- Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome to our services here at Faith Forward Baptist Church.
Very nice to see you all here on this Sunday morning.
If you don't, please find your seats now
and grab a hymnal.
Go to hymn 215, we'll begin.
Hymn number 215, 215, heaven came down
and glory filled my soul.
Hymn number 215, once you've found your place,
we'll sing it out on that first verse together.
Hymn number 215 begins, oh, what a wonderful,
wonderful day.
Hymn number 215, 215, lift it up.
On that first verse.
- Privilege that we have to hear safely with you.
We just ask, Lord, your blessing upon us
as we lift our voices to you in praise,
help us to be attentive to the songs
and to the words as we sing them out unto you
and to be thankful for our salvation.
And we just ask that you please open our ears
and our hearts to receive the message this morning.
That you fill Pastor Aaron Thompson with your Holy Ghost,
help him to preach with power and unction
as he preaches to us and that we be attentive
to the preaching as well.
And that he keep distractions to a minimum
and that all that said and done would give you the honor
and glory that you deserve for it.
And we'll thank you for it in Jesus' name, amen.
Back to hymn number 102.
"He hideth my soul," hymn number 102.
We'll sing it out.
On that verse first,
"The wonderful Savior is Jesus my Lord."
Hymn number 102, 102, sing it out.
♪ A wonderful Savior is Jesus ♪
♪ Your duty as Jesus shall be ♪
♪ The glory of the land sings ♪
♪ Each glory we're happy land ♪
- We're gonna go over the bulletins.
So if you need a bulletin,
please raise your hand right now
and the ushers will come by
and bring you a bulletin as soon as they can.
If you have your bulletin, go ahead and open it up.
On the upper left-hand corner is our service times.
Below that is our soul winning times,
the church-wide soul winning regional.
And also the salvation and baptisms
for the year at the very bottom.
We will be baptizing after the service.
I know one person that wants to get baptized.
If there's anybody else,
come see me or somebody in church
and ask them about baptism
and we will take care of you.
On the upper right-hand corner
is information about a mega conference.
Today, Pastor Aaron Thompson,
if you miss him, you need glasses.
You know, he'll be preaching for us this morning.
And besides him,
we got Pastor Ricky Reyes coming this Wednesday.
And everybody else, you can take a look at the list
so you can know who's gonna be preaching soon.
Thank you to those who participated
in the small town soul winning in Eden, Arizona.
We have 14 soul winners,
seven salvations that knocked every single door.
But join us for a soul winner on the Navajo Nation,
Friday, July 26, and Saturday, July 27.
And speak to Brother Raymond Cooper for details on that.
On the back of the bulletin,
please continue to pray for the expected ladies
in our church.
And below that is an event that we're gonna have.
We're gonna be having a skate night
in Skate Land in Mesa, Thursday, August 15,
for 5.30, 8 p.m.
The address is right there.
And the upcoming events, take a look at those
when you get a chance.
Other than that, that's all I have.
Lead us in the next song, please.
- All right, you should find the insert
in the front of your hymnals of "How Great Thou Art."
If you don't have an insert, you can raise your hand.
We'll sing it out on that first verse.
"O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder."
"How Great Thou Art."
Let's sing it out.
♪ O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder ♪
♪ Consider all the song near the road ♪
♪ And sings my soul, my soul, and sings my soul ♪
♪ Doth not stem to die, heirs can take it ♪
♪ My soul, my soul, my soul ♪
Let's sing everybody.
Let's go on your hymnals now to hymn 321, hymn 321.
Where he leads, I'll follow.
Hymn number 321, lift it up together right on that first.
Weed are the promises, kind is the word.
Hymn number 321, sing it out now.
♪ Weed are the promises, kind is the word ♪
♪ Dearer for than any man, the great example is a platter for me ♪
♪ The example is a platter as for thee ♪
♪ Upstand his promises, faithful and sure ♪
♪ Be upon the Savior and thy soul is secure ♪
Please turn your Bibles to Acts number 20.
Please turn your Bibles to Acts chapter number 20.
Chapter number 20, "And after the uproar was ceased,
"Paul called unto him the disciples and embraced them,
"and departed for to go into Macedonia.
"And when he had gone over those parts
"and had given them much exhortation,
"he came into Greece, and there abode three months.
"And when the Jews laid wait for him,
"as he was about to sail into Syria,
"he purposed to return through Macedonia,
"and there accompanied him into Asia,
"Sopater of Berea, and of the Thessalonians,
"Aristarchus and Sagundus, and Gaius of Derbe,
"and Timotheus, and of Asia, Tychicus and Trophimus.
"These going before tarried for us at Troas.
"And we sailed away from Philippi
"after the days of unleavened bread,
"and came unto them to Troas in five days,
"where we abode seven days.
"And upon the first day of the week,
"when the disciples came together to break bread,
"Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow,
"and continued his speech until midnight.
"And there were many lights in the upper chamber,
"where they were gathered together,
"and there sat in a window a certain young man,
"named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep.
"And as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep,
"and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead.
"And Paul went down, and fell on him, and embracing him,
"said, 'Trouble not yourselves, for his life is in him.'
"When he therefore was come up again,
"and had broken bread, and eaten, and talked a long while,
"even till break of day, so he departed.
"And they brought the young man alive,
"and were not a little comforted.
"And we went before to ship, and sailed unto Asos,
"there intending to take in Paul.
"For so had he appointed, minding himself to go afoot.
"And when he met with us at Asos,
"we took him in, and came to Midalene.
"And we sailed thence, and came the next day
"over against Chios, and the next day we arrived at Samos,
"and tarried at Trogelium,
"and the next day we came to Miletus.
"For Paul had determined to sail by Ephesus,
"because he would not spend the time in Asia.
"For he hasted, if it were possible for him,
"to be at Jerusalem the day of Pentecost.
"And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus,
"and called the elders of the church.
"And when they were come to him, he said unto them,
"Ye know from the first day that I came into Asia,
"after what manner I have been with you at all seasons,
"serving the Lord with all humility of mind,
"and with many tears and temptations,
"which befell me by the lying and weight of the Jews,
"and how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you,
"but have showed you, and have taught you publicly,
"and from house to house, testifying both to the Jews,
"and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God,
"and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
"And now behold, I go bound in the Spirit unto Jerusalem,
"not knowing the things that shall befall me there,
"save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city,
"saying that bonds and afflictions abide me.
"But none of these things move me,
"neither count I my life dear unto myself,
"so that I might finish my course with joy,
"and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus,
"to testify the gospel of the grace of God.
"And now, behold, I know that ye all,
"among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God,
"shall see my face no more.
"Wherefore I take you to record this day,
"that I am pure from the blood of all men.
"For I have not shunned to declare unto you
"all the counsel of God.
"Take heed therefore unto yourselves,
"and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost
"hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God,
"which he hath purchased with his own blood.
"For I know this, that after my departing,
"shall grievous wolves enter in among you,
"not sparing the flock.
"Also of your own selves shall men arise,
"speaking perverse things,
"to draw away his disciples after them.
"Therefore watch and remember,
"that by the space of three years,
"I cease not to warn every one night and day with tears.
"And now brethren, I commend you to God,
"and to the word of his grace,
"which is able to build you up,
"and to give you an inheritance among all of them
"which are sanctified.
"I have coveted no man's silver, or gold, or apparel,
"yea, ye yourselves know that these hands
"have ministered unto my necessities,
"and to them that were with me.
"I have showed you all things,
"how that so laboring ye ought to support the weak,
"and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus,
"how he said, it is more blessed to give than to receive.
"And when he had thus spoken,
"he kneeled down and prayed with them all,
"and they all wept sore,
"and fell on Paul's neck and kissed him,
"sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake,
"that they should see his face no more,
"and they accompanied him unto the ship."
- Father in heaven, we thank you for the opportunity
to hear your word preached.
We ask that you would fill Pastor Thompson
with your spirit and give him great boldness
and utterance to declare thus to say at the Lord to us.
Let us have a ten of years, Lord,
not only to hear your word,
but to do it each and every day.
We love you, Lord.
