Welcome to the Liberty Baptist Sermon Archives.
The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist
Church in Easton, MA. You can find out more about us
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message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.
Well, we are in second Peter chapter #2 and I do think it's
important for us to talk about liberty and talk a little bit
about freedom because of the weekend that we have here.
I even brought this tie out to be able to commemorate the fact
that it is our Independence Day just a couple days ago.
I'm thankful for the freedoms that we have here in the United
States of America. I'm thankful to live in this
area, the country that we live in, because we have history all
around us, don't we? I mean, we kind of take it for
granted a little bit how much history that we have just in our
backyard. We have Plymouth, just a 40
minute drive way in One Direction.
We have Boston where you have the Freedom Trail and you have
Faneuil Hall and you have Baptist history there in Boston
where you have the spot where the Boston Massacre took place
in the 1700s. But almost 100 years before
there was a different massacre that took place when Obadiah
Homes was arrested and beaten for holding an unlawful prayer
meeting in Lynn. Now that may be the last time
somebody prayed in Lynn, all things considered.
If you're around here, you know, Lynn is the city of sin, right?
But, but Obadiah Holmes was beaten for that.
And by the way, part of Baptist history was there was a
president of Harvard who was there watching.
His name was Henry Dunster, who was so impressed by what he saw
and by the Baptist distinctives that he became a Baptist
himself. And Harvard couldn't handle
that. And they threw him out.
See, Harvard was even going liberal 400 years ago.
How do you like that? So you have that out there.
You have. Lexington and Concord, I mean,
there's so much history around that I take AJ to his
pediatrician appointments and I can look out from the window in
Boston and see Dorchester Heights, where Washington put
the cannons to start the siege of Boston.
And we have this all around us. And sometimes I think we just
get so used to it because there's history.
Or every town that one of you lives in has a house that George
Washington slept in. Or walk past or or someone that
knew George Washington was a right.
Look, you're laughing because you know I'm right.
I mean, history, liberty, freedom, it's all around us,
that history that we have. But I will tell you that I'm
glad to celebrate American history.
I'm thankful for the freedom that we have here in the United
States of America. There's nowhere I would rather
live than here in the United States of America.
But I do want us to have some clarity this morning about an
issue that I think is found here in.
In the word of God, and that's it.
If someone truly wants liberty, if someone really wants to
experience what liberty and freedom is all about, it's not
found in a government, It's not found in a country.
It's not found in a royal line. True freedom can only be found
in one place, and that's in Jesus Christ and Christ alone.
Would you stand pleased for the reading of God's Word?
We're in second Peter chapter #2 and we're actually going to take
a larger section. Of Scripture and in theology we
call that a chunk. So we're going to take a larger
chunk of Scripture here. We're going to go from verse 15
all the way to the end of the chapter.
So you follow along as I read when it says this, which have
forsaken the right way and are gone astray, following the way
of Balaam, the son of Bosor, who love the wages of
unrighteousness, but was rebuked for his iniquity.
The dumb ass, speaking with man's voice, forbade the madness
of the prophet. These are wells without water,
clouds that are carried with a Tempest, to whom the mist of
darkness is reserved forever. For when they speak great
swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the
flesh, through much wantonness. Those that were clean escape
from them who live in air, while they promised them liberty.
See that word right there? They promised them liberty.
They themselves are servants of corruption, for of whom a man is
overcome of the same as he brought in bondage.
For after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through
the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are
again entangled therein and overcome.
The latter end is worse with them than the beginning, for it
have been better for them not to have known the way of.
Righteousness, then, after they have known it, to turn from the
holy commandment delivered unto them.
But it's happened, it has happened to unto them.
According to the true proverb, the dog is turned to his own
vomit again and the sow that was washed or wallowing in the mire.
And that's a repeating a retelling of Proverbs chapter
26, verse 11. Why don't you be seated this
morning and then we're going to look at this issue of what true
liberty is. We see a lot of examples of what
it. Is not right.
