after the medicine of the Holy Spirit.
You guys will be here to hear it
and get up and apply the preaching in our lives.
Men, well, it's good to be back tonight.
And I had a great time with all of you this morning.
Thank you for the lunch and all the fun, fellowship.
It was good to go out soul winning
and just hang out with you guys.
You got a really great group of people here.
Good, it's a good vibe, you know, at this church.
So I really enjoy being here
and I know that the kids are enjoying it as well.
So 2 Timothy chapter number three,
the Bible starts out here in verse number one.
This know also that in the last days,
perilous times shall come
for men shall be lovers of their own selves.
And then he goes on to just list a lot of the bad attributes
that we will see in the end times.
Now let me just start out by saying a few things about this.
First of all, we see that perilous means dangerous.
And when you have all this sin abounding,
that leads to dangerous times, right?
I mean, think about it.
If America is becoming more and more de-Christianized
and we're getting away from the word of God,
away from Christianity,
you think crime is gonna go up or down, right?
You think that it's gonna become
a more dangerous place to live,
the less Christianity there is, of course,
because God's word is teaching righteousness,
loving your neighbor, doing right by other people.
And so as all of this sin abounds,
yeah, it's gonna be perilous times.
The Bible also speaks of the end times in Matthew 24
by saying that because iniquity shall abound,
the love of many shall wax cold.
These things are connected, right?
God's people are not the ones marauding
and doing all of these terrible things.
So we see that in the last days,
these perilous times shall come,
and it's a result of all the sin.
That's why it says for,
because men shall be lovers of their own selves,
covetous boasters, proud blasphemers,
disobedient parents,
and it lists all of those sins, et cetera.
The next thing I wanna point out
is that when it comes to our eschatology,
and what I mean by that is our doctrines of the end times,
what we believe is coming in the future,
we are what's called premillennial, okay?
And premillennial means that we believe
that Jesus Christ will return before the millennium.
And that's obviously just the plain reading of the text.
When you read the book of Revelation,
it talks about Christ returning,
and then it talks about him ruling and reigning
on this earth for a thousand years, right?
So we believe in the premillennial return of Christ.
Now, there are other people out there
that are what's called postmillennial.
And here's the thing about postmillennialism
is that they actually believe
that somehow we are going to evangelize the world
in the sense that we will make things
more and more Christian.
Sometimes you'll hear this idea of bringing in the kingdom
or that somehow things are going to improve
and then Christ will return.
It's called postmillennial, okay?
Now, there are a few problems with this.
Number one, it's not biblical
because if you just read Revelation 20,
it's clear that Christ returns before the millennium.
But secondly, if you just look outside,
you'll see that things are not improving.
The world is not becoming more Christian, more godly.
It's actually the reverse of that.
And what does the Bible say that in the end times,
perilous times will come?
Not really good times, spiritual times, godly times,
bringing in the kingdom.
We're ready for Christ to return
because we've cleaned up our act on this earth.
No, when Christ returns, society will be at a low point.
The world is going to be in a bad place, right?
The world's gonna be filled with all kinds of sin
and crime and iniquity.
And then that's when Christ shows up
and starts pouring out his wrath on a wicked world, okay?
That's what we believe as premillennialist.
That's what the Bible teaches.
And also it actually matches up with reality.
I was talking to a guy one time that was a postmillennialist
and we were going back and forth,
hitting each other with scripture.
And then finally I just said, you know,
just stop for a second, hold on a second.
Let's just put aside the Bible for one moment.
Do you actually see your doctrine actually happening
in the world at all?
And he was like, you know, you got kind of a point there
that yeah, things aren't really getting more Christian
or getting better in that regard.
Now, a lot of people that believe in postmillennialism,
it's because they picked up this doctrine from theologians
that lived hundreds of years ago at a stage in history
where things kind of were temporarily getting better.
Like if you think about if you were living,
say during the Protestant reformation or something,
and so you're seeing it go from the Bible being illegal
to all of a sudden now the Bible is being printed
and mass produced and a bunch of people
are getting out of the Roman Catholic Church
and the doctrine's getting better and better,
you could see how maybe they could get sucked
into this wrong idea of postmillennialism.
But in 2023, it's kind of just absurd
to believe in postmillennialism
when you see how religious denominations are going downhill
and our society is getting more and more de-Christianized
and all over the world, you're seeing things like sodomy
just being just magnified.
And even I was just talking to somebody the other day
that said that just 13 years ago when they left Vietnam,
you know, being a homo just wasn't even a thing there.
It was just so despicable, no one would have thought
of that as being just something that would be acceptable,
but that now all the Vietnamese TV shows
are starting to show queer characters and everything like that.
So even places in Asia and Africa
that have resisted this type of wickedness,
even they're starting to cave into these things now
and through the influence of the United States and others,
they're starting to embrace these things,
kind of turning the whole world slowly into, you know,
a very wicked place, you know,
heading toward as it was in the days of Sodom.
And so premillennialism matches reality.
And God said that in the last days,
perilous times should come.
We should expect that in the last days,
things are going to get rougher.
They're gonna get more dangerous.
They're gonna get more sinful.
And that's what we tend to see happening worldwide.
Now look what the Bible says in verse two, the reason why.
Men shall be lovers of their own selves,
covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers.
Now ask yourself this,
do we see these trends happening today in the United States?
I mean, if you look at the world today,
they're becoming more and more into
what they'll even proudly call self-love.
And this is actually being proclaimed as a virtue in 2023,
this thing of self-love.
And the Bible predicted that in the last days,
men will be lovers of their own selves.
You know, you've never seen a generation
more obsessed with themselves,
just taking pictures of themselves,
talking about themselves, constantly promoting themselves.
It's pretty clear that this is going on.
And of course, this goes hand in hand
with being a boaster and being proud, okay, right?
Because a boaster is someone who brags
and a proud person is someone who thinks
more highly of themselves than they ought to think.
Now, we as Christians, we can read this and see that,
okay, in the last days, the society that we live in
is going to abound in these sins of self-love
and being covetous and boasting and pride in these things.
But just knowing that that's out there, okay,
what does that do for us on the inside here
in the house of God, as Christians, as God's people?
Well, here's the thing, we cannot help
by being influenced by the society that we live in.
Even if we just pretend that it has no impact on us,
guess what, it does.
You know, we live in America,
we're impacted by the culture, it's all around us,
it's coming at us one way or the other.
Unless we were to just totally isolate ourselves,
we are influenced by it.
Now, God doesn't want us to totally isolate ourselves
because that kind of defeats the purpose
of us even being on this earth.
The whole point of us even being on this earth
is to be salt and light, to win souls to Christ,
to let our light shine, to be a good influence
and a testimony to the people around us.
So if we're to just kind of pull out of the system
and just go live a pure life somewhere,
it kind of defeats the purpose
of even living in the first place.
We're here to evangelize,
we're here to let the light shine.
You know, being here in Boise, you're in a big city,
there are a lot of doors to knock,
there are a lot of people that need the gospel,
there are a lot of people to influence,
and you're here as a lighthouse to reach those people.
God doesn't want you to pull out and go hide somewhere.
But that being said, we need to be aware of the fact
that the downside to being plugged in to this culture
and this society is that it is going to influence you.
