1 Corinthians chapter 10, God's giving a warning unto his people.
He's talking to those that are saved.
Look at the first words.
He says, moreover, brethren.
He's talking to people that are in Corinth,
that are as brothers and sisters in Christ.
And he's warning them.
He's explaining to them about things
that happened in the Old Testament
where people fell into sin.
They got into idolatry.
They got into fornication.
They lusted after evil things.
Look what he says in verse number 11.
Now, all these things happened unto them
for examples, he's saying.
And they are written for our admonition
upon whom the ends of the world are come.
Wherefore, let him that thicken he standeth
take heed lest he fall.
There is no temptation taking you,
but such is this common demand.
But God is faithful,
who will not suffer you be tempted
above that ye are able,
but will with the temptation
also make a way to escape
that ye may be able to bear it.
Wherefore, my dearly beloved,
flee from idolatry.
So he's warning them that just as the people
in the Old Testament fell into sin,
committed all these sins,
he's saying, you better take heed.
You think that you're standing,
but you may also vault.
And so you need to take heed
and follow these examples
that you not make the same mistakes
that they make.
Let's go through this
starting at the beginning quickly.
It says in verse number one.
Moreover, brethren, I would not
that ye should be ignorant,
how that all our fathers
were under the cloud,
and all passed through the sea.
And were all baptized unto Moses
in the cloud and in the sea,
and it all ate the same spiritual meat,
and it all drank the same spiritual drink,
for they drank of that spiritual rock
that followed them,
and that rock was Christ.
So what's he saying in these four verses?
He's saying, look, today we have church.
Today we believe on Christ,
then we're baptized,
then we go to church,
we break the bread of communion
as he talks about later in the chapter.
He's explaining that the people
in the Old Testament
really had something similar there.
That's why the Bible calls
the children of Israel
wandering in the wilderness.
In the book of Acts chapter 7,
he called it the church in the wilderness.
And so he's explaining
that there's nothing new under the sun here.
They were a church,
you are a church.
They ate of spiritual meat,
you eat of spiritual meat.
They followed Christ,
you follow Christ.
He's explaining the similarities.
But he says in verse 5,
but with many of them,
God was not well pleased,
for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
Now these things were our examples
to the intent,
we should not lust after evil things
as they also lusted.
So God is saying here,
that church in the wilderness
is an example unto us today
that we could also
fall into the same sins
and the same traps
and the same iniquities
that they fell into.
And we're being warned about that right now.
He says not to lust after evil things.
He said neither be ye idolaters
as were some of them
as it is written
that people sat down to eat and drink
and rose up to play.
Neither let us commit fornication
as some of them committed
and fell in one day
three and twenty thousand.
We're going to go back to that passage
in a moment in Exodus and see that.
And we're going to talk more about this passage.
But let me say this,
let him that thinketh he standeth tonight
take heed lest he fall.
Many people who are listening
to my voice right now,
many people sitting in the auditorium tonight,
you know, you're living for God,
you're living a clean life,
you know, you're serving God,
you're out soul winning.
But let me tell you something,
there are many, many people
who've sat where you sit tonight
and they sat in that exact chair
and they're not here tonight
and they're not anywhere tonight
and they're not winning souls this week
and they're not living a clean life
and they have gone into sin
and they have committed these sins
and so don't think that you are above
falling into sin tonight.
If David, the man after God's own heart,
could fall into sin to the point
where he committed adultery
with another man's wife
and then have her husband killed
to cover it up.
Why?
Because it started out with lust.
The Bible says,
then when lust hath conceived,
it bringeth forth sin.
Sin, when it is finished,
bringeth forth death.
If we allow lust to creep into our hearts
and begin to lust after evil things,
we will go down the same downward spiral
that David went,
that the children of Israel went
in the book of Exodus
that he's talking about here.
None of us is above this.
And you'll look around tonight
and see that the godly Christians,
you know, that you see
that are serving God
and some of these people
someday down the road
will not be serving God
and it'll surprise you.
But let me tell you something,
the longer you've been in church,
you'll see more people come and go,
come and go.
And you'll see people serving God
and cleaning up their life
and on fire for God
and you see them come
and you see them go.
And then there are the few
that are left standing
at the end of it,
years and years and years and years later.
There are a few
that are still standing for God.
They're still in a fundamental Baptist church.
They're still reading their Bible every day.
They're still living a clean and godly life.
They're still out there knocking doors.
And let me tell you something,
it's not easy to be one of the few
that stays with it
and that stays in it for the long haul.
It's the minority.
Why?
Because people let the lust of the flesh
here creep in and other things.
Seemingly innocent things can creep in.
We need to take hand
lest we fall.
Temptation is out there.
Even Jesus Christ was tempted.
The Bible says he was tempted
at all points like as we are
yet without sin.
He had the devil come to him
and try to allure him
into committing sin
and to try to deceive him.
He's going to do the same thing to you.
And the devil doesn't even really need
to be at work much today
because we've got Hollywood
and we've got Madison Avenue
and everywhere we look,
lust is being pushed on us.
The lust of the eyes,
the lust of the flesh,
the pride of life.
And today, television
is nothing but filth.
It's the lust of the flesh.
It's the lust of the eyes.
It's the pride of life.
And you can sit there and say,
Oh, I can watch it.
It doesn't bother me.
I'm fine with it.
But let me tell you,
you're not going to be one of the few
that's left standing.
If you fill your mind
with that steady diet
of what the devil is serving up
on that television today.
I mean, I can't even believe it
when I talk.
I haven't watched TV in a long time,
but I hear about some of the shows
that are on today
and I can't even believe it.
You know, I'm preaching to get shows
usually that are about 10 years old.
You know, I'm preaching about stuff
that was on when I was a teenager.
But today, people tell me
about the shows that are on today
and it's unbelievable.
They told me there's a show
called Modern Family.
