You steadfast backwards if you can please find your seats and grab your handbooks. We're gonna start off this morning by singing song
437 battle hymn of the Republic
437 hymn of the Republic for three seven battle hymn of the Republic. Let's sing it out. Nice and loud
See you for all those inch this morning and success you gave church out soul winning yesterday
Save that they would grow. Please bless our services today. I love you and you send me second song
379 she
379 bringing in the sheets morning keep going steadfast Baptist Church didn't get every hand nice and high Smith
It's not in the bulletin but
Conversation with our success that's been a couple of years ago as easy as that is they have some resolution on that evening
There's any men that have a shin or test question go through that and I'll share a little bit
He tell did make a video about that wanted to afford you guys just one opportunity
You know where did have just wanna something you know it and then we can move on closure from the front
We have our Bible memory passage. We're working on Proverbs 31 verse 7 for the week on the inside
We have our service time soul winning times and church stats
one note about soul winning
Since we have different bribes in the church everybody should theoretically be broken up into one
Once you become a member
We try to put everybody into a soul winning tribe and for the most part our soul winning tribes kind of work as autonomous groups
They just do their own thing, but brother Millstead his tribe is gonna be putting on a soul winning. Just kind of mini
Seminar just for like his tribe, but he wanted to invite other people as well
So even if you're not in his tribe, he just wanted to invite you
It's November 18th from 11 to 1 and it's just to teach some more some of the basics and some of the soul winning tips
And just helping people so if you are interested in that
Please just ask brother Millstead about that and he would love for you to tell him if you're planning on coming because I think
They're even gonna feed you so even if you don't care about someone you just like food
you probably show up and just be a silent partner or whatever and just so
But if you have any questions, you can ask for the Millstead about that
We might even send an email just as a friendly reminder
So thank you so much for doing that. Did I get the announcements right on that? Okay, good and it's flame and yawn
Is that no, I'm just kidding. I don't know what they're serving but on the right
We have the list of expecting ladies and then upcoming events
We have a baby shower for the gores on the 11th and it's 1230 to 230
Please there's details in the back as far as that is concerned
We have the Mexico missions trip at the end of the month
we have a ladies Christmas party in December the 8th and
That is for all ladies to attend. However, it is nursing's only so if you can make preparation for that
We have Christmas caroling on the 11th and then on the 16th is a Christmas music recital for the children
So any teenagers from 5 to 19 that want to participate?
We should have a sign-up sheet going for that and you you can sign up to participate
you can either play an instrument or sing and
It's highly encouraged that it would be Christmas music. Although if they wanted to perform a different song we would still allow that
December 24th is our cookie bake-off
immediately following the service and then the last
The day of the year, we're just gonna have a little bit special evening
I'm probably gonna we'll pick some some of them in to preach sermons
And as we get when we get closer to that, I'll give again details as far as all these things are concerned
So and we'll have a New Year's party
Abilene, Texas soul winning marathon we had
50 salvation. I think we had almost 60 soul winners and we had 50 salvations. So praise the Lord everybody that went out there
so that's that's great and
on the back we have the details about the baby shower for the Gores if you would like to
Register or get them something on the registry or if you'd like to RSVP, please
It's highly encouraged that way we can plan the event and it'll be as successful as possible
prayer list continue to pray for our church family and
And uh, that's probably all I have as far as announcements. We're gonna sing our psalm
Of the week. It's 126 if you have a handout
That's the best way to to sing with us. You could use a bible if you need to but psalm
126 right psalm 126
To second samuel chapter number one second samuel chapter number one
And the third day came out from saul with his clothes rent and earth upon his head
And so it was when he came to david that he fell to the earth and did obeisance
And david said unto him from whence cometh thou and he said unto him out of the camp of israel
Am I escaped and david said unto him how went the matter?
I prayed he tell me and he answered that the people are fled from the battle and many of the people are fallen and dead
And saul and jonathan his son are dead also and david said unto the young man that told him
How knowest thou that saul and jonathan his son be dead and the young man that told him said as I happened by the chance upon
Mount goboa behold saul leaned upon his spear and lo the chariots and horsemen followed hard after him and when he looked behind him
He saw me and called unto me and I answered here am I and he said unto me who art thou and I answered him
I am an amulet height and he said unto me again stand I pray thee upon me and slay me for anguish has come upon me
Because my life is yet whole in me so I stood upon him and slew him because I was sure that he could not live
After that he was fallen and I took the crown that was upon his head
And the brace that was on his arm and it brought them hither unto my lord
Then david took hold on his clothes and rent them and likewise all the men that were with him
And they mourned and wept and fasted until even for saul
And for jonathan his son and for the people of the lord and for the house of israel because they were fallen by the sword
And david said unto the young man that told him whence art thou and he answered
I am the son of a stranger an amlicite and david said unto him
How was thou not afraid to stretch forth thy hand to destroy the lord's anointed?
And david called one of the young men and said go near and fall upon him
And he smoth him that he died and david said unto him thy blood be upon thy head for thy mouth had testified against thee saying
I have slain the lord's anointed and david lamented with this lamentation over saul and over jonathan his son
Also, we bade them teach the children of judah the use of the bow behold it is written in the book of jeshur
The beauty of israel is slain upon thy high places. How are the mighty fallen?
Tell it not in gath publish it not in the streets of asculin lest the daughters of the philistines rejoice
Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph ye mountains of goboa let there be no do
Neither let there be rain upon you nor fields of offerings for the for there the shield of the mighty is violently cast away
The shield of saul as though he had not been anointed with oil from the blood of the slain from the fat of the mighty
The bow of jonathan turned not back and the sword of saul returned not empty
Saul and jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives and in their death. They were not divided
They were swifter than eagles. They were stronger than lions
Ye daughters of israel weep over saul who clothed you in scarlet with other delights who put on ornaments of gold upon your apparel
How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle? Oh jonathan that was slain in thy high places
I am distressed for thee my brother jonathan very pleasant has thou been unto me thy love to me was wonderful
Passing the love of women. How are the mighty fallen and the weapons of war perished? Let us pray
Father we thank you for this great opportunity to come to your house and to sing praises to you in your son's name
I pray that you would fill pastor shelley with your holy spirit
And give him the words to speak on to us today help us to be attentive help us to listen and we thank you for sending your son
To die for us and to pay for all of our sins lord and to justify us from all things and we thank you for making salvation
So easy and free unto us
And uh, we just praise you in your son's name for the great work that was done in abilene yesterday lord
Thank you for all the souls that were one to christ and we pray that they would continue to search
And seek out those things and we love you lord and we pray these things in jesus name. Amen
man, I want to look at a specific verse here in second samuel and
And the context is talking about the death of saul
But look at verse number 13. It says and david said unto the young man that told him whence art thou
And he answered i am the son of a stranger in amalekite
And david said unto him how is thou not afraid to stretch forth thine hand?
to destroy
The lord's anointed and so here we have a story of a man claiming that he killed saul
Now I think under really careful inspection of the text
That this man was not being honest that he just thought it was the right answer
Um, if you read another passage of scripture you find out that saul leaned upon his own sword
and
Then later in the text this guy's saying that he leaned upon his spear. That's an inconsistency there
And additionally, we don't have any mention of the malachite when the bible says that saul killed himself
Then his servant killed himself. And so I believe this guy was lying. This guy ended up finding
Perhaps saul dead already and stole his goods and in my mind
He probably forgot or or didn't pay enough attention to notice that he laid on his own sword or spear
That's why he got that detail wrong. He wasn't necessarily trying to be wrong about that detail
But that's where he kind of wasn't thinking his story all the way through
But this is what he thought in his mind though. He thought that okay
Saul has been david's enemy
Saul's done a lot of bad things and as a result of that i'm going to be rewarded for having killed saul or
Done this, you know this thing into saul. Actually i'm showing mercy into saul
I kind of helped him from the philistines
But he helped him in a way of killing him because how could you you know have the king's crown?
By any normal means right?
I mean either the king's dead or you stole the crown because there's not really a legitimate reason for having the crown
Think about it this way also this guy came across the crown
But it's not like he can go to the pawn store down the way and scrap it for melt value
You know as soon as he has the crown of king saul and he goes to somebody and tries to sell it or something
Or tries to use it in any way
They're gonna think like did you kill saul or they're gonna be upset with him
So he kind of doesn't really have an option here
If you think about it
He probably did have to go to king david and have some kind of a story in order to get any reward
Or any use out of that crown
I don't think he just wanted to have it at night to just kind of put on and
See how he looked in the mirror or anything like that
He probably genuinely wanted money out of the deal
But that was the only way to get money is in his minds go to david present this story
But david gives us a really profound truth and i'm not really wanting to talk about that story too much
I'm just giving you a little context here, but but the profound truth that david is giving
Is how would you not be afraid?
