Amen. Great to be here once again. I believe this is my fourth time preaching in this church,
and I've been to Oklahoma City probably 25 times for work over the years before that,
but today I got to go to Lake Hefner.
for the first time, and so that was really cool.
Next time I definitely wanna ride a bike around that trail.
It looked really beautiful.
And so it's good to be here with you all once again.
Great to see a packed house tonight
and all the exciting things you guys are doing
with soul winning and keep up the great work up here.
And I'm excited to see what God's gonna do
with this newly christened anchor Baptist church.
And so very exciting for me to be here.
I appreciate the invitation.
I'm focused on in Revelation 21 is verse eight,
which every single time I go soul winning,
any time I give anyone the gospel,
this verse is actually part of my gospel presentation
every single time.
And I've been doing a lot of soul winning lately.
And so I've just been reciting this verse
over and over and over.
And as I was just reciting it over and over again,
I just found myself thinking about it a lot
and meditating about it a lot.
And so I decided to do a series of sermons.
on this and you know because we're in the age of the internet I can kind of just take my series on
the road and basically you know the people at home they could always just tune in download it
and get caught up so on Sunday I already preached on the fearful and then I preached on the unbelieving
so sorry but tonight's the abominable all right so I was gonna preach on the abominable tonight
and the first thing I did was just just to look it up in the dictionary
And I looked it in the dictionary, but it didn't really have a great definition in the dictionary.
This time I found the thesaurus was a little bit better.
I went to the thesaurus and it had a list of synonyms.
So here are some synonyms for the abominable.
Abhorrent, atrocious, awful, contemptible, despicable, disgusting, heinous, horrible,
repulsive, revolting, terrible, vile, and wretched.
Those are the synonyms of abominable.
And then I looked up antonyms.
What's the opposite of being abominable?
It's being attractive.
Delightful, desirous, good, great, honorable, kind, likable, nice, pleasant, pleasing, respectable,
wonderful, worthy, right? So, you know, in a nutshell, being abominable is something that
is loathsome, hateful, disgusting, revolting. It's just something that you don't want to
be around. You want to avoid it. You don't like it. It excites disgust. And in this case,
obviously, when we talk about the abominable, we're talking about in God's sight. You know,
tested or revolted with certain behaviors that people engage in.
Now the context of this particular verse, you probably know it, but the idea here is
that if you're not saved you're going to hell, right?
You've got to be saved or you're going to hell and the reason why every unsaved person
is going to hell, every person who has not put their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus
And it's the sins that we've committed that make us worthy of going to hell, or that's
why we deserve to go to hell.
And without Jesus, that's where we would go.
And that's why the Bible is saying that the fearful, the unbelieving, the abominable,
murderers, hormongers, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the
lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death, right?
Every single person has done one, two, three, or more things on that list.
And then even if somebody said, well, I've never done anything on that list, well, then unbelieving.
So if you're not believing in Jesus, you're doomed anyway, because that in and of itself is a sin.
So the purpose of using this verse out, soul winning, is to show everybody,
look, you don't have to be a murderer to be going to the lake of fire, even all liars.
shall have their part in the lake which Burneth went fire and brimstone even just being fearful, right?
What does that mean being a coward in this context?
And so I'm gonna really home in though on abominable tonight. What does it mean to be abominable?
The first thing I want to show you is that abominable people are people who do abominations, okay?
In many ways, we are what we do. The Bible says in the book of 1 John he that doeth righteousness is righteous
even as he is righteous.
The Bible also, obviously, when it says liars,
it's talking about people who lie.
Sorcerers or people who do sorcery will jump down if you would to verse 27.
It says there shall no wise enter into it.
Talking about, you know, entering into the city of God,
entering into that heavenly Jerusalem.
There should not enter into anything that defileeth,
neither whatsoever, worketh abomination or maketh a lie.
Look, these are the same kind of people that we're talking about in verse 8.
Liars abominable.
They're people who work abomination or make a lie.
So, abominable people are people who do abominable stuff.
So when I looked this up in the Bible, I found 176 occurrences of abomination or abominable,
and that kind of surprised me.
That seemed like a huge number.
I mean, I knew the Bible uses this word, but that's a lot.
And so the thing that I had first struggled with as I was writing this sermon is what direction to take this sermon
because there's just so much material and so much variety on this subject.
So what I decided to do was to just home in on one passage and just make it all about one passage.
And so that passage is Proverbs chapter six.
So go if you would to Proverbs chapter six and the whole sermon is going to be about Proverbs chapter number six.
You say, well, why would it be a sin to be abominable, you know?
Well, because remember, being abominable is being repulsive, repugnant,
uh, revolting, terrible in the eyes of God.
And the Bible says that all things in this world were created by God
and they were created for His pleasure.
It is our obligation as creatures of God to be pleasant to God, right?
We should be delighting God and pleasing God with our lives.
We weren't just created to exist for ourselves.
We're supposed to please Him, and the exact opposite of that is being abominable,
being disgusting to Him, being revolting to Him.
Now, we could go all kinds of different directions with this sermon, but we're going to focus
in on verse 16 here of Proverbs chapter 6, and it says, these six things does the Lord
hate, yea, seven are an abomination unto him.
So again, that helps us understand what an abomination is.
It's something hateful, right?
Something that God hates is an abomination to him.
And here's the list of the seven things that the Lord hates, verse 17, a proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speak at lies, and he that soweth discord among...
Now, the key to understanding this passage is to realize that this is not intended to
be like a catch-all list of God just kind of saying, hey, let me just tell you everything
that I hate.
If that were the case, different things would be on this list.
What do I mean by that?
If you study the word abomination throughout the Bible,
the biggest thing you're going to find is idolatry.
Just over and over again, especially in the New Testament,
lots of references to abominable idols,
idolatry being an abomination,
all throughout the Old Testament,
several mentions of the New Testament.
So if we were just talking about sub-gods,
God hates, we would expect to find idolatry for sure on this list.
as an abomination or another thing we would expect
is sexually perverted things because we you know of course we know that
the sodomites are an abomination men who put on women's clothing are an
abomination and we know that even God hates divorce and that
obviously there's lewdness of fornication that's called
an abomination to God and and adultery is an abomination to God
but we don't find those things on this list because we have to understand about
all, let me just tell you stuff that I hate. Rather, everything on this list is connected.
It's really talking about one particular subcategory. There's this certain type of people, certain
type of sin, certain type of behavior that is just abominable in the sight of God. It's
And if you think about this list, and as we delve into each of the things on the list tonight,
what you're going to see is that virtually all of these things involve harming other people.
So, it's not just about God hates idolatry, God hates perversion, no, no, this is a particular
kind of conniving, scheming, wicked, slanderous person that God is disgusted by.
And look, we're all saved here, hopefully.
The vast majority of people are saved here.
If you're not saved, well, you better get saved before it's eternally too late.
But most of us are saved Christians here.
We're not going to the lake of fire no matter what.
We don't want to commit sins that disgust God, right?
If God's wrath comes upon people to the point where he sends them to hell because of being
fearful, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, etc., we don't want to do those things as
God's children.
Even though we're saved, even though we're forgiven, even though we're going to heaven
no matter what, we do not want to disgust God with bad behavior.
And so we want to look at this behavior and stay really far away from it if God hates it and it's an abomination to him.
And what you're going to find is that the thing that ties these things together and they're very closely connected if you delve into this,
it's really that they're all about hurting other people, okay?
Let's start with the first thing on the list a proud look and you say well pastor Anderson
I don't see what a proud look has necessarily to do with like lying or or shedding innocent blood or
Being a false witness or something, but if you would flip over to let me turn the page here
Psalm 101
And what you're going to see is that God actually does connect these things throughout Scripture.
And as I go through these seven points tonight, you're going to get deja vu as we keep kind of running into
the same themes over and over again. And the points are going to overlap.
