Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Let's all find our seats, please.
We'll begin with our singing this morning.
Go to Hymn 215.
We'll get started.
Number 215.
Hymn 215.
Heaven came down and glory filled my soul.
Hymn 215.
Once you find your place, we'll sing it out together
right on that first verse.
Number 215.
Heaven came down and glory filled my soul.
Hymn 215.
Once you find your place, we'll sing it out together
right on that first verse.
Number 215.
Sing it out now.
Heaven came down and glory filled my soul.
And then came down, then glory filled my soul.
Born to the Spirit with life from above, into God's family divine.
Justified fully through Calvary's law, O what a standing is mine!
And the transaction so quickly was made, when as a sinner I came.
Took up the offer of grace, improper, He saved me, O praise His near name.
Heaven came down, then glory filled my soul.
When at the cross the Savior made me whole.
My sins were washed away, and my night was stirred today.
Heaven came down, then glory filled my soul.
Now I've a hope that will surely endure, after the passing of time.
I have a future in Heaven foreshore, there in those mansions sublime.
And it's because of that wonderful day, when as the soft sky believe.
Praise His eternal and blessings are firm, all from His presence stand I receive.
Heaven came down, then glory filled my soul.
When at the cross the Savior made me whole.
My sins were washed away, and my night was stirred today.
Heaven came down, then glory filled my soul.
Praise His eternal and blessings are firm, all from His presence stand I receive.
Heaven came down, then glory filled my soul.
Praise His eternal and blessings are firm, all from His presence stand I receive.
Heaven came down, then glory filled my soul.
He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock, where rivers of pleasure I see.
He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock, that shadows a tried, thirsty land.
He hideth my life in the depths of His love, and covers me there with His hand.
A wonderful Savior is Jesus, my Lord. He taketh my burden away.
He holdeth me up, and I shall not be moved. He giveth me strength as my gain.
He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock, that shadows a tried, thirsty land.
He hideth my life in the depths of His love, and covers me there with His hand.
And covers me there with His hand.
With numberless blessings each moment he crowns, and filled with his fullness divine.
I sing in my rapture, oh glory to God, for such a Redeemer as mine.
He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock, that shadows a tried, thirsty land.
He hideth my life in the depths of His love, and covers me there with His hand.
And covers me there with His hand.
When clothed in His brightness, transported I rise to meet Him in clouds of the sky.
His perfect salvation, His wonderful love, I'll shout with a millions on high.
He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock, that shadows a tried, thirsty land.
He hideth my life in the depths of His love, and covers me there with His hand.
And covers me there with His hand.
Keep praying for those expectant ladies in our church that they will have a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery.
And we'll be taking yearbook portraits all the way up through November the 3rd.
And if you haven't had your picture taken yet, make sure that you sign up over here.
Is it on now? Sound on? Is it on? Okay, good.
And then also, if you've had your picture taken, but you've not received the file, please speak with Brother Ramon.
Maybe he needs to get the right email address or whatever.
The annual chili cook-off is coming up on Thursday, October 31st from 4.30 to 7.30.
All chilies must be made from scratch. Chilies must be entered by the 5 p.m. cut-off.
Sides and spice cider will be provided by the church.
And then on the back, the big one, the missions conference, we've actually got a detailed schedule here.
So that you can kind of plan on which of these things you can jump in and participate in.
Of course, Wednesday and Sunday are going to be the same schedule as usual,
although they will be missions conference themed.
And we're going to be having the missions sermons on those days.
But it's really Thursday, Friday, and Saturday where we just kind of have wall-to-wall stuff going on
from morning till evening every day.
And so we're looking forward to the missions conference.
That's about it for announcements this morning.
It's great to see a big crowd this morning, that there's still 7,000.
They have about the need to bail with all the people that are starting to bail.
You know, there's more people.
Apparently there's a lot more people that don't bail since we got a great attendance this morning.
So I thought we lost a bunch of people.
You know, it seems like a good crowd.
Whatever.
All right, let's go ahead and sing our next song.
Come lead us.
All right, in front of your hymnal you should find the insert of the hymn entitled Holy, Holy, Holy.
If you don't have an insert, you can raise your hand and we'll sing it out together on that first verse.
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty.
Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee.
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty,
God in three persons, blessed Trinity.
Holy, holy, holy, all the saints adore thee,
casting down their golden crowns on the glassy sea.
Sarah, Bim, and Sarah, Bim, falling down before thee,
which worked and art and evermore shall be.
Holy, holy, holy, though the darkness hide thee,
though the eye of sinful men thy glory may not see,
holy thou art holy, there is none beside thee,
perfect in thy red love and guarantee.
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty,
all thy works shall praise thy name in earth and sky and sea.
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty,
God in three persons, blessed Trinity.
Amen. Good singing, everybody.
Go in your psalm books now if you need the words to the doxology.
155, number 155. We'll sing it twice.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
Praise Him all creatures here below.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
Praise Him all creatures here below.
Praise Him above the heavenly host.
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
Praise Him all creatures here below.
Praise Him above the heavenly host.
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
All right. At this time, we'll pass our offering plates around.
