This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Lewis
Harold, assistant pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland
County in Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Lewis as he
continues teaching through God's Word.
And even our leadership did it in 2015 and drape the entire
White House with the rainbow for gay pride.
God have mercy on us. Have mercy on us.
And then again, even with the chance to transgenderism, if we
go to Genesis, back in Genesis chapter 1 and verse 27, it's
very clear. In my opinion, it's very clear.
Gender and sexuality are topics that are leading in culture
today, being discussed often. The world has a very specific
opinion about these topics. Gender is fluid and sexuality is
whatever you decide it is. But is that what the Bible
teaches? No.
God created men and women distinctly, and sexuality is
meant to be enjoyed in the context of marriage between one
man and one woman for life. Pastor Lewis reminds us of this
biblical truth today and encourages us to stand strong no
matter what our world says now. Here's Pastor Lewis in the Book
of Second Timothy, Chapter 3, with today's edition of Living
Waters of Grace. Let each of you look on not only
he says not only he's not saying that you never look on your own
interest, but he says don't look only on your interest, but also
on the entrance, on the entrance of others with this self love,
this pride. It's it's love instead of
worshipping and loving God, OK. When we love ourselves instead
of worshipping and loving God, what they do is that they love
themselves and make gods of themselves and become users of
people for their benefit. And that's one of the dangers of
loving self because we begin to instead of loving people, we use
people, we use people for our own benefit.
The next one he talks about, he talks about the lovers of money,
lovers of money. And when you love money, it be
you become covetous because you want what money can give you.
And that's a part of self love. Become lovers of money.
You go out and go get the things that give you pleasure, the
things that feel your lusts. And instead of using things like
money, which is provided by God to provide for our own needs,
instead of using them for that, or use them to glorify God, or
use them using money to bless other people, instead of using
it that way, we love money and make idols out of the money and
the things and often things. But we use people instead of
using money. We instead use people instead of
loving people. So it's a misplaced love there.
It's a misplaced love. We should be loving others, but
instead we love things and we use others.
We get it backwards there. We get it backwards there.
And what Paul is saying that in these last days people will
misplace their love. They'll love themselves and
things instead of loving God and loving others and using things
for God's glory. The next one he says is
boasters. He talks about these boasters.
Boasters. This is vaunting and praising
themselves. If we are to boast.
The Bible tells us that if we do boast, we are.
We should boast in the Lord and not in ourselves.
The boasters are people who like to make I statements.
I statements. I did this, I did that.
I have this or I have that. I have this ability or I have
that ability. I'm I'm this and I'm that.
It's a lot of I statements enjoy telling you things that they've
done to help somebody else or things that they have done that
promotes themselves. It's vaunting, it's prideful,
and these things come directly. This boasting comes directly
from Satan himself. If you look back in Isaiah
chapter 14, verses 13 and 14, I'll just read it to you.
You don't have to turn there, but it says, for you have said
in your heart, I will ascend into heaven.
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.
I will sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest
sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights
of the clouds. I will be like the Most High all
these I statements I will, I will, I will, I can, I can, I
did, I did beware of these I statement These are people who
are full of pride, full of pride.
Psalm 32 and two says this my soul shall make its boast in the
Lord and the humble shall hear of it and be glad and I just
also want to read for you Jeremiah.
This is one of my favorite verses actually, when it talks
about boasting and talks about who we should boast or how we
should boast. But in Jeremiah 9 and 23, he
says, Thus says the Lord, let not the wise man glory in his
wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, let not the
rich man glory in his riches. But let him who glories or let
him who boasts, let him boast in this that he understands and
knows me, that I am the Lord, exercising loving kindness,
judgement, and righteousness in the earth.
For these things, in these things I delight, says the Lord.
If we are to love somebody, we're to boast.
If we're to glory in anything, it should be in the Lord,
because no matter what it is that we have anything of any
significance, anything that's any good, it comes from Him.
We don't have anything of our own, anything.
It all comes from him. So where are we able to boast?