To stretch forth your hand against the lord's anointed in any situation and arguably the story that the man tells
From david's perspective. He's not necessarily even questioning it. Let's just say it was true
Okay for sake of argument. It doesn't matter if it was true or not even in the most reasonable
Situation of having killed the lord's anointed. It's still wrong according to he's saying hey, this guy's already wounded
He was gonna die. I'm helping him out. I'm doing even what he said
And then david's still saying no you're wrong because you're just not supposed to stretch forth your hand
Against the lord's anointed whatsoever and what you kind of notice
Not just from this verse but a lot of places in bible is there's a lot of people that just want to hate
On the men of god and the title of my sermon this morning is this don't hate men of god don't hate
Men of god now go if you went to first samuel chapter number 10 go to first samuel chapter 10
You know in order to kill the man of god you kind of have to hate him or despise him to some degree
Because if you love somebody and they were precious under you you wouldn't kill them even in that situation
And you say how do I how do you know that pastor shelley? Well saul's armor bearer
Refused to kill saul. So we see the stark contrast between someone that actually loved saul
cared for saul and respected his position
Refused to kill saul even at his own behest. I mean saul is saying kill me i'm gonna die
I mean there there's coming armies and he still is like no, I can't do that
Whereas there's a malachite. Oh, yeah kill saul. Whatever. He said it. No big deal
It's basically not even that big of a deal to him to have slain the man of god
And I think for some people out there, they don't have any respect for
pastors
deacons
evangelists men of god
Where it's just so easy just rolls off their tongue to disrespect them talk trash on them or to hate on them
And you know, we should have the exact opposite attitude
We should have like saul's armor bearers attitude where even if they asked us to
We wouldn't slay them where we're not going to stretch forth our hands against the lord's anointed. We're not going to hate on men of god
We're not going to attack men of god that just that doesn't make any sense and it's not biblical
Now one thing I want to note about this is the biggest purveyors of hating the men of god are always
reprobates
Reprobates are always the first to constantly rail on and attack men of god
Look what it says in first samuel chapter 10 verse 24
This is about saul becoming king and samuel said to all the people see him whom the lord hath chosen
There's none like him among all the people and all the people shouted and said god save the king
Okay, so this is kind of a joyous event now
It's a it's a little bit mixed bag just in the context that the children of israel weren't supposed to pick a king
God didn't want them to have a king
Sam doesn't want them to have a king
But the people wanted a king and even after samuel explained it to them why they shouldn't have a king
They still wanted the king so then they get their king and it's not even necessarily a bad pick
I mean we're talking about a guy as described in the bibles head and shoulders above the people a big strong guy
Humble, I mean this if you're going to pick a king
He seems like a pretty reasonable pick and especially from a human perspective. They're probably pretty excited about
Saul becoming their king
And so there's all this joy verse 25 then samuel told the people the manner of the kingdom
And wrote it in the book and laid it up before the lord and samuel sent all the people away
Every man to his house and saul also went home to gibia and there went with him a band of men whose hearts god had touched
Now this is important because even though it's a mixed situation
The bible actually gives us an indication of how god felt about it. How did god feel about it?
He wanted the men to rally behind saul like saul and notice that some people followed saul whose hearts
God had touched meaning that god was positively affecting people to rally around their leader rally around their king
Get excited follow the leadership. So we know what the right attitude was
Because the bible just tells us what the right attitude was having your heart towards saul. Okay, what is verse 27?
But the children of belial said how shall this man save us and they despised him
And brought him no presence, but he held his peace. So even though saul is attacked by many people
He doesn't attack back. He doesn't rail back and and notice the wording here. They despised him
They what is that word hate him? They hate him and you know what you shouldn't hate the man of god
And again, what was the right approach? It was loving the man of god not hating the man of god
You know who really personified this david now again as you read the story of of
You know first samuel and you kind of go through the story of david and saul and all the things that they did
Saul makes a lot of mistakes
Saul has a lot of serious issues, but what you never find in the text is david hating saul
You never find david hating saul. In fact, he prays saul the the chapter that we read this morning
He's giving a great memorial to saul and his sons and talking about how great of warriors they were
And and the positive attributes of saul. Why why isn't it that david when he finds out that saul died
He doesn't just give us a little bit of a hit list rundown of his rap sheet. Oh saul
The guy who should have never been anointed king because we totally rejected god as our king. Oh saul the guy who
Uh offered sacrifice
Before samuel showed up in rebellion to god. Oh saul the guy who refused to hew agag in pieces
Oh saul the guy who had evil spirits coming upon him that were sent from the lord
Oh saul the guy that tried to kill me with a spear twice
Oh saul the guy who came and tried to find me out in the wilderness and attacked me relentlessly
Oh saul the guy who encouraged doag the edomite to kill the priest of the lord and even then killed all of their families
Oh saul the guy who went and inquired of a witch
And literally ended his life in ruin and in shame and embarrassment
Is that what we read in second samuel chapter one?
But I guarantee if the men of belial had written a song about saul. That's what it would have sounded like
Not only that I guarantee there would have been 10 times more information filled with a bunch of false accusations, too
On top of that, but then how did david talk about saul? Didn't he praise his good attributes?
Didn't he praise the good things about saul? Hey, you know to some degree this makes sense because think about it when we stand before god
You know, it's not going to be mentioned our sins because they're separated from us as far as the east is from the west
So why is it that we would sit here and pick apart a man for his sins when jesus christ god
Is not even going to do that himself yet today
People will constantly rip on men of god and even men of god that are dead
You know what that makes no sense
To rip on a man of god who's dead for his sins when god himself isn't even going to do such a thing
You know we have people out there that are so quick and so ready to attack men of god
Why because most of them are just sons of belial folks, but unfortunately good people
Simple people will sometimes get wrapped up in this narrative and they too fall victim to this and they start hating men of god
Okay. Now I I want to go to um, I want to go to first timothy chapter number five
That's where I want to go. I I really have just a few simple points this morning
And I want to show you a lot of different things in the text
So we're going to look at a lot of bible, but number one point that I have that's just really important for you to understand
Is that there's no reason to hate men of god and you know
I'm kind of focusing on leadership, but the bible even just says that we're never allowed to hate our brother in our heart
So, you know what? There's no reason never hate a christian either. We're never allowed to hate christians
And and to take it a step further. It makes even less sense to then attack men of god, okay?
And people that were in positions of leadership the bible is crystal clear on these issues
And you know, of course that doesn't mean and i'm not saying that people shouldn't be held accountable for sin
i'm, not saying that people can't be
Explained why they're doing something wrong. You know, we're not talking about that. We're talking about hating someone
And you know there's no legitimate reason to hate a christian and there's no legitimate reason to hate a man of god
Now if a pastor or a deacon or an evangelist or some man of god
Does something wrong the bible does not say that that person cannot be corrected
But what it does say is that the tone in which they are corrected
Is supposed to be had in respect and honor
That's what it says in first him in chapter five look at verse one rebuke not an elder
But entreat him as a father and the younger men as brethren now if you look in this this passage
A little bit further down look at verse 19 against an elder receive not an accusation
But before two or three witnesses them that sin rebuke before all that others also may fear
Now this is what I hear sometimes and you know, i'm not going to i'm not going to defend this doctrine
This morning because I preach whole sermons on it
But they'll say that first in the chapter five verse one's not talking about a pastor. It's just saying older people
I I reject that interpretation. I preach whole sermons on this but but think about it logically in this chapter
We have the word elder brought up again and wasn't it brought up in verse 19 against an elder received not an accusation
What was it? What was the context of that verse? Well, let's back up two more verses verse 17
Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor
So who are we talking about in verse 17 people that rule and the elders are there?
