So right now she is old enough to like show people, but never she doesn't have an idea.
Auntie!
No it's not your fault.
It's right here.
No it's not your fault.
It's not your fault.
No it's not your fault.
Number 152 security.
Number 152.
More secure is no one ever
than the loved ones of the Savior.
Let's sing it out on this first verse.
Number 152.
Let's sing it out on this first verse.
Number 152.
More secure is no one ever
than the loved ones of the Savior.
Let's sing it out on this first verse.
Number 152.
More secure is no one ever
than the loved ones of the Savior.
Let's sing it out on this first verse.
Number 152.
More secure is no one ever
than the loved ones of the Savior.
Let's sing it out on this first verse.
Number 152.
More secure is no one ever
than the loved ones of the Savior.
Let's sing it out on this first verse.
Partner assistance is no sing offWithout
Thank you for this opportunity
to be here tonight, and
I pray that you feel diamonds
and hopefully
Amen. Go over to hymn number 149, Trusting Jesus, number 149.
Singing all four verses, Simply Trusting Every Day, number 149.
Let's sing it out nice and loud until the Lord this evening, number 149.
Trusting Jesus, that is all. Trusting as the Romans fly.
Trusting as the days go by. Trusting Him, whatever befall.
Trusting Jesus, that is all. Flying down His sphere and shining
into this poor heart of mine. While He lives, I cannot fall.
Trusting Jesus, that is all. Trusting as the Romans fly.
Trusting as the days go by. Trusting Him, whatever befall.
Trusting Jesus, that is all. Singing if my way is clear.
Praying if the path be true. If in danger form in God.
Trusting Jesus, that is all. Trusting as the Romans fly.
Trusting as the days go by. Trusting Him, whatever befall.
Trusting Jesus, that is all. Trusting Him, my life shall last.
Trusting Him till earth be past. Till within the jester wall.
Trusting Jesus, that is all. Trusting as the Romans fly.
Trusting as the days go by. Trusting Him, whatever befall.
Trusting Jesus, that is all.
And then we've got the coffee and tea station up and running again.
Water stations up and running again. Don't forget that there's no Tucson shuttle
again until October 1st while brother Corbin Ressel
is up on an Indian reservation up in the Pacific Northwest
doing a soul winning trip up there. And from what I hear things are going
great. So be praying for him on that trip. And
the services of course are happening as normal down in Tucson. But the shuttle
will not resume until October. And then on the back we've got
the singing class every Sunday at 4 30. Keep praying for our ladies that are expecting
that they'll have a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery. We've got the
weekly events listed there. The preaching class at 7 o'clock on Tuesday
nights. That's for participants only. And then we've got the Spanish night
every second Thursday. The next one is on October 8th. Let's go ahead and count up the
soul winning from the past few days. Going back to Monday. Any soul
winning to report from Monday? All right.
Anything else from Monday? Gotcha.
Anything else from Monday? What about Tuesday?
Two for Tuesday. All right. Gotcha.
Anything else from Tuesday? And then what about today? I know we had two
for the church van. All right. Anything
outside the van? All right. Is that a one?
Okay. Gotcha. Anything else from today? Very good. Keep up
the great work on soul winning. And with that let's sing our next song. Come lead us.
You should find through tribulation your hymnals.
Should be in the front there. Through tribulation we'll sing all three verses.
If you need one you can raise your hand and one of the men will get to you with one.
Through tribulation though it is dark in this world of sin
sing it out.
Through tribulation though it is dark in this world of sin
though evil prospers
it shall not win
first tribulation
and with a shout will be caught away
for his wrath poured out
the Lord will come with ten thousands
of saints he'll judge the earth
for his righteous name's sake
through tribulation though we
must come there's naught can
separate us from his love
sorrows increase be not
dismayed all must be fulfilled
before that day
the men of sin we shall surely
see the sun in the dark
and then we shall be free
the Lord will come with ten thousands of saints
he'll judge the earth for his
righteous name's sake
through tribulation though we must come
there's naught can separate us
from his love
we must trust in him though times seem dire
these trots purify us with
refining fire when he's come to
pass redemption is nigh
he'll catch us away in the blink of an eye
the Lord will come
with ten thousands of saints
he'll judge the earth for his righteous name's
sake through tribulation
though we must come
there's naught can separate us from his
love
amen your hymnals if you would turn to number 148
Jesus only Jesus number 148
I walk the path of pleasure
I told for earthly treasure number 148
I walk the path of pleasure
I told for earthly treasure
but peace beyond all
measure I found him
only Jesus
my sins are all forgiven
the chains of sin are
riven and all my heart
is given to Jesus
my sins are all forgiven
the chains of sin are
riven and all my heart
is given to Jesus
my sins are all forgiven
the chains of sin are
riven and all my heart
is given to Jesus
my sins are all forgiven
the chains of sin are riven
and all my heart is given
to Jesus only
Jesus
God's word I long resisted
repenting my
implicit with Jesus
only Jesus
my sins are all forgiven
the chains of sin are riven
and all my heart
is given to Jesus
only Jesus
oh Christ for love unceasing
for blessings
there increasing
for all my fears releasing
I praise and love my Jesus
my sins are all forgiven
the chains of sin are riven
and all my heart
is given to Jesus
only Jesus
All right, this time we'll pass our offering plates around
as we do, let's turn our Bibles to Psalm 64
right in the very center of your Bibles, the book of Psalms
Psalm 64, as we always do, we'll read the entire chapter, beginning in verse number 1
follow along silently with brother Hesser as he reads Psalm 64
beginning in verse number 1
Psalm 64
the Bible reads, Hear my voice, O God
in my prayer, preserve my life from fear of the enemy
hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked
from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity
who wet their tongue like a sword and bend their bows
to shoot their arrows, even bitter words
that they may shoot in secret at the perfect, suddenly do they shoot at him
and fear not, they encourage themselves in an evil matter
they commune of laying snares, privily
they say, Who shall see them? They search out iniquities
they accomplish a diligent search
both the inward thought of every one of them and the heart is deep
but God shall shoot at them with an arrow
suddenly shall they be wounded, so they shall
make their own tongue to fall upon themselves
all that see them shall flee away, and all men shall fear
and shall declare the work of God, for they shall wisely
consider of his doing. The righteous
shall be glad in the Lord, and shall trust in him
and all the upright in heart shall glory
Lord, thank you for this day, and Lord I ask that you would bless
Pastor Anderson and fill him with your spirit as he preaches to us today
and open our hearts and open our ears in Jesus name we pray, Amen.
Amen. Psalm 64 the Bible reads in verse 1, Hear my voice O God
in my prayer, preserve my life from fear
of the enemy, hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked
from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity
so here we have yet another Psalm where David is talking about his
enemies plotting against him, conspiring against him
and he says in verse 1 preserve my life from fear
of the enemy. It's interesting the way that that's worded because
obviously he wants his life to be preserved from his enemies and there are
a lot of other verses like that in Psalms where he's praying for deliverance
from his enemies but here he actually says preserve my life from fear
of the enemy sometimes even just fear of the enemy can be
damaging to our lives and the Bible tells us
that we've not been given the spirit of fear but of power and of love
and of a sound mind we should really only fear God.
Now obviously as human beings every single one of us has fear
and that's something that is impossible to completely overcome
just like you're never going to be sinless. Every single human being
with that sinful nature we're going to have fear in our lives realistically
speaking but God doesn't want us to have fear we should
strive to fear him and him alone and so he says here
preserve my life from fear of the enemy. First of all there's kind of a double meaning
because first of all obviously he wants to be preserved from the fearful things that
his enemy wants to do to him but also just you know preserve me from
the fear of the enemy. Help me not to be fearful of my enemies.
