Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church.
If you could all find your seats, we'll go ahead and get started.
We're going to start this morning off in our binders, a song
that we should all be familiar with redeemed. Should be near
the back of your binders.
Looks like we got a pretty full house, so I expect to hear some loud voices this morning.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for this church.
We thank you for everyone that's gathered here today.
We ask, Lord, that you please fill Pastor Shelley
with your Holy Spirit, help him to preach
a netifying sermon unto us so we can walk out
better Christians than the way that we came in.
For your honor and for your glory,
it's in Jesus' name, we pray, amen.
All right, next up, we're gonna go into our hymnals
to song number 10.
Song number 10.
The Cross.
Great morning. Thank you for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church.
If you did not already get a bulletin, you can lift up a hand really high.
One of our ushers will come by and get you a bulletin.
We did our Bible memory chapter memorization for the last passage on Matthew 28.
I did give out prizes last Wednesday, but I know some people were not here.
So if you had quoted the entire chapter of Matthew 28 to a family member,
or non-family member, I'm sorry,
and you had not received your prize,
you can come down and I have gift cards right here.
You can get two of your choice.
So you get two, they're $20 gift cards.
So if you want to come, come on down and get your gift card right now.
We'll give them a round of applause.
Thank you.
Thanks to those who are working on Bible memorization.
On the inside, we have our service times.
Take note, we have a Spanish service at 9 a.m.
So if you want to encourage people to visit our Spanish services, they can.
Everything is completely in Spanish.
Our announcements, singing, and the preaching.
We also have our church-wide soul-winning time that meets here at the building
and then regional soul-winning times that meet in different parts of the city.
You can see any of those respective leaders ask your soul-winning captain.
or your tribe captain, or you could talk to me or an usher, we can help you with soul winning.
Down below is our church stats for the year, and we're doing really, really good.
What I think we should try for is to finish the, this six months or this first half year really strong
so that we could beat our numbers from last year at the halfway mark and then hopefully we can not only beat them, we can smash them
and then we can try to do it again the next half so we can do more than double what we did in 2024.
It was a pretty good number for us.
I think apart from the year that we went to the Bahamas,
it was maybe our second highest year.
So we had done pretty good.
Also, I don't think we have...
We don't always have Evangels or Bannocks numbers updated,
but if we could crush him, that's fine with me as well, alright?
But he's he's a tough cookie to catch so he's doing a really good job a lot of work out there
On the right. We have a list of our expecting ladies. Please be in prayer for them
Also, we have upcoming events the Scott baby shower on the third mother's day brunch May 10th
This is for ladies and their mothers and of course they can bring their daughters
There's a sign-up sheet in the foyer as well as you can do it through the app. Please make sure to sign up
so that way we can prepare adequately.
So, winning Marathon in Cleburne, Texas is going to be May 24th.
It's kind of a special event where we're going to just be meeting out at a park area,
and we're not going to necessarily do a breakfast meetup.
We're just going to meet out at the park and do some soul-winning,
then have lunch and then go back.
There's supposed to be thousands of people, islanders out there,
so we're looking forward to that opportunity.
There's a gerant, a soul-winning marathon in Oklahoma right after that.
The baby shower details are down below.
The back is our prayer list.
That's pretty much all I have as far as announcements.
We'll sing our Psalm of the Week, Psalm 139.
All right, that is Psalm 139.
That's also gonna be in your binders.
Psalm 139.
You can also find it in your King James Bible.
Surely now, we'll slay the wicked.
Surely now, we'll slay the wicked, oh God.
Depart from me, therefore ye bloody men depart.
All right, so we're going to speed it up with hair on the second.
I'm against it!
Excellent singing everybody. As the offering plates are going around would you please turn to your Bibles to 2nd Timothy chapter number four?
2nd Timothy chapter number four
2 Timothy 4, the Bible reads,
I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick
and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word, be instant in season, out
of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and doctrine, for the time will
come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heep
and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables.
But watch now in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist make full proof of thy ministry.
for I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.
I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.
Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge,
shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but unto all of them also that love is appearing."
Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me.
For Demis hath forsaken me, having loved this present world,
and is departed unto Thessalonica,
Cretians to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia.
Only Luke is with me.
Take Mark and bring him with thee,
for he is profitable.
To me for the ministry and ticacus have I sent to Ephesus the cloak that I left that troaz with carpas when thou comest bring with thee in the books
But especially the Parchments Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil
The Lord reward him according to his works of whom be thou where also for he hath greatly withstood our words at my
First answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me
I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.
Notwithstanding, the Lord stood with me and strengthened me
that by me the preaching might be fully known
and that all the Gentiles might hear.
And I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.
And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work
and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom,
to whom be glory forever and ever, amen.
Salute Prisca and Aquila and the household of Onesifris.
Arrast us abode at Corinth, but trophemous have I left at my letim's sick.
Do thy diligence to come before winter,
Ubulus, Greedeth thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia,
and all the brethren.
The Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit.
Grace be with you, amen.
Let's buy our heads forward to prayer.
Father in heaven, we thank you for this chapter of the Bible
and for this opportunity to hear your word being preached.
I pray that you fill Pastor Shelley
with the Holy Spirit now
and help him to preach the message
you've laid out his heart with boldness
Lord God, help us to apply this sermon
to pay close attention to it
and to make any necessary changes to be better Christians.
We love you.
In Jesus' name, I pray, amen.
Amen.
Second Timothy chapter number four,
really famous chapter of the Bible says in verse two,
preach the word, be instant in season, out of season,
reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine.
The Bible is giving a commandment to a pastor.
The pastor is told to do something specific.
It is to preach the Word.
And we talk about the Word, we're talking about the Word of God.
We're talking about the Bible.
And so when we come to church,
we should hear a preacher getting up and preaching the Bible.
Not their opinion, not their ideas,
not what the world's saying,
not the Republican Party agenda,
not just something that's smooth, nice, fun,
comfortable, joyous, the Bible.
Just the Bible, whatever it is.
Now, what I believe in and what our church stands for
is what we call hard preaching.
Hard preaching and the title of my sermon this morning is this hard preaching is what works
Hard preaching is under attack today and people don't want to have hard preaching
people are constantly looking down upon hard preaching and
This is what's so funny to me about this is people will constantly criticize hard preaching
They'll say it's too judgmental. They'll say it's mean-spirited. They'll say it's damage-control.
They'll make all kinds of accusations against it.
They'll act like people that say this things are causing people to be depressed and feel bad and
to upset people and they're causing a
approach to the cause of Christ and they'll label it all these things and they'll say we're not like that.
But what's so funny is by them constantly criticizing hard preaching, they're doing exactly what
they're accusing us of doing.
They're judging us, and they're the ones with the mean spirit, and really what they're
doing is they're attacking the Bible, because hard preaching is what the Bible prescribes.
Now I have three simple points.
I've already preached this sermon, but it needs to be repreached.
Hard preaching is number one, biblical.
So, as we go through this sermon, it's going to start with Bible, then it's going to get
really corrective, and then it's going to get really specific, okay?
Now...
Why do people not like hard preaching?
It's because obviously our flesh doesn't really like the Bible.
It doesn't really like the Word of God.
And so we have to preach against the flesh.
We're warring against ourselves in many cases.
The Bible talks about our worst foe being ourselves and being our flesh.
And that's who we're constantly fighting.
And so there's an internal struggle between your flesh and your spirit.
And your spirit wants to do that which is biblical and right and pleasing to God.
doesn't really want to hear what the Bible has to say.
Your flesh wants to be pleased.
Your flesh wants to be comforted.
Your flesh wants to be taking over all areas of your life.
And so there's going to be a war until we die,
until we can shed this flesh.
There's going to be a war of you doing that which is right.
and preaching in the Word of God and going to church
is what helps us to strengthen our spirit
and try to overcome the flesh and to try to do that which is right
and pleasing unto God.
Now, right here the Bible is really clear that we're supposed to preach the Word.
That's point number one.
Hard preaching is biblical.
We should always make sure that the sermons that we're listening to
and the sermons that we're preaching are ideas coming from the Bible.
And often, you know, you have to first judge a sermon and say this.
Where did this preacher come up with this idea?
Like, was he reading a certain passage of Scripture?
Was he reading some verse?
Was there something in the Bible that could trigger this idea?
Because if the idea being preached cannot be found in a clear section of the Bible,
or from reading a clear passage in the Bible,
then you know what? It's a wrong idea.
Our ideas and our sermon should be coming from the Bible from the Word of God.
Now,
Hey, many preachers, we get inspired by anything and everything,
and that can cause us to want to preach a sermon.
But we always have to go back to the Bible first and say,
is the idea that I'm having coming from verses in the Bible,
or is it just my opinion, my ideas?
You know, the Bible warns that without the Bible,
every man does that which is right in his own eyes.
Everybody thinks that everything they do is right.
No one goes around thinking that they're just constantly doing that which is wrong.
They constantly think that they're right. They're right about their food preferences.
They're right about their favorite color. They're right about
the best place in the world to live. They're right about everything that they think.
But you know what? That doesn't make things right or wrong.
What makes things right or wrong is a standard.
And our standard is the King James Bible, it's the Word of God, and that's what judges
for us who's right and who's wrong.
Because someone's right and someone's wrong, not everybody's right, in some cases everybody's
wrong.
But you know what, this is always right.
And so that's why we go to the Bible.
Now go to Romans chapter 10, we're going to go to a lot of verses this morning.
I hope you like the Bible because that's what you're going to get this morning.
And attacks on the Bible are not always coming from the wicked.