We ask for your blessing now in Jesus' name, amen.
- Amen, well it's great to be here
at Faithful Word Baptist Church.
Just want to say thank you to Pastor Anderson
and the Faithful Word family for having me preach here.
It's an honor to preach in this pulpit.
And I just wanted to just once again say thank you.
And this morning I'm preaching out of Acts chapter 20.
I know Pastor Anderson's been preaching a series
about Paul's missionary journey,
so you have been going through this chapter.
But I want to springboard off of verses 28 through 31
where the Bible says, "Take heed therefore unto yourselves
"and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost
"hath made you overseers to feed the church of God,
"which he hath purchased with his own blood.
"For I know this, that after my departing
"shall grievous wolves enter in among you,
"not sparing the flock.
"Also of your own selves shall men arise
"speaking perverse things to draw away disciples
"after them, therefore watch and remember
"that by the space of three years I cease not to warn
"every one night and day with tears."
So you have the apostle Paul here
speaking to the Ephesian elders and he says
it's his job and it's the job of the elders
that he's speaking to to warn people about wolves
that would come in and they would enter in among
and not spare the flock.
And that even among their own selves and their own churches
these wolves would rise up.
And of course we're no stranger to these things happening.
Of course Faithful Words no stranger to these things happening.
There's been many battles over the years.
Many wolves that have come in
and they draw away disciples after them also.
And they take people and people get upset
over many different things.
And what the job is is that they attack people
and then they want to rip as many people out
as they possibly can.
Now, how do wolves attack?
Well, wolves in the wild, they pack up generally
and they circle around their prey
and they look for the injured, they look for the weak,
they look for the young, and they look for the lame.
Now, when you translate that to Christians,
then sometimes they're just looking for someone
and maybe they're spiritually injured.
You know, they're looking, you know,
the wolves that I'm talking about
are people that are infiltrators.
They're not real Christians.
They're phonies that would come in
and do what Paul's talking about here.
Maybe they're spiritually injured.
Maybe they're weak in the faith.
Maybe they're just young Christians.
Maybe they're lame.
They have some kind of problem in their spiritual life
that they just look for weaknesses.
And in real life, wolves look for weaknesses.
And Paul talks about people being wolves
because this is how false prophets and infiltrators
try to gain, they gain the trust and then they attack.
The title of my sermon this morning is red flags, red flags.
So I'm gonna go ahead and have my volunteers come up
that I asked to come up.
Got Alex, Alex you're in the hot seat right here.
And this is Ethan, right?
I'm gonna have you sit right here.
And then the young lady, what was, yeah, come on up.
What was her name again?
Emma, she's gonna sit up here.
So they're gonna sit with me for the whole service.
So you don't have to look at me,
you can focus on better looking people than me.
But so yeah, my sermon title is Red Flags.
And I brought a big packet of red flags.
I'm gonna demonstrate a truth that hopefully you get
at the end, at least by the end of the sermon there.
But what is a red flag?
Well, we hear this term often.
Well, that person's shown me a lot of red flags.
Who's heard of this term before?
I'm just, yeah, okay, everybody.
So what is a red flag?
Well, a red flag is a warning sign
of possible impending danger.
Now, I wanna caveat this before I get deep into this sermon
and just say this, that red flags are just that.
They're red flags.
They're things to check in the back of your mind.
They're not automatically something
that you just accuse somebody of being some
evil infiltrator, psychopath, reprobate, false prophet.
Now, if it is a major red flag,
then you might be able to label them instantaneously.
You know, if they look like a queer,
they talk like a queer, they dress like a queer,
they sound like a queer, they have the hair of a queer,
then they're probably a queer, right?
I mean, those red flags are pretty good indicators.
But sometimes it's a little more tricky,
and sometimes just a red flag is just that.
Sometimes, you know, people are, you know,
just have some kind of weird belief
or something that they need to get worked out.
And I'll cover that more as we get into the sermon,
but the faithful word has been talked about
as being a revolving door.
And this church is the biggest of all the,
quote unquote, new IFB churches.
It has the most amount of people,
but you've also had the most amount of people
come and leave, I'm sure, also.
And you have new people that come here all the time,
I'm sure, and new people that leave all the time, I'm sure.
So, but Pastor Anderson's multiple times
talked about the revolving door of faithful word.
Sometimes, well, most of the time,
I'm sure a lot of great people come here,
and then sometimes there's weird people that come here,
and they have red flags, don't they?
And eventually, they wash out, or they get exposed,
or they expose themselves, and leave.
So this morning, I just wanna help you
to identify some red flags that I've seen displayed,
and help you to be able to at least give some tools
to help you to discern how to navigate
some of these relationships that you might have
with new people coming to church, or just people that,
you know, sometimes people are long-time infiltrators,
like Garrett, right?
How long was Garrett here?
Like 10 years or something?
So, I mean, people can infiltrate for a long time.
Even the keenest minds can be fooled
by high-level devils.
Even the most discerning, spirit-filled believer
can be fooled, a la Judas Iscariot, right?
All the disciples thought that they were the ones.
I mean, they would rather think they were the ones
than Judas.
And of course, Jesus was the only one that knew
that Judas was the traitor.
They were all surprised when Judas walked up
in the garden with the whole, you know,
band of guys with torches and pitchforks
and swords and staves and all those things, right?
So in church work, you know, I've been a pastor
for almost six years now and I've been in church work
though for a long time in various different types
of ministry in the old IFB, the new IFB.
I was a church, you know, I was the first church plant
in a Verity Baptist Church in Vancouver, Washington
before I became the pastor there.
And, you know, I've just had to deal with a lot of bozos.
I'm sure you guys have dealt with a lot of way more
than I have, but I have developed a little bit
of a lack of trust with people.
So, you know, when you first get in, it's like,
and people start flattering you and things like this,
you don't really get it, you know.
You've been warned already, you've heard all the sermons,
but then when you actually go through it,
it's a little bit different.
So, and you have these types of things in church work.
Now, you can't just throw out all inhibitions
and say, oh, they're from church, they're here to help.
You can't completely just sell out
and trust every single person that you meet.
And for whatever reason, in churches like this church
and our church back in Vancouver, Washington,
you get more weirdos than the average church,
or maybe it just gets dealt with more
than the average church.
I don't know if that might be more true, I don't know.
But flag number one, and flag number one is this.
Turn to Proverbs chapter 20, verse 19.
I'm gonna give my first flags out here,
and each participant here is gonna get a flag, all right?
So they're all getting flags.
And the first flag, I think this is one of,
if not the most important part of the sermon,
which is excessive flattery, excessive flattery.
And I know your pastor's preached about this,
but it is very important, this point here.
Excessive flattery.
Look at Proverbs 20, 19, it says,
he that goeth about as a tale bearer, revealeth secrets.
And you're like, I thought you meant flattery.
Well, look at the rest of the verse there, it says,
therefore, metal not with him,
that flattereth with his lips.
That's kind of a strange pairing there, isn't it?
Well, look at that colon there.
You see that colon?
What is a colon?
Well, a colon is a punctuation mark
that can be used in writing to introduce list,
explanation, or quoted sentences.
It's usually placed after an independent clause
or complete sentence to signal
what follows is related to the previous sentence.
So these two things go together, in other words.
So the tail-bearer and the flatterer,
those two things mesh together.
The Bible connects tail-bearing with flattery, doesn't it?
Isn't that what it's saying there?
So once a tail-bearer has you listen
or join in with tail-bearing,
and what is tail-bearing, the modern term, it's gossip.
You know, but gossip isn't a word to sound in the Bible.
That's what most people call it.
But tail-bearing is where you're gossiping about someone.
You could even be telling the truth about somebody,
but it might just not be your business to be talking about.
So tail-bearing is something that we ought not to be doing.
The Bible says, "Thou should not go up and down
as a tail-bearer among thy people."
The Bible's very clear about this.
I mean, Leviticus 19, 16 still applies to us today.
Proverbs chapter 20 verse 19 still applies.
And so we gotta watch out for people that are tail-bearers
because a lot of times they might have an agenda.
And what's the agenda?
To get your guard down.