You know the Bible says what time I am afraid I will trust
in thee. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death I will fear no evil for thou art with me.
So we don't want to let fear of our enemies control our
actions. You know what if I became afraid of my enemies
and I allowed that to affect my preaching or I allowed that
to affect my walk with God where I would start backing off on
things because I said hey you know I'm afraid of the repercussions of really getting up
and preaching this face ripping sermon so I think I'm just going to back this off a little bit
tone this down. You know that's what fear of your enemies will do.
It can have a bad effect so we don't want fear to make our decisions for us.
We want to do what's right and let the chips fall where they may.
So the Bible says hear my voice O God in my prayer preserve my life from
fear of the enemy. Hide me from the secret council
of the wicked from the insurrection of the workers
of iniquity. Now this is going to be a theme throughout this psalm
that these wicked evil doers that are attacking him they do it
secretly. They do not do it openly. This is something that comes up over
and over again here. And this is the worst kind of enemy.
It's a lot better the devil that you know than the devil that you don't know.
And the worst kind of enemy is the one that pretends to be your friend, stabs
you in the back. That's far worse than somebody who just openly hates
you. The Bible says you know faithful are the wounds
of a friend but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. And so
these people they take secret council and then he says
the insurrection of the workers of iniquity. Now
what does insurrection mean? Well insurrection is a rebellion.
David is in a position of leadership. He's the king of Israel
and so there's a possibility of people rebelling against him
causing an insurrection, a revolution,
a mutiny if you will. And we see that that's something that David dealt with
multiple times. Where you have different people that pop up
and have an insurrection or a mutiny. Obviously
Absalom is the paramount example that comes to mind.
And you've got Sheba the son of Bichrai and you've got examples
of this. This is something that David is praying
for deliverance from. The insurrection of the workers of iniquity. If you remember Sheba the son
of Bichrai and people like that, it often says that they had some people following them
that were the children of Belial. And what are the children of Belial?
Belial, Bel, Bel, Beelzebub. That's talking about the devil.
The children of the devil. And whenever you see this term workers of iniquity
these aren't just your garden variety sinners. When you see
that term workers of iniquity, look it up every single time it occurs
in the Bible. It's a special term. It's talking about the worst kind of people.
It's talking about the sons of Belial. It's talking about reprobates.
The worst scum. So he's saying deliver me from
hide me from the secret council of the wicked from the insurrection
of the workers of iniquity who wet their tongue
like a sword. Now notice the H there when it says wet. This isn't like
water is wet. W-H-E-T. W-H-E-T
means to sharpen. Who's ever heard of a whetstone before?
When you're a kid you get a knife and you get the whetstone to go with it
and you learn how to sharpen a knife. At least I did.
That's where I learned that word, a whetstone. So he says
that they wet their tongues
like a sword. So basically they're sharpening their tongue.
So he's basically likening their tongue onto a weapon.
And they're just sharpening it up, just getting ready to do maximum
damage with their mouth. You know, they're gonna run their mouth and cause as many
problems as they possibly can. They're wetting their tongue like a sword.
They bend their bows to shoot their arrows. And what
are their arrows? What are the weapons that they're gonna use? Bitter
words. So we can see exactly what the weapon is here.
David's not praying to be delivered from an actual physical
assault with swords and knives. You know, he's worried about the sharp
tongue. He's worried about the bitter words that they're going to use
to create insurrection. It says in verse 4 that they may shoot
and here it is again, in secret at the perfect.
Suddenly do they shoot at him and fear not.
Now when the Bible says the perfect here, we don't want to misunderstand this.
Perfect in the Bible does not mean sinless. In 2020
when we say the word perfect, we typically are referring to something
that is just without flaw, without error, totally sinless.
Well if that were the case, there'd be no such thing as a perfect man. But the Bible says that
Job was a perfect man. Is that saying he had no sin? No. The word
perfect means complete. If you know anything about English grammar
or grammar in any other language, you know that the perfect
verbs are the verbs that have been completed, right? You've got the
perfect participle and you've got the pluperfect
and all those other things that you tried so hard to forget
for so long. But perfect just
means complete. And so when the Bible talks about the perfect man,
it's basically just talking about a well-rounded person who has each
area in their life in order. Not that they're without sin,
not that they have everything exactly right, but think about how our life has
different areas to it. You know, we've got our relationships,
we've got our finances, we've got our
soul-winning, our Bible reading, we've got our prayer on the spiritual side,
right? So a perfect man is somebody who's got all the
pieces of the puzzle there. It's not saying that he never sins or never makes a mistake
or is doing everything just right or perfectly, as we would put it,
but rather it's just saying that he has all the components. He's complete,
he's a mature Christian, and he's got the components. You know, for example, you know,
if somebody doesn't read their Bible at all but they're doing everything else right in the Christian life
but they just rarely read their Bible, that's not the perfect man. Or somebody who's got
everything else right but he never prays, that's not the perfect man. Somebody who's
following all the rules, reading their Bible, praying, but they're not evangelizing
whatsoever, they're not doing any soul-winning, they never give the Gospel to anybody, that's not
the perfect man. Somebody who reads the Bible, they pray, they go soul-winning,
but they've got a bunch of sin in their life, you know, so they don't have a clean life. There's a
major flaw there, that's not the perfect man. So the Bible
is just talking about a good Christian here. When it says the perfect man, just think
of a mature, good, solid, Christian person.
And he's saying that that's who these wicked people want to attack.
They want to shoot at him, they want to sharpen their tongue like a sword
so that they can inflict damage upon
the perfect. Suddenly do they shoot at him and fear
not. They encourage themselves in an evil matter.
They commune of laying snares privately.
They say, who shall see them? Now it's interesting
when it says they encourage themselves in an evil manner. I was thinking
about this, encouraging themselves in an evil manner, and I
was thinking about, you know, why would somebody do that? And the
thought that came to my mind was that if they need to encourage themselves
in an evil manner, it's like they're kind of trying to convince themselves a little bit.
Because they know deep down that what they're doing is wrong, but they're
kind of wanting to tell themselves that it's okay. You know, areas of my life that don't
need any work or don't need any help, I don't sit around and encourage myself in those areas.
I don't give myself a pep talk on things that
are not a problem for me. If you're encouraging yourself,
it seems like you'd have a need for encouragement. That was the thing that jumped out at me, is like,
why do these people need encouragement? Because I think that even the most wicked,
rotten person, you know, deep down knows that what they're doing is wrong.
Something, even if maybe it's just subconscious, even if
they've got themselves convinced, and they try to convince themselves that what they're doing is
right, and then they get together with other people, because of course the Bible says
in verse 2, the secret counsel of the wicked, that
implies more than one person getting together and conspiring. And then also it says
in verse 5 halfway through, they commune of laying snares
privately. Again, commune, commune comes from the same root word as
our English word, common. They're in common, working
together, communing, counseling. They're getting together and
basically encouraging each other, riling each other up. You know, when bad
people get together, their wickedness is greater than the sum of its parts.
I mean, think about this. You know, sometimes you could have a
mischievous teenager, and they're only going to go so far. But then they get
together with another mischievous teenager, and what's going to happen? It could become exponential
as they rile each other up, egg each other on,
and it can get worse and worse. Well, here's the thing. It's like that with all sorts of wickedness.
