Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Faithful Word Baptist Church.
If you would, please find your seat and we'll begin our service this morning or this evening.
Once you find your seat, grab a hymnal and turn to song number 137.
Song number 137 in times like these.
You need a savior in times like these You need an anchor, be very sure, be very sure
You're in her hold and grips the solid bond This rock is G
Thank you for allowing us to be gathered here tonight.
We pray that you would just bless this singing
and be with Pastor Anderson as he preaches to us later.
It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen.
Next, if you would, please turn in your song books
to song number 221.
Song number 221, the child of the...
All right, at this time we'll go through our announcements together.
If you don't have a bulletin, slip up your hand nice and high.
We'll get to you with one on the inside.
We have our service time Sunday mornings.
at 10 30 is our preaching service on the nights at six Wednesday nights at seven
normally our Bible study through the book of Psalms but this Wednesday night
we got a special guest preacher Pastor Corbin Russell from down in Tucson
straight paths Baptist Church and so I know you're gonna enjoy hearing from
him and if you don't normally come on Wednesday nights make it a point to be
here for Pastor Russell this week
soul winning times are listed there below,
as well as Salvation and Baptisms.
And then across the page,
we had an awesome weekend up in Flagstaff.
Thank you so much to everybody who showed up.
We had a way bigger turnout than we expected.
And we got way more people saved than we expected
because Flagstaff is usually not very receptive at all.
And so I was expecting like,
I would have been happy to get eight, nine, 10 people saved.
I was just hoping we would get people saved and so getting 27 people saved up there is just an
absolutely incredible result. God has really just been blessing our soul winning in general this year
and so I'm super thankful for that and we had a huge crew of people out there. We had 84 people
up there soul winning and then we had a really fun hike yesterday as well making a lot of great
And we had about 45 people hiking up Mount Humphreys.
It's a very difficult hike because it's pretty steep,
it's long, and the altitude is a special challenge
that we're not really used to
because we live down here at like what,
1,100 feet or something.
And so this hike goes all the way up to 12,633 feet.
And you definitely feel it when you get that high.
And so,
You know, we had like 36 people make it all the way to the summit.
Most people at least made it to the saddle and so a good job out there staying in shape and working hard.
And it was just great and so I just happy to be a part of such a fun church and so many great people.
On the back, pray for the expectant ladies that they will have a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery.
And then below that, we've got, again, the note that we already talked about,
Brother Corbin Russell, and then other upcoming events.
I'm going to be preaching in Vancouver, Washington on August the 7th,
so that's a few months out, but just throwing that out there
for anybody who knows people in that area,
Vancouver, Washington, August 7th.
And then we've got the Fire Breathing Baptist Fellowship.
in Texas, Cedar Hill, Texas.
That's Pastor Shelley's Church,
Steadfast Baptist Church.
So that's gonna be a great conference,
a lot of great preachers that are gonna be there.
And so if you are interested in going to that,
reach out to us,
because we are helping people out with hotels.
We may, we're also talking about
even possibly having a ride out there.
to drive in a big van out there.
So it's just something that we're throwing around.
So if you're interested, you know, reach out
and we might be able to help you get there.
Who's already planning on going to this thing?
If you're planning on going,
all right, lots of hands all over the building, very good.
And so that's about it for announcements.
Let's go ahead and count up the sole winning
from the past few days.
So going back to Thursday,
anything to report from Thursday, got it?
Okay, all right.
Anything else from Thursday?
All right, and then Friday, of course,
we have the 27 up in Flagstaff, outside of Flagstaff.
Okay, got another two over here.
All right.
So we got that in addition to Flagstaff.
All right.
Okay, and then how about Saturday?
Anything from Saturday?
Got it. All right. Any other groups from Saturday?
Oh, there we go. Okay
All right, very good, and then what about today Sunday brother Ian one
All right, got it
Anybody else for today? All right excellent work everyone keep up the great workout soul winning and with that let's sing our next song come lead us
All right, there should be an insert
in the front of your hymnal with the song entitled,
God of our Fathers.
If you need one, raise your hand
and one of the ushers will get you one.
We'll sing, God of our Fathers.
Sing it out on the first.
God of our Fathers
Whose almighty hand
It's fun.
be done
Man, let's sing one last song.
Song number 106 in your hymnals.
Song number 106,
Abide With Me.
Song number 106.
Sing it out on the first.
Abide with me fast.
Thank you.
the skies, has morning breaks and earth's main shadows gleam. In life, in death, O Lord,
abide with me. Amen. Great singing, everyone.
All right, at this time we'll pass our offering plates around
as the plates go around.
Let's turn our Bibles to Ecclesiastes chapter 11.
Ecclesiastes chapter 11.
We're sick of the old IFB not reading the whole chapter,
so we're reading two chapters tonight.
One for us and one for them.
So we're reading Ecclesiastes 11 and 12 tonight.
the Bible reads, Cast thy bread upon the waters. For thou shalt find it after many days. Give a
portion to seven and also to eight. For thou knowest not what evil should be upon the earth.
If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth. And if the tree
fall toward the south or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be.
He that observeth the wind shall not sow, and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.
And thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that
Even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.
In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand.
For thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that,
or whether they both shall be alike good. Truly the light is sweet,
and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun.
But if a man live many years, and rejoice in them all, yet let him remember the days of darkness,
for they shall be many. All that cometh is vanity.
Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth,
and walk in the ways of thine heart and in the sight of thine eyes.
But know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.
Therefore, remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh, for childhood
and youth are vanity.
Chapter 12, Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth.
While the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no
pleasure in them.
While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds
return after the rain.
In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble and the strong men shall bow themselves and the grinders cease because they are few and those that look out of the windows be darkened.
And the doors shall be shut in the streets when the sound of the grinding is low and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird and all the daughters of music shall be brought low.
And when they shall be afraid of that which is high and fear shall be in the way and the almond tree shall flourish and the grasshopper shall be a burden and desire shall fail because man goeth to his long home and the mourners go about the streets.
Or wherever the silver cord be loosed,
or the golden bowl be broken,
or the pitcher be broken at the fountain,
or the wheel broken at the cistern.
Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was,
and the Spirit shall return unto God who gave it.
Vanity of vanity, sayeth the preacher,
all is vanity.
And moreover, because the preacher was wise,
he still taught the people knowledge,
yea, he gave good heed, and sought out,
and set in order many proverbs.
The preacher sought to find out acceptable words,
and that which was written was upright,
The words of the wiser as goads, and his nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd.
And further, by these my son be admonished, of making many books there is no end, and much study is awareness of the flesh.
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter.
Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.
Dear God, thank you for being our Heavenly Father. Please bless this Father's Day and please bless the preaching of your word. In Jesus' name, amen.
Men, we're going to be in Ecclesiastes chapter 12 there at the end of the passage and the
title of my sermon this evening is How to be a Good Preacher.
How to be a Good Preacher, obviously there are a lot of guys in our church who preach
from time to time and so obviously this will be helpful for you if you're one who wants
to preach or you do preach a little bit, you're interested in learning how to preach.
because as a listener, you want to be an active listener
that's paying attention, falling along, learning,
and you want to realize, hey, this person's worth listening to
and this person's not worth listening to.
And it kind of reminds me of classes
that they'll sometimes offer at school or in college
called music appreciation.
And they kind of explain to you what to listen for in music
and how to be a connoisseur of music
and know what is good and what is not.
So this is also kind of a preaching appreciation,
if you will, to help you understand
what goes into good preaching.
What's the difference between a good sermon
and a bad sermon?
What's good preaching versus bad preaching?
We're gonna use the text here in Ecclesiastes chapter 12
to learn that.
Now it starts out in verse number eight there
of chapter 12 saying vanity of vanities,
saith the preacher, all is vanity.
And moreover, because the preacher was wise,
he still taught the people
Now, the first thing that I want to point out here is that although the preacher is at a point in his life
where he is frustrated, he feels like things are vain or worthless or empty,
he's definitely at a point in his life where he is disillusioned with many things.