In these 7 verses, and it's actually appreciate that the
message that Brother Rocky really kind of went together
really well with what we're going to talk about here this
morning through no coordination of ours whatsoever other than
the coordination of the Holy Spirit.
But I want us to see this morning that while bad beliefs
bring bondage, Christ is the giver of life.
Bad beliefs bring bondage, but Christ is the giver of life.
Heavenly Father, I pray that you would be with us here this
morning as we get into the Word of God.
Allow me to be able to say what needs to be said to bring
encouragement to your people. But most importantly, if there's
someone here who is sitting within this room or who could be
watching online or listening later, who comes to the
realization that they don't know you as Savior, that they have no
assurance of heaven, I pray that this would be the very day that
they come to that great assurance and pass from death
unto life. We thank you for this all.
Ask your blessing upon it in Jesus name, Amen.
In our text we see that there's a promise of liberty that comes
with false teaching. Yet this promise is only
illusion. It's like a mirage in a desert.
It seems to offer something of which it does not.
And so maybe we asked ourselves this morning, what is false
teaching? I know we've talked a lot about
false teaching and false teachers already here in Second
Peter, not only in chapter #2 but even on our Wednesday night
series. Looking at the book of that so
well connects with Second Peter. We were looking at that just a
few weeks ago. But what is false teaching?
If I was to summarize it in a very quick way, it would be
this. It's anything that is in
opposition to the truth that is found in the Word of God.
False teaching is anything that is in opposition to the truth.
Well, where do we find truth? What is the arbiter of truth?
Well, God is truth and the arbiter of truth, the revealed
truth that we have today is found for us in the very Word of
God. Now where can you find false
teaching? And probably a better question
is where can you not find false teaching?
Because really, it's everywhere, isn't it?
You can find false teaching in lots of different places.
And we can think of some of the usual suspects.
We can think of many of the world religions, well any
religion that doesn't speak of Jesus Christ being Lord and
Savior and the only way of salvation, which would well be
Christianity, Amen. But any religion that would
teach any other way, well Nope, that would be false teaching.
Well, a cult maybe. They name the name of Jesus
Christ, but take who Jesus Christ is and distort him into
something that he is not. That would be false teaching.
False teaching could come in the form of a televangelist who has
a large following, a large bank account and a spray tan.
That could be, hey, there's a good crowd this morning.
All right? He's saying, yeah, I'll be here
all week. All right.
But no, it's no. But that's what what we think of
false teaching. That's what we're thinking
about, aren't we? Those are the the typical places
in in other religions and cults and and televangelists or the
popular television stations that seem to proclaim a form of
Christianity but deny the godliness thereof.
No, no, That's what we normally think of.
But there's also some places that false teaching is not so
obvious as well. They can be found in popular
self help books. They can be found in Christian
podcasts. They can be found on reels
online that you watch on social media.
And it seems like something that might be good but you find out
it's maybe not so good at all. They can be found in a church
member. Who might be giving false
information from the word of God, you say would that actually
happen in the church? And no, I'm not accusing anyone
here at Liberty Baptist Church of that.
No, certainly I'm not. But what I am saying is that we
would be remiss to to think that this happens in churches all
around the world. Why?
Because Jesus Christ warned us of that very issue.
He said in Matthew Chapter 7 verse 15.
Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing,
but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
Jude verse 4 For there are certain men crept in unawares,
these creeps that come in and they say that they believe what
the word of God says. But once they kind of come in
and gain the confidence of certain people, then they turn
people away to their false teaching.
Anything that is against and contrary to the word of God,
that would be false teaching. Now listen, I'm not talking
about being wary of everything you hear and everyone you meet.
I'm not talking about being suspicious of everyone and
everybody. I'm not talking about being wary
of everybody, but I am talking about being aware that false
teaching is real. It's pervasive and it comes in
through our laptops, it comes in through our phones, it comes in
through our television, it comes in through media, it comes in
through any and every way so that Satan can oppose the very
things of God. Now.
Now, why would someone turn to false listen when you have
living water? Why would someone want to drink
from polluted water when there's living water that's available to
all mankind? Why would someone want any other
water? Well, there's a lot of different
reasons and I can probably summarize it this way.
