But fear is an epidemic today amongst Christians,
especially amongst leaders.
You know what?
There are so many pastors who believe right in America,
who know what the Bible says,
but they're just too scared to actually preach
what the Bible says.
I can't even tell you how many times,
on a weekly or monthly or annual basis,
I'm talking to other pastors and missionaries and people,
and it just seems like I'm just saying the same thing
over and over again to so many Christians, pastors.
Just, don't be afraid, fear not.
Just say, just do it, just say, just pull the trigger.
You know, and they're just, oh, I'm scared.
Fear not.
And now you know why Jesus said that over and over again.
Fear not, fear not, fear not, fear not.
Why are you fearful?
Oh, you have little faith, he said.
Because fear, if there's one thing,
and I'm not kidding,
if there's one thing I could change about America,
if I could just push a button and one thing would be changed,
if I could just push,
it would just be that pastors would stop being afraid.
That would fix everything.
I'm not kidding.
I wouldn't push a button to make them all believe like me.
That wouldn't change anything.
You wouldn't even hardly notice the difference.
I mean, most of them already know what the truth is,
these independent fundamentalists.
It's just that they're afraid.
They're scared.
It's sad.
I mean, here's a good example.
Ever since I was 12 years old,
I've known that the pre-tribulation rapture
was a fraud that's not found in scripture.
I've known that since I was 12,
'cause the Bible's real clear that the rapture
takes place immediately after the tribulation.
Matthew 24, 29 through 31, the trumpet sounds,
Christ comes in the clouds, he gathers the elect.
It's right after the tribulation.
Now, it's before God's wrath is poured out.
It's before the wrath, but it's after the tribulation.
But the teaching that's out there
amongst most independent fundamental Baptists is,
Jesus can come back at any moment.
He might even come back tonight,
before the service is over.
That's not true.
The Bible says first, the man of sin will be revealed.
The son of perdition, who opposeth and exalted himself
above all that is called God or that is worshiped,
so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God,
showing himself that he is God.
That abomination of desolation's gonna take place first.
The Antichrist's gonna be revealed first.
The Bible clearly said, after the tribulation in Matthew 24,
after the tribulation in Mark 13, et cetera.
Couldn't be any clearer.
There's no clear scripture that anybody could show you
to say, oh, it's before the tribulation.
But it's just what they believe,
'cause it's what they believe, 'cause they said so,
'cause it's what the Bible college said,
or because that's what they all believe.
But look, I'm telling you, I've talked to so many pastors,
I've talked to so many missionaries,
I've talked to so many people about this subject,
and it doesn't, you don't even have to convince people
half the time that it's after the tribulation,
because you just start talking about it with somebody,
and they'll just be like, man, I've always
known there was something wrong with that doctrine
of the preacher of rapture.
I always knew there was something off with that.
I never quite believed in that, because it never made sense
to me.
I mean, I can't even tell you how many times
I've had that conversation.
It's just once you start talking about it with people,
they're like, yeah, I've always known
there was something wrong with that.
Yeah, that never held up with me.
It never made sense to me.
Even though Kirk Cameron's movie showed it that way,
or whatever, it didn't make sense.
And "Growing Pains" was a stupid show anyway, amen?
But anyway, you know, they basically,
it's like when you start talking to people
about that subject, it's like you have them at hello.
If they know the Bible at all,
it just clicks with them right away.
You know, I mean, I could give you tons of examples
of people where it just clicked immediately,
the first time they heard it, you know, just,
because they already had seen so many scriptures.
They'd already been doubting it
or scratching their head about it.
But you know what?
I can also tell you story after story after story
about pastor after pastor after pastor,
who I talked to about this.
And they just immediately said, yeah, you're right.
I mean, yeah, it's right.
That's what it says.
There it is.
But they'll never preach it, never come out with it,
never, never change their statement of faith,
never teach the church, never preach it publicly
because they're scared to preach it.
They're scared to death
because they don't wanna lose church members.
