Good evening ladies and gentlemen welcome back to Faith Word Baptist Church on this Easter Sunday evening very good
See you all here find your seats, please and take a song book go to him number 37 and we'll begin tonight him number 37
Number 37 there will be no dark Valley him number 37
There will be no dark Valley when Jesus comes him number 37 sing it out on that first verse all together now number 37
When Jesus comes, together is love one's home.
Together is love one's home.
Together is love one's...
Together is love, mom.
We want to go before Lord and ask the blessing on the service.
So I've asked for their Corbin Bronk and completely just pray for this.
Dear Lord, thank you for Faith Word Baptist Church, Lord,
and thank you for everybody that's come to attend church today
on this beautiful Easter Sunday.
And Lord, I pray that you'd help us to praise you with the songs.
And Jesus' name, I pray amen.
Amen.
Amen, back a few pages, number 32.
Him number 32.
He lives on high.
Him number 32.
Christ the Savior came from heaven's glory to redeem the loss from sin and shame.
That's how this begins, number 32. Sing it out on that first verse now, hymn number 32.
Christ the Savior came from heaven's glory to redeem the loss from sin and shame.
On His Bride
tomorrow and he'll take all his children
Jesus come confessing. Redemption from city offers thee. Look to Jesus and receive a
blessing. There is life, there is joy and victory.
All right, this time we'll go through our announcements
together. If you don't have a bulletin,
slip up your hand nice and high,
and we'll get to you with one.
On the inside, we have our service times.
Sunday mornings at 10.30 is our preaching service.
Sunday nights at six.
Wednesday nights at seven is our Bible study.
This week, we will be in Psalm 78.
We've got the soul winning times listed there below,
as well as salvation and baptisms.
Across the page, happy Easter, of course.
RSVPs for the Mother Daughter Tea Party,
27th is already filled up.
but May 4th is still available, so RSVP before it is too late.
Church Skating Night is coming up April the 29th,
so that's a Tuesday night, just a week from this Tuesday, nine days away.
I know we're all counting down, it's super fun.
It's free like all of our church activities,
and so you just show up at that address 6-9 p.m. on that Tuesday night.
On the back, we've got the list of expectant ladies, pray for them to have a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery.
and then friendly reminders about the covered parking spots
belonging to other tenants.
So we have to stay out of those
and then silence your cell phone during the service,
keep the kids supervised.
I'm preaching this Friday night in Seattle, Washington.
So looking forward to that.
If you know anybody in that area, let them know.
There's the KJV conference coming up in Vancouver, Washington
on May 15th through 18th.
Looking forward to that.
And then we have Pastor Dylan Oz from Anchor Baptist Church in Oklahoma City,
preaching here on May the 25th.
That should be about it for announcements.
Also, just a couple of announcements about yesterday's soul-winning.
I know that down in Tucson, Straight Pads Baptist Church,
I know some of you guys went down there,
and I believe that the final stats on that soul-winning event down in Tucson
five soul winners with 25 salvations?
That sound about right?
Or are you saying it's higher?
26 salvations.
65 soul winners, 26 salvations.
And then I know there was the OME TV soul winning marathon.
What were the stats on that?
59 officially.
59 saved and how many people participated?
Like 11?
11 people great job with that as well and so or let's go ahead and count up the soul winning though officially
So do we have anything from Thursday?
Okay, so we got one there one there
Okay, anything else from Thursday. All right, and then Friday anything from Friday, okay?
Okay anything else from Friday
Okay, and then Saturday, obviously the Tucson stuff is getting counted by the Tucson church,
but the OME TV stuff, we're taking credit for that, amen?
That was your deal.
All right, so that was 59, did you say?
All right, very good.
And then anything outside of that?
We've got two more up here.
All right, so we're only counting the stuff that happened up here because the Tucson stuff,
that stays in Tucson.
And then anything else up here?
Okay, another one up here.
Anything else for yesterday?
Is that one in the back legitimate,
or is that just a kid getting carried away
singing this little line of mine?
Okay, all right.
Very good.
And then what about today?
Anything from today?
Okay, got it.
Five with brother Scott.
Okay, boom.
Got it, got it.
Okay, anything else from today? All right, very good. Keep up the great work on soul winning and with that let's sing our next song come
Lead us. All right, you should find the answer in front of your hymnal with the song entitled
I am the resurrection if you don't have an answer, please raise your hand
One of the ushers will hand you one. I am the resurrection and the live
I am the resurrection
He'd have believed in me, though he were dead Yet shall he live, yet shall he live
And whosoever liveeth and believeeth in me shall never, never die
I am the resurrection and the lie He'd have believed in me, though he were dead
Yet shall He live, yet shall He live, and whosoever live it, shall never, never die.
Man, good singing, everybody. Take your hymnos now and go to hymn number 34, hymn number 34.
I know that my Redeemer liveth.
Number 34, I know that my Redeemer liveth and on the earth again shall stand. Him number 34, lift your voice together on that first verse now.
I know that my Redeemer liveth and on the earth again shall stand.
I know eternal life He gave in the grace and power already said.
I know that Jesus livin' And all the earth again shall stand.
I know I know that life be givin' That grace and power are in his hand.
I know his promise ever failed And the word he speaks, they cannot hide.
I know I know that Jesus live in and on the earth again shall stand, I know, I know, I know that life be given, the grace and power in his hand, I know, I know, I know, I know that life be given, the grace and power in his hand, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know,
He prepared that where He is, there I may be.
Oh, what a song for me He prepared.
He at last will come for me.
I know, I know, that Jesus live in, and on the earth
that grace and power are in his hands.
Man, good things night.
All right, this time we'll pass our offering plates around.
As the plates go around, let's turn our Bibles to Proverbs 16.
Proverbs chapter number 16, as we always do,
we'll read the entire chapter beginning of verse number 1.
Follow along silently with Brother Dan as he reads,
Proverbs chapter 16, beginning of verse number 1.
Proverbs 16, the Bible reads,
the preparations of the heart and man
and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.
All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes,
but the Lord weigheth the spirits.
Commit thy works unto the Lord
and thy thoughts shall be established.
The Lord hath made all things for himself,
yet even the wicked for the day of evil.
Everyone that is proud in heart
is an abomination to the Lord.
Though hand joined in hand,
he shall not be unpunished.
By mercy and truth, iniquity is purged.
And by the fear of the Lord,
men depart from evil.
When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.
Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right a man's heart devised it his way
But the Lord directed this steps a divine sentence is in the lips of the king his mouth transgressions
Transgressive not in judgment adjust weight and balance of the Lord's all the weights of the bag are his work
It is an abomination to kings to commit wickedness for the throne is established by righteousness
Righteous lips of the delight of kings and they love him that speaketh right
The wrath of a king is as messengers of death, but a wise man will pacify it.
In the light of the king's countenance's life and his favor is as a cloud of the latter rain.
How much better is it to get wisdom than gold, and to get understanding rather to be chosen than
silver? The highway of the upright is to depart from evil, he that keepeth his way preserveeth his
soul. Pride goes before destruction and howdy spirit before a fall. Better it is to be of
He that handleeth the matter wisely shall find good, and whoso trusteth in the Lord happy is he.
The wise in heart shall be called prudent, and the sweetness of the lips increaseeth learning.
Understanding is a wellspring of life unto him that hath it, but the instruction of fools is folly.
The heart of the wise teacheth his mouth, and addeth learning to his lips.
Pleasant words are as in honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.
There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
He that laboreth, laboreth for himself, for his mouth craveth it of him.
An ungodly man digeth up evil, and in his lips there is a burning fire.
A froward man soweth strife, and a whisperer separateeth chief friends.
A violent man enticeseth his neighbor, and leadeth him into the way that is not good.
He shutteth his eyes to devise forward things, moving his lips he bringeth evil to pass.
The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness.
He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleeth his spirit, than he that takeeth the city.
The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord.
Thank you father for your son the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank you for faith for a Baptist church and your perfect word the King James
Bible asks you Phil pastor Anderson with your Holy Spirit open our hearts on our ears to receive your perfect word
I pray this in Jesus holy name. Amen
Man the title my sermon this evening is the fear of God in verse number six there the Bible reads by mercy and truth
Iniquity is purged and by the fear of the Lord men depart from evil
Now, if we were to just look up this phrase,
the fear of the Lord in the book of Proverbs,
I mean, it comes up over and over again,
like half the chapters in the book of Proverbs
are going to deal with the subject of the fear of the Lord
because it's the beginning of wisdom.
