Welcome to Faithful Word Baptist Church this evening.
So good to see you all here for a Wednesday night service.
Find your seats, please.
Second hymnal and go to hymn number 159.
We'll begin tonight.
Hymn number 159.
Blessed be the name.
Hymn number 159.
All praise to him who reigns above.
Let's look for voice and praise Lord tonight.
Hymn number 159, sing it out now.
We want to go before Lauren as a blessing on the service.
So if you would buy her heads together with me.
Dear heavenly father, Lord, we come before you this evening.
We give you thanks and for the opportunity to be in church
on this Wednesday night.
Thank you for allowing us the safety and the health
to assemble together here in your house.
And Lord, we just ask that at this time you would just meet with us as we worship you
and sing unto you that we'd be filled with your Holy Spirit and help us to be edifying
and encourage us to sing out these hymns unto you, help us to focus on the words, and that
you would also just...
Prepare our hearts for the preaching of your word.
We thank you, Lord, for bringing Pastor Corbin Restill here to preach for us this evening.
We just asked that you'd film with your Holy Ghost and help him preach with power, with authority, and with clarity,
and have him speak the words that you'd have him to speak.
And that we would have open hearts and ears to receive the message tonight.
And that all that's said and done would bring back the honor and the glory that you deserve for it.
And we'll thank you for it in Jesus' name. Amen.
Back to hymn number 21.
Hymn number 21.
What a wonderful Savior. Hymn number 21.
Begins Christ has for sin at home in May. What a wonderful Savior sends out unto
Lord Jesus in the name of the Christ.
Christ has for sin.
Bulletin great if you need one raise your hand and the ushers will bring your bulletin as soon as they can if you have your bulletin
Please open it up. Let's quickly go over it on the left hand side
It's our service times and so winning times at the very bottom is the Salvation and baptisms for the year on the right upper corner
Thank you to everyone who participated once again in the Father's Day Mount Humphreys hike
Thank you to everyone who participated in that one.
I guess we got 84 soul winners and 27 salvations.
And of course the picture's right there
of everybody that went.
On the back of the bulletin, you know,
please continue to pray for the expectant ladies.
And in case you don't know,
Pastor Corvin Bressel, he's right over where.
There, I don't know, I can miss him.
Now I'm just kidding.
But he is preaching for us today in case you don't know so when you get a chance
Thank you from coming because obviously he's sacrificing this time and we highly appreciate it and take a look at the upcoming events when you get a
Chance, let's quickly go over the soul winning for the week
So if you got somebody save on Monday the 16th start on my left-hand side go ahead and let me know how many numbers or salvations
You got so do we get anybody save?
one over here
Anybody else two three already got three over here
Tuesday? Four? All right. Any other salvations? And today? What is that? Eight? Nine. Nine
for the van? Amen. Anybody else? Sorry about the AC. Literally it was working all day today
and now it just died. I don't know what's going on but I guess God wants Professor Corbin
to make it more hot in here. Amen. All right. Next song, brother.
in front of your hymnal with the hymn entitled God of our fathers if you
don't have an insert please raise your hand you'll receive one we'll sing it on
that first together God of our fathers
in place so as we're passing around the offering in place please turn your
Bibles to second Chronicles chapter number four second Chronicles chapter
number four second Chronicles chapter four moreover he made an altar of brass
twenty cubits the length thereof and twenty cubits the breadth thereof and
Also, he made a molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass, and five cubits
the height thereof, and a line of thirty cubits did compass it roundabout.
And under it was the similitude of oxen, which did compass it roundabout, ten in a cubit,
It stood upon twelve oxen, three looking toward the north, and three looking toward the west, and three looking toward the south, and three looking toward the east.
And the sea was set above upon them, and all their hinder parts were inward.
And the thickness of it was in hand breath, and the brim of it, like the work of the brim of a cup, with flowers of lilies, and it received and held three thousand baths.
He made also ten lavers and put five on the right hand and five on the left to wash in them such things as they offered for the burnt offering they washed in them, but the sea was for the priests to wash in.
And he made ten candlesticks of gold according to their form and set them in the temple, five on the right hand and five on the left.
five on the left and he made in hundred basins of gold. Furthermore he made the
court of the priests and the great court and doors for the court and overlaid the
doors of them with brass and he set the sea on the right side of the east end
over against the south and Haram made the pots and the shovels and the basins
and Haram finished the work that he was to make for King Solomon for the house of
to wit the two pillars and the pummels and the chapiters which were on the top of the two pillars
and the two wreaths to cover the two pummels of the chapiters which were on the top of the pillars
and four hundred pomegranates on the two wreaths, two rows of pomegranates on each wreath
to cover the two pummels of the chapiters which were upon the pillars.
He made also bases and lavers made upon the bases, one C and twelve oxen under it
The pots also, and the shovels, and the flesh hooks, and all their instruments, did Haram
his father make to King Solomon for the house of the Lord of bright brass.
And the plain of Jordan did the king cast them, and the clay ground between Succath and Zeridathah.
Thus Solomon made all these vessels in great abundance, for the weight of the brass could
not be found out, and Solomon made all the vessels that were for the house of God, the
Moreover, the candle sticks with their lamps, that they should burn after the manner before
the oracle of pure gold, and the flowers in the lamps, and the tongs made he of gold,
and that perfect gold.
And the snuffers and the basins and the spoons and the sensors of pure gold, and the entry
of the house, the inner doors thereof for the most holy place, and the doors of the
Father in heaven, we thank you for this opportunity to hear your word preached. We thank you for Pastor Russell Lord
We thank you for his faithfulness Lord
We pray you continue to bless he and his family and the church down in Tucson
We ask you now Lord that you would give him a great boldness and wisdom to preach to us your word
We pray that we would have receptive hearts to receive it all and we ask these things in Jesus precious name. Amen
Amen. Well, it's great to be here again at Faithful Lord Baptist Church.
I really appreciate the invite to come up here and preach for all of you and
Appreciate Pastor Anderson giving me the opportunity to come up here. It's always kind of like coming back home here a little bit for me
Of course, you know, probably most everybody knows me
It's great to see a lot of my old friends and talk to folks and the warm welcome and everything and I really appreciate the hospitality here and
Again, like I said, you know coming up here is just always a treat for me. It's kind of like
you know, like I said, going back home, it's a little bit of a trip back in time for me sometimes.
I start thinking about how much time has gone by since we first moved out here
and just all the memories that we have had up here over the years, but I won't go on on about that.
But, you know, whenever you're coming up to preach up here, start thinking about, you know,
what are you going to preach to a crowd like this? And I had another sermon idea for several
So, I don't know, maybe I should have listened to Pastor Anderson's Sunday Night Sermon,
and how to be a better preacher.
I don't know.
Like, I meant to listen to that before coming up here.
I promise.
You know, and maybe I'll get some pointers out of that after the fact, right?
But I had this idea coming to my mind just this morning, and it was the thought that,
you know, where the oxen are.
It was just really just that title.
That's the title of the sermon.
Where the oxen are.
And I just started thinking about the different places, you know, in the scripture that mentioned
oxen, and I think the reason I kind of thought about that was because, you know, this is
a place, faithful word Baptist church, you know, what makes it unique, what makes it,
you know, not unique to itself, but churches like faithful word Baptist church, what make
them unique are the fact that this is where the oxen are.