That's what, they flatter you with their lips
so they can get your guard down and get you to gossip.
And then what?
They hold something over your head.
Maybe they got you to gossip about something
that wasn't that big of a deal,
but now they got you on something.
So if you out them for something else,
then they got you on something.
That's why I think that these types of people
use flattery is so that they can get you on tail-bearing.
They can get you to gossip about somebody.
I've seen people do this multiple times,
so I know it's true.
And the Bible's explaining to us right here
that you're not supposed to meddle
with someone that flatters you with their lips.
The Bible says in Jeremiah 17, nine,
the heart is deceitful above all things
and desperately wicked who can know it.
So we can be deceiving.
The most deceptive thing about our heart
is we deceive ourself a lot of times.
We think that when someone flatters us,
that they really mean it.
Oh, you know, maybe I am really good at this thing.
Maybe I am the best at whatever they're saying.
Maybe I am the best friend ever.
Whatever it is that they're flattering you with,
you might start to believe that
because the heart is deceitful above all things
and desperately wicked.
You know, we start believing what people are saying about us
and really they don't mean it.
They're just flattering you.
They're just trying to tell you something that's not true.
What is flattery?
It's lavish or excessive insincere praise
and compliments upon someone.
Insincere.
It means they don't mean it,
especially to further one's own interests.
That's the definition of flattery.
And that is the problem with it is that it's not sincere.
They don't mean it.
It's a tool and a tactic to get you to trust them
and let your guard down.
So you can't trust people with your sensitive information,
especially people that you just first meet.
You know, Christians are too trusting sometimes.
And I'm not saying that we should never trust anybody,
but you know, confidential information,
major past failures in your life,
big sins that you have in your past,
those aren't things that you should just share
with the newest person that comes to the church.
And why?
Because they want to store that information
so they can use it against you later.
That's why.
People like to data mine.
You know, some people that come to this church,
the first thing that they do
is start data mining everybody
and trying to get the goods on as many people as they can.
And regardless of how Christian should be though,
some people just can't help but judge you
and hold it against you.
Christians should be forgiving.
We should overlook past sins and things like that.
But there's some things that you share with people
that they might not be able to overlook in their mind,
even though they're supposed to still forgive for it.
And these people, they might not be able to remember
to set an alarm to get to church on time,
but they'll remember every conversation
they've ever had with you.
They'll remember every conversation they ever had
with the pastor, every conversation with the pastor's wife,
the pastor's kids, all that stuff.
And they store that in their little reprobate memory bank
to use against you later.
And they're not above taking that
and making half-truths out of it
or just completely lying about those people.
They might have had a conversation,
but they're not gonna tell the truth about it.
Here's some of the things that I've heard
or I've heard said to other people
that end up being weirdos, right?
That we end up having to kick out or mark at our church.
This is the best church ever.
I'm never going to leave.
How many times have you heard that?
I mean, people come here all the time
because they say, "This is the best church ever."
And then what?
They leave because it's not to them.
Now it's also not the best church ever.
Because, you know, going here
and actually being a part of the community of this church
is a lot different than watching online
and actually doing the work and being part of it.
You'll always be my pastor.
I've heard that.
You're my best friend.
And they tell that to every lady in the church.
You're the best construction worker I've ever seen.
I mean, what a weird thing to say to somebody.
And you've never even seen them do any construction work.
If I had to pick someone to give the gospel to someone,
it would be you, because I know you really
care about people's souls.
Someone said that to one of my church members recently.
People take you for granted.
What is that statement designed to say?
It's designed to make you feel negatively, especially--
this was said to my wife by somebody.
And it's like, what is that designed to do?
Make my wife feel negatively about other people
in the church.
You're the most generous person I've ever met.
You're the most forgiving person I've ever met.
I really hope people appreciate all that you do.
Those things are designed to have some sort of a reaction.
It's seed planting.
If I was in charge, I would take care of that immediately,
just like that.
I had someone tell me that somebody said that.
That's the Absalom tactic.
That's where Absalom is, oh, the pastor's
too busy to help you with your problems.
Let me help you.
Let me teach you.
Let me take on all this.
And then if the pastor doesn't take care of that said thing,
then they're like, well, if I was the pastor,
I would do it.
I would take care of it.
If I was the pastor's wife or whatever.
Don't fall for flattery.
Don't join in with tail-bearing.
If you fall for flattery, the excessive,
oh, you're the greatest, then you're
going to fall for the tail-bearing.
So don't do it.
Don't give away your information.
Don't talk about other people with people.
Don't allow the flattery to get people to tail-bear with you.
Bad people are always looking for a way
to get your guard down and win you over.
So don't allow that to happen.
Flag number two.
Give each participant another one.
All right.
We're all working with two flags here.
Flag number two is hyper-spiritual, holier-than-thou.
Hyper-spiritual, holier-than-thou is turned to Isaiah 65.
Isaiah 65.
Now there's nothing wrong with being spiritual.
Of course, God wants us to be spiritual.
There's nothing wrong with being holy.
God wants us to be holy.
Be holy for I am holy, the Bible says, right?
But Isaiah 65 verse five says this.
Which say, stand by thyself, come not near to me,
for I am holier than thou.
And the Bible says this.
These are smoke in my nose,
a fire that burneth all the day.
Now, God doesn't like this attitude.
That's what the Bible's saying.
He doesn't like when people think
that they're better than everybody else
and say, don't even come around me
because I'm way holier than you are.
And it's like a fire burning all day.
And I know a lot of people in here like to go camping,
so you understand when you have a campfire
and the smoke is constantly blowing in your face
'cause, you know, smoke follows beauty, right?
And so everywhere you move,
the smoke is just following you, right?
It's just super annoying, right,
when the smoke is just blowing in your face.
This is how God feels when someone is up on a high horse
acting like they're better than everybody else,
they're hyper-spiritual,
and they're holier than everybody else.
Turn to Matthew chapter six, Matthew chapter six.
And these people, a lot of times,
end up turning out as bad people.
And I'm not saying every time,
but a lot of times, in my experience,
these types of people end up being bad people.
Matthew chapter six, verse one, the Bible says,
"Take heed that you do not your alms before men
"to be seen of them.
"Otherwise you have no reward of your father,
"which is in heaven.
"Therefore, when thou doest thine alms,
"do not sound a trumpet before thee as the hypocrites do
"in the synagogues and in the streets,
"that they may have glory of men.
"Verily, I say unto you, they have their reward."
So what do these types of people like to do?
Well, they're hyper-spiritual, holier-than-thou's.
They like to do things to be seen of men.
They like to brag about all the things that they do for God.
They constantly like to bring up how much soul winning
or good works that they're doing.
That is a red flag when you're over the top with it.
I'm not saying don't be joyous
about the people you got saved and so on and so forth.
But people that have to just say,
oh hey, the other day when I was soul winning
and when I got 10 people saved
and then you lead into the next thing
that you're about to say.
It always has to be something that you're saying
about the good works that you do.
Then what are you doing?
You're really just trying to get people to acknowledge
how great of a spiritual worker that you are.
Look at verse 16.
It says, "Moreover, when you fast,
be not as the hypocrites of a sad countenance,
for they disfigure their faces that they
may appear unto men to fast.
Verily, I say it to you, they have their reward."
So what's God saying?
He's saying, hey, if you want to fast
and then you want everybody to notice that you're fasting,
then you already have your reward.
It's pointless.
It's like, but that's the point.
They want men to see them.
They want men to think that they're really spiritual.
That's why they're hyper-spiritual.
They're holier than thou.
And it's really funny because this is,
why does he say this?
Because people have a tendency to do these things.
There was a kid that was going to one of the churches
before I started the church in Vancouver.
I was going to this church and there was a,
maybe it was a 16-year-old kid
that was going to church there and I saw,
I think I was out somewhere with him.
I can't remember where we were,
but he had this sad face on him.
He was, you know, he was just all pouty or whatever
and I was like, what's wrong?
And I knew what he was,
I just knew what he was going to say.
Well, I'm fasting.
I was like, well, you lost your reward, kid.
You know, and I showed him this verse.
