There's a hundred certainly catchin'
Kate and Bill did here.
And welcome back to Steadfast Baptist Church.
It's great to see everybody here.
If we can go ahead and find our seats, we will get started.
And for tonight's first song, we will go to song number 56 together and sing when we all get to heaven.
Song number 56, song number 56.
When we all get to heaven, for today that will be song number 56.
I've seen that
Oh, we love you so much and we just thank you so much
for all the souls that were wanted to you this afternoon
and all the works that are being done by this church
through you, Lord.
And it's just an honor to take place in that.
And we just ask that you fill this room with your spirit.
Help us sing out to you this afternoon
and we just ask all these things in Jesus' name.
All right, for our next song, let's go back a few pages.
The song number 51.
Song number 51, two songs go hand in hand when we all get to heaven, we'll never grow old.
Song number 51, where we'll never grow old.
Song number 51, let's all sing that out together.
Thanks for coming to Set Fast Baptist Church.
If you didn't already get a bulletin,
you can just lift up your hand nice and high,
and one of the ushers can come by
and get you guys a bulletin.
And we are on Jude.
17 for our bio and reverse of the week, inside service and soul winning times, regional times,
our church stats are there, make sure you're just updating your group chat with your soul
winning information and Brother Furr wanted you to make sure if you're putting in your
partner make sure to put like a first name at least the last initial or something just
so we know.
So we've got lots of gerrids and.
Whatever all kinds of different names that are similar. So lots of similar people. So just making sure that we kind of get that
Please pray for our expecting ladies
Upcoming events are men's retreats this coming week meet at 9 a.m. The building if you'd like to carpool
You don't have to you can just meet us out there if you have any questions. Just email us
FBF conference August 27th to 31st. Just make sure
You are praying that our conference will go well
And we try to be really hospitable,
give people a good impression of the cult
so that way they really like it.
And I'm just kidding.
It's obviously, it's just, it's kind of...
I think people don't realize how fun it is to be here but we want to try and make
sure people have a good experience, people enjoy their time and so that
starts with us just trying to make sure that we're just extra friendly and nice
and helping people and you guys already do such a great job but just putting it
on your radar.
Mexico missions trip September 8th to the 12th Tyler, Texas September 27th
Soul winning seminar is going to happen at the church October 4th. That's a Saturday if you
Are going to be going to the Bahamas. That's a great recommendation to show up for that but the Marcel's going to be leading this for us
He's a really good soul winner and he's been to the Bahamas before so definitely take his wisdom and counsel seriously
Nassau Bahamas is October 6th to the 11th. We look forward to that
Just out of curiosity, who is, like, seriously planning on going to the Bahamas that has not emailed us an itinerary at all?
I just kind of want to get an idea.
Okay, great. And then...
Some tips about the men's conference if you're planning on coming make sure to bring some sheets pillows toiletries tout pretty pretty much like literally everything that you would want
It is a little bit glamping, but at the same time there's nothing there, but a bare mattress. So that's pretty much all you get
The back of the list is a prayer list if you have any prayer requests, please email us. We'd love to add you in there
Otherwise, let's go to our Psalm of the week Psalm 139. It's in our special Psalm hymns and binders
You could just get that out Psalm 139
All right, that was Psalm 139.
Psalm 139.
Psalm 139, let's all sing that up again.
Surely thou will slay the wicked.
O God.
40 bloody men depart from me there 40 bloody men tonight I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate them oh Lord I hate
Don't step right in front of me tonight
offering plates are being passed around. Go ahead and open your Bibles to 2 Samuel chapter
number 15. That's the book of 2 Samuel chapter number 15.
came to pass after this that Absalom prepared him chariots
and horses and 50 men to run before him.
And Absalom rose up early and stood beside the way of the
gate.
And it was so that when any man that had a controversy came to
the king for judgment, then Absalom called unto him and
said, Of what city art thou?
And he said, Thy servant is of one of the tribes of Israel.
And Absalom said unto him, See, thy matters are good and right,
but there is no man deputed of the king to hear thee.
Absalom said moreover, O, that I were made judge in the land,
that every man which hath any suit or cause might come unto me,
and I would do him justice.
And it was so that when any man came nigh to him to do him obeisance,
he put forth his hand and took him and kissed him.
And on this manor did Absalom to all Israel that came to the king for judgment.
So Absalom stole the hearts of the man of Israel and it came to pass after 40 years that Absalom said unto the king
I pray thee let me go and pay my vow which I have vowed unto the Lord in Hebron
For thy servant vowed a vow while I abode at Gesher in Syria saying if the Lord shall bring me again indeed to Jerusalem
Then I will serve the Lord and the king said unto him go in peace. So he arose and went to Hebron
But Absalom sent spies throughout all the tribes of Israel saying,
as soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet, then you shall say Absalom, Reyneth, and Hebron.
And with Absalom went 200 men out of Jerusalem that were called.
And they went in their simplicity and they knew not anything.
And Absalom sent for a Hithafel the Gilenite, David's counselor,
from his city, even from Galo, while he offered sacrifices.
And the conspiracy was strong for the people increased continually with Absalom.
And there came a messenger to David saying the hearts of the men of Israel are after Absalom.
And David said unto all his servants that were with him at Jerusalem,
Arise and let us flee, for we shall not else escape from Absalom.
Make speed to depart, lest ye overtake us suddenly, and bring evil upon us,
and smite the city with the edge of the sword.
And the king's servant said unto the king,
Behold thy servants are ready to do whatsoever my Lord the king shall appoint.
And the king went forth and all his household after him, and the king left ten women which were concubines to keep the house.
And the king went forth and all the people after him, and tarried in a place that was far off, and all his servants passed on beside him,
and all the charathites, and all the pelithites, and all the gitites.
600 men which came after him from Gath passed on before the king, then said the king to
Itai the Gittite, wherefore go as thou also with us, return to thy place and abide with
the king, for thou art a stranger and also an exile, whereas thou came us but yesterday,
should I this day make thee go up and down with us? Seeing I go wither I may, return
thou and take back thy brethren, mercy and truth be with thee.
and it I answered the king and said as the Lord liveth and as my Lord the king
liveth surely in what place my Lord the king shall be whether in death or life
even there also will thy servant be and David said to it I go and pass over and
it I the get tight passed over and all his men and all the little ones that were
with him
and all the country wept with a loud voice,
and all the people passed over.
The king also himself passed over the brook Kidron,
and all the people passed over
toward the way of the wilderness.
And Lo Zedok also, and all the Levites were with him,
bearing the Ark of the Covenant of God,
and they set down the Ark of God,
and a Biathar went up until all the people
had done passing out of the city.
And the king said unto Zadok, Carry back the ark of God into the city.
If I shall find favor in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me again, and show me both it
and his habitation.
But if he thus say, I have no delight in thee, behold, here am I.
Let him do to me as seemeth good unto him."
The king said also unto Zadok the priest, art not thou a seer?
Return into the city in peace, and your two sons with you, a high maz thy son, and Jonathan
the son of a biathar.
See I will tarry in the plain of the wilderness, until there come word from you to certify
me.
Zadok therefore in a biathar carried the Ark of God again to Jerusalem and they
tarried there and David went up by the ascent of Mount Olivet and wept as he
went up and had his head covered and he went barefoot and all the people that
was with him covered every man his head and they went up weeping as they went
up and one told David saying a hithafel is among the conspirators with
And David said, Oh, Lord, I pray thee, turn the counsel of a hithafel into foolishness.
And it came to pass that when David was come to the top of the mount where he worshiped
God, behold, who shy of the archite came to meet him with his coat rent and earth upon
his head, unto whom David said, If thou passest on with me, then thou shalt be a burden unto
me.
but if thou return to the city and say unto Absalom, I will be thy servant, O King,
as I have been thy father's servant hitherto, so will I now also be thy servant,
then mayest thou for me defeat the counsel of a hithafel."
And hath thou not there with thee Zadok and Abiathar the priests?
Therefore it shall be that what things soever thou shalt hear out of the king's house,
thou shalt tell it to Zadok and Abiathar the priests.
Behold, they have there with them their two sons, Ahayma Zadok's son and Jonathan Abiathar's son.
And by them ye shall send unto me everything that ye can hear.