And by the time I get to point six, we're going to have already seen it several times just while looking at the other points
because this stuff is also connected, okay?
So what are we talking about, first of all?
God hates a proud look.
A proud look is an abomination to the Lord.
And what that means is basically
when people are prideful,
when people are arrogant or haughty,
there's a certain look that they get on their face
where you can see that haughty
arrogance in their countenance and that's what the Bible is saying that God hates and if you're not sure what that is
Just look at some album covers of rap music or something like that or rock music or whatever
But look at Psalm 101 and look at verse 5
It says, who's so privelly, that means secretly,
slandereth his neighbor.
What does it mean to slander someone?
It means to lie about them,
to say bad things about them that are not true.
And it says, he that privelly slandereth his neighbor,
him will I cut off.
Him that hath a high look and a proud heart will not I suffer now the Bible here is using a poetic device
called
Parallelism where it puts two things side by side that are parallel and God here is putting side by side
The one who slanders his neighbor with the one with the high look and the proud heart
It's the arrogance and the pride of people that causes them to go slander other people,
to tear other people down, and to lift themselves up, I'm better than you.
And so therefore, you know, I'm going to talk bad about you, bring you down a notch in order
to lift myself up.
That's the mentality here.
So you say, well, what does a proud look have to do with being a false witness?
Well, it's right here, right?
He that privilege slanders the neighbor.
Now let's get the context back up and let's hit the whole Psalm
because it's a great Psalm.
It says in verse one,
I will sing of mercy and judgment unto thee,
O Lord, will I sing?
I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way.
O when wilt thou come unto me?
I will walk within my house with a perfect heart.
I will set no wicked thing before my eyes.
I hate the work of them that turn aside.
It shall not cleave to me.
Now look, these people
these froward, slanderous people, people who lie about others, people who think they're so much
better than everyone else. Hey, the Psalmist is saying, I hate the work of these people.
And these people are an abomination because what did the Bible say? These six things does the Lord
hate. Ye seven are an abomination on him. A proud look. And so this is a very
Disgusting sin.
You might not think it's a big deal.
Getting together, gossiping, making things up,
saying things that aren't true, evil surmising,
guessing and accusing people of things
that you're not even sure that they really did.
But you know what?
This is something that's an abomination.
And if you do it, you end up being abominable
when you're having this attitude.
It says, who so?
Or excuse me, verse four, it says,
I will not know a wicked person.
What's he saying?
You know, I don't want to have friends like this, right?
I don't want to know these people or have them be my buddies.
Whoso privily slandereth his neighbor, him will I cut off.
Him that hath a high look and a proud heart will not I suffer.
I'm not going to put up with these arrogant, prideful jerks
who are slandering other people.
It says in verse 6,
Pretty strong words here about these people with the proud look, the haughty and arrogant.
attitude that ends up slandering other people.
Now, if you would flip over to Psalm 120,
Psalm 120, so number one is a proud look.
Number two, a lying tongue, right?
These six things does the Lord hate?
What are they?
A proud look, a lying tongue.
Again, we've already seen it.
But here's what the Bible says,
a lying tongue hated those that are afflicted by it.
and a flattering mouth to work with ruin.
And so what you can see there is that, again,
all of the things on this list are about hurting
and tearing down other people,
and that's why the Bible says the lying tongue
hates those that are afflicted by it.
You know what's funny is when someone will lie about you
and slander you and then tell you that they love you.
But what is the test of love?
The Bible says, love worketh no ill to his neighbor.
Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.
Look at Psalm number 120 verse 1 it says in my distress I cried unto the Lord and he heard me
Deliver my soul oh Lord from lying lips
and from a deceitful tongue.
So you can see that the lying lips and the deceitful tongue
is not a victimless crime, right?
He's saying, man, deliver me from the lying lips
and the deceitful tongue.
Just like the people with the proud look
are out there harming other people,
liars are harmful as well.
What shall be given unto thee?
Or it shall be done under the thou false tongue, sharp arrows of the mighty with coals of
Juniper.
Look, God is going to punish these sins severely, right?
When you're lying, when you're prideful, puffed up, slandering people, you know, it's going
to come back at you with a vengeance, the Bible says.
Flip back if you would to Psalm 109.
And Psalm 109 is one of the biggest imprecatory Psalms in the book of Psalms.
And what I mean by imprecatory, that's just a fancy word for saying it's a Psalm that is cursing.
right? Implications are curses. To implicate is to curse. And so they're called imprecatory Psalms
because the person who's praying in the Psalm is praying curses upon wicked people. And there are
about 19 Psalms that are usually identified as being imprecatory Psalms. But man, this one just goes
on and on and on. It's very strongly imprecatory. But starting in verse number two, look what the
hate. What is an abomination to God? The lying tongue is an abomination to God. Proud look
is an abomination. Lying tongue is an abomination. It says in verse number two, for the mouth of the
wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me. They've spoken against me with a
lying tongue. They compassed me about also with words of hatred and fought against me without a
they have rewarded me evil for good and hatred for my love now here's where the
cursing starts set thou a wicked man over him and let Satan stand at his
right hand when he shall be judged let him be condemned and let his prayer
become sin
And again, I'm not going to spend the time to just read this whole chapter, but it gets way
more gnarly of just curses and kill these suckers and, you know, and it just goes on and on and
on and on. But the idea that I really want to drive in here with this point is that what we have here
is we have wicked people open in their mouths with a lying tongue and harming people who've done good
You know, harming people that are supposed to be their friends,
supposed to be family, supposed to be loved ones,
supposed to be church members or allies.
And yet, they are lying.
And therefore, there's a lot of anger and rage here,
not just from the psalmist, but from the Lord Himself.
Because again, being abominable is in whose opinion?
It's in the eyes of God, is what we're talking about.
This is a big time abomination.
Let's go to Psalm 94, Psalm 94,
and I'm just quickly going through these,
but the third thing on the list,
because remember, we're in Proverbs 6,
we're going down the list of things
that are an abomination, right?
We don't wanna be abominable people.
We don't wanna be people that are repulsive, revolting.
Awful, atrocious, abhorrent in the eyes of God, we want to be attractive, delightful,
desirous, and good in the eyes of God. We want God to look down and be pleased and delighted
and say, that's my boy, right? We don't want him to look down and say, oh man, I'm so disgusted
by this behavior of a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood.
Now, you say, what do these things have to do with one another? They're all about harming other
Look if you would at Psalm 94, because here's the thing, hands that shed innocent blood is not just a reference to murder.
Obviously, yeah, that qualifies, right? Just murdering someone.
But what you have to understand is that if you look up the term innocent blood and you follow this throughout scripture,
what you're going to find is that often it's not actually murdering someone,
but it's actually bearing false witness against someone, and then that person gets convicted of a crime that they didn't do.
And then their blood is shed, sort of like Naboth, right, where false witnesses rise up against Naboth.
They are guilty of shedding innocent blood there.
What did Judas Iscariot say when he betrayed the Lord Jesus Christ?
I have betrayed the innocent blood, right?
And so the idea could be not just murder, but also getting people wrongly convicted of crimes that they didn't commit.
it's really still just as guilty. Look at Psalm 94 verse 21. It says they gather
themselves together against the soul of the righteous and condemn the innocent
blood, right? So obviously this is also prophetic of the Lord Jesus Christ, but
the idea here is people getting together and conspiring against an innocent
Look if you would at Lamentations Chapter 3, Lamentations Chapter 3.
And again, the point of the sermon tonight is that this passage about the six things that the Lord hates,
it's not just, hey, name seven things you hate.
And it's because then God would probably give a list, something like, well, I hate idolatry.
