- Good evening, everyone.
Welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church.
If you could please find your seats and grab your hymnals.
We're gonna sing song number 22,
Are You Washed in the Blood?
Song number 22, Are You Washed in the Blood?
Song two two, Are You Washed in the Blood?
Let's sing it together.
♪ Wakes this house in the blood, soul of blood ♪
Let's open up in a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, thank you for this evening's service.
I pray now that you bless our pastors.
He prepares to preach to us
and pray that you bless this time of singing,
that we would sing out nice and loud,
and that just be mindful of the words we're singing.
We love you, Jesus, and we pray, amen.
For our second song, let's go to 138, the Haven of Rest.
138, the Haven of Rest.
Coming to St. Fast Baptist Church.
If you didn't already get a bulletin
or you'd like another one, just flip your hand up real quick.
pastors would be able to come by, get you guys a bulletin.
We are on Proverbs 31, verse 23.
Getting closer to the end on that.
On the inside, our service, soul-winning times.
Several ladies you can still be in prayer for
who are expecting.
We have upcoming events.
March 9th is the preaching class.
That's on Saturdays at two.
One thing that's not in the bulletin,
but just wanted to update you on,
March 16th is going to be a baby shower
in honor of Mariah Jackson.
And that's gonna be at 1230.
So please, if you'd like to participate in that,
you can still RSVP to Mrs. Milstead.
So if you'd like to attend,
we would really appreciate that.
Also, 30th is a Cedar,
like Cedar Hill South Dallas area soul winning marathon.
Probably just meet at the church for that Saturday morning.
It'll pretty much just be like an all day soul winning.
We got new cards for our Easter service.
And so you can go ahead
and start handing those out right now.
We got about 5,000.
So we should have plenty to hand out from now until Easter.
It is a little earlier this year.
So it is March 31st.
We'll have our Easter service in the morning.
And then in the evening, immediately following
the evening service, we'll have our communion service
that we have about once a year.
Also, April 9th through 10th is a very Baptist church.
It's a youth rally.
It's geared towards teenagers.
And they had their first service today in their new building.
So it's really exciting.
They're actually really close to where they were already.
Just kind of on the other side of the highway.
And they've been remodeling a building.
And so it's very exciting for them to be in prayer,
that everything will continue to go smoothly for them.
And then also, April 13th is going
to be a soul-winning marathon in Shreveport again.
And so we pretty much hit this town about once a year
for the last few years.
And every time, it's been really receptive.
People really like going there for soul-winning.
If you're newer to soul-winning or you
feel maybe like you haven't gotten
to get a lot of people saved, this
is a great opportunity to go somewhere
where it's been historically very receptive.
I would anticipate it's probably still
going to be very receptive again as we go.
And so it's just a great opportunity
to be able to see a lot of people getting the gospel,
hearing the gospel, and a lot of practice opportunities.
It's only about three hours away, so it's not too, too bad.
You can make a day trip out of it
and highly encourage you if you can participate with us.
We've had some friends also go out there with us
at different times too, so it'd be great to see them as well.
That's pretty much all I really have
as far as announcements are concerned.
On the events on the back, we have the congratulations
to the Craker family on the birth of Katrina Elizabeth.
She was born on the 22nd at 2.40 a.m.,
seven pounds, nine ounces, and 20 inches long.
Congratulations to them.
And of course, we have our prayer list on the bottom,
so please do help pray for our church family.
Psalm 148, we're gonna sing.
Psalm 148 is a Psalm special handout
that you can sing with us.
All right, let's sing together.
Psalm 148.
♪ Praise ye the Lord ♪
♪ From the heavens ♪
♪ Praise him ♪
♪ Let them praise the name God ♪
- It's being passed around.
Please turn your Bibles to Deuteronomy 23.
Deuteronomy chapter 23.
- This is our custom beginning in verse one.
He that is wounded in the stones
or hath his privy member cut off
shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord.
A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord.
Even to his 10th generation shall he not enter
into the congregation of the Lord.
An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter
into the congregation of the Lord.
Even to their 10th generation shall they not enter
into the congregation of the Lord forever.
Because they met you not with bread and with water
in the way when ye came forth out of Egypt,
and because they hired against thee Balaam,
the son of Bior, of Pithor, of Mesopotamia, to curse thee.
Nevertheless, the Lord thy God would not harken unto Balaam,
but the Lord thy God turned the curse
into a blessing unto thee, because the Lord thy God loved
thee.
Thou shalt not seek their peace nor their prosperity
all thy days forever.
Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite, for he is thy brother.
Thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian,
because thou wast a stranger in his land.
The children that are begotten of them
shall enter into the congregation of the Lord
in their third generation.
When the host goeth forth against thine enemies,
then keep thee from every wicked thing.
If there be among you any man that is not clean
by reason of uncleanness that chanceth him by night,
then shall he go abroad out of the camp.
He shall not come within the camp,
but it shall be when evening cometh on,
he shall wash himself with water.
And when the sun is down, he shall come into the camp again.
Thou shalt have a place also without the camp,
whither thou shalt go forth abroad.
And thou shalt have a paddle upon thy weapon,
and it shall be when thou wilt ease thyself abroad.
Thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt turn back and cover
that which cometh from thee.
For the Lord thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp
to deliver thee, and to give up thine enemies before thee.
Therefore shalt thy camp be holy,
that he see no unclean thing in thee, and turn away from thee.
Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant
which has escaped from his master unto thee.
He shall dwell with thee even among you
in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates,
where it liketh him best.
Thou shalt not oppress him.
There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel,
nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel.
Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore
or the price of a dog into the house of the Lord thy God
for any vow, for even both these are abomination
unto the Lord thy God.
Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother,
usury of money, usury of vittles,
usury of anything that is lent upon usury.
Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury,
but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury,
that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all
that thou settest thine hand to do in the land
whither thou goest to possess it.
When thou shalt vow a vow unto the Lord thy God,
thou shalt not slack to pay it,
for the Lord thy God will surely require it of thee,
and it would be sin in thee.
But if thou shalt forbear to vow,
it shall be no sin in thee.
That which is gone out of thy lips,
thou shalt keep and perform even a freewill offering
according as thou hast vowed unto the Lord thy God
which thou hast promised with thy mouth.
When thou comest into thy neighbor's vineyard,
then thou mayest eat grapes thy fill at thine own pleasure,
but thou shalt not put any in thy vessel.
When thou comest into the standing corn of thy neighbor,
then thou mayest pluck the ears with thine hand,
but thou shalt not move a sickle
unto thy neighbor's standing corn.
Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer.
Father in heaven, we thank you for the souls
that were saved at the 2 p.m. soul-winning time,
and I just pray that you would move on their hearts
and give them a zeal to want to serve you,
and I pray also that you would bless the sermon
this evening and help us to pay close attention
to the message you've laid on Pastor Shelley's heart.
We love you, in Jesus' name I pray, amen.
- Amen.
Deuteronomy 23 is a very powerful chapter,
and I want to look at verse 19 again.
The Bible says, "Thou shalt not lend
"upon usury to thy brother."
Usury of money, usury of vittles,
usury of anything that is lent upon usury.
So according to the Old Testament law,
usury was banned.
And specifically for usury to your brother,
meaning those of the same nation,
those of the children of Israel,
within their own country,
they're not to charge usury
to any other person in their land.
A word that we kind of use as a citizen,
a fellow citizen, when they use brother,
that's kind of what they're referring to,
in the sense that those who are of the nation of Israel
are not to charge others of the nation of Israel any usury.
Now usury is kind of an older word.
It's a word that we don't use as often.
Our word that we're more familiar with
is the word interest.
And so when you go to the bank and you get a loan,
or you have a credit card,
often we hear the words interest or interest charges.
This is what the Bible is condemning and banning
and saying that should not be allowed in society is interest.
And when those who came across the Mayflower
and came on many other ships to America,
decided to found this nation,
they were given the ability to make laws
that were in congruence with laws of England,
because we were under English domain.
And they sought to the Bible
to determine what kind of laws to use.
And so I believe that that same principle
should be applied no matter what the circumstances are,
that we as a people should determine our laws
based on what the Bible says.