Especially they who labor in the word and doctrine for the scriptures say it thou shall not muzzle the ox that shredded out the corn and
Labor is worthy of his reward so we're talking about pastors who are paid to labor in the Word of God
To take care of the Church of God to rule the Church of God and then it says against an elder receive not an accusation
Meaning the guy that's in charge the leader the ruler you're not supposed to just accept a singular accusation against him now again
This is what people just don't get everything that I'm bringing up so far is not
Specific to elders in the context of the fact that hey, you're not supposed to receive a single accusation against anyone
You're not supposed to hate any Christian no Christian
You're allowed to hate and nobody are you allowed to take a singular app, you know accusation now
Here's where I believe though
there is a distinction and that's the first verse where it talks about rebuke not an elder and
Somebody say oh, it's just older people, but this is an impractical doctrine
It's not explained anywhere in the Bible if you believe that frankly speaking
Would I have to ask all of y'all to get out your driver's license before I preach and say well
This isn't for you guys all of you people that are younger than me in here
Listen up because I'm about to start preaching some pretty hard some harsh stuff, right or imagine
You know you go out there and someone does something wrong to you. Hey, how old are you before I?
Determine how I'm gonna speak to you about this, you know
What does that even make sense and then like how much older they even have to be?
What if they're five seconds older than you does that mean now you can't review that person?
I mean, what about commandments in the Bible that says that you're not supposed to hate your neighbor
You're supposed to rebuke him and not suffer sin upon him
Is that now just what unless they're older though, right?
And if this is the case then do we just have to pick the oldest person in the room just to be the person to
Charge every single time like this doctrine doesn't make sense. Okay, it's it's it's clearly in my opinion a pastor some people say
Oh, well, then you're leaving old out older men. The reason why I think it doesn't need to imply older men is because it's already implied
That you would respect them notice. It's also not saying to
Treat fathers. Well, it's saying to treat the treat them like a father
Why because it's already implied that you would treat your father with respect. It's already but you know when you lived in a very
normal society men already had so much honor and respect just
guaranteed to them the
Patriarchy that it was kind of just an assumption that you didn't necessarily even need to explain
It's just obvious and if you talked back to dad or the men you were gonna get whooped. Okay, so it was pretty clear
So they were saying hey someone that's not your dad
But was the elder is the ruler of the church treat him like you would treat your dad is what it's trying to say
And think about it this way if your dad did something wrong, how would you talk to him you you might tell him that he's wrong
It's not that you couldn't tell him that he's wrong, but you wouldn't scold him. You wouldn't mock him
You wouldn't be rebuking him because that's not appropriate
Okay, and so any time you see people just so quick to rebuke pastors
That's a bad spirit and any of us could be guilty of this and even ourselves. We need to be careful
You know, there are people out there that will just oh, I respect new IV preachers
But they rebuke old IV preachers, but you know what? This doesn't say rebuke not new IV elders
Okay, meaning that you know what you should still treat every pastor and every elder with a certain level of respect
And that even if they make mistakes, hey, yeah, can they be addressed? Sure
Now here's something we have to understand verse 19 against an elder received on that accusation
But before two or three witnesses, I've heard stupid interpretations of this verse, but let me explain what it's saying
it's saying that we can never trust one witness against a pastor and you should never trust one witness against the pastor and
Frankly speaking it doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter if you're Joel Osteen, Kenneth Copeland, Pastor Anderson, whatever you're gonna have
Individuals making accusations against these people and even if we don't like them, even if it's Joel Osteen
I'm still not gonna receive one witness against Joel Osteen because you know what?
It's just not the right way to approach things. We shouldn't take one person's word over anything
You need to have multiple witnesses to prove any fact against an elder. That's why they were so
Needful to get multiple witnesses against Jesus, but they couldn't find any could they why because their stories were contradictory
And it seemed really all these people are just lying railing
They're not telling the truth and of course this constantly happens where every good man of God is gonna have singular witnesses against them
Okay
Now if you have someone who's making a an accusation against the pastor
You could have kind of one of two scenarios
You could have one where it's just kind of a he said she said and there's no way to really prove who's right or wrong
And in that case, we just always give benefit to the of the doubt to the elder
Okay in a case where the person makes an accusation and it turns out to be false
This is what I believe it's clearly teaching here in verse 20 them that sin rebuked before all the others also may fear
So what happens is someone receives an accusation against the pastor through the mouth of one witness
Starts repeating that too. And now all of a sudden everybody's slandering and falsely accusing the pastor
Well, you know what when that gets found out to be the slander and the lies that it is those people need to be called
out publicly
So that we don't allow for false accusations to be running rampant against elders
So it's saying in those specific instances people need to be afraid to make a false accusation
Against the pastor or against an elder and we want to make it clear that that's not tolerated
You know it we live in a society where so many people lie today and it just makes it where you can't trust anything
But when you have consequences to lying that are very severe. It makes it a lot more important or more
Noteworthy when someone does make an actual accusation, you know
You're actually hurting victims by believing everyone and trusting everything and then people lying about it
Like the liars make it so much worse for people that are actually truly victims because then it's hard for anybody to believe them
Considering how many liars there have been in the past and so we want to make clear that we should not be
Rebuking elders go to second Timothy chapter number three now. Let me explain something
What if a pastor sins and it's not like a qualification issue, right?
Let's just say they lie one time or something
Well, I don't think that the pastor is now disqualified and has to stop being a pastor just because he lied one time
But does that not mean like a person or a couple people could come up to that individual say hey
We noticed what you said. This isn't true. You know give them opportunity to make it right or apologize or do whatever, right?
There's gonna be sins that pastors make I don't know if you know this but pastors are still sinful
Okay folks, and you know that doesn't mean that they're not blameless anymore. It just means that they're human
Obviously, no one's perfect. We've all sinned I sinned every pastor that I've ever heard of sins
If they say they don't sin leave the church immediately. Okay, that's a scary person to be around
But there could be a situation where pastors sin very grievously. Okay, and steadfast is no stranger to this situation
Okay, but but here's the thing. First of all, once you hear that you don't go immediately to the rebuke stage
we make sure we get the multiple witnesses we make sure we get all the facts and
Then once we get all the facts then we deal with the situation now, especially once the person let's say the person steps down
Let's say they voluntarily resign. Well, let me say something. They're no longer an elder
Could you now rebuke that individual for the horrible evil sins that they committed? Yes
I'm not saying that that person is immune for the rest of their life
But while they're still in the capacity in the position of the elder
We're not going to sit here and rebuke the person for this the sins and the issues they commit
We don't want to be like Miriam saying stuff against Moses about marrying the Ethiopian woman and then become a leper as a
Result of doing such a thing if they get to a point where they totally
Disqualified themselves and just they're totally just no longer legitimately in that position been removed removed from that position
Okay now yeah, there could be a case for a rebuke in that situation
But you still want to be careful how you handle that and making sure that you're being appropriate in that particular instance
Now second Timothy chapter 3 look at what it says in verse 3. This is talking about horrible people
It says that they're without natural affection truce-breakers false accusers incontinent fierce
Despisers of those that are good reprobates despise people that are good
So especially when a man of God maybe sends or does something wrong, but it's not necessarily that bad
They are they're quick to jump on that wagon and then start rebuking them. But wait a minute. Did it really fit the criterion?
It didn't okay. Well now you have a bad spirit again
You're not treating the text properly go to Titus chapter number two go to Titus chapter two and some people they'll they'll say oh
You are a specter of person. Well, you know what you don't understand what a respected person means
You know if my dad gives me instruction. I'm not allowed to
Rebuke him. He's my father. That doesn't mean that I'm a respecter of persons
You know what the Bible says that we should respect authority
There's a difference between respecting authority and respecting persons, right?
If someone does something wrong, then they should be receiving equal punishment, right?
Equal punishment for the crime means you're not a respecter of persons but treating someone differently based on their authority or position is
not
Respecting persons. Okay, and we don't want to get confused on that particular issue
There should be a certain level of respect for a pastor
there should be a certain level of respect for every position that we have even positions in government because you know what God put them as
Authorities in our life and you know what the Bible says honor the king why not because he's a great king because he's the king
Okay, so you're respecting the authority not necessarily the person wives should respect and talk
Sweetly to their husbands not because they deserve it but because they're their husband
They respect the authority not the person. Oh, I don't respect persons. So I talked down to my husband
No, no now you're just being disrespectful of authority. And you know what? God doesn't appreciate that
Even though look I know that your husband screwed up. You don't have to give me a list
You don't have to convince me. I know he's a sinner. I know he does things wrong
We we frankly speaking we always do things wrong, right and every argument we're always wrong, right?