So these people, they encourage themselves in an
evil matter. They basically talk to each other, and what do they do? They justify
the wickedness that they're doing. That's what they mean by
encouraging themselves, right? Is justifying
why what they're doing is okay, why they're going to get away with it.
And he says that they also say, you know, well, who shall see them?
Nobody's going to catch us. We're going to get away with this.
Now, people always find a way to justify
the wrong that they do. Even the worst criminal will probably have
some explanation of why what he's doing isn't wrong. Everybody who steals,
everybody who robs or vandalizes,
you know, they always have a reason why they can justify.
They make themself out to be some victim, and then
that's why it's okay for them to loot and pillage and burn it all
down, because they're a victim, right? We've seen that before.
And so he says they encourage themselves in an evil matter. They commune
of laying snares, probably snares are traps.
So they want to set a trap for the righteous, secretly.
They say, who shall see them? And then it's interesting, in verse 6
it says, they search out iniquities, they accomplish
a diligent search, both the inward thought
of every one of them, and the heart is deep. And then he sort of
changes gears in verse 7 there. So these first six verses are talking
about who the enemies are and what is their
modus operandi? How do they operate? What do they
do? Number one, we see that they do it secretly.
They creep in unawares. Number two,
they justify it, they find a reason to
encourage themselves in it and encourage others in it and rile each other up.
And then we see that they use their words to do it, they're going to
use slander and evil speaking, bitter
words. But then lastly, we see that they search out iniquities,
they accomplish a diligent search. What does this mean?
The Bible talks about a wicked man digging up evil.
They accomplish a diligent search, they're searching out iniquities. Basically
what they do is they find a righteous person, find a good person,
and they just try to find whatever dirt they can find on that
person. They'll pull something out from
the distant past, they'll pull something out from ten years ago,
they'll pull something out from five years ago that has no relevance
to that person's character today because they just want to
use that as some way to attack the righteous. Look, this is what
wicked people always do. Look at the book of Daniel. Daniel's this righteous man,
he's doing a great job, and the people around him, they're envious. They wish
that they would have his position of authority and his power, and so they decide
we're going to take Daniel down. And so what did they do? They
searched out iniquities. They accomplished a diligent
search. Now in Daniel's case, they couldn't find anything wrong with him. I mean, he was
squeaky clean, and so they said, well, you know, the only way we're going to get him
is by nailing him concerning his God. You know, we're going to have to get him
concerning his God because when it comes to his work performance, there's nothing wrong with his
performance. We can't find any dishonesty in his work
or any sloppiness, and so we're going to have to use religion to go after him.
And of course, that's what they ultimately do. So when they make this
search for iniquity and accomplish a diligent search,
they're either going to actually find something wrong with you,
which in most cases, they're going to be able to find something because
rarely is there a person such as Daniel whose record is
just that perfect, and they're just that impeccable. So most people, they're going to be able
to find something that they can twist or use or spin or blow out of proportion.
Or even if they can't find that, then they will just use
the things that you're doing right that don't jive with society.
And they'll nail you on that. Because think about it, what did they nail
Daniel on? Praying three times a day. Well, praying three times a day is a virtue.
But in that particular kingdom, at that
particular time, with that particular edict, in effect, that they weren't allowed
to pray to any god, they were only supposed to petition the king, well then
all of a sudden, that's a criminal act. Well, think about this. Think about the virtuous
things that we do as Christians that could be considered a criminal act.
When the wicked just want to nail the righteous.
And so, for example, what are some virtuous acts that could be considered
criminal or could be considered wrong? I mean, we're to
the point now where sometimes when we go soul winning, the police are called
and we have issues with that. And, of course, that's rare that we have to deal with that.
But it happens. It's imaginable. You know, there are places in this world
where soul winning is a crime, unfortunately. In the Islamic world
or even in Russia, they've made laws against proselyting and stuff.
I don't know how enforced those are. But the point is that even
something good like soul winning could become a crime. Or what about spanking your kids?
You know, the Bible tells us to spank our kids. And spanking our kids is totally legal.
But could you see how maybe the wicked someday
could say, well, hey, we want to nail these Christians. We can't find anything to
nail them on. Let's just make spanking illegal. And then we can go after them for child abuse
when really it's the libtards of our nation that are the child abusers.
Bunch of pervert weirdos sexualizing our children with
all their filthy sex education classes in elementary schools and
all the smut that they put on TV and all the junk that they show our
kids all the time, you know, that's child abuse. But no, no, they'll turn it around.
They'll call evil good and good evil. They'll put sweet for bitter and bitter for sweet
and they'll try to say, no, no, you disciplining your kids in the traditional
Christian way that's been done for hundreds of years in this country.
No, no, that's wrong. That's not allowed. Would that shock you if that ever happened?
Wouldn't surprise me at all if that happened, okay?
Not only that, what about just Bible preaching? What about just getting up and preaching
hard against the sodomites or getting up and preaching hard against abortion or preaching
hard against the feminists or preaching hard against other religions that
are leading people to hell or whatever. You could see how those things could become
illegal or a crime someday. Folks, all you gotta do is walk to the back of the auditorium. There's a big
framed deal there showing where
I've been banned from these different countries and it's the letter that they wrote and on
one of those letters it has quotes from my sermons where they say this is why we're banning you.
These are the things that you said. And if you look at those quotes
you'll be pretty surprised to find out what is illegal to say
in Great Britain. Because, you know, I
can think of some stuff that I've said where you can be like, okay, I can see how that would be illegal in
certain countries. Not saying it should be. It should all be
legal. But I'm thinking of some things that I've said and thinking like, okay, yeah,
that doesn't surprise me too much. But folks, it's pretty sad when they have a quote
where I'm just preaching against Islam and rebuking Muhammad
and they're like, this is not allowed. What in the world?
Or a quote where I'm preaching about fornication
and contraceptives and then it's like, this isn't allowed.
It's unbelievable. And so, wicked
people, they're gonna search out iniquities.
They're gonna accomplish a diligent search.
And it's gonna be one of two things. They're either gonna find something that you've
actually done wrong and use that to go after you
or they're gonna find something good that you've done
and say that it's wrong and attack you for the good that you've done.
Or, of course, they could also just lie and make things up. But, you know, it's a lot more
effective to go after somebody on something that has a little kernel of truth in it.
You know, if somebody just made something up about me just completely
out of thin air, that wouldn't be as effective
of an attack as when they actually find a chink in my armor.
They actually find some weakness that I have. They actually find a mistake
that I made and then just take that, blow it out of proportion
and turn it into something bigger than it is, twist it,
magnify it. That's gonna be more effective because
a lie is a better lie if it has a little bit of truth in it. I mean, think about it. If you're gonna
make perfect money, you're gonna try to make it look as much like the real thing
as you possibly can. And so the point is that these
wicked people, they're out to get good people. They wanna
tear down Christians that are serving God and so they're
on a hunt, they're on a search for iniquities, making
diligent inquiry. Do not become this type of person.
We should not be out searching
for sin in people's lives. This is the attribute of a wicked
person. We should not rejoice in iniquity.
We should not make a diligent search for iniquity. I mean, how would you
like it if I, the pastor of the church, just started looking
for sin in the congregation's lives? Do you think that that would be right
for me to do as a pastor? Do you think that that would be a good thing for me to do as
a pastor to just start, what if I just got my staff together tomorrow morning and said,
alright, we're gonna clean up this church. So let's
get, I want a list of every church member, we're gonna figure out what sins they're into.