So Hushai David's friend came into the city and Absalom came into Jerusalem.
Let us pray.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for the Word of God.
I thank you for another chance to hear the Word of God preached.
I ask you to please bless Pastor Shelley, fill him with your Holy Spirit, remove distractions
and help us to become better Christians.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.
I wanted to preach a sermon this evening called Church Splitters.
Church Splitters.
the idea, the concept where people will eventually split a church or try to attack a church or divide
a church or break up a church and really what makes a church special is that we're unified,
that we're rallied together, that we have commonality and a church splitter
Primarily in the Bible is usually a very wicked, unsaved devil.
But I think even saved people that just get a really bad heart
and are just really disgruntled, could also try their best to split up a church or cause problems.
Now, they're both being influenced heavily by Satan, by the devil.
And the devil wants to destroy churches.
He wants to destroy anybody doing the work of God specifically.
Our church is not different than any other church.
The devil is trying to destroy all churches.
But of course, a church that's doing great things for God,
that's really unified, that's getting a lot of people saved,
the devil's gonna come after a church like that.
And when we talk about coming after church,
it's not like he's gonna try and attack
the walls of the building or something like that.
A church is a group of people.
And so the devil will attack us as a group of people.
We've had lots of attacks already.
The devils attacked us through protesting and through external forces, just evil people,
they openly admit they're of the church of Satan, witches, sodomites, reprobates.
We've been attacked through Jewish means of financial institutions debanking us, blocking us,
censoring us, getting just endless one-star Google reviews. In fact, it's funny,
legitimate five-star reviews from our church's business profile online claiming it's spam.
And it'll just be like a person that goes to our church or a normal person that I know,
and they're just like, yeah, this is spam.
And then they just allow people that have nothing to do with our church, don't even
live anywhere near us to just keep the one-stars just keep coming.
And at this point, like, I don't even care, like, us having a really low-star profile
just means we're good.
And obviously, like, most times I read the reviews, I'm just thinking, like, if I read
And I was a normal person, I would think like, well,
that sounds like a pretty good church.
We got one today.
And it's just like, oh, this church gave me a card
and said I'm going to go to hell if I don't believe in Jesus
or whatever, it's just like, sounds like a great church to me.
Yeah, like, oh, they don't want packets and pedophiles there.
Oh, man, wow.
I'm like, these are great reviews.
Like, this is amazing.
Thank you for the free advertising, OK?
But, obviously, the devil has failed.
The devil has failed to stop us through sodomites.
He's failed to stop us through debanking us
or afflicting us financially, or evicting us.
They failed.
They just keep failing.
But it seems like the devil, he's not content.
He's not gonna give up necessarily.
He's gonna just change.
I feel like I personally had a lot of attacks
and all kinds of things happened.
But,
Again, they failed.
So what does the devil do?
Well, then he goes and tries to pray on different people,
on weak people.
And I feel like in the last year or so,
what I've noticed is a lot of people
have just been attacked personally.
Just their own personal battles of life or situations.
And anywhere you have a weakness,
the devil's gonna try and come in
and try to attack your weakness.
Whether that be you personally,
or maybe your relationship, or your marriage,
your finances, or your job, or your family,
just relationships.
He's gonna just try to take those weaknesses
and really bring them to light.
People getting upset with like little gossip,
or tail-bearing, or clicks, or that kind of stuff.
Just lots of those little things.
But again, that's still not necessarily working.
What's another way that the devil could try to destroy our church or attack our church though is a church splitter and
This is a very dangerous individual that would potentially try to just split a church
Church splits happen all the time to good churches bad churches all of it
And we don't want to ever give this attitude that it couldn't happen to us because it definitely happened to us and it takes
In some ways, the flock to prevent these type of things from happening.
It can't just only come from leadership.
I think it's my job to warn the flock and to give you tools
to try and prevent this stuff from happening,
but in some cases, it may not even be fully preventable.
Now, in 2 Samuel 15, we're reading about Absalom
and what he did to David specifically.
Now, someone might say, well, this isn't church.
But, okay, keep your finger here, go to 1 Corinthians 10 for a second.
Let's just learn a little bit of what the Bible teaches.
You know, all the stories in the Bible, especially the Old Testament,
the Bible says are for us.
And they describe situations that will happen to us.
Often, sometimes people will say,
oh, you guys are always putting yourselves into the Bible.
And you're taking the characters of the Bible
and you're assigning them to you, into the bad people and whatever.
And it's like, exactly.
Yes, because that's what the Bible tells us to do, and really you'll never run into a scenario or a situation or an event that doesn't have biblical parallels.
Now is everything always perfect? No, but there's always going to be a character in the Bible that is like the people in today's world.
There's not some type of a character that exists in the world that you can't find in the Bible.
The Bible has covered all the different characters and all the basic scenarios that you're going to run into.
Moreover, brethren, I would not that you should be ignorant how that all our fathers were
under the cloud and all passed through the sea and were all baptized in Moses and the
cloud in the sea and did all eat the same spiritual meat and did all drink the same
spiritual drink for that drink or for they drank.
of that spiritual rock that followed them,
and that rock was Christ, but with many of them,
God was not well pleased,
for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
Now these things were our examples to the intent
we should not lust after evil things,
as they also lusted.
We this morning were talking about history,
the children of Israel were wandering in the wilderness
over a thousand years prior to this particular event.
I think I had it on the timeline, it's 1557, approximately, it was when the Exodus was.
So, 1557 is when these things actually happened, yet he's saying that was written for us.
1,557 years later, that's written, and even beyond that, because this epistle is not written at zero,
year zero doesn't even exist. Arguably, the Corinth letters probably written 70, 80,
We're talking over 1600 years in the future.
He's saying, hey, that was written for us
that we should not act like they did
when they were in the wilderness, okay?
And he's talking to a church.
Why? Because they were a group of people.
They were a congregation.
We're a congregation.
And their journey through the wilderness
is like our journey through the wilderness
of Christianity of this life, okay?
Similar parallels.
He says in verse nine, or in verse seven, sorry.
Neither be idolaters.
As are some of them, as it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed and fell in one day, three and twenty thousand.
Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted and were destroyed of serpents.
Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured and were destroyed of the destroyer.
So the Bible is saying, hey, don't get into idolatry. Don't get into fornication.
Don't be someone that's constantly talking bad
about the church or the leadership,
and really we're gonna see that is a parallel,
specifically with Absalom and church splitters
that they're murmurs.
They're constantly murmuring and complaining.
They don't like where they're being drugged to.
They don't like where they're going.
Oh, why do we have to go to Hearst
or why do we have to go to Otaga
or why do we have to go to Cedar Hill
or why do we have this old winning event here
or why do we go into the Bahamas or whatever.
You know, why is Pastor Shelley
I'm talking about you, okay?
Verse 11, now all these things happen under them foreign samples and they are written for our
Admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come so you say look all these old testament stories are for us
There are examples we should learn from these stories of what people are like
So you get doctrine from Proverbs, you get doctrine from Romans and the pastoral epistles,
the clear statements of the Bible, you get doctrine from the clear statements of Jesus
Christ, not the parables, the clear statements, and then you learn life experiences and discretion
from learning about the stories in the Old Testament.
Sometimes the characters do right, sometimes they do bad.
How do you determine what was right or wrong?
from Jesus' clear statements and from the clear doctrines of the New Testament epistles.
But we understand the Bible has different sections for a reason.
There's a reason why often I'll start sermons in Proverbs or Romans or one of the pastoral
epistles or something or maybe a clear statement of Christ because that's where we want to
get our doctrine.
And then we look at stories to evaluate how we operate relationally and God uses these
We're here in 1 Corinthians, look at chapter 11, verse 17.
Now, in this I declare, I'm sorry,
now in this, that I declare unto you, I praise you not,
that you come together not for the better, but for the worse.
For first of all, when you come together in the church,
I hear that there be divisions among you,
and I partly believe it,
for there must be also heresies among you,
that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.
He's warning, hey, this church has division, it's bad,
that means there must be heresy.
So, if we don't have heresy, according to the Bible, we should actually be in unison.
We should be unified and rallied together, so it's actually a bad thing when the church
has some kind of division and groups and sects and all this different stuff.