And he's been talking about that for the last 11 chapters, yet the Bible says he still taught the people knowledge, right?
Don't miss that word still.
In spite of that, in spite of his disillusionment,
in spite of the vanity that fills this world,
he still taught the people knowledge.
And part of being a preacher is being instant,
in season, out of season, right?
You have to be able to be ready to preach at any time.
not just when you're feeling good,
not just when things are going good in your life,
what about things are going bad, right?
If you're going to pastor a church someday,
well, then you have to be preaching every month,
every season, every year.
You have to be ready, instant, in season,
and out of season to preach the Word of God.
And by the way, part of being instant, in season,
and out of season has to do with preaching when it's popular
preaching when it's in fashion in season and when it's out of fashion and when
people don't want to hear the truth you've got to be always ready to preach
and always ready to preach the truth regardless of what the climate is
politically or spiritually or religiously in our nation. And here's the
thing that I've been preaching for the last 20 years and the political climate
The religious climate, the spiritual climate has definitely changed in the last 20 years.
And I would say that the way that I preach and a lot of the doctrines that I preach
have actually become a lot more popular like in the last six months.
in this world because there's been a bit of a cultural shift
in the last six months.
People are sick of sodomites.
They're sick of all this liberal, weird, transgender,
commie garbage.
And so they're starting to wake up to these things,
especially young men are waking up to these things.
And actually, I think that a lot more people today
want to hear the preaching against the sodomites.
They want to hear the preaching
against the synagogue of Satan.
also known as Judaism, they want to hear the preaching against the counterfeit state of Israel.
That kind of stuff now is starting to get a little more popular to preach.
But guess what? If it's popular or not popular, that doesn't matter.
It needs to be preached, period. You know, there are times when maybe it's not cool
to preach against the sodomites. Preach it anyway. There are times when it is cool.
But it doesn't matter. We should not, as preachers, be reactive to this world
and trying to kind of see what's popular and which way the wind's blowing.
No, we just preach the whole Bible.
We just preach the truth in season, out of season.
And even when we're feeling down, we preach!
Feeling good? Preach!
Don't feel like it? Frustrated? Depressed? Preach the Bible anyway.
You have to be able to preach.
at any time and so the preacher because he was wise
he still taught the people even though he felt that there was a lot of vanity
that had
frustrated him. And now the next thing I want to point out
is that it says moreover because the preacher was wise he still
taught the people knowledge. Good preaching
teaches you knowledge.
There's way too much shallow preaching out there in our Baptist churches
where you don't get a lot of meat on the bone,
you don't get a lot of clear scriptures being taught,
you don't get chapters being expounded verse by verse,
you just get a lot of platitudes like love God, keep God number one,
get the sin out of your life, be a good person.
Walk in love, you know, and these are look I'm not saying that those are bad things to say those are great things to say
But then they need to be explained
Okay, they need to be clarified and specified and we need to teach
Knowledge, okay?
Good preaching is preaching where when you walk out you know some things that you didn't know when you walked in
I mean, that's the kind of preaching I like I like sermons where I learned something new
Either I learn a new fact from the Bible, I learn a new application of a scripture from the Bible,
I learn a new precept, a new truth, something that I can apply to my life,
or at least something that will just help me have a better understanding of who God is and what the Bible says.
I want to learn something when I go to church and not just go to a pep rally.
And here's the thing, there could be a lot of rah rah shish kumbah kind of preaching that's loud and animated and dynamic,
but honestly it doesn't really do a lot for me if truth and knowledge are not being communicated beyond just a super shallow surface level.
I want to learn the Word of God.
And you know what, we come here for three hours of preaching a week because we're trying to get three hours.
of knowledge and information and teaching and learning.
Why? Because the Bible says,
preach the word, be instant in season, out of season,
reprove, rebuke, exhort.
with all longsuffering and doctrine and doctrine means teaching
Doctrine means communicating knowledge and so good preaching teaches you knowledge. He taught the people
Knowledge the next thing it says here is it says yay
He gave good heed and sought out and said in order many problems in order for the preacher to teach you knowledge
He has to be gleaning knowledge himself
He has to be constantly learning.
He has to be a lifelong learner,
constantly immersed in the Word of God,
studying to show himself approved unto God,
a workman that needed not to be ashamed,
rightly dividing the word of truth.
Now the thing that I really want to key in here
on this verse is where it says,
yay, he gave good heed.
What does that mean that he gave good heed?
It means that he paid attention.
He was careful. What's the opposite of giving good heed?
Being sloppy. Not paying close attention, right?
Handling the Bible sloppily. Just kind of just sloppily.
Oh yeah, I kind of see what the Bible says.
And then just preaching and just going off half-cocked.
and preaching a bunch of stuff without doing the diligence
of carefully going through the Scripture line by line
learning the truth and being able to communicate accurately
because you don't just have a sloppy interpretation.
And look, there's a lot of sloppy preaching out there.
You know, and we talked about an example not too long ago
that I think is a great example where a sermon
was based on a very sloppy reading of 1 Peter chapter 5 and let's just go there and revisit that.
Let's just kick that dog one more time while we're here, but 1 Peter chapter 5,
let's just glance at it, you know, and anybody who speaks English
can read this and understand what it says and know that this application that was preached recently was just
totally wrong.
And I even put a challenge out on the internet and I said,
I want one person on this planet to defend
Pastor Jared Pozarski's interpretation of 1st Peter 5.2.
And you know what?
That even includes Pastor Pozarski himself.
I want to see if Pozarski himself will even agree
with his bizarre, stupid interpretation
that he based not just a sermon on, but an entire series on.
It's false.
Why?
Because he didn't take good heed
and ended up preaching a bunch of unbiblical lies.
And you know what?
If you're gonna get up and preach a sermon
and preach a series against Pastor Steven Anderson
and faithful word Baptist church,
hey, why don't you get your ducks in a row?
Okay, you gotta give good heed.
Look, if you're gonna preach anything from the Bible,
get your ducks in a row.
And look, again, I'm preaching this to you guys out there
that aspire to be preachers, that fill in as preachers.
in foreign countries, you fill in at the pulpit
in these churches on the mission field.
I know some of you guys will probably get chances
to preach in churches in Samoa or the Philippines
or Guyana or these different places that we go.
Maybe who knows, someday the Bahamas or whatever,
you get a chance to preach.
Maybe you get to fill in here
at Faithful Word Baptist Church.
Sometime, whatever the opportunity,
you wanna listen to what I'm teaching you tonight
about how to be a good preacher.
Okay, and you want to teach knowledge in order to teach knowledge,
you've got to spend a lot of time in the Word of God yourself studying,
and you've got to give good heed so that you don't get up
and preach false doctrine because you just sloppily read the verse and didn't pay attention.
You've got to take good heed. Did I have you turn to 1 Peter 5?
Look at verse number two, it says, and this is also
So it's appropriate that we turn here. I'm killing two birds with one stone right now feed the flock of God
Which is a bung you right that sounds like teaching people knowledge giving them some meat on the bone giving them some food
Feed the flock of God, which is among you taking the oversight thereof
Not by constraint but willingly not for filthy looker, but I've already mine now
It's very obvious that all of these
qualifiers not by constraint but willingly not for filthy looker
But of already mind, that talks about how you take the oversight thereof, right?
You take the oversight thereof not by constraint, but willingly, meaning that you don't preach or pastor
because you feel like you have to or you're being forced to, you have to want to do it.
That's why the Bible says,
Okay, he that desires the office of a bishop, right?
You have to want to do the job
and not feel like you're forced into it.
And like I told you when I preached on this,
you know, in the past in my life,
I had kind of made the mistake
of maybe pushing some guys a little too hard
to get into the ministry and to preach and pastor.
