Philippians chapter 4 verse 8 reads,
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true.
Whatsoever things are true.
Then it says, whatsoever things are honest.
Now when we think about that, honest and true,
isn't that pretty much the same thing?
Okay, it's sort of repeated twice.
Very, you know, things that are honest, of course,
are things that are true, right?
Now I'll just read it again.
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true,
whatsoever things are honest,
whatsoever things are just,
whatsoever things are pure,
whatsoever things are lovely,
whatsoever things are of good report,
if there be any virtue,
and if there be any praise,
think on these things.
Think on these things.
The title for the sermon this morning, brethren,
is The Pursuit of Truth.
The Pursuit of Truth.
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true,
whatsoever things are honest,
think on these things.
Think on these things.
And so we, this is a commandment.
Think on these things, all right?
And you know, we can spend our time
thinking about things that are not sure
if these are true,
or maybe if things that are outright lies.
And you know, brethren, it's not going,
those things will not give you any peace
in your Christian life.
True things.
Things that you know are 100% truth.
Those are things that you need to be thinking upon.
We live, brethren, in this age of information, don't we?
Anything we want to know.
It's available at our fingertips.
The internet has really opened up our understanding.
The information that, brethren, I'm telling you,
that you understand the information out there
is not all true.
Okay?
And I feel like we know this.
We know this.
We know that when we explore the internet,
it's not necessarily true.
We know that if we go to Wikipedia,
though it could be a good source
for some general information,
we know at the end of the day it's been edited
just by any random person.
Okay?
And you know, that information can be false
and be sitting there until someone picks up on it
and changes or has a different view on that,
and they'll make an edit on that website.
You know?
There is so much information which is wonderful.
It's a blessing,
but there's a lot of things that are not true
on the internet.
There's a lot of things that are not true
on mainstream media.
I'm not saying that that's the best source
of information, okay?
In fact, this sermon really was kind of
originally meant to be a point in my sermon
where I said to have a heavenly perspective,
not to worry about the whole left-right paradigm,
and there are true things there,
and there are things that are dishonest there.
And then you've got the establishment,
the anti-establishment perspective,
and there are things that are true,
there are things that are lies there.
And so I wanted this to be a separate point,
but I realized now this needs to be
a totally separate sermon,
a totally separate sermon.
And I want you to understand
that God wants us to be thinking about
things that are true.
And I want you to be challenged.
I want you to be thinking,
what have I focused on this week?
You know, when I've gone
and gotten my source of information,
whatever system that comes at it, right?
Whether it's out of mainstream media,
whether it's on YouTube,
whether it's on some ulterior motive,
video site, or if it's just on podcasts,
or if it's just reading articles,
you know, whether you're reading articles
that are contrary to the establishment view
or articles that are made by your mainstream media,
whatever it is, brethren,
I want you to think about how much time
have I spent in the things that are true?
You know, I've given my time,
I've given my attention,
I may have even passed on this information
to my friends, to my brethren, okay?
And have I passed on information that's true?
And the reason I wanted to preach on this sermon
is because COVID has really opened my eyes
as to how easy it is for Christians
to pass on false information,
just over and over and over and over again,
passing on false information
over and over and over again.
And for me, if I love my brother and sister in the Lord,
I wanna make sure that whatever I communicate is true.
I mean, think about me as a pastor, brethren.
You know, like, if I was coming to church, right,
coming to church, and you're like, you know,
we've got a 50, 50% chance
that what Pastor Kevin's gonna preach today is true.
You know, 50%, hopefully we make it
when he's preaching something true.
The other 50% chance, it's a lie.
Would you come to church?
I wouldn't.
I definitely wouldn't.
Like, what are the chances?
You know, it's flipping a coin.
Will it be lies, or will it be the truth of God's Word
that's being preached?
What if it was closer to 75% truth and 15% lies?
Would you still come to this church?
I still wouldn't.
I don't know about you.
That's pretty bad for a pastor, right?
If 15% of the time when he's preaching,
it's just outright lies.
It's just false doctrine, okay?
I mean, at what point would you get to that?
Would it be 90% truth and 10% lies?
Would that be good enough for a church pastor?
You know, most of the time that I spend on a sermon
isn't so much to put down my thoughts
and to find Bible verses that teach those things,
but it's more about fact-checking.
Most of my sermon is that.
I'm comparing Scripture with Scripture.
Is what I'm presenting, you know,
the consensus across the entire Bible?
Or is this just my bias?
Is this just my thoughts here
that I'm inserting into God's Word?
Or does God's Word, do I have multiple witnesses
of God's Word teaching this truth?
That's most of my time.
Most of the hours I spend preparing sermon
is just fact-checking, you know,
and just confirming.
In fact, most of the verses that I put down
to confirm what I've taught
aren't even preached in the sermon, okay?
Because otherwise we've spent all our days
going through Scriptures pretty much the whole time, okay?
And so at what point would you need to get to
where you feel like I can be in this church
and I can trust that what I'm hearing is true?
What percentage will that be?
You know, you say, well, it should be 100%.
Well, maybe it should be 100%,
but we're all fallen human beings.
I'm sure there are things that I have said
that aren't exactly correct, okay?
Not because I desire that way.
It's just because that's what we are, right?
We're flesh and blood.
We're not God, you know?
We're not infallible.
We can say things that are not necessarily correct.
But I would think that, you know,
if you come to church,
you would wanna be at least 97% sure,
98, 99% sure that when I get to church,
I'm going to know that's coming from God's Word.
Whether I agree with it or disagree with it is secondary,
but as long as I know it's coming from God's Word,
that's why I wanna be in the house of God.
That's why I wanna hear preaching.
And yeah, okay, that expectation should be there
for a pastor or any preacher,
any man that gets behind this pulpit.
But what about yourselves?
When you pass on information to your brethren,
don't you wanna make sure that you're at least 99%,
98%, 97% sure that this is true, okay?
I mean, what would happen, brethren,
honestly, if I was just preaching 75% truth?
I mean, first of all, I reckon I'd lose this church.
You'd all be gone.
I'd destroy my reputation.
I'd destroy my credibility.
And brethren, we think about that for pastors,
but what about yourselves, okay?
We live in this information age.
We pass on information.
Have you checked?
Do you know it's true?
Because every time you pass on information
and it's a lie, you destroy your reputation,
you destroy your credibility.
Why would someone then trust you next time
if you have something that is true,
something that is important,
why would someone trust you
when you've been passing on lies and misinformation, okay?
Listen, the internet is filled with lies, okay?
It's filled with lies.
The mainstream media is filled with lies.
Say, who's got the truth?
You, pastor Kevin, no.
The Bible, God's word, that's what's true, okay?
I know the Bible, I know God's word
is 100% true 100% of the time.
Even if I misunderstand what it says,
I know what the Bible is saying is true,
that the problem is with man, okay?
The problem can be with me.
And we can see here the importance of making sure
that we spend our times, our minds
on things that are true.
Can you please turn to John chapter 18?
Turn to John chapter 18, verse number 37.
John chapter 18, verse number 37,
the title for this sermon was The Pursuit of Truth.
John 18, verse number 37.
Jesus Christ arrested, brought before Pilate.
Pilate asked Jesus Christ this question in John 18, 37.
Pilate therefore said unto him,
are thou a king then?
Jesus answered, thou sayest that I am a king,
to this end was I born,
and for this cause came I into the world,
that I should bear witness unto the truth.
Why did Christ come to this earth?
To bear witness of the truth,
and that truth of course was himself.
And then he says, everyone that is of the truth,
heareth my voice.
Brethren, if you're saved,
if you've heard the voice of Jesus,
and you've trusted him for salvation,
Jesus Christ calls you of the truth.
You're someone of the truth.
And so if we're people of the truth,
we're people of Christ,
then we need to make sure we spend our minds
on things that are true, okay?
This is what God wants us to be.
He wants us to be a representative
of Jesus Christ on this earth.
We need to make sure that when we communicate,
we communicate truth,
at least as best as you know how, okay?
Get to that 97, 98% sure, I know this is true.
I'll pass this on.
Okay, you'll never get to 100% true, like I said,
because we're not God, okay?
But Jesus Christ is truth.
You know, Jesus Christ says in John 14, six,
I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
And so you see, what you say there in John 18,
you see that Christ is prioritizing the truth,
and the people of the truth,
that we represent truth as well.
But then it says in verse 38, John 18, 38,
pile of safe unto him.
