Stand up, stand up for Jesus.
Ending this morning, let's open up with a word of prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for everything this morning.
Thank you for getting everyone here safely.
Pray that you bless the singing, the fellowship,
soul winning, and the preaching,
and that you'd fill pastor with the Holy Ghost.
Commit the distractions this morning
and help us to apply the message to our lives.
In Jesus' name I pray, amen.
Our second song will be page 126.
Anywhere with Jesus, page 126.
Anywhere with Jesus.
Page 126.
Thank you so much for coming to Set Fast Baptist Church.
If you need a bulletin, you can lift up your hand real quick.
One of our ushers can come by and get you guys a bulletin.
On the front we have our Bible memory passage.
We're working on Matthew 28.
If you can quote the entire chapter, you can receive a prize.
On the inside is our service and soul winning times.
Make sure that you are turning in your soul winning maps
to our bin when you get done with your soul winning.
We've been doing really, really well
on our soul winning so far this year.
Let's keep up the good work.
We have a list of expecting ladies.
We have our upcoming events, our kids choir practice.
We will continue doing that on Sundays at 2 p.m.
and we're looking forward to hearing them perform for us on Easter.
So Easter morning services, they're going to be singing.
There's two different age groups are going to be singing a different song for us
and so I'm looking forward to that.
This Friday is going to be the wedding for the Foley's
and it's going to be at 6 p.m.
And if you have not RSVP'd, please do so.
Brother Sam has provided that in some of our group chats and everything.
But if you need to ask him after the service or you can ask one of us
and we can help you get that RSVP, we look forward to that celebration.
It's been a long time prayer request, so we're excited about that.
Also, there's a spring swap April 13th
and then there's a Mansfield soul winning marathon, the 19th.
That's just across the pond.
It's Jolpul Lake over here, so it's just kind of on the other side of that.
And we'll look forward to doing a marathon over there.
Easter Sunday service is April 20th, and then we have a ladies,
it's a ladies tea on May 10th, but I think it might be a little bit different
than we have done before, but my wife will have that organized.
We have some church reminders down there.
On the back, we have our prayer list.
That's really all I have as far as announcements.
We'll go ahead and sing our psalm of the week.
It's Psalm 67 and our special binders.
So, if you can pull out your binders.
Psalm 67, and Brother Brandon is going to lead us.
Psalm 67 to Ephesians chapter 5.
Again, that's Ephesians chapter 5.
Bible readers of God, children,
and walk in love as Christ also hath loved us
and hath given himself for us an offering
and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor.
But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness,
let it not be once named among you as becometh saints.
Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting,
which are not convenient, but rather giving of thanks.
For this ye know, that no whoremonger,
nor unclean person, nor covetous man who is an idolater,
hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
Let no man deceive you with vain words,
for because of these things cometh the wrath of God
upon the children of disobedience.
Be not ye therefore partakers with them,
for ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord;
walk as children of light.
For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth,
proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.
And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness,
but rather reprove them.
For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.
But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light,
for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.
Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest,
and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.
See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,
redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is,
and be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit,
speaking to yourselves in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord,
giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ,
submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands
as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife,
even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the Savior of the body.
Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own
husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the
church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the
washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious
church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be
holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.
He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hateth his own flesh,
but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church.
For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother,
and shall be joined unto his wife, and they too shall be one flesh.
This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
Nevertheless, let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself,
and the wife see that she reverence her husband.
Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer.
Father in heaven, I pray Lord God that you would bless the sermon this morning.
Fill Pastor Shelley with your spirit, and help him to preach the message you've laid
on his heart.
Minimize distractions in the room, Lord God, and help us to apply the sermon to our lives
and serve you better.
We love you, and in Jesus' name I pray.
Amen.
Before I get started, I also wanted to mention that Evangelist Urbanek is going to be with
us today, but he's traveling back tomorrow, so please make sure to say thank you to him
for the work he's doing, encourage him before he leaves, and of course pray for the work
that they're doing in the Philippines.
And it's great to have them here at church, but we know that we're sending them out on
the field to do an important work as well, and so please, please be in prayer for them
and encourage them.
So I want to look here in Ephesians 5, towards the end of this chapter, I want to look at
verse 24 again, the Bible says, "Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let
the wives be to their own husbands in everything."
Now what's interesting about Ephesians chapter 5 is the Bible is using two different scenarios
or situations to compare them to each other to illustrate a very important point.
The Bible is talking about marriage, specifically how a husband and a wife relationship is similar
to how the church is supposed to operate with Christ being its leader and with Christ being
the one that is in charge and the church is completely subject to Christ and our wife
is completely subject to her husband.
Now typically when I've read passages about this or I go through this chapter I'm usually
thinking about this from a marriage perspective and I'm kind of focusing in a lot of those
verses but the Bible is also making a very important point here about church specifically
and I'm really wanting to kind of think about the church aspect that's being brought up
in this particular passage. Notice again the church is subject unto Christ. Church is not
a free for all. Church does not have just unlimited opportunity to do whatever it wants.
The Bible tells us that church is subject unto Christ and that church has a master,
it has a lord, it has a chief shepherd which is Christ and we are to subject ourselves
unto Christ. Now because Christ is not physically with us, he is still here though. It is this
book right here that I hold in my hand is the King James Bible and this is Christ and
we are to be subject unto it. So we don't get to make the rules, we don't get to determine
how churches run. The church is going to be run by the word of God, by the Bible and that
is us being subject unto Christ. And so if anybody wants to know how our church runs,
here is the instruction manual and we make it very clear that that's how we want the
church to be. If someone can point out areas where any of us are not abiding by this, then
we need to adapt, we need to change, we need to be subject. Just like a wife, if her husband
said I want you to make this change, she's supposed to just say yes sir and do it. I
know all the obedient wives in here are like of course we do that, you know, no problem.
But we also are supposed to be like that as a church. We are supposed to just say yes
sir and do it and make the changes and adapt to the Bible. Now it says in verse 25, husbands
love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that he
might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present
it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that
it should be holy and without blemish. So if you get the analogy being portrayed here,
the Bible is telling us that the way that Christ is trying to keep us without spot and
without wrinkle and notice to be holy and without blemish is how husbands are supposed
to also take care of their wives and they're supposed to also have similar attributes.
But specifically the one that I want to point out is that church should be holy. Church
should be holy. And the title of my sermon is coming from this and my title is simple.
Church is holy. Church is a holy institution and it should be holy and we should be striving
for holiness as a church. When you read Ephesians chapter 5, notice verse 32, this is a great
mystery but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Now of course we draw great marriage
tips and advice from Ephesians 5, but you have to understand that the Bible is really
emphasizing the church aspect of this passage and saying the most important aspect that
we should, the wisdom that we should glean from this chapter is about the church. The
church needs to be subject under Christ and I think the more that a church is subject
under Christ, the more it will help women to also be subject under their husbands because
they see that reverence, they see that respect and they see that example and they say okay
the way that we treat Christ in the church is the way I'm supposed to treat my husband
at home. But how many churches today just throw this out the window and then of course
those women are a bunch of feminists who also tell their husbands what to do. You know as
men we need to elevate the word of God and we need to subject ourselves to the word of
God so that our wives can see that example and then they'll be subject under us. And
in many ways we have to lead by example of being subject. You know it's often thought
like oh of course you know you like a church that's misogynistic and the men get to decide
what to do. You know okay in marriage I am the leader, I am the boss, but that doesn't
mean that I don't have bosses in my life. I have plenty of bosses in my life. We have
our work bosses, we have the government that's in control of us, we have police officers
and law enforcement that's in control of us, and specifically in the church we have this
that's over us. Nobody is without bosses, nobody's without leaders, nobody's without
authority over their head, and of course we need to make sure that we are subject under
the authorities in our lives as an example under those that are under our authority to
see oh wow, he actually takes authority seriously. And when people don't take authority seriously,
people under you will also not take it seriously. We need to take authority seriously and we
need to make sure that church is holy. Go over to Acts chapter 20. Did you notice what
it said about how Christ gave himself for it? What does that mean? Christ gave his
body for the church. That's what is being meant by the pronouns. And we want to make
sure that we understand why would we make church holy? Well, because it was purchased
with an invaluable price, with an unspeakable price. Acts chapter 20 verse 28, "Take heed
therefore unto yourselves into all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers
to feed the church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood." What is the price tag
on the blood of Jesus Christ? It's priceless. It's invaluable. You can't put a price on
it. So the institution that we're in right now has been bought with a price that is something
that could never be afforded. It's an immeasurable price. It's priceless. And so we should therefore
then make it something that's special and something holy. Just like the blood of Christ
is special and holy, then we need to make the institution that was purchased with his
blood special and holy. Go up to 1 Peter chapter 1, go to 1 Peter chapter number 1,
and let's get some more information on this. And then I'm going to define for you what holy even
means in the Bible. But the Bible's clear that it should be holy. We should be holy. 1 Peter chapter
1, look at verse 15. "But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of
conversation because it is written be ye holy for I am holy." So the Bible just makes it explicit
that we're supposed to be holy, church is supposed to be holy, it was purchased with the blood of
Jesus Christ, therefore it needs to be holy. Now this is quoting in the Old Testament Leviticus
chapter number 20. Let's go to Leviticus chapter number 20 and see where the Bible is referencing
the word holy. I think that sometimes the word holy is just used very loosely in society and
then it ends up having not very much meaning anymore. Holy is a very specific word with a
specific meaning and to make it really simple to be holy is to be set apart. That's what it means.