Now don't get upset, okay?
That didn't mean that's not in derision, okay?
That's not, I'm not saying that mean, you can say pastor, don't invite that guy back,
Obviously, what I mean here is that when we're saying this is where the oxen are, this is
where the people that want to do work are.
That's what I love about this church and churches like this.
And you think about how the Bible says everything brings forth after its own kind.
This church, my church, straight paths, Baptist church, other churches that have been started
by men that have come out of this church, they all kind of have that same thing in common.
It's about the work.
It's about getting the work of God done.
And I love that that's something about faithful word that has never changed.
It's always been about the work of God and really not anything else.
You know, obviously it's not the only thing it's about, it's about the fellowship and things like that.
But the primary focus, you know, in all the years that I was attending here,
even under this day, I mean, I believe you guys are coming up on 20 years, is that right?
Yeah, that's that's what an achievement right and all that time. It's just been about the work
I mean that's how this church was built was through the hard work of your pastor and other men that join those churches over
This church over the years and just to this day continues the work
I mean I'm looking at the map over there, and I'm just blown away about how much has been done even since you know
I you know was ordained and have no longer been on staff. Maybe I just haven't looked at in a while. I don't know but
You know, regardless, you know, that's a testimony to this church and what it's about here.
It's about the work of God.
So that's kind of where I think I got the idea.
You know, it's like, this is a church, that's a working church.
This is where the oxen are.
And that's one of the things I love about faithful word.
It's been about, you know, doing the work, preaching the gospel, standing up for right
doctrine, preaching the Bible, clear and true all this time.
So if you look there at 2 Chronicles chapter 4 verse 2,
there's a reference to oxen here.
Obviously, this is going on about the temple,
giving a lot of the details about the temple.
And we'll just look at a few verses here.
Verse 2, it says,
Also, he made a molten sea of 10 cubits from brim to brim,
round and compass, and five cubits the height thereof,
and a line of 30 cubits did compass it roundabout.
And under it was the similitude of oxen,
which did compass it roundabout.
Ten in a cubit, compassing the sea round about two rows of oxen were cast when it was cast.
It, meaning that molten sea, right, this big, giant, molten, basically, you know,
bowl that's just sitting on these twelve oxen, it stood upon the twelve oxen.
Three looking toward the north, three looking toward the west,
three looking toward the south, and three looking toward the east.
And the sea was set up above upon them, and all their hinder parts were inward.
And the thickness of it was in handbreath and the brim of it was like the work of the brim of a cup
with flowers of lilies and it received, excuse me, and it received and held 3,000 baths.
So this is a great, uh, you know, mention here of oxen and really just some great imagery here
about the work of God. I love this passage. I think, you know, this is a great picture of,
you know, the work that we're here to do. Okay. You have the 12 oxen, which obviously
that would represent the 12 tribes of Israel.
in the store. I believe that's what it is. And obviously, you know, my interpretation of this
passage is not, you know, the definitive interpretation. The Bible lends itself to interpretation.
This is just how I'm preaching it tonight. But I believe that that's what that represents,
is those 12 children, or excuse me, 12 tribes of Israel. And what are they doing? They're holding
up this great burden, right? Obviously, there's this great big, massive bath with a ton of water
in it. You know, I didn't sit down to figure out, you know, how much exactly if everything is here,
This all adds up to, but it's a lot of weight, tons of weight here.
So it's a picture that's this great burden that has to be born
and what animal is underneath it. Well, it's an oxen.
This is a strong animal that is meant for the work, but one's not enough.
Obviously, it took all of God's people collectively to do the work of God.
That's kind of what's being represented here.
If the twelve oxen are represented of twelve tribes, then you have a picture of God's people.
You know, holding up that bath there, which could be a picture of the Gospel, right?
As Jesus said, whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst,
but the water that I shall give him shall be a well of water springing up unto everlasting
life.
So the water that's in the bath could be likened unto the Gospel, right, that springs up unto
everlasting life, but that's something that has to be borne up and held up by God's people,
okay?
You know, we are to support the gospel.
And again, that's what I love about faithful word Baptist churches, that it's always been
about preaching the gospel.
That has never changed.
And look, don't let that fall on deaf ears tonight.
That's such an important thing that so many churches that even start out great, they begin
to lose sight of that.
There's so many churches, so many Baptist churches that started out that were just soul
winning powerhouses, that were on fire for God, that stood for soul winning, that don't
Or that's not the main thing anymore, they're getting away from that, they've lost their
first love.
So this is a great picture of God's people doing a very important work of holding up
that burden.
Obviously you could take different interpretations, but for the sake of this sermon, that's the
way we're going to go with it.
And obviously, you know, the oxen, you think about,
they're all facing the four cardinal directions, right?
North, south, east, and west.
And that, again, is a picture of the fact
that we are to take the gospel
into every corner of the world.
We're to go in every direction, right?
And spread the gospel out.
So that's the first mention of where the oxen are,
that I'm, well, at least that I'm referencing.
Look, if we went to every reference of oxen tonight,
we'd be here all night,
because there's a lot of references to oxen.
The next place I want to go to is Proverbs chapter 14,
Proverbs chapter number 14.
Proverbs chapter number 14, this is probably a very well-known proverb.
It says there in Proverbs 14 verse 4, Where no oxen are, the crib is clean, but much increase
is by the strength of the ox.
Where no oxen are, the crib is clean, but much increase is by the strength of the ox.
And to have strength to hold up those baths right to do that work
So we here could be like an unto beast of burden meaning this that we're here to work right the crib
Obviously is referring to you know like a stall like in a barn right?
So, he's referring to, you know, doing the work of God, you know, using the ox to accomplish
something, to go out and plow the field, to help sow the seed, to bring in the harvest.
So the picture is that we, as God's people, really are beasts of burden, meaning that's
what we're here to do.
We're here to do the work of God.
You know since its inception and it's going to continue to be about for a great while to come
I believe that that's why it's been able to accomplish everything that it has
Because of the fact this is where the oxen are
This is where there's people that, you know, aren't concerned with a bunch of just niceties
and just, you know, lavish things.
They're not worried about a bunch of just external things they're here about to do the
work of God.
That's the most important thing.
You know, I think I mentioned this last time when I was up here, is that that's what really
drew me to faithful word when we moved from Michigan was the soul winning.
The fact that there was, you know, someone that would teach you and take you aside and
You know the highways and byways out in the streets and lanes and show you how to preach the gospel
I mean I had such a burning desire to do that and it was so great to be in a place
Where that's the emphasis where there's so many I was looking at the bullets and again
Just before the service and it's just like soul any time after soul winning time after soul winning time after soul any time after soul
You know unique that is to a church
You know special that is it's such an amazing thing
You know, this is a church where the oxen are.
And as I said, you know, this is the only church
that's like that, there's other churches,
churches that have come out of this church.
You know, churches like First Works Baptist Church,
you got Steadfast Baptist Church,
Straight Paths Baptist Church.
And of course, there's other pastors,
you know, who put emphasis on the soul winning
in this movement.
Look, don't ever take that for granted,
that's such a special thing because,
and that's what we're here to do, okay?
Now, the other, you know, part of this, or the other way I want to kind of interpret this is the fact that, you know,
pastors are spiritual beasts of burden. You know, spiritually, a pastor is like, you kind of liken unto an ox, right?
