Learn from the sermon, Lord, in Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.
Let's look back at verse 25.
Bible reads,
woe unto you that are full, for ye shall hunger.
Woe unto you that laugh now, for ye shall mourn and weep.
This is not the same sermon, all right?
Verse 26,
woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you,
for so do their fathers to the false prophets.
But I say unto you which hear, love your enemies,
do good to them which hate you.
And the title of the sermon this evening
is Love Your Enemies, Love Your Enemies.
Now, this is a great truth that we have in the Bible
that's oftentimes thrown in my face
or people's face that I know.
And I really just wanna take the time
to kind of explain this great truth
that we have in the Bible,
what it means to love your enemies.
This is obviously something that Jesus Christ taught on.
He's a very explicit, in fact, in this chapter,
in this sermon, he goes in great detail
of explaining loving your enemy.
But look at verse number 29,
back of verse 28.
Bless them that curse you,
and pray for them which despitefully use you.
And unto him that smited thee on the one cheek,
offer also the other.
And in that taketh away thy cloak,
forbid not to take thy coat also.
Give to every man that asketh of thee,
and of him that taketh away thy goods,
ask them not again.
And as ye would that men should do to you,
do ye also to them likewise.
For if ye love them which love you,
what thank have ye?
For sinners also love those that love them.
And if ye do good to them which do good to you,
what thank have ye?
For sinners also do even the same.
And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive,
what thank have ye?
For sinners also lend to sinners to receive as much again.
But love ye your enemies,
and do good, and lend,
hoping for nothing again,
and your reward shall be great,
and ye shall be the children of the highest,
for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.
Be therefore merciful as your Father also is merciful.
Now, let's understand what he's saying here,
because this is really important that we get this truth
and we understand what he's trying to teach.
Some people would take this passage
and they would just run with it.
They wanna just run with it and say,
okay, love your enemies.
This just means every single person, period.
Now, the reality is if you study your Bible,
you'll realize that this is not saying
love every single person, period.
But you know what it is saying?
Virtually everybody.
Virtually every single person you're supposed to love.
Virtually, I mean, whether they like you,
whether they're good to you,
whether they speak well of you,
no matter what, you're still supposed to love them.
And in fact, most of the time in this situation,
these people are still someone you're supposed to love,
people that lie about you, they rail about you,
they do evil against you.
Maybe they have secret Facebook groups against you
and secret texting groups and secret Discord,
I mean, you name it.
You're not supposed to do those people,
I'm still supposed to actually love them.
I'm still supposed to do good unto them.
And often, I think some people, they get this idea
that if someone does something bad to them,
that they're like a reprobate.
Oh, you said something mean to me?
You must be a reprobate, so I don't have to be nice to you.
I don't have to be kind to you.
Look, reprobates are very clear in who they are
and we don't wanna get off this weird tangent
where everybody that's negative, everybody that's bad
is just a reprobate, let's just be mean to them.
Look, most people that hate our church are not reprobates.
They're still saved believers
or maybe just unsaved, confused people.
They're still your family members, your friends.
And you know what you need to do to those people?
Love them.
Even when they do bad things to you.
I mean, look at verse 28.
Bless them to notice this, that curse you.
There's people that'll literally curse you.
They'll say, oh, you're so evil and you're so hateful.
And if you just keep being that hateful,
I hope God doesn't judge you.
I hope you don't get hit by a lightning bolt.
I hope this bad thing doesn't happen to you
with all your hate out there.
That's what they'll try to say to you.
And look, I'm still supposed to bless that person.
I'm still supposed to good to that person.
He even says, and pray for them which despitefully use you.
Now that one's hard, okay?
You know what that looks like?
It's someone that comes into church
and they borrow money from you and they use you
and you invest a lot of time and effort
and energy into this person.
And they just, they're an energy vampire.
I love that phrase, all right?
They just suck all this information and resource
and time and energy and you love the person
and you do good under the person.
And you bought them something special
and you brought them into your home
and you fed them and you were kind to them
and you prayed for them and you loved them
and you talked nice to their kid
even though their kid was a monster.
And then, you know what?
They leave the church and they rail on you.
Like, oh, that person's bad and evil
and they're such a jerk or whatever.
You know you're still supposed to pray for that person?
You're still supposed to try and love that person
and do good under that person.
He says, look, this guy's smiting you on the cheek.
Give him the other.
Now, again, we don't want to just run with these passages.
Notice he's not saying he's coming at your face
with a knife, okay?
He's not saying he's putting a gun to your head.
He just kind of tapping you on the cheek
like, you know, just something disrespectful, you know?
You're supposed to just be like, you know what?
Even though that was terrible and I didn't like that,
I shouldn't just withdraw from the person
and treat them badly.
I should still do good unto them,
even willing that they might smite me on the other cheek.
Now, again, if someone breaks into my house,
I'm not just going to be like, hey,
I'm just, you know, will you smite me on both cheeks, please?
You know, I'm going to bring out my gun
and I'm going to shoot first and ask questions later.
Don't hear me wrong.
You can't just get super imbalanced with the Bible.
And that's one of the biggest things
you're going to take away from the sermon, okay?
Don't get imbalanced with the Bible.
You can't just take one verse in the Bible
and just run with it.
You have to take the whole of scripture.
But sometimes people, they just want to do either.
They want to look at this verse and just be like,
oh, sweet, I don't have to love
every single person on the planet.
Well, then I love only the people that love me.
And then there's the other people that want to say,
oh, I guess I just have to love everyone.
I have to love the guy that's robbing me
and molesting my children and is a pedophile and is wicked.
No, look, we need to have some balance today.
We need to take the whole scripture
and the more we understand
what the Bible's actually teaching,
the less likely we are to get imbalanced.
So let's understand what it means to love your neighbor
and to love your enemy.
Because you know who really did this?
Well, Jesus.
Jesus really loved his enemies consistently
throughout the gospels.
And we're going to look at that.
Go, if you would, to Matthew five.
Let's find another place where this is mentioned,
Matthew chapter five.
And then we're going to get some examples.
But Jesus Christ is not giving us a commandment
that he himself is not willing to fulfill.
Not something that he's not going to model for us
consistently over and over throughout the gospels.
And when we understand what it means
to really love your enemy as Jesus does,
it helps us understand what it doesn't mean, okay?
Matthew five, verse 43.
You have heard that it had been said,
thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy.
But I say unto you, love your enemies,
bless them that curse you,
do good to them that hate you,
and pray for them which despitefully use you
and persecute you,
that you may be the children of your father
which is in heaven,
for he maketh his son to rise on the evil and on the good,
and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
For if you love them which love you, what reward have you?
Do not even the publicans the same?
And if you salute your brethren only,
what do you more than others?
Do not even the publicans sow?