They're not always coming from the ungodly.
They can also come from Christianity.
And they can even come from preachers who maybe they are in the right path,
but then they just, they start subtly attacking the Word of God.
They start subtly attacking the Bible.
And we want to make sure that in our church and for our attitude,
is that we're always magnifying the Bible, we're magnifying the Word of God,
we're making it seem more important than less important.
They're making the commandments of God seem more important, not less important.
They're making church seem more important, not less important.
They're making soul winning seem more important, not less important.
This is what we mean by magnifying the Word of God.
That we make God seem more important than less important.
That we make the flesh seem less important and the spirit more important.
This is what it means to magnify the Word of God.
And at the end of the day, our faith is not an arbitrary faith.
Our belief system is not something that's man-made
or just created in a laboratory somewhere.
No, we get our faith, we get our beliefs, we get our core doctrines from the Bible.
The Bible says in Romans chapter number 10 verse 17,
so then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.
If we want to increase our faith, if we want to have a great faith as a church,
it has to be coming from a source and that source is the Word of God, is the Bible.
You know what changes men's lives? The Bible.
If I get up and I scream and yell about how you shouldn't put beans and chili,
you know what I've noticed? These stubborn, you know, willfully ignorant people
Because I just don't have a clear verse, you know, if I had a clear verse though, maybe I could really convince some people
You understand what I'm saying like I could get up here and scream and yell about my personal opinions and my personal preferences
And how I like things to be done
But at the end of the day it really doesn't persuade that many people
But you know what can change people's minds is this the word of God the Bible and that's what hard preaching is
You want to know why churches are causing no one to change because they're not preaching this
They're getting up preaching their opinion, their ideas, what they think.
They don't use clear verses in the Bible.
They major on the minors.
Go up to Hebrews chapter 10.
Go to Hebrews chapter number 10.
We need to make sure that our sermons are coming from the Bible.
And this is another thing.
If someone's going to get up and tell you, this is a really scary doctrine, or this is
a really bad thing.
then they should be able to take you to a place in the Bible
where even a five-year-old would read those verses and come to the same idea.
Not you coming up with an idea and then fetching for a verse
that can loosely or vaguely convey the idea that you're coming up with.
That's called Isagesis. It's a fancy word and it's basically saying
you're bringing your baggage or your ideas to the Bible
and trying to make it fit as opposed to going to the Bible and just saying
and then saying I need to change or my ideas need to change.
We need to make sure that we're using the Bible.
You know, you can go anywhere else and hear all kinds of wisdom and advice, read
tons of books.
There's more information you could ever consume outside of these walls
and it's all garbage. This is what we need.
The church is the pillar and ground of the truth and we need it to constantly be thundering forth the Bible and the Word of God
Why come to a church like this because you want to hear the Bible being preached?
People you know come to this church for you know many reasons
But hopefully the number one reason is because of the fact that you want to hear the Bible being preached
If you could hear the Bible being preached as clearly and is soundly somewhere else closer to your home,
you may be tempted to go there because that should be the main goal anyways, is the Bible.
You know, our church emphasizes preaching.
It's got to be, I mean, it's like maybe an hour and a half service.
My sermons are anywhere from like an hour, hour and 15 minutes.
I mean, what percentage of that is it?
I mean, it's like more than two-thirds,
maybe even three-quarters of the entire time that we spend here
is just simply getting up and just hearing the Bible being thundered forth.
Right before I preach, we have someone just read the Bible.
And if you think about it, even the Psalms and the hymns, many of the lyrics are just
straight Bible.
They're just the Word of God.
I mean, we're just getting up, we're singing the Word of God, then we're having someone
read the Word of God, and then we're having someone preach the Word of God.
That is what our church is.
It's about the Bible.
It's about the Word of God.
And you know what?
Hard preaching is what changes people's lives.
Why?
Because it's based on the Bible.
Now, I like to yell, okay?
I'm kind of a loud person by nature.
But at the end of the day, me yelling and screaming
doesn't really make something hard preaching.
You could go to the Water Down Liberal Church
and they'll scream and yell.
Stephen Fertick will yell louder than I can yell.
There's tons of people that'll get up
and scream and yell for Israel.
That's not hard preaching.
There's all things that could be screamed. Yeah. Hey, let's go to a let's go to any sporting event here
Let's go to the Dallas Cowboys. Let's go to the Mavs game. Let's go to the Stars game
Let's go to the Rangers. Let's go to the soccer. What are the burn or something? I don't know. No one cares
We can go to one of those and hey go to NASCAR Wow go to the the racetrack that is loud
You have people screaming. Let's go Brandon. You know what I mean?
You don't only hear that at church, okay? I'm just kidding
You can hear that anywhere you can go with me to the sporting event and they're gonna scream and they're gonna yell
That's not hard preaching
That doesn't make something hard preaching, you know
You could go to our church to stand outside sometimes and the protesters will scream and yell at you
That's not hard preaching hard preaching is biblical and look someone could technically
Not even be yelling or screaming and what they're saying is just is just screaming at them
Inside because it's the word of God that convicts our hearts and our minds and causes people to want to change
Hebrews chapter 10 look at verse 24
and let us consider one another
to provoke
unto love and good works.
What is provoking?
Typically, when we think about being provoked,
we think of it in a negative connotation.
You think of it like a little brother
provoking his older brother.
or children provoking their parents or typically in the Bible you have the children of Israel
provoking God and it's often considered kind of like an irritation something that's caustic
in some cases and in the same way you know sometimes when we preach the word of God or
we remind someone of the Bible it's a little bit of a provoke you know the Bible says faithful
of a friend. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Why? Because the provoking can
sometimes be a little bit injurious. It can cause a little bit of harm. It can
hurt your feelings. You know what? Stop living your life based on your feelings.
You know why people don't like hard preaching? They're feelings getting in
the way. It's not about feelings. Look what we're even provoking you to do.
Oh man, these people are so bad, they're constantly trying to tell you to go to church.
These people want you to read your Bible more.
These people want you to go out and share the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ more.
These people want you to not commit grievous sin.
Wow, what a terrible group of people that are constantly trying to cause you to serve
God more and to love more and to do more good works.
You know what a foolish accusation is act like that's somehow bad or that's somehow negative or that's somehow a cult
You know what a cult is doing. It's destroying people's lives
It's driving a wedge between them and people that they love. It's causing them to do self-harm
It's causing them to get away from the world. We're saying go out in the world and talk to everyone
Tell everyone about Jesus.
Tell everybody about our church.
How in the world are we a cult when we want everybody to know?
Cults are trying to hide themselves.
You know what a cult is?
It's the Freemasons.
It's the Masonic Lodge in every single city
where you drive by and all the windows are boarded up
or cemented in or closed in.
Show me a Masonic Lodge where they didn't shut in the windows.
The exception will prove the rule, even if you could find one.
I mean, you virtually cannot, if you see a Masonic Lodge every single time,
you'll see that the windows are just either cased in, boarded up, closed down.
Why? Because they want to hide the satanic things that they're doing in there.
Because evil is in there, okay?
We're not doing that.
We're handing out an invite.
When we show up, we're like,
hey, we're steadfast bad this church.
Here's a DVD.
Here's the T-shirt.
Come to the conference.
Listen to the preaching.
You know how many sermons I hide?
Zero.
Now, in the history of our church,
there's probably been a handful,
if not even less than that,
of sermons I've taken down.
Just simply because I disagreed with what I said.
Or I said, hey, I taught this, and then I either changed my mind, or I thought something
was wrong, or whatever, and I took it down.
There's nothing wrong with occasionally removing a sermon or removing some kind of information
if you felt like, hey, I was an error.
We're all imperfect, no one gets everything right, and hey, if I want to be honest, I
also have to change sometimes.
I also can get things wrong.
I want to be corrected by the word of God
and I want to change.
But you know what, in the history of our church,
it's like less than five,
it's probably less than a handful out of thousands.
Out of thousands, why?
Because we're not afraid of what we believe here.
And I'm not even afraid, even if someone was like,
hey, what did you hide?
I'll show you if you really want to see,
but there's not really a point to it.
Hey, I'll tell you what I said
and then I'll tell you why it's wrong
and why the Bible is saying something different, right?
Because at the end of the day,
we shouldn't be afraid of what we believe
if it's the truth.
People that hide the information are afraid of people exposing what they really believe.
Go over to 1 Corinthians chapter number one, go to 1 Corinthians chapter number one.
We need today the Bible more than anything.
The Bible is our light.
It's our lamp.
It's our everything.
It's how we see. It's how we understand the world.
It's how we have faith.
It's how we decide to run church.
It's how we decide to run our families.
It's how we decide to live our lives.
It's how we decide to make every single decision of our lives.
That is the Bible.
That's why we need hard preaching
that is gonna use the Bible in all of it.
Not just the parts we like.
Not the quote, nice parts.
Not the quote, friendly parts.
Not the quote, family friendly or family safe parts.
All of it.
If you come to this church, there is never, ever any guarantee that a part of the Bible won't be used.
You say, hey, what is it? I'm nervous about bringing a family member or friend because of what might be said.
Well, that's a real fear, because everything's on the table.
And you know, I'll be honest with you. I don't think like, you know, this is the Sunday morning crowd.
Let's not preach that. That's too spicy for the Sunday morning crowd.
No, no, no, no, no. I'll give you the Sunday morning special.
I'll give you everything.
Look, by the end of this sermon, you'll think,
hey, he's willing to say anything on a Sunday morning.
Because I will.
First Corinthians chapter one,
I want to look at verse number 17.
