1 Chronicles 13 verse 1, the Bible reads,
And David consulted with the captains of thousands and hundreds and with every leader.
And David said unto all the congregation of Israel,
If it seem good unto you, and that it be of the Lord our God,
let us send abroad unto our brethren everywhere that are left in all the land of Israel,
and with them also to the priests and Levites, which are in the cities and suburbs,
that they may gather themselves unto us.
And let us bring again the ark of our God to us, for we inquired not at it in the days of Saul.
And all the congregation said that they would do so,
for the thing was right in the eyes of all the people.
So if you remember the Ark of the Covenant was a box that the Lord had instructed them to make
back in the book of Exodus and they made it out of wood and it was overlaid with gold.
And inside of this box or this container
was the Ten Commandments, the actual stone tablets themselves.
And there was also a golden pot that was filled with a sample of the manna
that God rained down from heaven.
And then there was also Aaron's rod that budded.
If you remember when Aaron faced off with Korah, Dathan and Abiram
and his rod miraculously budded, it was just a, you know, a stick like a rod,
but it ended up budding and having leaves and flowers and almonds on it.
And that rod that budded was also put into the Ark of the Covenant.
But on top of this box or this container called the Ark of the Covenant
was a lid to the box and the lid is called the mercy seat.
And on the lid, there were two cherubims, one on each side,
and they were each facing each other with their wings pointed toward the middle
and the wings met in the middle.
And the Bible said that God's presence would rest upon the mercy seat
between the cherubims.
That would be something that would symbolize the presence of God.
And obviously God's presence would literally show up there
and meet with the high priest and so forth.
So this Ark of the Covenant, you know, is a box that has
these important religious artifacts.
But more important than that, it represents the presence of God.
And God's presence would also literally dwell there
because he chose for it to dwell there.
And so in this story, they're saying, let's bring back the Ark of the Covenant.
This was something that they had not had with them for a while.
In the days of Saul, it wasn't a part of their worship.
It was something that had just been kind of off to the side, forgotten about.
So they want to bring it back.
Okay.
And everybody agrees and says, yeah, you know, let's bring the Ark of God back.
It says in verse five, so David gathered all Israel together
from Shihor of Egypt, even unto the entering of Hemath,
to bring the Ark of God from Kirjeth-jearim.
And David went up and all Israel to Beilah,
that is to Kirjeth-jearim, which belonged to Judah,
to bring up thence the Ark of God the Lord,
watch this, that dwelleth between the cherubims, whose name is called on it.
So what this represents is a spiritual revival.
This is the children of Israel wanting to get closer to the Lord
backslidden in the days of Saul.
Saul was not providing good spiritual leadership toward the end of his reign.
So David is trying to bring about a spiritual revival
and bring everybody closer to the Lord.
And everybody gets excited about it.
This is a great thing.
They want God's presence to be dwelling among them.
They want, just like at our church,
we want God's presence to be with us.
We want the power of the Holy Spirit to be upon us.
And so their heart is in the right place here.
That's what they want.
And so this seems like everything's going well up to this point.
But it says in verse 7,
And they carried the Ark of God in a new cart
out of the house of Abinadab,
and Uzzah and Ahio drained the cart.
And David and all Israel played before God
with all their might and with singing
and with harps and with saltaries
and with timbrels and with cymbals and with trumpets.
So there's definitely no shortage of enthusiasm here.
I mean, people are very excited about the things of God.
They're excited about having a spiritual revival,
getting back to the fundamentals
of what the Bible taught in the book of Exodus,
and getting the Ark of God back
so that they can follow God's law to the letter,
and they'd gotten away from some things.
They're very excited.
I mean, the Bible says they're playing with all their might.
They have all these musical instruments.
They're singing at the top of their lungs.
They're playing with all their might.
They're very enthusiastic,
and you can clearly see that their heart
is in the right place.
There's nothing fake here.
There's nothing here where they're just going
through the motions or putting on a show.
No, the Bible's telling us, I mean,
these people are playing with all their might.
Their heart is in it.
They're singing praises to the Lord.
It says, when they came unto the threshing floor of Kaidan,
Uzzah put forth his hand to hold the Ark,
for the oxen stumbled,
and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah,
and he smote him because he put his hand to the Ark,
and there he died before God.
So this puts a big damper on all the excitement
and all the happiness and joy of bringing the Ark back,
because when this guy puts his hand and touches the Ark,
which is forbidden, he dies instantly.
I mean, he touches it, and he falls over dead.
So obviously, this is really upsetting.
Now, this kind of reminds me of videos
that you see on YouTube
where the Catholics will be carrying around idolatry.
Who knows what I'm talking about?
And they accidentally drop it.
Who's seen videos like that?
I've even seen whole compilations
where they're carrying idols,
and the idols come crashing down.
You know, they'll have a giant Mary idol
or some other saint or whatever,
and they're carrying it around,
and one of the oxen stumbles, you know,
and the thing just comes crashing down and shatters,
and you just look at their faces
of just, their faces are shattered.
You know what I mean?
They just, their countenance just falls.
They just look so sad and depressed and bewildered
because they dropped their idol,
and it came crashing down.
Now, obviously, that's idolatry in the first place.
They should know better,
and so God's not blessing that.
So maybe even one of the angels of the Lord
kind of made them stumble a little bit.
I don't know.
That's what I like to think, you know.
But anyway, everybody's gonna go home
and enjoy those videos.
But anyway, the point is that in this situation,
you know, the oxen stumbled,
and the ark fall, or starts to fall,
this guy thinks he's doing a good thing
by stopping it from falling.
I mean, he wasn't just like,
I just want to touch it to see what it feels like.
I mean, he was actually trying to avoid
being on a YouTube video of, you know,
failures of dropping these things.
So he actually reaches out to steady it,
seemingly to do a good thing.
