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Proverbs chapter 14, beginning in verse number 1.
In Proverbs chapter 14 the Bible reads,
Every wise woman buildeth her house, but the foolish plucketh it down with their hands.
He that walketh in his uprightness feareth the Lord, but he that is perverse in his ways despiseth him.
In the mouth of the foolish is a rod of pride, but the lips of the wise shall preserve them.
Where no oxen are, the crib is clean, but much increase is by the strength of the ox.
A faithful witness will not lie, but a false witness will utter lies.
A scourner seeketh wisdom and findeth it not, but knowledge is easy unto him that understandeth.
Go from the presence of a foolish man, when thou perceivest not in him the lips of knowledge.
The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way, but the folly of fools is deceit.
Fools make amok at sin, but among the righteous there is favor.
The heart knoweth his own bitterness, and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy.
The house of the wicked shall be overthrown, but the tabernacle of the upright shall flourish.
There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful, and the end of that mirth is heaviness.
The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways, and a good man shall be satisfied from himself.
The simple believeth every word, but the prudent man looketh well to his going.
A wise man feareth and departeth from evil, but the fool rageth and is confident.
He that is soon angry dealeth foolishly, and a man of wicked devices is hated.
The simple inherit folly, but the prudent are crowned with knowledge.
The evil bow before the good and the wicked at the gates of the righteous.
The poor is hated even of his own neighbor, but the rich hath many friends.
He that despiseth his neighbor sinneth, but he that hath mercy on the poor happy as he.
Do they not err that devise evil? But mercy and truth shall be to them that devise good.
In all labor there is profit, but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury.
The crown of the wise is their riches, but the foolishness of fools is folly.
A true witness delivereth souls, but a deceitful witness speaketh lies.
In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence, and his children shall have a place of refuge.
The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life to depart from the snares of death.
In the multitude of people is the king's honor, but in the want of people is the destruction of the prince.
He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding, but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly.
A sound heart is the life of the flesh, but envy the rottenness of the bones.
He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his maker, but he that on earth him hath mercy on the poor.
The wicked is driven away in his wickedness, but the righteous hath hope in his death.
Wisdom resteth in the heart of him that hath understanding, but that which is in the midst of fools is made known.
Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.
The king's favor is toward a wise servant, but his wrath is against him that causes shame.
Dear Father, heaven please fulfill the path of your spirit, and please bless us all this day and this week.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Man, the title of my sermon this morning is Don't Believe Everything That You Hear.
Don't believe everything that you hear.
Look down at your Bible there in chapter 14 verse 15 in Proverbs.
The simple believeth every word, but the prudent man looketh well to his going.
The simple believeth every word.
And being simple in the book of Proverbs is not a compliment, it's not a virtue.
It's talking about someone who's ignorant, they're not that smart, they're gullible, they're easily deceived, easily fooled.
And the Bible says the simple man believes every word.
Jump down if you would to verse 18.
The Bible says the simple inherit folly.
Folly means foolishness, stupidity.
The simple inherit folly, but the prudent are crowned with knowledge.
If you want to be knowledgeable, you've got to be careful about the source from which you are getting your information
and that you don't just believe everything that you hear.
Look at verse number 7, if you would, of chapter 14.
It says, go from the presence of a foolish man when thou perceivest not in him the lips of knowledge.
So the first point that I want to make this morning about don't believe everything that you hear
is don't believe everything that you read, hear, and see online.
Now, there's nothing new under the sun.
Long before the internet, there were newspapers and books and magazines that were also filled with wrong information, fraud, and lies.
The internet isn't bad in and of itself.
The internet is just a tool for disseminating information.
It's just that the internet takes disinformation to kind of a new level just because it's so quick and easy to put out information
that there are a lot more people on there putting out false things and lies.
What I want to show you there in verse number 7 is that we should not listen to sources that have shown themselves in the past to be unreliable.
So if there's a source of information that has demonstrated how unreliable they are in the past,
then it says, go from the presence of a foolish man when thou perceivest not in him the lips of knowledge.
The next verse says, the wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way, but the folly of fools is deceit.
Fools make a mock at sin, but among the righteous there is favor.
So you can see from verses 8 and 9 that some people find this amusing or fun to deceive and lie on the internet or in real life or whatever.
People will do this.
Now go to Proverbs chapter 26 verse 18 and I'll show you what I mean.
Proverbs chapter 26 verse 18.
There are people that are uploading false things, fake pictures, because it's fun for them.
They think it's fun to lie and deceive people and put out wrong information.
It says in Proverbs 26 verse 18, as a madman who casteth firebrands, arrows, and death, verse 19,
so is the man that deceiveth his neighbor and saith, am not I in sport?
Hey, I'm just joking, man.
I'm just having fun.
It's just a game, right, putting out lies and false information.
But you end up hurting people when you disseminate lies and false info.
Maybe you think it's fun or that it's amusing, but it ends up harming people.
It's like a madman casting firebrand, arrows, and death because lies and deceit and false information can actually hurt people.
And so we need to deal in the truth.
Now obviously it's not just people who are online doing this for fun, and although that's a big thing out there,
there are also people that are lying and deceiving because they're trying to advance some kind of an agenda.
So they lie to fit their agenda or narrative.
And so what we need to do is we need to do our own fact check of the information that's found online.
Now go if you would to 1 Thessalonians Chapter 5.
Now unfortunately when I say the word fact check, people are just automatically like, oh, the stupid Facebook fact checkers.
Because obviously those so-called fact checks are very slanted.
They are deceivers themselves.
It's like the fox guarding the hen house when you go to the fact checker because the fact checker is constantly twisting things and basically slanting the truth.
I mean those fact check articles are so deceptive.
It's like the headline will say one thing and then you read the whole article and they pretty much refute what they said in their own headline.
They'll be like, oh, yeah, this is a false claim.
And then they're like, well, yeah, actually it's true but, you know, it's kind of out of context but it is actually true.
It did really happen.
You're like, huh? What? This is a fact checker?
Those fact checks are not what I'm talking about.
I'm telling you to do your own fact check, okay?
Don't just take something that you see on the internet and blindly believe it.
Too many people, they see something on the internet that they like or that fits their narrative and they're just sharing it without actually doing any kind of research to see if it's true.
Now let me give you a tip for how you could fact check some of this stuff.
For example, I'll give you some examples.
You know, there was this image online of an archaeologist like dusting off a human skull that was like this big or something.
And it's this archaeologist and he's dusting it off and they're saying, you know, oh, this is evidence for giants.
And they're saying this proves the Bible because it proves the existence of giants.
First of all, anybody who's actually studied the Bible knows that giants in the Bible are about 10 feet tall or at the most 13 feet tall, okay?
Goliath himself was approximately 10 feet tall and then the Bible talks about another guy whose bed is 13 feet long.
That doesn't even necessarily mean that he's 13 feet long because I don't know about you, I don't like to sleep in a bed that's my exact length.