And the Bible is primarily focused in on
the context of getting people saved here,
but it definitely expands from this.
It says in verse number 17,
For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel.
Not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.
Now, number one, if you ever want to expose the church of Christ for believing a false gospel,
this is a great verse, because notice that the baptism is not the gospel.
If baptism was part of the gospel, this verse couldn't even be true.
The Apostle Paul makes a clear distinction between baptism itself and the gospel.
Because the gospel is the death-bearing resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and what saves you is believing in that.
Baptism is an outward profession.
Just like putting on a ring doesn't make you married.
What makes you married is pledging those vows before God
that you're going to be faithful unto that person until death do you part.
Okay, that is the getting married, not just putting on a ring.
You can put on a ring or not put on a ring and still be married.
And you could actually be saved and not actually get baptized.
Now look, I believe, hey, you get married?
Let's put the ring on.
Let's put it on right away.
I mean, don't we even do that in the ceremony?
I mean, we literally, after they make the vows,
we put the ring on in the same way.
As soon as you open your mouth to make known
that you confessed Christ, that you believe in Christ,
let's get baptized.
But if someone decides,
I don't want to get baptized for some dumb reason,
well, you know what, they're still saved.
Now, the Apostle Paul continues,
for the preaching of the cross is them that perish foolishness,
but unto us which are saved is the power of God.
When we preach that salvation is a free gift, they say,
wow, that's easy, that's cheap.
Oh, well, you're just denying all the verses about keeping the commandments.
You know, it's foolishness of them.
They just don't understand how salvation is a free gift.
They just don't understand how Jesus Christ paid it all.
And so they mock it.
They say that's too easy, or that's too simple, or...
This is what I always hear.
Then everybody's saved!
I'm like, what do you mean everybody?
The vast majority of this world doesn't even claim to believe in Jesus Christ.
Even though Christianity is the number one religion,
it's still a minority in contrast to all of the people in the world
of all eight billion, only about 2.2 billion even claim to believe in Jesus Christ.
So that would be a minority, even if you said every Catholic, every Jehovah's Witness,
every Mormon is somehow saved.
They would still be a minority
But then that's insane to think that because Jesus clearly says many
Which are basically declaring the name of Christ aren't even saved of course cults like the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses that hide their information
They're not saved the Catholics aren't saved because they believe in their works
And of course the preaching of the cross to them is foolishness. They don't get it
But we preach the Bible anyways verse 19 for it is written. I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing
the understanding of
The prudent where is the wise where is the scribe?
Where is the disputer of this world had not God made foolish the wisdom of this world now?
This is such an important verse verse 20
There's all these people that want to do Christianity
in a different way than what the Bible prescribes.
What does Christianity look like in the Bible?
Church with a pastor.
Church with a pastor screaming and yelling the Bible.
That's what it looks like.
But you know what they say, oh, that's going to turn people off.
That's not how we reach people.
We reach people by being wise.
So then you have all these people that go out and they do debates.
These apologetics.
But you know what? Apologetics doesn't change the world.
Apologetics isn't getting the job done or they say, where is the scribe?
This is all your Bible translators with their modern versions.
This is the people that are going to the higher levels of education.
They're getting their doctrinal thesis, their masters of theology.
But you know what? They're not changing the world for the better either.
And then you have the disputer of this world.
This is all your online trolls.
This is all your online YouTube ministries.
This is all your parent church ministries that are saying,
oh, no, no, no, church is bad.
And we don't want to have religiosity.
And we don't want to go to some place where there's this
authoritarian there that calls himself a pastor.
We don't want to go where there's this dictator.
We don't want to go where there's this guy that's a cult leader, man.
Wherever they're the cult leader
They're the one with literally no accountability
They say like oh, I don't want to go to church where this pastor doesn't have accountability. Well, where's your accountability?
YouTube censorship is that your accountability nowadays? Well, you know what YouTube censorship will lead you to not preach the entire Bible
If you say hey, I have an only a YouTube ministry
You know what that tells me you don't preach the Bible because you preach the Bible you will lose your YouTube ministry
So why is it that these people have to constantly soften the message, weaken the message,
not preach what the Bible says because they care about a YouTube ministry and they're a disputer?
Don't follow these people. Their entire ministry is just exposing people only.
Just attacking people only.
These people are trolls, they're scornful.
They would probably be thrown out of a church
if they actually tried to go to.
They always downplayed church.
And you know what, that is not how God decided
to build the kingdom of God
through disputers of this world,
through YouTube ministry, through to the church.
We need a magnified church and God has made foolish the wisdom of this world.
All these people are going to look like fools, all the apologetics,
all the PhDs and all the scornful, hateful YouTube ministries out there.
They all look like idiots because they are.
And God will make sure that they look that way verse 21 for after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom
Do not got it
please God by the foolishness of
Preaching to save them that believe for the Jews require a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom
But we preach Christ crucified under the Jews a stumbling block and under the Greeks
Foolishness again the Bible is telling us that we need the quote foolishness of preaching
Meaning what?
People are going to always look down on hard preaching.
People are always going to look down on the Baptist church, but you know they're the ones
that are wrong.
Go over to Ecclesiastes chapter 12.
Ecclesiastes chapter number 12.
We need the Word of God because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.
The Bible tells us to preach the world.
The Bible tells us that we need to provoke unto love and good works.
That is what's gonna save people. That's what's also gonna inspire people to serve God and their lives is the foolish quote foolishness of preaching
Now of course the Bible is using this in jest
The Bible is using this from the perspective of the hater of
The disputer because it's not foolish what I'm saying is not foolish
Preaching the word of God is not foolish church is not foolish
It's just saying from their mindset from their perspective. They call it foolish and honestly
You know it's the Bible being sarcastic, sorry you don't like sarcasm, it's Bible.
The Bible uses sarcasm by calling, hey it's the foolishness of preaching, that's God making
fun of idiots, that's God making fun of haters and trolls and the PhD saying, oh yeah it's
the foolishness of preaching, but you know what, it's actually the wisdom of God, it's
And you know what, it's way wiser than all these PhDs, these apologetic ministries, these online trolls and idiots that make the mockery of the Word of God.
We believe the Word of God, and you know what, it's foolishness to them, but it's the wisdom of God to us.
And it changes people's lives for the better.
Now the Bible tells us in Ecclesiastes chapter number 12 what the Word of God is supposed to be like.
Look at verse 10.
The preacher sought to find out acceptable words, and that which was written was upright, even words of truth.
The word even means specifically.
So the preacher is supposed to figure out one thing when he talks.
What is true?
What's acceptable words?
You know, don't get confused about this.
It's not like there's a list of words that are unacceptable, and then there's a list of words that are acceptable.
No, no, no, it's the choices that you make with the words
that what you're saying is true.
There's one thing that the preacher needs to make sure
what he's saying is that it's true.
I don't really care so much about the words.
Now, sometimes the Bible gives us an idea of, like,
what words to use.
We should use the words which the Holy Ghost teacheth.
So we should use Bible words.
A second thing the Bible tells us is that we should make it plain,
so we shouldn't try to just use a bunch of fancy theological jargon
to confuse the audience or to talk above the head of the audience
or to use something that's unfamiliar to them.
It would be inappropriate if I just got up and started preaching a sermon in Mandarin.
Because that would just go over your head.
In the same way, it would be inappropriate for me to get up and just start using theological
vocabulary only, not explaining it, so it just goes over your head.
That would be the exact same as just preaching in a foreign language.
Because the only reason, you know, speaking a language doesn't just make you so much smarter
than other people.
Five-year-olds can all speak their native tongue.
I mean, every five, six-year-olds can communicate in their native language, not because they're
brilliant because we can just all learn a language.
So me speaking in a foreign language isn't so much sophistication, it's just I learned it in the same way.
Theological jargon, you don't have to be smart, it's just something you have to learn.
And you know, just because you didn't spend four years in a cemetery, I'm sorry, seminary, rotting your brain through with stupid vocabulary,
doesn't mean that you're not smart enough to understand it, it's just you haven't studied it.
In the same way, Mandarin would seem really hard to me because I've never studied it.
But you know what, if I'm in an environment where I'm only hearing Mandarin for four years,
yeah, I'm sure I'd probably pick some of it up and I'd be forced to end up learning how to speak Mandarin
just because that's how the world works.
But it would be silly to get up and just pretend like I'm so much better than you
because I went to some seminary
Learned a bunch of fancy theological vocabulary and then I talk over your heads.
Oh, you have to go to this university, understand the Bible.
No, you don't.
The Bible makes wise the symbols with what the Bible says.
And you know, praise God for people like William Tyndale,
who wanted to make the plowboy more knowledgeable than the Catholic priest.
And so he gave us a King James Bible.
You know, and some people, they say, oh, we need to dumb down
the Bible so that people can understand it.
But wait a minute.
In the, you know, essentially middle ages to the Renaissance period, how is that guy,
if this is too hard for people today, how is this too easy for him?
Like how could the plow boy back then, with limited education, limited schooling, understand
the King's Bible, and then now we say, oh, it's too difficult.
That's an oxymoron.
That doesn't even make sense.
I mean, there was a man sent from God.
His name was John.
Wow, talk about a high level of that, you know, reading there now obviously some parts of the Bible are difficult
Mostly just because we're unfamiliar with some of the language that's being used or some of the vocabulary isn't as familiar to us
But at the end of the day the Bible is not just super high level to where people can't understand it
It's very simple. My children read it. My children understand it
Your children can understand it and we need to use the Bible words. We need to make it plain
We need to make sure it's true.