But he dies for his error for touching the ark.
Now, when this happens, David is perplexed by this.
He doesn't understand why God
would have allowed this to happen
on such a good day when everybody's so happy,
and we all love the Lord,
and we're all trying to do the right thing.
Why would you have allowed this horrible thing to happen?
Look what the Bible says.
Verse 10, the anger of the Lord
was kindled against Uzzah,
and he smote him because he had put his hand to the ark,
and therefore he died before God.
Verse 11, and David was displeased
because the Lord had made a breach upon Uzzah.
What's he saying?
He's saying the Lord did something bad to Uzzah.
He's kind of blaming the Lord for harming Uzzah.
And so that place is called Perez Uzzah to this day.
They named it, you know, the breach upon Uzzah,
as if something bad happened to Uzzah,
like he's the victim here, right?
Look what it says in verse 12.
And David was afraid of God that day,
saying, how shall I bring the ark of God home to me?
So David brought not the ark home to himself,
to the city of David,
but carried it aside into the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite,
and the ark of God remained with the family of Obed-Edom
in his house three months,
and the Lord blessed the house of Obed-Edom
and all that he had.
Now what you see here is David is perplexed,
he's confused, he's displeased,
and in general he's just afraid of God,
because instead of realizing the error that was made
and why the punishment that came was warranted,
he's confused because he doesn't know the Bible
like he should at this point.
He doesn't know what the scripture calls for,
and so he's confused as to why this is happening,
and so he just becomes afraid of God in general.
Basically his attitude here is that, you know,
God might just kill people for any dumb little thing.
You know what I mean?
This guy does a good thing,
he reaches out to save the ark,
God just strikes him dead.
Who's God going to strike dead next?
We don't know.
So I'm just afraid to even have this ark of God around me
because I'm afraid people are just going to start dropping dead
if they don't do everything just right.
So he says, you know what, I'm not bringing the ark home.
And I mean remember, he called all the children of Israel,
he sent out into all the land,
hey we're bringing the ark home.
Now he has to cancel it, right?
I mean that's a big deal to cancel that.
He says we're canceling it, and we're sending the ark of God to this guy,
Obed Edom the Gittite.
This is a foreigner.
Now the word Gittite comes from the city Gath.
And if you remember, Gath is one of the five lords of the Philistines.
So this man is of the Philistines,
but he's living among the nation of Israel.
He's a believer in the God of Israel.
He's a saved man, but his ethnicity is of the Philistines, right?
And so it comes over to his house,
and just in the three months that the ark is at Obed Edom the Gittite's house,
God is clearly blessing Obed Edom.
Like they can just notice the blessing of God,
that just everything's going great for this guy.
This guy, you know, just everything is going well,
everything he touches turns to gold, so to speak.
And so he's blessed greatly for having the ark of God there.
Now there's a lesson right there,
in that it doesn't matter what your ethnicity is,
if you worship the Lord and have the presence of God in your life,
you can have great blessings.
And a lot of people have this goofed up idea
that in the Old Testament God only loved the Jews,
or God only loved the children of Israel,
but you can see God frequently blessing people of other nationalities as well,
if they sought him, if they worshiped him, if they loved him.
That's not just a New Testament concept.
Now obviously in the New Testament that's more dramatic,
because the Gospel is specifically taken to the Gentiles,
and God has pretty much washed his hands of the Jews and Israel,
and you see Paul three times shake off the dust of his feet and say,
hey for men's fourth I'm going to the Gentiles, right?
I'm, you know, I had, it was necessary to preach the Word of God unto you,
but now I'm going to the Gentiles.
But even in the Old Testament we see foreshadowings of that,
where God is blessing and loving people of all different nationalities.
It's not that he's a respecter of persons based on nationality or ethnicity,
it's whoever worships and serves the Lord that he's going to bless.
So a guy like Uzzah, who's, you know, full-blooded Israelite,
gets wiped out when he does it wrong, Obed-Edom does it right,
he gets blessed by God, it's not based on nationality.
So if you're a Gittite tonight, you know, and whatever that means to you,
whatever nationality you are, or whatever your background is,
or your upbringing is, you know, you can still have the presence of God,
and the blessing of God in your life is what's being taught here.
But what was the error?
Later David figures it out.
David actually studies, or maybe some preacher came and taught it to him,
or he studied the Word of God on his own,
but later David figures out what went wrong.
Look at chapter 15 verse 12.
And this is David speaking and said unto them,
Ye are the chief of the fathers of the Levites.
Sanctify yourselves both ye and your brethren,
that ye may bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel,
unto the place that I have prepared for it.
For because ye did it not at the first,
the Lord our God made a breach upon us, watch this,
for that we sought him not after the due order.
So at this point he's taking the blame,
he's taking responsibility and saying,
you know what, we messed up, we did it wrong.
It was the Levites who were supposed to bring the ark.
It wasn't supposed to be Uzzah.
It wasn't supposed to be Ahio bringing it in a new cart pulled by oxen.
It's supposed to be the Levites that carry it on their shoulders.
Look what the Bible says in verse 15.
And the children of the Levites bear the ark of God upon their shoulders
with the staves they're on as Moses commanded according to the Word of the Lord.
And then it goes on with how they had all the same instruments
music, the salt trees, the harps, the cymbals, etc.
So it wasn't the music that was the problem.
Same music, but this time they're doing it right
because they're actually carrying it on their shoulders.
God wanted them to put these staves that would go through the box.
The box specifically was made with rings on it to put staves through
and the Levites carried it on their shoulders.
Now think about how foolish it is to put this on a cart to transport it
and it's got these rings that just aren't even being used
and it's got these sticks that aren't even being used.
They're just sitting there totally extra or wasted
and people would look at that and think it's just some vestigial tradition or something.
You know, well no we got the new technology to carry it on the cart.
