Good morning ladies and gentlemen welcome the faithful word Baptist Church is very good to see you all here for our Sunday morning service
If you would all please find your seats now and take a songbook and go to him number
215 will begin this morning him number
215 heaven came down and glory filled my soul him number
215
This one begins. Oh what a wonderful wonderful day him number
215 lift your voice on that first now
Oh, what a wonderful, wonderful day, day I will never forget.
After I've wandered in darkness away, Jesus might save her I let.
Oh, what a tender, compassionate friend, he met the need of my heart.
Shadows and spelling, with joy I am telling, made all the darkness depart.
Heaven came down and glory filled my soul
When at the cross the Savior made me whole
My sins were washed away and my night was turned to day
The spirit went blind from unbought into God's family divide.
Just a mind going through Calvary's lock.
Oh what ascending is mine.
And the transaction so thick it was made.
When as a sinner I came.
May your name be whole, may be whole My sins were washed away, and my night was turned to day
And his name comes out of that wonderful name, And as the cross hightly gleams,
Rich is eternal, and blessings subvernal, His precious and I receive.
good start to our singing this morning. We want to go before Lord has
blessing on the service so I've asked for the Jason next side if we would listen
for please. Definitely Father Lord thank you for
allowing us to be in church this beautiful Sunday morning. Please bless
the music as we sing praises unto you and please feel past Randerson with the
Holy Spirit. Asking Jesus precious name amen. And then back to him number 102 and
number 102. He hided my soul. Him number 102.
102, a wonderful Savior is Jesus, my Lord.
Hit number 102, sing it out on this verse now.
You
All right, at this time,
we'll go through our announcements together.
If you don't have a bolt,
then slip up your hand nice and high.
We'll get to you with one on the inside.
We have our service time Sunday mornings at 10 30
is our preaching service Sunday nights at six.
Wednesday nights at seven is our Bible study.
This week will be in Psalm 79.
We've got the soul winning times listed there below,
as well as salvation and baptisms.
Across the page is the note about the coffee and donuts
before the service next Sunday morning.
We do that on the first Sunday of every month
in honor of all the birthdays and anniversaries.
And then below that, we've got the note
about the mother, daughter, tea party.
Of course, one of them is happening today.
The other one is happening next Sunday.
May 4th. So I'm going to read off the list of who is signed up for today and if there's any issue
with what I read. So if I, if I read your name and you're not going for some reason, you know,
you've got to get up out of your seat immediately and go tell that to my wife literally right now.
Or if you think you're going today and your name is not found in the Lamb's Book of Life,
you know, you're going to be cast out into outer darkness.
And so you gotta make sure that this list is right.
So everybody, if you're thinking about the Tea Party,
listen up, I'm just gonna read,
I guess I'll just read last names for sake of time.
So we've got Almeida, Party of Two,
Rotone, Party of One,
Dickon, party of eight, Anderson, party of three,
Urban, party of two, Keisel, sorry, party of two,
Battalia, party of three, Furbey, party of two,
Noble, party of one, Jeffrey, party of one,
Schneider, party of two, Ariella, party of three,
Johnson, party of one, Akinoshio, party of three,
Segura, party of three, Feed, party of four,
Madison, party of one, Lola, party of three,
Poppering party of three slusser party of two ball party of three dick in party of three Lee party of three
Shoot party of seven Ventura party of six Betty party of one Adams party of two Meyer party of four
So if there are any issues there if anything needs to be added or subtracted
You got to get up right now and walk over and talk to my wife right over there. Also, there might be
space for two extra people.
So if you're visiting from out of town or your visitor
or you just didn't sign up but you wanna go,
then also get up right now and go tell that to my wife
and she might be able to squeeze in two more people.
So there may be room for two more, yes?
Yeah, we just want to make sure that there's the the two dick and parties as the Elaine dick and party of eight and
The Michelle dick and party of three just to clarify. They know who they are. They know they know what they're doing
What's that?
Okay, so you got that all did that do the numbers sound good though, okay?
eight, three, and one.
So do that math and get back to me now, okay?
All right, so yeah, so if anybody wants to be squeezed in
at the last minute, there might be two spots,
but we're not 100% sure.
So go see her for that as well.
All right, and then also about the Mother Daughter Tea Party
today, Mrs. Segura is going to be running
the church van over there.
So if there's anybody who just wants to just ride with her,
if that would just be easier for you to just
hang out here or come back here and hop in with her
and carpool with her, then go see Mrs. Joan Segura.
Where is she?
I don't see it.
You moved.
Is that where you normally sit?
Well, okay, I'm thinking months ago.
I'm losing it.
All right, and then, so that's today,
and it says plan on arriving by around 2.20 today.
And then today's also the last day to register
for next Sunday.
All right, we've spent enough time talking about that.
So, Church Roller Skating Night is this Tuesday night.
Again, it's totally free, there's no cost.
It includes the skate rental,
it includes the slice of pizza, drink,
everything totally free, you just show up
and tell them Pastor Anderson sent you.
And that's the address.
of the location so that you'll know where to go and then also on that night the 5 p.m.
soul winning is canceled because everybody's going to be at the roller skating so there's
no 5 p.m. soul winning time that day and then on the back of the bulletin keep praying for our
expectant ladies friendly reminders that we already talked about last week and kjv conference is
right around the corner in portland oregon area and that is about it for announcements let's sing
All right, you should find the answer in the front of your hymnal with the hymn entitled through tribulation
If you don't have an answer, please raise your hand and sing it on that verse together
Though it is dark in this world listen through tribulation sing it out now
The wind is dark in this world of sins
Though we both cross first and shout out the wind
1st Tribulation, then with a shout, will be gone away for his wrath has poured out.
The Lord will come with ten thousands of saints,
He'll judge the earth for his righteous men sing.
Through Tribulation though we must not.
There's not going to separate us from this love when sorrow's increased.
Be not dismayed, all must be fulfilled before that name, the man of sin.
We will surely see the sun and moon darken, then we shall be free.
The Lord will come with ten thousands of saints.
He'll judge the earth for his righteousness.
Through tribulation though we must go.
There's nothing that can separate us from his love.
We must trust in him, though time seemed dire.
He strives to terrify us with refining fire.
When he's come to pass, redemption is nigh.
He'll hatch us away in the...
Man, good singing, everybody.
Take your hymns now and turn to hymn number 84.
Hymn number 84.
Jesus is coming again.
Hymn number 84.
Number 84 begins.
Marvelous message we bring.
Glorious carol we sing.
Hymn number 84.
Sing it out, lift your voice.
All that first verse together now.
Marvelous message we bring.
Glorious carol we sing.
All right, at this time we'll pass our offering plates around.
As the plates go around, let's turn our Bibles
to Genesis chapter number three.
Genesis chapter number three, as we always do,
we'll read the entire chapter beginning in verse number one.
Follow along silently with Brother Corbin Brock
as he reads Genesis chapter three
starting in verse number one.
Genesis chapter three.
Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field
which the Lord God had made.
