Alright, we're here in Jeremiah chapter 6, and this is the Old Paths series, Old Paths
question mark series, and you say, why do you have a question mark?
Well, the reason why is because this is a very famous verse, Jeremiah, look down to
verse number 16 in your Bible, Jeremiah 6 verse 16, Jeremiah 6 verse 16.
The Bible reads, Thus saith the Lord, stand ye in the ways and see and ask for the old
paths, that's where we get the name for our sermon series, where is the good way and walk
therein and ye shall find rest for your souls, but they said we will not walk therein.
Now, here's the thing about why we're doing this series, this is one of the most famous
verses amongst Baptist churches.
Pretty much every Baptist church will say, we're just an old paths Baptist church, fundamental,
old fashioned, we're following the ways of God, pretty much every Baptist church will
say that, but basically they're saying the world is doing this, as a Baptist church,
we're the old paths, following what the Bible says, but we're going to kind of test that
in this series, because usually the things they look at and say, we're fundamental and
old fashioned, are not actually the old paths at all.
Now today's sermon is just going to be kind of an introductory sermon, so kind of the
goal of this is to not preach those things I'm going to preach in the next several weeks.
I'll do my best because look, I've been a Baptist for a long time, I've been a part
of those traditions, and that's what we're kind of hitting on, is Baptist traditions.
Why we're different than other churches, we're going to be hitting on every single one of
them, and look, I get it, because I was in those churches, I just want to hammer it all
out in this sermon, but I've got to kind of hold back a little bit.
But this is a very famous phrase, I went to a preaching conference in the United States
called the Old Paths Conference, and it still exists today, it moved from West Virginia
towards I think Texas is where it is now, but it's one of the most famous, if not the
most famous Baptist conference in America.
It's a very huge conference, when I went there were thousands of people there in West Virginia
and the church was full, it's a very famous conference, and you know, churches like to
say they're old-fashioned and fundamental, we'll see if that's true, well what are the
old paths?
Well, turn in your Bible to Jeremiah 18, Jeremiah 18, and there's another verse that's kind
of similar that we're going to quickly look at.
It doesn't say old paths, but what it says is ancient paths, okay, and notice what it
says in Jeremiah 18 verse 15, because my people hath forgotten me, they have burned
incense to vanity, and they have caused them to stumble in their ways from the ancient
paths, to walk in paths in a way not cast up, okay?
Now ancient basically means very old, not just old, but very old, and what the Bible's
saying is there's basically two paths.
You can walk down this path or this path, and basically what Jeremiah is saying is most
churches, most religious people are walking down this path, and these are the new paths,
but we need to go for the old paths, which are different than the new paths.
That's what's being said here.
Now turn back to Jeremiah 6, Jeremiah 6.
See in life you're going to have the option of which path you're going to walk down.
Very often the world and the Bible, they come in contrast with one another, and you've got
to make your decision, am I going to do what the world does and go down these new paths
that are not biblical, or are we going to stick with the old fashioned things of the
Bible?
And churches are changing in today's world.
Baptist churches are more like non-denominational churches.
They might as well just put victory up there in the top or CCF, because it's not much different.
It's not much different at all, and you can go to Baptist churches and you learn nothing,
you literally sit in church service and learn nothing.
That's the reality.
And honestly when it comes to these churches, they are just trying to duplicate the world's
new paths to bring in people, and the result is soul winning dies out, and the actual things
of God are actually dying out as they try to fit in with new people.
Now I don't know if you noticed this, but we're not exactly a small group of people
here today.
Aren't there a lot of people in this room?
I mean we have a lot of people that love the old fashioned preaching, and the old fashioned
type of church that goes soul winning and loves God, and so these Baptist churches that
are trying to change to reach people, they're losing the young generation.
Look, most people in this room are pretty young.
We got a lot of newly married people, people that just had kids recently, people that are
getting married and things such as that.
We're not dying out like a lot of these Baptist churches.
So look, we don't need to change things.
Why not just stick to the old fashioned ways, because it looks like it's working to me here
in the Philippines.
Jeremiah chapter 6 verse 13.
So what exactly does it mean by the old paths?
Well in Jeremiah 6 verse 16 it mentions the old paths, so let's go back a few verses to
find out what are the old paths.
Verse 13, for from the least of them, even unto the greatest of them, everyone is given
to covetousness, and from the prophet even unto the priest, everyone dealeth falsely.
So he's making a contrast between preachers, between the preaching of the word of God,
and he's saying these people are covetous.
What he's saying is most pastors in his day were covetous, and they were liars, they were
phonies not actually preaching the Bible.
Now let me ask you, do you think in today's world that most preachers are preaching the
Bible?
It certainly doesn't seem like that here, it's not like that in the US, it doesn't seem
like it's like that here either.
No most of them are going by these new type of preaching, and what's annoying is they
pretend to be old fashioned.
They pretend to be fundamental, they say we're following the old paths, because other types
of churches won't say we're old paths sort of church.