We're gonna accomplish a diligent search. We're gonna watch them,
we're gonna follow them, we're gonna troll them on social media, we're gonna figure out,
we're gonna talk to their friends and family, co-workers, we're gonna figure out the sin in their life and you know,
we're gonna eradicate it. That would be bizarre, wouldn't it?
You'd say, what kind of a sick cult is this? What kind of a freak
are you? What kind of a weirdo are
you? If the pastor of the church did that, you'd think it was super weird, wouldn't you?
Like, what are you doing? You know, just trying to find what's
wrong with your church members, just hunting for problems. Now look, obviously
a good leader is gonna confront
issues when they come up. You know, when somebody is found
to be in some major sin or something that needs to be dealt with, then we'll deal
with it. And of course, here's the thing, when it comes to major sins that need to be dealt with,
it's the stuff that's on the biblical list, okay, is mainly what we're talking about.
So I don't wanna know about everybody's little sin. Not only am I not
gonna go hunting for your sins, not only am I not gonna make a diligent search,
hey, I don't even wanna know about your sins. I've had people come
to me and start telling me their sins and I'm just like, stop.
I am not Catholic priest, you know, I'm not interested.
I don't care how many days it's been since your last confession. You know, the more
the better. Tell it to Jesus alone. You know, I'm not
interested in having people come to me, and sometimes people come to me
for advice or they'll come to me for marriage advice or just general advice
and they'll start telling me, and sometimes I'll just say like, hey, I don't need to know the details.
I don't need to know the specifics. Just give me something generic. Just tell
me the gist of what you need. Let me help you, but I don't wanna know.
And if I do hear nasty things about people, you know, I
try to just forget it as fast as I can, and I'm pretty good at forgetting stuff.
I'm, I'm, honestly, we all have our strengths
and weaknesses. I have a, one of my strengths is that I
forget stuff. Seriously. And I, because I've learned
the great secret to forgetting things. The great secret to forgetting things is don't think about them.
And don't talk about them. If you don't talk about something and you don't think about something,
you will forget it. You can't remember it. It's, it's the constant bringing it up
and thinking about it and talking about it that keeps it on your mind.
I hear bad stuff about church members. I hear about their sins. I
try to forget that. I don't need to know that. Okay. Now, look,
obviously there is a certain list of sins where if people are involved in that, then
we need to confront that person. You know, the Bible talks about how we can't have fellowship with
somebody who's called a brother, who's a fornicator, a drunkard,
a railer, covetous, extortioner, you know, somebody who's involved
in these major open sins that could actually
end up affecting the whole church because a little leaven could leaven the whole lump.
I mean, imagine if we just had a man and a woman in our church, they
live together and they're not married and they're in the front row and everybody knows it and we just treat them like
a normal couple in our church and they're just living in fornication. That could set
a bad example for our young people. Or if we just have
teenagers fornicating in the church and we just look the other way and allowed that.
You know what that's going to say is that, hey, we're actually giving a green light
to fornication. You know, major stuff like that. If we had people in the church
going out and getting drunk and we just
don't say anything, don't bat an eye, you know, that sends the wrong message. Those
kind of sins are contagious. Okay.
And railing. I mean, if we have somebody who's spreading lies and
gossip and slander and making railing accusations, then
you know, we have to put a stop to that. Those are big problems
that we have to get rid of. Okay. But
that's a pretty short list of things in 1 Corinthians 5.
We're not just out to figure out every sin in someone's life
about how they didn't dress right over here, they listened to the
wrong music, they watched this movie, you know, it's like, I
don't need to know about this. Or he smoked cigarettes. Like, I don't care.
I don't want to know. I don't need to know. And look,
a lot of people, what they've done is when they find out that somebody
in the church is involved in a serious sin, usually the way that
that person brings that to me, if they feel like it might be something we need to deal with,
they bring it to me as this. They say, hey, listen, there's a person
who's doing such and such a sin, do you want to know about that?
And if it's not a serious issue, if it's not
drunkenness or fornication or something big like that, then I tell that person,
no, I don't need to know about that. I don't want to know about that. You know, maybe you can
just kind of talk to that person, try to help them a little bit and gently try to
restore that situation. But I don't need to get involved in that. I don't want to get involved
in that. You know, but if they come to me and say, hey, you know, so and so the person,
you know, I saw them down at Mill Avenue and they were just totally
drunk and just stumbling around and, you know, then it's like,
okay, well, yeah, I need to confront that person and we need to, you know, deal with that.
And here's the thing, when we confront people about sin or when we even
have to throw somebody out, the goal is
restorel, unless they're a reprobate, unless they're just a total reprobate
infiltrator Judas, which they're called the workers of iniquity,
folks, then we want to restore those people. So look, if somebody's
a drunk in the church, we don't want to throw that person in the trash. Even if we throw out
the drunkard, our hope is that they will sober up and come back to church. Amen.
You know, we've had to, we've had to throw people out of the church
for, you know, being drunk and being addicted to drugs
and everything. And, you know, we hope that that's a wake up call and we try to show them, hey,
here's where you can get help and you need to fix this. And we want that person to sober
up and be a part of the church. People that are, look, people that are living in
fornication, you know, we give them a chance to get married or
separate or, you know, fix the situation in some way, shape, or form.
And here's the thing, a lot of people, they're not willing to fix that situation.
And so they end up being asked to leave because they're living in fornication.
And here's what I always tell that person. When I ask that person to leave, I say, hey, well listen,
as soon as you finally get married, you're welcome to come back. You know,
if that person gets thrown out for fornication and six, you know, because they're living with their girlfriend,
if six months later they get married, I would welcome them back to the church with open arms now
that they've corrected that situation. But we can't have people living in fornication
as part of the church because the scripture says no.
But you see, there's a big difference between dealing with problems as they
arise, dealing with a sin that we're confronted
with. Not that we went out looking and we're following
people around and trying to figure out what they're doing, but where we're confronted
with a sin and we deal with it, there's a big difference between that and
diligently searching for iniquity. The person who's just hunting
for iniquity is a bad person. It's a wicked person.
Or people who delight in iniquity and you say, well,
how do I know if somebody delights in iniquity? Oh, the person who wants
to tell it to every other person that they possibly can.
I mean, look, the stuff I talk about is stuff that I like.
Stuff that I like, that's what I talk about a lot.
And you know what? The person who basically finds out something
bad, finds out something sinful about another church member
and they just want to go around telling everybody about it and they just can't stop
broadcasting it and texting people and emailing people, you know it's because they're
a rotten person that's being described in this chapter. And you know what?
We not too long ago had an issue in our church a few months ago where
there were a bunch of teenagers that had gotten involved in sinful things
and all it was, and excuse me, all it was
was just talk. It was basically dirty
jokes, dirty communication of just talking and saying
bad things. And you know what? There were people out there who just
they delighted in that. They wanted to just spread it everywhere
all over the internet. They were literally shopping around YouTube channels
to try to get the right one to release it because oh this is going to be so great.
Why do they think it's so great? Because they just think it's so great. Any way that they can harm
Faithful Word Baptist Church, they're excited about that. Any way that they can
harm Pastor Anderson, they're excited about that. You know they don't care about the
ten teenagers or whatever that were involved in these conversations.