If you would, go over to 1 Corinthians chapter number nine, 1 Corinthians chapter number nine.
You know, much increase is by the strength of the ox.
You need oxen if you're gonna get something done.
You need people that are ready to work,
that are willing to put in the long hours,
that are ready to go out there and be consistent
and knock the doors if you're gonna accomplish
something great for God.
And obviously, you still need pastors as well, you need men of God who are willing to focus
on the work, to do the work, and to make church about accomplishing the mission that we've
been given from Jesus himself to go out and preach the gospel of the creature.
Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 9, verse 9, it says,
For it has written the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that
treadeth out the corn.
Did God take care for oxen?
Or saith he it altogether for our sakes?
For our sakes, no doubt, this is written, that he that ploweth should plow in hope,
and he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope.
And obviously this is in the context of pastors being paid, that's not what this is about.
Paul's making the case here by saying,
hey, God said in the Old Testament,
thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn.
And he's talking about pastors being paid.
So who's the pastor in this passage?
Well, it's the ox.
The pastor is somebody that's there to do the work.
He's a spiritual beast of burden.
that's what the ministry is. You know the ministry is work. It's a job. Obviously
it's a great opportunity. Obviously it's a great calling. Obviously it's a great
privilege to serve God, but at the end of the day it's also just work. It's a job
that has to be done. And as I said a moment ago, unfortunately, you know,
there's a lot of pastors that have lost that vision, that have are beginning to,
you know, lose sight of this.
and making their ministries about other things other than the work.
You know, why is it that Pastor Anderson and faithful word Baptist Church
have been able to accomplish everything that they have accomplished over the years?
It's because this is where the oxen are.
It's because there's people that already do the work.
Because there's a man of God who's ready to shoulder up under that burden
and do the work of the ministry.
If you would go over to 2 Timothy chapter number four.
The Bible says in Ephesians 4, he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists
and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints for what?
The work of the ministry.
Ministry is, we're here to do the work and look, there's so, I'm not saying these other
things are wrong, okay?
You know, but it seems like pastors, they want to get into all these other things in
their ministries.
They want to make, you know, they'll still do the work, you know, hopefully, but then
These other, you know, accessory ministries, if you want to call it that.
And eventually, you know, sometimes those things in a lot of churches, that becomes the emphasis.
It comes all about, you know, just, well, we're just here to counsel everybody.
You know, we're here to just entertain your children, right?
We're here to start a school.
We're here to start a Bible college.
Is there's anything inherently wrong with those things?
Not really, but here's the problem I have with it.
It's not the work.
If we're gonna put effort in anything,
let's put effort into the work
that we're actually called to do.
You wouldn't take an oxen and tell it to go do pottery.
Right?
I mean, just, you wouldn't make any sense.
And an oxen has one job to do.
To shoulder up under that plow, to plow the field
so that we can sow the seed, it's got a specific task.
So many ministries they get away from this they want to make it about and they get to the place where it's everything, but
The work with the work that we're actually here to do
We're soul winning is just an afterthought and if they or the call it soul winning
But all that they'll actually do is they'll just go and they'll hang a flyer on a door and run away
It's like well, why don't you knock the door while you're there?
You know we're here to do the work of the ministry
Paul said, this is a true saying, if a man desire the office of a bishop, he do what?
Desire at the good work.
Look at 2 Timothy chapter 4 verse 5, watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do
the work of what?
An evangelist.
So what's the work that we're here to do?
As pastors, as the people of God as a whole, what are we there to do?
We're like those oxen back in 2 Chronicles under that bath holding up that water.
As God's people facing into all four directions, we're here to bring the gospel to the entire world.
Look, that's a huge job.
It's an enormous job.
No one church can do it. No one man can do it. It takes every single one of God's people to get on board.
So, you know, it's a real shame when pastors who are told to do the work of an evangelist
start to deviate from that and make their ministries about other things.
To the point where they that's not even the focus anymore
You know that their churches turn into country clubs in many respects. It just becomes a social club. Look, we're not against socializing
We're not against getting together and having fellowship. Obviously we do that. That's just but that's just a byproduct
We're the fact that we're all here
And most of us like each other
Why is everyone not nice right
Well look what brings us together is the work
The thing that we all have in common is the work that we're here to do, the mission.
You know, that's why I'm here tonight, is because, you know, I'm here to do, you know, the work of preaching,
because your pastor's off doing the work in evangelist.
You know, off in the Caribbean, evangelizing, you know, and amen.
I mean, those oxen are facing in every direction, right?
I guess he's kind of facing east right now, you know,
I don't know exactly what the coordinates would be, you know.
And it was great, you know, I saw where he posted where he
swam out and got people saved.
He like swam, I don't know how far on he swam out,
but like, I'm thinking, well, I'm glad he went
because I wouldn't be able to do that.
I'm working on it, but I got a long way to go.
Like, I don't know if I'd ever be able to do that.
I don't know how far he swam out there.
And got four people saved just, you know,
swimming out in the ocean.
If I went and did it, you guys, you know, you'd be just glad I was saved, you know?
You're like, at least he was saved, you know?
And it's like, I'm hoping, I'm thinking, you know, did you get those guys baptized?
They're like, this far from me and baptized, right?
You know, what did hinder me to be better?
See here is water, you know?
It's like, all you got to do is just thunk.
Anyway, I thought that was great and I thought, man, there's a guy, there's a pastor who's
got something, the mission in mind, he's focused on the work.
That's been his mindset this entire time.
But that's not the only job a pastor, that spiritual beast of burden, has laid upon him.
The other part is the fact that they have to war, they have to fight, they have to go
through battles.
Look at verse 6 he said for I am now ready to be offered in the time of my departures at hand
I have fought a good fight, and I have finished my course. I have kept the faith
So Paul saying hey, I'm passing the torch to you Timothy. I've done everything I could do
I'm ready to be my time of excuse me the time of my departure is at hand. He's ready to be offered and
I love that he says I have fought a good fight
And I love that he said, I have finished, right?
Because, you know, if you're gonna be in the ministry,
you have to fight all the way to the end.
You know, we can't just glory in yesterday's battles.
You gotta fight all the way to the end.
And, you know, this is the kind of the point
I wanna make here is that, where the oxen are,
things get dirty.
Where the oxen are, it gets messy sometimes.
It gets dirty sometimes.
Things aren't always nice and neat and orderly things get you know a little
Neglected here and neglected there sometimes things get dirty where the oxen are right? That's what it said back in Proverbs
Where no oxen are the crib is clean. Oh a nice clean crib. Yeah, it's useless. Oh
It's so nice and well put together. It's so pretty. Yeah, but it doesn't it's not it's not focused on the work
There's no oxen there. There's no one there doing the work
and look there's a lot of ministries like this you know they got they got a
nice crib they got a nice big crib they got a nice big clean beautiful building
but you know what the problem with that place is there's no oxen there there's
no one there doing the work and look I I could tell you about churches that I've
been a part of in the past that's exactly what's going on
Big beautiful 12,000 square feet, you know multi-million dollar building at 10 acres
Where are all the oxen or is the work getting done?
