Man, on Wednesday night, I preached on the book of 2 John, and I didn't quite get to
the end of it, so I want to finish that up tonight, and I want to lead directly into
the book of 3 John, because these two books, they really go together.
They're kind of a little couplet.
It's almost as if John sat down and wrote both of these books in the same sitting.
Now, obviously, we know that all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and that holy
men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, but these two books are letters
that are written to two different people, and it's interesting how they go so well together,
especially the part of 2 John that I didn't get to cover last time, so I'm going to cover
that part of 2 John, and then that'll take us right into 3 John, and what we're going
to learn tonight is about the right kind of separation versus the wrong kind of separation.
The right motives for separation and the wrong motives for separation.
Now look at the book of 2 John, first of all, and we talked about this last week, and we
left off on Wednesday night with verse 9, whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in
the doctrine of Christ hath not God.
He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son, and we
talked about how people can cross a line where they go into heresy to the point where
they've transgressed.
They don't even abide in the doctrine of Christ anymore.
This would be things like denying the deity of Christ or denying the Trinity or teaching
a workspace salvation that doesn't acknowledge the fact that Christ did everything on the
cross and his death, burial, and resurrection is enough to get us into heaven.
This person who transgresses and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, this would be someone
who's gone into damnable heresy.
We're talking about issues that affect salvation, not just secondary issues of doctrine where
people may disagree, but the doctrine of Christ is the most critical doctrine.
And the Bible says in verse 10, if there come any unto you and bring not this doctrine.
Now what's the this doctrine?
It's that doctrine of Christ.
The one that's absolutely essential that if you don't have this basic doctrine about
who Christ is and what he did for us and how he saves us, if somebody comes to you and
they don't bring that correct salvation, that correct Jesus Christ doctrine, it says receive
him not into your house, neither bid him God speed, for he that biddeth him God speed is
partaker of his evil deeds.
So the Bible's telling us don't even bless that person.
Don't even say God speed to them if they come to you bringing a false gospel.
Second Corinthians chapter 11, you don't have to turn there, but it warns us about three
things.
It warns us about another gospel.
It warns us about another Jesus, and it warns us about another spirit.
These are three things that we must reject.
Now let me give you just a practical example of this.
The Mormons come and knock on your door.
They're not bringing this doctrine.
They're not bringing the Jesus of the Bible.
They're bringing another Jesus.
They're bringing a Jesus that is Lucifer's.
They're bringing a Jesus that is just one of many gods that populate many different
planets, and they're not bringing salvation by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus.
They have a Jesus that they worship, but it's not our Jesus.
It's not the biblical Jesus.
It's another Jesus.
So if they come to you, you should not receive them into your house.
Even if your goal is to evangelize, even if your goal is, well, I'm going to turn the
tables and get them, we ought to obey the Bible when it says don't receive them into
your house.
I remember one time I was a teenager, and I didn't know the scripture.
I hadn't read my Bible cover to cover like I should have, and as a teenager, the Mormons
came and knocked upon my door.
And I said, come on in.
And I sat them down in my living room, you know, and I began to debate with them or argue
with them and try to show them the Gospel of Jesus Christ from the Bible, and in the
midst of this, my dad got home.
And when my dad got home, he immediately cast out the Mormons, no questions asked, and he
opened the Bible and he showed me this, and he said, you were wrong to let them in, even
if you're giving them the Gospel, because the Bible says no.
The Bible said, do not receive them into your house, and do not bid them Godspeed.
And so I said, yeah, you're right.
And I was glad that my dad corrected me on that, that I should not bring them into the
house.
You say, well, don't you want to get Mormons saved?
Well, look, we go out and get Mormons saved because we go out and we knock on every door
and we bring the Gospel to them.
But there's a big difference between us going to them and bringing them the Gospel and them
coming to us and not bringing this doctrine.
Because if they come to us and they're not bringing this doctrine, we need to just reject
them and not receive them into our house and not bid them Godspeed.
I would not even say to them, have a good day.
God bless you.
Hey, I hope you have a great evening.
I say, get out.
They're wicked.
If any man preach any other Gospel than that which Paul had preached unto us, that which
Christ preached unto us, that which the apostles preached unto us, let him be accursed, the
Bible says.
And then just in case you didn't get it, he says in the next verse, as I said before,
so say I also now again.
If any man preach any other Gospel than that which we have preached unto you, let him be
accursed.
Now, I will say this.
I don't think it's wrong at all to be friendly, polite, blessed and say Godspeed to people
of false religions that are just people of that religion.
So look, if I go to somebody's door and I knock on their door and they're a Mormon and
I ask if I can present the Gospel to them and I try to get them saved and they say no
thanks, I don't have time, I still might tell that person, hey, have a great day.
Why?
That's not a person coming to me bringing a false Jesus and a false Gospel.
If I run into unsaved people of any religion, I would still just by default be in blessing
mode.
Right?
I mean by default, we should be nice to people.
By default, we should bless men and be kind unto them and be polite and to salute all
men that we run into, right?
And give them a salutation and bless them in the name of the Lord.
But when they're coming to you for the express purpose of what?
Bringing doctrine other than this.
Bringing another Jesus, another spirit and another Gospel.
That's where you don't want to bless that.
You don't want to have anything to do with that.
You don't want to bid them Godspeed at all.
And so we need to be careful that we don't allow this stuff to come into our home and
that we don't help them along the way.
I wouldn't give them a glass of water while they're out evangelizing the devil's Gospel.
Now in any other situation I would, but not if they're coming bringing lies and heresy.
It's a very serious thing to go out and preach a false Gospel.
Hell is a real place.
And people are going to hell because of Joseph Smith.
Because of Brigham Young.
Because of Mormon missionaries who are going out there and doing it.
And you know what?
These guys, even if they're sincere, these 17 year old elders, even if they're sincere,
even if they think what they're doing is right, you know what they're doing?
They are bringing a major curse upon themselves.
I mean they are just treasuring up unto themselves wrath against the day of wrath.
Whether they know it or not.
Apostle Paul, he unknowingly, ignorantly, persecuted the Church of God at one point
and preached false doctrine.
And you know what?
He spent the rest of his life suffering for it, I believe.
Because if you notice that even right the day that the Apostle Paul got saved, God's
already telling Ananias, I'm going to show him what things he must suffer for my sake.
I mean God already had a lot of suffering planned for him.
Why?
Because he had incurred the wrath of God on his life.
But thankfully because he did it ignorantly and unbelief, God showed mercy on him.