They don't care about their reputations. They don't care about anything like that. And what
they do is they lied and they blew it out of proportion. They made it
out that it was way bigger than it was. They twisted it and
what did they do? They just enjoyed destroying
themselves because you know what? They didn't destroy us because here we are. They didn't destroy
me. They didn't destroy my family. They didn't destroy these other families. They didn't destroy
our church and they're never going to because you end up destroying
yourself when you engage in that kind of behavior. No normal
person is going to look at the stupidity of a
teenager and just want to rake them over the coals for that
and just keep running that into the ground. That's not normal.
Let me tell you how a normal person reacts to that. A normal
person would say, you know what? I'm thinking about all the stupid stuff that I said
when I was a teenager. I'm thinking about all the stupid stuff that I did when I was
a teenager and so I'm going to show mercy here. Now look, obviously
when teenagers do wrong, they need to be punished.
And everyone involved was punished. Everyone involved was disciplined.
Everyone involved was sternly rebuked and not only did they get punished,
they lost privileges. I mean look, the punishment was real folks but
let me tell you something.
Remember not the sins of my youth is what the Bible says.
Remember not the sins of my youth. That's what David said.
How many of us could pray that prayer? Lord, remember not the
sins of my youth. But you know what? If you're sitting out there right now saying,
you know what? You're probably some of the holier than thou trash
that would like to and delight in
this kind of scuttlebutt and gossip and you know what? People
who love to gossip are trash people. They're the ones that belong in
the trash. Not the sinners. You know, Jesus was okay hanging around
some publicans and sinners and reaching people but you know what? He had no time for the hypocritical
trash. And so the gossiping and the
backbiting and the people who privily, secretly
attack you while pretending to be your friend are scum. They're workers
of iniquity. That's what the Bible says about them. They make
diligence. They pretend to be your friend. They pretend to love you.
They come to Faithful Word Baptist Church and, oh, we love this church. It's so great.
First chance they get to attack the church. They're on it. They're all over
it. Okay. And you know what? All of these people,
what they have in common is that they downplay their own sin.
So you got some guy who's shot up heroin,
fathered a bastard kid out of wedlock,
fornicated, drunk, done everything under the sun
and then he's like, oh, I, you know, I wouldn't have done what they did.
Never would have, he wouldn't have told a dirty joke though.
You believe that? Some guy who does drunk, people who smoke, you know, he'll smoke pot,
but I'd never tell a dirty joke like that.
You know, he'll get drunk. He'll father kids out of wedlock.
He'll fornicate. Because you know what? It's a trash person who downplays
their own sins, but then everyone else's sins are just
inexcusable and horrible and unbelievable. Look, did you know that we all have
different sins? And it's interesting how whatever sin we
don't do is the one we're going to come down on the hardest.
Which, believe me, I don't believe for a second that these people, when they say,
oh, I didn't do that particular sin. Bullcrap, you didn't do that sin. You know what?
You, if, if you've, if you've fornicated, been drunk, taken drugs,
you've done, you've done it all, friend, at that point.
Okay, you know, you don't fool me for one second, Mr. Goody
Two Shoes. But, but here's the thing. People
will, they'll pick out one sin that they don't do. You know, I could do that too. I could just pick
out one sin that I don't do, and then just come down super
hard on every Christian who does that sin, because I don't do it.
And then be soft on all the sins that I do. You know, that's stupid.
That's hypocritical. You know, there, there are certain sins that might be
literally zero temptation for you, but somebody else really struggles with that.
But vice versa as well. I mean, think about it. There are
some people where they're not tempted to do drugs
at all. Like, I've never been tempted to do drugs. To me, it's like,
why would I just willingly put some chemical in my body that's gonna harm me
and kill brain cells? That has never appealed to me. That never made any sense to me.
But you know what? There are other people where that's something that they struggle with.
They struggle with drug addiction. They struggle with that. And, and it's something that's
hard for them to do. You know, I have zero desire to smoke a cigarette.
I have zero desire to do drugs, and I have zero desire to drink alcohol.
Zero. But other people right now are struggling with those
exact sins. So should I just get up and say, well, I just can't
see how anybody could be saved and drink alcohol.
I just don't, I mean, if you're actually saved, I can't
see how you'd even desire a cigarette. I mean, if you're actually
saved, you'd never do drugs. It's like, well, hold on a second.
That's, just because I don't desire those things doesn't mean that a saved
Christian couldn't desire those things. But look, you think I'm being silly right now? You don't think
there are preachers all over America saying, if you drink, you're not saved. If you smoke,
you're not saved. If you do drugs, you're not, is that, do they say it or not?
Bunch of work salvation teaching preachers. And it's funny, when you'll see
just, how about these morbidly obese pastors that are
like, bless God, when I got saved, he took
away the craving for cigarettes. He took away the craving for drink. I
never want another, when I got saved, I got all the way saved. I'm thinking, you didn't
get all the way saved. I got all
the way saved. Why didn't he take away the craving for McDonald's?
You know, it's amazing how he
took away the craving for the cigarettes, but
why can't he take away the craving for all the simple carbs?
Because you're a liar, that's why.
Because you're just, you're picking a sin that you're not, we know what your drug
of choice is, okay? And look, I'm not trying to get on people
that are overweight right now, because guess what? You know what? People right here that
are thin or even skinny right now, and they're like, amen, Pastor Anderson,
let her rip. But guess what? All you skinny people out there, you've got
your own sins. And you know, there could be a brother
or sister in Christ that's overweight that doesn't struggle with your sin at all.
Maybe you're watching a bunch of garbage that you shouldn't watch, and they don't
watch anything. What if, you know, you could have somebody
who's super overweight, but they read their Bible, they
pray, they go soul winning, and that's like their one problem.
And look, I've known godly Christians
who are soul winning, reading their Bible, praying,
faithful to church, getting the sin out of their life, smoking cigarettes
every day, just smoking a pack a day
as they soul win, as they read their Bible, as they pray, as they, I'm not saying
they're doing it while they do it in that second, but you know what I'm saying? I'm just saying
like,
you know, and we would look at that like, you're doing everything
else right. What are you doing? Why are you smoking? But you know what?
Hey, that's just their sin that they struggle with.
And my point is, and I'm not condoning any sin, I'm
saying everybody's got their sins, and you know what the Bible says? The Bible says some men's
sins are open beforehand, going before the judgment, and others
they follow after. Likewise also the good works of some are manifest beforehand,
and they that are otherwise cannot be hid. So the Bible talks about the fact that some
sins are more open than others. So it's easy for us to look at the
person with the outward sin and point the finger at them and condemn
them and say, you know, hey, I see that smoking that you're doing out in the parking
lot after church. I see that gluttony. You know, I see that,
but what about all the sins that we don't see?
You take it to the bank that every single person in this auditorium, I don't
care how good they look on the outside, they have sin in their life.
Period. Period. Unless they're
Jesus, they have sin in their life.
Do you really think that there's anybody in this room, myself included,
who's totally without sin? But here's what's funny,
we say that all the time, don't we? We get up and say it all the time. There's none righteous,
everybody's a sinner, and we say it, and we say it, and we say it, and we say it, and
then we find out that somebody sinned, and it's just like...
And then you're just shocked that
somebody sinned. Isn't this what we've been talking about?
There's some kind of a disconnect where we talk about people sin, people sin,
people sin, people sin, people sin, and then it's like, somebody sinned? What?
Are you serious? A church member?
A Christian? They sinned? What? It's like, hello?
Yes! And look, I'm not downplaying
sin. I preach hard on sin. I want to help you get the sin
out of your life. I want to get the sin out of my life. I want my family to get the sin out of their lives.
But look, if you are going to go hunting for people's sins
and find... Look, if I did a diligent inquiry of every
teenager in this auditorium, I'm going to find some sin.