We should be unified, rallied together, having the same Bible, the same gospel, the same
soul-winning presentation, and obviously I'm not saying exactly, but it should be very
similar.
We should have the same form of baptism.
We should have the same core doctrines of the faith.
And we should have the same vision for our church, okay?
And when there's division, that's a problem.
Go over to 3rd John, we'll see another example of a person
that in my mind is kind of setting up this example
of a church splitter, but it would be deotrophies.
And then we're gonna kind of walk through
Absalom and what he did it to David.
3rd John verse 9, I wrote under the church, but deotrophies who love it that the premonance among them receive it does not
Wherefore if I come I will remember his deeds which he doeth
Prading against us with malicious words and not content therewith
Neither doth he himself receive the brethren and forbid at them that would and cast at them out of the church
So this is a church splitter where he's casting out some of the people of the church and he's splitting the church
based on his personality.
If he doesn't get the preeminence,
well, you just can't be a part of our church.
And isn't it interesting that there's been people like this
even in the new IB movement?
where they said hey if you like another pastor more than me or you listen to other pastors more than me you can't be a
Part of this church that is a literal deotrophies
Where if he doesn't get the preeminence he's gonna cast you out
There's people that are in our church that have said they visited other churches and they refuse to baptize them or they refuse to let
Them be a part of their congregation just based on who got them saved
or how to influence on them or who they liked or something.
You know, this is a bad attitude.
It's a Deotreous-type spirit,
and many of them are just evil and wicked people.
The Bible even says here in verse number 11,
Beloved Fallen, not that which is evil, but that which is good.
He that doeth good is of God,
but he that doeth evil hath not seen God.
So, you know, I believe Deotreous
is probably just a rotten person to the core,
but let's go back to 2nd Samuel chapter 15
after thinking about this.
and realizing church splitters can't happen to anybody,
they can happen to us, we wanna take heed to this.
And I don't necessarily perceive a problem right now,
but here's the problem with the second same
on chapter 15.
David didn't realize this was happening.
And so, you know, what's important, though,
is to constantly remind the flock,
hey, this stuff can happen, this is what it looks like,
beware of this kind of stuff,
and let's try to fight it together.
Because we're doing such a great thing,
our church is doing well,
there's no reason to have church splits
if we can't avoid them.
I try to just do splintering every single week and then we don't have to have any bigger church splits.
So the splintering is, you know, you just, you offend at least one person every single week and they leave or something,
so then you don't have to worry about big church splits because you're just constantly splintering.
But you're going to lose people, period.
Some churches, what they do is they never really offend anybody ever.
So then you accumulate all this trash and then when you have a big event, then they have these big major dramas or church splits
We're just splintering every single week
So, you know, we try to reduce that that big big, you know
Expulsion but every church is gonna lose people every church accumulates trash
There's tons of people that are sometimes in a church that are ready to leave
They just need the excuse and they're just waiting for that opportunity
They're waiting for that event and then they can claim, you know, it's like well the building doesn't get cold enough or the AC
or I don't like the toy policy you implemented or you know just just anything just some something that's happening with somebody else
I don't like it, so I'm just gonna let you just like people give lame excuses why they quit church and
When they give lame excuses, this is what good heart of people think like let me overcome that obstacle
But you have to realize the lame excuse wasn't the real issue, they just needed that excuse
of why they're walking away, not serving God or whatever their problem is.
But as we read here in verse 1 it says,
And it came to pass after this that Absalom prepared him chariots and horses and fifty
men to run before him.
Notice that Absalom is not a leader, he uses people and strategically puts them to do his
dirty work for him.
This we have to understand about a church splitter is they're very crafty and they're very cunning and
They will make sure that they do nothing that you can just catch them red-handed
They're going to let other people kind of do their work for them.
They're not going to really lead.
They're going to make sure that they never make a statement clear enough to just really
have an actual item.
You can tell there's something off.
You know they're doing something wrong, but you just don't have the hard evidence to deal
with them.
And it's always frustrating.
It's like you got the one witness, you got the one situation, you got the awkward thing,
And that's often why these people are very dangerous is because they know what they're doing,
they're careful with what they say, and they try to get other people to do the bad stuff
so that if they get called out for it, they're like, well, I didn't, I didn't, they're running.
They're running before me. They are the ones that said this. They're the ones that did this.
They're very crafty in how they approach these particular situations.
Now, it says in verse 2,
And Absalom rose up early and stood beside the way of the gate,
And it was so that when any man that had a controversy came to the king for judgment,
Then Absalom called unto him and said,
Of what city art thou?
And he said, Thy servant is of one of the tribes of Israel.
Now, here's what we have to understand initially,
and I have six points for this sermon.
Number one is what a church splitter will do is that he is going to take people aside.
We noticed that these people wanted to see David.
They want to talk to David.
They like David.
That's what their their goal is is to see David. But then these people take them aside and they're taking them away from
David, they don't want them to go to David. They want to take them aside. How does this look like in a church?
It's people want to talk to the leadership the pastor or whoever and these other people are taking them aside and trying to
assert themselves as a leader in a sense, but it's it's not necessarily
And as public way, it's more of like in a subtle way, right?
He's coming and taking these people aside with him.
We see this constantly in the Bible.
Keep your finger here because we're coming back.
Go to 2 Timothy chapter number three.
If someone were to split our church,
they're not going to be able to publicly do it
and just be really open about it.
They have to take people aside
and they have to...
do this subtly.
What would be one of the ways that they could do this?
Second Timothy chapter three, look at verse number six.
For of this sort are they which creep into houses
and lead captive, silly women,
laden with sins, led away with divers lusts.
These people will typically either A,
go to people's houses or have people to their houses
on a regular basis.
I've seen this in other churches I've been to
where there's a certain disgruntled church member,
but they literally have everybody come to their house.
Like they're always having a new person over they hang out with everybody and their friends with everybody
and they just kind of are trying to bring everybody aside and
You know they have time for everybody and they're the ones that you know can take everybody under their wing
And you know it's just kind of a sign sometimes of someone that's not necessarily very genuine
Okay, doesn't mean that someone that's really hospitable and friendly is a bad person. Don't
hear me wrong. But this type of a person is doing this action as well. They're coming in,
they're creeping into people's houses, they're going in private ways, and they're bringing in
people into their circle. And it's a dangerous thing. Eventually it'll become manifest. It says
in verse number nine, but they shall proceed no further for their folly shall be manifest and
all men as theirs also was. Eventually it's going to come to light, but this is what they're going to
people are inviting them to come over, hang out with them.
Look at second, I'm sorry, second Peter chapter two,
and we'll see some more similarities here
with some of these people and what they're like.
Second Peter chapter two,
verse one,
but they were false prophets also among the people,
even as there should be false teachers among you.
So notice these people are among you.
Verse 13.
and they shall receive the reward of unrighteousness as they that count at
pleasure to riot in the daytime. Spots they are and blemishes sporting
themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you. Notice that
they're hanging out, they're fellowshiping. Church like itself, the
institution, we're not eating here.
We don't have food here as the church service so these are fellowships outside of the church
environment.
They're feeding with people, they're feasting with people and they're doing it and they're
not even afraid.
This is how they're sporting themselves.
They love it.
They love the deception.
They love bringing people into their circles and doing these type of things with them.
Jude chapter number 12. I'm sorry, not chapter, but verse. Sorry
Jude verse 12
These are spots in your feast of charity when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear.
So again, same concept how they're going to be feeding, they're with you, it's about meals,
meals about fellowship, you go into people's houses, do you not have houses to eat and to drink in, is what the Bible says?
And so this is kind of this concept of them drawing people aside, bringing them with them to go and feast.
2 Samuel chapter 15.
So here's one of the signs that someone could be
possibly trying to split a church
is that they're drawing everybody,
they're always like hanging out with everybody,
drawing them aside or going to be
with all the different people.
You know, and again, if you're a really friendly person,
I'm not necessarily saying you're bad,
but you could be bad.
And someone might be inviting you over dinner and you think it's nice and it's not nice.
Okay, so you have to be careful and you have to just think about these things.
You know, why would someone invite you into their home?
if they're a bad person because they're trying to win you over.
They're trying to convince you that they like you,
that they're on your side.
Why is Absalom taking the time to bring these people to him
and have these conversations?
Because that's how you win people over
is you have some kind of a conversation.