And then because they didn't have a strong enough desire,
they ended up not sticking with it because, you know,
and I kind of just learned
to wait until people have that desire on their own and not to push people too much because,
you know, it's a tough job and you have to want to do it in order to succeed.
But it's crystal clear here that when it says you take the oversight thereof not by constraint
but willingly, you don't do it for filthy lucre, you do it of a ready mind, you're willing to do it,
you want to do it, and you're not just in it for the money or feeling pressured into it, right?
But then
You know, this bizarre interpretation is preached that the willingly is talking about the followers.
And that basically everybody follows you willingly, they follow you voluntarily,
and you don't lead using constraint, you don't lead by constraint, losing constraint.
Folks, this is not what it says.
That's not English, okay. There's not a commentary on this planet that will interpret this passage this way
And if you remember I went to like five six seven commentaries
I'm not even into commentaries, but I was just showing you nobody's ever taught this
Because what it is is it's just a sloppy guy who just sees the word voluntary
And he spills his bottle of milk on himself. He needs to wear a bib when he reads the Bible
because he's not paying attention to what the scripture is saying
and then just builds this whole doctrine about how we as leaders can't constrain anyone to do
anything and everybody does anything willingly and our wives follow us willingly and they stay
married to us willingly and they can leave and so it's got there everybody's a volunteer
and you know people who work at their job and get a paycheck they're volunteers too
If you're getting paid at your job as an electrician, you're not a volunteer.
But this is the kind of stupid preaching that comes from somebody who's not taking good heed.
Okay? Don't get up and teach a Bible verse until you first understand what that verse is even saying.
And read it carefully, because if you read the next few words, it becomes obvious that no,
voluntary isn't about the congregation or the follower.
Voluntary is about the guy who's taken the oversight.
He's taken the oversight voluntarily, not by constraint,
not for filthy looker, but of already mind.
Okay, and again, I don't want to harp on that.
Go back to Ecclesiastes chapter 12.
I'm just showing you an example of just being sloppy.
in your reading of God's Word and then coming up with just kind of half-baked, crazy ideas.
Here's another, let's just give more examples, okay?
How about Tyler Baker reading 1 Timothy chapter 6
and walking away with a doctrine that says no one has ever seen Jesus?
Because in 1 Timothy, I know, it's weird, right?
But in 1 Timothy chapter 6, it says,
whom no man has seen nor can see, if you read it carefully.
But if you're sloppy, you walk away saying,
no one's ever seen Jesus,
which is obviously just absurd on its face,
because Jesus Christ was on this earth,
living among us,
and he was seen by literally hundreds of thousands of people.
And even after his resurrection,
he was seen of, you know, 500 brethren at one time.
And so Tyler Baker literally said that his ah-ha moment
when he decided to reject the Trinity and become a oneness modalist
was when he read 1 Timothy 6 and walked away with an idea that no one has ever seen Jesus.
And those who read our church at that time know that the very first video that he uploaded to YouTube
when he rolled out his oneness heresy,
he turned everybody to 1 Timothy 6 and said, look, no one's ever seen Jesus.
And you know what that is? That's not taking good heed to the Word of God.
We got to be careful that we don't just start getting up and preaching things
when we haven't carefully read the text. And, you know, don't just speed read the Bible.
I'm not really big on speed reading anyway, but I especially don't want to speed read the Bible.
You know we need to sometimes slow down and make sure that we understand what we're reading
Especially if you're gonna get up and preach a passage you want to slow down and really meditate on the word of God and not just try to
Oh, I just got to crank out so many chapters as well slow down and meditate my friend
All right, let's move on because there's a lot that I want to get to in this passage.
So we're in Ecclesiastes 12.
How to be a good preacher?
Number one, you got to preach whenever, instant in season, out of season,
even if you're feeling like things are vain, you still teach the people knowledge.
Number two, you teach the people knowledge, right?
You preach doctrine.
You preach heavy things from the Bible.
You preach, you know, things where people are learning something new.
and not just platitudes, not just super simple baby Christian milk of the word stuff Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, right?
You got to get into the hard stuff. You got to get into the meat of the word.
And by the way, my advice to you preachers is also just whenever you preach a sermon,
I think you should have something in the sermon for the guy who just got saved yesterday,
something in the sermon for people that are in an intermediate level,
and things in the sermon that even an advanced Christian could learn from.
I mean, that's the ideal sermon, if possible, to try to just include a spectrum of teaching
so that everyone's being fed on their level.
But the Bible says also it says he taught the people knowledge. Yay
He gave good heed and sought out and set an order many proverbs
So he's getting into the Bible and he's seeking out truth
He's trying to find all the wisdom and all the truth that he can and he's taking good heed
He's paying attention and finding all of these proverbs so that he can teach the people wisdom
So, the point that I want to draw from this in particular is that we want to make sure
that we preach things that are practical also that people can apply to their lives.
Because if you think about seeking out proverbs to teach the people, proverbs is some of
the most practical teaching in the entire Bible.
I mean, the book of Proverbs is really practical stuff, just about how to live your everyday
life, how to work your job, how to succeed in business, how to succeed as a housewife,
a homemaker, a mother, a father, a son, a daughter, an employee, an employer.
I mean, the book of Proverbs is packed with that stuff.
And so it's good as preachers not to just only teach abstract truths,
although we do want to teach everything in the Bible, including abstract truths,
it's also good if we can include practical applications in our preaching.
I think a lot of times it's good to end the sermon with a practical application
that people can take home with them and put into practice.
And so that's what I get from him, not only taking good heed
and seeking out and searching the Scriptures, but he is
setting an order, proverbs, right? He's setting an order, many proverbs, which is
helpful, practical truths for people to live by.
Let's keep going here. Verse number 10 says this,
The preacher sought to find out acceptable words,
and that which was written was upright, even words of truth.
So the next thing I want to point out in verse 10 here
is that the preacher is to preach acceptable words acceptable to whom?
I would say acceptable to God.
You know, the Bible says that we should not be conformed to this world, but that we should be transformed by the renewing of our mind so that we can prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Right? We want to have works and teachings and preaching that is acceptable before God, proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.
The Bible says in Ephesians chapter 5, right? Acceptable to God.
We need to make sure that God, first and foremost, is pleased with our preaching.
Now look, I want you to like my preaching.
I want to preach sermons that you like, and I'll tell you why.
I'll tell you why I want to preach sermons that you like,
and I want to preach sermons that people on the Internet like.
And you want to know why?
Because I want people to listen to my sermons so that they can get the truths in them.
Here's the thing, it doesn't matter how good a sermon is if nobody's listening to it.
Right, so sometimes there's got to be a little bit of a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down
We want to make sure that people enjoy the preaching
To the best of our ability so that they'll listen to it and then they get the teaching they get the truth
I mean, I've had atheists tell me man. I'm an atheist. I don't even believe in the Bible
I just I just kind of like the way you talk. I just like listening to you and
To me I love it when when I hear that or Muslims will say I just like listening to you
I'm not even I don't even believe Jesus the Son of God
But I just like listening to you, because you know what, that's a future Christian right there, right?
Those are people that hopefully, as they hear the word of God,
the power of the Holy Spirit is going to do a work in their heart, and down the road, God willing, they're going to get saved.
And so, it's important...
that we obviously try to connect with people
and preach to people a sermon that they can receive or accept.
But you know what, that's not really the most important thing.
The most important thing is being acceptable on the side of God.
So even if I preach a sermon that everybody hates,
but if God's pleased, right, mission accomplished.
If I preach a really popular sermon, but God's not pleased,
then I've accomplished nothing. I failed.
So, he sought out acceptable words and I think first and foremost, the acceptable words are acceptable in the sight of God, more than anything else.
I do think that there is something to be said for being acceptable in the ears of the listeners so that we can at least be able to communicate with people and they want to hear what we have to say,
but we always got to put God first on that chain of command right there, okay?
And you say, well, I don't think it's really important to be acceptable in front of the listener at all.
But if you remember, you know what it says about Jesus?
