Man, this morning I want to preach on the subject of not being conformed to this world.
Not being conformed to this world, the Bible reads in verse number one there, I beseech
you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living
sacrifice holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind
that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
So the way that this world thinks about things is completely different than the way the Bible
teaches us to think about things.
And so we want to make sure that we're not patterned after or conformed to this world's
way of doing things, but that rather we let the word of God transform our mentality so
that we look at things the way that God looks at them.
And when the Bible talks about not being conformed to this world, we're not just talking
about the idiots of this world, the dumb people of this world.
We're even talking about the so-called smart people of this world who've got life all figured
out from a godless perspective, right?
But the Bible says that the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.
Even the foolishness of God is wiser than men, so-called, because obviously God doesn't
actually have any foolishness since all of his precepts and all of his statutes concerning
all things are always right all the time.
As a younger generation coming up, I speak to you teenagers, young people, young adults,
and you know, I would just want to admonish you to look at the way that this world is
doing things and don't go down that road.
If there's something wrong with church, if there's something wrong with Christianity,
if there's something wrong with being a fundamental Baptist, then go to the Bible and figure out
what the problem is and fix it, but don't even think about looking at this world or
asking them to correct whatever's wrong in Christianity.
They are fools without God and without hope in the world.
Don't be conformed to this world.
Don't say, well, you know, I don't know about the Christian life, I'm going to go the way
of this world.
Don't even think about it.
It's foolish.
The Bible says here that we belong to God, we're to present our bodies, a living sacrifice
to God.
And that, by the way, that doesn't make you some super Christian to do that.
That's your reasonable service.
That's the basic.
We belong to Christ.
We're supposed to live a Christian life.
We're supposed to be holy in body and in mind.
And the Bible says, do not be conformed to this world.
Be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you can prove what is that good and
acceptable and perfect will of God so that you can figure that out using the Bible, not
just saying, well, this is what everyone around me is doing in America, so I think I'm going
to do it too.
Now, go back if you would to 1 Samuel chapter 8 in the Old Testament, 1 Samuel chapter number
8.
And this is a great story from the Bible to illustrate what I'm saying about not being
conformed to this world and how we need to go to the Word of God to figure out how to
live our lives because the way that the world does things is simply wrong.
Look what the Bible says in 1 Samuel chapter number 8 verse 1, and it came to pass when
Samuel was old that he made his sons judges over Israel.
Now the name of his firstborn was Joel and the name of his second Abiah.
They were judges in Beersheba and his sons walked not in his ways but turned aside at
after lucre and took bribes and perverted judgment.
So Samuel had been a godly man, he led the nation in a righteous manner, but unfortunately
his two sons are taking a different path.
They're into money and of course we know that the love of money is the root of all evil.
And so lucre there means money, but that word is used in a negative sense about money, right?
So they're going after money in a negative way.
They took bribes, they perverted judgment, and so they're dishonest, they're not good
judges, and the problem that exists here is that Samuel makes his sons judges over Israel
even though they don't have any character.
Now this office of being a judge was always supposed to be based upon merit, not upon
blood or lineage.
If you go back to the book of Exodus where this system was first instituted, it said
that one of the qualifications for these men is that they were men that hated covetousness,
the exact opposite of people who are into trying to make money and get rich off of their
political position.
And so Samuel, instead of passing the torch on to another generation of godly men, instead
just passes it on to his sons because they're his sons.
So this was a mistake that he made, this is something that he did wrong by giving them
this position when they were unworthy of it.
It says in verse number four, then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together
and came to Samuel and to Ramah and said unto him, behold, thou art old and thy sons walk
not in thy ways.
Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.
And so you can see right here, they want to be conformed to this world.
God when he set up the nation of Israel, he said that they were special.
They were a peculiar people.
They're unique among all the nations of the earth.
We didn't get to it on Wednesday night because Deuteronomy four is just a long chapter.
But the part that we didn't get to in Deuteronomy chapter four, he said, man, what other nation
is there like Israel where God spoke to them and God brought them out of another nation
and did all these signs and wonders and miracles.
And God goes on and on about how unique they are and how special they are and how peculiar
and different they are.
And yet now they have one problem, one issue, and they just use this as an excuse to just
say, well, let's just be like everybody else.
Let's not be different anymore.
Let's not be holy.
Let's not be set apart and sanctified for the Lord.
Let's just be like everybody else, all the other nations.
Why?
What's the justification for this?
Well, you're old and your sons aren't walking in your ways.
Look, there's always going to be a problem.
There are always going to be people who let you down.
There are always going to be people at church that burn you or leaders that don't do what
they should do or whatever.
But to just sit there and throw out the baby with the bathwater and throw out a system
that God has been using for 400 years just because, well, you're old and your sons don't
walk in your ways.
Well, you know, we've already been through this before.
What about when Eli was old and his sons didn't walk in his ways?