As the plates go around, let's turn to 2 Timothy, chapter number 1.
2 Timothy, chapter number 1.
As we always do, we'll read the entire chapter, beginning in verse 1.
Follow along silently with brother Corbin Brock as he reads 2 Timothy, chapter number 1.
2 Timothy, chapter number 1.
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus,
to Timothy, my dearly beloved son, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Jesus Christ our Lord,
I thank God whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience,
that without seizing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day,
greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled with joy.
And I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois,
and thy mother Eunice, and I am persuaded that in thee also.
Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me as prisoner,
but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God,
who hath saved us, and called us within holy calling, not according to our works,
but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.
But it is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death,
and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,
whereunto I am appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.
For the which cause I also suffer these things, nevertheless I am not ashamed,
for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus,
that good thing which was committed unto thee, keep by the Holy Ghost, which dwelleth in us.
This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me, of whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes.
The Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus, for he oft refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain.
But when he was in Rome, he sought me out very diligently, and found me.
The Lord grant unto him, that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day,
and in how many things he ministered unto me at Ephesus, thou knowest very well.
Father in heaven, we are once again blessed to be in this church this morning, and sit under your preaching.
We love you, we thank you for the gift of eternal life.
We ask now, Lord, that you would turn the heart of your people towards your word.
We pray, God, that you would fill our pastor, Pastor Anderson, with boldness and with wisdom,
to bring forth the truth that you want us to hear today.
And Lord, we just pray that each and everything that we do in our lives would be more in line with the will of the word of God.
We ask now your blessing on this sermon. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Man, the title of my sermon this morning is, My Trip to the Nuthouse.
My Trip to the Nuthouse. Look down at your Bible there in verse number seven.
The Bible reads, For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
Now, let me just go ahead and just tell you a little bit of the story, then I'm going to get into the sermon this morning.
But on Tuesday morning, I was just sitting in my room, minding my own business, reading Mark chapter five of all chapters in my Catalan New Testament.
And the police came and took me to a mental institution against my will and checked me in there.
The cops, when they picked me up at my house, they acted like I was just going to go see a doctor and then everything was going to be fine.
But no, no, I get there and they checked me into a mental institution for 72 hours.
But I was told that I would see a doctor every 24 hours that could potentially discharge me.
And I did end up getting out of there in a little less than 24 hours.
The place was horrific. It was straight evil. But I will get to that later in the sermon.
Why did this happen? Because that effeminate piece of crap, Lionel Carros, decided to fill out some document and lie and commit felony perjury.
And he thought that he was going to be able to do it anonymously and we wouldn't know who it was.
Well, guess what? We do know who it was and we're getting those documents from the courthouse and what he did is a felony.
But I digress.
Turning to Mark chapter three, let me give you some people in the Bible who were accused of being insane.
So it turns out I'm not alone as a Bible preacher being accused of being crazy or being accused of being insane.
While you're turning to Mark chapter three, the Apostle Paul was accused of being crazy.
In Acts chapter 26 verse 24,
And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself.
Much learning doth make thee mad.
Now, of course, being beside yourself in the Bible is another word for being crazy.
And being mad, of course, is how British people talk about being crazy, right?
Mad isn't talking about anger.
He says you're beside yourself. Much learning has made you mad.
But he said, the Apostle Paul, I am not mad, most noble Festus, but speak forth the words of truth and soberness.
You tell the truth and people accuse you of being crazy for telling the truth because we're living in a crazy world.
But look down, if you would, at Mark chapter three verse 20, we'll see that Jesus Christ himself was accused multiple times of being crazy.
It says in Mark chapter three verse 20,
And the multitude cometh together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread.
And when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him, for they said, he is beside himself.
That's what they said about Jesus. He is beside himself.
And the scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, he hath Beelzebub and by the prince of the devils casteth the out devils.
So in one breath they say he's crazy. In the next breath they say he's demon possessed.
And what you're going to see in the sermon this morning is that there are a lot of similarities between people who are crazy and people who are demon possessed.
And we're going to explain that more as we get into the sermon.
But since you're right there in Mark three, flip over to Mark five, which is the chapter that I happen to be reading on Tuesday morning, of all things.
The reason that I didn't come back to church, or excuse me, the reason I didn't come to church on Wednesday night, even though I was released on Wednesday afternoon, is because I was just so mad.
I was so angry. I was in no condition to preach. It would not have been the right kind of a sermon.
And I think it was just God's will that Brother Segura preached anyway because he preached such a phenomenal sermon.
And if you didn't hear Brother Segura's sermon, you need to get that on the replay because he did a great job.
And so I'm glad that I decided to sit that one out.
But if you would, before you go to Mark five, let me read for you from John ten.
There was division, therefore, again among the Jews for these sayings.
And many of them said, and they're talking about Jesus, he hath a devil and is mad.
Why hear ye him?
See, they're saying that Jesus is crazy, that he has a demon and so forth.
Others said these are not the words of him that hath a devil.
Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?
Now, before we get into Mark five, because what I'm going to do in this sermon, I'm going to give you four types of insane behavior in the Bible.
And my personal experience at the nuthouse observing these four behaviors up close and personal myself.
OK.
