Amen. Well, thank you for being here everyone tonight. It's been a great conference so far.
Really enjoyed Pastor Burzen's sermon and all the great hospitality. You had fun ice skating
and everything else. And so tonight I'm preaching on the subject, false religion is an abomination.
False religion is an abomination. God hates false religion. And the first point that I want to make
is right here in Deuteronomy 7 that the images and icons of false religion are an abomination
to God. Look at verse number 5. It says, but thus shall you deal with them. You shall destroy their
altars, break down their images, cut down their groves and burn their graven images with fire.
For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God. The Lord thy God has chosen thee to be a
special people unto himself above all people that are upon the face of the earth. He's saying, look,
you are worshiping the true God. Don't be influenced by these images of Satan's religion,
of false religion, their images, their idols, destroy it, break it down, burn it down. You
don't want that stuff to influence you because you've got the true God and the true God is not
seen through an image. He's heard by the hearing of the word of God. When the children of Israel
went to Mount Sinai, they did not see any image. They only heard a voice speaking to them the word
of God from that mountain. And if you want to get to know God, you get to know God through the voice
of God, through the word of God, through listening to God's word, not through looking at a picture,
looking at an image, a little statue that you bow down to. God hates false religion and he hates
the images and icons of false religion. We should not adopt or borrow those images. Look at verse
number 25. It says, the graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire. Thou shall not
desire the silver or gold of them that is on them, nor take it under thee, lest thou be snared
therein, for it is an abomination to the Lord thy God. Neither shalt thou bring an abomination
into thine house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it, but thou shalt utterly detest it. I mean,
look at the language here. God's saying, look, hate it, abhor it, detest it. I mean, we should
just be repulsed by the images of false gods and false deities and false religion that are out
there and not say, well, you know, it's a nice decoration that I could have in my home. I'm not
going to worship it, but I just kind of like the way it looks. Burn it with fire. Get rid of it.
We don't need it. You know, all of the different paintings and pictures that are supposedly of
Jesus and the saints and Mary, those are random people. That is not Jesus. Nobody knows what Jesus
looked like physically. And you know, I've read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and there is no
physical description of Jesus in any of those books. If God wanted us to know what Jesus looked
like, he would have said, hey, here's what Jesus looked like. Here's what his skin looked like.
Here's what his hair looked like. Here's what his height was like. Here's what he was built like.
And you know what? The Bible does say those things about some people. It'll talk about a woman being
of a fair countenance or that David was ruddy. And it'll explain that Saul is head and shoulders
above the people. We'll get some physical descriptions throughout the Bible when they're
relevant, but we don't get a physical description of Jesus because God doesn't want us to worship
an image of Jesus because it's not an image of Jesus. It's an image of a random dude.
Okay? You've got a picture of Absalom in your house. You have a picture of Obi-Wan Kenobi in
your house. Okay? You have a picture of a random dude. You're worshiping some blue-eyed, blonde-haired,
Caucasian, effeminate-looking dude. And it's not the Lord. It's just a random person.
Same thing with Mary. That's just some woman. And we shouldn't be worshiping Mary anyway because
there's one mediator between God and man, and it's the man, Christ Jesus. We don't need a mediatrix.
We need a mediator, which is Jesus. And so we need to hate the idolatry, abhor the idolatry,
detest the idolatry. Don't bring it into your home. Get rid of it. It says in verse number...
Actually, if you would flip over to chapter 16 of Deuteronomy. While you're turning to Deuteronomy 16,
the Bible reads in Numbers 33, speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them,
when you're passed over Jordan into the land of Canaan, then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants
of the land from before you and destroy all their pictures. Destroy all their pictures and destroy
all their molten images and quite pluck down all their high places. You know what I would think of
let's say that I were the pastor of a Baptist church and we got into a building and let's say
the existing building had some artwork on the wall. It had some pictures of Jesus and Mary and
the saints like painted on the wall. You know, the first thing I'm going to do before I do anything
else, you know, when the ink is not even dry on the lease or on the purchase document is I'm going
to Home Depot and buying some paint and destroying those images. Oh, you know, well, you know,
the stained glass is historic. You know what, let's get some energy efficient windows in there
and let's get the stained glass got to go. If it's showing a long hair Jesus, random dude.
If it's showing a bunch of deities and saints and Jesus and Mary, you know, it's got to break it,
smash it. It's my property. You know, there's a new tenant in the building. Destroy that stuff.
Now that is not the case because, you know, we rent space in an office complex, right? And so
we don't have, you know, nobody's offering to allow us to inhabit the cathedrals of this world.
But you know what, if it did, I'm just saying hypothetically, man, all those gargoyles are
getting smashed. They're getting destroyed. It's like, oh, it's historic. It's art. It's demonic.
Destroy it. You know, we went to the island of Cyprus and did soul winning there. And there's
a lot of archeology there because obviously there's a lot of history in that part of the world
and the Greek culture that was there. And we went to some of the temples and ruins of the
ancient Greeks. And there were a whole bunch of statues of their Greek gods and Greek heroes,
these things that the Lord hates. And they had been beheaded. Their heads were gone.
They were just bodies with a missing head. And then the dudes had something else chopped off as
well. And you know what, that's because somebody came through there and said, this is idolatry,
smash, smash, smash. He said, oh, it's such a loss to history. You know, what if we had just
forgotten every name of every false god that had ever existed back then and we just forgot about
it? Would that be a bad thing? Hey, what if we had just not had any idols that survived from
3000 BC, 2000 BC, 1000 BC, whenever the date, hey, so what? So what? Why do you want to dig
that stuff up? Hey, the only reason I'd want to dig up some false god is just so I could smash it
and ruin it. These archeologists better hope that they get there before I do.
Because if I dig up some corrupt manuscript of the New Testament that doesn't match the traditional
text, I'm just going to burn it and not tell anybody what I found. Right? Get rid of it.