Now it's kind of a state of being. Holy is that you are set apart. To sanctify or to set apart is
the process of becoming holy. Okay so if you are holy then it means you are set apart. If you are
trying to become holy then you're setting yourself apart or you're sanctifying yourself and the Bible
uses these three terms in a very congruent manner because it's describing the same process. It says
in Obliticus chapter 20 verse 7, "Sanctify yourselves therefore and be ye holy." So notice
you're sanctifying yourself to become a particular state. What is that state? Holiness. So you're
You're trying to be holy by sanctifying yourself.
What is sanctifying?
It's setting yourself apart.
And we're gonna keep proving this.
"Praying the Lord your God,
and he shall keep my statutes and do them.
I am the Lord which sanctify you."
How do we set ourselves apart?
Well, God sets us apart.
God sanctifies us.
And how does he sanctify us?
He sanctifies us through his truth.
This is the truth and this is what sanctifies us.
This is what separates us.
This is what allows us to become holy.
Go to Exodus chapter 13, go to Exodus chapter number 13.
It's important that we prove these points.
And I love preaching, but we also need to understand
why we believe the things we believe.
And we understand when people get up
and preach the things that they preach,
why are they preaching them?
We preach things because the Bible
is telling us to be holy.
Why would a preacher get up and talk
about holiness standards and separating yourself
and talking about the importance of getting away from sin?
Because he's wanting you to be holy
because church is supposed to be holy.
And this institution we have this morning
is a holy institution and we need to try and make it holy.
We need to be a holy institution, okay?
Just being here today isn't gonna make it special.
Us sanctifying ourselves and setting ourselves apart,
that is what's gonna make it holy.
And God wants his institution of church to be holy.
Now it says in Exodus 13, look at verse two.
"Sanctify unto me all the firstborn,
"whats ever open in the womb among the children of Israel,
"for both of man and of beasts it is mine."
Now I'm using this to help you understand
the words that are used in the Bible.
We had in Leviticus 20, it tells us
that we're supposed to sanctify ourselves to be holy.
So we see that connection.
Here it tells us to sanctify all the firstborn.
Look at verse 12, let's skip down.
He said that you're supposed to sanctify
unto me all the firstborn.
Then notice that verse 12,
that thou shalt set apart unto the Lord
all that openeth the matrix,
and every first thing that come of the beast
which thou hast, the males shall be the Lord's.
So in one way, he words it, sanctify.
And another way he words it, set apart.
Because those are the exact same.
Sanctify and set apart are the exact same.
They mean the exact same thing.
And they're the process of how you become holy.
So then they're related and linked to holiness.
So that's just a way to kind of self-define these words
through the Bible.
Go over to 2 Corinthians chapter number six,
go to 2 Corinthians chapter number six.
So we understand now from the biblical text
that we're supposed to be holy,
church is supposed to be holy.
What does that look like?
How do we separate ourselves?
How do we set ourselves apart?
How do we sanctify ourselves?
Well, number one, the Bible teaches
that we are not allowed to fellowship
and have worship together with false religion.
You know, our church is not supposed to be ecumenical.
Now this word gets just thrown around
where it almost has no meaning anymore.
But true ecumenicalism is the idea or the concept
of mixing multiple religions together.
So it would be like if we just had a Hindu section
and we have a Buddhist section and we have a Jewish section
and we have just an atheist section
and then we have the Christian section
and we're just all gonna sit here and sing kumbaya.
That would be ecumenical by definition, okay.
Now, of course, there's certain layers of ecumenicalism
because you could even be accused of being ecumenical
within a Christian context, right?
Maybe you have a Presbyterian section
and you have a Lutheran section
and you have a Methodist section.
You have a Baptist section.
Some people would call that ecumenical.
And I still think that that applies,
but it's not necessarily as ecumenical
as having all of the false religions of the world.
Then some people would go even beyond that.
They would say, "Oh, you have Southern Baptist,
"Missionary Baptist, Old IFB, New IFB."
And then they would say, "You're ecumenical."
Then there would be people that go beyond that
and say, "Hey, you're not my exact flavor of New IFB,
"and you're ecumenical."
Okay, at some point it's absurd
and you're gonna be on an island by yourself, okay?
So we have to understand,
if we're gonna take the true definition of ecumenicalism,
it's mixing multiple religions.
Now, where you exactly draw that line,
we're not there yet,
but we know for sure that we have to skim off
all false religions.
We're not allowed to come to church
with all other kinds of religions,
Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism,
the flying spaghetti monster.
No, we're not obviously gonna mix with that.
We are gonna be separate from that,
and the Bible tells us to be that way.
Now, in 2 Corinthians chapter number six,
I just wanna point out a few verses
before we get to the end of this chapter,
but notice that verse one, the Bible says,
"We then as workers together with them beseech you,
"also that you receive not the grace of God in vain."
Now, the whole context of chapter six
is trying to tell us that, okay, you're saved, great,
but don't just receive that grace,
the fact that you're going to heaven
and do nothing with it.
We need to be workers with Christ.
We need to do something with the fact that we've been saved.
And in verse three, it says giving no offense in anything
that the ministry be not blamed.
So God has given us grace and that grace will cover our sin.
And if you're saved by faith,
you could never lose your salvation.
It doesn't matter how you live your life.
It doesn't matter if you walk away from Christianity.
It doesn't matter if you're a bad Christian,
you're saved and you're going to heaven.
But then if you're a bad Christian,
if you don't go to church, if you don't get baptized,
if you don't actually do anything,
what is that going to do?
Well, verse three,
you're going to cause the ministry to be blamed.
It's going to make Christianity look bad
and it's going to make the ministry look bad
and it makes Jesus look bad.
And you know what?
We shouldn't receive the grace of God in vain
to where God gave us all this grace to extend unto us
so that we could serve him and then we don't serve him.
He's giving us that grace so we'll serve him.
Think about it this way.
If you're late on your rent payment,
if you're late on a bill and the company says,
hey, we'll give you a 10-day grace period,
what are they hoping you're gonna do with that grace period?
Pay your bill.
They're not just giving you grace just for fun.
They're giving you the grace
so that you'll end up paying the bill or making it right.
And they're just trying to kind of extend
an olive branch towards you.
But imagine they extend that olive branch
and then you never pay.
Wouldn't they say, well, that grace was kind of in vain
then, wasn't it?
They didn't really accomplish much.
And in the same way, many of us, especially,
first-time Christians, maybe our past
or decisions we've made in our past were not that great
or we've made bad decisions
or we've not lived the best lives that we could.
But you know what, God gave us some grace
and didn't punish us as we deserve.
Maybe we got away with things
that we shouldn't have gotten away with.
And God gave us that long-suffering grace.
But you know what, we shouldn't just allow that
to end up doing nothing.
We should take advantage of that grace
and actually serve him and work for him
and do something with that.
Okay, that's the whole context.
So then, how do we do this?
God's given us this grace, then what do we do?
Verse 14.
"Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
For what fellowship hath righteousness
with unrighteousness,
and what communion hath light with darkness,
and what concord hath Christ with Belial?
Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel,
and what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?
For year the temple of the living God, as God hath said,
I will dwell in them and walk in them,
and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
"Wherefore, come out from among them, and be ye separate,
"say the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing,
"and I will receive you, and will be a father unto you,
"and you should be my sons and daughters,
"say it the Lord Almighty."
So notice that the Bible is telling us
that we're supposed to come out from among them
and be separate.
So many people, they grow up in a false religion.
Maybe they grow up
in just a completely different religion than Christianity.
Maybe they grew up in a Hindu home,
they grow up in a Muslim home,
they grow up in a Buddhist home,
and if they end up getting saved later in life,
well, they need to then come and join a Christian church.
And then God can give them that grace that,
"Hey, I know you were in this false religion.
You may have worshiped a false religion in the past,
but now it's time to switch.
Now it's time to actually serve me,
and it's time to join my kind of institution."
Additionally, I believe Catholics fall in this category
because they're idolaters and they're not saved.
And many people that were Catholic in the past,
God's giving you grace for all that Mary worship.
God's giving you grace for bowing down onto idols.
God's giving you grace for eating a cracker
and thinking you're eating the body of Jesus Christ.
God's giving you grace for calling some man a father
that's wearing a dress.
God's giving you grace for all these weird things
so that then you can actually get plugged into a real church
and serve God.
Just like when the apostle Paul goes out into all the heathen
and he's preaching the gospel, many of them,
they were all kinds of pagan idolaters and doing weird things,
eating things with blood and just all kinds of false demonic
religion, worshiping stones.