When I evaluate a sermon, my number one and number two
and number three most important thing
when I listen to a sermon is, is it true?
Not, is it hurt my feelings?
Not, is it which words did he use?
Not, how mean was he?
Not, if it was harsh, I just ask, was it true?
Because at the end of the day,
the truth isn't gonna really hurt me.
It could hurt my feelings.
It can hurt my flesh, but it can't hurt my spirit.
And you know what?
We need to get up and make sure what we're saying is true.
And as a listener, you need to make sure what you're listening to is true.
You should be constantly evaluating and judging everything I'm saying and making sure it's
true.
And not just me, everyone.
Every single person.
We need to make sure and we need to trust only this.
The Bible says in verse 11, the words of the wise are as goads.
What is a goad?
It's a long stick with a point at the end.
The animal won't do what you want it to do so you literally shove a sharp stick into its backside
You poke it you provoke it to then do what it's supposed to do. That's hard preaching
Hard preaching is like a goat where it's just like hey
Get the church
Hey, read your Bible
And you know what, sometimes we use the carrot.
We don't always use the stick in this church.
I mean, I just handed out a bunch of gift cards
and people were just memorizing the Bible.
That's the carrot.
But you know what the goad would be like
is the sermon when we're ripping on,
hey, you're not reading your Bible,
not memorizing scripture,
not even taking serious the things of God.
That's where the goad comes in.
But you know what, the person that does do those things,
it doesn't hurt.
in the same way the animal that's moving and going in the direction it's
supposed to doesn't get the goat you know why it gets the goat because it's
not moving and then people will say like oh I'm offended by the preaching well
that just tells me you're just as you're just stuck in the mud you're just a
cow that won't get its behind in gear because you know what the cow and the
horse that's actually moving in the right direction doesn't get the goat
Hey, we're in Texas where there's cowboys.
You know what they have? Spurs.
You like the San Antonio spurs?
Well, you know what?
You should like the spiritual spurs of God's Word.
Where you get a little bit jabbed in the backside.
And yeah, you know what? It hurts.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend.
We should provoke unto love and good works.
And we need the Bible to constantly provoke us
and to prick us in our hearts.
Go through into Acts chapter number two.
I have too much Bible.
I need to move on from this point.
There's so many more verses I'd like to go to.
You know, the Bible says that the Word of God,
wherefore serve it the law, it was added because of transgressions.
The Bible tells us that when we talk about the Word of God,
that it was to make sin exceeding sinful.
Why do we preach the Word of God to make you think
that sin is even worse than it really is?
And I'm not saying that we actually make sin worse.
We make it in your mind at worse.
We help you realize how bad it really is.
How much God's actually angry at it.
So you actually realize, oh wow, that's actually bad.
I didn't realize. I wasn't really concerned with it.
We need to be preaching the word of God, preaching the Bible.
The Bible tells us in Isaiah 58 that the preacher is supposed to lift up
thy voice like a trumpet.
Look, the trumpet is loud.
I mean, they often, brother Jared or the Jareds,
I don't know, we have lots of trumpet players here.
When they play the trumpet,
they even use a softener many times,
just because of how loud the trumpet is.
The trumpet is made to be heard,
and not just to be heard in a small room.
You can blow a trumpet and hear it,
you know, thousands of feet away,
possibly even miles,
depending on how loud that trumpet was blowing.
Why? Because the trumpet is supposed
to be thundering forth a message.
That's why the Bible says, hey,
The preacher's supposed to lift up his voice like a trumpet
to show my people their transgression.
Why do you come to church?
Good job, guys.
Way to go, team.
You're doing so good.
No, no, no.
It's to show the people their transgression.
You're a sinner.
Here's where you're wrong.
Here's what you did bad.
Not to say you can't even sin.
You're sanctified already.
Why would I get up and show your transgression if you're already sanctified when Jesus looks down when God looks down?
He just sees you as perfect already. He just sees you as sanctified already already set apart
I know you just shut up heroin. Good job, my son
Well done now good and faithful servant. I mean, we're just all gonna get the same reward same mansion same blessing same
You know rewards at the judgment seat of Christ. No
That is silly that is nonsense. No the preachers supposed to show the people their transgressions or they'll change
Point number one is we need hard preaching because it's biblical, but number two is so it's corrects us and hard preaching needs to be corrective
What is what is the goat do something different?
provoking, hey, love more, hey, do more good works,
hey, get the sin out of your life, do something different. And the Bible
shows us this pricking, how it actually makes a
change or a difference. Acts chapter number two, the context is
the apostle Peter
preaching unto the Jews, and they think that everybody speaking in a foreign language is speaking in, you know,
ecstatically like someone that's drunk, slurring their speech or saying something, and he's saying,
hey, these people are not drunk as he's supposed, but he explains that this is just the Holy Ghost coming on them,
and then preaching intelligent words in a foreign language, getting people to gospel and getting people saved.
Now, that actually serves a purpose.
You know, Pentecostals screw up this passage
to think everybody's just rolling around on the floor
barking like a dog to glorify God.
How does that even glorify God?
You know what glorifies God?
Someone preaching the gospel in a foreign language,
getting someone saved.
And you know what, how does it benefit me?
I mean, just imagine, hey, I'm gonna go to Africa
and I'm gonna roll around on the floor and bark like a dog.
How would that help people?
Or what if I went there and I actually told him,
hey, Jesus loves you, he died on the cross of your sins,
believe in Jesus Christ and be saved.
And I preached that in their foreign tongue
and their mother tongue, and then they hear that
and they believe in Jesus Christ and get saved
and change their life.
That actually has benefit.
You know, Pentecostals are going to Africa
and flooding Africa with all their nonsense constantly.
All their ugabuga.
You know, we want to say that Africa's ugabuga.
Let me tell you, Pentecostals are more ugabuga
than the ugabugas.
It's nonsense. Don't bring back ugabuga. Bring back the intelligent words of God and actually
give them something to correct their life with. I mean how would you come to church
It's fake!
You know it has a lot of excitement and fun?
The preschool.
The toddler room.
Right?
I mean, let's go to one of these fun center churches.
Let's go into two- and three-year-olds' room.
It is loud, exciting, they're rolling around the floor and saying things you can't understand.
Is that now the standard of what church is?
Is that how we decide if a church is good?
How about grown adults sitting quietly with their Bible and following along as a preacher reads the word of God to them?
That sounds pretty good to me. I like that and you know what?
It's it's not out of order the Bible says hey when everybody's just talking and say it no one can figure out what's going on
When you have one person getting up and delivering a message,
wow, you can have maximum results out of this.
And preacher in Acts chapter 2 is Peter.
Peter gets up and just declares the thousands of people.
He's going to explain them the word of God.
He preaches them all this word of God and then he pricks them.
Look what it says in verse number 36.
Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God have made that same Jesus whom you have crucified both Lord and Christ.
Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart.
What pricked the Jews in their hearts?
The preaching of the Word of God.
You know what pricked them in their hearts?
The Gospel.
Preaching that they had crucified Jesus.
How about this?
It says,
Now, it says, and with wicked hands they crucified another place in the Bible, but here's the
thing, he's calling them out.
He's preaching against them.
He's correcting them.
You crucified him.
This is correct.
And then they're pricked in their hearts.
What is the logical question after them being pricked in their hearts and said unto Peter
and to the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do?
What's the logical conclusion of hard preaching?
Hey, here's the Bible, you need to change,
and then they say, how do we change, right?
I mean, this is just a logical progression
of hard preaching is that we say,
here's what the Bible says, here's what you need to change,
or this is the change that needs to be made,
and then lastly would be, this is how you make the change,
which is the specific part, okay,
and we're gonna get there in a moment,
but we understand why we would have preached these things
is to prick people in their heart.
Oh man, this sermon is about me, yes.
You know you come to a church like ours and you're gonna constantly feel like the sermons about you
Go to 2nd Corinthians chapter 7 go to 2nd Corinthians chapter 7 and you say why why would I feel that way because it is?
You know, I'm gonna maybe get there later, but 1st Corinthians chapter number 10 tells us that the entire old testament was written for our admonition
There's not a story in the Bible that's not about us or for us.
In fact, he's saying,
I literally wrote these stories down for you specifically.
These passages are for us, about us.
We're supposed to learn from their example. We're supposed to constantly put ourselves
into the story, into the biblical character's shoes,
and say, hey, how does this apply to me?
People always want sermons to be relevant. What does that mean?
How does this apply to me? How do I put myself in the story?
And we need to understand that the Word of God is meant to cause us to sometimes feel bad,
to be pricked in our hearts, to feel that goad, to feel that uncomfortable feeling so that you would change.
If I never get up and make people feel uncomfortable, they're not going to change.
What does it say in 2 Corinthians 7, verse 9?
But they you sorrowed to repentance for you were made sorry after a godly manner that you might receive damage by us and nothing for godly sorrow
worketh repentance to
Salvation not to be repented of but the sorrow of the world
Worketh death for behold this cell same thing. They you sorrowed after a godly sort
What carefulness it rod in you. Yeah, what clearing of yourselves. Yeah, what indignation. Yeah, what fear?
What fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what revenge, and all things you have approved
yourselves to be clear in this matter.
When the Bible is being preached, it's supposed to cause you to fear, it's supposed to cause
you to have zeal, it's supposed to cause you to change, and then when you change, you never
change again.
You say, hey, I'm going to change, I'm going to put away the bottle, I'm not going to drink
alcohol, and I'm never drinking it again.
You have that godly sorrow that leads to repentance unto salvation from the slavery of the bottle, from the slavery of Jack Daniels,
from the slavery of alcoholism, from the slavery of drunk driving, from the slavery of going to prison because you killed somebody while being drunk.
