I want to thank Pastor Minnis for giving me a chance to preach here tonight, and I'm going
to try not to be too long because I know we have a lot of food coming tonight.
This is a sermon I've been interested in preaching a long time.
I was reading this in Exodus 1 a long time ago, probably six months ago, and I wrote
kind of a rough draft of this sermon.
In Exodus 1, it's a very interesting chapter in the Bible because it's kind of a transitional
chapter.
At the end of Genesis chapter 50, the last chapter in the book of Genesis, you see that
Joseph dies.
Now, Joseph is a very significant character in the Bible.
He's the one who was really responsible for bringing the children of Israel into Egypt
to begin with.
Now, when they're in Egypt at that time, though, in Genesis 50, they don't have problems with
the Egyptians.
The children of Israel are serving the Lord, and they have a good relationship with the
Egyptians.
They're not fighting with the Egyptians at all.
But in Exodus chapter 2, you start with the birth of Moses.
Now in Exodus chapter 2, you better believe that there's a lot of problems with the Egyptians.
So there's a big change that's taking place between these two big characters, Joseph and
Moses.
In Exodus chapter 1, we see the big transition that we have.
Now look at verse number 8 in your Bible in Exodus chapter 1.
It says in Exodus chapter 1, verse 8,
Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.
You see, the old king of Egypt got along very well with Joseph.
The old king of Egypt liked Joseph a lot.
But this new king comes, and he doesn't know who Joseph is.
He doesn't know that the children of Israel were really helpful to the Egyptians.
Because when you think about it, the children of Israel coming to Egypt greatly helped that
land.
You know, immigration actually helps build a land.
And they help the Egyptians out, but this new king rises up, and he's afraid of who
the children of Israel are.
Now when I was reading this chapter a long time ago, I couldn't help but think about
the parallels that we have between the old Egyptian IFB, and then the new Israelite IFB
we have.
The name of this sermon is the persecution from the old IFB.
You see, this new pharaoh basically symbolizes your typical Baptist pastor and your typical
IFB church.
And basically, the children of Israel, they symbolize members that are in those churches
that are just trying to faithfully serve those pastors, just trying to faithfully get people
saved, bring people to church, and their pastors often persecute them, and they don't even
want them in their church.
Many people at our church have gone through that.
Many people at our church were just faithfully serving their churches, being respectful to
their pastors, doing everything not to cause any problems, bringing visitors to church,
going soul-winning, and those pastors didn't even want them at their church.
And we're going to see the symbolism that we see here in Exodus chapter 1.
The first point we see is in verse number 7.
It says,
And the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly and multiplied and waxed
exceeding mighty, and the land was filled with them.
Isn't that what we could say about our movement today, that this land is becoming filled with
us?
I mean, our movement is growing.
It's growing every single year.
You think about the first Red Hot Preaching Conference.
There really weren't a whole lot of churches that were really like-minded like our church.
There are a whole lot more churches that are like-minded now.
Our churches are growing, we're reaching new people.
There's church plants that are taking place now in Vancouver, in Los Angeles, in Jacksonville.
They're coming all across the nation.
Our churches are getting bigger, they're getting mightier.
This land is being filled with us.
People that actually love the Lord, people that want to serve God and go soul-winning
and actually are going to believe and do the things that the Bible says.
Now when you think about Israel and Egypt, Israel actually really grew in power very
quickly.
How did they become so mighty?
One big reason why Israel became so mighty very quickly is because they didn't practice
birth control.
They were having a lot of kids.
When they started, it was only 70 people coming into Egypt.
When they left, it's 600,000 men beside women and children.
How many women and how many children were there, we're not really sure.
But they reached the point where all of a sudden, Egypt was afraid of them because they
had grown so quickly.
There's not a Bible verse that proves this, but they say that in Egypt, birth control
was very common back then.
I was actually reading online just this week at various types of birth control that they
were practicing and a lot of weird stuff that they were doing.
It's amazing how people would do anything they can not to have kids, not to trust in
God.
See, the children of Israel knew what the Bible says, where it says, be fruitful and
multiply and replenish the earth.
That was the commandment of God, to have a lot of kids.
The children of Israel were actually doing that.
The Egyptians, they're probably just trying to have one, two, or three kids because they
probably cared more about money.
They cared more about themselves because there is no new thing under the sun.
That's the reason why people don't have kids today because they care more about themselves.
They don't want to invest the time.
They don't want to invest the money.
They don't have that great faith.
The Bible tells us to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth.
The children of Israel, they actually obeyed that commandment, but the Egyptians, they
really didn't obey that.