But first of all, let me just tell you about the place where I was put.
And again, let me say it was a nightmare.
It was horrific.
OK.
And in fact, there was there was one normal guy that was there that I talked to.
And he said to me, he said, you know, this place is impossible to describe.
We're never going to be able to tell anyone about this place because no one will believe it.
No one will understand it.
No one will comprehend it.
You can't even put into words what this place is like.
You just have to be here and experience it to even understand it, because this place is so messed up.
But I'll try my best this morning to describe it.
Basically, it was a room that was approximately 50 feet by 60 feet.
So it wasn't that big.
And I counted 50 lunatics that I was in there with.
So I was in one room with 50 crazy people and one normal guy and 10 or maybe eight or 10 staff members at any given time, all in one room, jammed into this room.
The room's full of chairs, 50 crazy people, myself, one other normal dude and about eight staff members at any given time.
I mean, there were some messed up gang banger drug addict types there that said, quote, I should have stayed in prison.
This is the most effed up place I've ever been.
It's like a concentration camp for crazies.
Others compared it to a haunted house due to the fact that there was just continual hellish screams going on the whole time.
All right, let's talk about the four types of insane behavior in the Bible and my personal experiences.
Let's look at Mark chapter 5.
Of course, we have the demon possessed situation here beginning in verse 1.
They came over onto the other side of the sea into the country of the Gadarenes.
And when he was coming out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit who had his dwellings among the tombs and no man could bind him.
No, not with chains because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains and the chains had been plucked asunder by him and the fetters broken in pieces.
Neither could any man tame him.
And always, night and day, he was in the mountains and in the tombs crying.
And by the way, this guy isn't crying like boo-hoo crying.
He's screaming, right?
So this guy who's demon possessed and acting crazy, he is screaming day and night, okay, crying and cutting himself with stones.
But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him.
So point number 1 this morning, crazy behavior amongst lunatics in the Bible is screaming and self-destructive behavior, right?
That's what we see with the demoniac here in Mark chapter 5.
Screaming and self-destructive behavior.
Now, before I go any further, I want to say this once again.
Some of this that we see in real life is not necessarily demon possession.
Some of it is drug-induced psychosis.
And let me tell you something.
If you take drugs, you are opening yourself up to the destruction of your mind, okay?
And you may think it's just innocent to just fool around with some drugs, maybe some quote-unquote soft drugs or experiment with psychedelics a little bit.
Maybe just smoke a little pot.
But look, any of these things can trigger you and push you over the edge.
If you're genetically predisposed, this stuff can send you into lifelong psychosis and make you crazy for the rest of your life.
So I'm not saying that everyone who has mental illness is demon-possessed.
That isn't true.
There are people who have a chemical imbalance.
There are people with a genetic problem.
There are people who have taken drugs and fried their pain.
Or even if you're not genetically predisposed, what happens when you just get a bad batch of drugs?
Newsflash, the FDA, whatever you think about them, they're not checking the drugs to make sure it's safe.
The doses are all over the place.
The quality is all over the place.
You have no idea where those drugs are coming from and you can fry your brain in one shot or even die from taking drugs.
Do not take drugs.
Stay away from the drugs.
So again, I'm not saying that all crazy people are demon-possessed because they're not.
Are all deaf people demon-possessed?
Because in the Bible, we have people that are just deaf because they're deaf.
We have people that are born blind, born deaf.
But then there's also a guy who's deaf and dumb because he's demon-possessed.
And then when Jesus casts out the demon, then he can speak, then he can hear.
So we don't want to make the mistake of blaming everything on demons or something like that
because a lot of people just have a chemical imbalance.
They need help, whatever.
And so we don't want to paint with a broad brush to start judging people without knowing the facts.
Okay, I've personally known two people in my personal life who have lost their minds,
gone totally crazy, only temporarily just for a matter of a week or two
when they had their amalgam fillings taken out
because their amalgam fillings were taken out wrongly and they got heavy metal poisoning
and talking to them during that time was like talking to a complete loon, okay?
And yet, it wasn't demonic. It was a chemical thing.
So we want to make sure we don't rush to judgment with people.
We don't always know is it chemical or is it demonic.
But what you're going to see in the Bible, though, is that being crazy and being demon-possessed
are really the same thing.
And I don't really think that the devil cares how he gets you there,
whether he gets you there through a demon or he gets you there because you're stupid enough to put drugs in your body.
You know, the devil wants you to be self-destructive because the devil hates you.
The devil doesn't love you.
He hates you and he wants to hurt you and destroy you, okay?
So when I first got there, there was this one particular woman,
one of the first people that I see when I walk in.
Because, by the way, this place is co-ed, okay?
There's probably about 35 men, 15 women, okay?
All mixed together in a co-ed deal.
We're all in the same room, folks.
And when I first walked in, she was acting so normal that I literally thought that she worked there, okay?
But then I'm thinking to myself, why is she wearing this green jumpsuit?
Because basically they had us in these green medical scrubs that were like disposable clothes.
They were literally like disposable green clothes.
And she's wearing the green clothes, but she comes up to me and she's so reasonable and so helpful,
I thought, this has to be an employee, okay?