I like to have a little room to, you know, stretch out my arms a little bit.
And so the Bible records a giant as being a little bit less than 10 feet tall.
And there are even human beings on this earth now that are close to that height.
Look at the Guinness Book of World Records.
So the Bible's not talking about some crazy Gulliver's travels, Jack and the Beanstalk giants.
It's just talking about really tall guys.
It's talking about like, you know, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Shaquille O'Neal or something, you know.
It's talking about these big guys.
It's not talking about a skull this big.
That's ridiculous.
It's absurd.
That has never existed.
So let me give you a little tip on how you can immediately find out that stuff like that is fake.
When you see an image online, what you can do is you can actually save that image or copy that image.
And you can paste that image into Google.
And you can do an image search where it'll show you similar images.
So that way, if there's a picture that's been altered or doctored, if you paste it into the Google search,
it'll bring up the real image and you'll see that it's a guy dusting off something completely different
or it's a guy dusting off a normal-sized skull.
And you can see how it's been photoshopped by comparing the original image to the fake image.
So, you know, that's the kind of fact check I'm talking about.
You know, if there's some picture that seems a little wild, right, you can paste it into Google,
find other similar images, and you'll often find the original image from which this fake, lying, deceitful image has been made.
I mean, who would do such a thing?
Who would make something like that?
You know, I can think of a few different things.
I could think of, number one, what we just saw in Scripture, the guy who's doing it in sport.
He thinks it's funny just to deceive people.
And then millions of people literally have ran with that photo of the giant skull.
And then you have other motives of people who maybe think, oh, I'm promoting the Bible.
I'm promoting Christianity because they don't know the Bible and they don't know what giants are in the Bible.
So then they think like, well, who cares if it's real or not.
Maybe this will help people read the Bible or something.
I mean, it's never right to do wrong in order to supposedly do right, okay.
You have to not have this ends justifies the means mentality.
We've got to tell the truth and only share accurate information.
It doesn't matter what our motive is.
We've got to tell the truth and do right and not spread this kind of junk.
But there's so much fake stuff online.
Look what the Bible says in 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5, verse 21.
As I said, do your own fact check, right.
What does the Bible say in 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 21?
Prove all things.
Now the word prove there means to test, okay.
It's an older usage of the word prove, like where David goes out to fight Goliath
and Saul wants him to put on a bunch of armor that he'd never used.
And he says, I cannot use these for I have not proved them.
You know, I haven't tested them out.
I'm not used to this gear.
So the Bible says prove all things, test everything, check everything,
and hold fast to that which is good and discard that which is false, okay.
Do your own fact check.
And there's so much fraudulent information, even coming from so-called experts
and scholars and people with PhDs behind their name.
That does not mean that they are infallible.
It doesn't mean everything that they're saying is true.
PhDs could lie to you too, okay.
Like I'll give you an example.
There's this guy Michael Heiser, this false prophet.
And this false teacher makes all these weird claims about how in the Old Testament
there's all these gods and basically that the Lord God has this council of gods
and he's got this whole crazy weird doctrine.
And to support this, he claimed that in Deuteronomy 32.8,
if you go back to the Dead Sea Scrolls, there are two manuscripts
that instead of saying sons of Israel in Deuteronomy 32.8,
they say sons of God, right.
I went on Wikipedia, okay.
And on Wikipedia, it says under the entry for sons of God, Wikipedia says
there are two Dead Sea Scrolls manuscripts that contain this reading, okay.
So I go down to the footnotes of Wikipedia
because at the bottom of Wikipedia, it gives you the sources.
There's three footnotes for this statement that these scrolls exist that say this.
The first footnote is Michael S. Heiser, Deuteronomy 32.8 and the sons of God.
The next footnote is some other random book.
The third footnote is Michael S. Heiser, Deuteronomy 32.8 and the sons of God.
So there you have it folks, you got three sources for this information
except that two of them are the exact same source just being repeated
but they made a little sandwich by putting something else between them.
You know, so you wouldn't notice that they're repeating the exact same source twice.
You know, they put something else in between
and when you click on the thing in between and you look at it, it never makes that claim.
It doesn't make the claim that there are two manuscripts that say that, okay.
So and then you click on Heiser's and it's basically just Heiser says this thing once
and then it's just repeated all over the internet, repeated, repeated, repeated, repeated, repeated
with no one fact checking.
Well, I fact checked them.
I actually went to a website where you can actually look at images
where every single one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, every little scrap and fragment
has been scanned and uploaded.
You can actually look at the images.
You can zoom in and look at them.
And I went through and I looked at every single scrap and piece of evidence
from the book of Deuteronomy and guess what?
There's only one piece of evidence, not two.
It's a complete lie.
He says it's this scroll and this scroll.
One of the scrolls that he mentions doesn't even contain verse 8.
It isn't there.
It has another part of Deuteronomy 32, but it doesn't even contain the verse in question.
If you actually look at the one piece of evidence that he gives,
it's literally a scrap that I think it has about four words on it.
I made a video where I put the pictures on the screen and showed everything.
It has about four words on it.
It's like a little scrap with four words on it and this is all the evidence.
And he's just like, well, you know, there's two Dead Sea Scrolls at the, you know, Deuteronomy 32.
All the ancient Hebrew text, all two of them, you know, they all say this and whatever.
And I'm telling you, if you Google this, it's just repeated all over the internet.
Even though it's demonstrably false, you can just look up a list of Dead Sea Scrolls,
what verses they contain and you'll see there's only one that even contains that part of verse 8
and it's a little scrap and whatever.
But what's funny is, you know, I uploaded a video where I explain all this,
I show the pictures, I show all this and then you just have people in the comments,
here's a typical comment, I looked it up and there's two.
Oh, well, sorry, case closed.
You looked it up and there's two.
Because them looking it up is basically just Googling, is there two?
That's not research.
You know what I'm saying?
What happens is one person says something that's wrong and then somebody quotes them
and then somebody quotes them and then somebody quotes them
and it goes in a big circle and everybody's like quoting each other.
Eventually there has to be some original document or some source.
You know, you have to follow things to the source and get primary sources,
not somebody who's talking about somebody who's talking about somebody
who's talking about somebody who talked about the Dead Sea Scrolls, who has a PhD.
Well, sorry, but a PhD like Michael Heizer can still be a liar
and a false teacher and of the devil.
So that's just the way life is.
And so you got to be careful that you actually base what you believe
on actual original sources and actually trace things back to a credible source.
And by the way, you know, while we're on the subject,
if you would just flip over a couple of pages to 1 Timothy 5.
While we're on the subject, this is why it's so important to actually read the Bible
and not just read about the Bible.
You know, you have people today doing a lot of Bible study, quote unquote,
that involves reading about the Bible.
But we don't need to read about the Bible.
We need to read the Bible itself, okay,
and not get something secondhand, something that's cherry picked, out of context.
You know, read the Bible for yourself.