Well, God was giving them grace so that once they got saved,
they could then join a good church
and actually serve God with their life.
Now, I want to show you that this is connected
to what I've been talking about of holiness
because look at just the next verse.
We usually stop in chapter six because of chapter divisions,
but you don't want to stop.
You want to read the next verse because notice what it says.
"Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved,
let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness
of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness
in the fear of God."
Notice by separating ourselves, what are we doing?
We're perfecting holiness.
We're becoming more holy.
So the more we get rid of false religion,
the more we separate ourselves from unbelievers
and people that are not Christian,
the more holy that we become.
And as a church, we should be a holy institution
where we're not allowing false religion,
unbelievers, idolatry, and all this kinds of nonsense
to creep into the church
and to revert and change the culture of the church.
Whereas many non-denominational churches today,
they're bringing in the Catholics.
They're bringing in all kinds of different false religion.
I went to church at a non-denominational church
my whole life basically growing up,
and we would have people that are Hindu,
we'd have people that are Catholic,
we'd have people that aren't even Christian at all
coming and joining our services
and feeling totally comfortable.
Now look, obviously we can't know
if someone just wanted to visit one time, that's fine,
but they're going to probably be upset pretty quickly
because our doctrine and our religion
is not compatible with their beliefs.
It's not compatible with their situation,
and of course they're going to be confronted
probably before or after service
on changing what they believe.
Because our church is full of soul winners,
I mean, you can't hardly walk in here without getting just
the gospel slashed at you in every single way.
I mean, I mean, you got people coming up.
In fact, someone that comes and not saved,
you might have like 10 people try to get you saved.
And if they don't even like the person
that was giving the gospel,
they'll come and give it to you too.
They're like, "Hey, I want to check," you know.
I mean, you are going to get saved.
You show up and they're going to confront you on the gospel.
Whereas you go to these other churches,
you could go there for 20 years
and no one will ever ask you how to get saved.
Hey, I'd rather go to a church where I'm asked 20 times
how to go to heaven the first time I visit,
then go for 20 years and never be asked.
And the one time I am asked,
it's not even the right gospel anyways.
It's like are a pen of your sins
or have you given your life or surrendered your life or accepted?
And they're like, what does that mean?
They're like, I don't know.
Well, then why are you talking to me?
Why are you even trying to show me how to be saved
when you can't even tell me how to be saved?
Okay.
And so we want to go to a church that's actually separated
and trying to be holy
and we're not going to mix in false religion.
Look, Catholics, they're not the same religion.
We were doing a sporting event, some of us men,
and after the event, these Catholics wanted to pray with us.
And brother Jason was, you know,
I guess the person they were trying to convince,
which is not the right person to try and convince.
But they're like trying to get us over there to pray with them
and this is like, no, we don't believe like you.
We're not going to pray with you.
We're not, we're separating ourselves.
We're going to be holy.
We're not going to mix with you and do this.
Why?
Because they're idolaters, folks.
They have idolatry all in their buildings.
They have idolatry at home.
They're worshiping a woman statue.
You talk about feminism problems in America.
How about having a woman statue that you're praying to?
You know what?
We don't pray to women.
We don't pray to women statues.
We pray to the man, Lord Jesus Christ.
We pray to God the Father.
And you know what?
We don't pray to some father so-and-so.
We don't pray to some dead saint that we don't even know if he was saved anyways.
He probably isn't a saint, he's probably a Diablo.
And you know what?
We don't pray to those people.
We pray to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And you know what?
Mary is just a woman and Mary's not a virgin.
Sorry, Mary is not a virgin.
And you know what?
Catholics are not saved.
The Bible said to not have fellowship with unbelievers.
Catholics are unbelievers.
They do not believe the gospel.
They accept it as a historical fact, yet they reject it.
And they actually believe in their works.
They believe in their church.
They believe in their catechism.
They believe in their own personal sanctification
as means to go to heaven.
And you know what?
They're not saved and they have a false religion.
I'm not going to mix with them.
I don't want to mix with them.
You know what?
They can join our team.
They can quit their team and they can convert,
but they are not welcome to come as is.
You know, there's all these signs out there like,
"Come as you are."
Not here.
This is not a come as you are.
This is come as we are.
And it's really come as he is.
That's what it should say.
Come to church as Christ is.
Be holy.
That's the type of church that we have.
And that's the type of church that I want,
is one that's striving to be holy.
It's not one that's just saying,
"Hey, I know you're filthy and disgusting and abominable.
Just come on in."
No, you're not welcome.
And you know what?
We don't want to bring in the abominations into our church.
We don't want to bring in the weirdos.
We don't want to bring in people that want to worship a false god.
I want to bring in people that want to be holy.
And you know, when you approach church, you should think about it as,
"Hey, am I coming holy today to serve the Lord Jesus Christ?"
Go ahead to 1 Corinthians chapter 5.
So point one is this, we need to separate from unbelievers.
We need to separate from false religion.
We can't have fellowship with them.
If we're going to have a church, we have to be holy enough to say,
"Hey, we can't just welcome all religions.
We have our religion, and this is the one way we're going to separate ourselves."
How's another way that we're going to set ourselves apart?
Well, the Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians chapter number 5
that we are to exercise what's known as church discipline.
Now, this is probably the most famous passage on church discipline,
but it's not the only passage on church discipline.
There's many passages on church discipline.
But what I like about this passage is kind of the reality of the situation.
Now, it says in verse 6, "Your glorying is not good.
Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened.
For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast,
not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness,
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
I wrote in you in an epistle, not to company with fornicators, yet not altogether with the
fornicators of this world, or the covetous, or extortioners, or adulterers.
For then must ye needs go out of the world." Now, this is the phrase that I think we just
need to like get in our hearts and minds for a second. "For then must ye needs go out of the
world." Okay, number one, if our church is not going to have fellowship with false religion,
if we're not going to allow Hinduism and Buddhism and Catholicism and all these other religions to
join up with us, we've already scraped off just like a huge percentage of the world. I mean,
we're talking about like a huge amount of people that fall into that category. I don't even know
what the exact percentage would be, but we're talking about huge, huge numbers here. We're
talking about at least three-quarters of the world, if not 90 percent. You know, something,
just a huge number that we just already said we're not going to fellowship with them. We're
separating ourselves. But then we go to another layer. It's called church discipline. And what
is this layer? What is the Bible basically saying? It's saying if you're not going to have fellowship,
if you're not going to allow these people into your church, you're excluding everyone else.
Do you understand what it's trying to say? "For then must ye needs go out of the world."
If you're going to be in a situation where you're not around any fornicator, anybody that's covetous,
anybody that's an extortioner, or anybody that's an idolater, well you're going to be on an island
by yourself is what it's basically trying to say. And you know what, that's kind of what church
really is, is it's kind of like an island where you separate it from the rest of the world.
Because most people are not willing to fall in this category of saying, "No fornication."
And here's another one that's not in this specific verse, but is in this context,
is being a drunkard. Boy, if you were going to say, "Hey, we're going to not fellowship
with drunkards and fornicators," good luck being around anybody in America. And of course,
we live in America, so that's what I'm preaching about. You know, look up statistics on this,
and boy, virtually everyone has committed fornication. Almost the whole world loves
drinking and getting drunk, let alone the other ones on this list, just covetous and extortioner
and whatever. But you know, church is supposed to be separate. And you know why a lot of people
don't want to come to a church like ours? Because they don't want to be holy. They don't want to
separate themselves. They want to be in fornication. They want to be around fornicators. They want to
get drunk. They want to be around drunkards and everything else on this list. And so they refuse
to actually clean up their lives. They refuse to separate themselves. They refuse to sanctify
themselves. And therefore they have to be like the world and act like the world and dress like
the world and have a sign that says come as you are. You know what? This is not a church where
we just say come as you are. We say, hey, drop the booze, no fornication, no extortion, no railing,
and you know what? Get right with God before you show up. That's the type of institution.
You know why? Because it's supposed to be a clean, without spot, without blemish, holy institution.
That's what the church is supposed to be like. Say, I don't like that. Well, you know what? You
don't like Christ. I am supposed to be subject unto Christ. And this is Christ. Welcome to
the Word of God here. Did you notice what it said here in verse number eight? It said at the end
of this, "But with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." I want to go to church
with people that are sincere and care about one thing and it's the truth. This is supposed to be
the pillar and ground of the truth. So point one of how we're going to make ourselves holy is we
got to get rid of all false religion. Secondly, we need to exercise church discipline, which is
virtually everybody else. Let's just be honest, it really is. People that don't go to a church like
ours pretty much fall in one of those categories typically, or they're not willing to separate
for themselves from the people that do fall in that category in their life. I mean it's almost
everybody that's not willing to do that. Pretty much you've got other independent fundamental
baptists and maybe a few fringe groups that are willing to live lives like that, but the vast
majority of the world are drunkards, fornicators, railers, just everything else on this list.
And of course a railer is someone that doesn't love the truth, they lie. They spread lies.
