In Paul, on Silas, I read, beginning verse number 1, Hosea 5, the Bible reads,
Hear this, O priests, hear ye this, O priests, and harken ye, house of Israel,
and give ye ear, O house of the king, for judgment is toward you, because ye have been a snare on Mizpah,
and an egg spread upon Tabor, and the revolters are proud to make slaughter,
though I have been a revuker of them all. I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hit from me,
for now, O Ephraim, thou commitest whoredom, and Israel is defiled.
They will not frame their doings to turn unto their God, for the spirit of whoredoms is in the midst of them,
and they have not known the Lord. And the pride of Israel doth testify to his face,
therefore shall Israel and Ephraim fall in their iniquity. Judah also shall fall with them.
They shall go with their flocks and with their herds to seek the Lord,
but they shall not find him, he hath withdrawn himself from them.
They have dealt treacherously against the Lord, for they have begotten strange children.
Now shall a month devour them with their portions.
Below ye the cornered and Gibeah, and the trumpet and rhema,
cry aloud at Beth Avon after thee, O Benjamin.
Ephraim shall be desolate in the day of rebuke among the tribes of Israel,
if I may known that which shall surely be.
The princes of Judah were like them that removed the bound,
therefore I would pour out my wrath upon them like water.
Ephraim is oppressed and broken in judgment, because he willingly walked after the commandment.
Therefore will I be unto Ephraim as a moth, and to the house of Judah as rottenness.
When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah saw his wound,
then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and sent to King Jareb.
Yet could he not heal you, nor cure you of your wound.
For I will be unto Ephraim as a lion, as a young lion to the house of Judah.
I, even I, will tear and go away. I will take away, and none shall rescue him.
I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offense,
and seek my face. In their affliction they will seek me early."
Let's bow our heads in that board of prayer.
Father, we thank you for the Bible, and Father, I pray that you would speak to our hearts right now,
whatever it is that you would have each person here, whatever the change that we need to make,
and there's always something in our lives that we need to change, myself included.
And so, Father, I pray that you would speak to every heart, dear God,
and show us what you have us to see from the Bible.
Open our eyes, and I give us ears to hear, and in Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
Now, the main verse that I want to preach on this morning out of Hosea chapter 5,
and there are a few different scriptures, but look at verse number 4.
God, of course, is describing the rebellion and the wickedness of the house of Ephraim and the house of Judah,
and watch what he says here in verse 4.
They will not frame their doings.
They will not frame their doings to turn unto their God,
for the spirit of whoredoms is in the midst of them, and they have not known the Lord.
Now look down at verse number 10.
The Bible reads,
The princes of Judah were like them that remove the bound.
Therefore I will pour out my wrath upon them like water.
So we see here God is describing in two ways.
You say, God, what went wrong with Ephraim?
What went wrong with Judah?
I mean, the house of Ephraim, if you remember the day that Ephraim and Manasseh were brought to Jacob, their grandfather.
Joseph brought them to him to receive the blessing from God, passed down from father to son.
And Jacob reached out his hands, and Manasseh was at his right hand, and Ephraim was at his left.
But if you remember, he guided his hands wittingly, even though he was blind.
And he put his right hand upon the head of Ephraim, and he put his left hand upon the head of Manasseh,
and he said, Manasseh shall be a great people, but Ephraim will be a greater people.
And he said, they are the thousands of Manasseh, and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim.
Hey, God blessed and multiplied Ephraim into a great nation.
But when we're in the book of Hosea, we see that Ephraim has rebelled against God.
They are under the judgment of God.
God said a little bit earlier in the chapter that he had turned away from Ephraim.
It said, look down at the end of verse 6.
He had withdrawn himself from them.
And then later on, he begins to talk about Judah.
Boy, the tribe of Judah.
This is the tribe of the lion of Judah, is what it talked about when Jacob was blessing his other sons.
And he talked about how Judah would be the prince of them, and the king David would one day come from the loins of Judah.
And it was a great tribe, and it was the one tribe that didn't rebel with the northern tribe, with Jeroboam the son of Nebat,
where they went away from the Lord and served the golden calves.
But now we see even Judah here, at this point in their history, has turned away from God.
Why? Look at verse 10.
The princes of Judah were like them that removed the bound.
They wouldn't frame their doings.
They removed the bound.
You say, what does that mean?
They didn't have any boundaries.
We're talking about having a frame within which you live your life.
You've got to frame your doings.
You need to have some boundaries in your life.
If you don't have any boundaries, if you get to the point where you have no frame, you have no limits to your behavior, to your life,
you don't have any kind of a schedule, you don't have any kind of rules in your life,
you're going to get to the point where God's going to turn on you in judgment.
You're going to destroy your life.
God said, I'll be like a moth to the house of Ephraim.
Look down at verse 12.
Just the introductions in chapter 5 and then we're going to go elsewhere.
But he says, I'll be unto Ephraim as a moth.
And to the house of Judah is rottenness.
What does that mean?
That's something that eats away at you over time.
Right?
I mean, when you see a moth, do you get scared and run the other direction?
Ah!
Or, oh man, of all the animals I wouldn't want to face, it's a moth.
I mean, spiders, lions, bears, whatever, just not a moth.
Anything but that.
No, but a moth is something that goes into your closet
and it eats away at everything you have that's valuable
and chews little holes in it and destroys it over time.
It's even rottenness.
Rottenness is something that can enter into your house, the wood of your house.
There could be rottenness inside.
It looks great on the outside.
Everything's fine on the outside, but on the inside,
rottenness is eating it away to where it's worthless and it has no ability to hold up.
The Bible talks about rottenness entering into your bones.
You think of osteoporosis, something that eats away at the fiber of your bones
and makes them brittle and weak.
God says that's the way it is with His judgment on people who remove the boundaries.
And they have no limits.
They don't have any rules.
They don't have any restraint.
And we live in a day where the lines are being blurred and erased,
the boundaries are being removed,
and it seems like we live in a society where just anything goes.
In fact, it doesn't seem like that.
That is the society we live in, a society where anything goes.
I mean, they're to the point now, and I don't even like to talk about stuff.
I don't even want to be graphic like that.
I mean, it's to the point now where the lines are so blurred,
the boundaries have been so removed.
There's no limit to what behavior is acceptable.
You go to an elementary school dressed as the opposite gender, it's fine.
I mean, think about the old-fashioned dress codes that they used to have in the public school.
And now we're to the point where a guy can put on a stinking dress and go to school,
and it's not against the dress code.
He's just a GLTB, you know, all their cute little acronyms for it.
Hey, that, my friend, is no boundary when we've come to that point.
No limit.
And I believe God is going to be like a moth and rottenness to the house of the United States
because we've removed the balance.
We've done away with any kind of a frame.
This is where we're going to stay within these boundaries.
This is the framework.
Now, if we bring this into our Christian life, though,
you know, we can rant and rave about our nation out there,
but let's bring this into our personal life here.
God says that we need to frame our doings.
Notice He didn't say, well, I'm going to frame their doings.