And what happened?
God raised up another judge, Samuel, to take his place.
Well, maybe this is just a case of history repeating itself and God's going to need to
raise up some other guy and God is perfectly capable of killing Joel and Abiah just like
he killed Hophni and Phinehas the sons of Eli.
He can kill these suckers as well.
But instead they just use this as an excuse to throw out God's plan, throw out God's system
and be conformed unto this world.
And you know, if you're looking for an excuse to quit on God and to quit on Christianity
and to become all disillusioned and jaded and you just, you just, you know, you're recovering
Christa, you're recovering fundamentalist.
You know, if you're looking for something to whine about, you're always going to find
it because there's always going to be somebody who burns you or lets you down or does wrong.
And I'm talking about people who are truly wrong.
I mean, Samuel's sons are truly wrong.
Samuel was truly wrong for making them judges, but you know, if you're looking for some error
or mistake that gives you the right to go whining for the rest of your life and to go
get all worldly and start dressing like the world, acting like the world and living like
the world and going down that road, you know what, if you're looking for it, you're going
to find it, okay?
And that's what they're doing here.
They just want to be like the Philistines is really what's going on.
They just really want to be like all of these other wicked nations in that Canaanite land.
And so they said, make us a king to judge us like all the nations.
Verse six, but the thing displeased Samuel when they said, give us a king to judge us.
And Samuel prayed unto the Lord and the Lord said unto Samuel, hearken unto the voice of
the people and all that they say unto thee, for they have not rejected thee, but they
have rejected me that I should not reign over them.
Now on the surface, it seems like they're just rejecting Samuel and they're just rejecting
his sons and his sons deserve to be rejected because they're a couple of bozos.
But it says here that from God's perspective, they were rejecting him because he had established
this institution of the judges and they are not following God's plan.
That's not a rejection of Samuel personally.
And you know, you can sit there and point your rage or your anger toward a specific
person or church or pastor or whoever you want to blame.
But when you forsake the Christian path, when you forsake church, when you stop serving
God in the local church, you know what?
It's really, uh, it says more about your relationship with God than about a relationship with a
particular church.
Because you know what?
If you have a problem with a particular church, here's what you do.
You go to a different church.
If you have a problem with a particular pastor, you get a different pastor.
You go somewhere else, you move on.
But what you don't do is say, well, you know, I've just been hurt too many times.
So I'm gonna go whine about it and go become a worldly person out there.
And look, we knock the doors of people all day long with all the reasons why they don't
go to church and it's always someone else's fault.
But you know what?
Because Christ is the one who established the church and built the church and shed his
blood for the church.
And you know what?
He's the one that we're coming to church for, him.
And rejection of church is a rejection of him.
Rejection of the Christian life is a rejection of the path that he has laid for us, not the
rejection of whatever person you're upset at for whatever reason.
It says here, they've not rejected thee.
That's what God says to Samuel, they didn't reject you.
Don't take this personally, Samuel, because they've rejected me, that I should not reign
over them.
According to all the works, verse eight, which they have done since the day that I brought
them up out of Egypt, even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken me and served
other gods, so do they also unto thee.
Now therefore hearken unto their voice, howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them and show them
the manner of the king that shall reign over them.
And so what we see here is that people can't be forced to love God.
They can't be forced to serve God.
They can't be forced to follow Christ with their lives.
But what they can be is warned about the consequences of rejecting God's plan and going the way
of this world and being conformed to the ways of this world.
And so Samuel begins to warn them in verse 10.
And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of him a king.
And he said, this will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you.
He will take your sons and appoint them for himself for his chariots and to be his horsemen
and some shall run before his chariots.
He's saying, look, you're going to be drafted into the military, right?
Your sons are going to be taken and forced to do these jobs for the king.
They're going to lose their autonomy.
They're going to lose their freedom.
They're going to be drafted into military service.
He said in verse 12, they'll appoint him captains over thousands and captains over fifties and
will set them to ear his ground and to reap his harvest.
Okay.
They're not just going to do the job of being soldiers or working for the state.
No, they're also going to be reaping his harvest, earing his ground, making his instruments
of war and instruments of his cherries.
He's saying, look, your youth and your energy and your work is going to go to enriching
someone else, helping someone else, blessing someone else.
You're giving up freedom and you're giving up prosperity for yourself when you could
have been working for yourself.
All that labor and effort's going to be going to make his life better and to make his kingdom
prosper as opposed to doing things that are a blessing for you personally.
He says in verse 13, he'll take your daughters to be confectionaries and to be cooks and
to be bakers.
Well, here's the thing.
You know, women typically are those things anyway, aren't they?
I mean, they ought to be.
They're supposed to be, right?
I mean, women grow up and they get married and what do they do in their home for their
husband, right?
Well, they make desserts.
They're confectionaries.
They're cooks, right?
They cook breakfast.
They cook lunch.
They cook dinner.