There are some who are empty headed and that might sound like
I'm trying to be rude or belittle someone.
And I don't mean that. I'm not trying to say that
someone has no mental faculties when I say empty headed.
They just haven't thought about the things of the Lord before.
They never really considered it. And someone comes along with
some teaching that sounds appealing and they immediately
gravitate to it. They might be empty headed.
Listen, they might be empty handed.
There's a lot of false teaching that's out there today that
says, listen, if you sow a seed, then you'll have everything that
you want. All you got to do is give in the
plate and you'll have the fast cars, you'll have the nice
houses, you'll have everything you need.
And I will tell you this, if that's the case, I'm looking at
the parking lot right now. We're all doing it wrong.
Because I see some puddles of oil.
But I don't see a lot of Ferraris, you know what I'm
saying? So some of their appeal because
they're empty handed, many are appealed to it because they're
empty hearted, because it seems like nobody cares and someone
comes along with a slick presentation and open hands, but
they don't realize what is behind all of that.
False teaching appeals to the empty headed, to the empty
handed, to the empty hearted. But Peter here describes false
teaching in several different ways.
No, he exposes what false teaching is here in these few
verses that we just read. And he says, first of all, that
false teaching offers error, False teaching offers error.
Look again at verses #15 and 16. It says, which have forsaken the
right way and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the
son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness, but
was rebuked for his iniquity. The dumb ass, speaking with the
man's voice, forbade the madness of the prophet.
You see, false teachers have taken that which is good and
pure and right from God's word and distorted it, and have
turned it into error. And Peter uses as an example
this this man named Balaam. Now we don't have time to go
back into all this back story of who Balaam was.
But you might remember that when the people of Israel were
traveling to the promised land during that long journey that
they took, that there was a man who came that Balak, the king of
Moab, who approached Balaam, who was some sort of prophet who at
least knew who God was. And he approached him.
He says, all I need you to do is curse the people of God.
And he says, there's no way I can do that.
And he says, well, I've got a lot of money.
He said, hold on a second. And he goes back and prays and
the Lord says you can't do that. And he says, well, but Lord, I
really would want to do it. I mean, look at all that money
back there. And so there's a back and forth
that takes place. And eventually Balaam does go
and tries to pronounce woes upon the people of Israel, but God
overrides him. And every time he tries to
pronounce a woe, God ends up blessing them more and more.
Now, in the midst of all that, Balaam is riding off to the
appointed place where he's going to look over a precipice and is
going to try to pronounce those woes upon the people of Israel.
And all of a sudden his donkey talks to him and turns around
and basically says this, What's the matter with you?
What are you thinking? You know the.
Craziest part of that text is Balaam doesn't even seem
surprised by this. He just has this conversation
with his donkey. He's like, well, what's the
matter with you? And the donkey says, what's the
matter with you? And they kind of go back and
forth. And you know what's interesting?
And it says in verse #16 that he was the man's voice forbade the,
the, the, the donkey speaking with a man's voice forbade the
madness of the prophet. You know what the maddest part,
the craziest part of that whole account is not the donkey
talking. The craziest part of this
account, according to what Peter is saying here, is that a
prophet who had some idea of who God was decided I would rather
not listen to God. I want to preach what I want to
preach so I can line my pocket. He was preaching error so that
he would be able to be enriched. And there's a lot of that's the
taking place today. Boy, I can name a lot of
different ministries and I can name a lot of different programs
that have 800 numbers. They might as well have 900
numbers to have you call. You know why?
Because that's what they're looking for.
They're looking for getting into your home, they're looking to
getting into your bank account. And there are widows and there
are those who are elderly who are just looking for a little
bit of hope and they're just looking for a little bit of
help. And they call to one of these
numbers where someone on the other line has a very saintly
type of voice and writes down a prayer request, which no one
likely will ever pray for. But what they're really writing
down is 16 digits a month and a year and a three digit CV code.
You know what I'm talking about. They need your numbers.
