🎵Music🎵
Hey everyone, welcome to Verity Baptist Church Manila, let's take our seats and turn to
hymn number 67. Let's get our hymns and turn to hymn number 67. Let's sing the song
the Verity White City.
Ready on the furs, there's a holy and beautiful city, whose builder and ruler is God.
John saw it descending from heaven, when bad laws in exile he trod.
Its high massive wall is of jasper, the city itself is pure gold.
And when life built and here is folded, mine eyes shall its glory behold.
In that bright city, Verity White City, I have a mansion, a harp and a ground.
Now I am watching, waiting and longing, for the white city that's soon coming down.
No sin is held out in that city, and nothing defining or mean.
No pain and no sickness can enter, no faith on the door not be seen.
Her sorrows and cares are forgotten, no tempter is there to annoy.
No parting words ever are spoken, there's nothing to hurt or destroy.
In that bright city, Verity White City, I have a mansion, a harp and a ground.
Now I am watching, waiting and longing, for the white city that's soon coming down.
No heartache is known in that city, whose ever moisten the eye.
There's no disappointment in heaven, no envy and strife in the sky.
The saints are all sanctified lowly, they live in sweet harmony there.
My heart is now set on that city, and someday its blessing I'll share.
In that bright city, Verity White City, I have a mansion, a harp and a ground.
Now I am watching, waiting and longing, for the white city that's soon coming down.
My loved ones are gathering yonder, my friends too are passing away.
And soon I shall join their right number, and dwell in eternity's day.
They're saved now in glory with Jesus, their trials and battles are past.
They overcame sin and attempt to, they reached that fair city at last.
In that bright city, Verity White City, I have a mansion, a harp and a ground.
Now I am watching, waiting and longing, for the white city that's soon coming down.
Sweet, we have power, we thank the Lord for this morning, we thank the Lord for your protection through us for the whole week,
and gathering all our heart together, Lord, to worship in spirit and truth.
We ask, Lord, that you would bless our service, and that you would bless each and every part of the service, Lord,
from the congregation of sin, the reading of your word, and most especially the preaching of the sermon, Lord.
I pray that you would help the pastor to preach a sermon to us, Lord, to edify us,
and I pray that you would help us to be attentive, Lord, and remove the distraction of God.
We love you, in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
All right, good morning, everybody. Welcome to Verity Baptist Church, and take out your bulletin here today.
We'll go through some announcements. Our verse of the week is Matthew 13, verse 43.
The Bible reads, Then shall the righteous shine forth as a son in the kingdom of their father,
who hath ears to hear, let him hear. And that's a great verse there. It will tie into our sermons here today.
We are a family-integrated church, meaning children and infants are welcome during the services.
We do have a mother-baby room back there for your convenience, as well as the men's restroom and the ladies' restroom here.
Basic rules on the mother-baby room are down there below.
In the middle of your bulletin, we have our service times listed. First service is at 10 a.m.
Second service starts at 11.15, just a 10-minute break between the first and second services.
The midweek service is at 7 p.m. Official soul-winning times are listed there in the bulletin.
For this Wednesday, we do have school preaching that is going to be pretty much all day,
so I think that's going to be basically taking place of the soul-winning time there for Wednesday.
If you're able to be a part of that, we actually have school preaching every single day this week,
so if you're able to be a part of it, we'd love to have you join for that.
Our Saturday soul-winning will be announced on a weekly basis. Of course, we do have soul-winning today, starting around 1.45.
The soul-winning anthem and tip starts at 1.30.
Our salvation and baptisms are listed there in the bulletin for the year as well as the month for all of our churches and monthly church services.
On the next page, we have our announcements and upcoming events.
Bible memorization challenge, our book of the year is the book of Ecclesiastes.
So 12 chapters, 12 months, you can memorize one chapter per month.
Remember, you don't have to quote a beginning to end Ecclesiastes 1-1 to Ecclesiastes 12-14,
but each individual chapter you have to have been able to quote perfectly at one time during the year.
And if you're able to quote all of the books, eventually then you'll get a very nice prize for doing that.
Then we have our New Testament Bible reading challenge. We still have a lot of prizes over there.
If you're able to read the entire New Testament in the month of January, we do have prizes. You're able to take your pick.
Upcoming activities, this is not in the bulletin, but of course today is our monthly church service in Laguna.
So we have about 30 of our members down there in Laguna for the services today.
And of course, this is going to be the start of our missions trip tomorrow.
So technically, today is not the start of the missions trips. I just have the normal sermons from the book of Matthew.
Next week I'll have a special sermon planned.
But we do have school preaching lined up for every single day this week, Monday through Friday.
And then, of course, next Sunday will be the end of the missions trip.
The Bekal missions trip is right after that. And I think we have about 30 members from our church that are going there.
And so I know we have some of the foreigners that are with us here today that are also going there as well.
So we'll have a lot of people down there in Bekal.
And of course, then Pastor Menes is preaching. So we've got a lot of things going on.
And so, you know, it's up to you what you want to do with that because obviously we have the missions trip going through the Sunday there.
But of course, Pastor Menes is going to be here preaching on Sunday.
I know most people have told me that they kind of changed their plans to actually make it back for the preaching here.
One thing I'd highly recommend is not to be on Filipino time on March 2nd because you're probably going to be sitting on the stairs.
You know, we're going to have a big attendance. But that's going to be a great time coming up.
And then current upcoming series, we are in the book of Matthew.
Both sermons are from Matthew here today. Birthdays and anniversaries down there below.
And then on the back we have a place for notes for actually on the back we have the basic rules of our church.
And you should have an insert in your bulletin to take notes for the sermons here today.
I believe that's our pronouncements. We'll have Brother Marlon lead us in another song.
All right. For our next song, let's hear hymn number 69. Let's sing the song We Shall Shine as the Stars.
Everybody on the first.
We shall shine as the stars of the morning.
With Jesus the crucified one.
We shall rise to be like Him forever.
Eternally shine as the sun.
We may never be rich in earth's treasures.
Nor rise on the ladder of faith.
But the saints will at last be rewarded.
Made free it's in Emmanuel's name.
We shall shine as the stars of the morning.
With Jesus the crucified one.
We shall rise to be like Him forever.
Eternally shine as the sun.
We may live in a tent or a gurney.
And thine's inclusion alone.
But the Father who seeth in secret.
Remembers each one of His own.
We shall shine as the stars of the morning.
With Jesus the crucified one.
We shall rise to be like Him forever.
Eternally shine as the sun.
It's time to take our dice and offering.
For our script reading, please open your Bible to Matthew chapter number 32.
Matthew chapter number 13, we will read beginning from verse number 24 to verse number 43.
Matthew chapter 13, beginning from verse number 24, the Bible reads,
Another parable put forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man, with so good stead in his field.
But while man slept, his enemy came and saw thirst among the wheat, and went his way.
But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the thirst also.
So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, this not thou so good stead in thy field?
From whence then hath the thirst? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this.
The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go, and gather them up?
But I said, Nay, lest while ye gather up the thirst, ye root up also the wheat with them.
