The Bible says, I charge thee there before before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead and is appearing in his kingdom, preach the word, the instant, in season, out of season.
Now what does that mean? Well, back in the days before airplanes and refrigerated train cars, fruits and vegetables used to go in season, out of season.
There were certain times of year where you couldn't get a tomato. You know, you couldn't get certain things because it was out of season and different produce was in season at different times of year.
Clothing goes in and out of season. You know, don't wear white after Labor Day or whatever. People say, oh, that's out of season, that's in season.
You see, what's in season is what's popular. What's in season is what you'll find a lot of.
Boy, when lemons or oranges or grapefruits are in season, boy, there's an abundance of them. People are bringing bags of them to church saying, oh, I picked these off the tree.
The grocery store's got them on sale. They're in season. They're popular. They're prevalent. They're easy to find. They're everywhere.
Out of season is where it's difficult to find. Out of season is where it's rare. And God is saying here that when preaching goes out of style, we're to continue to preach the Word the same.
When it's in style, great, preach it. When it's out of style, when it's in season, when it's out of season, when there are a lot of people preaching it, when there are very few people preaching it, preach the Word.
It's the charge that you got from God, from the Lord, as a preacher of God's Word. You don't have the right to decide whether you're going to or not. He said preach it, preach the Word.
Be instant, in season, out of season, reprove. Now, in order to reprove, you must tell someone that they're wrong, and it's not easy telling people that they're wrong.
It's a lot easier to just go with the flow, isn't it? It's a lot easier just to be Mr. Nice and smiley. But the problem is that somebody's got to be the bad guy. Somebody's got to get up and be the bad guy and reprove.
There have been things in my life that were wrong and someone had to come to me and reprove me. I didn't enjoy being reproved. I didn't enjoy being rebuked. I've sat in church and sat there squirming in my seat.
I didn't like being rebuked. The Bible says, no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous. Nobody likes to be corrected, but yet afterward it yielded the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
You see, the pastor who loves you, reproves you. The pastor who loves you, rebukes you when you need rebuking. But then the Bible goes on to say this, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
You see, the pastor's supposed to be longsuffering, not to just fly off the handle. Did you notice that I just preached a sermon recently called, Disrespect, where I kind of just touched on things, just hoping, hey, are you getting this? Are you seeing it? And then it just, the problem doesn't go away.
And it has to become a rebuke. You see, God is slow to anger, the Bible says. The Lord is merciful and slow to anger. But when the Lord gets angry, He gets angry. He's slow to anger, and we ought to be slow to anger.
The Bible says, let every man be slow to speak. Let's turn there, James. Keep your finger, we're going to be right back here, but I don't want to misquote off the top of my head here. Let's go to James, there's a few pages to the right in your Bible.
And, you know, maybe if you've only been coming to church for like a week, and you heard my sermon on Wednesday night and then the sermon tonight, you'd think that I'm not very slow to anger. But if you've been here for years, you'd think I'm very slow to anger.
But in James chapter 1, the Bible reads in verse 19, wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
We don't want to be somebody that just is quick to anger. Now, anger is not a sin. The Bible says, be ye angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.
Anger is something that has a place. There's a time to be angry. But it's not someone flying off the handle. It's not someone just going into a rage. It's not someone jumping to conclusions. It's rather a process that leads to anger, not just a knee-jerk reaction.
But the problem is, when sometimes you give people a finger, they take the whole hand. Now, that's a German expression. I don't think, has anybody ever heard that before? I think in America you say, if you give them an inch, they take a mile. Right?
Well, in Germany, if you give people a finger, they take the whole hand. Okay? And sometimes if you don't spell things out to people as a preacher, things get out of control.
Without the leadership of someone standing up and reproving and rebuking, without Moses being down from the mountain, standing up and laying down the laws of God, he goes up into the mountain, leaves Aaron in charge, and Aaron just did not have the backbone to say no to the people.
And what happened? He said, the people made me do it. You remember that? He said, oh, the people, they brought me all this stuff. They told me to make it for them. I just did what they said. Aaron, your job is to lead. Aaron, your job was to rebuke. Aaron, your job was to stand up and to say no.
And let me just give you some advice. If you're a young man who wants to preach someday and be a pastor someday, you must learn to say no. And if you can't say no, you will never be able to pastor a successful soul-lending church. You won't do it.