That's the reason why the Egyptians aren't really growing and the children of Israel
just skyrocketed.
Obviously, God was going to bless his people because they were being obedient.
In America, this might shock you, but one of the fastest growing religions is the Amish.
They're one of the fastest growing religions in America.
There's really two main reasons for this.
Number one, they have a lot of kids.
When you have a lot of kids, it's going to cause you to grow.
It's not like the Amish are really in style in today's world.
They're a little bit outdated, but they are growing very mightily because of the fact
one reason, they have a lot of kids.
The other reason why the Amish are growing so quickly is because they retain almost all
of their members.
In Pennsylvania, where my parents are, really close by is a lot of Amish communities.
There's a lot of Mennonites that came by, and there's a lot of people that were Amish.
The Amish are actually very uneducated people.
They actually are very dependent on the society they live in.
It's very hard for them to break out of it because they don't have very basic math and
grammar skills that they can function on their own out of the real world.
They're great at what they do, but they're very dependent on that society.
That is one reason why many people stick with that religion because they're also dependent
upon it financially.
They're actually one of the fastest growing religions because they actually do have a
lot of kids.
Egypt was not obeying this.
That's not the main point I have here with the fruitfulness of the new IFB, but honestly,
the old IFB, they really don't preach behind the pulpit that you should have a lot of kids.
They really don't.
It's funny because a lot of pastors know what the Bible says about it, and a lot of
pastors have a lot of kids, but I have never heard any pastor of the old IFB get up and
preach about how you should have as many kids as God will bless you with.
It's funny because the first person I ever heard tell me that was right after I got saved.
My sister actually told me that.
My sister is expecting her ninth child right now.
My sister obeyed that commandment, her and her husband, and I remember I was just newly
saved.
I remember her telling me, well, the Bible says, be fruitful and multiply.
That was honestly the first belief I had of what our new IFB is.
I was against birth control just right after I got saved because I was like, well, that's
what the Bible says.
Be fruitful and multiply.
With the old IFB, they're not really obeying that.
The reason why this is significant, though, is this.
In our church and in churches like ours, there's a lot of families with a lot of young kids.
Our movement is growing, but when you think about exponents and you think about multiplication
in five years, in 10 years, in 15 years, when these kids grow up and they get married
and they have families, our movement's not just going to be going like this.
It's going to really start to skyrocket.
Our movement's just growing because we're faithfully going soul winning, knocking doors,
trying to do what the Bible says, trying to live a separated life.
But honestly, once these kids grow up and they're hearing the truth, they're here for
every service, they're hearing the preaching, they're not in some junior church where they're
hearing some watered down message and singing fun, stupid songs, they're actually hearing
God's word, I believe the vast majority are going to stick with it.
And I believe when they grow up, they're going to have families and have lots of kids, and
our movement is going to keep growing and growing and growing.
And you see, the main reason why our movement's growing and the old IFB is just slowly dying
out is because of the fact the methods of the old IFB just do not work.
Let's turn to Mark chapter 10.
Our methods are not very complicated at our church or at Faithful Word or any churches
like this.
We believe in soul winning, hard preaching, and living a separated life.
It's that simple.
It's not complicated.
The Christian life is honestly not that complicated.
It's not easy to live a Christian life and be very dedicated, but it's actually very
simple what you're supposed to do.
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter.
Fear God and keep His commandments.
If you just fear God and keep His commandments, then you're doing well.
It's not very complicated what we're doing.
But the old IFB is using methods that are not in the Bible because they logically make
sense to them, but they've been proven that they do not work.
In Mark chapter 10, it says in verse 13,
And they brought young children to Him, that He should touch them, and His disciples rebuked
those that brought them.
But when Jesus saw it, He was much displeased, and said unto them,
Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom
of God.
Isn't it very clear here in Mark 10 that God wants the kids to hear the preaching?
He wants the kids to be around there for everything.
Now, I promise you, anybody in the old IFB movement could read this, and they see it
very clearly as well.
It's very clear that the kids are supposed to be there, but there's a reason why the
kids are not in the main service at a traditional old IFB church.
The reason why is because they pick up a ton of kids on bus routes.
Now, most kids that come on bus routes, I've worked on several bus routes, I've preached
at junior church for almost a year, so I have a lot of familiarity with this, but most of
those kids, their parents do not care about them.
There's a reason why they're being picked up on a bus and their parents don't take them,
because their parents don't care about them.
They're not loved by their parents.
Very rarely do those parents ever come to church.