And the show Modern Family
is just every kind of perverted family
you can imagine.
It's a couple of queers
raising kids or something.
That's Modern Family.
It's some kind of a reality show
about dysfunctional,
perverted, reprobate families
with raising their children
in all the wrong ways
that are against God.
They told me about another show,
How I Met Your Mother.
And it's just basically a bunch of guys
every episode going to a bar
and getting some girl drunk
and into the bedroom.
I mean, that's the kind of garbage
that's on TV today.
And Christians today,
they sit and watch it
and they sit and watch it
and they think that they're going to be Godly.
They think they can watch.
They think they can read their Bible
for five minutes
and then they can sit and watch
a half hour of How I Met Your Mother
and a half hour of Modern Family
and a half hour of all these sitcoms
and reality shows
that promote sodomy
and promote fornication
and promote ungodliness.
And they watch South Park
as it blasphemes Jesus Christ
and they watch this stuff
and they think it's not going to affect them.
The Bible says,
My eye affects my heart.
That's what he said in Lamentations 3.
He said,
Mine eye affected my heart.
Peter and James,
I'm sorry, Peter and John say
in Acts chapter 4 and 5,
we cannot help but speak
the things we've seen and heard.
What goes in comes out.
And today,
we're feasting on everything
that the world has to offer.
We're going to end up
the same way that they ended up here
in the Children of Israel
when they lusted after evil things.
Next thing you know,
they're committing fornication.
Next thing you know,
they're into idolatry.
Next thing you know,
they're drinking.
Next thing you know,
they're drunk.
Next thing you know,
they're stripping their clothes off
with Aaron and so forth
and the golden cap.
You see,
there's no temptation taking you
but such as is common to man.
That means that you're going to be tempted
with the same things
they were tempted with.
Are you going to be able
to withstand that temptation?
Are you going to be able to be
one of the few that's standing?
Are you going to flee idolatry
as the Bible says in verse 14?
Wherefore might be dearly beloved
to flee from idolatry?
You know what he said
in 1 Corinthians chapter 6?
Flee fornication.
Flee idolatry.
Flee fornication.
What does it mean to flee?
Flee means to run away, right?
I mean,
fleeing is if somebody's chasing me
and I'm like,
ahhh, you know,
trying to get away.
That's flee.
He said flee fornication.
Sounds like it's after you.
Go to Proverbs 5.
Proverbs chapter 5.
See, the Bible says that
the wicked flee when none pursueth
but the righteous are as bold as a lion.
But let me tell you something.
When who knows the fornication,
you've got to be running scared on this thing.
You've got to flee it.
Because basically,
there's somebody who's out there to get you.
The Bible warns us about the strange woman.
And the Bible also talks about,
of course, the fact that the devil
walketh about as a roaring lion,
seeking whom he may devour.
Look at chapter 5 in verse number 1.
Here's another warning.
It says,
My son, attend unto my wisdom
and bow thy ear to my understanding,
that thou mayest regard discretion,
and that thy lips may keep knowledge.
Now, I like that term, bow thy ear.
Because it takes humility
to listen to somebody who's warning you about something.
You know, pride says,
oh, not me.
I can handle it.
I'm never going to follow this thing.
I would never do that kind of stuff.
You know,
hey, everybody's going to deny you, Jesus,
but not me, like Peter, right?
Then he turns around and denies it.
Pride goes before destruction
and an haughty spirit before the fall.
Bow your ear, children and teenagers,
tonight, to what your mom and dad are teaching you.
I'm talking to the kids now.
There are kids in the auditorium.
You need to bow your ear to what mom is saying,
what dad is saying,
and humble yourself to listen to,
and everybody needs to humble yourself
to listen to what God's Word is saying
and what the pastor is saying to you right now.
I'm not just up here rattling my cage.
Look, this is a real danger
that's going to be warned about it.
He says in verse 3,
for the lips of a strange woman
drop as a honeycomb,
and her mouth is smoother than oil.
If sin were not alluring and attractive,
people wouldn't be sucked in by it.
He's saying it's going to look good.
You know, God's not tempting you
with something that doesn't look good
or that is not attractive.
He says, no, the lips of a strange woman
drop as a honeycomb,
and her mouth is smoother than oil,
but her hand is bitter as wormwood,
sharp as a two-edged sword.
Her feet go down to hell.
Her steps take hold on hell.
Lest thou shouldst ponder the path of life,
her ways are movable
that thou canst not know them.
Hear me now, therefore, ye children,
and depart not from the words of my mouth.
Remove thy way
just a little way off from her.
Is that what it says?
Just get, just, you know,
stay about a foot and a half from her.
No.
He says remove thy way far from her.
That's like when he said flee fornication.
He's saying get as far away from her as you can.
If she's walking on that side of the street,
you get on the other side of the street.
I mean, he says remove thy way far from her
and come not nigh the door of her house.
Because long before you're in her house,
you start just getting near the door of her house
and just start hanging around.
You know, next thing you know, you're on the porch.
Next thing you know, you're in the house.
That's how sin works.
You know, Locke started out,
he just pitched his tent just toward Sodom.
Next thing you know, he's in the land of Sodom.
Next thing you know, he's sitting in the gate of Sodom.
And so you see that downward spiral here
and God is saying here,
don't even go near the door of her house.
Lest thou give thine honor unto others
and thy ears unto the cruel.
Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth
and thy labors be in the house of a stranger
and thou mourn at the last
when thy flesh and thy body are consumed.
That's not a very pretty picture.
But it's a picture of reality,
of being a fornicator.
When your flesh and your body are consumed,
it's saying, how have I hated instruction
and my heart despised recruit?
Translation, man, I always hated hard preaching.
I always hated hard preaching.
You know, I always hated when the pastor told me I'm wrong
or when the Bible told me I'm wrong
or when my parents tried to rebuke me for doing wrong
and I wouldn't listen.