It's only the Baptist churches that do that.
It's like if you're going to act like the Methodists, then quit saying you're following
the old paths.
Look I was raised Methodist, I'm not a Methodist anymore, you say why?
Because of the fact the way they do things is not like the Baptist church, the things
they believe, salvation is different.
And so if you're not going to act like an old fashioned church, quit pretending like
you are.
Just say here's the reality, we don't care if you go soul winning or clean up your life,
we won't preach against the movies and the music and the worldliness, we're just going
to preach this stuff that's going to make people happy and we're trying to bring in
everybody.
Just be honest with what you're doing, because other churches at least will be honest.
The Baptists are the ones that are the frauds, they're the ones that are lying.
At least the other churches will admit we're trying to reach unchurched people that are
into these worldly things, we're trying to bring them to church, at least they're honest.
The Baptists are trying to do the same thing and what's sad is the Baptists are far worse
at it than Victory or CCF, they're never going to be as good as Victory or CCF.
They're never going to reach those people like they will.
So why even try?
And that's why we don't try.
We try to find people that actually love the Lord, teach them the word of God, teach them
soul winning, teach them to read through the New Testament in the month of January and
things such as that.
So what it's saying is basically some prophets are covetous and they're dealing falsely,
they're lying, they only care about money and they're not preaching the truth.
That's the new path.
So the old path is you're not covetous and you're preaching the truth.
Pretty simple.
You say, man, I thought this old path would be like these 20 points of, no, it's pretty
much you're just preaching the word of God and doing what the Bible says.
Okay, that's what it's talking about.
Verse 14, they have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying
peace, peace when there is no peace.
Now, you could look at this word slightly and get confused because it's not saying they've
like a little bit deceived the people because they're saying peace when there is no peace.
They're saying peace when there is no peace.
There's not a little bit of peace.
There's no peace.
So basically they're just fully lying.
Okay, it's like a sleight of hand that a magician uses.
It's a phrase, an expression.
And so basically these prophets, they are just lying to the people.
And the reality is in today's world, most churches, the people that are running those
churches are just lying to the people.
They're not saying what the Bible actually says.
You know, just in our ride back, you know, we were listening, our ride back from Case
on Memorial Circle yesterday, we had like a bit of a driver pulling up like these people
on YouTube, like John Piper was one of the guys, say don't name the names.
They name the names in the Bible.
And John Piper is this hardcore five-point Calvinist and everything, and he's just going
on and on and talking about stuff.
It's not even what the Bible says at all.
He didn't even use any verses.
But he's pretending like it's what the Bible says, and he was being dishonest and changing
the word of God as he's quoting it but not actually showing what the Bible says.
And he's just lying to the people.
This is what most preachers are.
They're liars.
They're frauds.
They're phonies because they care about money.
And so the first point we have today when we're talking about the new paths versus the
old paths, the new paths are preaching positive only sermons.
The old paths is actually preaching what the Bible says.
The new paths is just preaching positive only sermons.
Notice what it says in verse number 15.
Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination?
Nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush.
Most people when they do wicked things are actually embarrassed about it.
When you tell a lie, you feel guilty about it.
Not these false prophets.
They don't feel guilty about it.
All they care about is just getting your money.
They don't feel guilty at all.
You would be ashamed.
They're not ashamed, though, when they committed abomination.
Therefore they shall fall among them that fall.
At the time that I visit them, they shall be cast down, saith the Lord.
Thus saith the Lord, stand ye in the ways and see and ask for the old paths.
Where is the good way?
And walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.
So they said, we will not walk therein.
And it says, you know, where is the good way?
The implication is, it's kind of hard to find the good way.
Where is the good way?
Basically, all I see are these paths.
Where's the good preaching?
Where is the good way?
And that's a good question in most parts of the world.
Because many people, they want to serve God, they're saved, they love God.
And they're like, man, this church I'm at is wrong on like everything.
It's like, where's the good way?
Where's the real church?
There's a huge difference between this and this.
And it's pretty obvious.
Okay?
Now turn to 2 Samuel 18, 2 Samuel 18.
And look, by no means do I try to claim that like I'm perfect at preaching or this is a
perfect church.
Because there is no perfect church, there's no perfect person.
I'm sure I make plenty of mistakes.
I'm not the greatest preacher in the world.
But I do preach the truth.
And very few churches do.
There's a clear difference between what this is and what this is.
It's very obvious.
That's the reason why people come from a long, I mean, people drove like two hours today
to come to church.
I mean, would you come two hours today if there was a church like right beside you that
was pretty similar?
And here's what's funny.
All of us have dealt with this.
You have family that asks you, why do you go an hour and a half to church when there's
a Baptist church like two blocks from where you live?
Hasn't everybody heard that before?
Like why do you travel two hours to church?
There's like 50 Baptist churches just within your local area.
It's because there's a difference between the new paths and the old paths.
And you should seek for the old paths and walk therein.
That's what the Bible says.