They bring a bunch of kids in, but most of those kids are very rebellious kids, because
most of those kids have parents that don't love them.
If your parents don't love them, they're going to provoke their children to wrath.
That's what the Bible says in Ephesians 6.
They provoke those children to wrath, and then you're bringing all these kids into church
that are very angry kids, that really are mad that they're upset.
Their parents are basically just using it as a babysitting service.
When I preached at junior church, I remember the first time I preached.
I think the first sermon I preached was the sin of alcohol.
I got up here and I screamed and I shouted, and those kids were like, whoa, because they
weren't used to that sort of preaching.
They were used to hearing these goofy songs and this really short sermonette, nothing
major, eating lots of candy.
You feed them lots of candy to entertain them so they won't disrupt the entire service.
What I noticed was most of these kids, they liked that preaching.
They liked hard preaching, the same preaching we hear at this church.
They liked hearing the word of God.
There were a couple kids that were basically just really disrespectful.
There was no way to control them.
Here's the problem, though.
I can't spank somebody else's kid.
The other people at church, they can't spank somebody else's kid.
Those kids are not going to be in a main service because inevitably some of those kids are
going to act crazy and scream during the service, and you can do nothing about it.
You try to do something about it, you could end up in jail, honestly.
You can't do anything about it.
What is the result?
Well, in their churches, what they do is they take those kids out and put them in another
building where somebody else who's not the pastor is preaching a sermon to them.
Just alone, you just think about your kids being off in some other room with someone.
You wonder why pedophilia creeps into these churches.
We need to be, obviously, safeties of the Lord, but we need to be smart as well.
In these churches, they take those kids over there, and to try to keep them entertained,
they feed them with candy, they preach a sermonette, they sing stupid songs like Somewhere and
Outer Space, God Has Reserved a Place.
They don't sing real traditional hymns like we sing at this church.
You know what ends up happening when those kids grow up?
They're not looking for a church like this.
They're looking for a Joel Osteen Fun Center.
They're looking for these goofy churches because that's what they remember as a kid.
They didn't hear hard preaching as a kid, so when they grow up, basically, they depart.
Honestly, most of those kids never even get saved in those churches.
The vast minority of them end up getting saved because they pray one time and people just
assume they're saved.
If you even try to give them the gospel, they get mad at you.
That's kind of my experience.
Most of those kids, they reject it.
The old IFB, they're using methods that just aren't working because those kids don't end
up staying in the faith.
With these old IFB churches, you see that they have a lot of kids at their church, but
they have a much older congregation that's getting older every year, and the size of
their churches are getting smaller and smaller.
They're getting more and more away from the techniques of the Bible because they're trying
to reach the people that they're not reaching.
Now they're starting to get more watered down.
The music's getting watered down.
The sermons aren't hard anymore.
It's changed a lot.
The old IFBs have changed a lot through the decades.
Even when I first started going to an IFB church 13 years ago, it's changed a lot since
then.
Soul winning is dying down every single year in those churches.
Like I said, the methods we do, they're not complicated, but they work.
Going soul winning and trusting that God's going to provide for your church, that is
what works.
Preaching hard, preaching what the Bible says, those are the methods that actually work.
What you see around this country, around Sacramento, around this world, there are people everywhere
that actually want to hear the Word of God.
They don't want to hear some watered down message.
They don't want to hear lies preached to them.
They actually want the truth.
They want their pastors to actually show them what the Bible says.
And that is what we do at this church.
And you're seeing the fruitfulness of our movement because we're actually doing what
the Bible says.
Not only that though, like I said, now we're getting churches planted.
Honestly, in the old IFB movement, they do not start a lot of new churches.
Most people that graduate from Bible college end up becoming an assistant pastor or a youth
pastor at a church that's been around for 20 years.
They're not starting new churches.
They're just joining churches that already exist.
And a lot of those churches are getting smaller and dying out.
As a result, the old IFB movement, their methods, the Bible college, the bus routes, it's proven
it doesn't work.
It's dying out.
I wish they would just join ship right now and just say, okay, we'll do what the Bible
says.
We'd love to have them come over right now.
Forget about all the years that you guys were doing foolish stuff.
Come over to our side now.
We're going back to soul winning, preaching hard, and doing what the Bible says.
Not using man's philosophy for building a church, but actually doing what the Bible
says.
And you know what?
It's going to work.
Turn back to Exodus chapter 1.
And so the first point we saw tonight was this.
We see the fruitfulness of the new IFB movement.
But we also see this in verse 8, the foreign nature of the new IFB movement.