What is truth?
I mean, that's a great question.
And when he said this,
he went out again unto the Jews and said unto them,
I find in him no fault at all.
In fact, that was truth, okay?
That there was no fault in Jesus Christ.
But the point here is, you've got Jesus,
who is 100% truth, then you've got Pilate,
who's got, you know, he represents authority on the land.
He represents the current government, that's over, right?
He represents mainstream media,
if you want to call it that way, okay?
Whatever Pilate says, basically,
as far as the world goes, is true.
I mean, even if Pilate lies,
as far as what he wants it to be,
it's true in the eyes of the world.
This is why he says, what is truth?
He's got, you know, Pilate thinks,
I've got power to decide what is true
and what is not true.
You know, we've got this war between Russia and Ukraine.
You know, and I, look,
I have no doubt that Russia's the aggressor, okay?
I have no doubt.
But how much of what we hear in the media
is actually true, okay?
There is no righteous nation, okay?
There is no righteous, oh man, these are the bad guys,
and these are the good guys.
No, they're all wicked, okay?
They're all wicked.
You know, we have wicked politicians,
we have propaganda machines feeding people their lies
to make sure they look like in the right light, all right?
You know, I was hearing that people
are trying to stop Russian media
from being broadcast in other countries
that are basically siding with Putin and whatever.
I mean, it's like people, you know,
there's this thought that
we can't let people hear different sides
because maybe they'll form their own opinion, okay?
And that's dangerous.
You know, if we're seeking truth,
we ought to be willing, yes, to listen.
And look, you won't always go directly to truth.
You know, it requires investigation.
It requires a bit of diligent research, a bit of study.
You know, when it comes to God's word,
even when it comes to God's word,
it requires research, it requires study.
You know, I don't get here, you know,
preparing a five-minute sermon before the service
and I'm ready to preach.
It's, I spent hours looking at God's word,
making sure that what I'm going to preach,
and this is 100% truth, okay?
When we go to the other sources on the internet,
that's not even, we're not, what is that?
Maybe 50% truth.
Maybe, okay, let's just give them that.
And now, so how much more research would you have to do
to make sure that what you're presenting to other people
what you've heard from other sources is true?
Much more than just reading your Bible.
Because you know the source of the Bible is 100% truth.
And so, Pilate represents the authorities on the land.
All right, truth is subjective.
Is there truth?
What is truth?
All right?
Yeah, you know, people will think that truth
is the messaging, right, the social narrative
that is being forced in our throats.
Maybe that's true.
A lot of people think they get brainwashed
by the programming that's being pushed out
by our governments and by our media.
This is truth, right?
Loving your neighbor, you gotta get vaccinated.
That's truth!
It's gonna protect you from the virus!
Okay?
But then, I've heard the anti-vaxxers
talk about the vaccinations and it's full of lies.
Who do I trust?
Say, Pastor Kevin, did you decide to get vaccinated
or not vaccinated based on what the anti-vaxxer says
and what the vaxxers are saying?
No, I didn't!
I went to God's word.
God's word says children being murdered.
That's horrible, that's wicked.
Abortion is wicked.
Taking tissues from an aborted baby
and creating a vaccination, that's wicked.
That's why I don't get vaccinated.
That's true!
You know, abortion is murder, abortion is sin,
and these are tissues taken out of these babies.
These are potent vaccines.
This is true!
Even those that push the vaccines admit this is true.
They've gotta list what's inside of them.
These things are true.
Or they're developed, even if it doesn't contain
aborted baby tissues, it's been developed
and manufactured using, the testing,
using aborted babies.
That's why I don't participate in these things.
So I know that's true.
They're actually willing to admit this is true.
You can go to multiple sources
to find out this is true.
Okay?
And so, and we know the Bible says
that abortion is sin, it's full and wicked.
So this is true.
So these are the things
that we spend time on thinking about.
I don't spend time thinking, what's the vaxxers saying?
What are the anti-vaxxers saying?
I'm not sure what to do about my vaccinations this year.
We go to God's word, 100% truth.
Right, we develop our thoughts on this.
You know, we should be people of the truth.
We should be people that present the truth, okay?
We should be, look, we've got the Holy Spirit of God.
Okay, the Spirit of truth lives in us.
You know why we pass on false information?
Because we're not in the Spirit when that happens.
When we pass on false information, we are in the flesh.
We are trying to fight a fleshly battle.
We again brought ourselves back to the earthly perspective,
trying to fight things,
see things from an earthly point of view,
and then we present information.
Did you hear this?
I better forward this quickly
on whatever messenger application you use.
You haven't done any fact checking.
You haven't done any researching.
You don't know if it's 100% true,
but I've got to pass it around very quickly, you know?
And before you know it, you're passing on lies.
You destroy your reputation, destroy your credibility.
The reason you're doing that, brethren,
is because you're in the flesh.
Okay?
I despise this flesh.
Thankfully, Christina finds something nice
about this flesh.
She married me.
She must have found something handsome
about this flesh or something, right?
But really, this flesh is the number one enemy of us.
Okay?
And I'm not saying go and commit suicide or something.
Just be looking forward to the day
that Christ comes back and gives us a new resurrected body
where this flesh loves lies.
This flesh loves false information.
This flesh likes to present things
and without the research that, you know,
God expects someone that is a Christian
who is of the truth that ought to present things.
We have to be careful, brethren.
Can you please turn to,
okay, go to 1 John, please.
Go to 1 John 5, verse 20.
1 John 5, verse 20.
This one might be a long one, I'm not sure.
1 John 5, verse 20.
The Bible says, and we know the Son of God is come
and have given us an understanding, look at this,
that we may know him that is true
and we are in him that is true.
We are in Christ who is true, brethren.
It says, even in his Son, Jesus Christ,
this is the true God and eternal life.
Notice that, that we may know him that is true.
That's Jesus.
That we may be in him that is true,
that is Christ, and this is the true God,
speaking of the Father who has the Son there
and eternal life.
You notice how much God speaks about the truth
and of course, you know this, you read your Bible,
you know how much God speaks about truth,
his word being true, our God being true, et cetera.
Please turn to 3 John now.
Please turn to 3 John, verse 12.
3 John, verse 12.
We have an example of a man named Demetrius here
in 3 John, and I want you to notice
what they say about him.
I already took one portion out of this one,
I preached one sermon,
which says Demetrius have a good report of all men,
I spoke about the importance of having a good reputation,
but notice this, not just a good report of all men,
and of the truth itself.
Demetrius has a good report
that he is someone of the truth.
He presents his truth.
He speaks the truth.
Yay, and we also bear record
and we know that our record is true.
Demetrius is a man that looked,
hey, this is an honest man.
This is a man who speaks truth, okay?
This is a man that can lead this church
out of the challenges that they currently had
with some guy, some other wicked guy,
trying to take the preeminence for himself.
But when we look at him,
he has a good report of all men
and of the truth itself.
This is a man that spoke the truth.
This is a man that loved the truth.
You say, well, I don't know, Pastor Kevin,
I get my information from fake book, Facebook, right?
Fake book!
Maybe there must be another social network out there.
In fact, Donald Trump's coming out with truth social.
Truth!
There must be truth!
It says truth!
Truth social!
You know what?
And that's what, you know, I've heard that said.
I can finally find a social platform
where all I'm gonna hear is the truth.
No, you're just gonna hear the truth
from the other side.
That's all.
You know, these social networks, these things,
you know, I laugh when I see people on Facebook.
They say, look, if you don't agree with my position
on X, Y, Z, whatever that position is,
then you can unfriend me right now.
All right, man, okay, good.
But what do you develop?
These social networks,
they develop just this echo chamber.
Everyone thinks the same.
Everyone speaks the same.
And then like, oh, you know, I'm, you know,
and then you present your facts
and you present your things,
and yeah, everyone's already on the same page as you.
And you get the thumbs up.
Oh, man, this makes me feel really good.
Look at my thumbs up!
I'm speaking the truth.
You're not convincing anybody.
You know, you've got this echo chamber.
You all agree the same thing already, okay?
You're not convincing anybody.
You're not changing the world.
You're not changing the hearts and minds of people
that you're trying to help along this journey.
And what happens in these echo chambers,
you know, let's say Twitter,
you might say that's a alt-left type of echo chamber
where the leftists and the homosexuals
and the social justice warriors,
they all love to talk
and then they try, you know,
they try to cancel people that have a ulterior view.
