Sound of Faith

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Greetings friends and listeners and welcome to the Sound of Faith. I'm Sharon Knotts, and thank you for joining us today because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. I'm excited to bring you today's message, Forget, Reach, Press.

Written from a Roman prison, the aged Apostle Paul penned his most joyful and hopeful epistle to the Philippians. After decades of ministry, he had learned the secret to a fruitful and enduring faith: forget the past, reach for the present, and press toward the future.

R. G. Hardy: Hallelujah. Turn in your Bibles with me to 1 Corinthians, the second chapter. The Lord downloaded this in my spirit very fast and furiously. I started off with another idea earlier in the week, and the Lord gave me this idea yesterday. If it's the Word of the Lord, then it will be profitable. So we're in 1 Corinthians, the second chapter, and we're going to read one verse, verse 12.

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. What spirit have we not received? The spirit of the world. We don't have the spirit of the world. However, we have received the spirit which is of God, and only because we have the spirit of God can we know the things that are freely given to us of God.

The people in the world don't know anything about the things of God. Amen. And I'm going to flip it on its side and say and because we don't have the spirit of the world, we don't know anything about the things of the world. So now turn with me to 1 John, the fourth chapter, the epistle of John, chapter four, and looking at verse five.

They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. But we are of God. He that knows God hears us, and he that is not of God hears us not. Hereby know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. There's a lot going on here, and when we put this together in correlation with 1 Corinthians 2:12, it's so simple it really doesn't need a lot of explanation.

Let's look at it. We haven't received the spirit of the world, and therefore the world doesn't hear us when we talk to them. That's what it says here in John. The world doesn't hear us. We can talk to them, but they don't hear us. We know it means they don't get it. They don't understand it. They do not understand the things of God. They don't hear us, they don't receive us, and they don't understand us.

We, on the other hand, have the spirit of God, so we freely understand the things of God. This Bible is not a mystery to me. And if you have the spirit of God, it's not a mystery to you. Now we grow in grace and knowledge, and the Holy Spirit gives us clarification of things. He builds on things we already know, but it's not a closed book. We understand the things of God.

And so John says here in verse six, this is how we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. And I want you to notice that the determiner there, "the," is a definite article. It's not indefinite. It doesn't say "a" spirit of truth or "a" spirit of error. The spirit of truth. The spirit of error. So it means that it is a singular spirit.

Now out of the spirit of error comes all kinds of lies, many different kinds of lies, many heresies, many false things, but they're all gendered by the spirit of error. How many see that? And out of the spirit of truth comes many revelations and many things that are here that we will spend a lifetime digging out. But they all emanate from the spirit of truth.

And the children of God have the same spirit and nature of their Father. We have the spirit of truth. And because we have the spirit of truth, I have the spirit of truth, and you have the spirit of truth. You know what? I can communicate with you. You can communicate with me. We are able to communicate with one another because we have the same spirit of truth.

You can meet a complete stranger of whom you know nothing, but if they are born again of your Father and they have the same spirit of truth, you can just strike up a wonderful deep conversation. You can feel a kinship to that person, and you don't even know anything about them and you find yourself feeling like, you know what, I love you. Amen. Because it is the same spirit of truth, the same spirit of God of righteousness, holiness, purity, and love that we receive from our Father.

But then we can try to communicate with the people of the world who don't have the spirit of truth, and they don't understand. They just don't understand. And we find ourselves trying to explain the things of the spirit and the truth of God, and they don't understand and they don't want to hear it. They don't even want to hear it. Not only that, they may refuse to hear it, they may even go further and withstand us and oppose us because the spirit of truth and the spirit of error are diametrically opposed one to the other.

And there's no correlation, and there's no communication, and there's no communion, and there's no fellowship. One has the spirit of truth, and the other has the spirit of error. So I ask you, how can we communicate with those who have the spirit of error? How can we have fellowship with the spirit of error? How can we walk together in agreement with those who are diametrically opposed to the very things that we believe and stand for?

How can we hear this message, this Word of God, and attempt to reconcile it with the message that's coming out of the world? How do we reconcile the two? You can't do it because the spirit of truth that comes from God only agrees with the Word that comes from God. His Word and His spirit agree.

There's a very powerful verse in Isaiah 8:20. It says: To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. And what does light stand for metaphorically? It stands for the truth. If they don't speak according to this Word, it's because there is no truth in them. John said in his epistle in the first chapter, God is light. God is light. God is truth, and in Him there is no darkness at all.

There's no communion, there's no blending the two together. And like I preached last week on 2 Timothy 2:15, exhorting you to study, to search and dig out the Word of God, dig it out that you may be a workman approved unto God, rightly dividing the word of truth. So if there's anything that begins to go afoul of this Word, it's time to stop and check it out because if you have the spirit of truth, something inside of you will go "uh-uh." Don't ignore it, don't suppress it, check it out. If you get a check in your spirit, check it out because you may be coming up against a lie.