Deuteronomy 1622, neither shalt thus set up any image which the Lord thy God hated. Any image.
Don't set up any image because God is not known through an image. Okay, so it's not that I don't
like the pictures of Jesus, which I don't like them, but that's not, I don't want to see any
picture of Jesus because any picture of Jesus is wrong. Any picture of God is wrong. Like we just
should not depict the Lord because God hates the image. Get rid of it. We don't know what he looked
like. He didn't want us to know what he looked like when Jesus was on this earth. Obviously,
we physically saw Jesus walking on this earth, but isn't it interesting how God worked it out
that someone as famous and important as Jesus. And people knew that Jesus was important when
he walked this earth. I mean, he had thousands of people coming to hear him preach multitudes.
His fame went throughout all Syria and Decapolis and Judea and Samaria and Jesus' fame went abroad
into all these regions. Wouldn't you think that somebody would have sat down with their little
sketch pad and said, you know what? I'm going to draw a picture of Jesus. I guarantee you that
tons of people drew a picture of Jesus. But God in his wisdom made sure that none of them survived
because if one of them did survive, then everybody would be putting it in their house,
putting a bunch of candles in front of it, and behaving like an idolater with that image.
God hates the images and icons of false religion. They are an abomination unto him.
But number two, if you would go to Deuteronomy chapter 12, not only are the images and icons
of false religion an abomination, the practices of false religion are also an abomination.
And you know what? In fact, this stuff should all start with a P. You know, so I'm going to be like
Pastor Jimenez and I'm going to have it all start with a P. So we're going to change the first
point. The pictures of false religion are an abomination. And number two, the practices
of false religion are an abomination. Deuteronomy 12 29, when the Lord thy God shall cut off the
nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them,
and dwellest in their land, take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them,
after that they be destroyed from before thee, and that thou inquire not after their gods,
saying, how did these nations serve their gods? Even so, why do likewise? I want to see if I can
borrow some of the good things, some of the good practices, some of the positive things from these
religions, and maybe incorporate them into Christianity. No! Don't go to a false religion
and say, well, let's see what we can incorporate. He says, do not learn the way they worship their
gods so that you could do likewise. It says in verse 31, thou shalt not do so unto the Lord
thy God. Don't worship your God the way they worship their God, for every abomination of the
Lord which he hateth have they done unto their gods. And then here's an extreme example. Even
their sons and their daughters, they've burned in the fire to their gods. What thing soever I
command you, observe to do it, thou shalt not add thereto nor diminish from it. Look, worship God
the way the Bible says to worship God. You don't need any other practices other than what the Bible
gives you. That's how you worship God. Go if you were to Deuteronomy 16. Deuteronomy 16.
And while you're turning there, I'm going to read for you from Matthew chapter 6.
The Bible reads in the New Testament, but when you pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do,
for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them,
for your father knoweth what things you have need of before you ask him. So here's what the
Bible is saying. Do not have practices that have come from the heathens. They love to chant and
pray these repetitive prayers, vain repetitions, what the Bible calls it, because they think
they're going to be heard for their much speaking. Like if they just repeated enough,
God's going to listen because they just said it a hundred times.
And chanting is not a biblical practice. Whereas false religions, they do chanting, don't they?
He says, don't be like them. Your heavenly father already knoweth what things you have need of
before you ask. If you want to pray for something, just say it one time. Just ask God for what you
need and you're good to go. You don't have to just keep saying over and over again. You know,
and for example, the Greek Orthodox, right? The East Orthodox, they will chant for hours
and they have all kinds of videos on YouTube bragging about how spiritual they are in their
monasteries and, oh, we're at the Mount Athos monastery. And, you know, and these guys are
literally will walk around for several hours saying, Jesus Christ, son of God, be merciful
to me, the sinner. Jesus Christ, son of God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Jesus Christ,
son of God, be merciful to me. And do that for like three hours, four hours, five hours. And,
you know, you want to know the ironic thing is that Jesus Christ, the son of God is not going
to be merciful to them and he's going to put them in hell when they die. And they're going to be
like, whoa, I said that to you like 5 million times. Seriously, think about it. They said it
that many times and the irony is that you could literally say it once and go to heaven
if you actually meant it, if you actually believed it. I mean, there's a guy in the Bible
who one time he went down to the temple and he got on his knees and he said, God, be merciful
to me, a sinner. And the Bible says he went home to his house justified. He said it one time,
meant it, believed it. And you say, well, how do you know these guys don't mean it?
Because these guys, you can ask them, they will tell you that believing on Jesus Christ
is not how you get to heaven, but that you must do works to go to heaven. They're openly teaching
a works-based salvation and they are earning their own way to heaven. And guess what? You can't earn
your own way to heaven. You can't buy your own way into heaven. You have to accept the gift of
salvation as a free gift. And you can chant, oh, God, be merciful to me, a sinner, while in your
heart you're thinking, I'm so spiritual. I'm so awesome. I'm a monk for crying out loud. I eat,
breathe, and sleep religion. And let me show you my collection of skulls. Because, you know,
these Greek monasteries, they literally have skull collections. I'm not even kidding. The same Mount
Athos documentary that will show you the guy chanting, Jesus Christ, son of God, be merciful
to me, the sinner, he's like, let me show you my collection of skulls. And it's just like human
skulls, like hundreds of them. These are all the monks. And basically, someday, his goal is that
his head be on that shelf. I'm not even kidding right now. He wants his head to be on that shelf
someday. And his head will be on that shelf someday. But I don't think he's going to care.
Because he's going to be damned, my friend, because he doesn't believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. He believes on himself and his religion and his works. And he's a self-righteous, arrogant,
prideful, damned fool. Whereas a humble person just says, hey, I'm a sinner. I don't deserve
to go to heaven, but God be merciful to me a sinner. And boom, they're saved just by
putting their faith and trust in what Jesus Christ already did for them on the cross,
instead of feeling like they have to go beat themselves in a monastery and go
collect skulls and do all this in order to earn their way into heaven.