He said, no, the house of Israel have not framed their doings.
It's your responsibility to frame your own doings.
Now, when you're a kid, Mom and Dad frame your doings.
Mom and Dad set boundaries.
But you know what, when you're an adult, it's your responsibility to take responsibility for yourself
and say, I am going to create boundaries for my life.
Now, turn, if you would, to Genesis chapter 2 right at the beginning of your Bible.
Genesis chapter number 2.
You see, you have to have boundaries in your life.
You have to have certain lines that you're not going to cross.
You have to have a certain framework that says,
this is where I'm going to go, this is where I'm not going to go.
This is what I'm going to do, this is what I'm not going to do.
I live inside this little box right here of what is right,
and I'm not going to step outside of that framework,
and God said that we're to frame our doings in Hosea 5.4.
But look at Genesis 2.16, and I'll show you what we're talking about here.
God here is giving Adam and Eve some boundaries.
He's given them a framework here.
And it says in verse 16,
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying,
Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat,
but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat a bit,
for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Now, that's funny, Brother Colby pointed out to me last week,
remember when I was preaching last week and I said,
the first command in the Bible is be fruitful and multiply and be fair and mysterious.
Remember I said that? That's true.
But Brother Colby taught me something.
He said that actually, even though that's the first command in the Bible,
that chronologically that command was given to mankind after this command.
Because here we have a review in chapter 2 where he goes back
and he's just talking to the man, right?
And then he creates the woman a little later,
and when he blessed him and said be fruitful and multiply,
he said to the man and the woman.
So thank you for showing me that, Brother Colby.
But I was still right that it was the first command in the Bible.
But it wasn't the first command given to mankind.
But in 2008, you pick up the Bible, that's the first command you're going to come to.
But anyway, here we see God right away, right away, creating some boundaries.
Now look, God's boundaries are not restrictive.
I mean, God's, I mean, good night.
He gives him a whole garden, all manner of trees, all manner of plants,
and he just says, just don't eat one.
Now is God very restrictive?
I mean, he just says, look, I'm not going to tell you what to eat.
Oh, God, what should I have for breakfast?
Oh, what do I have for lunch?
He says, I don't care.
Eat whatever you want.
What do you want to eat, Adam?
I mean, do you really think God cares what I eat for lunch today?
I don't.
But there are some boundaries and things that he probably doesn't want me to eat or drink.
But I don't think he's up there caring whether I eat Panda Express or Chipotle or whatever.
I mean, I think it's all the same.
I think it's just he wants me to eat what I want to eat.
And that's what he says to Adam.
First thing he said, of all the trees in the garden, I may as freely eat.
He says, I want you to make your own choices.
I'm not trying to make you a slave or a puppet or a robot.
I want you to have freedom.
I want you to have liberty.
God said, I want man to be free.
And that's why the first command that I give him is going to include the word freedom in it.
It's going to say, of all the trees in the garden, I may as freely eat.
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, I may as not eat.
There's a boundary there.
See, the freest people in the world have boundaries.
I mean, the people who live in freedom, they still have boundaries in their life.
But they live in freedom.
You see, boundaries and frames and rules are not something to enslave you or put you into bondage
or to have other people controlling you.
Many people try to abuse that.
There are dictatorships across this world and countries where the government
and our country is getting this way, believe it or not,
and it's turning into a police state around us.
But there are countries across the world where they tell you everything, what to do, what not to do.
I mean, they're practically running your life.
They're telling you what to do for a living.
They're taking all your money and taxes and spending it for you.
And they're very abusive.
The Bible calls them tyrants.
The Bible calls them whatever calls them.
There's another word on top of my tongue.
He calls them tyrants, you know, slave masters.
He calls it bondage.
There are churches who put people into bondage.
The worst way they do that is when they tell them that salvation is by works.
Now they're telling them you've got to do this, this, and this to even go to heaven.
When the Bible says it's the gift of God, not works, thus any man should boast.
And so another way that churches will put people in bondage,
I've been in churches where the pastor was very oppressive and he wanted to run people's personal lives.
Now, let me explain something to you quickly.
There are three kingdoms in this world, quote, unquote.
There is the kingdom of the nation.
You know, a nation is a kingdom, you know, one realm.
Then we have the family is kind of its own little kingdom, okay?
And then there's the church is its own kingdom, okay?
Now, you have to understand that these are three separate kingdoms.
We don't believe that the state or the country or the nation should be ruling over the church, do we?
Do we believe that the state should be telling me what to preach and what to do?
We don't believe the state should rule over the church, okay?
We also don't believe that a church should rule over the state either.
We don't believe that, okay?
We don't believe that the state should rule my family, okay?
I mean, when I go into my house, I'm the king of that kingdom.
I'm the king of that castle.
What I do in my house is my business, okay?
How I rear my kids is my business.
What I do with my time is my business, not Uncle Sam's.
And by the way, we don't believe in a family or a person ruling the church.
Jesus is the head of the church, okay?
But at the same time, we don't believe in the church running your family, okay?
And this is where we lose a lot of people, okay?
We don't think it's right for the pastor or anybody from this church to go to your house and say,
you can't do that. This is what you can do.
We don't like what you have in your house.
Hey, your house is your house. The church is your...
You say, well, don't you believe in pastoral authority?
I believe in pastoral authority in church.
You want to know where my authority is?
I decide who preaches behind this pulpit.
I decide what kind of music we have.
I basically run the service here, the assembly here.
But you know, when you walk out that door, hey, you're your own person,
and Pastor Anderson's not going to babysit you and follow you around and tell you what to do,
because you know what? It's your job to frame your own doings
and to set your own boundaries in your life according to God's Word.
That's the way things are supposed to run.
I don't want Uncle Sam running my life. I don't want a local church running my family.
I don't want a family running this church.
I don't want one family running the government.
I don't want the church to run the government.
I don't want the government to run the church.
God has ordained these separate kingdoms. There are three of them.
In the Old Testament, there was the nation and the family.
In the New Testament, he added the church.
But there are three separate kingdoms that must be kept separate,
and the boundaries must be in place.
But there are churches, governments, and people who want to put other people into bondage.
That's not what we're talking about.
It's about you picking up the Bible yourself, reading God's laws, God's commandments,
and Jesus is going to make you do it.
He said, if you love me, keep my commandments.
And you're to look at the Bible, and you are to frame your doings and to make rules for yourself.
And when you hear me preach about something, you decide whether it's out of the Bible or not,
because I back up everything I preach from the Bible.
You decide for yourself whether it's in the Bible, and you frame your doings.
I'm not going to frame them for you.
When you're a kid, mom and dad frame them for you.
But when you grow up, be a man and frame your own doings.
When you're in the military, somebody else is setting all your boundaries, framing your doings.
But when you get out of the military, it's anything goes, right?
Whoo, whatever, man, whatever you want to do.
No, you frame your own doings now.
You make your own boundaries.
You make your own rules for yourself.
And base them on God's Word, by the way.
