Look at 2 Corinthians 13 verse 5. What does the Apostle Paul say? Examine
yourselves. Not just anybody, the Corinthian church. He's saying you need to examine
yourselves. Why? Whether ye be in the faith, prove your own selves, know ye not
your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except he be reprobates.
Well this is a great verse to use for those who don't believe in the reprobate
doctrine. Because there's a lot of people who believe that you can be saved and
still become a reprobate, which is insanity. But here's a verse to disprove
that. He says Christ is in you except ye be reprobates. So he's like
Christ is in you because I thought I got you saved, unless you're just a reprobate.
Now why does he say this to the Corinthian church and not to just every
other church? I'll tell you why. Because it's different when you have people who
come in Sunday in, Sunday out, Thursday in, Thursday out, listening to preaching,
going sowing, adhering to these deep doctrines, and they still hate the leader,
they still despise the dominion of the leader, they despise the pastor, you know
they're probably reprobates. That's why the Apostle Paul is saying that. He said
Christ is in you except ye be reprobates. You better examine yourself. He says but I
trust that ye shall know that we are not reprobates. He said you obviously understand
that we're not reprobates, right? He says now I pray to God that ye do no evil, not
that we should appear approved, but that ye should do that which is honest, though
ye be as reprobates. Now don't let that throw you for a loop when he says though
ye be as reprobates. Reprobate simply means rejected. And so he's saying look
you guys are rejecting us. You're rejecting me as the authority. So I'm as
a reprobate unto you, for we can do nothing against the truth before the
truth. So there's a reason why the Apostle Paul is bringing this up because of the
fact that his authority is coming into question. People are despising his
authority. They're mocking him as the leader and therefore he's like you know
what you better examine yourselves to see if you're in the faith. I don't even
know if you're saved. If you continue to fight against the authority, you know it
might mean that you're probably not even saved, okay? Because normal people when
they hate the authority or they don't like the authority, they just go
somewhere else and live a peaceable life somewhere else, okay?
Go to 1st John chapter 2 if you would. 1st John chapter 2. I'll be shorter
tonight because I went pretty long this morning. But I should not say
that. Because every time I say that I end up preaching longer than what's
expected. So what would make me doubt someone's salvation when they despise my
authority, when they despise any authority for that matter, okay? Now
there's some authorities that we despise but that's because they're false prophets.
But you know what we don't do? We don't spend every single Sunday, every single
hour of our day just talking about, you know, I don't know, Joe Holstein or
something or Rick Warren. We got better things to do with our time. We're serving
the Lord, amen? Whereas these people, they literally make it their full-time job to
speak evil of dignities, okay? And you know, in a church like this, there might
be someone like that. I don't think so. But there might. I don't think so though.
You say, how will we know? Well, we'll know when they start despising the
authority in a perpetual basis and start trying to sow seeds of rebellion within
the local church here, okay? And then we'll nip it in the butt. Number four, what
makes me doubt someone's salvation when people display attributes of a false
prophet? Now here's what people will say, how are you gonna call that person a
false prophet if they teach the right doctrine? Well, let me ask you this, you
know, I think Judas is scarier, probably taught the right
doctrine, right? What made him a false prophet or what validated that he was a
false prophet? Because he first of all stole money, right? Now look folks,
Christians steal money sometimes, or they steal, should I say. People, Christians lie,
they steal, they even commit adultery, they fornicate. Judas the scarier, on the
other hand, was a leader who was stealing money. That's a whole new level.
So when you have leaders that are stealing, you know, church finances, at
this point then, you know, you would probably think, I don't know if this
person's saved. Because you have to be a pretty devious, wicked person to steal
from the church. Okay, look at 1 John chapter 2 verse 18,
little children it is the last time as you have heard that the Antichrist
shall come, even now are there many Antichrists whereby we know
that it is the last time. They went out from us but they were not of us for if
they had been of us they would have no doubt continued with us, but they went
out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. Obviously
he's referring to Judas the scarier, okay. Now here's the thing, if a church member
is, you know, caught stealing, not in the church but just stealing in
general, we wouldn't say that person's not saved. Because that's like a
work of the flesh. But when you have a pastor or some sort of leader who's
doing those things, at that time, at that point, there would be cause for concern.