But then I'm like, is she like dressing like us to make us feel like she's one of us or something like that?
Hey, a couple hours later, she just lost it, okay?
This woman just completely loses it, screaming, crying, freaking out.
And then she just starts doing this Halloween scream.
Like, I don't even want to impersonate it because it's going to destroy my throat.
Just imagine just the loudest, most insane, just, ahhh, just nonstop for literally over two hours.
And we're sitting there, like, I'm sitting there with this one guy that was normal,
and we're like, this woman needs to go to Hollywood immediately and do the voiceover and sound
because she's got a talent that just can't be taught.
I mean, I don't think anybody can scream like this.
This is the most scary, horrific nightmare scream I've ever heard.
And she's just screaming nonstop and slamming herself into the wall
and they're having to hold her down and everything like that for hours, okay?
And like I said, when I got there, she was so normal, I literally thought she was an employee.
You know, later, this woman showed up in the middle of the night
and would just run as hard as she could into the wall and just bounce off of it.
And she was hurting herself so much that they literally had to restrain her
and hold her down and things like that.
Folks, this kind of screaming and self-destructive behavior is what we see when people go crazy.
Whether they're taking drugs and they go crazy because of drugs, they start destroying themselves.
They're screaming wildly or whether they are demon-possessed, okay?
Look, if you would, at Matthew chapter 17.
I think you're there in Mark 5.
Go back a few pages to Matthew 17.
I'll start reading while you get there.
Matthew 17 verse 15.
And the thing I want to point out here is that this demoniac child, what's he doing?
He's being self-destructive.
He's throwing himself in the water.
He's throwing himself in the fire.
Dad's afraid he's going to drown or get burned or hurt.
And let me tell you something.
The devil wants you to engage in self-destructive behavior.
Even if he can't get you to do it through drugs or being demon-possessed.
Obviously, no Christian can be demon-possessed because greater is he that is in us
than he that is in the world.
There's no biblical example of a saved Christian being demon-possessed, okay?
But, of course, you know, unsaved people, they are liable to this, right?
This can happen.
But the Bible says in Ephesians 5.29,
You see, the natural, normal human instinct is for us to be preserving ourselves.
No normal person hates their own flesh, right?
They want to take care of their flesh.
They want to nourish it.
They want to take care of it, eat good food, exercise, do whatever they can.
But the devil wants you to engage in self-destructive behavior, mutilating yourself in various ways,
cutting yourself, harming yourself, getting on the freeway and going 130 miles an hour,
and doing all these wild, crazy, self-destructive things.
And a lot of teenagers and young people get this mentality
where they're just taking all these wild risks and doing all these things.
Folks, that is the influence of the devil, okay?
God wants you to be safe.
Safety is of the Lord.
God wants you to take care of yourself, your bodies, the temple of the Holy Ghost.
You nourish and you cherish your own flesh.
That's what normal people do.
But the devil, he wants you to be self-destructive.
And that's what we see with people that are crazy.
But number two, if you would go to Matthew chapter 8.
Actually, just go straight to Acts 19 for sake of time.
I'll just read you Matthew 8.28.
So point number one of the insane behavior that we see in the Bible
and that I witnessed was screaming and self-destruction.
And we saw that in Mark chapter 5 and elsewhere.
But number two, how about violence toward other people?
Folks, it's not just self-destructive.
It's getting violent with others.
Okay, you don't have to turn there, but Matthew 8.28 says,
when he was come to the other side into the country of the Gergesenes,
there met him two possessed with devils coming out of the tombs.
And how are these demoniacs described?
Exceeding fierce so that no man might pass by that way.
Nobody's able to go anywhere near these guys because they're so fierce,
they're going to get hurt because these guys are going to get violent with them.
Okay?
Here's another example in Acts 19.
Before you read that, let me just tell you that when I was in the nuthouse,
there were people in there getting violent.
Like I said, we're in this little room 50 feet by 60 feet with 50 of us inmates in there.
Or whatever you want to call us, patients or whatever.
And I mean people are getting in fistfights, threatening each other,
physically attacking one another at times.
And this was the weird part.
No matter what anyone did, no one was ever punished for anything and no one was ever removed.
So you'd have two guys just attack each other violently, going at it violently,
and the staff runs over, pulls them apart, and you're expecting like,
okay, they're going to put these people somewhere else or segregate them
or there's going to be some kind of a punishment.
No, no, it's just like, okay, you go sit over there and you go sit over there.
And we're just back to business as usual.
And it just keeps, it's just happening over and over again.
You're just surrounded by violent, insane people in this place.
Look at Acts chapter 19, verse 13.
What I'm showing you today is that people who are crazy and or demon-possessed,
not always the same thing, but sometimes the same thing,
you know, number one, they're screaming and destroying themselves,
but number two, they're violent toward other people.
Look at what the Bible says in Acts 19, 13.
Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists,
took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits,
the name of the Lord Jesus, saying,
We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth.
And there were seven sons of one, Seva, a Jew,
and chief of the priests, which did so.
And the evil spirit answered and said,
Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you?
And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them
and overcame them and prevailed against them
so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.
So this guy who is demon-possessed, he attacks and beats up seven dudes.