Now, here's another principle
that I think is taught in the Bible,
and it's important for us to understand,
is the Bible gives us principles,
and then from those principles, we can derive laws.
So it's not that every single thing that is a law
has to be a verbatim quote from the Bible.
It's simply giving specific principles
or the spirit of the law,
and then from that, we can derive our laws.
And so I believe in America,
we should pass laws to ban interest,
and specifically charging interest
to other American citizens.
Now, when it comes to this specific statute,
it says in the next verse, it says this, verse 20,
"Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury,
but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury,
that the Lord thy God may bless thee,
and all that they'll set as thine hand to,
in the land whither thou goest to possess it."
Now, a stranger here is a person
that we would refer to as a foreigner,
someone that's not part of the nation.
Maybe they're just visiting,
maybe they're just sojourning,
but they're not a citizen.
They're not part of your nation.
Perhaps they're just traveling for business,
they're traveling for vacation,
or whatever the circumstance is.
It's saying you could technically charge
interest to this individual from a legal perspective.
Now here's another thing we have to understand.
Just because something's legal
doesn't mean that God is recommending this
or saying this is the right way to treat someone.
It's just simply saying these are what the laws should be.
Because when you charge interest to a person,
you are harming them,
you are an enemy under that individual,
you are doing evil under that individual, okay?
Now again, it might be pretty minor and inconsequential.
Maybe they're wealthy and you're charging them
a nominal interest rate,
and it's not really that big a deal.
But in some way, it is a harmful action
towards that individual.
Interest is very destructive in nature.
And in fact, when you charge interest on your own nation,
you're dooming your own nation,
you're dooming your own people.
It is impossible to ever pay back the interest
because the money just doesn't simply exist.
And so it's a very evil device that God is trying to say,
this is illegal.
And it's funny that there's a group of people out there
that do the exact opposite of the Bible
and they love to charge interest, okay?
And this group of people are thriving off of industries
that have practices that are banned in the Bible.
And we need to re-emphasize
what the Bible teaches on these issues.
Now, this is what I find interesting
because I think that there's a lot of things
we need to change about our laws, okay?
I think that we have a lot of problems in America.
I think that there's a group of people that love Satan
that would be really hard to get rid of.
But I came up with a plan that's, I think, really simple
and a way to eliminate a lot of these problems
and it's if we just ban interest and we ban pornography.
That's all we have to do.
And it would solve a lot of problems.
Now, look at what it said in the verse right before this,
verse 17, "There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel."
Now, again, this is where I say that is not necessarily
describing every single law that could be driven
from that particular principle, but that's a principle.
It's saying we as a society, we as a whole
should not allow whoredom to be prominent in our society.
And one of the ways that whoredom is prominent
in a society is through pornography.
And you know, the pornography is just even a gross word.
It's hard for me to even want to say it.
And it's really a difficult subject.
But unfortunately, we live in a dark world
that's very disgusting.
And sometimes you have to use disgusting words
to describe disgusting things, okay?
Now I'm gonna try and just talk about things
like in smut and general euphemisms.
But at the end of the day,
sometimes we just have to call it as it is.
And God even has to call women sometimes whores.
That's a gross word to a lot of people.
A lot of churches you would go to today,
you would never hear the word whore ever.
Like they probably just wouldn't even read
this verse out loud.
They'd probably just ignore this verse
just because they don't want to hurt your eardrums
or something.
But here's the thing,
God doesn't want to hurt your eardrums either.
And you know what's really dangerous in a society?
It's not the word whore, it's whores.
Like some people, they're so offended by the word whore,
but they're not offended by literal whores.
They're not offended by Taylor Swift.
They're not offended by the ever increasing pornography
that's going on in this world.
They're not offended by the smut and the filth
put on the TV screen and they'll go and see
all the rated R movies filled with whores,
but then they get offended
when someone brings up the word whore.
It's like, what in the world?
How dare you use the word whore?
How dare you watch whoredom?
I mean, what's really worse here?
And these people that pretend like they're so holy
and so righteous, they're not that righteous
and they're not that holy.
You know who's holy and righteous? God.
And his law is holy and righteous
and we should look to it as to how we should rule
and govern our nation.
And I believe, you know, I've thought about this a lot.
If we truly banned interest and pornography in our society,
it would cause a lot of people to want to leave,
like a specific group of people
that are running these industries, okay?
That's their main source of income, okay?
Now we'll get there in a little bit,
but I want to prove my first point a little bit further.
Go to Exodus 22, we need to ban interests.
The Bible is very clear on this.
I do believe obviously, of course,
there was an exception in the law
that you could charge interest to a nation, right?
America could charge interest to another foreign country
when we have to borrow or lend money to them or something.
But at the end of the day, that's not really a good thing.
And in fact, I think there's definitely room in the Bible
and a lot of verses that talk about helping even strangers
and helping foreign nations,
where we wouldn't necessarily have to do that.
But considering the fact that we live in a world
with, I think, what, 256 nations or something,
you could fact check me on this,
a lot of different nations,
not all of them are our best friends.
If we have a literal enemy that needs to borrow,
you know, I don't see why it would be necessarily wrong
to charge them interest from a geopolitical position, okay?
And again, we're talking about legality,
what's right with God,
not necessarily what's the most Christian thing you can do.
Because of course, God loves to triumph mercy
over judgment in the sense that God often gives us things
that we don't deserve.
I may deserve a particular punishment for my sin,
but God gives me mercy and grace above that,
and I don't always get what I deserve, right?
So just because I may deserve something
according to the law,
doesn't mean that that's how I have to treat somebody.
For example, someone hits me on the cheek,
I could turn him the other,
I don't have to smack him back on his cheek.
Legally, you should smack him on the cheek,
but you could go ahead and show mercy and say,
I'm going to decide not to exactly what you deserve,
I'm going to give you grace, I'm going to give you mercy,
I'm going to be long suffering unto you.
This is a principle often taught in the Bible.
Interest is like the exact opposite.
Interest is basically saying, I don't trust you at all,
and I don't like you, and I want to take advantage of you.
It's not even, charging interest on someone
is not what's fair.
Like, I think that today's world,
many people think that charging interest is what's fair.
Like, if I give you money, why, I at least deserve something
in return, so therefore I should charge you a fee
or interest or something, that's only fair.
No, no, no, interest is not fair.
Interest is a predatory practice
which takes advantage of people,
and you know what takes advantage of?
The poor, because who needs money?
Poor people.
Rich people aren't necessarily needing tons
and tons of money, and of course,
it's not that rich people don't make loans today
or take loans out or do these type of practices,
but the people that really need the money,
the people that really need the loans,
are the poor people.
And the poor people are the ones
who are taking advantage of the most.
And in our society, it is no different.
The people that are getting ripped off the most
with high interest loans
are often the poorest people in our society.
They are the most financially deficit,
they have essentially just the shirt on their back,
and people are just ripping them off
with 15%, 20%, 25%, 30% interest loans.
And when you don't have good credit,
they of course, I mean, you go get a car
and you don't have good credit,
you're getting a 20, 25% interest loan
from these shady car dealers.
You can't buy a house, someone will sell you a house
with a super shady interest rate
and they'll rake you through the coals
and they'll take every single one of your welfare checks.
Because interest is a predatory practice
and it's always been that way, it always will be that way.
That's why when the Bible brings it up,
it's always talking about the poor.
Look what it says in Exodus 22 verse 25.
"If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee,
thou shalt not be to him as a usurer,
neither shalt thou lay upon him usury."
Notice he's saying when you lend money to who?
To poor people, because who needs the money?
Poor people.
And then of course he's saying,
"Hey, to those people, don't be a usurer,
don't charge them interest."
Now, for sake of time, I'm not gonna go through all this,
but some people would argue like,
"Oh, it's just high interest."
Well, you know what?
I believe it's in the book of Nehemiah,
but he gets really mad at them charging interest,
and it's 1%.
And good luck finding a 1% loan ever, okay?
You can't even find that anymore.
This high interest is just any percentage above zero, okay?
That's high interest, all right?
Now, go to Leviticus 25.
Go to Leviticus 25.
I wanna show you another verse on this.
But the Bible's really clear.
I mean, this is constantly being brought up
in the Old Testament law.