You're bringing them within proximity to you.
as we keep reading verse three in Absom said in them,
see thy matters are good and right,
but there is no man deputed of the king to hear thee.
So number one, he takes people aside.
Number two, he flatters them.
Okay, so here's another thing
that you should really pay attention to
is they invite you over, they hang out with you.
What is it that they say about you?
What are the things that they're saying about you?
Now, I want to go back to Jude
and we'll probably go back to Jude a lot too,
The Bible warns about flattery, and flattery, you have to understand about flattery is its insincere compliments,
or it's compliments that don't match reality.
What would this look like?
Obviously, you can't give an example of all flattery.
You just have to think about, is the statement that they made about me true?
Is it true?
You know, what if someone invites you over to their home?
And y'all don't really talk, you don't really text,
you don't even have that much in common,
you don't even know each other very much.
You come over to them and they say,
man, you're so awesome, you're like my best friend.
Someone could think like, oh, wow, they really like me.
But here's the thing, that's not reality.
Nobody is, quote, best friends with someone
that they don't hang out with that much.
If you are best friends, you're going to hang out with them all the time.
You're going to prioritize them. They're like the one individual that you just
you're doing all kinds of stuff for. So you have to be careful. You have to think like,
does this actually match
this reality? If someone says like, hey, we're besties
and then they don't hang out with you. They prioritize other people.
They're not wanting to invest in your life. They don't care about
conversations with you, you know, then it's incompatible and you might to see,
okay, there's something off about this. Or they give compliments that just seem
like over-the-top. You know, you're just wearing like normal clothes or something
that's not even that nice and they're just like, wow, that's the most amazing
shirt I've ever seen.
And you're like, bro, it's just like, you know,
just a white shirt you get on Amazon or whatever.
It's like, this is just like Costco or whatever, you know.
You just have to be careful.
But again, most people fall for flattery
because they want to believe people are sincere or nice.
You have to really just think about like,
are the statements they're making,
are the things they're saying real?
How in the world is every single person
that comes to Absalom always right?
Is that reality?
It's like, hey, whatever you said, right.
I don't even need to hear it.
See, that matters a good and right.
I mean, when we read the story, it doesn't even say like, hey, they explained everything
and their whole side and had all the evidence, and then he said,
I've evaluated the evidence and I've determined it's right.
It's just like, if you explain a situation to someone,
and here's the thing you have to think about, this is a form of flattery.
If someone tells you, hey, someone said this or did this,
and they're a bad person, and they're just like, yeah, I agree.
That's flattery.
because a good person would say,
well, there's probably two sides of the story.
Or, hey, have you thought about how they view it or whatever?
And they're not just immediately siding with you.
Okay, someone that just immediately sides with you,
that's kind of a dangerous person.
That's not necessarily a person that's got good judgment,
good wisdom, or is sincere at all.
You need to be careful about this.
Jude, verse 16.
These are murmurs, complainers walking up to their own lusts and their mouths speak of great swelling words
having men's persons in
admiration because of advantage. What is this this idea of having men's persons in admiration?
What's to it? What's to admire someone?
It means that you like them. You love them.
It's saying that they have men's persons who the person is in admiration.
I really love this person.
Why?
Why do you love this person?
For advantage.
Not because they actually love the person, but they want to use that as a way to gain
advantage.
So they'll tell you they like you or they love you to take advantage of you or to use
but they don't actually like you or love you
or want anything good for you.
So again, this is a form of flattery.
Sometimes you have to think about it.
If you are in a position of power or authority of anything,
why is this person saying this stuff to me?
Go to Proverbs 20, go to Proverbs 20.
It's funny, I was listening to some video
and it was a
a lady talking about how she was needing some financial advice.
And I think it was Dave Ramsey,
which he's good and bad at the same time,
but most arrogant prick.
But he was talking to this lady,
and this lady was talking about,
hey, I'm dating this guy,
and he's wanting me to take out some of my retirement,
and give it to him to invest in crypto,
because he's like really good at crypto,
and he's making tenfold what's going on in crypto.
And she's like, and he's really sweet to me and whatever,
but then when it comes to this,
he's saying I'm making bad financial decisions
and I should just not do the mutual funds.
I should take out my 401K, give it to him,
and he's gonna make so much more money in crypto.
Well, they're having this conversation for a while,
and then finally one of the people
that's conversing with her says,
how many times have you all met in person?
And she's like, well, we only talk online.
And it's like, sorry, you're dating a scam artist.
This person doesn't even, this person didn't even exist.
Like, and it was just kind of sad to think like this woman
is just like so desperate for attention
or like a companion that she's just willing to hear like,
hey, this guy's dating me and he likes me
and he's saying all these nice things to me.
Why?
Because he wanted to take advantage of her.
Because he wanted to take advantage of her to steal her money, and it wasn't real.
And so many people, they're kind of just looking for compliments that you can get taken advantage
of by wicked people.
So you need to be careful and think about like, this person really loved me.
Would a guy really want to be interested in e-dating a girl that he's never going to
meet?
You have to really think about that.
Because there's a reason why guys want to date girls, and it's not to have long conversations
It's to look at them and to hang out with them and to touch them, okay?
So and again, we want to be careful about the motivations of men and why they really want to you know
Have a wife do they really care about them? You know a man that wants to commit fornication. It's probably not interested in ever marrying you
So you have to think about that he may say that he loves you why because he wants to take advantage of you
Not because he actually loves you because the man that loves you would work really hard and provide and marry you and not commit
Fornication with you the man that does not love you as soon as you say I won't commit fornication
He will leave immediately
He'll be gone. He is not interested whatsoever
So as a young lady the worst thing you can do is commit fornication with a guy
You should just stay a virgin until you get married because it's the only way to protect yourself from really bad like marrying
Really bad men that have not sincere motivations to marry it now
You could obviously there can be a time when you commit fornication
And you still genuinely love the woman and you want to marry her
I mean hey more the son of Sheikham did actually love Dinah and I believe he was sincere in that
But a lot of the bad guys will get weeded out through that process and so just protect yourself
from going down that road, just please, please stay a virgin if you can.
I mean, it's the smartest thing you can do, the Bible emphasizes it.
But beware of flattery.
What does it say in Proverbs 20, verse 19?
He that goes about as a tail-bearer, revealeth secrets,
therefore, meddle not with him that flattereth with his lips.
Beware of the guy that's flattering.
And look, you can look out for flattery even when it's not about you.
that you should really think about flattery
from other people's perspective
because you're usually a little bit more objective.
Like, you hear someone compliment someone else
and you're like, I know that's not true about them.
Sometimes our ego allows us to believe flattery
a little bit more about ourselves.
But if you pay attention,
hey, this person just flattered this other person in front of me,
that's a red flag.
I should be careful about that.
Maybe that can help you pay attention.
I know they flattered them, but they wouldn't flatter me.
They flatter other people. They'll flatter you. You need to be very careful about compliments.
You need to be very careful about people just constantly praising you and saying things that just don't seem to match
reality, okay? Because they want to take advantage of you. Go to Proverbs 26, look at verse 28.
Life matters are good and right. You're always right. You always have a good opinion. Everything you do is good. You know what?
It's just bad. I've had people that after sermons it's like every sermon was like the greatest sermon I've ever preached and
Every time they were a bad person
So you know and I'm sure some weirdo is gonna try and tell me that to joke just don't even do it, okay?
Don't be a jokester about everything.
You could be serious too.
Proverbs 26, look at verse 28,
a lying tongue hated those that are afflicted by it,
and a flattering mouth worketh ruin.
Someone who's using flattery is just a bad person.
They have bad motivations.
You wanna be aware of a person
that uses a lot of flattery.
Obviously, you can't always discern exactly,
but you're just paying attention.
You're noticing these things.
Hey, this person's inviting me over,
they're flattering me a lot.
I should be really careful in this situation.
I need to be thinking about what's their motivation.
I can't believe it, but it happens.
People in this church even,
where they're kind of saying things to other couples,
like, hey, we really like you.
We really like your kids.
Hey, whenever you want,
you can always just drop your kids off with us.
And it's like, you don't even know this person that much.
And they're already just like offering this.
That is a dangerous person.