You know, that's definitely a homo's are definitely an abomination, you know, I hate divorce, you know
I mean we could look at scripture and find lots of other things God hates this particular passage is
homed in on sins that are connected to one another that are related to one another, right?
prideful arrogant people who then lie about other people bear false witness against them and perhaps get them condemned even to death
Or, condemned to be beaten or whipped or flogged, something else that sheds blood.
But we see, fourthly, on the list, a heart that devises wicked imaginations.
And again, I don't think that this is just talking about every possible wicked imagination
that anybody could possibly devise.
I think this is a specific kind of wicked imagination that fits in with everything else on the list.
Okay?
And here's what I mean by that.
And I'm not showing you all the scriptures on these things because it would take too long.
I'm just giving you a little sampling of each one.
But look at Lamentations chapter 3 verse 59.
It says, Oh Lord, thou hast seen my wrong.
Judge thou my cause.
Thou hast seen all their vengeance.
Watch this.
and all their imaginations against me.
So this isn't just somebody sitting around
with a weird imagination,
just imagining a bunch of weird stuff
and God's just like, man, you got a wicked imagination.
I don't even know why you dreamed up that story.
You know, and you know, sometimes we probably feel
that way sometimes we wake up from a really weird dream
and you're like, what the heck is wrong with me?
Like, why did I have that weird dream or whatever?
But that's not what the Bible is talking about here
with wicked imagination.
Although that's bad too, the thought of foolishness
sin but what we're talking about here specifically is he says all their
imaginations against me so again these same prideful lying slanderous people
who are out to shed innocent blood out to hurt the innocent out to slander good
people these are the people who are sitting around making things up evil
imaginations evil surmiseings
They imagine all these bad things that they want to throw at you.
And look what it says, it says, their imaginations against me.
Look at verse 62 because he doesn't even just mention the imaginations once.
In verse 60 he said all their imaginations against me. Now look at verse 61.
Thou has heard their reproach, O Lord.
What is a reproach?
A reproach is something like reviling someone, mocking them, accusing them of something.
It's saying something bad about someone.
He says, look, you've heard their reproach and all their imaginations against me.
So whenever things are repeated in the Bible, it kind of gets our attention, right?
Verse 60, their imaginations against me.
Imaginations against me same thing again
So, again, I think that if we take this idea back to Proverbs 6, we're not just talking
about a guy with a creepy imagination or something.
What we're talking about is the same person who is the lying, prideful, slanderous, false
witness.
He has the wicked imaginations as well against the people of God.
Okay?
Let's keep going.
Behold, they're sitting down and they're rising up, verse 63.
Render unto them a recompense, O Lord, according to the work of their hands.
Give them sorrow of heart. Thy curse unto them.
Persecute and destroy them in anger from under the heavens of the Lord."
Now, this is a human being praying this, right?
Specifically, it's Jeremiah the prophet.
If we were in the book of Psalms, we saw David praying similar things.
Man, destroy these people, kill these suckers, you know?
And then here we have Jeremiah praying something similar, you know, persecute them, destroy them.
Now look, obviously this is inspired by God.
This is not just some hotheaded guy who's mad praying something that's against God's will.
Because look, I'm sure that we've all prayed things that are against the will of God before.
We've asked for things that were not God's will, we've prayed things that were not right
because what does the Bible say?
We don't know how to pray as we ought.
And so because we don't know how to pray as we ought, the Holy Ghost makes intercession
for us with gronies that cannot be uttered because we often pray erroneously.
But let me tell you something.
The book of Psalms is not a book of erroneous prayers, that'd be ludicrous.
Hey, here's a messed up prayer life.
No, we're singing it 3,000 years later because remember Psalms is a song book too and
Lamentations is also a song as well
It's also a poetic book even though it's in a different section of the Bible. It is still a poetic book
It's still a song and the idea here
is that the Psalms are spirit-filled, righteous, good prayers, good Psalms, okay, good things, good examples.
And so therefore, if Jeremiah is praying in the Holy Ghost, if Jeremiah is spirit-filled, which of course he is,
and he's praying,
persecute and destroy them in anger then God must be mad at these people because
you know if that's a spirit-filled right prayer according to the will of God then
God must be super angry at these people ready to persecute them ready to destroy
them
And what that tells me is that these people who devise wicked imaginations are an abomination
in the sight of God.
And that's exactly what the Bible said in Proverbs 6.
These six things does the Lord hate, yea, seven are an abomination unto him, a proud
look, lying tongue, right?
And then, what's the next one, sorry, hands that shed innocent blood, and a heart that
Now look again
Often we draw a dichotomy between the sin and the sinner
And you know that there's a little bit of validity to that sometimes of course
But want to be careful that we don't draw too thick of a line between the sin and the sinner
Because we end up being defined by the things that we do unfortunately
You know somebody's a liar because they lie somebody's a murderer because they murder and and at the end of the day
You know, maybe this is distasteful to you
But if you commit abominations you end up being an abominable person
You end up doing repulsive things. You end up doing revolting things
You end up doing disgusting things and you end up being a disgusting person to God and the people of God
And so you've got to be careful that you don't go down this dark path, okay?
And look, these people, the Bible says, are people who God is angry at them?
And notice when it says, a proud look.
You could say, well, God just, he hates the sin, not the, you know, not the sinner.
Because he hates the, he hates the proud look.
But then he also hates the lying tongue.
Now he's hating a body part.
You know and then he hates the hands that shed innocent blood. That's another body part a heart that devises wicked
imaginations feet that's be swift and running to mischief and then it says a false witness that speak at lies
That's just the person a
False witnesses an abomination, right?
He that so with discord among brethren. That's a person
And so, again, we don't want God to look down and say,
and look, I get it, we're saved, we're eternally secure,
nothing could separate us from the love of God,
which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord,
and he will never leave us or forsake us.
But I don't want God to look down from heaven
and say, I am disgusted with you, son.
I'm not just disgusted with your actions,
you're disgusted with me right now.
I'm disgusted by you.
I'm ashamed of you.
I want God to be proud of us and say,
well done, good and faithful servant.
You're my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased.
Like he said to Christ, who was obviously the Son,
par excellence, that none of us could ever reach that level.
But the point is though, we want God to be pleased with us.
We want to delight him.
We don't want God to just be looking down at us and disgust.
And if you're going to be a prideful person, a slanderous person, a harmful person like this,
you're going to be disgusting to God. That's what the Bible says.
Let's go to Psalm 7, if you would. Psalm 7.
Psalm 7, we're going to look at a few more Psalms.
And a lot of this stuff is found in Psalms and Proverbs.
We can go elsewhere in the Bible, but it seems like Psalms and Proverbs have kind of the punchiest verses about these things.
And by the way, you know, you would do well to just really spend a lot of time
meditating on Psalms and Proverbs and obviously I'm for reading the whole Bible cover to cover and
I'm especially for giving special attention to the New Testament and the four Gospels and you know those things are all very important
but I think it's also good to incorporate a lot of Proverbs and Psalms and I think there's a reason why
Bibles are often bundled like you get a New Testament and Psalms.
or you get a New Testament and Psalms and Proverbs.
And you know, one of the things that we're doing this year
is encouraging people to read the Proverb of the Day,
which, you know, is the whole chapter, not one verse.
Just, there's a certain pastor needed
to learn that apparently.
But...
It's the whole chapter, the idea is like there's 31 chapters in Proverbs and so you read the Proverb of the day so if it's the 31st you read Proverbs 31, if it's the 5th you read Proverbs 5, but you know I've even seen some people do a thing where they do the Psalm of the day as well where basically on the first day of the month they'll do Psalm 1 and 31 and 61 and 91 and 121.
you know, and just to get five Psalms and a Proverb.
So they're just reading the book of Psalms
and the book of Proverbs every month
in addition to the rest of their reading.
Now look, obviously I just want you to read your Bible.
I don't care what you're reading,
as long as you're reading the King James Bible.