And he said unto the woman, yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden.
And the woman said unto the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden.
But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden,
God hath said, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
And the serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not surely die,
for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof.
Then your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as gods knowing good and evil and
When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired to make one
Wise she took of the fruit thereof and did eat and gave also under her husband with her and he did eat and
The eyes of them both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons
And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and Adam and his wife hid
Themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden and the Lord God called into Adam and said unto him
Where art thou and he said I heard thy voice in the garden
And I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself and he said who told thee that thou was naked
Has thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
and the man said, the woman whom thou gave us to be with me,
she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
And the Lord God said unto the woman,
what is this that thou hast done?
And the woman said, the serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
And the Lord God said unto the serpent,
because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle,
and above every beast of the field.
Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and thus shalt thou eat
all the days of thy life.
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman.
And between thy seed and her seed, it shall bruise thy head, and thou shall bruise his heel.
Under the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception,
and sorrow thou shall bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
And unto Adam he said, because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten
of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it, cursed is the ground
for thy sake, and sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.
Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the
field.
And the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground, for
And Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.
Under Adam also and to his wife, did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothed them?
And the Lord God said, behold, the man has become as one of us to no good and evil,
and now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever,
therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken.
So he drove out the man, and he placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherry-a-bimbs and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the Tree of Life.
Father in heaven, thank you for another beautiful day that you've given us
We ask now Lord that you would please bless the preaching of your word. We pray that you'd give
Pastor Anderson wisdom and inspiration in this very important
Portion of scripture Lord and that we would
Glean wonders from this Lord and apply it to our lives
We ask now for your blessing upon all these things in Jesus name. Amen
Man, Genesis chapter three is one of the most famous chapters
in the Bible documenting the original downfall of man,
the original sin that plunged the entire world
into its current condition.
And the Bible says in verse number one here of chapter three,
now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field
which the Lord God had made.
And of course the devil, Satan, is appearing in the form of a snake,
in the form of a serpent.
in the Garden of Eden literally he shows up in this form and it says that he's more subtle
and the word subtle here means clever or crafty and the idea here is that when the devil comes
at us he's not going to come at us with just a full frontal assault and make it obvious
he's going to come at us sort of obliquely he's going to come at us from the side
and be very subtle about the way he attacks, which is why before he comes right out and
just contradicts the word of God or speaks against the Lord, the first thing he does
is he just questions the word of God.
He's just asking a question, right?
Seems very innocent.
He said to the woman, yea, hath God said.
that ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden, right?
And this is what we see today,
people questioning the Word of God
and they try to seem like they're all innocent about it,
but in reality this has always been the devil's MO
all the way back from the beginning of time.
Right at the beginning of the Bible, God's already showing us
what he is like and in the New Testament the Bible says
we are not ignorant of Satan's devices.
because we can read the Word of God and see how he operates.
And here's the funny thing about that. Right after he questions the Word of God and says,
well, did God really say that? Then he turns around and says,
ye shall not surely die. Now he's directly contradicting God's word,
but even when he directly contradicts
the Word of God, he's still being a little bit subtle about it because he's kind of saying, well, you're not, you're not for sure gonna die.
You'll not surely die. He's still kind of even leaving the possibility open that they could die
But it's like why you're not gonna die for sure
Okay, and this is how the devil messes with you and operates
And if you think about the issue of why we use the King James Bible
Why we're not part of the Bible of the month club and why we're not with just the shifting sands of the
ESV and the NIV and these different versions first of all these versions don't ever stop changing
In 2020 they announced that it was going to be the final version of the ESV
and then three or four months later they said we're revising it.
You know, because they at first claimed that they had locked it in.
It'll never be locked in. It's continually changing.
The Greek New Testament that the modern versions are based on
is in its 29th edition
and they've already planned all the way up through the 32nd edition.
And we know the 32nd edition isn't going to be the final edition,
but they've already planned what the 30th is going to be like,
what the 31st is going to be like, what 32nd is going to be like,
making dramatic changes to the text.
And then when the NIV gets updated, it's going to go with the 32nd edition.
It's going to keep changing with it, and it changes and it changes.
And here's the thing about that, is that today,
all of your so-called scholars on the subject of textual criticism
Virtually all of them reject the story of the woman taken in adultery as being authentic scripture.
Virtually all of them reject it.
And virtually all of them reject the majority of chapter 16 of the Gospel of Mark,
even though these have always been in every Christian Bible for more than a thousand years.
Everybody's been believing it. Everybody's been reading it. Everybody's been preaching it.
The Holy Spirit of God's been using it. Powerful verses in the Word of God.
But yet now all of these scholars are saying that they're not authentic.
But here's what's funny, they're still printing it in the Bible, even though they don't believe it's authentic.
The people who are behind the NIV, ESV, the Legacy Standard Bible, ask them,
is the woman taking an adultery story authentic? And they'll say no, yet they print it in the Bible.
Why? Because they know that they can't sell a Bible without that story in it because people will freak out
and say, why did you remove this big chunk out of the Word of God?
So what they do instead is they say, well, did this story really happen?
And they put little notes in it, questioning it.
Okay, and they put a note, but I guarantee you, you mark my words,
in our lifetime we will see a day where they start publishing these Bibles
and the story of the woman taking an adultery will just be gone.
and the end of Mark chapter 16 will be gone.
That's how the Jehovah's Witness Bible was.
The whole 20th century, the Jehovah's Witness Bible,
contained the whole Mark chapter 16.
With a note telling you,
oh, let's question it.
Did God really say this?
You know, is this the Word of God?
And then now it's just gone.
And I guarantee you that's what the ESV and the legacy and all these others that's the direction. They're going but they
Here's the hypocrisy of it if they don't believe it's the word of God. Why do they print it?
Right because what they're trying to do is it's like the frog in the hot water. They're slowly changing the Bible
Slowly deleting things slowly adding things and it's garbage
Okay, we need to be founded upon the rock of God's word the King James Bible
The tested the tried the true that God has been using in a powerful way for over 400 years
Okay, and not be part of just this ever shifting sands
of these German scholars who don't even believe in the literal resurrection of Jesus Christ,
who don't even believe in the literal virgin birth or something, tampering with the underlying
text and then that filters down into the modern versions.
And then they'll point, oh, look this guy with the ESV.
You know, he believes in the virgin birth, he believes in the resurrection.
Yeah, but he's handed a Greek text from someone who doesn't.
Okay.
Anyway, I don't want to go off on that too much, but the point is that the devil wants
God's word, before he outright attacks God's word, he wants to get you to question it and
to get you to question key doctrines that are spelled out in Scripture.
And so he said to the woman, Ye hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden.
And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden.
But of the fruit of the tree, which is in the midst of the garden,
God has said, you shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest ye die."
So notice the devil's second method, besides just questioning the word of God,
is that he comes at you trying to make the commandment sound restrictive.
Right? He paints God's commandments in a light that makes it sound like he's too strict or something.
Like, wait, he's saying you can't eat of every tree. Why can't you eat of every tree?