He was saved and he ended up becoming a wonderful Christian and a great preacher and a great
missionary.
So we would love nothing more than to win the Mormons unto Christ.
Even the Mormon missionaries, we would love to win them unto Christ.
But let me tell you something, they are under the wrath of God big time.
And we don't want to be seen as helping them in any way, shape or form.
Because what does the Bible say we're doing?
If we receive them into our house, if we bid them Godspeed, we are a partaker of their
evil deeds at that point.
But you know it's not just the Mormons, the Jehovah's false witnesses.
If they come to the door and you bring them in and you feed them and water them and listen
to them, no.
There's no blessing for them.
It's a curse upon those who preach a false gospel.
So that's the literal, just flat out interpretation of what we're seeing here in verses 9-11.
We see just the literal, do not bless them, they're bringing a false gospel.
But also we can think about the biblical principle of separation in general throughout the Bible.
That tells us to separate from false teachers.
We don't want to be partaking with their evil deeds.
You see if you're helping a wicked false teacher, that makes you a partaker of his evil deeds.
And there are other wicked false teachers, it's not just the Mormons and Jehovah's witnesses.
Even that call themselves Baptists.
I mean think about the damnable heresy that has come out of Sam Gipps mouth.
Where he attacked the very name of Jesus itself.
And the things he said didn't even make sense, they were so bizarre, but it was so demonic
and he said it repeatedly.
There are three different sermons where he said the same thing, where he attacked the
very name of Jesus itself.
And it was just super blasphemous, super wicked.
And he's taught all kinds of other damnable heresies.
And he even said that Jesus is not his messiah, it was just so weird the stuff that he says.
And you show pastors evidence of this stuff and they still have him come preach.
Now let me tell you something.
Anybody who has him come preach is a partaker of his evil deeds.
You know when you have a guy who's just well known for blaspheming the name of Jesus and
teaching all kinds of lies and damnable heresy and you say, oh well I'm just having him come
in and preach about the King James though.
You know he's not covering his zombie apocalypse doctrine this time.
He's not covering his hyper dispensational multiple gospels and multiple methods of salvation.
He's not covering how Joseph and Mary supposedly named Jesus the wrong name and disobeyed the
angel.
And he's not covering how Jesus isn't his messiah this time or you know whatever weirdo
false doctrine and damnable heresy of Sam.
You know it doesn't matter if he's coming in and preaching only on Genesis 1-1.
Why are you bidding him Godspeed?
Why are you bringing him into your house?
Why are you bringing him into God's house?
If you bid him Godspeed, you are a partaker of his evil deeds.
And any church that brings him in ought to be condemned with him.
I mean look if we brought in some horrible false prophet to come preach here, then you
know what?
That would make us wicked because now we're partaking in his evil deeds if we know it.
Now obviously there are people who creep in as a Judas and we think that they're one of
us and in the integrity of our heart we bring them in.
But I mean when somebody brings something that is contrary to the very doctrines of
Christ, even the salvation doctrines, even the doctrines of just who Jesus even is and
what his name is, we don't want to be a partaker of that evil deed.
That's what 2 John is teaching here.
Now let's flip over to 3 John because this kind of goes hand in hand with what 3 John
teaches.
Now there are other verses on separation.
It's not just the book of 2 John.
There's also of course the famous passage in 2 Corinthians chapter 6 where it says,
Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
In fact, keep your finger in 3 John, let's turn there to make sure that I don't quote
it incorrectly here.
2 Corinthians chapter 6 says in verse 14, Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers,
for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?
And what communion hath light with darkness?
And what concord hath Christ with Belial, or the devil is who that is?
Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?
And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?
For ye are the temple of the living God, as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk
in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not
the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and will be a father unto you, and ye shall
be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.
So the Bible here tells us that we need to be separated from unsaved, false teachers,
false prophets, the works of Belial, and also from idolatry itself, and false gods, and
graven images, and things like that.
We need to come out from among them and be separate, the Bible tells us.
So when people are teaching a false gospel, or people are teaching damnable heresy, then
we've got to separate from them.
But even sometimes we have to separate from other believers.
Go if you would to 1 Corinthians chapter 5, and while you're turning to 1 Corinthians
5, I'm going to read for you from 2 Thessalonians chapter 3, where the Bible says, in 2 Thessalonians
chapter 3, now we command you brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you
would draw yourself from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition
which he received of us.
So the Bible's telling us in 2 Thessalonians 3, that there are even times where we have
to withdraw ourselves from brethren, even those who are saved, because they're walking
disorderly, and not after the tradition which we received of the apostles.
The immediate context here of what that walking disorderly is, is people that are refusing
to work.
They're not working at all, they're busybodies, and that's the context here.
And it says, them that are such, we're to exhort them, that with quietness they work
and eat their own bread.
But also, in 1 Corinthians 5, there's another list of people that even are brothers, that
we may need to separate from.
The Bible says, in 1 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 9, I wrote unto you in an epistle not
to company with fornicators, yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with
the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters, for then must ye needs go out of the world.
But now I've written unto you not to keep company if any man that is called a brother,
be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner,
with such and one, know not to eat.
For what have I to do to judge them also that are without?
Do not ye judge them that are within, but them that are without, God judge it, therefore
put away from among yourselves that wicked person.
So the Bible says if somebody's called a brother, and they're a fornicator, if they're a railer,
a drunkard, an extortioner, an idolater, these things that are listed, he's saying with such
and one, know not to eat, put away from among yourselves that wicked person.
So there's a lot of scripture in the New Testament about being separated from certain people,
people who preach a false gospel, people who preach damnable heresy, and Christians who
participate in very serious sins like fornication, drunkenness, and idolatry.
Now, unsaved Joe Blow, who's not actively teaching a false gospel, you know, we could
still be civil to that person and spend a little bit of time with that person.
Obviously, it shouldn't be your best buddy.
Our best buddies should be those that are saved.
But you could have acquaintances and people that you're kind to and spend some time with
and eat a meal with that are of a false religion if they're not one that is promoting and evangelizing
that false religion.
If they're not a false teacher, but rather just one who's been duped by that false religion.
And there's a big difference between those two things.
And also, in order for you to spend any time with unsaved people, you know, a lot of them
are going to be fornicators, drunks, and God's saying, hey, if you were to separate from
all fornicators and drunkards and covetous people of this world, you'd pretty much have
to go out of the world.
You know, you'd have to leave the planet at that point.
Because that's what the world's like.