The Bible says in Exodus 19-12, you don't have to turn there,
And thou shalt set bounds unto the people, speaking to Moses, round about, saying,
Take heed to yourselves that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it.
Whosoever touches the mount shall be surely put to death.
He's saying, look, there's a fruit that I don't want you to eat in the garden.
There's a place that I don't want you to go.
It's the mount of God in Mount Sinai.
There are places that you shouldn't go.
There are things that you shouldn't eat or drink or touch.
Hey, you've got to have boundaries and limits in your life.
Now, there are biblical rules and biblical boundaries and biblical limits.
And I'll talk about those in a minute.
But not only that, I have some boundaries and some limits that I've set for myself in my life
that are not even found in the Bible.
These are just personal rules that I have for myself,
framework, framing my doings, boundaries that I live by.
For example, here are some things that I have in my life,
and these aren't necessarily the Bible.
There are certain foods that I don't ever eat.
I don't eat them.
Now, it's not because it's the standard.
The Bible says no.
But the Bible says all things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient.
All things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.
So personally, there are certain restaurants I don't eat at.
I don't mess with most fast food places and everything.
And I'm not saying it's a sin. I'm not saying it's wrong.
I'm just saying I discipline myself in the area of food.
I don't want to eat junk.
I don't want to hurt my body.
That's just something I do.
It's not something where the Bible is commanding me this, this, this.
It's just me framing my own doings.
Number two, I don't watch any TV ever for any reason.
Now, you say, well, show me that in the Bible.
No, the Bible doesn't flat out tell you anywhere
you can never watch any kind of TV ever at all.
Where does the Bible say that? No word.
But you know what?
I have a rule for myself where I never watch.
I haven't watched TV at all.
I mean, I haven't sat and watched it for 30 seconds.
I mean, I'm serious, for like over five years or something.
I mean, I never watch TV for any reason.
That's my own personal boundary that I've set for myself.
You say, why did you set that?
Because the Bible says I will set no wicked thing before my eyes.
You say, well, isn't there something on TV that's good?
Isn't there something you can find that's wholesome?
You know what? I'm sure that you could find something wholesome,
something that's okay on there.
I'm sure you could find watching lions walk around
or you could find something on TV,
somebody cooking who's not wearing a little cut blouse
or using profanity or dumping in wine and everything
and drinking a glass of wine while she's cooking and stuff.
You go ahead and search through the garbage can of the television.
You can wade waist high in that cesspool
and dig around and find that one program that's okay and you watch it.
But I got a personal rule for myself that I never watch TV for any reason
because 99% of it is smut and garbage.
And most people, they say, well, if you can't control it, get rid of it.
That's everybody.
That's everybody if you can't control it.
Here's the thing about TV. You don't control it.
Somebody down at ABC is controlling it.
Somebody down at NBC is controlling it.
Somebody down at CBS is controlling it.
You say, well, is the internet wrong?
No, here's the difference with the internet.
You control the internet, but the TV is not under your control.
The internet is like walking into a library.
You choose which aisle you go down.
I go on the internet. I go on welshfargo.com and do my banking.
I check my email.
Hey, I go to a really good website. It's called faithfulwordbaptist.org.
Hey, there's some good stuff on the internet.
I can't find anything good on TV because it's not controlled by you.
It's not controlled by me.
The internet's controlled by me. It's called my website.
But you know what? Nothing on TV is controlled by me.
Nothing on TV is controlled by God's people.
I said it before, and I'll say it again.
If you want to dive headfirst into the sewage of TV
and keep swimming and buying something good
and take it out and brush it off and clean it up and watch it, go ahead.
I'm just telling you about my personal rule.
I mean that from the bottom of my heart.
I don't think the machine is wrong, the TV,
but I'm not going to have one because it's too dangerous for me.
Maybe you've come to this level where you can control it. Go ahead.
But I'm not saying TV is a sin, quote, unquote,
but I'm telling you right now, I don't watch any TV.
And I think that a lot of smart people have that exact same rule that I have.
But see, that's me making rules for myself.
You say, well, does your mom and dad prohibit you from TV? No.
When you went to Bible college, did they ever rule against TV? No.
Is it your wife? She doesn't let you watch TV? No.
That's me making my own boundaries.
I don't want to end up like Ephraim. I don't want to end up like Judah.
I'm going to frame my doings.
Even things that are not in the Bible.
Let me give you another example of something that's not in the Bible
that I have a rule for myself.
Business ethics.
You're not going to find certain business ethics in the Bible.
But I have certain rules for my ethics in business.
We were talking about this recently.
Somebody said something to me about taking a bid
that I've gotten from a company that's very specific
and laid out exactly the parts, the size, the materials and everything.
Taking that bid and showing it to another company saying,
can you beat this? Okay.
And it was somebody who didn't know that much about
the inner workings of business and everything,
and they just thought that would be the normal thing to do.
But I told them, that's actually unethical to do that.
I said, when you get bids on something,
you should get bids from separate people,
have them do their own research, their own work.
But when you show one bid of somebody to another person,
now you're giving them details into the inner workings of this other company.
You're giving them an edge, and that's not right.
I said, I don't do that.
I think that's unethical to do that.
It's called bid shopping or bid chiseling.
And it's funny, I just said, no, you can't do that.
That's not good. That's not the right way to do it.
You've got to just get separate bids from people, compare them and then choose.
You're not supposed to show one person's detailed bid to somebody else.
And those of you who are not really in the construction industry,
that might not mean a lot to you.
And it's funny, because then I was on an airplane three days later,
and I had to go take a contractor's license in another state,
and I was reading the book, the law book, because I had to take the law exam,
and I was flipping through it, and I got to a page called Business Ethics,
and it described that exact thing and said that that's not ethical.
It said, you can find ways to justify it, but it said that's not right to do that.
And I was thinking, wow, that's interesting.
That was the kind of rule that I had thought about it, and I said,
I don't think I should be doing that.
And then I saw it in this book where it flat out said,
in the industry, that's considered bad ethics.
Now, is that in the Bible?
I'm sure you can find principles in the Bible about doing business and so forth,
and I don't know everything there is to know about the Bible,
but I didn't really get that from the Bible.
That's just rules that I have for myself.
And it might be a rule just about what time you get up in the morning.
That's not something that's mandated by God, but I'm going to tell you something.
We live in a day where people just don't have any restraint on themselves.
They don't have any boundaries. They have no schedule, no limit.
It's just like this. If it feels good, do it. Anything goes.
It's kind of like the situational ethics.
Well, I think this is okay. This seems okay.
That's not the way I want to live.
I want to live by rules and guidelines and boundaries,
and freedom is not no rules.
Freedom is making your own rules. That's what freedom is.
Freedom isn't no boundaries.
Freedom is making your own boundaries
and not having somebody else enslaving you and making all your boundaries.
But God's not a slave master because God's rules.
The Bible says, for this is the love of God that we keep His commandments,
and His commandments are not grievous.
His commandments are not a pain in the neck.
His commandments will make you happier and better off
than going by the world's philosophy of anything goes.