And they know that if you come out against that doctrine
of the any moment pre-trib doctrine
that you will be blackballed,
you will be blacklisted, you will be attacked,
you will be persecuted, you will lose friends,
you will lose the big name support.
It's a fact.
And so therefore, no missionary will ever come out with it.
Because for a missionary to say,
I don't believe in the pre-trib rapture
is to basically just say, cancel all my support.
I'm not kidding.
I talked to somebody recently who said,
well, I wanted to be a missionary,
but I could not find anyone that would-- any mission board
or anybody that would send me out to be a missionary
because I'm not pre-trib.
Now listen, when I was a child, I
wanted to be a missionary when I grew up.
I've actually wanted to be a missionary my whole life.
When I married my wife, when I was dating my wife,
I told my wife, I said, honey, I just
want you to know that if you marry me,
I just want you to know what you're getting into.
I plan to be a foreign missionary.
I'm not going to always live in the United States.
I'm going to go live somewhere else and be a missionary.
That's why I told her.
She said she was ready to follow me anywhere.
All right?
But anyway, but this is what happened.
I realized how the mission system works as an independent Baptist, and I thought to myself,
there's no way I'm ever going to be a missionary.
Because if I have to go around and get all the support from all these different churches,
there's no way I'm going to be able to please all these people.
Because they're not going to like my preaching.
And you know what?
11 years of pastoring later, that prophecy has come true.
They don't like, most of them don't like my preaching.
You know, you're not going to find 50 churches to support me or whatever like the current
system where they go around and get 25, 50, 100 bucks from everybody or whatever silly
tiny amounts of money.
So that's why I decided, you know what, I just need to start a church in the United
States so I can be totally independent.
And that's why when I started Faithful Word Baptist Church I didn't take any outside support.
I didn't raise any support.
You know, I was sent out of the local church and then I just cut the umbilical cord and
just was independent from day one and it didn't take long for the pastor that sent me out
to disown me.
Five months, and this is what did it.
The first four months everything was great.
Everything's great.
He's proud of me.
He's happy.
Month five I preach a sermon about why the pre-tribulation rapture is false.
May 21st, 2006, five months in, I preach a sermon called the Book of Revelation where
I explain the Book of Revelation and I destroy the pre-tribulation rapture.
In that sermon and you know what, from that, from the time the pastor that sent me out
heard that sermon, he disowned me and wanted nothing to do with me to this day.
Because it's like, "Oh, you're not pre-trib."
Now look, to me that's not a test of fellowship for me.
I mean I'm friends with people that are pre-trib.
I got my token pre-trib friend, no I'm just kidding, you know I got pre-trib friends.
You know, look, if somebody sees Bible prophecy different, I'm not just going to flip out and
just be an enemy with that person, because that's not a salvation issue.
I mean is that really an issue where I can't have fellowship with a brother in Christ because
they misunderstand Bible prophecy?
So I would never break fellowship with somebody over an issue like the timing of the rapture.
You know, obviously it's an important issue, everything's important, but it's nothing to
break fellowship over, okay.
But the pre-trib crowd, they will break fellowship over that.
Even my pastor had sent me out, I mean, boom, fellowship broken, you preach that.
Why?
Because he's plugged into a whole social network of churches and stuff that are all pre-trib.
If you're not pre-trib, you're not in the club.
If you're not pre-trib, you're an outsider, you're an outcast, you're blackballed.
Another pastor, Dr. Roland Rasmussen, Faith Baptist Church, Kenoga Park, my parents went
there back in the 1960s.
My parents actually got saved in that church back in the 1960s.
My mom rode the bus to the church in the bus ministry as a child.
My dad was one of the Lord in his living room.
My grandpa and my dad the same day by the pastor, Dr. Roland Rasmussen, back in the
1960s.
He was a really popular preacher, had a big church, couple thousand people in it or whatever.
He traveled the country preaching in conferences.
He was a pretty big name guy.
Until he came out, they didn't believe in the pre-trib rapture.
He figured it out and he wrote a book about it, post-trib, pre-wrath rapture.
