The first chapter that I'd like to focus on is at the beginning here, the story about the man who's possessed with this legion of devils.
It says in verse number one, they came over on the other side of the sea, Jesus and his disciples, into the country of the Gadarenes.
And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs.
And no man could bind him, no, not with chains, because he had often, he'd 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. So this man is very bizarre. He's possessed with devils inside him, literal, you know, we often call them today demons.
The Bible used the word devils. And these unclean spirits, these evil spirits are living inside this guy and controlling him and he's possessed.
And he lives in the graveyard, and he lives among the tombs. And he's cutting himself, and people have tried to somehow restrain this guy because he's kind of terrorizing them.
The Bible tells that no man could really pass by that way. He would have to really go around where this guy was, because he's this maniac.
And so he's been chained up, and he just broke the chains off of him, and he's foaming at the mouth, and he's hanging around the tombs and the graveyard.
And it says when he saw Jesus, well look at verse 5, it says always night and day he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying and cutting himself with stones.
But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshiped him and cried with a loud voice and said,
What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God that thou torment me not.
For he said unto him, Come out of the man thou unclean spirit. So right away Jesus knew what this guy's problem was, that he had this unclean spirit.
And by the way, these type of things still exist today. A lot of people will act like, oh that was back then and nothing like that happened.
Yet today, there are those who cut themselves. There are those who hang around the tombs and the graveyards.
There are those who are obsessed and fascinated with death. There are those who are possessed with devils and listen to all kinds of demonic music and partake in demonic activities.
And by the way, this is something that we should be aware of and keep our children away from, this kind of occultic, death cult society that we live in.
Like for example, if you go to the high school today, I guarantee you'll find tons of kids at the high school and junior high.
Their favorite thing is listening to gothic music or reading the Twilight novels and vampires and all this stuff.
And it's not that the vampire is some villain that's being slain. Oh no, those days are gone.
Now they're in love with the vampire and they're going on a date with undead vampires and zombies and this is the kind of warped thing that comes from the devil.
Show me in the Bible anything about cutting yourself that's not involving devils.
Show me in the Bible someone who's obsessed with hanging around a graveyard and they love to take walks through the graveyard at night and it didn't have something to do with the devil.
I mean the Bible is clear on this and we need to beware and stay away from these kind of evil spirits and these bad things.
It does exist. Ouija board is not a game. It's something wicked. And so that's not what the sermon's about.
But Jesus Christ is going to cast out the devil out of this guy and he asked him, what is thy name? That's singular.
What's your name? And he answered saying, my name is Legion for we are many.
So this guy wasn't just possessed with one devil. He was possessed with many.
Now do we know how many? We'll keep reading and we'll see. It says he saw them much that he would not send them away out of the country.
This is the man who's possessed with the devil speaking but the devils are speaking through him.
Now there was nigh unto the mountain a great herd of swine feeding swine of pigs.
And all the devils besought him or begged him saying, send us into the swine that we may enter into them.
And forthwith Jesus gave them leave and the unclean spirits went out and entered into the swine and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea.
They were about 2,000. So we don't know how many devils there were but they went into this herd of 2,000 swine.
So there were probably thousands of devils in the sky. We don't know exactly.
And it says they were choked in the sea. So all the swine basically just ran off a cliff, just threw themselves off a cliff and bashed against the rocks as they fell into the sea.
And they were drowned. It says they were choked in the sea. They drowned in the water.
And it says they that fled the swine fled. So the people who were taking care of the swine, they run away scared. They don't know what's going on.
And it says they fled and told it in the city and in the country and they went out to see what it was that was done.
And they come to Jesus and see him that was possessed with the devil and had the legion sitting and clothed and in his right mind.
And they were afraid. And they that saw it told them how it befell to him that was possessed with the devil and also could start in the swine.
So people explained to them, here's what happened. That maniac, and they all knew this guy.
That crazy guy who's been cutting himself and hanging around the graveyard. He's always talking about Twilight and Lord of the Rings.
This guy, he came in front of Jesus. He fell on his knees, started worshiping Jesus. But it was these devils and they were asking to not be cast out.
And they said, let us go into the swine. And they were cast into the swine. So then all the swine just freaked out and ran off a cliff and they drowned in the sea. That's what happened.
Now think about it. Should these people be happy about this or upset about this? Well, this guy, this is the best thing that ever happened to him.
I mean, here's a guy who's not saved. He's on his way to hell. He's torturing his own body. He's a terror and hated of everyone around him.
And now that he's basically been cured and believed on Jesus Christ and he's been healed, now he's sitting, he's clothed, he's in his right mind, he's back to normal.
And instead of saying, wow, this is great, this is amazing, this is a miracle. Wow, this must be a great prophet that was able to do this miraculous deed and heal this guy and straighten this guy out.
Look what it says in verse number 17, what the result was. And they began to pray him to depart out of their coasts.
So basically, when they see what happened, when all the people from the town come and they hear the story, they say, Jesus, get out of here. We don't want you around.
That doesn't make any sense, does it? And in Matthew, you'll see the same thing. You know the same stories recorded in Matthew? You'll see the same thing.
They come out to see Jesus and they tell him, take a hike, get out of here. It's the same every time it's told in the Bible. It's very clear these people did not want Jesus around.