But just give us the grace to respect this for our authority not us as a person
Okay. Now, of course, you know when we deal with our children
We want to make sure that all of our punishments are equitable, right that we punishing them equip
We're not like taking one child and when they screw up no punishment and when the other the brother screws up harsh punishment
That's now being respected persons, isn't it?
what if one of the people in the church that is
That I like and is rich does something bad and someone that I don't like and is poor in the church is the exact same
Thing and I treat the rich person better than the poor person. That's being respected persons
Okay, but let's say this let's say someone comes in here and they're a first-time visitor and they come up to me and they ask for my
Attention and then we have a soul winning captain come and ask for my attention and I treat these two people differently
That's not necessarily
Me being respected persons that's respecting authority saying hey this person
That's been in my church for a long time and is in a position of authority and leadership
I might give them more attention or take what they say more seriously than a random person that just shows up
You know that wants to talk to me about something. So, you know just because you treat people
Differently doesn't make you respect a person. Sometimes you disrespect your authority. Sometimes it's just practical
Sometimes it's just making sense of the situation, right?
I'm not gonna give all of you as much time as I'm giving my wife or my children
You know, that's not me being respected persons. It's being me a normal person. Okay, so let us not get these weird ideas
So when someone notices a passive do something they didn't like maybe they taught something and it's not quite accurate
Maybe they taught the pre-trib rapture. Maybe they said something that wasn't true. Maybe you know, whatever they did, you know
Hey, let's point out what they did. That's wrong. We can do that respectfully
But let's not just be quick to always rebuke them about it and necessarily just attack them and just mock them and go over the top
We should be careful how we approach those types of situations when we're talking about men of God
Look at Titus chapter 2 and look at verse 15 these things speak and exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no man
Despise thee you know what that says do not allow anybody to hate the pastor
do not let anyone hate the pastor and you know what I take this seriously and not just for myself for my
Pastor friends too and frankly speaking just anybody that's a good pastor or a saved pastor
You know if I see people hating on that person, you know, I don't like it. I don't like it
It's the wrong spirit and we shouldn't allow them to despise them, you know, it's the wrong attitude
It's the wrong behavior go to Proverbs chapter 16. Go to Proverbs chapter 16
We're looking at a lot of Bible this morning because I just don't want you to think Oh Pastor Shelley
Just his personal opinions are just coming through the pulpit
No, the the Bible is really clear on this subject
And I honestly I just think you have a bad heart if you don't agree with me
Like it doesn't it doesn't make sense to not agree. You just you basically I just hate pastors
Well, you're just a bad person then. Okay. I mean people that are
Sacrificing of their lifetime effort energy and emotions to help the people of God. They don't deserve a little bit extra respect
I mean the Bible says that we're supposed to esteem them highly in love for their works sake and you know
Many pastors go through many grievous
emotions and turmoil and problems that you'll never see and never know for the people of God and you know what they deserve a little bit of
Benefit of the doubt and some grace and to not be you know rebuked and treated so harshly
You know just because they make a mistake because many times a pastor's life
He's on isn't like a magnifying glass like we get to observe
You know you kind of get to notice everything about him how he dresses what his wife looks like how his wife talks house kids
I mean many people in this room probably would have a lot less conversations with my wife if I wasn't the pastor
You'd probably care a little bit less or pay less attention to how my children behave if I wasn't the pastor, right?
There'd probably be a few less headlines on Google about me if I wasn't the pastor, right?
there might be a few less, you know postings online with my social security number and my house address and
Billboards and posters with me everywhere and everything that I've ever done and all of my yearbook photos
They'd probably be less of that online if I wasn't a pastor and what I'm trying to say is that sometimes you don't realize that
pastors are kind of like put in this glass house up really high for everybody to just
Ogle and pay attention to every minor detail of their life
And if we were doing so to you we might notice a few extra problems
You've got to a few times when you said some words that you know, we're rough around the edges
Okay, and you know what? I don't even take them back. I'm just saying that you know, we don't follow you around with a tape recording
To then be put on YouTube shorts every five seconds of every single thing that you've ever said and done
You don't have people sneaking into church and calling you and trying to privately record your conversations to try and trap you and then
Posting it online and say here's what pastor Shelley said about me in private and I'm thinking like kind of sounds good
Like that just kind of makes you look like a bozo. Okay, and maybe that's their name. I don't know
I'm just telling you that there's a lot of things out there
that you don't realize that the pastors are going through in the public scrutiny and
how people even treat their children differently and treat their wives differently a lot of flattery a lot of deception a lot of trying to
Take advantage of them and so, you know, we should be willing to recognize that and say you know what?
I don't need to attack this person there
They've got plenty but the person that wants to let's see what the Bible says Proverbs chapter 16 verse 27 an ungodly man
Diggeth up evil and in his lips there is as a burning fire. What does it mean to dig up evil?
Let me explain to you what this means
It's like when someone comes up to you and tells you all the bad things that a pastor has done that you didn't know about
Why do you need to know that?
You know and it's sad and I'm gonna get specific in my sermon this morning about one particular instance and this could be applied anywhere
But I feel like there's all these people that would love to hate on pastor Jack
Hiles of the past and and I've seen people preaching like whole sermons against him and then this is what I've heard and I've seen
Lots of you'll say this. Wow. I didn't know anything bad about Jack
Hiles until that sermon and I'm thinking like how is that a positive thing?
How is it positive to dig up evil about someone and well did you know that they
committed this problem or they have this issue of their past? It's like do you
really want us to go ahead and ask God for a rap sheet on you and go ahead and
lay out before the whole congregation and every single person every stupid
thing you've ever done in your life because it's just it's just really weird
why someone could even claim that they have good intentions about that and in
frankly speaking Jack Hiles has passed away his wife has passed away so now we
just want to sit here and spit on their grave and just constantly try to dig up
all the evil we could possibly think of when Jesus isn't gonna do it how can you
tell me you have the spirit of Jesus Christ when Jack Hiles stands before him
his sins aren't gonna be mentioned but you want to constantly mention them you
don't have the spirit of Jesus Christ my friend you know what the Bible talks
about charity and love covering a multitude of sins it doesn't say how how
wonderful you are for digging up evil and trying to find problems and trying
to figure out well is there anything we can pick this person apart for it's
like that's not healthy that's not good the Bible doesn't encourage us to do
this go back to chapter 14 and here's the reason why it's effective though
when people dig up evil Proverbs chapter 14 look at verse 15 the Bible says the
simple believeth every word so what happens is people just bring up all
this random junk about someone when they're dead can't defend themselves and
then they just spread it everywhere and then a lot of simple people just believe
everything that they hear I mean you know this verse you know just to prove
that this verse is true there are people out there that believe the earth is flat
not not through some discovery it's not like well I took a level and I put it on
the ground I noticed that it was like even guess the earth must be flat you
know if you took a ball and you just put a a level on top of it perfectly it
would still show level two that doesn't prove if there's curvature or not but
you're pretty brilliant oh I went I saw this video there's a guy standing on a
beach and he has a camcorder he zoomed in and he could see a little further
the earth must be flat bruh this guy he taped a camera onto a hot air balloon
went up and he didn't I didn't see it you know I didn't see the curvature or
whatever it's like this is the simple believing every word and I didn't I
thought it was fake I thought the people were just out there trolling just trying
to make fun of people and stuff but there's like really people that believe
this stuff and they're dangerous okay because if they believe that what else
do they believe I mean these are the people that are saying like Joe Biden's
a hologram and and President Trump is like a reincarnated Elvis Presley
ruling from our lago and and you're just like whoa you know then they just they
start believing in healing crystals and all kind of you're just like do you
believe everything that's on YouTube it's like I've done all this research you
didn't do any research you fell you fell victim of believing everything that
you've heard okay if you believe everything you've heard you believe a
lot of lies because the vast majority of things on the internet are not true you
should hopefully at least like I don't believe like 90% of what's on the
internet that's like a healthy number or 95 or 99 like if you feel like you
believe some like 50 or 10 percent you know I believe like 80% of what the
internet says you believe a lot of lies okay because it's just filled with false
information and of course about pastors it's no different where there's just
litany of false accusation and ridiculous nonsense about pastors and
even pastor Hiles and I've listened to a small handful just to hear just for
this preparation of the sermon not that I care not that I'm that interested okay
what's the credibility of these people and they just make the most ridiculous
accusations and albeit some of them are from what you would think is a credible
person even some of his own family members have made false accusations
against him but one of his one of his daughters is like really gotten popular
about claiming that his dad her dad like owned all the property in the area own
like schools and own businesses and and that he was a multi-millionaire and just