But I I love the book of Psalms and I feel like so much
false doctrine would be avoided if people spent more time in Psalms and so many weird
attitudes wouldn't exist if we just kind of lived in the book of Psalms. I
mean Psalms just has so much good truth in it.
And it's just, you know, this attitude of just,
oh, don't say anything negative and don't be negative
and don't, you know, that's hate speech and everything.
You're not reading Psalms if you think that way.
Because the thing I love about Psalms
is that it's such a balanced book
because it has a lot of positive things,
a lot of sweetness and light,
but it's a lot of hellfire and damnation.
And I feel like sometimes our hymnal,
and we use the same hymnal that you guys use,
and I think it's a great hymnal.
It's a wonderful hymnal, you know, published by the sword of the Lord, soul-stirring Psalms
and hymns.
I believe that's what you guys have.
That's what we have.
It's a wonderful hymnal, but again, it's a lot more positive.
There's not really a lot of negative songs in there, you know, but in the book of Psalms.
You have like a whole gamut you have a lot of really positive stuff
But you have a lot of really negative stuff and I really like the way that it covers everything
And I feel like if Christians would have stayed with the tradition of singing the Psalms
They would have maybe not gone off on some of the dumb tangents that they've gone off on
Because they would have had those things in their mind from singing the Psalms and again
I'm for the hymns
But I feel like we need to bring back more Psalms just to get this good doctrine into our minds and at least in our Bible reading
To really spend some time in Psalms and by the way
Psalms is a really encouraging book too
And so when you're going through life you're getting discouraged and you're feeling down your life's not really making sense to you
Psalms can often bring clarity and bring your mind to a healthy place.
And so I love the book of Psalms.
But now we're going to talk about the fifth thing.
There's seven things, right?
We're on the fifth one.
Feet that be swift in running to mischief.
And again, we can just have an idea that maybe mischief is just kind of a generic word of
just, you know, doing bad stuff or whatever.
But I think that we're talking about a specific kind of mischief here, okay?
Because look if you would at Psalm 7 verse 14.
Behold, he travaileth with iniquity, he hath conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood.
The lying tongue and the mischief are right there.
He made a pit and digged it.
So the mischief here specifically is the digging of a pit,
the trapping and ensnaring of good people.
It's bending the bow with the arrow ready to shoot
privily at the upright and hard.
Look what the Bible says in verse 16.
His mischief shall return upon his own head.
And what exactly kind of mischief are we talking about?
and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own fate.
And again, this is poetry, it's parallel, right?
So on one side of the equation,
we have mischief coming upon his own head.
Now, we're going to have synonyms, violent dealing, coming upon his own fate.
So the fate stands in for the head, the violent dealing stands in for the mischief.
So the feet that are swift in running to mischief, boy, they're not really that different than
the hands that shed innocent blood, are they?
So now you can kind of see how this list of six things the Lord hates, seven that are
right? It's not just seven different things he hates. It's really one flow of activity
coming out of the same type of a heart, the same type of person. It starts with the proud look
and this is where it goes and it's the same kind of malicious, conniving, evil schemer
that is out to hurt God's people that all of these seven actions flow from.
It's not just, oh, you know, I hate idolatry, I hate divorce, you know, because those are things God hates.
I mean, is there a sin that God likes? No. But these particular abominations are connected because they're all in the same genre here.
Now, if you would, just flip a couple pages to Psalm 10.
and we'll see this reinforced once again.
Psalm 10, verse seven, his mouth is full of cursing
and deceit and fraud, right?
There's your lying lips.
There's your false witness.
Under his tongue is what?
Mischief and vanity.
He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages.
In the secret places doth he murder the innocent?
There's your shedding blood.
His eyes are privelly set against the poor.
He lieth and wait secretly as a lion in his den.
He lieth and wait to catch the poor.
He doth catch the poor when he draweth them into his net.
Go to Proverbs chapter 4.
Look my friend, there are people out there.
They do not go to bed at night until they have done harm to God's people.
There are people out there that hate the righteous and
Nash on him with their teeth and let me tell you something if you put yourself out there and become a servant of God and you
Start soul-winning and you start standing up for the things of God
And you start raising your family for God and you start preaching the word of God or taking a stamp for the word of God or having
Conversations where you stand up for what's right?
Look there are people out there that want to hurt you and all the will of God in Christ Jesus shall
suffer persecution.
He says about these people in Proverbs 4 verse 16,
they sleep not, except they've done mischief.
And what is that mischief?
Well, let's look at the parallel.
Their sleep is taken away.
You can see how that's parallel with they sleep not.
Their sleep is taken away unless they cause some to fall.
So the specific mischief that comes up over and over again
is digging the pit for someone, causing them to fall,
laying the trap for someone,
trying to ensnare them in their speech,
or trying to find something to accuse them of,
trying to find a way to hurt them.
And so now let's move on to chapter 25 of Proverbs.
chapter 25 because the sixth thing that God hates is a false witness that
speak it lies and again I told you I said by the time we get to the sixth
thing on the list you're gonna feel like we already covered it when I say
number six a false witness that speak it lies you're like I've already seen
that eight times tonight
And this is the whole point of the sermon is to get you to see that this list is not a list of a bunch of separate activities,
seven different things that the Lord hates.
No, these six things are things that the Lord hates and they're flowing from the same type of individual that is engaging in all of these things.
And if they're only engaging in some of them, well, they're probably on their way toward
or they would like to, or they are the same type of person that would do the other things
on the list as well.
It says in verse 18 of chapter 25, there, a man that beareth false witness against his
neighbor.
is a mall and a sword and a sharp arrow, right?
So the man that bears false witness
against his neighbor is doing violence unto him.
And so bearing false witness is a violent act.
Does everybody understand that?
If you bear false witness,
you are committing an act of violence, okay?
Because even if you are not the one punishing that person,
Say something that's a lie if you slander and then someone gets punished because of what you said
You know you hurt that person. You know if I if I lied about someone and then they went to prison
If I lied about someone and they're put to death, if I lied about someone and they get
fired from their job, if I lied about someone and they got arrested or something, well then
guess what?
I have done violence to that person.
Even if I'm not the one who grabbed them and put the handcuffs on them, locked them in
a cage, locked them away in solitary confinement, put them in a room with a bunch of weird people
or whatever, locked them up for months or years.
or got them whipped or punished or whatever.
Look, you are committing an act of violence by bearing false witness.
You don't have to actually be doing the smiting.
If you bear false witness and other people get hurt,
you're hurting them.
And then lastly this,
he that sowed discord among brethren,
go to Proverbs chapter 17.
And while you're turning there, let me just read for you some verses about the false witness.
How about this one?
A false witness shall not be unpunished.
He that speaketh lies shall not escape.
Chapter 19 verse 9, a false witness shall not be unpunished.
And he that speaketh lies shall perish.
Chapter 21 verse 28, a false witness shall perish.
But the man that heareth speaketh constantly.
If you bear false witness, your sins will find you out.
God is going to punish you.
The truth will eventually come out and you're not going to get away with it.
What's the last thing on the list of things that God hates and abomination to the Lord?
Is he that soweth discord among brethren?
He that sowed this gourd among brethren and this is the kuday gross what you have to understand about lists in the Bible
Is that they typically culminate in the big one? Okay, and this list is no exception
Now I know you're there in Proverbs 17
but flip back if you would actually to Proverbs 6 itself because I want to actually show you this in
the context of
the passage that we're looking at tonight.
Because I believe that this whole list
is provoked in the mind of the author of Proverbs
because obviously we know that the Bible is written by God,
but it also has a human author.
And the Bible has dual authorship, which was one of the reasons that it's such an amazing book.
Just like Jesus is 100% man and 100% God, the Bible is both authored by man and authored by God.
It makes it so phenomenal, so amazing.
And so what's interesting here is that you can see the flow of the thought process of the author of Proverbs,
you know, through the Holy Spirit obviously, and God is the ultimate author.