He's saying, what a fool I was.
And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers
nor inclined my ear to them that instructed me.
I was almost in all evil in the midst of what?
The congregation and assembly.
See, just being a part of church
does not make you immune from going into sanity.
This guy's in church, but he went into sanity way.
The people in 1 Corinthians 10, they had a church,
they went into sin.
The people in Corinth, he's warned them,
you're in church, some of you are going to go into sin.
You're going to go into fornication.
You're going to become a whoremonger.
You're going to become an idolater
if you don't take heed to guard yourself
from the wickedness of this world
and not lust after evil things as they also lusted.
Get away from the doorhouse.
We shouldn't be seeing how close we can get to sin
and get as close as we can to it,
but we're not going to fall.
You know, it'd be like if you went to the Grand Canyon, right?
And you want to see how close you can stand to the edge
without falling off.
But you know, many people have fallen into the Grand Canyon.
What is it, an average of about one a year?
How many people die in the Grand Canyon?
About one per year.
How many per year approximately?
Okay, my wife said last year it was like 12 people.
So about one a month almost.
So once a month, approximately,
somebody falls into the Grand Canyon and dies.
Hundreds of people have died in the Grand Canyon.
She has a book about it.
That's why I'm asking her.
It's called Death in the Canyon.
It explains every person who died in the Grand Canyon.
Who they were, what they were doing,
brief biographical sketch.
Strange reading, you know what I'm saying?
But anyway, she was reading it
because she was trying to tell me,
when you go to the Grand Canyon,
make sure the kids are really far from the edge.
Because she read the story.
Now, she doesn't have to fall in the Grand Canyon
to tell me, now listen Steve,
I fell in the Grand Canyon
and let me tell you why it's so dangerous.
No, she's smart enough to read about
somebody else falling in the Grand Canyon
and not following their example.
She doesn't have to do it herself.
You know, people say experience is the best teacher.
Well, here's something better than that.
Someone else's experience is the best teacher.
You know, let someone else fall off the Grand Canyon
and then tell you, hey, don't get near the edge.
Because if you get near the edge, you become disoriented.
You think you're standing and then you fall.
Because people, they go next to the edge,
yeah, I'm not scared of heights.
I get right up on the edge.
But then all of a sudden, ooh.
Because there's something about standing on the edge
can confuse your senses.
And people will even be just close to the edge
and those of us, ooh.
It sucks to be like that.
No, I'm just kidding.
But anyway, I would now recommend going to Grand Canyon
and seeing how close you can get to the edge.
Mom, look, I'm not falling in, Mom.
I have a picture of me holding onto the railing.
You've seen that picture of me where
I'm like hanging into the Grand Canyon buying a rail.
But it's fake, OK?
Because, I mean, it's not a fake picture,
but there was a ledge underneath.
I wasn't anywhere near the edge.
I was actually very far from the edge.
It's just an optical illusion.
So it looks like I'm hanging into the Grand Canyon.
But I would not really hang into the Grand Canyon.
It was just a trick of photography there, OK?
I said to my dad, because my dad has
a picture of him doing the same thing at the same place.
So I just keep it in the family.
Someday, myself, take the same picture.
But anyway, you don't want to see how close
you can get to the edge.
The Bible says, no, don't even come near sin.
Don't even come near the door to her house.
Don't even get that close to it.
Just get as far away from it as you can.
That's why the Bible says in Romans 13, actually,
he says, but put ye on, the end of Romans 13,
put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not
provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof.
Don't even put yourself in a situation.
Don't even provide an opportunity
for you to fulfill the lust of the flesh.
That means that if you're dating, guess what?
Dating in your bedroom is not a good place to date.
Now, I know this is like rocket science up here.
But you know, you're dating, and you say, OK,
well, let's just date in the bedroom with the door shut.
No, that's not a good place to date.
You say, well, I'm not going to commit fornication.
I'm not, you know, we're not going to do anything.
We're just talking.
Well, why don't you talk in a public place?
Why don't you, instead of making provision for the flesh,
that's not, I mean, are you going to get up here and tell me,
I'm fleeing fornication.
I'm getting as far away from it as I can
when I'm in the bedroom with my girlfriend with the door shut,
and we're playing Uno.
But you know what?
That is putting yourself in a position,
in a compromising position,
where you can easily fall into sin.
And you shouldn't even be putting yourself
in those kind of positions, what I'm saying.
You shouldn't even get that close to it.
You shouldn't just play around with it.
You know, and I'll tell you,
the biggest way to be playing with sin, by the way,
the number one way, if you're a young man,
because he says, stay away from the strange woman,
her feet tickle.
You know, dating unsaved girls.
Man, you are playing with fire with that.
When you're dating, and the Bible says,
be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
Why?
For what fellowship had righteousness
with unrighteousness?
What communion had light with darkness?
What part had he that believed with an infant?
You shouldn't even have that much in common
with unsaved people,
where that's the person that you're the closest to,
and you're spending so much time with them,
and they're not even saved.
They don't even go to church.
They're not even here in church.
They're not even in any church.
They're out of church.
They're not saved.
And yet, that's who you're spending all your time with.
They're not going to stop you from committing sin.
You know, if you've got a godly young man
and a godly young lady,
at least it would only take one of them
having the good sense to not commit fornication.
One of them would hopefully have the righteousness
and the godliness to prevent them from going into sin.
But when you have the Christian and the non-Christian,
well, guess what?
That is only as strong as its weakest link right there.
One of them, the Christian can have a weak moment,
and there's not going to be any restraint
on the part of the unbeliever in most cases.
And so you're playing with fire.
And why would you even date unbelievers?
You know, what if you fall in love with them,
and then you're going to get married an unbeliever,
when the Bible commands us not to marry an unbeliever, right?
And the purpose of dating is to be with someone
that you're possibly going to marry to get to know them.
