. Knowing a gospel is not enough. Knowing a God is not enough. You have to know the word. The God believe the Jesus because there's only one way of salvation and it's not up to our interpretation on what we think that might be.
A disciple next week we're going to learn that there's those that build a house on the rock and on the sand. Up to this point, disciples have learned that fasting is not for a show, but it's in the heart. You can worship God in your heart without beating people up that don't believe in your beliefs. That will preach within itself.
Nothing is more terrifying than a Christian that kills people every day with their opinions on what the word says.
Cameron McCarty · 35:57
Yes.
Adultery will destroy your lives internally before it ever comes out externally. Jesus is telling his disciples that if you seek revenge, it will lead to destruction in the end. Why? Because in our hearts reveals who we really are. You can know somebody and not really know them for who they really are. A disciple has also learned something that is applicable if we are a legitimate follower today and it's this.
Seek first the kingdom of God. In a culture of Christianity that wants to seek a conference, seek a pastor, seek this, seek that. Jesus says above all else, seek his kingdom. Amen. But often times we can live a distracted life seeking everything but God. And that is dangerous.
All will stand before Jesus and be judged by ourselves. My mama, my dad won't be with me. It'll be me. Your pastors won't be with you. It's just you.
Cameron McCarty · 37:11
And your heart will be revealed for what it truly is. Everyone will reap in the end the life they lived. What path we're on in the end is what we're going to reap out of it. There's two paths, two choices, two eternal destinations. We need to examine our life today. Regardless if you're just a listener or a pastor, everyone will reap the life they have lived. The question is our fruit in Christ or is our fruit in the world?
You know, Jesus is telling his disciples here not to be observers like those in chapter 5, but to be followers. That's right.
There's a crowd observing chapter 5 verse one. Yet the disciples are near Jesus. They've followed Jesus.
And
We today are called to follow Jesus, not just be influencers for Jesus.
Cameron McCarty · 38:25
Because there's a big difference. I can promote something and not really believe in it. You see, here's the deal. No matter the cost. Whatever we follow, we begin to trust. Whatever we begin to follow, we I know this is going to be weird. Follow in their footsteps.
They are going to guide us. And no matter what, we must put our trust in what we follow. No matter if it's good or bad. Through the good days into the bad days. Through the cold days, the rainy days, the oneway gravel pit from hell out there that you had to travel to get in here.
No matter what, whatever we follow, we're pursuing something. And whatever we pursue, at the end of the day, we are saying we put our trust in the leader and in the shepherd. Pursue God above all else. Read his word above all else. If we need guidance today, read his word. If we need to talk to someone today, pray to God. There is a relationship with God. The veil has torn, it says. And we have a mediator that's better than any man today, and that's Jesus Christ. If you follow somebody, follow someone that holds truth of the word, that promotes God over agendas, promotes Jesus over themselves. Even when it's hard and difficult, this is not easy to listen to. I've been convicted for the past three weeks over this here.
But sometimes the hardest thing I need to hear is what benefits and makes me healthy in the end. Yeah. The teachers of today must hold truth high. And false prophets will never hold truth high. You see, somebody, everybody holds something high. It's either the truth or it's something else. What are they holding high? That's one way to examine a fruit.
But also, those that follow must also hold something high as well. In the end, A follower and a teacher will begin to reap the harvest they have sown.
If you follow a wrong gospel, you will reap A wrong salvation. If you follow a wrong teacher, you will be misled to a wrong destination.
Cameron McCarty · 40:46
Quit pursuing movements and start pursuing relationships. Could you come up here for a second?
What's interesting here is we will walk. Could you come over here and then could you pick that up for me? Sorry, I'm so needy today. Oh, where's your fan at? You're supposed to fan me. I'm getting hot. I'm I'm kidding. I'm kidding. So, here's here's the interesting thing, right? So, there's two paths. There's two destinations. The Bible makes it very clear. When you die, you're either going to hell or you're going to heaven. And I didn't point on the side of the rooms, right?