I could just get up here and say,
oh, I'm not influenced by it at all.
But that's just silly, we're all influenced by it.
But it's better when you realize that
and just realize, hey, I'm influenced by this stuff.
Because when you stop being in denial
that you're being influenced by it,
then you could say, you know what,
I'll bet you that this worldly stuff is influencing me,
it's probably affected how I think about things,
then you can consciously go to the Bible and say,
let's see what the Bible says,
and I can straighten out my thinking on this issue
or that issue or the other issue.
Instead of just saying, well, I'm just gonna
kind of go with my gut on things.
Well, you know, if you're going with your gut on things,
you're gonna be following all the programming
that you've received from this world.
You're gonna act like them, talk like them,
you can't help it.
But what you can do is you can counteract that influence
by spending time in the Word of God,
listening to Bible preaching,
spending time with the Lord in prayer
and in the singing of hymns,
because then you can make a conscious effort
to renew your mind and to be transformed
and not to be conformed to this world.
We're supposed to be in this world,
but not to be of the world.
God doesn't want us to be taken out of the world,
He wants us to be kept from the evil.
And sure, we could live cleaner, purer lives
if we were to just completely pull out
and go hide somewhere, but that's not God's will.
We are here, we need to be in the city,
we need to be around the people that we're trying to reach,
but we just need to be aware of the fact
that this culture is influencing us
and we need to renew our minds.
What am I saying?
I'm saying that if we're living in a society
that is characterized by loving yourself,
being obsessed with yourself, coveting, boasting,
being proud, then that sounds like that's exactly
what we need to watch out for in our own lives.
I mean, if we know that it's all around us,
then shouldn't we wake up every day and say,
wait a minute, let me do a little self check
am I a little bit obsessed with myself?
Am I a little bit self-centered right now?
Am I being a little prideful?
Do I think more highly of myself than I have to think?
Am I looking down on other people?
Am I bragging about my own achievements
or bragging about how, oh, I'm so good at this,
or I'm so good at that?
Little kids do this, and this is one of the things
we teach our children, little kids automatically do this,
all kids do this, oh, I'm really good at this,
oh, I'm really good at that.
And we always quote to them, let another man praise thee
and not thy own mouth.
Strangers and not thy own lips.
And hopefully, after that's been quoted to them,
over and over again, by the time they get older,
they'll realize that that's inappropriate
to get up and praise yourself and talk about
how I'm so good at this, I'm so good,
that's bragging, it's boasting.
We live in a society of boasters.
Okay, we live in a society where people just upload videos
of themselves just talking about how great they are.
And just talk, and these people are popular people.
They're influencers, and they just get up
and talk about how great they are,
look, this is the vehicle I drive,
this is the house I live in, look how smart I am,
look how cool I am, look how many women
wanna be with me or whatever.
That's the kind of junk that a lot of these people,
like, you know, I don't even wanna bring up
this worthless piece of dung's name, but Andrew Tate.
You know what I mean, like, and I literally see
on my Facebook feed, Christians defending Andrew Tate.
What kind of a world do we live in
where a Christian would defend a literal pimp?
I mean, a literal, wicked, evil pimp
who is just making money by destroying the lives
of other people, stealing, swindling human traffic,
and it hasn't been proven, it's out of his own mouth
that this is the junk that he does.
That guy is one of the most evil people on this earth,
and then you have Christians,
well, you know, at least he's masculine.
What?
No, just no, there's nothing redeemable about that guy.
Oh, you know, well, at least he's against feminism.
You know what, I'd rather be a feminist
than to hang around with Andrew Tate.
I would rather hang around with any of those people
out in the parking lot than Andrew Tate,
even the reprobate, okay?
I'm telling you, Andrew Tate is trash,
and yet we have Christian young people
being influenced by him.
Well, you know, he makes some good points.
You know, well, you know what,
why don't you go climb in a garbage can
and maybe you can find something nutritious in there to eat.
You know?
I mean, I'm sure maybe you can eat feces
and maybe there'll be some vitamins in there for you,
I don't know, that just pass through
the body of the organism.
But you know what?
That is a man that is a lover of his own self,
covetous, boaster, proud, blasphemous.
And if you spend your time listening to people like that,
I know that's an extreme example,
but you know, there are a lot of other people,
maybe not as extreme as him though,
that are these kind of manosphere guys
or social media influencers or celebrities or whatever,
that do brag about themselves, praise themselves,
and then by showing you, hey, look how successful I am,
you know what, they feed into covetousness.
Because then they make you think,
oh, I wanna have that kind of car.
I wanna have that house.
I wanna, you know, have all of the mojo that he has,
all these ladies or whatever he lies about
and all of his garbage.
You know, that's covetousness.
So you can see there's the lovers of their own selves.
It's all around us in America in 2023.
Covetousness, it's people looking to people like that
wanting to be like them, wanting to look like celebrities,
wanting to drive the cars of celebrities,
wanting to have the house and the clothing of celebrities.
Covetousness, boasters,
people just bragging about themselves, praising themselves.
And then these people are lifted up.
Donald Trump is lifted up, total braggart,
totally prideful, totally covetous.
His whole life has been ruled by the love of money
and the pride of life.
But he's our hero.
You know, Donald Trump, Andrew Tate, you know.
Well, the wicked walk on every side
when the vilest men are exalted, you know.
And that's the world we're living in.
And Donald Trump's the good guy, you know,
let alone the bad guy, okay.
I'm telling you, these people are super wicked
because they're covetous, they're boasters and they're proud.
Okay, and we need to make sure every day
that we don't go down that road
and that we're thinking about this and say,
hey, oops, I don't want to be prideful.
I don't want to say those kinds of things.
And you know what, it could be easy,
especially for kids who grow up in a Christian home
to get prideful and start thinking
that they're better than everyone else
because they just kind of look around
at a lot of the trashiness of this world
and just think, well, I'm not like that.
But you know what, if you have that attitude,
you're being just like that Pharisee who said,
well, I thank God that I'm not his other man,
even though there's this publican, you know.
Hey, I'm glad I'm not like this derelict over here, right.
Here's the thing, don't get prideful
because the reason that you're not a derelict,
the reason that you're maybe smarter
or you think you're so much smarter or more successful
or a harder worker or have more character,
probably because your parents raised you to be smarter
and they read to you as a child,
they taught you, homeschooled you
and they actually taught you morals
and they taught you Christianity,
they taught you the Bible, the Bible Church
and then you're all high and mighty
like you somehow did this to yourself.
When in reality, you are blessed and fortunate
to grow up in a Christian home.
So don't start thinking you're better than everyone else.
No, no, you're just blessed
to have grown up in a Christian home.
And so stay humble.
And you know, growing up in a Christian home
is a huge blessing, by the way.
It's a major privilege.
You know, you hear a lot about white privilege, right.
And white, I don't believe in white privilege.
I don't think that's a thing,
but I do believe in Christian privilege
because if you have grown up in a Christian home,
you are privileged and people who grew up
without Christianity are underprivileged.
They have a disadvantage in life.
Growing up in a non-Christian home
puts you at a disadvantage in life.
It's not being black that makes you disadvantaged.
It's not being Asian or Mexican.