Look at verse 8.
Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.
You see, this king doesn't know what to think about Joseph.
Joseph is foreign to him.
He doesn't know what to think about him at all.
Honestly, this is very similar to how a lot of people from our movement, they get saved
through after the tribulation, or they hear a lot of preaching online, and all the pastors
in our movement rip on them that they need to be in church.
Find the best church in your area.
It's funny the allegations that we try to take people from churches, because all the
pastors preach, go to the best church in your area.
And honestly, a lot of people are visiting their churches because of our movement.
And honestly, what ends up happening is a lot of those pastors are like, oh no, not
another one.
They're not happy about it.
It's ridiculous.
You'd think that they would be happy to have new members at their church, but honestly,
at the preaching conference or at any of these conferences, people come in and visit.
They're happy for their stories.
Their pastors weren't happy for them to be there.
Now, I understand there's exceptions, but honestly, by and large, of this old guard,
most of them are not happy when people like us show up through the doors.
They're upset about it.
They'd rather that their church just kind of died out than somebody coming to their
church that believes in a post-trib rapture.
They're not happy about it.
It kind of reminds me of a church I visited in West Virginia.
My friends and I started going there, and I remember when we first started going, the
pastor, we started showing up for soul-winning and all the services, and my friend actually
got sent out from that church.
The pastor's a good man, but hearing back the stories from him and the assistant pastor
who I'm friends with, they were afraid when we showed up.
They were like, uh-oh, not this group of young guys, and they could turn our church upside
down.
It could be completely different.
Now the assistant pastor, he's just like one of us, so he got converted to our side.
When we first showed up, they were worried about it because they had heard bad things
like oh, no, these guys could be troublemakers, but we're going soul-winning, and the attendance
for soul-winning shot up from like four to like 20 within a month because there's excitement
built up in that church.
And honestly, in these churches, the excitement could come back.
When young people come in and are zealous for the things of God and want to serve God,
the excitement could come back, and I promise you there are a lot of members of those old
IFB churches that if they heard the hard preaching and saw the soul-winning, they would love
it.
They would love to be a part of a church like this, but unfortunately, most of the times,
those pastors are the ones that are preventing it.
When I was in Guyana, when I went soul-winning there, I ran into about three or four people
that were saved that all went to the same Baptist church.
And if you remember the story about Guyana, things didn't work out with the pastor down
there, Rand Mangat and everything, but I wanted to go to church, obviously, when I was down
there.
And I ran into people that were saved that went to the same church over and over and
over again.
And I just figured this should be the church that I should probably go to, because obviously
at least the pastor is getting people saved.
And so I went there, and I had lunch with the pastor because I went soul-winning with
him and went on his visitation route.
And I was talking to him, and he was kind of hesitant because we had showed up for one
church service before, but he didn't really know what to think because we're showing up
for soul-winning.
I was being respectful.
I was asking him a lot of questions about being a missionary because it's something
I'm interested in.
I thought I could learn some things, and I did.
But he didn't know what to think about us.
And he had heard a lot about this movement, and he had heard a lot of bad things about
this movement.
And going back to the old church in West Virginia, my friend who was the assistant pastor, he
graduated from Hyles Anderson.
And at Hyles Anderson, they say a lot of bad things about this movement.
They basically kind of trash this movement at Hyles Anderson.
We're a bunch of troublemakers and everything like that.
So it's happening in the Bible colleges.
They're telling people that.
And most people are just going to believe what they hear.
You just naturally assume that people aren't lying to you, especially when you respect
them.
And so this pastor in Guyana, though, he just didn't know what to think.
And I remember I went soul-winning with him, and he heard me give the gospel a couple times,
and he was really interested after that.
I gave him the soul-winning seminar, and I talked to him and everything like that.
And he said, well, I don't know what to think.
He said, I remember a lot of people used to really criticize Jack Hyles because he graduated
from Hyles Anderson.
And he said, all that stuff I found not to be true.
And so he said, I should be more forgiving.
And I gave him some of the DVDs and stuff like that.
And he was a pretty good guy.
But it just kind of shows you that most pastors, though, they instead decide they want to get
rid of these people.
Those are good examples, but pretty much all those pastors, they don't know what to think
about us when we show up.
Because they hear such bad things, but then by and large, when people like us show up,
we're respectful, we want to go soul-winning, we want to be kind, we want to try to bring
people to church.
We don't want to cause problems.
Now I understand that there are exceptions.
Obviously there are blowhards in our movement who are just going to try to rebuke their
pastors, which is ridiculous.