You say, why not? Well, I was thinking about some of the reasons why not and we actually, my wife and I, we did a little research. We called to see how much it cost to buy a pig.
Who knows how much it cost to buy a pig? How much does a pig worth? Yes. 300 bucks, that's exactly what we came up with.
I guess that's the going rate, okay? If the Navajo is telling me it's 300 bucks and I thought it was 300, yeah, 300 bucks.
That's how much it would cost. I mean, if you want to buy a full-grown pig, it's going to cost you 300 bucks because then you can butcher it, you get a ton of meat from it.
Who's ever butchered a pig before? My wife, she grew up in Hungary, a few people. I've been there and assisted in butchering a pig before.
And a pig has a lot of meat on it. You can sell it for a lot of money, therefore the pig cost $300. Well, how many pigs were there?
2,000. And how many pigs got destroyed by Jesus' big deed here? 2,000 pigs were destroyed and they cost how much? 300 bucks each.
So how much property did Jesus Christ just destroy in his miracle? $600,000. I mean, he destroyed $600,000 of these people's property, okay?
By casting the devils into these pigs and then all the pigs ran off the cliff. And these people just lost a lot of wealth. I mean, they lost a lot of money.
They lost all their possessions. See, the people that were feeding them, those were just hired people. Those weren't the owners of the pigs.
They were those that were hired to feed the pigs. The people in the city that owned the pigs, they come out and say, get out of here. You just ruined our business.
You just destroyed $600,000 of property, not to mention the animal rights. You know what I mean? I mean, these pigs might have been an endangered type of pig or endangered species.
And by the way, have you ever noticed that the animals that people eat the most are the ones that are not endangered? Maybe we should start eating all animals.
But anyway, eat that condor and it will be around forever. The bottom line is that these people were upset because of the destruction of these pigs.
But you know what? I think God is trying to show us in this story. I think he's trying to show us that one man's spiritual condition, one man's soul, one man's life is more valuable than $600,000 to Jesus.
Who cares about $600,000 of stuff? Who cares about $600,000 stuff? This guy is saved. This guy is in his right mind. This guy's life has been transformed. That's more important.
And it also shows us that God values people more than animals. He was willing to destroy 2,000 animals in order to save one person.
And today, we got it all backwards. We care so much about material, goods, and things, and we care so much about animals, and we don't care as much about the person, about the man, about the soul.
You see, long after this world is gone, those pigs would never even matter again. I mean, think about it. Here we are in 2011.
Whether or not those pigs were alive or dead has no impact today. Those pigs don't matter. The money doesn't matter. Animals that died 2,000 years ago don't matter.
But this guy is still in Heaven right now. This guy's still alive. This guy continues to live on for all eternity.
You see, we need to get the focus that Jesus had of thinking that the person is more important than the things. The person is more important than the money.
Look, if you would, at, let's finish the story. This is one of my favorite stories. I like this story, but look at verse 18.
In verse 17, they take Jesus to take a hike, so he says, okay, and Jesus and his disciples began to leave. It says he was come into the ship.
He was getting in his boat to go back where he came from. He that had been possessed with the devil prayed him that he might be with him.
Basically, this guy who's now clothed in his right mind, he says, hey, I want to follow you. I want to come with you, Jesus. I'm going to come in the ship and follow you.
Howbeit Jesus suffered him not. Jesus didn't allow him. But saith unto him, go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord had done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee.
And he departed and began to publish into capitalist how great things Jesus had done for us, and all men did marvel.
So not only did one guy get saved, but notice, then that guy went out, and who knows how many people he got saved.
Because he went out and started preaching it everywhere he went, and telling the story, and people were marveling.
And a lot of people ended up getting saved from this man's testimony. I mean, this is a great event that took place.
But see, these people just couldn't see past the dollar signs. They couldn't see past those animals. They couldn't see past.
I mean, go down there and butcher the thing. You know, maybe you can fish it out of the water. It's not going to work.
My wife's shaking her head. She knows more about raising pigs and stuff.
Look at Genesis, chapter 14. Go back to Genesis 14. First book in the Bible, Genesis 14. You don't think they could have salvaged a few of them?
Made a few sausages? It's already in the salt water. It's perfect.
Ah, it shows how much I know. But anyway, well that just strengthens my point. You have to sacrifice all of them. They're all worthless.
The sharks probably enjoyed it. But Genesis, chapter 14. Let me give you the story here of Genesis 14.
This is where Abraham has parted ways with his nephew Lot, because they both had so many servants and so many possessions,
it was getting inconvenient for them to dwell together. So Abraham and Lot have to split up and go their separate ways.
Well, Abraham tells Lot that he can choose where he wants to go. And Lot decides to go and pitch his tent right towards Sodom and to be parked right near Sodom.
And Sodom was a wicked place. The Bible says that the men of Sodom were wicked sinners before the Lord exceedingly. I mean, they were really bad.
And here he is, parked over by these people. Abraham goes the other way. And right away, Lot begins to get into trouble here,
because a king comes and attacks the land of Sodom and the people around there. And, you know, probably a judgment of God coming upon Sodom,
but because Lot's there, he ends up getting attacked as well. His whole family and him are kidnapped and he loses everything.
Well, Abraham wants to rescue Lot. So he had a lot of servants, and his servants had been trained on how to fight.
