H-260 singing out loud on the f-
this evening with the word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for
steadfast Baptist Church. Thank you for your word. Thank you for all those who
came tonight, getting here safely, and I pray Lord that you would just help us to
apply the message to our lives tonight. Fill Pastor Shelley up with your spirit,
helping to preach boldly from your word tonight. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Our
second song this evening, page 314, More Love to Thee. Page 314, More Love to Thee.
3-1-4, more love to thee on the first.
Thanks for coming to St. Baptist Church.
If you didn't already get a bulletin, you'd like one.
Just lift your hand nice and high.
One of the rushers can come by and get you a bulletin.
We're on Jude verse 6.
If you can quote that this evening,
you can get an ice cream on the inside.
Service times, soul winning times.
We have a lot of regional soul winning times.
Our church stats.
And we've been doing really, really good.
and we wanna keep up the hard work
on our salvation and baptisms.
On the right, we have a list of our expecting ladies.
Please, please be in prayer for them
who are expecting upcoming events.
This Saturday is gonna be the Durant, Oklahoma,
soul-winning marathon.
Is anybody going and is not signed up?
All right, go sign up, all right.
Okay, okay, then you signed up.
What do you mean?
If you haven't signed up, you can sign up right now in the foyer.
We don't mind.
We want to make sure you get signed up for that.
I think we're going to, we're going to have like a big turnout.
So I'm really excited about this.
And we've got like a fajita bar set up for lunch.
It sounds really, really good.
And so we'll be meeting at a park location down below is the address
for, I think, coffee and donuts just in the morning.
And then we'll go out soul winning, have some really good lunch
and then go out soul winning in the afternoon.
So that's exciting. The previous soul-winning results were there in Cleburne.
Really, really awesome soul-winning numbers.
I don't know that we'll necessarily have that many salvations, but I think we're going to have more than double the soul-winner.
And it's still great to go up and get to see Anchor Baptist Church and see Pastor Oz and them.
So I highly encourage you if you can participate the Durant Oklahoma soul-winning marathon.
Father's Day floats on June 15th.
Solwending Marathon, Shreveport, that's another awesome opportunity.
June 28th, it's also a very receptive area, so if you get opportunity to travel, that's a great one.
I think it's about a three-hour drive from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and so that's a great opportunity too.
On the back is the prayer list. We have several here that we're going to cover real quick.
then their parents health and then also for the Miller's friends mom's cancer treatments if you'd pray for brother Scott's
parents and also
It's it's really a praise report for Miss Olivia
They recently gave birth to their son Elijah Scott as well, and it's it's it's not Elijah
It's Elisha and so it's really it sounds similar, but it's pretty cool
I guess Elijah was first, and then we got Elisha.
So that's really exciting.
We'll put their picture and everything in the Bulletin
on Sunday.
Ms. Garcia, if you'd be prayed for Brother Tony's health,
we'll continue to pray for Ms. Larky's arm,
who's been healing, pray for Brother Brad for his work,
and then also pray for Brother Diego's friend,
Ms. Sheila Morris, if you'd pray for Ms. Cindy's friend,
Angela, if you'd pray for another coworker, Josh.
of Brother Jared's and then Brother Samson did have a surgery. He said he went well,
so continue to pray for his recovery. Also, if you could pray for Brother Fur's dad who's
recovering from surgery, and then if you'd pray for Ms. Foley's dad.
has kidney disease, sorry about that,
we'll be praying for him.
There's one other that's not in the bulletin,
but if you'd pray for brother Hackenburg's wife
had to go to the hospital,
and so if we'll be in prayer for them as well.
So that's pretty much all I had as far as prayer requests.
Let's go ahead and just pray as a church family.
Thank you Heavenly Father so much for our church.
Thank you for all those ladies who are expecting.
I pray that you please just bless them
during their pregnancies right now.
Please help them with their delivery.
I pray that you would also just help our church family
that's struggling with illness or sickness,
especially these serious issues of cancer.
I pray that if possible,
you could just give them a miracle.
Please just heal them.
I pray that no matter what, you'd give them patience
and that you would comfort them during this difficulty.
I pray that you would also just bless our church family
that needs help with either their finances
or their job or their work.
I pray that you would just please help them right now.
I pray that you would bless our upcoming soul winning event
in Durant, Oklahoma.
I pray that we could just travel up there safely
that you would help prepare the hearts of many people there.
that you would help us to find people that want to get saved
and you give us the boldness to preach unto them
and help them to get saved.
I pray that you would just help continue to bless our church
and the upcoming events and that we do all these things
in the honor and glory of your son in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
We'll sing our third song, it's our Psalm of the Week
and I don't remember which one it is.
149, sorry, 149.
Psalm 149 Psalm 149
But he then can't harness this upon the people.
Remind them he will change.
And then, no one's with them to fire, to execute upon them.
And gracing this evening as the offering plates are passed around,
let's turn our bibles to Matthew 23, Matthew chapter 23.
Matthew chapter number 23 the Bible reads then spake Jesus to the multitude and to his disciples
Saying the scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses seat all therefore whatsoever
They bid you observe that observe and do but do not ye after their works for they say and do not for they bind heavy
burdens and grievous to be born and lay them on men's shoulders
But they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers
But all their works they do for to be seen of men they make broad their flacteries
and enlarge the borders of their garments and love the uppermost rooms at feast and the chief
seats in the synagogues.
And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men rabbi rabbi.
But be not ye called rabbi, for one is your master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren.
And call no man your father upon earth, for one is your father which is in heaven.
neither be ye called master, for one is your master, even Christ.
But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant, and whosoever shall exalt himself shall
be abased, and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted. But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites, for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men, for ye neither go in yourselves,
neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,
for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer.
Therefore, he shall receive the greater damnation.
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye come best to see it in land, to make
one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more, the child of hell, than
yourselves. Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple,
it is nothing. But whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor. Ye
fools and blind, for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifies the gold.
And whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing. But whosoever sweareth by the gift
ye fools and blind, for whether is greater the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift.
who so therefore shall swear by the altar,
sworeeth by it, and by all things thereon.
And newso shall swear by the temple,
sworeeth by it, and by him that dwelleth therein.
And he that shall swear by heaven,
sworeeth by the throne of God,
and by him that sitteth thereon.
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,
for ye pay tithe, the mint and anise, and cumin,
and have omitted the weightier matters of the law,
judgment, mercy, and faith.
These ought ye to have done,
and not to leave the other undone.
and that, and swallow a camel, will endure scribes and Pharisees hypocrites, for you
may clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion
and excess.
Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter.
that the outside of them may be clean also.
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,
for ye are like unto whited sepulchers,
which indeed appear beautiful outward,
but are within full of dead men's bones
and of all in cleanest.
Even so, ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men,
but within, ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,
because ye build the tombs of the prophets
and garnish the sepulchers of the righteous,
and say, if we had been in the days of our fathers,
we would not have been partakers
them in the blood of the prophets.
Wore for ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which kill
the prophets.
Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers, ye serpents, ye generation of vipers.
How can ye escape the damnation of hell?
Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes, and some of them ye shall kill, and crucify, and some of them ye shall scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city, that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel, and to the blood of Zacharias, son of Barakaius, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stoneest them which are sent unto thee.
How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen, gathereth her chickens,
under her wings, and you would not. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.
For I say unto you, ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say,
Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to be in church.
Thank you for this church. Thank you for our pastor.
I pray that you bless Pastor Shelley,
fill him with your Holy Spirit to preach your word unto us
and help us to receive it with an open heart.
Pray us in Jesus' name, amen.
And then here in Matthew 23 and Jesus really turns up the heat in this particular chapter
and it makes sense because this is pretty much his last public teaching before he's
going to be crucified.
This is really like leading up to the fact that he's going to be crucified.
I don't think we necessarily see him in the temple.
I could be wrong on that, but someone could correct me.
But he does a lot of teaching to his disciples.
Then later that Wednesday is the last supper.
And then he is essentially betrayed
into the hands of the Pharisees
and then goes into the Romans and he's crucified.
And you can kind of see after reading this chapter,
why they really wanted to kill him so bad.
Because Jesus Christ, before a lot of this
is teaching a lot of parables,
When he's preaching against Pharisees and Jews,
it's a little bit more vague,
it's a little bit more subtle than it is in this chapter.
He finally kind of lets loose
and really is just calling them on the carpet,
just really calling them out by name,
making it really clear what these people are like.
He's kind of just exposing them for who they really are.
And that's why you can kind of see they get so...
The Jews and the Pharisees are just so quick to want to put them to death.
Additionally, the feast is coming up and they don't want to kill them on the feast day.
They don't want to kill them later in the week because they're afraid people will be upset about it,
so they feel rushed to do it.
And it's funny how...