So why would you be dating someone that's not even safe
or that doesn't even go to church?
And the first thing, you know, I dated when I was a teenager,
the first thing I did was I brought him to church.
That was the first thing I would do.
If I was interested in a girl,
the first thing I did, I brought him to church.
I brought him to Regency Baptist Church.
And if she didn't like Pastor Nichols preaching,
and if she thought that it was too hard,
or if she wasn't a Christian, if she wasn't saved,
if she didn't like to go to church, I saved.
Okay, see ya.
You know like church, I know like you.
That was my bother.
Because I'm not going to date a girl
that I know I'm not going to spend the rest of my life with.
And I know that I was going to dwell in the house of the Lord forever,
as it says in Psalm 23.
I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
And if you're not going to be here with me,
well then you're not going to be here with me.
But I'm going to be in the house of the Lord forever,
is what David said, and that's what I said.
And so, you know like church, I know like you.
That's the motto right there.
That's the mantra right there.
And I remember I brought my wife to church for the first time,
before we were married, when we were just friends.
And I brought my wife to Regency Baptist Church
on a Sunday morning, and she loved it.
She thought it was great.
She came back Sunday night. She loved it.
She thought it was great. And you know what?
There's a girl, okay, here's the possibility right here.
Here's somebody who loves church.
Okay, well then this could work out.
But you know what? I just automatically knew it's not going to work out
with some girl that doesn't want to go to church.
Because there's a lot more to living the Christian life
than just going to church, isn't there?
I mean, going to church is pretty basic.
You know, showing up at church
doesn't really take a whole lot of hard work.
Living a good Christian life takes a lot of hard work.
Going to church is a pretty early step.
You know, just showing up at church.
That's pretty basic, right?
So if she can't even come to church!
Good night!
How is she going to fulfill the rest of what God wants her to do?
Or, you know, I keep saying her
because I'm looking at it from a male perspective.
You know, we could turn the shoe on the other foot.
Obviously, ladies should never be dating.
And it's even more important than the ladies
because this is going to be your leader, you know, your husband.
You better make sure that he's a godly Christian,
that he's going to lead you in the right direction.
And he better be saved.
But I'm using the man's perspective
because in Proverbs 5, that's what we're looking at.
We're looking at a guy who's involved with the wrong girl.
He's involved with an unsaved girl.
He's hanging around near her house.
You know, the Bible talks about later.
I believe it's... I didn't have this in my sermon,
but I want to quickly turn to chapter 7
and just show you something similar here.
It says in verse number 5,
that they may eat thee from the strange woman.
Now, this doesn't mean that she's weird.
This isn't like a gothic girl
who's got, like, earrings in her nose and her tongue's pierced,
and she's got, you know, purple hair,
and, you know, she's emo and whatever, gothic.
When it says strange, it's basically meaning
you don't know her.
She's just an unfamiliar...
Kind of like you say, don't talk to strangers.
It's just somebody that you don't know.
You know, so here's a guy,
and God's just warning you about women that you don't know
that could be bad women,
that are basically there to trick you up
and to cause you to fall into sin.
It says, keep thee from the strange woman,
from the stranger which flattereth with her words.
That means she praises you.
Flattery is when I tell you,
boy, that tie looks good.
Man, you're looking sharp today.
Man, you are really a cool guy.
It's when I start to praise him
and just lay it on real thick.
You know, man, Brother Garrett,
you are my favorite person in the whole world.
Did I ever tell you that?
You know, that's just, come on.
You know, it's flattery.
No, he really is my favorite person.
It's not flattery in this case.
But anyway, you know what I mean.
And nothing wrong with giving somebody a compliment.
But when you're laying it on real thick
and it's fake, that's flattery.
Okay.
So, he says right here,
the stranger which flattereth with her words,
for at the window of my house,
I looked through my casement.
So he's literally, I mean,
he's watching this out the window of his house.
He looks out the window and he sees this take place.
And I beheld among the simple ones.
Who are we talking about?
I discerned among the what? The youths.
So here's a young guy,
maybe he's a young teenage boy,
maybe a young man.
And it says, a young man void of understanding.
So here's a young guy,
he just doesn't have the world's wisdom yet.
He's just young and he just doesn't know
what's going on in the world.
He's naive.
It's not that he's stupid.
It's just that he's too young
to have the experience of life here.
He's just a simple young man.
And it says, passing through the street,
look at this, near her corner.
So he just kind of goes near her corner.
Now, here's a tip.
If a woman has a corner, that's a bad sign.
All right?
So he goes near her corner.
You know?
If you're not a boxer, you shouldn't have a corner.
You know? That's it.
Okay?
And so he says, you know,
he went near her corner
and he went the way to her house.
So he didn't go to her house,
he just kind of went that way.
He's just kind of in that neighborhood.
He's just kind of in that area.
And it says, in the twilight, in the evening,
in the black and dark night.
Now, to me, this almost sounds like more than one time
that this guy's going that way.
It doesn't sound like he went this way once.
Because he went there in the twilight,
he went there in the evening,
and you could say that those are maybe the two things,
the same.
But then he says, in the black and dark night.
Now, the black and dark night is not really the same
as the twilight, is it?
Because the twilight is just while the sun's going down.
This is multiple, multiple visits.
You know, at first he's just kind of near her corner,
then he's kind of going the way to her house.
And he's not really necessarily planning on being with her,
but maybe he just wants to look at her.
Maybe he just wants to see what it's like
to be in that part of town,
or kind of see what's going on,
and just, you know, he's just a simple young guy.
He just wants to know which way the wind's blowing.
And behold, there met him a woman
with the attire of a harlot.
And so, you know what that tells me?
There's clothing that God calls the attire of a harlot.
Wouldn't you hate to be dressed in such a way
where God would look down and say,
oh, you're wearing the attire of a harlot?
What do you think that was?
What do you think she was wearing?