But watch what even triggers his mind to even give this list. Okay, because if you start out in verse number
12 it says because everything before verse 12 is kind of unrelated
It's about like, you know slothful people and stuff like that
But then it says in verse 12 and obviously you could connect it, but verse 12 it says a naughty person
A wicked man, walketh with a fro-word mouth, he winketh with his eyes, he speaketh with
his feet, he teacheth with his fingers, fro-wordness is in his heart, he deviseeth, mischief continually,
and then look at this, he soweth discord.
So discord's already the thought here.
someone secretly conniving and not doing things openly and aboveboard but this
kind of going around behind people's back conniving colluding and doing these
things and and it's ultimately to sow discord right he soweth discord
therefore shall his calamity come suddenly suddenly shall he be broken
without remedy so notice here that verse 15 is just about the consequences of
But in this little triplet of verses from 12 through 14,
verses 12 through 14 culminate in this statement,
he sows discord.
Then the next verse is about his punishment.
Then when we get down to the six things that the Lord hates in verse 16,
what does it culminate in?
Verse 19, he that sowed discord among brethren.
That's not a coincidence.
So, we have this talk about these conniving people with all their little secret signals
and things, and what are they doing?
Sewing discord.
And then he's like, oh, by the way, these six things that the Lord hate, oh, and it culminates
in what?
Sewing discord.
That's not a coincidence.
So, if you read it in context, you will find that sewing discord is the end game.
of this, it is a big part of why it's even being brought up in the first place, okay.
So it's like, yeah, they do all these harmful things, but what they really want to do is
ultimately so discord between brother.
And here's the thing, what does the Bible say about brethren dwelling together in unity?
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.
Isn't that literally the exact opposite of being abominable?
Right on my list of antonyms. Well pleasant good. It's there
How good and how pleasant it is it's the exact opposite of an abomination
God looks down and feels good about it. It's a sweet savor unto him when
Brethren dwell together in unity be old how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity
It is like the precious ointment upon the head
that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard that went down to the skirts of his garments
as the dew of Herman and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion,
for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forevermore."
Right? So there's this beautiful psalm, that's the whole psalm. It's just a short little psalm,
psalm, I believe, 133. And that psalm there talks about how good and pleasant it is for
brethren to dwell in unity. And then you got these prideful, arrogant jerks.
And what do they want to do?
They want to separate chief friends.
A whisperer separated chief friends.
What's another word for chief friends?
What would we call that in 2025?
Best friends.
A whisperer separated best friends.
The whisperer separated chief friends and you know what these wicked people they have a goal of
Trying to drive a wedge
between God's people and they want to sow discord among brethren
And they're evil, you know what I mean?
These people that are, they're out there
and they'll lie to do it.
They'll slander to do it.
And they want to break up best friends.
They want to break up friendships.
They want to do what they can to just so discord, right?
Because we need to have in our church's unity.
And one of the things I love about faithful word
Baptist church is that it's a church that has unity.
You say, well, yeah, that's because you threw out
Yeah, exactly
Exactly, we threw out all the idiots and bozos and evil conniving scum
You know and so yeah, yeah, so we have unity. Well, yeah, of course you have unity when you get rid of all the bad people
Yeah, I know
But isn't it amazing that we still got 300 of them left and that's all giddy and needed that's all I need
You know what I mean? If Gideon can do it with 300, so can I, so can he, right?
And the thing is, look, you've got to have unity in the look.
And look, we get this reputation for like throwing people out too fast or just being on a witch hunt.
It's such a lie and anybody who actually goes to our churches knows the opposite is true
because people who actually go to my church, if you ask them, they probably all think that I'm too slow to get rid of skeevy people.
Just because I'm always trying to give people the benefit of the doubt and really say hey
We got to help people grow. We got to meet people where they're at. Oh, this guy's weird. We got to make him normal
We're gonna we're gonna help him grow. We're gonna reach him and so forth
You know, we have we as pastors have a heart for people
You know, that's part of what it means to be a pastor. You have a heart
for your people you have that shepherd's heart, not like the hireling that just doesn't mind if
the wolf comes in and you know picks off a few. You know the shepherd's heart is to protect the
people and so forth and so we love our people and I'm constantly thinking like we don't have any
weirdos in our church. Everybody in our church is super cool. That's how I feel right now at Faith
Ward that everybody at our church is super cool. Now if somebody turns out to be a bozo you know
But it always surprises me because I'm always trying to look for the best in people.
But at the end of the day, yeah, sometimes we do have to mark and avoid people who are
causing divisions and teaching doctrines contrary to what the Word of God teaches, and where
we have to obviously purge people from the flock that are just evil, conniving, railing,
slandering, gossiping types.
Because unity is so important, because if you have unity, man, you can accomplish a lot.
And our churches that have unity and we're all on the same page, man, we've done some great works for God last year.
I believe this year is not only going to be faithful words greatest year, because I already made that proclamation.
that 2025 will be Faithful Words' Greatest Year.
And we've already had our Greatest January,
so we're off to a good start.
Today's the last day, we didn't screw it up,
so we got through one awesome month,
the Greatest January of all time,
by several different metrics.
But you know what?
I believe that Steadfast's gonna have their Greatest Year,
and I believe that Anchor Baptist
is gonna have its Greatest Year,
because it's the first year,
so it's for sure gonna be the Greatest Year.
You know I mean no matter what you do. That's the cool thing about starting out. You're gonna. You're gonna break every record
You know because you're brand new
But I'm telling you
that
Unity is something that God loves and it's something that we as pastors love and it's something that we need if we're gonna
Be successful and God looks down and he sees it. It's pleasant. It's pleasing in his sight and the devil would love nothing more
Then to get in and so discord and get us all at odds with one another and
Fighting one another attacking one another and you know by the way
Even obviously the unity within the local church is the most important thing
But even among us preachers, you know, I'm a person that actually values
Having friends and as a pastor I like to have pastor friends
Right. Amen. You know, I'm I like to have pastor friends, right?
Because because we as pastors, it's nice for us to be able to talk to each other and kind of understand what we're going through
because we're both peers and we're both doing the same thing and we're both dealing with a lot of the same pressures and
Doing the same job. We have the same love the same vision the same heart and so it you know
I think that pastoral friendships are important.
I've known a lot of pastoral friends over the years.
It's like they just don't, they don't show themselves friendly.
They kind of just isolate themselves.
They don't want to be friends with anybody.
And I don't think that that's a good idea.
I think it's good for us as pastors to have pastor friends.
Because iron sharpens iron.
And so does a man sharpen the countenance of his friend.
And I frequently like to pick up the phone and, you know, talk doctrine.
with somebody because, you know, I want to bounce things off of another pastor and things like that or, you know, if I'm dealing with things,
I like to have somebody that I can go to and talk to as a friend.
And, you know, wicked people, they really want to destroy those friendships between me and my pastor friends, or between other pastors and each other.
Oh, well, you know, you're just a Pastor Anderson clone.
That's what they'll try to tell my friends.
Like, oh, you know, you're just like Pastor Anderson, huh?
You're just a clone.
You're just a copycat, you know?
And to me, this is the equivalent
of sort of like the playground taught,
like, what's the matter, you chicken?
You know, it's kind of like the same thing like oh, you just do whatever Pastor Anderson does
Oh, you just got to be exactly like Pastor Anderson, huh?
And then it's like I'll show them I'll preach some really weird the Pastor Anderson whatever you know
I'll show them how different I can be
And we never want to be different for the sake of being different, but you know what?
These bunch of conniving slanderers, you know what else they'll do?
They'll accuse other pastors of trying to copy me or me trying to copy somebody or
whatever.
But then they'll also do that to church members too.
And they'll say, oh, you just believe whatever your pastor tells you?