No, no, it's being a non-Christian
that puts you at a disadvantage.
And you know what?
I'd rather grow up in the home of a family
where everybody is as black as the night,
including me, and they love Jesus Christ.
I'd rather grow up in that home.
I'd rather be as black as the night and love Jesus Christ
than to grow up in some atheist white person home.
Last time I checked, all those reprobates
on the parking lot are all white people.
They all looked pretty white to me.
We are in Boise, Idaho.
But guess what?
They don't have any privilege.
Their upbringing is trash.
Their life is trash.
They're not gonna succeed.
They're gonna fail in life.
And so Christian privilege is real.
So you young people, don't grow up and be prideful
and start thinking that you're better than other people
because you're the best worker on the job.
Well, you better be the best worker on the job.
You're raised by Christian parents.
You're taught in the Word of God.
But don't start looking down on other people.
Don't think of yourself more highly than you ought to think.
The Bible says that we should esteem others
better than ourselves.
You say, well, they're not better than me.
I don't care, esteem them better.
Esteem others better than yourself
even if objectively they're not.
Why don't you just consider that they are?
Why don't you go through life thinking of yourself
a little lower than you really are
and thinking of others a little higher
than they really are?
I don't think that's gonna make God upset at all
if you have that kind of a humble attitude
and not get sucked in to our society's obsession with self
and just praising yourself, glorifying self,
coveting what you can get for yourself,
and just living a prideful, self-centered,
boastful, arrogant life.
He says that they will be covetous, boasters,
proud blasphemers, right?
Not giving God the glory, blaspheming God.
And it says that they will be disobedient to parents,
unthankful, unholy.
And again, obviously this is a list
of a lot of different sins,
but some of these things are connected
because if you think about it,
being prideful and being a braggart
kind of goes along with being unthankful
because you're not acknowledging
that the good things about you actually came from the Lord
and came from other people.
You're gloring in them as if you did it yourself
or something.
Let's say that you have some super high IQ.
You know what?
That's a gift from God.
That's genetics from your parents.
Why is that something for you to be proud of?
Like, hey, look at me.
It's so what?
Big deal.
You didn't earn that.
I have more respect for someone who actually earned something
than just somebody just handed to them.
Oh, so you're just born good looking.
You're born smart.
You're born in a Christian home
where everybody teaches you everything.
And then instead of being thankful for that
you can say, wow, thank you, God,
for making me good looking.
Thank you, God, for allowing me to be born
in the most prosperous country in the whole world,
the United States.
Thank you, God, for allowing me to be raised
in a Christian home so I could get saved as a child
instead of being thankful for that.
You're just proud, like, oh man, I'm so awesome.
I'm so much better than other people.
Look at my success.
And you know, if you start taking glory
for your own success instead of being thankful
to God for it, who gives us the power to get wealth,
being thankful to God for blessing you
with whatever blessings you have,
if you start getting prideful,
God can take you down a notch
because that's exactly what happened to King Nebuchadnezzar
in the Old Testament, right?
And Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar said,
is not this great Babylon that I have built.
Like, it's my greatness.
I did all this.
And then God had to destroy him
because he was so puffed up and prideful.
And God made him go literally insane
and made him humiliate himself for seven years straight
because it'd be pretty humiliating to go crazy
and to be completely insane living outside
like an animal for seven years, pretty humiliating.
You know, it's pretty much one of the worst punishments
that you can imagine.
But the Bible says that they will be disobedient
to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection,
truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce,
despisers of those that are good, right?
So now we get into just more extreme wickedness
without natural affection.
What does that mean without natural affection?
Well, there's a certain natural feeling
that we have toward our fellow man
where we love our fellow man, right?
A certain natural feeling that a parent has
toward their children, right?
Parents love their children.
Children love their parents, right?
Siblings love each other.
It's natural for us as human beings
to have a certain amount of affection,
but then you've got people that are without natural affection
so they're cold and unloving.
They're lovers of their own selves,
but they don't love their family.
They don't love anyone.
They're without natural affection.
And then they might even have unnatural affection
and inordinate affection and perverted affections.
Truce breakers, right, they make an agreement,
they make a deal, and then they break that agreement.
They break that deal.
It says false accusers, incontinent.
What does it mean to be,
we all know what a false accuser is,
but what does it mean to be incontinent?
It means that you cannot control your impulses.
You cannot control your appetites.
You just cannot contain yourself.
Just whatever feels good, you're gonna do it.
Fierce, vicious, right, is another word for being fierce.
They're vicious, they're despisers of those that are good.
You know, I've noticed of late
that people are getting more and more hostile
toward Christians in the United States of America.
You know, I've been pastoring Faithful Word Baptist Church
for 17 years, and I've been soul winning all that time.
And I've just noticed that in the last 17 years,
more and more, it's gotten to where more people
are just negative toward you even being at their door
as a Christian.
And you're getting more and more of just a hostile response.
And more and more, you'll ask people,
are you a Christian?
It's just no.
And it's like they're already mad at you.
You haven't even started talking,
they're just mad because you even reminded them
that Christ is even a thing.
You know, they just don't even wanna remember God
and their knowledge sometimes.
But we're getting in a time where there are a lot of people
that just despise those that are good.
I mean, what is with these people out here protesting
in Houston, Texas, week after week for months or even years,
and then in Dallas, Texas,
and then up here in Boise, Idaho of all places?
I mean, these should be some of the most
conservative places you would expect, right?
Like, you'd expect, oh, San Francisco, California,
or, you know, oh, Las Vegas, Nevada, New Orleans, Louisiana,
you know, churches being protested.
That's kind of what you'd expect.
But like, Boise, Idaho, really?
I mean, when people are despised of those that are good
in Boise, like, you know that that's the way
the whole country is going at that point, you know?
When you see this happening in places like Dallas,
Oklahoma City, Houston, you know,
it's just, it's kind of mind blowing.
And so, despisers of those that are good.
Why are those people so mad?
What did we ever do to any of those people?
Like, if they don't like the preaching,
all they have to do is just change the channel, right?
Why are they so mad?
They are mad for the same reason that Cain was mad at Abel,
because their own works are evil,
and their brothers are righteous, right?
Just like Cain and Abel.
And so, they're despisers of those that are good.
Traders, heady, what does it mean to be heady?
That might not be a word that we use a lot.
Heady is, again, arrogance-y.
Back to this issue.
And notice, that's the number one issue
that keeps coming up, because we have boasters,
we have proud, we have lovers of their own selves,
and now we have a heady, and all four of those
kind of mean almost the same thing.
And then look, a fifth one, high-minded.
How many times can you say the same thing?
So, when you're listing the end time sins,
it's like, okay, pride, and pride,
and pride, and pride, and pride, and pride.
It gives you like six words for pride.
That should tell you that that's a big one.
Isn't it interesting that the Sodomites of our country
have chosen that as their slogan?
Right, pride month, pride parade, right?
It's because that is the end time sin, pride.
And it's repeated so many times here.
And then it says, of course, lovers of pleasures
more than lovers of God.
This is part of the reason why a lot of people
don't wanna come to the light,
they don't want their deeds to be reproved.
They don't want anyone to tell them
that what they're doing is sin or wrong,
and so they're willing to sacrifice a relationship with God
in order to just have pleasure right here
on this earth here and now.