Where did I have you turn? Chapter 16 of Deuteronomy, look at verse 21. It says,
thou shalt not plant thee a grove of any trees near unto the altar of the Lord thy God,
which thou shalt make thee. Now, why is God telling them don't plant a grove of trees
near the altar? I mean, plant a tree. When I was a kid, there was a commercial that said like,
plant a tree for all the world to share. So you think they're like, who remembers that?
Yeah, so you know, you think that planting a tree is a virtuous thing, right? Johnny Appleseed,
amen. You know what in the world could be wrong with planting a grove of trees by the altar?
Well, the issue with planting a grove of trees by the altar is that that's what the pagans did.
The pagans, the heathens, they would plant groves, they would worship devils in the groves and in the
high places. So God said, I don't want you worshiping me in the high places. I don't want
you worshiping me in the groves because he did not want the worship of the Lord to get confused
with false religion. He didn't want it to look the same outwardly. He wanted there to be a clear
distinction between this is worshiping the Lord over here, no idols, no grove, no high places.
And then over here, this is paganism with your groves and your high places and your idolatry
and so forth. He wanted it to be different. And you know what? The Roman Catholic Church
is a pagan false religion, just like the Orthodox Church, okay? And Roman Catholicism
has all this pagan idolatry. Instead of statues of Zeus and Athena and Apollo and Hermes,
they've just got the saints. And they're praying to the saint of the forest and the saint of the
river and the desert saint and whatever, just like they had gods for all those things because
it's the Roman Catholic Church, because it's the Greek Orthodox Church. And it's like 90% Greek,
10% Orthodox, 90% Roman, 10% Catholic. They've taken a lot of things from paganism and incorporated
them, and they are idolaters. It's an idolatrous cult, and they're not saved.
Why do I say they're not saved? Look, friend, it's so easy to be saved.
Nothing can be simpler. You just fully trust what Jesus Christ did for you on the cross,
and you just ask them to save you. You just put your trust in Him. But that's not what Roman
Catholicism teaches. You see, the Bible says salvation is by grace, and you want to know what
grace means? It means that salvation is a free gift. It means that God just gives you salvation.
You know what justification by faith means? Justification means that you are declared
righteous in the sight of God, just as if I'd never sinned, right? Justified. You're declared,
it's like you went to court, and you're not guilty, even though you really did the crime.
You're OJ, my friend. You did the crime, and you're declared not guilty, justified.
You know what I'm saying? Okay. We're all spiritually OJ. You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, the glove don't fit. But actually, the glove does fit, because we do deserve to go to
hell. We're sinners. We've sinned. We deserve the punishment, but we're justified. That's what
justification means. But here's the thing. To the Roman Catholic, that's not what grace means,
and that's not what justification means. If you ask a Roman Catholic, hey, are we saved by grace?
They'll say, amen. Hey, are we justified by faith? Amen. You say, well, how can they say that
when they're clearly telling people that to go to heaven, they have to do the sacraments,
they have to go to confession, they have to live a good life, they have to do good works.
How can they then turn around and say it's by grace? It's because they've changed the
definition of what these things mean. So here's the thing. When a Roman Catholic says grace,
here's what they mean. And by the way, a lot of Protestants mean this too.
When they say grace, here's what they mean. God divinely giving them the ability to do right.
So they could never do right, they could never be righteous, they could never do the works
unless God gave them grace. And then because of God's grace, they're able to be a good person
so that they can go to heaven through the grace of God. Folks, no. The Bible says if it's of grace,
it's not of works. Otherwise, grace is no more grace. Grace is God's riches at Christ's expense.
Grace is the free gift of God of salvation, not of works, but to him that worketh not,
the Bible says, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly. His faith is counted
for righteousness. It's not that he actually did the righteousness, it's that his faith is counted
for righteousness. Even as David also described it, the blessedness of the man unto God impudeth
righteousness without works. So I don't have to do the works to be saved because the righteousness
is imputed unto me. I get credit on my account for the righteousness that Jesus did. I believe
in Jesus and his righteousness imputed unto me. But to the Roman Catholic, grace is God
divinely infusing me with the ability to do right so that I can go to heaven by doing right things.
And then when they say justification, they don't mean what the Bible means.
When the Bible says justified, it means declared to be righteous. Not that you actually did the
righteous stuff or that you actually are righteous, but that you're declared righteous.
But to the Roman Catholic, justification means made righteous. So basically,
oh, I'm justified by faith because I believe in Jesus. God made me righteous. So now I'm
doing righteous stuff so that I can go to heaven by works, by doing the righteous stuff. But,
you know, I'm justified by faith. You know, the thing that made me righteous is my faith,
you know, and, you know, the thing that gave me the ability to do it is grace.
So they're just twisting what the Bible says. Let me prove to you. And obviously, we if you look up
all the times that the word justified use, you'll see pretty quick whose definition is right. You
actually look in the Bible. It's declared to be righteous, not made righteous. Let me give you
an example. What about when the people justified God? Did they make him righteous or did they
declare him to be righteous? Right. They declared him to be righteous. And again, I just read for
you or I just quoted for you the part from Romans four where it clearly says that our righteousness
is imputed unto us without works. So that basically we get credit for righteousness without
doing works. If we believe on Christ, we have the righteousness of God imputed unto us. Okay,
so we're declared to be righteous by virtue of his righteousness, not by our own righteousness.
It's not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us
by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. You kids are cramping my style
a little bit. All right. Let you get a little close here. All right. There we go. Very good.
Because what if I want to come around this side? You know, I need I need to. I'm not saying I'm
going to. I just want to have that option. Whoa, no, no, no. Don't be creeping forward. Back. I
say back. I need like a fire, a torch or something to wave here. All right. All right. Drag these
kids out of here. No. All right. So here's the thing. I don't want to be like unto a Roman Catholic
because I know that their practices are an abomination.