Because if you can't reprove, you can't preach. If you can't rebuke, you can't preach. Look down, if you would, where we are in 2 Timothy 4, he says this in verse 7. This is how he characterizes his ministry. He says, I have fought a good fight.
Now look, that doesn't sound like it was all just smooth sailing. That doesn't sound like everybody was just doing the right things and everything was just trucking right along and everything was great. No, there were some times when he had to fight.
Now as David said, I can truly say it, I've prayed this prayer literally thousands of times. I've memorized Psalm 120, I don't know how long ago. I mean, a long time ago. And I've spoken those words to God how many times. I've quoted Psalm 120. And it's one of my favorite Psalms. I have a lot of Psalms that I've memorized that basically. I like to speak those words to God as my prayer to God.
I pray in my own words, but I like to say those words to God and I've prayed that prayer how many times of Psalm 120 from memory. And the last verse says this, I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war.
We ought to love peace. We ought to want to live at peace with all men as much as is possible. We want to be gentle toward all men, the Bible says. But the sad thing is that many men of God will not draw a line in the sand like Moses did.
They're an Aaron who basically just anything goes, whatever people want, just let it go. And when Aaron came down from the mount, look at, I'm sorry, when Moses came down from the mount, Exodus 33 if you would, turn back there.
You'll see here what happens when a leader is not there to rebuke and reproof. You'll see what happens when you have an absence of strong leadership.
The Bible says this, actually I'm sorry, let's start in chapter 32 first. In chapter 32 it says this, let's look at what Aaron did. It says in verse number 1,
The people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount. The people gathered themselves together unto Aaron and said unto him, Make us gods, which shall go before us. For as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we want not what has become of him.
Now Aaron was left behind as the leader. He's not the one leading. The people are telling him what to do. Oh, make us gods. So he says, okay, Aaron said to them, break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons and of your daughters,
and bring them unto me. And all the people break off the golden earrings which were in their ears and brought them unto Aaron. And he received them at their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool.
After he made it a molten calf, and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it, and Aaron made proclamation and said, Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord.
And they rose up early on the morrow and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings, and watch this, this is the key. And the people sat down to eat and to drink and rose up to play.
Now you say, what does that mean? Well the Bible doesn't get into graphic detail, thank God. The Bible doesn't want to pollute our minds with the graphic details of sin.
But if we get the context of 1 Corinthians 10, where this is referred to, it says they committed fornication as it is written. The people sat down to eat and to drink and rose up to play.
We go down a little bit further in the passage, the Bible says that they had been made naked, they had stripped off their clothing. If we go down the passage to verse 25, it says,
And when Moses saw that the people were naked, for Aaron had made them naked under their shame among their enemies. You go up a little bit earlier, it talks about how he saw the dancing.
So we don't know exactly what was going on, thank God. God doesn't spell out for us exactly. I don't want my mind to be defiled with what exactly was going on.
But there was music, the Bible said there was the sound of war in the camp is what Moses thought. God said that's not the sound of war, that's the sound of those making merry with music.
You see, it was some kind of a, you know, they were rocking out basically, you know, some kind of a drum beat that sounded like a warfare beat.
They're dancing, they're not clothed properly, they're naked, there's illicit things going on, there's adultery going on, there's fornication going on.
And you see, that's what's wrong with America. We don't have preachers who are standing up and rebuking, idolatry, adultery, fornication, drunkenness, lasciviousness, the rock and roll crowd, the rock and roll music, the rock and roll lifestyle, and therefore we are living in a country that's starting to resemble Exodus 32.
Because we don't have a leader who will stand up and say no! And say no! When these influences try to creep into church. To say no to worldly music coming into church. To say no to nudity and nakedness and inappropriateness.
To say no to these things, they go unchecked and they multiply and become rampant. Pastor Anderson's goal is to rebuke, reprove, and exhort so that it doesn't happen.
And see, at this church, you say, boy, are we having problems at our church? No, you know, our church is great. But you know why our church is great? It's because we nip things in the bud, that's why.
That's why our church is great, because we nip it in the bud. We don't wait until the people are already rising up to play before we start rebuking it.
You know, we don't wait until the soul winning totally degenerates before we push a reset button and say, hey, does that person that you talked to, that you just gave the Gospel to, did they even reject their previous religion?
Or are they still, oh, they're still a Catholic, but you got them saved? Bologna, you didn't get them saved, you still believe the same thing when you walk away from the door.