It's the beginning of knowledge,
the beginning of understanding.
We are commanded literally hundreds of times
in the Bible to fear God.
Now, the reason I'm preaching this sermon
is for those of you who don't follow the drama online,
Pastor Joe Jones has preached a bunch of heresy over the last couple of weeks and it's some
of the worst preaching that I've ever heard in my life and it goes against everything
that we stand for as fundamentalist Baptists.
Okay, it's this idea that basically, you know, we can't call anything out, we can't judge
anyone or anything, and, you know, we need to stop scaring people into obedience, and
he's saying that God
does not chastise us or punish us, or if he does,
it's just more like he kind of just talks to us
on the inside, but he's not gonna beat us or spank us,
and there's no reason for us to fear his chastisement,
and that's scaring people into obedience.
I'm gonna read for you a quote, and look,
I don't have time to go into all of his weird heresy tonight,
and I'm not going to.
I already released yesterday online a 45 minute
refutation of his garbage, and I played like 15 clips from his sermon.
You can find that on our YouTube channel, X,
whatever social media you want to find that on, it's everywhere.
But I do want to just read you this one quote from him
where he says in his sermon, quote,
it's time that we stop trying to scare people into obedience.
God does not do that to us.
Nor should we do that to God's people, okay?
That is wrong. That is a gross error that is in Christian circles today.
You know what? I think it's the exact opposite, Joe Jones.
I think that there's a gross error today of people not talking about the fear of God,
not talking about the fear of the Lord,
and I think that all these big liberal fund center churches
need to start thinking a little more about the fear of God.
And we need some preachers today in America
putting the fear of God back into God's people.
Not this soft watered-down wimpy preaching that says oh, you know, don't scare people. God would never scare us into obedience
We shouldn't be scaring people into obedience. Let me give you a little testimony
Personally and if you would flip back to Genesis chapter 2
Let me give you a little personal testimony about the fear of God in my life
When I was six years old I got saved
Because I was afraid of going to hell
Who here would say you know I got saved because I was scared of going to hell. That's why I got saved
It's virtually every hand in the building
Back there on the wall, we have an LP cover from Dr. Glenn Schunk,
a preacher that my dad grew up listening to.
He used to come and do revivals at Faith Baptist Church in Kenoga Park, California.
And on that record is the sermon, The Halls of Hell.
And I actually took that record and, you know, digitized it and put it on YouTube.
You can actually hear that sermon by Glenn Schunk called The Halls of Hell.
preached in the late 1960s.
But what's interesting is if you look at that LP,
you'll see that they talk about how hundreds of people
got saved as a result of that revival meeting
where Glenn Schunk is preaching on hell
and hundreds of people got saved, right?
And I guarantee you that all kinds of hellfire
and damnation sermons have been preached
that led to souls getting saved.
So I got saved when I was six years old
because of the fear of the Lord.
Because I didn't want to go to hell.
Then, later on in life, I, through the fear of the Lord,
cleaned up my life and lived right.
You know, I remember one time as a kid,
I pushed a little girl off a swing for no reason.
And I felt bad about it because I was afraid
God was going to punish me for doing that.
And I decided not to be that way anymore,
not to treat people that way anymore.
And you know what, when I became a teenager,
I had temptations, just like every other teenager,
to commit fornication.
And that's a major wicked sin that teenagers are constantly be tempted with, fornication.
And I did not commit fornication for one reason because I was scared of the chastisement of
God.
That's why I didn't commit fornication.
So this attitude that says, oh, that doesn't work, fear doesn't work, well, the Bible
says fear works.
And you know, all this preaching sounds real good, it sounds real nice, but it's not biblical.
Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times, the Bible talks about the fear of God.
Folks, you don't have to get very far into the Bible to see this, okay?
What did he say? He said,
It's time that we stop trying to scare people into obedience. God does not do that to us.
Okay, but yet at the very beginning of the Bible in Genesis chapter 2 verse 16 it says,
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 of it,
For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
It kind of sounds like he's trying to scare him.
I mean, look, my mom, when I was a kid, would try to scare me about certain things.
She said that if I went in the backyard and touched the toadstools that were going in the backyard,
and then I ate without washing my hands, I would die.
That's when she said, you know, those are poisonous.
If you touch them and then you eat, you're gonna die.
Now she might have been exaggerating just a little bit,
but hey, to this day, I wouldn't take my chances with that.
I'm washing my hands with soap
after playing with those toadstools, okay?
She told me that if I used the same fork
or the same spoon for the tuna and the mayonnaise,
not only would I die, but I would kill the entire family.
by cross-contaminating the mayonnaise with tuna.
Okay, I guess he was trying to scare me into obedience,
but you know what, I follow that stuff to this day.
I mean, I'm strict about that stuff.
I worry about these things that my mom and dad taught me.
You know, I guess that was just a fear-based training
or teaching me, you know, hey, if you eat of the fruit,
you're gonna die.
Look over if you would at chapter six.
And we could literally just go through the whole Bible if we wanted to be here for the
next few hundred hours and just look at every single time God scares us into obedience, right?
We don't have all night to do that, but we could do that.
Literally look at Genesis chapter 6 verse 13 and God said unto Noah the end of all flesh
Just come before me for the earth is filled with violence through them and behold I will destroy them with the earth
Make thee an ark of gopher wood
Room shout they'll make in the ark and shout pitch it within and without so God says I'm gonna destroy the whole planet
With a flood so build an ark
What's gonna happen if he doesn't build the ark?
He dies. He drowns. His family dies. His family drowns. Is he trying to scare him into obedience?
Because you know what the Bible says in Hebrews chapter 11 about this? It says, by faith Noah moved with fear.
Prepared an ark to the saving of his house. So why did Noah build the ark? Because he was scared!
He was moved with fear. Hey, throughout my life, I've been moved by fear.
Move by the fear of God.
Look, obviously there are verses that talk negatively about fear.
Why? Because we don't need to be fearing man.
We shouldn't be fearing what man can do unto us.
Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul,
but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body and hell.
Of course, we're supposed to fear God.
I mean, this is basic Christianity 101.
fearing the Lord.
And then he's teaching this garbage that basically says,
well, if you're saved, that's 100% by faith.
Amen, we all agree on that.
But that you're also just 100% sanctified by faith.
So you don't have to do anything,
you don't have to work on anything to be sanctified
because you're just already there.
That's absurd.
We're gonna get to that later in the sermon.
But if you would, flip over to 2nd Corinthians chapter seven.
And while you're turning to 2 Corinthians chapter 7,
I'm going to read for you from Acts chapter 9 verse 31.
Because these false teachers and false prophets,
and look, I am not just using hyperbole
when I call him a false prophet.
I am saying that he is unsaved
because no one could be this stupid and be saved.
I'm not kidding.
Because here's the thing, either he's mentally ill,
functioning idiot or he's not saved and look he doesn't seem like a functioning idiot to me
He doesn't seem mentally ill to me
So I think he's just not saved because you know what people who aren't saved can't understand the Bible at all
Because the natural man receiving not the things of the Spirit of God their foolishness unto him neither can he know them
Because they're spiritually discerned and if anybody listens to that gobbledygook
Sermon that he preached
Exposing the work sanctificationists,
you'll come to the conclusion that this guy is unsaved
and has no understanding of the Word of God.
These are truths that people understand
five minutes after they're saved, okay?
And again, I'm not gonna repreach everything I did yesterday.
Go watch the 45-minute video I uploaded yesterday
if you wanna delve into that.
But while you're there in 2nd Corinthians chapter 7,
I just want to read for you from Acts chapter 9 verse 31.
The Bible says then had the churches rest
throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria and were edified.
Now doesn't that sound good?
Churches had rest and the churches were edified.
They're growing. They're being built up.
They're being built up in the faith, personally they're being edified,
as a church they're being edified, they're adding members, they're growing, they're thriving,
they're serving God, they're at rest.
And it says, and walking in the fear of the Lord,
and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost,
they were multiplied.
So they're walking in the fear of the Lord and they're walking in the comfort of the Holy Ghost and they're multiplied, right?
But we're supposed to choose between this false dichotomy that says, oh, you can either have
Joy or you can have the fear of the Lord. You can either have comfort or you can have fear. No, why not both?
Why can't we have the comfort of the Holy Ghost and the fear of God both at work in our lives and false teachers and false prophets?
They love for us to choose between these false dichotomies
Like for example the heretic John MacArthur when he says well, you know, it's not the blood of Jesus that saves us
It's just his death that saves us
Well, why not both?