Let both grow together until the harvest, and in that time of harvest I will say to the reapers,
Gather ye together first the thirst, and bind them in bundles to burn them.
But gather the wheat into my barn.
Another parable put forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened to a grain of mustard seed,
which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all seeds, but when it is grown.
It is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, where after bursts of the air come and last in the branches drop.
Another parable put forth unto them, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto leaven, which a woman took,
and hid in three measures of meal, till the world was leavened.
All things speak Jesus unto the multitude in parables, and without a parable speaking not unto them,
that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables,
I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.
Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house.
And as disciples came unto him, saying, The current was the parable of the thirst of the field.
He answered and said unto them, Ye that soweth the good seed is the Son of man, the field is the world,
the good seed are the children of the kingdom, but the thirst are the children of the wicked one.
The enemy that soweth them is the devil, that harvests the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels.
As therefore the thirst are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be in the end of this world.
The Son of man shall stand for his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that append,
and them with due iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire,
there shall be wailing and gnashing of heat.
Then shall the righteous sign forth as the Son in the kingdom of their Father,
who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
All right, we're here in Matthew chapter 13, and we're going to be looking at,
both sermons are going to be about parables here today,
and this first sermon is the parable of the tears of the field as it is known.
And so in the section that we read, he first gives the parable of the tears of the field,
then he gives some other parables, and then his disciples ask him,
hey, can you declare unto us the parable of the tears of the field?
So we're going to go to those ones in between in the second sermon,
but what we're going to do first is just read the parable that he gives,
and then we're going to see just the interpretation of that parable.
So starting at verse number 24, the Bible reads,
Another parable put forth unto them, saying,
The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field.
But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tears among the wheat and went his way.
When the blade was sprung up and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tears also.
So the servants of the householder came and said unto them,
Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? From whence then hath the tears?
He said unto them, An enemy hath done this.
The servant said unto them, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?
But he said, Nay, lest while ye gather up the tares ye root up also the wheat with them.
Let both grow together until the harvest, and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers,
Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them,
but gather the wheat into my barn.
So that is the parable. Now drop down to verse number 36,
as we're going to start to see the explanation of this parable.
Verse 36, Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house,
and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field.
He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man.
And so in this parable, you know, it's going to be giving us an illustration
and an idea of soul winning and reaching people for God.
And of course, as we are going out and preaching the gospel
and getting people saved and preaching at the schools and preaching in the parks,
we are getting people saved, but it's really the authority of Jesus Christ
that's actually sending us out to preach the gospel.
Now go to Matthew 28, and then we'll go back to here, Matthew 13, Matthew 28.
And in Matthew chapter 28, these are the last words you see here in the book of Matthew,
of course, after the resurrection.
And it says here in verse 18, Matthew 28 verse 18,
And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you,
and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
And so, of course, you know, we are going fishing for men, going fishing to get people saved.
And the Bible says, Go ye therefore.
And the idea is that they're not just going to come here and we get them saved.
You know, I think it's great when unsaved people visit church,
and it's an opportunity to give them the gospel,
and unsaved people are welcome to come to our church,
and maybe it'll take some time for them to get saved.
But the reality is, if we are going to get a lot of people saved, we need to go.
He says, Go ye therefore, and it's under the power and the authority of Jesus Christ,
because Jesus said, All power is given unto me.
So as we go out soul winning and we are sowing the seed,
it's really the Son of Man, or Jesus Christ, because we're doing it by His authority.
Go back to Matthew 13.
Matthew 13, verse 38.
The Bible says, The field is the world.
And obviously, when it comes to us preaching the gospel,
we need to be preaching the gospel all over the world,
not just in a Christian country, but in every country, every place,
because the answer for everybody, whether you're in an Arabic country,
or a Hindu country, or a Buddhist country, the answer is Jesus Christ.
I mean, even in the most famous verse in the Bible,
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.
It doesn't say God so loved the world that you can just believe whatever you want,
and worship whatever you want, and any God you want.
No, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.
And the Bible says, Neither is there salvation in any other.
So the only way to get saved is belief in Jesus Christ.
And so the field is the world.
Obviously, we are here in the Philippines, and we try to reach this area,
but of course, we want to get more churches started.
We want to have soul winning everywhere, slowly spread out.
Why? Because the entire world needs the gospel.
The field is the world, the good seed are the children of the kingdom.
But the tares are the children of the wicked one.
Now, to understand this parable, I want to show you a picture
to get an idea before we really get into this.
This here is a picture of a comparison between tares and wheat.
And when you look at pictures with tares and wheat at a young age,
they look identical.
Experts will say that they could not tell the difference
between a tare and a wheat when they are young.
When they get older at the time of spring, then there actually is a difference.
But at a young age, they look absolutely identical.
Because you read this parable, and then Jesus says,
Hey, let the tares and wheat grow together.
And you're thinking, what kind of advice is that?
Well, because of the idea, you cannot tell the difference
between the tares and the wheat.
And to understand this parable, you have to realize
that tares and wheat at a young age actually look the same,
and you cannot really tell the difference.
In fact, this is what it says in this article.
It says, look at the picture above, and particularly the middle stalk.
Do you think that is wheat or a tare?
Answer, it is a baby tare, yet a baby wheat stalk looks exactly the same.
In fact, they're indistinguishable.
The only way to tell the difference is when they both mature in the spring.
As you can see from this picture, there is a marked difference,
referring to once they actually mature, there actually is a difference.
The tare on the left is light and lacks substance,
but the wheat on the right is heavy and bears fruit, parenthesis grain.
There are tiny black seeds inside the tares,
and if you eat it, it can cause dizziness and nausea.
For example, wheat is healthy, wheat is good food,
but then tares are something that's going to cause you to get dizzy.
It's kind of like just ingesting a little bit of poison,
but yet at a young age, you cannot tell a difference at all.
He says in verse 39, the enemy that sowed them is the devil.
He's going to be talking about how we are going out and sowing the good seed
and trying to get people saved and bringing them to church,
but then the Bible is saying that the devil is actually sowing tares amongst the wheat,
and the general idea is this, that you're not really going to be able to tell a difference.
If someone first starts coming to church,
they're not going to have a sign on their shirt that said,
I just wanted to let you know I'm a bad person.
I'm trying to destroy your church.
I just wanted to give you a heads up.
Now you know what's going to take place?
They're going to look like a normal person.
They're going to talk like a normal person.
They are going to say they believe the same things that we do
when in reality they're actually here to cause problems, right?
But you're not actually going to be able to tell when you first look at them.
Now there are people that come in and are just very obvious and bad people,
but a lot of people are just not that obvious,
and there are tares amongst the wheat, and yet you cannot tell a difference.
I have a lot of stories through the years of soul winning
of just weird people that have come to church,
and I don't have time to explain all of them,
but I want to give you kind of an explanation of what I'm trying to talk about,
and there's this guy that my friend brought to church once in West Virginia,
and he brought him to church, my friend Richard Simes,
and he brought this guy to church, and this guy came to church,
and of course whenever you get a visitor at church,
we go soul winning.
