"The Rapid Spread Of Error In The One True Church Of God" By: Dr. Shuffel P. Hepburn

The rapid spread of error in the one

true church of God. That's our message.

The text is taken from Matthew

23. No Bible reader should be surprised

by the fact that error and hypocrisy has

been so pervasive in the Christian

church Century after Century since the

time of Jesus

Christ. The Bible constantly warns us

about this. Error and hypocrisy among

God's children existed even before His

arrival. The God of Heaven warned about

those who prophesy lies in the book of

Jeremiah, telling His people do not

listen to the words of the prophets who

prophesy to you. They make you

worthless.

They speak a vision of their own heart

not from the mouth of the Lord, chapter

23: 16. The wicked Kings surrounded

themselves with these false prophets who

told them what they wanted to hear. And

do not the presidents, world leaders and

even religious leaders of today do the

same. They gather around them, those

so-called prophets and spiritual leaders

that would tell them what they want to

hear. And Jesus Christ Himself was daily

challenged by the works of the wicked

Pharisees and Sadducees who worked

with

Satan to try to make a mockery of God's

plan, to use Christ to save man from The

Bondage of sin, by grace through

faith. These who were responsible for

interpreting the law were living

contrary to the same laws that they were

forcing upon

men. Perhaps Satan knew what was

coming.

Perhaps he knew that when the Father

sent His Son He meant

business. But Satan wanted to keep the

Jewish people and all who followed

Judaism under the law,

because he knew that the law was dead

works that could never change man's

hopeless

State. Father we thank you for your word,

bless it as it goes forth. Anoint it that

those that listen to it will be

transformed in their thinking about this

word Father in the name of Jesus Christ

we pray, amen. Bring forth truth in the

Church of the Most High God in Jesus

name we

pray. Satan was also fully aware that

Abraham believed God and was counted

unto him as righteousness. Therefore

Abraham was justified and made righteous

by

faith. Galatians 2:16 had not yet been

written, but the Apostle Paul would

confirm, that man is not justified by the

works of the law, but by faith in Jesus

Christ. I am sure that Satan knew that

Christ had come to fulfill the law by

ushering in justification by

faith. Jesus Christ railed against the

Servants of Satan who were the Pharisees

and the scribes saying the following,

"They outwardly appear righteous to men

but inside they were full of hypocrisy

and lawlessness," according to Matthew

23

and

28. He accused those responsible for

teaching the law to the Jewish people of

only being interested in doing works in

order to be seen by men. He accused them

of loving the places of honor at feasts,

and of loving to have the chief seats in

the

synagogue. He accused them of shutting

up

the Kingdom of Heaven against men,

neither going in themselves nor allowing

anyone to go in. He accused them of

devouring widow's houses and of

pretending to be holy by offering long

prayers. And He accused them of many

many

more

transgressions. So it should not be

surprising that by the time Martin

Luther the father of the Protestant

Reformation came along 1500 years after

Christ, there had already been major

divisions in the church established by

Christ. The biggest split leading up to

Luther's time was when the Orthodox

Eastern Church separated from the

Catholic church in

1054. Tension had been brewing between

Western

and Eastern leaders of Christianity for

years, and most especially now between

Pope Leo the 9th and patriarch Michael

Cerularius, who excommunicated each

other in

1054. Cerularius was head of the Eastern

Christian

churches. The Eastern Christian Church

did not recognize the pope as the head

of their churches,

because they rejected the Roman Catholic

doctrine of papal

supremacy. And they established their own

patriarch over the eastern churches

along with their own governing body, and

this was one point of

contention. Yet another major difference

in beliefs or doctrines between the east

and the west was an insertion in the

creed which describes the way the Holy

Spirit came forth to the

earth. The Roman Catholic version of the

Nicene Creed says, "We believe in the Holy

Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life who

proceeds from the Father and the Son.

This insertion is referred to as the

Filioque clause, which means and from the

Son. This phrase and from the Son was

added to the Nicene Creed by the Roman

Catholic Church, saying that the Holy

Spirit proceeded from both the Father

and from the

Son. While on the other hand the Orthodox

church only says the Holy Spirit

proceeds from the

Father. The Orthodox church believes that

this insertion by the Catholic leaders

was an innovation that was

unnecessary, and was perhaps

heresy. But let us look directly into

God's word to see what His word says to

us about

this. We'll refer to John 14 and 26, where

the word of God says, but the Comforter

which is the Holy Ghost whom the father

will send in my name, He shall teach you

all things, and bring all things to your

remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto

you. Clearly this text is saying that the

Father sent the Holy Spirit In Jesus

Christ's name.

Well what does it mean when it says in

Christ's

name. We'll take a look at John 15 and 26

to see if we can get more clarity on

this. In this text the word of God says

the following, "But when the Comforter is

come, whom I will send unto you from the

Father, even the Spirit of Truth, which

proceeded from the Father, He shall

testify of me."