But what he's saying is, no, it's if they're called a brother and they do those things.
So if they either truly are saved or if they're calling themselves a Christian and living
that wicked lifestyle, that's the danger right there, okay?
So the Bible talks about legitimate separation.
That's the right kind of separation when I say, hey, I better stay away from that person
because I don't want them to corrupt me.
Or I better not bid this false teacher Godspeed.
I better not receive this false prophet because I don't want to be a partaker of his evil
deeds.
That's the right kind of separation and it has the right motive.
What's the right motive?
The right motive is obeying God.
God told us to be separate.
Let's do it.
That's a good motive right there.
Now let's go to 3 John and we're going to see the flip side in the book of 3 John.
3 John is going to talk about people that we should receive.
People that we should help.
People that we should bless.
People that we should bid Godspeed.
And why certain people would actually separate from good people for the wrong reasons.
Look what the Bible says in 3 John, verse 1, the elder unto the well beloved Gaius
whom I love in the truth.
Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health even as thy
soul prospereth.
For I rejoiced greatly when the brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee
even as thou walkest in the truth.
I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.
Beloved, thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest to the brethren and the strangers
which have borne witness of thy charity before the church whom if thou bring forward on their
journey after a godly sort, thou shalt do well because that for his name's sake they
went forth taking nothing of the Gentiles.
We therefore ought to receive such that we might be fellow helpers to the truth.
So what did it say in 2 John?
It says, hey, if you help these people out, if you receive them into your home, these
false prophets, if you bid them godspeed, you're going to be what?
Partaker of their evil deeds.
Well in this scripture it says, hey, these good servants of God, these ones who are actually
serving the Lord, he says we ought to receive such so that we can be fellow helpers of the
truth.
So what the Bible is saying is that we can either be partaker of someone's evil deeds
or we can actually partake in someone's good deeds.
Now keep your finger here, go to Matthew chapter 10.
Just as we want to be careful not to partake in the evil deeds of a false prophet, we can
actually be a partaker and a fellow helper of a good prophet and actually be a fellow
helper, receive a reward, be blessed with them.
So we can be cursed with Sam Gipp and those and be cursed with the Mormons, be cursed
with the Jehovah's Witnesses if we help them, or we can be blessed with faithful soul winning
Christians and Bible believing Baptists that we help, we can be blessed with them and be
a fellow helper to the truth.
Look down at your Bible in Matthew chapter 10 verse 40.
This is what Jesus told his disciples, he that receiveth you receiveth me and he that
receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.
He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward.
Do you see that?
The Bible says that if we receive a prophet in the name of a prophet, we receive a prophet's
reward.
Well hey, that can either be good or bad.
You receive some false prophet, you don't want to get his reward, you don't want to
get his curse, you don't want to be a partaker of those evil deeds.
But you know what, when you receive a righteous prophet in the name of a righteous prophet,
he said you'll receive his reward.
You'll basically be considered his fellow laborer a partaker with him and you'll be
blessed with him.
So he says, he that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's
reward.
And look, we're not just talking about preachers.
Because there are other servants of God that aren't just pastors or preachers who get up
in front of crowds, but how about just any soul winning Christian?
Any servant of God in any capacity.
Because then it just says he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous
man shall receive a righteous man's reward.
So what's the Bible saying here?
The Bible is saying that if you have done it unto one of the least of Christ's brethren,
you've done it unto him.
And that's why he said, he that receiveth you receiveth me.
He that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.
Verse 42, and whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold
water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his
reward.
Even just feeding and giving to drink and taking care of and blessing righteous men
and righteous prophets and just righteous Christians in general, even of the least of
them, even of a little child or a man, woman, boy or girl, the Bible says you could be rewarded
for blessing the right people.
So what's the Bible saying?
Go back to 3 John if you would.
The Bible is not telling us, hey, just bless everybody just to be safe.
Just give everybody a blessing.
Just invite everybody into your house.
Just give everybody a cup of cold water.
Just tell everybody Godspeed.
Good God, good sin and cold hell and everything's fine.
No, the Bible's telling us here, you know, we better be discerning and understand, look,
if somebody's preaching a false gospel, another Jesus, another gospel, another spirit, we
don't want anything to do with that person.
If somebody falls into a category of people God said, hey, you need to put those people
away from you.
We need to follow that.
We don't want to have any part in that condemnation.
We don't want to be lumped in with that person.
But at the same time, we want to make sure that when people are doing right and when
people are preaching the right gospel and when people are serving the Lord, we want
to receive such, why?
So that we can be fellow helpers to the truth.
What does it say in verse number 8?
We therefore ought to receive such that we might be fellow helpers to the truth.
Now what is the Bible saying in verse 7?
It says, because for his name's sake they went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles.
We therefore ought to receive such that we might be fellow helpers to the truth.
He's basically saying these people, they're not getting any outside financial support
outside the people of God.
They're not funded by the government.
They're not funded by some charitable organization or something like that.
So you know, we should help these people out, he's saying, because of the fact that they
could use some help and we want to be fellow helpers to the truth.
But you know what?
They better be preaching the truth.
You know, I don't want to just give to charity indiscriminately or just give to whatever
the Christian organization or to whatever the missions program.
You know, if I give unto missions or if I give unto charity or if I give unto a ministry
or a preacher or a church, you know, I want to make sure it's the truth.
Because you want to be a fellow helper to the truth.
You don't want to be a fellow helper of something that's quasi-Christian or someone who's quasi-Christian.
Well, we better make sure that they actually have the doctrines of Christ.
We better make sure that they actually are walking in truth.
And that's why the word truth came up how many times in 2 John and 3 John.
It's just almost every breath the word truth keeps coming out because we better figure
out what the truth is by reading God's word and that's going to help us figure out who
is of the truth and who is of the devil.
And so that's what the Bible's teaching here.
We therefore ought to receive such that we might be fellow helpers to the truth.
So it's pretty simple, right?
Help the people that are saved and that love the Lord.
Help them get their message of the gospel out.
Those who are preaching another gospel, we better be careful not to help them at all,
not to participate with them at all, and to be separated from such.
But look at verse 9.
Now we're going to get the bad example of somebody separating for the wrong reason.
And they're separating from the wrong person because they're separating from the Apostle
John.
Now, when you're separating from the Apostle John, you're too separated.
And you're separating from the wrong reason because the Apostle John, known as the disciple
whom Jesus loved, this is a great man of God.
This is a man who's preaching the truth.