It's hard to bring people to church, isn't it?
So when you get a visitor, you're excited, you're happy.
We got this new visitor at church, but then you looked at him,
and you're just like, something's just not right about this guy, right?
One thing is he had one earring, which earrings in general are weird for a guy,
but one earring can be a sign of being a homo or bi or whatever,
and when you looked at him, there was just something kind of off,
and my friend is the one that brought him to church
and thought he got him saved, and he's coming,
and then he just told me, he's like,
I don't want to give this guy a ride to church anymore.
He's like, I don't think he's a good guy.
I think he's a bad guy and everything,
and so we're trying to figure out about this guy,
because this guy's coming soul winning with us.
He's eating lunch with us.
He's saying, yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
I believe that.
That's right.
I believe the same things.
Once saved, always saved.
Supposedly, he just got saved,
but there's just something not right about this guy,
and so I decided to try to trick this guy,
and I had his number, so I was kind of texting him,
trying to get him to admit to not being saved,
and so I knew he came from a Pentecostal background,
and I just said, hey, I was just kind of curious,
you know, coming from a Pentecostal background,
did you speak in tongues before?
He's like, oh, yeah.
He's like, you know, I spoke in tongues very regularly.
I said, oh, that's interesting.
I was like, do you still speak in tongues sometimes?
He's like, yeah, you know, sometimes,
like last night I was speaking in tongues,
and then I'm just like, all right, you know,
we got the proof.
It's like, let me show the pastor.
It's like, okay, this guy says he still speaks in tongues,
you know, and he also said that if you're really saved,
you're going to persevere onto the end,
so it's like, okay, this guy is not like us, right?
But the thing is, when he was in church,
he would say amen at all the preaching
that we said amen at.
He came soul winning.
He acted like he believed everything,
and I don't know if he was coming to church
out of his own free will
or the devil's just kind of sending him,
but he's there, and he's acting like he believes everything,
and in reality, it's like he's not even saved,
because, look, if you're speaking in tongues,
that's a sign of devil possession.
You're not under control of your own senses
and what you're doing,
and if he's saying, well, I speak in tongues sometimes,
he can't be saved.
I mean, a saved person has eternal life,
and they're never going to get possessed by a devil, right?
But what I'm saying is, he seemed normal.
He seemed like he was an okay guy,
but there was just something where, like,
something just doesn't make sense,
but he said the right things,
and in reality, it was just a tear amongst the wheat.
The Bible says here in verse 39,
the enemy that sowed them is the devil.
The harvest is the end of the world,
and the reapers are the angels.
Now, go back to verse number 26.
Verse 26.
And so who is the one that's sowing the tares?
It is the devil.
The devil's trying to destroy a good work
that a church is doing.
Why would the devil do that?
Well, notice what it says here in verse 26.
But when the blade was sprung up and brought forth fruit,
then appeared the tares also.
And the idea that he's mentioning in this parable
is that when you are producing fruit,
when you are accomplishing something,
the devil wants to destroy that.
You say, well, what does the devil do?
Well, the easiest way is to actually put a tear
amongst the wheat and cause problems from the inside out.
Because here's the thing.
I mean, our church is not going to stop the work of God.
We go sowing.
We have sowing several times a week, official times.
We have school preaching.
We're getting a lot of people saved.
Every single month we're doing great work.
Is the devil just going to sit back and watch and look and say,
eh, no big deal.
I'll just kind of let him do whatever they want?
Look, if you actually believe in the devil,
you have to believe he's going to fight against us.
And look, I wish I could say that now that we're producing more fruit,
everything's going to be easy and no problems and no stress
and everything's going to be perfect,
but it's probably going to be the opposite way.
As we produce more fruit than we used to produce,
we're also going to get more tears, more bad people.
And here's the thing that's frustrating.
Tears and wheat are going to look exactly the same,
meaning you're not necessarily going to know if someone is a tear or a wheat.
Now, it's true that some people come in and they're just very obvious.
We have this story from Pampanga, this guy that came several months ago,
and he was a first-time visitor,
and he's one of the weirdest people I've ever met in my life.
Brother Dante's with us. Of course, my wife as well.
They could kind of confirm that when this guy first came,
we're all just like, who is this guy?
And he came in, and he's an older man,
and he had some sort of thing over his neck with a button,
and he said, I'm Iron Man.
We're like, okay?
And it's like, of course, there's a lot of peculiar people in this world,
but it's like you want to be long-suffering,
but an old guy that's pretending to be Iron Man,
and I didn't think about it,
but one of our members of the church said afterwards
they thought it was kind of a method to bring in kids
where they see this button that lights up,
and then kids might think, oh, this is cool,
like this guy being a weirdo and a pedophile or something.
But this guy came in, and he said that he's Iron Man.
If my memory serves me correctly,
this is the same guy that got really mad at the noise of the kids
and made a joke about killing the kids, a first-time visitor.
And it's like we talked to him afterwards,
like let's just go and talk to this guy afterwards,
like, hey, I've got three young kids.
It's like all these other parents in this room,
we don't feel safe having you here
when you're making jokes about killing the kids.
It's just a joke.
I didn't really mean it. It was just a joke.
And I was like, you know what, you're not welcome here.
And look, we're long-suffering with people,
but when someone comes in and he's like, I am Iron Man,
and then he's like, I wanted to kill the kids
because they were being noisy.
It's like, well, I'm sorry, but our churches have kids,
and kids are makalit, and you can deal with it.
So some people are obvious, but you have to realize
not every terror is going to come in and say, I am Iron Man.
Look at this button light up.
Right?
A lot of people just come in like a normal person
and just kind of sit down and be nice and be friendly,
and you would have no idea from the outward appearance
that there's something actually really wrong.
Because here's the thing,
wheat and tares from an outward perspective,
they look the same.
But what's actually inside of that wheat
and what's actually inside of that tare
is actually very different, but it's not very transparent.
Okay?
This is the idea that he's bringing forth in this parable.
So what it says in verse 26 is,
but when the blade was sprung up and brought forth fruit,
then appeared the tares also.
And the Bible's saying that once fruit is being produced,
once you're accomplishing something,
the result is that the devil's going to send tares among you.
I mean, the devil doesn't have to send tares
to the Catholic Church or to INC or Undat Ting Da An
because they don't believe the right thing.
But when you're a church that's doing the work
and actually accomplishing something,
that is when the devil's going to send tares amongst the wheat.
Verse 27,
So the servants of the householder came and said unto them,
Sir, didst not thou so good seed in thy field?
From Winston hath the tares.
And this is kind of the idea that people might have.
If you're a church that is preaching the gospel
and preaching the truth,
why would you ever have a bad person
or a weird person at church?
That's kind of the mindset a lot of people have.
And what I would say is it's actually the opposite,
that if you're actually preaching the truth
and doing what's right and accomplishing something,
you're going to have a lot of great people at your church,
but there's going to be some weird people
that come from time to time
and a lot of just bad people,
bad apples that are actually trying to destroy the work
that the church is actually doing.