Their images are an abomination. So why would I turn my collar backward so that I can look like
a Catholic preacher like like that? That somehow is going to make me look a little bit more
legitimate as a man of God clergy because I have the collar turned backward. No, it just
makes you look like a pagan. Makes you look like an idolater who bows down to statues
and empties out a dust buster and sprinkles Fufu dust all over the place on Sunday morning
and lights a bunch of candles and and says a bunch of Hail Marys and everything.
Look, I don't want to have the collar backwards. I don't want to wear some long rope.
Jesus Christ said, beware of the scribes that love to go in the long clothing.
Right. Why would I want to go in some long clothes? Why would I want to go in some flowing
robe, some kind of a flowing garment? I don't want to wear robes like I'm clergy and collar
turned around backwards. No, because those things are not only not in the Bible, but they are
squarely associated with Roman Catholicism. And when in the case of the long robes,
Jesus literally said, don't do it. Don't follow it. And he also said, call no man your father
upon the earth for one is your father, which is in heaven. But what do they call the Catholic
priest father? And so we don't want to be like them. And, you know, the last thing I would do,
and I don't think anybody's in danger of this, is that what's with that weird monk haircut
where they literally shave off the top of their hair and they just leave a strip of hair around
the bottom. Now, I don't think anybody does that anymore, but I wouldn't do it.
Because why? It's just a Catholic haircut. I don't want a Catholic haircut, a Catholic collar,
a Catholic outfit, because I know that the practices of false religion are an abomination
to God. So why would I want to emulate or look like those things? I don't want to borrow their
imagery. I don't want to borrow their clothing. I don't want to borrow their style. I want to be
different. And you know what? If you walk into an independent fundamental Baptist church,
it doesn't feel like a Roman Catholic church. It just doesn't feel the same. And let's keep it
that way. And that's why we don't want to get all formalistic and go down that road because we're
not trying to be confused with a false religion. Go if you would to Hosea chapter number two.
Hosea chapter two. I think one of the main things that God's getting at in a lot of these passages
is that he doesn't want the true worship of the Lord to be confused with paganism,
to be confused with heathen religions and false religions. He wants there to be a clear difference
between God's people and false religion because he hates false religion. And look, I'm not just
the one who came up with that word hate. We saw it in the scripture. He said, I hate the idols.
I hate the images. I hate the practices of the heathen. I hate these things that they do.
In fact, you're in Hosea. You're in the neighborhood. Keep your finger on Hosea.
Go over to Malachi chapter two. Let's see how God really feels about false religion.
Am I exaggerating when I say that God absolutely hates false religion? Well, look what the Bible
says in Malachi chapter two. He says in verse number three, Behold, I will corrupt your seed,
Malachi 2-3, and spread dung upon your faces. So he says, I am going to spread dung on your face.
And look what he says next. He says, even the dung of your solemn feasts. So he's saying,
Ash Wednesday is a bunch of crap, and I'm going to shove it in your face. That's literally what
he said. I mean, did I just make that up? He said, your solemn feasts to a false religion.
Roman Catholicism is a false religion. Ash Wednesday, they're made up solemn feasts
that's not biblical at all. And he says, I'll take the dung of your solemn feasts and shove
it in your face. And then you think, we preach too hard. This is what Malachi is preaching.
Right? And now, Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, all these made up,
wrong holidays that represent false doctrine. What is it that the Roman Catholics are celebrating
on these holidays? Just their unbiblical, messed up theology and false gospel. It's not
biblical Christianity that they're actually celebrating on these things.
I mean, if you stop and think about it, Good Friday. Well, Jesus wasn't crucified on Friday,
according to the Bible. So what are you doing there? What is that? Right? I want to know how
you get three days and three nights out of Jesus being crucified on Friday. I don't care what kind
of math you do. It's just not going to work. Because even if you took the day Friday and the
night Friday night and the day Saturday and Saturday night and then Sunday and you're just
doing the most liberal counting ever, you're never going to find that third night. It just
isn't there. Because from Friday to Sunday morning, the third night just isn't there.
There's a missing night. So guess where we're going to find that other night. We've got to
move things up one day earlier. There you go. Now your missing night is accounted for.
And you don't have to be as stretching with what you're counting. But what is this Lenten season?
We've got to give up something for Lent. Excuse me, what verse in the Bible is that?
Where are the nuns in the Bible? I don't see any nuns in the Bible. I don't see any monks in the
Bible. Where are the cardinals in the Bible? There's no mention of a cardinal. There's no
mention of any of the pope. Where's the pope? They say Peter's the first pope. Peter had a mother-in-law
that was healed by Jesus. Okay, does the current pope have a mother-in-law? No, because the pope's
not allowed to be married. Peter was married. All the apostles were married,
except for Paul and Barnabas. Everyone else was married. The 12 disciples are married,
according to the Bible. I don't know if Judas was married, but the rest of them all got married.
Okay.
And so we should not want to emulate or be like these false practices that God hates them so
much he says that they're poop. You know, they're excrement. They're dung. I'll shove it in your
face. You know, he says in Amos chapter 5 something similar. He says, I hate, I despise your feast
days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. God's like, you're burning all
this incense. I'm not even going to smell it. So, uh, because I'm not going to smell your incense.