It's like, dude, like this is what the Bible says not to do.
But yet, and it just shows that's why Jesus said this.
It says, but when thou fast,
anoint thine head and wash thy face,
that thou appear not unto men to fast,
but unto the Father which is in secret,
and thy Father which seeth thee in secret,
shall reward thee openly.
Holier than thou's, also are the type of people
that are not willing to forgive others
or let people live down sins that they've committed
and mistakes that they made, things like that.
They never cuss, they never chew,
they never ran with girls that did,
all that kind of stuff.
They're currently committing probably worse sins
than they're holding up their nose
at everybody else.
You know, it was funny, this one family
that we ended up having to mark later on,
he called me up and he was like,
we're the only people in this church that are not fake.
We're the only ones that believe in having big families.
And it's like, we got a lot of big families in our church.
They got a funny way of showing
how they don't believe in big families.
But this person was a hyper-spiritual person,
now they're out of church,
now they're just living their best life now,
and all the inhibitions that they had,
all the things that they were so holy about at our church
are all gone out the window.
And it's funny, one time I asked if anybody wanted to do
like a Christmas choir,
and they like led the charge against it.
But then at the same time,
this same guy is having a drum set in our church,
and I had to finally go to the guy and say,
hey, what are you doing?
Like, why do you keep promoting drum sets?
We're never gonna have a drum set in this church.
It's not happening.
We're not gonna get a plexiglass pulpit,
and we're not gonna get a drum set.
You know, next thing I know,
we're gonna have purple lights after that.
It's not happening.
Or a smoke machine.
Not happening.
I mean, might as well just,
if you get a drum set here,
the liberalism's coming right afterwards.
So anyway, the thing is,
no church is ever worthy of their magnificent splendor.
That's what these types of people are like.
No church is good enough for them.
No pastor's good enough for them.
They're on a higher plane and spiritual level
than everybody else.
This is the hyper spiritual holier than thou.
And they look down their noses at everybody else,
and some people like this have been raised in church,
and some haven't.
But the ones that have been raised in church,
some of these people can't get down to,
or they can't condescend them in of lower estate.
That means they don't get down on other people's levels.
Like, some people that are raised in church,
they kind of get this hyper-spiritual attitude too,
and everybody can get it,
and it's just not an attitude that we should have.
Now, just because someone is a hyper-spiritual holier
than now, it doesn't mean that they're always a bad person.
It doesn't mean that.
Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 11.
1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 11.
The Bible says, "Now all these things happened unto them
"for in samples, and they are written for admonition
"upon whom the ends of the world are come."
And the Bible gave them all these examples
of things we're not supposed to do
because in the Old Testament these people got punished
really harshly for them.
But it says in verse 12, "Wherefore let him
"that thinketh he standeth take heed, lest he fall."
Now sometimes, you know, these people
that are hyper-spiritual holier than now,
is they just get puffed up.
They're Christians that maybe learn things way too quick,
and then they get on this higher plane.
Because so-and-so didn't learn
and get on board as fast as I did.
When I got saved, I jumped right in my Bible.
I knew after the tribulation,
I knew the Jews weren't God's chosen people
and all this other stuff.
I knew that fags were destined for hell no matter what.
Like, they just knew everything really quick,
and they can get hyper-spiritual.
They can get holier than now too.
And so we gotta be careful about that attitude as Christians.
And you know, babes in Christ can get like that too.
And so we have to be careful not to just label someone
that's a hyper-spiritual holier than now
as some kind of reprobate,
'cause that's just not necessarily true.
So flag number three is, uh-oh, lost my flag.
All right, flag number three is constant boundary pushing.
Constant boundary pushing.
You don't get one.
Only she gets one, all right.
Constant boundary pushing.
Turn to Proverbs chapter 22 verse 28.
While you're turning there,
I'm gonna read Proverbs 23 verse 10.
Proverbs 23 verse 10 says remove not the old landmark
and enter not into the fields of the Fatherless.
Obviously this is talking about your literal boundaries
on your property lines and things like that.
But if you wanna take the spiritual approach with this,
we don't want to spiritually cross boundaries
that we're not supposed to cross.
And if you wanna just talk about
your boundaries in your personal life,
rules in your life that you don't want people,
and boundaries in your life
that you don't want people to cross,
that can also be an application too.
Look at what it says in Proverbs 22 verse 28 says,
"Remove not the ancient landmark
"which thy fathers have set."
So what is constant boundary pushing?
Well, constant rule breaking.
The borders, you know, that borders, excuse me,
on intentional.
You know, people that just consistently
just break the rules all the time,
and it almost seems like it's intentional doing it.
And that might sound like a weird red flag,
but it is kind of, it is a red flag.
Sometimes people just, they know what the boundary is,
and they go right up to the edge of it,
and then they just kind of draw back and don't get there.
But they just like to see how far they can push it
before someone's gonna react to it.
And when people are doing that,
they're testing to see where you'll draw your line.
And not everybody's a confrontational person,
so some people will allow their boundaries to be crossed,
and whatever boundary they have,
and people that are bad people will see what can I do.
Just like I said, the wolves,
they like to circle around and find the weakness.
Well, they wanna find the weakness in your boundary, too,
and see what they can get away with,
and you have to set hard boundaries sometimes.
It's just like even with your family members
that aren't saved, you have to set boundaries
with your family members like,
hey, no, we're not carving pumpkins this year,
Mom and Dad, you know?
Those types of boundaries.
So go ahead and turn to 1 Corinthians 7, verse one.
Now, I know that there's different interpretations
for this passage, but I'm sure that we can agree
on this interpretation that I'm about to give you, though.
And one example I just wanna give is serial huggers.
Serial huggers.
And mainly I'm talking about men, okay?
Men that are serial huggers.
And I'm not talking about like, you know,
hey, you know, brother and cry.
I'm talking about dudes that like to go
and hug other people's wives or hug other women.
1 Corinthians 7, one says,
now concerning the things wherever you wrote unto me,
it is good for a man not to touch a woman,
nevertheless, to avoid fornication,
let every man have his own wife,
and let every woman have her own husband.
Again, there's different interpret,
people have different views on this verse,
but I'll tell you one thing you probably don't like
is if a dude walked up and hugged your wife.
Who would not have a problem with that, really?
Everybody would.
So we had this guy in our church
and he was just like a massive boundary pusher.
He's just always doing something
that I'm always having to crack the guy over.
And one of the things that I'd heard that he did
was walked up and full frontal hugged
another man's wife two times.
And when I confronted him about it,
he's like, "I don't subscribe to everything
"that the new IFB teaches."
And he'd also hugged one of the men in our church's daughters,
but it was side hugs, but still.
And when I said to him, I said,
"I don't think that's a new IFB thing.
"I think that's just a general purposes thing."
Like some dude walks in
and starts hugging everybody's wife in here,
there's gonna be an instant showdown, isn't there?
Someone's gonna get corrected really quick, aren't they?
So I know what Pastor Anderson believes about this.
If somebody walks up and hugs his wife,
there's gonna be an instant problem.
Now, I don't know how protective you are of your wife,
but I'm pretty protective,
and this is where we had another guy come in,
and when I looked up who he was,
he was a proclaiming pastor.
He came in and sat next to one of the ladies in our church
and hugged her like he came in for the hug
and tried to hug her, but then he left immediately.
Just real creepy, real weird guy,
and he better not ever come back
because he's not gonna get hugged.
He's gonna get thrown out the door.
But isn't that a big boundary to push with somebody?
People that do stuff like that,
oh, you know, I don't subscribe to everything in the new IFB,
what does that mean?
Like, that's just one of our core doctrines,
no hugging other people's wives?
No, it's just common decency.
It's just something you don't do.
So, and here's what I said to him.
I was like, well hey, you know,
the next time you come to church,
which he never did because I kicked him out,
but if your wife came up,
like say, I'm the pastor of the church.
If I just walked up and full frontal hugged
every single woman, every wife that came up to the church,
what do you think that's weird?
Of course you would.
I wouldn't be the pastor for very much longer.
But I said, how would you like it if I just walked up
and full frontal hugged your wife when she came to church?