And then she sort of cracks him and says, well, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden.
And then there's really only one that we're not allowed to eat.
Now, if somebody told you, hey, you can eat all this stuff, there's all these choices, all these options, except one.
You know that sounds like a pretty good deal
You just be like, okay. Well, I'm just not gonna eat of that one
No big deal right, but if some what if somebody just comes out and just says you can't just eat whatever you want
Can't just do whatever you want here. There's rules about what you can eat here
It's like whoa
You know, it's just painting it in a way that's more restrictive instead of just saying well
Look at all the good things you can do and guess what God gives us a ton of freedom in our lives
You could live a life in accordance with God's word,
following the commandments of God,
and you still have so many different options
of all the different places that you can go,
the things that you can do,
the hobbies you can get into,
all the activities,
and all the different things you can do.
And look, when it comes to marriage,
you can marry whoever you want,
but they have to be saved.
You know, so there's rules that say,
hey, don't marry an unbeliever.
But at the same time there are still millions of options and so instead of focusing on what you're not allowed to do
You should focus on what you are allowed to do because there's a lot of freedom and liberty and good things that God has given to us
And so the devil wants to try to make authority sound strict.
You know, oh, God's so strict.
Oh, the church is so strict.
Oh, my parents are so strict.
Oh, the boss at work is so strict.
You know, the devil hates authority
and he wants to get you to rebel against authority.
Rebel against your dad, rebel against your mom,
rebel against your pastor, rebel against the church,
rebel against your husband,
rebel against anything he wants to tear down
God-given authority in your life.
And so she says, well, yeah, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, verse 3,
but of the fruit which is in the midst of the garden,
God has said, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
And then he comes right out and says, ye shall not surely die.
Like, you're not surely gonna die.
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods
knowing good and evil." So then the next thing the devil does is he tries to make it out that basically
authority is trying to restrain something good from you and trying to hold you back from having a good time or
hold you back from being blessed and keeping something good for you and that these rules are not for your benefit.
right? It's not for your benefit, but what does the Bible actually say? That God's laws, his commandments are not grievous and
that God's laws are for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.
Look, my friend, I am not smart enough to decide on my own without the Word of God how to live my life and neither are you.
I would have made a whole bunch of different decisions in my life if I had not had the Word of God guiding me.
The Word of God has made a lot of the decisions for me in life
and kept me on a good path and my life ended up in a better place
because I followed the Bible. Okay? And so
God has rules for us that are for our benefit and we can't always see that,
right?
Kids just think, well why can't I have candy first thing in the morning?
Why can't I have this ice cream first thing in the morning? Why do I have to eat
these vegetables?
Why do I have to brush my teeth? Why do I have to take a bath?
Why can't I just wear the same shirt every single day
and never put it in the laundry?
And here's the thing, when you take those things away
from kids and say, nope, take away your sucker,
take away your lollipop, take away your ice cream.
Eh!
Right, and they think that you're just trying
to just ruin their fun.
They don't understand diabetes, they don't understand the problems that would happen if they didn't follow these rules.
And guess what? We're the same way as human beings, just as parents' understanding is far beyond that of a baby or a toddler,
God's understanding is far beyond that of the smartest human.
And so we're over here like, eh, you took away my lollipop, eh, why can't I drink alcohol, eh.
I want to fornicate, commit adultery, yeah, why not?
And here's the thing, God's doing that stuff
for your benefit, he's trying to protect you.
He's doing it for your own good.
And if you disobey, there are gonna be consequences, right?
I mean, look, if you just defy your parents
and say, well, no, I'm having an ice cream anyway,
you're getting a whooping.
Same thing with God. You defy the word of God. You defy God's laws. You're getting a whippet
But then somebody else comes along and says, oh, no, no, no, no, you don't understand
It's not that your parents don't want you to get diabetes
It's not that your parents don't want your teeth to rot out of your mouth
It's that your parents are really just trying to just, you know, enslave you and lord over you because that's just what they do for kicks
You know they just and it sounds silly because obviously every parent here and everybody who is even slightly mature as a child
Realizes like yeah, my parents don't just get out of get kicks out of denying me stuff that I like
You know, they would understand that they're doing it for our own good
But yet people today they think that God's laws are just ruining their fun
And it's the same exact thing.
So if you can understand this with a toddler,
you should understand, you know,
as Nathan said to David, I'm paraphrasing,
but thou art the toddler, you know,
that thinks that these things are somehow
not for your benefit.
And so he's saying, well, God just knows.
that in the day that you eat thereof, verse 5,
your eyes will be opened and you shall be as God's knowing good and evil.
You know, God's just trying to basically keep all the power for himself
and just kind of keep you ignorant, keep you dumb,
keep you under control.
And isn't this what people still today accuse religion of doing?
They say, oh, yeah, religion is just trying to just keep people enslaved and keep people dumb and you just get break free of that and whatever.
This is the atheist mantra that religions holding us back.
Now look, obviously, yeah, there are religions that hold people back.
Here's a religion that holds people back, Hinduism.
It seems like it's slowing them down over there.
Am I right?
Yeah, it does.
They'd be doing better if they were Christian.
Okay, here's a religion that helped people act.
The Roman Catholic Church.
And a lot of people, they conflate that
with biblical Christianity.
But yeah, the Roman Catholic Church in a lot of places
that a lot of times did not want people
to learn how to read.
and they kept people illiterate, and they did not allow them to have the Bible in their own language.
And these are just historical facts that translating the Bible into English was illegal when England was Catholic.
This is a fact.
You know, people are being burned at the stake for translating the Bible into English because they're trying to keep the people in darkness.
But here's the actual biblical Christianity.
Show me evangelical Christianity.
discouraging education, discouraging people from learning how to read,
discouraging people from reading the Bible, you're not going to find it.
Evangelical Christianity is always exalting Bible reading
and always exalting learning how to read and being educated
and being smart and promoting those things.
But the devil wants you to believe that God is trying to restrain you from some
esoteric knowledge that's going to make your life better or some other way of life that's better to get you stuck in this, you know
this terrible setup of you know, you know a
Biological man married to a biological woman raising their biological children
Like that's just the only way to do it
But if you would keep your finger in Genesis 3 and let's go to Roman 16
Because a lot of people kind of wonder what does this mean?
You know why are they not allowed to eat of specifically the tree of the knowledge of good and evil right?
That's the name of the tree that they're not supposed to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good evil
And the devil says well in the day that you eat thereof you'll you'll be like gods
You know, God's up in heaven. You'll be like God's too, and you'll be able to know the difference between good and evil.
Why is that a bad thing? To have the knowledge of good and evil?
And you'll run into these weird Jews sometimes that say like, well actually, you know, it was a test and they were supposed to eat it,
you know, because it's good that they send a native of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you know.
But in Romans chapter 16, we can get a little bit of insight on this from the New Testament.
It says in verse 19 of Romans 16,
for your obedience has come abroad unto all men.
I'm glad, therefore, on your behalf.
You know, I'm glad to hear you guys are obedient.