And there's a lot of error that's out there with false
teaching. Jude, as I mentioned, very
closely mirrors the book of Second Peter.
And the reason we studied Jude as we were approaching Second
Peter was because of the overlap between these two books.
But in Jude verse #11 he says woe unto them, for they have
gone in the way of Cain. They ran greedily after the
error of Balaam for reward and perished in the gain.
Of core and some of you that were here on that Wednesday
night that we preached through that verse might remember the
three types of false religion that we looked at that Cain had
the facade of religion. He he looked religious because
of what he brought, but he wasn't listening to God.
He was just listening to what he wanted to do.
The facade of religion. Balaam was all about financial
religion, the error of a finances of gain preaching as a
hireling for reward. And then Cora mentioned his core
in Jude 11. But Cora was fractured religion
that he opposed the things of God.
He thought that he could be in the place of Moses and and it
doesn't really matter what flavor it is and that's why
three are mentioned in Jude one's only mentioned here.
But we can break it all down to this.
It's all error. It's all wrong.
And so while false teacher may false teaching may seem to offer
truth or or it's speaking something that no one else is
talking about. By the way, this is free, but be
be. Very wary when someone says
they'll tell you something that nobody else on this earth is
talking about right now. Because I will tell you this.
The revealed word of God reveals to all who are willing to
listen. But if you have one, Preacher
says, look, me and my closest 10 associates, we're the only ones
that know about this. Listen.
If you can't run, walk as fast as you can away from that,
because that is error. False teaching offers error, but
it also offers this. It offers emptiness.
Look at verses #17 and 18.
These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a
Tempest, Tempest to whom the mist of darkness is reserved
forever. For when they speak great
swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lust of the
flesh, through much wantonness. That means reckless indulging
without restraint, acting uncontrollably.
Those that were clean escape from them who live in error.
And here Peter offers the irony of the whole issue.
Remember I said who are the ones who are looking for false
teaching? It's typically the ones who have
some emptiness within them. They're offered something of
which they don't have. But yet once they get beneath
the surface, they come to a place where they realize that
all the promises that they were made were wrong.
The rug was pulled out from under them, they thought they
would have something, and they were left with even less than
they had before. 2 examples are used here in verse #17 wells
without water. Could you imagine being in the
desert? I mean, we have to look at this
within the context and without the with the understanding of
the people who lived at this time.
Imagine being out in the desert. There's no 711, there's no
Bucky's, there's none of these things available.
You have the water that you're carrying with you and your water
is spent. And you just need a place where
you can refresh yourself. You need a place where you can
refill yourself. And you finally see a well and
with great pain, you, you throw the bucket down and you start to
realize as you bring it up, it feels pretty light.
And the reason it's light because when you bring it to the
top, you realize there's nothing inside of it.
And you lean down to that well. And as best you can see, there's
nothing in there. You were so hoping when you saw
that well from afar that it would be life saving water and
the disappointment when it's empty again.
We can't imagine the agrarian Society of which many of them
lived during that time. I'm not a farmer, nor am I the
son of a farmer, nor am I related to farmer.
I don't even know a farmer, all right, But I've sang the farmer
and the Dell before. That's about it.
All right. But I don't know any of these
things. But this is what I do know.
I do know this. If I lived in that society in
that time, if you had a harvest that was supposed to come, if it
didn't come, there were no government programs to help you.
There was no backup. Listen, you could have spent all
of your money on seed and watched it absolutely parch
your, your, your growth out there in the fields.
And could you imagine realizing we could lose everything?
There may be no harvest. There's been no rain for days or
weeks. And then you see a cloud and you
realize we're saved. It's rain, It's it's time.
We're we're going to get some rain.
It, it's finally going to come and, and the crops are going to
grow and we're going to be OK. And as you see that cloud pass,
not a drop of water comes out of it.
It's empty. Could you imagine the
disappointment, the heartache? What Peter is saying here is
that's what false teaching is. It makes a lot of promises and
it does not deliver. False religion takes that is
pure and that is right and perverts it for its own use, and
you can find that in many different ways.