The philosophy of the 1960s, quote unquote, free love.
No, it wasn't free love because the love of God is that we keep His commandments.
Love is when you do what's right and don't hurt other people.
No, it was free fornication, free drugs, free sin and filth.
And that philosophy is the philosophy that prevails.
All those bunch of dopeheads and weirdos from the 60s and 70s,
they're the ones who are in office right now.
That's what's wrong with America.
All those bunch of potheads, all those bunch of freako hippies,
they're the ones who are running our country right now.
They're the ones who are running for office right now.
It used to be like, oh man, did Bill Clinton smoke pot?
Well, you know, he just puffed, but he didn't hit.
Now, one of the guys who's running for president right now said in his book,
he tried all kinds of drugs all throughout college,
he experimented with all drugs.
I mean, that's how far we've come in the last 12 years.
Between being outraged by Bill Clinton puffing on a joint
versus this guy deciding all kinds of drugs and nobody even cares,
nobody even brings it up.
I mean, who's even heard of that? Who even heard that mentioned in this election?
Nobody.
You know, I heard part of the book on tape.
That's how I know it.
Nobody cares. It doesn't matter, because we've got no boundaries.
We've got no rules.
We've got no frame that we live within.
Here's another rule that I set for myself that's not necessarily in the Bible.
I don't pal around with people of the opposite gender.
You know what I mean?
Like, I'm not the oldest of the same.
You know, I don't get in the car and drive around with some other woman.
It's not my wife or not my relative.
Well, is it a sin? I don't care if it's a sin.
I'm not going to give provision to the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof, number one.
And number two, I don't want to abstain from all appearance of evil.
And so I don't go out on lunches with my female friends.
You know, hey, let's go have lunch together.
Let's go get in the car and go for a drive.
No. I have a rule that says no.
And you ought to have rules in your life.
I'm not trying to make your rules.
The Bible's got rules.
Make your own rules and live by them and follow them and live by them.
Look if you would at...
Where are you?
Exodus? Genesis?
Turn to Deuteronomy 19.
I don't want to take you too far away from where you are, you know.
Deuteronomy 19.
Now we're going to talk about some rules and some boundaries that are in the Bible.
Deuteronomy 19, 14, the Bible reads,
Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor's landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance,
which thou shalt inherit in the land that the Lord thy God giveth thee to possess it.
Look at Deuteronomy 27, 17, just a few pages to the right in your Bible.
Deuteronomy 27, 17,
Cursed be he that removeth his neighbor's landmark,
and all the people shall say Amen.
I'll read this for you, you don't have to turn there.
Proverbs 22, 28,
Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.
Proverbs 23, 10,
Remove not the old landmark, and enter not into the fields of the fatherless.
Isaiah 10, 13,
For he saith, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom,
for I am prudent, and I have removed the bounds of the people,
and have robbed their treasures, and I have put down the inhabitants like a valiant man.
See, in the old times, they had what's called a landmark.
And this landmark was a boundary around their property.
And so, way back in the old days, it's in the ancient landmark.
This is when they delineated the land for the children of Israel in the book of Joshua.
And they doled out the land to different families and different people.
Well, they had to know where this guy's boundary was, where his land is,
and it wasn't necessarily 100% fenced in.
So they used a landmark.
A landmark was a big, giant stone that was very heavy, so it wasn't going to move around a lot.
And so they would set that and say, okay, this is where my property stops,
and this is where your property begins.
Well, the Bible says some people would remove those ancient landmarks.
They might go over there, maybe just a little bit.
And you think that they just moved it all in one day? No.
They'd go over there and maybe just move it a few feet, you know.
A couple weeks later, move it a couple more.
A couple weeks later, and their land's just getting bigger and bigger.
And the other guy's land is getting smaller and smaller.
You know, wasn't the property live? No, I mean, the landmark's right here.
That's my property.
And so he's talking about people being deceptive,
people being thieves and stealing other people's property by removing.
The word remove in the Bible is really more like our word move.
When it says remove, it doesn't mean pick it up and it's just gone.
We would think it takes them away.
The word remove, if you look it up in an older dictionary,
it means to move the landmark and to remove it out of its place to a new place.
And so people would move these ancient landmarks a little bit at a time.
Well, let me tell you something.
When it comes to morality, when it comes to decency,
when it comes to right and wrong, God has set some real ancient landmarks.
I mean, the rock of the Bible, the landmark.
Our moral compass is right here in the Bible.
And that landmark tells us, no matter how society changes,
I mean, think about that old landmark.
Trees might grow, trees might be cut down, grass grows, grass is cut down.
Crops are planted, other crops, it floods, it rains, it snows, it fades, it hails.
But the landmark never moves because it's that big, giant rock that doesn't move.
And it's been there for a long time. It's ancient.
This landmark right here never changes.
I'm not talking about climate change now. I'm not talking about global warming.
I'm talking about the moral and spiritual climate is changing.
The only global warming I believe in is when the fourth trumpet is blown
and God scorches men with heat from the sun.
That's going to be global warming.
That's in the book of Revelation, chapter number 8, I believe.
Yeah, chapter number 8.
When the fourth trumpet is blown, you read all about global warming.
He just sent it to Al Gore, sent him a postcard and write all the verses and say,
You're right. Here's an inconvenient truth, Al Gore.
You're going to be burned up one day
and the whole world's going to be warmed up so hot that people are going to be cursing God
because it's going to be burning their skin.
Now, the Bible's got some landmarks.
It doesn't matter what society does. It doesn't matter what churches do.
It doesn't matter what nations do. The Bible stays the same.
There are some people that will take this landmark and move it.
Try to twist it and move it around and everything.
And there are some boundaries that God has set in the Bible.
I've seen them move in my lifetime.
I'm a young man. I've seen those boundaries moved.
I've seen those limits removed.
I've seen the landmark move a little bit at a time.
And right now, people walk into a church like this, sometimes they say,
Whoa, man, this guy's crazy.
You know what? It's not me that changed.
It's not the Bible that changed.
Good night, this Bible, almost 400 years now.
We have the same exact Bible.
And even before that, the Bible that they had before that,
the bishop's Bible wasn't much different at all.
Pretty much the same Bible for decades.
All the way back to William Tyndale, translated into English.
Pretty much the same Bible.
Almost no difference between that and the King James.
The Bible's 400 years old and older than that.
I'm talking about this even English translation of it.
The Bible didn't change.
I didn't change.
Independent fundamental Baptists maybe have changed,
but I didn't change and the Bible didn't change.
And so you've got to understand that when people try to move these landmarks,
they move them a little bit at a time.
It's a gradual thing.
Let me give you some boundaries.
Here's a good boundary.
Look at Deuteronomy 22.5.
Here's a boundary that the people have changed and people have moved.
Deuteronomy 22.5.
How about the roles of men and women?
You better know that boundary's been moving for a long time.
Just in the last year and a half in Brazil,
the Baptists in Brazil have decided that women preachers are allowed.
They decided that.