He's preaching the gospel.
There's no question about that.
We can look back 1900 years later and we don't wonder about it.
We know that this guy was right on.
He says, I wrote unto the church, but diatrophes who loveth to have the preeminence among them
receiveth us not.
So in verse 8, he used the word, we therefore ought to receive such that we might be fellow
helpers to the truth.
And then in verse 9, he talks about somebody who's refusing to receive him.
He says, I wrote unto the church, but diatrophes who loveth to have the preeminence among them
receiveth us not.
Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with
malicious words, and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren,
and forbideth them that would, and casteth them out of the church.
Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good.
He that doeth good is of God, but he that doeth evil hath not seen God.
Then he gives a good example about a man named Demetrius.
But let's stop and focus on this right here.
This is pretty interesting.
He says that this diatrophes doesn't receive them and he tells us why, because he loveth
to have the preeminence among them.
So his motive is not a right motive.
It's not a motive of, I want to be obedient to the Lord here and be separated from false
teachers.
His motive is not one of, oh man, I don't want to be a partaker of some wicked false
prophets, evil deeds.
No.
His motive is his own pride and lifting himself up.
And I think that the sin here that we would point to is the sin of envy.
He's looking at John and he envies John's power, his accomplishments, his works, his
preaching.
He wants to be a big shot.
He doesn't want John to come in and steal the show.
He doesn't want people to think that John, now here's the thing, Christ is the one who
steals the show.
Amen.
He's the one that we all worship.
We weren't baptized in the name of John or diatrophes.
It's all about Jesus.
And you know what?
John wasn't trying to take anything away from Jesus though, was he?
But diatrophes, he has a pride problem.
So he feels like it's a contest between him and John, which it's not.
Everybody should all be serving the Lord for Christ's glory, not for their own vain glory,
envying one another and provoking one another.
So the motive is wrong because what's the motive?
It's his own preeminence.
So the sin of envy is present and pride in the heart of diatrophes.
So he has to have an excuse though for why he's separating from John, right?
I mean, he has to give a reason.
So what does he do?
It says he prates against them with malicious words.
So the real motive is his own preeminence is in jeopardy.
And the method that he uses is prating against them with malicious words.
Now what does prating mean?
Prating is similar to the word prattle, okay?
And sometimes when we talk about a baby or a toddler talking or making noises, we say
they're prattling, right?
You heard that term?
Who's familiar with that term?
It's not that common of a term apparently because I only see about nine hands up.
But anyway, so prating is just babbling.
It's when you're kind of talking nonsense.
You're saying things that don't really make sense.
So instead of diatrophes being able to get up and say, listen, we need to separate from
the apostle John because he's living in fornication.
If he said that, that makes sense.
That's not prating.
I mean, he'd say, look, everybody, turn to 1 Corinthians 5, okay, it says right here
that if any man that's called a brother is into fornication, that's why we got to separate
from John.
Well, guess what?
John wasn't in fornication.
Or, all right, everybody, John is selling carved images of the Virgin Mary, you know,
he's into idolatry, we better separate from this guy.
See, he didn't have anything concrete that he could even point to and say, okay, this
is the biblical reason why we need to separate from John.
Here's the list.
It says drunkards and John's drunk, therefore, we need to separate from.
Is that what's happening in the story?
No.
He's maliciously talking bad about John, but it's a lot of just babble, just prating against
him with malicious words.
He can't point to the doctrine of Christ that John's wrong on.
He can't point to it and say, well, you know, here's where John is denying the deity of
Christ.
Here's where John has rejected the Trinity or here's where John is teaching that, you
know, Christ's atonement is not sufficient or whatever.
You know, he couldn't point to any damnable heresy.
He couldn't point to any salvation issue.
He couldn't point to any lifestyle issues such as drunkenness, fornication or covetousness.
No, no, no, he's just separating from him because of the fact that he feels threatened
by him.
Does everybody see that in the scripture here?
He says, Diatrophes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them receiveth us not, wherefore
if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us, again, that's
the babble nonsense talk, with malicious words and not content therewith, neither did he
himself receive the brethren and forbideth them that would and casteth them out of the
church.
So it's not just John that's being rejected here.
It's actually all these other brethren, too, that have anything to do with John.
He says they'll be cast out of the church.
And he says, hey, beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good.
And then he makes an important statement at the end of verse 11, which is kind of a theme
of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, when he says, he that doeth good is of God, but he that doeth
evil hath not seen God.
What's he saying?
When you look to the preachers and the missionaries and the pastors, you look on their fruit.
You say, which ones of God?
What's the fruit?
Check the fruit.
The tree is known by his fruit.
Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are
ravening wolves.
You shall know them by their fruit.
And that's what John's teaching here.
He's saying, look, you look at their works.
You look at their deeds.
And then look, where people will twist this is they say, well, if you want to know if
Joe Blow is saved, look at his works.
That's not how we tell if people are saved.
But that's how we tell if a preacher is saved.
Because if we look at a preacher or a prophet and we see them producing all this corrupt
fruit and all this bad fruit, what does that say about them?
And then you see another preacher and he's putting forth all kinds of good fruit, what
does that say about him?
You know, a great example of this is Peter Ruckman.
You know, a lot of people think that Peter Ruckman is a great man of God.
Well, you know what, why is it that in 2018 everyone who is a fan of Peter Ruckman and
loves Peter Ruckman isn't saved?
You know what I mean?
What does that say about that man when all of his followers are a bunch of damnable heretics?
That doesn't bode well for him.
And then on the other side of that coin, you know, a lot of people have a lot of bad things
to say about Dr. Jack Hyles.
And look, I'm not saying that Jack Hyles is my hero or that I'm patterning my ministry
after Jack Hyles.
I'm not saying he was right about everything.
You know, I could point to a lot of mistakes that he made and things that he clearly did
wrong.
But I'll tell you this much right now, all over America there are pastors and churches
and people that are the product of Brother Hyles' ministry that's a good fruit.
And in many cases, even today in 2018, the best church in any given area is often a Hyles
Anderson graduate.
Whatever you do or don't like about that church, it's true that in a lot of areas, a Hyles
Anderson graduate is often the best option and the most soul winning church.
And I have personally in my own family and in my own just experiences growing up independent
of the fundamental Baptist have seen a ton of good fruit out of that ministry.
So how can you sit there and say, oh, he's just a wicked false prophet.
Well, you know, he sure bore a lot of good fruit for being such a false prophet because
I have personally friends and people that I've known who said, I got saved at First
Baptist Church of Hammond.
