Sermon Notes & Videos
2025-07-11 | II Peter 2:20-22 | Dog Nature & Pig Behavior
Do you care how things look? The imagery is perfectly clear; you’ve probably witnessed it with your own eyes. Dogs vomit and dogs turn to eat their vomit, often immediately. And pigs always find their way back to the muck and mire, to wallow in a pool of slime, sludge, and filth—to take a mud bath. Both animals are acting from instinct. In other words, dogs will be dogs and pigs will be pigs. Dogs instinctively cannot pass up an opportunity to eat their next meal, even if it forces their doggy intellect to ignore the obvious truth. They perceive their own vomit as a tasty morsel, regardless of the fact that it is the putrefied puked up mess just released from a cauldron of rejected organic matter. Pigs, on the other hand, are somewhat misunderstood. They aren’t actually seeking to be dirty; it’s simply that they can’t resist wallowing in slime and filth as a social behavior. For them, it’s a source of enrichment and enjoyment—a way to explore and engage in a natural, instinctual behavior. It is a return to filth nonetheless. Does that describe your natural behavior and your relationship with sin? Peter refers to dogs as written in the true proverb, “As a dog that returns to his vomit…” However, Peter adds the pig to enhance his metaphor for what the proverb describes as a fool. “…so is a fool who repeats his folly. Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.” I would argue that this is the true origin of the term pig-headed: someone who is stupidly or unreasonably stubborn—obstinate and unwilling to change his mind, in spite of the obvious truth.
And isn’t that exactly what you are doing when you go back to your sinful ways—your past social behavior? Dogs will be dogs and pigs will be pigs—and sinners will be sinners. Peter locks in on why this happens. It’s written as a clear warning; you are becoming nearsighted, approaching total blindness. It’s because you’ve forgotten you’ve already been completely cleansed from your past sins. This tragic memory loss demands that you address two questions: Why would you forget you’ve been forgiven? And why would you continue to identify yourself as a sinner when God sees you as a saint? It’s because you’ve been fed a steady diet of theological junk food—low quality fast food sermons that brainwash listeners, including those who identify as Christians, with doctrines of demons. “You are a dreadful sinner; you won’t ever be freed from your proclivity to sin—your sin nature.” Essentially, you are powerless over sin. No Bible teacher would actually admit this is precisely what they are saying, yet they steadily promote this pigheaded sentiment. Your future sinful behavior is a forgone conclusion; sin is mandatory because you are still in bondage to it.
I believe this theological misstep has become universal because a predominant number of weekly church services have transformed into evangelical outreaches. Instead of a gathering of Christians who are maturing together as disciples, the purpose of “church” has become an attempt to convince the large number of unbelievers in attendance to make a confession of faith. It really is an absurd premise when you think about it soberly because the Church isn’t a service or building; it’s the Body of Christ. How can an unbeliever be in “the Church”? Evangelism should take place out in the unbelieving world and newly converted Christians should be invited to grow in their faith alongside their Christian brothers and sisters in fellowships, and with sermons, and with mentoring—all intended to disciple Christians. However, when the underlying message is preached to convert pagans, naturally there must be an emphasis on the human proclivity to sin. That truth is health food for a pagan; “You are a dreadful sinner who needs Jesus.” But, that message becomes junk food for the Christian who is blasted week after-week with the same words; “You are a dreadful sinner!”
If you are a Christian, I will leave you with this exercise to ponder. Take a quiet moment and contemplate your most recent sin, and then consider this… was it mandatory or voluntary? Then go backwards one more sin and do the same. The conclusion should be obvious. Needless to say, if you believe your sinful behavior was mandatory, you are exercising dog nature and pig behavior, not the character of a new creation in Christ. Paul writes, “Don’t lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his doings, and have put on the new man, who is being renewed in knowledge after the image of his Creator.” Don’t be pigheaded and return to your vomit; don’t sink back into your foolish sinful slime.
2025-07-04 | II Peter 2:2-14 | Ancient Gaslighting
It’s a modern term with ancient roots planted in the Garden of Eden. It didn’t take long to sprout once it was sown, and it didn’t take many components to germinate: a direct command, a cunning serpent, an unsuspecting woman, and a complaisant man. Yahweh planted the seed; “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
And the serpent began to sprinkle in his psychological manipulation, “Has God really said, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?” The question seemed innocent and the answer obvious. “Yes, that’s what Yahweh said!” But, it was too simple; it couldn’t possibly be what the father of gaslighting was asking, could it? The woman’s distorted memory germinated; “We may eat fruit from the trees of the garden, but not the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden. God said, ‘You shall not eat of it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’” True, right up to the moment when the confused woman yielded to the purposeful and premeditated perversion of reality. God never said they could not touch the fruit. And the cascade of sins began!