How about it's Christ's death that saves us and his blood and his resurrection and his sinless life?
Why would we have to choose between these dichotomies of saying, you know, God doesn't and here's another quote from Joe Jones
God doesn't relate to us through fear of a beating. He relates to us through
intimacy. Now, I don't even remember reading the word intimacy in the Bible number one
But I do remember reading about fear of a beating many times
Okay, but he says God relates to us through intimacy not fear of bidding. Why not both?
Why can't we have a close walk with God?
I you know, I'm not gonna call it intimacy, but why don't we have like a close deep
Fellowship relationship communion with God a loving tender relationship with God and
Fear of a beating
Why are these mutually exclusive? Can somebody explain that to me because you know what I grew up loving my parents
yet fearing the beating. Okay? You know that's just the way it is when you're
growing up and you say, oh that kind of fear-based leadership fails. So is God a
failure? I guess God failed when Adam and Eve ate of the tree anyway because he
used that fear tactic. If you eat it you'll die and then they ate it anyway. I
guess we should blame God for that. Now I think we're gonna blame Adam and Eve for
But I had you turn to 2 Corinthians. Am I right here's one of the most classic passages that you're going to hear preached in a fundamental Baptist church
This is like a fundamental Baptist
Standard, okay in any fundamental Baptist church is this passage at the end of chapter 6 right verse 14 be ye not
unequally yoked together with unbelievers
for what fellowship hath righteousness,
what unrighteousness, what communion,
have light with darkness, right?
And for sake of time, let's just jump down to verse 17.
Wherefore, come out from among them
and be ye separate, sayeth the Lord,
and touch not the unclean thing,
and then look what it says,
and I'll receive you, and will be a father unto you,
and ye shall be my sons and daughters,
sayeth the Lord almighty, right?
So if we want to be acceptable to God,
If we want to be accepted by God, if we want to be pleasing to God,
then we need to come out from among them and be separate.
Now, this doctrine that he's teaching is that,
yeah, salvation is a free gift by faith,
but that also just being a disciple, being accepted, being pleasing to God,
that's also a free gift. No work required.
And my friend, that is a lie, because the Bible says in order to be a disciple of Christ,
you have to forsake everything that you have in order to be a disciple of Christ.
You've got to deny yourself, and you've got to take up the cross daily and follow Him.
Wouldn't we all agree that that's work?
I mean, how can anyone say,
taking up the cross daily and following Christ isn't works?
Of course it's works.
Okay, but that's what it takes to be an actual disciple because remember Christ preached to multitudes of people who believed on him and got baptized
But how many disciples did he have you know?
He's got like 12 disciples and then even in the early church in Acts chapter 1
How many people showed up in the early church in Acts chapter 1?
120 people including women and children
Although Jesus and the apostles and John the Baptist had won literally tens of thousands of people to Christ,
they'd gotten tens of thousands of people saved, tens of thousands of people baptized.
What's the church running?
120.
That's what the Bible says, 120.
Why?
Because there's a big difference between believing on Jesus and getting saved
and actually being a serious disciple for Christ.
Okay?
The Bible says,
that whether absent or present, we may be accepted of Him.
Sounds like we labor to be accepted, right?
The Bible says that He that worketh righteousness is accepted of Him.
If we come out from among them and be separate
and live a serious Christian life, He says,
I'll receive you, okay?
No, that's not talking about salvation.
We're already saved, but there's being saved
and then there's being pleasing to God.
Being actually a disciple, being actually accepted as an acceptable workman that needed not to be ashamed.
This is really clear stuff in the Bible, my friend.
We're looking at it right in front of our faces.
But this all comes down to his weird understanding of the word sanctification, okay?
And let's not let this word confuse us, right?
Let's just let this word be something that we understand clearly.
Sanctify simply means to make holy, okay?
Now we can we can actually prove all this from the Bible itself.
because if we just compare scripture with scripture,
in fact, just keep your finger there,
go back to Exodus 13.
Let's just do this just to make sure
that we're all on the same page here
about what words mean.
Okay, if we go back to Exodus chapter 13,
and we can just kind of let our King James Bible
define itself.
Look at Exodus chapter 13 verse two.
And the Bible reads,
Sanctify unto me.
Everybody see that?
Sanctify unto me all the firstborn,
whatsoever, openeth the womb
among the children of Israel.
Now jump down to verse 12.
It says that thou shalt set apart unto the Lord
all that openeth the matrix.
So we have a difficult word here, matrix,
but if we compare verse 12 to verse 2,
what is a matrix?
It's a womb, because it's called a womb in verse 2.
It's called the matrix in verse 12.
So matrix and womb mean the same thing.
Everybody see that?
And you can see why matrix would mean that,
because like maternal, M-A-T-R are the consonants there,
in matrix, in maternal, or things like that.
Even the word mother, M-T-H-R, right?
So everybody got that, right?
And then if we can also compare that in verse 2, it says,
Sanctify unto me all the firstborn,
whereas in verse number 12 it says,
set apart unto the Lord all that openeth the womb,
or openeth the matrix.
So if you compare verses with verses,
you can see that the words
sanctify and set apart
are being used interchangeably, right?
So sanctify means to set apart.
Here's another word that's used interchangeably
with set apart to make holy,
or to be holy means to be set apart.
And sometimes these words that are the most common words to us
are the words that we don't often nail down their definition
because we just take for granted.
Oh yeah, holy, yeah, I know what that means.
But hold on, what does holy mean?
Holy means set apart, okay?
And it's used interchangeably with sanctify, set apart, make holy.
These are interchangeable, they mean the same thing.
Holiness is the state of being set apart.
So all throughout the Bible you have talk about things that are holy those things are set apart for the service of God
Things that are different. They're not just ordinary profane things. They're holy things. Does everybody understand that?
Okay, so here's the thing
There's a verse in the Bible that says
Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts
and let him be your fear and let him be your dread.
What does that mean for us to sanctify the Lord?
How do we make the Lord holy? I mean, isn't he already holy?
Well, remember, what does holy mean? Set apart.
So when the Bible says sanctify the Lord God in your hearts,
it's saying set apart the Lord in your hearts,
meaning put him in his own category in your mind.
And let him be your fear and him be your dread,
meaning that you don't fear or dread anyone else.
Your fear and your dread is the Lord. He is sanctified. He is holy. He is set apart. He is different. Okay
So I hope that this kind of helps you understand these words holy set apart sanctified
Because they are used interchangeably throughout scripture, and we also have this word sanctuary
Sanctuary means holy place and it'll be used interchangeably with the term holy place
and sanctuary. These are used interchangeably in the Bible, okay, because that's what it means.
And so here's the thing about that, is that when we get saved,
there are different meanings of the word sanctified.
In one sense, we are just sanctified simply by virtue of being saved.
Everyone who is saved is holy because we're all set apart.
We're all different because we're different than unsaved people.
They're unsaved and we're saved.
We're holy, you know, we belong to the Lord we belong to God
We are saints. The Bible used the word saint, which again comes from sanctify.
We are saints just by virtue of calling upon the name of the Lord, the Bible teaches.
First Corinthians 1-1 is an example of that. So as saints, as saved Christians,
we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. We are saved and in one sense,
positionally before God, as far as our salvation is concerned, we are holy.
in that sense. So we are sanctified. But then there are other verses
that talk about sanctification as something that we would work toward or a process.
Why? Because this is talking about like practical
holiness in our lives. Okay. So there's
number one, there's the holiness of you're saved.
Right? Just your status as a saved Christian, but then there's like a practical holiness of actually like living in a holy way
And what does the Bible say? Be holy because I'm holy. That's what God says
And it's very similar to the word righteousness
Because here's the thing the moment that we're saved we are declared to be righteous in the sight of God
positionally we are righteous in God's sight, but
practically though
You know, there's living a righteous life versus living an unrighteous life and it's you know, it's really the same thing
And this isn't this is something that you know Christians
Understand, you know, it's something that's pretty basic. It's pretty simple stuff. It's it's stuff that you learn usually
You know when you're first saved and learning some basics of Christianity
This is not something that you'd expect a pastor to struggle with. Okay. This is real basic stuff and
the idea here is
that sanctification in the sense of cleaning up our lives and becoming holy is a process.
Whereas according to this new, weird doctrine that he's been preaching over the last few weeks,
it's just, nope, sanctification is 100% done at salvation, nothing more to see here.
And he said, he said, once sanctified, always sanctified.