Tons of people.
I run into people like that all the time.
Or the pastors and preachers that he trained that have done great works for God.
Does that mean that everybody who came out of Hyles Anderson is good?
No, because obviously there are always going to be false prophets among us.
There are always going to be Judases.
I mean, look, there are people that come out of Faithful Word Baptist Church that are wicked.
There are people that come out of every church that are wicked.
But look at all the good fruit that we have to show for Brother Hyles.
So why would I listen to everybody tell me how bad he is when he was doctrinally sound?
You can't point to where he deviated from the doctrine of Christ at all.
He was sound on the Trinity.
He was sound on the Gospel, sound on the fundamentals of the faith, and produced a ton of fruit
through soul winning.
He coined the phrase the Romans wrote.
Came up with that term, okay?
I mean, he did a lot and ignited a huge soul winning movement.
Now, I'm not saying I endorse everything about him, but I am saying that he's in heaven right
now based on a fruit inspection.
Okay?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you could point to bad people in that ministry and bad people that came
out of it.
Yeah, that's because there are always going to be tears amongst the wheat.
That's life.
I guarantee you that there are people sitting in this room right now that are as wicked
as hell, Judas Iscariots right here, right now, because it's always like that.
And we don't know who they are right now, but a few years from now we'll understand.
That doesn't mean we're going to go on a witch hunt and try to figure out who they are, because
there's no point, you know.
Time will tell.
They went out from us because they were not of us.
For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us, but they went
out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.
And so, yeah, some people are going to swerve into extreme heresies and preach lies and
will say, okay, yeah, that person was a Judas or whatever.
But we need to understand that the tree is known by his fruit, and that's what John's
talking about.
But here's what's interesting about that.
The good tree that brings forth a lot of good fruit, you know what he does?
He's going to provoke the envy of the people who are doing nothing.
Think about this now.
I mean, if you've got one church that's getting a ton of people saved and they're accomplishing
a lot of great work for the Lord, and then you have another church that's dead as a doornail
and doing nothing, how do you, you know, that dead church, how do you think that makes them
feel?
Do you think that makes them feel good to just be in a dead church and to see that they're
doing nothing and that this other church is doing a lot of great works?
You know, somebody walked up to me in Jacksonville, Florida, and they showed me a handout from
their home church, or it was handed to them by someone who went to that church, the guy
who handed it to me.
It was not his church, but it was a guy that was there.
And there was a piece of paper, and it had all their stats.
It was from a business meeting for the year of 2017.
So it had all their offering totals, attendances, record attendances, average attendances, and
the souls saved, okay?
So this church, their record attendance was like 390 people, and I think that they ran
around 300 normally.
So it was a church that was pretty similar in size to ours, okay?
They had a budget that was quite a bit smaller than ours, but they had 250-some thousand
dollars come in for the year, you know, 250-some thousand that came in and 250-some thousand
that they spent, right?
Everybody getting the picture?
You got a church, 300-some people in it, they had a big high day of 390, quarter million
dollars in offerings coming in, right, which is about right for that size church, right?
How many souls saved for the year?
Three.
That's what it said on it, three.
Three salvations for the year.
Said salvations, three.
So, I mean, you got to give them credit for the fact that they baptized 100 percent of
their converts, you know, assuming it was the same three people, which it may or may
not have been the same three people.
Chances are it was probably three children who grew up in the church and finally got
old enough to understand the Gospel, received Christ as Savior, and got baptized.
That's probably what happened.
Because if you got a church with almost 400 people in it, some child is going to get saved
and get baptized, that would explain it, wouldn't it?
So I mean, that's, talk about a church that's not reaching anybody, that's just not doing
any soul winning whatsoever, totally dead.
And I was thinking, like, that's like $80,000 of salvation.
You know, I figured it out one time, you know, we get people saved for well under 100 bucks
per salvation.
Way less than that.
And I know that's a silly way of looking at it, but the point is that, you know, actually
it's not a silly way of looking at it if you think about it, because, you know, if you,
I don't know, I don't know about you, but whenever I was putting my money in the offering
plate growing up, I always assumed, like, this is going toward the work of God.
This is toward getting somebody saved.
This is toward reaching people with the Gospel.
This is furthering the work of Christ.
I'm a fellow helper to the truth!
But let me ask you this, were those people who put in that 250 grand, were they really
fellow helpers to the truth?
I mean, look, three people getting saved in a year, I mean, that's like, that's like on
a day when we have the least soul winning going on, we might have three people saved
on that day.
But that's, you think that that church is unique?
It's not unique.
I sat in churches like that when I was growing up where they just would go a whole year without
any salvation.
Because if you don't go out and make a point to go out and get people saved and knock doors
and spend hours out there knocking doors, it's not just gonna happen by osmosis, right?
And obviously that's an extreme example and there could be others that fall somewhere
between a soul winning church like ours and a totally dead church that only has three
salvations for the whole year that was probably just getting some of their own children saved.
You know, thank God at least they did that.
But can you see how a church like that could look at another church across town that's
got a red hot soul winning ministry and they're winning people to the Lord and they're baptizing
people every Sunday?
You could see how they'd look at them and have one of two reactions.
They would either have a righteous reaction that says, wow, we are lame.
We are failing.
We have messed up.
We need to get on that program and we need to start reaching our side of town the way
that they're reaching their side of town.
Isn't that the right reaction?
I mean if we saw some other church that's just tearing it up and we're just dead and
not doing anything, that should be the right reaction.
But there's a wicked reaction that's a lot more common that tries to pick apart and find
fault with what they're doing.
Well, you know, yeah, I know they only, you know, I know they had 10,000 people saved,
but I mean do we really know that all those people got saved?
Because we know that the three kids that we got saved, we know they're saved because they
live with us.
They're all the pastor's kids or whatever, you know.
You see how human nature though, you know, the sinful human nature doesn't want to admit,
hey, we're lazy.
We're failing.
We need to fix something.
Now look, why don't they just repent?
Why don't they just say, man, we need to fix things.
We need to work hard.
Let's take lessons from that other church across town and let's get something done.
You know, that's what they ought to do.
But here's the thing, if they're lazy and they don't want to work, that's not an option
for them.
They're like that guy in Luke 16 that says, I cannot dig.
You know what I mean?
They just don't want to do the work.
So they're embarrassed.
They have egg on their face, so they have to find a way to keep those 390 people coming
and they got to find a way to keep that $250,000 coming in, so they better have some kind of
an answer for why they only had three people saved, right?