Now this doesn't have to do with technology because guess what?
Carts were already around when God made that law in the first place.
It's not like the wheel wasn't around.
It's not like there weren't chariots and wagons and all kinds of carts
that happened you know way before the ark of God was ever built.
God wanted them to carry it on their shoulders for a reason
and if he wanted them to use a cart he would have said use a cart.
But what this shows us is that God's word does not change with the times
and people today think that God's word changes with the times
and we need to just update it and just go with the spirit of what it's saying
and not follow it to the letter.
But this shows us that we need to follow God's commandments to the letter.
We don't want to take this loose interpretation that says hey,
you know God just wants you to carry the ark from point A to point B.
He doesn't care whether you carry it on your shoulders
or whether you put it on the ark you know just so long as your heart's right.
He's just looking at what's on the inside.
I mean isn't that the type of mentality that a lot of churches have today?
Hey it's just only based on what's inside you, it's what's in your heart
and as long as you're sincere you know and as long as you're following the spirit
of kind of getting it from point A to point B.
No, we need to take God's commands seriously
and if he tells us to do something a certain way we should do it that way
and not change it.
God's not against technology.
Speaking of technology some of the musical instruments that they played
in the time of David were invented by David.
David was a very skilled musician and he invented musical instruments
and he was very skilled with music and so there were some innovations
with David when it came to musical instruments.
Later godly kings like Hezekiah innovated different machines of war
and they innovated different machines for catapults
and different sophisticated methods of warfare
and that's listed as a good thing you know.
I don't think there's anything wrong with technology and like I said
technology wasn't the problem here because carts go all the way back
I'm certain to Adam and Eve okay.
You know there was no caveman, neanderthal man, homo erectus
in the history of our ancestors.
You know Adam and Eve and Seth, Enos, Kainan, Maliel, Jared,
all these guys were smarter than probably we are today
and they had all kinds of technology and they were smart enough
to build the wheel and build a cart.
I mean they built the ark for crying out loud.
They obviously were sophisticated.
I mean shortly after they got out of the ark what did they build?
The pyramid, people built the pyramids and Stonehenge
and aqueducts and sewage systems and all kinds of complex things.
So this has nothing to do with technology.
It has to do with not following what god tells us to do.
Now why didn't they follow the rules?
Well here are some reasons why they didn't follow it.
The bible says they sought him not after the due order.
Their heart was right, enthusiasm was right, but they weren't following the rules.
Why did they do it?
Why did they make this mistake?
Well number one they copied the heathen.
They copied the heathen.
You know what the first person was to put the ark of the covenant on a cart?
The philistines.
Because if you remember earlier on in the days of Samuel when he was the judge of the land
I'm sorry when Eli was the judge of the land in the days of Samuel the prophet
the philistines stole the ark of the covenant from the children of Israel.
They defeated the Israelites in battle and they stole the ark of the covenant.
And when they returned it to the Israelites they returned it on a cart.
They put it on a new cart and they had it pulled by what?
Oxen.
Exactly like we see here.
So the wicked heathen philistines sent the ark of the covenant home
on a new cart pulled by oxen.
Not only that but they had these goofball priests
that told them that they needed to make an offering to the lord
and the offering that they were supposed to make was five golden mice
which God doesn't want us making graven images or molten images of animals.
And yet they were told to make five molten golden mice and then five emerods
which are you know I'm not even going to talk about what that is
but that's some kind of a physical problem right?
Emerods and their secret parts is what they had.
And they said hey let's make golden sculptures of that.
Let's give that to the lord.
Okay but weird false religions know no limit to their stupidity and foolishness.
You learned that in the sermon where we read excerpts from the Quran.
But basically the point is that these heathen priests
they basically are giving idolatrous offerings of
of you know golden mice which is idolatry and golden emerods
which isn't necessarily idolatry but it's just stupid okay.
And then they have this new cart and the oxen etc.
Well the children of Israel they end up copying that.
So one of the lessons from this passage is that we should not be conformed to this world
but be transformed by the renewing of our mind
that we may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
We need to get into the bible to figure out how to worship God.
Get into the bible figure out what he wants us to do
and not just look at what other religions are doing.
Other churches are doing and say oh well if that works for the worldly crowd
let's see if we can use that for church.
Now again I'm not against technology.
I'm not against innovation that doesn't violate God's word
but this is an innovation that does violate God's word
and it's based on copying the world.
And today there are many churches that are copying the nightclub.
They're copying the rock concert.
They're copying the hip-hop artists.
They're copying worldly sinful places and they're patterning their church service
not after what they read in the bible
but they're patterning it after what they see popular amongst worldly entertainment.
And then they're patterning their sermons
after just worldly humanistic motivational speakers
instead of just preaching what the bible says and using bible teaching
they're just focusing on preaching things that people like.
So they go to other positive worldly successful speakers
and they just give these orations that people are going to want to hear
and they figure out hey do people want a 20-minute sermon?
Let's give them a 20-minute sermon.
You know do people want to rock out?
Do people want to jam for Jesus?
Do people want rap and hip-hop?
Let's just give them whatever they want.
Oh you know it turns out they like a female singer up there in a miniskirt
and all the backing vocalists in their miniskirts
gyrating their bodies and up there dressed inappropriately
because that's what sells.
Smoke, purple lights, the pastor dressed like a teenager
even though he's 50 years old sitting on a bar stool
with holes in the knees of his jeans
and instead of using bible terms like hell and damnation
and using bible terms like being saved and believing on Jesus Christ as a savior
and being a Christian he'll use terms like you know being a Jesus follower.
You know I don't talk about being a Jesus follower
because I'm not some trendy latte drinking skinny jeans wearing you know beanie on the head
metroed out whatever you know being a Jesus follower.
You know what's wrong with the word Christian?