Oh, so you're just kind of just this Kool-Aid drinker?
You know, you just do exactly what the church's program is and you know what they're trying to do
They're trying to sow discord among brethren
Right what they're trying to do is they're trying to get you to be variant and
Different just to show that you know, you're not one of these just Kool-Aid drinkers or whatever now
Let me just let's just talk about drinking the Kool-Aid for a second. Okay. First of all, it wasn't Kool-Aid
It was flavorate
That's just a fact. Okay. Look it up. It was great flavored flavor aid not Kool-Aid
And I'm talking you know what I'm talking about Jim Jones, right? It was one of the largest
I mean it was a tragedy. It's one of the largest mass suicides in history. It was over 900 people
Man let that sink in over nine. I there's a book about it called 900 lives
I've read multiple books about Jim Jones, that was one of them.
And when you think about over 900 people.
committing suicide, but they didn't really all commit suicide because a lot of them had a machine gun pointed at them telling them
Drink the flavor aid or you will be shot
You know so you can't really necessarily call that and some people actually were shot when they tried to run into the jungle and so forth and
A few people survived and I read another book that was written by one of the survivors
This girl who like came up through Jim Jones cold
went to Guyana went through the whole thing and then she wrote the book and I forget what it's called
I had like poison in the name or something, but she wrote a book about it is super interesting and
She ran into the jungle and escaped, you know while the flavor aid
was being handed out.
But the reason I'm making a big deal about the fact
that it was Flavorade and not Kool-Aid,
it was a different brand,
the reason I'm bringing that up
and making a big deal about it
is just to show you how these things
that are in the popular imagination,
they often get distorted
and are not being told accurately
because Christians will often get compared to Jim Jones
when Jim Jones was an atheist.
So it wasn't Christians giving out poison Kool-Aid
or Christian pastor.
No, it was an atheist, communist.
Oh, here's another fun fact for you, that in Jim Jones' church, they had congregational
singing of the Soviet Union's national anthem.
So they sang the national anthem of the Soviet Union.
They were communists. The Bible was banned at Jonestown. Someone sent Bibles to Jonestown
and they were literally used as toilet paper. Okay, and again, you can read the book 900 Lives,
which is I believe is written by, you know, a professional journalist from a newspaper.
You can also read eyewitness account from that lady that survived and
They all line up, all the testimonies will tell you,
he's an atheist, he's a communist,
he was trying to set up a communist thing in Guyana.
He said, Jesus isn't gonna save you, God can't save you.
He took the Bible and threw it at the wall in disgust
and it was literally used as toilet paper.
in Jonestown. These are facts, you know, and then people want to tell you that because
you are a loyal, faithful member of your local church, oh, you're a Kool-Aid drinker. You're
drinking the Kool-Aid. Here's the thing. Fundamental Baptist churches are not asking you to do anything
harmful. Nobody's telling you to harm yourself. You know what? We're trying to make your lives
You know, the kind of advice that you're getting from the pulpit in a fundamentalist Baptist church
is stuff like reading your Bible, winning souls to Christ, right? Having a family that's ordered
according to clear, blatant verses in the Bible, right? We're making people's lives better. Sorry,
but we are. First of all, we're getting people saved. Second of all, we're making people's lives
You're living a better life and you know even if we preach things that make people really mad
Like when we start getting on like the food you eat or like, you know your lifestyle or something
You know, we're just trying to make you healthy and feel good and live longer and have you know
Just a balanced life
You know, we're up here preaching stuff and trying to help you and you know what let me tell you something
You know, I don't think that I'm just a person who just kind of mindlessly follows others
You know I don't think people would accuse me of that because of the fact that I've been a pioneer quote-unquote in certain areas
Although really, you know nothing's original with me
But what's funny about that is that when I was a church member though
I would have been called a Kool-Aid drinker because when I was a church member
I was always gung-ho for the program of the church
When I was a church member, I wasn't a rabble rouser,
troublemaker, telling everybody how different I am
than the pastor listing all my disagreements.
No man, I was just on board with the program
and you wanna know who my best friend was back in the day
was Pastor Roger Jimenez.
And guess what?
Pastor Roger Jimenez and I went to church together for years.
I met him when I was 20 and he was 16.
We went to church together for years.
And we were close, and we went soul-winning together for hours and hours and hours together.
We talked on the phone for hours and hours and hours.
After I went off to Bible college, we stayed in touch.
He came and visited me while I was at Bible college with his wife, and we spent time together.
When I started the church, he came out two months after starting the church,
and went soul-winning with me, preached in my church, and all this, and we were close.
I got up and preached a sermon in May of 2006 where I preached against the pre-trip rapture
and he called me on the phone and was like, why did you never tell me this?
He's like, how long have you known about this?
I was like, since I was 12.
He's like, what else are you not telling me?
You know, he's like, but you want to know why?
I didn't tell him that and why he literally never heard that from me until May of 2006
is because I didn't speak against the doctrine of the church.
Even to my best buddy that I'm soul-winning with, hanging out with, on the phone with, doing stuff with,
I did not get together with him and talk bad about the doctrine of the church or say anything negative about the church.
And he said, why didn't you tell me this? I said, well, because, you know, I didn't want to, so discord.
Because, you know, if we agree with 99% of what the church is saying and doing, why would
I take you aside and say, hey, you know, our pastor's wrong on eschatology, hey, you know,
you know that we're learning the wrong end times, right?
Let me teach you the true story.
And look, I know that, you know, that might come as a shock to some of you, that I did
not reveal that to him and did not say that to him.
But it's because of the fact that I understand how important unity is.
And she was a pretty new believer when we got married.
She had only been saved for just a matter of several weeks, okay?
And so she was a very new Christian when we got married.
And I did not criticize the church to her ever.
And I did not tell her,
oh well, here's the things we disagree with about the church or whatever.
You know, and I taught her the Bible
and she was reading just tons of scripture on her own.
But I did not want to sow discord.
I did not want to destroy her faith in the leadership.
I wanted to be gung-ho on board with a church that God was mightily using to win souls.
And, oh, just a Kool-Aid drinker, oh, I just go along with everything.
No, I'm going along with everything because if it's 99% right.
Then why wouldn't I just go with the church's program and not just say well
Let's just emphasize the 1% that were different and
Look by the way before I started faithful word Baptist Church. I had preached over 500 sermons
So before I start faithful word Baptist Church, I'd preach 500 sermons and
In all of those 500 sermons. They were all preached in churches that were pre-trib and so forth
So guess what? I never preached anything that went against the doctrine of any of those churches.
Oh, does that make me a Kool-Aid drinker or a Compromiser? No.
It's because of the fact that it wasn't my place to set the doctrinal agenda of the church that's the pastor's place.
I'm going to lead that to the leadership and I am going to just put my head down and work hard and do a good job
and support a great movement of what God is doing.
And God was mightily using our pastor back in California.
God was mightily using that church.
And so I'm not going to sit there and tell my wife,
well, OK, let me tell you everything
the pastor got wrong in the sermon tonight.
Let me just tell you what he's wrong about.
Because first of all, even things that we disagree on,
maybe I'm the one who's wrong.
That thought is always in my mind, too.
But even if I know I'm right, it's not going to help her.
just be emphasizing the variants and so therefore I remember one time like six
seven eight months after my wife had had gotten saved and been in church and
everything like that you know she'd been volunteering the Christian school
every day so you know she didn't have a job or anything she says to stay at home
wife and she hadn't had her first child yet so she would go down and volunteer in
the Christian school and define irony but she was mainly helping with English
But she came home one day and she's like, man, I found the craziest thing in the curriculum
from the Christian school.
It's saying that Jesus is going to come back at any moment.
And she's like, I told this kid, no, man, you know, the tribulation has to happen first.
And she did not get this from me.
She just got this from reading the Bible.