Read the whole thing for yourself, by yourself.
Get a King James Bible and sit down and read it.
And don't believe stuff that you just hear or see on the Internet
without doing an actual fact check.
And you need to understand what that means to do a fact check,
not just find other people saying the same thing,
but to actually find some evidence from a primary source, okay.
But number two, don't believe every accusation that you hear.
So number one, don't just believe stuff that's online.
But number two, don't believe every accusation that you hear.
Now, I have to practice this constantly,
and I am constantly teaching this to my staff
and sitting down with my staff and explaining this to them,
just making sure we're all on the same page with this,
because as leaders in the church,
people will come to us with accusations about other church members.
You know, there could be strife in the church.
Obviously, when you have a church with hundreds of people in it,
there's going to be a bit of friction sometimes or disputes,
and so people come to us and they say something about someone else,
and oftentimes when called out in such a,
when called on the carpet and asked, you know,
what's the evidence for that, did you actually hear that?
Well, everybody's saying it.
It's like, well, what does that mean?
You know, who's the actual witness here?
You know, and then you try to go to the source,
and then finally, you pin down the source
and then you ask them what was said,
and it's like, oh, no, no, that's not what they said,
because it's changed as it got passed from person to person to person.
And so, look, you must, as a Christian,
it's very important for me as a pastor,
it's very important for my staff because we deal with this stuff all the time,
but even just as a layman, just as a Christian,
just in your secular life, at your job or whatever,
you should have just a default knee-jerk reaction
of being skeptical any time somebody comes at you
with an accusation about anybody.
You should immediately be skeptical,
but a lot of people, you know what their knee-jerk reaction is?
To just immediately believe an accusation.
Somebody says something bad about someone else
and they just immediately embrace it.
Look what the Bible says in 1 Timothy, chapter 5, verse 19.
It says, against an elder receive not an accusation
but before two or three witnesses,
them that sin rebuke before all that others also may fear.
I charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus Christ
and the elect angels that thou observe these things
without preferring one before another,
doing nothing by partiality.
And this is another thing that I've often mentioned to my staff.
I said, you know what?
When you hear accusations about people,
and maybe it's someone that you don't really like that much,
in your mind, think to yourself,
how would I react if this exact accusation were being made
about this person that I do like, about my friend?
Because let's face it, it shouldn't matter who it is,
we should do nothing by partiality.
Let's say there's a guy in the church
that maybe I don't really like that much,
and there's nobody like that
because I like all of our church members,
but let's say there were a guy that I didn't really like that much
and then somebody brings an accusation,
then should I just jump, oh yeah, well that guy,
of course, figures.
Or if it's someone that I like, one of my buddies,
and I'm just kind of like, whoa, whoa, let's, you know,
let's, you know, verify this.
No, it should be let's verify this with everyone.
And we should do nothing by partiality.
It shouldn't affect us in our judgment.
Whether we like the person, whether we don't like the person,
that's not relevant.
Justice is justice, okay?
And so I often go through that exercise in my mind
when someone brings me an accusation about somebody,
I substitute in someone that's a good friend of mine in the church
and I swap them out in my mind
and then I go over it again in my mind and say,
okay, how would it be if it was this guy?
How would it be if it was this lady?
Making sure that I'm not doing anything by partiality,
making sure that I'm actually judging a righteous judgment
and not being partial in judgment, okay?
So he says don't do anything by partiality
and do not prefer one before another
when it comes to accusations that are being made.
Now the Bible says against an elder receive not an accusation
but before two or three witnesses.
Now the Bible's not saying don't believe that it's true
unless there are two or three witnesses.
He says don't even receive it.
Don't even receive the accusation unless there are two or three witnesses,
meaning reject it out of hand.
I remember there was a guy one time,
this is maybe 20 years ago or something,
a guy came to me one time and made an accusation about a pastor
and he's like, did you know the pastor so and so, blah, blah, blah?
And I told him, I said, well, look, let me tell you right now,
I'm going to assume that what you're telling me is not true.
I'm not even going to receive this because there's no evidence for this.
You know, you're one witness that's claiming this.
I don't even think the guy was a firsthand witness.
I think he was even repeating some hearsay.
But I said to him, I said, I'm just going to assume that this isn't true.
Well, yeah, it is true.
And the guy got mad at me, are you saying that I'm lying?
I said, well, I'm not saying anything.
I'm saying that the Bible says not to receive an accusation against an elder
but before two or three witnesses.
So you coming and telling this to me is going in one ear and out the other?
And I'm going to just assume that it's not true.
Okay, eventually down the road I heard someone else repeat this same allegation.
This is like 20 years ago.
So it's someone that you guys would have never even heard of
because this is a long time ago.
So then, you know what, I picked up the phone and called the guy
and asked him myself, and of course it wasn't true.
It was just some disgruntled church member had made up some crazy story
and he had evidence that it wasn't true and everything was on the up and up.
But my friend, you can't just take what you hear and just run with it about anyone.
Now this is specifically talking about pastors.
But you know what, this courtesy should be applied to everyone too.
When somebody comes at you accusing someone without any evidence
or if it's just one witness, we should not assume that it's true.
Our default should be that it isn't true.
Why? Even our American justice system treats people as what?
Innocent until proven guilty.
The presumption of innocence.
And you know what, that's how we need to live our lives.
We need to presume people's innocence until there's actual hard evidence.
Go if you would to Deuteronomy chapter 19.
Deuteronomy chapter 19.
While you're turning there, in Matthew 5 it says this,
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake,
for theirs the kingdom of heaven.
Now if you know anything about the Beatitudes in Matthew 5,
it's all in the third person like blessed are the meek,
blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are the poor in spirit.
What's interesting though is that when he gets to verse 11 he says,
Blessed are you. So it's been blessed are them, blessed are they,
blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake.
But then he says, Blessed are you when men shall revile you
and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.
Rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven
for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
You know what's interesting about that switch to saying,
blessed are you when this happens.
I'll tell you why. It's because it will for sure happen to everyone who's serving God.
Because the Bible says, Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus
shall suffer persecution.
You know, other things are more abstract and third person,
but then when he gets down to the persecution,
people lying about you, saying all manner of evil against you falsely,
he says, Blessed are you when this happens.
Because it's not if, it's when. It's guaranteed.
So the Bible says, Rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven
for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
So he says, Blessed are ye when men shall say all manner of evil against you falsely.
That's what they did to the prophets before you. Rejoice.
Now let me ask you this.
In light of that, does that mean that every single preacher who's preaching the word of God
is going to be lied about at some point?
I believe that's what it means.
And that's what I've observed with my eyes, by the way,
over the last 30 some years of being a Christian.
I can tell you right now, every single person who lives godly in Christ Jesus
shall suffer persecution and just as the prophets of yesteryear were lied about
and slanted and maligned, it is guaranteed to happen about today's preachers.
So do you see how important this command is then to not receive an accusation
but before two or three witnesses when it's a literal guarantee
that false accusations will be levied against all pastors and all men of God.