But then I'm guaranteed this Trump truth social
or any other right-wing social network
is gonna be echo chamber for the right, okay?
And both sides think they've got the truth.
What is truth?
Both sides think they've got the truth.
And, you know, we get these links
and we get these articles and we get these videos,
oh, I've got to share it, I've got to pass it on,
you know, without checking.
And this is what surprises me,
how much we don't check, you know?
And I've been passed on information
from brothers and sisters.
I'm not trying to target anybody.
I want to help.
And if someone gets offended by this,
please know that I love you.
I'm not trying to hurt your feelings
or anything like that, okay?
I know there's good intentions, okay?
There's good intentions.
I've got to pass on this information.
And I'm the kind of guy that,
cause this is what I do.
This is what I do every single week.
I spend my time fact checking my sermons,
spend time researching God's word.
Am I saying, am I speaking the truth here?
I want to make sure that I feed people God's word,
the truth all the time,
as much as best as I possibly can, okay?
And I look at it and sometimes some things
are just too hard to believe for me.
And so I'll look at that too hard to believe bucket
and I'll do some research
and I'll just find out, man, this is completely false.
Completely misrepresented, okay?
And I just think about that, I just feel sad.
I just think, how have you allowed yourself
to pass on so many lies?
When you're meant to be someone of the truth,
you're meant to be someone
that has the Holy Spirit of God.
You're someone where God says,
what sort of things are true?
What sort of things are honest?
Think on these things, the Bible says.
But here's the thing, thank God he's made me a pastor.
I get to see these things, right?
And then I can tailor sermons around this stuff.
So hopefully we can help people
get out of this bad habit
of thinking on things that are false
or things that misrepresent one fact after another.
I'll get into some of that later on.
Now, can you please go to Psalms?
I've got a few Psalms here.
Let's just have a look at a few Psalms here.
Psalm 111 verse six.
Psalm 111 verse six, please.
Psalm 111 verse six.
We'll just look at a few Psalms here.
The Bible says, he have showed his people
the power of his works,
that he may give them the heritage of the heathen.
The works of his hands are verity and judgment.
All his commandments are sure.
But it says that the works of his hands are verity.
It's like the word verily.
It means it's true.
Whatever God does, whatever work he does brethren,
it is true, okay?
It is true.
God is a God of truth.
Please go to Psalm 19 verse nine.
Psalm 19 verse nine, please.
Psalm 19 and verse number nine.
The Bible says, the fear of the Lord is clean,
enduring forever.
The judgments of the Lord are true
and righteous altogether.
What a great God that we worship.
A God of truth.
A God of righteousness.
Maybe I'll keep reading because I've got to get through
the sermon, but Psalm 119 verse 160.
It says, thy word is true from the beginning,
and every one of thy righteous judgments
endureth forever.
Thy word is true from the beginning.
What a great God we've got.
Brethren, if you're spending too much time
on social media, okay, let me encourage you.
Get off something.
I'm not saying don't spend time on it.
I'm not here to control your lives.
But brethren, we can spend so much time in nonsense,
in vanity, in lies, in rubbish,
and God's word is true.
It's been here from the beginning.
It's available to us.
I don't think I could ever,
even if I preached twice a day,
every day for the rest of my life,
I'm never gonna get to the end of this book.
Never.
I'm never going to get to every teaching,
every application that God's word allows.
I'll never get to it.
And then we spend time on things that
might be 50% true, things that are 75% true,
things that are 90% true,
and you know that's not a good enough standard
coming to church to hear that,
but it's a good standard in your own life.
It's a good standard in your own time
when you're just, you know, got some downtime.
You think that's a good standard?
I'm gonna spend my hours.
I'm gonna spend time here.
I'm gonna pass on this information to Brevin
that I don't know if it's true.
You know?
Just because he agrees, I'll go to that later.
I'm not, I'm a bit off my notes at the moment.
Okay, it's all over the place a little bit.
Please go to Psalm 40, please.
Go to Psalm 40.
Psalm 40.
First thing I want to say is our God is a true God.
While you turn to Psalm 40,
I'm gonna read to you from Jeremiah 10, 10.
But the Lord is the true God.
He is the living God and an everlasting King.
At his wrath, the earth shall tremble
and the nation shall not be able to abide his indignation.
So our Lord, our God is true.
And then it says in verse 11,
Thus shall you say to them,
the gods, little G,
that have not made the heavens and the earth,
even they shall perish from the earth
and from under these heavens.
So Brevin, we have the true God.
We have the God of the Bible.
I understand that if someone is in a false religion,
if someone is a Hindu or someone is a Muslim
or something, okay, they haven't got the true God.
I understand that they're gonna spend all their time
in filth and lies and nonsense, okay?
Because their gods are gonna perish from the earth.
We serve the one true God.
What else?
I'll read to you from John 4 23.
Jesus Christ says,
But the our comer for now is,
when the true worshipers,
are you a true worshiper of our Lord God?
When the true worshipers shall worship the Father
in spirit and in truth,
for the Father seeketh such to worship Him.
God is a spirit and they that worship Him
must worship Him in spirit and in truth.
This is why I spend so much time checking my sermons.
So many hours just going through and is this right?
Is what I'm presenting true?
Because we come to God's house to worship Him.
I preach the message of God's word to worship Him.
And the last thing is that I'd have like 70% truth
and 30% errors or lies, okay?
And then what?
Will God receive that worship?
No, God won't receive that worship.
If we're going to worship our Lord God,
we're gonna make the journey to church profitable.
We wanna make sure that we're in the spirit
and that we're in the truth.
And that's how God receives our worship.
Where did I get to turn to?
Psalm 40.
Okay, one more passage.
Psalm 15 verse one.
The Bible says,
Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle?
Who shall dwell in thy holy hill?
Hear that walk of uprightly and work of righteousness,
look at this,
and speak of the truth in his heart.
And speak of the truth in his heart.
Now, I understand the reality of life.
We are bombarded with opinions and philosophies
and things that are contrary to God's word all the time.
I understand we've been bombarded.
Our ears are open, we're hearing things,
we're seeing things, brethren.
And you can't necessarily,
well, you can to some level,
but you can't completely do away
with hearing and seeing false things, okay?
But what you have 100% control over
is what comes out of your mouth.
That's what it says.
And speak of the truth in his heart.
Speak of the truth.
So, brethren, you need to understand
that from the elements that receive our eyes
and our ears, okay,
there needs to be some type of filter.
There needs to be some corrective action.
There needs to be some mental processing
that is able to change,
or not change,
but able to determine what is false
and not communicate that.
And yes, passing on messages is a way of communication
to be able to differentiate what is true
and then passing on that which is true, okay?
Speaking the truth in his heart.
Now, look at Psalm 40, please.
Psalm 40, verse nine.
I'm sorry, my notes are all over the place
a little bit now.
But it says here, Psalm 40, verse nine.
These are the words of a preacher.
It says, I have preached righteousness
in the great congregation.
And brethren, this is a great congregation.
The congregation means the church.
New Life Baptist Church is a great church, okay?
My goal is to preach righteousness.
Look, lo, I have not refrained my lips,
oh Lord, thou knowest.
Hey, when we get behind this pulpit to preach,
we don't refrain our lips.
We speak God's word.
It doesn't matter if it makes people uncomfortable.
It doesn't matter if it steps on people's toes.
We speak the truth.
We're not gonna refrain our lips.
Look at verse number 10.
I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart.
I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation.
I have not concealed thy loving kindness
and thy truth from the great congregation.
That's the expectation from a pastor, from a preacher.
That he's not going to conceal God's truth
from his great congregation, okay?
And that's what I was saying to you.
How important is it that you come to a church
where you're comfortable.
You get to a point, hey, my preacher's gonna preach truth.
Again, I may not agree with him,
but I'm not necessarily here
trying to make you agree with me.
I'm here to preach God's word,
and then it's up to you.
What do you do?
It's between you and God at the end of the day.
I can't force anybody's hand
to make changes in their life or do whatever they want.
It's just my goal to preach the truth of God's word,
then it's up to you to decide
what you're going to do with what you've heard.
But yeah, as I said to you,
50% truth, 75% truth, 90% truth.
It's not good enough, 90% truth.
It's still not good enough, okay?
And so if it's not good enough,
then why is it good enough for you
to pass on things that are 90% true?
Why is it good enough?
We can't be people that hold,
have these like double standards.
We expect something from somebody,
but we don't have to carry that out ourselves.