Jesus said, and this is one of my favorite things that He ever said in all of the things that He said, this is one of my favorites. We all know John 14:6, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. And no one comes to the Father but by Me." And that's a very powerful one, but I think this is equally as powerful, what He said in John 18:37 when He was standing before Pilate. He said: To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world. Okay, you got my attention, Jesus. You're going to boil it down, you're going to bring it all and condense it into one nutshell, and what is that? That I should bear witness of the truth.

And the next part's just as powerful. Every one that is of the truth hears my voice. When you're trying to convince someone about the Bible and the Scriptures and the teachings of the Bible and the way to God through Christ Jesus and they don't want to receive it and they don't want to hear it and they want to push back, they are not hearing the voice of the Word of God because they are not of the truth.

They're under a spirit of error. So it's not just that they don't believe something that you told them, it's because they are influenced and under the voice of the spirit of error. That's all that's in the world. Everything in the world is coming under a spirit of error. And you all know where this message is heading, don't you? When the voice of the world becomes louder in your spirit than the voice of the Word of God, you are in danger. You are now in danger of being infected with a lie. You're in danger of being infected with a spirit of error.

We've had a terrible season of people getting sick with the flu and a virus. It's just gone through families and places of employment and even in the church, and people really have had a tough time this season. And I've got to tell you, if I know somebody's got something, I don't want them coming and hugging me and shaking my hand because I don't need to get that. I don't want it, and I don't need it. None of you want it, and none of you need it, but I definitely do not want to compromise myself with any of that going on.

And you know Benny, he's been battling the past few days and he's really been feeling bad. And it was funny because yesterday we went out to eat and we had a lot of leftovers and we were getting a box to put it in. Usually if we ate the same thing, we ordered the same dish, so it would have made sense to put them in the same box. I said to the waitress, "No. No. I want my own box. I don't want that bad cold he's got."

So I am going to do everything I can to avoid it, and you can't always avoid everything, but I'm doing all that I can to avoid anyone that's got the virus or the flu or whatever. And that's how much more in the spirit am I going to avoid those that are infected with a lie. If I can't give them the medicine that they need because they won't receive it because they won't hear it, I'm not going to let them infect me with their germs.

And when Christians get infected with this spirit of the world, then they begin to justify their unholy activities. They justify it. And they start sounding more and more like the world and less and less like the peculiar people that the children of God are. Why do you think that Paul said in Romans 12:2, "Be not conformed to this world"? Don't let yourself be put in the mold of the world. Do not be conformed, but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind.

The renewing of your mind with the word of truth. And this is how we've reached a time when Christians today are saying sin is not what it used to be. Now you may not hear anybody put it in that particular way, but that's what they're saying. Sin is not what it used to be. That used to be sin, but it's not sin today. Am I telling the truth?

What was sin when I was growing up, what was sin when we were on Williams Street, what was sin in the early days of this church, it's not sin anymore. Am I telling the truth? Okay, I'm going to step on toes. So today sex outside of marriage is not sin. As long as you love each other, you don't need a piece of paper. And having sex with somebody of your own sex is not sin because they say God made me this way.

And if God made me this way, then He loves me and it's okay. You can only believe the lie that God made you that way if you're listening to the world. The world is saying to our culture today that homosexuals are made that way. And there is no biological proof to back it up. None. There's no proof that I know of, and if you find any out, you search it out, let me know, and then I'll adjust. But to this point, I know of no biological proof that someone is born homosexual.

They can very, very early in life go that way because of their environment, because of things that occur. We have families that have no father. There's no manhood on display. There's many children that grow up, boys that grow up without a dad. And yeah, the financial devastation is huge and there are a lot of things, but think about some boy that's raised in a family with a mom and four sisters and no dad.

What about young children that are molested? Sometimes it's an uncle or mom's boyfriend. A little boy. If you've ever heard the testimony of Donnie McClurkin, he tells it like it is. He was a church boy. He was molested. It was an older man who was supposed to be somebody that was a Christian. And so therefore, just a little boy, like six years old or something, so young that already that seed, that spirit was allowed to infect him.

And I don't want to get too far on that, but what I'm saying is there's no proof that I know of that's ever been put forth that they can prove that someone is born homosexual. So when people now in the world, if you're listening to the voice of the world, they will say that people like myself and other ministers of the truth that say that being an active homosexual is a sin, they will say, "You don't have love." Isn't that what they say?

"You don't have love." And now people in the church are saying it too. Ministers are now saying it. Ministers now even in mainline denominations are marrying same-sex couples, and when someone calls them out, they say, "You don't have love." And then they go the next step and say, "You are a hater."

Paul said, "Have I now become your enemy because I tell you the truth?" Have I become your enemy because I tell you the truth? And today we would have to say, yes. Yes, that's true. Christians are coming out all over the place. Let me tell you what I mean by that. I mean coming out as in professing they're gay. I don't mean coming out bold like I'm doing today.