Be therefore perfect,
even as your father which is in heaven is perfect.
Let's understand verse 43.
He's saying, hey, you've heard the saying
that it's okay to love your neighbor but hate your enemy.
Now, when Jesus Christ is contrasting this, okay,
he's not saying,
what he's really trying to differentiate here
is just elevating that which is right.
So, sometimes we have to understand
that just because something's legal or lawful
does not mean that it's right.
And just because sometimes there might be a better
or there might be a way to handle a situation,
there can always be a better way.
And what God is trying to illustrate through this parable
or not parable, but through this expounding
of the scripture here is that,
hey, if you really wanna have righteousness,
if you really wanna be like God,
you would also even love your enemies in many cases,
not just hate them.
So, he's trying to raise the bar of righteousness.
He's saying, hey, murder,
you've heard that it's been said that murder is a sin,
that you shouldn't murder, you shouldn't kill.
I'm saying, don't even hate your brother in your heart.
He's saying, hey, don't commit adultery,
but I'm saying, don't even look at a woman with lust, okay?
So, he's saying, you guys, you love your neighbors,
okay, well, let me take it a little bit a step further.
Why don't you also love your enemy too?
Not just only love those that do good unto you.
So, he's raising the bar of righteousness.
He's not trying to say these things were wrong or bad
or anything like that.
He's just trying to help people understand
their morality is inferior to the morality
of what God has the standard for us to be.
True love is gonna also even love your enemies.
That's what it really means here, okay?
Now, he also is saying that you gotta be like your Father,
which is in heaven.
He says in verse 48, be therefore perfect,
even as your Father, which is in heaven, is perfect.
And it even says here that he sends rain
on the just and the unjust.
God does not just strike everybody dead
that's in rebellion to him.
Christian, saved, unsaved, look, God does good things
unto unsaved people all the day long.
Romans chapter number two makes it very clear
that they're treasuring up unto themselves wrath
because they continually reject him,
they continually don't receive him,
and because of his long suffering and mercy and grace,
it should cause them to wanna believe.
But they decide not to, or they don't want to.
But look, God is constantly doing good unto people
that don't deserve it.
It's called grace and long suffering and mercy and love,
like sending your son to die on the cross.
We didn't deserve that, he loved us.
And we have to understand if God is gonna love his enemies,
that's the example that he's setting for us.
We also are to love people
that don't necessarily do good on us,
that aren't gonna be thankful about it,
that maybe treat you poorly, okay?
Go over to Matthew chapter eight, Matthew chapter eight,
just flip the page maybe, look at verse number five.
Let's get into some examples of what this looks like.
Now, obviously there's, you know, throughout time
and in different places in the world,
sometimes you just have like what would be considered
a natural enemy.
You know, maybe you live in North Korea
and you live in South Korea, you know,
they have a little bit of tension there, okay?
You know, depending on what country you live in
or what part of the state, obviously United States,
there used to be a much more stronger divide with race.
You know, certain races hated people more than other races.
And look, it still happens today.
There's still plenty of racism today.
So sometimes people just have what feels
like a natural enemy based on their geography,
how they were raised, the country that they live in.
Obviously Israel is not the most, you know,
friendly with Jordan and with Palestine and with Pakistan.
They have a lot of natural enemies, don't they?
And today, maybe in America, you don't feel that as much
because you're kind of just, you only care about,
you know, Frosted Flakes and TV and magazines.
You don't really pay attention
to the fact that you have enemies.
But throughout all the time and even today,
there's plenty of people that just have a natural enemy.
Well, at the time of Christ, let me just help you out.
They had some natural inbred enemies.
They're called Romans.
The Romans came and took over their country.
And look, the Jews do not like the Romans.
They're not like excited about the Romans.
In fact, when Jesus is about to be crucified,
they release unto them Barabbas who had made a sedition
and even murder against the Romans.
They're wanting to protest the taxes against the Romans.
Look, they don't like the Romans, okay?
There's a natural enemy there.
But how does Jesus Christ respond to these natural enemies,
these natural foes, to these Romans?
Look at Matthew chapter eight, verse five.
And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum,
there came unto him a centurion beseeching him,
and saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home,
sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.
Notice this, and Jesus saith unto him,
I will come and heal him.
So does Jesus say, oh, you're my enemy.
Get away from me.
No, he loves his enemy.
Someone that's not doing good,
he's being oppressed by the Romans.
Literally, that's the person oppressing them,
and they're in rule over them.
And as soon as the centurion comes unto him with a problem,
hey, I'll heal that guy.
He truly loves his enemy.
Look at verse number eight.
The centurion answered and said, Lord,
I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof,
but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.
So at least this guy was very humble of himself.
He realizes, hey, I'm not worthy of this.
You shouldn't be coming and talking with me
or dealing with me.
Probably could be in a lot of contexts,
the fact that he's sinful, the fact that he's a Roman,
the fact that he's oppressing them.
It doesn't really matter.
The fact is that there was some kind of a tension,
some kind of an enmity between him and this centurion,
but Jesus Christ doesn't even bring it up.
He didn't make mention of it.
He's just, I'm gonna heal him.
Verse nine, for I'm a man under authority,
having sold theirs unto me.
And I say to this man, go, and he goeth unto another,
come, and he cometh, and to my servant do this,
and he doeth it.
When Jesus heard it, he marveled and said to them
that followed, verily I say unto you,
I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.
Not only did he love his enemy,
he actually commended the centurion
by pointing out the great faith that this man truly had.
He had greater faith than all of his kinsmen,
than the people that he was surrounding himself with.
So we see in the verse example here,
Jesus loving his enemy.
Go to John chapter four.
John chapter number four.
Now, they didn't just have enemies of the Romans.
Another enemy that we find out in the Bible
would be that of the Samaritans.
The Samaritans and the Jews are enemies.
If you read it in the context, if you understand the Bible,
they don't have dealings one with another.
They don't like each other.
They don't even wanna talk with one another.
And in fact, later in the New Testament,
we even find out that the Jews,
they would never even eat with Gentiles.
It was like so offensive to them.
The persuasion of James comes,
and even Barnabas is carried away with their dissimulation.
They don't wanna eat with the Gentiles.
So the Jews don't wanna have dealings with Samaritans.
They don't wanna have dealings with the Gentiles.
There's this kind of natural enmity.
Look at John chapter four, verse seven.
There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water.
Jesus saith unto her, give me to drink.
For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.
Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him,
how is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me,
which am a woman of Samaria?
For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.
So sometimes we don't really understand kind of the context.
We're just thinking, oh, a woman's coming to the well.
Jesus is asking for water.
But this is actually a pretty big moment here
because Jesus is asking this woman of Samaritan,
which would normally be an enemy,
someone they would never talk to,
someone they would never have any dealings with,
someone they look down upon, stand by thyself,
for I am holier than thou art.