And as I said to you,
I've just been forwarded so many messages.
Most of the messages that I get forward, I just ignore.
And then the things that are just so out there,
they're the ones that I look into and I go,
man, this is rubbish.
Once you start looking into it, this is,
you know, it's like,
there should be something in your gut feels
that you know, this is just not right.
Okay, this is not right.
And I'll go into some of that as we keep going along.
But as I said, I've said this before, you know,
and I feel like this is like a bad phrase now,
fact checking, because of Facebook, right?
Because we know that even if we're posting something
that is true on Facebook,
you're going to have the Facebook fact checkers
and they're going to try to change what you're presenting
into their truth.
And we understand what is truth?
They are part of the pilot system, right?
What is truth?
We'll tell you what truth is.
You know, you don't have to,
don't listen to this random person,
listen to what the authorities or what the,
what the narrative is, et cetera.
But,
you know,
I want you to be people that are able to process
and you know, listen, yes, listen to what is being said
and be able to determine,
is this something that is true, number one?
And if this is true,
then this is something that I can pass on to others.
If you have not confirmed it to be true,
don't pass it on.
Don't pass it on, okay?
Now, let me give you some thoughts around this.
And there's a reason why I feel strongly about this.
It's not just because I preach,
and yes, it's because one reason is
because that's what I do every single week.
I'm preaching four sermons a week.
As I said to you, most of my hours,
I'm just double checking.
Am I preaching what is right, okay?
So it's already part of my nature.
So even if someone passes on something
that they watched on YouTube,
I'm still very critical of it.
I'm still looking at it and saying,
hey, is this really right?
Doesn't sound right to me necessarily.
I could be wrong, okay?
And so you start down the journey of research, okay?
And that's why we live in the information age.
There's no reason why we have no,
like we've got no excuses not to research, okay?
But here's the thing.
I want you to be able to research for the truth, okay?
If we're pursuing the truth,
if we're people of the truth,
and we know God's word is 100% true,
you know, I'm not saying
that we need to spend our lives only in the Bible, all right?
I mean, what do you do when you wake up?
I read my Bible.
What do you do at 10 a.m.?
I read my Bible.
What do you do after?
I'm reading my Bible.
What do you do at 3 p.m.?
I'm reading my Bible.
Everything else is lies.
Well, it's not really like,
the world's not like that, okay?
Look, we should be spending a big chunk of our life
reading the Bible, yes,
because we know it's true.
But also it's good to learn.
It's good to be educated.
It's good to be informed.
I understand all of that.
I do the same thing, okay?
But I reckon,
I personally reckon the information that's on the internet,
and I could be wrong,
but I'm just saying I personally think
that the information on the internet's
about 50% true and 50% false.
I think our mainstream media
is about 50% true, 50% false.
I believe the alternative media is about 50%, 50%, okay?
And I'm basing that on how many times
I've taken an article, or I've taken a story,
or I've taken a video that I've seen,
and I've done my own diligent research
just to find out for myself,
and I would say half the time it's not been true, okay?
But these are the things that get passed on
from brother to brother, all right?
To sister to sister, to church chat groups,
or whatever it is.
Things get passed on, and it's like 50%.
And again, is me coming to behind this pool
for preaching 50% good enough for you?
I'd lose this church.
I'd destroy my reputation.
I'd destroy my credibility.
There'd be no reason for you to trust,
come to church, you're gonna hear something true
from Pastor Kevin Tepulveda, all right?
So I want you to be aware of this, okay?
You need to research for the truth, okay?
You need to have that filter in place.
That'll help you process what you hear
to the things that you speak and communicate.
Now I'm gonna go through a few points now.
How do you research for the truth?
Number one, it takes time, okay?
Researching takes time.
What happens is, you know, like I said,
even my son is, most of my time is researching, right?
Most of my time is double checking, okay?
When you hear something, you need to go,
all right, I need to find out if this is true for myself
before I pass it on to someone else.
But the reason we don't do it, it's just too much time.
It's just easy if I pass it on,
and they can work it out if it's true or not.
Oh, we're people of the truth.
You know, we should be doing the best we can
to pass on things that are true for everyone.
And you know, I kind of think about our society.
We live in this fast food economy, don't we?
You know, I just had a McDonald's muffin.
How long did it take to get that muffin?
We couldn't even get to the place
of picking up the food.
The food's, the arm's already there.
It's already done.
It's like, I feel like I didn't have to order it.
They already knew, it's there.
It's so fast, information is so fast.
But listen, it's junk food.
It's not good for my health, okay?
It's gonna help me not faint in the morning
because I was a little bit dizzy, okay?
But in the long run, that egg and bacon muffin's
not good for me, I understand that.
It's junk food, okay?
But listen, the less time it takes,
the worse it's gonna be for you.
And we get to this point where we absorb
so much information, pass it on, pass it on, pass it on.
It's just junk food, junk food, junk food, junk food.
Have you done the research?
No.
Have you double checked?
No.
Have you seen if there's, going back to the sources?
No.
Have you seen if there are multiple sources teaching?
No.
I just, I packed junk food, there you go.
Yes, junk food's bad for the physical health,
but you know, junk information is bad for the mind.
It's bad for the mind.
That's why God says to think on things that are true
and things that are honest.
Think on these things, okay?
You know, I don't wanna see Christians downcast
and look, there's a time to mourn,
there's a time to weep, we know these things.
But then you see Christians, right?
Oh man, this world.
Oh, this, there's some 5G now, and vaccinations,
and you know, Mark of the Beast technology now,
and oh man, you know why they're so downcast?
It's because they don't have their minds
on things that are lovely, things that are pure,
things that have a good report, things that are honest,
things that are, the mind's in junk, junk food.
You know, just like junk food,
if I ate McDonald's, right, cheeseburger,
you know, for breakfast, and a quarter pounder for lunch,
and a big mac for, you know, eventually,
but I'm just like, oh, oh, oh, can you go,
I can't even go sowing, brethren,
I can't even go to the next, oh, so,
yeah, you know what, you're taking junk food in your mind,
blah, blah, blah, you're gonna be, ah,
the world's so horrible, I wish Jesus could come back
right now, because I'm so miserable.
Brethren, that's what it does,
junk information destroys your mind, it destroys your mind.
It saps your energy, it saps your joy.
I'm not saying be ignorant, I'm not saying be stupid.
You know, I'm not, this is not a church of ignorant people.
You guys know your things, and you guys know a lot,
you probably know a lot than me
about the general world of things,
and sometimes I just prefer to ignore it,
because I just want to be happy.
I just want to enjoy today, you know, God made today,
I want to enjoy my wife, I want to enjoy my kids,
I want to have a good time with my family.
You know, I don't have to constantly think
about the 150 babies that are getting imported today.
I know it's happening, I'm not ignorant of it,
it doesn't make me happy, okay,
I understand it's a wicked world,
but sometimes I need to just think of things
that are pure and lovely, my family,
God made me to enjoy life,
God's put me here to serve him,
and I know I'm going to be a greater blessing
to the Brethren if I have a positive attitude,
and I'm going to be a greater blessing
to the Brethren if I pass on true, truth information,
okay, if I teach from God's word
rather than just forwarding every article
and every, you know, video that I agree with,
it takes time, you know, researching for the truth,
it takes time, you know, and I learned this,
not, I was going to say I learned this the hard way,
but it wasn't really a hard way.
I just remember once being in a company
and I was working as a data entry person,
this was a very entry level job,
and I became really knowledgeable at the database,
so I was probably the number one person to go to,
even though I had an entry level job,
everyone would come to me about the company's database,
because I knew it really well back to front.
I thought I knew it well, and when you know it well,
sometimes you get a bit of pride or whatever, right,
because I'm the expert in the field.
Anyway, I remember finding some issue with the database
and I thought, man, this is a major issue,
we need to get this fixed,
and so I pulled out some reports, some things,
and I went to my manager, I said, look,
I found some issues with the database,
we need to get this fixed,
and it's like, it requires the IT guys
to do a big dump of information and fix this problem,
and my manager said, look,
before we do anything like that,
have you double checked this, what you're telling me?
And I had, I had double checked it.
I said, yeah, I've double checked it.
Says, all right, can you go back
and check it one more time?
Can you triple check the information
before we ask the IT guys
to do this massive dump of information?
So I went back, I was a bit frustrated.