Why would they do that?
Well, because of the fact the devil's not going to just sit back
and watch you just get a lot of people saved.
And so the devil's like, I can't destroy this church,
but I'm going to send a tear amongst the wheat.
You say, well, I don't know, pastor.
I mean, I just don't think you'd have bad people
if you're doing something for God.
I mean, have you ever heard of Judas Iscariot?
I mean, one out of 12 of the main people that Jesus had
turns out to be just a horrible person,
a complete reprobate.
And here's the thing.
Over the course of three years,
how many of the apostles realized that that guy was bad?
None of them.
That guy went so many with him.
And I'm sure he preached the right thing.
And I'm sure he probably had a good gospel presentation.
It probably sounded correct.
They probably thought he was getting a lot of people saved.
And in fact, it seems like a lot of them thought
that guy was like the top dog.
They thought, man, this guy is really just on fire for God.
When Jesus even says that Judas is a bad guy,
they're like, I wonder what he was talking about.
And look, I don't think the apostles were dumb people.
They just could not fathom that this person was actually bad.
Now, the thing is, when you preach things like this,
people hear it and they believe it
because it's what the Bible says.
But until you actually experience it,
I think it's really hard to understand.
Because you know what?
I've been saved for over 20 years.
I've been soul winning at least on a weekly basis
for over 20 years straight.
And so in the course of being at churches
and seeing new people coming to church,
I mean, you see a lot of people come
and you end up having people that,
turns out years later,
they never even believed what you were teaching.
They just believed completely opposite things.
They never liked the church.
They were against it.
I mean, people that would leave a church like this
and then join the Roman Catholic Church
or become a Muslim or become a Hindu,
and you're like, how do you get saved
and become a Muslim?
You don't.
They never were saved.
How do you get saved and become a Hindu?
You don't.
How do you get saved and become a hardcore Roman Catholic?
You don't.
Now, yeah, is it possible that someone living
in a Muslim country would get saved
and pretend to be Muslim
because they don't want to get their heads chopped off
by their parents?
Yeah, that's possible.
And it's possible that peer pressure
even here with the Catholics,
somebody might just go through the motions
or just not go to church at all
because they're embarrassed or afraid or shy
They want to keep relationship with their family.
Yes, that's possible.
You can think of like Naaman in the Bible
as an example in 2 Kings 5.
But if somebody actually is a part of this church
and goes sowing with us for years
and then they leave and believe
completely different things,
they were never saved.
They never had eternal life.
They never really believed this.
They were simply just a tear amongst the wheat.
The Bible says here in verse 28,
he said unto them,
An enemy hath done this.
The servant said unto them,
Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?
And you know, here's the thing about this.
This makes logical sense from a human perspective.
If there's bad people, let's just remove them.
You say, well, why don't we just do that?
Because the bad people look like good people.
Because you can't tell.
I mean, if I knew for sure
someone at our church was a pedophile
or a bad person,
we would stop the service
and just get rid of them.
Like if God came down and said,
by the way, Pastor Matthew Stuckey
and everyone here,
this person is a bad person.
It's like, let's pause the sermon
and let's just get rid of them
and make sure they don't come back.
But here's the thing.
Is that going to happen?
No, it's not.
You say, well, why?
It doesn't really matter.
This is just the way it is.
And the Bible is very clear on this.
And so the thing is,
I don't necessarily know
if somebody is a bad person.
So if somebody is rude
or acts bitter or prideful,
here's the thing.
Safe people can also act rude
and bitter and prideful.
If there's actual, real, tangible proof,
then of course we would remove someone.
But if you don't have that,
it's like, well,
if you don't have that,
but if you don't have that,
it's like, well,
I don't have proof.
And sometimes maybe I think
I see certain things,
but I don't really have
enough information
where I would remove someone
from church.
Now, here's the thing.
I mean, if you've been
at our church for a while,
you know that I have kicked
people out of church before.
And some people
that I kicked out of church
are never welcome back
no matter what.
I could care less
what would happen in the future.
They would never be allowed back
under any circumstance whatsoever.
And the thing is,
that's not even just my opinion.
A lot of people at this church
right now are saying inside,
Amen, I don't want to see
that person ever again.
And so, I'm not just
saying these words.
I mean this.
If I have proof that I think
someone's a bad person
or deserves to be kicked out,
it's like they will be
removed from church.
We've had people
that got kicked out of church.
When someone gets kicked out,
that doesn't mean necessarily
that they are a bad person.
But of course,
it's a possibility.
And when I have proof
of someone doing something
really bad, then of course
they're going to be removed.
But if I don't have
that sort of proof,
it's kind of like,
Well, I understand
what you're saying,
but it's like,
I just don't have enough proof
where I could actually
do something about this.
Right?
I can tell you the last time
we had a major issue
at our church,
I guess pretty much
the only time we've had
a major, major issue
of several families
that just got booted
out together,
I knew for a long time
before that, I was like,
There are a lot of red flags
and I'm just waiting.
I was like,
There's a lot of things
about this person
that a lot of issues
they had with other people
at the church
of borrowing money
for a lot of money,
75,000 pesos and everything
with this person
that got booted out
and of course
a lot of other things.
But it's kind of like,
There are red flags here,
red flags there,
but it's like,
Do I have enough proof
where I could remove
someone from church?
Because you got to realize
that as the pastor,
I'm basically the final judge
on someone
and the reality is
that if a pastor
actually cares about people
and loves people,
charity believeth all things.
You want to give people
the benefit of the doubt.
You want to give them a chance.
But it comes to a point
where I'm seeing all these things
and it's just like,
Well, I'm just kind of waiting
and then once the information
was there,
that person got removed, right?
But the thing is,
unfortunately,
a lot of times you don't
really have that information.
Now, here's what I would say
to the church member that's here.
One thing you can do
to actually help out the church
is if there is something major
about someone,
don't just hide that
inside of yourself
because you want to be
forgiving to that person.
Now, I understand
if they say something rude to you
and yell at you,
it's like,
Just get over it.
It's like it's wrong.
It's rude.
But if there's something
that's actually like
a major red flag
where this person might be
a bad person,
that's where you come
to me privately
or if you're a lady,
you can come to my wife
privately and say,
Hey, I just wanted to let you know
that this person did this.
And then it's kind of like
that doesn't mean that
that person's going to necessarily
be kicked out immediately.
But the thing is,
if several people are coming to me
about somebody
and very specific things,
when you add them together,
it's kind of like,
Okay.
Now, I'm not saying
it's always like this,
but in a sense,
it's almost kind of like
a three strikes
and you're out policy.
You know,
thinking of baseball,
it's like,
All right,
one strike,
two strike,
three strikes.
It's like,
Okay, that's too much.
Right?
Matthew 13, verse 29.
But he said,
Nay, lest while you gather
up the tares,
he root up also
the wheat with them.
Now, once again,
the tares and the wheat,
they look very similar.
And over time,
they'll start to show
some differences,
but you don't know that
when they're young.
Verse 30,
Let both grow together
until the harvest.