He had 300-some servants, and they were all trained on fighting. And so he brings in a force of 300 men that are trained fighters,
and they come in and they basically rescue Lot, and they really rescued all the people of Sodom as well.
And they get all their goods back, they get all the people back. And look what it says in verse 21.
This is after Abraham has been the hero, he's brought in his 300 warriors, he's saved the day, he's saved Lot, he's saved all of them,
he got all their goods back from these enemy raiders. Well, it says in chapter 14, verse 21, the king of Sodom said unto Abraham,
Give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself. So basically, the king of Sodom is trying to give Abraham all the goods that were recovered.
Basically to pay him for what he's done, give him all the material wealth. He just said, just give me the persons, and you take the goods for yourself.
And Abraham said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up my hand unto the Lord, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth,
that I will not take from a thread even to a shoe latchet, and that I will not take anything that is thine, lest thou shouldst say,
I have made Abraham rich, save only that which the young men have eaten, and the portion of the men which were with me,
Anar, Eschol, and Mamre, let them take their portion. So he basically said, I don't want your stuff.
Because he knew where it came from, he knew that these were wicked people, he knew that Sodom was a wicked place,
and he said, I don't want to be made rich by your kind. I don't want to take this stuff from you, and then you may be rich.
You know, I don't want anything that belongs to you, just basically the people that were with me, just give them their paycheck for what they did,
you know, the food that they needed for the trip and everything. Just give them what they used up on the trip,
and he said, I don't even want a shoelace from you, don't even give me anything. But at least just give these guys just the payment for what they did,
and keep your stuff, I don't need your stuff. You see, Abraham was not a man who was greedy. He wasn't motivated by a lust for money,
or a desire for financial gain. He was just trying to save his nephew, and he didn't want the ill-gotten gains of Sodom,
because he didn't want to be associated with Sodom in any way. And of course, later on, Sodom just gets worse and worse and worse,
and God's eventually going to bring judgment upon Sodom, and rain fire and brimstone. Of course, they were Sodomites,
they were homosexuals, the Bible teaches, and they try to violate Lot, they try to violate his guests, and that's a whole other story.
But I think that God's teaching us symbolically here, I think the King of Sodom could represent Satan, you know,
because the King of Sodom was a very evil man here. And he says this statement, give me the persons and take the goods to thyself.
I believe that that's the offer that Satan has for you today. Give me the persons and take the goods to yourself.
Do you remember when Jesus Christ was tempted by the devil, and he was brought up into a high mountain,
and Satan showed Jesus Christ all the kingdoms of the world, and he said, all these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
And remember, Jesus Christ, of course, rebuked him and said, give thee hence, Satan, for it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God,
and him only, shalt thou serve. You've heard of the idea of selling your soul to the devil? That's where it comes from.
Basically, the devil came and tempted Jesus with financial and material gain if he will worship him.
Here we see a picture of the devil saying, you know, give me the persons and you take the goods.
You see, the devil doesn't care about the goods. The devil cares about the persons.
Jesus Christ doesn't care about the goods. He'll send them off a cliff. He cares about the persons.
You see, God is smart enough, and even the devil is smart enough to know that what has real value in this world is people and not things, not material wealth.
It's the souls that matter. The Bible says, what does a man profit in if he shall gain the whole world and lose his soul?
Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? How can you put a value on one man?
$600,000, it's nothing. It means nothing compared to one soul, one person.
And that ought to be the emphasis of our life. Not on things, but on people.
Look at 1 Timothy chapter 6. And there are so many different applications of this.
You know, we think about our church. What is our church about? Is our church about money or is our church about people?
That's what we have to ask ourselves. And I've been to churches where it seemed like the church was more about money
than it was about people. Everything was about the fundraiser. Everything is about raising money.
And what are they raising money for? You can't buy a soul.
Now, there are things that you need money for, obviously. You've got to have money to live and to eat and to have a place to live and to have clothing
and to be able to survive in this world. Okay, money is there. It's something that we all deal with and passes through all of our hands.
But that ought not be the emphasis of our life. It ought to be about the people. It ought not be about the building.
It ought to be about the people. You know, some people might disparage of our church and say,
Oh, it's in a strip mall. Oh, that hurts. But you know what? I'd rather be in a church in a strip mall
that's filled with people who really love God and really want to serve God and really love people
and win souls to Christ and do the work for God than to be in some fancy palace or cathedral somewhere
where the Spirit of the Lord is not present and where the people there are not saved and where the preaching is weak and shallow
and where the people there are not loving God. They don't serve God. Nobody's getting saved. Nobody's getting baptized.
It's not about the building. It's not about the money. It's about the people.
You know, I don't get excited about, Oh, the offerings are up! Yay! You know, we get excited when there's more people coming to church
and when there's more people out knocking doors on somebody and there's more people getting saved.
That's what we get excited about, not finances. And finances are necessary in our lives.
But that's not what I live my life for, just to make money. That's what it's all about. Just how much money can I earn?
Jesus Christ said this. He said, Take heed and beware of covetousness, for a man's life consistent not of the abundance of things which he possesses.
Your life is not about how much things you have. It's about the people that you win to Christ.
It's about the people who live in your home with you. It's about your wife. It's about your husband. It's about your children.