But you know what? I could go outside this auditorium. I could go
down to Tempe High, and you know what I'm going to find in every teenager's life? Sin.
I could go to the grocery store. You know what I'm going to find?
In every person at the grocery store's life, if I made a diligent inquiry, sin.
But it's a wicked person who wants to dig up every sin
and use that as an assault on the people of God.
Use that as an assault on Christian people because you're
going to dig up and find every flaw. And look, if people look
hard enough, they're going to find things wrong with me,
Pastor Anderson, because I am a human being, and I am a
sinner. You're a sinner. And so anybody who goes after
you, guess what they're going to do? They're going to find something because we're not Daniel.
Amen? And even if we are Daniel, they're going to
find a way to nail us anyway. Okay. So
this portion of scripture is very similar
to a bunch of Psalms we read several weeks ago. I mean, this is not unique, this Psalm.
Do you really think that back in David's day
this was going on and it's not going on today? There's nothing new under the sun.
The things that were going on back then are the things that are going on now.
So back then, you had evil, wicked people
sneaking in, pretending to be the friends,
and causing insurrection. So why would it shock us if there are
literally people who come to Faithful Word Baptist Church with
no other reason than to creep in and cause problems.
They want to get in, get as close to me, get as close to my family,
get as close to the staff, as close to you, so that they can get
close to us so that they can find the chink in the armor and exploit it.
You think that that's going on or not? Because it was certainly going
on in Psalm 64. It was certainly going on in other Psalms. So
you know, it might sound paranoid, but you know what? Is this
the rantings of a paranoid person here in Psalm 64?
Or is this the reality of the Christian life, that there are
people out there that are wicked people that when they see a man of God,
when they see a woman of God, when they see somebody serving God, when they see you
soul winning, when they see you cleaning up your life, they're going to be like, you know what? I'm going to
take him down a notch. I'm going to take her down a notch. And you know what? Obviously it's
going to happen to me a lot because I'm the pastor and I'm all over YouTube and
Facebook and everywhere else, and so I have a big target on me that
says, come and mess with me. Come and torture me. Come
and harass me. But here's the thing. If you start living for God, you're
going to have the same thing happen in your life and you probably have already experienced this,
where family members are going to start messing with you and people will start
looking for ways to mess with you and they'll think, well, and here's what
comes out. It's envy. Their life's all messed up, right?
So then they see you doing something for God. They see you cleaning it up.
They see you succeeding and they're like, how dare he? Who does he think
he is? Well, I'm going to show that he's not what he's cracked up to
be, so I'm going to find out what his sins are and
broadcast them and exploit them. Do you see what I'm saying?
So what is going to happen to these kind of people? It says in verse number
7, but God shall shoot at them with an arrow. Now that's exactly what
they're doing. They're aiming their bow. They're ready to shoot their arrows. Well,
guess what? It's going to come right back at them, except God's going to shoot an arrow at them.
Suddenly shall they be wounded. So they shall
make their own tongue to fall upon themselves.
You dig a pit, you're going to fall into it. All that
see them shall flee away. And all
men shall fear and shall declare the work of God, for they shall wisely consider
of his doing. The righteous shall be glad in the Lord and shall trust
in him, and all the upright in heart shall
glory. Look, at the end of the day, these wicked people, they can try
to cause insurrection. And look, so many people have attacked our church over the years.
So many people have crept in. So many infiltrators.
It's unbelievable, okay? But
they all end up destroying themselves, and those
who love God, those who serve God continue on, and
the work of God continues, and it doesn't miss a beat.
And God is going to bless the people that are righteous, God is going to take care
of them, and these wicked evildoers are going to be destroyed. And let me tell you something.
People that are found to be infiltrating our church or infiltrating
other Bible-believing churches are the worst scumbags. They're
not normal. Do not think for one second that these are normal people,
because they aren't, okay? Stop and think. You're a normal person,
right? If you hated
someone, would you go join their church and stalk them
and spend months or even years
trying to get close to that person, trying to dig up dirt on that person,
trying to butter that person up and flatter that person and get in there so that you could
do damage to that person or that ministry or that church? I mean, look, I can think of
a lot of churches that I don't like. I can think of a lot of pastors that I don't like.
I can think of a lot of false religions out there that are bad, and I haven't infiltrated any of them.
And I never will.
And you know what? If I hated someone, I would never pretend to be
their friend. I would never pretend to be their friend.
You want to know who the bad guy is? You say, well, I just don't know. Who's the bad guy?
Who's good? Who's bad? Who's right? Who's wrong? How can I tell? I don't know
what side to be on, Pastor Anderson. Well, let me explain to you some biblical
principles on who's side to be on. First of all, the tree is known by his fruit.
The tree is known by his fruit. Okay, where's the fruit
of these wicked people? They don't have any.
Okay, but then the people that they attack have good fruit. That's a
good principle right there. But here's a big one.
The person who's right is open
and tells the truth and speaks their mind. The wicked people
pretend to be your friend while they hate you. And let me tell you something.
When someone goes from loving you to hating you in five minutes,
that didn't actually just happen.
That person already hated you. You understand?
Because you don't just go from loving someone to hating someone in five minutes.
No, you have these bitter people
that literally, I know not at this time,
but other times in our church's history, there are people in the church, and I'm just thinking to myself,
I know that this person hates me. I know that this person
is evil. I know that this person is out to cause
trouble. And I'm just like, why are they here? And I'm just like, how do I get
rid of this person? And I talked to Pastor Jimenez about this a bunch of times.
And Pastor Jimenez said that he had a list of people that
he prays for God to get
rid of them out of his church. He literally
had a list where he's praying for God to remove these people from his church.
And I'm like, can I get some names on that prayer list for you?
Are you taking requests, buddy?
You know what I mean? And he and I
have talked about this. Because look, he's been pastoring for ten years. I've been pastoring for almost fifteen years.
And it's just like, why are these people here? Go away!
And when they finally get exposed, and then
they go out in their blaze of glory and just reveal themselves to be the
trash that they are, it's just like, thank you God.
It's like, all the damage that they do is almost
worth it to get rid of them. Because they're such scum.
Okay? Because, look, I would so much rather have somebody
just say, Pastor Anderson, you're the worst preacher in America,
and I hate you. You know, if somebody just walked up to me, if I walked
out here and somebody walked up to me and said, Pastor Anderson, I think you're literally the worst
preacher in America, and I hate you. I'd just be like, you know, alright.
I've even had some pastors say,
hey, I don't like you, I don't like your ministry. And I say, well, you know what, I like
you anyway. You know, if it was someone that I
did like anyway. Because, you know, sometimes feelings aren't mutual. There's some preachers
that I like, but they don't like me. And vice versa.
But I would so much, wouldn't you just much rather have somebody
just walk up to you and just say, I don't like you.
Than to be giving you gifts, being your friend,
just flattering you,
coming to church, acting like they like you,
and then behind your back talking bad about you. Folks, that is not
normal. That's an evil person. That's a seriously evil person.
Okay. And look, I'm to the point in my
ministry now where I've passed on with the world. I'm not going to put up with it anymore. And I'm to the
point now where I've decided that when I see people that are like that,
I'm just going to start confronting those people and just come to them and just say, hey, I don't know why
you're here. I don't think you belong here. I think you just hit
the road. Because it's obvious that you don't want to be here. It's obvious that
your heart is not right. And look, any normal person, if they
hate the pastor, would just go to a different church. That's what any normal person
would do. And look, it's not just me who deals with this. I talk to my pastor friends all the time
because they come to me and ask me for advice just because I've been doing it longer
and we talk about these things and I call them and ask them for advice
with these situations. And so sometimes they'll
talk to me and it's like they go through the same thing. They have these people in their church
that are just attacking them every chance that they get, lying
about them, slandering them, or finding a mistake that they make
and exploiting it. Like, you know, they'll make a mistake
and then it's just like jump on that, exploit that, go crazy with that.