In the time of harvest,
I will say to the reapers,
Gather ye together
first the tares,
and bind them in bundles
to burn them,
but gather the wheat
into my barn.
Now, go down to verse 40.
Verse 40.
As therefore the tares
are gathered and burned
in the fire,
so shall it be in the end
of this world.
The Son of Man shall
send forth his angels,
and they shall gather
them into a fin,
and them which do iniquity,
and shall cast them
into a furnace of fire.
There shall be wailing
and gnashing of teeth.
Then shall the righteous
shine forth as the Son
in the kingdom of their Father.
Who hath ears to hear?
Let him hear.
Now, let me show you
a couple stories about this
in the Bible.
Go to 1 Samuel 10.
And let me just kind of give you
some things to think about
during this sermon,
because I think
there might be an assumption
from some people
that the maximum amount of time
somebody could be a tare
amongst the wheat
is three years,
and they would say,
well, Judas Iscariot
was there for three years,
but that doesn't mean
that's the maximum.
Somebody could actually
be at the church
for a long period of time,
and there's just not enough
tangible evidence
where they would get removed
from church.
Even if there's red flags,
you don't necessarily
have enough tangible evidence.
I think back to a church
I went to in West Virginia,
and myself and some other people
at the church went to the pastor
to talk about this person,
and this guy was, you know,
he was strange.
He was an older guy,
and kind of the big red flags
is that several of the teen girls
at church had said
that he visited them
at their work as waitresses,
and he was acting weird
and flirtatious,
which is pretty strange, right?
So that was kind of a bit
of a red flag,
especially when these girls
are like 15 years old
and 16 years old and everything.
There's a lot of other things
about him,
but he was at the church
for decades,
at the church for a very long time,
and we talked to the pastor
about it,
and the pastor, you know,
of course gave the benefit
of the doubt,
and of course I respected
my pastor's decision.
The guy ended up
like dying shortly after that,
so it's kind of like
the end of story.
It doesn't really matter
at this point,
but I'm just saying
that's a guy that I think
was a bad person,
and he was at the church
for decades,
and you say,
Well, how come people
didn't realize?
Because often the tares
just kind of blend in
with the wheat.
It's just kind of
the way that it is.
Let me show you some stories
in the Bible,
and let me show you
the first mistake
that we see King Saul make,
and I think a lot of people
do not realize this is actually
the first mistake Saul makes,
and it's before the famous stories
that you might think of.
1 Samuel 10, verse 20,
And when Samuel had caused
all the tribes of Israel
to come near,
the tribe of Benjamin
was taken.
When he had caused
the tribe of Benjamin
to come near
by their families,
the family of Matru was taken,
and Saul the son of Kish
was taken,
and when they sought him,
he could not be found.
Therefore they inquired
of the Lord further
if the man should yet
come thither,
and the Lord answered,
Behold, he hath hid himself
among the stuff.
So it's kind of like
having a press conference,
and you're introducing
the king of Israel,
and then they've got this
organized, they're ready.
They're going to bring
King Saul up.
This is the next king,
and then all of a sudden,
it's like he was supposed
to show up at 10 a.m.,
and he's on Filipino time.
It's like 10.10, 10.20, 10.30.
They're like,
Let's inquire of the Lord
what's going on,
and then God says
he hid amongst the stuff.
You say,
What is the Bible saying?
It's saying that he hid.
He doesn't want people
to know where he is.
It's like he's the next king,
and all of a sudden,
he's just kind of hiding,
so they cannot spot him.
He doesn't want to be known.
You say,
What?
He's very shy.
He's very embarrassed
to let himself be known,
and of course,
King Saul was a tall guy.
It's not that easy to hide,
so I don't know
what he's doing exactly,
but he's just kind of
hiding amongst the stuff,
not letting it be known,
maybe putting a blanket
over his head.
No one's going
to know I'm here.
He's hiding.
Verse 23,
And they ran
and fetched him thence,
and when he stood
among the people,
he was higher than any
of the people from his
shoulders and upward,
and Samos said
to all the people,
See him whom the Lord
loved, and none like him
among all the people,
and all the people
shot him and said,
God save the king.
The way I imagine this story
is that Saul is hiding
somewhere, and they run,
and they basically just
grab him and say,
Get up here,
and then Saul's here
probably really embarrassed,
like,
What am I going to do
and everything?
Because he's shy,
and then Samuel's like,
Behold the king,
but since Saul is very tall,
everyone's like,
Hey, you know what?
Our king.
They're excited, right?
Verse 25,
Then Samuel told the people
the manner of the kingdom
and wrote it in a book
and laid it up before the Lord,
and Samuel sent all the people
away, every man to his house,
and Saul also went home
to Gibeah, and there went
with him a band of men
whose hearts God had touched.
Notice this in verse 27.
But the children of Beliel,
or the children of Baal said,
How shall this man save us?
And they despised him
and brought no presents,
but he held his peace.
What is a child of Beliel?
What is a child of Baal?
It's a child of the devil.
When a person gets born again,
when a person gets saved,
they become a child of God,
and how long are you a child
of God after you get saved?
Forever.
I give unto them eternal life,
and they shall never perish.
If a person becomes a child
of the devil,
how long is the devil
their father for?
Forever.
And they'll spend forever
in the lake of fire.
Here are bad people
in 1 Samuel 10
that says they're children of Beliel.
Now, go to the next chapter,
1 Samuel 11.
And in verse 12, the Bible says,
And the people said unto Samuel,
Who is he that said,
Shall Saul reign over us?
Bring the men that we may
put them to death.
Now, who was it that said,
Shall this man be our leader?
Shall this man reign over us?
It was the children of Beliel.
And the people are like,
Let's kill these people.
And then Saul actually says,
No.
Notice what it says in verse 13.
And Saul said,
There shall not a man
be put to death this day,
for today the Lord hath wrought
salvation in Israel.
Now, here's the thing.
I don't think that Saul
knowingly makes a mistake,
but he does make a mistake.
Because if he knew that these
people are bad people,
they're reprobates,
they're wicked and evil people,
then what would he have done?
He'd be like,
Let's put them to death.
You say, What's the problem?
The problem is they look
just like the wheat.
And then what Saul's doing
is he's being long suffering,
and he's thinking,
Charity suffereth long.
Charity believeth all things.
Yes, these people were rude,
but I don't want to be a dictator
where basically if you don't
listen to what I say,
I'm going to put you to death.
So he's long suffering.
He's very nice to them.
He's compassionate.
In reality, these were bad people.
Go to your Bible to 1 Samuel 30.
And I would say in many ways,
you can look at a lot of correlations
with being a pastor.
Because of the fact,
sometimes people do a lot
of bad things at church.
And the thing is,
I want to forgive people
when they do things.
I've known people that have
criticized me before over the years,
and it's like,
well, you know what?
I want to be long suffering with people.
Just because somebody had a bad moment
or they said something rude,
said something rude to me or my wife,
it's kind of like,
well, you know, it's immature.
It shows that they're walking in the flesh
and all those things.
But you know what?
I'll forgive and be long suffering
and everything.
