Regaining Lost Ground

Pastor Shane Idleman: That's why 1 Corinthians was written, 2 Corinthians was written. Church, here is how you conduct yourself. And we need regulation. I do, you do. Some of us are more conservative, so we need to open up a little. Others are too emotional. You need the guidelines of God's Word. You need to read what Paul said, all things must be done decently and in order. Self-control is a fruit of the spirit. You say, "I don't know what to do, the spirit is leading." No, self-control.

Guest (Male): Thank you for joining us here at Westside Christian Fellowship, located in Leona Valley, California, one hour north of Los Angeles. Today on Regaining Lost Ground, we hear part one of this clarifying message titled Prophets, Problems and Promises. Puritan preacher and author Thomas Watson once said, to know that nothing hurts the godly is a matter of comfort, but to be assured that all things which fall out shall cooperate for their good, that their crosses shall be turned into blessings, that showers of affliction water the withering root of their grace and make it flourish more. This may fill their hearts with joy till they run over.

Today, Pastor Shane brings the truth of God's living word from Acts chapter 15, placing a spotlight on the struggles for most Christians and the promises for deliverance to the faithful. Strengthen your soul and overflow with God's spirit in this powerful encouragement to awaken the church and let the fire of God burn deep here on Regaining Lost Ground. You can hear the whole message at Pastor Shane's YouTube and Rumble channels. Make sure to subscribe today. For more information, visit us online at westsidechristianfellowship.org. We also encourage you to hear more truth from Pastor Shane with the Idleman Unplugged weekly podcast. And now, from Westside Christian Fellowship in Leona Valley, California, here's Pastor Shane Idleman.

Pastor Shane Idleman: Prophets, problems and promises from Acts 15, message 62 in the book of Acts. I've been going through the book of Acts verse by verse for the last probably year and a half. It's an interesting topic and I want to unpack it, but I want to encourage you. Get next Sunday on your calendar too because I wanted to preach that this Sunday but it didn't really fit. It's going to be about being led of the spirit. How do you know if it's God's voice or the Holy Spirit leading?

Next week it talks about the spirit led them, the spirit forbade them, the spirit closed the door. How do you discern what's of God and what's not? So that's next Sunday. Get that on your calendars as well. I'll be going into a little bit more on that. This one is focused on prophets, problems and promises. I do want you to listen to last Wednesday's message I gave, how to wait on the Lord. The feedback has been really encouraging.

How to wait on the Lord is going to go with Sunday's message on being led of the spirit. For some people, they've been asking me because they can't do a fast with us in October for Rend the Heavens, but you can start one now. One great way to be led of the spirit, to hear the voice of God, is to silence that strong voice of the flesh for a season. Consider fasting the month of July. What that looks like is between you and the Lord.

I do know it's a spiritual discipline. The early church did it Wednesdays and Fridays. The Didache talks about it. Early church fathers, Justin Martyr, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Ignatius, and then Wesley and Whitfield. It's been something that we've lost. I think it's hard because there's fast food on every corner and it's so available and we think it's legalistic. There's something powerful about telling your stomach to be quiet today. Be quiet, king stomach, I'm dethroning you.

You can always jump into a fast. When you get in a routine of just constantly eating, constantly consuming, it's good not only spiritually but physically. God designed us to refrain from food. You guys have been hearing that probably all the last couple years on autophagy and how our cells consume. The body cleans itself when you're not eating. Not only does it have spiritual benefits, it has physical benefits as well.

We are in Acts 15 verse 30. "So when they were sent off, they came to Antioch; and when they had gathered the multitude together, they delivered the letter. When they had read it, they rejoiced over its encouragement." I'm sure many of you are wondering what letter and what this is all about. A couple weeks ago I talked about a certain fraction in the church who said, "Okay, you believe in Jesus, but you also have to do this and get circumcised."

They said you have to follow the laws of Moses. I know you believe in Jesus, but you've got to add something to that. I really brought the point home that it's not Jesus plus anything. Aren't you glad? When he said, "It is finished," the word tetelestai in Greek means it's complete, it's done, it's over. They started to put all these rules on the early church. The early church went and had a big meeting and now they're coming back with the results.

The results are basically that you don't have to do that. But here's what we do advise: against sexual immorality, of course. They talked about food being strangled or eaten with the blood, which had to do with pagan worship practices. Pulling away from those pagan worship practices and avoiding those things. You don't want to eat meat that was sacrificed to an idol. They had to avoid that because the more they would intermingle, the more they would be influenced.

The Old Testament prophetic voices would say you mingled with the Gentiles, you learned of their ways, you practiced with them, and you were drawn away by them. Remember Balaam, the doctrine of Balaam, where he actually said to send the Moabite women into the camp and they'll draw the children of Israel away on their own. That's constantly the devil's attack: to draw you away from God via influence.