They're lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.
And then we get to verse five,
let's kinda change gears a little bit.
He says that in the end times,
people are gonna do all these wicked things.
We see it everywhere.
But then he says that there will be those who
have a form of godliness,
but deny the power thereof from such turn away.
Now what does that mean to have a form of godliness
but denying the power thereof from such turn away?
What is the power of godliness?
What is the power of New Testament Christianity?
What is the power of the Bible?
Well, the Bible talks about the gospel of Jesus Christ
being the power of God unto salvation.
But also those who would have a form of godliness
but deny the power thereof,
I believe would be the type of people who would say,
oh, I'm a Christian,
but then they deny things like the virgin birth.
They die that God could create the heaven and the earth.
They deny the bodily resurrection of Jesus.
You know, they're denying the power of Christianity.
They're denying the miracles of the Bible.
And they say, well, you know,
Jesus resurrected in the sense that he's alive
in all of our hearts or something.
You know, something stupid like that
instead of the bodily resurrection of Jesus.
And so when I think of those who have a form of godliness
but deny the power thereof,
I think of a lot of the mainline Protestant denominations
like, for example, the United Methodists,
where they're constantly rejecting the miracles
of the Bible, denying the virgin birth,
denying the resurrection of Christ.
But then they have this form of godliness
where they're talking about Jesus.
They're talking about God.
They're reading portions of scripture.
They go to church and they, you know,
celebrate supposedly Jesus Christ form of godliness.
But then when you talk to them,
they don't believe in any of the miracles.
They don't believe God created the heaven and the earth.
They don't believe that, you know,
the supernatural elements are real about Christianity.
They don't believe in heaven and hell, you know,
but yet they have this form of godliness, right?
Other mainline Protestant denominations are the same way.
Episcopalians are going down that road.
A lot of Lutheran churches are going down that road.
I mean, you know, the Lutherans in our area,
the vast majority of them,
I mean, they do not even begin to believe the Bible,
you know, and you wonder,
why do these people even go to church
just so they can have a form of godliness?
Most of your Presbyterians are like that.
You know, I mean, today you'll have Lutheran,
Presbyterian, Methodist, Anglican churches
that are literally flying rainbow flags
and just completely off the deep end,
but yet they're claiming to be followers of Jesus Christ.
They have a form of godliness,
but they deny the power thereof,
and they don't have the right gospel.
They deny the gospel,
and what's the power of God unto salvation?
It's the gospel of Jesus Christ, according to the Bible.
They'll deny that death, burial, and resurrection
that is the gospel.
Not only that, they'll deny the good news
that salvation is by faith alone,
because all of the above will teach works-based salvation,
and so they're denying the power thereof,
and it's interesting that in the next breath,
after he says that there will be these people
in the end times that have the form of godliness,
but deny the power thereof,
then in the next breath he says,
of this sort are they which creep into houses
and lead captive, silly women,
laden with sins, led away with divers' lusts,
ever learning and never able to come
to the knowledge of the truth.
Now, it's kind of interesting that it talks about
these people have a form of godliness,
but deny the power thereof.
It talks about them leading captive, silly women.
Now, we remember from this morning,
we were in this same passage,
because we were in 2 Timothy 2,
and so we were just a few verses up.
Do you remember this thing of how
Satan led people captive, right?
It said that they may recover themselves
out of the snare of the devil,
who are taken captive by him at his will.
Okay, and then now, just a few verses later in chapter three,
we have these silly women that are led away captive
by this false religion from these people
creeping in to their houses and deceiving them.
Isn't it interesting that when you go
to these mainline denomination churches
that are the first thing that pop into my mind,
when I think of having a form of godliness,
but denying the power thereof?
Isn't it interesting that they're...
The churches are dominated by women.
Literally, you walk into the churches,
and most of the congregation is women.
There are way more women in these dead,
mainline Protestant churches.
Often, the ministers will even be women,
but even if the minister is a man,
the movers and shakers in the church are women.
It's women-run, and the majority of the congregation
is skewed demographically,
where there are way more women and children than men.
Then we get this idea that like,
oh, you know, women and children are more religious,
they go to church.
No, no, they go to that kind of church more.
Because isn't it interesting that in the new IFB,
we don't have that imbalance, do we?
We don't have this problem in our new IFB churches,
where there's just way more women than men.
That just isn't a problem, okay?
If you walked in...
In fact, I just had a visitor come to my church
like three weeks ago, or actually, I say three weeks ago,
we've probably been on this road trip for a few weeks,
so probably like three weeks before the road trip.
That's, you know, we'll start time there.
And this lady asked me, she said,
you know, I'm looking around your church,
and I'm just seeing so many men here, and young men.
And she's just like, what's going on?
Because she's saying, so many churches I've been to,
it's just, it's all women, and the elderly.
And you've got all of these men.
What's going on?
Now, let me say this.
Our church doesn't have an inordinate amount of men.
We just have a normal demographic, where we have...
You know, if I had to guess, I've never done this,
but if I had to guess, I would say in our church,
it's probably half male and half female.
It's not some crazy skewing of, you know,
it's not 80% men.
But I'm saying, in a lot of churches, it is 80% women.
And that's a problem, okay?
I think whenever you see the church
heavily skewed in one direction, something's wrong.
You know, when there's just never anybody older,
never any young people, never a lot of men,
or women, or whatever.
You know, whenever you have a demographic missing,
you know, in a big church especially,
it's kind of a problem, you know what I mean?
Now, obviously, in a smaller church,
things are gonna be a little more skewed.
But our church in Faithful Word,
we have about 400 church members,
and so, you know, we have a nice balance of men and women.
Why?
Because of the fact that when you actually have
real biblical preaching, men like that, okay?
But men aren't necessarily attracted
to some faggoty United Methodist church service.
You know, a bunch of women might be okay with that,
and a few soy boys into the mix,
but, you know, hair-legged men,
they're not interested in going to a United Methodist church
because it's just like a fag fest.
It's just like so lame, it's just so watered down,
you know, it's just, it's a joke.
And then they're surprised, like,
oh, why aren't men going to church anymore?
Because, you know, they don't wanna be
around a bunch of queer little sissies, you know?
And, you know, TV and movies,
they perpetuate this more by showing these
really soft, effeminate ministers all the time
and everything, and that's what you're actually
gonna find down at the United Methodist,
Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Lutheran churches these days.
And so, real hair-legged men are like,
get me outta here, they're not interested.
Whereas a church like Faithful Word,
man, woman, boy, and girl, there's something for everybody.
A church like Shield of Faith, right?
Men can come to this church,
and they're gonna be blessed by the preaching,
they're gonna be fed by the preaching,
and they're not gonna have to, like,
check their masculinity at the door
in order to come in and have a church service
with Pastor Susan or something, okay?
And so, we need to understand that in the end times,
there's going to be a fake Christianity
that denies the miracles of the Bible,
denies the deity of Jesus Christ,
denies the virgin birth of Jesus Christ,
denies that Jesus literally walked on water,
denies that Jesus raised the dead and healed the sick,
that he literally fed the 5,000,
that he bodily rose from the dead
after three days and three nights,
and that this religion will be one
who's especially good at reaching women with this deception.