You know, we're not going to let the soul degenerate, we're not going to let our standards degenerate, we're not going to let our music degenerate, we're not going to let anything degenerate in this church, and when we see it start to slip, the Bible says we ought to take the more heed earnestly, lest that which we have heard begins to slip.
You know, let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. And there's always a degeneracy, there's always a gravitational pull, if you would, where things just have a tendency to naturally go down, don't they?
It's just like when the apple fell on Isaac Newton's head. You know, things just, they go down. When you don't take heed, when you don't make a point to keep things right, they go down.
That's the natural, that's where they just fall, unless you lift them up, unless you hold them up. And I'm telling you something, we in this church need to be sober, we need to be vigilant, because our adversary, the devil as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour, I am to preach the word, rebuke, reprove, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
Doctrine is teaching God's word. It ought to be a sermon that teaches the precepts of God's word. Not just a bunch of fluff, not just a bunch of excitement or zeal, but teaching, but training, but explaining why.
Not just getting up and saying, well, this is what you ought to do, or this is what you ought to not do, but here, let me show you in the Bible why. Let me show you in the Bible why hard preaching is important.
Because when the man of God, who stands up and rebukes, goes off and disappears, all of a sudden they're like sheep having no shepherd. That's what happens. Things go downhill without a leader.
You see, turn if you would to Matthew 23, if you would, and then we're going to go to Titus. I guess I should have told you to go to Titus first, because Titus is right next to 2 Timothy 4.
We're going to go to Titus in just a minute, but in Matthew chapter 23, the Bible says this in Matthew 23, and let's start reading in, why don't we just start in verse 1.
It says, then spake Jesus to the multitude and to his disciples, saying, the scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat.
All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do, but do not ye after their works, for they say and do not.
For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.
But all their works they do for to be seen of men, they make broad their phylacteries and enlarge the borders of their garments.
And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.
But be not ye called Rabbi, for one is your master, even Christ.
And all ye are brethren, and call no man your father upon the earth, for one is your father which is in heaven.
Neither be ye called masters, for one is your master, even Christ.
So here he's rebuking these religious leaders for giving themselves lofty titles.
In other places, he talked about them wearing long robes.
They love to be greeted in the synagogues and the markets, everybody to point them out and lift them up.
What is he rebuking? What's sin? Somebody help me out.
What is the sin that he's rebuking here in one word?
Pride. Thank you, Justin. Pride. Pride is what he's talking about, right?
Listen to what he says next.
Neither be ye called masters, for one is your master, even Christ.
But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant, and whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased,
and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.
You see, when you start getting too high and mighty, you start getting too arrogant and prideful,
and you start talking to people in a way that you shouldn't be talking to them because you're up on your high horse,
and maybe you're disrespectful of my wife or somebody else's wife and you're disrespectful,
that's when you get rebuked and you get abased in a public service.
And that's when you get yelled at and preached at because of the fact that you got out of line.
And you see, if you'll go through life humble, you won't be abased.
If you go through life humble, listen to me now, you won't be abased.
You see, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
What is grace? Think about this now.
Grace is basically something that we don't deserve.
You have a credit card, the grace period.
You know, it's due on the first, but you know what, you got until the fifth.
Now you're really supposed to pay it by the first, that's when it's due, but that's a grace period.
They don't have to. I mean, by all rights, you owe that money on the first, but they're giving you grace.
They're giving you something you don't deserve.
If you are humble, then God will be more gracious to you.
Now, we can apply this to salvation because salvation is by grace.
The proud says, I'm earning my own way to heaven.
The proud says, I've done many wonderful works.
I've been to church, I've been baptized, I'm on my way to heaven because of me.
God only will give grace to the humble that will say, it's all Jesus.
Jesus paid it all. I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
I'm going to call upon the name of the Lord because He's going to save me.
I'm not good enough. I'm a sinner. I deserve to go to hell.
You know, the humility of the man who went down to the temple, if you remember,
beat upon his breast and said, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.
But then we can take this into our Christian lives and say, wait a minute,
God resisted the proud but gave grace to the humble.
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and He shall lift you up.
You need to be a humble person no matter who you are.
I need to be humble as a pastor.
I seek to be humble.
In fact, I think that sometimes I'm a little bit too meek and humble
and that's why people can be so disrespectful sometimes
and cannot get the drift of what I'm saying until I just cloud up and rain.