Now go through Ephesians chapter 4, here's the third thing that I want to bring up and I'm going
to kind of dwell on this point for the rest of my sermon is that if we're going to have a holy
institution, we have to separate ourselves from lying and from liars. We have to separate ourselves
from lying and lying. I mean how are you going to have sincerity and truth? How are you going to
be away from railers? And how are we going to have an institution that's known for truth when
you're filled with liars? When you're filled with people that are lying and railing and doing these
kind of things, you know, we can't have that. We have to have a holy institution that's built on
certain principles. No false religion. What is that? Lies. I mean, think about it. What is false
religion at its core? It's just lies. It's lies about the truth. It's lies about God. It's lies
about salvation. It's lies. And I don't want lies. Then when you look at this group of people that
are sinning, one of them specifically is all about lying. It's called railing. And you have
to separate yourself from that. And then, of course, the Bible is making it clear as a holy
institution trying to be holy, we need to get away from lying and spreading false information.
Look at Ephesians chapter 4 verse 3. "Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of
peace, there's one body and one Spirit, even as you're called in one hope of your calling,
one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is above all and through all
and in you all." Look, there's only one church. There's only one God. There's only one Bible.
There's only one Holy Spirit. There's only one baptism. There's not multiple options.
There's not multiple roads that lead to heaven. There's not multiple ways that lead to God.
There's just one, okay? We have the one Bible. We have the one God. We have the one baptism
and we have the one right church, okay? We're right. Sorry if you don't like it. Yes, you can
be right. Two plus two is four. It's that simple, okay? Now, in this passage, he brings up the need
for teachers and pastors and these things he gave as gifts unto men so that they wouldn't be tossed
to and fro and they wouldn't believe all kinds of weird doctrine. That's the whole point.
Skip down to verse 23, "And be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the
new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." Notice that we need to put on
our new man. When we come to church and we try to live the Christian life, we're supposed to be
putting on our new man. And what is it? It's true holiness. What is true holiness? Well, we've
already learned it's getting away from false religion. We've already learned it's separating
ourselves from wicked sins mentioned in 1 Corinthians 5. Now let's read the next verse.
What's another way? Verse 25, "Wherefore," meaning this is the reason why, if we're going to strive
for true holiness, "Wherefore, putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor if we are
members one of another." What is one of the most important and crucial steps of separating ourselves
and being a holy institution is just putting away lying. People just lie to us so much. Can we have
one place in the world where we don't lie to each other? Can we just have one place where we put away
lying? Can we just have one place where we're just truthful and we're honest with one another
and we actually are trying to strive for what's right? I mean, the lies are just so frustrating
in this world today. It's so frustrating when you go out into the world and you order food. There
could be deceit there. People changing prices. You want to buy a car. You want to buy a house.
You want to get in business. People lying. You get a job and it's not what they told you. They
don't give you the wages you thought you were going to get. There's all kinds of gimmicks. You
try to go buy a product and it's faulty. It fails. It doesn't work. You go to a college. You're
supposed to get a degree so you can get a job and it's all lies. You actually look up the source
information for that college course and you realize it's lies. And you realize the author
of the book's a liar and you realize that everybody's just lying to you. You go and you get a degree in
finance and economics at a university and you realize that's not how finance and economics work.
You realize that all our government does is just lobbying and cheat at the stock market and it's
just filled with lies and you realize oh we need inflation it's good for us and then you realize
it's just lies to siphon off all of our money. I mean right now there's so many lies being uncovered
by our department of government efficiency this this whole dodge thing or doge I don't know how
you want to pronounce it dogecoin or dodge however you want to say it okay they're just showing just
so much money of inefficiency just so much lies in our government. I saw some guy that's supposed
to audit our IRS and they are trying to upgrade some of their software for our IRS okay and they
were saying typically you know banks that are a medium-sized bank have to go through this process
and many of them already have done this. He said a bank typically has anywhere from one to a hundred
software to you know developers, IT personnel on staff and he said our government has 8,000
so 8,000 people on staff. He said usually you spend about 30 to 50 million dollars on this
particular process or this department. He says our government's been spending 3.5 billion a year.
He said usually it takes a couple years to transition. He says our government's been doing
it for 35 years. It's like what in the world is going on? Okay, I mean and that's just one small
example. I think that Donald Trump and some other people had shared our Social Security numbers and
information. There was like millions and millions of people on Social Security over the age of like
140. I think there was a there was some people like that were 200, you know, but there was just
like millions. It'd be like a million people are between the age ranges of 140 and 150 collecting
Social Security. That's just not real. Okay. And, and like, how do you have any trust in our
government? In fact, that the trust is so low in our world today, that people believe stupid
conspiracy theories, because there's so many conspiracy theories that are true at this point,
that some people they just hit the yes to all of them, you know, it's like accept all. Okay.
But here's the problem when you do the accept all there's some Trojan horses and some bad ones that
are coming in with that mix. Do not accept all conspiracy theories. Okay. And I get it.
There's a lot that are true and there's a lot of deception. And I think they've released more
information on JFK. And of course, Epstein is a big, a big controversy right now. So like just
trust in general is just so low in the world, so low in our government, so low in our economy,
so low in sales and business and education. I mean, the trust factor is just so low today.
Can we at least allow the church to not go down the same road and have the same type of just no
standards, just a bunch of liars and scumbags like Robert Morris or something? No, no, we should have
a higher standard and say, hey, you know, we don't lie around here. We could be rough around the
edges. We could say things you don't like, but at least we won't lie to you. And boy, you know,
people get so offended about preaching today, but you know, always ask yourself this question
before you get offended, is it true? Because it just bothers me so much that people get so offended
at things that are true. You know, you have 99.99% of people lying to you today, and then you get
offended at a truth that wasn't very palatable, or maybe it wasn't said super nice or something
like that. But you know what's not nice? Lies, every time. Instead of worrying about the truth
being presented in a way that you like it, why don't you just be refreshed by truth in general,
okay? And we need to get to a point where our church is just going to be truthful. Now I'm not
saying, hey, be as blunt as possible and mean when you're telling the truth. Obviously we should
learn out of grace and be seasoned with salt. But at the end of the day, if you're just a liar,
just start with truth. I mean, even if it's raw and uncut, just start there. And then we'll grow
towards the fact that you can share the truth with grace, okay? But at least just give us the truth,
you know? And people need to hear truth today. How can we be unified around the same God and
the same Bible and the same salvation if we just bring in false religion? You know, it's going to
tear away the fabric of this institution, this church. And you know, people, they get mad about
our church or churches like ours. And I heard this accusation, and it's just absurd, absurd accusation.
But they said, "Oh, some people, they don't want a church, they just want a soul-winning club."
And I was thinking about it, and I'm like, "Well, I do want a soul-winning club. Like, what's wrong with a soul-winning club?"
And like, if we're going to have it, like, what institution do you think should be running the soul-winning club?
Like, do you want Costco to start running a soul-winning club? Like, do you want the university on the street to run the soul-winning club?
Or do you think church should be the one where we're running a soul-winning club? But you know, at the end of the day,
a soul-winning club is not going to be effective when it's filled with drunkards, when it's filled with railers,
when it's filled with idolaters, when it's filled with all these wicked evil things,
that's going to also destroy your little soul-winning club that you have. You're not going to have unity
when you have false religion. You're not going to have unity when you have the wrong Bible.
You're not going to have unity when everybody's drunk off of their mind, when everybody's a fornicator.
Look, if you just allow fornication to go rampant in the church, then everybody's going to commit
fornication. And what do you think you're going to be thinking about when they show up at church?
Fornication. What are they going to want to do when they get out of these walls? Go commit
fornication, and get drunk, and commit extortion, and do all these evil things. Whereas when you're
not allowing that, maybe we could actually focus on doing something. Oh, soul winning. I mean,
of all the accusations you could hurl towards our church, soul winning club's a great one. I mean,
I'll take it. Man, they're just a glorified soul winning club. Okay, sure. What's wrong with that?
At least we're not a bunch of drunkards. At least we're not a bunch of fornicators. At least we're
not a bunch of railers. You know, why would I want to go to church with that? You know, God is meeting
with us here today to have fellowship with us. And the Holy Ghost is trying to guide us into all truth.
How are you going to be guided into all truth when you're drunk sitting in the pew? How are you
going to be guided in all truth when you're just focused in on all this other kind of sin? You know,
we're supposed to be motivated and keep growing in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. Why? Why would we want to grow in grace and in knowledge so that we'll keep going soul winning?