And let me tell you something, salvation is not only about going to heaven, many times salvation is about things from this world.
Salvation from an early death.
Salvation from being a servant to sin.
And you know what, that's what it's talking about.
So many preachers use this passage
to teach work salvation.
That's not it.
It's talking about salvation from sin, salvation from the destruction of this life, salvation
from the evils of this world, and it's saying, look, we need to get up and rip on the Bible
so people will stop being junkers, stop committing fornication, stop committing adultery, stop
extorting, stop railing, stop lying, stop being wicked.
That's what we get up and rip on so people will quit.
Ah man, this time it's about me.
Good.
change. Oh, I feel sorry. Good. And look, sometimes as preachers, verse nine, now I
rejoice not that you're made sorry, but that you sorrowed to repentance. I don't
want to get up here and hurt your feelings. The apostle Paul even says at
one point, hey, I kind of repented at first. I preached the sermon and I was
thinking like, yeah, it was harsh.
But then he thought about it and he's like,
but it was true.
And then they changed.
And you know what, I'm not sorry because I saw you change.
And you know what, I've been doing this enough
to realize that hard preaching works
and I've hurt people's feelings
and I've caused people to feel uncomfortable
but I've also seen people change.
And you know what, for the people that changed, it's worth it.
For all the people that didn't change and got tooth-ended and left,
okay, they weren't going to change anyways,
even if I had pat them on the back and told them how special they were
and played soccer with them and was their friend
and bought them meals and it wasn't enough.
It's never enough.
You know what, sometimes you don't need someone to buy you something,
you know what you need someone to do is prick you.
Go to Hebrews 6, go to Hebrews 6, you know why people don't like hard preaching is because they just don't want to change
They've already arrived
They don't want to learn because they're already smarter than you
They don't want to grow because they're already mature
But the people that have that attitude are usually the most immature people that need to grow the most and don't know anything
And so we need to often constantly challenging ourselves
and saying, you know what, I need to get better.
Come to church with an opportunity to say,
hey, how can I get better today?
That's how you should come to church.
And you know what, go to a church that's going to challenge you to grow.
Go to a church that's going to challenge you to get better.
Go to a church that's going to challenge you with verses in the Bible.
And you know, this sermon this morning, I'll be honest with you,
I don't even think it's a lot of new verses.
It's probably not a lot of new information.
Come on Wednesday night, we'll learn something.
But you know what, sometimes we just need to be provoked again.
Sometimes we just need to get a little bit pricked again.
Sometimes we need to just get told what to do again.
Hebrews chapter 6, the Bible says in verse 1,
therefore leaving the principles of the Doctrine of Christ,
let us go on unto perfection.
What is perfection?
Completion.
So, we should come to church to grow.
We're showing up to get better, to become more perfect, more complete.
Why do professional athletes go and practice?
I mean, let's just be honest.
Every professional athlete is so good right now that they could beat all of us, any of
us, handily.
Like, it wouldn't even, they would never have to practice again, and they could beat
But at the end of the day, they're not necessarily a complete player, they're not necessarily perfect.
And whatever weaknesses they have, they need to improve on.
If we put it in the context of, let's say basketball, you know, they maybe work on their dribbling a little bit more,
or their free throw shooting, or their three-point shooting, or their fadeaway jumper, or their defense,
or maybe there's their physical fitness because they get tired at the end of the game.
We can apply this to all kinds of different areas, and you can look at a player and say,
but he's struggling this way.
He needs to go on to perfection,
become more of a complete player.
And we as Christians, you know,
there might be areas in our life that we're thriving in
that we might be really good,
but we want to become a perfect player.
We want to become a complete player.
Hey, I go so many three times a week.
Okay, good.
All right, how about your Bible reading though?
Oh, I'm good at Bible reading.
Okay, how about your family life?
How about your job?
Are you providing wealth for your family?
Are you taking care of your kids?
You know, there's lots of different areas.
Hey, do you struggle with this area of sin in your life?
Hey, are you prideful?
We wanna make sure we're a complete Christian
and we need constant correction.
Yeah, maybe you got one area good in your life,
but we don't wanna just say,
hey, I'm good in one area, I'm good, no, no.
We wanna become a complete player.
We wanna be someone that has the dribbling
and the defense and the three-point jumper
and the layups and everything.
We wanna become a complete player
and the stamina, all of it.
And you know, what's the, what's the,
you think about the stamina aspect,
because we're steadfast Baptist church.
Let's say you're the greatest three-point shooter.
You're the greatest at layups.
You're the greatest at rebounding.
But you know, you get tired after 30 seconds
and you can't, you can't perform.
Then what's the point?
And you know what, sometimes people come to church,
they cut, they're three to thrive,
they're going soul winning, they know the Bible,
but then they last like six months and then they're gone.
It's like, what's the point?
You know, you'd be better off having a player that's not even as good as them, but just can play the entire game
than the guy that can play super great for 30 seconds. You know, at the end of the day,
you know, Christianity is not measured in what you can do in five minutes or five months. How can you do for 50 years?
How can you do all the way under the end? Can you be steadfast under the end?
In fact, there are rewards in the Bible designated only to those who cross the finish line.
Meaning, not were you a Christian now, or 50 years from now, were you a Christian when
you took your last breath?
Were you steadfast under your last breath?
That is what we should be striving for.
Not just being a Christian today or tomorrow or five years from now.
Will I die a Christian?
Will I die a Baptist?
Will I die steadfast?
Will I die as the disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ?
Will I finish my course?
Will I finish my race?
Because there's a crown laid up for those who finish the course, who finish strong.
We want to go on to perfection.
We don't always need to just hear how to get saved.
How many churches today have turned their church service
geared only to preaching the gospel?
Only to preaching just how to get saved.
Only the death, barren resurrection.
Now look, we need a lot of that.
The New Testament emphasizes that.
Hey, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
it's all about the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But you know what, there's a lot more in the Bible
than Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
And we don't want to just go to a church, we're only getting the principles, we're
only getting the basics, we're only getting baptism and we're only getting salvation
and you got to go to Bible college to get the rest.
No, we want to go into perfection as an entire group.
Not everybody can afford Bible college not everybody's ready for Bible college
Some people are too young some people are too old people are too busy people don't have enough money
People don't have you know resources
You know you should be able to just come to church for free and hear the word of God being preached
Whether you can go to Bible college or not and I would argue this that our young men and women in this church are more
Knowledgeable than every Bible college graduate
Not even just some of like virtually all of them. Maybe there's an exception for them
But I would just say, by and large, I would venture to believe they have stronger doctrine,
more conviction, better soul winning techniques.
Hey, take the ladies' time, and let's just take one random lady from one of our women's
times that goes soul winning, and let's take a random Bible college student, and let's
see who's better at presenting the Gospel.
You know what?
We should praise them. Go if you would to Romans chapter 16.
In fact, I think that a lot of the women in our church that go soul-winning are probably even better
than a lot of the men because, you know, being a lady, you're just less off-putting.
It's typically the salesmen at the door.
People think I'm either the Joe's witness or a roof salesman
or some insurance guy or internet, TV guy or something like that.
They see a pregnant lady with a bunch of kids,
they're thinking like, how do we help this poor woman?
How do we rescue this woman?
And then she's just like,
she's just laying down the Bible.
She's just like, damn.
and she speaks with authority, and she gets them saved, you know?
I'm just telling you, it's impressive.
And some of the ladies in our church are great soul winners.
Praise God for them.
We need, number one, the Bible, because it's biblical
and it's going to give us our faith.
Number two, we need to be corrected sometimes
so we can go on to perfection.
And number three is we need it to be specific.
Because if I get up and just say, hey, let's stop sinning,
People aren't going to come up to me after the sermon
and be like, that sermon was about me, wasn't it?
There's a person out there doing something bad.
Don't be like them.
I remember going to church growing up,
and my pastor would constantly say,
there's these people out there that think
salvation's by works.
And I always wondered, who are these people?
You know they just sound dangerous or whatever and like I wish she would just he didn't I don't even know if he was saved
But there was a true statement. I thought everybody that went to church was saved. I thought every Catholic was saved
I thought every Nazarene was saved and
You know being young and impressionable. I thought the people that we need to reach were atheists
Because I'm thinking oh those are the people that believe in work salvation. No atheists are idiots
Atheists are the most unreachable people.
Now again, I'm not saying don't try to give the gospel an atheist,
but as a young man, if I'm trying to get people saved,
you know, that's probably not the target demographic.
If you go to public school, you're probably going to be less likely
to get the atheist saved than the Catholic saved.
And I wish that I'd just known, oh, no, no.
The Catholics are the ones that believe it works.
The Presbyterian is the one that believes in works, the Lutheran is the one that believes in works in many cases.
Hey, it's the Orthodox that believe in works, hey, it's the Church of Christ that believes in works,
and then I can go to those people who already have some interest in the Bible and the things of God,
and they'll be much more likely to get saved.
That's why we have to be specific and say, hey, Catholics aren't saved.
Orthodox aren't saved.
Church of Christ are not saved.
And we need to tell people this so that we can know,
oh wow, I need to approach these people,
I need to give them the gospel.
You know, we're making a soul winning documentary.
And my main goal at the film is to try and wake people up
to realize that most people aren't saved.
That's like the main goal of the film.
And so I'm just hoping we can just show like
a bunch of soul winning encounters
where we talk to the person and just basically just say,
what do you have to do to be saved?
And just have them be like, be a good person,
follow commandments.