And so, you know, I'm just sanctified, and even if I'm doing sinful stuff in my life,
You know I'm not living in sin
Even if I do stuff that the Bible describes as sin
I'm not living in sin because I'm just sanctified and just you know
You can't judge me you can't call me out you can't criticize me for that and don't try to scare me because God's not gonna discipline me
Well, you know what God maybe God won't discipline him because God only disciplines his children that are actually saved
You know, so I wouldn't go around bragging about how God's not gonna discipline you
Because you're basically just saying hello, my name is bastard is what you're saying, okay?
But if you would look back where we were in 2nd Corinthians chapter 7 because you know
We just finished up kind of that classic passage about you know come out from among them and be separate
very popular passage scripture in
Fundamental Baptist circles especially but look at chapter 7 verse 1 it says having there for these promises dearly beloved
Let us cleanse ourselves, right? He's talking to saved Christians. Hey, we're saved
But let's cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit. Watch this
perfecting holiness in the fear of God
So what are we supposed to be doing as Christians? How are we supposed to be living our lives?
We're supposed to be perfecting holiness in the fear of God
the exact opposite of what Joe Jones is telling you to do.
Joe Jones is telling you, do not perfect holiness
because it's already perfect. It's already done. You're already totally sanctified.
You're done. It's finished. Sanctification's over.
Once sanctified, always sanctified, and it's just done.
And he's telling you, you know,
quit emphasizing the fear of God. You know, don't live in fear.
Let me tell you something. I am living in fear all the day long
You say I don't know about that Pastor Andrew. That sounds a little extreme
Well, let's see what the Bible says
I'm just gonna read this for you. You don't have to turn there Psalm 36
One
That's not the verse I was looking for. Where's that wonderful verse about be thou in the fear of the Lord all day long?
I thought that I had written that down
Somebody find that for me, please, but here's the thing about that is that
Perfecting holiness in the fear of God sounds to me like sanctification
Like sounds to me like we're getting sanctified. We're getting holier by cleansing ourselves
From the filth of the flesh and the spirit by cleansing ourselves of the filth of the flesh and the spirit
We're perfecting holiness in the fear of God sounds like we're working on getting sanctified
It sounds like we're sanctifying ourselves.
Okay, because that's another statement he made
is we don't sanctify ourselves.
And yet, just a quick little Bible search of the word
sanctify and selves will just give you, you know,
I think like 13 verses just right out of the gate
because, you know, God's saying, sanctify yourselves,
sanctify yourselves, let them sanctify themselves.
It's a big theme, okay?
It was also a big hit in the 80s by Simple Minds.
But anyway, what's the verse that I'm looking for?
Proverbs 23.17 says this,
Let thine heart, let not thine heart envy sinners,
but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long.
I guess I'm just not supposed to obey that.
Like the Bible just says like,
Hey, be thou in the fear of the Lord all day long.
All day long, we should have in the back of our mind,
I better not do something stupid or I'm getting a whipping.
Is that bad? Is that a bad thing to have in mind?
That's a great thing to have in mind. You know, what about when the Bible
tells you in Proverbs that if you commit adultery with another man's wife
he's gonna be super angry and he might kill you?
Isn't that kind of scaring you into obedience?
What about when he says, oh yeah, the strange woman.
Man, her lips are smoother than oil.
Her lips drop like honeycomb.
Her mouth is so sweet, she's so hot,
but her house is the way to hell.
Nobody comes back.
The dead are there.
It's full of corpses.
Why doesn't he just say, hey man,
you can have a lot more joy if you don't go there.
If you'd walk in gratitude, you won't go there.
Is that what he said?
No, man, he's trying to scare you straight.
I mean, I remember when I was a kid,
they'd bring in these weird thugs into your school.
Who had those thugs coming to your school
to scare you straight, right?
And these people would literally come
in shackles and handcuffs to our school.
I'm not even joking.
My wife's laughing because apparently
you don't do this in Germany.
Well, they do it here, honey.
They would bring in literal convicts who are in prison and I mean I remember sitting down in a classroom
There's like 20 of us in the class. There's like three convicts at the front of the class
Telling us don't end up in prison like me. I killed people. I stole I did all this stuff and they're like
lecturing us
about how stupid it is to do graffiti and to drink and to take drugs and to listen to rap music
and they're warning us about these things.
And you know, I think that some of these programs were called Scared Straight.
That was kind of a phrase that stuck in my mind.
It wasn't talking about straight, like, not being a homo.
It was talking about just living like, you know, a straight-laced life,
like living a clean life, not getting diverted off the path of righteousness
into all this kind of criminal, wicked activity.
And here's the thing, man, they're trying to scare us straight.
And you know what? Maybe it didn't work on everybody.
Well, you know what? God's warnings didn't work on Adam and Eve.
Does that mean that we just need to throw out the Bible's plan and come up with some
new attachment, parenting, weird, positive only kind of an approach that just throws
out the fear of God and we can just totally change the way we preach and just ignore
giant swarves of the Bible?
Just because oh somebody disobeyed that means it doesn't work. That means this fear-based leadership doesn't work
Well, you know what? I guess it's not working for God too well either since God's trying to scare people by going to hell
And and people just keep going there
Folks that's their fault
God's not the problem and you know what if you stop preaching on hell even more people will go to hell than are going right now
You can say oh man this fear-based leadership doesn't work look at the fruit of it
Okay, but do you realize how much worse? It'll be if we get rid of the of the fear of
God like like oh fear of God doesn't work
Bro, you know how much worse it would have been without the verb got it's like it's like
Oh, I took this cold medicine and it didn't work. Well, maybe your cold would have been a lot worse
Maybe it was getting way worse and you took the pill and you didn't feel any difference because it just kept you the same
But maybe you would have been way worse. You don't really know do you?
So at the end of the day, why don't we just trust God?
Why don't we just trust what the Bible says?
You know, and it's like, oh, we see the fear of this,
or excuse me, we see the fruit of this fear-based leadership.
Well, here's the fruit of the fear-based leadership.
The Bible says in Acts chapter nine, verse 31,
that they were walking in the fear of the Lord
and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost.
Here's the fruit, they were multiplied,
unlike Joe Jones and the incredible shrinking church.
Right credible shrinking church
That's smaller than when it started
Dramatically smaller than when it's then when he took over
Right? Well, here's how you get multiplied. You walk in the fear of the Lord or here's another way to multiply
You can just throw out all the hard preaching throw out all the standards throw out all the fear of God and become a liberal fun
Slinner with a waterslide baptism and a rock band and just have all of the just appeal to the flesh
With a 15-minute sermenette
You know you got to go either way my friend cold or hot
You know, you're not, you know, this middle-of-the-road garbage is going to get you nowhere.
So 2nd Corinthians chapter number 7 verse 1 it says having therefore these promises dearly beloved
Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God sounds like we're sanctifying ourselves
with our living by cleansing ourselves from the filth of the flesh and the spirit and we're perfecting holiness or
Completing that process of becoming holy in the fear of God, you know
We're constantly trying to put the finishing touches on our Christian life
So we're never going to be all the way at the destination. We're never going to be a hundred percent perfect
But shouldn't we be working on it?
Right, isn't that the idea like we're working on it. We're perfecting holiness in the fear of God
And so do not get sucked into this weird teaching
because on the surface, it can sound good.
They can cherry pick a couple of verses
that they're twisting and misapplying
and they can make something that maybe,
and Joe Jones doesn't make it sound good
because his preaching sucks,
but I'm saying like other preachers will make it sound good.
Like, you know, these kind of big name types
like Joseph Prince or something that preached this stuff
or, you know, the mega church down the street.
You know, they're going to try to come at you with oh, you need to get free and we're free in Christ and we need to stop talking about the rules and we need to stop preaching fear and just preach love and if people would just be just overwhelmed by the love of God then they're just going to do all the right things and so forth.
Wrong.
Okay.
You will walk in the Spirit.
if you're filled with the Holy Ghost and you won't fulfill the lust of flesh,
but that's not by just gratitude and joy and whatever.
You know, here's how you walk in the Spirit, my friend.
And look, I know that, you know, we're getting a little off track here,
but it's just there's so much to deal with here.
There's so many verses.
There's so much to say about this.
You know, we want to be filled with the Spirit, right?
We want to be filled with the Spirit. Okay.
So how do we get filled with the Spirit?
Well, you know, one thing is if we look at the classic
filled with the Spirit passage in Ephesians chapter five,
be not drunk with wine, we're in his excess,
but be filled with the Spirit,
speak unto yourselves in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs,
singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.