Okay, now look folks, you say give me an example, I'm itching for an example, okay.
Well you know people have recently have accused my friend Pastor Thompson for
stealing money, believe it or not, which is completely ridiculous. The reason it's
ridiculous is because his bozo failure of an evangelist, you know, pulled up
these bank statements about him or whatever and look he's buying himself
coffee with the church card or something. And he considers that like stealing or
something, you know. He's buying money, by the way they're accusing him of eating
like a hundred, I don't know, a hundred eighty dollars worth of food every day or
something like that. It's something ridiculous. And they're trying to
bring a railing accusation against them because, you know, he uses the church
card to buy coffee or buy himself lunch or something. Let me just say this, okay,
let me make myself very clear. If a church member were to come to me, if I
bought a meal, let's say example, I bought a meal using the church card, okay,
because I'm working here or whatever, and someone came in to me and was like, did you use
the church money to buy that? I'd be like, yup. That's what I would do. No shame.
Because there's the thing, you know, a normal church member would not have a
problem with that at all. I've had church members who are just like, pastor, take
care of yourself, do whatever you got to do. Because normal people who love their
pastor, they're just like, go get yourself a coffee or go do, you know, do what you
got to do, provide for yourself, get it if you need it. They don't have a problem
with that. It's wicked people who have a problem with you getting a coffee. And
let me just say this, the reason they have a problem with this is because they're
projecting something that they're guilty of, okay. You see, it's not an issue for me
to go get a coffee because I'm doing work at the church or for whatever
reason, okay. You know, we're doing, if Ulysses and I are doing some sort of
live stream, we're hooking up the live stream, we're doing a podcast,
the Olive Crown, I'm teaching the Word of God here on an off day, you know, we might
go get something to eat for dinner because we're working here. The problem
is this, man, ushers, if you can bring that offering into my office real quick
and I just bag everything and take it myself, then we have an issue. And look
folks, you know, here at First Works Baptist Church we have a very, very
strict financial policy. It's very strict and it gets stricter by the year. You
know, I'm always getting with the head ushers and saying we need to tighten up
the screws and let's put more accountability, let's create a better
system because it's just good to do, amen. Because we don't want to be accused of
anything wrong. But here's the thing is if you're to come to me and say, well
let me see the bank statements. You know what I would tell you if you asked me to
see the bank statements? I just said, just get out. The bank statement's out that
door, you make a right and you just keep walking, eventually you'll find something.
So why would you do that? Because a person who's asking for those things is
often doing it and even if you provide proof that you're not doing anything
illegal, they're still gonna not like you. They're still not gonna trust you. So I
just rather have the last laugh and just kick them out. Are you spending all the
church money? Yup. I spend everything. On what? Like the bills? How you liking that
hymn book? How you liking those birthday breakfasts every month? How you liking the
new seats? Not all cramped up in there. Right? Hey how you like that AC cranking
during summer? The ladies are like, not me, but you know. Things need to get paid
for folks. And look, if they told me that, are you spending all? I'd say I spend
everything. I even pay myself. And if you have a problem with it, go get the IRS
then. Because here's the thing, the truth fears no investigation. Go get the IRS. We
were trying to put this system to work. We have systems in
place. We save receipts. We put everything on an Excel spreadsheet. I never touch
the money. Everything is set in place. So you know what? I'll just give them a
smart aleck answer just to piss them off. Are you saying you take the money?
Yeah and I spend it. Absolutely. We buy like cameras and stuff. We buy podcast
equipment to get the Word of God out there even more. Sometimes we'll buy
instruments. We're gonna get more song books. We're gonna buy food. Hey when
visitors come to church, sometimes I take them out to eat on the church's account.
I'll take them to Raising Cane's and I'll even buy myself a meal. How
dare you. These are the holier-than-thou's. People who despise the
minion. Okay and it's always these failure of evangelists that have a
problem. These failed evangelists who just suck at being an evangelist.