Because I think for a lot of Christians,
they would be blown away by that thing and like, oh wow.
I didn't realize how many people say that salvation is by being a good person.
It's mind-blowing to me when I started saying,
hey, do you believe it's faith alone or faith that works?
How virtually everyone says it's both.
And because I thought by asking that type of a question,
everybody like, well, of course it's not works.
But that's not what happens.
They're like, of course it's works.
And I'm thinking like, wow, okay,
let me show you how it's not of works.
It's not both, it's just the faith.
You can't believe both can be saved.
You have to believe in faith alone.
That's the only thing that saves.
It's a free gift. Can I show you?
And you know what, it just cuts the chase
and you can start preaching the gospel in a quick way.
I don't want to show people that.
But if we didn't do that, then, well,
you know, how many people wouldn't get saved?
We have to be specific.
You know, think about just soul winning in general.
It's not like, hey, do you think you're going to go to heaven?
Yeah, I accept the Jesus.
Okay, bye.
No, we start getting specific.
No, wait, wait.
Do you mean faith alone or faith in works?
Hey, do you mean you can lose your salvation or not?
Hey, do you think that salvation is a lifelong process
of continuing to do right?
Or do you think it's a one-time event that's free gift?
We ask specific questions because we want to know where they're really at and you know what preaching needs to be specific
Here's another one avoiding bad people. How can you avoid bad people if you're not specific?
Romans 16 look what it says in verse 17
Now I beseech you brethren mark them which caused the vision's offense is contrary to the doctrine which you've learned and avoid them
For they that are such serve not a Lord Jesus Christ
But their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple sometimes we need to just call people out by name
Go over it to second Timothy chapter two for a second time. I'm gonna skip some stuff
We'll get to the good stuff. All right, but at the end of the day, you know
First Corinthians 10 says that these things are written for our admonition. We need to be specific on sin, too
We need to be specific saying don't drink alcohol
We need to be specific and say don't get a tattoo
Not just like don't print marks on your body because everybody that wants to get a tattoo say, oh, I'm not getting it for the dead
It didn't even say that, it just said don't print barks on your body.
What is that?
Just look up the definition of tattoo and it's like making a mark on your body.
Well, I didn't print it, I didn't use a printer.
Okay.
Yeah, I mean if you want to believe whatever you want to believe you can, okay, and you
know who doesn't like hard preaching?
People that are guilty, that's why.
You know what, the men in our church, like they would almost be fine if I preached this
Because they just think it's fun and entertaining and they hate them and they never come up to me like man that sermon really offended me
I would think like you can leave whenever you want
You know
You usually get mad at things that you're guilty of not the things that don't affect you at all or things that you hate
Then you're just thinking like yeah, get them right. Yeah, that's what the Bible says
You know people get offended by the word of God and you know Jesus Christ said all men cannot receive this saying
People get offended they have itching ears. They don't want to hear the truth
And you know who gets offended people have marriage problems when you preach on marriage
What's let's just let's just put it on the table. Everyone has marriage problems
If you don't have marriage problems, then you're not married and then you still have problems anyways. All right
The only person that's a perfect marriage is the single guy who thinks that he would have a perfect marriage if he was married
Everybody else has failed before me, but if I were married my wife would do it. I told her
Okay. Good luck.
You know the people that get offended?
People that are not sanctifying themselves.
They're not setting themselves apart.
They get offended by preaching saying you need to sanctify yourself.
People that are not reading the Bibles, unruly women.
Women that tell their husbands what to do will not like our church or my preaching.
And they'll tell their husbands after the sermon why.
You know will not like my sermon weak men because then when they're on their way home their wife's telling them why the sermon was bad and
Challenging them say you would never tell me what to do. Would you?
He needs to become a strong man
You know gets offended by the preaching non soul winners
It's like oh man. You're always preaching on soul winning good get offended. You know gets offended divorced people
Matthew 19 Jesus says it's like one of the hardest sermons ever never divorce
You know gets offended railers because they don't like to speak the truth drunkards fornicators tattoos women wearing pants
That's who gets really offended women with short haircuts. A lot of these are the same person
The woman with the short haircut wearing the pants telling her husband what to do. That's a railer
And, you know what, she wants to drink wine on the weekends so she gets really offended
at step-fast and tells her husband what to do so she doesn't have to get rebuked for
her sin.
And instead of shutting up her mouth and the one time she opens it is to preach the Gospel
weekly when she goes soul-winning.
But you know what I've noticed about hard preaching is it produces great fruit.
I love our preaching.
You know what?
It causes people to go to church more,
it causes people to go more soul winning,
it causes people to have less sin,
have better attitudes,
and here's the number one thing I've noticed,
fellowship.
The fellowship in this church is the greatest that I've ever seen.
I've never been to a church where the fellowship is better.
And let me tell you something.
Why?
Because of hard preaching.
Hard preaching makes the fellowship here great.
Why?
Because we have unity around the doctrine.
We have the same Bible.
We have the same beliefs.
We have the same vision.
We have the same goal.
And you know what?
People that are trashing people and gossiping and lying about people get thrown out.
So we don't have to deal with them anymore.
That's why the fellowship is so great in here.
If we didn't throw out those people,
then we'd all be a little bit bitter.
We'd all be in our little huddles
talking about the other huddle,
how dare them and this, blah, blah, blah.
And that's most churches today.
It's a bunch of gossip circles everywhere
where everybody's hating on each other
and getting mad at everybody
and making things up and slandering people
and a bunch of old bitties coming over
and complaining about everything.
And you know what, I'm sick of it.
Don't want to be around that the fellowship here is great. That's why people like to stick around and talk for hours
That's why we have to tell them. Hey, we're leaving. Bye a
Lot of churches it's a ghost town after five minutes here. It's just it's it's off the chain
And you know what I've also noticed about this is you know people preach against this because they themselves are guilty
But I want you to go to a place go to Romans chapter 12. I don't know if I had to go somewhere earlier, but go to Romans chapter 12
Sometimes we need to be specific about the people that we name to oh, I had to go to 2nd Timothy chapter 2
Didn't I it's the Bible is talking about warning people
You know because of the cancer the canker that can come in and destroy a church
You know and and pretty much my philosophy is that if I have a friend preach something that's kind of wrong or off
I typically don't like name their name just cuz I don't want to cause like unnecessary strife or shame
But I still think it's right to preach against whatever they said
You know maybe be careful about it not necessarily go over the top because we always just need to hear the truth
And you know if someone preached against me even by name even as my friend as long as what they said was true
I wouldn't really care that much
Even if it was a different opinion, but it wasn't wrong. I wouldn't be that offended much
I get mad when people call me out and it's not true or they preach against me my name
You know people that are not my friend boy. They're on the table. I'll tell you what
And we sometimes need to just call out names and give you specific examples
So the people know I know that you are sitting there thinking like he's talking about somebody who is it who is it?
Just say it
Okay. So, you know, I preached a sermon recently about this person already, but I just want to bring up something else that they said because it's just so stupid.
But Pastor Joe Jones had preached a sermon recently where he criticized people that go to church three times a week, saying that three to thrive is bad.
had threatened to physically hurt him
at church on Christmas or something like that.
He claimed that all these people in the church
just said, we're gonna show up and hurt you
on Christmas day.
And he said that's when he, quote,
lost faith in three to thrive.
Now it's funny because I've had a lot of people
threatened to hurt me.
A lot of voice mails, a lot of emails,
a lot of people just coming to my church,
coming to the church screaming how they're gonna hurt me.
And it wasn't the three to thrive people.
And I thought about it, I was like,
all right, let's just test this a little bit.
So I looked at all the people in our church,
and I looked at all the people that have been thrown out,
and just this church, not like O.K.C. and Jacksonville,
I mean, there's a lot more, okay.
Just like this church, and it was basically like
27 family units, okay, family units.
Only three of those family units were three to thrive people
when they were coming to our church.
So if only three of them were,
Then that means only about 11% of the time is a three-to-thrive person even getting disgruntled or having the problem in the church
Then I looked at our church now
There was like 70-something family units or whatever that are active in our church right now
Of those about 45 of those are three-to-thrive
You know and I'm of course some people miss for sicknesses
I'm saying they pretty much are coming to all three services as best they can
That's 64% so you know that tells me you're six times more likely to hurt the church and do evil to the church
When you're not three to thrive
Not that oh wow, I've noticed that the people that are three to thrive
They're the ones causing problems and issues and leaving and whatever
So, if three to thrive was bad, you know what I would expect to see?
I would expect to see the bad people or the people causing problems to be disproportionately
higher and the three to thrive category, not the opposite.
And look, just from just...
Personal observation. You constantly see the people that are three to thrive. They're the ones that are giving in the church
They're the ones that are charitable. They're the ones going soul-winning. They're the people that give the shirt off
They're back. They're the people that are helping the church
They're the people that care about the church the people that are going three to thrive then go two and then one
Pretty much. They're the ones that end up getting back into sin going into drugs
committing adultery
Doing all kinds of evil
committing crimes, doing illegal activity,
grievous sin, hurting their family, doing law.
And so it's like, oh man, how dare you try to convince people to go to church more?
Well you know what, I just see patterns.
I'm a patterned noticer.
I notice that there's a group of people that happen to own all of the television networks.
and they happen to also own all the Hollywood studios
and they happen to be disproportionately owning a lot of banks
and pharmaceutical companies and being in presidential cabinet positions
and represented on the Supreme Court and basically in every high-ranking
position of authority
and it's not a coincidence, Jews.
I don't care what Grock says.
