church thank you for attending this evening find our seats and open our
hymn books to page 51 51 where we'll never grow old come to steadfast
Baptist Church page 51 where we'll never grow old evening you got here safely
that you would just that's the service this evening thank you for all this
week us pastor and the method to apply it Christian life Jesus name I pray
amen our second song this evening will be page 149 page 149 trusting Jesus
trusting Jesus steadfast Baptist Church if you didn't already get a bullets in
you'd need one just lift your hand nice and high when our ushers can come by
get you guys a bullets in on the front we have our Bible memory passage Matthew
28 is the Bible memory chapter and if you can quote verse 18 you 18 and under
you can receive a special prize at the evening after the evening service
tonight on the inside we have our service and soul winning times as well
as our regional soul winning times there's our church stats please make
sure you're just updating our soul winning group as well as we have maps
that you can put a the done bin over here if you get them completed that'll
just help us to track our progress on the right please be in prayer for our
expecting ladies and as well as our upcoming events we have our kids choir
practice has been going on Sundays at 2 and really looking forward to them
performing on our Easter services we have the Foley wedding this Friday at 6
p.m. looking forward to that there's a spring swap April 13th Mansfield soul
winning marathon is the 19th and we already do have some Easter cards if
you'd like to hand them out while going soul winning we have some Easter
invitations you can hand out there's a ladies tea that's gonna be happening on
May 10th and then we have church reminders there below our quiet time has
just been adjusted instead of it being from 2 to 4 it's kind of just right
after the kids choir until 4 and then there is still of course no running or
rough playing in the church please don't let your children get on our stage area
after the service or before also children should not be in our kitchen
area within unless they're being assisted by their parents also in our
mother baby rooms we have two one right here in there please make sure that the
children are only in there with their mother at all times also our fellowship
room is just not a wrestle bin or a play area so please please don't let your
kid just go in there and just run around or something children should also not be
using our church supplies unnecessarily please make sure you're cleaning up after
yourself our water bottles are for our soul winning and then parents please
make sure you're watching your kids also all you kiddos if some some adult tells
you hey don't get on the stage or do this you know just say yes sir yes ma'am
and just do it on the back is our prayer list we have several that we can go over
this evening we've been continuing to pray for the naïms for their
grandmother's vision health and salvation we've been praying for the
Carlson's for their mother and father we've been praying for Miss Miller's
friend who's struggling with cancer we've been praying for the Scotts for
cancer and for nerve pain and also praying for their health also we're
praying for the Garcia's for brother Tony's health been praying for the
Goodwin's friend with Sarah for recovery also brother Nick had asked for prayer
for his mother's salvation and co-worker also miss Larky is still
healing so we continue to pray for her praying for brother Brad asked for
prayer for his father and sister's health and for him personally in his
work also if you'd be in prayer for brother Diego's friend miss Morris who's
struggling with health issues so several prayer requests there we'll just say a
quick word of prayer as a church family thank you heavenly father so much for
this service and thank you so much for all of our ladies who are expecting in
our church thank you so much for all of our events I pray that you would also
please just be with these family members and friends and church members who are
struggling with cancer and with sickness and with illness please if possible I
pray you give them recovery those who are needing to hear the gospel or to be
saved I pray that you give us the opportunity that you continue to soften
their hearts that you give us the boldness to preach unto them I pray that
you would help those that are needing blessing with their work or with their
finances that you would help them that you'd help them procure a good job I
pray that you would also just help us to be brave soul winners as we go out there
and preach the gospel that you bless our upcoming missions trips please be with
our evangelists Duncan or Bannock in the Philippines and I pray that you
continue to bless our church in Jesus name we pray amen that's all I have as
far as announcements we're gonna sing our psalm of the week psalm 67 it's in
our special hymn binders psalm 67 67 this should be a binder right in front
of you or you can use her Bible psalm 67 turn to Matthew chapter 15 chapter 15
wash not their hands when they eat bread but he answered and said unto them why
do you also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition for God
commanded saying honor thy father and mother and he that cursed father and
mother let him die the death but ye say whosoever shall say to his father or his
mother it is a gift by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me and honor not
his father his mother he shall be free thus have ye made the commandment of God
of none effect by your tradition he hypocrites welded his day as prophesy of
you saying this people draweth nigh into me with their mouth and honors me with
their lips but their heart is far from me but in vain they do worship me
teaching for doctrines the commandments of men and he called the multitude and
said unto them hear and understand not that which goes into the mouth defileth
a man but that which cometh out of the mouth this defileth a man then came his
disciples and said unto him knoweth thou that the Pharisees were offended after
they heard this saying but he answered and said every plant which my heavenly
father hath not planted shall be rooted up let them alone they be blind leaders
of the blind and if the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch
then answered Peter and said unto him declare unto this us this parable and
Jesus said are ye also without understanding do not ye yet understand
that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly and is cast out
into the draft but those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from
the heart and they defile the man for out of the heart proceed evil thoughts
murders adulteries fornications thefts false witness blasphemies these are the
things which defile a man but to eat with unwashed hands defileth not a man
then Jesus went thence and departed into the coast of Tyre and Sidon and behold
a woman of Canaan came out of the same coast and cried unto him saying have
mercy on me O Lord thou son of David my daughter is grievously vexed with the
devil but he answered her not a word and his disciples came and besought him
saying send her away for she cryeth after us but he answered and said I am
not sent but into the lost sheep of the house of Israel then came she and
worshiped him saying Lord help me but he answered and said it is not meat to take
the children's bread and cast it to dogs and she said truth Lord yet the dogs eat
of the crumbs which fall from their master's table then Jesus answered and
said unto her oh woman great is thy faith be it unto thee even as thou wilt
and her daughter was made whole from that very hour and Jesus departed from
thence and came nigh into the sea of Galilee and went up into a mountain and
sat down there and great multitudes came unto him having with them those that
were lame blind dumb maimed and many others and cast them down at the Jesus
feet and healed them and so much that the multitude wondered when they saw the
dumb to speak the maimed to be whole the lame to walk and the blind to see and
they glorified the God of Israel then Jesus called his disciples unto him and
said I have compassion in the multitude because they continue with me now three
days and have nothing to eat and I will not send them away fasting lest they
faint in the way and his disciples say unto him when should we have so much
bread in the wilderness as to fill so great a multitude and Jesus saith unto
them how many loaves have ye and they said seven and a few little fishes and
he commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground and he took the seven
loaves and the fishes and gave thanks and break them and gave to his disciples
and the disciples to the multitude and they did all eat and were filled and
they took up of the broken meat that was left seven baskets full and they that
did eat were four thousand men beside women and children and he sent away the
multitude and took ship and came into the coast of Magdala. Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you for Matthew chapter 15. Thank you for this
church. Thank you for our pastor. We pray that you bless Pastor Shelley, fill him with
the Holy Spirit, help him to preach your word unto us and help us to receive your
word and into our hearts. Praise in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Matthew 15 kind of
just abruptly starts here in verse 1. It says, "Then came to Jesus scribes and
Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying, 'Why do thy disciples transgress the
tradition of the elders, for they wash not their hands when they eat bread?'" So
you have Jesus Christ in chapter 14. He's traveling. He heals all these people and
then in chapter 15 it just kind of like abruptly brings up this story of just
"Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem." And I think
that that abruptness is to try and communicate something to us that, you
know, these people are coming out of their way to interrupt what Jesus is
doing. They're coming out of nowhere. This is not something that Jesus is
procuring unto himself, but rather you have the enemies going out and seeking
him and trying to cast these stumbling blocks. They're coming out to accuse him.
They're coming out to attack him and they're doing it subtly. You have to
understand that most of the attacks against the Lord Jesus Christ are done
in a subtle manner. And what does it mean subtle? They're not coming out and just
being open like, "I'm your enemy. I'm attacking you. I hate you." They're kind of
cloaking their hatred and pretending like they don't actually hate him or
they're actually sincere, but they're not sincere. And you know the Bible tells us
in some of the false prophet chapters that even as there is false prophets
among the people, even so there will be false teachers among you. And so you know you
got to think about this like obviously we could point to some weirdos out there
like a Kenneth Copeland or we could point to T.D. Jakes or some of these
people and think they're false prophets and of course they are, but the Bible is
saying amongst true Christianity, amongst those are the real disciples,
there's even going to be false teachers among them.