And of course, if I knew that,
hey, this person's actually a bad person,
it would be like,
okay, let's just remove them.
I didn't really like that person anyway.
But the reality is,
you don't necessarily know that.
And so, somebody might do something that's bad,
it does not mean that they're necessarily a bad person,
and it makes it hard to figure out.
I'll give you an example of someone
who does some really bad things in the Bible.
How about the character we just looked at, King Saul?
The Bible's very clear that King Saul was a safe person.
King Saul that ended his life and committed suicide,
and what did Samuel say about him?
Tomorrow shall thou and thy sons be with me.
And so, Saul, when he died, went straight to heaven.
But here's the thing,
when he's persecuting David,
would it really have been a shock for someone to think,
I think this guy's a child of the devil himself.
I think he's a bad person
because of the things he was doing.
The next example we have,
we're going to look at King David.
Now, one thing I want to point out, though,
is in 1 Samuel 10,
I don't think there's any indication
that the children of Belial in 1 Samuel 10
are part of the LGBT.
And the reason why I'm saying this
is because in our modern day,
there is an explosion in the LGBT.
And it's everywhere in the world.
Right?
I mean, people get this idea,
and look, I just want to help educate you if you're here
and you're just not aware of your history at all.
That's fine.
I didn't pay attention to history when I was a kid either.
But it's kind of like every country 25 years ago
hated the homos.
Everywhere.
It's like, well, you know, in the Philippines,
they used to just mock and criticize the homos.
Yeah, that's how it was when I was a kid.
You know what the most popular game on the playground was as a kid?
It was called Smear the Queer.
That is what we played as a kid.
I mean, it just is what it is.
I remember I was a young kid,
and before I was homeschooled,
I was in elementary school,
and I was supposed to write a sentence on the board.
And of course, you know,
I was really studying my vocabulary.
My parents were really wanting me to educate myself,
so I'm learning a lot of new words.
And I wrote a sentence with the word gay in it.
And you say, well, why would you do that?
Because guess what gay means?
It means happy.
I didn't think anything of it.
I just said, you know, hey, this person's a gay person.
I thought nothing of it because gay meant happy.
And I knew in the back of my mind
there's this weird meaning that other people have.
But look, I was like a nine-year-old.
You know, as a nine-year-old, I'm not even interested,
like, you know, a teenager would be,
you know, the source of desires you get when you're older.
So I didn't have that full comprehension.
I knew that there was this weird thing with the word gay,
but I had never seen a gay person in my life.
I'd never seen a homo.
The first time I saw a homo
is when I went to a baseball game in the big city.
But other than that, I mean, it was as a teenager
that I saw a homo.
And so I wrote this sentence,
and I remember the teacher was just like,
how could you do that?
And then all the kids are like defending me,
like, why, what's wrong?
You know, so-and-so's a happy person.
And that's what I thought.
I mean, I was shocked.
That's in the United States of America when I was a kid.
It wasn't accepted back then.
It wasn't allowed, gay marriage, when I was a kid.
In 2004, there was one state in the United States
that allowed gay marriage, LGBT marriage.
In 2015, 11 years later, all 50 states allowed it.
And it was legal in all 50 states within 11 years.
And it's like, at the job I worked,
it's like we would deal with pensions,
so this kind of applied to our work
about how you get benefits if they're, you know,
married versus living partner, stuff like that.
And it's like every week, it's like new regulation.
If you serve a client from New Jersey, blah, blah, blah,
because now it's allowed to be married,
you know, someone of the same gender in New Jersey or whatever.
Every week, it's like there's a new state that was embracing it.
Look, all over the world, it was not accepted,
but what it is is like a plague upon society
that needs to be wiped out like God did to Genesis chapter 19.
But here's the thing.
Reprobates have always existed,
even if there were not a lot of LGBT.
I would say in our modern day,
the vast majority of reprobates are part of the LGBT.
But I don't think that these people that criticize Saul
probably ever did anything with someone of the same gender.
But they're still bad people.
You think back to Genesis chapter 4,
there's no indication that Cain was a homo.
I don't believe he was.
Now, he's a horrible person.
He's a wicked person.
He's a violent psychopath.
He's a reprobate for sure,
but there's no indication that he was a cross-dresser.
Nowadays, it's kind of like, yeah,
a lot of the bad people just kind of make it obvious.
The way they're dressed, it's like, okay,
you're just a guy dressed as a woman.
It's like, I'm pretty sure I know what you are.
But it's not like it has always been that.
And here's what we need to realize.
Are there the obvious ones?
Yeah, if a guy walks in here wearing a pink dress
and wearing high heels,
it's like he's going to be removed immediately.
But here's the thing.
That doesn't change the fact other people could come in here
and just act normal and not actually be part of the LGBT.
Now, it's certainly true that anyone who's a reprobate
is filled full of all perversion.
We realize that.
It doesn't necessarily mean they've gone down that road
of every single perversion there is out there, right?
So here's the thing.
I mean, if Vice Pangeet tries to walk in this room,
he's not making it.
I'll stop the service on the way and say,
hey, Vice Pangeet's on his way in.
Let's get rid of that guy.
Guy, girl, whatever you want to call it.
But that's not the way that tares are going to be amongst the wheat.
Yeah, there's things.
If you are out and you're farming,
there's probably things you see that you remove
because it's just in the way.
But there's also going to be tares in the wheat
where it is not obvious, right?
This exists.
And I would say that with this example, with salt,
yeah, these people did something bad.
They were rude.
They were disrespectful.
They rejected authority.
That doesn't necessarily mean they're bad people, though.
In this instance, they actually were, though.
First Samuel 30, verse 8.
And David inquired the Lord, saying,
Shall I pursue after this troop?
Shall I overtake them?
And he answered him, Pursue.
For thou shalt surely overtake them,
and without fail recover all.
So David went, he and the six hundred men that were with him,
and came to the brook Bessor,
where those that were left behind stayed.
But David pursued he and four hundred men,
and for two hundred abode behind, which were so faint,
that they could not go over the brook Bessor.
So we have this story of six hundred men,
and you've got four hundred that go to try to recover everything,
and then two hundred are faint or tired or exhausted,
and they cannot go.
Basically they're saying,
We're going to die if we go,
because we haven't had water for days,
and we just can't do it.
Drop down to verse 21.
Verse 21.
And David came to the two hundred men,
which were so faint that they could not follow David,
whom they had made also to abide at the brook Bessor.
And they went forth to meet David,
and to meet the people that were with him.
And when David came near to the people, he saluted them.
So David's respectful.
He's nice to the two hundred people that could not fight.
Then answered all the wicked men and men of Belial.
Now when Bob was saying wicked men and men of Belial,
I believe it's showing the character of those men of Belial
that they're just wicked, bad, evil people.
I think the word and is sort of re-emphasizing the same thing,
telling you men of Belial are wicked people.
They are evil people.
They are bad people.
And it says,
And all the wicked men and men of Belial,
of those that went with David and said,
Because they went not with us,
we will not give them out of the spoil that we have recovered,
save to every man his wife and his children,
that they may lead them away into part.