And she's just like, sorry, but Jesus may not come today.
because she said, I don't think this is right.
And then, you know, somebody was kind of horrified,
like, what have you done, you know?
But then she came home and I kind of sheepishly admitted to her.
I'm like, yeah, actually, they do believe that.
Yeah, they do think that, and yeah, you're right.
That isn't what the Bible says.
She's like, what the, you know?
But again, that just, what I'm trying to show you here
is a mentality of, hey, I don't need to just emphasize
to my wife everything that the pastor gets wrong.
I don't have to just take my best friend aside and just indoctrinate him and all of my personal beliefs.
Instead, what's more important is just being a part of a soul-winning, King James, fundamental
Baptist team that is shaking the area with the gospel, that is winning hundreds of people
to the Lord, that is getting people saved, baptized, live-chased.
Why don't you learn to be a team player?
Why don't you get on board with the church?
Why don't you endeavor to have unity?
Why don't you strive for unity in the local church?
leadership and then when they come to you and say oh it's mad he's just a
Kool-Aid drinker just whatever pastor Oz says huh I guess just pastor Oz says
and you just follow it huh whatever pastor Shelley says you just drink how's
what how's that Kool-Aid taste right
But but here's the thing if somebody came to me and said what's the matter? Are you chicken?
Do you think that's gonna make me all show them, you know, I'll go jump off that bridge or whatever
Grow up. What are you in junior high? Don't fall for it
You know as pastors we need to be careful that we don't fall for it and make a point to show how different we are from one another
Because that's just stupid man. Get up and preach the Bible
Now obviously in different churches there are doctrinal differences and I'm not required to be like Pastor Oz
He's not required to be like me and we're gonna preach different things and that's okay in the church
We should try to keep the doctrine homogenous and keep quiet our differences. Whereas, you know separate independent churches
Obviously, I'm gonna come right out and preach things that contradict, you know, Pastor Shelley or Pastor Osweb
But it's never because I'm like well, I got a show I'm different
I gotta show that I'm different than the old IFB.
No, no, it's just I'm just preaching what I believe.
They're just preaching what they believe.
Somebody's gonna be different.
And when people come up to me and say,
well, you know, Pastor So-and-So is preaching
this thing that's different than you.
And they'll always be like, well,
Pastor So-and-So is saying this,
and you're saying this, who's right?
A lot of people come up to me and say this,
and I'm just like, obviously I'm right.
Like, why are you asking me?
I'm a little biased.
Since I am me, but if you ask me well cuz you know cuz pastor so it's those as this and you're saying this
Who do I believe you know? It's just like you know what those kind of people are doing
They're trying to so discord a lot of times because what they're trying to do is they just want to make sure I know
That somebody's preaching something different than me
You know and they're trying to just put you know just trying to create a wedge or whatever and some people are asking those questions
Sincerely I get it, but you know what I'm always suspicious of people that ask those kind of questions
You know when it's just like well, you know because I heard you preach this you know
And I mean you know on this date and then he said this on this date
So which one is it what's the deal and I always just tell people listen man
If I preach two different things on two different dates just go with the later date
Well, in 2006, you preached it this way, and now in 2025, which one is it?
Well duh, it's the 2025 version.
I don't even need to know what it was.
You're not going to believe this when I was 24 years old.
I didn't know everything.
Obviously, I still don't know everything.
But the point is that beware of people that are constantly trying to separate friends.
I'll tell you this, I believe that there is a cabal of people and call me a conspiracy
theorist.
I believe that there have been people who for years have had a desire in their hearts,
these little conniving, weird little people that their biggest desire was just that Pastor
Jimenez and I would not be friends.
among people that were just working on it.
And I've heard, I've had multiple people tell me.
about being in conversations with some of these
idiot, phony, weird pastors where they were literally sitting around
fantasizing about a split in the new IFB where there's like a
Pastor Jimenez wing and a Pastor Anderson wing. You know what?
That kind of attitude, that kind of thought,
you know, it's wicked. It's just like why would you want
why would you want to break up a friendship that's gone on for decades or
something between
Like, why would you want to do that?
Like, why is that your goal?
You know, you just really want to see
so and so the pastor break free from, you know,
and people are taunting us to try to get us
to break fellowship with this person
and break fellowship with this person
and split from this person.
And look, I know that a lot of people
have split from me recently and I'm just like, bye.
You know, because at the end of the day,
I got plenty of friends.
You know I'm not a lonely person. I live in a house with ten people
I have hundreds of people in my church, and I have lots of pastor friends that that are still cool
And so the thing is though just beware of that mentality
That just wants to split
people and and and break up friendships and and we all have to show how different we are and we all have to you know
You know because there could be a temptation for you to say well, you know
Pastor Oz has to now step out of Pastor Shelley's shadow
You know now that he's independent he can pull out that weird doctrine that he's been that he's been hiding
You know and do that now look
inevitably there are going to be differences between Pastor Oz and Pastor Shelly. I'm sure
inevitably there will be. And here's the thing, if you're up here, you shouldn't be saying,
well, you know, Pastor Shelly, you know, you need to get on his, you need to get on Brother Oz
program. And Pastor Shelly would agree that, you know, that you should not be, hey, you know,
well, back when we were steadfast, you know, or whatever. Now that's a bad attitude.
Hey, and you know what if you can't get behind your pastor you need to move on
You know, you need to get behind your pastor.
You need to shut up about all the little grievances and differences and little small things and
be true to your church, be loyal, be faithful.
Don't emphasize differences.
Don't be variant.
Don't try to sit there and prove how different you are and don't so discord among brethren.
God hates it.
It's an abomination.
Striving for unity. Striving to create more unity in the local church. Not just
imagining and lying and stretching the truth and being a false witness and
conniving and being prideful. And by the way this whole attitude says, well I got
to show that I'm different, is pride. If somebody calls me chicken and then I go
do something crazy to show that I'm not chicken, that's pride.
Because if I'm humble, if somebody says, you're too scared to jump off this bridge or whatever,
I just say, you know what?
Yeah, I am too scared to do that.
You're too scared to go jump out of this plane or what?
Yeah, I am.
Right?
You're too scared to go pick a fight with that guy over there.
Yeah, I am.
Because I don't know how that fight's going to go.
Grow up.
Well, you're just a Kool-Aid drinker or whatever, you know, it's like well, it was flavorate and you don't know what you're talking about
Jim Jones is a commie telling people to drink poison. So it's not a Kool-Aid drinker to just be a faithful soul-winning member of a Baptist church
You know
Unbelievable right and
By the way, you know, even if you disagree with the pastor, you don't have to say anything like I didn't say anything for decades about the preacher rapture
or decade singular, I guess.
But anyway, let's look at a few final verses
and then I'll be done.
Are you there in Proverbs 17, verse nine?
It says, Proverbs 17, nine,
he that covereth the transgression, seeketh love.
But he that repeateth the matter,
separated, vary friends.
And here's what I think is funny too.
Everything's a cover-up now, and everything's swept under the rug.
Here's what's funny.
Something will be talked about in a YouTube video with 100,000 views,
but then because we don't want to still talk about it six months later, cover-up.
Right?
Or how about this?
The church will have a whole meeting about something.
Someone will be church disciplined.
The person repents, gets right with God, and is reinstated to the church.
But then we don't want to talk about it six months later, or three months later, cover-up.
Really?
Because last time I checked, when sins have been forgiven and forgotten, that's not a cover-up.
That's love.
And you know what's funny?
How about this?
Someone will get arrested for a crime.
They'll be convicted or plea bargain.
They will serve the time, finish it, get back integrated into normal society and normal life, whatever it was, whether it was drugs,
stealing, whatever.
And then it'll be brought up 15 years later, 20 years later, 25 years later.
Just, oh yeah, well these are the kind of people that go to this church, you know.
It's like, well hold on a minute.
What does the Bible say?