If we look at the parallel passage in Colossians 3, 16,
it says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly
with all wisdom.
teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and hymns, spiritual songs.
So notice that be filled with the Spirit is used interchangeably with
let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly with all wisdom.
It's interchangeable with be filled with the Spirit.
So that tells me that one of the ways that we can be filled with the Spirit
is being inundated with God's Word.
Reading the Bible.
Right? Spending a lot of time reading the Bible is going to help us be filled with the Spirit. Amen?
Because we're putting in the Word of God and that's going to actually help us to be filled with the Spirit.
If we're saved and we're reading a bunch of Bible, that's going to help us get there and have the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
And what's funny is
Joe Jones said, oh, you know, you don't get sanctified by how many times you've read the Bible.
And then he goes on to quote the verse that says,
Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth.
See, that's what sanctifies us.
Excuse me, sir, isn't that reading the Bible?
Like if we're sanctified by the word of God.
And, but then he goes on to say,
well, you just got sanctified by the truth
the moment you got saved.
But he's talking about people that are already saved
and saying, sanctify these people
through your truth, thy word is truth.
Folks, the more you read the Bible, the more the word of Christ is going to dwell in you.
Thy word if I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee.
So, fullness of the Holy Spirit helps you not to fulfill the lust of the flesh.
Well, how about this?
Thy word if I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee.
Isn't that kind of a similar idea?
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.
Here's another one, with all wisdom.
And what's the beginning of wisdom?
The fear of the Lord.
The fear of the Lord. So look, if I'm just living in the book of Proverbs, right?
I'm just living in the book of Proverbs and just reading it and
actually reading it with fear in my heart like, oh man,
I better get my crap together and do what the book of Proverbs says or I'm gonna end up
like these people that are being described in the book of Proverbs.
who are crashing and burning.
So if I'm just like living in the book of Proverbs,
reading the book of Proverbs and just applying
all that wisdom, just getting all that wisdom
from the book of Proverbs, okay?
Is that gonna help me to be filled with the spirit?
Or not, or is being filled with the spirit
some magical, spooky thing?
Let me tell you something.
The fullness of the Holy Spirit is a subtle thing.
Okay?
You know how you can tell who's filled with the Holy Spirit?
The person who's out there winning souls to Christ and is a powerful soul winner is filled
with the Spirit.
Because how else could they be doing those works for God?
Preaching the gospel, getting people saved, that's through the power of the Holy Spirit.
The preacher who gets up and preaches a powerful sermon, lives are being changed, souls are
being saved, that's a preacher who's filled with the Holy Spirit.
Any questions?
The sermon that accomplishes nothing, the sermon that falls flat,
that's the sermon that's not Spirit-filled.
The preacher who doesn't win souls to Christ, he's the preacher that's not Spirit-filled.
I mean, does everybody understand?
Now, here's the thing.
The Spirit-filled Christian is also exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit,
meaning that they're filled with love and joy and peace and whatever,
but that is the result, not the cause.
The Bible's not saying, hey, just get real loving and get real peaceful and get real joyous
and then you'll be filled with spirit. No, no, you get filled with the spirit
and then you'll have love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness. Does everybody understand?
That's the fruit of the Spirit. That's the outcome of the Spirit.
Here's another result of the Spirit. The Bible says in Acts 4.31, when they had prayed,
the place was shaken where they were assembled together and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost
and they spake the Word of God with boldness.
So another outcome of being filled with the Holy Spirit is you preach with boldness.
Another outcome is that in your heart you have love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness.
Another outcome is that you don't fulfill the lust of the flesh.
because you're filled with the Spirit.
Okay, but how do you get to the fullness of the Spirit?
Well, we're looking for clues, amen.
Here's a clue.
Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly with all wisdom.
Sanctify them through that truth.
How about reading your Bible?
How about getting wisdom from the Bible?
How about starting with the fear of the Lord
because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom?
How about praying for the fullness of the Holy Spirit?
the place was shaken where they were assembled together and they're all filled with the Holy Ghost.
So how about praying and saying,
God, please fill me with the Holy Spirit.
If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children,
how much more will your Father which is in heaven,
give the Holy Spirit to them than ask him?
Now all of us who are saved are indwelled by the Holy Spirit,
but if you want to have the fullness of the Holy Spirit,
then pray to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
And then read your Bible, and then focus in on the book of Proverbs and get the wisdom of Proverbs.
Apply the wisdom of Proverbs and read it with fear and trembling and go through life fearing God,
keeping his commandments, following the rules.
And let me tell you something, my friend.
The fullness of the Holy Spirit
Okay, actually leading you toward living a good,
cobbly Christian life is not what is being preached
by this false prophet.
Okay, what's being preached by him is just,
oh, just forget about the rules, don't worry about rules,
and just live a life of joy and gratitude,
and then, yeah, it's gonna be great.
It's not what the Bible teaches, it's wrong.
It's false.
Oh, Bible reading's not the ticket.
Yeah, Bible reading is the ticket.
Here's the ticket Bible readings the ticket prayers the ticket singing hymns as a ticket because it said be filled with the spirit
Speaking to yourselves and Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs sounds like there's another way to get filled with the spirit
Singing praises to God. How about that?
All right, that's the ticket. You know what I you know what all these things have in common
reading the Bible
praying
singing the hymns
You know walking in the fear of God. I mean it sounds to me like work
Sounds to me like work sounds like something you work on
Who thinks reading the Bible is work it's works you're working on something you're putting in effort. How about prayer?
Right. I mean, it's pretty obvious, right?
So
Here's another thing that he said he said
Let's say I wanted to be Batman
This is his illustration, okay, he said
You know
If I just want and I hope I don't get this too wrong because it was such a weird bizarre illustration
I might mess it up
But he basically said something along these lines like you know, what if you're just pretending what if you're just pretending to be Batman?
And then you're just kind of like, you'd have to dress like Batman and act like Batman and kind of do the things that Batman does.
But he's saying, you know, God doesn't want us to pretend to be a good Christian.
He wants us to just actually be a good Christian. He doesn't want us to pretend to be the new man.
He wants to be the new man.
Now, he never really explained where he was going with this Batman illustration. It was a pretty wild illustration.
Because I'm thinking to myself, I'm just thinking this through, and I'm thinking like, well, you know, if I dress up like Batman and I start training like Batman,
and I get all the gadgets that Batman gets, and I start getting all the tools of Batman, and then I go start fighting crime like Batman,
you know, at some point I'm just Batman at that point. Am I right?
I mean, wouldn't I just be Batman if I dress like Batman,
act like Batman, have the tools of Batman,
and do the work that Batman does?
I mean, at what point do I get to this tipping point,
this watershed, where it's like,
bro, you just are Batman?
Does everybody understand what I'm saying?
But I guess Joe Jones is just automatically Batman
because he got saved.
And just by virtue of being saved, he's just Batman.
You know, and this is what he said, if we would just look inside and find the Batman within, you know, then everything's going to be great.
But you know what? It's false, and let me tell you why it's false, because the Bible clearly states that if you bring forth fruit, then God will purge you so that you can bring forth more fruit, right?
So first you bring forth fruit.
Step one, you start doing the work as a Christian. You do works.
Then step two, after you're fruitful, God purges you.
And then step three is that you bring forth more fruit.
And then you rinse and repeat, right?
Because it's like bring forth fruit, get purged, bring forth even more fruit,
get purged, and you have this positive feedback loop.
And so here's what I would say.
You know what? Why don't you start doing the things that you're supposed to do?
and then watch how you will change as a person.
You know, and this is why you have to be careful
what you pretend to be,
because what you pretend to be,
you can ultimately become that.
Does everybody understand what I'm saying?
You know, let no man deceive you by any means, he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous, you know.
And so we have this de-emphasis on works, which is absurd, because the Bible emphasizes works, okay.
Works are not salvation.
But we all know that, don't we?
Like, I don't have to sit here and go on and on
about how there are zero works required for salvation.
We all know that.
We all believe that.
The Bible says, for by grace are you saved through faith
and that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God,
not of works that a standing man should boast.
What does the next verse say?
For we are his workmanship.
created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
which God had before ordained that we should walk in them.
So we're not saved by works, but we are saved unto good works,
meaning that God's desire, God's will, God's commandment to us
is that after we get saved, we get to work. We go to work.
