It Is Written Script: 1248 The Counterfeit Faith Page 1 The Counterfeit Faith Program No. 1212 SPEAKER: JOHN BRADSHAW Most people, when they hear the name Rockefeller, think of a very rich American family, or maybe Rockefeller Center in New York City, which is home to such famous places as Radio City Music Hall and Christie s, the world s largest auction house. Yet for many years, the name Rockefeller was hated and despised. It was a symbol of corporate greed where the more powerful swept away the weaker and acquired more and more for themselves no matter who got crushed along the way. No wonder. The founder of the dynasty, John D. Rockefeller, started in the oil business in Cleveland during the 1800s, and through a series of backroom deals he created the monster monopoly of Standard Oil. Because it was so large, Standard Oil could cut prices, forcing all competitors either to sell to it or go bankrupt, in which case Rockefeller would simply buy up the ruined company at discount rates. Rockefeller would go to his competitors, show them his own books, show them the financial behemoth that they were up against and then make them an offer. If they refused, he simply put them out of business and then got their company anyway. He was ruthless. He once told his brother Frank, who had been working for a competing oil company, that, We are going to buy out all the refiners in Cleveland. We will give everyone a chance to come in... Those who refuse will be crushed. If you don t sell your company to us, it will be valueless. Frank refused, and John true his word put his own brother s company out of business! What adds an interesting wrinkle to this sordid history is that John D. Rockefeller was a churchgoing man. Even worse, he rationalized his business dealings in of all things the name of Christian charity! He had convinced himself that he was actually doing good. He said that all these forced acquisitions were the result of the most prosperous business concern his own saying to the smaller and less prosperous ones: We will stand in for the risks and hazards of the refining business... Come with us and we will do you good. We will undertake to save you from the wrecks of the refining business.
It Is Written Script: 1248 The Counterfeit Faith Page 2 What others saw as cutthroat and villainous business practices, he defined as Christian benevolence. Now, that would be rationalization and presumption. I don t want to judge John D. Rockefeller s heart, but how he could justify these nasty and vicious business practices in the name of Christian charity really makes me wonder. This kind of thinking reminds me of a scene from a book by Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky, in which a man cries out, God, forgive me for Christ s sake! and then cuts his friend s throat with a knife and steals his watch. Today we re going to take a look at the big picture the biggest picture you could imagine. It s clear that there s a battle raging on Planet Earth. It s what the Bible writer Paul was talking about when he said that we are not fighting against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers. What he was saying is that we re in a spiritual battle. Let s see what we can learn from Jesus and how he dealt with Satan, so that we can do the same thing ourselves when faced with similar struggles in this great controversy with a supernatural cosmic power much greater than we are. I can imagine someone saying, Come on, John, a supernatural cosmic battle? Been watching too many Star Wars movies or something? We re not talking about the kind of journalism found in the tabloid headlines, like the one that said, 12 U.S. Senators Are Space Aliens. (Someone said you can tell that can t be true because the number is too low!) Scientists working with the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence believe that with the billions of galaxies existing in the universe, there s a good chance that other life might exist out there. The scientific term for this is called astrobiology, and it s a serious attempt to seek out life in other parts of the universe. With all due respect, while these folks are aiming their radio telescopes into the sky hoping for something from some faraway alien civilization, the Bible teaches not only that extraterrestrial life exists, but that some of these beings are here, on Earth, and that some are hostile to us as well. Look at these verses, from Revelation 12 (Revelation 12:7-9): And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
It Is Written Script: 1248 The Counterfeit Faith Page 3 A war in Heaven? A war here on Earth, that s one thing. But in Heaven? How can that be? The short answer comes down to one word. Love. Because love is the overarching moral principle that permeates God s universe, and love demands freedom. You can t love God, or anyone, if you don t have moral freedom. You can t have love without freedom any more than you could have a triangle without three sides. Now in a moment, you ll learn about the man who was married to a robot, and why that didn t work out so well. BIBLE QUESTION: It s time for today s Bible question and here it is: People say that Jesus couldn t have worked miracles such as raising the dead and healing the blind as these things just aren t possible. How can I believe in miracles? Good question. Let me try to give you a good answer. There s a reason we call them miracles, because they re extraordinary, they re supernatural. Not the sort of thing you can explain by ordinary means. So, can God do the extraordinary and the supernatural? Keep in mind this is God we re talking about! If you asked me if my own father could have worked miracles, I d say, No, he couldn t. Now, his ability to read my mind was sometimes pretty incredible, but miracles? No. But this is God! The One who framed the universe! The One who created the world and made people and created water and made air. If He can do that can t He work miracles? All of that was a miracle. You might also want to consider this: there are some things in our world that are pretty incredible. We can t call them miracles because we can explain them scientifically. But, for example, even the idea that you can pick up a phone, press some buttons, and then use it to talk to somebody on the other side of the world... The idea that these pictures you are looking at right now are being transmitted to you. Even people can do some pretty incredible stuff. Now, if you want to put upon God the limitations of faulty, frail human beings, and say God can t do what we can t do go ahead and do that. But if you believe there is a God at all the One who gave life you shouldn t be too surprised that He can give that life back. Surely the One who made eyesight can restore it. From a human standpoint, miracles are unlikely, and even impossible. But God is