That's the attitude the Jews have towards the Samaritans.
They think that they're wicked.
They don't want to have anything to do with them.
You say, what does this look like today?
It's your Fox News, Baptist, and every Muslim on the planet.
Oh, Muslims, they're so wicked.
Why would we even let them in our nation?
You know, they're building their temples.
You mean like the Catholic church?
Doesn't seem like you have a problem
with the Catholic church.
You know, it's false religions, false religions, my friend.
And in fact, most Muslims are a lot nicer
than Catholics, I find.
In fact, they hate homos a lot more than Catholics.
I'm starting to like the Muslims a lot more.
But some Christians, they have this idea that, you know,
oh, they're Muslim, oh, they're so evil, they're so,
look, yeah, there's evil Muslims, there's evil Catholics,
there's evil Christians.
You don't want to just isolate and identify a whole group
and just be so racist and of yourself.
You know, I've heard people say,
and I've even thought this in my fleshly mind,
like just nuke the Middle East and just sort them out.
And it's just like, that's a wicked attitude.
That's not of God.
And that's how the Jews feel.
I just nuke Samaria, you know,
I don't care about the Samaritans.
So Jesus coming under the Samaritan
and talking to the Samaritan woman,
let me tell you, he's loving his enemy.
He's being good unto his enemy.
He's finding someone that's not supposed to be loved,
someone that'd be taboo to love,
someone that would be difficult to want to go and talk to.
Maybe there's kind of a beef,
the West side with the East side, you know,
I mean, he's coming on, he's trying to make peace.
He's talking to this woman.
Look down at verse 39,
because not only does he get her saved,
but it says down in verse 39,
and many of the Samaritans, that city believed on him
for the saying of the woman, which he testified.
He told me all that ever I did.
So when the Samaritans are come unto him,
they besought him that he would tarry with them.
And he abode there two days,
and many more believe because of his own word
and said unto the woman,
now we believe not because of thy saying,
for we have heard him ourselves and know
that this is indeed the Christ, the savior of the world.
So now let me give you some applications again.
The first example with the centurion,
what does it mean to love your enemy?
You know what it means?
Love the police officer.
Love the Roman centurion.
Don't just be so quick to just, oh, he's a police officer.
Why would I be respectful to a police officer?
Because you're supposed to love your enemy.
Love him, treat him with respect.
I don't care what you think.
You have a bad heart.
If you think you should just be disrespectful to cops
just because he's a cop.
Why, was Jesus disrespectful to the Roman centurion?
No, he's truly loving his enemy.
And maybe they're an enemy sometimes.
I don't get pulled over and think like,
this guy's my friend.
This is my buddy coming up here.
You know, they don't come harass me at soul winning
and I'm thinking like, great.
This is a true enemy, okay?
And I'm sure there is a cop out there
that might be reprobate, but they're not all reprobate.
Let me just wake you up, okay?
Now that's the second application.
That's your Muslims, okay?
That's the people that live in Mexico.
We don't need to build a wall and be like, get away from me.
We don't need to be racist.
We need to truly love our enemies.
I don't care who they are.
Look, everybody hates America, but we still should love them.
I hate America too.
I want to get on their team.
They're like, do you hate America?
They're like, yeah.
And I'm like, me too, yeah, woo!
I hate what America stands for, okay?
I hate the policies and the procedures
and the influential leaders, okay?
But obviously I love this country.
I love living here.
I love the people here.
I wouldn't live in any other country, okay?
And usually that's how a lot of other people feel.
They don't hate like individual Americans,
but they don't like Donald Trump.
They don't like our administration.
They don't like the oppression
that they're constantly putting on other people.
They don't like the false religions
that they're spreading towards everybody
and all the lies and the smut and the filth.
And look, the Jews, they don't like the Samaritans
because they're mixed in false religion.
They blaspheme the God of the Bible.
They've kind of rejected him.
They have some good reasons.
They have a little bit of enmity there,
but look, Jesus is still loving his enemy today.
We ought to love our enemy.
Go if you would to Romans chapter number 12.
Now, for sake of time,
I'm not going to look all these verses up,
but let me give you another enemy.
The apostle Peter.
So apostle Peter.
Yeah, because he was trying to stop Jesus
from going to the cross.
And he said, get behind me, thee Satan.
He was an enemy at one point.
You know what?
Jesus still loved him.
The young rich ruler came unto Jesus Christ and said,
good master, what good thing may I do
that may inherit eternal life?
And the Bible says, Jesus looked on him, loving him.
Now, this guy was not really his friend
because he's calling him good master.
He explains to him what it means to call him good master.
And then he just starts calling him master.
And he goes away sorrowful.
He doesn't even believe on him.
He's not really his amigo.
He was flattering him.
He's kind of an enemy.
And look, anybody flattering you is an enemy.
But you know what?
He loved him.
He wanted that guy to get saved
and he preached him the truth.
And Luke chapter number,
let's keep your finger in Romans 12.
Go to Luke.
Let's look at one of these places.
Go to Luke chapter 23.
Look at verse number 32.
And it says, and there were also two other malefactors
led with them to be put to death.
And when they were come to the place,
which is called Calvary, there they crucified him.
And the malefactors, one on the right end
and the other on the left, then said Jesus,
Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
He's loving his enemies again.
The people that are literally putting him on the cross.
Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
I mean, you could not look at Jesus Christ's life
and say, oh, he didn't love his enemy.
He did love his enemy.
He loved the Romans.
He loved the Centurion.
He loved the Samaritans.
Even some of the Gentiles, he gets saved.
You know, the woman whose daughter is vexed
with an unclean spirit.
You know, she even gets some breadcrumbs, all right?
Jesus truly loved his enemies.
He even loves the people that put him on the cross.
He loves Peter,
even though he's being influenced by the devil.
He loves Judas.
He washes Judas' feet.
He does good unto Judas, his own betrayer.
Now, let me make it clear, okay?
Since Jesus is God, he knew that Judas was a betrayer,
was a traitor, okay?
But a true Judas, you and I have no idea.
We're not God, okay?
If we knew it was a Judas, we would be like,
it's a Judas, and then we'd throw him out, okay?
We'd no longer be a Judas.
The Judas means he's snuck in unawares
and we're not aware of it.
So you know what?
You would still love that enemy too.
And look, there's sometimes a person
that you're kind of like, I don't know about this guy.
A lot of red flags are firing, you know?
But there's nothing you can really do about it,
so you just love him anyways,
given the benefit of the doubt.
And if he turns out to be a Judas,
well, then, you know, he'll go hang himself later.
But at the end of the day, Jesus still loved Judas.