2 Samuel 18 verse 19, then said Ahimaaz, the son of Zadok, let me now run and bear the
king tidings.
2 Samuel chapter 18 verse 19, 2 Samuel 18 verse 19, how that the Lord hath avenged him
of his enemies.
And Joab said unto him, thou shalt not bear tidings this day, but thou shalt bear tidings
another day.
But this day, thou shalt bear no tidings because the king's son is dead.
And so this is part of the story where basically David has a fourfold punishment from God,
just as he said to Nathan.
And the fourfold punishment is the fact that he had four sons that died at a young age.
Okay, now within each of those ones, there's also a lot of other punishments within each
one.
So he had four sons, a fourfold punishment, four sons died at a young age.
That doesn't even include the fact that his daughter was raped.
That doesn't include the fact that sons tried to kill him.
But he had a fourfold punishment of his four sons dying at a young age.
And so this is the story with Absalom.
And obviously, a father loves his son, even if his son has gone astray, okay?
Now I don't have time to go into this, but I think that there's verses that would indicate
that David knows his son Absalom is an unbeliever and a reprobate, okay?
And I don't have time to go into that, but David, I believe, thought his son was an unbeliever,
not a believer, okay?
But still it's his son.
He still kind of longs for his son, okay?
You know, I love my son Zephaniah so much, okay?
Man, I would be so sad if one day he grew up and he became somebody who was wicked.
You would be grieved for that, okay?
Obviously David still has a love for his son.
But in this story, basically Job is saying, you know, you can't run and give tidings to
the king because basically it's not a good message.
The king does not want to hear that his son is dead.
That's the last thing you want to hear.
David gave clear instructions, win the battle, don't kill my son.
That's basically what he said, win the battle, do not kill my son by any means.
He did not want his son Absalom to be killed.
But you have this guy who wants to run and say, let me give the message to David, okay?
Now notice what it says in verse 20, 2 Samuel 18, verse 21.
Then said Joab to Cushai, go tell the king what thou hast seen.
And Cushai bowed himself unto Joab and ran.
And you say, why is it that Joab is sending Cushai but he doesn't want to send Ahimaaz?
Because Ahimaaz is basically a picture of a positive only preacher, okay?
He only says things that are positive.
He never says things that are negative.
He's not willing to say what actually needs to be said.
Whereas Cushai is actually willing to just say what needs to be said, okay?
Verse number 22, then said Ahimaaz, the son of Zadok, yet again to Joab, but howsoever
let me, I pray thee, also run after Cushai.
And Joab said, wherefore wilt thou run, my son, seeing thou hast no tidings ready?
But howsoever said he, let me run.
And he said unto him, run.
Then Ahimaaz ran by the way of the plain and overran Cushai.
And so Ahimaaz just keeps begging Joab, can I send the message to David?
And Joab's like, no, you can't, okay?
I'm going to send Cushai.
But then basically Ahimaaz just keeps bugging Joab and Joab's basically like, get out of
here.
Just go, yeah, say whatever you want.
I don't want to deal with you, all right?
Just go and tell David what you want to tell him, okay?
Notice how it says at the end of verse 23, it says he overran Cushai.
And see, the reality is with these positive only preachers, they overrun the preachers
that are actually just preaching the truth.
Now look, we are not a small church, but there are plenty of Baptist churches that have more
members than ours.
They will always be able to overrun us.
Their message will beat our message.
They get out to more people than we do.
Look, I'm never going to have the impact on the world that Joel Osteen does.
His sermons are going to be listened to a million times more than my sermons ever will.
You say, why?
Because the positive only preachers, they overrun the Cushais, the people actually willing
to preach the truth.
And look, the reality is that we will never be the biggest Baptist church here in Metro
Manila.
Now we'll probably get more people saved than those churches, but we're not going to have
our message go out to more people.
You say, why?
Because the positive only preacher is what people like to hear.
People like to be told that everything they're doing is perfect.
Go down to verse number 27, verse 27.
And the watchman said, me thinketh the running of the foremost is like the running of Ahima
as the son of Zadok.
And notice what King David says.
The King said, he is a good man.
Now why does he think he's a good man?
He cometh with good tidings.
Notice what that is.
David says he's a good man because he knew whenever you see Ahima as, he just has a positive
message to give you.
Note, there's nothing wrong with bringing a positive message if it should be positive.
But the message here is, your son is dead.
You can't say that in a positive way.
Your son is dead.
And so Ahima as was known as someone.
And so David is thinking, man, there's Ahima as, it must be good news.
Because that's all Ahima as ever gave was good news.
So David's thinking, man, this is great.
There's Ahima as, okay, good tidings.
Verse 28, and Ahima as called and said unto the king, all is well.
And he fell down to the earth upon his face before the king and said, blessed be the Lord
thy God, which hath delivered up the men that lifted up their hand against my Lord the king.
And the king said, is the young man Absalom safe?
And Ahima as answered, when Joab sent the king's servant and me thy servant, I saw a
great tumult, but I knew not what it was.