She ate of the forbidden fruit and gave some to her unassertive husband who stood by and nurtured the mutated harvest! Then Yahweh intervened; “Have you eaten from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?” The self-deceived man molded the truth to propagate an alternate reality that served himself; “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” And the cascade of sins continued! Gaslighting begins with psychological manipulation that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, powers of reasoning, or perception of reality. It makes one question their own memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one’s emotional or mental stability, and creates a pathological dependency on the perpetrator. The practice is intended to grossly mislead someone, especially for one’s own advantage. Gaslighting can be a very effective tool used by the abuser to control an individual. It’s often instituted subtly, so the victim doesn’t realize they are being controlled and manipulated; “Has God really said…?”
The goal is to convince victims that others are lying, and that they are the only source for “true” information. More than simply lying or fraud, gaslighting is a deliberate conspiracy to mislead others; it involves a series of lies as part of a larger plan. “Speaking evil in matters about which they are ignorant, and reveling in their deceit while they feast with you; uttering great swelling words of emptiness, promising them liberty, while they themselves are bondservants of corruption.” And even today the cascade of sins continues!
2025-06-20 | II Peter 2:1-11 | Maligning the Truth
Truth has fallen in the streets. Those were the words echoed by Isaiah, prophesying also about the present time in which we live. Unfortunately, today, the greatest enemy of the truth is not at work outside the camp. Truth, instead, faces its heaviest assault within the hallowed walls of God’s house, and we are God’s house, the church of the living God. This enemy arises in the form of false teachers and false prophets, who will each appear for a time as one of us. And this should come as no surprise; we were warned to be aware of shepherds who are actually vicious wolves that will enter in among us, and not spare the flock, and about false prophets, who come in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves.
Pastors who are building their own kingdom and prophets who are speaking with lying tongues have become all too commonplace. It’s almost as if those who hold fast to the truth are the strangers and heretics. How far we have fallen! Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness. It’s time for God’s people to speak up and to identify the Spirit of truth and the spirit of lies. “For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God. And if it begins first with us, what will happen to those who don’t obey the Good News of God?”
2025-06-06 | Pentecost 2025 | A Power Worthy Church
Are you perfectly content with commemorating Hallmark holidays that are dedicated to man-made traditions, while completely ignoring the Feasts of the Lord—Yahweh’s Biblical Holidays? When you explore the prophetic relevance and magnificent imagery of Pentecost, you will no longer be satisfied with celebrating pagan holidays. Certainly Pentecost is a holy day that Christians would be interested in remembering, seeing that it was then that the Holy Spirit came to indwell all who believe that Y’shua is the long-awaited Messiah of Israel.
Unfortunately, it would seem that while the world remains inundated with lies and wrapped in chaos, the Church often bows to a lower authority. Instead of being the dominant power in and influence over the world, in many cases the world has overpowered the Church and become the dominant influence, ruling God’s people as if they have no authority in the earth. Have Church leaders and thus church-goers been deceived? Have God’s people become devoid of power because they are prophetically ignorant and untrained about the times and seasons? It’s time to wake up; “discern the signs of the times,” and reclaim your rightful access to Divine power! Let’s begin with a deep dive into Pentecost, the Festival of Truth and Spirit.
2025-05-30 | II Peter | Object Lesson: The Prophetic Word Confirmed
There are prophetic moments in history when events collide and what is revealed alters mankind forever. You cannot unsee what you have seen. And even though those who were blessed to be the eyewitnesses of such an event were instructed to keep it under wraps until the proper time, and they were obedient to do so, that time had come.
Here in Peter’s last will and testament, he has been faithful to remind us of what it takes to attain to Christlikeness. And then he harkens back to a prophetic moment that links together the events beginning at Y’shua’s baptism and all the way into the future of our prophetic destiny.
We have the prophetic word confirmed. Obedience to the faith opens up what is revealed through the prophetic Scriptures to holy men being moved by the Holy Spirit. Are you such a person who can be trusted to steward God’s prophetic Word. Paul wrote, “Let a man think of us as Christ’s servants and stewards of God’s mysteries. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.” Let us faithfully execute this ministry and begin to interconnect all the pieces from that prophetic moment almost 2000 years ago: the prophecies and the players; and then let’s take a sneak peak into our prophetic destiny.
2025-05-23 | II Peter 1:9 | Object Lesson: Christ in You the Hope of Glory
Make every effort to add to your faith these seven things, and in this precise sequence, if you wish to experience all of God’s exceedingly great and precious promises, culminating in your expression of the Divine Nature. To your faith add virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection, and love. Adding these things in this sequence is what it means to practice your faith. The benefits of doing so are exponential because you were made in God’s image and to express His nature; “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
And yet, there is one thing that will shipwreck everything! If you don’t truly comprehend your new identity in Christ and all that it entails, you are bound to gravitate to your old identity. If you don’t consistently embrace your new saintly nature, you will be repeatedly tempted to express your old sinful nature. In other words, your old nature, which should be dead and buried, is resuscitated. Reenergized by your own willful desires, your dead nature resurrects, and your new identity in Christ fades into the background of your daily life, as if you never really received one. Don’t let that happen to you! You’ve spent enough of your past doing the will of the pagans. It’s time to lay aside all the heaviness that comes with sin and to release all the iniquity which, in the past, clung so closely to you. Now, run the race that is set before you with steadfast, unwavering endurance, and get ready to experience the only victory that never perishes.