I mean, the Baptist denomination in Brazil,
because they're all kind of part of this denomination,
which I don't believe in, by the way.
We're independent.
Baptist with a capital I for independent.
We were out soloing yesterday.
You were with me.
And I said, we're independent Baptists.
They're like, well, are you G.A.R.B., though, or are you B.B.F.?
I said, no, we're real independent Baptists.
We're not tied in with anybody.
I said, we are independent independent.
And so, but anyway, these Baptists in Brazil talk about moving the landmark.
Women preachers being ordained in Baptist churches.
I mean, we know the Episcopalian church got a woman preacher.
We're not surprised that the United Methodist got a lesbian preacher.
We're not surprised that they're ordaining all these other Protestant,
dead as a doornail denominations from hell,
that they're ordaining women preachers.
But Baptists now, ordaining women preachers in Brazil.
It's coming to the United States.
You mark my words.
One day, and maybe it already is.
Maybe I'm back with someone.
I don't know.
Maybe there already is some woman preacher some way preaching in Baptist church.
Hey, it's not going to happen in this church,
because we believe in the old-time landmark that says,
I suffer not a woman to usurp authority over the man,
but to be in silence.
Why is it so quiet the way the women are talking?
A man can still save him.
But hey, I'm telling you something.
That wasn't even questioned before,
because that landmark was in a different place.
But now we've moved the landmark.
I heard some Baptist, some compromiser, some liberal Baptist told me,
he said, well, that's talking about speaking in tongues.
What?
So women have to be silent if they're speaking Spanish and German and Italian,
but as soon as it gets to English, they've got to be silent.
What is wrong with you?
I mean, I can't even understand.
You must be lobotomized to think that.
Oh, I was talking about speaking in tongues.
You've got to look at the context of the chapter.
You know what the chapter is about?
The chapter is about things being done decently and in order.
That's what the last verse of 1 Corinthians 14 says.
It says, let all things be done decently and in order.
It says you shouldn't have a whole bunch of different people preaching in one service.
You shouldn't have a whole bunch of people getting up and saying whatever they want.
He said there needs to be order.
He said the spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets.
Somebody doesn't need to pop up and say, oh, I just thought of something.
Sit down and shut up.
I'm preaching.
That's the way it is here.
But anyway, if you think about something, it says tell us later.
He said everybody's got their own psalm, their own Bible verse, their own sermon that they want to preach.
You've got to have some order.
He said you're having all different languages in one service.
He said you need to do it in one service.
The most possible languages you should ever have in one service is two or three,
and you need to have somebody who's translating for them.
Not all this United Nations or something where you've got 50 different translators in 50 different languages
and 50 different preachers getting up and doing popcorn preaching one after the other.
He said not only that, you've got a bunch of women that are talking in church.
They're getting up and preaching.
They're getting up and asking questions in the middle of the service.
He said if they have a question, this is just my summarization of 1 Corinthians 14 if you didn't figure it out.
If they have a question, let them ask their husband at home.
We need to have order.
We can't have chaos.
We need to have men leading in church.
Men should be in authority.
Men should be doing the speaking.
Women should sit and listen.
During the preaching, that is to learn in silence.
Obviously they sing out and they can talk during other parts of the service.
But during the preaching, he said they're to learn in silence.
We're not to have all these different languages, all this different stuff.
He said it needs to be decent and in order.
That's the context.
That's the truth.
Women have no place behind the pulpit.
He said do you believe in women preachers?
Yes, I do.
Out at the door on soul winning.
Out at the door preaching the gospel to every creature.
That's what I believe in.
But do I believe in women pastors?
No.
Do I believe in women prophesying in the local church?
We get so mixed up about the word prophesy.
Everybody thinks that the word prophesy means to tell the future.
That's not what it means.
The word prophecy in the New Testament means preaching.
Somebody wrote me an email this week and said you have perverted.
I listened to your sermon that was against speaking in tongues.
And they said you perverted and twisted the word of God by saying that prophet means preacher and that prophesy means preacher.
First thing that popped into my mind was Proverbs 31.
Remember?
Now we know really who's been memorizing this.
Proverbs 31.
The words of King Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother taught him.
Tell me what's predicted in that chapter, future event.
What's the future event?
The virtuous woman's going to get up tomorrow morning and give meat to her household?
Is that a prophecy?
No.
So when he says the prophecy that his mother taught him, it's preaching.
It's not always.
Now when you're preaching God's word, many times God is telling us of future events.
So if I'm prophesying or preaching out of the book of Revelation, I'm talking about things that are going to happen in the future.
But a prophecy is not always a telling of the future.
Do you see what I'm saying?
If you need proof on that, just read Proverbs 31.
He said this is prophecy.
He doesn't predict one thing.
He says that the virtuous woman, her characteristics, he preaches against drinking, he preaches against letting people be killed and nobody does anything about it.
He goes on and on and preaches many different doctrines.
But I'm going to tell you something.
That's what prophesying is.
That's what preaching is.
Women are not to prophesy.
Women are not to be speaking in church.
But you know what?
You say, well I'm a woman and I just want to preach.
I just want to open my Bible and preach.
You know what?
Be here at 4.30 and go out soul-willing.
And you can go preach the gospel to whoever you want.
In fact, women are, you say, you believe in women to preach?
I believe women are commanded to preach.
Look at Acts chapter 2.
Keep your finger in Deuteronomy 22 because I haven't read it yet.
Look at Acts chapter 2.
Let me show you the command.
Let me show you the command for women to preach.
Now again, we're not talking about in church because women are supposed to keep silence
in the church and learn in silence.
We're talking about out in the highways in Hades.
Now in Acts chapter 2, 120 people were out soul-willing.
Men and women.
They had 3,000 people saved and baptized.
Okay?
A lot of people mistakenly think that Peter preached and 3,000 people got saved.
That's not what happened.
Read the chapter.
120 people were doing the preaching in all different languages and 3,000 people got saved
and baptized.
But look down at verse number 16.
They're out soul-willing.
They're outside.
They're in the streets.
They're preaching the gospel to the people that were at Jerusalem gathered.
It says,
But this, talking about the soul-willing that was going on,
this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel.
And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God,
I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh.
And your sons, watch this,
and your daughters shall prophesy.
Do you see that?
And your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams,
and on my servants and on my hand maidens,
that's female,
I will pour out in those days of my spirit and they shall prophesy.
Do you see that?
That took place in Acts chapter 2 when those women were out winning people to Christ,
one on one.
Yes, it did.
I get so tired of people saying,
Well, Peter preached and 3,000 people got saved.
No.
No, that's not what happened.
Peter preached to the men who were from Jerusalem.
He says that seven times in his sermon
that he's talking to men that live at Jerusalem only,
who were raised there.
But there were 119 other people speaking at least 17 other languages
preaching that all these people that were gathered at Jerusalem,
from all their men,
and the whole day they had 3,000 people saved.
Peter wasn't some televangelist.
It was a group effort of 120 people, men and women,
rolling up their sleeves, out preaching to everybody, winning souls.
