important information. I just pray that you would give me the right words to say and help
me to go the right direction with the sermon that you want me to go with it, dear God.
And please help those that are here to understand the truth as it's preached and not to be hearers
of the word only, but also doers, that they would take what they learned tonight and what
they hear and apply it to their lives. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.
Now as we read the entire chapter of Leviticus chapter 4, you probably saw certain things
repetitiously mentioned again and again. Now the reason that they're repeated is because
God is emphasizing something. Now all throughout chapter 4, one of the things
that was greatly emphasized is you'll see God talking about people sinning through ignorance.
Did you notice that? Again and again, he said if a soul sinned through ignorance, if the
priest sinned through ignorance, if the common people sinned through ignorance, if the king
sinned through ignorance, if the whole congregation sinned through ignorance, he goes on and on.
And did you notice that he makes it very, very, very clear that the person who's sinning
through ignorance, it's still a sin whether they knew it was a sin or not. Did you notice
that? I mean, that's why we read through that whole chapter. Well, we always read the whole
chapter, but one of the reasons why is because you see just over and over again, God says
that person needs to bring a sin offering to the tabernacle because they have sinned
against God. Look at some of these verses just quickly.
We'll see a few of them. The Bible says in verse number 1, the Lord
is speaking to Moses saying, speaking to the children of Israel saying, if a soul shall
sin through ignorance against any of the commandments of the Lord. So they didn't know what the
Bible said. They never heard the commandment. They're ignorant. Have you ever been in church
here, for example, at Faithful Word Baptist Church and heard something preached against?
And it never even crossed their mind that that was a sin. Like which times? I remember
when I was 17 years old, I started going to a real fire-breathing church where there was
actually preaching against sin. And I remember just sitting there, hearing things preached
against, and good night. It had never even crossed my mind that such a thing would be
a sin. I wouldn't have never thought of it. I've been doing that my whole life. But when
I heard it and I saw from the Bible, I said to God, I confessed it to God as a sin at
that point. I said, God, I'm sorry that I've been doing this. I had no clue that that was
even a sin. Now let me ask you something. Do you know everything that's in the Bible?
Everything? No. Do I know everything that's in the Bible? Absolutely not. And so there
are things that I'm constantly learning. There are things that you ought to be learning,
both being in church, hearing the Bible preached, and as you read the Bible, things that maybe
you did not think were a sin. Well, they are. Okay. And are you guilty before God? Yes.
Now look, look if you would down what it says here. And we saw the sin offering on
and on. He said that the blood needed to be on the altar for atonement for this sin that
they've committed, even though they didn't even know it was wrong. But look, if you would
at verse number, I'm skipping some of this, but it says in verse number 13, and if the
whole congregation of Israel sinned through ignorance and the thing be hit from the eyes
of the assembly, and they've done somewhat against any of the commandments of the Lord
concerning things which should not be done and are guilty. You see that? Look at verse
23. Or if his sin, wherein he had sinned, come to his knowledge, he shall bring his
offering. So he didn't even know it was a sin, but he learned about it. Look at verse
number 27. And if any one of the common people sinned through ignorance, while he doeth somewhat
against any of the commandments of the Lord concerning things which ought not to be done
and be guilty, or if his sin which he had sinned come to his knowledge, then he shall
bring his offering a kid of the goats, a female without blemish, for his sin which
he had sinned. Now, I don't want to belabor this point, but other scriptures, Leviticus
5, 15, Numbers 15, 24, Numbers 15, 25, Numbers 15, 26, on and on throughout the law, God
talks about the sin that's committed through ignorance, a person that's sinning out of
ignorance. Now, it's still a sin, according to the Bible, and they're still guilty before
God for the thing that they've done. Notice how many times God referred to the commandments
of God. Nothing is a sin. Remember this. Think about this. Nothing is a sin unless
the Bible says it's a sin. Period. The Bible defines sin as a transgression of the law.
In 1 John, chapter 5, the Bible says, sin is the transgression of the law. That's the
definition of sin. It's when you cross a line that God has put in the Bible. Now, if the
Bible does not say that something is a sin, is it a sin? No, because you didn't break
God's law. It's not in God's law. Now, the Bible doesn't talk about such and such. Look,
there are so many commandments in the Bible that maybe you're just not applying to the
sin that you're thinking of. People have said to me that smoking is not a sin because the
Bible never mentions smoking. And it's true that cover to cover, the Bible does not ever
mention smoking. I'll be honest with you. Nowhere in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation
does anybody light up a cigarette. Now, there's a place, I heard a joke one time, and people
make jokes like in Genesis 24, the Bible says, Rebecca lighted off her camel. And they say
she lighted off a camel, you know, she was smoking cigarettes. That's not what it means.
So yes, smoking is in the Bible. You have to understand that the Bible does not mention
smoking from cover to cover. Not one time will you see somebody smoking anything. Did
people smoke back then? I'd say they probably did. I'd be willing to bet that they probably
did. There's nothing new under the sun, right? But I'll guarantee you that smoking is a sin
because the Bible talks about you don't have to defile the temple of your body. The Bible
says that they that bear the vessels of the Lord should be clean. And you know, you're
putting dirt into your body. I mean, you're putting tar into your lungs. That's abuse
of your body. Okay, so that's why smoking is a sin. So have you transgressed the commandment
of God when you smoke? Yes, you're transgressing the commandment that tells you to be clean,
that tells you not to put anything dirty or unclean into your body, that tells you to
respect and take care of the temple of your body and not to defile your flesh. You're
supposed to take care of your body. So you're violating the Bible in some way. You understand
what I'm saying? So just because it doesn't use the words, there's still a commandment
there. But if there's no commandment in the Bible, then it's not a sin. Sin is always
transgressing God's laws. Now, here we have people who did not hear the law. They did
not hear the Bible. They did not know what the Bible says. And yet God said, you are
guilty of breaking a law. I mean, can you imagine, you broke some law that's in like
Jeremiah chapter 28. You've never even read Jeremiah 28. You don't even know that it's
there. Hey, you're still guilty before God. That's part of the reason why you need to
read the Bible and learn what the Bible says so that you can walk a life that's holy and
acceptable to God. Hey, you're not even going to know what's right unless you read the Bible.
You're not even going to know whether your life's pleasing to God. Hey, you're going
to put your head on your pillow at night and say, I don't even know whether I'm doing
right. I don't even know whether God's pleased with me. I don't even know what right and
wrong is because I haven't read the laws of God. That's part of the reason why we emphasize
here reading the Bible cover to cover. Genesis to Revelation, you say, I've never done that
before. Start doing it today. Fifteen minutes a day, you will have finished the Bible cover
to cover in one year's time. One year. Can you, you say, I don't have time to read the
Bible. You don't have fifteen minutes a day. Why don't you just take it out of your soap
opera? Why don't you take it out of, why don't you take it out of your magazine? Why don't
you take it out of People magazine? God help us. I hope nobody reads People magazine in
this room. Okay. But, you know, take it out of your, take it out of your coffee break
or your lunch break. Hey, sit down and eat your lunch and read the Bible. Maybe somebody
will come and talk to you about the Bible that you're reading and maybe you can get
them saved while you're at it. Wouldn't that be great? You can give them the Gospel. And
so it would be a great opportunity. Bring your Bible to lunch. You can spare fifteen
minutes a day. So why is it that ninety-nine percent of Christians have not read through
the Bible cover to cover? Because they never set out to do it. If you don't set out to
do it, you won't do it. You can go to church for fifty years and unless you decide, I will
read the Bible cover to cover, that's the only way that you're ever going to do it.