You know, I'm thinking of a certain pastor who's a friend of mine,
who was a friend of mine a long time ago.
And he said to me, oh, you know, I agree with what you've preached, Pastor Anderson,
but he said, you know, I wouldn't post that online because I don't want the persecution.
I wouldn't post that online because I wouldn't want to deal with being in the news and being attacked.
And I guarantee you there's thousands just like him that feel the same way.
But what's funny is that literally about a year and a half after saying that,
this pastor was in the news and he was lied about and attacked and maligned in the news
even though he had this attitude of, you know, don't put stuff online, avoid the persecution.
He tried to dodge it but here, you know, you want to know what his mistake was?
He was living godly in Christ Jesus.
You know what his mistake was? Is that he was actually saved.
He was actually preaching the Word of God.
He was actually preaching hard.
And so even though he tried to avoid the persecution,
guess what? It's going to get you.
In fact, the more you avoid it, it's probably going to get you more
because God is probably not pleased with him hiding it under a bushel anyway.
And so this guy got maligned and lied about in the news because this is what happened.
He had a men and boys camping trip.
And on this camping trip, there was a guy in the church who raised rabbits for food,
you know, which I'm not necessarily into that but it's a thing that's out there.
Who's ever eaten rabbits? Put up your hand. You wicked bunch.
Look at all those hands all over the building.
But anyway, this, you know, there's a guy in the church that raised rabbits for food.
So basically they brought some of these rabbits on the camping trip
and he basically taught them how to butcher and eat these rabbits
as sort of like a male bonding, you know, kind of macho event to do on a camping trip.
Which here's the thing, you know, we're so separated from our food in the United States.
You know, I was in my 20s the first time I ever saw an animal be butchered.
I was in my 20s and I saw a pig be butchered
and it was pretty shocking because I was just unfamiliar with it.
But where do you think that pulled pork sandwich comes from?
Where do you think that cheeseburger comes from?
It comes from animals being killed, okay?
And so basically this was just a lesson for young men who've grown up in the city
to basically understand where food comes from.
It was totally innocent.
You know, they're butchering animals that were raised for food.
These aren't cats and dogs.
I mean, they were animals that people eat that were, you know, I'm not saying it was kosher, okay?
But basically, but neither is most of the stuff that we eat.
So the thing is, you know, they do this totally innocent fun activity.
Everything's great.
Some teenage girl just got disgruntled, mad at the pastor about something totally different.
Just totally unrelated.
She's just mad at the pastor because, you know, she's just a rebellious teenager.
And so she goes to the media and blows things out of proportion
that they're doing like ritual animal sacrifices in the wilderness, okay?
This is an independent fundamental Baptist church.
This is not a Judaizer church.
But supposedly they're doing just these ritual animal sacrifices,
sadistic, torturing animals for fun.
I mean, just all these wild and crazy accusations.
And then the news articles are quoting the guy from animal control.
We're looking into this.
And if those rabbits suffered at all, you know, we're going to hit them with the full extent of the law.
You know, so here's a guy trying to keep his nose clean,
saying I don't want to shock anybody.
I don't want to put anything on the internet.
I preach the same.
I mean, this guy told me I preach the same sermon as you almost last Sunday night, but I wouldn't upload it.
This guy's trying to dodge it.
But guess what?
Every pastor eventually is going to be lied about, persecuted, slandered, maligned.
It's just a fact of life.
It's just an occupational hazard of being a pastor.
It's just part of life.
But forget being a pastor.
All who live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.
That's man, woman, boy, and girl.
And so you may never pastor a church, but you are not immune from being lied about and slandered.
And by the way, even unsaved people who aren't even a Christian, sometimes they get lied about and slandered too.
Because we live in a world where people lie about each other.
Because we live in a sinful world.
But if you're serving God, it's a guarantee that it's going to happen.
And so you've got to just understand that.
And so do you want people to just automatically believe the junk that they hear about you?
Well, then you know what?
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
And you need to make sure that you give people the benefit of the doubt.
That you presume people's innocence.
And that you don't just believe every accusation that you hear.
Look what the Bible says in Deuteronomy chapter 19 verse 15.
I've got to hurry.
One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity or for any sin and any sin that he sinneth.
At the mouth of two witnesses.
This is Deuteronomy 19, 15.
Or at the mouth of three witnesses shall the matter be established.
If a false witness rise up against any man to testify against him that which is wrong.
Then both the men between whom the controversy is shall stand before the Lord, before the priests and the judges which shall be in those days.
And the judges, watch this, shall make diligent inquisition.
And behold, if the witness be a false witness and a testified falsely against his brother.
Then shall you do unto him as he had thought to have done unto his brother.
So shalt thou put away evil from among you.
So what's the punishment for being a false witness in the Bible?
Whatever you were accusing them of, whatever that punishment is, that's what you get.
So if you accuse someone of first degree murder and you are a false witness and you lied about it.
And the punishment for first degree murder is death, you'll be put to death.
You know if you lied and accused someone of committing adultery and they didn't actually commit adultery but you claimed I saw them do this.
Then you would actually receive that punishment of death as well.
Or let's say you accused them of stealing and they have to pay a certain fine.
Now you have to pay that fine.
Because you're trying to get them in trouble.
Now here's the thing.
What does it mean to bear false witness?
It's when you claim that you saw something that you didn't see.
You claim that you heard something that you didn't hear.
Or you knowingly repeat false information and spread false information.
You're a false witness and the Bible says you get that serious punishment.
Why the serious punishment?
Look at verse 20.
And those which remain shall hear and fear and shall henceforth commit no more any such evil among you.
You know he's saying we want false witnesses to get the message that if you lie in court, if you lie under oath, if you plant evidence you'd be scared to do that.
Because think about it.
I mean the police sometimes do this don't they?
The police will sometimes plant evidence on someone.
Now sometimes they can justify this by saying well I know he did it and I don't want him to get off the hook so I'm just going to plant this evidence here.
But hold on a second.
What does the Bible say?
If that officer plants evidence on him, whatever the sentence is, if he plants drugs on him, whatever that drug sentence is, he should get that sentence for planting that evidence.
It doesn't matter whether you know he's guilty.
You don't plant evidence.
You don't lie.
You don't say that you saw something you didn't see.
You don't say that you heard something that you didn't hear.
You've got to be telling the truth as a witness.
And he says this in verse 21.
I shall not pity.
Don't feel bad for the false witness when they get this punishment.
Life shall go for life.
So he's saying this would include the death penalty.
Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
And again when you put this in tandem with 1 Timothy 5.
1 Timothy 5 19 says against an elder receive not an accusation but before two or three witnesses them that sin rebuke before all that others also may fear.
You could take that two different ways.
You could take that as the elders who sin rebuke before all that others also may fear.
Or the witnesses who sin rebuke before all that others also may fear.
I would go with the latter interpretation in light of Deuteronomy 19.