You're emptying your dust buster in vain because I'm not smelling it. Okay. I had you turn to
Hosea chapter 2. Look what the Bible says in Hosea chapter 2 verse 16. It says,
It shall be at that day, saith the Lord, Hosea 2 16, that thou shalt call me Ishi and shall
call me no more Beyali, for I will take away the names of Beyalim out of her mouth and they shall
no more be remembered by their name. Now, what does this mean? Because, you know, we're looking
at some really unfamiliar words here. Ishi, Beyali, right? Well, these are Hebrew words
that are just transliterated directly into English for us. So they're in the King James
Bible, right? And we got the Ishi and Bali. What do these both mean? Well, in many ways,
they both mean the same thing, but yet God is saying, you know, these two things both mean the
same thing, but I want you to use one of them and I don't want you to use the other. I want you to
call me Ishi. I'm just going to do it in like an Americanized pronunciation. You know, I want you
to call me Ishi. I don't want you to call me Beyali. Now, why do you think, even without
being trained in a foreign language, what do you think is the problem with this term Beyali?
Like, look, I'm not expecting you to do any deep language study here. This is not a trick question.
Anybody want to tell me what they think is probably wrong with...
What's that? You're waving your hand. Kind of sounds like Baal.
Now, the reason why there would be any question about this, like, well, duh, don't call God Baal.
But here's the thing. The word Baal itself is not in and of itself a bad word because the
word Baal itself simply means lord, master, or husband. And to this day, okay, if we went to
Israel and we're speaking modern Hebrew, if a woman talked about her husband, you know what
she would call him? Bali. She would say, literally, my Baal. Okay. Now, why? Because that's what it
means. It just means lord, master, husband. Okay. So in modern Hebrew, they're going to use this
term Baal, and they're not referring to that false god. They just mean husband with it. Does
everybody understand? But there's another word that you could use for husband, which is this
word ish, which means man or husband. It's another word that also means husband. It means man. It's
also her lord in the sense of her husband or man, you know. So this is another option that could be
used. Does everybody understand? Everybody following? So even though these two words
have a crossover in their meaning, God's saying, even though the term Baal could be used about me
because I am the lord, I am the master, I am a husband unto Israel, don't call me that anymore
because I just want all of this Baalim out of your mouth. Like I want you to just get rid of
that vocabulary. And I think a great analogy of this is the word, the modern word that we have
in our English language, Allah. Now, when we hear Allah, what are we thinking of right away? Islam,
immediately. Now, there's nothing wrong with that word in and of itself because actually,
when you're reading the Book of Daniel, for example, and you're reading the Aramaic section
in the Book of Daniel, that word just means God. Allah just means God. It's not a bad word. But
here's the thing. Don't you think it would be wrong for me, even though that word just means
God in Aramaic or in Arabic? Don't you think it'd be wrong for me, though, to say, hey,
let's go worship Allah? We're worshiping Allah. Praise Allah. Like, would that sit well with you?
If you came to a Baptist church and the pastor's like, praise Allah. Allahu Akbar.
Everybody duck and cover if you hear that. That's like a siren warning in the 1950s
for a nuclear blast when you hear that Allahu Akbar. You get under the desk. And so,
obviously, the word itself intrinsically, there's nothing wrong with that word. It's in the Bible.
If you're reading it in Aramaic, if you're reading Daniel or Ezra in Aramaic, it's there. But guess
what? Because it has that connotation of being associated with Islam, don't use it. And that's
why God's saying, look, maybe in the past, this word was a word that would have been fine to use.
Because, for example, look at one of Saul's kids named Ishmael, man of Baal. And it's both of these
two words that you see here, the Ishmael and the Baal are combined in one of Saul's says, Ishmael,
man of Baal. But it's not that Saul is this Baal worshiping guy. We know that Saul is worshiping
the Lord. But it's just that at that time, that word, that's why in Hosea's day, Hosea is
preaching this and saying, hey, we need to just stop using this word completely. Stop naming your
kids Ishmael. You know what I mean? Because it just sounds too much like these false gods and
pagan gods. Everybody see that? So the idea here is that God does not want us to resemble the
heathen. He doesn't want us to be confused for Islam. He doesn't want us to be confused for
Judaism. So quit Judaizing. Quit putting on your prayer shawl and blowing your shofar because I
don't want to be confused for a Jew. I don't want to be confused for a Muslim. I don't want
to be confused for a Roman Catholic. I want people to know that I'm an Evangelical Christian. I'm a
Baptist. Don't be like unto them. I'm not going to chant like them, dress like them. I'm not going
to be like unto them. I don't want to use their terminology. I want to use the Bible's terminology
and stay away from the terminology of false religion. And thirdly, this, if you would go to
1 Kings chapter, actually, you know what? Go straight to the New Testament for sake of time.
Let's go to 2 Peter chapter 2. 2 Peter chapter 2. 2 Peter chapter number 2. You know, the practices
of false religion are an abomination to God. You know what I'll bet is a big time abomination to
God is the Catholic Church's bizarre teaching on transubstantiation, that they're literally
eating the body and blood of Jesus. And how about using an alcoholic beverage to represent the blood
of Jesus? Really? It's absurd. You know, Jesus Christ, the Bible tells us in Matthew, Mark,
and Luke that he drank of the fruit of the vine on the Last Supper. It doesn't even say wine. It
says fruit of the vine, number one. But number two, it's so funny when people just assume,
every time they see the word wine in the Bible, that it's an alcoholic beverage. That's funny
because Pastor Burson has just read it in his sermon. Look not on the wine when it's red. You
know what that means? There's a wine that's not red. Look not on the wine when it gives its color
in the cup. You know what that means? There's a wine that doesn't give its color in the cup.
There's a wine that does not move itself aright. There's apparently a wine that we should stay away
from and a wine that's fine. There's a wine that's okay and a wine that needs to be avoided. Hmm,
I wonder which is which. I wonder what this special wine is that we're supposed to avoid.
Well, let's see. It's red. It gives its color in the cup and it moves itself aright. Okay,
you know what? That's describing fermentation because the red wine gets its red color from the
outside of the grape where the yeast lives, which is what does the fermenting. Look, I don't know
about you. Maybe I'm weird or have some kind of a neurological disorder or something, but when I
was a kid I used to like peel the grape and I would eat the peel separate and eat the grapes.