But yet, I would have you wise unto that which is good and simple concerning evil.
What does the Bible say?
We want to be wise when it comes to that which is good and simple concerning the evil.
And here's what that means.
It means that we don't need to know about every sinful, weird, wicked, evil thing out there in this world.
We could go through our whole lives and just be better off not knowing certain things.
When it comes to wicked, evil, perverted, sick things,
ignorance is bliss.
Okay?
And that's true.
What you don't know can't hurt you
when it comes to these weird, evil, filthy things.
You'd rather just go, you know, if you ever said like,
hey, I could have gone my whole life without knowing that.
Okay? And you could.
And so here's the thing, in the Garden of Eden, they're in a state of innocence, right?
Where they're innocent, everything's good, everything's right, there's no issue with anything.
So they don't need to be these experts on sin.
They don't need to know between knowledge of good and evil.
All they really need to know is just do what God says and just live a happy life
and just don't eat of this one tree. There's one rule, don't break it.
They don't need to understand all the different ins and outs of where sin could possibly take them.
And let me tell you something, today a lot of Christian young people are getting involved in sin because of one word, curiosity.
Curiosity, okay?
We need to beware of this curiosity
where we have to know everything about how
the other side lives their life or something like that.
We don't need to know about these things.
And you know what, there's an epidemic today
of young people looking at pornography, you know,
because now we have all of these smartphones
and computers, internet devices and things.
And I guarantee you that a gigantic reason
why kids get started with that garbage is out of curiosity.
They want to know, they want to know what that is,
and they want to know what's going on.
And let me tell you something, it is horrible,
it will destroy your mind, it will mess you up for life.
Do not look at that stuff, okay?
And don't you dare sit there and say, oh pfft.
You know I wouldn't be like these idiot Adam and Eve eating that tree they screwed it up for all those
Why'd they have to damn all of humanity and then you're gonna go out and try to get the knowledge of good and evil on your smartphone?
Right you got to go learn about
Everything that this world has to offer. Let me tell you something you fall down that rabbit hole of
Filthiness on the internet whatever the subject
Okay, you know and just pornography is an example. You know what it's gonna take you further than you want to go
And you're gonna get exposed to a bunch of stuff
And I guarantee you that Adam and Eve got more than they bargained for when they bit into that fruit
You know, they're just curious. They just want to know some things
Well, they ended up knowing a lot more than they wanted to know
Okay, do not ruin your mind. Do not be corrupted with these things.
You don't need to know and I've noticed this phenomenon as well amongst Christian young people sometimes like oh
It's cool to be worldly wise and to know about every sinful
worldly wicked thing that's out there and like if you don't know about these things you're not cool or something
That's garbage
It's wicked okay. Don't feel like oh I have to know about all this sinful stuff in order to be cool
No, the less you know about that stuff the better and the later in life you learn about those things the better
When it comes to sinful things
You know it's better to stay
Innocent for as long as you can and you know think back to your own life when you were six seven eight nine ten years old
You were innocent about a lot of things weren't you?
Then you become a teenager and you start to learn more about the world and you're less innocent in your thinking
And you know what you don't want that to happen sooner rather than later
And that's why the wicked people of this world the devils of this world
They are on a mission to corrupt little children as early as they can
and start hitting them with wickedness in kindergarten.
First grade, second grade, they're already corrupting their minds,
perverting their minds, things that they do not need to know,
things that they could go their whole lives without knowing.
And they're being told these things at a younger and younger age.
Why? Because it's the same exact devil
today in 2025 that was in the Garden of Eden.
It's the same mentality and it's the same mentality
that Eve has of this curiosity of wanting to find out.
And then it's the same thing that there's a tempter there
that's trying to tempt you.
And the devil has all his minions out there
trying to say, oh, well, you know,
don't you want to learn about this?
Don't you want to find out about this?
Don't you want to know about?
You know, you don't want your friends to talk about this
and you don't know what's going on.
Look, my friend, do not get sucked in
to the devil's tricks on this.
God says, I want you to be wise concerning that which is good,
but I want you to be simple concerning evil.
You do not need to educate yourself on the sins of this world.
You don't need to know what goes on inside the casino the gentlemen's club the strip
You don't need to know what goes on in those
You don't need to know what it's like to go to bars and to go to these night clubs and to go to all these sinful places
You just don't need to know you could just go your whole life without knowing just realizing those are bad places
You know, God doesn't want us drinking. God doesn't want us, you know fornicating committing adultery
God doesn't want us taking drugs. Look, I don't know what it's like to get high. I don't know what it's like to be drunk
And the people who do know wish they didn't know and if they could push a button and not know they would push that button
You'd love to go back to the innocence II of not knowing those things
And so, the Bible says here in Genesis chapter 3, verse 5,
for God does know that in the day you eat thereof,
then your eyes shall be opened,
and ye shall be as gods knowing good and evil.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food,
and that it was pleasant to the eyes,
and a tree to be desired to make one wise,
she took of the fruit thereof and did eat,
and gave also under her husband with her, and he did eat.
Now, what we see here is that the woman,
instead of trusting the word of God,
she goes with her own intuition.
And this is where we're at today morally in 2025 America.
People trust their own intuition more than they trust the Word of God.
And so they base their morality on intuition instead of on the Bible.
You know, you'll see people say things like,
well, the Bible, you know, the Bible promotes slavery,
and so, you know, therefore we know the Bible is, you know, all right.
It's like, here's the thing, you know, that's obviously a misleading statement.
to say that the Bible promotes slavery or something?
Just because the Bible condones certain types of slavery in certain situations.
But here's the thing, if the Bible condones certain types of slavery in certain situations, so do I.
Because at the end of the day, I don't base my morality on intuition,
what I think is right, what I feel is right.
Hey, there's a way that's seen with right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
And so I'm not going to base my morality on intuition.
I'm going to base it on the word of God.
God said, don't eat that tree.
She looked at it and she's like, well, I'm looking at it right now.
I'm looking at it and it looks good.
This is a tree of a fruit that's good for food.
According to whom is it good for food?
Look, it says in verse 6, when the woman saw that the tree was good for food.
So basically there are going to be times when we experience cognitive dissonance where the word of God is telling us one thing
and our own experience seems to go against that a little bit. Now, let me tell you this. Look, I've been a Bible-believing Christian
for, you know, almost 40 years and so I've lived and
studied the Bible and grown up in church and I've lived life and experienced these things and I can tell you that
99% of the time
You know, what I'm reading in the Bible is matching up perfectly with that which I'm seeing and experiencing,
and the Bible just keeps being right over and over again. The Bible's just right. It's right. It's right.
But then every once in a while, something will come along that will seem a little counterintuitive.
And something will come along and I'll be like, man, this is not what I expected based on reading the Bible.
I didn't expect this outcome. I didn't expect this to be this way.
and it's kind of defying my expectations.
That's where faith kicks in and says,
you know what though, I'm just going to trust the word of God.
Even though this looks different than the way God said it was,
I'm going to trust God on this one.