One person doesn't get 3,000 people saved in one day.
Take the break, do you?
Even Jesus didn't even do that.
I mean, when Jesus sent them out two by two into all the towns and villages,
when they gathered together, he looked on the crowd.
Did he get up and preach to them and lead them in the sinner's prayer?
No.
He said, man, we need more laborers to get all these people saved.
Because the best way to get people saved is one-on-one.
I mean, it just is.
I've stood up in front of a crowd of people.
I've preached, and I've went through the Gospel
just as plain as you could and clear,
and then I walk up to people afterward
after I just went through it for 45 minutes,
preaching and illustrations.
I walked up to them and started giving them the Gospel.
They didn't have a clue.
I went through it with them one-on-one, and then they got saved.
But they're like, you walk up to them after a sermon like that,
they're like, yeah, I think I'm going to have a pretty good person.
You're like, ah, I am now.
I just preached to you for 45 minutes for an hour.
One-on-one was good enough for Jesus.
Oh, we've got to get all these thousands of people saved.
Hey, it starts with getting one person saved.
And then they get somebody saved.
And then you get a thousand saved.
I don't have time to talk to somebody one-on-one.
What?
How many people are you trying to win in the Lord, man?
Win one person in the Lord today, and you'll be doing pretty good.
And if you win somebody tomorrow, you'll be doing great.
That's a boundary that God has set.
He said, look, women are not supposed to be preaching.
Women are not supposed to be an authority,
whether that be the President of the United States,
whether that be the Speaker of the House of Representatives,
whether that be the Senate or the House or the Mayor or Governor Janet,
or whoever you want to name out,
none of these women should be in charge.
They shouldn't be the boss.
You say, well, you're crazy.
You're old-fashioned.
You're a show biz.
No, I've just got the right landmark.
You've been going to move the landmark Baptist Church.
This is old-time, ancient landmark Baptist Church.
But not only that, were we in Deuteronomy 22-5?
Look down if you would at Deuteronomy 22-5.
Watch God's boundary in place.
It hasn't moved.
Good night.
It says the same thing it said years ago when I read it.
It's man alive.
That is like the Rock of Gibraltar.
The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man.
Neither shall a man put on a woman's garment,
for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God.
In 1 Corinthians 11, there's a whole chapter
that tells you the length that you're supposed to have your hair.
Men, short.
Women, long hair.
You say, well, how short?
How long?
Hey, frame your own doings.
Make your own boundaries.
God's not trying to tell you exactly what hairstyle to have,
but he's telling you don't make it long if you're a man
and don't make it short if you're a woman.
Well, how short is short?
How long is long?
Hey, I'm going to make my hair as short as I can
because I don't even want to be close to the line
of what's too long.
Am I in danger of having my hair too long this morning, do you think?
No.
But do I think everybody has to have the same length hair as me?
No, not at all.
And I've never walked up to anybody and told them to get a haircut, ever.
We had a guy that came to our church for a long time,
and he's still comfortable, but he came for a long time
with long hair all the way down his back.
Did I ever approach him and tell him one time to get a haircut?
Never.
But, you know, I preached the Bible,
and as I was preaching through the Bible,
I came to the point in my sermon where I was preaching on long hair,
and I didn't preach on it because he was here
and I didn't want to offend him.
Yeah, right.
I got to preach the Word.
I preached it to him, and a couple weeks later,
he came back with short hair, came back with a haircut.
But that was his decision.
Nobody made him do that.
Nobody told him that.
He framed his own doings.
He got it from God.
He got it from the Word of God.
He got it from the preaching of God's Word.
And I'm not telling you how short to have your hair as a man.
I'm not telling you how long to have your hair as a woman.
That's none of my business.
But I'm telling you, you frame your doings.
You better have a boundary and say,
well, this is as long as I'm a man.
This is as long as I'm going to have it.
That's a boundary that I'm setting here,
and it's based on God's Word telling me
that I'm going to have short hair.
I'm going to set that boundary for myself.
Or if you're a woman, hey, this is as short as I go,
you know, right here.
Make your own boundary, but just be careful in that thing
that you allow that you're not crossing the line.
And so look down.
Here we're talking about clothing.
So not only hair length is mandated in the Bible.
There's a boundary.
The boundaries between male and female are being eroded.
Somebody said to me, and I'm just
going to come out and say it right now.
If you want to know what clothing pertains to a man,
go look at the bathroom door.
And you know, Pastor Anderson's not
the one that designed the universal symbol
for a man and a woman.
You know, I believe that men should wear pants.
The pants are mentioned five times in the Bible,
always on men.
And I believe women should wear skirts and dresses.
I believe that that is the right clothing for a man and woman
from the Bible, from the bathroom door,
all the way to society.
Hey, it's right and right's still right
and wrong's still wrong.
And somebody said to me the other day,
a preacher said to me, he said, preaching against pants
on women is outdated, he said.
I said, OK, why?
Is it because we have even more of a problem with people
that are blurring the genders?
Is it because we've got even more unisex?
We need less distinction in the genders coming
across the pulpit?
If anything, we need more distinction in 2008.
If anything, we should be sharpening the division
between male and female.
If there were ever a time in the history of the world
for a man to dress like a man and a woman
to dress like a woman, it's 2008 in the United States
of America.
Because you don't want to be any doubt about where
you stand in this thing.
And there's a war going on.
And I'm not talking about the war in Iraq.
I'm talking about the war that's going on in the United States.
The war where you know it's really taking over?
It's not the Muslims.
It's not the terrorists.
It's the sodomites that are taking over.
Do you want to know who the real enemy is?
I wish we could put a rifle in your hand
and send you out against the real enemy.
Hey, the real enemy's these bunch of sodomites
that are taking over America.
They're taking over the schools.
They're teaching it in the public schools.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is mandating.
You don't like that, do you?
Arnold Schwarzenegger's a queer.
I'll prove it to you after the service.
Arnold Schwarzenegger's a sodomite.
The governor of California, he's teaching queer stuff
in the California public schools.
Go out and you say, where'd you get that, some kook website?
I got that off the governor's website,
stateofcalifornia.gov slash governor.
Hey, I went on there and I read how he made a rule
and they passed a law in California
that says that you can't even use as a teacher
the words husband and wife in the classroom.
They used the word partner.
They're not allowed because that's discrimination
because some people don't have a mom and a dad
and husband and wife, and they made a law
that you can have two prom queens and two prom kings.
Hey, I didn't get that off some kook mass email.
I got that off the governor of California's website.
I watched the video clip on his website
of him talking about the bill,
see me after the service, I'll guide you to it,
I'll point you to it.
It's true!
And that's our next door neighbor.
That's the state of Arizona's hero.
That's their role model, California.
And we got all these people moving from
Los Angeles into Arizona.
Great, come on over, but leave the bunch of queers
back in California where they belong.
And I can rip on California because I'm from California.
I'm from Sacramento, California,
the land of fruits and nuts.
But hey, if anything, man,
we ought to be fighting back.