I've talked to people before that said, you know what, I've been in church so long and
I've read the Bible so many times and I've just picked up the Bible so many times and
just randomly read the Bible. I must have read the cover to cover by now. And I said,
there's no way. There is no way. There's so many obscure places that you're just not going
to flip open and read Leviticus chapter four. Unless you come here to church, you know.
But there's so many obscure places in the Bible. There's eleven hundred and eighty-nine
chapters in the Bible. Okay, the chances of you just randomly reading all of them are
very remote. And, you know, that same person that I challenge, actually I'm thinking of
a few different people in my mind that I've had this conversation with. After they read
through the Bible cover to cover, I asked them, I said, do you think you had read it
before? They said, no, there's no way. They said, I don't even think I read a third of
it. You know, it's the same person who said that they thought that they probably covered
it all at one point or another. Once you read it, stuff will jump out at you and you will
say, I've never heard this before. This is not what I learned in Sunday school. Okay,
read the book of Genesis alone, the first book in the Bible. You will be shocked by
some of the things that are in there because you've never read it and because no one has
taught you those things. Because I'm not going to teach you everything unless you come on
Wednesday nights for twenty-three and a half years. See, we preach one chapter of the Bible.
No, that's not a random number, literally. On Wednesday nights, I teach through one chapter
of the Bible a night. And we've done Hebrews, Philippians, Matthew, Habakkuk, James, and
Revelation. And in twenty-three and a half years, we will complete the whole Bible. You
say, what are we going to do then? We're going to start over again with the book of Hebrews.
Okay? And we'll hit it and we'll get it all over again. And so twenty-three and a half
years, you'll hear it here. But I encourage you, you must make it a priority in your life.
Please read the whole Bible for yourself. Why? So that Pastor Anderson doesn't have
to spoon feed you everything. Hey, we talked about it this morning. The truth shall make
you free. We talked about freedom. How are you free if you're relying on other people
all the time to tell you what the Bible says and what the Bible means? Don't you want to
be free to make your own choices about the Bible? The only way you're going to have that
kind of freedom is Jesus said, you have to know the truth and the truth will make you
free. You have to feed yourself the Bible. Without Pastor Anderson pureeing you certain
parts of the Bible, you must sit down with a knife and a fork and eat the Bible yourself.
You need to feed yourself to know the Bible. Now let me ask you this. We're doing a little
bit of a doctrinal study tonight, okay? And it's so important to know what you believe
and why you believe it. It's so important to be grounded, firm on what you believe.
I see people all the time where somebody comes up with some cute little new doctrine and
the Bible says, be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. You know, people
come up with some new fancy little doctrine or some cute little thing that they found
in the Bible and they can tell this to you. And I've watched them tell it to people, oh
wow, isn't that neat? And I'm thinking to myself, no, it's neat but it's not true. Why?
Because I knew the Bible. And while they're telling me their new little cute thing, all
these verses are popping into my mind just proving what they're telling me. Okay, that's
why it's so important to be nailed down on what you believe. Hey, come to church ready
to learn the Bible so that you know what you believe and you know what's right and wrong.
Let me ask you a question. We're going to study some things in the Bible now. Let me
ask you a question. Does an unborn or a newborn baby commit sin according to the Bible? Okay.
Now, before you answer it, let's listen to the sermon. Before you answer that, can you
spend a few days with her? Spend a few days with my newborn baby and you'll come back
saying yes, sin abounds. But let me tell you something. Before I get into this, I want
to tell you right now that it's clear from the Bible that an unborn or a newborn or a
young child that dies goes to heaven. I'm going to prove that from the Bible. It's part
of the purpose of my sermon. But before I get into that, let's lay the foundation. Does
a baby commit sin? Does an unborn or a newborn baby commit sin according to the Bible? Well,
we already established from the Bible that whether you know that something's wrong or
not, if God commanded against it and you do it, you've sinned. I've been in churches where
they taught that if the Holy Spirit's never spoken to you about it, it's not a sin. Only
if you're convicted about that. If you don't know it's a sin, well, you didn't know. It's
not your fault. You didn't sin, contrary to the Bible. And it was Baptist churches
where I learned that, by the way. But listen to this verse. Psalm 58, 3, the Bible reads,
The wicked are estranged from the womb. They go astray as soon as they be born, speaking
lies. The Bible says, man, as soon as some people are born, they're lying. Now, even
a newborn baby can lie to you. Did you know that? You say, your baby can't even talk.
Well, what do they do? They scream and cry like somebody died. You know, they scream
and cry like they're in some kind of a peril or danger. You know, screaming. And then you
walk up to her. This happened today. And I walk up to her and I look at her and she just
smiles. They're just trying to get attention. Now, that's not right to do that. He's being
deceptive, okay? It's a sin, all right? You're lying. But on and on. I remember just very
early days of my kids. I mean, just immediately, think about a one-year-old, a one-and-a-half-year-old,
a two-year-old lying to you. Johnny, did you do this and so? You know, the, the, the just
solid page. No, no, no. Kids are born liars. Do you think I taught my kids to lie? No.
Do you think I teach them to tell the truth? If you don't teach them to tell the truth,
they'll do nothing but lie. You must teach a child to do right because they'll automatically
do wrong. That's why the Bible says a child left to himself will bring his mother to shame.
If you leave children to do whatever they want, they go bad, very bad, unless they're
taught to do right. Why? Because they have a sin nature. Now, whether that child has
heard the Bible preached or not, when it does wrong, the Bible says the thought of wickedness
is sin. Every bad thought is a sin. Hey, whether it knows that it's a sin or not, when it lies
or when it, you know, sticks its finger in the outlet after mom said no and, and disobeyed
mom, hey, whether it knows it's a sin or not, a baby is still committing sin at age zero,
one, two years old, according to the Bible. It's clear. King David said, behold, I was
sheep in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. He said, I've been a sinner since
day one. I was born in sin. Now, look at you were to Deuteronomy chapter number one. You,
I think you're still in Leviticus, right? So just flip forward two books toward the
end of your Bible to Leviticus. I'm sorry, Deuteronomy chapter number one, Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. So we're in the fifth book in the Bible, Deuteronomy
one 39. Now, do you remember the story in, in Genesis chapter number three of the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil? Remember before they ate of that tree, they were completely
sinless, but then Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And then she gave
the fruit to her husband and he ate also. Well, look at this. This is an interesting
verse. It's the only other mention in the Bible of the knowledge of good and evil. Those
exact words look at Deuteronomy chapter one, verse number 39, the Bible says, moreover,
your little ones, which he said should be a prey and your children, which in that day
had no knowledge between good and evil, they shall go and digger and unto them will I give
it and they shall possess it. So the Bible talks here about a little one or a young child
who doesn't even know the difference between good and evil. Doesn't even know. I mean,
do you think that Miriam here in the problem, do you think she has a concept of right and
wrong right now? Good and evil? No, she doesn't. She doesn't have a concept of good and evil.
