For instance, there are people out there,
they're just looking for something new, right?
They just, it's like their goal,
they're searching the Bible to see
if they can find something nobody else found.
And the weirder it is, the cooler it is.
The more sci-fi, wild, exotic it is,
you know, so much the better.
Folks, that is the wrong way to read the Bible.
You know, we should be just looking for the normal stuff
and just reading the Bible on the surface.
And you know, let's find the deeper meanings,
but let's not just go into just crazy town
looking for the weirdest,
maybe it was Jesus who got married at that wedding, you know?
And you know, some of these people,
and I'm not necessarily making fun of anybody
who brings some of these things up to me,
but some of these people will come up to me
with kind of wild doctrines like, you know,
maybe the lake of fire is the sun.
Maybe the sun's the lake of fire.
And I'm not making fun of you if you thought that,
but I'm just saying like, where does the Bible say that?
Why would I believe that?
Why would I teach that?
Why would I believe that?
What scriptural basis is there for that?
That the sun is the lake of fire.
That just, it's just like, where's that coming from?
I mean, if that's how we're going to read the Bible,
then we can just start making up all kinds of wild things.
Then pretty soon we're like Bill McGregor saying
that the new Jerusalem is on the planet Saturn.
I mean, Bill McGregor said that the new Jerusalem
is hidden in the planet Saturn.
Well, show me in the Bible where it's not.
You know what I mean?
He said the 144,000 are in a secret base in Antarctica.
And it's like, well, show me in the Bible where they're not.
He found some verse about people being
cold or something, you know, the frost or ice or something.
And it says he just ran with it.
Do not be carried about with divers and strange doctrines.
If somebody comes at me with a wild doctrine,
they better have some concrete evidence from the-- they better
have some clear scripture from the word.
And sometimes there are people like, you know, I can't--
I've had people bring me a doctrine.
And they're like, I can't explain it that well.
You got to listen to the sermon.
Can't explain it.
Well, can you show me the Bible?
No, but you got to hear the sermon.
Like, one time I heard this doctrine about how, like,
when we are gone, when we're not here,
somebody believed that, like, demons come to the church
building and mock us and have a fake church
service while we're gone.
And it was just like, what?
But they're like, if you heard the sermon that I heard,
the pastor made a real good case for this.
And it's just like, I don't need to hear that sermon.
I know that that's not in the Bible.
But if you heard the sermon though, here's the thing.
If I have to hear some special sermon to believe something,
it's probably not worth believing.
If somebody can't just open a Bible
and just show me a couple of verses,
hey, this is where this is coming from, you know,
but it's all this wild stuff.
But if you heard the sermon, you gotta watch this video.
You know, here's the thing, you know,
look, everything I believe, I can just open my Bible
and just show you some verses.
And if I can't show you a clear verse
about something I believe, you know what I'll say?
I'll say, hey, this is my opinion,
but I'm not really dogmatic about it
'cause I don't really have a clear verse.
Anything I'm gonna say, hey, I know I'm right about this,
it's 'cause I can point you to a clear verse
and it'll take me minutes
to show you a couple of clear verses.
That's the standard for doctrine.
And we need to make sure that all of our beliefs
are based on clear scriptural statements
so that we're not carried about with all this wild stuff.
And the Mormons are an extreme example,
but even within evangelical Christianity,
I mean, you know, people can get caught up
in these weird things.