like all kinds of crazy things and it's like all of these are just factually not
true like you can just prove that they're not true on top of that she of
course then drops this word it was a cult all he said the church was 50,000
people and they all asked pastor Hiles permission for every aspect of their
life what car to drive what house to buy I'm like you just don't understand math
50,000 people okay what if you gave all of them one minute of your time to ask
all of your life decisions how long would that take and while you're still
trying to figure that out realize it's impossible 50,000 people yeah and they
whenever someone drops the cult word you just know like okay they're already not
even being serious because cold is usually I've ran out of arguments and
this is my last attempt to try and persuade you that this person's bad so
I just threw out the word cold okay you know it's just silly it doesn't have any
merit and if you want to just believe everything that you've ever heard about
Jack Howes on the internet you're an idiot you're an idiot why would you
think the guy who literally ran the biggest church in America at one point
his church was considered the biggest church in America you don't think that
there was a single bad person that tried to make up a lie about him not one but
you know what's interesting is even though there's been a lot of accusations
against Pastor Howes not a single time has a woman come forward and said that
he abused her anything but there's all kinds of circulate you can believe all
kinds of crazy things and that's actually impressive to think that he ran
a church with 50,000 or over a hundred thousand people on the membership rolls
at one time and not even a single woman ever made that accusation against him
makes it seem like he was probably a pretty stand-up guy and there really
wasn't a lot of room for it but now that he's dead and all this other people
come out and make all these claims like oh yeah he was just this adulterer and
blah I don't see any evidence of that it's ridiculous and you know you're not
even allowed to receive an accusation against them by one person now the news
media they had a hit piece on him it was they basically had one person one man
falsely accused pastor Hiles of being with his wife and you say well how do
you know it was false well how come his wife said that it was not true and
pastor Hiles wife said it wasn't true everyone said it wasn't true just one
person and this is the credibility of the guy the guy makes this outrageous
claim he says that pastor Hiles banished him to his own basement for 12 years to
where he couldn't be in the presence of his own wife can you imagine a pastor
telling you that you are not allowed to be in any part of your house you are
banished to your own basement while that pastor commits adultery with your wife
repeatedly in your presence while you're in the basement that's not true folks
that doesn't happen and even if it did what normal man would ever even admit
to that admit to that because no normal man could even take that he would kill
everyone before that would happen okay that's ridiculous no man that's and how
could you even claim he's jealous or loves his wife at all but you know that
individual was accused by many for having committed adultery and his wife
divorcing him so it seems like maybe he could have been projecting on the pastor
Hiles for getting caught for being an adulterer and then coming up with the
most wild story you can imagine yeah 12 years in your own base Jack Hiles is on
TV about this and he said if that was true then that guy's a wimp it's like
the one sound bite that they had of the whole interview and look anybody that's
ever listened to the whole interview by the news and then what they put out
there we all know they just take the one sound bite right and it's just like well
pastor Hiles is calling him a wimp it's like he is a wimp okay at best at best the
guy's a wimp I don't believe that for one second and it doesn't make sense
folks okay so point one is this there's no reason to hate the man of God now
let's just say for sake of argument and I'm not talking about pastor Hiles let's
talk about somebody else for a second let's say there was a pastor that did
commit adultery or that did do something bad okay yeah Greg Locke
that's true well frankly he's not even qualified anymore okay and he's such a
bozo that I don't have a problem rebuking that that freak but at the same
time you know I'm not gonna hate somebody if I think that they're saved I
think there's questions marks for me if he saved so you know I don't have a
problem going hard after him but again there are people that I think have
committed sins like that and I'm kind of giving them benefit out I think that
they probably are saved so I don't attack them and hate them regularly you
know let me give you an example how about the former pastor said best you
know I personally think he's probably saved I could be wrong on that but
that's how I feel about the situation and you know what you don't see me just
constantly going after this individual and hating this individual and I don't
hate him some people got mad at me like that we even paid him a salary after
having done all that just to be a consultant and help the transition of
the church and it's like well look I don't hate the person and it doesn't
make sense to not still do good on to someone did the person screw up yes am I
excusing that I've never done that I never would do that okay is it
appropriate in some context to rebuke that behavior sure you know what I'm not
going to stretch forth my hand against the man of God I'm not going to hate the
man of God I'm not going to despise the man of God you know what it's the wrong
attitude and you know what I'm not going to do is I'm not going to sit here and
constantly bring it up over and over for the rest of my life just to pretend
like how cool and good of a guy I am or something you know it just doesn't make
sense go to 2 Samuel chapter 12 go to 2 Samuel chapter 12 and frankly
speaking people that do this are hypocrites because they're not doing it
to everyone they claim how they're not a respected person okay well then are you
gonna start hating on Saul too because frankly speak I mean Saul what sins did
Saul not do I mean and frankly speaking being complicit in the death of the
priests and their families is probably one of the worst things you could even
imagine inquiring of a witch pretty awful trying to kill David pretty
egregious yeah you know what I don't hate Saul I'm not gonna go up into
heaven and be like you're such a terrible person you know that that's
weird here's another person that I don't hate David but you know what these
people would have to start hating David if they were going to be consistent you
know what they're not going to be consistent because it would show the
hypocrisy that they really hold now let's think about David for a moment
does David have any sin issues I don't know how about second Samuel chapter 12
look at verse number seven and Nathan said to David thou art the man thus say
the Lord God of Israel I know that the king over Israel and delivered thee out
of the hand of Saul and I gave thee thy master's wife or master's house and thy
master's wives into thy bosom and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah
and if that had been too little I would have moreover had given unto thee such
and such things more wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord to
do evil on his side thou has killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword and has
taken his wife to be thy wife and has slain him with the sword of the children
of Ammon now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house because
thou has despised me and has taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy
wife thus saith the Lord behold I will raise up evil against thee out of thine
own house and I will take thy ways before thine eyes and give them unto
thy neighbor and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this son for thou
didst it secretly but I will do this thing before all Israel before the son
so you know this is a pretty sad chapter about David's life pretty big pretty big
issue I mean murder and adultery pretty big deal God even says hate even though
you did it in secret and you covered it up I'm gonna expose it to everybody it's
gonna be in the Bible pretty big deal right I mean David didn't get away with
it his son died as a result of it grievous sin you know what God still kept
him as king and who am I to then say like oh I hate David or rebuke David or
to attack David even though he's committed this horrible sin you know
what I'm not gonna hate David because he did this I'm not gonna despise David and
you know what God still praises David a lot in the Bible and then he'll just be
like you know obviously this was bad he gives a caveat like hey David did that
which was right in the eyes of the Lord save in the matter of Uriah but he's saying
like generally David was a good guy generally David did a lot of good David
killed Goliath David rescued Israel from its enemies David killed the
Philistines David brought the ark of God back into the house of God at least you
know obviously it was in preparation he prepared for the house of God it pleased
God that he wanted to build the house of God David did a lot of good things and
okay did he make mistakes no doubt no question he made serious issue but you
know what I'm not gonna hate David for it even David's family is screwed up
think about this his firstborn his eldest son Amnon took advantage and
forced his own sister that's a pretty bad family already then Absalom he lay
with all of his father's wives ten of them and then he committed the
ultimate treason Adam Nyjah committed treason and wanted to sleep with his
father's wife I mean you would think that this family's from Kentucky or
something or New Jersey and is on like Mari or something Jerry Springer it's
David okay you know David had a lot of wives David caused a lot of problems you
know what I still am NOT gonna hate David and you know sometimes they'll look
at another passage well this passage did you know he has a bad son okay sure but
I'm not gonna hate him because he has a bad son I mean why would I kick someone
or that what if you have a bad son do you want me and you come up to me and
say hey pastor Shelley I have my son's making bad decisions what should I do
well you're just a bad person shame on you go away is that is that is that how
you want to be treated or would you like someone to come for you and say like
man that sucks I'll pray for you hey you know that's disappointing I wish it
wasn't the case you know to find people in the Bible that don't have a bad kid
is pretty rare I want you to realize that and and I want you to you know
understand a few things go to Proverbs chapter 29 go to Proverbs chapter 29 did
you realize that Solomon, Absalom, Amnon, Adonijah they all have the exact same
dad but they're all different it sounds like you can't just completely blame
David for their difference and let's be honest there's another person that
greatly influences the children it's the mother so can we always just blame dad
for children or is it the mother's fault sometimes too isn't the mother have a
important role in the development of their children and frankly speaking I