Dead silence on the phone.
You know why?
Because he wouldn't like it and nobody would.
It's just bizarre.
It's a boundary push type of thing.
So, but you know, it doesn't matter what you think, Bozo.
You just don't come in and start hugging people's wives.
So, let's see.
This guy is saying, this guy, I'll just tell you
how much of a boundary push this guy was.
Okay, so, on Father's Day, he's like,
hey everybody, bring your boxing gloves.
Like, it's in our WhatsApp church group.
And I'm like, I thought, you know,
people thought he was joking, but he's like,
we'll box after church.
And I was like, no, you're not.
This isn't like MMA church or boxing church or fight church.
I said, I don't think that our landlord
would appreciate it very much if we had a boxing match
after church, you know, because we rent this building.
And so he gets all pouty, like he's fasting or something.
And everybody's like walking around asking,
what's wrong, what's wrong?
And he's just pissed because I told him no.
He said, well, you lied about the reason.
It's like, I didn't lie about the reason.
I don't think unlicensed boxing matches
are on our insurance.
I mean, I think you pretty much have to have like
a special kind of insurance to have boxing matches.
So I think you have to have like the boxing commission
come in and you have to have judges and all that stuff.
But anyway, it's just weird.
The guy was weird.
We had the Lord's Supper at our church
and I just, during the instructions I said,
hey, it's just gonna take a little bit.
Please don't get up and go to the bathroom
and stuff like that if you don't have to.
And so his wife gets up and takes their son
to the bathroom.
I didn't even notice.
I'm just, you know, doing my thing.
He comes up to me after the end of the church
and he's like, "I'm really sorry, why?"
He's like, "My wife took my son to the bathroom."
I was like, "Okay."
I was like, "Oh, I'd rather have him do that
"than go to pee his pants."
He's like, "It's not okay, she's my wife!"
Just like, "Okay."
Like, "What did you expect me to say?
"Like, I don't understand."
So the guy's just super weird.
Anyway, and you know, what I kicked him out for
was railing against the pastor.
You know, Pastor Shelley made that video
where it's like, you know, he's got the turban on his head
and he's like mocking Mohammed or whatever.
And so this guy pipes up in the group
and he's like, "Fools make a mock at sin."
So he's calling Pastor Shelley a fool
and he said, "Unless you can show me scripture otherwise,
I'm not backing off this."
And I was just like, "Well, then don't come back to church.
How about that?"
And then he, he's just such a bounder.
You know, he was making invitations,
or no, not invitations,
he was making preaching pamphlets
showing our men how to preach sermons.
He brought them and handed them out without asking.
And it's like, you preach one time at our church, man.
One time.
And he's making the preaching.
Oh, here you go.
You know, don't worry about the pastors.
Like, you see how that's just like,
continuously just crossing boundaries?
And then when he tried to come back,
he was like, what do I gotta do to come back?
What do you think you have to do?
Like, why do you have to ask me
what you have to do to come back?
You gotta apologize, idiot.
But I said, I don't want you to come back.
'Cause, I mean, this is just such an egregious thing.
Now, this is over the top.
This is just one person being,
you know, this is all in one week, too, by the way.
This isn't just over months of time.
There was other stuff he did that was even weirder
that I just don't have time for this morning.
But it's just, you know, you got people
that are crossing boundaries constantly like this.
It is a red flag.
Can you see how that just built up?
I'm like, he should have a whole bunch of flags right now.
But here, let me give you one more.
There you go.
So other ways that this could be,
like just people giving unsolicited advice
where they didn't ask for it,
just constantly parenting other people's kids,
things like that.
Obviously, when people's kids are in danger,
of course you should step in
and save their lives and things like that.
But nobody should be punishing other people's kids
and stuff like that.
But taking any responsibility on that's not yours,
things like that.
But you do have to stand up to people like this,
and here's why.
'Cause when people are border, they're border crossers,
the different kind of border crossers, okay?
When they're boundary pushers,
you guys know about that in Arizona, okay?
But when people are constantly doing this kind of stuff,
when people are not confrontational,
then they'll just keep doing it.
And then these types of people,
like when you finally say something
and you haven't just checked 'em the first time,
then they get really mad and turn against you or whatever.
But I would just highly recommend,
if you don't have borders in place
and checks and balances with what people,
you allow people to do in your lives,
then you need to put 'em in.
And then you just have to take a strong stand if you're,
you know, sometimes you just have to do it.
Because otherwise they'll just keep doing it
and keep doing it until you do something about it.
Number four, pretentious people.
Pretentious people.
Look at Matthew chapter 23, here's another flag.
Pretentious people, oh look at Matthew 23.
There you go, no I'm just kidding.
There you go.
(laughing)
Sorry.
Pretentious people, Matthew chapter 23, verse 14.
Pretentious people can also be hypocrites, okay?
Pretentious people, Matthew 23.
The Bible says, "Woe unto scribes and Pharisees,
"hypocrites, for you devour widows' houses
"and for a pretense make long prayer."
You know you've heard those people, right?
For a pretense, it says for a pretense make long prayer.
"Therefore you shall receive the greater damnation."
A pretentious person is someone who is showing off something
that they do not have.
So what was the Pharisee showing off something?
He wasn't, they're not really spiritual,
they're pretending to pray.
They're maybe eloquent in speech,
but they're not really people of prayer
because this guy wasn't even saying,
he said they have the greater damnation.
That means they're not saved, right?
So they have fake claims about being more important,
more knowledgeable, or claims about being richer
than they really are.
They pretend to be something or someone they are not.
This is a pretentious person.
Look at Luke chapter 18 verse nine.
And these people are really dangerous
because there's people that creep into churches
and they're pretending to be saved.
They're not really saved.
These are your Judas type people,
the ones that are really hard to root out.
Pretentious people pretending to be saved.
Look at Luke chapter 18.
These are people that can preach the real gospel.
They know what the real gospel is.
They know what we believe,
and yet are still pretending to be saved.
Luke chapter 18 verse 9, the Bible says,
"And he spake this parable unto a certain
that trusted in themselves
that they were righteous and despised others."
They trusted in themselves
that they were righteous and despised others.
This is such a weird story.
Two men went up to the temple to pray,
the one a Pharisee, the other a Republican.
The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself.
So he's praying with himself.
But he's saying it's to God.
God, I thank thee that I'm not, as other men are,
extortioners, unjust, adulterers,
or even as his publican.
I fast twice in the week.
I give tithes of all that I possess.
And the publican standing afar off
would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven,
but smote his breast saying,
God be merciful to me, a sinner.
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified
rather than the other.
For every one that exulteth himself shall be abased,
and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
But normal people have a hard time grasping
this action of this Pharisee.
Normal people can't grasp it because it's super weird
to pray within yourself to God, isn't it?
It's super weird to pretend to be saved
when you're actually not.
Some people are just not saved and they think they are,
but these people actually pretend that they are
and they know they're not.
These are really bad people.
And that's why it's hard for us to understand
how people are like this.
It's just like these people,
I don't know if anybody watches the detective type
forensic files and things like that.
Maybe you are interested in things like that,
but I think that people are so interested in true crime
because we can't imagine what it's like
to actually be that person.
And so it intrigues us because we just can't understand it.
And these types of people, they pretend to love you,
they pretend to be your friend, they pretend to pray,
they pretend to read the Bible 10 times a year.
I mean, that's five times a year.
Pretend to love the pastor, pretend to love the church,
pretend to love lost souls, they pretend to be one of us.
But you know, and here's the thing,
everyone is a hypocrite to a certain extent.
Everybody is.
But the true hypocrite in the Bible
is the one that pretends to be saved
and knows they're not and they are pretending on purpose.
Again, something that normal people cannot fathom.
Turn to Job chapter eight.
Now, Job chapter eight, in the book of Job,
it kind of calls out the hypocrites
for what they really are, the true hypocrite.
Now Jesus said, you know, pull the moat out of your eyes
so you can pull the beam, you know, thou hypocrite,
so you can pull the beam out of their eyes.
So Jesus talks about believers being hypocrites too.