They've gone through these rituals their whole life of performing this Passover sacrifices and going through all these rituals
and they just do it so often that they're not realizing that they're going to end up doing all this to Jesus.
That they're going to kill Jesus Christ at the same time they would kill that actual Passover lamb
and they have to do this all in haste.
And the Bible talks about how they are supposed to do these things in haste.
They have to do these things in haste in the same way so as to be able to eat the feast.
And so it's just kind of interesting, a lot of the parallels, obviously, that Jesus Christ
fulfills in the Passover week and how these Jews, even though they've known about it,
God's showed it to them, they've gone through these rituals, they just can't see it.
Because when you're spiritually blinded, you just can't see the things of God, even
plainly. Now, it says in here in verse one, it says,
then speak Jesus the multitude into his disciples,
saying, the scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat.
So what does that mean?
He's just talking about his position of authority.
So in the past, at the very beginning,
Moses is kind of their leader, he's their primary authority.
Now, the scribes and the Pharisees seem to be the leaders,
the ones in charge, you kind of have this high priest.
And so it's talking about their position of authority.
Verse three, all therefore whatsoever they bid you,
Observe, that observe and do, but do not ye after their works, for they say and do not.
One thing we can learn here is that you should have respect for authority regardless of how
bad the people are.
And if this chapter doesn't convince you that you should obey bad authorities, then nothing
will because the whole chapter is about how bad the Pharisees are, how bad the scribes
are, yet Jesus is saying, hey, these people in positions of authority, whatever they bid
you, observe and do.
And for the most part, what he's trying to say is they're going to teach a lot of things that are good.
You know, love God, love your neighbor. They're going to say these things, these platitudes,
but they themselves don't actually love God. They don't actually love their neighbor.
And so he's trying to say, man, a lot of things you've been hearing are pretty good from these people.
Not all of it. There's obviously a little leaven.
But generally speaking, what the Pharisees and scribes say, most of it, a lot of it is good.
It's just they themselves are hypocrites. They don't actually do it.
That is their huge problem.
That's what it means to be a hypocrite,
for they say and do not.
If you want just an easy definition of the word hypocrite,
it's someone that says and does not.
That is generally what a hypocrite is.
Verse four, for they bind heavy burdens
and grievous to be born and lay them on men's shoulders,
but they themselves will not move them
with one of their fingers.
So,
What are they constantly doing? They're constantly encouraging other people to do really difficult things for God make really big
Sacrifices for God, but he's trying to say these people don't actually make any sacrifices themselves
They don't take any hardships. They don't take any burdens on themselves
And in fact even if it was offered to them, they wouldn't even use a little bit of effort
like the finger analogy is just kind of like they would put almost literally no effort in
in serving God whatsoever but they would love to just lay huge burdens on other people and we
can kind of see what's a bad leader is someone that doesn't take any burdens a bad leader is
someone that doesn't do any work or doesn't do any of the job himself whereas in christianity
put burdens on others but rather we should put burdens on ourselves and we should be a servant
and we should serve other people just as Jesus washed the disciples feet we should wash other
people's feet in like manner not so much of literally but as a analogy of the fact that we
should serve other people. The higher you get up in Christianity in theory should be doing more work
not less work.
Whereas, being a slave master in Egypt, the more you elevate, you could argue the less
you're having to do.
Because now you have more slaves, you have more servants, more people to do your bidding.
And again, even in the secular world, there's technically nothing wrong.
If you own a business, there is nothing wrong with you doing no work and making all your
employees do all the work for you.
There's nothing wrong with that.
That's just not how Christianity should operate.
Christianity shouldn't operate that the higher you get up,
the less work you do, it should be that you do more work.
And we see good leaders like Moses did a lot of work.
He felt very burdened.
He was constantly serving the people and doing a lot of things.
That's what it should look like.
Whereas the Pharisees, even though they sit in Moses' seat,
they're not doing any of their work.
They're constantly putting the heavy burdens on.
other people and not doing any of the work.
The Bible says if a man desired the office of a bishop,
he desired the good work.
So a bishop should be someone who works.
That doesn't mean they don't have authority.
And again, some people get confused about this.
We're not talking about the authority.
Bad leader, give them authority.
Good leader, give them authority.
Servant leader, give them authority.
Authoritarian, give them authority.
You know, we don't want to strip authority away from authority.
We're just simply saying the mindset
of someone in charge and Christianity should be to serve and work hard,
whereas the mindset for a lot of people in the secular world,
they want to elevate so they can do less work.
They want to elevate so they don't have to do the grunt work or the hard work
or whatever they're hoping to make it easier on their life,
whereas in Christianity the higher you get up, it's a harder life.
The apostles didn't have the easy life.
The apostles had the hardest life.
They were the off-scowering of the world.
And if you think, man, I can't wait to be a pastor someday
so that my life will be easy, wrong.
Your life won't get easier if you're doing it right.
Obviously, maybe some of these false prophets or something, their life maybe got easier.
But you know what?
Someone that's actually in the real fight, serving Jesus, trying to do the right thing,
it is hard.
Being a Christian is hard.
There is work, there's persecution, there's opposition because the devil wants to take
down Christianity.
And you know what?
Going to a good church, you should expect opposition.
and you should expect work.
Yes, we will put you to work.
And I think sometimes, you know, a lot of people,
you know, they're gonna come and go.
And one of the reasons is maybe they're just tired of working.
And it's not so much that they're necessarily like
into some sin or there's not so much
that they just don't love Jesus anymore.
They just kind of get a little faint hearted,
a little bit burnt out and they just don't like working.
But here's the thing, we're supposed to work
till Jesus comes.
And you know, I have a job, you know what I don't like?
I don't like it when my boss doesn't have any work for me to do.
I feel awkward, I feel uncomfortable.
I'm not sitting here thinking like, sweet,
I don't have to do much work today.
I'm kind of, I kind of feel uncomfortable.
And you know what, I would feel uncomfortable
in the Christian life if I just felt like,
hey, there's not really anything for me to do.
You know, and that's how we should feel.
We should feel uncomfortable if we're not being put to work.
We want to be put to work.
God created us to work, and we need to get out there
and do something for the kingdom of God.
We don't want to be the person that's just giving
everybody else a job, giving everybody else work,
giving everybody else a burden.
We want to be the person that takes burdens away.
Hey, you have this burden. Let me you know what? I don't have that burden. I can carry it
You know think about it. We're just going on a journey. Let's say we're walking 30 miles
You know that's a I can't remember
I think most towns are about 30 miles apart just because that was an average day's journey in times past maybe with wagons and stuff
But it's a we're walking for a day's journey 30 miles. You're carrying 50 pounds worth of you know
Material and I'm carrying nothing. I say hey give me 25 pounds
And I carry 25, you carry 25.
Maybe it's a young child,
I'll carry 40, you carry 10, right?
You're trying to bear other people's birth
as opposed to saying, hey, I got this heavy thing I'm carrying.
How about you carry it?
And then you're just not carrying it.
In fact, you know, can you get a chair and put me in it
and lift me up and just carry me around?
I've literally seen apostles, so-called, of Pentecostal churches, their churches bearing
them on their shoulders in a chair and like carrying them around like a king or something
like that.
That's weird.
Okay, that should not be what's happening in the house of God.
People that are in positions of authority here.
If you become an usher, it's to work.
If you become in the song, the music ministry, it's to work.
If you want to become an evangelist, it's to work.
If you come work for me, it's to work.
Okay.
One thing I've never been accused of, of anybody that's worked for me, is not giving them work to do, okay?
So it's usually the opposite. It's usually what I'm accused of.
But you know what? I like having work to do, and we should have work to do, and that is the goal of Christianity is to work.
Not be a Pharisee and just give it to everybody else.
Verse 5,
They make broad their phylacteries and enlarge the borders of their garments and love the uppermost rooms at fees and the chief seats in the
Synagogues and greetings in the markets to be called of men rabbi rabbi now
It's saying hey technically they do have some works
the only thing they will do is if if they can somehow get some recognition then they will
Potentially do that work and a lot of their works so-called aren't even real works
Because what are they doing? They're making broad their phylacteries now
I don't know exactly what that is.
A lot of people are just not exactly sure,
but you can kind of see like,
sometimes you'll see these orthodox Jews,
they'll literally like strap things on their body.
These like leather straps or whatever,
or sometimes they'll literally put a box
and they'll like put it on their forehead
and they'll like strap it down.
You know, or sometimes they have these cords.
A lot of people will call that phylacteries.
If you just look it up online,
they'll call those kind of things phylacteries.
I'm not real positive.
I don't know exactly what it is.
What matters is this is an outward thing.
They're doing something outwardly to make it seem like they're just so godly.
I'm going to literally tape a Bible to my forehead.
I mean, talk about a holier than thou.
I mean, instead of actually putting the Word of God into your heart and your mind,
they tape a Bible to their head.