Because it's the false witnesses that are the ones who need to be made an example of them.
So that other people will be afraid to just blow off their mouths and lie and bring railing accusations.
That means by the way if a woman accused a man of raping her, what should be the punishment of that woman if it's a lie?
The same punishment that the rapist would get.
I mean that's what the Bible is teaching.
I mean you know and you hear a lot about guys getting accused of rape.
You know they'll be in a consensual situation and then the woman turns around and accuses them of rape.
And then they end up going to prison or whatever being a registered whatever offender.
But let me explain to you guys something.
Here's how you don't get accused of rape.
Falsely don't commit fornication.
You know it's you know basically obviously it's unjust for these guys to get pinned with that accusation of being a rapist.
But at the same time by fornicating by having sex before marriage they're putting themselves in that position to be accused of that.
Okay of course all the idiot MGTOWs are going to leave comments on this sermon.
You know explaining to me how you know oh you know don't get married all women are bad.
Look if you're out there sleeping around and by the way this is another reason in case the fear of God is not enough for you.
Which the fear of God should be enough for you to be a virgin when you get married.
Amen.
For you young men to be a virgin when you get married.
For you young ladies to be a virgin when you get married.
Okay hopefully the fear of God should be enough to motivate you to keep yourself pure until you're married.
But here's another little motivation for you guys.
STDs.
And here's another little motivation for you guys.
How do you know that that tramp that you're shacking up with isn't just going to accuse you of raping her?
Because she changed her mind or something.
Or she drank alcohol or took drugs or oh I wasn't in my right mind.
Nowadays I saw a thing they had an app for people's phones like a consent app for college students.
You know so these college students can sleep around.
It's like okay before we do this you know they have to take like a sobriety test on the app.
And then everybody signs and gets notarized and you know says that they're consenting.
That way nobody can be accused later or whatever.
Let me tell you something guys.
You just need to abstain until you're married.
That's how you avoid that.
Okay that's how you avoid getting pinned with that.
But the bottom line is false witnesses get a severe punishment in scripture.
And false witnesses are out there.
Now again I want to just hammer this point because it's so important.
Don't believe everything that you hear.
Don't believe accusations that you hear without being substantiated.
Okay.
Default is to not believe it.
Not just like well I'm neutral you know I'm just kind of neutral I don't know.
You know what if you're neutral you're wrong.
Because the default is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.
Not like well I don't know until they're guilty.
It's a presumption of innocence.
You don't even receive the accusation but before two or three witnesses.
Railing accusations that have no basis should be rejected out of hand.
Not like well it could be true maybe I don't know.
You are unjust.
God wants us to be just.
We need to make sure that we don't just believe things that are flying around with no basis with no evidence.
There has to be actual evidence.
There has to be two or three witnesses.
And not only that go if you would to 1 Kings 21.
Like we said it's guaranteed that people are going to lie and bear false witness against people.
I could give you examples.
I guarantee you that every single person in this auditorium could probably testify.
Someone has lied about.
Put up your hand before.
If someone has lied about you and falsely accused you of something that you didn't do in your life.
Somebody lied and said you did something and you didn't do it.
It's virtually everyone.
That's life.
It's the world we live in.
Some people freak out when this happens and I'm just kind of like.
Please this is another day at the office.
I have to try to empathize.
But he said something about me that isn't true.
And I'm just thinking like.
And?
You know like.
I'm like okay that happened to me too.
20 minutes ago.
You know.
If I made a full.
Look look recently.
I've been doing a series on YouTube.
Where people are sending me.
People are sending me sermons.
By old IFB pastors.
Preaching against me.
And I'm like doing a reaction video.
Where I listen to those sermons and I respond.
And prove them wrong and whatever.
And I'm up to like six.
But now people keep sending them to me.
So it's going to be like a never ending series.
And it's too fun you know.
But the thing that's funny about this.
Is you know.
People are sending me these.
And here's the thing.
This is just.
Just my fellow independent Baptist.
Lying about me.
Okay.
But other people are like.
What about this?
This series is just the independent.
Because there are literally thousands of videos.
Pastor Anderson this.
Pastor Anderson.
You know I mean.
How many news articles and sermons.
And I've just like narrowed it down.
It's like no no no.
This series is just about.
This tiny less than one percent of the attacks.
That are just coming from my fellow independent Baptist.
And these guys.
They said that I teach work salvation.
I mean I've been accused of a lot of things.
I never thought I'd get accused of that.
Usually people are mad because I'm making it too free.
I'm making it too easy to get saved.
I mean it works.
What in the world.
And just saying that I don't believe in the rapture.
I don't believe that the rapture is even going to happen at all.
Statements have been.
I mean it's just.
I'm not going to rehash that series.
But just.
Just crazy.
Oh yeah.
By the way.
This guy gets up and says.
And this is recently.
This pastor gets up and says.
Yeah he's got a tiny church out in.
Arizona.
And it's all.
Our church is always tiny.
Every news article and whatever.
Tiny.
And he said.
Yeah.
I mean it's got sixty people in it.
Maybe seventy.
Which.
Here's the thing.
On it.
Obviously a hundred of our people are in Sacramento right now for the conference.
We run over three hundred every Sunday morning.
So that's not tiny.
The average church size in America is like seventy five.
We have over three hundred on Sunday mornings.
Over two hundred in the evenings.
But it's like.
Oh a tiny church.
I remember Pastor Jimenez was running a hundred and ninety.
Was what he was running before the Orlando thing.
He had over two hundred people in church that particular Sunday morning.
The Sacramento Bee reported that his church had thirty people in it.
And they were there.
They physically went there and looked at it and said.
Because they're liars.
And I was thinking to myself.
You know.
Okay.
We're just at the Red Hot Preaching Conference.
We had five hundred and four people in attendance on Friday night.
So I guess sixty plus thirty equals five hundred and four.
You know.
If our whole church went over there.
Which they didn't.
But the point is.
People just lie.
And I mean.
Again.
I could literally.
If I responded to every lie about me.
It would literally be a full time job.
It would just be like.
I'd wake up on Monday morning.
And I'd have like.
My assistant.
You know.
Hand to me.
Today's workload.
And it's just like a stack of videos and articles.
It's like.
Alright.
Let's dig in guys.
We got.
You know.
All these lies.
But do you think that that's really what I want to do with my life.
I'm doing this one little series.
Because I'm having a little fun with it.
And.
It's just a.
You know.
A little series I'm doing.
But man.
If I just did that all the time.
That'd be crazy.
Wouldn't it.
That would never end.
Okay.
So you can't worry about every false accusation.
And respond to everything.
You know.
99% of it I don't respond to.
And obviously it's harder for you.
If you're new to it.
When someone lies about you for the first time.
You're just like.
But.
This happened.
You know.
This is outrageous.
But.
My friend.
It will happen.
And God knows the truth.
And you know what our reaction should be.
Is to rejoice and be exceeding glad.