They bake, right?
They bake things.
This is a normal life for women.
Here's the difference.
The difference is, is that he's going to take your daughters and they're going to go bake
for him.
They're going to go cook for him.
They're going to be a confectionary for him.
They were going to do those things anyway, but instead of making you dessert, they're
making him dessert.
Instead of baking bread for you, they're baking bread for him.
And you know what?
There's nothing new under the sun.
Today, the people of this world want to denigrate the idea of a woman being a homemaker and
a housewife and a stay-at-home mother and tell you that you're not reaching your whole
potential.
But you know, it's not that they don't want you baking.
It's just that they want you baking for someone else.
You're going to bake no matter what, ladies.
Just deal with it.
And you say, well, I'm not going to be a baker.
I'm going to be, you know, whatever, you're going to be baking something.
If it's not food that you're baking, okay, you're going to be doing some other menial
job, okay, because newsflash, men and women both in the workforce are typically out grinding
out menial jobs or things that aren't fun all the time.
Even if you have this really meaningful, fulfilling job as a manager or something, you know, okay,
you're going to manage some company.
How about you manage the home, right?
But isn't it funny how the world thinks you're successful because you're managing some office
with five people in it.
But then if you're at home managing a household with five people in it, it's like, oh, you're
trapped.
Oh, you're doormat, right?
But yet your husband doesn't have you on CCTV.
Your husband doesn't have you wearing a hairnet when he cooks.
When there's hair in the food, he just pulls it out and keeps eating.
But no, he doesn't make you wear a hairnet or a name tag.
He doesn't make you clock in and clock out, right?
So what's wrong with serving your husband, right?
Isn't it amazing how women will go and work in restaurants all over America?
I wonder how many women work in restaurants today, literally baking, literally making
desserts, literally cooking and cleaning and delivering food.
And they walk up to some table of some random dude and be like, here you go, honey.
Anything else I can get for you, baby?
Who's ever been called honey by a random woman at a restaurant who's serving you as a waitress?
Any man who doesn't have their hand up just hasn't been out to eat.
I can't even count how many times I've been called honey, sugar, darlin', right, sweetie?
All kinds of wonderful names as I'm handed some meal, hey, is there anything else I can
get for you?
Right.
If somebody does that for her husband, all of a sudden it's the Stepford Wives, right?
All of a sudden it's Invasion of the Body Snatchers, you know?
All of a sudden it's degrading and how dare he expect her to act that way.
But everybody goes to a restaurant and that's what they expect.
Everybody.
And if they don't, they're like, oh man, what's the service, what's her problem?
You know?
Right?
You know, they bring the food and it's like, right?
What if a waitress did that for you?
They took the food and just, would that fly?
No.
But all of a sudden when you're out there in the world being someone else's baker, being
someone else's confectionary, all of a sudden it's so cool, it's feminist, it's success,
it's liberal, it's wonderful, it's so empowering.
You know, how about the empowerment of running your own house, taking care of your own children,
why don't you serve your own husband and be nice to him and, you know, instead of flirting
with some random dude, you know, you could actually treat your husband well.
But no, no, that's too degrading.
You know what?
Take whatever this world says and throw it in the trash and get in your Bible every day
and read it and figure out how to live your life.
This world is going down a dark path, okay?
They don't know anything about the family, they don't know anything about gender, they
don't know anything about how men and women are supposed to live their lives.
Don't listen to them.
Nuts to them.
Who cares what they think?
Who cares what they say?
Well, I just don't know what people are going to think about me if I'm a stay-at-home mom.
Number one, people aren't thinking about you.
They're thinking about themselves.
And number two, who cares what these idiots in this world think about you?
Who cares what the supposed wisdom of this world thinks about you?
It's foolishness with God.
We need to get in the Bible and figure out what the Bible says.
And you know what the Bible talks about?
Men going out and working and women being keepers at home.
That's what the Bible says.
That's what it says!
Keepers at home!
Guide the house!
Love your husbands!
Love your children!
Obey your husbands!
Submit to your husbands, right?
Do the work that God has given you.
No, no, no, we want to be like all the nations.
So we're going to dye our hair green and pink and blue, like looking like some hazardous
beast from South America in the jungle, some kind of a salamander that's going to kill
you, and you know, we're going to go out and fulfill ourselves by being confectionaries
for the king, right?
Well, great.
But you know what?
Why not be a confectionary in your own home or a baker in your own home?
But no, no, no, the world has got it all figured out, don't they?
And so he's warning them and he's saying, you know, this is what it's going to be like.
You're still going to have to fight battles.
You know, it's like, oh, we want a king to fight our battles for us.
You think the king just goes out there, just one dude and just kills everybody, right?
This isn't some stupid, moronic, 21st century action movie where one person just kills
like 80 people and 100 people and 2000 people.
It's just a one man.
No, no, no.
The king leads the troops into army.