What begins to entertain you and who you begin to follow, you become like that. Many people aren't strong enough to pull that person up, they're being pulled down to them. Influence is very important, especially for younger adults and those maybe not strong in their faith. Obviously the church rejoiced. We don't have to get circumcised. We are in desperate need of encouragement today as well. Liberty brings hope. Liberty brings hope.

They were not bound under this law that you're going to have to follow Moses's laws. One of the disciples rebuked them and said, "We can't even follow it. Now we're going to have the Gentiles follow it?" I've noticed over the years so many people who are just so legalistic and rigid. There's no liberty. That's what I call a modern-day Pharisee. You've got to make sure you're doing this and doing this. I know you're all wondering, but it's the King James Only guy.

Unless you're in the King James, I'm leading you astray this morning by using the New King James. They put all these rules on you. You've got to celebrate the festivals. Why are you meeting on Sunday? That's of the devil, that's the mark of the beast. You've got to meet on Saturday only. Women, you can't wear pants, you've got to wear a dress down to your big toe. Now, there are good ideas in there. Dress modestly and be appropriate.

Celebrate the Jewish heritage. But when you start to put all these like a chain and you have to, it takes the joy away from Christianity. It absolutely does. I used to force stuff on me. Fasting can become a form of bondage if you're not careful. There's a lot of things that we have to be careful of, but principles do bring joy. Following God's principles brings joy. God's principles are guardrails.

I'm not saying just do whatever you want. You have liberty, but Christian liberty is always restrained by God's principles. Take that little mountain, I'll call it a hill. People say, "I can't drive that big mountain." That's not a big mountain. Drive to Yosemite and you'll see some big mountains. As we drive over that little hill, you have the liberty to go wherever you want, but the guardrails are the principles.

Same with God's Word. We have liberty, but we want to stay within the guardrails to protect ourselves. It's such an important aspect of obedience. I love this part: they delivered the letter. This is really where we start to see the Bible unfolding. How they would have church is they would read letters from the Apostle Paul and letters from James. You're going to hear this a lot from people that challenge you.

They say the Bible was written by a bunch of political men around 300 AD at some council trying to control people. Actually, that's not true at all. The early church began to read just the letters of those who knew Jesus, the Apostles. The letters were passed all around for hundreds of years. Then a council met in around 335 AD. All they did was say, "These are the letters. This is the canon of scripture."

We have the Old Testament and the New Testament letters. That's how they came up with it. It wasn't manipulating and trying to throw it together. It was recognizing what the early church had been doing for 300 years. We do have the authority of God's Word. Thank God. Can you imagine if we didn't have anything? Who's right, you or me? How should we conduct church? How should we treat others? How should we act?

The gifts of the spirit and allowing what... how do we function without the Word of God? In the New Testament, it was challenging because they were experiencing a powerful move of the spirit, and then Paul would write letters. 1st Corinthians was a mess. There was drunkenness and debauchery and speaking in tongues out of order. They're actually going to the Lord's supper and taking all this food and not letting poor people eat. The church was a mess.

I love what D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said. He said, "Living children need rules. Dead children don't." He was actually commenting on the dead condition of the reformed church of his day because they were against the moving of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the spirit. He reminded them that living children need rules. I would much rather lead a living church than a dead church. "Pastor, that lady was speaking in tongues at the..." Okay, let me talk to her.

Praise God for more of that. I'd rather have that than the dead cemetery, legalistic, arrogant Pharisee who has nothing but critical things to say. Give me a living, vibrant church and we can put the restraints of God's guidelines on that because those people are teachable and they're humble. We need the living, not the dead. He caught a lot of flak. That's why 1st Corinthians and 2nd Corinthians were written.

Church, here's how you conduct yourself. We need regulation. I do, you do. Some of us are more conservative, so we need to open up a little. Others are too emotional. You need the guidelines of God's Word. You need to read what Paul said: all things must be done decently and in order. Self-control is a fruit of the spirit. You say, "I don't know what to do, the spirit is leading." No, self-control.

There are times when God's power hits a place, but weirdness doesn't happen, brokenness happens. You hear the weeping, you hear the altars full, and you hear people crying out, confessing. That's a genuine, powerful move of the spirit. That's really where we got the letters from the Bible from. This is so important because many today... I got into this when I first started the church, I would meet with pastors. It got exhausting.

They called it the emergent church movement. They said we don't need pulpits anymore, we need a couch. We don't need to preach, we need to have a conversation. It was just weak and it was woke. It was woke back then, but they didn't have a name for it. They said we can't speak with the authority of God's Word, we need to have a flexible approach to all beliefs. Truth is not flexible when it comes to absolutes.

It's solid, it's unyielding, and it's an anchor for the soul. It's the foundation for our lives and you have to be reminded of that. This would fix so many problems. I don't mean to go off on different religions on purpose. It's not in my notes, but things come to me. For example, with Roman Catholicism, one thing when I came out of that was papal authority. Papal authority is over scripture.

They get to determine and add things: Co-Redemptrix Mary, perpetual virginity, immaculate conception, praying to the saints. It's all over scripture and it's not healthy. Very rarely will the Mormons pull out the Bible first. What will they give you first? The Book of Mormon. Jehovah's Witnesses do that too. "Here's what the Watchtower says." Here's what the Bible says. You get off course when you don't have that.

Some guy the other day was online and said, "You've got to read this article." I don't need to read the article, I read the Bible! How many problems would that fix if we said, "This is our authority for all life and godliness, because God said it, not me"? Here's what else you'll notice in debates with these groups. I drove to Valencia and had a debate with a priest for hours. Let's bring out the Bible.

They wanted to use other things to interpret. Can we just read scripture? Can we just let it speak for itself? For example, purgatory came up and I said, "Show me in scripture." "Well, the council and the..." I don't care! Where does it say in the Bible that you've got to now go pay for your penalty of your sin after Jesus died and you believe? I'll never forget, he looked at me and said, "But Shane, how do you deal with all your guilt and shame?"

I realized I don't think a lot of these people are saved. I dealt with that 26 years ago when I repented and believed. It's gone, brother! I don't need to go spend time in purgatory to be purged. You get away from the Bible. I love Mormons. I've got family members that are... I hope they're not watching on Facebook. If you go look, it does believe... Joseph Smith taught that God was once like you and you will become like God.

The Bible says that's blasphemy. You will not be married to a celestial wife and have spirit children. That's what it teaches. I'm a coward if I say nothing. I want to step on toes so much that people research it. They will see we have drifted away from the Word of God. That's the standard. None of that's in my notes. I don't like making enemies, but I don't want to be an enemy of God because I was silent and passive.

Everything I just said is the truth. Many of those people are on the highway to hell and we don't want to help them because we don't want to offend them. The goal is to offend them in love and have them get so upset they go and research it. Every time I get Catholics mad at me, I say, "Go research what the papacy taught. Go research the councils of 1200 and 1300." But they don't want to.

Can there be Christian Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Mormons? If they're right with the Lord. But I don't know how they would stay in a system that's like that. People ask, "Shane, how do you know you're right? That's pretty arrogant." I'm not right! This is not my opinion! This is the Word of God! That's all we have. It wasn't Shane deciding to make some religion or form a church, it's the Word of God from 2,000 years ago.

God confirmed it. Now we're going to get a little interesting. Ready? "So now Judas and Silas, themselves being prophets also." Oh my goodness, prophets. We got prophets today? Yeah, they like to have YouTube channels and name themselves Prophet Such-and-Such. We've got prophets everywhere and apostles everywhere. God help me. Now Judas and Silas, apparently they themselves were prophets and they strengthened the brethren with many words.

Two things: Do not be afraid of biblical terms. Just because somebody's weird on YouTube and does weird things in the name of a prophet or apostle doesn't mean you throw the baby out with the bathwater. These are biblical terms. Prophet is a biblical term and apostle is a biblical term. Baptized in the spirit, charismatic, anointed: these are all biblical terms as long as they're used by the right people.

That's where we get into trouble and people lead people astray. They do all kinds of weird things and they say "the anointing" and it's weird and confusing. Many false prophets rise up. I'm still processing all this because it says they will do works in His name. False prophets will do works in Jesus's name. He'll say, "Depart from me, I don't know you" on the day of judgment.

The only thing I can gather is sometimes sincere people listen to a false prophet and they believe in their heart they're believing God, and God meets them there. Because of their belief, He heals them or sets them free. But it doesn't mean the prophet is right. That's where it gets tricky. There's people in LA right now, Apostle Such-and-Such, Prophet Such-and-Such. Big names. Lord, give me grace because I don't want to speak ill, but also we have to be very careful in this area.

Hello, this is Pastor Shane Idleman. I wanted to let our listeners know that due to budgeting issues, we will be removing Regaining Lost Ground from some of the radio stations that we currently air on. Therefore, to continue listening to the sermons, I want to encourage you to follow me and Westside Christian Fellowship on YouTube and Rumble today, as well as other social media platforms.

Again, due to budgeting issues, we will be removing Regaining Lost Ground from some of the stations that we currently air our program on. Therefore, to continue listening to the sermons, I want to encourage you to follow me as well as Westside Christian Fellowship on YouTube and Rumble, and also follow us on all other social media platforms as well. If you have questions, please reach out to us at westsidechristianfellowship.org.

Guest (Male): Westside Christian Fellowship is located 60 miles north of Los Angeles in Leona Valley, California. Thank you again for listening to today's message of Regaining Lost Ground, where we are reminded daily: times change, truth does not.