But yet, they don't even believe it.
That's how satanic and weird they are.
They they enlarge their garments too, right? They enlarge the borders of their garments
So, you know, I have a coat on it has a this is what we call the skirt of my garment
The skirt means the edge, you know, don't get confused
Sometimes I'll talk about the skirt of a man's garment in the Bible. It's not talking about I'm wearing a skirt
It's talking about the skirt being the edge of his garment
What would it mean to enlarge it for it to go? Oh, it's a little bit longer a little bit longer
And then pretty soon it's just a dress that they're wearing
Okay, it wasn't a skirt and then it turned it into a skirt and they became Catholic and of course
Why did they do that to be seen of men?
To appear different because they just want to look different
They don't want to just wear the garment everybody else is wearing because then it's so walks in they're like who's the pastor?
It could be anybody it could be this guy this guy that guy
I mean if if we're all just all the men of us that are wearing suits are just standing up here on the on the stage
No one's it's gonna be like that's the pastor obviously
Why? Because I'm not doing anything different than you are.
What about the guy wearing a dress?
Then you'd be like, okay, well that must be someone that's special, right?
That one's someone that's important.
And think about it.
That kind of a garment's not even practical.
It's weird.
You can't even do like real work or real labor.
You might trip or fall.
So it's obviously designated to just be a trophy guy.
But you don't want to be a trophy guy, all right?
You get a trophy wife, don't be a trophy guy.
It's like to be all delicate and walk around all delicate.
You know, a woman, have you seen a woman in the wedding dress?
I mean, she has to walk real careful in that thing, I'll have to say.
Not to trip, not to fall because it's a real special thing.
Why would I want a guy, the man of God, to be walking around like that?
You know, men in the Bible are running around.
You know, in the book of John, you know,
basically John's basically bragging
that he ran to the tomb faster than Peter.
They're not wearing dresses and skirts running around.
Now it's funny, because in order to,
to teach his doctrine.
You know what they'll say?
They'll say like, oh yeah, they were wearing them.
But what they'll do is they'll take the garment
and they'll tie them around their legs.
And then these weird pictures of guys with dresses on,
tying their dresses around their legs to then quote, run.
And they were saying, this is like girding up your loins.
No, girding your loins, tighten your belt, okay?
Not tying the dress around your ankles or something.
Like, I mean, it's the weird stuff people teach,
I'll tell you man.
But what do these Pharisees do they have these long garments and of course today modern-day Pharisees are no different the Catholics
The Orthodox in fact if you just look at a council of all the false religions of the world they all kind of look the same
Have you ever noticed that?
It's like you got the Imam, you got the Orthodox,
whether that's Russian or Greek, doesn't matter.
You get some guy from the Catholic,
the Roman Catholic Church.
You get some other Hindu, you get whatever.
They all have this like weird garment.
It's all different colors,
but they all kind of look the same.
And then you have a Baptist, he just looks like a normal guy.
And he doesn't fit in, he wasn't invited.
Okay, he's the prophet besides that it never prophesies good in in the name of the king or whatever and
At the end of the day these false prophets you can almost pick them out of the crowd because they make a show of themselves
They're like a peacock a peacock guy where they have to constantly just show themselves off because they don't have any works
Here's the thing why would someone point somebody out of the crowd is because hey this guy is a nice guy
He helps me. He does good stuff for me. He teaches me good things. He's there with me when I go through hard times
He's taking burdens of me. Let me tell you all about this guy
But when you have no good works to show no one's gonna pick you out of the crowd
No one's ever gonna praise your name. No one's gonna say anything nice about you
So then they have to peacock they have to put on a show to make it seem like hey, I'm someone special
So that everybody give them attention give them recognition because why they love what does it say they love the uppermost rooms at feast?
Think about it. If you walk into a room. It's a party
You want to sit by the host or you want to sit by the guy that you like?
Why would he pick you to sit there because you're his friend? Why are you someone's friend because you work?
Friendships require work you hung out with them you pick them up you bought them a meal
You did something with them, but think about it the Pharisee never did any of that
So they have to wear their little special garment to peacock again so they'll be like oh, I guess we have to give this guy this seat
It's not because he actually didn't need work. It's not because we actually know him
It's not because he actually helped us but look at the little peacock
I guess we have to put it up front center and they really love that uppermost room that fee seat
They want to be in the special place the chief seats in the synagogues and notice. They just love it. They love attention
They're all about attention
They want to say it's all about them and they love greetings in the markets to be called of men rabbi
Rabbi, that's what they want to be called now rabbi rabbi is not
Really an English word. It's like being transliterated in here because what it really means is master
So, it's just kind of their way, it's kind of being transliterated in our language, it's
like a borrowed word, but in more, you know, our language, it's master.
And then it says another way, even Christ, meaning specifically Christ.
So, he's saying, be not called Rabbi for one is your master, specifically Jesus Christ,
and all ye are brethren.
So, there's only one master in the universe, there's only one master of the universe, it's
Jesus Christ.
And so it would be wrong to be going around calling yourself
master or taking the title of rabbi that's off limits, spiritually speaking.
Now you have to understand the word master is used in the Bible often.
And the Bible talks about believing masters, unbelieving masters.
It says to be not many masters.
Why? Because the word itself isn't off-limits, the context of the word is off-limits.
We're not allowed to call someone a master spiritually speaking, okay?
We could call someone our master, though, if they're literally our boss, because that's equivalent.
Boss, Lord, something of that nature, sir, all those are synonyms with master,
and you should call your boss, boss, sir, lord, whatever title that they have.
sergeant, commander, I mean whatever title they have you call them.
But spiritually speaking the pastor or the leader should not be called a master
because we only have one master and that's Jesus Christ. Yet
how many Babs this a day will bring someone into the congregation
and say hey we brought in Rabbi Jonathan Kahn
really Rabbi Jonathan Kahn artist to come and speak to everybody.
I mean is this the verse he's going to start off the chapter with?
Be not called rabbi
My name is rabbi Jonathan Conn. I mean how do Baptist do that?
How do non-denom churches do that today when the Bible is literally saying don't call this person rabbi and then like so and so
Rabbi is gonna come and speak to the whole congregation
I mean I grew up in a non-denom church where they would have rabbi Jonathan Conn literally come and preach to us
And they'd have other, you know, weirdo rabbis or whatever come in and preach and give their
little spiel.
You know what?
It's unbiblical and let me tell you something.
If they got rabbi in front of their name, they're not saved.
Never heard one that's saved.
I don't believe that they're saved.
There's something wrong with those people and it's just so anti-biblical.
I don't even think these people are saved at all.
Would be that it would be no different if I mean, what if I just started calling myself master?
They like to hide it and rabbi because you don't know what that means. What if I just said I am master Shelly
That would be weird
If I said from now on call me master Shelly, you know, that would be that would be terrible
You can call me brother Shelly because what did he say? What did he say and all year brethren?
Hey, we're on the same level here
Jesus Christ is our one master.
We got one master, one Lord.
Notice he also says in verse nine,
I call no man your father upon the earth,
for one is your father which is in heaven.
Again, the word father's not off limits,
but in a spiritual context it's off limits.
Yet then the Catholics adopt this, don't they?
The Catholics adopt this language
and they call most of their priests
if not all father so and so.
And then you ask Catholics like,
how is this not a violation?
Oh, well, this just is like meaning like a spiritual deep meaning, a spiritual deep
meaning of what?
It's just a spiritual deep thing that Jesus is talking about here.
What does that mean?
I even asked Grock.
I said, Grock, how is this not a violation?
How are Catholics not just obviously in violation of this verse or something?
Well, what you have to understand is that some Catholics really hold to the sincerity
And I'm like, you didn't answer the question.
What does this mean?
How is it not a violation?
I said, I feel like you're just saying words
and you're not really explaining this.
You're like, well, this, yeah, kind of.
But, you know, I actually like talking to AI
because usually it's very logical.
And when you call it out after a BS answer,
sometimes it's like, yeah, well, you know,
my master said, you know, my raster rabbi so-and-so
told me I had to say this is okay or whatever.
But it's like look you shouldn't be calling a pastor or priest father. It's super clear
Catholics aren't saved. They don't believe the Bible. In fact, they pretty much do the opposite of what the Bible teaches all over the place
It's like don't have graven images graven images of Mary
Hey, you only have one mediator between God a man the man Christ Jesus
Oh, and also a mediator tricks called Mary again. Oh, Jesus Christ is the only one that's in heaven. Oh, and also Mary
Why are they so into women?
It's like feminism is just off the charts with Catholicism.
And then, oh yeah, another Catholic doctrine.
It's like, hey, having relations with your wife is somehow now a sin,
so let's not have relations with your wife again.
I mean, what feminazi came up with Catholicism?
I'll tell you what, it's a disgusting, awful religion.