But by and large, when you talk to the people at this church that used to be part of different
IFB churches, that's not the experience you're going to see.
Most people are actually very respectful to their pastors.
Now the children of Israel, they were not causing problems with the Egyptians.
The Egyptians should have been happy to have them there.
They were not trying to fight with Israel.
Egypt's the one that started this, not Israel.
Look at Exodus 1, verse 9.
So the first thing we see tonight is just the fruitfulness of the new IFB.
The second thing we see is the foreign nature of the new IFB.
But thirdly, we're going to see the fear and frustration of the old IFB.
Look at verse 9.
And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier
than we.
Come on, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass that when
there fall without any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and
so get them up out of the land.
See this new king is afraid.
This king realizes that right now we can still defeat the Israelites, but if they grow, we're
not going to be able to defeat them.
He's worried because he's probably an intelligent man.
He's probably smart, and he realizes they are growing, and logically, if we fight them
now, we'll get rid of it.
Now with man's wisdom, it makes sense.
They could have killed the Israelites, but the difference was God was on Israel's side.
And see, it doesn't really matter what man's wisdom says.
We've seen this on Wednesday nights.
Man's wisdom is foolishness with God.
As long as we obey what the Bible says, that is what God is going to bless.
And so this new king rises up, and he wants to get rid of them.
Without God's help, there is no doubt Egypt would have destroyed Israel.
The old IFB, like I said, should be happy to have zealous members that are not causing
problems in their churches.
I want to tell you a story about when I met my friend, brother Jeff Utzler, and I probably
should have called him to let him know I was going to tell him the story.
When I first met him, I got a message from him on Facebook, and I can't remember what
he asked me, but he asked me a question, and I found out that he was going to be visiting
a relative about an hour and a half away from me.
So I said, hey, you want to meet up for soul winning?
So we both drove about 45 minutes to an hour to meet up.
I had never met him before.
He just messaged me on Facebook.
I knew he listened to sermons online.
I was like, I'd love to do extra soul winning.
And so we both drove about 45 minutes to an hour out of the way to go soul winning.
So we showed up at this random town, Somerset, PA, and we tried to find an area that looked
like it would be receptive.
Well, the area we picked really wasn't all that receptive.
We showed up about 5 p.m. or 5.30.
We went soul winning for one hour, two hours, two and a half hours.
Nobody saved.
Nobody wanted to talk.
And all of a sudden it started to get dark outside, and we're just thinking, should we
call it?
And we're like, we want to get one person saved.
If we get one person saved, we're going to go home.
And it starts to get really dark as we keep going, and there's these two people standing
outside.
And it looked like they would not be receptive at all.
I didn't think they would talk at all, but then we asked them if they knew if they were
going to heaven, and they said they weren't sure, and they said they were interested.
So we gave them the gospel, and both of them ended up getting saved.
And so it's about 8.30, 8.45 at night.
And so we asked them, is there anybody else in your house you would like us to talk to?
You know, a son, a daughter, is there anybody else?
And the lady told me, she's like, no, but she's like my neighbor.
She's like, I would love you to tell my neighbor what you just told me.
And I said, well, we would love to do it, but I said, it's really dark outside.
She's probably going to be scared if two men come and knock on her door when it's pitch
black outside.
I said, if you get her to come, we'll talk to her.
And so she ended up going over there.
She said, come with me.
And she knocked on their door, and the woman came outside.
She heard the gospel.
She got saved.
And so with this woman, guess what we asked her?
Is there anybody in your house that we could talk to?
And she said, let me bring out my daughter.
So we gave the gospel to her daughter, and she got saved.
At this time, we're exhausted.
You know, giving the gospel for 45 minutes straight to an hour or something like that.
Four people got saved.
And it was pitch black at this time.
We were out for about three and a half hours, soul winning, that night.
And so all of a sudden, we get done, and he's still going to be in town.
So the next day, I said, well, let's meet up again.
Let's go somewhere else.
And so once again, we drove out of the way, and we went soul winning, and it was pouring
down the rain that day.
I mean, we went out for about five hours, and our Bibles the whole time were just here
like this.
We were running from door to door.
We were soaked.
We ended up getting two people saved.
And so it's one of my most exciting experiences soul winning ever.
And honestly, the first time I met Jeff, I told my friends immediately, I said, I can
just tell with his personality, this is going to be one of my best friends.
And I was right about that.
But I remember my friend, Pastor Jason Robinson, before he was a pastor, and this was a different
church than he got sent out of, but he told the pastor the story.