God didn't save us to enslave us is nothing easy, but here's the thing. We are the servants of Jesus Christ
Okay, Paul a servant of Jesus Christ Romans 1 1 and
We could show all those verses. Okay, the thing is that God
Expects us to be working as Christians and here's the thing. Maybe you
Don't feel like reading your Bible. You read the Bible anyway
You don't feel like praying? Pray anyway. You don't feel like singing hymns?
Sing a hymn to the Lord anyway. You don't feel like going to church? Go to church anyway.
You don't feel like going soul-winning? Go soul-winning anyway.
Do you think that I only go soul-winning when I feel like it? Do you think I only
pray when I feel like it? Do you think I only read my Bible or preach when I feel like it?
Of course not. And you know what ends up happening is that when you force yourself to do stuff,
Once you get into it, now all of a sudden you find yourself excited, you find yourself
actually filled with the spirit.
You know what I mean? Because it's like you for it and we could use all kinds of worldly examples of this like if I just
man
I don't feel like going to the gym or something and then you get to the gym and you kind of get into it and you know
you're enjoying the workout.
Nobody relates to that. Okay.
You don't feel like eating a pizza.
No, that never happens either.
I'm trying to meet you where you're at here.
But there's so many things where you're just kind of like...
Okay, how about every teenager on the planet
when you try to get them to do anything?
It's just kind of like...
I don't feel like it.
But once they start doing stuff, now they're having fun.
Folks isn't that how it is with all of us in life like like there are certain things where you know
Oh man, I don't really feel like soul winning, but then once you're out there soul winning
Have you ever noticed how all of a sudden you start getting super excited super pumped super zealous
And you know what you find yourself filled with love for the lost
Filled with joy at people getting saved
Could it be that you were not necessarily filled with the Holy Spirit,
but then you got your butt out so many anyway,
and then you got filled with the Holy Spirit in the process of doing the activity?
Right? Or, oh, I don't really feel like reading my Bible,
but then you start reading it, and you're loving it.
Your heart is burning within you.
You're excited about what you're reading.
Right? This is the way the Christian life works.
And so it's not about just, you know, looking within all the time to find Batman within.
No, you know, at some point you just got to put on a Batman helmet and put on a cape
and start punching criminals in the face at some point.
You know what I mean?
At some point you got to get your first gadget and just start firing it.
I don't know much about Batman. I'm sorry.
At some point, you just get a Batmobile and start driving it, you know?
And next thing you know, you're Batman.
I saw somebody said something online, like, oh man, there's all these billionaires in the world
and none of them has decided to become Batman.
It's kind of disappointing because they would have the money to buy all the toys, you know, and do it.
But I guess they heard that sermon by Joe Jones and they don't know where to start.
I feel like Joe Jones is discouraging the billionaires
of this world from becoming Batman.
But it's just so stupid, like, oh, you know,
you can't just pretend to be Batman.
You just have to be Batman.
What the heck?
Batman's not real.
There is no Batman.
But guess what?
I like this saying, here's a great saying,
fake it till you make it.
Fake it till you make it and look what does that mean?
It means you go through the motions on things sometimes right and in the process of going through the motions
Eventually that becomes you
Okay, anybody who's into running which again, I know I've got a very small crowd. I'm talking to you right now
But here's the thing about running is that you know when I started running I hated running
Okay, by the time I was 29 years old the furthest I'd ever run was a mile and a half
and I hated every minute of it, and it was in PE in school I was being forced to do that.
But around the time I was 29, 30 years old, I decided, man, I need to do something to get better cardio, get better shape,
and so I started just forcing myself to go out running.
and I'm just forcing myself to run.
I didn't enjoy it.
It hurt.
It wasn't fun.
It was painful, but I'm just dragging myself out there
and just running and run a mile here, two miles here,
three miles there, whatever.
I'm out there running and then I remember one time,
just this one day to the next, I'm out there
and I ran like seven miles and I was enjoying it.
And as I was running, this thought came to my mind.
You know what?
I'm so comfortable right now running.
that I could literally be sitting on the couch right now
and I would pretty much feel the same
as I feel running right now,
as far as just how comfortable I am.
And I just felt good.
And I just was like, I like running.
I like running now.
And you know, people out in the world will call this
becoming a born again runner.
You know when you when you kind of cross this threshold from running being like a quid pro quo
That says oh, well, I gotta run so I can lose weight. I gotta run so I don't you know
Get out of shape. I got a run for my cardio to just like I like running. I enjoy running
Okay, and a lot of people can't even fathom this they can't even grasp this
But you know what else people can't grasp they can't really grasp sometimes enjoying reading your Bible
or enjoying prayer, or enjoying soul winning,
or enjoying church, but we enjoy those things, don't we?
We enjoy those things.
Why?
Because we're born again.
Okay, but here's the thing.
Obviously the born again runner,
that they're misusing that term,
could even be considered a little blasphemous,
the way they're using that, okay?
But the point, everything's been blasphemous lately, amen?
With these false teachers, I mean, it's all blasphemy.
And you know, I'm starting to agree with that.
But the point is that,
with the Christian life sometimes it's we have to do things that are hard and
We have to do things that are uncomfortable
Like running starts out being really uncomfortable and painful and you're getting this stabbing pain in your side
Maybe you know a lot of people when they start running they start throwing up
Because they're just you know out of shape
And then you puke because you're just so out of shape and you start running and your body's just like, what's going on here?
I, you know, let's just empty my stomach and then we'll figure out what we're doing here.
Okay, but here's the thing is that, you know, soul winning could be uncomfortable at first.
Knocking your first door out soul winning, that's gonna be, you know, you're gonna have to push yourself a little bit.
It's gonna be a little bit uncomfortable, isn't it?
Now
Can you imagine how horrible it would be if a pastor got up and guilted you into going soul-winning?
Or shamed you into going soul-winning?
Or scared you into going soul-winning?
I mean, what if the pastor got up and said something like, you know,
Jesus said that if you don't gather with him, you're scattering abroad.
Jesus said, if you follow me, I'll make you a fisher of men.
What's the matter? Are you not following Jesus?
Because I don't see you being a fisher of men.
And he said, if you follow me, I'll make you fishers of men.
What's going on here?
So you're going to start following Jesus at some point?
Now look, you say, oh man, that could shame me a little bit
or make me feel a little guilty.
Good.
Get your butt out soul winning.
You say, oh man, it's just, you know, you're just emphasizing all this work and stuff.
Folks, it's all about the works.
Jesus said, behold, I come quickly and my reward is with me to give every man the same
because we're communists and we're all equal and everybody gets the same participation
trophy at the end of it all.
Is that what the Bible says?
No, he said, behold, I come quickly and my reward is with me to give every man according
as his work shall be.
Christ has come in with a reward and it's for work.
And you get rewarded more if you work more, you get rewarded less if you work less.
Now look, I don't think there's anything negative at the judgment seat of Christ.
I don't think that Christians who did nothing are going to just feel bad about it for all of eternity or something.
I don't believe that for one second, okay?
I believe that there's going to be just varying levels of reward though.
And look, I think that the probably, and again, you know, maybe I'm speculating a little bit,
but I'm basing this on what I read in the Bible.
You know, I think that even if you're just the lamest Christian imaginable who did literally nothing for God
and all your works are wood-hand stubble and you get no rewards and you're just saved yet so is by fire,
I still think you're just going to be super happy to just be in heaven and just to be saved and just be with Jesus
and just to be there, even if you're sweeping the floor, cleaning toilets, you're just glad to be there.
I mean, look, if I got to heaven and God just decided that,
oh man, nothing that you did like really gets a reward
because you got too much credit on earth or something.
So you don't get any rewards.
I'll just be like, okay, whatever, cool.
This place is great.
The food's great.
This is better than the cruise ship, you know?
Because guess what?
I don't even mind.
You know, when I go on these cruises,
I always buy the cheapest cabin.
the cheapest, worst, lowest, deep in the ship,
room with no window.
I always get the crappiest, cheapest cabin
that they offer on these things, and it's still awesome.
And I feel like the crappiest cabin in heaven
is still awesome, amen?
Just getting to heaven is awesome, but guess what? When I get to heaven, I don't believe I'm gonna be in the bottom
I don't believe I'm gonna be in that crappy cabin. You know, I believe I'm gonna get some rewards for the stuff
I'm doing now. I don't know how much reward I'm gonna get. I don't know how much I'm doing in God's sight
That's for him to judge. I don't really sit around thinking about it or worrying about it or caring too much about it
But you know what if I work hard for the Lord this I know this for a fact if I work harder
I'm gonna get more rewards and if I don't work as hard. I'm gonna get less rewards
Amen? I mean, that's a really clear biblical doctrine.