Ahima as is saying, I don't know what happened.
Now is Ahima as telling the truth?
No.
He knew what happened.
Joab's saying, you can't go because the king's son is dead.
It's not good news.
Because the goal was they win the battle and his son doesn't die.
They won the battle, his son died.
And so Joab says, there's no good news to report.
Because the most important thing to David was, I don't want anything to happen to my
son Absalom.
And so Ahima as says, you know, I don't know what happened.
I don't know what happened to Absalom.
He's lying.
He's a devil.
And I want you to realize that most of these pastors that don't preach hard, they're in
reality just lying.
These positive only preaching, they know what the word of God says.
Do you really believe?
And look, I understand most Baptist pastors have never read through the Bible cover to
cover or have only read through it once, but they know what Romans 1 says.
They've read those things before.
And I'm sure they've heard the sermons online from people and they want to criticize what
we say.
They know what the Bible says.
They just don't want to preach the Bible.
And they'll lie to their people and pretend like the Bible doesn't actually say that.
It's like they're making excuses for God's work.
And it's like they don't want to actually tell the truth, just like Ahima has.
And the reality is, when it comes to old paths versus new paths, most of these Baptist preachers
are really just pretty similar to Joel Osteen, pretty similar to Joseph Princess, pretty
similar to those people.
They're preaching the same sort of positive only preaching.
Verse number 28, verse number 28, And Ahima has called and said unto the king all is well.
And then he says at the end of verse 29, But I knew not what it was.
So you see that he's lying.
Now go back to Jeremiah 6.
Go back to Jeremiah 6.
Jeremiah chapter 6, you say, Brother Stuckey, my old Baptist church, they never preached
hard against sin.
They never actually preached sermons and just told the truth of what the Bible was.
But I think the pastor was a good man.
Maybe he just didn't know.
No, he did know.
He's just intentionally lying.
He's just intentionally not preaching those things.
Why?
Because when you preach those things, you're going to have a smaller congregation.
We will never be a megachurch here in the Philippines.
Now I believe our church can grow and we'll get a lot of small church plants started.
I don't think we're ever going to be running like 500 people, though.
I mean, I hope we do.
But the reality is that this sort of message most people just don't like.
They don't really want to know what the truth is, because if you know what the truth is
and you're shown in the Word of God, you've got to make a decision, am I going to start
doing what the truth says?
And most people don't want to do what the Bible says.
So they like the positive only preacher.
People love to just come into church.
Want to pass him on in the back?
You're a great person.
You don't need to make any changes.
It's like you've never read the Bible, but that's okay.
God still loves you.
He sees your heart.
Right?
You know, you never go soul-willing.
That's okay.
God sees your heart.
You know, you're committing these wicked sins.
God sees your heart.
Inside, though, you have a love for God.
That's okay with God.
No, it's not okay.
But that's what people want to hear.
That's what David wanted to hear.
He's happy when a high mass shows up.
Oh, he's a good man.
Good tidings.
Because naturally, we want to hear something that's positive towards us, right?
Verse 13, for from the least of them, even on the greatest of them, everyone is given
to covetousness.
And from the prophet, even on the priest, everyone deal with falsely.
So we see just like a high mass, they're dealing falsely, they're lying.
They're saying peace, peace, when there is no peace.
And look, there is no peace to the wicked, my friend.
And if you commit wicked sins, there's going to be no peace in your personal life.
And I'm not going to stand up here and say, you've got peace in your personal life when
you're committing adultery, when you're getting drunk, you're not going to have any peace
in your life.
Your life's going to be destroyed due to your sin and your wickedness.
But these preachers want to stand up here and say, it's okay.
God loves you.
Just put in your offering and everything's going to be okay.
Okay?
That's not what the Bible says.
Now, I want you to realize that false prophets, they come in different ways.
When you're dealing with a false prophet, you're dealing with someone rejected by God
who's a child of the devil that intentionally is lying, okay?
But there's a lot of different false prophets out there.
They come to a lot of different churches.
You've got the Catholic priests, false prophets, right?
You've got these various cults, false prophets, okay?
You've got, you know, just these various churches, you've got a lot of Baptist churches where
the pastors are false prophets preaching a false gospel, okay?
Now they come in different forms and what I want you to understand, the goal of a false
prophet is to bring people to church that will give money.
That's what we saw in Jeremiah 6.
And so all these different false prophets, they're trying to reach a certain segment
of the population.
No one person will reach every single person.
So these various false prophets basically say, this is my group, my target of people,
and what they intentionally do is preach sermons they think will get those people to come to
church.
Instead of actually just opening up the Bible and just preaching what the Bible says, they
say, this group of people I'm trying to reach, I'm going to intentionally preach sermons
to try to make them happy, okay?
Baptist churches do the same thing because here's the reality when it comes to churches
that are different types of churches in ours, different Baptist churches, they are reaching
a certain segment of people because the reality is there's hardcore Catholics that would never
go to our church or another church, but there's also people that are very anti-Catholic that
are never going to go to a Catholic church.