Or else people are going to stop putting their money in and stop showing up.
So it's like, well, you know, we're living in the Laodicean church age and, you know,
you just can't do any great work for God right now.
And then they just keep preaching on Noah and how, you know, Noah preached for 120 years
and nobody listened and, you know, and that's kind of how we are, you know, our church has
been around for 120 years and still nobody listens to us and, you know, but that means
we're Noah, you know?
So that's the kind of doctrine they're going to come up with to justify what?
Their own failure.
That's the wrong kind of separation where they say, well, we can't have any fellowship
with that other church.
Really, they don't want to fellowship with that church, they don't want people to see
what's going on down there because they're going to move their membership over there
once they figure out that something's happening down there.
And that's the wrong kind of separation, a diatrophes type of separation.
And they're always going to come up with something.
And you know what?
People hate our church and it's not just the Gaethius and Phagnostics that hate our
church.
Even many of our own brothers and sisters in Christ hate us, which is, that's what's
sad.
You know, even a lot of independent fundamental Baptists, they hate us, but you know what?
They can never point to what our damnable heresy is.
We can never point to what our crime is, our major issue that they have to separate
from us, but they just know they have to separate from us.
You know why?
Because they don't want to preach hard and get persecuted.
So then, they have to find a way to explain away why someone else is preaching hard and
getting persecuted and they're not.
They have to explain away why somebody over here is getting a whole bunch of people saved,
why this church is having two-thirds of their people out soul winning, Faithful Word Baptist
Church, two-thirds participation in soul winning on a weekly basis, why they have nobody out
soul winning.
You know, they have to find a way to explain that somehow.
So they have to say, well, Faithful Word's bad, right?
Pastor Anderson's bad.
Garrett Cursway's bad.
You know, or whatever.
They have to find some way to tell us why, you know, oh well, but you know, Pastor Jimenez
is just bad.
That's why.
That's why we won't support him when there's 600 sodomites surrounding his church screaming
and chanting.
We can't support him though because, well, what's wrong with him?
How is he a heretic?
What did he, what did he, what damnable heresy does he preach?
We're all, we're all preaching the same gospel of salvation by faith alone.
So what's the issue?
That's where they begin to prate with malicious words.
Let me just give you an example of this.
This is kind of a funny example, but there's this guy named David Cloud, okay?
And this guy is a failed missionary who, his claim to fame is that he is one of the first
people to start an independent fundamental Baptist website.
So back in the real early days of the internet, he kind of had the only independent Baptist
website.
It was kind of the only game in town, okay?
So this failure of a person, this non-soul winning failure that just talks about how
soul winning, you know, soul winning doesn't work for him, therefore it must just not work.
Well, step one to being a great soul winner, get saved yourself.
You know, but David Cloud preaches a false gospel that's repent of your sins, turn over
a new leaf gospel.
And so he's always attacked real soul winning, whether it was the soul winning of Jack Hiles
and that type and the old IFB or whether it's the soul winning of Faith Ward Baptist Church
or anybody else.
He's always been an enemy of soul winning because he's a loser, okay?
So he is one that doesn't want to admit that real soul winning goes on and that people
actually get saved because he loves to hang around with a bunch of dead churches and a
bunch of failures.
But anyway, he wrote a whole book about yours truly.
It's like a 300 page book or something.
I don't know how many pages it is, but it's a few hundred pages.
It's a pretty long book.
It's called What About Steven Anderson?
And this, so this guy David Cloud, he's got, I mean, his website's a huge website.
I think it's, I mean, I don't know if it's as popular as it used to be now that there's
other options, but he wrote a whole book about yours truly called What About Steven
Anderson?
And I didn't read the whole book, but in fact, I read very little of the book.
But there's one page of the book that was just hilarious to me, okay?
Because I read the table of contents and I, you know, okay, you know, they're against
us because we're wrong on the Jews and we're wrong on the tribulation and we're wrong on
the repentance, you know, just the typical stuff you'd expect them to bring out.
But this one little chapter heading, and I noticed this chapter's only one page long.
It kind of just jumped out at me.
It was called The Fruit of Andersonism.
The Fruit of Andersonism.
And I was really interested to read what was on that page.
That's pretty much the only part of the book that I read was this one page.
And it said, The Fruit of Andersonism, and I was thinking to myself, what could he possibly
put on that page?
Because you know, what is this fruit, this bad fruit of my ministry?
Because if you're going to write a whole book attacking someone, if you're going to write
300 pages attacking someone or however many pages the book is, if you're just going to
declare someone this dangerous heretic, I mean, you're going to have to point to some
kind of a bad fruit or some kind of a reason that, hey, this guy is preaching damnable
heresy or this.
You know, it can't just be your view on Israel or your interpretation of Bible prophecy.
So I'm like, what is he going to put as the bad fruit of Andersonism?
I'm just going to read you the whole page because it's not very long.
And you tell me if this is prating with malicious words.
I'm going to read you the whole page here, page 7 of the book.
The Fruit of Andersonism.
The error that Stephen Anderson is spreading via his ministry is no light matter.
And then he has these bullet points.
It will rob you of the blessed hope.
So this is the list of all the really scary things about listening to Stephen Anderson.
You know, you know what's going to happen to you?
You're going to be robbed of your blessed hope.
So basically, all these people in all these independent Baptist churches, they all are
just so happy and so hopeful, and they're just looking forward to the second coming
of Christ.
And then Pastor Anderson just comes in and just reigns on their parade with doom and
gloom.
Sorry, buddy, not so fast.
You're sticking around here for the tribulation first.
You thought you were just going to beam me up, Scotty, before anything happens.
Guess what?
You're staying a little longer than you thought, buddy.
So I guess what he's accusing me of is over-preparing people.
Because think about it.
What if we're wrong about the tribulation, and all of a sudden the pre-tribulation rapture
happened?
That would just be a pleasant surprise.
Which, by the way, the chances of that are zero.
That's not a maybe, so don't get your hopes up.
It's a zero.
Okay, what if they're wrong?
If they're wrong, then they have basically failed to prepare for the hardest time that
anyone has ever faced, and it's going to catch them totally off guard and totally throw them
for a loop.
Think about that.
I heard one pre-trib preacher say, just rack up the credit cards and let the devil pay
for them, because the rapture's coming.
And he was kidding, but he said, who cares about paying off your debts and stuff?
We're going to be out of here anyway.