She doesn't understand. Do you think she has a concept of who Jesus Christ is and that
Jesus Christ died on the cross for her sins and was buried and rose again? I mean, have
you ever tried to explain to a child that's maybe one, two or three years old what death
means, what it means to die? Sometimes they can't even comprehend that. You try to explain
to them, this is what it means. And then sometimes maybe the dog dies and then they
get a picture of it. They understand it with a real life situation. But these kind of concepts
that we take for granted, I mean, we know what death is. But to explain it to a little
kid, they don't even know what death is. As they get older, I mean, Solomon has a very
clear understanding at age five of what death is. Isaac at age four has a pretty good understanding
of what death is. John at age two, it's tough for him to grasp the concept of what dying
is. He's very young. Now, would it be fair of God to require John to receive Jesus Christ
as his savior in order to go to heaven? Well, has John sinned? Yes. Does he deserve to go
to hell? Yes. I mean, he's a sinner. Does everybody who sins deserve to go to hell?
All liars shall have their part in the lake with the birth of fire and bricks, which is
the second death. Does Miriam deserve to go to hell? Yeah. I mean, does Solomon deserve
to go to hell? Do I deserve to go to hell? Yes. Because we're all sinners. We've all
sinned. And we'll get to that a little bit later. Now, God in his mercy, however, God
in his mercy has allowed for young children and babies who are too young to understand
to go to heaven. Now, why is God able to do that? Because Jesus Christ died for the sins
of the whole world. Jesus Christ has paid for the sins of my two-year-old son here.
He's paid for the sins of my newborn baby here. Therefore, God is completely just to
decide that he wants to allow them into heaven. He paid for their sins on the cross. And so
he does that because it would be not loving of God to damn someone to hell without even
giving them a chance. Now, does that go for some guy who's 20 years old who, well, nobody
ever gave him the gospel? No. Because he has an understanding of what right and wrong
is. He chooses to do wrong. He chooses not to seek after God. He will go to hell if he
does not receive Christ the Savior. No matter what jungle he lives in, and I've preached
whole sermons on that subject, he's still guilty before God. Now, let me show you three
or four different examples in the Bible to prove to you that children and infants go
to heaven when they die. Okay? Because just me saying that, I mean, doesn't that sound
sweet? That's not cute. But why don't we see what the Bible really teaches? Because
the Bible does teach that, and I'm going to prove it to you right now. Turn if you would
to 2 Samuel, chapter 12, verse 13. Now, I'm going to disprove for you a doctrine that's
a false doctrine taught by the Roman Catholic Church. That doctrine is called original sin.
Put up your hand if you've heard that term before. Original sin. Now, the Catholics teach
something called original sin, which teaches that babies who have not been baptized will
go to hell. Isn't that terrible? I mean, they think that a newborn baby, they think if my
baby died right now, because it was not baptized by the Catholics, will go to hell. But it
doesn't go to the deep part of hell. Catholics have all kinds of strange beliefs about hell.
They believe that that child will never go to heaven, a baby who dies, unborn or newborn.
If it hasn't been baptized, it won't go to heaven. They believe that it goes to a place
called limbo. Now, limbo is a place that's in hell. It's not real. Okay? Don't get me
wrong. I'm teaching you what the Catholics teach. Limbo is the coolest spot in hell,
go to the Catholics. Now, that's kind of silly in and of itself, isn't it? But there's limbo,
and it's actually cooler than purgatory, believe it or not. Okay? Now, it's still warm. It's
still hot. You don't want to be there. And it's dark, and it's miserable. But it's not
as bad as a place like hell. It's more like heck. Okay? So, there's limbo, and there's
purgatory, and then they have the different degrees of hell. They have all different,
tons of different degrees of how hot it is and how bad it is in hell. And then, they
believe that a baby who's not been baptized will never go to heaven and will spend eternity
in limbo. Isn't that terrible? Now, the pope, two weeks ago, that's traditional Catholic
doctrine for over a thousand years. The pope, a few weeks ago, has changed that, because
he's allowed to change his religion whenever he wants, and they change it frequently. I
mean, Catholicism changes all the time. It's changed so many times since it began. Now,
he's saying, maybe, maybe they'll go to heaven. Okay? That's what he said. He didn't say they
will or that they won't, but he's just, now he's saying, well, maybe they do. Whereas,
Catholicism is always taught, no, they cannot go to heaven without being baptized, period,
no exceptions. Well, maybe. Isn't that so ridiculous? How would you like to be looking
up to a spiritual leader that preaches you, maybe, maybe you'll go to heaven, maybe your
kids will go to heaven, or whatever, you know, we'll see. And so, I don't know, did anybody
see that in the paper, besides me? Put up your hand if you did, but other people had
mentioned it to me. It was a big deal, because people that I talked to on the phone in other
states said to me, hey, did you hear the Pope change what he believed about, you know, baby's
not going to limbo, now they might make it. Well, let's see what the Bible says. Look
at 2 Samuel 12, the Bible reads in verse 13, and David said unto Nathan, I have sinned
against the Lord. This is when David committed adultery with Bathsheba and killed her husband,
Uriah. 2 Samuel 12, 13, and David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord, and
Nathan said unto David, the Lord also hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not die. How
be it? Because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord
to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die. And Nathan departed
unto his house, and the Lord struck the child that Uriah's wife bare unto David, and it
was very sick. David therefore besought God for the child, and David fasted and went in
and lay all night upon the earth. And the elders of his house arose and went to him
to raise him up from the earth, but he would not, neither did he eat bread with them. So
for a week long here, when this newborn baby that's born, that God said to punish you,
this child is going to die. And so he got on his face before God, he's praying, he's
begging God, he's not eating any food, he's fasting, he's refusing to be comforted. In
verse number 18 it says, and it came to pass on the seventh day that the child died. And
the servants of David feared to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, behold,
the child was in lively. We spake unto him and he would not hearken unto our voice. How
will he then vex himself if we tell him that the child is dead? But when David saw that
his servants whispered, David perceived that the child was dead, therefore David said unto
his servants, is the child dead? And they said, he is dead. Then David arose from the
earth and washed and anointed himself and changed his apparel and came into the house
of the Lord and worshiped. Then he came to his own house and when he required, they said
bread before him and he did eat. Then said his servants unto him, what thing is this
that thou hast done? Thou didst fast and weep for the child while it was alive, but when
the child was dead, thou didst rise and eat bread. And he said, while the child was yet
alive, I fasted and wept. For I said, who can tell whether God will be gracious to me
that the child may live, but now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? Could I bring him
back again? I shall go to him, but he shall now return to me. So here we see David, he
is weeping and fasting because the child has died. As soon as he finds out that it is dead,
he quits praying. What is the point of praying? I mean the point of praying is to change something.
It is too late, the child is dead. He stops praying, he stops fasting, he sits down, he
eats, he is not depressed anymore, he just has realized that it is done. And he says,
well, if I cry about it, is the child going to come back? But he says, no, I am going
to go be with the child someday. See, David had a competence to know that one day he would
see that child again, but if that child went to heaven, where David was going to heaven.