Who else is damaged out there? Anybody else? Okay, turns out we're normal. We're not damaged.
This is great, but you know I've said that sometimes when you only have a little bit of snacks
in your lunch you want to stretch it out and you make it last. So it reminds me of
like when I was a kid seeing the little cartoon of Mickey and the Beanstalk and they're like
slicing the food real thin and they have like one bean and they're like carving it into little
slices. You know, so when you're a kid and you're stuck in school for seven hours you homeschoolers
don't know the struggle of getting there and you don't have enough snacks. You don't have enough
food. You know, it's the first break and you've eaten your whole lunch and so man you're sitting
there and you're peeling each grape and you're savoring each little morsel of grape skin
and then you put that slimy center into your mouth, right? But here's the point that I'm making.
What color is that center? That juicy, that juice-filled center of the red grape. What color
is it? Is it red? No, it's typically that kind of light yellow, light greenish color, right?
But once you peel back that purple outer layer it's white inside. It's not red on the outside.
The outside is what's red and that's where all the yeast lives, okay? So when they make wine
what they do they crush the grapes and they let it soak and sit in those skins so that the yeast
can do its work and ferment it because it's the yeast from the outside of the grape that does the
fermenting and that is what makes it red. The soaking in the skin it gets its red color from
the skin not from the juice inside the grape. If you just squeeze the grapes into a glass
it's not going to be, it's not going to be the purple stuff that you're buying at the store,
my friend. Go get red grapes, go get purple grapes, go home, squeeze them into a glass and
tell me if it's the color of Welch's grape juice. It isn't. You understand what I'm saying?
He says it's red because we've let the skins soak in it and get that yeast in there to do
the fermenting. It gives its color in the cup, again same thing, and then it moves itself right
because as the yeast ferments the byproduct is carbon dioxide and so it becomes a carbonated
beverage. What do carbonated beverages do? They move. You know the Bible is speaking in
an ancient language so it's not like you know going to explain, and it's a poem by the way,
right? Proverbs is a poetic book so it uses this poetic language of it giveth its color in the cup,
it moveth itself aright. It's using this beautiful poetic language but there's a wine you look at and
a wine you don't look at, my friend. Common sense should tell you that when you read Proverbs 23
and the three things to look out for in the wine is just describing fermented wine
versus new wine versus wine that's not fermented versus wine that's extremely low alcohol versus
an intoxicating beverage that you would get carded for and hey you have to show your ID.
And you know you I'm going to put you on the spot Pastor Burzins. I'm sorry to do this because
I didn't ask your permission but you know you mentioned uh earlier you mentioned that you know
earlier in life you'd been to see back let me ask this how old were you when you first took a drink
of alcohol in your life? How old were you? I'm just curious. 13. And you know what I've never
talked to him about that that I can remember. I don't remember ever asking him that question
but I absolutely knew for a fact he wasn't going to say 21.
You know what I mean? Like that's why I just did that right now without even checking and making
sure that I was right because I knew he's not gonna say oh 21, 21st birthday, 22 years old. No
he said 13. Did I get that right? 13 because it's kind of hard to hear. 13. And you know what?
Virtually everybody who's going out and doing that with alcohol getting drunk whatever you know
people who abuse alcohol typically start it when they're a kid. And you know what? If people wait
until they're 21 to start drinking the chances of them abusing alcohol are almost zero. That's why I
knew the chances of him saying 21 were almost zero because that's why their drinking age even exists
because society is saying hey if we can tell people you can't drink it till you're 21 by the
time they get to 21 they're not going to go out and do all that. It's the foolishness that's bound
in the heart of a child that would cause the 13 year old, the 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, that young
teenage mind that is not fully developed yet is going to be deceived by alcohol.
Right? And look I'm not for any drinking as far as I don't think when you turn 21 you should drink.
Don't misunderstand me but I'm telling you it's the teenage drinking that destroys people's lives
and sets them up for future problems with alcohol 100% my friend. It's that teenage drinking and
that's why you shouldn't have alcohol in your house you know because that's just alcohol that
your kids could get into when they're too young and foolish to understand the danger.
Just don't have it around. Don't give them access to it. Keep it away from them you know and thank
God that it's illegal until they're 21 but you know if they get around the wrong friends and
you're just kind of letting them run wild and letting them run amok then they're going to have
access to it because they're going to be with friends that are getting into it and so forth
and it's it's wicked my friend. Now imagine the wickedness of saying hey this represents the blood
of Christ. Really an alcoholic beverage? A fermented drink when God didn't even want
unleavened bread to represent his body? You think he wants a leavened beverage? It's absurd.
But the Roman Catholics and the Protestants man they they do that abomination. I think it's
blasphemous. I think it's sacrilegious to pull out an alcoholic beverage. They make fun of us
oh you guys think Jesus was drinking Welch's? No because Jesus wasn't drinking purple stuff
but he was drinking the fruit of the vine. It just wasn't purple. It just didn't have red 40
and lake 50 in it. It didn't have food coloring in it making it purple.