You guys sound all cool and trendy and talk about being a Jesus follower man.
You got to get free bro we're free in Christ man
and just getting up and trying to be cool instead of trying to be consecrated
instead of trying to be holy instead of trying to follow the bible
and you know preach the whole council of God
preach things that are unpopular preach a negative message
even when the world wants a positive message you give them a negative message
because the bible contains a lot of negative messages
and we're supposed to preach all of it.
Not just this this one-sided positive only good God good sin cold hell kind of preaching
and that's what we have today and it's borrowed straight from the Philistines
it's borrowed straight from the unsaved from the charismatic movement
or whatever weird uh churches and tv evangelists
you know we as fundamental baptists we ought to be different
we ought to be back to the bible back to the fundamentals
old-fashioned independent fundamental baptist
that's what it says on the sign and that's what this church is
and we're not looking for a new cart to put the ark in
we're looking to put the ark on our shoulders the way it was intended to be carried
you know why they want to put it on a cart because it's too heavy
and because they're a spiritual weakling
they don't want to pick it up and carry it like a man because it's too much work
well if God told you to do it then do the work
amen they don't want to go soul winning and knock doors
and preach the gospel to every creature because it's too much work
well you know what the bible says daily in the temple and in every house
they cease not to teach and preach Jesus Christ
the bible said to go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in
that my house may be filled
hey I'm still going to go house to house as it says in acts 2020
house to house every house as it says in acts 542
we still want to preach the gospel to every creature
God has chosen the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe
not the wisdom of this world not the philosophies of this world
not the logic of this world but the preaching of God's word
and that will never become obsolete it will never become outdated
just like carrying the ark of God on their shoulders on a stick
never got outdated if that's what he told them to do they were to do it
how in the world could people think that soul winning is a thing of the past
how could this get outdated just think about this
how could it get outdated to go to someone's house
knock on their door open your bible and tell them how to be saved from the bible
I mean how could it ever become outdated or obsolete to open a bible
and show it to someone one on one and try to lead them unto Christ
how could that ever get outdated I don't understand I don't get it
what are people talking about when they say oh well you know those days are over
yeah for some people they are how in the world could that ever become obsolete
I mean if I can't look at someone in the eye and preach to them the word of God
and quote scripture to them and tell them how to be saved
how in the world am I going to win someone to Christ
and people say well it's been replaced by the internet
that's not true because half of people don't even go on the internet
just because you live on the internet all the time
that doesn't mean everybody does right
and many of us are pretty plugged in and we've got all our technology
we got our smartphone and our tablet and our computer
and we got the bluetooth and the wi-fi and all that stuff
but you know there are a lot of people who don't use any of that stuff
and it's not just the elderly okay
it is the elderly but it's not just the elderly okay
because you know we go up on Indian reservations where people don't have internet
they're not on a cell phone and stuff
now a lot of them are but a lot of them aren't
and you know I don't want to just only reach the people that are online
I want to reach the offline as well
today to the Jew first also to the online and to the offline also
okay but not only that even the people who are online
guess what Bible preaching isn't on Netflix
Bible preaching isn't on iTunes
Bible it used to be until they threw me off of it
but anyway you know Bible preaching
they I'm still bitter about my podcast getting cancelled like five years ago
but anyway you know Bible preaching is not on the sites that they're going to
and even if they go on YouTube where you can find a lot of Bible preaching
guess what they're searching for something else
that's why we have to go to them friend
you can't just expect the lost to come beat our door down
there's none that seeketh after God
we need to go and find them
and that's why it's the preparation of the gospel of peace on our feet
because we are to take the gospel to them
they don't come to us
and you know what's funny whenever the police try to give us a bad time
for soul winning in the wrong places or whatever
here's what they say
well if people want to hear you preach they just need to go to your church
that's what they say
you know they just need to go if they wanted to hear this message
they'd be at your church
well you know what they don't know about our church
or they might not realize that they need to hear this message
and you know what so we're going to take it to them
whether they think they need it or not
and if they don't want to hear it we'll move on to the next person
but we're at least going to make it available
we're at least going to offer it and go to them and say look
I want to give you the gospel
you know I want to show you from the Bible
how you can know for sure you'll go to heaven
how could that ever be obsolete
I don't get it
I don't understand where people are even coming from that say
oh wow it's obsolete
well what's it been replaced with
just inviting them to church
just a mailer in the mail
just an internet ad
a Facebook ad
an Adsense ad
no nothing will ever replace walking up to someone in flesh and blood
with a Bible in your hand
and asking them if they know for sure they're going to heaven
nothing will ever replace that
so we don't need the new cart of lifestyle evangelism
we don't need the new cart of you know
oh they'll just see you and fall on their knees and say
what must I do to be saved
we don't need the new cart of drama clubs and skits in church
to to get the message of the gospel out
no what we need is preaching
what we need is the Romans road
what we need is the Bible
what we need is soul winning
it was good then it's good now
it doesn't need a replacement okay
and you know what we're delinquent if we're not soul winning
we're not preaching the gospel
we're we're disobeying because God commanded us to go out
into the highways and edges
to go ye into the all the world
and to go teach all nations
he didn't say wait for him to come to you
he said for you to go to them
he said that he came to seek and to save that which was lost
seek and save
what does seek mean
look for
you go out and you look for somebody to talk to
you seek them and you save them
and Jesus said as my father sent me so send I you
same mission
seek not search and destroy
seek and save
that's the mission
that's the directive
and it never gets old
it never gets obsolete
and so there's nothing wrong with having an old-fashioned church service
there's nothing wrong with congregational singing
well congregational singing is outdated
now it's just performances that people want to hear
well tough they're not going to get any performances here
we have zero performances at our church
we've never had a performance and we never will
now I'm not saying that having a musical performance is bad or wicked
I'm just saying we've never had one here
and we never will as long as I'm the pastor
this isn't a place where performers entertain you
it's a place where everybody participates
everybody's involved
every you know we don't this is a star search baptist
where we bring one person up here to wow us with their talent
this is a place where in the midst of the congregation we all sing praises to God
that's biblical and that's what we do
and we don't sing a sensual music here
we don't copy the latest worldly styles
we don't make it funky in here and and jam and jive and gyrate
you know we sing praises to God with sobriety
we're sober we're serious you know we are not trying to appeal
unto the lust of the flesh and have a big wild party here and call it church
I've seen some pretty wild church services
I've seen some pretty wild parties
and you know what I'm sure people are having a great time
but you know what it's amazing how our church seems to get the job done
13 years later
and it's amazing how the churches that I grew up in that sang old hymns
and read a king james bible and had hard preaching out of a black book
with white paper and black ink in it and no pictures
isn't it amazing how they won people to Christ
baptized converts and preached the word of God that changed people's lives
the old time religion never goes out of style
it always gets the job done when the trans and the fads have been proven to be failures
there will still be churches just like ours that are getting it done
just like before we ever came along there were churches like ours getting it done
and after we're gone there will be churches like ours getting it done
you know for the last 2,000 years there have been people who did what?