You get rewarded according to your work.
It's not everybody.
Let me put it to you another way.
The thief on the cross and the apostle Paul
aren't of the same status in the kingdom of God, in heaven.
They don't get the same reward. They just don't.
So again, I don't think there's anything negative.
I don't think the thief on the cross is just walking around as like a loser in heaven.
There are no losers in heaven.
I think even if you have the worst cabin, it's like the worst cabin on a Carnival cruise.
It's still really nice.
I mean, I walk into the worst cheapest cabin and I'm just like, this is beautiful.
This is great.
This is huge.
I'm like, this bathroom's huge.
This is great.
This is nice.
And people are scoffing at me in the elevator.
This one person's like, oh, you know,
I pushed that button for floor one.
And some boomer woman is just like, oh, man,
you're on the first floor.
Oh, man, you know.
Good luck with that.
I'm just saying, like, dude, the first floor is awesome.
You know this is this is gonna give me a lot of good exercise because every time I want to go to
To get a meal it's nine flights of stairs
And I don't use the elevator
I just keep using the stairs and then I'm gonna you know burn the calories or whatever
But but here's the point is that you'd rather be in the worst cabin in heaven. You're still gonna be happy
I think everybody's going to be happy to get to heaven, nobody's going to be sad or down and gloomy or just kind of suffering and throughout eternity.
I don't believe that for one second. That's crazy, okay? Everybody is going to be rejoicing and happy to be in heaven.
But there's going to be a dramatic difference based on rewards. And when Christ comes and rules and reigns on this earth and the millennium, your status is going to be based on the work that you did.
You know he's gonna say to one person be thou over ten cities be thou over five cities
Be thou over two cities and some people it's gonna be like all right grab a broom
But hey blessed is he that either than drinker than the kingdom of God no matter what your job is
Right and by the way, I believe hell is the same way
I don't think everybody's experiencing the exact same hell because the Bible says that some people will receive a greater damnation
He said some people in the lowest hell
But here's the bottom line, every part of hell is bad.
It's all torment, it's all bad.
Everything in heaven's good, everything in hell's bad.
There's gradations there, but there's a giant leap
between being the lowest in heaven
and being in the least warm spot in hell
or something like that.
Does everybody understand what I'm saying?
But don't get this weird commie attitude that just,
oh, we're all the same, there's no rewards,
nobody's a hero.
Yeah, there are gonna be some heroes
and there are gonna be some zeros in heaven.
And the zeros are gonna be happy to be there,
but the heroes are gonna get the big rewards.
You know, and I'm not claiming
to be some big hero or something.
I don't know, you know, we'll find out
when we get there, won't we?
But you know what we should focus on right now?
It's just working.
and just doing the work, and here's the thing.
You know what?
I'd rather basically pretend to be Batman
and put on the cape and start fighting crime
because eventually, but what point are you Batman?
You know, it's like, well, you know what?
I'm just gonna go out soul-winning.
Am I a big soul winner?
I don't know, man, but I'm saved.
So I guess I'm just gonna put on the cape
and put on the helmet and just go soul-winning.
Ah, you're just going through the motions.
You're not real.
You're an imposter!
Here's the thing, if you believe in Jesus, you're real. Amen?
If you're saved, now look, the only fakes are the people who aren't saved.
And they're going through the motions of church or soul when you're reading the Bible.
If you're saved, you're not going through the motions as a fake in that sense.
Does everybody understand what I'm saying? So why don't you just read your Bible?
Why don't you just pray?
Why don't you just go soul-winning?
Instead of navel-gazing, trying to find the Batman within,
go do the works of Batman and thou shalt be Batman.
It's just stupid to just say like,
oh, you know, you can't just pretend or whatever.
The only one who's pretending is you, Joe Jones,
because you're pretending to be a Baptist preacher
when you don't understand anything in the Bible,
when you can read a Bible verse
and then just say the opposite of what it says.
And everybody who's actually saved is listening to the sermon and saying,
wow, this makes no sense.
That's not what that verse said.
And, you know, when I see a bunch of people listening to his sermon in the comment section
saying it's wonderful, I'm just thinking, well, there's a lot of unsaved people listening
to Joe Jones who are this stupid that they don't understand clear teachings of the Word
of God, or they're just so blinded by hatred where they just hate Pastor Anderson so much
that any enemy of Pastor Anderson is automatically wonderful.
That's what's going on.
We read the Bible to get sanctified. We pray. We go soul-winning. We go to church. We sing praises to God.
I mean this is how we grow in the Christian life, okay?
And you know what? Rules also are helpful to act as guardrails in our lives to make sure that we don't go off the deep end.
And I'm reading the Bible and the Bible is just constantly telling me to do this and don't do that.
And I just wonder like are people reading a different Bible than me because I'm just reading the Bible and every day
It's like telling you do this do this don't do that don't do that
The Bible is emphasizing the fear of God now
I'm almost out of time because I kind of went off on a few tangents there
But here's a great verse for you Psalm 36 verse 1 if you want to flip over there Psalm 36 verse 1
The Bible says in Psalm 36 verse 1 it says the transgression of the wicked
Sayeth within my heart that there is no fear of God before his eyes notice what the Bible does not say it doesn't say
You know the transgression of the wicked says within my heart that you know, this guy just doesn't have enough joy in his life
This guy just doesn't have enough gratitude in his life. No in this particular verse. It says no when I see people
violating God's laws, it tells me that there's no fear of God before His eyes.
Now look, it doesn't just say He doesn't have the fear of God in His heart,
or in His mind, or in His brain.
It says He doesn't have the fear of God before His eyes.
And you know what that tells me?
Is that we need to put the fear of God in front of people.
You put it in front of people, and show them,
this is the fear of God.
Put it in front of people, put it before their eyes,
So that it can be in their mind and look part of the reason why we go to church is sometimes to get these warnings
To be warned of these things. Look, is it a bad thing to say? Hey, if you commit fornication, you can get an STD
Isn't that trying to scare you into obedience?
Should you be scared of getting an STD and
Should that come into your mind if you're ever tempted to commit fornication or to commit adultery?
Shouldn't you stop and think why I could get an STD?
Or shouldn't you stop and think well God killed 23,000 people in one day because of fornication. Maybe I
Could be one of them
Or when you think about committing adultery you think about all the warnings against adultery and the bad things that can happen
Right. You think what about this? What if you're tempted to go shoplifting?
Isn't the idea that the cops could catch you?
Gonna deter you from doing that
Does that work as a deterrent?
I mean, if shoplifting were 100% legal versus illegal and the cops could arrest you and you
could go to jail for that, isn't that going to come into your mind about whether or not
you're going to shoplift?
Right?
Now, here's the thing, obviously these things are there for a reason.
Now, here's the thing, let's say shoplifting were 100% legal, obviously the mature person,
Right, even if we know the cops aren't gonna do it. Okay, but what about the backslidden Christian?
What about the baby Christian? Right? Then that's where these things come into play, don't they?
There's a huge segment that will do these things if there's no consequence, and you know if I'm honest if
God
somehow if I somehow knew that God would let me get away with certain things then it might make me think
Oh, well, maybe I'll do these sinful things if I know I'm gonna get away with it with God
But I'm looking at the Bible and I'm seeing all these warnings not to do this not to that
And I'm thinking to myself like I don't want God to punish me for that. So I'm not gonna do it
It's pretty normal to think that way, okay?
And look, here's the thing, when I was a teenager,
I heard a lot of teaching when I was in the liberal churches
because when I was a teenager,
I spent a lot of time in liberal churches
and I heard a lot of teaching that said,
hey, virginity is this special gift
that you give to your spouse someday when you get married.
Don't defraud your spouse of giving them
this gift of your virginity.
Now look, amen.
I say amen to that, but you know what when I was 15 years old that did nothing for me
That was just like whoop
I was 15 years old
Hormones were raging and when they said oh you want to give your spouse the special gift and I'm just like whoop
And then they said, oh man, you're gonna be so happy
that you waited, and oh, it's gonna be so great,
and you're gonna have such a better relationship
with your wife, and you're gonna have marriage problems
if you commit fornication, but if you stay pure,
things are gonna be better, and that's all true.
Now I believe and understand all those things, but at the time that was in one ear and out the other
and I was a Christian kid who'd been saved for a decade and it was in one ear and out the other but yet
I did not commit fornication for one reason because I was scared to do it because I was like you know what this is a big
Sin God kills people for things like this
and I am not going to commit this grievous sin
because God is going to whip my butt if I do this.