It's like this best thing is just turn on the pastor. You know and look and you
know what? These failed evangelists, they couldn't provide proof of what they're
spending the money on. We could. Yeah we saw it's a Starbucks. Yeah but at least I
got proof that I spent it on Starbucks. Hello? At least there's proof that they
they purchased like food with it. Whereas there's no proof of what you've done
with the finances. Adam Fanon? Hookers and blow? How could you make a
railing? Well you know I don't know your leader spent money on hookers and blow
and how do we know that you didn't? There's no record of it. So that would
cause me to question someone's salvation. If you're a leader who's stealing money
well didn't you just say you'd spend the money? Yeah but you can check the records
if you wanted. If you really wanted to, if you're sincerely like I want to check
the records I say at least let's go pull these statements up so they can see. We
have everything recorded. Everything is recorded. We purchase something, I get
the receipt, Kobe throw it right to you Lisa's. He records it on the Excel
spreadsheet. Everything is accounted for. Everything. He said do you turn in the
money? Not anymore I got an employee to do that now. He said well how do you know
he's not stealing? Well if he is he's about to be arrested. We'll find out
sooner or later. I'm not really worried about that. So you're not worried about
people stealing? No I'm not because if they are because we're doing things
honestly here you can try to bring whatever railing accusation you want. We
do everything. There's checks and balances here and I'm not worried about
that. You know I remember I was working for Pastor Anderson and he gave me a
church card. He said use it for whatever you need at the church whatever you know
and he's like people they get worried about that stuff sometimes. I'm like
really? He's like yeah. He's like they worried that they're gonna use the card
to like buy a bunch of stuff and steal money. He's like but if they steal it I just
call the cops on them and that's it. I mean isn't that an easy solution? There
you go. But you know the ones that you should really worry about is those who
don't have any bank statements at all. There's no there's no ledgers available.
What'd you spend your money? Oh you know this and that. Well do you have proof of
that? No. Where the receipts? Don't have any. Where are the ledgers? I don't have
any. So who am I supposed to trust? How do we know? What'd you do with the money?
Right? That would cause me to say hmm got a Judas Iscariot here. Got some of my
they might be stealing the money here. I think you're a Judas Iscariot. Then go
call the IRS. It's just like these reprobates are like you bombed your
building. Well you know what then go call the police because there's a $25,000
reward for the person who turns in the person to bomb the church. Turn me in and
collect that money. But you know why it's never been done? Because it's not true
and they're bluffing. I call their bluff all I'm calling your bluff right now
because when you do things honestly you don't have nothing to worry about. What
they're doing is they're projecting so they they get the attention off of their
illegal transactions onto someone who's actually honest. Oh he's the one he's the
one and as they're pocketing it into their own account or whatever. It's
always these failed evangelists I tell you. Oh by the way these same guys want
to accuse me. Oh by the way Pastor Mejia is a false prophet too. So they say I'm a
false prophet. In fact when our church got bombed Pastor Thompson you know he
got with his churches and he's like hey pray for Pastor Mejia and First Works
Baptist Church because they were bombed. The wife of this false prophet this
Judas Iscariot was like why would I pray for a false prophet. They're in the
bombing folks. They believe I was a false prophet and and but what are they doing
they're just projecting what they are. If I'm a false prophet expose me to see
what you got because the truth fears no investigation and the Bible says you can
do nothing against the truth before the truth. Go to Hebrews 12 and we're done. I
told you I was probably gonna go short but I ended up going a little longer. That would cause
me that would cause me to doubt someone's salvation. If someone if a
church leader evangelist deacon pastor apostle right is stealing money by the
way most apostles today are stealing money just let you know that just let
you know that. You know if they're stealing money but they're teaching the
right to I would question their salvation. I question Adam Fanning's
salvation I don't think that guy's saved. I would say that person's probably not
saved. I don't like you saying that. I like Adam Fanning. Then go get out of the
church and go to a place where they preach crappy then. Go to Florida.