That's the problem. I have to cloud up and rain
because humbly telling somebody sometimes just isn't enough.
But you know what? You, as the church member, need to be humble just like I'm humble.
You ought to be humble. I ought to be humble. We all ought to be humble.
I'm not trying to have you call me master. I'm not trying to be your boss.
I'm not trying to come and tell you what to do.
I'm going to preach the Bible, but you take it and do what you want with it.
I'm not a dictator. I'm not telling you how to live.
I'm telling you how the Bible says to live.
But what you do when you walk out the door is up to you.
I'm not going to be a lord over the flock. I'm trying to be an ensemble to the flock.
But you have got to get this in your heart to where you're a humble person.
Because when you walk around with a proud and haughty and arrogant attitude,
you're going to be abased.
And if I don't abase you, then God's going to abase you because that's what He says.
He'll bring down the proud looks. He'll bring down the lofty.
He'll bring down the humble and He'll put them in their place.
You see, He said, he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.
Have a servant's attitude.
Not the attitude that says, you know, I'm so cool, I'm all bad in a bag of chips.
But rather the attitude that says, you know what, I'm going to esteem others better than myself.
I'm not going to walk in and just, eh, eh, I own the place.
But rather I'm going to come in and humbly know my place.
We all want to know our place.
Look, if you would, at the next verse that says,
But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men.
For you neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering in to go in.
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
For you can pass sea and land to make one proselyte.
And when one is made, you make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
Woe unto you, you blind guys!
Now, look at the preaching that Jesus is doing.
That's some rebuke right there.
That's some harsh preaching.
But it was the preaching that needed to be preached.
And so he preached it.
Titus chapter 2, if you would.
Titus chapter 2.
You see, the Bible says that no man ought to think of himself more than he ought to think.
It says we need to be humble.
The Bible says God giveth grace to the humble but resisted the proud.
Look at Titus chapter 2.
But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine, that the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience.
The aged women likewise, that they be in behavior, as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things.
That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blaspheme.
Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded in all things, showing thyself a pattern of good works, and doctrines showing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity.
Now if you have a pen on you, I'd like you to underline a few words.
If you have a pen and if you don't mind marking in your Bible, I want you to just underline a few words in this passage.
I want you to underline in verse number 2.
And again, you don't have to do this, but if you have a pen and you like to do this, I'm going to do it in my Bible.
Underline the word in verse 2, sober.
Okay, you see that?
Then underline the next word, grave.
Then underline the next word, temperate.
Okay?
Then underline in verse number 4, sober.
Then underline the word in verse number 6, sober.
Then underline the word in verse number 7, gravity.
Okay, now you can see here that you've underlined several words.
Sober, grave, temperate.
He tells the aged men to be sober.
Then he tells the older women to teach the young women to be sober.
So that means obviously they need to be sober themselves.
And then he teaches the young women to be sober as well.
Then he gets to the young men and he only has one advice for them.
Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded.
Now isn't that pretty repetitive?
He talks to four groups, older women, older men.
Younger women, younger men.
He gives them all the same advice, be sober.
He gives them other specific advice.
And he uses the other word, grave, in verse 2.
Now, who has ever been to a graveyard?
Okay, is a graveyard a place where, you know, we're all just cutting jokes and having a good time?
I mean do we go there to hang out for fun and we get a bag of chips and a soda and we go there and we play there?
I take my kids and play there when we can't find a playground.
We just go to a grave.
Now you say past parents, that's not the grave that we're talking about.
You're right.
But it is the same word for a reason.
Because to be grave means what?
To be serious.
Right? To be serious.
And that's exactly what being sober means.
Now obviously the word sober also, people who drink are not sober.
There's a reason why those are the same words.
Sobriety involves having a clear mind about things.
And when you're drunk, or even when you're on drugs.
You say, does the Bible talk about, you know, I've had people say, where does the Bible condemn marijuana?
You know, and I can't show you a scripture.
But I can show you a scripture where it says to be sober, and when you're smoking marijuana, you're not sober.
You're not sober when you're smoking marijuana.
I wouldn't, you know, I'd say that drinking, it's funny how our society demonizes marijuana, but drinking's fine.
No, they're both wicked as hell.
They're both ungodly.
They're both the devil's tool to get into your mind.
And to get you to do things that you would not normally do.
To get you to put your guard down.
But you know, the sad thing is, you know what happens when people get drunk?