And they're just like, how do we get rid of these people?
How do we get them to go away? But you know, I find that the best way to get rid of them
is just to confront them. And that's what I'm going to start doing. You know, when there's people that are
just obviously here for the wrong reason and they just
they come in here. You know, I'm just going to start calling it out and just saying, hey,
you know, I see what you're doing. I can see that you're
flattering me right now. I can see what you're trying to do and I don't like it.
And people, it's frustrating.
But you know what? I'm not alone because David was going through the same thing. And so
we see in Psalm 64 that this is
not a new phenomenon when you have people that
want to creep in secretly.
They encourage themselves and yeah, we're the good guys here. Yeah, we're the good guys.
Of course, I don't see any of their converts in church.
But you know, they're, yeah, you know, we're doing
a good thing here. I mean, think about it. Let's just, let's name a few
names. All right. Think about Tyler Baker.
Okay. Think about that piece of trash. He was here for years.
Where's his fruit? Anybody here won to the Lord by Tyler Baker?
Anyone? Anyone? The whole time he was here? Okay. Who did I win to the
Lord that's here? Anybody that I won you the Lord? Okay. There you go, folks.
Everybody see the difference? Okay. Tyler Baker
was just a total infiltrating,
lying piece of trash pretending
to love the church. And he's literally on the phone every day talking
bad about the church, poisoning people against the church, trying to
get people to leave the church. And you know, that's just a perfect example of this.
Okay. And just patting himself on the
back and literally, I kid you not, this is what Tyler Baker said
about me recently. He said, you know, pastor, I love
Pastor Anderson.
Anybody believe that? But do you see what I mean? Look, see what I mean about this lying
trash? Wouldn't you have more respect for Tyler Baker if he said, hey,
I hate Pastor Anderson. Because that's the truth.
Oh, I love Pastor Anderson. Well, I don't love you, Tyler Baker.
And you know what? The difference is that I tell the truth.
But you see, wicked people, they flatter and they pretend to be your friend.
And so he said, I love Pastor Anderson. And Pastor Anderson
has done so many great things for God in the past. But I think right now he's doing more harm
for the cause of Christ than good right now. So stop and
think about this. So here's Tyler Baker with his Trinity
denying false doctrine. Okay.
He's got his tiny church in Florida that's not reaching anybody.
Okay. He's got
nothing going on because he's so lazy. Okay. When he was here
he didn't do anything for us. He was the worst employee ever.
Brother Segura worked circles around him.
He's doing nothing for God. He's preaching lies and false doctrine.
He has no fruit. His church is filled with faithful word
rejects only. All of his church are
disgruntled former faithful word members.
That's his fruit, folks. His right hand man would say,
oh Pastor Anderson got me saved. That's his right hand man.
Okay. So here he is with no fruit, nothing going on.
Right. Here we are over in Tempe, Arizona and what are we doing every week?
Winning a bunch of people to Christ, preaching
to thousands of people, knocking thousands of doors,
getting tons of people saved, preaching the truth. All he can
do is regurgitate my exact sermons
and then add in his own twisted junk that he comes up with himself.
The only good sermons he preaches are the ones that he got from
me and my friends. Okay. He preaches a bunch of
lies and garbage, accomplices nothing and then he has the gall to say, well Pastor Anderson
is doing more harm to the cause of Christ than good. You know why? Because I
attacked him. That's me doing more harm than good.
So basically the cause of Christ is the cause of Tyler Baker.
You see how he thinks he's God or something? So basically, we can win a bunch
of souls to Christ. So let's get the scale going.
We win a bunch of people to Jesus Christ, right? Oh, but we criticize
Tyler Baker.
I mean, do you really think that that's how we measure
the work of Christ? Like, oh, well we won a thousand people to Christ, we baptized
hundreds of people, but we criticize Tyler Baker.
And he has the gall to
attack me, slander me, slander my
family. See, he literally slandered my parents.
He was literally attacking my parents, attacking my children,
attacking my wife, lying about us and calling us racist
and everything else. Folks, look around the church. Does this look like a racist church?
Folks, anybody who knows me
knows that I don't have a racist bone in my body and that lying devil
Tyler Baker knows that. And he, by the way, brought
a guy into his church to preach who said, I'm a racist. He said
he brought an openly racist preacher and then he has the gall to accuse me
and my parents and my kids and everybody of being a racist. I don't have
a racist bone in my body and everybody knows that who knows me.
Okay, I don't even believe in that. But do you see
what I'm saying though? I love Pastor Anderson, but he's doing more harm
to the cause of Christ than good. I guess the cause of Christ is Tyler Baker.
You win a thousand souls, you know,
you baptize hundreds, you preach to millions,
you know, but you criticize Tyler Baker. See how they
encourage themselves and they're evil? So because I'm doing more harm than good,
that gives them the right to slander my mom, slander my dad,
slander my kids, slander my wife, and talk a bunch
of smack. Well, you know what? He's trash.
And I'm telling you, that's just one example. I could go
on and on. I'm not going to sit here all night and just go through the hall of shame.
I'm just bringing that one up because that's an obvious
bozo. Okay, but we've had person, folks, I kid you
not, there was a family that came to our church in the early days
and people who were here back then will know who I'm talking about. This is like, I'm talking
12 years ago. We had a family come to the church and they're like
this is our favorite church, this is the best church, where has this church been all our life?
I mean, I was just the greatest preacher and
in fact, my wife was even made uncomfortable. Like, she's like
these people are a little too jazzed about you. And she
was warning me, like these people are flattering you, you know, because they were just so
into it, right? Well, here's what I noticed. I noticed we'd
get visitors on a Sunday morning and she would
go to them and greet them, be real friendly and
get their phone number and then they would never come back.
And I was thinking, man, we're getting so many visitors and so many people seem like they like the
church, they seem like they're excited about the church and they don't come back. I don't know why
until one of those people told me, they said, yeah, she took my
phone number and called me the next day and told me it was a bad church
and that we shouldn't come there. So here, just
stop, I know it's hard to even wrap your mind around it, isn't it?
Folks, just think for a second, just imagine a family going to our church, oh,
it's the greatest church, we love it here, it's so great, taking the
phone number of a first time visitor so they can call them the next day and talk bad about the church.
Is that just next level evil or what?
And then once these people got kicked out of the church, once we found out
what they were doing, we kicked them out just on a dime, they made an
entire website devoted to attacking my wife, calling her a literal
witch, they called Amanda a literal witch and they made this whole
website and then here's what was funny, these same people, they claimed that they
found out about my preaching because of my sermon against
Billy Graham and they're like, we heard you preach against Billy Graham, it was the best sermon we ever heard, we loved it,
that's why we came to the church. I kid you not, within a week of being thrown out of the church,
they said, how dare Pastor Anderson attack Billy Graham.
That was supposedly the sermon that got them hooked.
And then they're going to turn around and condemn me for that. Within a week,
I mean, these are the most gung ho, King James story, within a week they're using another
version, posting verse in another version.
And by the way, the idiots that we just threw out, the Fosters,
she was posting gay pride within two days of being thrown out of the church. Who saw it?