And like I said, the vast majority of the time,
what you see is going to match exactly what the Bible is saying.
But every once in a while there are going to be things
that kind of challenge your faith and test your faith a little bit.
And then usually you'll end up
You know going forward and realizing oh now I see why God was right now. I get it, but at the time
You're a little bit challenged with things okay, and here's the thing
It's the exact same way if you went and studied physics
If you went and studied physics in a university, there would be things where you'd say,
this makes no sense, this is counterintuitive, this does not seem to go with logic at all.
But yet, you know what physics students are doing today?
They're not storming out of the class and saying, this goes against my intuition,
I'm going to follow my heart, sir. Good day, sir.
I'm changing my major because I'm following my heart.
Okay, and look I'll just give you a really quick example of something that's counterintuitive from physics
I'm not going to give you a big dissertation on this, but you know what if I'm riding my bicycle
I've been doing a lot of bicycle riding lately with my kids
We've been going on a lot of bike rides if I'm riding my bicycle down the street
Okay, and and very few people in this room are gonna
You know know that I'm telling the truth on this because they know physics if I'm driving down the street at
20 miles per hour my bicycle is moving at 20 miles per hour the very bottom
of my front tire and the very bottom of my back tire are at rest and are not moving at all
at any given moment. Now does that sound right to you? People are frowning, they're shaking their
head, they think they think that's the craziest thing ever, right? How can I be flying down the road?
20 miles an hour. I'm flying down the road on my bicycle going 20 miles an hour
The front wheel at the very bottom of the wheel the part that's touching the pavement and any given moment is not moving at all
It's at rest
Nobody believes me
I'm right and anybody who's taking what yeah, he's nodding because he has an engineering degree
Because he took physics one
But it's counterintuitive right at first
You're going to have to have a little faith in what you're being taught because at first you're like this makes no sense. That's crazy
That's absurd. I'm out of here. I'm going, you know, I'm getting a poetry degree or something, you know
And look here you want proof, okay?
Go online and look at photographs of
Bicycle wheels as they're riding down the road at full speed and you know what you'll notice the top of the wheel is blurry
The bottom of the wheel is not blurry at all and the bottom center spoke will be crystal clear because it's not moving. That's why
It's true
It's true, and I'll give you a I don't want to turn this into a science lesson
But here's why it's because when you're when you're when you're riding your bike the bottom of the wheels moving backwards
Top of the wheels moving forward the bottom of the wheels moving backwards everybody understand
Okay, so the wheel is moving backwards,
the bottom is moving backwards at 20 miles an hour,
and you're moving forward at 20 miles an hour,
therefore the two cancel each other out and it's at rest.
You say, well, that's just semantics,
that's just a numbers game.
No, it isn't, because the friction coefficient
on the bottom of your wheel is the static coefficient,
not the moving coefficient.
And this is how anti-lock brakes work.
Antilock breaks are based on that principle if antilock breaks would not work and I'm done talking because you guys have no idea
I'm talking about but the but look but you know what anybody who actually has studied physics will say that everything
I just said is the gospel truth and is correct even though it defies all common sense
It defies all logic and sounds absurd
it's still true. And you know what then? Somebody reads a Bible verse and to their
2025 American years, they're like, this is crazy!
This sounds absurd! The Bible's wrong! No, you're wrong!
Okay? And every single car manufacturer in America knows that when you are driving down
the road, that bottom wheel while you're in motion, the very bottom that's touching the
pavement is at rest, which is why anti-lock brakes were even invented.
But we just got to trust people who know more, right? Well, here's the thing, God knows everything.
You say, I don't, you know, I don't trust big auto to lie to me about that.
Well, do you trust God?
Do you trust the Bible?
Do you trust the Word of God?
Because you know what?
If you walk out of here and think, Pastor Anderson's nuts about the bicycle thing, fine.
Just ignore all the pictures on the Internet where the top of the wheel is blurry and the
bottom of the wheel is frozen.
But even if you don't believe me, do you believe God?
Well, guess what?
When you run into something in the Bible that, quote, unquote, sounds crazy, you know what
you should do?
Yeah, but I'm looking at the bike and that wheel that bottom of that wheel is moving fast
Why don't you trust the Word of God when it tells you what's right and what's wrong?
Even when you get to those 1% of situations that seem to defy
logic or your intuition
Who's so trusted that his own heart is a fool, the Bible says.
The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it,
and I'm not telling you that I'm always right, but I'm telling you that the Bible is always right,
the Word of God's always right, and so you should have total faith in everything in the Bible,
and when you come to those hard things in the Bible, you need to just say,
you know what, I don't get it, I don't understand it, but I believe it because God said it.
So God said look if you eat that fruit you're gonna die and then she looks at it and says well
I'm looking at it looks like it's good for food
You know what when I was a kid those little berries that you come across on the trail hiking
Those look pretty good to little bright red berries a lot of them are poisonous a lot of them are gonna make you sick
But they look good don't they I guarantee you a lot of mushrooms by the side of the trail that look pretty good
They look like they'd go good on your pizza or whatever, but if you ate them you'll get sick and die
You can't always trust your intuition.
You can't just always go with your gut, okay?
Your heart will lead you astray often.
You gotta trust the Word of God.
So God's saying no, but then the woman she saw that the tree was good for food
She's just going well and again, it's the church of I mean come on guys. We all know this, right?
I mean, I can't believe it's 22,000 25 and I have to say this guys can't believe I actually have to talk about this guys
It's like you got a chapter in verse on that. No, but I mean come on though, right?
Folks we got to go with the word of God
Okay, and look I could give you I could give you science illustrations like that for the next hour
That was one else is I give you those things like that for the next hour of things that don't make sense
That you learn in a science class that are unequivocally true and have been proven to be true
I'm not going to thank God
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be
Desired to make one wise she took of the fruit thereof and did eat
and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.
So notice the next step, when you start questioning the word of God,
you start trusting your own intuition over what the Bible actually says in the text,
the next step is you sin, you violate God's word because you no longer are trusting.
God's word so you go with your intuition you violate God's word and then your next mission is to get other people to violate God's word with you
Okay, because misery loves company and people don't like to quit the church alone
They like to take people with them. They don't like to quit living for God alone. They want to take people with them
They don't like to forsake the King James Bible and go to the modern Bible of the month club
They want to take everybody else with them
And so this is human nature to want to drive other people into our sin with us to make us feel better about ourselves like
We don't want to be the only one sitting so want to get the people around us to sin, right?
It says in verse number seven and the eyes of them both were opened
and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.
And so we see here that there was a little bit of truth mixed in with what the devil said
because their eyes really were opened and they really did know the difference between good and evil
once they ate of that forbidden fruit.
And so there was a little bit of truth mixed in.
But you know what Jesus said about the devil, there's no truth in him.
because when you mix the truth and lie, it's just a lie at that point.
Well, he said a lot of truth things.
Yeah, but once you adulterate that with lies,
the whole thing becomes a lie at that point.
And so the devil has lied to them,
although seemingly there's a little bit of truth in what he said.