But you know what? He was not saying hey let's pass around a brewski
you know right before I go to the cross. Folks you know Jesus Christ you know he rejected
even when they're just giving him you know the the the vinegar on the stick and his you know
and people have theorized like oh you know he didn't accept that because of the fact that you
know he doesn't want a painkiller. Like I've heard that theory like you know he didn't want to take
the edge off or whatever but but here's the thing about that is you know maybe he doesn't want it
because it's gross you know because because in the old testament it's prophesied like they gave me
gall and vinegar to drink you know but at the end of the day you think Jesus is just you know
drinking the night before the crucifixion. He's about to he's about to go do all this really
serious praying in the Garden of Eden so he drinks alcohol first you know just get a little buzzed
for the Garden of Gethsemane. It's blasphemous it's sacrilegious it's stupid
and people sit there and say well you know back then that you don't know what it was like back then
you never lived back then what just because you read some literature from some toga wearing Roman
senator or something you think you know everything about life in the bible times you know the bible
is the most reliable source for bible for the life in the bible I'm not going to trust all
these other sources and just assume that some toga party Roman dude is going to tell me the truth
I don't know what kind of life he's living you know it's a you know a bunch of weirdos in many
cases and so you know I don't believe it for one second and I don't want to be like unto them
I gotta hurry for sake of time I wanted to show you I'm just going to tell you this because I
don't have time first kings chapter 12 says that Jeroboam made of the lowest of the people
priests in his false religion you know the third point is this the preachers of false religion are
an abomination number one we said the pictures are an abomination number two we said the practices
are an abomination and number three the preachers are an abomination okay the lowest of the low
that's who were priests in Jeremiah or Jeroboam's false religion second kings 17 also talks about
them making the lowest of the people priests to their false gods second peter chapter 2 verse 1
but there were false prophets also among the people even as there shall be false teachers
among you who privately shall bring in damnable heresies even denying the lord that bought them
and bring upon themselves swift destruction and many shall follow their pernicious ways
by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of and through covetousness shall they with
fainted words make merchandise of you whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not and
their damnation slumber he's like these people are damned they're wicked they're false they're
an abomination look at verse 12 these as natural brute beasts he's saying look these false prophets
they're like stupid animals what's a brute beast brute means stupid beast means animal
he's saying these stupid animals who's he calling stupid animals false prophets false teachers
what kind of scum would get up and pretend to be teaching people about god and teach lies
when souls are at stake when it's literally heaven and hell for people and then they're
teaching things which they ought not for filthy lucre's sake for money they're gonna lie they're
trash like like literally just think of the trashiest people in society think of the worst
scum you know the worst trash and scum would be what the pimp right pimps are trash they're scum
they're evil they're wicked think of the think of just the human traffickers of this world
and think these people are trafficking in souls you know you think about just the derelicts and
the trash the pornographers of this world and the strip club owners of this world just the sleaziest
just cruddiest people that's who false prophets are they're just like they're that same ilk
that's the type of people they are they're just the lowest of the people
they're stupid animals is what they are according to the bible
and it says they speak evil of the things that they understand not you know what happens when
a man of god actually gets up and preaches right doctrine they speak evil of it because they can't
understand it and you know why they can't understand it because they're not saved
so they get up and as dumb animals they get up and speak against salvation by faith and call it
easy believism and you know they they talk about how you know uh we're preaching because they're
speaking evil of the things that they understand not they can't understand it because they can't
be saved because they are in the their carnal and the bible spiritually discerned so the natural man
can't understand the things of the spirit of god because they're spiritually discerned keep the
amens from adults please i'm not kidding i don't want to hear kids saying amen men say amen we
don't need women and children saying amen in the house of god this is not play time so we see that
the false prophets of this world are trash you know they are the lowest low they are an
abomination in the sight of god and the bible says here that they are made verse 12 made to be taken
and destroyed speak evil of the things that they understand not and shall utterly perish in their
own corruption and shall receive the reward of unrighteousness as they that count it pleasure
to riot in the daytime now think about this there are people who count it pleasure to riot in the
daytime we would look at people who just kind of unashamedly are just kind of walking down the
street like in the middle of the daytime and they're already drunk and they're partying
and they're you know and they're half naked and who knows what they're doing and you'd be like
what is wrong with these people right because even society would say hey save that for friday
night save that for the weekend i mean just these people are just rioting during the daytime
you know and it's just like what is their problem but what does the bible say it says
that they shall receive the reward of unrighteousness as they that count it pleasure
to ride in the daytime so here's the thing some people are doing their wickedness openly
where it's just obvious that they're that they're they're doing drugs they're getting drunk
they're fornicating their party and they're doing it in broad daylight for everybody to see
what they're doing and then these pastors have a facade of righteousness where it's not as obvious
like like we might look at some wild party girl and just instantly know she's a wild party girl
or look at some guy and say this guy is an alcoholic or he's a drug addict or he's a
whoremonger or whatever whereas like when we see these preachers and priests and stuff on the
outside they look so holy but god says you know they're getting the same punishment as that one
who counts it a pleasure to ride in the daytime because they're doing it secretly but it's the
same punishment because god sees everything and god knows what they are and you know what if you
actually believe the bible you'll know what they are too you'll know they're not so holy and
righteous these catholic priests they walk through the airport with this serene little smile on their
face big old cross around their neck and the flowing robe and oh yes my son i mean you know
what we should look at them and have the same respect for them is if we saw a guy at the airport
drunk with a hooters t-shirt yeah right a drunk with a hooters t-shirt and then a and then some
catholic with his car turn you know you know i'd rather talk to the drunk with the hooters t-shirt
on because he might get saved at least he's you know at least he's just defiling uh his body and
the bodies of those around him the the priest is defiling souls and they're both gonna go to the
same place it starts with an h and it ends in l and so the bible says spots they are in blemishes
sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you having eyes full of
adultery and that cannot cease from sin beguiling unstable souls right they're tricking people who
don't know any better they're beguiling unstable souls and we could go on and on i'm out of time
quickly go to jude and we'll look at one other passage on the false prophets and false teachers
of this world the bible says in jude verse 7 even as sodom and gomorrah and the cities about them in
like manner giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh are set forth for
an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire likewise also these filthy dreamers defile