got together and sang hymns they did what?
they prayed together they did what?
they read the bible out loud and listened to the bible being read
what did they do? they preached and listened to preaching
what did they do? they went out and carried the gospel to the lost
and took it to the front door of the lost sinner
and it's been going on for thousands of years and it's still going on now
now do we have some innovations? sure
we have some innovations like we have air conditioning
right? so we're sitting here in this cool environment
and we're comfortable and we're in a padded chair
okay that's an innovation there's nothing wrong with that
you say oh you guys are so modernized
well what's the difference? we're still singing the same stuff
we're still preaching the same doctrine we're still reading the same bible
you know i'm not against technology
you know we have cars that allows us to take the gospel further
now here's the thing in 2018 the job is bigger than it's ever been
i mean preaching the gospel to every creature in 2018 is a much bigger job
than it was in 1918 or 1818 or 1718
you know that would have been a much smaller job
you know i was just reading how in the year 1990
there were 1.1 muslims now there are like one point
or i'm sorry did i say 1.1 billion sorry did i say million
i wish there's only 1.1 muslim what's that mohammed and his nine-year-old girlfriend
but the point is you know 1.1 billion sorry 1.1 billion muslims in the year 1990
and now there's 1.6 billion muslims now isn't that a pretty big difference
so when i was nine years old there were 1.1 billion muslims that needed the gospel
now there are 1.6 billion muslims that needed the gospel
and that wasn't even that long ago that's only 18 years ago
okay what about the hindus there's more of them
what about the catholics what about the atheists what about the agnostic
look there's just frankly more people in the world
when i was a kid they said there were 5 billion people
i remember that number being thrown around
now it's like 7.4 billion people right
you know and if you go back a few hundred years
there weren't even 1 billion people or just barely 1 billion people on this earth
and so the job has gotten bigger i think around the time of christ
there were about 200 million people one fifth of a billion people
at the time of christ when he said go preach the gospel to every creature
now wouldn't you say that we have a bigger job
so when christ gave the command to go into all the world
and preach the gospel to every creature our job is how much bigger
how much bigger of a job is it it's like 37 times as big of a job you get that
so when jesus gave that directive and we're still following that directive today
it's 37 times the amount of work to get it done
but what advantages do we have well first of all we got more christians to start with
you know we're not 120 people in the early church
we've got obviously a lot of believers already all over the world
but we also have technology to reach more people
and you know what if we're smart we'll use the technology to reach more people
because of the fact that god doesn't expect us to use the technology of 300 years ago
when we have the population of today that would be impossible to reach that many people
unless we use that technology to reach more people
what do i mean by technology i'm talking about being able to hop on an airplane
and fly to a mission field that's an amazing technology
and not only that but when we fly to a mission field
we're not like missionaries in the past we're missionaries in the past
they used to have to take a ship or something it would take a month to get there
and then when they got there they don't even know what they're doing
they don't have a hotel booked on price line
they haven't already booked a rental car
they don't already have gps and maps and everything all planned out
they got there and they got to figure out which way is up
what do you think's more effective we in 2018 we can hop on a plane
we have everything planned we have all the maps laid out
the hotel's booked the maps are laid out we already know where to go
we already know what the people are like we literally hit the ground running
i mean we we literally land the plane at four in the afternoon
we've won people to the lord by the time we go to sleep that night
right i mean we're winning people lord the first evening of a mission strip
why the technology is there that's a great thing
but with all the technology what we don't want to do
is start replacing god's commandments with technology and saying well hey we
got this new technology so we don't need to soul win anymore
or we don't need to read our bibles anymore we don't need to you know
because now we can just search the bible and find what we need
so we don't need to read it no we need to read it more than ever
so we don't want to say hey these commands of god are obsolete no
all of the commands of god are up to date amen whatever he tells us to do in the new
testament we just need to do it nothing wrong with technology but don't
change the commands of god so what we want to do is want to keep following
the commands of god but we can use innovation to be more effective as we
follow the commands of god and so we can reach 7.4 billion people with the gospel
using tools like airplanes cars the internet even things like paypal you know even though
paypal hates us and has banned us from using it you know i used it for a long time
and and even just western union i mean literally we can hire people in other countries
to uh translate things for us and we can pay them by western union pay them
i feel or like we can book hotels and western union the money we get there it's
all ready to roll we got cab drivers ready they're paid they're ready to go
every it's just so easy to streamline it but you know what the sad thing is today
that there are many baptist churches that are not taking advantage of any of this
you know what i mean and they just they just sit there and do very little and then they'll
say like well you know we're just old-fashioned we don't need a new cart well you know what the
new cart is the new cart is when we don't go soul winning the new cart is when we bring in
the worldly philistine music and party atmosphere the new cart is when we get rid of the king
james bible and we bring in the niv and the new american standard and that's the new cart
okay that's where we want to stay away from so when we say we're old-fashioned yeah we want
to stick with the old-time religion the singing the praying the preaching the bible
the soul winning keep all the the commandments of god in place have an old-fashioned view
of the man is the head of his household the wife obeys her husband the children obeys their
parents and all of those wonderful things that the bible teaches those aren't outdated
the bible's teaching against the sodomites is not outdated the bible's teachings about
adultery and fornication are not outdated the new cart is when we replace those clear
commands of god but you know david inventing a musical instrument that's not a new cart
that's fine okay you know other innovations of how to serve god that's fine it's okay to
have chairs and a building that are more comfortable and get in a vehicle and transfer
money electronically and so forth to be more effective and you know what a lot of these
churches they don't want to use the tools of technology simply because they don't want
to do a big work for god and you say well come on pastor anderson i'm sure they want