Now, people always like to say,
well I don't go to church because of all the hypocrites there.
Well, but you go to Walmart, don't you?
There's a lot of hypocrites at Walmart,
look at how they dress.
But there's, I mean, there's hypocrites everywhere you go,
but you still go there.
But people just like to use that as an excuse,
and everybody has hypocrisy.
You know, we believe one thing and yet we do another
because we're sinful people.
But the true hypocrite, like I said,
believes, or they don't believe what they pretend to.
Look at Job 8.13, it says,
"So are the past of all that forget God,
"and the hypocrite's hope shall perish."
Look at Job 13.16, Job 13.16.
So it says, "The hypocrite's hope shall perish."
They have no hope, it's gone.
Job 13.16, "He also shall be my salvation
"for an hypocrite shall not come before him."
So another verse showing the hypocrite's
not gonna come before God.
Job 20, verse five, Job 20, verse five.
Bible says that the triumphing of the wicked is short
and the joy of the hypocrite, but for a moment.
Job 27, verse eight, Job 27, verse eight.
"For what is the hope of the hypocrite?
"Though he hath gained," and this is why they're hypocrites
'cause they wanna gain, they wanna come in
and gain something, "when God take it away his soul."
So the true hypocrite, they're not going to heaven.
They're going to hell.
That's why Jesus in Matthew chapter 20,
he was just constantly saying,
"Woe unto you scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites,"
the whole time.
These are people that are very dangerous,
very bad people, pretenders, pretentious people like this,
are very hard to spot sometimes.
Like I said, Judas is one of these types of people,
but sometimes they're super obvious.
Sometimes they're real obvious.
It seems like we kind of get high levels and low levels.
You know, the low level wolves,
their tail's already out.
You can see their ears, you know,
it's like that dude, dude, you're super obvious.
Like you really came to the wrong church.
If you thought you were gonna get one over on us,
because you're like, we picked,
everybody picked you the moment you walked in.
But the ones that we have to worry about
are the ones that are the high level devils.
And, you know, so we just gotta watch out for it.
So, now flag number five, flag number five,
is they speak King James Ease.
They speak King James Ease,
AKA ultra spiritual language.
So, sorry, I gotta get these books out real quick.
These are the twins' letters that they wrote.
I'm not gonna go over them all, there's too much.
That's too much.
I think Pastor Anderson already did that anyway.
But, you know, turn to 2 Peter chapter two verse three.
2 Peter chapter two verse three.
While you're turning there,
so this Uganda mission report is 14 pages long.
And some of the weirdest language,
I'm just gonna read the first paragraph for you.
Glorious things are spoken of thee,
O city of God, Silah, Psalm 87 verse three.
On the frontiers of the Ugandan mission field,
light has arisen in darkness,
and the people that walked in darkness
have seen a great light.
No more let sins and sorrows grow,
nor thorns infest the ground,
for I have found a ransom.
Whereas in time past they were not a people,
yet now many thousands of this benign country
are the children of God.
Uganda is quickly becoming,
and perhaps already is, the African country
with the brightest prospects of total evangelism,
with the true gospel in the shortest time.
Not a single day goes by here without many dozens,
even on some days hundreds of souls
being translated into the kingdom of his dear son God,
the dear son of God, excuse me,
multitudes both of men and women, Acts 5:14.
I mean, I'm not gonna go through 14 pages of this,
but that was a waste of my copy paper.
But they even have like a, like you have to,
like if you got this letter,
who got this letter like when it originally came out, okay?
Like it's just filled with lots of King Jamesese.
Like they fit scripture in with their sentences and stuff.
Ultra spiritual language is what it is,
but I call it King Jamesese.
But so then they have this like,
you have to reference to this other massive,
totally heretical on human formal ordination,
where they just, because they couldn't get ordained,
then they have to write a treatise
on why human ordination is not necessary to be a missionary.
So, and then, yeah, one of the,
I do have to read one of the things that they said.
If I can, I think it's at the last page here.
Oh, there's like multiple pages of the examples
of Jesse and John at Faithful Word.
How great they were here.
But anyway, the last page I thought was really interesting
because the Apostle Paul, you know,
he was called of Jesus Christ.
He was, you know, knocked off his horse, blinded.
You know, he has a pretty incredible testimony
of his salvation going and getting saved in the town,
being baptized.
But, so they use this, it says on the last page,
instead of his apostleship,
we say of our evangelistic commission,
not of men, neither by men,
but by Jesus Christ, Galatians 1.1.
So they're taking something that the apostle said
about his apostleship and applying it
to their evangelistic starting a church
without any ordination.
It's just like, you know, and of course,
now they're saying that they don't believe that hell,
you know, that Jesus went to hell for three days
and three nights and they're outing.
Now, of course, what do you think that they're saying
that faithful word is now?
What do you think that they're saying?
It's a cult.
Pastor Anderson's the cult of personality.
After all the nice things that they said over the years
and how much, you know, great things that,
but it's what they did that was great at faithful word.
It wasn't that faithful word trained them
and helped them and all this.
It's that they learned all the great things.
They became great preachers.
They read the Bible 15 times, both of them.
And you know, who cares?
They were also some of the most prideful people
on the face of the planet too.
And so prideful that they're throwing out
human formal ordination.
'Cause I guess they forgot where it says,
neglect not the gift that is in thee
by the laying of the hands of the presbytery to Timothy.
Like where Paul said that hands were actually
laid upon Timothy to be ordained.
Or that, you know, how he left Titus and Crete
to ordain men in every city.
But you know, formal ordination is just not a thing
that we're supposed to do, right?
So people that have this ultra spiritual language,
2 Peter chapter two verse three says,
"And through covetousness shall they with feigned words,"
that means fake words, "make merchandise of you
"whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not,
"and their damnation slumbereth not."
Skip down to verse 18.
It says, "For when they speak great swelling words
"of vanity," and this is what they do,
"they allure through the lust of the flesh."
They want their spiced up words
and the way they talk, brother, and all this, you know.
And I'm not saying don't call people brother.
That's totally appropriate, but I'm talking about
the King James E's hyper-spiritual language
that these guys use is beyond, you know, disgusting.
It's weird and it's just over the top.
And when people start talking like that,
I instantly just like ding, ding, ding, ding,
the flag goes off in my mind.
Remember the other guy that I said was the boundary pusher?
He said this to one of the people in the church,
"You refresh my bowels, brother."
Now, the Apostle Paul did say this in the New Testament,
but when we hear that, when we think of bowels,
I know what you're thinking, 'cause it's what I think.
But it's a strange thing to say to somebody.
You just walk up, "You refresh my bowels, brother."
If you don't think that's weird,
I mean, I don't know what to do.
Well, I don't know what to tell you.
But the McFailure twins,
they just saying that they've done greater works
than Pastor Menes and all this other stuff.
It's just like, you know, if they have to tell you
how great they are by writing two novels
and sending it out, they're failures, all right?
Number six, video games, so many numbers.
Oh yeah, and one of the funny things in here is like,
they have like an exact number
of how many Judas Iscariots are in here.
It was like 2,700, like they got it down pegged,
like they're really, you know, counting their numbers.
I didn't know that was a stat that was kept
is how many Judas Iscariots that they've come across,
but it was like over 2,000 Judas Iscariots.
So not sure how they got that.
But anyway, video game numbers is a flag number six.
So let me get this flag out here.
So that might go with one of the other categories.
It was just kind of something you don't get.
All right.
(laughing)
All right, so video game so many numbers.
And look, you know, when we go to like places
that are really receptive,
then getting video game so many numbers,
and what I mean by that,
like you're just racking up lots of numbers, right?
And it's possible to just continuously give the gospel.
I know you guys have gone to many great soul winning areas
and preach the gospel,
but if it's like Vancouver, Washington,
and you're getting 10 saved every time you go out soul winning,
I mean, that's ridiculous.
And I'm sure you guys have had people that have come here,
and then every time they go out soul winning,
they're getting like 10 people saved.
Have you guys had that before?
Like, I don't know, I don't know, okay.
So, I don't know.
I'm not gonna have you turn to any verses.
That is just a red flag that I've noticed over the years.