the flesh he's saying man you think sodom's filthy false teachers and false prophets they
defile the flesh that way too super wicked and then it says in verse number
let me find my place here
verse number 10 these speak evil of those things which they know not
what they know naturally as brute beasts against stupid animals in those things they corrupt
themselves woe unto them for they've gone in the way of cain right cain did not have the blood of
the lamb as his sacrifice he offered his own works to god as an offering fruits and vegetables
and ran greedily after the error of balaam for reward they're preaching things which they ought
not for filthy lucre's sake and perished in the gainsang of koura right so they'll speak against
the true man of god they'll speak against the true word of god and teach lies he says in verse 13
raging waves of the sea foaming out their own shame wandering stars to whom is reserved the
blackness of darkness forever they're going to go to hell and burn there forever you know false
teachers and abomination and so should we respect all faiths you know and think that you know well
everybody's got their religion we need to respect the religion you know how dare you white people
go on to an indian reservation and preach your religion unto them they have their religion
they have their traditional religion you know what their traditional religion is satanic
it is satanic just like our white people traditional religion was satanic before we
heard about jesus when we had thor and and and all these you know odin or whatever and and and
you know with the greek gods and zoos that's all demonic stuff you know it's so funny that the
native americans like this is our you know traditional ethnic religion well you know what
we could go back and figure out what our ancient white people religion was and it was some evil
satanic paganism the difference is that we convert to christianity and guess what a lot
of native americans have christ converted to christianity too you know and and hopefully
eventually their pagan religion will just die the way that scandinavian pagan religion totally died
and the way that greek paganism totally died there's no more worship of zeus except i'm sure
there's some dungeons and dragons and guy living in his basement doing a sacrifice to zeus or
whatever in between role-playing games and lord of the rings marathons
but i mean come on there's no real ancient greek religion being practiced today there's no real
scandinavian paganism being practiced today there's no you know what to god that all of
these native american religions would go down the same crap hole as all that stuff the dung
of it all be shoved in their faces you know look we are constantly winning native americans to
christ just like somebody won our ancestors to christ you know it's not about red yellow black
white if we went back in any of our ethnicities whether we talk about the african the european
the scandinavian right slavic we could go back in any of our ancestries we could talk about
native americans we could talk about the chinese we could talk about india we could talk about
japan you know if we go back you know we're going to find pagan religion false religion
even the israelites themselves where who's the father of israel who's the who's the big name
abraham right well guess what you know what abraham came from a pagan family
an idol worshiping family so uh what about abraham's traditional religion of his
ethnicity you know his heritage you know he sold out to the white man religion i guess right no
because it wasn't a white man religion back then it's not a white man religion now it is
worldwide because the earth is the lord's and the fullness they're up
and so abraham and his fathers on the other side of the ephrades river they worship false gods
and god pulled abraham out of that pagan religion of his ancestors god pulled our people out of the
pagan religion of our ancestors and you know what we need to do for the native americans is pull
them out of the pagan religion of their ancestors and by the way if you're roman catholic you're
still pagan you're not going to go to hell number one anymore now you're going to go to hell number
two just kidding there's only one hell so nothing has changed i don't care if you're worshiping some
fertility goddess or worshiping the virgin mary you're going to hell that's a false god
and so you need to get saved and if you're saved you need to get other people saved
and if you're saved and you want to get other people saved don't look like a heathen
and don't say well maybe we could borrow some of these images we could borrow some of these
practices and maybe some of these prophets you know they're just you know you know they're
just a little misguided but you know this rabbi you know he loves god too you know and maybe we
could go to the prayer breakfast and you know the rabbi he loves god in his own way and you know
so what if the hindu god has an extra couple arms you know he just loves god in his own way
you know i mean the hindu god is somebody that we wanted to beat up in mortal combat
i've kicked his butt a few times
you know that nobody's ever beat up my god on a sega genesis
but i've beat up their hindu god on sega genesis repeatedly
and so we need to understand god hates false religion we should hate false religion obviously
we don't hate the people that are deceived by false religion we love them we want to help them
want to rescue them they're not our enemy they're our friend you know we want to help them we want
to rescue them we want to bless them we're not being hateful toward the roman catholic or the
mormon or the jew or the muslim right we want to help them we want to in love speak the truth in
love preach the gospel to them in love but you know what in our heart though when we see those
images we should not be like oh wondering with great admiration like like john wondering at the
great whore with great and and and angel the angel's like why did you marvel why did you why
are you wondering dude what do you do you know like we should actually hate it i you know when
i see these weird pictures of jesus and stuff it's like i find to be an abomination like i don't
like looking at it i'm like get this get this out of get this away from me you know some paint some
you know and then there's the mormon jesus picture where he kind of looks like a springer spaniel
you know and it's like you you know it's like each religion has their jesus you know i don't
like seeing that idolatrous stuff and when i walk up to the house and i see the the the virgin of
guadalupe idol it grieves me the idolatry you know what well how did the apostle paul feel when he
walked into athens you know he's he was grieved because of the idolatry the apostle paul was moved
and grieved when he saw the false religion that's how we should be and then that that that grieving
of false religion should motivate us to act and to win them to christ or at least try to win them
to christ and so what's the point of the sermon what's the takeaway it's to realize that false
religion isn't just you know not as good as christianity it's an abomination god hates it
and lovers of truth hate lies and i'll tell you one of the biggest reasons i'm a pastor
is because there's just so many lies in this world and i i just want to preach the truth
i just want my my goal in life is just to set the record straight on some things
you know when i die may it be said he set the record straight on some things there were some
lies that abounded stephen anderson was born into a world where lies abounded and you know
he straightened out some of these lies because i love the truth and you know what if we love
christianity if we love the lord if we love the trinity if we love salvation by faith if we love
sound doctrine eternal security the believer preservation of god's word then we hate every
false way you know and we want to set the record straight so let's open our mouths we'll do it in
love but let's open our mouths and preach the gospel of loss and set some things straight in
this world let's bow your heads and have a word of prayer father we thank you so much for your
word lord thank you for this conference i pray that everyone who's here would learn something
from your word and also to be stirred up and motivated to take their christian walk to the
next level maybe start soul winning for the first time maybe start attending church regularly if
right now they they don't have a church home lord help everyone who's here to be stirred
educated and to do something as a result of what they've heard at this conference
in jesus name we pray amen