to do a big work for god no because they don't want to get persecuted they don't want
to put their preaching out there they're afraid to put their preaching out there
because they're like well i'm going to be held accountable for what i've said
see putting out your preaching publicly is a two-edged sword on one hand you're able to
influence millions of people and millions of people will hear the gospel and hear the word
of god through the internet but on the other hand everything that you say can and will be
used against you right so anytime i get up and make a mistake you know say something stupid
like that there's only 1.1 uh muslim in the whole world or whatever you know anytime i say
something dumb or make a mistake the whole world's going to hear that right but not only that let's
say i preach a really face-ripping sermon about the sodomites guess what the devil and all his
minions are going to come after me and the sodomites are going to come and protest and
surround the building cancel my itunes cancel my paypal cancel all this you know they're
going to fight you and attack you and a lot of these guys just want to take the path of
least resistance and so they don't want to put their stuff out there and you know what there
have been times when the thought entered my mind especially in the early days or when the
thought entered other people's mind in our church where they said hey you know maybe we
just need to stop putting this stuff online because there was just so much persecution so
many problems and they say well the bible didn't say that you have to put it online
and i mean you know you're still preaching faithfully you're still preaching right in the
church but you know that's not what i believe i believe that we're supposed to preach it from
the housetops not just in the church and you know what if i if i were to say okay well
let's just stop broadcasting the preaching let's stop putting the sermons on youtube
let's stop putting it out there well then think about how many people would go to hell
they get saved through that stuff who got saved through hearing stuff from the internet from our
church look around look at all the people that got saved as a result of stuff that we put
so what if we didn't put that stuff out what if we just said well hey i'm just a humble
servant of god that just i'm just want to preach it locally here and i you know i don't
need to put it out there i don't want all the headaches and the hassle and well you know what
then you're just not reaching as many people you know you're reaching millions of people
through that stuff you know and i wish that more uh churches that love god and and pastors
that are filled with the holy spirit and and that are preaching hard against sin and that are
preaching the correct gospel you know would use these tools i mean i wish i wish they'd all be
hopping on airplanes and doing missions trips and holding soul winning marathons using their
vehicles to drive to the indian reservations and get them the gospel some of the most receptive
people in the world right here in our backyard on the apache reservation and other reservations
tohono odom's etc you know i wish that they would broadcast the gospel and and broadcast
their message you know the whole point of it being youtube is because the tv is pretty much
controlled by the devil and any preacher that he puts on there is of the devil he's
tele-evangelist right but the good thing about youtube is that anybody can put their preaching
on there so you actually get the real gospel on there you can actually get hard preaching on
their stuff that the media hates you can get it out there you can put it on there how long
is that door even going to be open you know they're they're probably going to censor it more
and more as time goes on we need to take advantage of that that's why we put all our
stuff on youtube facebook that's why we put it on the internet and if there's some new way
that comes out to put it out we'll figure out a way to put it on that you know and get it out
as many ways as we can just to give you a a a small perspective of this because you know i
feel strongly about this because our goal should be to get as many people saved and get the
gospel to as many people and i believe that technology should be used to the fullest
because the job is so big you know you look at the statistics somebody's dying like every
second and people are being born every few seconds and and there's just so many countries
it can be overwhelming sometimes when you think about like you know how many millions of people
live in this country and how many millions of people live in that country and and just uh you
know let me just give you some some numbers i i like math i like to think about the numbers
let me just explain to you what a big job it is to reach the world with the gospel
okay let's just take one country india i mean there's a country that's going to hell for the
most part filled with hindus and muslims and very few christians right of course there are christians
there there are even millions of saved christians there but in general it's pretty dark of a place
spiritually okay well stop and think about this let me just give you some math here okay
let's just round it off that there's about a billion people in india right you know whatever
it is 1.3 billion or 1.4 billion there's a billion people in india right okay well stop and
think about this think about the day of pentecost when they had three thousand people
get saved in one day right isn't that a lot that's a big big huge event right okay
so how many what if you had the day of pentecost every day in india right so every day
day of pentecost in india every single day okay so how long would it take to get even
one-tenth of the people in india saved all right so let's stop and think about it okay
so let's just and let's just kind of round numbers what will oversimplify
let's just say you know three thousand every day so what if you did that for a thousand
days right then you've gotten it to three million people is everybody paying attention
so if i did it for a thousand days then i'd get it to three million people right so that
let's say that's approximately like three years right so it'd be like approximately
like a million people a year would be hearing the gospel if we had the day of pentecost
every single day is my math right somebody help me out are you sure all right
so let's say we're just let's say we're having the day of pentecost every day we're
having like a million people saved every year you know to get everybody saved in india would
take a thousand years think about that because a million times a thousand is a billion think
about that right so if you just wanted to get a tenth of the people saved it'd take a hundred
years right having three thousand saved every day now when you look at it that way it's kind of
overwhelming like oh man that's impossible you're never gonna have a day of pentecost every
day in a in a place like india or something but the there's other ways you can look at
it that are more encouraging you know like if every christian in the world gets one person saved
every day just one person and then it starts exponentially growing and then the whole world
hears the gospel in like 30 years right and i'm not going to go through all that math i'll spare
you but let me just explain to you what our youtube channel does every month okay so our
youtube channel and we have lots of youtube channels and and we have lots of other great