To give us the example that, hey,
even if we weren't really sure, just love him anyways, okay?
Judas was not a picture of someone
that was manifested as a bad person.
It's just Jesus happened to know that because he's God,
so he's still giving us that kind of an example.
Just like Jesus gave us the example of baptism,
he didn't, you know, did he have to get baptized?
I mean, obviously, to fulfill all righteousness,
the Bible says that very clearly,
and it was the example that he gave unto us,
but a lot of things that he's doing,
he's just doing for an example for us.
He makes prayers public just for our benefit.
He healed Lazarus from the dead after four days
just for our benefit.
So he's loving Judas to show us,
sometimes you're gonna wash Judas' feet.
Get over it.
Just love him any, just think of it as a great reward.
Like, I don't know.
Just think how great that, think of the cool stories.
Remember when I washed Judas' feet?
It's great.
You know, I'd rather be the guy that washed Judas' feet
than wash nobody's feet.
Look at Romans chapter 12, verse 14.
Bless them which persecute you.
Bless and curse not.
Rejoice with them that do rejoice,
and weep with them that weep.
Be of the same mind one toward another.
Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate.
Be not wise in your own conceits.
Reconvince to no man evil for evil.
Provide things honest in the sight of all men.
If it be possible, as much as lie within you,
live peaceably with all men.
Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves,
but rather give place unto wrath,
for it is written, vengeance is mine.
I will repay, saith the Lord.
Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him.
If he thirst, give him drink.
For in so doing, thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.
Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
Hey, someone in the church does something bad to you,
love them anyways.
Your next-door neighbor, he just,
he waters, you know, his sprinklers 24-7
and just floods your yard and makes it a mess
and he harasses you and calls the cops on you.
Love them anyways.
And oftentimes, if you're consistently loving
towards a person, a lot of times you can win them over.
You're not gonna win somebody over
by being mean back to them.
You know, sometimes people, guys, young single guys,
they'll play this game where they're trying
to one-up each other on doing stuff.
Like you'll trip the one guy and then the next guy
will throw your lunch in the trash
and the next guy will plant sardines on your burger.
Look, this doesn't end well.
It just keeps escalating until there's a breaking point
and then it gets really bad.
You know how things get remedied by someone deciding
to be the bigger person and doing good
and going back and reconciling.
And this is the type of attitude we have.
And notice it says in verse number 18, if it be possible.
Okay, obviously there is some exceptions here, okay?
And we're gonna talk about those in a moment,
but we have to understand our default
should always be love, grace, mercy, kindness.
Now, if I'm going out soul winning
after the first and second admonition,
you know, what am I supposed to do with a hair tick?
Reject.
But yes, I had a first admonition
and I had a second admonition because I'm being loving,
I'm being gracious, I'm giving people benefit of the doubt
and they have to keep proving me wrong
for me to change my opinion.
Even if I look at somebody they're the most faggoty,
queer looking person I've ever seen,
I still try to give them the gospel and I have.
And I never, I've never not given the gospel
to somebody that wants to hear it.
I've never done it.
There's never been a person that's like,
I want the gospel, please give it to me
and I just walk the way.
You know why?
Because fags never wanna hear the gospel.
And I'm not saying that because it's, you know,
cause I want that to be true.
I'm saying that because it is true.
They literally say like, go away, you don't want me,
I hate God, I hate the gospel.
They mock the gospel every single time.
You know what it does?
It just increases my faith in Romans one every single time.
Just keeps going on, just keeps,
I mean, I keep wondering, can it get bigger
and it just keeps getting bigger, you know?
Just a greater faith, all right?
Go to Matthew 23.
Now what does it mean someone that curses you?
It's someone that wishes to invoke evil, calamity,
injury or destruction upon you.
So it's even saying, look, people that would curse you,
you're not supposed to curse back,
you're supposed to bless them and want good for them
and do good under them.
And of course, if this is a brother in Christ,
you never have place to curse them.
You never have room to have wrath towards them.
We always, we should always have love towards the brother.
No matter how far they get from the truth,
no matter how bad they are,
we ought to just love them and do good under them.
That's what it's like to be a, you know, like Christ.
Christ is gonna always be loving.
Now sometimes love can be tough
and reference my sermon tough love, okay,
on what that looks like.
Sometimes you gotta rebuke somebody that you love.
Sometimes you gotta reprove them.
But at the end of the day,
it ought to still be coming out of place of love,
not just, you know, being a jerk about it.
But here's the thing, if, and again,
I just don't understand this.
How can you say you believe the Bible
and you believe that God's word is true, okay,
and then you say, oh, love your enemies,
and then you read Matthew 23 and you get mad at me
if I say that I hate anybody
or I'm mad about anybody or anything?
It's just because they're so imbalanced.
Because you say, when does someone throw,
you know, love your enemies in your face?
It's when you're talking bad about someone.
It's when you pick out a person
and you're saying something negative about them.
You're saying, hey, this guy's a child of the devil.
This guy's gonna split hell wide open.
I hate this guy.
This guy is someone that's wicked.
You know, you're saying these type of things,
oh, love your enemies.
But wait a minute.
What was Jesus like?
Let's look at Matthew 23, verse 13.
But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
For ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men,
for ye neither go in yourselves.
Now, did Jesus think these guys were saved?
He said, he doesn't even say, well, maybe you guys,
you guys need the gospel, don't you?
He's saying you're not going in.
Not only that, he says, neither suffer ye them
that are entering to go in.
So he says, there's people,
they're coming to this guy's church,
and they're saying, what must I do to be saved?
And the guy would believe the gospel,
but then he says, repent of your sins.
And he's like, well, how do I do that?
You just have to really beg God and plead with him,
and just really repent and believe.
You're a wicked sinner.
You understand how wicked you are?
And they're just like, I'm so wicked, ah!
This is your lordship salvation crowd.
This is your Paul Washer crowd.
He literally has this testimony where there's this guy
that wants to be saved.
He wants to know he's saved.
He says he sits there and explains to the guy
the same thing over and over for like a day,
like 24 hours straight, until the guy gets it.
And he didn't get it.
Oh, you just gotta really repent.
I just really, I really want to repent.
You know, that's so stupid.
That's not the gospel.
The gospels believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and thou shall be saved.
So he would come to the Pharisees, and they'd say,
hey, how do I get into heaven?
Keep the commandments.
Be a good person.
Are you tithing on your anise?
Are you tithing on your cumin?
You know, that's probably their first response.
Where's your pocketbook, buddy?
You know, where's your heart at?
Let's figure out where your heart at
is where your wallet's at, right?
They're gonna sit there, and they're gonna damn people
by their false doctrine.
Verse 14, Woe, and you scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites, for you devour widows' houses.
You say, did you just make that up?
Well, look, the first thing he condemns them for
is devouring widows' houses.