I was like, oh, come on, I just checked,
and I double checked, and I've come, right,
and I've gotta go back and check again,
I've got other things to do, right?
But there I am, sitting there, going through it again,
thinking about the information that I've got,
and then I find an error in my reporting,
and I realise that error in my reporting
made it look like all these problems existed,
but it's my own fault.
Like, if my boss had just taken it on board,
and we contacted the IT department,
can you change this stuff in the database,
it would've destroyed everything!
It would've destroyed the system!
And I learnt a lesson there.
Man, even though I double checked, I was still wrong.
It was pride, pride got in the way!
I'm right, I know this stuff!
I've checked it, you know?
No, I triple checked, and then I learnt,
in the workplace, I'm gonna triple check everything.
And in life, I triple check everything.
When I prepare a sermon, I triple check everything.
I triple check, I don't double check, I triple check.
And if I have time, I'll quadruple check, okay?
And so, but it takes time, doesn't it?
It takes time.
This is why we don't do it.
And what's the point?
Why do we take time to assess
if what we've heard is the truth?
Our goal is for accuracy.
We wanna make sure we're passing on accurate information.
You know, wasting your time is bad enough,
but you don't wanna be wasting someone else's time
because of your lack of research,
because you've not gone and checked,
is this solid, is this true?
You can affect other people.
For me, it dawned on me, man,
if my boss just listened to me,
and they went ahead and did this,
our business would be shut down
for at least a couple of days,
until we tried to fix everything.
And then how much money would the business be?
It's all because of me, right?
Because I just did not triple check the data.
And I was young, I was probably in my mid to early 20s,
I think, when this took place.
And sometimes when I preach,
I preach just to you my life lessons.
That was a life lesson to me.
You know, it was like a slap in my face,
I felt embarrassed, right?
And I realised my credibility has suffered, right?
Next time I come to my boss,
I'm not gonna just triple check it,
I'm gonna quadruple check it, right?
Next time I go, I'm gonna make sure
that before I say anything, before I do anything,
that I've researched, that I've done the work,
I've done the diligent work,
and made sure that what I'm presenting is true.
So number one, brethren,
you know, you need to research, research.
It takes time, and that's why people don't do it.
It's faster to just forward the message.
All right, forward to Brother Callum.
Did you hear this, Brother Callum?
Forward, done.
It's your problem now, okay?
No, that's junk food.
I don't wanna pass on junk food,
I wanna pass on information that is true, okay?
The second thing, brethren, that you need to think about
is you need to remove your personal biases.
You need to remove your personal biases.
And again, a great thing about preaching God's word is
I don't preach my bias to you.
There are so many times that I kinda have a thought,
I have an idea, something that I like to preach,
and then I go to God's word, all right,
I'm thinking about preaching this issue,
and I go through God's word, hmm.
Seems like the Bible is contrary
to what I wanted to preach.
I think this is my bias.
I think this is just my opinion.
Well, I can't preach that.
People don't come to New Life after socially hearing
the opinions of Pastor Kevin Sepulveda.
They come to hear God's word, all right?
That's what's lovely about preparing sermons
is you get challenged, right?
I mean, I can't tell you how much I've been
challenged the past few years.
Especially the past year, you know,
as I get up to preach, and I preach things
that my flesh doesn't wanna preach,
and that's when I realize it's my flesh.
My flesh gets in the way.
My flesh wants the junk food, okay?
But the spirit of God is of truth,
and it makes me uncomfortable when I hear lies.
It makes me uncomfortable even if it's just 70% truth.
It makes me uncomfortable.
But remove your personal biases.
Did you know truth is not dependent on your bias?
Like, just because something is true,
just because something agrees with you
doesn't mean it's true.
But isn't that what we pass on,
the things that we agree with?
I agree with this issue.
I agree with this report.
I'm gonna pass this on.
Is it true?
Or does it just agree with you, okay?
You know, I'll give you an example of this.
Obviously, Bill Gates, since the COVID and the vaccines,
we've heard a lot from Bill Gates.
And Bill Gates is a pro-vaxxer, isn't he?
All right, he's pushing his vaccines,
and he wants everyone to be vaccinated
and probably wants to kill half the population.
Who knows, all right?
I mean, he's pretty much said that himself, okay?
That's a fact.
But anyway, all right, okay, so we,
those that are anti-vaxxers,
those that look into his life and go,
man, who is this guy?
Is he a doctor?
I mean, I guess he's done Microsoft Windows.
I love Windows, I think it's great.
Hey, that's full of viruses.
Can you really fix a virus in a human being
if you can't sort out viruses on a computer?
So we know that, hey, man,
he says things, and we know it's just rubbish.
We know it's propaganda.
We mark down Bill Gates.
Yep, he's not credible.
He's not trustworthy, and I agree with all that.
I agree, yes, he's not credible, he's not trustworthy.
But then just recently, there's come out a video
where Bill Gates says, you know what?
The Omicron virus has done a better job
at getting people vaccinated, as it were,
than the vaccinations that we put out.
And all of a sudden, everyone's sharing Bill Gates!
Hold on, why are you sharing Bill Gates now
when you agree that Omicron was better
at getting people the virus
and the antibodies for the virus
over the vaccination?
Why is he a credible source now
to say that the Omicron virus works better?
Why is he a better source?
Why is he true now?
He agrees with you.
He agrees with your personal bias now,
but before he didn't.
So when he didn't before, he was not credible.
Before, he was a source of false information,
but now he's got true information, hold on.
That's not how it works.
Truth is not dependent on your bias, on your opinion.
If we've said Bill Gates is a source of poor information,
if he cannot be trusted, then he cannot be trusted
even when he says things that you agree with.
That's what I'm hearing, that's what I'm seeing.
It drives me insane.
Is this someone we listen to?
Is it someone that we don't listen to?
Oh, we listen to it when he agrees with me.
You know, then I can pass on the information in the videos.
That's wrong, Brevin, that's not truth, okay?
That's not truth.
That's 50% true, maybe.
Maybe what he said is true, Brevin,
but we need to be smarter than this, okay?
If we truly know that Bill Gates is part of the elite
and his desire is to kill mankind,
whatever it is, Brevin,
and maybe he's bringing in the one world government
and the antichrist in the future,
then why is he good now?
Because just he agrees with you?
It's so weird to me.
It's so strange, it's so strange to me.
And so we need to remove our personal biases.
What about David Icke?
David Icke, doesn't he believe in, you know,
that the elites are half reptilian?
You know, that they shape, you know, shape into lizards
and, you know, if you just watch the Queen of England
long enough on TV, her eyes will start to change
and you see the sharp teeth all come out.
And listen, when you listen to David,
you know this guy has lost his marbles, right?
You know, this is false information.
So who could possibly believe such stupidity?
Okay, well, we'll listen to that,
but all the other things he says is true.
Why, because he agrees with you now?
Is that, no, he's discredited himself, okay?
He's discredited himself.
He's shown himself to be false information.
Oh, but all this other stuff is true, why?
Because you agree with it.
That's not how you assess truth, okay?
That's not how you assess truth.
And I could keep going on and on.
Like, you know, who's the American guy?
Like, I forget his name.
Alex Jones.
Didn't he say that something has been put in the water
so frogs can turn into, become gay or something?
Homosexuals.
I mean, it's a pretty popular video on YouTube.
Doesn't anyone know what I'm talking about?
The homosexual frogs.
Okay, at least I've got one source, I've got one agreement.
Okay, I won't say any more, I won't say any more.
But I'm just thinking, okay, if someone,
let's say it is 100% true,
that he came out saying things have been put in the water
and it's turning the frogs into homosexuals, okay?
And that is just the most ridiculous thing
that anybody could possibly say.
Then why is everything else true that he says?
Okay, oh, because he agrees with me at this point.
That's not truth, okay?
Again, you know, think about it, back to church.
If I preach 50% truth, okay?
Well, that's when we support Pastor Kevin.
But we know next Sunday he's gonna preach lies.
Okay?
But okay, he's preached his lies.
Okay, yeah, yeah, okay, he's a false prophet.
But next week, he's gonna preach something true.
Is that really how we live life?
I mean, but that's how people operate though.
Honestly, that's what I'm seeing.
It drives me insane.
And again, I'm not trying to get something off my,
maybe I'm trying to get something off my chest.
I wanna help you guys.
I wanna help everybody.
I want you guys to just be people of the truth.
You know, I want you to be happy.
You know, these things, they're going to hurt your mind.