Yeah, disproportionate, but it doesn't mean that it's necessarily connected.
I'm a noticer. I notice patterns and I notice the guys that go three to thrive are more likely to follow God than the people that don't
This is a bad correlation
What if I said hey, there's some bad people when I church and I noticed all the guys wear pants
Must be something wrong with pants man
That's a bad correlation
Even if you could say hey, there was a group of bad people in my church. They went three to thrive. That doesn't make three to thrive bad
That's a dumb dumb argument. It's a bad correlation and show me the verse in the Bible that said hey
The people are going to church a lot really bad. I
Thought the Bible says in Hebrews that it was you know what?
We should go to the church even the more as we see the day approaching
We should provoke people to go to church more not less
That doesn't makes it not as a Bible say three times a week. No, it doesn't say anything about times a week
But the Bible says you should go more
and more and more and more and the Bible says you should do what the pastor is doing.
You should follow his example. I go three times a week.
I want to go more and more and more.
Now, I'm not saying we're going to start a fourth service or something like that.
I think three is fine. That's what's been passed down to us.
That's tradition. It makes sense.
And I see us being very successful in three to thrive.
It's a bad, bad correlation.
Well, I've noticed all the people that got thrown out drive cars.
Okay.
You know what I've noticed? I've noticed that people that like Joan Sermon's are bad people. That's what I've noticed a correlation to
And there was another guy so I just put on Facebook the other day
I don't remember. Yes. I don't remember the time yesterday or something and just you never know what's gonna pop up anymore
Mostly ads. I hate it, but it was just a sermon and it was Pastor
Jared Pizarnski preaching at some camp
and it was like live, so I just click on it.
And I'm just listening, I probably listened
for like two minutes.
I was interested to hear what he was saying.
And he was reading in Judges and he said,
now we didn't read that story in Judges 19
because I didn't want to ruin the family camp.
Go ahead to Judges chapter 19.
How does the Bible ruin,
The family camp you know that sounds like it sounds like you don't like the Bible or something
Is there something wrong with the Bible? And you know what I like about my children is they love the Bible
It was funny, there was a period where one of my kids was really into just making books.
I don't know why.
It's Clayton.
Clayton just loves to make books and he would just, he would just literally just take all
these papers, write a whole story, make a whole book, staple it together and he would
just like give us books.
Well he just randomly like gives me this book and it's the story of the children being torn
Now a psychologist would say, oh, this child's disturbed, you know?
But I asked him like, so why'd you pick this one, right?
And he's like, it's like my favorite story in the Bible.
And he was happy. And you know what?
I think kids can like stories where bad things happen because you know what?
They're like, I don't want to be like these bad kids that make fun of the man of God.
That make fun of preachers. You know, it's not a bad attitude.
And you know what he wasn't it didn't ruin his day that he made that book. He was happy. He was smiling ear to ear
He was thinking like wow what a bunch of stupid kids to make fun of the preacher and get destroyed by bears
You know what it caused him to fear God
And you know what judges 19 is a great story in the Bible even though it's ugly
But you know what isn't it funny that people love to watch movies like this?
How many movies are about crime and drama and horrible things that are happening?
Hey, we like to know why is it when you drive it on the road everybody slows down to watch the horrible accident?
Rubberneck
We love it
Why is everything a drama?
Why is it that when they do a live TV show or reality TV show?
It's never good enough so they have to make stuff up to make it more dramatic
because if it was just happy and normal,
everybody would be like, all right, move on, next verse.
And then there was peace for 40 years.
Next verse.
I mean, just think about the Bible itself.
Where in the Bible is it just describing
and great detail all the happy, peaceful times?
It's just like drama, next story, drama, next story, drama.
It's not going from like happy, healthy, fun, joy.
It's just basically like next drama, murder, death, disease,
fortification, false gods, false prophets.
I mean, Jeremiah is not just this happy-go-lucky book.
And you know, when you start getting this poison in the mind
where you think the gnarly parts of the Bible can't be read to children,
let me tell you something, you're wrong.
I've heard this disease also affected Stephen Crowder.
Stephen Crowder is an example of someone that said,
hey, certain parts of the Bible shouldn't be read to your children.
I will read every part of the Bible to my children.
And it doesn't ruin family camps.
You know what ruins family camps?
People being afraid to preach parts of the Bible.
That's what ruins family camps.
Now, look at Judges chapter 19 verse 25.
We're not going to ruin this morning's sermon.
We're going to make it better.
But the men would not hearken to him.
This is talking about faggots, by the way.
So, the man took his concubine and brought her forth under them,
and they knew her and abused her all the night until the morning.
And when the day began in spring, they let her go.
You know why we read stories like this?
So, our children see those people screaming what they're like.
You know, I'd rather them read about what faggots are like than have to not know and then actually get abused by one of these these freaks
because faggots abuse people, faggots kill people,
faggots are serial killers.
That's why we made a movie called LGBT terrorists,
because they're terrorists, because they go to public schools
and just shoot innocent children,
because they're disgusting freaks.
And you know what?
Rather than read it in the Bible,
then they have to read a news headline
to figure out the reality of this world.
Then they'll be dragged to some public school and say oh, they're nice. They're happy. They're gay
No, they're not gay. They're faggots
They're disgusting and filthy and they should be taken out and shot in the head by the government not by me
That's my caveat. All right
You got to put it in with the clip otherwise they won't get the deal get out, right?
But you know what if I was the government and I was given the position of executioner I would pull the trigger
I'm not weak. I'm not gonna say, oh, we can't read this story in the Bible
No, no, you know what happens they hear about what faggots did they hear about these disgusting freaks
Then what does the man of God or this man do?
It says in verse 26 then came the woman in the dawning of the day and fell down at the door of the man's house where her Lord was
Till it was light and her Lord rose up in the morning and opened the doors of the house and went out to go his way
And behold the woman his concubine was fallen down at the door of the house and her hands were upon the threshold and he said unto her up
Let us be going
Then the man took her up upon a mass and the man rose up and got him under his place and when he was coming to his house
He took a knife and laid hole on his concubine and divide her together with her bones into 12 pieces and sent her into all
The coast of Israel and it was so that all that saw it said there was no such deed done
Nor seen from the day that the children of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt under this day consider of it
Take advice and speak your minds. The Bible is saying don't hide from the evil
Consider it. Don't hide from Judges 19. Consider it and take advice and speak your minds. Here's my mind
I hate faggots. I hate pedophiles. I hate these evil workers that are destroying children
And you know what?
What did God, America, would hear Judges 19 being thundered from the housetops, that
at the family camp you could hear about these predators so they wouldn't be destroyed.
We need the next generation to rise up and say, hey, we're not going to take it anymore.
We're taking back the rainbow.
Let's put the faggots to death.
We don't want to ruin the family camp, you know, it's ruining the family camp Sodom and Gomorrah
You know, it's ruining the family camp San Francisco. You know, it's ruining the family camp Michelle Obama
Peepoo to judge Peter Thiel
Ellen degenerate that's ruining the family camp. You know, it's ruining the family camp all the faggots in our government right now
You know, it's not ruining America judges 19. You know, it's not ruining this church service judges 19
It's disgusting. What a stupid idea foolishness
My phone wants to talk to now apparently it's getting it's getting on the on the preaching
Sorry
He got excited it's like serious like what did you say?
Gov to Romans 12
And how dare you call out Jeremy Zyrncki
How dare he call it the Bible?
Oh, but guess what these guys get to call me out all the time with their little vague book sermons
Here's another thing Brzezarnski said he said oh there's these preachers that are cussing
And there's these preachers that teach this doctor about cussing and they say we can use any verse in the Bible or any
Word in the Bible however we want
Yeah
and
This is what he said. He said this is the dumbest thing he's ever heard preached by a Baptist pulpit
Now number one, I don't know exactly who said it or how verbatim that quote is
But of course, you know, we believe that we should follow all the Bible's commandments.
So, using a word in the Bible however we choose is not saying using it in a sinful way.
Obviously, we're not going to use Jesus Christ's name as a cuss word. That would be sinful.
Obviously, we're not going to use strong language in a way to lie about someone or slander someone.
But you know what? As long as you're not breaking a commandment, I believe every word in the Bible is on the table.
And I think that's just clear cut doctrine.
I personally go beyond that
and I say you can use any word period.
Now I know everybody gets offended by that.
I know why you're offended by words, not false doctrine,
words, and how is that the dumbest thing
you've ever heard preached?
What about Tyler Doka preaching that the earth is flat?
And I know he knows about that.
You know why? Because he's not that offended by the Flat Earth theory, because he believes in geocentricity.
Which has been debunked for hundreds and hundreds of years, folks.
Debunked by virtually everyone. In the 16th and 17th century, it was pretty much just completely debunked by and large.
If you go back even way before Christ, people already do that the earth was spinning or moving.
It's not like this is some new thing.
Obviously the Catholic Church denied a lot of this and they killed people for having a heliocentric model and stuff like that.
But you know what, I'm not Catholic and I'm not defending the Catholic Church.
They're stupid.
Okay?
created a pendulum to prove beyond any shadow of doubt that the earth was rotating and now they have focu pendulums all over the world
That just proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that the earth is spinning
But no the dumbest thing ever is saying you should use words in the Bible how you please
How is that even a bad thing?
How is that even damaging the cause of Christ now look?
I've preached in the past and I'll continue to preach that I'll say anything I want.
So if you want to go somewhere else to church, you can.
I know what's forced me here.
You know, I've used strong language and at the end of the day, to me, you know,
if you ask the world what's the worst thing that I have ever said or could say,
it's faggot, okay?