Now look at a more clear passage, look at Job chapter number 3, the book of Job. So
we see David clearly believed that he was going to see his newborn baby that had died,
he was going to see it again. He said, I am going where that child is. Now where was that
child? Well, let's find out. Look at Job chapter 3, and we will see what Job says in the Word
of God here. Job chapter number 3 verse 11, the Bible says, and Job is complaining and
he is angry and he is upset about the things that he is going through in his life, and
he wishes that he was dead, the Bible says in Job chapter 3. I wish you could read the
whole chapter, it is a great chapter. But it says in verse 11, why did I die not from
the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly? He is saying,
I wish I would have either died in my mother's womb or died as soon as I was born. Why did
the knees prevent me, verse 12, or why the breasts that I should suck? For now, should
I have lain still and been quiet? I should have slept then had I been at rest. With kings
and counselors of the earth, which build desolate places for themselves, or with princes that
had gold, who filled their houses with silver, or as an hidden untimely birth, which is a
miscarriage if you study the Bible, that is what an untimely birth is, or as an hidden
untimely birth I had not been as infants which never saw light. There the wicked cease from
troubling, and there the weary be at rest. There the prisoners rest together. They hear
not the voice of the oppressor. The small and great are there, and the servant is free
from his master. Clear description here, he is talking about being in heaven, the perfect
place where you are free and you do not have anybody lording over you. The servant is free
from his master. You are at rest. There there is no oppressor. There is no sickness. There
is no pain. There is no sorrow. He is talking about heaven. And he says, I wish that I would
have just died in my mother's womb because I know that I would have been in heaven. I
would have been much better off anyway, and I would have never seen the sorrows and the
horrible things that I am going through in my life right now. Look if you would at Ecclesiastes
chapter 6. He talks about being at rest. The Bible talks about this a lot in Hebrews, the
subject of rest. It is not talking about sleeping like literally being asleep, like laying around.
That is a whole other sermon. The Bible talks about when the children of Israel went into
the Promised Land, he called that the rest when they got into the Promised Land. He talks
about going to heaven, being called rest, in Hebrews chapter number 4. But look if you
would at Ecclesiastes chapter number 6. The Bible reads, If a man beget an hundred children
and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled
with good, and also that he have no burial, I say that an untimely birth is better than
he. For he cometh in with vanity, and departeth in darkness, and his name shall be covered
with darkness. Moreover, he hath not seen the sun, nor known anything. This hath more
rest than the other. You see here, a baby is a human being. Did you know that? From
the time it is in the womb, I mean from the time it is conceived, the Bible says that
is a child, that is a living thing. It is not just a blob of tissue. And he says every
child who dies in the womb continues to live on in heaven. Every child who is an untimely
birth, a miscarried child, lives on in heaven. Every child who is a newborn baby that dies
like the seven day old child of David who dies, it goes to heaven when it dies. Look
at one more place. Look at Matthew chapter number 2 verse 16. And so we see some clear
passages preaching in the book of Ecclesiastes, preaching in the book of Job, preaching out
of the mouth of David where he says clearly that the untimely birth, infants that never
see the sun, I mean they explain it every which way, children that are born and then
die, children that never see the sun, children that die in their mother's womb. They explain
it in all different ways. They say that these children are better off than the person who
would die and not receive Christ the Savior and go to hell, or a person who lives a miserable
life because he says they have never experienced the sorrow and the suffering and the sadness
of life. And they go on to be in a perfect place called heaven. That's the only place
that they've ever been. Now, look at Matthew chapter 2 verse 16. The Bible says, Then Herod,
when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wrath, this is King Herod,
he wants to kill Jesus Christ as a newborn baby, and slew all the children that were
in Bethlehem and in all the coasts thereof from two years old and under, according to
the time when she had diligently inquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which
was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Ramah was there a voice heard, lamentation
and weeping a great morning, Rachel weeping for her children and would not be comforted
because they are not. Look at Jeremiah 31. I know I'm having you turn to a lot of places
but I want you to see what the Bible says on this for yourself. Look back at Jeremiah
chapter 31, those three big long books at the end of the Old Testament, Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, getting close to the book of Matthew, you don't have to go back that far, and you'll
see those three big books, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel. Jeremiah 31 verse number 15. Now
the Bible is clear in Matthew 2 that when those children were killed, those newborn
babies from two years old and under, that was a fulfillment of what was spoken in Jeremy
the prophet. That's what Jeremy was talking about when he said, In Ramah was there a voice
heard. Let's go back to that quote and let's see exactly what he said. Jeremiah 31.15,
the Bible says, Thus saith the Lord, A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter
weeping, Rachel weeping for her children, refused to be comforted for her children because
they were not. What is it talking about? It's talking about what's going to happen when
the children in that particular part of the country are going to be killed by King Herod
from two years old and under. Let's keep reading. Thus saith the Lord, Refrain thy voice from
weeping, and thine eyes from tears, for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord, and
they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope in thine end, saith
the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border. Now are these children
just gone forever, doomed to limbo, doomed to hell? No. God says you will see them again.
They will come back again one day. What's that talking about? Obviously, you know, the
second coming of Jesus Christ. We're talking about the millennial reign of Christ. We're
talking about the new heaven and the new earth in Revelation 21 and 22. Hey, if they're
going to be back, you're going to be rejoicing with them someday. Weak not, is what he's
saying to Rachel. Now, there are other examples that I've seen. People have talked about scriptures
in other parts of the Bible. I've heard verses from Isaiah. I've heard verses from Psalms
that made it clear that these children go to heaven. I mean, you'll never find anything
to contradict the teaching that I just gave you. You'll find indications throughout the
Bible saying that they're not going to be condemned. Okay, Jesus died for them. They're
going to be saved. Now, I've heard a pastor say, I've heard an independent fundamental
Baptist say, well, you know, maybe they go to hell. Like he thought maybe they just go
to full-blown hell, like a baby that dies, like an aborted baby or a newborn baby. Maybe
they just go to hell. And he said, well, the Bible's not really clear on it. There's only
one place in the Bible that even makes it sound like they might go to heaven, and that's
2 Samuel, chapter 12. And I'm thinking to myself, well, you're revealing your ignorance
because I just showed you three other places. And I've always been cautious about somebody
who says, well, the only place in the Bible that talks about such and such, I'm just thinking
about it. I said, do you have the whole Bible memorized? How do you know that that's the
only place? Maybe you just need to study the Bible a little more and see that maybe this
teaching in the Bible's a little more clear than that, like in Ecclesiastes and Job and
Psalms, these three important books of the Bible. Maybe the Bible's a little more clear
than you think. Maybe you just need to study more. And I've heard of several independent
fundamental Baptists abandoning this doctrine of babies going to heaven when they die. Well,
maybe they just burn in hell. That's not the way God is. God's a loving and gracious and
long-suffering God, and he gives everybody a chance, period. And this baby, there's no
way it could ever open its mouth and confess to the Lord Jesus and believe in the talk
that God raised him from the dead. There's no way that God's going to send him to hell.
That's clear from the Bible. Jesus died for it. It receives a pass into heaven because
of the blood of Jesus Christ. Just like we do, we have to believe. The child who has
no knowledge of good and evil, the child who's unable to believe on Jesus Christ is too young
mentally will not be damned to hell. Now, let me show you something. Look at Romans,
chapter number five, and let me show you part of where this original sin doctrine comes
from. And I know this maybe is a little bit deeper of a Bible saved tonight, but hey,
you know what? Maybe you should grow up a little bit spiritually to where you can learn
some of the deep things of God, where you can learn some of the important doctrines
of faith. Somebody might come along and try to dissuade you on these things at some point.
Hey, no, you'll know what you're talking about. You'll know you've seen it from the Bible.
People will deceive you, and they'll come up with these cute doctrines like, well, if
the Holy Spirit hasn't convicted you about it, it's not a sin for you. But since the
Holy Spirit's convicted me about it, it's a sin for me. That's ridiculous. God has one
set of rules for everybody, one set of commandments for everybody. And if you don't know what
the Bible says, shame on you for not knowing what the Bible says. Hey, that's why you're
living a sinful life. Look, if you would, at Romans, chapter five, verse 12. We'll see
where this doctrine of original sin comes from. It's been adopted by many independent
Baptists. There's a doctrine among independent Baptists, a false doctrine that came around
about 100 to 150 years ago began to evolve. It's called dispensationalism. It's where
they chop the Bible up into pieces and say, well, this part doesn't really apply to you.
