So think about this, what if Pastor Anderson just dropped dead tonight, right?
And I say, "You know what, man, remember seven and a half years I preached to you guys."
And then what happens if somebody came in and filled the pulpit, somebody came in and
started preaching or pastoring, right, and starts preaching perverse things?
Are you just going to sit there and just, "Oh, whoa, this is great," you know?
And that's what happens all the time.
You know, you have independent fundamental Baptist churches where there's a good pastor,
a straight pastor, a great preacher.
And then the next guy comes in, preaches a bunch of heresy, brings in the phony Bible
versions, brings in false doctrine, and everybody's just, "Oh, whoa, this is so stupid.
They don't know.
They haven't remembered the preaching and the Word."
And they're sucked in by it, and Paul's saying, "Man, I'm afraid that's going to happen.
I don't want that to happen."
Remember.
And he says, "Look, it's not always an outsider."
He says, "Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things to draw away
itself."
He's saying, "Look, it could even be possible that Pastor Anderson were to drop dead or
get arrested or whatever and, you know, be put in jail and, you know, somebody else has
to come in and be the pastor, right?
It could even be somebody from the congregation who has chosen to take over, right?
But you know what?
Are you ready to judge the preaching and say, "Is this the truth?
Is this the same doctrine?
You know, is this the Word of God or is this something a little bit perverse?
Is this something a little bit off?
Is this something that is not Biblical and not of God?"
I'm not saying I'm perfect.
I'm not saying anybody who says something different than me is perverse.
But I'm saying if it's crooked from what the Word of God states, it's perverse.
And you better know enough Word of God and enough memory of the Bible to be able to judge
that and to know that and to be able to say, "Is what I'm hearing right?"
Say, "Well, we shouldn't judge.
The Bible said, 'judge not.'"
No, the Bible, go to 1 Corinthians 14.
1 Corinthians 14 teaches that we should judge the preaching.
We should judge the preaching.
Your job while I preach is to judge me.
Don't you judge me.
Well, no, I want you to judge me.
Pastor Anderson wants to be judged by you, okay?
Because you know what it means to not judge?
It means that you're just mindlessly just accepting whatever is being told to you.
Judgment, what does judgment mean?
You're discerning whether what you're hearing is right or not.
And look, every time I preach, you should be judging what I'm preaching.
You know, Paul said, "Judge ye what I say."
You know, I mean, you should judge it because you need to decide whether it's right.
Like the Bereans in the book of Acts, the Bible says they were more noble than those
in Thessalonica because they heard the word of God, but then it says that they heard the
preaching but they searched the scriptures daily whether those things were so.
So basically, they came to church and they heard a sermon, right?
Then they went home and got out their Bible and said, "Let's search the scripture and
let's see if what we heard today was biblical."
Oh man, I'm afraid if people do that, they're going to find out what I've been preaching
is a bunch of nonsense.
No, I'm not afraid of that.
In fact, I want you to read the Bible.
I want you to read it 20 times.
I want you to read it 50 times.
I want you to take my preaching and scrutinize it with the Bible and make sure it lines up
so that you're not just mindlessly following whatever I say.
And look, when the Bible talks about the prophet or the preacher speaking in verse 29, look
at 1 Corinthians 14, 29, "Let the prophet speak two or three and let the other do what?"
So okay, so when the prophet is speaking, what are you supposed to be doing?
Judging.
And you know how you judge it?
Not just based on, "This just doesn't feel right."
You know what?
My sermon this morning probably didn't feel right.
You know what I mean?
But it doesn't matter whether it felt right, it was right.
Everything I said this morning, what I preached was straight out of the Bible, it was right.
Now it might not have felt right to you, it felt pretty good to me, but I'm just telling
you right now that it's your job to judge what I say, and you judge it based on the
word of God.
Now question, if you've never read the Bible cover to cover, can you really effectively
judge my preaching?
Are you really?
I mean people, it's funny, people will say, "The Bible doesn't say that anywhere."
Have you ever read the whole Bible cover to cover?
No?
I mean it's not in the part that you didn't read.
Bible never says to do that.
Have you read the whole thing?
Guess what?
It's tucked away deep in the book of Leviticus, okay?
It's deep in the book of Numbers.
That's why you never read it when you were reading the proverb of the day, okay?
Because you got to read the whole word, the whole counsel of God, and so you don't even
know what it says.
You don't even know anything.
Read the whole Bible cover to cover, then read it again several more times, then sit
and judge me and decide whether what I'm saying lines up.
And I welcome the scrutiny.
I want to be challenged.
I want to be judged.
I want you to take everything I say with a grain of salt, all of it.
All right, Jake, just trust me.
Just trust me, folks.
I wouldn't lie to you.
I'm not going to lead you astray.
I'm your pastor.
I love you.
Just trust me.
Okay?
Just believe me.
Okay?
No, no, don't trust me at all.
It's better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man, no matter who that man
is.
Now look, I'm not going to lead you astray.
I'm going to tell you the truth, I'm going to preach the truth to you, but judge me just
to make sure.
And you'll find out that that's the case anyway.
That's why I'm not afraid to say that, because I know that it lines up with the word of God.