You know this is one of the things that I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit here
This is one of the other one of the things I love about faithful word. It's just it's just such a practical ministry
It's not about all you know all the frills look this is this building is great. Don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with this space
I mean, other than A.C., right?
I shouldn't have done that.
That was so mean.
You're like, yeah, could you hurry it up?
Enough with the jokes, buddy.
It's hot out here.
But you know, why is this church able to accomplish everything that's accomplished?
I mean, only heaven will tell how many souls have been saved through this ministry.
It's innumerable you can't I mean it's hard to even put a figure on it
I mean you could look at the bulletin and look at the record-keeping but that doesn't even tell the whole story
It's because it stayed focused on the mission. It wasn't like oh well
We're big enough. We have all this, you know extra resources and these funds. Let's go get a big building
That way we can do this and do that and do this and do that
And look I'm not saying if you get a building you can't do any you can't do the work
But what I have noticed over the years after ministry after ministry after ministry is like once, you know
They get their big beautiful building
The work starts to go by the wayside it becomes about other things I
Got ahead of myself a little bit there, but I was saying
That Paul said I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course
You have to fight all the way to the end. That's part of a pastor's job is to fight into war
That's one of the great things about this church and your pastor is that there's been
so many battles fought, so many stands that have been taken.
I mean, isn't that what we're about in the new IFB?
Isn't that what we stand for, you know, preaching the word of God boldly?
Not holding back anything, preaching against sin, preaching against, you know, the sins
that are just a bane in our society, just the blights in our society.
preaching against that, you know, preaching and encouraging people to do the work of God,
taking all these righteous stands for the Word of God, preaching boldly, standing on the Word of God.
And I'm just here to tell you, when you have an ox, a pastor, like your pastor, who preaches those kinds of sermons
and takes that stand, that things are going to get messy.
Because you know the devil isn't worried about some note, you know
Nobody do nothing church that isn't focused on the work
You know he's got his eyes locked
He's got a target on the pastors and the ministries that are actually doing the work of God
And I think everyone knows this but we need to know this
Like we need to really understand that this is this is reality. I think people sometimes lose sight of that
This is a spiritual battle that we're involved in we can't you know, we can't see the spiritual world, but it's there
It's every bit as real as the person sitting next to you
You know the principalities and the powers and in high places the spiritual wickedness in high places. It's it's a real thing
And the devil doesn't want the work of God to get done.
He tries to hinder it.
And look, he's going to have all kinds of different avenues
of attack, ways he's going to work.
I mean, I don't have to recount them all to this church.
I mean, just all the battles that we've seen fought
through this, by your pastor and all the things
he's gone through.
Why is that?
Because he's an ox.
He's somebody that's shouldering up the burden.
and he's somebody that's fighting until the very end.
Life is going to be messy for the oxen, right?
You know, pastors, you know, they don't have perfect lives.
You know, this came as a real shock to me when I got ordained.
That's sarcasm.
It's like, I'm a pastor now, my life is just, everything's going to line up, right?
My children are just going to be perfect in every way.
I'm never going to have any marriage problems ever again.
I'm never gonna have health problems.
All my church members are just gonna,
oh, you're a pastor now, they're just gonna be,
every single one of them is just gonna be
a five star church member.
Life's just gonna be a reason.
Nope, that's not what happened.
Things could just kind of remain the same in many ways.
If anything, it got a little harder.
You know, life is messy for the oxen.
You know, life is gonna be messy for you.
You wanna be a part of this church, a church like this?
You wanna do the work of God?
Don't be surprised when the devil tries to stop you.
Don't be surprised when he tries to discourage you.
Don't be surprised when he tries to run you out of this church.
Look, it's going to come in all different forms.
Family members, friends.
It's the same for pastors.
You know, you have problems in your life.
You have issues in your life.
Well, pastors are people too.
You know and and here's a little alliteration because I know some people just love alliteration
Picture perfect people make poor pastors
People who just you want to have why because all they're concerned about is their image how they look to everybody
You know well my my family doesn't have any problems and my marriage is perfect
And I never, I never have any domestic problems.
You know, picture perfect people make poor pastors
because in the ministry, if you're gonna be an oxen,
it's expected that you're gonna get dirty.
You know, as a pastor,
you're somebody who's gonna have to get his hands dirty.
You know, and every time it gets a little messy,
you can't go, ooh.
Oh, it got a little messy over that faithful word.
I guess I don't want anything to do with Pastor Anderson anymore.
There are a lot of pastors that pulled that card out.
Well, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were so perfect.
Didn't realize you just had it all together and never had any problems.
Must be nice.
There used to be this traveling of the he came around for a little while this traveling evangelist
You know in the old I have be the evangelist as a guy who just shows up every so often
You know and get you know guest preach and gets a love offering and he just preaches the same recycled sermons
He's got you know seven slick sermons all polished by his repetition and look they sound good
They sound real good the first time you hear it and then two years later the guy comes through again
You're like this is the same sermon
And it still sounds good, but it's like in two years,
like here you haven't come up with another sermon.
And this one, look, you think I'm making it up,
that's what they do.
And there was two guys like this in my old church,
that does, in my old pastor.
I remember one time he just got real mad.
He didn't like, he didn't blow his top or anything,
but I remember he was just kind of,
he didn't let the guy preach.
It was like a Wednesday night,
the guy just rolled in in his RV, you know,
he's like, hey, can I preach for your brother?
And he's like, no, not tonight.
And look, my old pastor was, I mean, the guy worked full time, he was a roofer, he owned
his own business.
I mean, he would probably be like, yeah, thanks, you know, please, give me a break, right?
Let me take the night off and listen to some preaching.
But he was just so frustrated with seeing these guys just kind of blow through, you know,
these evangelists, and just, you know, and you know what his criticism was, this is what
he said, they won't ever settle down and get their hands dirty.
He said, that guy will never get his hands dirty.
You know, he just wants to, can I preach for you, brother?
Right?
See, I don't know, Patrick Garmin, you look like you're,
you look kind of slick up there tonight, right?
Well, here's the thing, you know, if you let it go long enough,
anything's an improvement.
Right?
I don't know, it's all my church, you know, my churchman,
they're watching, like, he finally got a new suit coat.
Because I wear the same suit coat for like years now, right? Yeah, well
It was ten bucks. Can you tell?
At the consignment shop down the road
You know when this guy you know they come in all slick and sharp and smooth and they got these polished sermons
You know what the problem those guys are I mean they're obviously great preachers
But the problem is is they don't want to sit down in a church and settle down in a city and settle down somewhere and be
An ox and actually get to work and actually do the work of God
They just want to go around and collect love offerings and travel around their big old RVs and just you know preach the same
Cycled sermons over and over and over again
And just say, hey, just finance my road trip and my retirement or something.
It's expected that you get your hands dirty as a pastor.
So when things get messy in a church, when the pastor gets a little bloody, gets a little
muddy from time to time, just understand that's the way it's supposed to be.
You know, be one of these little Goldilocks, it's got to be just right.
You know, I was thinking about the sermon about oxen, I was thinking about my time that
I spent, again, back in Michigan, working on a church, a church member there, he had
a dairy farm.
And one of the great things about that dairy farm is, like, we'd milk, and then we want
to talk about raw milk, fresh milk, I mean, it was like any, any fresher and you'd be,
Because you milk them into the pail, it goes through the filtration system, it goes into
the cooler, the chiller, until the truck picks it up.
