Simple Faith

Bill Henry: What's your attitude when it comes to God's rules? Don't just know it, seek to lovingly obey it, not to be saved, not to get saved, not to keep our salvation. That's all by grace. No, we do this because we love God. Jesus said, "If you love me, you'll what? You'll obey my commands."

And he also told us that when you do sin, confess your sins and he's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins, cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Our goal is to be holy as he who has called us is holy. We won't be perfect. We're going to fall every single day because we still have our flesh, but we don't excuse it, and we don't continue in it.

Guest (Male): This is Simple Faith with Pastor Bill Henry, and we thank you for joining us today for our weekly prophecy and news update. As you must know, there's plenty going on these days in the news, and the lawlessness and outright sin we see around us is not only approved of by the media and the secular world, but it's also celebrated. So, without further ado, let's join Pastor Bill for today's message.

Bill Henry: Well, hello once again and welcome to Stay Awake Radio. What a blessing and a privilege it is to be here with you once again today on this weekend edition. I always like to come in and talk a little bit live about what's happening in the world, and I pray that in the midst of everything, the Lord is blessing you and deepening you in these days.

The news, where do we even begin? Sincerely, I found a little meme, if you will. It says we live in a society where homosexuals lecture us on morals, transvestites lecture us on human biology, baby killers lecture us on human rights, and socialists lecture us on economics.

It is so true. We are in the days that Isaiah warned of when he said, "Woe unto those," the Lord speaking through him, "Woe unto those who call good evil, evil good, put light for darkness and darkness for light." That's where we are. We're in the days where so many in the name of love and tolerance and peace are setting forth lawlessness and murder and ungodliness.

Sadly, so many within the church are embracing this today. I don't even know where to start. Do we start with Tim Walz, Governor of Minnesota, comparing ICE with the Nazis? You can't even begin to see the wickedness of what is happening. It's really sad. This fellow last week who was killed by ICE, and it was interesting, I just saw a quote by the President who basically said, "Look, this whole thing is a tragedy."

This fellow that got killed, tragedy. A tragedy for ICE, a tragedy for everyone there. But if he would not have been there doing what he was doing, if he had not resisted arrest, if he had complied with the lawful orders that were given to him by agents of the federal government, none of this would have happened if they hadn't been there illegally doing things. Both of them breaking the law.

Yet nobody talks about this. Is it sad? Is it tragic? Yes. I will never celebrate the death of anyone, even a dire enemy that somebody might hate me or I still won't celebrate their death, never. But at the same time, we need to be those who are not afraid to speak the truth. I'll be honest with you, I get it from all different sides. I get it from you're speaking the truth too much to you're not speaking it enough.

I had a fellow contact me a few months ago basically saying that he didn't agree with me about illegal immigration. It doesn't matter what if he agrees with me or not. God's Word is very clear. God is the one who sets up the borders of the countries. God is setting up there's going to be walls and gates in heaven. No one can get in except those who are supposed to be there.

Every country in the world has immigration laws. There's not one that I'm aware of that you can just walk into, walk out of, every country, including if you went down to Mexico, you went down to Venezuela. They will arrest you and either send you back or put you in prison. That's just the truth.

The hypocrisies, the lies, the deception, and I guess that's what I would like to warn you about today, beloved in Christ. There is so much happening. So we have all that stuff happening. At the same time, there's another news story. Here's the headline: Bethel Church responds to Sean Bolz's sexual misconduct allegations and fake prophecy scandals.

Bethel is a false church. Bill Johnson is a false teacher, false apostle, as he calls himself. I don't have any problem saying those things and I don't say it maliciously, I just say it truthfully, biblically. What they teach there is not biblical. Again, I'm not saying some of what they're teaching there. What do they say? You always try to mix the lies in with the truth so that people will swallow it more easily.

It's just a wicked thing. You have all this insurrection happening around the country, this terrorism, as they're attacking ICE agents for doing their lawful jobs. By the way, so many less people have been arrested now than under President Obama. But again, I'm not talking the politics. I don't care about left, right, center right now. I'm talking about the truth and lies.