And so they're trying to reach a certain group of people.
They intentionally preach a sermon and say, what will make those people happy and come
to church, okay?
Now turn in your Bible to Mark 7, Mark chapter 7, Mark chapter 7.
Now when it comes to me picking the sermons I preach, for these two series I was like,
what are the topics I haven't really preached on because I've got to preach everything.
It's like I preach various different series, things that come to mind, and then I was like,
okay, what have I not really covered?
And then I said, I'm just going to cover it the next five or six weeks.
You say, why?
You preach the whole counsel of God.
Every single word, every single verse, every single word in the book of Leviticus is great.
Every single word in any book of the Bible is great.
It's all God's word and all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for
doctrine.
All of it's great for us.
Okay, we're going to preach every single bit of it, okay?
And so the first thing we saw is this.
We talked about how these new paths are just preaching this positive only sermons, okay?
The old paths is just preaching old-fashioned sorts of things.
Now when it comes to these new paths, Baptist Church, a lot of them are all about traditions,
okay?
Now let me read you the definition of tradition.
A tradition is the transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation or
the fact of being passed on in this way.
So something that gets passed down, a tradition that goes on over and over and over and over
again, and Baptists have a lot of traditions.
Now look, traditions are not necessarily bad.
They can be good or they can be bad.
But here's what I want you to understand as we'll talk about during this sermon series
is that these Baptist Churches, they have traditions that are 200 years old and then
they look at churches today and say, we got to walk in the old paths from 200 years ago.
Look, the book of Jeremiah was written before 1800.
Something that started 200 years ago is not old paths.
That's new paths, okay?
They create all these traditions and say, we got to do it like our forefathers did 100
years ago when the Baptists first came here to the Philippines.
Look, that's not old paths.
The book of Jeremiah was before Jesus Christ, okay?
And so if you're talking about this is what we do, this is the old paths, well you better
find it before the book of Jeremiah in the timeline.
Because if this started just in the last couple hundred years, that's not old paths.
The old paths, I mean that's written in the book of Jeremiah so you're looking at things
that started and when you're saying old paths or ancient paths, Jeremiah is saying long
before I came, not just it started five years ago.
So what is Jeremiah pretty much saying, hey, from the days of Adam and Eve, how were things
done?
That is what he's saying.
From the very beginning, the old paths, the ancient paths, how were these things done?
Look for that way and walk there in.
Not just, hey, you know, we started this Baptist tradition in the Philippines like 125 years
ago, it's the old paths, amen?
No, that's not, okay?
Because this has to be before Jeremiah, okay?
And so whenever you're looking at Baptist churches, they always talk about these old
paths, they're usually looking at traditions that they started like a hundred years ago
and they say you gotta do it like our forefathers.
It's like no, you gotta do it like Jeremiah said, which is a long time ago, okay?
So like in Mark 7, let's look at the traditions that it mentions here in Mark 7.
Mark 7 verse 1, then came together unto him the Pharisees and certain of the scribes which
came from Jerusalem and when they saw some of his disciples eat bread with defile, that
is to say with unwashed hands, they found full.
For the Pharisees and all the Jews, except they wash their hands oft or often eat not,
holding the tradition of the elders.
Now, this is an example of what I would say is a good tradition, okay?
I think it makes sense to wash your hands before you eat, but it's not a sin if you
choose not to.
I wash my hands before I eat, but if you don't want to, that's up to you.
It's not a sin, okay?
And what the Pharisees were doing was having traditions and some were actually good.
This is a good tradition to wash your hands before you eat.
I mean, I hope people would agree with that, right?
To be cleanly, right?
It's a good tradition, but it's not a sin.
If somebody just decides, you know, I don't want to wash my hands and I just want to eat
the food, I'm hungry, okay?
So I'm just going to eat right now.
It's not a sin to do that, okay?
But what the Pharisees were doing was having traditions and sometime these traditions would
stand in the opposite way of the Bible and basically their tradition became a sin because
it was unbiblical.
Verse 4, and when they come from the market, except they wash, they eat not.
And many other things there be which they have received a hold as the washing of cups
and pots, brazen vessels and of tables.
And what you're basically seeing because, you know, I do believe in washing your hands,
but it seems like they were going like really overboard, like washing everything.
I think what it's trying to show you is just that they were making it a point to look good
on the outside because they were really filthy and dirty and wicked with a reprobate mind
on the inside.
And so they're making it a point, look at how clean we look, even though they're like
really wicked, evil people.
I mean, they killed the Lord Jesus Christ.
They're bad people, okay?
Verse 5, then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, why walk not thy disciples according
to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashing hands?
And so they make a big deal of this, okay?
Look, if I see somebody just eat food without washing their hands, I'm not going to rebuke
them for that.
My response would be the Pharisees would be, why don't you read the Bible?
Why don't you go soul winning?