And one of the things was, hey, all the milk you want, you could over and just go, I mean
it was fresh.
Oh, so good, rich, creamy, I'm on a diet, can you tell?
Probably not.
Give it time.
But you know what, as great as that milk was, you know how you got that milk?
By dealing with a bunch of filthy animals.
I mean, because up there, you did this year round.
So in the winter, when I worked there,
because we get laid off,
I got laid off from my other job every winter,
they took a seasonal lay off
because you couldn't do earth work
because the ground freeze is there.
Foreign concept, I know.
But, so I'd go work on this dairy farm
and you bring all the cows in from the pasture,
you just keep them in the barnyard all winter.
Meaning, you know, you know what cows do, right?
everything just builds up, right?
All the dung.
That's when I learned about a dung hill, right?
Oh, that's what Jesus meant by the dung hill,
because that's a hill of dung.
And it just got bigger and bigger and bigger.
And then of course, you know,
you'd have warmer days where the snow would melt.
So there'd just be like this slurry.
There's like greenish, brown, runny slurry.
And you'd go out there and you'd have, you know,
boots on up to here.
And sometimes you're like,
man, I might need some bigger boots.
We're gonna have to get some hip-waiters, right?
The milk was great, tasted wonderful,
but the smell wasn't so good.
And it was messy work, it was dirty work.
So if we're gonna get something done,
if we're gonna do work,
if you're gonna have a beast of burden as a pastor,
if his church has given me a church of people
that are oxen, and this is where the oxen are gonna be,
It just stands to reason that, you know, you're gonna have to put up with some crap every
now and then.
You're just gonna have to put up with, when it gets a little messy, it's gonna get a
little dirty from time to time.
You know, how about, let me bring it down to, you know, apply it elsewhere.
All you homeschooling mothers, okay, and just mothers in general, I get it.
That's messy work.
We dads are all like, I don't know what you're talking about.
I don't understand the reference, right?
Maybe if you change the diaper every now and then, I don't know.
You might know.
I mean, you know you're not changing diapers very often
when you act like you scalp somebody.
You know, you're like, whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo.
You know, whooping out like, look what I did, you know?
Wearing it on your neck, I'm just kidding.
It's like, it's not that big of a deal, right?
But hey, motherhood gets pretty messy.
Dealin' with kids and everything that comes out of them
and everything they say and do, like, you know.
That's why it's always, you know,
I always kind of laughed myself a little bit,
like when you go over to someone's house
and the mother's like, you know, the wife,
the mom is like, oh, super apologetic
about what a mess it is.
And it's really not even that bad.
It's just like, it just looks lived in.
It just looks like.
Looks like my house, you know, just looks like you have kids. It looks like looks like there's an ox here
Right, no offense again. All right system analogy
Looks like there's so many doing some work
You know, and that's what that's the way it is in ministries. Hey, how about just physically in the church building, right?
It gets messy in here sometimes doesn't it?
That's why you got an ox called brother Chris Segura
Look that guy's an ox
I was on staff here for a while.
I gave up trying to keep up with that guy.
You know, I don't know how he does it sometimes.
But that's what it takes to have a ministry.
You need people that are willing to do the work,
even when it gets messy, because that's just inherent.
You know, you have pastors today, they're so picture perfect.
They're too concerned with their image and how they look.
They don't want to get dirty.
They don't want to do the battling anymore,
because they don't want to get blood on their clothes.
The Bible says in Jeremiah 4-8, verse 10,
curses be he that doeth the work of the Lord deceitfully.
Now, what does it say there?
I know you're not there, it says,
but doeth what?
The work of the Lord.
Meaning they're doing the work of the Lord.
They're working in the name of God.
But they're doing it deceitfully,
and curses be he that keepeth back his sword from blood.
Oh no, I got the sword, see?
And there's a lot of pastors out there, they got a King James Bible, they're in a Baptist
church and it's like, and if you look, they're swinging it, but it's like, yeah, but the
enemy's over there.
And they're like, oh, no, see, I'm doing it, I'm, you know, ah, yeah, yeah, right?
It's like, hey, idiot, the fight's over there, no, no, no, see how much I'm fighting?
Oh, you don't want to get any blood on you.
You just want to look like you're fighting, you just want to look like you're taking it
I don't know, maybe I watch too much Conan the Barbarian
growing up or something.
Where I just feel like I want to grab a sword
and go behead some false prophets.
You know, I want to take this double-edged sword
and just be like, ah, ching, you know,
and just kill that cult.
Only the worldly 80s kids get that reference.
But I'm in my demographic.
I know the people here.
But you know, I have a lot of pastors and they're swinging that sword around, but it's like,
but there's no blood on the sword.
There's no blood on the clothes.
They don't want to preach hard on certain sins.
Look, this isn't a revelation to anybody.
You know, there's a pastor that I'm thinking of, and we've never met, but this guy started
He said on Wednesday nights, we're going to go through the entire Bible chapter by chapter or book by book something like that
I thought all right. Here we go
This should be interesting when an old IFB guy gets to you know Leviticus
Deuteronomy
judges 19
Genesis 19
This would be good Romans one
Can't wait to hear it. I've been waiting a long time to hear some old IVP preaching out of those out of those passages
But do you think you preached on it? Nope, and you know, and and this is what they look like spiritually oh
There's there's there's a gnarly passage in the Word of God I
Was told when I do that I actually look more masculine trying to look effeminate
That I'm so masculine when I try to look effeminate I just end up looking more masculine
I took that as a compliment, but you know, spiritually, that's what a lot of these guys
look like.
Oh, I don't want to preach that.
It's weak, friend.
It's weak.
It's like, why are you even preaching the Bible?
But the thing is, you know, there's a lot of people, that's exactly how they want it.
There's a lot of people, they love to have it so.
They heaped themselves teachers. They just want it. They have itching ears. Oh, don't preach about the sodomites
Don't preach about that because you know, we've all got one in our family now
You know can't preach about that because I defend, you know a church member
They don't want to get any blood on their clothes
They don't want to have the 11 o'clock news showing up at their front door. They don't want to put up with the protests
They don't want to be bothered
But I don't know if anyone's noticed this, but to me it seems like things have shifted in the culture a little bit
Look, I still think America is going to hell in a handbasket. Don't get me wrong
We may or may not be on the break of World War three. Let's close the war prayer. No, right?
You know, but I feel like you know, we've been doing this for a long time
But it seems like we've maybe at least leveled out a little bit at least culturally
I mean, I didn't see any Pride logos.
I mean, didn't Trump say that July or June
is no longer Pride Month?
Didn't he say that?
No one knows.
You're so, all of you are so informed here.
Right, no one here wants to, I don't watch the news.
Come on, right?
No, it's because you're so focused on the work
that I gotta do, right?
You don't have time for any of that.
Well, that's what I heard I heard he said that maybe it was AI or something, but
But either anyway, you know YouTube kept YouTube logo didn't go all rainbow on us
Google didn't do it
Come on
Right, that's to me. I was like, whoa, that's significant. In fact, you know
I probably wouldn't have realized it was June month or pride month quote unquote if it hadn't been for all my friends on Facebook
It would have just come and gone, I wouldn't have realized it.