And you know what?
There were a lot of things growing up that I didn't do
because I knew that my parents were going to whip my butt
if I did them.
Not even God, but I knew my parents were going to whip my butt
if I did those things, and so I didn't do them.
Go to Leviticus chapter 19.
Leviticus chapter 19.
It's funny that I have a five page sermon here and we're on page one actually actually I only I'm only halfway through page one
Because I kind of just freestyle it tonight, so maybe I don't know maybe I can save this for another time or something
But look at look at Leviticus chapter 19 verse 3
Because at the end of the day, I don't care what?
Somebody's philosophies are and thoughts are about what they think works and doesn't work at the end of the day
I'm just gonna do what the Bible says
You know if it works if it doesn't work, you know if I do what the Bible says and it doesn't work
I'm just gonna keep doing it
She's gonna keep doing is what the Bible said and I just have the faith that in the long run. It's gonna work
So if I do something in the Bible, it doesn't work right away
I'm just gonna think well in the long run. It's gonna work keep doing it
It's like Abraham and Sarah God's telling them you're gonna have a child not working not working not working not working for decades
Still not having a child, but then Abraham just keeps believing God
You know it eventually it worked
That's faith
Look at the Bible says in Leviticus 19 verse 3 ye shall fear
Every man his mother and his father and keep my sabbaths. I'm the Lord your God now
What does that say every man should fear his mother and his father is that what the Bible says?
So am I supposed to fear my parents?
Oh, that's so terrible.
Oh, you're just not loving.
You know what, here's the thing.
I was afraid of my parents growing up, but I also loved them.
They loved me.
I loved them.
They were nice to me.
They did good things for me.
They gave me a great upbringing.
But I was also scared of my dad.
And I was even scared of my mom, because my mom would get
these long manicured fingernails.
And she would stab me in the chest with them in the sternum.
She was like, it was it was like woody woodpecker on my sternum
All right, and here's what I did
I you know I took a bunch of photos of my chest and uploaded it to the internet said help me to be used
Look at all these little look at all these little semi circles all over my shirt
That's that's there were two shirts and I got all these little semi circles
Look, I was scared of my dad and I was scared of my mom
And you know what, that's healthy, that's normal.
You know what, when I was growing up,
I saw the kids who weren't afraid of their parents.
I've been over at a friend's house
and saw a kid say to his mom, I hate you.
Or you're a B-I-T-C-H or something, right?
And you see kids say these things to their parents
and I'm just like, whoa, I would never say that.
I'd be scared to death, my parents would kill me.
You know what I mean and guess what that's what keeps you straight as a kid
Scared straight. I
Probably need to change the title of this sermon to just scared straight because that's what that's what it is
But but but the thing about that is that you know what you probably grew up the same way
It's probably why you're here where you had some fear and respect for your parents and here's the thing
Fear of a spanking is a deterrent
obey or be spanked, and then you do what you're told.
That's called growing up as kids.
So then what about when the Bible says,
Whom the Lord loveth he chastenedeth,
and scourges every son whom he receiveth?
Why does he tell us that?
Because he wants it to be a deterrent
that we will straighten up and fly right
so that we don't get the continual beatings.
And Pastor Thompson, Pastor Aaron Thompson,
he correctly from the Bible preached.
This is what he said.
He said, yeah, you can do whatever you want
as a saved Christian.
You're still going to go to heaven.
But he said, do whatever you want if you want to get beaten a lot by God.
If you want to get a lot of beatings, then do whatever you want.
Pastor Joe Jones plays a clip of him saying that and says like,
oh, God didn't give us a spirit of fear, and oh, you know, this is bondage, this is fear, whatever.
Because Pastor Thompson just preaches the most basic standard Christian doctrine of,
God's gonna beat you if you refuse to obey and live however you want.
If you just live however you want, just total disregard for God's word, you're getting a beating.
If I was growing up in my house and I just did anything, I'm getting a beating.
You're getting a whipping, is what my parents would say.
This is what my parents would say.
You're getting a whipping.
They'd say, I will slap you down.
Okay, that's what I said.
And you know what?
I knew it was for real, and I did right, and I'm saved, and all my siblings are saved.
My two sisters are saved. My brother's saved. I'm saved. Why? Because my parents put the fear God into us
You know, and here's the thing here's the thing. It's funny about that. I love and appreciate my parents
My brother is a whining little BITCH about getting spanked 40 years later
He's whining and complaining about dad calling him an uncoordinated spaz
40 years later
Same home, same upbringing, right?
And he's an ungrateful brat that doesn't give my dad respect.
I love and respect my dad.
Same house, same upbringing.
And guess what, Cain and Abel grew up in the same home.
Okay? Don't tell me that spanking doesn't work.
Don't tell me that preaching Hellfire and Damnation doesn't work.
Explain this to me. If preaching Hellfire and Damnation doesn't work,
then why do we have 323 people in the service this morning?
Even after we lost, look, we lost 90 people because of all the crap.
that went on last year, all of the lying and rebellion and
evil that went on last year, all of the slander and false accusations and garbage.
We lost 90 people, we sat down and counted and we lost about 90 some people, somewhere between 90 and 100 people,
yet we had 323 people in church this morning.
Okay, yet we have, and what we have last year, last year we had
36 more people than that so last year on Easter Sunday, we had you know
I don't even want I'm too tired to do that math, but was that 359 or something
Yeah, we had like 359 last year, so I'm sorry. I just let me just check
So last year we had 359 on Easter Sunday, this year we had 323, so we've, you know, we've gone down by 36 people,
even though we lost like 90 some people, that means we reached like 60, 70 new people, okay?
You know what, because we're constantly reaching people, because hard preaching works, God's word works.
And by the way, so what if our attendance is down 35 people, soul winnings up, giving is up, spirits are up,
Everything's up!
And a lot of the people that we lost, it was a good riddance, bad rubbish type of situation.
And let me tell you something, my friend.
If hard preaching doesn't work, if preaching the fear of God doesn't work,
then explain 20 years of ministry of Faith Forward Baptist Church
resulting in hundreds of thousands of people being saved.
And a church going from five people in a living room to
300 400 people
Right seems like it works
Yeah, but you got this rebellious punk in that rebellious one the whole world is filled with rebellious punks
The entire Bible is a story about rebellious punks
There's a rebellious punk on every page of the Bible
Are you listening to me that's life
But you know what? I'm not going to sit around crying and whining about the rebellious punks.
You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to keep reaching more people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I'm going to keep on leading the soul-winning army that is faithful word Baptist Church.
I'm going to rack up rewards in heaven for me, for you, for all of us.
We're all going to work together. We're all going to be a team.
We're going to do work. We're going to be filled with the Holy Spirit of God.
We're going to preach the Bible. We're going to get people saved.
The fear of God back to this country!
And you know what?
We're not going to let a bunch of sniveling teenage young adult brats tell us how to do
our job, how to have our church, how to be parents, how to serve God, because you know
what?
I've been serving God successfully for 20 years as pastor of this church.
And well, we've seen the fruit of that.
Yeah, we have seen the fruit of it.
Look around this is the fruit of this look at the fruit. This is here's the fruit
Look in the mirror in many cases, and that's the fruit
Do not even for one second buy into this neo evangelical hyper grace
libtarded
Sloppy agape kind of preaching
Okay? We need the hard stuff, amen?
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord.
Thank you for all of the hundreds of times that you told us to fear you.
And Lord God, thank you that we can love you and cherish you
and have warm, fuzzy feelings about you
and also be terrified of you at the same time.
Because that is exactly how I feel about you, God.
And I am scared and terrified, but I'm also just in awe of your grace, your mercy, your love, your tenderness, and gentleness toward us, Lord.
Thank you so much for just being exactly the way you are, God.
And I like everything about you, God, and I like everything about the book that you've given us, the Bible.
And thank you for the gnarly stuff and the loving stuff. Thank you for all of it.
We love you, and in Jesus' name we pray amen.
Amen. All right, everybody. Take your handles, please go to him number 13 him number 13
Must Jesus bear the cross alone him number 13
Sing this out together now him number 13
There is a cross for thee, the consecrated cross I'll bear till death shall set.
that Jesus, dear, said, feared.
George, all of us, my golden crown, and his dear name repeat.
Oh, precious cross, oh, glorious crown.
O Resurrection Day
The angels from the stars come down
And bear my soul away
Man, excellent singing tonight. We are dismissed.