A long skirt?
A skirt down to her ankles?
And a blouse?
Now, you know what she was wearing.
You know what the young girls wear
when they're trying to show off their body?
And basically, you know, if it's not for sales,
take down the for sale sign, you know?
And that's what she's wearing, the attire of a harlot.
And subtle of heart.
She is loud and stubborn.
Now, these are the things not to look for
in a young lady, guys.
Loud and stubborn are not two things
that you're looking for.
Her feet abide not in her house.
Now is she without, now in the streets,
been lying in wait at every corner.
You say, how can one person lie in wait at every corner?
Because there's not just one.
There are a lot of them lying in wait at every corner.
You see, girls like this are a dime a dozen.
They're not rare.
He said they're lying in wait if they're everywhere.
If you want to find this type of girl,
you can find her pretty much anywhere you want to look.
Go to Phoenix, go to Tempe, and you're going to find it.
It's not going to be hard.
So she caught him and kissed him.
And with an impudent face said to him,
I have peace offerings with me.
This day, if I paid my vows,
therefore came I forth to meet thee.
Diligently deceit thy face, and I have found thee.
Okay, what's my name?
She doesn't know who he is.
But she acts like, oh, I was just searching for you,
specifically, and I found you.
She's already kissing him.
Now, look, that's a bad sign right there.
These fast girls, you know,
all of a sudden she's kissing you.
Guess what? You're not the first guy that she's done that to.
And you're a fool if you think you are.
Yesterday was somebody else.
Tomorrow it'll be somebody else.
And she goes on and on,
and I don't want to spend my whole time on this subject.
But you get the idea. You get the point.
Go to Exodus chapter 32.
Exodus chapter 32, this is the portion of scripture
where Paul was referring to in 1 Corinthians 10
when he said that it was a warning for us,
what happened in Exodus chapter 32.
And so we see God warning us in Proverbs 5,
Proverbs 7, 1 Corinthians 10.
Flee fornication. Flee idolatry.
Run screaming in the other direction.
Don't go near her house.
Don't go the way of her house.
Don't even get close to it.
Don't start watching it on TV and say,
well, I'm just going to watch it on TV and see what it's like.
You know, you start watching adultery on TV,
and TV today is filled with adultery.
And nothing makes me angrier,
nothing makes me more sick than a TV show that promotes adultery.
And you say, you know how I fixed that problem?
I got rid of my TV about 10 years ago.
Got sick of all that garbage.
I haven't watched TV, I don't know how long.
It's been about, I don't know, 9 or 10 years or something.
I don't know how long exactly.
It's been a long time since I've watched any TV.
But the reason why is because it makes me sick.
To promote adultery.
Adultery is a betrayal.
It's a wicked sin.
You know, we've got to keep ourselves only unto Thee
as we've made our wedding vows so long as we both shall live.
But the TV and Hollywood will make adultery seem cool.
They'll make it seem normal.
Everybody's doing it.
You know, you go to work and, you know,
you're in there, and these are the way TV shows are.
It's like a hospital theme, right?
And I'm sure it's out there.
I could name the show, but there's nothing new under the sun.
You know, decades ago it was General Hospital or something.
Now I'm sure, I'm sure if I asked you,
you could bring somebody, some worldly person,
they could name for me probably three shows
that take place in a hospital.
And it's a hospital and, you know, the woman,
and I've never even seen this garbage,
but I can tell you what it is,
because it's the same stuff that's been going on
for thousands of years,
and on TV it's been going on for decades.
The same stuff.
Have you noticed when they're coming out with, like,
Batman Part 25, that it's just the same stuff
over and over again?
Spider-Man Number 9.
You know, somebody said they came out with Rocky Part 6.
Is that really true?
Somebody said they came out with Rambo 5.
I'm like, what?
I mean, they just keep doing the same thing.
It just gets worse, though.
And so, you know, let me just invent my own TV show,
and maybe some Hollywood writer will take this
and, you know, make sure, but it's already been done.
You know, some woman, and she's married,
but she's a nurse in the ER, and she's down there,
and there's some good-looking suave doctor,
and she just accidentally finds herself kissing
and hugging him and all this.
And next thing you know, she's committing adultery with him,
and her husband doesn't know about it.
That's the kind of filth that I don't want to hear about.
It's stupid.
Is that the garbage that you watch?
Is that where you sit on the edge of your seat?
Oh, I wonder what's going to happen.
They're not going to show you those people
burning in hell at the end of it.
They're not going to show you those people
with their ruined lives and ruined marriage
and children who don't know who their parents are
and all the broken homes and all the heartache
and all the consequences that are real.
You're not going to see what happens.
You're going to see some fake, phony, feel-good ending
on that show.
And it's all going to be dressed up to look good and nice
when the Bible calls it filthiness of her fornication,
vileness of adultery, the blood of adultery.
God hates adultery, my friend.
And you watch it on TV,
it's filling your heart and your mind.
And how many people I've known,
godly, righteous Christians,
but they're constantly listening to rock and roll.
They're constantly listening to hip-hop music.
They're constantly listening to country music
with the talk about adultery.
And they're constantly watching TV about it,
watching movies about it,
and it's fornication and it's adultery.
And the next thing you know,
those people are leaving their life
and they're out looking for something else.
I can go down a list with you.
I've been in church my whole life.
I mean, I was raised in church from the cradle until now,
and I can tell you person after person
that sat where you sit,
that for decades was in church,
that for decades served God,
that for decades did right.
But eventually, it's going to get through to you.
All the movies, all the TV,
all the rock and roll,
and that's what the music promotes,
and that's what the Billboard promotes,
and that's what the TV show promotes,
and that's what the magazines promote,
and all this stuff,
and they make it all seem like it's normal,
and eventually, you will be out there
at some bar somewhere.