And guess what?
When he leads the troops in army, the troops die.
They fight, they die.
It's the same thing.
And you know what?
The difference is when you have God on your side, you're probably actually going to win.
Okay.
Versus going into battle with your king and you're worldly and you're sinful.
Look, there are a lot of times when the children of Israel have a king and they get defeated
in battle because God's not on their side.
And then there were other times when they didn't have a king and they win because God's
with them.
And then there are other times when they go into battle with a godly king and they went
the common denominator is whether God's on their side.
But either way, the people have to fight, okay?
The people end up having to go to war.
Sure, there's some great judge leading them into battle, but you know what?
He has thousands of troops behind him.
Even Gideon had 300 guys with him.
And by the way, those 300 guys quickly turned into thousands of guys if you actually read
the story.
And people are getting involved and fighting.
So here's the thing.
You're going to have to fight battles whether you go God's way or the world's way.
You're still going to battle.
The difference is you're going to battle for yourself.
The difference is you're going to battle as a free man.
The difference is you're fighting for something that you believe in, not just, hey, we're
going to battle because the king says we're going to battle.
And by the way, most of the kings that they ended up having ended up being bad and abusive.
And they had some good kings.
But even the good kings, I mean, who was really the most successful king in the history of
the nation of Israel?
Who's the most successful guy?
Solomon, right?
I mean, Solomon's the most successful king that they had.
He's the big one, you know, as far as just that's when the nation was at its peak.
Okay.
And how was it under him?
You know what it was like?
It was rigorous.
It was hard.
They had to constantly go and be drafted into service to go do his building projects.
What did they say to Solomon's son?
What did they say to his son?
Your dad made life hard for us.
You need to ease up the burden a little bit.
You need to lower taxes a little bit.
You need to stop this conscription because here's the thing.
Solomon's doing all these great building projects and guess what he's doing?
He's conscripting labor.
People don't, it's not like, hey, we're looking for volunteers to build the temple.
And then after we spent seven years building the temple, I'm going to need some volunteers
to spend 13 years building my house.
You think it was volunteers?
No.
It's like, hey, everybody from this area is going to work the entire month of January
and then you guys over here, you're all going to work in February and then you guys over
here, you're going to all work in March so you're going to have 11 months at home working
for yourself and then one month you're going to spend working for me.
By the way, it's very similar to what things were like in say Mexico several hundred years
ago when the Spanish came and that's what they would do.
They would say like, all right, this village over here, you better send us 50 workers and
you guys got to work for us and they'd have to do that and it was like a form of taxation
where instead of sending cash, you know, these people don't have any cash and so they would
have to send able-bodied men to work and they would have to serve the Spaniards, right?
And you know, eventually, obviously, they got sick of it and they didn't like that and
they didn't think it was fair that they're having to do all of this hard work for their
Spanish overlords, right?
But I mean, if you read the Bible, you know, it was just exactly what God said it was going
to be like that basically when they have a king, even a good king, even a guy like David,
even a guy like Solomon, even a guy like Hezekiah, they're going to be conscripted to do a lot
of work for that king and not for themselves and to glorify his kingdom and glorify his
name.
You know, just like in the United States, we have giant structures like Hoover Dam,
right?
How many thousands and thousands and thousands of people spent just so many hours of work
building that thing, right?
And of course, they were volunteering and getting paid.
But man, these giant structures, they take a lot of effort.
They take a lot of work.
And you know, with King Solomon, it wasn't a voluntary thing.
It was okay.
It's your month.
It's your turn.
And everybody's cycling through and they're doing these things.
Okay.
And so you're going to fight no matter what.
You're going to work no matter what.
You're going to build no matter what.
Ladies, you're going to bake no matter what.
Okay.
The difference is you do it for the Lord.
You do it God's way.
You do it for yourself or you do it for this world.
And you do it to please them and make them happy.
Okay.
But it's all going to be the same in many ways.
So he says, you know, he'll take your daughters to be confectionaries and to be cooks and
to be bakers and he will take your fields and your vineyards and your olive yards, even
the best of them, and give them to his servants.
And watch this.
Look at verse 15.
And he will take the 10th of your seed and of your vineyards and give to his officers
and to his servants.
Notice how he's going to take one 10th.
Does that remind you of anything?
Does that ring a bell with anything?
Right?
The tithe, right?
The Bible says the tithe is the Lord's.
The Bible commands to give 10% to the Lord and say, well, I'm, you know, I'm done with
that.
I'm done with church.
I'm done tithing.
I'm done serving God.
Okay.
Well, you know what?
You're just going to end up paying 10% out there anyway.
First of all, our government today, we wish that they took 10%.
I mean, we would all be thrilled if our government just took 10% and that was it.
We pay way more than that.
And you know, if some of you don't understand how to read your paycheck, just maybe you
should just go to the grave not understanding how to read it because it'd be depressing
if you actually figure out what's really going on because your employer is literally paying
half of your taxes, he's paying it for you.