This applied to them back then, and this applies to you now. And in the Old Testament, people
were saved a different way than they are in the New Testament. And then in the Millennium,
they're going to be saved different, like there's all different ways you can be saved.
There's all different ways that God has dealt with mankind. And people in the Old Testament
were this, and people in the New Testament are this, and they break it down even further
than that, that we're living in a different dispensation, they say, than when Jesus was
walking on this earth. So when Jesus commanded, like the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew five,
six and seven, when Jesus preaches how you're supposed to live your life, be ye therefore
perfect, and he tells you all those rules, they say those rules don't apply to you, different
dispensation. Sorry, long dispensation. Only the rules in the books that Paul wrote apply
to this dispensation. And this is what a lot of these Baptists believe. Part of the pre-tribulation
rapture doctrine comes from dispensationalism, because they take the clear teaching in Matthew
24, where Jesus says immediately after the tribulation, isn't that hard to understand?
After the tribulation, he's going to blow the trumpet and gather the light from the
four winds, he's going to come in the clouds. Really clear, right? This is what they say,
he's talking to the Jews. Not wrong dispensation. It's false doctrine, can't be taught anywhere.
Let me show you how warped they get with this. And I'm going to show you that something that
independent fundamental Baptists believe that's so warped, and I can't even understand how
they can take it this far. But I'll show you where they're getting it from, and I'll show
you why it's not true. Romans 5, 12, the Bible reads, Wherefore is by one man sin entered
into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men. Here's the key
phrase, For that all have sinned. Why did death pass upon all men? Because we've all
sinned. Isn't that simple? Now the original sin doctrine teaches that little babies, this
is what the Catholics believe, they believe that the baby does not have the capability
to sin in the world, or as a newborn baby. But the reason it goes to hell without being
baptized, or goes to limbo, is because it has died for the sins of Adam. The original
sin of Adam. We've all, the condemnation of Adam is upon us all. Okay? And that's why
they die and go to hell, is what they teach. But here's, it gets even weirder than this.
And I just heard recently of independent fundamental Baptists believing this, and I couldn't believe
it. It gets even weirder than this. Let me show you what they do with this passage. Look
at the next verse. For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when
there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had
not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that
was to come. Now here's what they've said. They'll take those three verses. This is one
of those cute doctrines that I'm telling you to be aware of, where if you don't know what
the whole Bible says, somebody can show you just these three verses. Just Romans 5, 12
through 14, and teach you a false doctrine. This is what they teach. From all the time
from Adam, and this is what dispensation, this is what all dispensationists believe,
this is what it says in the Scofield reference Bible. You know, all the Scofield Bible, all
these independent Baptists use it. The Scofield reference Bible teaches this. Independent
Baptists teach this. Dispensationalism teaches this. The Roman Catholics teach this. Then
from Adam all the way to Moses, no one sinned. No one sinned and was condemned to hell for
their sins. Okay? They sinned, but it wasn't counted against them. Look at the verse right
here. Let me show you how bizarre this is. It says sin is not imputed when there is no
law. So they take that and say, well, until Moses came down to take commandments, no one
was held accountable for their sins because there was no law. So because the law wasn't
there yet, I mean, when they stole, it was not imputed. When they lied, God looked the
other way. When they killed, no problem. But they still died and went to hell because of
Adam's sin. They were dying for his sin. Now, this is so warped. And let me tell you something.
Why any church would have a Scofield reference Bible in their church and get up and sell
those Bibles and promote those Bibles in their church is beyond me. It's so bizarre what
they teach. Now, let me tell you why this is such a ridiculous doctrine. Okay, where
do I begin? And this is independent Baptists that believe this, believe it or not. First
of all, let's talk about this. Well, there was no law from Adam until Moses. That's not
what the Bible said here. It did not say that there was no law from Adam to Moses. Did you
know that the Bible was being preached that whole time? Did you know that God had a law
in the Garden of Eden? He had a law that he gave to Cain and Abel. Did you know that when
Noah got off the ark, God gave him laws? Who so shedeth man's blood? By man shall his blood
be shed, for in the image of God made he man? There were all kinds of rules throughout the
Bible. And in the Scofield reference Bible, it says, that's why there was no sin offerings
because there was nobody was a sinner that had to be paid for. And I'm thinking to myself,
Noah got off the ark and he offered a burnt sacrifice. Abel offered a burnt sacrifice
to God. Abraham made burnt sacrifices to God, all the way through the Bible. And so this
is such garbage, okay? But people who do not know what they believe get sucked in by this
stuff. They read these three verses and say, well, that's what it is. Think about this.
All throughout the Old Testament, people are suffering for their sins. People are being
punished by God. People are receiving the death penalty. God killed Onan. Remember Onan
in Genesis chapter 37? God struck him dead personally because what he did was a sin.
Well, you didn't know that. Hey, God killed him because he sinned. He committed a grievous
sin against God. God killed him. Now, I can assure you that people all throughout the
time from Adam to Moses heard the Bible preached. For example, Jude. You don't have to turn
there. The Bible says in the book of Jude, in verse number 14, the Bible says, Enoch
also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with
ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly
among them, and on and on. Hey, why? Enoch was preaching the book of Jude, according
to Jude, Jude 1, 14, and 15, way back before the flood. He was preaching the contents of
the book of Jude. See, God's word has always been around. In the beginning was the word.
The word was with God, and the word was God. Before Moses came down with the Ten Commandments,
there was a Ten Commandments. Those rules have always existed. Before mankind knew about
them, they still existed. It's always been a sin to steal. You tell me before the flood,
it wasn't a sin to steal, because God hadn't made that rule yet. That is so unbelievable
to me that anyone would actually think that. Well, it wasn't really a sin to kill until
after the ark came, and then God told them, By the way, you're not supposed to be murdering
people. I mean, isn't that unbelievable that people would believe that stuff? Now, look
at the verse. Look down at the verse, and let's see what it actually says. It doesn't
say what they're trying to make it say. It says, For until the law, sin was in the world,
but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Does that say that there was no law before
Moses? No. It's just stating a fact. Sin is not imputed when there is no law. It's a hypothetical,
and it's found in Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, and Chapter
8. And if you read the whole thing, it makes perfect sense, and I'll show you some of those
verses. But it says here, Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that sin is not imputed
when there is no law, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even after them that had not sinned.
See, they never sinned. They didn't sin. No. They didn't sin after the similitude of Adam's
transgression. They didn't sin in the way that he sinned. Okay? Who is the figure of
him that was to come? Keep reading. But not as the offense, so also as the free gift.
For through the offense of one, many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by
grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, at the bounty of the many. See, if we stopped
reading there, we'd see, yeah, people died because of Adam's sin. We'll go down to verse
number 19, and we'll see why. For as by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners.