friends and other churches that are that are preaching great messages and they have youtube
channels and they give yours but i'm just want to talk about our main youtube channel just the
s anderson 1611 main youtube channel of our church okay that channel if you look at the
analytics on it how many minutes are watched because that's how i judge the the the the
success of that channel is the minutes watched okay the minutes watched on that channel it's
measured in years okay so like i only have statistics going back to like 2012 on the minutes
watched but just in the last six years alone we had a lot of viewers before that but just in
the last six years alone there's like 750 years of of preaching that has been watched
in a lifetime so right now like every month it ranges from like 16 to 20 years of preaching
uh per month okay so does everybody understand that so just to put that in perspective that's
24 hour days made up into years so just to put it in perspective let's say that i walked the earth
right everybody following this i let's say i just walked the earth and seven days a week
eight hours a day all i did was just talk to people about the bible right i just talked to
people about the the gospel and just other things about i'm just preaching to people one on one
right maybe i'm talking to groups of one two three but i'm just one on one i'm just walking around
just talking to people eight hours a day now would that be pretty exhausting
eight hours a day seven days a week i never took a vacation i never got sick i never took a
break i just walked the earth spending eight hours every day rain snow sleet hail sun eight
hours a day i'm just preaching to people non-stop just walking the earth talking to people going
from town to town village to village city to city and i'm just talking to people about the
gospel right and i did that eight hours a day okay and let's say i did that for 50 years i
started when i was 20 and i ended when i was 70 everybody following that'd be intense nobody
could do that wouldn't that be intense though you talk to a lot of people you get a lot of
people saved you teach a lot of bible right 50 years of just non-stop talking to people okay
that is what our youtube channel does in a 28-day period if you if you do the math
okay because there's that many millions of viewers to where 50 years of talking to people
every 28 days and that's just our main channel okay so how could people not want to
use that tool to reach people with the gospel right so we just oh you know we don't need that
stuff ah the internet we don't need that stuff well i mean it reaches a lot of people right
it works so what what the whole point is this let me just get back to the main sermon here
but the point that i'm trying to make with those statistics is this is that you know we
want to embrace new technology we want to think of new ideas and new methods and embrace you
know the ability that we have to travel or how about to learn a foreign language i mean it used
to be if you want to learn a foreign language you have to go there or you have to find somebody
to teach you now you got Duolingo amen i mean you got Duolingo you got Rosetta Stone you got
Pimsleur you got a ton of ways to where you can learn these foreign languages show up
on the mission field ready to roll we want to embrace the technology but what we don't want to
do is put the ark of god on a new cart so we want to keep the old time religion we want
to keep the same bible the same gospel the same doctrine the same spirit the same biblical methods
and then use the technology to do our best at it but what we don't want to do is think that
god's commandments ever get obsolete and that we have a better way of doing it than what
god said to do it no we need to take what god said and do what he said and then just use
technology to be more efficient and to be better at it and you know what today it's just it's sad
today how so many churches are just wasting so much money on their missions programs that are
just totally failures and flops they literally i mean i just heard a testimony about a missionary
in croatia he doesn't even speak croatian what's he doing in croatia there's no common sense
it doesn't even make any sense it's stupid and by the way croatians like one of the easiest
languages to learn if you look at a list of easy languages it's always on that list
it's like indonesian croatian italian and it'll list languages that are easy for english
speakers to learn it's one of the easiest languages i wonder how much time that guy spent
on deputation traveling around with his handout asking churches for money right i wonder how
much time he spent sitting on his butt in bible college getting trained for the ministry he didn't
even learn the language and you know what all you had to do was just buy all the technology
that's out there you got cds and books and flashcards you got online websites you could learn
that language for free with a smartphone no money smartphone you could learn that language and
speak like a native before you even got off the plane but we just have this antiquated stupid
missions program where these guys go and sit in their bible college and these old fools who
failed at missions get up and tell oh don't try to learn the language till you get there
you'll just learn it wrong well you know what i'd rather learn it wrong than to not learn
it at all you know what a lot of my spanish is wrong right those who went on the
missions trip with me but you know what it's amazing how i got people saved in spanish
you know it's amazing how i was able to make this place and it's been viewed like 13 million
times even though my spanish is such garbage but you know what oh you're just gonna learn it
wrong well at least i learned it but these bunch of fools are telling oh don't learn the language
till you get there you lazy jerk and you're teaching other people to be a lazy jerk and you
say well they just don't have the ability to learn the language then you're not called to be a
missionary the god who calls is the god who enables if god called you to preach you're gonna
have the ability to preach if god called you to be a missionary you're gonna have the ability
to speak in another tongue and if you don't you must not be called and if you do have the
ability and you are called you're lazy bunch of stinking missionaries who don't learn the language
it's a joke and you know why don't they just pick a mission field where they speak english then
there's plenty of them but no no god's calling them to a language they don't speak so they can
go and sit on their butt in more school because it wasn't enough the four years of
bible college now they want to sit on their butt in a language school and sit there for two
years in some other country learning a foreign language that they could have learned at home
on their own money instead of taking the lord's money so you have people just pumping hundreds
of thousands of dollars into these missionaries and then they're just like oh we got two people
saved oh we got five people saved you know what i'm saying it's foolish it's a joke you know
so you know people need to get with the times okay and get with the program and realize hey
we're not living in the days of william carrey where you get on a boat and you travel to india
and your whole family gets sick and you don't even know where you're going to stay and you
get there and you have to learn the language you have to pay some local to teach you
you know it's like hello it's 2018 if you're gonna waste our money and take a hundred