Okay, I mean if you were like lifelong friends or you've been friends for a decade and you have a close relationship and
They were
Obliging like like an obligatory thing. Okay, but when people are free will offering to watch your kids
I think that is like eight red flags a
Thousand I don't know. I'm just because I'll just be honest with you. I don't even want one of my own kids
Okay
Like I got enough, you know watching kids that I'm not going to start offering free babysitting
People that are offering free babysitting are suspect
Okay, I get like sometimes teenage girls will do this just to have a little job or some extra money
But I'm just saying when a dude
Wants to watch your kids never do that and even a lady that's offering this I'm really nervous about that
Why are they offering this you should be really really careful about that?
I don't want to do that, and I don't want to watch your kids either, okay?
You have good kids, but I don't want to do that, and I don't want you to get in the habit of doing that.
You should be very careful with that kind of stuff.
But people will flatter you, you know, men will flatter single women with children
because they want to get access to their children.
And sometimes it's really hard for a woman to realize, like, hey,
I'm single and have these bastard kids and whatever.
And it's like this guy's showing me all this attention.
You gotta think like, why?
Like does he actually really like you does he really love you or is he trying to just take advantage of you get access to things?
You know you kind of sometimes have to take a humble view of yourself and say like
I don't think this guy is actually sincere or really interested in me and you know I feel I feel bad for people
You know sometimes people they're they're in a low spot
They have bad life circumstances and they want to believe a fairy tale about themselves
But then because of that they allow themselves to get taken advantage of
You know that's how most people get scammed is you just want to believe something that sounds a little too good to be true
Oh, this Nigerian prince wants to give me $10,000
No, hey this this guy that's making all this money in this quick get rich quick scheme
He's gonna give me all the tips. No. Hey, there's this book. I can read now. Let's get rich really quick
No, like all these things are just ways to get scammed
So you have to be really careful.
Flattery will take advantage of you.
This can happen in church.
There can be people in this church
that will flatter you to take advantage of you.
You need to be aware of it.
Go if you would back to our story.
And I want to read the same verse,
but the second part of it.
Absalom flatters them.
See thy matters are good and right.
But there is no man deputed of the king to hear thee.
Here's the third thing that he does is he attacks the leadership. So number one, church splitters will take people aside.
Number two, they flatter them. Number three, they will subtly attack the leadership. Now,
we don't have a clear statement here. We don't have Absalom saying, David's bad.
David's a bad manager.
David's a bad leader.
But what is he suggesting by what he just said?
Oh, well, David's not taking attention to this matter.
He's not managing well.
He didn't authorize someone to handle this situation.
So, Ergo, he's not doing a good job.
Ergo, he's not managing correctly.
Ergo, there's a problem with leadership.
Ergo, David's not paying attention.
that are bad, would love to do, is they attack the leadership.
Oh, well, the pastor's too busy to talk to you.
You know, it's so funny how people just message or talk to
or communicate to my leadership, lower leadership,
and be like, well, I just wanted to come to you
because the pastor's too busy, and I'm thinking, like,
I've never, I've never, like, not responded
or not dealt with this situation.
It's sometimes a red flag.
It's like they only want to go to the employee, or they want to go to somebody else, or my
wife, or whatever, and they just want to like try to get an answer from someone else.
It's like why aren't they just going to the pastor?
And again, I get it, I have people that I delegate things to, there are other people
you can go to, so many captains, and we've got other leaders in the church that can
help answer questions.
But it's weird when this is what happens, hey, brother fur, I have this question, I
want to do this thing.
Oh, well I can't really answer, you should talk to a pastor, and then they never talk
to me.
It's like why are they asking all these questions and then when they're referred up the chain they all of a sudden
They don't want to deal with it. They don't want to bring it up. That's kind of a dangerous thing, isn't it?
People going around, you know
Escalating things is always a good idea if there's a problem if there's an issue. Hey, well, I don't really like how the soul
When he's going here. I don't like how we count numbers. Okay. Well, let's ask our soul winning captain about that
Okay, let's ask the pastor about that. Let's ask, you know, let's let's elevate this or hey
I don't know, you know, I don't really like what pastors tell us does this one sermon. What do you think about it?
Or I don't know if this is right, or I don't know, you know
They're just always just trying to plant these little tiny like nuggets of just like
Attacking the leadership undermining leadership. I don't really like where the chairs are at, you know
You know, was it really a good idea to have a conference at the hottest time of August, you know
Do you really have to go to the Bahamas?
It's pretty expensive.
You know, hey, I was looking at the cups over there.
They look like from pretty nice cups.
You could probably get some cheaper cups than that,
you know, trying to get a new building.
You know, like, I don't know if we should put the map
over here.
Like, should we put it over there?
Or, hey, there's this one tiny spot that I went so on
in one day and it's not marked over here.
You know, I guess better shows not paying attention yet,
you know, or whatever.
Like just, they just, they're just sitting there
and they can complain about anything.
I'm playing about everything.
One time I saw one of Pastor Shelley's kids
get on the stage.
They're just trying to feel people out.
They're like, hey, I know the Bible doesn't really say
anything about the shape of the earth,
but it has some really interesting statements in it,
doesn't it?
Look, these are things that people really do.
And it's just they're just trying to test things and you know, well, I do put beans in my chili
You know and like if you do I don't care. I'm not mad at you
I'm just saying like hey just be wait like if someone's just trying to constantly just put a little bit of like hey
You know, I think your past is wrong on this and I don't like this and I don't like the programs
What's the real motivation here? What's the real idea here? Hey, there's no man deputed of the king to hear the
Okay, if that's a real problem, why doesn't Absalom just say,
hey David, I noticed a lot of people are trying to talk to you.
Maybe you should get some guys to help with this or something.
He's not trying to find a solution, he's just complaining about it.
He's not bringing up the leadership. He's just complaining about it. He's a murmur. He's a complainer and
He's just saying these things to plant a seed of doubt in people's minds. Oh, David's not doing a very good job
David's not a very good manager. Oh, there's problems and this is basically his modus operandi and this is what people do is they like to
subtly attack leadership go for the first time of these six
I want to look at a couple of different examples here in the New Testament about this
I'll read for you in Jude, verse 8.
Like also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh,
despise dominion and speak evil dignities.
Bad people hate authority and they just try to attack authority.
And every authority is bad, their boss is bad,
the government's bad, church leadership is bad,
everybody's a bad leader except for them.
And this is really just a sign of a bad person.
1st Timothy chapter 6 verse 1,
Let as many servants as are under the yoke,
count them on masters worthy of all honor.
Let the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.
And they that have believing masters,
let them not despise them because they are brethren,
but rather do them service because they are faithful
and beloved partakers of the benefit.
These things teach and exhort.
If any man teach otherwise,
he can send not to wholesome words,
even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And the doctrine, which is according to Godliness,
he is proud knowing nothing,
but doting about questions and stripes of words,
where have cometh envy, strife,
railings, evilsomisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds,
and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness,
from such withdraw thyself.
What does the Bible say?
Look at these people attacking leadership,
attacking the authority structures that are in place,
and getting really nitpicky.
Notice this, getting really nitpicky.
Questions and stripes of words,
and envy, strife, railings, and evilsomisings are the product of this.
Look.
Bad people love to get nit-picky about wording, about examples,
little subtle things that they can try to twist and make a big deal about something that's not a big deal.
This is what their modus operandi is.
There's no man, the deputative of the king here.
Look, do you think running the nation of Israel has a few problems?
Like, do you think there's some things you got to do?
I think it's some tasks that are important in doing that.
It's like, is every single civil suit at every little tiny judgment matter
the most important aspect of running the nation of Israel
that David needs to be most concerned with, or no?
And yet, they're trying, he's trying to nitpick David.
He's trying to nitpick the situation.
He's trying to make it seem like, hey, there's some kind of a problem here.
We don't know.
You know, even in American law, there's certain civil matters or issues that no one will hear you because it's just too petty, not consequential enough, maybe the dollar amount is too low, and so it's just not going to ever be heard as a matter.
So, you can't just say like, every single matter is right, every single thing is good.
You know, in some cases, things need to be dismissed, ignored, not talked about.
Oh, we in this person in the church have a controversy and pastor won't deal with it.
Well, maybe no one should deal with it because you're just being petty.
because you're just, and you just don't like that.