Thank God for a Christianity that both men and women
can profit from, and that both men and women
can come to the house of God
and be blessed by the preaching.
And it says that these false prophets, these false teachers,
the ones who creep in and teach this stuff,
they're ever learning, and they're never able
to come to the knowledge of the truth.
The people that they're deceiving are also ever learning
and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
And of course, this goes hand in hand with being reprobate.
It says, now as Janus and Jamborees withstood Moses,
so do these also resist the truth.
It's not that they just don't know the truth.
It's that they've been exposed to the truth
and they've fought against it actively.
They've resisted the truth.
They are men of corrupt minds.
They are reprobate concerning the faith.
But they shall proceed no further,
for their folly shall be manifest unto all men
as theirs also was.
The Apostle Paul then shifts gears and says,
but thou, Timothy, thou has fully known my doctrine,
manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering,
charity, patience, persecutions, afflictions,
which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra,
what persecutions I endured, but out of them all,
the Lord delivered me.
Now, here's what he's saying.
In the beginning of chapter three, he's saying,
look, in the end times, all this wickedness can abound,
perilous times, all of this sin, fierce, incontinent people
who hate those that are good, and they're all traitors,
heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure
more than lovers of God.
And then he goes on to say there's gonna be
all this false religion, people having a form of godliness
and denying the power thereof, fake Christianity,
like Janus and Jamborees, these reprobates
will not accept the truth,
even when it's presented to them repeatedly.
So he's talking about a wicked society on the one hand,
a fake Christianity on the other hand,
and then he turns around and says,
but thou has fully known my doctrine,
manner of life, purpose, faith, et cetera.
What's he saying?
You know what, even though the world out there
is going crazy, even though churches are going liberal,
you know what, it's still possible to be a functioning,
effective man of God in that type of environment
in that time.
So the apostle Paul's saying, look,
I'm still going strong, even surrounded by these things.
Now, obviously, he wasn't living in 2023 America,
but he was living in the latter days,
because everything in the New Testament
is considered the latter days, the last time,
but we're even more in the last times than he is,
so we're seeing these trends even magnified even more.
But the principle still stands that even in the midst
of a crooked and perverse nation,
we can shine as lights in the world.
Men like your pastor, Pastor Jones,
can still get up and preach truth
and preach the word of God.
People can still be saved,
and you can still do a great work for God.
So when we read all of these attributes of a wicked world,
we don't want to let it discourage us or get us down
and think, oh, man, it's getting so bad.
It just keeps getting worse and worse,
because here's the thing about that is that, number one,
the purpose of this is not to get down about it.
The purpose of this is to guard ourselves
that we don't indulge in these bad traits, okay?
And then the other purpose is to realize
that the darker things get out there,
the brighter our light can shine, okay?
The more churches are liberal and denying biblical truths,
then the more the real churches stand out.
I mean, think about it, even small churches today
get a lot of viewers on YouTube
when they're not being deleted from YouTube,
but even on other platforms,
a lot of people who listen online,
kind of like an inordinate number of people listening online
even to small churches,
and even when Faithful Word was small,
we had a lot of listeners,
even now, just we have a disproportionate amount
of people listening for the size of our church online.
Why is that?
Because there are so few pastors getting up
and really letting it rip.
It's like we're the only game in town.
The new IFB is like some of the only people saying this.
Yeah, there's some great preaching out there
that's outside the new IFB,
but you know, it's interesting.
People tell me all the time,
they start going online
and just looking up hard preaching on relevant subjects,
and it just seems like us and our friends
just keep popping up.
Now, here's the thing.
If the old IFB was doing what they're supposed to be doing,
then there'd be thousands of us,
and they'd never find us.
We'd be buried.
So hey, look at it as an opportunity, right?
If there's so few people preaching hard,
then it just allows us to get our message out
to more people and just be greatly used by God even more.
And so the darker things get, don't get discouraged.
Just let your light shine that much brighter.
It's a great time to be alive.
You know, if I could choose to be alive at any other time,
I wouldn't want to be alive at any other time.
I want to live right now, 2023.
I love it.
This is the best time to be alive.
You say, oh, that's so wicked out there.
Yeah, I know.
So what?
We're not wicked, right?
We can still live a godly life.
We still have great churches.
We're still serving God.
We're out winning souls.
And hey, we have the internet and all this power
to reach thousands of people with our message.
Great.
It's beautiful.
You know, isn't it beautiful to be able to hop on a plane
and fly to some mission field, go on some missions trip?
You can literally just like fly in,
and the first day you're winning your first soul to Christ.
The plane landed five hours ago.
You're winning your first soul to Christ.
You know, I wouldn't want to live in some other time
where you have to get on some boat and get scurvy
or something to go witness to somebody like six months later
because you took some boat to India or something.
Man, I could hop on a plane to India.
Well, they probably wouldn't allow me to enter India.
But other people could hop on a plane and go easily to India
and win a bunch of people to Christ.
I mean, literally, people from our church
have literally probably won more people in India to Christ
than William Carey, OK?
And that's nothing against William Carey.
It's just that he was having all kinds of problems and sickness
and issues and language barrier and all these problems.
Man, we're living in a time where the whole world is learning
English as a second language.
So we're able to break down that language barrier.
We can hop on planes, and people from all of our churches
are flying all over the place.
We can hop in a car, drive three hours away,
and go win souls in a small town soul-winning marathon.
There's just so much opportunity.
It's such a great time to be alive.
I love it.
So I'm not trying to bring you down by saying in the last days,
perilous times will come.
Because the darker it gets, the more our light can shine anyway.
So the Apostle Paul is saying, look, I'm still preaching right.
Yeah, I'm being persecuted.
Yeah, I'm going through afflictions.
Yeah, in the end times, maybe persecution will increase.
But here's what he said.
And don't miss this.
What persecutions I endured.
Do you see that in verse 11?
But out of them all, the Lord delivered me.
Don't miss that.
Do not miss what the Apostle Paul there said in verse 11.
What persecutions I endured, but out of them all,
the Lord delivered me.
You know what I've noticed reading the Bible?
Is that the vast majority of people in the Bible
do not get martyred for their faith.
They do not die for their faith.
Very few are martyred.
The vast majority of people aren't.
And it's not because people don't want to kill them.
It's because God protects them.
I mean, the Apostle Paul said, man, I went through afflictions
and persecutions, but out of them all, the Lord delivered me.
I mean, think about the Apostle Paul.
What about that time that a group of like 40 guys
are like, we're not going to eat or drink anything
until we've killed Paul?
And they swear this dreadful oath.
But did they kill Paul?
No.
Paul was literally fed to a lion.
And he said, the Lord delivered me out of the mouth of the lion.
He was put in some probably, I mean, we don't know the details,
but we know he was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.
So he was put in some ring with the lion,
or maybe he was going to be, and he ended up not being put in the ring.
We don't know.
But I like to use my imagination that somehow he
was put in some gladiator arena with a lion, and he ended up surviving.
He ended up getting out of it.
Why?
Because he's just such a bad dude?
No, because God delivered him.
God delivered him out of the mouth of the lion.
God delivered Daniel from the lion's den.