Who saw it? And it wasn't one post, it was two posts
posting gay pride.
You think that that's normal? Do you think it's normal for someone to go to Faithful Word Baptist Church
for years and years and then they get thrown out of the church and they're
promoting gay pride two days later? Right, but I'm paranoid, right?
Folks, I'm telling you, it's real.
Okay, these people are evil people. They're out there.
Now you say, well, why do you warn us about this? Well, because first of all, number one,
it's going to happen in your personal life. To a lesser extent. Obviously
when you're the pastor, you're going to get most of the shots fired at you when you're the face
that's out there on the internet and everything, bigger target. But look, you're going to go
through this, where people are going to attack you,
they're going to lie about you. I mean, he didn't just write this song, this isn't a pastoral
whistle here. I mean, this is for all Christians. Look, there are going to be people
out there that are going to be pretending to be your friend. And look, you teenagers,
you need to listen to this. You teenagers, you're going to have other teenagers who pretend
to be your friend and they're out to hurt you. And that's why
don't just, you know, when you're 13, 14, 15, 16
and you just fall head over heels for that boy
or fall head over heels for that girl, you better stop and think to yourself, you know what,
I don't really know this person and I don't know what their intentions are.
And you better be cautious. And listen to your parents. When your parents
tell you, hey, I don't think you should be around that boy or I don't think you should be around
that girl or I don't think that's the right person for you, listen to your parents.
Because your parents might know something that you don't know.
And everybody who says they're your friend is not your friend. How many times
have you had somebody pretend to be your friend and they're just trying to tell you something?
Trying to rip you off. Lying to you. You're going to go
through this. Okay? You need to pray for God to deliver you from this.
So that's the number one takeaway I want you to get from the sermon tonight.
Look, beware. There are going to be people who creep in. Don't just assume
that, oh, if somebody goes to church, they're safe. Everybody at church is cool.
No. Don't just, oh, I can have them babysit
my kids. I can do, you know, I can go into business with them. It's all, you know,
because they're from church. Don't just think that that's just a blanket statement
that they're good. Oh, faithful work? You're good.
So that's number one. Beware. Be aware of it.
I'm not trying to be a downer, but it's true. There are going to be these kind of rotten people.
How do you identify them? Just watch out for the flattery. Watch out for the two-faced
people. You know, hang around with people who are real.
So that's number one is to beware of these people. But number two,
don't be like unto them. Do not go digging up evil.
Do not go hunting for iniquity.
Do not go trying to find other people's sins. And you know why you're doing that?
It's to make you feel better about yourself. You know, because if you can find out what's wrong
with the person in the pew next to you, you can feel a little better about yourself.
And then you can say, well, sure, I snorted cocaine, but
at least I didn't do that.
Folks, I'm serious.
It's so dumb. It's dumb to even say that, right?
But it's out there. It's real. Sure, I shot up heroin,
but I wouldn't have done that.
Well, yeah, I know I've slept with 50 different people, but you know,
I never did anything like that, though.
Won't see me getting overweight.
Hey, I'd rather that you weigh 300 pounds and don't snort any cocaine.
Amen? But the point is, look,
everybody's got their sins. Nobody's perfect. Don't be shocked
when someone in the church turns out not to be perfect. I'm not downplaying sin or condoning of it.
But if you find out that somebody's in sin, you know, the best thing to do is to
try to fix that with them one on one without even telling anybody.
Try to encourage them and help them to overcome that sin on their own. Wouldn't that be
the best case scenario? I mean, if I came across somebody and they're
involved in a sin that I felt like I needed to say something, I could
correct them, maybe even rebuke them, and say, hey, you
need to stop. You know, this isn't right. Just between me and them.
And then they get right with God. Wouldn't that be the best case scenario?
But some people are like, ooh, I have something to go tell Pastor Anderson now.
Maybe this is my way in to get close to Pastor Anderson.
I can tell him about other people's
sins and then he'll think I'm on his side.
Or here's the worst thing. My child can date one of Pastor Anderson's
kids. Hey, it's already
happened. We've had people move here. Their whole intent
was that one of their kids would marry one of my kids. That's sick.
If I can get one of my kids
to marry Pastor Anderson's kids, then he'll be stuck with me for the
rest of his life. I'll be over to Thanksgiving.
I can go in his house. I can go into the bathroom
and open the medicine cabinet and see what's in there.
Look under the bed. Get the Wi-Fi password.
Folks,
it's funny, but it's almost not funny because it's so real.
Like if I can just get close to
Pastor Anderson, maybe I can take up barefoot running.
Maybe I can find my
way in.
So don't be one of these people.
Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.
Don't go digging up other people's sins. Don't go hunting for the workers. Don't be on a witch hunt.
Try to resolve things one on one.
If you find out people's sins, don't delight in broadcasting and gossiping those things.
You know who knows about more sins
probably than anybody in this room? It's probably me as the pastor because people come
to me and I've heard it all, folks.
It all goes down the memory hole when I'm done with it.
You know what I want to spend my time dwelling on? What sort of things are true,
honest, just, pure, lovely, and good report? That's what I want to think about.
Do not delight in exposing
other people's sins to make yourself look better. Let's bow your heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much, Lord, for this chapter, and Lord, it's sad
that a sermon like this has to be preached, Lord, and that there are people out there
that are just this debased.
That they would actually pretend to be someone's friend so that
they could get close to them, so that they could hurt them, so that they could find
their faults and exploit their weaknesses and find the chink in the armor
or that people would even use their kids to creep in
and get close to people so that they can attack them and exploit them,
Lord. But, Lord God, it's a small price
to pay to serve you, Lord, and so thank you for the privilege of serving you, Lord,
and just help us to be delivered from these people. Just as David
prayed, Lord, hide us from these people. Hide us from them, deliver us
from them, protect us, Lord, and Lord, I pray that you would just wipe out
these evil workers of iniquity, punish them, destroy them, Lord,
and bless your people. And, Lord, help us not to
be hypocrites where we downplay our own sins
and we want to magnify everyone else's sins, Lord. Help us to realize that we're
all sinners and that we all are saved by grace if we believe
on Jesus. And it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
All right, if you take your hymnals
and turn to hymn number 263.
Verily, verily, number 263.
We'll sing all four verses and be dismissed.
Oh, what a Savior that He died for me.
Sing it out.
Oh, what a Savior that He died for me.
From condition He hath made me free.
He doth believeth on the son's defeat.
Hath everlasting life.
Verily, verily, I say unto you.
Verily, verily, message ever new.
He doth believeth on the son's
defeat. It is true.
Hath everlasting life.
All my iniquities, all them were vain.
All my in heaven, yes, my name was pain.
All who believeth on Him, the Lord has said.
Hath everlasting life.
Verily, verily, I say unto you.
Verily, verily, message ever new.
He doth believeth on the son's
defeat. Hath everlasting life.
Oh, for a meaning I can trust
my Lord. Though He is simple, I believe
His Word. Oh, glad message every
child of God. Hath everlasting
life. Verily, verily,
I say unto you. Verily, verily,
message ever new. He doth
believeth on the son. It is true.
Hath everlasting life.
Oh, all unworthy, yet I will not doubt.
For in the covenant we will not cast down.
He that believeth on the good news shall.
Hath everlasting life.
Verily, verily, I say unto you.
Verily, verily,
message ever new. He doth believeth on
the son. It is true. Hath everlasting
life.
Thank you for joining us this evening.
You are dismissed.