It says, the common people heard him gladly.
So apparently Jesus preached sermons in such a way where Joe Blow, Joe Plummer, Joe Sixpack,
was actually interested in hearing what he had to say.
And so we do want to connect with people, but number one, we want to be acceptable to God.
easy to be received by the congregation,
and we always gotta keep it in that order.
Because even if people don't like a truth,
it needs to be preached.
In fact, the sermons that people don't wanna hear
are probably the ones that need to be preached more.
because the fact that they don't like it
shows that they're wrong about it.
You know, I've been criticized over the last nine months or so
for preaching too many sermons about, you know,
against feminism, too many sermons
about children honoring their parents,
too many sermons about wives submitting their husbands
and so forth, but I'm thinking to myself, you know,
the very people that are saying,
you keep preaching this stuff,
they're probably the ones who need it the most.
Because the people who already have this doctrine right in their mind,
it doesn't bother them to hear that bell rung over and over again.
The people who don't like that bell rung over and over again,
it's because they're wrong on those issues.
And that's why they don't like it.
But let's keep moving here, because we haven't even gotten to the good part yet.
I mean, obviously everything's good in the Bible, but
there's a really good part coming. I'll put it that way.
is the best verse in this chapter.
And you know, for me personally,
I love this verse, one of my favorite verses.
It says, the words of the wise are as goads
and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies
which are given from one shepherd.
I mean, you could preach on that all night.
Just this one verse is such a great verse.
But before we get to that verse,
I also just want to point out at the end of verse 10,
it says that that which was written
was upright, even words of truth.
You wanna know what my number one priority is
when I'm preaching?
My number one priority as a pastor
is that everything I say be accurate.
That's the most important thing to me.
Because I'd rather listen to a preacher
who's really accurate, even if he's not that dynamic,
than somebody who's a really eloquent speaker
and they're just constantly getting things wrong.
Accuracy is so important. We want to make sure that what we teach is upright and words of truth, but in verse 11
It says the words of the wise are as goats
And remember, the wise in this context, we're talking about the preacher because what does
it say in verse number nine moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the
people.
That's the context, okay?
And so when it says to you the words of the wise are as goads, a goad is a sharp stick
used to poke an animal to spur it into action, right?
animal that will not do what you're telling it to do,
so you poke it with a sharp stick, like an ox-goad, right?
You poke the ox or whatever, and when you poke it with a stick,
that gets it moving, gets it going.
And we will even use this in our modern vernacular
metaphorically when we talk about goading someone into something.
We're talking about prodding them, that's another synonym for goad, prod, cattle prod,
right, prodding someone, goading someone.
And so the Bible says the words of the wise are as goads,
and so good preaching is that which spurs you into action.
There's another sharp pointy object that gets stabbed into animals, spurs.
You get spurred into action. It prods you to do something. You get goaded into doing something.
You see, preaching should be a call to action.
Getting you to do something. Right? Telling you what to do.
Not just vague platitudes and just sort of theoretical type preaching.
But no, it should be, and by the way, sometimes it might sting a little.
Good preaching can sometimes be, ouch, I need to get into action.
I need to get, oh, ow, I gotta read my Bible.
Ooh, better be praying, oh, I gotta go soul-winning.
Ow, man, I gotta go to church more.
You get prodded, you get goaded.
We don't need this soft, watered-down preaching
that doesn't stab or poke or prod anyone into action.
The words of the wise are as goads.
What else are the words of the wise like what else is good preaching? Well, it spurs you into action, but also it says and as nails
fastened by the masters of assemblies, okay now this term masters of assemblies is super interesting
because it really ties in with the title of the book of Ecclesiastes itself.
Because the word Ecclesiastes is a Greek word, okay?
And if you know Spanish, you might be able to kind of see where this is coming from a little bit
because of the fact that you might know the word Iglesia in Spanish, right?
So Iglesia...
comes from this Greek word, okay?
Ecclesia, iglesia, you can see how that works, right?
And the ecclesiastes, okay?
Because ecclesia or iglesia means assembly or congregation.
And the ecclesiastes is the person who is basically doing the assembly.
That's what the word Ecclesiastes means and the King James translators they translate this into English at the very beginning of the book as
The preacher the words of the preacher
Okay, but they left the title of the book in the original Greek, you know because you could just call this book like the preacher
But instead, it's called Ecclesiastes, and so that's what they're doing. They're translating this word
And so we get this phrase in chapter 12 that really ties into the title of the book, Master of Assembly
That's really what the word Ecclesiastes really means. Ecclesiastes,
yes, it can be
interpreted as the preacher, it could also be interpreted as the Master of an Assembly because he's preaching to a congregation of people
So there's crossover there with the meaning
And so it says, as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies.
Okay, and we have a term in our modern vernacular,
master of ceremonies, which is also known as MC, right?
So MC Anderson is up here rhyming and dropping some beats.
No, I'm just kidding.
But the point is more like MC Segura, you know,
that has more of a ring to it.
But the thing is that we as preachers, okay, when we're preaching and when we are standing
in front of the assembly and, you know, teaching the assembly, speaking to the assembly, speaking
to the congregation or the church, our words are supposed to be as nails that we are fastening,
okay?
And you fasten nails by hitting them with a hammer.
All right, so nailing things down.
So number one in this verse is that preaching
should go to us into action.
But number two, preaching should also be nailing things down
or fastening things down with nails
so that the words that we're preaching are like nails
that are fastening things down, okay?
What does that mean?
That means that people should walk out of church
more sure about doctrine
and not left with more questions than answers, right?
Because a lot of times you listen to a sermon
and you're trying to figure out
where does the pastor even stand?
What is he saying?
What do we do? What does he talk? What does it mean?
Where do we stand on this issue?
What do we believe about this?
We don't know and you walk out more confused.
That's not good preaching.
Good preaching is when maybe when you walk in
you might be a little bit unclear,
you might be a little fuzzy,
you might be a little confused,
and you walk out and things are nailed down for you.
Right? Because the pastor hammered that doctrine
and now it's nailed down.
And isn't this what we're doing out soul winning sometimes too?
because a lot of people that we run into outsolding, of course, are just unsaved.
And so because they're unsaved, we preach them the gospel,
and maybe they know a little of the gospel already,
and the seeds already been planted and watered, and maybe we just have to kind of get them across the finish line.
But other people, maybe, you know, it's all new to them,
and we just have to start from scratch and just teach them everything, right?
But then you also run into people that actually are saved,
But they're a little fuzzy on certain points of the Gospel where you're almost wondering,
is this person saved?
Maybe they are, maybe they aren't.
But they're fuzzy on it.
Because I do think that a lot of people who are truly saved,
they can get fuzzy on things because they're not getting good preaching at their fun center church.
you know, because you'll run into people,
they got saved years and years and years ago,
but they've been sitting in some community church,
fun center, rock and roll type of a watered down,
non-denom church.
And so they're getting such weak teaching and preaching.
And because they're not evangelizing,
everything's a little fuzzy for them sometimes.
And how many times have we as soul winners
just shored things up for them?
and kind of nailed things down and made people really solid on the Gospel.
Even if they were already saved, you know, and sometimes you're not really sure,
so sometimes you know you just pray with them anyway just to be safe,
just to make sure in case they weren't saved.
But, you know, a lot of times, I'm totally confident that the people are already saved.
But I'm a little disappointed in how hesitant they are or how shaky they are
or how unsure they are about things sometimes.
And I want to just nail it down with that person.
And then I like it when I walk away and the person's just solid as a rock.
How are you going to share your faith with other people when you're wishy-washy about it?
You know, if you want to be able to be an effective witness for the gospel,
you got to have it nailed down for yourself.
Okay, and it's not just the gospel, but what about all the other doctrines in the Bible?
Hey, why don't we get nailed down on King James only?
Right, why don't we nail down the Trinity? Why don't we nail down the fact that Israel
Over there in the Middle East is a fraud and that the Jews are not God's chosen people. Why don't we nail that down?