It's not that someone's not willing to handle issues.
It's that you're making issues that aren't really issues.
And you have all these questions.
Hey, Pastor Shelley, I have all these questions.
Here's 25 questions I want to ask you up to the service.
It's like, listen to the preaching.
Read the Bible.
You know, maybe I don't have time to answer your 25 question list.
But, I mean, in fact, I get emails all the time
and it'll be like a novel.
And I immediately just delete it.
I'm not a joking.
And if you like just this like huge thing
and it's just like, bye.
But at the end of the day, you can tell like,
there's some signs on it.
You can tell it's like, it's sent to like every,
like all these different churches too, probably.
And like, because especially when I was the pastor
of Pure Words, I would get both of them.
The email would be the steadfast and the pure words.
And I'm just thinking like, delete, block, right?
And again, that doesn't mean that I'm not doing my job,
but there's professional time wasters out there.
And not everybody needs to be heard.
Not every matter's right.
Some things need to be dealt with.
And the people that are constantly complaining
about this stuff, nitpicky about stuff,
they're often the ones that are evil and bad.
Titus chapter two, look at verse 15.
These things speak and exhort and rebuke with all authority.
Let no man despise thee.
Like, if someone despises the pastor or leadership of the church, they're wrong.
And so you've got to be careful.
Like, why is this person in our church inviting me over, kind of flattering me, and all the
while trying to make...
Me feel negative about the pastor or make me feel negative about the leadership or make me feel negative about the sermons
It's like wasn't there enough good in the sermon just talk about the positive aspects
I mean if you disagreed with three percent of the sermon why even bring it up?
You know, it's like why don't you just focus on the 95% because I guarantee it when I listen to my own sermons
I'm like, yeah, I didn't really like how that came out or I made a mistake
Maybe here or there or whatever like no one's perfect. Nobody even agrees with themselves a hundred percent of the time
Unless for the Catholic Church, okay?
But in reality, we don't even necessarily agree with ourselves
So when people are getting really nitpicky and you start getting that awkward feeling like why is this person trying to make me feel negative about this?
Person, you know, that's a red flag
This person could be trying to, you know, corrupt your mind and cause you to have bad ideas.
Proverbs chapter 6, let's go there.
Proverbs chapter 6.
These are really important points that we are applying to church splitting, but they can apply to all areas of life.
Beware of people taking you aside.
At work, beware of people taking you aside.
Ladies that want to gossip, beware of them taking you aside to whisper things.
is, you know, whispers don't make friends.
Whispers separate chief friends.
That's what they want to do.
They look at two people that are really good friends
and they want to divide that relationship.
People look at our church and they see us united
and doing great things for God,
and they want to divide it and they want to break it up
because they just hate us being friends.
In fact, I think a lot of people just hate me
just because I'm friends with Pastor Anderson.
And it's not like anything else.
They're just envious of the fact
that they don't have a friendship like we have.
It may not even be that they're envious
that they're friends with either of us.
They're just envious that we're actually friends.
And I was trying to think about this like,
if you look at the new IFB, whatever it is today.
and the people, like the main pastors in it,
we're all really good friends.
And like, we would help each other,
and we call each other, and we have camaraderie,
and there's like this special like spirit,
and it's just like a closeness.
And then I'm looking at people that used to be our friends,
like the ex, you know what I mean?
And I look at those people and I'm thinking like,
you don't have any friends really.
And you don't have anybody that would go to bat for you like we would go back for each other
And it's just like if you're such a better person than us and so much more friendly than us
Why don't you have tons of awesome friends?
You know and it's like look if you're a great person and you're really friendly
You're gonna have a lot of great friends when you're isolating yourself, and you don't have any friends. Maybe you're the problem
Let me tell you if you want friends you got to be friendly and you got to invest in other people and you got to help other
People and you got to be willing to be a burden
You know take on burdens of other people and that kind of helps you and you can kind of tell people by
Their friendships even who what kind of a person they're like
Someone that doesn't have any friends
That could be a problem that could be kind of an issue. You might think like what's wrong with this particular
individual
Now, some people require lots of friends, some require a little amount of friends.
That's a personal decision.
But at the end of the day, you know, I think a lot of people hate me or hate the new IV
just because we have close friends and they want to separate them.
They want to destroy that.
They don't like that because they're just envious of the fact that you have close friendships.
There could be people that have a bad marriage and they just want you to have a bad marriage
because they can't stand the fact that you actually have a good marriage.
They can't stand the fact that you as a wife would actually obey your husband, even when
he's not being a great husband, because they don't want to be a great wife to their husband.
Or they couldn't imagine a husband sacrificing his wife or being nice to his wife, and so
they just want to drive wedges, they want to attack marriages, and they want to sow discord,
just because they're an unhappily individual, and they want everyone to go down their path
to.
They don't like the fact that they're divorced, so they want everyone else to be divorced
and they're unhappy, and they have problems,
and so they want everybody else to have problems with them.
You know what?
Be aware of these people.
What do they do?
They sow discord.
Proverbs chapter number six, look at verse number 12.
This kind of leads into what most people think of
when we think about this idea of sowing discord,
but look what it says in verse 12,
a naughty person, a wicked man,
walk up with a froward heart, or a froward mouth, I'm sorry.
What's a froward mouth?
Being contrary and against everything.
Beware if you're around people and they're just always negative and there's against everything. That's someone that is toxic a
Naughty person a wicked man walking their forward mouth. He winketh with his eyes. He speaketh with his feet
He teaches teaches with his fingers
Forwardness is in his heart. He devises mischief continually notice this he soweth discord look the bad person is sowing discord
If someone's trying to make you stop being friends with other people or causing problems,
that's them having a bad heart.
Someone that has a good heart is not trying to destroy friendships or cause problems or
do these things.
Look what it says in verse 16, these six things that the Lord hate, ye seven are abomination
them, a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, and a heart that
devises wicked imaginations, feet that be swift and running to mischief, a false witness
and he that soweth discord among brethren.
We should not try to break up friendships
and cause people to have negative opinions
about other people.
That is nasty.
And that can cause a lot of problems.
People going around, you don't want to be friends with her,
you don't want to be friends with him,
you don't want to like this person.
They're just slandering people, gossiping about people,
hell-bearing about people, and especially the leadership.
This is someone trying to split the church, split friendships.
It's a carnal attitude that is ungodly and it's unbiblical.
You know, we should be dwelling together in unity.
We should want people to be friends.
We should want people to be close.
Go over to Psalm 101, go to Psalm 101.
King Saul is trying to drive a wedge between Jonathan and David as friends.
Very evil, very wicked.
You know, he's trying to ruin that particular relationship and, you know, we shouldn't be
trying to ruin people's relationships.
If people like each other, why can't they like each other?
For a forward heart shall depart from me, I will not know a wicked person, who so privily slandereth his neighbor,
him will I cut off, him that hath in high look and a proud heart will not I suffer.
Mine I shall be upon the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with me, he that walketh in a perfect way,
he shall serve me, he that worketh the seat, shall not dwell within my house,
he that telleth lies, shall not tarry in my sight." What is the Bible saying here? Well, specifically it's saying who so
privily
slandereth his neighbor.
What is that? They took them aside.
Absalom's taking them aside, saying,
oh, there's no man deputed of the king to hear thee.
We don't even know if that's true.
Absalom said that, but do we know from a fact
in the biblical story that that's even true?
Do we know for an absolute fact?
Because here's the thing, sometimes we read the Bible
and we fall victim of being gullible ourselves,
and we believe bad people.
I know the Absalom said that, but where is the evidence or the proof that there is no
one deputed of the king to actually judge matters?
There's no evidence of that.
David seems to be running his shop very well.
He has lots of wise men and good men on his staff.
I would bet that he's lying here.
He's probably privilege slandering his neighbor.
Even if he's not, he's for sure attacking the authority.
And we need to stay away from that person
and notice those signs and say,
well, you know what, I like the church
and I don't want to talk bad about that person.
I don't want to talk bad about the pastor.
I don't want to talk bad about a sermon.
I don't want to talk bad about the evangelist.
I don't want to talk bad about our soul winning leaders.
I don't want to talk bad about people at church.
You know, we should just have this attitude.
At your work, I don't want to talk bad about the boss.