It's money they would have given you.
He's giving it to government instead.
So the government wants to hide how much they're taxing you.
So they have the government, they have the employer pay part and you pay part and then
some of it they tax on the way in, some of it they tax on the way out so that you got
sales tax over here and you got the federal income tax, the state income tax, property
tax over here.
But then there's the FICA and the Medicare and then there's your employer's part of FICA
and Medicare and 10% would be great, 10% would be nice, right?
10% would be a blessing.
But that's what he says.
He says, look, he's going to take 10% from you, you know, and symbolically what this
could represent is, you know, if you're not going to give 10% to the Lord, you know, you're
going to end up just giving that 10% somewhere else.
You're going to end up just losing that 10% somewhere else because if God blesses you,
you can live better on the 90% than you can live on 100% when you're not obeying God.
And so he says he will take your fields and your vineyards and your olive yards, verse
14, even the best of them and give them to his servants.
He'll take the 10th of your seed and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and
to his servants and he'll take your men servants and your maid servants and your goodliest
young men and your asses and put them to his work.
He will take the 10th of your sheep and ye shall be his servants and ye shall cry out
in that day because of your king, which he shall have chosen you and the Lord will not
hear you in that day.
Nevertheless, the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel and they said, nay, but we
will have a king over us.
Why?
Why are they ignoring godly advice?
Well, here's why they want to have a king over them.
That we may also be like all the nations.
We want to be like the nations.
We want to be like this world.
We want to follow in the path of this world.
And that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.
He's going to fight our battles for us.
And Samuel heard all the words of the people and he rehearsed them in the ears of the Lord
and the Lord said to Samuel, harken unto their voice and make them a king.
And Samuel said unto the men of Israel, go ye every man unto his city.
And of course, they end up going down that path and that's it for this morning as far
as that story.
But go back to Romans chapter 12 with that in mind.
We don't want to be conformed to this world.
We want to be transformed by the renewing of our mind.
Meaning that if we want to know how to live our lives, we need to look to the word of
God, not look to this world.
You know, I get so sick of hearing what normal people do.
This is normal.
This is how normal people live, you know.
What does that even mean?
Because surely you can't be talking about American culture in 2023.
Because I don't think normal means what you think it means.
If you think this is normal.
Okay.
I just went to the story I say to buy my daughter a pair of shoes.
And there was just some filthy, disgusting, gigantic picture of a gigantic transvestite
on the wall.
And it said the pronouns were he, she, they.
And I'm like, what is that?
You just listed all of them.
What does that mean?
You know, I guess just call me whatever you want.
Well, let me call you a big, fat, steamy piece of crap because that's what you are.
You're a big pile of ugly, disgusting crap.
And you say, oh, I've never come back to Faithful Word anymore.
Pastor Anderson hurt my eardrums with the word crap.
You know what?
This crap is being shoved down our throat every day.
Huh?
Does that offend you?
Well, I'm never going back to the Converse store.
You know what?
If you're never going to come back to Faithful Word Baptist Church because Pastor Anderson
offended you and said that some transvestite is a big, steamy pile of crap, good, I don't
want you here.
Let me tell you something.
This world is literally going insane.
They're nuts.
Okay?
They're little pruny, he, she, it.
He, she, it, they.
They forgot it, right?
She, it, they.
All right, there.
Let me say that a little faster for you because that's what it is.
And let me tell you something, my friend.
This world is on a bobsled to hell.
And yet today we have young people, Christian teenagers, children, young adults thinking
like, oh, church, you know, all these people at church, hey, at least I can look around
this church and figure out who's a man and who's a woman.
Oh, church people.
You know what?
I'd rather hang around with church people any day of the week than the people of this
world.
You know who I want my friends to be?
Church people.
You know who I want to spend my spare time with?
Church people.
God's people.
Christian people.
And you know what?
My interaction with the people out there in this world, you know, the biggest thing that
characterizes my interaction with them is I feel sorry for them and I want to win them
to Jesus Christ so that they can actually get, you know, saved and go to heaven and
actually understand how to live their lives because right now they're in total darkness.
They're totally lost.
They're totally confused out there.
I mean, what in the world?
It's a shoe store and there's some disgusting freak on the wall.
It was so big.
It was like, I don't know, it was like 10 feet tall.
It was like a 10 foot tall transvestite.
I didn't even know what I was looking at.
Like I was so confused and I was so confused.
I was like, what, what?
But then I saw he, she, they, and I was like, oh, well, now I get it.
Now I get what the problem is.
Now I understand, right?
But by all means, my friend, let's talk about what's normal in America in 2023.
Well, you know, what do normal girls do when they turn 18?
What please tell me what normal young men do when they turn 18 in America, in the USA.
Just tell me about the normal people down at the high school and the normal people down
at the university because I'm just, I'm just all ears.