The seven sons of Seva, they all get their butts kicked
and they all run out of the house fleeing wounded and naked
because he's beating them and ripping their clothes off them and attacking them.
This is what people do when they're crazy or on drugs or demoniac.
And we've probably all over the years seen videos of somebody who's on drugs
and they just start beating up a bunch of cops or something
and they basically, it almost seems like they have a superhuman strength, right?
Because they're just so amped up on whatever the drug,
all the adrenaline kicks in.
Because you hear about people in a dangerous situation
where the adrenaline kicks in and they can lift a car or do something like that.
So these people, because they're taking drugs and messing with their body chemistry,
sometimes they can tap into these adrenaline reserves
and really do some crazy things and have a lot of strength and so forth.
And that's what we see here.
Turn if you would to 1 Samuel chapter 22 in the Old Testament.
1 Samuel 22, so number one, screaming and violence toward themselves.
Number two, violence toward others.
But number three, paranoia.
Paranoia.
Now here's the dangerous thing about paranoia,
is that paranoia can ultimately lead to hurting people in the name of self-defense, right?
Even though nothing's happening to you, you're not in any danger,
but if you think you're in danger, you might harm someone to defend yourself.
Does everybody understand what I'm saying?
And we have an example of that in the Bible with King Saul.
And if you remember, King Saul was crazy, okay?
Because if you remember, that evil spirit came and was tormenting him,
and he became a raving lunatic to the point where he's throwing the javelin at his own son,
he's throwing the javelin at David, he's ranting and saying all these things,
stripping all his clothes off, and doing all kinds of wild things.
He lost it, okay?
And here we see some paranoia with King Saul that actually ends up leading to violence.
Look at 1 Samuel 22 16, the king said,
Thou shalt surely die, Ahimelech, thou and all thy father's house.
And the king said unto the footmen that stood about him,
we're in 1 Samuel 22 17,
Turn and slay the priests of the Lord,
because their hand also is with David,
and because they knew when he fled, and did not show it to me,
but the servants of the king would not put forth their hand to fall upon the priests of the Lord.
And so what we see here is that King Saul becomes paranoid.
He thinks that everybody is teamed up with David,
everybody's out to get him,
and so he ends up showing up at Ahimelech's place,
and Ahimelech is not rebelling against Saul at all.
He was not doing anything to harm Saul whatsoever.
When David showed up to Ahimelech,
he thought that Saul was sending David on an errand,
because David is one of Saul's most important generals,
he's one of his greatest warriors,
and so Ahimelech didn't think anything of helping David.
He wasn't trying to do anything rebellious or wrong,
but Saul just becomes so paranoid,
all these people, you know, they're all with David,
they're all trying to overthrow me, kill them all,
because he's paranoid, because he's losing it,
and he ends up harming people as a result.
Now, you know, I have to demonstrate some of these things.
I'm going to need a volunteer to come up and be me,
and I'm going to be the crazy people.
Okay, so I got to just show you some of the things
that I experienced while I was in there.
Okay, so this guy, come on up here, come on up here,
this guy walks up to me,
and first he just starts asking me normal questions,
but he got about this far from my face, okay?
So I'm standing there, the guy walks up to me,
and basically he says like, what's your name?
Just answer me like with your answers, like what's your name?
Corbin.
Where are you from?
Michigan.
What do you do?
Air conditioning.
Why do you want to shoot me?
Why are you trying to kill me?
I'm not.
Why do you, who's trying to kill me?
I don't know.
Someone here wants to kill me, who is it?
Tell me who it is.
I have no idea.
All right, you can go ahead and say,
I'm going to need you again, though.
I hope you know what you're getting into,
so have a seat, because it's going to get a lot weirder.
Right, I mean, that's paranoid, right?
And somebody said, oh, that guy's a paranoid schizophrenic
or whatever, you know.
But you see how that could be dangerous
when somebody has this mentality that,
hey, you're trying to shoot me.
You want to kill me.
You're here to kill me.
People are trying to,
somebody in this room wants to kill me.
I don't know who it is, right?
You can see how that would be dangerous.
But number four, the fourth point,
because we said point number one,
screaming and self-destructive behavior.
Number two, violence toward others.
Okay, number three, paranoia.
And then number four is just going to be kind of a generic label
that I'm going to call weird behavior
that isn't necessarily destructive.
Just crazy stuff, just weird stuff,
weird behavior that isn't necessarily destructive.
If you want to go to 1 Samuel 21 now.
So you're just going pretty close to where you just were.
Weird behavior that isn't necessarily destructive.
1 Samuel 21, 12.
David laid up these words in his heart
and was sore afraid of Achish, the king of Gath,
and he changed his behavior before them
and feigned himself mad in their hands.
So David is scared because he thinks
that the Philistines might put him to death
because David is sort of the arch enemy of the Philistines
because of the fact that he's the one who killed Goliath.
And he's the one who has killed many Philistines in his career.
Now that he's on the run from his own people,
he flees to the Philistines and, you know,
he's thinking that they're going to kill him now
because everybody, you know, he's not welcome in Israel.
He's afraid he's not going to be welcome
in the land of the Philistines.
And so he feigns himself to be mad.