It's about your parents. It's about your family. It's about your friends. It's about your church. It's about people, not about things.
Look at 1 Timothy chapter 6 verse 6. It says, But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into this world,
and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment, food and clothing, he's saying, let us be there with content.
But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.
Watch this. Don't miss it. For the love of money is the root of all evil, which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
The root of all evil. And you know the devil doesn't like this verse very much. You say, well how do you know that? I'll tell you exactly how to know that.
Because all the modern perversions of the Bible that are coming out now, all the new versions, they all change this verse, all of them.
The devil doesn't want this verse to be exposed. And so it's been changed to, well the love of money is a root of many kinds of evil.
But the Bible says the love of money is the root of all evil. Evil in your life starts when you begin to love money.
That's where you begin to go down the wrong path. When you develop a love of money. A love of things instead of a love of people.
That is the beginning of the end in your life. That was the beginning of the end for Lot. I mean look at Lot.
Lot was a good guy. Things are going good. But then he began to lust after possessions.
And he chose the well-watered plain near Sodom because the financial opportunity where he could thrive there and make good money.
But the only problem was, you know, he's got to live in Sodom. He's got to live around sodomy and homosexuality and perversion.
But hey, I mean look how much money he's making. Except guess what? His whole family got sacrificed. His wife became enamored with Sodom.
His children were brought up in the ways of Sodom. His whole family was destroyed and all of his descendants read for the next hundreds and hundreds of years to read the Bible.
Lot's descendants, the children of Ammon and the children of Moab, which are Lot's two sons, they were the fathers of a nation of people that were wicked people.
That God was constantly judging because it all started at Sodom. That's where it started.
It all started with a man who chose finances. He chose things. He chose cattle. He chose possessions over his family.
Over what's best for his family. He sacrificed what's best for his family in order to have money.
Look at Matthew chapter 6. Matthew chapter number 6.
You know, a lot of people look at maybe the lifestyle that I live and say, you know, you have six children. Wow, that's crazy. Isn't that expensive?
And boy, having six children is expensive. I mean, you've got to feed them, clothe them, diaper them, house them, bed them, whatever.
But you know what though? It's worth it. Because I'd rather have persons. I wouldn't trade. As I look at my six children, which one of them would I trade for the money that they cost me?
You know, the money that it costs to get the midwife and the money that it costs for all the expenses associated with pregnancy and childbirth and the money that it costs to feed and clothe and provide.
And I put a price tag on any of my six children and say, well, I wish that I would have just had five. Or, you know, which one should I eliminate here if I could just get that money back?
No, because see, having a child is a greater treasure than having all kinds of money. Don't look at your children and say, oh, this child's a burden to me. Because look how much this child costs me.
You know, and look how much money I could have made if I didn't have this child. And what are you going to buy with it? You know, what are you going to buy with all that money?
Stop playing games and turf, Brother Dave. Get serious with me. This isn't time to play ball. Anyway, you know, what are you going to buy with all that money?
You know, you see so many people who, they don't have children because they just want to have the money. It's like, what are you going to buy with all that money? What do you really need? Food, an arraignment, you know, live your life. Do you really need to just buy all the luxuriant things?
And you know, I would just rather have the persons than the money. Give me the persons. I'm not going to let the devil fool me into saying, you know, give me the persons and take the goods to thyself.
You know, I want to say to the devil, you know what, I don't want your goods, King of Sodom. I don't want a shoelace from you, Satan. I don't want a thread or a shoe latch it from you because I don't need your wealth.
God is going to provide what I need in my life. I don't need to go to the devil to get the finances to survive. The Bible promises us that God is going to take care of us financially and that he will provide our needs. Look at Matthew 6, 19.
It says, lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal.
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. So according to the Bible, if you have a lot of treasure on this earth, that's going to cause your heart to be on the things of this earth.
And if you have very little treasure on this earth and a lot of treasure in heaven, then your heart's going to be in heaven. The Bible says our conversation is in heaven. For once also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
You see, the Bible says we brought nothing into this world and it's certain we can carry nothing out. But you know what? It doesn't say we can carry no one out. You see, I can't bring, you can't take it with you. You can't take your things with you.
But you know what? You can't take people with you. When you go out and win somebody to Christ, you can bring them to heaven with you. They'll be there with you. And I heard one person say you can't take it with you, but you can send it on ahead.
Because you can lay up treasures in heaven. Real treasures that will never get old, that will never be stolen, where moth and rust is not corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal.
It says, verse 21, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Look at verse 22, it says the light of the body is the eye. If therefore, thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.
If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold the one and despise the other.
He cannot serve God and mammon. So that part about the light of the body being the eye is right sandwiched between talking about money.
Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. You can't serve God and mammon in between. He talks about having an evil eye and he says if your eye is evil, your whole body is going to be full of darkness.
You see the love of money is the root of all evil. And the evil eye, the covetous eye that looks upon the money and the things that this world has and lusts after what does not belong to you.
Something that doesn't belong to you and you covet that and you lust after that and you think about that and you want that money. He says that will actually corrupt your whole life. Your whole body will be full of darkness.
That will lead to all evil in your life. It says in verse 25, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body what ye shall put on.
Is not the life more than meat and the body an arraignment? Isn't there more to it than that? Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap nor gather into barns.
Yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Another good animal rights verse this morning. We are better than sparrows, we're better than two thousand pigs.
I like to value myself at least at three thousand pigs. Are ye not much better than they?
Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin.
And yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed by one man. Wherefore have God so clothed the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall ye not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
Therefore take no thought saying, What shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Or wherewithal shall we be clothed?
For after all these things do the Gentiles seek, for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.
Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself, sufficient unto the days that ye will thereof.
The Bible says that God will provide our needs, our food and raiment. He's not going to make us rich, we're not going to be wealthy, but he will take care of us. We're going to survive.
He's going to give us food and clothing so that we can survive. Now wait a minute, then why do we make so many decisions based on money?
If God promised he's going to provide, if God said he'll even provide for us nicely, I mean he used the example of the lizard, he said God's going to clothe you. He's not even saying I'm going to clothe you in rags.
He says I'll clothe you with the right clothes, I'll feed you with nutritious food. He says I can take care of you, but yet we make so many decisions based on money.
And some people will move to a distant area where they don't even know if there's a good church there or anything. Maybe they have a good church and they move to an area with no church because of that job.
But then if somebody moves somewhere to go to church, then they're crazy. You're moving just so you can go to a better church? You're out of your mind.
But if it was a job, they'd say oh yeah, you can't pass that up. You can't pass up those six figures. I mean that's a great job.
And everybody thinks that's great. Because in our society, doing things motivated by money, that's just normal. Of course.
Instead of doing things motivated by spiritual reasons of doing things.
And doing things because it's going to help your family. Because it's going to be good for your family. Because it's going to be helpful to people. It's going to help other people.
We have to get the emphasis off of things and put it on people. And I think that's why Jesus showed us such an extreme example of saying here's $600,000 of merchandise.
Gone. I mean just in minutes. Just gone. That's why I love that story. Just the carnage of just 2,000 pigs running off a cliff.
And Jesus is saying isn't this great? And everybody's saying no, leave. Because they're just so focused on the things. You know God could have provided for them.
I mean this is Jesus that fed 5,000 and multiplied all kinds of things and did all kinds of things. He could have caused them to get their money back and to make money another way to survive and to make it.
But you know what? It's his choice. And God destroys property today all the time. I mean look at, come on. If there's a tornado or a hurricane or a tidal wave or an earthquake, obviously God is in control of the weather.
You know we don't always understand why he does the things he does. But you know what? He's the one who's allowing things to be destroyed. He brings his judgment upon people or he brings trials upon people and he does as it pleases him.
He said I kill, I make alive, the Lord is my name. And he does all these things and he destroys property and people might not understand it. But maybe it's for the benefit of some person.
Maybe it's to get somebody's attention. We don't know what he's doing. But this one guy that he got his attention, that guy preached, I don't know, for the rest of his life. For all we know he went all over the calculus, preaching the gospel everywhere he went.
What is that worth? You can't put a price tag on that. Don't make decisions based upon money. When we started the church, we didn't start by raising money. We didn't start with a building. We started with people.
We started going out knocking doors. We just met in the living room. Just about getting people, knocking doors, finding people. Because that was our emphasis. That was what it was about.
It's not about money. It's not about things. Don't let money make decisions about, you know, I'm not going to have children because it's too expensive. I'm going to move over here because of the money.
Or I'm going to do this with my children. Don't let money make the decisions. Do what's right and then let God provide and take care of you for making the right decisions.
I got to throw this in. This made me so angry. Who's ever heard of the Sword of the Lord newspaper? And I get the Sword of the Lord. It comes to my house because the Sword of the Lord, they send it to you.
If you're an independent Baptist church, they pretty much send it to you so I get a free subscription. Sometimes it has a lot of good stuff in there. The people who operate the Sword of the Lord newspaper, they definitely are straight down the line on the gospel of Jesus Christ.
They believe that salvation is by faith alone, not of works. They're for soul winning. They're for believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. So I get this newspaper and every once in a while I leave for it and check it out.
But anyway, there was this ad in there and this illustrates my point perfectly. There's this ad in the Sword of the Lord. I kept seeing this real big ad, a huge ad. It was for this Bible college up in North Dakota. It said that the tuition is free and the housing is free.
I'm looking at it and I'm like huh? So these kids are going to Bible college and it's just total free housing, total free tuition and I kept seeing this ad and it's just saying it's free, it's free, it's free. And then it starts saying like a hundred bucks a month. Everything's covered. A hundred bucks.
I was thinking like wow, that's crazy because most of these Bible colleges, and I'm against all the Bible colleges anyway, but most of these Bible colleges, I mean it's pretty expensive. When I went to Bible college, it was five hundred bucks a month just for the tuition. That wasn't any place to live or food, it's a good thing. This was five hundred bucks just for the tuition alone. So this is like free place to live, everything. So I was like who is this guy? I've never even heard of this guy.
So I looked it up on the internet and it was just some total liberal, watered down, no soul winning. And then I get this thing in the mail from the guy. This colored glossy brochure telling me how it's all free and it's all paid for and it's such a good deal. And then you read it, he's basically attacking soul winning in this. Criticizing soul winning. So I'm like what is this guy's deal?