And you know what.
I'm human.
I struggle with this.
When people lie about me.
Sometimes I get real mad.
And I always just have to tell myself.
You know what the Bible says.
Rejoice.
And I have to quote these verses to myself over and over again.
To try to convince myself of this.
Because as a human being in the flesh.
Man it makes us mad when people lie about us.
Doesn't it.
It's infuriating.
And most people have been there.
But.
I gotta hurry for sake of time.
But the last point I want to make about this.
Is that just because there are two witnesses.
That still doesn't mean that it's true.
Okay.
You don't even receive an accusation before two or three witnesses.
Then when you have the two or three witnesses.
Then you make diligent inquisition.
To see whether it's true or not.
And to see whether they're false witnesses.
To see whether this is even true.
Okay.
A lot of people just have this attitude.
That.
Two witnesses.
Done.
Guilty.
That's not what the Bible says.
Because.
And we're going to skip it for sake of time.
But I was going to read for you 1 Kings 21 9 through 15.
Where Naboth is falsely accused by Jezebel.
She hires two false witnesses to claim that he blasphemed God and the king.
And they put Naboth on trial.
Two witnesses come forward.
They testify against Naboth.
And Naboth is executed.
Was Naboth guilty?
No.
But yet.
Two witnesses rose up against him.
And in fact.
I can think of another person against whom two witnesses rose up.
And he was executed.
What was his name?
Jesus.
Jesus himself was executed at the mouth of more than two witnesses.
They brought in a parade of false witnesses.
That lied and claimed that he said things that he didn't say.
Okay.
I got to hurry up though.
The last verse on that is Proverbs 14 5.
A false witness will not lie.
But a false witness will utter lies.
You know.
People are going to lie.
So last place we'll turn this morning is Jeremiah chapter 27.
Jeremiah chapter 27.
And the third and final point is.
Don't believe all the Bible preaching you hear.
And Bible teaching that you hear.
So number one.
Don't believe everything you read on the internet.
There's a lot of fraud out there.
There's a lot of fake news out there.
Sometimes people will share articles from websites like the Babylon Bee.
And obviously the Babylon Bee is pretty easy to tell.
It's not real.
But there are other websites like that.
Fake websites.
It's a joke.
And they'll share them like they're real news articles.
I can't even count how many times I've seen people sharing articles from satire websites.
Thinking that they're real.
So here's another little practical tip for you this morning.
Okay.
Practical tip.
Like I gave you that tip about doing the image search.
Here's a practical tip.
You know.
Like Wikipedia.
Go down and look at the sources.
See where it's even coming from.
And then you find out it takes you in a circle.
Okay.
Here's another practical tip.
When you see a news article that seems pretty wild.
Seems pretty out there.
Pretty crazy.
This is what you do.
You're on that news article.
Up in the left hand corner there's an icon that takes you home.
To the home page of that website.
Right?
Click that.
Go to the home page.
And then what does the home page look like?
If the home page is like.
You know.
Woman gives birth to 500 pound baby.
And you know.
Bat boy found in cave.
If that's what the home page.
You'll notice right away that it's a satire website.
You just go down the list of the home.
But if you look at the home articles.
And everything seems to be legitimate.
And then there are.
You know.
Then there's this article that was kind of wild.
But there's a lot of legitimate news.
Okay.
Again.
I'm still not saying to just blindly believe it.
But at that point you can say.
Okay.
This might actually be a real thing.
And then you proceed to other steps of verifying and fact checking and so forth.
But I mean that little step right there is going to save you a lot of embarrassment.
Because 99% of it can be weeded out by just that.
Go to the home page of the website.
Where you saw the article.
And figure out is this even a real website.
Or is it a satire.
And by the way.
That's how you can also prevent being a victim of credit card fraud.
You know.
I'm going to confess my foolishness to you.
A couple months ago.
I did something stupid.
And I.
But at least like once I did it.
I immediately knew like.
Wow.
Am I just an idiot or what.
And then I immediately was able to fix it.
But I basically entered my credit card information into a fake website by accident.
Okay.
But the good thing is I realized it immediately.
And so I called my bank and said.
You know.
Cancel my credit card and give me a new one.
But I felt like such an idiot because I fell for it.
But this is what I typically do.
Because you know.
Sometimes you're trying to buy something.
And you think it's a real website.
You enter your credit card info.
And it turned out as a fake website.
So again.
Here's the tip.
Click on the home icon.
Go to the.
See if there's.
Because some of these fake portals that take your money.
They don't even have a home page.
You click on the home page.
And it just.
Nothing happens.
And that's what happened.
I was trying to buy a book.
And it was something that wasn't on Amazon.
It was something rare.
And somebody was claiming to sell it.
I entered my credit card number.
I pulled the trigger.
And then all of a sudden I just had a weird feeling.
Like this doesn't seem right.
I click on the home page.
There's nothing there.
There's like ten links across the top of the screen.
I'm like clicking on each one.
They're all going nowhere.
Everything's a dead link.
And I'm like.
Oh man.
I just got completely duped.
And so thankfully I called and got it cancelled.
So nobody was able to take my money.
But.
I'm just saying.
You know.
We live in a world that's filled with fraud.
Liars.
Don't just believe stuff that you see online.
And you say.
Yeah but I saw a picture of it.
Folks.
Think about.
I saw a video.
Folks.
Look what Hollywood is able to do.
They can.
They can make everything.
Am I right?
I mean think about a Hollywood movie.
Do those things seem real?
Oh yeah.
I mean.
I mean people are dying.
Planes are crashing.
Cars are exploding.
And all these things are happening.
And it all looks real.
But none of it's real.
I mean with all the CGI.
And this is what's called a deep fake now.
Where there could be a deep fake.
Where there are fake videos.
Fake images.
That seem totally real.
So you have to make diligent inquisition.
Don't believe what you see online.
Number two.
Don't believe every accusation that people come at you with.
And this is important.
You don't want to be this unjust person that's constantly just believing false accusations.
And then number three.
Don't believe all the preaching and teaching that you hear.
Anytime you hear any preaching or teaching from the word of God.
You want to verify that it's actually true.
Okay.
Now that even goes for my preaching.
I am not infallible.
If I get up and preach the word of God to you.
You know what I hope you're doing.
I hope you have a Bible in your lap while I'm preaching.
And I hope when I say turn to Deuteronomy 19.
That you're in Deuteronomy 19.
And that you actually check and make sure that that's what Deuteronomy 19 actually says.
And that I'm not just saying that that's what it says.
But that it actually says.
I mean just this morning.
I kid you not.
Because I was thinking about this sermon.
I went on my YouTube channel this morning.
And this guy leaves a comment on a video.
And he says.
Oh here's this error in the King James.
You know the Hebrew says this.
But the King James says this.
It's an error.
It's fraud.
It's wrong.
I take my King James Bible off the shelf.
Open it.
And it read exactly like the Hebrew.
It was 100% right.