It Is Written Script: 1248 The Counterfeit Faith Page 4 not a mere human being. God is God and He rides high above the limitations of humanity. And how can you believe in miracles? You can believe in miracles and God s miracle-working power by faith. The Bible says they happened, and your faith in the Bible as believable and accurate and trustworthy can lead you to the place where you can say, If the Bible says it, I can believe it. People try to limit God sometimes. But God isn t small. He s big, and He s great. RETURN TO PROGRAM: There s a sci-fi story about a widower who got a robot replacement after his wife died. He had everything about her programmed in: looks, vocabulary, diction, actions everything was the same as his actual wife. From all outward appearances, it was his wife. Except that it was robot, a machine, and it did everything his wife did, not because it truly loved him, but because it was programmed to do so. It had no more choice than my computer does to start up when I hit the start-up button. And in the end, he got rid of it because the most important ingredient was missing, and that was love which can only exist when one has freedom, and only when one has the option NOT to love. This powerful being, Satan given free will chose the not-to-love option and eventually rebelled against God. As a result, he and these other rebellious creatures, who had free will too, were cast out of Heaven and are now here on Earth. The Bible says in Revelation 12 (Revelation 12:12): Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time. Woe to us! Why? Because the devil has come down unto you and he is full of wrath. It s a real mistake to allegorize Satan, to make him out to a figment of human imagination, just a symbol of our darker side or the like. The Bible talks again and again about a literal being who is at war with us and with God. Look at the following texts and keep in mind two points that are found in them: first, the reality of the devil; and second, the fact that he is working against us. Firstly, the Bible says in 1 Peter 5:8: Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
It Is Written Script: 1248 The Counterfeit Faith Page 5 Ephesians 6:11 says: Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. And 2 Corinthians 2:11 says: Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices. Before I go further, there s one more text I want to look at because it s one of the most important ones in all the Bible one of the most important texts that can help us understand the nature and the outcome of this great controversy. Talking about Jesus, the Bible says in Hebrews 2:14 that: Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. Notice that He will destroy the one who had the power of death, that is the devil. Satan s ultimate fate is to be destroyed. We might be in a war, in a battle, in a controversy, but we know beforehand that the good side wins, that God wins. In a nutshell, what God is saying to us in the Bible is this: Come on over to the winning side. Jesus has won the battle for you, and He offers you the fruits, the promise, the guarantee of His victory against Satan. Talk about an offer! I d like to say, It s an offer you can t refuse, but in God s universe, we all have free choice, so we can refuse. The question is, why would we? When God offers us everything and the devil offers us only death and destruction, why would we choose anything else? If we do, it s because we are allowing Satan to deceive us. Remember, the Bible says that he deceives the whole world. But we don t have to be fooled. We just don t have to be, as Paul wrote, ignorant of his devices. One of the ways we can know his devices is through studying the temptation in the wilderness, and how Satan tried to use his devices on Jesus and failed. First, Satan tried to tempt Jesus in the area of appetite, telling Jesus to use His power to turn stones into bread. How did Jesus respond? He used the power of God s Word, saying to Satan (Matthew 4:4): It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
It Is Written Script: 1248 The Counterfeit Faith Page 6 Jesus didn t argue with Satan. He didn t get into a theological debate, and He didn t try to reason with him. He simply went to the Bible and quoted it. And that was enough to shut the devil down. There s an important lesson there, when we struggle with temptations. We can go to God s Word and claim His promises for victory, just as Jesus did. So, what happened next in the wilderness? That first ploy didn t work, so Satan tried something else. Here s Matthew s account of the second temptation of Jesus (Matthew 4:5-7): Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Look at what s going on here. Jesus uses Scripture against the devil, and so what does the devil do? He comes back to Jesus and tempts him, this time quoting Scripture himself! Jesus used the Bible as His means of countering the devil s first attack in the wilderness, and so the devil tried to meet Jesus on His own ground, quoting Scripture back at Him. And yet here s an important point. Though the devil quotes Scripture, he really misquotes it, taking it out of context and trying to get it to say something different from what it meant. This has been his ploy for millennia now, and often used for horrendous purposes. The devil has plenty of folks willing to misquote and misuse the Bible for their own ends. After this short devotional, we ll talk about the difference between presumption and faith. EVERY WORD DEVOTIONAL: In Matthew 4:4, the Word of God says It is written Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Every Word is a one minute Bible-based daily devotional presented by Pastor John Bradshaw and designed especially for busy people like you. Look for Every Word on selected networks or watch it online every day on our website, www.itiswritten.com. Here s a snippet: In Sequoia National Forest, an ancient sequoia recently crashed to the ground. The fall was caught on video. A towering giant let go of its grip on the earth, and down it