He was just blackballed.
Every meeting canceled, never invited to preach at any conference again, locked out of the
club.
He tells stories in his book about missionaries and preachers where the same thing happened.
I've literally explained this to somebody that was a missionary and had them just say,
"Well, what am I supposed to do though?
I mean, if I come out with this, I'll lose all my money.
I'll lose all my support."
That isn't right, folks.
You've got to take a stand for what's right and let the chips fall where they may.
So what you have, it's like the emperor's new clothes.
You talk to missionary after missionary after missionary that's pretending to believe in
the pre-trib rapture to get paid and they don't really believe in it because they're
just afraid to preach the truth about it.
Pastors are doing the same thing.
You have pastors that literally will go a decade without even talking about the rapture
because they just don't want to come down on either side of the issue.
It's like, "What in the world?
Strange world that we're living in."
But it's just because everybody's scared.
Everybody's afraid that they're going to lose the support of their big pope that they're
kind of leaning on, whether that's Jack Treber or Paul Chappell or whether that's First Baptist
Church of Hammond, you know, whatever Bible college kind of group they're hooked into.
They're afraid that they're not going to be in the cool group anymore.
They're not going to be in the club.
They're going to lose the support, the endorsement, the church members, whatever the case may
be.
But you know what?
In May of 2006, I'm going to preach the truth, and I'm going to let the chips fall where
they may.
And you know, our church was small.
At that time, I just started the church from scratch in my living room.
I had like 20 people total in the church, and I knew that there was a chance that if
I preached this, I'm going to lose some of them.
Because people are so touchy about this issue, and you know why they're touchy about it?
Because they're wrong.
That's why I'm so comfortable discussing it.
I'm comfortable, you know, being around people that believe wrong on it.
They get real uncomfortable because they just don't want anybody to talk, just like, "Shut
up and believe it because we said so, and we don't want to talk about it."
Because most pastors, 90% of pastors, can't even defend their position on this.
Because they don't even understand it.
I mean, when I talk to a lot of pastors about the rapture, first I have to explain to them
what they believe, and then I have to explain to them why it's wrong.
I'm not kidding.
And this is why.
It's not because they're not smart.
It's because if you're pre-trib, the book of Revelation makes no sense if you're pre-trib.
It just doesn't make sense.
And I can't even tell you how many people I've talked to where they said, well, I read
it and it made no sense.
Then I realized the pre-trib rapture was a fraud and then it made perfect sense to me.
And this is what they said.
I used to not like reading Revelation, but now I enjoy it because now it makes sense.
So these guys are confused because they start with the starting point is like, well, it's
pre-trib and then that's like the starting point.
And then that kind of just blinds them from seeing anything else beyond that.
But recently there's a missionary that I was with down in Guyana, a pastor down there named
Pastor Ram Angad, and I mentioned how he helped me get into the school where I preached to
like 575 students, preached the gospel.
Many of them were saved.
A huge amount of people saved.
Everybody got a Bible, a flash drive filled with preaching.
It was a really cool event.
Well, just for being there and filming it on his phone to Facebook, live streaming it
to Facebook, he lost supporting churches because they said he's not pre-trib, he's wrong on
the rapture.
Well, this pastor, Ram Angad, in Guyana, he basically just said, "Well, you know what?
He told them, he said, "Well, I'm not pre-trib either."
It's false."
And they're all panicking and freaking out.
He literally, this is just a case in point, this missionary, he literally lost virtually
all of his support.
He might have lost all of it by now.
Last time I talked to him, he lost more than half of it.
And this is like a couple weeks ago that this was set in motion.
Now he's lost more than half, he's probably going to lose all of his support just on this
one issue of pre-trib rapture.
And listen to me, the pre-trib rapture is false.
And listen, it's not a gray area, it's not confusing unless you're a pre-tribber.
There's nothing confusing about Matthew 24, Mark 13, it's all crystal clear.
The only thing that keeps it alive is fear, that's all.
Fear.
Fear and intimidation of don't talk about it or we'll blackball you.