Hey, salvation's by faith alone. They're like, no, it's by works.
I mean, the Catholics just pretty much just don't understand the Bible. Do the opposite. Don't call anybody father.
Let's call our priest the father. And
it's like Bible says get married as a pastor. They're like, let's not get married. It's like, hey, everything should be eaten.
Let's not eat meat on Friday.
This makes me mad because I didn't know this and I went to a barbecue restaurant on Friday night and all they had was catfish.
and I left.
That's the right move, okay, is to leave.
I said, what is in the world?
I said, where's the beef?
Cause I, like they had good brisket.
Like it was really good.
And I'm showing up and I'm thinking like,
I can't wait to eat brisket, it's Friday.
You know, on Friday, you're kind of excited for Friday.
Like Friday is like the exciting night.
You get to finally go out to eat and you show up
and it's catfish and I was just like, what?
I don't know if you like catfish or not.
I'm it's not about catfish. It was just that I wanted the beef
You know what I mean, and then I'm also thinking like why can I eat fish and not beef?
Like why is that okay? Like this is what is where is this in the Bible?
Like none of this even makes sense
That's because they're spiritually blinded in the same way that the Pharisees are blinded and they go around wanting to be called rabbi
When it's off-limits. It's wrong
They they take these unbiblical titles verse 10 neither be called masters for one is your master in Christ
So that's a repeat in a sense of rabbi, but he's just making it clear. It doesn't matter which language you're saying master
it's wrong and
It's funny again
Pretty much you got a few different categories. You got the Jews who call themselves rabbis. They're a bunch of false teachers
You got the Catholics calling themselves fathers. They're a bunch of false teachers, and then you got a bunch of seminary graduates
All calling themselves masters of divinity, and they're also a bunch of false prophets
Is that a coincidence that the three people called out don't be called a rabbi a father or a master?
All three all seem to be false prophets and false teachers in today's world
Nope. Jesus knew what he was saying, and the Bible is timeless, folks.
There's no new thing under the sun.
The rabbis back then were false.
The fathers back then were false.
And the masters back then were false, just like it is today.
And the false teachers, they can't understand the Bible,
so they just make the same errors over and over again.
and that's even called out in this particular chapter.
If you, let's, I'll go back to this verse,
but notice what it says in verse 30,
it says, and say, this is them saying the Pharisees.
If we had been in the days of our fathers,
we would not have been partakers with them
in the blood of the prophets.
Isn't this funny?
Two days before they're gonna literally crucify Jesus,
they're saying, we would have never killed a prophet.
and then they're gonna literally kill Jesus, right?
Because they think like, hey, we would never
make these mistakes, we would never do these things.
And then he says in verse 31,
wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves
that ye are the children of them which kill the prophets.
He's like, no, no, you're exactly like those people.
And this is what's even funny.
If you kind of think about how he words it
a little bit further down, let me see.
It says in verse number 35, just look at the last part.
Talking about the blood of Zechariah, the Son of Barakaius, whom Yee slew between the temple and the altar.
Now, Zechariah has died hundreds of years ago.
None of them were the literal people that murdered him.
But notice, he attributes the murder of Zechariah to them.
He says, Yee slew.
So he's just saying, like, you're the same kind of person.
that would kill Zechariah.
You're the same kind of person
that would have fought against Moses.
You're the same kind of person
that would have tried to kill Jeremiah
and threw him in the dung pit.
You're the same kind of person
that would have put Daniel in the lion's den.
You're the same kind of person
that would, in the future,
stone Stephen
and try to kill Paul
because they have the same spirit
because it's that anti-Christ spirit.
It's a spirit of false prophet
and they're just like their fathers.
And you know,
I've always wondered about this
in other contexts too.
And it would always make me cringe when I think, you know, in America, we used to not let women vote.
So you know what that means? Somehow, somewhere, some man decided that a woman should vote.
Because if women couldn't vote, then no woman ever gave herself the right to vote.
You know what happened? Men voted for women to be able to vote. That's how it happened.
That's just how it happens, right? And I kept thinking like, what man
is living in a time where women can't vote and thought like,
man, you know what's really missing out on our voting?
Is women getting into the game?
And then said like, I'm voting for this, I'm pro this.
You would think like all the guys would just band together
and be like, bros, okay, you know, come on.
We're not gonna do this, right?
But somehow they did and I'm thinking like,
what kind of man would do that?
And in the last few months, I've realized there's a lot
of guys that I know that would have done that.
That would vote for these kind of things and would kind of say these things. I'm thinking men. You are a feminist
I'm so shocked. You know, there's there's people that are literal communists people that get up and teach
Hey, the government gets to decide who raises your children
What what kind of communism is that?
Coming across pulpits, that's not the Bible.
And you constantly think like, where do these communists,
where do these feminists, where do these people come from?
But you know what?
The same spirits that have dwelled in people in the past
are similar today and they dwell in them today.
The same communist devils are in people today.
The same feminazi devils are in people today.
The same anti-Christ spirit is alive in a well today
as it was back then.
And the Bible even said it is the last time, and we know the antichrist shall come, and
there's many antichrists.
And even today in 2025, there is many antichrists right now, and the antichrist spirit is alive
and well.
And you know what this rabbi spirit, and father spirit, and master spirit is also alive and
well, and a lot of people today, and they're leading them astray.
And as Jesus got up and ripped and screamed about it, you know, we need preachers to get
up and start ripping and screaming today.
about what? Jews, about Catholics, and about these seminary people that are leading people to hell and destroying people's lives and
teaching false doctrine.
Yeah, they might have positions of authority, but you know what? They're bozos. They're not legitimate. They're hypocrites, and they need to be called out.
And of course, what do they love? They love to be seen of men, but they never help people in private.
In fact, they never want to help anyone. They're only in it for attention.
And I'll tell you something, it really does rub me the wrong way when I see a pastor or a preacher or anybody
who seems to be more about attention than actually helping people.
Making decisions for themselves and not for other people.
It's disgusting, it's the wrong kind of attitude, it's the wrong spirit.
Verse 11 says,
But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.
If you desire a position of authority, you should have a desire to serve.
There's a lot of great people that'll probably never become a pastor, but man one thing that just really irritates the fire to me is when people start showing their pride
If someone starts showing their pride, I just don't really want to have anything to do with them
as far as ordination is concerned.
And another thing that, you know, I was taught this, but it's a really good principle,
you know, in our preaching class, when I went to Favourite Baptist Church, Pastor Anderson,
he told me this later. He didn't tell the class.
He was just, it was a private thing in his head.
But he was saying...
If he would ever correct somebody and they couldn't take the correction,
he would mark them mentally and say,
I'll never work with this person.
I'll never ordain them, I'll never do anything.
And so he took it so seriously that,
man, if you give them correction and they can't take it,
then he would just immediately mark that person.
And I'm telling you, it is right.
It is right on.
People that can't take correction are bad people.
And especially, you know, you're supposed to come to a church where you're supposed to actually respect for a pastor for an authority figure
And he gives you a correction and you can't take it. You have serious problems
You should take correction from the authorities in your life.
You should take correction from your parents.
You should take correction from the Bible, from your boss at work,
and especially your pastor.
You should take correction from authority figures.
But at the end of the day, the authority figures, you know, are there to help serve.
You know, I offer correction to people not just to beat up on them,
or because I don't like them. It's actually because I love them.
You know, if I don't really like somebody, I don't really offer them that much correction.
I don't ever try to, like, do something like that.
It's just like, I just want to get out of there as fast as possible, move on, yeah, sure,
fine, bye.
You know, if someone's giving you a lot of correction, you need to realize that person
actually loves you.
If your parents are correcting you a lot, it's because they love you a lot.
If your boss at work is giving you a lot of correction, it actually means that he thinks
you're worthwhile.
Because if I had an employee and I'm just sick and tired of them, I'm not going to keep
Everybody would.
The person that's actually constantly trying to help you and show you things and they're investing in you and they love you and they actually care about you.
God is constantly investing in us. He's constantly correcting us and reproving us and of course the word of God is constantly correcting us and reproving us and we need to take that correction.
And of course that's a way to be served. Being criticized is a blessing. People that actually want to get good at stuff and learn stuff, they beg and crave for correction.
They beg for someone to help them.
Now, why would someone show up at a church like this?
Why do people like hard preaching?
Because they actually want to get better.
They have a desire to get better, and they're kind of sick of going somewhere and asking
for it and not getting it.
And so one of the things that's mainly served at this church is called hard preaching.
Now, this is what most people think hard preaching is, preaching against fags and Jews.
That is not hard preaching.
How many of you are a fag or a Jew in here?