It's like, more people were up in arms about it, and I would like, you know, they were
just all like, oh, here comes June again, it's like, oh, yeah.
The people that are upset about it are the ones that are reminding me, right?
And do you think that's a coincidence that, you know, you've had men of God who have
for decades now just been preaching against these things?
You've had, you know, not a lot, but you've had a few guys, a handful of people that have
been standing up in the gap and just broadcasting the word of God boldly, preaching the entire
word of God, that have been swinging the sword of the word of God, that have been doing the
work of God, but not deceitfully, that are not holding back their sword from blood?
Do you think that's a coincidence?
You know, I think that you think well, no could could these churches really have that much influence. I think they could I
Mean all these you know all these generations are you know all these younger generations, whatever we're on now qx yz. I don't know
Alpha
Man, we'll see about that
The ones that came before I'm had anything to do with it, I don't know
It might give them Sigma but
That's about it right. I don't know. We'll see prove me wrong. I'd be glad to be proven wrong at that point
But they're all on social media
And you know I see news reports ever come out of me someone's like more and more young people are rejecting the LGBTQ agenda
They're you know, where do you think that's coming from?
But you think they just got that on their own I'm sure they're just sick and tired of it
You know I wouldn't surprise me if a lot of them heard of a lot of you know heard a lot of preaching that came out of this church and other
Churches like this and they were just you know
They just heard somebody say what the Bible actually says and it actually influenced them
And it was like oh someone's giving me permission to hate these filthy faggots
You know, but there's a lot of pastors out there they don't want to preach on these things
You know, that's that's the big one, right?
They don't want to preach on things like divorce
They don't want to preach on things like alcohol and drugs. They don't want to preach on anything. That's gonna offend anybody
and look they they
Are people who do not want to get any blood them. They don't want to bark
Right go to Isaiah chapter 56 Isaiah chapter 56
Look at verse 9 it says there Isaiah 56 verse 9 all ye beasts of the field
Come to devour ye all ye beasts in the forest his watchmen are blind his watchmen his watchmen are blind
They are all ignorant. They're all dumb dogs and dumb meaning. They're like mute. They can't speak. They're dumb, right?
They cannot bark sleeping
lying down
Loving to slumber
The watchmen today a lot of God's own men
The guys that should be barking the loudest,
preaching the loudest, taking the sands,
you know what they are?
They're comfortable.
They're too comfortable.
Isn't that the problem here?
With the watchmen in here, let's read it again, right?
They're sleeping, they're lying down, loving to slumber.
They just wanna have a nice, comfortable ministry.
They don't want it to deal with any controversy.
Well, you know what? If you're gonna be an ox, if you're gonna be somebody who does the work, you're gonna get a little dirty.
You're just gonna have to get a little dirty. You're gonna have to go through some battles. You're gonna have to get into some controversies.
And now it's even to the point where they don't even want to be associated with anybody else that goes through any controversy.
It's like, no one's asking you to go through a bunch of controversy.
It's like, well, I can't even be associated with that pastor.
Look that this is this is the same old song and dance. I've heard it over and over and over again. Oh
You're you know you're you're one of Anderson's guys
And your friends with pastor answer where we can't we don't want to be associated with anybody with that's associated with pastor Anderson
I've literally heard this well, we it's not it's not like we don't want to be associated with pastor Anderson
Okay, well, here's the thing. I'm not pastor Anderson
Yeah, but you're associated with Pastor Anderson and we don't want to be associated with anybody who's associated with Pastor Anderson
And it's like well, why why not I
Mean what what are we preaching? That's so wrong. Oh
You guys are all off on the whole on Romans one. Okay. Tell me what it means then
Then you preach it
They never but you ever notice that they never tell you what it's what's right
Oh, you're wrong on the Jews, you're wrong on Zionism,
oh, you're wrong on dispensations.
Okay, then show me, show me how I'm wrong
about the reprobates, show me how I'm wrong about it.
Well, you guys are angry.
Well, if you were standing in our shoes,
you'd get pissed off every now and then too.
Because it gets frustrating to just watch pastor
after pastor after pastor, just.
Meanwhile, you know, other men of God are just like ching, ching, ching, ah, you know,
they're just like fighting, taking shots, limping away from a battle, getting better,
going back at it, ah, you know, and they're just over there.
And we're just like, what's wrong with you?
Can you use a little help over here?
Hey, if we got it wrong, show me how we're getting it wrong.
This is what happens to a lot of guys.
They just want to get comfortable in their ministries.
Verse 11, yeah, they are greedy dogs. They can never have enough and they are shepherds that cannot understand
They look all to their own way
Everyone is for his gain from his quarter. They're just worried about themselves
their gain their comfort varies and
If anyone's gonna disrupt that, you know, and that's what I was beginning to say, you know
That's why they don't want to be associated with anybody who's associated with Pastor Anderson
Because, you know, you know, a little speck of mud might fly over from some little controversy over there and, boop, and soil their perfect clothes.
Their picture a little perfect, you know, a tire.
That's why picture perfect people rarely make great pastors.
Oh, they might be great preachers. They might know how to get up and give a speech.
But how long are they going to stay in the fight?
How long are they going to actually swing that sword and not hold back from blood?
How long are they just going to be an ox that just grinds and just does the work year in year out decade after decade?
Well, if you're afraid to get a little mud on your clothes a little blood on your clothes not long that's the answer
And they you know they they are just so concerned about their own way their own gain their own quarter
Come ye they say I will fetch wine and we will fill ourselves a strong drink and tomorrow shall be as this day and much more abundant
They just want ease comfort
You know, they just they're just interested in what a big building and a big church
And you wonder why is it maybe because you have a big ego
Look and that's that's a that's a song as old as time my friend
when ministries just become about buildings.
I remember when I first got saved,
you know, I got saved and I first started attending church
a year after I got saved.
I went into an independent fundamental Baptist church
that was meeting in a UAW hall, United Auto Workers.
The pastor came in on Sunday morning,
swept up the cigarette butts,
and mopped up all the spilled beer,
the place still stank and set up the chairs,
and we got in there and it was good.
He just ignored the smell, and the preaching was fiery.
It was great.
And I got a lot of things right,
and I ended up severing a lot of friendships.
My old, worldly friends,
guys started actually taking the things of God seriously.
And I'll never forget, one of my friends came to me and said,
hey, you can't do both.
He said, you look like a big hypocrite, and I was.
He's like, you tell us about God and Jesus and all that,
but then you're doing this, this, and that.
He's like, you gotta choose, man.
I don't think he thought I was going to do what I'd make the choice I made.
I was like, all right, see ya.
Well, I'll choose God then, because he was right.
And I remember, and that was a lot of my friends, I didn't have any other friends.
The church I was going to was a small church.
There weren't any young people there, there's no one really my age.
And I just, but I just stuck with it.
But I remember I got pretty lonely at one point.
And I remember I went to this restaurant,
the Cotta Gin Cafe in Traverse City, Michigan.
And I was eating dinner by myself, right?
And I remember it just got, it was, I just,
I remember being, you know, not weeping,
but I was just like in tears and just praying and saying,
Lord, I would just like to have one friend.
I remember I got up and I was leaving and I heard this guy, he was in a part of the
restaurant where there was like a little separate area and they had a TV on and there
was like some National Geographic thing talking about Noah's Ark or something and he made
a comment to the manager that was working, this older guy.