They start taking liberties with the opposite gender.
Have you ever noticed that?
One time me and brother Dave flew on a plane together.
You remember this?
We flew on a plane together.
And I was sitting next to a young lady about my own age.
Brother Dave was sitting a few rows back.
We didn't get to sit together on this plane.
And I began to give this young lady the gospel.
And she was a very nice young lady and I was giving her the gospel.
And she ordered some alcohol.
And I tried to encourage her not to order alcohol just because of the fact, I didn't want to tell other people what to do, but I was trying to give her the gospel.
And so I felt like she'd be in a better frame of mind to comprehend the gospel when her mind wasn't being clouded with alcohol.
So I really wanted her to hear what I was saying.
And so I encouraged her not, I said, boy is this conversation driving you to drink?
I said, you know, the gospel is the good news.
I said, are you sure you need that?
She said, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
I just tried to kind of jokingly, and I said, you know, what are you going to drink?
I want to talk to you about this, you know?
But, you know, she drank the alcoholic beverage and wine.
And it's funny how people who believe in social drinking, it's always wine.
You know, like wine is so much better than beer.
You know, beer is so, ugh, you know, so dirty and simple.
But, you know, a little wine with your dinner, you know.
When in reality, did you know that the alcohol content in wine is more than double beer?
It's more than double. Did you know that?
Did you know that a five ounce glass of wine is the same alcohol as 12 ounces of beer?
So, I mean, wine is more than double the alcohol.
And so she drank this little cute little bottle of wine that they bring, this little bottle of red wine or whatever it was.
And I'm giving the gospel, and it just started to be harder and harder for her to keep up with the conversation, okay?
She orders another one, you know.
She's drinking it, and it's just like, I finally just realized, you know, she's not going to get saved or whatever.
So we go to get off the plane, okay?
And she's getting all silly and woo, you know, acting like a fool.
So we get off the plane, and, you know, brother Dave walks up, and me and brother Dave, and she had a really heavy bag.
I said, hey, you know, let me help you with your bag.
And I think brother Dave had like one of her bags, and I had one of her bags.
And we're helping her with the bag, and we're carrying the bag.
And then all of a sudden, you know, we put her bag down by our gate.
Me and brother Dave are going to our gate.
She comes up, she's trying to hug me.
She's trying to get us to hang out with her and all this stuff.
And I'm like, no.
You know, like she tried to hug me, and what did I do, brother Dave?
I kind of stepped back and just said, Edward, shake my hand.
Because she's trying to hug me and stuff.
And when I stepped back, I was like, hey, there, you know?
You had to jump back.
Yeah, you already said I had to jump back.
I was like, oh, there, how you doing?
You know, I don't want a strange woman hugging me.
I'm not saying she was strange.
I mean strange as in the Bible word strange, like foreign to me.
I mean strange as in she's not my wife.
I don't hug any woman who's not my wife.
You know, unless she's like 87 years old or something.
But if they're under 7 or over 70, you know.
But anyway, the point is, you know, I don't hug other women.
My wife doesn't hug other men.
It's called being decent.
It's called being righteous and chaste and discreet like the Bible says.
Okay?
And so, but this woman started out one way, just a nice person, just listening to the gospel,
and alcohol causes her to degenerate into everything's a joke, ha ha, giddy, funny, and basically being inappropriate.
Trying to be inappropriate with a married man.
And I got, you know, Brother Dave saw me jump back and say,
whoa there, tiger, you know, and put out my hand for the handshake.
But you see, some people don't even need alcohol to act like that.
You know what I mean?
And that's wrong.
And it should tell you something.
If that's how people act when they're drunk, they act like an idiot.
They're too silly.
And God knows that I love humor.
And anybody who knows me knows I love jokes.
I like humor.
I like to have fun.
The Bible says laughter is good like medicine.
But you better know you're looking at a grave preacher.
A sober preacher because, you know, I know when to be serious.
And there's certain things that aren't funny.
There's certain things that it's time to be serious.
Like the Bible says, fools make a mock at sin.
I don't think there's anything funny about homosexuality.
I don't think there's anything funny about the dirty things of this world.
You see, fools make a mock at sin.
And so we don't want to have a light attitude to where everything's a joke.
And everything's just funny.
And we act all silly.
And we act inappropriate toward the opposite gender.
No, we ought to be sober.
And especially young men here need to be sober.
He's like, I don't want to give them too much advice.