And you know, that pastor criticized what we did.
He said I could have destroyed my testimony for meeting up with someone I didn't know.
He said what I did was sinful and wrong.
He didn't tell that to me, but that's what he told.
And I was pretty offended by it.
I got a little bit in the flesh, because honestly, it's one of my most exciting stories.
And I didn't have a problem with my pastor, and he criticized what we did.
There's this new soul winning marathon that I think it's March 31st of next year.
How many have seen the YouTube video?
A lot of people.
And we're going to be trying to do a nationwide soul winning marathon in every state do a
soul winning marathon.
When I saw that, I was excited.
I said, man, that's the greatest thing I've ever seen.
That is awesome.
Now, honestly, I wish that the old IFB would organize a nationwide soul winning marathon
to try to show us.
I hope they do it.
I don't think they're going to, but I think it would be great.
I don't necessarily agree with all their methods, but as long as they're preaching the right
gospel it would be awesome.
That they could get a lot of people saved.
I wish they would do that, but you know what they're probably going to do?
They're probably going to criticize it in some way or another.
It's probably going to be just like Eliab criticizing David for taking on Goliath.
You know, he has no reason to, but he criticizes it.
But you know, honestly, this is the way it is.
When you're backslidden, when you're not doing what's right, you get upset at other people
for doing what's right.
That's the way it is.
And what you're seeing with these old IFB churches, they are not going soul winning.
They're not doing the work, and there's a bunch of lazy pastors that are collecting
a paycheck, and their sermons are boring.
They're not teaching anything.
They're just reading commentaries, and they're not even going soul winning.
And they get mad at people that come to church and are actually fired up about the things
of God.
That's our natural flesh.
We get upset when other people are doing more for us.
If we're not right with God, we're upset at other people doing something for God.
And that is what you're seeing at these old IFB churches.
Honestly, I believe that's the root of why they get upset when people like us show up.
I don't really think it's about the post-trib rapture.
I think they're upset at the fact that they see people that are more fired up, more zealous,
and instead of being happy that someone's bringing people to church, they get upset
about it.
Turn to Mark chapter 16.
And honestly, it's very obvious to anybody in that movement that they're dying off.
It's obvious.
Those churches are not thriving.
Those churches are getting smaller.
They're getting older.
All the IFB churches I saw in West Virginia, they just slowly are getting less and less.
The congregation's getting older.
They're not reaching the younger people.
There's people out there that actually haven't bowed the knee to Baal, that actually want
to hear what the Bible says, even if sometimes it steps on their toes.
And honestly, going to a church like this, the preaching hits you pretty hard a lot.
It hits me pretty hard a lot.
There's plenty of times where I hear preaching behind this pulpit, and I'm like, man, I'm
guilty of that.
I've got to make changes.
But I'd rather know what the truth is so I can make the changes, than rather go into
a church where they just pat you on the back, like Joel Osteen, and just say, man, everything
you're doing is great in life.
You're not doing anything wrong.
Honestly, God is not on the side of those old IFB churches, and that's why they're dying
out.
And I can prove that to you in Mark 16.
Let's look at verse number 15.
And he said unto them, in Mark 16, verse 15, and he said unto them, Go ye into all the
world and preach the gospel to every creature.
This is one of the most exciting, one of the most interesting verses in the Bible, where
God commands us to preach the gospel.
Go to the end of the world.
Obviously, here in Sacramento, our main area we're trying to reach is Sacramento, but we
want to do what we can to get churches planted everywhere so we can eventually try to really
reach the world with the gospel.
That's what God commands us to do.
But notice what it says in the last verse of Mark 16.
Look at verse 20.
And they went forth and preached everywhere, and notice these words, the Lord working with
them and confirming the word with signs following, amen.
Did you know that when you go soul winning that God actually works with you?
You're not just doing it on your own.
It's not just you and your own flesh.
And that's why it's foolish to come back and think about, look at how great I am for how
many people I got saved, because you're not out there alone.
If you're out there alone, guess how many you come back with saved every single time?
A big zero.
None of us are going to get people saved.
It's not man's words.
It's not the wisdom of man.
It's God's word.
That is what has the power to get somebody saved.
But the Bible says here, the Lord working with them, and see, God will work with anybody
preaching the gospel.
Anyone in this old IFB movement, if their churches were zealously preaching the gospel,
you know what God would do?
The God would work with them.
He would help out that church.
God would love it if that was a church.
Even if they were wrong on some doctrines, if they were preaching hard and they were
going soul-winning, God would work with them.