Islam acknowledges a prophet of God, Jesus, but perverts his
person and his work, denying his deity and atonement, thereby
offering a false path to God that Jesus is not just a good
man. He is not just an enlightened
one, but that he is the very Son of God, God the Son and the Son
of God, and he is the only way to salvation and Islam teaches
opposed and it is false. The prosperity gospel takes the
biblical truth that God blesses his children and twists.
It twists it into some get rich quick scheme, turning faith into
a money making scheme rather than trust in God.
Charismaticism takes a preacher who stands before a proud a
crowd and and says God gave him a word that has nothing to do
with the word of God and that people will follow what he says
and ignore the revealed word of God.
That's dangerous. It's false teaching, so it's a
good thing Baptists don't have anything like that.
Baptists can be into false teaching too.
You can get false teaching and even good Baptist churches.
You know why? Because anytime we pervert what
this book says and present something that is true that is
not found in this book, we have gone the way that is very
dangerous. It's easy for us to preach our
preferences as if they're in the Word of God.
It's easy for us to present standards as the way to
salvation. No, friend.
Jesus is the way of salvation. There is no other way.
And whether it's whether it's Islam or or whether it's
Buddhism or whether it's it's the Jehovah's Witnesses or or
whether it's bad teaching in a Baptist Church, if it's opposite
of this word, it's empty. There's nothing in it.
It says right here that that there, there is nothing with it.
A well without water, a cloud carried to The Tempest, and
great swelling words. But then when you get to the
end, there's really nothing there that's right.
There's emptiness, there's error.
But you know the worst part of all?
It leads to this. That emptiness and that error
leads to enslavement. Look at verse #19 while they
promised them liberty, they themselves are the servants of
corruption. Look, look at that.
They've been promising liberty. But here's the problem.
They don't have the liberty they're promising, right?
Yeah. I think this is key.
They are promising something of which they don't even possess
because they themselves are the servants of corruption, for of
whom a man is overcome of the same as he brought into bondage.
Do you realize that when we are saved in Jesus Christ, we are
called unto liberty, that we have a new life.
But this error, this emptiness, this false teaching that it ends
up not just being, well, I guess it's another way.
It's not just as good as the other way.
No, no, it's not just a not as good way as the way.
No, this is the only way. Every other way is error and it
leads to enslavement. It leads enslavement in this
life. I think of the Scientologist.
I learned a lot about Scientology living in Tampa
because the Scientology headquarters is in Clearwater.
In fact, they've taken over most of downtown Clearwater over the
past 20 or 30 years. Did you know if you were to be
in the C organization called C Org, that is the most elite of
those who are in Scientology, you have to sign over a billion
year pledge of your life. You said pastor, did you
misspeak there? I misspeak a lot, but I didn't
there. A billion year.
That means every life that you have following this life, you
belong to Scientology. If you decide to leave, you are
given, it's called a freeloader bill.
That means you have been part of their group and they have helped
you and they have sustained you. And if you were to walk out, you
could owe them up to $100,000 and they will find you and they
will make you pay. See, Pastor, I, I don't think
that's real. No, I, I've read books and
articles about this and I'm probably, listen, the half has,
has not yet been told. And that's just one group.
Why? Because false teaching leads to
enslavement. You think it's going to bring
life and you think it's going to bring joy.
You think it's going to bring happiness.
And they promise you all those things and infinitely more.
In fact, often times they'll promise you everything you want
to hear, but in the end, you're enslaved in this life.
But I will tell you this, it's not just enslavement in this
life, it's enslavement in the life to come.
Revelation 21, Eight. But the fearful, the
unbelieving, the abominable. The murderers and the
whoremongers and sorcerers, idolaters and all liars shall
have their part in the lake of fire which burneth with fire and
brimstone. Which is the second death, you
say? But Pastor, many of those people
were probably well-intentioned. Many of those people probably
were very sincere and what they were believing it, frankly.
Please understand, as I've made mention before when I talk about
those who are involved in false religions and cults, that I'm
not attacking them. I'm not attacking the adherence.