We have to keep the morale up of one another and we have to have the right prize. You know,
I've noticed that men who have good jobs, that make good money, have wives, have lots of children,
for some reason they're also great soul winners. I mean you know some people I think like oh that'll
take away from the soul winning but I see people that are having it all and still doing it all in
many cases. And look there's also people that are young single guys that don't have much going for
them and they're doing a lot of soul winning and praise God for them too. You don't have to have
those things but I'll tell you this there's a lot of guys that have all those things and are still
doing great soul winning so don't think that they're going to take away from you and honestly you're
going to not sustain yourself if we were just all a bunch of single dudes if we're just all a bunch
of single dudes well pretty much we're not going to be able to pass it on to the next generation
our fellowships aren't going to be as good the food isn't going to be as good okay it's not going
to it's going to be ugly in here okay real real ugly and stinky and smelly and you know what women
bring a great added element to the institution and the children bring it just a sweet spirit
you want the sweet spirit it's the children okay i don't have that they have it okay and if you
if you have a sweet spirit as a pastor you need to grow up and become a man okay because at the
end of the day you know we all bring something to the table i don't need to bring the sweet spirit
there's ladies and children to bring that i can bring the rough around the edges leadership
and we need some men that are going to be leaders we need men that are going to say the truth
whether you like it or not we need men to throw people out of the church we need some men to go
out and fight the hard battles we need men to go out in the workplace where there's a bunch of
snakes out there and make a good honest hard living out there so we can pay for these institutions
we need some real men out there okay you know have a sweet spirit in the business world today
and you'll get ripped off taken advantage of and nothing will be accomplished i don't think david
had a sweet spirit when he told galate goliath that he was going to take his head off and he
was going to feed it to the birds of the air that wasn't very sweet you know what i liked it and at
the end of the day you know there's nothing wrong with having a soul winning club we need more soul
winning clubs in this world not less and we need to be separate from false religion to keep our
club and we need to be separate from fornicators covetous idolaters railers drunkers extortioners
i looked up statistics about this 70 of people cohabitate now before marriage in america
70 95 of people are not pure on their wedding night 95 of people so i can see those statistics
when the bible saying hey you must need to go out of the world yeah if you're going to be a
church that doesn't separate from fornicators well then you know what you're just not separating
yourself and if you do of course we were like oh man y'all are so different you're so unique oh
there's all these standards all these rules there's not even that many rules if you think about it
it's just you don't like them because the whole world's participating in these wicked sins
and focused on the wrong thing you know evil dictators and communists have basically said hey
give them bread and circuses give them fornication and food and drunkenness and they'll never revolt
they'll just be focused on that the whole time the devil's the same devil folks he knows if he just
gives you booze and some food and throws some entertainment your way you'll never do anything
because we're all just lazy and the flesh is lazy and the flesh loves to just over indulge
and we could just sit there and just eat drink and be merry and just live our lives doing nothing
you know what church is not that institution we are a soul winning club we're not just here to get
drunk and be merry we're here to do some work and we're to work for the lord Jesus Christ and we
need an institution to be the truth go if you went to first timothy chapter number three
there is rules around here and we have to behave ourselves we're not allowed to be liars lying is
not tolerated at church and when you just allow a little bit of lies to creep into church just a
little bit you're going to bring a truckload of lies and when the pastor is bringing in lies
when the pastor's soft on railing you're going to just bring in just a truckload of railing
a truckload of lies a truckload of deception all kinds of weirdos you know we need leadership to
be an example of telling the truth and having a high commitment for truth and having a high
standard for truth because everything rises and falls on leadership and when the leadership
doesn't care about truth well the lower ranks it's going to be a mess you know we need we need a high
standard for truth just so even the lower ranks can be somewhat organized and somewhat truthful
because lies are just rampant in this world 1st Timothy chapter 3 verse 15 but if I tarry long
thou mayest know how the oddest to behave thyself in the house of god which is the church of the
living god the pillar and ground of the truth you know why you're supposed to behave because
there's rules church is not a rule this situation it's not anarchy there are rules and you are
supposed to behave in church go to backwards to verse 10 here's a major rule here's a major rule
for women in the bible verse 10 and let these also first be proved then let them use the office of a
deacon being found blameless even so their wives must be grave not slanderers you know why it
brings this up because it's just a a common temptation and look men can be slanderers men
slander too but we all have our own proclivities and for women being a slanderer is just really
easy for some reason it's just a major temptation for them what is grave serious we need women that
are serious not slanderers meaning they're taking church seriously and they're trying to behave
themselves you know here's my rule of thumb if you say everything you think you're in grievous
sin we should not be saying everything that we think we need to be holding our tongue holding
things in and it's very easy to just repeat false accusations go if you had to Matthew 18 go to
Matthew chapter 18 i want to look a lot more bible this morning because the bible is just
really sharp on this issue and we need to always make sure that we're sharpening ourselves and
being holy if we want to have a great church we're going to have to always kind of work on
getting the lies and the slander and the gossip and the railing out because this is a big deal
it's mentioned so much in the bible and it's just a common temptation for people to easily get into
lying again and then our institution is not very holy anymore what makes our institution holy
and special is that we're getting away from lying we're we already separate ourselves in false
religion i mean how many hindus are here today okay yeah i mean there's not any hindus okay
there might be some former catholics but there's no practicing catholics in here you know there's no
drunkards that i'm aware of there's no fornicators that i'm aware of otherwise we would deal with
those issues so we've cut those things but aren't we all possibly you know tempted with some lying
or some slander or some I mean that's just that's always there on the surface some we have to always
get at and make sure that we're being careful with look at Matthew 18 verse 15 more of thy brother
shall trespass against thee go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone if he shall hear
thee thou's gaining thy brother but if you will not hear thee then take with thee one or two more
that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established and if he shall neglect
to hear them tell it unto the church but if he neglect to hear the church let him be unto thee
as a heathen man and a publican notice again here's separation we have the church and if there was an
issue between people that can't be resolved and one person is just clearly in the wrong
everybody's siding against them well then that person has to repent or they're kicked out of
church the church has the authority to basically say this one individual is not right so this
person needs to get right or he has he has to leave he can't stay with us and notice we treat
him as a heathen man and a publican it doesn't say as best friends he doesn't say go hang out with
them he doesn't see be their gal pal it doesn't say have a bunch of chat groups with them it says
treat them as a heathen man and as a publican and it's all of us treating them the same way
we're all treating them the same way now look if there's a heathen man let's say i just run into
somebody out in the public i'll still be i'll greet them i'll be nice to them i'll invite them
to church or whatever but i'm not going to invite them to my birthday party i'm not going to invite
them to hang out with my kids i'm not going to let them watch my kids i'm not going to go do a
bunch of fun stuff with them because they're heathen okay so i'm separating myself obviously
if i work with the person you know i got to work with the person right i mean i can't necessarily
i work with heathen we all work with heathen right so we can't necessarily stop from working
with them but that doesn't mean that you're going to the bar with them that doesn't mean you're
going and hanging out with them they're not your best friend you're staying away from this person
until they fix their issue you know if you don't think about it this way in a church our size who
in here is friends with literally everyone you're best friends with everyone it doesn't happen
no one in here is best friends with everyone okay so you have your own little friend group right
so think about it this way what if we exercise church discipline and everybody that was not
friends with them already exercises church discipline but then their own little friend
group doesn't because they were like well we were friends with them well then nothing changed
literally you're making church discipline of none effect because you won't exercise church
discipline you know if you are actually friends with somebody in church discipline you're the
most important person to actually exercise it because when you don't exercise church
discipline you're just letting them get away with everything i mean how many of us go to the store
and we see the kid kicking and screaming on the ground crying for candy and you're like as a
you're thinking like punish them punish them punish them and then they just hand them candy
you're like no that's how we feel when church discipline is exercised and then you go hand them
candy you know i mean you're you're the portenson that needs to say no and if you actually are a
real friend faithful are the wounds of a friend it doesn't mean that you're not going to be friendly
towards them it means you're just not going to be friends with them you say hey i love you i want
to hang out you need to get right you need to fix this and give them some motivation to actually
change because if you don't then they won't if you don't then they won't just like your children
if you don't give them a reason to obey then they won't obey you have to give them a reason
even when you do it doesn't mean they will but you have to at least give them the opportunity
maybe you don't like that point but that's just what the bible teaches look what it says in verse
20 for where two or three are gathered together in my name there am i in the midst of them you
know we love to quote that verse but what's the context you know what the context is we just kick
somebody out of church and then who is god with the people that were in the church not the person
that got kicked out hey you didn't want to listen get out and then god's meeting with us because
this is a holy institution and church is to be holy and you know we love it's so funny we go knock
on someone's door and they're like hey we're tearing through the gallery you know he's there
in the midst and it's like bro you're church discipline like no one you don't even understand
the whole point of this passage like this isn't church you need to clean yourself up and come with
me to church and then that verse will actually apply to you but that verse does not apply with
you on the front porch when you're holding a beer in your hand okay that is not what that verse is