It's like, why are you trying to kill the Lord Jesus Christ?
It's like, you know, you're making a big deal about washing your hands.
Look, there's a lot of things more important than that, but they're making a big deal about
their tradition to try to look godly when they've got a major beam in their eye, okay?
They're really guilty and they're saying, oh, you didn't wash your hands, how dare you
wicked person?
I mean, good night, I mean, mind your own business.
Let people do what they want to do, okay?
Let people eat food the way they want to eat it, okay?
I mean, if they cut a piece of steak into four pieces instead of six, just let them
do it, okay?
Like, why do you care how somebody's eating their food, okay?
I mean, good night, what's the big deal, Pharisees?
Verse number six, he answered and said unto them, well hath Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites,
as it is written, this people on earth meet with their lips, but their heart is far from
me.
How being in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
So basically, we've got like over 600 commandments in the Bible.
I don't know the exact amount, people have done studies, I haven't counted, but a lot
more than 10 commandments, okay?
That's just like a general overview, 10 commandments.
There's plenty of commandments you can focus on, and he's saying they're making their own
commandments and not worrying about just the basic things the Bible says.
Look, you should first worry about that you're reading the Bible every day, worry about that
you're praying every day, not worry about, oh man, you gotta make sure you wash your
hands, okay?
Yeah, you know what, I'll teach my son, my daughter to do that and stuff like that, but
look, if people just want to eat food, hey, I'd rather they read the Bible and didn't
wash their hands before they ate, okay, than the fact that they didn't wash their hands
being such a wicked thing.
And what Jesus says is that they're hypocrites.
And so when people get mad at people for preaching against people, false prophets, and saying
they're hypocrites and devils and liars, that's what Jesus did.
That's what he said about them.
Verse 8, for laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men as the
washing of pots and cups and many other such things like ye do.
And he said unto them, full well ye reject the commandment of God that ye may keep your
own tradition.
The reality is that oftentimes your traditions can go against what the Bible says, okay?
Verse 10, for Moses said, here's an example, honor thy father and thy mother, and whoso
curseth father or mother, and let him die the death.
But ye say, if a man shall say to his father or mother, it is Corban, that is to say a
gift, but whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me, he shall be free.
And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother, making the word
of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered, and many such like
things do ye.
And so what he's saying is, they were not honoring their parents.
That's what he's saying.
Now look, I'm going to teach my son to basically be clean and things such as that, but here's
the thing.
I would much rather my son just respected me when he grows up, when he's 25 years old
and he's not washing his hands before he eats.
And with the Pharisees, basically, they don't even care about respecting and honoring their
parents.
And that's the world we live in today.
I mean, good night, you see a bunch of kids that don't respect their parents, and it's
like, when I was a kid, I just got spanked when I acted like that.
When I said something my parents thought was wrong, you know what they did?
They took a bar of soap and just put it on my tongue.
You know what happens?
No one in this room has ever heard me say a curse word, and you never will.
You say, why?
Because I remember the taste of that soap.
Okay?
It's like, you know, I got spanked when I did wrong.
But in today's world, I mean, parents don't discipline their kids.
I mean, spanking's going to be illegal in this country.
It's like, you got to be almost careful.
You spank your child and people are like horrified, like, how dare you spank your child?
It's like, well, that's what the Bible says.
And they've got their traditions of not spanking their kids in today's world because we could
harm them psychologically, and that's going against the commandment of God.
Okay?
Now, turn in your Bible to Galatians 1.
Galatians 1.
Now, don't misunderstand me.
I don't think traditions are necessarily a sin.
Okay?
If you have family traditions, that might be a good thing.
If you have church traditions, you know, in a church, we can have church traditions, you
know, having a fellowship meal on this day every year, but we need to make sure that
any traditions we have that are not something that the Bible commands are not going against
the Bible.
Look, it's not a sin for us to have our soul winning time at 2.10 versus 2.30, okay?
But when we do things as a church, we need to make sure we're not going against clear
commandments and what the Bible specifically states, okay?
And a lot of these traditions in these Baptist churches, they are going against what the
Bible says, okay?
Now, notice what it says in Galatians 1, verse 13.
For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond
measure I persecuted the church of God and wasted it, and profited in the Jews' religion
above many my equals and my no nation.
Now why did Paul profit even more above them, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions
of my fathers?
Now are these good traditions?
No.
But that's the reason why Paul excelled more than anyone else, because he was more zealous
with the traditions, okay?
For example, the Orthodox Church, which split off from the Catholic Church in the 11th century,
the Great Schism, the big split, because the Orthodox is a huge religion worldwide.
They've got 260 million members, I think, last I saw.
They're a huge church.
Their big tradition is basically vain repetitions that they say over and over and over.
I mean, they make the Catholics look like a joke.
I mean, the Catholics pray the rosary and things such as that, but the Orthodox is like
far more hardcore with just vain repetitions.
I mean, they'll go for hours, okay, the ones that are really zealous.