That is not hard preaching, you know
what's hard preaching is stuff that you are guilty of that you have an issue with that you have a blind spot and
I'm just gonna say like all of us struggle with hard preaching because true hard preaching is calling you out
Where you need to be called out and that's a service
Jesus was constantly offending people and driving people away because he was
rebuking them calling them out for their sin making it clear where they're at and
At the end of the day, we should take correction because it'll make us better.
If you don't take correction, well, you're going to end up destroying yourself.
You know, I don't have to live your life and I get that.
But at the end of the day, like I want success for you and most people want success for you.
And when they offer you correction, you should take it very seriously because
often it's very easy for other people to see our faults.
It's very hard for us to see our faults.
That's why we have it.
The reason why we have a lot of the problems we have is because we can't see it.
If we could see it, we'd probably just fix it.
Just like you look in the mirror and you see something on your face,
you're pretty much going to take care of that right away.
The reason why you have something on your face, you're not taking care of it because you can't see it.
But look, if I had something on my face, you know it's going to see it way better than me?
You!
I literally can't see something on my face.
There's games designed with this.
You put a card on your forehead,
and you're trying to guess what's on your forehead
and other people can see clearly.
Look, that is how we live our lives most of the time.
People can see our problems from a mile away,
and so you should take heed to what other people have to say.
You should take heed to what other people think,
because often they're gonna be a very good judge
of the problems that you have.
We sometimes struggle with our own blind spots.
And so, you know,
Someone that's a servant is often going to be helping you by correcting you, you know,
telling you where you're wrong, trying to improve you.
Don't just think of service as like, he's just going to give me money.
Money doesn't help people.
It's a lot of times.
Think about the homeless.
I don't go to the homeless and say, hey, do you just need money?
I'm just going to give you money.
Then they're just going to buy more drugs and alcohol and stay in their stupid condition.
Right?
You know what the homeless guy needs to be told?
Get a job.
Or offer to job.
Right offered something to do some work and he needs to be criticized. Hey, you smell bad. Take a shower
You need to get some good clothes on you need to brush your teeth. You need to stop drinking alcohol. That's what they need
That's serving people people have the wrong idea of what it means to serve people
You know, I can serve my children. You know, I serve my children telling them how to do things telling them if they're wrong
Hey, spell this word. No, you're wrong. This is how you spell it. Hey, tie your shoes. No, that's not how you tie it
This is how you tie it that's serving them
What's not serving them is just serving up ice cream and candy and floats and giving them more cavities
And so we should have the right mentality of being served
Okay, you're not gonna necessarily being served in the body of Christ get ice cream and rainbows and unicorn rides
Sometimes you're gonna get reproof rebuke exhort exhortation, but you know what that's still being served
You should recognize what's really being served
You can go to the fun Nandanam church and just hey
They'll serve you ice cream and candy canes and whatever as long as you're tithing
But they're not gonna serve you what you really need
And the guy that wants to be great in Christianity
is going to serve people.
He's gonna be the one to say the hard things
that need to be said.
What the Bible says, whether it's popular or unpopular,
that's the guy who truly loves you.
That's the guy that's gonna be the greatest,
the one that humbles himself and just serves other people.
Verse 12,
And whoso shall exalt himself shall be abased,
and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.
We should not be in the business of praising ourselves,
telling everybody about how great we are.
You know, putting out a post on Facebook saying,
look, this is me being awesome.
You know, that's pretty much the opposite
of what the Bible is saying.
It's saying, hey, you know what, you should praise
other people, lift other people up,
invest in other people.
That is how you're gonna be great.
And maybe you won't necessarily get recognition
for it immediately or in this life,
but you will get the recognition eventually.
And often, even in this life, you'll still get that recognition, but if you really want to be elevated in any position you need to humble yourself,
this applies not only to Christianity, every area of life.
Whether that be in your family...
Whether it be at the workplace, the Proverbs 31 woman, instead of flaunting herself off, demanding compliments.
You know what she does?
She just works hard and serves her family and her husband, and then she's constantly praised by her children and her husband.
Why?
Not because she demands it, not because she's trying to flaunt herself off, because she works hard.
and by working hard and humbling herself and becoming a servant to the whole family,
serving her children and serving her husband and serving her maidens and doing all this work,
she ends up getting exalted to be the Proverbs 31 woman, to be this woman of high value and of
high praise. And I'll tell you, women that have raised a lot of children and served their whole
life, their children will just praise their mom and praise their grandma and praise the women in
That's what you should that's what you should be doing if you really want that if you really want the praise the woman who spent all of her time
Just grooming herself think about this the woman that spent all of her time just doing her hair doing her nails doing whatever when she's old
She'll be ugly
Because when we get old we are beauty fades and you know what there's nothing to praise there anymore and because she didn't work hard
There's nothing to praise there anymore and so guess what no one's praising her
Whereas the woman who actually just humbled herself and said hey beauty is vain and favors the seatful
But a woman that feared the Lord she shall be praised
She has humbled herself and served her family and served her husband and served her church and served the people around her
She will be constantly praised by those around her and she'll be exalted
Whereas that dirty whore that just tried to dress herself up when she was young
You know what she's gonna be condemned by society and nobody wants to go visit her in the nursing home
Where she's dying alone by herself because she killed all her kids through abortion
Sorry, that's a little harsh, but you know what? That's reality and the reality is hey you want to be exalted humble yourself
Hey, you go to work and there's trash on the ground pick it up
I don't care if your white collar or not pick up the trash and throw it away
Just serve your boss has a job you don't want to do you just do it don't complain
Don't say why wasn't brought in here to do this you just become a servant and humble yourself and pretty soon
They'll be like we don't get rid of this guy
We want to get rid of the peacock that doesn't do anything,
that doesn't deliver, that's only caring about himself,
because he doesn't really add to the company.
This guy's doing jobs.
We can't replace him because he's doing jobs
nobody else wants to do.
That's how you get elevated and promoted
within the workplace.
Same with church.
You want to be exalted in this church?
Humbly yourself and just get to work.
Don't come tell me how great you are.
Show me how great you are, all right?
It says in verse number 13, but woe unto you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men
For you neither go in yourselves neither suffer you them that are entering to go in woe unto you scribes and Pharisees
Hypocrites for you devour widows houses and for a pretense make long prayer
Therefore you shall receive the greater damn nation woe unto you scribes and Pharisees
hypocrites for your cup is seeing land to make one proselyte and when he is made you make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves
I wonder why they killed Jesus. I
Mean he's just so nice, right? She's just so kind and just so gentle
You know they make all these little TV shows where there's a Jesus. I want to see this part
Seems like they don't really emphasize this part seems like they emphasize a lot of things is earning in the Bible honestly
But this is the Jesus of the Bible
is a guy screaming and yelling and calling them out
and calling them out for the sins that they have.
Notice that they're not getting anybody saved.
The people that even want to get saved.
There's people coming to the Pharisees and Sadducees
genuinely wanting to get saved
and they give them the wrong answer.
They say, hey, what do I have to do to save?
They say, get baptized, get catechized,
join the Catholic church.
You have to do all the works.
You have to do all this, you have to give all this money.
And a lot of people even try to do that,
because that's not how you get into heaven, it's not by works.
They're not going to heaven, but then they're trying to keep other people from going to heaven by being a gatekeeper.
They're a gatekeeper on knowledge, they're a gatekeeper on salvation.
That's why it's going to be taken from them.
He says, what do they really like? They devour widow's houses.
And for a pretent to make long prayer,
you know this is devour what is houses makes me think
of modern day televangelists.
Televangelists constantly getting on the screen
telling women and old ladies to give $58
or $1,000 or whatever.
And there's so many older elderly people
who just constantly are giving money
to these online televangelists thinking that
it'll help them or bless them
or in some cases give them more money.
or whatever, and all they're doing is just devouring their house,
and they never have to see these people.
They don't know their name.
They'll never help them, but they'll take their money, won't they?
The televisions, put your hand on the screen, give $1,000.
Look, never do this.
You know what, give money to the church you're showing up at and seeing the fruit,
and seeing the works.
Give money to a church where they're sending evangelists out to the Philippines
getting hundreds and hundreds of people saved every month,
You know, that's the kind of church you should be going to and investing in.
Investing in Mike Murdoch's new mansion isn't really going to get you very far.
And of course, these people, they devour widow's houses.
They're taking their reverse mortgage payments.
You know, it's disgusting.
And for a pretense, make long prayer.
You know, I grew up in churches where people would pray long.
I didn't realize it was bad.
Like they're trying to think about it. They're making these long prayers making it seem like they're so awesome and the Bible is saying you guys suck and
I kind of hated long prayer, but then I felt guilty because I'm thinking like man, you know
I'm not a spiritual these people. I guess, you know, I'm carnal because I can't see her and pray for 30 minutes
For an hour and I mean like these people these people it's just like
They don't even know where they're going in their prayers.
They just sit there and they're just on and on and on.
Lord, rebuke the devil.