Well, a little bit of truth isn't going to cut it.
We need the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
It says in verse number seven that they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.
So this is their feeble attempt to cover their own sins, okay?
Because the idea here is that before they ate of the forbidden fruit, they were naked
and they didn't realize they were naked.
They weren't ashamed of being naked because they're just innocent.
And this is sort of like babies and toddlers don't realize that they're naked.
Just running around naked, you know, they're not nervous about it. They're not ashamed. They're not embarrassed
They'll just strip down as they get older now. They have like an awareness of oh, I'm naked. Oh, I got to cover up
Oh, shut the door lock it. Don't come in here. I'm changing that's
Because they're no longer in that stage of innocence that a baby or a toddler is in they get older
And then they're part of that human condition that Adam and Eve put us into
And so, they realize that they're naked and, you know,
they try to cover their shame with their own feeble attempt,
which is to sew fig leaves together
and to make aprons of sewn together fig leaves.
Now, this is not an effective garment, okay?
This is not going to effectively cover their nakedness.
Now, for me, when I say the word apron, you know,
I'm thinking of something that only covers the front.
Right, I mean if you think about it like an apron that you put on in the kitchen you tie it in the back
You know it covers the front of your body, but it does not cover the back
Right, and so that's the idea here is that when you try to cover your own sins you end up
Only you know doing half of it or only covering it partially or or failing
I mean imagine going in public in just an apron right you'd be arrested and rightfully so you'd be arrested for that
Okay
You say, well, officer, I wasn't naked, I was wearing an apron.
You know, that's not going to fly.
And so the idea here is that the plant-based garment in the Bible, all throughout Scripture,
the plant-based textile represents our works.
It represents our works and here's why it represents our works because you know plant-based textiles are that which man is
Manufacturing and making the Bible mainly talks about linen right as a plant-based textile. Okay?
But then, the other option for a textile is an animal-based textile, and that represents
not works, but that represents the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Why?
Because in order to get that animal-based textile, the coat of skins, an animal has
to be killed so that they can get that coat of skins, because later in the chapter, God's
their feeble attempt to cover their nakedness with a real cover to their nakedness,
which is the coats of skins and an animal skin, you had to kill the animal.
So this is the idea that Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, is killed for our sins
and then now we're clothed in His righteousness.
His righteousness is imputed unto us.
So this is how we're going to heaven.
We're not going to heaven because of our works.
That would be like trying to get our sins taken care of with the apron.
Right, but rather we're going to heaven because of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross his blood his death burial and
Resurrection it's his sinless life and his imputed righteousness on our account that gets us to heaven
That's our coat of skins that actually does a good job of fully covering our nakedness
And so it says in verse 8,
they heard the voice of the Lord God
walking in the garden in the cool of the day,
and Adam and his wife hid themselves
from the presence of the Lord God
amongst the trees of the garden.
And the next thing we see here is that
when you have sin in your life,
all of a sudden you don't want to commune with God.
You don't want to be close to God.
And so, I remember there's a famous saying that I heard growing up,
you know, this book will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from this book.
Right?
So, if you're living a life of sin, you're not necessarily going to want to go to church
or read your Bible, because that's a reminder of the sin in your life.
Whereas if you're living a clean life, you're more likely to want to go and hear all that Bible preaching,
read the Bible and everything like that.
And so if you want to have fellowship with God, if you want to be close to God,
you know, you want to get sin out of your life is the idea here.
Because if we have sin in our life, it ends up creating a rift between us and the Lord
when it comes to communion or fellowship with God.
And here's the thing, it's the same thing, obviously,
what if there's some big disagreement
between my wife and me or one of us mistreats the other
or there's some kind of a big controversy or something.
You could see how if my wife did something horrible to me
or if I did something horrible to her,
you could see how that could hurt the relationship
or hurt the fellowship and maybe we just wouldn't
want to be around each other.
or one of us wouldn't want to be around the other, right?
Or here's the thing,
what if you've committed some major infraction in your house
and then dad's on his way home,
you're not like, hey, when's dad get home?
Can't wait to get a whipping, you know?
You're not just like excited about dad getting home
because you know that you've done wrong.
But here's the thing I guarantee you that if you had cleaned up the house really well and you got dinner on the stove and things are going good
You're looking forward to your parents getting home because when your parents get home
They're gonna walk in and be really impressed. Wow. You guys did really good. You stayed out of trouble
You did your chores
Everything's going smoothly. Everything's going well. You want them to come home
You want them to be pleased with you and see that whereas if you have trashed the place you're dreading
your parents coming home.
You know, and I remember when I was growing up,
there'd be times when we were goofing off
or not doing what we were supposed to do,
and we'd hear that garage door opener.
So, we're kind of just going along,
going along, going on, and we'd just be like...
It's like, the parents are home!
And you're running around trying to clean everything
and fix everything, getting it all ready, you know?
And like, I remember my sister wasn't supposed to be on the phone.
She's supposed to be babysitting us.
And she was much older than me.
And so she's supposed to be babysitting.
She's not supposed to be on the phone.
And so she'd be on the phone or something.
And then the garage door had hit.
She's got to get off the phone and you know, whatever.
And then my dad would come when we'd walk
or we'd put his hand on the phone.
And he'd be like, this thing's burning hot.
You've been using it.
You know, you could just feel that it had been used.
So then my sister literally started like
putting the phone in the fridge.
And cool it down.
And cool it and chill it that we should be talking on the phone and then he puts his hand on it
It's like, you know, maybe if it was too ice cold it might have been a little weird, too
You know, you know, you know, my parents would always be trying to bust us
You know, they'd get home and they'd always try to bust us or like, you know, you know be watching TV
And you know, you know, you there's certain you're not we weren't supposed to watch MTV
For obvious reasons, you know
So, we're supposed to watch MTV, and then like my parents would come home, and there's
like a button on the TV remote where you push a button and it takes you to the last channel
that you were on.
You know what I'm talking about?
Yeah.
And they, you know, so some benign thing is on the TV that the teenagers are watching,
and then they walk over and they push that back button, and it's like MTV, and then,
you know.
But the point is you know when you're up to no good when you're breaking rules when you're not doing the chores
When you're disobeying mom and dad, that's a scary sound
That garage door opener is a scary sound
Whereas if you're doing right if you've done that which is pleasing in their sight
You're thrilled by that said hey mom and dad are home and it's good that mom and dad are home
Whereas it's scary if you're doing wrong
And this is exactly the way it is with the second coming of Christ as well, you know, people that obviously the Bible talks about how, you know, people are going to be ashamed before Metta's coming.
You know, kind of like you'd be, you'd be like ashamed when mom and dad get home when they catch you doing wrong.
Okay?
And so the idea here is that when Adam and Eve are sinning,
they're hiding from God, they're not running to meet God,
they don't want to spend time with God,
they're actually fleeing from God in that sense.
They went and hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God
amongst the trees of the garden.
Verse 9, And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him,
Where art thou? And he said,
I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid,
because I was naked, and I hid myself.