It didn't even say what the guy said that it did.
And I'm just like.
What in the world?
But that.
People do that all.
I've literally.
I kid you not.
I spent like an hour arguing with someone before.
Because they've come up to me and said like.
Well what about where the Bible says this.
And then I'm like spending like 45 minutes explaining why.
Well you must be misunderstanding that.
Because the Bible says this.
And I'm like proving them wrong and going through all this.
And then like 45 minutes later we actually opened the Bible.
And the Bible didn't even say what they said it said.
They were quoting it wrong.
And we just wasted like 45 minutes talking about it.
That's why whenever anybody's like.
Well what about where the Bible says this.
The first thing I do is say.
Let's turn there.
To make sure that it even says that.
Before we waste any time talking about it.
Let's make sure that that's what it even says.
Because sometimes just quoting something just one word wrong.
Or two words off.
Can completely change the meaning.
And so the.
Step one in any biblical dispute is to open the Bible.
And actually get it in front of you.
And see if it's even there.
Okay.
The Bible says in Acts 17 11.
These were more noble than those in Thessalonica.
And that they received the word with all readiness of mind.
And searched the scriptures daily whether those things were so.
These people did not have a bad attitude toward the preacher.
Because the Bible says.
That they received the word with all readiness of mind.
So they weren't coming to church like.
I'm here to pick apart this sermon and find the problems.
No no no.
They're ready to learn.
They're assuming.
That it's true.
That you know the presumption of innocence.
They love the preacher.
They want to hear what he has to say.
They're ready to hear it.
But.
They also search the scriptures daily to make sure that what he's telling them is true.
And you know that's the relationship that I want to have.
With the members of Faithful Word Baptist Church.
I want you to receive the word with readiness of mind.
I don't want you to come here being skeptical.
And trying to prove me wrong.
And pick me apart and find all the problems.
I want you to receive the word with readiness of mind.
Come into church ready to learn.
Ready to get something from the word of God.
But I want you to check everything that I'm saying and make sure it's true.
And if you check me out.
And find that I have preached something that is not biblical.
I want you to disregard what I've preached.
And go with what you found in the Bible.
Disregard what I have said.
And go with what you found in the Bible.
If you check the Bible.
And you see that something that I said is not true to the word of God.
It's not accurate.
Then who do you go with?
Do you go with me or do you go with the Bible?
Go with the Bible every time and twice on Sunday.
Go with the Bible.
Do not just automatically follow what I say or anyone else says.
Check it out for yourself.
Fact check me.
And you know why I can get up and say that?
Because the truth fears no investigation.
See I want you to double check what I say.
Because I have confidence that if you do fact check what I say.
You'll find that I'm telling the truth.
Now does that mean that I've never made a mistake?
Of course not.
I have made mistakes.
I've said things from behind the pulpit that were inaccurate.
I've gotten historical facts wrong.
I've quoted a scripture wrong.
I've taught things that were incorrect.
But here's the thing.
I try very hard to fact check anything that I give you.
You know anything from history or the culture or whatever.
I really try hard to fact check those things to be accurate.
But there are going to be times when I make a mistake.
Okay.
And so I don't fear being investigated.
I don't fear being fact checked.
Because of the fact that I believe that what I'm saying is accurate.
And you know am I going to make a mistake?
Yes sometimes.
But I'm okay with that.
You know if someone catches me in a mistake every once in a blue moon.
I'm okay with that.
Now if I'm just every week just giving you a bunch of inaccurate teaching.
Then you should stop listening to me.
Because of the fact that I'm a bad source of information at that point.
But guess what?
If you fact check me you know what you're going to find?
That the stuff I say checks out.
And even some of the stuff I say that sounds kind of crazy.
If you look into it you'll find that it's true.
Okay.
And so that's why I'm not worried.
That's why I can get up and say hey.
Go ahead and search the scriptures daily.
And see whether the things that I'm telling you are so.
And don't believe anything I say that conflicts with the word of God.
But I want you to presume that I'm telling the truth.
I want you to give me the benefit of the doubt since I'm your pastor.
I'm assuming that you come here because you believe that I'm a faithful man of God.
If you don't believe that I'm a faithful man of God.
Then what are you doing here?
You know and I would say you're an idiot for being here.
If you don't believe that I'm a faithful man of God.
What are you doing with your life here?
And people who go to a church where they believe that the pastor is a bad person.
And they keep going to that church.
You know what?
They're a weirdo.
You know I went to a church.
And I realized that the pastor was a bad guy.
And you know what I did?
I left the church immediately.
Immediately.
Even though.
Even though I was attending Bible college there.
Even though I was in my senior year.
And had already ordered my cap and gown to graduate from that Bible college.
When I found out that the pastor was bad.
I left immediately.
I walked away from all that because I'm like.
I'm not going to sit in a church with my family.
In a church that I know the pastor is a bad guy.
And of course that pastor was a bad guy.
I was right.
And later I was proved right.
And now he's in federal prison.
Okay he's a very wicked man.
But you know.
As soon as I realized that.
I was gone.
People who say.
Oh Pastor Anderson is so bad.
It's like then why are you going here?
You know why you're going here is because I'm not bad.
Because I'm actually a man of God.
And you're actually here as an infiltrator.
Trying to cause problems like a Judas Iscariot is what you're doing.
Because no normal person goes to a church where they believe that the pastor is bad.
It's a fraud.
It's a fake person that would do such a thing.
Because normal people go to a church where they believe the pastor is legit.
And here's the thing.
If the pastor is legit.
Then you should go into the preaching ready to learn.
And assuming that you're being taught the truth.
But always fact checking what the pastor says.
Always turning to the scriptures.
Why do we bring our Bibles to church?
To turn in the scriptures and make sure that it says what the pastor says it says.
Am I right?
You look in there and you're checking.
And then you don't just check on Sunday.
You go home and read your Bible on Monday.
And as you're reading the Bible on Monday you see.
Is what's being preached on Sunday lining up with what I'm reading on Monday?
That's a question that you should ask yourself.
You know I remember coming to.
I remember approaching my parents as a teenager and saying.
I don't feel like what I'm reading in the Bible matches up with what I'm being told in church.
You know and my parents and I had that conversation.
We were a little bit disgruntled with our church.
Because it wasn't lining up with the Word of God.
So then we switched and found a church that did line up with the Word of God.
And so we've got to not just believe preaching and teaching that we hear.
Even if it's from a pastor we like.
Even if it's from me.
I mean the Apostle Paul said.
Though we are an angel from heaven.
Preach any other gospel unto you.
Let him be accursed.
He said don't listen to me if I'm preaching wrong.
Don't listen to an angel from heaven if he's preaching wrong.
So I would never blindly believe anything from any preacher or Bible teacher.
No matter who they are.
Everything must be tested by the Word of God.
No one is above making a mistake.
Amen.
Did I have you turn to Ephesians 4?
The Bible says in Ephesians 4 verse 11 he gave some apostles.