bringing up go over to psalm 12 go to psalm 12 let's look at a lot of verses here on lying for a
moment because when you're a liar and multiple people in the church are like you're lying you
better fix it or you're out we can't just we can't just let lying just go ramp it in the church it's
the pillar and ground of the truth it was purchased the blood of jesus christ we're not supposed to be
practicing with the unleavened bread or with the leavened bread of of insincerity we need to be
with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth we need some truth around here psalm 12 look at
verse three the lord shall cut off all flattering lips and the tongue that speaketh proud things
god doesn't like liars liars deceitful people go to psalm 15 we're going to skip through a lot so
be ready to turn psalm 15 look at verse one lord who shall abide in thy tabernacle who shall dwell
on thy holy hill he that walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness and speaketh the truth
in his heart he that backbiteeth not with his tongue nor doeth evil to his neighbor nor take
other approach against his neighbor notice again the person in church is the person that speaketh
truth in his heart he's not the person that backbites with his tongue or takes up an approach
against his neighbor go over to psalm 78 go to psalm 78 church is not a hospital it's not an
institution for the sick it's an institution for the people that are willing to clean themselves
up i hear this all the time church is a hospital wrong wrong no you know what the hospital was
in the bible without the camp go without the camp get clean then you can come back in it was not
like hey let's bring every diseased person into church it was like get every diseased person out
get all the leaven out get all the insincerity out we don't how is a church going to be successful
if we're all insincere we need to be sincere we need to love the truth if you're not sincere
you can go join any non-denom church whenever you want they are very insincere it's it's it's fake
it's wells fargo fake okay wells fargo they're not happy to see you they don't like their job
they're smiling so you won't write them up and they get fired and for some reason you go to
these other churches and it's all fake it's all hey how are you and then as soon as you turn around
they'll be like oh she's so ugly i hate her i can't stand her that and you're like is that real that's
every church that i was a part of and grew up in boy the women were just so mean and i'm just
thinking like wow that's just disgusting that's a disgusting attitude that's a gross attitude do
you really want to go to church where everybody's just kind of smiling at you and then as soon as
you turn around they're just gnashing on you with their teeth and they're texting about you behind
your back and they're just gossiping and lying about you you know hey if we find that out you're
going to have to fix that we don't tolerate that in that church now of course there's a temptation
to do it you might have those thoughts but you better just say bye to those thoughts and change
right away repent don't be like that don't have that attitude we're supposed to love one another
psalm 78 look at verse 35 and they remembered that god was their rock and the higher and the high
god their redeemer nevertheless they did flatter him with their mouth and they lied on them with
their tongues for their heart was not right with him neither were they steadfast in his covenant
now i i want to bring this verse out because some of these passages people say like oh that's wicked
people i'm not a wicked person oh that's workers of iniquity i'm not workers of iniquity but notice
here in psalm 78 and they remembered that god was their rock and the high god the redeemer this is
people that know this is god's my god these people that remembered god hey they believe hey this is
my god i'm a christian he's my god but what does the bible say nevertheless they did flatter him
with their mouth they flatter god they go to church somewhere and they sing all these praises
to god but they don't actually mean it they'll sit there and their non-denom church is saying
i surrender i surrender i surrender sorry that's what it sounds like without the music
okay the music sounds really good but it's just like this droning on
for 15 minutes dude the hymns are like two minutes it's like we sing four verses of a
hymn it's like two and a half minutes you go to there it's like 10 minute songs of just the same
just i surrender or you could get gyra you know it's just like you are enough he is enough i am
enough it is enough for 10 minutes okay but think about it they're literally saying i surrender
for 10 minutes and then as soon as church is over they're gonna go get drunk on the lake as soon as
church is over they're gonna go commit fornication as soon as church is over they're gonna go back
to the world and do nothing for god have the wrong bible not even read it not serve him and go lie to
everybody they just flatter him with their tongue they just flatter him with their mouth and they
lied unto him with their tongues why for their heart is not right with them neither were they
steadfast in his covenant problem was they weren't in steadfast baptist church you know what i mean
they weren't even trying to do it right now again it doesn't mean that we couldn't be
insincere too there's people that come in here insincere lie flatter they're not real go over
it to psalm 120 i wanted to do a little bit more preaching here so i might just fast forward a lot
of these verses but the bible is just hammering this point of getting away from lying the bible
says in psalm 109 verse 1 hold not thy peace oh god of my praise for the mouth of the wicked
the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me they have spoken against me with a lying tongue
they compass me about also with words of hatred and fought against me without a cause for my love
they are my adversaries but i give myself unto prayer and they rewarded me evil for good and
hatred for my love go if you went to the book of proverbs for a moment psalms 120 says in my
distress i cried on the lord and he heard me deliver my soul lord from lying lips and from
a deceitful tongue what shall be given unto thee or what shall be done unto thee thou false tongue
the bible says i am for peace but when i speak they are for war you know the bible is constantly
saying deliver me from liars deliver me from liars go to psalm i'm sorry proverbs six proverbs six
the bible is telling us to get away from lying that god's going to punish lying that god doesn't
like lying then why would i want to be filled with a church of liars now of course obviously
we've all lied before and we probably still lie somewhat on a somewhat regular basis but you know
when we lie we need to say sorry we need to get it right we need to fix it and we need to try our
best to avoid lying and get away from lying and we need to be careful that we're not lying about
other people and we're not being deceitful why proverbs six verse 16 these six things that the
lord hate gay seven or abomination in him a proud look notice this a lying tongue if you look at
verse 19 a false witness that speak of lies i mean he just hates lying go to saw on proverbs 19
proverbs 19 notice how god feels about false witnesses proverbs 19 verse 5 a false witness
shall not be unpunished i don't want to be around you because you're going to be punished
and i don't want to be punished with you if you're going to just bear false witness you need to be
dealt with you need i want nothing to do with you notice this and he that speak of lies shall not
escape that's a scary verse for you liars that's a scary verse for railers the bible says you're
not going to escape you will be punished that's why i want to get away from you look at verse nine
a false witness shall not be unpunished how many times you see in the book of proverbs the exact
same phrase in the exact same proverb must be pretty important hey a false witness shall not
be unpunished and he that speak his lies shall perish that's dangerous good at proverbs 21 verse
28 proverbs 21 verse 28 a false witness shall perish but the man that heareth speaketh constantly
now that's kind of a hard proverb by itself but when you compare with others it becomes clear
what did we already read false witnesses are not going to be unpunished they will be punished so
what is that punishment perishing he said that in proverbs 19 that he that speaketh lies shall
perish you know if you just live this life full of lying and railing and saying evil things you
know what god will destroy you what is the person that heareth well if you read the book of proverbs
you'll know this instantly because the whole book of proverbs is all about hearing in fact proverbs
1 5 a wise man will hear and will increase learning proverbs 1 8 my son hear the instruction of thy
father proverbs 1 33 but who so hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely and shall be quiet from fear
of evil look at proverbs 12 verse 15 for a moment the bible says wise men lay up knowledge but the
mouth of the foolish is near destruction so the person that heareth is going to speak constantly
what is it saying well proverbs 12 verse 15 the way of a fool is right in his own eyes but he that
hearkeneth to the council is wise if you are just constantly spewing lies you're going to be destroyed
what's the opposite listening hearing gaining wisdom what happens when you gain a lot of wisdom
when you're just learning constantly you're just being filled with wisdom and knowledge and
understanding what's going to happen you're going to have a lot to say you're going to have a lot
to say here's the second thing that that means is you're going to stay alive and you get to keep
saying it look when you don't have anything to say well then you don't usually say anything
and when you're not alive you can't say anything so here's the thing the person that's constantly
listening and hearing and growing and getting more wisdom and knowledge is going to be constantly
speaking because he has all the time in the world and he has all the wisdom and knowledge to actually
discern and disperse that you know you want to be a great preacher just hear hear this read a lot
study a lot you want to be better at preaching the word of god it's about learning you want to
be someone that speaks with wisdom you got to get some wisdom you know you say i don't read
anything i don't read my bible you will never be a good preacher great preachers read the bible a
ton and they just learn in general they're always willing to learn they're a lifelong learner that's
what makes someone a great preacher and the preachers that i have great respect for are very wise
they have so much to say they have more to say than they have time for whereas the fool he doesn't
have anything to say so he just lies think about it someone that lives an interesting life and knows
a lot when you hang around with them they're just telling you cool stories and things they read and
stuff they find interesting someone that has a boring life that all they do is watch tv
they have nothing interesting to say so they just make up stories they just lie about things and
they spread gossip and rumor because they have nothing interesting to say so they just have to
make stuff up and spread lies and false information because you know what someone that has interesting
things to say will say interesting things someone that's nothing interesting to say will just rail
all the time and so when you're around railers just know this is someone that doesn't learn it's
someone that doesn't study it's someone that doesn't know anything and is a false witness and
is not the person you want to learn from you want to learn from someone that's wise you want to be
careful who you're listening to and you know someone that's constantly railing and lying is
not someone you want to learn from they have nothing to say that's good go to proverbs 25
and look at verse 18 go to proverbs 25 verse 18 you know good sermons and you know i can know
this for myself are often where i learn 10 hours worth of content and then i have to deliver it in
an hour it's not i have five minutes worth of content and i have to stretch it to an hour
you know that is not the the kind of preaching that you want and there's a lot of people out
there that they're doing that you go to non why do they have 15 minute sermons why do they have
20 minutes service they have nothing to say why is it that the traveling evangelist has the exact
same sermon that he preaches every single church service i mean i would i would only change sermons