So he said we don't do this kind of soul winning where we just go out quickly, get somebody to save and whatever. We do this seven week Bible study to get somebody to save. Whatever happened to now is the day of salvation. Now is the accepted time. But no, we do the seven week thing and it says, it's on this website, sevenstepstogod.org. So I'm like okay, so I went on the internet, I printed it out.
And you know it's just these huge long lessons. But I get to lesson seven. This is the one where the people are supposedly getting saved. Let me tell you something. I have never seen a more lying, deceiving plan of salvation in my entire life from a Baptist. I mean I can't even understand how this guy would even call himself a Baptist or an independent Baptist.
And yet he's advertising him the sword of the Lord, which believes all the right God. I promise you, if the sword of the Lord knew what this guy believed, they'd quit running his big giant stupid ad. And I wish somebody would call the sword of the Lord and tell him about this guy and say hey, this guy is not a Baptist, this guy is not saved, he's a liar. But see, he allures through the finances. Oh children, you're trying to pick where you want to go to college when you turn 18? This one's free. It's all free.
You get there and it's all lies. Let me read it to you, I'll prove it to you. And look, let me tell you something. When I preach behind this pulpit, I name the names. If you read the New Testament of Jesus Christ, I'm not talking about this new fangled idea of what preaching is and ethics and morality. I don't care about any of that stuff, I care about what the Bible says. The word ethics is not in the Bible. The word morality is not in the Bible. You know what's in the Bible? Right and wrong. That's what's in the Bible.
And the Bible teaches us that we should point out and expose the false prophets and false teachers of our day, especially when they're pretending to be one of us, and pretending to be a fundamental Baptist, and pretending to be preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. How do you know the name Hermogenes? You say I don't. Well that's because you don't read the Bible. How do you know the name Hermogenes? How do you know the name Hymenaeus? How do you know the name Philetus? How do you know the name Alexander? How do you know the name Diotrephes?
Because these are false preachers that were around during the days of Peter, James, and John, and Paul. They pointed them out. In their epistles that they wrote to the churches, they said beware of this guy Alexander. Beware of Hymenaeus. Beware of Philetus. Beware of Philetus. Beware of Hermogenes. I mean, Paul said this.
What did he say? Let me turn there. I'll tell you what he said. He said something good. Let me get there and tell you what it was. Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians. Philippians chapter 3, he said this.
Brethren, be followers together of me and mark them which walk, so as you have us for an example. For many walk of whom I have told you often. This is verse 18. So did he tell them of this sometimes?
He said many walk of whom I have told you often. And now tell you even weeping that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. He said I often told you about the enemies. I often pointed them out. I often named them by name.
So let's name the name. This guy's name is Tony Skeving. You get that? Who's that? I don't even know who that is. Tony Skeving in Fargo, North Dakota with his Master's Bible college. Listen to this guy's plan of salvation. Listen to this. You're not going to believe this.
He's talking about, and the whole thing is about repenting of your sins. That's what number 7 is all about. And people say why are you so hung up on that issue about repenting of your sins? You don't lie because of this. Because of lying like this that's going to send people to hell because it's the wrong plan of salvation. Let me prove it to you.
Listen to what he says here. True conversion to Christ requires a willingness to take a stand for him. Listen to this. Salvation is simple but it's not shallow. It will cost you something to follow Christ. It may be free but it costs Christ his life. Now wait a minute. Can somebody help me out? Doesn't something that's free not cost anything?
Am I mixed up here? Somebody help me out here. Isn't the definition of free that it doesn't cost? So he says it's going to cost you something. It may be free but it costs Christ his life. Yeah it did cost Christ his life. That's why it doesn't cost me anything. That's the whole point.
I mean everything costs something but guess what? Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. And so Jesus Christ paid it all. No it doesn't cost. Yeah it will cost you something to follow Christ. But does it cost anything to be saved? No. Because Jesus already paid that price with his blood on the cross. All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags to him. We can't buy our way in. Yeah it's going to cost you something. It may be free but it's going to cost you something.
That doesn't make any sense. And he says the next point is this. Every person must carefully consider how much they really want to be saved. He says you need to count the cost. Do you mean business with God? While salvation is free it's not cheap.
What? I'm reading this exactly. Go look it up yourself. While salvation is free it's not cheap. It's going to cost you something. I know it's free but it's not cheap. Well I know it's not cheap. It's free. That's why it doesn't cost me anything. Okay I'm deciding whether I really want to be saved. Let me count the cost. Zero. Okay I'll take it. Right?
I mean if it's going to cost something then it's not free. Somebody needs to explain to this guy what the word free means. Hey you better count the cost whether you're willing to pay zero to be saved.
It's nonsense. Listen to this. This is the next point. Are you willing to make Jesus Christ the Lord and Master of your life? Salvation all boils down to being willing to make Christ the Lord of your life. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. This verse above gives a promise. In essence it's saying whosoever will make Jesus Lord shall be saved. Oh is that what that says?
Okay so if I'm going to call upon Dave here. Let me pick up my phone here. Dave you're the new Lord of my life. I'm your slave for the rest of my life now because I'm calling upon your name.
It just says whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord. What is the name of the Lord that he's referring to? Jesus. Calling upon the name of the Lord to be saved. That means that he's your master and you're going to obey everything he says. No that's not what it means.