That's why they died because of his sin. They didn't die for what Adam did. Would it be
fair for God to punish you for what Adam did? No. That is not fair. God says that every
man will die for his own sins, clearly throughout the Bible. In Leviticus, you don't have to
turn there. I'm sorry, Deuteronomy 24, 16, the fathers shall not be put to death for
the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers. Every man shall
be put to death for his own sin. So God says, you pay for your own sins yourself. You don't
pay for your dad's sin. Your son doesn't pay for your sin. You pay for it. Do I pay
for Adam's sin? No. That's the whole doctrine of original sin out the window, that I'm paying
for original sin that Adam committed. I'm being punished for it. Death passed upon all
men for that all sinned. See, Adam passed on to be a sin nature, a nature that makes
me sin because I'm just like my dad, Adam. I come from Adam. I act like Adam. I sin like
Adam. I pay for my own sins. Anybody who dies and goes to hell, it's because of the sins
that they committed. People weren't dying and going to hell before Moses because of
the sin that Adam did. Law, garbage, false doctrine, heresy, trash, ignorance of the
Bible to believe that. Now, look down if you would at verse number 20 where we were. Moreover,
the law entered that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did much more
about. That as sin had rained unto death, even so my grace rained through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. I'm going to skip some of this for sake of
time, but look at chapter 4 of Romans and look at verse 13. The Bible says in Romans
4, 13, for the promise that he should be heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his
seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if they which are of the law
be heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of none effect because the law worketh
wrath. For where no law is, there is no transgression. Now, see, this is the same hypothetical he's
saying here. For where no law is, there is no transgression. The right way to interpret
that verse, look down at Romans 4, 13, is not to say, I'm sorry, Romans 4, 15, because
the law worketh wrath. For where there were no law is, there is no transgression. To look
at that and say, there are places where there's no law and therefore there's no sin, no transgression.
Is that what it's saying? No. He's saying hypothetically, if there were no law, there
would be no transgression, but there is a law and the Bible says, forever, oh Lord,
thy word is settled in heaven. See, the laws of God have always existed. In the Old Testament,
whether Jesus had said it or not, it was wrong for a man to lust after a woman, even though
Jesus didn't say that until Matthew, chapter 5. And it's always been wrong to steal. It's
always been wrong to lie. It's always been wrong to kill. It's always been wrong to lust.
It's always been wrong. Anything that's wrong now has always been wrong. Anything that was
wrong back then will always be wrong. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and forever,
dispensationalism is gone. It's junk. It's trash. If Adam would have told a lie to Eve
in the Garden of Eden, it would have been a sin whether God had expressed that rule
to him yet or not. Okay? But see, the reason that he didn't is because he was perfect,
because he was a sinless creature until he broke the rule of eating the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil. That's when he became capable of sinning, when he broke that law. That's
when sin came upon man and death passed upon all men for that all sinned. Now, this is
basic Bible doctrine. You say, good, now this sermon is boring. It's too deep and dry. Hey,
you need to know this stuff. This is important. You've got to learn this. You should understand.
Why do people go? I mean, you could talk to people that have been in church for years.
Why does a person go to hell? Why? What makes people go to hell? They don't even know. Well,
I don't know. People that aren't saved go to hell. Why? Because it's the punishment
for their sins, because they've sinned. Then, therefore, anyone who's a sinner goes to hell
unless they're saved. You know, some people don't comprehend these basic truths that what
is a sin now has always been a sin, whether you know about it or not, and whether that
part of the Bible had been physically written down. The book of Jude was being preached
by Enoch thousands of years before it was written down. See, the book of Jude existed
back then. Those words existed, and they were God's word, and they've always been God's
word. Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. And I had so much more. I mean,
for the sake of time, I don't want to belabor you doctrinally, but I had scriptures from
chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 of Romans where he explains and goes
through this concept. But if you isolate one verse here and take a hypothetical statement
about sin not being imputed, where there is no law, hey, there's no place in the world
where there is no law. There's never been a time in history when there's been no law.
God has always had laws. I mean, doesn't that make sense? So to sit there and say, well,
the Bible says where there is no law, sin is not imputed. So that's talking about back
between Adam and Moses. No, between Adam and Moses, it says death reigned, even if they
hadn't sinned like Adam sinned, because they were still violating God's laws, whether they
took the time to learn it or not. There have always been preachers and prophets, all the
way from Abel was the first prophet, according to the Bible. Abel was the first prophet,
Adam's son. There have been prophets ever since, all the way to this prophet that you're
listening to right now, and prophets all over the world that are standing up and preaching
the word of God. Hey, if people weren't listening to them to know what's right and wrong, hey,
if people weren't searching the scriptures to know what's right and wrong, hey, if people
didn't want to go to a church that preached this way against sin, then if they don't know
that it's a sin, it's still a sin, still guilty before God. And I'm going to skip a lot just
for sake of time. I don't want to get bogged down in that. But let me ask you this. Look
at 2 Samuel chapter 6, and let me get to the last point of the sermon. Will God punish
you for a sin that you committed through ignorance? Will God discipline you for a sin
that you committed through ignorance? Now, obviously, we're not going to pay the penalty
for our sins in hell because it's been paid for on the cross by Jesus. Jesus was punished
for every sin that we ignorantly committed, which is evidenced in Leviticus chapter 4
by the offering in the lamb being slain for sins committed through ignorance. Jesus Christ
died for every sin that you ignorantly committed. When you did something wrong, you didn't even
know about, hey, Jesus died for that sin. That's the punishment that he paid where he
died on the cross, suffered eternal hell, rose again the third day. But let me ask you
something. Will God chastise and discipline and punish sins that you commit as a Christian
through ignorance? Well, let's look at this story from the Bible and see if we can get
an idea. 2 Samuel chapter 6, verse number 1, the Bible says, Again David arose, I'm
sorry, again David gathered together, all the children, man, I'm reading wrong tonight.
Again David gathered together all the chosen men of Israel, 30,000, and David arose and
went with all the people that were with him from Beelah of Judah to bring up from thence
the ark of God, whose name is called by the name of the Lord a post that dwelt between
the cherubim. And they set the ark of God upon a new cart. Now, is this the way that
God had taught them to transport the ark of the covenant? No. They had golden staves
through it, remember? Big sticks sticking on it, Lucy in Indiana, just kidding. Anyway,
it's got the two staves sticking out of the ark of the covenant, and they were supposed
to carry it on their shoulders. Well, here the Bible says that they decided to put on
a new cart, which they learned from the Philistines. That's how the Philistines transported it
earlier in the book. But it says that they put it upon a new cart, which was wrong, and
brought it out of the house of Abinadab that was in Gibeah, and Uzzah and Ahio, the sons
of Abinadab, draped the new cart. And they brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which
was in Gibeah, accompanying the ark of God, and Ahio went before the ark. And David and
all the house of Israel played before the Lord on all manner of instruments, made of
fir wood, even on harps and on salt trees and on timbrels and on cornets and on cymbals.
And when they came to Nacon's threshing floor, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God
and took hold of it, for the oxen shook it. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against
Uzzah, and God smote him there for his error, and there he died by the ark of God. Now let
me ask you something. Do you think that Uzzah knew that he was doing anything wrong? Do
you think that David knew he was doing anything wrong? No. We'll see later on that he didn't
realize that he was doing anything wrong. Their heart's in the right place. Hey, they're
excited about bringing back the ark of God to Jerusalem. They're singing praises to God.
Hey, they're playing on the instruments before God. They're bringing on a new cart. They
thought, hey, this is a good idea. We've invented the wheel. You know, we're not going to carry
this thing around. Put it on a cart and drive it around. Good night. Well, what happens?