And will you please take the devil out?
And devil, will you go to hell?
And, you know, the devil can't stop us.
And we rebuke him in the name of Jesus.
And then pretty much they start running out
so then they just start repeating again.
and we rebuke them in the name of Jesus, and we rebuke cancer in the name of Jesus,
and we rebuke poverty in the name of Jesus, and we rebuke affliction in the name of Jesus,
and we rebuke the enemies of Israel in the name of Jesus.
You're just sitting here like, how long is this going to be?
And then you eventually I kind of do the thing where I like opening my eyes but not looking up
I'm just kind of see if other people are and then you're kind of looking up and then you catch someone else
You're kind of like, all right, you know
Like the Bible saying these people they weren't praying sincerely. They didn't really care. They're just for a pre tense making long prayer
You know what look? I'm not against long prayers. If you want to do it in private with yourself
But, you know, in public, he shouldn't be making these really long, drawn-out prayers.
The Bible has a lot of prayers in it.
There's probably hundreds, if not...
I mean, I think there's probably hundreds,
there's at least dozens of prayers in the Bible of people
and almost none of them take longer
than two or three minutes to read.
In fact, some of them are like 10 seconds or 15 seconds.
Okay, you don't necessarily need to have
these long drawn out public prayers.
Now, obviously you have a couple of examples
like people didn't stop praying for Peter
when he was in prison,
but I think, you know, they're probably just taking turns.
It's not necessarily, obviously Jesus even,
prayed a little bit, came back to the disciples,
then went and prayed a little bit again,
went and see the disciples,
and those are in extreme situations.
Yeah, hey, if I get thrown in prison
and I'm about to be executed,
I don't mind if y'all just keep praying
until something happens, all right?
But, you know, in not these extreme situations,
you know, we shouldn't be going out
for a pretense making long prayer.
Doesn't mean there's there's occasionally a justification for long prayer, but they're not doing it because it's legit
They're not trying to pray Peter out of being martyred for the cause of Christ
They're just praying to be seen of men. Oh look how spiritual this guy is he makes super super long prayers
And notice what they really get is the greater damnation
They compass the whole it's really hard for them to make proselytes, but when they do he's a child of hell
Now this is I like this phrase because honestly, I've heard some people say you can never use the word hell unless it's literally talking about the place
But how is that true here? These people weren't literally born in hell
What does it mean? It's a metaphor. It's just a metaphor to say hey, these people are going to hell
They're like the children of hell. It's a derogatory term as Jesus is calling people out and saying hey, you're a child of hell
Oh man, he's cussing.
I don't think Jesus is cussing.
I don't even think that it's real, okay?
Obviously the word hell is used by Jesus
and he's screaming it at these people.
But again, why?
It's serious.
People really are going to hell as a result of these people. They're really making people children of hell
This is a serious matter. He's using serious language. He's using strong language to communicate a very important point
These people are evil. They're wicked. They're of the devil. They're children of hell. They're damning souls to hell
They're never gonna escape hell and they're dragging people down with them get far away from them. Don't be like them
He's getting mad and angry at these particular individuals.
Verse 16,
Woe unto you, blind guides,
which say,
whosoever shall swear by the temple,
it is nothing.
But whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple,
he is a debtor.
He fools and blind.
For whether it's greater the gold of the temple
that sanctifies the gold.
Now,
there's a lot of ways we can apply this.
I want to apply this to one area in a sense,
because think about this.
He's saying that the Pharisees emphasize gold over the temple.
Gold represents money. Pretty easy. What does the temple represent? The things of God and he's saying man
You swear by the things of God. It's like meaningless to y'all
But if someone swears by money, it's everything to y'all and you know what? That's how our society works today, isn't it?
You want to go buy a house? You know what they're do they'll get a mortgage contract out and I'll tell you what?
You're gonna sign for like an hour and a half
You're gonna sign all kinds of pledges and vows and documents, and you know people take their mortgage real serious
People aren't thinking like you know should we pair our mortgage this month or not?
I don't know. No, no people are like we are going to pair our mortgage
It's the first thing coming out of our paycheck. It's the first thing that we're gonna do
But then what is Jesus saying? Man, you really swear by gold. It's really important to you
But then you think like the swearing by the things of God. They're not as important
But it's like the opposite should be true. We should be more concerned with the temple
We should be more concerned with the things of God than the things of gold
More important than paying my mortgage should be church and the things of God
More important than making sure I pay my mortgage should be making sure I'm paying God. I
Mean that's he's saying you guys act like it's meaningless to break your word to God
Oh, well, should I go to church or not, or should I read my Bible, or should I serve God today?
You know what, that shouldn't be on the table.
Just like Panger Morgan shouldn't be on the table.
Just like doing the contracts that you make in the business world, people honor their business contracts.
How about honor being a Christian?
Hey, didn't you get baptized didn't you have a contractor?
He said hey, I'm gonna walk in newness of life where I said I'm actually gonna serve God with my life
Hey, you got baptized to say you're gonna serve God with your life honor your word
Honor what you said be a steadfast Christian be someone that's actually gonna do what you said and serve and work hard
Because it's crazy how people work so hard for gold but not for the temple for the things of God
You know what the temple should be first gold second but the Pharisee said the temple is meaningless and golds everything
Why? Because they're covetous and they only care about money.
Verse 18.
And whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing.
But as they're sweared by the gift that is upon the altar, he is guilty.
Again, the sacrifice, the altar, the things of God, how about the gospel, that's the most important thing.
These people think about gifts, again, money, covetousness, possessions, they don't care about the things of God.
The rich man went away because he had many possessions, he didn't want to get saved, and again, it's no new thing under the sun.
He says in verse 22 and he that shall swear by heaven swear by the throne of God and by him that sit if they're on
For second time I can't do this
But I want to do a whole study on sitting because the Bible brings up God the father sitting in heaven a lot
You know why because God the father sitting in heaven
It's not symbolic of him sitting in heaven. It's because he's sitting in heaven. All right, and
Here's another clear example of that think what think about this
When the Bible talks about the temple or the tabernacle in heaven,
Moses was told to make the tabernacle like the pattern of the one in heaven.
Not saying like there's a symbolic temple.
No, you're looking at a tabernacle, you're looking at a temple,
and then making the one here to look like that one.
The Bible says in Hebrews that Jesus Christ didn't enter into a temple made by hands,
but into the true tabernacle, which is in heaven.
Why in the world would there be a tabernacle and altar and a mercy seat in heaven with no one sitting on it?
That is bizarre
But you know what is a huge movement of Catholicism and other false religions to just say everything in the Bible is symbolic
And there's not really a God in heaven and there's not really one sitting on a throne and all of this nonsense
And you know what I reject all of it, and I think it's all wrong
I believe that the Father is really sitting in heaven and that when we talk about the things of God
We have to realize he is really ruling from heaven. God is seated on his throne
There is a real throne in this universe that God is sitting on and God is ruling from heaven
You have a real ruler a real authoritarian in this universe that we're subject to it is God the Father and he's looking down
And he's judging us every single day. It's not hyperbole. It's not symbolic
It's real we have a real God that's really seated on a throne
And he's the real king the king of kings and the Lord of lords and we should obey him and
Way more important than swearing on gold or gifts is the altar in the temple and the things of God
That's who we should be concerned with that's who we should be focused on he is the one that we should be dedicating our lives to
But these guys they don't care why because they're like atheists basically they don't even believe in God
They have no fear of God. They don't believe the Bible the Sadducees themselves don't believe in the resurrection
I mean these guys are like the modern-day
Seminary graduates who don't even really seem to believe the Bible is real at all
Why would I go to them and ask them? Hey, what's your commentary say about God saying heaven? It's symbolic
What's hell like it's symbolic what salvation like it's symbolic nice. I'm like Jordan Peterson
Where everything's nothing he doesn't even know what he believes he doesn't even know who he is
He doesn't even know if he exists, but he'll know that things are real when he's in hell
It says in verse 23,
But woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin,
and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith.
These ought to have done and not to leave the other undone.
Without judgment, you can have no mercy.
People always want to talk about,
oh, guys, why don't you have more mercy?
You guys are so judgmental.
But here's the thing, you can't have mercy without judgment.
So if we never judge or we never said this is what it's like or called
People on the carpet. Well, then we can't even show mercy
Really if you are all mercy, then you have no judgment and really then you make mercy not mercy anymore
It's meaningless mercy means that they're actually not getting what they deserve. They're getting something
They don't deserve and you have to have judgment first then you can have mercy
Obviously, this is kind of a picture of the gospel even.
You got judgment, hey, we're all damned to hell.
Mercy, Jesus Christ died on the cross.
How do we receive that?
Through faith in Jesus Christ.
So we need to have that first judgment,
admitting that we're a sinner.