God delivered Chad back, Meshach, and Abednego from the fiery furnace.
God delivered person after person after person.
Stop and think about the entire New Testament, the whole New Testament.
Who got martyred?
Who got killed for Christ in the entire New Testament?
Let's think about it.
Who is Stephen?
James, the brother of John.
And then we have, of course, Peter.
It doesn't record Peter being martyred, but Jesus in John 21
seems to indicate that Peter is going to be martyred.
So we've got Stephen.
We've got James.
We've got Peter.
And then in the book of Revelation, when we're talking to the seven churches,
he talks to them and says, even in those days
where an Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you
where Satan dwelleth.
But just the fact that these people are living where Satan dwelleth,
and there's one martyr that even is worth naming because there's only one
of them.
Antipas, my faithful martyr, was slain among you.
I mean, maybe I'm missing somebody, but that's all I can think of.
If somebody else can think of another one, help me out.
But I'm reading the entire New Testament.
I find four martyrs.
Go through the Old Testament, and you know what you constantly see?
People being delivered, delivered, kept safe, protected.
And people constantly, they want to kill people like Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel.
But isn't it amazing how they usually end up surviving?
Now, we have some people dying in the Old Testament for their faith.
We have Abel, right?
And then, of course, we have Zacharias, OK?
And we could think of examples of righteous people
who are killed for the faith.
And Hebrews talks about people being stoned and saunasundar,
and it talks about people being tortured and killed.
I get that.
But I will say this.
I believe that the idea of Christians being killed for their faith
has been exaggerated big time, and that it's not really biblical,
and that it's not really representative of reality.
Because the true story is that the chances are none of us in this room
are going to be martyred.
No matter how hardcore we live for Christ,
we're probably not going to be killed for our faith.
And to me, that's good news.
I don't necessarily want to be killed for Christ.
I mean, look, if that's God's will for my life, then amen.
And if you are one of those few people who's martyred,
if you're a Stephen or a James or a Peter or an Antipas,
then it's an honor to be killed for Christ.
But it's a minority.
It's a small group of people in Old Testament and New Testament.
The majority of what we read about is God protecting people like Abraham,
rebuking kings for their sake, saying, touch not mine anointed,
and do my prophets no harm.
Men like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, the patriarchs,
being protected by God.
Moses and Aaron being protected by God.
Don't you think Pharaoh would have loved to kill Moses and Aaron?
Isn't it amazing how they lived to be like 120 years old?
Why?
Because God is constantly protecting his people.
So we're living in perilous times in the last days.
But let me tell you something.
As God's people, we are the safest people.
You know what?
It's more dangerous for you to be living an ungodly life
than to be following Christ and living a sold out life for Christ.
Because God's going to protect you like 99.9% of the time.
Who knows someone personally who's been killed for the cause of Christ?
Anybody?
Because I don't.
Shouldn't that maybe make you stop and think a little bit?
You've never known anybody who has been killed for the cause of Christ,
and there's like four people in the whole New Testament.
I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it's been exaggerated.
You say, well, what about the Roman Catholic Church?
You know, they just burned millions and millions of Christians at the stake.
Here's the thing about that.
You know, a lot of those people that they were burning at the stake
weren't actually saved Christians.
You know who the Catholic Church murdered throughout the Middle Ages?
A lot of them Jews.
Now, I'm not saying that that was right, but they were murdering Jews,
and they were murdering heretics who actually were heretics.
Like people who were denying the Trinity, people who were teaching oneness,
people who were teaching other things.
They killed a lot of Muslims, they killed a lot of Jews,
they killed a lot of weirdos.
And I'm sure that they probably even lit some sodomites on fire.
But the thing about that is, and I'm not condoning, I am condoning that,
but I'm not condoning them killing Jews and Muslims
and killing heretics and stuff.
We're not supposed to kill heretics.
We're just supposed to reject them.
We're not supposed to kill them.
We don't wrestle against flesh and blood.
But what I'm saying is, a lot of people, they just
look at the whole tally of everybody the Roman Catholic Church killed,
and they're like, yeah, these are all martyrs for Christ.
And then they get this mistaken idea that there are just
tens of millions of people dying for Christ.
Not a thing.
Why is this important?
Because a lot of people, they just assume.
They just think, well, if the tribulation happens in our lifetime,
we're all dead.
I can't even count how many times I've had people say, Pastor Anderson,
you're going to be one of the first people.
They think that's like a compliment.
Like, you're going to be one of the first people
to get smoked in the tribulation, Pastor Anderson.
And I'm just like, no, I'm not.
I don't believe that.
Now look, if I'm the first martyr of the tribulation,
can I stay with that Stephen theme?
That's cool.
I'm for that.
But here's the thing about that, though.
It's like virtually, you know, it's so remote of a possibility.
It's something that I don't even think about.
I literally don't even think about the possibility of,
oh, I may be killed for Christ someday.
Because it's just like, it's so remote.
Obviously, I'm willing to do it.
God requires me to be willing to do it.
He tells us, be faithful unto death, OK?
Yeah, I'm willing to die for Jesus Christ.
But it's not something I constantly go around saying
or thinking, because it's just so remote of a possibility.
Because you know what I believe is going to happen?
I believe that persecutions and afflictions will come my way
and that out of them all, the Lord will deliver me,
as Paul said.
That's what I think is going to happen.
And you know, of course, you go pick up a history book,
and it'll tell you that the Apostle Paul
was killed for his faith.
Is that what the Bible says?
That's a fable.
That is a Roman Catholic legend about Paul.
Because guess what?
The Bible does not say that Paul was fed to the lions.
The Bible says that God delivered Paul
out of the mouth of the lion.
And you know what, the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy,
look what he says in chapter 4.
Jump over to chapter 4 quickly.
He says in chapter 4, verse 6, for I'm now ready to be offered
and the time of my departure is at hand.
He's talking about dying.
When he says the time of my departure is at hand,
he's talking about going to be with the Lord.
This is the last epistle Paul wrote.
I have fought a good fight.
I have finished my course.
I have kept the faith.
Henceforth there's laid up for me a crown of righteousness
which the Lord, the righteous judge,
shall give me at that day.
So in chapter 4, he's having a premonition about his death,
saying I'm ready to depart.
I've finished my course.
I'm at the end of life.
But what did he say in chapter 3?
I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.
And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work
and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom.
How could the Apostle Paul say that he would be delivered
from every evil work and that he would be preserved?
Jump down to verse 17.
It says in chapter 4, verse 17, notwithstanding,
the Lord stood with me and strengthened me,
that by me the preaching might be fully known,
and that all the Gentiles might hear.
And I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.
And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work
and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom
to him be glory forever and ever amen.
Oh, just kidding, I'm about to get martyred tomorrow.
Does this guy sound like he's about to get martyred tomorrow?
He's about to get thrown into the lions tomorrow.
Now, did he not say I'm about to die?
He did.
But in the same breath, he said,
well, I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.
You know why he's about to die?
Because he's about to die of natural causes.
He's an old man.
He's about to die because he's old.
That's it.
He's old and he's dying.
I mean, a lot of people are old
and they're like, they know they're dying.
That's what's going on here.
That's why the book of Acts doesn't say anything
about Paul being killed for Christ.