thousand dollars from missions and a quarter million dollars from missions you better know how to
speak the language where you're going idiot you better know how to speak the language of
the mission field that you're going to and you know what i expect you to get some results buddy
or you ought to be recalled home and fired anybody else who fails at their job gets fired
missionaries get rewarded for failure they're like politicians they get rewarded for failing
the lazier and stupider they are the more they are the more time they get to spend in office
and you say you're being kind of hard on you better know i am because you know what god's
people sacrifice and put money in the offering plate and they think it's going toward actually
getting somebody saved it's going towards some guy's little european vacation he's not even doing
the work he's not even doing the soul winning he doesn't even speak the language
it's a joke it's ridiculous it's a shameful it's an embarrassment
and then these bunch of missionaries they they they throw out our church members and
mistreat our church members and everything or not our church members are our listeners right
we go to the mission field we go to gaiana right and the missionaries there they won't even let us
attend church at almost any church in gaiana we show up at an independent fundamental baptist
church in gaiana oh you guys aren't welcome here oh you guys listen to pastor anderson
oh you're from faithful word baptist oh you're pastor anderson you're not welcome you're not
welcome we've been we're not even allowed to attend the churches in gaiana we found one
church that would let us attend and we're probably on thin ice with them you know why
you know why because their their church is back home if they hear about how pastor anderson came
and visited their church then they're going to lose their money their support their free ride
what a joke i mean it's just it's it's just the the old ifb is just they've lost it
okay we have a big job and we need to work hard and we need to follow the old paths okay
but we need to use the technology of the times okay you know and not how but they've got it
backwards they want to not use the technology but then they want to bring in new worldly stuff
you know they want to bring in worldly methods and then not put the sermon online
because you know oh you know we don't want the persecution no no we need the opposite we
need old-time religion
in a in a in a in a high-tech format you know what i mean that's what we need to be doing being
smart being wise and and and using the technology but not using the sinful stuff the the stuff
that departs from the faith you know it gets me worked up it gets me frustrated because i love
souls i love the loss i love missions i've always loved missions you know ever since i was
a little kid i love missions and you know i believe that we can reach the world with the
gospel and i believe it's going to be done through the old-time religion but we got to
put the work into it and we got to use the technology to do it you know but there's never
going to be a replacement for what actually physically walking up to somebody's door and
giving them the gospel that never gets old why because yeah we do reach millions of people
online as i gave you some of those stats and numbers but that again that's only half the
population that even uses that half of people are never going to use and even the half that
does use it most of them are not seeking god online they're seeking hollywood movies
rock bands hip-hop music whatever they can find so we don't need a new cart we need to
stick with the old-time religion and god will bless us and you know what instead of getting
mad at god when things go wrong or questioning god or being afraid of god what we need to do
is search the bible and figure out okay what are we doing wrong you know what's going wrong here
i mean these missionaries that are going to the field and failing these missionaries who go out
to the foreign field and they get one person saved every blue moon they get two people saved
in a whole year if they're lucky you know what they ought to be doing is going to the
bible and saying why isn't god blessing me why am i such a failure why why am i incapable of
getting people saved because i guarantee you they're doing something wrong
i guarantee it because the bible says he that goeth forth and weepeth bearing precious seed
shall doubtless come again with rejoicing bringing his sheaves with them and you know
what uza didn't just die for no reason you think uza just fell over dead no he died because
he was disobeying the lord because he touched the ark okay and you know what when you're
not getting anybody saved when the church is not growing at all nobody's being saved nobody's
being reached nobody's being baptized nobody's lives are being changed it's because something's
being done incorrectly because god's word has power the gospel has power and if it's not
working we need to not say well god whoa god what are you doing like david got displeased
with god we need to say no whoa what am i doing what are we doing wrong and that's what led
me to being an independent fundamental baptist in the first place is because i was a teenager
and i'm reading in the book of acts all the great works of the lord and then i'd go to my church
and it was dead as a doornail and i'm like what's wrong why is what i'm reading here not
matching up with what i'm seeing then i got into an independent fundamental baptist church
soul winning church and you know what i started living the book of acts and seeing it
all around me and seeing all the great works and the salvation everything and you know that
was the the independent fundamental baptist movement of the 90s but the sad thing is you know
it's it's it's growing cold and we need to reignite those flames but we don't want to
ever forsake the old paths of god's word so yeah people can call us the new ifb but make sure
that you're still on the old paths old king james old soul winning old bible old doctrine
father we thank you so much for all the tools that you've given us lord and and all the
the ability that you've given us to reach people lord i just pray that we'd be good stewards
of everything you've given us unto whom much is given of him shall much be required lord
help us to use our brains and use our our money our our resources our cars our our our energy
our strength our knowledge our technology help us to use it all lord for your work and to
fulfill your great commission and lord i just pray that you would just punish every lazy
missionary in this world lord i pray that you would send punishment tonight lord that you would
if they're not saved if they're actually judices i pray that you would strike them dead in their bed
tonight lord and if they are saved and they're just backslidden or lazy lord i just pray
that you would chase in them so that they would bring forth some fruit and win some souls
lord and i pray that these these these institutions these bible colleges that are
teaching them this nonsense not to learn the language of the country they're going to and all
the stupid wasteful methods i pray that you would just cause these institutions to fail and
close their doors lord and that we could get back to old time local church missions and church
planting that's actually done in a way that makes sense and that's biblical lord please lord
do something for the sake of lost souls all over this world in jesus name we pray amen