I'm just dying to hear how that world can tell me how to live my life when that's the
kind of garbage that they have up just in a shoe store and it's not one shoe store.
It's lots of stores.
I mean, is it just, is it just Converse?
Et tu, Brute?
Target?
You're kidding me.
The end is nigh, even Target.
I mean, folks, we could go down the list, but you know what?
I'm some kind of a crazy person according to this world, but you know what?
I think they're crazy and I think you're crazy if you spend any time in Faithful Word Baptist
Church and then decide, well, you know, I'm not going to follow the Bible.
I'm going to follow a more normal way to live my life.
You know what?
You're nuts.
Okay.
Why do you want to be like the Philistines?
Why do you want to be like the Moabites and the Ammonites?
Why do you want to be like the Canaanites?
Why do you want to be like Tyre and Zion?
I want to be different.
I want to be a peculiar people.
I want to be special.
I want to be one of God's people.
I want to be holy.
I want to just follow this world off the cliff spiritually, culturally.
They're just so messed up, it's not even funny anymore.
Okay.
And, you know, somebody needs to say something about it, you know, and, and, and here I am
preaching the Word of God and the Bible says, don't be conformed to this world.
Why not?
Because it's garbage because the wisdom of this world's foolishness with God.
Well, you know, I mean, look, some bonehead idiot reporter from Germany was here a couple
weeks ago in church.
Anybody meet this, this, uh, winner of an individual?
Anyway, this dork is here.
This, this German dweeb is here.
Okay.
And I, and the reason I'm being so hard on the guy is because I read his stupid article
and the guy should be fired for being a horrible journalist.
Okay.
This guy shows up and he's got his little notepad and his pencil because, you know,
he's so, uh, legit of a journalist.
He can't record anything because, you know, he's old school.
He's the real deal, right?
So this little green wet behind the ears punk with this little paper and pencil talks to
me for 20 minutes, writes everything down, talks to Anselm for an hour, writes everything
down and then just basically writes an article that just contradicts everything we told him,
ignores all facts, gets all the facts wrong, and I'm just like, why did you even talk?
What did you draw on that paper?
What picture were you drawing?
I mean, I spent like, and by the way, I spent like 10 minutes explaining to this guy that
I'm not banned from Germany, that I'm not banned from the Schengen area.
Now I know this might cause some of you to think less of me, but I'm only banned from
nine countries right now.
I'm only banned from nine countries and I went, I literally went to the Schengen area
two months ago or three months ago.
I explained that to this guy in detail, but yet in his article, oh, pastor Anderson's
banned from Germany.
Pastor Anderson's banned from the Schengen area.
Pastor Anderson can't come to Germany.
He can't be here.
He can't come.
It's like, ah, were you listening to anything that I said to you?
You know, and then of course they always want to downplay the number of people in our
church.
You know, they always just shave about a hundred people off the attendance.
They ask the attendance, you give them the attendance, you tell them how many people
they just like, okay, they put it into a little formula, minus 100 okay.
And then he brings this photographer.
First of all, he had the photographer lady sitting out in the car for two hours because
he was afraid to bring her into our scary church because church is too scary.
And so he's like, you stay here.
I'll go in.
I'll do it.
Oh, I'm so scared for you.
No, you say, I'll protect you.
It's like, it's church.
These people are literally nuts.
They're crazy.
It's got her sitting outside for two hours.
Then he brings her in and she takes like five million pictures of Anselm and myself and
other church members.
He's in here just taking pictures, taking pictures, taking pictures.
Article comes out, 90, 90% of it's just copied and pasted from other articles about our church
over the last 15 years.
It's just like the same, Hey, back in 2009, here's what he said about Obama.
Here's what he said in 2013.
Here's why, Hey, why don't you talk about what I said last week?
And it's just like, you know, the same boring article.
And then none of the pictures that they took instead, a screen grab from YouTube, a literal
a screen grab.
They came in, they don't even use the photography that they took.
And it's just copied and pasted, boring article, getting facts wrong, ignored.
I talked to that for 20 minutes.
Not one word that came out of my mouth is in that article.
And everything he asked me about, he just wrote the opposite and just got all the facts
and these are just facts wrong.
It's not even opinion.
It's just facts, like numbers, it's just math.
How many people are in the church, right?
You know, am I banned from Germany or am I not?
You know, and if Germany bans me tomorrow, praise the Lord.
But can you get your facts right?
But you know, I've noticed there are two kinds of people that can never get their facts right.
Lawyers and journalists and my entire life, whenever I've dealt with lawyers, whenever
I've dealt with journalists, they just cannot get facts right.
You'll be in court and they just, they can't even get your name right.
They can't even get people's names or facts or places or dates.
That's just the wrong date, wrong name, wrong place, wrong person.
And you know, I'm trying to figure out why do these journalists just always get the facts
wrong?