Grifters is another one.
Always just needing help.
We have this one family in our church,
and look, if people need help,
I'm not knocking people that need help at all,
but we had this family that was like, you know,
anytime you'd say, hey, how's it going?
They'd be like, well, I'm just wondering, you know,
how I'm gonna pay my bills this month,
but you know, I'm just living by faith.
And like, they were literally on the dole
with every single person in the church
was like helping their family, giving them money.
And then when it all came down to it,
they just completely turned against our church.
You know, and they, these people would be like,
"Well, we're so broke."
And then the next week they'd come with their whole family
has brand new clothes from JCPenney's or something.
It's like, I don't know.
There's people like that.
So if someone answers that question like that
every single time,
they're probably just kind of on the grift.
So, and then flag number eight,
over the top suspicion that everyone is a wolf or a fag.
This is also a red flag to me, okay?
Over the top, I'm talking about over the top.
Now, if someone looks like a, like I said,
if someone looks like a queer, they sound like a queer,
and all that stuff, they probably are.
So now, if people do try to infiltrate our churches
like that, that are homos, right?
I'm talking about the false prophet fag hunters
that are just, everybody's a queer that walks in.
We've had a couple people like this at our church,
and they are both, they both turned out to be super weird.
So, now just to caveat this also,
if you think someone is, please don't hide it.
Go through the right channels.
Tell pastor or brother Chris or whoever
that you think that someone might be.
But, you know, when it's over the top,
you know, it's just, it gets weird.
So we did have some weird trainee
come to one of our churches in Spokane,
and they made like this hour long video about it,
but I was actually proud by the way our church handled it
because, in my opinion, it made our church look good.
And here's why.
Because we're accused of being these bloodthirsty murderers
that would just kill a fag
if we ever had a chance to or something.
And this person came by themselves.
They're a man that dresses up like a woman or whatever,
but they came and they had called me and two different
people called and told me about this person,
and that they were displaying some sign
of being a possible infiltrator,
but they said they just weren't sure,
but they did suspect him.
And what was the, how did they suspect him?
Man bun, man bun.
So, and this person came like just for a couple weeks
or something, they were secretly filming
and things like that, but our people were nice.
Even though they did have a couple suspicions,
they were nice, but this person even went so far
as to let someone give the gospel to them
and pretend to get saved and do the sinner's prayer
and everything.
What a disgusting, faggity freak that person is.
But for them to come and then act,
they act like they were so afraid,
but in the whole video, nobody mistreats them at all.
And they're not brave enough to actually walk in
as they are, but we still wouldn't shoot them
or do anything, any violence to them
unless they refuse to leave or something.
We wouldn't shoot them, but we would just make them leave.
But it's just weird.
It's weird that someone would do that
just so they can just get clicks on their videos
or whatever, but not everybody is an infiltrator,
but that person actually was.
And they were right to call it out,
but we're not trying to kill people or hurt people.
We just don't want them in.
But I mean, you win some, you lose some, I guess.
Number nine, weird child rearing techniques.
There's another one.
Weird child rearing techniques.
Punishments that are over the top.
And if you've done any of these,
I'm not trying to offend you. (laughs)
I don't know, nobody came to me and said,
"Hey, you need to get on these people
"that are doing the weird child rearing techniques."
Okay, but hot sauce in the mouth of a child.
I've seen people do that.
Not in church work, but I've seen someone that did that.
Cold showers, hose people down outside with cold water
in the middle of winter,
making people write 10,000-word essays.
I think that's kind of weird.
Making people read the Bible all day.
I will chime in on this one real quick, though.
We had, there was a deacon and a deacon's wife
at a church that we went to,
and they put their son in what's called total timeout.
And that was where you're sitting in front of,
you're at a table, and you make your,
they made their son read the Bible all day
from the time they woke up
to the time that they went to bed.
There's no quicker way to make your child
a reprobate than doing that.
I mean, you wanna get your kid to hate the Bible,
then make him do that.
I'm not saying you shouldn't have your children
read the Bible, of course you should,
but as a punishment, that kid's a tranny now.
He's not a kid, he's an adult.
He came out and said his name is Iris now.
His name used to be Jeff, now it's Iris.
And his poor children had to see this happen.
And then his wife, they seemed to be like normal people
or whatever, now his wife is a dude or whatever.
So yeah, I don't know, these people,
you wanna make someone a reprobate,
then punish them weirdly with the Bible.
That's just strange.
Don't do that kind of stuff.
One of the people that used to go to your church,
(laughs)
this is a real thing,
made their baby crawl for their food
because if a man doesn't work, neither should he eat.
(audience laughs)
Dominique Davis.
Not letting your children look at the dad's plate of food
because thou shalt not covet.
Also Dominique Davis.
That's bizarre, man.
Crawl for your food, crawl for your bottle.
I think it was a bottle.
That's bizarre.
Then they turned out to be oneness,
so big surprise there.
Proverbs 23 verse 13, go ahead and hear the Proverbs 23 verse 13.
I got to hurry up here.
I knew I was going to run out of time.
I didn't give you another flag, did I?
There you go.
All right.
Proverbs 23 verse 13 says, "withhold not correction from the child, for if thou beatest
him with the rod, he shall not die.
Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell."
The Bible says we're just supposed to spank him, spank him with the rod, and that's what
the Bible says.
It doesn't say to do all these other weird things with them, so it is a red flag if someone
has some weird over the top, you know, child rearing techniques.
Now I'm going to skip through, let's see, all right, let's go back to Acts chapter 20.
I have to skip a couple of these.
I'll just tell you what they were there real quick as I skip through them, because I've
got to get down here.
Flag number 10 was narcissistic personality disorder behavior, but I don't have time to
go through that.
That's a big point.
But not everybody is a narcissist, just so you know.
There's like all these studies now, and people just think that if they watch a couple YouTube
videos that they've pegged their spouse as being a narcissist.
So I would just be careful about becoming Sigmund Freud over watching some YouTube videos.
Anyway, another one is weird gospel presentations.
So I'll give you a couple flags, even though I didn't really go into detail.
But people that have weird gospel presentations aren't always weird.
They just need training.
But some people, even though they've been trained and they've been doing it for a long
time and they still can't get a right gospel presentation out, that is a red flag.
Another flag, perverse, diverse, and strange doctrine.
Acts 20 verse 30 says, "Also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things
to draw away disciples after themselves," or after them, excuse me.
So like what?
Well this is out of our text.
This is what Paul's warning about, people that would use perverted doctrine to draw
people away.
Like what?
You know, like oneness, like the flat earth, like, I don't know, what's another one that
you guys could think of?
Anybody?
Those are the two big ones.
Okay.
So those are two weird ones, right?
Jesus warned us about being aware of false prophets and wolves and sheep's clothing.
Paul warned us of dogs, evil workers, and the concision.
So you know, when people have some weird doctrine that only they teach and it's something just
really bizarre, that is a red flag that we need to watch out for.
And I don't know if I gave you one, but I'll give you another one anyway.
So we need to watch out for people that are bringing in some kind of a strange, obscure
doctrine and they're taking people aside and teach them.
That's what false prophets do.
That's what infiltrators do.
Another flag is attacking the leadership, leaders, wives, children, and leaders and
staff members.
This is another red flag that people like to do.
The Bible says, "Salute them that have the rule over you."
Salute all the brethren, but a lot of times people will start ignoring the leadership
or just lying about them or just constantly trying to confront them or their children
and lying about their wives and their children.
This stuff happens all the time and it's unfortunate, but it is a red flag that happens a lot.
And people that try to pretend like they're super tight with the leadership, that's another
weird thing that people do.
They're like, "Oh yeah, we were just hanging out the other day," and they pretend to everybody
in the church that they're best friends with the pastor or the pastor's wife and they
really aren't.
That's another red flag.
Data mining, I already kind of covered that.
And let's see, yeah, I'm just going to wrap up right now.
So in the end, you know, look at all these flags, okay?
Just hold up all these flags, all right?
Now, everybody hold up your flags, she's got three,
he's got two, he's got here, take these two, take those.