The Bible says in chapter 16 verse 27, go back one page, chapter 16 verse 27 of Proverbs,
an ungodly man digs up evil, you know, goes on the Internet and digs up something that's
already been dealt with.
And here's the thing, it's like, whoa, we don't want to talk about that.
That's already been dealt with.
That was already church disciplined and forgiven and forgotten.
It's being swept under the rug, because what they want to do is just talk about it for
the rest of our lives.
Something that's already been dealt with, let it go.
And by the way, everyone's sins don't need to be broadcast publicly on YouTube.
Right?
I mean, here's the thing, you know, Noah got drunk, that was wrong, but did there really
need to be a YouTube video about it?
But yet him was the first YouTuber and made a YouTube video about Noah being naked and drunk, you know
Yeah, he probably had some clickbait title on the video, you know, Noah gets drunk and naked in the tent
You'll never believe what happens next
Or whatever
But the Bible says he the cover of the transgressions seek of love he the repeat of the matter separated the very friends
An ungodly man dig it up evil are you there in verse 27 of chapter 16?
and in his lips there is as a burning fire.
A throwward man soweth strife.
What does it mean to sow? To plant seeds. He plants seeds of strife.
And a whisperer separated his friends and all this guy talking about people quietly behind their back, whatever.
A violent man entices his neighbor and leadeth him in a way that is not good.
He shutteth his eyes to devise forward things, moving his lips he bringeth evil to pass,
meaning that he's laying in his bed at night with his eyes closed just thinking about how can I break up these friendships?
How can I break up this friendship between pastors?
How can I break up the unity of the local church?
How can I get a faction to get on my page
that I can draw away disciples after me?
Chapter six is where we started.
We don't have to go back there,
but six things that the Lord hates.
I just want to, because I'm already out of time.
Conclusion, don't act like an abominable person.
Be a person that delights the Lord, a person in whom the Lord is well-pleased.
Here are some final verses to think about.
Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but they that deal truely are His delight, okay?
Do not lie about people and don't repeat lies that you haven't personally confirmed.
The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord and He delighted them in His way.
A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is His delight.
They that are of a forward heart earn abomination to the Lord,
but such as are upright in the way are His delight, right?
There are people that God delights in, and people that God is just disgusted by.
The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord,
but the prayer of the upright is His delight.
And then lastly, Jeremiah 9-24,
but let him that gloryeth, glory in this,
that he understandeth and knoweth me,
that I am the Lord which exercise loving kindness,
just judgment and righteousness in the earth,
for in these things I delight, sayeth the Lord.
Look, you need to be a person who tells the truth.
who loves other people, who wants to build other people up,
esteeming other better than yourself, not a proud look,
but rather you're looking at other people as better,
other people are more important,
you're willing to play second fiddle to the pastor.
or to play second fiddle to the soul winning director or play second fiddle to the music director
or play literally right or to play second fiddle to whoever is the authority in your life
you're willing to be humble you don't go around repeating stuff you're not repeating the matter
You're not a whisperer, a backbiter, but rather you seek to cover the transgression,
you seek love, you seek to build people up, you strive for unity.
And look, unity takes effort, unity takes effort.
Or you could be an abominable person who's sewing discord, sewing strife.
And look, look, look, I've been pastoring now.
I'm in my 20th year of pastoring.
There are church members that are just a pain in the butt.
constant problems constantly starting and then there are people who go to the
church literally for 15 20 years and are just a blessing that you know they're
just they're just helpful they're blessing they're pleasant which one are
you gonna be you know which one are you gonna be because I guarantee you that
if you're if you're a pain in the backside of your pastor and the people
around you in the local church I guarantee you God's looking down and
Because God wants that unity. He wants that pleasant, loving relationship between his people.
He doesn't want to look down and see all this petty, vengeful, vindictive, bickering and backbiting and fighting and whatever.
And you know, and here's the thing, look, I know that there are a lot of people that hate me, but you know what, there are just as many people who hate Pastor Shelley.
So that makes me feel a little better, you know.
think maybe even more people might even hate him because I used to be the most
hated guy but not you know but like you know I guarantee you that there are
people who just absolutely hate Dylan Oz right because Pastor Oz you know he was
viral on those clips and everything right and you know there's so many people
that just hate him and also you know you know that these little disc-run old
little ex-new IFB weirdos I mean they were trying to have an ex-new IFB
conference in Oklahoma
I wonder why they're trying to do that.
You think they're trying to do that
to be a blessing to Anchor Baptist Church,
to be a blessing to Pastor Oz,
or were they doing that to try to hurt Pastor Oz?
To try to sow discord in this.
I mean, this is the church in Oklahoma, amen?
I mean, you're in the right, this is the place.
I mean, am I in the right place or what?
I mean, this is it, right?
This is the church, and here's the thing, this church, you know, you better be gung-ho about this church succeeding.
That's what you should be. You're here. Get excited about it. You know what?
There are other people in other cities, they would love to have Pastor Dylan Oz in their city.
Right? They're like, oh, please send us someone to this church. You know, we get these emails every week.
please send us someone and then here you are you've got the man here and you
know what if you're too stupid to get behind him if you're too stupid to be a
gung-ho not 90% in all in all in gung-ho team anchor Baptist then you don't
even deserve this church you got to be in it man you got to be gung-ho you got
to be all the way and look every church I've ever been in I've been gung-ho
And if I couldn't be any if I can't be gung-ho I'll go somewhere else and you know
What's funny is that if you leave this church and go to the next church there's going to be more you disagree with
Bless your dome, you know, I'm just saying like you know
Yeah, but you know there's this one thing well then shut up about that one thing
And get to work for the Lord and get soul winning and start blessing people around you and be a person that's blessed
And you know there have been people at our church that were troublemakers and you know what we've done over the years
We've done this multiple times. This is what we said to them. We said, you know, we don't want to excommunicate you
We don't want to throw you out of the church, but you're not allowed to attend our church for six months
Because, you know, we've had to, if we had to like repeatedly correct someone or have the same problem with someone and you know
We we've prescribed this multiple times. I don't know if I've told you this
But we've prescribed it where we'll say you have to go to an old IFP church for six months
This is your punishment
I'm not kidding. There's multiple times. We've said you must go to an old IFP church for six months
And at the end of that six months, if the pastor writes you a letter that says this person has been coming to my church for six months and they are a blessing and we like having them at our church, then you can come back.
And it worked. It works. Because here's the thing, you know what, if they can't figure out a way to get along at our church, they can't figure out a way to get along at that church either, and vice versa.
Because you know what? If the new IFP stopped existing tomorrow, myself, Pastor Shelly, Ben, you know,
we would all actually survive in old IFP churches. Fine.
And we would thrive there, right?
I mean, you know, amen? I mean, we would just thrive there.
But you know what the reason we've given that homework assignment. It's kind of a rough homework assignment
Because it lasts for six months, but the reason we've done it is because you know
We want we were teaching people go go learn to be a team player
Oh, you don't agree with me on this and that no well
I'm gonna send you somewhere where you disagree with a lot more and
You why don't you go somewhere where you disagree with 20 things instead of two things and you can go there and
Learn how to be a team player
You don't want that. You don't want if you don't want that to happen
Just be gung-ho
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer father. We thank you so much for your word Lord
We thank you so much for this church and Lord God. We know that this area
So-called Bible Belt somebody told me it was the buckle Lord. We know that this area
Needs anchor Baptist church
Lord God, I pray that there would not be any abominable bozos that would just be here to cause division and be double-minded, half in, half out.
Lord God, if there's anyone here under the sound of my voice that is wavering, I pray that they would just get all the way in gung-ho.
and be a blessing to the church and walk in love
toward their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ
and not so discord.
Lord, we thank you for this assembly
and the great group of people that you brought together tonight.
Bless us as we go our separate ways.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.