Because maybe if I tell them too many different things, I'll just see it as a list.
Let me just give them the one thing they need the most.
Sobriety.
Sober.
Grave.
You see, we need to wake up out of our stupor or sleep or drunkenness.
Whether it be alcohol, inebriation, intoxicated.
Alcohol is poison.
That's why it's called being intoxicated.
You go to the bar and he says, what's your poison?
It's more accurate than you think?
But you know, even without alcohol, some people can get a little bit too lighthearted.
And they start to get out of bounds.
And they need a preacher.
Look at verse number 6.
Young men likewise exhort to be sober-minded.
This is broken to a preacher named Titus.
And this guy, Titus, was a pastor of a church.
And Paul was his mentor that had basically won him to Christ.
Taught him, guided him, and sent him out.
Because he went to Crete, trained Titus in Crete.
After he, Paul was actually the only person that won him to Christ.
And then he left him in Crete to pastor that church.
And to ordain other pastors in other cities, it says in Titus chapter 1.
And he says, here's some stuff to incorporate in your preaching, Titus.
He said, here's what you need to preach.
You've got to constantly preach for people to be sober.
To be grave.
To be temperate.
To not think that everything is a joke.
And to get too silly and lenient and loose.
And we live in a society where everything is just, you know, hang loose, baby.
Well, this is not hang loose Baptist Church.
You're not sitting and let it all hang out Baptist Church.
This is not let your hair down Baptist.
You know, Pastor Steve, with his Hawaiian shirt and shorts and flip flops,
is going to just kind of, you know, jam with us a little bit tonight.
He's going to kind of rap with us a little.
He's going to sit in a bar stool and have kind of a rap session with you.
No.
He's going to stand up in an old fashioned suit.
I've been accused by my wife before I'm dressing my final grandpa.
Okay.
Standing up in an old fashioned suit behind an ugly wooden pulpit.
That's like a hundred years old.
That does not have any fancy, you know, glass work.
You know, it's just an ugly, mean pulpit.
And I'm going to get up here behind it.
And I'm not Mr. Fun Bags.
Pastor Barrel of Monkeys.
Down at Fun House Baptist Church.
Pastor Bozo the Cloud.
You know.
Have kids like this one.
You know.
Look.
Church is serious.
The Bible says that you ought to know how to behave yourself in the house of God.
The Bible says that you're to be sober, grave, temperate, serious.
Okay.
That doesn't mean that we all have to sit here and be down on the mouth like we're at a funeral party or something.
But at the same time, don't let it go to the other extreme.
Where you think that this is just too casual, you know, we're just so casual.
Because you know what, that's what people want today.
They want a casual church.
Come as you are.
Come in your jammies.
Come in your pajamas.
Come in your shorts.
You know.
Who cares?
Well, you know.
I'm not saying it's a sin for you to come to church in your jammies, guys.
You know.
If you want to come here, if you want to come here in your jammies.
And you know, you got little cars and trucks all over your jammies.
And you got your little pajamas on and you're going to come here.
And you know, the sad thing is people literally wear their pajamas around today.
You know, I went to Walmart the other day and some lady was literally there in her pajamas, you know.
And people want to come to church in their pajamas.
You know, it's not the pajamas that are really wrong.
It's just the fact that when you're in your pajamas, you act different than when you're wearing a suit.
That's why.
I have no problem with pajamas.
I'm not against wearing pajamas.
Especially when you go to bed at night.
That's the best time to wear pajamas.
But what I am against is people thinking the church is a big pajama party.
Like we're all here just having a slumber party, right?
And we all just frolic and have fun and make jokes.
And you know, jokes are fine when they're clean, when they're appropriate.
And when they're not out of bounds with the opposite gender.
That's when jokes are okay.
But the sad thing is any comedy channel you turn on will violate what I just said.
You go to comedy, I don't know if there's a channel called Comedy Central anymore.
You know, there was a channel like that when I was a kid.
It was called Comedy Central.
Everything on there was an off-color joke.
You know, these stand-up comedians, that's where they make a living being irreverent.
Being disrespectful.
Being off-color.
Being loose with the opposite gender.
That is not right and we need to stay away from that in this church.
We need to stay way away from that.
We need to know when it's time to joke, when it's time to make merry and have fun.
And when it's time to be serious.
And you know, church is not a free-for-all.
We don't want church to degenerate to the point where everybody's just coming in here with a soda pop in one hand.