Hey, we ought to be shoring up the lines
and say, hey, I'm going to be a man!
Hey, I'm going to talk like a man!
I'm going to dress like a man!
I'm going to preach like a man!
Who's going to share with you guys this morning?
I'm going to lay down my heart.
You're not going to share anything.
I don't even believe in sharing.
I'm not a communist.
I watch Barney and Friends.
I don't believe in sharing.
I believe in owning my own stuff.
And I'm not going to share anything with you.
Hey, I'm going to preach it to you!
And I'm going to dress like a man,
talk like a man, walk like a man,
act like a man.
You want to take me shopping after the service
and buy me some clothes?
Don't take me to Urban Outfitter.
Don't take me to Abercrombie & Fitch.
Don't take me down to the mall.
Take me down to the Dickies Outlet,
the Carhartts.
Take me down to some uniform store somewhere.
I'm going to get the manliest,
most non-decorated, non-feminine clothing
I can find and put it on.
And that's my fashion statement,
one statement I'm trying to make on the man.
And if I were a lady, I'd say,
man, I'm going to dress like a lady.
I'm going to be proud.
Hey, Pastor Andrew's a feminist this morning.
Woman power.
All right?
Woman power.
You go, girl.
Oh, we can do it, right?
You know, like the old poster?
You can do it.
Woman power.
Dress like a woman.
Talk like a woman.
Act like a woman.
I'm for women's rights,
the right to dress like a woman
and not be told by society
that you're supposed to dress like a man,
that you're supposed to starve yourself
and become so skinny
that your body looks like the body of a man.
Our society that wants you to be emaciated
and they want you to dress like a man,
they want you to go to work like a man,
stand up for your women's rights,
the right to stay home and rear your kids,
the right to be feminine and godly and decent,
the right not to be sleazy,
not to put your body on display for men.
Hey, I'm for women's rights.
Get out of the workforce.
Get out of men's pants.
Get out of men's clothes.
Get out of men's roles in society.
Get out of government
and go where you belong,
where you can celebrate.
Hey, listen to what's coming out of Pastor Anise's mouth.
Celebrate femininity.
Glory to God.
Be a woman.
I'm glad I'm a man.
Who's a man in the room today?
And you're glad you're a man.
Put up your hand.
Okay, who's a woman here
and you're glad that you're not a man?
You're glad you're a woman.
Okay.
Right?
Anybody not glad?
So why does he act like it?
That's all I'm saying, okay?
Hey, frame your own doings.
But this is what I believe.
This is what the Bible says.
But not only that,
look at Proverbs 29, 15.
Removing the ancient landmarks
is what we're talking about.
The landmarks that differentiate
between male and female
is a big one that's moving right now.
Removing the ancient landmarks,
what do they do?
They change the Bible a little bit every year.
Did you know that in order for me
to copyright a new Bible version,
listen carefully to this.
In order for me to copyright
a new translation of the Bible,
let's say I want to come out
with the Steven Anderson version,
the S-A-V.
Okay?
Saved.
S-A-V-D.
That's what we'll call it.
The Steven Anderson version
dynamic edition.
Saved.
All right?
That's my new Bible version.
You know, and whether it's
the N-A-S, the R-S-V,
the H-I-B, the N-I-B, the S-T-D,
whatever Bible version
that they come out with,
did you know that in order
for me to copyright
that Bible version
and make some money out of it,
that's what it's all about.
Cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching.
It's got to be 4% different
than any other Bible version
on the market.
Did you know that?
That's just the law.
That's copyright law
in the United States.
If I were to come out with the S-A-V,
it better be 4% different
than the N-I-V,
4% different than the N-A-S,
4% different than the N-L-T,
4% different than the E-S-V,
4% different than the N-A-G-V,
4% different, you know, whatever.
From the M-I-C-K-E-Y-M-O-U-S-E,
it's got to be different.
But listen, if you got
412 versions in English
that are all 4% different
from one another, that's scary.
That's a scary thought.
Oh, but Pastor Anderson,
you're divisive.
You think that's going to bring unity?
412 different versions?
That's not...
Unity is one.
Remember the first two letters
of the word unity?
Uno?
Okay, that's three letters,
I know, but uno?
Unity, uno, who speaks Spanish?
It's one who plays the card game.
It means one, okay?
It means you have one card
left in your hand.
And so unity comes from one Bible.
But this landmark,
this ancient landmark,
where God just tablets of stone
and then translated and copied
and copied and passed down
and preserved and
heaven and earth shall pass away,
but my word shall not pass away.
Pass down, pass down, pass down,
pass down, pass down.
Like a rock.
And then the modern preacher
comes up and says,
New King James.
New American Standard.
You know, because we're getting
further and further away
as I list these.
NIV.
The Living Bible.
The Message.
And then we get all the way
over to the Bible zine
in the English contemporary version,
where you can go down
to the Christian bookstore
and find a Bible that looks like
a girl's teenage magazine.
The text of the Bible inside,
it's a New Testament.
It has the contemporary English version.
It says there's no room in the end,
there's no room in the hospital.
You know, I mean, just,
that's how much liberties
they take with the Bible.
I mean, just completely
twisting it and changing it.
And it says on the front,
you know, teenage boys tell all.
You know, it has like articles
to make it look like
a girly teenage magazine.
Dating tips.
You know, that's what it says.
Oh, go look at it.
Call me a liar.
That's what it says on the front of it.
And then you open it up
and it's got the New Testament
and it's got pictures and articles
and it looks like Cosmo
or whatever trash.
That's what we say.
Well, how did we get from this
old black leather, white pages,
black ink, no pictures,
words like hell, damnation,
and Jehovah, and all these great words.
How did we get over here
where we got Hades and Sheol
and Gehenna and we take out Jehovah,
they take out damnation,
they take out all these different words.
How did we get here?
Well, we didn't get here overnight.
They've been sliding the landmark
for about 50 years now.
They've been working overtime
moving that landmark.
And even before that,
they started it when they came out
with their Greek text 100 years ago,
a little over 100 years ago and so forth.
So they moved the landmark.
Don't move with them.
And some people gauge their separation
from the world by how far they are
from the world.
And I'm almost done with my sermon,
but Mike, come on up here.
I'm going to victimize you for this
because you've been gone,
so I'm going to use you for my illustration.
Mike's going to stand over here.
Mike, stand by the organ here.
Mike, he's going to represent this morning.
This is representing the world.
No, I'm just kidding.
He's going to represent what's right this morning.
He's a fundamental Baptist.
I mean, he loves God.
He loves the Bible.
And then we're going to use you,
Brother Colby.
Come on up here.
Brother Colby's going to represent the world.
This is just everything that we know.
Go ahead and stand by the organ here.
So this is like holiness.
This is the old black book.
This is preaching the Bible.
This is a man needs to be a man.
Then we've got Cro-Magnon Man over here.
We've got this liberal, worldly...
I mean, this guy thinks that the death penalty's wrong.
He thinks that gay marriage is fine.