He feigns himself to be crazy.
He decides that this is a good way to get out of a bind
is to pretend to be nuts.
And so in verse 13 he changed his behavior before them
and feigned himself mad in their hands
and scrabbled on the doors of the gate.
Now the word scrabble, it's a wonderful board game of course,
but it's also a verb that has to do with scratching or clawing.
Okay, this is called scrabbling
and you can kind of see how it's related to the word scratch, right?
And so it says that he scrabbled on the doors of the gate
and let his spittle fall down upon his beard.
So he's basically just like drooling himself,
drooling on himself and clawing at the door
and clawing at the gate and just acting like a weirdo.
And then they basically look at him and say,
hey, this guy's clearly crazy.
You know, he's not a threat.
Don't worry about it.
He basically gave the insanity plea.
Okay, he pled insanity.
But let me tell you something.
Don't ever plead insanity.
If you only take one thing away from the sermon today,
do not plead insanity because the nuthouse is worse than jail.
The people that were there were literally saying,
I should have stayed in prison.
This is the most effed up place I've ever seen.
Okay, it's bad.
So let me just give you some other stories
about some of the things that I saw in there.
So there's this woman in there and she basically,
remember how I said we have these green outfits
that are like a disposable scrubs?
It's like a pair of pants and a t-shirt, disposable, whatever.
Well, somehow this woman was modifying her outfit, okay.
So she was like taking,
she somehow had gotten some extra garments
and somehow she made a mini skirt, okay.
And I don't know how she did this.
I think she might have used the shirt and turned it into,
but to be honest, I never could quite figure out
how she pulled this off.
But she somehow made a mini skirt
and then she like tore off the bottom of her shirt,
tied it in a little knot.
Then she took a pair of pants
and basically did up this really wild headpiece, right.
And then she's just kind of just walking around the place,
just doing like a fashion show of this weird garment.
And then every 60 minutes she would change her hat
and make a different hat
and there was all these really wild hats
that she would make and so forth.
But this woman would go from just cheerfully walking around,
you know, doing all this stuff and whatever,
and then she would just go into these rants
that would just go on for hours, literally hours.
And I mean it doesn't matter if it's two in the morning,
four in the morning, just any time of day,
she'd just go into just these insane rants
and I can't really even impersonate it
because like I can't even talk that fast
because these crazy people, they talk just like a machine gun,
just nonstop for hours and hours
and then they just like pass out.
But then as soon as they pass out,
like someone else takes a shift.
So there's no rest day or night
because as soon as one person conks out
and she's just like asleep,
then some other woman is doing the exact same thing,
acting the same way.
So I don't know if it's just like this same demon
just keeps switching bodies,
just playing musical lunatics
or else if it's just all these people have the same drug,
they all took the same drug
or they have the same problem or something.
But I'm telling you,
they would just go until they wore themselves out
and then they would just pass out.
But this woman just,
I mean I can't even impersonate it
but it was something like,
she'd just be going on and on,
just like,
these people don't understand,
my family, this is my family
and what do they do about my family
and they're talking about family?
Who knows?
Just on and on, just crazy talk.
But then in her more pleasant moments,
this is what she would do to me.
Because here's the thing,
I'm in this place,
there's no going to bed at night.
It's 72 hours,
the lights are on 24-7
and it's just chairs that recline to like 45 degrees.
There's no laying down,
there's no going to bed.
It's just the lights are on,
continual screaming,
45 degree angle chair.
So I keep getting up
and I'm walking around just to like stretch my legs
because it's like you can't just sit in a chair
for 24 hours.
And so I'm getting up
and I'm kind of just walking around
like a caged beast here.
I'm just walking around
like a lion in the cage or something, you know.
And I couldn't walk very far
because this place is small
and it's jammed with chairs and people
to where there's just kind of this little
path that you can do, right?
Okay, so come on up here, Corbin.
Okay, so you're going to be me,
you know, this is going to be your little path.
You're going to be just,
you're just walking a circle around the pulpit
just to kind of simulate,
you know, the kind of little path
that I had.
Okay, and basically this woman's
just coming up to me
and just going like this the whole,
just like...
You know, I'm just trying to mind my own business, okay?
Keep walking, keep walking.
Then she's just coming up here,
hey, hey, you just need to take,
take this ring,
I want you to put on this ring,
you're going to wear this ring,
just wear this ring for a little while,
and then you're going to be like,
just wear this ring for a little while,
and then you're going to put this ring on somebody else,
and then they're going to put on the next person.
You know, I want to just give a ring to everybody,
but, you know, there's just,
it's just I love my jewelry box at home,
so I have a couple rings,
but I just want you to put on this ring
and wear this ring, you know.
It's just like, what the heck?
Go ahead and have a seat.
Ten minutes later,
I see this guy that had to have been 75 years old
if he was one day old,
with like, like part of his face was missing.
Okay, I don't know what happened to this guy,
but look, my friend, do not do drugs.
Do not drink alcohol.
Do not go down this road,
because that's how most of these people
ended up in this place.
I'm not saying they all got there that way,
most of them got there through a life of sin.
Drinking, drugs, whatever.