What I'm doing is attacking the authorities and the articles of
faith. No, no, we want to love these
people to come to Jesus Christ. We're not trying to call them
fools. We're not trying to call them
anything of that nature. We're trying to lovingly tell
them, no, no, what you're doing is not giving you life.
In fact, it's enslaving you in this life and it will enslave
you in the life to come. But what we're telling you is
this, that. Jesus Christ loves you, yes, but
they're going to be many who are sincere but will be sincerely
wrong. Jesus said in Matthew 721
through 23. Not everyone that saith unto me,
Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven.
But he that doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven, many
will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not
prophesied in Thy name, and in thy name have cast out devils,
and in thy name have done many marvelous works?
And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you depart
from me that work iniquity. Those who are taught that you're
saved by your works and work their whole life to be saved
have followed a false teaching. Those who follow any other way
than what the gospel says. Jesus Christ and Christ alone,
not by works of righteousness, which we have done by his grace.
He saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of
the Holy Ghost. He said the washing of
regeneration, that's the washing of baptism, right?
No, it's being washed by the blood of Jesus Christ.
I was washed in the baptismal font when I was six months old.
I cried a lot. At least that's what I was told.
But I wasn't saved. But on the 2nd December, 2nd
1998, I had to come to the place where it wasn't my baptism, it
wasn't my confirmation, it wasn't the Lord's Supper, it
wasn't keeping my nose clean. I wasn't doing a good job at
that anyway. But it was Jesus Christ and
Christ alone that saved me. Everything else offers freedom
but really brings enslavement. You may remember the story
living in the Boston area back in 2016.
There was a woman named Laura Levis.
She died from a slow onset asthma attack outside Somerville
Hospital in the September of that year.
Levis, who lived a few blocks away from the hospital, couldn't
find her way to the emergency department and couldn't find
anyone to help her. She was 34 years old.
She dealt with asthma of the type that was slow onset, and
she lived close enough to Somerville Hospital which she
believed that she could more easily walk to the hospital and
get help. She walked there around 4:00 AM,
made her way up a hill to the emergency department and saw 2
doors. Neither was clearly marked.
The one she walked to was locked.
She called 911, has transferred multiple times.
In a recording from one of those calls, she can be heard
struggling to breathe and struggling to speak, saying
she's having an asthma attack and is slowly dying.
Surveillance cameras actually captured the series of events.
Her husband, who was not home at the time, said her death should
never have happened. It was the result of a complete
breakdown in our emergency healthcare system and the
emergency 911 system. I watched an interview with her
husband and he said this, that very likely from the
surveillance footage, she could see people inside the emergency
room and the door was locked and no one was there to save her.
I can't think of a much more tragic story than that, to have
something so minor, so treatable, to end up being
someone's demise because something was marked to bring
life, but what was offered wasn't actually being offered.
At the moment. The doors were locked, the
lights were off and no one was answering the phone.
To me, that is a very vivid example of what false teaching
is. You can look at the promise of
life, but you can't touch it, you can't handle it, you can't
get close to it. In fact, that which seems to
offer life only and ultimately brings death.
And I will tell you here today, if you've come from any other
tradition where you thought there was some other way to be
saved. I say this not to be bold, I say
this not to be arrogant, but I say this upon the authority of
the Word of God and the Word of God alone.
It is only by calling upon Jesus Christ that you can be saved.
And if you push Him away, and you do not call upon Him to save
you, that you will spend an eternity in the lake of fire.
I say that without any joy. I say that not because I enjoy
telling people that hell is real, but I say it because it is
true and it is real. And know this.
This is not the Baptist way versus the Catholic way versus
the Methodist way versus the Lutheran way.
Well, you are a Lutheran pastor and so is the Lutheran way
against the Baptist way. That's where it's really at.
You know it's about Jesus is. The way, right?
And the truth and the life and no man cometh under the Father,
but by me. See, false teaching offers error
and emptiness and enslavement. And if I was just to say, bow
your heads and close your eyes, and that's it.
And that was the five minutes I cut from the sermon that's
coming up. We'd be in trouble.