argue this is this is my personal opinion but I think you can find texts
that support this but is my personal opinion I think that women have a greater
influence on their children than their sons do or I'm sorry than the fathers
do but that doesn't mean that the father doesn't have an important role it
doesn't mean that the father can't greatly influence the decision of the
children it's just by sheer fact that the wife usually spends more time so as
a result of them spending more time giving them more instruction generally
speaking typically they have a greater impact or influence on their children's
development of course there could be situations where a son doesn't have a
great mom or an absent mom and still turns out good and the dad has a positive
influence but at the same time that that motherly influence is going to be a big
factor in the development of the child and if we look at the children of David
you know we have a Hinoim is the one that gives birth unto Amnon well this
was just kind of a random hookup kind of kind of makes sense like okay maybe she
doesn't take life as seriously you know this the other one was Abigail and she
gave birth to Chilia or Daniel and there's no mention of him but seems like
he must have been pretty decent since he didn't do what all of his other
brethren did okay and Abigail seemed to be a little bit more high quality of a
lady then we don't really know but I mean Hinnom doesn't we don't really have
much information just guessing but we also look at other ladies in there
Haggith is the one that raises Adonijah we have Bathsheba raises Solomon that
gets just my personal opinion but you can see that at least Bathsheba really
loves her son and she makes a lot of decisions for her son that are good
Solomon in the book of Proverbs specifically talks a little bit there's
some subtle clues in there about his mother and the role that she played in
his life so it makes sense to me that Bathsheba is probably a little bit more
godly than some of these other ladies maybe not she committed adultery so we
don't know but I'm just saying it could be and it's very likely that these
mothers had a big impact on their son's outcome here's another thing that's a
big clue and I'm not going to a lot of verse I'm just giving you a lot of
verses verbatim or like verbally but how about you sons of Zeruiah this is a
phrase if you ever read the Bible you ran then that phrase a lot why it's like
man oh Joab and Abishai I mean you guys and Azahel you guys are just like insane
you know and you're just so fierce and ready to just kill people your mom must
have not been a very merciful person because they're always calling for blood
they're always want to take someone's head off they're always ready to kill
and to slay and he's like man you sons of Zeruiah and he's talking about the
mother okay so you know and sometimes you kind of see that you can see in the
New Testament the positive influence of Lois and Eunice the impact they had on
their son Timothy you know I'm just forsaken argument how about Proverbs 31
I mean one of the most iconic passages of the entire Bible is talking about a
son being influenced by who the prophecy that his mother taught him and I'm
telling you ladies your impact in this world is real they say it and I believe
it that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world and in many cases this
is true now Proverbs look at what it says in 29 verse 15 the rod of reproof
give wisdom but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame notice it
didn't say his parents notice it didn't say his father it said the mother I
didn't write the Bible so if you don't like this verse talk to God about it you
know what the Bible says is that the mother bears a pretty big responsibility
for the behavior of the child and it's saying you know if mothers decide not to
parent their children
you know what it's very likely that that child could end up going bad having
severe problems and it's going to shame the mother because she could have
controlled it she could have impacted it differently she could have been a
positive influence that would have negated some of these issues look at
verse 17 correct thy son and he shall give thee rest yet he shall give delight
unto thy soul the Bible is saying hey if you don't discipline them shame if you
do discipline them joy right showing that there's a direct impact on behavior
as a result of discipline and let me tell you something every kid is
different some kids are harder than others and I get it but the Bible is
saying that children that are just not giving any joy and just rebellious and
causing problems it's you know we're talking like little children it's
because typically the parents aren't disciplining them and you say well I do
I put them in timeout I count to three I nag him I flick him you know whatever
but wait a minute what does the Bible say verse 15 the rod and reproof give
wisdom now this is a two-fold thing notice it didn't say the rod gives
reproof it didn't say reprieve or sorry didn't say the rod give wisdom it didn't
say the reproof gives it says both the rod and reproof meaning that we need
mothers who will instruct their children to tell them why they're doing what's
wrong to correct them every time they do something wrong what's a reproof don't
do that don't say that don't wear that don't go here don't don't behave this
way don't punch your brother constant reproof constant reproof and then you
know it also needs to happen sometimes you need to round with the rod to
reinforce that reproof to bring in that behavior it's the two-fold punch okay
and I'm not saying to punch your children folks okay someone's gonna take
that out of context I'm sure go to Proverbs 22 go to Proverbs 22 and you
know the Bible even says that if thou beatest him with the rod you know he's
not gonna die you're gonna deliver his soul from hell so there's even a direct
correlation to getting a child saved and using physical discipline I'm telling
you you need to use it it's it works and I guarantee the people that we notice
that seem to struggle with their kids a lot and the kids are not very well
behaved they're probably not getting the rod not saying that you I don't know
what's going on for sure but I just I know enough from the Bible to realize
that could be fixed okay now once a child gets older though you know
beatings and and reproof aren't gonna work as well because they become a
teenager and they become stubborn they become a young adult and they kind of
have their mind made up and that's why the Bible says to chase in my son while
there's hope so eventually it's gonna not matter it's not gonna matter as much
anymore what you do now this is what the Bible says in Proverbs 22 verse 6
train up a child the way you should go when he's old he will not depart from it
I believe that this verse is true but I don't think that it's it's a 100% every
single time no exception type of verse I don't think the Proverbs are like that
in any way I think Proverbs are always just giving general wisdom general
advice they're generally true okay and it's generally true that the way you
train your child and the way you instruct your child and the things you
do it's gonna stick with them lifelong but we have to be honest for a moment
and say that people still have free will and this is good and bad now I'm gonna
give you my parable okay this is not Bible this is my parable and it's it's
bowling okay who likes bowling all right okay there's okay you who at least
understands bowling okay most everybody all right now in bowling if you take
your kids bowling they offer sometimes for you put bumper rails up in the
gutter now in bowling you basically you're rolling a ball down the lane
trying to knock down as many pins as you can but on both sides there's a
trap there's a ditch and this ditch is called the gutter and if you go into the
gutter you won't you won't knock any pins over basically just to catch the
ball and for it to go down and for you to basically score zero on that
particular throw well for kids they're not very skilled so most of the time
they're gonna throw in the gutter because they have to throw it so
straight for so long they're not very skilled yet they can't really do it so
what people do so that families will enjoy this event is they put up gutters
bumpers in the gutters and they're like walls and now the ball can't even go in
the gutter if it's going towards the gutter just hits and bounces and bounces
bounces eventually goes down there and it can knock over pins okay and in my
parable this is you know the lane the bowling lane is life the bowling ball is
the kids free will and the gutters are the parents instruction now here's the
thing if you just had an excellent kid you could have parents that suck and
don't even put the gutters up but he just rolls it right down the middle and
he just gets a strike anyways and sometimes that happens sometimes they'll
meet kids and it's like their parents really weren't even good they had they
were terrible they didn't train their kid right but he of his own free will
sought the Lord made good decisions and ended up turning out to be a good person
anyways that can happen but that's the exception most kids are gonna bowl that
ball straight at the gutter section and when their parents aren't putting up any
bumper rails in their life they throw a lot of gutter balls and they don't score
very many pins whereas parents that go ahead and put the bumper rails up they're
basically helping their child score some pins now I'll be at their free will still
there right and just because you put up bumper rails doesn't mean you're gonna
get a strike every single time but you'll probably get some pins and here's
the thing you'll get more pins than you would have if you didn't put them up okay
and think about it this way by training up a child the ways to go when he's
old like an apartment kind of meaning like you roll the ball it's gonna hit
something most likely but even then it's actually technically possible to have
gutter or bumper rails in the gutters and and roll it down there and it just
right at the very end just kind of sneaks by and still gets nothing and and
what I want you to understand is this you could I believe you could have a
parent be a pretty good parent make all the right decisions and just have a
child who in their free will just decides not to obey and you know what
it's not really the parents fault that the child went bad it's that the child
technically has free will and that's the exception not the rule let's look at a
couple verses on this go to Proverbs chapter 6 let me explain this to you
because this is important for your children you children let me explain
something to you your parents bringing you to this church and telling you read
the Bible will not make you a good person you have to choose to be a good
person and many of your siblings and your brother and your sister may not
choose good decisions in their life but you know what you can and you need to
make it clear hey you're still rolling the ball down the lane you're still
playing the game you still have to make the right decisions as a young child
okay and having parents give you a good path great but you know what at the end
of the day you have to choose to walk down that path and this is important