It says you call upon the name of the Lord and he says are you willing to turn from sin and submit to God by trusting him and giving him total control of your life?
Now look who in this room can honestly say Jesus Christ has total control of my life? 100%. I guess none of us are saved. According to him this is what you have to do to be saved. Give him total control. Well I don't think anybody has done that. Then you'd be perfect wouldn't you?
He says this. He says repentance. You've got to turn from wrong to right. Repentance is what is missing in most people who want to be born again. When it comes to going to heaven most want their cake. They want to have their cake and eat it too.
He says they want to go to heaven but not turn away from the sin that's taking them to hell. Repentance is the key. Well hold on a second. Is it really possible for us to turn from our sins? No. Oh no no no you don't get it past your answers. You just have to be willing to turn.
Well what if I'm just willing to be willing to turn? Or do I have to be willing to be willing to be willing to turn? Where does the Bible say willing to turn? Where does the Bible say? Last I checked it said that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Last I checked it said what must I do to be saved and they said believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Last time I checked it said whosoever heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me has, has, already has everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation but has passed from dead life.
Last I checked Jesus said verily verily I said you eat that believeth in me hath everlasting life. Last time I checked he said and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?
Last time I checked he said that thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in thine heart that God raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved.
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. I thought salvation was just believe on him and just call upon him. Just confess with your mouth.
Just faith not works. Not paying a price. Jesus paid the price. It's free. It's a gift. A gift of God's eternal life not of works. Let's say man should boast.
But he says repentance is the twin sister of faith.
And I guess it's a Siamese twin apparently. It can't be separated.
You know what? Repentance is the wicked step-sister of faith I think is repenting of your sin. But anyway the evil twin. The one that's not salvation.
And you say well the Bible says you've got to repent. Where does the Bible say repent of your sins?
Nowhere will you find the phrase repent of your sins or repent of his sin. Repent of theirs. It's not there.
And so this is garbage but he says in order to be born again we must be willing to repent or make a 180 degree turn.
And listen to this. He says you've got to turn from wrong to right. He says normally, he says this, an idol is anything that comes before God.
Money, materialism, booze, illicit, I'll just say things that go on in the bedroom, false, church or religion. We must turn from it in order to get to God.
Normally there's one main thing that stands in our way of getting saved. Are you willing to repent of it?
So basically what he's saying is if you drink, if you're not willing to turn from that, you can't be saved. That's what he's saying.
If you're not willing to turn from materialism, you can't be saved. This is a total work salvation.
He's basically saying you've got to sell everything you have to be saved. You've got to get rid of your materialism.
You've got to never touch a drop of alcohol again. And look, I've never even tasted beer in my life. I'm against drinking.
But you know what? People who drink are still going to be in heaven if they believe on Jesus Christ.
Because that's the whole point. Your sins are going to be forgiven. Otherwise you don't even need Jesus. You're just going to earn your own way in.
He says getting saved means repenting of sin and making Jesus Christ the Lord of your life. If Jesus isn't Lord of all, he's not Lord at all.
I mean, is this extreme? This guy is saying that he's got to be in control of every area of your life. You've got to repent of every sin.
You've got to count the coughs. It's free, but it's going to cost a lot. It's free, but it costs a lot. You've got to be willing to pay a really big price because it's free.
It means making the Lord. I mean, I'm just reading all this right now. It means making the Lord priority number one in life. He must become the king of your life.
You submit to him by following his word. It's all about obedience. Is that what salvation is all about? Obedience. Works. Doing the work. Obeying him. Turning from your sins.
Well, then it's impossible for anybody to be saved. Tony Scepe. Bastards Baptist College or whatever. Masters Baptist College. Sorry, I had a little speech of heaven there.
Hey, look. People get upset that you point these people out. I'm going to point them out. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of the wolves in sheep's clothing and everybody's afraid to point it out.
And you know what? Short of the Lord. Thank God for short of the Lord and thank God that they take a stand on the right plan of salvation. But what are they doing advertising this guy?
And I think they probably just don't even know it. Because if they knew it, I don't think they would do it.
Because I'm telling you something. This guy is alluring through money. He makes it all free. You couldn't pay me to send my kids to this guy's college.
You couldn't pay me, Sodom Baptist College. Tony Sodom. You couldn't pay me to send my children to your damnable heresy college because I don't care about the money, Tony.
I don't care about what you're offering. Free. And it's all free and it'll give you everything. Hey, the devil will give you everything too. But you know what? I don't want what the devil has to offer. I want the people.
I want my children to live for God and to go soul winning, not to sit around and say, soul winning doesn't work. We need to have a seven-step Jehovah's Witness Bible study.
And these Baptists, they think they came up with some cool new thing. They just took it from the Jehovah's Witnesses. A seven-week Bible study. You think it's a joke, but these people really do think it takes seven weeks to get somebody saved.
And I'm just thinking to myself, what if they die in the meantime? Think about that for a minute. I remember I was talking to a guy and he said he went to a church and he said they wanted to try this four-week Bible study for getting people saved.
And he was just trying to get along so he said, I'm going to try it. And he went and did it the first week and it's like he just wanted to finish. But he's like, see you next week.
He comes back a week later. Doesn't make any sense. Today's the day of salvation. If you're not saved, get saved today. And when we go out soul winning, we want people to get saved today.