And we could have preaching on that, that is clear, that shows clear scripture, that debunks the counter arguments,
that debunks all the dispensational false doctrine, and make it clear.
Let's nail down the post-trib pre-wrath rapture.
Let's nail down all the doctrines of the Word of God, and let's dissolve doubts, as it says of Daniel, he's a dissolver of doubts.
so that people walk out more confident, more sure.
I mean, look, I remember knocking on the door of a guy
who was like a deacon or an assistant pastor,
and I said, do you know for sure if you die today,
you go to heaven?
He said, well, I know I'm saved,
but I'm not really sure if we go straight to heaven
after we die.
I'm not sure exactly what happens.
I'm a little fuzzy on that, whether we kind of just wait in the ground
and then get resurrected later, whether it's a soul sleep, whether we go straight to heaven.
And this guy had also talked about having a degree from Bible college
and seminary, and he's on staff at the church, and then I took like 10 minutes,
actually five minutes probably, and just showed him some clear scripture.
And he walked away saying, yep, you're right.
He's like, yep, we go straight to heaven.
If we're saved, if we breathe our last breath, boom,
we're going, you know, our soul's going straight to heaven.
And he's just like, you got,
I did more for that guy in five minutes on that subject
than all that training that he'd had formally.
Why? Because he's probably been in a lot of places with a lot of fuzzy, doubtful kind of preaching.
The words of the wise are as goads getting us into action,
but they're also like nails that are fastened by the masters of assemblies
because that's our job, not to make people fuzzy and doubtful and hazy,
but to nail down doctrines so that people walk out confident about what they believe.
Knowing what they believe and why.
And then it says that there is nails fastened by the masters of assemblies which are given from one shepherd.
Of course, that shepherd is Jesus.
So we're all like the sub-shepherds or under-shepherds as masters of assemblies, as preachers,
and all of the word is ultimately coming from one shepherd.
So, we're just actually taking what we got from Jesus and giving it to you, and of course, Jesus is the Word.
You know, the Word of God is ultimately where we can have the mind of Christ and where we can get all the teachings that Christ has for us.
And so all of this ultimately comes from one shepherd.
So now I've been kind of tying this passage
in Ecclesiastes 12 in with second Timothy four,
preach the word, be instant in season, out of season,
reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering
and doctrine for the time will come
when they will not endure sound doctrine,
but after their own lusts shall they heep
to themselves teachers, not preachers, teachers.
having itching ears, and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables, right?
So they, you know, what the Bible is saying is that people will come to a point where they just want to hear stuff that they like.
Stuff that's not a goad, it's not a nail, it's not a hammer, they want the soft stuff.
Because they have itching ears.
But the very first thing he says in that passage is, preach the Word.
Be incident season out of season preach the what the word and you know what we as preachers
We need to preach the Bible
Preach the Bible, you know far too many preachers they get up and they just give their opinion
for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes, they just tell you,
oh, here's how I live my life, here's what I do,
here's what I think, here's my opinion, and they're just constantly
deviating from the text of Scripture, right?
We need to make sure that our sermons are actually anchored in the text of Scripture.
They were preaching what the Bible says, preach the Word.
That's why, you know, whenever I preach a sermon and it doesn't have a lot of Bible
in it, I always think to myself like, oh man, I didn't use enough Bible.
That sermon didn't have enough Bible verses in it, right?
Because I want to have just scores of Bible verses in every sermon.
You know, if I'm going to preach for an hour, you know, I want there to be 30, 40, 50 verses in it, you know,
and I've already gone way beyond that in this sermon between what I've quoted and what we've looked at in the text.
But you know what? That's what I want to do. I want to preach the Bible.
And that's, if you want to have a powerful sermon, you got to preach the Bible.
And that's where the words come from. They ultimately come from one shepherd. They come from Jesus.
They come from the Bible, the words of Christ.
And by the way, while we're on the subject, you know, the Bible says,
"'Til I come give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.'"
Okay? We need to have the Bible publicly read in our church services.
That should be a part of the service.
And I remember growing up in the old IFB, and they would read barely any Bible in every sermon.
So at the beginning of the service, they'll read four verses, five verses, ten verses, whatever,
but they would never read the entire chapter.
They would just read a partial of the chapter, and then the sermon wasn't necessarily packed with Bible either.
Some sermons would have more Bible than others, but a lot of them were devoid of Scripture.
And it would just be like a springboard text, and then it was just a lot of fluff.
And you know, I was thinking about this thing of reading the whole chapter.
So I grew up in the old IFB, they never read the whole chapter.
They would read a partial.
One time I downloaded a sermon by a Presbyterian when I was a teenager because you know the internet was in the days of its infancy
Dial up internet and so I ran out of fundamental Baptist preaching. So I listen to this, you know
Roughneck
Yelling fundamentalist Presbyterian if you can imagine that
And you might have heard, you might have even heard of this guy, his name's Ian Paisley.
Who knows what, who knows what I'm talking about.
Okay, so this guy is the guy who was in the news maybe, I don't know, 15 or 20 years ago,
because he got sent to the European Parliament, I think, from Scotland or something.
And, you know, he showed up when John Paul was speaking, and he screamed out,
John Paul, you're the antichrist!
You know, and then he got dragged out of there or whatever.
So, you know, I'm like, okay, he's Presbyterian, but hey, you know.
So I ended up listening to the sermon by this guy.
And obviously we do not agree with Presbyterians doctrinally.
I'm totally against Presbyterianism, not okay with Presbyterianism at all, okay?
We are Baptist.
But the one thing that I liked when I listened to the sermon by the guy who, you know, screamed
at the Pope that he was the Antichrist and everything, was the thing I liked was at
And it was 1 John chapter 2, and the sermon was called No Lie is of the truth.
And he read the whole chapter, it's like, you know, what is it, 27 verses or whatever.
And I remember as a teenager, listening to Ian Paisley read the whole chapter,
and you know what I said?
I said, someday when I'm a pastor, I'm going to read the whole chapter every single time.
because I'd read that scripture in Timothy where it said,
till I come, give attendance to reading,
to exhortation, to doctrine.
And you know what's funny?
If you think about our church service,
our church service lasts for about what?
75 minutes to an hour and a half total, right?
We're out of here in less than 90 minutes of a service.
How long does it take for us to read the whole chapter
in that 90 minute service?
Okay, and how long does it take to read the whole chapter?
It probably takes at the most like three to five minutes.
Agreed?
What does it take, three minutes?
Three to five minutes to read the whole chapter.
You know what, I'm sorry,
let's see if we can get that down to 45 seconds.
Maybe we can get that down to 75 seconds.
Like, we don't have five minutes of our church service to read the Word of God, but we have
to just trim it down and just read this tiny little snippet for 35 seconds, 45 seconds,
75 seconds.
Hey, I think we have five minutes to read the Bible.
I mean, it makes me want to read two chapters.
And we did actually read two chapters before the sermon for those that are watching online
You know I
Remember one time so there were two times that this influenced me number one was that Presbyterian guy
The other thing was my old IFB pastor one time in a sermon. He got up and read four chapters
He just got up and he just read revelation
1921 and 22 and then he preached and
Everybody loved it and it was like the best sermon ever
And we were all pumped up about it
And then another time he did the same thing, he read like chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4 of Revelation and then preached.
And it was great. It was kind of refreshing because we were used to just reading so little Bible in church.
Let's get the Word of God and make it a part of our church service.
Let's have some public reading of God's Word.
I don't want the Roman Catholic Church down the street to read more Bible verses in their service than we do.
They don't even care about the Bible.
They don't even care what the Bible says.
They don't even believe the Bible is the Word of God
and then they're going to have more Bible verses
in their service than us never.
We need to have the Bible in our service.
We need to read the Word of God in our services.
And pay attention when it's being read.
Listen, you know what?