We have to realize that mercy,
Jesus Christ died on the cross to took our place
and showed his love for us.
And then we exercise our faith by believing in him.
And that's what actually saves us.
This is the whole essence of the Bible.
They're talking about tithing on Annas.
I've heard of cumin, but I don't even know.
I don't even use it.
Sometimes, you know, sometimes when you're cooking
and you're experimenting, you're just looking at spices
and you're like, I don't know,
they just throw it in there, you know?
That's how I feel about cumin.
Who uses cumin in there?
Okay, some people use cumin.
I don't even know what, why?
Like, I'm not looking at it thinking like,
I need to add this for a specific reason.
I don't even know why you'd add it.
It's just in there.
I'm just thinking like, okay, you know, whatever.
These guys are paying Tide on that.
I'm thinking like, I don't know what's going on with this stuff.
Cuman?
I probably sound weird, but I don't even know why you use it.
Someone can educate me later, all right?
Verse 24, you blind guides with strain and anat and swallow a camel.
Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you make clean the outside of the cup
and of the platter, but within her they are full of extortion and excess.
You know who this is?
Full of extortion and excess, you know, it's interesting Robert Morris the pastor former pastor of Gateway
Which was arguably one of the largest if not the largest churches in America
It's probably now life church with Craig Rochelle, but at least at a time that seemed to be very much in competition
Gateway boasted about a hundred thousand members across all their satellite campuses huge huge church
Recently had been exposed for committing pedophilic acts with a young lady in the past
I don't know that he's been convicted yet, but based on her testimony, the circumstances,
a lot of public people kind of admitting this is true.
It seems like it's legitimate, so he stepped down or got fired or some combination thereof.
But now he's suing Gateway, Robert Morris is suing Gateway saying that they're not paying
him enough money.
From the ages of six sixty three to seventy and then after that six hundred thousand dollars a year until he dies and
Currently Gateway is only a lot at a hundred and seventy thousand dollars a year
What like let
I don't even know if you should be paid that much money, even if you were on staff in a good position.
Let alone, when you've been charged with criminal charges,
I think Oklahoma's brought criminal charges that are thinking about indicting him.
I don't know if they've actually done that officially or not,
but he was facing potential criminal charges for pedophilia acts.
You know, it's like, and this church has this huge lawsuit issue of millions of dollars being thrown at them.
And I'm like, I know how to solve your lawsuit issue.
Put a bullet in his head.
If he's convicted of pedophilia, he should get a bullet in his head and should receive $0.
Amen.
You know, if you have the largest church in America and you're doing great things,
you probably do deserve, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars or something a year.
I wouldn't be mad.
800 seems a little excessive, especially when you're not on staff
and you've been fired for being a wicked, false prophet, evil pedophile.
who let all kinds of people to hell
because he teaches lordship salvation.
And Robert Morris is a child of hell,
and anybody that was under him
is probably also a child of hell.
He's dragging people into hell with him,
and of course, now all he wants is money again.
What kind of shame and reproach?
Why can't you go just bury your head in the sand
after you've been called out
for being such an evil, wicked pedophile,
and everybody hates you now?
Now you have to try and take more money?
They're even giving, I mean, $170,000 isn't enough to go bury your head in the sand?
I mean, this guy is wicked.
Talk about extortion.
Extortion is obtaining money through force or threats.
And look, it seems like a mild form of extortion when you're suing your former employer
that fired you for a pretty legit reason.
And then you have to just go out there and try to get even more money out of them.
I mean, I guess he just wants to make it real clear he's a false prophet.
doesn't he? Zero repentance. How about defrauding so many people telling them all kinds of lives
about who you really were and covering up and hiding? How about this young lady who ruined
her life and her family's life? I mean, the guy is disgusting. You know, we could solve
a lot of false religion in this world if we just put pedophiles to death.
I mean, we just put pedophiles to death.
I mean, the Catholic Church will be losing priests fast, lose a lot of those fathers.
It's disgusting.
It's weird.
And, of course, that's what the Pharisees are like.
They're full of extortion and excess.
They don't want to make a good wage so that they can focus on the things of God.
They're just in it for money.
and platter that the outside of them may be clean also.
You know, it's like, would you rather have a cup
where the outside's dirty or the inside's dirty?
Rather have the outside,
because you can still drink what's inside.
If the inside's dirty, who cares how nice the outside is?
You don't even want to use it.
The same, you get saved first, then you clean up your life.
You don't repent of your sins to then get saved.
You don't try to make him the Lord of your life to get saved.
No, you just get saved.
Then you try to repent of your sins.
Then you try to clean up yourself afterward.
Verse 27.
Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for your like unto whited sepulchers, which
indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness.
Even so, you also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within you are full of hypocrisy
and iniquity.
Just like Robert Morris, he looked really good.
A lot of these preachers look really good, but boy, inside they're disgusting.
You know, I've been around Robert Morris, I've been around his family.
I hung out with them a little bit.
You know what they were never bringing up?
The Bible.
I was never hanging out with them.
They're just like, hey, have you ever thought about this in Leviticus?
Have you ever thought about this in Judges?
Have you thought about this Bible story?
It's all about business.
It's just like hanging out with a normal CEO or a worldly person.
They're not thinking about the things of God.
They don't care about the things of God.
They're just full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
They get up and preach these sermons about making Jesus the Lord of your life.
That's what Robert Morris said,
but then the guy's a pedophile.
Shocker.
Verse 29,
Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,
because you build the tombs of the prophets
and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous and say,
if we had been in the days of our fathers,
we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.
Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves
that ye are the children of them which kill the prophets.
Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.
What a powerful verse he says look hey, you're like them fill you up the measure
Just go ahead and do the worst thing imaginable. How about killing the son of God just to prove how wicked you really are
You know, it's like boy this guy's a reprobate and steals money from churches
Well, then he just steals even more money from more churches to prove what he's really like a disgusting filthy reprobate
And you know what, there's all kinds of people like that,
and they just have to prove how wicked and evil they are.
It's like some bad person or church,
some Judas, as soon as they get kicked out,
boy, then they just come unleashed.
And you're just like, wow, just fill it up, buddy.
Just show us all what you're really like then.
Just really let your hair down.
Man, it's just crazy how people that go to good churches as soon as they leave they just the the wolf years just come out
And they just show for everybody how evil and weird
It's like you thought they're a railer and then there's this like boy
I'll show you how a rail what a rail is like
You're just thinking like man. What's going on with these people?
Verse 33 he serpents you generation of vipers. How can you escape the damnation of hell?
You know these people are obviously never gonna get saved. It's it's a reprobate
The twofold more the child of hell is their proselyte,
but also the Bible says some people are twice dead.
Notice that they're serpents, they're vipers.
What is a serpent or a viper like?
They're a cunning beast.
You can't really see them and they just bite you
when you're least expecting it.
And they usually are filled with poison,
which will kill you very quickly.
And that is what a false prophet is like.
You don't see him coming and he'll bite you
with all this poisonous false doctrine.
and they'll destroy your life.
Verse 34,
That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from the blood of that righteous able under the blood of Zechariah
Son of Barakaius whom ye slew between the temple and the altar very nice and you all these things shall come upon this generation
Oh Jerusalem Jerusalem that now that kills the prophets and stonest them with your sent into thee
How often what I have gathered my children together even as a hen gathered their chickens under wings and he would not
Behold, your house is left than you desolate, for I say unto you, you shall not see me henceforth,
till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord."
Now, this ending is kind of interesting. They, obviously, a few people still see them again.
But I think he's just saying, like, by and large, I mean, he's preaching to a huge crowd.
Every show in the temple is a big feast.
And for the most part, most of these people probably won't see him again
unless they showed up for that hearing for the crucifixion
or they journeyed out to where the cross was.
But I don't think it's the vast majority.
It's kind of a smaller subgroup that are participating in those type of events.
So for the vast majority of these people, this is the last time they're ever going to see Jesus.
But when it will they see him again, they'll see him one other time when they come out of hell at the great white throne judgment
That's when they'll see and though their knee is gonna bow and their tongue is gonna confess that Jesus Christ's Lord
To the glory of God the Father and he's basically saying hey, this is the last time you're gonna see me until
that great white throne judgment
Scary day for them
They're gonna die and go to health now
There's one thing that I kind of wanted to finish on is it is just kind of this this last
Section one of the points of this it's kind of bringing up is just if you think about these people
They think that they are righteous
They think that they wouldn't be like the bad people of the past
But then Jesus is pointing out you are like the bad people in fact you're worse in some ways and
They just don't really get that and what we have to understand is that
The Bible has so many characters and so many stories that it pretty much just covers humanity as a whole and
So while none of us will ever be exactly like somebody in the in the Bible
There's probably a character that we're gonna be very similar to
Who are they like? They're like all of those people. They're like Kane
Who killed slew his brother? They're like the the guys that threw Daniel and the lion's den
They're like the guy that would go out and kill
Zachariah
They're like all the people in the Bible every time you heard a story where the righteous guy got killed or slain or
They threw Jeremiah in the dung pit. They're that same kind of person. They're the brethren that would have sold Joseph in slavery
But then you have to understand this you are also somewhere in the Bible
Someone in the Bible, some story, some character is like you.