So the men of Belial, the reprobates are like,
Let's not give them supplies,
and let's just let them die on the way pretty much.
Because look, if you are too faint to go to battle
because you haven't drank for days,
and you're at the point of death,
and then you're sent away with no food and no drink,
what's going to take place?
You're probably going to die along the way.
Now at first glance, it might seem pretty hardcore,
like yeah, let's be hardcore to them.
But actually, you're just being a self-righteous
and wicked and evil person.
Now here's the thing about this though.
Why is it David doesn't just remove these people from his military?
Because he has no idea they're bad people.
Now the Bible says all the wicked men,
and so the word all means that there are at least three.
And you could say that maybe it's only three out of 400.
I think it's a lot more than three personally.
My guess would be 10 to 15, but I really have no idea.
But it's more than two.
It's not just one. It's not just two.
It is at least three people.
You say, well, why is that?
Because throughout human history,
there have always been people that heard the word of God
and rejected it and did not want to retain God and their knowledge,
and they end up hating God in their heart and become a reprobate.
In our modern day, the main method I think that causes this to take place
is children get attacked and molested,
and they become bitter and mad at God.
But that is not the only way or reason someone might get mad at God
and bitter at God and just completely reject God.
Now in this example, I don't think there's any indication,
and I seriously doubt that these men are doing anything with the LGBT
or homos or anything like that.
But they're still bad people. They're still wicked people.
Go to 2 Timothy 3.
2 Timothy 3.
I mean, if you actually hear people that are homos
talk about what made them end up doing that,
most of them will admit that they got actually molested as a kid.
Now, of course, there's a possibility of having trauma inside your head
where you block out memories.
This is not the same thing, but I was knocked unconscious before,
and I've got a block inside my head that I will never remember
because it's too traumatizing to my brain.
I would say the same thing takes place when people get attacked.
Because you hear stories of people,
they remember stuff just out of nowhere from like 20 years ago,
and then all of a sudden all these memories come back
that they kind of flushed out of their head.
But a lot of people that are homos will admit,
because God did not create them that way.
They were born normal.
Obviously, as a young kid, you don't even have those desires,
but then you get older, and guess what?
Girls are attracted to boys.
Boys are attracted to girls.
That's the way it works.
But then something had to happen to cause them to just do a complete 180.
And then what is the most common thing is when they get attacked by predators.
I remember a long time ago, I was a teacher at the time,
and we were doing this community project,
and there was this person that was in the crowd,
and it was a woman, and I used that word woman very lightly.
Because it's usually harder, at least for me.
I think it's a lot easier to tell if someone's like baklaw than tomboy.
It's very obvious when someone's a guy that's a homo.
With ladies, it's a little bit harder to tell, at least for me.
But this woman, she had the butch haircut,
and she had a shirt on with a rainbow and one word, recruiter.
And I was so angry.
I mean, in the world we live in, we've got to control her anger,
because she's basically saying,
I am going to turn straight people into being homos,
and it made me so mad seeing that.
And it was very obvious what she's trying to do.
It's very obvious what she's obviously successful at doing,
because obviously they get people to hate God,
and that definitely takes place.
But that is not the only way that someone can become a reprobate.
I mean, there are other people out there.
I'll give you an example.
There's a lot of white-collar criminals.
And yeah, it is possible with guys like, what is it,
Bernie Madoff was the name of the guy from like ten years ago
that like stole all that money.
Yeah, it's possible that he was into sexual deviance as well.
I don't know.
But here's the thing.
There are a lot of people that might not go down this road
of just being a wicked and evil and disgusting person,
but they go down this road.
You know, kind of the Bible gives us this idea from the book of Jude.
You don't have to turn there,
but it mentions basically three types of reprobates.
You've got Cain, which represents the violent psychopath.
You've got Balaam, which is all about money,
just like Judas Iscariot.
And then you've got like Korah, who is after power and control.
So it kind of gives us these categories.
And the reality is, if your goal is to be, you know,
steal a lot of money and have a lot of money,
it probably does not benefit you to murder people on the side
because it's going to destroy.
Now, I'm not saying they're not capable of that,
but I'm just saying oftentimes psychopaths might go down one road
rather than just kind of mixing over into all of them.
Okay?
That's kind of the basic idea you get from the book of Jude.
But anyways, go to 2 Timothy 3.
2 Timothy 3.
And the reason why it's important for us to realize is,
and look, I preach against the LGBT all the time.
I'm doing that in this sermon,
but I think that we need to understand the difference
because I don't want you to get this mindset,
if they're not a homo, they're a good person automatically.
That's not necessarily true.
There can be people that are just, you know,
bad people that are just after whatever, right?
I mentioned it yesterday during the sermon that around our house,
there was some maintenance we were getting done,
and this person was just a con artist that just lied about stuff
and obviously ripped us off and everything,
and we just cut off contact.
We're not going to message him.
We're going to ignore him if he messages back.
And because of the fact we think he's a con artist,
and it's like, yeah, I think you're a bad person.
You're just like stealing money and just lying to people
and doing that.
It's like, yeah, I think the guy is just sort of like on a low level,
kind of like a white collar criminal sort of person,
and there are bad people like that that we got to pay attention to.
In the world we live in today, it's like there's a lot of scammers,
a lot of people that steal money.
Our church has dealt with that.
People just, you know, getting into our group chat somehow,
getting into someone's, and then stealing money and ripping people off.
Yeah, I think those people that are doing that are probably bad people.
I have no idea whether or not they're a homo or not, though.
I have no idea.
But there are bad people, and just because they're not cross-dressing
doesn't mean that they're a good person, okay?
2 Timothy 3, how do we deal with this?
Because you hear a sermon like this, and it can maybe frustrate you,
and you might have this idea,
man, I mean, there's going to be bad people at church.
Look, if you go to Robinson's grocery store today,
there will be bad people there.
If you go out for a walk, there will be bad people.
In fact, usually when we go soul-winning, we see bad people.
They're out there.
I mean, look, when we were preaching at the schools this past week,
I was so excited after the first classroom, I was thinking,
I didn't see a single homo in my class.
I was like, maybe this school is like they don't have a lot.
I think that it was more than made up for in the second class,
where it's like one-third of the students, it was just like horrible.
We go preaching at the schools, and guess what?
There's a lot of bad people.
It's very scary here in the Philippines
because you see a lot of teens in today's world,
and they have already made their decision, you can tell.
It's crazy.
But here's what I'm saying.
If you're going to get this mindset, well, I don't want to deal with this,
you would have to avoid the world because there's bad people everywhere.
You cannot avoid it.
It says here in 2 Timothy 3, verse 5,
Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof,
from such turn away.
For of this sort are they which creep into houses
and lead captive silly women laden with sins,
led away with diverse lusts.
Ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
And by the way, verse 7 shows you they cannot get saved.
They're ever learning and never able.
It's not that they never do come to the knowledge of the truth.
They're never able to.
And what is the knowledge of the truth?
Well, Jesus said, I am the way, the truth.