In Second Corinthians 10/17 it says, But he who glories or he
who boast, let him boast in the Lord.
And then he and then he talks about this, this pride, this
pride, these the next one is proud.
These people are proud, they're arrogant of themselves, they are
wise in their own hearts. And pride actually leads to
rebellion against God all the time.
Pride leads to rebellion against God and and pride, you know,
what pride mostly comes in at is in our reluctance or in our
neglect to pray because when things are going well, we feel
like we got it. We got it.
You know, I'm Lord, I got this now.
I don't need you man, not for this.
So we don't pray, we stop praying.
Praying is one of the most important parts of our humility.
It shows our humility. If there's anything that shows
our humility, most it's it's our prayer time.
When we go into prayer and we surrender to the Lord and we let
Him know how helpless and powerless we are and how great
and how mighty he is, that's where our prayer time is about
in many cases. And and when we don't pray, it's
a sign of our pride. The arrogance to think that we
can handle things on our own or the Lord is the last one that we
do go to for prayer. When we pray, we look at every
other Ave. look at every other resource, everything else, and
then we go to the Lord. It's like, well, this is my last
resort. It shouldn't be our last resort.
It should be the first thing we do.
This should be the first thing that we do.
So pride does lead to rebellion eventually reach it leads to
rebellion against God and against his word.
There's some biblical examples of this rebellion, you know, for
example, the Tower of Babel, that is an example of rebellion
against God. When God opened the the door of
the ark and he let Noah and his three sons out, he told him to
be fruitful, multiply and spread it over the earth, go out
throughout the whole earth, fill the whole earth.
Don't just go to one place, He said, fill the whole earth.
But then these people came to Babel, Shinar, which is
basically Babylon. He came there and, and, and
instead of doing what God told him to do, they said we want to
stop here and we're going to make a city here and we are
going to build a tower here that's going to go up to the
heavens. Because we can do anything of
ourselves if we just stick together and we put our minds to
it. There's nothing that we can't
do. We don't have to obey that
commandment to go spread out that let's all stay together.
Let's be of one language. So Tower of Babel, we're not
going to do it, Lord, we're not going to spread out.
We're not going to go out. We're going to all stay
together. But God is God.
If you don't submit to his will, He will make you willing to
submit to his will when he desires to.
And that's exactly what he did with them.
Pharaoh. That's another example of
someone who just wanted to rebel against God.
Let my people go. No, I'm not letting your people
go. Who are you, God?
Who is your God that I should listen to him?
Total rebellion. Pharaoh thought he was a God
himself. Total rebellion, and God had to
humble him as well. Well, we're seeing a lot of
rebellion today. We see it also today.
Look at the rebellion that we have in the sexual immorality of
our life. You know, people, you know, God
said this is marriage and this is where sex belongs.
It belongs in marriage. It's the marriage bed that is
honorable and undefiled. But fornicators and adulterers,
God will judge. It's what the Scripture says in
Hebrews. But today we have people and I
did it. I was in rebellion against God.
At one point I thought, I don't need to get married.
I could just live with this woman, I love her.
God said no, no, it was in rebellion.
And today it's in rebellion. When people live together as
opposed to get married, I can. It's basically them saying I
don't have to listen to God's command.
I can do what I want to do. I can be with who I want to be.
I don't need some piece of paper to tell me that I'm married.
I don't need to stand before God and make a commitment to him to
say that I'm married. Well, it's God's institution.
Yes, we do. He make this institution.
He put this institution in place.
We didn't do it ourselves. It's rebellion against him when
we don't do it his way. It's also rebellion with this
gay, with this, this marriage of, of gay pride in this
marriage even in fact, they even call it gay pride.
It's them. It's, it's them being prideful
and basically saying, God, I'll tell you what, my God, no, God
said marriage is between a man and a woman.
It's between a man. For this reason, shall a man
leave his wife and be 1 flesh? I mean, I'm sorry, a man should
leave his mother and his father and be joined to his wife and be
1 flesh for that reason only. A man leaving his wife and every
wife is a woman, every wife is a woman leaves his man leaves his
wife and and and leaves his family and goes to be joined
together with his wife. But now in our society we say we
don't have to do it that way because you say it.