The oxen get scared or spooked. Maybe they saw a snake in the road or something, and
they could sound and they shake. And what happens? That cart starts tipping, and the
ark of the covenant is about to fall over and crash into a million people. You know,
we don't want to break this thing. Good night. I mean, it's made of solid gold, and it's
this holy shrine that God made. We don't want this thing to fall over. So Uzzah, what's
he do? He steps in, and he says, I'm going to stop the ark here so it doesn't fall off.
Problem is, nobody's supposed to touch the ark except the sons of Kohab, the priests
that are supposed to carry it. Nobody's supposed to touch it. No, it's holy. They're not supposed
to touch the holy things unless they've been sanctified. There's all kinds of rules about
that. So what happens when he touches it? God kills him. Now David, look what David's
reaction is as we go down. Verse number eight, and David was displeased because the Lord
had made a breach upon Uzzah, and he called the name of the place Perez-Uzzah to this
day, and David was afraid of the Lord that day. I mean, he's scared. I mean, he's upset.
He doesn't know why this happened. And said, how so the ark of the Lord come to me? Now
go forward a few books to First Chronicles, chapter 15. We're almost done here. First
Chronicles, chapter 15. And the Bible reads in First Chronicles 15, 12. This is later
on. David decides he's going to do it right this time. And it says in First Chronicles
15, 12, and said unto them, this is David speaking, ye are the chief of the fathers
of the Levites. Sanctify yourselves, both ye and your brethren, that ye may bring up
the ark of the Lord God of Israel into the place that I have prepared. For because you
did it not at the first, the Lord our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought
him not after the due order. He said, we didn't do it right. You know, even though our heart
was in the right place, even though we were serving God, even though we were excited and
zealous. He said, we didn't do it by God's rules. We didn't follow God's commandments,
and so we paid the price for it. So the priests and the Levites sanctified themselves to bring
up the ark of the Lord God of Israel. You see here a man suffering for his sins. An
innocent person being hurt because of his sins. Now think logically with me for a minute.
Whether or not, let's put God aside for a moment. You know, God who's going to judge
people for their sins in this life. Put God aside for a minute. Whether a person knows
that it's right or wrong to drink alcohol is still going to destroy their life. I mean
just humanly speaking. Most sin has a punishment built in. I mean God doesn't need you to say,
oh man, I'm drinking. Is God going to punish me? God might not even have to punish you.
You may just destroy your own life. He might not even have to step in. He might just have
to just watch you go down the downward spiral by yourself. You might not even need his help
because alcohol will destroy you in and of itself. It will destroy your physical body,
it will destroy your liver, it will destroy your mind, it will destroy your family. It
could ruin you. It probably will ruin you. Many other things that we could go down the
list of sins that people commit that just automatically judge themselves because of
the life that they end up living. Look at the people who live a wicked sinful life.
Most of their lives are just really going down the drain. People that you know, people
that I know. So it doesn't make any sense to say, well, they didn't know. No, they're
going to pay for it in a lot of ways. They're going to pay for it because of the inherent
punishment that sin comes with and they're going to pay for it because God's going to
hold them accountable for what they've done wrong. Let me give you a brief illustration.
A perfect example of what we're talking about, and this kind of ties the whole sermon together
about sinning through ignorance. I'm going to tell you about a sin that I committed through
ignorance. A major wicked ungodly sin that I committed through ignorance. And then when
I found out about it, I repented of that sin and I confessed and forsook that sin.
The Bible says that if you hide your sin, you'll not prosper. But if you confess it
and forsake it, you'll find mercy. Now don't confess it to me after the service. I'm not
a priest, okay? Well, this is the confessional booth over here to the right. We don't do
that. Of course, that's wrong. But you know, you confess your sins to God. And if you confess
a sin to God and say, God, I'm sorry. I didn't know. I was wrong. And I'm not going to do
it again. You confess and forsake that sin, then God is going to be merciful to you. Does
that mean you're going to face no consequences for your sins? There still could be consequences.
But just like David had major consequences, but God was merciful to him. He didn't really
punish him as bad as he really deserved to be punished. The Bible's clear about that.
But let me tell you about a sin that I committed. It was a grievous sin. And once I figured
out that it was wrong, I confessed and forsook it. It's something that I sinned through ignorance.
Here I am, 19 years old. Got married when I was, that's not the same thing I committed.
Okay, let's bow our heads in prayer. That was it. All right, you're dismissed. No,
when I was 19 years old, just a few weeks after my 19th birthday is when I got married. Okay?
Well, I was young. 19-year-olds are ignorant about a lot of things, right?
And so I'm 19, I'm ignorant about some things. And I've been so brainwashed by society. You've
been so brave. You know, you're just kind of going with what you've been taught by everybody.
And I remember speaking to my wife and saying to my wife, I said, well, you know what?
I just got a brand new job at Liberty Bell OR. And what happens when you get a new job?
The benefits kick in 90 days later, right? You know, those first 90 days, you have no,
now I was coming from a job, I was working in a pizza place right before I got married. Round
table pizza, the best pizza in the world in California. Okay, this message has been brought
to you by round table pizza. And here I am coming into a brand new job. And in 90 days,
my benefits are going to start. And if my wife gets pregnant, what's going to happen? They're
not going to cover it. Because it's a pre-existing condition. If it happens within those first 90
days before my benefits get. Well, I haven't taught my wife, you know, you gotta go to the
hospital to have, you know, there's no other way to do it. I mean, even though people have
been giving birth for thousands of years on, they were fine. If you don't go to the hospital,
you're all going to die and whatever. And it's going to, and if you go there and you have
insurance, it'd be $20,000. You're going to be paying for it for the rest of your life and all
this stuff. This is my mindset. This is what I've been taught growing up in America. I mean,
that's the way you think, period. And so what did I do? I told my wife, I said, look, you know,
we got to do something about this because you can't get pregnant in these first 90 days. And
I wanted to have kids, right? And so I wanted to have kids. And so I said, you know what?
We got to do something about this for these first 90 days. And then after that, you know,
then you can get, you know, we'll get you pregnant and everything like that. And so what happened?
Send my wife, you know, to the doctor and she got prescribed birth control pills
at the doctor. And she was just going to take them for those three months. Well,
she took the birth control pills for those three months, right? At the end of the three months,
benefits kick in. Okay. You know, quit taking them. You know, I want to have kids, right?
What happens? My wife gets pregnant the very first month that she comes off those pills. Okay.
What happens? The baby dies about three or four weeks later. Now that's very heartbreaking to me
because if you've ever been through a miscarriage or you know what that's like, I mean, it's very
emotional. It's a very heartbreaking experience. Now we're very sad or depressed and, you know,
women have thoughts in their mind of, can I even have kids? Am I ever going to be able to have a
child? What's going on? You know, especially when it's the first very terrible event. And
it may not seem like a big deal, but when it happens to you, it is a big deal. Okay.
And I remember how depressing it was and how sad we were. And, you know, I began to do a little
bit of research about it. My wife began to do a little research about it. We started to look at
some of the science, started to read some books. My wife went to the library. And this is about
four or five months later. And of course the next month after that, after the miscarriage,
she became pregnant with Solomon. Okay. Well, we went down, she went down to the library,
she picked up a book and it was about abortion. She was newly saved. She'd only been saved since
a couple of weeks before we got married. And so she was still learning a lot of things about
the Bible and learning. She was coming from a very liberal worldly philosophy in Germany,
nothing to do with the Bible at all. So now she's just learning that, you know, abortion's wrong.