And I will for sure say that.
Now, there's other F words that people get more offended by and whatever.
I said, I'm not going to say that again from a pulpit, but at the end of the day, you know
what?
I've noticed that there's not a direct correlation to cussing and being a Christian.
All these people want to act like you can't be a Christian and cuss, and I'm just, I was
trying to think about this, and I'm like, okay, look, I'm going to think about the people
in my church.
And I'm like, I'm going to think about the people that I know I've never heard cuss
and probably would never hear cuss, and then I'm going to think about the people that
And then I'm thinking like okay are the ones that cuss every once in a while are they going soulwetting free to thrive serving God loving the Lord
Yeah, are the people that never do are they doing it? Yeah, it seems like it just has no correlation folks
And if it was such a bad thing, you would see an obvious difference.
Just like the three to thrive has an obvious difference.
I've never seen this difference.
Now does that mean that we should just go around and just say
everything we can think and everything we don't know?
Because you know what, if we use strong language all the time,
then it's not strong language anymore.
Strong language serves a purpose that when it's used
in a very specific and limited way, it's powerful.
I don't think we should go around using strong language.
I don't approve of that.
I don't like it.
I tell my children, no.
I say, don't talk like that.
We don't use that word this way.
But you know, at the end of the day,
I'm not saying you wicked sinner, you.
That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, ever.
You know, these people want to sit here.
And then this is what Brzezarski said.
I'm gonna prove to you how cussing is super evil
and super wicked.
Romans 12.
Ready?
Verse one, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your body's living sacrifice,
wholly acceptable unto God, which is a reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may approve what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Now, how many children, how many people do you think, on their daily by-law reading, read this verse and then just start cussing?
Or do you think it's like, hey, it's just not in the Bible,
and I just need to just stretch something.
I need to just find something.
And then it's like, oh, I'm defining
what the perfect will of God is.
Now let me help you, because isn't that vague?
Let's just all be honest, isn't that vague?
But you know where you find the will of God?
You know what the word of God is?
You know you get specific?
You find a different verse.
You cannot go to a vague verse that says let's find out what the word of God is and then there's a missing
Specific verse and then say that's what the Bible teaches. No if it's what the Bible teaches you show me a specific verse
Hey, let's prove what the will of God is. Hey for salvation. Oh, I'll show you John 3 16
Let's show you to not get a tattoo. Okay, you don't print marks on your body. Hey, let's show you not to drink
Oh, look not upon the wine when it gives us color in the cup. There's a specific verse. Show me the specific verse on cussing
You don't have one that's why you go to a vague one and pretend like there's a specific one because there's not and
You're teaching for doctrines the commandments of men and not the Bible. You know what? Hey, if you don't want to cuss God bless you
I don't even care. You're awesome. You're so great, buddy
But let me tell you something. That's not hard preaching because it's not in the Bible
It's not biblical. It might be corrective and
It's not even specific either because they'll never give you a list if it's such a bad thing. Give me a list
And why is it that God,
you really think that God's looking down from heaven
and using all of your alternatives for cussing,
he's pleased with you?
Holy cow, oh my son, good job.
Oh fudge, oh that was so much better.
Good gravy for Pete's sake.
Jiminy crickets, turkey, oh blimey, crikey,
God's looking down from heaven, he's like, oh, I'm so glad he's at Jiminy Crickets.
Whoo!
What a Christian.
What an amazing, God-fearing man.
You know, I've noticed the people that are so offended by cussing, they're holier than
nows.
Oh, he said, HE double hockey sticks.
In fact, from now on, when we go soul winning, you can't pray and say, Lord, I deserve to
go to hell.
Lord, I deserve to go to H.E. double hockey sticks.
Please take me to heaven when I die.
Don't do it, folks.
We don't want to ruin the family camp.
God's so pleased with you that you wouldn't even use a word in the Bible.
You know when people get that they just don't like the Bible.
Oh, it's what the Jews tell you in Hollywood.
That's what they say is the acceptable uses of language now.
I wonder why they don't like the word faggot.
Go over to Hebrews 12 and we'll finish.
Hey, you know why you're offended by cussing
and not flat earth?
Because you're an idiot.
That's why.
And what, you know, we're supposed to be.
Messengers of truth. I mean, I just can't try I mean if you can't even understand just simple math simple science and these type of things like
It scares me. What else are you not understanding?
How are you a critical thinker? Yeah, I mean, okay expose foe coups pendulum
You can't do that and of course, you know these people then they just should have believed this kind of stuff
You know what they have to say all of NASA's wrong
all of science is wrong
All the other preachers that I have are wrong.
You can't listen to them.
Don't trust anybody.
Don't trust the science.
Don't trust math.
Don't trust your eyes.
Don't trust these experiments.
Don't trust anything.
Trust me.
You can't even use certain words in the Bible.
Which one?
Well, I'll tell you which ones you can't use
and which ones you can.
And I have another special naughty list of words you can't say, or you're not really a Christian.
And you know what? There's certain chapters of the Bible you shouldn't read.
I'll tell you which ones you can read and which ones you can't.
That's called a cult, folks. That's what a real cult looks like.
Not one that says, use any word. Use any chapter.
Love the Bible. It's all great.
Hey, who is he preaching about?
Joe, Jones, and Pastor Brzezarski.
I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna like sit here and vague book and just say, oh, this is the dumbest stuff I've ever heard being preached here
Who are you talking about buddy?
Oh, they wouldn't call anybody out. They're calling. I mean come on folks
Why I'm uncomfortable will be uncomfortable that was the point. I hope you feel pricked Hebrews chapter 12 look at verse 6
For whom the Lord loveth he chastened, and scourged at every son whom he receiveth.
If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with thee as his sons.
For what son is he whom the Father chastened, if not?
You know, if people let brag about never being punished by God, that's a bad thing.
I keep doing all this stuff and it never seems like anything happens to me.
Okay.
But if ye be without chastisement, wear of all our partakers, then are ye bastards and
not sons.
Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence.
Shall we not much rather be in subjection of the Father of spirits and live?
You know, when your parents punish you, you know what you're supposed to do?
Give them reverence, not make attack videos.
For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure,
but he for our profit that we might be partakers of his holiness.
Now, no chastening for the present seem to be joyous but grievous.
Nevertheless, afterward it yielded the peaceable fruit of righteousness
unto them which are exercised thereby.
You know what hard preaching produces?
Peaceable fruit.
You know why our church is a great church six years after being a really bad church and a rough church?
Hard preaching.
Preaching those based on the Bible, preaching that was corrective, and preaching that was really specific.
And you know, let the testimony of our church be a witness, especially if you've been here for a while.
You can tell they're the peaceable fruit.
Hey, we're getting more people saved
than we've ever gotten saved before.
Our church is breaking every attendance record,
every baptism record, every soul-winning record,
and you know what, the fellowship here is great.
It's peaceful here, it's fun here, we enjoy it here.
That's because of the hard preaching.
And you know what, when you preach stupidity,
you know what, you're gonna be filled with a church
of railers and flat earthers and all kinds of weird garbage.
I don't wanna be around that.
You're going to be around people that don't love the truth.
You're going to be around people that constantly hate on pastors and preachers and are destroying
their lives in all kinds of different ways.
You know, wisdom is justified of our children.
You know, these people want to act like I'm such a bad guy because of words that I've
said occasionally.
Like, it's not even like I do this every sermon or something or every year even.
It's like one time a few years ago and they get so upset about it and so uptight about
it.
But if it was so bad, don't you think we would have seen a sharp decline in our church?
I mean, don't you think God would have come down and just done something to us or hurt
or harm us and said, wow, y'all are going down a really bad direction, guys?
It seems like the exact opposite just keeps happening.
You know, wisdom is justified of our children.
If your doctrine is so pure,
if your doctrine is so right,
then just prove it to us.
Show us you holier than thou's.
But you know what, the people that get up and say like,
I've never cursed in my entire life,
are the same people not doing missions trips,
not doing big soul winning evangelism,
not preaching great sermons,
and people, frankly, that are terrible friends
that would never want to be around.
Are you gonna agree with everything I say?
No, I'm sure you don't.
But you know what, we need some hard preaching.
I don't even agree with everything I say, alright?
Get over yourself.
Quit being so prideful.
You know what, we need hard preaching in this church
and I'm never going to stop.
Hard preaching is under attack
and I will fight back with the Word of God.
I will fight back by preaching hard.
People that vague book preach against me, I'll name you.
You want to be named, I'll name you.
I'm not afraid of it.
and the congregation needs to be warned of false doctrine
so that we don't destroy ourselves.
We don't let that cancer affect us.
Let's close in prayer.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, for giving us the peaceable fruit of chastisement.
I pray that in our spirit, we would accept the word of God no matter how comfortable
it makes us feel.
I pray that when we feel like a sermon is directed at us, we would just appreciate it
and change.
I pray that you would provoke us into fear and unto zeal and godly sorrow that would
lead to repentance.
On those things, I pray that people go to church more, not less.
I pray that people go so many more, not less.
I pray that people read their Bibles more, not less.
I pray that people would have boldness to use the words of God more, not less.
I pray that people would like every story of the Bible more, not less.
I pray that you would just allow our church to be a testimony and a witness
to what the Bible is like when it's preached and believed,
and that people are following it like a light and like a lamp.
And I pray that you would continue to bless our church
so that we could give you the honor and glory because we're following
Christ, in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Amen. Alright, for our last song, we're going to go to song number 56.
When We All Get to Heaven.
Song number 56.
See you!
Excellent singing, everybody. You are all dismissed.