just for myself let alone the congregation i can't imagine getting up and doing a song and dance
for everybody often i remember when i i had to preach four services a week for three years when
i was going to pure words every week tons of people are telling me like just preach the same
sermon preach the same thing i was like no it's like i don't want to do that i don't want to
number one i don't want to phone it in number two i have enough to say and number three i'm just
doing it for myself because that's i don't want to sit here and preach the same thing
it becomes stale it breeds worms and becomes stale you know i don't want that i want something fresh
this is this there's so much in this you can't preach all this you could never preach all this
and then even then when you preach it all you got to re-preach it in a different light with more
wisdom proverbs 25 verse 18 a man that bear false witness against his neighbor is a mall
a mall is not a place where you go shopping that's like hell okay a mall here is like an axe okay
that's what sometimes you think about mall like being mauled by a bear that's one way you can use
this word but another definition of the word mall is like an axe type object okay so you got like
the axe you got a sword and you got a sharp arrow you know the bible saying lying about someone is
like physically assaulting them it's like attacking them with a deadly weapon that's what the bible is
painting this picture as because it really is and so that's why our church you know we want to get
away from these things we want to get away from false religion and all the lies of that you know
think about this the lies of the catholic church are like a mall and an arrow destroying people's
souls and sending them to hell and how many people have been drugged down by fornication
drunkenness railing extortion to where they just aren't interested in the things of god get so jaded
against church by hypocrites and false things in the church that they end up not wanting to go
i mean i can't tell you many times i've knocked on a door and they say i don't want to go to
church because everybody's a hypocrite there they say they want to serve god and then they're
getting drunk and they're committing fornication and adultery and doing all these weird things
and then it turns them off towards christianity and it was just a pentecostal church is what they're
really going to okay because pentecostal churches are fake and they don't have the real spirit
they're not saved and so they don't actually clean up their lives and that's why they're
always saying everybody's a hypocrite here because they are giant hypocrites they're not trying to be
holy and at the end of the day there's a lot of lying and here's the problem with lying typically
lying is never a sin by itself it's used to cover up other sins i mean if you think about it lying
is usually somehow in coordination with other sins you know let's let's talk about some liars for a
moment okay how about how about like kids making up stories about their parents and trash them
that's evil because it's not just lying it's also dishonoring your parents it's not honoring your
father and your mother and let me tell you some our society for some reason just has an attitude
of just trashing their parents and it's wrong i know that the stereotype and supposedly the rule
is that when you're a teenager you have to have this rebellious spirit you have to hate your
parents but let me tell you something i never had that spirit and i never want that spirit
you don't have to have that spirit i as a teenager loved my parents i hung out with my parents all
the time i had a great relationship with my parents it was them that kicked me out i didn't
want to leave all right they were they're wanting to be empty nesters so they were just like get out
you know and not because i did anything wrong they just simply wanted to be alone they loved
me it was a great relationship but they just wanted me to not be near them in a you know
close proximity okay they were just done and i get it it's okay but at the end of the day
hey you don't have to have a rebellious spirit kids you don't have to go along with the world
and be like the breakfast club where the only reason y'all are friends is because y'all trash
your parents together some stupid movie from the 80s where everybody has to say like their parents
are bad or something you know what don't get this attitude don't act like that don't be a liar you
don't even know what most of your the things your parents did for you because as kids you're just
kind of oblivious you're kind of oblivious to the first five years of your life that were really
hard tying your shoes and doing your diapers and sleepless nights and you vomiting all over yourself
i mean just this week ellie's coming in here to my i'm working and she just comes in and she's just
got like poop all over her like hand and her body and she's like help like i'm like i wanted to run
away but my wife was not there so i'm just like oh man i don't want to deal with that who wants
to deal with that no one okay but she'll never remember that she doesn't even know what happened
i could bring it up to her and she wouldn't even remember that it happened already and then let
alone just all the things your parents is praying for you feeding you clothing you sacrificing for
you putting you in sports educating you all the different things i mean most of our parents just
threw us into public school and did nothing and many of the moms in here are sacrificing greatly
for home school education home cooked meals they're sacrificing they're doing breastfeeding
you know hey you're not one of those formula fed kids you're a breastfed kid there's benefits
hey you're not one of those kids that was just laid on the floor mat all the time in some nursery
and you have this really flat back of your head like if you ever see kids where the back of their
head just as flat as this paper i'm there could be an exception but i'm just saying most of the
time it's because they were just laid on their back their entire like their entire childhood
because you know when you go to the nursery there's 20 kids and two workers i mean they can't hold all
the kids it's not fair for them and so you know what they get neglected they don't get to be in
mom's arms all the time they don't get as much love they don't have their brothers and sisters
to hold them and take care of them and do good of them and you know what we need to be appreciative
of what our parents have done for us the bible says to honor thy father thy mother we shouldn't
be lying about our parents there's be the last person we should lie about here's some other
people that are liars are people that get divorced what a liar what a liar to stand before god
and everybody else and say till death do us part and then get divorced it's scummy it's gross
and you know what it's an approach to christ it's like how dare you're making divorced people
uncomfortable good because you know what how many nights are your kids gonna cry because you got
divorced how many times are you gonna put all this trauma and inconvenience on your children
and confuse them and ruin their lives permanently because of your selfish actions of getting
divorced you know what you deserve to be uncomfortable because divorce is ugly and
you're a liar you're a disgusting liar and you know what you should be ashamed of yourself
and you know what if you got divorced and you can fix it get remarried to your wife if you can't
well you know what god's not going to continue being mad at you but you better not ever justify
divorce in my presence because it's gross and it's disgusting and it's evil and it's wicked
and it's lying you're a liar how dare you there's some people they just get divorced remarried and
then divorced and remarried and then divorced and remarried you know what the bible says false
witness shall be they're not going to be unpunished a false witness shall perish that's a bad lifestyle
to live breaking your oath and you know not all of our oaths are made to god that's an oath that
most people are making to god they're standing there before their spouse and god promising to
make hey if you want to get married you better mean it till death do us part and not be a liar
you know it makes church look bad and it makes me mad it makes god mad god hate is putting away
here's another liar is people that commit adultery because typically when they're
doing it they're doing it behind their spouse's back what a lying piece of scum you know what
adultery is evil it's wicked according to the bible it's punishable by death and you know what
if i was the king of the land i would pass that law right now i just pressed the button right now
you know what god said that a false witness shall perish and even though man may not punish you
god could punish you i mean think about samson he's just living his little fornication life
and just thinks he's going to get away with it well pretty soon he's just dead people commit
fornication in the old testament dead the bible says in the new testament about jezebel she
committed adultery and you know what god gave her a little bit of space to repent of that
but then when she didn't kill not just her didn't just kill jezebel killed her and her children
with death is what the bible says all them that commit adultery with her he's going to throw them
into a bed with her children and she's going to he's going to kill her with death and we need
to be afraid of god god will destroy people hey here's one lying about your feelings about church
to get ordained what a liar you know filling out a pastor test and on it where it says where do you
disagree with me you say nothing and then afterwards you preach all these things about how you disagree
on stuff you're a liar and you know what you're not going to go unpunished god will punish you
don't think like it's so stupid to think that you can be deceitful about getting ordained and
they'll be blessed because you know what god can see through that why why would you get ordained
to be blessed by god because any of us could go just start a church down the street at any point
we could all just go find five people off the street to call us pastor and just start a little
house church why would no one do that because they actually want legitimate ordination and they want
to be blessed by god but when you're fake you're not going to be blessed by god anyways what's the
point of seeking legitimate ordination when you're deceitful about it it's the dumbest move because
it doesn't work because i can't hand you anything great all i can give you is a special you know
spiritual blessing but if you're fake god's like ha didn't work i mean i could sit here and pray i
can lay all my hands and feet and toes on you and god won't give you that special blessing because
you're fake you know what god will destroy you and you know there have been people that were
ordained as evangelists and pastors and stuff that were fake and insincere and you know what
their work was destroyed and they themselves are being destroyed all kinds of diseases are
going on them and they deserve that how about other liars that commit fraud and deception to
get money but you know what they end up losing money hey you want to take god's money god will
take so much money away from you won't even be funny god will bring you all kinds of medical
bills and all kinds of other judgments and liens and all kinds of extortioners let the extortioner
catch all that he hath is what the bible says and just let all kinds of other grifters you know
some people don't realize that the medical industry is filled of grifters and extortioners too
all these specialty doctors with their specialty things many times you go to the doctor and they
make you worse and they give you a hundred thousand dollar bill on top of it they're an
extortioner folks okay they'll just take advantage of you i mean there's a woman in the bible that
spent all of the money that she had on physicians and didn't get better she only grew worse
and it's just justice it's just poetic justice to fraudsters to go get ripped off by another
fraudster one of these fake doctors that's going out there on some experimental medication
to try and hurt you and harm you even more you know so funny i was reading about somebody
that did this they were like they're suffering all this pain and their health's really low
and they said that they went to the hospital and this is what it said the first thing that happened