I don't want to talk bad about the company.
You know, if you don't like your company, switch companies.
If you don't like your church, switch churches.
But don't be this person that just hates your church.
That's unhealthy, that's bad.
And the people that are like that,
you should stay away from.
Go over to our back to our story.
So three things we've learned so far,
and the last three I'm gonna just do quickly.
But number one, they're gonna take people's side.
Number two, they're gonna flatter them.
Number three, they're gonna attack the leadership.
And we've seen that example in lots of places in the Bible,
especially in this story.
Here's the fourth thing that he does in verse four.
Absom said moreover, oh!
that I were made judge in the land,
that every man which had any suit or cause
might come unto me, and I would do him justice."
What a social justice warrior, right?
What does he do?
Elevate self.
And these people, what they do is they first knock someone
down, and then they elevate self.
This guy is not good at managing, but if I were in his position everyone would actually get justice
He's also implying another thing people aren't getting justice
So it's an interesting way to not only elevate self, but also punch down again try to punch David and say he's not giving justice
He's not doing a good job. I would do a better job. I'm better than David. I want to be in this position of authority
Um, we could look at a lot of verses on this.
Go back to Proverbs 2, you know, the Bible says in 2 Timothy 3 that men should be lovers
of their own selves.
The Bible talks about people being prideful.
We have to worry about pride, you know, we should not be someone that's constantly boasting
about ourselves, lifting ourselves up, trying to drag other people down.
We should be praising other people and lifting other people up.
Proverbs 20, verse 6, most men will proclaim everyone his own goodness, but a faithful man
Yeah, lots of people love to talk themselves up, but here's the question.
Is that real?
Is that legitimate?
Go to Proverbs 27, go to Proverbs 27.
You know, I sometimes help with interviews and some of the companies I work for, and
you know, I've never been in an interview where the person is talking negatively about
themselves.
You know, they're always praising themselves,
but then you sometimes have to kind of test them
a little bit, ask them questions
to kind of get a feel of where they're going.
And I had an interview recently
and I just was trying to ask some questions
and the guy was just giving just really goofy answers,
you know?
And like one of the problems is to work for a company,
you have to fill out this document
that says how good are you at certain things?
Like are you good at this skill?
Like would you rate yourself one to five
on this particular, you know, skill set?
And this guy ranked himself a four out of five
on this whole section.
And then when we're in the conversation,
and we're talking, he's like, yeah, I've never worked with
that, I've never done that before in my life.
And so then I'm like, hey, I was looking at this document,
you say you're a four out of five on a skill level
on this thing that you said you'd never done,
which one is it?
And then it's like, oh, well, yeah, I've never done it.
It's like, well, why would you write yourself a four
out of five on something you've never done?
I mean, it's just kind of weird, but look, every man will proclaim his own goodness,
but then it's like a fateful man going to be fine.
And you know, if you're going to act like that already, what are you going to be like
down the road and other situations?
You know, be honest with employers.
Be honest.
Hey, if you don't know something, just say you don't know something.
But don't lie.
Don't be someone that's dishonest or saying things that aren't really true.
How does Absalom even know he'd be a good judge?
How does he rank himself five out of five at a job? He's never even had.
I just already know I would be an excellent judge.
How?
When have you ever done this?
You've never done it and you already know you're five out of five?
That's like single guys saying,
I'm a five out of five at being a husband.
People that don't have kids saying like,
I'm a five out of five parent.
This is like the people that are Christians
that don't go soul winning,
that they're a five out of five out about how to get people saved.
evangelism or you know everyone that's a five out of five being a pastor that's
never been a pastor I mean it's really awesome how everybody's just the most
amazing pastor and they've never done it they're not even qualified they never
will do it but they would be an awesome pastor if they were pastor it's like wow
you're so amazing you're so awesome look you should be careful of these people
They exist.
Proverbs 27 verse 2.
Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth,
but stranger, not thine own lips.
Hey, we should not go around singing your own praises.
We should allow other people to praise us.
It's the humble person.
When you're around someone that's constantly
singing their own praises, that's a problem.
Look at Proverbs 17 verse 23.
Since we're here, and then we'll go back
and I'll show you this.
Here's another thing that Absalom does
is he kind of offers gifts or does things for people.
Proverbs 17 verse 23.
A wicked man taking the gift out of the bosom to revert the ways of judgment.
Go back to our story, and he doesn't necessarily give a physical gift like a present or something
necessarily, but notice what he does in verse 5, and it was so that when any man came nigh
to him to do him obeisance, he put forth his hand and took him and kissed him.
Now the sense that's kind of a gift, not necessarily something you take with you, but it's a gift
in the sense that he's trying to like give them something, and he's doing this gesture
And people do these things for you.
They'll give you things, or they'll do things for you
to try and win you over, but they're not actually sincere,
they're not actually legitimate.
They may just give you a laptop.
And it's just like, well, why are they doing that?
You know, they may give you some kind of a present,
some kind of a good, buy you a shirt,
buy you a meal, or whatever.
And they're just doing it to try and buy your vote.
You know, the Democrats will do this,
they'll buy your vote literally.
And we see it says in verse number six,
and on this manor did Absalom to all Israel
that came to the king for judgment, so Absalom stole.
the hearts of the men of Israel.
Notice he stole them, it wasn't right for him
to take the hearts away from David
and take them unto himself.
What should the leadership have been doing
that under leadership or his son be doing?
Trying to strengthen their hearts towards David.
Make them like David more, not less.
So that's just the general rule.
What do we think about?
When someone's causing you to like your church
or like your pastor less, they are a problem.
And this is what church splitters will do,
is they're trying to draw away your heart
after other things, often themselves,
just because they want to cause destruction,
they're disgruntled, they have problems or whatever.
And you should be careful,
go to Philippians chapter two and we'll end.
Go to Philippians chapter two.
Why preach a sermon about this?
Well, I don't really perceive a problem.
If there was, then we would just take it head on.
But this could happen and we always need to be aware of these things and as a group
We should just realize this can happen to us
I want us to not think like this could never happen to us
It could definitely happen to us and probably because of the way our church is it would probably be someone that's been here for a while
It'd be here be someone that knows a lot of people that's had a lot of people over that's hung out with a lot of people
That's formed a lot of friendships that people are close to someone that actually has a lot of influence on other people
and someone that's offering a lot of insincere compliments,
really praising people,
and taking advantage of people's vulnerabilities,
and allowing them to think a lot of flattery
is true about them.
This person would be subtly attacking the leadership,
constantly trying to assert themselves
as being a little bit smarter,
a little bit better than Pastor Shelley,
probably would have made better decisions,
just trying to get those little edges in there.
And then asserting themselves as like, I make it as, you know, I'm good, I'm smart, I always make the right decisions.
Maybe even giving gifts, maybe even giving you literally money, cash, presents, buying you meals, doing all kinds of nice stuff for you.
And essentially trying to steal your heart to say like, I have more loyalty to this person than I do to church or to our pastor.
And look, I'm not saying you can't have closer friendships than your pastor.
I hope you do.
What I am saying is that, you know, friendships should not be the reason why you're in church.
You should be in church for the Kingdom's Bible.
And our hearts should be drawn towards David.
And ultimately, who is David?
It's the Bible. It's the King James Bible.
Our ultimate loyalty should be drawn to this.
People should be constantly trying to get you onto this program.
But it is the thing, the Bible is saying,
you need to have respect for the pastor and the leadership.
So if he's drawing your heart towards this,
you won't have a disgruntled feeling about the pastor and the leadership
because your heart is being drawn towards David and towards the Word of God.
And they're not stealing your heart away after other things.
They're preaching things and saying, they perverse things to draw away disciples after themselves,
not after Christ, not after the Bible.
And really...
Our attitude and our opinion should be that we're trying to help other people serve Christ better,
that we're steaming other people more important than ourselves.
We're not constantly lifting ourselves up.
Be afraid of the person that is trying to sow discord,
that's trying to cause animosity, gossip, tail-bearing, lifting themselves up, attacking other people.
You know, this is not your friend.
It would be a better version of yourself.
It would want you to have good relationships.
It would want to improve your relationships.
Philippians chapter 2 gives us the mind of Christ.
It says in verse 3,
Let nothing be done through strife or vanglory,
but in lowliness of mind,
let each esteem other better than themselves.