I don't think that God wants to repeat Himself
over and over for no reason.
Why would you think that He's gonna say,
in Exodus, no interest, no usury?
In Leviticus, no interest, no usury?
In Deuteronomy, no interest, no usury?
You know why?
Because it's a big deal, and it's a constant reason
why people are taken advantage of,
nations are destroyed, economic misfortune,
depressions, tyranny, essentially every bad thing
you can imagine, it almost always is related to interest.
Why?
Because the love of money is the root of all evil,
and the reason why people charge interest
is because they love money.
They love money, and they love being lazy and making money.
Because charging interest is what the Bible describes
as unjust gain.
We're gonna get a verse in that in a minute,
but look at Leviticus 25, verse 35.
The Bible says, "And if thy brother be waxen poor
"and fallen in decay with thee,
"then thou shalt relieve him, yea,
"though he be a stranger or sojourner
"that he may live with thee.
"Take thou no usury of him, or increase,
"but fear thy God that thy brother may live with thee."
Notice he's saying, hey, when this guy,
you know, he's a screw up.
He doesn't, maybe he doesn't even work that hard.
He's ruined himself.
Bad things have happened.
He's poor, whatever.
Don't be a, don't then just pile on
and then be a usurer to him on top of that.
Help him.
And yet, that's what our society does,
is it literally preys on people
in their weakest, most vulnerable moments.
These payday loan places
are the most predatory and evil places.
Never go there.
Never let them rip you off.
I mean, they're taking people's paychecks
and they're charging them all kinds of fees
that are similar to the way usury works.
In Europe, at times, because Christianity reigned,
interest was illegal from a historical perspective.
So then what a certain group of people would do
that all wear the same tiny hat,
what these individuals would do
is they would charge a fee,
but it wasn't interest.
They would just charge fees
in order to get around the fact
that they were just charging interest on money.
But you know what, it's always been the same.
Always ways to try and work around
and try to have these loopholes
so that they can keep charging lots and lots of interest.
But you know what, that is an evil satanic practice.
And the Bible says that it should just be
not exist in our society, we should ban it.
We should try to pass legislation.
Now, of course there's a lot of problems with that.
Go to Proverbs chapter 28.
You know, if you have a little baby wolf
that is born near you,
and you decide to start feeding it, it'll grow.
And then it's no longer a baby wolf, it's a big bad wolf.
And then when you let that big bad wolf have babies,
and then they have babies,
now it's not just a little baby wolf,
now it's a pack of wolves.
And here's the thing, we've been feeding so many wolves,
so much interest and usury, and they've gotten so rich,
and they have their fangs sunk in to America so much
that if someone were to try to fight this pack of wolves
and say, "Hey, let's ban interest,"
oh boy, you might die very quickly.
You might accidentally commit suicide or whatever,
because man, there's a lot of people making a lot of money,
and it is a big business, okay?
So we've allowed it to get out of control,
but that doesn't mean we should just give up and just say,
"Now we're just subject to wolves for the rest of our life."
You know, part of the problem is just admitting the problem.
Let's just admit the problem.
We have an interest problem in America.
We have a usury problem in America.
And both of the problems that I'm talking about this evening
are things that are very easy for all of us to fall into the trap.
The trap is available everywhere.
There is an interest trap everywhere available for you.
I mean, whether it's a payday loan, credit card,
just traditional loans, mortgages.
I mean, just, you can get interest charged on you
faster than you can think.
Someone will take advantage of you
as quickly as you want them to take advantage of you, okay?
I mean, I've even seen, I got a letter in the mail
about getting a loan to pay taxes.
It was like, what in the world?
It was like, do you, I'm like,
I'm already getting ripped off by the government.
Now I have to then get a loan
and then get ripped off by you
while I'm getting ripped off by the government for,
I mean, it's just like the endlessness
of someone trying to take advantage of you.
It'll never stop.
There is a sea of wolves and bad people
ready to prey on you.
And many individuals today
that seek to get ahead and to make money,
they want to be like the wolves
and they want to get into this interest practice
and making money through this.
You know, the Bible is very clear
that this is not a good way to make money.
It's not benefiting a society.
You know what benefits society?
growing wheat and then selling wheat.
It's like your country as a whole,
it's economic system.
When you charge interest,
you didn't add anything to the economic system.
All you did was rip somebody off inside of that system.
But by building something, now you've added to society.
By creating something, hey, creating wheat
or building something or manufacturing something,
growing something, building something, doing something,
you've actually added to society and then there's value added
because of the work that you've done.
There's a lot of ways to contribute to society
that benefit society.
Interest is the exact opposite.
It is just sucking the life out of the economic system
and it's basically just draining the system all just to you.
It's a complete selfish action.
It's not really doing anything.
It's not building anything.
It's not helping anything.
If literally every single person or society,
the only thing we did was just charge interest,
we would have no economy.
We would have no society.
It's a parasite without a host.
People who charge money are parasites without a host.
The only way for a parasite to live
is to have a host to suck the blood from.
And the only way for someone to make money on interest
is for a poor sucker to come in and get taken advantage of.
It's like if mosquitoes had no host to suck the blood from,
they would all die.
And the reality is, if Americans started saying,
I'm not going to seek interest, I'm not going to seek loans,
well, that's going to dry up that well, isn't it?
It's going to start killing off a lot of the wolves.
The problem is, we're so self-indulgent and over-indulgent,
and we fall into these traps so easily
that we're allowing these wolves to multiply and to grow
and to increase and really try to destroy our nation.
But the Bible's clear here, Proverbs 28.
I want to look at verse number 8.
Let's get at least a verse on this.
It's really clear.
"He that by usury and unjust gain increase of the substance,
he shall gather it for him that will pity the poor."
So God, up from heaven, though, he notices these parasites,
and he says, hey, you're sucking all that blood.
Well, pretty soon, I'm just going to pop you,
and all that blood's going to go back into the system, right?
He's just saying he's looking at these people that are ripping
people off through unjust gain practices,
and he's like, I'll figure out a way to then take advantage
of you, and then I'll take your money, and I'll give it back.
Because God obviously can't just allow this to happen,
because all the parasites would just suck everybody dry.
He, through his wisdom and vengeance,
will constantly redistribute the wealth
of all these wicked people, and it just somehow
feeds its way back into society.
But at the end of the day, it's unjust to make money this way.
It's what you would call dirty money, dirty money.
Meaning, not every way to make money is good.
Not every way to make money God is pleased with.
God thinks that some ways of making money are wrong,
like charging interest.
Interest is considered unjust gain.
Go to Psalm 15, go backwards just a little bit.
Psalm 15, the Bible brings this up.
Now, I'm not going to every verse on usury in the Bible.
There's a lot, but I want to just give you a sense
of how negative it is in the Bible.
Charging interest, and I would say there's a lot.
Sometimes people come up and they ask me,
they're just like, well, you know, I work for this company
and they charge interest.
It's like, should I work for them?
Well, you know, if we were to play that game,
all of us would pretty soon be unemployed
because it's just like,
what does your company not do that's bad?
It's like, well, my company donates to sodomites.
Yeah, every company virtually.
Okay, my company charges interest, yep.
My company rips people off, yep.
My company doesn't pay taxes right.
That's a lot of them.
My company, you know, it's just like,
my company sells liquor.
My company, I mean, it's just like,
what company out there isn't involved in sin?
I don't know.
Steadfast Baptist Church.
Work, but I can't hire everybody, okay?
You know, it's like,
if you're fortunate to work for a church,
you know, okay, that's like an exception.
But outside of that, you know,
I even have jobs outside of working for the church.
I do a lot of other things.
And you know what?
You can't escape sin.
You can't escape living in a sinful world.
It's like you're going to,
if you want to find a way to think that your job's sinful.
I guarantee there's not a person in this room,
apart from somebody that only works for a church that could say,
like, hey, my job doesn't have some tie directly into sin, okay?
It just is there.
And so, you know, I don't get like,
I would never condemn somebody if they said like,
hey, I work for a bank, I'm not going to be like,
oh, you wicked sinner, you're so evil, you know?
But the guy that works for Anheuser-Busch is somehow a good guy, right?
Right?
I mean, it's like, what's the difference, you know?