We read our Bibles at home.
But you know what?
I've noticed whenever I come to church and I hear the Word of God being read out loud
with the people of God gathered together in Christ's name where Christ is in the midst
and His Spirit is in the midst of us, I find that I get new things out of it just from
that reading.
Things are just jumping out at me.
Things are popping out at me when I read the Bible in church.
And then, not only should we at least,
I mean, can we please just devote like five minutes
to reading the Bible in our church services?
No, gotta bring it down to 45 seconds.
Let's just read two verses.
Let's just read five verses.
Let's just read 12 verses.
Now, man, let's read the whole chapter.
Why don't we get the context?
You know, that's another thing.
It's sort of like a full disclosure.
If I'm going to preach a chapter of the Bible,
I'm not going to hide part of the chapter from you.
Full disclosure, full context.
Let's read the whole chapter.
And then when I start preaching on the part that I preach from,
you can see, okay, we're in context here.
We're not ignoring anything.
We're not twisting anything.
See, I'm not like the old IFB that goes to Matthew 24
and preaches a pre-trib sermon.
They can't read the whole chapter.
How are you going to read the whole chapter
and then preach a pre-trib sermon?
It's not going to work.
Let's just read verses 1 through 28.
I mean, that'd be perfect, right, for Matthew 24.
Let's read chapter 24 verses 1 through 28,
because we don't want you to see chapter 24 verse 29,
because then it's game over for the pre-trib rapture.
And then, once we get into the sermon, let's have some Bible reading,
and then let's get into a sermon that's packed with Scripture.
And you know what, here's the thing, a pastor who actually reads his Bible,
a preacher who actually reads his Bible, he can't help but just pack the sermon with Bible verses
because they're in his head.
And out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh.
And we can't help but speak the things that we've seen and heard.
So if our brains are full of the Word of God, we can't help but quote Scripture while we're preaching
because verses are just popping into our head.
They're not even in the notes.
Oh yeah, that's right, I don't have any notes.
There's not a single verse in my notes tonight because I don't have any notes
You you you say well don't you need a sermon outline? Yeah, this is my sermon outline right here
You in fact I made sure that everyone in the church has a copy of my sermon outline tonight and
The shelf back there is just lined with copies of my sermon outline
The outline is Ecclesiastes 12 9 through 12 because I'm preaching the Bible
Now, you know about half the time I do have notes up here, but if you ever look at my notes
They're just it's just a whole bunch. It's just Bible. It's just pages of Bible this morning. It's just pages of Bible
That's the notes
Preach the word
Don't preach just your opinion
Your thoughts your wisdom. No preach the word of God
And further verse 12 let's get into the last few points here further by these my son be admonished
of making many books, there is no end,
and much study is the weariness of the flesh.
Oh, and by the way, you wanna know why the old IFB
preaches like 25 or 30 minutes
because they don't have anything to say, that's why.
You see, people who actually have something to say,
they struggle to keep it under the hour.
You know, they struggle, you know,
Patrick Shelley, sorry.
But you know,
And look, yeah, Pastor Shelly, sometimes he gets a little overboard with the length of the sermons, you know?
In fact, and he won't mind me saying this, he's a good friend of mine.
I love Pastor Shelly.
When he was here preaching in our ministry, I had to make a hard and fast rule with him.
I said, you are not allowed to go over 60 minutes, buddy.
because he was just consistently going way past 60 minutes.
But you know what?
I had a thousand times rather have a guy who's just,
he just can't stop because he's got so much to preach
and to say and he's got important teaching to give.
So he'll go the 70, 75, 80, and I mean with him,
he'll go 120 minutes sometimes.
You know, I heard a preach at the Red Hot Preaching Conference.
I said, I love both your sermons.
Somebody else got up and said, hey, how's a great series that Pastor Shelley preached tonight?
But here's that you want to know why it's because you got something to say
You know we get up and preach for an hour because we got something to say
You know these guys in the old IP that get up and preach for 25 minutes
It's because they just don't have that much to say
And here's the thing about that is that the service isn't any shorter
It's not like, oh, they're just respecting your time,
so they preach for 25 minutes,
and the whole service lasts for 45 minutes, or 50 minutes.
No, no, no.
The service is still an hour and a half,
hour and 45 minutes long.
but the sermon's 20, 25 minutes, why?
Because it's just all kinds of other entertainment
and fluff and all the special music and star search
and we got an American Idol and all the different people
have to get up and sing for us
and all the bells and whistles.
And then it's like, oh, but that's why we don't have time
to read the whole chapter.
We just can't spare that five minutes.
We just don't have that five minutes for the reading.
Right? Oh, sorry. We can't give you a full-length sermon. We got to give you a little sermon net for little Christianettes
that drive Corvettes
That love Pharaoh Fawcett, you know, I don't know but the point is you know
Hey, we're not gonna sit there and cut the sermon and cut the Bible reading
So we can fill the sermon with a bunch of fluff and just have just more music than preaching
Folks, I've got something to say tonight
We as preachers, we want to teach you the Word of God. We want to lay knowledge on you.
We got something to say and it's going to take more than 20 minutes to say it.
And people will sit down and they watch a feature link film for 90 minutes, and that's the shortest any movie is, right?
Feature link films are always at least 90 minutes.
Some of these movies are two hours.
You bunch of Lord of the Rings dweebs are sitting there
for three hours and 45 minutes
because you got to watch the director's cut.
As if a movie isn't long and boring enough,
you got to have the director's cut.
Well, you know what?
Pastor Shelley just gives you the director's cut
every single time.
The preacher's cut.
Uncut.
that we got something to say, and if you can sit through a ball game,
if you can sit through a movie, if you can sit through a TV, I mean, look, how long is a TV show?
Aren't TV shows like an hour these days?
You know, 60-minute TV show, 90-minute movie,
3-hour and 55-minute director's cut of Frodo or whatever.
Hey, I think we can handle five minutes of the Word of God,
and I think we can handle 60 minutes of preaching.
And we don't have to cut it down to 25 minutes, 30 minutes, 32 minutes.
Get something to say.
Come back when you have something to say.
Verse 12, further by these, my son be admonished.
Of making many books, there is no end, and much study is awareness of the flesh.
Here's more advice for you because on the one hand we want to make sure that we're teaching the people knowledge
We don't want to have these sermons that are about as deep as a frisbee that we hear in a lot of churches
We want to get knowledge we want to get meat on the bone, but at the same time we want to make sure that we don't get too
intellectual
It's possible to go in the other direction too far and to become too
intellectual and
So he says look my son of making many books. There is no end
And much study is awareness of the flesh.
You know, you can go too far into intellectual pursuits of reading and writing
to where you get so heavenly minded that you're no earthly good.
And again, I want to go back to what it said about Jesus Christ in the Gospels.
The common people heard him gladly.
That means he wasn't just this uber-intellectual.
packing his sermons with theological jargon
and things that are just way too high level intellectually.
Now look, if anybody knows me, you know I love learning.
I love, you know, just academic pursuits, intellect, study.
I am super into it.
That is how I am by nature, okay?
You would have hated me when I was in school
because, you know, I strove to, you know,
beat other people at things, you know,
just because I was real competitive, you know,
when it came to mental type things.
Hey, but let me tell you something.
Hey.
God did not call me to get up and just be the Steven Anderson show.
You know what I'm here to do is I'm here to do the work of Jesus Christ and preach the word of God to the people of God.
So it's not me just, hey, let me just get up and geek out for 60 minutes about all of my nerdy intellectual pursuits.
Is that what I'm called to do?
Hey everybody, let me just geek out and get super intellectual
and then I can just flex my intellect and just show it, you know.
Folks, that is vain and prideful and arrogant.
No, we don't want to get too intellectual because you know what?
We can study and we should study and we must study, but you know what?
You can go overboard on the study
to where now you're not connecting with the common man anymore.