You know, there's a little truth in every joke there.
It's going to rob you of the blessed hope.
Say it isn't so.
I mean, this page reads like a horror movie.
So number one, it will rob you of the blessed hope.
Number two, it will take away from you the key to understanding Bible prophecy aright,
which is the consistent, normal, literal method.
So basically, here's what he's saying.
Here you are in church, Mr. Pre-tribber, and let's say this represents this purple little
notebook here.
This represents the normal, literal method of interpretation.
Okay?
Oh, it's a Kindle.
Thank you.
Okay.
You know, and basically, she's got her normal, literal method of interpretation, and she's
just all blessed, hoped up, and ready to roll, and ready to be beamed out before anything
happens, any moment, and Pastor Anderson's just like, I'm going to take that away from
you.
Now, you're not going to understand anything, but you know what's funny?
You know, what's funny about that, though, is that if you talk to anybody who's pre-trib,
they're pretty confused about Bible prophecy most of the time, and they can't explain it
to you without a lot of training.
Even these pre-trib pastors have to bring in a specialist to even explain it to their
people usually.
They have to go to the Witch of Endor, Sam Giff, and bring him in to explain it.
And the thing is, the thing that you'll hear consistently from people is that once they
figure out that they were wrong about the pre-trib rapture, it all just starts making
sense, and it all falls into place.
It will take away from you the key to understanding Bible prophecy right, which is the consistent,
normal, literal method.
Okay, that's point two.
Point three.
It will carry you into the dark forest.
It's going to carry you into the dark forest.
Look, I'm reading this.
This is what it says.
I mean, it's like, why are you writing a 300-page book against an independent, fundamental,
King James-only, soul-winning Baptist church that loves the Lord, that serves the Lord,
that reaches people, that's winning souls to Christ, that's leading a soul-winning revival
all over America and all over the world.
It's like, well, because, you know, it's robbing the blessed hope, and, you know, people don't
understand prophecy as much, and, you know, I mean, it takes you to a dark forest.
Here's what it says.
It will carry you into the dark forest of Catholic, Protestant, allegorical interpretation.
What in the world?
Sounds scary.
Okay, number four.
It will separate you from sound Bible preachers whose supposed error is to be dispensationalists.
It'll separate you from the dispees.
I mean, first of all, I don't even separate from everybody who's a dispensationalist unless
they're just a total, you know, off the deep end, hyper-dispensationalist, ruckmanite type.
But he says it'll separate you from sound Bible teachers whose supposed error is to
be dispensationalists.
Does any of this sound like a biblical reason for separation so far?
Okay, the next point.
It will unsettle your thinking about prophecy and set you on a path to confusion.
Okay.
So here's Sophia.
She's sitting in the front row.
She's settled on prophecy.
I mean, she's just got her blessed hope and she's just like, it could be right now.
She's just waiting for that trumpet to sound.
She's all settled and I'm like, all right, get up.
Get up.
Hey, would you like some candy?
All right, now here.
Come on.
I'm going to take you to a place called confusion.
Come on.
Keep going.
No, no, no.
Come on.
We're going into a dark forest.
Come on.
Oh, wait.
The tree's not here.
Yeah.
I want to take you into a dark forest of confusion.
All right.
Go ahead and have a seat.
We're more than halfway done with the page.
Let's keep going.
Next, it will yoke you together with.
It will yoke you together with, but then it has to stop and say, or at least put you in
communication with, and make you sympathetic toward heretics and nutcases, including church
fathers.
Now, look, I don't know about you, but I haven't been put in touch with any of the church fathers
because I think they all died like over a thousand years ago.
Sophia, let me put you in touch with the church fathers, all right?
You want to type this into your cell phone here?
I got a number for you to call up.
What's that guy's name that was the really, no, no, no.
What was the guy who had the really hardcore quote in marching design?
Yeah.
Here.
Let me give you a speed dial for John Chrysostome.
Sophia, I want to put you in touch with him, or at least kind of make you sympathetic toward
him.
Church fathers, haters of the rapture, and rabid anti-Jews.
Here, Sophia, let me introduce you to the KKK.
Come on, Sophia.
We're going to, here, let's go watch David Duke for a while, Sophia.
Come on.
I mean, is this stuff crazy?
And then it will carry you into a wilderness.
So once you've passed through the dark forest of allegorical interpretation, you're going
to end up in a wilderness of wild-eyed conspiracy theories.
Have you seen the video of building seven collapse, little Sophia?
Do you know who the second gunman was on the grassy knoll?
Do you?
And lastly, it will cause division in churches.
Not all division is wrong, of course, as both truth and error can cause division, but, so
why am I making this point again?
Oh, but we're talking about unholy division caused by error.
I mean, look, that's it, that's it, that's the fruit of Anderson.
It's not like, hey, it's sending people to hell, hey, he's teaching a false gospel, hey,
you know, he's denying Christ, or hey, he's teaching fornication or drunkenness, no, no,
it's just, it's just, he'll rob you of your blessed hope, he'll take away the way we interpret
the Bible, he'll take you into another interpretation that we don't have, he'll tell you that I'm
a dispensationalist, he's gonna unsettle the thinking about prophecy that we taught
you, he's gonna make you sympathetic toward people that we don't like, he's gonna get
you into conspiracy theories that we don't believe in, and he's gonna cause division
because, you know, you're gonna start believing truth.
That's it, that's the list, it's right here, I just read you the whole thing.
That's the scary fruits of Anderson, you know what this is, prating against us with
malicious words is what this is.
There's no substance, none of these bullet points is anything concrete, none of it makes
any sense, all of it's just, well, he's bad because he doesn't agree with us, he's bad
because we don't like him, he's bad because he has a different interpretation of prophecy
than us, and he's bad because you might win some KKK member to the Lord.
And listen to me, the KKK is wicked, with their grand wizards and grand masters and
their racism and their garbage, it's of the devil, all secret societies are of the devil,
the KKK is as wicked as hell.
But you know what, if I can win somebody to Christ from the KKK, I'll do it.
If I can win a Mormon to the Lord, I'll do it.
If I can win anybody to the Lord, if I can win a Muslim or Jew or a Hindu, I'll do it.
But that's prating against us with malicious words, why?
Because they don't like the fact that somebody is out there doing something for the Lord
and they're not, that's what they don't like, that's what it comes down to, folks.
And there are literally people being thrown out of their churches all over America just
for listening to the preaching from Faithful Word Baptist Church.