I can be in love with whoever I want to be in love with.
I'll join myself to whoever I want to join myself to.
I don't have to listen to you God concerning that.
And he already he told us that in Genesis chapter 2 and he told
us again, Jesus even said it. And I, you know, I, I, I
shouldn't, I shouldn't and I admit it that I shouldn't.
But I do get a little annoyed when I hear people say Jesus
never talked about gay people not being able to get married or
not being able to be together. He most certainly did in Matthew
19 when he repeated the same thing that God his father.
He said it back in Genesis chapter 2.
For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother
and be joined to his wife. What is Jesus telling us?
Marriage is between a man and a woman, and anything else that
people want to call marriage other than that is in rebellion.
It's in rebellion and even go as far as they call it gay pride.
They admit it. It's our pride that we do this
out of rebellion. And then it goes even further.
They took the rainbow that God gave to Noah as a sign that he
will not destroy the earth again by water.
They took that sign, that covenant sign that was from God,
and they put it on their banner. And even our leadership did it
in 2015 and draped the entire White House with the rainbow for
gay pride. God have mercy on us.
Have mercy on us. And then again, even with the
chance to transgenderism, if we go to Genesis, back in Genesis
chapter 1 and verse 27, it's very clear.
In my opinion. It's very clear, He says.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God.
He created him, male and female. He created them.
Now I've looked and I've searched and I've still have not
been able to find where he created them.
Male, female and transgender. I haven't found it yet.
Don't think I will. Again, that is in rebellion to
God. You don't tell me, God, whether
I'm a man or a woman, I tell myself it's based on how I feel.
Rebellion, total rebellion. And this is the world we're
living in. This is the world we're living
in. So when you say the last times,
boy, it sure sounds like it, doesn't it?
The last days sure sounds like it.
I think you've heard me enough on that one.
OK, blasphemers. And I think I make this one last
look. Like I said, we can't.
I want to take my time and go through these because I don't
want to rush to them because there's so many messages in
this. But blasphemers is are those who
speak contemptuous and bitter words against others.
It's acting or or causing slander, revelling or showing
lack of reverence for God, showing opposition to the
authority of God and of God's word is blasphemy, blasphemy.
And we're going to see a lot more blasphemous people or
people who are blaspheming God in the later days.
We're always starting to see some.
We're already starting to see some.
Anyone who goes against the authority of God, heresy.
All that is blasphemy and it's in First Timothy 6 and one it
commands against that behavior that blasphemy should that that
you know anybody who any behavior that blasphemes the
Lord First Timothy chapter 6 and verse one talks against that and
this is what it says it says let as many bond servants as are
under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor so
that the name of God and his doctrine may not be blasphemed.
We don't do anything against God, anything against His word
or his doctrine that would be blasphemous against him.
And I'm going to do one more. He talks about disobedience to
parents, and this is the last one I'm going to do today.
But when you talk about disobedience to parents, it's
really disrespect for parents. And when you disrespect your
parents, if you, if you can do that and disrespect your parents
and do that continuously, then you're not going to have any,
any respect for anybody else. If I don't respect my parents,
who should I respect? I obviously don't respect God
because he's the one that gave us that 5th commandment, right,
that says honor your father and your mother so that your days
will be long upon the earth. He's going to give us that
commandment. So if I disrespect or if I don't
honor my father and my mother, that I'm already in disrespect
to him. I'm disrespecting my parents.
I don't honor them. I'm not in obedience to them.
So then who will I obey? I'm not going to obey anybody,
not going to obey anybody. And this is what this is talking
about. In the last days, there'll be
people who just won't have any obedience to any authority.
They'll just do whatever they want to do, no boundaries, Just
do whatever they want to do, whatever pleases them,
regardless of who defends, regardless of what laws it may
break. Don't care, don't care.