I mean, like, what companies out there are people not doing something shady, weird,
there's probably issues with almost everything.
If you own your own business, there's some businesses
that are more wholesome than others, and I get it.
But I would just say this, try your best to avoid
being directly involved in the most sinful businesses.
And if you're gonna start your own business,
don't just start an obvious one that's sinful.
I'm just gonna start a business charging interest.
It's like that's pretty much just asking for God
to not be pleased with you and to basically curse you.
Hey, Daniel worked for Nebuchadnezzar.
God still blessed him while working for a pretty evil boss, right?
For a boss that's not really involved.
I mean, you think Nebuchadnezzar is champion of holiness
and righteousness for the kingdom, probably doing a lot of evil stuff, right?
But at the end of the day, you can be a good servant
and be a good testimony in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation.
But at the same time, I don't have to directly get involved with sinful practices.
I don't have to directly start businesses that are just violating the Bible clearly, okay?
And I think that there's plenty of things that you would just say are complete off limits, okay?
Now, God forbid, you know, if we had a perfect society,
then yeah, I would say don't ever get involved in interest in any way.
But just to be honest, almost every company is involved in this.
I mean, it doesn't matter whether it comes to just a chair manufacturer.
I mean, think about it, just your local furniture store.
They're not doing anything wrong, but guess what?
They have credit cards and they have interest to buy that furniture.
You could go to Walmart and Walmart will give you a credit card with interest on it,
just to buy gum.
You could buy gum on interest.
I mean, it's like what business isn't involved in this shady practice?
Now, I think we should, as principled Christians though, say that we're against interest, right?
We should stand against that and try to have a reasonable balance.
I think that God doesn't expect us to have unreasonable demands put upon us and try to
live in a society where we've just escaped anything that could possibly be bad or negative
or something like that.
Obviously, we live in a fallen world.
But me personally, I just really didn't want to ... I worked for a bank for a while, and
I was in the loan department specifically and was being groomed to be a commercial lender
where that would be my daily functions.
I decided to get out of it.
You could tell a lot of the people that were in that were getting sucked into the love
of money.
They had a weird mindset.
They didn't even look at people as people anymore.
Everybody's just dollars and cents to them.
I think that that obviously is an unhealthy lifestyle.
I wanted to avoid it.
I probably would do my best to avoid being a direct money lender just because it's a
very negative thing.
It's a very evil thing.
You can see the evil by what you do to people on a regular basis, especially when I worked
for Wells Fargo, a very satanic place.
I worked as a personal banker, and what they do to the poor people in society is just evil.
The lending practices and the way that banks manage people's money is just evil.
They rip people off.
They literally will change your transaction history on purpose to charge you more fees.
I even remember this one particular customer was being stolen from, I don't know, tens
of thousands of dollars.
I tried to tell my boss, "We need to alert this customer," and they said they'd fire
me if I told the customer they were being ripped off.
It was just like, "Why am I here?"
Banks in general are just very evil places because they're essentially violating the
most important aspects of what the Bible says, like having a love of money.
Their whole business is based on a principle that's just wrong.
Not a legitimate way to make money is by selling interest.
You can take that for what it is.
Somebody's going to come ask me, "Should I have this?"
I don't care.
I've already told you what I think on that.
At the end of the day, if you feel really wrong about it or bad, then you probably should
change.
To him that knew how to do good and do with it not, to him it is sin, or if you're not
doing something by faith, it's sin to that person.
So, if you just felt that crummy about the evil, wicked things you're doing, then yeah.
If I work for a company that just happened to sell alcohol, I would hope that I'm not
in that department.
But I don't want to be the bartender.
I can't be the bartender somewhere, literally serving people poison and having a God-fearing
conscience.
At that point, it sometimes crosses the line for me.
So I want to give you a reasonable viewpoint here.
But look what the Bible says in Psalm 15 about this.
Verse 1, "Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle, who shall dwell in thy holy hill?"
It's just talking about the people that are going to be abiding with God, close to God,
near God, in church.
And look what it says in verse 5, "He that putteth not out his money to usury."
So who are the people that are abiding with God?
Who are the people in his tabernacle?
Who are the people praising him?
It's not the people putting their money out to usury.
You know, it's not a coincidence that people that love to charge interest and love to be
in banking and stuff like that aren't knocking down the door of Steadfast Baptist Church.
They're not really knocking down the door of fundamental Baptist churches.
Usually they infiltrate non-evangelical churches and get on their board and basically rule
from afar.
You know, I've seen a lot of it.
It's frustrating, but it is kind of gross.
But you know, the people that are going to abide in the right kind of house of God, they're
not greedy of filthy lucre and of this kind of money.
It's evil.
Go to 1 Samuel chapter 8, go to 1 Samuel chapter number 8.
Well, you're not going to get a lot of rich people bringing in all their interest in here,
Pastor Shelley.
Well, you know what?
Curse it be you and your money.
I don't need your filthy money.
You know what?
I'm not interested in, you know, seeing how many people we can drag into this building.
I'm not interested in seeing how many rich people we can get to be members of our church.
You know, sometimes rich people aren't even there for the right reasons, okay.
Now again, there's always exceptions.
I know people that are, you know, have lots of money and they're really nice, generous
people and they're very godly Christians.
So there can always be exceptions.
But by and large, rich people are high maintenance.
They are lovers of themselves.
They want to basically act like they walk on a cloud into the church and be treated
like, you know, everybody should just worship them or something.
And it's kind of gross.
You know, I remember growing up there was an individual who attended a Baptist church
in our area and he started a bank and then he basically ended up just becoming a multimillionaire
and kind of a very prominent figure.
But here's the thing, you could tell that that affected how he treated people.
You could tell like, hey, I'm going to say something.
And it's like, well, why do you get to say something?
Have you done anything in the church?
No.
Are you a ball winner?
No.
Do you do anything spiritual?
No.
But you know what?
I've made a lot of money.
And it's like, what if we decided, hey, the next person that gets to preach a sermon
while I'm gone, it's just whoever makes the most money in this room.
Like, is that really the best way to determine who should be the person that gets to preach
the next sermon?
Or who gets to be on the board of directors?
Or the person who's the elder or the deacon or whatever?
But you know what?
In most churches, you know they decide to be the deacons and the elders and whatever.
And just who's the richest business owners in their church?
Or the bankers or whoever can get them hooked up with loans and whatever and prestige.
You know what?
That's wicked.
And you know who loves taking advantage of people?
False prophets and evil satanic preachers.
And they're always obsessed with money.
Now there's a common theme in the Bible about unjust gain and filthy money and false preachers.
Luke says in First Samuel chapter number eight, verse number three, "And his sons," talking
about Eli's sons, "walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes
and perverted judgment."
So these two sons of Eli, who were sons of Belial according to the Bible, they took what's
called lucre.
Now go over to 1 Peter, I just want to go to a few places real quick, go to 1 Peter.
I don't want people to get confused on some of these words.
But the reason why I'm taking kind of a break in the sermon to define this is because I
think it really helps us to set words in our mind.
The word "lucre" is in reference to money, but it's always in reference to filthy money
or dirty money or money made in an unjust way.
What's an unjust way to make money?
Charging interest.
Here's another way to make money that's really wicked, is by preaching lies, is by being
a minister of God and saying things that are not true for money.
That is lucre when someone is taking money to preach lies in God's name.
And so false prophets and false teachers are often called out for lucre.
Why?
Because they're not sincere, they're not really in the ministry for ministerial purposes,
they're in it for money.
And even a lot of times people in business and in finance, they literally go to church
for money.
And you would think like, how in the world, how is someone going to church for money?
That doesn't even make sense.
But you don't understand how these systems work.
You go to Gateway, you know what they're going to do?
They are going to network.
They network in these churches and they tell, they even tell people like, hey, if you're
going to do business, do business with the people in this room.
And so anybody that needs a loan, they'll go to the banker in that, in that church and
they'll go to the so-and-so business person.
And basically just everybody is just having this incestual business relationship in these
mega churches and they'll get them hooked up with their 401ks.
There's a lot of predatory people that go around and try to sell 401ks everybody and
mutual funds and all these different things and they're always ripping people off.