It's probably like mid-60s or something like that.
And I'm just this 20-something-year-old and I walk by to hear that and he says something nice
And I just stopped and said oh, yeah, hey this or that I can't remember what exactly said
But we just struck up a conversation about you know, it's basic Bible stuff about Noah
He's like oh come sit down
I mean this was minutes after me praying that prayer that guy Richard Hannah went on to be like
You know the only friend I had like the next three or four years. He died of an aneurysm
you know, a few years after that.
That guy ended up taking me fishing
and doing all kinds of things.
And I remember during that time, you know,
the church that I was a part of,
the one that met at the UAW Hall,
we had moved on and we were renting a building
from an old Methodist building.
It was a cool building.
And all these cool old hymns
that were out of print and stuff like that.
Dude, it had this stick.
It had a stick that, it was just this long stick like this.
On the end, it had like a ball, like a hard ball.
It was like made out of oak.
And then on the other end, it had a feather.
behind the pews. Everyone's like, what was that for? It was to wake people up.
You think I'm kidding? I say we bring it back.
Right? And the hard end, the ball, that was for the men.
Right? Some people know what I'm talking about. And the feather was for the women.
You tickle the women, smack the men.
This is cool, man. Right?
But, you know, when we were there, we'd moved on. But, you know, the pastor bought ten acres outside of town.
and the church had grown about 50 people
and now it was time to take on a few million dollars in debt
and build the building so that we could have a bus route
and junior church and Sunday school rooms
and da da da da da da.
And I remember I told Richard my friend about this
and he said, look, I'll warn you right now,
you build a building and there will be splits in that church.
People will leave your church.
I was like, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.
He said, I've seen it, he said, I've seen it many times.
Something about a building, you build a building, people change when buildings get involved.
I don't know what it is.
I can speculate.
I can take probably a pretty good guess at what it is.
But he was right.
We haven't even finished the building.
We were just putting the finishing touches.
We were sealing everything up, painting the walls, getting carpeted down, and family after
And it got to the point where we ended up leaving.
That's a whole other conversation.
I remember I looked around on a Wednesday night,
there was 12 people in a 12,000 square foot building.
I looked at my wife and said,
every one of us, there's enough room for every one of us
to have 1,200 square feet to ourselves.
Glory! What a beautiful building we have.
Big wide beautiful doors great big parking lot ten anchors a wooded forest outside of town
gorgeous property
No oxen
It's a nice clean crib
But it wasn't get any of the work done. I mean we could give it some credit
You know we were running the bus route and we were you know
But as soon as we actually started preaching the gospel to the kids it was like well, are you sure you should be doing that?
Okay, I guess
Let's just have another flannel graph about Moses
Or it's like actually preach the gospel right that's what I'm saying that they you know
What was wrong with the running the old United Methodist building? What was wrong with the UAW Hall?
Well, we couldn't do this and we couldn't do that. Yeah, well, you know, we could have gone out and preach the gospel
Well, what happens to your if your church gets so small that
You know, what are you gonna do?
Well, we'll just get a smaller space
And what if it will you might even get so small maybe we'll just meet in my living room
Look, that's not gonna happen. By the way, it's it's I'm not saying that's going on
Our church is doing great down there straight paths doing great
It's consistent. We got some new faces showing up lately people getting serious about the things of God. It's great
But you know what if it got small enough, you know, we would just leave that building
that air-conditioned warehouse that we're in.
It's an industrial space with a little office front.
You know, it looks nice enough. It gets the job done.
We'd leave it and we'd go in my living room and have church
because the work of God doesn't cost anything.
You don't need a great big building to do the work of God.
And it's like history is repeating itself yet again.
People are building buildings and all of a sudden it's like,
Here, let's go let's go cozy up to Treber
That literal, you know protector of predators
He's like he's like he's what you know, he's practically a Catholic the way he's shuffling these bags around
And I know you all know what I'm talking about and when I saw that I was like
Am I am I sleeping right now?
Did I fall asleep? Did I nod off somewhere?
Did my wife slip something in the coffee?
You know, it's like what is going on?
What's changed?
That's what I wonder
What's changed out there in Sacramento?
The preaching is the same
Still preaching the same thing we've always preached
Pastor Anderson's the same guy
Still taking stands
Still going through it
Still swinging the sword still getting blown his clothes
Getting muddy like any oxen wood and should
So what's changed there's only one thing I've seen that's changed there's a building out. Oh
I don't think it's your place
Well, I don't care what you think, you know, who are you to say that I'll tell you I am I'm an ox
I'm another beast of burden
You know and when when people start flaking out and falling out, you know what it does
It just makes it heavier for the rest of us
You know, it's like that's why we need more we need more oxen
To help the rest of us shoulder up this burden of preaching the gospel and getting these churches started
I want to I got to wrap up. I know it feels like they at least I'm cool up here
I'm doing great. Okay
Don't hey at least no one's gonna come by and smack you with a oak stick
Those Methodists were hardcore go to first Kings 19. We'll look at one more place
You know, that's the only thing I see that's changed
Look, I can't peer into the hearts of people, I don't know, but is that really that far
of a stretch to say, oh, it looks like somebody is just more worried about their building
than a lifelong friendship?
You know, and maybe it's not my place, but there, I got it off my chest.
With somebody I had a lot of respect for too, and still do, but this is what happens, you
know, and this should just be a warning.
And so if you come to faithful word, you're like, yeah, I like faithful word, but the
And sometimes I'll do this, I'll walk my building,
we have big halogen bulbs and they'll go,
you know, it looks so much nicer with chandeliers.
And you know what, it would look great,
and I bet all my church members are going,
wow, that looks really nice.
And then they'd forget about it.
And then they'd just be like, you know,
it's not like if I put up chandeliers
and replace the halogen bulbs in my church building,
like, oh, now more soul winning's getting done.
You know, I wasn't gonna give up that sin.
But then I came in and saw how nice you made the place look and I said you know what I'm gonna kick that dirty rotten habit
It's about time I gave that up
you know you painted and
And all of a sudden I felt like living a whole year life
No, it's the preaching friend that's what makes the difference
Look at first Kings chapter 19 verse 19. This is, you know, Elijah coming back from the cave where he heard
still small voice
And says he saw he departed thence and found Elisha the son of Shaphat who was plowing with 12 yolk of oxen before him
And he with the 12th
What kind of a guy do you look for for the ministry the guy is ready to do the work
The guy is ready to you know get in there with the other oxen and do the work
That's what we need
And he with the 12th and Elijah passed by and they cast his mantle upon him and he left the
Oxon and ran after Elijah and said let me I pray the
Kissed my father mother and then I will follow these seven of me him go back for what have I done to thee he's kind of like
Hey, do whatever you want. Here's an opportunity
And I don't think that Elisha did anything wrong here, right?
I think this is a great picture of the kind of attitude you have to have when it comes
to serving God.
And he turned back from him and took a yoke of oxen and slew them and boiled their flesh
with the instruments of the oxen and gave it unto the people and they did eat.
Then he arose and went after Elisha and ministered unto him.
So he goes back.
He's other oxen, right?
He's plowing with them.
So you kind of get the impression like, this is his property, or maybe it was his parents.
I don't know.
It's probably his property.
He's a grown man.