Joel Osteen's not among us, Joel Osteen's not like part of our crew,
Joel Osteen's not going to like possibly preach for us on the weekend or something like that.
You know, it's not really who we're really addressing.
So you have to understand that when the Bible talks about false teachers and false prophets
and infiltrators and Judas's, it's not talking about this ethereal idea or this abstract idea
or this group of people that are on the outside, it's talking about literally people coming
into our church, being amongst us, befriending us and being part of us and they're actually
not sincere.
And in the same way, Jesus, with the multitude, with their people, had people literally coming
to him in his crowd, in his group that were there to subvert, to attack, to ask insincere
questions and to basically try to harm his work, harm his process, falsely accusing him
and his disciples of doing things that are wrong. The scribes and the Pharisees come
out and they're saying, "Why are you not washing your hands when you eat?" Now, this is kind
of interesting because if you think about it, not washing your hands just, I think just
naturally seems a little offensive, maybe is a little taboo, or for sure is unsanitary.
And the Bible brings up many principles in the Old Testament about cleanliness, washing,
and there's certainly nothing wrong with washing your hands or washing your body before you
eat.
In fact, I do that often, and I think that my family does that.
You go to most restaurants, they even have a sign up in the bathroom that says employees
must wash their hands before returning to work.
And so I don't think that what's being brought up here is a bad idea.
So we have to understand the whole context here is it's not something that the Pharisees
are using some bad idea to attack Jesus, they're using a good idea, but they're taking it too
far.
They're going to take it too far.
Because notice what he says in verse 3, "But he answered and said to them, 'Why do ye also
transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?'
For God commanded saying, 'Honor thy father and mother, and he that curseth father and
mother, let him die the death.
But ye say, 'Whoso shall say to his father or his mother, it is a gift, by whatsoever
thou mightest be profited by me, and honor not his father or his mother, he shall be
free.
Thus have you made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.
Ye hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, 'This people draweth nigh unto
me with their mouth, and honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.'
Now he's saying what you're teaching is not what the Bible teaches, you're teaching it.
And then specifically he says in verse 10, and he called the multitude instead of them,
'Hear and understand, not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man, but that which
cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.'
Then came his disciples and said unto him, 'Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended
after they heard this saying?'"
So scribes and Pharisees are coming to Jesus, they're accusing him and his disciples of
doing something wrong, of sinning, by not washing their hands before they eat.
And Jesus then kind of rebukes them by pointing out some of their hypocrisy, saying, "Well,
not all of your traditions are even right, because some of your traditions contradict
the word of God and cause the word of God to simply have no effect."
And then he tries to explain his reasoning or explain why what they're doing is not wrong.
And he says in verse 11, "Not that which goeth into the mouth, the file of the man."
Now in other places in the Bible, it describes this, but if you skip down, notice he says
in verse 16, "And Jesus said, 'Are ye also yet without understanding, talking to disciples?'
Do you not yet understand that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth, goeth into the belly,
and is cast out into the draft?"
Now that last word, there's kind of a weird word as far as pronunciation is concerned.
It looks like "draught," but it's "draft."
So if you're going to draft somebody in the military, it's how you pronounce that word.
So it's just kind of a strange way to pronounce it as far as the way it looks.
But it's just saying, you know, in the draft, if you think about it, it's the exit, alright?
Now there's a part of the body that's an exit only, alright?
And it's just saying like, "Hey, this part of the body," and you know, of course, there's
lots of parts of the body that are all connected, your intestines and all these different parts
of your body, that cleanse the food that you eat.
It goes through a cleansing process, and all the things that it can possibly get, all the
nutrients and all the benefits of the food, it takes, and then everything that's not good,
it gets rid of.
It purges, in a sense.
So it's just basically saying, "Whatever you give me that's good, I'll take all of that
and use it, and then whatever is not capable of being used as a byproduct, as a waste product,
and it's going to be cast out in the draft."
So think about it.
It can't really harm you if all the bad stuff, think about it, all the bad stuff that went
in got purged and then put out, it went out the draft.
Well then it didn't hurt me because it's no longer in me anymore, right?
Whereas he's saying, "You know what's really harmful is the stuff that's proceeding out
of your heart."
That's the real danger, and that's what he's going to get to in this chapter, the verse
18.
"But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart, and they
defile the man.
For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murderers, adulteries, fornications, thefts,
false witness, blasphemies.
These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashing hands defileeth not
a man."
So you kind of have to get through a lot of this text to finally kind of get an answer
to this.
But Jesus is saying very clearly, just point blank stating, "Eating food without washing
your hands is not a sin."
And you know, sometimes there's things that we have to understand.
There's things that are like not necessarily the best.
There's things that are not the best.
Then there's things that are probably just not a good idea.
And then there's like sin, okay?
Not everything is sin.
So sometimes things are just not the best that doesn't make it a sin.
Sometimes things are just not really a good idea, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily
a sin.
And then there's just sin.
Sin is a transgression of the law according to the Bible.
So we don't want to start making up things as sin that are not actually a sin in the
Bible.
And some people, they almost like spend their life dedicated to things that are not expelled
out as a sin in the Bible as opposed to the things that the Bible is just hammering as
a clear sin.
You know, we don't want to be a preacher and we don't want to be a pastor that's always
focusing in on things that the Bible doesn't really talk about and is not bringing up.
We want to focus on the things that the Bible is bringing up.
And this is often what you get accused of, of preaching the same things over and over.
I get accused of that.
And I'm thinking like, okay, but do you know how much the Bible brings that up?
It's like, man, you just talk about the Jews all the time, okay?
Where do you want me to go in the Bible that's not bringing them up?
You know, it's just like, oh man, you're just bringing this topic up all the time.
You're bringing up false teachers all the time, okay?
Hey, you're bringing up people attacking church all the time.
It's like, but it's like literally the entire Bible.
I mean, who do you think the people attacking the men of God are in the Old Testament?
And then in the New Testament, how are you supposed to apply that?
Oh yeah, people attacking the church.
I mean, the Bible has just got some themes in it that are basically from Genesis to Revelation.
You know, what are the things that it's constantly bringing up?
Salvation by faith, and then its contrary part, work salvation.
And it's just always bringing that up.
It's always a theme in the Bible.
Replacement theology, just always being hammered in the Bible.
I mean, it's just constantly being brought up.
The Jews being distinct between the physical Jews and the spiritual Jews, who's true Israel
and who's fake Israel.
This is a constant theme that's being brought up in the Bible over and over and over.
Of course, typology, pictures and foreshadowing of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the end
times.
This is just constantly throughout the Bible.
And then the Bible has certain sins that it just hammers, like fornication.
I mean, fornication is just hammered in the Bible.
Drunkenness is hammered in the Bible.
Lying, hammered in the Bible.
Pride, hammered in the Bible.
So if we want to really just preach what the Bible says, we're going to be hitting these
topics just all the time, constantly hitting them over and over and over again.
You say, "Man, it just seems like Pastor Sillier's just preaching the same things.
He's preaching on soul winning all the time."
Yeah, because it's just a main component of the Bible.
And that's one of our main purposes of going to church.
So if you're going to church, one of the things I said should almost be in every sermon.
Like at least one of the things I said is probably in almost literally every sermon.
Okay?
Yet, there's going to be some things that are fringe, and some people just want to focus
on the fringe or focus in on hobby horse or tiny little issues that are not really brought
up in the Bible.
And we don't want to be those people.
We don't want to get up and just start preaching a 10-part series on washing your hands because,
you know, again, I'm not against saying that that's a good idea.
I think it is a good idea.
I don't even think that Jesus would argue and say that it wasn't a good idea.
What would be wrong is to get up and say if you're not washing your hands, you're sinning.
And the Bible is just explicit that that is not a sin.
And people will constantly do this where they just make things up and they make them a sin
that are not really a sin.
And they take something that's a good idea and they take it too far to where now they're
teaching a tradition as a commandment instead of as a tradition.
Some things that we do as a church are a tradition.
They're not a commandment.
You know, we meet on Sunday morning.
That's not a commandment.
That's a tradition.
Now it's a commandment to go to church, but it's not necessarily a commandment that we
have church on a specific day at a specific time.
That's our tradition.
So you know, someone would say like, is it a sin to not go to church at 10.30 on Sunday
morning?
Well, no, but to not go to church is a sin and church meets at 10.30.
So you better get to church at 10.30 on Sunday morning, right?