They're going to cause deterioration of the mind
because they're not true.
You know?
Now let me tell you something else.
There was something that was being passed,
a video that was being passed,
I think it was from TikTok from memory.
A video has been passed around saying
that more Australians died,
I can't remember the period of time right now,
but it was during lockdowns,
during when Sydney and Melbourne were under,
major lockdowns.
And the information was true, okay?
Because it's basically saying,
if you go to a, and actually this is the other thing.
So we don't trust the government.
We don't trust the government's data.
But when the government's data
agrees with what we're trying to say,
now we can share it, okay?
That's again, the whole idea of the biases.
But anyway, government information was saying
that more people were dying from the vaccination,
the COVID vaccination, than the virus itself.
And it was true.
You'd go to the government websites and it was true.
Therefore, the vaccine kills more people
than the virus itself.
Wrong.
But that was the point that was,
and look, some of you probably thinking right now,
isn't that what you just said, Pastor Kevin?
That more people are dying from the vaccine
than from the virus?
Therefore the vaccine is more deadly than virus?
Well, here's the thing.
That period was under lockdown.
It was lockdown.
No one was leaving their houses, okay?
So if you're gonna use that data to push some narrative
or some truth that you think is truth,
what you're really saying is that it's safer
to stay locked down in your houses,
not going about business, not doing anything,
just stay in your houses.
That's safer than taking the vaccine.
Okay, well, that's what your data is pushing for.
Is that how we wanna live our lives?
We just wanna be locked down for the rest of our lives?
No, but see, they forgot that element.
They forgot that part where the reason
more people are dying from the vaccine
than from the virus itself
is because everyone's locked down.
It's not being passed around.
It's not going to be insane being passed around.
And so, well, I've got truth.
This is truth.
This is fact.
Double check to Pastor Kevin.
Yeah, but you're missing important elements to this.
And I don't know, again,
I don't like to talk myself up on anything like this,
but one of my fortes, at least in school,
I didn't like school that much.
I wasn't really, I did okay in my earlier years,
but I sort of stopped caring about school after a while.
But one of my fortes was statistics, data, analysis,
these kinds of things, because I don't know why,
but that's just, I'm able to sort of factor
in everything else.
I understand the bigger picture many times
when it comes to data information.
But some people just look at data, okay?
For example, they might say, well, you know,
you might, I'm just trying to say something.
Okay, let's say, news might come out saying, you know,
people died from chicken pox has increased by 100%, all right?
Let's pretend that happens, all right?
The media comes out.
People are dying.
There's an increase, 100% deaths in chicken pox.
You know, and most people would be like, oh, no way.
That's crazy.
Twice as many people have died from chicken pox now?
Man, let's protect ourselves.
Let's not go out.
Let's not do anything
because we're twice as likely to die now.
Yeah, but you know, it could be, and I don't know,
I'm not looking at the stats.
I'm just giving you just a thing, okay?
It might be like one in a million died from chicken pox,
and now it's like two in a million died from chicken pox.
Yes, there is 100% increase, but it doesn't matter.
It's so insignificant,
but that's how you cause panic in people.
Look at this information.
More people are dying here, but one in a billion, right?
And so we need to be people of the truth.
We need to stop, stop, slow down, okay?
No junk food anymore.
Is this information correct?
Is this information true?
And I understand.
We've grown up with mainstream media, been pumped, right?
You watch half an hour of Channel Nine News
and you're dumped with about 20 stories in half an hour.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, right?
Hard to know.
And we've grown up this way,
and then we find out that's all true now.
Man, they've got a narrative.
Okay, I've got a YouTube down.
I've got a bitch and I've got to whatever.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Same thing, okay?
And you're not stopping to assess,
are these things true before I pass it on
to the brethren that I'm supposed to love?
The next point that I have for you, brethren,
is go to the source.
You know, most videos and things that we watch on YouTube,
it's just an opinion.
It's like a podcast where they've gathered,
they got some type of information
and they've passed it on.
Go to the source.
Go to the, they're saying, this is happening.
All right, go to the source where it's happening
and find out if it's true.
You know, if you go to Wikipedia, for example,
you might read an article
and when you go to the articles that usually are referenced
to say is where that source is from, okay?
And so what I really encourage you,
if you are getting information from Wikipedia,
for example, because you know that it's not always true,
is to go back to the source.
At least that's a good thing in Wikipedia.
You can actually go back to the source.
Most people will not.
And there have been times that I've gone back to the source
and the source is not saying
what the Wikipedia article says, okay?
But that's the idea of going back to the source, okay?
And so when you hear information, brethren,
what you need to train yourself to think is,
is this a direct source of the information
or is it just someone's opinion of what they've heard?
And again, this has become really apparent to me
because just like anybody else,
I listen to podcasts and videos and all this stuff.
There's one podcast that I would listen to,
not on a regular basis, but every now and again,
I tune in because I thought they were reliable.
I thought they were trustworthy.
And then they're talking about Australia.
Everyone's talking about how bad it is in Australia.
I've been having pretty much a good life,
to be honest with you.
Anyway, it's horrible in Australia, right?
And I found out in the podcast, I was saying,
even right now, Australians are losing their homes.
The banks are closing their mortgages
and they're losing their homes
to pay for their COVID fines.
People that are refusing to pay their COVID fines,
they're taking away their homes, they're selling their homes.
And I'm thinking, man, are you serious?
Wow, you know?
And I'm listening to this podcast from America,
something that I trusted for some time, okay?
Then I thought to me again, I got to that point,
this doesn't seem right.
Okay, this guy said it,
but it just doesn't seem right with me.
Now, I could have taken the approach and go,
man, Australians suffering right now, losing their homes.
Let's forward this quickly to Facebook.
I can't believe it.
You could do that.
We could just try to find out.
I mean, I'm in Australia.
It shouldn't be too hard for me to find out
if an Australian people are losing their homes.
And when I dug in for some researchers,
there was some reporter that mentioned it
to some politician somewhere.
It wasn't even a politician.
It was a reporter going,
you know, how far could we go for people to pay their fines
because people aren't paying their fines?
You know, should we take this right away?
Should we take this away?
And I think a home was mentioned or something like that.
Okay, and that's it.
Now it's all over the podcast.
This is happening right now in Australia.
False information, lies.
You know what that did for me?
This is a bad source.
All these people are, they're just vomiting.
They've heard something, blah.
Or they're a parrot, right?
Sometimes we hear that kind of stuff.
I think of Pastor Steven Anderson,
when he talks about pastors,
that there's, you know, the pre-treat rapture.
Pre-treat rapture, seven years tribulation, blah, blah.
Yeah, but then we all, we do it, right?
That's it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
We've never gone and checked the data.
Go Australia, come on.
People losing their houses to pay the fine?
No, it's not happening.
It's just some stupid comment.
And then, oh, this is news.
Let's talk about it in the podcast.
This will get clicks.
This will get views.
They're the same brethren.
The mainstream media, what do they want?
They want your views.
They want their money from the advertisement.
They want people's eyes upon them.
You know, the alternative media.
They want the same.
They want the views.
They want the clicks.
They want to live off their video making.
So they'll say whatever it is to get your attention.
I'm saying to you, I think it's 50% true
with 50% lies, mixed.
And sometimes the truth is just misrepresented.
And you're left, you walk away with things
that just aren't even true.
And I'm just giving you one example.
Over the past couple of years,
I've just, I've looked into different things.
I've told many times, not true, not true.
You know, and it just, it blows me away.
How, why did this person pass it on?
Couldn't they have spent at least an hour
just trying to figure out, you know,
this doesn't sound right to me.
This is crazy.
And if this is crazy and true, I'm going to pass it on.
But no, it's not, let's pass it on now.
Okay, because I'm just overwhelmed.
It's crazy, this world's going nuts.
No, no, think about things that are honest.
Think about things that are true.
Think on these things, the Bible says.
You know, going back to the source,
when I told you about my, in my business,
I learnt this lesson, going to my boss
with bad information that could have hurt the company.
Anyway, there was a time where I worked for a company
that, it was an electronic company,
and they would process about 1,000 orders a day.
Okay, across Australia.
And so it's, you know,
it's a lot of parcels being shipped out.
And the promise was that,
as long as you're in a metropolitan area,
you get your parcel the next day,
no matter where you were in Australia.
As long as you're in a metropolitan area,
you get it the next day.