This is his career.
This is his work.
This is what he's doing, working hard.
And when it's time for him to go become a man of God himself, what does he do?
He goes back and he destroys and burns everything.
He just burns it all.
He goes where those oxen are and just burns everything, kills everything, boils their
flesh with the instruments of the oxen and gave unto the people, just gives it all away
and they did eat and then he goes on to be one of the greatest, most powerful men of
God in the Word of God.
This is the kind of person you have to be if you're going to do a great work for God.
You can't have all these things holding you back from doing the work that you're supposed to do
You can't have something, you know keeping you back from doing what it is. You're supposed to be doing
Because this is how you end up, you know compromising
Well, you know if I preach that or if I'm associated with that guy, you know, I might lose church members
So what?
I'm all for purging idiots and bozos.
It's great.
Get the flakes out as quick as you can.
You don't need them around.
They just spent fear through the ranks.
They just caused discord.
You say, why are you guys in so many battles?
Why are you guys, why is this church going through so,
just so many, you know, fights?
God's purging.
He's like, oh you guys are being fruitful. It's time to prove it's time to purge some more so you can be even more fruitful
Let's make some room for some oxen
Let's get the little gentle lambs out of here
Let's get all the little the guys who are just too nice, right?
Get all the soft effeminate feminized guys out of here
Get all the hen pecked men out of the church and get some guys in here. They have a backbone
that have some steel in their back
That'll stand by the man of God and get the work done
That's why there's a lot of fights and controversies
Because God, you know brings it to your doorstep and says here. Let's make some room
Let's purge him. I say great
We've lost people down a straight path
You know I had a guy that was there that for the last year or so that he was there never said anything to me other than hello
I mean literally they just wouldn't talk to me, okay, I can tell you got a problem I
Said to this day, I don't know what his problem was because he never came and talked to me about it
But you know hadn't talked to me and then like the Wednesday night or Thursday night before he left
You know, I'd preach something about the fags. Oh, good
And like well what I mean, what are we supposed to do about it though?
You know you guys always preach about that stuff, but what are we supposed to do about it?
And look, I get what he's coming around, it's kind of like, well, you know, we go soul-winning,
we try to get the Holy Spirit and people before they themselves come and reprimand.
But let me tell you one of the main things that we do about it, we get up and we preach
about it.
Yeah, but what do we do about it?
Me preaching about it is me doing something about it.
Me sounding the word, you know, me doing my job as a pastor and preaching the Word of
God, all of it, that's us doing something about it.
And look, when people like that leave, I'm just like, hey, God bless you.
And it's like, but you know, inwardly, I'm like, I'm glad you left because I don't need
as a pastor to come to my own church and have someone give me nerve, one of my own church
members give me a bunch of guff and a bunch of nerve and a bunch of static about me preaching
the Word of God.
I mean, is that what Erin and her did for Moses up on the mountain?
Remember when his arms are getting worried? Well, what are you gonna do about that? What are we supposed to do?
You know Moses if you hadn't walked into this battle, you know, maybe you know maybe your arms wouldn't be so tired right now
You don't know what what pastors need they need people to stand up and help them. Let me prop up an arm
Let's get this rock beneath you
That's what they need
Well, you know, I've just got too much invested
There's too much at risk people will leave if we preach that people will leave if we're associated with that pastor
Well, you know, I see Elisha just burning everything just waiting to lose it all and look I
Think pastor Shelly might have mentioned this recently. I don't know but I know he and I have talked about this at one point
I remember sitting in this auditorium
When pastor at a preaching class and pastor Anderson was going through one of the many
You know trials that he went through and he came to preaching class that night and the lesson was this some of you are gonna wash out
Some of you are just gonna wash up and never make it as a pastor
Because you aren't willing to lose everything or something to that effect
You're not willing to pay the price to what it you know that has to be paid in order to be the kind of pastor that he is
And Pastor Shelly and I talked about it like years later.
Like, do you remember that service?
It was like, yeah.
I think about that often.
And that was like burned into my mind.
Because I remember sitting there thinking, is it I, Lord?
Is it me?
Would I flake out?
And look, admittedly, you know,
I haven't been in the direct crosshairs of Satan,
like your pastor has.
But I was like in the peripheral a little bit, you know?
I was close enough to go, oh, at least to get a taste,
or kind of see firsthand a little bit what it must be like.
And it's not pretty.
You know, it's no picnic, all right?
That's what I was told.
Well, Corbin, it's no picnic.
And that's putting it lightly.
So that's a warning.
What are they? What are they doing? They start to you know, they their heart begins to be in the things of this earth
Programs, you know church buildings
Their appearance just how they're perceived
There you know who they're gonna fellowship with
Who they're gonna rub shoulders when that stuff becomes more important than just serving God than just being way to burn all
You know when you start to affect set your affection on things that are beneath the things on the earth look out
Look out
You say why is it that you know faithful word has been able to accomplish everything that it has over the years
Because it's where the oxen are
Because you got a guy like who's like an Elisha
He's willing to just burn it all, lose it all for the sake of God, for the Gospel.
You can't blame him for having that attitude.
That's the attitude you need.
You're going to do something great for God.
It's just a shame when people who you thought had that same attitude start to go the other direction.
you know become people who weary of the war who start to want to just take it
easy become like these dumb dogs just want to slumber and take it easy no
we're oxen all the way through we're here to bear a burden here to get the
work done let's rest in heaven you know a building I'm worried about my mansion
oh man it'd be nice to have a cool building you already got one it's called
And it's going to look a whole lot better than whatever you painted your drywall.
Yeah, but look at this building. It's a dog shack compared to, it's a chicken coop.
If I had four doors, it'd be a chicken sedan.
Oh, dad joke.
That's what it is. It's like, it's just a shack compared to, I don't care.
You look at the most biggest, most beautiful ornate Baptist church building there is.
It's laughable when it's compared to what's in heaven that's where I'm spending I want to send all my building materials to
That way and if it means I got a meet in a warehouse if I got a sign leases until Jesus comes so be it
Because I'm never gonna have to you know worry and start backpedaling and
And start saying well, you know, I didn't mean what I preached all those years ago
Now to go apologize to likes of Jack Treber
I'm not going to have to sever friendships with people like your pastor because I'm afraid
of what it might do to my building, what it might do to my church people because I might
get a little mud on me for being associated with them.
Let's go ahead and close in a word of prayer.
Dear Lord, again, thank you for this great church.
And Lord, I pray that you would help us to always keep the work before us in all of our churches,
that we would emphasize the things that are truly important, the work of God, the soul-winning, the preaching of the Bible,
and Lord, that these things would always be in the forefronts of our ministries,
and help us not get distracted by the things of this world.
Quite frankly just get a little dirty get a little bloody from time to time who get involved in controversy for the stands that they take
And for the attacks that come their way as a result
Help us to stand alongside these men support them support our pastors
support our pastor friends
So that we can accomplish a great work and
Rejoice one day with you for all that has been accomplished to your glory. It's in your name. We pray amen
All right, we'll go ahead and sing one more song before we dismiss
Hey man the right take your hymnals, please go to hymn number 250 hymn number 250
burdens are lifted at Calvary hymn number 250
Days are filled with sorrow and care burdens are lifted at Calvary hymn number 250 so you're gonna have to get it now