You know and and and then you're gonna have just this tiny audience of super-intellectual people if Jesus
Who is obviously the smartest man who ever lived?
Right you think there's somebody out there with a greater
Understanding or knowledge or wisdom than the Lord Jesus Christ himself
Jesus obviously had the ultimate mind
He's God in the flesh
Yet Jesus was able to condescend to men of low estate
and he was able to preach in such a way to where the common people heard him gladly.
And you know what's funny is that the intellectuals of his day weren't even into his preaching
because probably the most intellectual people in Judea at the time of Christ
were probably the scribes and the Pharisees.
And the scribes and the Pharisees were not even fans of his preaching
even though he's super smart, even though he's teaching all kinds of great knowledge.
Why? Because he wasn't an uber-intellectual.
But rather, he was able to preach the Word of God in such a way where it could be digested by the common man.
You know, one of the qualifications for being a pastor is that he be apt to teach, having the aptitude to teach, being good at teaching.
Let me explain to you in a moment what is the essence of teaching. The essence of teaching is taking that which is complicated and making it simple.
But we have a bunch of blowhards speaking into the air today. They take something simple and make it complicated.
Just to make themselves look smart and they get up and just give a word salad and this guy's not a preacher
But he's a perfect example of this
These these weird fake intellectuals that just want to just give you a word salad say it for me
That yeah, you just read my mind
Jordan freaking Peterson. All right. I
Mean look Jordan Peterson
Just gets up and just gives you this weird word salad of meaningless tripe
Total garbage and he look and what's funny is that this guy puts out even though he's not a preacher
He puts out teachings on the Bible
He's gonna teach you the Bible, but it's buying to pay wall
You pay money so that this weird unsaved Canadian can teach you the Bible
Jordan Peterson and
Recently Jordan Peterson got his high knee handed to him
by an atheist
and this atheist punk kid chewed him up and spat him out and only the little
Jordan Peterson stands are on there like defending Jordan Peterson these weird
little sycophants but the reality is that anybody who watches that clip of
Jordan Peterson talking to that atheist knows that that atheist tore him
apart
Because he's supposedly representing Christianity and then the kid asks him are you a Christian?
Well, I don't have to answer. I don't want to answer that
Anybody who doesn't want to answer whether they're a Christian or not shouldn't be teaching you the Bible
Right let the redeemed of the Lord say so, but he's not redeemed of the Lord. That's why he doesn't say so
Oh, you know, he doesn't know what he believes and that you know what the atheist said, you know what you are you're nothing
You're nothing and I was like bam and everybody on the whole internet was like wow this kid just summed up Jordan Peterson in one word nothing
But you know what if you're gonna get up and just give a bunch of word salad
Fancy theological terms a bunch of jargon. You know the Bible says accept you utter by the tongue words that are easy to be understood
You shall speak into the air first Corinthians 14
If you don't speak by the tongue words that are easy to be understood you're speaking into the air.
Right? If I don't get up and speak in words that you understand it doesn't matter how big my vocabulary is
I need to use words that the common man can understand.
That's why I try if I do use a difficult word in my sermon I try to define it immediately
and try to catch myself and use an easier word always substituting the easy word for the hard word
Not just sit back and just let Jordan Peterson's intellect wash over you and just whoa
This guy's so smart even though he said nothing believes nothing his arguments are stupid
Have you ever heard a philosopher that made any sense to you ever at any time
You know because I'd rather listen to preachers than philosophers any day of the week and twice on Sunday
Further by these my son be admonished of making many books there is no end and much study is a weariness of the flesh
You know you can just you can just study until you get a headache
You can study until your eyes break and you have to wear coke bottle lenses for glasses because you study too hard
You could learn and learn and you can write and write and write academic papers and write books and publish and write
You know, but at the end of the day though, you know what you're doing. You're just spinning your wheels if you're not
connecting with people.
If you're not preaching the Word of God to people
in a way they can understand and winning souls
to Jesus Christ, you're a big nothing.
Let's wrap up with these last few verses.
It says, let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter.
Fear God and keep His commandments
for this is the whole duty of man.
Here's good preaching.
How about this?
Preaching the fear of God.
Amen.
Not taking what, you know what's so funny?
Is that I'm trying not to pull a pastor Shelly tonight.
But I'm tempted because I'm looking at the clock and I'm just not done.
I've got something to say.
But here's the thing about that,
is that when you think about this subject of the fear of God,
you have one verse that says,
there is no fear in love, but perfect love castes out fear.
He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
And you know what?
People will use that to negate hundreds of verses that tell you to fear God.
hundreds of verses including just verse just just in my own personal study over
the last few weeks just in the New Testament because I've been studying in
the New Testament and it's just like you need to pass the time of your so
journeying on this earth in fear just total talk about the fear of God fear of
God fear of God and you know what it reminds me of it reminds me of people
who take James 2 and they twisted to teach work salvation that's what people
are doing with that no fear in love verse
They're taking it, twisting it, and using it to negate hundreds of clear texts that command us to serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling.
So don't tell me fear doesn't mean fear, because does trembling mean trembling?
If it says fear and trembling, I'm pretty sure fear means fear.
Well, it just means respect was this oh, I respect you so much
It's funny when people are confronted by God. What about the apostle whom Jesus loved John?
Who's the gospel writer who talks the most about love? Who's the one who wrote the words?
There is no fear in love. Okay. What happened when he met Jesus face to face after his resurrection?
What was his reaction?
ran toward him and just gave him a big sloppy kiss and gave him a hug, right?
No. John, when confronted with the resurrected Jesus Christ in all of his glory,
fell at his feet as if he were dead.
Just fell, just fell on his face
like a dead man, like he died. Folks, the Bible tells you over and over again,
fear God, fear God, fear God.
And that verse is being twisted out of context, because there are plenty of ways to understand that verse
in such a way where you don't end up negating the rest of the Bible.
Okay, when the Bible is saying, hey, there's no fear in love, perfect love casted out fear,
he the fear that has not made perfect love,
obviously we could look at that as a progress in our lives where the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,
the fear of the Lord is the beginning of understanding,
and then as we grow in our Christian life, we move toward doing things more out of love than out of fear.
We start out being more fear-motivated, we end up being more love-motivated,
and yet in a perfect world, we would never fear anything
because we would just always be doing the right thing and never fear any punishment,
but guess what? None of us is really there, are we?
Because all of us are subject to chastisement,
whom the Lord loveth, He chastened it, and scourges every son whom He receiveth,
and so all of us should be fearing that discipline
because we're all subject to it.
But not only that how about this how about the fact that maybe when the Bible says there's no fear and love
But perfect love cast out fear because fear have torment he the fear that does not make perfect love
You know what about the fact that maybe the Bible is also talking about the fact that if we love God
We don't fear man
You know, we don't fear what man can do on death.
We don't fear the devil.
We don't, because what does the Bible consistently tell us?
Don't fear man.
Don't fear the devil.
Don't fear what man can do on you.
Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer.
But should we fear the Lord?
Look, fearing the Lord is Christianity 101, and yet today you have churches all over America
that never talk about the fear of God, and they just hammer that verse.
There is no fear in love, and they're completely ignoring hundreds of admonitions for you to
fear God in the Bible.
Good preaching preaches the fear of God, puts the fear of God into you.
We need hard preaching where people walk out trembling
Fearing God getting right with God getting the sin out of their lives getting on the right path because they fear the Lord
He says fear God and keep his commandments
Hey, we need to preach for people to keep the commandments of God too
Because whosoever shall break one of these commandments and shall teach men
So he's called the least in the kingdom of heaven
But whosoever will do and teach them, the same should be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Right? Fear God, keep his commandments.
This is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment
with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.
Folks, just in this short little passage from Ecclesiastes 12, 8 through 14,
we get the nuts and bolts of how to be a good preacher.
Right from the book that's called the preacher Ecclesiastes, right?