Why can't they just get a simple, it's like they have one job.
Like if you're an electrician, your job is to run electrical wiring.
A journalist is supposed to document facts.
You know, maybe it's time to put away the pen and paper and get the electronic recording
device since you have the memory of a goldfish apparently.
And since you didn't write anything down apparently.
But then I figured out why they always get the facts wrong.
It's because they don't love the truth.
Because here's the thing, if they love the truth, they wouldn't be some pro faggot libtard
reporter.
If they actually love the truth, they'd actually believe in Jesus and be saved because Jesus
is the truth.
And then I wonder why godless, unsaved, Christ-rejecting reporters can't get facts right.
It's because they don't love the truth.
We love the truth.
That's why we love Jesus.
That's why we're saved.
That's why we believe the Bible.
These people don't know Christ, so they don't love the truth.
That's why they can't even get a simple fact right.
They can't even get a number or an address or a name or a fact right.
They fly across the world with their little pencil and paper and their fancy photographer
and they can't even get any facts.
You know, why didn't they use the pictures?
Probably because the pictures were too real.
Probably because they showed us all smiling and having a good time.
Probably because if you walked around Faithful Word Baptist Church before or after a service,
you know what you're going to see?
Everybody smiling and having a good time.
You know what you're going to see?
Pastor Anderson standing around with a bunch of guys smiling and everybody's having a good
time.
So instead they get a screen grab of Anselm frowning into the camera.
It's a sign.
And then I've gone to the photo shoot with these photographers before and they're just
like, they're like, stop smiling.
Stop smiling.
I'm like, oh, what's the matter?
You don't want me to look too nice?
Because remember, we're this hate group.
The title of the article was brethren in hate.
That's who me and Anselm are.
We're just the hateful duo here.
We're just these hate machines over here.
Folks, it's garbage.
Let me ask you this.
You think that if that filthy transvestite from Converse All Stars was here right now,
do you think that they would love our church?
If they, if she it had the chance to hurt me and kill me and destroy me, guess what?
It would.
You know it would.
They, she, he, it, they would.
And these are words were be being been, have us had, do, does, did, shall, will, should,
with me, my, must, can, could.
Aboard, above, above, across Africa.
You know what?
Look, let me tell you something.
Those who are righteous are an abomination to the wicked and the wicked are an abomination
to the just.
That's what the Bible says.
Folks, I'm no more hateful than anyone else on this planet, right?
I love the Lord and I hate evil.
I love God and I hate the devil.
They hate God and love the devil.
So it turns out we're not that different, right?
The difference is that we love what God loves and hate what God hates, okay?
And so today this world has got it all mixed up.
They've got all their facts wrong.
They claim to be a fact checker and they get all their facts wrong.
They lie, they deceive, and let me tell you something.
We as God's people need to go, if there's something wrong with our church, if you think
there's something wrong with pastor and you're sitting there right now thinking like, pastor
Anderson, there's something wrong with you.
If that's what you're thinking right now, then you know what?
Then you get in the Bible as much as I get in the Bible and you go ahead and correct
me, right?
But don't you try to correct me by telling me what's normal or what this world has to
say because I don't care.
I don't care what normal church is like.
I don't care what's normal in America today.
You know, all I care is what the Bible says and you know what?
The Bible says that those who are wicked are an abomination to the Lord, okay?
And they're an abomination to me too and then I'm an abomination to them.
That's what I believe, okay?
And when it comes to how I order my household, when it comes to my marriage or my children
or how I live my life, I'm going to go with what the Bible says and I don't care what
this world says.
I'm not going to be conformed to this world.
I don't want to follow the fashions or the trends or the styles of this gender-bending
weirdo society that we're living in.
I'm going to go to the word of God and look, I'm not saying that I'm perfect.
I'm not saying that our church is perfect.
I'm not saying that the independent fundamental Baptist movement is perfect or that the new
IFB is perfect or that anything has ever been perfect, right?
Because we're all sinners saved by grace here doing the best we can to follow Christ and
love the Lord and serve God.
But if you're going to sit there and say, well, you know, the pastor this and the church
this and you know, his two sons this and these people over here this, you know, you're just
looking for an excuse to follow the ways of this world.
And God says, don't do it.
Do not be conformed to this world.
Be transformed by the renewing of your mind and let the word of God form your views, okay?
The word of God is right about everything.
And it doesn't matter how weird this world gets.
I'm thankful that 20 years from now I can get up to preach and the Bible is going to
be the same.
Bible's going to say the same thing.
I don't have to worry about like, oh man, that sermon didn't age well.
I don't have to worry about that because I know the Bible is still going to say the same
thing.
The Bible is still going to call these people filthy and it's still going to call them an
abomination.
It's still going to say that they're wicked and it's still going to say that they're in
literal excrement.
It's all there.
It's all in the Bible.
And the nice thing is that because I'm King James, I don't even have to worry about my
Bible changing.