And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked?
Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee, that thou shouldest not eat?
And the man said, The woman whom thou gave us to be with me, and she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
So notice here, now we get to the next step when you commit sin, when you break God's rules,
when the devil tempts you to do something that you shouldn't have done, and you start blaming other people, right?
And boy, is this a problem in 2025.
Everybody blames everybody else for their problems.
It's all someone else's fault.
Everybody's damaged and everybody
is just got the parents to blame,
the churches to blame, you know.
And you wanna know the dumbest genre
of video on YouTube right now?
Is people whining about this abusive church culture.
Oh, how to know your church is a cult.
And then they just like describe every church.
10 ways to know that your church is a cult and it's just like every church and
Then people are just like see my church is a cult because it's because a list on the internet told me that I
Mean it's just you know what it is. It's just anti
Christianity is what it is you have some oh this psychologist is going to tell us you know toxic behaviors of pastors
If the pastor thinks he's right, he's toxic.
Let me tell you something.
If a pastor gets up and preaches things that he thinks are wrong,
that'd be a terrible, that'd be a really bad church.
You know, I'd hate to go to a church where the pastor doesn't think he's right.
He's like, I know I'm wrong and I'm still preaching it.
Like, what is that?
You know, oh, so these churches are so toxic and they're narcissistic and they're gaslighting.
You know it's just like it's just like everybody is just using these little psycho babble terms now
Everything's narcissism
Everything's gaslighting. What what is these other overused terms that?
Egotistical yeah, I mean what's that?
Misogynistic and you know, oh, it's it's it's a cult because they have rules or something. It's like what?
Everybody has rules
Every single person on this planet has rules.
The most staunch atheist in the world has rules.
The most liberal school in America has a dress code.
Right?
Show up at UC Berkeley stark nude,
and I guarantee you that they're gonna tell you,
you gotta go home.
Well, maybe not, but I don't know.
The point is that, you know, you got all these people just whining and criticizing everything
and the reason that they're such a messed up person is because their church messed them up
and the pastor messed up, preaching messed them up and, oh, you know, oh, I can't go to church
because I had a bad experience at church because, you know, I went to this church that was really cult-like
because it had a strong leader.
Oh, this church is so cult-like because when I rage left the church, people didn't want
to be my friend anymore.
It's so dumb to just have this culture that just blames everyone else.
And how many times do we knock doors and invite people to church?
Oh, well, I don't go to church anymore because I had a bad experience.
No, you you know why you're not going to church anymore because you're in disobedience to God
That's why you don't go to church anymore. You want to know why you don't go to church anymore because you're lazy
You know why you don't go to church anymore because you're backslidden because you're not right with God because you're disobeying the commandment not to
Forsake the assembly of ourselves together. That's why you don't go to church. No, it's just the church really hurt me
The church hurt me and so I don't go to church anymore, but you know what the grocery store hurt me
Yeah
Yeah, the grocery store hurt me
I've had bad experiences in the grocery store before.
I'm serious, the post office hurt me.
I went to the post office one time
and just the lady behind the counter was such a rude jerk.
I'm never going to the post office again.
I'm never going to mail anything again.
And here's what I'm so tired of people complaining about.
Oh, there's toxic culture at church.
There's toxic churches.
Oh, church people.
Ah, there's still like the church people.
You know what?
Just get rid of church, it's just people.
It's just people, because guess what?
If you go to school, all the same stuff
you don't like that goes on at church,
it happens at school, it happens at work.
You know, oh, there's just too much drama.
You know how much drama's going on at the grocery store?
Because my sister worked at a grocery store and she said there was just like all kinds of drama all the time non-stop
Among all the checkout workers and baggers and everything
They had all kinds of gossip and drama and all kinds of sin and all kinds of things going on at the grocery store
It's called just human beings are sinful, human beings have issues, and so quit blaming the church or blaming your parents.
And look, I'm not saying that your parents didn't make a mistake. I'm not saying that a church didn't burn you or do your wrong.
Look, there are churches that burn people and do people wrong. There are parents that do wrong by their children.
But at the end of the day, that is never an excuse to violate the commandments of God.
Quit blaming other people. I mean, look.
Adam can kind of have a legitimate thing to say here when he says well the woman that you gave me
She gave me the fruit and I ate it
You gave me this woman and she so ultimately who's he blaming?
He's blaming God because he like well you gave me this woman to be a helper
Yeah, real helpful God. She gave me the forbidden fruit and damned us all
But at the end of the day, it's not Eve's fault that Adam ate the fruit.
No, Adam's fault that Adam ate the fruit.
Okay, now look, you might have gotten burned at some previous church,
or you got burned by your parents, or you got burned by this Christian or that Christian,
but if you turn around and disobey God and quit going to church, then you know what?
It's on you.
It's your fault.
You can't just hide behind other people.
And it's like, oh, there's fundamentalism.
I'm a recovering fundamentalist because, you know,
fundamentalist churches are such cults and blah, blah, blah.
You know, there's wine.
And they go to some liberal church with some Bible,
a Revelation 22 Bible that adds to and removes from God's word.
But it's all the fundamentalist fault because the fundamentalists burn them and ruin their lives and whatever
And oh, it's so toxic and you know what most of the people are lying anyway about that
Oh, because look I went on these videos and look at the signs of a cult and I'm just like this is every church
I've ever gone to would be considered a cult by these people because you know what they're really trying to do at the
Other day they're trying to get you to not go to church at all
That's the end game
They want to get you totally out of church, so everything's a cult.
Just cult, cult, cult, everything's a cult.
And you know what's hilarious is that our church has been called a cult?
When our church is the least cult-like church that I've ever seen,
because anybody who actually goes to our church knows it's an extremely libertarian church.
Very hands-off, very libertarian, very non-invasive, like...
Almost to a fault. I mean if anything if I had to guess whether I've been too strict or too lenient
I don't even have to question like I've been too lenient
Like I am a super hands-off boss to my employees
Super hands-off pastor, you know because I'm just a strong believer in liberty
You know even when it comes to politics I have a lot of libertarian ideas when it comes to politics too
It's just that's how I think that's who I am. That's my personality. Maybe even a little bit to a fault
but this is the most libertarian atmosphere you're ever going to find in church.
The old IFB churches that I grew up in were way stricter,
had way more rules, were way more invasive, and whatever.
But you know what, I would never even dream of calling them a cult or saying he was toxic.
That's just a bunch of wine.
And you know what, if you're a grown man, whining on the internet,
you got your little lavender shirt and you're on the internet like,
I know that some of you have been so hurt by these churches.
No, look, any of these guys giving you
10 toxic traits of a pastor,
10 toxic traits of your church,
10 signs that you're in a narcissistic gaslighting cult,
these guys are faggots.
A bunch of whining, little wissy, little wimps.
Look, if you have a bad, let me just tell you something,
if you have a bad experience at a church,
this is what a man does.
A man just says, you know what,
we need to find a different church.