And if there was anything on back order,
so they didn't have it in stock,
but they needed to bring it from overseas,
then I might be wrong,
but I believe the back order process
is gonna take at least five to seven days, okay?
Anyway, the company spends a lot of money,
a lot of resources, a lot of money,
to try to minimise the back order time.
They want it to be more competitive, right?
Instead of five to seven days
to get the part that we don't have in stock,
let's try to bring it closer to two to three days.
That was the goal.
And I remember different people went
and were part of this, I wasn't part of the project,
but I was managing at that time
the customer service team that would get the phone calls
when orders were delayed or things like that.
Anyway, again, lots of money,
probably six months of this project going ahead,
and they finally said, we did it,
we finally brought the back orders down
from five to seven days to two to three days.
Now we're gonna be more competitive,
now we're gonna bring in more sales.
Yeah, great.
Everyone's, well done.
Yeah, woo, woo, it's all happening.
Pat on the back, people getting their bonuses.
Woo, great.
Company's gonna be much better off like this.
Well, once the project's done,
they implement the new system in place.
All of a sudden, the customer service team,
they're getting hammered on the phones.
The phone calls increase.
Items are missing.
Where are the back orders?
Where are all this?
Everyone's celebrating in the background.
Woo, yeah, woo, it's all working.
And I'm like, man, this is crazy.
This is not working.
And I pulled one of my employees aside.
I said, look, we need to prove
that this not only did not work,
but it's actually worse than it was before, okay?
And I said, look, I want you to spend the next week.
Just get off your job.
I just want you to spend the next week,
a thousand orders a day, okay?
Going through, finding which orders have a back order,
and how long did that back order take
to arrive to the customer?
From the time that it came from the UK
to Sydney to the customer,
I want you to write everything down for every order.
That's your job for the next week.
Fact checking, fact checking.
The next week, just do your research, all right?
And then once she was done, she came to me.
We found, okay, we looked at the orders.
Not only was it no longer five to seven days,
not only was it not two to three days,
whatever they had originally planned,
but it was looking like 14 days, 20 days,
sometimes a month to customers to get their back orders,
which makes sense.
Why are we getting so many phone calls?
Why are we lacking?
Why can't we manage the traffic,
the information that's, you know,
the phone, why can't we manage?
And while this is going on,
I'm copping abuse from other managers.
They're going, man, how come you can't manage your team?
You know, they're getting bombarded.
Why, what's going on?
You know, everyone's like,
yeah, woo, we did it!
Well, I took a whole week
making sure with fact checking that the information,
that what they've done has not worked.
It's in fact been the opposite.
And listen, this project costs
hundreds of thousands of dollars, right?
It costs a lot of time to get it done.
And now I'm presented with this information.
I'm the only one that's about to say,
all right, what you guys are celebrating is not true.
You've made it worse, okay?
And I know how business works.
I'm gonna come presenting the truth
and they're gonna hate me.
I'm gonna make all these people
look like horrible people.
They're going to be embarrassed and I'm gonna come
and people are gonna come to me and say,
hey, have you fact, are you sure about this, Kevin?
Are you sure it's not just your bad management
that's causing all these issues, all right?
So I spent a whole week
and then slowly I went to one manager at a time.
Look, I just got something I wanna show you.
What were your thoughts around this?
Bang, bang, bang, show them the information.
Yeah, and it's true, everyone hated me, okay?
I showed the truth.
I showed that it didn't work.
They spent these thousands of dollars.
They've made it worse.
And then I told some of the managers
that were having a go at me.
I said, look, you can criticise me
as a manager if you want,
if I'm making things worse for the company,
but you can't criticise me
when your teams, your people,
have made this business worse,
have made the system worse, okay?
And yeah, I wasn't liked, brethren, I wasn't liked.
But sometimes speaking the truth
is gonna cause people to not like you, okay?
We don't wanna be people
that just absorb junk information, brethren.
We need to stop.
Is this true?
What is true?
Fact check, spend the time.
And yes, this is true.
Now pass on the information
for the betterment of someone else,
for the betterment of whatever,
the business, the betterment of someone else,
for the information, whatever.
We need to make sure that we go to the source.
We go to the source, we do the research.
Can you please go to John chapter five?
John chapter five.
While you're turning to John chapter five,
I'm going to read to you
from 2 Corinthians 13 verse one,
which reads,
this is the third time I am coming to you.
In the mouth of two or three witnesses
shall every word be established.
Did you know this is a biblical principle?
For every word to be established,
you need to have at least two or three witnesses.
The next point I have for you
is not just go to the source,
but confirm with multiple sources.
Confirm with multiple sources.
You hear something,
you know, don't just go to your favourite podcasters,
don't just go to your favourite websites
that you know your echo chamber
that you know already agrees with you.
Go and find it from somewhere else.
Go and dig that information from somewhere else.
Try to get multiple sources
before you determine that this is true
and worth passing on.
You're there in John chapter five,
verse number 31.
I love this passage of scripture.
John chapter five verse 31.
Jesus Christ says,
if I bear witness of myself,
my witness is not true.
Interesting.
Now this is the son of God speaking.
He says if I'm the only one
that witnesses that I am the son of God,
that I am the truth,
that I am salvation,
then my witness is not true.
Say, but I've got this one source, Kevin.
It's not even good enough for Jesus.
Okay.
So what else does it say here?
Let's go to verse number 32.
There is another that beareth witness of me,
and I know that the witness
which he witnesses of me is true.
He sent unto John and he bear witness unto the truth.
He says, look, I don't just speak about myself,
even John the Baptist.
He bears witness of me.
So I've got my own witness.
John the Baptist has his witness.
You got two?
Let's keep going there.
Verse number 33.
Sorry, drop down to verse number 36.
But I have greater witness than that of John,
for the works which the Father have given me to finish,
the same works that I do,
those are his miracles,
bear witness of me that the Father have sent me.
He says, not only am I a witness,
not only is John the Baptist a witness,
but the works that I do,
the miracles that I'm doing,
these are also a witness of me.
Say, well, you know, Jesus,
you got two, three witnesses, you're done.
Now we can, you know, just mark it down, this is true.
It's still not good enough for Jesus.
He keeps going, all right?
It says here in verse number 37,
and the Father himself, which have sent me,
have borne witness of me.
Ye have neither heard his voice at any time,
nor seen his shape.
He says, I bear witness, John the Baptist does,
my works do, and the Father does.
Hey, I've got four sources of information right now,
you wicked Jews, that I'm legit, okay?
That I'm of the truth.
That wasn't enough.
Let's drop down to verse number 39.
John chapter five, verse number 39.
Jesus Christ says, search the scriptures,
for in them you think you have eternal life,
and they are they that testify of me.
Not just me, not just John the Baptist,
not just my works, not just the Father,
now the scriptures, they also testify of me.
They are also a witness of me.
Drop down to verse number 46.
For had you believed Moses, you would have believed me,
for he wrote of me, but if you believe not his writings,
how shall you believe my words?
Moses, well, we know that when Christ is speaking
about the scriptures, he's speaking about, of course,
the books of Moses, they testify of Christ.
Now, I just wanted to show you that,
because when people are checking if Jesus Christ is legit,
how many sources does he turn to?
He went to five, at least,
unless you consider Moses six,
but I believe Moses would be referred
to the scriptures there, okay?
Now, the Bible says, where, you know,
out of the mouth of two or three verses,
let every word be established.
You notice how Christ went that extra step
to show, listen, this is true,
what I'm preaching is true.
You know, my works are true,
and here are all the sources.
Here are all the sources that bear witness of my truth.
And brethren, we need to be a little bit more like Jesus.
Jesus doesn't have to prove anything.
He doesn't have to go around saying,
well, they witnessed this witness and this witness.
Jesus Christ is God Almighty.
His word is enough, okay?
BC, Christ, he came to this earth.
He set an example for us.
We're to follow after his footsteps.
You know, Christ spends time going to multiple sources
to speak of the truth.
You know, let's say Brother Jason comes up to me
and says, Pastor Kevin, I gotta tell you something.
Brother Callum robbed the bank.
Well, there's one witness.
There's one testimony there of Callum robbing the bank.
It goes to Brother Michael.
Brother Michael comes up to me,
yeah, Pastor Kevin, it's true, man.
Brother Callum robbed the bank.
There's two witnesses, you know,
I mean, you know, at least two witnesses.
This is not looking good for Callum, right?
Brother Hayden, yep, it's true.
My third witness, right?