There would still be hope for those churches.
If they would turn back now, those churches could be revived.
Honestly, they could be revived if they got back to the first works, but they've left
their first love.
Turn back to Exodus chapter 1.
It reminds me of that verse in Revelation to the church where it says, Be watchful and
strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die, for I have not found thy works
perfect before God.
That's what you see with these churches.
Their works are not right, and they are dying off.
We saw the fruitfulness of the new IFB.
We saw the foreign nature of the new IFB.
The fear and frustration of the old IFB, but now let's see the folly of the old IFB.
Look at verse 10.
It says, Come on, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply and it come to pass
that when they fall without any war they join also under our enemies and fight against us,
and so get them up out of the land.
Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens, and they
built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom, and Rameses.
They said, Let us deal wisely with them.
They want to cause problems for them.
Go down to verse number 13.
It says, And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor, and they made
their lives bitter with hard bondage, and mortar, and brick, and in all manner of service
in the field.
All their service wherein they made them serve was with rigor.
And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was
Shipra, and the name of the other Pua.
And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the
stools, if it be a son, then ye shall kill him.
But if it be a daughter, then she shall live.
The old IFB, they do not want people at our churches.
Just like the Egyptians here, they should not have had a problem with the Israelites.
The Israelites were not causing any problems, but they wanted to make their life tougher,
and when Israel kept growing, they said, Well, let's kill them.
Let's get rid of them.
And honestly, there's plenty of people in our church that were at other churches that
were very respectful to their pastors, and they were basically pushed out the door or
asked to leave.
Even though they were completely respectful.
Even though they were trying to do whatever they could to serve those pastors, and help
those churches, and do something good for them.
But instead, those pastors wanted to get rid of them.
They wanted to ship them out the door.
These pastors, in general, by and large, would rather be prideful and stubborn, have their
churches die off, than just humble themselves.
So we see the folly of the old IFB, but lastly, let's look at this in verse 12.
We see the failure of the old IFB.
Look at verse 12.
But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew.
And they were grieved because of the children of Israel.
You see, this old IFB wants to get rid of us.
And honestly, I'm not even just saying this, you know, it was up in Washington, they just
had a meeting of all the IFB pastors up there to try to figure out what are they going to
do with Brother Joe and those other guys there.
And basically, they just agreed and then basically pushed them all out the door at the same time.
And so, as a result, we ended up starting that church plant, because there's a bunch
of zealous people that wanted to serve the Lord that weren't causing any problems.
And that church plant is doing great up there.
They're doing big things.
Their church is growing, they're getting great soul winning going on, the preaching is great,
those people are zealous, they're really friendly, they're reaching people in that area.
But all those churches around that area basically just wanted to push them all out the door.
And that's what you see with this old IFB movement.
They have conversations about how to get rid of us.
They're trying to do everything they can, but they're not going to be able to do it.
Because God is going to work with the people that are actually going soul winning.
The more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew.
And then we see in verse 17,
But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved
the men children alive.
And the king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them, Why have you done this
thing and have saved the men children alive?
And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women,
for they are lively and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them.
Therefore God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and waxed very mighty,
and it came to pass because the midwives feared God that he made them houses.
They should have learned their lesson that their worldly wisdom was not going to get
rid of Israel.
They didn't learn their lesson.
Israel just kept growing.
And notice what it says in verse 22,
And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into
the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive.
Honestly, this is a lot like these old IFP churches, because they are dying out and they're
destroying themselves by focusing on us.
Instead of focusing on preaching the gospel and getting people saved, they're worried
about people being in the church that believe in a post-trib rapture.
They're worried about people being in the church that listen to sermons online.
They're not happy with people going soul winning unless they believe exactly like they do.
It reminds me of that verse later on in Exodus where they say to Pharaoh,
Knowest thou not that Egypt is destroyed?
And honestly, that's what's happening with the old IFP movement.
They are slowly dying out.
What can we learn in conclusion from this?
One thing I want you to realize is this.
I don't hate the old IFP movement.
Our pastor doesn't hate the old IFP movement.
None of us should hate the old IFP movement.
I want them to be successful.
I want them to get back to preaching hard like they did 30, 40 years ago.
I would love to see those churches.
There's pastors that I pray for every week that are not part of this new IFP movement.
There's pastors every single week, pastors that I know that I pray for, and I hope their
churches don't die out.
I want them to be successful, but I see some of those churches and those pastors that I'm
thinking of, and their churches are dying out.
It's because they just aren't going back to what the Bible says.
They've forgotten their first love.