We want to say, alright, see you in a few weeks. You can hang with me for two months in this Bible study. Then I'll tell you that you have to repent of everything to be saved.
Then he gives you a list of what you have to repent of. He said, here's some examples of stuff you might repent of. He's got nine things on the list.
Number one, what people will think. He said some people are fearful about what people think. You've got to get over that.
Number two, self-importance and pride. Number three, sexual immorality. The woman at the well in John 4 had to repent of her sexual immorality to be saved. Do you remember that part of the story? I don't remember that part.
Listen to this. Alcohol. You have to repent of alcohol to be saved. That's number four. And then it says drunkards shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
Well guess what? It also says all liars shall have the pride and the late which birth and the fire and birth of some. We've all lied before.
It says, whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. We've all lied, but if we believe on Jesus Christ, our sins are forgiven. That's the whole point.
He says this, you have to repent of false religion. That's the only one I agree with. Yeah, you can't worship some other religion. Obviously then you're not believing in Christ.
Family. Okay, listen to this. The healed blind man of John 9 parted from his family when he got saved. So you may have to leave the family.
So guess, hey, leave your family. If you're not willing to leave your family, sorry. Can't be saved. Is this nonsense or what? Listen to this.
Number seven. Greed and materialism. Zacchaeus the tax collector had to turn from his greed and materialism. Of course there's no verse, no scripture reference on that.
Take his word for it. Now listen, this is my favorite one. Wrong living. The Philippian jailer was willing to repent and turn from his rough living.
Here's the proof. He said, surest what must I do to be saved? Of course the answer was, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved if thou turnest from thy rough living.
Where does the Bible say that the Philippian jailer lived a rough life? I guess just because he was a jailer. Have you ever been to jail before? Those guys are rough.
He went back to being a jailer the next day after he got saved. He put him back in the jail cell and locked the door. So he had to repent of his rough living.
See how they're just adding to God's word? That's nowhere in the story. You have to turn from his rough living. He says, sir, what must I do to be saved?
And then the rich young ruler was not willing to repent. He held on to his self-righteousness. Actually he said that he didn't want to get rid of his money.
So I guess now you have to sell everything you have and give to the poor to be saved. You've got to stop your rough living, you've got to stop us. And he says, sadly there are some not willing to repent.
King Agrippa wasn't willing to turn from his sin. That's why he said, almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. Based on what?
Was anybody here on Acts 26? Anything like that in the story? No. And so the bottom line is, this is lying heresy. Don't be deceived by something just because it says Baptist on the sign.
I mean that, to me, that's worse than a Roman Catholic. I mean that's extreme. That's pretty extreme. And let me tell you this. This guy is using money as his carrot in the nose, in front of the nose.
Say, hey, the money. Look at the deal. I'll pay for everything. I'll buy, you know. And look, there are people out there that will buy your drugs for you too.
You know what I mean? You've got to decide that you're not going to make decisions based on money. That guy doesn't have anything spiritual to offer. He doesn't say, oh, come for the soul. He doesn't have soul in him. He doesn't say, come for the gospel. He's preaching a false gospel.
But it's a really good deal guys. And so I hope my kids grow up and go there because it's a killer deal. Save me a fortune. But you know what? My soul and my children's souls and their lives don't come that cheap.
And so I got more in my notes, but I'm out of time. I went on that rabbit trail. I'm glad I did. But the bottom line is that we need to put the people first in life. Put doctrine first.
Well, that's a good deal. I think I'll go to that church and that school. Nope. Go to the church that's preaching the right word.
You know, and you say, well, I could make more money if I live in this town. You know, that's great. As long as there's a good Bible believing soul winning church over there, great.
You know, nothing wrong with moving. Nothing wrong with going somewhere. But a lot of times people just go somewhere where there's no church that's a soul winning church.
You know, they go out in the middle of nowhere somewhere and they make decisions that are based on money. Don't make a decision not to have children. Don't make a decision to move to some distant place.
Don't make a decision based upon finances. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.
People will take a job that's immoral. They'll take a job that they have to partake in sin to do that job. You know, well, this job as a bartender pays really well.
But you know what? God can provide for you with another job that's not going to cause you to have to constantly be in sin. You know, just in a round filth and wickedness all day long.
And so make your decisions based on the people. You know, go out soul winning. Serve God. Do things that are out of treasure in heaven. Spend time with your children.
It's not all just about making money, guys. You know, spend time with your wife. Spend time with your children. We need to make money, but we've got to also worry about the people in our life.
That's more important. Pastoring the church is more important than how much money comes into play. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, dear God, and we thank you for salvation is free, dear God. I wish that this guy out in North Dakota would figure that out with his big giant color ads and mailers that he keeps sending me.
I don't know why he must think I'm stupid or something that he sent me that mailer and he doesn't realize that it's just going to go in the trash right after I blaspheme him from the pulpit.
God, I pray that you would just help us to realize that money is not what life's about. It's about people. It's about our families. It's about souls.
Help us not to be deceived by the devil who in so many different incarnations, whether it be this phony pastor in North Dakota or whether it be a job opportunity or whether it be whatever where the devil is trying to entice us with money.
Help us to always put you first and your word first and not let money make our decisions for us. We love you and thank you for everything you do for us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.