Now I've got the three witnesses.
Brother Hayden says, yep, Brother Callum robbed the bank.
All right, well, see?
Church chat group.
All right, guys, I want you to all know
I'm gonna have to kick Callum,
no, do you kick someone out of the church?
No, not really.
Anyway, Brother Callum robbed the bank, all right?
Let's pass this on, bless it up Baptist Church
and anyone else that knows Brother Callum,
listen, this guy's a wicked guy, he's robbed the bank.
Is that right?
I've had two or three witnesses done,
three sources, two sources.
What's the next logical step?
Which bank?
When did this happen?
Let me ring the bank.
Is there a police report that's filed for this?
Did this take place?
I might go to the bank and say,
hey, I found it yesterday that Callum,
one of my church members robbed your,
what are you talking about?
Callum, Callum Mitchell?
Yeah, he's a stand out guy, we love Callum.
He's got an account with us, he's, you know,
hey, he's a great customer of ours.
But you notice what I've done?
You know, I've not done my research,
I've not gone back to the source.
I just listened, okay?
So yeah, people that I do trust, Brother,
Michael, Jason, Haydon, I do trust, I trust them, okay?
Listen, you still, okay, I trust this source.
All right, I still need to go back to the,
I trust this report,
but I need to go back to the source,
I need to investigate before I go and jump on social media
and start sharing it.
I wouldn't share it anyway,
but I'm just giving you an example, all right,
of what we're supposed to do, okay?
Now you say, well, Pastor Kevin, you know,
what if I don't have the time to do my own research?
What if I can't think outside of my biases?
What if I, you know, I just refuse to go back
to the source for confirmation?
What if I haven't confirmed the data from multiple sources?
Well, then don't pass it on.
Just shut up about it, okay?
You know how much stuff is in my brain right now?
How much, I reckon,
how much rubbish I've got in my brain right now,
things, reports that I've heard,
things that have been passed on to me,
it sits there somewhere in my brain, okay?
And as time goes on, it processes, all right?
Maybe something to confirm that or to remind my,
oh, no, that's a lie, something in my mind, right?
It's just, there's a filter, brethren, there's a filter
before it comes out of my mouth,
before my fingers start going crazy in text messaging,
there's a filter, you've got to filter the information,
all right?
If you don't have time,
you know, ask yourself that question,
am I a source of truth?
How much information have you passed on over the years
that you've not confirmed to be true?
I'm telling you, it's probably 50% lies.
I'm sure about it.
I'm sure that what you've passed on,
at least to me, is 50% lies, okay?
And I'm not singling that in,
but I'm telling you in general, okay?
So are you a source of truth?
How much damage have you done
to your own credibility and reputation?
Why should I believe something you have to say later
when you've dumped me with so much lies
and so much false reports, so much misinformation,
or things that might be true,
but you've not even spent the time
to diligently find out for yourself
before you pass it on?
So brethren, what I'm saying,
I'm not trying to make anyone,
put anyone downcast here.
I want to encourage you, I want to motivate you,
I want to build you up, right?
So if that's the case, if you're one of these people,
you can look at, yeah, I've been that person,
you know, over this period of time.
You need to just build your credibility back up, okay?
Just like me, when I went to my boss
and I gave that report and I was wrong,
I didn't triple check it, I lost some credibility.
So I have to spend time building it back up.
Next time I had a major thing
to come to the business about
where I knew they're not gonna like what I have to say,
I made sure my credibility was built up,
I made sure we triple checked,
I made sure we spent a whole week
getting the information, going back to the source,
finding out how long, what damage this was causing
before I came out and presented that information again.
All right, brethren, can you please go to Proverbs now?
And sorry, I know this sermon's
a little bit longer than normal.
I'll try to wrap it up quickly.
Let's go to Proverbs 15, please.
Proverbs 15.
Proverbs 15, verse 28, please.
Let's talk about this filter that you need to have,
all right, from your eyes, your ears,
before it comes out of your mouth.
Let's talk about this filter that you need.
Proverbs 15, verse 28 says,
Which one are you, brethren?
Say, I'm not a wicked person.
Well, maybe you are.
It says, the mouth of the wicked,
poor without evil thing.
Yeah, I heard this, ah, fudge, you know?
No, you study.
Find out before you answer, before you speak.
Figure out if it's true.
Please go to Proverbs 16.
Proverbs 16, verse 23.
Proverbs 16, verse 23 says,
Reverend, teach your mouth.
Teach your fingers, okay?
Teach them.
I heard something.
All right, let's stop.
Pastor Kevin said, let's go to source.
Pastor Kevin said, even if it's not according to my bias,
I still need to, you know,
I can't just agree with it
because it agrees with my biases.
Start teaching yourself before you pass on
false information.
Teach your mouth.
Go to Proverbs chapter eight, please.
Proverbs chapter eight, verse five.
Proverbs chapter eight, verse number five.
The Bible says,
Okay, we don't want to stay simple.
We don't want to stay foolish.
We want to grow in wisdom.
We want to gain in understanding.
It says in verse number six,
here, for I will speak excellent things
and the opening of my lips, look at this,
shall be right things.
You know, what you communicate should be right things.
Verse number seven, for my mouth shall speak truth
and wickedness is an abomination to my lips.
You know, lies are wickedness.
50% truth, 50% lies, it's wicked.
Make sure your mouth speaks truth.
Now, look, I understand that we can say things
and not know any better.
Just, you know, just honestly made a mistake.
I'm not talking about that, okay?
It's when you don't stop,
when you don't apply the filter of information, okay?
When you don't figure out, I'm going to, you know,
before I pass this on, before I speak of this matter,
I'm going to make sure I do my due diligence.
When you avoid that process brethren,
then you are speaking wickedness.
Then you are being foolish.
You are being simple, okay?
And can you please now turn to Romans chapter three.
Romans chapter three, I'll wrap up here.
Romans chapter three, verse number three.
Romans chapter three and verse number three.
And brethren, hold me to the same standard, okay?
As your pastor, as the main preacher for this church,
hold me to the same standard, all right?
Please understand, I'm doing the best I can
to preach the truth of God's word, all right?
Am I going to make some mistakes here and there?
Yes, but I hope you're able to realise,
hey man, that's like 1% of the times it happens,
you know, and you realise, you know,
I'm not here trying to, you know,
pour out wickedness upon God's people.
But Romans chapter three, verse number three.
It says, for what if some did not believe?
Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?
Verse number four, God forbid, yea,
let God be true and every man a liar,
as it is written, that thou mayest be justified
in thy sayings and mightest overcome
when thou art judged.
Of course, the direct context of this is about,
you know, salvation, your faith on,
you know, talking about the non-believing Jews.
Just because the non-believing Jews
don't believe in Christ,
does that mean the faith of God is without effect?
Of course not, okay?
God forbid, let God be true and every man a liar.
Now, of course, that's about the unbelieving Jews,
but let's apply this to today's topic, okay?
Please remind yourself that when you listen,
whoever it is, channel seven,
channel nine, channel 10, okay?
YouTube, Bitchute, Oojtube, is it?
What else is there?
You know, Fakebook, Tacky Talk,
Instasham, Telesham, you know,
whatever device you listen to, brethren,
remind yourself, remind yourself,
that every man a liar,
this person could be lying to me.
This person could be saying things just for the views,
just for the clicks, just for the popularity.
Has this person truly been a journalist
and gone back and figured out if these things are true?
Or are they just speaking out of their ignorance?
Are they speaking out of their weakness?
Brethren, we're people of the truth,
and you know, we can make mistakes,
and we're saved.
We've got the Holy Spirit of God.
We're in the truth, we're in Christ,
and we can make mistakes.
How many times do we listen to people
that are not even saved?
They don't have the Holy Spirit of God.
They're not people of the truth,
but we believe them.
It's passed on the information
because it's true about this
because it agrees with my bias.
You know, we need to be better than this.
We need to be better than this,
and you know, I preach the same thing
to Blessed Up Baptist Church.
I preach the same thing to people
that don't even go to my church,
and they pass like,
I get so many messages, brother,
so many, okay?
And I just, I can't, I can't.
I've got a wife, I've got kids.
I wanna be happy.
I've got God's word.
You know what?
If I'm gonna spend time doing any kind of research,
I'd rather put my head right there.
Maybe it's the advantage of being a pastor, right?
Because that's part of my job.
But brethren, please, please be careful.
Let God be true, and every man a liar.
Let's pray.