But the good news this morning is this.
Well now, this afternoon is this is that while false teaching
offers emptiness and error and enslavement, Christ offers
eternal life. Praise be to God, there is
liberty that is found in Jesus Christ.
There's no liberty in this, but there is liberty in Christ.
Isaiah 61 verse one. The Spirit of the Lord is God is
upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good
tidings unto the meek. He has sent me to bind up the
broken hearted to proclaim liberty to the captives and the
opening of the prison to them that are bound.
Later in Luke chapter 4, Jesus is going to go to the synagogue
in his hometown of Nazareth and he's going to be seated.
He's going to open up the scroll and he's going to speak from
Psalm or rather Isaiah 61 verse one, the verse I just read you
and he is going to proclaim himself as the one who will free
the captives, meaning this He will free you from your sin.
He can free you from your sin if you call him upon him to save
you. 2nd Corinthians 317 the verse, the life verse of Liberty
Baptist Church. Now there is.
Now the Lord is that spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is,
there is. Liberty AW Tozer said Jesus
Christ knows the worst about you.
Nonetheless, He is the one who loves you most and sets you free
from your worst. Today understand this.
There are many thought processes that offer life, joy, peace,
enlightenment, knowledge, and a host of other wonderful things.
But only Christ offers eternal life.
All other ways are false ways. And lead to death.
One preacher put it this way, if Jesus is not the only way that
he's not the way at all because he claimed to be the only way
Acts 412 neither is there any salvation in any other for there
is none other name under heaven given upon men whereby we must
be saved. And I want to encourage you
beyond encourage you. I want to beg you here today if
you don't know Jesus Christ as your Savior, if you've never
trusted him fully and completely to forgive you of your.
Your sins and to give you a home in heaven.
There is no better day than this day to call upon Him to save
you. Whether it's December 2nd, 1998
or whatever day you got saved or whether day, whatever day
someone that's close to you got saved.
Do you have a day? Do you have a time?
Do you know that you know that Jesus Christ is your Savior?
There is no more important decision that you can make in
your life. Why?
Because all other teaching leads to error and emptiness and
enslavement. It's only through Jesus Christ.
The the tour group I heard went to Plymouth a few days ago.
I love Plymouth and, and I'm going to say something that if
you've been to Liberty Baptist Church for a while, you know my
feelings about this because you likely feel the same way.
I love Plymouth and I am very underwhelmed by the rock.
I got tired of taking people to Plymouth.
Let's go to Plymouth. Let's see the rock.
And you get there. You try to warn them and they
get there and they look at that and they want to say it.
Everybody wants to say it, but nobody does.
They look at it and they want to say this.
That's it because, yeah, for hundreds of years, people were
chipping away. And that's why they put it in
the middle of a pit where nobody can get to it.
So you you stand there, you look at it, you just want to walk
away, but you know, you have to have some reverence.
So you stand there for a few minutes, you look at it, you
look around, you look at your watch, you look at some more.
And then you look around again and you say, hey, let's go get
some lobster. And that's.
What you do, and that's a day in Plymouth.
All joking aside, what we love to do when we take people to
Plymouth is not we go to the Rock.
You have to go to the Rock. You're too close, but we spent a
very short time there. And then we go to the
Forefathers Monument. I don't know how many of you've
been to the Forefathers Monument.
It's interesting, you know, the Commonwealth and our and our
country doesn't like to highlight our nation's Christian
heritage. By the way, we were founded with
Christian heritage. And it's interesting that you
have all of these large signs that are out there for all of
these different things. In the Forefathers Monument has
a sign that's written on a postage stamp.
And this isn't even hyperbole. Well, it's a little hyperbole.
It's not a host postage, but it's about this big.
If you don't know it's there, you don't even know.
Most people use it as a dog walk.
I've seen more people walk their dogs around than than actually
inspect it. But it is one of the largest
granite statues in the United States.
It's 40 minutes from here and you see.
This woman who has a Bible under her arm and the other arm
pointing to the sky towards the Lord as she stands with her eyes
gazed upon England saying this, that's where we were from, This
is where we are, but this is where we're going.