It ends the book of Acts with him being in prison in Rome.
And it says he continued there two years
with all his friends coming to see him.
And he's just preaching every day.
And his friends are seeing him.
He's preaching to the end and everything's fine.
The end.
Oh, just kidding, he got killed.
Doesn't, it's not consistent with the ending of Acts,
but it's really not consistent
with the epistle of Second Timothy.
So that's why I don't believe it for one second.
Now you could get, oh, you could get a list of,
if you listen to the Roman Catholic Church,
they'll tell you that every single one
of the apostles is martyred.
Peter, James, John, Andrew, you know,
go down the list, all of them 100% martyred,
according to the Catholic Church, right?
And according to Protestants, they'll have a list of,
here's how Thomas was martyred.
Here's how Bartholomew was martyred.
You know the famous picture of Bartholomew,
after all of his skin was removed,
he's carrying his skin over his shoulder like this?
That didn't really happen.
If he had been flayed, he wouldn't be carrying his skin
around over his shoulder like it's some kind
of a stylish coat, like the Catholic statue.
Okay, the point is that, you know,
there's been an exaggeration about this issue
and the problem with exaggerating that is that,
we got a lot of people today that are just kind of scared
of their own shadows because they don't believe
that God can protect them or they don't believe
that God will protect them and they just think,
well, you know, if you stand up for Christ,
you're gonna be killed or something.
You know, out of all of us new IFB pastors,
I don't believe any of us are gonna be killed for Christ.
But you know, maybe one of us will.
I hope not, I sure hope not, but even if one of us did,
that would still not negate the point
that I'm making right now because instead of focusing
on the one that got killed, I would say,
well, yeah, but look at all of us
who didn't get killed though.
You know, you see what I'm saying?
Look at all the churches that didn't get bombed.
You know, why are we talking about that?
But anyway, the point is that it's been exaggerated.
The apostle Paul said in chapter three,
what persecutions and afflictions I endured,
but out of them all, the Lord delivered me.
We're in verse 11 of chapter three.
Out of them all, the Lord delivered me.
Verse 12, yea, and all that will live godly
in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
I suffered persecution, you're gonna suffer persecution.
Everyone who lives godly in Christ Jesus
is gonna suffer persecution,
but they're not gonna be killed.
The vast majority will be preserved, blessed, protected.
I think that's a comforting thought, at least for me,
and so people, oh, it takes so much guts
to stand up for God and preach.
Not really when you realize that God's gonna protect you,
it doesn't really take a lot of guts.
You know what it takes?
Believing the Bible, because that's like saying,
oh, man, it takes a lot of guts to walk down the street,
you know, and with all the lightning out there,
boy, you really got a lot of guts to go swimming
in the ocean with all those sharks out there.
How much guts do you think it really takes
to just go swimming in the ocean?
I mean, are you just like super impressed by surfers,
like they're just, wow, they're just taking their life
in their hands every time they go out there and surf.
Is that how you feel?
No, why?
Because the chance of getting eaten by a shark is so tiny,
right, it's not even a thing.
Well, you know what, oh, man, you know,
so much boldness to be able to just go hiking.
What if a thunderstorm comes?
You know, what if a bear attacks you?
You go hiking in the woods, there'll be bears in them woods.
Oh, you're so brave.
You know, that's how I feel when somebody's like,
oh, you're so brave to preach the Bible.
Well, what?
Why am I so brave when the chance of me dying
for my preaching is like the chance of me
being struck by lightning, okay?
You know what, it's not brave,
it's that I just actually believe
that God has the power to protect me.
That's all it is.
And you know what, God can protect you.
God can protect all of us.
God will protect us, 99%.
And if we're one of the rare exceptions
that do die for our faith, amen,
then we're gonna be like a hall of famer
when we get to heaven.
You're gonna get to go in this special hall of fame
for all eternity, you're gonna be like
one of those martyrs of Christ.
I mean, look, if it takes getting killed
to get inducted into some super elite hall of fame
for eternity, okay, whatever, let's go.
But you know what, chances are, not gonna happen.
I'm not worthy, you're not worthy.
You know what, why are we scared of phantoms?
Bogeymen that are very unlikely to actually harm us.
And you know, people can, I'm sure that your pastor
has received all kinds of death threats
and so we all have.
Oh, isn't that scary?
Not really, because greater is he that is in us
than he that is in the world.
You know, it's sort of like when Elisha's servant
is freaking out, when they're literally surrounded
by an army.
I mean, imagine if we pull back those curtains
and instead of the reprobate, what if you pull the curtains
and we're just surrounded by just like a literal army
with weapons that are coming to apprehend.
Wouldn't that be scary?
But you know, Elisha's just like, what's the big deal?
And then Gehazi's like, oh, what are we gonna do?
Or whatever the, I don't know if it was Gehazi,
but the servant is like, what are we gonna do?
And Elisha's like, oh, there's more people with us
than with them.
We got more than that, you know,
how are they gonna defeat us when we got more?
And the guy's like, what?
And then Elisha prays to God and says,
God, open this young man's eyes that he may see.
And he opens his eyes and the mountains are just filled
with angels protecting Elisha.
There's just all of these,
and there's literally more angels.
I mean, if you count them,
there were literally an army of angels
that literally outnumbered the people
that had physically come,
the literal army that had come to arrest Elisha,
there's more angels.
But I guess I'm supposed to believe
that I just have like this one derelict angel
that just like, maybe he'll protect me, I don't know.
Now I'm not Elisha, so I don't assume
that I have like the mount that Elisha had.
But you know what I think?
I probably have enough, you know,
to deal with whatever threat, you know?
I mean, how many do I really need?
You know, a preacher of my profile,
what do I need?
Six or seven, eight, you know, whatever.
I don't know.
Whatever it is, it's probably gonna be enough.
You know, God knows what's going on.
God knows what we need.
And so I love that story where the servant's freaking out
and Elisha's just like not even worried about it
because he just knows that God can protect him.
And God did protect him.
And you know what, Elisha,
you wanna know how Elisha died?
Natural causes.
Elisha literally died of natural causes.
Because remember King Joash is there
and he's like in bed and he's sick
and he's old and he's dying.
And he tells Joash to like fire an arrow
and smite the ground and everything
as he's literally dying of natural causes.
Guess how Moses died?
Natural causes.
Guess how Aaron died?
Natural causes.
Guess how Abraham died?
Natural causes.
How did Isaac die?
Natural causes.
How did Jacob die?
Natural causes.
How did Joseph die?
Natural causes.
You see a pattern here?
How did Job die?
Natural causes.
Okay, even though he went through all that stuff, man,
in the end, he was doing great.
So God will deliver us.
God will protect us.
Yes, we will go through persecution,
but with God for us, who can be against us?
No weapon that is formed against us shall prosper.
Jesus said not a hair of our head is gonna perish.
I mean, the vast majority of us are gonna be protected
besides the few who are honored
by having the privilege of being martyrs.
I mean, you think you're gonna get into heaven
and just be like, oh man, I can't believe God
allowed me to get assassinated.
Like what if somebody just like blew my head off
and I'm just like in heaven
and you know, I'm just there
and my head just got blown off like a minute ago
and I'm in heaven.
Do you think I'm just gonna be like, oh, come on!