She's learning all these things. So she wanted to learn more. So she went down to the library,
picked up a book on abortion. And she's reading through this book on abortion. And it told her in
that book that if you take, you know, birth control pills, that birth control pills will
cause you to have early abortions in the first two weeks. Now you say, good night. I've never
heard that before. Does it matter whether you've heard it before? You know, you can go on my
website. I have a whole article about it that I wrote. I have all the science and the research
about it and different things. There's all kinds of science and research out there, but a birth
control pill, depending on what type of birth control pills you're taking, five to 60% of the
time, five to 60% of months could be causing you to have an early silent abortion that you don't
even know about, where the baby is living to be one or two weeks old and cannot implant
in the womb. And I don't have time to go into it right now, all the science. I preached on it.
My sermon's called Birth Control in Light of the Bible. And I went through and I showed the
science and I showed the Bible on the subject and I spent the whole sermon on it. But all that to
say this, I found out and I read in this research that they said that because you've taken birth
control pills, you've turned your body into kind of a killing machine because you've turned your
body into a place where when a child is conceived, it can't survive because it hardened the lining
of your uterus and that child cannot survive. And so I found out that the reason why my wife
miscarried when she got pregnant is because her womb was still a hostile environment. I mean,
her womb was still suffering from the damage that she'd done by taking those perfectly wonderful,
harmless little birth control pills that are handed out in Bible colleges across America,
that are handed out in churches and promoted by Christian so-called doctors. You know,
we didn't know. Hey, I didn't know that that was going to happen, did I?
I didn't know that there was anything wrong with it. I was going by what I'd been taught.
I didn't go by what people had told me. I was going by what people were giving me advice.
But you know, I was ignorant of the fact that my wife was taking something that was a sin against
God that was wrong. And you know what? Did God judge me for that? Well, you know what? Either
God judged me or the sin judged me by itself. But you know, I believe God was judging me,
to be honest with you, because it's not right to just ignorantly do something because somebody
tells you to do it. It's not right to just ignorantly put drugs into your body and you
don't know what they're doing. It's not right to try to tamper with God's process of where He says
He opens and closes the womb. It's not right for you to get involved in that process. And so what
happened? I sinned through ignorance, and I believe that manslaughter is what God would call that.
He doesn't call it murder because He calls murder when you intentionally kill somebody,
when you intentionally take someone's life. But what the Bible calls manslaughter is when
you accidentally take someone's life through your own wrongdoing. You know, for example,
in our legal system, if you drive through a red light, you shouldn't have done that, right?
You run over somebody, drive through a red light and kill them? Manslaughter. It's not murder.
You didn't mean to kill anybody, but it's manslaughter. You killed somebody by accident.
Hey, it's a sin against God. So what did I say? Oh, well, it wasn't my fault. Nobody told me.
It's not my sin. I didn't do anything wrong. No. What did I do? I'm gonna tell you what I did.
I got on my knees when I found that out, when I learned about that, and I said, God, I'm sorry.
I have sinned. I've done wrong. I'm not going to downplay the sin. I'm going to call it what you
call it. It's manslaughter. It's accidentally taking a human life, and I'm sorry that I did
that, God, and I promise you I will never do it again. Now ask me, let me ask you this. Do you
think that that bothers me every day? It never bothers me. It does not bother me at all.
Why? Because I've confessed and forsaken it because it's been forgiven by God.
Okay. You have guilt in your life. You have guilt of things that you've done in the past,
maybe through ignorance, maybe knowingly that you've done wrong. Hey, you need to get over it,
and this is how you get over it. You get on your knees and you admit that what you did was wrong.
You confess it to God as a sin, and you forsake it. And I'm going to tell you something. I honestly
can tell you, when I found that out, I wasn't just flippant about it. I wasn't just, oh well,
who cares? I was very grieved when I found out that I had been wrong like that. I was very sad
and upset that I felt like, and you know, I'm not going to blame my wife. It was my idea. I'm the
one who told her to do it. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't her fault. But what happened? I grieved
about it. I was upset about it. I was sad about it. I felt guilty about it as I ought to have
felt guilty when I sinned. You ought to feel guilty. You're not going to say, oh, I sinned,
who cares? No, I felt terrible about my sin as I ought to, but I got on my knees, I confessed it
to God and said, God, I'm sorry. I won't do it again. And I'm telling you, I haven't felt bad
about it since then. It doesn't cross my mind. That's a way to get over the guilt in your life.
That's a way to get the forgiveness of sins from God. Now, obviously it was all forgiven when I
got saved, but I'm saying where God will not punish me to the fullest degree, He's going to
be merciful to me. Why? Because I confessed and forsook it, and now I don't have the guilt of that.
And years and years go by, I never even think about it. It never bothers me, never grieves me,
because I've got no, you know, I've known people who will not confess their sins.
I mean, they've done something in their past that was horrible, and they will not admit it to
anybody. They won't admit it to themselves. And those people are eaten up by guilt to this day.
You know that? Don't resist when you hear the Bible preached. That's what the whole sermon's
about. Don't resist when you hear something preached that you've been doing that's a sin.
If you've sinned through ignorance, God will be more merciful to you than if you knowingly sin.
The Bible talks about sinning willfully versus sinning through ignorance. It's both a sin,
but once you know it's a sin, it becomes much worse for you to continue doing it,
according to the Bible. When you hear something preached, or more importantly,
when you're reading the Bible and you see that something is a sin in the Bible,
it's your job to say, I'm going to acknowledge that it's a sin, I'm not going to lie to myself
about it, I'm going to admit that it's wrong, I'm going to confess it is a sin, and I'm telling you
that'll take care of the guilt. When you realize Jesus paid it all for getting those things which
are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before. You ought not carry any baggage
through your life. Push the reset button right now and decide that everything that you've done
that's a sin in your past, it's over. You can't change it. But from here on out, everything you
know that's right, you're going to do what's right from now on. Everything you know. And that you're
going to try to seek and search and find more that you can change by reading the Bible. But put it
behind you. But you'll never put it behind you. You'll never put sin behind you until you admit
that it's wrong. The worst thing you can do is harden your neck and say, I wasn't wrong. It's
not a sin. Hey, live the joy of having a wife where you can go to bed at night and say, I've
confessed all my sins to God. You know, I have a clear conscience before God. Are you perfect,
Pastor Anderson? Not at all. Do you have a clear conscience before God? I'm going to go to bed
tonight, I'm going to have a clear conscience before God. Because whatever I've done wrong,
I'm going to admit to God it was wrong. Confess it to God and pray to God for strength to do better.
But let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, please help everyone in the room to
understand the sermon. It wasn't really a typical sermon for me, but God, I just pray that you'd
help everyone to understand the truth that there are a lot of sins that we ignorantly do and they
hurt you and they hurt other people and they hurt ourselves. God, cleanse thou me from secret faults,
as David said. He said, show me what I've done wrong. Search me out and find my hidden secret
sins. God, help me to be what you want me to be and do right. And God, help everyone in this room
to not live a lie where they won't admit that things are sin, God. Please help everyone in this
room to decide that whatever sins in their life, they're going to confess it to God and forsake it
and find mercy with God. And help everyone tonight. There's no reason in the world
why anyone in this room, anyone at all, shouldn't be able to go to bed tonight with a completely
clear conscience, where they confess every sin to God before bed and decide that they're going
to forsake it and pray to God to help them to forsake it and go to bed with a clear conscience.
Father, we love you and thank you so much for the...