look at Proverbs chapter 6 verse number 20 my son keep thy father's commandment
forsake not the law thy mother why is that in here if it was automatic that
means that a parent could give good instruction and a child not do it go to
verse 15 go to chapter 15 go to chapter 15 and look at verse 20 go to chapter
15 look at verse number 20 the Bible says a wise son make it a glad father
but a foolish man despiseth his mother this doesn't sound like the mother was
causing problems it sounds like he just hates his mom look at chapter 19 look
at verse 26 chapter 19 and look at verse 26 and you know what sometimes you have
siblings raised in virtually an identical household mom and dad were the
same now maybe they got a little bit different treatment because nothing could
be absolutely exactly the same but generally speaking pretty much the same
parents same environment same household same whatever and they're very
different they're very different in the decisions that they make and you say why
free will okay Proverbs chapter 19 look at verse 26 he that wasted his father
and chases the way his mother is a son that causes shame bring of approach
notice it's not that the father and mother have problems it's that they're
being chased away by the kid isn't it look at chapter 20 verse 20 chapter 20
verse 20 who so cursed of this father as mother his lamp shall be put out in
obscure darkness this is again we're talking about the parents decisions
talking about the child decisions here look at chapter 23 look at chapter 23
and look at verse 22 parking under thy father that begat thee and despise not
thy mother when she is old this again sounds like someone choosing not to obey
their parents not to do what their parents are saying as a result of what
their free will even being an adult look at verse number 24 the father of the
righteous shall greatly rejoice and he that begat the wise child shall have joy
of him thy father and thy mother shall be glad and she that bare thee shall
rejoice look your parents are pleased when you obey them they're not pleased
when you disobey them look at chapter 28 look at verse 24 I want us to get
recalibrated and realize you know what we need to try encourage our children
that they need to make good decisions because we can't make them for them and
we can put the bumper rails up and let's do it's really important but you know
what the bumper rails won't cause the child to get a strike you know it caused
the child to get a strike them learning how to roll the ball themselves and
making good decisions and they have to make good decisions look at Proverbs 28
look at verse 24 whoso robeth his father his mother and say that is no
transgression same as the companion of a destroyer look at Proverbs chapter 30
verse 11 there's a generation that cursed their father and did not bless
their mother look at verse 15 the horse leech hath two daughters crying give
give there are three things that are never satisfied gave four things say it
is not enough say not it is enough the grave in the barren womb the earth that
is not filled with water and the fire that sayeth not it is enough the eye
that mocketh at his father and despiseth to obey his mother the ravens of the
valley shall pick it out and the young eagles shall eat it you know the Bible
says if there was a young man that was so rebellious and stubborn and he
wouldn't harken to his parents and become a drunkard and a glutton the
Bible says that they would be put to death because he can't contribute to the
society you know I don't think that's necessarily the parents fault that the
like they're trying to discipline him according the Bible in that section of
scripture if you read it it says that they chastised him and he
still wouldn't listen he still wouldn't do right and as a result of that he's
basically his bloods upon his own head now this makes a little more sense
about how when you read in the Bible virtually every great guy in the Bible
ends up having bad kids I mean do you really expect me to believe that Noah
and his wife were radically different parents to Shem and Ham or is it that
Ham made bad decisions that Ham chose a bad path am I supposed to believe that
Adam and Eve were radically different parents to Cain and Abel am I supposed
to believe that Aaron and his wife were radically different to their sons
Nadab and Abihu as opposed to Eleazar and Ithamar why is it that Aaron has two
sons that are just really awful and two sons that are not that awful why is it
that Jacob having twelve sons they're all radically different and Joseph is
way different than his brethren now think about this if you just had this
perpetual statute of just well good people have good children and they have
good children they have good children just like a perfect line then why is it
that Joseph being the father of Ephraim and Manasseh those tribes end up being
pretty bad in the long run and then Levi and Judah pretty awful as the persons
but then their tribes end up producing some of the greatest people you have
Moses and Aaron and them coming from Levi whereas Levi I mean show me the
redeeming qualities of Levi as the person in fact he's pretty much rebuked
as being a really harsh person and having slain people when he shouldn't
have I mean Levi as a person we don't really see any redeeming qualities as
oh he sold his brother into slavery what a great guy same dad you know you do
notice a little difference though that the sons of the concubines of Jacob
pretty much were the worst ones and the worst tribes so again kind of almost
giving more credence to the impact of the mother and the influence of the
mother in those children then over just who the father was Samuel pretty great
guy bad kids and the list goes on folks what I want you to say how is it the
David has issues with kids Saul has issues with kids I mean he gave my cow
to some other random dude and then my cow has horrible issues with David
Solomon I mean Solomon has Ray of Bohem kind of bad kid now obviously Solomon
made a lot of mistakes in the latter portions of his life I'm sure that it
negatively affect his children but you know this is the point that I want to
make is that children have free will point one is this there's no reason to
hate men of God number two let's not rebuke elders and number three children
have free will so what if God forbid we end up finding a pastor and he has ten
adult children and one of them's bad okay doesn't it just prove that children
have free will is that oh well David Hiles is a has made a lot of mistakes I
don't know cuz I don't really want to dig up evil maybe he did let's just say
he made a lot of mistakes does that mean that now I should hate Jack Hiles that's
stupid you know Jack Hiles has preached a lot of great sermons he's influenced a
lot of people to go soul winning he's personally got a lot of people saved he
started a lot of churches if you read some of his books he says some really
great things in there some of his books I've read and I don't agree with some of
the things he said in there but I'm not gonna hate him as a result of that and
you know I think that we we need to be careful that we're not setting ourselves
up for a future where we have to put our foots in our mouth where we thought
like "oh man well this one guy has this one issue so we're gonna crucify him" well
then start crucifying everybody in the Bible too. Hate David too and hate Saul
too and hate Solomon too and hate every single person because I mean frankly
speaking every guy in the Bible that we love usually made a big mistake so we're
now gonna hate them and rebuke them. Look I'm not saying don't learn from the
mistakes. That's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying that Jack Howell is perfect I
don't frankly I don't care. Some people have falsely accused me and our church
and churches like ours of worshipping Jack Howells. I would love to see the
evidence of that. I would love to see the proof of that. You know I don't you know
I don't have a portrait of him up you know on the wall or anything that I
bowed down to right before I preach or something. I and frankly speaking it's
not about Howells to me. It's about just pastors. Let's protect pastors. Let's
defend pastors. And I'll tell you again, what's the pattern? Reprobates hate men
of God. And let me tell you something. There is a lot of reprobates that hate
Jack Howells. And you know I'm just not interested in jumping on their bandwagon.
And I'll say something else. I've kind of noticed a pattern that pretty much all
the people that go really bad hate Jack Howells. Like there's this person that's
in the church and they make it known that they hate Jack Howells and then it
turns out they're an infiltrator, bad person, slanderer, cause all kinds of
issues later. And I'm not saying that every person that doesn't like Howells
is a bad person, I'm just saying I've noticed a pattern. I've noticed that the
people that really don't like him usually are really bad people. A lot of
people that really don't like Howells, you know they are, repent of your sins
pastors. Boy do they hate Jack Howells and talk so much trash on Jack Howells and
want to constantly put forth all the bad things they can think about Pastor
Howells. And they'll say, oh but you know like something really bad happened at
his church. He's responsible. Well that's a pretty high standard that you're gonna
have there buddy. Go over to 1 Kings chapter 20 for a second. Go to 1 Kings
chapter 20. You really think that if you pastor a church with 50,000 people that
there wouldn't be one bad person in there every once in a while that might
commit a really bad sin. And they'll say, well but you don't realize, you don't
understand. There was people in his church that committed pedophilia. Okay
well unfortunately let me say this. There was a church member of ours that
was a pedophile at one point. And he was fortunately self-casted out
and basically he turned himself into the cops. So I'm thinking like maybe our
preaching helped him to make that decision. I don't know. Because I don't
think, I don't understand why a pedophile would turn himself in, you know, but you
know for him to do that I'm thinking like great, you know, maybe he got
confounded. It's kind of like Judas went and just kind of like hung himself and
he was just kind of like, you know. It's like that meme with that kid. He's like,
I didn't tell you, I didn't suggest that to you necessarily, but I'm not really
sad that it happened, you know. It's like, oh, I guess that's Pastor Shelley's
fault because bad people make bad decisions. Well, you know, you can look at
however you want, but it's unrealistic to think that a bad person couldn't creep
in our church and do a bad thing and that somehow I have to, I have to make
sure that nothing bad ever happens at any time for any person. You know, that's
why I constantly warn, I say like, don't trust people in this room and don't let
them watch your kids. And look, we're not just getting random bozos off the street
and having them go pick up kids and do a bus ministry because you probably could
have that happen. But let me say this, do you know that Pastor Hiles literally had
hundreds and hundreds of people going out on bus routes picking up thousands
and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of
kids and a lot of them got saved and their lives were changed for the better?