This is how to be a good preacher and so for you young men that aspire to preach
Go back and read this passage and read it again and read it again and think about how this is what you need to
Emulate if you want to be a preacher
Go to 2 Timothy 4 and read that passage and think about,
okay, this is who I need to be as a preacher.
2 Timothy 4, Ecclesiastes 12, Old Testament, New Testament,
you've got the same type of principle being taught in both passages.
And for those of you that are not preachers,
you're never going to be preachers.
It's just not who you are, maybe you're ladies,
or you're just men that that's just not your gift.
It's just not your calling, right?
It's not for everybody.
But you know what?
We're all out there soul winning.
So we always wanna be ready to go soul winning.
And we wanna be nailing things down
with people out soul winning, making things clear.
So some of these principles are gonna carry over.
Not all of them, but some of them will.
We definitely wanna goad people into getting saved.
to the kingdom of God.
But you know, for everyone,
this should also be
an idea for us of what
we should look for in preaching.
Right? If we're looking for a church,
if we're looking for preachers
to listen to online, you know,
what are we looking for? Right? What does it mean?
Oh, this is good preaching.
This is not good preaching. Well,
everything that we talked about tonight,
that's good preaching, according
to the Word of God. It's clear
It's prompting you to action, it is nailing things down, it's providing clarity, not haziness.
The pastor's not mincing his words.
Look, part of being filled with the Holy Spirit is being bold.
The pastor should have the guts to get up and preach everything that the Bible says and hold back nothing.
Every bit that he's holding back of the Word of God, that's how much he's not filled with the Spirit of God.
You know, he should be able to just get up and just preach as the Spirit leads.
Good preaching is teaching you knowledge.
You should be learning something. You should be motivated.
Things should be nailed down. He should be promoting the fear of God,
not this sloppy agape, good sin, good devil, cold hell kind of doctrine.
Right? He should be putting the fear of God into you.
You're learning facts, but you're also
You're getting the fear of God put into you. He's promoting you to follow the Bible and
Not just telling you hey rules don't matter
We're free in Christ. So it's just whatever whatever you think
Just do what's right, you know as the Spirit leads. No, we need to get in the Word of God
We need to make sure that we're listening to the right kind of preaching that we go to the right kind of church
And that when we're given the opportunity to preach that we do the right kind of preaching
instant, in season, out of season.
And you know, here's the thing.
Now that it's cool to preach against Israel,
now that it's cool to preach against the Jews,
now that it's cool to preach against the preacher of Rapture,
now that it's cool to preach against homos,
here's the thing, I'm not changing anything
about my preaching, because I was already preaching
all that, so I'm just gonna keep doing it.
I'm not gonna do it more, I'm not gonna do it less,
because I was gonna do it anyway.
There's some people they just want me to preach against Israel every day
Preach against the Jews every sermon or I'm unsubscribing
Quit talking about this and talk talk about Israel and Iran bombing each other and you know
Here's the thing. You know, I almost did preach about that tonight, but you know, this this is what I decided that we needed tonight
You know, and and I mean I just feel like everybody in our church already already understands that
I'm sure I'll preach against Israel many more times in the future, but you know what?
We need to get the whole Bible, okay?
And not just fixate on one issue, even if it's a great issue, and that is a great issue.
And I'll just give you a little public service announcement right now is that, you know, Israel is wicked and
they attacked Iran and now they're trying to provoke the United States into a war with Iran.
And we should be praying to God that our country does not enter this stupid war against Iran.
Because there is no reason in the world for the United States of America to go to war with Iran on the other side of the world.
That is not our fight. Israel are not God's chosen people and we need to mind our own business
and we need to get back to the founding fathers view of foreign policy.
which was an isolationist foreign policy,
trade with all, alliance with none.
Okay, we need to stay out of it.
We need to get back to the Monroe Doctrine, right?
Where this is our side of the world,
that's your side of the world,
you guys leave us alone,
and we'll leave you guys alone.
Amen?
I mean, that's just my political views.
But it's biblical that Christians should not be for,
fighting physical battles, war, killing, death, carnage,
and getting involved in strife not belonging to us.
Those are biblical concepts.
And here's the thing,
maybe we're on the verge of World War III or something.
I don't know.
Right, there's been a lot of false alarms,
Israel's always getting in fights.
This could be another level.
Because, I mean, I don't remember ever a time, and maybe I'm wrong because I'm not super
into politics or, you know, global politics or history, but maybe I'm wrong, but I don't
remember a time ever in the last few decades when Iran is just firing missiles into Israel.
I mean, this is pretty, this is like next level stuff
when Israel and Iran are just shooting missiles
at each other, and you know, you want to know
what's going to turn into World War III
is when big countries start getting involved, right?
If the U.S. and Russia and China can just like stay out of it,
then you know, let the Jews and the Muslims
just blow themselves up, because guess what?
They're wicked both sides are wicked
Islam's wicked Judaism's wicked, you know, it's sad. I feel bad for every innocent victim
I feel bad for all the men women boys and girls that are dying especially because most of them aren't saved
It's sad. It's a tragedy, but at the same time
Getting involved is just gonna create more death and more carnage
And so, it's better if two countries fight with each other than if the whole world goes
to war, and if the United States gets involved, and Russia, and China, I think that that's
probably not going to happen.
Thank God.
Because our president, and I've never been this big Trump apologist or Trump fan, I've
been very negative about Trump historically, in fact.
But you know what though? I feel like Trump and maybe I'm wrong about this too
I'm just giving my opinion the sermons over by the way, so no this is just this is a public service announcement
I said sermons over I
Think that President Trump is truly trying to be a peacemaker in this world
But you know what sadly he's under a ton of pressure
from evangelical Christians, because his base is made up of evangelical Christians,
and because they have been lied to in their churches and taught this Zionist pro-Israel doctrine.
Sadly, it's born again Christians in America that are pressuring President Trump not to be a peacemaker.
but to go to war against Iran and to kill people and to fight and to get involved in this war
that doesn't pertain to us and cause even more casualties.
So we should pray, you know, the Bible says we should pray for those that are in authority.
We should pray for President Trump to stand up against the warmongers
and stand up against the Zionists and the Israel Action Committee.
What's it called?
AIPAC or whatever, AIPAC, yeah, to stand against AIPAC and all this garbage and we need to
pray that the evangelical Christians in America would find out the truth about this, maybe
they'll see the marching design film, maybe they'll hear some sermons from yours truly
or someone else, that they could stop putting pressure on our government to do something
And look, I'm against Islam, but I don't want to kill Muslims.
I want Muslims to be saved and I want to see this fizzle out because no big
parties get involved because I don't want World War three to happen.
I want to keep soul winning and preaching and doing God's work.
You know, if it happens, it happens, but you know, that's my public service
announcement. Let's power it and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word.
We thank you so much for Ecclesiastes 12, in particular, Lord.
Help me to be the best preacher I can be.
Help all the other preachers under the sound of my voice
to be the best preachers that they can be.
And help us to always get up and preach what the Bible says
and apply Scripture.
And help me, Lord, to always preach truth.
And Lord, if I'm preaching anything in error,
please reveal that to me so that I can preach better next time.
In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.
Amen. Next, lastly, let's turn in our hymnals to song number 100, song number 1-0-0, day by day.
Song number 100.
Sing it out on the first.
Day by day, and with each passing moment, strength I find to meet my trials here.
Trust in it, my Father's wise bestowment, I've no cause for worry or for fear.
He whose heart is kind beyond all measure, Gives unto each day what he seems best.
and rest. Every day the Lord Himself is near me, with His special mercy for each
hour. All my cares He fain would bear and cheer me. He whose name is counselor and
There's a charge that all this help be paid As my days, thy strength shall be in measure
There's a pledge to be made Help me then in every tribulation
face with consolation, offer me with an eye holy word. Help me, Lord, when toil and trouble
meeting, ere do take us from a Father's hand. One by one, the days of moments fleeting, till
Great singing everybody. Thanks for coming. You are dismissed.