And Paul was more basically profited than the other ones, because those traditions they
had, he went above and beyond what most of them did, okay?
That's what he's saying.
But this was obviously as an unbeliever.
I mean, let me give you an example of someone who held traditions more than anybody I've
even heard of in history, and that's Martin Luther.
Martin Luther, when he was a Catholic monk, and yes, he was a Catholic, where he said,
you know, I never left the Catholic church.
The Catholic church left me, okay?
Martin Luther used to sleep outside in the snow until the other monks dragged him back
in half dead.
I mean, if he lived in Pampanga, every single year he'd be up on the cross.
He'd be beating himself, Martin Luther.
He was more zealous than any of them.
But he's still in hell today, because he believed a false gospel.
Just being zealous of a tradition doesn't mean it's necessarily a good thing.
Colossians chapter 2.
Colossians 2.
Colossians chapter 2.
And so not all traditions and churches are bad.
You just have to look at them.
Is it a good tradition or not?
Okay?
You have to look at what the Bible says.
Colossians chapter 2.
Colossians chapter 2 in your New Testament.
Colossians chapter 2.
Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians.
Galatians chapter 2, verse 7, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith
as he had been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.
Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men.
The Bible says make sure that someone doesn't trick you and deceive you through a vain tradition.
I'm intentionally not going through all of these traditions, because that's the next
four or five weeks, okay?
But I'm just telling you that, you know, if you have been in a Baptist church for a long
time, a lot of the traditions in those Baptist churches are not only things the Bible doesn't
command, they're actually things that go against the Bible.
They're wrong.
They're wicked.
They're not of God.
Turn to Jeremiah 6, Jeremiah 6.
I think it's pretty obvious to anybody who comes to our church or visits that we're a
little bit different than pretty much any church they've probably been to, okay?
Now there's other good churches out there, but in general, we're a little bit different.
Now it doesn't really bother me if somebody visits our church and they walk out and they
just say, you know, I don't really like that church, you know, because they just don't
like the sort of preaching.
Yeah, they're probably not used to it.
That's fine.
But, you know, it would bother me if people left and said, oh, man, it doesn't feel any
different than CCF.
It's like, wow, I can do this Baptist thing.
I mean, man, that's really similar to the church I came from.
It's like, man, you know, it's just like Catholicism, yeah.
I mean, it's like that would bother me.
I don't mind if they come to this church, they visit, you know, we get somebody say
that I was soul winning, they visit our church, they never come back after visiting one time,
they say, man, I don't like that kind of preaching.
Yeah, but at least you admit it's different.
Nobody will walk into this church and say, man, that's just like all the other churches
in the Philippines.
No, they're going to say this is a little bit different.
Even compared to most Baptist churches, we're a little bit different.
And that's a good thing.
The Bible says you are supposed to be different, a peculiar people, okay?
Jeremiah chapter six, and that's the last point.
Quite simply this, there should be a big difference between most churches and a good church.
There should be a huge difference.
It should be very obvious.
It says in Jeremiah six verse 13, thus saith the Lord, stand ye in the ways and see and
ask for the old paths.
Ask for the old paths.
The implication is you don't know where it is.
You're trying to find it.
Think if you're trying to find directions, okay?
You're going to ask because you do not know.
And what it's saying is you're someone who loves God, ask for the old paths.
Where is it?
You don't know where it is.
Why?
Because it's not just everywhere.
There's a million churches out there.
You could walk down the road and see lots of churches, but look, they're not all the
same.
And what it's saying is ask for where is the church here in Mangahan that's actually preaching
the truth.
Where is the church in passing?
Where's the church in Metro Manila?
The Bible's saying it's going to actually be hard to find churches that are fired up
for the things of God.
We're not the only church in the Philippines by any means, but look, the majority of churches
are very lame.
The majority of churches are not preaching what the Bible says.
Then it says where is the good way?
You have to actually ask where is the good way?
I can't find it, okay?
If every single church was the same and every Baptist church was the same, it'd be very
easy.
If somebody asked me, and somebody did actually, and I responded to them this morning.
They asked me, hey, do you know of a good church in Bicol that you can recommend?
No.
He's asking, where is the good way?
I want to walk there in.
I was like, I don't know, Bicolam.
I have no idea where the good church is, right?
Because it's hard to find that.
It's sad, and God willing, one day our church can really help us springboard and have a
good church in every province here in Luzon, so at least we can have churches in areas
where if people are willing to make the effort, they can still go to it, even if it's not
right by their house, but the reality is, you've got to ask that question, where is
the good churches?
Where is the good path?
You know, you don't really see it, and then it says, and walk there in, and you shall
find rest for your souls, but they said we will not walk there in.
You say, why is it, why is it, Brother Stuckey, that false prophets exist?
False prophets exist because they have a group of people they can market to.
Most people want to be lied to.
That's the reality.
Most people don't want to know the truth.
And so these false prophets, it's not really their fault because they wouldn't even be
a false prophet.