You know, I just know 20 years from now it's just going to say the same thing.
And so, you know, I hope that my sermon ages like a fine wine because I'm telling you right
now that the Bible is not going to change.
This world is going to get weirder and weirder.
So if you decide to go the way of this world and be normal with this world, well, you know,
20 years from now we're going to be laughing at the stuff that you did and said, right?
Just like we look at people from the seventies or eighties or nineties and we laugh at some
of the things that they did and said and say like, well, what was that stupid style that
they had?
What was that dumb thing that they were all doing?
Right.
But you know what?
I don't have to be, you know what?
Keep on listening to be reporters and journalists out there.
Keep on talking about what I said in 2009.
It's still true.
I still hope Obama dies.
I hope he dies today.
It's still true.
Keep on saying it.
Keep on talking about the AIDS free Christmas.
Keep it alive.
Keep it going.
Let's talk about it until I'm 98 years old like Eli and I fall out of my chair and break
my neck.
Let's keep talking about it because it's always going to be true because it's God's word.
It's not going to change because God still said the same thing that all those sermons
were based on.
You know, not that anybody necessarily listens to the whole sermon, they just hear these
little sound bites.
But you know, if they actually listen to the whole sermon, there's a big pile of scripture
in every one of those sermons, a lot of Bible.
It's all there, my friend.
As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
Be not conformed to this world.
Do not ever make the choice to forsake biblical Christianity to go out and follow this insane
world.
If there's a problem with Samuel, if there's a problem with church, if there's a problem
with our Christian culture, then let's get deeper into the word of God.
Let's dig into the Bible and let's fix things.
But they are not even allowed at the table.
They don't even have a voice.
I don't even want to hear what they think church should be like or what they think.
Anybody who doesn't have the Holy Spirit living inside of them has, you know, it's funny,
I went off on that German reporter and I never even got to the point.
This was the point.
I sat in my office, I'm glad I didn't forget the point.
I did, but it came back.
I sat in that office and he said to me, I told him, I said, we're not radical, we're
not fringe.
I said, half of America agrees with me on the sodomites because that's all these idiots
want to talk about is homos.
And I said, well, I said, I said probably like half the people in this country agree
with me and find it disgusting.
And he's like, oh, that's just the bubble effect.
You're living in a bubble.
This guy had the gall to tell me that I'm living in a bubble, right?
I go out and knock the doors of strangers every single week.
I'm out talking to worldly people virtually every day.
I'm out talking and interacting with unsaved people every day of my life.
Okay, he's the one in a bubble because he's filling his mind with the news media.
That's the bubble.
Okay, it's funny.
I was just talking to a guy the other day and he was just talking to me how at his job
everybody hates fags and none of them are even Christians.
And they're just like, we don't want to work with that guy, get that guy away from us.
He's gross.
You know, and then, you know, I was just talking to one of our church members.
He said to his coworker as a joke, he said, so what are you doing to celebrate pride?
Pride month?
And his coworker said, what in the f- And he's like, no, I'm just kidding.
Hey, welcome to the real world, buddy.
This is America.
And just because TV and Hollywood have convinced you that everybody believes this stuff.
No, they don't.
And by the way, my family just went to Germany.
My kids were in Germany and they're on the playground at a park and all of the unsaved
worldly kids at the park were all talking crap about homos.
Is that true?
And then they go to a Baptist church, they go to an independent fundamental Baptist church
and they got rebuked for who their dad is.
They got rebuked because I talked against their friends, the faggots.
But then they go to a park with just random worldly kids in Germany.
And everybody hated sodomites.
That's the real world bubble boy.
Folks, you don't have to be a Christian to know there's something wrong with that advertising
in Congress All-Stars.
You just have to be a human being.
That's all.
OK, you just have to be human.
But go ahead and and go ahead and be normal, right?
I'm going to be peculiar because if that's normal, I don't want to be normal.
Right.
Hey, if following the Bible is wrong, then I don't want to be right, because you know
what?
God's word says that the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.
Let's have a prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord.
Thank you that it's a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.
And Lord God, I pray that everyone who's here would receive this hard preaching in the spirit
that it was given, Lord, because we need a wake up call today.
We're living in an insane time.
And Lord God, I pray that every single person would take the challenge to get into the word
of God more than they get into the media and get out of the bubble of the liberal media
and get into the word of God.
And Lord, I just pray that you would just help all of us to be able to raise godly families
in this insane time that we're living, Lord, and help us as we go out and interact with
the unsaved every day.
Lord, help us to pull as many people out of the fire as we can.
And Lord, help us to do your work and preach the word of God with boldness and to realize
that there's still 7000 men that haven't bowed the knee to bail and not to believe this brainwashing
that supposedly everybody agrees with this stuff.
Lord, help us to be a light that shines in the darkness and especially help us to shine
the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ and it's in his name we pray, amen.