My mom even got suckered by one of these sideshow freaks who tried to tell her like, "Hey, you
should get all your money in these mutual funds, they're doing really well."
So she took like a bunch of her money and my money and invested all these mutual funds
and just lost tens of thousands of dollars with this vampire coming in and just sucking
the blood out of people.
And of course, because in church, everybody's so trustworthy, "Oh, it's a guy in a nice
suit at church.
He's going to probably do great.
Be careful doing business with people in church."
Look, I'm not against any of you and I don't want any of you to not be successful, but
at the end of the day, sometimes it's better to stay friends from afar because business
can come times get a little messy.
And I try my best to avoid that sometimes, not because I don't like you, but just because
when it goes awry it really sucks, okay, especially when you know the person.
And a lot of bad people, they literally go to churches only to network, only just to
try and procure business.
It's just another social club for them to try and get ahead and get more people on their
bank statement, their payroll, their MLM or whatever.
And it's wicked.
It's wicked because it's similar to the preacher getting up and preaching lies there at church
on false pretenses.
They're not there because they love the Lord.
They're just looking for the next sucker to take advantage of.
Now 1 Peter chapter 5, look at verse number 2, "Feed the flock of God which is among you,
taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of
a ready mind."
Meaning someone should never be a pastor for money.
That should never be the reason why anyone is ever a pastor is for a paycheck.
You know, it's a scary thing.
That person should be a pastor because they love the Lord, because they want to minister
to souls, because they want to help other people serve Christ better.
And I don't think that it has to be the case, but I'll tell you, men who have to make a
financial sacrifice to become a pastor often are in way better shape and way better people
to be a pastor because you can tell that their heart was in it for the right reasons.
Whereas somebody that's kind of not been good in business or not succeeded, if they were
to make a lot more money by being a pastor, that's a danger because that person could
end up continuing pastoring only for the paycheck.
And so I think it makes sense as we raise the next generation of preachers that we should
try to help young men make good money and have lots of skills and then choose them to
become pastors, not to make more money, in some cases to make less.
So then that way they're only motivated to stay being a preacher because of the right
reasons, not for a paycheck.
And I know lots of people, myself included, that pastoring is not furthering our financial
careers in the sense that you could take all the effort and energy you're putting into
this and apply it somewhere else and probably make way more money.
That's safer because it helps motivate people to do things for the right reason, not to,
"Hey, I'm just doing this for filthy lucre's sake."
Look, I'm all for paying pastors a good price and making sure they're paid well, but if
they are just doing it for a paycheck, it's filthy lucre at that point.
Go to 1 Timothy chapter 3, we'll go to a few more places and I'll finish this tangent,
but I don't want you to get confused.
There's nothing wrong with paying a pastor.
We have people come in here and they'll be telling me like, "Oh, pastors should never
get paid."
And it's just like, "Why?
Should you not get paid?
Why would a pastor not get paid?"
And they just hate on people for getting paid for the work that they do.
You know, the apostle Paul, he kind of always says the opposite.
He's like saying, "Hey, if someone's ministering you spiritual things, how much more should
they take your carnal things?"
It's like you're not helping them, they're helping you, okay?
That's silly to think that by you giving them carnal money, you're somehow helping them
out as opposed to them giving you spiritual things that no one can really distribute to
you.
I mean, how many godly, spirit-filled ministers really are out there that you can just get
free services from today versus how many people will hire you and just give you money for
doing work?
It's like there's billions of people that will pay me for doing work.
There's very few people that are willing to offer me free spiritual counsel, wisdom, and
advice from the scripture.
So it makes plenty of sense to pay those people from a carnal perspective and specifically
from a biblical perspective.
I'm not going to prove that point, but when we talk about lucre, we're talking about as
a pastor not getting paid for working for God, not for doing that which is right, not
for preaching the right things, but rather for preaching lies, for not being there for
sincere reasons, pastoring just to get the paycheck, not because he actually cares for
people or wants to be a minister.
Now there's something deceitful about it.
First Timothy chapter number three, the Bible says in verse three, not given to wine, no
striker, not greedy of filthy lucre.
Pastors should not be greedy of filthy lucre.
Meaning what?
There's no way they would like to make money if it's by dirty means.
Meaning that they're not a person that's willing to make money at all costs.
They have a moral compass and they said, "I'm not going to make money on usury.
I'm not going to make money by preaching lies.
I'm not going to make money on smut, on literal smut."
That kind of filth, and we're going to get there in a minute, but there are literal ministers
out there that make money on literal smut.
It's insane.
That's a person that's greedy of filthy lucre.
Look at verse 8.
The Bible says, "Likewise must the deacons be grave, not double-tongued, not given much
wine, not greedy of filthy lucre."
Hey, you want to be a deacon?
It's someone that's not greedy of filthy lucre.
Oh, guess who's our new deacon?
The commercial lender.
Let's all clap for the new banker, the new guy.
He makes all of his money by charging usury.
Let's bring him up here, the guy that's not greedy of filthy lucre.
Oh wait, that's exactly who we just ordained as the deacon of the church.
And how many churches are doing that today?
And then they get mad about all the problems in society when they're literally praising
usurers and the bankers and the people charging money and making money by ill gain, by unjust
gain and praising them on stage.
I mean don't you think children in a church look up to the guy that you just ordained
as the deacon or the elder of the past, like what do you do for a living?
Oh I charge money on usury, on interest, like oh I want to do that then.
It's wicked.
You know and how can we as a society be Christian when we're violating the Old Testament and
then putting these people in positions of power, right?
I mean it just doesn't even make any sense, yet how many churches are doing that?
How many churches are putting these people in these positions of power?
Shame on them.
Titus chapter number one, it's because they don't want to actually define what lucre is.
Because they don't actually want to define what filthy lucre is and what these words
actually mean.
But you know what?
The Bible is really clear on unjust gain, making money by ill means, preaching lies.
Titus chapter number one, look at verse seven, "For a bishop must be blameless as the steward
of God, not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy
lucre."
I think the Bible is really clear on this.
Hey, the leaders of the church should never ever want to make money in an unjust way.
It reminds me of when Moses was ordaining people, and when they ordain men, it's men
that hate covetousness, hating covetousness.
That's the kind of judges and leaders that we need in our society, ones that say, "Hey,
the only way I'm going to make a buck is on the sweat of my back.
I'm not going to go out there and just rip off poor people and then pretend like I'm
a righteous person."
The bankers today going out and taking advantage of all the poor and the derelicts in our society,
ripping them off, taking advantage of them when they're weak, and then pretending like
he's a righteous person, putting on his blood money suit.
How is he any better than the drug dealer?
"I don't like this sermon."
"Well, go to that church.
He'll give you a loan."
Look at verse 11.
The Bible says this, "Whose mouths must be stopped, whose overt whole house is teaching
things which they ought not, for filthy, lucre's sake."
Hey, you know what the Jews did?
They taught things that they shouldn't for filthy, lucre's sake.
Here's something that they teach.
Interest is a good thing.
Hey, banks are helping society.
You know who's like the biggest proponent of praising themselves for donating money
to charity?
Banks.
You know what the Bible like literally says?
Not to let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, but banks will literally have
huge checks that they give and they'll be like, "We're donating this $500 to save a
puppy.
We're donating it to this homeless charity."
Now, mind you, this guy is the guy that we literally made $10,000 off of his back, charging
him all kinds of interest, and we literally made him homeless, but then we gave him $500
in a big check.
Yay!
Yay us!
Oh, teaching that banks are such a good...
I mean, you watch a commercial on a bank, they'll tell you how much they're helping
society and they love people.
We're helping people find a home for three times the price it was worth.
Oh, they never finish the sentence, do they?
We're helping people save for the future by taking a percentage of their money away from
them.
You know, it's like that's how the banks promise it, you know, it's all love and happiness
and goodness, teaching things which they ought not for filthy, lucrative sake.
You know what they should be getting up?
We're evil and satanic and gonna rip you off.
Who wants to sign up now?
It's the fine print.
They just don't yell it, okay?
The fine print will tell you all the dirty details, but they make them so long and they
just sign here, just sign a couple times.
Don't worry what that's saying.
It's just saying we're gonna take your soul.
You know, one of the worst people out there is the reverse mortgage people.