But, you know, I look over at this guy,
75 years old, piece of his face missing,
but he had a little butterfly ring on his pinky.
He was fast asleep with the little ring.
So apparently, she finally got a taker with that ring.
Now look, don't get me wrong,
I don't want you to misunderstand
because some of these stories are kind of funny.
Like, I'm not going to lie,
a small percentage of it was funny,
and entertaining, like this much.
Okay, but that's because we're talking about this
for like 10 minutes right now.
Okay, go there for 24 hours,
and first of all, most of it's not funny at all.
And after 24 hours, none of this is funny.
Okay, after 24 hours.
The worst part, the vast majority of it was horrible.
This is the worst part was that when I tried
to get some sleep at night, which was a fool's errand,
I think I might have slept for 15 minutes
because I dozed off one time,
and it was for sure less than 20 minutes.
So I slept for some amount between one and 20 minutes.
I don't know what the length was, the whole night.
So I'm just super tired,
and I'm kind of one of those people that needs my sleep.
You know what I mean?
And so I just have no sleep, I'm just up all night,
and I'm sitting in a chair,
and there's a guy sitting four feet from me,
and I couldn't move because all the chairs are occupied.
So I was like, that's my chair.
And this guy, I kid you not, the entire night,
all night long, is just cackling in my ear
and just saying just insane things,
perverted things, blasphemous things.
Just imagine you're just listening
to Charles Manson all night.
If you want to know what this is like,
go in a room, turn all the lights on,
and put on headphones of Charles Manson interviews
and just turn them up and just lay there
and just do that for a while.
And I'm just listening, just ha ha ha,
ha ha ha ha, ha ha ha ha.
I mean, I'm just spending the night with Legion,
talking to me all night.
Just saying, and look, my friend, I'm sorry, it's torture.
It is torture to have an insane person
talking in your ear all night.
You're trying to sleep, you're exhausted,
and you just have a literal crazy person
talking in your ear the whole night.
And that's why I didn't preach on Wednesday night,
okay, because I came out of there and I was so upset,
I was so mad, I was just not in the right,
I just needed to chill out.
I needed to calm down.
Because it was bad, man.
It was miserable and everything like that.
And so if you would flip over to Mark chapter five,
we'll wrap up the sermon.
Mark chapter five.
And you say, why are you preaching the sermon?
Well, first of all, I want people to understand
the kind of crap that I'm going through right now.
You know, because it's so easy for all the little whiners
and all the little snivellers
and all the little babies and all the fake friends
and all the little armchair quarterbacks
to just sit back and pick apart my behavior
and pick apart, I just don't think
that Pastor Anderson's handling this the right way.
This is the kind of crap that I'm dealing with.
And leading up to this, the cops were at my house
every day virtually for two weeks.
Sometimes they would come two times a day,
three times a day.
And by the way, when the police came and picked me up,
they're apologizing.
They're like, we're so sorry, we know what's going on.
We know the entire precinct
on a first name basis at this point, right?
And they're just like, we're so sorry.
We have to respond.
We know it's stupid.
And even when they drop me off at the Nuthouse,
they're telling the staff, look, we've been
to this guy's house every day for weeks.
His wife is doing great.
His kids are doing great.
This is malicious.
But it doesn't matter.
They just check me in anyway.
Oh, see the doctor in 12 hours.
And then the doctor at 11 p.m. says,
oh, well, yeah, clearly you're not crazy.
And clearly this is a malicious thing.
And she said, let me just call a few people,
verify your story.
She checks the story.
Yep, your story checks out.
You're being discharged at 11 p.m.
Of course, did I get discharged at 11?
No, I got to stay all night with Legion,
all night with Charles Manson,
and then I got to get out the next day around noon.
You know, it's another 12, 13 hours before I get out,
whatever time it was.
But I'm telling you that even going in
with the cops telling them, hey, this guy's fine,
it's just some stupid law where, you know,
oh, you know, somebody petitioned you or whatever.
It seems like it's unique to Arizona.
And I know Arizona is the best state,
but my faith has wavered, not in the Lord,
my faith has wavered a little bit
in the state of Arizona this week.
But I'm saying just cops every day, CPS every day,
the health department, I mean, it's just,
we're just getting bombarded with all this persecution
and all this stupid stuff.
And then meanwhile, you got a bunch of do nothings
sitting back and, oh, well, I, you know,
I just think that you should do it.
It's like, hey, shut up,
because I don't care what you think.
Amen.
Okay, I'm serving God.
I'm preaching the gospel.
I'm preaching the Bible.
I'm preaching the words of truth and soberness.
And there's a malicious satanic attack
on me and my family right now.
People are literally being paid to slander me.
And the check images are now all over the internet
of people receiving payment to slander me.
Here's a nice little quote for you.
Quote, I'm getting paid to slander my dad.
That is a quote.
Okay, and let me tell you something.
The word slander, everybody knows what the word slander means.
It means that what you're saying is not true.
The abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh.
And so here's the thing, folks.
Here's the conclusion for you, the church members.
First of all, I just want you to know what's happening.
I don't, you know, because everybody's gonna gossip
and there's rumors, everybody's got all these stories.
Well, you know what,
why don't I just tell you how it went down, okay?