You'll be out there on the Internet somewhere,
you know, looking for something else
because you've left your wife,
because you've left your husband,
because you're out looking for that, you know,
that debonair guy, that guy, you know,
and these women, they idolize these movies.
They see this guy on the movie and the TV,
and he's so, you know,
their husband is just as brutish, you know.
They look at their own husband,
and they think he's a brute, you know,
because he puts his feet up on the coffee table
because he leaves stuff laying around
or whatever, you know,
because maybe he's a little rougher on the edges
because he's not a smooth little pink shirt,
purple tie wearing pretty boy on some TV show,
and he's just so sweet and loving,
and their husband's just, you know,
a little more of a real manly guy, you know.
He's just a little more rougher or whatever.
He's not Mr. Pretty Boy, Mr. Smooth,
and they look at their own husband,
and they think to themselves, you know,
oh, you know, this other guy, he's so much more this,
and he's that, he's the other,
and these seeds get sown in their mind.
And they watch all this stuff,
and they begin to covet someone else's husband,
or men will covet someone else's wife
and covet their neighbor's wife
and covet their neighbor's husband
because it all starts in the mind and in the heart
from seeing all this stuff.
And women will idolize that guy on the TV show
because he's so smooth, he's so gentle, he's so loving.
The guy is a fag in real life.
Are you listening to me?
He doesn't even like women.
You say, which one?
Pick one.
I mean, look, if you don't know
that Hollywood is filled with homosexuals,
you know, okay, well, you know,
what do you want me to tell you?
Water is wet.
You know what I mean?
Water is wet.
And you know, the sky is also blue,
and grass is green,
and let me explain something to you.
Hollywood and then the modeling industry,
you know, male models, they're homos, by and large.
I've had friends that were,
my cousin was in the modeling business.
He said it's filled with homos.
He was high up in it.
I mean, he was traveling all over Europe.
He was, of course, a righteous man.
I mean, he was a saved man.
He's a normal Christian man.
That's why he got out of it.
That's why he had to get out of it
because he said it's just filled with homos.
And you're like, oh, he's so cute.
Well, he's not interested in you, honey.
He's a sodomite.
He's a pervert.
And that's who they look at in the poster,
and they want their husband to be like that guy.
Look, I don't want my wife to be like
the Hollywood bimbos that are across the screen.
I don't want her.
I love my wife exactly the way she is.
I don't want her to look like Angelina Jolie,
and I don't want her to look like Cameron Diaz,
and I don't want her to look,
Help me out here.
Who do all the guys idolize?
Lady Gaga.
Lady Gaga?
I definitely don't want that in my house.
Leave it to Brother Davis on that one, man.
He's had to push that button, huh?
You know, I don't want my wife to be Lady Gaga.
I don't want her to be Britney Spears.
I don't want her to be Angelina Jolie
or Cameron Diaz or Britney Spears.
Come on, help me out, world leaders.
I keep naming the same names.
Help me out.
Everybody's like, got all these names?
No, no, no.
That's Judy.
Judy.
Judge Judy.
This is really going to happen.
We need to stop this audience from being arrested.
Howard Stubborn.
Howard Stubborn, yeah.
That's definitely Judge Judy.
I don't think her lips are dropping with Honeycomb.
Let me tell you something.
I don't want my wife to be like that image,
that Hollywood image of these sleazy women.
The pretty woman women.
Julia Roberts.
Yeah, she's probably like 60 years old by now.
She's in various groups.
What I'm trying to say is
that that's not who I want to count on my life,
but let me explain something to you.
If you're constantly just watching all the Hollywood
and all the TV,
that's who you're going to begin to think,
oh, that's the ideal woman right there.
Because do they picture on there
a woman in the kitchen cooking
and she's had six children?
Is that what they put on TV and say,
this is your ideal wife right here,
cooking dinner for your six kids?
No.
They put a woman on there
who is fitting the picture that they want to have
of just a loose, independent woman
who's sleazy and easy and floozy
and I don't want my wife to be like that
and I don't want my children growing up
and watching movies saying, I like her.
Yeah, that's what I like.
They're going to find that girl in real life
and it's going to be the woman we read about at Proverbs.
And I don't want my daughters growing up
and looking at all the sistified little twinkies on TV
and saying, oh, that's what I want a man
who's sensitive and loving and smooth and soft
and wears a purple tie.
No.
I don't want them to grow up and be with a real man.
And dad will show them what a real man is
and then I want to bring them to church
so they can be around a bunch of real men at church
and not show them all the sistified,
effeminate Hollywood stars
and that that's what they're going to be into.
No.
I want to keep my heart in the right place
and that's going to be biblically,
that's not going to be from Hollywood.
And this kind of preaching today is what we need
because I'm telling you, many people have sat
where you sit and they didn't listen to this kind of preaching
and they get involved with the wrong girl
and they get involved with television
and they get involved with all the Hollywood
and they get into the bar scene
and they get into the sin
and they get into the rock concerts
and they get into the hip hop culture
and they get out of church
and they get out of God's will
and it happens all the time.
Somebody needs to get up
and give the same warning that's given in the Bible
to warn you, take heed lest you fall.
Take heed.
Be careful.
Watch out.
Exodus 32.
Look at Exodus 32.
It says when the people, verse 1,
when the people saw that Moses delayed
to come down out of the mouth,
the people gathered themselves together
on the errand and said unto them,
Up, make us gods, which shall go before us.
For as for this Moses, the man that brought us up
out of the land of Egypt,
we want not what is done for them.
And Aaron said unto them,
Break off the golden earrings,
which are in the ears of your wives,
of your sons and of your daughters,
and bring them unto me.
Now, here's the first problem.
Why is your son wearing an earring?
Keep your finger in Exodus 32.
Go to Genesis, what was it?
35-4?
We were talking about this earlier.
What's your son doing wearing an earring?
Now you say, are you against earrings?
Well, I'm not against women wearing earrings.