I hate the reverse mortgage people because they're taking advantage of the elderly too.
And a lot of the elderly people, they've lost their mind.
You know, you can find them at the White House and a lot of other places, the geriatric unit
in the Oval Office.
These people don't even know their name and they're signing up for these remorseful works.
They're taking and ripping out all their inheritance and stealing all this money from them, and
then they'll say, "Oh, they're just helping them preserve their home," by stealing it
from them.
By literally stealing it from them.
Instead of, like, I don't know, them selling their house and moving in with their kids
and not getting ripped off for the next 20 years, they basically get signed up with some
reverse mortgage guy who literally will repo their house and put them in the community
home.
That's what our society has turned into.
Why?
Because everybody's just greedy of filthy lucre.
And we have to stop the problem ourselves.
Okay?
Now, go if you went to Leviticus chapter 19, go to Leviticus chapter 19.
The reason why I coupled these two is because they were coupled in the Bible.
I want to go visit the other one for a minute because it's another way of making money that's
unjust.
It's a dirty way to make money is by selling smut.
Okay?
There's so many people selling smut today and it's just, it's insane how much this
has grown, mostly because of the internet.
And the internet, hey, it's a neutral thing, but the internet is being used for a lot of
evil.
I worked in software, I've worked in software for over a decade, and one of the first jobs
I had, I worked with someone who originally worked for an internet servicing company.
So they basically provided you internet, okay?
And they were like an alternative to a lot of the big, big boy names, you know, we think
of like Spectrum, Comcast, AT&T, they were just a small local supplier of internet.
And I remember talking with him about the issue, this issue of SMUT being on the internet.
He said they would monitor their traffic and around 80 to 90% of all internet traffic is
just pornography.
That's a, that's a scary statistic.
That's sad.
It's like you would think like, hey, the internet's a good thing, but 89, 80 to 90% of it is that,
just that.
That's the only reason people are even using it.
Now, I think because of social media, that would probably be a lot lower today just because
a lot of people are doing a lot more activity, but this was about 10 years ago.
10 years ago, we didn't really have the explosion of Facebook and some of the YouTube and stuff,
so the vast majority of the internet usage was just that.
Now, again, I think that the usage has increased only because people are using the internet
more.
I'm sure that statistic is probably lower.
I have no idea.
This was an anecdotal story, but it's pretty sad.
It's pretty sad of what's really going on in reality.
And what's happening in our society is we are being destroyed because of this sin.
And I believe that we need to stand against it.
Now, the Bible says in Leviticus chapter 19, look what it says in verse 29, "Do not
prostitute thy daughter to cause her to be a whore."
This really stuck out to me because notice it's saying to cause her to be a whore.
It's not that she's a whore, you're causing her to be a whore.
I don't think that young girls are whores.
I don't think that young ladies are whores.
There could be an exception out there, but the vast majority of women that become whores,
they were caused to become a whore by being prostituted out.
And the prostitution in many cases is not obvious.
It's just, "Hey, we're going to drop you off at college and just see how it goes."
And by prostituting their daughter, they ended up causing them to be a whore.
Why?
Because young girls need things.
They need protection.
They need emotional support.
They need money.
They need someone to help them, to guard them.
They need all these things.
And in a lot of ways for these young women, the only way they feel like they're going
to get this is by whoring themselves out to their boyfriend or to some man.
And some man will provide that for them when it should have been their father.
Their father should have been the man in their life providing them with the emotional support,
the money, the security and just not letting them just go off and do whatever and be whatever
because now you're causing her to be a whore.
You're causing her to go into that and once they go down that road it's really hard to
pull them back.
That's the really difficult aspect of this.
Go to Genesis 34.
I have a few verses on this that I want to look at here but if we want to be honest and
if we really want to solve the problem of pornography, we have to recognize why it's
happening and let me explain why pornography exists.
It is a father problem.
It's only a father problem.
It's sad because a lot of men have understood this and in high school and college and everything,
they would even often try to target women or girls that would admit they have daddy
issues or they have an issue with their father or they have an absent father.
Why?
Because they were more likely to become a whore or to go down that road and let me
explain something.
You know the reason why women become whores is because of their dad.
There could be an exception and I don't want to necessarily always say that you couldn't
have a bad seed but the vast majority of whoredom and the vast majority of girls going in this
direction is because of a bad father.
It's because of the fathers not taking responsibility for their daughters and the Bible is literally
even saying hey don't prostitute thy daughter to cause her to be a whore lest the land
fall to whoredom.
And you know what America has fallen to whoredom because fathers are allowing their daughters
to prostitute themselves and in many cases they're literally prostituting themselves
in their physical presence.
I mean you just go to the mall today and there will be dads walking up and down all of the
area with their daughter dressed like a literal whore, dressed like a literal harlot, dressed
in a way that she would have been arrested 50 years ago in this nation.
And people are horrified and shocked by that, but you know you couldn't just dress however
you wanted in America in the 50s and in the 60s.
You couldn't wear that itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini.
You know that whole song is basically talking about there was so much of a social stigma
and even criminal law against it that this woman's afraid to be in a two piece bikini.
But now it's a sports bra and it's fine, right?
Now it's just whatever you want to call it.
I mean girls literally are just virtually just dressed naked everywhere in the presence
of their father.
I mean you're causing the whole land to fall to whoredom.
And of course now women then they sell their bodies online for money because they feel
like that's the only thing they can do because you've already got them going down that road
and they're just going to keep going down that road.
It's not that they're just inherently worse than other women or something.
But you're pushing them in that direction.
They feel like they have no option and they end up going in that direction in many cases.
Now a lot of times they don't even have a desire to get into that but they get damaged
and as a result of getting damaged then they end up becoming a whore even more down the
road.
Now let's try to stop it at its root.
Here's a woman that I don't think is a whore but could very well go into that lifestyle
and it's Dinah, Jacob's daughter.
How did she even get there, Genesis chapter 34, look at verse number 1, "And Dinah the
daughter of Leah, which she bare unto Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land.
And when Sheikah the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her
and lay with her and defiled her."
Notice Dinah went out to what?
See the daughters of the land.
Dinah has no intention to become a whore.
Dinah has no intention of going in that direction.
But she ends up going in that direction, why?
Because her dad wasn't around.
You know who wasn't with Dinah, Jacob.
He's not hanging out with her.
He's just letting her just go out on the town.
And you know what?
If you fathers think you can just let your young daughters just go out and do whatever
they want, you are literally setting them up to destroy themselves.
Don't do it.
I saw someone that's not even like a fundamental Baptist or anything, he said, you know, my
daughter is going to go straight from my roof to her husband's roof with nothing in between.
And I was like, how can even the secular world or these, you know, fake Christians figure
this out and even fundamental Baptists can't?
It's like the college and the dorm room and just letting girls just go out and do whatever.
It's destroying our country.
It's destroying our society.
And once they get defiled, here's the problem.
Haymore is actually an honorable guy.
He's considered the most honorable person in his town.
Most guys are not like him.
Most guys, as soon as they get this, now they're done with her.
And then she just goes to the next relation, next relation, and then pretty soon, now the
sudden she's, she has no options.
So now she's just selling her body online, selling smut online, getting tricked into
this scam and when they get into this scam, now it's hard for them to get out.
This is the story of many young women today.
The dad is not present.
You'll read the Proverbs chapter 7, you'll see this is a common theme.
Proverbs chapter number 7, the dad's not present and it's just, it's destroying our society.
We need to ban pornography in our society and not even make it available.
We need to make it a crime again and you know it's so sad, in many states in America it's
illegal to engage in prostitution, like it's a criminal act, but magically if there's a
camera involved it's all of a sudden legal.
Isn't that insane?
That's literally insane.
Who's coming up with these loopholes?
I wonder.
Jews, that's who.
You know and of course if we banned interest and pornography Jews wouldn't have any way
to make any money anymore in our society.
They're the purveyors of a lot of this filth.
Pretty much everything the Bible says not to do, they're doing and making money on it.
All the vices, gambling, casinos, just all this kind of stuff.
And they just want to make everyone filthy and dirty like them.
They want you to go down into the sewers with them, literally.
And if you don't go they might just snatch your daughters and drag them in the tunnels
with them anyways.