They will never come to the knowledge of the true God
or the truth found in Jesus Christ.
The Bible says ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Now, as Janus and Jamborees withstood Moses,
so do these also resist the truth.
Men of corrupt minds reprobate concerning the faith.
Now, let me also say this, that when I mentioned Jude,
I mentioned three people that the Bible says.
Cain, Balaam and Korah.
All three of them are kind of religious in a way, aren't they?
Balaam certainly is.
He's legitimately a false prophet.
He's like the Joel Osteen of his day or whatever, the Benny Hinn,
whatever you want to say.
Obviously Korah was.
He was kind of a leader within the congregation.
Cain, you know, maybe you wouldn't say he's religious.
He obviously, it symbolizes the work salvation,
but maybe he wasn't religious himself.
I mean, you know, but what you're seeing is that, yeah,
bad people attach to religion sometimes.
Why is that?
Because Christians tend to be trusting, right?
And I'm not saying that's a bad thing because charity believeth all things.
And so what I like to call it is a Christian con artist
where someone will basically use Christianity as their means to be a con artist.
It certainly exists in this world.
I mean, I remember just several months back, it's like there was on a jipney,
this guy was asking for money.
He had this long story and everybody's giving him money.
He probably got 500 pesos on the jipney from people
because he had to help his daughter, needed this medical operation.
And, you know, my buddy that was on the Jeep with me at the time,
he saw the same person a week later.
He had a different story and he got a lot of money as well.
It's like, yeah, you're just a con artist.
You're just a bad person, right?
And here's the thing, though, especially in church,
people can attach themselves to church like Judas Iscariot
and realize people are going to be friendly,
they're going to be nice, they're going to be trusting,
and that means they are an easy group of people that I can take advantage of.
I remember one time I was at a grocery store with a couple of my friends
and the guy who was bagging the groceries was our friend's friend.
And this was someone I never liked because he said a lot of perverse things
and my friend had been friends with him since he was young
so he was trying to get him saved.
But my friend's friend, he was very perverse.
I didn't like him but I would see him from time to time.
And then the guy was talking about how, yeah, I'm going to graduate soon.
I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do for work.
And he's like, I'm thinking about working at a daycare.
And then all of a sudden he said, we're like, why?
Because it was like out of the blue.
And then he said, well, because of the fact, you know,
people are very trusting there with their children.
And then he said, actually, maybe I'll end up working for a church.
And it was just like, and he's trying to pass it off as being funny,
and it was just like, you know, because I don't think he's lying.
I think he's just actually expressing out of the abundance of the heart
the mouth speaketh and it's just like, you know, what is wrong with you?
Right?
What I'm saying is there are bad people that are out there
and that's at a grocery store.
There are bad people you run into.
You're not going to avoid it.
But here's what the Bible says in verse nine.
But they shall proceed no further, for their folly shall be manifest
unto all men as theirs also was.
Look, sometimes at church, you know, you might see someone at church
and you think, man, maybe this person's a bad person.
I can't stand it because I think they're bad.
I wish it would just be known.
You know what?
You end up finding out that the people that are just obviously bad people,
eventually their folly is manifest and the situation's done with.
And then they're gone from church.
You don't have to worry about it.
By all means, if there's somebody that does some really bad things
and some very questionable things, hey, let me know about it
with the understanding that I might just, you know, write it down
and just keep it in the back of my mind and say, OK, well, this is interesting.
But that doesn't necessarily mean it's enough or someone's going to get kicked out
because sometimes people get mad.
They come to the pastor and say, hey, this person, I think that, you know,
they should be kicked out.
This is what they did.
And the pastors doesn't have enough evidence to kick them out.
And sometimes I can just say from experience, you know,
with people that have been kicked out before, it's just kind of like,
I'm like, I'm 75% sure that, yes, you're probably right,
this person's a bad person, but it's just not enough.
Right?
In general, it's like the innocent until proven guilty is what I would say.
I get people the benefit of the doubt unless it's going to be manifest.
And the reason why I don't overly obsess about it
is because Jesus said that terrors are going to be amongst the weak.
Just is what it is.
And here's what I would say.
As an individual, safeguard yourself.
Make sure your kids are safe, your family safe.
Just in all circumstances, become spiritual, become mature.
And I don't think anything's going to happen to you.
You don't have to worry.
You're going to be perfectly fine.
Because what's going to take place is people are going to take advantage
of people that are not ready for it.
Right?
So become spiritually mature.
Become ready.
And look, you know, if you live through an experience, learn from it.
Learn from what you saw and say, okay, I read about Judas Iscariot.
Now I get it.
I've seen it with my own eyes.
I've seen it take place.
Now I understand how these things take place.
So the Bible says there are going to be terrors amongst the weak,
and I wish I could tell you that at our church,
we're never going to have a bad person ever.
But I can't say that's true.
Because here's what I would say.
We're producing a lot of fruit.
We're getting people saved.
I mean, we got, you know, the church in Pampanga.
We got the church in Biko.
We got the church in Poland.
We got our monthly church services in Cavite, in Laguna.
We're getting people saved.
We're reaching people.
And I'm not planning to slow down.
I want to do more for God these next 12 months, not less.
And as we're getting more and more people saved
and more good people are joining the church,
which the vast majority of people at our church
are great and awesome people that love God.
But the reality is that if you bring a lot of great people to church,
then the devil's going to sow some terrors amongst the church.
Let's close in a word of prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father,
thank you for allowing us to be here today
and asking to help us to apply this term to our lives.
Help us to not get overly concerned about this,
but just to be aware of what the Bible teaches here, God,
and asking to help our church just continue to grow and reach more people.
And if someone at our church is a bad person, God,
we just ask you for the evidence to come out.
Let their folly be manifest, God.
And if it's not manifest or there's not enough information, God,
help us all to be just, you know, wise but patient and long suffering
and realize that in the end things will happen as they need to happen.
God, we pray these things in Jesus' name.
Amen.
All right, for our last song, let's turn our hymns to hymn number 73.
Let's sing the song, Some Golden Daybreak.
Some glorious morning, sorrow will cease.
Some glorious morning, all will be peace.
Heartaches all ended, school days all done.
Heaven will open, Jesus will come.
Some golden daybreak, Jesus will come.
Some golden daybreak, battles all won.
He'll shout the big tree, break through the blue.
Some golden daybreak for me, for you.
Sad hearts will bladden, all shall be bright.
Goodbye forever to earth's dark night.
Chains in a moment, like him to be.
Oh, glorious daybreak, Jesus I see.
Some golden daybreak, Jesus will come.
Some golden daybreak, battles all won.
He'll shout the big tree, break through the blue.
Some golden daybreak for me, for you.
Oh, what a meeting there in the skies.
No tears nor crying shall dim our eyes.
Love once united eternally.
Oh, what a daybreak that morning will be.
Some golden daybreak, Jesus will come.
Some golden daybreak, battles all won.
He'll shout the big tree, break through the blue.
Some golden daybreak for me, for you.
Amen. Let's have a 10-minute short break.
.