Your pre-trib or your name's mud all over the country.
Your pre-trib or you lose all your support.
Your pre-trib or we'll declare you to be not even saved.
I mean I can't even count how many times they said, "If you don't believe in the pre-trib
rapture you're not even saved," they said.
I mean this is, and it's false.
And if you think it's not false, you go watch, there's a whole stack of DVDs on that shelf
and they're all free.
After the tribulation, you take that, if you watch that and you still believe in the pre-trib
rapture after watching that, you are either, number one, just very stubborn and have like
some kind of an ulterior motive for not letting it go.
Number two, you might be mentally handicapped.
Or number three, maybe you're not saved if you're under that much of a delusion.
But I don't declare pre-tribbers to be unsaved, most of the time they've just never heard the
truth on it.
Or they're just stubborn, or they're just scared.
You know, that's pretty sad when you don't have the guts to preach what you believe.
I'm going to preach everything I believe, and if it causes half the church to get up
and walk out, so be it.
If it causes no fundamental Baptist pastors to want to fellowship with me, I'm already
there.
No, I'm kidding.
So be it.
No, I have some friends, the ones that I trained and sent out, and no, I have other friends
too.
I have other friends too.
Plus, I have all kinds of friends that are the closet friends.
You know, the friends who are, they're with me, but they just don't want to openly be
with me, you know.
But you know, thank God this pastor down in Guyana, he's standing by his guns.
He's standing by his guns.
But you know what?
I was surprised by that.
You know why I was surprised by that?
Because 99% of missionaries will just do what it takes and say what they need to say to
get paid.
He's taking a hard stand.
He's stepping out in faith.
He's going with his conscience.
He's got integrity.
He's standing with, you know, thank God for that.
But where are the rest of them like him?
People are too scared.
They're too afraid to do, I mean, think about how fear cripples us.
Fear keeps pastors from preaching hard against sin.
And you know what's funny is that they think this, because Zedekiah is a leader here.
You know, he's supposed to be leading the people into righteousness, or if he's a bad
leader, he's going to lead them down a wrong path.
But think about this, a lot of preachers will not preach against the homos.
They won't preach against the sodomites because of fear.
And here's what they say, "You're going to bring persecution on us if you preach that
way."
They'll come right out and say that.
I even had a pastor tell me one time, "Well, I agree with everything you said in your sermon,
but I would never put that online because I don't want the persecution," he said.
Other pastors have gotten angry at me and said, "Well, when you preach like that against
the homos, you're going to bring persecution on all of us," they said.
"You're going to get us all persecuted."
How dare you preach what the Bible actually says.
You're supposed to preach what the Republican party told you.
It's about the bathrooms.
Don't tell these bunch of Republicans, but this new bathroom over here, it doesn't even
have a sign on it yet.
It's not male or female.
So I guess these pastors are going to have a heart attack when they come in here and
see a bathroom that's transgender or unisex or whatever.
Because they're all into that bathroom issue because that's what TV told them to be into.
That's what Fox News told them to be into.
That's what Sean Hannity's got them into and Glenn Beck and all their spiritual leaders
that are Mormon and Jews and everything else.
But then you get up and start preaching what Leviticus says and start preaching what Romans
1 says and start preaching what Jude and 2 Peter says, "Oh, you're going to get us all
persecuted."
But here's the true story.
The true story is that by not preaching hard against that sin, we're going to end up being
persecuted because we're letting them just take over.
And then they will persecute you because pretty soon they're going to get to your bathroom
issue and your marriage issue, which are not biblical issues.
They're going to come and say, "Oh, we're a couple of fags.
Marry us."
That's what they're going to say.
Right?
"Hey, me and my fag buddy want to get married.
Perform the ceremony."
Anyway, "Oh, you know, we can't do that."
See, if we actually preach what the Bible said, our country would be light years away
from that.
We wouldn't even be near that.
If the preachers had the guts to preach what needs to be preached, they'd still be in the
closet.
They wouldn't be coming and announcing themselves as husband and husband at the church.