And you look at all of the different images that are on the
side of it explains the the heritage of the pilgrims.
It's incredible, it really is. But I will tell you this, Those
people came to the United States looking for liberty.
They came looking for liberty. They were held under by an
oppressive government that would not let them worship the way
that they intended to. They then went to Holland for a
short time and then came here to, well, what is now the United
States. They were looking for liberty.
But if you're not careful, when you go through Plymouth and you
go to the plantation and you go to all those other places, you
would just think they were looking for freedom, you know,
Cuz freedom, America, you know what I'm saying?
Yeah. That's an eagle, by the way, in
case you didn't know. All right?
Yeah. So are we live all right?
Yeah. It'd be a good time for the
Internet cut off. But, you know, America, freedom,
you know what I mean? But that's not the freedom they
were looking for, right? Even.
Yeah, they were looking for freedom in Christ to be able to
worship as they saw fit. They were looking for something
better and they were looking beyond a place.
Well, by the way, they weren't even looking for here.
They're trying to go to Virginia.
And they were the first person and people in Massachusetts that
got lost. And the rest of us have followed
in their footsteps ever since with all our crazy roads.
But they ended up here and they have staying here.
But they weren't looking for this country.
They were looking unto A heavenly country.
And that's where true liberty is.
In fact, if you go to the back of that pilgrims forefathers
monument, it says this by William Bradford.
Thus out of small beginnings greater things have been
produced by his hand that are made all, that made all things
of nothing, and gives being to all things that are.
And as one small candle may light, 1000, so the light here
kindled hath shone unto many, yeah, in some sort of the whole
nation. Let the glorious name of Jehovah
have all praise, and this is. What our nation was founded
upon. But I will tell you this, this
is the type of freedom that you need in your life.
If you don't know Jesus Christ as your Savior, you need to know
him today. And I will say this, and I will
be done if you are saved, if you do know Jesus Christ your
Savior. I believe there are many of us
that if we're not careful in our flesh, that we feel the
Christian life is confining, it's constricting.
Well, you know, you become a Christian.
You don't have any fun anymore. Yeah.
You become a Christian and just the Christian life is just it.
Listen, it's just all this. Don't do this, don't do this,
don't do this. And it's just, you know, you
want to be a Christian, that's fine.
But your life's going to be over.
That's just the way it is. And that's the way the world
talks about Christianity sometimes.
But I'll be honest with you. I've seen even in our good
Baptist churches as this mindset.
Well, you know, I guess I'm saved.
I guess, you know, well, those people look like they're having
a lot of fun. But I, you know, I guess I won't
have fun because I'm because I'm saved.
No, I'm serious. We can get that in our flesh.
Start to see. Hey, no, no, you go to a ball
game and you see a bunch of people drinking beer and say,
well, they must be having a good time.
No, I'm serious. No, you go out to the
restaurant, you see people, they're laughing and they're
having fun. And you said, man, it looks like
they're having a good time. And here I am being a Christian.
Could I remind you that following God's law as a
believer offers joy without baggage.
Love, that is. Pure fun that you can remember
in the morning. Yeah, Amen.
Sex without shame, pleasure without regret.
A clear conscience at night. And you can remember things the
next day. Galatians 513 says, For
brethren, you've been called unto liberty only use not
liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one
another. Hey, we're free in Christ, for
that freedom makes us want to serve him and gives us greater
joy, greater peace, greater love, greater everything because
we know him. That's freedom.
So this week as we add to our faith, enjoy the freedom you
have in Christ. And if you aren't in the faith,
heed the gospel called. Be saved today.
Bad beliefs bring bondage, but Christ is the giver of life.
Thank you for listening to the sermon from the pulpit of
Liberty Baptist Church. If this message was a blessing
to you, or if there's any way we can serve you, please let us
know by contacting us at info@mylibertybaptist.org.
Or you can visit us this Sunday at 800 Washington St. in Easton,
MA. May the Lord bless you as you
grow in His Word.