And a bag of popcorn in the other hand.
Or a snack, you know, the Bible says this, look at 1 Corinthians 11.
And sometimes I'm not maybe as good at expressing myself as I'd like to be.
But I just hope you're getting the picture here of what I'm trying to say.
And you know, those to whom this pertains, I hope they're getting it.
And the others to whom it doesn't pertain.
I think that we can all learn from God's word here.
The Bible says this, this is referring to church.
It says in verse number 20,
When you come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper.
Verse 21,
For in eating everyone taketh before other his own supper, and one is hungry and another is drunken.
What? Look at verse 22.
Have ye not houses to eat and to drink in?
Or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not?
What shall I say to you?
Shall I praise you in this?
I praise you not.
And so the Bible's clear here that in the church of Corinth,
it got to the point where people were getting so casual,
that they would come into church and they're snacking.
And he's saying here, there's a difference between taking the Lord's supper,
you know, the breaking of bread was something we've done at this church,
and that we're commanded to do in remembrance of Jesus Christ,
to break the bread, to take the cup.
It's not a snack time.
And people here have become so disrespectful,
and the Bible called it despising God's house,
that they're basically just snacking, eating a complete meal.
He says, don't you have houses to eat and drink in?
Don't you know that there's a place for you to party and hang out?
It's not on Sunday morning at 10.30.
It's not on Sunday night at 6.30.
It's not on Wednesday night at 7.
That's the time to get serious, to put away your soda pop,
your popcorn, your chips.
This isn't a movie.
You're not at a rock concert.
This is not a baseball game.
This is God's house, and you need to have the reverence and respect
for God's house that you ought to have.
And you ought to come here and be respectful to one another.
And it's not me up here saying, respect me.
I'm saying, respect everybody.
And the sad thing is, there's people in this room
that I show more respect to them than they show to me.
And I'm the pastor of the church.
I'm the one that the Bible calls the bishop and the ruler,
and yet I'm more respectful to you than you are to me.
The Bible says, I charge thee there before before God,
and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick
and the dead that is appearing in his kingdom,
preached the word, be instant, in season, out of season.
Now, what does that mean?
Well, back in the days before airplanes and refrigerated train cars,
fruits and vegetables used to go in season, out of season.
There were certain times a year where you couldn't get a tomato.
You know, you couldn't get certain things because it was out of season,
and different produce was in season at different times of year.
Clothing goes in and out of season.
You know, don't wear white after Labor Day or whatever.
People say, oh, that's out of season, that's in season.
You see, what's in season is what's popular.
What's in season is what you'll find a lot of.
Boy, when lemons or oranges or grapefruits are in season,
boy, there's an abundance of them.
People are bringing bags of them to church, saying,
oh, I picked these off the tree.
The grocery store's got them on sale.
They're in season.
They're popular.
They're prevalent.
They're easy to find.
They're everywhere.
Out of season is where it's difficult to find.
Out of season is where it's rare.
And God is saying here that when preaching goes out of style,
we're to continue to preach the Word the same.
When it's in style, great.
Preach it.
When it's out of style, when it's in season,
when it's out of season, when there are a lot of people preaching it,
when there are very few people preaching it, preach the Word.
It's the charge that you got from God, from the Lord,
as a preacher of God's Word.
You don't have the right to decide whether you're going to or not.
Preach it. Preach it. Preach the Word.
Be instant, in season, out of season.
Reprove.
Now, in order to reprove, you must tell someone that they're wrong,
and it's not easy telling people that they're wrong.
It's a lot easier to just go with the flow, isn't it?
It's a lot easier just to be Mr. Nice and smiley.
But the problem is that somebody's got to be the bad guy.
Somebody's got to get up and be the bad guy and reprove.
There have been things in my life that were wrong, and someone had to come to me and reprove me.
I didn't enjoy being reproved. I didn't enjoy being rebuked.
I've sat in church and sat there squirming in my seat.
I didn't like being rebuked.
The Bible says, no chastening for the present seemeth to be joy.
Nobody likes to be corrected, but yet afterward it yielded the peaceable fruit of righteousness
unto them which are exercised thereby.
You see, the pastor who loves you reproves you.
The pastor who loves you rebukes you when you need rebuking.
But then the Bible goes on to say this, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
See, the pastor's supposed to be longsuffering, not to just fly off the handle.