They would be actually hiding like they used to be in the closet.
But they've come out of the closet because they're emboldened by the weakness of Pastor
Zedekiah who's afraid to do what's right, he's afraid to preach what's right, he's
afraid to take a stand.
And look, I sat in Bible college myself.
I've got to get this off my chest tonight.
I sat in Bible college and had an instructor literally stand up and say this, he said,
"Well, you've got to be careful when you're preaching against the homosexuals these days."
And this is in 2005.
This is 11 years ago.
It's gotten worse.
In 2005, he said, "You've got to be really careful how you handle that subject because
nowadays everybody's got one in their family, whether it's an uncle or a cousin or an aunt
or a step this or step that, so you can't be getting up now and calling them queers
and fags and sodomites.
You've got to be gentle with that subject."
You know what?
That is hogwash.
That is baloney.
There's nothing gentle about the way the Bible handles that subject.
Read Romans 1.
Read 2 Peter 2.
Read Jude.
There's nothing gentle about it, but they say, "Oh, yeah, but we don't want to offend
people."
Well, you know what?
I don't care if your Siamese twin's a homo.
You know what I mean?
It's filthy and disgusting.
You need to get that separated off your body.
You need to cut that thing off your body.
All right?
It doesn't matter.
The point is, you know, "Oh, well, my relative."
So what?
Everybody's got a queer uncle.
I mean, there's even a scientific theory about it called the gay uncle theory because they're
trying to explain how they're born that way because it's like, well, how'd that evolve
since they can't exactly reproduce?
How'd that evolve?
Oh, well, the gay uncle theory.
It's been discredited, by the way.
The sodomite uncle theory didn't hold up to scrutiny.
But the point is that, yeah, okay, so you got somebody in your family.
Well, so what?
That doesn't change what the Bible says.
It doesn't change the truth.
It doesn't matter.
We got to preach the truth.
But fear is our enemy today.
Fear is the enemy of every pastor.
And fear is your enemy even as a church member.
You say, well, how is fear my enemy?
Well, fear is what'll keep you from going out soul-winning.
Afraid to go soul-winning?
Oh, somebody might mock me.
Afraid to read your Bible publicly because somebody might make fun of you.
Afraid to take a stand at a family gathering when something wicked is being brought out
and you say, hey, wait a minute, I don't want to participate in this.
I don't want to drink that or I don't want to watch that or I don't want to participate
in this.
Fear is going to cause you to give in to these kind of peer pressures, whether it's the pastor
peer pressuring you to preach pre-trib propaganda or whether it's some family member trying
to get you to partake of the toast or whatever, toasting whatever, cheers, whatever they do.
It's fear that's going to cause you to do that which is wrong.
And it's courage, boldness that's going to cause you to take the stand and do what's right.
Fear stops some people from getting baptized.
Now it doesn't seem that scary, but some people are just afraid of the water or they're just
afraid of everybody looking at them or whatever the case may be.
But you know what, if you've been saved, you ought to be baptized.
If you're saved, you ought to go soul winning.
If you're saved, you ought to take a stand for what's right.
And don't let fear constantly stop you.
Don't be a weakling like Zedekiah that's so worried about what everybody thinks.
Children and teenagers struggle with this a lot, where they're very worried about what
people think.
They want to dress a certain way to fit in, they want to be cool, but you know what, when
I became a man, I put away childish things.
Time for us to grow up spiritually and stop being a spiritual junior hire.
Quit being a spiritual 12, 13 year old where you're worried about what everybody thinks.
Why don't you grow up and be a man and do what's right and let the chips fall where
they may and not let fear ruin your life, ruin your testimony, and ruin your service
for God.
I kid you not, if there's one thing that I could change in this world, it would be to
take away the fear from the pulpit.
That would fix everything.
That would be the biggest thing that you could do that would make the biggest change, is
just to stop pastors from being afraid.
If every pastor, look, they don't believe like me, fine.
If everybody would just go out and just preach what they actually believe and preach it, preach
it.