It does say the narrow path where there's not as many people over here in the wide, right? Oh. Oh, don't be moving seats now. Oh, boy. Luckily, I don't have an email, so we're good. But there's two paths. And just like I said about Superman, the audience that's watching the movie or comic book sees the alter egos are the same person. Clark, Kent, and Superman are the same, but the people that are in that universe don't know. They're different people.
We're like those people. Yet God sees the truth in the end. And the prom and the problem that we live in now is if we pursue a counterfeit gospel, this is the whole premise of this. If we pursue a counterfeit gospel, if we pursue a counterfeit lifestyle, we will reap a counterfeit salvation that leads to hell.
Right? Is our walk with God a legitimate or are we counterfeits?
Guard your heart to what you listen to. Guard your ears to what you pursue and guard your eyes from the wicked that looks good.
Cameron McCarty · 42:37
So this is an interesting thing, right?
So earlier this week, I asked Kirk Merrick what his favorite drink of choice was, and it was this. Let's see if it fizzes and gets all over me.
Perfect. Look at that. The Lord is good to me today. This is us. The cup is us. This is truth. This is what God has intended truth to be. He begins to pour truth into us today. Do you see that? This is to be drank. Can you drink that and make sure that's exactly what you said you liked? Yep.
It is, isn't it? When we dive into truth, this is what happens. We begin to get poured in by something. This is a drink to be consumed. That's what it's mainly for. Yet, when we begin to live, that's okay. When we begin to live and pursue and follow a counterfeit pastor, we begin to let them pour into our lives. Right?
The thing is, I poured a little bit too much in there, but overall, give it a minute. If you look on the top, it looks the same. It looks the same. Here's the kicker. Would you drink that now? Why not? It's because this right here is not intended to drink. You would get sick. It would poison you. Thank you for coming up. Can you do me a favor? Can you take that and then dispose of it for me? Don't drink it. Yeah. Yeah. Don't drink it.
The cup is us. Every single day, every single choice that we make, something is pouring into our lives.
Cameron McCarty · 44:41
What is pouring into your life? He drank it at first cuz it was good, but afterwards it was not. It looked okay. If you guys didn't see what I just did, it might have fooled some of you. They disguised themselves as wolves.
And the only way to know a counterfeit from a legitimate is do we know what the legitimate word says today. This is a hard message. It's not easy, but it's good news to hear today. Oftent times pastors with this particular verse will begin to name drop pastors and denominations and things, but I'm not going to do that. What I want to do is something better to give you resources to pursue truth.
My whole thing with youth is never for indoctrination. Yeah. The truth is pastors are just sharing the news. Yeah.
I'm not here to make you believe anything. I'm here to point you to a way that you can know truth if you actually cared enough to look at it.
Cameron McCarty · 45:52
Could you put that last slide up there? This is important.
I could stand up here. I have many opinions and tell you all the bad people out there, but eventually those people will die out and somebody will replace them. And at the end of the day, it does not matter what I think about them. But this is a way you can begin to guard your heart. Number one, you must read the Bible. To know truth from a lie, you must know what truth is.
The next one, you must pray to God. God has given you a path where you can have a communication and a relationship with him in your life today. You don't have to pursue man. You can pursue him. Oftent times, religions can easily be those that are just accomplishing task and not having the heart pursuing God in the mix.
Scary. The third thing, pursue God, not men. Jesus says, "Seek first Cameron McCarti." Oh, no. That's not on there. Why? Because that's not how it is. Seek first his kingdom and everything will be added. Oftent times we can be so distracted, we're like a hamster on a hamster wheel getting nowhere with full effort on it. Pursue God with all your heart, all your strength, and give him your attention today. This is important because something today, right now, is pouring into our life. It's either pouring us deeper on the wide path or pouring us and straightening us on the narrow path.
The truth is really hard that there's no in between when death comes for all of us. But there is good news today. There's ways to equip ourselves, ways to protect ourselves. The question is, are we going to be those people that seek truth over anything
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