I mean, you kind of have to understand everything where it's in its lane.
Now historically, Baptists have been wrong on some things where they took like what I
believe is a kind of a good doctrine, but then they kind of took it to this unhealthy
extreme.
They took it too far.
One of these would be dancing.
Now I wanted to find, the internet's broken, otherwise I wanted to give you just like some
really hardcore clear-cut doctrinal statements because I'm sure they exist out there, but
the internet's broken so you can't find anything anymore.
But what I could find in some of the research I was doing, I remember there's a movie about
this.
What's the movie about this?
Somebody knows.
Footloose, there you go.
All right, the Oklahoma boy, of course.
So there's a movie called Footloose with Kevin Bacon in it, and it's specifically about
Baptist being against dancing.
And it's based on a city or a town in Oklahoma.
It's Elmore City.
So Elmore City, Oklahoma, in 1898 passed a law making it illegal, or a city ordinance
making it illegal for dancing in that city.
So the entire city, it was just, dancing was just illegal in this city.
Well by the 1980s, kids were really frustrated with this and they wanted to have a prom dance.
And so it was kind of like this big deal and it made national news and they ended up having
the dance and overturning this city ordinance and making it where dancing was not illegal.
Well then the whole movie gets based on this and it's called Footloose.
And again, Footloose isn't like just based on the true story only, obviously they fictionalize
things and dramatize things and whatever, it's Hollywood.
But it's kind of loosely based on this story about Elmore City.
Elmore City was a Southern Baptist Convention stronghold.
It had a lot of influence from the Southern Baptist Convention.
But in 1898, you know, this time in history, you know, a lot of people were very against
drinking, you know, alcohol and just mafia and gang related activity and things like
gambling were kind of prevalent in American society.
And so as a result to try and curb some of that, people would want to institute rules
against dancing because they would have kind of a club or a parlor where people are going
and, you know, they're dancing, but they're not just dancing.
They're also drinking alcohol.
They're involved in illegal activity, criminal activity, bringing in casinos and all this
other stuff.
So they thought here's a way to kind of curb some of that.
And that was the reasoning why some of that law was brought in.
And, you know, if you ask me, I do think that there's probably some forms of dancing that
probably cross certain lines.
You know, promiscuity, you know, the Bible does talk about, you know, not touching women
in certain ways.
Obviously, there's some types of dancing, there's some types of things that can lead
to fornication that are probably just not a wise or good idea.
And so is it really bad if you're saying, hey, I want people to not dance in a provocative
fornication-provoking way and I want to curb alcohol.
That seems like a pretty good idea to have some kind of rules or try to curb that kind
of an attitude.
But then it's not necessarily right to then just take it to this extreme, just say like
all dancing is now criminal, right?
And even some Baptist churches have basically had a doctrinal statement that said like no
dancing period.
And they would go so far as like no line dancing.
You know, I'm not against line dancing.
I'm just saying like they just go so far that it's just like literally every dancing was
just wrong.
And then they start twisting what David did in the Old Testament to try and justify their
anti-dancing doctrine.
So it's like once you kind of get to get an idea, sometimes you just start changing the
Bible to fit your idea.
And then it just starts getting weird.
And you know, we just want to make it clear or be careful that we're drawing lines where
the Bible's drawing lines, that we're not just getting up and just saying you know what,
dancing's a sin.
The Psalms bring up dancing and a positive mention, and it's not saying that there's
anything wrong with it.
You see the children of Israel dancing when they get on the other side of the Red Sea
with Miriam and they're doing their song and dance.
I don't think that dancing is sinful or wrong whatsoever.
Obviously, there's forms of dancing though that can obviously cross clear boundaries,
be something that you just shouldn't involve yourself in or do.
But I don't want to get up here and just start teaching for doctrines the commandments of
men and just say, "All dancing's wrong," because then you'd have to say chapter and verse.
And then when you have clear verses in the Bible saying that dancing is like a good thing,
how do you interpret that now, okay?
And plus, when David performed, he was performing under the Lord when he was dancing and bringing
the Ark of the Covenant back in.
So, like, how does that even make sense?
Here's another one that sometimes Baptists have, I think, have taken a little too far
is drums.
And, again, I couldn't find an exact doctrinal statement, but I've heard lots of people even
bring this up, and they kind of have this anti-drum mentality.
Now, again, for our church, specifically, we don't use drums in our hymns or any of
our music, and I don't plan on doing that.
I don't really want to do that, but that's more of a preference than it is, like, here's
a Bible commandment on that particular thing.
But I've heard preachers preaching whole sermons explaining how drums are satanic and how just
certain music patterns are satanic, and it's like if you calculate the beats per minute,
it's like somehow gets to 666 or something like that, and you're just like, this is weird.
I even found a quote, this is a quote that I found online, "Drums are the only instruments
used to call evil spirits."
I mean, what in the world, like, that's just weird, okay?
Again, somebody could take a preference or take maybe even a good idea, because frankly
speaking, I've never heard, like, a really good fundamental Baptist church singing hymns
with drums, and I'm thinking, like, "Oh, man, we're really missing out on something."
Typically when they bring the drums in, they bring in the long-haired weirdos and the style
of the music changes and the way of the church changes, and honestly, if you want to know
where a church is headed, music is often kind of that signal.
Like, it's usually the first thing that changes, is the music changes.
Pastor Anderson was telling me when he went to Hiles Anderson College, and he was part
of that institution, and they started changing the music before it started getting weird,
and Jack Scott started preaching all kinds of perverted, disgusting things.
And a lot of times, music kind of tells you, it's like, you want to know where America's
headed, look at Europe.
You know, you look at France and Europe, and then you kind of look at California, and then
like, you know, eventually we're going to kind of catch up to them or something like
that.
It's like, you start looking at the music, and sometimes you kind of see where the church
is headed, and a lot of them will deconstruct away from fundamentalism, deconstruct away
from traditional views.
So I don't want the drums.
And I think that a lot of Baptists, seeing that pattern, seeing that formula, seeing
what's happened and saying, you know, we're just not going to have drums because we don't
want to become liberal.
We don't want to change our style of music.
We like the old-fashioned hymns, and we're going to stay there.
I think it's a good idea.
Just like washing your hands.
I'm for it.
You know, I'm for washing your hands.
I'm for not having drums as a part of our church service.
I'm for the idea of preventing your children or people from doing certain types of dancing
or going to some kind of a club or something like that.
Yeah, I'm against those things, but you know, let's not take those good ideas and then stretch
them to a point where now we've crossed a boundary and we're just making things up.
We're calling things sin that aren't really a sin.
And then we start accusing people of doing things that are wrong or sinful when they're
not even sinful.
"Hey, you eat with unwashed hands, you're a sinner."
Well, no.
I mean, I've heard people saying things like, "Drinking water with lemon in it is a sin."
"Using a microwave is a sin."
Whenever I took over Steffa as a Baptist Church, people were asking me like, "Is it okay if
we use a microwave?"
And I was thinking like, "Yeah, maybe not with the tinfoil hat on."
Like, I don't know, you don't want to put your head into the microwave with the tinfoil
or something.
I'm just thinking like, "What in the world?"
Some people like start taking, it's like, "Man, if you're part of the new IBC, you
can't use a microwave."
I'm thinking like, "That's weird.
Don't become weird."
People will become weird if you let them.
Church normalizes you.
Good preaching will help you become more normal.
Bad preaching will make you weirder.
At the end of the day, we don't want to take these things too far.
Now, I even saw this weird thing on a doctoral statement this week, and it said this.
It said, "We reject child abuse," which is not weird, but it's weird that someone would
say that because I've never seen a church advocate for child abuse.
But I saw this statement that said, "We reject child abuse and teachings that leave room
for questionable discipline methods."
And I couldn't help but sitting here reading that thinking, how do I even understand what
that means?
What's a teaching that leaves room for a questionable method?
Who determines what's questionable?
And then how is that even like Bible, like what's the verse?
Because you know, usually on a doctrinal statement, and this is what I do, if you read our doctrinal
statement, it'll make a statement and it'll have a verse or verses that are where that
statement was driven by, you know, the derivative.
It's like, how did you come to this conclusion?
This verse.
"Please show me the verse that says we reject teachings that leave room for questionable
discipline."
I mean, if I asked the world what's questionable discipline, it would give me all kinds of
answers.
It would say just any form of spanking would be questionable.
And think about what questionable even means.
Questionable doesn't even mean it's wrong.
It's just maybe it's wrong.
But wait a minute.
Why would I want to create boundaries of sin or boundaries that are not where the Bible
is creating boundaries?
Like explicitly.
It's explicitly, you're explicitly saying this is not a boundary.
I'm creating a boundary where there's not a boundary.
Like that is where you just basically are just saying I'm teaching for doctrines the
commandments of men.
You know and a doctrinal statement of course typically doesn't have everything a church
believes.
It's never going to have everything a church believes.
You're pretty much putting out your biggest beliefs and the clearest things that you
possibly believe.
You don't want to start putting things out there that are just weird and you know just
tips for people that have churches.
If you put weird things on your doctrinal statement, this is what people think.
Something weird happened at this church, okay?
Like when you put something on a doctrinal statement that nobody else has, then people
start thinking like, "What happened at this church?
What was all the questionable discipline that was happening at this church?"
I'm just telling you that's what people think.
Like you're not helping yourself out at all.
A normal person would come and look at that and be like, "What in the world rule is this?"
And there was a lot of other weird stuff on this doctrinal statement, but I'm just thinking
man, just, you know, try to help yourself by not coming up with weird ideas that are
just not found in the Bible.
You know, you're not doing yourself any kind of service here.
And we don't want to be guilty of being like the Pharisees or being like the scribes.
They're just making stuff up.
Don't make stuff up.
You know, there's plenty of stuff to teach in the Bible.
We don't need to make anything up.
There's plenty of beliefs that are controversial enough.
You don't need to add anything to your doctrinal statement to be controversial.
And you know, if you want to be controversial, preach the controversial stuff in the Bible.
But don't make stuff up to be controversial.
Don't try to like impress everybody by being unique and special.
You know, there's this innate desire in man, because of his pride, to try and distinguish
himself from the crowd and to try to stand out and be like, "Oh, look how much better
I am than everybody else or how much smarter or this doctrine I've discovered or this
stance that I take."
And you know, it's just a bad attitude.
We don't want to be like that.
There's nothing wrong with just saying, "Hey, I'm old fashioned.
I believe the old doctrines.
I'm just doing what everybody handed down to me.
I'm not special.
I'm not unique."
It's the tried and true method.
I don't need to come up with some new theory, some new idea.
We can just use the old King James Bible.
We can sing the old fashioned hymns.
And look, I'm also not against singing new stuff, right?
We put some new music together and I like it.
You know, I'm not just singing the new just to try to stand out.
I only want to sing the new if it's good, if it's high quality, and it's something that
we don't have.
I mean, most of the songs that we are singing in our special binder, there's not an alternative.
Like, if you said like, okay, give me Psalm 58, the original edition, I would sing it.
I have no problem singing the original.
I don't need to make a new one.
You know why I'm making one?
Because there isn't one.
Like hey, if someone made a better one down the road, I'll sing that one.
You know, if you notice in your hymnal, there's some songs that are in there twice.
And when you get to the other one, you're thinking like, I didn't know this was another
one.
And then you sing it and you're like, oh, now I realize why I didn't know that one existed.
Because it's not as good, right?
It just wasn't as solid of a version as the one that you know more familiarly.
So it's just in the same way.
It's like, hey, I have no problem.
If someone can outdo every Psalm I've written, I'll sing their version.
But I'm not trying to write new songs just to stand out.
I'm doing it because no one else is doing it, right?
We're doing it because the Bible says to sing Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.
And so we want to do that.
Hey, if there's something you come across in the Bible that's clearly taught in the
Bible and no one else is teaching it, teach it.
Right?
There's nothing wrong with teaching something.
Hey, for a long time, I wondered when the timing of the Passover was.
So I studied it really hard to try and figure it out.
And my goal was to prove that it was Wednesday, which is a view that a lot of people have.
And I ended up proving myself wrong and realizing it was Thursday.
So I got up and taught it.
But you know what?
I wasn't trying to say like, oh man, I need something cool to teach.
You know what?
I need to stand out in the crowd.
I need to flex on everybody and show them how much smarter I am.
So I'm going to come up with some cool new Thursday teaching.
No, I just read the Bible over and over and I realized, wow, it's Thursday, so I'm going
to teach it.
But then other people, they get envious of that and they want to come up with their cool
little nuggets.
So then they just start saying all this bizarre stuff, weird stuff, new stuff to try and flex
on everybody, and it's often just lies.
We don't want to be like that, we don't want to go down this trap where we have to come
up with our own cute little doctrines, cute little traditions and be like the Pharisees
and the Sadducees and then accuse other people of being wrong when they're not agreeing with
our preferences.
You know, it's just a bad idea.
Now in this text, we get a little bit of more wisdom when we kind of get into some of the
nitty gritty.
It says in verse number four, "For God commanded saying, 'Honor thy father and mother, I need
that cursed father and mother, let him die the death.'"
I love that Jesus quoted this verse because this is my personal opinion.
I think that this is probably the most controversial Old Testament death penalty sentence.
Of all the ones that people murder, most people are pretty much on board with that.
Rape?
I think everybody's just like, "Yeah, kill the rapist."
People are not struggling with that too much.
Sodomites, normal people are cool with that one.
For the most part, I mean, it's really not even that unpopular.
I would bet if we had a secret popular vote, it would pass.
This is my personal opinion again, okay?
I think it would pass in America, especially if only men could vote.
But you know, when we talk about a child, and we're talking about a child, you know,
I use a reference.
This is just a reference.
It's not the Bible, but the laws of Connecticut of 1673 put an age of 15 years old on this
particular commandment.
And I think that's pretty reasonable.
So when I'm saying child, we're not talking about an eight, nine-year-old.
We're not talking about a little kid.
We're talking about someone of age that's still in the household, though.
They're saying someone over the age of 15, if they were to curse their parents or to
do something like this, they would be put to death.
That was the law in America in the colonies.
And you know what?
I don't disagree with that.
I personally think that that should be on the books, and I would have no problem bringing
that back even, okay.
Now what did Jesus say?
He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.
Jesus is not mincing words, he's just real explicit, he's cutting to the core, and here's
another thing, he just brings up a random example.
Couldn't he have brought up Exodus 20 to prove this point?
I mean if you think about it, what's the point he's making?
You guys are not honoring your father or mother, right?
Couldn't he have just brought up Exodus 20 and said, "honor thy father and thy mother
that days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee."
Couldn't he have just said that?
He could, but he brings up, "hey, if you curse father and mother, let him die the death."
Because he's trying to emphasize how grievous it is to disobey mom and dad.
He's saying, "here's how I feel about it, put him to death, here's what you guys do.
You guys just get them off the hook for any excuse."
Because they say, "whosoever shall say to father or mother it is a gift, by whatsoever
they'll might as well be profited by me, and honor not his father or mother, he shall
be free."
This is what's funny.
He takes the most extreme example from the punishment perspective, and then he goes on
the other side to probably the lightest of offense when it comes to this particular commandment.
Because to me, the grievous offense is the cursing your father or mother, right?
Or the Bible brings up smiting your father or mother.
We're going to talk about what's the worst way to dishonor your parents.
It would be to smite them, it's to curse them, right?
That's like the worst side.
Probably the lightest affliction is they say, "Can I get a few bucks?"
And you say, "No."
I mean, right?
I mean, that's kind of like, and not even they say no, they say, "Oh, actually, I'm
giving that money to church.
Sorry, I can't give that to you."
I mean, if you're going to say like, "What's probably the lightest way or the least way
you could dishonor your parents?"
He's kind of bringing that up and he's contrasting that with the worst punishment because he's
wanting to really help people understand that it doesn't matter if it's the lightest way
you transgress, it's still a transgression.
And God's true feeling, no matter how you transgress, is still the extreme punishment.
God in many ways is just very angry at people disobeying their parents, even when it seems
like it's a light thing to you or it's not that big a deal to you.
From other parallel passages, it brings this up, you say it is Corbin, Corbin is I guess
being interpreted here as it's a gift.
Kind of the concept is, you know, especially money is a little bit different at this time.
The parents are needing financial assistance, needing financial help.
They're picking out an animal and saying, can you give us this cow so we could eat it
or sell it or somehow they need something from it.
And they say, oh, we can't give you that cow.
We've already dedicated or devoted that to the Lord.
It's a gift to the Lord.
And so the parents can't then say, you know, give it to me because it's already devoted
to God.
So therefore it's off the table.
And he's just saying, as long as they say that, then they never have to profit their
parents anyway.
They don't have to help their parents in any kind of way.
And it's just kind of a deceitful trick because, think about it, they're claiming that they
love God because, oh, this is a gift to God.
All the while they're trashing their parents.
They're hurting their parents.
They're dishonoring their parents.
It's like a double gotcha in a sense.
And it just really makes God mad.
God's just constantly mad because they're honoring God with their lips.
Oh, it's a gift to God.
But then their heart is far from God because if they love God, they would take care of
their parents.
Because the Bible says, if you don't love your brethren who you can see, then you definitely
don't love God whom you cannot see.
So you know how you demonstrate the people that love God?
It's the people that love people.
People who love people are people who love God.
People who don't love people don't love God, okay?
So don't get confused on who loves God.
Someone going around just trashing people, hurting people, never helping people, being
a hypocrite, does not love God.
The person who loves God loves people.
What would that look like?
I don't know, sacrificing their time and effort and energy to go out soul-winding and preaching
the gospel and getting them saved.
I mean think about it, there's so many neighborhoods in Dallas I would have never gone to in my
entire life if it wasn't for soul-winding.
Who would say amen to that?
Yeah, there's a lot of places, there's a lot of doors I've knocked, there's a lot
of neighborhoods, there's a lot of apartments I've walked in, I'm like thinking, I never
want to be here, but I'm there because I want to give them the gospel.
I want people to get saved, you know what I mean?
And it's kind of funny, because this is what I think in my mind, I'm like, I would be
like wanting to run away screaming if I wasn't going soul winning, but because I'm going
soul winning, I'm so happy I'm here.
So it's actually kind of funny, because it's like the psychology of it, you show up at
a place that you would normally just want to run away from and not be near, you're thinking
like I'm so excited to be here.
Then in the opposite way, like where you want to live, or the really nice parts of town,
if you were in a soul winning mind frame, you're like, man, why are we here?
There's no trash, there's no needles, everything's nice and clean and beautiful.
You know, you're like, this is so boring, because nobody wants to hear the gospel,
you know what I mean?
But at the end of the day, someone that's loving is going to sacrifice their time,
effort, and energy to go out and preach the gospel into the highways and the hedges,
is going to give someone the shirt off their back, is going to help people when
they're in need, is going to tell them the truth when they don't want to hear it.
What is the opposite?
Someone that's not going soul winning, and that's going to lie to you and tell you
nice things when they actually hate you, okay?
That's the evil person, that person does not love God, but you know they love to pretend
that they love God.
"Oh, I love you so much.
Oh, you're so wonderful.
Oh, you're so great."
All the while they hate you in their heart, they want nothing to do with you.
The lying false prophet is the worst person in this world, yet they're so sweet, aren't
they?
They're so nice.
I've met so many people that say, "I just love Joel Liston because he's so positive,
and he's just so nice.
He's always lying to you so that you'll give him money on TV.
Why do you think he's on TV?
Not to spread his message so that you'll give him money."
That's why he's on TV.
That's why he's being all nice to you.
I mean, think about it.
Oh, the car salesman.
He's so nice to me.
Do you really think the car salesman even cares about you at all?
They're probably making fun of you in the break room on the cameras when they go back
there.
Look at this sucker.
"Oh, man.
We're going to rip him off.
We're going to take advantage of him.
Oh, this girl doesn't know anything about cars."
That's what they're saying in the break room, and then they come out and they're just like,
"Oh, we've got a special deal for you.
This is a one-time offer.
I just talked to my manager."
You know, they're just lying to you because they want to rip you off.
They want to take advantage of you.
And you know what?
False prophets and false teachers are the same way.
The Pharisees and the Sadducees are the same way.
"Oh, we love God.
Oh, we love Jesus.
Oh, we love the Bible."
All the while they're there to rip people off, lie to people, take advantage of them.
"Oh, why aren't you washing your hands?"
They don't care about that.
They could care less.
They're disgusting individuals themselves and private, but you know what?
They want to just be seen of men, put up a show, and attack Jesus, attack his ministry.
They hate their father.
They hate their mother.
They don't even help them out.
This is a bad person.
You know, godly people take care of their parents.
Even Jesus Christ, while he's suffering on the cross, the most brutal agony that can
be humanly experienced, he thought of his mother and he tells John, he says, "Behold
thy mother.
Behold thy son."
That's a lot of care to be thinking about your mom when you're like in the most excruciating
pain about to die and go to hell.
I mean, there's a lot of thoughts that probably be racing through your mind saying, "Father,
forgive them for they know what they do."
He's thinking like, "Behold thy son.
Behold thy mother."
He's thinking about other people while he's still on the cross in agonizing pain.
You know, and of course, preach will say he was thinking about us, and maybe that was
true, but he was definitely thinking about his mom.
And whereas the Pharisees, they want to rip their mom off.
They're going to devour widow's houses.
And for a pretense, make long prayer to be seen of men.
We don't want to be like the Pharisees and like these hypocrites.
They say they honor their father and mother, but they don't.
They say they follow the commandments, but they don't.
What is a hypocrite?
They say they do it, but they don't.
They tell you to do it, but they don't.
Hey, you guys better honor your father and mother, but then they don't honor their father
and mother.
Hey, you guys better love God, but they don't love God.
You guys better not sin, but then they're sinning and doing all kinds of grievous things
behind closed doors, that's a hypocrite, okay?
Now verse eight, again, helps us understand that, you know, the false religion is going
to always give lip service to the right thing.
This people draw nigh unto me with their mouth and honoreth me with their lips.
So if I were to listen to these people, what would it sound like?
We love God.
God gets the highest praise.
Praise be God.
In fact, this is like Pentecostals.
Praise the Lord.
Hallelujah, brother.
How's it going?
And you're just like, hi.
Right?
I mean, you don't even know this person.
And they're just like every other sentence, he's like, praise the Lord.
Hallelujah.
And you're just like, bro, calm down.
It's McDonald's.
You know, I mean, like, what's going on here?
It's not like they're saying something that's wrong.
They're saying the right thing.
It's just insincere.
It's over the top.
It's not legit.
They're being fake.
You know, when we praise God, it should be sincere, it should be coming from the heart.
We should really mean it.
Otherwise, it's just a vain utterance.
We don't want to be like the Catholics that are just making Hail Mary prayers or, you
know, even some of their prayers are good in the sense that it's the Lord's Prayer.
They'll repeat the Lord's Prayer.
There's nothing wrong with that.
But they're just doing it.
They don't really mean it.
They don't really believe it.
They're saying things that are not sincere.
Their heart's far from God.
And in verse 9, "But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments
of men."
A lot of people are going to church and singing songs in vain.
How about the Mormons?
I mean, the Mormons are singing, you know, the Mormons sing a lot of the hymns that we
sing.
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, they've got like all kinds of, all a lot of these hymns
that they're singing.
But it's all in vain and they're not really saved because they believe in work salvation.
You have all kinds of other Christians and other denominations singing, going to church,
you know, but they don't really, they're not really sincere and it's in vain.
If you're not sincere, the things of God are meaningless.
It's not doing the physical action.
It's the heart that really matters to God.
And of course, that's what he's really getting at in this whole passage.
It's not about eating.
Like, God's not up in heaven like, "Oh man, this guy didn't wash his hands."
You know what God's up in heaven thinking?
"Oh, this guy said that he loves his parents, but he ripped them off financially."
"Oh, this guy said that he loves me, but then he devoured a widow, you know, a few minutes
before church."
"Hey, this guy went to church, and he's singing about, you know, how I'm going to deliver
him, but he's believing in work salvation."
You know, "Hey, this guy's here, he's at church, but in his mind he's like dreaming up evil
against people, or he's insincere, or he's fake."
I mean, that's what's grieving God in his heart.
They're dreaming up things.
What are they dreaming up?
Murder.
They're dreaming up adultery.
Look, there are people going to church trying to commit adultery.
And you know, I mean it in the most extreme way.
Of course, there's plenty of people going to church to commit adultery in the sense
of getting divorced or remarried.
I would almost argue that many of the big non-denominational churches, the only reason
they're big and the only reason they grow a big crowd is because there's a ton of divorced
people there looking for someone to marry, because they can't come here.
I mean, they can, but they're not going to come here and shop.
You know, they're not going to come here and date the whole congregation or something
like that, because that would be frowned upon, someone would say something to them.
They wouldn't like that.
They wouldn't like the sermons.
And those people that are here, mostly, they're not trying to do that.
They're trying to not do something like that, or at least they don't want to do that.
Whereas people that are like, "Hey, I don't care, I'm going to do it," they're just going
to go where other people feel that way, so they're going to go to the non-denom church.
And while they're sitting there listening to the 15-minute sermonette, they're just
shopping the crowd.
It's like, "Yeah, yeah, mm-hmm."
You think that that's not happening?
It's of course happening.
Oh, but they washed their hands, right?
Did you know that fornication and adultery can't be washed off?
I mean, imagine you were dating a girl.
If you go back to your single again, you're dating a girl.
She's like, "I've committed all this fornication, but I took a shower."
You're like, "Matters.
It doesn't matter at all."
Okay, just in the same way to God, it's like, "Oh, I washed my hands, but then, you know,
I prayed this fake, insincere prayer before my meal."
He's like, "Well, what's the point?"
You know, it's not about the physical.
It's about the spiritual.
It's about the heart.
God looks on the inward part of a man, not on the outward part of a man, and God is
way more concerned with what's going on in here than what's going on on the outside.
It's not so much about the outside.
Evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.
These are the things that defile a man.
These are the things that God's really concerned with.
This is what you should be preaching hard against, is this kind of stuff.
It says in verse 21, "Then Jesus went thence and departed in the coast of Tyre and Sidon.
And behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coast and cried unto him, saying,
Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David.
My daughter is grievously vexed with the devil.
But he answered her not a word, and his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away,
for she cryeth after us.
But he answered and said, I am not sent, but am the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Then came she and worshiped him, saying, Lord, help me.
But he answered and said, It is not meat to take the children's bread and to cast it
to dogs.
And she said, Truth, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's
table.
Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith, be it unto thee, even
as thou wilt.
And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.
Now in this section of scripture, the one thing that we need to really learn about this
woman and what I like about her is that she's steadfast.
You know what?
She's unmovable.
She just will not stop until she gets the right answer.
She will not take no for an answer and, you know, sometimes in the Christian life we need
to be this type of a person where we don't take no for an answer and we're just seeking
God and we're seeking his help until he helps us and, you know, in this particular story
what's kind of interesting is how many times Jesus pulled her no.
Think about this.
It says in verse 23, "But he answered her not a word."
So she's asking like, "Help me, help me, help me," and he completely ignores her.
And we're not talking about a random person, we're talking about Jesus Christ.
There is a woman asking for help and Jesus just completely ignores her.
Then finally after a while, just we constantly like badgered, the disciples are just kind
of like, "Bro, just tell her to go away."
Like, can you tell her to leave?
So then finally he answers her, and it can be confusing the way the text is laid out.
His notice is in verse 24, "But he answered and said," because he noticed it said, "Send
her away, for she cried after us, but he answered and said," he's not answering the disciples,
he's answering the woman.
So you have to understand what he's saying.
The woman's saying, "Help me, help me, help me."
They say, "Tell her to go away, tell her to go away, tell her to go away."
But he answered and said, "I'm sent on the lost sheep of Israel."
So he didn't tell her to go away, he just told her, "Look, hon, I'm not here for you,
I'm here for the lost sheep of Israel."
That's what he did unto her, okay?
So in a sense, this is the second rejection.
The first rejection is he ignores her.
The second rejection is he just point blanks says like,
"I'm not for you, I'm here for the lost sheep
of the Israel," right?
He says, "I am not sent, but unto the lost sheep
of the house of Israel."
Then she came and worshiped him saying, "Lord, help me."
So she didn't take that.
The ignoring didn't work.
Then he says, "I'm only going to Israel," didn't work.
Then she asked for more help.
Then he answers again.
She says, "Help me."
And he says, "It is not neat to take the children's bread
and cast it to dogs."
Not only did he say no, in a sense, he insulted her.
I mean, what Jesus said is not nice.
He called her a dog.
Now, this is also a thing you have to do in the Bibles.
You have to be careful with words,
because if we go to the Old Testament,
isn't dog used for the price of a sodomite?
Isn't it a sodomite?
So, you know, this is what some people will do,
and this makes me mad,
is they find a word in the Bible,
and they find it in a particular definition,
and then they just apply it to the rest of the Bible.
They just like, mass copy and paste that definition.
That is not how the Bible works.
Sometimes it's like that.
Sometimes a word carries forward this definition.
Sometimes it's used in different ways, okay?
If you think about a dog,
and it's like, well, why would the Bible use a dog
for this scenario and that scenario?
Okay, well, what is a dog?
A dog is one of the lowest of animals,
in the sense of like worth, value, purpose.
It's kind of one of the lowly animals.
The lion is considered like the highest
in the hierarchy of the animal kingdom.
A dog's kind of a low end animal of the kingdom.
So it's the basest of animals,
and in a sense, sodomites are the basis of men.
Well, what is this context?
This context is not about sodomites.
In fact, you know, I would argue that sodomites
is typically referring to men, you know.
Women, in this context, you know,
would be something different.
But in this particular part of the scripture,
this woman is not a sodomite.
She's just simply a heathen.
She's someone that's not saved in a spiritual picture.
In a spiritual picture, she's just an ungodly woman,
unsaved woman, a heathen woman.
The heathen are considered dogs to the children of Israel.
They're base, in a sense.
They're lower than the children of Israel
because the children of Israel are a picture of the saved,
picture of God's people.
Those are pictures as heathen, lower level.
So it's again, using a dog, which is a baser animal.
So that's why it's using it.
Also, a dog is dumb.
If you think about it, a dog is kind of dumb.
It's foolish, it's a foolish animal.
It makes bad decisions and it's not satiated
because a dog will just eat food until it dies.
Like it won't just ration food.
It doesn't make a lot of good decisions.
It's kind of a foolish animal.
So it makes sense like, oh, sodomite, it's dumb,
it's base, it can't be satiated.
And the same way the heathen, they're kind of unsatiable
and they're lust and they're sin.
They just go after things.
They're dumb because they don't have
the wisdom of God's word.
And so it's just this animal can apply
to different situations, okay?
But it doesn't mean that every time
the word dog is used as a reprobate.
Just like the word thorn.
Sometimes people use the word thorn
and they just think reprobate every single time.
But a thorn is not always a reprobate.
A thorn in the Bible is described
as a parable of God's word.
It's also described as the cares of this world.
And it's described as a reprobate.
So you have to make sure that we're using words,
we're being careful to make sure
that we're not connecting dots
with something that's just not legit.
I heard someone teach that the presence of the Lord
is always on earth.
Just because you could find lots of places in the Bible
where the presence of the Lord's on earth.
And I'm just like, but that's a bad way
to just take that phrase and then just apply it.
How about when it talks about Jesus going into heaven
in the presence of God?
Wasn't on earth, buddy,
when he sprinkled the blood on the mercy seat.
Okay, so you don't wanna just take a phrase
and then just copy paste through the rest of the Bible.
You wanna make sure that we're getting it.
But notice, Jesus insulted someone.
There are Christians out there
that would say you could never insult someone,
insulting someone's a sin.
You know you'd have to do, you'd have to make Jesus a sinner
because Jesus was insulting.
Now, here's the question though, did he lie?
And the answer is no, okay.
Anytime you wanna, you wanna like test something,
you need to just first just see like, is it true?
What he said was true, was it harsh?
Yes, was it mean?
You could argue it was, you could argue as insulting,
but it was true and he was driving a point.
He's driving a point that you're not the children of Israel.
I'm here for them and it's not meat
to give the children's meat unto dogs and cast it on a dog.
Like there's no point in me wasting my time on a dog, okay?
Just like I don't, we don't skillfully prepare meals
to then just give it to the animals.
Animals will just eat, a dog will eat anything.
Raw, cooked, good spices, bad spice,
a dog will eat Indian food, okay?
Sorry for the reference, if you like Indian food.
I don't even know, maybe they would.
I think they would, okay?
But the point is that a dog will eat anything
and he doesn't really appreciate it.
You know, the dog's not gonna be like,
ooh, I love this curry, you know?
Or I love this spice, or I love this pasta.
Whereas people, they actually have preferences.
We have, you know, we have an ability to say like,
wow, that was skillfully prepared, or we really like it.
It's like you give a dog bad bread, good bread.
It's just like, he's gonna eat it.
He doesn't really care.
He just is an equal opportunist.
In the same way, it's like, hey,
you just give the word of God to the heathen.
It's like they don't appreciate it.
They won't really use it.
It doesn't really benefit them.
Why would Jesus waste his time giving that to this woman?
But what does he say in verse 27?
And she said, "Truth, Lord."
Notice when she gets insulted, what did she do?
What was the first test?
Is it true?
And what did she say?
"Truth, Lord."
Hey, I like this person's attitude.
You know, anytime someone says something,
even if you don't like it, ask that question, is it true?
And then if it's true, you're like, OK.
If someone says you're sloppy, if someone says you're lazy,
if someone says you have some issue or some problem,
just ask yourself this question, is it true?
And if it's true, you know, the truth won't hurt you.
Lies hurt you, OK?
It's OK every once in a while if you're insulted,
if you just take it well, take it on the chin.
Just appreciate the person talking to you.
As you said, truth, Lord, you have the dogs eat of the crumbs
which fall from their master's table.
Not only does she say it's true, she embraces the term
and calls herself a dog and says, yeah, I am a dog.
But hey, even the dogs still have some--
they still get some love.
Can I get some of that crumb?
Can I just get a crumb here?
And you can see the desperation.
You can see-- like, think about the love of this woman.
I mean, it says, have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David.
My daughter is grievously vexed with the devil.
She's not willing to take no for an answer.
It's a daughter.
She loves her daughter.
She's not willing to see her daughter be destroyed.
So she's not going to give up.
She's going to keep going.
You know, this should inspire us that when
we pray for someone that we shouldn't give up.
Because sometimes Jesus ignores.
Sometimes Jesus says no.
Sometimes Jesus says no with an insult.
But then out of desperation, what does he say?
Jesus answered and said to her, oh, woman, great is thy
faith, be it unto thee even as thou wilt.
And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.
Notice her persistence.
Notice because of her importunity, which means her
persistence and steadfastness, Jesus gave her her request.
And you know what?
God constantly wants us to do the same where he doesn't want
us to just think like I ask once and get it.
Sometimes he wants us to just trust and believe and pray and
seek and care.
And he wants to test us and he wants to see how bad do you
want it?
How steadfast are you going to be?
And you know what?
Sometimes if we want positive things in our life, it's going
to take time.
And sometimes we have to accept harsh truths and realities
about ourselves.
Hey, you want to become a better Christian?
You want to become a better person?
Sometimes you have to look at some ugly verses in the Bible
towards you, some verses that might make you feel
uncomfortable you may not like.
And we have to just say, "Truth, Lord," and we have to
accept them and embrace them and allow them to change us.
Now, it says in verse 29, "And Jesus departed from thence and
came nigh unto the sea of Galilee and went up into a
mountain and sat down there.
And great multitudes came unto him, having with them those
that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and
cast them down at Jesus' feet, and he healed them.
In so much that the multitudes wondered when they saw the
dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame to walk,
and the blind to see, and they glorified the God of Israel.
So it's hard to deny the miracles.
Jesus obviously healed all kinds of different people.
He's healing everyone that's coming unto him.
Now, it brings up a similar story to something we just read.
It says in verse 32, "Then Jesus called disciples unto him
and said, 'I have compassion on the multitude, because they
continue with me now three days and have nothing to eat, and I
will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way.'
And disciples said unto him, 'When should we have so much
bread in the wilderness as to fill so great a multitude?'
And Jesus said unto them, 'How many loaves have ye?'
And they said, 'Seven and a few little fishes.'
And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground,
and he took the seven loaves and the fishes, and gave thanks,
and break them, and gave to his disciples, and the disciples
of the multitude.
And they did all eat, and were filled, and they took up of
the broken meat that was left seven baskets full.
And they that did eat were four thousand men beside women
and children, and he sent away the multitude, and took ship,
and came into the coast of Magdala."
So again, this is basically the same story that we read
in chapter 14.
So in Matthew, you kind of have chapter 14 and 15 as both
teaching a similar story, even though it's not the exact,
a similar story of Jesus feeding a multitude
with just a small amount of food.
It's kind of crazy to think about how the disciples
kind of went through that experience not that long ago,
and then they like don't really remember it,
or like bring it up, or like they're kind of still like confused.
Because I mean, look at verse 33, and his disciples said to him,
"When shall we have so much bread in the wilderness
as to fill so great a multitude?"
Wouldn't you kind of think like after that one miracle,
he'd be kind of wanting to see it again?
Like, I don't know, because I'm not there,
but like in my mind, I'd be thinking like, "Hey, do it again."
Like, he's like, "Hey, we need to fill this multitude."
You'd be like, "Well, we only have a few bread.
Can you do it again?"
You know, but they're thinking like,
"How in the world are we going to do this?"
It's like, "Bro, we already did this.
We did this with a bigger crowd."
Like, the last time, it was 5,000.
This is 4,000.
It's a smaller crowd, and yet they still are kind of like forgetting, not remembering.
And this is an important point, is because for us, we just read this,
and it just happened like in a moment.
For them, this could have actually been weeks, days, who knows?
And the human condition is this, that we forget what God did for us.
How many times does God do something for us?
And then shortly after, we totally forget that He helped us.
And maybe even a miraculous way that He helped us.
Or He benefited us, or He blessed us, or He did good unto us.
And you know, it should cause us to, when we read a story like this,
instead of just thinking like, how dumb are these disciples?
We should think like, hey, has God done something good for me
that I've forgotten recently?
Maybe I should like remember something that God's done for me recently,
and I should thank Him for that.
Or remind myself, oh, yeah, God's been walking with me.
God's been helping me. God's been blessing me.
God's been performing miracles in my life.
I need to make sure that I'm not forgetting what God has done for me,
that I'm not losing sight of the miracles that are happening in my life
and in my church and in my family and those that I'm praying for.
And you know, I need to keep having constant prayer like this woman.
This woman wasn't even a Christian in the sense.
She's just of the heathen and yet she had such great faith for her daughter to be healed.
And we need to also have like faith and be steadfast in our prayers and our hearts and our attitude.
And again, it's all about the heart, isn't it?
At the beginning, it's not about food.
It's about the heart.
This woman, it's not about is that she's a heathen.
It's about a heart issue.
And when Jesus sees that she has a heart for a daughter to be healed, he heals her.
And here with these disciples, they don't really seem to have the heart to understand this miracle.
It's like Jesus has to do it for them again.
And you know, I think that sometimes we have to because you kind of wonder like why do they do this again?
I think it's just like Jesus is trying to keep reminding them and keep showing them these things.
And sometimes God will show us the same miracles or do things for us.
But you know, what's also interesting is the second time it happened, it wasn't as big of a deal.
Like it was 5,000 the first time, now it's 4,000.
It was only five loaves of bread before, now it's seven loaves of bread.
So, you know, I don't know exactly how you could interpret that.
I think you could use, you could interpret that a lot of different ways and look at a lot of different angles.
But one could just be that, hey, when you don't really believe, maybe the miracles will diminish.
Another way to look at it is that God can basically, from a positive way, God can make anything happen that needs to happen.
Because it wasn't like a specific multiplying factor, hey, when it's five thousand and five, it works.
When it's four thousand and seven, it works.
You know, whatever you have, like when they gathered the manna, you gathered a lot, it was perfect amount.
You gathered too little, somehow it was the perfect amount.
It's like God just somehow just makes it work.
And I think that's another thing we have to do is we just have to trust God and know like he's going to make it work.
There's not a specific number.
It's not a specific multiplier.
It's just God's going to give you what you need.
God's going to take care of it.
God's going to figure out a way to finish it.
You know, you could look at a spiritual picture here.
It was three days.
They went without and then they get seven baskets full.
Well, just numbers in the Bible obviously of the gospel.
Jesus is in the grave for three days and they're without Jesus.
But then afterwards they get the seven basket fulls in the sense
where he's been made complete.
He's been resurrected.
So there's a little bit of maybe typology a little bit of symbolism
of the gospel in this particular parable.
There's one other thing I just kind of want to mention
and we'll finish with this is I want to go back to verse 12
and notice something that Jesus said about the Pharisees.
He says, "Then came his disciples and said to him,
'Knowest thou not or knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended
after they heard this thing?' But he answered and said,
'Every plant which my heavenly father hath not planted shall be rooted up.
Let them alone. They be blind leaders of the blind,
and of the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.'"
If you compare this also with the fact that Jesus kind of just ignored
that one woman and didn't really care, you have to understand that like
God is not necessarily going to chase after everybody.
Like if you just don't want anything to do with God,
many times he's just going to give up on you and just say like,
"Fine," or just say like, "Nuts to you."
And even for us, like, there are some people out there,
and especially preachers, teachers that are just blind leaders,
and eventually we just need to kind of let them alone.
Go to Acts 5, because it's interesting,
it says this in another place, kind of like the same concept.
Because he said, "Hey, they're blind leaders."
It's like, well, don't we need to stop them?
Because think about it, what's the logic?
If I just allow a blind leader to go out,
he's going to harm people.
If blind leaders are allowed to just go do their thing,
they're going to harm people.
And Jesus agrees with that.
He says, yeah, they're blind leaders, but you know what?
They're going to lead the blind and do a ditch.
And it's like, somehow, there's like a bad leader.
He's like a magnet.
And then bad people are just trash,
and they just get sucked in by this trash magnet, OK?
And the reality is that that's just how life works.
There are going to be some people that are just a bad magnet,
and they're just going to track trash.
And Jesus is just saying, just don't even worry about them.
Because what does it mean by let them alone?
What was the context?
He says, hey, don't you know they were offended?
And it's like, okay, so why would I leave them alone?
It's saying like, I don't care about their feelings.
So I'm not here to please every single person.
There's some people that I'm going to rub the wrong way.
There's some people, and I'm not talking about just in church,
I'm talking about like bad people.
Like I'm going to rub bad people the wrong way, of course.
They're going to just not like what we stand for,
not like our doctrine, not like our church,
not like what we're doing.
And they're a blind leader.
And I might say something that offends them.
I might even call them out, and that offends them.
And it's like, but don't you want to make it right?
Don't you want to be friends?
No, they're a blind leader.
I'm going to let them alone.
Like, who cares that they're offended?
Who cares that they don't like me?
Who cares that they're doing their own thing?
They're a blind leader.
And the people that want to follow these people
are going to fall in a ditch, and they're
just going to destroy each other.
And you know what?
Some churches turn into this, which what I would
call is a trash can church, where basically they're
just attracting trash.
And it's just like, hey, it's fine.
This is fine.
There's nothing wrong with this.
In fact, it's good.
It's good that there's trash can churches.
You know why?
So that the trash doesn't come here.
Did you know what?
I like that in my house, I have a trash can.
You know why?
Because when there's something in my house I don't want,
we all put the trash in the trash can
and that it's not just left out anywhere.
I don't want just trash on my bed.
I don't want trash on just the counter.
I don't want just trash in my clothes closet.
I want trash in the trash can.
And I'm glad that the trash can exists.
And I'm glad that there's a trash pickup service
that comes by my house and it picks up the trash
'cause I don't even want on my property anymore.
You know what I mean?
And if we got rid of the trash man,
our houses would be filled with trash.
It would look like trash.
You know what?
Sometimes we need someone to come around
and just gather trash for us.
And you know what?
This is what bad people do in our church
is bad insincere people will come to our church
and then eventually they'll blow up
and they'll just drag some people with them
and often they're just dragging trash with them, okay?
And it doesn't bother me
'cause I'm thinking like, thank you, sincerely.
Like I'm just thinking like, this is great.
There are certain pastors and preachers,
they just drag a bunch of trash with them.
And it's like, oh man, aren't you worried about that?
I'm thinking like, no, it's great.
We need this, our bodies have this.
Your bodies have mechanisms inside of it
where it's constantly getting rid of trash
and getting rid of waste and it's going to the draft,
the draft church, okay?
The trash church.
And you know, we just, just let them,
just be like, they're fine.
I don't, 'cause here's what you could have
this attitude of, we need to destroy them.
Like let's figure out a way to harass them.
Let's do what they do to us.
Let's order them pizza.
Let's call them and try to get them fired at their job.
Let's try to leave bad reviews.
Let's try to get them censored on YouTube.
I mean, that's what all of our haters are doing.
Our haters report my videos
and try to get them taken off YouTube.
They're constantly calling pizza for us.
They're constantly trying to harass us,
get us fired from our jobs,
do all kinds of evil things to us.
They wanna shut you down.
You know what?
I don't do that to them.
I never do that to them.
They create all these fake channels
to troll and attack and all this weird stuff.
I don't do any of that.
And I don't think we should do that.
Let them alone.
Hey, if they're gonna put a YouTube video out
explaining dumb things,
I'm thinking like, great.
If they wanna get out there and preach sermons
explaining communism,
if they wanna teach women to put their husbands
into prison for no reason, I mean, that's their fault.
And if someone wants to go to that church,
they're an idiot.
And I'm thinking like, praise God
you're not coming to my church anymore.
'Cause I don't want you to come to my church.
You know, I don't want these, just let them alone.
Let them do their thing, okay?
Acts chapter number five, verse 38.
The Bible says, and now I say from you,
refrain from these men and let them alone.
For if this counsel or this work be of men,
it will come to not.
But if it be of God, you cannot overthrow it.
Let's happily be found even to fight against God.
Happily there is not like happily ever after.
Happily means by chance.
So it's just saying if by chance you ended up
making a mistake, you're wrong in your conclusions
and you're actually fighting against God, not a person.
We need to just let people alone and even bad people.
And you know what, I'm not worried about the bad people.
Hey, we should call them out.
We should say, hey, this dumb person said this dumb thing,
but we shouldn't be attacking them.
We shouldn't be going out there and getting
vengeance for ourselves.
We need to make sure that we're staying true to our lane.
Let's just do our thing.
Look, Jesus called people out.
But did Jesus go around like--
he didn't go and like trip the Pharisees.
He didn't go behind them and like knock their foot
or something, causing them to trip and fall.
He's not going around cancelling their YouTube subscription
or something like that.
He's just saying, you're a den of thieves, you're wolves.
He's just calling them foxes.
He's just calling them whited sepulchers.
Hey, he'll preach against them, but he's leaving them alone.
He's not going to physically harm them.
He's not going to hurt them.
He's not getting them fired at their job.
He's just doing his thing.
And you know what, we need to be careful that we
don't attack these people.
There's nothing wrong with calling them out.
There's nothing wrong with saying, look at this idiot
and this stupid thing he said.
Let's all point, laugh, and make fun of him.
I'm for that.
But what I'm not going to do is attack them.
You know what I mean?
And sometimes people need to be made fun of so that they change.
And if they won't change, then just
continue to point and laugh.
But we want to make sure that we're not then going over there
and actually harming them.
And look, if it's someone that's saved,
obviously our initial reaction should just
be to pray that they get it right, to try to help them,
go to them in private.
But when we're talking about the leaders,
when we're talking about people destroying other people's
lives, yeah, I am going to point and make fun of and laugh
at those people, because they need to be called out.
But I am going to leave them alone.
I don't want to harm them.
I don't want to do any hurt to them.
And we should be careful that we do the same.
Jesus didn't attack the Pharisees, He just called them out.
And so let us make sure that we're careful and we just leave them alone.
Close in prayer.
Thank you Heavenly Father so much for giving us His instruction.
Thank you for giving us just clear commandments in the Bible so that we could know how to
behave ourselves.
I pray that we would be careful not to take things too far, that we wouldn't take good
ideas and stretch them beyond what the Bible teaches, that we wouldn't teach things that
aren't in the Bible, and that we wouldn't attack people even if they're a blind leader,
that we just leave them alone.
And I pray that you would help remind us of the good things that you do for us, so that
we would constantly pray and seek you, and that we wouldn't give up, but that we would
be steadfast in our prayers.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Our last song this evening will be page 69.
We shall shine as the stars, page 69.
We shall shine as the stars.
Couple baptisms this evening, we have Miss Lilla coming for baptism.
Have you trusted Christ as your Savior?
Then I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Buried in the likeness of His death.
Raised to walk in newness of life.
We'll sing that last chorus one or two more times before we wait for the next one.
I think we have one more baptism.
Oh, never mind.
I'm blind.
We have Miss Hosanna coming as well.
Take off your shoes.
So we have Miss Hosanna coming for baptism.
Have you trusted Christ as your Savior?
Then I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Buried in the likeness of His death.
Raised to walk in newness of life.
Make sure to congratulate our baptism.
God bless you are dismissed.