This guy thinks that we should raise taxes.
This guy is just everything liberal.
Give us like a peace sign or something.
This guy's like, he's a hippie.
He's a weirdo.
He drinks.
He thinks drugs are okay.
This guy is just...
He loves rock music.
So now we've got these two people right here.
All right, you're overactive.
So we've got over here, what have we got?
Holiness, righteousness, godliness.
Here we've got the world.
Here we've got everything we're against.
Well, here's what happens.
I'm standing right here.
I'm siding with Mike here.
Because I want to do what's right.
I'm a preacher.
I'm a Baptist preacher.
And man, I'm right with him.
I'm for the same things he's for.
But what happens is, the world gets even weirder.
Go a little further.
He gets even weirder.
Just stop right there.
He gets even weirder.
So then I say, man, live.
I'm starting to look like a fanatic or something.
I'm just going to take one step toward the world,
just so that people don't think I'm a cold or a weirdo
or a fanatic or in that case.
Do you notice?
I'm still the same distance from the world I always was.
Then the world gets even weirder.
And I say, good night.
This is making me look bad.
I mean, this is making my music look like a fuddy duddy.
I mean, this is making my clothing standards
look like the Taliban.
And so I've got to take this little step toward the world.
Now look, I'm still separated.
Don't tell me I'm not a separated, soul-winning
fundamental Baptist, because I'm separated.
I'm still the same distance from the world I've always been.
Do you see it?
He gets even weirder.
Go all the way back to the back of the auditorium.
I mean, good night.
Now it's in the elementary schools.
And I say, wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
People are going to think I'm nuts.
I've got to take another step.
Let's get the music a little bit more hip with the kids,
a little bit cool.
Instead of being called Pastor Anderson,
I think I'm just going to change it to Steve.
You guys got to come to my church and be Steve.
And I'm going to ditch the tie.
I'm going to come to church in a Hawaiian shirt, a pair
of shorts, flip-flops.
And I'm not saying that those are wrong clothing.
I mean, that's what I would wear to the beach.
But that's not what I would wear to church.
And so I'm going to put on some shorts.
I'm going to put on a Hawaiian shirt.
I'm going to put on flip-flops.
I'm going to be Steve.
And we're going to have a worship band and everything
like that.
But you know what?
Look how far I am from the world.
I'm separated.
All right.
But now, stop.
Have you noticed this whole discussion
I've been measuring myself by my proximity to the world?
What should I have been measuring?
Shouldn't that have been my point of reference?
I haven't even talked about that.
I haven't even mentioned him.
Do you see that?
I should have been saying, oh, man, I'm
getting far from the Bible.
Oh, man, I'm getting pretty far from Jesus.
Wow.
We're really different than what the Bible
says in the book of Acts.
We look a lot different.
Wow.
This is way different than it used to be.
Do you see?
But that's not what we're talking about.
Everything's just about the difference between me
and the world.
I don't measure myself by the world.
Go ahead and sit down, both of you.
Thank you.
I don't measure myself by the world.
I'm not going to measure myself by society.
I'm not going to measure myself by the public schools
or the United Methodists or the Charismatics or the Catholics.
I'm not going to measure myself by the US government
or any other government.
I'm going to measure myself by the Bible.
The Bible says until we all come to the measure
of the perfect man, the stature of Christ.
Hey, this is the measuring stick.
This is what I should be based on.
How close am I to Jesus?
Not how far I am from the world is irrelevant.
I mean, if the world comes all the way over here, great.
But I'm not going to meet them in the middle.
Oh, come on, Pastor Anson.
They're willing to meet you like right here.
No.
Oh, but your independent fundamental Baptist
brethren, they're right here.
Be their buddy.
Be their pal.
Be like them.
Use their music.
Have them come preach for you.
I'm not moving a centimeter.
I'm not moving one inch because I'm
staying right, I'm leaned up against this landmark
right here and I ain't moving.
That's the measurement right there.
See, God has delineated ancient boundaries.
And don't tell me, well, the Bible,
and here's what I don't like.
Well, the Bible doesn't talk about clothing.
I mean, I could make you a really long list
of verses about clothing.
Really long.
Oh, the Bible doesn't talk about hair.
Whole chapter.
There's only 260 chapters in the New Testament.
One of them's all about going through your hair,
whether your head's covered or not covered.
And it says your hair is the covering.
Some of these women need to take off that beard
or bonnet that they're wearing and grow their hair out long,
and that's what the Bible says.
A whole chapter about it.
God doesn't care how I look.
Is that why Jesus Christ in the flesh said,
Cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter,
that the outside of them may be clean also?
I think God does care how you look.
Frame your doings.
Get some boundaries in your life.
Don't become anything goes.
Don't get up tomorrow morning and just do whatever you want,
do whatever you feel, act how you want, dress how you want.
Get up in the morning,
and I'm not gonna come to your house
and tell you how to dress.
Pastor Anderson's not gonna do it.
Thank God our government's not telling us that yet.
They're not telling us how to dress yet, okay?
But you get a Bible, read it, and frame your own doings,
and get up and say,
I'm gonna dress the way God wants me to dress.
Now, he's not gonna tell you exactly what to wear.
He's just got boundaries.
Ladies, you wear whatever you want
as long as it goes below your knee,
because that's what the Bible says,
that your thighs is your nakedness.
That's Isaiah 47-3.
That's Exodus 28-42.
And ladies, wear whatever you want as long as it's feminine.
And men, wear whatever you want.
I'm not telling you exactly what to wear
just as long as it's a pair of pants,
just as long as it's manly,
just as long as it's not, you know,
some kind of pink shirt and a purple tie
and a lace on your underwear, you know.
Hey, as long as it's nothing like that,
you wear whatever you want.
All right?
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
God, please help us to frame our doings.
You've told us in the Bible
that you've set some boundaries for us,
and I appreciate the boundaries that you've set,
because I really enjoy living life in your boundaries.
I think it's a lot smarter
than anything I could have come up with.
And so thank you, God, for your boundaries.
And, God, thank you for giving me the freedom
to make my own boundaries in every other area of life.
And, Father, I pray that you would give me the wisdom
to make the right boundaries for me to live in
and make the right choices of what church to go to,
what Bible to read, what clothing to wear, how to act.
God, I love freedom.
I love liberty, and thank you for the liberty
to make my own choices,
and thank you that your boundaries are so wide
and you allow for so much personality
and individuality, dear God,
and I thank you for that.
But, God, help everyone here to realize
that because you've given us freedom,
it's not a total free-for-all.
There are some boundaries.
Help us all to make boundaries in our life,
what we eat, what we drink,
places that we just never go for any reason,
things that we just never do,
because it's just not what we do,
because it's a boundary that we have in our life.
Help us to frame our doings
and create boundaries to live by.
We love you, and in Jesus' name I pray.
Amen.
All right, let's just go ahead
and sing one verse of one song,
and let's just sing song number 316.
I have decided to follow Jesus.
I believe it's the meaning of 16.
Yes, it is.