A poor little widow comes into these Pharisees,
asking how to be saved, and you know what?
He takes her money.
Well, you know, you get saved.
You start giving all your money to, you know, the temple.
Just takes her money, knows she's going to hell,
doesn't even care.
Oh, I'm supposed to love this person, right?
Well, it doesn't seem like Jesus is very loving
to this person.
He already says they're not going to heaven.
He says, for a pretense make long prayer,
therefore, ye shall receive the greater damnation.
And look, damnation is nothing for a saved person.
Damned is going to hell.
He's saying, you're gonna give the greatest damnation.
There's nobody getting worse damnation than you guys.
False prophets.
Verse 15, woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,
for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte,
and when he is made, you make him twofold more
the child of hell than yourselves.
These guys are children of hell.
Verse 16, woe unto you blind guides, which say,
Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing,
but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple,
he is deader.
That just shows where their heart is.
They literally think that money is more important
than the house of God.
And he's saying, which sanctifies which here, buddies?
Does the house of God sanctify the gold?
Or is the gold sanctifying the house of God?
Let me wake you up, it's not the money.
It's God that sanctifies.
And you guys are so wicked.
All you care about is stealing from the widows.
You love money.
You're just sending people to hell.
You're the children of the devil.
Why in the world is someone gonna throw this in my face
and say, hey, you think that Catholics are of the devil?
Love your enemies.
I'm not gonna love the Catholic pope.
I'm not gonna love the Catholic pedophile priest
that's damning souls constantly.
And look, 99.9% of the population, let me wake you up,
is not a Catholic priest.
That's why it's so stupid.
So you get so imbalanced.
Love your enemy.
Just love the pope.
Just love the fact that he's stealing money from people
and damning their soul to hell.
No, I'm not gonna do that.
Jesus didn't.
Look at verse 29.
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,
because he build the tombs of the prophets
and garnish the sepulchers of the righteous,
and say, if we had been in the days of our fathers,
we would not have been partakers with them
in the blood of the prophets.
Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves
that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.
Fill ye up then the measures of your fathers.
Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers,
how can ye escape the damnation of hell?
Love your enemies.
There's people, your family members and friends,
they would be saying to Jesus, you're not loving.
You need to love your enemies, Jesus.
He's like, I preached that.
I am the word of God.
You know, in that same sermon when I was screaming
about woe unto you that are rich, you left and got offended,
so then you forgot to hear how many explaining
you love your enemies makes sense.
You just parrot that.
Love your enemies.
I mean, I don't even call the fags like serpents
and vipers and I, I mean, he's hardcore here.
Look at verse 34.
Wherefore behold I sin unto you prophets
and wise men and scribes, and some of them ye shall kill
and crucify, and some of them shall you scourge
in your synagogues and persecute them from city to city.
That upon you may come all the righteous blood
shed upon the earth from the blood of righteous Abel
under the blood of Zechariah son of Barachias,
whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.
Barely I sand you all these things
so come upon this generation.
Love your enemies, Jesus.
He did.
He loved the Roman centurion.
In fact, he even loved some of the Pharisees
because Nicodemus came unto him
and he gave him the greatest verse
you can even imagine, John 3.16.
What's more loving than giving someone John 3.16?
But I don't remember him giving John 3.16 to these guys.
I don't remember saying anything kind to these people.
Why?
Because we have to take and balance the life
of Jesus Christ.
Go to Luke chapter 10, Luke chapter 10.
We're trying to understand what it means
to love your enemy today and look, again,
it means 90, you know, some percent of the world.
If you're a false prophet, I'm not gonna love you though.
Now let me make it clear because
the Pharisees are just obvious, wicked false prophets.
They're complete hypocrites.
They're teaching a false gospel.
There are people I believe that still can get mixed up
in false religion and be in some levels of leadership
and they're not necessarily damned, okay?
There are some people, they teach a Sunday school class,
they're a youth pastor, whatever,
and they get mixed up on the gospel
and they're still redeemable.
But you say, well, how do I figure that out?
After the first and second ammunition.
Look, Jesus has been trying to preach to these Pharisees
the gospel chapter after chapter after chapter,
then they blaspheme the Holy Ghost.
At that point, you're like, I'm done.
Look, if some false prophet's gonna sit here
and blaspheme Jesus Christ and teach the most obvious,
wicked false doctrine regarding the salvation,
you know what, this guy's not someone that's redeemable.
When Tyler Baker gets up and mocks God the Father
for sending the Son, like, you're done.
I mean, what do you need someone to say at that point?
Like mocking John 3.16, mocking the entire Bible,
mocking all that is love.
And it's not that he hasn't heard it.
It's not like, oh, someone needs to come there
and just show him what John 3.16 means.
He's got it.
He just hates it, like the devil.
Luke chapter 10, look at verse 25.
And behold, a certain lawyer stood up
and tempted him, saying, Master,
what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
He said unto him, What is written in the law?
How readest thou?
And he answered and said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,
and with thy strength, and with thy mind,
and thy neighbor as thyself.
And he said unto them, Thou hast answered right.
This do and thou shalt live.
But he noticed this, willing to justify himself,
said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbor?
And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down
from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves,
which stripped him as raiment and wounded him,
and departed, leaving him half dead.
And by chance there came down a certain priest that way.
And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
And likewise, a Levite, when he was at the place,
came and looked on him and passed by on the other side.
But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed,
came where he was, and when he saw him,
he had compassion on him, and went to him,
and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine,
and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an end,
and took care of him.
And on the morrow, when he departed,
he took out two pence, and gave them to the host,
and said unto them, Take care of him,
and whatsoever thou spendest more,
when I come again, I will repay thee.
Which now these three thinkest thou was neighbor
unto him that fell among the thieves.
And he said, He that showed mercy on him,
then said Jesus on him, Go and do thou likewise.
Now, what I wanna point out about the story,
you've heard this story a lot,
but I wanna look at it from a different perspective
of how we're going down this sermon.
This is Jesus explaining how to love your neighbor,
or love your enemy, I'm sorry.
The Samaritan is not friends with the Jew,
we already learned that, okay.
That's why he's pointing out a Samaritan versus the Jews,
okay, so the Samaritan comes,
it's someone that's not his buddy, not his friend,
but he's down on his luck,
and the Samaritan does good unto anyways.
And he's also trying to help this Jew,
who doesn't wanna believe in Jesus Christ,
who wants to justify himself,
hey, you've heard that have been said,
thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy.
He's still stuck on that one.
And so Jesus is trying to say,
hey, you know you also need to love as your neighbor?
The Samaritans, he's like, I don't like this answer.
I don't wanna love the Muslim,
I don't wanna love the police officer,
I don't wanna love whoever it is,
there's a Supreme Court justice,
well, they're probably reprobate by themselves.