I want to encourage you. I was talking to our church about this on Sunday. Be careful. These are days, no coincidence, we're in Matthew chapter seven, verse 15, where Jesus warns about false teachers that would come, false prophets that would come, and outwardly they're sheep, but inwardly they're ravenous wolves.

So you have so many of them. I just read another story today. Pastor comes out as trans during Sunday church service. This was just a few days ago now. You can't, again, make this up. It's wickedness. Yet they're putting forth as light. There's so many different stories. There's another story here in Washington State, up in the Seattle-Tacoma area.

A man was walking his dog at 6:30 in the morning, and basically some fellow walked up to him, asked what religion are you, the guy said I'm a Christian. The man proceeded to start stabbing that guy, the Christian, and he stabbed his dog. Thankfully, that man survived, was able to tell the police to give a description. The man ran away. When they went to arrest him, they ended up having to shoot him.

The wickedness just continues. Like I mentioned earlier, Alex Peretti, this fellow that was killed last week by ICE agents as he was attacking them as well as they were resisting arrest. He was armed, which he should not have been. Again, it's tragic that he died, and I'm not even sure that the shooting's been cleared yet, so I'm going to hold off on everything.

But I will always give the preference at first to those officers, those men and women who are putting their lives on the line for us to keep order and law because our God is a God of law and order. If you don't believe that, go and read the Bible all throughout from Genesis to Revelation. Romans chapter 13, so many all throughout the Word of God, God is a God of order.

So when you have these guys, everybody keeps talking about how this fellow, Alex Peretti, it just came out today in another news story that he actually had resigned from his hospital job several months before all of this happened and said he was acting out of character.

Then it goes on to talk about another news story talks where he had just been had a broken rib from ICE a week before. How do you get a broken rib? And then if you saw him in these pictures or the videos, how was he then out wrestling like he was? I'm not saying it's impossible, but it sure is weird and it does show that he's out there breaking the laws.

He should have been in prison for doing what he did. Here's the thing. I wish they would just start arresting the people who are impeding them doing their jobs, and then that takes away the chance that they're going to hurt somebody or somebody's going to even hurt them. But it's just getting more and more wicked.

Another story, Virginia nurse calls on people to inject ICE agents with deadly paralysis drug and also to spray them with oil derived from poison ivy. You can watch the video. It's right there. She's just telling them. Look, Jesus said that in the last days this lawlessness would increase. He said that there would come this time.

He says in Second Timothy 3:1, "Understand this that in the last days will come," or said in, "perilous times of great stress and trouble." It goes on to say in the amplified, "hard to deal with and hard to bear." So that's where we are. My heart isn't to depress you even further, but to bring the hope and understand that, you know what, God said these times would come.

We have to understand that there is that refuge for the Christian, there is that place that we can come and gain strength and stir each other up to love and to good works. As we come together as the bride of Christ, as we go to church every Sunday and hopefully a midweek study during the week, Wednesday, and we're going to home groups, our home fellowships where we're getting more and more plugged in, we're gaining strength.

I like how somebody said it, and I might have mentioned this last week, but do we think of church and our Christianity as a cruise ship or a battleship? We should be thinking of it as a battleship. A cruise ship Christian, we're just along for the ride. Everybody else does everything for us. The battleship Christian, it's supposed to be all hands on deck.

The world needs to hear about Jesus. We need to stand up against this ungodliness. I don't mean to stand up and go break the law. No, I mean to stand up first and foremost on our knees in prayer, but also to be unafraid to start speaking the truth, whether it be online, whether it be at home with friends, whether it be in emails, whether it be whatever, to stand up and say no, this is wrong.

As we're fellowshipping at church, we're gaining strength. We come together and we say, "Hey, how are you doing? Let me pray for you. What's going on in your life? What's the Lord showing you? Let me tell you what he's showing me," and to encourage each other to gain strength. Then we go out into the world and we are just so blessed because we just bring these things out there to share with the world, the truths of God's Word by the power of His Spirit.

I just want to encourage you in that. Yes, in the last days these times will come, and it's getting worse. Jesus talked again, we've talked about this before, lawlessness increasing. Is it coincidental that Jesus said that and then we see in Thessalonians that Satan is called basically the man of lawlessness? We know that he's also the father of lies.

So we see this lawlessness. That's one of the things I want to encourage you as Christians to be careful of. Do not embrace it. I know that in the name of love and in the name of charity, we want to embrace those poor people who have come here, these illegal immigrants that have come here and are living here, sincerely, the ones that aren't the extra criminals, if you will.

How do we not love them and try to minister to them? But at the same time, they are breaking our laws. Sadly, many of them that have come don't care about the law, and they're murdering people, they're raping people, they're stealing, and there's all these different things that are happening. Yet a lot of times we, in the name of love, will sacrifice law and order.

It's not really to me a hard balance at all. Hey, look, you're here breaking the law, you need to go home. Go try to change your own country. Stand up with your brothers and your sisters and try to make that a better place, or come here legally. I don't know if you know this, too, but a lot of if you are here illegally, you can go through legal channels and get citizenship.

I don't know if they've frozen that, but I know just a couple years ago, a friend of mine had daughters that were dating people here who were here illegally. He offered to pay. Hey, look, here I'll pay for a lawyer. Once you get that paperwork started, he told me that they freeze you. In other words, if you're here illegally, all of a sudden they won't deport you now because you've started the legal process and that you're going through that legal thing.

One of them actually went on to become a citizen. One of them rejected that offer and didn't want to do that. But my point is we cannot sacrifice one for the other. They both coexist. We can enforce the law and we can do it in love. We don't do it in hatred. Oh, they're a bunch of jerks and we hate them. No, we love you, but you're breaking our law. You need to go.

It's an interesting thing that we are living in these days where good is being called evil, evil is being called good. When you stand up and you say, "Hey, look, this is what the law says, this is what the Bible says, and we need to obey," oh, well, you're the mean one. I've had people tell me that they're saying what I'm saying right now.

This isn't mean. This is biblical. This is godly. This is actually loving. Whether you like it or not, and there's so many different things that go along with this. But I will say this, and I've said this before, I lived in Australia for six months. I traveled there, lived there when I was younger, in my 20s. For a while, I was an illegal immigrant working there.

I wasn't legally working. I worked several different jobs. I knew that I could get caught and that I could get deported. But here's the thing. I never was angry at the government. I never thought oh, those mean Australians and I can't believe they're going to uphold the law. Never once. It's like well, this is a chance I'm taking and if I'm caught.

And again, this is when I was a very young Christian. Today I wouldn't break that law unless again there was extreme circumstances, but I would trust God. We don't go around just breaking laws, ignoring laws, but I did. I flouted the law then. But at the same time, I don't blame the people for enforcing their own laws.

That's what's happening today. First break laws and then they get mad at the people for enforcing the laws. That's silliness. That's wickedness. If we claim the name of Christ, we have to be consistent. We have to be careful of not being hypocritical in how we're living. Some would say, well, you're being hypocritical. No, I'm being biblical.

What about what God said about what commanded Israel that when the sojourners are coming and this and that? God still established the boundaries of Israel, didn't He? Those people are sojourners, by the way. It doesn't mean they're staying. They're traveling through. A lot different. Don't go to this thing and say, well, Jesus was a illegal immigrant. That's not true in any sense of the word. Not true at all.

Yet sadly some what we call progressive Christians, they're just woke Christians, they lie about it. I there's nothing else to say. Look, we have to stop the lies and let's just tell the truth. If there's problems in other countries that people are fleeing from them from, I get it. But let's help those other countries and let's do it in the name of Jesus Christ.

Let's go there and do what God is putting on your heart and let's stop expecting the government to do everything for us and instead, let's be those Christians that God has commanded us to be. As we move forward in these days and we see all these different stories from pastors standing up and coming out as I'm a trans now a woman, I'm a transgender and the church is okay with that, that's wickedness.

That's, again, lawlessness. It's breaking God's law. It's breaking all common sense. It's nonsensical. It doesn't even go with logical thinking. And yet so many are beyond that, aren't they? And even many who claim the name of Christ, they don't even care what the Bible says anymore. And then they try to explain away, I hear these people say oh the Bible doesn't say.

I just heard a fellow the other day, Bible doesn't talk about marriage at all. You just do whatever you want. It's like that's a complete lie. Jesus talked about marriage over and over. If you go back in the beginning even with Genesis, in the beginning He created them what? Male and female. He created them male and female. Created them male and female over and over and over again.

We might not have understood that 10 years ago like we do today, but today it's like oh, the Lord knew this was coming. So he said it over and over so we wouldn't have to guess. Jesus reaffirmed what marriage was as he pointed back to Genesis. In the beginning it wasn't so. He defined what marriage was between one man, one woman. That's it.

He doesn't have to go through now and say well this isn't marriage, no you can't marry a tree, you can't marry a car, you can't marry a dog, you can't marry another woman, he doesn't have to say any of that. He can't marry three people. He said what marriage was and that's it, period.

As the lies continue to come, as the deceit continues to come, I'm going to tell you something and encourage you: be a Berean. In the book of Acts, Paul was sent to this little town called Berea, and they were more fair-minded we're told there in the book of Acts that as they heard the teachings of Paul, every day they went home and they checked the scriptures to see if what he said was so.

Look, guys and girls, do that every time you hear somebody teaching. Me first. For Bill Henry, Pastor Bill Henry, look, take what I say, go to the Word of God. What does it say? What does God say? It is living and it is sharper than any two-edged sword and it is still more than relevant for today.

In this time of lies, and I encourage our church this almost every Sunday and Wednesday night, know your Bible like you've never known it before. Be in the Word like you've never been before. Even if you read it every day, then read it twice as much and study it and memorize it. Don't just know it, seek to lovingly obey it, not to be saved, not to get saved, not to keep our salvation. That's all by grace.

No, we do this because we love God. Jesus said if you love me you'll what? You'll obey my commands. And he also told us that look that when you do sin, confess your sins and he's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins, cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Our goal is to be holy as he who has called us is holy.

We won't be perfect. We're going to fall every single day because we still have our flesh, but we don't excuse it and we don't continue in it. We certainly don't do what we just read that pastor earlier, we don't embrace it. We turn away from it, we crucify the old man, we crucify the old woman, we deny ourselves daily, pick up our cross and follow after Christ.

It's a narrow road, Jesus said. It's a narrow gate, it's a difficult road, but few there are who find it. But he also said many are on that wide path and there are many and I think he's talking about those who profess him as Lord. Those who say they're Christians but they're not because that whole section there at the end of Matthew chapter seven is about fake believers versus true believers, false believers versus true believers, the tares amongst the wheat, the goats amongst the sheep and even as I mentioned earlier, some wolves that are amongst the sheep dressing up.

Look as we're closing I just want to encourage you on that. Be a man, a woman of the Word of God, be in fellowship at a church, be serving, be tithing, be helping financially other ministries, be one who is fasting on a regular basis, be one who is praying in their prayer closet every day and reading God's Word, seeking to lovingly obey it, and building that house in Christ, letting him build that house in you.

When those storms come, Jesus said that house will stand because he is the master, he is the foundation, and he loves you and may the Lord just bless you. I just always like to say this: may he keep you, make his face shine upon you as you stand in these days. Read Ephesians chapter six afresh, and we always like to say we'll see you here, there, or in the air. The Lord bless you.

Guest (Male): This has been Simple Faith with Pastor Bill Henry from Simple Faith Calvary Chapel in Vancouver, Washington. Today we brought you Pastor Bill's weekend prophecy update. It's our sincere hope and prayer that you've been blessed by the words you heard from Pastor Bill today.

If you'd like to hear today's message again, go to oneplace.com and search for Simple Faith with Pastor Bill Henry. We also have a large number of Pastor Bill's Sunday and Wednesday messages archived at simplefaith.org. That's our website. Just go there and click the media tab and you'll find a huge archive of Pastor Bill's past messages.

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And if you'd like to write us, we love hearing from you that way as well. Our mailing address is Post Office Box 55, Battle Ground, Washington, 98604. Here at Simple Faith Calvary Chapel, we have three services on Sunday morning at 8, 9:45, and 11:30. We also have a great time of studying God's Word on Wednesday night at seven.

For more information and directions, go to simplefaith.org. You can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Thanks for joining us today. Be sure to join us next time here on Simple Faith with Pastor Bill Henry brought to you by Simple Faith Calvary Chapel in Vancouver, Washington.