is they drew 20 vials of blood you know it's it's funny because like george washington
and his lifestyle lifetime when he was sick they believed in this thing called blood letting where
they would literally just like cut you and allow your blood to be poured out and they'd try to give
you more blood because they thought you had like bad blood or something but honestly just makes you
worse of course because the life is in the blood okay think about this you're not doing well you're
not healthy and then you go to the hospital what do they do they extract all your blood they're
like making it worse on you it's it's insane it's so weird that you go to the hospital and look i'm
not saying if you go to the hospital for a birth you're doing something wrong this is what i really
don't like i don't understand how we can't change this why would i go to the hospital with my wife
and they're worried about her hemorrhaging meaning losing a lot of blood during pregnancy
and what they're going to do is they're going to draw all this blood from her i'm thinking like
what if you're worried about her having not enough blood why would you then draw all this blood for
tests like it's like the worst time like what's the absolute worst time to draw blood let's draw
more blood and they just have all these people because you're just a guinea pig hooked up to a
machine and they don't actually care about you they don't even think about what they're doing
they think about hey i can draw more blood and run another 400 test and charge you later
and they don't they're not actually thinking about how does this even make sense i mean think about
it if you were out there in the medical field and you saw someone in a car accident and they're
bleeding let's draw more blood from them no we need to stop the bleeding like isn't that just
common sense isn't it just common sense if someone's losing blood to not draw more blood
from them on top of that to not try to extract more and of course they think like well we need
this to run tests because we don't want to inject them with all this medication and do all these
things to like harm them but at the end of the day it's like are you really even is it a net
positive i mean how many people are you actually hurting by taking more blood from them as opposed
to actually just leaving it alone and look i'm not a i'm not a doctor i'm not you get advice from
doctors you get advice from hospitals and do whatever i'm just telling you from a common
sense perspective it makes no sense to just go to the hospital say like i'm really sick and dying
and they're like let's gonna we're gonna draw 20 vials of blood and then they said the person's
like veins were just like so sucked dry and just like inflamed and they were just feeling even
worse and just think like of course because you just drew 20 vials of blood my wife when she was
uh younger she had donated blood and she told me she's like struggled me passing out because you
take too much blood you'll pass out you you get here's the thing if you lose all your blood
something will happen called death you die you need blood okay it's not a good idea just extract
all this blood but you know what you're a lying fraudster well go to a hospital where they'll
just treat you like a guinea pig and they'll do experimental procedures on you and you won't even
know what's going on that's what's going to happen when you're a liar go with the proverb 17 will
finish the bible says he that covered the transgression seeketh love but he that repeated the
matter separated very friends there's one last thing i want to say and and how our church needs
to be holy look we need to get away from false religion we need to have church discipline and
we need to make sure that we're getting away from lying but i heard this stupid stupid statement
from multiple people even pastors this idea of well if i'm repeating someone else's lie i'm not
going to be guilty like i said it's not it's not my fault if someone lies to me and then i just
repeat these lies or something this is dumb logic it is not biblical you will be held accountable
for repeating lies and think about the verse i just quoted for you he that repeated the matter
separated very friends you know when you're just repeating stuff and it's not firsthand account
it's not verified you don't know you could be spreading lies and of course you know who also
believes this exact same principle your jewish media because you know what your jewish media does
the associated press puts out some piece of information and then every other newspaper
will just repeat what they said and then if they get sued they'll say oh i was just saying what
they said and then it's somehow a loophole to get out of it but you know what it's still wicked
and it's still evil and it's wrong and you will be punished you cannot just go around just repeating
lies and think like well i'm just saying what they said you know what then there would be no
one ever held accountable for gassa because we'd have to find the first person to ever think that
that's the only person that gets punished how does that even make sense like that doesn't make
look anybody that repeats a lie is a liar it doesn't matter if it was good intentions or not
and look if i lie about somebody and i thought it was true you know what i should still do i'm
sorry and get it right and fear god and ask him not punish me for spreading that lie i shouldn't
sit here and think like oh well i didn't do anything wrong i just repeated what they said
now again obviously you could you could just quote somebody so and so said this i'm not saying you're
going to be punished for that but when you're repeating what they're saying as a statement of
fact or you believe it or whatever you are going to be held responsible for saying that
proverbs 10 i'm just reading a few verses for you he that hideth hatred lying lips
and he that uttereth a slander is a fool hey you utter a slander you're a fool it doesn't say well
oh exception if you were just repeating another slanderer no if you're repeating slander you're
a fool period a tale bearer reveal his secrets but he that is of a faithful spirit can seal it
the matter look you're gonna hear stuff all the time about people that's unverified you don't know
you can't necessarily know for sure if it's right and you know what you do you don't repeat it you
don't say it you don't even believe it i mean the bible says against an elder receive not an
accusation but before two or three witnesses meaning you're not even allowed to receive it
let alone believe it when it's just one and look it's not just an elder it's everybody
like if someone comes up to you and says hey did you hear about brother tanner don't believe it
hey did you hear about this don't believe anything in fact you know often i just say how do you know
and this is what's so funny to me most of the time they're like so and so told me i'm like
so you're not even a witness you count as zero you count as nothing i have to completely reject
every single thing that you're saying right now you know if you're a witness well then we can give
some credence but at the end of the day i need multiple to even start receiving things and even
doing anything with it and let me explain something one witness is not enough for any sin or
iniquities that the bible says you know what a witness is they saw it they witnessed it if you
didn't see it you're not a witness okay so if you have multiple witnesses it's multiple people that
witnessed something okay and think about this logic because this is what people will do they'll say
like oh i have five witnesses that pastor shelley is a a liar a bad person or something and you're
like okay who are they well here it was somebody you kicked out in 2018 and then someone you kicked
out in 2019 and then someone you kicked out in 2020 and then someone you kicked out in 2022
and then someone you kicked out six weeks ago we know that's not five witnesses that's one witness
per event you have to have multiple witnesses of the same event before you can even try to deal
with it you could still have multiple unreliable witnesses okay but think about that logic if that
was true then we would all be bad people because i guarantee there's more than one person that
dislikes you in the world and all you need is two people to dislike you and now you have multiple
witnesses like we're just making these words of none effect okay what does the bible say in
proverbs 17 verse 4 a wicked doer giveth heed to false lips and a liar giveth ear to a naughty tongue
you know we need to be careful who we're listening to and we need to be thinking about this because
someone that's bad when someone comes to you and says something instead of asking are you a witness
did you hear it thinking about how many witnesses they just receive it bad people just receive
information from a singular source all the time and it's a proof that they're bad look we can all
get tricked we can all get deceived we can all be wrong about something no one is perfect but
someone that receives one witness testimony or one person's word as just truth that person's a bad
person that's what the bible's saying the bible's basically saying when you see someone and they're
like hey i have one witness and i believe this is true just know this is a bad person because a good
person would say well it's only one and i don't know if it's true that's a good person that's a
good heart a wicked doer will give heed to false lips because when you don't have these kind of
principles you're going to constantly receive all kinds of lies with some truth whereas someone
that says you know what i need multiple witnesses i need to verify this i need to check it they won't
end up giving heed to a bunch of false lips they won't allow a bunch of people to lie to them and
take advantage of them you have to understand this verse is very important it's very powerful
if someone gets up and publicly admits i'm believing the testimony of one witness they're
almost just saying like i'm a bad person you should be very careful with that individual okay
we need to make sure that we're not those type of people and we don't want a church like that
because think about it if we were like that we would all be hating each other pretty soon
because all you need is literally one person in this room to complain about you and they'll believe
it. How would you like it if after the service someone comes up to me in the church and just
says hey so-and-so they're a bad person they're a reprobate throw them out of church and I just say
done what what more do we need what more testimony do we need and I just walk up to you and say hey
you're out you're like based on what witness testimony how many one what did they say they
said you're a bad person okay case closed I mean bye I mean you you want that to happen you want
your adversary in church you want just one person just make up look there's been so many times where
people made up the most insane crazy accusations about people in this this room I can't just accept
that but a bad person will do that and sometimes they're respective persons it depends on which
person it's their friend or someone they like or their wife oh well if my wife says it's just
automatically true that is not how it works hey even my wife is only one witness I can't just
believe everything that she says now of course my wife's very trustworthy and I do respect her
opinion but at the end of the day I'm not going to come against you as a church member because
of one person's testimony even if it was my wife even if it was my staff member hey we're going
to give people the benefit of the doubt we should always do so and we want to have a church that's
holy we don't want to have a church where we just listening to all the lies and the gossip and the
railing and we make the church just a meaningless institution again if you want to have a long
sustained church we have to make sure that we're avoiding false religion we're avoiding these
church discipline issues and we're avoiding lies let's close in prayer thank you heavenly father
so much for the word of god and for giving us an opportunity to be holy i pray that you would
just help protect our church from false religion you would help us be protected from serious sin
issues and church discipline issues and i pray that you'd help protect us from lies and listening
to lies i pray that you would help bless this church so that we could be holy and that you
could be pleased with our church and that we could just continue doing the important work of soul
winning in jesus name we pray amen 49 meet me there