They've left it.
But we shouldn't hate the old IFP.
When you think about the prophets in the Bible, they preached against the children
of Israel all the time.
They didn't hate them.
They wanted to see changes in the children of Israel.
When our pastor preaches hard, it's not because he hates us.
He wants to see us fix our lives.
When you preach sermons like this, it's not because we hate the old IFP movement.
We want to see them get right with God.
I would love it if there was a church 30 minutes from here that I could safely say, hey, that
is a good church.
If you live nearby, go to that church.
I wish there were other good churches, but unfortunately, they're not getting the job
done, and we're going to have to get the job done.
But a couple other things quickly before we're done.
One thing I find funny is when people are at a church like this for a year or two years,
or maybe they don't go to a church like this, but they listen to every sermon online, and
they comment on everything on Facebook and YouTube, it's funny sometimes when you hear
after they've been part of this movement for two years how they throw around this word,
oh, it's a cult.
That's why I left.
Have you guys noticed that?
It's like they leave, and then they say, oh, it was just a cult.
Well, let me ask you a question.
When you think about the people that follow Jim Jones and Guyana, would you say those
followers were intelligent people?
No, they're probably pretty stupid, right?
If they were going to go and drink the Kool-Aid and just ruin their lives, they were probably
simpletons.
They were probably ignorant.
They were probably foolish.
Even if they would have done well on an IQ test, I guarantee you they had no common sense,
and they were very naive to follow a cult leader, because it takes some kind of stupid
to follow a cult leader, doesn't it?
It's funny when people leave, and they say, oh, it was a cult.
Well, you're basically condemning yourself.
You're basically saying you're a moron, because it does take some kind of stupid to follow
a cult leader.
It's just kind of funny to see people that were part of this for a year and two years.
They listen to every sermon.
They're like, oh, I left because it's a cult.
Well, you're basically saying you're an idiot then, because only idiots are going to follow
a cult leader.
This is the furthest thing from a cult, because at a church like this, you hear the whole
word of God.
It's not like you're not hearing the word of God preached.
Not only that, but in January, we're going to encourage you to read through the New Testament.
It would be great if everybody in this room read the New Testament cover to cover in January,
so you know what the Bible says for yourself.
That's not a cult, because cults suppress information.
We want everybody to know what the Bible says to make their own decisions on things.
You hear the preaching, and it's up to you to decide if you agree with it and if you're
going to apply it.
One last place, Psalms 111.
In Psalms 111, verse 7, it's basically our main verse for our church where it says,
The works of his hands are verity and judgment.
All his commandments are sure.
This word, verity, basically means truth.
That's what we believe in.
We believe in truth around here.
We want people to know what the Bible is.
We want people to know what the truth is, and they get to decide if they're going to
apply it.
Let's look at verse number 8.
They stand fast forever and ever and are done in truth and uprightness.
He sent redemption onto his people.
He hath commanded his covenant forever.
Holy and reverent is his name.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
A good understanding have all they that do his commandments.
His praise endureth forever.
You notice what it says in verse 10?
A good understanding have all they that do his commandments.
You see, the Bible says the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he that winneth souls
is wise.
The people that actually do the commandments of the Bible are actually the ones that understand
the Bible, actually are the ones that are wise.
When you look at these churches, you have to understand it's not just one thing they're
wrong on.
It's not that they're just wrong on the rapture.
It's not that they're just wrong on the fact that they're not going so any much or preaching
hard.
It's everything.
Actually these things are kind of a package deal because a good understanding comes to
those that are doing the commandments.
If you're not preaching hard, you're not going soul winning, you're not going to have a good
understanding of the Bible either.
I want you to realize that this church is pretty special.
It's not like you got to pick and choose and say, well, we're going to have to suffer having
a church that doesn't go soul winning, but at least they preach right.
No, you got everything here.
You got the right preaching, the right doctrine, you got hard preaching, you have great soul
winning.
I want you to remember in this Thanksgiving year, I want you to be thankful for a church
like this, that goes soul winning every single week.
Life is rough, but it's great to have a church where you can go soul winning every week,
and you have a church family of people here that care about you.
If you leave these doors one day, you're not going to have the great friends that you have
now.
You will not meet great friends like this in the world.
You're not going to.
You're going to have to be among God's people to find those great friends.
You got to be thankful for a great church like this that goes soul winning, that preaches
hard and has great fellowship, and be thankful for a pastor that started a church plan in
his house, and this church has grown, and so now all of us get to have a great church
here.
Let's remember that.
Let's close in prayer.