They're getting thrown out of Bible college, thrown out of Christian school, thrown out
of their churches, we get calls every week about it.
Just in the last two weeks, several people told us, hey, I was kicked out of the Christian
school because I was caught listening to your sermons.
You know, I was thrown out of Bible college because I was listening to brother Bruce Mejia
at FWBCLA preaching, you know, kicked out of my church because of, and what's the reasoning?
It's just a bunch of prating, it's a bunch of just stuff that doesn't even matter.
But I'll tell you the real reason is because they want to have the preeminence, that's
why.
And they just don't want their people to look to anyone else or to have any other influence
in their life or to have anybody else preach to them or do it, you know, it just doesn't
make any sense, folks.
If we're all on the same team, if we all preach the gospel, if we all love, and obviously
David Cloud's not on our team, but even people that are saved, they'll share that book without
even reading it probably and just share the thing just like, oh, we got to get people
off of Steven Anderson, you know, or whatever.
And look, the bottom line is this, okay, there's a right separation and there's a wrong
separation, okay, the right separation is for a biblical reason and it's concrete and
we can point to it and say, look, here's where this person has crossed the line, we can't
have fellowship with that person, we're going to stay away from that person.
But then there's a wrong kind of separation that would come from our own sinful ego and
pride where we would basically look at somebody who's outdoing us, which, look, I guarantee
you John was out doing diatrophes all day long.
You think diatrophes was just ripping it up for the Lord?
I doubt it.
I think the apostle John was ripping it up for the Lord and doing great works.
The wrong kind of separation is where we get envious of other people and you say, well,
Pastor Anderson, this doesn't apply to us.
Well, you know, it could apply to you as an individual because we're talking about like,
you know, one church separating from another, but how about within the church?
How about within the church if you're in this church and you're not a soul winner or you're
not that dedicated to the Lord and you're not that serious about the things of God,
there's a danger for the exact thing to happen to you where you start looking at the people
around you that are doing more for the Lord than you and instead of having the right attitude
that says, you know what, that's a good role model for me, right?
If we see some guy that's out preaching us and out soul winning us and out Bible reading
us and out Bible memorizing us, what we should say is that's a role model.
I should get some tips from that guy.
In fact, I want to be friends with that guy, hang around with that guy, see if I can get
some of that to brush off on me, because iron sharpens iron.
Or a lady who sees a godly lady that's doing well for the Lord, that should be motivating.
But when ego enters in and pride enters in, what can happen?
An attitude that says, well, you know what, she's not all that everybody thinks that she
is.
Yeah, everybody thinks she's so cool because she did X, Y, and Z for the Lord, but what
about this area of her life that's suffering?
And you don't think that that happens, because guess what?
It does.
And even if people don't say that, people think things like that.
About one another, even in a good church like ours, one man could look at another man that's
doing great things for the Lord and envy him and get jealous in the modern vernacular term
of jealous and say, well, yeah, but, and start finding fault and picking him apart.
And you know what?
If you want to pick me apart, you will find faults with me.
And the longer that you get around me, the more that you'll find me make a mistake or
have character flaws or things about me that are not what you thought that they are.
Why?
Because we're all human.
We're all sinners.
We're all just men upon the earth that do good instead of not.
So if you want to pick apart some lady in this church or some man in this church or
some teenager in this church, you're going to find something wrong with them.
And if you want to pick me apart, you will find something wrong with me.
I can help you if you want.
My wife can help you.
But the bottom line is my sister could have helped you.
She was here this morning visiting.
But if you want to pick apart my wife, you can find fault with her.
You can find fault with one another and pick people apart.
But you know what?
Are you separating from people from the right reason?
You know, are you actually admonishing or exhorting and rebuking people for the right
reason?
Or are you like a diatrophys that likes to be a big fish in a little pond and doesn't
like the competition, quote, unquote, when in reality, we're not supposed to be in any
kind of competition.
We're supposed to be a team.
And you know what?
If we're on the team and some other player is our MVP, you know, we ought to just be
happy to get to play on that team with him.
You know, if we were on a basketball, and I don't follow sports.
I don't know much about sports.
But if we're on a basketball team with Michael Jordan, you know, we shouldn't just be like,
he gets all the attention.
You know, we should just be happy that we're playing with a player that's helping us win
because at the end of the day, we're being paid as a professional player to do what?
To win the game.
I mean, think about that.
If you're a professional athlete and you're on a sports team, what do the bosses want
to accomplish?
If you're on a college sports team, and again, I know nothing about sports.
So if this doesn't make sense, just forget this part of the sermon.
You know, if you're on a college sports team, I would assume that the whole point of the
staff and faculty is like, we want to win the games.
It's not about like, we want to make every player seem equally good.
We want to make sure everybody gets their moment in the sun.
We want to make sure everybody gets their 15 minutes of fame.
I think it's just about winning the game.
You know, so look, if we've got some MVPs at Faithful War Baptist Church, praise God.
Hey, go fetch some water for them, water boy.
Because you know what?
I'd rather be a water boy on God's team than the MVP on the devil's team.
I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.
Hey, I'd rather serve in heaven than to reign in hell.
And of course, the devil's not even reigning in hell.
But that's their satanic motto about reigning in hell.
You know what?
I'd rather be playing second fiddle to a great man of God.
I'd rather be me, Stephen Anderson.
I'd rather be an assistant pastor of a great man of God than to be the head pastor and
to be just one who's doing a poor job or a mediocre job.
I mean look, we need to not envy one another.
We need to not be desirous of vainglory.
We all need to realize it's a team effort.
And when other people succeed and do great works, rejoice.
You know, let's say you see some guy go to Jamaica and preach to 600 people, if you don't
rejoice at that, something's wrong with you.
If you could see one of our young men at our church stand up and preach the glorious gospel
of Jesus Christ, doctrinally sound gospel presentation to 600 students and not glorify
God.
But to try to pick that apart or pick him apart, and no one did that, but I'm just throwing
that out as an example, you know, that'd be wicked, wouldn't it?
We want to make sure that we always keep the right attitude and that we have the right
kind of separation from the right reasons, but that we don't say, well, I don't want
anything to do with her or him.
And you know, I can't really articulate the reasons why, but they're just bad.
Just dark foresty kind of bad stuff.
You know, I want to make sure that we base it on the word of God and that we have a team
mentality and that we are not in it for personal aggrandizement, like a diatrophes.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord.
Thank you for these great books of 2nd and 3rd John.
Help us to apply these things to our lives, Lord.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.