They wouldn't even sign up for the job unless they knew that there was people that they
could fool.
Right.
If they never could get anyone to come to their church by preaching lies, then they
wouldn't even do this job.
You know, they'd probably be like, you know, I don't know, a tax collector, but basically,
you know, they have a group of people that are willing to go to their churches.
People like to be lied to, and they can market to those people.
Turn to 2 Timothy 3.
2 Timothy 3, this will be the last place we'll look at this morning.
2 Timothy 3, 2 Timothy 3, and so look, you know what, you should expect that if you're
going to a good church, it's going to be a little bit different than other churches.
And look, it shouldn't surprise you if your friends and family think that this church
is strange.
Like, oh, Brother Stuckey's so strange, he's a hate preacher, blah, blah, blah.
You know, that should not surprise you.
You should actually expect that.
You say, Brother Stuckey, I'm getting so much persecution from my family.
Look, there's no temptation taking you, but such is as common to man.
Everybody's dealt with that.
Look, I've had people since, I mean, I got saved when I was 18 years old.
I'm 35 years old, okay?
I've had plenty of people that have told me, you know, oh, the church you go to is weird,
you know, it's too old fashioned, it's strange, it's different, blah, blah, blah.
You should expect that.
And the reality is that if you come to a church like this, you will be persecuted by some
family.
Not that you might, no, you will be persecuted by some family.
I guarantee that.
Everybody deals with that.
That's the reality.
Everybody deals with that problem.
And look, you know, one of the sad things we've seen is that a lot of people, they come
to this church, the persecution comes, and I'm not saying it's always their fault, but
sometimes they allow that persecution to get to them, and they leave.
We've had a lot of good people that came to our church that love this church.
They want to be a part of this church.
But they don't come because of the persecution.
And look, I don't dislike those people.
I hope they come back, and I still pray for those people, because they're not bad people.
I'm not talking about someone who gets kicked out for being a weirdo or wicked person.
I'm talking about people that left because the persecution was really rough.
Look, we want those people back.
They're not bad people.
But the reality is the persecution, a lot of people have trouble taking that because
we're a little bit different, and so people will criticize this church.
Second Timothy 3 verse 12, notice what it says.
It says, Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
Not you might suffer persecution, you shall suffer persecution.
So why is it people don't walk with the old paths and they don't like a church like this?
Because basically you're looking at the paths, and you know even ahead of time if you go
down this road of the old paths, people might criticize you, they might make fun of you,
they might no longer be your friends, they might gossip about you behind your back, and
it's going to be difficult because you're going to be expected to read the Bible and
go to church and live for God and everything.
And people see that, and they say, you know what, it's a lot easier to walk with the new
paths.
And you know what, yea, you know what, they're right, it is a lot easier to walk with the
new paths, where you don't be expected to read the Bible every day, and you're expected
to pray.
And if you walk with the old paths like this, you feel guilty if you're not living for God.
But here's what you need to understand, you choose to walk down the new paths, the Bible
says you will have no rest for your souls.
In the end, living a sinful life or worldly life, it's actually going to be worse for
you.
See this path, yea, I'm telling you, there's thorns up ahead, it's going to be difficult,
you're going to be persecuted, but you walk down this path, you're going to end up living
a worldly and sinful life, it's actually going to harm your life, and it would actually be
better for you just doing the old paths.
So what we're going to see in this sermon series, and this is a shorter sermon, we'll
get started a little bit early for the second sermon here today, but we're going to see
basically kind of our church is a Baptist church basically versus the other Baptist
churches.
We're going to compare with a lot of the traditions that are not only just things we're not doing.
You say, Brother Stuckey, why don't you have an older call here?
You've got to come back next week to find out.
That's a whole sermon on its own.
There's a reason why we don't have that, because certain traditions are just not what the Bible
says.
And you need to realize that if you've been in Baptist church for a while, some of these
traditions might kind of be in your head a little bit, and you might not realize why
they're wrong.
See that's one of the downfalls, I mean obviously I think it's great if you're raised an independent
fundamental Baptist, but one thing I'm kind of glad about that I wasn't, is that even
after I got saved, I didn't start going to an IFB type church for like a couple years,
I went to kind of other churches that had other problems that I would figure out.
But basically I read the Bible a lot beforehand, so like all these traditions like, you know,
for me I'm sort of immune to it, because I already knew, man, this is not right, this
is not right, even before I was at those churches.
But if you've been a Baptist for a long time, you might have been at churches that had a
lot of these traditions we're going to look at, and you're going to see why we're different,
why we don't do things that way.
Let's close in a word of prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be here today, and I ask you to just
help us to apply this sermon to our lives, help us during the sermon series to just kind
of look at the Bible and let the Bible to decide how we run things at Verity Baptist
Church Manila.
You know, there's nothing wrong with some traditions, but a lot of traditions are ungodly,
they're against the commandments of God.
And help us just to apply these things to our lives, in Jesus' name we pray, amen.