Let's pick a different politician,
there's probably a politician out there
that's not reprobate, okay.
I don't know who he is, but he's out there somewhere.
Needle in the haystack, okay.
But this is where it gets crazy, okay.
You read this parable,
and this is what most Christians would come away with.
They would say, well, love your enemies.
Why didn't the Samaritan go and hug on those thieves?
Why didn't he go find those thieves
and see how they were doing,
and seeing if they needed the gospel?
That's what you get, you say,
hey, I hate the Catholics,
oh, why aren't you loving on them, the Catholic priest?
Because he's a thief, because he's hurting people.
Notice Jesus is not bringing up example
of a rapist, pedophile, murdering false prophet,
and like, let's love on that guy.
Because you're insane when you think that.
You're insane when you think
that I'm supposed to love those type of people.
You have no idea what the Bible says.
You might as well just tell me I've never read the Bible.
I haven't read any of it.
I'm so brain dead that I honestly think
that Jesus is telling me to love pedophiles.
And it's just frustrating.
You know, I get this thrown in my face all the time.
It's just like, how can you hate fags?
Look, when did Jesus ever love them?
I'm pretty sure he was raining fire and brimstone
down on their heads.
I'm pretty sure he, you know, Romans chapter one
makes it real clear how he feels about them.
Jude, he says, hey, you know how I feel
about the New Testament?
Jude, go to Second Chronicles chapter 19,
Second Chronicles chapter 19.
But this is the hypocrisy of these people.
They would read this parable and they'd come around,
and look, there's people that say this stuff.
There's people, you'll tell them about a story
of somebody molesting a child,
and they'll be like, well, pray for the molester.
Yeah, I'll pray that he'll die and go to hell.
I'll pray that he'll stop molesting children.
You think I'm gonna, you're insane.
And then they'll love your enemies.
Look, Jesus just told us who to love, to love the victim.
You know, there's that, it's been pretty popular,
you know, amongst our friends and everybody,
but this wicked Cameron Giovanelli guy
who was taking advantage of his position of a pastor,
praying on a young girl, committing serial adultery
on a young girl, taking advantage of her
in all kinds of carnal ways.
Then he comes out and he admits it,
and then you got Baptist pastors standing up there
being like, oh, we better forgive,
because, you know, that judgment bus goes both ways,
you know, it could reverse on you.
Well, I hope that a bus runs me over, unless a child.
I don't have any problem with that.
I hope all of you hate me and throw me out of my face.
Throw stones at me, I don't care.
I'm not, I'm not willing to, I'm not saying
that I'm not willing to be judged by the same measure here.
That's what's so ridiculous.
You know who wants to advocate for pedophiles?
Pedophiles.
I don't know, I can't think of any other person
that would want to advocate
for a serial adultery pedophile.
I would be ashamed of myself if I was,
love your enemies.
You know, we ought to be gracious.
Go find them thieves and, you know, be gracious under them.
No, let's go hang them up and get the money back.
Look at 2 Chronicles 19, verse two.
And Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him
and said to the king Jehoshaphat,
shouldest thou help the ungodly
and love them that hate the Lord?
How can you love them that hate the Lord?
Therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord.
Put that verse in your pipe and smoke it
all you love your enemy lying devils.
It's such garbage.
And oftentimes the people that are quoting this
are the most wicked people.
Love your enemies.
Look, I am gonna love my enemy.
I'm gonna love all kinds of people that don't deserve it.
I'm gonna be gracious on all kinds of people
that don't deserve it.
You know what, I'm not gonna love them that hate the Lord.
And let me just tell you something.
These sick, disgusting perverts that stand out here
and protest our church, I do not love them.
I hate them.
I hope that they die.
But let me tell you what, the first time,
like basically the first time I had an opportunity,
I went out there with my Bible in hand and I loved them.
And I said, hey, you know, what's going on?
Can I, you know, talk, can I show you the gospel?
And he's just like, I hate the Bible.
I hate Jesus.
I'm a former pastor.
You know, I don't believe in your sky theory.
It had nothing to do with me.
It had nothing to do with a steadfast Baptist church.
He's not even my personal enemy, really.
He hates God.
He hates Jesus.
And I'm not gonna love him for one second.
I even thought about offering the guy a water bottle,
but then I was like, it needs to be like, you know,
a Sodom and Gomorrah bottle, you know,
some fire and brimstone to be thrown at this guy.
But I'm not gonna avenge myself, okay?
I'm gonna let God take care of it.
Go to Ephesians chapter five, Ephesians chapter five.
How can you read 2 Chronicles chapter 19
where it literally says that you shouldn't love them
that hate the Lord and then take the New Testament
and flip it on his head?
You're making like somehow the Old Testament's
not loving or something.
Look, Jesus didn't come to destroy the law
but to fulfill the law.
And he also didn't come to establish brand new, you know,
here's how to love better, you know.
No, it was the same love.
It was the same God.
He's the lamb slain before the foundation of the world.
Ephesians chapter five verse 19,
speaking yourselves in psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs, singing and making melody
in your heart to the Lord.
Go to Psalms 139.
Colossians three says, let the word of Christ
dwell in you richly in all wisdom,
teaching and admonishing one another
and psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
singing with grace in your heart to the Lord.
The New Testament says two times to sing the Psalms.
Now, what sense would it be
if I'm never allowed to hate anybody for any reason
and then the New Testament's telling me to sing the Psalms
and then I literally have Psalms 139,
which we sung twice today, okay, mind you.
And let's just pay attention one more time.
Verse 19, surely thou wilt slay the wicked, oh God.
Depart from me therefore you bloody men.
It sounds like those guys that we read about
in that parable, huh?
For they speak against thee wickedly
and thine enemies take thy name in vain.
Do not I hate them, oh Lord, that hate thee
and am not I grieve with those that rise up against thee?
I hate them with perfect hatred.
I count them my enemies.
Notice he has to count them because they weren't.
He makes them his enemies.
Search me, oh God, and know my heart.
Try me and know my thoughts
and see if there be any wicked way in me
and lead me in the way everlasting.
Why am I supposed to sing that in the New Testament
when I'm supposed to just love everybody, period?
Oh, you're just so ungodly.
No, you're ungodly.
I love the Bible.
I love Jesus and I don't love those that hate God.
Not gonna happen.
Go to Psalms 58.
Now, one thing you have to understand
is there's these people in the Bible
mention as bloody men
and the Bible has a very clear picture for these people.
There's no love.
What does this bloody man look like?
It's your abortion doctor at Planned Parenthood.
Just this murderous, wicked, evil person
and they love the wages of unrighteousness.
They love making money off of murder, off of killing.
This is not a normal person.