Or did I have you turn to Jeremiah?
Okay let's go there then.
Jeremiah 27 verse 9.
Therefore hearken not ye to your prophets.
Nor to your diviners.
Nor to your dreamers.
Nor to your enchanters.
Nor to your sorcerers.
Which speak unto you saying ye shall not serve the king of Babylon.
For they prophesy a lie unto you.
To remove you far from your land.
That I should drive you out and you should perish.
Verse 14.
Therefore hearken not to the words of the prophets that speak unto you saying.
Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon.
For they prophesy a lie unto you.
For I have not sent them sayeth the Lord.
Yet they prophesy a lie in my name.
That I might drive you out and that ye might perish.
Ye and the prophets that prophesy unto you.
Also I spake to the priests and to all this people saying.
Thus sayeth the Lord.
Hearken not to the words of your prophets that prophesy unto you saying.
Behold the vessels of the Lord's house shall now shortly be brought again from Babylon.
For they prophesy a lie unto you.
There are preachers out there lying.
They preach lies.
They are not sent by God.
You must make the word of God your final authority and test every preacher by the word of God.
And again, no preacher is going to be perfect.
No preacher is going to make zero mistakes.
I am not perfect.
I make mistakes.
But there are some guys out there who make mistakes.
Then there are guys out there who are just flat out lying.
And they're deceivers.
And they're a fraud.
And when they're called out on their mistakes.
They dig in and continue to lie and cheat and do all these things.
And so again the title of the sermon is.
Don't believe everything that you hear.
Don't just go through life being a simple one who believes every word.
You've got to go through life checking things.
Verifying things that you see, hear, read, listen to online.
Verify them.
Fact check them.
Number two.
Somebody comes at you and accuses someone of something.
And look, people have come up to me about preachers that I absolutely despise.
I mean preachers that are wicked.
And then I absolutely despise them.
And came up to me and said, did you know that that pastor did this and that?
And I've said to them, I don't believe that because you have no evidence of that.
Is that the right reaction?
Or should I just go, well yeah, I don't like that guy.
So yeah.
Yeah.
You had me at hello.
But wouldn't that be a temptation?
When it's a pastor that we absolutely despise.
And somebody comes to us and gives us the dirt on them.
And then we'll just immediately just, well yeah, I mean we know.
And then it's like the cop who plants evidence.
Well we know he's bad so might as well just run with this too.
Because it's not like we don't know he's bad.
We know this guy's guilty so it's okay if we plant evidence.
Is that what the Bible says?
No.
I don't care if I absolutely despise that pastor.
If somebody comes to me with a railing accusation, I'm not going to run with it.
You know, I mean, this is kind of a silly example.
I'll just throw it out there.
And maybe this isn't even the best example.
But you know, Sam Gipps' Twitter account tweeted porno or something.
You know, and everybody's just like, oh look, you know, he's into porno or whatever.
But you know what?
Even then I gave the benefit of the doubt and I said, you know what?
Sam Gipp is this old man who probably just doesn't know how to use the internet.
And he got one of those, you know you get those Facebook messages.
It's like, OMG is this you?
Who knows what I'm talking about?
Who's got that message before?
Don't click on that, you know.
But duh, obviously.
Now look, all of us in our generation and younger, we know not to click on that stuff.
99%, like I said, you know, a couple months ago I did enter my credit card somewhere stupid.
But 99% of us are going to realize that those things are fake.
But here's the thing.
I've had people inbox me weird messages like 50 times and you know what that means?
If they're inboxing me that, it means they clicked on something stupid.
Does everybody understand?
If my friend is sending me OMG is this you?
And it's some weird link.
That means they clicked on it and now their account is like sending those out.
So basically I even gave the benefit of the doubt and I said, you know what?
Sam Gipp is probably just a little bit technologically impaired.
He's a little bit slow on the internet.
He probably just clicked on some bogus link and now he's tweeting porno or whatever.
But you know what Sam Gipp turned around and did?
Sam Gipp claimed that Framing the World and Pastor Anderson hacked his account and made him tweet that with absolutely zero evidence.
He's claiming that we hacked into his account just so that we could just tweet this porn link.
And it took like a week for anybody to even discover the porn link because apparently nobody's reading Sam Gipp's Twitter.
Because it was like a week late, the link sat there for a week and then somebody, you know, one of his followers finally clicked on the thing.
And they're like, whoa, this is pornographic, whatever.
So instead of just saying, hey, that wasn't me, I must have clicked something stupid, sorry.
He literally said Framing the World, Paul Wittenberger has done this.
What in the world?
And he said it's Pastor Anderson that did this to me.
You see what I mean? No evidence, just a relic accusation.
So look, but my reaction, my instinct was not to just go, well, I don't like Sam Gipp, so yeah, he just indulges in pornography constantly.
That'd be a wicked thing for me to say to just throw, you know what I mean, just because I don't like him.
Because let's do a little game in our mind.
What if we substituted a preacher that we liked and just some weird thing got tweeted like that?
Would we just automatically assume this guy's into that or would we think he clicked something stupid because he made a mistake on the internet?
Does everybody see what I'm saying?
And so we've got to be careful that we don't just use the ends to justify the means and basically if it's someone we like, ignore the accusations.
And if it's someone we don't like, we jump on it.
That's not justice, my friend.
And look, I've proven over the years that if there's a legitimate accusation about someone that's one of my friends, I will not spare them if they're guilty.
Amen? I've proved that.
Obviously, I don't want to rehash the past, but a certain pastor out in Texas that we were friends with that was guilty of grievous sins, hey, I did not spare.
I blew the whistle on it, I forced him to step down, and it doesn't matter who he was.
It doesn't matter if he used to go to church here, it doesn't matter if he's our friend, it doesn't matter if he's guilty, he's guilty.
Am I right?
And so we don't want to be partial and believe what we want to believe, we want to believe the truth.
Not what we want to believe, we believe the truth.
Okay? And it doesn't matter whether we like them or don't like them, the truth is the truth.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and I pray that every single person here would adopt your mentality that you've given us in the word of God
and not to just go with some kind of a worldly philosophy, but rather to understand what you've said about these things, Lord.
Help us to be wise and not simple.
Help us to prove all things, hold fast to that which is good.
Help us to do nothing by partiality, but to be fair and just and righteous in our judgment.
And help us not to falsely accuse people or to believe false accusations.
Help us to follow your word, Lord.
And also, Lord, help us not to get sucked into bad preaching and bad teaching, but help us to search the scriptures every single day so that we will know whether the preaching is consistent with your word or not.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
All right, in your hymn books, turn to song number 467.
Song number 467, the B-I-B-L-E. We'll sing this song two times through.
The B-I-B-L-E. Yes, that's the book for me.
I stand alone on the word of God.
The B-I-B-L-E. Yes, that's the book for me.
I stand alone on the word of God.
The B-I-B-L-E.
Yes, that's the book for me.