But I want to say this, I want to say this in closing, and then
we can pick this up again next week.
But I want to say this, that in order for a child to be
disobedient, there must first have been instruction.
There must first have been commandment.
There must first have been guidance.
Johnny, don't do this. Don't do that.
That must have been spoken first.
Because if our children don't have any guidance, if they've
never been given instruction, if they've never had any
expectation of what to obey, how can we call them disobedient?
They can only obey what they've been given commandment for, what
they've been given instruction for, and that comes back to
parents. But if you have parents who are
disrespectful and not obedient to their parents, how would they
raise theirs? That's why it's so important to
be in a place of teaching where you can be under the word of
God. So that young parents, I applaud
you young people who are bringing your children and
they're seeing you come and sit under the word of God.
Those of you who are teaching your children at home the word
of God, they understand discipline, they understand
authority, they understand that you are under authority.
And you are the first example, just like Jesus Christ was an
example of that for us. He was under the authority of
his Father when he walked upon this earth.
Because I only do what my father does.
My father says, I only do what my father says.
I don't do my own thing. Even when it came to going to
the cross, he said, Lord, I don't want to go, but not my
will. Your will be done.
I'm not going to disobey you. I just want to know is there
another way I can do this? But I'm not going to disobey
you. I'm not going to dishonor you.
He's our example, so we must be an example.
Forget if they see us that we are submitted to God, that we
are submitted to his authority. We're submitted to his leading.
Then when we give direction to them, we're not telling them to
do anything that we're not doing ourselves.
And that's important and that's important.
So we want to close there with disobedient to parents and we
come back, we'll go into unthankful and unloving and all
of those, you know, it's such a blessing because as we read
through these, we see how Jesus was in almost every situation
was just the total opposite of all those things.
And and I don't know about you, but even as I look at some of
those things, I think about it. So you know what some of those
things actually was me and some of those things are even me now.
Sometimes I get off, I get off cue.
I still need the Lord to help me to not fall into these things on
a regular basis. I still need the Lord to give me
direction, to give me instruction, to give me those
boundaries. I still need the Lord to do that
for me and to work in my heart so that I'm not disobedient, so
that I'm not lovers, a lover of myself, so that I don't become
in love with money and what money can do.
I don't want that to be me. I don't want to be proud.
And there's times that I can be. I can be those things without
the help of God. I can be all those things.
So Lord, I need them. I need you.
I need you to help me with this all the time.
And as I think about Jesus Christ, he was our example.
He was our example of what to be here in the Earth realm, and he
walked in a way that was so selfless that it took him all
the way to the cross. That's why he gave his life for
us, because he was selfless. If he was a lover of self,
there's no way he would have gone to the cross for us.
But he was selfless. He came to be a ransom for us
and we knew deserve it. Thank you for tuning in to
Living Waters of Grace with Pastor Louis Harrell.
We're currently in the books of First and Second Timothy.
Some of the things included in these New Testament letters from
Paul are that the young and newly established Pastor Timothy
was being encouraged to hold fast to what was true.
He was challenged to confront and address the false teachers
that were rising up. He was also reminded to accept
his calling to the ministry with gratefulness and to address the
happenings going on in the Ephesian church.
Paul was imparting his experience and knowledge to the
next generation. Timothy was receptive to
learning and gleaning what he could from Paul's wisdom.
This is how it should be in ministry across multiple
generations. Those who have lived a little
more life should be open to sharing their successes and also
things they've learned along the way that we're not a wind.
The younger generations coming up can learn and appreciate much
from those ahead of them and perhaps avoid some of the same
pitfalls that their mentors work through mentoring.
It's a beautiful relationship when the hearts are in the right
place to learn and grow. You trust that you're in a
community where this is happening.
Older ones providing advice and wisdom and each side learning
and growing from one another. This certainly was the case for
Paul and Timothy as they were comrades for the sake of the
gospel. For more information on where
this teaching came from, go to calvarychapelonline.com.
There you can also learn about our service times to join us in
person. This has been living waters of
Grace.