Ted Bundy, get the DVD.
I have like hundreds of them, okay?
Psychopath reprobates.
They really exist.
These bloody, deceitful people,
they're not somebody I'm gonna love.
Oh, what if someone came to you
and they said, I'm a reformed child-predatoring pervert.
I'm gonna say, if you don't step off my property soon,
you're gonna die.
I mean, I have no love for this person.
I'm not gonna let you come into my church.
That's disgusting.
Oh, they're reformed.
They're not reformed.
They only are ashamed when they get caught
and it's fake then anyways.
Psalms 55 says, but thou, O God,
shall bring them down into the pit of destruction.
Bloody, deceitful men shall not live out half their days,
but I will trust me.
That's another Psalm I'm supposed to sing.
Psalm 11, the Lord trieth righteous,
but the wicked and him that loveth violence,
his soul hateth.
You know, they'll say, hey, how could you ever mock anybody?
You know, someone was telling me, you're so wicked.
I saw you mocking a fag.
And it's like, okay.
Well, you know God mocks people in the Bible.
Where?
Proverbs one.
He says, because I have called and you refused,
I stretched out my hand and no man regarded,
but you have said it not all my counsel
and with none of my proof, I also laugh at your calamity.
I will mock when your fear cometh.
The God of the Bible will mock all those that rejected him.
He's gonna laugh at them.
And look, laugh when God's laughing, it should be a sermon.
It's always scary.
It's terrifying.
It's not cause something was funny, okay.
It's, I mean, I guess it's funny to him.
It's just, it's funny to him that these pea brain,
you know, morons think that they can overcome God,
the God of the Bible.
He's laughing at how stupid they are, how foolish they are.
He says, when your fear cometh as desolation
and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind,
when distress and anguish cometh upon you,
then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer.
They shall seek me early, but they shall not find me
for that they hated knowledge
and did not choose the fear of the Lord.
Now, one thing you got to understand about this
is obviously if God just manifested himself
in all of his glory, you have no,
the only thing you're gonna do is just bow the knee
and declare Jesus, you know, as Lord, okay.
You're not gonna escape believing in that.
And this is why sometimes the Bible say, you know, the Jews,
he hardened their hearts and blinded their eyes
lest they should believe at any time,
lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears
and they should be converted and I should heal them.
Obviously, if God just manifested himself
in that type of way, they might even believe in him.
But he's saying, hey, if you're gonna reject the Bible
and you're gonna reject Moses
and you reject the gospel over and over,
then I'm gonna harden your heart
where you couldn't believe no matter what happened.
So he's saying, even when they somehow decide
to call upon him, you know,
when they're calling upon him in hell, too late.
When they're standing before him at the white judgment,
the great white throne judgment, too late.
I believe in you now, God.
Hey, will you save me now?
Hey, I believe in the lamb now.
He's gonna mock at them.
He's gonna laugh at them.
This is their chance.
Now is the day of salvation.
It's a fearful God.
It's not like, well, I'll just wait,
just kind of figure it out.
I'm a pretty good person, not gonna work out.
Psalms 58, verse one.
Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation?
Do ye judge uprightly all ye sons of men?
Yea, in heart ye work wickedness.
Ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth.
The wicked are estranged from the womb.
They go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.
Their poison is like the poison of a serpent.
They are like the deaf adder that stoppeth their ear,
which will not hearken to the voice of charmers
charming never so wisely.
Love your enemies.
Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth.
Love your enemies.
Break out the great teeth of the young lions, O Lord.
Let them melt away as waters which run continually
when he bendeth his bow to shoot his arrows.
Let them be as cut in pieces.
Now how am I supposed to get up and sing for God
to break the teeth of people's mouths out,
but somehow love your enemy at the same time?
It's talking about two different people.
The only logical explanation is it's two different people.
The Pharisee is not the enemy that God said to love.
What did the Pharisees do to Jesus at that point?
They didn't.
They weren't his personal enemy at that point.
They didn't do anything to him personally.
Later they crucify him, okay.
But I'm just saying in that moment, but they hated God.
They were a perverter of righteousness.
And so, you know what, he counted them as enemies.
He's wanting them to die.
Verse eight, as a snail which melteth,
let every one of them pass away,
like the untimely birth of a woman,
that they may not see the sun.
I mean, this is not positive.
There's no way.
Verse 10, the righteous shall rejoice
when he seeth the vengeance.
He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.
This is not contradicting love your enemy.
It's two different people.
Now, I'm gonna, for sake of time, just go to Acts 13, okay.
I've spent a long time in the sermon.
The best person that we have in the Old Testament is David.
And David truly loved his enemy.
The Bible says in 1 Samuel 18,
and Saul was yet the more afraid of David,
and Saul became David's enemy continually.
The Bible just tells you point blank,
Saul and David are enemies.
Saul is trying to kill David.
And let me tell you something,
David never stopped loving Saul ever.
Never.
Even after death, he loved him.
When they're in heaven together, they still love each other.
And finally, Saul got off his pride horse, okay.
He loves David again.
So I don't care who your Saul is, love him.
But we don't see David going down
and giving a love hug to Goliath.
You're a moron if you think that.
You're a fool.
I mean, David, he's not going around
and just loving on all the Philistines.
And just like, can I worship your God with you?
You think I'm gonna walk in the Catholic church
and worship Mary with them?
False.
That's why it's so ridiculous.
Because David hated Goliath, and he loves Saul.
And honestly, Saul did a lot worse things to him
than Goliath ever thought of doing.
But you know why he didn't like Goliath?
Because he hated God.
Because he's defying God.
He cut off Goliath's head, okay.
Now the Bible says, you know, in the New Testament,
it says, if any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ,
let him be an Anaphma maranatha.
Galatians 1 says, but though we are an angel from heaven,
preach any other gospel unto you
than that which we have preached, let him be accursed.
The Bible says, for many deceivers are entered in the world
who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.
This is a deceiver and an anti-Christ.
And you know what?
Whenever you decide to love these people,
the Bible warns, for him that bideth them Godspeed
is partaker of his evil deeds.
Oh, we need to just love on the pedophile.
You're a pedophile.
We need to love on the fag, you're a fag.
We need to love on the Catholic priest,
you're a false prophet.
You're a partaker of their evil deeds.
You better be careful who you love.
The Jehovah's false witness,
I don't even partake of that.
The Mormons, the Catholics, it's just sick today.
Look at Acts chapter 13, verse eight.
But Eliam is the sorcerer,
for so is his name by interpretation withstood them,
seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith.
Then Saul, who also is called Paul,
filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him
and said, I love you so much.
You're, grace, mercy.
Oh, full of all subtlety and all mischief,
thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness,
will thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord.
And then you got a crowd over here, love your enemy.