And so this is saying that the Father

sent the Holy Spirit, in the name of His

Son Jesus to testify of all that Christ

said and all that He did and everything

that was done to Him. And since the

Father and Son are

one we can make a case that they both

sent the Holy

Spirit. But I think it is better to go

with the precise wording of the

scriptures, agreeing that the Holy Spirit

proceeded from the

Father. This doctrinal disagreement is

not so

egregious that the difference of their

interpretation should have been the

cause of such a massive church

split. Except that Satan, who's the author

of confusion, made a big to-do about

this. These two major sections of the

Christian church could find no common

ground on this point and so they parted

company. One became the Roman Catholic

church and the other became the Orthodox

Catholic

church. And yet they both claimed to be

the one true church established by Jesus

Christ and founded by St Peter, which he

then passed on to St

Ignatius. They both agreed on the

importance of scripture, on the

importance of tradition, and on the views

of the

Eucharist. However there were other

differences between the two main pillars

of the Christian

church. The Orthodox used Greek in their

services, while the Romans used

Latin. Unlike the Roman Catholic church,

the Orthodox Catholic church permitted

married men to be ordained, however

traditionally they did not permit clergy

to marry after

ordination. Also the Orthodox church

believe that marriage is able to be

dissolved, while the Roman Catholic

church believed that marriage is only

dissolved at

death. And then there was a huge error

that crept into the Roman Catholic

church, which was the selling of

indulgences. Now indulgences were

certificates that were supposed to

absolve sins and reduce the time that

people spent in purgatory after

death. They did this to raise money for

the church

apparently. But after Martin Luther

posted His famous 95 thesis which

challenged the church's authority to do

this and other things, it was outlawed in

1567 but kept on the

books. Perhaps when Martin Luther posted

his 95 thesis, he thought that he would

bring the Roman Catholic church from the

era that had crept into it once and for

all. And I suppose he wanted to

bring forth a season in which there

would be no error in the church at

all. In this regard he was destined to

fail. For Jesus Christ said in Matthew 24,

false christs and false prophets will

rise and show great signs and wonders to

deceive if possible even the elect.

Meaning even God's

chosen. In fact Luther himself made errors

when he was translating the Holy Bible

into

German. For instance, he was confused

about which books contained God's true

word. For instance, the books of Hebrew

and Revelation were included in books

that he had considered removing, but

after prayer decided to place them at

the very end of the

Bible. Then there are some like Sirach,

Maccabees, Judith and Baruch, that he

did remove

because they were not written in

Hebrew. These however are in the Catholic

Bible today, but not in the Holy Bible

that we

have. It is very safe to say that there

continues to be error in Christian

denominations

today. And the errors will

continue. This is why the Father sent us

the Comforter through Jesus Christ

however, to lead us into all truth,

to

bypass these pieces of error in the

Christian church wherever we may find

them. In other words the Comforters task

is to point out erroneous doctrines and

keep believers on

track. As long as Satan is loose however,

there will continue to be error in the

church, as long as he's on the earth

there will be error. There will be false

teachers, and there will be false

prophets. As long as we live in the

kingdom of this world, there will be fake

news, there will be deception as Satan

continues his onslaught against the

Church of the most high

God. But God is calling His people back

to simplicity in worship. He's calling

them back to unity. He's calling them

back to the undiluted word of God. And

He's calling us back to His one true

church in which we are all of one accord.

He's calling us back to the way that the

apostles and disciples were on the day

of

Pentecost. For we have wandered so far

away and this is why His power perhaps

has disappeared from the church. And

we've filled in the spaces with dead

works, inserting doctrines and practices

that Christ did not approve

of. Will the Son of man find us

worshiping our Papa, our Abba, in spirit

and in truth, as they were doing when the

Holy Spirit

arrived. God is a Spirit my friend and

we must worship Him in spirit and in

truth, it is the only

way. We must worship Him in this manner,

in this season. We are not to worship Him

the way our denomination says to worship

Him unless it lines up with scripture. We

must worship Him in the way that He laid

it out for us with sincere and truthful

hearts. And we must worship Him

in the power of the mighty Spirit of the

Living God who will keep us on track. And

this is the way that we are instructed

to worship Him, in spirit and in truth. We

must worship Him crying out with our

entire heart asking forgiveness for the

sins of our neighbors, asking forgiveness

for the sins of our children, asking

forgiveness for our own sins. And this we

must do with repentant hearts that

genuinely desire to return to our Abba,

begging him to have mercy on us, and

forgive us our sins, cleansing us of all

unrighteousness, in Jesus name, amen.

God

bless and keep you in His mighty name

amen. You've been listening to this

message and perhaps you do not know

Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. We want

to give an opportunity as usual to make

that commitment

today. Please engage your

heart. Jesus Christ did all the work for

our

salvation, and made it simple for us to

come into the

kingdom. Please say this prayer after

me. Father I am a

sinner. I am sorry for all my

sins. I crave your forgiveness with all

my heart

and I thank you for your

mercy, for your

grace, for your

forgiveness. I have decided to invite

Jesus Christ into my

heart. Dear Lord

Jesus make my heart your

home. Today I give you the key to my

heart because I now belong to you

forever.

Please give me the Holy

Spirit to lead me into all

truth. Thank you Lord for saving my soul,

amen. Welcome friend to the body of

believers in Christ. We are all here

awaiting

the return of the Good

Master. In the meantime we want to

encourage

you to become water

baptized as quickly as possible. It is the

fulfillment

of all righteousness. Begin reading the

word of God.

Begin in the book of

John, reading audibly as often as possible,

because

faith comes by hearing the word of God

and

then go to Matthew, Mark and Luke.

Pray daily and attend at your local church.

And one glad morning

the Savior will come and receive us all

unto

Himself and we shall

forever be with the Lord. God bless and

keep you

in His mighty name, amen.