Yeah, I know the devil's already sat on my shoulder and told me, "You don't want to preach that message. You don't want to do that. You don't want to put yourself out there and a target for my attack." And I told the Lord, "This is Your message. You better have my back." I mean that metaphorically, I mean it literally, and I said, "And you know what? You better have my front too. Amen."

You know, I like to watch The Voice. I don't know if you all know that TV program, because I love music and I love to hear good singers. I don't care who they are, where they are, whatever, I love it when some little unknown person who doesn't look like very much in the world, who hasn't been met with the world's attractiveness standard you've got to meet, and you get some person stand up there. The Voice is predicated on that the judges can't see them. Their backs are to them, they can only hear them. So they have to only focus on the voice. And I just find that fascinating, so I watch it.

So the other day a young woman was on there and she told how she had her lover with her. I think they're actually married now. A woman, she's a lesbian, and she has a lesbian wife. And she said how she was raised by a Baptist minister, and that when she came out, now these were her words and we don't know the background, we don't know, I'm going to tell you what she said. She said that her parents disowned her.

And oh the sympathy that she got from the audience and the judges. And they said, "Well now maybe, maybe now that you're on television and maybe now that your wonderful gift and voice now are on display and they can see how good you are and how you're climbing now that ladder of success, maybe now they'll accept you."

What is the message? The message is if you are successful in your career, if you become a box office hit as an actor or actress, if you make the charts and you become a big name musically, if you become successful, then it's okay. It's okay to be homosexual because look at you. Look at you. You are a star. You've made it now. So that means it's okay to be homosexual because you are a star.

That's the message that the world is saying. But 1 John 2:21 says, "No lie is of the truth." No lie is of the truth. So are you listening to the voice of the world, or are you listening to the voice of the Word? You know it's been about 10 years ago that I stood in this very pulpit, and we were on the threshold at that time of the homosexual agenda really beginning to explode.

And I think back to when I ministered in the pulpit about that, I could not imagine, I wonder how many people really imagined could we foresee how the floodgates would open the way they have to the point that it's absurdity today. Today what we see out in the world with the gender identity is nothing but confusion. You talk about a spirit of error. You talk about a spirit of confusion.

So when I was preaching along those lines in 2007 going into 2008, it was only three short years later that the president signed the bill to allow homosexuals to serve openly in the military and rescinded the Don't Ask Don't Tell act. And when that happened, of course it rumbled and rumbled throughout Christianity. But did we believe, even as overt as that was, did we think that it would end up with the legalization of same-sex marriage?

It's a big leap. A big leap from serving openly and saying I'm gay and you can't deny me my right to be in the military to same-sex marriage. You all are getting quiet out there. I hope it's because you're listening. Oh but I do believe that some saw it like myself and vainly, vainly tried to warn the church. We've got to make sure that we have judges on the Supreme Court that are going to stand for marriage.

That was my call. That was my clarion call. Whatever else you do or don't think, we've got to get the right judges on the Supreme Court. But people did not take heed. They heard the voice of the world. The world said, "This is what we've got to do." And they didn't take heed to the voice of truth. Because like it or not, the Supreme Court judges are the ones in the end that have the power and the authority.

And the court got loaded up with those liberal, pro-gay, pro-homosexual judges. And what we thought could never happen, you know we know homosexuality is rampant, we know we cannot deny people their rights just because of their sexual preference, you can't, you can't say, "Well you can't do this and you can't do that," of course not. But marriage is a whole another thing.

Folks, it was not that God was mute. You hear me? It wasn't because God was mute, it's because the church was deaf. God was speaking clearly. We can't go by the world. They're not going to hear us. We already started off, they have the spirit of the world. They have the spirit of error, that's all they can hear. You can't talk them into convinced them anything, they can't hear.

But when the church becomes deaf to the spirit of truth, now we just about got over that in 2015. We're still like "ugh" really from the fact that it became legal in 50 of our states for same-sex marriage.

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Amen. I hope you're being encouraged by our message, Forget, Reach, Press. In his letter to the Philippians written from a Roman prison, Paul wrote of his great joy in Christ and his secret to his successful ministry: I forget those things that lie behind. I've known scores of Christians who get stuck in depression and failure because they keep looking back and lamenting about the past.

Only when you let go of the past can you embrace the present and reach out for daily victory in Christ. As citizens of heaven, Paul said we are pressing towards the mark of the calling from up on high, the rapture resurrection. We should be pressing for the goal line with our eyes on the prize. Heaven is in our view, and the saints who have already crossed over are calling out: don't faint and don't look back.

Forget, Reach, Press is available on CD for a love gift of $10 or more for the radio ministry. Request SK196. Mail to Sound of Faith, PO Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203, or shop online at soundoffaith.org where MP3s are also available.

To order by mail, send a minimum love gift of $10, request SK196 to PO Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203. Saints, airtime is costly, so if the Lord moves on your heart, please consider sending a special love gift to help us whether or not you wish to place an order. Until next time, this is Sharon Knotts saying, Maranatha.