It's ridiculous.
And now behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee,
and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season.
And immediately they have thrown him amiss in the darkness,
and he went about seeking some
to lead him by the hand.
Then the deputy, when he saw what was done,
believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord.
Now let me make it clear again.
You say, who do you hate, Pastor Shelley?
Well, I preach a sermon, it's really convenient.
It's called, you know, people that I hate.
You can go reference it, it's pretty clear.
You know I hate people that hate God.
And they pretty much fall into one of two categories.
They're either a false prophet or they're a fag.
And most of the time, they're all of them.
The Catholic priest, he's a false prophet,
he's usually a fag, and he's usually a pedophile.
He's the trifecta of unrighteousness, all of that.
And you say, who do you hate, those.
Everybody else, we gotta love them.
We gotta do good under them.
We gotta treat them with respect.
And when we start taking one verse in the Bible
and running with it, you get so imbalanced.
Don't get imbalanced by taking any one of these verses out.
You don't wanna just take, oh, I hate them that hate thee,
and just start running with that,
and start getting a hammer in your hand,
and start just saying like, do you believe the gospel?
No, bam!
You know, he could just be an unsaved person.
Give him the gospel, okay?
You know, let's make sure he's a pedophile,
you know, pervert, fag, false prophet first, okay?
One of those.
Jesus did not love Judas, he did not love Herod.
He called him that fox.
Even in Romans chapter 11, the Bible says that the Jews,
they're enemies for the gospel's sake.
But you know, the apostle Paul said that he wished
that he were a curse for his kinsmen.
So he still loved his enemies.
The apostle Paul loved his enemies constantly.
But let me give you a few other examples quickly, okay?
How do we get imbalanced?
Well, sometimes you read a verse about giving to the poor,
and you don't balance that with a verse that says
we need to consider the cause of the poor.
So people just start running with that,
and they start setting up heroin clinics,
like in California, where they literally are gonna have
a safe space for heroin addicts to go ahead and shoot up.
And then after they shoot up,
they counsel with them about how that's bad.
I'm like, wouldn't the counseling session be before?
Like, I don't know.
I would think after you're high on meth or something,
it's probably not the best time
to counsel them about how that's bad, okay?
That's the bad running with a verse.
You also don't wanna just,
well, I just need to consider the cause of the poor.
And just, obviously, people that are poor
usually made bad decisions, okay?
So we wanna have a good balance of loving people,
doing good, men ruling their home.
You know what?
Men need to lay down the law.
They need to be one in charge.
You know what?
You don't wanna just run with that verse.
You wanna balance that with husbands love your wives
and be not bitter against them.
Otherwise, you're gonna have a really bad marriage.
You know, you don't wanna run with weird authority issues.
Oh, we out of bed God rather than man.
So anything that I don't like, I'm not gonna obey.
That's not what it said.
It also says to submit to every ordinance of man.
So you gotta balance that with,
we outta obey God rather than man.
Whenever there's a conflict, okay, now I obey God.
I oughta honor my father and my mother
as long as they're not contradicting the Bible.
You know, the New Testament has to be balanced
with the Old Testament.
The Old Testament has to be balanced with the New Testament.
You need both.
Seek ye first the kingdom of God.
Some people, they'll just, well, I'm at church 24 seven.
Well, you're gonna be violating a lot of the commandments.
Like if any man provide not for his own,
especially for them of his own house.
Look, you have to get all the Bible in context.
Well, I'm not under the law.
Okay, well, be holy.
You have to get a good balance with the Bible.
Therefore, if you don't read the Bible cover to cover,
you're gonna be so imbalanced.
It's like only eating one food group.
Well, I only eat celery.
You're gonna be imbalanced.
I only eat bread, imbalanced.
I only eat meat, imbalanced.
I'm a vegetarian, imbalanced, okay.
Vegan, really imbalanced, okay.
You wanna get a good assortment, a good arrangement,
and I'll give you a carnal example, okay, but I like it.
It's like golf, okay.
Now, I'm gonna explain a little bit about golf for a second.
In golf, the main goal
is to just have the lowest score on the card.
You know, each hole, you're just trying to get
the lowest number you can possibly get on the card.
And at the end of the day,
it doesn't really matter how you got there.
The only thing that matters is that score.
Now, let me give you the spiritual application.
Soul winning.
You know, the only thing that really matters
at the end of the day,
how many people you give the gospel to.
You know how you give a lot of people the gospel?
By being a well-balanced Christian.
You know how you get a really good low golf score?
By being a really well-balanced golfer.
You have to actually hit the fairway.
You actually have to hit it on the green in regulation.
You actually have to be good at chipping.
You have to be good at putting.
You have to be good at course management.
You have to have a lot of skills on the golf course
in order to make a low score constantly.
Can you technically hook it into the woods
and hit a miraculous shot banking off a tree
and it just rolls through the water
and it goes in the hole or something?
Yeah, it could happen.
But that doesn't sound real likely.
And if you don't read the Bible and you don't go to church
and you're not following God's commandments,
could I just go outside and get somebody to say,
hey Pastor Shelley?
Yeah, you could.
You know who's not doing that consistently?
People that live that kind of a lifestyle.
You know who consistently goes soul winning?
The people that go to church every time the doors are open
and they read their Bible every day
and they serve God with their life.
There's this weird phenomenon
that the people that are three to thrive
happen to be the biggest soul winners.
Isn't that weird?
And the people that read their Bible the most,
they seem to people that do the most soul winning
and they're the best soul winners.
You say, what's the main thing, going soul winning?
But you gotta get a good balance in your life.
That's what I want the application of the sermon to be.
Obviously most of you know, love your enemies, okay?
But here's the thing,
there's a lot of other parts of the Bible
that you don't wanna get in balance.
You have to read it, you have to be going to church,
you have to understand it
and if you're not a well balanced golfer,
you're not gonna get there.
Well, I watch a lot of golf on YouTube.
You're gonna suck at golf.
Well, I watch a lot of church on YouTube.
I've never met an just awesome soul winner
and he says, you know what, I don't go to church
but I watch a lot of sermons on YouTube.
That just doesn't happen.
And they might have made a really good score
on one hole one time but golf's a long game
and your life's a really long time.
You need to just go ahead and get committed
to all the things of God and follow all of his commandments
and then you know what,
you're gonna be shooting some low scores
which in golf it's opposite, okay?
You're gonna be getting a lot of people saved, all right?
Let's close in prayer.
Thank you Father so much for your word.
Thank you for these great commandments of loving your enemy
and also the fact that we're not supposed to love those
that hate the Lord.
I pray that everyone in this room would strive
for a great balance, that they would love the Bible,
they would appreciate God's word,
that they would study to show themselves approved unto God
and that today that we.