And you know how your daughter doesn't get snatched up?
You're with her.
Our world's getting dark.
People are getting literally just taken advantage of, and praise God you live in Texas, because
if you lived in Europe or in some of these really Democrat cities, women are being snatched
off the streets in droves and killed.
There was a young lady in Georgia recently who some migrant just snatched her off the
road and just did horrible things to her and then killed her.
Young 22 year old girl who's involved in her church and she was trying to become like a
nurse or something, an A student in college just walking up down the street, but you know
what?
You know who wasn't there?
Dad!
Because he's off to college.
Don't just think, "Oh, I'm just going to send off Dinah and just see how it goes."
That never goes well.
The Bible makes it abundantly clear it's the dad's problem.
The daughter, whenever she's given in marriage, you know who gets paid for the dowry?
The dad.
But you know what?
That dowry went away.
I wonder if it's because dads just kept shipping off their daughters and just not even caring
anymore and none of them are virgin anymore and they haven't protected them anymore, they're
not worth getting paid anyways because all the women have just become whores and they're
selling their bodies online.
And you know, oftentimes when it gets to that point, it's already too late.
And it's like a lot of, a lot of Christians and a lot of people say like, yeah, ban pornography.
You know what they won't do?
They won't actually watch their daughters until they get married.
Oh, I'm against pornography.
Well, if you're against pornography, then make sure your daughter never leaves your
sight until she has a ring finger on her hand.
How about that?
Oh, that sounds, that's difficult.
That's hard.
I don't want to have to do that.
I'm going to have to pay her bills.
Yeah.
That's how you ban it.
When you literally stop the supply, when you literally stop people from just having
all these young women being out there and being damaged goods and just having no real
good option and they just fall victim to this system.
Look what it says in Proverbs chapter seven, verse seven.
It says, "And beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youth a young man void
of understanding."
So this is a guy going out, he's stupid.
Verse eight, "Passing through the street near her corner and he went the way to her house."
He runs into a woman.
Now what kind of a woman?
It says in verse number nine, "In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night,
and behold, there met him a woman with the attire of a harlot and subtle of heart."
So this woman's dressed like a whore.
But you know, this is what's sad.
She is loud and stubborn, her feet abide not her house, now is she without, now in the
streets, and lieth and wait at every corner.
This sounds like America.
Just tons of women out on the street, dressed like whores, and no dad in sight.
No father in sight, no husband in sight, just whatever.
So she caught him and kissed him, and with an impudent face said unto him, "I have peace
offerings with me.
This day have I paid my vows.
Therefore came I forth to meet thee, diligently to seek thy face, and I have found thee.
I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt.
I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning.
Let us solace ourselves with love.
Here's the key verse.
For the goodman is not at home.
None of this would have happened if the goodman was home.
None of this would have happened if the goodman was standing there and putting on a modest
dress or skirt on this horus woman.
This horus woman's out there in the attire of a harlot, out there seeking for tricks,
and you know what? It's a shame because the goodman is not at home.
And why is it that we have such a pornography issue in our society? It's because the goodman
is not at home.
It's because while men slept, the enemy is sowing tears amongst the wheat.
It's because men don't want to raise their daughters.
It's because men are allowing girls to go out and just make this industry boom.
Because if there wasn't any supply, there wouldn't be any demand, folks.
And let's just be honest about the demand factor here.
Men are always in demand of this.
The problem wasn't like, "Hey, let's stop men from wanting this."
Never going to happen.
It's saying, "Don't supply it."
It's basically like, don't just put food outside and expect that critters won't come.
It's like, we've got to solve the critter problem.
Stop putting food outside.
You know, you can't just put food outside and then not expect all the night creatures
to come and try to get it.
You have to basically stop the food.
You know, my parents would always say if there's a stray cat, never feed it because it'll keep
coming back.
Okay.
And if the reality is, you know, the only way to really solve this problem is you have
to, you have to cut it off at the root and we have to stop supplying it.
We need to stop having the ability to put it out there.
And as a Christian society, you know, we, us, we need to stop supplying it a hundred
percent.
You know, we're raising the next generation.
We're the ones bopping out babies.
Have you seen the bullpen?
So many precious little girls here.
What a shame and embarrassment if we have the same rate of girls going into prostitution
and pornography as the world.
I mean, all these precious little children, you know what?
It's going to be because a dad didn't watch his daughters, didn't take care of his daughters,
didn't protect his daughters, didn't provide for his daughters.
You know, we need some real men to rise up and, and help this problem and stop this problem.
And you know what?
There's even politicians, there's a guy in Oklahoma City, Dusty Devers.
He's a state senator, he's proposed a bill to ban pornography.
And I'm thinking like, praise God, that sounds great.
You know what?
He's a Baptist pastor.
Hey, praise God there's actually a Baptist pastor out there that's willing to ban pornography.
I hope he also watches his daughters too though.
I hope he also encourages people to do that because the reality is this is probably never
going to happen.
It's another wolf where there's so much money.
There's another guy out there, Solomon Friedman.
I don't know if you know what religion he is.
Solomon Friedman is the owner of a company called Ethical Capital Partners.
That sounds wonderful.
Ethical.
We're so ethical.
Well, what's unique about Ethical Capital Partners is they recently bought a new company.
They bought a company that owns 16 websites and guess what they're all invested in?
Adult entertainment.
In fact, they're the top.
They're the number one.
This is the number one company for providing adult entertainment online.
Solomon Friedman and his company, he's part of this company, Ethical Capital Partners,
who recently purchased this.
Here's some interesting facts about Solomon Friedman.
He's an ordained rabbi.
You want to talk about someone that's guilty of filthy lucre?
You want to talk about someone that's going after unjust gain?
It's the rabbi who literally owns the top porn sites in the world.
Think about that.
It's the number one company, and this company doesn't own one site, it owns top 16.
In fact, some argue the top six, and all the top six are owned by the same company, and
it's this guy, Ethical Capital Partners.
What a wicked, satanic, evil person.
Now, they have a business front website where you can learn about these ethical capital
partners.
This is what they say about them.
They have all these paragraphs talking about how wonderful the company is.
One is called ethics first investing.
So of course, they're ethics minded first, folks, okay?
Here's a quote from their website.
"We seek out investment opportunities in industries that require principled ethical leadership."
I mean, you invest in smut and that requires principled ethical leadership.
This is insane, folks.
The world that we live in.
But you know what?
It's always the same people.
Why do you think the Bible says there's a synagogue of Satan?
And they do exactly the opposite of what the Bible says.
And it's like, what are Jews mostly invested in?
Interest and pornography, my friend.
You want to know who owns the banks?
You want to know who owns the money in this world?
You want to know who's putting out all the smut in this world?
It is Jews and it is they are the minions of the devil.
It is Satan behind the curtain using his minions to try and pervert the minds and the
hearts of our youth.
And they want Christians to fall into the trap of pornography.
And they want Christians to fall in the trap of interest and both will suck the life out
of you.
And it has never been easier than 2024 to fall into one of these traps.
It is literally on every street corner, on every website, on everywhere.
There is just businesses just trying to rip you off with interest.
There is an opportunity to look at smut at the drop of a finger.
And let me tell you something, we need to protect our children from these evil traps.
They will destroy them.
They will destroy everyone.
And you know, the reality is, you're never going to crush demand for these products.
We have to, as men, try to create boundaries and try to prevent our youths from getting
taken advantage of these areas.
And let me tell you something, children are too foolish and too stupid to guard themselves.
You as a parent, you have to protect them on these issues.
Protect them from the internet.
Protect them from a lot of these evils.
Don't let them get sucked in.
I mean, how many children are going to college and what are the two things that they leave
college with?
Student loans and an STD list.
I mean, think about it.
Young men are going to college and they're just getting just totally in debt and interest
and you know, they have a big problem in this area usually as well.
Why?
Because they don't have any boundaries.
You know, I'm even for keeping your sons at home and protecting them and guarding them
and not letting them go down this road.
You know, we as men need to make sure that we are the gatekeepers of our household and
we have to try our best to prevent this as much as possible.
It's probably impossible to escape it completely, but can we at least limit it?
Can we at least just be realistic about the threat that's out there?