Because the Bible actually talks about women wearing earrings
as a thing that's fine.
And you'll see in the Bible,
women are wearing earrings,
and God actually talks about in Ezekiel chapter 16
how he put earrings upon a woman.
That's all fine and dandy in Ezekiel 16.
I'm not against earrings,
but I'm against earrings on men
because they're effeminate, that's why.
Look if you went to Genesis 35.
It says in verse 2,
Then Jacob said unto his household,
and to all that were with him,
Put away the strange gods that are among you,
and be clean, and change your garments,
and let us arise and go up to Bethel.
Bethel means the house of God.
And I will make there an altar unto God,
who answered me in the day of my distress
and was with me in the way which I went.
Listen to this verse.
And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods
which were in their hand,
and all their earrings which were in their ears,
and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Jacob.
So he told them to get rid of the strange gods,
and they said,
Okay, we're going to get rid of the strange gods,
and we're going to get rid of our earrings out of our ears.
And you notice that the Ishmaelites also,
the Bible says that the Ishmaelite men wore earrings
if you study the Bible.
So look, I'm against earrings on men.
Somebody said to me,
they told this guy,
they said to a guy,
Now which earring is it that means that you're a homo?
You know what I mean?
You know how it's like one earring means that it's a homo?
They say if it's in your left ear, you're okay.
You know, you're strange.
But if it's in your right ear,
that means you're a homo.
Who's ever heard that before?
Okay, so my pastor,
when I was in California,
there was a guy who came to church,
and he had an earring,
and he'd been coming to church for a long time.
And so the pastor said to him,
he said,
Now that's not the ear for, you know.
And the guy said,
Oh, no, no, no.
He said,
That's the right ear that means that.
And he said,
Okay, well that means you're this far from being a queer.
You're this close.
You know, this is from ear to ear.
Okay, and you know,
he said,
You're this close.
Okay, because look,
why don't you leave the jewelry to the women, guys?
You don't need to be all decorated
like a Christmas tree.
You're a man.
Listen, Mr. T,
that was the 1970s, okay?
Get off of it.
Why not look and be a man
and dress like a man
and act like a man?
Talk about, you know,
let my wife decorate herself up with jewelry.
And I'm not even into that.
But let me tell you something.
I'm not going to try to make myself pretty.
I am going to remain ugly
as long as I live.
I'm a man.
I'm not trying to be a little pretty boy.
I'm not trying to try out
to fill in the gap
with the Backstreet Boys or something.
You know,
I'm not trying to help the Backstreet Boys
make a comeback.
I'm here to be a man.
And so,
that was for free,
but go back to Exodus 32.
Exodus 32.
They take the earrings out of their son's ear.
They should have done that a long time ago.
But they take the earring out of their son's ear
and they break off the earrings
and then they basically
mold them into a golden calf.
So they make this idol,
this statue of a golden calf.
And they said in the end of verse 4,
These be thy gods, O Israel,
which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
And when Aaron saw it,
he built an altar before it.
And Aaron made proclamation
and said,
Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord.
And they rose up early on the morrow
and offered burnt offerings
and brought peace offerings.
And the people sat down to eat
and to drink
and rose up to play.
And the Lord said unto Moses,
Go, get thee down,
for thy people which thou broughtest
out of the land of Egypt
have corrupted themselves.
And he goes on and on
and explains how they had corrupted themselves.
Go down, if you would, to verse number 25.
This is when Moses comes back.
So Moses is gone for 40 days.
Well, after a few weeks,
they don't know where Moses is
and they say,
We don't know what happened.
We're going to make our own god.
So they make this golden calf
and they basically start eating,
drinking, playing,
committing fornication,
you know,
dancing and partying
and having this big thing around the golden calf.
Look what it says in verse 25.
And when Moses saw that the people were what?
Naked.
For Aaron had made them naked
under their shame among their enemies.
You know, the man of God leaves.
Moses, the great leader.
And next thing you know,
everybody's naked,
worshiping the golden calf.
You know, that tells me that we need preaching.
You know, we need leaders.
We need men of God to lead.
And not all the people were doing it, obviously.
But you know what?
Some people will go into sin.
The Bible says some of them committed fornication.
Some of them committed idolatry.
Some of them started worshiping that golden calf.
And when the calf's away,
the mice will play.
That's why you need to be in church
and listening to the preaching of God's word.
And that's why children need to stay at home
with their parents
and let their parents raise them
and rule over them
and have rules for them.
And not just be out living freestyle, free-for-all.
They need somebody to be a leader.
They need a pastor.
They need a mom and a dad
that'll lay down the law to them.
And that'll be a strong leader
that'll make some statements
and some rebukes to them
about what's right and what's wrong.
And that's what Moses was.
But being in church wasn't enough.
They'd heard Moses preaching.
They'd been in church,
but then they got out of church.
Moses was gone for 40 days,
and they began to fade spiritually.
Many of them did.
I've seen it in this church.
I've seen it in other churches.
I've watched people begin
to fade away spiritually.
I've watched people get excited
about serving God
and doing great things for God,
reading their Bible, winning souls,
doing all the right things,
and then they start missing church.
They start skipping soul-winning.
They start hanging around
with a worldly, unsaved crowd.
They start dating unsaved people.
They start to fade away spiritually.
You start seeing them every once in a blue,
and you know what?
It won't be long until
they're completely gone.
They're completely out of the will of God.
Don't let it be you.
Don't be that guy
that gets out of church
because he started lusting
after evil things,
because he started to just
be enticed by the world,
and the world's going to wear you down.
I mean, after seeing that billboard
5,000 times,
it's going to wear you down.
I mean, after seeing those TV shows
and that music,
it might take a long time,
but it's going to wear you down.
You've got to flee it.
You've got to get away from it.
Flee fornication.
Flee idolatry.
Go back to 1 Corinthians 10.