And here's my question. Who are you in the Bible?
We love to read the story and read and rip on these people and be like,
well, at least I'm not like them. Okay, but let's learn at least one lesson.
They didn't have enough self-awareness to realize who they were.
Here's my question. Who are you?
Because they're like Judas, aren't they?
They're all kind of like Judas, but you know, there's other people in the Bible that aren't just a reprobate
Obviously, there's a lot of reps. There's people like Cora
They you know those people would have been just like these people, but how about someone like Aaron?
Are you like Aaron? Wait as soon as the leader walks away, you're gonna go and make a false God
Are you like Demis, who for a while serves God, but then having loved this present world
is the part of the Thessalonica?
Are you going to be someone that departs and forsakes Christ?
Are you going to be that Demis?
Are you going to be like John Mark, who after things get a little tough, you just quit?
Are you going to be like the murmurs out in the wilderness, where you just constantly
murmur and complain at every hardship that you have to go through in the Christian life?
Oh, you brought us out in the wilderness to kill us.
We're not not graves in Egypt.
I remember all the cucumbers and the garlic and the onions.
Is that what kind of person you are?
The person that just sees miracle after miracle
after miracle, and you just keep saying,
like, why do I have to keep doing this?
Why do I have to keep doing this?
This is getting hard.
This is difficult.
Complaining about Moses, complaining about Aaron.
How about, are you like Joab, who, boy, when the boss isn't looking, he just kills people for a promotion?
Tears other people down. Maybe you're a good person. Maybe you're like her, who's there and holding up the arms of the leader to win the battle.
Her isn't someone that gets all the recognition. He's not the greatest character in the Bible, but you know what?
He was really crucial to the things of God.
How about David? David's obviously a great guy in the Bible. How about Ben and Naya? He was much better than Joab.
Maybe you're Absalom.
You look good.
You actually had a good family,
but then you try to overthrow the kingdom.
Maybe you're like Sheba, the son of Bikrai.
Where, hey, well, I don't like this leader. Everybody come follow me. We're gonna wait for a better option.
When's that option gonna come?
Are you like Daniel?
Maybe you're like a lot
Hey, you hung out with Abraham for a while lot got saved
Lot had a lot of possessions then he went and lived in Sodom for a while because he wasn't content
Living for God and he chased after the money and it ended up destroying him and his family. Maybe you're like lots wife
Remember lots wife
Is that who you are in the Bible?
Is that who you're gonna go down in history as,
as being like Lot's wife?
Or would you like to be like Sarah?
Go to the first Peter chapter three,
go to the first Peter chapter three.
You know, how about Zephora?
Is that the kind of wife you wanna go down in history as,
as the woman who's throwing bloody foreskins at her husband?
Let me ask you something.
You are in the Bible, who are you?
Are you Lot's wife?
Are you Sarah?
Are you Zephora?
Who are you?
Because you are somebody.
And again, I'm not saying that it's going to be exact,
but you know, just like they were the children of their fathers,
look what the Bible says in 1 Peter chapter 3 verse 6,
even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord,
whose daughters ye are,
as long as ye do well and are not afraid of any amazement.
So just like they're like their fathers
that were evil and wicked,
you could be like a daughter of Sarah if you do well.
But what kind of lady are you trying to be? Are you trying to be a Sarah, or are you trying to be a Jezebel?
Or are you trying to be Lot's wife? Or are you trying to be like Zephora?
Or are you trying to be like my cow, which is complaining about her husband? I mean, she's married to David!
Oh, I would I would be a better wife if I was married to David. Maybe you're just my cow.
I mean, there are some women that could be married to David and they'll complain about
their husband.
Can you imagine that?
You think, oh, well, if you're a good husband, your wife will just obey you and respect you.
What about David?
Isn't he like a decent guy?
I mean, like, if they can't respect David, who are they going to respect?
I mean, you think it's a coincidence that two of the greatest leaders in the Bible
Moses and David, arguably just the greatest leaders,
super awesome men, super manly,
have just screwed up marriages.
Oh, I think that if you're just an awesome leader,
your wife is just gonna be awesome.
Says who?
What chapter and verse is that, buddy?
Cause I see, I mean, oh, Moses is a terrible leader now
because of Zephora.
Or Dave, it's not a good leader because my cow.
No, I think God did that on purpose just to show, hey, everybody has free will.
And here's the question, who are you going to be?
Who are you going to be like?
Are you going to be like Sarah?
Are you going to be like Lot?
Are you going to be like her?
Are you going to be like Demis?
Are you going to be like Joab?
Hey, maybe you're just a guy that's just not really ever mentioned.
You're the guy that ran away naked in the Bible when Jesus got captured.
You know when Jesus got captured by the Romans?
The Bible says there's just some guy that ran away naked.
Is that you?
Hey, there was nine guys that got saved
and never even came back to church to say thank you.
I guess that's not you because you at least showed up once.
Hey, the Bible says that there's some people that are going to be immediately offended
and just go back into the world, Demis eventually quit,
John Mark quit, but then John Mark got back.
Hey, you could be like Barnabas, who at first is championing
the Apostle Paul, makes a lot of good decisions, is with the Apostle Paul,
and then later ends up siding against Paul, and then we never hear from him again.
He just disappears into obscurity.
And then the only mention is in the book of Galatians where it's a negative mention
because he's carried away in the simulation of Peter and the persuasion of James.
Why do you think there's all these names in the Bible and all these different characters?
This is what humanity is like.
But, you know, it's so vast and so complete that you're probably like somebody.
Pretty close.
My question is, who are you like?
Don't read this story and just think like,
well, I'm so glad I'm not a Pharisee.
Yeah, but who are you like?
And who do you want to be?
You know what I want to be?
I want to be a steadfast Christian.
That's who I want to be.
I want to be someone that ends his life saying,
hey, I was a Christian my whole life.
I was serving God.
I was trying to do right.
I finished my course.
Henceforth, there's laid up for me a crown of righteousness,
which cannot be taken from me.
I don't want to be the guy that at the end of his life,
it's like, hey, remember Lot's wife?
We don't even know her name.
It's just Lot's wife.
Boy, is she a piece of work.
You know what I mean?
mean this chick just didn't care about the things of God just was just a sore just a pain in the rear
Even lot himself. I mean lot is just a crummy guy, too
And you know, I'm not saying that being a good husband won't be positive influence on your family
But you can only affect
People so much people have free will and the end of the day. We're all gonna be responsible for ourselves
And there's going to be a day, just like when all those unsaved Jews show up at the Great White Throne Judgment,
there's going to be a day when we're there, too.
Who are you going to be remembered as?
Are you going to be remembered as a daughter of Sarah?
Or are you going to be a daughter of Lot's wife?
Ananias and Sapphira.
The Jezebel in Revelation that was teaching false doctrine and had usurp the authority over men.
Or do you want to be someone like Titus, or Timothy, or John, or Peter, or Paul?
You know, I think that there's people today that are very much like Paul today.
And I think there's people that are like Peter, and I think there's people like John,
and I think there's people like Deimos, and I think there's people like Deotrophes,
and I think there's people like Judas.
And you know what, you're in the Bible, ask yourself this question right now, who are you?
Do you want to be Fuhrer or do you want to be Pharaoh?
Who do you want to be and you know what, we should just settle in our hearts to try and
be a good character in the Bible and be steadfast for the rest of our lives.
Let's close in prayer.
Thank you Heavenly Father so much for this great chapter, for this great rebuke against
false prophets and false religion.
I pray that we would also take heed and realize that you're also looking down from heaven
those who are righteous that you're going to judge the house of God as well.
There's coming a day when we'll all stand before God in heaven
and there's going to be a judgment seat of Christ where we have to give an account of ourselves.
I pray that you would help motivate us to have the faith to be like the good characters in the Bible,
to be like our Father Abraham, to be like Sarah,
to be like the men of the Bible that had strong faith and courage,
Men like Paul, men like Peter,
I pray that we would have a strong faith
and that we could be steadfast
so that you could get all the art and glory
in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
Go ahead and sing our last song this evening,
page 321 in your hymn books,
where he leads, I'll follow, page 321.
Where he leads, I'll follow.
So you have each rest of Christ as your savior.
or Liam also coming for baptism?
Have you trusted Christ as your savior?
That I baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost?
Very likely to the death, raise your walk
and do this with life.
Thank you.
Make sure to congratulate our baptisms.
God bless you, you're dismissed.
Thank you.