Can we at least do the best that we can for ourselves?
And you know, probably almost every person has fallen victim of both of these many times,
just because it's the reality.
It's what's going on there.
But just think of a Jew laughing every time you do it, and maybe that'll help you.
Because it's literally a Jew behind the curtain doing all this stuff.
I want to go one more place, go to Leviticus 20, okay?
And just like anything, sin is not trying to necessarily show you where they really
want to take you at first.
They just want to get you in the water, and then eventually they'll suck you to somewhere
you never wanted to be.
And that is how pornography is, where they just want to get you enticed with something,
and then they just want to take you to the weirdest, most disgusting, filthy places imaginable.
And it's called Leviticus 20.
Leviticus 20 is literally what's happening in our country right now, and through this
industry.
And it needs to be banned.
I mean, it's insane when you read this chapter and you're thinking like, "Why are people
doing this?
Or why are we allowing this?"
It's like that's what's happening in the pornography industry in our country.
Now, Leviticus chapter 20, look at verse 10, "And the man that committed adultery with
another man's wife, even he that committed adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer
and the adulterer shall surely be put to death."
This is now being promoted by people like Sneco online, who literally has men commit
adultery with his wife and puts it on the internet.
I mean, that's, and then now it's like in popular culture where people are constantly
talking about this and constantly bringing this up, like this should be the death penalty.
Sneco's wife and that person should be put to death according to God's law, not giving
him lots of money.
I mean this guy is literally making millions of dollars by pimping out his wife.
And the worst thing about it is the good man is at home, the good man is at home and he's
doing that.
Look at verse 11, "And the man that lieth with his father's wife hath uncovered his
father's nakedness, both of them shall surely be put to death, their blood shall be upon
them.
And if a man lie with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death,
they have wrought confusion, their blood shall be upon them."
Incest, and look there's a lot of incest in this chapter, I don't even want to read
all of it, it's so gross, but a lot of that is happening in our society through this wickedness.
And what happens next, verse 13, "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lie with a woman,
both of them have committed an abomination, they shall surely be put to death, their blood
shall be upon them."
That is a major component of pornography.
The LGBT community is majorly involved in this industry, and they're putting it out
there.
A lot of people are arguing, these Jews and a lot of these individuals, they're arguing
that that's their goal is to get as many people involved in this, but they slowly get them
involved in the normal stuff so they can take them to the perverted route eventually, and
they can drag them down.
Now, of course, we understand that someone who's saved can't go that far, but think
about how many people are not saved, and they're just going into the normal stuff, how close
they're tempting fate on these issues and getting confused, how many teenagers and young
people are being told that there's something that they're not and then getting sucked into
this stuff and messed up on this stuff.
There's so many teenagers and college students today that are struggling with this because
their dad won't shut it off.
He won't shut it off for himself, and he won't shut it off for the kids, and he's not taking
control of the household, and he's just destroying our country today.
And some Jew is out there just destroying our country literally, like the parasite he is,
and it's ethical, capital standards.
We're so ethical.
Look at verse 14.
"And if a man take a wife and her mother, it is wickedness.
They shall be burnt with fire, both he and they, that there be no wickedness among you."
This is what we should have as laws.
You know, verse 15.
"And if a man lie with a beast, he shall show you what the death, and he shall slay
the beast."
This stuff, I remember as a kid reading this chapter in the Bible and just thinking like,
why do we even need to say these things?
Like this stuff doesn't even like, this doesn't even seem real.
The sad reality is this is happening in America all the time.
And you know what?
Of course it happened in Canaan.
Look at verse 23.
I'm not going to read the rest of it.
You can read it later if you want to hurt inside.
Verse 23.
"And ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation which I cast out before you, for
they committed all these things; and therefore I abhorred them."
God abhors America right now.
God is so angry in our country.
God is saying, "Here is the worst things imaginable and here is a nation that was doing them.
Here's a nation that was allowing them.
Here's a nation that was excusing it and turning a blind eye to it."
You know, when you read Leviticus chapter 20, the very beginning of the chapter, it's
saying, "Hey, when you turn a blind eye to this stuff, I'm going to hold you guilty for
it."
And you know what?
God is looking down at America, and He's so angry at the wicked sins that we have.
He's so mad at the evil sins that we have.
And it would not surprise me if we are that end times Babylon that the Bible talks about,
and we're just like Canaan, where God's just allowing the wrath to come to the full, and
then He's going to pour out extreme vengeance on our nation.
But you know what, as God's people, we don't have to get into these traps.
You know, I would love for us to actually have a Senator that would propose a bill to
ban entrance and pornography.
That guy has to be brave.
But it probably won't happen.
Now I'm all for it.
I'll still support it.
You know, let's go team.
Hey, I'm for Dusty Devers, pray for him in Oklahoma just even trying to ban pornography.
Probably not happen.
But let me say something, at least just raising the issue causes a few people to say, hey,
maybe I need to make a change in my life.
Maybe I need to not have as much interest.
It's almost inescapable with mortgages, but you don't have to necessarily buy gum on interest.
Stop.
Okay.
Because they'll stop offering you credit cards to buy gum on interest when you stop signing
up for them.
Right?
Stop getting taken advantage of through interest.
And you know what?
Stop letting the smut come into your lives.
Stop letting daughters go out of your sight and get involved in all this sin and evil
and wickedness.
And you know when people bring this stuff up we need to shame them again.
You know it's sad that the site OnlyFans has become so popular now.
It has 230 million users.
That's a lot of people.
3.1 million creators.
And in 2020 it grows 2 billion.
It makes more money than almost every other content like creator content site combined.
It's disgusting.
You know what's really interesting about OnlyFans?
I think it was in 2021 they were going to ban pornography on their site.
It came out.
If you don't believe me, you can look it up.
OnlyFans literally said, "Hey, we don't like the reputation we've gotten.
We're going to ban pornography on our site."
And then all of a sudden it changed, the CEO left, and then Solomon Friedman bought it.
Ethical capital partner.
Hey, what religion is, you know, triumphing in America right now?
Christianity or the synagogue of Satan?
That's a shame.
That's an embarrassment.
You know, there was enough pressure and enough, you know, morality in someone to say like,
"Hey, I need to shut this thing down."
But then he what?
He just sold it out.
And just sold it to Solomon.
Sold it to Friedman.
Hey, you know, Solomon, it's interesting that guy's name is Solomon.
Solomon seemed to have a problem in this area too, didn't he?
I'm telling you, you know, there's a serious issue, a spiritual issue in our country right
now.
And we need to take charge as leaders and set the right example and talk about these
things and expose these things.
And you know, we need to protect our children.
It's a dark world.
If you give your children unfettered access to the Internet, you're an idiot.
You should be monitoring.
And you know, even just as men, you should allow, you know, your wife to look at your
phone and computer whenever they want and however they want.
And you know, we need to just stop letting the Jews destroy us.
I mean, they're not in it, you know, the agendas that they're pushing through both of these
things are so evil.
And I don't want to get into the details of it.
But it's just what they're trying to do to our society is so bad.
And they're trying to get people into the worst sins imaginable through these vices.
And we need to try and shut off the valve and get control of them.
And even if we can't ban it as a state, let's just try to ban it in our own personal lives.
Try to get rid of it.
All right.
Let's close in prayer.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for giving us righteous and holy laws.
Thank you for helping us, you know, even deal with dirty and gross subjects.
I pray that you would just give us strength as Christian men to resist the flesh and to
not fall victim.
I pray that we would have a lot of the traps that are out there.
I pray that we would have the fortitude and the wisdom to avoid a lot of the evils that
are out there.
And I pray that you would give a strong desire in the hearts of men to protect their daughters
and to protect their sons.
And they would help us to avoid these evils that are out there.
And if possible, you know, I pray you would just wake a lot of people up to what's really
going on in our nation.
And maybe we could have a revival of people recognizing the evils that are there.
But let us first begin at the house of God.
In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.
For our final song, let's sing song 56, "When We All Get to Heaven."
Song 56, "When We All Get to Heaven."
Song 5-6, let's sing it out, "When We All Get to Heaven."
Mercy and grace, in the mansion's bright and blessed hill,
there for us to play, while we walk, we'll come back with hope.