After I preach that sermon in Idaho
about not getting martyred and then I get martyred,
how embarrassing.
Think I'd be like, oh, I wish I could live longer on earth.
Just gonna be like, oh, well, we're in heaven now.
It's all good, man.
I made it into the club!
I'm in the elite martyr hall of fame, woo-hoo!
Well, sad for my family, but hey, here I am.
I made it.
But the point is, that's not even gonna happen, okay?
And if I'm wrong, well, I don't even care
because I'll be dead.
What are you gonna do about it?
Say it at my funeral, play this clip?
So the point is, you know, don't be scared to live for God.
He says, look, it's gonna be dangerous times.
It's gonna be perilous times.
Sin's gonna abound.
The fathers will betray the children.
The children betray their parents.
You know, hateful people and all this wickedness.
And then he just says, you know,
everybody's gonna endure persecution.
Verse 13, evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse,
deceiving and being deceived.
What's the moral of the story, though?
You gotta continue.
But continue.
Don't let that stop you.
Don't let that scare you.
Continue in the things which thou hast learned
and hast been assured of,
knowing of whom thou hast learned them,
and that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures,
which are able to make thee wise unto salvation
through faith which is in Jesus Christ.
Here's what he's saying.
The world out there is changing.
Evil men and seducers are getting worse and worse.
The world's getting worse.
It's not post-millennialism.
It's premillennialism.
Christians are getting more apostate.
The mainline denominations are getting worse.
The churches are getting worse.
The society's getting worse.
Persecution's getting worse.
But here's the thing.
The Bible didn't change.
The world changed.
The Bible didn't change.
Churches changed.
The Bible didn't change.
So just continue in the things that thou hast learned.
Who cares what the liberal church down the street is doing?
Continue in the things that you've learned,
knowing of whom you've learned them.
You've known the holy scriptures from a child,
and the Bible says the same thing today
as what it said when you were a kid, Timothy.
When you were a kid to middle age, it says the same thing.
All scriptures given by inspiration of God
and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof,
for correction, for instruction in righteousness
that the man of God may be perfect,
thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
We have all the tools we need to live a godly Christian life
in 2023 America.
We've got a great opportunity.
We've got all this technology.
We've got a dark world spiritually.
Well, then let's just shine the light even brighter.
And yes, it's perilous times.
Yes, murder rates are up or something.
But you know what?
It's not like a Bible-believing Christian who's serving God
is subject to the same murder rate
as the rest of the population.
Do you really think that I have the same chance
of being killed in Phoenix, Arizona as the average person?
No, because I would say it's impossible to kill me
unless God wants me to be a martyr.
It's literally impossible to kill me
unless God wants me to be killed for his will, for his purpose.
Because God will protect me.
And he will protect you.
And I can't say 100%, but I'll say 99.9%.
None of us is getting killed for Christ.
So quit being scared of something
that's probably not even gonna happen.
I don't even think that I will ever even go
to prison for preaching.
And think about all the stuff I've preached.
I haven't held back.
I've said some stuff.
I've never even been sued.
They yelled at me this morning in the parking lot
and they said, how's the lawsuit going, huh?
Pastor Anderson, how's the lawsuit?
And I tried to tell them.
I couldn't really get a word in edgewise
because they were all screaming at me.
But I was just like, I've never been sued.
I was like, I've never been sued.
And then they're like, well, but that doesn't change
that you're a blankety blank blank.
I'm like, well, I said, that may be so.
But I've never been sued.
I just haven't.
And anybody who's watching this video online,
I invite you to sue me because I don't own anything.
And I'll just never pay because I have 10 kids
living at home.
And so no judge will ever force me to pay anything
because I don't have any money and I don't own anything.
And they can't take away my primary dwelling
or my first two vehicles.
And I only have one vehicle.
So I can literally, if you sue me,
I'll just go out tomorrow and just buy another vehicle
and not pay you.
I'm serious.
You know, suing people works if they have money,
if they own stuff.
It doesn't work on me because I got nothing.
So I got nothing to lose.
That's why I don't get sued.
I'm probably, you know, I've never been sued.
I don't think I'm ever going to prison.
I don't believe I'm ever going to be killed.
Why?
Because God's going to bless me
and God's going to take care of me
just like he's going to bless and take care of you.
You know, God takes care of his people.
Now, have I been through some stuff?
I've been through some stuff, but it's all fine now.
We're fine now, right?
We're all good here.
Everybody's happy.
Everybody's doing great.
I'm fine.
My family's fine.
We're all happy.
It's great.
Yeah, but what about that one time?
It's like, well, so what?
It's over.
It's right, amen.
Can I get a witness?
And so God's word doesn't change.
All may change, but Jesus never.
Glory to his name.
Let's bow our eyes and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word.
Lord, thank you for these warnings
about the perilous times, Lord,
so that we can do a self-check
and make sure that we're not acting like this world
that is going to for sure influence us, Lord,
but help us to counteract that
by renewing our mind daily in the word.
Lord, help us to stand for truth
in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation
among whom we shine as lights in the world.
Help us not to be scared to stand with the man of God,
to stand with Pastor Jones,
to stand with Shield of Faith Baptist Church.
Lord, help us just realize
that you're gonna protect us all
and that there's nothing to worry about,
and thank you so much, Lord,
for those guardian angels
that you have sent to be ministering spirits
for them who are the heirs of salvation, Lord.
Thank you for protecting Elisha,
and thank you that we have that same protection today
as your people.
Thank you that the angel of the Lord
still encamps around those that fear you,
and Lord, we love you.
Bless us as we go our separate ways.
Please give us safety as we drive to Spokane, Lord,
and bless everyone who's in this church
as they go their separate ways tonight.
In Jesus' name, we pray, amen.
Amen.
Let's go.
All right, everyone.
If you would, please grab your hymnals
and turn to song number 205.
He keeps me singing song number 205.
On the first, there's within my heart a melody,
Jesus whispers sweet and bold,
Fear not, I am with thee, peace be still,
In all of life's heft and flow,
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, sweetest name I know,
Fills my every longing, keeps me singing as I go.
On the second, all my life was wrecked by sin and strife,
This Lord filled my heart with pain,
Jesus swept across the broken strings,
Stood the slumbering cords again,
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, sweetest name I know,
Fills my every longing, keeps me singing as I go.
On the third, feasting on the rich and the poor,
Fishes of his grace, resting neath the sheltering wing,
Always looking on his smiling face,
That is why I shout and sing,
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, sweetest name I know,
Fills my every longing, keeps me singing as I go.
On the fourth, though sometimes he leads
through waters deep, trials fall across the way,
Though sometimes the path seems rough and steep,
See his footprints all the way,
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, sweetest name I know,
Fills my every longing, keeps me singing as I go.
On the last, soon he's coming back to welcome me,
Far beyond the starry sky,
I shall wing my flight to worlds unknown,
I shall reign with him on high, sing it out,
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, sweetest name I know,
Fills my every longing, keeps me singing as I go.
All right, everyone, let's dismiss ourselves
in a word of prayer.
Dear Lord, thank you for this time we had
to hear your word be preached.
As we please bless the fellowship after the service
and everyone's travels,
in Jesus' name we pray, amen.