A man says, hey, this church is not in alignment with the Word of God, this church is doing
some strange things, this church is preaching wrong or acting wrong, I'm going to go find
another church.
I'm not going to spend the rest of my life whining on the Internet with my feelings and
my psychology book and my psycho babble and everything's toxic, narcissistic, gaslighting.
Shove all that garbage, be a man, and go live your life, and lead your family, and quit whining because the pastor leads the church.
And let me tell you something, this is a church where it's pastor led.
Even though it's very libertarian, even though there are very few rules, guess what?
It's led by a man.
It's led by this man.
It's led by the pastor.
It's led by the man of God.
That's what we believe in.
And every church I've ever been in that was effective had a strong leader.
and wasn't run by a committee, because that's the thing.
In order for it not to be a cult,
everything has to be run by a committee.
We gotta have a committee, and we gotta vote on everything,
and it's gotta be democracy, and all this stuff.
Now, you know what we need?
We just need a leader that just gets things done.
Just need a leader that just said, this is what we're doing.
Here's where we're going.
Follow me as I follow Christ.
You know, get in and see my zeal for the Lord.
Let's go.
Let's do it.
It's King James and we're not voting on it.
It's soul winning and we're not voting on it.
It's hard preaching and we're not voting on it.
And if you don't like it, there's the door.
Reaching.
Whee.
Cold.
Scary.
Everybody just wants to blame everybody.
It's people like you, Pastor Anderson, why people aren't being saved.
It's people like you, Pastor Anderson, why people don't go to church anymore.
No, people aren't being saved because they're too prideful to accept the free gift of salvation that's being offered to them.
Or people aren't being saved because liberal, faculty, you know,
Mr. Lavender telling us everybody's a narcissist doesn't go soul-winning.
That's why people are going to hell.
Okay, and you know why people aren't going to church because they're lazy because they're backslidden because they're not right with God
That's why they're not going to church. It's not because of people like me
And if people like me or the reason why people don't go to church then please explain to me
Why our church is five times the size of the average independent Baptist church right now?
In America, right now, our morning attendance this morning is five times the average morning attendance of other independent Baptist Church across America.
That's because I'm turning people away with my preaching.
No, it's all just excuses.
And here's the thing, if you want to blame your parents, you know what, couldn't your parents blame their parents?
Right?
So it's like, oh, my parents are so mean.
You know, their parents were probably mean to them.
and then their parents were mean to them.
And then eventually we get all the way back to Adam and Eve.
And then, and then Adam's like, well God, it's your fault
because you gave me this woman.
What does the Bible say?
He says in verse number 12, the man said,
the woman whom thou gave us to be with me,
she gave me of the tree and I did eat.
You know, the church that you gave me, God,
It was the pastor of the church that you led me to that hurt my feelings, and now I can't go to church anymore.
And the Lord God said unto the woman,
so he blames the woman, he's like, it's her fault!
So then God's like, okay, what's your excuse?
And the Lord God said unto the woman, what is this that I was telling her?
And the woman said, well, the serpent bellowed me, and I did eat.
So he blames her, and then she blames the serpent.
You know, the serpent.
Isn't really giving the opportunity to blame anyone
Who does the devil the devil can't say the devil made me do it because he is the devil so you know
I guess the buck stops with him
So the Lord said unto the serpent because thou has done this thou art cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field
Upon thy belly shout thou go and dust shout thou eat all the days of thy life
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed
It shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel and of course
This is the famous prophecy of the Lord Jesus Christ coming someday who's gonna be the seed of the woman
He's going to be the son of man, he's going to be born from the human race, the son of
Mary literally, right?
He's going to be a human being that is going to bruise the serpent's head.
Satan will bruise his heel, you know, meaning that he's going to be hurt in the process
of crushing the serpent's head.
So like if I were barefoot and I stepped on a serpent's head, right, it might hurt my
foot a little bit.
Same thing with the Lord Jesus Christ.
He went through pain and suffering and agony on the cross for us.
The Bible said it pleased the Lord to bruise him.
So Jesus Christ was bruised for our iniquities.
By his stripes we are healed.
He died on the cross for our sins and obviously that hurt him,
but in the end he destroyed the works of the devil and he lives forever more.
You know, just as a person who stepped on a snake would heal from that.
Jesus Christ resurrected from the dead and lives forevermore,
and the serpent is permanently crippled and will ultimately be destroyed.
And so we have that great prophecy of the coming of Christ.
And so just to kind of quickly sum up the message here,
the idea here is the devil is going to come at you
and try to get you to sin. He's going to try to get you to live a sinful life.
And once you're saved,
You know you realize obviously that there's nothing that we could ever do that would separate us from the love of God
We think Christ Jesus our Lord and we're eternally saved. There's nothing we could ever do to lose our salvation
But here's the thing the devil's gonna come along though and try to get you to live a sinful life
So that you can be ineffective in your service for God
You know, so he's gonna come along and try to tempt you and get you to question things and kind of tell you
Hey, go with your intuition. Go with your heart. I know that I know that you're being told that this is sinful
But come on. I mean does it really seem that bad even though the Bible says it's bad
But what do you know, what do you see though, right?
He's going to try to get you to go with your intuition
instead of what the word of God says.
He's going to tempt you and then you end up sinning.
And the next thing you know,
you don't have the fellowship that you used to have with God.
You don't have the fellowship with your brothers and sisters
in Christ that you used to.
And then all of a sudden you get bitter
so you want to start blaming everybody
and you start making YouTube videos
about how church is bad and Baptist are bad
and fundamentalism is bad and your parents are bad
and 501c3 is the problem.
And just like just picking apart everything
and everybody except for just realizing,
hey, I need to get right with God.
Don't go down a dark path.
How do we avoid this?
We trust what the Bible says.
We obey God's commands.
We realize that those commands are for our benefit.
and we follow those commandments,
and we follow the word of God,
and we live our life in a way that pleases God.
Let's bards in the order of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for this great chapter.
Lord God, please help us not to fall for the devil's tricks,
and the devil uses all these weird psycho babblers
and all these people to try to get us
to go to some permissive church
that doesn't preach hard on sin.
Lord, help us to keep on
living a life that's pleasing to you and trying to get sin
out of our lives and trying to please you and have fellowship
with you as best as we can.
Lord bless us as we go our separate ways.
And in Jesus' name we pray amen.
Amen, all right, church.
Take your hymns, please.
Go to hymn number 363, hymn 363.
Wonderful words of life.
Sing them over again to me wonderful words of life sing it out now 363
Wonderful words of life.
Beautiful words.
Wonderful words.
Wonderful words of life.
Christ the Blessed One gives to all.
Wonderful words of life.
Center us to the lobby hall.
Wonderful words of life.
All so freely given, moving us to heaven.
Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life.
Sweetly echo the gospel call.
Wonderful words apply
Offer pardon and peace to all
Wonderful words apply
Jesus, Holy Savior
Stanked by forever
Beautiful words, wonderful words
Wonderful words apply
Wonderful words, wonderful words of life.
That good thing this morning we are dismissed.