Good Morning on this Lord’s day morning and welcome to the Berean Break.  My name is George Sinkie and I am so glad that you have joined me this morning.  As always I hope that you have your Bible handy because I want you to check out what I say.  The one and only guide that we use on this program is the word of God.  That is the only guide that I use in my life as well.  As we begin this morning let’s go to God in prayer:

Almighty God in heaven.  We thank You for this day in our lives.  What a blessing it is to have another day to live in this world.  But Lord it is also a great responsibility to be accountable for this day.  May we each use today wisely.  Help us to use this time together to know You better and to make the commitment to live for You more fully.  Thank You for Jesus through Whom we can know You better and through Whose blood we can have the forgiveness of our sins.  We also offer this prayer in His Name,  AMEN !!

     If I were to ask you if you had ever heard of the Seven Wonders of the World, most of you would probably say yes.  But what if I were to ask you to name them, how well do you think you would do?  Could you name one or three?  Perhaps five?  Or all seven?  A teacher one time in class was having the students write them down and they listed some of them plus some other amazing feats that man had accomplished.

     While gathering the votes, the teacher noted that one student, a quiet girl, hadn’t turned in her paper yet.  So she asked the girl if she was having trouble with her list.  The quiet girl replied, “Yes, a little.  I couldn’t quite make up my mind because there were so many.”
     The teacher said, “Well, tell us what you have, and maybe we can help.”
     The girl hesitated, then read, “I think the Seven Wonders of the World are to touch and to taste, to see and to hear … . ”  She hesitated a little, “and then to run and to laugh and to love.”

     This girl looked beyond the accomplishments of man and saw the Wonder of God’s creation.  Well how about it?  Can you name the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World?  They are The Great Pyramid of Gaza, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, The Statue of Zeus at Olympia, The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, The Colossus of Rhodes, and The Lighthouse of Alexandria.  As great as these “Wonders” are, today we are going to look at Seven Blunders of the World.  These are seven widespread and common mistakes that the world makes, there may even be times when you and I make these blunders, but we need to recognize them and repent of them.  They all have one common basis and it is a lack of knowledge of God’s Word.  This is the same problem Jesus encountered when the Saducees questioned the resurrection in Mark 12:24-27

   24 Jesus said to them, “Is this not the reason you are mistaken, that you do not understand the Scriptures, or the power of God?
   25 “For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.
   26 “But regarding the fact that the dead rise again, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?
   27 “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; you are greatly mistaken.”

     Their mistake – their blunder – was not knowing the Scriptures.  Let’s look now at the seven blunders of the world.

     First there is the blunder of Living For The Present.  Many live as if there is no judgment to come, they’re just out there grabbing all this life has to offer.  Jesus told a parable concerning this in Luke 12:16-21

   16 And He told them a parable, saying, “The land of a certain rich man was very productive.
   17 “And he began reasoning to himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?’
   18 “And he said, ‘This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.
   19 ‘And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.”’
   20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool!  This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?’
   21 “So is the man who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”

We must heed the warning of Hebrews 9:27

   27 And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment,

We would do well to follow the example of the faithful of old that the Hebrews writer wrote of in Hebrews 11:13

   13 All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

     A second common blunder is thinking that Baptism Is Not Essential For Salvation.  Under the Old Law there were those who rejected John’s Baptism as well.  Luke wrote of them in Luke 7:30

   30 But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected God’s purpose for themselves, not having been baptized by John.

Now remember this is referring to John’s baptism, but the baptism in water taught in the Great commission is essential for us today.  Jesus gave His commission to the apostles in Mark 16:15-16

   15 And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.
   16 “He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved;  but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.”

When Peter carried out this Commission in Acts 2 he taught the need of baptism in Acts 2:38

   38 And Peter said to them, “Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins;  and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

Peter also wrote by inspiration of God in 1 Peter 3:21

   21 And corresponding to that, baptism now saves you — not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience — through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

It is a very bold person who says that baptism is not essential for salvation in defiance of the Word of God.  Very bold and very wrong.

     The third of the Great blunders that we want to look at today is thinking that Being A Good Person Will Save You.  God calls all men to be more than just good men, we must be righteous.  As good people go, I would say that Cornelius in Acts 10 was about as good as they come.  Look how God describes him through the pen of Luke.  Acts 10:1-2

   1 Now there was a certain man at Caesarea named Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian cohort,
   2 a devout man, and one who feared God with all his household, and gave many alms to the Jewish people, and prayed to God continually.

As Jesus prayed in the garden, on the night of His betrayal, He looked to God for another way to redeem man, but the only way to do that was for Him to “drink the cup” prepared for Him, which was to go to the cross.  If we can be “good” enough to be saved, then Christ died cruelly and in vain.  No we need to recognize that we can in no way earn our salvation.  Even when we obey the will of God, Jesus shows the attitude we ought to have in Luke 17:10

   10 “So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.’”

     The next Blunder we mentioned last week, this blunder is that there are those who say There Is No Hell.  We will just look at one passage to show the error of this blunder and that is Matthew 25:46

   46 “And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Those who deny the existence of hell, must in consistence deny the existence of heaven as well.

     Blunder number five, is the belief that One Church Is As Good As Another.  This belief is without any scriptural support at all because Jesus promised to build His church in Matthew 16:18

   18 And I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church;  and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it.

It is important to note that Jesus’ “church” is singular, not plural. The mess of denominationalism is the result of the teaching of men.  This reminds the student of the Scriptures of what Jesus said in Matthew 15:7-9

   7 “You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying,
   8 ‘This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far away from Me.
   9 ‘But in vain do they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’”

     And this fifth blunder ties in with the sixth blunder which is that Doctrine Is Not Important.  As we just read in Matthew 15:7-9 the doctrine that we follow can cause our worship to be vain.  Paul taught that obeying certain doctrine was able to free us from sin.  Read with me, Romans 6:17

   17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed,

The “form of teaching” that Paul is referring to, are not the doctrines of men contained in their creeds and catechisms, but are the Scriptures as he wrote of in 2 Timothy 3:16-17

   16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;
   17 that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

If you think doctrine is not important, then you do blunder, not knowing the Scriptures.

The final great blunder that people make is Thinking that they have Plenty Of Time.  James clearly shows the error of this blunder in James 4:13- 17

   13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow, we shall go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.”
   14 Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.
   15 Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and also do this or that.”
   16 But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.
   17 Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do, and does not do it, to him it is sin.

     Any of these blunders are deadly to a person’s soul.  I pray that you will check out each one of these and then compare them to what you believe.  If you find that you believe one of these blunders, then humble yourself before God and follow His will.