I'll close with this,
1 Corinthians 10.
You say,
why are you preaching this sermon?
You know, I'm just,
I love you.
I'm trying to warn you.
I want you to live a long
and productive life serving God.
I mean,
I want you to be serving God
five years from now.
You know,
I was talking to Brother Dave.
You know,
Brother Dave's been in our church
for almost five years serving God.
You know,
you look at a man who's been here
for five and a half years.
You know,
our church has only been around
for five and a half years.
Others that have been here
for three years,
four years,
a couple of years.
You know,
you see people who've stayed with it,
but guess what?
There were a lot of other people
who came to win in the meantime.
You know,
and some people obviously
went to another good,
godly church,
and that's fine.
But I'm talking about people
who got just out of church,
who got into fornication,
who got into sin.
How are you going to be
one of the ones who stays in it?
How are you going to be here
five years?
I love you.
I want you to be here
five years from now.
I want you to be here
ten years from now.
I want you to still be reading
your Bible.
I want you to still be soul winning.
I want you to still be serving God.
I want you to be clean and pure.
I want your children
to be pure on their wedding day.
I want you to live a clean
and godly life
because that's what God
wants you to do.
And that's my job as a preacher
is to warn you
and to give you the Bible here
to tell you that it's easy
to fade away.
It's easy to fall
when you get close to the egg.
None of those people
that fell into the Grand Canyon
thought that they were
going to fall in.
You know,
when they had the camera
and they're just trying to
get that perfect shot?
They all thought that they
were on firm footing.
But they fell.
And it's the same thing in church.
People get comfortable.
They can handle it.
We think we can take fire
into our lap and not be burned.
We think we can walk
in our hot coals
without burning our feet.
And we get close to it
and we play around with it
and we kind of flirt with it
and eventually you're going to fall.
And many, many a mighty man
has fallen.
Many a mightier man
than I or you have been
have fallen.
What's the difference?
It's not that,
it's not that maybe
that Pastor Anderson
is just a superman.
That's why he's been
serving God for,
for, you know,
over a decade.
It's not that
Brother Dave is some superman
or that a man is,
it's just that they took
heed to this particular sermon.
They stayed away from the edge.
That's how they stayed in.
Because when you,
they didn't fill their mind
with everything that
Hollywood and the world
had to offer
or they wouldn't be here.
And so it's not that
we're perfect.
It's not that anybody's
just a great person.
Look, David was a
greater man than I am.
I promise you that.
I promise you that David
from the Old Testament
was greater than Pastor Anderson.
But he fell into sin
and I don't have to.
And I'm going to go my life
not falling into sin.
That's my goal.
And I don't even want
to get close to him.
I don't want to be that one.
It's not that I'm
better than David.
It's that I'm learning
from his example
and other people's example.
David was prideful
and because of his pride,
he fell into sin.
We need to be humble enough
to bow our ear
to the words of the Bible.
Bow our ear to the
preaching of God's word
and say, you know what,
I'm willing to listen to this
and take this.
Some people can't take
this preaching because
they're too high and mighty
to take this kind of preaching.
Others will bow their ear
and say, you know what,
I do need to be careful.
I do need to take
heed lest I fall.
1 Corinthians 10 says
in verse 8,
neither let us commit
fornication as some
of them committed
and fell in one day
three and twenty thousand.
Neither let us tempt Christ
as some of them also tempted
and were destroyed
of servants.
Neither murmur ye.
This is complaining.
We can get a bitterness
and a complaining
and we're always,
it's not fair
and I have everything
so bad in life.
This can begin to
lead you down that path.
And we're destroyed
of the destroyed.
Now all these things
happen unto them
for its samples.
And they are written
for our admonition
upon whom the ends
of the world are come.
Wherefore let him
that thinketh,
he standeth,
take heed
lest he fall.
The world is not going
to warn you tonight.
TV's not going to warn you.
School's not going to warn you.
Your job's not going
to warn you.
You want to come
to one place
to get a warning.
From God.
You come to church.
Where else are you
going to get it?
And so church needs
to be a place
that will warn you
and tell you to take heed
lest you fall.
Careful now.
Are you?
And ask yourself tonight.
Don't just try to apply this,
oh man so and so needs this.
Apply this to yourself
and say you know what?
Am I beginning to fade?
Am I getting close
to that edge?
You know if there was a time
when you were more fired up
about serving God
than you are right now
and if there was a time
when you were reading your Bible
more than you're reading it
right now
and if there was a time
when you were more excited
about the things of God
than you are right now
and if there's a time
that you were more faithful
to church than you're
faithful to church right now
and if there's a time
when you were doing
a lot more soliting
than you're doing right now
you know it sounds
like you're back split.
It sounds like
you're going backwards.
I mean if you used to be
a better Christian
than you are today.
If there's ever been a day
when you were a better
Christian than today
it sounds like you're back split.
Move forward.
Higher ground.
Press toward the mark
for the prize
of the high calling
of God and Christ Jesus
because if you don't
go to the high ground
you're sliding down
and you're sliding down
you're sliding down
and then you're going to
get to that edge.
And you will be
one of the many
not one of the few
when you go off that edge.
You'll be one of the many.
If you're still here
if you're still serving God
if you're still reading
about Him then you'll be
one of the few.
Let's bow our heads
and have a word of prayer.
Father thank you so much
for your word dear God
thank you for giving us
these warnings.
Thank you that we don't
have to make these mistakes
ourselves but we can rather
learn from the children
of Israel and learn
their mistakes.
Thank God for Solomon
looking out that window
and seeing that guy
so that we can learn
from that guy.
Thank you for giving us
that example Lord
that we can see that guy
and not make that mistake.
And Father please just
bless us now as we go
our separate ways
help us to take heed
lest we fall
and bless the food
to our bodies as we partake
of this cake that we have
after the service
for Father's Day.
In Jesus' name we pray.