You know, Corbin, come on, let's show them how it went down.
No, I'm just kidding.
Okay, now, you know, the only good part was
I was able to bring my New Testament into there
because otherwise, you know,
I don't know how I would have coped with being in there
because at least I was, that was like the only relief I got
was just kind of losing.
I had a hard back.
It was the one that I was sitting and reading
when they picked me up.
So I just took it with me.
And first of all, the cops were not really honest with me
because they acted like I'd be back in a few hours
and I was just going to see a doctor.
But I just thought I was gonna use it in the waiting room
so it was a hard cover.
I get there, they're like,
oh, you can't have a hard cover book in here.
So I'm just like, here, throw the cover in the trash.
Now it's a soft cover.
But you know what?
I'm learning the ropes, man.
If I ever go back, it's like I'm ready to go.
Soft cover book, better ear plugs, sleeping eye mask.
You know, it's like you gotta know the drill, man.
How to deal with this stuff.
But here's the conclusion for you out there
because the Bible says in Mark chapter 5 verse 15,
they come to Jesus and they see him that was possessed with the devil
and had the legion sitting and clothed and in his right mind
and they were afraid.
Christ and his word, here's the conclusion,
Christ and his word bring sanity to an insane world.
Okay, that's one thing that we can take away from this.
You want to think clearly, you want to think straight,
you need Jesus and you need to bathe your mind in the word of God,
to renew your mind.
But not only that, be sober.
Folks, this is not what the beer ads are going to show you.
This is not what people think of when they're thinking about
just getting into some quote-unquote soft drugs.
Folks, there's a way which seemeth right unto man,
but the end thereof are the ways of death.
Okay, and people start down that path of sin
and they know not that the dead are there
and that her guests are in the depths of hell.
Okay, all kinds of horrific things that I saw in this place
and my biggest takeaway is don't drink alcohol.
Do not, and by the way, some of the people were in there
because of stuff that they did, crazy stuff they did under the influence of alcohol.
Because like I said, the vast majority of the people in there were just totally nuts.
But there were a few normal people.
You could count on one hand people that I don't think were totally crazy.
Okay, because you'd start talking to somebody that didn't seem like they were crazy
and then you're like, no, this person's crazy.
But like there was this one lady there that I don't,
there was one dude that I talked to that wasn't crazy.
But again, what brought him there?
You know, nothing good.
Okay, he didn't go there for preaching the Bible, okay.
But then there was this other lady there that just had cuts all over her face.
I mean, just her face is just sliced up.
And she seemed like she was completely sane
but she'd gotten drunk and done something to the point
where they were saying she was acting so crazy that they ended up sending her there
or whatever for doing crazy stuff under the influence of alcohol.
And her face was all sliced up because she said someone had attacked her.
Someone had attacked her, you know.
But I mean, you don't want to go down that road,
that lifestyle of getting so drunk that you don't know what's going on.
You're putting yourself in situations where you're acting crazy.
Somebody's slicing up your face while you're acting crazy or whatever.
I mean, it was sad. It was bad.
Jesus is the answer.
He brings sanity to an insane world.
The Bible brings sanity to our insane world.
We need to be sober.
Do not drink alcohol.
Do not do drugs.
And do not ever plead insanity because the nuthouse is worse than jail.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord.
Thank you that you've not given us the spirit of fear
but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
Lord God, I just pray that...
First of all, I just pray for all those people in that nuthouse.
If any of them has enough sanity left
and if any of them has the opportunity,
I pray that as many of them could be saved as possible
and escape the horrible downward spiral that their lives are on.
And Lord God, I pray that there would be no young person
under the sound of my voice
that's so stupid that they would think that drinking alcohol
and taking drugs and taking steroids and doing these things
is not going to have negative repercussions, Lord,
because we know how dangerous these things are.
And so, Lord God, I pray that you would just help us all
to refresh our minds, renew our minds with your word.
And Lord, help us all to be sober
and stay away from these dangerous, dangerous substances
and stay away from the people who peddle these substances.
And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Amen. Let's take our song books together.
Go to Hymn 363, Hymn number 363.
Wonderful words of life. Hymn number 363.
We'll sing it out together on that first.
Sing them over again to me. Wonderful words of life.
363. Sing it out now.
Sing them over again to me.
Wonderful words of life.
Let me more of their beauty sing.
Wonderful words of life.
Words of life in you.
Teach me faith and duty.
Beautiful words. Wonderful words.
Wonderful words of life.
Beautiful words. Wonderful words.
Wonderful words of life.
I bless the blessing one gives to all.
Wonderful words of life.
Sinless to the loving God.
Wonderful words of life.
All so freely given.
Booming us to heaven.
Beautiful words. Wonderful words.
Wonderful words of life.
Beautiful words. Wonderful words.
Wonderful words of life.
Sleeply I grow the gospel calm.
Wonderful words of life.
All for pardon and peace to all.
Wonderful words of life.
Jesus only saves.
Sanctified forever.
Beautiful words. Wonderful words.
Wonderful words of life.
Beautiful words. Wonderful words.
Wonderful words of life.
And a good thing this morning we are dismissed.
Thank you.