So in the end, I mean, what's the illustration?
The illustration is that, you know,
and obviously they might not have all these flags,
but the illustration is that this person
has all these problems.
This person over here, maybe she just doesn't believe
the reprobate doctrine, she doesn't,
do you have four, how'd you get four, did I give you four?
Okay, she doesn't believe the reprobate doctrine,
that's not necessarily a red flag,
but it might be to some people, okay?
She doesn't believe that it's after the tribulation,
she believes in the pre-trib rapture,
she still believes that the Jews are God's chosen people,
and you know, she's, you know,
things is okay for women to wear pants or something, okay?
So she's got some things that need to be straightened out,
but you know, she starts coming to the church,
and after a while, you know, she gets all this stuff right.
Now, she doesn't have any flags.
She's normalized.
And the thing is that going to church, you know,
makes you normal.
The people that move here and they start coming to church,
they start hearing all the great doctrine of this church,
it's gonna normalize you.
It's gonna make you a better Christian,
and you're gonna learn the Bible.
If people wanna sit and learn and get to know
and understand the Bible, they start reading their Bible,
they start listening to the preaching,
applying it to their lives, it's gonna normalize them.
Now, this guy over here, he just never seems to get it right.
He just can't, he still believes
that homos can be saved, all right?
He still believes that the Jews are God's chosen people,
okay?
Now, those might be red flags to you,
but it doesn't mean he's not saved,
it just means that he's stupid about a couple things, okay?
But it doesn't mean he's a bad person,
it just means he has a couple red flags.
So that's why I'm just trying to help you understand
the illustration a little bit,
that some people come in, they might have some red flags,
but they're not necessarily bad, they just need to learn.
And some people will never get over a couple
of the red flags or whatever that they have,
but they're still saved and they're still good people.
And we shouldn't accuse them of being a wolf.
That person right there's got major problems.
They are a wolf.
I mean, he's total wolf, right?
And I'll just say this, so when I first got saved,
I didn't go to church for about six months,
but I had read the Bible, some,
I didn't read the whole Bible,
but I'd read a lot of prophecy, like Matthew 24,
I'd read Revelation, and I was like,
I believed a lot of stupid things.
So just picture this, so there's a prophecy conference
at a Baptist church.
I'd been watching Kent Hoeven's videos or whatever,
I know, sorry, but at that time, that's all I had.
I didn't know.
So I didn't know he believed all that weird stuff
that he knows now, but he, you know, he was King James only
and he was encouraging people to go to a Baptist church.
So that's the only kind of church I wanted to go to,
is a Baptist church.
So when I was offered the opportunity
to go to a Baptist church, they were like,
this is a prophecy, there's a prophecy conference going on.
This guy's speaking.
And I still remember the preacher's name was Bill Bramlett.
And he was pretty, I came in,
we were a couple of minutes late or whatever.
And he's, I came in right when he's preaching.
So he's preaching just like I am right now
and preaching about prophecy.
So I come in, I'd never been to a Baptist church in my life.
I'm wearing a Portland Trailblazers jersey,
just the jersey, not an undershirt, guns out, right?
Got a couple takes to the gun show at that point.
And then I smell like cigarettes,
I'm wearing a pair of gym shorts.
And I go in and then I just start raising my hand
and asking questions without being called on.
And I'm like, just blurting out questions.
And he starts answering my questions, but he's preaching.
But I didn't know it wasn't a question or answer time.
I just thought this is how it worked.
So I mean, think of this.
Someone comes in and does that.
I mean, if I did that here, I would be dragged out
as Michael the Archangel at that point.
Pastor Anderson would ask, drag this bozo out of here.
He's, quit asking all these questions.
He might've, you know, he'd probably just politely say,
hey, this isn't time for the questions.
But if I kept doing it, he'd be like,
get this guy out of here, right?
So I was kind of, you know,
a little bit of a bozo at that point.
And you know, my deal breaker for going,
for staying at that church was I,
if he didn't believe that Christians
could cast devils out of people,
then I wasn't gonna stay there.
So after church, I went and talked to him in his office.
I said, do you believe this?
And he was like, well, yeah,
but then he kind of just gave me this answer.
And it sufficed me.
So I started going to the church.
I got baptized, you know,
and I got married at that church.
And I started learning the Bible.
And it started to normalize me.
I had some weird beliefs.
And I was still a Zionist until what?
I started listening to Pastor Anderson's sermons.
And I thought he was wrong about that.
I was like, he's right about all this stuff.
You know, the homos, the, after the tribulation,
I always agreed with him about that.
But when it came to the Jews, I was like,
I remember sitting my wife down and going,
I said, he's right about a lot of stuff,
but he's wrong about this.
Let's look at Zechariah chapter 14.
And I like, I remember like going through that
with my wife and she was like, uh-huh, uh-huh.
And she knew I was wrong,
but she just was respecting me, right?
But the point is, is that I was still wrong about that.
But then, you know, she actually helped me
understand that doctrine, and a friend of mine.
And it was just like, now I totally see it.
I just don't understand how I didn't see it before,
but I totally see it now.
But a long time ago,
and I can't remember what the pastor's name was,
but this story's been told before,
but there was a pastor and him and his wife
went to bed one night and they were talking.
And the wife asked the pastor,
is there ever gonna be any normal people in our church?
And the pastor said, it's our job to make them normal.
And so that is what normalizes you is being in church.
That's why it's important to be here three times a week.
And of course we don't wanna ignore red flags
that people have, but we do want people to get normal
and sometimes they're gonna have red flags,
but we do need to have a balance.
We can't just think everybody that has a red flag
is some weirdo bozo.
But again, there are some people
that instantly you already know,
but there's some people that just need help.
They just need to learn.
And I know this is a great church
and that you all are really good about
helping people to find those things out.
But I would just say this,
that we're not supposed to be these heretic hunters
that are exposing every person that comes in necessarily.
I'm not gonna have you go to the verses,
but Jesus talks about how the tares
and the wheat will be together.
And I think what happens is these people expose themselves
or God allows them to be exposed.
And sometimes we might expose them,
we might catch something that they do,
but a lot of times they just kind of,
they're like sleeper cell agents, right?
They're like reprobate sleeper cell agents
and they just kind of, you know,
they just kind of freak out at whatever point
and they make themselves known.
'Cause sometimes we just don't know
until they reveal themselves.
They're like, well, that person's acting really weird.
They said it's a really weird stuff.
And it's just like, it's the time that God allows us
to see it happen.
So, you know, I'm not saying don't say something.
If you see something, say something, all right.
You know, to quote the TSA, but (laughs)
I hate the TSA, but that's a good quote.
So, but you know, we do need to get people
to benefit from the doubt.
That is a good policy, but you know, also be vigilant,
be sober, because the devil, as a roaring lion,
walketh about seeking whom he may devour.
Let's pray.
Lord, we thank you so much for the word of God
and Lord, I pray that we'd have discernment, Lord,
that we would think about these red flags
and keep it in our mind and heart
that not everybody is a wolf, Lord,
and sometimes people have red flags
and problems that they might have,
but Lord, I pray that we would just be able
to have discerning eyes and Lord,
that we would not fall, trap,
and get ensnared by people like this,
but Lord, that you would protect us.
Protect this church, Lord.
Pray that you just bless it for many, many years to come
and Lord, that you bless the people here.
Thank you for the great service today and the great music
and we pray that you would just bring us back here together
for the evening service, in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
- Amen, let's take our hymnals, please.
Go to hymn number one, hymn number one.
Jesus, I, my cross have taken.
Hymn number one, we'll sing it out
on that first verse together.
Number one, sing it out now.
♪ Jesus, I, my Christ ♪
♪ And all have come to thee ♪
♪ Fetch every one an ancient auction ♪
♪ Thou saviour to be ♪
♪ Hearts and foot to see me ♪
♪ Thou art not in man's room ♪
♪ And thou shalt smile upon me ♪
♪ Show thy face and all trouble will drive me ♪
♪ To thy ground free ♪
♪ I'll always be good, I'll pass good things ♪
♪ I'll change to bad things, to science ♪
- Good morning, we are Smith.