Did you notice that I just preached a sermon recently called disrespect,
where I kind of just touched on things, just hoping, hey, are you getting this? Are you seeing it?
And then it just, the problem doesn't go away.
And it has to become a rebuke.
You see, God is slow to anger, the Bible says.
The Lord is merciful and slow to anger.
But when the Lord gets angry, He gets angry.
He's slow to anger, and we ought to be slow to anger.
The Bible says, let every man be slow to speak.
Let's turn there, James.
Keep your finger, we're going to be right back here, but I don't want to misquote off the top of my head here.
Let's go to James, there's a few pages to the right in your Bible.
And, you know, maybe if you've only been coming to church for like a week,
and you heard my sermon on Wednesday night and then the sermon tonight, you'd think that I'm not very slow to anger.
But if you've been here for years, you'd think I'm very slow to anger.
But in James chapter 1, the Bible reads in verse 19,
Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear,
slow to speak, slow to wrath, for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
We don't want to be somebody that's just as quick to anger.
Now, anger is not a sin. The Bible says, be ye angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.
Anger is something that has a place. There's a time to be angry.
But it's not someone flying off the handle. It's not someone just going into a rage.
It's not someone jumping to conclusions. It's rather a process that leads to anger, not just a knee-jerk reaction.
But the problem is, when sometimes you give people a finger, they take the whole hand.
Now, that's a German expression. Has anybody ever heard that before?
I think in America you say, if you give them an inch, they take a mile.
Well, in Germany, if you give people a finger, they take the whole hand.
And sometimes if you don't spell things out to people as a preacher, things get out of control.
Without the leadership of someone standing up and reproving and rebuking, without Moses being down from the mountain,
standing up and laying down the laws of God, he goes up into the mountain, leaves Aaron in charge,
and Aaron just did not have the backbone to say no to the people. And what happened?
He said, the people made me do it. You remember that?
He said, oh, the people, they brought me all this stuff. They told me to make it for them. I just did what they said.
Aaron, your job is to lead. Aaron, your job was to rebuke. Aaron, your job was to stand up and to say no.
And let me just give you some advice. If you're a young man who wants to preach someday and be a pastor someday,
you must learn to say no. And if you can't say no, you will never be able to pastor a successful, soul-winning church.
You won't do it. Because if you can't reprove, you can't preach. If you can't rebuke, you can't preach.
Look down, if you would, where we are in 2 Timothy 4. He says this in verse 7. This is how he characterizes his ministry.
He says, I have fought a good fight. Now look, that doesn't sound like it was all just smooth sailing.
That doesn't sound like everybody was just doing the right things and everything was just trucking right along
and everything was great. No, there were some times when he had to fight.
Now as David said, I can truly say, and I've prayed this prayer literally thousands of times,
I've memorized Psalm 120, I don't know how long ago, I mean a long time ago.
And I've spoken those words to God how many times. I've quoted Psalm 120.
And it's one of my favorite psalms. I have a lot of psalms that I've memorized that basically,
I like to speak those words to God as my prayer to God.
I pray in my own words, but I like to say those words to God and I've prayed that prayer how many times of Psalm 120 from memory.
And the last verse says this, I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war.
We ought to love peace. We ought to want to live at peace with all men as much as is possible.
We want to be gentle toward all men, the Bible says.
But the sad thing is that many men of God will not draw a line in the sand like Moses did.
They're an Aaron who basically just anything goes, whatever people want, just let it go.
And when Aaron came down from the mount, look at, I'm sorry, when Moses came down from the mount, Exodus 33 if you would.
Turn back there.
You'll see here what happens when a leader is not there to rebuke and reproof.
You'll see what happens when you have an absence of strong leadership.
The Bible says this, actually I'm sorry, let's start in chapter 32 first.
In chapter 32 it says this, let's look at what Aaron did.
It says in verse 1, and when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount,
the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron and said unto him,
Make us gods, which shall go before us.
For as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we want not what has become of him.
Now Aaron was left behind as the leader. He's not the one leading.
The people are telling him what to do.
Oh, make us gods.
So he says, okay, Aaron said to them, break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives,
of your sons and of your daughters and bring them unto me.
And all the people break off the golden earrings which were in their ears and brought them unto Aaron.
And he received them at their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool.
After he made it a molten calf and they said,
These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it and Aaron made proclamation and said,
Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord.
And they rose up early on the morrow and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings.