Conflict weather gray
Baptist Church thank you for attending this evening let's find our seats and
open our hymn books to page 51 page 51 where we'll never grow old welcome to
steadfast Baptist Church page 51 where we'll never grow old
we thank you all who are attending here this evening and got here safely. Pray
Lord that you would just bless the service this evening. Thank you for all
the soul winning and the salvation that we've seen this week. That you bless
pastor and the message that you put on his heart and that you would help us to
apply it to our Christian lives. In Jesus' name I pray amen. Our second song
this evening will be page 149. Page 149 trusting Jesus.
trusting Jesus.
coming to St. Baptist Church. If you didn't already get a bulletin, you'd need one. Just lift your
hand nice and high when a rush is going to come by. Get you guys a bulletin on the front. We have
our Bible memory passage. Matthew 28 is the Bible memory chapter. And if you can quote verse 18,
for all 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 in soul winning times as well as our regional soul
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 two 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 two to four
It's kind of just right after the kids choir until four 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
With and 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 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 naeems 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 Ms. Miller's friend who's struggling with cancer. We've been praying for the Scots 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 miss 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.
We're 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 the 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 that 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 would 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.
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 going to sing our Psalm of the Week, Psalm 67.
It's in our special hymn binders. Psalm 67. Psalm 67. There should be a binder right in front of
and bless us, because it makes us shine upon us.
That our way may be known upon her.
By saving Elphel among all users,
like the people praise me.
going on we can turn to Matthew chapter 15. Matthew chapter 15.
for they 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 curseth father and mother, let him die the death.
But ye say, whosoever shall say to his father 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 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.
And he called the multitude, and said unto them, Hear and understand, Not that which
goeth into the mouth, defileeth a man, but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileeth
a man.
Then came his disciples, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended?
But he answered and said every plant which my heavenly father had 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 defileeth not a man. Then Jesus went thence and departed into the
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 unto 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, O 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 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.
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 said 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 4,000 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.
I pray that you'd bless Pat Shelly,
film with the Holy Spirit, helping to preach a word unto us
and help us to receive your word into our hearts.
Pray us in Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen. Matthew 15.
Kind of just abruptly starts here in verse one,
it says, then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees,
which were of Jerusalem saying,
why do the 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 a bruxly
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
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,
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 shall there 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 that they're false prophets, and of course they are,
but the Bible is saying amongst true Christianity, amongst those who 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 gonna 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 judices,
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 of 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 it's 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 three, but he answered instead of 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 the father and mother let him die to death
But ye say whoso shall say to his father or his mother is a gift by what sort thou might as 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's prophesy of you saying this people draw 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 multitudes out of them here
and understand, not that which goeth into the mouth
defile the man, but that which cometh out of the mouth,
this defileeth a man.
Then came his disciples and said to him,
notice thou that the Pharisees were offended
after they heard the 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 the 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 were gonna draft somebody in the military,
It's it's what 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. All right
Now, there's a part of the body that's an exit only, all right?
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 being used is a as a byproduct is a waste product and it's gonna 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
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, murders,
adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.
These are the things which defile a man,
but to eat with unwashed 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 spin their life dedicated to things that are not expelled out as a sin in the Bible as opposed to the things that just 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 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 we 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 constantly bring up salvation by faith,
and then its contrary part works salvation.
And it's just always just 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 themes 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 pastors are really just preaching the same things.
He's preaching on soul winning all the time.
Yeah, because it's just the 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 gonna be some things that are fringe
and some people just wanna like 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 wanna be those people.
We don't wanna 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.
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
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 1030 on Sunday morning?
Well, no, but to not go to church is a sin
and church meets at 1030,
so you better get to church at 1030 on Sunday morning.
You kind of have to understand everything where it's in its lane.
Now, historically, Baptist have been wrong on some things where they took like what I believe is kind of a good doctrine,
but then they kind of took it to this unhealthy extreme, or they took it too far.
One of these would be dancing.
Now, the internet's broken, otherwise I wanted to give you just 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.
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 a 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 fictionalized things and dramatized 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 of trying to 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, of 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.
dance in a provocative, fornication-provoking way,
and I wanna 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 you know, I'm not against line dancing. I'm just saying like they're just they're 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 you 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.
Because the Psalms bring up dancing in 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.
You know, 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.
Okay?
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 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?
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 how does that even make sense?
Here's another one that sometimes Baptists, 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.
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 the 666 or something 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.
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.
Even 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 we're
It's like you want to know where America's had to 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 gonna 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 Baptist seeing that pattern, seeing
that formula, seeing what's happened is that, 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 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 the 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 stuff, I was about to start
people were asking me, like, is it OK 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 IVB you can't use a microwave
Thinking like that's weird
Don't become weird
And people will become weird if you let them.
You know, the church normalizes you.
Good preaching will help you become more normal.
Bad preaching will make you weirder, okay?
But 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.
Okay, but I saw this statement said we reject child abuse
and teachings that leave room
for questionable discipline methods.
And I just, I couldn't help but sitting here
reading that thing and like,
how do I even understand what that means?
Like 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?
Cause 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 the,
where that statement was derived 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 a room
for questionable discipline
What 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's creating boundaries?
Like 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 you're 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 doctrine 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 doctor's name, but I'm just thinking
like, man, just, you know, try to help yourself by not coming up with weird ideas that are
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 if 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?
Cause there isn't one.
And it's 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 song 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
it sings psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs,
and so we wanna 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 end 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 gonna come up with some cool new Thursday teaching
No, I just read the Bible over and over and I realized wow Thursday, so I'm gonna teach it
Okay, but then other people to get envious of that and they want to come up with their cool little nuggets
So 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's command is saying honor thy father and mother
and eat that curse of 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 like of all the ones that people like murder most people are pretty much on board with that
Rape I think like everybody's just like yeah kill the rapist
You know like people haven't are not struggling with that too much
You know 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 cursed a 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 and mother, right?
Couldn't you have just brought up Exodus 20 and said,
you know, honor thy father and mother that days
may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
Couldn't you 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,
"'Whose service shall say to father his mother it is a gift?
"'By whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me,
"'and on or not as father his 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? I mean, or the Bible brings up smiting your father or mother.
Like, 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 the 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.
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's a little bit different at this time.
Some, 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
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 for God.
But then their heart is far from God
because if they loved 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-winning
and preach them to the gospel and getting them saved.
I mean, think about, there's so many neighborhoods in Dallas
I would have never gone to in my entire life
if it wasn't for soul winning.
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 to soul winning mind frame
You're like man. Why are we here?
I don't, 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 gonna sacrifice their time, effort and energy
to go out and preach the gospel
into the highways and the hedges,
is gonna give someone the shirt off their back,
is gonna help people when they're in need,
is gonna tell them the truth when they don't wanna hear it.
What is the opposite?
Someone that's not going soul-winning
and that's gonna 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 Joe Listing because he's so positive and he's just so nice
You know, he's 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?
He probably is, 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 gonna rip him off.
We're gonna take advantage of him.
Oh, this girl doesn't know anything about cars.
You know, that's what they're saying in the break room.
And then they come out and they're just like,
oh, we 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.
I mean, 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.
Like he's thinking about other people
while he's still on the cross and agonizing pain.
You don't, 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 8, again,
helps us understand that, you know, the false religion
is gonna always give lip service to the right thing. This people draw
So if 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 and 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.
They're hearts 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.
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?
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 divorce to their people
because they can't come here.
I mean, they can, but they're not gonna come here and shop.
You know, they're not gonna 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 gonna do it.
They're just gonna go where other people feel that way.
So they're gonna go to the non-of-the-none church.
And they're just, while they're sitting,
they're listening to a 15 minute sermon at,
they're just shopping the crowd.
Just like, yeah, yep, mm-hmm, they're talking.
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,
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.
It 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 the phile of man,
these are the things that God's really concerned with.
This is what we should be preaching hard against is this kind of stuff.
It says in verse 21,
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's 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 cried after us.
But he answered and said, I am not sent,
but in 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 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.
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
told 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 be 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 could be confusing the way the text is laid out.
He's noticed it's in verse 24, but he answered and said,
because he noticed it said,
send her away before she cries 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, hun, I'm not here for you.
I'm here for the lost sheep of Israel.
That's what he did unto her.
So in a sense, this is a second rejection.
The first rejection is he ignores her.
The second rejection is he just point blank says,
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 meat 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 Bible is 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 is 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're just like mass copy and paste that definition. That's not how the Bible works
Sometimes it's like that sometimes a word carries for 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 bassist.
of animals, and in a sense,
sodomites are the basis of men.
But 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, okay?
They're base in a sense they're lower than the children of Israel because the children of Israel are a picture of the save
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, a sodomite.
It's dumb, it's base, it's not, 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 it's 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.