And then we want to focus on, well, but one bad person did a bad thing one time.
Okay, I guess don't do anything, don't reach anybody. Well, one time somebody in
our soul winning went out and gave somebody the wrong gospel or said
something bad because they're bad person. Now soul winning is bad, right? Now, like
this is a bad philosophy in life is where you're gonna just accuse the
leadership of being horrible because bad people exist. Like, oh okay, well
sons of Belial existed in David's army. Does that make David a bad person now?
Now look, was David at fault for not having dealt with Amnon when he found
out that he took advantage of his sister? Yes, that was a mistake and I think God
would hold him accountable for that but I don't think that God holds leadership
accountable for bad people being bad. He holds leadership accountable for not
doing anything about it or potentially being very negligent and allowing bad
things to happen very easily, okay? So sure, there is going to be
accountability for the leadership but you know who doesn't need to hold them
in accountability? You. You don't need to worry about that. God's got it, okay?
You really think that God can't make sure that people get judged and dealt
with appropriately enough? I mean what if you think well I think that David
should be killed because he committed adultery. You know what? God says no. So
let God deal with it, right? And there's a lot of people out there that want to
know Pastor Howell's bad because he has some bad kids. You can have your own
opinion about him. Even if you think that he's bad, I still don't think you
should hate him. I still don't think it makes sense to attack him. It doesn't
still make sense. It doesn't make sense to dig up evil and to some degree can't
you at least acknowledge that children have free will? Because let me tell you
something. I was not raised in a fundamental Baptist home with the King
James Bible, caught soul winning. I didn't have that upbringing and you know what?
I'm here. So why would I think that someone being raised in a household
where they're taught these things, going to a good church, if they make bad
decisions? Isn't that their decision? And you know, frankly speaking, I know
lots of people where they have the same parents and they're way different. My
siblings and me, much different people. Other people in here, your siblings, much
different people, okay? Is that just your parents' fault? Is it now just mom and
dad's fault? Or is it that maybe you made better decisions than they did? Or vice
versa, maybe your siblings are better than you, frankly speaking. That could also be
the case. Let's not hear and listen from the guy who has two toddlers how much
better of a parent he is than Pastor Hiles. You know why? Because you haven't
raised any children yet. Have we seen how many great guys didn't raise great
children? Why do you think that you're definitely going to then? Frankly speaking
raising children has to be extremely hard because when I look at the world I
don't see just a litany of just great children. I don't... Show me the guy. Point
out the guy that says you know here's a guy he raised ten kids and they're all
just awesome. Here's the guy that has 12 kids and they're all just awesome. I mean
it's really hard to find and I'm not saying it doesn't exist. What I am saying
is that show me these big families where every single kid is amazing. It almost
doesn't even exist and I'm not saying that it doesn't but what I'm trying to
help you understand is that let's not create standards that literally no one
is abiding by on the planet further than you to accuse them when you yourself
haven't even gotten there to show us how amazing that you are. It's like well this
guy hasn't climbed Mount Everest barefoot. You haven't either. So why don't
you tell us all about it after you try it, right? How about 1 Kings chapter 20
verse 10, 1 Kings chapter 20 verse 10, "And Benadad sent unto him and said, 'The
gods do so unto me, and more also, if the dust of Samaria shall suffice for the
handfuls of all the people that are following me.' And the king of Israel
answered and said, 'Tell him, let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself
as he that putteth it off.'" Hey don't brag about winning the battle when you
haven't even started fighting. Don't tell me about how much greater of a
parent and a pastor you are when you're not a pastor and you haven't raised
children successfully yet. Because I guarantee there's gonna be a lot of
people that are big talkers and then when push comes to shove, oh you weren't
as hot. You didn't do as great as you thought you were gonna be. You know who's
the greatest parent in this room right now? All the single guys. We can probably
point, we probably all point to who's the greatest parent in this room.
Okay? And that's just the reality of life. Everybody in here thinks that
they're so much better of a parent than everybody else when in reality, like, it's
just not how it works. Okay? And look, I do believe there's a lot of promises,
there's a lot of things in the Bible, and we can look at the past and notice some
problems that have been made. And if we do a really good job, we could have a
pretty successful crop. And I believe that. I want to believe that. I'm working
towards that. I want to hopefully believe that all my children will be saved and
in church and baptized and serving God and soul-winning and love Jesus. I want
to believe that, and I'm trying my best to get there. But I'm gonna say this. I
can't know for sure. You can't know for sure. But this is what I do know, is I
guarantee that in this room, not every single one of these kids is gonna turn
out great. And it's not because I don't want it. It's just because of the sheer
fact of reality. And we're gonna, I'm gonna try my best, and I hope you try
your best to not be that person and to not have those kids. But what I don't
want you to get is this attitude of, like, it's guaranteed, locked in. We, we've
already figured it out. We figured out parenting. No one else did before us. Like,
as a parent, yeah, let's make all the right decisions. But the child still has to
roll the ball down that aisle, too. And children have free will, and we want to
come alongside them, encourage them to make all the right decisions. But let's
not get this weird standard in our minds and say, "Oh, well, I noticed one pastor
out there, he doesn't, he has one kid that's not that great." Well, you know,
frankly speaking, that's pretty much every pastor that I've ever seen in my
life. Like, almost every pastor that I've ever known that has, like, all raised
kids, there's kind of like one that you look at and you're kind of like, "That
one's not that great." And I'm not, I'm not sitting here thinking like, "Well, that
guy's just a horrible person, then." You know, what a just, you know, what a scumbag,
you know. And again, I'm sure as parents we beat ourselves up, and we probably
will, for our kids not being great. But, okay, let's, let's also have some empathy
for people, and have some grace for people. And, and I hope that when you're
that person, or I'm that person, or anybody's that person, that we come along
them and encourage them not just dig a grave for them, not just pile on top of
them. And, you know, when we're all dead, that people aren't just coming to our
funeral. Here's, here's Pastor Shelley's rap sheet. Here's everything that Pastor
Shelley's ever done wrong. Now, there's this one sermon was preaching about Biden.
I don't care if you bring that up, but I don't want to go down in history as the
guy that liked Biden. Isn't it so funny? All these people are so offended that I
said something negative about Biden. I'm thinking like, do you not agree with me?
Do you like Biden? Okay. Let's just, let's just be careful and let's just not hate
men of God, right? There's enough, there's enough attack. Let's just love on them.
Okay. Let's go some prayer. Thank you heavenly father so much for giving us
the Bible and helping us realize that we're, we're mankind and that we, we fail
and we fall short and we have problems and we have issues. I pray that we wouldn't
just pile on and hate Christians and hate men of God and violate the Bible's
commandments and rebuke elders and I pray that we would have a strong sense of
urgency understanding that since our kids have free will, we need to be careful in
fostering that child's, you know, life, making sure that we are putting up, you
know, guardrails and, and boundaries in their lives to protect them, coming
alongside them, encouraging them, helping them to be motivated with love, not just
a militaristic, you know, attitude or a dominating attitude, but one that teaches
them about mercy and grace and compassion, that we, we nurture them in
the admonition of the Lord. I pray that you would help us to raise the best
children that we can. And I pray that if any of us falter or made mistakes in our
past, that we wouldn't beat up on these people, rather we'd come alongside them,
encourage them, pray for them, help them. And, and maybe if you would help us to
have any children to turn back, be the prodigal son, maybe return back to the
Lord. And, and I pray that you would just help our church to have a gracious
attitude. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.