If someone's really following Christ and is really godly,
they will actually care about other people more than themselves.
And they'll constantly be lifting up other people
and praising other people,
You know, what could this look bad like?
I've heard some people, they like criticized
why our church was spending money on
evangelist or bannock being the Philippines.
They were acting like, why in the world
would we give money to this guy
to just go soul winning over the Philippines?
And I'm thinking like,
like I don't know where this is coming from exactly,
so I'm like, are you just envious
that this person gets to go soul winning
all the time or something?
But like, Evangelist Urbanik proved that he was gonna go
soul-winning when he wasn't getting paid to do it.
So that's one of the reasons why he's doing it.
We're also getting literally thousands of people saved
over there.
We're starting a church.
I mean, we could pay Evangelist Urbanik to go soul-winning
in South Lake and get like six people saved a year.
Right, it's like why is he in the Philippines because we're getting six thousand saved in half a year or whatever
That's one of the reasons
Obviously he has his wife is from there
So it makes sense that they have some kind of connection over there
But also it's just a really receptive area that they can they can work in that they can do great
Exploits look someone that's attacking that. Oh, well, it's not like we're spending like lots of money. Anyways, which is kind of funny to me
I mean, it's about the cheapest
I mean, I feel embarrassed about how much money we're paying.
Like, it's not much at all.
And the fruits that we're yielding from it are amazing.
But people will just say the craziest things,
and they're not esteeming other better than themselves.
They're not like, I'm so glad we're paying
Evangus or Bannock over there.
I'm so glad about the work that he's doing over there.
I wish we were paying him more money.
Like, that would be a good attitude.
Right?
Or people, they attack me in all kinds of subtle ways.
I've heard some weird things that people say.
One of the things I heard is these people say like,
I just don't like Mexicans or something.
And I'm thinking like, well, we have a Spanish service.
I've tried to learn how to speak Spanish
so I could communicate with people.
I go soul-winning.
We make Spanish materials.
We have specific Mexico missions trips
where we go down there.
And typically when I talk about it,
I talk really positive about it.
I really praise a lot of the food down there,
some of the restaurants down there.
I try to make it bigger.
I'm like, what is, if I don't like Mexicans,
I hope everyone doesn't like Mexicans.
You know what I mean?
I'm just thinking like, what do I have to do?
You know, people just say weird, crazy things like this.
I heard someone try to attack me and they say,
oh, well, Pastor Shelley, he doesn't like poor people
because he was raised with a silver spoon in his mouth.
And then I'm thinking like, well, okay,
what does that even look like practice?
I don't even like poor people
because according to the Proverbs,
even the poor's neighbor is running away from him,
number one, okay, but I don't even think that's true.
I've never rejected somebody from our church
or treated them negatively because they're poor.
But the fact that I was born with a silver spoon
is like laughable to me.
Because it's like, I was thinking about like
places I've lived and where I've grown up.
When I was, you know, third, fourth, fifth, sixth grade,
we lived in the like tiniest, nastiest little rent house.
And my parents drove this like yellow 1970s Buick.
That was so hideous
it like probably cost like five or six hundred dollars to to buy and
If you drove it more than like 15 minutes
It would it would break down and you had to pour water and the radiator or whatever
And I was so embarrassed of my parents vehicle that I had them drop me off like away from school
So I could just be walk like it looked like I walked to school
And I'm like, is that the silver spoon?
Now again, obviously I was born in America still.
And yeah, like in comparison to other countries,
I guarantee I have way more prosperity
than people born in third world countries
and stuff like that.
But poverty is like a subjective thing.
But look, I don't even think you could be,
you could be the richest person ever
and not hate poor people.
But like, what are they trying to say?
Well, the best facility just isn't like poor people.
And it's like, okay, how?
What does that look like?
I go into the poorest neighborhoods
and I give the gospel to people.
Our church is not like loaded with rich people
or anything like that.
I mean, we're going to all over the world.
We're going to poor countries
and giving them the gospel.
You can just make statements, but how is that true?
You could say anything if you want,
but that doesn't make it true.
I heard, this is another one that was really funny to me.
They said, why doesn't Pastor Shelly take a pay cut
to help with the expense of the church?
You know, he shouldn't be making $350,000 a year.
It was like, dang, I don't even make a third of that.
with the church salary or whatever.
I don't even, it's like, but I'm just thinking like,
this is just kind of funny.
People just say these things, these outlandish,
weird, crazy things to try and do what?
To make you feel bad about people.
Instead of being like, hey, I like our pastor.
I wish you has paid more.
It's like, let's just make this wild assertion
that's not even true.
Or like, hey, he doesn't like poor people.
How do you even know?
Do you even really know? I mean like does anybody know everything about every's personal life or how they feel about certain situations?
I mean, it's it's just silly, but you know what sometimes you just hear something and you just immediately believe it
Absence I say there's no man deputed to the king
Hear thee. How many of you just believed that that was true when you first heard that? Oh
You're all smarter than me. All right. I thought it was true, but I'm sitting here thinking like I don't even know if that's actually true
And look, we need to be careful when we just hear statements, hear things like, how do
you know that?
Where's the facts on that?
What's the evidence of that?
I had someone leave our church and I tried to talk to them and I said, hey, what's going
on?
And they said, well, I have to leave the church because you're prideful.
And I said, okay, what did I say?
And they're like, it wasn't anything you said.
And I was like, okay, what did I do?
And they're like, well, it's not really anything you did.
It's just like a spirit.
I'm pretty sure if you didn't say anything prideful
or do anything prideful, it's because you weren't prideful.
Like, there has to be reality.
Like you can have a proud look.
You can do a proud action.
You can say something prideful.
But if someone has no example of you saying something
prideful or doing something prideful,
I would say it's because you just weren't being prideful.
It's that simple.
But then people just go, I just think this person prideful.
Was it a look? Was it an action? Was it something they said?
You know and what what are people trying to do? They're just trying to cause a church split and
You know what? I don't I'm gonna fight against that because I'm the shepherd here
And I'm not gonna let just people just split our church over nonsense or stupid things
And you know what you be careful about people just drawing you aside
Saying negative things trying to attack the leadership flattering you saying things that are not sincere
Trying to get you over on their side lifting themselves up giving you gifts giving you presents
If the if a guy gives you a kiss just run away
Okay, that should just be the red flag super clear in the Bible and
You know what if it seems like they're trying to get your heart
Like they just you can only be mine, you know, that's kind of a negative thing
You should be able to like church and like your friends and like other people and have you know
It's not right for absumptuous steal the hearts away from David. David's a good guy. I mean think about it
David is their king David's delivered them David's preserved them a great kingdom. He's doing awesome
There should be no reason why you don't like David
And in the same way, if you're in a good church,
you should like your church, you should like your pastor,
you should like the leadership.
There should be no reason why your heart's been stolen away
from those things.
Someone that's trying to do that is a bad person.
And whenever, you know, you notice these things,
say something.
Say, hey, I think this person's trying to attack.
You know, if someone's like trying to say something negative,
just be like, let's go bring it up with them
and they'll stop real fast.
but don't let them just split the church
and take a whole bunch of people with them
that were just gullible enough to believe lies
and do stupid things.
We never know when this could happen.
We'll try to prevent it.
I'll try to splinter as much as possible,
but you know, we wanna make sure
that we stay away from those type of individuals.
Let's go to some prayer.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for giving us this church and giving us this blessing
to be so unified and rallied together.
Thank you for all the great works that we've been able to accomplish and the works that
we have in the future.
I pray that you would bless our conference, you bless our evangelists and the Philippines,
you bless our missions trip to the Bahamas and our other local soul-winning adventures.
I pray that you would just help give us wisdom and discretion that we would not get taken
And if there's anybody that has negative or wicked intentions in the church,
I pray that you would just expose them, that you would just cause them to just fail
and just be made manifest.
I pray that you would help just uncover and bring things to light.
And I pray that we would have these ideas in our minds and our hearts so in the future,
when bad people come along, that we'd be able to spot them
and we'd be able to reduce whatever damage they try to cause.
All right, for our final song, let's go to song number 167.
Song number 167. All hail the power of Jesus' name. Song number 167.
167. Let's all sing it out together.