It Is Written Script: 1248 The Counterfeit Faith Page 7 came after standing for 1,500 years. As majestic as these big trees are and I ve seen them right up close sooner or later (and usually much later) they fall. Everything does in the end. Buildings are demolished, people pass away. Is there anything that really lasts? One thing. Isaiah 40:8 says: The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. God s Word never falls. It s been attacked, but it is still true. It s been criticized and derided, demeaned and disparaged, but it was true when it was written, and it s true today. It stands. When everything about you is giving way, trust the Word of God. It stands forever. I m John Bradshaw for It Is Written. Let s live today by Every Word. RETURN TO PROGRAM: One of the worst examples of somebody misquoting the Bible was when, during a religious war in Europe, a commander stood over the city they were about to attack and his aide asked him, How are we going to know who is on our side who is the enemy? The commander responded, Kill em all and then, quoting Scripture, or actually misquoting it, added, the Lord knoweth them that are his. That s what Satan does here. In Matthew 4:6, he says to Jesus,...for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Now that all sounds nice, but the devil doesn t quote it in its entirety. He just takes a certain part of it, omitting the rest. The texts were from Psalm 91 and read like this (Psalm 91:11-12): For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. He leaves out the most important part. God will give His angels charge over you, to keep thee in all thy ways, that is, in all thy ways and paths of righteousness, of obedience, of faithfulness. That s the crucial qualifier that Satan leaves out, trying to give Jesus the idea that it doesn t matter what He does, because God will protect Him and be with Him.
It Is Written Script: 1248 The Counterfeit Faith Page 8 But as we saw, that s not what the texts said. The devil misquoted the Scriptures and He certainly didn t fool Jesus. How did Jesus respond to this temptation? Back to Matthew (Matthew 4:7): Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. He said it is written again. Jesus went back to the Bible. He didn t argue with Satan, and He didn t point out Satan s misuse of the Bible, either. Jesus just went right to the Word of God and responded with a text that rebuked the devil s attempt to lead Him into presumption. I don t know any promises in the Bible that tell me I can deviate from obedience and expect God to pour out His blessings on me. You still might get blessed, you still might have success, but that doesn t mean it s from the Lord. I find it hard to believe that it was God s will for John D. Rockefeller to put all those folks out of business and swallow up their companies through his shady and greedy practices. Just because something is what the world would deem successful isn t necessarily the same thing as being blessed by God. Hugh Hefner, by the world s standards, is being successful, but who would say that God was blessing him? People invoke God s name in all sorts of schemes. People will misquote Scripture to justify even the most sordid deeds. People will do the most outrageous things, believing for whatever reason that God will bless their efforts even if those efforts are completely contrary to His revealed will. This is all presumption, and that is what Jesus refused to fall for, and we should refuse to fall for it too when we are tempted to do things in the name of God that He would never sanction. Presumption is the counterfeit of faith. Faith trusts in God s promises, and brings forth the fruits of obedience in response to those promises. Presumption, on the other hand, claims those promises but then uses them to excuse or justify wrong actions. Faith trusts that if we obey God, if we walk in the path of obedience, if we comply with the conditions sets forth in the Word, then God will bless us according to His will. Presumption, on the other hand, claims the promises of God but ignores or defines the conditions upon which they based. We are in the midst of a universal battle between Christ and Satan. You can be sure that the devil is using every device and every scheme he can toward each of us, especially if we profess faith in God. Presumption is a sin of the believer, not the atheist. The atheist doesn t presume on God because he doesn t believe in God though I heard of someone who said, Thank God, I m still an atheist.
It Is Written Script: 1248 The Counterfeit Faith Page 9 And there s good news. Christ s death on the Cross covers even the sin of presumption. If you have presumed upon God, if you have sought for the promises without following the conditions, then flee to Jesus and flee to the Cross. You can repent of your sins, whatever they are even that of presumption and you can receive Christ s forgiveness. And then, in faith and in obedience, you can press on, claiming all the promises offered us in His Word. And that s not presumption. That s faith. Let s pray together. PRAYER: Father in Heaven, I pray that where we have been presumptuous, you would forgive us and lead us to be people of faith. I pray that we would never lean on the Bible in order to use it to excuse things we should not be doing. I pray the Bible wouldn t be a cloak that somehow conceals our sins, but that your Word would be powerful enough to create in us clean hearts. Help us to come clean and have faith true faith in your Word and not to stoop to presumption. We thank you that you can be trusted, we thank you that your Word is perfect, we thank you that your ways are right. Lead us in them please, I pray, in Jesus name, Amen. It Is Written Box O Thousand Oaks, CA 91359 USA Tel: (805) 433-0210 Fax: (805) 433-0218 www.itiswritten.com