You know, how about when it talks about Jesus going into heaven in the presence of God?
It wasn't on earth, buddy, when he sprinkled the blood on the mercy seat.
Okay, so you don't want to just take a phrase and then just copy, paste to the rest of the Bible.
You want to 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. Well, you know, you'd have to do you'd have to make Jesus Center
Because Jesus was insulting now. Here's the question though. Did he lie and the answer is no
Okay, anytime you want to you like test something you needed his first to 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 is 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 in a dog
Like there's no point 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 any, a dog will eat anything.
Raw, cook, 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,
oh, 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 and 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.
It 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, okay
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. Okay. It's okay every once in a while
when 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 yet 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 that crumb? Can I just get a crumb here?
And you can see the desperation you can see like think about think about the love of this woman. I
Mean it says have mercy on me. Oh Lord. That's the 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 gonna 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 in her, Oh, woman, great is thy faith.
Be it unto thee, even as thou wilt.
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 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 into the Sea of Galilee
and went up into a mountain and sat down there.
And great Moses 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.
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.
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 calls disciples unto him and said I have compassion on the multitude
Because they continue with me now three days and I'm nothing to eat and I will not send them away
Fasting lest they faint in the way
And a cycle said in him when should we have so much bread and 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 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 4,000 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.
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
Cause I mean, look at verse 33 in his disciples in him.
When should we have so much bread in the wilderness
as to fill it so great a multitude?
Wouldn't you kind of think like after that one miracle,
you'd be kind of wanting to see it again?
Like I don't know cause 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 gonna 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 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 a daughter to be healed.
And we need to also have like faith and be steadfast in our prayers,
in our hearts, in 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 that she's a he then,
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,
because you kind of wonder like, why did 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 5 loaves of bread before, now it's 7 loaves of bread.
So, you know, I don't know exactly how you could interpret, 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
because it wasn't like a specific multiplying factor.
Hey, when it's 5,005, it works.
When it's 4,007, it works.
You know, whatever you have, like when they gather the manna,
you gather it a lot, it was perfect amount,
you gather 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 that 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 gonna give you what you need.
God's gonna take care of it.
God's gonna 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.
notice something that Jesus said about the Pharisees. He said,
Then came his disciples and said in them,
Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended after they heard the sing?
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 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 along.
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.
Okay?
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 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 gonna fall in a ditch and they're just gonna 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
I want trash in the trash can and I'm glad that the trash can exist and I'm glad
that there's a trash pickup service that comes by my house and it picks up the
trash because 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 will 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
because 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 let them,
just be like, they're fine.
I don't, because 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 want to 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.
Because 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 5 verse 38, the Bible says,
And now I say from you refrain from these men and let them alone for this counsel or this work be of men
It will come to not but if we have God you cannot overthrow it less happily
He 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
even bad people and you know what I'm I'm not worried about the bad people hey
we should call them out we should say hey this is 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 like go behind them and like knock their foot or something.
It caused them to trip and fall.
He's not going around cancelling their YouTube subscription or something like that.
He's just he's just saying you're a you're a den of thieves. You know your wolves. He's just calling them foxes
He's just calling them white as sepulchres. Hey, he'll preach against them, but he's leaving them alone
He's not gonna physically harm them. He's not gonna hurt them. He's not getting them fired at their job
He's just doing his thing. Hey, you know what? We need to be careful that we don't attack these people
There's nothing wrong with calling him out. There's nothing wrong with saying look at this idiot and the 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.
Okay, 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 we're talking about the leaders,
we're talking about people destroying other people's life.
Yeah, I am gonna point and make fun of
and laugh at those people,
because they need to be called out,
but I am gonna 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.
Let's go to prayer.
Thank you Heavenly Father so much
for giving us this 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'd be steadfast in our prayers.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen.
Our last song this evening will be page 69.
We shall shine as the stars.
Page 69.
We shall shine as the stars.
So we have a couple of baptisms this evening.
We have Miss Lilla coming for baptism.
Have you trusted Christ as your savior?
Then I baptize your name
with the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Buried in the likeness of his death.
Raise the walk in newness of life.
Yes!
Here, we'll sing that last chorus a couple of times,
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.
You just wanna take off your shoes?
All right.
There we go.
Turn around, we'll take a picture real quick.
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.
What do you know?
Buried in the likeness of his death,
raised to walk in newness of life.
God bless you, God bless you, God bless you.
Make sure to congratulate our baptism.
God bless you, God is missed.